2021s
-
Finished reading: Ready Player Two: A Novel by Ernest Cline π
-
Following on from yesterday’s experiment of offloading thoughts into Tot I’ve been trying to do the same with Org-roam.
I’ve created a little bit of elisp and added it to my
.doom.d/config.el:(defun my-add-to-org-roam-daily-today (text) "Add TEXT to the Org roam today daily as an item at the end." (save-window-excursion (org-roam-dailies-goto-today) (goto-char (point-max)) (org-insert-heading) (insert text) (save-buffer)))This creates a new command in Emacs for adding some text as an item to the end of today’s Org-roam daily.
The Alfred workflow calls the Emacs command via emacsclient (so Emacs will need to be running):
It isn’t very forgiving of single/double quotes (and may get confused by other characters potentially), however for my purposes of quickly adding a concise thought to my daily log it does the job.
-
I’m giving using a pomodoro timer a try again - specifically one from SetApp Session. In order to try and stop myself getting distracted I’ve created a new Alfred Workflow which allows me to quickly offload ideas which come into my head into Tot. Then at the end of a session I can review my distractions and either create tasks for them in Org mode or (more likely) put them in the bin.
-
Finished reading: PACHINKO by Min Jin Lee π
-
I use Org mode clocking for tracking time spent on billable tasks. Until recently I was using Hammerspoon and a hand crafted Lua script to show my current task, and total time spent, in the macOS menubar. However it had an issue - if I put my Mac to sleep it would stop automatically updating. I’ve now made the move to xbar which is so much simpler. I wrote a tiny zsh script to accomplish the same task which in Lua was tens of lines rather than lines you can count on one hand.
-
Just dropped the children off for their first day back at school. Afterwards I went for a coffee with my wife and had to download yet another parking app. I would imagine most people download apps to pay for car parking at the car park itself. So why don’t the makers of these apps prioritise the size of the app? Nearly 100MB…
-
For a while now I’ve been using Day One for general note taking during the working day. For planning and document creation (e.g. client proposals for new projects) I use Org mode. I’ve recently been evaluating Obsidian, Craft and Org roam as a better place for my work note taking. I’m not going to go too deeply into Zettelkasten but I do want a way to link notes together - e.g. notes on a project should be linked to that project and then to the client.
Obsidian looks like a great system with a lot of potential. However it is, in my opinion, an untidy interface and has a steep learning curve. Definite kudos for including a ViM plugin - however I’ve found a number of things I couldn’t work how how to do using the keyboard (such as switching focus from the search field to the list of results). Given that I use Emacs it seems silly to go down the Obsidian rabbit hole when I should be able to make Emacs do everything I need.
Craft looks beautiful - and has some very clever ideas and innovations. However it lacks clear ways to hook into automation on macOS, no ViM shortcuts for editing and seems focused on creating nice looking longer documents rather than on taking short notes.
Org roam has always been the obvious choice as I use Emacs/Org mode for so much already. Having watched the excellent videos from System Crafters I feel confident that it will fit very well into my existing ways of working. I could do with spending a little time getting some Alfred integration going for adding quick notes to my daily note, but that will hopefully be easy enough.
I will certainly continue to use Day One for my personal journalling due to its excellent support for photos and videos and the iOS client.
-
I’m mostly happy to see one of my own apps sherlocked by the purchase of Primephonic by Apple. I’ve never really got much traction with my app Classical and to be honest I’m happier to see how Apple Music itself now might become a much better place to be for classical music fans than I am by any plans I had for my own app.
-
I had promised a client a build of an app today. However I’ve got no signal on my mobile - needed to receive the 2FA code so I can get access to App Store Connect. It looks as though there is an issue with a nearby cell tower:
Thankfully it’s not an urgent fix - but a definite annoyance that it can’t be done due to an issue like this!
-
New release Friday. I’m very much looking forward to playing wurdweb from Apple Arcade and checking out the new classical music releases.
