Surreal Glitch Pulls
Week 369: My new MacBook Pro with the M4 Pro chip
After a long wait, I finally have myself a new MacBook Pro. Apple announced the M4 family of chips at the end of October bringing the series to the Mac lineup, after debuting in iPads, and expanded from the regular M4 to the M4 Pro and M4 Max.
While I'd have loved to have settled for a M4 or gone all out with the M4 Max, the M4 Pro sits perfectly in the middle and is the version I opted for.
Nano-texture display
I was in store around the time they announced it and saw that the Nano-texture display was coming to the MacBook for the first time. In store, it makes a huge difference to the glare and amount of reflections but it also makes the picture a little duller. I decided not to opt for the finish and having gone and seen the new display in store over the weekend, I am not regretting my decision. If anything, HDR content really pops and while the MacBook Pro means I'm not tied to a desk, I've used my previous laptop outside only a few times over the time I had it.
Upgrading from Intel
I was upgrading from an Intel MacBook Pro, so the jump feels huge in performance. Overall, it is very familiar which is a problem with devices that last for ages and get updates for years. Replacing them isn't as exciting as you think, but genuinely the jump is massive.
Having said that, I bought my last MacBook Pro in October 2013. 11 years is a long time and it's held up well but the battery was close to useless and the fans... the fans just never stop. To be honest, they were spinning from day one but it's only ever gotten worse. It was when I started 1 Thing A Week, back in 2017, when I first seriously thought about the need to upgrade but I've muddled along until now.
Apple Accused of Trapping 40 Million UK Customers Into iCloud Service
While I think this is a silly claim, it's not hard to move to Dropbox, Google Photos or Amazon Photos to back up your photos. It's also up to app developers if they adopt iCloud as the preferred storage method within an app. Plenty of apps I use give you the choice of other providers.
Is iCloud storage a rip off though? Probably. Storage continues to get cheaper if you're looking at your own solutions but cloud providers continue to charge us all high prices. I'm not looking for a discount myself, just give us a little more ever now and then.
Where is the original 'This Is Anfield' sign?
Week 368: Stuck between Twitter (or X) and Bluesky
As Twitter continues to burn to the ground, I look at Bluesky as the true successor to once great platform. The problem is, news and sports organisations haven't really adopted it well enough yet, if it all.
Twitter (X is a stupid name) continues to be a great place to follow sports, Bluesky is sorely lacking apart from a handful of fans. Twitter continues to have a community to enjoy events with, plus the addition of official accounts and reputable organisations sharing content.
From a tech, development and design point of view there are plenty of people to follow and converse with, it will just take time for us all to naturally, purposefully or subconsciously pick one over the other but I hope the momentum continues and we get there soon.
Verification is fantastic on Bluesky, no need for ticks (although verified accounts could easily be given an obvious marker), your online presence can be brought back to a domain that you own. You can even have subdomains so if you were a reporter for the BBC, you could have @yourname.bbc.co.uk as your handle. Almost as good as a public email address.
As these networks continue to build out ATProto and ActivityPub, you'll be able to find me @cchana if I get there early enough or @cchana.dev wherever that format is accepted.
When I remember, I'll cross post too. This past week, Bluesky announced that threading is now possible. One of the features I actually missed from Twitter.
2024 Presidential election results
This year, the UK finally voted for adults to be in charge. Not perfect by any stretch, but a damning victory for some sense over division. America, unfortunately, did not get the memo and decided that a criminal and rapist deserved another shot at running their country.
Visiting the US was something I was lucky enough to do many times from the late 90s up until 2010. I haven't been back and the appeal just isn't there anymore. I have a soft spot for Hawaii, so I'm pleased to see they voted for Harris.
Maybe not enough people voted, or maybe Americans don't understand their elevated position in the world?
When you think about social media, and the internet in general, you're most likely going to be thinking about an American company or product. One that the whole world benefits from and should have brought us together. News is global. And yet Trump, and America it seems, are only willing to look at themselves.
Immigration, for example, will not change during his term, just as it continues to be a topic in the UK. This is despite the need for legal routes for refugees so that you can at least have a sensible approach to immigration. It's a part of life. We bring in highly-skilled people to do the jobs we don't want to do or that we are failing to train the next generation to do.
