Nizzlay

Automatically cancelling duplicate projects in Things

2025-02-11T00:00:00+00:00

I (try to) run my whole life through Things(3)</a>, and I’ve been doing so for many years. Which means I have quite a bunch of recurring tasks and projects. Some of them recur once a year, some of them daily.

The way recurring tasks and projects work in Things3 1</a> is that you have a master template, in which you define when it reoccurs, and what tasks are contained in the project. Then, as soon as the moment comes, Things3 will create a new copy of that template.

Which means one of the tricky things with daily recurring projects, is that they can quickly pile up if you didn’t get to finish them. A new copy each day.

For recurring tasks you could easily just switch it to recur upon completion instead of a fixed daily reoccurrence. But for projects I don’t think that’s a good idea. As sometimes it can be that I did do some tasks from the project, but not all of them. In that scenario it’s good to get a fresh copy, which will contain all the tasks again.

So I’ll stick with recurring projects, but sometimes life happens. And the system is no good if we don’t account for life happening.

So what to do if life happens, and I end up with multiple copies of the same project?

I could easily just select it, and CMD(⌘) + Option(⌥) + .</kbd> to mark it as cancelled. But being reminded of the past failures is not a great feeling. Dealing with these kinds of emotions is part of the fight with procrastination</a>, so it’s probably a good thing to prevent the guilty feelings (even if the guilt is only on the subconscious level).

Thus, let’s automate it.

Initially I tried using Shortcuts, since that’s all the hype. But once again I really just can’t get it to do what I want. It’s too oversimplified for me. Apparently there’s no way to compare time variables 2</a>, so I can’t figure out which is the new project and which is the old one.

Then I switched to AppleScript. Even installed Script Debugger</a> to get some actual proper tooling to figure stuff out. But here as well, the frustration got the better of me. In trying to make AppleScript look simple, they’ve actually made it very hard to use. Just give me actual syntax (and proper errors), not mysterious words that could be syntax.

So, Python it is.

In Python there’s a pretty good library for reading Things3 data. And even though I’m not a Python developer, Claude AI is pretty decent3</a> at it.

For the script to work you’ll need to install the unofficial Things Python API</a>, and make sure you enable Things URLs. Click Manage, to grab your token.

Then take this code, replace the THINGS-TOKEN-HERE</code> with your actual token, and save it somewhere:

