Computer

These are my notes on a radical move. The first draft was written in August 2017. I added a few notes in December 2018; then finally edited and completed the post in May 2019.

The radical move is leaving the Apple world for good and moving (back) to Linux.

I already left the iPhone world a few years ago, after getting annoyed by the slowness of my iPhone 4S (back when the 4S was only a couple of years or so outdated). I moved to Android, enjoying the very low price of good devices (first a Motorola Moto G and then a Huawei P9 lite, so nothing too fancy) and not regretting anything about the iPhone/Apple ecosystem.

File naming has always been a bit of an obsession for me. Recently, after seeing the proliferation of too many duplicate filenames in my photography folder, I decided to solve this problem once and for all.

Something to bear in mind: using programs like iPhoto or Lightroom or Aperture (also known as DAM¹) you should not be worried about how to name your camera files, because these programs are made just for that, i.e. to manage your digital library and forget the intricancies of the filesystem. But for old maniacs who still like to feel like they’re in control of their files and not rely on the search tools offered by the new operating systems today (e.g., Spotlight), then carry on reading this because you could find something of use.

It’s been more than a year since I moved to a Jekyll blog hosted on github. I think I have never been so productive in this period of time, despite having a much busier life both at work and off-work (Valentina is here and she’s here to stay! We have now trespassed the 15 months mark, if she was a car I’d say we have a looser engine now – and it shows from the way she runs and skettles; she is just unstoppable).

It’s been years since I started using Google Calendar to keep track my sports activities. I guess there are countless apps to do this but all I needed is something basic that I can access from anywhere. Since I already have synced my iPhone with Google Calendar, I can basically enter data from wherever I am, even if there is no internet connection, and then have it synced back to my main repository on Google servers as soon as I’m back online.

I have been using iAccounts, a simple iPhone app to keep track of my passwords and other sensitive information, since 2011 (I also wrote a short note about it).

Recently David Pogue published an enthusiastic review of Dashlane; I tried it, got quickly pissed off because of the way it’s priced (sync between devices for a $30 annual fee? Are they nuts?), so what this review has done for me was only to renew my interest in finding a free, open-source alternative to keep my passwords.

I wrote something about this little iPad a while ago, and on reading again that piece I find that it still represent my thoughts today. Yesterday Apple held the official announcement and among other cool things¹ there was the iPad mini.

I’m disappointed by two things; first is the lack of the retina display, but I now understand what’s at stake here (and I can’t believe all the tech commenters do not realize this): you want the retina display, you need more power and more battery to feed it.

Rumors of an upcoming iPad Mini are abundant.

As usual, all the tech bloggers are very concerned with things such as pricing, market position, technical feasibility, etc. What a bunch of boring guys.

Now, bear with me for just a few moments, because all I want to do is tell you why I’d like an iPad Mini:

1. to read pdfs; using every now and then my wife’s iPad I realize that it is the best way to read magazines and study/annotate scientific articles. A smaller iPad would be just fine for me because otherwise I would end up just leaving it at home.
2. to collect my photos in a portfolio (which means at least 32 Gb for me).
3. to mess around with snapshots (I won’t say “edit” because I feel that real editing can only be done with a bigger computer); I have had recently so much fun playing with Snapseed and Diptic on my iPhone that I think using them on a larger display would only make things even more fun. What I’m thinking is iPhone shots, not Nikon D7000 shots, instantaneously zapped to the iPad Mini via iCloud.
4. Aperture/Lightroom library editing on the go; there are these apps (Pixelsync and Photosmith) that allow you to do what I think is the most tiresome yet essential activity in photo editing – pruning the bad apples, deciding what’s a keeper. I would like to use one of these apps while I’m watching The Wire on the couch.

So that’s all I want to do on an iPad¹. And if I could do these things on a much cheaper device (€200-250) then I would seriously consider buying one.

A short recap on how to build and install open mtb maps under OS X.

Essentially, a shorter version of the detailed instructions given on mtb-forum.it, written for my own convenience – but I thought somebody could find it useful especially to see the result of using different ‘styles’.

##tools

• gmapbuilder: to convert the OpenMtbMaps into the .gmapi format.
• MapInstall/MapManager to install the .gmapi files into the system, ready to be used by Basecamp and/or copied into a Garmin gps.
• Basecamp (also available on the AppStore): the main application to view and plan routes.

##data ##

I was very happy about my hackintosh, everything going smooth and easy… until it all broke down and I was left with no computer for almost a month.

And what was even stranger was that also Filippo’s hackintosh, built at the same time as mine, went down only a few days after mine. If computers were organic, I would have thought about some sort of mortal sickness.

Ok let me say that there’s a happy ending to this story: the motherboards were not dead but only in a coma. It was necessary to reinstall the bios and use an external graphic card to redirect the display because for some reasons the integrated HD3000 gpus were not working.

And so I have waited a long time for a new macmini to replace my old one¹. Apple did have something for me in the store, which was the 2011 server version with Intel Core i7, but it was definitely too expensive (€1000 with 4Gb of ram and not even an SSD or a GPU?).

The reason why I wanted a faster computer? Mainly because of Aperture – too damned slow (and the Nikon D7000’s 16Mp files didn’t help either). Having a snappier machine to do some iMovie editing was an added bonus, but apart from that I must say that everyday tasks² are still handled perfectly by my even slower Macbook Air 1.4ghz – a proof that a computer ‘feels’ fast not because of the cpu but because you replaced that clunky old drive with an SSD.

I’m a believer now: with an iPhone (4S) and a nice cool application such as Snapseed, you can really get good shots. I hesitate to call them ‘artistic’ even if other people may do so. That’s not art to replicate the look of a heavily pushed Kodak Tri-X, but they are cool nonetheless.

I should write something more about Snapseed, how this approach to photo editing is perfect for an iPhone. I was one of those nerds who like to endlessly play with Curves, so my philosophy has always been that you need to work hard to improve a shot, and the idea of applying an automatic adjuster-thingy was never considered.

“I was out running errands today, walking through the city. I remembered, a mile away from home, that a screw had fallen out of my wife’s favorite eyeglasses over the weekend, and that she was waiting for me to fix them. Walking down a city street, I said, “Remind me to fix Amy’s glasses when I get home.” Half an hour later, within a few doors of our house, the reminder went off.”

“Excuse me, sir, would you mind taking our photo?”

– http://blog.pluckytree.org/2011/10/last-time-i-saw-steve-jobs.html

I honestly don’t know what the fuck is with these “beautiful” apps for iOS.

Here’s another one that’s getting raving reviews: it’s a simple task management app that focuses on cloud syncing, changing background pictures, being free etc.

But what’s the point in having all these things that makes an app “beatiful” if it’s so slow in loading a checklist with 20 (twenty ! not a thousand !) items ?

I must say I really wanted to like this app (nice developers from Germany: check!, free as in free beer: check! cross-platform compatibility: check!) but the fact that such a simple task is being handled like it’s DNA sequencing, that I can’t stand.

What I was looking for: an app to store my passwords

I stuck with Lockbox Lite for a long time on my iPhone. Then I got fed up about not being able to have the same data available also on my two Macs (not to mention the stupid ads). So I started looking for something that had these features:

• quick 4-digits general password to access all the rest
• sync between iPhone and mac

About the first point, I know that it’s a weak point and raises the question “why using AES 256-bit encryption if you rely on a 4-digit number to secure all your confidential data”. Well, I’m not overly paranoid about this stuff – and then the alternative is to keep my passwords in a text file somewhere on my computer.