-
Finished reading: The Midnight Library by π
-
Finished reading: Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro π
-
I feel as though I’m making progress with the Android ARCore task I’m working on - although painfully slowly. The Samsung S7 which I’m now using for this isn’t helping, but at least it has a compass unlike the newer Moto G9 I was using. I’ve got an S10 on order from eBay which should hopefully arrive later in the week.
-
Music Bar is a menu bar app that shows you what is currently playing on Apple Music. I’m very much enjoying this recent find. github.com/musa11971…
-
In the past I’ve been slightly scathing of using web technologies to create apps. However I’ve been investigating using Ionic for a potential client project. They already have a massive amount of code written for the web in Angular/TypeScript and this new project will need to work across platforms. It is business facing and wouldn’t be feasible with separate native apps written. Having played with Ionic this afternoon I’m impressed by how far these sorts of frameworks have come and now quite excited about recommending it for this particular project.
-
Finished reading: Foundation by Isaac Asimov π
-
Finished reading: The Thing Itself by Adam Roberts π
-
Bluebells and dandelion snow
The woods near where I live aren’t very big, so it was a lovely surprise to see such large clumps of bluebells. On... -
Enjoyed Great British Photography Challenge this evening. Great to see so many assignments in one episode, and a nice change that no one is ‘sent home’ at the end.
-
My wife bought some shampoo, conditioner and shower bars to try and reduce the number of plastic bottles we buy. The shampoo bar is great and I find it quicker to wash my hair than when messing about opening a plastic bottle and squeezing. However the bars aren’t labelled so I ended up using the wrong one thinking it was conditioner - took a good few washes to remove the feeling of stickiness!
-
I’m only just getting round to having a play with Catalyst for creating Mac versions of iOS apps. I’ve been using it over the last couple of days to create a version of my app Classical for macOS. If you enjoy classical music and are an Apple Music subscriber it would be great to get some feedback.
For more information and a download link
The macOS version of the app will be free with no in-app purchases or adverts.
-
Finished reading: Something Childish But Very Natural by Katherine Mansfield π
-
I’m finally dealing with the ever dwindling space on my iMac. Its a machine purely for work/software development - so no photos, music or other media. I’m going to move my Windows 10 VM onto an external SSD, and maybe my primary Linux VM as well. That should give Xcode lots more space to continue growing with every release and for all the caches, archives and Simulators under its care.
-
Finished: The Absolutist by John Boyne π
-
Listening to Takemitsu, Hindemith, JanΓ‘Δek, Silvestrov: Five Pieces by Duo Gazzana π΅
-
Just finished: Gridlinked by Neal L. Asher π. They mentioned this on The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe podcast and I’m very happy with the recommendation. Published in 2001 before we all plugged ourselves into the internet via our smartphones and poses some interesting questions about human augmentation and the future role of AI in society.
-
This weeks panel edition of the podcast “The Bunker” recommended “The Long Goodbye by Riz Ahmed”. This is not an album I would probably have considered but I like to step outside of my musical comfort zone every now and again. No regrets - I’ll be listening to this again soon.
-
I took another look at Apple Podcasts earlier to see if the changes made in iOS 14.5 make it worth me switching from Castro. The answer is a definite no The inbox and queue system in Castro has no parallel in Apple Podcasts, and will keep me using Castro for some time to come.
-
It seems like there was more announced at yesterday’s Apple event than most people hoped for. I may become tempted by the new Apple TV. My son uses ours for Apple Arcade and it struggles with some of the more complex games - and I want to put off as long as possible (or maybe indefinitely) him wanting a ‘proper’ games console…
-
We listen to a lot of music in our house, and it is lovely to see our children really taking an interest in both playing and enjoying music. My wife has a blog to help parents instill a love of music in their children and has posted a review of a book that our little ones enjoyed exploring over the Easter holidays.
The Jumo orchestra have arrived at the concert hall to play their concert, only to find that their musical instruments have all gone missing. Lucky for the orchestra, the Why Squad are on hand to help them find their instruments. The Why Squad save the day and at the end of the book they stay to listen to the concert.
