I saw maique posting it and it seems, Manton started it …

The idea is very nice and so I thought I would join in. 😎

I haven’t yet been to many different countries. That’s mainly because my wife and I decided two decades ago to avoid cars and planes for traveling. And with just a bike and / or by train, you don’t get very far unless you have a lot of time. Unfortunately, I don’t. (And of course money always plays a certain role, too.)

Anyway, here is the list of countries I have visited so far:

• Argentina 🇦🇷
• Austria 🇦🇹
• Czech Republic 🇨🇿
• Denmark 🇩🇰
• England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿
• France 🇫🇷
• Germany 🇩🇪
• Italy 🇮🇹
• Russia 🇷🇺
• Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
• Slovenia 🇸🇮
• Spain 🇪🇸
• Switzerland 🇨🇭
• Wales 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿
• USA 🇺🇸

Iron Curtain Trail Day Three 🚴‍♂️🚴💨💨

Iron Curtain Trail Day Two 💨💨🚴‍♂️🚴‍♀️🥴😄

Iron Curtain Trail Day One 🚴‍♂️🚴

Here the ride begins 🚴‍♂️🚴 …

Waiting in Hanover for the second train to arrive.

Currently reading: How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens 📚

2.5 days of cycling ahead of us 🥰

Brewery

I went to a brewery and had

Problems connecting Apple Wireless Keyboard (Aluminum) to MacBook

I have an old Apple Wireless Keyboard (model A1314) that has served me very well. Yesterday it suddenly stopped connecting to my MacBook Pro (M1). It was listed, but clicking on connect did nothing. I made macOS Ventura forget the device and tried to reconnect it, but to no avail. I shut down the keyboard and rebooted everything, still no luck. I held the power button on the keyboard (no cable to connect with) until it flashed, tried several new batteries, asked the internet and just could not find a solution.

It turned out that I had to press and hold the power button on my keyboard until it went into pairing mode, and I had to hold it down throughout the entire setup process, even while entering the pairing code (it did not even show up with my other approaches, only spinning indicators resulting in dead ends). I am 100% certain that I have never performed such an acrobatic dance to connect a keyboard to a computer before. But maybe I'm going senile.

What I did in week six, 2023

In continuation to week five, here are the things I was interested in week six, 2023:

• 🐍 A few weeks ago, I had the top case of my MacBook replaced because the battery was defective. I took the opportunity to completely reinstall the system. Most of it is now up and running, but Python 3 was still missing. Python is a programming language that even I understand to some extent, but the installation is an absolute mess. This time I first installed pyenv via Homebrew and then Python. Maybe then the handling of the different versions won't slip through my fingers quite so quickly.

