This Week's Bookmarks - Disney Adults, 1-Star Reviews of National Parks, Steve Job's Biggest Rival, 90's Band Name Origins, How Maps Distort the World, Printing any Web Page, Making Google Better #Links
For parents and grandparents, the Walt Disney Company is nearly inescapable, such is the corporation’s reach into American society, but for a certain sector their is a different attraction. The Disney Adult
We all agree that setting high expectations is good in some circumstances. Setting unrealistic expectations is unwise in all cases however. The article shows what happens to people who expect the wilderness to be a theme park. It’s hilarious. The best one-star reviews of national parks: ‘A giant litter box’ - The Washington Post
“Today’s businesses and technologies were not just defined by the names we remember, and in his new column, The Crazy Ones_ Gareth Edwards [tells] the stories of the forgotten men and women who thought differently and helped build the future. His latest piece demonstrates how the personal computing battles of the early 1980s—when Steve Jobs and Adam Osborne battled for supremacy—echo to today The Rise and Fall of Steve Jobs’s Greatest Rival (every.to)
You need this article if you ever want to win a trivia contest. Slightly fascinating. Slightly icky. The Name Origins of 20 Famous ’90s Bands (mentalfloss.com)
Of course the white map-makers of yore found a way to minimize the impact of black and brown people and of course the trend continues today. You’ve probably never seen the true size of Africa. How Maps Distort the World
What if you want to print a webpage without the ads and photos? Paste the web address into PrintFriendly to strip out all the extras.
There’s a hidden setting that makes searches more precise. How to Make Google Show You the Good Search Results Again
Greenfield Park, Wilmington, NC #Photography
The Gentlemen 1x04 "An Unsympathetic Gentleman"
Susie is keen to expand the business. Eddie is determined that it won't be on his estate, so the Hornimans search for alternative locations.
Avon Pier, Outer Banks, North Carolina #photography
A Lovely Routine - The Digital Checklist That Brings Me Joy Every Day and The Hunt for Links
I have a digital checklist I try to complete every day. It helps me do the mundane things we all have to do, stay on top of my email, organize my notes, keep important software updated. My checklist also helps me to remember to do the fun things I enjoy: uploading a photo every day to Micro.blog where it gets cross posted to all the social media sites in which I participate. I have a reminder to check in daily at Product Hunt because I enjoy seeing what’s new in the software categories I follow. The other “fun” item I try to check off seven days a week is to find a bookmark to share.
Every Saturday morning, I get up at 4am to drink coffee and work interrupted on posting to my blog. I keep a running note all week in Obsidian where I add each day’s link. I write a short blurb for each site, download/upload a few images and post the links. My uber original name for this feature is (drumroll) This Week’s Bookmarks.
I subscribe to way too many newsletters and what keeps me interested in them is looking for the link of the day. Ironically, some of what I subscribe too are other people’s weekly link posts! I’ll share anything that looks like it might catch the eye of a curious person. It could be a story about the world’s coolest streets or something funny like the Washington Post’s collection of one-star reviews of National Parks. I rarely share news stories. I aim for something with a little shelf life. I’m a techie and a blogger so there’s plenty of stuff there for like-minded folks.
Right now, I’m keeping a running list of several week’s worth of links. One day it will get too unwieldy, and I’ll have to pare it down or start a volume two or something, but for now it’s there to explore. If you check it out and find anything useful or entertaining it would mean the world to me if you let me know.
Matthias Ott, author of the wonderful newsletter Own Your Web, wrote a piece recently about all the reasons why creating a links page is an integral part of the IndieWeb. He listed different ways to share your finds (like newsletters and RSS feeds) and he gave multiple reasons for collecting links in the first place. He’s the inspiration for this reflection.
A couple of bloggers I like have weekly links posts or newsletters. Check out the HeyDingus Seven Things This Week collection and let the writer, Jarrod Blundy know that I sent you. While you’re at it, look at Ian Betteridge’s new 10 Blue Links which he’ll be happy to email you each week.
Peace! Lou, in NC
Lou Plummer | Amerpie
Email
The Good Doctor 7x02 "Skin in the Game"
Shaun struggles to accommodate the newest member of his surgical team, Charlie, who interferes in a patient’s relationship with his daughter. Elsewhere, Park tackles a tricky brain tumor, and Lea and Morgan adjust to motherhood.
The paycheck I get every two weeks should be sufficient motivation but I gotta say when a professor or student (or fellow staff member) sincerely thanks me for solving their computing problem, I feel like I’m making a positive difference in someone’s education, and it pumps me up.
