The Now Page

Of course I have to steal this excellent idea that I heard from David Sparks (MacSparky), which he stole from Derek Sivers. It's great for sharing what I'm doing with my life that can be viewed outside of a blog post.

I'm writing a series on owning a smart home

It's only three stories so far, but I'm going to expand as I can get reviews completed and time to share other details. Check out the links below:

Owning an Apple Home: Packing, moving out, moving in, and setting up

Once you get a smart home set up the way you want, moving is an incredible pain. Join Wes as he shuts down his old house, packs up all the gear, relocates everything, and deals with friction along the way.

AppleInsiderWesley Hilliard

Owning an Apple Home: HomePods as a whole-home audio system

Apple’s HomePod and HomePod mini are incredible additions to your smart home. Here’s how I’ve made use of Apple’s smart speaker after abandoning Sonos and other speakers.

AppleInsiderWesley Hilliard

Owning an Apple Home: implementing smart pet solutions

Apple Home may not address pets directly, but that shouldn’t mean your smart home doesn’t either. Litter boxes, feeders, sensors, and more can make your fluffy loved ones part of your tech life.

AppleInsiderWesley Hilliard

If you have any questions about owning a smart home or would like to see specific aspects covered, I'd love to hear from you! Reach out in comments here or on Bluesky.

We bought a house in March!

Becoming a homeowner is one of those dead American dreams that feel more like fantasy than anything. I'm fully aware that without my time in the military, I'd likely never be ready to purchase a home.

It's a cute house that fits Natalie and I's needs. That, and the cats love it.

I won't share photos here, but if you follow my writing, you'll undoubtedly see bits and pieces of my home as backgrounds in photos and reviews.

It has been a lot of work, but the office is now set up for video! You can see my desk setup in the background of the weekly AppleInsider Podcast.

I got married in October!

I proposed to Natalie on our fourth anniversary and she said yes! We got married on October 18th and it went perfectly.

The weather didn't want to cooperate, so it was a bit warmer than we'd have liked, but otherwise, it was an amazing day. We wrote our own vows and Natalie's were just beautiful while mine felt flat by comparison. Though, I've been told mine were good too.

I had a lot of fun setting up the tech for the wedding. We used Apple Invites for the digital invitations, recorded plenty of spatial video with my iPhone, and even did karaoke using Apple Music Sing. Even when I'm away getting married, Apple seems to find ways to creep in.

We're a few months on and it's been great. Our next goal is buying a house, which we're trying to do as soon as it is financially possible.

Revisiting Kingdom Hearts

A podcast from Mischa Stanton and Mayanna Berrin started a few weeks ago about Kingdom Hearts, and needless to say, it's right up my alley. Kingdom Hearts is one of my favorite game series of all time (competing with Final Fantasy VII) and this podcast helped reinvigorate some of my hype for the series.

As we await Kingdom Hearts IV, I've started replaying the original series from the start thanks to every game being easily available on PS4. I do wish they were enhanced for PS5, which is where I'm playing, but their load times aren't long anyway, so it's been a bearable revisit so far.

Maybe I'll write about Kingdom Hearts here one day, but for now, I'll enjoy just playing through Sora's crazy story of his fight against darkness and emo kids in hoods with his buddies Donald Duck and Goofy.

I'm playing through Kingdom Hearts 2 on Critical difficulty, and I forgot how punishing the beginning of the game is since you can't grind at all. Excited to get to the meat of the game where the battle system is just chaos.

Natalie really enjoyed the watch-through of the entire series with me. No kidding, we watched every cutscene of every game over a few weeks. Now that she is all caught up, she's just as excited as I am to see what's next for the series.

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I've worked hard to make this blog something people want to follow. Daily posts Monday to Thursday (as time permits) and a newsletter Friday, all for free!

The little bits you readers have contributed have been enough to keep things more or less break even!

Don't worry, I'm not leaving AppleInsider, but I do want a place that's just my own where others can enjoy this side of things from my perspective. Social media isn't what it used to be, and I honestly believe more people should just have websites where they share, create, and be themselves. And no, not all need to be monetized either.

I just think that too much of social media is fake or fleeting. At least with HilliTech, it's just me and it's here to stay. No feed to scroll through, no ads to interrupt, just my tech commentary, photos, and whatever else.

If you want to contribute today, I can't promise anything other than my gratitude for now. I've turned on memberships, commenting, and newsletters in an attempt to make this more of a total operation.

Thanks for visiting my Now Page. I'll keep this up to date with new projects and life updates.