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Avoiding Vendors Lock-in
The notion of “avoiding vendors lock-in” in information technology is interesting. I would argue that it’s impossible to completely be without some sort of vendor lock-in1. At some point, there is always a required commitment level. You commit to open-source software. You commit to a cloud vendor. You commit to a platform. I often give the example of a company building an application internally with a team of developers. In that scenario, the company is committing to something: the application, the data tied to it and its operational model. Applications are hard to replace in many environments. When you decide to invest in software development, you commit to the end product for many years, if not decades, until the organization decides it’s time to transform the application into something else2. There is this concept of “security by design” and of “portable by design,” which should apply to any technical or application architecture. The rest is marketing nonsense.
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Confession of the day: I hate being confined to the world of Microsoft 365 for my work, knowing that there are much cooler tools out there. Notion is one example, Basecamp is another one, Monday, etc, even though it might be a controversial opinion. And don’t get me started about the Microsoft Visio; there are dozens of much better alternatives1.
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Draw.io, LucidChart, etc. ↩︎
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I just realized that I could (and should) use Raycast AI to summarize articles saved into Omnivore and save the summary into the article notes. Then, I could finish up the metadata with appropriate tags. I used to do that within Craft before, but the Craft AI assistant uses GPT 3.5, limits the length of the input into the summarize request and doesn’t support “real tags” like in Omnivore.
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Each week, on Sundays, I select a bunch of my photos that I plan to share on my Pixelfed profile during the week. Next Sunday, early in the morning, I look for the one that received the most likes, shares and comments and use it as the header image of my weekly creative summary newsletter. This process is like a disguised poll. 🙂 It is a way to share only the best of my work with my dear readers.
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So, I made the decision: **Bye-bye Write.as**👋🏻. It’s fun to move things around on the internet, but I pay the price for being too impulsive and not intentional in some of my decisions. It was an impulsive decision to subscribe to Write.as. There was something seductive in the post editor, and being open source is the way to go. But I have to admit that it was a diversion. Now, focusing on Micro.blog. 😊
Sidenote: I find great satisfaction in simplification. This reminds me of when I was an indie iOS developer: I remember the instants of removing lines of code and making things leaner. It procured a lot of satisfaction.
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Quick non-scientific poll: @Manton releases quite a few updates (mostly small1) to Micro.blog during the year and posts the info on @news. Would it be cool if someone created a “What’s New on Micro.blog” series demonstrating these changes and tweaks in action? I know some people prefer to see things in action, not just read a small description. Is there an interest in this?2
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I’m thinking of leaving Write.as. Last year, I purchased a 5-year subscription during a promotion, intending to use it extensively. However, I haven’t used it as much as I anticipated. My main focus was writing about the Ukraine war. I could migrate this to Micro.blog. Yet, I’m concerned that my views on the conflict might offend some people here, as not everyone is interested in politics. 🤔🧐
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🌞It’s Sunday, and it’s time for the second edition of the weekly creative summary newsletter! I was late working on this edition and wasn’t sure how it would come out. I’m pretty satisfied with this week’s edition.😀 I’m seeing more and more people heading to the Craft edition of this newsletter, and I’m highly grateful for the interest that this newsletter generates.
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Microsoft Office apps for the Apple Vision Pro? Really? Color me surprised. I’m not convinced by the typical productivity use case for the Apple Vision Pro. Judging from what I see, working with things (windows, palettes, etc.) suspended in space doesn’t feel natural. What does it bring that the desktop doesn’t provide? Visualization use cases, sure, though. Being able to manipulate 3D models is a big yes. Is working with a flat spreadsheet in 3D space great? What does it fix that the desktop couldn’t? Maybe the convenience of having the flat spreadsheet besides the 3D model is the right use case. I’m still trying to wrap my head around this.
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I want a dedicated domain name for The Craft Bible. I did some research this morning to find out that I can buy craft.com for a mere 4960US$! WTF! 😳 Meanwhile, thecraftbible.com is available for a mere 9.77 US$. 😅
Update: finally bought and configured thecraftbible.com with Cloud Flare.
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Does anyone know if Cultured Code is actively working on Things 4? Any rumors about what could be the gist of this release? Asking for a friend who’s considering switching to Apple Reminders1.
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That’s me. 🤫 ↩︎
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After watching this video, I came to the conclusion that 95% of what I’m doing with Things 3 can be done now with Apple Reminders. Tags, templates, folders, section headers, it’s all there. Some of the things are better presented in Reminders (link previews), and there is a column view that can act as a Kanban board. Something to reconsider. 🤔
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Here’s a possible Apple Vision Pro use case: virtually walking in the street using Apple Maps in look-around mode. It seems it would be a great way to “visit” a city.
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Installed the brand new Micro.blog plugin to enable the /newsletters page on my website. This enables an index page of past newsletters that were sent to my subscribers! Thanks to @manton!
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My ChatGPT usage at work made me think about using GenAI in general. I came to the conclusion that you must be experienced in the field you are asking questions to be able to distinguish good answers from bullshit. My thought.
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I’m spending my Friday afternoon writing documents for a big project at work. Even at work, I write a lot, which is a creative process, but in a different context. My personal hobbies nourish my creativity at work. Or the other way around. I don’t know. I like my job. My hobbies. My creative life. 😌
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Steve Jobs was incredible in bringing partners on board when launching a new platform. I wonder how different the launch of the Apple Vision Pro would be if he was still among us. Would we have more content available on day one? Or more apps? Even better: a real killer app? 🤔
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👉🏻Cast your votes guys! This is your chance to influence what’s next for Micro.blog! I did.