I don't think immigration should be unlimited but it's terrible thing to hang your hat on when the demons that immigrants are portrayed to be are the ones fleeing for their lives. If you take an anti-immigration position, you look and ultimately become intolerable of others. We see this with every right-wing politician across the world. It's always them, those foreigners who are stealing jobs and causing problems when the reality is that most of these people are only looking for a better life. Just as your own parents, grand parents or ancestors did at some point in history.
I am gutted with the result. I wanted nothing more than for Trump to fade into obscurity and for any subsequent coverage to be of him being fully convicted for all of the terrible things he has done thanks to the privileges he's enjoyed because of his riches. Unfortunately, it looks like neither will happen.
From a UK perspective, I hope he is shunned in every way possible. America should no longer be considered a super power but a threat to world peace until we see action that leads to the end of wars in Ukraine and Gaza at the very least and I have no faith that will happen in the next 4 years now because of this election result.
We Are Cursed to Have More Connector Standards and, Also, Articles About Connector Standards
Week 367: What's next for Good Gear Club?
I've been slowly chipping away at Good Gear Club over the past month or so to improve it's performance, usability and how it performs with search engines. A real mix of low hanging fruit and some tougher items but well worth it.
I have some ideas mapped out for the rest of the year. Top of the list is to get at least a couple of videos out on the YouTube channel followed by reaching 500 items shared.
One of the tougher things I need to investigate is replacing Font Awesome. Their Pro Subsetting tool was sunset recently and no longer functions which means I can't expand the set of assets without some effort at the moment.
I've started recording Bluesky links against records and will start to do the same for X and Instagram eventually. I have over 100 items to review and around 10 to re-review now that they're actually available or priced up.
I thought SiteJoy was going to be the site that really took up my time, but it requires a lot of effort so it's stagnated for a bit. I will revisit it eventually, but I really want to put some effort in to Good Gear Club to see where I can take it.
Update
The whole Christmas area has had a bit of an update and I've introduced a Black Friday page as the event is approaching fast. Not sure how best to populate it just yet, but it's there and a work in progress.
Networking Doesn't Have to Feel Gross by Daniel Hallak
Honestly, the best video I've watched in ages. Exactly how I feel about networking and how gross it all feels. I'm happy to let my work and skills do the talking but in a room of louder people that means you can go under the radar quite easily.
I prefer to be kind before anything else and I'll try to be more generous too going forward.
Week 366: 7 Years of 1 Thing A Week
Back in July I posted about taking a break but here I am in October celebrating the 7th anniversary of the site.
There's still plenty for me to write about but juggling work, Good Gear Club, app development and life in general is getting harder as I get older!
So my intention right now is to try and see the year out for a start. Beyond that, I do want to focus some more on app development rather than blogging. Right now I have 3 very simple ideas in mind that would be a good base to start with and then we'll see where we get to from there. Just one in the app store would be great to achieve.
Last week saw the 365th post on the site. As I probably say every year, that seemed unthinkable when I kicked this project off.
Week 365: Posting to Bluesky with PHP
I've created a Gist on Github for posting to Bluesky with PHP after a little bit of investigating.
It logs you in (using an app password) and saves the token so you can reuse it later if required. The script also posts 'Hello, world!' to the validated account so that you can see that it worked.
In fact, this post was posted by the script.
Now thinking about how to roll this into Good Gear Club as the site I'm most excited about working on right now.
iPad Mini 6 vs. iPad Mini 7 Buyer's Guide: 20 Upgrades Compared
I genuinely love my iPad mini, it's been a fantastic device for me that I use daily. Combined with the 2nd-gen Apple Pencil has made it indispensable for note taking and for creative endeavours.
Today, Apple announced the 7th-generation iPad mini which is marketed as being "built for Apple Intelligence".
I won't be upgrading because there's nothing wrong with mine and to be honest, it was Smart Script that I was most interested and turns out the 6th-gen already got the feature in iPadOS 18.
The Apple Pencil Pro, however, is the best Apple Pencil. I used one once and it was a natural upgrade to the previous generation with its new pinch gestures. I also don't have hover support for the Apple Pencil. MacRumors have a good breakdown of the differences between the new and old and there's not a lot in it.
