July 29, 2021

👨‍💻 XnView or NeoFinder?

When dealing with a large catalog of images and videos, what is the better tool to work with, XnView or NeoFinder? On the surface they seem similar. They both catalog volumes for content, specifically images and videos. However, the main difference and advantage of NeoFinder is it’s offline catalog and larger file format support. We go from XnView being a viewer to NeoFinder being an asset manager. Case in point, I have more than two dozen external drives hooked up to this Mac Pro. There are 5 enclosures with drives ranging in size from 3TB to 8TB. Most of the time, all the external drives are offline. When I need something, what’s the best course of action? With NeoFinder, each drive has a catalog. I can see the volume contents when the drive enclosure is off. If I’m looking for a song, document, image or video, I can find the right volume without turning on every drive to search it. […]

July 26, 2021

👨‍💻 XnView or Usher?

Not too long ago I bought Usher for Mac because it was a good way to catalog and play the many MP4 files I have. It has decent features like indexing, video thumbnail and a built in player. However, with a recent update to XnView that indexes MP4 and MKV file formats correctly, was Usher the right way to go? Maybe not. With this XnView update, Usher has started to fall to the wayside. XnView shows video and image thumbnails in various sizes. This in addition to album covers for MP3 files. Further, XnView has a built in video player, image viewer, preview, slideshow and provides details on file data. It’s also very easy to Copy, Move, Rename and Delete files. Additionally, XnView updates folder content on a dynamic basis and doesn’t require me to move files into a special folder to build a database of files. In the end, Usher was a decent purchase, but XnView has almost reached […]

July 23, 2021

🏡 Return to working remotely

Well, that didn’t last long. Without going into detail for obvious reasons, we are back to working remotely due to a positive Covid test in the office. Without being hysterical, that’s a little too close to home. I don’t feel I’m in any danger, but we’ll scrub that mission. It only lasted a week, but confirms several things. Covid IS a thing. My vision of how things would play was correct. I sat in front of my computer, with headphones on, doing my job in the same way I do it remotely. I did have a revelation of how noisy an office is. There are constant text message dings, people asking where someone is, doors buzzing to let someone in, people talking on speaker phone with the door open, dings from Slack, or Teams, and lots of other distractions. It’s interruptions galore that totally threw off the flow. If you don’t absolutely, positively need to be in an office, don’t […]

July 18, 2021

👨‍💻 Sticky Password Lifetime AND KeepSolid VPN Lifetime for $30

This is such an incredible deal I thought it was a typo. But, it’s totally legit and goes into the must-have category. If you look around Stacksocial, a Sticky Password Lifetime license is offered for $30 on it’s own. KeepSolid VPN can also be had for $30. That is $30 a piece. This is $30 for the bundle, so it’s buy one, get one free. A password manager is essential these days. You need strong passwords and an easy way to get at them. I’ve just started converting all mine over to Sticky Password. I’ve also got the iOS version. So far it’s turning out to be a nice replacement for Roboform. A VPN isn’t just for connecting to a public WiFi. It’s important to keep your ISP out of your business. $30 for a lifetime license is a shockingly good deal. Both can be had for a limited time at StackSocial. The Lifetime Password Manager & Privacy Subscription Bundle

July 13, 2021

🏢 Return to Office

It’s merely semantics, but I’m not a fan of the term”Return to work.” I’ve been working for 18 months, not hanging out sipping fruity drinks with umbrellas in them. I think there is an idea that working remotely is some sort of extended vacation with people merely going through the motions. Anyway, the plan is to try a return to office experiment. I’m not in favor of the idea as it doesn’t seem to gain anything. I’ve been working remotely for four month now and as far as I can tell, everything is fine. I’m testing tickets. I’m attending meetings. Code is being written. Releases are going out the door. We’ve done at least two releases with a third in the works. If anything, we’re getting ahead of the curve. I’ve been remote for four months, the rest of the team has been remote since March 2020. The same 18+ months. This seems like one of those, we want you […]

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