Misc

December 30, 2020 9:47am

Numeric Citizen

According to an article from MacRumors, LG is rolling out a software update to its 2018 Smart TVs to enable AirPlay 2 and HomeKit support. I personally own a 2016 model and I don’t expect to receive such update anytime soon. As a software-only solution, I don’t see why they couldn’t make it happen for 2016 models too. When you think about Apple supporting iPhone models dating back to 2015 with iOS 14, we have to wonder who’s playing programmed obsolescence here. As someone who’s looking to upgrade its 2016 LG Smart TV to a 2020 model, which will support HDR, Dolby Atmos, AirPlay 2, HomeKit and have a 120 Hz refresh rate, I don’t appreciate LG approach to brand loyalty building.

December 29, 2020 2:58pm

Numeric Citizen

Mailbrew shared a blog post about the services they use internally for their needs. As a die hard fan of Mailbrew (see my profile here), it’s interesting to see what SaaS they use for their internal use. Especially interesting to me, Plausible, a privacy-friendly analytics. I’m currently using Google Analytics which is free but, you know, it’s Google and it’s too complex for my needs. On the eve of a new year, it would be a nice time to start fresh in that regards. I’m currently testing the service as I write this! I never thought closing my Google analytics account could be a thing. Every new year is the occasion to do things differently, don’t you think?

December 28, 2020 11:50am

Numeric Citizen

Yesterday I had my first real experience with the Disney+ streaming service on my Apple TV 4K. In a word: wow! I wanted to see the latest movie from Pixal: Soul. I decided to try Disney+ for the occasion. It’s the best streaming experience I ever had. From the mandatory signup process to browsing content and watching movies, I’m sold. Rightfully, Apple named the Disney+ Apple TV app the best of 2020. Not only Disney knows how to create great movies, they also know how to create great user experience for the Apple TV. Apple should take some notes here. Google, with its crappy YouTube app should just start over. Now the 9$ a month question: will I keep the Disney+ subscription?

December 24, 2020 4:31pm

Numeric Citizen

Original image from Unsplash, the wishes are from me. LOL. Done with Adobe Spark Post.

December 24, 2020 12:08pm

Numeric Citizen

Every year, a few days before Christmas, I spend some time to create all my own and original Christmas cards for my beloved ones. It’s a pretty simple process involving two different apps. One is Unsplash and the other is Adobe Spark Post. I usually start by browsing Unsplash for finding the right photo for inspiration. Once I settle on one picture, I download it and launch Adobe Spark to create the initial montage. I make sure to reserve some space for the best wishes text. This year, I’ll do things a bit differently as my cards will be digital-only. I’ll send them via iMessage. Some people would prefer to have a printed version, but 2020 being… well… 2020, I’ll go ahead with a digital version only.

I’m a big fan of Adobe Spark Post. For some reason, I don’t see a lot of noise around it on the web. I use it for many other things than creating Christmas cards, as the picture above can show. You can read my review of Adobe Spark Post here on my main blog.

December 22, 2020 10:55am

Numeric Citizen

I have too many projects on my plate to complete and experiments that I want to try. Today, I’m thinking about subscribing to Vimeo, again. I used to have an active account where I would publish photo processing session recordings with voice over. These sessions are still available by the way (one example here). I stopped doing those because they were time consuming to create and publish.

Subscribing to Vimeo’s first paying tier is not cheap. I know what you’re thinking, why not use YouTube which is free!? First, I don’t like YouTube and the business model behind it. I don’t like to depend on Google for my stuff. Vimeo is better in my opinion as a video content platform, for what I want to do. I prefer their embedded video player compared to YouTube’s. I don’t want ads on my feed and on my content. For all these reasons, Vimeo > YouTube.

My Vimeo page: https://vimeo.com/numericcitizen

Now you know. 😎

December 18, 2020 4:18pm

Numeric Citizen

Introducing my new avatar for 2021. It was made by hyxcreations, available on Fivrr. I wanted something along the lines of this one. I’m very happy of the end results. It is a blend of the previous avatar and the other one I use for @numericcitizen, my official Twitter account.

Expect a slow rollout over the next few weeks. ☺️

December 14, 2020 8:37am

Numeric Citizen

Recently I spent more time than usual on YouTube for different reasons: to look at AirPods Max first impressions, to learn more about Synology DSM 7.0 beta, etc. After a while, it’s easy to see a trend that bugs me: design uniformity across the board. See the previous image gathers a few popular YouTubers channel content pages. They all look about the same or at least designed by the same designer. On top of that, there seems to be a trend where the weider you look, the better. When did that trend start?

December 10, 2020 10:57pm

Numeric Citizen

I use Apple’s Notes app to jot some ideas, all the time. When the concept is clear in my head, I go ahead and select my tool for the next phase. In this case, it was Apple’s Keynote which proves to provide a quite capable environment for diagramming. The subject: how I process information that eventually will enable me to write blog posts. More details here.

December 9, 2020 9:26am

Numeric Citizen

From Chris Best, Substack CEO: “Something that we think about a lot is readers tell us, ‘Hey, I’m subscribed to six different Substacks now, and I want to read them all, and it sucks that they’re in my email inbox along with all my other stuff,’" 😳🤦🏻‍♂️

A reader app from Substack would certainly be a good idea. I’m already on the private beta. I wonder if Mr. Best knows about Mailbrew? Or Hey? While waiting for such a reader app, Mailbrew is certainly capable of doing just that: consolidating newsletters in one place. Read my review of Mailbrew on my blog. https://linktr.ee/numericcitizen

December 8, 2020 8:40am

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Numeric Citizen

As an IT guy, looking at what Synology has in store for 2021 makes me pretty excited. I wrote about that yesterday but I took a deeper look at what is coming in DSM 7.0, their NAS operating system. I didn’t pay too much attention to their photo management software that comes with a Synology NAS, but that might change. In my blogger workflow, there is something I can optimize is the use of a photo management to store all my screen shots, stock photos, visual assets, etc. Synology Photos could be the tool I was looking for for a long time. I don’t want to use Apple’s Photos application as I don’t really like to see screenshots intermixed with family pictures. If Synology Photos is as solid as it looks, if their mobile application is much improved to their current version, I’ll certainly give it a serious try. On top of that, this photo feature also enable remote access to the photo library. Very interesting.

