Tips on The Dangling Pointer

US Postal Service Scans & E-mails Your Incoming Mail Pieces

Sat, 05 Aug 2017 16:22:53 +0000

The United States Postal Service started a new service in April called "Informed Delivery" which promises to e-mail you images of the envelopes of today's mail being delivered. You'll know what important mail is waiting for you in your mailbox even if you're not at home. You'll also know if mail isn't getting delivered to you properly and you can report it to the Post Office with a couple clicks.

Preventing Spam iCloud Calendar Invites

Fri, 25 Nov 2016 14:55:15 +0000

I woke up this morning seeing two notifications of calendar appointments I just couldn't miss. [sarcasm]

Annoying, right? Here's the best part. No matter what I do - Accept, Maybe, Decline - the sender of the spam appointment receives the notification of my action. There's no way to just simply delete the damn invitation from your calendar without sending the reply! Well I guess that means 章兴言 & 历昭 are going to get a sad decline from me.

Summarizing Text in macOS

Mon, 21 Nov 2016 16:16:43 +0000

There's a cool service in macOS called "Summarization" that takes a block of text and figures out the most important sentences or paragraphs in it. I've used this service before to help reduce the amount to read on longer posts and conversations. It is definitely not perfect but it can help provide some clarity where our TL;DR brains need it.

In this example screenshot you can see I'm looking at a Wikipedia article. The summarize service gives you the option to summarize by paragraph or by sentence. There is a slider to indicate how much detail you want to retain. While less seems better, I've found the algorithm loses accuracy roughly around 40%.

I am a procrastinator.

Fri, 12 Aug 2016 14:11:48 +0000

I have always believed I was a procrastinator. I tend to put difficult tasks off until when they are due. I always believed it was the pressure of the deadline that forced me to complete the task. College gave me a series of structured deadlines to learn new things. Procrastination can also add undue stress onto your system. Over time it will make you feel like you're stupid and can't get anything done. ADHD and procrastination seem to go hand in hand as well.

Marking Unread in Slack

Sun, 03 Jan 2016 02:01:23 +0000

We've been using Slack at Automattic for about two years now. One of the biggest challenges I had with it (and any other chat system really) is losing my place. I will frequently read activity in a room, quickly determine it is not immediately relevant, and tell myself to not forget to come back to it later. In reality I never remember and the idea is lost to the ether of my ADHD brain.

SourceTree - Delete Multiple Branches at One Time

Thu, 10 Dec 2015 02:14:19 +0000

Do you use SourceTree to help manage your Git repos? Ever work on a bunch of pull requests and have a lot of local branches you need to delete? I found a way to delete multiple branches at one time.

Click Repository then click Branch.

Click Delete Branches.

Select the branch(es) you want to delete. Be sure not to select other than Local branches unless that's your intention.

Changing the volume on a USB Headset on Mac OS X

Mon, 07 Dec 2015 20:24:51 +0000

Do you use a USB headset for video/audio conferencing on your Mac? Ever been frustrated that you can't really change the volume of just the headset if you keep your main audio coming through your speakers? There is a solution - use the Audio MIDI Setup app nestled in Applications/Utilities.

Look for the device that matches your USB device - sometimes it only shows the manufacturer of the USB to Analog converter if its a cheapie device.
Look for the "out" device if you're looking at changing what you hear, the "in" device for your microphone audio level.
Slide the master control to the right if its available. If master isn't selectable, slide the individual left/right channels. The individual channels don't stop at any specific points along the line so you might want to manually match up the dB (gain) value so each ear is an identical volume level.

Biggest Lie To Your ADHD Self

Wed, 15 Jul 2015 12:35:54 +0000

Most of my journey the past couple of years with coping with attention problems is increasing my self-awareness. I am my own obstacle and I must hack my own consciousness to work the way I need it to.

It's easy to slip into old habits and totally forget the tools you've put in place. All it takes is one of those well-known "ooh shiny" moments and you're off track for an hour reading about nuclear testing instead of solving the problem for work.

Is your Apple Watch Digital Crown sticking?

Sat, 30 May 2015 18:31:53 +0000

I noticed a couple days ago that the Digital Crown on my Apple Watch wasn't turning quite as easily as it had when I got it. Of course I immediately thought it was a defect since it visually looked clean. Turns out it was needing a bit of maintenance.

I use a treadmill desk and even with the 3mph speed I sweat a bit. The Watch was designed to handle fitness scenarios but apparently it can get gunked up without some maintenance. Simply wiping down the exterior is not enough.

Recording Your iOS Device with QuickTime Player

Thu, 02 Apr 2015 12:35:51 +0000

The Task

You need to record your iPhone or iPad's screen to show someone a bug or demo a feature to your customers. In the past the only method available was to use a program like Reflector to emulate an AirPlay/Apple TV and then record on your machine. This works fairly decently although the quality over WiFi isn't very good leaving you with a less-than-crisp recording. Reflector also isn't free which makes it difficult for users in the wild to record bugs.

Surviving with Apple Pay

Tue, 16 Dec 2014 01:52:41 +0000

We've all done it - left your wallet at home and you're in a dire need for money, groceries, gas, etc. How do you get by if you can't get your wallet with your ID in short order?

I was thinking about this problem and thought of a simple solution. Go to a merchant that accepts Apple Pay and sells general gift cards. A place like Walgreens sells gift cards for restaurants, gas stations and other merchants. They even sell Visa and MasterCard gift cards (with an activation fee). Walgreens also typically sells transit passes for buses and trains.

If you run Unit Tests in Xcode

Thu, 24 Apr 2014 21:31:18 +0000

If you run unit tests inside of Xcode, you may wish to turn on the behavior to show the test results after they run.

Go to Preferences in Xcode.
Click on the Behaviors tab.
Click on Succeeds.
Check the box shown and select "Show" then "Test Navigator".
Repeat step 4 for Fails as well.

Now when your tests finish (failed or succeeded) you'll see the pretty green or red marks.