Category: programming

WordPress syntax highlighting

I started writing a blog post about PowerShell today, then got caught up in an issue with the code syntax highlighting plugin that I’ve been using on this blog since 2017. I’ve been using WP-Syntax since then, and I’ve generally been happy with it, but there are a few things that bug me, so that set me off looking into other options. One issue I noticed is that WP-Syntax hasn’t been updated in four years, and hasn’t been tested with recent versions of WordPress. So that definitely got me looking for a good alternative.

My search led me to SyntaxHighlighter Evolved, which seems to be under active development and worked well in my testing. It uses a special shortcode for highlighting, which means that I’m going to have to go through all of my old code posts and replace <pre> tags with “code” tags. I did a search to find those, and apparently I only have about 40 posts on this blog with code in them. That’s a little embarrassing, considering that I have more than 2000 posts on this blog. I always want to write more programming-related posts with real code in them, but I never get around to it. Well, maybe this will motivate me.

moving and resizing windows in AutoHotKey

One of the minor little issues I’ve had since this whole “work from home” thing started is that I frequently need to switch back and forth between using my laptop on its own vs. remoting into it from my desktop PC. I always need to be connected to our work VPN, and we’re not allowed to install the VPN client on personal PCs. And I don’t have an easy way to connect my personal monitor, mouse, and keyboard to the laptop. (Yes, I know there are a bunch of reasonably easy ways to do that. I just haven’t made the effort.) So I spend most of the day remoted in to the laptop via RDP from my desktop PC. But I disconnect and use the laptop directly whenever I need to be in a meeting, so I can use the camera and microphone. (And, yes, there’s probably a way for me to use the camera and mic while remoted in, but I haven’t bothered to try figuring that out either.)

Anyway, the issue with all that is that the change in resolution between the laptop screen and my desktop monitor confuses things, so my window sizes and positions are generally all screwed up when I do that. So I wanted to write a little AutoHotKey script to automatically move and resize the windows for my most commonly-used programs. (In my case: Outlook, OneNote, and Firefox. I do my actual development work via RDP into a VM, not on my “real” computer, so it’s just the productivity stuff running on the laptop.)

Of course, given the way these things tend to go, I just lived with it until June, when I finally got around to writing the script. And, again, of course, I found issues with the script, but didn’t bother correcting them until… today. So here’s a script that looks at the current monitor’s resolution, then moves and resizes Outlook, OneNote, and Firefox so they’re tiled and just the right size for my preferences.

SysGet, Mon1, Monitor
;MsgBox, screen dimensions: %Mon1Right% x %Mon1Bottom%

X := 70
Y := 32
Width := Mon1Right - 240
Height := Mon1Bottom - 150
;MsgBox, X=%X%, Y=%Y%, Width=%Width%, Height=%Height%

WinRestore, ahk_exe OUTLOOK.EXE
WinMove, ahk_exe OUTLOOK.EXE,, X, Y, Width, Height
WinRestore, ahk_exe firefox.exe
WinMove, ahk_exe firefox.exe,, X*2, Y*2, Width, Height
WinRestore, ahk_exe ONENOTE.EXE
WinMove, ahk_exe ONENOTE.EXE,, X*3, Y*3, Width, Height

Nothing fancy, but it does what I need, and I thought it might be useful to post it here. It’s using the SysGet command to get the screen dimensions, and the WinMove command to move the windows.

I also considered using PowerShell with WASP for this, but I’m more familiar with AHK.

still learning React

I’m still trying to learn React, and a bunch of the stuff that goes along with it. I’m almost done with the Learning React book that I’ve been reading. It’s been helpful, but there are still a bunch of things I need to work on.