import</span> things</span></span></span>
</span>import</span> subprocess</span></span></span>
</span>from</span></span> collections</span></span> import</span></span></span></span></span> defaultdict</span></span>
</span>from</span></span> datetime</span></span> import</span></span></span></span></span> datetime</span></span>
</span>
</span>def</span></span> get_today_items</span></span></span>(</span></span>)</span></span>:</span></span>
</span>    return</span> things</span></span>.</span></span>today</span></span></span></span>(</span>)</span></span>
</span>
</span>def</span></span> parse_date</span></span></span>(</span></span>date_str</span>)</span></span>:</span></span>
</span>    if</span> not</span> date_str</span></span>:</span></span>
</span>        return</span> datetime</span>.</span>min</span></span>  #</span> Return minimum date if no date provided
</span></span>    
</span>    try</span>:</span></span>
</span>        #</span> First try ISO format
</span></span>        return</span> datetime</span></span>.</span></span>fromisoformat</span></span></span></span>(</span>date_str</span></span>)</span></span>
</span>    except</span> ValueError</span>:</span></span>
</span>        try</span>:</span></span>
</span>            #</span> Try standard format
</span></span>            return</span> datetime</span></span>.</span></span>strptime</span></span></span></span>(</span>date_str</span></span>,</span> "</span></span></span>%Y</span>-%m</span>-%d</span> %H</span>:%M</span>:%S</span>"</span></span></span>)</span></span>
</span>        except</span> ValueError</span>:</span></span>
</span>            print</span></span></span></span>(</span>f</span>"</span></span></span>Could not parse date: </span>{</span>date_str</span></span></span></span>}</span></span>"</span></span></span>)</span></span>
</span>            return</span> datetime</span>.</span>min</span></span>
</span>
</span>def</span></span> cancel_item_via_url_scheme</span></span></span>(</span></span>item_uuid</span>)</span></span>:</span></span>
</span>    auth_token</span></span> =</span> "</span></span></span>THINGS-TOKEN-HERE"</span></span></span>
</span>
</span>    url</span></span> =</span> f</span>"</span></span></span>things:///update-project?auth-token=</span>{</span>auth_token</span></span></span></span>}</span></span>&id=</span>{</span>item_uuid</span></span></span></span>}</span></span>&canceled=true"</span></span></span>
</span>    
</span>    try</span>:</span></span>
</span>        #</span> Use macOS open command to trigger URL scheme
</span></span>        result</span></span> =</span> subprocess</span></span>.</span></span>run</span></span></span></span>(</span>[</span>'</span></span></span>open'</span></span></span>,</span> url</span></span>]</span></span>,</span> 
</span></span>                                capture_output</span>=</span>True</span>,</span> 
</span></span>                                text</span>=</span>True</span>,</span> 
</span></span>                                timeout</span>=</span>5</span>)</span></span>
</span>        
</span>        if</span> result</span>.</span>returncode</span></span> ==</span> 0</span>:</span></span>
</span>            print</span></span></span></span>(</span>f</span>"</span></span></span>Canceled item with UUID: </span>{</span>item_uuid</span></span></span></span>}</span></span>"</span></span></span>)</span></span>
</span>        else</span>:</span></span>
</span>            print</span></span></span></span>(</span>f</span>"</span></span></span>Error canceling item </span>{</span>item_uuid</span></span></span></span>}</span></span>: </span>{</span>result</span>.</span>stderr</span></span></span></span>}</span></span>"</span></span></span>)</span></span>
</span>    
</span>    except</span> subprocess</span>.CalledProcessError</span> as</span></span> e</span></span>:</span></span>
</span>        print</span></span></span></span>(</span>f</span>"</span></span></span>Subprocess error canceling item </span>{</span>item_uuid</span></span></span></span>}</span></span>: </span>{</span>e</span></span></span></span>}</span></span>"</span></span></span>)</span></span>
</span>    except</span> Exception</span> as</span></span> e</span></span>:</span></span>
</span>        print</span></span></span></span>(</span>f</span>"</span></span></span>Unexpected error canceling item </span>{</span>item_uuid</span></span></span></span>}</span></span>: </span>{</span>e</span></span></span></span>}</span></span>"</span></span></span>)</span></span>
</span>
</span>
</span>def</span></span> check_and_cancel_duplicates</span></span></span>(</span></span>)</span></span>:</span></span>
</span>    #</span> Get all items from Today
</span></span>    today_items</span></span> =</span> get_today_items</span></span></span></span>(</span>)</span></span>
</span>    
</span>    #</span> Dictionary to store projects: {project_name: [(item, creation_date)]}
</span></span>    project_dict</span></span> =</span> defaultdict</span></span></span></span>(</span>list</span></span>)</span></span>
</span>    
</span>    #</span> Print first item to see structure
</span></span>    if</span> today_items</span></span>:</span></span>
</span>        print</span></span></span></span>(</span>"</span></span></span>\n</span>Example item structure:"</span></span></span>)</span></span>
</span>        print</span></span></span></span>(</span>today_items</span></span></span>[</span></span>0</span></span>]</span></span>)</span></span>
</span>    
</span>    #</span> Collect all projects and their creation dates
</span></span>    for</span> item</span> in</span></span> today_items</span></span></span>:</span></span>
