If youād like to hear me and a mate talk about NBL basketball š and team composition leading into the new season, then listen to NBL Pocket Podcast š
Want to read: Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout š
Iāve linked IndieBookClub to my micro.blog account. Not as many bells and whistles as GoodReads but simple and straightforward to use.
Currently reading: Chosen People by Robert Whitlow š
Fastmail promotes its own Hey-style methods
Rethink what email can do for you
We also let you focus on your workflow by taking care of your privacy, which we protect with features like asking before showing remote images or proxying tracking pixels to keep senders from tracking what you do with your email.
I canāt help but think this entire Fastmail blog entry has been inspired by HEY.
Keep Practising 12: Wrestling
Iāve always noticed a distinct intersection between those who like basketball and those who like wrestling. In this episode I discuss my history of watching wrestling. It used to be WWF/WWE, but these days I am more excited by EPW (Explosive Pro Wrestling) - an indie show that operates out of Perth, Western Australia.
In Nerd Corner I talk about my recent dalliance with the fundraising/supporter platform Ko-fi.
It was exciting to see an article of mine linked to my Brett Terpstra. Never had that experience before!
Does anybody have direct experience with Autex Peel ān Stick acoustic treatment tiles? Iām contemplating some for my study.
For the heck of it I set up a ko-fi account. Iām sure the revenue will start rolling in any minute now… šš°āļø
Keep Practising: 12 - Tipping the TBT2020 Winner
I was bereft not being able to record an NBL Pocket Podcast today. So to assuage my sadness I have brought in my son, David, to provide the hot tip. Who does he think will win the tournament? Tune in and find out!
Be sure also to check out the daily podcast we’ve been recording at the NBL Pocket Podcast. Each day we have broken down the TBT2020 tournament and provided a perspective from the point of view of the Australian NBL.
Recapping the best day yet of the TBT. š NBL Pocket Podcast
Iām having so much fun recording a daily TBT basketball š wrap on The NBL Pocket Podcast. Iāve missed hoops, so watching games daily then talking about them is a salve for the soul. Give it a listen!
Subscribe To NBL Pocket Podcast
A quick public service announcement to point you towards the NBL Pocket Podcast. Joe has been kind enough to have me on each day as we discuss the events of the TBT from an Australian perspective.
If you like basketball be sure to listen and subscribe!
So great to talk TBT basketball š from an Australian perspective. Listen to the NBL Pocket Podcast for the full rundown.š
My new employer has provided me with the new iPhone SE. This thing is tiny. Too small in fact. My fingers are too big for this screen and keyboard. So for the first time in my life, Iām running with two phones.
Iām thinking about going all-in with Microsoft Office as a trial, especially focusing on Teams and OneNote. Iāve a tendency to have stuff strewn across apps. Plus itās a cross-platform solution.
I’ve been trialling krisp.ai for video conference noise reduction. I’ve only used it in my home office where the prevailing noise is a spinning drive array, but I think it’s been good? I need to remember to toggle it to test its efficacy.
My Last Day with CCI
Today marks the end of a personal era for me; it is the last day of my employment with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Western Australia. I’ve worked at CCI for 3 months short of 13 years.
When I arrived, my plan was to stay for no more than 2. This speaks to the opportunities I have enjoyed while with the organisation. Over the time I have worked in Policy, Economics, Membership and the Entrepreneurs' Programme, plus other temporary assignments.
I have addressed CCI’s General Council and the Board, and managed Member Forums and Committees. I have represented the organisation before Federal and State Parliamentary enquiries. I have developed and advocated policy positions, been in the media and analysed government budgets. I’m happy that my linkages with CCI are indelibly marked in newspaper articles and the annals of Hansard.
I have worked with people that invested in me, and trusted me. I owe much to many, including John Nicolaou, Frances Parnell, Dana Mason, Kristian Stratton, Jessica Shaw MLA, Barbara Jerkov and James Pearson: all former CCI colleagues who played various roles in my journey, each in different but valuable ways.
Most importantly, at CCI I have been provided a platform to help and support the WA business community. It has been my passion to see successful commercial enterprise operate while maintaining a social compact with the community to provide fair and reasonable opportunity, and improve all our lives as a result. Working to support this has kept me engaged throughout my CCI career.