As previously mentioned, I’ve set up my MacBook for React development, by installing Node.js via Homebrew, with VS Code as my editor/IDE. I still haven’t gotten around to setting up a dev environment on my new Lenovo laptop. I did, though, decide today to take a shot at setting up my work laptop for some minimal development. I wouldn’t ever do “real” production development on my work laptop; we have dev VMs for that, and I’ve got a dev VM that will work for React dev. But it’s useful to have some dev tools on the laptop, just to work through sample projects and stuff like that. I can’t go too far with dev stuff on the laptop, since, from a security standpoint, it’s basically an “end-user” machine and a lot of software installs are blocked. But I thought I’d try to install a few mostly harmless tools. So I managed to get VS Code installed, no problem, and Git. Then I tried to install Node, via the standard Windows installer. That worked fine, up to the point of installing node-gyp which seems to have failed. I don’t think that I actually need that, so I’m probably fine. But that was a reminder of how these things can get confusing when you’re trying to install dev tools on a locked-down laptop. (If I want to install Node on my personal Windows laptop, I should probably look at this MS doc that walks you through installing nvm first.)

In reading about React stuff, I’m hitting a lot of issues with figuring out what’s current and what’s out of date. And also in figuring out how to do stuff in TypeScript (vs. “plain” JS). There are a lot of blog posts, and Medium articles, and videos, all showing you how to build a basic React app. But most of them are a little messy. I keep hitting stuff that doesn’t seem to work, either because React (or some dependency thereof) has changed since the article was written, or because the article was poorly edited and the code in the article doesn’t really work. And even when the code does work, sometimes it’s not being done in the “right way,” given current standards. So I guess I’m stumbling my way into becoming a semi-competent React / TypeScript developer.

more odds and ends

I’m kind of exhausted now, and I kind of want 2020 to just be over. But it’s not. I’m doing my best to stay positive and keep working and exercising and eating right (and I am doing all that), but I’m getting a little frayed around the edges. Anyway, here’s another round-up of (mostly) bad news. Writing helps me process things and clear my head. I don’t necessarily expect anything here to be useful to anyone else, but writing it down helps me.

More #MeToo

Well, the #MeToo stuff in comics is really starting to snowball. After Cam Stewart, Warren Ellis, and Charles Brownstein, now it’s Scott Allie’s turn. Allie was an editor and writer at Dark Horse. He was the editor on all the Hellboy and Hellboy-related books for a long time. And he’s written a few also. I’ve been a Hellboy and BPRD fan since Hellboy #1 from back in the 90s. I didn’t really know anything about Allie, other than just knowing his name from the credits and letter columns. So I can’t say much about him. I don’t think there’s any indication that Mike Mignola knew anything about this, so that at least is something. I’d hate to have to lose my respect for Mignola. (And I do have a good bit of respect for him.)

And back to Brownstein: He was apparently involved in another incident, about ten years ago, involving a CBLDF employee, who was then essentially forced to sign an NDA. So things are looking worse for them. I’m not quite ready to burn my CBLDF t-shirts, but I’m not going to be wearing them in public anytime soon either.

New Toys

I don’t think I’ve even turned on my new laptop yet this week. I’ve been doing a bunch of React stuff on my MacBook, and all of my actual work on my work machines, of course. So I haven’t had time to do any setup on the Lenovo.

I have had time to mess around with my Echo Dot a bit though. I’ve discovered that it’s pretty good as a speaker (given it’s small size), but not if you’re using it via Bluetooth. So if you’re playing stuff over it via the usual Alexa route, it sounds pretty good. But it’s not really worth trying to use it as a Bluetooth speaker. So I’ll yell “Alexa, play WQXR” if I want to hear some classical music while I’m working and that works out fine.

React

Speaking of React, I’ve been reading the second edition of Learning React via my ACM O’Reilly subscription. It’s an “early release” version, so it’s a little rough, but it’s more up-to-date than any other book on React that I’ve seen. I’m at a point now where I’m not sure if I should keep working my way through books and videos or if I should stop reading/watching and start actually working on a project. I think I might need to finish the Learning React book at least. I’m still having trouble getting at the big picture with React. I’m learning little bits and pieces, but they don’t all fit together in my head yet.

