I Had to Expand the External Storage on My Secondary Mac Mini
I first wrote about this Mac and its setup here — and then I have an update here. However, quite quickly, I learned that the 2 TB of storage I had purchased wasn’t enough.
The main culprit is Time Machine — and while I could probably do something to minimise the usage, backing up my wife’s MacBook Air (512 GB) and my MacBook Pro (512 GB) currently takes up about 1.1 TB.
I was considering upgrading the internal storage on the Mac, as more and more options for this gets released. However, none of my use-cases for storage benefits from being internal — so I did something else.
New hardware
So, I previously only had a 2 TB SSD 🖇️ in a Satechi Thunderbolt enclosure 🖇️. And here’s what I did:
- I purchased a (cheaper and slower) Satechi USB-C enclosure 🖇️, and a 4 TB SSD 🖇️.
- Then I moved the old 2 TB SSD over to the slower USB-C enclosure,
- and slipped the new 4 TB drive into the faster Thunderbolt enclosure.
✉️ How, and Why, I Use Micro.blog
A friend of mine, Simen (who has a nice, Norwegian blog), asked me about Micro.blog. That’s where this blog is hosted, and is also a social medium of sorts.
His questions
First, I want to give quick answers to the questions he had – and then go into more detail on how I’ve set things up.
1) “Which tier do you use, and why?"
Micro.blog has several tiers:
When I signed up, they only had the $5/month and $10/month plans. And I don’t quite remember what made me require the Premium plan – but things has been restructured now, so I could probably make do with one plan lower. If my friend wants to move to Micro.blog, we could go for a Family plan. 🫶🏻
I don’t find any value in things like notes and bookmarking, as I’d much rather use dedicated tools for this. I also don’t really use the newsletter feature – so I can’t really comment on that.
2) “Which features do you appreciate the most?"
I like the cross-posting features and robust ActivityPub support. For instance, the comment feature here is neat:
I also like that there are great option for third-party apps for publishing, like Ulysses, Drafts, and MarsEdit.
And I find that the platform has a good balance between being easy enough to use, while also being powerful and flexible enough to form into what I need. An example of the contrary was how I couldn’t find a way to have WordPress have a front-page with the start of my blog posts like I have now. (I’ll go into how I’m doing that later.)
3) “How is it different from the alternatives?"
Before I tried WordPress, my blog was on Write.as. However, that was too simple, and not expandable enough. With Micro.blog I can freely add features via Javascript, for instance. (Examples below.) And it also has a plug-in system (even though it’s far from as powerful as WordPress in that regard).
I know that Simen uses Quartz, which I also use for my band’s website. This is a nice static site generator where you, for instance, can simply “push” an Obsidian vault. However, this doesn’t have integrated newsletter support, doesn’t support ActivityPub, and doesn’t have cross-posting (among other things).
4) What’s missing? Or is too clunky?
One thing Quartz is better suited for, though, is digital gardens. Micro.blog is absolutely built around traditional, chronological blogging.
I also find uploads to be very clunky, when I don’t do it through Shortcuts. I can only upload one file at the time – and there’s no way, even in the … menu, to copy just the URL to the file. (I have to carve it out from the HTML or Markdown.) 👇🏻
The ActivityPub posts that Micro.blog push, for the long-form posts, are also very lacklustre, IMO. Just the title, and link to the post:
And I don’t like the social media part of the service – which I’ll get into next.
However, I’m generally delighted with the place I’ve gotten this blog!
My use, and how I got there
Quick Recommendation #8: Initial D
Drifting Anime, That Drips With Style
I’m not the biggest car-guy, even though I do enjoy a bit of car-YouTube from time to time.1 But I just love the anime Initial D.
The cars they drive remind me of my first real racing game: Gran Turismo on the first Playstation. And it has cemented owning a car with pop-up headlights on my bucket list.
The show has lots of intense racing scenes, backed up by an insane eurobeat soundtrack. Trust me – it works.
Here’s the basic setting:
Takumi Fujiwara is a teenager that works part-time for his father’s Tofu shop – making deliveries in the early morning. His father, Bunta, is an old street racer, and while Takumi hasn’t inherited his interest, he has inherited his talent. And being a lazy teenager, who wants to get done quickly with his work, he simply started driving faster and faster.
He drives an old, but well-tuned, Toyota Corolla – and him getting laughed at for driving a car like that, with the name of the tofu shop on the side, is part of the charm.
How to watch
Milestone Achieved: Linked to on a Podcast I Like
And a Guide to Pronunciation of My Name
One of my favourite tech podcasts, is Comfort Zone. It’s hosted by Christopher Lawley, Niléane Dorffer, and Matt Birchler, and is simply a pretty chill time with neat people.
Last week they asked for listener input, so I sent them a relevant blog post – and I got a little shoutout. ☺️
I’m thoroughly in the writing into the void phase of blogging. So every share, mention, and email really means a lot.1
My name(s)
Matt made a valiant effort to pronounce my weird Norwegian name – but obviously failed spectacularly. So I thought I’d use this occasion to provide a little guide!
My name is Erlend. The d is always silent – but for some Norwegian dialects, the r is silent as well. And for English speakers, this is my recommendation.
Then you pronounce it like the name “Allen”, but slower: Alen
However, if you have r’s like me, or the French, you can pronounce it like this: Erlend
Oh, and then there’s my blog. The name Havn is Norwegian for harbour. The a is like the a in “car”: Havn
Go and give the podcast a listen! The banter is good, and they have interesting challenges every week.
Furthermore: Share and/or email a small blogger this week. 🫶🏻 It’s lovely when the void answers – and many of us don’t get any help from algorithms.
Why I Don't Use LLMs for Facts
Design Challenge: 65% ISO Mac Keyboard, Usable by Everyone
I Want Your Opinion!
I like custom keyboards, and a couple of years ago, I made my own:
However, three things made this process harder/more expensive (at least at the time):
- I wanted a Mac layout, while most keyboards are made for Windows,
- I needed the ISO layout, while most keyboards has the ANSI layout,
- and the Norwegian layout is a subsection of ISO.
Enter: 3D printer
This spring, I’m moving from a tiny flat (in the city) into a large house (not in the city). And one of the things I’ll now get room for, is a 3D printer.1 And as someone who likes tinkering and soldering, I want to try to create a keyboard, perhaps hand-wired, in the style of the legendary Joe Scotto.
In time, I would like to make a split keyboard for myself. But before that, I wanted to try to create a more standard keyboard. And I thought a fun challenge would be to design:
A simple keyboard for my wife
This provides the following criteria:
- Have all features (except Touch ID) that she uses on her MacBook Air. This includes:
- All letter, number and symbol buttons,
- arrow keys,
- escape,
- and brightness and sound/music controls.
- Be simple enough that she could just sit down and use it without any prior knowledge.
- I also want to try to not have a function row. So closer to a 65% than a 75%.
The main issue with having no function row, is the escape key. It needs to be the top-left button, but then the button we use for apostrophes (next to 1) needs to be moved somewhere. I solved it by moving it to the ISO-key between Shift and Z, which usually is < and >. And then I access those with a special modifier. However, this wouldn’t work for a keyboard that’s supposed to be instantly usable by everyone.