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Looking for Micro.blog friends (#microblog #socialnetwork)
Yes, the title says it all: Iām looking for new friends to follow on Micro.blog. After my big Twitter cleanup, the noise in my numeric life has dramatically decreased. I feel zen and I think this is what Micro.blog is all about: a zen place to meet virtual friends sharing the same passions.
So, Iām looking for friend suggestions. Letās call this āthe community-fed referrals day!ā. To help you make such referrals, please do remember about my passions: Apple, photography, privacy protection and climate change.
This brings me to something that Iād like to see improved about Micro.blog: discoverability. When looking to discover new people to follow, we do see a posts count on each user profile, but we donāt know « how recentĀ Ā» the last post is. We know about stale accounts on Twitter, I donāt want to follow stale accounts here. Next, Iād like to see some kind of « behind the sceneĀ Ā» analysis of how someone could be interesting for me. I do understand that this is entering a dangerous territory of « algorithm fedĀ realityĀ Ā». I guess it is har to strike a balance in that respect. Finally, the categories are lacking a bit of breath. Where is āTechā or āPrivacyā or āClimateā?
So, Iām waiting for your referrals. Thanks for taking some of your time to do so. š
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What happened to my Twitter usage? (#twitter)
I donāt know what happened to my Twitter usage. It fell off the cliff recently. Since Iāve completed my Twitter experience transformation as fully documented here, I barely open Twitter once a day. Do I miss it? Nope. Why? Probably because Iām getting a distant view by using Mailbrew which draws the most relevant tweets for me on a daily basis.
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I think he meant that PopClip should be part of macOS! Instant buy for me!As far as Iām concerned, PopClip is part of macOS.
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Woah, I didn’t know we could have a test blog on Micro.blog. It’s free! Thanks to https://custom.micro.blog, I’m starting to learn more about CSS and how MB works to make its magic!
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I could play with this forever (#snowflakegenerator)
Please, do yourself a favour and go to this website, a snowflake generator. If you like winter, it will make you smile a bit.
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On Tweetbot 6 update (@tweetbot #update #subscription)
Really nice update (and unexpected) to my preferred Twitter client. Tweetbot version 6 received a refreshed design, full support for Twitter APIs v2 and cleans up unsupported features with latest APIs. Tweetbot startup is much faster than Twitterās client and exposes a few features that arenāt available otherwise. Design-wise, Tweetbot contains a lot of nice touches throughout the app. Compared to that, Twitterās own client feels uninspired.
Like a growing number of apps recently introduced or updated, Tweetbot 6 now is subscription-based. I expect a few angry users but Iām not one of them. I find the pricing quite reasonable. I chose to go with the yearly subscription at 50% price reduction, a no brainer to me.
Tweetbot has recently returned as my go to Twitter client during my recent Twitter reset and Iām very happy with it.
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@numericcitizen on Clubhouse (#clubhouse)
Iām always curious to try new things, especially in the numeric world. In the case of Clubhouse, I don’t know if itās a good idea. Iām curious to try it out, anyway. I wonder how it will compare to Twitterās Spaces, currently in limited beta. Now, waiting for an invite.
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My daytime job reality (#IT #computerscience #tech)
First, do me a favour, watch this YouTube video (less than 8 minutes of your time), then come back. You probably know that Iām working in IT as my official day jobs. Iāve been working on a project in the last 18 months to assist and direct one of our customer to implement a disaster recovery plan. This is not a trivial thing, generally speaking. In that particular case, it was an exercise of extreme frustration all along. If you did watch this YouTube video, this is me, the expert. So spot on. No wonder IT projects canāt be finished on time with so many bozos around the table.
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Another Massive Update to @CraftDocsApp (#craft #writer #writing #blogging #tools)
What a pleasant surprise today: a big update to Craft was released. Version 1.2.2 brings a lot of improvements on the table. This release should have been numbered version 1.3, not 1.2.2! All platforms (iPad and macOS) received attention and improvements. One of the most important thing for me being the addition of direct export to Ulysses, DayOne, OmniFocus among others. We could already export in TextBundle or PDF and Word but these exports options, I feel my data can freely move out of the platform. My blogger workflow is simplified.
Iām still working on my review of Craft by the way. It takes longer than I would have liked. Stay tuned.
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Improving my Apple Watch Heartbeat Readings (#applewatch)
Since getting my Apple Series 6 last fall (see my review here), my heart readings arenāt working as expected. Iām not alone who is experiencing this problem (just google it!). During a workout, heartbeats readings are not available for the first 5 to 10 minutes into the workout. On a 30-minute workout, it can make a big difference.
I think I found a way to greatly improve the heartbeats readings. Simply by wearing my Apple Watch as shown on the picture above. I must say that it is not perfect. As shown below, I do get a few minutes of lost readings, though, but not as much as before. The problem could be related to the presence on some fur on my front arm. Also, always making sure the Apple Watch band is tied close enough to the wrist is a must.
Are you experiencing the same issue? Let me know if you permanently fixed it.
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Mailbrew is getter better and better (#mailbrew #newsletters)
Mailbrew received a big update this week. The change log is pretty extensive. The most important change is that the home page and the whole user experience for that matter is now more about reading your digests than the brews edit view. I like this change a lot. Digests are presented in the order they were received. You can go from one issue to another easily for a specific brew. You can also select a specific brew to see associated digests. The reading experience is better overall compared to HEYās Feed view. The only missing thing is a āsave clipā option.
Beside links to external content, within a digest, when it is appropriate, there is a button for entering a reader view. In this view, a minimalist browser will let the reader immerse himself to limit distractions. It reminds me of the Safari reader view. There is always the save button available to put aside an article in case you donāt have time to read it at the moment. Mailbrew provides a separate list for those saved items.
