In this section, readers showcase their desks (and what's on them), explain what they use and how, and in the process, everyone learns something new. Check out other desks, and if you can, send in yours!
Hello! I’m Jônatas. I’m a developer and I also teach programming topics on my YouTube channel. Here, I work as a developer, take online German classes, stream on Twitch, and create videos for YouTube.
My setup starts with a Tuxedo InfinityBook Pro Gen 7, a company that makes Linux-focused laptops in Europe and has its own operating system, TuxedoOS. However, I use Arch Linux with the Cosmic Desktop; for recording, I switch to KDE Plasma instead of Cosmic.
With all eyes on the launch of Apple Intelligence in Brazil and other markets, an almost overlooked feature in iOS 18.4 emerged: ambient music buttons right in the Control Center.
There are four options: Sleep, Chill, Productivity, and Wellbeing. They join the background sounds introduced in iOS 15 back in 2021, bolstering the arsenal for those overwhelmed by the noise of modern life. Thank you, Apple! 🙏
Image: Manual do Usuário.
My excitement soon turned to frustration when I discovered that the Music app had to be installed for the iOS 18.4 ambient music feature to work. At first, I assumed this meant you needed an active Apple Music subscription—which, for me, is not the case.
I set that thought aside until I read this post showcasing the feature without any reference to Apple Music. Could it be that you don’t need a paid subscription for it? I downloaded the Music app and… indeed, you don’t need a subscription to enjoy the ambient music on iOS 18.4.
This discovery led me to another “issue”: having duplicate apps. I listen to music from *.mp3 files using the Doppi app. When I first embraced this lifestyle (believe me, it’s a lifestyle), I did check out the Music app, but I dismissed it for various reasons I can’t fully recall, aside from the fact that it won’t play *.flac files.
Returning to that point, the Music app still can’t handle *.flac files, though it does support ALAC, Apple’s lossless music format. I only have a few albums in *.flac—and you can probably guess where this is going.
I discovered two apps that can convert these files: XLD (macOS only) and Audio Converter (available for both macOS and Windows). Before resorting to a new app, I checked if ffmpeg—a command-line tool for converting media formats—could do the trick. Naturally, it could.
Further research led me to this script that converts files to *.m4a (the ALAC file format), preserving all metadata and even embedding an album cover image in the newly generated files.
Simply download the flac-to-alac.sh file, then run it like so:
The script’s creator warns not to add a trailing slash (/) at the end of any path. “This is a primitive script so treat it so.” In its simplicity and quirks, it works beautifully.
Once the conversion is complete, just drag the songs into the macOS Music app, connect your iPhone via cable, and sync your library through Finder.
One extra step I took was logging out and disabling everything related to Apple Music and the iTunes Store. I may have sacrificed some conveniences, like wireless syncing (although I suspect that depends on having an Apple Music subscription), but given all the horror stories about Apple messing with users’ music files, I think using a cable to transfer music is totally worth the extra effort — it’s a rare occurrence for me, anyway.
It’s easier to read outputs in apt 3.0.0 (left). Image: 9to5Linux.
Here’s something you don’t see every day: a major update to apt, the default package manager for Debian and derivative Linux distributions. Apt 3.0.0, accepted into Debian Sid (unstable) last Friday (4th), has a special appeal thanks to its revamped UI, featuring columns, padding, and even colors (!) to make outputs easier to read.
Apt 3.0.0 will be available in Debian 13 “Trixie”, scheduled for mid-2025, and in Ubuntu 25.04, which is expected to be released later this April.
This Wednesday (the 9th) we’re celebrating CSS Naked Day. You see, CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets, which is basically the “clothes” of a website — a super simple yet powerful language for styling web pages. Take a look at ours.
I thought I’d jump in on the fun! Just for today. Tomorrow (the 10th) the site will be back to normal.
Who needs Photoshop for simple things? The free website Curved Text Generator does what its name suggests: create curved texts. There are two creation modes, a free draw one and other with the “pen”, in which points and curvatures are spread on the canvas as if they were coordinates. And, of course, some customization options, such as font family and size, colors, and spacing.
WordPress is switching from three major releases a year to just one. This new cadence kicks in for 2025 — with WordPress 6.8, scheduled for next Tuesday (April 15th), set to be the only release for the year.
The change was announced during an online meeting with core contributors on March 27th, as reported by The Repository. Some of the contributors who attended the meeting shared their frustration, feeling that Matt Mullenweg, the project’s lead, had already made up his mind to slow the release cadence ahead of the discussion.
It’s worth noting that the cascade of bad news for WordPress seems to have started when Matt impulsively got himself and Automattic tangled in a legal battle with WP Engine over… well, who knows what exactly.
368 Chickens is a logic game, like “tie three equals together to eliminate them”, but with an end: the goal is to rescue… 368 chickens. It’s harder than it seems. Cool detail: the site saves the state of the match, that is, you can close the tab, come back later and continue from where you left off.