Reopening NJ

Somerville is really hopping this week, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. Mostly nervous, I guess. All the restaurants are doing outdoor dining, which means that they’ve annexed about 90% of the sidewalks. So a walk down Main St right now is kind of an obstacle course. And the obstacles are people sitting at outdoor tables, talking, eating, and not wearing masks. My early morning walks are still OK, since there are only one or two places open that early. But I’ve been avoiding Main St on my afternoon walks. Still, though, it’s kind of fun to see the outdoor dining. And it’s nice to hear people talking and laughing and all that. I just wish I could shake the idea that one of them is going to spray COVID-19 all over me.

Meanwhile, the Bridgewater Commons is going to reopen on Monday. I don’t think I’ll be going back there any time soon though. Maybe I’d risk a trip to the Apple Store if I really needed something, but only as a last resort. I just ordered two new pairs of shorts from the Macy’s web site, and I think that’s all the new clothes I’ll need between now and the end of the year. Macy’s and the Apple Store are really the only places at the mall that I frequent, so I don’t think I’ll be tempted to go over there.

And Yestercades is reopening too, on July 2. This seems like an even worse idea that reopening the mall. There’s no way they can keep all those arcade machines clean. And that place is really too cramped for social distancing. I don’t know, maybe they’ve figured out a way to make it work. I can definitely say that I’m not going back in there anytime soon either.

I may be more stressed now than when I started writing this post, which is not how I wanted this to turn out. Maybe I should spend the next hour listening to this public domain recording of the Goldberg Variations. That’ll help me calm down.

 

odds and ends

OK, after this morning’s depressing Warren Ellis post, here’s some lighter stuff. Just a mix of stuff I’ve been meaning to mention, for one reason or another.

Google AdSense

I added Google AdSense to my blog back in 2010 and removed it in 2016. But I never closed out my account. So I did that this week. Now, I can finally get the $15 that Google owes me. (Normally, they don’t pay out until you hit $100, but if you close your account, they’ll pay out any balance, if it’s over $10.) I wonder how many small bloggers like me are still bothering with AdSense. For a while, a lot of people thought they could make good money by running a blog and putting AdSense on it. I’m wondering if any of them really did.

New Toys

I haven’t made much more progress in setting up my new laptop. I was too busy yesterday to even turn it on. Hopefully, I’ll have time to do some stuff with it this weekend. I did also just get a new Amazon Echo Dot (with clock). I don’t really have a good excuse for buying it. I had an old iHome alarm clock / iPhone dock on my nightstand that I couldn’t really use anymore, since it doesn’t fit the newer iPhones. And that was fine, really, since I don’t really need a clock on my nightstand. These days, I just plug my iPhone in, and use Sleep Cycle as my alarm clock. But, I don’t know, I guess I just wanted a small clock there that could play music or NPR or whatever. And it was only $35. I already have some experience with Alexa, since it’s supported on my Sonos speakers, but I turned off the mics on those, since it was getting accidentally triggered too often, and I didn’t really find it that useful. I’m going to play around with it some more on the Echo and see if there’s anything fun or useful that I can do with it.

Learning New Stuff

I finished the SharePoint Framework course that I was working through. That’s given me a good start, but there’s still a lot I need to figure out. I’m almost done with the React course on SharePoint that I’ve been watching and working through. Most of that course uses an online JavaScript environment, found at jscomplete.com, so you don’t need to set up your own dev environment. But I’m now at the point where I really do need to set up a dev environment to get any further. I considered a lot of options, but settled on using Homebrew on my Mac to set up Node.js. And I’m using Visual Studio Code as my text editor. So that’s good enough for now.

I may need to play with Node Version Manager at some point, but for now, I think that would be an unnecessary complication. And, on Windows, I want to look into setting something up under WSL2 at some point. Microsoft, helpfully, has a guide on how to do that. But, again, I’m probably not ready to dive into that just yet.

So that’s my “odds and ends” post for today. I could write up a bunch of other stuff, but it’s probably best if I stop for now and go eat some lunch. Then maybe take a nap.

