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:
  • 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.
  • ๐Ÿฅ˜ 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.
  • โค๏ธ I was playing around with my omg/now page.
  • ๐Ÿ’ป 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.
  • ๐Ÿ•น๏ธ 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. I really like what I’ve seen so far.
  • ๐Ÿ—ผStumbled across Lantern.
  • Bought Homecoming for Mastodon. I think this can easily be done via Shortcuts too but anyways …
  • ๐Ÿ“บ No TV, now movies this week ๐Ÿ˜ข
  • ๐ŸงŠGave 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.
  • ๐ŸŽ™๏ธMacWhisper: It’s absolutely impressive what’s now possible.
  • ๐Ÿ’ฌ 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!

๐Ÿš€ Ah, cool, Gravity Express for playdate has been released! https://ninovanhooff.itch.io/gravity-express #playdate

๐Ÿฅฐ Successfully subscribed to Ivory Beta

๐Ÿ’กLet's see if I can update my omg.lol status via Drafts.app too.

๐Ÿงฎ Soulver is now on Setapp too.

๐ŸŽฎ Pick Pack Pup (2022) - โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜†โ˜†

Pick Pack Pup poster

A little bit too much water to ride my road bike I guess ๐Ÿ˜จ

If I got 1 โ‚ฌ for every bug, I would be ...

2023-02-17

Security Contacts (iOS 16.3.1)

I am quite sure, that I did not add my security contact on 01.01.1970.

Security Contact was added on 01.01.1970

Screen Time and Messages (macOS 13.2.1)

Screen Time for children is completely broken. And the feature to receive requests via Messages.app renders the app useless on macOS.

Broken Messages App trying to show Screen Time requests Messages quit unexpactedly

2023-02-08

Mail (macOS 13.2)

My smart folder with the rule to only show unread emails shows a couple of read emails.

Apple Mail displays read e-mails it shouldn't.

2023-02-04

macOS Ventura 13.2

After a reboot my System decided to present an empty list of apps granted Accessibility access. Normally there are about 20 applications listed. I then immediately received countless warnings from various apps (Hookmark, CleanShot X, Typinator, etc.) that they would no longer work. Only after another restart the list was back, all apps were ticked, so they should have access - but they did not. I had to switch all the switches off and on again manually.

Default Folder X complains about revoked access rights.

macOS Ventura 13.2

After each restart Ventura tells me again that background objects have been added - EVERY TIME.

macOS warning about background tasks

2023-02-02

Find My / Wo ist? (iOS 16.3)

These mentioned AirPods, that are “moving with me” are my own! ๐Ÿคฆโ€โ™‚๏ธ

iOS alert stating that some AirPods are moving with me

Messages (macOS 13.2)

It would be too easy if I could just approve the request. (Instead it loads forever).

Forerver loading indicater "Bildschirmzeit"

2023-01-31

Shortcuts (iOS 16.3)

This is for sure not how a context click in shortcuts should behave.

Shortcuts app iOS four times invoking the context menu of a media selector to get variables shown.

2023-01-30

iPad Lockscreen (iPadOS 16.3)

This time it was my iPad that I had to reboot, because scrolling up to unlock it did not work.

Reminders (macOS 13.1)

Why is the text in the field shortened, there is so much free space.

Shortened filter bubble in Apple's Reminders App

2023-01-26

Apple Mail / Account Aliases stopped working (iCloud)

Okay, this is a bummer. I have just discovered that none of my Apple iCloud email aliases are working. Now the question: why and since when? I’d rather not know how many emails I’ve missed because of this. ๐Ÿคฏ At least, I think, I’ve resolved the issue: Under icloud.com / Mail / Settings / Accounts Iโ€™ve disabled the Alias addresses, filled in Fullname and Label, renabled the Account alias and now itโ€™s working again.

2023-01-25

Apple Mail (macOS 13.1)

Of course, it would be nice if Apple Mail would also show me my emails.

