The Tourist 2x03 "Episode 3"
Elliot receives a surprise visit from Ethan, and the pair work together to track down Helen. Meanwhile, tensions are reignited between Elliot's family and the McDonnells.
Now that Shogun is over, Wonder Woman and I have moved on to season two of The Tourist starring Jamie Dornan, who I love. The season was filmed in Ireland and the scenery is beautiful and the accents delightful.
Well, I gotta confess. I argued with someone on the Internet today. Got offended is more like it. WTF. I know better, much better. The 30-second head rush I got while typing my outraged response to an accusation wasn’t worth it.
Anyone else doing WeblogPoMo2024? Sponsored by @anniegreens, it’s a month-long challenge to write every day and post when you can on your blog, ideally around a common theme, but not necessarily. Sounds like fun to me and I’ll be missing the April photo challenge.
Subscriptions - Not as much as I thought...and worth it
So Worth It!
I finally bit the bullet and added up all my subscriptions and I must say that I’m relieved. I thought I was spending much more than I actually am. My TV spending (which includes the total price of Amazon Prime) is still less than my cable bill was when I cut the cord. I can’t imagine living without some of these apps and services. This is what I pay to stay entertained, informed and to keep my digital memories backed up.
| Televison | per month |
|---|---|
| Netflix | $15.49 |
| Amazon Prime | $14.57 |
| Acorn | $6.99 |
| BritBox | $8.99 |
| Max | $9.21 |
| Hulu | $17.99 |
| AppleTV+ | $9.99 |
| $83.23 | |
| News | |
| New York Times | $27.08 |
| Washington Post | $10.00 |
| $37.08 | |
| Software/Web | |
| GoogleOne AI | $19.99 |
| iCloud | $9.99 |
| AppRaven | $1.00 |
| Carrot Weather | $0.83 |
| Day One | $2.08 |
| Drafts | $1.67 |
| Due | $0.42 |
| iTunes Match | $2.08 |
| Ivory | $2.08 |
| Listy | $0.92 |
| Overcast | $0.83 |
| Parcel | $0.42 |
| Play | $1.67 |
| $6.99 | |
| Subscriptions (app) | $0.17 |
| Micro.blog | $10.00 |
| Scribbles | $2.50 |
| Tinylytics | $5.00 |
| Setapp | $11.24 |
| Monarch Money | $8.33 |
| $88.20 | |
| Included with Cell Phone | |
| Disney TV | |
| Apple Music | |
| Bloggers | |
| HeyDingus | $1.00 |
| Matt Langford | $1.00 |
| Flohgro | $1.00 |
| Vlad Campos | $1.00 |
| Manuel Moreale | $1.00 |
| Numeric Citizen | $1.00 |
| $6.00 | |
| Grand Total | $214.51 |
Path Finder by Cocoatech has been around as long as Mac OS X. Its dual pane file navigation and depth of features make it a must-have tool in my app belt. It is available on Setapp or by subscription or one time purchase without upgrades.
📷 #mbApr Day 26 - Critter
Red Panda, native to eastern Himalayas and southern China. #photography
Mac people - excluding Apple’s own apps, what software have you been using the longest? For me it’s going to be BBEdit (released in 92) and ToyViewer (released in 95), both of which I’ve used since the 90s. Honorable mention to Launchbar and PathFinder.
My 10 Favorite #Raycast Use Cases (and all the apps it replaced)
I’ve been using a keyboard driven application launcher since 2006. For the majority of that time, I was a devout Launchbar fan. installing it on Mac after Mac and dutifully paying for the infrequent upgrades. When I initially heard about Raycast, I wasn’t interested, but the uproar just kept getting louder. Tech bloggers and Reddit sang its praises and kept pointing out new features one after another. I finally relented and downloaded it. After spending my Thanksgiving break of 2023 getting it configured to match my needs, I’ve been an enthusiastic proponent ever since. I’m a paid subscriber, mostly to keep my setup synced between my two computers but also to take advantage of the many AI features only available to pro users. Not to fear though, absent AI and sync, almost everything else is included in the free version.
