Screenshot of the new “PC do Manual”, on the "About" page, in a Safari for macOS window.

Mock-up of MSN Messenger for Windows XP adapted as an iOS app on iPhone 11.

https://twitter.com/helvetiica/status/1490747541012549635

iOS print of Bei Li, Mastoot creator, on Mastodon: “Update on Mastoot:
Firstly, sorry for no updates over the past year. During this time, I quit my job and relocated to Osaka, Japan. As a result, along with other life commitments, I was unable to maintain Mastoot adequately, leaving it in a state of neglect.

Now that l have time to work on Mastoot again, l'd like to start with minimal and prioritize features driven by user feedback this time.

Additionally, I'll implement features at a relatively slower pace to ensure quality.”

In A quiet place, horrible and hypersensitive monsters kill human beings who make any noise. May my peers forgive me, but I think the monsters in the movie h...

A noisy place

https://notes.ghed.in/posts/2024/a-noisy-place/

No final de 2023, descolei um mini PC para realizar experimentos diversos. Nesta semana, pus em prática um deles: usar (quase que) exclusivamente Linux. Ao longo da semana, registrei as dificuldades…

Uma semana usando Linux

https://manualdousuario.net/semana-usando-linux/

A desk with computers, display, accessories and mobile devices.

Picture of a mini PC on a white table, opened, with a NVMe SSD besides it.

A screenshot of “How to be less pessimistic?” blog post, in a macOS Safari window.

https://notes.ghed.in/posts/2024/how-to-be-less-pessimistic/

White page with black pt-BR text on it, opened in a macOS Safari window.

Screenshot of “The “follow” button is Substack's attempt to extinguish newsletter competition” post on my blog, in a macOS Safari window.

https://notes.ghed.in/posts/2024/substack-follow-button/

Screenshot of a post entitled “Reply guys” in my blog, in a macOS Safari window.

https://notes.ghed.in/posts/2024/reply-guys/

Apple doesn’t care about you personally in the least tiny bit, and if you were in their way somehow, they would do whatever their might — effectively infinite compared to your own — enables them to deal with you.

inessential: Corporations Are Not To Be Loved

https://inessential.com/2024/01/17/corporations_are_not_to_be_loved

Screenshot of “Android features I'm envy of as an iPhone user” post in a macOS Safari window.

https://notes.ghed.in/posts/2024/android-features-envy-iphone/

AI stealing our work. The collapse of social networks. The need to pay journalists to produce impactful journalism. Here is why we are asking for your email address to read 404 Media.

We Need Your Email Address

https://www.404media.co/why-404-media-needs-your-email-address/

Screenshot of Dead Simple Sites, featuring mine (second on the grid).

Today we are introducing new plans and pricing for new Fastmail customers, offering prices in many global currencies and launching some great deals to get your whole family on Fastmail.

New Family Plans and Pricing

https://www.fastmail.com/blog/new-family-plans-and-pricing/

Screenshot of manualdousuario.net, showing its header with a big logo and a labels and icons horizontal menu.

A table with cuscuz, scrambled eggs, plates and cups.

Screenshot of a short post regarding text messaging apps as the universal UI/UX in a macOS Safari window.

https://notes.ghed.in/posts/2024/text-messages-universal-ui/

WordPress 6.5 supports AVIF, a modern image format that offers significant improvements in image quality and compression over previous formats like JPEG, PNG, and even WebP.  AVIF images can b…

WordPress 6.5 adds AVIF support

https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/02/23/wordpress-6-5-adds-avif-support/

A screenshot of rodrigo.ghed.in in macOS Safari.

Header of a site, with its logo and a paragraph acting as a menu.

Screenshot of a blogpost entitled “Almost no one cares if your site is not on social media” on a macOS Safari window.

https://notes.ghed.in/posts/2024/no-one-cares-site-on-social-media/

Screenshot of the post text translated to Portuguese using macOS default translator.

Bar chart with a huge bar in a day. The others turned into very thin lines.

Screenshot of my post regarding EU browser choice screen from DMA, in a macOS Safari screen.

https://notes.ghed.in/posts/2024/browser-choice-europe-dma/

Direct comparison of Android 15 and iOS 17 status bar icons.

https://www.androidauthority.com/android-15-new-status-bar-3430578/

Screenshot of Thunderbird showing Post.cv's sign in message in plain text, without a link to log in.

