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Everything else

  • Does Not Contain

    October 10, 2020 2 min read

    <p>I occassioanlly need to scan a folder and all of its subdirectories to see if any of them DO NOT contain files of a certain type.</p> <p>I'm fully aware you can do this with some combination of shell commands, but I always spent 20 minutes googling for how to do it again every time I needed to. It was faster just to write this small utility myself.</p> <p>I call it <code>dnc</code>, which stands for "does not contain". You can <a href="https://github.com/tylerhall/dnc">download the source or a pre-built binary on GitHub</a>. The builds aren't notarized. So be sure to ask Apple if it's OK to run this on your Mac.</p> <p>Read the full post for an example of why I need this script.</p>

  • Dot Dee Tee

    October 9, 2020 6 min read

    <p>Inline with my affinity for <a href="https://new.tyler.io/category/backups/">backing up and owning my data</a>, one component of that strategy is <a href="https://new.tyler.io/grannysmith/">avoiding proprietary file formats and databases</a> whenever possible and reasonable. That's why I prefer plain text (and more recently <a href="http://textbundle.org/"><code>.textbundle</code></a>) for all of my notes, and why I'm so meticulous about <a href="https://new.tyler.io/category/photography/">how I organize my family's photo archives</a>.</p> <p>It gives me the agility to move from app to app or even (heaven forbid, it may eventually happen) to a new platform as my needs change. If you own your own data, there's no lock-in.</p> <p>So along those lines, here's a very tiny optimization (is that the right word for this?) that I've been doing for years that helps keep my reference material organized and more easily searchable and filterable.</p> <p>(Oh, and also a quick story about how I effed up someone else's data.)</p>

  • Five

    October 9, 2020 1 min read

    <p>I don't quite understand how it's been five years already. Nevertheless, happy birthday to the most fearless and persistent young lady I've ever known.</p> <p><img src="https://cdn.tyler.io/wp-content/uploads/blog/H5.jpg" alt="Five" /></p>

  • Solving Problems on Systematic

    October 8, 2020 1 min read

    <p>If you need something to listen to this weekend or during your next commute, <a href="https://systematicpod.com/ep/241">here's a link to me prattling on for forty-six minutes</a> about how and why I build the software I do.</p> <p><a href="https://brettterpstra.com/">Brett Terpstra</a> was kind enough to invite me on as the guest of his <a href="https://systematicpod.com/">Systematic podcast</a> this week. And when he says I'm "on about the same level of geek frequency as" he is, well, that's a heck of a compliment in my book.</p>

  • The App That Never Was

    October 1, 2020 5 min read

    <p>While using one of my favorite iOS Shortcuts the other day, it occurred to me how much things have changed in six years.</p> <p>I say six years ago specifically because it was in 2014 that I made an iOS app called Upshot.</p> <p>Sadly, Upshot never saw the light of day because I couldn't get it past App Review for very dumb reasons. Lucky for you though, after I show the ridiculously simple Shortcut that I now use instead, this gives me the opportunity to tell you my very favorite App Store rejection story.</p>

  • Digital Heirlooms

    September 26, 2020 7 min read

    <p>If you've followed this blog for any length of time, you'll find that I take preserving our (my family's) digital memories and history seriously. </p> <p>However, if I were to die tomorrow, the app I made for my son and installed on his iPad this morning will stop working in one-hundred and ninety-two days. Not for any technical reason. Not because of future software incompatibilities. If his iPad remained in working order for another hundred years, it wouldn't even matter. This digital heirloom will self-destruct as soon as my developer certificate expires.</p> <p>And it's all due to an arbitrary decision on Apple's part.</p> <p>I don't think I'm being hyperbolic when I say that future historians and even archaeologists are going to revisit our time and be furious at the direction our industry turned towards using consolidation, monopoly power, and artificial restrictions to protect profits at all costs.</p>

  • Sample Code to Make your Mac App Open at Launch and How to Handle Global Keyboard Shortcuts

    September 21, 2020 2 min read

    <p>After my post last week about the updates I made to my audio app Ears, longtime internet buddy @macrael asked:</p> <blockquote> <p>@tylerhall Do you use libraries for the hotkey-setting UI or the start-on-launch stuff? I'm putting together my first Mac app and am looking into those parts rn.</p> </blockquote> <p>I do, actually. In addition to replying to MacRae on the nightmare birdsite, I thought I'd post the two helper projects here for anyone else searching.</p>

  • Listen Up

    September 17, 2020 7 min read

    <p>One of the best things that have come out of the pandemic for me has been my little Mac app, Ears. I had the idea for it and built it about a month into quarantine because I was in so many remote meetings throughout the day. And depending on the time of day, how much notice I had before the call, if my kids were around, all sorts of reasons - I found myself frequently switching my Mac's audio between speakers, AirPods, headphones, etc. It was a pain, so I built Ears to make that easier.</p> <p>Since that first release in June, I've been refining the app to fit my workflow even better. And tonight, I'm delighted to push out a new release with additional features for all the work-from-home-warriors out there jumping between calls.</p>

  • Don’t Let Experience Get in Your Way

    September 11, 2020 4 min read

    <p>A coworker and I have been working crazy hours since March on a huge new product feature - him on Android and myself on iOS. Quite frankly, it's maybe the best work we've done in our careers. And work I, at least, wasn't sure we were even skilled enough to pull off. When we first pitched it to the client, we asked for eight weeks of uninterrupted dev time to build an MVP. They gave us five.</p> <p>If he and I had predicted these challenges upfront, I'm not sure if we would have pitched the work at all. But we missed them. And now I think that's a good thing. Because, unfinished loose ends or not, we now find ourselves mere weeks from shipping the best work we've ever done.</p>

  • Surtainly Not

    September 5, 2020 8 min read

    <p>Eighteen hours later, I'm here to write about the dumb, little toy of an app I made this morning just for Big Sur. I honestly don't expect other people to use it. I'm not even sure if I'll keep using it. It was more of a "I hate this. I wonder if I can fix it?" type of thing.</p>