Is Micro.blog struggling to publish at the minute or is that just me?
The post was from Sunlit, which appears to have become slower when compared to the last round of publishing performance improvements to the app. Also, sharing to Sunlit from Photos is still broken.
Mac OS 12.2: Music app is still junk.
New Kid on the Blog
Great to see Micro.blog included in the yearly review from Ulysses. This was included in their newsletter.
It would be good to see the Micro.blog team do this. Not even weekly; just something to help highlight events and the like.
Four months since my first Mac, and a month since the new Mac: on my phone I’ve started typing “System” when I want the Settings app.
0.91 + plug-ins: the new hotness
0.54 + custom theme: it just works
Ah I see Twitter Blue just lost yet another mark against Micro.blog.
The blissful lack of adverts has now been joined by the blissful lack of NFTs and the swill that accompanies it.
Time to give iCloud passwords a proper test-run.
Huh… export is not available for me in the 1Password app. 🧐
Edit: turns out you have to select a specific vault first.
Trying to use Apple Reminders in the same way I would Due and… yikes.
With the likes of Due and Fantastical I’ve come to expect a certain standard of natural language input. Neither Reminders nor Calendar from Apple can reach that standard.
Also makes me doubt Notes.
We’ve barely been living here, on the edge of the country, and already I find myself more and more drawn towards antipathy at the technological world; at the thought of constantly using a hand terminal; at the idea that these computers are automatically better than not.
The inability to remove Apple Music from the Music app is bad enough.
That you can’t do it when you’re not subscribed, and instead it turns entire sections of the app into nothing more than a billboard is gross.
What happened to “We can’t ship junk.”?
Published another batch of updates for TIL earlier on, including a new post type and filter.
The most fun was redesigning the posts footer, including category buttons:
Thanks to @amit for his code and to @frostedechoes for sharing said code!
Clearly need to communicate this better.
Some rambling thoughts:
… And this is mostly stuff that is insular to Micro.blog, the timelines, and whatnot. Beyond that there is the Twitter account, which is ok but again not what I think most people expect.
I know decentralisation and going slow are both important to Micro.blog but there’s a point at which you have to compromise and go where people are used to going; to offer a hand rather than stay in your spot and expect people to be as motivated as the heart of your community.
I think about when a few years ago Belle Cooper said “It feels to me like we’re all at a party at Manton’s house.” and how I didn’t consider that to be too much of a problem at the time, given that it was still the early stages in the development of Micro.blog. Now, however, I think it’s correct to expect Micro.blog to have a clear representation of how the product is not just “for Manton, by Manton” but so much more.
Last week I brought @TIL back after the holiday break, which means in 20 minutes the weekly catch-up email will be published.
You can read more about ICYMI on the site, where you can also sign up.
I spotted a Ghost blog without any labels on it.
Unsure if I should list that as a skill or problem.
I miss my iPad… it was still too limited for what I need in a primary machine but as a detachable, terminal screen it’s just perfect. Reading, concept work, video calls… just a great compliment to the computer.
To the people defending the thievery of Wordle by saying “but Lingo the TV show”:
Apps =/= TV shows
As soon as Micro.blog has account-switching on the web, I’ll be back on Safari. Firefox is… not going well.
Searched for “wordle” on the App Store. Have no idea which one is real and which ones are clones/scams.
Good job, Apple. 👍
Been catching up on Seth Godin’s podcast. Good stuff.
Today I Learned returned yesterday, and now I have released a new update that includes the new domain for the site:
today-i-learned.net
I’m happy to have also updated the site with the new footer, the design of which is now settled until 2.0 (months from now) at the earliest:
Google search isn’t as good as it used to be—I suspect foul play through SEO
These days we’re often looking for a search engine that provides high quality results for specific questions, for free.
The problem here is that Google has sold everybody the complete lie that this is possible. Their results, their service, their websites, are all worse because products built on the back of money-free business models inevitably trend to that point.
Here are the different prices:
The more you leverage the third one – the one that the mainstream web is now built upon – the worse your product becomes over time.
Of course, Rene has put some work in – two hours no less! – and he still has to deal with an inferior product. It’s as if a bad standard has spread throughout all of Google Search. When the foundation of a platform is built with rotten ingredients, the rest is doomed to crumble into useless crap.
We have to change the way we think about things. It’s one of the lessons I learned thanks to Micro.blog; the perception we had of the web as a result of the monopolistic behemoths, is false. Much of it is false, with very little effort put towards sustainability or any of the necessary energy required to build a healthy environment.
In a lot of ways it the web works better for you if you take on an older mindset; say, 5 to 10 years back, and spend less energy relying on whatever marketing spin comes from your behemoth service provider. I do this for every piece of tech I own and it serves me well.
Oh, as for Rene and his question, unfortunately I don’t have the answer. I only know that it isn’t so simple, or at least not as simple as a mega-corp’s marketing department would have you believe.
I’m relieved to see that Doppler made it onto the Mac. I’m going to get it as soon as I can, and then dump the Music app.