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Amerpie by Lou Plummer

Working in educational IT since the 90s. Dedicated Mac user trapped in a PC world. Obsidian fanboy. Blogger. Friendly 😊
Obsidian Posts | AppAddict | Living Out Loud | /Now Page | Find Me

Apps

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    rclone - An Easy to Use and Powerful CLI

    RCLONE
    RCLONE


    There are quite a few apps with GUIs available for Macs that let you connect various cloud services to upload, download and move files. Most of them are costly. Today I needed to move files from Google Drive to a kDrive, a cloud storage company in Switzerland, Instead of using one of the expensive apps, I opted for a free command utility, rclone, and in just a few minutes initiated a complete transfer of the data on my drive.

    If you've dealt with cloud storage, including iCloud over the past few versions of macOS, you might agree with me that Apple has made a mess of it. They insist on hiding your files away in ~/Library/Cloud Storage and other non-obvious locations. By default, the files stay in the cloud, making utilities like Hazel ineffective managing them. You just never know when you click on a file if you are going to have to wait to download it or not. The official clients for Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive and Box.com us that strategy. Even when you select the option to keep a folder downloaded, you get no notice that the download is complete and, in my experience, I have found that the settins revert from time to time with no notice, forcing me to redownload files.

    So, I was really happy today to take the time to set up rclone to move the files. You can get a good overview of rclone's history and capabilities from Wikipedia.. You can use rclone with a long list of cloud services.

    You can download and install rclone right On a Mac from the terminal, using the command

    sudo -v ; curl [rclone.org/install.s...](https://rclone.org/install.sh) | sudo bash

    Documentation

    You can read the documentation on rclone at the official GitHub repository.

    Here are links on how to set rclone for a few common services:

    Full Compatibility List

    GUI Alternatives

    File Managers/Browsers

    FTP/SFTP/Cloud Clients

    Mounters (Network Drive Mappers)

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    It Must Be True, I Read It on the Internet

    opt-2025-03-27-%1_17

    One of the reasons that the United States is in the middle of an existential crisis is that too many damned people believe everything they read on the Internet. For these people, the Internet is not the information super highway. It is a cesspool of lies, misinformation, manipulation by foreign adversaries and scammers out to make a buck. It is beholden to MAGA and the right wing, who grow angry and vengeful when they are fact checked. To keep from being attacked by the government, Meta, the parent company of Facebook fired its fact checkers when Donald Trump was reelected. Elon Musk fired Twitter's fact checkers when he paid 44 billion dollars for the company.

    No information source is infallible. Still, intelligent people should be able to separate fact from fiction. In the immortal words of way too may people Do your research.

    Credible Information Sources

    PolitiFact - Our only agenda is to publish the truth so you can be an informed participant in democracy.

    Snopes.com | The definitive fact-checking site and reference source for urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation. - Snopes (/ ˈ s n oʊ p s/), formerly known as the Urban Legends Reference Pages, is a fact-checking website. It has been described as a "well-regarded reference for sorting out myths and rumors" on the Internet. The site has also been seen as a source for both validating and debunking urban legends and similar stories in American popular culture.

    Some other fact-checking resources similar to Politifact and Snopes include:

    1. FactCheck.org - A Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center
    2. Fact Check: Political & News Fact Check | AP News
    3. Fact Check | Reuters
    4. .Full Fact
    5. BBC Verify
    6. FactCheck – Channel 4 News
    7. Lead Stories
    8. Truth or Fiction? – Seeking truth, exposing fiction
    9. International Fact-Checking Network - Poynter

    I have a couple of newsletters now. One is a weekly collection from my personal and links blogs that goes out on Mondays. - ✏️ Subscribe | Amerpie by Lou Plummer

    The other newsletter is myapp review blog, delivered daily in case you don't have enough software in your life - Subscribe | AppAddict Newsletter

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    Cool Tools for Mastodon

    Mastodon Mascot
    Mastodon Mascot


    When it comes to the new breed of social media, I prefer the federated and independent nature of Mastodon over everything else. I want nothing to do with Threads or anything else tainted by Meta. I like the atmosphere at Bluesky, but we have to face that it is a company founded by a billionaire, funded with venture capital and it's going to be enshittified one day - breaking the heart of millions. Mastodon, on the other hand was founded in Europe and is out of the control of the American fascist movement. Unlike the reality with Blue Sky, you really can have your very own Mastodon server. While it has an undeserved reputation for being difficult for normal people to use, there is only a single extra step to get started and there are many guides and walk throughs o hold your hand throught that step. In the 15 months of being on Mastodon, I have yet to witness the kind of hate filled craziness seen on corporate owned social media every day.

    There are almost 100 different apps with Mastodon access available for Apple hardware and a few online, browser based clients as well. Here are a few unique offerings that can compliment or replace your primary Mastodon client.

    Newsmast (free)

    In a first for the Fediverse, we’re seamlessly integrating content from your home server with Newsmast’s hand-curated, knowledge-sharing Communities, hosted on our customised Mastodon instance, newsmast.social. There’s no scraping or content aggregation - all the community content comes from Newsmast users or via federation, and is moderated by applying the Oliphant Tier 0 blocklist, filters that keep out NSFW, crypto and hate-speech, and our human team.