CloudHQ - Adding Functionality to Google Services: Gmail. Google Drive and Search
My Original Problem
I still have my “Welcome to Gmail” message dated February 21, 2005. When Google Drive was introduced in 2012 I adopted it as my primary cloud storage service. For some unknown reason, Google has never implemented a way to automate saving email attachments to the cloud. Once upon a time IFTTT used to have an applet that would do this for you but it’s been deprecated and no longer works. In my search for a solution, I discovered CloudHQ.
CloudHQ has over 60 Google Workspace related services, some paid, many free. My initial search led me to implement their backup and sync utility. It has the power to save all of your email to Google Drive as PDFs which was a bit overkill for my use case. All I wanted was to save attachments. The process was simple:
- First I created a label in Gmail called attachments
- Then I created a filter that applied that label to all emails addressed to me with attachments. The “addressed to me” part is important because without that emails that I send with attachments would also get included.
- The next step was to associate my Gmail account as the source for the CloudHQ app and to designate a folder in my Google Drive as the destination for the saved files.
But What About…
I found that occasionally I do actually have a need to save an email as a PDF. I could of course use a print to PDF option but it’s much easier to use the CloudHQ utility Save Emails to Google Drive.Once installed this utility adds a button to your Gmail web interface that allows for one click saving of an email. It creates a link to the email on the fly and asks if you want to save it to your clipboard. I find it particularly useful for receipts that I want to add to Evernote.
A Useful AI Tool
In exploring the CloudHQ catalog, I discovered their browser plugin for Chromium browsers that integrates ChatGPT into every search.
It’s a real time saver, offering both a traditional Google search along with a comprehensive AI query. You get both on the same page any time you conduct a search. By default it uses ChatGPT 3.5 but you can provide your own API key and use ChatGPT 4 if you desire. For most searches I find that v3.5 is sufficient (and cheaper).
More
The variety of services offered by CloudHQ is extensive and are not limited to Google Workspace products. They offer Microsoft Office 365 tools as well as solutions for use with Dropbox for Business and Box. I haven’t used those but there is extensive information on their web site. Since I’m a Gmail user I intend to explore some of the plugins CloudHQ offers, including:
- Free Email Tracker
- Gmail YouTube
- Free Video Email for Gmail
The Scarlet-faced Liocichla, native to Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, and southern China. #Birds #Photography
I used ChatGPT to craft a Python script today that edited 500+ markdown files (my imported Raindrop.io bookmarks) from my #Obsidian vault. It moved text in the form of an inline properties field for URLs from the body of the note into the YAML front matter. I knew next to nothing about #Python.
Shōgun 1x04 "The Eightfold Fence"
Blackthorne and Mariko test their new alliance as they train Toranaga's gun regiment for war. Yabushige must navigate his past promises to Ishido when an old friend comes to the village.
App of the Day is Clipboard Fusion - Syncs your clipboard between your Mac, PC and phone, iPhone or Android. Allows for saved clipboards for frequently used text. I keep my OpenAI api key on mine. It’s a real solution if your work OS is different than your home OS.
Window to the past. Think of the conversations held around that table. McDougald Road, Mamers, NC #photography
Enjoying The Gentlemen on Netflix 1) Because it’s a well done piece of dark British comedy and 2) I don’t have to wait a week to see new episodes like a barbarian from the 70s. #television
The Gentlemen 1x03 "Where's My Weed At?"
Jimmy gets distracted on the job. As supply chain issues delay deliveries, the Horniman brothers take a risky ride to placate a dissatisfied customer.
List 10 albums that have stayed with you over the years in some way. Don't take too long on the list - just a few minutes. These don't have to be great records, or critical darlings, just ones that mean something to you personally.
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The River - Bruce Springsteen
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Who Are You - The Who
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Graceland - Paul Simon
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Stop Making Sense - Talking Heads
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Automatic for the People - REM
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Other Voices, Other Rooms - Nanci Griffith
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Anodyne - Uncle Tupelo
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Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band - The Beatles
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Sweet Baby James - James Taylor
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Back in Black - AC/DC
Today and tomorrow only - price reduced software at the Indie App Sale - My purchases: Audracity, Nametag, Photoscope, Evo, Logger, Mastowatch, Presets, Relog
Coffee People, Hay Street, Fayetteville, NC #streetphotography
The Gentlemen 1x02 "Tackle Tommy Woo Woo"
The toffs and their gamekeeper hunt a new kind of prey. Susie enlists some help to clean up the mess, and Halstead Manor is blessed with a holy visitor.
From The Virgina Creeper Trail, Mount Rogers National Recreation Area #hiking
