Speaking of Kagi; I’m a little late to the party, but I get it now. I didn’t think I’d have use for a paid search engine, but I think I’m sold on it. The only challenge is being mindful of the number of searches per day. If I stick with it, funding for other online things will need to take a hit.
I’m taking a look at the Orion web browser this morning. I like it so far, though I know I’ll probably end up sticking with one of the well established browsers for my day to day. I like that Kagi is the default search engine.
You’ve no doubt heard at some point in your life that failure is not an option. There are times this holds true; definitely when someone’s life is on the line, or maybe – but only maybe – if there’s a large sum of money at stake.
But I think there are times failure should be the only option.
Failure can be one of the best teachers we have – as long as we’re willing to listen to her lessons.
Failure always shows us the truth. Sometimes gently, other times brutally.
We need to openly welcome failure’s lessons into our lives in order to grow.
Failure will never lie to us. She shows us where we are wrong about our belief systems and how they may need to change.
If we’re willing to fail in the most spectacular ways, failure will bless us with wisdom and humility in return.
But, if you think you have nothing to learn from failure and that you already have it all figured out, well then my friend, you’ve already failed in the biggest way you possibly could.
Old habits are sneaky little monkeys. They work every angle they know to quietly slip back into the circus of our lives without us noticing.
What they rely on most is us caving in to their idea of “just this once” a time or two in order to become the norm once again.
Before we know it, we find ourselves right back where we started.
We need to keep a watchful eye out for these conniving monkeys. When we feel the temptation to trade their convenience or comfort for the new and better habits we’re trying to build, we need to get tough and say “Bad monkey! It’s not going to happen this time.”
Building new habits adds friction to our lives. It’s easier to just “go with the flow” than it is to put in the extra work of sticking to our guns.
But if we do stick with them long enough, the friction eventually fades and the old monkey will have left our circus for good.
I’ve decided to move my wife and me from iCloud mail with custom domain over to Fastmail. Both are pretty secure, but Fastmail does better in the privacy department overall, plus it has a whole bunch of other benefits. I think that’s worth $96/year.
If you’re a mnml user and you’ve tried adding the new PageFind action to a search page, but got nothing, well, it’s because some of mnml’s existing search styles conflict. I’ll work on fixing this soon. Sorry if this has tripped anyone up.
It’s that time of year where I and others look back at the macOS tools that made us productive over the last 52 weeks.
I stayed relatively consistent this time around with the biggest change being my task management solution.
| Category | App |
|---|---|
| Mail Client | Apple Mail |
| Mail Server | iCloud Mail with custom domains |
| Notes | Obsidian (with sync) |
| To-Do | OmniFocus 1 |
| Photo Shooting | Apple Camera |
| Photo Management | Apple Photos |
| Photo Editing | Pixelmator Pro |
| Calendar | Apple Calendar |
| Cloud File Storage | iCloud & OneDrive |
| RSS | NetNewsWire (iCloud sync) |
| Contacts | Apple Contacts |
| Browser | Chrome 2 |
| Chat | Apple Messages |
| Bookmarks | Raindrop.io 3 |
| Read It Later | Raindrop.io 4 |
| Word Processing | MS Word / BBEdit |
| Spreadsheets | MS Excel |
| Presentations | MS Powerpoint |
| Shopping Lists | Obsidian (with sync) |
| Budgeting & Personal Finance | MS Excel/Bank Mobile App |
| News | NetNewsWire (iCloud sync) |
| Music | Apple Music |
| Podcasts | Overcast |
| Mastodon | Mona |
| Password Management | 1Password |
| Code Editor | BBEdit / VS Code |
| App Launcher | Raycast |
I’ve returned to my first love productivity app on the Mac. ↩︎
Yes, I know… Evil. It’s still the best browser for web development work. I am, however, giving Safari another try for personal browsing. ↩︎
I’ve built up a pretty impressive list of links with this web app. ↩︎
Ditto on things to read later that I may never get to… ↩︎
After eating more than just a little bad over the Thanksgiving holiday, I somehow managed to weigh in at the exact same number this morning as last Wednesday. How I managed to pull that one off I’ll never know. I’ll just take the win on this one…
I’m considering running a FreshRSS server instead of iCloud sync for RSS feeds. The options are spinning up a Pika Pod, or a low-power VPS on Hetzner. Two questions: Do you have experience with Pika Pods? And do you, or have you, run your own FreshRSS instance? What are your thoughts if so?
Another perfect SoCal Thanksgiving day.
Today is the first day in 30 years, apart from the one year we didn’t host, that I will not cook a whole turkey for Thanksgiving. This year it’s just my wife, youngest son and me for the holiday. Instead, we’ll just do a single breast. The rest of my famous side dishes are still on the menu though…
If you’ve been waiting to buy that Micro.blog t-shirt, or any other Cotton Bureau merch, now is the time to do it. CB is waiving shipping (international 50% off) when you use discount code THANKYOU25 at checkout. Hurry though. This offer expires Monday, 12/1.
I love the process of setting up a new workstation from scratch as I slowly figure out which apps I rely on for my day to day workflows.
I had check-ins with two different doctors today who both pronounced me in fantastic shape. It’s only been five months since my heart surgery, but I can barely remember it now. I think clouding memories like that is the mind’s way of healing from the trauma.
There is someone, or some bot out of Singapore that’s hitting URLs on my site from a very old index (we’re talking 10 years ago) nearly every day. I wish there was a way to block this behavior on Micro.blog.
My wife and I are heading to Houston, TX for a nephew’s wedding. I’m more excited about going to a blues club tonight than anything else. It’ll be great to see what the scene is like there as opposed to the west coast “LBZ”.
With the recent update to NetNewsWire, I thought I might move my RSS feed syncing from BazQux to iCloud. So far it’s been impressively responsive and always seems to be up to date when browsing feeds on my four different devices. That’s $30 saved a year.
Save 50 percent on a Walmart Plus membership until December 2nd | The Verge
If you have a mountain of holiday shopping to tackle over the next few weeks, Walmart is offering a great deal on Walmart Plus. New subscribers can snag an annual Walmart Plus membership for half off through December 2nd.
We’ve had a Walmart+ membership for just a little under a year and saved more than $270 so far. I’ve been able to find just about anything I would have on that other big site named for the river. All in all, I’d say it’s been worth the cost.
Disclaimer: I am a VIZIO employee, which is now owned by Walmart. I do not get a discount on Walmart+ membership as a perk. My wife and I still agree it’s worth what it costs us.
I’ve begun reading the next installment in the Bosch universe: Trunk Music by Michael Connelly 📚. I think I remember this episode from the Amazon series. We’ll see how well they align.
Introducing iPhone Pocket: a beautiful way to wear and carry iPhone - Apple
iPhone Pocket is a limited-edition release. The short strap design is available in lemon, mandarin, purple, pink, peacock, sapphire, cinnamon, and black; the long strap design is available in sapphire, cinnamon, and black. iPhone Pocket in the short strap design retails at $149.95 (U.S.), and the long strap design at $229.95 (U.S.).
I understand limited-edition accessories and all, but seriously, $150 to $230 for a fancy knitted sock with a name attached to it?
Hmm… I don’t think so.