    Automadon ($14.99 year)

    Automadon provides a suite of Shortcuts actions for Mastodon with support for multiple accounts. Actions available within Shortcuts include: • Post to Mastodon • Full-text search • Get account details, timelines, and following/follower lists • Interact with posts, including boosting, favoriting, and bookmarking posts • Follow/unfollow, block/unblock, mute/unmute accounts

    Toot Later for Mastodon ($4.00)

    With TootLater, you can: • Schedule multiple posts with different dates and times • Add multiple Mastodon accounts and switch between them easily • Attach images to your posts and preview them before sending • TootLater uses the official Mastodon API to ensure your account and posts are secure

    Video for Ants ($3.99)

    Got videos that are too big to upload to Mastodon? Everyone does. What kind of limits are these?! All you have to do is pick your video and then tap a button and video for ants will automatically convert the format, compress the bitrate, and optimize the fps (frame rate) as needed to make them fit. You only have to tap a button. That's it. That's the app.

    Threaditor: write for everyone ($9.99)

    • Draft threads for popular microblogging platforms all in one place
    • Save unlimited threads to the cloud - always pick up where you left off
    • Link your accounts to automatically publish, and group accounts to post to multiple places at once
    • Add images and polls to your posts

    Re: Toot ($2.99)

    Re: Toot turns Mastodon posts into images that are suitable for quote posts. Images are accompanied by attribution to the original author and an alternative text. Images created by Re: Toot can also be shared to other social networks and messaging services. To create an image from a Mastodon post, just copy the link the post and open Re: Toot or invoke the app through the Share Sheet.

    Still Followers for Mastodon (Expensive - just use the free features)

    Still Followers is a useful analytics tool to keep you fro getting suckered by the people who game social media by following and unfollowing people. The free version offers several useful tools for the casual user.

    AppAddict Picks

    • My favorite Mastodon client isMona for Mastodon, a one time purchase with more features than any other Mastodon client.
    • My favorite Mastodon instance is social.lol, which is for members of OMG.LOL and IndieWeb platform with multiple features inlcuding a link in bio page, a blog, photo hosting, an omg.lol email address and much more, all for $20 a year.
    • My favorite social media tool for analytics, scheduled posts. account discovery, reports and more is Fedica. The free tier is useful. A paid membership is insane. Works with 10 different social media platforms.
    • If you want to learn more about the Fediverse, how to use it, what it can do - head over to Fedi Tips.


    I have a couple of newsletters now. One is a weekly collection from my personal and links blogs that goes out on Mondays. - ✏️ Subscribe | Amerpie by Lou Plummer

    The other newsletter is for this blog, one app review delivered to your mailbox every day. in case you don't have enough software in your life - Subscribe | AppAddict Newsletter

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    Browser Extensions Are a Secret Weapon

    Broser Extensions
    Broser Extensions


    This is a special edition of AppAddict. Tonight, I'm covering one of the best sources of computing functionality that often goes overlooked in the hunt for productivity enhancements and better work flows. There are many browser extensions that replace or enhance apps you use every day. This is my personal aresenal that I use in my daily workflow.

    A modern Mac is a miraculous machine. My decidedly middle of the road laptop is an M2 with 16GB od RAM. I bought it in December of 2023 and hope to continue using it for years. The number of programs I have running at login (~40) would give Y2K Lou nightmares. The sheer number of installed applications would freak (628) that guy out. Finally, there are my browser extensions, and I'm only talking about the ones for my daily driver, Vivaldi, not the ones in the other five browsers I have installed. Where once I would have been concerned with somehow slowing down the Internet, today I just want to get the maximum amount of functionality out of my interface with it. I use A LOT of extensions. Let's get to them, shall we?

    Aboard

    Aboard does a a great many things but the way I use it is simple. It what I click when there is a webpage I want to share with my wife. She gets a notification on her phone when I share something and she can view it in the Aboard app or in a browser at the website. It's how I share shows I want to watch, restaurants I want to check out or news items that are blowing my mind.


    Activity Watch

    Activity Watch is a free time tracker that tells me how long I've been using my computer, which apps I use and for how long and what websites I visited and for how long. I can assign apps and web pages to categories and make the reports it creates as granular as I want to.

    Activity Watch - Free No Effort Time Tracker | AppAddict

    Language Tool

    I use the paid version of this grammar, paraphraser and spelling tool, but I have used the free version as well and it is definitely a step up from native tools.

    Language Tool - Free is Good, Paid is Better | AppAddict

    Anylist Recipe Importer

    I only activate this when I'm looking for recipes. Anylist importer clears all the cruft away from recipe sites and kust imports the ingredients and directions and leaves out all the SEO crap. It works with the Mac/iOS/Web app called Anylist, which is an app I've used for over a decade for shopping and packing lists and collecting recipes.

    AnyList for Recipes, Shopping and More | AppAddict

    Archive Today Automator

    This is the extension I couldn't live without. Whenever I want to read a paywalled article from the New York Times, The Atlantic, The Verge, Medium, The Wall Street Journal or practically any other site, I just hit this button in my toolbar to obtain immediate access to a version from the Internet Archive. I subscribe to and support several progressive news organizations so I don't feel bad for reading MSM sites for free.

    Block Party

    Block Party is a paid service that inspects settings on invasive websites and changes things with your consent to offer yoy the most privacy possible. It works with Reddit, Google, YouTube, Strava, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, amd Instagram.