On March 26th, a major update — version 3.0.0 — was released, which the developers themselves dubbed as “😵💫The ‘Will Someone Please Explain To Me What Is Going On’ release 🤷”. Not a great sign. According to the changelog, it was based on a fork that’s quite different from the previous stable version it replaced.
I don’t follow the development of the Jellyfin app for Roku OS, so I got a bit of a shock when I turned on the TV and saw this update. It’s, well… different. The elements are all crammed on the screen, the exposed filters are way too distracting (and the “not played” filter is never remembered), and overall, it just looks off — subjective, I know.
By the way, I found out today that the old app was re-released on the Roku store as Jellyfin Legacy on April 1st. What a relief to go back to the old UI! The reason for keeping it available is that version 3.0.0 doesn’t work with older versions of the Jellyfin Server (10.7 and below). I couldn’t help but wonder if someone who’s been running a three years old outdated Jellyfin Server version will have the foresight to check the project’s repository when faced with an incompatible Roku OS app update, only to eventually discover that there’s a new — actually, the old — app available for download.
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Back in the day, I used to get excited about “major updates.” “Ooh, check out those Windows 7 visual effects!” “App XYZ is now easier to use!” and so on.
Sometimes I wonder if I’ve changed. I tend to think that’s not really the case. There was a lot of room for improvement back then, and developers and designers, alongside us users, were all learning how to navigate new digital interfaces for a wide range of everyday activities. Today, it feels like most UI and UX changes are done for their own sake with little reasoning or obvious benefit to the end user.
It’s interesting how this issue affects both proprietary software (like Apple’s) and open-sourced ones (like Jellyfin), though it feels like it happens more often with proprietary/closed software.
Is it too much to ask that they don’t mess with what isn’t broken? Or — even better — that they favor iterative improvements over abrupt changes?
With progress on large language models (LLMs) stalling, techbros in the industry have had to come up with new ways to signal progress and keep billions of investors’ dollars flowing while “artificial general intelligence” (sic) remains nowhere in sight.
This led to the emergence of nonsense such as the new “magic” version of ChatGPT that’s supposedly great at “creative writing,” autonomous “agents,” and more models that can “think” or “reason.” (All in quotes because these simulations are, at best, mediocre and often non-functional.)
Amid the parade of new applications for generative AI, “vibe coding” emerged — a term coined in February by Andrej Karpathy, co-founder of OpenAI.
In broad terms, vibe coding is a complete abstraction of software development. Instead of writing… code, the developer writes prompts in natural language to an AI, describing the software it hopes to achieve. The AI then spits out code which, if it doesn’t meet expectations, is reworked in the same way: with more natural language instructions given to the AI. In this setup, the developer essentially becomes a guesser. In the end — and with some luck — the session wraps up with a working application.
Programming is a powerful skill, even outside contexts like startups and world-changing ideas.
Does your phone run Android? If so, you might have noticed a new app called SafetyCore. Announced by Google in October 2024, the company has been rolling it out recently (at least here, in Brazil).
SafetyCore is designed for devices running Android 9 or later, takes up about 2 GB of storage, and according to Google “provides common infrastructure that apps can use to protect users from unwanted content.” The documentation also notes that “the classification of content runs exclusively on your device and the results aren’t shared with Google.”
Almost no one reads these docs or even warnings, alerts of an app. What definitely catches your eye is a new icon among your apps that seems to appear overnight. Is SafetyCore something to worry about?
It’s published on the Play Store and, like any other app over there, it gets ratings and comments. Its average rating is 3.5, with the highest (5) receiving the most votes overall and the lowest (1) not being insignificant in number. One standout negative comment sums up the problem (in Portuguese, here translated):
“The app installed on its own and when I tried to open it, it just showed the app info. I’m not sure if it’s legitimate or not, and that worries me and many other consumers, breaking our trust in the security of the operating system. A quick question: if the app is legitimate, is it supposed to have an icon and do something, or is it supposed to be hidden? Like, for example, Google Play Services.”
If I had to sum the issue up even more, I’d say that the way SafetyCore was released is an example of a lack of transparency and a disregard for user autonomy. No matter how good Google’s intentions may be — which, judging by the history of big tech, is far from a guarantee — this isn’t the right approach.
Apple isn’t off the hook either. At the end of December 2024, someone noticed a new option in Apple Photos: “Enhanced Visual Search,” on by default. It identifies the location of photos even when there are no geo location in the metadata, by recognizing landmarks in the images. The documentation explains that it “works without sending your photos or videos to Apple and without Apple learning about the information in those photos or videos.”
In both cases, trust is lost when features like these are enabled quietly, without giving users the option to opt-out — a practice that remind what malicious parties would adopt if their intention were installing malware on millions, even billions, of devices.
What’s frustrating is that these are promising features that seem like good ideas. Scanning for unwanted or malicious content on your device without sending data to Google’s cloud? A real step forward, if true. Improving photo search without handing over your images to a big tech company? Sounds great.
However, note that both promises are extremely difficult to verify since all the code is closed source. That alone is a huge red flag. Enabling these features by default without any notice only worsens the situation.
