Jean Galea

I use Spotify all the time and find it highly annoying when the play button on my keyboard opens iTunes instead of controlling Spotify. This happens with other media buttons too once iTunes is open.

I don’t use iTunes at all so I found a solution to prevent this nonsense from happening. Follow the steps below if you want to do the same.

The first step is to diable Apple’s SIP. Once you apply the command to disable execution of iTunes you should perform the steps again to re-enable SIP.

1. From the Apple menu, choose “Restart…” > “Restart“.
2. Simultaneously press and hold the “Command” and “R” buttons. This will start you in Recovery Mode.
3. Select “Utilities” > “Terminal“.
4. Type one of the following, then press “Enter“:
   • Disable System Integrity Protection: csrutil disable
   • Enable System Integrity Protection: csrutil enable

Then restart and let the login proceed as normal. Once you’re in, run the following command:

sudo chmod -x /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunes

This will prevent iTunes from opening, so make sure that is what you really want. If you still want to use iTunes for any purpose (for example iPhone and iPad backups) this method above won’t work for you, as it will prevent the backups from taking place.

If you want to go back to default behavior, you can enter Terminal once again (make sure you disable SIP again before) and type in the following:

sudo chmod -x /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunes

Alternative: Using an Application

If you want to retain the ability to use iTunes for other purposes, and use Spotify for your media, I suggest installing the High Sierra Media Key Enabler. Download the app and move it to your Applications folder. Double-click to start it and you will see a black dot appear in your taskbar. Click on the dot and make sure that the option to start on session initialisation is ticked. Then change the option to give priority to Spotify over iTunes for your media keys.

That’s it! Enjoy your new found freedom from iTunes.

 

This is just a quick review of the Fitbit Alta HR that I’ve been using for around a year.

What I like

• The looks – it’s small enough to wear 24/7, and it’s cool to wear, also in part due to the fact that you can easily switch straps to other colours and materials.
• Sleep tracking – It does a very decent job of tracking sleeping patterns, and has helped me fine tune my sleep in order to sleep in time and get better rest. I especially like the fact that it tracks afternoon siestas, which I can then add to the previous nights’ hours. This would be very difficult if I would be doing manually.
• Reports – they’re fantastic both within the app and on the Fitbit website.

What I don’t like

• Heart rate monitoring inaccuracy – the heart rate monitor will consistently show a lower heart rate when exercising, especially with certain types of sport it seems. Having done some research, I discovered that many others have experienced this.It can be dangerous and cause you to overwork your heart, if you’re trying to train within certain heart rate zones.

  My Polar H10 sensor is almost 100% accurate and I have therefore switched exclusively to it while training. It’s a real pity as I love the Fitbit interface and its graphs that allow me to track heart rate evolution during padel matches and at rest over time.

I still use the Fitbit Alta HR, but not for its heart rate monitoring features. Mostly I use it for sleep monitoring, but if a similar device is created that can be easily switched to the Polar HR band when practicing sports, I would switch to it.

The problem with the Polar band is that it’s impractical to wear it 24/7, so ideally it would be a smartwatch or tracker that automatically switches to the Polar for heart rate recording whenever it is present.

Here’s one of my favorite quotes, although I don’t know its origins.

Find three hobbies you love: One to make you money, one to keep you fit, and one to be creative.

These can change over time, but right now for me these three are:

• investing
• padel
• reading/writing

I really think it’s important to have these three, not only because they’re your best chance to live a healthy and fulfilling life, but also because they feed into each other.

For example, to improve in padel and investing I read and write about these topics, and I can apply what I learnt from investing into the sport of padel. On the other hand, padel training has given me a lot of discipline and methodologies that I can then apply to my writing and investing.

The concept of them being named as hobbies also aligns with my idea that ideally there shouldn’t be a hard line between work and play in life. In fact I always strive to build a life that I don’t need to take a holiday from.

I don’t think of work as work and play as play. It’s all living. – Richard Branson

Most people go on holidays to forget their daily life during the rest of the year, while the most fulfilled and high performing people I know don’t have this concept in their lives. They find joy and fulfillment in their daily routines and if they take a holiday they don’t really treat it in the way that most people treat it. For them, it’s most likely part of the yearly routine and has a specific purpose that fits an overall goal.

What are your three hobbies?

I’ve recently started investing in Italian property through property crowdfunding platforms, and the reasons are the following:

• 5.1% more residential properties sold than 2016 (5 years growth in a row).
• Transactions value reached 11.2B€, which is higher than pre-crisis results (10.8B€ in 2007).
• 15% more Italians say that they want to buy a residential property.
• The commercial market increased 4.2% in terms of value, compared to 2016.
• International investors have gathered over 5,8 billion euros in real-estate investment in the country; which is almost 60% more than the same period the previous year.

Clearly, Italy is past the economic crisis, at least in terms of the property market. As always happens in such recovery and initial growth periods, the main cities are the hottest ones. If it’s your first time investing in Italy, I would suggest sticking with Milan.

Milan has a strong demographic growth (hence the need for more housing), a strong employment rate compared to the rest of the country, and an average workforce salary of 34,000€ per year.

Perhaps, more importantly, is the interest generated from foreign buyers and investors. We all know that Chinese and Russians have high net worth buyers that are fast acquiring European properties, and they are looking for quality properties in prestigious cities. Milan certainly fits the bill since it’s the capital of Italian fashion and is also one of the five shopping capitals of the world.

[Read more…]