EN
- It is great to be able to charge them via USB-C, but we are talking about two unites that must be charged. That is not a problem at my office, where I have a charging station for all of my filming equipment. However, if I am working from home or traveling, I must remember that I will need additional charges and cables. Once, I forgot about that, and it was a waste of time since I was able to only charge one at a time.
- More often than not, I forget to turn them off or to plug them in to be charged. Please refer to item one above.
- I’m not sure if this is a design problem or if I got a defective unit, but since day one, I have had to press the buttons hard on both to turn them off. That was a big problem when I started using them, as I wouldn’t notice that they were still on. Please refer to item one above.
- Although they were considered small when released, the microphone part was always heavy enough to make it difficult to wear on t-shirts. In some cases, I end up holding it in my hand, like in this video. I’m aware that there is an option to connect a lapel microphone, but that would defeat the purpose of using a wireless device.
- Apple ID
- iPhone and iPod touch models with iOS 14.5 or later
- iPad models with iPadOS 14.5 or later
Evernote Templates are broken and driving me crazy. But there's a solution!
I believe that the Bending Spoons deal was the best thing that ever happened to Evernote, but some new features may be adding even more confusion to old problems. For example, I would love Federico’s team to tackle the huge mess Templates is already making before it turns into an uncontrollable snowball.
There's only one thing powerful enough to disrupt Porto's famed São João street festival.
Starting tonight, June 23rd, at 9:45 pm and lasting until 1 am tomorrow, lighting paper hot air balloons will be allowed over Porto. And, trust me, they will fly in herds. The white dots in the image below from 2019 are not stars. Each one of them is a balloon that someone lit on the streets of the city.
This unique permission reflects the scale of the famed São João street festival, as even the airport airspace will be closed during this period. But balloons are only one attraction at this incredible party. As you can see in the image below from last year’s Porto downtown, the entire city takes to the streets until the wee hours of the morning.
If Porto is on your wishlist for future trips, I suggest keeping June 23rd in mind. Believe me, you won’t regret it.
The only thing powerful enough to disrupt the tradition for two years in a row was the COVID-19 lockdown. And this year, it will once again interrupt it, as COVID-19 has finally caught up with me. I began feeling sick on Tuesday, and although I’m much better now, there is no way I’ll risk making other people sick. So sadly, it means there will be no festivity for me this year.
I hope everyone has a great São João and I look forward to next year’s celebrations.
The case for By Me a Coffee joining the Fediverse.
If you take a look at my Buy Me a Coffee page, you’ll notice that it is basically a timeline, just like many other social media sites. In my case, perhaps because I talk a lot about it, many of the supporters are Fediverse users. Regardless of the reason, they don’t have access to certain features available to other social media users. Although this is an issue that can be easily fixed with some tweaks to the site, why stop there?
11 Million Possible Supporters
Imagine for a second that Buy Me a Coffee has adopted the ActivityPub protocol and now provides you, as a creator, with a Fediverse feed and address. Probably something like @vladcampos@buymeacoffee.com or @vladcampos@buymeacoffee.social. Or even @vladcampos@bmac.social, to shorten it like Medium did.
In any case, anyone using an ActivityPub-compatible service, like Mastodon, Flipboard, and so many others, would be able to follow your username and see and reply to all your posts from the ActivityPub service they are already using.
It means that creators who are not part of the Fediverse because they believe it is too complicated or who are not familiar with it would be exposed to 11 million users immediately. Since everything is connected, millions of users would not need a Buy Me a Coffee account to follow and engage with the posts of the creators they love.
And there’s no need to change how non-Fediverse users have access to the current Buy Me a Coffee site. For example, my blog is compatible with ActivityPub, but anyone on the open web can read the posts just like they would on any other blog.
As for the creators who are familiar with the Fediverse, they could, for example, use tools to cross-post to their Buy Me a Coffee feed. Another option would be to start using Buy Me a Coffee as their main way to interact with the rest of the Fediverse. That by itself would indirectly promote Buy Me a Coffee to other people on the Fediverse, as everyone would be seeing the company’s URL.
