0:00:00(upbeat music)
0:00:02Hello and welcome to Connected episode 382.
0:00:13It is made possible by our sponsors,
0:00:15Hover, Capital One, and Trade Coffee.
0:00:18My name is Stephen Hackett
0:00:19and I'm joined by Mr. Federico Vittucci.
0:00:22- Hello, I'm here.
0:00:23- Hello, welcome.
0:00:25- Thank you.
0:00:26- Hello and welcome.
0:00:27We're also joined by Mr. Myke Hurley.
0:00:29I wondered if you were gonna undo the sins of last week.
0:00:32- No, I'm getting back on track.
0:00:34- Are you though? - Back on track.
0:00:35Yeah. - 'Cause currently,
0:00:36it's just week after week after week, Federico constantly.
0:00:39- It's an even episode, so it goes to Federico.
0:00:42You'll get the odd one.
0:00:42- What if I just like, I'm not here next week?
0:00:45Then what are you gonna do?
0:00:46- Then it's Federico.
0:00:47- He's gonna call you on the phone and be like,
0:00:49"Hey, just wanted to say hi first."
0:00:51- Yeah, if for some reason I'm not here next week,
0:00:54you have to call me.
0:00:55- Are you missing the show next week?
0:00:57- It wasn't my plan, but I am,
0:00:59As we have been recording Connected Pro,
0:01:01which was a wild ride, which you should sign up for,
0:01:04getconnectedpro.co,
0:01:06I'm realizing why I'm getting a sore throat
0:01:08as we're talking.
0:01:09You know when you just start to feel the decline?
0:01:11Like that's happening to me now, so who knows, you know?
0:01:14- It started about the time that you were sad
0:01:16about not being introduced first.
0:01:18- No, it started way before that, like 21 minutes ago.
0:01:22- We have some follow-up.
0:01:25We were talking last week
0:01:26about Federico's Wordle bot update
0:01:29and about alt text on Twitter images.
0:01:33Ed Ross on Twitter commented
0:01:36that you can use the account get_alttext
0:01:40and basically it will reply
0:01:44with the alt text to you, which is pretty cool.
0:01:51- I don't understand these bots, you know.
0:01:53I can see a lot of these on Reddit too.
0:01:56Just these accounts that they just do one thing, you know?
0:02:00And like it's, I don't know who sets them up.
0:02:03I don't know why they set them up, like how it's maintained, how it works.
0:02:06I think about that too sometimes. Like who are these people and why do they do it?
0:02:11And I guess the answer is because it's cool and for glory? I guess?
0:02:16I think a lot of people are just trying to sell a book, you know, but I don't really understand how we get to a book from this one.
0:02:21No, I think sometimes you just make a cool thing and you want to make it public, because
0:02:26it's neat. And because running this bot is relatively inexpensive these days. Some of
0:02:32these they run on an instance of Roku or Linode somewhere, and it's super cheap. And you just
0:02:39figure "I'm going to spend like one dollar each month running this bot, why not?" You
0:02:44get a kick out of it and it's fine.
0:02:47Why not bot?
0:02:48Why not bot?
0:02:49Why not bot?
0:02:50Why not bot?
0:02:51Federico, we also, the follow-up's all about you this week.
0:02:55We had a question from Manny.
0:02:58To be fair, Steven, if you don't mind me interrupting, the vast majority of the show is about Federico
0:03:02this week, not just the follow-up.
0:03:03I'm just going to read the ads and sit back the rest of the time.
0:03:07Lots of pressure on me.
0:03:08I know.
0:03:09So Manny had a question about this gamepad accessory and the iPad Mini.
0:03:15Can you weigh in on this?
0:03:16So I mentioned this one months ago, the Shaxx GamePad.
0:03:22It's a Bluetooth game controller, I guess originally designed for Android devices.
0:03:28I mentioned this in the context of the Samsung Galaxy Fold 3, the Z Fold 3.
0:03:35Oh my god, I forgot that you owned one of those.
0:03:36I still do, it's kind of fun to play around with.
0:03:39It's beautiful with emulators, I can tell you that.
0:03:41Running Dolphin emulator for the Nintendo GameCube on that, it's pretty sweet.
0:03:46I was talking about the Shux Gain Controller, because you can...
0:03:49It's one of those controllers that is similar to the Backbone,
0:03:52in that you have the two halves of the controller,
0:03:54you open it up and you can slot a device in the middle.
0:03:58And I picked this one because it worked with the form factor
0:04:02of the Z Fold 3 when it's open.
0:04:05But Manny wants to know if it works with the new iPad Mini.
0:04:11Now, I don't recall exactly if there was something about it
0:04:16that was not quite convincing to me
0:04:19in using it with the iPad mini, but we can try right now.
0:04:23- This is how you break an iPad mini.
0:04:26(laughing)
0:04:27- Just a real time follow up,
0:04:28I cannot find the Shaxx game controller anymore.
0:04:32- Well, that was fast.
0:04:33That was incredible.
0:04:34You didn't spend a lot of time looking.
0:04:36- It was not where I thought it was gonna be.
0:04:39- Right, so you've just immediately given up then.
0:04:41- So either, well, now we're doing,
0:04:44we're in the middle of a podcast, there's some decency, you know, it's not like I can
0:04:48walk out on you guys. So it means two things. One, it's somewhere else or Sylvia stole it
0:04:56from me. Oh, there you go. TJ's made a very good point that you never lose things, but
0:05:00you immediately jumped to the Federico that we knew. No, not knew, you're still here.
0:05:08That now the obvious thing is that it has been stolen from you. I said it's somewhere
0:05:13else because I recently reorganized my bedroom so it could be... I discovered, this is totally
0:05:19an aside, I discovered this UK based company that makes like really useful plastic boxes.
0:05:25I think they're called like... OK... no, what do they call? Good boxes or something? And you can get them from
0:05:32Amazon, they are amazing to organize like stuff. What are they called? Like good box, like OK box
0:05:38or something like that. You can... I don't know what you're talking about. So I recently needed
0:05:43to reorganize my like USB dongles, cables, Game Boy cartridges, and I was looking for like a plastic
0:05:51box on Amazon. Like what is a good plastic box? Really useful pla... Is that the name? Really useful
0:05:57plastic boxes? Anyway, there's this company, I think it's based in the UK, and they have a totally generic
0:06:02name. Yeah, it's really useful plastic boxes. That's the name. From Really Useful Products?
0:06:08Yes! dotco.uk. These boxes are incredible. They are plastic boxes and they're super solid and cheap
0:06:16and they have this clamp mechanism that you can use to close them. Really well done. Oh, I have
0:06:21a similar product to this. I just got it on Amazon. Maybe I'm getting it from this company. I use it to
0:06:25put keycaps inside. Really good box. So, because I recently reorganized my drawers and my nightstand,
0:06:32the Shaxx game controller could be in a really useful plastic box, or Sylvia stole it, because
0:06:39I haven't lost it. So either Sylvia is suddenly and secretly into android-based gaming,
0:06:45or it's in a box. Dude, this really useful products website is real bad. You know,
0:06:55it's not really a website at all. Mine is from a company called City Life. I just bought something
0:07:01I found on Amazon. Clearly I did not get the really useful kind.
0:07:05Anyway, I can tell you many that I did try it, and either the thickness of the iPad Mini
0:07:11was not good enough or something about it, like I wasn't feeling confident about it
0:07:16because I didn't want to break the iPad Mini. But it's also been a few months since the iPad Mini came out,
0:07:21so maybe now we can actually try and find some proper gain controllers made for the new iPad Mini.
0:07:27Mini. It's something that I meant to check out a few weeks ago and then I
0:07:30forgot so I will look again and if I find anything I will report back on the
0:07:34show because I do miss having a proper gain controller for my iPad Mini so I
0:07:39need to look again. And lastly Federico, speaking of gaming, you released the
0:07:46teased Switch Frame shortcut. So talk to us about this. I want to hear more about
0:07:53about the problems of Nintendo Switch screenshots?
0:07:58- Switch Frame is, you can consider it like a fork
0:08:03of Apple Frames.
0:08:05It's based on the same techniques,
0:08:07based on the same actions in the shortcuts app.
0:08:10It takes screenshots that you take on a Nintendo Switch.
0:08:14Doesn't matter if you use a Switch, a Switch Lite,
0:08:16or a Switch OLED, those screenshots are always 720p
0:08:20or 1080p resolution.
0:08:22It takes those screenshots and it frames them nicely with the physical console template
0:08:27for the original Nintendo Switch with the classic red and blue Joy-Con colors for the controllers.
0:08:35This is a shortcut that I put together months ago, and that I never had the time to properly share on Mac Sorrys.
0:08:42I put this one together in the summer, actually, because I wanted to have a nicer way to share Nintendo Switch screenshots,
0:08:50Let's make them extra special when you share them on Twitter or other places, so that it
0:08:55actually looks like a Nintendo Switch game, and it looks more professional, you know,
0:08:59it looks nice.
0:09:00So what I did, obviously Nintendo, unlike Apple, they do not have like a proper press
0:09:07page where you can go in and download the product bezels, although they really should,
0:09:12but they don't.
0:09:13So I had this idea of like, what if I go to these websites like Dribbble or Behance, you
0:09:20these design websites where people usually share free downloads for PSD templates. I wonder if
0:09:28someone ever shared a Nintendo Switch PSD template file? And sure enough, someone did. So I talked to
0:09:35Silvia and I was like "Hey, can you actually try and make this work like Apple Frames does?"
0:09:40And yeah, she optimized. We took the PSD and we optimized it for shortcuts. She removed all of
0:09:49of the extra background that was not needed, and we picked the default red and blue look.
0:09:55And I put together this shortcut that takes screenshots, overlays it on the Nintendo Switch,
0:09:59and returns the composite image that looks nicer than just a plain screenshot.
0:10:06So this is...
0:10:08I love using this shortcut because it makes all the screenshots look so much nicer than
0:10:13the default JPEG that you get from a Nintendo Switch.
0:10:17But what's also cool, I think, is that it goes in combination with a shortcut that I
0:10:22released two years ago.
0:10:23Well, almost...
0:10:24Well, not two years ago.
0:10:27What was it?
0:10:28December 2020.
0:10:29How long ago is that?
0:10:30Like, 14 months ago?
0:10:32Which is called "Short Switch."
0:10:34And Short Switch...
0:10:35These two shortcuts, they go together.
0:10:37Short Switch, it speeds up the process of getting those screenshots out of a Nintendo
0:10:43Switch.
