Daniel (00:02.178) How does this work again? Like how do we actually start these? Like I haven't done this for such a long time. Dave, it is fantastic to finally see you again. It's been way too long. Dave (00:02.329) We are live. Dave (00:16.271) You too, Daniel. Yeah, I think by the time this show goes out, we are in well into February and into 2025. Wow. Yeah. Lots happened. Lots going on. Probably the same on your side, right? Daniel (00:31.576) Yeah, yeah, totally. But yeah, like we just started a new season and then we had a week long break just because there was Christmas and New Year and travels and I just, don't know, like the start of the year was just like bumpy, but we're back. And your favorite show, and it's called Waiting for Review. And it's a show about the majestic indie developer lifestyle. Dave (00:43.109) Mm-hmm. Dave (00:49.774) Absolutely. Daniel (01:00.322) Join your scintillating hosts to hear about a tiny slice of their thrilling lives. I'm Daniel, expert clothes designer and owner of a broken rib. And I'm here with Dave Glittercore, entrepreneur and Linux on Mac expert. Join us while waiting for a view. Dave (01:20.687) I'll take that accolade, thank you. Yeah, pretty well to be honest. It's been, yeah, an interesting start to the year. We've had a lot of life, a lot of non-indie dev stuff and not even day job stuff, right? This has just been, yeah, life stuff. But. Daniel (01:26.702) How's it going? Daniel (01:40.259) Hmm. Dave (01:47.355) It's kind of pulling out of some of the busyness with bits of that now and yeah, getting back into the indie dev seat, which is good. But yeah, it's just been busy as mate, as we would say here. Daniel (02:04.162) Yeah. Daniel (02:07.918) I don't know. Tell me all about it. Dave (02:09.345) Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, put it this way. Some of my busyness is now turning out to be home renovation and DIY. We've got an older house that's fairly big and a lot of things that need doing. We've been here 18 months or so now. And as you might imagine, all the quick repairs and bodge jobs that somebody might do to sell a house are now wearing out and we are starting to notice this needs doing, that needs doing. Daniel (02:41.261) scene. Dave (02:42.683) Also, it's been very hot here and we solved a problem just before winter last year where we got the house updated with its insulation and created another problem at the other side of the year, which is that the house now traps all of the summer heat. So, yeah, as much as I hesitate on things like this, I am now throwing money at the problem. Daniel (03:00.556) No. Dave (03:12.331) and we're ground source heat pumps installed soon so yeah they will cool as well as heat yeah yeah they really are and quite efficient as well so i'm i'm very down with that one day i'll get solar panels daniel and then when the sun's heating everything up i'll turn it into cooling and i'll be like ha in your face sun Daniel (03:16.672) Awesome heat pumps are such cool cool technology Daniel (03:40.942) SON! Dave (03:42.231) Yeah Daniel (03:45.41) Yeah, that's awesome actually. Yeah, solar power and then like making that power your heat pumps. Dave (03:53.733) Yeah, I'm reminded of, have you seen the cartoon animated from Penguins of Madagascar? Daniel (04:02.808) I know the characters, but I haven't seen that movie. Dave (04:06.267) One of them turns around and goes, I reject nature. Yeah. Daniel (04:10.528) Hahaha Sounds like me. I want concrete. I want air condition. I want public transport. I want ice cream stores. Dave (04:24.985) Okay, down with that as well. Yeah, keep going. Daniel (04:28.014) What else? I like cultural entertainment. I want to be where I can meet weird people and see fun concerts and stuff like that. like I like the city. Dave (04:39.195) Mm-hmm. Dave (04:45.755) Fair play. Fair play. I like a mix. I like a mix. I'm getting a mix where I'm living here. So I'm definitely definitely engineered the optimal Dave environment. But yeah, that's me. Lots of Or maybe, maybe I've definitely been in my veggie garden and doing those things as well, Daniel. So I've currently got like a Daniel (04:56.129) You Are you having enrichment time in your enclosure? Dave (05:15.501) raised bed type bit with vegetables in it and I've got a load of maize sweet corn growing which is kind of cool. I've grown them really close together though so they're kind of small but that's sweet that's fine. Yeah so they're exactly, exactly. Daniel (05:21.858) Mm-hmm. Daniel (05:32.142) That's sweet corn. Dave (05:39.631) But yeah, I'm looking and I'm like, I'm not sure we're to be able to eat all of these. So that's a nice problem to have. Yeah. I'm gradually turning into, know, my, grandpa growing too many vegetables and then going around to the neighbors and asking them if they need anything, which is. Yeah. Daniel (05:57.624) That's lovely though. That's lovely. Those are the good neighbors. Dave (06:01.333) I reckon as long as it's actually tasty food. Daniel (06:05.642) And mean, maze, maze is called in German, it's called mice and mice is nice. Dave (06:11.225) Hey, nice. I am, this is only tangentially related, I guess, but I am 37, 38 days now into a Duolingo streak learning Dutch. So I plan to give it about six months, get down some basics and then switch to another language, which may well be German. So I'm sort of. Daniel (06:12.843) as its rice. Daniel (06:27.528) nice. Daniel (06:32.078) Fantastic. Dave (06:38.007) It's more just an exercise in expanding basic knowledge for me. Yeah. Daniel (06:42.37) Awesome. So the next season of this podcast is going to be called Warten auf… How do I translate review? Dave (06:54.235) I do not know. mean, I mean very. Daniel (06:56.104) What's a good? What's a good? Dave (07:02.121) Ooh. Dave (07:07.163) Yeah, I am very much in the basic words still. Daniel (07:08.494) What? Daniel (07:12.878) Yeah, like that's just the next podcast. I'm I'm Dave (07:18.235) Daniel drinked sap. That's where I'm at. Yeah, although I did notice an orange is called sunnysapple. And I'm like, all right, yeah, cause