Friday Notes #7 — Writing saved my morale during this COVID-19 pandemic.
And it continues to do so.
In the last 300 days, my creative energy to over me. Without it, I couldn’t have written and published as much as I did. This creative energy kept me from being too focused on the ongoing crisis that we’ve been enduring. A bit obsessed with COVID-19 progression data and news initially, it didn’t last. But eventually, I had to refocus myself on something more positive. Naturally and gradually, my creative energy took over. It gave birth to a newsletter on Substack, the Friday notes series on Medium and posted many times a day on my microblog. When this pandemic is behind us, what will happen to my writing energy? …
“You’re on mute”. We’re not done with this pandemic yet. So, you are probably still working from home, just like me, my wife, my neighbours. After nine months of virtual…
DHH on Twitter seems happy that the messaging app, Signal, finally has its moment. I don’t really know about Signal, but I do know about another one, Telegram. Now that Parler is out of this world, I’m wondering if people prefer Signal over Telegram. Is Signal more secure than Telegram? According to this website, Telegram, is apparently not as secure as its maker pretends it is.
Now, I’m wondering how these movements between messaging platforms would be affected if Apple decided to make iMessage cross-platform: on iOS, on macOS, on the web and on Android. Maybe this year the dynamic is different enough for Apple to make the move? Are they afraid that people will leave the iPhone if iMessage is available on Android? What is more sticky for the Apple ecosystem: the Music app or iMessage? …
Friday Notes #6 — A Small Incursion into the Podcasting World. I started the week with a small incursion into the podcasting world with an excellent virtual friend, Mat. I enjoyed being part of his podcast, called “Éclectique” (a french podcast — link below). The subject of our discussion was two-fold. First, what are my intentions, as a content creator, for 2021? Second, we spent some time discussing my content creation tools and workflow. It was a real pleasure discussing content creation in challenging times. From a creativity standpoint, the pandemic has its positive sides. Yep. I no longer travel for vacation or commute for work. We have just begun our second confinements. I have more time at my disposal for content creation. Focusing on writing is helping me, in some way, to stay in a mostly positive mood during this pandemic. …
Mailbrew received a big update this week. The change log is pretty extensive. The most important change is that the home page and the whole user experience for that matter is now more about reading your digests than the brews edit view. I like this change a lot. Digests are presented in the order they were received. You can go from one issue to another easily for a specific brew. You can also select a specific brew to see associated digests. The reading experience is better overall compared to HEY’s Feed view. …
Alan Ralph, in a blog post, exposes ten reasons why he loves RSS feeds. I agree on all accounts. When I look closer, it all comes down to: control. Control is something we don’t have these days on social networks and social media. We live in a numeric world full of algorithmically-generated feeds and content. We lose control of our feeds. George Orwell was right.
RSS feed, a simple and open standard, is the key, within an RSS reader, of a more open and user-centered and mostly ads-free Internet. RSS feeds are important.
Here is something different. For long time readers, you probably know by now that I like photography. I rarely post about this subject here. I wanted to give it a try.
It was a great morning with lots of sunshine and above-average temperature. It was the perfect moment for a Photowalk to nowhere. In the very early stage of my walk, I settled for a 90 minutes duration. Enough time for me to explore the unknown and let the urban environment surprises me. A recent post from Adrian Vila, a photographer that I like, was a motivational factor in kicking my butt to go out. Adrian writes: “I believe that every day is filled with possibilities”. That day was full of possibilities. You never know in advance what discoveries will be made. I didn’t have a plan. …
Friday notes #5 — I made (some) money on Medium. In “You’re Probably Not Going to Make Any Money On Medium” @ThomasSmith writes most people don’t make money on Medium. Surprised at first, I started to feel the imposter syndrome. The year 2020 is my best on Medium. I published 40 articles, commented on many articles. I’m constantly getting more than 1500 reads and 3000 views per month. I started a series, Friday Notes, increasing my posting frequency to become a more regular writer. I write about technology and digital photography tools, two popular themes. A few articles became popular like this one and this one. I’m proud and yes I made some money in 2020, nearly $1000 to be precise. We’re at the very beginning of 2021, everything is possible, right?