For some creators, this would be their first experience on the Fediverse. Others would probably move their followers to Buy Me a Coffee. In any case, being able to bring your followers with you anywhere is what makes people on the Fediverse move around and try different services. Currently, I’m a Mastodon user, but, I have already moved a couple of times and my followers always came with me.
Restricted to Creators
But instead of letting all users create ActivityPub accounts, I think Buy Me a Coffee should limit them to creators. Running an ActivityPub server is not cheap, and it comes with all sorts of moderation problems, which have caused many companies to give up. Not to mention that there’s no need to open the account creation to supporters since they can use their current Fediverse accounts to follow the creators.
First Steps
This is not a simple project, but it would certainly help Buy Me a Coffee stand out while also helping creators.
However, there are several small changes that can be accomplished with less effort. For example, show the Mastodon icon when the user sets an account on the social links. Another good practice would be to add Mastodon as an option to the “share on social media” feature. But why not create a Buy Me a Coffee Mastodon account or server to start sharing content and interacting with users there? This was the strategy adopted by Medium and Flipboard to get a sense of how things work differently on the Fediverse.
And of course, as I have already mentioned to Jijo Sunny in a recent conversation, many of the above suggestions also apply to Voicenotes.
Anyway, as I said before, I’m biased, but Mastodon is the only social media app I keep on my phone, as there are no ads or algorithms trying to make me addicted to it. I tap the app’s icon and look at my chronologically ordered feed to see and enjoy what people I choose to follow are sharing. In other words, this is the perfect environment to follow and interact with creators I support.
After a few weeks, I thought this was a failed attempt to propagate this plant, but I kept watering the vase to keep the dirt from drying out. Now look at this. I am always astonished by how nature tries to find its way, as if trying to tell us that, given the conditions, life will thrive. Especially during spring.
How Voicenotes supercharged my note-taking workflow.
Until recently, I was using the Supernote to quickly get ideas out of my head, but that has changed. I’m now double-taping the back of my Pixel and recording them on Voicenotes.
I recently published a video explaining how the app works, and you can watch it below. Basically, you record something and the AI will transcribe it. The coolest part, though, is asking anything to Voicenotes and getting answers based on your notes.
Getting contextual answers was already great, but a recently released feature brought things to another level. Now, when you open a note by tapping or clicking its title, you’ll see a list of notes related to that note.
However, that was not available when I started using Voicenotes and was trying to figure out what the app could do. One of the tests I did was record all the ideas that came to mind while I was preparing myself to have a conversation with Jijo Sunny, Voicenotes co-founder.
My original plan was to ask the app to show me a summary of my ideas for the conversation. But, days before the interview recording, when I sat down to work on the script, I decided to use the new ‘Related Notes’ feature. It blew my mind.
Because I was always starting my notes with something similar to “more ideas for my conversation with Jijo” the app easily found all the related notes. Then, it was just a matter of pasting them into Obsidian and refining everything. This process saved me so much time, when compared to how I was writing the scripts before.
The best part was that I didn’t have to go to a specific note or folder in Obsidian to write down the ideas, nor did I need to “translate” them into written sentences. It was much faster because I could just talk about any of my video ideas. The order or where the notes were didn’t matter at all. In the end, the AI did a fantastic job putting them together.
The first attempt was so successful, I decided to try the process with other scripts, and it’s working flawlessly. All I have to do is remember to include the possible title or subject of the video to help the AI group the notes in the future.
I’m still using the Supernote for many other things, but this quick capture and future refinement using Obsidian has been working too well to ignore. You can see it for yourself. One of the final results of this new workflow is shown in the video below. Almost everything I asked Jijo was captured using Voicenotes.
But keep in mind that this workflow is just one possible scenario. I’ve been seeing so many use cases. If you’re already using it, tell us how, and if not, maybe give it a try (there’s a free plan). It might surprise you.
As for the double-tap, I’m not sure if that’s available on all Android phones, but on my Pixel it is under the “Gestures” setting, and it’s called “Quick tap to start action”.
I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation and the post-recording chat, which could have easily been another podcast episode. Jijo Sunny, shares his personal journey history and how Buy Me a Coffee and Voicenotes came to be, as well as many other details. We even elaborated on the possibility of Voicenotes venturing into the Fediverse and so much more.
