2023，0814-0820

This week, I needed a productivity tool pinned to my desktop to remind me what to do. Todo apps feel too heavy and inflexible without much ritual sense. So on Friday I brought back the old school productivity tool - sticky notes.

Zen Flip Clock App Store

Zen Flip Clock updated to version 4.3.3.

Last week when recording a video with Zen Flip Clock I noticed the flip sound had a bug where it occasionally wouldn't play. This week I fixed that bug.

I also added a cuckoo sound effect for the hourly chime. This has been in the backlog for a while and finally got it done.

I also added Thai localization. I used Claude 2 to translate all the localization strings but I think the large volume crashed it. Had to resort to ChatGPT for the remaining app descriptions which refused at first but did it after I clicked the thumbs down button!

Minimal Diary App Store

Minimal Diary updated to version 1.7.8.

I discovered a bug where images were not showing in the widget, caused by changes I made earlier to the image data structure without updating the widget logic.

Two other optimizations - improved audio playback like in Zen Flip Clock, and refined haptic feedback for smoother interactions.

Google Ads

My YouTube channel was growing subscriptions too slowly. Last week I tried a tip from a video - use Google Ads.

This was my first time with Google Ads. I added ¥100 without much research and ran an ad for my most popular video.

After a week it spent barely anything and got minimal new subscribers. So I created a new campaign with higher budget targeting my latest video. Impressions and views increased but still tiny growth in subs.

Not sure I can make this ad money back even with YPP...

Podcast

Recorded a podcast episode this week with 3 hosts from Indie Hackers(硬地骇客). Scheduling kept getting pushed back due to my personal time constraints. Was planning for after my kid started school in September but my wife took him out one Friday afternoon so I decided to squeeze it in then.

The hosts gave me the topics 2 weeks ago but I didn't think much about my answers since the recording date wasn't fixed. So I was unprepared. We chatted for another 30 mins after and I realized there was so much more I wanted to share but didn't cover. Felt bad for the hosts.

I've thought about starting my own podcast but don't have much content to put out, and would have to do solo episodes. Saw a very interesting animated show "BLUE LOCK" lately and found only 2 podcasts discussing it but quite superficial. Thought about doing my own episode but never executed.

Working Out

Got a 3 year gym membership last week, super cheap at ¥1300! The gym is 3 mins away by e-bike from home!

Went 4 times this week, 30-40 mins elliptical then 30 mins strength training. It's still summer break so the pool is filled with kids learning to swim. I'll swim after school starts in September.

This is maybe my nth time getting a gym membership. One motivator this time is my cardio fitness score has dropped 6 months in a row, triggering a warning in Apple's Health app. It's now 24.2. The other motivator is wanting to lose weight - I don't wanna die a fat guy!