Technology

Joining The Dark Side: How a PC Geek Switched to the Mac

Romey

My first memorable exposure to computers was when my parents purchased an IBM PS/2, which ran Windows 3.1 on an Intel 286 processor. They bought it in the late 80s, making me an avid Windows user for over 35 years.

Not my family’s PS/2

I have vivid memories of upgrading to Windows 95, 98, then opting for the NT kernel (starting with NT4 and then moving to Windows 2000). I loved PC’s so much that my 16-year-old self’s dream job was my internship at HP (which turned into a 23-year-long stint).

Needless to say, I’m deep in the trenches of the Windows ecosystem. So why did I decide to make my next upgrade a Mac?

I wanted to prove to myself that I can still learn new technology. While learning OS proficiency isn’t about picking up a new programming language, there is still quite a learning curve when it comes to being efficient in a different OS, especially being the hotkey fanatic that I am.

These M-Chips are outperforming the PC equivalents. Windows ARM chips are starting to come online, but the app ecosystem and refactoring are years behind macOS’s transition. Four years in, virtually every meaningful software title is compatible with the M-Chips.

I wanted to free up my Dell Laptop for my kids. My daughters primarily use tablets and Chromebooks, but they are starting to dabble in photography and digital art, and I want them to feel like they don’t have to wait to use my laptop. My Dell XPS 15 is still quite powerful and will likely handle what they’d like to throw at it.

I ended up going with the M4 MacBook Pro 14″, going with the Pro because I’m doing more with photography, video editing, and graphic design. One of the most significant advancements with the M4 is the ability to plug in multiple monitors at once (it was previously limited to one monitor), which made it easy for me to use all of my home office hardware.

My “Harry Potter” home office

Three months in, the transition has been easier than I expected. It helps that I also purchased a Magic Mouse and configured it to utilize right-clicks (I’m not a big fan of trackpads, even one as well-made as the MacBook’s). I was surprised by how easily it was to get productive on the Mac, although it’s been a challenge keeping the keyboard shortcuts between my Mac and work PC, contemplating the Severance procedure to avoid confusing the CTRL and Command keys.

In setting up my Mac, Homebrew was my first install. Homebrew is a package manager that allows you to install and update software from a command-line interface. For the last five years, I’ve been using Chocolatey and Winget on my Windows machines. Package managers allow you to put together a list and then install dozens of applications all at once.

At that point, it’s been a matter of finding equivalent apps for all of my Windows tools that I’ve relied on over the years. Over the last three months, here are my results, based on my manifest:

Windows SoftwareMac Equivalent (So Far)
Adobe Creative Cloud (Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, Premiere)= (Direct Equivalent)
AntRenamerMacOS Default File Renaming
ARSClipMeccy
AudacityAdobe Audition
Bitwarden=
Bleachbit? (Haven’t Looked/Found One)
Discord=
DrawIO=
DupeGuru?
FFmpeg=
Freeplane=
Git / GitHub=
Google Drive=
HoneyviewPreviews (MacOS) / Pixea
Local=
Mullvad VPN=
NanaZipKeka
PowerToys*Raycast
ShareXMacOS Screenshots
SumatraPDFPreview (MacOS)
TeraCopy?
Visual Studio Code=
Vivaldi (my browser of choice)=
VLC Media Player=
Windows (Remote Desktop)=
Windows TerminalWarp
Zoom=

As I explored software, it quickly became apparent how much equivalence exists between the two platforms. There are things I miss from Windows (mainly Honeyview and a lot of the cool features from PowerToys), but it’s been a fun experience evaluating the macOS equivalents. It’s easy to get caught up in finding and installing different utility apps. I’ve been using ChatGPT and the macOS Reddit to find recommendations.

This has been a fun experience, and I am enjoying my Mac, but I don’t think that any of my Windows-loving friends are genuinely missing out. Ultimately, it comes down to computers being tools, and that productivity comes from using the most comfortable tools.

My daughter’s first phone – and first contract

Romey

After being a parent for over ten years, a moment I had feared had finally arrived: the day my oldest daughter got her first phone. I was hoping to have held off until middle school – but with all of the activities Clara has on her plate: being at the dance studio for 4 classes over 2 nights (with homework breaks between her classes), volleyball practice at different locations, juggling two different homes – the need for accessible communication has become too much.

I picked up her new phone today, and now Clara is going to party like it’s 2004:

Based on what I’ve read and heard, I was hoping to avoid giving my kids a cellular-service smartphone for as long as possible. Both of my daughters have iPads on Wifi, along with hand-me-down smartphones that rarely leave the house. By getting her a flip phone, I’m hoping to enable enough of our communication needs and delay having a smart phone for a few more years.

