My lovely wife did a cover for my next book: "Sir Lanka Files"

Hoping to publish on August 15th.

More details here: https://shop.farook.org

#Books #IndieAuthor #BookPromo #BookPromotion #ScienceFiction #Humour #Bookstodon #FediBooks #Writing
A book cover titled "Sir Lanka …

macOS by Tutorials 2.0 is now available.

You can buy the book at https://sarahreichelt.gumroad.com/l/oximx

Read more details about the book at https://troz.net/books/macos_tutorials/

If you would like a preview, you can read the introduction, table of contents and chapter 1 at https://troz.net/books/mos_2.0_sample

If you previously bought the book through Kodeco, contact me at books@troz.net for a 50% discount code.

"Find Me Falling" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt19862722) is a beautiful movie. It feels very British for some reason, but I guess it's not?

The locations in Cyprus are beautiful, the music is great, and the story is lovely. Well worth watching 🙂

#Movies #English #Netflix

The wife and I played "No Man's Sky" yesterday. It was fun to use the second-controller/co-pilot feature on PS5 and be able to play together even though it was a single-player game. We enjoyed the game a lot more now that both of us could play at the same time — it felt way more engaging 🙂

I realized that I'd last played the game over two years ago but my base was still there. We were able to explore further and start doing a lot more now that both of us are playing. Not because we were exploriing separately — it's a single-player game after all — but because we felt like playing more.

We even got to the first space station, spoke with some aliens, and figured out where the next bit of the game leads us.

I was tempted to start a new game to see if their introductory mission(s) had changed since the last time I played, but really couldn't bring myself to go through the introduction all over again. So we opted to just play on with the current mission.

Looking forward to doing some more gaming today and exploring further 🙂

#Gaming #PS5 #NoMansSky #CoOpPlay

I got my first unsolicited feedback about my novel today and it has made my day (and probably week) 😀

I know that sometimes "unsolicited" is looked upon negatively. But in this case, what I mean is that I didn't ask somebody what they thought of my book. They volunteered the information and let me tell you, I personally am elated when somebody tells me something (whether good or bad) about something I wrote. Because that tells you that it made an impression on them in some way.

I wrote that book about 20 years ago, but so far had not had any direct feedback except for when I asked, or when somebody left. a review on a site. Reviews on a site somewhere that I might not see for years don't have as great an impact, at least for me, as when somebody tells me personally. So, for me, this was a big milestone. And I'm really happy about it 🙂

#Writing #Feedback #IndieAuthor #Reviews

Most of the missing features and minor annoyances about my custom Fedi client are now fixed. So I think it's at the stage where I say, "I'm (mostly) done" ...

Of course, now I start looking around for another app to work on 😛

There are plenty of candidates since there are several apps I did for my wife that are currently in #Swift and since I'm moving away from #Swift, it might be good to convert them to #Flutter.

But what I keep coming back to is a new #Writing app 🙂

I use Scrivener for writing and I love it. It's very useful for keeping all the informattion about a story together. But I want a few things that are missing from Scrivener. Is it worth creating a whole new app for those? I don't know ... but I'm looking at options right now and trying to decide.

#Coding #Writing #Scrivener #Apps

I should be editing a chapter of my second novel before the day starts ... but today is one of those days I just don't feel it.

Started editing, but then I switched over to fixing an issue in my Fedi client to allow better replies/posts.

And then I decided to do some posts on here - nnything but actually do the editing I should be doing 😛

#Writing #IndieAuthor #Procrastination

Apparently, "No Man's Sky" has had a major visual update. That game has been getting updates for years now and each one seems to add something new.

I haven't played in a while. I like the concept of the game, but I generally don't like games that the wife and I can't play together. If one of us is just twiddling their thumbs and watching the other play, it doens't seem so much fun 🙂

But that was before we discovered the PS5 co-pilot feature. That allows both of us to take turns at a game without having to actually pass the controller over. Both controllers are active and it's still a single-player game, but either one of us can take over as neeed. Now we enjoy the single-player games we own a lot more.

Not that we've had a lot of time recently for gaming, but I'm hoping to give "No Man's Sky" a try over the weekend with the wife. Let's see how it goes ...

#Gaming #PS5 #NoMansSky

A friend from school whom I'd contacted long ago on FB suddenly accepted my friend request.

I check their FB feed and the top post looked rather suspicious, a phone screenshot showing an SMS message saying that they'd had a large amount of money deposited to their account from bitcoin mining.

I couldn't resist. I messaged them 😛

Within the hour, I get a response back and one of the first things they did (even though I had not heard from them in over 40 years) was to send me the same phone screenshot and tell me that their life was good and they got a lot of money.

I was now fairly sure that their account was hacked. Especially since the way they wrote didn't sound like a Sri Lankan, but more like somebody from a different part of the world 😛

I congratulated them on the money and asked about some fake friends (just names at random). They were non-committal but immediately told me about some personal stuff and sent me more images (gathered from their FB photo album, I assume) to convince me.

Then they start pushing me again about bitcoin and whether I'd be interested.

I ask them what class we were in back at school. He says that it's so long ago and that they can't remember. This is definitely not true since I can remember and I'd just talked to two other school friends a couple of days ago, who also remembered.

So I say, "I think you are a scammer and not my friend X".

They say, "You can believe what you want but I leave you with this" and send me another photo from the guy's FB album.

I contacted a mutual friend in Sri Lanka (since I had no way to contact him directly) and asked him to check with the other friend. And yes, his FB account is hacked.

