site-related techspeak, computer crap, other technical garble not of interest to the general populace.
This is the kind of rabbit hole I fall down when interests collide: data analysis of last year’s tomato harvest, written by hand in a notebook I bound myself, as a reminder to stop procrastinating and get this year’s seeds started and planted out in time to enjoy a proper harvest this year.
I never did get around to writing a Year In Review last year.
I still collected all the data, still had things to say… just never managed to sit down and do it. For various reasons.
As I sat down to recap 2023, I felt (as I’d known I would) that I couldn’t summarize 2023 without at least acknowledging 2022. So, in lieu of a review, here are some screenshots from my 2022 roundup on Exist.io, where I aggregate all the things.
I’ve been grandfathered into a reduced monthly subscription price of IFTTT Pro for years now. This morning, I learned that the feature I use the most, the one I keep my subscription active for, now requires a Pro+ account.
IFTTT stands for If This Then That; it’s basically a lo-code/no-code solution that lets users connect their apps with each other. I used it a lot more often before I started using iOS Shortcuts, and I’ve only continued to use it for things I haven’t been able to convert to a Shortcut — mainly involving my WordPress blog.
Sometimes I have a quick thought that I want to post to my blog. Once upon a time, I created an IFTTT Applet that would take anything I posted to Twitter and import it as a blog entry. You know, in case Twitter ever went belly up or deleted my old tweets (as unlikely as that seemed at the time).
Over time, I started backing off of Twitter and decided to see if I could easily post quick updates directly to my blog using IFTTT. The iOS WordPress app at the time was bloated and clunky — at least, in connection with my webhost at the time — and I refused to even install it on my phone. So I created a “Quickblog” applet in IFTTT that would bring up a simple notes field and a button. Type the note, push the button, and the post was published.
Even after I switched webhosts, even after the WordPress iOS app became something quite usable, my Quickblog button was still so quick and handy that I kept it around.
Fast-forward to this morning, when I noticed something minor but still worth posting about. Swipe to my page o’ widgets, tap Quickblog, type my note, hit the button.
But when I launched up WordPress an hour or so later to add a more descriptive title and maybe another category, I couldn’t find my post anywhere. Not in Published, not in Drafts… so I checked to make sure my IFTTT applet was still connected. Yep… but it last ran in June? I hit the button that would manually run the app. Nothing.
I opened up the applet configuration settings… and there it was, nestled in the WordPress action. I need a Pro+ account to use the WordPress connector now.
Well, shit. How many random thoughts did I think I posted to my blog since June, but that actually went nowhere?
Guess I should have paid more attention when Rob O’Hara aired his IFTTT subscription woes on his own blog. Here I thought I was good to go with my discounted Pro account, when he was complaining about his now-hobbled free account.
Well, IFTTT, it’s been real. You won’t miss my $1.99 per month, and I won’t miss my Quickblog widget.
Here in Ohio, I like to remind people that the last snow often happens on or around my birthday, in late April.
Surprisingly, even though Aaron’s birthday is well within the range of first-snow dates, he said he couldn’t recall it actually snowing on his birthday before this year.
After watching one particular episode of his favorite cartoon, Connor asked 1.) if this game was for real, 2.) how do you play, and 3.) could we get it?
I gladly ponied up for both the Dungeons & Dragons Essentials Kit and the Young Adventurers book box set from Amazon. Strike while the iron is hot!
I’ve never played D&D before, although that’s only because I never had a group to play with (or maybe no one thought I’d be interested, so I never got invited to join). If Connor wants to play with me and his dad for his first campaign, one of us grown-ups is going to have to DM… and there’s an awful lot of rules to absorb.
Even though I kind of wish we could game with an experienced DM instead of going it alone, I also hope this is a fun thing we can do together as a family.
Except Aaron and I can’t seem too excited about it, or Connor won’t want to do it after all…