Okay, real talk Windows people. How do I create a second Explorer window? How do I stop Explorer save dialogues being so tiny and defaulting to some weird location? And how the hell do you do anything without Quick Look? How do you Windows people live?
Corridor of Doom. Inspired to take a photo as a result of the @hemisphericviews newsletter article written by @burk
Isolated the source of the fridge noise. A wearing fan. Iāve unleashed a vacuum cleaner and compressed air. Still noisy. I bet they charge a fortune for a new $5 fan.
We have an expensive fridge that is only a few years old. It has become really noisy and is driving me crazy. Iāve already had a tech come and check it, and changed a fan. That sort of worked for a while. Now I want to throw the stupid thing on the street.
Nostalgic November
This post originally appeared on the Hemispheric Views blog for the month of Nostalgic November. You can also read the accompanying posts by Martin Feld and Jason Burk.
I was in Year 5 at a new school. I didnāt know anybody. My previous school didnāt have a formal uniform and Iād worn velcro shoes everyday. Now at this new school I had to wear leather lace-ups, and I didnāt know how to tie laces.
Fair to say, I was nervous and apprehensive.
Until I discovered Stratego. Our Year 5 classroom had a bunch of games, but Stratego was epic. I made a good friend playing Stratego. I found my place. I loved the game. Before classes started in the morning, we’d play Stratego. During rainy lunchtimes when outside play was impossible, we’d play Stratego. The winner kept the board, the loser had to shuffle back to the end of the queue of players wanting a turn.
Stratego helped me assimilate into the school and become safe and secure.
In the early 2000ās I found a rudimentary online version of Stratego but it didnāt have the same experience as using a real board and pieces.
Fast-forward to now. A few months ago we were on holiday in Albany, Western Australia and we were exploring a toy store in town. On their shelves were boxes of Stratego.
I looked at the games. I looked at my 10 year old son. I looked back at the games and grabbed a box. Was I buying this game for me, him, or both of us? I like to think the latter, but it was probably the former.
Now, here we are. Nostalgia has delivered an experience in the present.
The Sad State of Mousing on macOS
This post was originally written in June 2021 for Hemispheric News; subscribe at the Patreon site One Prime Plus to receive this monthly newsletter and other benefits that are linked to the Hemispheric Views podcast.
On 28 May, I posted to my micro.blog:
My kingdom for a good mouse that works with macOS. Logitech MX Master 3 - garbage drivers cause lag all over the place. Razer Viper Ultimate - doesnāt work with macOS. Apple Magic Mouse - ergonomic hell. Why is this so hard?
Despite Apple sales being higher than ever third party vendors arenāt willing to come to the party to develop decent macOS drivers for their products. So a person can spend a lot of money on new hardware but still struggle to aim a pointer with precision.
Less than a year ago I bought a Logitech MX Master 3. It is promoted as the most ergonomic, fully-featured non-gaming mouse on the market. From a hardware standpoint it is beautiful. Contoured edges, metallic construction and magnetic resistance make it move beautifully. Until you have to use the Logitech Options software on a Mac. I have tried the Bluetooth connection, I have tried the RF dongle. It doesnāt matter. Either option results in random pointer stutters, entire pauses for seconds and other random tomfoolery. It undermines everything that is good about the mouse.
It all got too much for me recently so after speaking to my money spending enabler, Jason Burk, I purchased a Razer Viper Ultimate gaming mouse with docking station. Being a gaming mouse it has multi-coloured LEDs and high frequency tracking, so surely it will be good.
The hardware is good. The software? Not so much as dire, but rather non-existent. Razer do not make a version of the software for macOS. So all the goodness is wasted unless youāre on a PC. That being said, I booted into Windows via Boot Camp and the Windows software is a terrible mess as well. It was hundreds of megabytes in size with a UX that made no sense.
I had packed the mouse back into its box and was ready to return it, when a final search and another discussion with Jason led me down a macOS software rabbit-hole. It turns out there is an open-source community that develops drivers and software for the Razer on mac.
This led me to discover the FruityRazer project and Razer macOS - software drivers to control not just the mouse performance but most importantly, the LEDs!
There are also two shareware software options, USB Overdrive and SteerMouse. To be honest, I haven’t figured out the best combination of all these software options yet.
What I do know, however, is that now the Razer mouse is rock solid. I have a feeling that if I trade out Logi Options for USB Overdrive or SteerMouse that the MX Master 3 will probably be stable as well.
What does this say about the ability or willingness or large corporations to develop decent macOS software? It says they are terrible. What does it say about Apple not being able to develop a good hardware mouse that doesnāt deliver immediate RSI? It says that they are terrible.
In all instances, the end-user - us, lose out.
Howās that for customer sat, Tim?
File this one under āironyā from the YNAB change log. November 5th, 2021 - You Need A Budget:
We released a fix to ensure all users are seeing the correct price in their account settings.
A new episode of NBL Pocket Podcast has been recorded and released. Iāve been into Australian basketball since 1987. This passion is entirely different to my other more nerdy pursuits. š
Nostalgic November
This month Hemispheric Views podcast is celebrating Nostalgic November. We are inviting listeners to share something from their history that makes them happy, be it a memory, a thing, an experienceā¦ whatever they like!
As hosts, we each contributed our own piece of nostalgia. This is how mine starts out:
I was in Year 5 at a new school. I didnāt know anybody. My previous school didnāt have a formal uniform and Iād worn velcro shoes everyday. Now at this new school I had to wear leather lace-ups, and I didnāt know how to tie laces.
Fair to say, I was nervous and apprehensive.
Until I discoveredā¦
You can read the rest of my memory, or check out Martinās and Jasonās too.
At the end of the month we will be sharing all the pieces of memory our listeners have shared with us.
If you would like to play along, have a listen to Episode 041 where we introduce the idea, then share with us. Simply send us a quick text, photo or video in one of the following ways: @HemisphericPod on Twitter with #NostalgicNovember; @HemisphericViews on Micro.blog; in our general Discord chat; or by email to hello@hemisphericviews.com.
What’s that noise? Oh, it’s a new episode of @HemisphericViews podcast hitting the Internet. OMG! @neatnik @maique
Solid workflow, Andrew. Solid. Can somebody please send help?
Keyboard Maestro making it even easier to meet my needs as a Textexpander replacement. Now with menubar icons for specific groups!
YNAB Jumping the Shark
On YNAB, and the pricing outrage that I and other users are feeling: I can afford the increase. Itās ridiculous that itās more expensive than Microsoft 365 or Adobe, but okay. But really itās the poor communication, the tin ear they are showing (a budgeting app that promotes forward planning pushing a 100% price increase on people with a monthās notice), that theyāve dumped the news about this (via pop up which I didnāt see because I use NextDNS - thatās right, no official email), and then gone into hiding that bothers me.
I smell an Average Recurring Revenue/Average Revenue per User metric being gamed for an external equity play of some kind.
What theyāve ultimately done, though, is burned their hard won customer loyalty and goodwill. Theyāve given a free kick to their competitors. It will be interesting to watch the space and see if anybody steps up to fill the void.
Undertaking an edit of @HemisphericViews is no mean feat. But like any hobby, it’s a labour of love in which the time invested is not about generating a return, but instead about trying to make something as good as it can be.
Crocodile Dundee, 1986 - ā Ā½
If you ever think society hasn't progressed in 35 years, watch this movie. You will realise that many social norms have improved.
Trick or Treat! Our family comprises a witch, The Grim Reaper, Joker, and American Psycho, Patrick Bateman. š