SharePoint, React, Laptops, and so on

I mentioned a while back that I’m trying to learn about the (relatively) new SharePoint Framework (SPFx), for a project at work. I’ve made some progress with that, but I still have a way to go. I’ve done 5 of the 8 modules in this course from Microsoft. And I’ve watched a couple of Pluralsight videos, one from Sahil Malik and one from Danny Jessee. I’ve been doing that mostly on work time, since it’s specific to a work project.

SPFx relies on a number of related technologies, some of which I know and some of which I don’t. (And the ones I know, I don’t necessarily know that well.) So I decided to start digging into some related stuff, on my own time. I know pretty much nothing about React, and it looked interesting, so I decided to start learning that. I’ve watched one short Pluralsight video, that just gives an overview without getting into specifics. And now I’m working through a four-hour video course that goes into a little more detail. There’s a whole skill path for React on Pluralsight that would take about 40 hours to watch, if you went through it all. (And of course it would be much longer than that, if you actually followed along and worked through projects on your own.)

I got side-tracked off of React at one point when I was watching one of the Pluralsight videos on my old ThinkPad, and the battery suddenly died. I’ve had that laptop since 2011, and it’s starting to show its age. I’d only been watching the video for about 30 minutes, and the battery should have had a full charge when I started. So I started thinking about either replacing the battery on it, or just getting a new laptop. Replacing the battery on that particular model is really easy. And there were a bunch of options for a replacement battery on Amazon (though most of them looked kind of sketchy). But I started thinking about how old the laptop was, and how iffy off-brand replacement batteries can be. And I also started wondering if that laptop was going to be able to handle some the stuff I’m going to want to try out soon, like WSL 2. I’ve been hearing about that for a while, and it’s now been released as part of the Windows 10 2004 update. The old ThinkPad, surprisingly, has been able to keep current with Windows 10 updates so far, up to version 1909. But I have my doubts about whether or not it’s going to be able to deal with 2004. So, reluctantly, I started shopping for a new laptop.

This is a pretty common thing with me: I start trying to learn a new technology, and I get side-tracked shopping for a new laptop, or some new piece of software, or something. Anyway, I spent way too much time on that yesterday. This morning, I finally settled on the Lenovo Flex from Costco, for $750. It’s a bit of a compromise, since I’ll need to upgrade it to Windows 10 Pro, but I can still do that for $40 with my Microsoft company store access, which should still be good for the next week or two. Also, it’s a 2-in-1, which I don’t really need or want, but most Windows laptops seem to be touchscreen 2-in-1 models now, so I’ll give it a try. On the positive side, it’s got 16 GB of RAM, a 512 GB SSD, and an AMD Ryzen 7 CPU. (I haven’t really been keeping up with CPU news lately, but it looks like the AMD Ryzen 7 4700U is pretty good.) So I think it should be able to handle my fairly modest needs. I always feel a little guilty when I spend money on new hardware, but I’m trying to remember that, this year, I’ve spent nothing at all on travel, and I’m not likely to. If I’d gone to WonderCon this year, that would have cost me well over $1000, for hotel and airfare alone.

I was going to remark that I’d made it through a whole post without referencing COVID-19, but the travel comment above kind of does reference our current situation, so I guess that’s not true. COVID-19 definitely did affect my laptop shopping. In normal times, I probably would have gone out to Costco yesterday to see what laptop models they had on display. And I might have taken a trip to Best Buy too. Costco is still open, but I don’t really want to go there unless I have to. And Best Buy of course is still closed. So I settled on a mail-order laptop from Costco. They have a good return policy, if I need it.

SharePoint, Somerville, and so on

A little follow-up on some subjects from yesterday’s post:

I complained a bit yesterday about the “hundreds of files” pulled in on a new “Hello World” SharePoint Framework project. I checked today, and it’s actually more than 50,000 files, totaling up to about 500 MB. Scary. I’ve also been a little worried about all the security warnings issued by npm when scaffolding a SPFx project. Apparently that’s all fine though and I should just ignore them, according to this blog post. I guess none of the stuff that npm is checking is actually ever deployed to SharePoint, so it’s fine.

