As I have mentioned on previous workflow posts, I run two small businesses, a freelance business through which I offer Python development services and a start-up, flow.studio, which is a project management platform that specifically targets the fashion industry. Managing my time, invoicing as well as bookkeeping and taxes can be a time sink especially if you do not have specialist employees or partners to fall back on. I do work with an accountant who deals with my taxes, but all other admin is part of my daily workload. Efficiency is crucial in this regard as the amount of time I spend on admin obviously comes off the time I can sell to my clients or make progress on our product. In this post, I will explain how I integrate different services for banking, bookkeeping, time management and how all of this is glued together with Shortcuts on iOS. ... Read more

Ever since setting up my Mac mini home server as a companion to my existing Synology NAS, I have been looking to streamline my workflow for accessing the data on my NAS when working on iOS. My goal was to make file access as straight forward and secure as possible: security in this context means not exposing any services to the public internet and to incorporate strong authentication protocols. Ease of use requires the workflow to include modern iOS features such as drag and drop and support for the iOS Files app. When I heard about Secure ShellFish, a new app by Working Copy developer Anders Borum, which is currently in Beta, I had to become part of the TestFlight to see whether it could simplify my workflow. (Spoiler alert: It did.) ... Read more

One of the true advantages of using the static site generator Hugo on macOS is the hugo new command which creates a new Markdown file that has all the relevant metadata fields pre-created so that you only have to add a little bit of information and you’re ready to start writing a new blog post. Today, I ventured to replicate this functionality with Siri Shortcuts, so here’s how that went. ... Read more

At the beginning of 2019 I embarked on a little experiment. I had been an avid and happy user of Mac OS X (now macOS) since the early 2000s when I bought my first white plastic iBook and made the switch from Windows. Inspired by the articles of Federico Viticci on Macstories, I set out to explore how much of my entrenched Mac-based workflows for photography, development, business and writing this blog could be converted to iOS on the 10.5-inch iPad Pro. ... Read more