I’m still uncertain about whether I should include titles for my blog posts here. Do all posts need a title? Why do some have titles while others might not? It seems that the unwritten guideline is that long posts should have titles, whereas short ones might not require them. I like titles because they better define each post, either on the timeline or in a blog post digest. Your thoughts?
Since I started making YouTube videos, I’ve used Apple Keynote to design all my thumbnails because I found it approachable, easy to work with, and capable of helping me quickly create acceptable designs. However, this morning I feel that my approach needs reevaluation. I briefly tried Canva, but the free version is too restrictive, and I dislike software with constant subscription prompts, as if I’m using a demo. I also thought about Acorn, but it never really resonated with me. For now, I plan to stick with Keynote unless someone suggests a better alternative I haven’t considered.
This might be obvious for many bloggers, but these questions popped up in my mind this morning when working to enable the new visual design of my blog.
What is a blog’s home? Or is it defined? Should it be the geographical region where the blog is hosted? Or should it be the author’s regional location? Or should the author sign with his or her name followed by both, like “Numeric Citizen from Montréal, Canada, hosted on a server somewhere in the US”? And where this signature should go? At the end of each post? Or at the end of the blog’s main page?
I’m still pondering my options.
Finally, after so many years on Micro.blog, I’m excited to announce that this blog is now using my custom-built visual theme, built entirely with Claude AI, Claude Code, and a lot of my spare time. Bye-bye third-party visual plugin1! This marks a major milestone for me, as I have always wanted to have my own design for this blog2.
For today’s Apple’s 50th anniversary, I didn’t write a special blog post. Maybe I should have. I kind of forgot about it, even though I wrote about it a few days ago. Anyway, a few years ago, I wrote about the root of my passion for Apple. I’m not sure this article aged well, though. Nonetheless, Apple and Steve Jobs played a major role in defining who I am today, that’s for sure.
Rant of the day: Why is Microsoft not caring about making the LinkedIn app a better app, a better mobile experience? Aren’t they using designers? UX specialists? Even AI? Aren’t they taking care of their brand and image? I mean, using this app on the iPad is such a displeasure.
If someone from Microsoft and / or LinkedIn responsible for this app: have tried it once for real on the iPad? Are you ok with this? Really? If you aren’t, and obviously cannot do anything about it, why are you still working there?
Rant off.
Finally, I configured my personal iPad Pro with all my office tools. I certainly wish my job would allow me to use a Mac, but no.
The iPad is very good in this scenario with all the M365 apps (bleh). Battery life is 20 times better than my HP laptop, without the always-on noisy fans. I understand this device is way more powerful than the MacBook Neo, much more compact, three times more expensive for an inferior software experience. That is quite a paradox.
Today, I’m going to the administrative head office, a three-hour drive, using the office’s business bus, specially designed for workers on the road (sure, the Corporation wants always-productive employees!).
Life of an IT worker.
One of the best iPhone design, the iPhone 5, is now obsolete for Apple, which means is no longer serviceable. It was one of my favorite design of all the iPhone partly because of the tech context it was living. But iOS 6 on this was pure beauty.
As a side note, it’s funny to see reviews of the MacBook Neo where none of them mention macOS as being part of the machine. What makes a Mac is not only the hardware, but the software. I guess tech pundits had to exclude macOS from the equation. Or is it because the Neo design is so unique, so enchanting that the software story has to be sidelined?
I’m so anxious for Apple to fix macOS.
Ok, Apple did a great job this week. A lot has already been said about Apple’s announcements. The MacBook Neo is a killer, even as an entry device. My wife is getting one. It’s the original Mac mini in a laptop shape. Apple did a great balancing act with the Neo. The only two quibbles: only 8 GB of RAM (I wanted 12 GB) and the lack of a MagSafe port.
Now, I hope Apple can do as good a job on the software as it did on the hardware. There is so much to fix.
★ HazeOver — Mac Utility for Highlighting the Frontmost Window:
What HazeOver does is highlight the active window by dimming all background windows. That’s it. But it does this simple task with aplomb, and it makes a significant difference in the day-to-day usability of MacOS. Not just MacOS 26 Tahoe — all recent versions of MacOS suffer from a design that makes it difficult to distinguish, instantly, the frontmost (a.k.a. key) window from background windows.1 Making all background windows a little dimmer makes a notable difference.
For some reason, I forgot about this Mac utility. It was installed on my Mac mini, but disabled. It’s now installed and enabled on my MacBook Air with a 40% dimming value. Makes a big difference.