-
Looks like the Emacs builds from emacsformacosx.com now support Apple Silicon. Something to try this evening.
-
Today’s game was with my very nearly four year old. Press Here Game is great for children just getting into games which are a step up from snakes and ladders. We had a lovely twenty minutes playing this whilst my wife cut my sons hair ready for going back to school tomorrow.
-
π΅ The Brandenburg Project βοΈβοΈβοΈβοΈβοΈ - fantastic.
-
Key To The Kingdom is a game my sister and I used to play when we were children. She found it on eBay and I’ve borrowed it to play with my son. I’d forgotten how long a game takes, and the rules feel a little like you’re playing Bamboozled. A fun blast from the past and my son didn’t want to stop playing even after I’d escaped with the key!
-
I’m working on a location based app this month. One of the trails has you wandering up and down the high street and prompting you to properly take notice of what you see. The shops have evocative titles such as “Cheese Rooms” and “Nanny Bev’s”. Maybe once things start getting back to normal I should visit Rochester and try out the walks.
-
We’ve stepped up our campaign against the clothes moths. Whilst the sticky moth traps which attracted the males were catching plenty they hadn’t sufficiently reduced their numbers. We have today pulled out all the furniture in the bedroom, thoroughly vacuumed and used a moth carpet spray to kill any eggs and remaining moths. We witnessed many bare patches of carpet. Carefully boxed/bagged up clothes were no match for the moths and much had to be thrown out. We’ll be repeating this process in a few weeks and with any luck will eventually be moth free.
-
I’ve just been listening to Voice 2 by Max Richter π΅. The first of this pair of albums was a trigger for me to think more about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and what a landmark document it is - and also how far away so many countries are from it. This second album is worth a listen but lacks the impact of the first which featured spoken extracts from the UDHR.
-
There aren’t too many places you can go at the moment in the UK if you want an afternoon out, especially if you have a wife and daughter who aren’t big fans of dogs (my son is quite partial to them.) Thankfully we are members of the Birmingham Botanical Gardens and managed to book a space for this afternoon. Like most attractions in England they are managing to hold on using the furlough scheme and I imagine the smaller number of staff they have kept active are working very hard to keep everything open and tidy. We had a lovely couple of hours looking at the trees in bloom, spring flowers and of course the playground.
-
It’s the Easter holidays so I’ve taken the day off. This morning my son and I have been playing with Gravitrax.
-
I’ve often finished listening to an album on Apple Music and seen interesting albums in the “You Might Also Like” section. I decided to let this feature guide my listening today. I didn’t get as many albums listened to as I’d planned due to some unplanned calls with clients, but still managed to listen to three albums all the way through.
My journey started off with Stravinsky: Le Sacre du Printemps by Teodor Currentzis. This then led me to J. S. Bach: Harpsichord Concertos by Andreas Staier, and finally to Mozart: Keyboard Music, Vol. 7 featuring Kristian Bezuidenhout.
It would be interesting to see how far in terms of genre and style of music as you could just by following these suggestions. I’m not working tomorrow so maybe a challenge for Friday!
-
Homemade WHAT THE GOLF?
-
We like books in our household. Sometimes with children it’s hard to get the quiet time needed for a really good reading session, and it’s too easy just to collapse in front of the TV on in the evening. So Thursday is reading night. As it’s now the Easter holidays our six year old stayed up a little later once his sister had gone to bed and joined us with his book of choice.
This evening my wife, son and I were reading:
- 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World by Elif Shafak
- The Twits by Roald Dahl
- Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
-
Had a little look at logseq.com. Looks interesting. Good to see more projects using the Org mode file format being developed.
-
In the Android emulator not that long ago you could give it a longitude and latitude for testing location based apps. They’ve now made location control more user friendly by providing a map on which you can tap to set your location. My guess is that most developers find this anything other than helpful as we want to provide a precise location.
