Showing the American Flag Respect: 

How to Respect the American Flag - National Flag Foundation

The American Flag is a representation of our country, our people, and our devotion to our nation. Respecting the American Flag and the principles that it symbolizes requires us to treat it with a high level of care at all times. The United …

I really like Ranchero Software’s philosophy when it comes to supporting NetNewsWire. This is what open source should be.

My wife and I getting creative in the kitchen tonight. Chicken breast tenders, ricotta, spinach, and sun dried tomato with a dash of garlic. It did not suck…

I’m happy to share that the long-running project from hell has successfully deployed. There will be additional user support over the next weeks, but today marks a milestone for a project that’s taken more than three and a half years to complete. I’m not sure how I feel about it …

After receiving positive feedback to the scroll to top option added to the dev version of my mnml Micro.blog theme, I’ve added it to the public version and released it. If you’re using the theme, you can upgrade from your site’s Micro.blog plug-ins page. Enjoy!

Because I’m lazy, and because I constantly view my own site looking for tweaks I want to make, I’ve added a scroll to top button at the lower right of the pages on the dev version of my mmml Micro.blog theme. If you use the mmml theme too, let me know if you’d want it as well.

I have this theory that a lot of enterprise system implementations go south because development and PMO teams cannot empathize with or envision what end users are trying to accomplish. I’ve experienced this with our own consultants on the LRPFH. It’s driving me nuts because I do have that skill.

By the way… It was great wearing my Casio today, but I’m too hooked on my Apple Watch Ultra and swapped it back as soon as I got home from work. All feels right with the world again.

The really big software vendor for the failed deployment on the long-running-project-from-hell (LRPFH) has developed a patch to fix our issue and scheduled it to deploy this evening. First it was 4pm. Then 5pm. And then 6pm. Now it’s 7:30pm… Any takers for 9pm or later? Sigh…

Ditching the Apple Watch Ultra for a day to break out the Casio GST-S100G. Let’s see if I can survive.

Playing with Google’s NotebookLM this morning, I uploaded a PDF of one of my blog posts and had it create an audio overview without any input from me. The output was a 19 minute podcast-like “segment” that you’d swear was a real conversation between two people. …

An exhausting and disappointing weekend. The “long running project from hell” was set to deploy this weekend, but we ran into troubles due to vendor licensing. Two days have been lost to it. The rest of today will be about rolling back and regression testing we didn’t leave something broken. 🤬

Hey! Y’all should follow @goblingumbo if you’re not already. His photos of garden variety lizards are off the hook!

Repping Micro.blog on the west coast… Get your own t-shirt!

So I’m giving Reeder 5 another try. It’s starting to grow on me… A little… Maybe… Sorry @canion.

It’s amazing what listening to loud music can do for the soul.

I’ve been pondering starting a punk band out of the OC in SoCal for a couple years. Given recent political results, now would be the time for it. But all the punks from the days of old who are my age and still located in the OC are likely MAGA-heads now…

There’s a great curation of photos in the Micro.blog Discover feed today. Check them out and follow someone new.

Reading my last post back, it might sound as if I’ve accepted defeat. Far from it. Make no mistake. I will do everything necessary to stand up against tyranny. Do not give up. Do not give in. Continue to fight for truth, justice and what is right for all peoples. The fight has only just …

No Words: 

I went to bed concerned with what I was seeing, but with the hope that democracy would do its thing and a tyrant would be defeated. I was confident common sense and a true sense of patriotism would prevail. I slept soundly.

I really dislike daylight savings time changes. Even “gaining” an hour, I’m all sorts of wonky and will be for a week. I hope one day legislation actually passes that does away with it once and for all.

As I teased yesterday, I registered a new domain and set up a site for the resurrection journey of my Mac app Yasu. Follow along there if you’re interested.

I challenged Claude.ai and ChatGPT to create a Python script to convert my Omnivore archive from HTML to Markdown using the same prompt. Claude.ai’s script outperformed ChatGPT’s in terms of functionality and flexibility. Although ChatGPT’s script worked, Claude.ai’s script provided better options.

Well darn. My IT Security brethren (and Legal) have finally given the kibosh to my beloved Fantastical calendar app, revoking the OAuth token to connect to my work calendar. It’s not worth fighting to keep, which means it’s not worth renewing my subscription either. We had a good run, …

I have managed to come down with a very slight cold. Nothing like I would get when I was a smoker 30+ years ago, but it is the first one I’ve had in more than five years. I think stress at the day job has contributed to it.

Yay Dodgers for winning the World Series. Boo Dodger fans for behaving like destructive looting thugs, yet again. 😒

Happy to report that after one day, interest in and response to the new Micro.blog tees was pretty incredible. Seeing that totally made it worth making it happen.

My wife (of all people) turned me on to a really interesting podcast series yesterday… American Elections: Wicked Game. I’ve listened to the 2020 episode completely and half of the 2016. It’s crazy how much I’ve forgotten of the events that happened during those cycles.

The Unofficially Official Micro.blog Swag: 

You may have seen my teaser for this yesterday. Or not… 😁

Do you love Micro.blog and wish you could represent the platform while you’re out and about at the grocery store, sporting event, work or nerdy conference?

Surprisingly, after upgrading to macOS Sequoia 15.1 and joining the Apple Intelligence waitlist, I received it within a minute or two. I had anticipated a wait of at least a couple of days. Now, I’m trying to figure out how it can actually benefit my computing habits.

It’s said that “good artists copy, great artists steal.” I’d hate to be labeled a thief, so I’m going to borrow the idea and run a social experiment on my site by adding an exclusive Buck a Month Club. If you like my work, this is your opportunity to join 49 others and …

I love the California BallotTrax system. I dropped our ballots off at the local ballot box yesterday morning, and my wife and I got email notification that our ballots have been counted today. We’ve done our small part. You should too if you haven’t yet. In many ways, life and death is …

I’m working on this super-cool thing that I think a lot of Micro.blog users will really like. I can’t let the cat out of the bag quite yet, but I’m so giddy with excitement over it that I just can’t keep my big mouth shut…

Living on the edge…

Take that, fascist scum!

Changing Link Colors for the mnml Theme: 

Since this question will likely come sooner or later…

When I was developing mnml, I wanted to give users the ability to set their own link colors for both light and dark modes. However, in my testing, there were challenges that would have caused colors a user set to get overwritten if I …

So… At the urging of Richard (aka MacPsych) through Mastodon a few days ago, I’ve cleaned up my personal site theme and released it to the Micro.blog community as “mmml” in the themes plugin directory. Use the preview button to see what your own site looks like with it. …

As I continue to slowly dip my toe into LLM/AI, I’m checking out Claude from Anthropic. I’ve been using ChatGPT on and off, and it’s cool, but Claude looks a little more interesting.

Week Log 2024-43: 

Taking ideas from a few others, I’m going to try something new and start a long form post of things that happened during the week. The goal is a stream of consciousness that gets published with minimal editing. Just write and publish – though some copy editing is allowed…

Alright… After making some poor decisions yesterday, I’ve got my Mastodon woes sorted out. If you followed my social.lol/@jim profile, but don’t seem to be anymore, here’s your chance to refollow. I promise I won’t put you through this again…

This just came to me… I think the third Tuesday of each month should be declared “Meeting Amnesty” day, where no meetings whatsoever are scheduled for anyone at all – kind of a mini-holiday. Everyone just gets stuff done without any interruptions.

🤢 Oh no… Someone has brought a very potent fish dish into the open office space for their lunch. That’s an office etiquette faux pas, coworker…

Another cup of hot chocolate at work today, this time a double. This could get out of hand if I don’t put it in check right now…

I volunteered to be a “safety leader” at work because, well yeah, that’s the kind of stuff I seem to do without thinking it through, and somehow I ended up as the “head” safety leader of the bunch. Which of course means yet another herd of cats I’ll have to …

On a whim, I made a cup of hot chocolate at work this morning. It’s been years since I’ve had one, and dang, it tasted spectacular.

I wonder what ever happened to Micro @monday? The last entry was more than a year ago. I think it was a great Micro.blog community builder.

What kind of stuff do I like to do on a Sunday morning? Fork Manton’s Micro.blog Recommends plugin so I can update my own Recommends page the way I want it to look. If you’re a Micro.blog user and like the tabular format, let me know. I’ll release it as an official plugin.

