Hi |FNAME|,

I enjoy talking to customers, both new and experienced. I try to listen and learn from every conversation, and one of the things I recently realized is that we should have a tour showcasing the main parts of Oryx. We worked hard to make it fun and easy to explore Oryx and grow into everything it can do, but the very beginning can be intimidating for new users. That's where the new tour comes in. If you step through it (linked below), I would love to hear your thoughts on the experience.

In other news, after much R&D, it is finally here: A gallery of Moonlander-loving cats! These are all real user images, and it's a part of our site that makes me quite happy (can you tell I'm a cat person?).

As always, thank you for reading, and you can write me anytime — ez@zsa.io, or just reply to this email.

All the best,
Erez

Saying hi to Oryx

A brief tour for new users

Oryx can do a lot, and so we wanted to create a short walkthrough to introduce people to the main parts of the app. This new tour takes maybe five minutes, start to finish. Time well spent, if you're new to the idea of configuring your layout.

Cats and keyboards

Oh so fluffy

What's the best thing you can put between the halves of your Moonlander? We now have the definitive answer. You can browse the gallery on your phone, but it's actually better on a desktop (there's an animated cat!).

Featured User Interview

Lacy Morrow

Senior Software Engineer @ Twilio

When his job went remote, Lacy kitted out an RV with a powerful, compact tech setup so he could work on the road. His main hobby? Building and racing drones.

"These are small quadcopters, about the size of a shoebox, that will hit speeds around 100 mph with ease."

Layout of the month

Layout of the month: Colemak-DH with Home Row Number Row & Thumb Shifts

What began as a journey to stop my wrist pain in August 2020, has led to some interesting changes in the way I think of the keyboard as a tool that can increase my efficiency, rather than trying to fit myself into its confines and limitations.

Layout of the month: Colemak-DH with Home Row Number Row & Thumb Shifts

Things we liked

Lurnby →

Make memory a choice

More than a “read-it-later” system. Allows you to save content to read later, but also mark up articles, and even make flashcards and review things you’ve learned. Open source (code is on GitHub).

Gambit →

Play chess in your terminal

Just what it says on the tin. Terminal-mode chess, written in Go. You can also play it over SSH. It does allow you to move pieces using the mouse (as well as the keyboard, naturally).

Joy.JS →

Make happy little programs

Interactive experiments with colors, shapes, and music, right in your browser. Quite a fun intro to programming.

Gemini →

An alternative to WWW

A stripped-down version of the Web, or a souped-up version of Gopher. Some interesting design decisions here, all meant to create a system of simple-to-read pages. No JavaScript or anything. Lots of clients for all sorts of platforms.

Minimator →

A minimalist graphical editor

Browser-based, but touch-friendly. You can make straight vertical and horizontal lines, as well as quarter circles. Can be used offline, and you can share a drawing in a way that lets people “replay” your work. All data is stored locally. Open-source.