NJTV News tonight had a segment on restaurant and retail reopenings that spent some time talking about Somerville. I guess we’re likely to go ahead with the plan to close down Main Street to car traffic a few nights a week that I mentioned yesterday. I’ve still got some reservations about that, but nobody asked my opinion. (Yeah, I know, I could start attending town meetings. They’re virtual now, so I don’t even need to leave my couch. I’m still probably not going to do it though.)

One other benefit of having “attended” Microsoft Build this year: They’re letting attendees buy some stuff from the Microsoft company store. They’re only allowing purchases of digital goods, so no discounts on Surface hardware or anything like that. But I did pick up a few things at bargain prices. I got a Windows 10 Pro license for $40, and used it to upgrade my desktop PC from Home to Pro. And I got a one-year extension on my Microsoft 365 Family account for only $20. (That’s usually $100/year. I get the Home Use Program discount, which makes it $70/year. So $20 is really low.) And I got a two-year Xbox Live Gold sub for $50. (That’s usually $10/month or $60/year.)

I don’t know if I’ll actually get much use out of the Xbox Live Gold account. As I mentioned recently, I’ve had the Xbox for a year now, and I barely use it, except as a DVD/Blu-ray player. I’ll have to keep an eye on the Games with Gold stuff and see if they have anything I’m interested in. I really want to start playing video games again, but there’s so much other stuff to do too.

SharePoint, social distancing, civil unrest, and so on

I need to start a new SharePoint Online project at work soon. It’ll be an attempt to move an on-prem SharePoint 2013 site, with a fair amount of custom code, to SPO. I haven’t had time to learn much about SPO yet. I’ve taken a couple of pokes at it, but I’d been having trouble finding the right resources.

I “attended” Microsoft’s virtual Build conference this year, and had hoped for some useful SharePoint content, but there wasn’t much. About the only thing I could find was this session on the Microsoft 365 developer program. I already knew about that, and have an account, so that wasn’t too useful. It did, however, point me in the direction of a web page that (in turn) pointed me to this course on extending SharePoint. That seems to be what I need to get started.

I’m cautiously enthusiastic about learning this stuff, but I’m a little leery of the dev stack that they’re recommending. I have some limited experience with the tools they’re using (gulp, yeoman, node.js, and so on), but this stuff always seems like a house of cards to me. Too many different tools, all from different open source projects, pulling in possibly hundreds of different files, all just to get the scaffolding for a “Hello World” project up and running. Well, I need to remain positive and give it a try. I made it through the first “Hello World” example today, and I’m hoping I’ll have time to make some more progress tomorrow.

Since the dev stack includes node.js, I found myself visiting the node.js web site today. They’ve changed their home page to contain a Black Lives Matter message. (I’m not sure how long they’ll leave it up, so here’s a link to an archive.org snapshot.) We had a fairly small and very peaceful BLM march in Somerville over the weekend. And protests in NJ have mostly been peaceful, with some exceptions. I don’t have much to say about all this, other than that I hope something positive comes out of it all. I’m afraid that it’s going to get worse before it gets better though. (My own contribution to this situation was to start catching up on all the Black Lightning episodes on my TiVo. And to keep listening to the Invisible Man audiobook that I started a while back. So, not much, really.)

Meanwhile, NJ is starting to open back up a bit. Today actually marks three months since the first COVID-19 case in NJ, according to the newscast I just watched. I think that Murphy is acting with a reasonable level of caution, all things considered. I am worried about the “knuckleheads” who might push things a little too far and cause another spike in cases. I’ve actually been venturing out a bit more myself this week. I had a doctor’s appointment, then had to go to Quest for some blood work. And I’ve got a dentist’s appointment next week. It feels a little weird, going out and driving and stuff. I’m really wondering about how “armored up” the dentist and hygienist are going to be for my appointment. Dental work has got to  be pretty high-risk, given the level of contact necessary.

