Tool’s new album, Fear Inoculum, is out now. Finally.

I’ve been playing around with migrating some of my websites to Netlify (for the basic static ones), and Google’s App Engine for the others.

So far I’m very impressed with Netlify, it’s a nice setup and very easy to get working. I’m still getting my Laravel apps to work on App Engine – the write-only filesystem is proving to be a bit of a hassle, but I’m getting there.

The new Mac Pro is an interesting piece of industrial design. Sure looks like it’ll pack a punch though, in both performance and wallet aspects. #WWDC19

Quite impressed with the enhancements to iOS and watchOS, and now iPadOS! This year’s WWDC has been a hit.

Interesting segment on Accidental Tech Podcast (ATP ) regarding iOS mail clients. I’ve long forgone the default Mail app in favour for more powerful apps. I was a user of Mailbox for a while, then switched to Airmail for a few years, and most recently switched to Spark around 2 years ago and haven’t looked back.

All the apps have their trade-offs; none of the third-party apps feels like a first class citizen however the minor cons are far outweighed by the multitude of benefits. In the linked ATP episode Marco bemoans “simpler folder management” as a metaphor for either removal or reducing the effectiveness of a feature. I share his hesitation as it wouldn’t be the first time in Apple’s recent history that “simpler” has been less. Simpler should not be a synonym for less.

Incredibly exciting news, I’ve been waiting for this new album for a very long time. Plus it comes out on my birthday - the ultimate birthday present!

Excellent article about the absolutely shocking planewreck that is MCAS and the problem it’s trying to solve.

Worst week of the year to be a tech fan. I don’t find any of the April Fool’s Week (née Day) pranks funny.

I really enjoy typing on the iPad’s Smart Keyboard Folio but I really wish the keyboard was backlit. In low light environments it’s almost impossible to see the keys.

Even though I’m very comfortable typing without being able to see the keys I still prefer the illumination of them so I can actually see the keyboard.

Inspired by people like @manton I got an 11” iPad Pro last week to do more writing and other focussed activities like planning and documentation.

Early days yet but I feel this could be the perfect device for doing just that.