We have a lot of CES interviews interspersed with reviews and stories from me, Kevin and Bart. We start with Ohmnilabs affordable robots and their hope to help those with disabilities. Kevin Allder gives us his first impressions of the 12.9″ iPad Pro weighing its strengths and weaknesses. I interview Solo New York about their amazing “lifestyle” bags (spoiler, I really want one.). I’ll tell you how I hardcoded the Subscribe to the Podcasts page using the programming skills Bart taught us in Programming By Stealth. We’ll hear About ALOGIC’s line of USB-C Docks and power banks and B-Secure will tell us how HeartKey can monitor stress and exhaustion in first responders. Bart chimes in with a response to Shai and my discussion of how social media makes us feel with his story of his social media detox and segregation. We’ll hear about PAI’s interactive robot construction kit for children in an interview with none other than Shai Yammanee at CES. Finally, we’ll hear about Blue’s new Blue Ember XLR microphone for only $100.
Hi, this is Allison Sheridan of the NosillaCast Apple Podcast, hosted at Podfeet.com, a technology geek podcast with an EVER so slight Apple bias. Today is Monday, February 4, 2019, and this is show number 717. We’ve got another mammoth show this week – we’ve got six interviews from CES because in theory, it was going to be a light show without Security Bits. By the way, I keep forgetting to mention that the interviews are all video too. If you hear about something cool but you can’t quite picture it, please follow the links in the shownotes to see the video. Steve’s done a great job with these.
But that’s not all, I’ve got two stories to tell you, Kevin Allder (aka Big in Virginia) has his first take on the 12.9″ iPad Pro. Also, Bart Busschots is going to chime in with his thoughts on social media after listening to last week’s Chit Chat Across the Pond with Shai Yammanee. I’ve got a couple of announcements to get out of the way first so let’s dig in!
Chit Chat Across the Pond
Chit Chat Across the Pond this week was another installment of Programming By Stealth. We shift gears a bit away from web pages to web apps as we explore the usage and code behind Bootstrap Modals and Toasts. It’s a combination of HTML, Bootstrap for styling and JavaScript for actions so it flexes all of our programming muscles. In a little bit you’ll hear a story of how I actually USED my programming skills!
You can find the latest installment of Programming By Stealth in your podcatcher of choice, or listen at www.podfeet.com/…
Bart on the Mac Quadcast
Speaking of Bart, he was the latest guest on the Mac Quadcast with Darren Carr. Even though Bart and I have talked for literally thousands of hours, I still learned stuff about him. I nearly fell over laughing when he referred to Windows ME as a “buggy crashy piece of poop!” Darren asks him questions I never thought to ask and it’s absolute loads of fun. Go check it out at www.themacquad.com/… or search for The Mac Quadcast in your podcatcher of choice.
Me on Daily Tech News Show
I was on the Daily Tech News Show this week with Sarah Lane while Tom was away on vacation. The discussion topic was about Facebook’s “research” tool. If you want to hear me lose my ever loving mind about it, check it out at www.dailytechnewsshow.com/… episode 3458 or look in your podcatcher for the title “Should Be Against The Terms Of Wrong”.
Jump Desktop on ScreenCasts Online
Last announcement, I promise! This week my video tutorial about Jump Desktop was published on ScreenCasts Online. Jump Desktop is a fantastic remote desktop application that lets you control Macs and PCs anywhere in the world with no network faffing about, and you can do it from an iPad, iPhone, Mac, PC or even Android. I posted a teaser video about it over on www.podfeet.com/…. Remember ScreenCasts Online is a paid-for tutorial service, but you can watch all of the back catalog with a free 7-day trial. Don’t do it though, because you’ll be hooked!
Blog Posts
CES 2019: Ohmnilabs Affordable Robotics
12.9″ iPad Pro First Impressions – by Kevin Allder
CES 2019: Solo New York Lifestyle Bags
Patreon
If you get value out of all the hard work Steve does to create the video and audio interviews for the podcast, consider becoming a patron of the Podfeet Podcasts. All you have to do is go over to podfeet.com/patreon and choose a weekly dollar amount to support the show. If you have a fear of commitment, you could always go to podfeet.com/paypal and put in a one-time donation. He just got a new boom arm for his microphone because of your help to support the show.
I Hand Coded a Responsive Web Page All by Myself with Bootstrap
CES 2019: ALOGIC USB-C Docks & Power Banks
CES 2019: B-Secur HeartKey Authentication and Health Monitoring
Bart on Social Media
I really enjoyed this episode. Thoughtful and fun, and I did a lot of nodding along in agreement.I’ve been on a serious social media detox, and my mental health has been immeasurably improved as a result. The never-ending torrent of interruptions and negativity was getting close to actually driving me nuts!
The first thing I’ve done is to prefer private communities like this one over public ones. Social interactions are much more positive in private communities than out in the digital public square where random strangers get off on shouting abuse at you!
Now, that strategy comes with a risk I knew I had to mitigate — the filter bubble. My solution was to consciously split apart three things and avoid mixing them as much as possible:
1. socialising
2. factual news
3. opinion & analysisI’m also very consciously throttling the flow of news and opinion/analysis, and consuming it in intentional chunks instead of randomly throughout the day.
Finally, I really think Patrick Beja is on to something — he’s been mulling on the idea that when everything is an 11 on the outrage scale, nothing is actually important anymore. By taking news and opinion out of my social media world, I’ve been freed from the never-ending torrent of non-scandal-scandals that others spend hours being impotently angry about.
But have I not left myself open to ignorance? Nope! The ACTUAL scandals make their way into the factual news, but the faux-scandals don’t. I was saved from being angry at something as facile as the Kevin Hart Oscars thing, but better informed about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi then most of my peers.
Life is better when you’re not being bombarded by things designed to make you angry, who knew! :grinning:
CES 2019: PAIBots AR Interactive Robot Construction Kit
CES 2019: Blue Ember XLR Microphone
That’s going to wind this up for this week. Don’t forget to send in your Dumb Questions, comments and suggestions by emailing me at [email protected], follow me on twitter @podfeet. Remember, everything good starts with podfeet.com/. podfeet.com/patreon, podfeet.com/facebook, podfeet.com/slack, podfeet.com/chat, podfeet.com/amazon! And if you want to join in the fun of the live show, head on over to podfeet.com/live on Sunday nights at 5pm Pacific Time and join the friendly and enthusiastic NosillaCastaways. Thanks for listening, and stay subscribed.