it's like an orange apple. yeah. Daniel (07:23.406) Goedemorgen! Daniel (07:31.394) Right, right. Daniel (07:38.06) Right. I can say, smoke click malteat. And I think that's about it. Dave (07:44.507) What's that? Daniel (07:46.943) Enjoy your meal. Dave (07:48.571) Hey, nice one, nice one. Yeah, so that's the whole thing, Daniel, and you've got your Jirolingo as well with Jirolingo buddies. Daniel (07:58.062) Yeah, I'm like 150 days into Spanish or so. Dave (08:01.849) Ooh, get you. Nice. Daniel (08:05.027) See. Dave (08:06.351) Yeah. Daniel (08:07.587) Hahaha Daniel (08:11.544) Right, other than that, before we go into the first topic, I introduce myself as an owner of a broken rib. The rib is not actually broken, it's just bruised. But I was, was karting the other day and I was involved in an accident that I did not cause and I did everything correctly, but still I was, I was banged around a bit. So I have a huge, huge bruise. Dave (08:19.126) Mm-hmm. Dave (08:30.589) no, did they get like, is this the sort of thing where somebody raises the black flag on the, on the course or then you have to move the carts out the way? it that, that sort of bad of a collision? Reflect, yeah. Yeah. I can't remember. Yeah. Daniel (08:41.04) yeah, they did red flag. They did red flag. It's not black flag it, but yes. like someone, someone that kind of spun in a, into a, in a corner, was a blind corner. So I just entered that thing and just looked the guy in the eye and was like, you're in the wrong position. And so I managed to, I managed to break and then kind of half slam into the wall and half into him to kind of distribute the force. But the, the, the, kind of also like just like jostled me against the seat. and then someone else like crashed into me from behind. Dave (09:00.825) Yep. Yep. Dave (09:08.283) fun Daniel (09:10.382) So yeah Dave (09:16.805) Were you go kart racing or were these dodgums? Daniel (09:21.75) I was go-kart racing. I was go-kart racing. It was really fun though. I took a break for 15 minutes or so and then I was back on the track. It was not racing per se because it wasn't a race, right? was just time training, but still it was super fun and I can't wait to do it again. They have this thing where can like Monday evening you just pay an entry fee and then you can run as much as you like on the course. And that's actually really cool. Dave (09:36.667) Mm-hmm. Yep. Dave (09:42.518) It's not a race, but... Dave (09:52.215) It's not a race but you are going to win. Daniel (09:55.406) Like time tracking wise, was mostly in the in the middle or the lower third. So do with that what you will. Dave (10:06.139) Awesome. Well, I hope your not broken rib eases up if it's still hurting you, Daniel. Daniel (10:14.062) It's fine. If I touch it, hurts a bit, it's not like, you know, with a broken rib, don't want to be have trouble breathing and stuff like that. No, I can breathe just fine. It's just when I poke it. So I don't poke it. It's my strategy. Dave (10:21.691) Mm. Dave (10:31.611) Do not trigger that level of humor in me Daniel, let's keep going. It is a new year and we are into it now. We're right into like, you know, things. And I guess we're trying to get things done. And I'm wondering. Daniel (10:34.755) You Daniel (10:50.403) Hahaha Dave (10:53.793) Are you employing any tactics for this at the moment, Daniel? Because we've got a note there about that. Daniel (10:59.904) I am using things actually, like the app. And yeah, was gonna just like, I discovered that I want to like switch up how I manage my tasks, which I seem to do every half year or a year or so. And I think one insight that I had is I thought this was a sign of me doing something wrong, that I need to switch it up. But I think... Dave (11:03.396) Okay. Dave (11:14.267) Mm-hmm. Dave (11:28.506) Yes. Daniel (11:29.868) By now I've arrived at the conclusion that me wanting to switch up or needing to switch up things every now and then to keep interest in them, that's just a feature of how I work. that's like nothing, nothing. like, like that's the first, that's the first insight actually. Like there's no perfect way of managing how I like managing my to-dos or whatever. This is just like, this is the current iteration. Dave (11:42.201) Yes. Dave (11:53.861) Mm-hmm. Daniel (11:55.854) and let's see how long it lasts and then I'll find another one and that's completely fine. And also I'm doing the same thing with like exercise now. Like right now I'm going to the gym and in about four months or so I'm gonna lose interest in the gym. So I'm gonna go back on the bike or maybe I go just like carting every week because my God, all my muscles are sore. So yeah, why not both? Dave (12:19.043) Both. Both. Yep. Daniel (12:25.048) So one thing I really wanted to update how I manage my to-dos because they've been getting too much. I used to default for the last iteration of my to-dos was I used to have just this huge to-do list. And so I didn't use most of the features of things or any other to-do list where you can schedule stuff or have different lists or whatever. I would just put everything on the list. try to sort it by priority and then just like every day, we'll just open the thing and just try to go as far down there as possible. But problem one is there's always going to be more added to that list than is going to be removed. there was no, like I didn't have a review thing and I kind of like, if you do getting things done, the methodology correctly, which I very much don't, then you have a review step where you kind of like. Dave (13:00.634) Yes. Dave (13:07.363) It never ends. Yep. Yep. Yep. Dave (13:20.463) Yes. You, you, you stage all of the things if you like it's yeah. Daniel (13:21.024) look at everything and then decide, do I want to do this or do I want to remove this? Right. And that's something I'm kind of wary of because it feels like to me, like I would oftentimes not be able to bring myself to do that step. So I wouldn't do any to do. So it's like, it feels like more of a barrier for me. But what I found out is if I have this huge list of just