general

When I released Time Out 4.0 recently, and cross-posted the release post to Reddit as usual, the first comment was:

Nice! Long list of features. Did you use AI?

I replied:

Yes, of course. There's no way I could have done all that so quickly otherwise. Codex is a useful tool to accelerate development... but it isn't as simple as a prompt; I have extensive instructions on coding style and functionality, and do multiple iterations to refine each enhancement. I am managing and designing each change, with just the grunt work of typing code delegated to Codex. AI is disruptive, and has negatively…

I received a support email from a Simon customer who had a hard drive failure, and lost their data. Worse still, they were in the process of recreating their Time Machine backup at the time, so didn't have a backup.

That prompted me to post about my backup strategy. When you live your life and make your living on computers, there is little more valuable than the data they contain. So it is critical to protect it from a loss that could set you back years.

Fortunately nowadays most important data is in the cloud... various remote servers. For example, if you use Apple Music, your music…

If you send an email to Dejal asking for support, you should expect a reply within 24 hours. If you don’t get one, chances are your email service has mis-flagged it as spam. So check your spam folder.

If you use the contact form, and request a reply, you will get an automated reply email from the Dejal server within minutes, acknowledging receipt. And will get a personal reply within 24 hours, if needed. So if you don’t get that automatic reply, again check your spam folder.

I know it’s frustrating to write to a company and not get a reply. As an indie developer, I strive to provide excellent…

Like other recent posts, this is an updated repost of an older post from the previous Dejal blog; here’s the original in the web archive for comparison.

I take a lot of screenshots while documenting my apps, and for my personal Sinclair Trails blog. While I’ve used third-party tools in the past, Apple’s built-in screenshot tools work really well.

The simplest is the whole-screen screenshot hotkey. Pressing ⇧⌘3 (⇧Command-3) will save a PNG image of the whole screen (or multiple pictures if you have multiple screens) to the Desktop. (You can change the hotkey via the System Settings ▸ Keyboard ▸…

Did you know that the Dejal blog is automatically cross-posted to Micro.blog, Mastodon, and Twitter?

You can read the blog on the Dejal website, via a RSS reader, on Micro.blog @dejal, on Mastodon @[email protected], or on Twitter @dejal.

No, I’m a solo developer, so have limited time, and choose to focus my skills on platforms I use. I believe that Apple devices are the best computing platforms, so only write software for Macs, iPhones, and iPads.

I don’t have any significant experience with other platforms, so can’t recommend alternatives for them.

The name "Dejal" is pronouced "DEE-JILL". It is not a French word, so should not be pronounced as "DAY-ZHAL" or other variations.

The name originated from the former initials of the founder of the company, David Sinclair — me. I used to be David J. Lambert, but my wife and I both changed our surnames to "Sinclair" when we got married, being people who like to make our own conventions (and we chose that name in part after my first computer, the Sinclair ZX81). Anyway, back around 1983 I needed a password, so an obvious (if simplistic) choice was something based on my initials. D.J.L. with some…