{ "version": "https://jsonfeed.org/version/1", "title": "Cocktails & Coffee", "description": "Feed for Cocktails & Coffee", "home_page_url": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com", "feed_url": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/jsonfeed.json", "items": [ { "id": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/shortcuts-suggestions", "title": "Shortcuts Suggestions", "summary": "I inserted myself into a thread on Mastodon where Matthew Cassinelli1 was chatting with some internet folks about Shortcuts improvements and issues.", "image": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.comhttps://cdn.blot.im/blog_144be2696cb5434db291426dc56e9e7f/_thumbnails/6e61b3ba-83b3-4d9e-aaa7-7c1cd1b114e4/large.jpg", "content_html": "
I inserted myself into a thread on Mastodon where Matthew Cassinelli1 was chatting with some internet folks about Shortcuts improvements and issues. I started typing a list in Mastodon, but quickly ran into character limits and the realization that I have a blog on which I never write. So here we are…2
\n\n
In no particular order, here are some of the ways that Shortcuts can be improved. Keep in mind this is coming from a digital media Product Manager, so consumer software is not my expertise. I have lots of years of user interaction/user experience under my belt, so these suggestions are coming from my experience in that.
\nName variables when you create them. Allow the user to tap/click on the title of a block (“Text”) and rename it. This name would then carry on down the line as the Magic Variable name, eliminating the current frustration of a list of variables called “Text”.
\n\n
Create proper sub-routines. I have many 3-4-step shortcuts that do very specific things. They are used as “sub-Shortcuts” and don’t do anything on their own. I have some that get the input and save a file to a particular place. I have some that get calendar events and send them forward to another shortcut, some that connect to a server. All of these are cluttering up my Shortcuts Library. Ideally, we could save a Shortcut as a sub-routine and it would disappear from the Library and appear as a block in the Actions List. Then, I could just drag a block called “Get Work Calendar Events” into a flow without having to do the whole “Run Shortcut” dance.
\nImproved editing UI. I get the UI on an iPhone. A big list of actions, top to bottom. It makes sense. It does not make sense on an iPad or Mac. Shortcuts should be more spatial, like Make.com’s UI
\nShortcuts analytics. One thing I would love to do is sort my Shortcuts by “last date run” or “number of times triggered”. As someone with a lot of Shortcuts, this could be super useful to cull the herd of the ones I never use.
\nInline action toggle. Allow the user to toggle an action on or off without removing it. I do this in Keyboard Maestro all the time. Sometimes I’m testing a new flow and want to skip a step. Sometimes I want to build a single Shortcut that may have multiple input or output options depending on my mood. I jump around task managers occasionally and have a Shortcut that grabs tasks out of my Obsidian note and sends them to OmniFocus or GoodTask, depending on which task manager I’m using. Now, it’s a convoluted “If” statement. It would be great to just jump in and turn the OmniFocus block on and the GoodTask block off.
\nBlock and group color coding. Another feature of Keyboard Maestro that should be everywhere. Just tinting the background of an action block or a group of actions makes things so much easier to read.
\nWhile on the subject, let’s talk grouping. Let me group multiple actions. I cheat on this now by grouping things under a “Repeat” action, with the repeat count set to 1. This allows me to collapse the group and move it around, but it is a messy hack.
\nFor troubleshooting, inline testing would be invaluable. Let me tap one action to try it, without running the whole Shortcut.
\nAnd when we’re testing, give me the option to see a readable log of the flow. I know the Logger app exists, but I shouldn’t have to put dozens of extra actions into a Shortcut just to see what’s breaking.
\nImproved copying of actions between Shortcuts. If I copy an “If” block and paste it into another Shortcut, it loses all the connections to other actions. It’s unusable. Also, support drag and drop copying of actions and groups of actions between Shortcut windows.
\nSince it’s 2023, we can’t not talk about machine learning/artificial intelligence. I should just be able to tell Siri to “Make me a Shortcut that gets all the events from my Work calendar for today and puts the details of each in a text file.”
\nUser-selectable display of actions. I don’t use Apple Books. Yet, every time I type “PDF” into the action search bar, the “Add PDF to Books” action is there. Allow me to turn off actions, or entire apps, from the Action List. I love Default Folder X, but I will literally never write a Shortcut using its actions.
\nA proper Archive folder. Let me put Shortcuts in an Archive so they don’t show up in search or in the UI of actions like “Run Shortcut”, but are not deleted. This would be great for demo or seasonal Shortcuts.
\nFinally, fix the bugs. I can’t count the number of times I’ve dragged an action and it ends up somewhere far away from where I dropped it. Editing variables to format dates or name them (see above, we shouldn’t be naming them from the pop-up!) is very hit-and-miss on Mac. Sometimes the pop-up never opens, and sometimes the edits don’t stick. It’s a mess.
\nDon’t get me wrong, I LOVE Shortcuts. Having all of these criticisms and suggestions is only because I use the app many times a day, and have hundreds of Shortcuts in my library that I’ve built for myself and others. I was on the Workflow beta back in the day and was a little worried things were going to go to 💩 when Apple bought the app. I was very happy to see it be even more integrated into all the systems and get regular year-over-year improvements. I see Shortcuts and Siri (both were acquisitions…) being the foundation for Apple’s ML-based automations and improvements in the future.
\nMeta’s new Twitter competitor Threads launched yesterday, and got 30 million users overnight. That’s pretty impressive. Instagram has 2 billion monthly active users, so getting .015% of your users to start on a new app doesn’t sound impressive, but it’s a lot of people in ONE DAY. Remember, we’re talking 2Bil monthly users. Lots of people don’t use Instagram every day - they’ll eventually see the ad for Threads and get on board.
\nI have very mixed feelings about the whole thing. I am not a Meta fan. I thought Facebook was getting pretty toxic and pulled the plug shortly after the 2016 Presidential election. I use Instagram, mostly to view and not post. I use WhatsApp for exactly one conversation with some old co-workers.
\nLots of people on Mastodon (my current social network of choice) have posted a screenshot of the Privacy Label for Threads, and it’s not great:
\n\n
Threads wants access to your health, financial, contacts, browsing history, usage data, purchases, location, and more. It’s basically every data category Apple considers “private”. There’s really no reason to give a company all this data, and you don’t have to (at least on iOS…). You can always deny access to this stuff when the app asks, or go into Settings later and turn a lot of this stuff off. In fact, it’s so egregious that the EU will not even allow the app in the region at this point.
\nMy issue with Threads, from a user standpoint (leaving privacy issues aside because that’s what most users do…) is the “Get my Follows from Instagram” button. Sure, it’s easy to build a timeline quickly by logging in with your Instagram ID and hitting the button. But I use Instagram and text-based social media in vastly different ways.
\nMy Instagram is pretty quiet, occasionally posting a pic of a dog or a mountain or something. I try not to post too many personal photos anymore (I used to, then I started thinking about future consent, so I’m a lot more judicious.) My Mastodon feed is noisier, with lots of posts about tech, politics, pop culture, music, etc.
\nI’m seeing lots of friends who follow me on Instagram starting to follow me on Threads, and I know it’s because of that silly “Get my Followers from Instagram” button. I don’t mind that my photo-sharing friends see what I type into the internet machine, but let’s be honest - they don’t care. They followed me to see pics of my dog, not to hear my thoughts on Shortcuts or Apple’s latest beta of watchOS.
\nDifferent platforms have different audiences, and that is one thing Meta has never understood. I am reluctantly setting up a Threads account follow me here to see how things go.
\nReply or comment on Mastodon.
", "date_published": "2023-07-06T00:00:00-07:00", "url": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/threads" }, { "id": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/google-domains-shutting-down", "title": "Google Domains Shutting Down", "summary": "In a move surprising no one, Google is shutting down its domain registry service. They are selling everything to Squarespace. I’m glad it’s going to", "image": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.comhttps://cdn.blot.im/blog_144be2696cb5434db291426dc56e9e7f/_thumbnails/ac8a1ff4-debc-4497-a6fa-ce60463d95d4/large.jpg", "content_html": "In a move surprising no one, Google is shutting down its domain registry service. They are selling everything to Squarespace. I’m glad it’s going to Squarespace; they will actually take care of it. Unfortunately, Google managed to get some stupid TLDs in the mix (like .zip) before getting out of the game.
\nAbner Li, at 9to5Google:
\n\n\nGoogle cited “efforts to sharpen our focus” in selling the Google Domains registrar business, which launched in 2014 as a big proponent of HTTPS and top-level domains (TLDs) as of late. The service exited beta in 2022.
