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Add depth of field to your screenshots/images: - Take a screenshot, upload it (link below), - Drag it around, scroll to zoom in/out - Click to focus Pretty cool idea. Free. https://www.blurmatic.com #photography #Editing #Screenshot

Thanks @vladcampos for having me as a guest on his show this week! Here’s a link to the video on YouTube. We talked about blogging, where Micro.blog came from, my book, and much more about the social web.

The problem is not "using the phone". It's that we do nothing but loading ourselves with bad emotion. There is nothing wrong with phones if you use your phone to read good books and connect with intelligent minds through space and time. (Normal books will do as well.) There is nothing wrong with …

I’d like to offer a 20 minute (can be longer), one on one, video call for any of my paying customers for Tinylytics, Scribbles and Shoutouts, to talk about any pain points and stuff they want to see improved. If you’re interested: hey@vincentritter.com Will do these in May ✌️❤️

The Magic Is Gone

On Micro.blog, Scribbles, And Multi-homing

@numericcitizen yes, it’s dedicated to the photoblogging challenge, but it could be adapted for travel photoblogging. Although there might be better shortcuts for that purpose if you’re using the Tiny Theme. Something like @Mtt’s Adaptive Photo Layout paired with a travel post template maybe. We …

I just updated my ‘MB Photoblogger’ shortcut to version 1.2: Adjusted the composition of the final text to display better in Mastodon clients (image on the bottom, thanks @burk) Split up the RSS results to make it easier to determine the day’s prompt, and double-check that it’s for the correct day …

Read all of my Ai Pin posts from today in one place: https://kocienda.micro.blog/2024/04/11/humane-ai-pin.html kocienda.micro.blog

Find the Mac Pro 🔎

Wavelength for iPhone has been updated with a fix for adding new audio files with the “+” button.

Nice new blogroll from Molly White. I love this part of the web… Sharing links to interesting blogs, discovering new writers, seeing how people shape their space on the web. That’s what it’s about.

I added a new app to my wish list today, Rond Life Mapper and added some details on this Scribbles post. It’s one of those apps that logs your location and activities, but this one, unlike many has a good privacy policy and promises not to be a battery hog. https://scribbles.page/write/2480 …

Improved support for receiving Bluesky replies for manually cross-posted blog posts, in addition to automatic cross-posting. Improved handling of cross-posting photos when there is an error, making cross-posting more resilient.

Updated the help page about Bluesky and cross-posting to cover expanded support for receiving mentions from Bluesky.

The process of any AI product is by definition thoughtless, careless, meaningless. A lot has been said about the lack of respect of AI industry recycling creative work asif they owned it. It's not nice that creatives are cut out financially. What annoys me more is that cutting human thought out of …

Every designer knows this thought: "Everything made around me has a form and a function. So everything had to be shaped by a designer. But who are they? Where are they? And why—if they really were designers—why were they so careless?" Seeing the rise and fall of the interaction design industry I am …

@manton @pratik For months I have wanted a mashup of Micro.blog and Mastodon. Some way to combine the two so that I can have my boosts and Mastodon timeline while still retaining Micro.blog's focus. I haven't even got a precise vision of what that would look like and even if I did have that vision I …

@numericcitizen I'm glad it's been added as a feature but I don't go out of my way to look. If I click through to an interesting post I'll usually check to see if they have added a blogroll and then I'll look. But too often I just see the repetition of bigger name bloggers in which case it's not a …

Hey @gruber , I can't really put my finger on it exactly, but your commentary recently has irked me. You don’t seem to bother trying to understand cultural context when talking about anything that isn't happening in the context of the US. Especially your commentary on the DMA seems narrow-minded …

🥕 I was a very loyal user of Carrot Weather for many years. Like many, I tried other apps. None stuck, until Mercury came along. Today it hit me: I haven’t launched Carrot in a (very long) while. 

