Tobias T– | Notes expressing the moment

Notes expressing the moment

Comment A little update to…
Tobias Tom 28th November 2019 at 15:35

A little update to myself on THE experiment: it's kind of working. I'm writing more (not yet publishing more). Some plans slowly emerge to remove the technical dept from this site. Programming that is a whole other story, but that's for another day. Continue, one day at a time.
Comment I think trackers in…
Tobias Tom 28th November 2019 at 14:26

I think trackers in genreal are bad. Third party trackers are even worse. We thought we are on a good way to protect us. Until now: CNAME Cloaking

Criteo is requesting the website to add a CNAME […] and it is used to disguise a third-party tracker as first-party tracker.

It seems they are sending emails to website owners and argue that they will possible loose money. What happens on the CNAME is only limited by the creativity of the one controlling the IP behind it.

Creativity can also be used for bad intentions.
Comment Due to current…
Tobias Tom 26th November 2019 at 13:39

Due to current circumstances, can anyone recommend any waterproof messenger bag for a 15" notebook? ☔️
Comment I do not own a car,…
Tobias Tom 25th November 2019 at 15:52
I do not own a car, but »Triage Your Email in the Car with Siri« sounds like a fun weekend project. Tyler writes:

what I’m really after during my morning commute is the ability to triage my inbox and prepare for my daily standup call that happens as soon as I arrive at work.

It seems to get slight out of hand but he finished the following:
There are two components.
1. A 49-step Siri Shortcut that you install on your iPhone.
2. A small PHP script that you can throw onto most any web server that the Shortcut communicates with.
Impressive work, especially if you realize how easy it is to actually talk to Siri and process this on your own server.
Comment I am still thinking…
Tobias Tom 25th November 2019 at 15:17

I am still thinking about the two states of my website. Today I will start a little experiment.

These days I'm working solely with Pomodoros. There are no rules except the following: If I'm working, a timer is running down. If no timer is running, I'm not working. Simple.

While this website is my personal playground I never considered it work. It's the same with writing. I do not earn money from either of them, so they are both considered fun projects.

Now I realized that I have another fun project: Colloq. It is not (yet) paying any bills, but I considered it to be work from the start. That's why I send much more time on Colloq than on this website.

Long story short: I'll reserve some Pomodoros each week for this website and also consider it serious work. It can be writing, programming, designing, anything. I am curious to see how this will change this space over time.
Comment As much as I would…
Tobias Tom 8th November 2019 at 8:31

As much as I would like to tweak my website here and there, I just do not want to take the effort to update it.

This is pure fear of the dependency hell.

Time is too precious to waste it with tedious tasks.
Comment Lissabon ✈️…
Tobias Tom 30th September 2019 at 5:55

Lissabon ✈️ Frankfurt. Next stop: Siegburg.
Comment #beachlife
Tobias Tom 29th September 2019 at 13:19

#beachlife
Comment Erik Kroes writes…
Tobias Tom 18th September 2019 at 10:56

Erik Kroes writes about Web Monetization:

Web Monetization is a really simple alternative to advertising.

I never heard about this before, but I like the general idea: having a distributed standard on how websites can earn money without tracking, advertising and clickbait.

My main issue is not about the standard, but about the (current) implementations. Payment providers are heavily based on cryptocurrencies. I do not want to participate in such systems, even if I could earn real money from it.

That said: I'm really looking forward to this standard. Having alternatives to the current state of earning money on the web is a good thing. Maybe one day we might be able to combine this with payment options that do not ruin our planet.

via Holger
Comment There are two phases…
Tobias Tom 18th September 2019 at 8:25
There are two phases for this website:
1. I'm procrastinating "all" day and write stuff
2. I'm productive and do not write at all
After I managed to improve my productivity, now it is time to merge this phases.
Comment Sometimes I am…
Tobias Tom 6th September 2019 at 9:25

Sometimes I am seriously wondering how many energy was wasted by setting up continuous integrations for all our projects.
Comment For now I’m one of…
Tobias Tom 4th September 2019 at 19:04

For now I’m one of the lucky ones to not have my issues with the iOS 13 betas (knocking on wood). Craig now makes a point in iCloud Clusterfuck for everyone who had issues:

when I say lost, I mean really lost. Entire folders were either gone or corrupted.

