HHalvi

I really love to hate Safari (extensions, ad blocking, dev tools amongst many other reasons) but love using a non chromium browser.

I discovered Orion a few years back and it has been my go-to standalone browser but never strong enough to be my primary browser.

So many daily drivers of mine refuse(d) to work from time to time (1P, Netflix, Youtube, Slack, Gmaps, Hey & the list goes on). I eventually started relying on Orion RC instead of Orion to band-aid fix these problems.

I truly hope they succeed but a few hours of driving the 1.0, it doesn't feel like a 1.0 yet.

Ever since I saw this video[1] by Dave2D I have felt the need to move away from my regular mechanical keyboards to Ortholinear keyboards. Non split keyboards seemed too much of a hassle and Bayleaf looks like something I can totally switch to. If only someone built a DIY kit that I could buy off shelves.

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVfB_0s470I

Lua: Picked it up when I was dabbling in building Games relying on Love2D which uses Lua as the underlying language.

CoffeeScript: Felt in love with CS as I wanted to rapid protypes with (now defunct) Framer Classic.

Smalltalk/Squeak/Vala are something I have wanted to dabble with for a while but haven't gotten around to.

The current boat I am on is relying on Firefox for most of my devices: Windows Laptops, Android Phones/Tablets with Ublock Origin and NextDNS set over DNS mode for all of the devices in my family.

For iDevices relying on Orion Browser paired with Ublock Origin and NextDNS set up. As good as Safari but without the annoyances of Plugins. Their compatablity mode seems to work on sites where Safari seems to have issues.

Ungoggled Chromium for sites that seem to break on both Firefox and Orion, unfortunately there are loads out there. It's a shame that Firefox isn't as effecient with Battery Consumption as Orion is.

Brave/Edge just never cut it for me.

Credit Card linking with UPI is live for sometime now [0], currently limited to Rupay cards. I have been using my HDFC Rupay CC to pay for Merchant Payments that accept UPI for last month or so.

[0] https://www.rupay.co.in/rupay-credit-card-on-upi

I have almost moved on from Gmail (Gmail + Gsuite). I have been using Hey for almost 2 years now and I prefer it over Gmail/Yahoo/Outlook/Protonmail.

And I am in the process of moving my Custom Domains to Fastmail, the only thing that irks me is their mobile app refusing to open without an active internet connection.

I have been super impressed by the latency of the images hosted on Imagekit. Used to host images on Cloudinary, found Imagekit to be faster for my visitors + more affordable. I currently have 2 accounts with them, one for my personal website/blog on free tier and a paid tier for landing pages for my employer. Highly recommend them, no affiliations, just a super happy customer!

Backup and was working until a few minutes back, looks like it's down again.

They started supporting Outlook accounts a few months back, but still a drop in the bucket considering the no of (email) options you have.

I discovered HN around 2012, been visiting this site the first thing every morning for a decade now.

Happy birthday HN :)

I liked the idea, wanted to give it a go.

At first try the website did not load, a few refreshes later I can now see the home screen but nothing happens when I click anywhere on the page.

If you are strapped for cash and this is a make or break deal, think about taking this (No, this is not the first or only option).

If you are hell bent on taking this deal, ask them to pay for the Product on top of giving you distribution (reselling or licensing) this to other businesses in that Country. Get minimum guarantees and make it a timed deal with the option of walking out at any time. If you want to sell the Startup tomorrow this can be one of your biggest headache.

Disclaimer: INAL

https://hhalvi.com

Would love to see someone give a facelift to my personal blog.

I felt erilly familiar with the details of this accident after reading the details. I dug up my browsing history and realized I watched the ATC exchange of this very collision yesterday not realizing that this had happened the very same day the video was uploaded[0]. Also props to the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS), hope this gets implemented in more smaller (or homemade) aircrafts.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5tb2dVWJqc

I use Fantastical 3 which not just puts a calendar in your menu bar but also solves for most (if not all) of your calendaring needs. All of it for ~40$ a year which allows you to use it also on your Mac, iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch.

P.S: Not affiliated with Fantastical in any way, just a happy and paying user for a few years now.

