I have been working on a PowerShell and SQL-heavy project at work for about a week now. To facilitate PowerShell development, I installed and configured Visual Studio Code, which is Microsoft’s Electron-based code editor. I was not a fan of Visual Studio Code (hereafter called, simply, Code), due mainly to its lumbering speed when compared to Sublime Text, and somewhat, too, due to its brutalist design aesthetic.

I must say, after using it for PowerShell development and debugging, that Code has grown on my quite a lot. I can develop, run, and debug PowerShell scripts in an IDE environment, edit Markdown files, and can even run SQL commands against my SQL Server Express instance (though query running is really slow compared to SQL Server Management Studio). There are many, many powerful extensions—way more than I would have expected. Some of them let me do other useful things, like convert delimited files to Excel right in the editor, that just aren’t possible in Sublime Text.

There are some drawbacks, though. RAM use is extremely high—nearly a gig even when there is only one file open—and runs, for me, about ten times as much RAM as Sublime Text uses. Also, it is really slow compared to Sublime Text. Loading even small files takes a few seconds, and I have to wait for syntax highlighting to be applied to the files after they are displayed in the editor for the first time. Still, I am liking it, and am using it, more and more.

I have noticed that, since the Apple Card was released, the other credit card companies that I have cards from have substantially updated their apps, cribbing many of Apple Card’s features. From my perspective, the rising tide has raised all boats.

Per Chaim Gartenberg of The Verge:

After months of teasers and trailers, HBO has finally announced a release date for its upcoming His Dark Materials TV series, which is adapted from the popular fantasy book series by Philip Pullman. It’ll premiere on November 4th on HBO and a day earlier (on November 3rd) on BBC One in the UK.

This is something I am excited about—excited enough to subscribe to HBO again to watch—despite not absolutely loving Philip Pullman’s books or the movie version of The Golden Compass.

I expect to be getting a new, very powerful Windows 10 laptop soon. I plan to install Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, SQL Server Express, some kind of Git client, LastPass, maybe iCloud Drive, maybe FireFox, and nothing else. (Just watch: I’ll get into PC gaming somehow.)

It looks like somebody at TidBits forgot to replace the boilerplate text in one of their RSS feed entries today. 😆

Per Brian Seifert of The Verge:

The big new feature this year is an always-on display option so you can see the time without having to move your wrist, something that has been asked for since the Apple Watch first debuted in 2015.

Apple is going to sell boatloads of Series 5 watches to upgraders, due to the new, always-on display. That is the one feature—and pretty much the only feature—I wish my Apple Watch 4 had.

Apple is also permanently dropping the price of the Series 3 to $199, matching the lowest sale price on that model we’ve seen

Apple will also sell boatloads of Series 3 watches at the new, lower price, too. Apple is wisely going down-market with their older watch models, just like they do with the older iPhone models.

Why is Amazon Cloud Drive turning off all third-party app access? Is that service being folded? I’m glad I did not go all in on it a few years ago.

I will try to watch the Apple keynote later and get a hint of what my next iPhone will be, next year. I’m still rocking the 7 Plus.

I feel really good about the work-related code I wrote today for loading a database (via T-SQL and PowerShell), but I concluded, at the end of the day, that I have to rearrange all the components, and basically rewrite it, tomorrow.

As great as git is, every six months or so I find a way to completely mess up one of my repositories. 😤

I’m digging through documentation into the SQL Server bulk copy command (BCP) this morning, so that I don’t have to reinvent the wheel with my next project.

Tonight, I’m fixing more bugs that I wish my app did not have. 😬

We took the kids to the park, and later ate lunch outside, to take advantage of today’s lovely September weather.

I picked up “Dead Cells” for the Nintendo Switch this evening, and had a blast going through it for an hour or so. I found it really easy to get into and a lot of fun.

I love the richness of Jerry Orbach’s baritone on this recording of “Try to Remember” from The Fantasticks. The lyrics are simple, deep, and beautiful, too.

Try to remember the kind of September / when you were a tender and callow fellow

I like to put this song on repeat when September begins. It’s the sort of song that moves into my psyche and stays with me for a long time.

From Matt Stevens of the New York Times:

In a letter to supporters, Mr. Schultz said he had concluded that an independent bid would pose too great a risk of helping President Trump win a second term.

No kidding.

I had almost forgotten about Howard Schultz’s completely underthought, hubristic, and irresponsible foray into the U.S. presidential race. I’m glad he finally saw reason.

I have spent a ton of time this evening and last with Xcode’s memory graph afeature nd in Instruments, tracking down memory leak bugs. I’m glad I can do this, but it isn’t exactly what I thought I would be working on this week.

Chaim Gartenberg of The Verge brings some exciting and long overdue news from Apple:

Apple Music is getting a big expansion today with a new web interface that will let subscribers stream music directly from a browser without having to install iTunes or a separate Apple Music app. The new web interface launches today as a public beta for subscribers at beta.music.apple.com.

I probably won’t use it too much, because I have the full suite of Apple devices at my disposal, but it would be nice to use Apple Music on my Windows laptop without having to install or use iTunes.

I RMA’d my daughter’s ChromeBook yesterday. There was about one week left before the 1-year warranty ran out. ASUS paid for the shipping label, which was unexepected but nice of them. Hopefully they will resolve the problem quickly.

I baked and ate some desserts over the holiday weekend, and now my keto-adapted body is, once-again, carb curious. Fortitude!

John Sundell (@johnsundell) is (still) killing it with Swift by Sundell. I love his new, statically generated (by Swift) website.

Per Joe Rossignol and Steve Moser in MacRumors:

Apple is developing a Tile-like accessory that will help users keep track of their personal belongings, such as their keys, wallets, and backpacks, according to an internal build of iOS 13 seen by MacRumors.

I am a Tile user, and have been for years. I tried and gave up on Tile’s main competitor, Trackr, because Tile worked better, despite its higher cost. I use a Tile once every few weeks or so to find my keys, but in the past I have used them to track our cars and luggage, too. A Tile fails to work when is when it is out of range of a Tile user’s mobile phone, which is pretty much all the time in the suburbs where I live.

Though it ultimately depends on price, I expect I would switch from Tile to an Apple Tile-like device, if Apple ever actually releases one. My main reasoning is that they would probably be far more popular than the Tile or the Trackr, which means that there will be more people will be tied into their network. Apple will have to allow people to opt into being part of the “Find My Item” network, I suppose, but I still think many would do so.

Of course, on the day before school starts for my daughter, her $500 ChromeBook dies due to battery problems. The ASUS flaky support website is making me yearn for Apple’s support.

I’d like to extend a hearty thank you to whoever invented Safari Reader Mode. I miss it so much on my Windows 10 work computer, on which I have to run Chrome.

I do not think my apps will be updated in time for iOS 13. Fortunately, it appears that iOS 13 will also not be ready in time for iOS 13.