After designing the layout for comments on my site*, I lightweight want to make some sort of social feed or more interactive UI for Mastodon. Maybe my most recent posts displayed in a sidebar on my website? π€
I have to look into if/how to support actions other than just linking to the original post. Maybe I can do something like @micahilberyβs https://share-on-mastodon.social/ and remember the userβs instance in local storage, then use instance-relative links? π€
I bought a lifetime subscription to Plex to help support them, and I hope other folks have as well because they provide a great service and delightful software.
While yes, there are alternatives to the self-hosted media server space (and some decent open source ones, Iβm told!), Plex has consistently been the easiest for me to set up and have non-tech folks use.
I also hope Plexamp remains unscathed because I love it so much more than other music apps!
I'm using the Pixel Tablet w/Android as a "computer" today, and yeah, it still falls short in a few ways.
For touch-based multitasking, I love the new split view, taskbar, and overall setup. But for a mouse and keyboard, it's not there yet, which, fair, they don't advertise it as a laptop replacement!
For anyone curious, here's what I've found so far (thread). I hope this can help inform some good/bad for people designing adaptive experiences.
First, keyboard. It works mostly as I would expect, automatically hiding the on-screen keyboard by default.
But... how do I discover shortcuts? No apps seem to expose them because physical keyboards are an after-thought. The OS itself doesn't seem to have a shortcut sheet except one buried deep within settings.
There's also a bug where I get a dimmed focus scrim of some sort over the app I'm not typing into, which seems to be a holdover from the on-screen keyboard behavior.
Context menus aren't really a pattern on Android anymore, and while in many cases that's a boon for discoverability (contextual on-screen actions are usually better than hiding things away into a menu!), it does feel like a gap. Especially when SOMEtimes a right-click triggers the same menu as a press-and-hold touch would, but sometimes it does not. I feel like they should just be the same, always. Press-and-hold for a menu with a mouse when there is no right-click menu feels broken.
Iβm like 90% sure the βoh wow super adaptive, look, we didnβt forget about tablets!β Google Messages app on the Pixel Tablet (which lets you conveniently read/respond to messages from your phone on the tablet) is just their desktop web app in a wrapper, and thatβs super disappointing.
It just feels off, and lacks the polish of the native phone app.
I just watched the UPS truck carrying my package park in front of my house, deliver to the neighbors, and then continue on to the other side of the neighborhoodβ¦
Itβs an hour past the estimated delivery window, and they are even farther away, now! π€ I wish I could have run outside fast enough to ask for my packageβ¦
@cassidy this sort of thing happens here as well, except they actually deliver my package to my neighbors while I'm in the door, listening to them on the floor below. π
Iβm not sure what happened over the past year or two, but I feel like Iβve had a shift in hobbies that line up with what I would always see or hear people talk about online, but thought I didnβt have any time for or interest in. For example, I have gotten into:
β’ CAD and 3D printing
β’ Smart home automation (beyond βWorks with Googleβ)
β’ Mechanical keyboards (to a very, very shallow extent)
β’ British comedy/panel shows
Maybe this is what happens when your job isnβt also your primary hobby?
I discovered World Market carries HP brown sauce! π¬π§ I can finally have the breakfast sandwich Iβve been craving since my last visit to London.
My initial impressions of Home Assistant after a few days of poking around:
β’ Holy crap this is about 100Γ as complicated as it needs to be by default
β’ Ooh, neat, so many devices are supported!
β’ Yikes, trying to set up a βsimpleβ automation is so complicated
β’ Wow, my solar panels are supported so I could theoretically do things with that information
β’ Aaaaaah it is too complicated!
I have already spent about 10,000Γ longer getting things set up than I wanted, and holy cow is it overwhelming. Give Google shit for their hamstrung Home app (which is also getting substantially better lately!), but I donβt think a hard pivot into super nerd land is realistic for like 99.999% of people out there. I am already considering noping out and just being happy with the combination of IKEA, Google, and eventually Matter.
As someone who uses Google Workspace for workβ¦ is there some sort of extension I can use to make it follow the light/dark style of my OS/browser? Itβs one of the last holdouts of opening a tab and blinding myself when using a dark style. :(
I was reminded of this due to a headache today, so I figure I could provide an update: Iβm trying out Dark Reader for Firefox (Chrome extension also exists), and itβs fine. I donβt love the defaults, but hereβs what works alright:
β’ Configure automation β Use system color scheme
β’ Configure website toggling β Detect dark theme
It took me WAY too long to find those settings; I feel like they should be the default. Ah well.
Still wish it could hook into websites' built-in dark style options.
Denver currently smells like a perpetual campfire, even if we didnβt get as much of the smoky haze from the Canadian wildfires as the US did further north and east. Our planet is literally burning. π£
@cassidy Canada is ablaze from coast to coast with 425 active fires, more than half are out of control, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC). So far, fires have charred 9.39 million acres, 17 times the 20-year average. That is larger than the area of Connecticut.