\n
Telling that it was in beta from 2014-2022, then shut down in 2023. I don’t know why anyone trusts Google to maintain anything outside of Search and gSuite.
\n\nReply or comment on Mastodon
", "date_published": "2023-06-16T00:00:00-07:00", "url": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/google-domains-shutting-down" }, { "id": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/reddit-pulls-a-twitter", "title": "Reddit Pulls a Twitter", "summary": "Christian Selig, creator of the Reddit client Apollo, on Reddit: June 30th will be Apollo’s last day. If you haven’t been following this whole", "image": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.comhttps://cdn.blot.im/blog_144be2696cb5434db291426dc56e9e7f/_thumbnails/656b5a43-4f7f-40ba-af72-f32ef80c3423/large.jpg", "content_html": "Christian Selig, creator of the Reddit client Apollo, on Reddit:
\n\n\nJune 30th will be Apollo’s last day.
\n
If you haven’t been following this whole thing, Reddit is changing their API agreements to make third party apps unsustainable. Apollo’s bill would amout to about $20,000,000 (yes, twenty MILLION dollars) per year.
\nIn response, Selig has announced in a lengthy and well-documented Reddit post how certain people at Reddit screwed him around, lied about it, and tried to gaslight Reddit employees about what happened.
\nThe funny thing is, though… Selig has all the phone conversations recorded.
\nApollo is shutting down at the end of this month, and that will be when I stop using Reddit. I was never a Reddit user before Apollo, and without that user experience, I have no real interest in using it anymore. The app is offering refunds, but as I said when Spring, Tweetbot, Twitteriffic, and other Twitter clients had the API rug pulled last year - don’t take the refund. A few bucks to you and me isn’t much, but if all the refunds get paid out, that could be hundreds of thousands of dollars out of the developers pocket.
\nReply or comment on Mastodon
", "date_published": "2023-06-08T00:00:00-07:00", "url": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/reddit-pulls-a-twitter" }, { "id": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/ipad-pro", "title": "iPad Pro?", "summary": "I have lots of thoughts on the WWDC announcements this week, but it’ll take a few days to get them in order. One thing I can say - When it came time", "content_html": "I have lots of thoughts on the WWDC announcements this week, but it’ll take a few days to get them in order. One thing I can say -
\nWhen it came time to install a janky-ass dumpster-fire of a developer beta on a device, the one I was willing to sacrifice was my iPad Pro.
\nCertainly not my iPhone or Mac, and not my iPad mini. The iPad Pro.
\nIt’s just not where I do most of my work anymore.
\nComment or reply on Mastodon
", "date_published": "2023-06-06T00:00:00-07:00", "url": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/ipad-pro" }, { "id": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/final-cut-and-logic-for-ipad", "title": "Final Cut and Logic for iPad", "summary": "From the Apple Newsroom: Final Cut Pro for iPad introduces a powerful set of tools for video creators to record, edit, finish, and share, all from", "image": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.comhttps://cdn.blot.im/blog_144be2696cb5434db291426dc56e9e7f/_thumbnails/267e2002-24f1-48ea-a308-f1f5799ed4db/large.jpg", "content_html": "From the Apple Newsroom:
\n\n\nFinal Cut Pro for iPad introduces a powerful set of tools for video creators to record, edit, finish, and share, all from one portable device. Logic Pro for iPad puts the power of professional music creation in the hands of the creator — no matter where they are — with a complete collection of sophisticated tools for songwriting, beat making, recording, editing, and mixing. Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for iPad will be available on the App Store as subscriptions starting Tuesday, May 23.
\n
Whether or not you will ever use Final Cut or Logic on an 11”-13” screen, it is exciting to see Apple treat their “Pro” iPads like pro machines by offering pro-level software. The $5 per month subscription may be a little controversial, but as someone who remembers buying Final Cut Pro in a box for several hundred dollars it seems like a great deal to me.
\nComment or reply on Mastodon
", "date_published": "2023-05-09T00:00:00-07:00", "url": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/final-cut-and-logic-for-ipad" }, { "id": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/return-to-the-omni-show", "title": "Return to The Omni Show", "summary": "I stopped by the Omni Show after a couple years to chat with Andrew about how I automate the crap out of my task management system.", "image": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.comhttps://cdn.blot.im/blog_144be2696cb5434db291426dc56e9e7f/_thumbnails/20ce943e-60af-424d-902d-9d5b3d23ecec/large.jpg", "content_html": "I stopped by the Omni Show after a couple years to chat with Andrew about how I automate the crap out of my task management system. Lots of talk about Omnifocus, Shortcuts, and Obsidian. Have a listen! 🎧
\nThe Omni Show Episode 112: The Return of Jimmy Little
", "date_published": "2023-03-21T00:00:00-07:00", "url": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/return-to-the-omni-show" }, { "id": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/create-project-codes-with-shortcuts", "title": "Create Project Codes With Shortcuts", "summary": "When you have as many projects going on as I do, things get confusing pretty fast. Ok, maybe I have too many projects, but that’s another issue", "image": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.comhttps://cdn.blot.im/blog_144be2696cb5434db291426dc56e9e7f/_thumbnails/f3138dd6-e3e5-48db-b789-c07e21d43fc0/large.jpg", "content_html": "When you have as many projects going on as I do, things get confusing pretty fast. Ok, maybe I have too many projects, but that’s another issue altogether. I like to break things up pretty granularly, so I end up with a metric crap-ton of projects. I tried many different ways to keep them easily searchable and sortable, and finally settled on creating projsect codes. I had a slightly different system before reading a post over on joebuhlig.com. I adopted a bunch of stuff he’s doing and it really streamlined and solidified my system.
\nThe basic gist is - create a code that has 3 parts. The year, the Area of Responsibility (AoR), and an incremented number. So a code may be 23CC14
for the 14th project of 2023 in my Cocktails and Coffee AoR. It’s a great system that has a lot of benefits. Easier searching, better sorting, and being confident that things are named the same everywhere are just a few.
My problem was keeping track of that incremental number. Opening Omnifocus or Obsidian every time I wanted to create a project just so I could see what number I was on became a burden. So, me being me, I created an overcomplicated Shortcut to count for me!
\nThis Shortcut relies on DataJar, an amazing Shortcuts utility by Simon Støvring. It’s basically just a database for Shortcuts where you can store things in data dictionaries. For the purposes of this Shortcut, I’ve created a database named ProjectCodes
and in that, three dictionaries: aor
, ProjectIncrement
, and icons
.
\n
The AoR dictionary has a bunch of key:value pairs with the name of the project and the code. This makes it nice in Shortcuts when choosing from a menu, it displays the name and the code.
\n\n
The Project Increment dictionary has a bucket for each year. Inside the year is a number value for each project code key. This keeps the number of the most recent project increment for each AoR. The Shortcut automatically increments this every time I create a project.
\n\n
The Icon Dictionary is totally optional. I like using emoji in my project names as a sort of “icon”, so I keep those emoji here, as values against the project code key.
\n I’m sure you could do this a thousand other ways using a spreadsheet or even a text file, but I like the way DataJar handles this, and the Shortcuts actions make getting data in and out of DataJar super simple using simple dot-syntax (like ProjectCodes.ProjectIncrement.2023.HM
to get the increment for my Home AoR.)
Obviously, if you set up your DataJar differently, you’ll need to adjust all the actions in the downloaded Shortcut.
