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25 years of blogging

Today I should throw a party to celebrate this blog’s 25th anniversary.

But lately I am not too proud of my blog. In contrast to the early days, when I was very inspired to write, I feel like the blog has fallen outside my regular information– and content workflow.

That said, I should probably have a closer look at all parts implicated in that workflow and maybe even draw a diagram to get an overview. And maybe (just maybe) I will find a way to incorporate more original thinking to post here.

Anyway, cheers to all my readers! 🍻

It has only been a little over two weeks that I upgraded to macOS Ventura, and already got my ass saved twice by the ‘Undo Send’ button in Mail.

Focus modes in iOS make me happy

Not so much for focusing, but simply because it solves a practical problem for me.

You see, just like many people of my age I need reading glasses. Now, when I am working at my desk, I usually have a pair handy, but when I am out and about I usually leave them at home.

My solution in those cases is incrementing the text size in iOS to Extra Extra Extra Large, so I can read everything without glasses. The issue is that when I get home and use my phone with my glasses in the text is way to big and I have to set the text size back.

Now to make these text size changes easier, I took a two-step approach.

First, instead of changing the size in the phone’s settings, I used Shortcuts to create a very simple one-step automation:

Set text size in a shortcut

And in iOS 16, I can use focus modes to automatically trigger these shortcuts by creating automations in the Shotcuts app:

Trigger an shortcuts automation by focus mode

Now all I have to do is switch my phone from one focus mode to another, and since I have smart activation configured, my phone quickly learned when to activate each mode, so usually I have the correct text size.