Blogs on Patrice Brend'amour (DRAFT)

Shortcuts: Selecting a random team member to start the daily standup

Sun, 01 Aug 2021 23:23:00 +0200

Here’s a fun little problem I recently ran into: Especially when your team is remote (and who isn’t these days???), how do you decide who’s going to start the daily standup meeting of your agile team? Obviously you don’t want to always have the same order of people, but just picking someone at random could be biased towards whomever you see first. iOS’s Shortcuts app to the rescue! It’s super simple, because the Shortcuts app already has a “Random item from list” snippet.

Using Swift Argument Parser to build CLI tools

Sun, 09 May 2021 23:30:00 +0200

When it comes to writing CLI tools or simple scripts, bash is a pretty good solution. If you follow a few simple rules and make sure to check & document all your dependencies, you can create tools that work on a wide variety of systems and platforms (even Windows). However, where bash starts to fall down is when you need to create much more complex tooling. Not impossible, but it just gets harder and harder to maintain (and also lacks a few basic features of modern languages).

How to publish podcasts with the Hugo Static Site Generator

Sun, 18 Apr 2021 19:00:00 +0200

Some of you may remember that I switched my websites over to Hugo a while ago. Not only is Hugo much easier to set up and generates sites much faster, it’s also very easy to adapt to your needs. One such adaption was how I publish my podcasts. Some people use Wordpress (with a plugin like Powerpress) or Squarespace to do it, but that’s a lot of overhead for something that’s essentially super simple.

Goodbye Ellie

Wed, 11 Dec 2019 16:28:02 +0100

Ellie Today Ellie, my 6 year old German Shepherd Mix, has left us for good. She was my furry daughter, my companion on many many walks and hikes that she gladly took with me. She was always there when I felt down and always happy to see me when I came home (like, every single time, even when I had only been gone for 30s). She was incredibly loving, welcoming anyone into her family the second they stepped through the door.

“Moving my blog to Hugo”

Sun, 26 Nov 2017 13:35:01 +0100

As some of you may have noticed, I recently changed my site layout. That, however, wasn’t the only change to the site. Behind the scenes, I moved my site from Jekyll to Hugo. Let me explain why. The awesomeness of static site generators Over the last few years, I’ve fallen in love with static site generators. For a tinkerer, content creator and developer like me, they offer a lot of desirable things:

One month with the BMW i3 - The best car you'll ever own?

Wed, 02 Aug 2017 23:50:00 +0200

A few weeks ago, I finally made the jump from a traditional combustion engine car to a fully electric one (BEV). Here’s my review at the British Tech Network

New Podcast for Casual Kitchen (my cooking show)

Mon, 26 Sep 2016 20:05:00 +0000

I’m really excited to tell you about this. I’ve been thinking about creating a podcast for my Youtube show “Casual Kitchen” for quite a while. Some topics simply are better/easier to talk about and listen to in audio instead of video, so a podcast makes a lot of sense. Now the first episode is up. Listen to episode 1

Running OwnCloud on macOS (using docker)

Fri, 23 Sep 2016 00:22:47 +0000

OwnCloud

Being fed up with Dropbox and their constant nagging to sign up for their business plans, I recently investigated OwnCloud. OwnCloud is essentially a open-source clone of Dropbox, that you can install on your own server. It has many, many more features, but I’m going to leave it at that.

After I installed OwnCloud on my linux server (which really easy to do) I started talking about it on a couple of podcasts and with a few friends. One question I got was “Can I run it on a Mac?”. “Sure” I thought, not seeing anything that would prevent it from running on macOS. Turns out, it’s not officially supported and OwnCloud doesn’t offer a package for it.

There’s a solution for this, though. Docker, a container-based virtualization solution, to the rescue. You’re basically running a mini-linux within a small virtual machine. Exactly what we need.

So here we go: Setting up OwnCloud from scratch on macOS in 4 short steps.

I was on the AWT Patron Podcast

Sun, 29 May 2016 20:05:00 +0000

I recently joined Steve Sande and Dennis Sellers on the AWT Patron Podcast. This is a secret podcast for all AWT Patrons where they discuss what’s going on in the world of Apple. It was a really fun show and we covered quite a few interesting topics (e.g. Touch ID for the Mac or Apple Music). Support AWT on Patreon and listen to the podcast

The Apple Watch 7 Months in – What Is It Good For?

