Category: Digital Life

Exploring Faith And Music

Carl Setzer

I love music that challenges me, pushes my understanding of what music, what it can convey. So I look forward to exploring this playlist. Let me know what you think.

 

 

Watch “How Unbox Therapy became the Biggest Tech Channel on YouTube” on YouTube

Carl Setzer

I stumbled upon this video today. Paddy Galloway does a great job in his analysis of Unbox Therapy, one of YouTube’s most popular tech channels. He gives some great insights for utilizing Youtube’s tools and algorithms to maximize your video’s presence.

Some fun with Mailchimp

Carl Setzer

An interesting evening.

I inherited a Mailchimp account. I needed to update the website, organization name (slight name change), address, phone number, etc. My goodness! There were 4 different forms that needed informatio.

Make sure you’ve updated all elements at this section of your account:

  • https://us14.admin.mailchimp.com/account/contact/#

It’ll save you aggravation later.

Please note: I’m still a fan of Mailchimp and their business model. I love how it’s free to start while designed to grow with you and your business. It’s a powerful tool that will help you market professionally with minimal effort. And will scale as you grow.

Let me know if you have any questions. I’ve deployed Mailchimp for multiple businesses and organizations. It’s one of the best investments you can make for your growing business.

Evernote Has Me Deeply Concerned

Carl Setzer

I’m a heavy user of Evernote. I love the product, as much as I love anything. It does a pretty great job with my notetaking needs. There are some recurring bugs that annoy the hell out of me, but that’s true with pretty much all software.

Then there’s the business. Evernote looks to be in significant trouble. I know so many people who were really annoyed at Evernote’s rebranding initiative. Especially since it appeared that that work came at the expense of feature upgrades. 

However, even bigger: their CTO, CFO, CPO and Head of HR all have stepped down. That sends a powerful message. Even it’s a random string of happenstance, it’s hard to accept that. The video below summed the situation, and my concerns, up as of a few days ago. 

Now, today, Boing Boing writes that Evernote announced layoffs. The compound effect of all this gives me deep concern. I’ve started exploring the other alternatives. Steve Dotto had talked about Notion, which I’ve started messing with. There’s a bunch of things I like about it, but have only started that exploration. 

I’m not ready to fully abandon them yet. However, I also have no interest in getting caught off-guard by the failing of a product I depend on. I’ve been bit by this before. 

My son’s blasted phone

Carl Setzer2 Comments

Hey there, my tech-savvy friends, my son has an original Pixel, which he loves. However, it’s picked up an annoying glitch. When anyone calls it, the answering screen doesn’t come up. It’s physically impossible to answer it; nothing there at all. Oddly, the phone rings and vibrates, just nothing else.

Here are some key details:

  • Do Not Disturb isn’t on.
  • The phone settings screen is greyed out (I think this is significant, but not able to drill down any further).
  • He can answer calls with a bluetooth headset (tapping “answer” there).
  • I’ll check and see if Google assistant will answer the calls. Hadn’t thought of that. 
  • Recently his phone updated to Android 9/Pie (did he get Pie in the face?)

Searching Google and Bing I’ve found many folks looking for solutions to this, going back a couple of years. Otherwise, that has been remarkably fruitless. Though I found a forum where the problem was stated to be a broken codec on the motherboard, and you’ll need a new one. Amusing by not helpful.

So, anyone have any ideas? My current best guess is that this some kind of bug or conflict related to the update. Haven’t seen anything formal from the Google, so it makes me wonder if it’s on their radar. 

I’m eager for advice and counsel, oh my techie friends!

A Day In Front Of My Computer

Carl Setzer

Zany days. A 2 hour meeting in the morning disrupted everything. Not too uncommon, but it can be discomforting. Today, though, it was good. My team gave me a ton of space, so I was able to tunnel in and make AutoCAD sing. Well, to the best of my ability, at least. I’ve grown massively with my CAD skills, but I see a huge amount of growth out there.

Hours passed quite quickly, I was focused and in my zone. I love that feeling and really relish those moments I get to dive in like that. No distraction…focus! That is my happiest place!

With that, music really helps me deeply dive into focus. I pulled together a decent playlist on Google music based on Ghost in the Shell and Attack On Titan soundtrack elements, Then, this evening, I stumbled upon Maddy Meyers. This album below is exactly what I would’ve loved to queued up. So, it’ll just need to be tomorrow’s. For I expect focus will be important then, too.

Some thinking about iOS and Android

Carl Setzer

I’m getting caught up in a few things. Just watched the June Apple WWDC. I find a lot of what’s coming exciting and fascinating. The Apple Watch and Apple tv, the new Macs…blah blah blah. That’s not where my mind is, though. 

Earlier today we received Samsung Gear 360. My son really wants to get into 360 video and start diving into VR. Well, this presented a challenge. His phone is a Google Pixel. He loves the phone. However, the app isn’t compatible with the Pixel. This product has been on shelves for several years in Android, and Samsung hasn’t built this out for other Android platforms. But yes to Apple? That seems daft. And is definitely frustrating. 

This brings out the things that keep pulling me back towards iPhones. I hate paying the Apple tax. However, there are far more things like cases, apps, and interactive tools…like Samsung’s Gear 360 app. But there are so many tools that are only available on iOS. Some apps have far greater feature sets in their iOS versions than in their Android ones. 

I understand the challenges that Android’s distributed model face. If iOS has an update, it’s available for every device immediately. Android can take years to port their updates out through their vender partners. Frustration. 

So, there’s a solid draw back to iPhone to me. I have some time before I need to make a decision. We’ll see, we’ll see…