Ben Szymanski

Software Engineer • Umbraco Certified Master • πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ & 🐊

Blog Archive

Nah, the Umbraco Community Hasn't Lost Its Spark—We Have

Contrarian. Politically incorrect. Littered with curse words. But as objective and as truthful as I'm capable of comprehending.

Thursday, November 6, 2025

Apple Vision Pro

Some thoughts on what we should be building instead.

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

Podcast Wars

How does everyone keep up with all of this long-form content?

Monday, February 12, 2024

The State of Mac Automation

Why can't Apple's own system automation tools be that productive?

Thursday, November 16, 2023

The iPad in 2023

The iPad is in decline, and hardly anyone cares.

Monday, October 9, 2023

PowerMac G3 (Blue and White)

Drive 8 hours to pick up an old computer? Sure, why the hell not!

Sunday, September 24, 2023

The Strategy of the Mac Studio Display/Monitor

The Mac Studio display has been chided since its release as unnecessary, in both price and components. Could it be that we have been looking at is what the flat-panel Apple TV was supposed to be? A reused design?

Monday, July 3, 2023

The Storage Closet at The Murray Public Library

Find out what happened to Janet.

Thursday, April 6, 2023

Louis Rossmann Flees NYC

The message is strong - gtfo of states that can't manage themselves

Tuesday, March 28, 2023

Enthusiasts of the PowerMac 6100

Found a website dedicated to one of my favorites

Tuesday, March 7, 2023

Return of XServe

Maybe the Mac Pro should be discontinued

Wednesday, February 22, 2023

Window Focus

One of the worst annoyances of MacOS today is window focus.

Tuesday, November 29, 2022

Blue Box

Slowly realizing why the blue box was needed.

Saturday, November 26, 2022

Optimal Operating Systems

Documenting which operating systems work best on which machinery

Saturday, November 19, 2022

Aluminum Macs

As boring as these aluminum Macs are, they're going to age so much better.

Tuesday, October 25, 2022

My Least Favorite Mac

I love Macs, but not every Mac.

Thursday, September 29, 2022

Switching Back to Safari in 2022

Chrome or Safari? Pick one. (I pick Safari)

Thursday, September 15, 2022

FaceID Should Be Disabled

Reclaim your life by disabling FaceID

Monday, August 29, 2022

Site Redesign (Late 2022)

Time for another major site refresh.

Monday, August 29, 2022

FreeBSD Pilled

Everyone needs to get FreeBSD-pilled that FreeBSD is better than Linux.

Tuesday, March 22, 2022

Daylight Savings Time

No one would complain about the daylights savings changeover/spring forward if it happened during the workday.

Tuesday, March 15, 2022

Server Obsession

I am obsessed with server utility applications, and I have no idea why.

Wednesday, February 16, 2022

Two MacBook Pros

First generation Intel MacBook Pro, meet first generation M1 MacBook Pro.

Wednesday, February 16, 2022

Worldwide Software Engineer Appreciation

Worldwide software engineer appreciation week kicks off next week, 1/31.

Saturday, January 29, 2022

Saving 100+ Clamshell iBooks

Dedication to the cause of saving beautiful iBook G3s

Thursday, April 1, 2021

Setting Up a Chat Server

Adventure in setting up your own XMPP server

Wednesday, January 27, 2021

An Interview

Who is the man behind this blog?

Sunday, November 15, 2020

Your Computer Isn't Yours: A Response

Some thoughts on hardware lockdown.

Saturday, November 14, 2020

Elementary OS

Installing Elementary OS to determine if it's "good"

Monday, October 12, 2020

Becoming Umbraco Certified

Celebrating completing a professional certification.

Sunday, June 14, 2020

Video Games

I don't play videos games much these days, but these are the ones I used to like.

Wednesday, April 29, 2020

Backups

Using rsync to roll your own backup solution.

Saturday, April 4, 2020

Macintosh Aesthetic

A new photo blog for my Mac collection

Friday, March 20, 2020

Read-Write vs Read-Only on Twitter

Twitter is toxic AF tbh

Monday, March 16, 2020

You Are So Boring

The world is not boring, YOU are boring for paying attention to nothing!

Wednesday, February 26, 2020

Computing Should Be Fun! (Part 3)

What happened to computing? Picking some new hardware.

