Clicks Communicator and Power Keyboard

Clicks Communicator is the ultimate communication companion, helping you communicate in a noisy world. Compact and pocketable, Communicator is a new kind of 5G phone built deeper context (Signal light & Message Hub), versatile input (premium typing experience and voice input), and greater control (swappable covers, expandable storage, 3.5MM).

Clicks Power Keyboard is one keyboard for all your smart screens: phone, tablet, smart TV, even AR/VR. Power Keyboard is a slide out keyboard and power bank in one, giving you a premium typing experience you can pair with all your smart devices, with power to top up your phone.

I returned my new iPhone 17 Clicks keyboard case and preordered the Power keyboard on the same day. The new keyboard basically addresses all my issues about the case: portability, flexibility being the main ones. However, another big one I haven’t seen mentioned, is my hope that the new keyboard allows for a better weight distribution by making the bottom heavier.

The Communicator was bittersweet for me… as soon as I saw it I wanted to share it with my departed buddy Alonso. I think he’d buy into the concept of a secondary device for communication and he loved his blackberry.

I’m excited about Clicks devices, and a reason behind the preorder was to support them after not being sold on the keyboard case.

The Case for Blogging in the Ruins

From joanwestenberg.com:

The blog, at its best (a best I aspire one day to reach) is Montaigne’s direct descendant. It’s a form that allows for intellectual exploration without demanding premature certainty. You can write a post working through an idea, acknowledge in the post itself that you’re not sure where you’ll end up, and invite readers to think alongside you. You can return to the topic weeks later with updated thoughts. The format accommodates the actual texture of thinking, which is messy and recursive and full of wrong turns.

Social media flattens all of this into statements: Everything you post is implicitly a declaration. Even if you add caveats, the format strips them away. What travels is the hot take, the dunked-on screenshot, the increasingly-shitty meme, the version of your argument that fits in a shareable image with the source cropped out.

Amazing post that crystallizes why the effort to blog is worth it. Also, a great article to read as I struggle with yet another New Year’s resolution about my writing and posting.

Reddit Frustrated Tana Believer

From reddit.com:

The learning curve is treated as a feature, not a problem to solve.

[…]

Rather than investing in intuitive UX/UI that adapts to users, Tana seems to expect users to adapt entirely to it. Customization shouldn’t require mastering a complex system first. Basic functionality such as recurring tasks requires convoluted command sequences instead of simple, discoverable interactions. The absence of straightforward boolean formulas as a property type is a glaring omission for a tool marketed toward power users.

In my recent productivy tools reshuffle, I gave Tana another trial. I just couldn’t get onboard the learning curve. The power is there, supertags are an amazing concept, but having to figure out the setup and learn how to configure it was too much for me.

Also, it helped me realized that I really appreciate native Mac-apps. I resettled in Noteplan.

37signals Launches Fizzy

Jason, on world.hey.com:

Trello put on 40 pounds of cruft. Jira started charging by the migraine. Asana tried to become everything to everyone. GitHub Issues slipped into a steady state of decline. The whole category is a 20 car pileup of complexity.

Their tools are very opinionated, but if they fit your worldview, they’re great. I’ll keep an eye out for some personal projects to try.

Handwriting Recognition Future is Here

Dan, on newsletter.dancohen.org:

At this point, AI tools like Gemini should be able to make most digitized handwritten documents searchable and readable in transcription. This is, simply put, a major advance that we’ve been trying to achieve for a very long time, and a great aid to scholarship.

I use a Shortcut with AI Actions to Transcribe with ChatGPT. My handwriting has been called hieroglyphic, which describes how bad it really is. It’s gotten to the point that the only words it’s marks as [unrecognized] — per my prompt, are ones even I don’t recognize.

Rock Paper Scissors Solitaire

Federico klez Culloca, on klezlab.it:

You could play Rock Paper Scissors solitaire!

All you need is a dice. That’s your opponent. Throw it from your hand and as soon as you throw it form the shape you choose with your hand and see the result of the dice. 1-2 is Rock, 3-4 is Paper, 5-6 is Scrissors.

My maternal grandfather — whom I never met — had a saying that was repeated to me ad nauseam growing up: only the dumb get bored. Which was an early whinning deterrent system in my family.

Homebrew 5.0.0 Released

MikeMcQuaid, on brew.sh:

Today, I’d like to announce Homebrew 5.0.0. The most significant changes since 4.6.0 are download concurrency by default, official support for Linux ARM64/AArch64, timescales for deprecating macOS Intel and removing macOS Gatekeeper bypass behaviours.