Here’s an article about the current state of things in downtown Somerville. And here’s one on a plan to close off Main Street to car traffic a few nights a week, and use the road for outdoor dining. It’s an interesting plan, though if it’s not implemented carefully, it could be a disaster. I want to see Somerville’s restaurants have a chance to do some business this summer, but not if it means that the whole street is crammed with people eating and drinking and spreading germs. If they can keep things reasonable and organized, maybe it’s not a bad idea. If things get crowded (like on a normal, pre-COVID-19, Friday night), then I’m going to be locking myself in my apartment and keeping the windows closed.

Larry Tesler

I have to admit that I didn’t know that much about Larry Tesler prior to his passing last week. I was generally aware of Xerox PARC, and their place in the history of personal computing. And I probably had heard at some point that Tesler was essentially the inventor of “copy and paste.” And I think I was vaguely aware that he’d worked on the Newton, maybe? But I don’t think I’d ever put that all together in my mind, and realized that this was all the same guy. Over the years, it looks like he’s worked on a number of really cool things, from Smalltalk to Object Pascal to the Newton.

I first saw the news of his death on Hacker News, which linked to an obituary on Gizmodo. The Hacker News thread has some pretty interesting anecdotes and conversation, including a number of comments from Alan Kay. There’s also an obituary in the NY Times, written by John Markoff. And there’s a nice remembrance from Adam Engst at the TidBITS site.

I don’t have anything useful or pithy to say. I’m just here marveling at how much this guy did, and what a good guy he apparently was.

New Year’s Day 2020

It’s almost 8 AM on New Year’s Day, so it’s time for my annual New Year’s self-review post. This has become a tradition for me; here’s a link to last year’s post, which includes links to a few previous years. This year is also the start of a new decade. I had a few thoughts on the past decade that I posted on Christmas, so I won’t rehash all of that here.

Health, Weight, and Sleep

I’ve got a bit of a headache this morning, and I’ve been fighting a cold (or something) since Thanksgiving. So I don’t feel very healthy. I have an appointment with my doctor on Friday, so hopefully he can let me know if I’ve got a big problem or just a stubborn cold. Looking back at last year’s post, I see that very little has changed. My average weight may have gone up by a pound or two. I’m usually coming in at 136 or 137 now, rather than 135, but that’s fine. My doctor would actually like to see me put on a few more pounds.

I’m continuing to track my weight and diet with Lose It every day. And I’m continuing to use my Apple Watch to track my exercise. I manage to fill my exercise ring on most days, and I generally fill my move ring about five days per week, on average. My move goal is currently at 500.

I’m still using Sleep Cycle to track my sleep. I guess I’m doing OK with sleep, but I do have some rough nights. I bought a bottle of melatonin gummies on Amazon a year ago, and I take two before bed occasionally. I think it helps. I don’t use it too often. Taking melatonin is probably safe, in moderation. I thought about getting a new mattress last year, but I’ve held off. I might go ahead with that this year.

I mentioned last year that I’d gotten a prescription for progressive lenses from my eye doctor. I did get that filled and I’ve been wearing those new glasses all year. Honestly, they haven’t helped much. I had my yearly checkup a few weeks back, and he suggested maybe trying computer bifocals, but I didn’t want to have to pay for another pair of glasses so soon, so we decided to wait and maybe try that next year.

I also mentioned last year that I should go get my hearing checked, and I never did that, so that should probably be near the top of my to-do list for this year.

Work and Professional Development

There’s not much to report on this. I’m doing fine at work. I got a very good performance review for 2019. I did a fair bit of work in Azure over the last year, so that was interesting.

Here’s a list of tech books that I read last year, from my Goodreads history:

  • ASP.NET Web API Security Essentials
  • Beginning Azure Functions: Building Scalable and Serverless Apps
  • C# and XML Primer
  • Instant Nancy Web Development
  • Learn Azure in a Month of Lunches
  • Take Control of Catalina
  • Take Control of Photos
  • Take Control of Upgrading to Catalina
  • Take Control of iOS 13 and iPadOS 13
  • The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

That’s a pretty random list, but there were a few good ones in there. I think that I read all of those via my O’Reilly subscription that I get through my ACM membership, so I’m getting some value out of that.

