Apple is successfully getting me to put HomePod Minis all over my house. Bought one, liked it for my smaller rooms, so I’m slowly adding more. They all have U1 chips and Thread radios. I hope Apple takes advantage of this new network of devices. So long, Sonos.
Posts in: Apple
I installed a Lutron Caseta in-wall dimmer switch for the hallway today. Before it was wired as a 3-way so one switch is now a wired dimmer and the other switch is now a Pico remote (with adapter for switch box install). Real nice. Caseta is solid for home automation w/HomeKit.
My New Markdown Editing and Preview Apps
MultiMarkdown Composer and Marked 2 fit my Markdown needs perfectly. One key item is that I can drag a photo into the MultiMarkdown window and it’ll insert the image syntax with relative paths. For some reason that feature I need is astonishingly rare on other editors I’ve trialed. MultiMarkdown Composer can be set to automatically launch Marked 2 for previews and proofing – real nice. It is a bonus that Marked 2 can easily preview MarsEdit in-progress posts too.
I like Apple Fitness+. HIIT workouts are accessible for a newbie. The trainers make me feel at ease and not judged (it’s irrational). I exercise daily for mental and then cardio health. Usually I’m on an elliptical watching Netflix or I go for a brisk walk.
Annual caramel making. These seem 👌and perfectly plastic. Here’s a series of photos showing sugar mixture color at ~300°F, 320°F, near 340°F, after cream & butter added, and cooling to finish. Stressful making these as one errant crystal can cause it all to crystallize.
Unidentified hummingbird enjoying rosemary flowers today. Maybe a Black Chin. Doesn’t seem to have the colorations of an Anna’s.
macOS Big Sur TimeMachine and Bootable External Drives
If you have any bootable APFS containers on an external drive, macOS Big Sur will not allow you to assign any of the containers on that drive to TimeMachine. I had to delete my SuperDuper! volumes, but SuperDuper! doesn’t work yet on Big Sur anyway. Here goes another reorg of my external drives! Hope I don’t need to buy another. But dang TimeMachine on an SSD is incredibly fast.
Pecan Squares instead of Peacan Pie. And as we’re not having Thanksgiving with anyone, dessert is a day early! 😋
New M1 Mac Mini on the way
I bought a new M1 Mac Mini, 8gb RAM with 1 TB SSD for home server duties and testing software (like Homebrew) I need for a non-server machine. I’ve been using an older MacBook Air for server duties and it did fine but its lack of ports, large power wart, and space it all takes is less than ideal. The MBA also has the butterfly keyboard but admittedly, it infrequently acted up.
Cistus × purpureus (Purple-flowered Rock-rose)