• ✅ From time to time, I try to replace certain apps with Apple's own and see if they are now so good that I can do without third-party apps. A few weeks ago, I tried this with task management. I've been a Things user since day one, managing both my work and personal tasks. Later, it became too confusing and I wanted to separate work and private tasks. I then used OmniFocus for work and Things for my private life. Unfortunately, the Siri integration via the Apple Watch didn't work well, especially because Siri doesn't understand English terms, like "Things" on German-language systems. Therefore, Siri never understood to which app I want to add a task to. That's why I gave up on Things a few years ago and used Apple's Reminders app for my private tasks. Thanks to smart lists, tags etc. I thought that I could possibly also manage my professional tasks with Reminders. But two weeks later I realised that this is not yet an option for me. The filter options for the smart lists are too limited, because you can't, for example, include one list and exclude another. Since I don't like the beta of OmniFocus 4 at all so far, I shifted my professional tasks to Things. I like the app a lot and I think I'm happy with the solution again for now.
• 📺 Started watching Star Wars: The Bad Batch: Season 2 and Slow Horses (2022).
• 📺 Continued watching Bad Sisters (2022) - ★★★★☆
• 🍿 Watched Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022). It's not really a bad movie but I did not really like it that much - ★★★☆☆
• 🎙 Walking the dog and listened to podcasts:
  • AppStories: Mastodon Web, Mac, and Utility Apps
  • Connected: 436: Satya Nadella, He’s a Stone-Cold Killa
  • Hemispheric Views: 077: Canion Dot Blog Slash Save!
  • Launched: 45: Timery - Joe Hribar
  • Launched: 50: Runestone - Simon Støvring
  • Launched: 55: Hand Mirror - Rafa Conde
  • Mac Power Users: 677: Software Club: Fantastical
  • Really Specific Stories: Manton Reece
  • Upgrade: 445: Headwinds
• 👨‍💻 So, I've been doing a bit of catching up with Launched (@launched) by Charlie Chapman. I really do enjoy his podcast. Especially the episode with Rafa Conde was so much fun. The "advertisement" worked, instabought the pro version of Handmirror and if you use your MacBook with different monitor setups, be sure to check out HiDock as well (pssst, it's free!)
• 👨‍💻 If you use Chrome or Firefox check out StreetPass for Mastodon.
• 🖼 I was fascinated by the Midjourney pictures in my local Mastodon timeline.
• 🍺 I don't even know why, but at the beginning of the year I resolved not to eat any meat as cold cuts for a month. In addition, I wanted to completely abstain from alcohol for a month. Both worked out well. I'm sticking to meatless dinners and I've also stopped drinking a delicious pale ale or something else during the week. I think that can't hurt in the end. Since this has worked so well, I have come up with two new things for February: no sweets, chocolate, cakes or similar foods with a lot of added sugar. And additionally, no coffee. I had real withdrawal symptoms for the first two or three days (headache, fatigue, slight aching limbs). It's so hard for me to do without a delicious coffee in the morning. But well, there are only a good two weeks left. I don't know yet what nonsense I'll come up with for next month. 🤦‍♂️

What I was interested in during the fifth week of 2023 (teaser: Chagall, LEGO, macOS, iOS, podcasts, tv)

In continuation to week four, here are the things I was interested in week five.

• 📺 I watched the first three episodes of Bad Sisters (2022) and liked the Series so far. I kind of feel sorry for the John Paul actor. The character is such an unbelievable asshole that it must be really hard to portray someone like that.
• 🖼️ I went to see a Chagall exhibition in the Schirn / Frankfurt. The exhibition was very interesting and the Deutsche Bahn tried hard but failed to mess up the evening.
• 🤖 Reading Otavio's Week 2023-05 it suddenly occurred to me that I had totally forgotten that the LEGO Minifigures Series 24 had been released. I have bought in the last half year almost no more minifigures, because LEGO has become too expensive (for me) overall and I also unfortunately have no space at all for sets, but they may not be missing and will soon complement my small collection. Especially, I am looking forward to the Brown Astronaut and Spacebaby, as I am a huge LEGO Classic Space fan. (My collection on flickr.)
• 🧮 I've reorganised my RSS feeds in Reeder. I moved the high volume subscriptions to a separate list, unrelated to the topic, as I do with all the others. Now I can just mark them all as read when they get overwhelming.
• 🖋️ I put together a Shortcuts for Re: Toot to Day One export. I was really happy to find with the help from Automattic support that you can actually add an image to a diary entry using a Shortcuts action. I'd tried it before, but a bug in the Shortcuts UI made me think it wasn't possible. BTW I was a little worried when Automattic bought Day One, but the support is really great and so far the app is still maintained.
• 🪳 Speaking of bugs in Apple's OS, I started journaling about them.
• 🖥️ I've stumbled upon Hyperduck by @sindresorhus and as it seems he developed other very interesting programs, I will definitely look into.
• 🖥️ I enjoyed browsing Dockhunt but did not post my own dock yet.
• ❤️ Joanna released ‎status.log. A really nice app that lets you update your omg.lol[^1] status and read others.
• 🤣 Not sure when I will use this, but already had to smile about the idea alone: defaultnamehere/verylegit.link: A URL shortener, but it makes the URLs look extremely dodgy instead
• 🕹️Demon Quest 85 and Omaze were released for my playdate. I have tried to summon a demon - I feel like 100 times - and failed every time. In addition, the text is really too tiny for my old eyes. But on the other hand I enjoyed Omaze so far.
• 🎙️ Last but not least, I walked the dog and listened to a lot of podcasts: Accidental Tech Podcast: 519, AppStories: Mastodon Clients for iOS and iPadOS, Playdate Podcast: Omaze, Playdate Podcast: Demon Quest ’85, The Talk Show with Dan Moren, Connected: 435: I’m So Fedi Sorry, Mac Power Users: 677: Software Club: Fantastical, Accidental Tech Podcast: 520

