TLDR; I speak, AI writes.

There’s a new way AI has been helping me be more productive. I’m known as the “screencast guy” at work because I record a lot of my updates. To be honest, I’m not particularly skilled at crafting written content. I tend to work quickly, so quick screencasts have become my style. So I prefer to recording a screencast and using my voice and mouse to explain things quickly. But in the world I work in written content is super important. So, I’ve been using AI to help me overcome this problem.

It’s been quite simple. I even used it to write this post. I simply start Apple Dictation on my Mac and speak what I want to say.

The textual output isn’t always amazing (as you will see below), but with the addition of Apple Intelligence, I can select that text and ask it to rewrite it. Usually, it makes it far more coherent written version. Of course, I’ll read it and make a few minor edits and additions here and there, but beyond that, that’s how I create written content most of the time now.

Sometimes, I’ll take that content and use it in something more complex, like ChatGPT Canvas, and really let it go to work on it and create something more of a masterpiece. At work, I’ll also take the screencasts I usually do and give them to an app called Aiko, an app that converts video to a transcript. Then, I’ll either hand that transcript to Apple Intelligence—usually ChatGPT—to make it into a written form.

This has significantly simplified my life because I usually spend a considerable amount of time editing written content or writing content that I usually spend a lot of time on. What I write can sometimes be hard for others to understand because I’m just not great at writing, I tend to be repetitive, and over-explain things. But this has been a big game changer for all that. I’m one of those people who isn’t really into the whole AI hype still. I think AI is an amazing tool, but it’s not taking our jobs. It’s not coding for us. But, it can do things like this that really make you more productive. 

The original text from Apple Dictation:

“No, I’m not going to give you a giant list, not that kind of post. But, there has been a new way that AI has really been helping me be more productive. At work I’m known as the screencast guy, I record them all the time. Truth be told I’m not very good at creating well written content I would rather just record what I’m doing and use my voice to explain something so I’ve been using AI to sort of get around this problem and how I’ve been doing. It has been pretty simple I’m even using it to write this post. I simply start Apple dictation on my Mac and I speak what I wanna say now the textual output from that isn’t the most amazing thing, but with the addition of intelligence, I am able to then go select that text and ask it to do a rewrite, which usually makes it somewhat coherent. Of course read it and do a couple little edits here and there, but beyond that that’s kind of how I do written content now sometimes I’ll take that content into something a little more complex like ChatGPT canvas, and really go to work at it and create some kind of masterpiece usually at work sometimes I’ll take the screen cast that I will normally do and give it to AIKO an app that will convert video to a transcript and then hand that transcript either to Apple Intelligence or usually ChatGPT to make it make more sense this is made my life a lot easier because spending a lot of time editing, written content or writing written content to something that I struggle with often what I write is sometimes hard to understand for other people simply because I’m not great at writing, but this has been a big game changer for me. I am one of those guys that is not into the whole AI hype. I think AI is an amazing tool and it’s just that it’s not taking our jobs. It’s not coding for us, but he can do things like this that really make you more productive.”

Summer this year was long, fall was short, and the snow is already here…

I can’t remember the first blog post I ever wrote, but I do remember mis-spelling the title of that blog as Hello Wolrd and I left it that way. I always do this, I start a blog and I write the first post in it and I make excuses about how I need to re-start blogging and writing and ruminate about all the blogs I have had in the past and that this blog is going to be the one to rule them all.

This is another one of those posts!

Why?

I am turning 40 for the 2nd time Friday, and I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting older, but I’m getting really tired of the content on social media. I tend to have small things to say and I usually post on social media when I want to say it. A month ago I decided to get off social media for the rest of the year, and I’m even considering getting off it forever (or at least for a long time). But I still have things to say! Not much, but a few things. I also have said a lot in the past on all these various blogs and I do intend to port them over and back-date them to this site. Hopefully it becomes a place I can share what I think outside of social media, which has just become crazy these days. TBH the real reason I’m off social media is reels the doom-scrolling black holes of this feature of most social media really is the worst thing about social media. But, I digress…

An Update

Again, I can’t remember that last post I wrote but I currently work at AwesomeMotive after 7 years at WebDevStudios. I left WDS because I wanted to change the kind of work I was doing. They were a great company to work for and I often miss things about working at WDS. But I wanted to work on a single product or plugin, and that’s what I get to do everyday working on AffiliateWP.