0:10:44in 2020, they launched this feature that makes it easier for you to take a screenshot on a Nintendo Switch and send it to an iPhone.
0:10:54The process involves scanning a QR code and connecting to a local Wi-Fi network that your Nintendo Switch creates.
0:11:01My shortcut cuts a bunch of steps from that process, so that it makes it easier for you to get all those screenshots and videos,
0:11:09because you can also share videos all at once into the Photos app or into the Files app.
0:11:15So now you can run Switch Frame on its own, it just finds any pictures that you have in the Photos app,
0:11:23or you can run it as a step of the import process.
0:11:28So you can keep using Short Switch, and so right there when you are importing the screenshots from your Nintendo Switch,
0:11:34Switch, you can frame them right away while you are getting them from the console. So
0:11:40it's cool and I like sort of these two worlds coming together. My love for Nintendo and
0:11:47shortcuts in this little utility that makes it easier and nicer to do Nintendo Switch
0:11:54screenshots. I like it. I like sending screenshots to you of old Animal Crossing things that
0:12:00I find in my level. My favorite thing, though, is an unintentional thing, but it's just for
0:12:04very funny if you have images that are in the same dimensions right it's just
0:12:08gonna find them like what are the dimensions that it's looking for do you
0:12:12remember 720p or 1080p so if you have other images that are in that resolution
0:12:19of like a 1080p screen yeah you can you could put them in it and I just like
0:12:23finding random promotional materials that I've made putting them on the
0:12:28Nintendo switch like you know like merchandise images and stuff so like
0:12:32Cortex merch on Nintendo Switch. It's just it's very funny to me, unintended,
0:12:37but it works and so if you really want to make your own Nintendo Switch game
0:12:40now you know how to do it I suppose. This episode of Connected is brought to you
0:12:45by Hover, one of Relay FM's longest running sponsors. When you have that one big
0:12:50idea where do you go? Well your business starts with a domain name so for many
0:12:54entrepreneurs Hover is that big leap. They have over 300 domain name extensions
0:13:00to choose from. No matter what you want to build there's a domain name waiting
0:13:05for it. And they have excellent technical support to answer any questions you may
0:13:09have. They're dedicated to getting you online not upselling you. Hover has free
0:13:15whois privacy so the bad guys don't get your information, clean UX and UI,
0:13:19monthly sales on popular top-level domains. It's easy to see why Hover is
0:13:24the popular choice for people starting businesses. All of my domains are at
0:13:30hover. I love how easy it is to find what you're looking for with their search
0:13:34tools because you may have an idea and maybe someone else has the domain name
0:13:38but hovers tools help you find other names that maybe you wouldn't have
0:13:42thought of. It's really fantastic, easy to use and I don't I don't go anywhere
0:13:47else. If you like intuitive user experiences and things that work
0:13:51straight out of the box you will appreciate hover. It's simple, clean and
0:13:55easy to navigate. Buy your domain and start using it today. Go to hover.com/connected
0:14:02and get a 10% discount on all new purchases. That URL one more time, hover.com/connected.
0:14:10Make a name for yourself with Hover. Our thanks to Hover for their support of the show and Relay FM.
0:14:16I found a really cool new app the other day. It was in my favorite app store on the Macintosh.
0:14:24It's called the Federico Vittici.
0:14:26And it was there in the app store, and I downloaded it.
0:14:30And now I've got it.
0:14:31I actually did download something from that page,
0:14:34the little M4V video that they made of boom box
0:14:39and an alarm clock flying around Federico's head.
0:14:42I downloaded that, and I now have that, so that's mine.
0:14:45Federico was featured in Apple's Mac App Store,
0:14:49which is honestly the funniest place
0:14:52for Federico to be, I think.
0:14:54Like if I could think of anywhere,
0:14:55what is the funniest place to put Federico?
0:14:57What about a story on the Mac App Store?
0:14:59Brilliant.
0:15:00And, but he's there and it's a really nice little feature
0:15:03about shortcuts, right?
0:15:05- Yes, yes.
0:15:06So this has been in the works for quite some time,
0:15:11obviously without getting into the details,
0:15:13but I've known for a long time.
0:15:15And essentially Apple reached out a while back asking for,
0:15:21"Hey, do you want to share some thoughts on shortcuts from Mac and what you're doing with it?
0:15:25What are some cool shortcuts that you think could be useful to people?"
0:15:30And so that is really how they framed the story.
0:15:35It's called Federico Vittucci's 7-Start Shortcuts.
0:15:38And what I like about this, which was also...
0:15:42I was concerned that this would go in a different direction,
0:15:46but what I really appreciate here, and I want to say,
0:15:49I didn't have to ask for any of this, but they kept basically all the context of my
0:15:58or our original interviews. They kept all the links to the shortcuts that I made.
0:16:04So the shortcuts that are linked in the story on the App Store, those are my shortcuts.
0:16:09The icon.com links, those are my links. And the shortcuts, they have my comments inside,
0:16:17Which means that, like, technically, I could pull those links and then it would break for the entire world.
0:16:24Ahh!
0:16:27Well, I mean, also you could just change them to literally whatever you want. Is that right?
0:16:31Would that work?
0:16:32No, I cannot change them, but I could pull them. But I'm a benevolent figure, and I will not do that.
0:16:38Are you?
0:16:39However, those... Yes, I am. However, those comments, they do have advertisements for max stories and club max stories inside,
0:16:46because why not? I mean, you know, if you want to learn more about shortcuts, go to
0:16:50Mac Stories or Cloud Mac Stories.
0:16:52What if one of those shortcuts, just like every time you ran it, like it ran it, and
0:16:57then like 30 seconds later you get a pop-up like, "Join the club!"
0:17:02They checked the shortcuts and there were a few, like, there was a little bit of back
0:17:08and forth to make sure that like some features were not confusing for people, so they checked
0:17:13all of them. The screenshots are apples, so they obviously tested this.
0:17:18You're like Taylor Swift.
0:17:20Like, there is a Federico's version of these shortcuts.
0:17:27You've got the shortcut that Apple's got and then people can get Federico's version.
0:17:33And it's the real deal, you know?
0:17:36So, yeah.
0:17:38And they kept my joke about being someone
0:17:44who doesn't remember anything unless he uses a task manager.
0:17:48And they said, and like something along the lines of,
0:17:50in between like a website, multiple podcasts,
0:17:54and a social media presence, that's understandable.
0:17:57Thank you, Apple.
0:17:58That you think it's understandable.
0:18:00It's nice to get that kind of--
0:18:04It's good to be seen, I suppose.
0:18:06Yes, I felt seen by App Store editorial, so thank you.
0:18:10And they linked...
0:18:12You have active social media accounts. Is that like some kind of shade?
0:18:15Are they shade judging you?
0:18:17No, I don't think so. I mean, I tweet about shortcuts and they're bugs.
0:18:21He's very online, that guy.
0:18:23I am. I am. Online.
0:18:27And this was the surprise for me.
0:18:31for me, they actually linked macstories.net at the end.
0:18:36If you know Apple and the App Store,
0:18:39you know that they must have some kind of problem
0:18:42with linking in general.
0:18:44They never, like, even when they do like the app of the year
0:18:48like awards for the App Store,
0:18:50they never link to the actual thing for reasons.
0:18:55This time they put in a link to Mac stories.
0:18:58So that was very cool of them.
0:19:00I know like this is a, I'm not trying to make fun,
0:19:04but I can't help it.
0:19:06There's, this is very funny to me
0:19:08that in the actual app store version, it just says like,
0:19:11so it's got like a much more,
0:19:12it talks about like why people should read about you.
0:19:14It just says Mac stories, visit the site for.
0:19:17- And that's weird.
0:19:19- What does that mean?
0:19:20- But it's only broken on the Mac.
0:19:22Because on IO, if you open the story on iOS,
0:19:25on the iOS app store, it actually says Mac stories,
0:19:28shortcuts archive.
0:19:29- This is just-
0:19:30site for an issue with response like the with the responsive view the window was
0:19:37too small so it truncates the text for some reason that was just for me like
0:19:42when I opened it my Mac app store now if I make the window bigger it says visit
0:19:46the site for hundreds of shortcuts yes funny to me the side hat that's really
0:19:51broken because the window is really wide before it shows that that's funny man
0:19:56Tips for a friend. This is so good though Federico. I love it. I love that it's not so much I mean
0:20:02obviously I love that they did it like that you were on it because it's just
0:20:05fun for me. I guess it's fun for you. It's just a nice thing. I just love that they
0:20:11did it right. Yeah. There are a lot of ways between not doing it and how
0:20:17they've done it that it could have been done and it all would have been fine.
0:20:19Exactly. Yes. But they did it right. I just like more that they like linked out to the shortcuts
0:20:26to archive and didn't say like, "Thanks for these shortcuts, we're going to edit them
0:20:31all," which would have been weird.
0:20:34And they didn't make it into a self-help thing. That was also one of my concerns. No, they
0:20:41made it very practical and they asked for like, "Can you give us a range of examples?"
0:20:49And they gave me total freedom, like, "What do you want to share?" And that was very cool
0:20:53of them, and they wanted me to explain to them, like, step by step what each shortcut
0:20:58does, and they made sure to test them, they took screenshots, they found some bugs, because
0:21:04a couple of those shortcuts were existing shortcuts that I shared years ago. So they
0:21:08asked me, "Can you actually update those?" And I did. So they were very open to working
0:21:15on this together, and I think they did a—like, I'm really happy with it, and I think they
0:21:20did an excellent job and they didn't even have to link to Mac stories.
0:21:24They could have just said, "If you want to get more shortcuts, open the shortcuts app
0:21:27and visit our own gallery."
0:21:29Like, they could have done that, but instead they linked to Mac stories, and that was very
0:21:33cool of them, very kind of them.
0:21:36And I like the...
0:21:39Obviously, we didn't make the art, I just sent them the photo.
0:21:43Silvia took the picture using portrait mode on the iPhone 13 Pro Max, using my iPhone.
0:21:50They cut out the background because, hey, that's, I guess, what you can do with portrait
0:21:53mode.
0:21:55But there were many other pictures that were taken that day.
0:21:58There was also another outtake photo that maybe I should use at some point online for,
0:22:03I don't know, my profile pic or something.
0:22:05Or maybe when I do this article that I'm working on about the MacBook Pro, I will use it there,
0:22:11they wanted to have a photo of me working at a Mac, so there was a sort of an in-context
0:22:16photo done as well of me very serious with all my tattoos and my jewels.