🙋‍♂️

[^1]: please note, that this is a referral link

What I was interested in during the fifth week of 2023 (teaser: Chagall, LEGO, macOS, iOS, podcasts, tv)

In continuation to week four, here are the things I was interested in week five.

• 📺 I watched the first three episodes of Bad Sisters (2022) and liked the Series so far. I kind of feel sorry for the John Paul actor. The character is such an unbelievable asshole that it must be really hard to portray someone like that.
• 🖼️ I went to see a Chagall exhibition in Frankfurt. The exhibition was very interesting and Deutsche Bahn tried but failed to mess up the evening.
• 🤖 Reading Otavio's Week 2023-05 it suddenly occurred to me that I had totally forgotten that the LEGO Minifigures Series 24 had been released. I have bought in the last half year almost no more minifigures, because LEGO has become too expensive (for me) overall and I also unfortunately have no space at all for sets, but they may not be missing and will soon complement my small collection. Especially, I am looking forward to the Brown Astronaut and Spacebaby, as I am a huge LEGO Space fan. (My collection on flickr.)
• 🧮 I've reorganised my RSS feeds in Reeder. I moved the high volume subscriptions to a separate list, unrelated to the topic, as I do with all the others. Now I can just mark them all as read when they get overwhelming.
• 🖋️ I put together a Shortcuts for Re: Toot to Day One export. I was really happy to find with the help from Automattic support that you can actually add an image to a diary entry using a Shortcuts action. I'd tried it before, but a bug in the Shortcuts UI made me think it wasn't possible. BTW I was a little worried when Automattic bought Day One, but the support is really great and so far the app is still maintained.
• 🪳 Speaking of bugs in Apple's OS, I started journaling about them.
• 🖥️ I've stumbled upon Hyperduck by @sindresorhus and as it seems he developed other very interesting programs, I will definitely look into.
• 🖥️ I enjoyed browsing Dockhunt but did not post my own dock yet.
• 🤣 Not sure when I will use this, but already had to smile about the idea alone: defaultnamehere/verylegit.link: A URL shortener, but it makes the URLs look extremely dodgy instead
• Demon Quest 85 and Omaze were released for my playdate. I tried to summon a Demon but failed and the text is too tiny for to read but enjoyed Omaze so far.
• 🎙️ Last but not least, of course I walked the dog and listend to a lot of podcasts: Accidental Tech Podcast: 519, AppStories: Mastodon Clients for iOS and iPadOS, Playdate Podcast: Omaze, Playdate Podcast: Demon Quest ’85, The Talk Show with Dan Moren, Connected: 435: I’m So Fedi Sorry, Mac Power Users: 677: Software Club: Fantastical, Accidental Tech Podcast: 520

🙋‍♂️

Vorsicht Glas

What I was interested in during the fourth week of 2023 (teaser: podcasts, iOS, macOS playdate)

I still felt sickly, so I refrained from cycling. Hope that I get the curve then next week.