I am supportive of good legislation in tech (especially for privacy and user rights) but this Apple DOJ complaint is everything that can be bad about government tech regulation: an ignorant, pointless exercise which will likely hamper making meaningful laws that help us as users. …

This new video for Humane’s pin is by far the most effective pitch they’ve made for their device. They hide the latency well by talking too. I’m sure they want it to be faster and whoever can crack AI performance is going to succeed.

I stumbled upon this YouTube video on 5 ways to start journaling. As an avid journaler, I’m impressed and highly recommend that everyone watch it. youtube.com/...

@tbridge @gruber Bullshit. You’re all responsible for the worst that you do. That’s how it works. You vote. You lose. Things happen. You’re still responsible. Democracy is predicated upon a people engaged in the body politic and who take responsibility for the results. Only through that sense of …

I really like this one.

"Banning TikTok, rather than passing comprehensive federal privacy legislation, is nothing but xenophobic theater. China can (and does) already buy a ton of data on Americans because we refuse to pass any regulation regarding data brokers who make this data available..." ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ …

I just updated my ‘Publish to Micro.blog’ shortcut to version 1.1: Added a setup step to specify your microblog’s ID number so that posts always get sent to the right blog. (Handy if you accidentally leave Micro.blog set to one of your other blogs.) If left blank, it will default to the last blog …

@numericcitizen Fabric Internet OS is something I would've thought you'd already have dipped a toe in... Glad to introduce you to something new!

The Writer Forte: first impressions

Added option for monthly email newsletters to collect posts from any category. Added support for converting hashtags in blog posts to Bluesky hashtags in cross-posting.

As I transition to stricter separation between business and personal, is there a good modern KVM? I would like to easily swap between my Mac Mini and MacBook Pro. I’m using a Studio Display and pretty much all USB-C. I realize the answer may be, “USB-C dock, and plug and unplug”.

Incredibly heavy, dark, and fascinating. Sound on. No spoilers... http://apps.frontline.org/inheritance/

Rules for my personal blogging

My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Book Two

Almost every comparison of two technologies that nominally solve the same problem falls into the same fallacy. We judge one technology on the design goals of the other and then claim supremacy because of intentional differences in trade-offs made to achieve different ends.

Nazis are openly mingling and making friends at the CPAC conference, Trump is getting cheers for a speech where he promises his “ultimate and absolute revenge” and another speaker got big cheers when he promised an “end to democracy.” This is fine. …

Simplified pricing in Micro.blog manton.org

Technology Report Card 2023

I think I’m Weird Online: I don’t feel the need to catch up. I don’t feel the desire to “debate for good”. I don’t require Likes and Algorithms. I don’t assume all technological advancements are good. I don’t believe anyone has a right to tell others how to spend their time, especially online. …

Apple is twisting the truth manton.org

We ❤️ @bonfire If you haven't had a chance to check it out, here is a great article by @deadsuperhero https://wedistribute.org/2024/02/bonfire-nextgen-framework/ #bonfire #fediverse #weDistribute

Size of an Apple Vision Pro display panel compared to an iPhone 15 Pro & Apple Watch Ultra.

@numericcitizen No comment. Pretend you didn't see that. 🙂

@numericcitizen Publish Quote Shortcut, from @jarrod, when I’m on iOS, or manually with Drafts, on macOS. Quite fast too. heydingus.net

feeeed: Embracing Feed Diversity and Personal News Curation macstories.net

Spent some time this weekend experimenting with browser extensions. I had avoided this too long, thinking a bookmarklet should be good enough for anyone. But it is nicer to install with a search and a click. In-progress source code over at GitHub.

Folks, I think I’ve finally rationalized it. Don’t think of it as a PURCHASE. Think of it as an advanced prototype that you’ve paid Apple for the PRIVILEGE of testing.

@maique Here it is: https://mattlangford.com/2024/02/02/new-tiny-theme.html mattlangford.com

It looks like YouTube is dropping RSS feed support. I have tried to access a couple of channels I am subscribed to, and they are also returning a 404 for their channel’s feeds.