Nonetheless, the potential consequences of having a call phone isn’t lost on me, so I worked with Clara’s mom to come up with contract that sets our expectations with tween cell phone use. I wanted to offer it here for my other fellow parents that may have a similar predicament, and would love to hear about your experience in this matter.

Balderrama Cell Phone Contract

Having a cell phone is a major responsibility. The reason you have it is so that you can contact your parents and family when you need to check in, arrange rides, change plans, feel unsafe, or need help. You can also use this phone to keep in touch with friends in a responsible way.
By using this cell phone you agree to the following terms:

  1. Understanding this phone is a tool and not a toy. When the phone is used as a toy, it could result in additional charges on the bill, damage to the phone, or accidentally calling police, firefighters, and paramedics.

? Phone as a tool:

  • Making phone calls to family and friends
  • Texting family and friends
  • Calling 911 if you need help

? Phone as a toy:

  • Bringing it on rough activities (jumping on the trampoline)
  • Randomly pressing buttons
  • Opening and closing it unnecessarily
  • Using it in “pretend” play
  1. The phone will remain off and in your backpack during school hours unless and until a teacher gives you permission to turn it on to contact your family. To prevent theft, we recommend not bringing your phone to school.
  2. The phone will be charged outside of your bedroom during bedtime hours.
  3. While your parents respect your privacy, they reserve the right to immediately inspect your phone, call logs, and text messages upon request.
  4. Scammers will often text you pretending that they know you or are texting the wrong number. You will not call or text people you do not know, and inform your parents if you receive any text messages from phone numbers you do not recognize and delete the message. Do not click any links in text messages.
  5. The camera should only be used to take appropriate pictures. Please keep in mind that once a picture leaves your phone, you have no control over where it goes or how people may use it. You shall not take pictures of anyone without their permission.
  6. Your sister is permitted to borrow the phone, but only to call family and immediately return it upon completion. If you lend the phone to any friends, keep in mind that you are still responsible for what they do with your phone.

Failure to follow these terms will result in phone usage being restricted or the phone being taken away. Signed:

We’ll see how this goes. We gave her the phone tonight and while there was some initial excitement, I think my daughter realizes its limitations (being a feature, not a bug).

TikTok Drumming

Romey

Look ma, I’m a TikTok star, or at least trying to be. Not really.

“Guess this song by its Drum Track.”

During the pandemic, when I couldn’t practice with my band, I played around with playing drum parts to some famous songs and posting them on Instagram and Facebook. It was a fun game and a good excuse to spend some time behind the drum kit, but I shelved the idea after a month.

This winter I decided to pick it back up to experiment with short-form video sharing on Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and TikTok. Now, over fifty videos later, I’ve learned a lot about reproducing drum tracks and these video-sharing platforms.

Drum Sticks on a Snare Drum

Choosing and Recording the Track

Not just any song can work for “Guess this”. The song needs to be relatively popular and have a distinctive beat or groove that can be recognized by non-drummers. That’s proven to be easier said than done, especially with songs within the last decade. As rock has been dying out, current pop songs are produced beats that simply repeat the same two measures. Using the iOS reminders app, I’ve put together a running list using my iOS reminders app of primarily rock songs over the last 50 years, and add to it as I encounter them.

My list of drum tracks

I’ve recorded my share of drum tracks, where I pay homage and offer my interpretation of the song. Approaching these songs, however, requires me to be faithful as possible to the original recordings, trying to emulate them to the best ability. Also, unlike a drum cover, I don’t need to nail the whole song, just aim for a solid 40-60 second segment for the video.

I do have to admit to cheating a bit: I load the original song into the Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) and record my take alongside the regular drum track. It helps keep me in check and enables me to compare the two parts. While I’m doing that, I load the track into the Moises App which enables me to break down the different instruments and create a drumless track. I then export the track back into the DAW, align it with the original then export the rendered track with my drums, followed by exporting a “drums only” track with the drums muted. All the while, I have my phone on the tripod, taking a video of the performance.

Once I have my footage, I import them into Adobe Premiere, line up the audio, and look for that distinctive 45-60 second clip I can use. I then find a point about 30-40 seconds into the song where I can transition from the “drums only” clip to reveal the song. After applying an audio fade between the tracks, I export the video and get it back onto my phone using OneDrive.

Posting the video

At this point, I have a rendered video with the final audio, but I now need to insert the clues. I’ve made it a point to use each video platform’s editing tools to apply the text, as I’ve read that videos are exported at a lower quality having the watermark can make the video perform worse.

Starting with Instagram, I import the video and get to work on the text.

