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Apple Invites is not a very good party planning app

More like Apple Only-use-if-you-have-iCloud-vites. I’m throwing a housewarming and I also subscribe to iCloud+, and at the center of that Venn diagram is Apple Invites – or so I thought. On the surface, Invites is a very straightforward application. Pick an event name, date, and location, and you’re set. You can add additional things, like a brief description, a shared photo album (which I could see being useful), website links, and shared music playlists. In practice, I doubt people would use those if I set it up, so you always need to plan for the lowest common denominator, or as some would say, KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid). I did just that. I created my event, picked a date/time, gave my address, and added a little photo of my dining room for some flair. A great invite, I thought. And, Apple claims it’s a cross-platform application. Doesn’t matter if you have an iPhone or Android, just text over the invite using the handy-dandy “Invite Guests” feature (with per-person custom links ...
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Revamping the DJ website is tougher than I thought

This might be more a critique of my motivation levels and less of my business ventures. I’ve been sitting here looking at my (now complete) DJ website  https://club.djnicky.net   which is a near- carbon copy of the old site. I haven’t started my “official” site that is aimed to promote my private events side of the business. Certainly, I have an  idea  for what it should look like, but it’s hard to start from scratch sometimes. What font should I use? Color scheme? Number of pages? Big home page or something short? And that’s just the style of the site. The bigger questions come from how much information I want to present. Some DJ companies will include pricing, some ask for form submissions, others still have packages at different tiers with set-rates. All compelling options, and, truly, I have not decided what’s best for me. I’ve been doing an hourly rate and it works great. That allows flexibility in pricing, equipment, and location, whereas package deals may requ...
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Website updates: I accidentally deleted all of my progress

The call is coming from inside the house. Since my last post, I’ve committed to the Wordpress switch. I wasn’t sure how that would go, given it’s been years (since my editor-in-chief days at The Mirada) since I’ve used it seriously. Even that was just posts, considering it was journalism-focused. But, ChatGPT let me know about “Elementor” which offered a lot of the same amenities I’m used to with the $167/two-year service. Of course, that pays for hosting too, but we’ll get to that. I’ve since cancelled the hosting plan for nalvarez.net , which now hosts a “Coming Soon!” page for whenever I get to that. Parallel to this, I wanted to rebrand my DJ website, from “me” to “Nightclub me” and “Private events me”, which of course requires a separate website. Naturally, I spun up another Wordpress container for the DJ website and began a faithful recreation. Over the last couple weeks, I slaved away, carefully replicating every element, text box, and photo. Now, with the 4th of July weekend,...
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Website builders are wildly overpriced

“There needs to be a website builder for the little guy. I feel like that’s an untapped market.” —Justin, my coworker Every two years, I’m faced with renewal options for both of my websites: nalvarez.net and djnicky.net . I built and host these with Zyro, which was recently bought by/merged with Hostinger. My personal site was purchased on a basic Zyro plan for $36 and that lasts two years. During my 2022 renewal, they grandfathered me in at that price, so once again my renewal cost was $36 for another two years. Then, this week, I get an email from Hostinger reminding me it is time to renew my website hosting plan. So you can imagine my surprise when I check the invoice to find a whopping $167 charge for the same two year plan . That’s a 363% increase in price. To my knowledge, there has not been any groundbreaking new features (unless you count the merger as a “feature”) and I’m even more puzzled as to why they wouldn’t honor a plan I was already using the past four years. Like ...
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Too much stuff, not enough space

Living in a studio comes with its challenges… mostly myself. After a recent trip, I came home disgusted at the state of my place. Not that it’s dirty or wall-to-wall in junk, but more the fact I had too much crap laying around. It gave me an overwhelming sense of dread just looking at my countertops, shelves, bathroom (my god - the horrors), etc. I hear my dad’s voice in my head (and see my parent’s garage) saying “don’t get rid of it, you might need it someday!” and while that may be true for the countless, mostly used 5w-20 oil cans in his garage (”use those first!”), I could not apply the same logic to old clothing, expired medicine, and other trinkets I haven’t touched since I bought them. Drawing from Dana K. White’s (and Marie Kondo’s, somewhat) teachings, I found myself asking a few essential questions: Have I used this in the last year? Do I care about the thing or is it just the memory associated with it? Would I pay to move this across the country? With those in mind, I g...
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Logistical lessons from a fraternity travel planner

Sometimes, if you want to guarantee that something is done right, you need to do it yourself. This was my thought process with a lot of things, especially those involving my time and my money. This often coalesced in the form of spring break trips (and similar excursions). I knew I wanted to bring a fun experience to the table and showcase my logistical skills. One thing I did know about my fraternity that created the challenge for me was their apprehension to spending money and their lack of time management. Fun! This post is about travel planning and I’ll mostly focus on my spring break trips, of which there have been three (avg. attendance of 12). However, I’ve applied some or all of the same methods to houseboats, camping, road trips, etc. Phase 1: Initial survey and location research You want to take a trip with the fellas, that’s great! The most difficult part of all this is finding dates that work for everyone. With spring break, it’s no issue since almost everyone is in scho...
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iOS 17: Finally, some useful changes

Maybe it isn’t the most groundbreaking update, but I see the value. Another end to the spring season means another WWDC from Apple. This time, they really surprised us all with the Vision Pro headset (blowing the Metaverse out of the water – not like that was going anywhere though). A new 15” Macbook Air was announced which seems interesting but only has two USB-C ports. And, of course, the yearly software updates with iOS/iPadOS 17 and MacOS Sonoma. I was particularly interested in the iOS update. There’s always some “who cares?” features: in this case, Standby (like an alarm clock) and the Health app changes. But for a decent portion of the other changes, I really thought “wow, I can see myself using that” often. In no particular order, here’s what I think is useful. Messages Considering a decent portion of my phone usage is from messages, any changes to how that works is bound to have an impact. I think Apple finally acknowledged iMessage apps weren’t all that great and put all of...
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