I just realized that I’m slowly getting old and tired. In the past, I knew at least a little bit about every (Apple) thing. Nowadays, I’ve lost track and have no desire to understand whether I can simply integrate Matter devices into my existing Homekit setup or if I need to make some fundamental changes and then everything implodes. I’d rather not touch anything and just let it continue as it is. And what is this RCS? Does it also run on mobile data or does the provider charge a fee for each message, like for an SMS? And if so, why does anyone believe that it could somehow be an alternative to WhatsApp? And these passkeys; is there really no way to copy them from Keychain to 1Password or vice versa? Do I have to think in advance about how and where to save them? Seriously? Then I’d rather stick with conventional passwords. Oh man 🤷♂️🤦♂️
You can do so much fun stuff with Obsidian and Dataview. I added notes for all of my electronic gear and based on properties for purchase date and price an inline dataview calculates the costs per week for each item, every time the note is opened 🤩
This is the actual inline calculation for cost/week:
preis: price property; as I am located in GER I use a textfield with an entry like “42,99 €”; therefore the replacement of “,” by “.” and conversion to a number
kaufdatum: purchase date property
Update 2023-12-05
Here is a slightly improved version of the inline field:
You can do so much fun stuff with Obsidian and Dataview. I added notes for all my pico-8 games, containing the cartridge png itself and added some Templater and Properties magic. With the help of Keyboard Maestro I can now click on the little play button in my Dataview table and the game just launches 🤩
Adam told me to stay on the path, so I’m trying to motivate myself to get back into the habit of writing down what has interested me throughout the week. So, here comes week 47.
🎮 I finished playing Horizon Forbidden West. It was my first computer game in years, and probably the first AAA title in decades that I actually watched the end credits for. Usually, I start playing and then eventually stop. (Why should it be any different with video games than with other areas of my life?) I invested over 100 hours into Forbidden West, and whether or not that was a waste of time is for each person to decide, but I had a lot of fun. Over the past two weeks, I used the Playstation Portal. This accessory for the PS5 is essentially just a (pretty good, but unfortunately not OLED) screen with a built-in, very good controller - nothing more and nothing less. It allows me to play on the couch in the living room while my wife watches one of her shows. (My wife doesn’t like me playing games on the TV in the living room when she’s present.) The Portal suffers from the same weaknesses as Playstation’s Remote Play itself: even with very good Wi-Fi coverage and the PS5 connected to the router with a cable (and properly configured), there are regular artifacts, slow downs, and sometimes even stuttering. I really hope that Sony gives its Remote Play implementation a little bit more attention and love now that they sell a dedicated device for this feature. But ultimately, I’m quite satisfied, and the hardware is really well-made. (The lack of Bluetooth support doesn’t bother me at all; I wouldn’t want to constantly pair BT headphones anyway, and I actually have some very good headphones with a headphone jack that are happy to have found a new use.)
👾 Recently, my Powkiddy RGB30 also arrived. The handheld device was highly praised by a bunch of youtubers and the 1:1 screen is really great for GB, GBA, and GBC games. I also really like JELOS. HOWEVER, the hardware quality and customer service of this device and this company are extremely poor. The device arrived defective, with a stuck shoulder button. I had to contact Powkiddy multiple times to get a response. They casually suggested that I could try opening it up. Opening up a device that is only a few days old, still under warranty, with a spatula and screwdriver is not exactly what I had in mind. I actually managed to open the case and free the button without causing major damage to the device. Shortly after, another shoulder button got stuck, and then the first one again. And if that wasn’t enough, the card slot eject mechanism also broke. All within one week. I really don’t feel like having to dismantle the device every two days just to play a game for a few minutes. Powkiddy mentioned that I could send the device back to China at my own expense and then get a refund - yeah, right. Never ever again! 😡
👾 Speaking of retro gaming, while setting up the RGB30, I stumbled upon the pico-8 Fantasy Console and was immediately impressed. I wasn’t aware of the extent of this community. There are so many nice games, and almost all of them are free. You can play them on macOS, a variety of other operating systems, and even on retro handhelds. And as if that weren’t enough, there’s also the TIC-80. Oh boy!
🖥️ During the Black Week, or whatever this discount rally is called, I made my way through the impressive list of over 400 apps for macOS and iOS in the Indie App Sales 2023. Fortunately, I already own the ones that interest me most and “only” bought three additional small apps this year:
Nevertheless, it’s an impressive list that also includes many Mastodon developer accounts that I didn’t know about before. Definitely worth looking into.
🖥️ I also noticed the Apps campaign: 10 applications for you and your Mac. It really only lists great apps. And even though I use Moom, I’ve bought a single Mac license of Lasso and both play quite nicely together.
⌨️ Launchbar, the launcher I’ve been using on macOS for almost 10 years, recently had noticeable delays when launching. It was impressive how my muscle memory was trained to expect to be able to perform actions immediately after pressing cmd+space. It was so bad, I took a look at Alfred and Raycast again, but thanks to the nightly build Version 6.18.5 nightly (6247), everything is back to how I’m used to it 😅
😍 Oh, and definitely not to be left unmentioned is this insanely awesome App Defaults movement that Robb unintentionally kicked off and wonderfully shows off.
👖 Furthermore, I enjoyed “the walkthrough explaining the inner workings of the ship that made the kessel run in less than 12 parsecs”, saved ASCIIFlow in my bookmarks, and pants whose pockets may not be worn out by the phone after a few months.
It feels like every day for weeks now is a special day and everything is and will be discounted. Oh, wouldn’t life be nice if things were just generally cheaper and my inbox was spared the flood of advertising? Anyway …
There’s another Indie App Sale this year and there are now over 400 (!) programs listed for macOS and iOS. Fortunately, I already own the ones that interest me most and bought three additional apps this year:
Nevertheless, it’s an impressive list that also includes many Mastodon developer accounts that I didn’t know about before. Definitely worth looking into.
I also noticed the Apps campaign: 10 applications for you and your Mac. It really only lists great apps. And even though I use Moom, I’ve been dancing around Lasso for a long time, maybe I’ll buy it this time?
TIL that you can easily uninstall your entire MS Office package under #macOS with Office Reset (https://office-reset.com/), then download only the app(s) you need from the Mac Appstore and use your existing Office 365 subscription. I always thought you had to purchase a new one somehow via Apple IAP. Cool, now I’m rid of all that garbage MS AutoUpdater.
Here are a few things that caught my attention in week 37.