0:22:22I think you sent that one to us, right?
0:22:24I did, I did. There was also that photo. But I love the animated art that they have done.
0:22:31I had no idea there was a thing being done.
0:22:34Yeah, it's really cool. It just makes it pop. It's just like an added thing. I mean, I figure
0:22:38in non-Covid world, they would have done an actual photoshoot with you, I would expect.
0:22:43Like I would imagine they would send someone.
0:22:45Yeah, that's what they did with David when he was...
0:22:47Yeah.
0:22:48...in a few years ago.
0:22:50They do lightly troll you though.
0:22:52So the get image resolution example,
0:22:55they have a picture of a cat on a couch.
0:22:57Yeah.
0:22:58It's like, why not dog?
0:22:59I don't know, maybe.
0:23:01They also had, if you actually go look at my original tweet
0:23:06from last week, originally the description said,
0:23:09in 2009, he co-founded Mac Stories.
0:23:13And that was wrong.
0:23:14- What's your job, baby?
0:23:16He's there from the beginning.
0:23:17- That was wrong.
0:23:18So I asked them, can you please fix this?
0:23:21And they fixed it in like five minutes.
0:23:23So that was cool.
0:23:24Now he says, history needs to be respected.
0:23:28I told them it was just me in 2009.
0:23:32- Get out of here, John.
0:23:34- I mean, just, you gotta be factual.
0:23:36You know, you gotta be accurate with your things.
0:23:40When I mentioned, like, they never link to things.
0:23:44For example, in the Fantastical section,
0:23:47a favorite feature of the Calendar app Fantastical
0:23:50are 2020 Mac App of the Year.
0:23:52Why is that 2020 Mac App of the Year thing not linked to,
0:23:57like, it doesn't link to anything?
0:23:58- Seriously.
0:23:59- They had a story, they had a press release,
0:24:03they had a bunch of things they could link,
0:24:04but no, they don't link to that.
0:24:07- Who needs it?
0:24:08Links are for suckers.
0:24:09This is cool. My mom was really happy about it as well. I think she printed it out and
0:24:16I think she actually made the... because I sent her the photo of the art that I took
0:24:24from Apple's CDN and I believe she's using that as a wallpaper now.
0:24:28Me too.
0:24:29It's fine. It's fine, man.
0:24:38- No, man, this is really cool.
0:24:40- I love it.
0:24:41- Yeah, I opened, I think I found it before y'all did.
0:24:45I opened the app store for something else.
0:24:47It was like, oh, oh, I like stared at it
0:24:50for like three seconds.
0:24:51It was like, Federico's in the app store.
0:24:53And then I sent it to y'all and everybody went crazy.
0:24:56- You pointed out, Steven, the tagline
0:24:58that you so appreciated.
0:25:00(laughing)
0:25:02What's the tagline of this story?
0:25:05- The automation expert gets you going.
0:25:08Yeah he does!
0:25:09Yeah he does.
0:25:11Hubba hubba.
0:25:13People have been asking for a link to the shirt.
0:25:18It's a nice shirt.
0:25:20It's a gas shirt that Silvio got me for my birthday.
0:25:25Can I get a link to the tattoo, please? I would like one of those.
0:25:29It's a full arm done by my trusted tattoo artist named Gabriele Anakin,
0:25:36like Anakin Skywalker.
0:25:37It's based in Rome.
0:25:39On my way.
0:25:41Nice.
0:25:43I'm kind of ready for another one.
0:25:46It's fine.
0:25:48Oh, me too, yeah.
0:25:49Let's do it.
0:25:50I know what I'm getting to. I know what I'm getting.
0:25:52But I'm not going to tell you.
0:25:54Speaking of shortcuts, our friends at Elgato, we don't actually know them, but we'll call them our friends.
0:25:59I would love to know them, though.
0:26:01Elgato, hook us up.
0:26:02Just please, be nice.
0:26:05They, this week, announced a new product called the Stream Deck Pedal.
0:26:11So, of course, the Stream Deck is advice you set on your desk,
0:26:14has a bunch of buttons and you can program the buttons to do different things
0:26:17with shortcuts or macros, basically anything you want.
0:26:20I've never heard you talk about that before, so thanks for the reminder.
0:26:24I can't tell if you're serious or not.
0:26:26Some people, you know, you gotta clarify what the Stream Deck is.
0:26:29I know, I'm being a troll, it's unnecessary.
0:26:32You were feisty today.
0:26:33Yeah, I'm not feeling great, so I'm just like...
0:26:35You keep saying that, like laying the groundwork to miss for next week.
0:26:39I'm fighting back, man.
0:26:40I'm on my upswing.
0:26:41Wow, already, that was quick.
0:26:43Can't keep me down.
0:26:45They announced the Stream Deck Pedal, which is a floor pad, costs 90 bucks, has three
0:26:53pedals, and basically it's like three buttons on the Stream Deck that you can use with your
0:26:58foot or stick or something, I guess.
0:27:01You know, if your foot's not available.
0:27:04This is cool, right? I think this is really cool.
0:27:0889.99. It also has a grippy surface to stop it from sliding away, so if you have to hit
0:27:15hard, you know, like "Quick! Time to time track! Bang!" and you don't like kick it down
0:27:22there.
0:27:23Yeah, you used to, you know...
0:27:24I'm into this idea of like foot automation, you know?
0:27:31pay a lot for that. Oh dear, I'm sorry.
0:27:36Somewhere there's someone considering like an OnlyFans but it's for like doing this kind
0:27:41of stuff.
0:27:42It's for very particular automations. I want also they announced an official Discord plugin
0:27:48for Stream Deck so you can control audio stuff and join and switch channels. You two are
0:27:53very Stream Decky, you know?
0:27:55Yeah.
0:27:56streaming on the deck. Do you genuinely like, could you imagine having the pedal
0:28:02thing and like what what would you assign it to? Like do you have any any
0:28:08actions right now that you're very frequently reaching out for that would
0:28:12be nice if you could just like do you see a little little touch with the with
0:28:15the toe? I can think of two but I want to hear Federico's first because I think
0:28:21his are more imaginative than mine maybe?
0:28:23- Well, the serious answer could be that you,
0:28:28like you sit down to work and you press it
0:28:30and it sort of, maybe you could do something
0:28:33like it recreates like a podcasting setup for me.
0:28:37Like I sit down, press the pedal,
0:28:39and it opens like all the apps that I need
0:28:42based on what's in my calendar.
0:28:44So like if it's connected day,
0:28:46it opens a particular Google doc,
0:28:48and it sets my timer, that kind of stuff.
0:28:51That could be the serious answer.
0:28:53There's all kinds of ways in which this could go wrong,
0:28:55though, like having, doing the foot thing with shortcuts.
0:28:59I don't know, maybe, maybe, maybe.
0:29:02(both laughing)
0:29:05- There's no good way to talk about this, man.
0:29:07- No, no.
0:29:08Well, yeah, you could use it barefoot, maybe.
0:29:15You know, and do you press it and it, you know, sets the lights a certain color,
0:29:22you know, the kind of stuff like dims the light, starts a playlist, you know.
0:29:26Foot music.
0:29:28Foot time.
0:29:33Don't we all have a foot playlist in Apple Music?
0:29:36My...
0:29:41This is so juvenile.
0:29:43- This is the worst podcast.
0:29:45We are terrible at this.
0:29:47- This is so bad.
0:29:47- I mean, my first obvious idea was a mute switch,
0:29:50but I think that's what everybody will say.
0:29:52It'd be cool, but unimaginative.
0:29:54The other thing I thought about is I've been using
0:29:56Jason's podcast noter, which he and Dan Mort have been
0:29:59writing about for a couple of weeks where you can--
0:30:02- Oh boy, have they, those two.
0:30:04They won't stop.
0:30:06- Wait, what?
0:30:06You mean Six Colors has been writing
0:30:08about podcast automation?
0:30:11I must have missed it.
0:30:12- It's very strange.
0:30:13(laughing)
0:30:15- Where?
0:30:16- You could just like throw your mouse cursor
0:30:22in the general direction of six colors right now
0:30:24and you'll land on one of these posts.
0:30:27- This workflow basically lets you push a button
0:30:29or do some sort of input
0:30:30and it grabs the timestamp of your recording
0:30:33and you can make a note of what went wrong.
0:30:35And this is very helpful if you're editing.
0:30:37I do this for Mac power users.
0:30:39I don't edit MPU, but I take edit notes for Jim Metzendorf
0:30:42who edits that show.
0:30:43And I can just reach out and have it at the bottom left.
0:30:46I'm very happy with my icon for this.
0:30:47It's a little like cartoony speech bubble,
0:30:50but instead of a word in the middle,
0:30:51it's like a cartoony fire.
0:30:53Kind of a, no.
0:30:55And I hit it and it says,
0:30:56tell us how your co-host hurt you.
0:30:58And then I make a little note about what happened.
0:31:00That would be pretty sweet to have as like a foot tap thing
0:31:06because I put it in the bottom left hand corner
0:31:09of my Stream Deck so I could do it by feel
0:31:10without having to look down.
0:31:12But the trick with it is getting it as fast as you can
0:31:16so your timestamp is as accurate as possible.
0:31:19And I think having that as like,
0:31:22just like a tap away underfoot would be pretty sweet.
0:31:26But I only record that show once a week,
0:31:27so I'm not sure I need to spend $80 on it.
0:31:30- It would be pretty good too,
0:31:32'cause like you could just like,
0:31:35I think you would more quickly
0:31:36and more easily muscle memory that, you know?
0:31:40Like, because the actual size of the button is much larger
0:31:45than on the stream deck, you know,
0:31:48like you just reach down and just like hit it.
0:31:50Like in the same way that like,
0:31:52I think David used to at least,
0:31:54he used to have like a pedal for mute switch.
0:31:58- He did, yep.
0:31:59- Yeah, so like it's like a similar thing to that.
0:32:02So it is cool, like it did make me want to just mention
0:32:06like in general, just Elgato as a company,
0:32:09They just make such good stuff.
0:32:12They're like one of my favorite companies.
0:32:14Like I just bought a bunch more stuff from them recently.
0:32:16I bought a microphone from them called the Wave 3,
0:32:20which I really like.
0:32:21It's a USB-C microphone, but they,
0:32:26it's, I don't know, it sounds pretty good,
0:32:28but it's got a bunch of features that I like.
0:32:30It's just nice and easy for me to use with my PC
0:32:33for when I'm streaming.
