This weekend's project was to create a 2FA key manager that was cross-platform and uses the latest Swift stuff like SwiftData since I want to move away from Google Authenticator.

Both targets achieved — plus, has migration from Google Authenticator built in by importing the export QR codes that Google Authenticator creates 🙂

But iOS 17 and macOS Sonoma only since some of the functionality I used isn't backward compatible 😞 Doesn't really matter as a personal app though, so all good?

#Swift #SwiftUI #macOS #iOS #2FA #Authenticator #SwiftData

Another post in Karl Guttag's series of posts discussing Apple Vision Pro is now up:

https://kguttag.com/2023/09/26/apple-vision-pro-part-6-passthrough-mixed-reality-ptmr-problems/

I find the passthrough mixed reality issues he mentions interesting, and am curious as to if the released product has the issues he mentions and how much it would impact your eyesight when you use the AVP over a long period of time ...

Also, curious as to how well the Quest 3 handles this given the placement of cameras on the Quest 3.

To be frank, I am less and less inclined to get an Apple VisionPro (even to try it out to see if it meets my requirements and/or will serve as a platform to develop for) as I continue to read Karl’s posts on the subject …

#Apple #VisionPro #Hardware #MixedReality #Analysis #Passthrough

New iOS, and my phone seems to drain battery faster ...

Created a document with all the ways to turn off battery draining processes. Seems to have made a huge difference.

Now experimenting with Shortcuts to turn on/off battery drainers as needed. Looking pretty good.

Mix in automated Shortcuts to turn off stuff when I go to sleep and turn them back on when I get up, and things hopefully just work? Maybe? 😛

#iOS #Battery #Automation #Shortcuts #PowerDrain

Recently, British detective shows have not had the quirkiness and humour which makes them so enjoyable and watchable ...

Enter, "Mrs. Sidhu Investigates" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21259542)

It has the humour, the quirkiness ... and it has Meera Syal.

What's not to like? 🙂

This is one of the good ones. Give it a try, you won’t regret it!

#TV #Detective #Mystery #British #UK

I'm trying to get going on a game since I've got the itch to do another game ...

I've been looking at free assets to build a quick demo version to see if the idea holds up and it seems sword wielding men are the most common characters you can find?

What about women/children? Or people not prone to violence?

I just find this interesting ... and telling ...

I can go into more detail — like how the first female character I found was tagged with “extra breast bouncing for sexiness” (or something similar). I found that rather disturbing — is the only attribute to identify you as female, bouncing breasts?

Is this how that particular person sees the world? Or are they just trying to be “marketable”?

#Games #GameDev #Artwork #Characters

"Blue Beetle" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9362930) is just mostly annoying ...

His family are annoying, the situations aren't funny, the beetle AI is stupid, and generally, it was a huge disappointment since I expected so much more from the movie ...

#Movies #DCComics #Hollywood #DCHeroes #BlueBeetle

"MY3" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt28744259) is the Indian remake of "I'm Not a Robot" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7521778)

Watched the first episode of "MY3" and it was rather horrible. Tried the first episode of the Korean original and that actually looks much better ...

#TV #Indian #Korean #Hindi #SciFi #KDrama

Keerthy Suresh (https://www.imdb.com/name/nm7146337), who's 31, has appeared as the sister for both Rajinikanth, 72, and Chiranjeevi, 68.

Not quite sure how that family math works, but who am I to question Indian cinema? 😛

#IndianCinema #Tollywood #Kollywood

I haven't read "Fables" recently, but I do remember how excited I was when I first read it — it was a brilliant interpretation of classic fables.

This is a brilliant move by Bill Willingham to free "Fables" from the clutches of DC 🙂

https://billwillingham.substack.com/p/willingham-sends-fables-into-the

It’s also a great way to let others play in your sandbox and simply enjoy creating new content for an IP that you might love.

So many possibilities …

#Fables #PublicDomain #Copyright #DC #Comics

Apple’s “Foundation" has bothered me for a while since it’s just not Asimov’s “Foundation” except in name …

But today’s episode is so full of crap in so many ways that I can’t even begin to get into it 😛

There were logic holes, plot holes, and holes of all sorts. Ugh.

#TV #Foundation

So this is my day so far:
Update iPhone to iOS 17 RC ✅
Update macBook to macOS 14 RC ✅
Update Xcode to Xcode 15 RC ✅

Now to actually get work done 😛

#DevLife #BetaCycle #iOS #macOS

Would have had to stay up to watch the Apple event last night. Went to sleep instead.

Got up in the morning and discovered I'd missed nothing since all the important stuff had already been leaked weeks in advance 😛

#Apple #iPhone #NewHardware

My wife and I, we watch almost everything together — movies, TV shows, even YouTube videos.