Because of their decades of truly great products, Apple thinks they are more clever than anyone else. Because of their focus on privacy, Apple thinks they are righteous. Because of their financial success, Apple thinks they are more powerful than governments. The DMA will test whether they’re right. …

Free idea for Apple if they want a promotion that just prints money. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the iPod — which would be November 10, 2026 — select and re-release four of the most iconic iPod models. Have a single day in which you can pre-order the devices with delivery occurring before …

@numericcitizen I just created a new dedicated landing page for the theme. I like using a subdomain for these mini sites. https://cards.ericgregorich.com

Read this entire piece, wow, this had to be a pain to write, John. I don’t understand a lot of how this will all play out but the final paragraph is indeed delicious irony. Craig submitted iPulse for iOS to the App Store yesterday and we honestly have NO IDEA if it will pass App Store review. We had …

Want a super simple RSS news reader app that's... - Beautiful and at home on iOS? - Extremely lightweight? - Removes decision fatigue? I got you → https://testflight.apple.com/join/XyqLvagI

‘Insanely Great: The Apple Mac at 40’ Panel Discussion https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/01/24/insanely-great

Added a JSON Feed to complement the new webmentions page. This is available under micro.blog/feeds/your-username/webmentions.json. It will include basic info about incoming webmentions across all your blogs.

Find the Mac Pro.

We’ve rolled out a small design update to Micro.blog on the web, moving the sidebar to the left and giving it a background color, to better use the full screen space.

Added fediverse-compatible editing for blog posts. You’ve always been able to edit microblog posts. Now those edits will be reflected on Mastodon too.

Improved blog category names to better support more languages and special characters. You can now customize the category URL path independent of the category name (when editing the category).

Added support for Mastodon’s “indexable” field so that Micro.blog posts are searchable in Mastodon. If you have the “No robots” plug-in installed, your account is excluded from Mastodon search. Fixed profile updating too. You can re-save your Account profile to notify Mastodon of changes. …

A few little improvements inspired by this thread in the Help Center… Conversation pages now have an Embed link for individual replies. Fixed not re-publishing blog when reloading themes from GitHub. Added new plumbing for page type = “newsletter” so that plug-ins can access sent email newsletters. …

There’s a new plug-in called “Newsletters page” for folks who have enabled email newsletters. It creates an index page at /newsletters with a list of emails that have been sent, linking to each one on the web.

Added a new export option to download an archive of your blog as static HTML files, with all the photos and other uploads. Find it under Posts → “…” → Export.

Added a new page to show incoming webmentions to your blog. You can find it under Account, near the Replies section. Not all webmentions make their way into actual replies in the timeline (if they’re missing the reply markup), so this can be useful to see who is linking to you. …

Lowe's Style Studio, visionOS Hey look, devkit footage 🙃 /via https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lowes-style-studio/id6472232397

@numericcitizen It’s possible to get the Reminders deeplink, but it’s not as seamless as Things, and takes a few more steps. Here’s a shortcut for it: https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/49f4a2e32b994737b7c7c46ca37e296e

John Gruber asks the relevant question for Apple’s new linking rules: Here’s a simple thought I had today regarding whether Apple’s new External Purchase Links entitlement policy is a good faith compliance with Judge Gonzales’ order: Will any developers actually choose to use it? It is hard to …

I’m not ordering a Vision Pro, but I went through the buying process out of curiosity. Apple put a lot of work into this. The integration with the face scanning and web checkout is very nicely done.

Ending the year with the Everyday Category was such a treat. Getting a deeper look into each and every one of your Everyday lives made for a wonderful way to wind down 2023. Enjoy your considered scroll through these photos in our Highlights. …

The COVID Pandemic was a societal demarcation line. Businesses operate differently, “short staffed” is a normalized excuse. Service quality is down and it’s accepted. Prices are all over the place and not good. People are fine just staying home and getting everything delivered. …

New video from @numericcitizen all about Micro.blog standalone pages and related tips. Cool! www.youtube.com

Micro.blog plug-in idea: A “Follow box” in which you get a page, or widget for embedding on a page. Inside the widget/page are the different built-in ways to follow you; different feeds, newsletter, MB profile. Optional extras; add your own links; use icons; and customise with text. …

I’m gonna say it. The only people who shit on “skeuomorphism” or rich design in software are people who didn’t know how to do it or work with it. The aesthetic with gradients, shadows, highlights, *color*, shading— it all worked well. It’s just not something everyone could do. *That* is why it …

📘 I purchased a new MacBook M3 Pro yesterday. 🤓 I’ve owned iPhones and iPads for years, but this is my first experience with a MacBook and MacOS. I’m still getting it configured and learning my way around, but love it so far! ❤️

1000 subscribers goal achieved! Six month later than I would have hoped. Better late than never!