0:32:34And it has like a bunch of buttons on it
0:32:36and like a wheel to allow you to control the volume really nicely and they built some pretty
0:32:40good software so you can like do kind of like pseudo rogue amebury type things of bringing
0:32:46in multiple tracks which is really hard to do on windows. They also make this mic arm
0:32:52which i think steven's got too called the low profile mic arm which i hadn't seen this
0:32:56before this is the first company i've seen do something like this. Well usually the mic
0:32:59arms that we use they like come up and down again like that's kind of like it goes away
0:33:04from the desk and then back towards the desk to suspend the microphone in front of your face.
0:33:08But this is like it stays very low down, it's low profile and kind of swings in and the microphone
0:33:14comes in from the other side. You have to go take a look at it. They make both types of boom arms,
0:33:20mic arms so you can kind of get the idea of what's different between them. And also like I have a
0:33:25bunch of their lights and stuff already on their multi-mount system. They just make like, they're
0:33:31They just like for, if you do streaming stuff especially,
0:33:35but anything like video related, audio related,
0:33:38and then now all these other peripheral things
0:33:40that could be used in other places,
0:33:43they're just on it, man.
0:33:44Like I have that capture card inside of my PC.
0:33:46Like they just, they do great stuff.
0:33:48Oh God, I like them.
0:33:50- I agree.
0:33:51I've got a bunch of their stuff too.
0:33:52And it's all fantastic.
0:33:54I really like this microphone arm.
0:33:56I'm using it here at my main desk now.
0:33:59And it just, it takes a way less space
0:34:01and I can see much more of my display
0:34:03'cause I don't have this big arm in front of me.
0:34:06And yeah, I've been really impressed building out
0:34:09more stuff in the studio with their accessories
0:34:12over the last couple of years.
0:34:13They're really on it.
0:34:14And I feel like they took really good advantage
0:34:16of the opportunity of work from home
0:34:18and more people streaming.
0:34:20Like you could just go there
0:34:21and get almost everything you need.
0:34:24Really probably everything you need now
0:34:26'cause now they sell cameras and microphones as well.
0:34:28- Yeah, that lights was sold out forever.
0:34:31- Yeah.
0:34:32- At the beginning of the pandemic.
0:34:34Are either of you gonna buy the pedal?
0:34:36- So they don't have any details.
0:34:37I was checking on the webpage.
0:34:39Don't have any details on like foot sizes that they support.
0:34:42And also like they don't say whether you can use it
0:34:45barefoot or not.
0:34:47- I mean, you could use it barefoot.
0:34:48Why couldn't you?
0:34:49- Can you Dan, like I suppose you gotta clean it then
0:34:52if you use it barefoot.
0:34:54- Yeah.
0:34:54- Like what if I bring it to the beach
0:34:55use it barefoot and it's like sands all over the stream. Well it's not a
0:35:01self-cleaning you know you always have to clean it. Whoa the springs get this
0:35:07the springs are interchangeable so you can adjust the pedal pressure yeah that's
0:35:11cool. Yep anti-skid feet for the feet it's heavy duty Federico so you can tap
0:35:18with confidence is what the website says.
0:35:20Do you think... do you guys think...
0:35:26Oh here we go.
0:35:28Do you guys think it also nibbles your fingers?
0:35:32Nibbles your toe?
0:35:34Nibbles your toe?
0:35:36Will it nibble your toes is my question.
0:35:41Oh my god I saw a Tamagotchi that you can poke inside of. Did you see this?
0:35:46is this time somebody find me this someone must have seen this someone in
0:35:50the discord must have seen this there's like a Tamagotchi that you can like you
0:35:54can put your finger inside of to like pet it and it does the nib nib I don't know if it
0:35:59does that it should but there's this is like a new thing that the Tamagotchi
0:36:04knockoff it's not an but it's like that kind of thing there's an article on
0:36:08Boing Boing what's he called the pewnerines touchable digital pet has a
0:36:13hole in the side so you can insert your finger and quote "feel the virtual
0:36:16creature inside" which is advertised as being very squishy and addictive to
0:36:20touch. I Google touchable digital pet hole and I is it called the puny runes
0:36:29touchable digital pet? Yeah, Punerine's touchable digital pet. Okay, so it's a hundred and forty three
0:36:35dollars and there's a Japanese video that I will put into discord.
0:36:43So we are now all part of this problem together.
0:36:46I'll put this in the show notes too.
0:36:49Yes.
0:36:49Anyway, foot pedal.
0:36:51Anyway, yes, back to the foot pedal.
0:36:54No, I'm gonna pass.
0:36:56I am fine, I think, with my actual stream deck with the multiple buttons.
0:37:01That said, I think it's very cool, and I would suggest tying this kind of device to home
0:37:10automation. I think it's perfect for controlling the lights. Home-related automation, I think it's
0:37:16perfect for this kind of thing. Anything that... These kinds of switches, that are like one-way
0:37:25buttons, in the sense that you just press them and they don't have any UI,
0:37:31unlike a Stream Deck, which has actual graphics that you can see on the buttons.
0:37:35This is like a physical thing that you need to press. It's always best, I think, to tie that
0:37:40sort of thing to a home automation type setup, because it reminds you of a physical switch in
0:37:46your house. So I could see this being very helpful for controlling the lights, if you have the kind
0:37:52of setup that you like maybe you're a streamer right and you want to set the
0:37:56lights a certain color or a certain temperature that could be pretty cool I
0:38:00think yeah but it doesn't replace a stream deck obviously for all kinds of
0:38:05automations that you want to set up with the multiple buttons on the stream deck
0:38:08I mean and of course like the main reason that this thing exists is for
0:38:12people that are gaming right so your hands are busy yeah so if you have like
0:38:19a few actions that are good for you to hit while you're gaming, like you know maybe you want to
0:38:26throw off some kind of hype signal or whatever, you can do that. Like it's smart. What I like
0:38:31about Ogata in general is I feel like they have a very good understanding for what their customer
0:38:37base wants and then they make those products. That's what I like about them. Which seems like
0:38:42such an obvious thing but that isn't always so obvious it seems to some companies right?
0:38:47They feel like they made a few things and then they're just slowly expanding out to
0:38:55continue to meet the needs of their customer base.
0:38:58I just think it's really cool.
0:39:00Cool stuff.
0:39:01They make a green screen mouse mat.
0:39:05Which is like, why would you do that?
0:39:06Well, if you had a camera, like say you're gaming, keyboard and mouse gaming, you could
0:39:09have your hands in the bottom left hand corner of the screen so people could see it.
0:39:14They can watch your moves on the controller or whatever while you're playing.
0:39:19Stuff like that.
0:39:20It's just so smart.
0:39:21Very smart.
0:39:22Good product design.
0:39:24This episode of Connected is made possible by Capital One.
0:39:28Have you ever hit a technical snafu while shopping online?
0:39:32Filling out payment fields?
0:39:33Have they given you a headache?
0:39:35Has your mobile banking app ever been down when you really needed to use it?
0:39:39Well, Capital One believes everyone deserves better banking.
0:39:43This means easier access to their money and more security while doing so.
0:39:49That's why Capital One is investing in machine learning.
0:39:53Machine learning allows Capital One to do things like fight fraud with random forests
0:39:57with models that quickly detect suspicious activity and make it faster to alert federal
0:40:02investigators.
0:40:04And they identify how mobile app outages happen with casual models.
0:40:08Keeping their mobile app up and running doesn't happen by accident.
0:40:12stuff takes work. Anomaly detection and incident response help determine why
0:40:16allergies happen so engineers can quickly remedy them. Capital One speeds up
0:40:22online shopping with machine learning at the edge. They make shopping with virtual
0:40:26card numbers smoother and more secure. This technology is based on logistic
0:40:31regression models and running inference in the browser. It identifies payment
0:40:34fields which helps make using virtual card numbers easier and faster. The
0:40:39The potential of machine learning is just so big.
0:40:42See how Capital One is using machine learning to create the future of banking?
0:40:46Simply search "machine learning" at Capital One, or check out the link in the show notes.
0:40:51Our thanks to Capital One for their support of Connected and Relay FM.
0:40:55All right, there's this weird story that started making the rounds earlier this week that MacOS
0:41:0112.3, which by the way, MacOS 12.2 and iOS 15.3 are out, like as we're recording.
0:41:09So go run software update this afternoon.
0:41:12Also watchOS 8.4, which Apple really promises this time
0:41:16will fix the charging issues on the Apple Watch Series 7,
0:41:19which have made my wife so angry at her watch
0:41:22that I think she may, if this doesn't fix it,
0:41:24she's gonna go back to her old one.
0:41:26- What charging issues?
0:41:28- There are charging issues.
0:41:29- She, well, she's the only person I've talked to with this,
0:41:32but MacRumor says that there's been a lot of reports of it.
0:41:35- Is this another GreenGate?
0:41:38- I don't know.
0:41:39You know what? I left the pink gate thing out of the show document this week,
0:41:42but now you brought it up. Now I brought it up. Uh,
0:41:46some users have had, including Mary have had where the watch will begin to charge,
0:41:50but at some point overnight we'll stop charging and not actually like
0:41:55top up again anyways.
0:41:57And they said like 8.2 would fix it and 8.3 had more charging fixes.
0:42:02And now they say 8.4 really fixes. So anyways, anyways,
0:42:05This story that is actually the topic is that Mac OS 12.3 is bringing with it changes to
0:42:11the cloud file provider API's and Dropbox and Microsoft have both come out and said
0:42:18files that are offline, you will no longer be able to open them in the file open.
0:42:25Wait, isn't it online?
0:42:27You said offline.
0:42:28Yes, online.
0:42:29Online, not on your desk.
0:42:31So Dropbox has this, I don't like this feature.
0:42:33I don't use it.
0:42:34They have this feature where say a pages document is not synced to your Mac, but you get a little icon where it would be.
0:42:41And if you go in pages to file open and select it, it downloads it on demand and then opens the file.
0:42:50That workflow, according to Dropbox and according to Microsoft with OneDrive, will no longer work in Mac OS 12.3 and later.
0:43:00Instead, those files you have to open through Finder.
0:43:04This is weird. There's obviously some sort of change here.
0:43:08What was funny to me here is like initially I was seeing this as a "let's dunk on Dropbox"
0:43:14Yes.
0:43:14kind of thing and I don't think that's the case at all.
0:43:19I don't either.
0:43:20This seems like Apple have made a decision
0:43:22and have told all of these companies that they're changing the way that this system works in 12.3
0:43:28Yeah.