You can do this using the Android console. I always forget the exact steps required so this is a reminder for my future self for the next time I need to do this:
β ~ cat ~/.emulator_console_auth_token rWLLmxgfZpw0sb4D% β ~ telnet localhost 5554 Trying ::1... Connected to localhost. Escape character is '^]'. Android Console: Authentication required Android Console: type 'auth
' to authenticate Android Console: you can find your in '/Users/matt/.emulator_console_auth_token' OK auth rWLLmxgfZpw0sb4D Android Console: type 'help' for a list of commands OK geo fix -2.568001 51.809137 (geo fix requires latitude and then longitude, rather than the more usual way around)
-
Only a few days now until our children are off school for the Easter holidays. My wife has been busily blogging away while she has some free time. I’m sure we’ll be making some of these homemade musical instruments over the next couple of weeks!
Are you looking for something easy to make for your children to play with over the holidays? How about trying out a homemade musical instrument. This percussion instrument is probably one of the easiest instruments to “make” and involves gathering a few items you already have at home. Hours of wholesome musical fun awaits. Or at least 15 minutes.
DIY Guiro - Get Kids Into Music
-
A web app I’m working on at the moment contains a domain specific vector graphics editor. I keep going back and forth with the client on scroll direction and zooming. I thought it was down to macOS vs Windows. However I’ve just discovered that the Google Maps website and the Apple Maps macOS app both handle scroll direction when zooming differently. On Google Maps if I slide my finger ‘up’ on my Magic Mouse it zooms out. On Apple Maps it zooms in (with the help of the shift key). I think its time to give up - and have zoom work as it does on Google Maps and be counter-intuitive for us Mac types (I doubt any/many macOS users will use this web app anyway).
-
Listening to Iag Bari by Fanfare CiocΔrlia π΅Something a bit different than my usual listening to start the morning off with.
-
We’ve started giving pocket money to the children. Rather than giving them cash we are giving them plastic tokens. When they want to buy something they can give us the tokens in exchange for cash or an online purchase. My son is saving for the Lego Avengers Helicarrier. After counting the money he’s been given over the past couple of years in his piggy bank he’s worked out that he has ten weeks to go. Thankfully he doesn’t seem disappointed that he can’t buy it today. Hopefully he’ll start learning the joy of saving up for something he really wants.
-
Listening to J.S. Bach: Spira, Spera by Emmanuel Despax π΅This is a very welcome companion to some Friday morning bug fixing βοΈβοΈβοΈβοΈβοΈ. Thank you to the updated Apple Music new albums which brought this to my attention.
-
A trick used by some manufacturers of low end Android devices is to deliberately disable animations. This makes the phone snappier and stops the UI feeling sluggish as the hardware struggles with animations which are used throughout the system.
Whilst this has no impact on functionality in general usage, there are many cases where the animation is the functionality. I had added a simple feature to an app recently which faded between two images - one a historical photo and another one taken recently. The client had a Huawei P30 lite which has animator duration scale disabled by default - and can only be changed by enabling developer mode. When they tried the image fader what they saw was the app quickly switching between two images - and was essentially a broken feature for this user.
Thank goodness for Stack Overflow. I’m hoping that this workaround, which uses a private API to set animation duration scale back to 1x for the app, doesn’t trigger the app being rejected. This is another demonstration of why indie developers are often iOS first - there are so many more variables to consider when doing Android development.
-
Listening to Mirrors: 21st Century American Piano Trios by Lysander Piano Trio π΅
-
Listening to Vivaldi’s Seasons by Bolette Roed π΅
-
I haven’t used Drafts for ages. The new custom syntaxes looks very interesting. Maybe I need to take another look.
-
The office-ish chair I ordered for home last year, as the stay at home order looked likely to continue, is starting to become uncomfortable. The foam in the cushion keeps getting squished to the sides leaving me sitting on the hard surface below. I’m hoping the memory foam seat cushion I’ve ordered resolves my discomfort.
