These Are a Few of Our Favorite Things

Basic AF Episode 25 Transcript

Intro

Jeff Battersby (0s)

Did I make you cry on Christmas Day?

Tom Anderson (8s)

Hello, and welcome to Basic AF, a Mostly Tech Podcast.

Intro music (12s)

♪ What your imperfections do ♪

Tom Anderson (13s)

Tom Anderson, Jeff Battersby gathered around the fireplace sipping eggnog.

Tom Anderson (18s)

Merry Christmas, my friend.

Jeff Battersby (20s)

Merry Christmas.

Jeff Battersby (22s)

Yeah, we understand there's two possibilities here.

Jeff Battersby (26s)

You're either traveling to the in-laws house,

Jeff Battersby (28s)

listening to us on a nice Christmas afternoon or evening or morning, as the case may be.

Jeff Battersby (35s)

You're sitting around the fire drinking eggnog,

Jeff Battersby (38s)

as Tom says, or you're in the kitchen cooking a meal for everybody that's gonna come over And, you know, looking for some kind of.

Jeff Battersby (48s)

Relief. So Merry Christmas, happy holidays, all the other things that you're supposed to say this time of year.

Jeff Battersby (55s)

Uh, Hanukkah was, we were in the middle of Hanukkah in the, in the last episode. So we didn't say that. So we'll say it now.

Jeff Battersby (1m 2s)

Um, happy Hanukkah and hope you're all, you know, doing what you do all these past. That was a few weeks ago and, uh, you know, we're trying to hit every, every single one.

Tom Anderson (1m 12s)

We try, it's a long list and then we're not the smartest guys, so it's hard for us to keep track of it, so...

Jeff Battersby (1m 13s)

And it's a demographic, but.

Jeff Battersby (1m 19s)

Yeah, right.

Jeff Battersby (1m 20s)

I don't even know when my birthday is.

Tom Anderson (1m 20s)

No slight intended, it's just we're not too smart. So yeah, outside of talking about tech here and there, we're not good for much.

Jeff Battersby (1m 22s)

Right, we're just idiots.

Jeff Battersby (1m 26s)

Yeah, we might not even be good at that.

Tom Anderson (1m 28s)

That is still debatable, yeah.

Tom Anderson (1m 31s)

Yeah, so happy holidays everyone. Thank you for being here with us. As always, we do appreciate it.

Jeff Battersby (1m 31s)

Right, you know.

Tom Anderson (1m 37s)

So as we are wrapping up the year,

These Are a Few of Our Favorite Things

Tom Anderson (1m 39s)

Jeff and I thought it would be fun to

Tom Anderson (1m 42s)

kind of go back and look at some of the things we've

Tom Anderson (1m 46s)

acquired, some new stuff we've gathered over the year, and talk about the things that we like and

Tom Anderson (1m 53s)

possibly even recommend.

Jeff Battersby (1m 55s)

Yeah, I would I would say that that's a good way to go, um, which means we'll make this short and sweet. We're not going to go, you know, no big announcements, no big news that we need to talk about as we, uh, as we trip into, into, ah, Tom, you know, chestnuts roasting on an open fire and all that jazz. Um, Hey, I'm going to make a big recommend at right out of the top of the top of of the show, though, and since we're, you know, everybody, hopefully you're listening

Tom Anderson (2m 6s)

You know how to do a marathon show for Christmas? You got other things to do? Is that what you're telling me?

Tom Anderson (2m 11s)

Uh, only slightly offended, but...

Tom Anderson (2m 15s)

Yeah, all right. Well, kick us off. All right, let's go.

Jeff Battersby (2m 25s)

on Christmas Day, as one does, the, I'm going to make a recommendation for my favorite Christmas music. I almost cannot listen to anything else this time of year. If you're familiar with, and if you're not, you can easily find this on all your streaming music apps, but Sufjan Stevens' Christmas music, he, a few years ago, did like a five

Sufjan Stevens Songs for Christmas

Jeff Battersby (2m 56s)

album box set, you know, of Christmas music. He's done a couple others since. It is appropriately melancholy for the season. It's really, really brilliant music. And it, as it turns out,

Jeff Battersby (3m 10s)

it is the music that makes me feel most in the season. So, highly recommend that. That's my first recommendation, Tom. You can spin out the rest of this day listening to Sufjan Stevens. That's S U F J. A.

Jeff Battersby (3m 25s)

And Stevens. Um, and, uh, I highly recommend, uh, the, uh, his Christmas music, one of my favs. You'll get some traditional stuff in there and you'll get some very untraditional stuff.

Jeff Battersby (3m 39s)

Like, uh, did I make you cry on Christmas day?

Tom Anderson (3m 45s)

Okay, now it's all coming together.

Tom Anderson (3m 47s)

I can see why.

Tom Anderson (3m 48s)

All right.

Jeff Battersby (3m 50s)

Yeah. You found my sweet spot. Another one. Another one of my favorites.

Jeff Battersby (3m 55s)

Yeah, that was the worst Christmas ever. And they're not comedy tunes. I'm just, I'm going to break it to you. They're not comedy tunes. They're very, but they're very good. They,

Tom Anderson (3m 59s)

Now I'm intrigued.

Jeff Battersby (4m 6s)

they reach right in and grab me where I live this time of year. So anyway,

Tom Anderson (4m 12s)

All right, well, well, my first is also related to music, Jeff.

Jeff Battersby (4m 12s)

that's my first recommendation, Tom. How about you? Oh, Tom.

Tom Anderson (4m 16s)

It's something that you've talked about several times on this very podcast,

Radio Paradise

Tom Anderson (4m 20s)

Radio Paradise. Yeah, you told you, you brought this up well before we even were doing a podcast even because I mean, we've got a long history and I know we've talked about it before on numerous occasions. And, uh, you know, recently I was like, I'd like to listen to something different that, uh, you know,

Jeff Battersby (4m 21s)

Oh, dude Thank you.

Jeff Battersby (4m 25s)

First show.

Jeff Battersby (4m 28s)

Correct.

Tom Anderson (4m 40s)

I don't really feel like choosing.

Tom Anderson (4m 42s)

Playlist and you know, we've talked about that too.

Tom Anderson (4m 44s)

It was like, I never listened to albums.