I’ve been shopping around for a home NAS for a long time and only made the plunge this year. After much thinking and reading, I settled on Synology because I saw a mature company offering mature products with a solid reputation. Again, DSM 7.0 brings a lot of new features and improvements which makes me feel happy about my choice of going with them. Can’t wait to try what’s new.

December 7, 2020 1:32pm

Numeric Citizen

I’ve been using a Synology DS720+ NAS for a few months now and boy do I like it! On my blogger to do list is a review of this device. The breath of features never stop to impress me. I’m a big fan. I use it for archiving, space reclamation on my Mac and much more. It’s fast and reliable as I had a chance to test the repair feature after losing a hard drive (yes, already!). It worked flawlessly.

This week, Synology will make DSM 7.0 available for beta testers, the braves. Looking at the announcement web page, it looks like a massive update. Refreshed screens, more cloud integration, admin rights delegation and added feature like Active Insight will certainly be exciting additions. One question: I think Synology is about to add a subscription for this, which I’m not sure I’ll pay for, depending of its usefulness in its final form. We’ll see.

December 5, 2020 2:08pm

Numeric Citizen

My home router got an update this week, version 1.8.3. I’ve been running the Unifi Dream Machine since spring without any issues. This update was long in the works and highly expected. Among the changes, a redesigned and simplified controller dashboard with real-time statistics which are really helpful. The device management UI also received a redesign. Some of the previously available information has been removed or moved around. CPU, Memory consumption and internal temperature are higher than before (around +10%-30%), though. Overall, its’a solid update. Oh, and it is running an 4 cores ARM processor.

Remember, this router replaced an aging Apple AirPort Extreme. If you are still looking for a great home router, please, do yourself a favor and buy this one. This post is not sponsored.

December 4, 2020 1:38pm

Numeric Citizen

As you know, Twitter came out with « Fleets », its clone of Snapshat’s Stories. People don’t really like it. Or do they? My timeline is constantly filled with my followers posting fleets. I guess some do like them. I decided to give it a serious try. I think they add another dimension to Twitter that I happen to find interesting for highlighting purposes. It’s simple to use, just enough design flexibility. There are is one drawback: they only show up on the iPhone (not the iPad or the web), which I find strange and somewhat arbitrary.

Following are screenshots of my experiment. Let’s see where it goes from here.

December 3, 2020 6:14pm

Numeric Citizen

Let’s play a game. One of your customer calls you and ask for a meeting (virtual or in person). Before answering this request, you have to look at your calendar to see your free/busy time. It’s a time consuming and error prone process. What if your favorite calendaring app could generate a map of your weekly schedule with all sensible information masked out, like in the following example (made with Fantastical). This could be sent as a PDF file to the customer, would save a lot of time. It’s surprising that, to my knowledge, no calendaring app offer this option. I would pay to get this.

November 20, 2020 7:56am

Numeric Citizen

I’m a user of Timing for Mac, and recently the app got updated in order to support macOS Big Sur. The update brings a fresh and entirely new app icon to better fit the visual style of Big Sur, and I love it 😍. The icon has been designed by Matthew Skiles. Looking on his Twitter profile, I discovered two interesting web sites: https://www.macosicongallery.com/ and https://www.iosicongallery.com/. These are catalogs of the best icons for macOS and iOS of well known apps. Check them out. These sites made me realize how much we lost in design quality over the years, great icons are hard to come by these days.

November 7, 2020 1:54pm

Numeric Citizen

Well, I can breath a little bit better now that this clown is on the way out. Good riddance. As a Canadian, I’m so happy to see this clown go. If there was a way to start fixing 2020, it would be it. Yeah, I know, he won’t concede victory, he probably won’t do a concession speech. Who cares.. we knew all that, already. Now, let’s hope Americans start to unite a little bit and fix their shit, because, it’s pretty ugly out there.

November 3, 2020 9:09pm

Numeric Citizen

I rarely if ever post political stuff here. As a Canadian, my sincere hope is that the American people make the furst step in order to put an end to this endless nightmare.

On a side note: I’m using  News to follow election night. So far, I like what Apple is doing here. Results are quick to be reflected on the maps, which can be drilled down up to the state level.

November 3, 2020 7:52am

Numeric Citizen

Another wonderful and really useful widget is finally available for iOS 14 and iPadOS 14: a precipitation radar. I’m a big fan of MyRadar but the app wasn’t yet updated to support widgets. Widget Radar, which is free by the way, is simple and minimalist yet effective. It is proudly sitting on my homes creen now, on the weather page.

Side note: Weatherline is another useful weather app, but it doesn’t allow the placement of the radar image as a widget, yet.

October 28, 2020 7:28pm

Numeric Citizen

After much writing and compositing, the third edition of the Numeric Citizen Introspection newsletter is out! I’m quite happy with the end results. It’s getting better with each release. It’s still free. Can’t wait to build the next edition!

Please, read, share and like! 👈🏻 🙏🏻

Comments are welcomed!