Lori M Olson 
OPED ― Our Unvarnished Opinion
This week I decided to use the OPED and introduce you to a Mac app. Actually it’s a Safari plug-in, called Hush by Joel Arvidsson.
I don’t know how many of you use Safari, but it’s been my go-to browser on the Mac forever. Sure, I use Firefox for the cool dev tools, and Chrome when I absolutely have to, but…
I evicted Google Chrome with glee, after it (actually Keystone) proved to be a performance issue. Since I was upgrading to my new MacBook Pro M1 the week that story broke, I just didn’t install it on the new machine. And I haven’t missed it.
Since I do use Safari regularly, I definitely need Hush. But I do find it strange that this app is SO needed. I mean I know the web has been broken for a while but this app highlights just how broken it is. Everybody wants to send us push notifications. Everybody wants to install cookies and spyware. Everybody wants to chat with us. Everybody wants us to sign up for a newsletter (oops, forget I mentioned that last part).
The fact that we need a plug-in just to silence these annoying notifications that pummel us every day, is a sign that the web is far more broken than we want to admit. And perhaps a sign that we need to pay MORE attention to apps. Apps which may need to ask us these same questions, but at least will STOP after they’ve been answered the first time. ― WNDXLori
FITS ― Featured in the School
We’re thrilled to announce the release of the first episode of Motion In Motion - New Adventures. Even if we do say so ourselves it is, without a doubt, the best way to learn how to create successful mobile apps with RubyMotion. It clocks in at almost an hour of content. And, notably, all these videos will all be close captioned. Take a look, and let us know what you think.
TALK ― Talk of the Tech
Last issue we announced the merging of all of our chit-chat-related links into this one new section: Talk of the Tech (riffing on The New Yorker’s Talk of the Town). Basically there are two places where DragonRubyistas mix and mingle: Discord and Slack. We have tasty appetizers from each, this issue:
Given the gamey nature of the former, it comes as no surprise that Amir (the pater familias of the DragonRuby empire) chose Discord to announce the recent release of DRGTK 2.4. Subsequent comments indicate it received a very favourable reception.
The Dragon Riders Slack is a little more cerebral (OK, that might be pushing it) but it seemed to make sense it was where you could find an interesting discussion on peer-to-peer networking complete with code samples!
It really does seems that by joining these you will really get a lot of value out of the ― oh, right, ZERO ― dollars you’ll spend. It truly is one the best deals going.
GAME ― All Things Gaming
OK, we’ll admit that it’s a bit of head-scratcher as to why anybody would want to subject themselves to this, but the Nokia 3310 Jam 3 is on right now. For those who (ahem!) weren’t around when the 3310 was a thing, there’s only two things you need to know: two colours (#C7F0D8 and #43523D) and…get this…a base resolution of 84x48 (that’s eight-four by forty-eight). To us, it sounds like the game dev’s equivalent of the exquisite torture of trying to write Haiku or iambic pentameter. More on this event on Discord
APP ― All Things App
Anybody out there remember WebTV? Yes, the thing that meant the rest of your family couldn’t watch their appointment television episode of Walker, Texas Ranger because you were busy ‘surfing the world wide web’ in the unlikely event that somebody should start selling books there. Well, we digress, but we can’t say we didn’t have an acid flashback of it when Apple announced tvOS a while back.
Of course all of this is a testament to what we can get away with when the boss is on vacation. But before she headed out, Lori left a page-size yellow sticky note with “see if anybody is as excited by this as I am” scrawled on it along with the link to the tvOS Human Interface Guidelines. So, what say you folks? Is your heart skipping beats? Or flatlining?
Anywho, moving right along, and while it hasn’t been updated in quite a while, the VTlearn.de Blog is a good example of blogging about your favourite topic, RubyMotion. Just a “this week/month I learned” sort of thing is useful to the whole community. AND you get better at writing and communicating. It’s a WIN-WIN.
SPOT ― Spotlight On…
We have a couple of neat apps for your consideration and edification: first, there is the official app of the World Domination Summit which is (usually…COVID notwithstanding) held every summer in magnificent and still weird Portland, Oregon. What’s notable is that it’s built by Infinite Red’s ProMotion.
Our second item is for those who want to “output primitives to the screen and have them stay there without the slowdown that comes from having tons of primitives around”: that for which you are looking is persistent-outputs by Grotesk. Awesome.
TWIL ― This Week I Learned
Although this kind of strikes us as something you might only figure out if you spent too much time fiddling with your Apple Watch, we have to say it’s dang handy. Jake Behrens tipped us off to the use of Shortcuts to change the watch face. Also awesome.
HAHA ― And They All Laughed
Twitter has the reputation of being l’enfant terrible of the social media universe. Much of it deserved, mind you. But every once in a while a gem comes along that makes it all worthwhile. Probably. (image: @ShitUserStories)
That’s a Wrap!
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“Commenting your code is like cleaning your bathroom — you never want to do it, but it really does create a more pleasant experience for you and your guests.” ― Ryan Campbell