Tidbits for 2024 Week 38
A silence of ten weeks, cannot be forgiven. My apologies dear reader, for absence of links. Testing something new then, hope itās as fun to click on as itās to save. Stay safe!
Rosemary Orchard announced Menubox, which seems to be Alex Hayās last app. Insta-download and support from me. As usual, it brings an elegant way to replace shortcuts.
I replaced Draftās floating window with Scratchpad this weekāāāwhich replaced Scrap Paper after less than a week. Itās a bit cleanerāāāand forces me to sort whatever I write. In reality, all 3 apps works fine.
Robata for macOS is a really cool take on on window switchingāāāwtill too beta for me, but thereās something there to revisit. However, with Sequoia window tilling, Iām going default for a while. One thing Iāll miss is Moomās resizing superpower. Free Swift Shift might be a good alternative.
Now that I didnāt renew Kagi, I might revisit Lucky Safari plugin to cleanup Google Search results.
After his Talk Show appearance, I downloaded VegasMate. Now Iām daydreaming of a WWDC friends reunion in Las Vegas for 2025.
I usually end up in Deckset when I need to do slides in a hurry. But āShowdown lets you also create a quick markdown-based presentation, and itās free.
Tidbits for 2024 Week 28
Itās Prime Day week, hopefully weāll get some savings in whatever rabbit hole weāre into. If not, hereās some links:
JuxtaText: free macOS compare & merge text tool.
Wipr: my new ad-blocker for Safari on all platforms.
Neo Network Utility: ye-old Network Utility is no more. This freeware allows to use Netstat, Ping, Lookup, Traceroute, Whois, Finger, Port Scan, and Network Speed in GUI style.
Facecam Neo: new $99 webcam from Elgato. Hereās hoping Opal releases a similar price-point soon.
Defer: task inbox app for iOS & macOS. Looks very easy to integrate into Shortcuts and Webhooks workflows.
Clamshell: macOS app for actions when the clamshell closes, specially Turn Off Displays & Prevent Idle Sleep.
Tidbits for 2024 Week 26
Summer is here. Hurricanes say so. Your favorite developers are head down working on new OS versions. But we must do with what we have. Hereās some links to keep us dry in the meantime:
Squoosh: web image optimizer to compress and compare images with different codecs from the browser.
Rocola: lightweight macOS app that plays ambient sounds from the Menubar.
Cursorcerer: macOS app to hide your cursor. Happily Iām not in a place that the mouse showing bothers me, but good to have around.
FUTO Keyboard: interesting (and very alpha) Android keyboard. Would try it for sure of available on iOS.
Fluid for Mac: local model (Llama and whisper) AI assistant. Good option if youāre on the paranoid side. Will keep an eye on it.
Tidbits for 2024 Week 25
Another week, another set of links. Summer is here and things usually slow down with developers work on big new releases. But AI is not resting and Apple public betas will be here soon. So theyāll be stuff to keep us entertained. In the meantime, hereās some links.
Reminders MenuBar: Simple and free macOS menu bar application to view and interact with reminders.
ClipBook: free macOS clipboard history app. I use Raycast for this, but simpler alternative to recommend.
āEscape: āfree iOS trip journal & travel diary. Still early, but the design intrigues me.
āWayther: āiOS App that shows real-time road conditions and weather forecasts along your route. Great for summer road trips.
āClipbud: pretty iOS snippet manager.
Muki: iOS app for creating and managing music playlists for kids. Apple Music only and the moment, but Spotify coming. Will keep an eye out.
Tidbits for 2024 Week 23
Match point Sunday everyone, it was Great Roland Garros tennis match today for anyone who got to see it. Of course BOOX introduces another e-ink device I want, but Iāll still wait until reMarkable updates its lineup. Luckily tomorrow we wonāt get any hardware at WWDC, although maybe theyāll say the minimal specs for something cool is something I donāt haveā¦ thatāll be expensive. Have a geeky week!
AirBattery for Mac: battery usage of all your devices at once. I actually use AirBuddy, but this free app shows promise.
Looks Like Rain: weather app for iOS and Mac with nice design.
SimplyWM: Iāve failed setting up many tiling window managers, this early beta at least got me to a place I could have an opinion using it.
Roman Roads Subway Map: by Sasha Trubetskoy. I want this for some wall somewhere.
AI File Renaming and Organization: for macOS. Still no price, but looks like a useful tool for file overload.
MediaMate: macOS notch HUD for Volume, Display, Keyboard Brightness and Now Playing features. Not for me, but looks nice and better prices than other apps.
Tidbits for 2024 Week 22
Evening fellow humans. Very long work week, so didnāt have a lot of browsing around time. Was pissed Spotify was bricking the CarThing, now it seems weāll get a a refund. Just one week till WWDC, my Super Bowl. Hereās some links:
Folder Colorizer: yet another Mac folder colorizer. It helps my procrastination to setup project folders. Thatās my thing. Donāt be like me.
PlayCover: run iOS apps and games natively with keymapping on Apple Silicon Macs. Havenāt tried it, but I think itāll come in useful someday.
Nomad Tracking Card: once my Chipolo or Aircard battery runs, Iāll look at this rechargeable option.
āDumbify: āyet another iOS minimalist Home Screen launcher.
āBMBX: āiOS beautifully designed streaming radio app.
Tidbits for 2024 Week 21
Evening tech racers. Hope some of you are enjoying a long weekend, and the rest are ready for Monday. We got great new Windows laptops this week, Iām not switching, but a worried Apple is always good news. My rabbit hole this week has been cases the convert an Apple Watch to an iPod like device, or a R1 like one - I shall have one.
Hereās a couple of apps to try this week. Stay safe and keep your battery charged.
QuickRecorder: free screen recorder for macOS that uses ScreenCapture Kit API, so you know thereās no funny business.
QuickTune 7 for macOS: Control Apple Music playback with an amazing reproduction of QuickTime 7. Beautiful.
How We Feel: great free iOS app to keep track of your emotions and over time spot patterns.
āFover: āinteresting new macOS app to move file and folders quickly. Just needs keyboard integration, but will be using it next few weeks.
Tidbits for 2024 Week 20
Hello humans of the web. A fun week for Ai, after which Iām more confused of who is the underdog. Amazing news if you use iA Writer and Dropbox. Iām also excited with yet-another eink(ish) tablet coming out this week. Closing the weekend by playing a retro games on the Apple TV with the kids. And with that, hereās some links:
āDeadlines: āiOS widgets that countdown with advanced filters based on Calendar Events and Reminders. Simple and very powerful. New addition to my homescreen.
Passage of Time: another iOS widget that showsā¦ the passage of time. Face your mortality, days until a vacation and more.
āLex.Games: Daily Word Games: āmultiple daily word games to play with, rather than doom scrolling. Iām really bad at these, but the developer is a nice person.
Bebop: Quick Notes: Very pretty notes capture app, compatible with infinite workflows.
Tidbits for 2024 Week 19
Hello world! what a fun week with new iPads and accessories. They all look amazing, but Iāll be keeping an eye on used iPad Proās prices. This week I finished re-reading all three 3 Body Problems booksāāāstill enjoyed them a lot. Started The Gentleman on Netflix with Ana, and we both seemed to have clicked on it. Iām also closer to buying yet-another-ereader, thanks to this article.
October: get highlights off Kobo send them to Readwise. FLOSS for Windows, macOS and Linux.
āNow Playing Plus: āWatchOS Complication for to audio controls, without needed to hunt around in the App List or Dock.
uFocus: minimal and free text editor for macOS/iOS. Been around for a few years and has some good reviews. Not sure how I missed it.
Reminder Sync for Obsidian: if Siri is getting smarter this year, I think Iād be using it this year.
Calendr: FLOSS Menu bar calendar for macOS. Iām taking a break from Fantastical, and this is the best alternative Iāve found.
Phanpy: Minimalistic opinionated Mastodon web client. I love Ivory, but sometimes you just want a quick glance at whatās happening online, and this is a great way.
Tidbits for 2024 Week 18
Theyāre back! The weekly tidbits I mean. After about a year Iām planning to start publishing again regularly. The good news is that I never stopped collecting links, so I have a good backlog to help me get back in the habit.
I went back to basics with Apps this week, see you next Sunday for more.
āSupercopy for Safari: ļæ¼ āmacOS, iOS/iPadOS, and visionOS extension that adds ā+ā§+C keyboard shortcut for copying the current tabās URL to the clipboard. If you use Arc as one of your browsers, you need this for sanity.
Tusks: ļæ¼ Write, update & organise threads on mastodon.
DropScout: ļæ¼ Amazon price alerts from your device. Loving this app as we get into summer sales season. Use it as a wishlist and figure out if a sale price is real.
Folderizer: ļæ¼ macOS folder icon replacement app. I have a bunch of similar apps, but this one makes it extra easy. Sadly OneDriveās folder changes donāt survive to other platforms, but great on the desktop.
Quotify: ļæ¼ iOS quotes organizer with widgets and easy import. A good alternative if you miss the venerable Quotebook. I now use Readwise, but Quotify design is so much nicer.
āTwodo: ļæ¼ āiOS app with 2 lists: āSoonerā and āLaterā. Simple and private.
