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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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    Hyperspace Frees Up Disk Space Without Deleting Files

    Hyperspace Icon
    Hyperspace Icon


    Developer, writer and podcaster, John Siracusa, has a new app you should try out if disk space on your Mac is starting to become scarce.

    I'm not convinced that anyone, anywhere, including Cupertino, truly understands the relationship between the disk space you actually have on your Mac and what the system reports. Cloud storage totals show what's in the cloud, not on your hard drive. Then there is the whole purgeable space concept. Another factor that contributes to the mystery and one that I just learned about is what happens on AFPS formatted drives when you duplicate a file. I'll let the legendary Mac developer, John Siracusa, explain:

    Today, most Mac users don’t even notice that using the “Duplicate” command in the Finder to make a copy of a file doesn’t actually copy the file’s contents. Instead, it makes a “clone” file that shares its data with the original file. That’s why duplicating a file in the Finder is nearly instant, no matter how large the file is. Despite knowing about clone files since the APFS introduction nearly eight years ago, I didn’t give them much thought beyond the tiny thrill of knowing that I wasn’t eating any more disk space when I duplicated a large file in the Finder. But late last year, as my Mac’s disk slowly filled, I started to muse about how I might be able to get some disk space back. If I could find files that had the same content but were not clones of each other, I could convert them into clones that all shared a single instance of the data on disk. I took an afternoon to whip up a ...scrip... to see how much space I might be able to save by doing this. It turned out to be a lot: dozens of gigabytes.

    There are plenty of Mac apps that will save disk space by finding duplicate files and then deleting the duplicates. Using APFS clones, this app can reclaim disk space without removing any files.

    If you have technical questions, there is extensive documentation on Siracusa's blog - Hyperspace

    Siracusa went on to convert the script he wrote into a native Mac app, written in Swift. You can get it from the App Store for free and run it against your Mac's file system to see how much disk space you can reclaim. If it's a significant amount, you have several subscription and purchase options:

    • $9.99 a month
    • $19.99 a year
    • $49.99 lifetime

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    Captin Solves a Major Mac Annoyance

    Screenshot of a settings window titled "General" with tabs for General, Displays, Icon, Sound, Updates, and About. Options include checkboxes for "Launch Captin at login" and "Show preferences on launch," both of which are unchecked. There are sliders for adjusting HUD window size between "Small" and "Large," and for setting "On duration" and "Off duration" with values of "0 s" and "1.5 s." Color options include a black background and text colors for "On" (yellow) and "Off" (red). A button labeled "Restore Default Setting" is at the bottom. The window is overlaid on a starry night sky background.
    Captin Prefs


    Unless you are an accomplished touch typist, which I am not, you probably spend a lot of time looking at the keyboard when working at your computer. Occasionally, those of us who type in this manner inadvertently hit the Caps Lock key unknowingly. When we finally check the display, we see a long string of text IN CAPITAL LETTERS. Fixing this is a PIA.

    Enter Captin, a free little utility that lets you know in every way possible when you have turned on Caps Lock, and not just visually. You can set a sound warning too.

    Notification Methods

    • HUD - Instant visual feedback
    • Menu-Bar Icon - Customizable LED color
    • Dock Icon - Theme-aware Dock-icon style
    • Customization - Color, duration, size, and sound
    • Multiple Displays - Adjust position for each display

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    Little Projects

    Vivaldi - 2025-02-24 at 20

    My wife is exceptionally handy and seldom asks me to do much. We aren't big gardeners. Our yard is well established, and it's easy to maintain. We pay to have big home improvements done, and the smaller projects we either do together or she just knocks them out. I will never forget when we first got together. We lived in a house with a pool. One day the pump just died, She went online, found the right pump, ordered it overnight. The next day she came home from her CPA firm, took off her business suit, unboxed the pool pump and installed it herself. In an hour, it was done. I was amazed then and I am amazed now.

    Since I am newly retired, I am working on making myself a routine and coming up with a few projects. Things I want to do daily include:

    • Going for a walk
    • A half-hour to an hour of housework
    • Cooking dinner

    Writing can now take up a sizable chunk of my day. I have a list of software to download and test before reviewing it for AppAddict. I plan to spend more time coming up with ideas to create link bundles about for Linkage. As far as this blog goes, my goal is just get better. I don't know what that looks like, exactly. I can take my time now, polish things a bit, quit using the word "awesome" so much, get better at commas - that kind of stuff.

