My Weekly Creative Summary for the Week of 2024-15

JF Martin (@numericcitizen@pixelfed.social)

Some strange architecture, in Spain, from Gaudi.

Pixelfed

👨🏻‍💻 21 posts 😃
🏞️ 11 photos shared 🙂
🎙️ No podcast episode published 😔
📺 No YouTube video published 😔

👤 Personal

1️⃣ I got a new supporter this week, and I'm quite happy with that. The amount of money I get is not really important to me. But having someone take his or her time to read my work and subscribe as a supporter on my Ko-fi page means a lot to me. 2️⃣ On Saturday evening, my wife and her daughter went to see a ballet show, and I was left alone at home. I love those opportunities to be alone and spend time on my preferred hobbies, like writing this newsletter. I realized I was quite at ease being alone a long time ago.

📖 Reading

1️⃣ Are we spending too much time on our screens? Well, it depends. It's complicated. Tread this thought. 2️⃣ I hate ads. I mean it. This article from Jason Snell of Six Colors is on the spot. Do ads need to be everywhere in our digital space? I'm watching Apple's next move in this regard. I hope they won't put ads in Maps which could be a good place to advertise AppleTV+, right? (NOT).

"A man who uses his hands, is a labourer. A man who uses his hands, and his mind, is a craftsman. A man who uses his hands, and his mind, and his heart, is an artist." - Francis of Assisi

👨🏻‍💻 Writing

1️⃣ Writing is hard and demanding. I've been rather quiet in recent days on my blog but it's because I do write elsewhere, like this weekly newsletter. I always thought that in order to keep enjoying writing, it's important not to put too much pressure on myself.

🌄 Photography

1️⃣ I spent more time this week working on an updated photo-processing workflow based on Synology Photos and Photomator. This new workflow is the consequence of leaving Adobe Lightroom behind because the RAW image format produced by the new Nikon Zf camera is not yet supported in macOS and iPadOS (but is probably supported in Lightroom). It requires converting to a DNG file before I can edit the image in Photomator. It's not the most efficient workflow, but it's transitory. 2️⃣ How long before Apple adds support for new RAW image formats? I posted the question on DPReview. Spoiler alert: it could take a long time. 3️⃣ When I look at my photos, I find it fascinating how my late father probably influenced my photography subject choices: architecture, flowers, landscapes, churches, and highly graphic and geometric style. 4️⃣ I bought a microSD card for my Nikon Zf camera: 128GB in such a small format. I mean, this card is a tad bigger than a SIM card! It’s just incredible and cheap! 5️⃣ I also bought the Nikon ZTF II lens adaptor so that I can use the other lenses I used with my Nikon D750, a 70-200mm and a 20mm lens. After some testing, it seems to work great so far. I might leave my D750 behind for my next trip.

Maykel Loomans on Glass Photography Community

Maykel Loomans on Glass

https://glass.photo/jacobcook.photo a great photographer discovered this week.

escalator temporarily stairs, sorry for the convenience portra 400 voigtlander bessa-r indie film lab scan

Evan Wiley Smith on Glass

Great image and great interior architecture, reminiscent of an Apple Store.

🍎 Apple

1️⃣ Good news for Montrealers: the Sainte-Catherine Apple Store will move to a new location, just 100m east! This will be closer to my office; the building is much nicer, too! I can't wait for the new location to open! 2️⃣ Is Apple's magic gone? Are we bored about Apple? Mike, who is writing on his blog, thinks so. Personally, I'm excited for two things: the next iPad Pro and what is coming to iOS this summer on the generative AI front. I do not see much excitement in the tech press except maybe what relates to AI and iOS 18, where Apple is rumoured to try to catch up finally. But beyond that, even the Apple Vision Pro seems boring now.

Apple Store in Downtown Montréal Reportedly Moving to 125-Year-Old Heritage Building

Apple is preparing to move its retail store on Saint-Catherine Street in Montréal, Québec, according to Canadian newspaper La Presse. The current…

MacRumorsJoe Rossignol

🚧 Special projects

1️⃣ My work on the Craft introductory course is on pause because a new version is coming soon, and I want to cover everything. The next Craft version, rumoured to be v2.8, should include a few notable additions I want to cover but I'm not allowed to talk about here. 2️⃣ While waiting for the next Craft iteration, I decided to work on my creator dashboard in Craft and get ready to record a YouTube video about it.

📱 Apps & Services

1️⃣ This week, I had this brain bubble where I considered opening an OMG.LOL, account. But after spending some time on the website, I couldn’t endure their design language. It's too cartoonish, and I don't think it fits well with my branding of “Numeric Citizen." I'll stay away from OMG.LOL. 2️⃣ Simple Scan by IconFactory is super handy and practical for scanning documents. I have two scans left in the trial, and I might buy the app after that. 3️⃣ Rewind is no more, and Limitless seems to replace it. I'm not quite sure. I deleted all my data from my MacBook Air and uninstalled the app. Remember that I did some experimentation with Rewind a while ago and found the idea super interesting, but... learn more here. 4️⃣ I started testing Adobe Bridge to convert RAW files from my Nikon Zf. It's a free Mac app, but the design is awful and unintuitive. Adobe Bridge comes with the Adobe Creative app, which I'm not happy to install again on my Mac. Oh well.

📺 YouTube

1️⃣ A video about the Challenger crew who died in 1987, a moment that I remember very clearly. I was attracted by the video title because I'm always curious about those strange questions.😔 2️⃣ Great video from Matt Birchler showing ten cool apps he uses. I always like those videos. With this video, I discovered Bento Craft. It's an iPad app but it works ok on the Mac. I'll experiment with it for sure. I might have a few use cases for it.

💎 Miscellaneous

1️⃣ In the exhibit section below, you'll find two diagrams. Both show the visitor stats for my main website: “numericcitizen.me". The first one is when my site was hosted on WordPress. The second one is since my site was migrated on Ghost. See the difference in the trend? I don't think the choice of platform makes a difference, but I think my writing habits and my content are more focused now. This could give some credence to those bloggers who think being consistent and focused helps increase traffic. 2️⃣ A year from now, Humane, the AI pin's makers, will be no more. Remember, you read it here first. 3️⃣ I found a great Mastodon thread talking about the now-defunct Apple's iPhoto for iPad and iPhone. It brings great memories because I really like the design of this app, especially made for the iPad, a device that I love for editing photos. Too bad we lost this app. It's hard to imagine how this could have survived the iOS 7 redesign.

🔮 Looking ahead

1️⃣ My wife and I decided at the last minute to go on a cruise trip to visit the French Riviera in the first half of May. I'm looking forward to it so I can test my new camera. We will visit several places: Barcelona, Marseilles, Toulon, Nice, Portofino, Livorno and Rome. It's crazy expensive, but we have only one life to live.

I wish you a great week!

My Weekly Creative Summaries Index

Exhibits 👀