Not that this needs to be said, but people who contact you on social media might not be who they claim to be. Always verify. Even when it seems totally legit — unlike in this particular case 😀

And if somebody tells you that they have a great way for you to make money with little/no effort ... but you need to pay them something first to do so, be very, very wary 🤔

#Scams #SocialMedia #LifeTheseDays #Facebook

Does anyone have a recruiter or agency they can recommend for iOS work (1099 or W2)? The job market is absolutely terrible and I'm still looking.

#iOSDev #FediHire #jobsearch

When life gives you lemons, most people make lemonade – but when life gives Normal Kint a dog he hates, he serves it up to a Martian with a side of intergalactic chaos. Join the misadventures of Earth's most reluctant pooch hunter.

50% off at SmashWords - https://t.co/tvGASsc4Fy

Other options: https://shop.farook.org

#ScienceFiction #Humour #Bookstodon #FediBooks #IndieAuthor

I've been made redundant from my job, effective tomorrow.

So... if you know anyone who's in need of a bioinformatician to work remotely on small bioinformatics projects, please let me know.

Affinity has a sale on till the 15th of August which is well worth it if you're interested 🙂
https://affinity.serif.com

I have no affiliation to them but I bought two of the Affinity apps back in 2016 or 2017 and I think it might have cost something like $50 and I received updates for all those years for the $50 I paid.

Didn't update to the V2 apps because I had stopped doing anything significantly graphics related for years. Just started working on some artwork and took a look and I could upgrade to their universal suite (all their apps for all supported platforms — macOS, Windows, and iPadOS) for around $65. I did since that seemed like a great deal 🙂

I have not been disappointed so far. Still loving working with their apps to create graphics and artwork. Will post some samples soon ... (possibly).

Now that I've finisehd my second novel and can put off starting on editing till tomorrow, I am going to do some coding today 🙂

I've wanted to add favourites and bookmarks lists to my Flutter Fedi client and I also discovered a bug wtih really long threads and showing the entire thread. Sounds like enough stuff to keep me occupied for today 😛

#CodingLife #WritingLife

And ... The End 🙂(Though I've never actually put that at the end of a novel since the story always continues ...)

I've finally finished novel #2 — "Sir Lanka Files" (no, not a typo).

I thought I had 1.5 chapters to go according to my original plan (and because I like round numbers and 1.5 chapters would have put the chapter count at 30).

But as I finished chapter 29, I realized that I had a better ending with chapter 29 (and a hook for the next novel). So I stopped at chapter 29 even though a part of my brain was screaming at me for ending on 29 😛

Now I begin the editing. So another month or so at least before it's ready for publishing?

#Writing #SciFi #IndieAuthor #FinallyDone

Forgetting things when you are a certain age is normal 🙂I never remember what I had for lunch yesterday and I'm fine with that.

But I vividly remember a lot of stuff from when I was like 2 years old up to about my 20s and it's a little bit more poignant when I think I've forgotten something from that period ...

Yesterday I was talking to a friend from school whom I'd known since the early 80s. I mentioned another friend from the same school that I'd met in the early 90s (but who I hadn't known at school) and this friend said something like "What do you mean? He was in the same class as you!"

I was dumbfounded. Had I known he was my classmate when I met him in the 90s? Or had we not recognized each other at all? All I remember about him was from meeting him in the 90s. Nothing about knowing himi from the 80s.

So I contacted this other friend. He said that he hadn't known me before the 90s even though we'd gone to the same school (it was a big school ...)

You can't imagine how relieved I felt 🙂 I had not lost a chunk of my childhood memories after all.

It later turned out that my first friend had confused the other one with somebody else who had the same name ... But for a while there, I really wasn't sure if I was losing chunks of memory or if my friend was wrong or if something else was going on.

It's funny the things we cling to 🙂

Fantasy, Lore, & More: Lightning & Ember

Hi, I'm indie fantasy author, Melinda Kucsera, and in this episode, E.B. Repetto is joining me to talk about her book, Lightning & Ember. What's it about? Akina de Kitamura and her twin sister Miki, bastard children of a Volandrian nobleman and a Solterrean commoner, struggle for acceptance in Volandrian nobility. Despite their uncle's favor, they face scorn at the prestigious Academy.

http://melindakucsera.com/2024/07/13/fantasy-lore-more-lightning-ember/

I didn't expect much from "Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3083016) but I haven't had so much fun in a long time watching a movie 🙂This is old school movies as I remember them!

#Movies #English #BeverlyHillsCop #Action

After waiting like a couple of weeks, my author page on Amazon is finally up 🙂

Only 3 books there (and two are on iOS programming) but hopefully, I'll have one more to join the fiction category soon since I’m 1.5 chapters away from completing my second novel …

https://www.amazon.com/stores/Fahim-Farook/author/B0D7789CLF

#Writing #SupportIndieAuthors #SciFi

I have been using my Flutter Fedi client more and more and it continues to be faster than the Swift version that I wrote previously.

I'd be really curious to see if this is an issue with the Swift code I wrote or if it is an inherent issue with Swift itself. Not trying to start a holy war here, but I am curious.

But given that the Swift codebase is huge and relies on a local database and I had stripped out database functionality from the Flutter app to make it simpler, I can't really say that I'm comparing Apples to Apples.

But ... the Flutter app was faster even before I made any of the optimizations.

Anyway, I guess I'm sticking to the Flutter app since it's more cross-platform friendly and allows me to take the app to a new platform should I decide to leave Apple-land ... and that actually looks like a possibility at this point.