Steve Sawczyn

  • iOS18.1 is finally here! If you’ve been waiting for Apple Intelligence, be sure to update quickly, so you can join the wait list and go back to waiting again.

  • Really miss Micro Monday, hoping that someday this podcast comes back. overcast.fm/+AAMRfrRb…

  • Checked in at City of Richfield

  • Wow, was just scrolling through some of my old entries on Micro.blog from four years ago, talk about a crazy trip back in time.

  • It looks like posts are not federating again today, is it just me? Cc @help

  • Still not really here, but since it’s so close, I figure it’s as good a place as any to use for testing. :-)

  • I wonder if there’s a way to cross-post Strava activity to micro.blog and/or other services? I tried building something with IfTTT but couldn’t figure out the “then” part of the recipe.

  • Checked in at Wooden Hill Brewing Company. First time at this place, great to mee up with co-workers after work and to experience some great beer and great food.

  • Best Buy. Here to check out the new iPad mini which I still don’t know if I want. :)

  • My thoughts on Apple's long-awaited 2024 refresh of the iPad mini

    I have been waiting for what seems like forever for the iPad mini to get a refresh and at long last, it has happened. That said, I’m admittedly underwhelmed by this refresh. While the new iPad mini will be able to use the shiny new Apple Intelligence that everyone is talking about – even though it hasn’t been released yet – the other changes in this refreshed model are pretty minor. I was hoping they would use one of the newer M-series Apple Silicon processors in the mini, just as they’re using in the current air and pro models. Unfortunately, they’re using the A17 Pro chip which, while not bad by any means, is the same chip that Apple used last year in its iPhone 15 Pro models. Couldn’t they at least use the chip that they’re using in this year’s iPhone 16 Pro models? To me, it almost feels like someone at Apple found a drawer with leftover chips and thought, “Gosh, what are we gonna do with all these leftover chips from last year? Let’s give the Mini a refresh and then update it for real once we run out.” I’m sure the situation is far more complicated than this, but it’s hard to justify upgrading knowing that I would be buying last year’s technology and still paying a premium price for it. All that said, I love my current mini, I love the form-factor, I love how portable it is, I like that I can have my apps organized in a way that helps me be productive in ways I can’t be on my phone. I would even go so far to say that of all the Apple mobile devices I’ve owned, the iPad mini, 6TH generation, has been one of my favorites.

    There are a number of articles that do a great job of detailing what’s new with Apple’s newest generation iPad mini. For anyone curious to learn more, I highly recommend this fantastic post by Jason Snell.

    So, will I be upgrading to Apple’s shiny new iPad mini? I’m still not sure. On the one hand, I like the idea of being able to use Apple Intelligence on the mini since that’s where I already do a lot of work, but on the other, I hate the idea of buying last year’s tech as if it were truly new. I’m definitely glad Apple is refreshing the iPad mini line, but after three years, I was really hoping to see a bit more.

  • Checked in at IKON Bloomington

  • Checked in at IKON Bloomington

  • Checked in at Full Tilt Tavern

  • Checked in at Minneapolis Central Library. Another awesome NFB chapter meeting.

  • Checked in at Coffee & Bagels

  • The campaigner at my door

    I just had someone at the door who is running for local public office. She said how wonderful it was to see me again, so I told her how wonderful it was to see her too. We talked about the weather, my job at 3M, her kids, she even asked about my four-year-old who must be getting so big now and so I assured her that yes, yes he sure is. I asked about her teenaged daughter and is she still enjoying sports? She does, but she’s growing up so fast; where does the time go anyway? this went on for about ten minutes. Thing is, I don’t have a four-year-old, I’ve never worked for 3M, I have no idea who she is, no idea if she has any kids, and I’m pretty sure she’s never met me either. Still, she did such an amazing job of keeping up the pretense for so long that I’m tempted to vote for her anyway. I only hope she is as impressed with my ability to make stuff up on the fly as I am with hers.

  • Well this is a bit strange: Trying to configure an IFTTT applet to do something with a micro.blog feed and I keep getting “RSS new feed item trigger failed”. Trigger failure message, “There was a problem with the trigger”. I guess IFTTT gets kudos for telling me, in multiple ways, that something isn’t working without actually telling me what’s wrong?

