Wonderful episode!
I made time to listen this morning as I’m chasing down some data duplicates in my sheep database. Had to actually stop working and take notes! A few key things stuck out to me in no particular order.
The discussion of apps and text messaging with no cell phone service brought to mind an application we are playing with. We go out with 4-wheelers into the area around us and usually go as a group. It’s nice to know where everyone is and if someone stops moving we can check to be sure they are ok or their machine has not broken down. We are working with a system called Meshtastic to have a rolling mesh network for all of us in the group. Meshtastic® is a project that lets you use inexpensive LoRa radios as a long range off-grid communicator for areas without reliable cellular service. Each member of the mesh can send and view text messages and enable optional GPS based location features. The radios automatically create a mesh to forward packets as needed, so everyone in the group can receive messages from even the furthest member. He’s been working on making the map display automatically roll to follow the group. Not sure if it might be of use for times when there are both land and water based pieces of the trips, you culd keep in contact with all people and boats with it but it’s a cool application we are haivng a lot of fun with.
On the wet fingers on touch screens. In both LambTracker™ and AnimalTrakker™ we have to deal with all sorts of “assistance” from wet slimy lambs and concerned ewes. A piece of plastic wrap stretched tightly over a tablet that has a case that will keep the wrap a bit off the screen is really helpful for preventing sheep noses, feet, snow, rain etc. from pressing buttons on the screen.
About SSD drives vs spinning ones for backups. Are you at all concerned about the catastropic failure mode of SSD drives? What about the issue of drive longevity and limited writes? Especially for the Time Machine BU version that would worry me a bit.
I stopped suscribing to the extra version but I wish I could have heard about your thoughts on Vision Pro. Anything you’d care to share here?
I was pleasantly surprised to hear from @ChrisUpchurch that Triage is still around! Triage 1 was one of my favourite early iOS apps.
I’m excited to see if I can make it a part of my process again.
Chris mentioned a shortcut for continuous Low Power Mode by turning on LPM when the battery goes over 80%. There is also a trigger to do something when LPM turns off. Doing it more directly in this way might reduce the chance of errors and other surprises that might result in LPM turning off. 2¢
I’ve found the “When battery level rises above 80%” and “When device is disconnected from power” triggers to be very reliable. They also have the advantage of turning on Low Power Mode for me on the first day of the trip (based on the calendar entry).
Not really. For a backup, in some ways I’d prefer a catastrophic failure to a more gradual one because a catastrophic failure is more likely to be immeaditely obvious. After all, a backup failure isn’t a big problem unless you don’t discover it until after the thing you’re backing up also fails.
I am quite behind in listening to episodes, but finally finished this episode, which was extremely interesting. Thanks for doing it.
@ChrisUpchurch You mentioned that all of your USB ports on the Mac Studio and the three Studio Displays are in use. As a true setup geek, I would love to know what you have hooked up to all of those ports and how you arrange your connections.