Polished Dog

The cover photo shows a little dog I saw outside. It’s kept in a fence, looks very well-groomed with nice fur, and was very obedient when told to sit. Very cute.

Record the down-to-earth trending technologies seen every week, and publish them here after screening. If you find it good, you can follow this weekly to get update notifications.

Ghostty: Another great terminal tool
https://ghostty.org/
Ghostty is a terminal tool that went viral over the weekend. It’s easy to configure, works well, and is fast. I’m currently testing it to see if it can replace my long-time favorite, Alacritty.

PowerToys: Open-source tools for Windows
https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys
Microsoft’s open-source PowerToys for Windows is quite impressive. It includes many practical features like window pinning, color picking, OCR text extraction, batch file renaming, image resizing, and window layouts. Highly recommended for Windows users.

Clay: High-performance UI layout library in C
https://github.com/nicbarker/clay
Found Clay, a high-performance UI layout library in C boasting microsecond-level performance. It uses a Flex-box like model and React-like syntax, making it much more approachable than typical low-level language tools. It can also be compiled into a 15kb uncompressed .wasm file for browser use.

Presenterm: Create presentations with Markdown
https://mfontanini.github.io/presenterm/
Presenterm is an interesting tool for creating slideshows using Markdown that run in the terminal. It supports images, animated GIFs, code highlighting, and PDF export—all basic presentation needs are covered.

Alibaba Cloud’s Wuying Cloud Desktop for cross-platform debugging
https://www.aliyun.com/product/ecs/wuying
Over the weekend, I needed to reproduce an issue for a Windows app but only had a Mac. Virtual machines are hard to use for development. I found Alibaba Cloud’s “Wuying” Cloud Desktop to be the best solution. For only 15 RMB, I got 10 hours of a very smooth Windows environment on my Mac—an excellent cross-platform debugging solution.

Just Looking Around

Douban 2024 Books of the Year
https://book.douban.com/annual/2024/?fullscreen=1
I found I’ve already read several books on this list this year. Many more to go—I’ll pick the good ones to read slowly.

Selecting a Chinese E-ink Reader
https://u.jd.com/s1ANtKm
I sold my Kindle because transferring books was a hassle. I picked up a domestic iReader Ocean 4 Turbo long-battery version. The 7-inch screen with ergonomic grip feels great. I love the minimalist black design without a logo on the front. Reading experience is solid, and with a WeChat Reading membership, it’s very convenient.