</span>        #</span> Check if item is a project
</span></span>        if</span> item</span></span>.</span></span>get</span></span></span></span>(</span>'</span></span></span>type'</span></span></span>)</span></span> ==</span> '</span></span></span>project'</span></span></span>:</span></span>
</span>            project_name</span></span> =</span> item</span></span>.</span></span>get</span></span></span></span>(</span>'</span></span></span>title'</span></span></span>)</span></span>
</span>            
</span>            #</span> Try different possible date fields
</span></span>            creation_date</span></span> =</span> item</span></span>.</span></span>get</span></span></span></span>(</span>'</span></span></span>creation_date'</span></span></span>)</span></span> or</span> item</span></span>.</span></span>get</span></span></span></span>(</span>'</span></span></span>creationDate'</span></span></span>)</span></span> or</span> item</span></span>.</span></span>get</span></span></span></span>(</span>'</span></span></span>created'</span></span></span>)</span></span>
</span>            
</span>            parsed_date</span></span> =</span> parse_date</span></span></span></span>(</span>creation_date</span></span>)</span></span>
</span>            project_dict</span></span></span>[</span></span>project_name</span></span></span>]</span></span>.</span></span>append</span></span></span></span>(</span>(</span>item</span></span>,</span> parsed_date</span></span>)</span></span>)</span></span>
</span>    
</span>    #</span> Check for duplicates and cancel older ones
</span></span>    for</span> project_name</span>,</span> items</span> in</span></span> project_dict</span></span>.</span></span>items</span></span></span></span>(</span>)</span></span></span>:</span></span>
</span>        if</span> len</span></span></span></span>(</span>items</span></span>)</span></span> ></span> 1</span>:</span></span>
</span>            #</span> Sort by creation date, newest first
</span></span>            sorted_items</span></span> =</span> sorted</span></span></span></span>(</span>items</span></span>,</span> key</span>=</span>lambda</span></span></span> x</span>:</span></span></span> x</span></span></span>[</span></span>1</span></span>]</span></span></span>,</span> reverse</span>=</span>True</span>)</span></span>
</span>            print</span></span></span></span>(</span>f</span>"</span></span></span>\n</span>Found duplicate project: </span>{</span>project_name</span></span></span></span>}</span></span>"</span></span></span>)</span></span>
</span>            print</span></span></span></span>(</span>f</span>"</span></span></span>Keeping newest: Created at </span>{</span>sorted_items</span></span></span>[</span></span>0</span></span>]</span></span>[</span></span>1</span></span>]</span></span></span></span>}</span></span>"</span></span></span>)</span></span>
</span>            
</span>            #</span> Cancel all but the newest
</span></span>            for</span> item</span>,</span> date</span> in</span></span> sorted_items</span></span></span>[</span></span>1</span>:</span></span>]</span></span></span>:</span></span>
</span>                print</span></span></span></span>(</span>f</span>"</span></span></span>Canceling duplicate from: </span>{</span>date</span></span></span></span>}</span></span>"</span></span></span>)</span></span>
</span>                cancel_item_via_url_scheme</span></span></span></span>(</span>item</span></span></span>[</span></span>'</span></span></span>uuid'</span></span></span></span>]</span></span>)</span></span>
</span>
</span>if</span> __name__</span></span> ==</span> "</span></span></span>__main__"</span></span></span>:</span></span>
</span>    try</span>:</span></span>
</span>        check_and_cancel_duplicates</span></span></span></span>(</span>)</span></span>
</span>        print</span></span></span></span>(</span>"</span></span></span>\n</span>Duplicate check completed successfully"</span></span></span>)</span></span>
</span>    except</span> Exception</span> as</span></span> e</span></span>:</span></span>
</span>        print</span></span></span></span>(</span>f</span>"</span></span></span>An error occurred: </span>{</span>str</span></span></span></span>(</span>e</span></span>)</span></span></span></span>}</span></span>"</span></span></span>)</span></span>
</span>        import</span> traceback</span></span></span>
</span>        traceback</span></span>.</span></span>print_exc</span></span></span></span>(</span>)</span></span>
</span></code></pre>
This code will use the Things Python API library to get all the projects from your Today</code> view, and iterate through them to figure out if there are duplicates (based on the name). If there are duplicates, it will figure out which one’s the newest, and create a list of all the others. Then, since the library is read only, it will use Things official URL scheme</a> to cancel the old duplicates.</p>
You can run the script using: python3 cancel-duplicates.py</code></p>
Finally, let’s make sure that the command to run the script is automatically running as well. To automate it, I’ve created a Keyboard Maestro</a> action that triggers every time I wake my laptop.</p>
</p>
This process would literally only save me a handful of seconds in time. But according to XKCD</a> I could still get a return on time invested within 5 years or so.</p>
But friction is not only measured in time, it’s also measured in emotion. And being reminded by the stuff you didn’t finish, is bad for your confidence. Which will lead to procrastination, and decreased productivity. So from that perspective, I feel like it’s definitely been worth it.</p>
Did you ever automate anything to save you seconds?</p>