Tidbits for 2023 Week 35
Control Panel for Twitter: browser extension which brings some sanity to the x.com clusterfudge. Canāt use Twitter without it.
JuxtaCode: good looking beta Git merge tool for macOS.
Trypa: trigger shortcuts based on environmental, hardware and system factors on macOS.
Dissolv for macOS : Hide inactive apps after an specified period. Replaces defunct Spirited Away app.
Applite: UI for Homebrew package manager. Good way to manage all those pesky apps that insist on having an AutoUpdate checking in login, or use .pkg installers.
S3 Files for iPhone, iPad & Mac: s3 buckets in the Files app, Finder, Shortcuts app & share sheet. Keeping around for rainy day.
Chantlings : musical app that let you explore tone and harmony. Letās say itās for the kids.
āFuoco : change focus of Portrait Mode photos in iOS.
Tidbits for 2023 Week 21
Stops: very nice iOS photography app with beautiful filters.
FileFillet : macOS app that stays on the left side of the screen, and makes copy/paste files to locations very easy.
AnyGPT: makes any text field in macOS becomes a ChatGPT prompt.
HackerNewt: iOS client for Hacker News that makes reading comments much less painful.
Pixian.AI: simple webapp to remove image backgrounds and no signup - just credit.
Sky Bridge: server that translates Mastodon requests into Bluesky ones, so you can use Mastodon apps. Still not Bluesky invite, but keeping around.
ProNotes: macOS Apple Notes extension which adds ChatGPT, Markdown, and other formatting. I feel the urge to use.
āvideo for ants: iOS app the will convert the format, compress the bitrate, and optimize the fps to make video smaller. Wish I had this a while back.
āNaptime: iOS tracking of baby nap times and awake windows. If this makes no sense, it might in the future.
Tidbits for 2023 Week 19
Soulver 3: for iPad is out. I mostly use v2 on iPhone, but very close to upgrading.
Foldie: Transfer files between Android and MacOS. Useful for my experiments with the 2023-03-22 Boox Leaf 2- eInk Review.
Introspect: iOS journaling app that uses ChatGPTās to ask questions about your writing. Very interesting.
Breveto: Yet another writing App for Mac. Looks very pretty, and in active development. Will keep an eye on it.
Table of contents: Safari extension for quickly documents for macOS and iOS. See a list of all headings in the page and click any to jump to it. Brilliant.
Praxis: Block scripts, trackers, and cookies on iOS. Waiting for iPad version to see if I can replace Brave for this use-case.
FSMonitor: macOS app that monitors all changes to the file system.
Tidbits for 2023 Week 14
Wins App: Yet another macOS window management app, but with a few nice touches. My new default app.
AI-Powered Regex Solver: looks good. Havenāt been able to show a work problem at it, but keeping the tab open.
Wavelength Group Chat: Another attempt at group chat. Shows promise, I like the threads model. Not sure how much itāll catch on my tribes. iOS/macOS only for now.
tsr: Simple csv-based timetracker for Raycast and Alfred. Very intriguing. Donāt want to mess with my setup, but worth a look.
OneCast: Xbox remote play for Mac, iOS and Apple TV. Didnāt know this existed, but keeping around for when we get a Flight Simulator Xbox
BoltGPT:Use ChatGPT and Stable Diffusion inside any macOS app.
Tidbits for 2023 Week 12
Departing Earth: free iOS app to track space launches.
Klack: really fun keystroke sound app for Mac. Works great when away from your mechanical keyboard and need the soothing rhythm for writing.
Little Snitch Mini: Excellent option if you want better control of your Mac network traffic.
Fileside: very interesting file manager with tiling pages for Mac and Windows. Seriously considering buying it.
Folders File Manager: Mac file manager for PC refugees. Not my thing, but nice design if you miss tree-style layout.
Chatterbox: ChatGPT wrapper on Mac with easy screenshots. Purchased it.
Tidbits for 2023 Week 8
- The Magic Highlighter: Safari Extension for iOS and Mac that highlights search terms on the web pages. Purchased.
- Zenitizer: minimal meditation timer for iOS and Apple Watch with Health, Widgets and Shortcuts support. In beta.
- MacWhisper: macOS interface to transcribe audio files into text with OpenAIās Whisper. Paid version includes largers models ($12)
- Transkript: Another macOS interface to transcribe audio files into text with OpenAIās Whisper. A lot more feature in paid version, but way more expensive.
Tidbits for 2023 Week 2
- Omnivore: free, open source, read-it-later app. Iām sticking with Reader, but excellent option to have around.
- HabitKit: iOS/Android habit tracking with github commit-like tile-based grid charts. Giving
- Followgraph for Mastodon: find new people to follow, by looking up your āfollowsā followsā. Very useful.
- El Pintador: StableDiffusion app for iOS to generate images from text. Build by Miguel de Icaza, using server processing. $2.99 a week.
- Amazing AI: Generate images from text using Stable Diffusion 1.5 on macOS. Optimized for M1/M2.
Tidbits for 2022 Week 47
Playground AI: Free Stable Diffusion image generation. Paid options for Dall-E. Simplest tool Iāve foud if you want to play with AI images.
Tweek Calendar: web-based minimal weekly planner & to-do list app. Nice printable PDF also. Keeping around.
Grila: macOS keyboard-driven calendar. Trying it out, not sure it will stick, but interesting.
Split CSV: Filter and split a CSV file into multiple files. Donāt need it nowadays, but I would have gladly paid $40 for this a few years back.
Haikei: Wave and others image generators. Useful for slide backgrounds.
Maparoni: macOS/iOS organise, explore and share map data using tables on a map. Not sure how, but will try it soon.
- Add to Obsidian Note: Configurable Draft action adds the content of the current draft to a selectable note in your Obsidian vault.
- Plain Text Editor: Simple free macOS text editor with āBrain Dump Modeā (no backspace). Good to have around.
- Flowist: Focus Mode for Todoist. Display one task at a time. Could be useful.
Tidbits for 2022 Week 43
- Medley: iOS music player that looks like pre-iOS 6 Music app. Sadly doesnāt work with Spotify.
- Buzz: OpenAIās Whisper for Intel Mac, Windows and Linux. No Apple Silicon yet.
- Whisper Memos: record voice memos in iOS and use OpenAI Whisper library to transcribe.
- Note: music(ish) app for iOS for beats, samples melodies. Part companion to desktop App.
- Velja: macOS browser picker with rules. Will likely replace Choosy for me after 14 years.
- Copy URL: macOS App that shows as a browser, copies the URL passed to it and then quits. Works great with Velja above.
Tidbits for 2022 Week 41
- Actions for Obsidian: Obsidian actions for Shortcuts on macOS and iOS.
- Ask Command: Mac app which runs terminal commands questions thru Open AIās GPT-3 before suggesting a command.
- Tot Mini: Tot app now has an Apple watch version.
- Quick Launch: Yet another iOS lock screen launch app — but free and from a great developer.
- āSoro: Shortcuts for Sonos.
Tidbits for 2022 Week 38
- Speedy: link to contacts from Lock Screen with WhatsApp support.
- Link HUB: launch links on iPhone, iPad and Mac.
- HabitBoard: simple and flexible habit tracker for iOS.
- LockFlow: free app to run shortcuts in the Lock Screen and Home Screen
- Mango Baby: Newborn Tracker with Siri Shortcuts.
- Lock Launcher: Yet another Lock Screen Widgets launcher.
- LineupSupply: iOS app to create playlists from music festival posters.
Tidbits for 2022 Week 35
- Teapodo: Lightweight Audio Editor for Mac and Windows.
- Until App: Track upcoming events with Widgets on iOS and WatchOS.
- Quick Capture: minimal not taking iOS app with keyboard, dictate and camera inputs.
- Cheqmark: online checklist maker that exports to PDF.
- Montaigne: Build a website, blog, or portfolio using Apple Notes. Keeping an eye on this one.
- Duolingo Math app: not out yet, but I signed up to the waitlist.
- Nomad Pen: very nice looking titinium pen.
- Reorder It!: for reordening a contact numbers in iOS.
- Airshow: Feedbinās iOS Podcast client now has CarPlay.
Tidbits for 2022 Week 26
- | InventoryWatchā>InventoryWatch: macOS app what monitors Apple Store inventory and notifies when model comes in-stock. This is going to be useful.
- Knotend: fast keyboard-first flowchart editor with collaboration.
- Like like: wandering through Twitter via likes. Fun.
- WorldWideWeb: lightweight, simple and free web server for Macās.
- Octave: learn and practice sheet music.
Tidbits for 2022 Week 22
- Tweet Sweeper: delete old tweets with multiple options. I use TweetDelete, but this has a nicer interface and set of options.
- FinderFix: open every new window in the exact same position and size you want it to.
- Letās Markdown!: collaborate on markdown files.
- Music MiniPlayer: replica of the classic iTunes MiniPlayer for Apple Music on macOS.
Tidbits for 2022 Week 21
- Screenie: macOS screenshot manager with OCR. Just saved me a bunch of time.
- PikaPods: interesting and cheap open source apps hosting — no mastodon though.
- Airplane for Mac: turns on/off Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and notifications.
- Runestone: Plain text editor for iPhone and iPad.