    Bluesky Sidebar

    Bluesky sidebar loads on web pages from the Bluesky social media platform and gives you extra information on the people you follow, the people who follow you, trending topics and the lists you are subscribed to.

    Cloudhiker

    Cloudhiker is a freemium service that is the closest thing you'll find on the wen today to the old Stumble Upon website. Use Cloudhiker to suggest and discover new sites in a large number of categories.

    Cloudhiker - StumbleUpon for the IndyWeb | Linkage

    Fedica

    Fedica is a freemium service that allows you to schedule posts on all the major social media sites, you can crosspost to several of them at once. Paid customers get analytics and research tools, pluse reports from certain sites, like Mastodon and Bluesky.

    Fedica - Post to Multiple Social Networks at Once, On a Schedule - For Free | AppAddict

    Kagi Privacy Pass

    Thiis extension is iused to authenticate to the paid Kagi search engine if you want to block all access toy what you are searching for. With this enabled, there is no history of your search activity using Kagi.

    Using Kagi Search Engine on a Mac - Software and Tips | AppAddict

    Markdownload

    This is another one of my favorite extensons. It copies webpage links as Markdown links for insertion into posts and documents. It cam also copy whole pages as Markdown, although now that usefulness has been supplanted by the Obsidian Web Clipper. Finally is will create a markdown list from all the open tabs in a browser windos. It's great for bloggers and researchers.

    MarkDownload - The Browser Extension that Works With #Obsidian | Amerpie by Lou Plummer

    Mastodon Redirector

    No matter what Mastodon instance I land on while browsing and following toots from others, clicking this button opens the page in my home instance, allowing me to like, follow and comment with ease. I find that ut works better for me than Graze, another plugin with similar features.

    Obsidian Web Clipper

    This free tool uses templates to download web pages as markdown files. Using AI, you can get summaries of the page and automatically assign tags. It will even download the transcript from YouTube videos. I have templates for IMDB, Bluesky, Mastodon, Reddit, YouTube, Medium, Wikiepedia and general web pages.

    Privacy Badger

    This free extension from the Electronic Frontier Foundation is not an ad blocker. It works hand in hand with them to detect and block trackers using an algorithm and machine learning. The EFF is working on ways to prevent browser fingerprinting, the strategy used by tech companies to follow you around the web without cookies.

    Privacy Badger Extension from the Electronic Freedom Foundation | AppAddict

    Raindrop.io

    Raindrop is a freemium bookmarking service from which I gety great value. I use it to create webpages of links I want to share, to save canonical copies of stories so that if the are removed from the Internet, I can still access them. I have never used my bookmarks more than I have with Raindrop.

    Battle of the Bookmark Managers | AppAddict

    Quick Pocket

    I am a big believer in automation and in reading the work of smart people at depth. Aside from using Pocket as the excellent read it later service that it is, I also use it's integration with IFTTT and RSS to automate the saving of full text blog entries from Matt Birchler and Jarrod Blundy, two of my favorite tech oriented bloggers. Their articles are routed through Pocket right into Obsidian or Day One for preservation and reference. Pocket is owned by the Mozilla foundation.

    Ublock Origin Light

    The Original Ublock Origin is still the best as blocker ever made. It is no longer compatible with Chrome, Edge and Vivaldi, although Forefox users can still use it. Using a complete security toolkit that includes a customer DNS server, built in blockers in Vivaldi, Ublock Origin light and Freetube for YouTube, I routinely score 99 or 100 on ad blocking tests.

    My Online Security Setup | Linkage

    I have a couple of newsletters now. One is a weekly collection from my personal and links blogs that goes out on Mondays. - ✏️ Subscribe | Amerpie by Lou Plummer

    The other newsletter is for this blog, in case you don't have enough software in your life - Subscribe | AppAddict Newsletter


    ✉️ Reply by email

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    KeyKeeper Checks All the Boxes for Tracking Software Licenses

    KeyKeeper
    KeyKeeper


    I've been working on getting all my software licensing information into KeyKeeper, an app by the same team that operates Bundlehunt. I've been buying Mac software since the days of the classic OS. Believe it or not, some apps I purchased as far back as 2004 are still functional, requiring the original license ket when I set up a new system. Shout out to SuperDuper!

    I've used various methods to track licensing information: a spreadsheet, Evernote, an email tag, Obsidian, the freeware app, Licensed All of them are functional enough, but when I saw the features in KeyKeeper, available for $4.99 in the current bundle, I decided to try it out.

    KeyKeeper is security focused, requiring a password to enter the database. The design follows modern Mac conventions. There are all of the database fields you'd expect for this type of app, but you can add unlimited custom fields and file attachments, useful for screenshots and apps that have downloadable license keys. The fields for URLs are live, so if you need to visit a product website or redownload the app, you can do both right from KeyKeeper. A feature I like is the ability to create your won categories for your apps and make your own assignments. You can also create a favorites list. If you've been tracking your app purchases in a speadsheet, you can import the data into KeyKeeper and save yourself all the manual data entry. Once you have the data in KeyKeeper, you can export it into a spreadsheet as well. You can use Python to convert the exported spreadsheet into Markdown notes for Obsidian, if you think that would be helpful.