Screenshot of “Plain text email” post in Notes, a blog by Rodrigo Ghedin, in a macOS Safari window.

https://notes.ghed.in/posts/2024/plain-text-email/

Screenshot of my post “Hiding my face on the internet” in a macOS Safari window.

https://notes.ghed.in/posts/2024/hiding-my-face-internet/

Ello launched in 2014 with big dreams, but the artsy social network suddenly shut down last year, deleting nine years of posts without warning. What happened?

The Quiet Death of Ello's Big Dreams - Waxy.org

https://waxy.org/2024/01/the-quiet-death-of-ellos-big-dreams/

Am I too comfortable using Apple Mail? After all, it’s almost a decade using it daily. After going through several other email apps this weekend, I got the i...

Where are the good email apps?

https://notes.ghed.in/posts/2024/good-email-apps-where/

Screenshot of “The beauty of free and open source software” post in my blog, rendered in a macOS Safari window.

https://notes.ghed.in/posts/2024/the-beauty-of-foss/

Screenshot of a blog post, with the text below:

In September 2023, Google announced the end of Google Podcasts in favor of YouTube Music. At some point after that, an exact date for the closure appeared: April 2nd, 2024.

It turns out that this deadline only applies to the United States. In a post on the Google forums for podcasters, dated March 18th, a company employee, Cory Peter, explains that Google Podcasts will be discontinuing in the rest of the world on June 24th. Those who trust the Google’s app to listen to podcasts have almost three months to export their subscriptions to another app.

https://notes.ghed.in/posts/2024/end-google-podcast-rest-of-world/

Working on a redesign of our open source applications server site https://pcdomanual.com

MSN Messenger on the iPhone. (The font simulating text on 2000s low-resolution screens is awesome.)

🔗 https://twitter.com/helvetiica/status/1490747541012549635

Any Mastodon user here? On iOS? I just discovered Mastoot, a free app that's a pleasure to use — it's simple, snappy, the kind of app I really enjoy. It's a little neglected, although working fine, but development is about to begin again!

I wrote about our noisy environments and earplugs that I use to protect my eardrums: https://notes.ghed.in/posts/2024/a-noisy-place/

I just published my journey using Linux (Debian, KDE Plasma) for a week. It was a wild ride, now in +3.1k words. I hope to translate my conclusions to English as soon as possible, but if you can read in Portuguese, here it's: https://manualdousuario.net/semana-usando-linux/

Earlier today I posted my annual “what I use” in my pt_BR blog. Wondering if I translate it to English…

I just upgraded the SSD of our home server — 120 to 480 GB, and an SSD ~6x faster. Take notes, Apple (or antitrust regulators and legislators)!

Trying something new this week: using only open source apps on macOS. I hope this helps to smooth an eventual transition to a full-time Linux usage.

Any thoughts?

🔗 https://notes.ghed.in/posts/2024/how-to-be-less-pessimistic/

Hello, world! On my first post at Posts, a screenshot of my personal website. (I'm not a designer, so ignore its simplicity, please. Also, excuse me for any writing mistake; English is my second language.)

This was an easy call, nonetheless it's concerning to see Substack's attempt to dominate newsletters' market. Welcome to their extinguish phase.

🔗 https://notes.ghed.in/posts/2024/substack-follow-button/

I fell into a rabbit hole and wasted this morning digging the ~100,000 messages from my personal email stored since 2004, deleting transactional emails and large attachments. Why do I do this to myself? I don't know.

I haven't seen “reply guys” in Posts, but they are everywhere.

🔗 https://notes.ghed.in/posts/2024/reply-guys/

The newest, shiniest calendar apps — Hey and Notion — lack CalDAV or any open standard support. No matter how pretty their UI is, this is a deal breaker for me.

Soon or later, everyone interested in technology for human beings wakes up to the fact that proprietary software is a dead end. I'm trying to leave Apple ecosystem behind and I hope to achieve this goal in 2024.

https://inessential.com/2024/01/17/corporations_are_not_to_be_loved

Started sending my newsletter in plain text. It's awesome. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication yada yada yada.

Truth to be told, there are a lot that Android can do that iOS simply can't.

🔗 https://notes.ghed.in/posts/2024/android-features-envy-iphone/

A bummer for the open web. And, honestly and with all due respect, the AI issue isn't too different from what human editors have been doing since… ever? (I get it that the scale is in another level, but still)

https://www.404media.co/why-404-media-needs-your-email-address/

My humble personal site was featured at deadsimplesites.com I loved they translated it to English — a reminder to do it myself!

