Houssam Elbadissi ❄️

found some old C code i wrote long ago

this reply is so literally me

This. I haven't been here for so long (started at 17, now 22), but wow do I mourn all the little things, the manual craft, and all that.

But at the same time, I feel like I can do _so much more_ than I would've ever been able to do before with these agents, things I wouldn't have had time for...

Omg the smooth caret is one of my favorite little things in VS Code.

Glad to see it here too!

(and yes, moon sighting in morocco is a day later than most gulf countries; as is often the case due to difference in methodology)

And so Ramadan starts ✨
Gotta make it count, inshallah better and more fruitful than previous ones 🤲🏻

But this was still a very fortunate time to find out about this, given that Font Viewer isn't making much revenue to begin with, with a few purchases scattered across each month.

Since I'm about to release larger apps where I've invested a ton of time, it was good to figure this out before then!

Given that Brazil is one of the largest user-bases I have (aside from U.S, India, and some EU countries), this means a meaningful portion of revenue was lost to nothing.

Considering it's a one-time purchase, for a niche utility app with low retention, most of these users are never coming back.

Email from Google Payments support, in response to my request: Thank you for contacting the Google Payments Merchant team. I understand you have issues affecting your Brazil users where they are unable to purchase your apps. I'll be glad to assist. Upon checking, there was a previous verification requirement related to Brazil Seller Verification of Identity that you have not completed. It appears that this hold was applied on January 26, 2024 however, there was an agreement made with the verification team that you'll be allowed not to submit this verification provided that you'll no longer be selling your apps to users in Brazil. Since then, your Brazilian users have no longer been able to purchase your apps regardless what payment method they used. The hold was removed on April 26, 2024 that's why you're still capable of selling your apps to other regions except Brazil. If you'd like to sell your apps to users in Brazil again, please let me know so I can ask assistance from our specialist if this is possible. Currently, your account is in good standing. No pending issues or verifications that you need to fulfill. Thank you and have a great day!

After these 2 reports, and some back and forth with Play Console support, I've been told that there was some hold on my account, and that I should follow through with the Google Payments team instead.

And indeed, this is what the payments team had to say:

I've had intermittent "can't pay" reviews over the past 2 years, but I shrugged them off as one-off issues, particularly since none of them emailed with more context.

All I can see is the device language, which for the 2 users contacting me was Portuguese and English, no pattern to notice either.

TIL that Google had a payments hold on my Play Console account since January 2024 (!!!) that prevented sales to users in Brazil.

0 communicationt, no alerts to let me know, just a silent hold.

The reason I even investigated it is thanks to two Brazilian users reaching out in the last 2 months.

stat: continvoucly morging to my favorites, it's so timless

and ofc this is easier said than done! it takes a lot of experimentation and tweaking to get to something that's pretty good.

I've always been meaning to write up on these topics, hope to get to that someday (I keep procrastinating on setting up a blog 😅)

So if a user is using a fine input device (stylus or mouse), UI elements can be smaller and the layout can generally be more compact. You can bake this right into the design system (and code) from the start. If a keyboard is available, menus can show platform-appropriate shortcuts. And so on...

(heck, it could even be on a wall in an AR headset)

It's better imho to keep a unified design system, but one which is adaptive. Adaptation to screen size is already very common, but you can do a lot more than that based on platform capabilities/conventions (e.g. menu bar on macOS) and input types.

This comes with the benefit of easier maintenance, but also the fact that platforms are no longer purely "mice/keyboard" vs. "touch" anymore.

e.g. Android runs on stuff from phones to tablets to desktop as well (chromebooks), and desktop OSes can also be used in touch contexts (e.g. 2-in-1 laptops)

Depending on the current design system, you should generally be able to share quite a bit!

I feel like desktop and mobile have mostly converged to very similar patterns, and it's actually better that you do keep them close and/or unified, particularly if the code is shared.

How I, a non-developer, read the tutorial you, a developer, wrote for me, a beginner - annie's blog “Hello! I am a developer. Here is my relevant experience: I code in Hoobijag and sometimes jabbernocks and of course ABCDE++++ (but never ABCDE+/^+ are you kidding? ha!)  and I like working with ...

"How I, a non-developer, read the tutorial you, a developer, wrote for me, a beginner" by Annie Mueller 😅 😂 😭

anniemueller.com/posts/how-i-...

kotlin yaaaay

The following new buttons were added to the package details page on npmjs.org: “Analyze security,” “Check bundle size,” “View package health,” and “Explore dependencies.”

Well, well, well... look who suddenly remembered they can ship new features. Right after the community started working on an alternative. What a coincidence! 🙃

search results suck right now, use THIS instead YouTube video by Syntax

I have been using SearXNG as my daily driver search engine and it's been great!

I show what it is and how to set it up in my latest video

I also take a look at Perplexica - a self hosted AI answer engine that uses SearXNG under the hood

watch 🍿: www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pNM...

Just started using TickTick after years of failing to make Todoist work for me...

BOY what was I missing, this thing is incredible. Having tasks, notes, habits, countdowns, calendar, and many more features in one unified experience is just SO sleek.

Highly recommend!

Excited for what's next!

ooh sorry then! i assumed you were still the one running it 😅

man i just love patak's interactions with himself

Pro tip: enable "Require alt text before posting" in Bluesky's accessibility settings to never forget again: bsky.app/settings/acc...

And check your own score at cred.blue!

Alt Text Consistency card from cred.blue. A circular chart accompanied with text: "95 posts analyzed 19 contain images 2 are replies 3 posts have alt text 16% ☹️ (Last 90 Days)"

I need to be more diligent...

When I realized that I need to take 3 different kinds of medicine, several times a day each, for about a week, it was immediately clear which AI tool I'll use to vibe code a tracker app...

None of them.

This just needs a pen and paper.

Get your minds out of the gutter, people.

I'm also jumping on the RevenueCat train these days...

Initial setup can be a bit of a hassle (particularly the first time) but their dashboard is just so beautiful and functional!

One fun trend I see among KMP libraries is that JS support pushes authors to consider async APIs when their original design is sync (whether replacing it or being a second option)

Even Compose had to change many APIs due to (or thanks to?) JS requirements, same for multiplatform-settings