    I have several tech projects underway. I used the process Jason Snell wrote about to download my entire Kindle collection instead of just select books like I did previously. It took just a few minutes to get all 555 of them from Amazon's servers to my hard drive. Now I have to set up Calibre and import them to remove the DRM and get them ready for use wherever I want them.

    Now that Amazon is keeping people from actually owning the things they've purchased, i found a way to get all my Audible books converted. Using the free and open-source tool, Libation, I am downloading another 500-plus books, but this process is much lengthier. Thankfully, the new Mac workstation I just set up can work on this job around the clock.

    I also want to get a local copy of all my photos for various reasons, mostly to use local search tools and for quicker access to them. I requested a Google takeout today and within hours I had 15 zip files of 10 GB each ready to download. I recently exported all my iCloud photos to Google, so hopefully the files I'm downloading will have all of them complete with metadata. I will let you know.

    I'm also going to pull my music collection out of the cloud so that I can set up a music server that not dependent on my Internet connection. I have about 30K songs from the olden days when we were still buying our own music, including some difficult to find bootlegs from Dylan, as well as many do it yourself albums from bars and coffee shops that aren't to be found on Apple Music or Spotify.

    To hold all this data, I've rounded up a pile of various hard drives I've accumulated through the years and looked at possible reusing the housing from some small external drives with upgrades. I found a supremely useful website for locating the lowest priced drives on Amazon, and I'll be keeping my eyes on that for bargains while I assemble this homemade NAS of mine.

    Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇

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    Libation - Audiobook Downloader and Converter

    Libation
    Libation


    Amazon recently announced its intention to prevent customers from being able to download copies of their purchased audiobooks, a feature it had supported since the inception of the Kindle. Amazon is also the company behind Audible, the popular vendor of audiobooks. Although they have not said they will be revoking download access to this service, it is a possibility and audiobook owners looking for a way to back up what they have purchased are looking for a solution to make this content useful outside the Amazon walled garden.

    The solution I am using is Libation, a FOSS title available on GitHub. Libation is a bare-bones application without a fancy UI, but it is fully functional and takes only a few minutes to set up and use. After it converted my audiobooks into M4B files, a standard audiobook format which allows bookmarks, I was able to play my books using VLC and various iOS apps like the free Audiobooks MP3 and M4B Player.

    One warning - the file sizes are large. If you have a sizable collection, I would advise against downloading to your internal hard drive unless you have a lot of free space. Saving to an external drive would be a better option.

    Download Libation on GitHub.

    Features

    • Import library from Audible, including cover art
    • Download and convert all books to other audio formats (M4b and MP3)
    • Download accompanying PDFs
    • Add tags to books for better organization
    • Powerful advanced search built on the Lucene search engine
    • Customizable saved filters for common searches
    • Open source
    • Supports most regions: US, UK, Canada, Germany, France, Australia, Japan, India, and Spain
    • Fully supported in Windows, Mac, and Linux

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    My Obsidian Plugin List

    Obsidian is the GOAT!
    Obsidian is the GOAT!


    #Obsidian #ObsidianMD #PKM
    I'm not one of those people who tell others that the only or best way to use Obsidian is by eschewing plugins and going with a vanilla version of the app. If that works best for some people, that's fine, but in my experience, the real power and enjoyment of the Obsidian experience comes from finding plugins to extend the functionality of the app.

    My primary uses for Obsidian are:

    • Where I do all my writing
    • As a life record/journal
    • Personal database

    The plugins I use are the ones that help me with those tasks. I don't leave all of these turned on all the time. For example, I leave the importer plugin turned off unless I am going to use it immediately. Since I use Obsidian on multiple devices and sync with Obsidian Sync, I am able to use different plugins on each device, a feature you don't get with DIY syncing. I can also have different settings for plugins on different devices. I only use my primary computer with the plugins that sync with external services like RSS and Raindrop.io

    You can generate your own list of plugins to share with Share my plugin list by Benature

    My Plugins



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    Everyday Apps


    I never realized this blog would become as popular as it has. I picked up blogging as a hobby to accompany the other joy in my life, which is the never-ending process of refining my workflows to use the absolute best software for every task. Somehow, I ended up with three blogs, this one, Living Out Loud, Linkage and another that is a combined fire hose of everything put together. I'd be lying if I told you that I'm always able to remember what I've written on each platform. In 2024, I wrote 500K words. I'm too old to keep all that straight.

