The Ephemeral Scrapbook — Edition 2024-47

Once upon a time... before computers...

JF Martin on Glass

The following is a summary of my contribution activities since the previous newsletter edition
👨🏻‍💻 5 posts 😔
🏞️ 7 photos shared 🙂
🎙️ No podcast episode published 😔
📺 One YouTube video published 🙂
Did you know that I once created a public daily journal during my trip to Italy in 2022? You can still have a look at it right here.

👤 Personal

1️⃣ This was the thanksgiving week; I find the marketing around thanksgiving a bit tiring. Even as a consumer, I'm not ok with this systematic consumerism promotion. That being said, I'm always trying to be thankful for my life, my friends, my wife, my sons, all year long.

🗺️ Discoveries

1️⃣ What is happening these days with the company's logo design? See below. Computer and smartphone screens resolutions have never been so high, printing quality has never been so good, electronic billboards have never been so popular and big, and TVs have never been so good. Yet, companies turn their logo into unappealing designs without personality. Why? 2️⃣ I discovered the Minutes to Midnight blog. The design is super clean. It’s a fascinating personal website. He wrote a personal manifesto, which I find inspiring. Maybe I should write one myself.

📖 Reading

1️⃣ I'm slowly getting used to focusing on Inoreader for all my reading needs. A recent blog article on the Inoreader website gives valuable details about the reading capabilities of Inoreader RSS readers.

Read-later services or applications result from facing or having too much content availability and a lack of time to consume that content promptly.

“…so many people use Chrome that many developers don’t always test if their websites work correctly in Safari. That’s absolutely a problem and it’s a frustration for Safari users.” — Matt Birchler

👨🏻‍💻 Writing

1️⃣ This week's writing projects were focused on writing the release highlight to go with the recent release of Craft 3.0. It's a significant milestone in the history of Craft that requires more attention than usual. This article is for The Craft Bible 2.0 subscribers. 2️⃣ The second writing project was an update for Medium members about my freelancing aspirations that were suddenly paused. I explained why on my Medium page. 3️⃣ As we enter the last month of the year, I'm facing the daunting task of finishing three feature articles: a personal year in review, a Craft year in review and finally, an Apple year in review. The latter has not even started, so the former two are in good shape. Yet, I'm unsure if I’ll have enough free time to finish and publish those pieces. I'm willing to drop the Apple year in review to focus on the other two that are more unique and might gain more traction. 4️⃣ Don't miss the monthly digest of my posts on Micro.blog for the month of November.

🌄 Photography

1️⃣ Unsplash Awards, 2024 edition is out! Oh boy there are so many stunning photos! If you must watch sometime this week, it’s that photos showcase. I always been a big fan of Unsplash but I must say that I don’t contribute as much as I would like. Not everything is Unsplash-worthy, though. 2️⃣ Sandra Roberts on Glass shares many great pictures. I discovered her because she saw some of my photos and liked them and gave me some feedback. I was curious and went to visit her website build on Adobe Portfolio. She's is really good photographer. We seems to share a passion for uban photography. 3️⃣ If something bad happens to Photomator since the Apple acquisition, maybe I should consider using Darkroom instead? I saw a thanksgiving promotion on Glass and thought that Darkroom could share directly processed images to the service, but it's not the case. This reminds me of something that I'd like to see in Glass: support for third-party photo-editing apps for easy sharing. 4️⃣ Another photographer discovered on Glass, Wayne MacPhail. I found this image especially telling.

https://sandraroberts.myportfolio.com/projects

Wayne MacPhail on Glass Photography Community

Wayne MacPhail. Enthusiast who shoots with iPhone 16 Pro, Ricoh GRiii X, Sony A6600 in the Hamilton, Ontario.

🍎 Apple

1️⃣ John Gruber has an interesting blog post about Apple's acquisition of Pixelmator. He's a bit late, but his perspective required more research and deeper thinking than mine. He suggests that Apple might be more interested in Pixelmator Pro than Photomator. This would be my worst-case scenario, as I depend on Photomator for most of my photo-editing needs. Or maybe it is about competing against Creative Cloud. 2️⃣ Matt Birchler wishes he could find a reason to get the new M4 Mac mini. I did. And I'm glad. It's the best desktop Mac ever owned, if not the best. 3️⃣ According to Apple, Shazam crossed the 100 billion song recognitions. Shazam has a great story with Apple, and it clearly demonstrates that an app acquired by Apple can strive. I hope the same will happen with Pixelmator. 4️⃣ Yes, the Apple TV hardware is just fine. Don't believe people who think that Apple should make a TV set. It's a distraction. 5️⃣ Windows Recall entered in beta (again). Would you like something like this on macOS, made by Apple? As someone who tested Rewind, I would love to see that on the Mac. 6️⃣ It's time to talk about the iPhone 17 rumours, already. Oops.

