That Jersey Gamer

14/06/2024

Kingdom Hearts launched on Steam. Of course I immediately cave and buy it. In about an hour I’ll be diving back into the series yet again.

20/01/2024

Back in 2021, Bethesda revealed that they had an Indiana Jones game in the works and I got pretty excited about it. The announcement had come within a year of me playing through the first three Uncharted games and I couldn't help but muse that Xbox didn't have an Uncharted competitor. I believed the then-untitled Indiana Jones game could be it, writing:...

Back in 2021, Bethesda revealed that they had an Indiana Jones game in the works and I got pretty excited about it. The announcement had come within a year of me playing through the first three Unc…

19/01/2024

I didn't realize that Rock Band 4 had been getting weekly DLC. for the last 8 years. Honestly impressed at Harmonix's dedication to their player base.

After over 8 years of weekly Rock Band 4 DLC releases, we’re here to let you know that January 25 will be the last DLC release of the RB4 era. All other live services will continue as normal,…

15/09/2023

Hey all, it's been a while since I've written here, life's still crazy but I'm still starting to get back into some kind of swing of things. I've been working a part time job with a team that I really enjoy and one day I know I'm going to be back where I was before I lost my previous job....

Hey all, it’s been a while since I’ve written here, life’s still crazy but I’m still starting to get back into some kind of swing of things. I’ve been working a part t…

06/02/2023

I was scrolling through my RSS feed when I came across an article from Matt Birchler over at Birchtree where he addressed the argument to add touch to macOS. This past week, this has been a topic that’s been on my mind a lot, due to a few videos and articles I’ve seen talking about this. I love what Matt’s done here though....

I was scrolling through my RSS feed when I came across an article from Matt Birchler over at Birchtree where he addressed the argument to add touch to macOS. This past week, this has been a topic t…

05/02/2023

Welcome back to another blog recap! I sucked this week, I really did, but I'm hopeful the coming week will better. I really can't publicly get into specifics, but things from last week bled into this week and will most likely impact the coming week as well. It's a lot, but I'll get through it all. Blog Recap This week I only managed to produce one post that, despite being very simple in nature, scored two shoutouts....

Welcome back to another blog recap! I sucked this week, I really did, but I’m hopeful the coming week will better. I really can’t publicly get into specifics, but things from last week …

31/01/2023

Last week I wrote about how I'd been getting back into listening to vinyl and shared a few ways to scrobble the records you play to your last.fm profile. At the time, I briefly wrote about a site called Vinyl Scrobbler where I said this: Vinyl Scrobbler has you create an account and adds records you scrobble to your collection so that you can re-scrobble them easier at a later date....

https://danstransky.wordpress.com/2023/01/30/this-shortcut-makes-using-vinyl-scrobbler-a-dream/

Last week I wrote about how I’d been getting back into listening to vinyl and shared a few ways to scrobble the records you play to your last.fm profile. At the time, I briefly wrote about a …

30/01/2023

Welcome back to the second weekly blog recap, as I work on getting all set up with hosting for an official news letter. This week was a bit of an interesting week. I've had a lot going on in my personal life and I've been hurting a bit in terms of energy so this week was I was really flying by the seat of my pants....

Welcome back to the second weekly blog recap, as I work on getting all set up with hosting for an official news letter. This week was a bit of an interesting week. I’ve had a lot going on in …

28/01/2023

Why does the iPad not show battery health in Settings: Battery? Source: John Gruber (@mastodon.social) I saw this toot from John Gruber on Mastodon the other day and it really got me thinking: all of Apple's devices do show battery health except for the iPad and that's the one I want to know the most. I know that my iPhone and Apple Watch have battery health that shows their age as I've had them for a number of years and use them extensively every day....

Why does the iPad not show battery health in Settings: Battery? Source: John Gruber (@mastodon.social) I saw this toot from John Gruber on Mastodon the other day and it really got me thinkin…

28/01/2023

A few days ago, I was scrolling though Mastodon when I happened upon the following toot from Matt Birchler: For those wondering, I lasted a day before I went to our record storage area and pulled out my favorites to listen to on my record player. Just in that first day, I threw on Dark Side of the Moon, a…...

