My main blog stats show a slight increase in visitors, especially in the last three months of 20231. The switch from WordPress.com to Ghost.org positively influenced the trend. The next post will be about the “blog.numericcitizen.me” site where the story is quite different. It’s related to the launch of my weekly creative summary. ↩︎ Continue reading →

It’s time to wrap up 2023! In this last podcast episode for the year😌, I reflect on twelve months of creative work. It was a busy year😅👨🏻‍💻, and I’m grateful for all of it.🙏🏻 Links to some of the things I’m referring to: Bye Bye WordPress — Hello (Again) Ghost My Creator Workflow My Creator toolset Craft templates for sale on Gumroad Celebrating and Reflecting on my 30 Years Career in IT Transcript Continue reading →

After publishing more than 70 YouTube videos on my channel, today I got my first content violation warning for sharing a review about Play 2.0, a video manager for YouTube that facilitates downloading YouTube content for free. Oopsy.🫥 I did the highly recommended training by Google. If you are a serious YouTube video consumer, consider using Play 2.0. That is all.🤫1 I wonder if I could make my video available elsewhere…🤔 ↩︎ Continue reading →

As a paying subscriber to HEY mail, I find it strange that the newsletter consumption feature has never been updated since its initial release1. A product is rarely perfect on its first try. For example: newsletters are presented in a semi-expanded form, but I wish I could display them as “newsletter titles only”. Also, there is no integration whatsoever with third-party read-later service to easily send a newsletter to Omnivore, for example2. Continue reading →

Here is a quick recount of my “Ah ah moment” this morning, involving generative AI in a simple workflow. I’m still in awe about it. If I stumble on a long and chatty YouTube video that might be interesting, I’ll use this workflow to quickly get the gist out of it. First, I use Downie (a Mac utility) to download it on my M2 MacBook Air. Then, I use the Whisper Transcription Mac app to transcribe the spoken discussion into text that I export in a PDF1. Continue reading →

A recently published article on The Verge discusses POSSE and the Fediverse: “Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere.” This content strategy emphasizes the importance of owning the content you create by publishing it on your own platform, like a personal blog or website, and then syndicating or sharing that content on other platforms, such as social media or content aggregators. The main idea behind POSSE is to ensure that creators maintain control over their content. Continue reading →

I don’t know if Apple is working on LLM stuff; they probably do, they probably do work on improving Siri, too, if such a thing is possible in the current incarnation of its fundamentals. But, judging by the rapidity of other companies introducing AI features mainly based on LLM models, I don’t expect it would be so hard for Apple to do the same with Siri. But only if Apple accepts to work with CharGPT-back end for a short-term solution. Continue reading →

I’ve been working with Apple Shortcuts editor recently1, on my iPhone and on my iPad, and boy, what a shocking experience! This editor is nearly unworkable, thanks to scrolling sluggishness, object ordering bugs, object variables becoming empty, constant freezes, keyboard masking input fields, changes not being saved and plain and simple editor crashes. 😤 What is happening with this, Apple?2 I can’t believe Viticci is able to endure this for all his work around shortcuts. Continue reading →

I’m working on something related to using AI in my creative work. I came up with this. AI is used through these front-end clients within my creative workflows: - ChatGPT website - Raycast AI Chat - MidJourney - Whisper - Micro.blog podcast episode transcription - Audio Hijack Transcription block - Kagi Summarize Results, Summary Document, Ask Questions - Craft Assistant - Grammarly And I expect this list to grow in the coming months. Continue reading →

Following the episode (#097) of Hemispheric Views, it’s my turn, I guess, with a little twist for the post title. 😜 ✉️ Mail Client: HEY mail 📨 Mail Server: HEY mail + iCloud Custom Email Domain 📝 Notes: Craft + Apple Notes ✅ To-Do: Things 3 📷 iPhone Photo Shooting: Camera.app + Halide.app (for travel) 📚 Photo Management: Photos.app + Adobe Cloud 🗓️ Calendar: Calendar.app (Personal Life) + Fantastical.app (Work Life) 🗄️ Cloud file storage: iCloud 📰 RSS: Reeder connected to Inoreader 📇 Contacts: Contacts 🕸️ Browser: Safari (more and more using Kagi for searching) 💬 Chat: iMessage (WhatsApp when abroad) 🔖 Bookmarks: AnyBox 👓 Read It Later: Omnivore 📜 Word Processing: Ulysses 📊 Spreadsheets: Numbers 🛝 Presentations: Keynote 🛒 Shopping Lists: Reminders 🧑‍🍳 Meal Planning: None 💰 Budgeting & Personal Finance: Numbers 🗞️ News: La Presse (Apple News for English news) 🎶 Music: Apple Music 🎧 Podcasts: PocketCast 🔐 Password Management: iCloud Keychain (also 1Password, I should merge with default) Continue reading →

