I don’t think I ever introduced my software company, Girlfriend Technology, on this blog.
Girlfriend Technology is a software company I started to distribute apps under. My goal is to build apps that can benefit queer people, or at least think of them first instead of as an afterthought.
My app, X to Y, stemmed from a former employer not allowing me to change my name at work to be my legal name. I got tired of seeing my deadname and made my own personal browser extension to fix it.
X to Y got a nice update last week to allow it to play nice on webpages with dynamic content. The next update will help with backing up and restoring preferences.
It is wild that this piece is 12 years old and constantly gets more relevant with age. I do not get why everyone wants to constantly gate keep names, like you would know better than the one telling you their name.
Previously I have posted about danah boyd’s research on how hormones impact how your brain processes depth, but here is another study about how interpupillary distance, IPD, settings on VR headsets make it hard for people other than, for example, cisgender men to find a distance that works for them, leading to motion sickness. A while ago I tried to adjust my IPD but never found a setting that worked for me. It was either too close or too far, and the motion sickness remained.
iPad Pro - This is my main machine, to be honest. I use it for everything, yes even coding.
Custom PC - This is my default desk experience when I am not working. I enjoy the new Windows 11.
MacBook Pro - I basically just use this for work, building the iOS/macOS builds of my apps, or Facetime.
Surface Pro 6 - I picked up the Surface a while back and it still runs great and is a quick portable way to bring a Windows machine with me. It’s great for low spec gaming too.
SP-Star Marble Soda Original switches Blue linear switches that are quiet enough and match the translucent blue of the Portico75 and Keysterine keycaps.
Kone XP - I wanted to try out a gaming mouse and this seemed like the perfect place to start. It’s light and has automatic profile switching between apps and games.
Logitech MX Ergo - I learned during quarantine that my hand starts to hurt after long periods of using a regular mouse. The MX Vertical is great but I’ve wanted to try a trackball mouse for a while.
Stream Deck - The answer to the question, “omg where is the hang up button on Zoom?!” It’s right there, on a physical button.
Opal C1 - This camera is pretty slick and in early beta. I hope to one day use it with Windows as well as Mac. As of this writing it runs 105°F when it’s not in use, the software is lacking, and it only works in Zoom and Chrome.
Pokémon Center × Grado Labs Pikachu Headphones - Thic cable, amazing sound, wearing all day leads to them getting a little uncomfortable, but they have a Pikachu on them so it’s five stars all around. And hey, approved by DankPods.
RAZER Kiyo Camera w/ Ring Light - Not a fan of Razer, but it solved a lighting issue for me. Where I cannot use the Opal C1, I will use this camera.
1Password - Use a password manager. Use unique passwords. Use two-factor auth. Just do it, already.
Affinity Designer - A full Illustrator experience on all of my devices, even iPad. No subscription fees.
Affinity Photo - A full Photoshop experience on all of my devices, even iPad. No subscription fees.
Fantastical - Not available on Windows. Fantastical merges a variety of calendars and todo lists together with custom views and natural language processing.
Microsoft Edge - Another Chromium based browser but without all the Google stuff. Tab napping to save resources on tabs you aren’t using is a huge plus.
Obsidian - A customizable library of Markdown files you can optionally apply end-to-end encryption to and sync.
VS Code - A fast and reliable code editor that is extendible. Runs on any platform either natively or in the web browser.
iOS
Blink Shell - SSH and Mosh support, now with the ability to mount SSH connections to the Files app, and the ability to launch VS Code.
Day One - Keeping a journal is a rewarding way to see how far you’ve come and remember important events in your life.
Inspect Browser - Inspect Element for iOS, not as full featured but the best and most reliable I’ve found.
Textastic - Old reliable code editor. It’s no VS Code, but it’s pretty good for prototyping HTML or JavaScript.
Working Copy - Git on iOS and it works with other apps.
Windows 11
PowerToys - There are so many features in here I love but I use FancyZones the most to move windows around in predetermined positions on my screen.
Velocity - This is like Dash for Mac but on Windows. It stores a variety of documentation for programming offline where you can easily search it for what you’re looking for.
macOS
Alfred - Quickly perform tasks, find apps and files, and manage your clipboard history.
Bartender - Everyone wants to be in the macOS menu bar. Hide those distractions.
Dash - Stores coding documentation offline where you can search it for what you’re looking for.
