2017 Macbook Pro Iteration

I got the newest Macbook Pro 15” with very mixed feelings. I needed a speed bump, and I seriously got it. The other positive angle is the TouchID sensor, which spares me from typing my password about 6-8 times a day (as 1Password supports it).

BUT. In capital letters.

The Touchpad is much too big. Technology that switches it off while you’re typing is working, also it recognizes when you rest one of your palms on it while using the pad with the other hand. BUT still sometimes your palms are merely touching it and get mistaken for fingers, which is hugely irritating. ALSO the bezel between Touchpad and keyboard is very thin, so as I’m usually resting my unused thumbs below the space bar, now this sometimes moves the cursor. ALSO the bezel between Touchpad and the edge of the laptop is very thin, so when I had the Macbook on my lap, sometimes my belly or so triggered the Touchpad to lock as it understands it’s no finger, but this stopped it from working from time to time and not register actual clicking or tapping with my fingers. OVERALL, the Touchpad is a huge pain in the ass with the new Macbook Pro 15”.

The Control Strip is also an extremely big BUT for many reasons. First and foremost, you can’t rest your hands on the former F-keys anymore, as any touch will trigger the screen to go dark or some app exposé to open or whatever. Second, you cannot feel the key anymore. It wasn’t a problem for me to instantly hit the ESC key, but for everything else, you most likely have to actually take a look where to press. The app-specific control strip keys sometimes don’t work as expected and generally, I find it very confusing to have the strip change while I switch between apps, so I fixed the layout to what you can see in the image.

Also, I’m in adapter hell now, but actually, this doesn’t feel too bad. Get a good hub and some simple cheap adapters from Amazon, and you’re good to go.

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Setup Environment based on SSID via Keyboard Maestro

http://ithoughts.de/downloads/Setup_based_on_SSID.kmmacros

This keyboard maestro macro checks if you’ve just arrived at work or at home based on the SSID you connect to, and executes another macro you specify (in my case something that activates / deactivates applications and sets window sizes depending on the number of connected monitors, but it can be something easier, like turn on Skype at work and turn it off at home). Only a change of SSIDs from home to work or vice versa will trigger a change.





http://ithoughts.de/downloads/Setup_based_on_SSID.kmmacros

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Spam

Spampizza_id_3538457992_CC_BY_cookipediachef_33950445@N04

Spam is the curse of the Internet, where communication costs no time and effort, if it’s automated. And as the is only one big antispam provider (Akismet) that’s built in in WordPress, the most used publishing system of the World, a lot of people use the widely known reactions of the Akismet algorithm to get through their spam messages on blogs in the whole wolrd. This also hits my site of course. And as the simple math comment protection plugin doesn’t work anymore, I just activated a (seemingly free?) plugin of CleanTalk, to protect me from people who just loooove my content sooooo much.

If you’d leave your preferred method to block spam in the comments, or tell me anything somehow related, I’d be very grateful as I need to see if this plugin here doesn’t only keep out the bad guys.

Picture by Spampizza_id_3538457992_CC_BY_cookipediachef_33950445@N04

 

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Define what defines you

There are two great things about Twitter:

  1. You can choose who to follow and define who you listen to, from all the people on the world who care to share their thoughts. This means you get to decide what your filter-bubble looks like, and it doesn’t have to be identical to your friends and coworkers anymore, as it is for anyone not using Twitter.
  2. You can share your thoughts, to make the first point work. You can be a part of the filterbubbles of people you’ll most likely never see, can influence their lives in a (hopefully) positive way, and be someone they can ask for help / opinions.

There’re more great things about Twitter, but redefining what your mental social input is is one of the biggest factors I can imagine.

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Is there a reason to still have a blog?

No. Not really. Facebook, Twitter, and all the other systems out there do basically the same.

But in my opinion there’s still a reason to have a website, where you can put anything you like, without someone censoring it, where you can shut off the comments and likes, where you can fully decide about the layout, pictures, style, and wording.

This is some kind of freedom in the digital world.

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