    A single license for KeyKeeper is good for use on two Macs. The regular price is $11.99 if you miss the Bundlehunt special.

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    iNet Network Scanner

    Scan Results
    Scan Results


    For anyone with a home lab or who is invested in the Internet of Things, the ability to scan your network is a tool that you want in your management arsenal. Additionally, if you live in an urban environment, being able to monitor the devices on your Wi-Fi network is important if you suspect one of your neighbors might be attempting to access anything they shouldn't.

    iNet Network Scanner from BananaGlue GmbH is a particularly useful tool for anyone with a home network that's heavy on Apple devices. It's scanner can correctly identify laptops, desktops, iPhones, iPads, Apple TVs and HomePods. It can also pick up other computers, tablets, thermostats, picture frames and similar devices.

    Network Scanner

    • Displays information for all devices powered on and connected to the network including their IP and MAC addresses.
    • Customize the names of the devices in your network and assign them custom icons
    • Set the IP range to be scanned or the interfaces to be scanned
    • Export the scan results as an Excel (csv) or PDF file
    • Connect to devices with different protocols from within the scanner (e.g., SMB or SSH)

    Bonjour monitor

    • Display of all running services (Bonjour) in real time (e.g. SMB. SSH, Media Sharing, VNC)
    • Display of the services running on a specific device
    • Display of detailed information about a service
    • Selection of the active Bonjour domain

    iNet Network Scanner also features wake on LAN controls to sleep, wake and restart compatible devices. For anyone still using an Apple Airport as a home Wi-Fi device, there are numerous monitoring features.

    The app is available in the App Store for $24.99 as a one time purchase with lifetime upgrades.

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    UTM for Virtualization

    UTM Gallery
    UTM Gallery


    I recently converted my Windows laptop to Ubuntu. I don't rely on Windows for anything personally any longer so I didn't need a dedicated machine for that OS. However, as the extended family tech support guy, there are occasions when I need to use Windows 10 and Windows 11 to troubleshoot issues for my relatives who have yet to see the light and buy a Mac. I relied on Oracle's free VirtualBox for a long time to build VMs and I've had licensed copies of Parallels through work off and on through the years. It's a good product, but not worth the price just for occasional use.

    My current choice for running Windows in a VM on a Mac is UTM. It's free and allows you to run an Intel based version of Windows on an M series Mac. It's slow and inefficient, not something you want to use every day, but for testing and troubleshooting, it's fine. You can't game with a UTM virtual machine. UTM does not currently support GPU emulation/virtualization on Windows and therefore lacks support for 3D acceleration (e.g. OpenGL and DirectX). If you need a Windows license, you can get one at Stack Socialfor $15.

    There is a gallery of prebuilt VMson the UTM site.

    Windows

    • Windows 11
    • Windows 10
    • Windows 7
    • Windows XP

    Linux (multiple version of each distro)

    • Arch
    • Debian
    • Fedora
    • Kali
    • Ubuntu

    My choice for creating and running Mac VMs is Virtual Buddy. You can choose a Mac release (including betas) from a long list ranging from macOS 13.3 all the way to macOS 15.1 RC1. If you have a URL for another IPSW or an IPSW you have already downloaded, you can use them as well.

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    Koofr - European Based Cloud Storage Provider with a Generous Free Tier

    Koofr
    Koofr


    I am in the process of de-Googling. I already moved my email to Fastmail. I changed my default search engine to Kagi. I am moving my photographs to Ente. Today, I took advantage of an ongoing sale at Stack Social to purchase a lifetime deal on 1 TB of cloud storage with the Slovenian company, Koofr For $120. I've been paying a monthly fee for cloud storage for more than 10 years and I'm delighted that is coming to an end. My de-Googling project is based more on my desire to preserve my privacy and protect myself from the US government, but I'm happy to save a few bucks while doing it. For anyone who wants to try out Koofr, they offer a 10GB account for free. If you just want an offshore place to store documents, that is a healthy amount of storage, but not enough if you are looking to have a safe place for photos, music and larger backups. You can also subscribe to Koofr monthly with plans starting at a trifling €.5 a month, going up in increments for an additional 10, 25, 100, and 250 GBs before getting to TB and greater options.

    The Mac client for Koofr allows you to set up access to your storage as if it were a network drive. Koofr also sets up a folder in your home directory that is synced with its cloud servers. I like this much better than the default location in the ~/Library/Cloud Storage folder used by Google Drive, Dropbox and Box.com. You can add additional folders to sync with the cloud, something I typically do with my default downloads folder so that I can easily share those files between devices. If you have Dropbox, Google Drive or One Drive accounts, you can mount those providers inside of your Koofr vault, something I'm taking advantage of while I work on moving the files I want to secure over to European based storage, protected by European privacy laws which are much stricter than in the US. Koofr's search function will search the files on each of those services as well as itself. The Koofr app also allows me to set up local file sharing between computers on my home network where the data never goes to a could service, it's just a convenient feature to share data between devices.

    I was also able to set up Koofr easily in my iOS file manager, FileBrowserPro, using WebDAV.

    There is a Koofr client for iOS, Windows and Linux if you use those platforms.

    Even free accounts can use use Koofr Vault for extra strong protection. Open source, client-side, zero-knowledge encrypted storage application by Koofr.