- Togethr: mastodon hosting with Pleroma frontend starting at$6.95/month.
- Motorist: vehicle maintenance app for iOS. A bit expensive.
Tidbits for 2022 Week 16
- Folder Peek: put folders in the menu bar. With hotkeys and drag-drop support. My new favorite app.
- Zas Editor: A new, capable, and fast code editor for macOS, focused on both reading and writing code.
one sec: forces an intermediate strep before launching Social Media app in iOS. Works great.
Github Pew pew: delete Github repos from CLI.
- Fitstatics: better iOS insights on health workouts.
- Friction: connect iPad to Mac to draw on and annotate the screen.
- āCosmic Pic: iOS App with daily astronomy image or video and explanations.
Tidbits for 2022 Week 13
- Dock App: basically icons that can show time, task, crypto or stock price on the Dock.
- Mastodon for iPad: official app now with iPad support.
- Timeow: open-source macOS menu bar app that displays how long youāve been actively using your computer. I use Aware, but will take a look.
- eesel Folders: New tab Chrome plugin (previusly) with new folder functionality.
Tidbits for 2022 Week 12
- Scaler Bandwidth Monitor: free menubar bandwidth monitor for macOS.
- Manila: Finder extension for changing folder colors. Love it.
- Smort: convert articles to markdown to edit, annotate and share.
- RunCat: cat animation to the menu bar that changes the speed depending on the CPU usage of Mac. They also have a store with dogs thankfully.
- LibreWolf: Firefox fork, focused on privacy and security.
- dotepub: bookmarklet to download page as epub/mobi.
- Muse for Mac: beta available. Very powerful iPad boards app.
Tidbits for 2022 Week 11
- Omnibookmarks: Chrome extension to quickly open/add bookmarks via keywords like a CLI.
- macOS File Summoner: create new files directly from finder.
- Substack App for iOS: all Substack subscriptions together.
- Logger: developer console for Shortcuts in iOS, iPadOS & macOS.
- Things Link: Obsidian plugin to create Things tasks and projects.
- Obsidian Plugins: official directory of plugins.
- Pure Paste: paste as plain text by default on macOS.
- Billboard: add a text to your Mac menu bar. Could be fun for video/screenshots eastern eggs.
- Windows Switcher: Switch windows of same app with `alt + `` on Windows. Donāt want to even think about when I would need this.
Tidbits for 2022 Week 7
- DevToys for macOS: mac app version of DevToys, in swift.
- DevToys: An offline Windows app that helps developers in daily tasks
- Little Faker: free Latin text and other fake data generator for macOS.
- Nautomate: Notion actions in Shortcuts, makes it easy to add & read values in a Notion database. In beta.
- FluTooth: utility that turns off Bluetooth when you close your MacBook, and turns it back on when you open it again.
- CloudpilotEmu: web-based emulator for PalmOS. Works great on iOS and my flashbacks are too many.
- Ochi: block apps & websites on on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Iām using Freedom, but this seems like an alternative.
- Play: bookmark YouTube videos to watch later on iPhone, iPad and Mac. Testing out this week.
Tidbits for 2022 Week 6
- Voiceliner: free voice transcript outliners for iOS and Android.
- Aeromatic: AeroPress recipies app for iOS.
- Zavala: Extremely clean free outliner for macOS/iOS.
- Centro 365: browser extension to quickly get to Microsoft 365 administration pages.
- Minimal 5.0: my preferred theme for Obsidian got a great update with new colors schemes.
Docflipper: macOS Cmd + Tab utility that ads a bottom row of bookmarks (Folders, URLs, URLs Schemes). Subscribed and added to my login apps.
Start11: Didnāt know Stardock was still around. People seem to be enjoying this Start menu enhancement on Windows 11.
- QSpace: A very powerful look macOS Finder enhancement.
- Replacicon: Great utililty to easily replace icons on macOS. Is it worth $5 for something Iāve done manually over years. Yes
- PanWriter: Free markdown two pane app for Mac/Windows/Linux. Good to have around.
- Padbury Clock: My favorite macOS screensaver is back!
Tidbits for 2021 Week 49
- Magnet Links: Safari extension that sends links to Put.io.
- File Picker: Access your local files and folders on the web.
- Speediness: Mac speed test app based on the
networkQuality
command-line tool.
- Otto Tabs: extension to group/stack tabs and removed duplicates. Works great in Vivaldi.
- Shortery: Automate Shortcuts on Mac.
- tldraw: A tiny little drawing app with collaboration.
- Writer: web plain text editor. Drag and drop files to open them.
Tidbits for 2021 Week 46
- beorg: iOS org-mode plain text files takes manager with iCloud, Dropbox, WebDAV sync services.
- Tabs Switcher: Safari and Chrome switching between tabs & windows on macOS.
- micro: modern terminal-based text editor Sublime-style multiple cursors.
- BetterDummy: dummy display for Apple Silicon/Intel Macs to have custom HiDPI Resolutions. Works great.
- Canvify: iOS app to preview how a photo would look like on the wall.
- Microsoft Edge for Linux available.
- Reminders Menu Bar: menu bar app to view and interact with reminders.
- TopNotch: hide the notch on new MacBook Proās.
Tidbits for 2021 Week 42
- komorebi: free tiling Window Management for Windows.
- Keypoints: upcoming Mac note-taking and PDF highlighting app which stores notes in Markdown format.
- Keyb: type with one hand on macOS. Hold down the spacebar, and the left and right half of your keyboard swap places.
- Obsidian Dynamic ToC: plugin for creating Tables of Contents that stay updated with document.
- Sloth: native Mac app that shows all open files, directories, sockets, pipes, and devices in use.
Tidbits for 2021 Week 40
- ActiveTab: makes it easier to spot the active tab in Safari 15 on Mac by drawing a line below it. How far have we fallen.
- Texty: native macOS app for Google Messages. Looks clean and fast — dreaming of a day I can use this for GoogleFi.
- WhichSpace: menubar item that shows which space is currently active on macOS.
tape it: iOS App for songwriting & audio recording. Looks simple and powerful. Looking for way to use it.
BrowserParrot: local browsing history search engine for Chrome, Brave, Firefox, and Safari. Currently on macOS only.
- Barrier: software that mimics the functionality of a KVM switch for Windows, macOS, Linux, FreeBSD.
Tidbits for 2021 Week 39
- OK JSON: Format and View JSON on macOS. Careful with what you paste online.
- macOS Tiger Wallpaper: beautiful Mac OS X Tiger (2005) wallpaper remixed for 2021.
- bonsai: interesting Web Browser for āresearchā. Some new usable new paradigms here.
- Mirror Magnet: Floating Camera Viewer for macOS. Useful for presenting.
- Peek v2: Advanced Quick Look for 324+ filetypes.
- Overbrowsered: open links in the most recently used browser, instead of a default one. Still using Choosy, but I like this model also.
- Booby Track: keep track of breastfeeds, on iPhone and Apple Watch. TMI, but this would have been useful 4 years ago.
- WebCrate: web based link organizer. Very interesting.
Tidbits for 2021 Week 34
- Monterey Themes for Alfred: collection of Alfred Powerpack Themes inspired by Appleās macOS Monterey appearance and accent color schemes.
- Spotiqueue: Terribly simple macOS app for keyboard-based queue-oriented Spotify client.
- ShowyEdge: super clear indicator of the current input source for macOS.
Tidbits for 2021 Week 33
- Fastmarks: powerful keyboard-driven bookmark manager for macOS. Almost ready to add this to my toolset.
- Dropbox Capture: Windows and macOS screen capture app. Iām happy with my Xnip and Cleanshot combo, but maybe useful if you use Dropbox.
- Fugit: nice looking digital desktop clock for macOS.
- Titls: iOS widget that adds titles to homescreens.
- Sniptt: end-to-end encrypted secrets via a one-time URL. Destructed once viewed, or after specified expiration.
Tidbits for 2021 Week 31
- Mastodon for iPhone: official app is out.
- Alfred workflow for Obsidian: lots of features/keywords to open, search, append from Alfred into Obsidian.
- Anybuffer: newish clipboard manager for iOS.
- TRex: free text extraction tool for macOS. I use TextSniper, but this seems very similar.
- Mastodon Twitter Crossposter: connect a Mastodon account and a Twitter account and cross-post with options. Will be playing with this.
Tidbits for 2021 Week 28
- Esse: out of nowhere text transformation for iOS and macOS.
- Mailo: Mail to self reincarnated for iOS.
- Brickit: iOS (soon Android) app to get Lego ideas from showing it your bricks.
- Fomalhaut2: nice and free comic viewer for macOS.
- Transloader: start downloads on Macs remotely from iOS, or other Macs.
- Dynamo: Safari extension to control YouTubeās speed and skip ads.
- Moped: full native Notepad macOS, with a touch of modern syntax highlight and themes.
- Fontshare: very nice professional grade fonts free for personal and commercial use.
Tidbits for 2021 Week 25
- WordCounter: tracks your writing productivity on MacOS.
- Calendar Paste 3: iOS event template builder to organize recurring events.
- One Goal: have goal always visible on the menu bar.
- Moodmonk: iOS mood journal that suggest positive content, daily affirmations, exercises, and thoughts.