\nStep | \nImage | \nDescription | \n
---|---|---|
1 | \n\n | Step 1: Ask for Text to get the project name. | \n
2 | \n\n | Step 2:•Get value for the DataJar collection named ProjectCodes.aor (which is where I keep my Area of Responsibility codes in key:value pairs in DataJar | \n
3 | \n\n | Step 3: Choose from the list of codes pulled in Step 2. | \n
4 | \n\n | Step 4: Set variable to the chosen item | \n
5 | \n\n | Step 5: Get value for the project. This digs into DataJar to find the increment in the year/code dictionary. The “current date” and variable in this step resolves to 2023.VH for my Vehicle code. | \n
6 | \n\n | Step 6: Set variable increment to the number we pulled in Step 5 | \n
7 | \n\n | Step 7: Get value for another DataJar value that is the “icon” for the project. I keep these as emoji in the database. Totally optional, but I like emoji! | \n
8 | \n\n | Step 8: Set variable icon to the emoji found in previous step. | \n
9 | \n\n | Step 9: Calculate the project number by adding 1 to the previous project number found in Step 5 | \n
10 | \n\n | Step 10: Set value of the project increment to this new number. | \n
11 | \n\n | Step 11: If the increment is less than 10, we’re going to format the number with a leading zero to keep them all 2 digits. This keeps things properly sorted in the file system. | \n
12 | \n\n | Step 12: Text with a zero and the single digit increment. This is a total cheap and messy hack, but I’m not embarrassed. Come at me (ง’̀-’́)ง. | \n
13 | \n\n | Step 13: If the incremnt is NOT less than 10, do this other thing. | \n
14 | \n\n | Step 14: Text of the increment from Step 9. | \n
15 | \n\n | Step 15: Closes out the If statement. | \n
16 | \n\n | Step 16: Text that builds the project name. These variables will resolve to something like: 23HO14 - Paint the Patio if this was the 14th project in my Home domain in 2023. | \n
17 | \n\n | Step 17: Add Omnifocus Item with the icon variable (Step 8) and the project name (Step 16) to my 🏠 Home folder. | \n
18 | \n\n | Step 18: Text with the base URL scheme for my Obsidian vault. | \n
19 | \n\n | Step 19: Text with the folder path within my Obsidian vault, including the project name twice - once for the folder and once for the filename. | \n
20 | \n\n | Step 20: URL Encode the folder path. This is the reason it’s 2 different text blocks. The base URL is not encoded, the folder path is. | \n
21 | \n\n | Step 21: Find Projects where the title contains the project name. 1 | \n
22 | \n\n | Step 22: Add Omnifocus item to create a task for filling out the project summary. The Note of the task has a URL built from the text in Steps 19 and 20. This will link to the document we’ll create next. | \n
23 | \n\n | Step 23: Text with the template text for an Obsidian document that I fill out for every project. It includes variables for the project name, the code, and a link to the Omnifocus task created in Step 22. | \n
24 | \n\n | Step 24: Set name of the text in Step 23 to <<theprojectname>>.md . Be sure to toggle on “Don’t include file extension” option in the dropdown. If you don’t, Shortcuts will automatically add a txt extension. | \n
25 | \n\n | Step 25: Create folder in my Obsidian vault’s 50.02 Projects folder, which is where all my projects live. Folder will be named with the projectName variable. | \n
26 | \n\n | Step 26: Save the item renamed in Step 24 to the folder we created in Step 25, again using the project name variable for the folder path and file name. | \n
It’s a big one, for sure. But now with one tap, I can create a new project in Omnifocus and a folder and document in Obsidian that all link to each other, and I know it’s a unique name that’s easy to search and sort.
\nCreating the Obsidian “summary” document as part of the Shortcut also forces me to consider the project carefully as well. If I don’t fill in the summary doc within a few days, I delete the project. If I can’t justify in writing why I want to spend time on this thing, it’s probably not be worth doing.
\n\nComment or reply on Mastodon
\nThis is a big benefit of using project codes. Search is much easier because they are unique.↩︎
Patrick McGee and Tim Bradshaw, in the Financial Times:
\n\n\nApple’s operations team wanted to ship a “version one” product, a ski goggle-like headset that will allow users to watch immersive 3D video, perform interactive workouts or chat with realistic avatars through a revamped FaceTime.
\nBut Apple’s famed industrial design team had cautioned patience, wanting to delay until a more lightweight version of AR glasses became technically feasible. Most in the tech industry expect that to take several more years.
\nIn deciding to press ahead with a debut this year, Cook has sided with operations chief Jeff Williams, according to two people familiar with Apple’s decision-making, and overruled the early objections from Apple’s designers to wait for the tech to catch up with their vision.
\n
Shocking that a CEO would want to, ya know, ship a product.
\nFraming this as “Tim Cook ignores the design team and forges ahead” shows very little understanding of how Apple, and business in general, works. If the headset is ready to ship a “Version 1” then SHIP THE DAMN THING. It’s Cook’s job to consider the bets, take the risks, and make the decisions.
\n\n\n“Real artists ship”
\n\n
\n- Steve Jobs
\n
Knowing nothing of how Apple works internally, I can guarantee you that the CEO didn’t override the design team. Some members of the design team wanted to wait several years to launch. But the operations team, and the marketing team, and the accountants, and the software team, and the hardware team, and a bunch of other teams have apparently said “yes, we’re ready”.
\nYes, we all want a pair of lightweight see-thru glasses that do all this nifty stuff, but that technology isn’t there. It does not yet exist. Imagine if Steve Jobs had waited until the iPhone hardware was perfect before they shipped. Or if Cook had waited until the Apple Watch was perfect. We’d still be waiting. The first iPhone was janky as fuck and had no apps or copy-and-paste. The first Apple Watch had a button on the side to show you contacts you could send your heartbeat to. These were definitely Version 1 products that weren’t really ready. But NOTHING will ever be ready if you don’t let people start using it.
\nA product in a lab is not a product.
\nComment or reply on Mastodon
", "date_published": "2023-03-14T00:00:00-07:00", "url": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/breaking-news-tim-cook-does-his-job" }, { "id": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/clean-up-your-shortcuts-library", "title": "Clean Up Your Shortcuts Library", "summary": "I have a lot of Shortcuts. Like hundreds. And most of them are old, outdated, broken, or designed around apps I no longer use. I needed a way to", "image": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.comhttps://cdn.blot.im/blog_144be2696cb5434db291426dc56e9e7f/_thumbnails/15613eb4-73bb-4cc7-922f-6c6c2afe1cfe/large.jpg", "content_html": "I have a lot of Shortcuts. Like hundreds. And most of them are old, outdated, broken, or designed around apps I no longer use. I needed a way to structure a cleanup of my Library, but I wasn’t sure how to do it. By folder? Maybe. But some folders have five Shortcuts and some have a hundred. So, I decided to make a Shortcut to plan my Shortcuts cleanup.1
\nTo consider a Shortcut reviewed, I had 4 simple criteria…
\nIf the Shortcut makes the cut, great. If not, it gets deleted. Before I started this process, I made a backup of my Shortcuts just in case.
\nStep | \nImage | \nDescription | \n
---|---|---|
1 | \n\n | Step 1: Find Omnifocus Projects where the title matches the title of my Shortcuts Cleanup project. Create this project before running the Shortcut. | \n
2 | \n\n | Step 2: Ask for Number determines how big you want your batches to be. I chose 15 at a time. | \n
3 | \n\n | Step 3: Ask for Date determines when you want to start editing your first batch. I picked the next Saturday. | \n
4 | \n\n | Step 4: Adjust Date to subtract a week. I do this to make the Repeat loop easier. 2 | \n
5 | \n\n | Step 5: Set Variable to dueDateZero . Not necessary, but easier to find defined variables than it is to find Smart Variables in longer Shortcuts. | \n
6 | \n\n | Step 6: Adjust Date to subtract a day from dueDateZero . This will become the defer date. | \n
7 | \n\n | Step 7: Set Variable for deferDateZero . | \n
8 | \n\n | Step 8: Get Shortcuts to get all shortcuts. | \n
9 | \n\n | Step 9: Count your Shortcuts (I had a lot) | \n
10 | \n\n | Step 10: Calculate the number of Shortcuts divided by the size of the batch you chose in step 2. | \n
11 | \n\n | Step 11: Round the result. Make sure to round down so you don’t end up with a remainder.3 | \n
12 | \n\n | Step 12: Set Variable to the rounded number. This will be used as the repeat loop count. | \n
13 | \n\n | Step 13: Text with the Shourcuts pulled in step 8. This turns your Shortcuts into a simple text list by title. Set the My Shortcuts token to type=text. | \n
14 | \n\n | Step 14: Split Text by new lines. This will create one “thing” per line. | \n
15 | \n\n | Step 15: Repeat opens the repeat loop, and the variable tells it how many times to loop. | \n
16 | \n\n | Step 16: Adjust Date adds the repeat index (the number of times the loop has run) number of weeks to the dueDateZero variable. | \n
17 | \n\n | Step 17: Adjust Date again to iterate over the Defer Date | \n
18 | \n\n | Step 18: Calculate the repeat inex times the batch size. This becomes the start number for step 20. First loop will be 15, second is 30, etc. (if you chose 15 as the batchSize in step 2) | \n
19 | \n\n | Step 19: Calculate the startSize plus the batchSize . This gives you the end number for step 20. | \n
20 | \n\n | Step 20: Get Items in Range of the start number (step 18) and the end (step 19) of the “things” in the Split Text (step 14). Loop 1 gets 1-15, loop 2 gets 16-30, etc. | \n
21 | \n\n | Step 21: Repeat With Each of the items from step 20. | \n
22 | \n\n | Step 22: Text containing the repeat item (the Shortcuts title) and some TaskPaper syntax. | \n
23 | \n\n | Step 23: End Repeat will store every line created in step 22 as another list of text. | \n
24 | \n\n | Step 24: Text containing more Taskpaper formatted text. Adding the Repeat Index lets me see text like “Shortcuts Cleanup Batch 1”, “Shortcuts Cleanup Batch 2” etc. along with due and defer dates, then the repeat results from step 23. This will format the entry as a task with a due date (the first bit) with a bunch of subtasks (the repeat results bit) | \n
25 | \n\n | Step 25: Add Taskpaper will take the text in step 24 and add it to the project you found in step 1. | \n
Running this Shortcut will give you a bunch of tasks in Omnifocus named “Shortcuts Cleanup Batch {some mumber}” with 15 subtasks, each with a title of a Shortcut. It will set a defer and due date on each main task, and the @autodone(true)
flag in the Taskpaper will set the main task to be completed when all the subtasks are done. Now, I just go through this list every weekend and knock out 15 Shortcuts. I’m 2 weeks in so far, and it’s going well. I’ve gotten rid of about 15 Shortcuts already. According to my Omnifocus project, I have 442 to go, and will be done in early September. 🙃
\n\n
Comment or reply on Mastodon
\nBecause when everythings a nail, Shortcuts is the hammer. 🔨 Or something like that…↩︎
By subtracting one “thing” from the first iteration, you can just add the repeat index to the loop everytime with no extra logic. If “day zero” is minus one week, then repeat index 1 will add a week, making the first iteration the requested date.↩︎
Yes, this will give you some number of Shortcuts that are not included, but that number should be small and easily managed at the end.↩︎
Eric Berger, in Ars Technica
\n\n\nBlue Origin will attempt to market the technology to NASA for use by its Artemis program to return humans to the Moon in a “sustainable” way. NASA and its international partners seek to differentiate Artemis from the Apollo program by more extended stays on the Moon and building infrastructure such as power systems.