Any fellow Fastmail users here? I noticed that my storage quota bumped to 50 GB and now I know why 💡

https://www.fastmail.com/blog/new-family-plans-and-pricing/

A little email lifehack: add “guest post” to your spam filter. Instant fix for those annoying “opportunities” from casinos/sporting bet interested in link building.

Any ideas on how to improve this blog header?

To people that replaced iPhone orGoogle Android for LineageOS, GrapheneOS, degoogle Android in general: what conveniences that you miss from old phone/OS?

The only thing I can think of is Apple/Google Wallet, to make contactless payments. I'd appreciate other tidbits.

Today our breakfast was cuscuz (a Brazilian “farofa” made of corn) with cheese and scrambled eggs. It was delicious 😋

Linux at its finest: found a solution to be able to adjust the brightness of my external display, a multi-step involving even some kernel modules stuff. Finish setting things up. Doesn't work. Search online for solutions. There's an open issue regarding this very exactly problem.

I mostly use Signal to talk to people and I love it and what it represents, but iMessage is so tightly integrate in Apple ecosystem (plus, its desktop app isn't an Electron monstrosity). Sometimes I feel guilty for preferring iMessage over Signal 🫣

I’ve been thinking about how text messaging apps, such as WhatsApp and iMessage, have become the dominant UI/UX to solve problems, organize events, deal with companies and other social interactions.

🔗 https://notes.ghed.in/posts/2024/text-messages-universal-ui/

An unexpected issue when giving Linux (Fedora 39, Gnome 45) a spin is how awful its typography is. Does anyone know how to make it look a little better?

Today is WordPress 6.5 day! Looking forward to native AVIF images support: https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/02/23/wordpress-6-5-adds-avif-support/

I've been using AVIF images on my site using a workaround. With the official support, I plan to drop the fallback to *.png/*.jpg

Are you using passkeys? If so, how has it been your experience so far?

My new website. (“Olá” means “Hello” in pt_BR)

#accessibility Posts should add decoration/underline to links. Even for non-blind people (as in: me) it's hard to notice links in posts (slightly darker color, without any decoration).

Trying a more informative, denser header, replacing a traditional menu with a paragraph that acts like one. What do you think?

What is your opinion about avatars on social networks that are not the real photo of the person?

In March, I ran an experiment in my Portuguese-written blog: I stopped distributing its content on social media and messaging apps.

🔗 https://notes.ghed.in/posts/2024/no-one-cares-site-on-social-media/

Business owners: have you ever wanted to simplify, reduce, do less in your business, even if that mean a cut in revenue?

The most underrated macOS feature for bilingual people

A minor hit on Hacker News distorts your site's stats

Browser companies are boasting downloads increasing in EU due to DMA. It seems nice at first glance, but I think browser choice screens are a bad way to fight Chrome and Safari monopolies.

🔗 https://notes.ghed.in/posts/2024/browser-choice-europe-dma/

Android 15 new status bar icons are an iOS carbon copy.

🔗 https://www.androidauthority.com/android-15-new-status-bar-3430578/

Posts.cv doesn't expose the magic/login link in plain text emails. This is easy to fix and would make this place more accessible

We'd live in a better world if HTML email didn't exist (or plain text email was the default).

🔗 https://notes.ghed.in/posts/2024/plain-text-email/

Two unrelated events — the birth of someone’s baby close to me and a site that generates random ugly avatars — led me to rethink the exposure to which I submit, almost always voluntarily, on the internet.

🔗 https://notes.ghed.in/posts/2024/hiding-my-face-internet/

What a history! 

https://waxy.org/2024/01/the-quiet-death-of-ellos-big-dreams/

As someone who appreciates email and prefers it over other ways to communicate by text, it saddens me the state native email clients for desktop OSs. Apple Mail is so ahead of competition (Thunderbird comes as a far runner): https://notes.ghed.in/posts/2024/good-email-apps-where/

The beauty of free and open source software (FOSS) licenses is the possibilities that it opens up for better futures to abandoned or spoiled software.

🔗 https://notes.ghed.in/posts/2024/the-beauty-of-foss/

Is anyone here into Gemini (the protocol)?

I started a refactoring of my site's CSS. So far, I reduced non-minified version from 33.9 KB to 24.7, or -27.3%. At first I thought it would be good for performance; now, I'm more interested in simplifying and leveraging browsers' defaults.

PSA: Google Podcasts' discontinuing today (April 2nd) only applies to the US. For the rest of world, the app will keep working until June 24th.

🔗 https://notes.ghed.in/posts/2024/end-google-podcast-rest-of-world/