Screenshot of Apple Mail not showing the selected mail.

Home Screen (iOS 16.2)

Ah, not only does the lock screen not want to show widgets all the time, the (Files.app) widget on the home screen can also be empty.

Screenshot iOS home screen with blank Files.app widget

App Store (iOS 16.2)

Why not give us even more sorting options for subscriptions? Would be very easy to implement as they do nothing.

Screenshot iOS App Store - sorting option in subscriptions list not working

2023-01-19

Lockscreen (iOS 16.2)

There might be missing something, isn’t it? ๐Ÿค”

iOS lockscreen with blank widgets

Calendar deletion bug (iOS 16.2)

Deletion of an entry from the search entry does not clear the deleted item from the list.

Calender deletion bug deleting entry

2023-01-18

App Store (iOS 16.2)

Going back from the detail screen of a subscription and swiping up or down does not scroll the subscriptions in the list but the modal view.

Animated Gif showing a scroll bug in App Store subscriptions

Springboard (iOS 16.2)

Not able to go back to the springboard. Swiping upwards is refused.

Animated Gif showing swipe up to go back to homescreen not working

2023-01-17

Xcode CLI tools

So, I wanted to install an App via brew. It told me that I don’t have Xcode CLI tools installed and asked me to do so. I already had but, yeah, anyhow, I did it via the given shell command … A few minutes later macOS tells me that there a two updates available.

Screenshot Updates available - CLI Tools Xcode

WTF? Why two versions? And why an update anyways, I just downloaded them directly from Apple?

Shortcuts

The Apple Shortcuts App constantly gets out of sync between my MacBook and my iPhone. Thanks!

Reminders

Why does adding reminders via Siri work without any problems under iOS and exactly the same request via Siri under macOS leads to absolutely pointless queries and error messages (at least when set to GER)? WTF?

๐Ÿ˜ข Itโ€™s a bit sad that most of the top entries are either completely outdated or 404s: sites with a /now page.

๐Ÿ–ผ Ah, nice! Photos Workbench by Houdah Software has been released: Photos Workbench โ€“ Organize your Photos.

๐Ÿค” I'm curious to see what exactly this will be charms.lol.

What I have done in the second week of 2023 (teaser: playdate, macOS apps, podcasts, movie)

After all, this is the second time this year that I've managed to write down a bit what has been keeping me busy during the week. ๐Ÿฅณ