0:43:28And now they all have to scramble to try and find some fix for it.
0:43:32And Dropbox in particular says they will have a beta in March that should resolve this should work around this change
0:43:39I wrote this thing last night basically saying Apple needs to explain what's going on here
0:43:45Because not only is this crappy for users, but Apple has a cloud service
0:43:50That nowhere does anybody say iCloud Drive
0:43:53won't need some work around and
0:43:57Apple's already like in hot water over anti-competitive moves and Dropbox and OneDrive directly compete with iCloud and
0:44:05I got a bunch of email for people saying no, it's Dropbox's fault
0:44:09It's like well read actually read what's happening and Microsoft and Dropbox are saying the same thing
0:44:15like
0:44:17It has to be some change that Apple is making
0:44:19It's a weird change and I would like to know what that change is and why they're making it
0:44:25But just it was a very weird story and my hope is that they're doing this to make it a more reliable system
0:44:33So you don't I use this feature, right?
0:44:35So I don't remember what this is actually called now because Dropbox has given it a bunch of names
0:44:39I think it's like I don't know what it's called. It used to be first in front of an infinite
0:44:45Yeah, that was that was the code name of it
0:44:47That's what I've always thought of it as but it's like an online
0:44:49So basically your files you can have a list of files. Yeah, and none of them are actually
0:44:55Smart sync there you go, because I always get it mixed up with selective sync, which is a different thing
0:45:00Yeah
0:45:00I do smart sync is the feature so you can have files
0:45:04that your system knows are in Dropbox and you see them and you see a little cloud icon next to it and
0:45:10You can right click on it and download it or if you double click it
0:45:13It will start to download or you can set files and or folders to always do one or the other, right?
0:45:19So you could say like always download this or always leave it in the cloud and also the system just tries to be smart and
0:45:25Downloading things that things you're gonna need or whatever
0:45:27I was really hesitant when I first used this but I've been using it for years now and I think it's a really good feature
0:45:32especially for someone who has like at this point
0:45:36I think more stuff in Dropbox and I do almost of the then basic on any system that I have right?
0:45:41It's kind of close ish
0:45:43ish to like it's like somewhere between the way it works on the Mac and
0:45:48and the way it works on iPadOS or whatever, right?
0:45:51Like, not all your files are on iPadOS,
0:45:54you just download them as you need them.
0:45:55- Yeah. - With somewhere in between,
0:45:57'cause it's also doing some downloading
0:45:58and you can force stuff.
0:45:59And like at the moment, say for example,
0:46:02I open an application and then I go like file, open
0:46:06and try and download something.
0:46:07What happens is it hangs, the app hangs for a minute
0:46:10because it can't open the file, the files being downloaded.
0:46:15And sometimes that can be a bit weird
0:46:17and sometimes the apps kind of act as if they are unresponsive,
0:46:22like the beach ball starts spinning or whatever.
0:46:25And so my hope is that Apple's got a new API that will,
0:46:32I don't know, be a little bit kinder between applications
0:46:36and the files with the file providers in the middle.
0:46:42I mean, for me personally, what I would tend to do is I just go,
0:46:45I'm used to just going through the finder to get what I want because it's better that way.
0:46:49Like if you start it the way that Dropbox is saying is the only way you'll be able to do it,
0:46:54I have found that that is a little bit more reliable because it will start the download
0:46:58and then open the app rather than the app being in the middle and getting upset and
0:47:02understanding what's going on. My question is the same as yours, which is,
0:47:05why is this happening in 12.3? Like, I have, unless anybody can prove me wrong,
0:47:12Like, was there any sessions about this?
0:47:14Like, where does this come from?
0:47:15And why has it seemed to have taken Dropbox
0:47:18or Microsoft by surprise at seemingly such a random time?
0:47:23-I also want to know, like, do we know if Dropbox
0:47:28at this point is using the --
0:47:30Apple has a native API for this kind of stuff.
0:47:32It used to be called, I believe, Finder Sync Extensions.
0:47:36Now they have the same API that is available on iOS and iPadOS.
0:47:39It's called the File Provider API.
0:47:42Do we know if Dropbox is using that?
0:47:44I believe they are.
0:47:45Okay.
0:47:45I think you have to, to be able to put icons next to files and folders, right?
0:47:50Okay, so they're making a change to the file provider API in 12.3,
0:47:55and they're letting...
0:47:57Hmm.
0:47:58They're letting these companies know first as they should.
0:48:01Okay, speculation time.
0:48:03Yeah.
0:48:03What if...
0:48:05And I'm totally, you know, just came to mind.
0:48:09This kind of thing, it suggests to me that Apple is doing something to the file provider API in general,
0:48:14including files and iCloud Drive.
0:48:17What if they're bringing back that feature for the pinned downloads?
0:48:22Or shared folders or some nonsense?
0:48:25Like, what's going on here?
0:48:27But why is it on the Mac, though? That was an iOS feature.
0:48:30Well, because the file provider API now runs everywhere.
0:48:33Now it's iOS, HyperOS, and Mac.
0:48:36And iCloud drive does not give you individual control over folders and subfolders for what's
0:48:43local and what's not on the Mac. It's either everything's downloaded or the system just
0:48:48guesses. And so maybe in doing this, there's also like new stuff coming to iCloud drive.
0:48:53Yeah, because knowing Apple, it's weird that they are notifying this company of this very
0:48:58particular change and just that change. Like.
0:49:04the beta was even... has the beta even started for this? Not yet, not yet. I bet it'll be
0:49:10the next few days because 12.2 just got released. You know, who knows, right? It's just, I think
0:49:17jumping down Dropbox's throat about it is not the right answer. No, this is a lesson
0:49:22in reading. Probably. Like, I know I sound like an idiot, but like, this is a lesson
0:49:28in like actually reading and not jumping to conclusions. I mean, we all do it. I do it
0:49:33the time too. But like people thought that what Dropbox was saying was like, oh 12.3,
0:49:38oh that's the next version of Mac OS. No it wasn't. You know, like that, like people thought
0:49:44that it meant in two days time none of this is going to work anymore. But like that's
0:49:48not true. And them saying that they will have a beta available like in March, that might
0:49:53be sufficient time. By the time 12.3 ships, it could be April, right? And it's all taken
0:49:57care of. Like it's just one of those things where it's like if you actually just read
0:50:01it and like think about it for a minute rather than just assuming Dropbox is bad because
0:50:05of a reason that people have already pre-decided about them, then maybe you could come to a
0:50:10different resolution about it. It's just, look, we're all guilty of it, I do it all
0:50:15the time too, but I think it's just another one of these things where like we have to
0:50:19just take a second before the tweet, you know? Yeah, you're bringing too much reason to the
0:50:24show, I'm sorry. Out of their eye, right? No, but seriously, you're right, you're right.
0:50:30in this case. And I think it's very cool of Dropbox to actually let everybody know even
0:50:35before, because at this point, technically, 12.3 doesn't exist. Like, at this point, it
0:50:40could be a typo. But no, it's not a typo. And given the timeline that they are providing,
0:50:46it's obviously something that they know it's gonna happen soon. Maybe even this week. So
0:50:53I think there's something else going on, though. I don't think it's just, "Oh, yeah, this update
0:50:59as this one change that will affect Dropbox and all these other companies. I wouldn't
0:51:05be surprised, I guess is what I'm saying, I wouldn't be surprised if this is part of
0:51:09a bigger change that's happening to the file provider API in general, including iCloud
0:51:16Drive.
0:51:17It seems likely to me maybe because they bothered to tell these companies, like, be ready for
0:51:25I don't know, but to be honest, this is kind of the type of stuff that I expect and we
0:51:31talk about all the time, right? That like, to assume that there is a level playing field
0:51:36is not true. Apple's not going out to every company that uses the file provider API and
0:51:40telling them to get ready for this. Neither should they, in my opinion. Like, yes, you
0:51:44should tell Dropbox and Microsoft and Google, "Hey, we're doing this, you should probably
0:51:49get ready for it." Because if they don't, millions of people are going to have a bad
0:51:53experience right and then it's Apple's fault because they didn't bother to
0:51:57inform anyone but it's just one of those things right like this is the way this
0:52:01stuff works it's the way it probably should work but this is again going back
0:52:06to that whole idea of like what kind of partner at Apple like do you think they
0:52:11consulted with any of these companies first no like they just like hey we're
0:52:16doing this it's like oh great I guess we'll have to tell our customers then
0:52:21Thanks.
0:52:22We wanted to let you know that this is not your decision to make, but this is gonna happen,
0:52:27so this is all the info you need.
0:52:29File a radar.
0:52:32Yeah.
0:52:33Interesting.
0:52:34Hey, maybe we'll get a beta tomorrow, who knows?
0:52:40Or maybe today?
0:52:41I could see that.
0:52:44It's probably, I reckon, yeah, today or tomorrow, right?
0:52:46Because they just put it out.
0:52:48Yeah.
0:52:49pretty wild stuff and it's just so complicated.
0:52:54And this is really what I was trying to get at in my article.
0:52:57It's just more complicated because of Apple's
0:53:00other hot water when it comes to competing services, right?
0:53:04And so it's probably a great thing
0:53:06that they told these companies in advance
0:53:08and not only for users, but also from like the,
0:53:12are you doing something to break?
0:53:14Like the story otherwise is Dropbox and OneDrive are broken,
0:53:18but iCloud drive still works.
0:53:20And then it takes two months for these
0:53:22other third-party applications to catch up.
0:53:25Apple can't afford that headline in the current climate.
0:53:28So I can see why they wanted to get out ahead of it
0:53:31and why Dropbox and Microsoft announced it too.
0:53:33So they don't look like the bad guys.
0:53:35This is very interesting.
0:53:37The whole thing just really fascinates me.
0:53:39- TJ in the Discord is saying apparently
0:53:41that there've been new APIs for this for a while.
0:53:44There is a session from WBC 2021 about this API,
0:53:49and I tried watching it and it was so boring I quit.
0:53:53So to be fair, there could have been details in there,
0:53:56but it was so dry, I just, I couldn't do it.
0:53:59But I now know how to build a cloud file service.
0:54:03So apparently it's really easy.
0:54:05Just to get like-
0:54:07- It is that file provider API that we mentioned before.
0:54:10It's part of that framework.
0:54:12Maybe they are deprecating an older API
0:54:17and they're letting these companies know,
0:54:20look, starting with 12.3,
0:54:23this old API that you're using will break,
0:54:27so you gotta switch to the new system.
0:54:29That could be something that they are also doing.
