marco's µ.blog

The week before Easter was once again very quiet in terms of new software and tech-related stuff. This was probably also because there was a lot to do at work before we went on our Easter vacation. For a few years now, we have been traveling more or less regularly during the Easter holidays together with my wife’s family. She has three siblings, all of whom have partners and children, and our dog joins us as well. This year we went to Belgium, the weather was quite rainy and gray, but that’s okay. We were 15 people and, of course, it was very bustling but also very nice. There was a lot of hiking, eating, reading, playing, and laughing. Especially for the younger ones, who let it show more, the fact that there was almost no functioning internet in the area and in the vacation apartment was quite noticeable. Wi-Fi and mobile networks were unusable. It took several minutes just to retrieve a single email. Social media, game streaming, YouTube, etc. were completely unthinkable. Digital detox par excellence. Actually, it did quite good and that was the reason there was also no post here on the blog last week. 🐣

Therefore, in brief and in continuation of week 12, here are very few thoughts and things that caught my attention in the 13th and 14th week of 2024:

• 📘 During the vacation, I finished my first novel ¹ in a long time and read a second book within another day. The third one is also already half done: DOOM Guy: Life in First Person by John Romero. I wouldn’t have thought it, but I find the autobiography very interesting so far. (Doom actually had a big impact on me during my school years.)

• 📷 Also not a novel, but already noted, a new Take Control Book: Take Control of iPhone Photography.

• ✍️ I couldn’t resist playing with Vincent’s Scribbles; I “secretly” played with a small side project there, which Habit immediately discovered.

• 💻 Alongside Rectangle Pro and Superkey, I started trying out another app by Ryan Hanson: Charmstone - The quicker switcher launcher for macOS.

• 🖥️ I asked on Mastodon for Terminal alternatives and three were mainly mentioned: Warp: Your terminal, reimagined, WezTerm - Wez’s Terminal Emulator, and iTerm2 - macOS Terminal Replacement. I haven’t had the chance yet, but hopefully, I will be able to take a closer look at them over the next week(s).

• 🎮 I was not aware of how easy it can be on macOS to get Windows games purchased from the Epic Game Store or GOG to run: Heroic Games Launcher - An Open Source Epic, GOG, and Amazon Prime Games Launcher.

• Speaking of games: Played Slice & Dice and Balatro. (It’s all Daniel Santos' fault! 😎)

• 🛠️ Chris Hannah released a CLI Tool to Post to Micro.Blog.

• 🌱 Spring is coming and we took this as an opportunity to completely reseed our lawn; it was more of a field than a lawn and therefore urgently needed; we are curious to see if it will turn out well.

• 📺 No television, no movies, no series in the last two weeks.

Have a pleasant week ahead!