A few days ago I wrote that this was the time to minimize my iPhone usage as an experiment for a day and…it mostly worked.
Instead of a phone, I brought the Kindle to catch up on my reading while I waited to get a haircut. It was pleasant. Not so pleasant was the other people queued up had their phones out and watching videos, or talking loudly into them. How very annoying. I don’t do this even with my phone on me. Rude.
I encountered two setbacks during this experiment: I needed to send Nikki off via courier, but didn’t have the shipping label, nor access to the email with the label on it so I had to go back home, retrieve the phone and try again. Success, but annoyed.
The next time the phone was turned on was during Snappy Hour so I can keep my daily streak and keep my 365/2024 photo project going. I knew this going in and that was supposed to be my one exception.
Overall, I did not miss the phone nor feel compelled to reach for it out of muscle memory and that encourages me to try again soon, maybe try three days instead of one. And then five and then…
A better part of the day was spent looking for .xml files that contain my old blog posts. I managed to find posts from 2006-2010 and then migrate those to another website as a semi-permanent record. 2010-2023 coming as soon as I import them into the new archive database. I am missing five years worth from 2001-2005 due to the fact that I lost the 3.5″ floppy disk during a move and never copied or backed it up anywhere else.
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Ideally, I’d love to have everything in one place on this current website here but, the current server configuration would shit the bed and I don’t want to deal with that mess right now.
The Archives can be found by clicking the Archives link in the menu above this article or here: https://cjdarchives.website
Just going through a few back up hard drives and re-discovering some past writings. I need to sort and get them all into one place instead of scattered. Yeesh, what a nightmare I’ve created.
This website has been relegated as a repository from all of my previous published articles from 2006-2023. I am missing five years worth from 2001-2005 due to the fact that I lost the 3.5″ floppy disk during a move and never copied or backed it up anywhere else. Damn. I need to do better at this.
Apple has built-in software into their devices that allows you to track how much usage they get during a determined period of time and it is simply called ScreenTime. I noticed my screen time using the iPhone this past week was pretty high and I wondered what can I do about this. I’m addicted to my phone and you are too probably. I am going to do something I have wanted to try for a long time- put the iPhone in my desk drawer and leave it alone for a few days.
My Apple Watch has cellular capability to make/receive calls and text (just like Dick Tracy from the 1940’s!) check the mail, remind me to take my meds, take voice notes, listen to music and podcasts through my AirPods, record workouts, navigate while driving or walking, etc.
Dick Tracy circa 1946
The only thing I would miss out on is taking photos, especially since I am on a 1-photo-a-day project with a specific camera. I may have to fire that phone up only ONCE a day just for this. The rest of the time I can carry a small camera with me.
Speaking of carrying things with me, instead of the iPhone I will bring a long a notebook, pen, e-reader, camera and wallet. Now, I know what you are thinking and…you’re right. Those are more cumbersome to carry than that large iPhone. But that isn’t the only goal, to minimize my everyday carry. The idea is to start weaning myself of the device dependency, remember?
Kobo e-reader, Field Notes, Zebra F-701 pen, Apple AirPods Pro 2, Apple Wallet & Watch
I want to be present and engaged by my surroundings and people. Instead of watching a mindless show and scrolling on my phone, I can just find a better show to absorb without distraction. I’ll be able to read more books. I will do everything I should be doing when I am not otherwise having a phone in my face.
We went out for dinner tonight and it was difficult to hear her across the table because of the family of five sitting across the restaurant with their music, videos and games blaring as they ignore each other. Uh-uh, not me. No way.
This isn’t for everyone, I am doing this as an experiment if you recall. I don’t believe the general public could last one hour without their screens sucking their souls out. Nor do I make judgements. But I do recommend giving it a go, just to see if you can. Try it for an hour then increase it if you make it that far.
Having multiple accounts should be nice and simple but leave it to me to complicate matters. Despite documenting all credentials and passwords, toggling back and forth has been frustrating. Yes, I blame myself, not .
I want to do an experiment soon to see if I can go without my iPhone for one day. I think we are too dependent on this damned thing. I’ll set up some alternatives that I use daily and then monitor the data with Apple Screentime.
In the early days in the life of this website, I never had a writing workflow. Each post was dumped from my brain to the keyboard with a shrug and a push of a button to send. Over time, I picked up tools such as converting all-in to the Apple ecosystem and accompanying software that manifested into a more thoughtful and organized work path.