What else? I’m living in Albuquerque, NM now. I lived in Phoenix for about 10 or so years and we moved back to New Mexico (grew up in Roswell, NM) to be closer to family and for our kids to enjoy time with their grandparents and great-grandparents. We moved here as a bit of an experiment, but it’s turned out to be a place we really love to live and watch our kids grow. So we’ll likely be here for a while.

Living in ABQ has really improved my involvement with the Tennis Community here. I’ve won a couple tournaments here and I really enjoy the people that make up this community. Every weekend just-about I’m playing Tennis!

So last night I decided I was going to try using Safari/Webkit DevTools. I asked myself: What is Firefox Developer Edition/Chrome DevTools giving me that Safari DevTools isn’t? I thought I’d try it out for a couple of weeks… I also asked myself the same thing about iTerm2, so I also decided to try out the basic macOS Terminal application.

Of course, I’m a stickler for UI consistency. It took some time for me to get Visual Studio Code to resemble WebKit DevTools, but I must say, I really like it!

Update: August 5, 2024 – I’ve switched back to iTerm as my Terminal. The reason? Panes. I simply didn’t like how Terminal.app handled panes, and I had a few instances where I wanted to use them. For example, I was using a command to transcribe some audio to text using Whisper, but I also needed to monitor htop because it was significantly impacting my CPU usage. I required a pane… unless I had a specific need. So, my philosophy has been to ask myself if a native macOS application provides what I require. As soon as I discover that a native app doesn’t offer what I need, I’ll consider alternatives. For instance, Raycast turned out that I only utilized 3% of its features. Since I switched to Spotlight, it has been more than sufficient.

Update: July 15, 2024 – I’ve also abandoned Raycast. I once again questioned whether I genuinely use it. In reality, I don’t think I do. I could, of course, but in truth, I only use about 10% of its features. Therefore, I disabled it (I’ll still utilize the AI features I paid for). I installed a snippet and clipboard history tool, enabled Spotlight, and moved on.

Update: June 11, 2024 – So far, I’m still using the built-in macOS Terminal and WebKit. Terminal has occasionally behaved erratically, but I always load up the application I’m working on in iTerm, and it usually turns out that the issue also occurs in iTerm. However, there are a few things I’ve had to compromise on in iTerm. It allows you to remap right ⌘ to CTRL, but I can’t do that in Terminal. That’s okay with me; I’ve simply remapped alt-s in Micro and called it a day. I don’t use panes (although panes are a pain, haha), but I’ll use tabs. So far, that’s it… I’m still waiting for a gotcha.

Update: June 3, 2024 – I’ve also been moving all my to-do lists (yes, even for work) to Reminders and using Notes more frequently. I’m genuinely enjoying the feeling of having less… less apps, less organizing!

Using automator make an app that runs this applescript:

on run {input, parameters}
    set targetURL to "https://example.com" -- Replace with your desired URL

    tell application "Safari"
        activate
        set windowList to windows
        set windowFound to false

        repeat with currentWindow in windowList
            if (URL of current tab of currentWindow) contains targetURL then
                set index of currentWindow to 1 -- Bring the window to the front
                set windowFound to true
                exit repeat
            end if
        end repeat

        if not windowFound then
            -- No window with the URL found, create a new one
            make new document with properties {URL:targetURL}
        end if
    end tell

    return input
end run

Change the URL, and save it as an application, and add that application to the dock.

This will automatically detect a window you already have open with the URL and activate it instead.