I kind of like you can make home screen icons in iOS 18 larger and the labels disappear now, but I really wish there were a way to hide app labels AND keep icons their original size. I feel old(er) rocking the large icons…

I decided to alias my Mastodon account from mastodon.social over to social.lol where all the cool kids seem to be hanging out these days. I lost about 50 followers in the move, but that’s okay. I’m on a better instance this way.

Let Your Yes Be "Hell Yeah!" and Your No, No: 

Hell Yeah or No | Derek Sivers

If you feel anything less than “hell yeah!” about something, say no.

I added my Micro.Masonry plugin to the Micro.blog plugin directory this morning (well, last night and updated this morning). If you’re looking for a nice masonry style layout for your Micro.blog photos page that’s mobile responsive, give it a look.

Still More WordPress Drama: 

Employees Describe an Environment of Paranoia and Fear Inside Automattic Over WordPress Chaos

“We were unaware that Matt redirected sign-up emails until current Automattic employees contacted our support team,” a spokesperson for Blind told me, adding that they’d “never seen a CEO or executive try …

For reasons unknown to me, my Tinylytics plugin for WordPress has had (what I’d call) a large spike in downloads over the last few days. Not that it matters much… It’s just interesting to see it.

Now that I’ve moved to just one site on Micro.blog, I’m thinking long and hard again about “going all in” and aliasing my Mastodon username back here. If I do, maybe I can make it stick this time. I’ll ruminate on it through the day, and then make a decision tonight.

📷 The Hollywood sign, peeking over the hills.

Unsung Heros of the Deep Sea: 

The deep-sea ‘emergency service’ that keeps the internet running

Ninety-nine percent of the world’s digital communications rely on subsea cables. When they break, it could spell disaster for a whole country’s internet. How do you fix a fault at the bottom of the ocean?

Text-Only & Minimalist News Sites: 

A List Of Text-Only & Minimalist News Sites - GreyCoder

Text-only websites are quite useful, especially today, because web pages are increasingly filled with ads, videos, and bandwidth-heavy content.

Even More WordPress Drama: 

WordPress.org’s latest move involves taking control of a WP Engine plugin - The Verge

It’s not clear what security problem Mullenweg is referring to in the post. He writes that he’s “invoking point 18 of the plugin directory guidelines,” in which the WordPress team reserves several rights, …

I shared this nugget a while back, but it’s worth sharing again… If you have a domain you’d like to forward to another domain with just a simple DNS modification, I totally recommend ForwardDomain.net to accomplish it.

The move from WordPress to Micro.blog is now complete… Content I wanted to keep has been imported. Backup of assets from VPS taken and archived. DNS records updated. VPS decommissioned and deleted. Domain forwarding for .dev to .org TLD confirmed.

I got the core features of a new Micro.blog masonry style layout photos page plugin worked up this morning. I still need to add the ability to set preferences for number of columns and image gaps, but I’m liking the results. Check out my photos page to see the results so far.

Jimmy Vaughan was the opening act for Eric Clapton tonight. So great to hear some good Texas Blues. It’s also great to see guys who are pushing 80 years old still out there doing their thing.

📷 At the Hollywood Bowl to see Eric Clapton.

A huge shout out to Aaron Vegh for the quick turnaround on a solution to a Croissant issue (not a bug) I reported after “wedging” my Threads account into a state of inability to delete. Super friendly and quick support responses as well. That’s what I dig about the indie dev …

I tried using Arc as my default browser for the day yesterday. I don’t think I’m quite ready for it, so I’m returning to Safari. I’ll keep playing with Arc here and there so maybe one day it feels more natural and I’ll make the move permanently.

Well, my monthly call with my mentor got canceled last minute, so I think that’s my cue to go outside and get some fresh air with a walk.

A Useful BBEdit AppleScript: 

Soft-Wrap Text in BBEdit - Uncorrected

An oldie but goodie from John Gruber that I just discovered while looking for ways to soft-wrap text in BBEdit:

And just like that, I’m back on Micro.blog… 👋

I think the people who produce TV shows have come to realize that, while sex still sells, conflict sells even better. Every cable TV show I flip past seems to have nothing but conflict as a plot line. It’s both distressing and sad at the same time.

Social Media Hasn't Killed the Personal Blog Just Yet: Remember the late 90s and early 2000s when personal blogs were the thing? Everybody had one and they were like online journals; authentic, raw, and an outlet for personal thoughts, ideas, and sometimes questionable opinions. It kind of feels like those days are behind us, buried under the avalanche …

Hate to say it, but the pre-recorded Apple events just don’t have the magic of the Jobs era. Whereas we once hung on every word that came from Steve’s mouth, the super-polished sizzle reels Apple tries to pass off as an “event” have become boring and predictable. I stopped …

I feel so empowered when I decline a bunch of meetings because I’ll be on PTO later in the week. It’s my favorite way to start a Monday. 💪🏻

Trying something new for dinner… Broke out the smoker for the first time this year to infuse a little smoke to some chicken breasts before I finish them up on the grill. Pairing it up with grilled corn on the cob.

I picked up an Apple Magic Keyboard with Touch ID today (not the extended model). I’ve been using an Apple extended Bluetooth keyboard forever, so the hand placement feels a little different. I do like the new smaller size under my hands, and thoroughly like the touch sensor being “right …

I’ve been weighing the options of sticking with Micro.blog, running my own WordPress server, or going the 100% free route of a Hugo site published on GitHub pages. Cost and effort wise, Micro.blog is the front runner, plus (I’ve said it before) there’s the community. Con is I’m not 100% in control.

Something I do like about the new version of Reeder… When opening a toot from the feed, it gives the full Mastodon thread in context.

I’m going to throw some knee-jerk observations about Reeder out as I evaluate it… A big thing I’m seeing: If you follow someone/something in multiple places (Micro.blog, Mastodon, RSS), you’re going to see the same post multiple times. That makes for a lot of duplicated …

I’m giving Raycast Pro a spin to see if it’s worth what they’re charging. ~$100/year seems a tad steep for the pro features, so we’ll see in a couple of weeks if my mind has been changed. I do like the custom window management feature however…

Okay… So I may roll back what I said about Reeder the other day. The new release looks intriguing. I’m going to subscribe for a month or two just to see what it can do. I’m still not 100% sure I want to consume all my content in one place though. 🤔

I got lost in thought and managed to put too much water in my oatmeal this morning, ending up with the consistency of clam chowder wallpaper paste. I’m a chunky oatmeal guy…

I’m considering changing my Apple Music subscription from single-user annual to family monthly to allow my wife and son to play their music on various devices (HomePod) and not interrupt what I’m already playing elsewhere. Anyone else using the Apple Music family plan? Is it worth it to …

Apple Ditching USB-A on the New Mac mini?: 

Apple’s rumored Mac mini redesign may ditch the USB-A port - The Verge

Is it time to say goodbye to USB-A? Maybe. Probably. But no matter how you feel about that, it’s absolutely time something new happened with the Mac Mini, the longest-in-the-tooth Apple computer design.

I managed to wander my way back to Reeder for RSS a little while back, but noticed this morning the app has been renamed to “Reeder Classic” on the Mac App Store. This means a new release is imminent with a new purchase likely needed. I think I’m going to move back to NetNewsWire …

I added a books page to my Micro.blog site today. It’s still a little bare, but I hope to up my reading game going forward. I used to be a voracious reader, but lost the mojo for it over the last decade.

A Tuesday (Monday) morning work rant: If I’ve ignored your unsolicited business email the first three times you’ve sent it, don’t send it a fourth and then fifth time demanding a response from me to take a meeting. You won’t get it, and now you’ve been relegated to the …

I’ve started using Omnivore as my read it later app. I’m not sure how I’ve missed this one, but it’s pretty impressive, and open source no less.

I took time this weekend to refresh my Micro.blog theme for about the hundredth time after discovering a nice webfont. As usual, one tweak led to the next and suddenly hours have passed by. I’m happy where it’s at for now, so it’s time to step away.

Scrolling through the macOS desktops from years gone by over at 512 Pixels, I still think 10.4 Tiger is the best looking of all of them…and is the one I’m using today.