like, things that keep growing and growing and growing and everything is frustrating, then it's very much disheartening because every time you open the thing it's like, yeah, you have 120 items on your list. Fantastic. You're going to be able to close five of them, but 10 new ones are going to be added by the end of the day. So. Dave (13:58.607) Yep. Yep. Dave (14:07.179) That's a Sisyphean task at that point. Yeah. Daniel (14:10.264) yeah, totally. If I was Sisyphus, I was just, well, just like put the border down in a place where it wouldn't roll down the hill. Dave (14:18.683) Mm, exactly, exactly. So things and all of those things, yeah. Daniel (14:23.5) Right, so first thing that I did is I began using one of the other lists. Let me just have a look at what it's called. I think it's called Inbox. Dave (14:34.395) I was gonna say, you actually screen, are you comfortable with screen sharing this so we get a visual or do you want to just talk it through? Daniel (14:41.006) I will screen share it. No, I think there's people's names in there. I'm going to take a few screenshots later and then post them to Macedon and add a link in the show note. Anyway, so Things has a list called Inbox. And you're actually supposed to put all the new to-dos in there. So first thing I did was I actually started using that list not for a new task, but actually for Dave (14:46.127) No pressure is okay. Yeah, leave it. Dave (14:53.979) Nice. Cool. Daniel (15:11.212) I just declared bankruptcy, put all the open stuff in the inbox, and then use the today view, basically where I would in the morning take five minutes and then just pull the things that I really wanted to work on today and also, needed or whatever. Just put that in there and then stop when I think, okay, my capacity is just reached, right? Dave (15:32.283) Mm-hmm. Daniel (15:40.36) And that has the advantage already that I'm not seeing other things that I'm not doing. And it also has the advantage that some things, some tasks can just like quietly rot in the inbox. Because sometimes there's things where like, this is kinda like, this is important enough that I don't want to delete it. But also I don't want to do it today or ever. And like, I might do it when it's like actually urgent. Dave (15:45.497) Yes. Dave (15:54.075) Yes. Dave (16:10.725) This is all resonating quite hard with me. I posted yesterday to Mastodon that admin is my kryptonite. Daniel (16:21.166) Same for me. And so that already started working pretty well for me. But then another thing that I noticed is that some days I will have lots of small tiny tasks. And some of those will be work related. Some of those will be like just like apartment related, where for example, I want to do the cleaning or like do Dave (16:22.967) So yeah, yeah. Daniel (16:48.322) get groceries or whatever, bring up the trash. I kind of need tasks and reminders for it. Not even reminders, but I just need a thing to tick off even for these things, or I will sometimes forget them. So yeah. But then the list is kind of cluttered, right? In the morning, it's like, OK, bring down the trash and also refresh the cat litter boxes and also answer this email about the thing to the customer and also get groceries. And I was like, this is confusing because there are so many context switches in there. And so I added one more step, which is in things you can have these, they're called areas, but with other to-do list apps, I think you can also have like different disks or whatever. So I added Dave (17:19.899) Yeah. Dave (17:27.375) Yes. Daniel (17:43.572) one list that's called home and another that's called work. And you can then drag some of those items from that list into the today view. I should really take a screenshot for you later. And then what you have is like you have a sorted list for today. So my list will look like this. This is your items for today. For home, you need this, this, and this. And for work, you need this, this, and this. Dave (17:56.475) Mm-hmm. Daniel (18:12.494) And it turns out that works really well for me, but it's not enough. So I actually split it up further. I split up home into mornings and evenings and groceries. in the mornings, they're also sorted. Like some mornings is the top most thing. These are things that I need to do before I get to work or start working at home. Cat litter stuff, for example, because otherwise the apartment will just smell. Then I have... Dave (18:37.797) Yep, yep, yep. Daniel (18:41.71) And then after work, have evenings and groceries. So on the way home from work, I can get groceries. then also like if I have like things that I want to do at home in the evening, I don't know, clean up stuff, do the dishwasher, do the laundry, then I can do that in the evenings. And work, I also split that up into actual work and customer support because this is the only way I can bring myself to do customer support because I love it when people write us and I really love it. Dave (18:55.255) All those things, yeah. Okay. Daniel (19:11.18) like helping everyone, but at the same time, it feels so hard or it's so hard to bring myself to do these things because I feel like if I write code in our code base, that helps or reaches like thousands of people. If I answer this email, this reaches just this one person. So it's always like a balancing act, but at the same time, some people will just need... Dave (19:28.078) Approval. Yeah. Dave (19:32.933) Yes. Daniel (19:39.662) to hear that, yeah, this is actually broken on our side. I'm going to look at it. Or sometimes just like features are there but very hard to find. Or you need to combine some stuff that is not very obvious. so people will just need to write us. But yeah, that's a different topic. So now I have, right. Dave (19:56.379) There's no getting around that bit in some ways, right? That's just, yeah, the task. But can I just interject one second here, Daniel? I'm looking and I'm going, right, okay. So one of the things we've not talked about on the show, and probably won't talk about in any depth, I'm exploring an ADHD diagnosis. I've had an assessment. That's