- Profilehunt: Kanban board for job hunting.
- Catapult: macOS menu-app that letās you create or open your projects easily.
Tidbits for 2021 Week 22
- McClockface: collection timepiece widgets for the home screen.
- Cloudron: self-hosting app manager and store.
- WidgeTube: YouTube videos widget on the Home Screen.
- SlideMark: Web app for creating markdown slides.
- Trexy: Track Expenses Easily
- Numbr: web currency calculator combined with a notepad.
- UTC Time: Show the time in UTC in the menu bar or a widget.
Tidbits for 2021 Week 20
- Sleeve: currently playing track from Spotify & Apple Music, displayed right on Mac desktop.
- VitalSigns 3: macOS system monitor for intel and M1 (beta).
- Brave Playlist: Save for later for YouTube, Twitch, Vimeo, Soundcloud and nearly any podcast. Interesting.
Tidbits for 2021 Week 18
- Artbox 2: store kids art iOS app.
- Charmstone: open up to 8 apps with a small overlay triggered from a shortcut.
- PolyGit: full powered iOS Git Client.
- Menuwhere: show macOS front app menus at the current mouse location.
Tidbits for 2021 Week 15
- Bird Folder: Name new folders after random birds in macOS. Stupid, yet brilliant.
- See a satellite tonight: ugly but great webapp to try to catch satellites.
- KINTO 600ml coffee server: love the two minimal dots to measure. Added to wishlist.
- Dolt: SQL database that you can fork, clone, branch, merge, push and pull just like a git repository. I want ro use this off something.
- ā>Typewriter: Markdown editor for macOS and iOS with syntax highlighting and live preview support.
- Wormhole: share files with end-to-end encryption and a link that automatically expires.
Tidbits for 2021 Week 12
- Mac Mouse Fix: my favorite mouse utility is now an App that works great with Big Sur.
- UTM: QEMU frontend for M1 Macs. Looks nice and it uses Appleās Hypervisor virtualization framework to run ARM64 OSās. Will look at this with some bash scripts I need to work on soon.
- Bookfeed.io: RSS feed of all newly released books from your favorite authors. Subscribed.
- xbar: a BitBar reboot for the Mac menubar with hundreds of plugins.
- Plug: Mac player for Hype Machine
- DisplayBuddy: Control external displays from your Mac menu bar. No M1 version yet.
- Scan Thing: fun scanner that lets extract objects, text, images from the real world for iOS and Mac.
- Aqueux: OS X Tiger inspired collection of dynamic wallpapers, for desktop & mobile. Instant purchase.
Tidbits for 2021 Week 4
- Hush: Block nags to accept cookies and privacy invasive tracking in Safari on Mac, iPhone and iPad.
- Iconduck: thousands of downloadable open source icons and illustrations.
- Noo: map mouse buttons and multi-touch gestures to keys.
- Cycles: another simple timer made in swiftui.
- timer-app: a simple free Timer app for Mac.
- Gitify: GitHub notifications on the menu bar for Mac/Win/Linux.
- spotter: open source launcher for macOS.
- yabai: Another tiling window management for the Mac. I might try this one.
- The Unfinished Swan: beautiful game originally released on PlayStation, now on iOS.
- Haste: Web search app for macOS. Good option if you donāt use LaunchBar or Alfred.
- TV Forecast: Pretty TV shows tracker and explorer for iOS.
Tidbits for 2021 Week 3
- Whirl: iPad app for ephemeral sketching.
- Spaceman: View your Spacesā/āVirtual Desktops number or name in the menu bar.
- Analog: Beautiful paper card based productivity system.
- CotEditor: Swift Plain-Text Editor for macOS.
Tidbits for 2021 Week 2
- Unclack: macOS utility that mutes your microphone while you type.
- OpenIn.app: macOS application for smart link handling for browsers, emails and files.
- TabFS: browser extension that mounts your browser tabs as a filesystem.
- California Coast Obsidian Theme: the most macOS native theme Iāve seen for Obsidian.
- Apparency: Preview macOS Apps details like Gatekeeper, notarization, hardening, entitlements and more. Includes Quicklook plugin.
- iPreview: Everything geeky Quicklook plugin — since Glance appears to have stopped working.
Tidbits for 2020 Week 50
- Soundore: browser ambient noise generator. Scroll down for more options.
- OneTab: convert all of your tabs into a list, now available for Safari 14.
- Hookshot: macOS Window Snapping with cursor gestures. Trying it out this week.
Tidbits for 2020 Week 49
- — Get just textā>text.fish: Useful page reader than can get around some paywalls.
- Ejectify: Automatically unmounts external volumes when your Mac starts sleeping.
- Grist: open-source SQLite-based spreadsheet with Python formulas. I like.
- Radicle: secure peer-to-peer code hosting. This could be the start of something.
Tidbits for 2020 Week 48
- TEXTREME: text processor with crazy effects.
- Is Apple silicon ready?: great resource to check if Apps are universal yet. The more info links are great to see whatās the official word.
- Mail-To-Merge: rudimentary-yet-smart mail merge solution to get you out of a bind.
- Badgen: cool badge generating service.
- Universe app for building websites now available for Mac.
Tidbits for 2020 Week 45
- TripMode 3: if you work remote on slow internet or with data caps, this is the app to have.
- Raycast: VC backed next-gen launcher with multiple integrations (Github, Google Docs, etc). Very interesting.
- Dendron: open-source markdown notes tool built on top of VSCode.
Note taking is officially a fad. W00t.
- Polar: Integrated reading environment for EPUBs, PDFs, & web pages. Love this new crop of geeky desktop apps.
- Cometeer: Nitro frozen coffee capsules. Iād try this.
Tidbits for 2020 Week 43
- Planet eBook: Classic literature publications with better formatting.
- Bongo Cat: Hit the bongos like Bongo Cat! a meme webapp.
- Tinysheet: tiny spreadsheet with minimal functions, easy to use on mobile touchscreen keyboards.
- Pitch presentation in open beta. Beautiful decks for power teams with integrations. Next Gen powerpoint basically.
- | 1Passwordā>1Password for Linux beta now open.
Tidbits for 2020 Week 42
- Recorder for Pixel Phones: seems extremely useful.
- WARP for macOS and Windows: WireGuard tunnel through a Cloudflare data center.
- Appointed Digital Collection: free beautiful PDF downloads of many productivity and planning templates.
- Maestral: A lightweight and open-source Dropbox client for macOS and Linux.
- PiP-it!: workaround YouTubeās iOS App Picture in Picture limitation.
Tidbits for 2020 Week 38
- Boring Old Menu Bar: get rid of macOS 11 Big Sur ridiculous transparent menu bar.
- Roam-highlighter: Chrome extension to highlight text on page to copy to Roam/Obsidian. Best one Iāve found, hope it comes to Safari 14.
- Nudget: budgeting iOS app with quick entry and multi-currency support.
- Vill Q: macOs software to draw on screen and making screen annotation. Useful for screen-sharing calls.
- Tageslicht: share your iOS camera view on an external display.
Tidbits for 2020 Week 37
- Poolside FM: now for your PalmOS iPhone.
- Shareful: Provides any app with a Share button with a Copy, Save, and Open action.
- SensibleSideButtons: Functional side navigation buttons on your third-party mice in macOS.
- Watercooler: Lightweight, High-Res Video Calls for Mac
- Lunar: macOS utility to set brightness and volume on external monitors.
Tidbits for 2020 Week 35
- Nessie: extremely simple web browser for Windows, based on the Trident engine.
- Screenotate: screenshot manager for Mac and Windows with OCR.
- Parsify Desktop: Extendable calculator for Mac, Windows and Linux.
- TextSniper: Capture text from macOS screen.
- Google Arts & Culture: mobile app with augmented reality insects, Apollo 11 module and space suits.
- BlackHole: virtual audio driver for macOS that allows applications to pass audio to other applications.
- Longplay: iOS music player for those who enjoy listening to entire albums start-to-finish.
- Keysmith: create shortcuts for any string of actions you can do with your mouse and keyboard on macOS.
Tidbits for 2020 Week 33
- Isoflow: easy isometric diagrams on the web.
- yFi: get notified, automatically reconnect, or ignore a drop in WiFi TX rate.
- Bluesnooze: Turn BT off when your Mac sleeps, and switched on when your Mac wakes.
- MonitorControl: Control external monitor brightness, contrast or volume on macOS.
- macintosh.js: virtual Apple Macintosh with System 8, running in Electron.
Tidbits for 2020 Week 29
- Camo: Use your iPhone or iPad as a pro webcam.
- Cascable Pro: Use your DSLR or mirrorless camera as a webcam using just USB or WiFi.
Tidbits for 2020 Week 28
- Nudget: clean looking budgeting app for iOS.
- Mimestream: fast native Gmail client for macOS. Impressive.
- A book like {foo}: great book recommendation engine.
- Mumu: better macOS emoji picker.
Tidbits for 2020 Week 26
- HighTop: quick file access from MenuBar of local folders, Google Drive, or Dropbox.
- CloudSkew: online diagram editor. Not bad.
- Mark Two Pocket Pen: looks very nice, but at $85 itās a wishlist item for me. Iām enjoying the Pentel EnerGel Style ($15) a lot.