People keep asking me how to create new notes with today’s date on Obsidian. So, I just published a quick how-to. And now I’m thinking about the possibility of creating more brief videos on other subjects. Would you like that?
I have been brewing this idea for over 10 years!
Everything clicked when I looked at a scrap piece of acrylic board from one of my maker projects.
I want to start by saying that this is not for task management. The goal is to have a clearer view of all of my current and upcoming activities by giving me a bird’s-eye view. Apps like Evernote, Obsidian, and others can handle all the details much better. However, there are still some adjustments I would like to make to the system before I share the specifics of how it works.
For now, let’s talk about the form factor.
I used different colored rubber bands just to make the picture more interesting. The real ones are black, as you can see in the picture of the prototype below. In other words, the colors have no special meaning at all. As for the material and size, there is a reason for that.
Given that it will be on my desk most of the time, I would like to always be able to see what is underneath it. That’s why it is transparent. It is the same size as an A4 sheet of paper, which gives me plenty of room to run my system and safely transport it without losing sticky notes. It’s as easy as slipping it into any folio available on the market. Or, like I’m currently doing, just repurpose the paper ones companies give us with proposals or contracts inside.
I wanted something that could be hackable by anyone, and that’s why I used standard measurements. Nevertheless, I am confident that the equivalent of a letter paper size would be a more suitable option for users in the United States.
As things progressed, being hackable became a must-have aspect. For example, at first, the dividers were created with masking tape, but later, rubber bands were used to make the board easier to adapt to new situations or different uses. In the end, they also proved to be useful in preventing sticky notes from falling off.
Vertical lines create stages that work almost like a Kanban board. Almost! Regarding the horizontal divider, it creates what one of my clients nicknamed Driving Lane (top) and Parking Lane (bottom).
I’ll tell you more about the system soon, but don’t expect anything advanced or complicated. On the contrary, it is something simple that covers all of my needs.
I think the hardware is what freed my mind because until now, I couldn’t make my system work 100% with available software. Ironically, following the construction and testing of the board, it opened my eyes to the possibility of implementing my system on some apps. But now, I’m not certain if I want to go that route. Anyway, I’ll also share more about that soon.
All note-taking apps should implement this new Android feature.
Even before the DMA came into effect, Android users could choose and set their preferred browser, SMS app, and more. This can be done by going to Settings > Apps > Default app. Now, Google has announced that note-taking applications will also be included in the list.
There will be a shortcut on the lock screen to open the note-taking app without having to unlock the device. It looks similar to the Apple-Notes feature on the iPad. But unlike Apple’s walled garden, users will be able to choose their preferred note-taking app.
There are some adjustments to the app that must be made, which are explained in this I/O 2024 video. What I didn’t get is whether this is an Android feature or just meant for tablets running Android.
Even if it’s only for tablets, I think all companies that make note-taking apps should implement the changes needed to use this new feature. We, the users, will appreciate it.
Maybe it's Time to Let GO
I really love how these guys sound, but they have some design problems that have become annoying over time.
The DJI Mic 2 addresses several of the issues above, as it is smaller and features a charging case that requires only one USB-C cable. However…
When I came across the Hollyland Lark M2, I was blown away. In addition to the charging case, they are minimal and can be attached to a shirt with a magnet. And who doesn’t love magnets?
How about that combo with a USB-C phone receiver?
The only question I still have about it is: Can something as tiny as that sound as good as the Rode Wireless GO?
I made myself a tool to make it easier to film the Supernote. It is essentially a miniature table with an acrylic top to let the light through. I also cut it to fit the Pixel camera bump. And yes, the next video will be about sending Supernote files to Evernote 😉
Android's Answer to AirTags is here. Time to switch!
Wait, there’s another competitor. Who would have believed that Tile would pull such a card from its sleeve?
If you go to the AirTag page on Apple’s website, and check the ‘System Requirements and Compatibility’ information, you’ll see this:
As you are already aware, I am a Pixel user, so it was the third item in the list above which convinced me to become an early adopter of AirTags. And even though Apple says the company designed the AirTag to track items, not people or pets, my plan was to do exactly that: attach it to my dog’s collar.