all going through. And I feel great about that, right? That's about me. Daniel (20:04.813) Mm-hmm. Dave (20:26.039) understanding myself a lot better and all of this. But one of the things from that, that, sort of learning about myself is that, context switches are a big deal transitions between one mode or the other tricky at times. You know, I'll describe like, yeah, I need a second to just change gear, you know, as I sort of do go from one thing to another. Daniel (20:47.651) Hmm. Dave (20:51.231) One of the other things is that when I've got a list of tasks and things to do, if it's not now, if it's not important, it definitely drops off the end. So the system you're describing to me resonates in a sense of what you're doing is you're organizing things into when they are now. If you describe, right, so your yes, your time of day stuff really makes sense, right? OK, so I will spend a bit of time. Daniel (21:00.366) you Daniel (21:10.466) Yes. yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Dave (21:19.597) in the morning, this is when I go and sort this. OK, right. That's a now. You know, you wake up, you've done you've had your coffee or whatever your routine is, and then you look at the stuff and it's and it's now and then everything's getting sorted into their other now times of day. And I guess you've got some then next level prioritization inside of that as well. So so this makes a lot of sense to me. Equally for me, yes, I rent some repeat new systems. on a regular cadence. So it will work and hold for two or three months at best. And then I will definitely need to refresh stuff because I just get bored. Yeah. Daniel (21:49.87) You Daniel (21:59.64) Yeah, totally. that's fine too. Like that's one thing that I've realized about the way my brain works is I'm fine with that now. Like this is actually not a position of shame. But so yeah, that's how my current system works. I have mornings, I have support, I have work, which is everything except support stuff. I have groceries and have evenings. And that works surprisingly well because also it groups the support stuff. Dave (22:08.891) Mm-hmm. No. Dave (22:19.003) Mm-hmm. Daniel (22:28.928) So I can, like when I've finished answering one request, and those are hard to quantify because sometimes it's a one-liner that I can answer, but sometimes it's like, OK, I need to look at the customer. Then I need to look at their data. Then I need to look at our SDKs to see if actually the thing that they want can be done or whatever. But yeah, if I gather some momentum, I can just try to force myself to do a few more customer requests. So yeah, and then I do the programming part because that's actually the most fun. then I haven't found a way. I might have to split up the work thing more if there's any other admin stuff. But I have the distinct pleasure of having this designated admin time. Like every Monday afternoon, I meet up with Lisa virtually or in person. And we go through all the admin stuff together. And so usually, It's not so much admin stuff in the rest of the week for me, which is awesome. Dave (23:31.739) That's great. I think it's good to give these things a thought. It's good to give it a bit of an approach and try stuff out. And yeah, really cool to hear about your system there, Daniel. I feel like I'm going to borrow a few bits of that. I'm going to be getting things done merged with a now and not now system. Daniel (23:45.517) You Daniel (23:52.858) I like that framing. I like that way of looking at it as in like, when is it now? Because yeah, that's totally it. And I still need to do a bit of review in the morning. But basically, I'll be looking at it and be looking at the inbox or whatever and be like, what is things that needs to be happening today? But yeah. Dave (23:59.405) Yeah. Dave (24:14.265) Yeah, that's cool. yeah, I mean, the other thing it gives you is a support request come through or things come through in the other times. It lets you go, yeah, that's great, but it's not now. And you've got that safety in knowing that, you know, tomorrow or the next day or whenever it is will be now, it will get sorted. So it's not like it's just going into a black hole. It's got a spot. Yeah, that's great. Daniel (24:36.76) Right. We're also considering actually going to use, like trying to use a actual support system like Help Scout or Zendesk. I've previously, I've been like against it because especially Zendesk is just like really important and complicated. And so we've been using email basically, but that's kind of reaching its limits. And I've also recently discovered a new thing called Help Scout, which seems like a Zendesk but in small. Dave (24:46.981) Yeah. Yeah. Dave (24:59.278) It will. Yeah. Daniel (25:06.83) I haven't tried them out yet, they haven't paid me anything to say this, but I might just try them out. Dave (25:15.417) I think it's case of again, it's a case of trying to the system and seeing how it fits and all of that. But it's helped scout when you can self host because I'm kind of entering into that phase of my life at the moment. Daniel (25:27.245) No. No, it does not seem like it does. But that's an important consideration, you're thinking about it. I am famously against self-hosting, but I might have to... We're not talking about recent events so much on this show, which is fine, because you need a break from that every now and then. But at the same time, you don't want to be beholden to too many things, right? Dave (25:37.785) Yeah. Dave (25:46.831) Yeah, yeah. gotcha, yeah. Dave (25:57.701) That's right. Yeah, think it's, yeah. Daniel (25:58.574) All right, so they don't seem to have self-hosting. And so yeah, that needs to be entering the conversation as well. Because the other thing is, of course, if you're self-hosting, then you have the downsides of self-hosting, is you're a responsible for things. Dave (26:13.679) admin support, turning the server over, doing what you need to do, backups, all of that. But on the flip side, you own your data and you know where everything is. yeah. Daniel (26:25.506) Good point, good point. Also, this