The app’s name is “Things” but that’s kind of an annoying thing to say, as it’s also just a word that you would use frequently in this context, so I’ll refer to it as “Things3” from now on. ↩</a></p>
</li>

Or at least I couldn’t figure it out. I could only hard code the comparison. It might exist, but I didn’t want to waste too much time on being annoyed with Shortcuts. I tend to move away from Shortcuts quite quickly as I don’t really like using it. ↩</a></p>
</li>

Nowhere near perfect. But I understand enough Python to be able to fill in the gaps, and prompt for whatever needs to be our next steps. ↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</footer>

Achieving goals, using friction 2025-01-31T00:00:00+00:00 To achieve any kind of goal in life, no matter how small, an amount of effort is required. The amount of effort required is mostly determined by how far you want to go, and the friction that you have to overcome1</a>. $$ \text{Goal}_{\text{achieved}} \iff \text{Effort} \geq \text{Distance} \times \text{Friction} $$ This is how it works in the physical world, as well as in the intangible world. The goalpost is somewhere, you’re somewhere else, so there’s a distance. Or a length of time, how long you need to keep going to get there. There’s not much you can do about the distance. That’s the nature of a goal. You can quantify it however you like, format it in a nice S.M.A.R.T. way. That might make it easier to understand, to track, or to communicate. But it is set, it’s there, all the way down the field. You have your thing you’re aiming at, now it’s your job to figure out how to get there. The more interesting part is the friction</a>. As is the case in the real world, this friction is determined by the weight, and the interaction with the surface. $$ Friction \approx Weight \times Surface $$ The task can be easy, hard, or anything in between. There can be many, or few. So there’s some weight2</a>. And there’s how easily you can get started, and keep going with the task, so there’s the interaction between the surfaces. Friction is what you have the most influence on. And I dare say, for a big part, our lives are shaped by friction. When you set a goal, it’s your first job to figure out what needs to be done to achieve it. And then, since the amount of effort you can put into something is limited, you’ll need to play with the friction. Either decrease, or increase, the friction. Depending on the goal, and the tasks involved. Make it easy to do the right thing, make it harder to do other things. It can be that the friction is too great to overcome, and you’ll never achieve your goal. It’s simply too much hassle to go to the tip</a> for every single piece of rubbish. Even if you’re crazy enough to do it, you’ll quickly exhaust all your available effort, and won’t be able to achieve much else. So you introduce a system of escalation. A small bin in each room, which is convenient enough to overcome the friction, and you’ll actually use it instead of throwing stuff on the floor. At some point the small one in the room is full, and since the total amount of contents now is more than just that single scrap, it’s worth the effort to empty it in the bigger bin outside. You’re paying for the big one to be picked up every couple of weeks, effectively outsourcing your trip to the tip. In all, reducing the friction to a manageable amount, and achieving the goal of properly disposing of your garbage. Now, since you have effort left over, you can add additional goals into your life. This is how you move forward. Both in life, and in business. It’s a virtuous circle, spend some efforts to reduce friction, so that you have more effort left over to deal with other things. Effort is your budget, in either time or money. Friction is the cost. Friction can be psychological, emotional, physical, digital. It’s always there, in everything that we (want to) do. Since the amount of efforts you can spend each day is limited, and friction is involved in everything. It’s worth to optimise both big and small. So hone your skills, outsource, and automate. The more you manage friction, the greater the heights you can climb. What’s a way in which you have managed friction to your benefit? There might be some momentum, gravity, and slopes involved too, but let’s not overcomplicate it. ↩</a> </li> I’m sure this is why GitLab has named their estimation field Weight</code>. ↩</a> </li> </ol> </footer> What's in a name? 2025-01-24T00:00:00+00:00 Previously, I used my full name for my website, as well as for my online profiles. Which is not Nizzlay, obviously. There’s no exciting reason why I stopped doing that. No crazy scandals. I don’t believe anything bad would happen if you found out that my full name is Niels Gouman. Hell, I still share my LinkedIn in the footer. Some bloggers say they would stop blogging</a> if anybody found out their real identity. I don’t have some secret personality like that, I don’t really have anything to hide1</a>, I just felt like it. “Nizzlay” is more of a nickname, even though no one in real life actually calls me this any more. It started in high school. When