• 🍿 Watched Raymond & Ray (2022) - ★★★★☆ and enjoyed it.
• 🎙️ Listend to a bunch of different Podcasts:
  • Accidental Tech Podcast: 518: Deconstructed iMac,
  • Core Intuition: Episode 545: Lawful Evil,
  • MeTacheles Tonspur: Return of the Mac - Ode an den Apple Macintosh,
  • Playdate Podcast: Flipper Lifter,
  • Playdate Podcast: Echoic Memory,
  • Techmeme Ride Home: Tue 01/24 – ALL The Details On Apple’s Headset,
  • AppStories: Imagining Apps for an Apple VR Headset,
  • Launched: 54: Sofa - Shawn Hickman,
  • Upgrade: 443: Core Variations, and
  • Hemispheric Views: 076: Find Jason a House!.
• 🎙️ This was my first episode of Launched. It was a rather intimate podcast. And both the developers of the Darknoise app and Sofa seem to be very nice people. After what they said about software subscriptions, I'm afraid that sooner or later all apps will have to switch to the subscription model. I personally don't like that, but if there's no other way for indie developers, you probably have to think about what you're willing to spend per year and then keep an eye on your subscriptions, e.g. with Bobby, and limit them accordingly.
• 🛋️ Speaking of Sofa. I really like the app, but I think I'll try to stay away from software and services where it's not possible to get your data out again with open standards, an API or at least an RSS feed.
• 🫰 Speaking of subscriptions, after all this back and forth, I cancelled my Strava subscription. I'll see if I can enjoy cycling without all their pro features.
• 🚴‍♂️ Speaking of (I know, I know ...) cycling, once again I have felt annoyed, no, threatened by SUV drivers. I really don't know where all this is going. Fittingly, the post about the size of cars.
• 🐘 I had a look at Tusker, a new iOS Mastodon client. It's still fun to see all these many ideas for Mastodon clients. There hasn't been so much dynamism in the scene for a long time. Even though IceCube gets a lot of praise, I keep coming back to Ivory, which was finally released in the App Store this week. You can only have missed it, though, if you've been living under a rock. Even though I find the development speed of IceCube absolutely remarkable and the app is certainly one of the most impressive in terms of features, I am still bothered by the many small bugs and especially the bad scrolling performance. (I think SwiftUI might be the one to blame here.) Ivory, on the other hand, is really fast and performant. The great thing is that you can change at any time.
• 🕹️ I've played the two new playdate games that were released for me this week: Flipper Lifter and Echoic Memory. I am really bad at audio and don't know if I enjoy Echoic Memory and I haven't found any access to Flipper Lifter yet. In general, with some playdate games, I sometimes feel like I don't really understand the mechanics of the game, and just do anything that will somehow get me to the goal. I sometimes wish the games would introduce you a little more and not leave you completely out in the cold.
• 🕹️ In the end, everything was overshadowed by the fact that my playdate probably has a faulty battery. I have, surprisingly unexpectedly, received an answer from Cabel, but unfortunately not yet from support. They seem to be quite overwhelmed by support requests right now.
• 📱 On iOS, I looked at Countdown to Anything! but I think I'll stick with Countdowns.
• 📱 This screenshot of Jason's homescreen inspired me to tinker a little bit with Widgy. I also bought Opener, don't know why 😇
• 💻 On the Mac, I've been looking at the new Arc browser, which is kind of hyped right now. I really don't know why though. I have a bit of a suspicion that it might just be the invite system. To me, the browser seems extremely sluggish. My password management and Apple Pay don't work, which is probably not the browser's fault. It's too early to judge, but so far I always go back to Safari after a short time.
• 💻 It came to my mind, that you can use Markdown links of hooked items together with One Thing, an App that I really enjoy. It gives you one click menu bar item to the one file you are just working on.
• 💻 I had a look at HiDock, for Mac and Lasso - Window Manager for macOS.
• 💻 Thanks to Matthew I became aware of Menubar X (Setapp). This works pretty well together with DeepL / DeepL Write and elk.zone.
• ✅ I've moved all my todo item for work from OmniFocus to Apple's Reminders app. I want to see if I can separate them enough thanks to smart lists and tags. The only thing I miss so far is the ability to filter by focus modes, like it is possible with Calendars, etc. Only Apple knows why this is not possible yet, I guess.
• ❤️ Thanks to Faisal Misle, I now also know that you can publish to the omg.lol weblog via github. I have no idea about all these things, but thanks to the many great tutorials, even I managed to do it. Speaking of omg.lol and how clueless I am about all this internet stuff, I managed to change my status.log via the API, again thanks to the awesome docs. I control this with a Shortcuts shortcut and can trigger it from my Stream Deck and Keyboard Maestro. You can do so many funny things with this 🥰

🙋‍♂️

PS: I've also posted my thoughts on the first, second and third weeks.