Hazel - Monitors files and performs actions when certain conditions are met. For example, I have a folder of Markdown files that will automatically commit itself to a Git repository when there are changes.
ImageOptim - Please don’t throw images up online without making sure their file size is as small as it can be without reducing image quality.
iStat Menus - What company spyware is causing my Mac to be so slow? Oh it’s probably just Docker. I hate it when Docker eats all available resources when it’s idle.
iTerm - A terminal that I can split the views in half vertically or horizontally. I swear I don’t use most of what this offers.
Keyboard Maestro - Set up custom actions on your Mac. I use it to extend what my Steam Deck can do.
Loopback - This is also primarily for the Steam Deck so I can play my annoying soundboard during work meetings.
Shush - This app hasn’t been updated in sooooo long and I fear for the day it stops working. It’s a great way to toggle the mute on your microphone or have a cough button.
Live Share - Invite someone you trust to code along side you each from the comfort of each other’s own VS Code.
Remote Development - I use this for connecting to a Windows Subsystem for Linux quite often, but it’s also great for working over SSH.
Sort lines - Like casing, there’s nothing like a quick way to remove duplicates from a list and sort it at the same time.
Turbo Console Log - Highlight text and press a keyboard shortcut to have your own easy to find console log. Each log is easily identifiable with an emoji, file name, and line number.
Browser Extensions
Multiplatform
Dark Reader - Outside of Safari, I use this to manually make bright websites that are hurting my eyes dark.
Refined GitHub - Various customizations for GitHub to fill some gaps.
Tabby Cat - No Safari support. Random cute cats in every tab.
uBlock Origin - No Safari support. Blocks ads and trackers for your security.
X to Y - Replace words in text or links with other text. I made this too!
Safari
1Blocker - Blocks ads and trackers for your security, even inside apps.
Baking Soda - Replaces all video players (except YouTube, see Vinegar below) with a native video player where you can choose to have picture-in-picture or stop that annoying auto-play
Noir - My preferred extension for applying dark mode to websites that haven’t implemented their own dark modes yet.
Vinegar - Replaces YouTube video players with one that supports picture-in-picture and stops that annoying auto-play. (use with Baking Soda to make all video players play nice)
Welcome to the blog that was known as melkat.link.
I had a fun technique for making a blog using a bookmarking service to act as my content management system. I never knew how the bookmarking service felt about how I was using it and it made my blog on external services.
A few months ago I heard about Astro, a new build tool for building websites in JavaScript. I’ve since made a few sites using it and have been pretty impressed. Before I was using Next.js, and I will continue to use it where appropriate.
The biggest change will be that I can no longer simply share a link to post on my blog. I will need to write a brand new Markdown file and deploy it, which brings it’s own set of benefits. For one, I can now write posts like this.
Ever think it would be funny to replace a word with another? Sick and tired of a website deadnaming you? You are going to enjoy X to Y! X to Y supports plain text, regex, and urls.
Tired of seeing “Safari cannot open the page because the address is invalid.” alerts when you try to open a magnet link? This Safari extension helps by adjusting the links to go through Put.io
The amount of talk about the environmentally harmful and the further harming of people who struggle financially is mind blowing but Doc put it in words the crypto-bros will understand. If they ever take their fingers out of their ears and stop shouting “na na na na i cant hear you.”
I never thought a game about spiders would happily capture me in it’s web, but here we are. Highly recommend this game, and it’s a steal for the price.
danah boyd’s piece from 2014 has always been facinating to me, but relating it to my own experiences around transitioning and the ways that I have percevied depth just feels like a lot of gender validation for me :)
We all know SMS two factor auth is very dangerous due to it’s insecure nature, but we don’t often here companies actually doing anything about it. Most won’t remove SMS two factor auth because they want your phone number so they can better target you with ads. Hopefully we start to see more people follow this trend, as everyone else is just playing security theatre.
This has long been true, but for some reason it still needs to be said: two-factor authentication over text message makes you less secure than not having it.
With the recent sexual assault allegations of former people’s champ GrandPooBear, I’ve been thinking a lot about his sudden heel turn, and I think this article hits him on the nose with a newspaper.
This article is a beautiful takedown of the fake feminism people sell. Though, this article fails to mention anything at all about trans issues, who are also deeply effected by mobilized angry white women trying to destroy feminism.
Cassidy had an excellent talk today about building an adventure game with NextJS, which is definitely in my interests because I’ve been building my own visual novel in NextJS over the last few months.