0:54:32But the file provider framework has existed for a while.
0:54:36So another theory could be they are deprecating
0:54:39the old thing that Dropbox and Microsoft are using,
0:54:42and they're telling them,
0:54:43"You gotta switch to the new one."
0:54:45So, and Dropbox was told about that,
0:54:48and they're sending customers an email about it.
0:54:51I could see that also, yeah.
0:54:53- Hmm, hmm.
0:54:55Look, the moral of the story is,
0:54:58keep everything on a USB thumb drive,
0:55:00and don't use the internet.
0:55:02- Now, the moral of the story is,
0:55:03are there people who just keep those files online only?
0:55:06- Like, apparently.
0:55:08Yes.
0:55:09Yeah, you do?
0:55:10Yeah, I have files that are massive
0:55:12and I don't need them all the time.
0:55:14So they just go online only.
0:55:16So you don't want to use them with selective sync,
0:55:18but you want to keep them so you see them.
0:55:21But I want them in Dropbox.
0:55:23But you want them visible on the Mac,
0:55:25but not downloaded on the Mac.
0:55:27I don't necessarily want them visible,
0:55:28but they just are, like,
0:55:30'cause that's just how the system works.
0:55:32See, I have, on my Mac Pro,
0:55:34I have my entire Dropbox downloaded,
0:55:37but on my MacBook Pro, I have a couple of folders,
0:55:39selective sync to it, which means they're like
0:55:41not on the Mac at all,
0:55:43because I didn't like the bugginess of this feature,
0:55:46but it sounds like it's a lot better.
0:55:47So maybe I was gonna say, maybe I try it,
0:55:50but it's getting ready to break again.
0:55:51So maybe after.
0:55:53- It's gonna be real rough for you when you try,
0:55:56like to go from one to the other.
0:55:59- Yeah.
0:56:00- Like that's a big old job, right?
0:56:01Like, cause that's, you know,
0:56:03a lot of stuff's gonna index.
0:56:04So like, if you really wanna try it,
0:56:06you gotta wanna try it, you gotta have a reason
0:56:08for why you wanna try it, I feel like.
0:56:10But I mean, I use it, it's great.
0:56:13Like I have like large files or like for example,
0:56:16like we have some shared folders
0:56:19that are just loads of images from live events.
0:56:21I do not need them to be on my Mac.
0:56:24So online only, like I'll get them when I need them.
0:56:27Or like the big one for me is me and Grey
0:56:29keep every episode of Cortex's logic projects
0:56:32in Dropbox folders.
0:56:35but I don't need them.
0:56:37But like, I don't need them on my Mac all the time,
0:56:40but I like to keep them in Dropbox.
0:56:41And this way it's like hundreds and hundreds of gigabytes
0:56:44of files that I don't need to have all the time.
0:56:46But sometimes I do need them.
0:56:48So I go in and grab them.
0:56:50- This episode of Connected is made possible by Trade Coffee.
0:56:55How do you take your coffee?
0:56:56Full bodied roast, something light.
0:56:59We all have our preferences
0:57:00and no matter what you love to drink,
0:57:02Trade Coffee makes it easy to brew your best cup at home.
0:57:06Trade sells the freshest roasted and ethically sourced beans
0:57:10from America's best independent roasters.
0:57:13They ship it free to you as often as you like,
0:57:15whole or ground.
0:57:17So whether you're a coffee nerd
0:57:18or just wanna get a better daily cup,
0:57:20Trade's real coffee experts taste over 400 roasts
0:57:25and then use technology to match you
0:57:28to your ideal coffee based
0:57:29on your preferences and brewing method.
0:57:32They're like matchmakers for you and your coffee.
0:57:35So take the coffee quiz to get started.
0:57:37Trade Coffee guarantees you'll love the first bag
0:57:41or they'll replace it for free.
0:57:43They've been featured in the New York Times,
0:57:45just like Federico here on the show, that's cool.
0:57:48Wired, GQ, and they've delivered
0:57:50over five million bags of coffee.
0:57:54Their subscription is no hassle.
0:57:55Skip shipments or change your frequency
0:57:57or cancel at any time.
0:57:59Michael.
0:58:00Steven.
0:58:00Hello, Michael.
0:58:01Hello, Steven.
0:58:02Hello.
0:58:03Tell me about your results with Trade Coffee.
0:58:07Oh, it's so good, man.
0:58:09So one of the things that I love about Trade Coffee
0:58:11is that they work with a lot of small roasteries.
0:58:13And one of my favorite things about small roasteries,
0:58:16as well as the wonderful coffee, is the branding.
0:58:19Roasteries in general, coffee shops and stuff,
0:58:21they have really good branding.
0:58:23And one of the bags of coffee that I got from Trade Coffee,
0:58:26It had a little label, like a clothing tag label
0:58:29stitched onto the bag.
0:58:31I love stuff like that.
0:58:32So I like the, as well as just getting the obviously
0:58:35fantastic coffee that Trade helps pick out for me.
0:58:38I also get to see all of these cool,
0:58:42this cool art from these companies.
0:58:43And I just find that it's part of the over experience
0:58:45to me that I enjoy very much,
0:58:46as well as the coffee just being absolutely excellent.
0:58:49We just pounded that last bag that we had from them.
0:58:51It was just, just to try to, it was excellent.
0:58:54So good.
0:58:54Trade Coffee makes it easy to make sure you get more on the way, Myke.
0:58:57And get this, they are offering a total of $20 off your first three bags
0:59:04when you go to www.drinktrade.com/connected.
0:59:08So head there now, take the quiz, and start your journey to the perfect cup.
0:59:13That's www.drinktrade.com/connected.
0:59:16Our thanks to Trade for the support of the show and Relay FM.
0:59:21All right, Obsidian Shortcut Launcher, the OSL as they call it.
0:59:26This is something that Federico has been working on with...
0:59:29Is it... Did you work on this with One True Son?
0:59:32Yes, yes I did.
0:59:34One True Son Finn, Finn Voorhees.
0:59:37Can you explain this?
0:59:40Sure, like all of it?
0:59:43Can you explain yourself?
0:59:46So this is a free plugin for Obsidian.
0:59:48Obsidian is the text editor note-taking app that we've been talking about lately.
0:59:52Grey has been talking about it on Cortex. Everybody's talking about it.
0:59:56Why is everyone talking about this?
0:59:59Why is everyone talking about this?
1:00:02Myke's not impressed.
1:00:04I wish everyone would not.
1:00:06I don't really. It's fine. It's a lot for my brain to handle.
1:00:11Yeah, I'll explain it for you, Myke.
1:00:15Even for my feeble mind.
1:00:17You will come away from this segment wanting to try this thing.
1:00:21No, I already do. That's the problem.
1:00:23That's part of the problem.
1:00:24Okay, well then, this is all useless.
1:00:26Why are we talking about it?
1:00:28Anyway, so this is a free plugin that you can find inside Obsidian
1:00:33in the Community Plugins section.
1:00:35So you can install it right there.
1:00:36No need to manually download anything.
1:00:39You can do it all with the UI in Obsidian.
1:00:42And it's basically a way for you to run shortcuts
1:00:46in the Shortcuts app from Obsidian.
1:00:49So on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, you can create these launchers.
1:00:55The plugin lets you create launchers.
1:00:58And each launcher can trigger a particular shortcut in the Shortcuts app.
1:01:02You give it the name of the shortcut,
1:01:04and then what you can do, what makes it special,
1:01:07is you're not just running the shortcut.
1:01:09You can. You can just invoke the shortcut and run it as is.
1:01:14But what you can do is you can send input from Obsidian to the shortcut, and that's why we needed
1:01:22to work on this for quite some time and get it exactly right. You can send data from Obsidian
1:01:29to the shortcut that you want to run, and there are seven different types of data that you can
1:01:34send. You can send your text selection, or you can send the entire document, or you can send the path
1:01:40to the document, you can send the name of the current document, and all that kind of stuff.
1:01:44So you have multiple input types that you can choose from, and you can even send multiple inputs
1:01:53at once. So you can say, "Well, I want to actually send my text selection and the name of the
1:01:58document," and you can do it in a single launcher. Now, the beautiful thing about this is that all
1:02:03these launchers show up as commands in Obsidian. Obsidian is very based on the idea of these
1:02:09commands that you can trigger in the app. You press Command-P and you open the command
1:02:14palette.
1:02:15Oh, that's the shortcut for print. What are you doing, Obsidian?
1:02:19Print, print. Who prints stuff anymore, man? Come on.
1:02:23But it's universal.
1:02:24They really co-opted Command-P?
1:02:27Of all things.
1:02:28Well, by diff, I think, or maybe I did? No, I think it's the default hotkey on the Mac,
1:02:35correct?
1:02:36Oh, where did you choose?
1:02:37Anyway, you open the Command Palette, and all these launchers show up as commands, which
1:02:42means every launcher can also be assigned a custom hotkey, meaning you can trigger these
1:02:49commands with the keyboard shortcut, you can tie them to a string deck, you can do whatever
1:02:54you want.
1:02:55And that's basically the gist of it.
1:02:58It's a system for you to use Obsidian and shortcuts together, you can trigger your favorite
1:03:04shortcuts from Obsidian and you can pass along data. But, of course, you know me, I had to
1:03:12go a little deeper than that. And so there are a couple of details that I want to point
1:03:17out here. The first one being, in addition to sending text, you can also send attachments
1:03:25from Obsidian to shortcuts. Obsidian lets you save images or PDF documents, whatever,
1:03:33attachments in your Obsidian folder. And the plugin knows, shortcut launcher knows, that
1:03:42if the cursor is over a link to a file, it should send that file to shortcuts, to which
1:03:50you may ask, "But how can you send a file using a URL scheme?" And enter, once again,
1:03:56my friend, base64.
1:03:57Oh my god, why?
1:03:58Oh no.
1:03:59Oh no.
1:04:00You're doing this again.
1:04:01OSL knows that if you want to send an attachment, it needs to be encoded first.
1:04:08And then you've got to take care of that yourself in shortcuts, obviously.
1:04:11You've got to decode the base64.
1:04:13But basically, what this allows me to do, for example, is I can take an attachment from Obsidian
1:04:19and send it to a shortcut so that in one single step I can go from a local image in my Obsidian Vault
1:04:26to an uploaded image on the Mac, sorry, CDN,
1:04:30all thanks to Obsidian and Shortcuts working together.
1:04:33So that's the first detail.
1:04:35The second detail, which I think is even more fascinating,
1:04:39the plugin works everywhere.