When I asked Drance about parents using AirTags to track their small children (such as during an outing at an amusement park) or pets (we know you’re up to something shady, Fluffy) she was quick to stress that the company designed the AirTag to track items, not people or pets. If parents would like to safely track their young children, she suggests an Apple Watch with Family Setup might be a better choice. (source)
My dog’s AirTag.
When the AirTag arrived, I linked it to my iPad and immediately started testing it. Every time my wife would go on a longer walk with our dog, I would track them simultaneously on Google Maps and Apple ‘Find My’ app. To accomplish that, my wife would leave her iPhone behind and bring an Android that was sharing its GPS location with me.
If she were to take the iPhone with her, it would be too easy for the tracker. My goal was to learn how the AirTag would perform when having to rely on other people’s iPhones to do its thing. And to my surprise, the first tests went very well. The ‘Find My’ app would show our dog about a block behind the Android GPS, which was expected and quite accurate if you ask me.
However, on walks very early in the morning, I would completely lose track of my dog on the map. The same would happen in large and spacious parks. All of that was also expected, but sometimes it was not working, even when she had people around her. Android users, for sure. But that’s not all the problems I experienced.
I don’t know why, but the AirTag alarm would go off every other day even when my dog and the iPad were close to each other. Extremely close to each other. I would be sitting on the couch reading something on the iPad, with my dog lying down by my side.
That, I could never fix. Even after unpairing, resetting and parring again several times. It was so frustrating that I ended up destroying the AirTag.
Relax, it’s not what you are thinking.
We had a trip coming up, and our dog would stay with a pet sitter, which meant she would inevitably face the ‘away from owner’ alarm. As for the ‘AirTag traveling with you’ alert, that’s okay, as I definitely would tell her about the tracker.
Long story short, I decided to disable the speaker altogether. This would also solve the issue of the alarm going off when it wasn’t supposed to. Taking great care, as always, I went about the delicate process. Unfortunately, after the surgery, the AirTag refused to pair.
That was the perfect timing to try the Chipolo Spot, which is compatible with Apple’s network. I bought a 4-pack, and guess what? One of them also had the alarm going off almost every day. Maybe it’s an issue with the iPad parring, since it never happened to the ones paired with my wife’s iPhone.
Google’s Answer to AirTags
A few days ago, I received an email from Google with the news I was expecting for a while and decided to buy new takers.
Find My Device network is coming soon.
You’ll get a notification on your Android devices when this feature is turned on in 3 days. Until then, you can opt out of the network through Find My Device on the web. After the feature is on, you can manage device participation anytime through Find My Device settings on the device.
How it works.
Devices in the network use Bluetooth to scan for nearby items. If other devices detect your items, they’ll securely send the locations where the items were detected to Find My Device. Your Android devices will do the same to help others find their offline items when detected nearby.
Of course, there are plenty of people using iPhones here in Europe, but Apple’s phone is only more popular than Androids in the United States. Android has a much larger market share worldwide, which translates to a potentially wider network for Google’s ‘Find My Device’ service when compared to Apple’s ‘Find My’. And that’s something I’m excited to test.
I purchased another 4-pack, but this time it was a Chipolo Point. Point? What about the Spot? Okay, time to decode Chipolo product line.
Be careful
Similar to Tile, Chipolo already had its own network and was selling distinct tracker models, namely ONE, which resembles a circle, and Card, which resembles, well, a card.
When Apple introduced the AirTags, Chipolo released compatible trackers, which they branded as Chipolo Spot. And now there’s the Chipolo Point, compatible with Google’s ‘Find My Device’ service. The appearance and form factor of the models are the same, no matter the network. So, always pay attention to what you are buying.
The Future
Life360, the parent company of Tile, which has never mentioned trackers compatible with Apple’s or Google’s networks, recently announced a GPS-Bluetooth network in partnership with Hubble Network. What‽
I’ve never heard of this network or the technology before, and am interested to see how a satellite can pick up a Bluetooth signal from Earth. But besides the brief post and hyperbolic video published on Life360 website, there is not much said about anything else. And I have so many questions. For example, will there be a subscription? Will current Tiles work on this network? Does the satellite constellation currently exist?
In any case, I’ll be taking good care of the Tile trackers I still have in my drawer.