Tom Anderson (4m 46s)

It's always playlists.

Tom Anderson (4m 47s)

And so I was like, Oh yeah, Jeff talks about this a lot.

Tom Anderson (4m 50s)

Let me check it out.

Tom Anderson (4m 51s)

And so I did.

Tom Anderson (4m 52s)

And it is, as you said, you were true to your word.

Tom Anderson (4m 55s)

It is fantastic.

Jeff Battersby (4m 56s)

Yeah, I'm not a liar.

Tom Anderson (4m 57s)

Um, at least on that holiday cheer here, friends.

Jeff Battersby (5m 3s)

You're who?

Jeff Battersby (5m 4s)

Yeah.

Jeff Battersby (5m 4s)

We're friendly.

Tom Anderson (5m 4s)

Yeah.

Tom Anderson (5m 5s)

I told you we were sipping stuff, but, um, but no, it really is.

Jeff Battersby (5m 5s)

Definitely.

Jeff Battersby (5m 6s)

Well, there you go.

Tom Anderson (5m 9s)

Uh, really is great.

Tom Anderson (5m 12s)

Like I just play it and it just goes, it's, it's a nice variety of, of music.

Jeff Battersby (5m 16s)

Did you download the app, Tom?

Tom Anderson (5m 17s)

I did.

Tom Anderson (5m 18s)

Yeah.

Jeff Battersby (5m 18s)

Okay, yeah.

Tom Anderson (5m 18s)

Put it on the iPad, AirPlay it to the home pods, um, by where my desk is.

Jeff Battersby (5m 20s)

Yeah, it's...

Jeff Battersby (5m 22s)

It...

Jeff Battersby (5m 24s)

Well, here's a true story.

Jeff Battersby (5m 26s)

Back in the day when we first met, when I was...

Jeff Battersby (5m 28s)

had you as a student in an Apple certification class, I was playing Radio Paradise then, because I would play music, you know, in the in-betweens when people were doing, you know, whatever it is that they were doing, I would kick off some music, and so I kicked off Radio Paradise there.

Jeff Battersby (5m 46s)

Since there are several different streams that they run now.

Jeff Battersby (5m 50s)

So there's their main main mix, which is what I typically listen to, but they have several other mixes that they that they have going and it's

Jeff Battersby (5m 58s)

it's phenomenal.

Jeff Battersby (6m)

Never the same thing twice.

Jeff Battersby (6m 2s)

Back in the days when I was buying CDs,

Jeff Battersby (6m 6s)

they cost me a lot of money because I they would play stuff that I had never heard before.

Jeff Battersby (6m 13s)

That was right in my sweet spot.

Jeff Battersby (6m 16s)

In a in a given section, you'll go from classical to jazz to, you know,

Jeff Battersby (6m 21s)

some kind of indie rock band all within the matter of, you know, three songs all truly well put together.

Jeff Battersby (6m 28s)

So this is actually Radio Paradise is a DJ'd

Jeff Battersby (6m 33s)

internet radio station.

Jeff Battersby (6m 35s)

So it's not algorithmic.

Jeff Battersby (6m 36s)

It's real human beings stitching those songs together and

Jeff Battersby (6m 42s)

it makes a difference.

Jeff Battersby (6m 44s)

It really is.

Jeff Battersby (6m 46s)

Uh, it really is a, a thoughtfully curated set of music.

Jeff Battersby (6m 54s)

You can go back and see the history of what they did.

Jeff Battersby (6m 56s)

And, you know, they, they have that on their website.

Jeff Battersby (6m 58s)

So highly recommend.

Jeff Battersby (6m 59s)

I listen, I listen to it all the time.

Tom Anderson (7m 1s)

Yeah, and you touched there just on the variety and the different genres and things like that.

Jeff Battersby (7m 1s)

It's.

Tom Anderson (7m 6s)

And even back in the nineties when I was working at the little radio station in West Virginia,

Tom Anderson (7m 11s)

the guy, a friend of mine that I met there and ended up becoming a lifelong friend, he and I always had discussions of, you know, why are radio stations so locked into a single format?

Tom Anderson (7m 22s)

And even so back then, that was something that, you know, we had the idea for was it good music, good music, just play it.

Jeff Battersby (7m 29s)

Right, right.

Tom Anderson (7m 29s)

at all, right?

Tom Anderson (7m 31s)

And I get it, you know, commercial radio was what it was, but back then, what I liked about working there was it was similar to this and that there, there were kind of a, there was kind of a guideline where you would pay, play like three or five currents, which were the new songs, right?

Tom Anderson (7m 46s)

An hour, but the rest of it, we got to pick.

Tom Anderson (7m 48s)

So there wasn't a playlist per se.

Tom Anderson (7m 51s)

And so that's why I really liked working there because, and people really liked the station even though it was in a small town, was that you did get that variety of stuff because the playlist was.

Tom Anderson (8m 1s)

The link is in the description.

Jeff Battersby (8m 2s)

Mm.

Jeff Battersby (8m 7s)

Yeah.

Jeff Battersby (8m 12s)

Top 40 America's top 40.

Jeff Battersby (8m 15s)

Oh my God.

Jeff Battersby (8m 17s)

Yeah.

Jeff Battersby (8m 18s)

Yeah, no, it's a, I'm, I'm glad that you, uh, finally got into my not so subliminal messaging, pretty on the nose.

Jeff Battersby (8m 30s)

Um, and I will say I support those guys.

Tom Anderson (8m 31s)

Yeah, I may end up doing that too.

Jeff Battersby (8m 32s)

I do pay them money a couple of times a year.

Jeff Battersby (8m 34s)

Um, because I do.

Jeff Battersby (8m 36s)

Yeah.

Jeff Battersby (8m 37s)

I, I listened to them.

Jeff Battersby (8m 39s)

Uh, I do shuffle the music in, in my library, which is something that, uh, one of my brothers, uh, told me he did.

Jeff Battersby (8m 47s)

So I started doing that and it's funny.

Jeff Battersby (8m 50s)

I discovered music.

Jeff Battersby (8m 51s)

I forgot I had, um, I also discover crap that I probably needed to delete, but that's another story back from the days when I was reviewing music for a, uh, a

Jeff Battersby (9m 2s)

little magazine, I've got a bunch of stuff that probably doesn't need to be there.

