Gordy's Discourse

Social media has many ills. Many, many ills. But one of them is the way it has reduced the significance of one's 'own site' and the subsequent branding and identity that affords.

Astonishing, really. Giving people more control over their privacy is undoubtedly a good thing, yet Zuckerberg is going to try and exclude as many users as possible from the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

He’s essentially saying that he’ll only comply with good privacy regulations where he absolutely has to, otherwise he’ll sell your data on to all and sundry, without your permission, as he sees fit.

It further demonstrates he is really only paying lip service to the scrutiny he’s under following the Cambridge Analytica debacle.

Privacy’s a nice idea ... as long as it doesn’t interfere with profits.

It’s just greed because it’s perfectly possibly to have privacy and profits. Give users the control they deserve and then tempt them to hand over their data voluntarily. There’ll still be millions of takers and it can all be done in a transparent and morally justifiable way.

Regulation can be a double-edged sword that often creates more problems than it solves, but we need to regulate the shit out of a lot of these internet giants that surreptitiously abuse our privacy. If that’s their only business model then they deserve to fail.

This article is interesting but when Whitson Gordon at Endgadget says:

It won't totally replace a laptop, but it can come surprisingly close.

I disagree. I’ve almost transitioned from a MacBook Pro to an iPad Pro in a little less than a month. The only thing I need my MacBook for is an app I wrote myself and it’s entirely my fault I didn’t create an iOS version of it. I can now go many days without powering up my MacBook and even then it’s usually to use the aforementioned app or to take a Time Machine backup.

Of course it depends what you do. There’s no xCode on iOS, for example, so if you’re a developer and that’s your environment of choice you’re going to need something with MacOS. That’s probably true for other bits of software too. And of course that are evil app developers who think iOS should have a cut down versions of MacOS software.

In principle, though, iOS should be able to handle pretty much everything and I think for most people it can indeed replace a laptop.

An iCloud transfer issue, which wasn't at all the fault of Ulysses, forced me back to Bear Writer and in this article I explain a little about how I moved my articles between the two apps and tagged them appropriately.

My review of Ulysses, in which I wax lyrical about it and determine that, as far as I'm concerned, it's the best writing app available for the MacOS and iOS platforms. Alas, after writing this I switched over to Bear Writer and I explain why in the addendum of this article.

A review of MoneyWiz, the personal accounting software for MacOS and iOS (and Windows and Android as it happens) created by Silverwiz Ltd. I started using this to replace the iBank/Banktivity setup I was using before.

A really good overview of how Facebook has abused users’ privacy over the years. They’re finally being called to task over some of this stuff, but how much difference will it really make when it has all blown over?

I suspect privacy issues will crop up more and more in the future and eventually it’ll be subject to much heavier regulation. Maybe the day will come when we own our own data and can trade it as a commodity, taking a payment for providing these companies with our location, our hobbies and interests or whatever. Maybe we’ll get our cut of the pie.

Currently they harvest our data for free and then make a profit on the back of it. In return they allegedly provide a service for us that we desperately need or want. They are reluctant to stop doing that and instead charge a fee for the use of their services because they know people would probably soon find out they could quite easily live without the service after all.

I love my Ironmaster IM2000, as will be apparent from this review. I have a small area I can set aside for workouts and a full-blown power rack (with a cable system too) was just too big to fit. The IM2000 is a perfect alternative and it earns itself a five star review from me.

Punk was awesome. Or at least I thought so. Here are some tunes you might have forgotten about or at least not heard for a while.

In a diversion from my normal sorts of article, this one looks at the rights of owner-occupiers v landlords in a building management company set up under Right To Manage (RTM) legislation. It's something I've been heavily involved in over the last few years as an owner-occupier myself.

How should we use categories and tags on a blog? In this article I present my own particular view of how it should be organised.

My first impressions after unboxing a new 12.9 inch iPad Pro and accessories. I also describe how I've gone about setting things up as part of my project to see if I can effectively use an iPad Pro as my main computer instead of a MacBook. There's more to do here, so this article just describes the beginning of the process.

The software that drives this blog is Jekyll and when a MacBook Pro running MacOS was my main computer, I could install Jekyll locally and do all my builds on MacOS. However, there is no version of Jekyll for iOS and I needed to rethink my blog maintenance procedures. This article describes how I reconfigured my Jekyll processes for iOS.

Apple should really make this simple but there's no easy way to add Exchange aliases to iOS. This article presents a way to achieve it, although it's an ugly and inelegant method.

I have been thinking about switching from using a MacBook Pro to using an iPad Pro as my main computer for some time now. After six months of research and indecision I decided to take the plunge today. In this article I explain why I'm making this switch and how I assessed my requirements. I then ordered the hardware.

David Bowie's 'Rebel Rebel' is an awesome song, but I've come across and even more awesome live version of it. I link to that here after giving you a potted history of my musical tastes.

I was getting Virtual Memory Size Exceeded notifications from CSF relating to PHP FPM on a particular domain. This is how I fixed things so I wasn't continually pestered by these messages.

I hate sprouts and I fear a great conspiracy is at the root of campaigns to force us to eat the damn things.

A review of the Ironmaster Superbench. I really rate Ironmaster's workout equipment. I have an Ironmaster IM2000 and I bought an Ironmaster Superbench as part of the package, which is what I'm reviewing here. I think this is one of the best multi-purpose, flat-incline-decline benches on the market.

I hate being late for anything. It's one of those things that drives my anxiety off the scale and it's something that bothers me significantly, maybe unduly so. So here's my rant about tardiness.

I'm of the opinion that multi-factor authentication stinks. I put forward an argument for single-factor authentication here, pointing out why I think it's more secure.

One of the problems with product reviews is that they are inherently subjective. It's impossible to write a review that isn't subject, at least to some degree, but I think there are ways we can account for some of that subjectivity.

My ideas about why we have digital piracy. I lay much of the blame firmly at the door of the digital media companies.

Since adding a new domain to my CPanel server, I've had AutoSSL renewal errors. These have been emailed to me via the AutoSSL check that runs overnight. Anyway, the problem (at least in my case) sits with the .htaccess file and here's my solution.

A review of the Powertec Workbench LeverGym. This is the first bit of workout kit I bought when I moved from a five-bedroom house with a garage to a two-bedroom flat. I needed something with a fairly small footprint.

Five years ago I switched from the Windows platform to Apple. I bought an Apple MacBook Pro back in 2013 after 20 years as a Windows user, but would I now switch back?

A review of the Body-Solid Series 7 Smith Master System. Back in my youth I did a lot of weight-training but then life got in the way and I took a 20 year layoff. When I was 46 I took it up again and this is the kit I originally used for my weight-training when I restarted.

A review of the 8th film in 'The Fast and The Furious' franchise. No, just no.

My reasoning behind using Jekyll to power this site. I've used Wordpress on many blogs in the past but I didn't need all the features it provides for this blog and a static blog generation app seemed more appropriate. This article looks at how I came to decide to use Jekyll.

A review of Shiny Frog's Bear Writer, which I really like and assessed to see if I could integrate it into my GTD process. I think it's ideal for note-taking, short-form writing (blog posts and such) and journaling, although some people might not like the subscription model it uses. I think it's worth looking at if you want a Markdown-based notes app.