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A new kind of goal for me - writer engagement (#writing #blogger #bloggerlife)
Writing is an important part of my life. It’s all about feeling creative, thinking, taking a pause of everything else. As a blogger, I like when people stop by and take the time to read my blog articles and then response with a comment. It doesn’t happen as often as I would like. I would say, one percent of my visitors will do it.
For 2021, I decided to set a new goal for myself: stopping by, taking the time to drop a meaningful comment on a blog post or an article from someone else. I call this goal writer engagement. Some platforms are easier to interact with than others. I like both Medium and Substack for this. Responding to an article or a newsletter is just a few clicks away.
So, today, I dropped two comments. One comment to a post from MG Siegler about writing more often on medium. The other comment about a way to consider the iPhone 12 Pro Max as a tool for photography, from a too technical point of view.
So, will you drop a comment today? Feel free to engage too and maybe start a conversation, why not!
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Why I didnāt write a personal year in review for 2020 (#blogger #bloggerlife #writing)
The year 2020 came to an end without me posting my personal year in review. You might wonder why. I read many reviews in the last few days. Most of them are delightful to read as they contain gems about personal lessons learned, personal discoveries, etc. To write those reviews, you have to be prepared for that particular intention to write about it later. Without notes, it’s nearly impossible and takes too much time to prepare. It also would be too easy to miss essential tidbits.
What about 2021? Good news, for 2021, I want to be ready. Now it’s the best time to get organized. All year long, I’ll be using the excellent notes taking application called Craft. I already started to put things down. The picture at the top of this post is a glimpse at my journaling space structure, where personal notes will be confined all year long. I’ll use a monthly section for each domain or theme I want to touch on in this future year in review. I’ll see where it goes.
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Pinboard, Pocket, Raindrop, Instapaper, Notion? Which tools is best for you? (#blogger #bloggertools #writers)
Alan Ralph on Why I Use Pinboard As My Reading List
Iāve mentioned before that I use Pinboard for bookmarking webpages of interest so that I can refer to them later. I realize this might seem like an odd choice, given that there are more obvious candidates such as Pocket or Instapaper, so Iāve decided to summarize my reasoning
I could add other apps and services like Raindrop (which I tried) or even Notion (which I love) as places to save bookmarks. It’s tempting to use more focused tools to fill a very specific part of a workflow. At the end of the day, it’s a matter of preference or workflow optimization (you can read about my recent workflow update).
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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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So many questions lefts unanswered (#apple #iCloud #death #legacy)
In What to do about Apple devices and iCloud content when the owner dies from AppleInsider, there are so many unanswered questions. For example, are the requirements from Apple different from one country to another? Something critical when someone dies, having access to his or her smartphone with a PIN. Without it, the challenge is close to impossible to meet. That is one of the many requirements explained in A Guide for Preparing to Leave Your Numeric Legacy.
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Bluetooth issues is killing the M1 Mac mini wonder (#apple #applesilicon #m1ship)
Two times today, I had to restart my M1 Mac mini because of the bluetooth devices being unresponsive. macOS 11.1 came out late in December without a fix to this issue. My hope is that this can be fixed via a firmware update from Apple. I’m not alone. No fix in sight. Very frustrating. š¤¬
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Grading Apple's response to COVID-19 (#apple #covid19)
From Basic Apple Guy’s top 5 of 2020:āI appreciated the stewardship Apple has taken this year in balancing their product interests while also supporting the fight to respond to COVID-19.ā
Two things. First, Apple’s response to COVID-19 was and continue to be faultless. Some governments should take notes. Second, the closing-reopening-closing dance of their physical stores didn’t impact their bottom line, not in a significant way, apparently. In a way, Apple is not only making and selling products, they are the product, it’s not only how they look, it’s how they work.
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Microsoft + ARM: Why it took so long? (#microsoft #arm #surface #intel)
About Microsoft being Years Late to a Party They Tried to Start on iPadInsight:
āAccording to a recent Bloomberg report, Microsoft is finally getting into the custom silicon business. It looks like they are starting down this road primarily to aid their cloud and server business, but itās hard to believe they wouldnāt have future plans to bring these new ARM-based chips to their Surface Pro X and other future models, replacing Qualcommās SQ1 and 2 processors.ā
and
āThe $10,000 question is, why did Microsoft wait this long? Why did they bother messing around with Qualcomm to produce ARM chips for the Surface Pro X only to get mediocre results from a chip that still isnāt fine tuned to both the hardware and Windows 10? Those results were completely and totally predictable. They took the easy way out and the Surface Pro X, while a really slick looking device, isnāt going anywhere because of it. Who wants to pay more and still have to make compromises in both performance and compatibility?ā
Maybe Microsoft didnāt want to piss off Intel?
