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    I liked this blog post, by The Jolly Teapot! šŸ‘‡šŸ»

    On Quality Software

    Ā«A happy snobĀ» is very much how I’d categorise my own taste in software. šŸ‘ŒšŸ»

    I’ve been thinking way too much about music streaming the past month - so now I’ve gathered my thoughts in a blog post!

    I have an idea and dream, that I’m sadly woefully unequipped to actually build. šŸ™ƒ

    It’s a cross between podcasts, Mastodon, PeerTube and the MusicKit API!

    🌱 An Idea For Better Music Streaming

    I sadly don’t have the abilities to live out this idea — at least not alone. So everyone who finds this, is welcome to steal it or riff with me!

    I’m currently trying to transfer from Spotify to Tidal. The main reason is that I want to use a service that pays artists better — and it’s a nice bonus that the sound quality is better. However, I prefer Spotify’s app and features. 1 And this inspired me to write out an idea I’ve been thinking about for a while.

    Inspired by Mastodon, Apple’s MusicKit API, Podcasts and PeerTube

    Third-party first

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    I’m trying out Tidal for a bit, so cancelling my Spotify Premium subscription. Got this pretty obnoxious screen. šŸ‘‡šŸ»

    It says: How you listen will change. If you cancel, you’ll change to our free plan. Here’s how your listening will change on that date: (The following numbers are very large, with the text smaller beneath it<br>
15: You’ll hear ads about every 15 minutes.<br>
0: You won’t be able to play any song, any time on mobile.<br>
6: You can skip only 6 times per hour.<br>
0: 0 of your downloaded songs will be available offline.

    🌱 Apple Is Not the Reason I’m Buying Apple Products - These People Are

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    In the court cases against Epic, this round of regulatory scrutiny from the EU, and other more, Apple has made their sense of entitlement abundantly clear. Every piece of business that happens on their platforms, is to their credit. And developers are lucky to be able to pay them almost a third of their revenue for the privilege of being on their platforms. If Apple understands that their relationship with developers is reciprocal, they’re hiding it well.

    I like all my Apple hardware. Heck, I even love some of it! I also like the operating systems, the general focus on privacy, and the way the different parts of the ecosystem work together. But I think I could enjoy a Framework laptop, Asus phone and some Sony earbuds as well! The things Apple makes and does isn’t the main reason I keep buying Apple products. It’s all the fantastic third-party developers, mostly indie, who make great software for the Apple platforms.

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    If Apple was a food company:

    Government: «You gotta stop using plastic wrapping around one-time utensils.»

    Apple: āˆ—wraps it in barbed wire insteadāˆ—

    Apple: Ā«See what the government made us do!Ā» šŸ‘†šŸ»

    Why I Think Apple’s Fine is Fine

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    Today, Apple got hit with a €1.84 billion fine — for anticompetitive behaviour in the music streaming market.

    I’ve seen people saying this doesn’t make sense, as Spotify has a larger market share than Apple Music — but that’s not what the complaint is about. The thing is, that Apple has used their size, ecosystem and general market position to give Apple Music a larger market share than they would’ve gotten if they had to compete fairly. Apple is about 80 times the size of Spotify. To put that into perspective, that’s about the same ratio as a rhino compared to a golden retriever. 1

    The dog might have the Rhino beat on Ā«amount of furĀ», but that doesn’t make it Ā«more powerfulĀ».

    Here are some of the smaller things Apple are doing:

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    🌱 A Good Way to Get Home Row Mods on a Mac

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    If you already know about Home Row Mods, click here to go straight to my quick method for getting it on your Mac - even on the internal laptop keyboard.

    As part of my ergonomics voyage, I’ve been working on getting home row mods on my keyboard. This excellent guide provides tons of info on this, but the short version is this:

    To contort your hands less when using modifiers (like shift and control), the letter keys on your home row serves double duty: They’re the letters if you tap them, but modifiers if you hold them.

    Letter keys A, S, D and F, with icons for modifier keys on them.

    The home row letters on the right side is usually used as well, mirrored from the left. Image from the guide.

    Image of the ZSA Voyager split keyboard.

    Many users of this completely gets rid of the regular modifier keys. But it can be benefitial as a compliment to those as well, by reducing the amount you use them.

    Tapping vs holding

    But what’s constitutes a tap and what constitutes a hold? That’s the central question here…

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    Via Kottke:

    Studies have shown that people who ride e-bikes get more exercise than those who ride pedal bikes. «Researchers have discovered that when riders find it less grueling, they tend to go on longer rides.»

