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Category: Blog Posts

Just my original blog posts, no links

  • Google Needs to Get It Together and Fix Their Reputation

    Google has a problem: despite being the literal parent of Android, they can’t get Android updates (or substantial Feature Drops) to their products in a timely manner. Yeah, Google, despite your huge media marketing campaigns to the contrary, I noticed the last two Feature Drops have been very… small. Updates have either been consistently late, or never appear at all on their old (or even new) premium phones as they promise to. I think I’ve maybe gotten two new features on Pixel 6 in the last four Feature Drops? That phone isn’t that old, and it was the first Tensor Pixel!

    There’s no excuse.

    I don’t know how Google has managed to fail so spectacularly at literally anything they do. The fact that Samsung is way ahead of Google on Android updates and feature releases that lay underneath One UI is a kick in the balls for Google. Samsung are a third-party that builds on top of Android Open Source Project (AOSP) code, they have no reason to be so far ahead of Google. I cannot understate how bad this is for Google as a company.

    They have no credibility. They consistently shut down services with no recourse and little notice. If they want to fix this problem, I think they need to get aggressive and do the following two things:

    1. Google must match software and hardware support for the Pixel 6 and 7 series, as well as the Fold and Tablet, to that of the Pixel 8. 7 years total, across the board, from the original launch date. They need to prove their commitment to their Tensor hardware and software experiences, this is how they do that. I’m not saying they need to bring every feature (that’s certainly not feasible), but if some Pixel 8 features can run on Pixel 7, there’s no reason they can’t run on Pixel Tablet or even Pixel 6 depending on complexity.
      • Pixel 6 has barely received any new features besides OS updates since launching in October 2021. It is planned to be barred from feature updates in October 2024. That is unacceptable.
    2. With Android 15, non-Tensor Pixel devices will be unsupported on Google’s own flavor of Android (“stock” as it’s commonly called). This is the perfect opportunity to reimagine feature drops. Put more in there for those on older devices! Keep them alive and kicking. Not forever, but at least until the end of their limited shelf life. Less e-waste is a great thing for the environment, you know!

    Google has a bit of a reputation problem. I don’t know if they have a team in charge of killing services or something, but it seems to happen a lot, and there’s a graveyard dedicated to them at this point.

    I hold Rick Osterloh and Dave Burke, who essentially lead Pixel and Android respectively, in high regard. They’re awesome to the Android community and always have been! But, they need to get on their A-game if they want to restore their reputation. Articles like this one from Android Authority, which accuses Google of breaking their promises, shouldn’t be cropping up. It’s time to take control and do right by their consumers and community.

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  • The Little Apple Silicon MacBook Pro That Could

    It should come as no surprise that I don’t like Microsoft. I grew up on Ubuntu Linux, but was forced to use Windows when my parents got married. We had XP on the family computer, and then I eventually got my own computer that had Windows 8.1 (later downgraded to 7 literally for Aero Glass) on it.

    In 2016, I switched to Mac and haven’t returned to using Windows as my primary OS ever since. macOS and I have become very well acquainted over the years. That said, I have always kept a Windows computer around, mainly just for games. The two Windows computers I have now still run Windows 10. There are good things about 11 (the design is actually really pretty) but I think the performance is a significant downgrade from 10 and 7. I have fast computers so that they go fast. 11 is not a “fast” version of Windows.

    I also hate how they shove Edge down your throat, disrespect your defaults, collect your data and advertise to you (despite the fact that the OS is literally paid), among other things. I worry about the implications of that fact…

    Until 2022, I used a 2014 Mac mini and 2011 MacBook Pro (the latter with patches to get it relatively up to date) in combination with each other for a while. Both had SSDs, and I kept everything synced over iCloud so it was easy to drop a project on one computer and pick it up on another. AirDrop was indispensable to me in high school, and having my Mac be able to interact (without setup!) with my iPad and other devices was super helpful.

    My current desktop on macOS 14, as of publishing.