I am proud to have dedicated 13 years of the one life I have to this organisation. I leave knowing that I will be continuing to deliver the Entrepreneurs' Programme. This is a role I enjoy that is aligned with my passion: supporting local firms in their challenge to grow, succeed, and be part of the fabric of community.
The birthday present I bought myself arrived today: a Keychron K2 keyboard with Cherry Brown switches. It’s delightfully chunky and immediately I’ve found myself typing with my wrists up, as my typing teacher taught me on an old typewriter at school.
Keep Practising: 11 - Graeme Speak, CEO & Founder of BankVault
I welcome a special guest to the show, Graeme Speak of BankVault. BankVault has developed a cybersecurity product that can circumvent security risks such as key logging and man-in-the-middle attacks, by offering passwordless logins.
As well as discussing the BankVault product, Graeme discusses his approach to entrepreneurship. We talk about the differences between business in Perth, Western Australia where BankVault has been founded, and San Francisco, California where he is currently based.
A conversation about the risks and benefits of kitesurfing also ensues.
Configuring Preside on iPadOS
In an earlier post I wrote about how I replicated a HEY-style workflow with other email applications.
I thought some detail about how Iāve configured my preferred iPadOS email client, Preside to work in a similar way might be in order.
Preside is an amazing power-user email application for iOS. The application features a myriad of options. The hardest thing about configuring Preside is knowing where the particular setting or customisation might be found within its many nested folders of preferences and settings. What I have found is that my configuration has taken some time and has come together piece-by-piece as I discover another element of Presideās functionality. Even now, I donāt consider my customisation of Preside done. Iām sure I will continue to tweak it.
Iām going to focus on my use of Preside on iPad. While Preside works just the same on iPhone, its settings donāt sync across the platforms. Itās been so hard to get the iPad settings right that I donāt even want to try to replicate it on iPhone. But thereās nothing stopping my approach from working on either platform. I beg of developer Rich Waters - please give us some method to sync settings!
With that preamble taken care of, on with the show.
Dashboard View
My Preside dashboard looks as such:
You see a number of favourite folders and smart searches across the top. A list view of emails down the left hand sidebar and the email content on the right.
How did I get the setup to look exactly this way? I wish I could tell you. Again, with Presideās settings being so deep, I canāt exactly remember what toggles I flipped to get it looking this way. Iām sorry. I wish I could do better.
I can only show the following setting screen that shows how I have enabled the smart search folders:
My Preside Configuration
You will note that a number of the folders have āsnowflakeā icons next to them. Thatās a feature of Preside, in that each folder can be assigned a ātypeā. So Iāve assigned each of my SaneBox-managed folders as a context. This means that Preside will check those folders in the same way that it checks the Inbox, meaning my unread counts are up-to-date.
This screenshot shows the representation of these folders within my IMAP structure:
Looking at this, I notice I havenāt configured my Paper Trail as a context. Maybe this is something I need to resolve.
The āFocus & Replyā and āSet Asideā buttons along the top bar of my Dashboard are saved searches. They look for emails that have an IMAP tag assigned to them. You might recall in my post about MailMate, Iāve set up a toolbar button that will add these tags to a chosen email. As these tags are synchronised at the server level via Fastmail, Preside can see them, and the tag can be used as a variable in a saved smart search folder, as Iāve done.
What is great about Preside is that it too can apply IMAP tags. I use the ālightning boltā quick action to do this. I highlight the mail I might wish to āSet Asideā or āFocus & Replyā and choose the āTagā option. This brings up a picker of IMAP tags that I can apply, so I just choose which one I want to use.
This is a snapshot into how the āFocus & Replyā smart search was configured:
And here is an example of how I enabled a SaneBox-managed āPaper Trailā folder to show:
Desktop Level Email Features on iPad
With this configured I feel Iām very close to the holy grail of a macOS level email workflow on iOS.
Iāve tried many email clients. Some are rudimentary (Outlook). Some are unreliable (Mail.app). Some have opinionated design and callbacks to their own servers (Spark). Some are ridiculously expensive (Superhuman).
Preside is easily the greatest, most complicated and somewhat ugly email client on iOS. It has grown on me the way an ugly dog might find a way into your heart. You know it isnāt cute, but darn it if it doesnāt sit when itās told and bring the ball back every time. Itās an email application that can learn new tricks - then you look back and donāt remember how you taught it. I want to give Preside a good old tickle behind the ear.