1. Clipboard History
I used to use Pastepal and at times I miss its ability to sync my clipboard with my phone, but there are work arounds for that. By using Raycast’s built in clipboard manager, I eliminate the need to run a separate program at all times. It’s very convenient to assign a hotkey combo to show my clipboard history and then to navigate it without the need for a mouse.
2. Kill Process
When I have the infrequent application crash, I don’t have to remember the Apple keyboard combo for force quitting an application nor do I have to use a mouse to click on the dock or Apple Menu. I just launch Raycast and type “Kill Process” and then the name of the rouge program and hit enter. Boom, just like that the crash is over and I can relaunch the application if I want to.
3. Image Modification
As a blogger, I have a frequent need to reduce the size of images before I post them on my website. The image modification plugin acts on whatever file is selected in the finder. I specify the width I want and it figures out the height for me. If I want to convert an image from a PNG to a JPG, it can handle that too. It can also pad and scale images as well as removing EXIF data.
4. Emoji Picker
I used to use Rocket, a separate program as an emoji picker but the one built into Raycast works just as well. I can select from my frequently used emojis or search all those installed. I can copy the result onto my clipboard or paste it into the active application. I use the hotkey fn+E to summon the emoji picker and I do it often 😃.
5. Unsplash
When I’m looking for a stock photo to use on my blog, I can use the Unsplash extension to do it right from Raycast without having to use a web browser. I can search and download a variety of images for free from the keyboard. I can search specific collections, my favorites or the entire catalog. I can even use Raycast to set my wallpaper to any image on Unsplash.
6. Brew
I no longer have to use the terminal to do maintenance on Homebrew, the Mac package manager. I can get a list of my installed and outdated casks and run the updates right from Raycast. I set a reminder in Things 3 to do this every weekend and I don’t have any issues keeping up with developer releases.
7. Google Search
In the age of AI, there’s still a lot to be said for searching plain old Google. I have a hotkey set to COMMAND+G to allow me to conduct a search wherever I am on my computer. The resulting window not only provides space to type a new search, it also shows me my history (which is erasable). I can open the Google page in my browser or copy the resulting URL to the clipboard.
8. Open Link in Specific Browser
Sometimes I come across a page that just won’t work in the browser I’m using. Using this Raycast command, I can choose another browser to try - Chrome, Arc, Edge - whatever. It doesn’t matter. it will take the URL I’m trying to open and send it to the browser of my choice.
9. Password Search
Raycast has plugins for most major password managers. I use LastPass (yes, I know about the breaches) but it works the same for 1 Password or Bit Warden. I can search for the password I need and either paste it into a browser window or copy it to the clipboard. No longer do I have to use a separate application or browser to get the password or secure not that I want.
10. Shorten URL
The Bitly plugin allows you to shorten URLs straight from the clipboard. Just highlight the URL in your browser’s address bar, invoke the Raycast command and you’re ready to paste the result into a document or social media post.
Honorable Mentions
Raycast quick links allow me to search YouTube, Amazon, NetFlix, HBO/Max, DuckDuckGo and Mac Updater right from the keyboard. I don’t use windows management tools that often, but when I do, they are built-in to Raycast, eliminating the need for yet another separate program.
KeyClu is a free app for aspiring power users. Once installed and running, all you have to do is press the command key twice to bring up a cheat sheet with all the keyboard shortcuts for the app listed on the display.
Today is celebrated as Liberation Day in Italy🇮🇹 where the country commigrates the partisans and allies who died fighting the fascists and Nazis in World War 2. I’d like to honor my grandmother’s brother, Gratton McFadyen, one of those who gave his life there. Never again.
📷 #mbApr Day 25 - Spine
Wonder Woman navigating the spine of a mountain on the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania. You can see one of the 80,000 white blazes that mark the way on the tree beside her.
