Got to love the team over at Framework, it’s been on my radar for a while and they have now released a Chromebook. This is the way to build a laptop in 2022 and I wish more companies took this approach to sustainability. Now please can they create an Android phone 🙂
Tag: news
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I’ve been unhappy with my pretty plain blog for a while and in this day and age I really needed something a bit more uplifting as I write day to day and hopefully for your reading of my content.
Taking inspiration from sites like Birchtree I decided to go all in and use a colour theme with some of my favourite colours. I didn’t want to go all in the orange given it would be detrimental to the reading experience but I did want to have it there, so it’s an accent colour and this nice green/blue is what I picked to read against.
I’ve been away for a couple of weeks taking a little rest bite from blogging whilst I figure out what I want to do at the moment creatively.
I’m lucky to have readers that enjoy what I do so I’ll continue to write here but I’ve also added a link to my photography and my Star Wars newsletter.
These are the main public facing creative outlets for me right now and I hope you continue to enjoy the content that I’m putting out.
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I’ve been using Day One for years so this news that they have been acquired by the makers of WordPress is definitely interesting. As I’ve written about before WordPress looks to be pivoting towards wanting to become a social network with it’s introduction of, sigh stories.
On the whole though I like Automattic as a company and I don’t really have any issues with this purchase. My only real concern is that they will remove the ability to use the app without a subscription to their cloud service.
I use it as a local app and back up my data to iCloud manually. I’m not all for storing this kind of personal data on their servers.
I’m optimistic about this one and let’s see what happens.
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Wow, the iMac looks great. This looks amazing and in Orange! I love that Apple are bringing back some colour to the line up – it’s much needed in my opinion.
It’s 24″, which is fine for most people, I have a current 27″ and it’s about as big as I would want to use on my desk. With that new M1, it’ll be much quicker than our existing model but I don’t have the cash for it just yet. I’m going to be tempted to see what I would get on a trade in on the 27″ though – out of curiosity of course!
Check out the new colours and let me know which is your favourite.
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The best thing about the new Apple TV for me was the new remote, well the good news is that you can order it for your existing Apple TV.
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Spotify announced Car Thing a few days ago for “select Spotify users” but I have no idea why. I can see strategically they want to be in people’s faces as often as possible but is there really a need for this?
All of the cars I’ve owned have been fine for streaming from my phone. Even back when I used Spotify and had a cassette adapter it was always fine, no issues. Moving on from there my next car had an Aux In that I could plug my phone in directly with, again a fine solution. My last car had Apple CarPlay, which was fantastic, no need for something like this.
It seems a vanity play to me, no reason to exist but to get some media coverage and something for the Spotify super fans (do they exist?).
Let me know your thoughts on this one, maybe I’m just not seeing the market.
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I think that if this report by Mark Gurman at Bloomberg is to be believed Apple are developing a new ‘home’ product that combines an Apple TV, HomePod and Camera to use FaceTime and I think it’s about time.
It makes perfect sense to have something that we could use instead of crowding around the nearest phone or iPad to do video calling. Personally on the speaker front I’d love more of a sound-bar approach but a new speaker in the living room might come in handy to amplify the sound of the call not just for music.
Assuming the Apple TV is there given the video from the FaceTime call would appear on your big screen TV so may as well add AppleTV to it too.
Sounds interesting.
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I’ve enjoyed sharing my thoughts via the newsletter but the service I’ve been using is no longer viable for me. I’ve had an account for months and no matter what information I provide I can’t seem to get a verified account. This means that I can no longer send issues via the service so am stuck. I can’t delete my account (because it’s not verified) and can’t send issues so for now I’m putting the Newsletter on hold whilst I figure out what to do.
Thanks for everything that has subscribed to me so far and watch this space for updates.
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I’ve really gotten into using Fantastical over the last few months and particularly enjoy the fact that my calendar and reminders are all in one place.
Flexibits have teased us with a new version and whilst I’m not so excited about new functionality around sharing I’m very excited to see what they do about better integrating reminders into the app.
I like the statement above emphasising the word tasks, the current version is a little lacking when it comes to managing your to do list. I’d love to be able to use just fantastical so anything they can do to improve this integration would be much appreciated.
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I couldn’t believe what I’ve been reading being a fan of North Face stuff for a while but no longer. I always thought they were pretty ethical but based on this performance I can’t figure out why they would think this is an ok thing to do.
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I haven’t watched all of Samsung’s latest event but I did see the new Galaxy Fold, what a name… anyway a foldable $2000 smartphone is something I wanted to comment on.
My first impression when seeing it on the livestream was, wow that’s just two phones stuck together. It’s kind of cool to see something folding out to a bigger screen but this isn’t the implementation that makes sense to me. I’m sure on video I could see a folder or crease at the middle point that would just be distracting. I believe that sliding additional screen from the side is the way we’ll see this implementation. Think of a scroll that you roll out, not unlike the LG foldable TV that was announced earlier in the year at CES.
I’ve got to give it to Samsung for trying here and getting something out but it looks like a terrible implementation to my eyes.
Now with that price I have to think it’ll sell in the hundreds rather than millions here. Looking at the global smartphone slowdown this isn’t the answer, it’s high end luxury and the sales will show it. It’s a party piece to show off not something to use as a daily driver. However it’s good to get it out there and get some in the wild to see how it takes off and get some real world testing completed.
I’m not entirely sold that foldable is the future but whatever it is, this isn’t the end implementation. It’s a baby step, a stepping off point something that gets the technology into the hands of users that are willing to give it a go. For me it still looks like two phones stuck together, I’ll be waiting a while for the ‘scroll phone’.
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Although I’m not setting the world alight with my content I’ve seen a steady increase in traffic since launching the new site on WordPress. I’m not talking hundreds of thousands but I’m in the tens of thousands now, which I’m pleased with. I’ve not marketed at all really just put out content that I’ve wanted to share.
So, my top post:
This won by a considerable margin and shows writing how to’s for small creators is a good way to bring some traffic your way.
Next up the top ten countries that visit my site.
Not a surprise given I’m based in the UK and write mainly about technology. I’m surprised that Switzerland made it in there, thanks to whoever is visiting my site from there.
Lastly here are my top referrers.
Surprise for me is seeing a lot of readers coming from other WordPress users. I have a steady number of them being added every week and something I didn’t expect. If you have a WordPress site consider using the reader to follow sites within the app.
So, good to see an upward trend on my viewers and hopefully blogging makes a comeback in this age of toxic social media.
Thanks to everyone that’s contributed to these stats this year.
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Hi everyone, as we get to the end of the year I wanted to just say thanks to everyone that has read, engaged with me and shared my content this year. As an independent content creator it’s sometimes hard to maintain the motivation to keep going, especially when you have a demanding day job.
Even though blogging isn’t exactly fashionable in 2018 I enjoy writing and even though I’m not able to support myself doing this it’s been a fun project over the last few years.
I’m going to maintain this going forward and will be adding a few new things into the mix like some focus on video and maybe a new podcast but with a family and day job we’ll have to see how it all pans out.
Thanks again and Merry Christmas.
Cheers
Lee.
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Wasn’t expecting this free update to Tweetbot, wow it looks great with pure black mode for OLED screens and redesigned profile pages.
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I always look forward to iFixit teardowns and more importantly the repair scores. Apple have been hit and miss but generally improved over the years as far as I can see.
The last Microsoft Surface laptop got a zero, did they learn their lesson on the new one – NO.