My Weekly Creative Summary for the Week of 2023/39

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I like taking photos with minimalistic subjects.

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This is the fifth edition of this newsletter. It’s really fun to put together. It’s more fun than I thought it would be. Enjoy this week’s ride. I couldn’t accomplish all my objectives this week, and I don’t know why. It’s probably due to many small reasons, like my troubles with my audio recordings and the release of Craft, which always prompts a new release analysis. Without further due, let’s dive in, shall we?

👨🏻‍💻 Blog posts posted: 24 & articles shared: 1 😊
🏞️ Photos shared: 11 😅
🎙️ Podcast published: 0. 😔
📺 YouTube videos published: 😑

📖 Reading

1️⃣ I recently referred to my CODE workflow when discussing my creative workflow. I learned this week while watching this YouTube video that Tiago Forte, the inventor of the PARA method, inspired this. I forgot that the same guy created the CODE moniker for some reason. 2️⃣ I'm forcing myself to read at least one article per day using Omnivore read-later service. 3️⃣ I often ponder if great writers need to be big readers. I'm not. I rarely read books, and I feel guilty about this. I prefer to read articles. 4️⃣ In recent months, I’ve been working hard to optimize my reading workflow. While doing so, I created a table comparing many popular read-later services. You can download it here.

👨🏻‍💻 Writing

1️⃣ The writing of the iPhone 15 Pro Max review progresses relatively slowly. I'm not sure about the actual format of this review. It might be shorter than my past two reviews about my iPhone upgrades. 2️⃣ After finishing the first draft of my reworked reading workflow diagram, I started and completed the writing in detail about each step. 3️⃣ A new release of Craft requires a new in-depth analysis. This is what I have done here. 4️⃣ It's been a month since I wrote an edition of the Friday Notes newsletter. I have an idea for the next edition. Now, If only I could have some more time to put it into words.

🌄 Photography

1️⃣ I’ve been testing my iPhone 15 Pro Max photo capabilities this week. I went to t an electronic music show called Piknik Electronik outside on Friday. The weather was perfect, lots of people. I had a chance to try photography in low-light conditions. I took about sixty photos, a few live photos, and videos, many using the telephoto lens. I would say that the iPhone 15 Pro Max, or any cameras for that matter, can't do miracles in very low light conditions. It's as simple as that.

🎙️ Podcasting

1️⃣ Now that I know for sure that my Finch Lavalier microphone doesn't work with my new iPhone 15 Pro Max, I spent some time testing different combinations of recording. It appears that the iPhone 15 connected with USB-C on my Mac mini while using Voice Isolation produces respectable results (sample here). Tell me what you think. Using Continuity Camera, the connection often breaks, rendering the recording useless. I'll buy a new microphone from Rode. Can't wait to see if my audio recording issues will finally go away.

🚧 Special projects

1️⃣ I’ve been working to finish documenting and detailing my reading workflow this week, completing the description of each step and which apps are part of it. It took me more than a year of work. In this blog post, I briefly explain the main reason why. You can read all the details here on Numeric Citizen I/O. Enjoy the read!

📱 Apps & Services

1️⃣ This week, Apple released macOS 14 Sonoma. A bunch of apps got updated to support the new operating system. My favourite new features of Sonoma are 1) widgets on the desktop, 2) web application saved in the Dock, 3) The integration of the screen saver into the login screen, which was redesigned too. 4) updated autocorrect to match the iOS 17 advances. 2️⃣ DefaultFolderX got a significant upgrade to version 6.0. This venerable Mac utility proves to be super useful and a big timesaver. I'm using a fraction of the app's possibilities. 3️⃣ BarTender passes to version 5 and is another major upgrade. 4️⃣ While waiting for the official Pixelfed client, Vernissage added support for iPad in this week's release. Also, I decided to use the mobile version of Pixelfed on my iPhone; it's better than the native iOS app. 5️⃣ Craft came out with a new feature called Creator. I shared my observations here. 6️⃣ I bought the Affinity suite (Photo, Publisher, Designer) many months ago when version 2 came out, and Affinity Publisher came out for the iPad. I love these apps and thought they could be useful. Sadly, I never used them. It was more of an impulsive buy. They got updated this week with version 2.2. I might check them out again, especially Affinity Photo. *️⃣ I wanted to wait a bit before upgrading to macOS Sonoma so that third-party apps get updated to support it fully. I didn’t want to break any of my apps that are part of my creative workflows. But initial reports are very positive and none of my apps are affected. So, I upgraded my MacBook Air. All is good so far. I love the widgets on the desktop. Then I upgraded my Mac mini. All is good, so far.

💎 Miscellaneous

1️⃣ Every month, Micro.blog, where my blog is hosted, a summary of all my past posts of the month is automatically put together for me. It's a nice retrospective of all my posts beautifully formatted. Each month, I'm always surprised by how much work I put into all this writing. 🤯 Don't miss the next issue by subscribing here.

🔮 Looking ahead

1️⃣ Looking ahead for my new Rode microphone and testing my iPhone Pro 15 Max photography capabilities a little bit more.

I wish you a great week!

Exhibits 👀