Jeff Battersby (9m 6s)

Um, but I do, I do send radio paradise, uh, you know, some money a couple of times a year when they have their little appeals, just to, uh, just to support with them because it is my go-to radio station when I'm writing during the day,

Jeff Battersby (9m 22s)

nine times out of 10, I kick on radio paradise and that's what I'm listening to as I, as I play, you know, as I write and listen to that.

Tom Anderson (9m 25s)

All right, excellent.

Jeff Battersby (9m 29s)

So, yeah.

Tom Anderson (9m 30s)

Highly recommended.

Tom Anderson (9m 31s)

So, Jeff, what do you have next?

Astropad Rock Paper Pencil

Jeff Battersby (9m 33s)

So we talked about this, you talked about it in the last show, Tom, but the Astropad, the Astropad's rock, paper, pencil.

Jeff Battersby (9m 40s)

As I said in the last show, when we were talking about that,

Jeff Battersby (9m 45s)

this is a little screen cover that you put on top of your iPad.

Jeff Battersby (9m 50s)

It uses magnets, so easy to remove.

Jeff Battersby (9m 53s)

I keep the sleeve in my backpack just in case I don't wanna bend up the screen the, the screen protector, but it's not so much a screen protector for me.

Jeff Battersby (10m 2s)

As it is a means of making it easier for me to write on, on the iPad.

Jeff Battersby (10m 7s)

Um, I have mentioned on several occasions that, you know, my handwriting stinks.

Jeff Battersby (10m 13s)

And because of the resistance provided by this particular screen protector and the

Jeff Battersby (10m 19s)

metal tips that, that it has, and I haven't actually tried it with the, uh, the standard Apple tips.

Jeff Battersby (10m 25s)

I should give that a go and see if it, if it works or it doesn't work, but all that to say it has now become.

Jeff Battersby (10m 32s)

My newest tool for editing any kind of long form writing that I'm doing it typically right and then rewrite on have done in the past on paper and then put those edits in and continue writing and then print it back out again and go through it you know like it's this whole process where I'm was literally using reams of paper on a you know in a given month.

Jeff Battersby (10m 56s)

I mean I have underneath the big printer desk.

Jeff Battersby (11m 2s)

I have two full reams sitting there. So I'll give you some indication of how much paper I was going through which not great. I am now doing all of my editing using the rock paper pencil tool all of it in a PDF I'm writing my notes it looks exactly the same as it did on the paper and I've got the ability to scroll through that do those edits and keep an archive of everything that I'm writing in a in PDF form.

Jeff Battersby (11m 32s)

So I highly recommend that I'm really really happy with it.

Jeff Battersby (11m 36s)

I came upon the idea to use it more permanently quite by accident.

Jeff Battersby (11m 43s)

And I'm glad I had that opportunity. Like I said I was visiting my mother in California, who was, you know, she was actually, she was having surgery.

Jeff Battersby (11m 54s)

And I was hanging out with her and didn't want to waste her paper so decided to give it a go and it worked brilliantly so highly recommend about 40 bucks.

Jeff Battersby (12m 3s)

But a 10 week wait until you get it.

Tom Anderson (12m 4s)

Yeah, it does take a while.

Tom Anderson (12m 6s)

Yeah.

Jeff Battersby (12m 7s)

But worth worth the wait at least at least for me.

Tom Anderson (12m 10s)

Yeah, I've had mine a couple of weeks.

Tom Anderson (12m 12s)

Like you talked about it back in episode 21.

Tom Anderson (12m 14s)

So I ordered one and it took about six weeks.

Tom Anderson (12m 18s)

I have no idea why it takes so long.

Tom Anderson (12m 20s)

Um, and again, you know, it wasn't an urgent thing, but it kind of felt like we were back in 1982.

Tom Anderson (12m 27s)

Order, please allow six to eight weeks for delivery.

Tom Anderson (12m 29s)

I was like, okay.

Tom Anderson (12m 30s)

Uh, but it did arrive and, you know, and it, uh, wait,

Tom Anderson (12m 34s)

we talked last episode.

Tom Anderson (12m 36s)

So I've only had it a couple of weeks, but I do think I'm going to pick up another one because I've got a 12.9 inch iPad at the office that I like to, we've talked some about this too, but I like to, when I'm really trying to do some deep thinking on a topic, I like to sketch it out, draw it.

Tom Anderson (12m 50s)

And the thing I like about the iPad versus paper is I can lay something out and then I can move it.

Tom Anderson (12m 55s)

Right.

Tom Anderson (12m 56s)

So you get more flexibility with it.

Tom Anderson (12m 58s)

So I think I'm going to get another one for that.

Tom Anderson (13m)

Uh, because I do really like it.

Tom Anderson (13m 2s)

They do give you four tips now.

Tom Anderson (13m 3s)

think you said previously.

Jeff Battersby (13m 4s)

to when I got mine in.

Tom Anderson (13m 4s)

So, I guess they wear down.

Tom Anderson (13m 10s)

And I haven't looked to see how much, like, if you go through all two or four, depending on what you buy or what you get, like, what a replacement set would be if you eventually need another one.

Jeff Battersby (13m 19s)

Mm-hmm

Tom Anderson (13m 19s)

But, I mean, I imagine that would be, like, seems like that would take a lot of writing to do that.

Tom Anderson (13m 24s)

And as much as I like it, I don't do a lot of handwriting.

Jeff Battersby (13m 24s)

Yeah

Tom Anderson (13m 28s)

So those should last me quite a while.

Jeff Battersby (13m 29s)

Yeah, and I think maybe by the time our next episode kicks around I'll uh, I will have tried

Jeff Battersby (13m 35s)

Using just the standard tip and see how that works. I've got a feeling because that's I think it's a little rubberier

Tom Anderson (13m 42s)

Mm-hmm

Jeff Battersby (13m 42s)

That that tip it may end up being too resistant. So it may make it more difficult to write. So we'll see

Tom Anderson (13m 47s)

Right yeah, I feel like that one would probably wear down quicker, too

Jeff Battersby (13m 49s)

Oh Yeah, good chance because of the grittiness the paper like quality of the

Tom Anderson (13m 52s)

Yeah

Tom Anderson (13m 55s)

It is it's quite nice and

Jeff Battersby (13m 56s)

Rock, baby. It really does it feels exactly like I'd want

Tom Anderson (14m)

And I think I mentioned in the previous episode that the the thing that really drew me to it was that it attaches

Tom Anderson (14m 5s)

Magnetically and it's not an adhesive so it's easy if you don't want it there. You can just take it right off

Jeff Battersby (14m 8s)

Yes.