What I have done in the third week of 2023 (teaser: podcasts, playdate, no movies)

Streak, this is the third time this year I've managed to write down what I've done during the week.

If you're interested in what it was like before, you can read about the first and second week.

• I have been very busy at work this week. So there was less to discover. I did a lot of walking with the dog (~ 50 km from Monday to Saturday so far), so at least I had enough time to listen to podcasts:
  • 🎙️ I really enjoyed Really Specific Stories: John Siracusa. A podcast I did not know about before. This was a very intimate conversation and I discovered so much of myself in what was told. Unfortunately, I can't even begin to speak with such reflection and eloquence. There's definitely a reason I'm not a podcaster, and an absolutely insignificant little fish otherwise. What I also found very interesting was The Talk Show: ‘Slow-Moving Hurricane’, With Craig Hockenberry. I only knew Craig Hockenberry from his posts and profile picture. I was very surprised to listen to such a level-headed, reflective person. It's always exciting what impressions you get about people just by reading about them or listening to them. The episode Really Specific Stories: Jason Burk fit in very well with this. I'm already looking forward to the others.
  • 🎙️ Parallel to the release of the two new games Lost Your Marbles and Pick Pack Pup in Series 1 for my playdate I listened to the respective podcast episodes: Playdate Podcast: Pick Pack Pup and Playdate Podcast: Lost Your Marbles.
  • 🎙️ Additionally I've listened to Upgrade: 441: Qi2: Qi Harder, AppStories: Read-Later Apps, Upgrade: 442: Zombie Arms and Toaster Fridge, Under the Radar: 260: Subscription School and Connected: 433: The Best Alarm is the Alarm.
• For these posts, I was looking for a way to log the podcast episodes I was listening to, but couldn't find a way to look them up in Overcast. So I wrote a Shortcuts script that logs the currently playing episode to a Drafts document after 30 seconds.
• 🥘 Speaking of the Shortcuts app. I love Mela and in my family we use Pon for shopping lists. Unfortunately, there is no way to export shopping lists directly from Mela to Pon. And it is not possible to import the corresponding Reminders list into Pon. So I put together a little shortcut that somehow does the job.
• ❤️ I was playing around with my omg/now page.
• 💻 I bought Photos Workbench. I think I will mainly use it to compare and select pictures. I really miss a corresponding function in the Photos app. I have looked a lot for alternatives and had even subscribed to Lightroom in the meantime. But that's a complete overkill and I don't want to have any more software from that company. That's why I'm happy that an app has now been released that will hopefully take care of that.
• 🕹️ Played Pick Pack Pup (2022) and the first ten levels of Gravity Express. The former is fine but I did not fell in love so far. The latter ist very similar to Rocket Bytes but Gravity Express has checkpoints, tasks, fuel, etc. I seems not that hardcore as the other.
• 🗼Stumbled across Lantern.
• Bought Homecoming for Mastodon. I think this can easily be done via Shortcuts too but anyways ...
• 📺 No TV, now movies this week 😢
• 🧊Gave the IceCubeApp beta another try. Unlike many others, I'm not warming up to the app. It has too many little bugs that make it hard for me to use it regularly. But of course, the whole App Store approval saga was funny - or rather the opposite.
• 🎙️MacWhisper: It's absolutely impressive what's now possible.
• 💬 Too much Mastodon but I really like it there. And Gruber even replied to me. He disagreed and I didn't want to argue, but whatever! 😎

🙋‍♂️