I agree with all the things he says, including when he comes to the following conclusion:

Apple’s biggest fuck up was a bad assumption about who is testing a beta release. … there are many folks that are just looking to get the new and shiny features.

After that I tend to disagree with him. He proposes to disconnect iCloud by default and that iCloud cannot be in beta. I think a different solution would be more appropriate:

Use a sandbox. Every developer team gets a separate sandbox for their CloudKit data. This could also work for iCloud. When you use a beta, you start with a blank slate. Developers (and beta testers) would be able to test everything and we could all move on from this huge (and critical) topic.

This would also prevent a problem that is made my Apple itself: when non developers what to have the newest shiny things, but they cannot have their data, they will not upgrade.

I for myself think the public betas are the biggest problem. They are there too early, nobody can prepare for them and in the end everyone loses. I really would like to see some statistics about how many public beta testers indeed did provide feedback which helped to make the software better again.
Comment Since I’m doing…
Tobias Tom 4th September 2019 at 18:26

Since I’m doing sports, I’m more or less wearing my Apple Watch every day. Today I read Hey, Apple – The Activity App Needs Rest Days Like Right Now by Ged Maheux:

The longer my streak continues, the more pressure there is not to break it. … It can be so stressful in fact, some people have come up with clever hacks to work around breaking streaks. … this isn’t actually healthy.

I can very much relate to this. My longest streak was 85 days. Today I do not really care about this because even 85 is such a large number that I do not mind anymore if I miss a day – and with this my streak.

While you might agree that this is indeed healthy, I would slightly disagree. Moving more and doing more sport is health. If this streaks, rewards and goals motives some to do more (or just stand up one more time to archive the 12 hours) it’s a good thing.

Still, I’d really like to have some official way out of breaking my streaks. Like Ged wishes for.
Comment Home. A little late…
Tobias Tom 2nd September 2019 at 23:46

Home. A little late but happy. Nevertheless some really good holiday in the past and the future. Thanks to everyone who was part of it!
Comment Current status:…
Tobias Tom 2nd September 2019 at 18:44

Current status: Flight delayed because of a bird strike during landing. Technicians will look into it and we will get an update. Later.
Comment Flight back home…
Tobias Tom 1st September 2019 at 16:03

Flight back home cancelled. Again. Next stop a 4 star spa hotel in France. TAP is paying of course.
Comment For everyone sitting…
Tobias Tom 19th July 2019 at 21:56

For everyone sitting at home and watching Netflix: »I am Lisbon«.
Comment Turns out: Twitter…
Tobias Tom 3rd July 2019 at 13:42

Turns out: Twitter left my mind officially. These days I look into Twitter only on a randomly monthly basis. I just don't care much about all the retweets and promotional stuff. As I'm still cross posting to Twitter I enabled a setting which is supposed to send me an email for “notifications”. I thought this would cover the few cases someone writes me over there. I was wrong. There are now direct messages piling up and I had no idea about them.

First of all, sorry for everyone who had to wait for ages to get a reply.

Second: I'll change my behaviour now. I'll look into Twitter once a week to see mentions and direct messages. If you have something that feels more important, please send me an email or a webmention.

Thank you.
Comment I’m seriously…
Tobias Tom 31st May 2019 at 12:43

I’m seriously thinking about switching jobs away from software development. Any ideas, recommendations or job offers?
Comment Inspired by Manuel…
Tobias Tom 30th May 2019 at 11:26

Inspired by Manuel Matuzovic I did start a new section on this website today: Today I learned.

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