First things first, I need ideas. These come from various input/output sources, such as reading frequently, or having multiple creative outlets. From here, ideas formulate and sometimes appear after connecting a string of previously consumed inputs/outputs to connect the dots. These go into a file on my personal database, Grey Matter. I’ll let them percolate in my brain for a bit, do some research, check sources and relax. Now I have something to write about.
These ideas generate from multiple inputs such as a book I am reading, RSS feeds from other’s personal websites, X, formerly known as Twitter, Substack, et al. Once I see an article I’d like to return to I will send it to Matter to read it later and delete the rest. Inside Matter, I will return to a saved article, highlight the interesting bits and add my notes and initial thoughts into the marginalia.
Now it is time to sit down to the MacBook Pro, open up the Ulysses writing software and draft an outline. That’s the skeleton of the article, so it’s time to flesh it out. Here’s where everything from the inputs, the outputs and my thoughts just start flowing into this massive article, not caring about grammar, spelling or formatting yet. Eventually, there are words and paragraphs that need to be paired down and culled. Inside Ulysses there are helpful tools that checks for grammatical mistakes, typos, punctuation, etc., and prompts me to make the needed changes before publishing the draft to my website.
Image 1: time to edit that down – Image 2: time to edit those mistakes
Now that the draft is in, it’s time to format and design of the article because it is a mixture of design, photography, etc. To get an over-all visual I run a new branch in Git that runs a new file with metadata such as title, author, date.
—
title: ${title}
date: “${date}”
type: ${type}
tags:
notoc: true
cover: cover.jpg
coversocial: social.jpg
path: /blog/${path}/
description: write description here
—
write content here
—
Afterward, the header image is added — always in black and white to maintain consistency and an overall clean look. Colors can be too distracting, I think.
Once the article is ready to post, I ensure whether to distribute as an article, to my newsletter subscribers and always out to RSS.
According to Ulysses, this article will take you almost two minutes to consume on your device, less if you are scanning, so you can hurry and go check your social feeds (lol.)
I was enjoying this playlist while editing this article:
When trying something new, it is okay to feel uncertain and hesitant, right? Well here I go anyway.
Connect-
My content lives here, on my one-man publishing house. Everything here is under my control and it’s then dispersed through three distribution channels.
The first, and most obvious, is the world wide web itself. My content is distributed to you via the Internet. You can ask your browser to get this page you’re reading right now and get access to my content.
The second is RSS. You can tell your RSS reader to fetch the content available on my website and you can then consume my content inside your app of choice.
The final one is email. I send my newsletter via email because some people prefer to stay up to date that way as well as reply back with further comments and discussion.
These three methods only take care of distribution and distribution of content is only part of the equation. You then have interaction. The point of putting content out there is to connect, to interact with others, to exchange ideas, and to grow. And interactions, through my website domain, happen mostly through comments on an article here or by email.
Support-
In the past twenty-two years that I have owned a website, never, not once, have I subjected anyone to spam, affiliate links or advertising. It’s repugnant and distracts from the messages I want to get across. Nothing has changed in that regard. You now have the option to support me and this website (self hosting costs aren’t cheap,) in many ways such as contributing to the conversation in the posts, adding me to your RSS feed readers and by dropping me a line into my e-mail inbox to hello@chrisdenbow.website.
After all these years of building websites and working on side projects, I realized that this is the only way for me to approach the whole donations/monetization part of what I do. $0 per month gives you access to the articles and newsletters I post. If you want to support for $5 or $10/month for all that plus extras, that’s awesome as well. I’d be grateful either way and your kindness won’t go unnoticed.
Between you and me, there is no obligation and I certainly don’t have an expectant hand out, but the options are out there now.
I just said goodbye to the $112 Adobe Lightroom annual subscription, again. Now I need to dismantle my Portfolio. I’ll let the $75 annual Flickr subscription lapse to and see which of the 47k+ images they’ll cull down to 1,000 on a free account.
This leaves me with nowhere to post my photos since I really do not want to do that on my blog. Not that it matters because no one sees them anyway.
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UPDATE 2024/02/27: I have decided to go with an inexpensive, self-hosting option on my server using the Piwigo template. Right now it is basic and barebones, but I will build it out over time. For now, here it is naked: http://www.photodenbow.com
Why bother with any of it?
However, I will save money and time by not futzing with any of it, regardless of how much enjoyment and utility I received from those services.
With Apple support, I have gained partial access to some devices except my MacBook and AirPods.
Apparently they are signed in on another, older Apple ID.
I have been attempting to add/drop devices onto old ID and try again on new ID but now the password suddenly fails on the old ID? I call BS as I wait one hour for a security reset.