might push me into looking at systems that we already have and seeing if we can use those, like our ticketing system or just our Notion. Because we have Notion, and that's not self-hosted, but I do auto-export all the content every two weeks. So if they go down or whatever, I have the content at least. Dave (26:48.763) And it's important. I mean, a bit of a side note, yeah, I'm definitely going down that sort of self-hosted route for a few things. And I've been leaning that way for ages. But ultimately for me, it's about just having a bit of certainty of where data is and can I shift services, should push come to shove, you know, all of those sort of things like that. That's been quite on my mind, even in my personal life. I've got a built... Daniel (26:53.154) people. Daniel (27:00.205) Mm-hmm. Dave (27:18.415) We talked on the last show I built that NAS, that home NAS system. I've got a job that runs every hour that downloads all of my photos from iCloud to the NAS. There's a lovely little iCloud Python script thing that I found that does this job. And so every hour I get a little email come through from the NAS saying the status of the job. Daniel (27:28.291) Mm-hmm. Dave (27:47.641) which I should probably turn off, but it's kind of cute. I sort of get this like, I know I get, you know, like way back when you might have an hourly beep on your watch or something. It's like, I get the notification from the NAS and I'm like, cool. The NAS is running well. All my photos are synced. but yeah, that gives me, that gives me all of my photos and videos of my phone locally on storage. And I like that. I like that sort of certainty. Daniel (27:50.239) Hahaha Daniel (28:14.616) Fantastic. Yeah, I get that. can totally relate. But we can totally use this as a jump off point as well, because you've been playing around a lot with Linux and alternative ways of using your hardware, Tell me about that. Dave (28:22.533) But, Dave (28:26.021) Go for it. Dave (28:34.895) Yeah, yeah, so well, OK, let's let's let's the scene. What am I actually up to at the moment? So and hey, I'm going to talk about my indie dev. Here we go. Daniel (28:48.638) What a rare occurrence. Dave (28:52.215) A novel concept. I pushed a couple of updates to my apps just over a week ago now and they are final releases of features to some degree and everything is now on bug fixes and maintenance mode to some degree for my apps. For a reason, I want to spend probably about three or four months exploring things like Kotlin multiplatform. Daniel (29:12.407) okay. Dave (29:21.371) and compose multi-platform properly instead of just saying I'm going to do it. Because I've been saying I'm going to do it for the last year on and off. Daniel (29:30.774) I'm gonna do it. I'm really gonna do it. I'm gonna... Dave (29:31.981) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm done. I'm done with Apple, you know, like, then it's like, no, I've bought a new iPhone. so I'm kind of trying to get myself into gear on that. And the point for me is, well, I want to, I want to develop with Kotlin Multiplatform and compose, explore how I can set my apps up in that side. The goal being that if things work out well, Daniel (29:36.814) you Dave (29:59.503) then I've got a code base that I'm deploying to Android, iOS, potentially Linux, potentially Mac and Windows as well. It's going to be, there's going to be some overhead. There's going to be some paper cuts and dishes. I know that I'm biting off more than I can chew. However, this is how I have fun, right? The whole reason I do this is because I kind of enjoy this sort of problem. Daniel (30:26.85) That's the thing, right? You don't need to rely on this job to pay your food, to put food on your table. This is what you do for fun. So you're allowed to do it in the way that you want to do it. Dave (30:37.081) Yes, yes. Exactly. And I think it's worth calling that out for anybody who's trying to do this sort of stuff professionally is well, no, I'm here to have fun with this primarily. There's a jumping off point, you know, if stuff ever starts to, really take off in one way or another, well, then I'll need to get my head together and tighten a whole bunch of things up and all of that. But that will be a nice problem to have at this stage. I'm trying to just explore things, have fun, expand my knowledge. And also there's a there's a values thing underneath this as well, which is I, my app enables people to perform live video with their iPhone. And one of the values I've got there is that it makes it easy to do this sort of thing for everybody. Well, not everybody's using an iPhone. So there's, there's the, the conundrum, the value, if you like, I feel like if I do this and I pull it off, Daniel (31:12.899) Mm-hmm. Dave (31:38.489) Well, I can say yes, it's for everyone with capital E. Yeah. Back to the point though, what have I been doing? I put Linux on a MacBook Air that I've got, but it's an M1 MacBook Air. And unfortunately, it's a little bit clunky to get Android Studio and other environments I might need for mobile dev working on it. So it works lovely. There's a little Linux machine. but it's not given me what I need for mobile dev. Handily, after building the NAS, I ended up with a 2018 Intel Mac Mini sitting there doing nothing on my desk. Daniel (32:19.532) Hahaha Dave (32:22.779) So what I... Yeah. Yeah. Installing modern Linux is onto it isn't really that hard. You need to do a couple of things if you're on the latest Mac OS to enable it to select a boot, a different disk at boot time. You hold down Alt and you can select. I think I needed to unlock some of the security. Daniel (32:23.982) I have one of those in my basement, unused. I think I need to pull that out at some point. Dave (32:51.387) to let it do that. can't really remember now. There was a step somewhere there. But then after that, it's dead easy. You just hold down alt and you can boot a USB stick with Linux installation on it. As I no longer wanted Mac OS on this machine, I just nuked the entire boot drive and put Linux on there. I tried using external drive in the