  • ๐Ÿ˜” So, this was my first week at work and thus, unfortunately, again far too little time for things I really enjoy. (I'll have to think about my work situation in great detail at some point).
  • ๐Ÿ•น Playdate: After the two pre-installed games on my playdate, the first two new games included in Episode 1 arrived for me on Monday: Crankin's Time Travel Adventure and Boogie Loops. Unfortunately, I'm completely musically untalented, so I haven't looked at Boogie Loops yet, but I despair of Crankin's Time Travel Adventure. As a now completely inexperienced player, I fail grandiosely at this game. For me it is extremely difficult. I just got to level 20 and I was told that there must be 50 levels. Another game on the list of games I will never play through. Bloom meanders along. I find it a bit of a pity that in the dialogues there are really only the same statements available, each worded a little differently. I don't feel that you can really influence the story. I'm not 100% sure if I would buy the game again. I had a quick look at EYELAND. However, it doesn't support savegames and so far I haven't felt like trying to tackle it in one go.
  • ๐ŸŽง Podcasts: Despite the ones I regularly listen to (ATP, The Talk Show, Automators, Connected, Techmeme Ride Home) and due to my recent interest in micro.blog and omg.lol, I stumbled upon Hemispheric Views by Andrew Canion, Jason Burk, and Martin Feld as well as Core Intuition by Manton Reece and Daniel Jalkut.
  • ๐Ÿ“” I've written a follow up post to my short list of non-work related macOS apps I really like: Even more macOS apps I enjoy using ๐Ÿ˜Ž
  • ๐Ÿฟ I've watched Avatar: The Way of Water in the cinema with my family. Bombastic, sure, but - as expected - completely irrelevant and above all predictable plot. Still, I didn't regret going to the cinema again.
  • ๐Ÿ“บ Together with my wife I finished watching the third season of For All Mankind. I think I liked it better than the second and I'm looking forward to the fourth.
  • ๐Ÿค“ Because of omg.lol , I tried to understand IRC. It's been a long time since I was on it. It felt like back in the Amiga days. I've installed irssi via Homebrew, was able to connect, but failed with its operation. I'll have to look at it again some other time. Even though I am not a fan of, I understand very well why Discord etc. have become famous ๐Ÿคฆโ€โ™‚๏ธ
  • ๐Ÿฉ I've 3Dprinted some small things, primarily for household or work purposes, such as an iPad Stand, to use it as a second monitor at work and a tea bag drainer. And of course things for my AnkerMake M5 itself, like Spare Parts Box and Accessory Bins. (I was already afraid that this is another hobby that is only concerned with itself. In other words, you do things with it that you only do because you now have this thing that does things ... You understand me.)
  • ๐Ÿคฏ For me, I still haven't been able to conclusively determine on which platform I want to follow whom and where I want to post something and how. The interoperability of the fedivers (micro.blog <-> mastodon together with RSS etc.) is ingenious, but it also leads to a lot of friction and redundancy at least for me. I definitely need to get better at this. In all the experimenting I've been doing over the last few days, I've often had the problem of finding the exact URL of an RSS feed. To achive this via Reeder or similar was too cumbersome for me and the times when the browser I use simply displayed the feeds prominently are also long gone. I have therefore created an iOS/macOS shortcuts. I'm not good at it, but it does the job I hope.
  • ๐Ÿ‘จโ€๐Ÿ’ป Oh, I almost forgot. The battery on my private Intel MacBook Pro was dead. I had it replaced. It cost me โ‚ฌ 229 - not exactly cheap. But the whole thing, including sending it in (to the Czech Republic, repair and return) took less than three days ๐Ÿ‘. However, I got a new top case with a new keyboard etc., which probably wasn't a bad idea for that model. Since it had already been in use for several years, I decided to completely rebuild it. I would have preferred to save myself the experience. So many little macOS (iCloud) bugs in the process really annoyed me and the new system settings are hell.

๐Ÿ™‹โ€โ™‚๏ธ

๐Ÿค” When exactly did IFTTT actually become this unreliable, completely confusing service? I only use it to pipe RSS feeds into DayOne but I think I have to look for alternatives.

What I have done in the second week of 2023 (teaser: playdate, macOS apps, podcasts, movie)

After all, this is the second time this year that I’ve managed to write down a bit what has been keeping me busy during the week. ๐Ÿฅณ