Sunday, February 23, 2020

That Time I Went Indie...

The truth about the time I tried to forge my own path.

Saturday, February 8, 2020

Computing Should Be Fun! (Part 2): Feedback

What happened to computing? Someone actually read this!

Saturday, January 25, 2020

Computing Should Be Fun! (Part 2)

What happened to computing? The Master Plan.

Wednesday, January 15, 2020

Computing Should Be Fun! (Part 1)

What happened to computing?

Saturday, December 28, 2019

How I Got Into Web Development

Everyone has to start somewhere, and this is my story.

Friday, November 22, 2019

Moltz's Pickup Lines for Geeks

Jokes that only nerds could get into

Monday, November 4, 2019

Life Hack: How to Deal With Spare Change

The best way to get rid of spare change is to wait until night falls, when the streets are empty, then go get groceries and dump it by the fistful into the self-check machines.

Tuesday, October 8, 2019

Administering Servers Used to be Fun

Administering Servers Used to be Fun

Monday, October 7, 2019

On Downloading App Store Software

Downloading software from the App Store is as dignified as sitting in the massage chairs in the middle of the hallways of your local indoor mall.

Thursday, October 3, 2019

Email Chains

Actually, everyone loves memes

Thursday, October 3, 2019

Music Surfing

The best way to find new tracks on Apple Music is to find a song you already know, search and let it play through the entire list of poorly matched songs it returns.

Monday, September 30, 2019

16:9 is an injustice forced on computer users by cinema loving nerds.

16:9 is an injustice forced on computer users by cinema loving nerds.

Thursday, July 25, 2019

Thread 500

You bootlicking fanboys know who you are, and you need to stop comparing everything to the iPod.

Sunday, April 14, 2019

Generations: The History of America''s Future, 1584 to 2069

Where does that generational theory/idea originate from?

Saturday, March 30, 2019

Photoshop Icons

Which version was the best?

Sunday, March 24, 2019

What a Computer is

In the days of multi-million (or more) dollar marketing budgets telling us that tablets are computers, I respond with this.

Monday, March 18, 2019

A Parking Lot Story

A Parking Lot Story

Tuesday, March 12, 2019

NGINX Sold

Well, I’m pretty glad I never turned into an NGINX kind of guy

Monday, March 11, 2019

2018 Mac mini

2018 Mac mini

Monday, November 19, 2018

Two Mean Things (iPad)

Two mean things you can do to someone.

Thursday, November 8, 2018

Is it a bug, or is it just incomplete?

This is your reminder to stop calling incomplete software "buggy."

Monday, February 5, 2018

Classic Finder

Shift timelines and run a clone of the classic Finder on your modern Mac!

Thursday, December 21, 2017

Blended Tech

What if we blended tech more invisibly into everyday things?

Thursday, December 21, 2017

Server Admin, Running in an iPad on a Mac

Memories of the time someone at Apple pasted in a screenshot of an iPad on top of MacOS

Saturday, December 9, 2017

The 2015 MacBook Pro

Critique of the critique of the MacBook Pro.

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

WebForms vs MVC

ASP.NET MVC vs WebForms

Friday, November 10, 2017

Switching to Grav

Trying out a new type of CMS for this site.

Saturday, March 25, 2017

Multi-Index Search in Umbraco Using Examine

Guide on using Examine multi-indexers and searchers in Umbraco.

Friday, October 14, 2016

Chrome and Web Animations

Careful with those javascript function names

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Shorthand in SVG, Core Graphics

Converting SVG paths to CoreGraphics paths.

Monday, December 21, 2015

Setting up ASP.NET/Mono on macOS

A guide on how to install and configure ASP.NET / Mono on macOS.

Monday, November 30, 2015

Setting up ASP.NET/Mono on macOS Server

A guide on how to install and configure ASP.NET / Mono on macOS Server.

Monday, November 9, 2015

Write Applications

I write #applications, not #tragedies.

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Novell

Novell poking fun at Microsoft

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Reminiscing About Old UI's

Comparing the interface of Panther and Yosemite

Thursday, April 30, 2015

The Best Terminal Startup

Using Terminal.app profiles to get up and going a bit quicker.

Sunday, March 1, 2015

Parallax Effects and Animation

What's missing from iOS's new parallax animations

Sunday, November 30, 2014

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