  • The title: “Guess this song by its drum track.”
  • The year it was released
  • The genre – I usually get this from the Wikipedia entry
  • A hint, usually retrieved from SongFacts

After setting up the text, I set the duration, starting with the hint so that it appears for 8-10 seconds before the full song kicks in. I then work my way backward, setting the genre and release year around 5 seconds each. I leave the title up but have it disappear once the song is revealed. Before I move to the next screen, I copy the hint into Clipboard++ so that I can use it in the other apps. I go to the posting screen and set my title to “Guess this song by its drum track: “, increment the number, add some tags, then publish the video out into the world.

I then go to TikTok and Youtube and repeat the above steps.

Lessons I’ve Learned

These video platform algorithms are complete crapshoots, but I’ve noticed some trends in each platform:

  • Instagram has shown the most variance in my performance. My floor has around 250 views, my average is between 800-1000 views, and I’ve had a handful of videos go over 10k views (my highest being 14.4k). I also share the Reel on Facebook and those views tend to be in the 100-500 range.
  • TikTok has the lowest number of views, but the highest number of likes and comments. As far as views, I have videos that haven’t reached 100 views, but most tend to top out between 250-300. My highest-viewed video was at 2,200.
  • YouTube Shorts is the quickest to accumulate views but always tops out below 1,500. I’ve had a few videos that are duds out of the gate, at less than 40 views. The comments on YouTube are the meanest by far.

As far as video posting mobile apps, YouTube has the best editor for what I’m doing (which is quickly setting durations of text layers). Instagram’s Reels interface had the steepest learning curve, especially when it comes to setting durations.

My videos seem warmly received, for the most part. As I mentioned, YouTube commenters are especially critical, which increases with the popularity of the song. I’ve learned to simply remove the mean comments and not even warrant a response, but I swear that as soon as I remove a comment, YouTube slows down the view exposure.

I was worried that I would run out of songs, but after doing this for over 4 months, the number of songs on my “ToDo” list outnumbers the ones I’ve done. At this point, I’ve found this to be a really fun way to improve my drumming and play in this video space. It’s been a great outlet and I’m looking forward to the next 50!

Whether you use TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube shorts, I’d love for you to check out my videos and see how many you can get! I’m also taking song suggestions as well!

I don’t know how to fix Twitter

I don’t know how to fix Twitter

Romey

Nearly four years ago, I wrote How To Fix Twitter, suggesting that Twitter needed to make verification available for everyone for a nominal fee, then enable users to toggle “Verified” notifications to fix most of the interaction. In an extremely chaotic way, we’ve watched this play out and as it turns out Twitter remains just as toxic as ever and after losing a majority of its advertisers, this Titantic seems destined for the iceberg.

Where did I go wrong?

The problem is that people still see the Blue Checkmark as a status symbol of social validity, rather than actual verification. Twitter, still treating it as a status symbol, is now simply charging a tax for it. Given all the stories about fake accounts becoming verified, Twitter hasn’t bothered doing the verification. Given their massive layoffs, they don’t seem staffed to be able to verify anyone. To make matters worse, Twitter is now rolling out different classifications of verifications: gold for organizations (such as media outlets), and grey for government agencies. With more colors possibly on the way, the value of the blue checkmark is simply getting inflated.

I remain convinced that performing due diligence on verification could go a long way to fix the toxicity of Twitter and disincentivizing behavior from trolls and fake accounts. A transparent verification process – such as a government-issued ID, and disclosing the type of ID that was used in verification – would build up trust in the checkmarks.

With all that said, Twitter seems bent on a death spiral.

Recently they turned on the third-party clients in which Twitter’s ascendence was built, by blocking access to their API. Third-party clients are responsible for many of the features Twitter takes for granted, with Twitter’s own client being an acquired third-party client. Aside from technology, many of Twitter’s oldest and most enthusiastic users accessed the service through third-party clients. My guess is that Musk and Twitter leadership gutted the API team and saw this as a convenient opportunity to do away with the clients.

Twitter is cutting itself off at the knees with this decision. From the news I’ve read, it doesn’t seem that incorporating verification into Twitter Blue moved the needle on their subscriptions. With advertisers leaving in droves, Twitter’s API could have been a source of revenue for subscribers by requiring Twitter Blue in order to use a third-party client. However, it’s apparent that the API was likely lobotomized and won’t ever be back.

I’m still using Twitter, begrudgingly, but am finding myself using Mastodon more and more. After Tweetbot was shut down, the developers created Ivory. Using that client has unlocked the joy I’ve lost from using Twitter.

I’d love for you to come hang out with me on that platform if you’d like – mastodon.world/@jeromey