I’ve been using iconfinder for years. Just saw a post on Mastodon calling out iconduck as an open source alternative. Consider me interested. 

 

I co-host a few podcasts with friends, so I’ve been trying to figure out how to make my voice sound better over Zoom and in audio in general. I’m still learning, so I welcome any feedback on this. 

For anyone curious, here’s my setup so far. 

For my microphone I use a Yeti mic. They’re average quality, and really cheap to get started. There are many other mics that are better (and I have some of them), but for simplicity I’d just grab a Yeti to start out. 

If that’s all you do you’ll be golden and sound quality will shoot through the roof compared to using your laptop’s built in mic or even the mics on most headphones. 

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If you’re looking for ways to improve audio quality even further read on.

Buy a pop filter. It smoothes out your harsh vowel sounds (like the letter P). It’s super easy to install, just slide it over the top of the Yeti. 

Get a desk boom arm. The stand that comes with the yeti sucks. It’s too short and it picks up the vibrations of typing on the computer. I’ve used Yeti’s branded one for years and it’s good enough to start out with. If you have a little more cash to spend my friend and podcast co-host loves a different brand, and it seems a bit better in quality.

Get a shock mount. The best microphone stand comes from the floor or ceiling, but isn’t practical in a lot of home office setups. Mounting your boom to the desk is fine, if you have a shock mount. They’re cheap and worth getting. 

If you’re on a computer with USB-C you’ll also want to make sure you have a USB-A to USB-C adapter since Yeti doesn’t support USB-C yet. 

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For using the Yeti always make sure the Yeti blue logo is facing straight toward your mouth. Don’t speak into the top of the microphone, but rather toward the blue logo. It should be roughly six inches from your mouth. I keep mine just a bit below my chin so it doesn’t cover my face on video calls. 

If you get Yeti’s boom arm, you’ll want to place it behind the desk facing toward you. 

That’s it! You’ll sound amazing. I personally turn the gain all the way down, and speak right into the mic. That seems to work the best for sound so it doesn’t pick up background noise as much. I also use the cardioid pattern (the little heart icon) since it’s just me using the mic and I’m not sharing with someone else in the same room.

Also, I make sure to plug my laptop into ethernet instead of wireless. It’s made a big difference with sound quality.

I’ve been considering a Ring doorbell for a while. Our house currently has no doorbell. We ripped it out during a renovation and never installed a new one.

A few weeks ago I bought one as a Black Friday special. But I just couldn’t bring myself to set it up. I finally opted for something more low tech. On Amazon I found a sound only doorbell. Kind of a novel idea at this point, but so far I’m loving it. Easy to setup and no worries of a third-party camera tracking our family’s movements. 

A recent post on Reddit has me incredibly frustrated right now. Now, before I go on, I’ll say that none of this has been proven yet. But I find it damning nonetheless given the evidence shared. A Redditor started poking around with Mark Dawson’s published books and checking into phrases he’d written that felt unique. Many of those phrases were copied from other books published before. At first the examples seem hapinstance. Like, I’m sure some of the books I’ve written have similar phrases, but then the list just keeps going on and on. 

This is maddening. I’ve written seven novels, and plucked up the courage to self-publish three of them. It took time. It was a lot of fun, and I loved every moment of it. I didn’t copy from someone else, I didn’t use AI to generate phrases, I hand crafted these books and made something that spoke to me, art that mattered. 

Where did I get my inspiration from? Not from copying phrases in other books, but rather from the world around me, from the dozens of novels I’ve read as inspiration, but not as theft. 

I’ll follow this closely and see if it comes out as true or not, but if true I think Mark Dawson owes a massive apology to the thousands of self-published fans who have followed his materials, listened to his podcast, purchased his courses. 

I’ll give him a chance to correct this, of course. I appreciate so much of what he’s done. But this doesn’t fit the spirit of what I consider drawing inspiration from other sources. 