  • ๐Ÿ˜” So, this was my first week at work and thus, unfortunately, again far too little time for things I really enjoy. (I’ll have to think about my work situation in great detail at some point).
  • ๐Ÿ•น Playdate: After the two pre-installed games on my playdate, the first two new games included in Episode 1 arrived for me on Monday: Crankin’s Time Travel Adventure and Boogie Loops. Unfortunately, I’m completely musically untalented, so I haven’t looked at Boogie Loops yet, but I despair of Crankin’s Time Travel Adventure. As a now completely inexperienced player, I fail grandiosely at this game. For me it is extremely difficult. I just got to level 20 and I was told that there must be 50 levels. Another game on the list of games I will never play through. Bloom meanders along. I find it a bit of a pity that in the dialogues there are really only the same statements available, each worded a little differently. I don’t feel that you can really influence the story. I’m not 100% sure if I would buy the game again. I had a quick look at EYELAND. However, it doesn’t support savegames and so far I haven’t felt like trying to tackle it in one go.
  • ๐ŸŽง Podcasts: Despite the ones I regularly listen to (ATP, The Talk Show, Automators, Connected, Techmeme Ride Home) and due to my recent interest in micro.blog and omg.lol, I stumbled upon Hemispheric Views by Andrew Canion, Jason Burk, and Martin Feld as well as Core Intuition by Manton Reece and Daniel Jalkut.
  • ๐Ÿ“” I’ve written a follow up post to my short list of non-work related macOS apps I really like: Even more macOS apps I enjoy using ๐Ÿ˜Ž
  • ๐Ÿฟ I’ve watched Avatar: The Way of Water in the cinema with my family. Bombastic, sure, but - as expected - completely irrelevant and above all predictable plot. Still, I didn’t regret going to the cinema again.
  • ๐Ÿ“บ Together with my wife I finished watching the third season of For All Mankind. I think I liked it better than the second and I’m looking forward to the fourth.
  • ๐Ÿค“ Because of omg.lol , I tried to understand IRC. It’s been a long time since I was on it. It felt like back in the Amiga days. I’ve installed irssi via Homebrew, was able to connect, but failed with its operation. I’ll have to look at it again some other time. Even though I am not a fan of, I understand very well why Discord etc. have become famous ๐Ÿคฆโ€โ™‚๏ธ
  • ๐Ÿฉ I’ve 3Dprinted some small things, primarily for household or work purposes, such as an iPad Stand, to use it as a second monitor at work and a tea bag drainer. And of course things for my AnkerMake M5 itself, like Spare Parts Box and Accessory Bins. (I was already afraid that this is another hobby that is only concerned with itself. In other words, you do things with it that you only do because you now have this thing that does things … You understand me.)
  • ๐Ÿคฏ For me, I still haven’t been able to conclusively determine on which platform I want to follow whom and where I want to post something and how. The interoperability of the fedivers (micro.blog <-> mastodon together with RSS etc.) is ingenious, but it also leads to a lot of friction and redundancy at least for me. I definitely need to get better at this. In all the experimenting I’ve been doing over the last few days, I’ve often had the problem of finding the exact URL of an RSS feed. To achive this via Reeder or similar was too cumbersome for me and the times when the browser I use simply displayed the feeds prominently are also long gone. I have therefore created an iOS/macOS shortcuts. I’m not good at it, but it does the job I hope.
  • ๐Ÿ‘จโ€๐Ÿ’ป Oh, I almost forgot. The battery on my private Intel MacBook Pro was dead. I had it replaced. It cost me โ‚ฌ 229 - not exactly cheap. But the whole thing, including sending it in (to the Czech Republic, repair and return) took less than three days ๐Ÿ‘. However, I got a new top case with a new keyboard etc., which probably wasn’t a bad idea for that model. Since it had already been in use for several years, I decided to completely rebuild it. I would have preferred to save myself the experience. So many little macOS (iCloud) bugs in the process really annoyed me and the new system settings are hell.

๐Ÿ™‹โ€โ™‚๏ธ

๐Ÿค” I think I should dig more into this Home Assistant stuff. But I am really afraid going down this rabbit hole. https://www.home-assistant.io/

Even more macOS apps I enjoy using.

Sure, shortly after I’ve published the short list of non-work related macOS apps I really like it came to my mind, that I forgot the most important ones. But hey, I never claimed it was an exhaustive list ๐Ÿ˜‡ So, I’ll just continue and list randomly some more apps, I enjoy using:

  • Mela: “Mela is a simple, elegant and modern recipe manager that syncs with iCloud." I recently switched from Paprika, which is also a very good recipe manager. But I do prefer the app from Silvio Rizzi (Mastodon/rizzi@gloria.social) because of its more modern design and the build in recipe RSS feature ๐Ÿ‘จโ€๐Ÿณ. RSS is something Silvio knows a lot about, as he is also responsible for my RSS reader of choice:
  • Reeder: “Keep control of your news reading with Reeder, RSS reader and read later client in one app, now with support for iCloud syncing." Of course there is a bunch of other RSS readers ๐Ÿ“ฐ. If I had to switch, I would probably go with NetNewsWire.
  • Dropover: “Dropover is a macOS utility that makes Drag and Drop easier. Stash, gather or move draggable content without having to open side-by-side windows." Before I’ve stumbled upon Dropover I’ve used Yoink for years (Setapp). I do like both apps. With the former, you don’t always have to wander ๐Ÿ–ฑ๏ธ all the way to the edge of the screen to drop files. I kind of liked that. Yoink also has a counterpart for iOS.
  • Soulver: “Soulver is a notepad calculator app for Mac. It’s a notepad that gives instant answers to calculations in your text." Soulver is also such a macOS classic. Since version 3, the Mac app is unfortunately no longer compatible with the iOS version and I have a little impression that the developer has lost a little desire ๐Ÿฅฑ. But nevertheless, it’s a great tool. [Update 19.01.2023: I have learned, that the iOS version has been discontinued but instead the Mac version is now on Setapp.
  • Money Money: “Alle Bankkonten im Blick mit MoneyMoney." Okay, Money Money is specific to the German market. But if you have a bank account there and don’t want to deal with the web interface of your bank ๐Ÿฆ, Money Money is a great choice. The app only costs money once and I don’t remember ever being asked to pay for an update. (That scares me a little bit, I have to admit).
  • Day One: “Day One is a journaling app for the iPhone, iPad and Mac. From once-in-a-lifetime events to everyday moments, Day Oneโ€™s elegant interface makes journaling your life a simple pleasure." My first entry ๐Ÿ“” dates back to 2012, and I have ~10 k entries saved in there. I think that says it all ๐Ÿ˜„ I do pipe a lot of stuff to Day One with the help of ifttt.
  • Bartender 4: “Bartender is an award-winning app for macOS that superpowers your menu bar, giving you total control over your menu bar items, what’s displayed, and when, with menu bar items only showing when you need them." I run a lot of menu bar apps. Therefore this app (Setapp) is indispensable for me on my 13” MacBook ๐Ÿ’ป. Speaking of menu bar apps:
  • Coca: “Coca is a tiny app that puts an icon in your menu bar. Right-click the icon to prevent your system from automatically going to sleep, dimming the screen or starting screen savers." Very handy in certain circumstances, e.g. you want that backup / download to finish over night etc. There are lots of similar apps, like Amphetamine or Caffeine โ˜•.
  • AirBuddy: “Take Control of Your Wireless Devices on macOS." If you own Air Pods ๐ŸŽง and want to switch from iPhone to Mac, have a look at this utility (Setapp). And speaking of music:
  • NepTunes: “A desktop accessory that allows you to see and control your music (Apple Music, Spotify) with customizable shortcuts, advanced Last.fm support and beautiful themes." Any nice app that results in me having to open Apple’s music ๐ŸŽต app less often is a win.

๐Ÿ‘€ Reading Some Tricks To Making Mastodon Way More Useful | Techdirt. I totally agree on more or less everything, esp. the List part.

A short list of non-work related macOS apps I really like

Here is a short list of apps I use a lot under macOS privately (so not only work related) or I have recently discovered and think I’ll stick with them.

  • Bunch: Bunch describes itself as “a macOS utility that uses plain text scripts called โ€œBunchesโ€ to automate context switching. It sits in your menu […]. Bunches can open apps, specific files, web pages, and more. For the Power Users, It also allows advanced scripting, system commands, and integration via a URL handler”. It’s free to download, developed by Brett Terpstra. I switched from Workspaces by Apptorium, which has a much more sophisticated visual concept. I also like the app very much and is also available via Setapp.

  • Typinator: “Enter words, sentences, or even entire paragraphs by typing just a few characters. Save time for the really important things in life." If I use a Mac without Typinator installed, I can hardly operate it. Therefore, it is one of the first programmes I add. (The second one is 1Password, but if I would start from scratch I would try to use the new build in password manager of macOS / iOS.) Many use Textexpander, but I feel more comfortable without a subscription model.