\n
I guess technically NASA will be doing the mining using Blue Origin’s technology, if all goes to Bezos’ plan. This still rings of some super evil spy movie plot where a meglomaniac thinks he can own the moon.
\nComment or reply on Mastodon
", "date_published": "2023-02-13T00:00:00-08:00", "url": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/blue-origin-wants-to-mine-the-moon" }, { "id": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/using-personal-project-codes", "title": "Using Personal Project Codes", "summary": "I’ve been playing around with using project codes for years. Using a code instead of just a name makes sure that it is unique and easily searchable.", "content_html": "I’ve been playing around with using project codes for years. Using a code instead of just a name makes sure that it is unique and easily searchable. But I could never get it quite right.
\nThen, I stumbled across a 2014 blog post by Joe Buhlig, and everything just clicked for me. I’ve locked in on this system, and it’s really working well for me. His system has a year, a 2-letter code for an Area of Responsibility (AoR), and an incremented number for each AoR. You end up with something like 23VH03
, which in my system means the third project related to my vehicles in 2023.
My Area of Responsibility codes are suited to my life, yours may vary. This looks confusing at first, but I keep it all in DataJar so the Shortcut pulls it in automatically.
\nName | \nCode | \nEmoji | \n
---|---|---|
Home | \nHM | \n🏠 | \n
Vehicle | \nVH | \n🛻 | \n
Husband | \nHU | \n👩❤️👨 | \n
Father | \nFA | \n👨👦 | \n
Friend | \nFR | \n👯♀️ | \n
Hobbies | \nHB | \n🪚 | \n
Continuing Education | \nCE | \n🧠 | \n
Cocktails & Coffee | \nCC | \n🍸 | \n
Me | \nME | \n👨 | \n
In typical me fashion, it’s very much automated. I trigger the code creation with a Shortcut, then some things happen in DataJar, Omnifocus, and Obsidian. Here’s the workflow in a nutshell
\nCreating projects is stupid easy. The problem with that is I end up with a lot of projects I never do anything about. I’ve started using a starter document for every project that asks two simple questions:
\nIf I can answer both of these questions, then I can judge how important this project is.
\nUPDATE: I wrote a new post with the Shortcut details.
", "date_published": "2023-01-31T00:00:00-08:00", "url": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/using-personal-project-codes" }, { "id": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/get-apple-mail-into-omnifocus", "title": "Get Apple Mail Into Omnifocus", "summary": "Yes, Omnifocus has a maildrop service where you can forward an email to a super-secret address and that email will show up as a task in your", "image": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.comhttps://cdn.blot.im/blog_144be2696cb5434db291426dc56e9e7f/_thumbnails/a4b77c7c-f809-4ec1-b2af-b8a844138ccc/large.jpg", "content_html": "Yes, Omnifocus has a maildrop service where you can forward an email to a super-secret address and that email will show up as a task in your Omnifocus database. I used that for years, and still do on mobile sometimes.
\nBut, when I’m sitting at my Mac, it seems silly to send a task over the internet back to myself. What I really want is a proper Share Sheet in the Mail app. It’s really dumb that after 16 years of iOS and 40 years of the Mac that there is no way to send parts of an email to other places in the computer. But I digress…
\nLuckily, there’s AppleScript.
\nTo be absolutely clear, I am not good at AppleScript. This shortcut was built using a script I found and modified. I am good at Shortcuts, but still need to run the script twice in order to get the subject of the email and the URL of the email returned as separate variables. It can probably be done in one go, but again I’m not good at AppleScript.\nThe Shortcut is super simple, only 5 steps. Keep in mind it only works on Mac because iOS doesn’t run AppleScript.
\nStep | \nImage | \nDescription | \n
---|---|---|
1 | \n\n | Step 1: Run Applescript. This will, uh, run an AppleScript. | \n
2 | \n\n | Step 2: Set Variable to the result of the script. | \n
3 | \n\n | Step 3: Run Applescript again. Same script, but returning the URL this time. | \n
4 | \n\n | Step 4: Set Variable to the URL | \n
5 | \n\n | Step 5: Add Item to Omnifocus. Set the name of the task to the title variable and the note to the url variable. | \n
That’s it. Running this with a message selected in Mail will create a task in Omnifocus that includes a link back to the message in the notes field. This message://
URL will find the message wherever it is (as long as it isn’t deleted), so you can move to a folder or archive it without worry.
There are two scripts to run that basically do the same thing. One grabs the message details and returns the Title, the other returns the URL.
\ntell application "Mail"\n set msgs to selected messages of front message viewer\n if (count of msgs) is 1 then\n set selMsg to item 1 of msgs\n set msgID to message id of selMsg\n set msgURL to "message:%3C" & msgID & "%3E"\n set msgTitle to subject of selMsg\n return "📧 " & msgTitle & ""\n else\n activate\n display alert "Selection" message "Please select a single Mail message." buttons {"OK"}\n error number -128\n end if\nend tell
\nAppleScript is great in that it’s pretty readable, so lets step through this one quickly.
\nmsgs
to the selected message of the frontmost window1
, Then set some variables based on the message metadata (title, ID, URL, etc)✉️ + msgTitle
1
(meaning you have multiple messages selected), it’ll error out.Then repeat again to return the URL:
\ntell application "Mail"\n set msgs to selected messages of front message viewer\n if (count of msgs) is 1 then\n set selMsg to item 1 of msgs\n set msgID to message id of selMsg\n set msgURL to "message:%3C" & msgID & "%3E"\n set msgTitle to subject of selMsg\n return "" & msgURL & ""\n else\n activate\n display alert "Selection" message "Please select a single Mail message." buttons {"OK"}\n error number -128\n end if\nend tell
\nI use this shortcut every day to send emails into my Omnifocus so I can deal with them later. I use the stock Apple Mail app on Mac and iOS, so these URLs work anywhere. On Mac, I have it mapped to a Streamdeck button and it works flawlessly in the background.
\n\nI posted this just a couple hours ago and have already improved it. By getting the script to return the email’s title and URL in a single string, I can then use the “Split Text” action to break that into two variables, saving running the AppleScript a second time. Not sure why I didn’t think of that before, I use Split Text all the time! ¯_(ツ)_/¯
\nThe new AppleScript is:
\ntell application "Mail"\n set msgs to selected messages of front message viewer\n if (count of msgs) is 1 then\n set selMsg to item 1 of msgs\n set msgID to message id of selMsg\n set msgURL to "message:%3C" & msgID & "%3E"\n set msgTitle to subject of selMsg\n return "📧 " & msgTitle & "^"& msgURL &""\n else\n activate\n display alert "Selection" message "Please select a single Mail message." buttons {"OK"}\n error number -128\n end if\nend tell
\nI use the ^
character to merge the title+URL string, then set that in the Split Text action to break it back apart. The new Shortcut technically has more steps, but is cleaner. I can’t tell any difference in the speed, it’s always instant in both cases.