Many of us carry scars from the life we’ve lived so far. Some real, some invisible. As we move through life and experience new situations, whether in work or otherwise, we have to adjust in realtime to how things have gone before and try to figure out whether to accept a new situation or put our defenses. 

Often kindness and understanding goes a long way toward providing a sense of safety and encouraging us to push outside our comfort zones.

Work should feel challenging. It should feel hard to do because it pushes our curiosity and comfort zones. But it shouldn’t feel impossible. We should feel safe, trusted, and capable. It’s so tricky to find the right balance of all these elements to make a difference and throw ourselves into the fray. When you find it? Hold tight and follow the ride. 

For the past few months I’ve started to notice a trend. On the days where I put out a lot of energy, I often feel worn out the next day. I’ve learned to be more kind to myself and not try to force things. The rollercoaster of energy moves throughout the week, and the best thing to do is acknowledge it and find ways to work aroudn it. 

We don’t work along the lines of negative reinforcement. We work on the lines of positive reinforcement. We seek out things are beneficial, trigger positive emotions, and feel constructive. So don’t be a correctness bully.

Great article. 

I’ve been working on this. I used to do it all the time and now I’m trying to find ways to positively encourage instead of just telling someone that I think they’re wrong.

Flat design became a thing and we saw an overnight shift in design approach for interfaces when Apple introduced iOS 7 in 2013. They certainly took elements that other manufacturers were already implementing but the impact Apple has on the rest of the industry (as a trend-setter) cannot be matched.

iOS 7 saw a massive jump in design language for iOS. Apple introduced a much simpler and flatter design compared to its predecessor’s more complex and skeuomorphic design. Tim Cook called it “the biggest change to iOS since iPhone.”

I remember when that shift happened. I installed an early beta of iOS 7 and was blown away by the change. Now, slowly, icons and logos are bringing back some life and color. I love it. Recommend checking out the article, has some great examples. 

We don’t always have the option to choose between the options presented to us, but we do have the choice in how we react to those choices, how we let it control us, how we let it fill our minds. 

My heart goes out to those who are suffering, struggling, trying to figure their way out through this life. Many of my friends and family are dealing with challenges, and I think of them, help where I can, listen where I can. 

The older I get the more I see life for what it is, a beautiful chaotic challenging terrifying exhilarating journey that each of us take. It’s messy, it’s messed up, and many times it snuffs out those who are the best. 

All I can do is push forward each day, try to love others as best I can, and try to do a little bit to add something kind and loving to the world. 

Years ago my brother started texting me with voice messages. It drove me crazy. I couldn’t process the audio as quickly, had to pause and listen to it, and it in general disrupted the flow of communication. It started up around the time he got into the Apple Watch. It was easier for him to fire off a voice message to me than to type anything, and at the time Siri was far from reliable (an argument could be made for that still, of course, but iOS 17 speech to text is actually good!). 

I complained to him, but it didn’t stop the incoming barage of voice from him. I finally accepted and adopted the practice myself. I LOVE it. I can’t imagine ever going back. There’s something about sharing the inflection of my voice, my emotions and thoughts, and just sharing without editing, that is extremely compelling as a communication form. As a millenial who avoids phone calls when possible, I find voice messages the perfect middle ground. We can asyncronousy share the rich detail of voice without having to plan a call. 

Because of all that I’m extremely excited that my friends are starting to adopt iOS 17, that means that the voice messages are starting to appear transcribed on my phone! So, I can listen if I have time, but I can also scan the text that appears alongside the audio. It’s perfect, and it’s my favorite form of communication now.

Update: My brother seems to remember it differently, that I sent him voice messages first and he finally adopted it. Let the record show that I think I was right. 

This article from Seth is on pointe. I recently hear a great presentation from someone, and was amazed at how well it was put together. There were even decently timed jokes, and a valuable message tied together. I thought after that I didn’t feel I could pull off that type of presentation, but I do have things I want to share. Taking the approach Seth mentioned would be authentic to me, and I feel I could pull it off. 