My Internet Journey: 

I remember the first time I touched a computer. I was in my early twenties and worked as a customer service rep for the local water company, which is a fancy way of saying I played in the mud on an almost daily basis.

A Bicycle and Barbed Wire: 

Here’s another one of those childhood memories that left a scar; literally. This one is about the time I tried to stop my out of control bicycle using a barbed wire fence.

It was probably as painful as it sounds. Honestly, I can’t remember if it was.

📷 One of the more wacky Huntington Beach Fourth of July parade entries this year. If you grew up on ‘70s sitcoms, you get it… 🇺🇸

Why do I save every work email except the one-line “thank you” emails? So when someone says X and then comes back with Y later, I can joyously screenshot their original thread and attach that sucker to my reply. 💣💥

The Day I Met Martin Mull: 

Hearing of the passing of Martin Mull reminded me of the time that I sort of met him quite by accident.

Pour One Out for Henry: 

I’m saddened to learn of the passing of Henry Carvajal yesterday after battling cancer for a year and a half.

For me, one of the hardest parts of being a people manager is having the honest conversations about results and performance. I want to be 100% fair, but at the same time, my expectations are not unreasonable. This was not the way I wanted to start my Monday…

📷 I came across this photo of my middle son at surf team practice early one morning when he was in high school some 20 years ago. I’ve always liked this shot…

I hate to have to say this, but I think I’m starting to like Raycast better than I do LaunchBar…

To this day, I still do not understand why headphone jacks on Macs (PC too?) are located on the right side, but every wired headset I’ve ever owned has the input wired on the left, forcing the cable to cross over (or under) my hands as I type.

I moved all the content I wanted to keep from my WordPress site over here to Micro.blog this morning. Next, I’ll decommission the VPS and then point the .org domain at this one (.dev). This is all part of the (mostly) all in on Micro.blog decision from a while back.

I set aside some time this morning to record audio to my ant mound post from a couple of days ago. It required a few takes to get mostly right, but I think what I ended up with came out okay. I’ll have to do some other posts this weekend.

📷 Donnie is a kook…

My boss just turned me on to Lake Street Dive. Just what I needed today.

For any who have followed along, after months of poking, prodding and scans, I’m pleased to report I’ve been given a 100% clean bill of heart health – so long as I maintain the new healthy choices and swallow a dozen pills each day. It’s time to stop fretting and move on. …

I officially hit my goal weight today, having dropped 25 lbs in three and a half months. It’s time to set a new goal. Let’s start with another five…

Well… The camping trip is kind of a bust, so we’re going to pack up and head home after just one night. We forgot some key items, and wound up next to some very noisy neighbors who ended up drunk and played loud music until 3am. Thankfully, we’re only 30 miles from home.

The tsunami warning siren test at noon on the first Friday of the month in my town still catches me off guard, even after living here more than 25 years. 🌊🏄

I took a vacation day today to get ready to go camping in the RV with my wife. What have I been doing this morning instead of getting ready? Creating an entirely new Micro.blog theme for my site, of course…

I can always tell when some part of Micro.blog is having trouble because images on one of my pages start returning a 404 error, and then I’ll get an email from Tinylytics that my site is down. Same pattern tonight, just like the last two.

The Fediverse part of all-in on Micro.blog was short lived. I remember why that was now from the last time I tried: I have another blog I want to share content from. The recent outage of Micro.blog was a big reason keeping me from going all in to begin with. Here I am again, ellipses and …

Trying an experiment… After pondering it for a long time, and after a great chat with someone I respect, I have moved wholly to the Micro.blog platform, including Fediverse. If you follow me from a Mastodon instance, follow me over here now. Let’s see how this turns out.

In cleaning up my YouTube “Watch Later” list this morning, it’s funny to see how my interests have changed over time, and how diverse they are. Some of the stuff I’d saved from a few years ago (never watched of course) is of no interest to me now.

Because I think @canion, @Burk, and @martinfeld are such swell guys, I elected to subscribe to One Prime Plus over the weekend. If you listen to Hemispheric Views, (and who doesn’t?), you should subscribe too. I swear… I’m not a HV fanboy or anything.

Sometimes you post a really dumb question and then a simple search actually yields the results when you use just the right combination of keywords…

Holy Carp, Batman! My Apple Watch just alerted me my resting heart rate was 39 bpm a few minutes ago. That’s the lowest waking rate yet. I’ll be so happy to get through the monitoring phase (two more days to go) so we can start taking some action. Since “the episode” and new …

I created a new Twitter/X account a few days ago because a few people I want to follow in the Salesforce ecosystem have chosen to remain there. What do you think I was greeted with upon my return? Several bots trying to get me to click links to “see their content.” Some things just never …

If you’re in a virtual meeting with a prospective vendor and say to them “I’m excited to be here” as part of your introduction, I have to ask – are you really? I know I’m not. 🤣

True to form, I have pivoted from Bear.app to Obsidian for note taking — at work. Let’s see if it sticks.

Jury summons has been postponed until mid-October. Hopefully the “really big project” at the day job will be done by then. 🤞

Dang it! A jury duty summons came in the mail today. The first one in over 13 years. My luck was bound to run out sooner or later.

One team member out ill, the other on PTO, and the two offshore resources are off for a voting holiday. This leaves only me should the world start to crumble. Hoping it doesn’t…

My new favorite monospaced font has to be Apple’s SF Mono. To my eyes, it’s super clean and legible. I’ve updated all my IDEs to use it after downloading and installing.

I’ll be shifting my online presence to my WordPress blog more over the next few months and use Micro.blog less. There’s a post explaining why I’m making the pivot in my drafts folder, but basically, it all comes down to having total control.

Tinylytics uptime monitoring of my Micro.blog site has been reporting an awful lot of sporadic downtime lately. Anyone else experiencing the same?

A huge shoutout (and thanks) to @jean for putting together the April Photoblogging Challenge. It was a kick finding my own images, as well as seeing other’s interpretations for prompts. Just one more pin to go to have them all now.

I was woken this morning at 2:18am by what must’ve been a dream where people were urgently calling my name to get my attention. Once awake, I was unable to fall back asleep. I’ve woken up like this before. I’m not sure what it stems from.

I had a great idea for my next WordPress plugin this morning while reviewing the hacks I’ve added to my own site’s functions.php file. More to come soon.

Two months after “the episode” I’ve managed to shed 17 pounds. A balance of meds, extreme dietary change and exercise made it possible. I’ve managed to develop a refined sugar aversion/phobia because of it too.

📷 Bonus Day 2: Unputdownable. #mbapr @jimmitchell One of my all-time favorite books. My family came to California in much the same way, so to me, it was completely relatable.

Today, I was a hero. I saved a four man-hour meeting with a single email that took less than five exchanges to resolve. Remember kids, a meeting is not always needed to get something done if you’re clear and concise with your questions up front.

📷 Bonus Day 1: Bubble. #mbapr @paulrobertlloyd

📷 Day 30: Hometown. #mbapr #SurfCityUSA @mattypenny

📷 Day 29: Drift. #mbapr @SimonWoods

📷 Day 28: Community. #mbapr @stupendousman

📷 Morning low tide while camping at Carpenteria State Beach Campgrounds.

📷 Day 27: Surprise. #mbapr @Sdevore

📷 Day 26: Critter. #mbapr @7robots

📷 Day 25: Spine. #mbapr @thedimpause

After seeing how cool and powerful EchoFeed really was, I decided it was a tool I could definitely use. Totally worth the $20 a year. jimmitchell.org/2024/04/2…

After seeing how cool and powerful EchoFeed really was, I decided it was a tool I could definitely use. Totally worth the $20 a year.

Giving Echofeed a shot for posting from my WordPress blog to Bluesky since I haven’t found any plugins I like yet.

📷 Day 24: Light. #mbapr @eumrz

After using Mona for the past few months as my Mastodon client, I thought I’d give Ivory a go today, just to see if I was missing anything since my subscription is running out. And the answer was… Nope, not missing a thing. I think the feature I like most about Mona is toot threading. Ivory doesn’t …

If you’re a Tinylytics for WordPress plugin user, what features would you like to see next? I’m planning roadmap. wordpress.org/plugins/j…

📷 Day 23: Dreamy. #mbapr @maique

I moved my jimmitchell.org domain to a US based VPS this morning from a shared SAS (Slow as 💩) UK based WordPress hosting. Thanks to @vincentritter for the Hetzner recommendation. Really liking it. This is really a test post to be sure Mastodon federation is working as expected.