Mon, 07 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

People have asked me, what the Apple Watch is good for. Here’s my answer, 7 months in. Read the article

Review: Plex app for the AppleTV (4th gen)

Mon, 09 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I recently reviewed the Plex app for the 4th gen Apple TV over at the British Tech Network Read the review

Review: Withings Aura

Tue, 19 May 2015 02:42:47 +0000

Withings Aura

Back in November of 2014 I bought a Withings Aura. I also published an article talking about my first impressions after using the device for a week. Since then, I’ve been using the Aura every day, both as a sleep tracker and as a lamp on my nightstand. I’ve also seen various software updates and gotten a feeling where Withings is heading with this device. So, I think it’s about time I publish a thorough review of this device.

On the iPad: Why it still matters a lot for me

Fri, 13 Feb 2015 02:13:00 +0000

iPad Air 2 and iPad Mini 3

A lot has been said about the iPad over the course of the past year, most of it was pretty negative. To be fair, a lot of stupid, negative stuff has been said about it ever since Steve Jobs unveiled it 5 years ago. Still, something happened last year that changed the overall sentiment of most of the (tech) media.
Ever since, Tim Cook had to endure numerous questions about the “disappointing sales of the iPad” and “where he sees the iPad in the future”. Some have even called the iPad’s entire existence into question.

But how can a device that sold 63.661 million units in 2014 and made 27.8 billion in revenue ever be considered a failure? Remember, if the iPad were its own business, it would still be in the Fortune 150 and be equal in revenue to McDonalds and Macy’s (No. 106 and 107 on Fortunes’ List for 2014). And even if you compare those numbers to the iPhone - 192.662 million units and 120.675 billion in revenue would put it in the Fortune 20 on position 16 right in front of Verizon Wireless and HP - roughly one in three people who bought an iPhone in 2014 also bought an iPad. That’s a huge number!
If that’s how failing looks like, than I’m willing to fail all-day everyday.

Not everything is doom and gloom, though. A few people have voiced their support for the iPad and expressed their continuing love for that marvelous piece of engineering that is the iPad, one of them being MacStories’ Federico Viticci. Granted, he’s a very unique flower - he does almost all of his work on his iPad - but that got me thinking about how people I know use their iPads and how I use it nowadays.

So here it is, my very anecdotal story about the iPad and why I still love it:

Automating Markdown links with TextExpander

Mon, 05 Jan 2015 01:26:18 +0000

Adding links to Markdown documents can be tedious at times. Especially when you’re doing it a lot or under pressure, e.g. if you’re creating show notes for your podcast while you’re recording. You’ll usually get a link from somewhere, from the chat, a guest or just by searching for it and all you want to do is insert the link with the proper title and formatting. What would you normally do? Insert the link into your document. Then open it in a new browser tab and copy the headline. Go back to your document. Insert it and fix the formatting.
There must be a better way to do this, right?

And indeed, there is. Several actually. First let me explain how I did it, then I’m going to mention a different approach created by the infamous Brett Terpstra. Depending on your workflow, you might prefer one or the other which is totally fine. Whatever works for you!

One Week With the Withings Aura

Thu, 18 Dec 2014 03:39:35 +0000

Withings Aura

I’ve been a long time fan of Withings. Not just because they make gadgets for my iOS devices, not even because they sell health-related products. It’s their very Apple-like approach that impressed me most. Their devices (and their packaging) look like something Apple would have created.
No, they aren’t perfect. Far from it. But honestly, who is? Their user guides aren’t optimal, but you can live with that as their devices are usually very easy to set up and you really don’t need the guide anyway.

Ever since Withings announced the Aura at this year’s CES, I’ve been wanting to give it a try. The Aura is a combined sleep-sensor and bedside light/alarm that allows you to not only track your sleep but also sleep better and wake up at the ideal time (while you’re in light sleep). At least that’s the promise of the Aura and a lot of other sleep tracking devices and apps on the market. I’m not going to go into detail here, explaining how the Aura works. I’ll leave that for the full review I’m planning on writing. Instead, I want to talk about the very first week with the Aura.

On net neutrality: How the internet works and where the money flows

Wed, 12 Nov 2014 23:33:37 +0000

In the past few months, a lot has been written about net neutrality. Arguments for and against it, rumors, speeches, discussions. Almost all of them have one thing in common: a basic misunderstanding of how the internet works and where the money flows. Now, I won’t go all-in on the intricate details, but rather give you a broad overview over the way the system is designed. Enough to give you a better understanding of the issue and get you started. We will also discuss why the system is broken right now and, at the end of this article, talk about throttling and why it sometimes isn’t what we expect it to be.