Extended interview with Pharrell Williams and The Roots
Despite being a big fan of Pharrell, I didn't really get why Piece by Piece was coming out and after watching this interview with Jimmy Fallon, I can't wait to see it.
Week 364: Smart Script on the iPad mini
When Smart Script was announced, I wasn't sure if it would be an Apple silicone exclusive but thankfully it hasn't been.
It has it's quirks on my iPad mini which has an A15 chip and not a desktop-class processor, but overall it's pretty good.
Tesla Cybercab event in 6 minutes
Elon Musk:
It will be an age of abundance
Because that's what we need, more stuff.
The Cybercab itself actually looks pretty good and the minimal interior works better in my opinion for this concept but it looks like a bad take on the Lucid Air.
I find Elon repulsive and his stage manor awful, but he's yet again selling the dream...
Nearly 7 years ago, he promised the Tesla Roadster in 2020 but we're now 4 years beyond that date and still waiting for it to be shipped. Full Self Driving has long been promised and isn't here yet either. Maybe the Cybercab will be the anomaly and make it out in the wild outside of California and Texas but I wouldn't hold my breath.
Week 363: The Aurora Borealis returned!
I posted about the Aurora Borealis being visible in the UK way back in May but we got a second viewing last night, much to my surprise.
I posted two photos on Instagram after spending some time in near 0° temperatures. My Canon DSLR managed to capture some great shots, one a 25 second exposure, but I couldn't get the HDR version I could see in Photometer to show in the Photos app.
View on Instagram
My third viewing of the phenomenon and I hope to catch it a few more times yet.
Week 362: ODB: a Son Unique Podcast
It's rare that I will binge an entire podcast series, but I couldn't stop listening to ODB: a Son Unique. The podcast covers the career of Ol Dirty Bastard of the Wu Tang Clan.
one of the most colourful characters in the history of Hip Hop. He captivated fans with his unique style, his chaotic persona and unforgettably wild antics... But now, nearly two decades since ODB’s passing, filmmaker and photographer Khalik Allah is on a mission to find the real ODB.
I was vaguely aware of the Wu Tang Clan in the late '90s but I there was no way to avoid ODB after his collaboration with Mariah Carey on the Fantasy remix in the mid-90s. It was a few years later when the band became a little more prominent here in the UK after they
If you are a hip-hop fan, this podcast is worth a listen to hear about the rise and fall of such an interesting artist, the world around him and the legacy he's left.
I know have a playlist full of music videos to go watch and to catch up on.
Week 361: Why has watchOS 11 made Double Tap really annoying
Double Tap is one of those killer features of the Apple Watch now. One handed operation for getting through notifications as they come in or bringing up just-in-time information via the smart stack. In some apps it provides access to key functions too.
With watchOS 11 though, Apple have prioritised actioning notifications instead of dismissing them. For example, if you get a calendar notification with a location attached, the primary action is to open directions which is rarely what I would want to day-to-day. Not for meetings, maybe on holiday that would be useful, but I haven't found a way to revert back to making the dismiss option the one that is prioritised.
This is true for message notifications too, although maybe replying was always the prominent action, but apart from the first year after getting me Series 2, I very rarely interact with message notifications and defer to my phone for that. My use of WhatsApp has clearly changed a lot in the intervening 10 years as messages were usually 1-2-1 with people and rarely were there multiple texts coming in in quick succession.
I'll give it a chance as it is, but I do feel there should be a choice for how these notifications work. Even if it was configured per app.
Week 360: Layout articles by Stuff & Nonsense
I had come across Andy Clarke's posts on layouts some time ago and they are a great read for non-designers looking to figure out the basics or just as inspiration. It was a post over on Smashing Magazine titled Inspired Design Decisions: Pressing Matters that really opened my eyes on how to push things a little more.
I had missed it, but recently Andy has started posting on YouTube and his video about Willy Fleckhaus is a fantastic watch.
Web development is where my career took me, but I could have quite easily fallen on the other side and become a web designer instead and it's posts and videos like these from Andy that inspire me to keep dabbling in the more visually creative side of the web.
View more posts in the archive or discover more notable items.