    I don't think I've ever shared the actual list of apps that I used to get work done here on AppAddict. These aren't the coolest or the most powerful or the best bargains, not necessarily. They are the workhorses that allow me to do what I need to do. I'm not saying they are the best for everyone. If you do a lot over email, you need something more specialized. I don't do much with spreadsheets or presentations, so I'm not even listing those.

    Most (not all) of the links here describe my use cases or what I like about the app and why I use it. All links contain download info.

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    Privacy Badger Extension from the Electronic Freedom Foundation

    Privacy Badger
    Privacy Badger


    Protecting your online privacy is an ongoing game of whack-a-mole with big tech. Google is making a big deal out of eliminating tracking cookies at the same time is implementing tracking based on digital fingerprinting for which few protections exist. One organization working on privacy protection solutions for this invasive technology is the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF). It's free privacy tool is a browser extension, Privacy Badger, available for Chromium and Firefox browsers. A Safari version is under development. Since tracker blocking is an ongoing struggle, it's good to know that the developers at the EFF are actively working on meeting the challenges of emerging invasive practices by big tech.

    Privacy Badger is not a traditional ad blocker, and it will not replace whatever you are currently using. The extension is focused on preventing companies big and small from tracking where you go on the Internet and what you do there. It doesn't work off a list of URLs. Instead, it uses an algorithm to determine if you are being tracked and takes action to block offending sites. For tracking sites that you want to have a relationship with, such as Meta or X, it provides clickable links to connect to them from external sites when you choose to. I like that it creates an opt-in situation for you.

    Privacy badger is compatible with native tracking prevention found in more secure browsers like Librewolf, Firefox and Vivaldi. As the political situation evolves in the US, protecting your browsing habits will become more important than ever. Take the steps needed to keep yourself safe from big tech and the government.

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    Sandkorn - Comprehensive Information on Your Apps

    Sandkorn Report
    Sandkorn Report

    Sandkorn, from developer Peter Borgas, is a free app that provides you comprehensive information on the apps installed on a computer, particularly sandboxed apps and what those apps are entitled to access.

    Every app you obtain from the Mac App Store today is sandboxed, isolated from other apps and information sources, however, the apps have certain entitlements to different resources on your computers, some of which, but not all, you can see in System Settings > Security and Privacy. On a Mac, what you see in your applications folder are actually bundles you can right-click on an app and select View Package Contents and see what is contained in the bundle. Some apps have plugins and XPC services bundled with them that have their own entitlements. BBedit has 18. Xcode has a whopping 90!

    Entitlements are things like:

    • Calendar
    • Contacts
    • Location
    • Bluetooth
    • Camera
    • Microphone
    • Printing
    • Incoming Network Traffic
    • Outgoing Network Traffic
    • Folders in your home directory

    Although I only have six apps showing in my Security and Privacy Settings that have permission to access my camera, there are 56 apps that are capable of using it. Theoretically, they should ask before I access a feature that requires its use, but I'm just a guy on my couch with a laptop. If you are analyzing software in a highly sensitive area, knowing these entitlements is vital information.

    Aside from the information I have already described, Sandkorn is the best app I've found for generating lists based on certain criteria, like architecture. If you're one of the people that recoil in horror over the prospect of using Rosetta on your precious M-series Mac, Sandkorn can tell you if you have any Intel apps installed. It can generate lists of pure Apple Silicon and Universal apps. If you keep apps in a non-standard location, such as an external or secondary hard drive, you can have Sandkorn scan those locations too.

    Get additional information on Sandkorn at the developer's website. Check out his other apps like Lingon X and Smultron while you're there.

    You can download Sandkorn from the Mac App Store.