\n
You can get the new version here
", "date_published": "2023-01-27T00:00:00-08:00", "url": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/get-apple-mail-into-omnifocus" }, { "id": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/amazon-frown-amirite", "title": "Amazon Frown, Amirite?", "summary": "Scharon Harding, on Ars Technica Amazon claims AmazonSmile has donated $449,385,192 to global charities and $400 million to US charities as of", "image": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.comhttps://cdn.blot.im/blog_144be2696cb5434db291426dc56e9e7f/_thumbnails/508a71b0-e0b7-4779-a5df-457fee4c4bae/large.png", "content_html": "Scharon Harding, on Ars Technica
\n\n\nAmazon claims AmazonSmile has donated $449,385,192 to global charities and $400 million to US charities as of December 2022. But the tech giant is now telling shoppers that it tried to do too much, and its “ability to have an impact was often spread too thin.”
\n
Amazon says they’re spreading their donations “too thin”, presumably because there are hundreds of eligible charities. Over the years I’ve switched my charities between St. Jude, Human Rights Campaign, American Red Cross and The Humane Society. I know the twelve-ish dollars I’ve sent to these charities through Amazon Smile over the years doesn’t do much on its own, but there have been a collective $400million+ in donations with the Smile program.
\nKilling it is just a way to keep more cash, I guess. Sad to see it go.
\nComment or reply on Mastodon
", "date_published": "2023-01-19T00:00:00-08:00", "url": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/amazon-frown-amirite" }, { "id": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/my-2023-home-screen", "title": "My 2023 Home Screen", "summary": "It’s kind of a thing in our circles to share our home screens periodically, and I haven’t done it in a long while. I’m going to try to make a habit", "image": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.comhttps://cdn.blot.im/blog_144be2696cb5434db291426dc56e9e7f/_thumbnails/acff42af-eb79-434b-a5cf-6ec8d4835256/large.jpg", "content_html": "It’s kind of a thing in our circles to share our home screens periodically, and I haven’t done it in a long while. I’m going to try to make a habit of at least doing it every January - let’s see how that goes.
\n\n
Here’s the layout of my ONE regular home screen1. That’s it, just one. But it does a lot. I keep my lock screen colorful and use pictures of my family and/or dog, but the home screen has a true-black background. This marginally saves battery, thanks to the OLED screen, but mostly I just like the look of it. And a side note to developers - every widget should have a “true black” theme. When the widget looks like it’s part of the home screen, rather than sitting on the home screen, it just looks 👩🍳 💋.
\nStarting at the top are two small widgets for FoodNoms. There are a ton of larger widgets as well, but using two small widgets allows me to see 8 different metrics on the screen without stacking widgets. FoodNoms gives the user a choice of what to do when a widget is tapped, so I have one open the app to the summary screen, and the other opens the app to the Log Food screen, ready to type.
\nNext is the stock Weather widget. I used to use the fantastic Carrot Weather, but I live in southern California. We don’t really get much weather here (well, usually) so a full-featured app isn’t necessary here. Just tell me the temperature, and I’m good.
\nThen there’s Timery. This is the “Current Timer” widget that does what it says - shows the current timer. Now that my phone has the Dynamic Island, I may swap this one out. I rarely start or end timers in the Timery App, it’s all done through Shortcuts and Focus Modes. Having the timer in the Dynamic Island means I can probably repurpose this widget slot for something else.
\nFitness is in the bottom left. Gotta watch those rings!
\nThen there are 4 icons. Drafts is my go-to brain-dump destination. I’ve written about Drafts before. Kudos to Drafts for offering a black icon! The Home and Camera buttons just launch the Home and Camera apps. I replaced them with simple one-step Shortcuts so I can use custom icons. The last icon, “Day Note”, is a Shortcut that opens the current day’s note in Obsidian
\nI keep three items in the dock. On the left is Safari, because it’s probably the most-used app on my phone that is not triggered by some kind of automation. On the right is my “JimmyOS” launcher. It’s a big Shortcut that does a ton of stuff via nested Choose From Menu
actions. I should write about that one soon.
In the middle is my “Nagging” folder. This folder houses any app on my phone that I’ve enabled Notification Badges. I’m very selective about allowing badges, so this folder only holds about a dozen apps, mostly communication- or task-related. The benefit of this dock folder is that I can see every important notification badge in one place. I don’t keep apps on my home screen, so this becomes a pseudo-Notification Center.
\nComment or reply on Mastodon
\nI also have single home screens for driving, travel, and fitness, which are activated by Focus Modes.↩︎
Not much to say about this, but 16 years ago the iPhone was introduced at MacWorld Expo 2007.
\nI was a recent Mac convert at the time after using Windows through the dark ’90s of the Mac. In 2006, Macs started using Intel processors which meant I could still run Windows when I needed, so I switched back.
\nI was a dedicated Palm user1, using Missing Sync to get contacts and calendars and stuff onto my phones. I was intrigued by the iPhone, but wasn’t totally sold. I was perfectly happy with my Palm Treo 700 and my iPod Nano.
\nLaunch day came and went. I didn’t buy a phone, despite my love of the Mac and iPod. But then I started seeing people around me using iPhones and started getting the itch.
\nI finally broke down and bought one on Halloween.
\nTreos were better than Blackberries. Fight me. 🥊↩︎
I have a lot of Shortcuts. Like HUNDREDS. Sometimes I mention them in passing and forget that I take a lot of the Shortcuts I make for granted, and they can be truly useful to others.
\nSo, I’m going to try to be better about writing about Shortcuts I find useful so I can point people to these posts when they’re interested.
\nLike Bryan Ng, who asked me about this Shortcut over on Mastodon. 1
\nHere’s the gist of it. As a product manager, I have a lot of meetings about a lot of things. I also have attention deficit issues and change mental gears very quickly. A thing I started doing a while ago was to schedule a Prep and a Recap block around every meeting so I would be reminded to read up on things, or reminded to synthesize the information from the meeting afterwards.
\nThis is a simple Shortcut that grabs events from a specific calendar, does some date math on each event to create a 15 minute block before and after the meeting, and names the time blocks the same as the meeting.
\nIt’s not perfect. If I have back-to-back meetings, there will be conflicts. I could add the logic in here to handle that, but it’s not worth it right now. I just run the shortcut and then look at my calendar. If things are overlapping, I just drag them around.
\nWhen using or building this Shortcut, be sure to set the calendars where you want to pull events from, as well as where you want the time blocks to end up.\nStep | \nImage | \nDescription | \n
---|---|---|
1 | \n\n | Step 1: Ask for Date. Defaults to today for me. | \n
2 | \n\n | Step 2: Adjust Date. This gets the start of the selected date to make sure all past or future events are handled properly. | \n
3 | \n\n | Step 3: Adjust Date. This one gets the end of the selected date by adding 24 hours to the start date. (Really a date/time.) | \n
4 | \n\n | Step 4: Find Calendar Events. Set this one up as needed. For me, that’s using my work calendar (“Calendar”) and excluding any all-day events. | \n
5 | \n\n | Step 5: Choose From List. Presents a dialog with all the eligible events. This is where I pick the meetings I feel I need to prep for. | \n
6 | \n\n | Step 6: Repeat With Each. This takes all the events selected from the list and hands it to the next steps in the loop | \n
7 | \n\n | Step 7: Adjust Date. Subtract 15 minutes from the Start Date of the Repeat Item (which is the calendar event) | \n
8 | \n\n | Step 8: Add Calendar Event. This creates an event named “Prep for event name ” that uses the adjusted date (15 minutes before) as the start, and the actual meeting start date as the end. | \n
9 | \n\n | Step 9: This closes the repeat loop for Prep blocks. | \n
10 | \n\n | Step 10: Repeat With Each. Again, this time to add the Recap block after the meeting. | \n
11 | \n\n | Step 11: Adjust Date. This time, grab the end time of the meeting and add 15 minutes. | \n
12 | \n\n | Step 12: Add Calendar Event. Create an event named “event name Recap” using the end time of the meeting and the adjusted +15 minute end time | \n
13 | \n\n | Step 13: Ends the repeat loop for Recap blocks. | \n
That’s it. I run this Shortcut every Monday for my week. Doing it early in the week has the added benefit of blocking out parts of my calendar the rest of the week so people can’t fill it up with useless meetings.
\nYou can download the Shortcut here
\nHappy end of 2022, y’all! 🎉 I’m just getting this out there now, even though it’s really 8 days. Not sure if I’m going to get another Weeknotes out this year.