Jeff Battersby (14m 11s)

Yeah, and that's an important point to make.

Jeff Battersby (14m 14s)

So it cuts down a reflection because it's not a reflective surface.

Jeff Battersby (14m 20s)

It's got a little gritty.

Tom Anderson (14m 21s)

It's almost like a nanotexture display for the iPad.

Jeff Battersby (14m 24s)

My goodness, it's like that is exactly right.

Tom Anderson (14m 27s)

But not really.

Tom Anderson (14m 29s)

God, could you imagine how much that would be?

Jeff Battersby (14m 30s)

Yeah, I don't think I see nanotexture coming to an iPad anytime soon, having used it on--

Jeff Battersby (14m 36s)

Oh, Jesus.

Jeff Battersby (14m 38s)

But the, uh, where were they going?

Jeff Battersby (14m 40s)

Oh, good God.

Jeff Battersby (14m 40s)

Where is that?

Jeff Battersby (14m 41s)

Oh, no, no.

Jeff Battersby (14m 42s)

So you can, you can easily take it off, I think is the point.

Jeff Battersby (14m 44s)

Cause it does, it does block some of the colors, uh, out.

Jeff Battersby (14m 47s)

So if you're, if you're watching, you know, a movie on your iPad, you may want to pull it off, but for the most part, even that's fine.

Tom Anderson (14m 56s)

Right. Yeah, so highly recommend that one. Up next for me is a note-taking app.

Tom Anderson (15m 2s)

So I was an Evernote user for a long, long, long time, starting in 2008.

Bear Notes App

Tom Anderson (15m 9s)

I used to take all my notes in paper when I was working and have these hardback

Tom Anderson (15m 14s)

journals of sorts. And I still have them. Funny, I found one not long ago. This was back in my AOL days, back in the mid-2000s. So I'd fill one up and I'd buy a new one and, you know, just mark them by year or whatever it was so Evernote came.

Tom Anderson (15m 26s)

And I was like man this is great it's got great search has an excellent web clippers so I can grab stuff from the web dump it into there and it was it was good for quite a while.

Tom Anderson (15m 35s)

Then they've kind of became not so great but I kept using it for a long time just because you know that's what I used. So a couple of years ago I moved to Craft which is a

Jeff Battersby (15m 51s)

Mm-hmm, also quite nice.

Tom Anderson (15m 54s)

I'd say it's a it's it is very.

Jeff Battersby (15m 55s)

I, I, I, I, we both used it.

Tom Anderson (15m 56s)

Very nice.

Tom Anderson (15m 56s)

Yep.

Tom Anderson (15m 58s)

I think we both were there, right?

Tom Anderson (15m 59s)

Yeah.

Tom Anderson (16m)

And, uh, it, it was, and still is, uh, quite nice.

Tom Anderson (16m 4s)

Now, when they came out, they were heading down this path that it was almost going to be, uh, along the lines of, uh, a Rome or notion slash now obsidians.

Tom Anderson (16m 15s)

The big one that's out for this personal knowledge management, PKM stuff, which

Tom Anderson (16m 19s)

I'm not, uh, really into that very deep.

Tom Anderson (16m 22s)

So that wasn't a big thing for me, but it had nice back linking and you

Tom Anderson (16m 26s)

had stuff pretty easily.

Tom Anderson (16m 28s)

Um, so I use that for a while.

Tom Anderson (16m 30s)

What I found with that for some things, the block.

Tom Anderson (16m 33s)

And so it's a block based editor.

Tom Anderson (16m 35s)

So you, each section is a block and you get a little, I do, didn't really like the slash commands in it because that really sped things up.

Tom Anderson (16m 42s)

Um, but I found, you know, they, they started to change direction.

Tom Anderson (16m 46s)

Uh, they got, because they were a startup and then they got some big investments and so they have moved into kind of the business arena.

Tom Anderson (16m 56s)

Doing a lot of collaborative features, sharing teams, things like that.

Jeff Battersby (17m)

Yeah. No. Yeah, probably real money.

Tom Anderson (17m)

And I'm not knocking them for it.

Tom Anderson (17m 1s)

That's, you know, there's a lot of money there.

Tom Anderson (17m 3s)

Um, but yeah, yeah.

Tom Anderson (17m 6s)

And so they, uh, started to kind of go in that direction and I had tried bear some years ago.

Tom Anderson (17m 13s)

And the thing that really kept me from it was that it, so it's a,

Tom Anderson (17m 17s)

it's a markdown editor basically.

Tom Anderson (17m 19s)

Um, but the previous version didn't really have an option as I recall to hide the markdown for me.

Tom Anderson (17m 26s)

formatting and that that annoyed me just look messy. So bear 2.0 came out and they have corrected all of that and so I have moved back to that and it the thing I like about is it's reasonably priced it is a subscription but it's like $2 a month $2.50. It is and that's for the pro feature. The other thing I like about it is there are no third-party servers involved it uses a

Jeff Battersby (17m 46s)

Oh, that's actually a decent subscription price.

Tom Anderson (17m 56s)

cloud so so it's my data doesn't go anywhere it does sync so when you get the pro you get the syncing through i cloud sync so I've got it on iPad phone MacBook Mac mini has plenty of features formatting options the other thing that I like about it well it is a it's very I'll say it's a peaceful app which sounds kind of weird but there's not a a lot of interface friction to it.

Jeff Battersby (17m 57s)

I love that, by the way.

Jeff Battersby (18m 22s)

Mr. Zed.

Tom Anderson (18m 26s)

It's very clean, it doesn't get in the way, the typography that it comes with by default is beautiful.

Tom Anderson (18m 33s)

It's got theming you can do, a bunch of different font options and everything.

Tom Anderson (18m 36s)

But what I really like about it is it exports out into multiple formats.

Jeff Battersby (18m 44s)

Man, that's huge, isn't it?

Tom Anderson (18m 47s)

It is, and that's why, you know, we've talked about Apple Notes, which is a great app.