Mr. Snoop Dogg</a> was quite popular. Which caused a trend, people found out you could -izzle</code> a lot of things. The -izzle</code> version of Niels (my real name) apparently is “Nizzle”, so this quickly became my nickname in high school. The main downside of using “Nizzle” as a nickname was that, apparently, it was also slang for other things</a>. Little did we know. Young, naive, and English wasn’t our first language. The other downside was: The internet Back then, when you signed up for an account somewhere, and you had to put in a nickname, it had to be unique. Even when you signed up using an email address, whenever you had to pick a nickname, it had to be unique. Nowadays, we have solved for this by deciding that the nickname is not the ID</code>, we would have some kind of UUID</code> and show the nickname as a display name, no matter how many people have the same one. Back then, it was all pretty new. We usually didn’t have such fancy solutions. Which made my nickname kind of useless, online at least. Since usually it was already taken. This led my friends to brainstorm, and eventually they decided. We could take Nielsie</code>, which is the Dordrecht version2</a> of a Dutch diminutive for “Niels”, and combine that with the izzle</code>, leading to “Nizzlay”. It means absolutely nothing, as far as I know. And the best thing about that, is that it’s probably available whenever I need to sign up anywhere. Even though real world usage of the nickname has died out when I finished high school, online the name lives on. Though, there is some appeal to go fully anonymous. There might be certain topics I don’t want to share online, but I’m not sure that I would share those things under a different name either. ↩</a> </li> Yes, Netherlands is a small country, but we do have (very tiny) dialects between cities. ↩</a> </li> </ol> </footer> Changes: 23rd of January 2025 2025-01-23T00:00:00+00:00 The IndieWeb says you should POSSE. Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere. </blockquote> So I’ve set some things up for that. Mastodon</h2> Initially I wanted to use EchoFeed</a>, but for some reason it couldn’t fetch the RSS feed. 🤷‍♂️ So I decided to use MastoRSSbot</a> as a GitHub action in the repository. Their example assumes you’d set it up as a cronjob, but that seemed a bit wasteful. It might be days, or weeks, before I post anything new. Since I can guarantee there won’t be anything new as long as the deploy pipeline hasn’t run, might as well trigger it on a merge to main</code> instead, and make sure it depends on the fact that the updated site has been published. name: FeedBot on: workflow_run: workflows: ["Build and Publish to AWS"] branches: [main] types: - completed jobs: rss-to-mastodon: runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: - name: Generate cache key uses: actions/github-script@v6 id: generate-key with: script: | core.setOutput('cache-key', new Date().valueOf()) - name: Retrieve cache uses: actions/cache@v3 with: path: ${{ github.workspace }}/MastoRSSbot key: feed-cache-${{ steps.generate-key.outputs.cache-key }} restore-keys: feed-cache- - name: GitHub uses: 'rich-howell/mastofeedbot@v1' with: # This is the RSS feed you want to publish rss-feed: https://nizzlay.com/atom.xml # This is your instance address api-endpoint: https://indieweb.social # This is the secret you created earlier api-token: ${{ secrets.MASTODON_ACCESS_TOKEN }} # This is a path to the cache file, using the above cache path cache-file: ${{ github.workspace }}/MastoRSSbot/cache.json </code></pre> Initially it did post for each item in the RSS feed, which was a bit spammy, but I’m assuming that’s because it had to build up a cache. I have since cleaned up those posts, so let’s see how it goes from now on. Twitter (or X?)</h2> Regardless of our opinions of Twitter1</a>, it’s still a place we can syndicate to, so that’s what I’ve set up. Here I used Zapier, which seems to have no issues with the feed. Set Zapier to check the RSS feed, and whenever anything new is there it will post it to Twitter (through Buffer). Had to go through Buffer, since Twitter is charging an obscene amount of money to use their API, which Zapier (understandably) decided not to want to pay. IndexNow</h2> Let’s consider search engines also a place that can be syndicated towards. Sure they’ll find the site by themselves eventually, but it’s nice to let them know when changes have happened, so the crawling can be more efficient. For previous websites I had a simple curl in the pipeline to ping, something like: - curl https://google.com/ping?sitemap=https://nizzlay.com/sitemap.xml - curl https://www.bing.com/ping?sitemap=https://nizzlay.com/sitemap.xml </code></pre> Which would basically tell them to check out this sitemap, as something has been updated. But it seems both Google and Bing have since deprecated and removed this method. It seems that Bing, and some other search engines, have switched to IndexNow</a>. For which I’ve also implemented another GitHub action</a>. Again only triggering after I’ve actually deployed a new version of the site, no need for a cron. This action takes