Camiel Schoonens

Product and Technology enthusiast

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Default Apps – 2025

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This is the third year I’ve been doing a Default Apps list. The categories here are based on the app categories discussed in Hemispheric Views 097 – Duel of the Defaults! podcast. I placed a 🆕 icon in every category where I changed the app compared to last year. There is also a /Defaults page available on this domain.

  • 📨 🆕 Mail Client: Apple Mail
  • 📮 Mail Server: Office365
  • 📝 🆕 Notes: Mechanical pencil and Paper (Moleskine)
  • ✅ To-Do: Things
  • 📷 iPhone Photo Shooting: Camera
  • 🟦 Photo Management: Adobe Lightroom Classic for editing and Photos for organization
  • 📆 Calendar: Fantastical Calendar
  • 📁 Cloud File Storage: iCloud Drive
  • 📖 🆕 RSS: Unread with a self-hosted FreshRSS backend.
  • 🙍🏻Contacts: Apple Contacts
  • 🌐 Browser: Safari and Edge for work
  • 💬 🆕 Chat: Messages, WhatsApp, and Signal got added to the list this year.
  • 🔖 🆕 Bookmarks: LinkAce
  • 📑 🆕 Read It Later: Things
  • 📜 Word Processing: Word
  • 📈 Spreadsheets: Excel
  • 📊 Presentations: PowerPoint
  • 🛒 Shopping Lists: Things
  • 🍴 Meal Planning: Pen and Paper
  • 💰 Budgeting and Personal Finance: Banktivity
  • 📰 News: NRC, NOS and Tweakers.net
  • 🎵 Music: Apple Music
  • 🎤 🆕 Podcasts: Castro
  • 🔐 Password Management: 1Password

Additional categories, not mentioned in the original podcast episode:

  • 🔖 Journal: Day One
  • 🚀 Launcher: Alfred
  • 🗺️ Maps: Apple Maps
  • 🔐 🆕 VPN: Self-hosted always-on VPN on my Unifi Cloud Gateway Fiber
  • 🌦️ Weather: Carrot Weather

Back home from a week Down Under

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I’m back from a week of business travel to Melbourne and Sydney, Australia. I think the Sydney Opera House is one of the most magnificent buildings I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t stop looking at it; it’s so beautiful and well-designed architecturally.

Running for charity

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🇺🇸/🇬🇧
Hi everyone, don’t feel obligated to do anything, but every little bit helps.

On September 20th, I’ll be running the Dam tot Dam run with 15 colleagues to help children growing up in insecurity and uncertainty. As a team, we’re trying to raise at least €4,000. With this money, the Forgotten Child Foundation will give these children hope, peace, and a chance to just be children.

Every little bit helps, so will you join us and support me?

[Read more…] about Running for charity

Website Update

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I updated this website last night and made some final CSS changes to the front page this morning. I’m happy with how things have turned out. As you can see, I decided to design the front page around the topics that matter most to me: Running and Photography.

Apart from updating the design, I also updated the technology behind my site. As a result, everything posted here is automatically shared with the Fediverse. The easiest way to follow updates remains RSS, but if you prefer seeing these updates in your favorite Mastodon client, you can also follow the account @blog@camiel.schoonens.nl.

Now that the design and technology are in place, I will start structuring my content differently to make the overall browsing experience more consistent when browsing different site sections.

[Read more…] about Website Update

Berlin – Day 3

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Yesterday was my final day in Berlin with my son, but as we were traveling back home yesterday evening, I didn’t have the time yet to upload some pictures of what we did yesterday.

On our last morning we strolled along the city again and we visited the huge and beautiful Berlin Dom. We walked up the Dom tower to see Berlin from above (again). This experience was much more worth it than the one from Sunday evening when we went up to the famous TV tower.

In the afternoon went to the Tiergarten park and had lunch at Café am Neuen See. I recommend this place if you happen to be visiting Berlin during good spring or summer weather. It’s a nice and quiet place in a vast and vibrant city.

[Read more…] about Berlin – Day 3

Berlin – Day 1

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Our first afternoon in Berlin started with a ‘Warm Welcome.’ Apparently, public transport works a little differently here than in the Netherlands. As we forgot to stamp our train tickets, my son and I were fined 60 euros each. There is no exemption; “Rules are rules,” they said.

Anyhow, we took our loss and moved on. We had a great first afternoon in the city; we visited some prominent landmarks and drank along the river.

[Read more…] about Berlin – Day 1

AI assisted interviewing

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AI will not replace you, but people who use AI will.

I captured this quote from one of the speakers at our annual ReThink conference in Zürich last week. While it’s short and simple, I believe it holds a lot of truth. AI assistants will increase productivity massively, and because of this, the people who know best how to use such assistance and agents will have a considerable advantage over others.

I recently had a virtual interview with a candidate who captured my audio and passed my questions on to an agent who helped him answer them better. While I was initially amazed and somewhat opinionated, it also made me think positively about the candidate and how future-ready he was by applying new technology as it became available.

Default Apps – 2024

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Vorig jaar heb ik voor het eerst een lijst met mijn Default Apps samengesteld. De lijst is gebaseerd op de categorieën die werden besproken in de Hemispheric Views Podcast. In 2023 waren er bijna 300 luisteraars die hun eigen lijst publiceerden, zo ook ik.

De categorieën waarvan de default app is gewijzigd ten opzicht van vorig jaar heb ik een (🆕) emoji gegeven.

  • 📨 Mail Client: Outlook
  • 📮 Mail Server: Office365
  • 📝 🆕 Notes: ReMarkable Paper Pro
  • ✅ To-Do: Things
  • 📷 iPhone Photo Shooting: Camera
  • 🟦 Photo Management: Adobe Lightroom Classic for editing and Photos for organization
  • 📆 Calendar: Fantastical Calendar
  • 📁 Cloud File Storage: iCloud Drive
  • 📖 RSS: Reeder Classic with self-hosted FreshRSS
  • 🙍🏻 🆕 Contacts: Apple Contacts on iOS and Outlook on MacOS
  • 🌐 🆕 Browser: Safari and Edge for work
  • 💬 Chat: Messages and WhatsApp
  • 🔖 Bookmarks: Linkding
  • 📑 🆕 Read It Later: Reeder Classic with self-hosted FreshRSS
  • 📜 Word Processing: Word
  • 📈 Spreadsheets: Excel
  • 📊 Presentations: PowerPoint
  • 🛒 Shopping Lists: Things
  • 🍴 Meal Planning: Pen and Paper
  • 💰 Budgeting and Personal Finance: Banktivity
  • 📰 News: NRC, NOS and Tweakers.net
  • 🎵 Music: Apple Music
  • 🎤 Podcasts: Pocket Casts
  • 🔐 Password Management: 1Password

Extra categorieën die destijds niet in de podcast werden besproken:

Updates:

  • 2024/12/23: De lijst van 2023 met Default Apps bijgewerkt met in totaal 5 nieuwe apps dit jaar.

How I stay productive and go through my tasks

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I received a text message from a former colleague and friend about how I stay productive and avoid procrastination. This colleague is not the first to notice my strengths in this area and ask for tips, tricks, and book recommendations. So here I go.

First things first, there is no silver bullet to doing things right. Many things that work for me might or might not work for you. Ultimately, you need to design a system that works for you. Staying productive in my work and private life comes down to building habits, being consistent, and optimizing what needs improvement.

[Read more…] about How I stay productive and go through my tasks

“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”