Add bringing back SD Card Reader, HDMI and changing the Webcam it seems like the best MBP wishlist ever.

Their guide (https://hyperapp.dev/guides) page is also filled with Lorem Ipsum.

Quick Wins have never helped anyone in the long run but they fool you into thinking you can go on with it forever.

When the entire debacle started I was suddenly an optimist on:

- Mobile vs Web debate forcing gate keepers on giving equally competent choices for users & makers alike.

- Apple relooking and rethinking their 70-30% strategy

- Small & Indie Developers openly talking about the problems being at the mercy of Apple and Google's stores.

I can draw anything somewhere but can't really close my eyes and visualize be it stock photos or manipulated.

I think there is a fine line between "picture yourself in X,Y,Z" vs "close your eyes and visualize a simple thing that you know well". Don't know if there is a standard test to find out if you indeed(medically) have it or not.

When i was in 9th grade preparing for a bio paper my friend told me to just visualize diagrams with your eyes closed, i just couldn't and found out this was not normal. I stumbled on Blake Ross's note* on this and realized i was not the only one. When i showed this to my younger brother, he told me that he had the same condition, while our parents don't.

*Link to the note: https://www.facebook.com/notes/blake-ross/aphantasia-how-it-...

Here are the things that have worked out for me:

- Constantly thinking and outsourcing the time i spend on stuff that doesn't matter (especially the bottom 10-20%). Good hack for doing this is calendering all the things i do in a typical day and then reviewing it over the weekends to subtract the automatable and (probably boring) non impactful pieces.

- Having two different phones, one for work and the other for everything else. The work phone/number gets shut down as soon as i am done for the day (no exceptions. Android has the concepts of users which can emulate similar experience without the need to invest on another phone.

- Not syncing emails constantly, instead i have 3 hour blocks for syncing/replying to emails. Can't check emails all the time and neither at the end and beginning of the day so three hour blocks work well for me.

I think Kayak was one of the first few to implement this since it was there the day iOS 13 rolled out.

I used to think my kitten was after the sweetness when i noticed that she only likes/prefers milk based sweets. But then she does have same affinity for chocolates and strawberries too.

In a country like Japan, anything you do to improve work-life balance(also the way its looked at) is going to add to productivity.

If you want to be a tech lead and not someone's job all you have to do is go out of your way to own the things you are directly working on and go out of your way to help those who are working with you to achieve shared common goals. Once you have done this multiple times, its easy to schedule a meeting with your management and pitch the idea of you doing the same and more but this time with Tech Lead's title and if that doesn't happen go look out for opportunities outside your company.

Context is google's strong suit: Local search, using my email/location/phone data to enhance or outright create a new category of results. For everyday search terms DDG wins hands down.

I end up using both accordingly to the use case at hand.

Do you have money to spend on Promotion? Invest on (converting) Ads

Do you have no money to spend on Promotions? Get Creative with how you promote stuff. Reach out to Instagram/Twitter pages that post related to your niche and aren’t that big that they would like to charge you for it.

Get your friends, family to actively talk about you.

Reach out to anyone who buys from you your site and get as much info as possible. When you understand who your customers are, where are they coming from and why did they buy from you you will have the right amount of insights to get a gut feeling about what, where and how to get your next set of users.

Also reach out to people and ask for help, sometimes it’s all that it takes(as long as you value their time and be respectful) :)

I think Slack is a bit undervalued more than over valued. The market is big enough for Slack + Microsoft, Amazon Chime, G Suite and so many other players to coexist. Also Slack to me feels like a good enough messaging apps. P.S: I hate it's knock-knock chime when engrossed in work and the fact that i have to keep the app running to get notifications.

I find myself hearing about weird titles & demos in a lot of places (IRC's, Comments on Gaming Forums and Other places) and search for their videos all the time. And I do go back from time to time to appreciate how far gaming has come and for the memorabilia of childhood games by watching the gameplay/trailers of the same. Someone needs to step in and do a Gameplay/Letsplay database of sorts for future reference maybe?

iOS app backs up to iCloud and Android version of the app to Google Drive and they are locked down with no other choice.