Each time I get news from the war in Ukraine, and I read or hear the expression “Russian soldiers,” I want to puke. These guys aren’t soldiers; they aren’t part of an army but a gang. They are criminals, rapists, cowards, looters, stealers, hypocrites, dumb, and stupid, to name a few adjectives. They are everything but soldiers or, even worse, humans.

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Friday is coming. Fast. Each Friday, I publish a new edition of the Friday Notes Series. As I’m writing this, I don’t have a subject for this week’s edition, but I have this simple idea: ask me something, and I’ll try to answer in the next edition. Don’t be shy. Time is running up. 😅

#writing

Discuss…

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Today was a special day. So many memories.

If I summarize what we saw today from Moscow, it was a smoke & mirrors show. Even Putin’s speech was a letdown, and I felt uninspired. He used fake news to justify the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. He didn’t do what the West was afraid of declaring conscription or a full-out war with Ukraine. He didn’t because he probably knew that he couldn’t. Declaring a war would have been a sign of failure of the “special military ops”. Conscription wouldn’t bring combat-effective resources soon enough anyway. Russia is simply failing at so many levels.

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First, I got back to Pocket and paid for the subscription. Then I added Readwise. Then I found Matter, and fell in love with it. I’m not sure why. I’m still waiting for Readwise Reader application. While waiting for it, what’s the point of Readwise, again? News Explorer is my go-to application for most of my readings via RSS feeds; I can save links as favourites, but I never do so. My reading workflow is in a total state of flux.

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📚 Today, after opening Apple Books on my Mac, I concluded that I’m not reading enough books. Why is it so hard for me to sit down regularly and read a book is beyond me? I do read a lot during the day, but only fragments of things like articles, tweets, and RSS items. I started to read The Phoenix Project a long time ago but didn’t finish it. However, it was amusing and in line with my job!

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🇺🇦 Today, I gave 100 US$ to the just recently crowdfunding platform United24. I chose to donate to the defence and demining of Ukraine. This comes after giving 200 CAN$ in the first few weeks of the war. What did you do today? 🤔

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💡 Interesting facts: about 5%-10% of visitors to my blogs will click on outbound links (links pointing to the stuff on the internet). Less than 1% will drop a comment on a blog post.

#blogging #musing #writer

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I’m back on Telegram, after closing my account about a year ago. I wrote about the reasons why on my story published on Micro.blog. Since the start of the criminal invasion of Ukraine by the Russian, I found out quickly that a lot of information about the conflict is being published on Telegram. I decided to come back and open a new account.

I read on Mr. Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram. Some compare him to Elon Musk. He’s opinionated, just like Musk. He has his views on Apple and technology. He seems to advocate user privacy protection. Furthermore, he flew from Russia because he refused to cooperate with the government, which was asking to leak information from Telegram users.

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In a recent article from Josh Ginter for The Newsprint, If found the idea of having a separate computer for work and one for creative activities interesting and I’m close to feeling the same about my personal and work life. I do most of my work on an M1 Mac mini, while my creative work is done on an M1 MacBook Air. My iPad is used as a second screen on my Mac mini or for some photo processing stuff with Adobe Lightroom. The distinction between two worlds gets blurry when you consider how the cloud brings those two worlds closer to each other. If you are like me and use a single Apple ID for all your Apple services, as soon as you set up iCloud on both computers, you’ll get access to the same “virtual space and digital content” on both machines. This is where the idea of two separate computers becomes blurry and probably more of a theory.

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Notes of interest from Apple’s Q2 2022 earnings report and conference call | AppleInsider

The last seven quarters have been the best ever for Mac

What a difference a few years make on the Mac. I’m happy to see the Mac thrive like this.

Now more than ever, it seems it is the perfect time for @manton to welcome people on Micro.blog who want to quit Twitter because… you know… Elon Musk. Just saying.

I recently wrote an article about where the iPad should go from here. On the subject of iPadOS, looking at this article on Behance from Parker Ortolani, here are the few interesting ideas that caught my attention:

• The updated Dock with the ability to move an application window to an external display.
• Still on the Dock, the frequently used applications replaced with standard folders (like downloaded items).
• Stacks in the Dock, just like on macOS.
• Home Screen icon placements can include things like Shortcuts, or files.
• Studio Mode for external display full support. My number one request.
• Addition of Preview from macOS would be super useful for more pro-like workflows. Same with the addition of Dictionary. It would be super useful for content creators like me.

WWDC 2022 is around the corner, starting another round of updates for iPadOs over the coming year.

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I recently came back from a one-week vacation in Cancun, Mexico. The first thing I did before leaving the airport to go home was to call an Uber taxi. My last experience with Uber went well, but it was quite a while. Boy, this time it was a surprising and unexpected experience. After ordering the car, I was met with a plethora of notifications and ads within the application and via Uber Eat to order food on the go or before arriving at home. Those ads took the form of notifications, but also big popups taking the whole screen within the application. It was so intrusive, it wasn’t always clear how to dismiss the ad to return to the actual trip details.

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🚫🇷🇺⛔If I could block any IP addresses from Russia from visiting my blogs, I would do it.

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After spending some time cleanup my office this today, I found these in my drawers and other places. I no longer use these. Do you? I know some people here on Micro.blog do. I don’t which I find fascinating because I did a lot in my younger times. Before the computers.

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Now that I’m finally having my dedicated room in the house for working, I’m wondering about returning to podcasting (I used to have a podcast, in French) or even testing the YouTuber world (even though I wrote in the past that I’ll never be a YouTuber). Why is that?

First, a dedicated room is mandatory to be able to record without being disrupted too much. Second, sound quality would probably be much better than recording in an open space. Third, I could create a better background because my room is decorated to my personal tastes.

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🇺🇦 It’s fascinating how the war in Ukraine makes me think about many video games. Let me explain. Looking at some Telegram channels feeding the results of attacks with anti-tank missiles or other means. You’ll find many short video clips with music and animation while a tank is destroyed. It makes things look like they aren’t real, only a game, which is far from the case for obvious reasons. Yet, there is the gamification of some aspects of what is filtering out of this ugly and devastating war. 😟

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I’m not writing my Friday Notes edition this week, and I feel guilty. I had a hectic week at work after returning from a one-week vacation. Writing weekly series comes with its challenges. 😔

If you are wondering what’s up with me, I’m on vacation for a week. I’m not only taking a break from work, my office, but also from blogging. Expect a return to normal programming next week.

Written on my iPad, somewhere on a sandy beach in Mexico 😃😛

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