Two tech geeks.

  • Summary on IBM-owned Red Hat’s new policy on source code

    //

    Last week, the IBM-owned Red Hat continued “furthering the evolution of CentOS Stream” by announcing that CentOS Stream would be “the sole repository for public RHEL-related source code releases,” with RHEL’s core code otherwise restricted to a customer portal.

    Source: Ars Technica

    A good article to get caught up on the recent issue with Red Hat’s new policy on the source code.

  • Twitter now limits how many tweets users can read

    //

    Twitter is putting limits to how many tweets its users can read as the Elon Musk-owned service suffers extended outage that has stymied users’ ability to track new posts.

    In a tweet, Musk detailed the revised usage quotas. Verified account holders can peruse a maximum of 6,000 posts daily, while unverified users must contend with a drastically reduced limit of 600 posts.

    Newly registered, unverified users face even tighter restrictions with an allowance of a mere 300 posts per day, according to the Tesla and SpaceX chief executive. (He has since increased the limit to 10,000, 1,000 and 500.)

    Source – Techcrunch

    The insanity at Twitter continues. I believe things will eventually settle down, but it remains to be seen what the collateral damage will be.

  • Over 200 million Twitter user email addresses leaked

    //

    Reuters:

    Hackers stole the email addresses of more than 200 million Twitter users and posted them on an online hacking forum, a security researcher said Wednesday.

    Issues at Twitter are quickly becoming a trend.

  • Another day, another Twitter outage.

    //

    Techcrunch:

    The service was operational “even after I disconnected one of the more sensitive server racks,” Musk tweeted on December 24.

    The crazy scenes at Twitter continue.

  • Evernote acquired by Bending Spoons

    //

    So what does Bending Spoons gain with the purchase? Another feather in its software cap, it’d seem. The European tech company makes apps like video editor Splice, 30 Day Fitness, Live Quiz and photo editor Remini, which combined have about 100 million users.

    via Tech Crunch

    The announcement really does mark the end of an era. The fact that most note-taking apps of today feature an Evernote importer is a testament to Evernote’s popularity over the years.

    I am really happy to have been a user from the early days and had the opportunity to speak on Evernote’s platform almost a decade ago.

    While I feel Evernote’s product in 2022 is pretty compelling, and look upon Evernote Home fondly, it unfortunately took way too long to get to this point. In the last decade, we’ve seen many other more dynamic productivity and note-taking tools appear.

    Let’s hope that this move could be a catalyst to kickstart Evernote again, though the odds seem stacked against it.

  • Google paid Activision Blizzard to stay on Play Store

    //

    Florian Mueller (via Michael Tsai):

    The world now knows that in January 2020, Google signed a three-year agreement with Activision Blizzard King (“ABK”), “pursuant to which Google agreed to pay ABK approximately $360 million” in order to dissuade Activision Blizzard from creating its own Android app store. Three-hundred and sixty million dollars for not competing.

    Bad timing. Microsoft is already under scrutiny for antitrust issues with their purchase of Activision Blizzard King (ABK) with antitrust authorities having to make a decision soon.

    Would Microsoft still allow ABK to stay on the Play Store? Or would they move them to the Microsoft App Store where the Xbox games already are?

  • iCloud.com gets a redesign

    //

    Apple gave us a glimpse of its iCloud.com redesign last month, and now the redesign is officially available to everybody.

    The new dashboard view feels a lot more useful than the previous design, and you can tell that there have been some subtle refinements.

    Apple will need to continue to refine and improve its web services to compete with competing services such as Google and Microsoft that provide really robust and functional web services, but this is definitely a (small) step in the right direction.

  • Notion AI announced

    //

    Notion has announced Notion AI, which is currently in Alpha.

    While there has been a lot of recent discussion of how AI and art can deal with the copyright challenges ahead, copywriting and other creative industries will soon face a similar challenge.

    Notion says that Notion AI will be free during the Alpha, but will likely cost extra in the future. If the promotional video is anything to go by, it looks like it’ll be a great additional feature for Notion, and I’m looking forward to giving it a go.

  • OneDrive on Mac takes up 1 GB

    //

    Nick Heer on Pixel Envy:

    This is not limited to operating systems, either. Users are disrespected by increasing and surprising bloat in applications. For work, I need to run the Microsoft OneDrive client on one of my Macs, and I was surprised to see that it recently crossed the 1 GB threshold. This is a file syncing utility. For comparison — and you can check this for yourself — it was 70 MB just four years ago.

    The only apps I have that are larger than 1 GB are video editing apps, DAWs, Adobe apps, and Microsoft apps.

    I’m so glad I ditched OneDrive due to the problems it had with M1 Macs. I just wished we moved away from it earlier. There had been several occasions when we lost data due to OneDrive issues.

    Besides taking up so much storage space, it also seems to be doing weird things in the file system. And it brings my internet to a crawl at times when it suddenly decides to sync certain large files.

    I recall Matt having issues where his files were perpetually stuck in downloading status. That worsened into constant kernel panic, a problem that has been well-documented. Try searching “OneDrive kernel panic”.

    I’m fully committed to iCloud Drive and only use OneDrive via web when absolutely necessary.

  • iPhone Analytics

    //

    Michael Tsai:

    Tommy Mysk (Hacker News):

    It seems that the #AppStore app on iOS 14.6 sends every tap you make in the app to Apple.

    […]

    It’s unclear if Apple still collects analytics data in iOS 16, even when sharing analytics and personalized recommendations are switched off. Regardless, the App Store already knows a lot about our behavior and how we explore apps.

    I have always preferred to share usage information with Apple because I believe in providing the engineers with as much information as they would need to keep improving the products, not just for me but for all users.

    However, as Apple shifts to providing ads, I’m not sure if I would still be so ready to share my usage data. I’m not comfortable with giving my information to Apple so that Apple can try to get me people to spend more money.

    Of course, Apple defines things so that it’s not “tracking” if the data isn’t linked to you personally and isn’t shared with other companies.

    Apple’s point is valid, but not comforting for me as a user.