What caught my attention in week twenty-eight, 2023
In continuation to week twenty-seven, here are a few thoughts and things that caught my attention in week twenty-eight, 2023:
- 🚴 After more than three quarters of a year, today was the first time my wife and I cycled together with friends again. We used to do this regularly during the pandemic, but after the winter break, we somehow couldn't manage to resume our cycling sessions. The rides with the four of us are in general more relaxed than when I ride alone with my wife. And occasionally, it's also very nice to slow down a bit and talk about God and the world instead. Hopefully, we can make it a more frequent occurrence once again.
- 🚴 This week I cycled 123 km and walked 63 km, including 20 km with the dog.
- 👓 My son has new glasses and I am very jealous because he can now see clearly again and I can't bring myself to go to the optician and spend a lot of money so that I can do that too. Of course, this is totally stupid because it limits my quality of life for 17 hours every day. There are hardly more useful things I could spend money on.
- 📱 So, the Indie Dev Sales (or is it the Indie App Sales 🤔), initiated by Matt Corey, for macOS and iOS apps was running from July 11 - 12. What a fantastic initiative and what a great overview of indie apps and developers, including links to their Mastodon profiles, regardless of the fact that the sale has already ended.
- I bought
- Classifier: Collection Tracker - a few months ago, I tested the beta version of the app and enjoyed using it, but I couldn't bring myself to enter my SAK collection or my thousands of LEGO minifigures. Of course, I still haven't done it, but I might do it now (if I ever feel extremely bored).1
- Home Widget for HomeKit,
- Mastowatch,
- Personal Best - Workouts - I wrote about my initial thoughts here. It's not exactly what I was looking for, but it was a real bargain, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the app evolves.
- Signals For HomeKit, Plus In-App Purchase,
- Subtrack: Track Subscriptions - so far I use Bobby, but Subtrack looks very promising as well and I wanted to see which app I like better.
- I already own, and therefore did not buy
- I considered buying Reading Time , but it only works with page numbers and Readwise Reader does not provide them. I think I will try to achieve something similar with Shortcuts and Book Tracker.
- There were some apps, I had never heard of before and that sounded interesting, but I found them still too expensive and therefore did not buy:
- I bought
- 🗓️ There is another new Habit Tracker: Peat: With Peat, you'll witness the power of visual motivation without the demoralizing setbacks of broken streaks. A different and compelling approach, but I just started using Chronicling. Bookmarked this one for later 😎
- 👨💻 For the first time in my life, I installed a public beta of macOS. But I also just happen to have a MacBook, which is not my primary work device. Otherwise I always wait for the .1 or even .2 of the final release. The software quality of Apple is so bad in the last years, that it probably doesn't make a difference anymore, if you use betas or any point-releases; it's unstable anyway.
- 📱 The App Store turned 15, and BasicAppleGuy (@BasicAppleGuy@mastodon.social) initiated an awesome thread, people posting there first purchases. You can find mine there, too.
- 🐘 This sounds like a fun idea: StreetPass for Mastodon - Find your people on Mastodon. Haven't tried it yet, though.
- 📺 Again, no TV and no movies for me this week.2
- 🎙 I also had almost nothing on my ears during my dog walks. So this week I only listened to Accidental Tech Podcast: 543: 100 Million Tire-Kickers.
- Sometime I have to sort out my thoughts about this collecting passion and write about it. From a purely objective point of view, it is an immense waste of money and time, but it in certain (manic?) phases, it brings so much satisfaction.↩︎
- That's another thing. I love computer games and even buy them more often for different systems when they are reduced and then I don't find time in my everyday life to play them. The same with series and movies. I harbor a passion for series and movie trackers, watched so many good things in my youth and get a lot of enjoyment out of them and then weeks go by without me spending a minute in front of the "TV". What, besides writing blog posts, do I waste my time on that I don't get to all these things? And, other people tend to have the problem of hanging out in front of the TV way too much, so maybe I should be happy about that? But if it's just doom scrolling on my phone, the time would probably be much more usefully spent otherwise. Oh well ...↩︎