I made discoveries today while doing some much-needed cleanup in my home office. Here, this is what could be the first Apple dongle1. More to come soon… 👀

  1. This box was an AppleTalk network junction box. The smaller beige piece was for connecting two AppleTalk cables. ↩︎

Yesterday at work, I was directed to listen to a podcast hosted on Podbean. I remembered that in 2019 I was sharing my podcast episodes over there, too, in addition to Apple’s Podcasts directory1. I spent some time this morning to refresh my setup. Boy, this service is “dull” to use. I wonder if it really makes a difference to post my content there.

  1. In 2019, I experimented with podcasting but in French. It wasn’t very successful. ↩︎

I’m going to the office by bike today. 🚴🏻‍♂️ With this splendid weather1, probably the last such beautiful and warm day of this fall, I’m really looking forward to this half-hour ride downtown Montreal.

  1. We’ve been in a very long streak of warm and sunny weather, something like 10 days of sunshine. ↩︎

👉🏻 I’m ready to share my first digital product: a Craft template to support the process of research and writing on a specific subject. See the introduction post on Gumroad. Special introductory price: 5$ or about the price of a latte at Starbucks. Think about it! 🤣

Got an email this morning from Mailbrew about an issue (resolved since then) of logging into the service. So, there is life, apparently! They said they have a “team” working on the next features… 🤔 I would love to see this service thrive instead of being an abandonware. 🙏🏻

I just realized the upcoming weekend is a long one. I should have enough free time to produce another podcast! And a YouTube video about my Craft super-template for research and writing.

My (Really) Short Experience With a RODE NT-USB Microphone

Objective: find a replacement for my lightning-based Finch Lavalier microphone1. Did my research for a USB-C microphone. RODE microphones came up quite often. They received good reviews. I ordered the NT-USB model. It was hard to see which type of USB port it came with—I got the microphone2. It comes with USB-A. Shit. It was tested on my Mac mini. Background noises are too easily picked up. Screenflow cannot use voice isolation3. It was tested on my iPhone 15 Pro Max with a USB-A to USB-C adaptor and Ferrite. Voice isolation isn’t possible, either. Not good. I tried to use the RODE companion app for Mac so I could adjust the microphone operating parameters. I downloaded and installed it but didn’t recognize the microphone when plugged in. Not good. It’s an expansive microphone, barely better than my Blue Yeti. Not good. After testing Screenflow, my iPhone connected via USB-C to my Mac, and with voice isolation activated once again4, I decided to return the product. It’s way better, close to what I had with my Finch microphone. Problem solved.

  1. No longer works with my iPhone 15 Pro Max USB-C port. ↩︎

  2. I couldn’t confirm it from the spec sheet on Amazon nor could I on the RODE website. ↩︎

  3. I opened a support case with Telestream. It’s a known issue, still being investigated. ↩︎

  4. This configuration works, but not with a USB-C microphone only. It seems the iPhone with voice isolation one is the only configuration that works with Screenflow. Really strange. ↩︎