  • Raycast: “Raycast is a blazingly fast, totally extendable launcher. It lets you complete tasks, calculate, share common links, and much more." Before I discovered Raycast, I’ve used Launchbar for over 15 years. It was one of these apps I would have taken with me to an lonely island. Other apps like Alfred did not stick with me. I still like Launchbar a lot but enjoy the I am currently enjoying the immense expandability and dynamic development of Raycast. Right now Raycast made even my beloved window manager Moom obsolete.

  • Craft: “Create documents, make impact." I really enjoyed using Craft for some time. But actually I think, I should not use another note silo and try to achieve what I want with Apple Notes. Nevertheless, the app is very comprehensive, cross platform and easy to begin with. If you have a Setapp subscription, you should definitely check it out. (At this point, of course, Obsidian and Notion must also be mentioned, but neither of which I use in a private context so far.)

  • Anybox: “Manage bookmarks like a pro. A perfect replacement for your browserโ€™s bookmark manager." I have never been able to make friends with Safari’s bookmark management and used to use various services, including del.icio.us. Then I migrated to pinboard.in, and in the meantime I only used it sporadically. Pins, a very good iOS / macOS pinboard client by Anh Do, motivated me again to use pinboard more extensively. But recently my use declined rapidly again - I don’t know exactly why. I didn’t like well-known alternatives like raindrop.io and then Anybox came along. It’s available for macOS and iOS and more or less saves everthing but I use it solely as a bookmark manager. I’m actually very happy with it, although I’m curious to see whether the developer of pins can motivate me to switch again with his new app Interlink. (I hardly know why I save my bookmarks in the first place. Most of the time I look them up again using a search engine anyway.)

  • CleanShot X: “Capture your Macโ€™s screen like a pro." Before I stumbled across CleanShot X, I used the native screenshot function of macOS, which is also quite extensive. In addition I used OwlOCR. A utility that allows you to capture areas of the screen and then copy the text contained therein directly to the clipboard. (Textsniper is also often recommended, but I liked the pricing and the support of OwlOCR much better. BTW Textsniper is on Setapp.) I use this function daily and frequently. I would not want to do without it any more. In the meantime, on the latest version of macOS it is possible to extract text with board tools, at least in photos and I think also in other apps, but I have become so used to cmd+shift+2 (my assigned shortcut) that I no longer want to do without it. What does all this have to do with CleanShot? This function is also implemented and so much more. Also available via Setapp.

  • Rocket: “Mind-blowing emoji on your Mac." I really enjoy using this emoji picker. Tried using the one from Recast but went back to Rocket.

  • Quitall: “Before you Force Quit, QuitAll. A fresh start without a restart." If it wasn’t included in my Setapp subscription I probably would not have bought it. I know it’s a bad habit under macOS to quit apps but sometimes I have so many of them open, that I prefer a fresh start. That’s were Quintal comes into play.

  • Hookmark: “Search Less. Focus more." If you haven’t heart of Hookmark yet, go and check it out. It’s really awesome and I wish something like this was build directly into macOS. You can more or less interlink everything. Also available via Setapp.

  • And of course there are some productivity apps I mainly use for work Dash, DevonThink, Default Folder X, Keyboard Maestro, Hazel and ChronoSync. Maybe I’ll write a little more about them later.

  • Oh, I would have forgotten about CCC: “CCC does everything you wish Time Machine did (and more!)" Buy it, use it! (Or SuperDuper! I don’t care ๐Ÿ˜Ž)

Update: even more apps …

๐Ÿ‘€ Okay, I will do this for the rest of my day now LUMON. Thanks a lot @zioibi ;-) #Severance

๐Ÿค” Is there a way to get an RSS feed of my Mastodon bookmarks as for my general feed? Or are there apps that allow me to import them to pinboard or similar services?