Modern travel is weird.
Half of my backpack has clothes. The other half has filming gear and dongles. A bunch of them. Thank you, Apple.
At least, everything I travel with is USB-C compatible, which means there is always a cable available to plug and charge anything. But not exactly everything. Guess what? All of those cables are useless for one device. I’ve been wirelessly charging my wife’s iPhone with my Pixel because she forgot to bring the Lightning cable. Thank you, Apple. Again.
No check-in, boarding or any other lines to wait in. Not even security check. Super quick boarding and deboarding. There is a lot of lag space, even in the economy class. And, to top it all off, there is the departure and arrival in the city center. It is impossible to not love trains.
PS. 👆 That’s a Supernote.
What if organizing has become a waste of time?
It has been a few years since I started thinking about how useful organizing actually is. Every time I see something like the AI automations for Gmail shown on the I/O 2024, I am more convinced that organizing is becoming a waste of time.
Then, there’s the recently released Voicenotes, a note-taking app that, as far as I can tell, relies on AI for transcribing, summarizing, tweeting, creating lists, telling us anything about our past, and so much more. For someone like me, that’s a bit… unsettling, to say the least. But, the younger generation may be entirely comfortable with this idea. Anyway, full review of the app coming soon.
Back to my point. It might be time to stop worrying about organizing information.
We now live in a world where knives can't have blades.
I consider myself to be an optimist, but sometimes humanity makes me question the bright future I see ahead of us.
When I saw the logo on that drawer-style box, there was no doubt. I felt my heart beat faster as I pulled one side of the drawer, slowly revealing what was inside. As if it were the most precious jewelry, a Swiss Army Knife lay protected in a carefully carved space adorned with white velvet.
I was probably too young to carry a knife with me when my father gave me such an exquisite gift, but he knew what he was doing. For as far as I can remember, guns and killing were always serious topics in our home. To give you an idea, I once used the expression ‘I will kill you,’ like many other children were doing, and had to listen to a long, very long speech. So, no killing, no guns (including toy guns), and respect for others were lessons I learned from a very young age.
Lucky Charm
That wonderful tool went with me everywhere. And I mean everywhere. It was always in my left pocket as a lucky charm. It went to my classes, concerts, planes, everywhere. Of course, that was a different world, and I never, ever thought of it as a weapon. It was always a MacGyver tool that I loved to use to fix and build things all the time.
When I got older and started appreciating wine and wearing glasses, I gave my beloved pocket knife to my son, as I purchased a new one with a corkscrew that doubles as a place to store a small screwdriver.
At some point, perhaps after September 11, we could not bring tools like that on board anymore, so the old one and then the new one started traveling in my check-in suitcase. I opened many wine bottles and even fixed the wheels of a large suitcase we dragged in India for too long. But lately, I’ve been doing fewer of these things on my trips.
It now only travels with me on train journeys, as most of our plane trips in Europe are on board low-cost carriers, bringing only cabin baggage. When we are not staying in an Airbnb, I always buy a cheap corkscrew that I leave behind in the hotel room. Not ecological at all.
It took me a while back then, but I eventually got used to the empty left pocket. Years later, my wallet took that spot as the mobile phone moved into the right pocket. I don’t know if you heard the news, but:
The maker of the Swiss Army Knife says it plans to begin offering pocket tools that don’t contain blades. (…) rising violence in certain parts of the world has prompted multiple governments to crack down on what types of blades people can brandish in public, possibly making it harder for consumers to carry the company’s iconic red multitools. (source)
I am not trying to make any point here, and I do prefer to be in a safer environment, but it is always difficult for me to understand why tools are the ones usually punished for human behavior.
Anyway, nowadays, I often have empty pockets because I carry a bag with me most of the time. Inside I have my glasses, my current pocketknife, phone charger, eye drops, the Supernote, and a bunch of other stuff that I probably won’t need but might be too worried about eventually not having with me.
Maybe that’s what a maker’s fate is. But that’s a story for another time.
Customizing Evernote is a must-have option because everyone uses it differently.
Every so often, I get the impression that Bending Spoons is following some of the same problematic routes that have already been attempted before them.