-
Tippy.js - Tooltip, Popover, Dropdown, and Menu Library
Tippy.js - Tooltip, Popover, Dropdown, and Menu Library What a fantastic example of a well documented library where it i... -
Listening to Highway Rider by Brad Mehldau π΅
-
My go to radio station is Radio 3. BBC Sounds is a fantastic service for exploring it’s archive and recent programmes. This morning I’m listening to In Tune Mixtape - Countdown to Spring with an eclectic classical music mix
-
An app I’d been working on for a client was rejected by Apple this morning. It is a location based app which unlocks a small feature if you visit a particular set of places. As this is a feature that Apple couldn’t test they need a video demoing the feature. Whilst annoying to be tripped up by this I’m happy that Apple take the time to make sure apps don’t contain any hidden nasties.
-
Listening to Bach & Busoni: Goldberg Variations & Other Works by Chiyan Wong π΅
-
Just finished listening to “Emacs, Doom, Vim, Lisp & Games - with Henrik Lissner, Emacs Doom Creator”. I say listen as I used Castro’s side loading feature to transform the YouTube video into audio that I could listen to from my podcast player app. youtu.be/LKegZI9vW…
-
Listening to Schubert: Winterreise, Op. 89, D. 911 by Roderick Williams π΅
-
I’m often testing apps which make use of your location. Whilst I have various scripts to make this less frustrating sometimes it is less effort to just enter the location directly into the simulator. There is no keyboard shortcut assigned by default to setting a custom location. So I’m giving Paletro a try. This gives you a command palette for pretty much any application based off of the apps menu.
So far it is speeding up what I’m doing no end - fantastic! Great to see apps like this regularly appearing on my Setapp subscription.
-
Regardless of whether this particular device is actually going to make it to market, this is the type of innovation that we should be encouraging via public investment. I can’t see how technologies such as heat pumps are going to be suitable for the house I live in (terraced and 120 years old) which is common across Birmingham and other cities in the UK.
First microwave-powered home boiler could help cut emissions | The Guardian
-
Listening to Rebirth by Sonya Yoncheva π΅
On occasion I come across what I can only describe as a lovely surprise - and this album fits that description.
-
Our children were not cooperative sleepers when babies and toddlers. Whilst my wife bore the brunt of years of our disturbed sleep patterns I don’t miss the early starts and fuzzy days coding on a poor nights sleep. Today has felt like a gentle reminder of those years through a combination of my own early waking over the past few days and unusually premature waking of both little ones. I’m looking forward to being more alert tomorrow.
-
Listening to Jolas: Ventosum Vocant by Ensemble Accroche Note π΅
-
Listening to Con-ri-sonanza: Works by Thomas Simaku by Joseph Houston π΅
-
My weekly todo list
I use Org mode to track projects, tasks and a huge amount of other stuff. I’m trying out though having quicker acc... -
Listening to Vivaldi - Paganini - Tartini by Nils MΓΆnkemeyer π΅
-
The default method of generating a .mbtiles database in QGIS (generate XYZ tiles) is showing gaps at certain zoom levels. Thankfully the QMetaTiles plugin seems to produce a working database for an offline mapping code. I’m using a historical map supplied as a JPEG rather than another tile source so never come across this issue before.
-
Useful website with breakdown of users on iOS 14 and 13 App Store - Support - Apple Developer
-
For the first time in many years I’ve found myself using Inkscape. I needed to import a bunch of SVG images into Fontello so I could extend an icon font for a project I’m working on. The SVG export from Sketch resulted in most of the imported images showing up empty. Thankfully the Fontello wiki provided a step by step guide to cleaning up the images in Inkscape suitable for import.
-
I found myself needing to review how best to sit on an office chair this morning. I have very lazy posture when sitting…
How To Sit In Your Office Chair Properly?Β 6 Simple Steps To Improve Your Posture - Pointer Clicker
-
Waiting for builds… Now the children are back at school my wife finally has some time for learning more about Wordpress. She has done a fantastic job improving the look and feel of her website this morning. If you have little ones and want some music based activities to do with them check out Get Kids Into Music.