📷 Day 22: Blue. #mbapr @lzbth

Nerd friends… Looking for a reliable VPS recommendation that runs about $10 per month with decent specs to handle a WordPress site. Currently looking at IONOS as an option. Anything better?

📷 Day 21: Mountain. #mbapr @dejus

📷 Day 20: Ice. #mbapr @the

macOS users… Do you prefer widgets on your desktop? If so, how many do you have? I’ve tried it, but the clutter stresses me out. I have to have a 100% clean desktop.

📷 Day 19: Birthday. #mbapr @crossingthethreshold

Doing dev type work today that I haven’t done in quite a while. It took a few minutes to remember the correct syntax… I used to be able to do this stuff in my sleep. Gotta start working that individual contributor muscle again.

📷 Day 18: Mood. #mbapr @agilelisa

📷 Day 17: Transcendence. #mbapr @drewbelf

📷 Day 16: Flâneur. #mbapr @chrisaldrich

I’m finding it hard to believe that my youngest child turns 27 today. Where have the years gone?

📷 Day 15: Small. #mbapr @jmanes

Today has been a very slow day. The missus and I went out to buy a couple of small items, but that’s about it. The rest of the day has been filled with wandering and puttering around the house. I’ve learned to appreciate days like these more lately.

📷 Day 14: Cactus. #mbapr @christopherchelpka

Grrr. Today is probably my least favorite day of the year: Tax check writing day.

I just configured and handed over my old MacBook Air M1 to my wife who had the same model except with an Intel chip. I think I might install Linux Mint on her old machine to have as an extra toy for tinkering once we’re sure I’ve migrated all she needs.

📷 Day 13: Page. #mbapr @robj

Cleaning up files on the old laptop, I came across the Hacking with macOS book I bought a few years back but never got started on. Now is as good a time as any to start.

📷 Day 12: Magic. #mbapr @DaveyCraney

📷 Day 11: Sky. #mbapr @jedda

I think my (eventual) podcast will focus on office etiquette. I have so many examples from coworkers over the years that I’d easily have 15 episodes out of the gate. Does that make it a “rantcast?” Now if I could only make the time to record…

Well… A month later, and my eyesight has returned to what it originally was, and my computer glasses work again. An added bonus related to “the event” is I’ve managed to shed more than 10 pounds so far. Let this be a lesson kids; refined sugar is simply pure evil.

📷 Day 10: Train. #mbapr @starrwulfe

I’m really liking Bear as my new notes app, but I’m seeing a somewhat consistent rendering issue when switching to one note from another. When I do, sometimes the new note’s content draws funny and needs a quick scroll to rerender. Anyone else getting this? How about you, @canion?

Some people are way too quick to call a meeting for something that can be solved in one or two email exchanges. Don’t be that person, because I’ll shoot you down if you send me a pointless invite. 💥

📷 Day 09: Crispy. #mbapr @rom

I’m playing a form of “Apollo 13” with the work laptop now, trying to find the right combination of apps that will keep the thing charging while I do some work. Launching any browser puts me over the limit and the charge stops. 🤣

Got to the office this morning to find my work laptop’s battery is drained. Sitting here waiting for sufficient charge to get going. I must remember to shut down for the weekends rather than sleep the thing.

📷 Day 08: Prevention. #mbapr @anniegreens

A productive weekend. Cleaned most of the back yard. The rest is for next weekend. Built a new barbecue and grilling burgers for dinner. But the best thing was sleeping in really late this morning. The week ahead looks manageable. Life is good.

📷 Day 07: Well-being. #mbapr @ridwan

I just updated my Tinylytics for WordPress plugin to v1.1.1, fixing a bug that would cause a critical issue to be reported in Site Health about an active PHP session being detected that should have been closed.

Oh, and day 5 of battery on the new MacBook Air and we’re still at 30%… 🤯

Speaking of bucket list performers to see live, we’ll also be seeing Tab Benoit at The Coach House in San Juan Capistrano in August. I played The Coach House as part of the opening act for Elvin Bishop back in May of 2011.

Just bought a couple of cheap tickets to see Eric Clapton at the Hollywood Bowl in October. We may be way in the back, but we’ll get to see a bucket list legend perform live.

📷 Day 06: Windy. #mbapr @Miraz

📷 Day 05: Serene. #mbapr @chiawase

I’ve spent the better part of the day trying to debug a system failure. I can get it to happen once, but then the exact same data update rolled back and updated again is successful no matter how many times I run it. It’s friggen’ maddening I tell you! Maybe I’ll have better luck tomorrow. 😵‍💫

Just because a business user asks for it doesn’t mean it should be done. You have to be able to tell your end users no sometimes. Saying yes to everything makes for technical debt in the future. I just had to argue this point to both a user and one of our consultants. Users hate me sometimes. …

There was a time I loathed the use of Emojis and thought they were for lazy people. But times and minds change and I find myself using them more often as of late than I otherwise would have allowed myself to back in the “old days.” ✌️❤️

📷 Day 04: Foliage. #mbapr @pratik

Battery life on the New MacBook Air M3 is impressive. Going on day four of moderate use from a full charge and the battery is only down to 52%.

I find it hilarious when people start pounding on their keyboard as the answer to fix a hung up or seriously lagging computer. Like it’s going to suddenly knock something loose inside instead of adding to a buffer that’s already backing up.

Evil is as Evil Does: 

Google to delete search data of millions who used ‘incognito’ mode : NPR

For years, Google simply informed users of Chrome’s internet browser that “you’ve gone Incognito” and “now you can browse privately,” when the supposedly untraceable browsing …

📷 Day 03: Card. #mbapr @val

MacBook Air M3 15" First Impressions: 

My initial thoughts on the MacBook Air M3 15" fully spec’d model…

📷 Day 02: Flowers. #mbapr @davegullett

I stopped using external monitors with my laptops a couple weeks ago as an experiment to see if I could adapt. I tried connecting my work monitors today to see how it felt. Nope. I’ve become accustomed to a Retina display and can’t use external mons now. Plus, I’m way more …

Woohoo! New MacBook Air is ready for pickup at the Apple Store today. Even though it only took 10 days for the custom config to arrive, it feels like it’s been 20 at least.

📷 Day 01: Toy. #mbapr @pcora

It seems I may have flooded the Micro.blog timeline with a crap-ton of Scribbles posts by pasting the discover feed from over there instead of my own when adding a MB crosspost feed. If you silently cursed me under your breath for it, I totally deserve it. The lameness has been corrected. Sorry!

Hah! I landed on the perfect domain name for my Scribbles blog today. How this domain was not already registered is beyond me, but alas, it was not and I snagged it up. It should be resolving properly soon if it isn’t already…

I had hoped to get some good beach photos this afternoon, but the surf was small and blown-out from a brisk onshore wind. Still, it was nice to get the bike out and ride along the sand. I am looking forward to summer returning though.

Drinking a “Fauxrona” (alcohol free Corona) this afternoon. Surprisingly, it tastes very much like the real thing. Non-alcoholic beer has come a long way from the days of O’doul’s being the only option. Cheers! 🍻

I’m taking the rest of the week off from work. My wife and I were going to take the RV out for a relaxing long weekend, but yet another “atmospheric river” rain storm is bearing down on SoCal. I’m hoping to get a little beach time in for myself tomorrow before the deluge …

After trying to use Apple Calendar for just one day, I’m back to Fantastical. Our InfoSec team won’t approve BusyCal, so it looks like I’ll be forking out for another year’s subscription. That’s okay. I use the app a lot.

I just set up one of my other domains as a podcast site on Micro.blog since I have extra domains sitting around doing nothing, and Micro.blog premium allows five different sites. This will either be really interesting, or a total bust. More later…

I’m giving Apple Calendar a spin for a while to see if it can replace Fantastical. I absolutely love Fantastical and have used it since the beginning, but the $57 subscription price is getting too expensive for me. This year’s goal is to only pay for subscriptions that are absolutely …

And… Taxes are now complete for the household. It’s been a very productive day. Time to wind down.

Awake for a few hours already. The rest of the house still sleeps. I watched the sun rise through the kitchen window alone. It was beautiful. Life is a blessing to be amazed by.