    In 2022, I switched to Apple silicon — M2, specifically. My tiny 13-inch MacBook Pro absolutely obliterates both of my other x86_64 based computers running Windows 10. Combined. And the Windows 11 VM I have in Parallels also leaves those computers in the dust, too. ARM certainly isn’t a new thing — Linux enthusiasts like me have enjoyed the benefits of it for years now — but Apple has absolutely found their way here.

    Apple isn’t free from criticism. No one is. But they have an advantage here, and they deserve to be applauded for making decent software. (Even if the new System Settings app introduced in macOS 13 is a joke.)

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  • It Might Be Time For Us to Break Free from Apple’s “Ecosystem”

    It’s official, Apple has shuttered Epic Games’ ability to create an “alternative app marketplace” on iOS–shutting down their Swedish developer account on the 6th of March. It seems that Tweets critical of the company by Epic Games‘ CEO recently may have sparked the response. Despite Epic Games trying to operate in good faith with Apple, the multi-trillion dollar company chose a path of bad faith: shuttering the competition before they even stood a chance. It’s sad to see–I’ve spent several years now as an Apple customer, even recently switching back to using their devices primarily, but now I can’t trust them on mobile.

    The biggest reason is that developers are going to stop trusting them soon enough. Frankly, Apple is becoming the very thing they sought to destroy almost forty some-odd years ago. The fact that they’re becoming more and more litigious is enough evidence, to be honest.

    The company is simply on a power trip, fueled by a hunger for control and dominance over every industry in which they take part, even if that means costing themselves a significant amount of goodwill among their vast community of developers and enthusiasts. At least Microsoft’s former CEO Steve Ballmer understood that developers mean everything to a thriving platform. That said, Ballmer was controversial as a CEO, and most of that reputation is his own fault.

    Every move the company has made, from RCS support and beyond (especially recently), has been done in a way that is nothing short of malicious compliance. Developers from across the industry, including several third-party developer alums, have come together and spoken out against these moves. Whether it’s independently, or through the Coalition for App Fairness, or through some other alliance.

    Spotify, for example, is a member of the Coalition whose CEO was incredibly vocal against the proposed DMA rules set forth by Apple. They released another letter to the European Commission on Apple’s “lack of DMA compliance” just last week. Apple responded, with an incredibly anger-filled press release on Monday:

    “Today, Spotify has a 56 percent share of Europe’s music streaming market — more than double their closest competitor’s — and pays Apple nothing for the services that have helped make them one of the most recognizable brands in the world. A large part of their success is due to the App Store, along with all the tools and technology that Spotify uses to build, update, and share their app with Apple users around the world.”

    Keep in mind, the EU recently fined them €1.84 billion EURO ($2 billion USD) as a result of the anti-trust litigation between them, Spotify, and this is just a result of their distaste in their loss. The fact of the matter is–the Apple beast has become too powerful. We, the consumers, have given them this power–and we’re the only ones who can seize it once more.

    Google isn’t exactly a saint either, to be clear. They’ve had their own myriad of bullshit and muddy bodies of antitrust and litigation of all sorts that would take ages to wade through. However–Android has, and will continue to be, an open platform in both source and user choice for as long as the Android Open Source Project exists and smartphone manufacturers (who aren’t Apple) continue making phones.

    For Apple to succeed in interfacing with developers in the long-term–beyond their evangelists and most dedicated users who have zero understanding of how Android, Windows, or Linux works–they must stop alienating them and being so disrespectful when given constructive feedback. I’m not sure why their knee-jerk reaction is to play the victim card so much, especially when I’m sure they have a million other cards to play, but they continue to choose it.

    For sympathy? Probably.

    I believe it’s time for us iOS users to rebel in the only way Apple has given us the ability to do: take our business elsewhere. The grass is certainly greener on the other side of the wall. Even DHH, a well-known lover AND critic of Apple (being an Apple evangelist for a long ass time–perhaps 99% of my life–will do that), has switched to Android and Windows and has no reason to leave for a while.

    Wild that we’ve gotten here. I’m doing the same thing, too–plotting my course out of the “ecosystem.” Perhaps it is that time. If Apple has a sincere change of heart, sure, but I don’t think developers are going to stick around for long with their attitude lately. Without developers, a platform is nothing. Without COMPETITION, a developer is nothing. If Apple truly is seeking to destroy both, iOS may as well be deemed irrelevant now.