There seems to be a renaissance of Homebrew front-ends on the Mac, and I’m extremely happy about it. Applite is still my default tool, because of its App Store-like functionality. But it’s not getting as many updated nowadays.

I’m also testing Peercleaner, and WailBrew as the default way I update¹. Using Homebrew to maintain apps up to date feels cool and geeky.

WhatsApp for Apple Watch is Back

From blog.whatsapp.com:

Today we are announcing a big upgrade for your wrist — the all-new WhatsApp app for your Apple Watch*. This new experience will help you stay on top of your chats without needing to pull out your iPhone.

Great news, but actual usage is meh on my Series 9. Still happy that it exists — again.

Commetjacking Attack Tricks Comet Browser Into Stealing Emails

Bill Toulas, on bleepingcomputer.com:

A new attack called ‘CometJacking’ exploits URL parameters to pass to Perplexity’s Comet AI browser hidden instructions that allow access to sensitive data from connected services, like email and calendar.

After Arc was acquired by Atlassian, I did an AI browser walkabout over the last few months, testing Dia, Comet, and lastly Atlas. In the end, I came out unimpressed with the features, although sadly, I do think that this new AI browsers have the nicest UI and design.

I went back Brave for a few months, but recently switched to Helium, and I’m happy with its Chromium and minimalistic design. Browsers have too much information from the end of end user side. If tracking via cookies is concerning, imagine how much a browser can know about you from your side of the screen. I do think that Apple may be up to something with the whole approach of secure and anonymous LLMs.

Field Notes to Markdown Conversion

Phil Nunnally, on twelvety.bearblog.dev:

But I want to have my cake and search it, too, so the text has to be digitized somehow. The process today is: Grab the notebook throughout the day to log whatever. At the end of the day, take non-fussy photos of the pages on the phone. Use Google Lens to convert them to text and paste them into a yyyy-mm-dd [3-character day of the week].md file in my Markdown notes directory (yep, right in there with all the other files The Archive looks at).

This is cool. I obviously have gone down the eink tablet route with the reMarkable 2 and now the Viwoods AI Notes reader. But there’s so many other ways to skin this cat. I actually believe that better bang for the buck nowadays is a comfortable notebook, a nice pen and just being organized enough to scan it at the end of the day. With most of the AI tools, it’s easy to transcribe this and have it added to your app of choice.

Retiring Windows 10 and Linux Options

Scott Larson, on scottrlarson.com:

Linux Distribution Replacements for Windows 1. Zorin OS: A Windows-like Linux experience, requires modern hardware 2. PopOS: Built for gamers out of the box 3. Ubuntu: All-around desktop, requires modern hardware 4. Elementary OS: For minimalist users 5. MX Linux: For 10+ years, hardware.

Great summary of Linux distributions to keep around when thinking of replacing Windows or in general.

Zed for Windows Now Available

Max Brunsfeld, on zed.dev:

Zed isn’t an Electron app; we integrate directly with the underlying platform for maximal control. The Windows build uses DirectX 11 for rendering, and DirectWrite for text rendering, to match the Windows look and feel.

I’m still a Sublime Text person, but I keep Zed around to try every one of every now and then. If for whatever reason Sublime Text wouldn’t be an option, Zed will be it.

Matt Langford New Mythos Theme

Matt Langford, on mattlangford.com:

After years (wow, that happened fast) of crafting themes for Micro.blog, I’m excited to introduce Mythos Theme — my latest project that represents the direction of my theme development work. Before diving into what makes Mythos special, I want to share some important updates about my existing themes and where they stand moving forward.

Oh man, what a nice looking theme. I would love to have this on blot. Might take a stab at it with one of the vibe coding tools to see how much I can replicate.

Another macOS User Full-Time in Linux

Jack, on baty.blog:

I’m still using Omarchy. I really like the tiling window setup with Hyprland. I sometimes paint myself into a corner, but mostly it makes window management fast and efficient. Workspaces on Linux are so nice.

[…]

So far almost everything has worked without fuss. My Apple Studio Display works, as does its speaker volume, webcam, and microphone. I was able to print to my laser printer straight away, and never needed to install anything for it.

I swear I’m not looking for this sort of post that are arriving in my feed or being boosted on mastodon. It says a lot about Omarchy, but also on the the lack of sharp edge macOS as a tool has lost.

Chris Hannah Sticks with Omarchy

Chris Hannah, on journeysthroughglass.net:

I think that’s the best thing about Omarchy in my opinion. It’s built in a way that it gives you a good foundation, an opinionated (but reasonable) layer on top, good documentation, and a growing community.

It’s not a fad. Geeks are looking for other options on the desktop — since macOS has become the wrong kind of opinionated.