middle of all of this and... dual booting Mac OS and having Linux on an external USB drive. Not cool. Yeah, I lost the installation at one point just by unplugging the drive and plugging it back in. And then for some reason, everything just unraveled. anyway, installing on the whole machine, I'm exploring various different flavors of Linux at the moment. I've tried Linux Mint, currently try Fedora. Fedora by default is a specific windowing environment. So I've installed three different windowing environments on that and I keep switching between them at boot time to see which one I like the best. Shout out to KDE, it's winning at the moment because it runs faster than anything else and I like that the UI is nice and snappy. Daniel (34:09.55) Because if you use Linux and want a graphical interface you have three options. You can either use the one that makes you look like a hacker, you can use the one that likes dragons, or you can use the one for foot fetishists. Dave (34:13.744) Mm-hmm. Dave (34:24.005) Mm-hmm. Dave (34:29.615) You mean gnome and dragons would be KDE for their mascot. Yeah. But this is the thing, right? I think you've got to have a think with this sort of stuff about why and what you're doing. At the moment, I'm in explore mode and just finding things out. I used to use Linux a lot, sort of circa 2007 to 2010. So some of this isn't new to me and actually you know, some of the libraries and the list and the others of it haven't really changed since then they've just evolved. And I've used it on and off for other things in between as well. So it's not like, everything is new to me. It's more like just discovering where things are and what I prefer. But yeah, so the next I've been exploring other things like, okay, how does steam work? gaming, can I turn on the compatibility layer? Yes, this Mac is an integrated graphics card and runs everything like the proverbial dog shit. It it grinds and slides down, but the compatibility stuff that Steam has actually works well, so that's interesting. Don't need Windows for a lot of games. This is relevant because I have an 18 year old son who wants to play with this stuff as well, but doesn't know as much as I do. So I'm trying to check these things out so I can help him as well. But yeah, anyway, when we next talk, hopefully I've actually booted an IDE and started running some code. I've made a repository. I have a basic KMP, CMP project, but I haven't got Pastello World. Daniel (36:20.536) Well, that's the most important step. Dave (36:23.117) Yeah, yeah. So hopefully I'll have a bit more to talk about on that next time, but I'm settling in and yeah, I've got Mac Mini next to my Mac Studio. I switch the monitor. I've literally got two keyboards set up as well. So I just move one in front of the other at the moment and I've got a button on my mouse. I can switch it between different receivers. So that's working okay. desktop full of wires I need to clean up but the long-term goal here though Daniel is do I really need Mac OS Daniel (36:57.39) Of course, of course. Dave (37:06.519) And the answer will be if this works, no, but I will need it for doing iOS builds. And that's fine. Yeah. Daniel (37:15.918) Well, which is fine. It seems to me like you're not actively disliking being on Mac OS. You just want to have the option to be everywhere. And so having a Mac OS-based build machine or whatever doesn't seem too horrible. Dave (37:27.685) That's right. Yeah. Dave (37:34.969) No, not at all. Not at all. And you know, my Mac Studio is lovely and I don't, there's no way I'm throwing everything out the door just to be Mr. Linux. But yeah, I mean, on that note though, I will probably sell the MacBook Air and I'll probably sell the Mac Studio if this is work, the Mac Mini if this is working, too many Macs. And then buy a laptop that is Daniel (37:58.862) You Dave (38:02.969) You know, I know the hardware is really good for Linux. Everything runs out the box because I've got, yeah. Daniel (38:06.798) There's a company here in Augsburg called Tuxedo Computers, which makes, as you can probably imagine, Linux-based laptops. Dave (38:11.403) yes. Dave (38:18.745) Yeah, awesome. Awesome. Yeah, I have come across them actually as I've been searching these things out. Daniel (38:23.672) All right. Only downside is they don't have any like models that they're selling right now that have, that are not Intel based. Because I clearly talked about this before, but like, I'd saw, I would so like to have like an ARM based machine because like ARM based machines are just like so like the, they're just like fast and long lasting and everything that Intel machines aren't. But I, I talk to them every now and then because like they have things like they are, they are in the startup hub. Dave (38:31.642) Okay. Dave (38:37.765) Mm-hmm. Dave (38:43.877) Yeah. Daniel (38:52.79) location every now and then and they showed me their prototypes and everything but it just like needs a bit more work and there's like not enough drivers and like things are just different and you Dave (38:59.653) Yeah. Dave (39:03.087) Yeah. and again, like just my experience with the Sahi Linux on the MacBook Air is that getting things like Android Studio that based around Intel and x86 processors to run is a pain. So actually I want less pain with this if I'm going to do that. And some of the new Intel chips, Daniel, like apparently... Daniel (39:22.84) You want less pain. Okay. I see. see. okay. Dave (39:31.223) are starting to match some of the performance and energy saving sort of sides that the Armchips presents as well. I think it's the Intel Ultra series, I think, has some of this. So it may all just be things people say on the internet that I need to prove this out. regardless, this is fun. I'm having fun. I'm learning things again. Yeah. Yeah. Daniel (39:39.31) Alright, that's pretty neat. Daniel (39:47.886) You Daniel (39:56.13) That's the most important thing. Dave (40:00.621) So watch this space, maybe the Mac Studio becomes just a build server in time, a Linux laptop becomes my comfy space. And then I probably care less