I am, once again, here to express my love for the Lofi Garden app. One click in the Menu Bar to start my “thinking music” that doesn’t impact my music recommendations. How I wish it were available for iOS as well.
🔗
You better watch out… Hannah Waddingham: Home For Christmas premieres November 22 on Apple TV+ apple.co/_HannahHomeForChristmas Ring in the holidays with Emmy®-winning star Hannah Waddingham as she welcomes special guests for a musical extravaganza at the London Coliseum.
Oh boy, can’t wait! 😁 🎤
🔗
Go to Settings → Focus → Do Not Disturb, and under “Set a Schedule”, tap Add Schedule and enable Smart Activation. Now, when you start a screen recording, Do Not Disturb turns on automatically, and it turns itself off a few seconds after you finish recording. I’m not sure what else triggers Smart Activation — the description in Settings is pretty vague — but for screen recordings this is just what I wanted.
As a frequent screen capturer, this gets a 👍.
Apple would release a whole new update the day after I finally get all my devices squared away. Here we go again!
Round 2. I’ve canceled my Readwise Reader subscription. I should have months ago, but now I have a deadline of Dec 6 when my plan expires to finally read (or not) all the articles I saved up there.
I just released my ‘Publish Quote’ shortcut version 1.0:
This shortcut provides a quick and easy way to publish a quote from a Safari webpage, with or without commentary, to Micro.blog. Just select the text you want to quote, hit the share button in the toolbar, and run this shortcut. It’ll even send a Webmention if you add your own comment.
Learn more, see it in action, and get it here from the HeyDingus Shortcuts Library.
Thanks @gr36!
🔗
When tapping the plus action button, you can choose between using AI-generated prompts to fuel your entry or to be greeted with a blank entry waiting for your thoughts. You can add in pictures, locations, and even voice notes, but there is a distinct lack of styling options. There is no way to add in subheadings, quotes, or anything other than basic text.
I’m a(n infrequent) Day One user, and will probably stick with that. But my wife has been looking for a place to do a gratitude journal and I think this might be perfect.
I just released my ‘Count Characters for Micro.blog Timeline’ shortcut version 1.0:
This shortcut converts Markdown text to Rich Text and then counts the number of characters. If it is over the character limit to be displayed in full on the Micro.blog Timeline, it allows you to edit the text to be within the limit to avoid truncation. If the edited text still has too many characters, it will continue to rerun this shortcut until it is within the limit.
Get it here from the HeyDingus Shortcuts Library.
It’s nothing fancy, but I just released my ‘Publish to Micro.blog’ shortcut version 1.0:
This shortcut uses the Micropub API to publish text passed into it to the default blog on your Micro.blog account. It’s best used as a function that is run from another shortcut.
Take note that there is no preview of the published text with this shortcut so that it can be as streamlined as possible. Check over your post before running the shortcut, or use a preview action in whichever workflow sends text to it.
Get it here from the HeyDingus Shortcuts Library.
I hadn’t really expected Phil to reply to my post. I’m thrilled he did, and it’s been kinda fun to see the other responses trickle in — even one from Walt Mossberg! My watch has been buzzing nonstop with likes and reposts. It’s a very different experience than what I usually get here on Micro.blog.
I can’t be the first person to notice that @pschiller@mstdn.social, the Mr. Courage, uses a picture of himself wearing headphones that plug into the 3.5mm headphone jack on an iPhone 3GS for his Threads/Instagram profile pic. Can’t be by accident, and I love it. 😆
A store, a Threads post, two videos, screensavers, keyboard book games, and bars. Are you getting it? These are not 7 different things. It is 7 Things This Week!
Hmm. Today’s Logic Pro update keeps the pricing and purchase of the Mac app and the iPad app separate. The Mac app still costs $199 upfront, and the iPad is still a subscription of $4.99/month or $49/year. I kind of thought that they would merge them into one subscription plan, but apparently not (yet).
🔗
Here’s something else to consider: would aggressively updating existing stores actually be antithetical to Apple’s larger conservation and environmental efforts?
I’m anxious for the new store design to roll out everywhere, but @michaelsteeber@mastodon.social makes a keen point. That’d be a huge environmental cost and should probably start with the oldest stores that are in need of upgrades anyway, rather than perfectly functional stores. I am curious about how the Vintage E design will adapt to flagship stores.
Apple TV+ is coming out with an adaptation of ‘The Velveteen Rabbit’ starring, [checks notes] Helena Bonham Carter? Consider me intrigued!
🔗
Earlier this week I had a need to manually find a bunch of people’s RSS feed links. It seemed simple enough: go to their website and look for an RSS/Subscribe link but I was surprised to find that a lot of people don’t have a link anywhere to their feed.
Even if people only ever add your website into their feed reader and let the app find the RSS feed (see below for more info on this), showing an RSS link reminds people that RSS exists, a win for the open web.
Hear, hear! I’ll raise you a ‘Subscribe’ or a ‘Feeds’ page that describes what each one contains.
🔗
Honestly, I think it’s a shame that poor implementation ruined a semi-good idea. Apple clearly thought that this was going to catch on because the life span indicates so. […] The design and production of the Touch Bar would make a great story, one we will continue to talk about for years to come. I can only dream of what would have been had they just put it above the function keys instead.
I, too, can’t shake the idea that the Touch Bar would have been a beloved hit had they included it with the function keys rather than in place of them.
🆕📝 The iMac Pro will not rise phoenix-like from the ashes after all. Maybe.
Apple never does something until it does do it. But they are saying they won’t. Uh, got it?
The day was August 25, 2023 when the Apple empire made its move against the @MacStories@MacStories.net rebels, and none of us noticed: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/apple-stories/
Hello nice to meet you, what do you do for a living | Meadow 🌱
But is it actually the best question that we can ask? What does it tell about our society that our go-to question when we’re getting to know someone is to ask them what do they work on.
I questioned this very thing many years ago and switched to asking, “What sorts of things do you like to do?” and, “What are you most proud of lately?” They’ve proved to be great conversation starters.
Ideally, someone’s work would be something they like and are proud of, but it’s not always. What people do “for fun” usually gives better insight.
I’m in the market for a HomeKit-capable space heater for our bedroom (read: fairly small and quiet). Anyone out there have one that they particularly like?
Regarding @Denny’s plea for a more diverse and “full range” Micro.blog:
Micro.blog feels like a community of 50 users. While the human curated Discovery timeline sometimes does feel like a feature and a benefit it’s also true that it might be biased by the curators which is only three people. Regular users don’t have access to the full timeline. I feel like a child being babysat and over protected.)
I don’t feel the same desire for a more chaotic timeline. If I wanted to see something different, I’d follow more/different users from across the social web (or just go for a full Mastodon account). But I do see value in an option to see the “firehose” full timeline as a release valve for the limited discovery features here.
Alright, I’ve done it. Voting with my dollars and downgraded our Netflix plan in a 🖕 to their price increase. Not much of a 🖕 though, since they’ll still be getting $15.49 out of me every month. But we’ll save $4.50 from what we’re paying now, and $7.50/month off what it would have gone up to.
🆕📝 Duel of the Defaults!: Jarrod Enters the Ring
I present my defaults as a challenge to the reigning Mr. Default. Inspired by @hemisphericviews@social.lol.
Are you an aspiring Puzzmonaut? I just got in, and now I’ve got this link to share. Solve today’s puzzle there and you’re guaranteed an entry key, even though all the public keys are gone for today. The link expires around midnight ET, so you’ve only got an hour-ish to solve it.
Get puzzling!