Time. That elusive thing we all can measure and manage but still escapes us and we tend to let other things manage it. Though long ago I realized I cannot “make time” I am still working on the measure and manage things. As a result, a week went by where I didn’t write this collection of seven days of observations and learnings. So much for my year plus streak! But life goes on and I still kept taking notes, and here they are.

But First, Please Subscribe – I may have mentioned over the years that my kiddos are swimmers and I am involved with making the swim meets happen. Some of you have even suggested I need to spend more time away from chlorine, but I digress. In any case, we are live streaming swim meets over the next month and I need to make our new YouTube channel “legit” – can I ask for a subscribe to our YouTube channel?

Click Here to Subscribe to the YouTube channel

Thanks in advance for your support!

Brackets Begone – I don’t always write code, but when I do, I have used Brackets as my code editor. When I recently opened it up to do some coding magic, I got a message Brackets is being discontinued. Apparently software giant Adobe owns this open source project and is abandoning it. Not quite sure if someone is continuing it or not. It has worked well for me, and I am sure I will find an apt replacement.

Branding Jumpstart Gets Better – My good friend Emily Brackett (no relation to the previously mentioned code editor) and her agency Visible Logic have recently launched a new version of Branding Compass, a service for businesses and individuals to build a brand on a budget that still speaks to their business or personal goals. I have seen this service evolve over the years and it is a great resource. Of course if you have the budget to do a full brand, hire Visible Logic for that. But if not, this is a must-do to project the image you want without the big spend.

Squinting On The Edge – With a recent install of a new version of the Microsoft Edge Web browser, I noticed the text in the address bar was smaller. I apparently wasn’t alone in this observation of smaller text in Edge. Not sure why anyone would want to do this, or give the option to not adjust it, but I find it highly annoying. Edge has been my “primary” browser but with what I do I am usually in literally a half-dozen browsers over the course of the day, so it has been tolerable.

Friend or Phishing Scam? – Several of my clients got emails similar to this which are phishing scams that can lead to ransomware installs that seize your computers. Often I am asked how to tell if something is a legitimate email or not, and my answer is to simply do a Web search on the opening line of the email, as I did with this one which led to the link I have presented here.

Stop the Ringer From Going Low – There’s nothing like helping someone to setup a new iPhone and you discover “features” you didn’t know existed or how to remedy them. One such is when the phone starts ringing, the ringer gets quieter. Why anyone would want that is beyond me, but here’s how I found how to stop the ringer from doing that.

File Under Why, Why! – I learned about Amazon Sidewalk, a “service” where your Amazon Alexa device becomes something similar to a WiFi hotspot. With all of the spying talking tubes do as it is, this is a privacy nightmare! It can be turned off – as I don’t have an Alexa, I can’t vouch for any links out there, but they do exist.

Graphic Tools I Used – As I have mentioned I use these posts as personal reference materials as well, so these links on how to set transparency of an image in Gimp and how to create outline boxes in Photoshop are more things I am filing here.

Enough Tech Mike, How About Some Music? – I realize as I wrap up the last few weeks, most of what I learned was tech heavy. So this list of the top alternative songs of 1989 as compiled by Matt Sebastian and his Slicing Up Eyeballs blog is certainly welcome. A fun fact is the name of his blog comes from the song Debaser from the Boston band The Pixies that is on the list.

Coffee Sunrise – The above photo was taken from the balcony of our hotel in St. Ignace, Michigan as the sun rose over Lake Huron. A family getaway to nearby Mackinac Island – just a short ferry ride from our hotel – included biking, mini golf and a ton of fresh made ice cream. It also included not running on any time schedule. I share the photo to you and if you click on it you can see a larger version, suitable for your computer wallpaper or Zoom background.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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