Jeff Battersby (18m 50s)

Yeah.

Jeff Battersby (18m 51s)

Yeah.

Tom Anderson (18m 53s)

added a lot of nice features to it but it's...

Tom Anderson (18m 56s)

pretty locked in. And so Bear exports to Markdown, WordDocs, text bundles, which seems to really be a great way to do it because it keeps all your imaging and everything in there as well. So you know we can do a Notes app showdown show at some point maybe, I don't want to make this show that, but really nice. I do highly recommend checking it out. They do have a free version if you want to kick the tires for a while. It's got a web clipper, it's not an Evernote type web Clippers is not that co-

Tom Anderson (19m 26s)

quite or it's quite that nice but you can you know drop things in the notes pretty easily for for research or if you want to just hold on to something.

Jeff Battersby (19m 33s)

Very cool. Yeah, I'll have to check it out I I can see I was checking the App Store while you were talking and I I think at some

Jeff Battersby (19m 39s)

Point a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away

Jeff Battersby (19m 42s)

I I must have

Jeff Battersby (19m 46s)

Purchased or downloaded it in some way because I do I do have

Jeff Battersby (19m 51s)

Do have that so I might have to take another look although. I'm a fan of Apple's notes I use that pretty much you I used it at 2 a.m.. Today

Jeff Battersby (20m 3s)

Probably not the best choice because it's I tried to get Siri to do it

Tom Anderson (20m 5s)

Just finishing putting up those,

Tom Anderson (20m 7s)

putting those presidents under the tree.

Jeff Battersby (20m 8s)

Yeah Yeah, exactly that

Tom Anderson (20m 8s)

Like, "Yeah, let me take a note."

Jeff Battersby (20m 12s)

Speaking of notes Tom. I'm gonna go to a physical thing again, so I started with the physical

Tom Anderson (20m 13s)

Yes.

Field Notes Brand

Jeff Battersby (20m 17s)

rock paper pencil

Jeff Battersby (20m 19s)

I'm gonna

Jeff Battersby (20m 22s)

Recommend field notes brand

Jeff Battersby (20m 25s)

Field notes is a company based out of Chicago

Jeff Battersby (20m 29s)

they make

Jeff Battersby (20m 31s)

gorgeous notebooks.

Jeff Battersby (20m 33s)

You can subscribe, um, which I do have more notebooks possibly be able to use in a lifetime, it's going to be, we bury this guy and he's like, what is he doing?

Jeff Battersby (20m 45s)

He's got like 500 notebooks.

Tom Anderson (20m 47s)

Back in the old days, people collected crockpots.

Jeff Battersby (20m 47s)

And yeah, right.

Tom Anderson (20m 50s)

You collect notebooks.

Jeff Battersby (20m 52s)

I, I kind of do.

Tom Anderson (20m 52s)

Great.

Jeff Battersby (20m 54s)

That's, that's a fair thing.

Jeff Battersby (20m 55s)

But, um, one of the things that I really like, uh, about field, uh, field notes brand. And you can find them. Let me just get the

Jeff Battersby (21m 3s)

URL here real quick. You can find them at FieldNotesBrand.com is what I believe it is.

Jeff Battersby (21m 10s)

F-I-E, yep, FieldNotesBrand.com. They have a regular subscription quarterly. They

Jeff Battersby (21m 21s)

send out special versions of all their notebooks. But I'm a huge fan of their Pitch Black notebook,

Jeff Battersby (21m 31s)

which is a larger format.

Jeff Battersby (21m 33s)

Most of these Field Notes brand notebooks are kind of small,

Jeff Battersby (21m 37s)

fit in your chest pocket, you know, that, that size notebook.

Jeff Battersby (21m 42s)

The Pitch Black notebook is a bigger,

Jeff Battersby (21m 47s)

is a larger format that I use regularly either for when I'm working or doing stuff on shows, you know, when I'm,

Jeff Battersby (21m 56s)

I'm like, for example, right now,

Jeff Battersby (21m 58s)

I'm in the middle of stage managing an Oscar Wilde play,

Jeff Battersby (22m 3s)

I'll keep notes in that in addition to, you know, other things that I do,

Jeff Battersby (22m 7s)

but it's, it's a notebook, super high quality,

Jeff Battersby (22m 12s)

super great company. And they do some other fun things too.

Jeff Battersby (22m 16s)

You can, you can get a bunch of other stuff. But Field Notes brand notebooks,

Jeff Battersby (22m 20s)

highly recommend. And yeah, that's that has been a regular

Jeff Battersby (22m 26s)

part of my life. They're, they're notebooks. I don't,

Jeff Battersby (22m 30s)

I don't buy any other notebooks at this point in time. That's,

Jeff Battersby (22m 33s)

where I get my notebooks from, often give them as gifts.

Jeff Battersby (22m 37s)

That's how much I like them. So highly recommend.

Tom Anderson (22m 41s)

Very good. There you go. All right. So next for me is something not new but new to me

CarPlay

Tom Anderson (22m 49s)

That I highly recommend and you're going to chuckle

Tom Anderson (22m 53s)

Car play

Jeff Battersby (22m 54s)

Dude, I'm not going to chuckle. I'm going to smile and say, "Yes, I'm with you."

Tom Anderson (22m 56s)

So

Tom Anderson (23m 1s)

So my previous car was a 2016 did not have car play I've wanted car play for ages now and so picked up a new car

Tom Anderson (23m 11s)

Earlier this year, of course it had it in it and I will say it's pretty daggone good

Jeff Battersby (23m 17s)

It's amazing.

Tom Anderson (23m 18s)

Ain't perfect, which is fine. Not many things are

Jeff Battersby (23m 21s)

Yeah, except for you, Tom.

Tom Anderson (23m 23s)

No, no far from that but it

Tom Anderson (23m 28s)

Really really happy with it the

Tom Anderson (23m 31s)

There I do wish there were some more

Tom Anderson (23m 34s)

Third party apps that could take advantage of it. We mentioned I think last episode you've right

Jeff Battersby (23m 36s)

Yes, fantastic cow being one of them.

Tom Anderson (23m 39s)

Right? Because...

Tom Anderson (23m 41s)

know, depending on which view you have set up, um, and you can do like that dashboard view where it's got a big app, which is usually like a navigation thing on the left, and then you got a couple along the right-hand side.