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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.
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The Substack "clique"? (#substack #writers #newsletters)
Is Substack the Media Future We Want?
āon Substack, the most successful newsletters are almost always written by people who have already cultivated an audience at traditional publications or built up a following elsewhere.ā
and
Substack is a natural fit for the influencer, the pundit, the personality, and the political contrarian.
Starting from scratch on Substack is quite a challenge. From the graph shown above, this is the curve of my subscribers count. It plateaued. The new reader feature coupled with the discovery tab didn’t move the needle at all. We have to wonder if Substack is just a clique in disguise.
You can read my past newsletters by visiting my Substack page. Be sure to subscribe, it’s free!
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Not the best way to build brand loyalty, @LGUS (#smarttv #airplay2)
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 donāt expect to receive such update anytime soon. As a software-only solution, I donāt see why they couldnāt 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 whoās playing programmed obsolescence here. As someone whoās 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 donāt appreciate LG approach to brand loyalty building.
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I don't care about the Apple Car (#apple #applecar #rumours)
According to Goldman Sachs, Apple doesn’t care about the car itself. I don’t care either. I’m fed up of these rumours. M.G. Siegler is fed up too according to a recent Medium article. Period. Enough. A car is the least personal product Apple could ever make. Apple’s products are about exhencing experience, life.
I can see Apple investing in in-car experience and selling it to cars manufacturers. But wait, there is a big gotcha: cars manufacturers doesn’t care about the user experience. Maybe Tesla, but that’s it. I cannot see them coming in drove to Apple to add the “Apple Experience” as an option anytime soon.
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Thinking of closing my Google Analytics account ā who knew (#googleanalytics #privacy @mailbrew @plausiblehq)
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), itās interesting to see what SaaS they use for their internal use. Especially interesting to me, Plausible, a privacy-friendly analytics. Iām currently using Google Analytics which is free but, you know, itās Google and itās 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?
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A visual reference to the iPod in iOS 14.3? (#apple #ipodclassic #applehistory)
Someone on Twitter thinks iOS 14.3 mediaplayer control is a nod to the iPod Classic. I think this redesign was introduced in iOS 14.2. Up until now, it didnāt came to my mind the design was similar to the iPod Classic. Nonetheless, it a step up compared to the previous version both in design and features. As Gruber puts it, itās probably the best way to layout music controls on a small screen.
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The original iMac ā best of them all? (#apple #iMac #history)
When the original iMac came out, in 1998, a first tangible and public sign of Steve Jobs return at Apple, I was perplexed yet intrigued. It was so unique compared to everything else, just like for the original Mac, in 1984. There was a retro look to this machine that was seducing to me, especially when looking at it right in front of it. I never owned the iMac G3 and any of the following designs. I came back to the Mac in 2005 after a 10 years pause. This concludes the long series of ā20 Macs for 2020ā from SixColors.
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Thoughts on my first contact with Disney+ on Apple TV (#appletv #disneyplus #streaming)
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?
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On Apple Fitness+ Launches (#apple #services #fitnetsplus)
Benjamin Mayo on Apple Fitness+ Launches
āThey did a good job with this. Itās not a deeply technical proposition but sometimes simple ideas and good execution are all you need. Fitness+ is high quality and well produced workout videos overlaid with live metrics readouts from a connected Watch. Straightforward, technologically trivial, but effective.ā
I started to use the service since day one. For now, I’m doing treadmill workouts ranging from 10 min to 30 min. I like the whole thing so far. The next thing I’d like to try is the dance workouts.
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Was this lab setup real? (#apple)
In 2020, we started to get a better peek at Apple’s labs, at least, this is what Apple wanted us to believe. My question: was this setup a real lab or was it entirely made up? I tend to think they were real. If that’s the case, in this particular image, can you spot a very old Macintosh?
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Best wishes to all my followers and readers
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I donāt buy commercial Christmas cards. (#adobe #sparkpost #creativity)
Every year, a few days before Christmas, I spend some time to create all my own and original Christmas cards for my beloved ones. Itās 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, Iāll do things a bit differently as my cards will be digital-only. Iāll send them via iMessage. Some people would prefer to have a printed version, but 2020 being… well… 2020, Iāll go ahead with a digital version only.
Iām a big fan of Adobe Spark Post. For some reason, I donāt 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.