📷 Surf rider.

📷 No lifeguard on duty…

My wife found a non-alcoholic hazy IPA at the grocery store that actually tastes pretty damned good. All is right with the world again…

The CFO has given her blessing to make the new MacBook Air purchase. I planned to wait until I had the whole amount, but hey, what’s an extra $200 a month added to my 0% interest Apple Card? Yeah, I think I’ll probably pull the trigger sometime today…

Sadly, I must use Google Chrome for my browser at work. I’m trying out tab groups, but I’m not sure I like it. It seems like way more effort than it’s worth to manually move a tab into a group. I open and close tabs so often that grouping them seems like wasted effort. Thoughts?

Thanks to the reminder from @canion in this post a few days ago, I’m giving Bear another spin myself. I think I’ve finally landed on the holy grail of note keeping to keep my stuff in order.

I was able to get hands-on with a MacBook Air 15” display model in the Apple Store when picking up the new HomePod the other day. It’s an awesome form factor and I will be ordering the fully spec’d model as soon as the budget allows for it. I didn’t even notice the notch when I looked at it.

Gotta say, HomePod sound is pretty decent…

If you use Micro.blog or WordPress to publish content and use the Tinylytics platform by @vincentritter, this is a reminder I have two plugins to make integrating with Tinylytics easier – one for Micro.blog and one for WordPress. If you like either of them, show your love with a donation.

I took a break from Micro.blog while I worked on some WordPress stuff. That’s all done now and I’m happy to focus attention back here. There are so many awesome people in this community that it was hard to be away.

Just pulled the trigger on an Apple HomePod for main living area music. We’ve been using an Alexa, but the sound is not really all that good. Hoping the HomePod sound is even better than the HomePod mini I have in my office. It sounds pretty good for the size.

After thousands of tweaks to my site’s WordPress theme over the years, sometimes undoing what I just changed, I’m self-imposing a code freeze. It’s 99% of the way to where I want it. I can live with whatever the 1% ends up being. It’s time to come up with content instead, …

I switched up my desk set up today, opting to just use the laptop & mouse instead of laptop + 2 external monitors and keyboard. I’m finding myself to be more productive than I thought I would be. I may have to do this more often, or maybe move to it completely.

Though I haven’t read much of it yet, it looks like there are lots of great new features coming up in WordPress 6.5. I’m setting some weekend time aside to get caught up. https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/03/15/wordpress-6-5-field-guide/

I released my newest WordPress plugin, Basic Copyright, on the plugin repository last night. Its sole purpose is to make a dynamic copyright notice available for your theme footer so you don’t have to change the copyright notice yearly. Super simple, but kind of useful. …

Interestingly, after starting meds a couple of weeks ago, my eyesight seems to have suddenly gotten worse by a significant amount. My computer glasses are no longer working whereas they’ve been perfect for more than a year. 🤓

By nature, I am a procrastinator. I’ll let something sit until the 11th hour if I can. But when I finally do complete the task, there’s always such a sense of relief. Maybe I do it intentionally for the dopamine fix?

The change to daylight savings messes with me in the worst way; more so than most. I have no idea why… It’s only an hour. Add stopping caffeine intake, and it’s making it particularly difficult to adjust to this year. 🥱

After further research on AFib, I’ve come to the decision it’s best to stop all alcohol and caffeine intake completely. There goes my last remaining vices. Beer, I will miss you dearly, especially the good IPAs. 🫡

I am happy to report that after a week of very little caffeine and beer, and zero refined sugar, I feel 1,000% better than I did seven days ago.

Hot on the heels of updating my WordPress plugin today, I also updated my Tinylytics for Micro.blog plugin to add the feature of being able to add a custom public stats link label if you use the footer embed. You should see the update available in your plugins list soon. Enjoy!

I’m considering either buying the new M3 MacBook Air 13” or the Mac mini, which is still only M2. Has anyone heard if the mini will be M3 soon?

On the Fragility of Life: 

Events happen in our lives that make us do a full stop and give a long, hard look at how things are. This was one of those events that slapped me in the face so hard I’m still having a hard time grasping it.

Add me to the list of Apple Watch wearers who were saved from a life threatening event. My watch alerted me to an AFib event that sent me to the ER yesterday. The cardiologist told me if I’d ignored the warning, it might have lead to a stroke, or even death. A sobering 24 hours to say the …

📷 We visited the lowest bar in the western hemisphere last weekend in Bombay Beach, CA which sits nearly 200 feet below sea level. Beers were had.

Interested in seeing what Tinylytics for WordPress looks like installed and activated in a WordPress site without spinning one up of your own? Check it out in this WordPress playground. You’ll dig it!

I’ve been away from Micro.blog for a bit… Dropping in to share that I’ve updated my Tinylytics for WordPress plugin to v1.0.4 v1.0.6, fixing some minor bugs. If you use it on your WordPress site, update in your plugin dashboard at your convenience.

After decades as a Mac user, I just now discovered cmd + = (cmd + equals) and cmd + - (cmd + minus) increase and decrease icon preview sizes in a Finder window. Where the heck have I been? 🤯

Woohoo! Surprised to have gotten the initial email from the WordPress plugin review team on my Tinylytics plugin today. Lots of things to fix, but they’re all pretty simple. TBH, the review came back better than I thought it would for being my first attempt at a WordPress plugin.

I type (abuse) ellipses so much, my keyboard at work has taken to adding double periods to sentences for me, forcing me to delete one of the periods.. Or maybe it’s simply encouraging me to end all of my sentences with an ellipsis? One may never know…

I think I’ve managed to catch the domain-itis bug from @vincent. I just purchased the jimmitchell.dev domain on impulse. Is there a cure?

Well friends, I’m sorry to report — or maybe I’m relieved to report — that Project Yeard has officially terminated at the fourth month. The last two weeks have been a challenge, but I waited until a good beard day before doing the chop to be sure of my choice. It was the right one to make.

Thirteen calendar items for a Friday (tomorrow). 😳 Frack me…

For months I’ve been perplexed by messages in the Mail app inbox on my iPhone inexplicably moving to the trash. I finally figured it out… The palm pad of my left hand at the index finger sometimes “taps” the trash icon as I move to turn off the phone, moving the message just …

I submitted my Tinylytics plugin for WordPress to the plugin repository for review yesterday. It’s going to take nearly two months before they’ll be able to get around to reviewing it due to the sheer number of plugins already waiting in the queue. That’s just nuts…

Easy-peasy… New .xyz domain updated on Micro.blog. Old .org domain redirecting to new one using ForwardDomain.net. iCloud custom email domain added. And finally, I un-aliased (de-aliased?) my M.b ActivityPub username from my Mastodon username since, well, a new cooler domain and all.

Meh. Forget the jimmitchell.net top-level domain… The squatters can have it. I was able to register jimmitchell.xyz for a decent price. It’s way cooler.

It appears the coveted domain acquisition will not happen despite my best efforts. Why? The current holder has decided money is more important and would rather auction it off to squatters than sell it to someone who actually has a use for it. I’m not paying 4-figures for a domain. Yay …

Take two… I’m super-stoked to finally share that my Tinylytics plugin for WordPress is available for download from my main site, jimmitchell.org. If you have a WordPress site and have wanted to track your analytics using the awesome privacy-focused Tinylytics service, this plugin is for …

Incoming rant alert… Want to know how much I hate email replies that simply say “thank you” in the body and nothing else? I can’t think of anything I dislike more, that’s how much. Thanks for listening. Now carry on…

My wife and I just laid the ground rules for a monthly date night to break us out of the ruts we let ourselves get into. Dinner at a place we’ve never been to, and then at least the first set of a band somewhere, no matter how bad they might be.

I decided to go all in on an Arq premium subscription today. Being able to backup up to five computers for only $10 more a year sold me. Arq is so unobtrusive that I forgot I was backing stuff up until the trial expired.

Still trying to get my hands on the long-coveted domain from the other Jim Mitchell (.net TLD for those curious), but it’s dragged out long enough that I’m about to throw in the towel. There’s something about .net versus .org that lends nerd cred to a domain name which is why I …

My 2023 Mac Apps of the Year: 

I planned on publishing a post like this myself, but @canion beat me to the punch, getting his out first… I’m going to use the same criteria he uses for making the cut:

For my purposes, to be considered an App of the Year, the software needs to be something I used extensively, value and enjoy. I …

Every new year I tell myself “This will be the year I stop eating lunches at my desk”, and every year I’ve ended up failing on the very first day back in the office. This year was no exception. At least I’m consistent in my failings.