Jeff Battersby (23m 49s)

Yep.

Tom Anderson (23m 51s)

Uh, so like, it'll show your next appointment and if you're leaving,

Tom Anderson (23m 53s)

it'll bring it up on a map if it's somewhere you're supposed to go to.

Tom Anderson (23m 56s)

Um, but yeah, I know, I know a lot of people listening are probably like,

Tom Anderson (24m)

well, Tom, welcome to 2020.

Tom Anderson (24m 2s)

Let me, yeah, thanks.

Tom Anderson (24m 5s)

But, um, it is new for me and I just wanted to give it a shot.

Tom Anderson (24m 9s)

We don't, we don't have to dig too much into it.

Jeff Battersby (24m 9s)

Yeah, yeah.

Jeff Battersby (24m 11s)

No, you don't, and I'm with you.

Jeff Battersby (24m 13s)

And while we're talking about that,

Jeff Battersby (24m 15s)

I just wanna say, I mean, a lot of people use,

Jeff Battersby (24m 18s)

you know, Waze or Google Maps for navigation,

Jeff Battersby (24m 23s)

but Apple got a lot of grief when they first came out with Apple Maps.

Jeff Battersby (24m 30s)

that grief is not well placed now.

Jeff Battersby (24m 32s)

Apple Maps, I find, since we're talking about CarPlay,

Jeff Battersby (24m 36s)

works brilliantly.

Jeff Battersby (24m 38s)

I'm really happy with it at that point.

Tom Anderson (24m 40s)

Yeah, my biggest pet peeve with it...

Jeff Battersby (24m 40s)

Including some of the features that --

Jeff Battersby (24m 42s)

I'm sorry, say that again?

Jeff Battersby (24m 44s)

Including some of the features that made Waze good.

Jeff Battersby (24m 48s)

I used Waze for a long time until Google bought them.

Jeff Battersby (24m 51s)

You know me.

Jeff Battersby (24m 52s)

Google buys it, I say goodbye.

Jeff Battersby (24m 55s)

But as far as, like, rerouting you,

Jeff Battersby (25m)

you if they're bad driving.

Jeff Battersby (25m 2s)

You know, traffic issues, making those recommendations, being able to mark out, you know, I don't think you can mark out if they're no, you can like if there are police on the side of the highway and that kind of stuff.

Tom Anderson (25m 12s)

Yep, yeah, they added that

Jeff Battersby (25m 13s)

All of that stuff is now built into Apple Maps.

Tom Anderson (25m 16s)

Yeah, find ways is more active just because they're more people use it but

Jeff Battersby (25m 16s)

And.

Jeff Battersby (25m 19s)

Yeah, right. Well, you'll, you'll see other people on there, right.

Tom Anderson (25m 22s)

Right, especially for the police reported ahead

Jeff Battersby (25m 22s)

But yeah, cool.

Tom Anderson (25m 25s)

Those but but the thing I my biggest pet peeve with Apple Maps with CarPlay is if you're not

Tom Anderson (25m 32s)

Going somewhere and say you've got just that

Tom Anderson (25m 34s)

Dashboard kind of view up where you got maps in the left and then your music app on the right and whatever the other ones Are doesn't show the speed limit

Jeff Battersby (25m 37s)

Yep.

Tom Anderson (25m 42s)

If you're not in an actual navigation session, and it drives me nuts like ways does it so I usually not driving around town I don't need that, but if I'm in a place I'm not familiar with I'd like just like to see it just be like

Jeff Battersby (25m 42s)

Yeah, it's annoying, right?

Tom Anderson (25m 52s)

And obviously they're on the road, but they're spaced out every couple of miles and so

Tom Anderson (25m 56s)

Yeah, but overall quite happy

Jeff Battersby (25m 57s)

Yeah, I feel that. I will say my car does that. So like, I get that I get that. And this is another thing, you know, when I mentioned there are a lot of new features, I have a heads up display in this car too. Right, it should be there. Right.

Tom Anderson (26m 1s)

Right yep

Tom Anderson (26m 9s)

Yeah, that seems so easy to add.

Tom Anderson (26m 11s)

Like the app does it.

Tom Anderson (26m 12s)

I don't know why they just don't turn it on.

Tom Anderson (26m 14s)

Which goes back, you know, I complain to you a lot that sometimes I wonder how much Apple uses their own stuff.

Tom Anderson (26m 19s)

'Cause it's like, this is like a very simple thing.

Tom Anderson (26m 23s)

Just put it there.

Tom Anderson (26m 24s)

It's not gonna hurt anything.

Tom Anderson (26m 25s)

Just put it there.

Jeff Battersby (26m 25s)

Well, when you have a driver take--

Jeff Battersby (26m 27s)

I'm taking you from one place to the other.

Tom Anderson (26m 28s)

Well, that is true.

Jeff Battersby (26m 29s)

Why do you need to pay attention?

Tom Anderson (26m 29s)

Yeah, well, they're all in their Teslas.

Tom Anderson (26m 31s)

They don't care about the little people.

Tom Anderson (26m 35s)

All right, what do you have next, my friend?

Jeff Battersby (26m 37s)

The next thing for me,

Highland Pro

Jeff Battersby (26m 39s)

I talk about this app a ton,

Jeff Battersby (26m 41s)

is Highland Pro,

Jeff Battersby (26m 43s)

which is my everyday writing app.

Jeff Battersby (26m 47s)

That's the one that I write in,

Jeff Battersby (26m 49s)

I write every single day.

Jeff Battersby (26m 51s)

And that is the application that I recommend.

Jeff Battersby (26m 53s)

It is super low-fi In terms of.

Jeff Battersby (26m 57s)

What it does, so you're not going to get a bunch of options as far as, you know, buttons to click to be able to format your page a little better and do all that kind of stuff I do not write in word. I have it. I occasionally use pages for page layout and things like that. But when I'm doing everyday writing, I'm using Highland pro and Highland pro.

Jeff Battersby (27m 18s)

As you mentioned with bear is a markdown based application. So everything's in markdown, but you can.

Jeff Battersby (27m 27s)

Use the usual key command, so command be, you know, to bold text. If you want to do that, it puts in the markdown for that. It's a plain text text editor, not proprietary, but it provides a number of different templates.

