Just fixing bugs on one of my iOS apps tonight while my work PC chugs away generating analytical reports from a program I’ve been working on for weeks now.

I just upgraded my Mac’s external display from a large but mostly awful 28"4K TN panel from Dell to the “BenQ PD2700U 27 inch 4K UHD IPS Monitor”. It is way, way better—almost as good as getting a new set of eyes.

I’m super happy that I did not install the iOS and iPadOS betas on any of my devices yet, based on the comments I have seen from other iOS developers. I don’t really have “test” devices lying around that I wouldn’t mind getting screwed up for a couple months, anyway.

Once I figure out how to fit them on my shelf, I will probably pick up at least one Raspberry Pi 4.

I use two older ones so far for:

• Pi-hole server (DNS/ad-blocking)
• Homebridge server (to control my Nest thermostat via Sirit & HomeKit)

I could use one or more newer, faster Pis for:

• A VPN server
• A self-hosted RSS back-end for Reeder (accessible via the VPN)
• A download server that connects to my NAS (I used to use a Raspberry Pi for this, but it was really, really slow)

I could, of course, replace all of these single-purpose servers with a single Intel box running virtual machines. I have not found such a thing at a good price, or that runs silently. My NAS box, currently running FreeNAS, is off limits right now when it comes to adding Internet-facing services. It is also too old and under-resourced to dedicate chunks of its RAM to virtual machines.

I’m excited about the newly announced Raspberry Pi 4, especially about the news that it will have gigabit Ethernet that is not tied to is USB bus. I have several older generation ones (I skipped gen. 3) that are in use as little servers in my house. I wish, however, that the form factor was a little neater for cabling. I don’t like having power and Ethernet on different sides. (I probably need some kind of Raspberry Pi server rack, if such a thing exists.)

I set up a new email address at my own domain, and now I’m deleting almost every email from my Gmail account that wasn’t sent to me by my wife…as you do.

From Vox:

Facebook doesn’t have much consumer trust. But it does have a hell of a lot of consumers.

And that’s enough to make Libra, the new virtual coin that Facebook is announcing on Tuesday, the most consequential cryptocurrency effort undertaken in several years.

I have done a lot of research on cryptocurrencies for work, and keep coming back to my thoughts that they are a scam. Bitcoin works like a pyramid scheme, where the early adopters (the early miners) gain the lions share of wealth, once the value of the coin increases, due to the way that mining works. In the best case scenario of cryptocurrency use, some companies will do an end run around the current financial system intermediaries, and insert themselves as the new financial system intermediaries. Meanwhile, cryptocurrency holders/customers are trading worthless bits they can’t pay their taxes with.

🎵 I was happy to discover today that NPR has added curated playlists to Apple Music. It will be another, alternative source of new music recommendations for me.

SwiftUI is definitely the way forward for development on all Apple platforms, and I am excited about it. That said, it is only going to be supported on new OS releases going forward. My plan is to support the current version of iOS and macOS going forward for at least a year, which will make it challenging for me to switch my UI code to SwiftUI at that time. Next fall, however, when Apple’s OS cycle turns over again, would be a great time for me to finish up SwiftUI-based rewrites and push them to production. I have a lot of prep work I can do in the meantime.

My wife and I baked a cake for her mother’s birthday. It was really good!

🎵 Somehow I made it from Beats 1 to Robyn Hitchcock’s “Chronology”, which is a fun listen but very far afield from the hip-hop I started the day with.

🎵 It’s a Beats 1 morning for me. I don’t often listen to Beats 1, but today I had no idea what to listen to while I worked.

Thompson Park

Thompson Park

Marlu Lake

Turtles at Marlu Lake

Marlu Lake

One of the bat houses I saw today. For some reason, I thought they were really cool.

🎵 Texas 25 is a great pop (ahem, blue-eyed soul) album. The band reworked eight of their hits, and added four new songs, to celebrate their 25th anniversary.

Ocean Grove, New Jersey

My MacBook Pro came back to me with a brand new top case and all its data intact. It looks great. I hope it gives me a couple more years of service.

Ocean Grove, New Jersey

FedEx just sent me a text saying I have a delivery scheduled today, which can only mean that my MacBook Pro is coming back to me from Apple’s repair center. Apple never gave me a case number, sent me an email, put a record of the repair on its support website, or gave me any idea that it knew that it had my laptop. It seems weird to me to get no type of receipt after handing over my laptop, but if it comes back today, all is well in the end, I guess.

Ocean Grove, New Jersey

Ocean Grove, New Jersey