📷 Happy New Year from the top of SoCal!

I’m beginning the new year (a tad early) with a plan to read the LOTR storyline, starting with The Silmarillion. I’m a fan of the movies and read The Hobbit some 20 years ago, so I decided now was as good a time as any to tackle the task of actually reading all the books.

New theme for my site completed and installed. I like where it ended up. In total, less than 250 lines of CSS, including style reset and comments. I still have to add a dark mode media query, but that’s a small task for later.

Today’s challenge: Create a new responsive Micro.blog theme for my site using as little CSS as possible. I’m liking where this is going…

I just released a minor update to my Tinylytics for Micro.blog plugin that refactors some logic, squishes a couple small bugs and updates display labels. Look for v3.1.1 in your plugins area soon. If you want to see what changed specifically, check out the pull request on Github.

Our Holiday tradition… A pot of homemade Christmas chili.

Yep… I had to get in on it too. My bass-playing Funko Box alter ego.

A Fresh Start: 

I’ve relaunched jimmitchell.org on the WordPress platform to have a space for my WP Tinylytics plugin. I’ll be using the site to “eat my own dog food” as they say while I develop the plugin for public use. The goal is to eventually make it available in the WordPress plugin …

Super excited to share that I’ve got a full functioning WordPress plugin for Tinylytics committed to its dev repository. If you have a WordPress site too, and want to give it a spin, hit me up.

Got a basic POC WordPress plugin for Tinylytics working in my dev environment this morning. Might put a little more effort into it over the next few weeks, but I’m really looking to unplug until after the first of the year. Progress though, and that’s all that counts.

Mission accomplished. 🎉 All projects have been successfully deployed to production environments ahead of the end of year code freeze on Monday. A total grind over the last three months to get here, but it’s paid off. Encouraged to know there is not one thing on the agenda for tomorrow.

I’ve been coveting a particular domain name for almost 25 years. After asking a few times over the last six, I’ve finally gotten the current owner to agree to sell it to me. The waiting to finalize the deal is killing me. I really, really, really want this domain…

Dragging a crap-ton of RSS feeds from an OPML file import into a folder all at once? NetNewsWire: 1 Reeder: 0

📷 Bear with me a minute…

📷 Campground peacock.

I don’t know why this just came to my mind, but I would absolutely love to have a Six Million Dollar Man metal lunchbox to bring my lunches to work in…

Uh oh… My mind has latched on to a Micro.blog theme idea this morning and won’t let go of it, even after sketching a thumbnail. So much for getting anything done today. 🐿️

Giving Arq Backup a try for my laptop using Amazon S3 for storage thanks to both @vincent and @manton. The hardest part was setting up the bucket on Amazon and provisioning access. Creating the backup plan in Arq was drop-dead simple. I may stick with this as a long-term solution if it works out …

By the time our hot water adventure is over tomorrow (oh I hope), it will be eight days and $1300 dollars 🪟💸, with that cost going to bring the new hot water heater up to code and the cost of a motel room so my household could take showers. Thankfully my home warranty covers the new hardware cost.

Tinylytics for Micro.blog v3.1.0: 

I’m excited to share I’ve released a new version of my Tinylytics for Micro.blog plugin, bringing it to version 3.1.0. You should see an update in your site’s plugins section soon if not already.

I’m giving Obsidian a spin for notes again. I looked at it briefly once before. I’ve only scratched the surface, but I get the hype. I think what turned me off last time was syncing, but I wasn’t aware it could sync via iCloud. That’s enough for me. Anyone have good pointers?

Well, the hot water heater saga looks grim. Home warranty company has to approve repair next steps. They and repair company won’t be open until next Monday. The soonest a repair looks plausible is Tuesday. Maybe even Wednesday. This is going to be a very long and somewhat smelly weekend.

There’s nothing quite like waking up to the hot water heater being on the fritz the day before a major US holiday. If there’s one thing high on my list of “Oh, hell no” items, it has to be taking a cold shower. 🥶

My App Defaults: 

I wasn’t going to do a post like this… But what the heck, all the popular kids are doing it this week, so why shouldn’t I, right?

My transition to the “dark side” is complete. I tried switching to light mode on my workstation and it damn near blinded me… Does that make me one of the cool kids now?

There’s an 80’s music festival going on downtown this weekend. Whoever’s onstage right now is really getting the crowd going. Every five minutes there’s a loud roar. It’s pretty awesome to hear. Kind of wish we had gotten tickets.

Put in some good work on Tinylytics for Micro.blog this afternoon. A couple of cool new features are coming: The ability to link to your public stats if you’ve enabled them and the option to show a web ring avatar for other sites who’ve enabled that in their Tinylytics settings. Check …

I killed off my WordPress site over at jimmitchellmedia.net today, setting up a domain forward to my main jimmitchell.org domain. It’s time to consolidate my online persona into one bucket and make Micro.blog my web house.

I’m glad we canceled our weekend plans. A serious bug in the deployment from earlier this week was found late yesterday and I’m spending my PTO day working with the team to resolve it. The good news is it looks like we’ve found the fix. Some of the day might be salvageable. 🤞🏻

I was about to put a note in my (soon to come) Microcasts topics folder about a thing that just happened, but it turns out I already added it as episode #003. Maybe I should bump it up to episode #002… But then the topic for that episode is one that chaps my hide too.

How is it I’ve never heard about this until now? Since 2015, several data centers have been submerged underwater in both the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean. The first underwater data center was deployed by Microsoft into the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of California, through an experiment …

I’m hoping with the rainy weekend predicted for SoCal, I can get caught up on Tinylytics for Micro.blog plugin work. We were planning to take the RV out, but who wants to sit in a small box in the rain? I’d rather sit in a bigger box with better amenities.

Today will be a very long day… Awake at 1:30am, thinking (worrying) about what I need to get done in preparation for an after-hours system deployment that will take until at least 10pm. Such is the glamorous life of an IT manager. It’s a given that far too many cups of coffee will be consumed today.

Yes, I’m on a bit of a posting tear today, but this one’s too good not to share. My favorite rule is #6, which I’ve only recently truly learned… “There” is no better than “here”. When your “there” has become a “here”, you will simply obtain a “there” that will look better …

📷 Memories of Hawai’i.

I’ve moved back to NetNewsWire as my default RSS app after listening to the hilariously entertaining @HemisphericViews “Duel of the Defaults” podcast episode 097 by @canion, @Burk, and @martinfeld. I wasn’t aware NNW had the iCloud option for feed sync now. I like it way …

I’m slowly becoming a fan of dark mode on my workstation. As a design artist from the late ‘80s/early ‘90s, WYSIWYG for print media is burned into my psyche. I’ve been running in dark mode for a week and am actually enjoying it - enough so to even add the needed CSS to my Micro.blog theme.

I added a projects page to my site today which links to different things I’m putting effort into, including “Project Yeard.”

📷 A lone Joshua Tree at dusk.

The Beatles Song That Really Isn't a Beatles Song: 

There’s a lot of hubbub in the news and online about the “new Beatles song” that dropped yesterday. As a life-long semi-pro musician, this headline hits a sour note with me.

Challenge accepted, @vincent

Ahhh… Fall has finally come to Southern California. The Santa Ana’s are blowing hot, the air is full of dust & pollen, and my lips are starting to chap. Time to take down the umbrellas, bring anything that’s not tied down inside, shut all the windows, and take an allergy pill.

📷 Ginger loves glamping…

😖 Whoops. I discovered a stupid little bug. So… Tinylytics for Micro.blog 3.0.1 released.

I only received a couple of replies to my Micro.blog Mastodon users question last week, but I decided to alias my Mastodon account to Micro.blog and import those I was following anyway. I like the choice of having one “place” for my online presence thus far. It’s much quieter.

Tinylytics for Micro.blog 3.0 Released: 

It took a minute to wrap up, but I’m happy to announce that my Tinylytics for Micro.blog plugin has been updated to version 3.0, adding a bunch of new options to bring it to parity with Tinylytics.app features @vincent has released over the last couple of months.