“They could sell a bundle for, just spitballing here, $20/month or $200/year that would include the Mac and iPad versions of Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator, and possibly Photomator. Maybe throw in some extra iCloud storage.” — John Gruber on the possible future of Pixelmator apps under Apple’s umbrella.

🚧 Special projects

1️⃣ I'm well positioned with my efforts to update content in Craft to support Craft Tasks better to be introduced in the upcoming version 3. It's rather tedious, and I'm unsure how to recoup this time investment and how I will use task management in Craft if I ever will. 2️⃣ I'm thinking of doing my first YouTube live stream session. I could set up this session for the Craft users community where I could explore Craft live and answer questions. I need two essential pieces of equipment for this to happen: a pricey Rodecaster Video and a compatible webcam. I created a poll on YouTube for the community, asking if there is an appetite for this. If not, I could do the same, but only for The Craft Bible subscribers. 3️⃣ I want to mention the first anniversary of The Craft Bible 2.0. It's been a long ride. There are many paying subscribers, and I have been able to update the content regularly since the beginning. I wish I could do more, but the lack of time holds it. In a perfect world, it could become a collaborative project, but sadly, not many people are willing to invest the time required to maintain a project like this one. 4️⃣ I'm looking at opportunities to design websites with RealMac Software Elements. So far, I have three candidates. I would do this to build websites with great software, just for fun. It's easier to start from an existing website than starting from scratch. I could redo the website for the company I'm currently working for. I could also redo the one for Micro.blog and do the one for my freelancing company.

📱 Apps & Services

1️⃣ MindNote is now MindNode Classic, but MindNote Next is out with another more expensive subscription. I’ll finish my current subscription with the classic version before switching to the newest edition. I like MindNote but don’t use it often. 2️⃣ Apple names the 2024 Apps of the Year finalists. None of the finalists are part of my apps. 3️⃣ Apple Frames 3.3. is out, but I prefer Shareshot, which is native and runs great. 4️⃣ I bought an app for my iPad called Orion from the makers of Halides that transforms my iPad into a video monitor using a USB-C cable. I tested it connected to my Nikon Zf camera to display the viewfinder content on my iPad. It works great. It also requires the Elgato CamLink 4K HDMI converter. It's cool. That converter also allows me to plug my Nikon into my Mac and use it as a webcam. It works great. The ultimate goal is to have a webcam compatible with the RODECaster Video switcher, which I plan to buy soon. But before that, I'll test my setup with my next video recording session. My initial tests are promising.

1️⃣ I made a video explaining the upcoming styles features in Craft 3.0, which should be out by the time you read this. It's the first video I produced on the new M4 Mac mini. It's a fast machine for sure, but using a two-screen setup for video production is really nice. You can get a summary of my creative toolset right here on my metablog. I was able to beat the Craft team for the Craft Style feature, but they will beat me for the Collections feature. Anyway! I will go deeper and be more critical of their newest release than anyone could or is willing to. Stay tuned. 2️⃣ Would you use the iPad for 200 days as your main computer? Someone did. Occasionally, I go to the downtown office with my iPad only, which I connect to an external display and bring my wireless keyboard and mouse. I use Microsoft Outlook, Teams, Word and PowerPoint. Straightforward stuff. It works ok. I want to love it, but there are so many rough edges. 3️⃣ Recently, I started listening to ambiance music like this. It gives a feeling of being in a science fiction movie like Dune. Instead of listening to white noises, I prefer a richer acoustic experience. Try it for yourself.

💎 Miscellaneous

1️⃣ Manton Reece writes: “This week Mark Zuckerberg met at Mar-a-Lago with a convicted criminal who is out on bail. I stopped posting to Instagram in 2017, but I keep giving Meta second chances. No more. It’s time to burn this shit to the ground and move forward with the open web. Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to.”. Does that means he is going to remove cross-posting to Thread from Micro.blog.

🔮 Looking forward

1️⃣ We're entering December, already. The year 2024 went so fast. I'm looking forward to conclude this year by meeting my objective: focusing on the things I like to do most. 2️⃣ I'm looking forward to see the next iteration of Apple Intelligence with the first beta of iOS 17.3. This is where we should see if Apple will deliver on its promises of a better Siri.

I wish you a great week! ✌️ 🇺🇦 🇨🇦