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The Unexpected Pain That Comes With Lock Screen Customization
So, I’ve been testing iOS 16 since its early beta stage, and I love it so much. One of the best features is the customizable Lock Screen. But it also creates an issue, the same with Apple Watch watch faces: how to decide which widgets to use and place in those limited slots. There are more and more widgets available each day, but the space is so constrained. I cannot find a strategy to create a Lock Screen that I’m fully satisfied with. I end up creating many of them, but switching among them isn’t smooth, except if they are linked to a focus mode. It’s not a first-world problem, but it is annoying. I’m left with a sense of constant dissatisfaction.
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Feeling So Happy...
🇺🇦 What is happening right now in Ukraine is nothing but encouraging! I was waiting for this to happen the day we started to help Ukraine. Now it seems it is making a difference. News is coming on an hourly basis from the northeast and the south. Let’s kick Russia out once and for all ASAP! Glory to Ukraine!
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What's Hot in Italy? Android or iPhone? My Observations
Here’s an interesting post by Gruber about Android vs iPhone’s relative popularity in different places around the world. I have some observations to share from my experience.
After spending three weeks in Italy for vacation, from what I could see, there was a lot of iPhone around me independently of the place I visited. Sure I saw many Android phone users too. But a majority were iPhone users. Regarding Android’s relative popularity in Germany and France, I would consider the possibility of an aversion for what Apple represents (an “American icon”) in those countries as a partial explanation. Maybe it’s not cool to support an American company like Apple?
Another interesting fact: WhatsApp is THE messaging service app people seem to use the most. iMessage isn’t popular in Italy, it seems.
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Away from Apple's Far out event
Next week, Apple will release a bunch of new iPhone and Apple Watch. I think it’s the first time I feel so detached from this media event. I’ll still be in Italy on vacation. The “Far out” event will happen at 19:00 local time. I’m not sure I’ll be able to watch the keynote live since I’ll probably be having dinner or visiting a village. I don’t want to impose a stay at the apartment for that. I’ll watch the YouTube video when I’m back at the apartment.
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M2 MacBook Air — Not Going To Happen
I paid a quick visit to the Apple Store yesterday to get a pack of AirTags and give another look at the M2 MacBook Air, especially the Midnight colour version. In principle, this colour is gorgeous, but in practice, I don’t think I would go with this colour if I were to upgrade to the M2 MacBook Air. It’s really a fingerprints magnet. I know my fingers can be “oily” at times, which would be even worse than in this picture. I like the idea of having black keyboard keys on a dark frame (like the MacBook Pro). Too bad. Another reason to postpone any upgrade plans.
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AirTags Can Make a Difference
I want to chime in here, following the publication of this article from Om Malik about AirTags. I’m leaving for Italy in a few days. Knowing how bad the airport experience can get and reading those stories about airline companies’ inability to keep up and keep losing track of customers’ luggage, AirTags can make a big difference. I’m going to double-down on AirTags. I already own four, and I’ll buy another four before leaving, so I get my base covered. AirTags already saved me a lot of trouble in the past on more than one occasion by reminding me that I left something behind. It’s well worth the money.
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Building a Photo Diary Using Craft — An Experiment
I started another experiment: a photo diary of my upcoming trip to Italy. I’ll be using Craft for this. My objective is simple: testing Craft for photography-related work. I explain why and how I will do it in much more detail on the website. Here’s the link.
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Waiting for the Surprises
Interesting fact: I rarely look at pictures of the places I’m going to visit. I could go online and look at many images of Milan, for example, or all the other places I’ll be visiting starting next week, but I don’t. My trips are organized by my wife. She’s the one doing the scouting and spends hours looking at where we’re going. I’m the guy who spends hours post-processing images I’ll be taking during the trip, making our trip live forever.
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How Apple Is Encouraging Developers to Have Their Own Identity
Telegram’s CEO, M. Pavel Durov, complains that Apple is making his life harder than necessary by having to wait for the review process to complete its job. When Apple finally accepts the update but requires him to remove the Telemoji package, he goes on to say:
… this will motivate Telegram to make Telemoji even more “unique and recognizable.”
He sounds like a whining baby. Thanks to Apple, Mr. Durov now gets the idea and his team will have to return to their drawing board and be more creative.
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My Photo Publishing Flow for Italy
Following my post earlier this week, I finally found my publishing workflow for my vacation in Italy. From time to time, I’ll write a story on my Photo Legend Series. Glass will be for regular publishing of my best shots of the day. I’ll use Craft to build a photo diary, it’s part of another project. I’ll share the link when I’m ready. Finally, Micro.blog will receive posts from my blog and Glass via the RSS cross-posting feature. What I think will be my best photos of the vacation will go to Unsplash and Smugmug when I return from vacation and after post-processing them in Lightroom. Unsplash will only get a few of them, while the full set will go to my Smugmug page.