A few days ago, I was scrolling though Mastodon when I happened upon the following toot from Matt Birchler: For those wondering, I lasted a day before I went to our record storage area and pulled o…

25/01/2023

Yesterday was a wonderful day: Apple pushed out an update to audioOS that finally activated the temperature and humidity sensor that's laid dormant in HomePod mini since launch. This sensor will also be in the full-sized HomePod (2nd Generation) the releases on February 3rd. Running on the iPad I've been really excited about this software update, as I have HomePod mini's throughout the house, so I'm excited to see the temperature variance between rooms....

https://danstransky.wordpress.com/2023/01/25/quickly-get-a-rooms-temperature-and-humidity-using-homepod-and-shortcuts/

Yesterday was a wonderful day: Apple pushed out an update to audioOS that finally activated the temperature and humidity sensor that’s laid dormant in HomePod mini since launch. This sensor w…

24/01/2023

Recently in the tech community, there's been a lot of conversation around OpenAI's Whisper engine, used to take audio recordings and transcribe them to text with a fairly high level of accuracy. Outside of that, there's been dialog about AI that's both good and bad. But Whisper has been fascinating to watch, as people have found ways to run it locally on a Mac....

https://danstransky.wordpress.com/2023/01/24/thinking-about-text-to-speech-ai-on-mac/

Recently in the tech community, there’s been a lot of conversation around OpenAI’s Whisper engine, used to take audio recordings and transcribe them to text with a fairly high level of …

23/01/2023

I've written before about my love of third-party Apple Music client Marvis Pro and I recently found a way to take further advantage of the customizability of the app that I love so much. One of the iOS features that Marvis allows you take advantage of is Live Activities. Currently, the app supports two styles: Now Playing and Up Next. Naturally, when Live Activity support came to the app, I immediately added an Up Next one, as I find that's a very valuable piece of information to have....

https://danstransky.wordpress.com/2023/01/23/using-marvis-pros-live-activities-for-an-even-better-apple-music-experience/

I’ve written before about my love of third-party Apple Music client Marvis Pro and I recently found a way to take further advantage of the customizability of the app that I love so much. One …

22/01/2023

👋 Hi everyone! I hope you're having a great weekend. Welcome to the first installment of what will eventually become my weekly newsletter. I'm currently in the process of figuring out hosting (more on that below) but for now, every Sunday I'll be putting up one of these blog recap posts. To see all of the past posts, I'm going to add a dedicated "Newsletter" page next week to assist with that, and permanent information about the newsletter once it's officially live....

https://danstransky.wordpress.com/2023/01/22/weekly-recap-beta-01/

👋 Hi everyone! I hope you’re having a great weekend. Welcome to the first installment of what will eventually become my weekly newsletter. I’m currently in the process of figuring out h…

21/01/2023

This week it was revealed that Amazon laid off 75% of its Comixology staff. This news came during a week where other high profile tech companies, such as Microsoft and Google, also made cuts to their workforces, leaving many seeking jobs. It goes without saying that anytime a company does a large round of layoffs and people's livelihoods are impacted, that it's sad....

https://danstransky.wordpress.com/2023/01/21/im-worried-about-comixologys-future-following-amazons-layoffs/

This week it was revealed that Amazon laid off 75% of its Comixology staff. This news came during a week where other high profile tech companies, such as Microsoft and Google, also made cuts to the…

20/01/2023

As the bird site continues to get worse and worse, I've found myself diving into Mastodon more and more. Being a decentralized social network means some of the recent events we've seen unfold with Twitter are incredibly unlikely, if not impossible, to happen with the elephant site. Unfortunately, despite being around for a few years, Mastodon is really just starting to grow, which means that app makers are having to quickly pivot from their fully featured, long-standing Twitter apps, to getting usable Mastodon apps out the door....