about the graphics capability of an Intel chip on a laptop because I like building PCs and I guess there's a gaming or beefier PC workstation in my future if I go that path. Daniel (40:06.2) you Daniel (40:24.204) Right, gotta mine those crypto coins. Dave (40:27.577) Yeah, yeah, exactly. But no, anyway, that's me. Daniel (40:32.824) How would you, I have like follow up questions. How do you, because it sounds like you're describing like a menagerie of computers. And my first instinct is to put all of those into one box to have like less cable salads. Are you planning to do that or is that something you've thought about? Dave (40:34.907) Mmm. Dave (40:46.565) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Dave (40:54.011) Not really. mean, the Max Studio is not exactly a huge device. I'm looking at it now. Like the worst case scenario here is that I end up with a laptop that I'm using for this multi-platform dev. And the Max Studio kind of gets pushed to the side as a build server that I can flick my monitor to every now and again if I need to. I'd probably take away its keyboard right now, because in those moments I would just be able to plug in the other keyboard that I've got on my desk or whatever. But exactly, exactly that. Yeah. So at the moment I don't have a plan, as I said to you, I'm thinking about selling machines and consolidating them into a single laptop. So that's that. Daniel (41:33.388) Or you can just do like V and C and you know. Dave (41:51.215) But yeah, I guess the other thing is, I don't necessarily care. I've got a reasonable amount of room in this room. I can move things around and be sorted. So that's probably the answer. Dave doesn't really care. Yeah. Daniel (42:08.802) All right, fair. Because while you were talking, was like, I was getting in myself this feeling of, I would like to have, like this machine that I'm sitting in front of me right now, that's always in front of me, right? But I have in my apartment right now, I have various machines that are just kind of sitting in cupboards. Like right now I have the Synology. I have the. Dave (42:20.431) Mm-hmm. Daniel (42:36.174) the arm-based Mac Mini that is a build server for telemetry deck, but also that thing has an external hard drive that is shaped exactly like a Mac Mini. And then, as you notice, I just realized I actually have another Intel-based Mac Mini in the basement, and I'm thinking of reactivating that. I kind of want to put them into a server rack, for lack of a better word. But it can't be a normal server rack, because A, that doesn't fit. Dave (42:46.191) Yeah. Dave (43:01.477) Mm-hmm. Dave (43:05.765) They're not normal sizes. Yep. Daniel (43:06.304) into my office and B, they don't fit into that kind of stuff. So are there, like, there must be like the mini fridges of server racks, right? Which is just like a tiny, a tiny rack basically, like that is maybe ventilated. And then, you know, do you have any experience with that? Dave (43:26.745) Yeah, I really don't know. Not at all. And this is something I probably need to get experience at at some point, because I've got, I built this NAS and it's kind of just sat in the living room next to the cabinet that we've got the TV in. It's fine. It sort of blends in. So it's not really an issue for us. But there is a point where, yeah, I wouldn't mind racking things up. and getting some things out of the way. Like if this is where things are going for me, well, I've got a home NES, the Mac Studio could probably be racked if it just becomes a build server for running builds, right? And then, yeah, I wouldn't rack the Mac Mini, that's gonna go. But... Yeah, I really don't know. The mini fridge of Rax sounds about right to me, like for our needs. Daniel (44:33.774) I feel like I want to research that a little bit. I don't want to spend a lot of money and I don't want to go too wild on this, famous last words. But yeah, if I'm going to experiment with all of this a bit more, then maybe that's kind of worthwhile. So yeah, also, thing, also maybe like, I need to just 3D print some holders. Dave (44:37.774) Yeah. Dave (44:45.296) Mm-hmm. Dave (44:56.474) Yeah. Daniel (45:03.618) be able to screw the Mcminis into place or something, you know? Dave (45:06.981) That sounds like an easily doable thing to be honest. And yeah. Daniel (45:08.82) I still don't want to own a 3D printer, but I have now found a venue to get access to one because my city has a place called the Habitat. That is a makerspace and you can basically join them and then 3D print stuff there. So I'm tempted to try that out on the weekend. Dave (45:16.623) Awesome. Dave (45:22.383) Lovely. Dave (45:30.587) Makerspaces are awesome. So yeah, definitely, definitely try that out if you've got some downtime, Daniel, for sure. These are the things, right? We could nerd out and go really all over the place with these things in our lives. And I think, you know, obviously I'm having fun with the stuff I'm playing with at the moment. It kind of relates back to my indie dev, but it is also very much hobby mode, right? I'm exploring this stuff just because I find it fun. If I was in serious business mode, there's a point where maybe manager Dave, would be looking at this and saying, dude, you've got an existing stack. The apps are running well. Explore this on the side, but don't make it the main thing. Heat cranking features are making the better. Yeah. Daniel (46:08.964) yeah, totally. That would also be my recommendation if you were in, if that was your livelihood basically. Dave (46:16.027) Yes, yes. But also there's a point here where I'm looking at this for so many other reasons, right? I mean, the state of the world stuff and the other. I look at where Mac OS is going and where the latest updates have been in terms of saying what I can and can't run on my machine, for example, in terms of how Mac OS is working and the ability to just say, oh, actually, that's nice Mac OS, but I want to run this seems to be becoming harder and harder. And I'm like, well, actually, maybe I want to be on an operating system that doesn't give a shit and