- Finger Painting: simple iOS drawing app for toddlers.
Tidbits for 2020 Week 25
- Spotlight: quickly switch tabs, search history, bookmarks, downloads in Chrome. $19 but looks sweet.
- Iceberg: markdown writing editor for the WordPress block editor. $49.
- Grayscale: menu bar app to easily toggle the grayscale display filter.
- Correct Horse Battery Staple: secure password generator for easy-to-remember passwords.
- Codye: present code in 180 languages with themes on iOS and macOS.
- Excalidraw: whiteboard tool to sketch diagrams with a hand-drawn feel to them.
Tidbits for 2020 Week 24
- readr.page: static feed aggregator for Hacker News and reddit written in Javascript. Good for pomodoro break escapades.
- Collected Notes: a very simple note-taking blogging platform. Less geeky than blot.im.
- xFonts is now Fontcase: a trustable installer and manager for iOS.
- Adobe Photoshop Camera: amazing app for camera effects. I rolled my eyes until trying it.
Tidbits for 2020 Week 22
- Spacetime iOS app ā¢ past and upcoming space launch information direct from agencies.
- Middle ā¢ middle click button gestures for Apple Trackpad or Magic Mouse.
- Command Palette ā¢ access to all Menu Bar functions of current focused app. Iām in love.
- Cloudflare Speed Test speed.cloudflare.com
Tidbits for 2020 Week 21
- Vidrio puts transparent webcam behind your windows. Seems very useful for trainings.
- Tinnire ā¢ generative music app to concentrate or relax. iOS and Android.
- Calndr.link ā¢ simple and easy way to generate calendar links.
- All-in-one Quick Look pluginā>Glance ā¢ Quick Look previews for geeky files.
- Ambiently ā¢ free iOS ambient sounds app with nice design.
- Thyself ā¢ interesting journaling app in with a chat interface.
Tidbits for 2020 Week 19
- lite lightweight text editor written in Lua for Windows and Linux.
- Folder Tidy ā¢ organize folder with rules.
- Blurred ā¢ reduce distraction by dimming your inactive background apps.
- Hidden Bar ā¢ Another free utility that helps hide menu bar icons.
- Aware ā¢ simple menubar app that tracks how long youāve been actively using your computer.
- GitHub Codespaces ā¢ full Visual Studio Code experience without leaving GitHub. Whoa.
Tidbits for 2020 Week 18
- Size.link ā¢ Visualize dimensions in Augmented Reality. Very useful.
- Medito for iOS and Android free-forever meditation app.
- Pixea image viewer for macOS with minimal UI and keyboard shortcuts. Supports JPEG, HEIC, PSD, RAW and even Sketch.
- Flow minimal pomodoro timer for Mac with app blocking feature.
Tidbits for 2020 Week 16
About a month worthās of links:
- Tip is a programmable tooltip that can be used with any Mac OS app github.com
- Tidi helps organize your Download (or other folders) with reminders and an easy interface. tidi.app
- Service Station is a macOS app for customizing your right-click menu in Finder. servicestation.menu
- Salmon is a macOS search tool specifically for files and folders. salmon-app.com
- Turn a Wyze Cam v2 (and Pan) into a Webcam.
- Microsoft Edge now has vertical tabs, of course Opera did it first.
- ViDL ā¢Ā Mac app to download videos from YouTube and hundreds of others websites. GUI wrapper around
youtube-dl
.
Tidbits for 2020 Week 12
- LibraryThing Is Now Free blog.librarything.com
- Krisp introduces a free tier, I always fall back to Shush but try it out when working remotely.
- Snap Camera ā¢ Lenses for your desktop conference call.
The iPadās new trackpad and mouse support looks amazing!
GitHub for mobile for issue management is a nice improvement over the mobile site.
The reMarkable 2 e-ink tablet announced. At $399 itās what I wanted, but the iPad mini is what I need.
Tidbits for 2020 Week 11
- Apple Announces ../../2023/2023-06-12 WWDC 2023 Wishlist Recap 2020 Will Be a Digital-Only Event Set to Take Place in June macrumors.com
- Apple to close US retail stores and all others outside China until March 27th theverge.com
- Book Track ā¢ Library Manager for iOS and Mac simonemontalto.com
- Twitter Is Adding Stories And Calling Them Fleets buzzfeednews.com
- SETI@home Search for Alien Life Project Shuts Down After 21 Years bleepingcomputer.com
- Google cancels I/O 2020 due to coronavirus concerns. 9to5google.com
- WhatsApp Dark mode now available for iPhone and Android. blog.whatsapp.com
Tidbits for 2020 Week 9
- Unread 2 ā¢ RSS reader for iOS released.
- Tot ā¢ new minimal text editor app from Iconfactory. tot.rocks
Tidbits for 2020 Week 7
- Google Fi SIM cards are now available on Amazon inputmag.com
- Gmail for iOS now allows you to add attachments from the Files app gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com
- Clear Linux is Faster than Ubuntu and Federa even cheap laptops. phoronix.com
Tidbits for 2020 Week 5
- Overcast updated with Voice Boost 2. Will compare to Castro for sure.
- Apptivate global hotkeys for your files and apps. Oldie but goodie — just reinstalled this after years.
- EjectBar for Mac is an simple drive un-mounter.
- Fantastical is teasing the features of it next big upgrade.
Tidbits for 2020 Week 4
- My WiFi Sign ā quickly create a printable sign with your WiFi credentials. Very useful.
- Mail Assistant ā Helper app for Mac to send simple messages from Drafts like in iOS. I heart Drafts.
- Audius streaming service and iOS app is out. audius.co
- MarkTwo ā web-based Markdown editor that stores files in Google Drive.
- Tomato 2 ā free Mac pomodoro timer written in swiftUI.
- Clew ā Cloud search on Mac for Google Drive, GitHub, Figma and Dropbox.
- The new Chromium Microsoft Edge is officially available for Mac and Windows blogs.windows.com
- Itās now possible to sideload the audio of YouTube videos in Castro.
- Winston ā a free typewriter simulator for macOS.
Tidbits for 2020 Week 2
- Front and Center window management app that replicates Classic MacOS ābring all to frontā behavior. By John Siracusa, instant buy.
- Firefox Lockwise ā password manager ā take your passwords everywhere mozilla.org
Tidbits for 2019 Week 50
- Endless Paper endlesspaper.app
- Photo Editor : Pixlr Editor - 2020 version pixlr.com
- Iād buy this Apple TV Remote in second if available internationally. Update: it is just $20! someone in ZĆ¼rich please buy me this.
- Craigslist Launches Mobile Apps. This AppStore thing might take off. 9to5mac.com
- Plex launches ad-supported streaming service in over 200 countries. techcrunch.com
Tidbits for 2019 Week 48
- Dual-screen Android/Linux Cosmo Communicator is out. I love this modern Psion Series 5 exists, just canāt justify one. zdnet.com
- Walling — App to Organize Ideas walling.app.
- Dark Mode by Default - 95% Prefer Dark over Light Mode getpolarized.io
- Add CarPlay to Any Car With an Android Tablet and Adapter redmondpie.com. This is very hacky, but still intriguing.
Tidbits for 2019 Week 47
- Looom iPad + Apple Pencil artsy looping animation app. Keeping an eye for when itās out.
- Legra, render your image using Lego like bricks.
- The 50 best nonfiction books of past 25 years. One down, many to go. slate.com
- Open source illustrations kit, free for commercial and personal use. Good to keep around. illlustrations.co
- Maxtand portable sit-to-stand desk. Very temped to back this. kickstarter.com
- Spark iOS updated with new design and more customizable UI. Will give it another try.
w46Done
tidbitsTidbits for 2019 Week 46
- Triode internet radio app for iOS, Mac and AppleTV. If anyone can make internet radio cool, is The Iconfactory.
- Brave Desktop 1.0.0 released. My work browser of choice nowadays.
- Drafts Mac Beta with support for actions is out. This post being generated via my Dropbox Action.
- New MacBook Pro 16 is imminent according to Mark Gurman on twitter.com
Tidbits for 2019 Week 45
- Community-powered cost of living insights costof.live.
- Airalo eSim data packs store for over 100+ countries. Iāve dreamed of this for years — hopefully Iāll need it again someday.
- Chrome OS Virtual Desks are live. Implementation seems familiar.
Tidbits for 2019 Week 44
- Piper Announces Autoland Capability on single engine plane. For emergencies, but interesting trend.
- DJI Mavic Mini announced. Luckily (for my wallet) it costs $399 — but soon theyāll drop to a why not? price point.
- Spotify Kids app announced. Sadly it requires iOS 10, so it wonāt on work my kids original iPad mini.
- Now confirmed. Alphabet Rumored to Buy Fitbit. reuters.com
Tidbits for 2019 Week 43
- Google Calendar now supports meeting.new and cal.new urls to create events. twitter.com
- Command & Conquer Remaster Update and First Gameplay Teaser reddit.com
- NordVPN Confirms It Was Hacked techcrunch.com.
Tidbits for 2019 Week 42
- The Information will launch Ticker, a tech news app that costs $29 per year. techcrunch.com
- Luna Display introduces Mac-to-Mac Mode. Iāve been convincing myself to buy this since yesterday.