    Unless you want to eventually be stuck without any third-party apps in the future… I’d start looking at your options and plotting your exit plan. Samsung Galaxy S is probably the closest choice, but Google Pixel has a great line, too. That’s my take.

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  • In Loving Memory of my Great Aunt Rose

    For those who don’t know (find my first Tweet here and my follow-up here), my Great Aunt Rose unfortunately passed away last week. She was a beautiful and kind-hearted woman who truly loved her family, despite rarely getting to see everyone in-person. The first (and last) time I had saw her since I was a baby was July 2019. We had a wonderful time, and made so many memories that I will cherish for the rest of my life.

    Love you, Great Aunt Rose! We’re all going to miss you!

    1955 – 2024

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  • I Found An Old Screenshot Laying Around and Was Instantly Hit With Nostalgia

    In case you were curious how I had my computer set up in this month in 2017, I found a screenshot laying around of a client’s website, but for some reason, it was my entire desktop. I don’t work with these folks anymore — so it’s blurred out here — but I believe the computer this was running on was a Mid 2010 Mac Mini running macOS Sierra!

    At some point down the line, I switched to an Early 2011 MacBook Pro, and then eventually upgraded to a 2014 Mac Mini and the 2022 M2 MacBook Pro that I currently use. macOS returned to a more skeuomorphic-inspired look. I believe they call it “neumorphic” or something like that.

    For giggles, here’s what my desktop looks like today! A lot has changed. I actually store files on the Desktop now, and I don’t keep my RAM monitor in my Menu Bar anymore. I went for a tidy yet functional set up.

    My Dock is hidden off to the right-hand side of my screen–with a Terminal tweak to make it instantly appear and reappear. For folder management on the Desktop (where I store in-progress projects), I use Stacks and I move the labels to the right. I use SoundSource to manage my audio interface, CleanShot X for screenshot management, and an app called Tiles to bring window snapping from Windows 7 and later to the Mac. Oh, and I keep Downloads in the Dock now, and don’t remove the shortcut anymore–it’s handy.

    I suppose the only things hardware-wise besides the machine that has changed was my keyboard–I’m using a model of the Logi Pop Keys line that’s red/pink/off-white. Reason being is that it supports macOS keyboard shortcuts. On my other computers, I use a SteelSeries Apex 5.

    Was kind of interesting to see this. Chrome certainly changed a lot, and macOS looks like a completely different piece of software. That screenshot I found was taken only about three months into my switch from Windows to Mac, too. Incredibly nostalgic! Wonder if I have any more old screenshots laying around somewhere…

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  • I Think Snapchat is A Healthier Form of Social Media: Intent-Based Platforms Matter

    Honestly, being on a self-imposed break from checking social media too often has left me wondering what “social media” can be for me. My circle of friends is incredibly small, but scattered all across the United States’ East Coast, as well as parts of Europe, and Australia. Social media is basically required to keep up with any of them.

    In middle school and high school, at least here in the US, you had a few options: iMessage or Snapchat. And basically everyone had Snapchat. It’s what we all used to communicate with each other. I’ve been on the app since 2012, when it first became available on Android, and I’ve grown used to Snapping back and forth with classmates or whatever.

    Even after all these years, and the drama that shit on Snapchat caused during high school specifically, I think it is one of the healthier platforms out there. Twitter certainly isn’t, Facebook feels like a place to go for “old people drama,” and Instagram is fine, I guess but really isn’t the same. Which is why I elected to keep Snapchat on my phone: most of my friends are on it, and there’s an incentive to keeping in regular contact with them.

    I have my own gripes with Snapchat, of course, but they aren’t shoving ads down your throat or some algorithmic timeline. It’s an intent-based social media network: you want to talk to your friends, you talk to your friends. You can either Snap them, or Chat them, or both! You can talk almost daily and inevitably start a streak. There are no barriers to entry, and no algorithms telling you what you can or can’t see based on what you might like. The timeline’s there, of course, but you have to go looking for it.

    Bottom line is: You just do the thing you want to do and just like that, it’s done.

