On Organizing My Notes & Ghost 6.0 is here

Philipp Temmel -

My name is Philipp and you are reading Creativerly, the internet corner where I unpack my musings, curate and write about noteworthy apps and software, and explore the latest trends in design and tech.

Hey and welcome to Creativerly 336 👋

A couple of weeks ago, I shared that I am feeling overwhelmed by working in tech right now, as the world around me is burning, fascism is rising, people are starving in Gaza, and minorities and trans people are at risk and are threatened. I teased that I will pack my thoughts into a blog post that I am going to publish on my personal website. It took me some additional time to write this blog post, since I am not only overwhelmed by working in tech right now, but I am overwhelmed by life. In my blog post, which I just published, you will find out why I am having an incredibly hard time navigating through life right now. It is the most personal post I have ever written. First, I was a bit hesitant whether I should publish it or not. However, I thought that by sharing my feelings, emotions, and struggles openly, people who are experiencing something similar feel seen and heard.

Each one of us is going through something, we all have to deal with problems and struggles. I do not have a solution to those kind of struggles, but I am taking small steps every single day in order to sort things out and get my spark back. Additionally, I got back to therapy, as sometimes you get faced with struggles that you can no longer deal with on your own.

I am feeling much better already, and I can feel how my energy and motivation to do things is slowly coming back. There is still a long way ahead, but I am open for this process. It is incredibly scary to walk down all those new and unexplored paths, but at the same time I am looking forward to all the new opportunities they are providing.

Take care!

I am overwhelmed by life · Philipp Temmel
It has never been this hard for me to navigate through life.
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Fresh Updates & News

Elements ships its 1.0 version →

Elements' website builder is no longer a beta as the team behind it just shipped version 1.0. Elements is a powerful macOS app to build modern and dynamic websites without the need to write code. It is powered by a WYSIWYG editor which makes editing blazingly fast and easy to use. Elements comes with built-in components like headings, galleries, grids, navigation, and more, giving you the possibility to get started quickly. Thanks to features like the Theme Studio you can create a consistent look and make global changes to your website in seconds, or by using the Resources Manager you can add files and folders to your project and manage them just like you would in the Finder.

According to Elements, over a thousand users have already moved their websites to Elements. In case you want to give a try too, you can download the free trial. With the code RWE20 you can get 20% off of your first year.

The Iconfactory is selling some of their apps →

The Iconfactory is a beloved company building eagerly beloved apps like Tapestry, Linea Sketch, Wallaroo, or Tot. There most popular app was called Twitterrific, a superb Twitter client, that had to shut down because of Elon Musk's third-party API shithousery.

In a recent published announcement, The Iconfactory shared the news that they are at crossroads and therefore, putting up several of its apps for sale due to a lack of resources. Unfortunately, side products can no longer be maintained. The Iconfactory will continue working on the above mentioned apps, as well as its new projects involving Retro Pixel Portraits, but besides that it is accepting offers for the other apps.

In case you or you know someone who could be interested in acquiring one or more of The Iconfactory's apps (including intellectual property, source code, etc) you can get in touch with them.

Ghost 6.0 is here and it is awesome →

Ghost's new major version is here and it brings so many great new features. The announcement post also includes the news that collectively, publishers on Ghost have now earned over $100M in revenue to support their work, which is a clear indicator that indie media is not just surviving, it is thriving. Probably the biggest feature that has been shipped with Ghost 6.0 is that Ghost publications are now connected with an open networks, which means people can discover, follow, like, and reply to your posts across Bluesky, Flipboard, Threads, Mastodon, WordPress, Ghost, and any other social web platform.

Additionally, Ghost has introduced a native analytics suite, which gives you detailed insights into how your content performs across web traffic, newsletters, and member subscriptions. Besides introducing new features, Ghost has also been hard at work improving and upgrading exisiting features. Among those improved features, you find a complete rewrite of Ghost Explore, featuring top indie publications from all over the world, newsletters have now custom design settings, new conditional cards for adveritising, premium previews for subscribers, built-in spam protection, and a lot more, their recommendations feature enables cross-promotion, improved payment experience with support for 135 currencies, and a many more improvements.

Mental Wealth

❯ Good design is imagination and inspiration – “In my recent talk at UX Scotland, I explored the theme of how good design shapes how people see the world. An important part of my thinking has always been that design needs ideas, big ideas that come from ambition and creativity.”

❯ Curiosity plus failure is a passport to brilliance – “Do you know which letter was the last one to be added to the English alphabet? Or which instrument was invented to sound like a human singing? Or what is the name of the galaxy that our planet Earth is part of?”

❯ The fuckity-fuck cycle we’re in right now. – “I don't remember what vehicle passed us but it made me think about how so much of our products these days look the same. From our vehicles to phones, even our color palettes, our world has been mostly homogenized. That got me thinking about the horrid colors, patterns, and design—or lack of—that dominated the 1970s. And then I kept going because design wasn't all that sucked back then. It was a decade of political dysfunction and economic inflation and stagnation. Architecture went beige or worse and the culture went flat. Even the future projected at the time was lame and boring.”

❯ On Organizing My Notes – “What follows is my thinking through and exploring the interplay of blogging and private journaling along with developing ideas; furthering inquiry. It is “stream of thought” with little refinement early on. Instead, the refinement arrives when I start outlining my solution.”

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Appendix

❯ ICYMI

Substack is back in the news for the worst reasons. It is still bonkers that so many independent writers are using Substack to publish online. In my newest post Is there really a choice for independent writers in selecting a platform, I explored the ethical and financial dilemmas independent journalists face when choosing platforms like Substack.

❯ Quick Bits

Till next time! 👋‌‌‌‌

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