There are a ton of other small change and improvements. Sharing our brews is easier. Sharing a digest also is closer at hand. All in all, this is a solid update to an already excellent service. You can read my initial review of Mailbrew here. If you want to subscribe, please do me a favour and use this link.
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Programming, mathematics and brain activities (#research #computers #computerscience)
What does it take to be a hood programmer? Or better yet, what does it take to like programming hence writing or reading algorithms? Math? Language? Arts? A combination? When I started in computer science at the University, my friends thought that I was good at maths. It wasn’t the case. Before deciding which field I would like to study, I was afraid of computer science, thinking myself that we had to be really good with mathematics. My experience shows that it is not the case. I’m average at maths but good at programming and in computer science in general. Is it surprising? According to this article, no. In fact, computer programming isn’t the same thing as doing maths from a brain activity perspective. It is more like something very demanding where a totally different part of the brain is solicited. Fascinating. It may (or may not) explain why you can be good in computer science but not as good in mathematics. Who knows.
By having a better understanding of what parts of the brain are solicited, we may find common ground with other disciplines. It is really hard to attract people in computer science and knowing what it takes from a brain perspective could help direct efforts of recruiting the right people who will like to read and write algorythms but are not good at maths!
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Ten Reasons to love RSS feeds (#rss #openstandard)
Alan Ralph, in a blog post, exposes ten reasons why he loves RSS feeds. I agree on all accounts. When I look closer, it all comes down to: control. Control is something we don’t have these days on social networks and social media. We live in a numeric world full of algorithmically-generated feeds and content. We lose control of our feeds. George Orwell was right.
RSS feed, a simple and open standard, is the key, within an RSS reader, of a more open and user-centered and mostly ads-free Internet. RSS feeds are important.
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How to turn me off big time (#signin #services #facebooklogin)
What’s out for 2021? These “Connect with Facebook” screen. Please, stop doing that. It’s 2021. If a service, in order to create a new account, offers a “Connect with Facebook”, it is a no go for me, no mather if alternatives are provided. Facebook is like cancer. Period.
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Next week - back to a "normal" day job (#blogging #writing #personalnews)
Next week marks the end of a three-week vacation. I’m lucky. Three weeks where I forgot about my work and became a full-time blogger, writer, content creator. Time flies. There is a need for normality, I guess, and this means returning to work.
Expect a less frequent publishing schedule. Don’t worry; I won’t go very far, thanks to our new confinement and curfew starting this very Saturday. Oh well.
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Another wild Microsoft rumour about Outlook (#microsoft #rumours #outlook #office365)
Here is another wild one: Microsoft is reportedly working on making Outlook a progressive web application for all platforms. Progressive web application isn’t new and Microsoft already makes a version of Outlook in this format. What is new is that it would replace all native versions of the Outlook client: no more are native versions of Outlook for Windows or the Mac.
Iām not sure if this is good or bad news. Iām always wary about cross-platform tech. There is always something lost in translation. The other question that comes to my mind, why is Microsoft moving way from native applications in its ecosystem?
Yet, not all is lost, a good side effect of this move would be to reduce memory consumption on the client. As use can see in this tweet, the native version of Outlook can use large chunk of your computer memory.
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About this rumoured big Windows visual overhaul (#microsoft #windows)
If only Microsoft could finish the job started with Windows 7. Windows 10 user interface is a bunch of previously used visual elements that Microsoft doesn’t care to clean up. For example, consider the computer settings area. On the surface, the iconography speaks the recent visual langague defined by Microsoft. But, as you try to go deeper to change a less frequently used setting, you’re back to a pre-Windows 10 era. I don’t believe Microsoft will do this “major” refresh as recently reported by Windows Central, not in a way they refused to do in the last ten years, anyway.
As a side note, colour me Apple fanboy if you want, but many pundits will grumble when Apple is actually refreshing the user interface like they did with macOS Big Sur (or iOS 7, remember?). At least, it is either consistently clean or consistently ugly, depending of your aestheticism tastes. You won’t as easily find a macOS Yosemite visual asset in macOS Big Sur or even macOS Catalina. Inconsistencies do exist in macOS but they are usually limited to very specific visual tweaks (like to trafic lights placements).
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I'm afraid your maths are right, @brentsimmons (#covid19 #vaccination #usa)
Brent Simmons trying to determine where the US should get back to normal. After some maths, he asks:
ā(Is any of my math wrong? Thereās no point in being overly-precise here ā but please tell me if Iāve made some error that changes things significantly.)ā
I’m afraid his maths are right, even if they aren’t precise. Things could change, though, after Biden is officially in his Office. Even though, change of government takes a lot of time in the US.
I said it in the past: COVID-19 shows how weak the US is as a country to fight this non military war.
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Documenting our numeric life (#journaling #tools)
Basic Apple Guy on DayOne, a popular journaling app:
āMy current journaling habit is to make one entry per day, typically at night. However, I may add multiple timestamps to the entry throughout the day to capture a specific occurrence or thought. This daily journal is currently on a 2,668-day streak, with 4,325 total entries, and 3,297 photos.ā
A streak of 2,668-day to capture thoughts, events, etc., manually? Consider me impressed. I used to write my thoughts too in DayOne, but eventually I stopped as I couldn’t keep up because of all my writing projects. Yet, I found a way to keep using DayOne, by automatically documenting my numeric life. I wrote a piece about it in 2018 that is still absolutely valid today: “Documenting my Numeric Life”. I’m using IFTTT as the engine to push updates into my many journals, inside DayOne. Works like a charm.