Multilingual Jekyll: How to run your Jekyll site in more than one language

Sun, 03 Aug 2014 21:05:20 +0000

As some of you might be aware, English isn’t my native language. Although I pretty much prefer English over German (no matter what or where: movies, books, recipes, podcasts, …) not everyone in Germany can read/speak it as fluently as I can, if at all. So, naturally almost all my sites are available both in German and English, although most of the content is either/or.

This, of course, is not as trivial as it may sound. Even with blogging/site engines and CMSs such as Wordpress, having the same site and the same content is a hassle at best and damn near impossible at worst. Especially Wordpress, as powerful and well maintained as it may be, does a really terrible job when it comes to maintaining content and pages in more than one language. It’s a hack, and you feel it.

To be honest, one of the reasons for migrating to Jekyll was the fact, that its simplicity makes it easier for me (as a developer) to create the site I want. Instead of hacking around in the huge pile of junk that is Wordpress to get it barely working the way I’d like it to work, I can focus on creating content.
Still, even with Jekyll being as awesome as it is, it’s nowhere easy to get a multilingual site going. In fact, Jekyll itself doesn’t even support it and that’s fine: most people don’t need this advanced feature, anyway.
Further, the existing Jekyll plugins that promise to enable you to post in more than one language barely work at all or do things in a very weird way.

WWDC 2014: Why being wrong is the most exciting thing in years!

Tue, 10 Jun 2014 01:00:41 +0000

WWDC Logo

Looking back to last week’s WWDC keynote and also my last blog post (as well as the pre-WWDC TUAW Talkcast), the one thing that struck me besides being completely and utterly blown away was the fact that almost all predictions and wishes were totally wrong. Mine almost certainly were!
Granted, I didn’t expect to be right, but even the things I really, really thought would happen, didn’t happen after all. And even our wildest guesses, things we thought very likely wouldn’t happen, were just minor bullet-points on the long list of really amazing announcements.

All of this is really exciting to me.

My WWDC 2014 predictions

Sun, 01 Jun 2014 01:40:09 +0000

WWDC Logo

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been talking on multiple occasions about what I expect to be announced during WWDC next week. And as those predictions are all spread over different podcasts and chats, I thought I’d document them here so people can point fingers after the announcements and laugh about how wrong I’ve been.
Yes, I expect to be wrong. I have no real insight into Apple, no secret sources other than a few hints here and there from people who are better connected than me. Nothing more than my own understanding of how Apple works based on what I know and how the company has behaved in the past. Plus maybe a little bit of wishful thinking.

So, here we go. I’m ready to be ridiculed.

Opinion: Why App.net hasn't failed and why it hasn't been a success either

Sun, 11 May 2014 23:48:54 +0000

App.net Logo

I really love App.net. There, I said it. Just wanted to make that perfectly clear before I dive into this topic.

App.net, or ADN as many like to call it, has been around since August 2012. Initially Mixed Media Labs, the company behind ADN, had launched the service as a Twitter competitor using a Kickstarter campaign to gain traction and collect much needed funds . Their idea: to create a service where the user pays a small fee each month to use the service and with that becomes the real owner of his data. The service doesn’t need to sell its user base to advertisers to keep the lights on (unlike Twitter, Facebook and so many of social networks).

Recently, those initial users/supporters were up for subscription renewal.

How to build a DIY standing desk for cheap

Tue, 06 May 2014 01:24:33 +0000

My standing desk

A few years back, I saw someone in a professional radio studio working on a standing desk. This was way before my time as a web radio host and even before I started thinking about my career (I was still in school). Back then, the ease of moving around in the studio fascinated me.
Years later, when I was producing/reading the news for a smaller web radio station, I got the chance to experience the advantages of working on a standing desk myself. A desk I had also built. It wasn’t the fancy, motorized version I had seen before, but a mere raised counter top version. Still, I loved it! With its faults and everything.
Then I moved, switching universities, quitting the web radio “job” and leaving the desk behind. For years I worked on “normal” desks, sitting all day long.
Every now and then I would hear about standing desks (or treadmill desks), or see one on the internet somewhere. And every time I would think about either buying one or somehow changing my workflow so that I wouldn’t sit as much. Then I would dismiss the idea for one reason or another.

Until I build my own version of a standing desk last weekend.