-
I most definitely identify with this:
I find some days that I struggle to decide what to work on next, self-management is something I struggle with. Deciding what app gets time spent on it is another struggle, users expect features constantly across my line of apps. The most enjoyable part is that moment you get a good review or nice feedback from a user. It makes it all feel worthwhile.
From an interview with the developer Aaron Pearce at Indie Dev Monday.Γ₯
-
Listening to Gershwin & Debussy: Two Worlds by Andrejs Osokins π΅
-
The podcasts I regularly listen to are hosted by multiple presenters. I very rarely listen to podcasts about software development, just because it’s what I’m doing all day. This morning on the way back from dropping the children off at school I gave a listen to Abstract Development by Vincent Ritter. As an indie developer myself who mixes client work and work on my own apps it was interesting to hear another developer think through things such as whether to move over to SwiftUI and on the pros/cons of using a platform such as React given the obvious constraints on projects with only one developer. A great example of why podcasts are such a useful medium.
-
Listening to a playlist for International Women’s Day - Caroline Shaw: Visionary Women on Apple Music
-
If Apple were to allow purchase of digital products, such as gems in a game or a monthly subscription to a weather app, what measures should they need to put in place to protect users? A benefit of the current mechanism of in-app purchases is that each in-app product is reviewed and approved by Apple. I'm all for opening up the platform where it leads to greater innovation, choice and competition. But I wouldn't want to see scams and other predatory behaviour making the App Store a more dangerous place for the unwary or less knowledgeable.
-
I missed a number of the details in the Wandavision finale which I was happy to have Den of Geek explain to me - https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/wandavision-finale-ending-explained/
-
Do I have time for another magazine subscription? Insert in this months Prospect Magazine is looking tempting... Slightly Foxed - https://foxedquarterly.com
-
Best recent purchase was a neck reading light. After my daughter stuck a raisin onto the bulb of a reading lamp which started smouldering I decided to investigate portable alternatives that the children couldn’t break. A fantastic device that I use for reading all round the house as well as before going to sleep. Very light to have around my neck and the battery lasts for around 80 hours between charges.
-
Listening to Handel: Concerti grossi by Iona Brown π΅
-
Listening to Dear Reader (Original Video Game Soundtrack) by Michael Sweet π΅. I’m not usually one for listening to game soundtracks (and don’t play many games either). However I’ve enjoyed this Apple Arcade game and the soundtrack is quite soothing to have on whilst doing my morning Angular.
-
Happy World Book Day!. This year R and C are Harry Potter and a Unicorn. Not sure why she is a unicorn - the connection to any of her favourite books is at best tenuous!
-
Released an update to my plain text task management app beorg. I’ve finally got around to allowing the app to sync via a file provider - a much requested feature from my users.
-
Assets vs drawable for adding a GroundOverlay to Google Maps on Android
I work on a number of map heavy apps with one of my clients. Recently I was tasked with porting an older app written by ... -
Very useful flexbox cheatsheet for the occasional web developer such as myself
-
Listening to Beethoven Transformed, Volume 2 by Boxwood & Brass π΅
-
Listening to Il labirinto armonico by Ilya Gringolts π΅
-
Sketch Export base64/png - handy for small images that aren’t feasible to include in the icon font being used for a project I’m working on this morning.
-
Classical music on Apple Music
I love the curated classical music page on Apple Music for suggestions of new and recommended albums. However to access ... -
Listening to Bach: Sonatas for Violin & Keyboard Nos 3-6 by David Fray π΅
-
Listening to David Lang: Love Fail (Version for Women’s Chorus) by Lorelei Ensemble π΅
-
Listening to Classically Reminded: Bach by David Rees-Williams Trio π΅
-
Trying out a parsnip tarte tatin recipe this evening
The big test will be whether or not the children even try it. π€’ https://www.foodlovermagazine.com/recipes/parsnip-tarte-tatin/14837