Thought of the day… There is no such thing as “it should be as simple as…” when it comes to software (or web) development.

I put some work in on my Tinylytics for Micro.blog plugin tonight to bring it to parity with all the nifty features @vincent has added over the last few months. I have some dog-food testing to complete, but expect a release to drop before the end of the week. Sorry it’s taken so long to get …

There’s something that feels wrong in the fact the app on my smartwatch told me it’s sunrise right as I was walking in the door of the office today…

Let’s be honest… Is there really anyone who waits for the oven to preheat before starting to cook? I didn’t think so.

A question for the Micro.bloggers with a Mastodon account… Do you alias your Micro.blog ActivityPub compatible username to Mastodon, or do you alias Mastodon to Micro.blog? What is your reason for the choice you’ve made? I’m torn and have gone back and forth myself. I’d like to get some …

And my case-less iPhone experiment comes to an end. While l liked the smaller form factor in my hand, I was just too nervous about potentially dropping the phone. Fortunately, I never did drop it, but it was always foremost in my mind while using it. Better safe than sorry, as they always say.

And just like that, a new car is sitting in the driveway. It’s funny how plans you think are the smartest turn out to be not so smart. We were going to buy out the lease on our truck, but it was financially smarter to lease a new hybrid vehicle instead…

I’ve been a case on the iPhone kind of guy forever, but I removed the case from my 14 Pro last night and actually like how it feels in my hands. I think I’ll give it a go for a bit…

I decided to switch over to a theme I’ve been tinkering with for a while now. It’s not quite complete, but having it “in production” will be the motivation to fix the little oddities that linger. When it’s ready for prime-time, I might make the repo available. We’ll see…

📷 The North Shore of O’ahu. More beautiful than I imagined it would be.

📷 Sunrise over Waikiki.

Thirty years in between with lots of ups and downs, the story turned out just how we hoped it would. So grateful for our many blessings along the journey.

If you’re a Tinylytics for Micro.blog plugin user on Micro.blog, I promise it will get updates soon to match the great enhancements @vincent has recently made to his analytics platform, Tinylytics. Sometimes there are just not enough hours in a day anymore…

After more than six years working together virtually, I was finally able to meet my mentor in person at the Dreamforce 2023 conference. I credit this person with turning my career, personal life, and whole life outlook around. Im so grateful for his objectivity and brutal honesty over the years.

I successfully resurrected a late 2012 27" iMac I had sitting around with OpenCore Legacy Patcher. It’s now running macOS Ventura. Performance is not that bad considering the machine still has a spinning platter hard drive. I think I’ll install a SSD drive in a couple weeks and give …

📷 The Unofficial Last Day of Summer in Surf City, USA.

I just reserved airport parking for our upcoming Hawaii trip. It’s hard to believe that after booking the trip more than a year ago, it’s finally here. This is both the honeymoon we never had, and a celebration of 30 years of marriage. Yay us!

I’m back to WordPress using Amazon Lightsail. The speed is impressive and the cost is 30% better than Digital Ocean with better VPS specs. Setup was easy following Amazon’s instructions and other blog articles. Highly recommended.

Looking at the rain (4-6") and wind (gusts 40-60 mph) models for tropical storm Hillary in SoCal (Huntington Beach), it could prove to be a pretty wild weekend. Our place is barely above sea level. I think I might grab some sandbags tomorrow just to be safe.

It’s always so satisfying, and such a relief, to finally solve a blocking issue that’s stumped me for days and held up three other teams from completing their work. Maybe I can finally sleep tonight. Maybe…

📷 Thanks for the awesome Micro.blog decals and note, @jean!

So… I ground the beans for the coffee and set up the brewer to start at 4am before going to bed, just like usual… But I forgot to put the carafe under the basket. This got me four kitchen drawers filled with freshly brewed coffee, and ruined both a dining room rug and my wife’s …

I switched all my domains to iCloud Custom Email Domains from Google Workspace last night. Set up was really simple, even with family sharing. You do have to understand editing your own DNS though. For $2.99 (200GB plan) a month vs. $12 a month for two users, I think it’s worth it.

A follow up to my AirPod drama… I splurged extra for the AirPods Pro 2. As someone with extreme Meniere’s Disease, I struggle to hear anything in even mildly noisy situations. I’ve found Transparency mode to be a godsend. I tuned ambient noise off & can finally hear …

I’m having a rough day it seems. My AirPods earbuds took a trip through the washer today because I stuck them in a shirt pocket rather than their case. Go me…

Ouch! I managed to spill coffee into (not onto… into) my favorite Apple aluminum wired keyboard today. I’m crushed. I’ve been using this keyboard for almost 15 years without trouble. My backup is the same model, but with a finicky space bar key. So it goes.

📷 Surf gnome…

I’ve resurrected the WordPress blog for a cool project… More to come soon.

That last day before an extended time away from the office always seems to be the longest, and the most fraught with pure insanity… Am I imagining it?

It’s a Smashing Pumpkins kind of day. I forgot how sonically rich and layered they were.

Tinylytics for Micro.blog v2.1 Released: 

Hot on the heels of uptime monitoring on Tinylytics, I’m stoked to share that my Tinylytics for Micro.blog plug-in has been released as a 2.1 version to take advantage of it.

Shaved my goatee off over the weekend and now my face feels uncomfortably naked… I don’t know why I do this to myself. You’d think I’d learn by now.

📷 A mini mini-van…

Tinylytics for Micro.blog 2.0 Release: 

I’m happy to share that my Tinylytics for Micro.blog plug-in has been released as a 2.0 version.

Yeah… I checked out Threads. And yeah… I’m done with that one already. I think Micro.blog is still the right platform for me.

📷 Our 23rd year in Surf City, USA…

Ooh… I just had a brilliant idea for my Tinylytics for Micro.blog plug-in that will save users from having to hack any html and should (in theory) work on any theme. More to come soon…

Tinylytics for Micro.blog Updated to 1.0.6: 

Fresh on the heels of new Tinylytics.app updates, my Tinylytics for Micro.blog plug-in has been updated to take advantage of the new Kudos feature introduced in the latest release. If you look at your installed site plug-ins, you should see an update available as 1.0.6.

Teaser alert… Updates coming for the Tinylytics for Micro.blog plugin this weekend that adds features for Tinylytics paid account users. It’s a party.

Okay… So I’ve aliased my Micro.blog ActivityPub username back to my Mastodon account for the time being. Having the feed in Micro.blog is really cool, but I felt I was missing something. I may change my mind again though… I’m so fickle sometimes.

Sometimes it’s a curse being a perfectionist living among the imperfectionists…

New Plugin: Tinylytics for Micro.blog: 

I published my very first Micro.blog plugin today: Tinylytics for Micro.blog. You can find it in the Micro.blog plugin directory.

📷 A friendly lizard.

📷 Laguna Coast Wilderness Park.

Today’s “the more I learn about Micro.blog” post… Both the iOS and Mac desktop apps work like any other Mastodon client. Follow anyone in the Fediverse you want; their posts magically show up in your timeline, with the added bonus of using your domain with your Fediverse …

Came up with a couple of ideas for useful Micro.blog plug-ins this morning. More to come soon…

Lesson learned: Do not alias a Mastodon instance username to your Micro.blog Mastodon-compatible username and then decide to change it back. You will lose your original Mastodon instance followers, though you will keep your Micro.blog followers…

📷 Sunrise over Terminal Island.

Going to try to wrap my head around Hugo themes today. I get the gist of it, but after 20+ years of WordPress theming, the logic is just a little different. Any good references appreciated. My brain is not as pliable as it once was.

I’ve yet to start playing with the macOS Sonoma beta, but in my Apple fanboy opinion, the default desktop wallpapers are some of the best Apple has produced in the past several releases.

I try to diligently plan the tasks I want to get done each day, but there’s always a fire that has to be put out, pushing the planned tasks to the next day - until they become fires of their own. Tomorrow is a new chance. I’ll just keep telling myself that…

Upped my Micro.blog plan to the premium level over the weekend. Great to have the newsletter option now. Mulling some potential topics for a regular Microcast as well.

📷 Across the Irvine valley.