- Any thumbprint can unlock Galaxy S10 phone. bbc.com
- Brave browser reaches 8 million monthly active users. Anecdotally, Iām very surprised how many people at work also use this browser.
- Rectangle free/open source for macOS window manager in the spirit of Spectacle. Fast and light, replaced Magnet and it has been working great.
- Analogueās $200 Pocket console look unbelievable. It can play any Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance games.
Tidbits for 2019 Week 41
- Brydge sues Kickstarter over ācloneā Libra keyboard. It did seem very similar from the beginning.
- reMarkable raises $15M round and has sold 100K tablets. Not bad.
- SmartCapsLock lets you select text and press Caps Lock to change the case to multiple options. I just remap my
caps lock
key tocontrol
, but this can be useful.
Tidbits for 2019 Week 40
- Instapaper Save for Safari on Mac is available. Bookmarklet was a bit of a pain.
- Windows Virtual Desktop is now available. Need to work out the pricing, but this is very significant for big IT departments.
- Agenda 8 allows drawing and handwriting with Pencil. Darn it, I thought my note taking flow was now somewhat stable.
- YouTube TV is available on Amazon Fire TV. The cordcutter land-grab is over, now the platforms are shifting their fight.
Tidbits for 2019 Week 39
- Moon++ is a better lunar Apple Watch complication by David Smith. Instabuy.
- Jura Anchor AirPod charger case clipper thingy on Kickstarter. Backed.
- Penbook is my new default iPad mini note taking app. Love the smart stationary concept.
- Dark theme is coming to Gmail mobile apps. I miss Inbox by Gmail so much.
- The new MacĀ Pro will be made in the USA — thanks to tariff exclusions.
- Twitter app allowing you to swipe to lists as alternative timelines is very 2009 — not a typo.
- Sounds like Cloudflare will released its VPN on Wednesday. Color me excited.
Tidbits for 2019 Week 38
- Colorsublime allows you to change themes quickly and easily, right from Sublime Text colorsublime.github.io
- Descript Podcast Studio Launched. Just watch the video, thereās too much amazingness in it. descript.com
- Google Fi gets an unlimited plan. Iām staying on the flexible plan. techcrunch.com
- NBCUniversalās streaming service is called Peacock. No, really. theverge.com
Tidbits for 2019 Week 37
- TextMate 2.0 is available (and alive?!). Wouldnāt believed it if I hadnāt seen the commit. github.com
- The feature-rich Vivaldi browser finally arrives on Android. thenextweb.com
Tidbits for 2019 Week 36
- Apple Music launches a public beta on the web. Likely the iTunes for Windows replacement. techcrunch.com
- Sonosā first portable speaker is the $399 Move. A bit too big in price and size, but happy theyāre in the category. theverge.com
Tidbits for 2019 Week 35
- Apple releases iOS 12.4.1 to re-patch vulnerability reintroduced in iOS 12.4 support.apple.com
- NetNewsWire RSS Reader for Mac is Back. Iāll stay with Reeder, but such a great free option. ranchero.com
- Nintendo of America announces Mario Kart Tour will be available on 9/25 for iOS and android. twitter.com
- Instagram tests āThreadsā app with automatic updates for close friends. No thanks. engadget.com
- Apple fixing Siriās privacy concerns. Better later than never, super clear 1-2-3 improvement explanation of changes. apple.com
- Fitbit debuts $200 Versa 2 smartwatch, Fitbit Premium subscription service. What the Pebble could have been. arstechnica.com
- Prizmo 5 for iOS released. Will test for a few days. https://t.co/OuNdl7d61G https://t.co/17nNytcb8sāā/āTwitterā>twitter.com
- T-Mobile adds eSIM support for post-paid plans on iOS. Hopefully this means the Google Fi support for iOS is not far behind. theverge.com
- Xnip Screenshot App for Mac. My new screenshot app, and I have a lot of āem. xnipapp.com
- Apple Invites Media to September 10 Event at Apple Park. Excitement never gets old. macrumors.com
Tidbits for 2019 Week 34
- Apparently Apple Arcade will be $4.99 monthly with family sharing. Sounds like a great price.
- Disney+ will available on all platforms except Amazon. A family meeting will decide if we replace Netflix with this.
- Also rumored/leaked is Apple TV+ $9.99 Price. This will be wait-and-see for me.
- The Matrix 4, or a movie in that universe is happing. So excited. What can I see, other than the sequels1, I enjoy Wachowskiās movies.
- Apple Card is now available in the U.S. Applied, wasnāt instantly accepted. Uh oh.
- Chromium Edge is in beta release. Not bad, but in good with Brave for now — sorry Opera.
- Maccy is a nice open source Clipboard manager for macOS.
- Draft actions for Mac are coming. Even without them, my text workflows already gravitate towards the app.
- Netflix Collections are human powered playlists. Remember when they had a bounty for the best recommendation engine?
- New Paperlike 2 screen protector for iPad with supposedly less color interference. In kickstarter now, Iāll wait for it to arrive on Amazon and try for sure.
In later viewings Iāve come to like the sequels by themselves. Itās in the context of the original that my expectations went wild.ā©ļø
Tidbits for 2019 Week 33
- The Cloudflare public offering is very appealing. Revenue, growth and strong product.
- Chrome OS now supports Virtual Desks. Such a grownup OS.
- The Lexend fonts are intended to help improve reading speed now available in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides. Not sure Iād like to read with it, but itās good to have.
- Gist Press lets you press gists into a friendly article format. Always go down a rabbit hole with things like this, and I donāt regret it.
- about:blank is a paid app that blocks websites in safari for iOS and macOS. Similar in spirit to the open source Lockdown. Iām weak, need some sort of time setting to go and use this.
- IKEA creates business unit just for smart-home products. Not surprising, but good signaling that the category is about to hit the early majority.
Tidbits for 2019 Week 32
- Vekt for iOS and watchOS looks like a pretty and fast weight tracker. Going to give it a try.
- Journey is our for iOS. Iāve heard so much aviut this game for the years that I might just try it.
- Surprising list of useful Mac keyboard shortcuts in this HN thread.
Tidbits for 2019 Week 31
- Cloudflareās IPO rumored targeting September. Iāll likely buy into this.
- This guy build UK train station platform departure display using Raspberry Pi. We live in amazing times.
- Uber laying off around 400 people from marketing sounds like a lot. s
- Google shares more Pixel 4 details: face unlock and Motion Sense (hand gestures).
Tidbits for 2019 Week 301
- The IRS reminds you that cryptocurrency is taxable.
- Symfonisk series reviews are out and they are good: pure Ikea on the outside and pure Sonos on the inside — and the price is somewhere in between.
- Lockdown is an interesting open source on-device firewall for iOS. Iām happy this is an emerging category.
- Having seen some low end Android phones struggle with memory and storage, the lightweight Gallery Go version of Google Photos is interesting.
- The new Slack Desktop app supposedly will use 50 percent less RAM. Curious if theyāll use Catalyst for the Mac app in the future.
Iām switching from ISO to Unicode week numbers — one counts from first Thursday of the year and the other from Sunday. So jumping ahead to week 30, which is also week 29ā¦ no wait. Anyways, for future reference, this is why week numbers donāt match.ā©ļø
Tidbits for 2019 Week 28
- The Expanse S04 will be available on Amazon on December 13th. My Prime subscription at work.
- Dropbox is really pissing people off with its new version. I feel very happy and streamlined since going iCloud only.
- Original Apollo 11 Guidance Computer command and lunar modules source code is on Github. Searched for the famous 2012 error, but not sure what Iām seeing.
- The redesigned new Twitter.com on Desktop seems like an improvement. Lists are exponentially more accessible, which I count as a win.
Tidbits for 2019 Week 27
- Fun fake adverts as if the iPhone had been around since 1984.
- Great concept of a sticker for MacBooks, where you place your geek stickers — making it easy to remove for selling and keep a memory of your sticker creed.
- Nintendo Switch Lite in September. No TV connection or detachable controls for $199, which sounds like a great compromise for younger gamers — or those in a budget.
- Dropbox Transfer for sending up to 100GB. Sounds like the old school Dropbox stuff, not for me anymore but I like.
- Seems Apple Pencil tech keeps arriving showing up on third parties pens. The Adonit Note is another cheap(er) alternative, which is great news.
Tidbits for 2019 Week 26
- Check your Mac for that arenāt 64-bit with Go64. Iām going to be recommending this app a lot over the summer.
- WavÄy is great set of wallpapers for Mac, iPad and iPhone.
- Note taking rabbit whole took me to down the sub-world of e-ink notebooks. Good overview video of the best options.
- Vinland Saga Anime coming to Amazon Prime. Iām enjoying the manga a lot, so will take a look.
Tidbits for 2019 Week 25
- Secure ShellFish provides SSH and SFTP support in the iOS Files app. Going to find a way to fit this into my workflow.
- Someone rebuild and converted to digital a Polaroid SX-70 camera. Beautiful.
- New Raspberry Pi 4 Model B is out, and I will add it to the cart multiple times before not buying it — like all the previous versions. Or not?
Tidbits for 2019 Week 24
- Gmail confidential mode is not secure or private according to ProtonMail.