the latest version of my sitemap, checks which pages have been updated in the last day, and sends that to IndexNow as an array of URL’s. As recommended in the README</code>, I have dynamically added the key file website by adding it into the static folder before building using Zola, which will simply copy the file to be deployed. - name: Setup IndexNow # Generate files dynamically to prevent them from being leaked in public repositories. run: echo ${{ secrets.INDEXNOW_KEY }} > static/${{ secrets.INDEXNOW_KEY }}.txt </code></pre> And then implement the action: name: 'IndexNow' on: workflow_run: workflows: ["Build and Publish to AWS"] branches: [main] types: - completed jobs: check-and-submit: runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: - name: indexnow-action uses: bojieyang/indexnow-action@v2 with: sitemap-location: 'https://nizzlay.com/sitemap.xml' key: ${{ secrets.INDEXNOW_KEY }} </code></pre> I opened it up today, for the first time in forever. The timeline was full of people I don’t follow, creating a whole lot of drama about things I don’t care about. Fine for syndicating towards, but you won’t find me there for anything else. ↩</a> </li> </ol> </footer> Tempted by the Tux 2025-01-21T00:00:00+00:00 Years, no, decades, ago. Back in the time that Windows XP was state-of-the-art. I was annoyed with the instability of Windows on my PC1</a>. I had never known any other operating system. Sure, we had Windows 98SE before, and 95 before that. I had heard of Windows NT and 2000, but I was blissfully unaware of anything outside of Microsoft. So I started researching. Initially just to find a potential silver bullet that would help, but instead of that I stumbled onto Linux. It seemed fascinating, but also very unknown and scary. Until I found out about Ubuntu</a>. For Ubuntu, you could order a CD, for free. The CD would allow you to run Ubuntu directly from the CD, installing to try it out was optional. That seemed less scary, so I called their bluff, and ordered a bunch of the CD’s. To my surprise, they actually arrived. No strings attached. I installed Ubuntu, and I made it my primary operating system for years to come. Initially, I had it set up as a dual boot with Windows, so I would have an escape hatch. Later I decided to keep Windows only for playing games. Which also meant I could play around with creating custom Windows installers, with basically everything I thought of as optional removed. Which in my mind increased performance for the games. As I started playing games less and less, and I got the most important ones to run on Ubuntu2</a>, I eventually said goodbye to Windows (and Microsoft) entirely. It was finicky, but I enjoyed it. Ubuntu served me well for years. I was a fanboy. I recommended it to everybody, and I gave out the CD’s to whoever would accept them. I reinstalled a part of the computers on campus to run Ubuntu, and I even transitioned by grandfather onto Linux (I was the one doing tech support anyway, so why not.). When I got my first real job, with the associated first actual income, I started looking around for what to do with all that money. I remembered my transition from Windows to Ubuntu, and how good it’s been for me. And I got interested in the world of Apple. What’s not to like? It’s still Unix, but with a wealthy commercial company developing it. This must be the best of both worlds. So I caved. I got myself a state-of-the-art Mac Mini, running the latest and greatest: Mac OS X, Tiger. Money well spent. It was great. And I haven’t looked back in a long time. I didn’t even dual boot for this transition! I’ve owned pretty much every type of Mac over the years. Mac Mini, Mac Pro, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air. All have been good. But lately.. I’ve started looking around again. I’ve tried a Hackintosh</a> when Apple’s hardware didn’t meet my requirements, but since the M1 the hardware is no longer the problem. The hardware is pretty great now. Overpriced, but good quality. The software is becoming more and more of a concern. I feel like macOS is getting noticeably worse with every single update. For example: Used to be able to do CMD</code>+first-letter-of-the-primary-button</code>, whenever a dialog popped up, to “click” the button. Now, it doesn’t work most of the time.</li> Used to be able to press Z</code>, and go to the last file in the current folder in Finder (regardless of the filename). They broke it, so it would only jump to whatever filename started with ‘Z’.</li> Got this annoying “external monitor” thing in the toolbar now, with no official way to hide it. Permanently fucking purple, as if it demands my immediate attention. </li> Widgets in the notification center will randomly decide to remove themselves.</li> Give permission, re-give permission, so many alerts “ARE YOU SURE!?”</li> And even after you’ve given permission, randomly the app will start complaining that it can’t work any more because of missing permissions, while the permissions are still configured correctly according to the system settings. You then have to remove the permissions, to re-add them.