This can be challenging during travel since we prefer to watch our own content instead of that provided by the airline. Watching on a single iPad with shared headphones is not a great experience.

I'm thinking of an app to fix this issue which allows us to watch the same content on two different devices, but synced.

Not sure if this helps anybody but us? Anybody else find this useful?

I’ve been thinking about this for a while and have been hoping somebody else would fix it (like Apple VisionPro) but not sure that’ll happen …

So I’m going to take a stab at fixing it myself 🙂

#Entertainment #Sharing #iOS #macOS #Coding

"Rocky aur Rani kii Prem Kahaani" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14993250) is a wonderful movie which challenges stereotypes, bias, prejudice, and a lot more things.

Plus, it's funny (if you like a certain type of humour) and revives some great Bollywood songs too 😛

I didn't think I'd like the movie as much as I did since the beginning was a bit ... umm rocky for me. But then the movie hit its stride and just kept going full steam ahead!

If you’ve watched “Santhosh Subramaniyam”, you might see some similarities, but I think they did it better with regards to highlighting socially relevant themes here …

Definitely worth a watch!

#Movies #Hindi #Bollywood #Indian

I finally got around to trying out the AGD Interactive version of "King's Quest I" (http://agdinteractive.com/games/kq1/about/about.html) and it looks much nicer than the VGA remake from Sierra 🙂

Comparison screenshots below ...

Their macOS app is 32-bit and so won't work on my version of macOS, so I had to resort to CrossOver (https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover) to get it working. But it does work fine on the latest CrossOver (with some tweaking ...)

The CrossOver compatibility database says that the game will install but won’t run. And that’s how it looked on first install with CrossOver 23 too, but once I enabled the DXVK option (which enables Vulcan for Direct3D, if I’m not mistaken), it seemed to work fine …

#Games #KingsQuest #Remake #CrossOver

Was feeling bored yesterday and didn't want to start a new coding project and so decided to play "King's Quest" 🙂

Dusted off DOSBox-X (https://dosbox-x.com), which has a bunch of features which makes it easier to use than DOSBox, and I was off to the races!

I hadn't played the VGA version of the game before and so it was actually enjoyable.

Now maybe I should look into getting the AGDI version of the game (https://agdinteractive.com/games…) working? Trouble is, the macOS version of the game is 32-bit only and I’m too lazy to set up a VM and do all that. Same with the Windows version, which requires at least Windows ME …

#DOSBox #RetroGaming #DOSGames
A screenshot from King's Quest …

Honestly, I don't really understand the logic in “Star Wars” much of the time since they just rely on stupid decisions to move things along 😛

The latest in a long line appears to be to let Sabine do whatever she wants and trusting in her even though she keeps making one stupid decision after another in “Ahsoka” …

I do realize that the story would be very short if not for Sabine’s not-at-all-well-thought-out decisions, but honestly, this is very lazy story telling where you rely on characters to mess up and have other characters act as if they don’t see this sort of thing coming at all …

#TV #StarWars #Ahsoka

"Barbie" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1517268) is probably the best Hollywood movie I've seen in at least two years, maybe longer 🙂

It's brilliant, funny, subversive, thought-provoking and so full of quotes that I think I'm going to love (and use) for a while.

Oh, and the expressiveness of Margot Robbie’s face was just such a joy to watch!

Also, did anybody notice that the palm tree in the roundabout in front of Barbie's house works like a sundial? Or was that just my imagination?

Some quotes I loved (possibly paraphrased a little) were:

"I know I’m stereotypical barbie and therefore don’t form conjectures concerning casualty of adjacent unfolding events but some things have been happening that might be related.”

"You guys are clearly not doing patriarchy well.”

"I'm a man with no power, does that make me a woman?"

"I'm ready to be your long-term, long-distance, casual, low-commitment girlfriend.”

#Movies #English #Hollywood

"Ustaad" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27116302) is a beautiful, wonderful, and though-provoking movie.

Nothing extraordinary in terms of plot or hook — no mysteries, no capers, nothing earthshaking. Just the story of a guy's life.

But the moments are beautiful and some of the scenery in the movie was just breathtakingly beautiful!

I enjoyed every minute of it since stories about fate, destiny, coincidence — whatever you want to call it — and going for what you love are always close to my heart 🙂

If you like that kind of thing, highly recommended!

#Movies #Telugu #Indian #JustALifeLived #Tollywood

In the past year, I've seen at least 3 - 4 Indian movies in different languages about foreign pharmaceutical corporations coming to India and doing dangerous drug trials on children (generally in orphanages) and/or poor people in a given area.

Is this just movie-makers following a trend? Or a political attempt to foster isolationism through (subtle) propaganda? Or based on a kernel of truth?

Anybody know?

#Movies #India #Tamil #Telugu #DrugTrials #PropagandaOrTruth