I’m also still paying for a Pluralsight subscription. Checking my history there, it looks like I’m getting some value out of that too. Here’s the list of courses I watched in 2019:

  • IIS Administration Fundamentals
  • Microsoft Azure Developer: Create Serverless Functions
  • Getting Started with OAuth 2.0
  • Implementing and Managing Microsoft Azure Multi-factor Authentication
  • Microsoft Azure Developer: Securing Data
  • Fiddler
  • Microsoft Azure Developer: Implementing Application Logging with Diagnostic Logs
  • Instrument Application with Azure Monitor Application Insights
  • Microsoft Azure Developer: Monitoring Performance
  • Play by Play: Care and Maintenance of Development VMs
  • Beginning PowerShell Scripting for Developers
  • Managing Azure AD
  • Play by Play: Azure Beyond Websites
  • Play By Play: Azure Deployment with Scott Hanselman

Again, kind of a random list, but I learned some stuff.

For 2020, I’d like to learn a new programming language, but I’m not sure about which one. I’ve considered trying to learn Rust, but I’m not too enthusiastic about it. Maybe I should try to learn Swift? I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it.

Finance

I did a year-end financial review last weekend, and I’m in pretty good shape. I still kind of want to do a one-time sanity check with a good financial advisor, but I didn’t get around to that in 2019, so I should really try again in 2020. I also see in last year’s post that I wanted to read this book last year, and didn’t get around to it. So I should probably do that.

Reading

I wrote up a post just a few days ago on my reading plans for 2020, so I won’t rehash that. But I’ll go ahead and post a few book lists that I culled from my Goodreads year in books. I read 115 books this year, according to that. Most of them were comics / graphic novels.

Here’s a list of the stuff I read from The Great American Read list last year:

  • Catch-22
  • Gilead
  • Looking for Alaska
  • Pride and Prejudice
  • The Help
  • The Intuitionist
  • To Kill A Mockingbird
  • War and Peace

War and Peace took a lot of time to get through, so that was really my main reading accomplishment for 2019. I only read a few fiction books that weren’t related to my TGAR group:

  • Angels and Visitations
  • Pump Six and Other Stories
  • Zoo City

Of those, only Zoo City is actually a novel. So War and Peace, and the other TGAR books, really swallowed up a lot of my reading time. For non-fiction, I did get around to reading 10% Happier and Search Inside Yourself, both of which I’d mentioned in last year’s post as wanting to read. (I can’t say that I really stuck with my meditation practice in 2019 though. That’s something I may want to try again in 2020.)

Hardware

I got an iPhone XR about a year ago, along with a new Apple Watch. And my MacBook Air is only about a year and a half old. I bought a pair of AirPods in November, and they’re working fine. So I’m pretty well set for Apple gear. I’m not planning on giving Apple any more money in 2020, at least for hardware.

And I talked myself into buying an Xbox One back in May. At this point, I’m mostly just using it as a DVD and Blu-ray player. When I bought it, I kind of knew that I was going to be playing games on it for a couple of months, then lose interest, and that’s pretty much what happened. But it’s a decent Blu-ray player, so it’s not like it’s just gathering dust; it’s getting some use.

A friend bought me a new TV for Christmas, so I now have a new 43″ LG TV. That spurred a couple of related purchases, including a stand and a DAC so that I can route the digital audio output to my old analog receiver. It might spur one more purchase: a 4K Apple TV box. My current Apple TV box is the older one, that only outputs 1080p. (It looks like they still sell that one, as the Apple TV HD.) So maybe my earlier statement about not giving Apple any more money for hardware this year isn’t quite correct.

Summary

I have a bunch more stuff I’m thinking about, and that I could include here, but it’s now almost 10 AM. So I should wrap this up and maybe go out for a walk and get a cappuccino and a croissant from Starbucks or something like that.