Jeff Battersby (27m 43s)

So if you're writing a novel or writing a screenplay or you're, you know, you're doing a paper for school or whatever it is, it uses a template to take care of that. But you're always writing in very clean, plain text.

Jeff Battersby (27m 57s)

So when you go to print it, it comes out or export it. It comes out in the way that you expect it to a particular format.

Jeff Battersby (28m 5s)

But when you're writing, you're just writing text. So it really easy to use.

Jeff Battersby (28m 12s)

Truly my favorite writing app and I have tested over many years, a variety of different apps, but this is the one I've landed on. I've been using this since almost the first version came out, which has got to be at least seven years ago at this point in time.

Tom Anderson (28m 27s)

Nice.

Jeff Battersby (28m 27s)

Now, so highly recommend Highland Pro.

Tom Anderson (28m 28s)

Do love stability with tools.

Jeff Battersby (28m 31s)

It makes a huge difference. You just like to build it, right?

Tom Anderson (28m 32s)

As I say, 15 minutes ago, how I jump around from notes apps, but hey, it's research.

Jeff Battersby (28m 37s)

Yeah, well, you know, you're a child in some ways, Tom, but right, exactly. We're doing this for you.

Tom Anderson (28m 40s)

Um, have they come out with their iPad?

Tom Anderson (28m 43s)

I know you said they had an iOS or iPad app that was in beta.

Jeff Battersby (28m 45s)

No, no, it's still in beta and it's still in the same version of beta. I don't know exactly where that is or what it's going to do.

Tom Anderson (28m 48s)

Okay.

Jeff Battersby (28m 54s)

you know, and this is an app.

Jeff Battersby (28m 57s)

I don't know if you've ever seen big fish, but he he developed this to be able to get away from really expensive screenwriting software.

Jeff Battersby (29m 20s)

That was the original intent.

Jeff Battersby (29m 23s)

So it's really smart about screenplays.

Jeff Battersby (29m 27s)

And stage plays and graphic novels, you know, it's really very capable when it comes to those kinds of things.

Jeff Battersby (29m 33s)

I have a feeling that while the writers and SAG-AFTRA were on strike, that maybe some of the money that he's using to develop this is coming from, you know, his day job, which is, you know, writing for television and writing novels.

Jeff Battersby (29m 53s)

So that may be part of the reason.

Jeff Battersby (29m 57s)

Why there was a little hang up or has been a little hang up on the iPad app.

Jeff Battersby (30m)

So I have not gotten it yet.

Jeff Battersby (30m 3s)

I'm hoping it comes because that would be a nice little tool to have in my in my pocket.

Tom Anderson (30m 6s)

Right, yep, okay, so my next and this is the last one I have.

Jeff Battersby (30m 12s)

Yep, and I have one more and that's.

Tom Anderson (30m 14s)

Okay, so we have talked about this a bunch for iPhone,

Photo Shuffle on iPad

Tom Anderson (30m 18s)

which is the Photoshuffle wallpaper.

Tom Anderson (30m 23s)

And so an iPad OS 17, it came to iPad,

Tom Anderson (30m 26s)

so I set it up and I think I like it even more there.

Tom Anderson (30m 32s)

It has been fantastic on the iPhone as we've talked about.

Tom Anderson (30m 35s)

So if you're not--

Tom Anderson (30m 36s)

familiar with it, it is one of the custom wallpapers/lock screen settings that we picked up in iOS 16 for iPhone.

Tom Anderson (30m 44s)

We can go in, set up a photo shuffle, and that is exactly what it says on the label.

Tom Anderson (30m 49s)

It will shuffle through photos, but in a pretty intelligent manner that you do get to choose the options that you want from people, landscape, pets.

Tom Anderson (30m 59s)

There's one more, I don't remember what it is, cities, I think it is.

Tom Anderson (31m 3s)

it does some intelligent kind of machine.

Tom Anderson (31m 6s)

Machine learning stuff with the photos where it's able to kind of figure out the focus of the picture.

Tom Anderson (31m 12s)

So whether that's your dog, your child, your, you know, a landscape, whatever it is.

Tom Anderson (31m 18s)

And it's just really nice.

Tom Anderson (31m 21s)

And it has been fantastic as we have talked about for discovering photos that we've taken of places, the kids, the goofy dogs we have.

Tom Anderson (31m 31s)

just to see those resurface like I've sent so many screenshots of.

Tom Anderson (31m 36s)

I'll see you next time.

Jeff Battersby (31m 48s)

Yeah, it's funny, the only thing that I've used on the iPad so far is the live photos feature, which I love as well.

Jeff Battersby (31m 55s)

I've got a waterfall picture on there.

Jeff Battersby (31m 58s)

I have not tried the photo shuffle, which I think after we finish recording here, and I throw the roast in the oven, then that's gorgeous, I can see that, yeah, I think I I might fling that on there.

Tom Anderson (32m 10s)

Hmm?

Tom Anderson (32m 12s)

Yeah, yeah, so quite nice.

Jeff Battersby (32m 18s)

All right, last thing for me, um, as everybody knows, because I've complained about it endlessly.

Jeff Battersby (32m 23s)

Um, I got all my stuff stolen, got all my stuff stolen.

14” MacBook Pro

Tom Anderson (32m 28s)

Yes, you did.

Tom Anderson (32m 31s)

Most expensive burger stop ever.

Tom Anderson (32m 32s)

If I accept it, I'll take it.

Jeff Battersby (32m 33s)

Yeah, right.

Jeff Battersby (32m 34s)

It was right.

Jeff Battersby (32m 35s)

It was a good, it was a good burger though, which I couldn't eat anymore.

Jeff Battersby (32m 36s)

It was like, okay, I think I'll have a couple of fries and I'm going to throw everything else in the garbage.

Jeff Battersby (32m 43s)

Um, but, uh, one of the things that came out of that is, uh, I end up, I had had an M one

Jeff Battersby (32m 48s)

a MacBook pro, I ended up getting an M two, uh, on the heels of that.

Jeff Battersby (32m 54s)

And, uh, I gotta say, I really, really love this computer.

Jeff Battersby (32m 59s)

Um, it's possible I would have ended up getting a MacBook air had the new MacBook air been available at the time that, uh, these guys copped my stuff.