https://danstransky.wordpress.com/2023/01/20/how-to-easily-create-lists-on-mastodon/

As the bird site continues to get worse and worse, I’ve found myself diving into Mastodon more and more. Being a decentralized social network means some of the recent events we’ve seen …

20/01/2023

19/01/2023

Yesterday was a busy day for Apple. In addition to announcing HomePod (2nd Generation), the company also released five trailers for upcoming Apple TV+ shows. I decided to check all five trailers out and I have a few thoughts that I wrote on each. I'll be the first to admit that I'm very behind on Apple TV+ content, but I am slowly starting to catch up....

https://danstransky.wordpress.com/2023/01/19/spring-2023-apple-tv-trailer-thoughts/

Yesterday was a busy day for Apple. In addition to announcing HomePod (2nd Generation), the company also released five trailers for upcoming Apple TV+ shows. I decided to check all five trailers ou…

18/01/2023

HomePod (2nd Generation) - There's some very minor design changes, but this is basically the same design. Back in 2018, Apple got into the smart speaker game by releasing the first generation HomePod. In November of 2020, the HomePod mini was released, followed by the discontinuation of the first generation HomePod the following March. Unfortunately for those that picked up the device, came to find that overtime, the device didn't have the reliability that they were expecting....

https://danstransky.wordpress.com/2023/01/18/apple-finally-announces-homepod-2nd-generation/

HomePod (2nd Generation) – There’s some very minor design changes, but this is basically the same design. Back in 2018, Apple got into the smart speaker game by releasing the first gene…

18/01/2023

We've all been there before: you're scrolling on Tik Tok, or through Reels or YouTube Shorts when you hear a song that catches your ear. You look down to the little music identification area of the screen and instead of seeing About Damn Time by Lizzo, you see something to the effect of Original Audio by n00bmaster69. And it sucks because you just want to know the name of the song so that you can add it to your library....

https://danstransky.wordpress.com/2023/01/18/identify-music-in-online-videos-with-ios-control-center/

We’ve all been there before: you’re scrolling on Tik Tok, or through Reels or YouTube Shorts when you hear a song that catches your ear. You look down to the little music identification…

17/01/2023

Name: Remind Me FasterDeveloper: Nick LeithRelease Date: Nov 10, 2015Price: FreeLink: App Store My task manager is one of those things I often find myself rethinking. Your task manager isn't something that you want to be a dumping ground where tasks go to die, but you also don't want it to become all consuming of your life....

https://danstransky.wordpress.com/2023/01/17/remind-me-faster-app-spotlight/

Name: Remind Me FasterDeveloper: Nick LeithRelease Date: Nov 10, 2015Price: FreeLink: App Store My task manager is one of those things I often find myself rethinking. Your task manager isn’t …

16/01/2023

I was browsing YouTube the other day when this video came up in my feed. Because I've been working out and going to the gym more late, I've had this actual question on my mind and had been meaning to see if there were any videos on the subject. This is one of those times where, as much as I love my Apple Watch, I've wondered just how accurate a device on your wrist can be for tracking your steps....

https://danstransky.wordpress.com/2023/01/16/%f0%9f%94%97-can-you-trust-your-smartwatch/

I was browsing YouTube the other day when this video came up in my feed. Because I’ve been working out and going to the gym more late, I’ve had this actual question on my mind and had b…

15/01/2023

I hope you're all having a great Sunday. I wanted to take a few minutes to check in and give everyone some updates on myself, my content creation, and my hopes for the coming year. This is going to be a lot, but I'm hoping this will answer any questions that may come up alongside my sudden uptick in posting....

https://danstransky.wordpress.com/2023/01/15/state-of-the-blog-and-plans-for-2023/

I hope you’re all having a great Sunday. I wanted to take a few minutes to check in and give everyone some updates on myself, my content creation, and my hopes for the coming year. This is go…