    It’s the same thing with platforms like Mastodon and Bluesky, which are similarly intent-based: you tell it what you want to do, and it does the thing you want it to do. It doesn’t complain, it doesn’t tell you you’ll lose functionality (because you don’t), it just does. It makes things less addicting and more engaging. In my opinion, that’s a balance we all need to have in this heavily internet-connected world. I’m so happy to have finally found that balance.

    And frankly, there’s something to appreciate about that approach to creating software: giving users the tools to use the thing however it works for them. Especially in this day and age, where companies demand more and more control over how their things work alone, or with other services (or, rather, how they don’t do either and close off their products to other third-parties, requiring first-party subscription services for the device be fully functional. I’m looking at you, Apple.)

    I’m happy with what Snapchat has offered in this space. Intent-based social media apps matter, and regardless of some of my own complaints with it, it has honestly made a significantly positive impact on my friendships, and helped make them stronger… so I can forgive some of its shortcomings, for sure.

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  • Will Your In-House CMS “Beauregard” Open to the Public?

    Previously, I announced following Slade’s Corner‘s leave from Substack that this site runs on Beauregard, a content management system (and alternative to the Substack platform) that I’ve been building from scratch since the whole, er, situation blew up over there. Since then, I’ve built so many features into the site: native Cloudflare integration, linklog support, autoposting to Mastodon (and derivatives), and even native Cloudinary support for super fast image hosting!

    Beauregard is the successor to BeauCMS, which itself was based on WordPress 6.0 and 6.1. It was born out of wanting something less clunky, more fluid. Thus, it’s a more mature content management system, one that is modern, written from the ground-up in native PHP, JavaScript, and HTML, but still fluidly compatible with WordPress’s fancy Gutenberg editor, along with its blocks, plugins, and themes. Beauregard isn’t WordPress. It’s literally brand-new code underneath!

    There’s a lot on the roadmap for Beauregard. Paid subscription support (to have the ability migrate my friends still on Substack off at some point), native email support, among other things. But a question I’ve been getting a lot is “Will you be opening this up to the public?” Honestly, thinking long and hard about it, the answer’s no. There are a few reasons:

    • Running something like that for more than a few people I trust is expensive. Server hardware is expensive and while my point of presence being in DC now helps, it’s still costly. Beauregard is lightweight enough that I won’t kill a server or two with it, but it’s still a big piece of software.
    • Beauregard just wouldn’t be cost-effective or make sense for most people. I’m really looking for people who love writing to the same degree that I do–I’m talking essays, articles, that sort of thing–and want to make some money off of it. For some of my friends, the platform makes sense, and that’s why they have access.
    • Setting up Beauregard is a very manual and time-consuming process. I still have to go in and install each new instance fresh manually. It got to the point where I had to write a script to automate most of the setup for testing on my Mac because it was so time-consuming. To go public, I’d have to streamline that process significantly, potentially even figure out how to make that bodged-but-somehow-working script work at-scale, and I just can’t be arsed. (I learned the word “bodge” from Tom Scott. Because of course I did.)
    • Even if I could somehow resolve all those concerns, I’d need to make a lot money off Beauregard, too, when scaling the platform up to potentially hundreds of accounts for any of this to make sense. I’d need to make more than enough to cover development costs, hosting costs, equipment costs, contractual obligations, and more. I couldn’t afford to run at a loss. I’m a self-taught developer who learned through many thousands of hours of Google-fu and StackOverflow. I just don’t think it’d be good if I was the only one building this for so many people.

    To be clear, I wish I could make it make sense and build a side business out of it–but I’d be way out of my comfort zone and burning myself out in the process. I just don’t know how to make it work. That said, I plan to onboard friends onto the platform. I can do a few people that I know–that’s manageable. That’s what will happen.

    I’m sorry if that’s not the answer some were looking for. I wish I could offer Beauregard to everyone. It’s a huge passion project of mine and it’s absolutely brilliant! I love what I’ve done with it! This post is being composed and displayed to you by it, for God’s sake! But again it’s a niche piece of internet software, and I just don’t see any way I could make it profitable at that scale. I also just don’t want to deal with licensing crap. So we’re just not doing that either.

