I updated my toolset website today1 with three additions under consideration: Digest2, Lazy3 and Heptabase4. The statuses of my current projects were also updated. Thanks for paying a visit.

  1. Use the table of content at the top of the site to locate the right section. Convenient, heh? ↩︎

  2. To replace Mailbrew. ↩︎

  3. A super-charged “save-for-later” service. Could replace Omnivore or complement it. I put myself on their waiting list. ↩︎

  4. A hard-to-define service / apps for supporting research. Could complement Craft. Or not. Another subscription. Gush. ↩︎

One Podcast, Three Looks

From left to right: Overcast, Pocket Cast, Apple Podcast

I always subscribe to my own content distribution channels for quality control purposes 1. I’m using Overcast, Pocket Cast and Apple Podcast to display my latest podcast episode. In these screenshots, I selected the info button to display the episode details. I’m a paid subscriber of Pocket Cast. I prefer the Pocket Cast display, but it has a caching issue as it doesn’t get the latest podcast artwork, but the other two do2. Bold text is missing on Apple Podcast for some reason. The overcast look is… mildly ugly.

  1. This blog post looks like a mini-plug for my podcast. It is. ↩︎

  2. The artwork display issue is also present on the web version of the Pocket Cast player. ↩︎

On Dark Sky and Apple's Weather

A Eulogy for Dark Sky, a Data Visualization Masterpiece

The design of Dark Sky was so wonderful that I could understand the shape of the weather at a glance, even from a zoomed out view of the app.

Great analysis of the now-defunct Dark Sky weather app. I’m a bit late on that one. I don’t remember using Dark Sky because I think it wasn’t working in Canada. I’m not sure about this. Once Apple took over and brought the redesigned weather app with iOS 16, we could visually feel the Dark Sky’s influence on it. But Apple being Apple, they dropped a few things here and there and made a few things their own. I tend to use Carrot Weather more, but recently, I deep-dived into Apple’s Weather, and frankly, they did a good job. Yet, there was something unique in Dark Sky that I don’t feel in Apple’s offerings. Is it too close to the Yahoo Weather look & feel? Maybe.

Am I alone who happens to get the iPhone keyboard displayed on the iPad instead of the full-size keyboard? My wife experienced the same thing many times. We don’t know how to make this thing revert to the normal size keyboard. Easy to make it disappear, but when it comes back, it’s still the small version. Very annoying to type on this.

Working at the office today. Summer vacations are still ongoing hence so few people here. It’s always a reminder of the covid pandemic. This place used to be much more lively. Everything still feels different. 😒 We will never get back to pre-2020 world.

I glanced at photographers and photos on Glass this morning and realized that most photographers are men. Is it reflective of the photographers’ community in general? Photography is a men’s world?? I’d love to see more women because of their different sensibilities.