\nPretty uneventful. Nice morning at the gym and a pretty standard work-from home kinda day. Finally getting into some new projects at work so I’m doing a lot of reading and research.
\nIn the office. I had a few meetings for new things coming down the pipeline. My entire team is remote, so being in the office means I’m just sitting on Zoom in a different room.
\nGreat workout this morning. I’m starting to get my momentum back as far as taking care of my body goes. I really got lazy post-Thanksgiving this year. C went to an LA Philharmonic concert tonight, so it was just me and the boy hanging out all evening. It’s really great just to hang out with him as he becomes a little person with a personality and opinions.
\nEven though I don’t actually work with any of my team in the office, it’s nice to be back in the office a bit. Seeing new and old colleagues and having face-to-face time with my boss really changes my attitudes towards work. Still happy that the office is part-time and optional, so I can work remote when I need to.
\nI had a few vacation days expiring at the end of the year, so I’ve taken every Friday in December off. It kinda makes me envy people who have 4-day work weeks. Having a non-weekend day to get shit done is really nice. Today, we spent some time with C’s family celebrating an early Christmas since her younger brothers will be out of town on the 25th.
\nFriday evening, we went to a ’90s-themed Christmas party. It was an outdoor event hosted by one of C’s voice clients with a 90’s cover band. It was a good time
\nSpent most of the day getting ready for Christmas. We’re hosting a family brunch and friends for dinner, so it’ll be a full house a lot of the day. Lots of cooking and cleaning today.
\nG woke up ready for presents! C’s older brother stayed with us on Christmas Eve so he could be around for the morning festivities. Watching a 4 year old on Christmas is overwhelming to say the least.
\nAfter the morning carnage was dealt with, I spent a couple hours cooking up a big brunch for a few family members that came over. Once they were gone, I started cooking dinner. We had a great night with friends having a nice meal, playing some board games, and generally having a blast.
\nMonday is the official company holiday, so no work today. This ended up being fortunate because C tested positive for COVID this morning. Fun. G and I are still testing negative, but we’ll be stuck in the house for a few days to make sure. Despite this, I got a bit of stuff done in the morning. Moved an old cot out of C’s voice studio and put in a proper daybed, and got a bit of trash out of the garage.
\nHoping to get a lot more cleaned out during our quarantine this week, assuming we stay low-symptom or negative. Fingers crossed.
", "date_published": "2022-12-26T00:00:00-08:00", "url": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/weeknotes-22-52" }, { "id": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/now-that-i-m-back-in-the-office-more-i-have-so-many-feature-requests-for-microsoft-outlook", "title": "", "summary": "Now that I’m back in the office more, I have so many feature requests for Microsoft Outlook.", "content_html": "Now that I’m back in the office more, I have so many feature requests for Microsoft Outlook.
", "date_published": "2022-12-22T00:00:00-08:00", "url": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/now-that-i-m-back-in-the-office-more-i-have-so-many-feature-requests-for-microsoft-outlook" }, { "id": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/i-m-thinking-about-how-i-keep-track-of-the-logging-sorts-of-things", "title": "", "summary": "I’m thinking about how I keep track of the “logging” sorts of things. I’m currently spread all over Obsidian, Notion, Day One, and spreadsheets. I need to consolidate, but no tool does what I need.", "content_html": "I’m thinking about how I keep track of the “logging” sorts of things. I’m currently spread all over Obsidian, Notion, Day One, and spreadsheets. I need to consolidate, but no tool does what I need.
", "date_published": "2022-12-21T00:00:00-08:00", "url": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/i-m-thinking-about-how-i-keep-track-of-the-logging-sorts-of-things" }, { "id": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/i-ve-been-going-into-the-office-a-couple-days-a-week-for-a-month-now", "title": "", "summary": "I’ve been going into the office a couple days a week for a month now. I’m enjoying the change of scenery and surroundings. I left my Magic Trackpad and AirPods Pro at home today, though.😢 (I bought a refurb trackpad to leave at the office)", "content_html": "I’ve been going into the office a couple days a week for a month now. I’m enjoying the change of scenery and surroundings. I left my Magic Trackpad and AirPods Pro at home today, though.😢 (I bought a refurb trackpad to leave at the office)
", "date_published": "2022-12-20T00:00:00-08:00", "url": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/i-ve-been-going-into-the-office-a-couple-days-a-week-for-a-month-now" }, { "id": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/just-set-up-my-blog-template-to-handle-title-less-micro-posts", "title": "", "summary": "Just set up my blog template to handle title-less micro posts.", "content_html": "Just set up my blog template to handle title-less micro posts.
", "date_published": "2022-12-19T00:00:00-08:00", "url": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/just-set-up-my-blog-template-to-handle-title-less-micro-posts" }, { "id": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/ifttt-to-mastodon-test", "title": "IFTTT to Mastodon Test", "summary": "These instructions are for Zapier, but I did it with IFTTT. Methods are the same. I was thinking of a way to test this, and figured hey – might as well just put up a link post to the tutorial.", "content_html": "from lukas.io
\n\n\nThere are countless plugins and integrations for autoposting stuff to Twitter, but I could not find a single service that supports mastodon yet, luckily you can set up autoposting of your RSS feed items to mastodon pretty easily yourself!
\n
These instructions are for Zapier, but I did it with IFTTT. Methods are the same. I was thinking of a way to test this, and figured hey — might as well just put up a link post to the tutorial.
", "date_published": "2022-12-05T00:00:00-08:00", "url": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/ifttt-to-mastodon-test" }, { "id": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/the-end-of-twitter", "title": "The End of Twitter?", "summary": "Twitter is a shit show right now. Those of us who have been around for a while know that Twitter is on metaphorical life support right now. Elon", "image": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.comhttps://cdn.blot.im/blog_144be2696cb5434db291426dc56e9e7f/_thumbnails/3f39b157-5d7e-4a16-9519-0a82fc32fd5d/large.jpg", "content_html": "Twitter is a shit show right now.
\nThose of us who have been around for a while know that Twitter is on metaphorical life support right now. Elon Musk has been treating the platform he now owns like it’s an A/B test of stupidity. Testing dumb idea A against dumber idea B — constantly, on real users, with real consequences.
\nUnderstandably, lots of people are getting a little fed up, and are looking for alternatives. But what are the alternatives?
\nI’m not going to be so bold as to recommend what you do, but I will go over what my thinking is.
\nThat’s it. All I need to replace Twitter is Mastodon, Post, LinkedIn, Instagram, Slack, Discord, messaging, and, uhhhh… Twitter.
\nIt’s been 139 Fridays since the world shut down on March 13, 2020. I’ll always remember that date because it was a Friday the 13th. Heh. About 83 weeks ago, I wrote a post about how weird it was that life had changed so much over the year. It’s been over a year and a half since that post, and things are still changing. But we’re getting back to normal. Ish.
\nCOVID isn’t done — as of today, it’s still killing 2,400 people a day on average. But rates are going down, and things are getting back to normal. Masks are seen rarely, everything’s open, and we all just accept that we may or may not get sick at some point. I (and my wife and son) have so far escaped catching it. Not sure why - we’re all vaccinated and we’re not doing anything super risky, but we’re also not super careful. We don’t mask anywhere (including planes), and we don’t avoid being social. My son’s school had a kid with COVID just this week, and everyone else in the class is fine. So, back to normal, I guess.
\nSo now that we’re back to normal, my company is finally going back to the office. Until I started working for Disney in Digital Media, I was always a “remote” worker. A freelancer, a small business owner, a stagehand traveling the country. I never had an office job in my life, other than my first year in New York when I was a production manager for an event designer. Even then, I spent most of my time on-site and not in my office.
\nIn 2014, we moved to L.A. and I started with Disney. From July 2014 through March 13, 2020 I worked in the office. I did work from home for a couple weeks leading up to my son’s birth, but that doesn’t count. Disney was not really set up for remote back then, and it was mostly me calling into meetings and complaining that I couldn’t connect to the VPN, but otherwise not really getting much done.
\nMy Product Management org at Disney has been remote-first for nearly 3 years, and we’re killing it. We’ve launched some massive new projects, rebuilt internal systems, and moved a lot of content to ABC, ESPN, ESPN+, Disney+, the Disney Channels, Hulu, and Star. We’ve done a lot of great stuff over the last 3 years. Now, we’re transitioning to a hybrid work model. We have an office with conference rooms, offices and desks. But we’re not expected to be in every day, which is great.