</li> I can’t have Colemak-DH</a> as my only keyboard layout. Other keyboard layouts are allowed to be the only option, but in the case of Colemak-DH I’m forced to have another one in the list as well.</li> Which wouldn’t be too bad, if macOS didn’t randomly decide to switch the active keyboard layout. It can even switch mid-sentence, really screwing with my appeared competency as a typist.</li> It used to be possible to manually set a preference for which Wi-Fi to connect to, give them a priority. Now it just uses whichever one you used last, even if the better option is within range.</li> External LAN ports were broken for a while. Forcing me to use Wi-Fi even if a (better) wired connection was available.</li> </ul> Sometimes Apple comes back to fix it later, so it feels like they’re skimping out on doing QA. And sometimes I get the impression that people like me simply aren’t their target audience any more. Both of which make me sad. So… I’ve been looking around. I don’t need anything bleeding edge, I prefer stability. So something like Debian</a> would be great, and aligns with the vague familiarity I might still have from my Ubuntu days. Or NixOS</a>, which introduces a bit of a learning curve but a very interesting concept that pretty much guarantees that I will have a bootable system no matter. Sadly, Apple has managed to lock me in a bit. I’m using the M1 MacBook Pro, which isn’t supported very well outside of macOS. I currently don’t have the budget to get me a new machine. Especially since I know myself, and if I do decide to switch, I need to wow myself. If the system is slow and unresponsive, it’s a bad impression, and not a fair comparison of the day-to-day experience. Which means that using a Raspberry Pi as a desktop computer is probably not going to cut it. So dual boot would be my best bet, and the most fair of a comparison. That basically leaves only Asahi Linux</a>. Asahi looks promising, but unfinished. They’ve not managed to reverse engineer all the hardware yet. I can live without Touch ID, and the microphone, but USB-C Display is kind of a must-have for actually using it daily. So that leaves me… Stuck… Tempted by the Tux, but not quite able to switch at this time. I’ll keep an eye on it, and maybe someday… What about you? What are you running? Are you happy with it, or ready to jump ship? To be fair, it might have been at least partially caused by me. I did tend to mess with settings I didn’t understand, and edit values in the registery just to see what would happen. ↩</a> </li> The main one I played was “Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory</a>”, which actually supported Linux. For the others Wine</a> was quite impressive. ↩</a> </li> </ol> </footer> Default apps: 2025 2025-01-15T00:00:00+00:00 Default apps. Inspired by Hemispheric Views</a>, and catalogued</a> by Robb Knight</a>. I’m not a fan of trying to stick with the default apps that come with your OS. Your device should be personalised, optimised. Use apps that work best, for you. Customise apps, create your own automations, make it your own. It’s personal computing. Bonus points if other people struggle using your device, as it’s sooo you. That being said, let’s give it a shot. 📨 Mail Client: Apple Mail (I hate it, it’s buggy, and switch clients every couple of months)</li> 📮 Mail Server: iCloud (only because I’m already paying for storage anyway)</li> 📝 Notes: Obsidian</li> ✅ To-Do: Things3</li> 📷 Photo Shooting: iPhone 13 mini</li> 🎨 Photo Management: Photos</li> 📆 Calendar: Fantastical</li> 📁 Cloud File Storage: iCloud</li> 📖 RSS: NetNewsWire</li> 🚀 Launcher: Alfred</li> 🙍🏻‍♂️ Contacts: Apple Contacts</li> 🌐 Browser: Firefox (Firefox Focus on iOS)</li> 💬 Chat: iMessage, WhatsApp, Signal</li> 🔖 Bookmarks: Firefox</li> 📑 Read It Later: Instapaper, but also Pocket. I should probably pick one and merge, it’s a bit of a mess now.</li> 📜 Word Processing: Pages, unless iA Writer counts</li> 📈 Spreadsheets: Numbers</li> 📊 Presentations: Keynote</li> 🛒 Shopping Lists: Pen & Paper</li> 🍴 Meal Planning: Numbers</li> 💰 Budgeting and Personal Finance: None 🚫</li> 📰 News: None 🚫</li> 🎵 Music: Brain.fm</li> 🎤 Podcasts: Overcast</li> 🔐 Password Management: Apple Passwords</li> 🌤️ Weather: Apple Weather</li> 🔎 Search: DuckDuckGo</li> 🧭 Maps: Apple Maps</li> 🧑‍💻 Code Editor: VSCodium</li> ✈️ VPN: None 🚫</li> </ul> Blog Questions Challenge 2025-01-14T00:00:00+00:00 Apparently this was started by Brandon</a>, made a bit more generic by Kev</a>, but I saw it first in a post by Mijndert</a>. A blog questions challenge. Truth be told, it’s not much of a challenge, more a couple of questions like an a-sync interview. But I’m always fascinated by the why behind things, so it’s fun nonetheless. Why did you start blogging in the first place?</h2> I’ve always enjoyed tinkering with web stuff. My first outlet was forums, as I was young and didn’t know content management systems were a thing1</a>. I even managed to get something running on my own computer and dealt with port forwarding to make it public2</a>. I posted things there from time to time, and even got some friends and strangers to join in too. True blogging started later. When I also set up a domain name, and got a proper host. On my very own website. My main drive has been that I enjoy having my own little piece of the internet. Sometimes I would feel the need to share, and where better to do that than on my own blog/website. What platform are you using to manage your blog and why did you choose it?