Creative summary

My Weekly Creative Summary for the Week of 2024-14

After a three-week pause since the last edition, I’m resuming the publication of this series. It feels good to be back. Hello to all my new subscribers!

JF Martin

14 Apr 2024 — 9 min read

A popular photo that I published during the week on Pixelfed.

👨🏻‍💻 53 posts 😃
🏞️ 18 photos shared 😃
🎙️ No podcast episode published 😔
📺 One YouTube video published 🙂

👤 Personal

1️⃣ I’m considering rewriting a portion of my bio to replace the “compulsive creator” expression with "compulsive contributor.” I like the idea of humbly contributing to the world through a small community. This reply on Micro.blog highly inspired me. 2️⃣ I’ve been on vacation for a week, and it made me feel eager to return to my creative and contributing journey. I think any creator should pause from time to time. This edition spans three weeks, from March 24th to April 13th. 3️⃣ I don’t watch movies in-flight. I don’t know why. I prefer playing with my iPad or iPhone and watching the flight map cycle through each view.

🗺️ Discoveries

1️⃣ I’ve been reading my Nikon Zf manual and learned how to take advantage of it. I love the feeling of this camera body and the sensation of using an old camera in a modern way.

📖 Reading

1️⃣ This article from Manuel Moreale resonated with me. Writing is about accepting that, at some point, the product is good enough to share. Otherwise, there is a risk of not publishing. I should settle more often on “good enough” when writing. I have many unfinished writing projects on my hand. 2️⃣ Sadly, I didn't read much in the last few weeks. I should be more constant.

👨🏻‍💻 Writing

1️⃣ I think I'm finally settled on my use cases for Scribbles. One is to post a single thought with a single-word title. The other is a “Now” post with a few in-the-moment thoughts I share each morning. A few people are reading these posts because I get a few kudos. 2️⃣ I wrote and shared a very personal take on blogrolls and was afraid to share this with my readers. Blogrolls are bad triggers for me. The article generated quite a few responses and feedback. 3️⃣ On April 1, you got the monthly digest of my posts on my blog. But you also got an April Fools joke. Some people took it seriously, which was funny. 🙂🤣

“I don’t view myself as a “content creator” and recoil at that phrase. I keep a blog as a way to stay involved in the world. Simply put, my motivation is to write, share, read, engage, learn. My contribution is a drop in the ocean and irrelevant to me beyond it being my tiny contribution to the collective whole.”

“Back in the day, many of the early writing tools were called Word-something. WordStar, Microsoft Word, WordPerfect.” — Dave Winer

🌄 Photography

1️⃣ Much of the week has been spent reading Nikon Z lens reviews to help me decide which lens to buy with the Nikon Zf. I'm undecided between a fixed lens and a zoom lens. I could use a 28-75mm or 20-120mm zoom lens. Depending on the day, I'm leaning toward the 28-75mm or a 50mm fixed lens. Decision, decision, decision. 2️⃣ The day before leaving for vacation, I decided to get the Nikon Zf with the 40mm lens. This lens is the closest to the natural human eye’s field of view. After a few hundred images, I can report that I'm super happy with my decision. 3️⃣ There was a solar eclipse on April 8th, and someone shot a photo using his iPhone. Great image. I wasn't prepared for this one-in-a-lifetime event and felt terrible about it. How come I didn't prepare myself better for this event? I mean, I'm a science guy, after all! I could have tried to take photos with my iPhone with the right filter in front of the camera. I could have driven to better places, directly on the path of the eclipse, because it was a two-hour drive instead of staying on the near edge of the path, which made the experience too short. Anyway. The next one is in 2100 or something. I'll be dead by that time.

“The decision to take a shot of a stranger usually has to be made in an incredible short amount of time.” — Lou Plummer

A great photographer discovered on Glass. I like his imperfect styling, mostly black and white photos.