\nI like working remotely. As I said earlier, I’ve done it my whole non-Disney career. The difference is that those other jobs required me to prep things at home and then go into the world and do things. With other people. I’ve been missing the “other people” part. I sit here in my (admittedly pretty nice) home office and research, design, write, and implement strategies. I hold Zoom meetings and produce executive demos. Then I sit here and share all of this stuff with people on Zoom. Or Slack. Or email.
\nThere is no in-person collaboration, no reactions, no side conversations. Just “here’s what I did, now show me what you did”.
\nIt’s going to be nice to have the option to go into the office a couple days a week. My commute is short, and I have to leave home every day anyway to take my son to school, so it’s easy. I’ve scheduled myself to go in on Thursday and Friday this week, so we’ll see how things turn out.
", "date_published": "2022-11-15T00:00:00-08:00", "url": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/139-fridays" }, { "id": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/mastodon", "title": "Mastodon", "summary": "OK, listen… The stuff Elon Musk is doing over at Twitter is bat-shit crazy. He’s trying a hundred things a day, and they’re all failing miserably. I", "image": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.comhttps://cdn.blot.im/blog_144be2696cb5434db291426dc56e9e7f/_thumbnails/c18d9afc-85b8-4ffc-be74-ff6de44b01ae/large.jpg", "content_html": "OK, listen…
\nThe stuff Elon Musk is doing over at Twitter is bat-shit crazy. He’s trying a hundred things a day, and they’re all failing miserably.
\nI don’t think Twitter is going away any time soon, and I have no plans on leaving (yet). If things go to fuck-all on Twitter, I’ll be on Mastodon.
\nFunny thing is, I’ve had a Mastodon account since 2018. I wonder what was going on at Twitter back then that made me think I may need an alternative.
\nAnyway, I’ll be splitting Twitter time with Mastodon for a while. My plan is to keep political stuff on Twitter, since it’s already a shitshow, and keep my Mastodon nice and light with only positive things. Come follow me!
\nMastodon feels like 2008 Twitter, where I can follow-back everyone and really build a circle of internet friends. A nice fresh start is pretty exciting.
", "date_published": "2022-11-14T00:00:00-08:00", "url": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/mastodon" }, { "id": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/happy-new-year", "title": "Happy New Year!", "summary": "Yes, I know it’s only September. But September is when I start my year. No, I’m not on some sort of corporate fiscal calendar. I still celebrate the", "image": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.comhttps://cdn.blot.im/blog_144be2696cb5434db291426dc56e9e7f/_thumbnails/540badd6-2403-4d39-b00b-d6fc25b8f426/large.jpg", "content_html": "Yes, I know it’s only September. But September is when I start my year. No, I’m not on some sort of corporate fiscal calendar. I still celebrate the New Year on January 1. But there are lots of reasons I’ve been starting my productivity year in September for all of my adult life.
\nSeptember New Year is pretty common these days, but I got started on this habit back in school. Back in my day1 school started in September. Even college. Planning my year meant my year went from School Starting to School Ending. A few years later I started touring as a stagehand. The tour “season” was typically Labor Day to Memorial Day. Now that I’m a parent, my son is in school. Same school season. Planning my year from September to September has always just worked for me.
\nSeptember is also around the time fall begins. Now that I’m in California, there’s less of a season change than there was in Brooklyn, but it’s still a mood change. Kids are back in school, people change wardrobes, we start going out more now that the heat is subsiding.2
\nLabor day is the last holiday of summer. We all get a little lazy over the summer - maybe taking off a few hours early on Fridays or skipping a workout here or there because “it’s just too hot” or “the UV index is too high to go outside”. We go on vacations and need recovery days to get over jet lag or beach exhaustion. All of that is over now. Time to get back to it! (In a healthy, responsible way, of course. You are not your job.)
\nOK, I’m bad at this one, as many of us are. But doing the “big” financial planning in September sets you up for success. You’ve just spent a bunch of money on summer vacations, and now is the time to plan for holiday travel. For me, planning travel in September after the bank accounts have been beaten to a bloody pulp over the summer keeps me in check. This is also a good time to start working on your gift-giving plans and setting aside some cash now.
\nNow is the time to look back at the last few months and see what all the food trucks and margaritas have done to your body and mind. It’s also a great time to set goals for the next year. I find setting these goals in September allows me to plan for the inevitable parties and family get-togethers over the holidays without getting totally off the rails. In the years I haven’t done my September planning I pretty much just give up in December and put all the pressure on January to get me back on track. By planning in September and - this is the important part - giving yourself some holiday leeway, you can still have fun and enjoy the holidays without feeling like shit come January 2nd.
\nIf you’re just starting a new fitness regimen, January is the worst time to do it. If you want to be summer-body ready when the beaches open in April, giving yourself only 3-4 months to get there is unrealistic. Starting in September gives you a full half a year to get your beach body on!
\nIn most corporate-y jobs (including the one I have now as a Senior Product Manager for Disney), September is the time of year where you do performance reviews (but don’t call them performance reviews!) and set individual goals and product roadmaps for the upcoming Fiscal Year that begins in October.
\nSetting my personal goals in the same couple weeks as my work goals allows me to not only be in the mood for goal-setting, but also to align my personal and professional goals as much as possible, perhaps allowing me to learn a programming language or a new design software suite “for work” while also learning something I can use in real life.
\nFor me, considering September my New Year is normal and has become a habit. In the odd years when I avoid doing my yearly plan, I always regret it around February or March.
\nThere have been some rumors lately about the 2020 iPhones getting more differentiation. Supply chain analyst and Apple rumor wellspring Ming-Chi Kuo seems to think that the iPhone 14 models will retain the A15 chip, and the iPhone 14 Pro models will get the shiny new A16.
\n\n\n\n\nOnly two Pro models would upgrade to the A16 processor, while the 14 & 14 Max will remain the A15. All four new models will likely come with 6GB RAM, with the difference being LPDDR 5 (14 Pro & 14 Pro Max) vs. LPDDR 4X (14 & 14 Max). https://t.co/tHcszIz6gX\n
\n— 郭明錤 (Ming-Chi Kuo) (@mingchikuo) March 13, 2022\n
A different leak suggests that there will be “regular” and “large” sizes for both the pro and non-pro phones.
\n\n\n\n\niPhone 14 front panels have leaked on Weibo - here are the changes to note:
\n— Saran (@SaranByte) April 28, 2022\n
1) thinner bezels on the Pro models, as reported by other sources
2) aspect ratio is also slightly different on the Pros (19.5:9 to 20:9); this corroborates with 9to5Mac’s report regarding taller displays pic.twitter.com/UtqNcBB9aP\n
These are both correct, but we won’t find out about them at the same time. I think the iPhone 14 Pro line will be introduced in the fall, and the iPhone 14 “normal” line will be held until spring.
\nI can see Apple walking out onto the virtual (or in-person?) stage in September or October and introduce the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max, with powerful new A16 processors, a much-improved camera, and a bunch of other stuff. Then…
\nThat’s it. They move on. Later, in March 2023 they introduce the iPhone 14 and 14 Max at a Spring Event with the A16 and various other (but lower-end) improvements.
\nI think it’s time that Apple split the annual iPhone launch up, and now is a great time to do it.
\nOK, yes. I intentionally used a Betteridge1 headline. I don’t think Apple will actually do this, but on the surface it makes sense. Get some press, ease supply chain constraints, set the Wall Street narrative, and make more money. Why shouldn’t they?
\nAny headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.↩︎
Accessibility features have a strange reputation of not being for everyone. We all need to make our devices more accessible in one way or another. Some accessibility options help you see things better. Some make it easier to determine the state of buttons or toggles. Some make your device play different or louder sounds. Some make using a touchscreen device more convenient or easier.
\nOne of the things available in iOS for the last year or so is Back Tap. By tapping the back of your phone two or three times, you can make your phone do things. I’ve found it works pretty reliably, but it can be accidentally triggered by motion or vibration. For that reason, I don’t have Back Tap set to an action that can cause unintended behavior. For double-back-tap, I have that mapped to the “shake” gesture. After 15 years, shake-to-undo is still a thing, and I still find it ridiculous. Now, I just double-tap the back of my phone and get the Undo dialog. I have triple-back-tap set to run a Shortcut. You can choose any Shortcut in your library (or select from dozens of other actions) for either double- or triple-back-tap.
\nI chose these two actions (Shake Gesture and Run Shortcut) for a very specific reason - they cannot accidentally cause anythign to happen, and they cannot be triggered when the screen is off. So, jostling around in my pocket won’t unintentionally trigger the back tap, and if it is triggered accidentally, there is a second tap required on each of the actions before anything happens.