Purchased a license for Shottr, a macOS screenshot tool, based on a Micro.blog discussion thread I stumbled on and it’s probably the best $4 I’ve spent in a year. Normally it would be $8, but took advantage of the first week coupon code.

📷 Remembering those who gave it all for our freedom.

📷 HB Northside Lineup.

If you have multiple domains you’d like to redirect to your Micro.blog domain (or any domain for that matter), and know how to manage your own DNS records, I highly recommend using ForwardDomain.net as a redirect solution.

📷 Blooming cactus.

I’m struggling whether I should stick with Micro.blog as an additional platform at my jimmitchellmedia.net domain. It’s great and has a nice community, but I keep coming back to one blog to rule them all – this one. Hopefully I can make a decision by the end of the long weekend.

I’m developing a love/hate relationship with the Copado CI/CD platform for Salesforce deployments. When it works, it’s a dream. When it doesn’t, it’s a pain to figure out why.

I’ve been a WordPress user since the early days and have carried my content with me from one host to another. I think it’s time to put the old content to rest and start fresh with micro.blog.

No, my esteemed co-worker… I will not “give” you a login into the system I’m responsible for to “poke around.” Would you give me access to yours to do the same? I doubt it. Good day, sir.

I’ve decided that I’m simply going to hibernate my Twitter account for now. I don’t plan to use it, but don’t want to lose it either. Maybe one day it’ll be worth tweeting again.

A Better AppleScript to Compress Files or Folders: 

A while ago, I created an AppleScript that allows you to compress files and folders by simply dropping them onto the applet. One of the readers left a comment asking for a way to achieve the following tasks:

1. Select a folder from Finder.
2. Store the folder name as “x”.
3. Compress all files and …

That’s it. I’m done – for good this time. I’ve left Twitter and there’s no reason to go back, whatsoever. I’ve killed my account and am going all in on Mastodon. You can find me at https://mastodon.social/@jimmitchell if you make the move to the Fediverse …

I switched over to micro.blog for a few days, thinking I might prefer to go that route over running my own VPS, but it’s just not for me. Publishing my own WordPress site is what works best for me, so we’re back.

And just as fast as changes were made yesterday, I’ve switched them back. I should know by now that I’ve already dialed the site in as I want it and I should just stop messing with it.

I decided to make some blog changes tonight. I’ve defaulted the home page to the latest full post with navigation to the previous post at the bottom. I removed featured images and removed reference to the custom Proxima Nova web font I was using. We’ll see how long I choose to keep it …

Okay, so I just can’t stay away. Twitter account reactivated in hopes one day, somehow, shit will get better. That and hoping that followers there will be able to find me at https://mastodon.social/@jimmitchell when they finally decide to jump to the Fediverse themselves.

The move from a (slow as hell) shared hosting half way around the world in the UK to my own Digital Ocean VPS located in San Francisco is complete, as is the move to a new domain. All in all, a few days to accomplish with all the server tweaks and getting the old domains to redirect to the new one. …

Done. I have left Twitter once and for all. I don’t care that I was in the first 600K users. It’s become a shitshow and I just can’t watch it anymore.

A sad day indeed…

I woke up this morning to a Twitter notification that SMS MFA will only be for Twitter Blue subscribers soon. So typical of the Space Karen. I’m keeping my account for now, but I doubt I’ll use it for anything meaningful until the fool leaves and someone who has real vision is at the …

The final straw has been drawn with Twitter. Elon Musk cutting off API access to 3rd party Twitter clients without warning is a cunt move. I usually won’t use language like that, but I call them as I see them and Elon Musk has 100% proven himself to be a cunt. Goodbye, Twitter. You could have …

Got the Apple Watch Ultra today. My initial thought? This is the watch I wished Apple would have made from the start. It’s nice and big and is simply a work of art. More thoughts to come in a review post.

As a 2023 commitment, I’m going to try to micro-journal every day using the DayOne app. Instead of writing one summary journal at the end of the day, I’m going to write short summaries of different events as they happen through the day.

Starting off 2023 purchasing an Apple Watch Ultra. Part of me feels guilty, but the other part is giddy with excitement. A follow up post to review will come in a week or so.

And… I changed my mind again. I don’t use social media enough and with the choices being made at Twitter, it’s not worth having the accounts. Everything deleted as of last night. LinkedIn put in hibernation mode because I may need it again in the future.

So, yeah… I asked myself; why the heck should I dump all of my social media? Does it really make a difference? The only one who gets hurt by it is me losing the connections I’ve built over the past 15 years. I’m only sticking with one Instagram account now though.

That’s it. Twitter has been deactivated. All social media is gone, save LinkedIn, which I can get back into when I need to. I feel like a weight has been lifted.

I’ve deleted Facebook, four Instagram accounts, put LinkedIn into hibernation and requested an archive of my Twitter data so I can delete that. Just waiting for the archive to be available now. Wondering if the team who managed archives got fired too and whether I’ll ever get my data back…

Final decision made: I’m quitting ALL social media over the the next month. It’s just not worth wading through the garbage that those platforms have become. I’m going back to the platform I loved from the start – my personal blog.

Should I be surprised that someone waited until an hour before leaving for a holiday weekend to come to me with a problem that someone else caused, and that someone else happens to out of office on their own vacation? Nah…

Going to do a Twitter sabbatical for a while. It’s been almost a year and a half since I last tweeted anyway, so will just keep it going for now. Taking a wait and see attitude.

Really struggling with whether I should remain on Twitter or not. It’s a useful tool, but then there’s a tool that’s running it now…

Seeing the Forest for the Trees: 

No matter how well-intentioned we are, sometimes we allow things to sneak into our lives under the guise of it being something important.

It's Your First Dreamforce. What Should You Expect?: 

Yay! It’s your first Dreamforce!

You’re pumped to finally be part of the magic. I bet you’ve already looked at a lot of other blogs to learn how to be ready before you landed here.

These are a few of my recommendations to make it a more memorable experience.

The Ant Mound: 

One of my earliest childhood memories is traumatic. At least it would seem traumatic to a three-and-a-half-year-old little boy. Though it didn’t turn out to be the end of the world, it seemed like hell when it happened. I still carry the memory with me more than a half-century later, so it damaged …

Start Somewhere: 

Eventually you use up every excuse in your book for not doing the thing you keep saying you’re going to do. You’ve procrastinated yourself into a corner and realize it’s either time to just do it, or finally forget about it and move on.

Memorable Cigarettes: 

After nearly fifty years, I can still remember the first time I smoked a cigarette. It was early spring and my family lived on a farm in a semi-rural part of Colorado, a little north of Denver, at the foot of the Rocky Mountains.

Eliminating Digital Distractions: 

Life is so full of distractions. It seems everything is vying for our attention in one way or another these days, with most of it coming from our electronic gadgets.

Saying No: 

Saying no can be one of the hardest things to do.

Spin Cycle: 

I’ve been around long enough to know life moves in cycles.

Top Chrome Extensions Every Salesforce Admin Needs: 

Most Salesforce admins have a list of favorite Google Chrome extensions they use to make their work just a little easier.

Passing Your Salesforce ADM201 Certification Exam: 

I passed the Salesforce ADM201 certification exam today. It’s been a five-year road to get here. From the first week I began working with Salesforce, I decided attaining certification was something I wanted to pursue.

AppleScript to Compress Files and Folders: 

I had the need to select several folders at once in the Mac OS Finder and zip them up as individual archives. This AppleScript to compress files and folders was the solution I came up with.

Salesforce Flows, Visualforce and Context: 

I was asked to find a solution for our field reps that would simplify the process of adding a completed task to their activities when they visited one of our retail stores.

Making a Field Appear Required on a Visualforce Page: 

I’ve been working on a force.com app with the requirement that a user must enter a valid email address on a Visualforce page before being able to save a record.

AppleScript to Add Files in the Mac Finder: 

Today I had the need to add a bunch of named text files to a folder in the Finder on my Mac.

AppleScript to Toggle the Mac Desktop: 

Here’s an AppleScript I use to quickly toggle desktop visibility for taking screenshots and recording screencasts that I thought might be useful for others.

Rebuilding the Apple Mail Envelope Index: 

Some time ago, I set up my Gmail account in Apple Mail to copy over messages which were not sent to my jimmitchell.org account. I’m one of those guys who likes to have everything all in one place at my finger tips when I need it.