November 2023 – Mark Pospesel (Coding and Other Stuff)

I often walk past this unassuming little chapel. It just sits there chilling next to a barn and a farmhouse. One day I realized that it was over 350 years old, so more than 100 years older than the United States. Carry on, little chapel. No doubt you will sit there long after I am gone.

Small white chapel with a steep roof sitting on a snow-covered hillside next to a wooden barn.

I am grateful that today is a rare (partially) sunny day in November, crisp and cold. We got a little more snow overnight. Tomorrow the typical rainy weather returns.

Partially snow-covered valley with a lake and a small town on its shores. The sky is blue with puffy clouds. Most of the valley is in shadow from the clouds.

This morning was not a great time to be outdoors. I didn’t mind the cold and rain so much as the wind (which rendered an umbrella useless). As I ascended out of the valley, the rain turned to sleet and snow (and back into rain again when I descended).

Landscape view of rolling farm fields mostly covered in snow leading down to a gray lake and a fog-shrouded valley.

Professional Software I Pay For

Panorama view of snow-covered mountains in the distance past a green valley underneath a mostly cloudy sky. Photo taken from the Wildspitz, the highest mountain in canton Zug. What does this have to do with paid software? Nothing. I just like mountains. And walking up them (walking back down again, less so).

This month I set up a new work laptop for the first time in two and a half years, and that got me thinking about the professional software I pay for (because I had to download and activate licenses for most of them).

In no particular order:

xScope. I love xScope. I last had to pay for this in 2014, but I use it regularly. Initially I used it to check the pixel perfection of my work, but lately I use it more to sample colors to check for accessibility. Even better now that retina screens are a thing and you probably can’t distinguish individual pixels with your naked eye. The worse my eyesight deteriorates, the more I rely on xScope.
Tower. GUI git client. Chances are you have to use git for work. I can’t even remember the last client/employer I had that didn’t use git for work (I do remember Visual SourceSafe…). Maybe the only subscription model work app I currently pay for. Yes, I could just use the CLI, but mostly I use Tower.
Kaleidoscope. File diff and merge tool. v4 uses the subscription model, but I’m still on the paid-up-front v3 for now.
Gifox. I use this to make gif’s out of screen recordings (mostly of the iOS Simulator) to post in tickets and pull requests. Great for documenting app behavior and more convenient than using Quick Time and dealing with video files.
Acorn Image editing. I’ve owned so many versions of Acorn. I mostly use this for cropping and resizing screenshots for use in tickets and pull requests.
Retrobatch Visual batch processor for images. I don’t use Retrobatch very often, but when I do it’s a super time/sanity-saver. Need to crop/resize/whatever 50 screenshots identically? Why do it manually when you can automate the work? I haven’t upgraded to the newly released v2 yet, but I am looking forward to it.
Marked 2. Markdown previewer. Preview the README’s for your repo’s and any other markdown documentation you have (or your cv).
Tot. Simple note app that lives in your menu bar. The Mac client is free but I’ve purchased the iOS app.

I own licenses to additional productivity apps, but these are the ones I needed to install on my work laptop right away.

Unterägeri, Switzerland

The town of Unterägeri in Canton Zug, Switzerland as seen from a hill on its northern side looking south. The valley is lightly covered in snow. The town is tightly clustered in the foreground with farmland in the distance giving way to forested hillsides that shape the valley. The sky is filled with puffy white clouds and a bit of blue.

View from the White Cross, now actually white with snow. It’s been a month since I’ve done this walk (I’ve been trying to do it weekly). The other photo is of a sheep barn halfway up.

View from the Unterägeri White Cross on a day with snow on the ground. View of a lake surrounded by partially forested hills. The sky is filled with puffy clouds.
Dark wooden barn on a snowy slope halfway up to the White Cross. The landscape is a mix of pasture and forest. The barn is part of a sheep farm.

Our valley got light snow overnight (our second snow of the season). It made for a very pleasant walk this morning. Now it’s time to cook a belated Thanksgiving meal. I’m thankful for the snow! (among many things)

View of somewhat snowy valley with a gray lake. Some green is poking up from the grass. The sky is mostly cloudy with a small clear blue patch.

Fixing my bed with LEGO. It willl require 52 of these assemblies. I’m using a rubber balloon tire piece that was popular in space sets in the 1980’s and hasn’t been produced in almost 20 years.

Collection of LEGO parts including a black rubber balloon tire piece connected to a black technic axle and secured with a gray bushing.

First snow of the season on the Wildspitz (mountain I can see from our apartment).

View of a low forested mountains with a clear snow line part way up. Sky is cloudy and gray. Green pastured hills sit in the foreground.