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    Using Reddit the Right Way - a Lesson Learned

    Reddit is Number 1

    Since I got my first account for an online service, Prodigy, in December 1993, I've done my best to use the incredible amount of freely available information. I've used the Internet to strengthen my professional skill set, to increase get more from my hobbies, and to discover possible new interests to investigate. That's been a constant, except for the two years after I retired the first time. A combination of being physically ill coupled with a deep bout of depression left me uninterested in almost everything. I slept like it was my job, didn't keep up with the news of the tech world or the world at large. The only thing I did on the Internet was scroll on my phone at night while waiting for my wife to get sleepy and turn off the light.

    I scrolled Reddit and not the good parts, usually. Reddit is full of niche communities, and I fell into some strange ones. Although I have never been a gig worker and the only food delivery app I use is for Dominoes Pizza, I became obsessed withe travails of Grubhub drivers. I became an expert on what sucked about their lives. I also read stories on "Am I The Asshole", which are convoluted, often obviously fake tales where people tell stories about their part in some drama, letting the Internet decide who was at fault. Spending time reading that kind of garbage did not spark joy. It did not teach me anything. It was just a weird stage I went through. I eventually came out of the depression, went back to work, got my mojo working and became the me that you know today. I left weird Reddit behind.

    I still use Reddit frequently. If you go to the wrong communities, things can be a little toxic. So, don't do that. You can also find kind, knowledgeable people who will share expert level advice and information just because there is an audience for what they have to offer. An example of that is AskHistorians, a fantastic resource for anyone who enjoys the subject.

    Rather than just suggest a bunch of individual communities, I made a few custom feeds which consolidate some of the best and most interesting places, along with a couple of feeds that are suited for nothing more than mindless scrolling when you need a break from the real world. Sometimes cat videos and the like are the best antidote to endless stories about the fascists taking over or long detailed articles on networking topologies if tech is your jam.

    Custom Feeds by Amerpie on Reddit

    You can add these to your Reddit sidebar as a custom feed or you can subscribe to individual communities

    tech 36 Sub Reddits

    This collection is heavily focused an Apple related software and devices. It contains posts on Mac and iOS apps and on different flavors of Mac computers, iPhones, iPads and watches. There are communities on a few productivity related Mac apps from independent developers. There is some tech humor and info for people who have worked in tech, but you don't need to CS degree o get value from this feed. Some of the communities in these collections are.

    politics 28 Sub Reddits

    My politics are decidedly left of center. I have a strong anti-MAGA attitude and I support communities under attack by the forces of darkness in Washington. This collection of Reddit communities about Resistance and Fighting back. It isn't focused on wonky white papers and middle of the road "let's just get along" niceties. Some of the communities in these collections are.

    edification 56 Sub Reddits

    When I want something on the more intellectual and stimulating side, this is the collection I browse. It's heavy on some of my favorite subjects: history, science, photography (just photos, not tech and gear) and a few feel good type communities. Some of the communities in these collections are.

    Scrollfest 1 and Scrollfest 2 132 Sub Reddits

    This is where I go when I don't really want to think too hard. Just let me look at some funny pictures and enjoy some Internet culture so I can keep up with what the kids are talking about. Some of the communities in these collections are.



    [Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇](#upvote-form)

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    Free Downloads from AppAddict

    Automation Quote
    Automation Quote


    I have a couple of downloads for you in this edition of AppAddict.

    Automation

    Although I am in no way a developer, I have created a couple of repositories on GitHub and placed some files there you may find useful. I am a big fan of Mac automation apps. There are plenty of tools that are inexpensive and relatively powerful for making the work you do easier and more streamlined. With the help of timed triggers, you can get your Mac to do things for you while you are asleep or away from the keyboard.

    Take a minute to look over the tasks I accomplish with just three apps, and then head over to GitHub and download the configuration files for each of the apps. You can download the macros, rules, and triggers I have already written for these three powerhouse apps. Use them. Take them apart and examine them. Improve on them. It won't be hard! AppAddict Automation Settings

    Keyboard Maestro
    My Top 10 Keyboard Maestro Macros

    Hazel
    My Favorite Actions for Hazel, the Preeminent File Management Software for the Mac

    Better Touch Tool
    Better Touch Tool Favorites


    Quotes

    I have collected quotes for years. I am still nursing an iOS app that was deprecated nine years ago to manage the portable version of my quotes library. I also have over 500 quotes saved as Markdown notes on Obsidian. You can find various Mac and iOS apps to manage quotes that extra features like tagging, biographies of the authors and room for links to the source material. You can download my collection here