    There are even more features than I have covered for collaboration, file recovery, data migration from Meta platforms, an image editor, duplicate file detection, drive space management and more.

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    Zotero as a Free PDF Library Manager

    Zotero Interface
    Zotero Interface


    I recently crowd-sourced ideas for a better way to catalog, annotate and search my collected PDFs, mainly software and hardware user manuals with a few odds and ends thrown in. The top suggestions were:

    • Zotero - the app I chose
    • DevonThink - expensive when all I want is PDF searches
    • Eagle Filer - what I've been using, but I want something that is native to Apple silicon, works on IOS and is lightweight as a way to search PDFs only
    • Paperless-ngx - Interesting, but requires Docker
    • Obsidia - not suitable because the plugin required for text searched creates too many support files

    Zotero

    I chose Zotero, because it's free, lightweight and offers an iOS app using the same data. Zotero can import multiple files at once. It has built in tools for highlighting and making annotations to PDFs. There are numerous plugins available, including:

    • AutoIndex - Keeps the full-text index updated. Beta release. If you have ZotFile installed, Auto-index will also kick off auto-extraction of notes.
    • PDF Translate - Provides PDF translation for the built-in PDF reader in Zotero
    • PDF Preview - Preview Zotero attachments in the library view.
    • Zutilo - Adds additional editing functions and exposes Zotero functions for keyboard shortcuts

    Zotero is designed to  to manage bibliographic data and related research materials, something for which I have little use. I can however use its browser import tools and added ability to add epub and HTMS archives to my research library. It is compatible with SingleFile, an open-source project for saving HTML archives of web pages. Zotero allows you to attach notes to PDFs, retrieve their metadata and other tasks. You can organize PDFs in folders and collections. The Zotero website provides extensive information, including instructional screencasts, troubleshooting tips, a list of known issues, and user forums.

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    Permissions Reset 2 - Free Troubleshooting Tool


    One of the first steps in troubleshooting a misbehaving Mac for many years has been to repair the disk permissions, currently a feature of Disk First Aid, accessed through Disk Utility or the terminal if you are savvy. That can be a bit of overkill if you are primarily concerned with a single file, folder or app, though. it's time consuming and affects your entire drive.

    If you have files, folders or apps that cannot be opened or files that refuse to have changes saved to them, there is a free tool that can quickly solve the issue if it is permission related. Permissions Reset 2 from Taiwanese developers  Ohanaware can reset the owner, group, access permissions, Access Control Lists (ACLS), Extended Attributes (including Quarantine) to default settings, simply by dragging an app, folder or file into Permissions Reset, selecting what you'd like reset, then clicking on "Reset".

    The app requires macOS 10.13 or newer and is compatible with Sequoia, although it has not been updated since 2021. . If you are familiar with the binary and reversible nature of disk permissions, this shouldn't give you pause. It isn't Apple Silicon native, so if you don't want to use Rosetta, then this isn't for you. If you get anxiety if your apps aren't updated every 15 minutes, then this probably isn't for you either.

    You can download the app from the developer's website.

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    My Current Online Hangouts

    IMG_0201

    These are the places I go online to interact with other folks. If you are not familiar with any of these places, maybe you can check them out.

    My Mastodon Server

    I am a big fan on the community at OMG.LOL and its Mastodon server, Social.lol, which requires that you have an OMG.LOL account. There is also a Discord community and a Signal group.

    Discord

    I am a member of several communities on Discord My favorites are : Obsidian.md, OMG.LOL, MacApps,

    AppRaven

    AppRaven is a community based around the iOS app of the same name. It's for people who like to discover new Mac and iOS apps,

    Forums

    I have a tom of forum accounts, mostly for software. The most helpful are Obsidian, Drafts, Keyboard Maestro

    Reddit

    My favorite communities on Reddit are r/MacApps, r/ObsidianMD and r/MacOS

    BearBlog Discover

    A great place to get to know bloggers is on BearBlog's Discover Page.

    Scribbles

    The new posts on the Scribbles platform are on the Explore Page

    Micro.Blog

    Did you know that you can get an account at Micro.blog for $1 month?

    Others

    I’m on Bluesky if you want to hook up there. I’m also on Pixelfed. Let’s Connect

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    Setapp Goodness and Tips

    Soome of the Apps I Use
    Soome of the Apps I Use


    Setapp is an app subscription service ($9.99 a month) owned by the Ukrainian company Macpaw. It has approximately 1 million subscribers, which is a good testament to its usefulness. Here are some of the things I've learned in a year and half of being a customer.

    Unfortunately, Macpaw is a frequent target of Russian trolls because of the ongoing war between the two countries. Macpaw also makes the utility suite, CleanMyMac, which some people confuse with an older Mac malware program, MacKeeper. The two are not related. If you read the tech press, you'll see good reviews of Setapp. If you rely on Reddit or anonymous online sources, you are likely to run into those pesky Russians I mentioned.

    I get tremendous value from my Setapp subscription. The numbers fluctuate a bit, but I currently have 42 apps from the service installed. More than a dozen of those apps are login items that are always running on my Mac. Obviously, they play a vital part in my workflow.

    Anyone can try Setapp and all of its app for free for seven days, however if you use my referral link and code PLUMMER you will get 30 days free instead of seven. Also if you are a student, you are eligible for Setapp at 50% off. And, finally, anyone who pays by the year gets a 10% discount.