For a couple of years I wrote 1,000 words per day. I did that six days a week and wrote out hundreds of thousands of words. It was one of the best practices for unlocking my brain and removing the fear of a blank page. Now if I need to say something I let loose without any concern for what’s coming out, write it, then revise after. Writing and revising at the same time never work for me. 

Some days I spend an innordinate amount of time trying to perfect a design. I wrestle with the tinest details, go over it again and again, iterate, and try to get it to a point where I’m happy with it. 

Then I sleep on it, and in the cold light of the morning have a strong sense of the things I can do to make it better. Something about sleep separates me from my work, helps me to see it from an outside perspective and critically evaluate how it can be improved. 

Also, I drew what I thought was the perfect illustration last night, and this morning it looks like absolute chaos; and not in a good way.

I like to write. I’ve written a few novels for fun and plugged away at them each day with a thousand words. For years I’ve tried to figure out a way to listen back to the words I wrote each day. Maybe I’ve missed something obvious, but nothing up to this point was working.

That changed today, though! I successfully found a workflow. 

I write my thousand words, or in this case, the start of my book, and paste that into descript (premium license required). Then, using their AI voices, I have it generate that into an MP3. I then upload that MP3 to Overcast (requires a premium subscription), my podcast player, and can then listen back to it while I run or go about my chores. 

It’s pretty amazing. Granted the voice isn’t that great yet, but it’s just enough to listen and get a sense for things. I love it. 

We’re all kind of figuring out life as we move through it. In my experience those who are the most brazen about their superiority and feigned understanding of all things are often the ones most uncertain themselves.

I recently chatted with a friend, a generation older than me, about her own experiences on a topic that interested both of us. I asked her a few questions on the topic and was surprised at her responses. 

“I’m still learning about that.”

“That’s something I’m not sure about.”

“I hope to be able to study that more.” 

These were the tone of her responses on a topic that she frankly knows far more than me on. Her grace in having a learning mind, a willingness to keep discovering new things, was both refreshing and humbling. 

I hope to embed that thinking into my own brain, to be humble, to keep learning, and to ask questions. 

My friend, Michał, just posted a fantastic piece touching on what it feels like to get fired, or to use the corporate speak term, “laid off”. 

Those tens of thousands of folks being fired from big techs aren’t just numbers. They are names and faces. It’s a known truth that the mass is easier to accept than the individual. I have experienced it and it changed my thinking a lot. I didn’t lose my self-esteem but I did lose my belief that my competences, skills and achievements can defend me.

I love this take. I’ve been working long enough to have the belief that my abilities are good enough to get great work done. I don’t lack self-esteem either at this point (although I did in the past0.

When you lose a job and don’t know how to get another one the fear and uncertainty grows and it feels overwhelming. My heart goes out to those looking and trying to navigate the world of figuring out the job market. I’ve been there and it’s tough. 

Continuing on from the article Robb Knight posted. Here are the apps I use in each category. 

• Mail client: HEY web app
• Mail Server: HEY custom domains
• Notes: Notes.app, Bear
• To-Do: Things 3
• iPhone Photo Shooting: iOS Camera
• Photo Management: Photos.app
• Calendar: Apple Calendar
• Cloud file storage: iCloud Drive
• RSS: n/a
• Contacts: Contacts.app
• Browser: Safari
• Chat: iMessage
• Bookmarks: Safari (unused)
• Read It Later: n/a
• Word Processing: Google Docs, Ulysses
• Spreadsheets: Google Sheets
• Presentations: Keynote
• Shopping Lists: Bear
• Meal Planning: n/a
• Budgeting & Personal Finance: YNAB
• News: Mastodon, Reddit, Reuters
• Music: Apple Music
• Podcasts: Overcast
• Password Management: 1Password

As a followup on my article about hidden stakeholders, my co-host and I chatted about this topic on fractional today. Highly recommend giving it a listen if you’ve ever tried to navigate working for one boss, but realized you had another one lurking in the dark.

You can listen to the episode here.