@numericcitizen AI generation using a specific prompt Works really well! 😀 www.windowscentral.com

Matt Dillon has so many holes in him that he was named honorary Marshall of Switzerland.

If Apple spends the entire iOS 18 cycle with every engineer in the company figuring out how to provide OpenAI-quality voice, image, and text generative AI as an API to developers, directly on-device and offline, and nothing else, it would be completely worth it. It could all power the next several …

💻 Installed the Search Space plugin by @sod. Works great! I like that you have the option to search posts and replies. Makes it easy to find things quickly. 🔎 github.com

My Matter Stats for 2023

Mark Zuckerberg has announced that Threads is now testing integration with the fediverse, thanks to support for the ActivityPub protocol. In this current integration of the integration, Zuckerberg says this means posts Threads accounts will now be available on Mastodon, Pixelfed, and other services …

Every app, service, device, etc is not made specifically for _you_

I just downloaded the 45-day trial for FileMaker Pro and wow it blows away all the web-based databases. Yes, I used the program a ton in the 20th century, but even after many many years of not using the program, I’m instantly productive. Importing a 150 records from a CSV happens in an instant …

I sometimes wonder how someone with a lot of experience in making digital products can say stupid dictatorial things like "As long as your product doesn't do [tiny minor feature] it's useless!" People are quick at judging apps in radical ways just because of a minor detail. This is related to apps …

😮 The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has officially left Twitter. Their last tweet: "The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is no longer active on this platform. Please find us at Mastodon at @w3c " I love that they've officially moved to Mastodon. Brilliant! 🙌🏻 #Mastodon #W3C …

Police: Don't leave home without an AirTag in your down jacket (video) "AirTags are awesome." — D.C. Police Commander Sylvan Altieri https://www.ped30.com/2023/12/02/apple-airtag-canada-goose/

“The quality of your app’s onboarding is a reflection of what your users will expect from the rest of your app” ~ Dalai Lama

Clear the cache of single website in Safari

OpenAI’s rumored “breakthrough,” called Q*, is not about to usher in the age of AGI or a humanity-crushing singularity. https://www.computerworld.com/article/3711369/the-fear-and-hype-around-ai-is-overblown.html

Stop Using AI-Generated Images https://birchtree.me/blog/done-with-ai-generated-images/

iPhone Camera Bump updated for 2023 iPhone 15 Pro Max is the thickest iPhone ever. It comes in at 12.32mm total vs 12.30mm. The camera turret continues to grow, where will it stop, nobody knows.

@numericcitizen @BasicAppleGuy https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/17mddnv/oc_the_price_of_every_imac_adjusted_for_inflation

Fediverse Unlocked

Got something exciting planned… 👀 https://testflight.apple.com/join/FOKxyxxg

@tldr Yes, it’s not very intuitive but create a standalone Page and for the text content just paste in the full URL where you want the link to go.

@numericcitizen - Use AI only on topics were I wouldn't mind talking about them in public (It's similar to yours I guess) - Never feed the AI with confidential data - Assume everything you do with AI will become publicly known at some point

I have two main objections to YouTube: 1) YouTube blatantly ignored copyright in order to become the dominant video service on the web. 2) YouTube was acquired by Google, which reinforced and promoted Google’s monopolization of the web. This is why I have no desire to financially support YouTube …

Lots of beautiful interface work and touches in this design retrospective from @stammy on his never-launched app Stocketa. Very nice interactive elements in the post, too: https://paulstamatiou.com/stocketa/