    I totally believe this! I want an e-bike 🚲 in my future. šŸ™‚

    I’m trying to get comfortable with home row mods… āŒØļø
    It’s a constant struggle between minimising lag/unintended modifiers and how hard it is to actually use the modifiers when I want.

    Anyone out there with experience on this?

    Doing it with QMK worked well, but I hated the lag. And doing it with software is preferable, as I then can have the same on the internal Mac keyboard. Using simlayers in Karabiner-Elements atm.

    #MechanicalKeyboards #Allheimen

    SƄ heldig Ƅ fƄ lƄne et slik av den bestete Glenn.

    🌱 Why do so many apps have weird margins?

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    There are tons of services, apps and clients for text based social media. But why are almost all of them wrong about timeline margins?

    Out of touch Skinner-meme, with the text: Ā«Am I wrong about timeline margins?Ā» Ā«No, it’s most apps who are wrong!Ā»

    To show what I’m talking about, here’s Threads as an example:

    Screenshot of Threads. Point explained below.

    I get that you want to start the text quite close to the username, and that avatars are taller than usernames on some services. But I still think that left-margin is a sin! It wastes space, and makes the entire screen lopsided.

    I went through many apps checking - and many of the apps are good and well-designed in general! Many of them are Mastodon clients, because that service has a fantastic 3rd party ecosystem. Also, they’re all iOS apps, because that’s what I have. Would be interested to hear about the situation on Android!

    OK, here are some more offenders:

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    Today’s Keyboard Maintenance

    Today, I finished the first step of my Ergonomics Voyage: Making some modifications to my keyboard.

    Key layout

    The most important change, was activating home row mods. So I’ve made it so tapping

    a s d f works as normal — but if I hold them, they act as

    Ctrl Opt Shift Cmd .

    And then I’ve mirrored it on the other side, to j k l Ćø .

    Failed at software

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    🌱 How I Manage Windows

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    Rafael Conde, posted on Mastodon today:

    We’re sharing how we use the Desktop and how we size/position windows on our Macs on our work Slack and it’s absolute madness.

    And, then followed it up with a poll:

    Time to fess up, how do you primarily use windows “on your” Mac? Bonus points if you reply with a screenshot šŸ“ø
    ā‹… Wherever the appear, I don’t know
    ā‹… Centered (think Apple marketing shot)
    ā‹… Fullscreen (as big as you can make them)
    ā‹… Tiled (in a grid, like taking up half the screen)

    I, as many others, have strong feelings about this. And I’d love for this to become the next Ā«Default appsĀ»! So I’ll start.

    I’m a big tiler.

    I switch between my MacBooks 14 inch screen, and my Studio Display’s 27-inch screen. But no matter which I’m on, I move my apps around quite a lot, and almost always in

    • quarters,
    • halves,
    • and wholes (not fullscreen mode).

    Here are some examples:

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    Good stuff collected by @mjtsai@mastodon.social, about #Apple’s decision to kill PWAs.

    🌱 My Tech Setup

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    I’ll make separate posts for my software and bass guitar setups, but here’s my current tech hardware setup.

    My screen, screen light, microphone, numpad, keyboard, trackpad, wrist rests, Airpods and iPad. I have a monitor stand (but the screen is not on it).

    The overview. Details incoming!

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    Ah, yes - like God intended:

    My external trackpad and its wrist rest is tilted to the side (ergonomically).

    Second angle.

    (Related to yesterday’s blog post. )

    Under the trackpad. I’ve just smooshed two tall rubber feets on it with som tack-it.

    🌱 The Ethics and Principles Behind My Blog

    These are my goals: Be a pleasent place for people visiting, that respects their privacy. Be a good citizen of (a lose definition of) the indie/small web. Even though my impact is small, I can still try to make it positive. This page (and the actions taken based on it), is under constant evaluation. It’s meant as a living post. 🌱 So feel free to contact me with feedback on this - especially if I fail to meet my goals.

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    I don’t really use read-it-later apps. But if you do, check out Omnivore! I agree with this review.

    Open-source, great text-to-speech, iOS, Android, Mac and Web.

    IPhone and Mac screenshots of Omnivore

    Great day! Spent literally 11 hours intensely not getting #KMonad to work on my #Mac. šŸ˜“

    This is as far as I got. šŸ‘‡šŸ»

    (Or, previously I got one step further, and got «Encountered error in KeySource: [Cannot translate from mac keycode: (0,0)]» instead)

    Stuck on driver_connected 0 driver_version_mismatched 0
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