Matthew Lang

Enjoying a quiet Saturday morning with Jennifer. Stopped for a wee coffee and cake at Black Sheep Coffee in between some shops.

I’ve been trying to write my views on a couple of topics over the last few days but I haven’t managed to get further than a couple of paragraphs. My main concern with them has been the negativity around these topics, and I don’t want to add to the existing negativity.

Given I’ve tried to write about these topics on a number of occasions and haven’t found the right tone, is it better just to leave commenting on them and hope they blow over or something good comes from them? It’s a naive view to take, maybe even ignorant, but it’s what I think I should do.

I might try to look for another couple of things to write about over the weekend and see if that helps.

Can any plugin authors here on Micro.blog tell me how you get an image/logo to appear next to your plugin in the plugins directory? I still haven’t managed to figure out how to do this for my Bothy theme.

I’ve encountered several issues since trying to migrate from Hey to Proton Mail, but the process has been mostly painless. I’m still updating all my accounts, but I’m almost done.

A couple of things emerged from this migration that others might find interesting.

1. Hey doesn’t support IMAP, and Proton Mail doesn’t support importing email using MBOX, so I’m not sure if I’ll be able to move all my emails from Hey to Proton Mail. Fastmail supports importing email using MBOX, so if moving your email across is a requirement, you may want to consider this option.
2. Hey doesn’t currently allow you to send plain text email. It might not be a deal breaker in this modern internet age, but there are still people who prefer this option, and I recently encountered this issue when I started using Sourcehut. Sourcehut’s mailing lists are easier to use with plain text, so I was glad to find out that Proton Mail allows me to do this, enabling me to start using Sourcehut’s lists feature.

It will be another couple of weeks before I am fully migrated over and using Proton Mail daily.

Following the creation of a FastMail account last week, I set up a ProtonMail account today for my new personal email address. Once everything is transferred, I’ll close my Hey account.

Another couple of Atoms to Astronauts notebooks arrived in the post this morning.

I’m going through these at quite a pace but they’re an absolute joy to use. I try and grab a couple at a time when there’s a sale on for them.

The more I see cool stuff like these note codes for Obsidian, the more I want to give it a try. I really like Bear. However, it is lacking in some areas.

A double win to start the week. My ticket at work passed QA, and Annie Mueller is currently on the front page of Hacker News with her post on reading a developer’s tutorial.

Note to self, next time I need something named in my code, I’ll ask Annie. So many great names in there! 😂

Definitely a better day for golf. Watching our club’s junior team play in a regional semifinal at Haggs Castle Golf Club.

It will be a tough day for our younger juniors in the team, but good experience.

And nice to see Drew get a wee up and down on a par 3 as well.

Not a bad day for our junior golf team practicing at Haggs Castle for the Home Nations regional semifinal tomorrow.

Today, I moved the email for a domain I own from Hey to Fastmail. Lots of factors have been niggling me to do this for the past few months, but the main factor has been cost. I just don’t need to pay that price for an email address associated with a domain.

After a couple of hours, the DNS changes finally propagated through, and the email is now fully switched over. An hour after that, I had transferred the emails from Hey to Fastmail, set up the calendars, and configured the email setup in a similar fashion to Hey, as I quite liked the idea of the Paper Trail and Feed areas for emails.

There are a few things I would like to see in Fastmail, such as a bit more spacing in the user interface. However, for now, I am quite happy with the reduced cost and the fact that the email just works without requiring me to relearn a new user interface.

I still use Hey for my personal email. I’m not quite ready to move this over to Fastmail yet, but I haven’t ruled it out.

I am liking the update for iOS and macOS.

Basic Apply Guy’s run of September gradients continues. A great collection of wallpapers, with the last two having a distinct Tokyo Night vibe.

🤧 This autumn’s cold has hit early.

I’m pretty happy not really knowing what Apple released yesterday. What products and information I need to know will eventually trickle down to me. It always does.

Tried Todoist again over the last few days. Still can’t get my head round why projects in Todoist don’t have start and end dates.

A small appreciation post to my wife, Jennifer, as we celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary today.

25 years ago, I stood with you at the altar of St Mirin’s Cathedral and said “I do”.

Little did I know that I’d be here 25 years later, wondering where the time has gone. We’ve had so many wonderful memories. Moving into our first home, the births of our two sons, and so many holidays to Canada that I have lost count. Seriously, I think we could be considered residents of Niagara Falls with the amount of time we have spent there! It really has been the most fantastic time.

We have built a wonderful family and home together, and I hope that the next 25 years are just as exciting and wonderful, and create even more memories for us.

Happy Anniversary, gorgeous ❤️

Nice to see Gina Trapani back to blogging again.

Just discovered that Firefox’s profiles editor now lets you use your own images instead of their range of icons.

I’ve been a bit of a die-hard Anker fan for the last few years. I’ve spent my fair share on chargers from them over the previous few years, and I can’t fault them one bit. The earliest ones we bought are still working and are used to power the LEDs for a few of our Lego Star Wars dioramas.

The same goes for their headphones. I got a pair of Anker Soundcore Life 2 headphones for my 40th birthday. It was only this summer that I finally had to retire them. I replaced the ear pads for them only once during the entire time I owned them. I couldn’t fault them. The long battery life, quick charging, and noise-cancelling feature were beneficial for my daily influx of calls and meetings at work.

With my headphones on the blip during the summer, I started borrowing my youngest’s headphones, Anker Q20i headphones, but I knew the day would come when I would need to get a set for myself.

Last week I purchased a pair of Sony WH-CH520 headphones. All the usual stuff. Bluetooth, multi-device function and over-the-ear style. I can’t wear an in-ear set like AirPods all day. It’s too uncomfortable.

Sound quality is good, and they’re easy to connect to different devices. The multi-device function was a bit finicky and required installing the app, but once set up, it was easy to switch between devices. I have noticed the audio stutters upon initial connection and for a few minutes after it.

I have reservations about the physical side of the headphones. They are very light and don’t feel as solid as my Soundcore headphones or even the Q20i headphones. Also, the ear pads are a lot smaller than Anker’s ear pads, which means they sit on my ears as opposed to over my ears like the Anker ones do. After a couple of hours of use, they are very uncomfortable to wear.

I’ve got mixed impressions about the headphones, so I have decided to return them. The stuttering audio is the main issue with the uncomfortable feeling when wearing them being the other. Yes, the Sony headphones were at the cheaper side of the scale and I do believe you get what you pay for, but the Anker headphones are on a similar price and I do find them more comfortable and the audio has always been faultless.

Just need to wait for the refund and then re-order the Anker ones, so for the moment, I’ll still be borrowing my youngest’s headphones.

Between The Morning Show, Slow Horses, Highest 2 Lowest and The Savant, Apple TV has our television viewing sorted for the next few months.

Started the weekend dropping the boy off at the golf this morning and then doing a CostCo run. Currently pondering my next move with a brew.

Used this JSON sorter to finally tame my rather large VS Code config for work. I can now find related settings once again.

I’m seriously considering getting a cheap laptop to give Omarchy a try.

I can’t see myself using anything else other than an iPhone as a smartphone. However, I’m open to seeking an alternative to the MacBook as my main web development laptop.

I think I’ve managed to get my note banners working so that you can invert them. Going to come back to the changes tomorrow and review them.