Jeff Battersby (33m 10s)

Um, but, uh, I am supremely pleased with this M three Mac.

Jeff Battersby (33m 16s)

By the way, I--

Jeff Battersby (33m 18s)

Unintentionally, but I ended up buying a lot of stuff this past year, including the studio display,

Jeff Battersby (33m 23s)

which I really like.

Jeff Battersby (33m 25s)

Pain on the neck to clean with the nanotechnology.

Jeff Battersby (33m 32s)

Because I did-- that nanotechnology,

Jeff Battersby (33m 36s)

because of where my computer is placed in my office,

Jeff Battersby (33m 39s)

I have a window behind me.

Jeff Battersby (33m 40s)

So it really cuts back on eye fatigue.

Jeff Battersby (33m 45s)

But I, the, my.

Jeff Battersby (33m 48s)

Everyday computer is, is that a MacBook pro and I'm really thrilled with it.

Jeff Battersby (33m 54s)

It's fast.

Jeff Battersby (33m 55s)

It's way beefier than I'll ever need in the future.

Jeff Battersby (33m 59s)

Um, so, uh, you know, can't get one of those.

Jeff Battersby (34m 3s)

Now you can get an M three, but the truth of the matter is Apple has done a really fine job on these, on these computers and, um, Always.

Jeff Battersby (34m 15s)

I think the beauty of it is, and we both, you and I complain

Jeff Battersby (34m 18s)

about various things from time to time, but the bottom line is it's consistently good and I don't have to think about it when I'm using it.

Jeff Battersby (34m 26s)

I set it down.

Jeff Battersby (34m 28s)

I do my work and it's, um, it's amazing.

Tom Anderson (34m 34s)

Yeah, that transition to Apple Silicon from Intel has been such a great bit of progress there for their laptops, because the previous generations, especially those with the touch bar and everything, you know, we had a bunch of those at work and we won't get into the keyboard stuff, but because the keyboards are problematic for a long time, but they've long since fixed that.

Jeff Battersby (34m 53s)

Mm-hmm.

Jeff Battersby (34m 57s)

Yes.

Tom Anderson (34m 57s)

But just the performance versus power consumption.

Tom Anderson (35m 2s)

I mean, it's excellent.

Tom Anderson (35m 4s)

I mean, it's, it's great.

Tom Anderson (35m 5s)

They last forever.

Tom Anderson (35m 6s)

It's funny though.

Tom Anderson (35m 6s)

They've kind of changed because if you recall, when they were on the Intel systems, the, you know, some people were starting to use that 12.9 inch iPad because it had fantastic battery life.

Tom Anderson (35m 16s)

I get 10 hours out of this.

Jeff Battersby (35m 18s)

Yeah.

Tom Anderson (35m 19s)

And now that's flipped because the Mac books are getting 14, 15 MacBook Air things up around 20, depending on what you're doing sometimes.

Jeff Battersby (35m 22s)

Oh, it's crazy.

Tom Anderson (35m 25s)

And people are saying, well, how come the iPad pros don't have 18 hour battery life now?

Tom Anderson (35m 30s)

Um, and we didn't get any iPads this year from Apple.

Tom Anderson (35m 32s)

So I think.

Tom Anderson (35m 34s)

Maybe, well, we'll definitely get some new iPads in, in 2024.

Tom Anderson (35m 38s)

Uh, but hopefully it was some battery life.

Tom Anderson (35m 40s)

That's more in line with the, uh, the Mac books.

Jeff Battersby (35m 44s)

Yeah, that'd be great.

Tom Anderson (35m 44s)

I mean, they're obviously they're not as thick, so you can't get, I don't think you'll get one to one, but if you could get 12 to 14, you know, a good 20% bump or something, that'd be good.

Jeff Battersby (35m 45s)

Uh, no, no.

Jeff Battersby (35m 53s)

Yeah, that'd be great.

Tom Anderson (35m 55s)

All right, Jeff, that is a wrap.

Jeff Battersby (35m 57s)

It is.

Close

Jeff Battersby (35m 58s)

It's been a good year, Tom.

Tom Anderson (36m)

It has.

Jeff Battersby (36m 1s)

And, uh, we appreciate everybody that has taken the time to listen to us.

Tom Anderson (36m 1s)

Yeah.

Tom Anderson (36m 1s)

I'm glad we.

Jeff Battersby (36m 6s)

Um, hopefully you're enjoying the new shorter format.

Jeff Battersby (36m 10s)

I think everybody is, um, including us.

Tom Anderson (36m 12s)

Me too.

Tom Anderson (36m 12s)

Yes.

Tom Anderson (36m 15s)

No, I have gotten good feedback on that.

Tom Anderson (36m 16s)

And I think that that's good.

Tom Anderson (36m 17s)

And we always do welcome you, you know, any, any type of feedback that you have.

Jeff Battersby (36m 21s)

Yeah, feedback@basicafshow.com.

Jeff Battersby (36m 25s)

Tom's on various platforms.

Tom Anderson (36m 29s)

Yeah, they're all in the show, why don't you just take a look.

Jeff Battersby (36m 29s)

I'm only-- yeah, yeah, you can look at the show notes.

Jeff Battersby (36m 31s)

This is exactly right.

Jeff Battersby (36m 33s)

Our music by the amazing Psychokinetics,

Jeff Battersby (36m 38s)

and we appreciate that.

Jeff Battersby (36m 40s)

Random Art and Design for Show Logo, who, as far as I'm concerned, we stand out when it comes to logos.

Jeff Battersby (36m 47s)

I think it's one of the best, best podcast logos,

Jeff Battersby (36m 51s)

eye-catching podcast logos.

Jeff Battersby (36m 53s)

Probably, you might go blind to looking at the two goofballs that are in there, because those guys do look a lot like us.

Tom Anderson (37m)

Yes, they do.

Jeff Battersby (37m 4s)

But we really-- thanks so much for spending time with us this year, and we'll see you after the new year.

Jeff Battersby (37m 9s)

And now, go spend time with your family.

Tom Anderson (37m 13s)

Exactly. What he said. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. We'll talk to you in 2024.

Jeff Battersby (37m 19s)

See ya.

Outro Music (37m 30s)

♪ I'm gonna smash my whole world ♪