1:04:41You can use it on the iPhone, you can use it on the iPad,
1:04:43you can use it on the Mac.
1:04:44However, a few days ago, I was taking a shower
1:04:47and I had an idea.
1:04:49This is necessary context about me,
1:04:51because you need to know how I come up with these ideas.
1:04:55I was cleaning myself and I thought about this.
1:05:00On Monterey, you can trigger shortcuts in a bunch of ways
1:05:05that are not supported on the iPhone and iPad.
1:05:08Specifically, on Monterey, there's an API
1:05:13to run shortcuts from the command line.
1:05:16There's the shortcuts run command line,
1:05:20what's it called, command?
1:05:22Stephen, what's the proper terminology?
1:05:24- They have like a command line interface?
1:05:27Is that what you're looking for?
1:05:27- Yeah, command line interface, yes.
1:05:28- CLI.
1:05:29- So you can run shortcuts from the command line.
1:05:32And when you do, the shortcut just runs in the background.
1:05:37The shortcuts app does not activate.
1:05:39Like the shortcuts window does not come in the foreground.
1:05:43You can actually keep the shortcuts app closed
1:05:46and run a shortcut from the command line.
1:05:49And the app in the dock stays closed,
1:05:52but the shortcut runs.
1:05:54That's one of the beautiful things about shortcuts on Monterey.
1:05:57And I thought, well, plugins in Obsidian,
1:06:02they are just running some JavaScript code.
1:06:04What if we could check if the plugin's environment is macOS
1:06:13and we built it in such a way that the plugin knows
1:06:17if you're triggering a launcher on the iPhone,
1:06:20it just launches shortcuts with the URL scheme,
1:06:24because that's how you gotta do it on the iPhone and iPad.
1:06:27But if you do it on the Mac,
1:06:29it uses the shell command instead.
1:06:32So the shortcut just runs in the background,
1:06:35sort of like it feels like, it's not that it looks like,
1:06:38if it is Obsidian talking to shortcuts natively
1:06:43on the Mac in the background.
1:06:45There's a few screenshots that show this in my article
1:06:48and in the documentation on GitHub that you can see,
1:06:51just like an alert box that just pops up on screen
1:06:56from Obsidian.
1:06:57And that's Obsidian talking to shortcuts
1:06:59in the background on Monterey using shell commands.
1:07:02So that's a nice touch.
1:07:03And Fin, of course, I built this with Fin,
1:07:06the one true son.
1:07:07He made it all extra secure,
1:07:10of course, with all the plugins that need to be accepted
1:07:14into the Obsidian gallery.
1:07:17There had to be a private code review
1:07:20from the Obsidian developers, of course,
1:07:21because they need to make sure that all the plugins
1:07:23that they are accepting are,
1:07:24you know, they're not doing anything malicious,
1:07:26because you are running JavaScript
1:07:28on your computer, after all.
1:07:29And they came up with,
1:07:31Finn and the Obsidian developers,
1:07:33they came up with a very nice system
1:07:35to run these shot commands on the Mac.
1:07:38And I'm really happy about it,
1:07:39because, like I said, this plugin,
1:07:41you can use it everywhere,
1:07:43but the best platform to use it is the Mac,
1:07:46because on macOS, Apple built the command line interface
1:07:49for shortcuts, I would love to have that feature
1:07:53in iOS 16 this year, like being able to run shortcuts
1:07:56without the X callback, like the URL scheme.
1:08:01You can use it, again, you can use it everywhere.
1:08:04It just runs a little bit better on the Mac
1:08:06because it's more integrated with Obsidian.
1:08:09And that's the summary of it.
1:08:12- This is wild.
1:08:13And I love that it does use the shortcuts CLI,
1:08:19which I know we've talked about this,
1:08:20but I would love to know where the idea came from
1:08:25to have shortcuts accessible to you in the terminal
1:08:27and that it shipped.
1:08:28Like the apps UI barely worked when it launched,
1:08:31but hey, we got a command line interface.
1:08:33It's so interesting to me
1:08:35and it does open the door to all this cool stuff.
1:08:37And man, what a clever way to do this
1:08:39because that is always listening, right?
1:08:42It's always there.
1:08:43You don't have to make sure you have the app running
1:08:46or like shortcuts in the foreground
1:08:48or anything silly like that.
1:08:49- So there are lots of different,
1:08:52John has been, the one true John has been playing around
1:08:55this since Christmas, I believe.
1:08:58It's actually funny because I kept this a secret
1:09:01from John too at the time, and Finn, when he was over in,
1:09:06when he was at home, he told his father
1:09:08that we were building this, and John was surprised
1:09:11to hear from his son that he was working on this
1:09:14with me behind the scenes.
1:09:15Jon has been putting together a bunch of really cool things
1:09:18with Obsidian and Shortcut Launcher.
1:09:22Jon is the type of person who does a lot of like
1:09:24templates type stuff in Obsidian
1:09:27for things like the Max Stories sponsor posts,
1:09:31for App Stories show notes, you know,
1:09:33the type of documents that require
1:09:37a lot of like weekly templates.
1:09:40And Shortcut Launcher is great for that
1:09:42because you can combine Obsidian
1:09:44and its powerful template system with shortcuts,
1:09:49which of course, like Jon, for example,
1:09:51came up with the system that Obsidian talks to shortcuts.
1:09:54Shortcuts gives him a list of the latest articles
1:09:58from Mac Stories, and that list is copied to the clipboard
1:10:02so that you can just do Command + V in Obsidian,
1:10:05and it's got a markdown list of all the latest articles
1:10:08from macstories.net.
1:10:09Now that type of stuff is totally doable now,
1:10:13And I just wanted to have like a proper,
1:10:16like the way that I approached this was,
1:10:18I love Obsidian and I love shortcuts.
1:10:21What if I combine them both?
1:10:23Like, it's like when you wanna,
1:10:25when you try to have your two best friends end up together,
1:10:28which is something that I have personally done
1:10:30twice in my life, and I'm happy to report that,
1:10:33well, one couple broke up,
1:10:35but the other one is getting married this year,
1:10:37so that's cool.
1:10:37But it's like, there's no greater feeling
1:10:40that having your best friends end up together.
1:10:42And this is the nerd markdown version of that.
1:10:46Like, combining my two great loves in a plugin.
1:10:50So I'm really happy about it, personally.
1:10:52Like, even if nobody installs it, I built it for me.
1:10:56And the fact that other people are liking it
1:10:59makes me very happy.
1:11:00- I mean, true love is always found in JavaScript.
1:11:02That's what they've always said, you know?
1:11:04- Also that.
1:11:05And in the command line, yes.
1:11:08- Is this like a thing for Federico now?
1:11:10like Obsidian plugins?
1:11:13- Well, so this, well, I think it is,
1:11:17and I think it's been for quite a while,
1:11:19because this is the first sort of free plugin,
1:11:23like community plugin,
1:11:25but we've already done three premium plugins
1:11:29for club members only in September.
1:11:31If you recall, we did the Todoist plugin,
1:11:35the plugin for Markdown Links,
1:11:37and the wild plugin that I used for my iOS review,
1:11:42the one that compiles a table of contents.
1:11:44- Yeah.
1:11:45- But those were for club members only.
1:11:48This one is free because I just thought
1:11:51lots of people could use this.
1:11:53And I just, you know, going back to what we said
1:11:57a few minutes ago on the show,
1:11:59sometimes you just make something cool
1:12:01and you think it's neat and you wanna release it in the open
1:12:06And it doesn't necessarily matter if other people use it,
1:12:10because you know that you did it for yourself,
1:12:12but you think, "Hey, maybe somebody else out there
1:12:14is weird like me and wants this kind of thing."
1:12:17And there's no greater feeling than that,
1:12:20like creating something and releasing it for free
1:12:22for everybody to use.
1:12:23And that is something that, over the years,
1:12:26it's a pleasure that I've learned
1:12:29to appreciate more and more myself.
1:12:32It's also why I really love writing about shortcuts and giving them to people,
1:12:39because it makes me happy to make something, even though it's not like something tangible,
1:12:45in the sense that it's not a physical product, but it brings me a lot of pleasure to build something
1:12:51and release it in the wild. It's a nice feeling to have.
1:12:56In the post you mentioned a few things that were kind of interesting to me.
1:13:00you're publishing to WordPress straight from Obsidian now, you're uploading images straight
1:13:05from Obsidian and also backing up your files into three places. I just read all that stuff and was
1:13:11like except the publishing part, like I could see the benefits of being able to link these two
1:13:17things together for iOS review time, like the CDN uploading and the backups. Like I know these are
1:13:23things that you were doing. I guess you were going in, you were opening shortcuts right and doing
1:13:29them? Yes. And again, John knows me well here because when he saw the full documentation
1:13:35of all the things that you can do with the plugin, he was like, "Wait, you are preparing
1:13:42for the iOS 16 review here." And I was like, "Yes, I am."
1:13:47I don't like the way that sounds. iOS 16? I know.
1:13:51That doesn't sound good to me. But yeah, and we try to make it as flexible
1:13:58as possible. That's why you can choose whatever name you want for your commands. There's support
1:14:07for multiple inputs. And it can get really complex if you want, or it can stay pretty
1:14:14simple. But if you're the type of person who likes to fiddle around with this stuff, you
1:14:19could, for example, put together launchers that do multiple things. Like, you could create
1:14:28a macro in Obsidian. There's a plugin called QuickAdd that lets you create macros. And
1:14:34in theory, you could do something like running multiple shortcuts in succession. Like, that's
1:14:40the thing that you could do. It could get pretty complex and wild if you did, like,
1:14:47"What if you ran shortcuts for an entire document and you scanned all the links
1:14:56in the doc--" like, all that type of stuff you can do. And sometimes, another reason
1:15:01why I wanted this plugin, sometimes it's much easier to create something in
1:15:07shortcuts than it is in other apps like Obsidian. Or, I don't know, you know, AppleScript comes
1:15:14to mind, other apps with automation features come to mind, like BetterTouchTool or Keyboard
1:15:18Maestro. We have lots of options for automation, but sometimes you just know how to use shortcuts
1:15:24more.
1:15:25And so lots of people have built over the years, like me, a library of shortcuts. What
1:15:32What if there was a bridge for the focus using Obsidian to tap into that existing library
1:15:39of shortcuts? That was also one of the reasons why I wanted to have this plugin.