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No, no, no, and no.
I’m sorry, Dropzone, you’re good but not that useful. I mean, for such a narrow-usage utility, I’m not going to pay that much monthly. I’m the one who buys and rent software but come on. It’s becoming ridiculous. Provide a lifetime contribution, and I’ll make the deal. You’re a feature, not a product. Delete. 😞
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How fast do you need your internet to be?
A recent post from MereCivilian about subscribing to a fast Internet service triggered this one. Here are a few reasons for having fast Internet at home:
1. You’re many people (four or more) living under the same roof who are active Internet users; 2. You’re many users who are doing streaming at the same time; 3. You’re downloading or uploading really big files all the time; 4. You’re playing online games;Other than that, high-speed internet is useless as each micro-transaction (small HTTPS requests) won’t benefit from the bandwidth available. In other words, a 100K web page on a 100 Mbits or 400 Mbits or 1000 Mbits link will take about the same time to load and render within your browser. Finally, consider the DNS service, which plays a big role in the latency involved while browsing the Internet.
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On Ghost Explorer
This could be the best thing to come to Ghost in a long time: Ghost Explorer. And there is more coming next week, apparently 🤔. For someone who left Substack for Ghost more than a year ago, this is something that I was missing on Ghost. Now, it is much easier to get discovered. I guess. It remains to be seen if this will change the bottom line for me, though.
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War zone, danger zone
🇺🇦 I’m going to Italy in the next few days, and I realize this will put me at the closest point to a war zone I have ever been to. It’s still far from the front lines, but as the Russians are working towards a nuclear disaster, distances are never long enough in these situations. My fingers are crossed that nothing of that sort happens while I’m in Italy. 🤞
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Wondering About Photo Journal for My Upcoming Trip to Italy
I’m two weeks away from a long trip to Italy, and I’m wondering about posting photos while on the trip, but where? Since I’m not active on Facebook or Instagram but have a SmugMug and Glass account, what will I do? My Glass and SmugMug accounts aren’t for photo journaling, after all. I’m very selective with those. Maybe I could create posts in my Photo Legend series on Ghost? Could I try experimenting with Craft and adding photos to a shared page? Unfortunately, Craft isn’t the best app for images. Craft is much more about written words. What about posting here, on Micro.blog, using Sunlit? Decision, decision, decision. 🤔
But, fundamentally, who cares about my trip to Italy? 😉
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Less Colour Options at First, Introduce More Later
Color Options for All iPhone 14 Models: Everything We Know - MacRumors If iPhone 14 colour options are reduced compared to the iPhone 13 lineup, I think it’s because Apple is trying to reduce manufacturing options in a time of highly constrained manufacturing capacity. New colours could later be introduced like they did for the purple option this year.
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About Heavy Camera Gear for Vacations
In The Weight Of Creativity – On my Om, Om Malik thinks about camera gears weight during trips. I’m on the verge of going to Italy for a three weeks vacation, and I’ll have to decide about the content of my camera backpack. As the iPhone is taking a more prominent role in photography, there are fewer incentives to bring heavy gear with me.
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Light at the End of the Tunnel?
🇺🇦 It’s been a long time since I posted something here. This morning, an article from the Kyiv Independent brought me into a cheerful mood regarding the conflict in Ukraine. There is something wrong with Russia’s army capabilities right now which looks like an opportunity window for the west. Are we going to take advantage of it? What kind of winter do we want for the Ukrainians? I hope the war fatigue doesn’t take over and obliterate this window of opportunity. Summer will come to an end; we’ll be back from vacations and return to the news watching, hopefully. Eventually, we, the west, will have to up (again) our support game if we want to give a bright future to the Ukrainian people and the rest of the western world. 🙏
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About This Reading Enabling Device
For many reasons that I’m aware of, I forgot that the iPad is the best device for reading and collecting information tidbits that are fueling my content creation workflow. The iPad enables me to effortlessly annotate and store content into Craft using a Shortcut. In fact, unsurprisingly, the iPad actually is a devide that invites reading sessions into my morning routine. I should use my iPad more often; I’ll probably read more consequently.
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Switching from Instagram to ...
It is surprising and fascinating that we seem to skip Flickr or 500px as a replacement for Instagram when thinking like this about Instagram possible replacements. Those platforms should take advantage of the Instagram pivot to something other than photos. They don’t and they are missing an occasion to reinvent themselves. I’m a paid user of Glass and Smugmug, and I love them.