lets me do what I want to do. You know? So yeah, there's a bit of that as well. So I can look at this and I can go, well, actually, if I've explored this and it's working, come later on in the year, I don't care what the next version of Mac OS does. Daniel (46:54.286) Ha Dave (47:13.997) as long as I can still build my apps through Xcode on it on a build server. There's another point though, where if I go this route and I explore it and I decide it kind of sucks and I have all these issues with the edges on it, at least I know, right? At the moment I don't know. It's kind of like this, maybe, maybe not. So it's not gonna hurt me. It'll end up being a qualified opinion one way or the other for me. And yeah, if the outcome is, hey, this is lovely. I found all these things that work really well. I'm doing a multi-platform dev for all the things. I've somehow figured out all of the ways to make video mixing work in a multi-platform way. That's going to be fun. If I'm at that point at any time in the next year or two, I think I'll be quite happy. So we shall see. And if it doesn't work. I'll find other things to do and that's fine too. Daniel (48:13.678) That's awesome. Yeah, I'm totally on board with that. I think we're almost at the end, but because we have like five more minutes or so, I have like one thing that I can tell you what I did that kind of fits into those, which fits into the, yeah, let's try and explore new things that are kind of outside of the corporate world or like get a bit more control over our digital lives. So a tiny thing that I did was I... Dave (48:22.617) Yeah. Daniel (48:43.918) I stopped using Audible. So I'm a huge audiobook listener. And so I've had an Audible account for ages. And you pay them 10 bucks a month. And then for that, you get one credit. And you can use a credit to buy an audiobook, right? And that is cool and everything. But recently, I fell way behind. I got like 36 credits or so. That's like 360 bucks of unused audiobooks. And so I'm like, OK, I want to do something with this. I want off. But if I just cancel the account, the credits are just gone, and I can't listen to the stuff anymore. So what I did is I found an application that is called Open Audible. And that is the worst user interface I've ever seen. It's very much a Java app. And it is very much an app that is like, Dave (49:34.171) Ha ha ha. Yep. Daniel (49:40.846) written by someone who is not an app or a user interface developer. But it does exactly the thing. It's called OpenAudible, which is kind of weird because you actually pay money for it. I paid like, I don't know, $30 for it. But what you do is you log in with your Audible account. It kind of grabs all the metadata for your audiobooks. It pulls them down, converts them into either MP3 or M4B. Dave (49:45.549) Yes. Daniel (50:08.876) and then just have them as files and you can use book player, for example, which is an excellent open source iOS app for audio books to play them. So basically I went on a shopping spree and about 36 different books that I always wanted to use to use up the credits, then slurped all of that down onto my hard drive and canceled the audible account. I also canceled Goodreads and I'm on Story Graph Now for book management, which also has a horrible, horrible user interface. Horrible user interface. tell you, like, I'm like, you know, like, instead of saying you can say in English, like, if you're in a glass house, you shouldn't throw stones. And I know that the user interfaces that I do, that I write aren't the best. Like, there's criticism there. But still, oof, I would so much. Dave (50:39.727) Yeah. wow. Dave (50:46.211) A lot of these things do, unfortunately. Yes. Dave (50:57.115) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, pay. Dave (51:03.451) Ha ha ha. Daniel (51:07.309) like that to improve, I'm sure that will improve actually. Sorry for story graph. If not, I'm going to bookworm, which is on the Fediverse, Fediverse even. But yeah, anyway, I have a book wish list. have my audio book files and I'm switching from Kindle to Kobo. And also, yeah, and also to actually like just like you can borrow books from your library, eBooks even. so I'm Dave (51:16.571) Nice. Dave (51:26.117) Yeah, Kobo is lovely by the way. Dave (51:34.659) Mm-hmm. Yes. That's fantastic. Have a request, Daniel, can you link all of these things in our show notes for me? Because actually I want to explore some of this at some point too. Yeah, but on that note, all this cord cutting and open source exploration, all the rest of it, I'm sure we'll talk more about indie dev specifically another time. This all relates and underpins. Daniel (51:46.03) I will do that. Dave (52:07.919) but it has been lovely Daniel to catch up with you after what feels like ages. Daniel (52:11.672) Hasn't eat. has indeed. It was ages like we last last time we talked was during the Bush administration, I think. Dave (52:21.915) yeah, we're not gonna get topical, but my word, it's like every week feels different at the moment, Give us the outro, mate. Daniel (52:36.534) I will give you the outro because I'm saying thanks for listening. Please rate us on iTunes and like us on YouTube, also like subscribe or whatever. Send us emails at contact at waitingforreview.com and join our Discord. The link is in the show notes. Follow me at daniel at social.telematredeact.com and Dave, can people find you? Dave (53:01.179) great question, because I've been all over the place with social media in the last month as well. think Mastodon is probably the best place for listeners of the show right now if they want to contact me in any text based way. So I'm at Dave at social dot light beam maps dot com on Mastodon and the Fetty verse. And for pictures and videos and all that sort of jazz, am light beam maps dot com or one word dot com. on Instagram. Daniel (53:33.944) fantastic all right have a great day see you soon stay stay salty Dave (53:42.821) the Daniel (53:45.016) No, stay fresh cheese bags. Dave (53:47.771) Stay frosty. Daniel (53:52.526) All right, bye. Dave (53:54.019) I'm out. Catch you mate.