\nTurning on Back tap is easy. Just go into Settings -> Accessibility -> Touch -> Back Tap and choose which actions to apply to each gesture. You don’t need to set both. To set a Shortcut to Back Tap, you obviously need to create the Shortcut first. Let’s get to that part now!
\n\n
This is a simple Shortcut. It’s primarily a Choose from Menu action that just runs other Shortcuts. I like using a Menu Shortcut for Back Tap for a few reasons
\nWith the Shortcut built and assigned to the Back Tap gesture, triple-tapping the back of the phone (I find tapping right on the Apple logo is most reliable), the Menu will slide down from the top. If I select one of the “add to list” type actions, a text field pops up. I can type several things in (each on their own line), and the Shortcut will add each line to the appropriate list in the background without leaving my current screen. That’s the key part - I don’t break my flow. I also have a few other common things I do in the list. Toggling the flashlight, setting a specific timer, and unlocking my front door are all in there.
\nOnce you get used to this action, it becomes second nature. I already have a list of other sub-menu Shortcuts and actions I’m thinking of adding.
\nI usually link to a version of the Shortcut to download, but since this one is very specific to each person, and it links to a bunch of other Shortcuts, that’s just not practical. But, as a bonus double-header Shortcuts post, I’ve also described my “Add to Inbox” Shortcut at the end.
\nNow - go build the Back Tap Shortcut!
\nStep | \nImage | \nDescription | \n
---|---|---|
1 | \n\n | Step 1: Choose from Menu. You can add as many items as you like to a menu. When you add a line, a new Menu Option will be created. | \n
2 | \n\n | Step 2: Menu Option > Run Shortcut. Select a Shortcut to run when the menu item is selected. This will run my “Add to Work Inbox” Shortcut, which I’ve included below | \n
3 | \n\n | Step 3: Menu Option > Run Shortcut. Run my “Add to Inbox” Shortcut | \n
4 | \n\n | Step 4: Menu Option > Run Shortcut. Run my “Add to Disposable Alerts”1 Shortcut | \n
5 | \n\n | Step 5: Menu Option > Run Shortcut. Run my “Toggle Flashlight” Shortcut | \n
6 | \n\n | Step 6: Menu Option > Run Shortcut. Run my “Laundry Timer” Shortcut that presents another menu asking how many minutes to set, then creates a Reminder in my Disposable Alerts list for that many minutes in the future. | \n
7 | \n\n | Step 7: Take Screenshot is smart enough to dismiss the menu before snapping. Then, I Run Shortcut to trigger Federico Viticci’s amazing “Frames” Shortcut that puts the appropriate device frame around the screenshot. | \n
8 | \n\n | Step 8: Menu Option > Run Shortcut. Run my “TV Picker” Shortcut that presents a bunch of options to turn on/off the TV, access the Sonos app for volume control, and launch some favorite apps on my AppleTV. | \n
9 | \n\n | Step 9: Control Home. Locks the deadbolts on my front and back door. | \n
10 | \n\n | Step 10: Control Home. Unlocks the deadbolts on my front and back door. | \n
I keep several versions of this Shortcut. Some target OmniFocus, some target Reminders. They all work the same way. I created it once, and I duplicate it and change the destination list for each one. This gives me one-tap access to adding things to various lists without tapping through a bunch of options. I have another Choose From Menu Shortcut that presents about a dozen add-to-list Shortcuts that are some version of this one.
\nStep | \nImage | \nDescription | \n
---|---|---|
1 | \n\n | Step 1: Ask for Input. Ask for text input. Multiple items can be added, one per line. I use the title “Add to 📥 Work Inbox”. No title is necessary, but it’s a good confirmation that things are going to the right place | \n
2 | \n\n | Step 2: Split Text. Splits the text from the previous step by line. | \n
3 | \n\n | Step 3: Repeat With Each. This is why we split the text. This action will repeat the included actions once for every item from the Split Text. | \n
4 | \n\n | Step 4: Add Item. This OmniFocus-specific action will take the text from each line and add it to the specified task list. You can also set lots of other metadata in this action by expanding the dropdown, but I find it better to do that during my Inbox triage. If you’re not an OmniFocus user, you can replace this action with the action provided by your task manager2 | \n
You can download the Shortcut here
\nThe good folks at the Omni Group were kind enough to talk to me about how I use OmniFocus for work and play. Andrew J Mason is a fantastic interviewer and I think it turned out pretty well. Have a listen.
\nThe Omni Show Episode 84: How Jimmy Little Uses OmniFocus
", "date_published": "2021-09-27T00:00:00-07:00", "url": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/the-omni-show" }, { "id": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com/changes-are-a-comin-probably", "title": "Changes Are A'Comin' (Probably)", "summary": "It's a Friday, so of course some piece of tech news drops. Time for everyone to go crazy on Twitter and speculate in blog posts until the involved parties actually put out some sort of guidance on what happened/what will happen.", "image": "https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.comhttps://cdn.blot.im/blog_144be2696cb5434db291426dc56e9e7f/_thumbnails/2c585960-6a4d-463b-8f15-14f85012bacf/large.jpg", "content_html": "It’s a Friday, so of course some piece of tech news drops. Time for everyone to go crazy on Twitter and speculate in blog posts until the involved parties actually put out some sort of guidance on what happened/what will happen.
\nI am not immune to that siren song.
\nToday (September 10), Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers put out her ruling in the long-running Epic v. Apple suit. The suit was basically Epic saying Apple was a big meanie for kicking them out of the App Store for blatantly violating the rules. Epic was obviously violating the rules so they could claim damage and get this lawsuit up and running. And it worked.
\nEpic lost 9 of the 10 counts, but they won on the big one. Here’s the part everyone is zeroing in on:
\n\n\nApple Inc. and its officers, agents, servants, employees, and any person in active concert or participation with them (“Apple”), are hereby permanently restrained and enjoined from prohibiting developers from (i) including in their apps and their metadata buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms, in addition to In-App Purchasing and (ii) communicating with customers through points of contact obtained voluntarily from customers through account registration within the app.
\n
There’s a lot of speculation about this because of what I see as a missing comma. There should be a break between “metadata” and “buttons”. That will all shake out in time, I’m sure.
\nQuick answer is - nobody fucking knows.
\nAnyone telling you they do know is lying. There will be appeals, App Store rules changes, more lawsuits, and other legal and political wrangling before anything happens. Probably.
\nMy take is this - If it’s not Judge Rogers in the United States, it will be some other judge or government somewhere. Apple should bite the bullet and make the changes necessary now. Don’t fight it any more, it’s just looking pitiful at this point. Apple could easily change App Store policy in a matter of days. Update the developer guidelines, train the app approval teams, and roll it out.
\nThere’s an iPhone 1 event in 3 or 4 days. That’s a great stage to stand up there and announce that changes are coming. The changes don’t have to be set in stone, but give developers an indication that things are happening in the right direction.
\nThere are probably a lot of things Apple could do to follow the letter of the law, but here’s what I would do2… Change the App Store rules to allow third party payment systems, with some guardrails.
\n\n\n\n\nI really liked the idea @gruber brought up on Dithering this week where if third party payments were allowed on iOS, then recurring subs would still be managed from the existing page in the App Store app. Apple could even list the provider if they wanted. pic.twitter.com/8lzZMOmrwI\n
\n— Matt Birchler (@mattbirchler) September 2, 2021\n
I could also see Apple requiring a few other things, knowing how they operate. Things like:
\nI’m sure Apple will still keep a pretty tight grip on whatever they can. You still won’t be able to side-load, operate alternative app stores, or bypass any other App Store rules for now. This only affects where you pay for in app purchases and sign up for services from an app.
\nAssuming all of this survives appeals (I hope Apple just accepts it and moves on, but I’m not confident they will), this is a boon for big developers. Huge companies like Facebook, Twitter, Google, Amazon, Zynga, Epic, Netflix, Spotify, etc. will be able to switch to their own payment systems and still allow users to sign up in-app. This is a win for users and companies.
\nSmaller developers may not be as affected. Many small developers will continue to use Apple’s IAP system because it’s easy. They don’t have the resources to roll their own payment systems, keep taxes straight, and deal with all the other things that are outside their purview now. The big companies already do this, so it’s trivial for them.
\nHopefully other payement processors like Stripe and Square can come up with a system and an SDK that devs can use to have a less expensive alternative to Apple without creating their own systems.
\nBottom line is - and we’ve seen it coming for a while - Apple will have to make changes to the App Store rules. This isn’t 2008 anymore. This is the first of many lawsuits all over the world that Apple will lose. It’s (well past) time to be proactive.
\nDo they want to make the changes on their terms, or on someone else’s order? The answer seems easy to me.
\n