</h2> Currently, I’m using Zola</a>. I picked it primarily because I just couldn’t get used to the syntax for the previous site generator I had. Plus, it’s written in Rust, which is a meme</a>. All the (techy) details can be found in the colophon</a>. Have you blogged on other platforms before?</h2> Yes, many. I started with several forum software packages, mainly phpBB</a> stuck for a while. Then it was mostly WordPress</a>, on several different websites. Later I transitioned to static website generators, Jekyll</a>, Hexo</a>, Hugo</a>, and now Zola. How do you write your posts? For example, in a local editing tool, or in a panel/dashboard that’s part of your blog?</h2> Never really trusted the dashboard, and currently I don’t even have one. I tend to write in iA Writer</a>, or maybe Obsidian</a>. Then, when it’s ready for a preview, I’ll move it into VSCodium</a> to be part of the website, and run the local server to check if it all works and do some proofreading. When do you feel most inspired to write?</h2> Often while reading, especially personal websites of others. For example, this post is because I read Mijndert’s post, which led me down the rabbit hole of others writing for this “challenge”. So it found its way into my to-do list. Or when I feel like I achieved something. Like a lessons learned kind of thing. Rarely I actually document stuff beforehand, because I had planned to blog about it later. Do you publish immediately after writing, or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?</h2> As soon as possible after writing, since now I’m still excited about it. The longer I would let it wait, the bigger chance of it never getting published at all. That being said, sometimes I do hold off on publishing for a day or so, just so I can check it once more after sleeping on it. What’s your favourite post on your blog?</h2> This is a new blog. Not much on here yet, other than a hello world. So none, for now. Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, a move to another platform, or adding a new feature?</h2> A couple of things: Adding related posts</li> Adding some way to subscribe</li> Migrating (and redirecting) my previous website to this one, maybe even translating some of it</li> Figuring out what to do with analytics (for vanity’s sake only)</li> </ul> Probably more as time goes on. A virtual home is similar to a physical home in the sense that it’s never finished, always something to maintain or improve. I’m not sure whether they even existed back in the day, but given the fact that forums existed, surely CMS’s must also have existed. ↩</a> </li> No security, not even a domain name. You would have to know my IP address to find it, and if you did, you would be happy to know that I probably would not even have had a basic firewall in place. ↩</a> </li> </ol> </footer> Hello, World! 2025-01-08T00:00:00+00:00 Tadaaaa! 😄 Here we are, again. Another version of my personal home on the internet. In English this time. Or at least primarily, I haven’t fully decided yet. On a new domain name, because that made sense to me given the English context. The previous website</a> is still online, but I might move the content and redirect some stuff at some point. In this case I chose Zola</a>, because Rust FTW. With the Tabi theme</a>, which instantly convinced me with “optional JavaScript”, and “perfect Lighthouse score”. I was was very impressed with how easily I could get everything online Tabi’s starter template on GitHub</a>, and hosting it using Cloudflare Pages</a>. Sadly, Cloudflare Pages did not come with the benefit of analytics I was hoping for. And it did come with the downside of being relatively slow (page load time was over 500ms!). So I’ve since switched it back to the trusted S3 with CloudFront hosting. It’s not free like Cloudflare, but at the estimated cost of <€1 per month, it doesn’t make much of a difference. More (techy) details in the colophon</a>, and I’ll try maintaining a changelog</a> as well.

Nizzlay

Automatically cancelling duplicate projects in Things

Achieving goals, using friction

What's in a name?

Changes: 23rd of January 2025

Tempted by the Tux

Default apps: 2025

Blog Questions Challenge

What’s your favourite post on your blog?</h2> This is a new blog. Not much on here yet, other than a hello world. So none</em>, for now.</p>

Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, a move to another platform, or adding a new feature?</h2> A couple of things:</p> Adding related posts</li> Adding some way to subscribe</li> Migrating (and redirecting) my previous website to this one, maybe even translating some of it</li>

Hello, World!

What’s your favourite post on your blog?</h2>
This is a new blog. Not much on here yet, other than a hello world. So none</em>, for now.</p>