husband, dad, steelers fan and software engineer
More than a few people have written about being a software architect. It's a surprisingly diverse role in the industry. The title rarely means the same thing from one company to the next. The stereotype is someone who designs stuff and then hurls it over the fence to engineers, who do the actual work of building it. If that's the only kind of software architect you've met, you've been short-changed.
I have a first world problem. Actually, I have many. One of them is moving HDMI cables around from device to device. At any given moment on my office desk I have a desktop, two laptops and an Xbox. But I only have one monitor. This means that switching between devices can be awkward, as I unplug an HDMI cable from one and move it to the other. Admittedly this isn’t so bad with the laptops because of my USB-C hub. The desktop and Xbox are a pain, in part because their plugs are on the back and getting to them is awkward. The Kinivio HDMI Switch is the answer to my problem.
I admit late to the party on this one, but PDFScanner is a must-have for any macOS user who scans documents. PDFScanner isn’t a new app, but it’s new to me. Over the years I’ve tried the native software that comes with my HP Scanner with much disappointment. I default back to using macOS Preview’s Import functionality. Most of the time it works. When it doesn’t, it’s spectacular though. Preview does little to help compress PDFs. This might not be a problem if you have a lot of storage but it is not ideal. PDFScanner is a solution to all of these problems.
Spoiler Alert: I'm going to discuss the TV show WandaVision in its entirety. If you haven’t seen the show yet go watch and then come back here.
On the podcast, we’ve spent the last 9 weeks discussing each episode of WandaVision. In last week’s podcast, we were joined by friend of the show, Patrick “Patty” Sturdivant. Patty is our resident Marvel-expert. He first joined us for a live recording to review Avengers: Endgame in 2019. Then he joined us to discuss the big Disney marvel announcement in December 2020. I recommend all that material, it’s great, and not just because you get to hear me talk, a lot.
Last summer during the World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC), Apple announced the introduction of a new processor and architecture for the Mac. I cannot overstate the significance of this change. It’s a big deal. In November Apple started shipping Mac laptops and the Mac mini with this new processor named the M1. The reviews were shocking because almost everyone loved the new processor. Even the most ardent critics of Apple, like The Verge, gushed over this new Mac. I was left scratching my head… could it be that good? Well, the answer is yes.