- Fixed, but used Nest Cams allowed previous users to watch them under certain conditions. Scary to think what other holes are there.
- Best Buy now being an authorized Apple repair location is very convenient.
- Short OS 13 Beta 2 on iPad observations I enjoyed reading. Iām installing the public beta as soon as it comes out.
- Microsoft To-Do for Mac is out, and surprising itās AppKit and not electron. Brownie points for that.
Tidbits for 2019 Week 23
- Twitterrific 6 for iOS is out. Iām a Tweetbot kinda guy, but it looks pretty.
- Macbook Prices by Performance is a fun way to waste time checking which is the best Mac for the buck.
- Radiohead stolen 18 minidisks on Bandcamp is a delicious FU to the thieves.
- Soulver is my goto calculator on the Mac. Will upgrade for sure.
Tidbit for 2019 Week 22
- Spotify Stations out in the US. Itās very Pandora inspired but I dig. Basically one touch to get to a mood playlist.
Busy week. Will pick up speed next week again.
tidbitsTidbits for 2019 Week 21
- Today I learned that on Chrome/Brave/Opera you can click on a link of text you have highlighted from find by hitting Control + Enter. Life-changing.
- Flotatoā really cool Mac app to create single window website applications. If you always have a tab opened on something, it could be useful.
- The Gnome/GTK community is having an interesting fight requesting its apps not be themed. I tend to agree with devs.
- If you like to check other peopleās setups (geek perv), this is a fun gallery.
Tidbits for 2019 Week 20
- Remind Me Faster is an iOS app to add reminders with as few taps as possible. Faster than correcting Siriā¢.
- cmd+space is a newsletter dedicated to keyboard shortcuts. Learned something in the first issue.
Tidbits for 2019 Week 19
- Huawei will not be able to ship with Googleās apps (including play store) anymore. This is huge and unnerving.
- The benchmarks of Intelās Clear Linux shows that itās fast and the rolling upgrade design is very modern.
- I still get exited about eInk readers and the Xiaomi iReader T6 at least is new. My wish would be in an ePub based device that syncs with iOS apps.
- Keybase integration with Stellar looks very clean. Seems to me Keybase is creating a very easy to use platform with all the buzzwords.
- WhatsApp vulnerability via audio call is very scary. Everyone should update now.
Tidbits for 2019 Week 18
- I first thought this was Android bashing, but in videos itās clear Qās gesture language is exactly the same.
- Downlink: real-time satellite imagery on the Mac desktop. Installed and launching on login from now on.
Tidbits for 2019 Week 17
- Seems a certificate lapse killed all Firefox extensions on Friday. It happens to the best of us.
- Verizon is selling Tumblr. Pornhub says itās interested, I suspect half-jokingly. I really hope it doesnāt die forgotten, it was a nice blogging platform — hosting this blog for a few years.
- Pushcut combines iOS notifications, Shortcuts and webhooks. Donāt know what for yet, but Iām going to play with it.
- Amazon moving into shipping sounds scary as hell for those of us in the logistics industry.
- Burger King is rolling out the Impossible Whopper in the US. Really want to try this one out.
- Streaming was supposed to be the cord cutters dream, itās not the case. Still, I rather decided between streaming services than cable packages.
Tidbits for 2019 Week 16
- Reeder 4 Is available for Mac and iOS. Insta-buy.
- Nobody works more than 60 hours a week. You know that they know, that we know it.
- DNS over HTTPS is the worst sort of privacy solution except for the rest. This is why Iāve been using Cloudflareās 1.1.1.1 app non-top now.
- The upcoming Reeder app supports Bionic Reading, and it sure gives interesting results.
Tidbits for 2019 Week 15
- Soylent Squared 100-calorie mini meals miss the boat with me. The snacking concept behind it doesnāt ring true to the original brand.
- A rumored new Nintendo Switch this Christmas. Smaller and cheaper, for sure Robie will want one.
- Apple and Qualcomm settled. Intel cancels its 5G chips. Thereās such an inside baseball story behind all of this.
- Twitter needed a textshot ages ago. Not sure what it needed to acquihire Highly to get something similar.
Tidbits for 2019 Week 14
- Disney+ might become my second TV subscription after Netflix. For 7 month, it sounds like a great deal.
- Curious if the rumored WhatsApp for iPad version will be a stand-alone version or how it will deal with encryption if itās a companion app like the web.
- Havenāt heard anyone mention this Zello walkie-talkie app in my friend and family circles.
- At $99 the Ikea Symfonisk bookshelf speaker is something I see myself owning to complement the Sonos Play 1. Specially since it even supports AirPlay 2.
Tidbits for 2019 Week 13
- Geeks can daydream, but the battery world runs on lithium-ion, and thereās no replacement in sight.
- HomePod is now $299, down from $349. Donāt doubt itās the best sound for the price, but without Spotify is not even an option for me. Maybe at $199ā¦
- Amazonās Project Kuiper would make my father-in-law so happy. Broadband satellite based internet for remote areas would make many millions of lives better. Go Bezos.
- The Powerbeats Pro are the AirPods sporty me would have wanted. The actual me finds the case too big.
- Simplify for Gmail Chrome extension brings a little of Inbox to Gmail. Code on GitHub and made my former Google lead designer. Update: works on Opera, and itās really great.
- Great The Economist post on mistakes on their data visualization charts.
- Interesting take on The Wandering Earth movie. Really looking forward to watching it.
- Cloudflareās 1.1.1.1 App with Warp VPN makes an intriguing case: more secure and faster than without. In waiting list.
Tidbits for 2019 Week 12
- I didnāt know The Matrix code scenes came from sushi recipes.
- The new iPad Air and iPad mini available for in-store pickup. Iām going to
wait for it to show up on Adorama to order. Ordered.
- Seems iOS 12.2 has a bunch of new Progressive WebĀ Apps stuff. WebOS was 10 years too early.
- Gmail swipe actions on iOS soon. But still no bundlesā¦ Oh how I miss Google Inbox.
- Stories about Apple Watch ECG feature really make me think: a) I should get my Dad one, b) Health features are a powerful reason to upgrade soon for myself.
- Twitter new dark mode for OLED screens on iOS/Android. Apple has to include dark mode in iOS 13.
- Wyze Sense $20 sensor kit announced. Insta-buy, I really like our Wyze setup at home and this looks well integrated.
- Apple mumbles sorry for MacBook keyboard issues. Not good enough. They need to change the design yesterday and include the 2018 model in the extended warranty.
- MKBHDās AirPods 2nd Gen video review is great.
- The Original AirPods Firmware also appears to have gotten an update. Reports include snappierā¢ connections.
News of Note for 2018W20
YouTube Music is the new(est) Google music service. Email encryption might be broken. Google Duplex is cool vaporware, but they kinda implied it was a product. WhatsApp updated groups features still doesnāt let you mute unless mentioned. A rumored lower cost Microsoft tablet is coming, that only took 10 years.
tidbitsHoliday tidbits
ā Blade Runner 2049 Announcement Iāll allow myself excitement over this. The look is right and feel right — as in uncomfortable.
ā Shake Shackās mobile app now takes orders across the US This could get ugly — and by this I mean me.
ā Spotify Updates Mac App With Full Touch Bar Support for MacBook Pro That was fast. Sadly no AppleTV or Apple Watch version in sight.
ā Duet Adds Touch Bar This is cool. If you have a 9.7in iPad, itās fairly good Touch Bar test.
tidbitsWeekly tidbits
ā Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before No numbers, so itās a marketing statement. But still not surprised.
ā Google Signs Deal With Cuba to Speed Services (Paywall) Now even Cuba will play faster YouTube videos than Venezuela. Iām not bitter.
ā Google has reportedly stopped developing its own self-driving car Not surprising. Seems all self-driving rumored projects are getting a reality check.
ā āApple Supportā App Launches in U.S. App Store Simple app with very useful purpose. Will be testing it soon.
ā Yahoo discloses hack of 1 billion accounts I find it hard to believe that they found out from law enforcement. Irresponsible.
ā Evernote reverses privacy policy that allows employees to read usersā notes There has to be more to this story — maybe an upcoming technical feature poorly explained. Otherwise, this was a stupid change from the start.
tidbitsWeekly tidbits:
ā What is Bitcoin? A Step-By-Step Guide For Beginners I always appreciate a good refresher on Bitcoin.
ā Amazon unveils āself-drivingā brick-and-mortar convenience store A mini-mart called Amazon Go. This is kinda amazing.
ā Googleās new Trusted Contacts app lets you share your location during emergencies More or less a relaunch of the old Latitude app. But since itās Android only, I donāt see any advantage over iOSās Find My Friend.
ā Google Wifi review: Wi-Fi that works It does appear to be a solid performer vs eero at $200 less for the 3 pack ($299).
ā Instagram will soon let you turn off comments and boot followers from private accounts Both sound like good features.
ā Apple Watch sales to consumers set record in holiday week, says Appleās Cook A lot of noise of regarding the overall trend of the wearables category.
ā NPRās Book Concierge: Guide To 2016ās Great Reads Great recommendations in every category.
ā Play music from Spotify straight to Sonos with Spotify Connect Really happy with my Sonos, and this is going to make me even happier.