Did you ever have a manic phase that let you just turn out good stuff for a prolonged period of time? It sucked when it ended, didn’t it? I had one of those phases about ten years ago and carried a camera all the way through it. A Once and Future Love
10 Lesser Known But Super Useful Obsidian Plugins
The most popular Obsidian community plugins, Excalidraw, Dataview and Advanced Tables have over a million downloads apiece. The Obsidian forums and Reddit are full of questions about the best ways to use them. There’s no doubting the power of these plugins and the value they add to Obsidian. But what about the lesser-known work of volunteer developers who make up the backbone of the devout Obsidian community? What about more niche cases and hidden gems? Let’s look at some of those. All of these have less than 50K downloads, some of them much lower than that.
1. Beautitab
Beautitab creates a custom new tab page in Obsidian with customizable elective elements for search (with native search or Omnisearch), time, greeting, recent files and bookmarks to keep often used notes readily available. You can include a daily quote and an ever changing and beautiful collection of photographs as a background.
2. Local Images Plus
Local Images Plus downloads the images in web pages you add to you vault so that if the page is taken down or the URL changes, you still have the images to illustrate your notes. It converts images to jpg from png and makes sure you don’t have duplicates by using the MD5 hashing algorithm. It will also remove orphaned images from your vault. You can even use this plugin to localize images from existing notes.
3. Auto Note Mover
Auto Note Mover allows you to set rules that automatically move notes to the folders of your choice based on tags. You can also set up rules to manually move notes based on tags or you can include a file property yo exclude a mote from being moved. If the destination folder does not exist or if there is already a note with the same name, you will receive a warning and the note will not be moved.
4. Callout Manager
Callout Manager is a plugin that makes creating a configuring callouts easy. With it you can browse a list of available callouts, change the color of callouts, create custom callouts. As a bonus, it works on mobile.
5. Extract URL Content
Extract URL content works when you select a URL in a document and execute a command from the command pallet to replace the selection with the markdown content. Additionally, if you use a file property of link:, followed by a URL, the markdown content will be created. Finally, if you have multiple links in a note, you can run a command to have notes created for each URL in a separate folder.
6. Automatic Table of Contents
Automatic Table of Contents is useful for long and detailed notes. It will create a table of contents for you at the top of a note based on the headers you have used. If you make changes to the note, the table of contents will automatically change to reflect your input.
7. Media DB
Media DB is useful if you use Obsidian to track content consumption. You can search a movie, television series, anime, game, music release or wiki article by its name across multiple APIs. You can make customized templates in each category and even convert existing notes into Media DB notes using the API.
8. Raindrop Highlights
Raindrop Highlights imports your collected bookmarks from the Raindrop.io service along with your highlights into your Obsidian vault. You can import them all or selectively choose the folders you want to bring in. You have the option of running a sync process manually or having it run automatically. If you have decent JS skills, you can even use Nunjucks to create a template for custom front matter and the importation of content with your bookmarks.
9. Attachment Management
The Attachment Management plugin is central to my workflow for the importation of web content. It centralizes the location on attachments in a single folder with subfolders matching the structure of my vault. It renames images to match the note names they are a part of. It works well with the Local Images Plus plugin. If you have folders where you don’t want the attachments moved or renamed, setting up exclusion rules is easy.
10. Waypoint
Waypoint is an Obsidian plugin that automatically generates tables of contents/MOCs within your folder notes. Once a waypoint is generated, it’ll automatically link to every note within the folder and its subfolders. The Waypoint plugin will detect when you create/rename/move/delete a note and automatically stay up-to-date.
Favorite logo? I’m definitely flying the rainbow flag on this one. #Apple
Custom Shortcuts by Houdah Software is a free Mac application that allows you to assign your own keyboard shortcuts to any menu item in any application.
📷 #mbApr Day 24 - Light
Sunset at Edenton Harbor #photography
If they’re smart enough to fix a 46-year old computer from 15 billion miles away, everyone can STFU about the competence of government employees for a while. Voyager 1 Is Working Again
Our new CIO decided to take away local admin rights from all users, which from a security standpoint is the right thing to do but from a cultural standpoint is a huge and unpopular change. As part of the public face of IT, it’s not been fun explaining this to folks.
Doc Watson, the blind folk guitarist from the NC mountains been gone for 12 years now but before he passed away, I got to see him perform live. It was the musical experience of a lifetime. His music has had special meaning to me for decades. The Essential Doc Watson - a Review
