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If anything needs disruption, it's email and collaboration tools

Why is #Microsoft 365 so painful? I switched my little #startup’s accounts to Microsoft 365 for the balance of features and because it wasn’t Google. Over this last week, I needed to allow email forwarding for our help desk tickets. So I set up email forwarding following Microsoft’s guidance, using Outlook Web, or the Exchange admin panel (notably not the admin panel). But it doesn’t work. Some research shows I have to create or amend a policy (I’m now three admin panels deep) and it says it works but then says wait 24+ hours because amending policies requires time to authorise, they’ll do it for me says the message.

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How do I get micro.blog features (perhaps with boosting) with @[email protected] finesse? @manton

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A great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

A completed Lego model of London landmarks
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If you haven’t watched Good Omens, then do so quickly so you can watch Good Omens 2.

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I am about to import 128,000 photos back into #Apple #Photos, which I hope will then sync with #iCloud. Wish. Me. Luck. Long story short, I genuinely love my Synology NAS, but not for photos. They’re too collaborative, and Photos is far more accessible and intuitive.

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The Northern Territory has the same population as Southampton (250,000). The NT covers 1.4million km². Meanwhile, Southampton covers 51km². 1.4million km² is about France, Germany, Italy and the UK (population c250million). Southampton has a population density about five times higher than Melbourne.

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No, you’re having tomato ketchup with Beef Wellington.

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THIS is why we all hate measuring things in cups.

Table showing that 50g butter is 1/5 cups; and yet 100g butter is 2/5 cup + 1 tsp.
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We have this big fear that LLMs will appear human, convincing us they are rational when in fact they are just good at constructing statistically-compelling sentences, whether fact-based or not. The problem is, lots of humans do the same thing. And that scares me more.

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I’ve been watching Ted Lasso today. I don’t like football. But this TV show is one of the best shows I’ve watched recently. Funny, insightful and endearing. 10/10 recommend.

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Sign this petition to bring Picnic Day to the eastern states of Australia.

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What has attracted me to micro.blog has been that I can run both parts of my online identity (blog and microblogging interactions) from one place. It’s pretty nifty really.

I do wish the apps had the finesse that @[email protected] brought to mastodon. Maybe they’ll go that way in the future. I also miss hashtags and reblogging.

But all in all, I think this has been a good move, and trust that refinements will keep coming.

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Photos from an old post - between the Covid lockdowns (I think after the first one) we were able to travel in Victoria, provided we remained socially distanced. Ridiculous in retrospect, thankfully we chose to travel with isolation in mind! The company was contactless - and we had a wonderful time.

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I moved to micro.blog 🤩

Following a some conversation recently, I’ve migrated to micro.blog. Why? It promotes a hybrid #blogging format, both short- and long-form - discussion gravitates around each topic It’s fully #federated I can have my own identity, but don’t need to run #Mastodon any more It’s replaced both my blog and mastodon account It has a great UX, and apps for iOS and macOS (important for me) I get an automatic and rich website to replace my Ghost one, including tagged content, uploads and more.

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Making best use of a Synology NAS

I bought the NAS originally as a replacement for cloud backup. The back-story I'll cover in another post, but essentially it was to avoid leaking all my secrets into the great unknown (don't care about utility bills and CVs - but what about Passkeys, scans of passports, banking details and so on?) Since purchasing, it's been augmented with a UPS, because the reliability of the grid and home wiring in Australia has been shocking.

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An easy introduction to Passkeys

Apple and Google have now implemented Passkeys on their websites, and they and Microsoft have enabled them on their platforms following industry support for Passkeys. But what does it all mean? This article will give you a straightforward introduction to everything you need to know. It’s all about the ability to identify you [to e.g. your bank] This is all about identification of you, as a user, and the ability to tell you apart from others for the purposes of customising a website for you, protecting your data, or providing information to you that only you should receive.

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Why passwords are so bad, and what you should do about it

Passwords are important - they identify usWe use passwords to try to ascertain identity. So what are their pros and cons, and what should you do about it? Did you know they are being replaced? Check out my article on Passkeys top find out what that means for you.With passwords, you share something privateThe idea behind a password is that it's something only you and the other party (e.g. your bank) knows, so you can say "

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Today I cofounded Pointers - a site to help fast track your career

I am very excited - today I launched Professional Pointers with my co-founder, Brayden. Professional Pointers (Pointers) is a subscription platform where we will share video courses and written articles on everything we wish we knew in our careers. They'll be professionally made, and cover everything from first encounters (How do I manage a bad boss?) to advanced leadership and engineering skills. We've got a working website which allows us to publish content openly, to members (free to join) and to subscribers only, backed by Vimeo for UHD streaming to any device.

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I launched Moonlighter - and it came 8th place on Product Hunt!

I launched Moonlighter last week. It was a bit of a ride. It came 8th place for the day on Product Hunt, and has signed loads of users already! So next I'll be focussing on: Building those user numbers and conversionsIdentifying the right features to develop next - based on user feedbackMoonlighter helps you as a successful creator, by taking care of the details of managing all those ideas for products, their projects, features, issues, domains and more - freeing you to find, focus on, and build those winning ideas.

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How do we solve note taking?

I've always struggled taking notes. For personal projects and ideas, I love the creativity of clean sheets of paper. And for a one-off project, I'd happily use a nice notepad or journal. But recently I started a new job, and with it I have many actions to track, ideas, projects, issues and conversations. So now I think note taking needs to be a structured part of my life. But I can't (yet) make it work for me and stick.

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