1:15:43That's really nice, man. I think it's super cool. Obsidian is like, every now and then
1:15:47these apps come along where I'm kind of jealous that I have no use for it. And I'm kind of
1:15:53like, you know, in John's video, John made a little video showing it off. Maybe it was
1:15:57in the article. Actually, it was in the article that you wrote, but you said what John was
1:16:00doing with it. Yeah. Like he's making these like dashboards of his day and it's linking
1:16:04out to all of it. It's like I see that stuff, it's like it sounds really interesting, but
1:16:07I just don't think I work that way, but I'm kind of jealous of all the people that find
1:16:12the use in that because it just sounds like a really cool thing to do. Maybe they're taller
1:16:16than you too. Do you know what? They probably all are. I don't know if Jon's taller than
1:16:22me. No it's not, I don't think he is. No it's not. Everyone is man. Well yeah, look I just
1:16:29want to say you don't need to be like one of the fans. Like I don't consider myself
1:16:32a fancy obsidian user. I don't do the graph thing. No, I don't. Get out of town, Federico.
1:16:38No, no, no, no. I am serious. There are thresholds of obsidian users. There are the really, really
1:16:46fancy obsidian users. They're like S tier. The S tier. Yeah, you're A tier. The academics
1:16:55the scientists using mathematical expressions and having those, you know those graphs with
1:17:02the dots? Like, I don't do any of that stuff. But that's the beautiful part about it.
1:17:09This is why they didn't give you that content creator of the year, right? Which I tried
1:17:13to fix it. I tried to fix that vote for you. What did they give you? What did you win?
1:17:17You won an award, didn't you?
1:17:18No, I was like in the top ten for content creators.
1:17:23Ridiculous. You should have been number one.
1:17:24They gave me like a $200 price, which I did not accept,
1:17:29and I said, "Just do like a giveaway for Obsidian--"
1:17:32Take that money, son!
1:17:33No, no.
1:17:34Take it, you know?
1:17:36Go buy yourself something pretty.
1:17:38No, it's fine.
1:17:39They should give it away to the community.
1:17:42I don't know, I just felt like I don't need it.
1:17:44I paid for Obsidian Sync for a year,
1:17:47and I know that there are like--
1:17:49because I get those emails, right?
1:17:51Like kids that are like 15 or something,
1:17:54and they're just getting started with automation.
1:17:56And they send me emails saying,
1:17:58"Hey, I really wanna try this thing,
1:17:59"but I don't have the money to send out for the club."
1:18:01Like, I see these kids,
1:18:03and I think it really makes me happy
1:18:06to see, like, at a very young age.
1:18:08At that age, I was stupid, you know?
1:18:11Like, I was doing some stupid stuff with my friends,
1:18:15and I wasn't into computers.
1:18:17And I'm very jealous, in a good way,
1:18:19of these kids that are like 13, and they are programming.
1:18:23it's like man that's really cool and so I do not want that money I don't even
1:18:29know why I'm saying this anyway yeah someone else won I like I like the the
1:18:35no I like the unfinished thought of like these kids email me and they don't have
1:18:40money for the club it makes me happy to see these kids as he archives their
1:18:44email it's like but try harder child go get a part-time job as a federal
1:18:52her things. Sometimes, sometimes, like I said, I am a benevolent figure. Don't say it, don't
1:18:58say it out loud because then your email inbox will quadruple. Don't say it out loud. Exactly.
1:19:03No, don't ask me for free stuff. I will not give you free stuff. I'm sorry, but I got
1:19:07a business to run. But the sentiment behind it is very, it's very nice. Like to know that
1:19:15there are people at a very young age interested in this kind of stuff. Yeah. It's great because
1:19:21I know that I wasn't actually I wasn't allowed to go on the internet until I was 16 but that's
1:19:26a different story. It was also just harder to get on the internet when we were younger
1:19:31you know it was like no one would be on the phone. You couldn't go on the phone because
1:19:36so that was your parents would yell at you it's like I'm on the phone. Yeah that's stupid.
1:19:41That noise. Yeah that 50k modem oh my god that noise. When you pick up the phone the
1:19:47- The one starts screaming in your ear.
1:19:48- It's great.
1:19:49- What was that noise like?
1:19:50No, I don't know how to make it.
1:19:53(imitates music)
1:19:55Something like that.
1:19:58- If you wanna find links to stuff we spoke about,
1:20:00head on over to the website, relay.fm/connected/382.
1:20:05While you're there, you can sign up
1:20:07and become a member of Connected Pro.
1:20:10That is the longer ad-free version of the show
1:20:13that we publish each and every week.
1:20:15Lots of fun.
1:20:16We'd love to have you, uh, they are monthly and annual plans available.
1:20:21Check it out.
1:20:22Join connected pro.
1:20:23If you remember, thank you for your support.
1:20:25You can also send us feedback or follow up from the website,
1:20:29or you can do that online.
1:20:31You can find Federico on Twitter as Vatici V I T I C C I, and he's the
1:20:37editor in chief of max stories.net Federico, what device are you going to
1:20:41make a frames shortcut for next?
1:20:44What's coming out next?
1:20:46I don't know.
1:20:47It's playdate.
1:20:48Cable, if you're listening, send me a PSD and we'll make a play frame.
1:20:55I don't even know if they have a screenshot capability.
1:20:58Oh no.
1:20:59Probably.
1:21:00Hmm.
1:21:01Well, maybe the analog pocket is next when they add the screenshot feature.
1:21:06Steam Deck.
1:21:07Did you see Federico?
1:21:08It's coming out.
1:21:09They announced a date while we were recording.
1:21:11Yes.
1:21:12February 28th, they start shipping.
1:21:15Unfortunately. I logged, when I saw that email, I quickly logged into my Steam account, and
1:21:22it said that my order is currently slated for Q2 2022.
1:21:27Don't worry, it's gonna suck anyway. There's no embargo until like two days before.
1:21:31Well, I could have said the same for Pokemon Legends, and yet the embargo lifted today
1:21:37and it seems very good.
1:21:38Yeah, but that's just because Pokemon's amazing. Steam don't know what they're doing over there.
1:21:42And Steam is not?
1:21:43Steam don't know what they're doing over there.
1:21:45I think it's actually gonna be very nice, we'll see about this.
1:21:47Hey Steam, hey Steam, how's your Steam previous hardware gone?
1:21:51Oh, man, those controls are everywhere.
1:21:54Why are you a Steam hater, man?
1:21:56What about the Valve, oh, Valve boxes?
1:21:58Oh man, Valve Index?
1:22:00Can't move for those things.
1:22:01Are you a Valve hater? Why?
1:22:02I don't know, no, no, I am not actually, I've visited the...
1:22:05Is this like a new thing you do?
1:22:07Like, that's...
1:22:08I walked past Gabe Newell in a corridor at their offices.
1:22:12Did something happen?
1:22:13No, I just looked at him and like I didn't really know what to say to the guy. I don't
1:22:18think I could say anything to him really. I looked for Half-Life when I was in there.
1:22:22Couldn't find it. I tried to do it. Couldn't find it. No, I don't know why I'm, I'm, I've
1:22:28created this character for myself who hates steam.
1:22:30A new persona that you have.
1:22:32Yeah, this is my new, this is my new persona, steam hater.
1:22:36Steam deck hater or steam in general.
1:22:39Uh, booo. That's how it's gonna go. You can find Myke. He's on Twitter as @IMYKE. He hosts
1:22:45a bunch of shows here on Relay FM. Myke, tell the people what we're doing on Friday.
1:22:50On Friday, uh, Steven's birthday. And all Steven wants for his birthday is to watch
1:22:57me rebuild an iPod. So we're gonna finish off a previous thing that I'd started. I have
1:23:03an iPod video and the click wheel doesn't work. So I got a blue click wheel. And we're
1:23:08gonna see how that goes we're gonna put that together together and we're just
1:23:11gonna wish Stephen a happy birthday for a solid 90 minutes so you can join us at
1:23:1611 30 a.m. Eastern Time that's 4 30 p.m. GMT at Myke.live on Friday which is
1:23:25the 28th which is Stephen Hackett's 42nd birthday.
1:23:31It's not 42nd!
1:23:32Oh come on get it, I'm 43, come on man!
1:23:35- Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry, I'm a bad friend.
1:23:37He's 43 years old.
1:23:38- Well, pandemic year, you know, it doesn't count.
1:23:41- That's true.
1:23:42- You've had six pandemic years.
1:23:44Yeah, this iPod-
1:23:45- How old are you really gonna be?
1:23:46Is it 35?
1:23:47- 36.
1:23:49- Ooh, 36. Damn.
1:23:51- Wow, he's old.
1:23:52- Wow.
1:23:53- It sounds old.
1:23:54- It's worse than I thought.
1:23:55- Wait, do you guys think,
1:23:57Myke, do you think we age shame Steven on the show?
1:24:01- Yes.
1:24:02(laughs)
1:24:03- Yeah, I'm fine with that.
1:24:04I'm fine with that. I'm totally fine with that.
1:24:07In general, it's a bad thing. Like, you shouldn't do that.
1:24:10I am 100% against age shaming.
1:24:14But when it comes to Steven...
1:24:16It's only fine if we do it in the context of the show with Steven.
1:24:19It's no problem.
1:24:21It's like in the same way that I don't actually have an issue with Steam or Valve,
1:24:25but in that two minutes bracket I did.
1:24:28But Gabe Newell crossed you somehow.
1:24:32He did, he crossed me in the corridor.
1:24:34He crossed past me in the corridor.
1:24:36It's like maybe you saw him in the men's room,
1:24:38he didn't wash his hands
1:24:39and now you don't wanna use their products.
1:24:40Is that what happened?
1:24:41If something happened, something happened you can tell us.
1:24:44Yeah, something went down there for sure.
1:24:47Yeah, this iPod is the one back in September,
1:24:51like five months ago, we put a battery and an SD card in it.
1:24:56But then one of the buttons on the click wheel
1:24:58wasn't working, I think it was the menu button.
1:25:00So then I bought not only just a new click wheel, a blue one.
1:25:03- A blue one.
1:25:04It's gonna look so good, man.
1:25:05You can find me on Twitter as ISMH
1:25:08and I host other shows here on Relay as well
1:25:12and right over at 512pixels.net.
1:25:14I'd like to thank our sponsors this week,
1:25:16Hover, Capital One and Trade Coffee.
1:25:19You can learn more about them in the show notes.
1:25:21Thank you to our members for your direct support.
1:25:23And until next week, guys, say goodbye.
1:25:26- I'll be there to you.
1:25:28- Cheerio.
1:25:29- Bye, y'all.