    One tip I can offer is to get your own API key from Open.AI for use with AI apps like Typing Mind or Elephas. It is much cheaper. In a year of constantly using my API with multiple apps, I've spent $15.

    If you have any apps from Setapp that you have already purchased, consider using the Setapp version while you have a subscription since it adds to the money that the developer make. It's just a nice thing to do. Brett Terpstra wrote a script and an automator workflow that will tell you if any of the apps on your computer are also on Setapp.

    One last thing - I tried the iOS add-on and didn't get that much from it. I do have the add-on to run the apps on a second machine though. It doesn't add that much and it comes in handy.

    Here's a List of the Login Apps I Use

    Other Setapp Offerings I Have Reviewed

    Full list of apps on Setapp, listed by popularity

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    Apps for Photo Archiving Workflow

    A Better Finder Attribute
    A Better Finder Attribute


    I'm in the process of removing my data from most of the big US based tech companies in favor or smaller, more privacy focused companies. I do not want my files to be subject to US government subpoenas or other invasive security threats from which Google, Amazon, Meta or Microsoft can profit. I've downloaded my photo backups from Amazon and Google, made local backups and set up a self hosted photo server. I will also be using Ente, a data storage provider using E2E open-source software.

    When downloading my stored photos, I am dealing with cell phone photos, scanned images, DSLR photos and downloaded Internet images. The files from cell phones and cameras contain EXIF data. The scans and Internet files do not. To set the file creation date to match the EXIF data, I used A Better Finder Attributes. by PublicSpaces.

    To rename the files so that they file name matches or contains the date the photo was taken, I am using Transnomino, a free file renaming utility that offers renaming based on factors as simple as text replacement to complex replacements based on regular expressions and text-based file attributes.

    For dealing with large amounts of zipped archives, I'm using Better Zip because of it's feature that allows you to save workflows that unarchive the files in a variety of locations. It also deals with archive errors better than other utilities that aren't really designed for queued files operations. Better Zip also provides a Quicklook plugin that allows me to see the contents of archives without having to open them.

    To sort the files (there are over 100,000), I'm using Hazel which is easily able to separate the videos from the still images. It then moves the files based on the creation date to a folder named for the month and year the image was captured. If the folder does not exist, it creates it.

    To move and copy the huge volume of files I'm dealing with, I am using RsyncUI, a graphical front end for the powerful CLI program, rsync.

    To view the local files on my Mac, I am definitely NOT using Apple Photos. Right now I am using the free app, XnViewMP, but I am preparing to set up Musebox a one-time purchase app ($15). with capabilities similar to Lightoom.

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    Fmail2 for Fastmail

    Fmail2
    Fmail2


    After using Gmail for twenty years, I recently decided to move to a more privacy focused provider I could use with my own domain. I've finally reached the tipping point with surrendering my data to big tech in exchange for free services.

    I chose Fastmail as my new provider. Fastmail works with just about any email client available. I don't need or want AI capabilities, nor do I have any complicated workflows for email. I use my account purely for personal communications and as a repository for subscriptions. It doesn't make sense for me to use a paid or subscription app for those basic needs, so I opted for a free Fastmail client, Fmail2. This tiny app (8MB) replicates the excellent Fastmail web client and adds a number of features.

    • Multiple window support
    • Default email client
    • Running in the background
    • Auto hide
    • Tabs
    • Dock item with badge
    • Swipe support
    • Secure
    • Notifications
    • Status bar menu
    • Keyboard shortcuts

    There were several reasons I chose Fastmail from among other options.

    • Import of mail, calendar, notes, contacts and filters from Gmail
    • Label support (folders are also an option)
    • Robust SPAM filters
    • 50GB of storage - 20 years of Gmail only used 8GB, so I think I'll be fine with 50GB on Fastmail
    • Unlimited alias addresses
    • Unlimited masked email addresses
    • Ongoing import of Gmail
    • Discount for family plan

    Fmail2 is a 100% Swift app and runs natively on apple silicon. The developer is Arie van Boxel, who is also behind the excellent Startup Manager app.

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    Amazon Exit Toolkit

    Boycott_Amazon

    My wife and I are in the process of detangling ourselves from four of the biggest tech companies: Meta, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. Of those four, Amazon is the most firmly entrenched in our lives since the company, and it's owner without a soul, billionaire Jeff Bezos provide various services we use, forcing us to find alternatives in several different areas.

    News

    We dumped our subscription to the Washington Post during the 2024 election when Bezos, the owner of the newspaper, compelled the editorial department to kill its endorsement of the Harris/Walz ticket. While there are some quality journalists working at the paper, Bezos recently became even more involved with editorial policy, making it more pro-MAGA. We took the money we were spending on the Post and the New York Times and used it to support

    eBooks

    We've been ebook readers since shortly after the Kindle was released. We no longer use Kindle devices to read on, opting for our iPads these days, but we've purchased over 500 titles for the platform from Amazon. I recently downloaded all those files, removed the DRM and converted the files to epub format. Going forward, we will use the following stores and our technical skills to make our eBook purchases available to us on whatever platform we choose.

