The Ephemeral Scrapbook — Edition 2024-35

JF Martin (@numericcitizen@pixelfed.social)

Zagreb.

Pixelfed

Here is a summary of my contributions since the last newsletter edition.
👨🏻‍💻 18 posts 😃
🏞️ 7 photos shared 🙂
🎙️ No podcast episode published 😔
📺 2 YouTube videos published 😃

👤 Personal

1️⃣ My consideration for freelance work is still moving along. I continue to write about this subject and find it full of interesting angles to consider and write about. I like stimulating subjects. 2️⃣ I'm happy to introduce the third generation of my newsletter, The Ephemeral Scrapbook. 3️⃣ I added a guestbook to my blog. Reading guestbooks at the museum on the way out is always fun, so I added one to my blog. Many readers already signed it! I'm so grateful for these simple gestures.

🗺️ Discoveries

1️⃣ I discovered Colossal. According to their website description, “Colossal is an online art magazine that celebrates contemporary art and visual culture across a wide range of creative disciplines.” Colossal showcases artists of all origins and genres. Highlighted artists are often found on other platforms like Etsy or Behance. It’s intriguing. This poster of exoplanets found on Colossal is superbly done. I want one! I could spend hours on this website. 2️⃣ I was on the private beta for the new Reeder app, the successor of Reeder Classic, the venerable RSS reader. The new app offers another take on content consumption, with a single feed merging all feed sources, including RSS, YouTube, Mastodon, Blusky and audio feeds. For testing purposes, I'm subscribing to most of my publication feeds (I like to subscribe to my own feeds). One thing that stands out in the new Reeder app is that you can assign a tag to a post, and Reeder generates a public feed for that tag. I'm testing this feature by selectively assigning a tag called “Highlight” to some of my posts that I want to be highlighted for potential readers. You can get the public feed here (this link might break in the future). Reeder is a direct competitor to Typestry, another app developed by the Iconfactory guys, the same one who did the Mastodon client named Ivory. Tapestry isn't complete yet, but my preference goes to Reeder, for now.

📖 Reading

1️⃣ The audio reading experience on Medium using a web browser is excellent. The only thing is that reading using audio requires more attention than reading the text on the computer screen. This is true of any spoken podcast, in my case. 2️⃣ Anil Dash: How Oprah will screw up the AI story. Mr. Dash is not confident in the upcoming Oprah show about AI. He sounds a little too quick with his assertions. Reminder: I don't think Oprah targets the scientific community in AI or the thinkers.

👨🏻‍💻 Writing

1️⃣ The Blaugust 2024 blogging festival has concluded in early September. Participants had to post at least once a day for August. That's a significant feat for those who can achieve this! I applaud everyone who could do it! As much time as I spend on my creative hobby, that's insufficient to warrant participation in such a challenge. I write pretty much daily, but I don't share each day. Special mention goes to Lou Plummer for posting close to 8 times a day spread on four blogs for the month. 👀 3️⃣ I like this blog post from Eric Gregorich, where he writes: writing is thinking. This explains why I wrote so much. I need to think and writing helps me achieve this goal.

🌄 Photography

1️⃣ That image caught my attention because I like big structures against natural settings. AOWS photographer keeps impressing me with the quality of his images. 2️⃣ Another great image, this one found on Reddit, in r/itookapicture. The scene, the point of view, the composition, the tones and the colours all contribute to this magnificent photo. 3️⃣ Dragos Bradu is my newly discovered photographer on Glass who shares excellent photos using a style and a selection of subjects that are reminiscent of mine. I see myself in his images.

Dragos Bradu on Glass Photography Community

Dragos Bradu.

🍎 Apple

1️⃣ M4 Mac mini rumours are getting more and more interesting. The latest points to a configuration with 5 USB-C ports, of which two are in the front, which woulc be very convenient. Gone are the USB-A ports! The power supply should stay integrated even if the mini decreases in size. This mighty box should arrive in November after a rollout in October, with other M4-based Macs. I shared a more detailed take here.

📱 Apps & Services

1️⃣ WordPress will spend human resources to migrate Tumblr’s backend to WordPress’. I don't know if it will move the needle. Who's still using Tumblr these days? 2️⃣ Matt Birchler shared a video about apps that he really enjoys using. I discovered that Whisper is coming to an iPhone near you (it's the iPhone version of Mac Whisper, a transcription app I use to create subtitles files for my YouTube videos). I also discovered “Track My Domains,” but sadly, a display bug makes it impossible to use with iOS 18 beta 8. The purpose of this app is to keep track of domain name renewals. 3️⃣ If you are a Synology NAS user, you might wait before upgrading to version 7.2.2 of their operating system. The following video explains it all. In short, if you depend on the Synology Video Station app or use video surveillance with your NAS, stop now and watch that video. The cause of this drama: Synology will stop paying for H.265 codec licensing costs. 4️⃣ Reeder is out with a small but pivotal update with a name change: Reeder Classic. This name change is mandatory because a brand-new app could replace Reeder Classic as a whole or in part. There is a little more info here. MacStories has a detailed article on the upcoming Reeder app. 5️⃣ iA Presenter 1.3 was released and includes support for inserting images from Unsplash. I don’t use iA Presenter as much as I would like, preferring Craft Presentation mode when I need to do some presentations while doing YouTube videos. I still keep an eye on iA Presenter, though. I'm using it for an upcoming video presentation. It's a weird app, but I like it a lot.

📺 YouTube

1️⃣ I produced two videos about Craft; the first one was about Craft Objects and Craft Style. So far, reactions are mostly positive. The second one is about configuring Craft from scratch, primarily destined for new Craft users. That one is not faring very well. 2️⃣ iJustine video with Becca Farsace, who used to be working for The Verge but is leaving to do her own things is interesting from a content creator perspective. iJustine indeed represents what it means to be a creative and prolific YouTuber. She's not exactly my type of YouTuber, but I admire her long streak of doing this and the energy she's putting in each of her videos.

💎 Miscellaneous

1️⃣ Matt Birchler is out with an interesting article: “Reviewing my iPhone 15 Pro review”. I find it interesting to revisit a review written a year ago. For my part, the only thing that I would say is that I rarely use the action button. It is currently set to run a multi-purpose action, but I seldom invoke it even with this. For the rest, I love the fit and finish of my iPhone 15 Pro Max. I was uncertain about the device size; this was my first Max iPhone, but I quickly became used to it. For me, the iPhone 15 Pro Max is my best iPhone ever. I don't expect to upgrade in 2024, but I will wait until next year with the iPhone 17. 2️⃣ I like the reMarkable Paper tablets for their general design and focus. I have a colleague at the office who always carries one with him, just like I do with my iPad Pro. I took a close look at the device and the screen and was seduced by the look and feel of the writing experience. The iPad is great, too, but the paper feeling is best on the reMarkable Paper tablet. The Verge reviewed the latest edition, the reMarkable Paper Pro. iJustine made a sponsered video too. 3️⃣ The making of two new icons from Information Architect, the maker of iA Writer and iA Presenter. I love those behind-the-scenes looks exposing the thinking that went into redesigning those apps icon.

reMarkable Paper Pro

reMarkable - “Replace your notes and printed documents with a digital notebook that feels like paper.”

reMarkable

🔮 Looking forward

1️⃣ Next week is the September 2024 Keynote. New iPhone and Apple Watch are wildly expected, coupled with new operating system releases, most of which are marking the beginning of the slow Apple Intelligence rollout. I'm looking to get a new watch this year, skipping Series 9 last year. According to my informal survey, some people are excited for this next Apple keynote.

I wish you a great week! ✌️👋🏻

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