    For your Mac, try this - Quotemarks - Quote Notebook

    For iOS, this one is great - Thoughts - Inspiration Manager

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    Battery Monitor: Health, Info

    Battery Monitor
    Battery Monitor

    In the modern era, a time when most people us laptop computers as opposed to desktops, keeping up with your battery's remaining charge is something we've trained ourselves to do. There are apps that let you make extremely detailed plans to carefully manage how your battery charges. These apps provide a wealth of information about your battery's lifespan and electrical data. In normal operation, they keep your battery from charging past 80% to help prolong its lifespan. They will also run a calibration cycle to allow your battery to come close to fully discharging and the fully charging. These practices are reputed to be necessary to get the longest lifespan for your battery. The two most widely used apps for this type of management are: BatFi and Al Dente.

    Not everyone believes these practices are needed or, indeed, are beneficial. They are satisfied with just monitoring their battery's health. A good free app for providing the information you need is Battery Monitor: Health, Info from Rocky Sand Studio, Ltd. It has a simple but useful feature set.

    Features

    • Charge percent and time in menu bar
    • Detailed battery information
    • Configurable low and full battery alert
    • Configurable Themes

    You can get Battery Health Monitor from the App Store.

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    FlexiBackup Solves Real World Problems

    FlexiBackup
    FlexiBackup


    I faced a concerning issue last year when it was time to replace my iPhone. For some reason, neither Apple nor I could solve. For over two years, my phone had failed to back up to iCloud. Over the 16 years I've been using Apple's flagship product, I've had to perform restores on multiple occasions. I'm not comfortable going without a backup of any technology device I rely on. The old school solution when iCloud doesn't work is to connect your phone to a Mac and back everything up to the computer's hard drive. The location where the backup is hard-coded, however. You don't get to choose a location for the save files. It's going on your hard drive whether you like it or not. My problem was that I only had a 256 GB hard drive and the backup from my phone consumed over 90 GB. After doing a lot of research and doing some hacking, a janked together a system using symbolic links to get the backup on to an external hard drive. It was a pain.

    If I'd had FlexiBackup from indy developer, Kah Seng, things would have been much easier. Seng's new app takes care of setting an external drive as the repository for iOS and iPadOS backups when you do them locally. If you have multiple family members using the same small iCloud storage account, this is an ideal app to add to your Mac, as long as each person has physical access to a computer where it is installed. You can do a backup and a restore by connecting a device to your Mac, launching FlexiBackup and running the native Mac utility.

    FlexiBackup requires macOS 14.6 or later and is compatible with all iPhones and iPads, regardless of the iOS version installed. The app is available for $5.99 on Gumroad. There is no free trial, but it comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

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    Improve your Google Searches

    I am in the process of moving all my Internet research to Kagi, but I wrote this for someone who needed these instructions today.

    Google, the advertising company that also has a search engine, is more interested in having you click on things it gets paid for than it is showing you the information you are looking for. Of course, it is also tracking every breath you take in case it figures out how to extract money from the very air you breathe. There are a couple of steps you can take to generate more useful information from the company's search results.

    Use a Different URL for your searches

    Google is the default search engine in most browsers. It pays billions of dollars for that privilege on iOS alone - one of the reasons your choice of search engines is limited on Apple products. Everyone knows the standard address for a Google search is just https://google.com. When you search there, you get a bunch of useless AI crap and ""suggested links". If you want the good old 10 Blue Links of yesteryear,  add “udm=14” to your default search URL, so it reads as “https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14” instead of Google dot com.

    To set this up in Chrome, go into Settings, then Search engine > Manage search engines> Site search.

    You can also do this in other browsers and in launchers like Raycast for Mac. Other search utilities like DevonAgentLite also support it.

    Filter SEO Churn With Ublacklist

    Ublacklist is an extension that totally blocks certain domains from appearing in your Google search results. You can also get it for other browsers. Once you have the extension installed, head over to this Codeberg page to subscribe to lists of sites to exclude from your search results. These lists were inspired by the article How Google is killing independent sites like ours on HouseFresh and Detailed.com's How 16 Companies are Dominating the World’s Google Search Results.