    Audiobooks

    Although you can still download audiobooks purchased from the Amazon owned Audible company, the day may come where you are prevented from doing that. I used a free tool to download and convert another 500+ books using Libation - Audiobook Downloader and Converter. I used the Mac app, Permute, to convert some older audiobooks I had downloaded from an account to which I no longer had access. Going forward, we will use these sources for audiobooks instead of Audible.

    Television

    While Amazon Prime Video has had many shows we've enjoyed, our primary use of the service has been as a conduit to British television via Britbox and Acorn TV. Luckily for us, both of those services have app for the AppleTV, the streaming device we use.

    Photographs

    We have nearly a terabyte of photos and videos uploaded to Amazon's servers and they don;t make it easy to download them, limiting individual downloads to 200 images at the time. Just to get our photos from the single year of 2014 required 96 separate downloads. Never again. Once I finish getting all the files onto my drive, I will be using an end-to-end encrypted service with servers in Europe to store my photos in the cloud. It also has automatic uploads of iPhone photos, just like Amazon and Google, another place we are leaving.

    Ente - Private cloud storage for your photos, videos and more

    Shopping

    We've found that we can get better deals on products these days by shopping around vs. just buying from Amazon. A couple of examples are the companies Wonder Woman uses for her sports nutrition products and her running shoes.

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    Sensei - Do You Need It?

    Sensei
    Sensei


    When it comes to Mac utilities, there are things that are helpful to have, but that are not absolutely required. Many of the "nice to have" features can be gained through installing various free, well regarded applications. For people who don't want the hassle of assembling a toolkit piece by piece, there are apps like Sensei by Cindori Software, for optimization and information.

    Sensei Features vs. Free Alternatives

    • Hardware monitoring of CPU, GPU, RAM, temps, storage and battery. A free alternative is Stats
    • Cleaning of old caches, logs, big downloads and leftover installation files. A free alternative is Onyx
    • Uninstalling apps. If you just throw apps into the trash, which was once the accepted way to perform uninstallations, you can potentially leave behind GBs of files in ~/Library subfolders. Intelligent uninstallers locate and remove those files. Free alternatives are AppCleaner and Pear Cleaner
    • Monitor hard drive health, Drive failures can sometimes be predicted, giving you time to back your data and replace your drive. A free alternative is Disk Drill.
    • Battery Health. Batteries degrade over time and depending on how long you keep a laptop, may need to be replaced. Utilities like Sensei can tell you how much of your battery's orininal capacity is still viable. A free alternative is Coconut Battery.
    • Drive benchmarking - measuring the speed of your hard drive isn't necessarily helpful for commercial software, but some special use cases require higher speeds. A free alternative is Blackmagic Disk Speed Test
    • Startup analyzer - you may have more apps running in the background or at startup than your realize. I recently found five Microsoft remnants that didn't get uninstalled when I got rid of Microsoft 365. A fee alternative is Startup Manager.

    Sensei is a subscription app that costs $29 a year for a license that covers three Macs. A similar product, CleanMyMac, by MacPaw, is included in Setapp.

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    SiteSucker for Mac - Affordable and Powerful

    SiteSucker
    SiteSucker


    Today I downloaded and tested an app that's been on my radar for a while, SiteSucker for Mac by developer Rick Cranisky.. You can give this app a top level URL, specify how many layers deep you want to go and it will download an entire web site, complete with supporting files like images and style sheets. It has regex filters for anything you want to exclude. After I ran it the first time, I read the error log and excluded the site that was causing issues and it ran much better after that. SiteSucker has been under continuous development since the birth of Mac OX in 2001.

    The version available in the App Store is $4.99. It does not downloaded embedded videos. To get that feature you need to download the pro version of the app from the developer's website. Be prepared to an extra $1 for the pro version. The developer states :

    "SiteSucker Pro is an enhanced version of SiteSucker that can download embedded videos, including embedded YouTube, Vimeo, WordPress, and Wistia videos. SiteSucker Pro can also download sites from the Tor network. You can try SiteSucker Pro for up to 14 days before you buy it. During that period, the application is fully functional except that you can download no more than 100 files at a time."

    When I ran SiteSuckker against one of my blogs, it created a copy of the website on my hard drive that was indistinguishable from the site hosted by my provider. The internal links were pointed to the local files downloaded, while the external links still pointed to the Internet. I had a couple of external links that generated downloads of huge XML files, in one case 375MBs of them. There are reports from some users that they've filled up all the available hard drive space by changing the default settings and not monitoring the download. Don't do that!

    You can create default settings or save the settings for different websites as individual files you can open if you wish to re-download a copy of a site.

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    CharmBar - Easy Dock Customization

    Charmbar
    Charmbar


    Like many Mac users, I enjoy customizing the look of my operating system. I particularly like the look of older, vintage icons from Mac history, having spent a lot of memorable and enjoyable times on older machines. There are several apps that let you make changes to program icons, Replacicon is a well known example, but Apple made it hard to alter systems icons, Don't like the Finder face? Tough. Apple wants you to have it.

    Enter CharmBar, a delightful little app from kepler.cafe, makers of DockDoor, another well thought out app that gives you Window previews when you hover the cursor over icons on the dock. Using Charmbar, you can alter or replace dock icons.with any emoji, jpg or png file. Its simple interface lets you create your own library of files. When you pick an application icon to add your own touches to, you select one or more of the images you've added to your library and overlay the original icon. You can completely cover it up or just add whimsical flourishes.

