Just wondering, does anyone use the “menu” key on the bottom right of their computer keyboards? I feel like I should start trying to, to see if I can rely on the mouse (well, in my case trackball) a little bit less in Word and Excel.

I find myself listening to fewer podcasts, but more podcast ads (I don’t skip them as often), now that I’ve been social-isolating for so long. I want to hear the soothing voices of my favorite podcast hosts talk about something other than Covid-19.

I learned this morning that lawn services are up and running my neighborhood. I guess they are “essential services”; who knew? It’s a good thing and a bad thing, really. I detest the noise, which never seems to stop in my neighborhood, but my kids do need the lawn mowed, especially now that their only playground is our back yard.

I spent more time tricking out my Visual Studio Code install today. I installed the Local History extension, which, after some configuration, will save a copy of every file I edit, every time I save them, to a folder tree on my machine. I had something like this on Sublime Text for years, but this is even better. It integrates the the editor, and shows diffs between versions.

I kind of wish I had COBOL skills to help out my state right now. Why can’t the state retirement systems run on Swift? (I kid!)

I created an even more useful Excel VBA module that lets you resize the currently selected chart to cover, exactly, a range of one or more cells. You specify the range after you run the macro.

I created an Excel VBA module for resizing the active chart to a (hard-coded) standard size. This sort of thing is useful at work when developing reports.

The March 2020 Visual Studio Code update just came out. Microsoft and the community are adding feature after feature to it at an astounding pace. As long as you have a fast computer, it is an amazing programmer’s editor and Git client now.

I don’t know what took me so long to think to do this, but today I coded a VBA module with macros that increase and decrease Excel row height by one row at a time. I call them via the “Quick Access” toolbar, which is easy to customize.

Arq Backup 6 was just released. It is really compelling software if you want to “roll your own” backup service, rather than use something tightly integrated with the back-end, like BackBlaze. I’m very glad, now, that I bought a lifetime license when Arq Backup 5 came out, four years ago. I got a free (as in, already paid for) upgrade! Arq Backup 6 is much simpler looking than prior versions were. It is set up almost like a web app. Unfortunately, it no longer looks and feels much like a Mac app, which is one of the things that brought me to it in the first place. I don’t use its main UI that much anyway, though, so that probably is not a big deal.

Bernie Sanders dropped out of the race. It is amazing that I didn’t get a New York Times news alert about this.

This story about Wisconsin’s primary election is very upsetting. It is yet another symptom of a larger problem: American democracy is in deep, deep trouble, now that Republicans, who need low voter turnout to win elections, have taken over the Judiciary.

Neutron stars are so strange. I was recently trying to explain them to my daughter, who just got really interested in black holes and cosmology. I wonder if she would be able to follow Randal Monroe’s explainer in the New York Times today.

Pixelmator Photo, my photo editing app of choice on iOS, dropped a new version with more great features. I love this app, because it is very easy to use, and it integrates very well with Apple Photos. I hope that, someday, it does not become subscription-only, because I don’t know if i use it quite enough to justify a monthly payment.

🎵 I am enjoying “Future Nostalga” by Dua Lipa.

📚 Most of my “social isolation” reading has been the Kenzie-Gennaro series of detective novels by Dennis Lehane. I had read the fourth, “Gone Baby Gone”, back in 2007, the year its movie adaptation came out, without realizing it was part of a series. In my opinion, the first one is pretty good, the second is a lot better, and the third is starting out even better than the second.

It looks like I’m not the only person who moved to Apple Books recently. Bradley Changers at 9to5Mac did, too. Now I kind of want an iPad Mini just for reading, though.

Sort of by accident, and mostly because it is the default choice, I have switched my ebook reading to Apple Books on my iPad (mostly) and iPhone (sometimes). To my surprise, it looks really good and works very well. I just wish I could choose a custom font.

Corona beer halts production during coronavirus pandemic. This is so stupid, but I get it.

I am not super thrilled about the articles and online advice entreating us to make our own protective masks. I don’t think I have the skills or the raw materials necessary for these projects—and, considering I can barely buy soap or paper towels right now, it is probably very difficult to acquire them.

Well, I just (and finally) submitted my household’s census form. It was really quick and easy. Everyone in the US should get it done soon. It is vital to be counted: representation in government and social services money of all kinds are tied to population counts determined by the census.

Adam Schlesinger Dies of Coronavirus Complications at 52. This sucks. Fountains of Wayne is one of my favorite bands, and Schlesinger’s more recent work on “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” was really entertaining, too.

In a way, I’m happy that Apple is acquiring Dark Sky, because it is a great weather service, and Apple probably wants to own its own weather information service at this point. It sucks that they will be closing their API to third party apps at the end of next year, though. Open, relatively inexpensive weather data APIs let a ton of interesting and beautiful mobile and web apps blossom over the past ten years or so, and that time is slowly coming to an end.

I haven’t been microblogging lately because I just don’t know what to say anymore.

🎵 Today’s listen: “I Miss Britpop.” So do I, Apple Music, so do I.