    Thanks for understanding, though. If it changes, I’ll let you know–but I think this is the final decision: Beauregard shall remain a friends-only accessible and usable project from now until the end of time!

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  • Chayse Came to Visit [A Week Ago Today]

    A little late posting this, but my good friend Chayse came to visit me last Monday and spend some time here in good old Vermont.

    Chayse really is the best! <3

    We rode around the area, all the way to Williamstown, Mass. and back, and just chatted. We certainly broke the ice and are already planning our next hurrah! This was the first time we met in-person and I miss him already. Truly such a blast!

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  • I’m Taking A Break From Social Media Before It Kills Me

    Honestly, I’ve found myself getting way too addicted to the ebbs and flows of social media. I doom-scroll and am anxious about what the next thing I’m going to see constantly, I’m consistently refreshing and pinging people when I really should be talking to them one-on-one. According to the Screen Time metrics on my iPhone, I spent 26 and a half hours on Twitter in the past two days. That’s not healthy!

    So, instead of continuing to develop a bad habit, I’m making the call to step back and take a break. The last post on any of my social media accounts until that exile date arrives will be a link to this blog post. Explanation on the decision below:

    It wasn’t, by any means, an “easy” or “clear-cut” decision — social media is part of my job, after all — but at some point it has moved beyond that and become a problem. I need to kick this now before it gets there. I spent about a half-hour cleaning up my phone, and utilizing Apple’s built-in Screen Time function to limit what websites and apps I can open. My failsafe is to move to an older, unsupported phone (iPhone 6 Plus) for a few days if this does not work, though it has been good today!

    My iPhone’s home screen has gotten a bit of a redesign. I basically live on Messages and Snapchat, and literally only use both to communicate with friends and family, so those stay pinned on my dock. Then–my home screen is made up of apps I need to access when unlocking my device. Apps such as password manager I’m testing (Proton Pass), two-factor authenticator (Authy), Apple News (yes, I actually use that), Duolingo (I’m learning Spanish!), and of course my Photos app, and Maps to stalk my dad.

    On my Mac, it’s a different story. I’m using Focus to eliminate those social media sites we talked about prior. The site not pictured that’s blocked here is Reddit, and that’s honestly because I don’t use it anymore. I deleted everything off of that hellscape anyway. If I want news, I open Apple News now. I’ve given up on Reddit. (You should, too.)

    I’m not sure what I’m going to do for my other computers filter-wise, but I really only use them for games anyway, so I’m not signed into social media on them to begin with. It’s the temptation that’s hard to resist with them, honestly.

    Oh, and until as such time as I deem it proper, I’ll be blocking social media sites from appearing on the linklog. At the very least until my self-imposed social media exile has ceased. Right now, I’m thinking of staying well away from it until the 17th of February, 2024, but honestly–I’d love to stay away until at least March 2024 just to really give myself time to detox and breathe for once.

    In the meantime, Slade’s Corner (this very blog) will continue, but I’ll be spending most of my regained time talking with friends privately (like I should have been doing in the first place) and working on some really cool projects that I look forward to sharing with you very soon.

    See you around the internet!

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  • Bringing My URL Shortener Home to My Own Servers

    I’m so excited that I can announce this—prior to my contract lapsing with the current company that handles my URL shortener—I will be bringing slade.link, my URL shortener, home to my own servers. It’s hosted on servers in Washington, DC and replicated to Keene, NH. Servers located in Albany, NY are being retired next month in favor of the Keene, NH datacenter. There are reasons for that—mostly performance related.

    And for those who were asking, I will be adding an additional server cluster further to the west later this year. I’m hoping the move will be completed within the next couple weeks.

    I do want to acknowledge the assistance that short.io gave in making my URL shortener possible for all these years. However, as I begin to care more and more about control over my web presence, I have decided that hosting things myself is the better way to go. Control and ownership over the whole stack means I can rest assured no company going bankrupt can destroy my work on the net.

    My URL shortener will be powered by the open-source YOURLS! There’s more coming home to my own hardware this year that I can’t wait to talk about, but we’ll talk about that another time.

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