Palm Month is now Retro Month

Hi, everyone! After some careful consideration, I've decided that Palm Month is now going to be called "Retro Month" and will involve me developing all sorts of retro platforms, not just the ones made by Palm. This is mainly because I recently purchased a really neat retro device that I decided I wanted to try developing for: the Pebble Smartwatch. This led me to making this decision, and while I'm sad to see the Palm Month tradition end, I'm looking forward to the remainder of the new "Retro Month" and my first foray into Pebble development!

Late 2014 Mac mini in 2022 - Still Worth Buying?

About a year ago, I reviewed the 2014 Mac mini on this blog. Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that it was still an excellent machine for productivity tasks, but it could also handle some more intense things you threw at it. Thus, it became my daily driver up until I upgraded to a 2017 MacBook Air a few months ago. That being said, I’ve still been using it some, so I thought I’d briefly share how it’s holding up these days. Here are my thoughts on this miniature Macintosh one year later! Performance Over the last year, I’ve been impressed by how much this Mac can handle. It’s rocking a 2.6 GHz dual-core Core i5 with 8 GB of RAM and a Samsung 860 Evo 1 TB SATA SSD. What all that jargon essentially means is that it’s a moderately powerful little computer, although it certainly isn’t going to put newer Macs to shame. Regardless, I’ve been able to do lots of coding, video editing, and schoolwork on this computer, and it has generally worked pretty well. Granted, it can take a while...

I love my Instax Mini SE. Here's why!

Hey, folks! I did it. I finally got into instant photography. And I love it. Admittedly, I've had some experience with instant photography before now. I got my first instant camera at a thrift store in 2022. It was a Polaroid OneStep from the 90s, and while film was still readily available for it, it was far too expensive to justify using it regularly. As cool as instant photography was, I accepted that it wasn't economically viable for me and moved on. ...Until about a month ago! On one of my first dates with my girlfriend, she introduced me to her Fujifilm Instax Mini 11. It was a much more compact and modern instant camera than my Polaroid. It also used smaller film slides. This was a big deal, as she informed me that the smaller film came at a smaller price. I was intrigued. A couple weeks later, I ventured to Walmart and splurged. I picked up the cheapest Instax they sold: The Mini SE. It only cost about $57, and it came bundled with 10 slides of film. I also picked up an ...

Violoncello for Windows is finally here!

Hi, everyone! Ever since I first started working on it over a month ago, I have spent countless hours creating and perfecting Violoncello for Windows. Featuring a slick and minimal UI, lots of customization options, and support for Windows versions going all the way back to XP, I am very pleased with how the Windows version of Violoncello has turned out. As a result, I am very excited to announce that Violoncello for Windows has finally been released! Violoncello for Windows is packed with features, some of which are found in the mobile version, and others that are not. Some of these include: Open in main browser: Easily open the page you are currently viewing in Violoncello in your default browser! Custom search engine: Choose from Bing, Google, DuckDuckGo, Wikipedia, or set your own. Lots of customization: Change the background and text colors, and choose a font. Bookmarks: Easily manage and visit bookmarks. Jump to top: Quickly jump to the top of a page. (0, 0) Those are most of the...

John Spahr

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