Meh (ctrl alt shift) and Hyper (ctrl alt shift cmd) Key Combinations

creakingstairs, on news.ycombinator.com:

Meh (ctrl alt shift) and hyper (ctrl alt shift cmd). And I bind caps lock to meh on long press and esc on tap.

This gives me plenty of easily reachable hot keys. Eg I can switch between spaces with meh + number. I have terminal hot window bound to meh + space. Moving focus between windows is meh + hjlk.

I bind my right Command key to the Hyper key — but not considered using a Meh key. My caps lock is the Control key. Maybe with a Karabiner I can do short press Control key and long press Meh key. Something to think about.

Table Format and LLMs

From improvingagents.com:

Markdown-KV came out top, hitting 60.7% accuracy and landing roughly 16 points ahead of CSV. (Markdown-KV is our term for a non-standardised format featuring “key: value” pairs in markdown.)

Very surprised markdown tables came ahead of csv. But good thing to keep in mind.

T-Mobile Will Soon Begin LTE Phase-Out

Jman100, on tmo.report:

According to a leaked internal document shared with us here at The Mobile Report, T-Mobile will soon begin completely “re-farming” their existing LTE into 5G over the next 2+ years. The document is shown below.

I remember being excited about the 3G rollout. Never mind that here in Costa Rica we’re just getting 5G in some areas — by which I mean a couple of meters here and there.

Instant Access to Four Text Files in Obsidian

Ellane W, on ellanew.com:

Four text files form the bedrock of how I’m manually capturing information and organising my time and tasks.

Love seeing how other people automate their note taking. I have a fairly similar setup, but only to my one big daily notes file. For all other notes, Obsidian mobile is so unstable when attempting deep links, that I’ve desisted using it on my iPhone and even iPad.

Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS Beta Download Available

From system76.com:

Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS with the new COSMIC DE, developed by System76, is coming with many new features to explore and discover. Test out the beta as we fine-tune for release.

A year ago I’d be sure that the new Pop!_OS would have ben my Linux distro of choice if macOs wasn’t an option. But, Omarchy has really found a place in my geeky heart. Still, I’m going to give the final version a try on the same hardware — and I expect it won’t be an easy decision.

Louie Mantia on EPCOT

Louie Mantia, on lmnt.me:

I think for a park like EPCOT to be truly incredible, it must constantly be an example of the better world we’re not living in.

Absolutely. Freaking Absolutely. EPCOT should be a consistently on the frontier of the future. I nodded along the whole short post, and it left me thinking. There’s something to explore about the idea of the future being exciting and in in constant renewal. With enough fine-tuning that it doesn’t seem a correction, but relatable enough that it doesn’t appear nostalgic either.

Using iOS Notes as a CMS for a Micro Blog

From albertoprado70.github.io:

I always thought that iOS Notes is the perfect app to take notes.

So, like any developer would, I decided to create a complex setup that allows me to create a website from my notes.

This is great. This is geek. This is pointless. This is great.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is coming to PS5 in December

Tom Warren, on theverge.com:

Microsoft is bringing another big Xbox game to PlayStation 5 later this year. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, the latest installment in the franchise, is arriving on PS5 on December 8th. Sony revealed the release date for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 during its State of Play today, and also teased that Asobo Studio is working on PSVR 2 support for Flight Simulator 2024.

This better not awaken anything in me… What can I say? I [keep][2021] [saying][2022] that[ I’d get a][2023] way to play Flight Simulator, and I never do. So just putting this here as a way to troll myself.

That said… the idea of PSVR 2 support is very intriguing.

[2021]:Microsoft Flight Simulator for Xbox Series X / S consoles [2022]:Microsoft Flight Simulator Available on Xbox Game Pass [2023]:Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024

Journaling in iPhone's Photo Captions

Hữu Phong, on phong.bearblog.dev:

That’s where I write my journal entries. It might sound a little odd since I haven’t seen anyone around me do this or even use this feature. Most people would probably choose better-suited things like a dedicated journaling app (Day One, Apple’s Journal, etc), a note-taking app (Apple’s Notes, Notion, Obsidian, etc.), email, or just pen and paper. But for me personally, I love writing here for several reasons:

Yikes. Talk about a pragmatic solution. I did try to use the photo captions with Shortcut’s a long way back as a way to create my own microblog, but it failed. This makes sense really. Most of my objections for things I need my journaling app to do are for stuff I actually never do — I just like to know the features exist.

Cloudflare Sponsoring Ladybird and Omarchy

Mari Galicer and Sam Rhea, on blog.cloudflare.com:

To that end, today we are excited to announce our support of two independent, open source projects: Ladybird, an ambitious project to build a completely independent browser from the ground up, and Omarchy, an opinionated Arch Linux setup for developers.

