If you buy ebooks for Amazon’s Kindle, you’ll have realized that they come with copy protection called Digital Rights Management (DRM).

Unfortunately, the Kindle format is not compatible with all other ebook reading devices, so you’ll run into trouble if you want to use a tool like Calibre to convert your purchased books into a format compatible with your reading device unless that device happens to be a Kindle, in which case you’re good.

The solution is to use two plugins for Calibre as detailed in this excellent guide. Since I’m on a Mac, I could not get an older version of Kindle to work on Catalina, so I installed a virtualized Windows 8 and I was able to set up everything without a glitch.

One of the things I did this year was to buy a decent multipurpose backpack (The North Face Borealis) that I keep packed and ready to go.

This is one of the productivity hacks for this year. Instead of having to fumble around for stuff everytime I need to travel or leave the house to make sure I have everything I need, I just keep my bag stocked and ready. This applies to my travel cosmetic bag too. It means I have to own two copies of certain items, but it saves a ton of time and worry.

My Backpack

• Macbook 12 inch – still my favorite for travels and coffee shop work sessions
• Macbook power supply and chord
• iPad Pro 12.9″
• Two pens (one multicolor)
• Small notebook
• USB pen drive with attached USB-C adaptor
• Smartphone/Kindle holder
• Credit card wallet
• Hand cream (Cicaplast or L’Occitane)
• Raw Bite energy bar
• Pair of lenses
• Packet of tissues
• W5 wipes for glasses
• Hand sanitizer
• QCY wireless earbuds (I own several pairs of these as they are quite cheap, and just leave a pair of each in different places for convenience)
• Rode microphones (in case I want to interview someone)
• Round band aids (in case I have any sores while walking; sometimes one of my toes gets a bit bruised during padel matches)

I experimented with using the iPad Pro as my only device when going out, but I found it hard to get used to working on iOS. It’s doable especially for simple writing activities, and it feels more powerful than my Macbook, however, I just never felt 100% comfortable.

The new magic keyboard that Apple released this year feels really good, and the addition of the trackpad really gets it close to a laptop experience. In addition, you get a really nice camera, which is great for video calls, although I don’t like the weird angle that much. I tried out the keyboard for a week and felt good with it, and I especially like the fact that the base of the device is always cool, perfect for working on your lap during summer months. In the end, though, I returned it as I prefer the Macbook. I just wish the Macbook was more powerful and had more screen space. That would probably put me in Macbook Air territory, but the Air is not as handy and lightweight as the Macbook, even though the difference is small.

The great thing about working with the Macbook and the iPad is that I can easily have a dual monitor setup even when working in cafes or coworking spaces. That makes it excellent for productivity as I like working with dual monitor setups. All I need is a cable and the new Sidecar functionality on MacOS Catalina. Alternatively, there is the Duet app which works very well for me too.

I recently started getting a lot of spam comments on one of my sites, so I tried different techniques to stop that as the manual labor of doing it myself was getting exhausting.

Here’s what I tried:

• Akismet – I install it on every site but it wasn’t enough to stop spam on this site
• Project Honeypot – Ended up not implementing it as it was too cumbersome
• CleanTalk Anti-Spam – Did not pick up the vast majority of spam comments
• Anti-Spam – Did not do the job either
• Removed the URL field in the comment form – Didn’t help

Finally, I ended up installing the hCaptcha plugin and putting up a captcha for comment forms. I did this against my wishes as I hate captchas with a passion, and even that didn’t prevent the spam commenters.

Next, I installed Comment Blacklist Manager and AntiSpam Bee. I also installed WordFence in the hope that it would stop the spammers from even accessing the website. Too many requests from spammers to submit comments can slow down your website and affect performance too. I’m still monitoring the effects of these last two actions.

If anyone knows a better, automated solution that doesn’t involve captchas let me know in the comments below.

A reliable web framework is a prerequisite for smooth and effortless creation of applications and web resources. There are lots of options available on the market but not all of them perform the same functions and not all of them are equally good.

We’re going to narrow down the list of these options to JavaScript Vue, React, and Angular and discuss them in this article.

All of these frameworks are scalable, flexible, and suitable for the creation of a wide variety of web applications. Nevertheless, there are considerable differences between them that need to be taken into account by web developers.

So, Angular vs. React vs. Vue… Which one is the best?

I invite you to familiarize yourself with the strengths and weaknesses of each framework in question and decide which one to pick to create your next killer app.

[Read more…]