    Your changes show up in real time. If you grow tired of the extra elements, they'll go away when you close the program, which runs from the menu bar.

    Charmbar is a one-time purchase of $5 on Gumroad. One license code is good for installing the app on up to three Macs. There are no subscriptions and no invasive elements to suck away your data. The developer is active on Reddit, and doesn't appear to mind interacting with the community.

    My lame icons
    My lame icons


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    Retirement So Far

    Dawn

    As the end of my second week of retired life draws to an end, I am reminded that nothing is routine. Weather irregularities and disruptions caused by maintenance issues at the university have had Wonder Woman working from home, which is nice because I like hanging out with her even when she is busy. It's kept me from firmly entrenching myself in a routine, however. When I told her that she was messing with my flow, she didn't appreciate it. All I meant is that it is challenging to establish a routine when the pattern of the days varies so much. Sheesh!

    I've continued to work on my home office. It got relocated from our unused dining room to the living area where the two of us hang out so that I can work on my projects without being in a different part of the house. I rounded up all the external hard drives I had floating around, a total of eleven. When added together, they give me 17 TB of extra storage added to the four TB of internal storage in my computers. A lot of that will be unused space for a while. Some of it is being used as backup locations. I set up a Plex server on my Linux computer with movies, TV shows, music, and photos.

    Another project is disconnecting from all the big tech companies apart from Apple to the extent possible. We are leaving Gmail and using Fastmail. I have all my important accounts using the new email already. I spend about an hour a day moving some other 240 accounts using my Google credentials each day. I will have that finished by the middle of April. I managed to download and remove the DRM from 500 Kindle ebooks and 500 Audible audiobooks. We are trying to decide on new vendors for each of those media types. We are dropping Amazon Prime next month, so I am in the process of downloading nearly a TB of backed up photos from there. I uninstalled all Microsoft products from my computers, but those sneaky bastards left several processes behind that I had to remove via the Terminal to finally disconnect.

    I set up a weekly lunch data with my father. He's the primary caregiver for my step-mother who has advanced Alzheimer's. He needs a break once in a while, and I am happy to spend time with him. We've never been especially close, but he is fun to spend time with. He's a talented storyteller and good at making conversation.

    I've assumed sole responsibility for the grocery shopping so that our weekends aren't partially given over to that chore. Wonder Woman wanted me to start making some of her favorite vegetables more frequently, so I've been loading up on asparagus, zucchini, fresh green beans and the like. She never turns down a cuppa either, so we've been having many mugs of the top-shelf Irish tea I love so much.

    My sleep patterns are shot all to hell. We go to bed early because Wonder Woman likes to run before work. I am usually awake for good between 2:00 and 3:00 AM, when I get up to start writing. Of course, I get sleepy later on, indulging in a nap while sitting on the couch. I'd like to consolidate that sleep to a continuous period during the night but so far it's not working out.

    We've had a couple of weekend getaways. One was to Raleigh for my birthday where we had a good time visiting our favorite restaurants and shops. Then we went down to the South Carolina low country for a race. Next weekend is the first camping trip of 2025 with five of the grandkids. Next month we are going back to Southwest Virginia for the first time since Hurricane Helene. My kiddos have been on the road too or are getting ready to. My daughter and family went to Costa Rica for a family vacation. She's been sending me daily pictures and keeping me updated. My son is preparing for a trip next week to Frankfurt and Berlin for business. His passion is art and I hope he gets a chance to see some good museums between meetings.

    As you can see, I have not been bored or looking for things to do. My dream of long spells of uninterrupted time to write has yet to come to fruition, but it will get here soon enough.

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    Giving Criticism

    Feedback Dandwich

    On my software review blog, AppAddict, I focus on apps I like and that I think will be helpful to other Mac users. The only time I write negative reviews is when I don't like a company's business practices or when my take on an app is different than that of the majority. I give apps a fair test and I'm generally willing to give a developer the benefit of the doubt. I've gotten good feedback from a number of them, including a few I've kind of idolized over the years. The day will come, though, when the author of one of the apps of which I was critical is going to hit me up with a WTF? I'll be glad to listen and if I got something wrong, I'll correct my mistake.I won't just change my take on it because someone asks me to. Lame.

    I don't think many people are good at giving constructive criticism or negative feedback. Have you ever had a boss that would email the entire department when trying to correct one person's behavior because they were just to chickenshit to talk to them one on one? I endured that for years with more than one boss. Another indicator of poor people skills is when a boss waits until your annual performance review to criticize you, instead of being a coach or a mentor. Managers get paid to manage, but too many of them don't seem ti like that part of the job.

    Giving criticism isn't being mean. Sometimes withholding it is. It's a skill that can be learned. Here are some resources.

    How To Give Constructive Criticism: 6 Helpful Tips - Personal Excellence - Includes the infamous feedback sandwich method

    Do You Know How To Write A Good Bad Review? | by Liz King | Medium - By now we all know where to look for online reviews — on Yelp, Google, or Facebook. But do we know how to write them, and do we understand how they can impact a small business?

    Are You Being Too Critical in Your Relationship? | Psychology Today - Because we aren't taught how to navigate differences in our relationships, we tend to do it badly. However, as adults, we can learn to navigate differences in a healthy way, fostering more safety and connection in our relationships.

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