Great that Ladybird gets some love — it’s important that we have a clean alternative to Webkit/Blink. The Omarchy angle is… cool. But wouldn’t have guessed they even were looking for corporate sponsorship.

Chris Hannah on Omarchy

Chris Hannah, on journeysthroughglass.net:

So what journey am I on now?

One with the Framework 13, which is running Omarchy.

I could spend hours writing every detailed reason I chose to try this out. But in essence, it’s because I enjoy using computers, I want to control everything about my computer, I want to learn new things, and I want a new experience. Especially one that is grounded in my role as a software engineer. I want to use a computer that respects that I may want to make my own choices.

I’ve been on a similar side-quest with Omarchy. I installed it on a 2015 13-inch MacBook Pro and it has been taken over by my 9yo mini geek (Robie). It’s amazing how much life it brought to that old laptop. It feels like something current¹. There truly is something there — some essence of technology playfulness that has been lost on macOS and its hardware. I don’t expect Apple to become a geeks’ paradise again, but I do think that the wonderful walled garden, while productive, has become less fun.

Our Computer is Our Workshop

Johnny.Decimal, on jdcm.al:

When was the last time you prepared the next piece of work? Closed all of your old windows. Opened up a new view on your files and found the place you needed to be. Opened the note you’ll be using in a new, clean window. Focused your task manager on the task at hand.

Your computer is your workshop. If you want to work well, you need to slow down. You need to think more, and do less.

Spencer Work Layout Setup

My dad’s garage is a proper woodworking/mechanic workshop. If you need something he’ll find the tool to make it easier to fix. The concept of the computer as the workshop resonated with me. In my current setup, I use Spencer to arrange each of the 6 spaces I have setup, with windows as I like them. Previously I’d use Bunch for something similar — having a different set of apps and even wallpaper for each work mode.

A lot it is the ritual, but the setting up the space is also something that’s important to me. When I’m rushing to delivery something, everything might go out the window — but afterwards, I quit all app, and force myself to start with a fresh workspace. Not an empty workspace, but two steps further down when the fundamental apps are in place.

Techmeme is 20 Years Old

Fred Vogelstein, on crazystupidtech.com:

Some of his operation’s longevity is because he still runs the technology on a shoestring budget. While most other websites and apps of substance have long since adopted cloud computing offerings from Amazon, Google or Microsoft, Rivera still runs Techmeme and the other three sites he publishes off two servers located in a single hosting facility.

Although the first mention of Techmeme here if from 2009, I do remember it becoming part of my morning check since it started. Other than the lack of an official mobile app, I love everything about the site: crazy fast loading, factual headlines, url structure that defines chronology. Here’s to 20 more years — I’ll continue to visit daily.

Apple Watch Hypertension Notifications Coming to Series 9

Emma Roth, on theverge.com:

With the launch of watchOS 26 next week, Apple will bring hypertension notifications, live translation, and the new wrist flick gesture to the Watch Series 9 and newer, along with the last-gen Watch Ultra 2.

As someone who owns a Series 9 and also a borderline hypertension condition, I was happily surprised by this. It wasn’t clear during the keynote this was the case, and for a moment I thought I might have to justify an upgrade. Still waiting for it to be enabled in Costa Rica, but extremely happy that I’ll be able to test it.

Atlassian Acquires Arc and Dia Maker

David Pierce, on www.theverge.com:

Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company, the New York-based startup that makes both Arc and the new AI-focused Dia browser. Atlassian is paying $610 million in cash for The Browser Company, and plans to run it as an independent entity.

Just this week I was back on Brave testing how hurtful a switch would be — a bit, but survivable. While I’m not a fan of Atlassian, it’s worth noting they didn’t screw up Trello. However they didn’t transform either.

I respect The Browser Company going for a realistic number that provides a solid exit, but also guarantees they can continue their vision on solid corporate ground.

Depending on the integration, it might be that they become the work browser of choice. But, for now, I’ll be doing a lap around browser options.

A Quick Look at Marked 3

Brett Terpstra, on brettterpstra.com:

Since leaving Oracle I’ve been hard at work on Marked 3, and holy cow it’s a huge update.

I enjoy writing in markdown, focusing on the content, and then seeing how the output becomes content with layout. It’s kind of writing code and then seeing executive something. Marked is great for this, and I’m specially excited by an updated Style Stealer — in which you just load the URL and it grabs the style.

Fully supportive of Brett moving to subscription — I just hope it’s something sustainable for both sides directly¹.