🍎 Apple

1️⃣ I’m ready to write a review of my next iPad Pro as a comparison from the older model dating back to 2018. I've set up a template in Craft with the desire to write about a renewed iPad Pro experience based on significantly upgraded specs since I'm upgrading from an old 2018 edition of the iPad Pro. 2️⃣ Still, my current iPad for writing is more than enough. However, an OLED display would be transformative and revealing for image editing. After all, the 2018 iPad Pro screen has been the same for more than six years. Six years is a long time in technology. 3️⃣ I started cleaning up my iPad by removing apps and content to reduce space consumption. Many apps were offloaded, but their data is still on the device. One app that I forgot about caught my attention, and it is called “Graphic.” It was a great graphic design app for the iPad but wasn’t updated in ages. The website is still online. I found many documents that I’ll need to export in PDF before getting rid of this app once and for all.

🚧 Special projects

1️⃣ I started working on a three-part course for Craft users using Zavala Outliner. This course will be sold through the Gumroad platform. Buyers will get a free three-month subscription to the Craft Bible. I think it's a great value for Craft users, not only for starters but also for more advanced users. I can't wait to start recording this. I hope to record the three parts back to back. I posted the course outline on Slack to gather feedback.

📱 Apps & Services

1️⃣ After having an issue with Grammarly while writing a post on Scribbles, Maique on Micro.blog suggested looking at LanguageTool, an open-source equivalent. After a few minutes with it, I couldn't agree more; LanguageTool could probably replace Grammarly, but it isn't working with Craft. I need to copy the text into the LanguageTool app and then do the spell and grammar check before returning to Craft. It’s not optimal at all. Grammarly is due for renewal in August 2024, though. 2️⃣ Got the Readwise subscription renewed, and boy, this isn’t cheap. I wonder why there is no viable alternative to Readwise. 3️⃣ A guy beside me on the flight back home was using a device called AirFly to stream infotainment audio back to his AirPod. The device plugs into the USB-A plug and the audio jack. Cool device. 4️⃣ How many Apple fanboys can you find that beat Basic Apple Guy? This year's April Fool post edition is not only gorgeous and superbly executed, but it is also credible. Apple could (and should) bring special editions of the MacBook Air in glorious and colourful cases. 5️⃣ Finally, I got to sell my 2013 Mac Pro for $600 CAN. Now, I am looking to sell my 2018 iPad Pro with its Apple Magic Keyboard. 6️⃣ I shared my thoughts on the Arc Browser. Consider giving it a look; you might switch, too! 7️⃣ After posing my article about the Arc Browser, a reader pointed me to a browser extension that does exactly the same thing as Safari Reader mode. I'm super happy with that.

📺 YouTube

1️⃣ . To complement the next Craft release, version 2.7.7, I had to create a YouTube video to be made available simultaneously with the release of Craft. It took me about 90 minutes to produce, which is kind of a record. The video is 12m 47s long. 2️⃣ I watched a few more videos about street photographers. I learned a few things along the way and got inspired. That's the most important thing for me. See the exhibits section below for a few references.

💎 Miscellaneous

1️⃣ OpenAI’s Synthetic voices are mind-blowing. It is interesting to compare what OpenAI needs to achieve these results compared to Apple's method which requires reading out loud 150 different phrases. Apple's results aren't as convincing and require more extensive training: reading 150 sentences out loud.

🔮 Looking ahead

1️⃣ I feel undecided about my travel journaling plans. I give myself until early June to make a final decison about if and how I'm going to do my travel journaling starting this summer. So far, I'm leaning torward reusing everything that I got instead of creating a new home. Tagging posts with the “travel” tag should suffice.

I wish you a great week!

💡

This newsletter edition is also available as a Craft shared document here. This week's edition is based on template version 1.2.2— 2024-03-17 and was put together with ❤️ on a 15-inch MacBook Air, Craft and many subscriptions! Support my work (Paypal) or become a supporter! 🙏🏻

Exhibits 👀

A great video about a well-respected photographer, Siegfried Hansen. Lot’s of great images in this short interview. He’s exactly the type of photographer I’d like to be one day.