ā Mac OS X Welcome Videos So many good memories of the excitement for upgrading MacOS X devices.
ā Mr.Ā Robot Killed the Hollywood Hacker Hacking is not magic, itās hard ingenious work.
ā httpster - totally rocking websites. Httpster is an inspiration resource showcasing totally rocking websites.
ā Uber Should Restore User Control to Location Privacy Not cool Uber.
ā Microsoft demonstrates full Windows 10 with Photoshop on ARM chips ARM tablet/notebooks are full of compromises for desktop use, but this is a significant advance.
tidbitsTidbits of the week
ā Canopy — Keyboard Case and iPad Stand Glad I donāt have one of the new keyboards or iPads, otherwise it would have been hard to talk myself out of this one.
ā Wi-Fi Mesh Systems Compared: eero, Orbi, AmpliFi Good overview, the short version: eero wins when price is discounted, Orbi has the most potential, and AmpliFi is a safe option.
ā Google+ Featured Photos Screensaver for Mac Looks very nice. There must be a — bored — Mac loving product manager in google somewhere.
ā Wired magazineās creative director is joining Apple If he doesnāt like aluminium and glass, this could get interesting.
ā Netflix finally lets you download shows and movies to watch offline We will never do it. We are not considering it. No comment. Itās coming soon. Itās live! History of a feature announcement.
ā Amazon Polly — Text to Speech in 47 Voices and 24 Languages They donāt sound amazing, but the option of having this as a service is very powerful.
ā More Than 1 Million Google Accounts Breached by Gooligan Android malware is no joking matter.
ā Amazon LightSail — Simple Virtual Private Servers on AWS Interesting and competitive. But no reason to run from Digital Ocean.
ā Why all world maps are wrong Ever since seeing the bit on West Wing Iāve been fascinated by the UI of maps. Great overview video of the issues.
ā Inside the world of Chinese science fiction, with āThree Body Problemā translator Ken Liu The Three Body Problem trilogy has been one of the most mind-bending books Iāve read recently. Iāve since added a few more Chinese Sci-Fi books to my queue.
tidbitsTidbits of the week
ā Amazon Prime Ad — Priest and Imam In a world that feels more like an episode of 24 rather than West Wing, I appreciate this ad.
ā Eeroās WiFi hubs get faster, smarter and now support Alexa My apartment is perfectly covered by our ASUS router, but I dream of the day Iāll need one of these new mesh ones.
ā Apple Will Replace iPhone 6s Batteries in Phones That Unexpectedly Shut Down My 6s suffered from shut downs — seemed to happen under heavy loads. Should have taken it in at the time.
ā Apple Abandons Development of Wireless Routers Sadly unsurprising. I undestand the economics behind this, but I still think itās a strategic risk: Appleās home automation solution will have less leverage.
ā Apple - Frankieās Holiday Awww Apple, I canāt stay mad at you.
ā Worldwide Market for Used Smartphones Forecast to Grow to 222.6 Million Units in 2020, According to IDC Always take these with a greain of salt, but it does sound like the normal progression of mass market products.
ā Microsoft brings Solitaire to iOS and Android And now itās officialā¦ the desktop is dead.
ā Alter — Turn text into an image. Useful for Twitter and even email code examples.
ā Giki is a Markdown-powered Wiki Wiki and markdown? What sort of sexy talk is this?
tidbitsTidbits of the week
ā Amazon editors — Best science fiction and fantasy of 2016. Deathās End (Remembrance of Earthās Past), is fanstastic and a great ending to the series.
ā PhotoScan printed photo scanner app. Iāve tried lots of apps that do this, and still I havenāt scanned my parents collection.
ā Drop — A beautiful color picker for macOS. Why would you pay for this? because a good designed is obsesive about all her tools.
ā WhatsApp launches video calling. A new default for most people. So long Duo.
ā Casey Neistat MacBook Pro with TouchBar video review. Fun review with some valid points. He still bought it, which proves Apple is right though.
ā PoisonTap, a $5 tool that invades password-protected computers. If youāre careful (use a Mac, have firevault, donāt leave it unlocked), not as bad as it sounds. If youāre not careful, that same password you use for everything is going the be the least of your problems.
ā OnePlus 3T released. More battery, megapixels, processor and bit higher price. Still the best bang of the buck in Android. Just wish it had a smaller 5in screen.
ā You can now check Due Dates as Done is Trello.
Best news of the week. If you organize your team in Trello in some sort of pseudo-sprint setting, this is very helpful.
ā Barnes & Noble debuts $50 Nook tablet to take on Amazon. Lifeboat for the 5 users they have left. Still, a persuasive price.
ā Firefox Focus — a free, fast and easy to use private browser for iOS. Why not? Privacy is going the pop-up blocker of the next few years.
ā How Stephen Wolfram invented interstellar travel for Arrival. I wanna see this move, I wanna see this movie.
ā Asana introduces Boards — similar to Trello Kanban rules the world.
ā iPhones Secretly Send Call History to Apple, Security Firm Says Iām much more worried about my mobile operator having my call history.
ā MacBook Pro Bulbs ad I might be missing something, but this is a cool video and then an basic MacBook Pro ad.
ā Appleās Chip Choices May Leave Some iPhone Users in Slow Lane Lets not forget these are still glorified walky talkies. Real world performance in the context of mobile operators has many variables.
tidbitsVery convenient that Gmailās Inbox brings Smart Reply to the web the same day Boxy 1.1 ships.
I still canāt use Inbox only on the desktop, but Boxy is the best of the quasi-appās.
The useful (but slow) website Letterboxd has an App. I have abandoned so many movie apps that none are likely to survive. But I do like the lists on thus one.
Testing yet another Safari extension to bookmark the current page in Pinboard. I like the simplicity of this one — but the search continues.
tidbitsThis isnāt a drill — as if my OCDness wasnāt bad enough — this blog will now1 use smart quotes.
Overcast 2.5 was released with two patron-only features: dark theme and file uploads. I feel smug and validated.
I didnāt know Firefox for iOS was totally open-source and written in mostly Swift. It kinda gives it a new car smell.
Looking forward to Scanner Pro 7 on Thursday. Iām using Scanbot 5 and really like it — but I love comparing great apps even more.
The change will be retroactive in a few days.ā©ļø
Trello has a new Chrome extension. You can search from the Omnibar, and itās much easier to add cards than the bookmarklet.
Still, wish they had a native appā¢.
Updated Wikimedia iOS app looks good: Nearby and offline articles could be useful.
Linkclump extension for Chrome. For reasons you really donāt wish to know, Iāve been extracting links within pages. Best one I found, and it may stay installed given all the customization it has.
tidbitsUlysses for iPhone is out. This is my current long form writing app in Mac, iPad and now iPhone. As such, itās basically by current repository of draftsā¦
Intro price may seem steep at $19.99 (later $24.99), but you get both iPad and iPhone app.
tidbitsThis NYTimes article convinced me to start a 5:2 Diet experiment for the next month. I already played around with skipping lunch last year, and it did help maintain my weight.
If you subscribe to the principle that weight is a function of calorie inputs minus calorie output, thereās really no magic to any of these. You just need to find the setup that works best.
Next month will be tough since Iāll be traveling for vacation and work. But better now than later.
tidbits#ā SelfControl
SelfControl is a free and open-source application for Mac OS X that lets you block your own access to distracting websites, your mail servers, or anything else on the Internet. Just set a period of time to block for, add sites to your blacklist, and click āStart.ā Until that timer expires, you will be unable to access those sitesāeven if you restart your computer or delete the application.
This app has been installed in my Macās since forever. On some weeks/projects itās really hard to fight the impulse to hit ā + tab
and do anything but what you need to do.
SelfControl is tough medicine for this1.
You can download my blacklisted sites and APIs[^1] to get started. Just right-click and download as.ā©ļø
There probably is an email somehow related to all personal and profesional milestones in my life since 1995. Thank you Ray Tomlinson.
If you installed Transmission BitTorrent client this past week, you should check the How to Protect Yourself in this post.
A $30k Tesla Model 3 on Marth 31st is something I look forward to with less philosofical interest than the Model X.
All is not well in Bitcoin land. But it looks like itās going to continue to get worse.
A billion is not what it used to be. Still, a chart about how long 12 apps with a billion active users took to get there is fascinating.
Tried Google Maps pit stops today. Itās where have you been all my life? kinda good.
tidbitsSeems some inside Microsoft did see the rise of Slack.
Got to respect wanting to invest that in Skype though.
Enjoyed Manton Reeceās post on The evolution of linkblogging — noting the following recommendation:
If youāre a blog author and youāre adding any significant commentary, the RSS feed should point back to your site.
Food for thougth. I was ready to start linkblogging Daring Fireball style yesterday, but I might give am giving Mantonās commentary style a chance.
I started using the Fleksy keyboard again recently, and the addition of Word Prediction this week has been particularly useful.
With its extra features, you can sometimes get lost versus the plain default keyboard. But speed-wise itās a considerable increase for me.
New lower prices on Pebble Time($149.99) and Pebble Time Round($199.99) this week have me considering a trial purchase of the Pebble Time.
Sanity and fiscal responsibility have prevailed — but this is how disillusioned I am with the Apple Watch.
Links tidbits