Why It’s Been Quiet Around Here: After the Move, Settling Back In With Less Microsoft, and More iPhone

After a full month of moving, unpacking, and rebuilding my home office, things are finally back on track. I’m shifting more focus to iPhone content.

Hey everyone,

It’s been a few weeks since the last update. That’s not unusual. I never promised weekly posts, but the past month has been particularly disruptive for my home business.

We Moved Back to Our Main Floor Suite

After our main floor tenants moved out earlier this year, Mom and I decided to switch things up: we’re now living upstairs again, and the basement suite is being rented out. That decision made sense, but it meant tearing down and rebuilding my entire home office.

If you’ve ever moved a tech-heavy workspace, you know it’s not just a matter of plugging things back in, and it’s VERY time-consuming. There were boxes of cables to untangle (how? All I did was throw them in boxes!), hardware to reconfigure, and plenty of “why isn’t this working?” moments. Tech doesn’t like being moved or disconnected.

We got help moving the big stuff, and handled small stuff ourselves. In this world, you’re either spending time and energy to do it yourself, or paying someone or a service to do it for you.

It took most of June to pack, move, clean, unpack, and prepare the other suite for viewings. Fortunately, it paid off, and we found excellent new tenants who move in for August!

Mom’s Off House Sitting Again, and Things are Finally Settling Down

While all this was happening, we were also preparing for Mom to go away house and pet sitting again, which added another layer of complexity to the move and setup.

It wasn’t the first time she’s done this. It’s mainly how she’s enjoying her retirement so far, and we certainly appreciate the time apart, but the timing meant we had to juggle a lot at once. Now that she’s gone again and things are settling down, I’ll be able to refocus on my work, health, and daily routines.

Back At It

All of that took a toll on my productivity. With my home office in chaos, and priorities shifting daily, there just wasn’t any time to shoot videos or write many blog posts.

Now that the dust has settled, I’m slowly getting back to a more stable routine, and that means more regular content again.

Shifting Focus to iPhone

I’ve been a Windows user since 3.1, and my passion really took off during the XP era.

Check out my paid subscriber post for more details about my technology journey.

However, in recent years, especially with Microsoft making changes to Windows in bad faith, they continue to frustrate us with decisions that benefit THEM, not US.

They’ve put ads in, and have pushed Windows 11 upgrades for years when it was half-baked and not a good option for many. I continue to refuse to recommend it.

They’re phasing out Windows 10 support, or offering extended security updates out of spite, despite continued heavy reliance on it, because no one really wants Windows 11. Covering Windows has become more frustrating than rewarding to keep up with.

Helping people troubleshoot problems caused by a company that is no longer focused on the consumer, and does so out of spite isn’t how I want to spend my time and energy.

And frankly, there are plenty other places online to find those solutions.

So I’ve made a decision, I’m focusing more on the iPhone.

It’s a solid niche. People enjoy using their iPhones. The user experience is better, and Apple often makes a point of how proud they are to be consumer-focused. The features are usually thoughtful and useful, the apps are great, and the ecosystem (mostly) just works.

From a creator standpoint, it’s far more satisfying to show people how to get more out of something they already enjoy using than to help them put out fires caused by a system that increasingly tracks what they’re doing, and keeps moving the goalposts.

Going forward, expect more content focused on practical, helpful iPhone tips, settings worth adjusting, privacy settings you might have missed, time-saving tricks, and features that can genuinely improve your daily phone use, and of course the apps!

Depending on the response, I might switch to iPhone content entirely.

I’ll still occasionally link to useful Windows resources in separate posts when it makes sense, but my focus here is likely shifting to Apple’s iPhone.

What’s Next

Now that I’m back upstairs with a functioning home office and a little breathing room, I’m getting back into the swing of things, blogging, working with clients, and planning out future posts and videos. I’m doing better, and so is Nala. She’s clearly very happy to be back in her favorite sunlit spots, with more windows, and space to play. Here she is excitedly enjoying this space again, moments after being brought back upstairs.

Thanks for sticking around while everything was in flux. I’m looking forward to what’s next.

—Kevin