I love how fast the new mobile experience is, and I’m sure people who create notes mostly on their phones are happier than ever. But what I’m feeling is discomfort. It’s now 5 days since I started using the new Evernote home for mobile, and I’m yet to use the main screen as intended.
Stacey Harmon said it best: “I have to think about it a lot more than I used to”.
(…) I’m really struggling to embrace the new Home. It is not clicking for me. (…) I’m missing the customized create button. The options there don’t reflect my preferred capture ways. (source)
I also am just struggling to navigate the app and get to what I want. I’m not finding it intuitive… I have to think about it a lot more than I used to. (source)
If we go all the way back to 2014, when Evernote 7 adopted a modern interface to replace the previews skeuomorphic design mimicking a Rolodex, some complaints were about the lack of customization. Which the company ended up addressing.
When Evernote 8 for iOS came out, customization was gone again. And, as inevitable as gravity is, I remember people asking for many settings. One of the more prominent among my community was a way to turn off the recently used notebooks from the top of the notebooks list. Which, by the way, I didn’t felt the need to remove. In fact, I liked it. And that’s precisely my point.
Customizing Evernote is a must-have option because everyone uses it differently. So much so that Evernote 10 brought back many ways to personalize the app. Unfortunately, that’s now gone again.
But credit has to be given when it’s due. Bending Spoons was able to put together a user interface that has the best elements from many older iterations.
The creation buttons that were used on the first versions of the app are back. Then there’s the dock from Evernote 8, which makes it a breeze to switch from one view to another. And there is even a widget borrowed from the original version 10. To top it all off, this might be the fastest Evernote app ever released.
There’s just one missing piece: customization. And that’s something they could’ve learned from history. Evernote users need options simply because each one of us has a different vision of what makes the perfect Evernote experience.
And talking about history, in the second part of the video below, you can see a glimpse of how I try to keep Evernote’s history intact. Ironically, I do that using Obsidian.
🤔 In summary, the new iPads are even more powerful than my MacBook Air M1, but the iPadOS is still the same, making them lag behind.
New Evernote Home for mobile. Did I like it? Well, I have some suggestions
The Evernote mobile apps for Android and iOS have changed a lot over time. But one thing all the versions have in common is the struggle to strike a balance between using the notes we already have and capturing fresh info.
The creation buttons were always there from the very beginning, but eventually, they would be combined with different ways to get to existing notes. Sometimes, they would be more prominent at the bottom or top of the screen, as in the newly released version. Other times, a drop-down or Rolodex-style would take up more screen real estate to make old notes easier to find.
Around version 4 or 5, a star icon was added to the dock for quick access to the Shortcuts, which back then were called Favorites. Variations of the star would exist for numerous subsequent versions, occasionally being eliminated only to be reintroduced. The one I liked the most was a little notch at the bottom of the screen.
With the introduction of Evernote 7 for iOS, something similar to the current widgets was introduced. Users would be able to select which Rolodex-style cards they’d like to be visible, and sure enough, Favorites was one of the options.
Favorites or Shortcuts were the best way to get to specific notes before Evernote Home existed. But now there’s no quick access to either. Both are two taps away from the new Home screen. So, here’s what I’d like to see improved on this new mobile client.
First, I think we can agree that there’s enough room on that screen for a small star. Regardless of where it is put, we need quick access to a selected group of information in the form of notes, notebooks, etc. Also known as Shortcuts.
I know for a fact that many users love the Scratch Pad. One of my clients even uses it as a way to create all his notes. But I believe there are already enough “creation options” (buttons) on that screen to give advanced users a way to replace the Scratch Pad with another widget. In my case, for example, a Filtered Notes or Pinned Note widget would be of much more value.
Finally, the mobile widgets page settings should be completely independent of the desktop and web clients. As shown in the video below, I still see value on the widgets page, and I came up with a workaround to make it more pleasant to use. However, with quick access to Tasks and Calendar on the dock, there’s no need for these widgets on the old Home anymore. The problem is, if they are removed from there, they will also be removed from the desktop and web clients, where I do need them.
Also regarding settings, I am curious as to why the removal of the Scratch Pad widget from the old widgets page will also remove it from the new Home page.
What about you? Did you like the new Home for mobile? I would love to know your thoughts.