14/01/2023

Tweetbot, Twitteriffic, and other popular third-party clients for Twitter are still completely broken due to issues with Twitter’s API. Despite growing complaints from Twitter users and developers alike, Elon Musk has remained silent. This is leading some people to speculate that this change is intentional and that Twitter is shutting down third-party clients altogether. Source: 9to5Mac So it looks like now under Elon, third-party Twitter applications are in utter shambles, though not all of them yet....

https://danstransky.wordpress.com/2023/01/14/the-twitter-api-debacle-shows-why-third-party-apis-are-important/

Tweetbot, Twitteriffic, and other popular third-party clients for Twitter are still completely broken due to issues with Twitter’s API. Despite growing complaints from Twitter users and developers …

11/04/2022

Square Enix and Disney have announced that 'Kingdom Hearts IV' is in the works and I couldn't be more excited. Check out my thoughts in this new blog post!

https://thatjerseygamer.wordpress.com/2022/04/11/kingdom-hearts-iv-is-in-the-works/

In a move that I didn’t think Square Enix and Disney would make, the two companies took time during a brief event celebrating the franchises’ 20th anniversary to announce both a new mob…

18/02/2022

Nintendo recently announced that in 2023, the eShop will be shutting down for both the Wii U and the Nintendo 2/3DS family of systems. While this means that prices of physical copies of platform exclusive games will now skyrocket, the bigger loss is that of the Virtual Console brand. Prior to the release of the Nintendo Switch, there was a section of the eShop dedicated to Virtual Console titles; Nintendo's way of giving modern-day gamers access to classic titles from the past....

https://thatjerseygamer.wordpress.com/2022/02/17/switch-online-virtual-console-and-why-nintendo-still-doesnt-get-it-right/

Nintendo recently announced that in 2023, the eShop will be shutting down for both the Wii U and the Nintendo 2/3DS family of systems. While this means that prices of physical copies of platform ex…

10/02/2022

Yesterday, Nintendo announced that they are releasing 48 new courses through the end of 2023 and I have a few thoughts on this.

The short version? 🥳

https://thatjerseygamer.wordpress.com/2022/02/10/remastered-courses-are-coming-to-mario-kart-8-deluxe/

When Nintendo announced that the first Nintendo Direct of 2022 would be Feb. 9th, speculation about what would be announced immediately ran rampant across the internet. One of the big requests a lo…

27/01/2022

Apple Has a Hidden Treasure Trove of AirPods Settings
https://thatjerseygamer.wordpress.com/2022/01/27/apple-has-a-hidden-treasure-trove-of-airpods-settings/

Visit the post for more.

10/09/2021

Sony held a State of Play yesterday and it was jam-packed with announcements that got me pretty excited. One thing that was abundantly clear by the end of catching up on what they showed, however, is that Sony really really wants me to buy a PlayStation 5. Up to this point, I'd lamented the fact that there really weren't enough exclusives for me to justify buying a PlayStation 5 when I already have a Series X....

https://thatjerseygamer.wordpress.com/2021/09/10/insomniac-has-two-marvel-games-coming-its-a-dream-come-true/

Sony held a State of Play yesterday and it was jam-packed with announcements that got me pretty excited. One thing that was abundantly clear by the end of catching up on what they showed, however, …

09/09/2021

First there was Clash Royale. Then there was the ill-fated Gears POP! (which I rather enjoyed). It seems now that same gameplay loop is coming to the LEGO Star Wars franchise, but with one big twist: the game is on Apple Arcade! That's right, ( currently listed as "coming soon" on the service. Ever since its launch, I've been trying to figure out what Apple's play with Apple Arcade actually is....

https://thatjerseygamer.wordpress.com/2021/09/09/lego-star-wars-battles-is-coming-soon-to-apple-arcade/

First there was Clash Royale. Then there was the ill-fated Gears POP! (which I rather enjoyed). It seems now that same gameplay loop is coming to the LEGO Star Wars franchise, but with one big twis…