I recently wrote about software is never really finished1. Here’s an example: Keysmith. I bought this utility in February 2021. I forgot to re-install it on my M2 MacBook Air. I just did. But under macOS Sonoma, it has some glitches which make it useless. The app hasn’t been updated for quite a while, same with the app website. Now what?2 The title should have been “Software Should Never Be Finished”. Continue reading →

I want to augment my creative capabilities1. I’m considering the best way to pay for Augmented Intelligence (AI) services2. I’m currently subscribing to MidJourney for imagery. ChatGPT with GPT-4 is not cheap at 20 $US a month, but I get Dall.E 3. Raycast enables GPT-4 for 8 $US on top of my 8 $US, totalling 16 $US monthly, but I don’t get Dall.E 3. I prefer MidJourney over Dall.E 3 as it seems to allow more diversity in requests. Continue reading →

This short behind-the-scenes look at Apple’s “Scary Fast” event is the highlight of a marketing masterpiece. First, Apple, a highly-respected company for producing top-quality new product announcements, released new iPhones capable of high-quality filming in September. Next, in October, the company made another top-notch production and announced the first M3-based Macs. Not to be missed, and that is the key here, they slip the following at the very last moment of the presentation: Continue reading →

I’m fed up of Google’s search capabilities and business model. Search results quality has gone downhill in recent years. I don’t like the visual design of Google’s online products in general, especially Google Search results formatting. What search engine are you using? Are you willing to pay for using one, if yes, which one? 🤔 Continue reading →

Surprised by this late-October Apple event (“Scary Fast”). Could this be about Mac gaming? Is this for the Apple Silicon M3? The timing is weird, in my opinion. What about the iMac with M2 and a new iMac Pro with M3? The latter wouldn’t make too much sense as Pros prefer more flexibility than an all-in-one Mac. But using the Mac happy face really points to a Mac-only event. And boy, do I like this animation that I’m including here for my own pleasure1. Continue reading →

Glass feels right at home in Capture One. Long adored as one of the best platforms for editing and managing a photography workflow, we’re thrilled to include publishing to Glass in Capture One. The final step in the creative process is sharing the work you’ve made — making that as easy and frictionless as possible is what we’re both all about. Source: Capture One x Glass — Glass I like where Glass is going. Continue reading →

Today, I’m removing my digital garden content. The most valuable parts were moved to my About Page, and the rest has been dropped. Both of these pages are created and maintained in Craft. I like the idea of Digital Gardens, but it’s not practical for me to maintain on top of this blog and my other websites. Again, it’s time to focus. Next up, should I get rid of my Linktr. Continue reading →

I have an issue with Short.io. I want to contact their support to find a solution to something that partially works, but no contact information is available in the /Support section. The /Blog section shows a small “Contact Us” button leading to a page not found error. There is no mail address either. They ask for $ 250 / year for a “Personal” subscription plan. How can I trust them if I cannot contact them for support? Continue reading →

I finally found the right setup to definitively fix my audio record quality. The problem triggering this endless trial-and-error journey is that the Blue Yeti microphone can be too sensitive and pick up too much background noise1. On paper, the macOS Voice Isolation recording should fix this. However, ScreenFlow 10.0.9 has issues with audio recording from a USB microphone while Voice Isolation is active2. The solution? Use Audio Highjack3 to record from the USB microphone with Voice Isolation active and output to the ScreenFlow audio capture driver. Continue reading →

The timing was right, and the target was well-defined, but the potential traction was far from guaranteed. Would this project be worth all the effort? Someone said: for every yes, there are a thousand no. After many weeks of thought and pondering, I decided against doing a unique project. Link: The Apple Rumors Hub Transcript Continue reading →