  • Testing, testing, is this thing on? Take two.

    Hello, I tried sending out a message earlier, however there were apparently a few things I didn’t quite have migrated properly, mainly Email subscribers. Everything appears to be migrated to Micro.blog from WordPress, for real this time. Hopefully, Emails will send out correctly. For anyone wishing to follow on the Fediverse, you should hopefully be able to do so: @Steve@Steves.life .

    I’m not going to make this too long in case there’s something else I don’t have properly set up,. Assuming I have everything set up correctly this time though, stay tuned for hopefully some more interesting content coming soon.

  • Migrating to Micro.blog, a really neat service that I'm hoping will help me blog more regularly

    Hello, remember me?  I’d totally understand if you don’t, after all, I haven’t been blogging very often of late, well, even longer than just of late, something I’m again hoping to change.  The reason I’m writing today though is because I’m about to migrate my blog away from WordPress.  WordPress is a fantastic platform, but for me, it’s a really distracting one. Every time I log in, it seems there’s a new plugin to investigate, a new update to install, or a new block in the Gutenberg editor that I just have to understand how to use even though I know I’ll likely never actually use it.  Long story longer, I’m migrating my blog to Micro.blog, a service I’ve subscribed to for quite a while, but which I’ve been hesitant to use as my primary blogging platform…until now.

    Micro.blog for those unfamiliar is an extremely easy-to-use platform which is tightly integrated with the Fediverse.  From the Micro.blog About page:

    Micro.blog is a unique platform that combines blog hosting with a social media-style timeline and community.

    It’s a paid hosting service for personal blogs that makes it easy to publish short or long posts. Use it for short thoughts, longer essays, photos, podcasts, what books you’re reading, links to news articles, and more.

    It’s a community whose members share posts via a timeline that is a safe space for conversations, free from advertising, trolling, and abuse, with community guidelines that are enforced.

    I really love the social aspect of Micro.blog and I love the idea of consolidating various apps that I already use into one feed.  After all, this blog is Steves.life and so it just sort of makes sense for it to be a place that combines the various apps and services that I already use to keep track of what’s going on in my life.  Couple all that with an interface that is simple to use and doesn’t contain the elements that tend to distract me and this seems like a good idea.

    So, what happens next?  After sending this post, I’m going to start migrating everything over to my Micro.blog instance.  Micro.blog has its own Email newsletter feature and so if you’re already subscribed to receive Email versions of my posts, you should continue to receive them.  If you’re subscribed to my RSS feed, I’m not exactly sure how that will migrate over, my hope is that the feed address will be similar enough that RSS readers will just pick up where they left off, if not, you may need to resubscribe with a slightly different RSS feed address.  Unfortunately I’m not sure how that will work until after I switch everything over.  If you follow this blog on Mastodon or a similar Fediverse service, you will need to re-follow as there’s no way for me to redirect Fediverse followers given limitations with the WordPress Fediverse implementation.  So unfortunately, you too may need to re-follow, more info will be forthcoming after I finish the migration.  So, long and short is that the URL will be the same:https://steves.life, Email subscriptions should continue to work, RSS feed subscriptions may continue to work although you may need to resubscribe, and ditto for Fediverse followers.  After the migration is successful, I’ll post updated Fediverse and RSS info for anyone who needs it.  Most importantly though, I am hopeful that migrating to Micro.blog will make things easier and less distracting for me and that ultimately, this will help me do more blogging and less talking about how I want to do more blogging.

    With all that said, it’s time for me to publish this and to begin the migration.  Wish me luck and I hope you’ll continue to follow me and to enjoy Steves.life.

  • OK, I just have to try their new crabby patty meal because it’s all I keep hearing about. :)

  • Checked in at Target

  • Checked in at Target

  • Checked in at Park Nicollet Clinic and Specialty Center Burnsville

  • Checked in at Park Nicollet Clinic and Specialty Center Burnsville

  • Checked in at Park Nicollet Clinic and Specialty Center Burnsville

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