    There are more specialized but still helpful lists at Subscriptions | uBlacklist

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    File List Export for Mac

    File List Export
    File List Export

    One of the apps I recently picked up from the new Bundlehunt sale is File List Export by developer  Georgios Trigonakis. This simple but surprisingly powerful utility is available for just a dollar right now. The normal price in the App Store is $7.99. You can get a trial version at the developer's website.

    I tested the app by having it create a spreadsheet of my Obsidian vault containing 9722 files and 1843 folders. You can choose an output file in either csv or xlsx format. By default the app does not calculate folder sizes to speed up the analysis, but you can toggle it on if you want the information. On my M2 MacBook Air, the process was still relatively fast.

    The most useful feature of the app is its ability to export metadata from files, particularly helpful for photos, video and music. Because the data ends up in a spreadsheet, you can manipulate and sort it in all kids of ways. If you have album artwork associated with your music files, it even gets exported into  your spreadsheet. You also get the path of every file in your analysis, which can be helpful if you need to operate in the terminal.

    For Every File, You Can Get This Info:

    1. File name
    2. Date modified
    3. Date created
    4. Kind
    5. Size
    6. Path (the location of the file)
    7. Comments
    8. Tags
    9. Version
    10. Pages
    11. Authors/Artist
    12. Title
    13. Album
    14. Track NO
    15. Genre
    16. Year
    17. Duration
    18. Audio BitRate
    19. Audio Encoding Application
    20. Audio Sample Rate
    21. Audio Channels
    22. Dimensions
    23. Pixel Width
    24. Pixel Height
    25. Total Pixels
    26. Height DPI
    27. Width DPI
    28. Color Space
    29. Color Profile
    30. Alpha Channel:
    31. Creator
    32. Video Bit Rate
    33. Total Bit Rate
    34. Codecs
    35. md5
    36. sha256

    Exif Metadata for Your Photos

    • Camera Make
    • Description
    • Camera Model Name
    • Owner Name
    • Serial Number
    • Copyright
    • Software
    • Date Taken
    • Lens Make
    • Lens Model
    • Lens Serial Number
    • ISO
    • FNumber
    • Focal Length
    • Flash
    • Orientation
    • Latitude
    • Longitude
    • Maps URL
    • Camera Make
    • Description
    • Camera Model Name
    • Owner Name
    • Serial Number
    • Copyright
    • Software
    • Date Taken
    • Lens Make
    • Lens Model
    • Lens Serial Number
    • ISO
    • Fstop
    • Focal Length
    • Flash
    • Orientation
    • Latitude
    • Longitude
    • Maps URL

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    I Picked My Top 20 Apps

    Best Apps

    I'm not really bothered by having more than 500 apps installed on my Mac. According to Lingon X, I have 102 apps either as login items or running in the background as helper apps. I write app reviews on my other blog, AppAddict every day, always something I have downloaded, installed and used on my personal Mac. I love my Setapp subscription because it gives me an ever-growing library of high-quality apps to try out for the same monthly price. But if all this goodness evaporated suddenly and i was forced to run vanilla macOS plus twenty apps to get my work done, which out of all the ones that own would I choose? Answering this requires some tough choices. Many of these apps I have been using for more than a decade, although a few have been adopted in the past year.

    Since I am retired, I no longer need any networking, development or analysis apps. I use my Mac primarily for research and for writing. The graphics work I do is simple and straightforward. Even though I have Pixelmator and Acorn, I end up using simpler tools most of the time.

    1. Obsidian - an extensible note-taking app that is also well suited for writers. I've composed more than 500K words in it during the past year.
    2. Clean Shot X - the best screenshot utility
    3. Raycast - an app launcher that handles much more
    4. Keyboard Maestro - the ultimate Mac automation tool
    5. Vivaldi Browser- my choice for web browsing for reasons
    6. PopClip - a text selection utility
    7. TextExpander - a snippets app
    8. Drafts - a text automation app
    9. Day One - the preeminent journaling app for macOS
    10. Default Folder X - an enhancement for open and save dialog boxes
    11. Hazel - a Mac automation tool for file management
    12. DropZone 4- a file shelf utility
    13. Toyviewer - a Preview replacement for images with editing capabilities
    14. Qspace | AppAddict - a substitute for Finder
    15. Scratchpad - a menu bar utility for floating notes
    16. BarTender - I didn't buy into the hysteria, I just set up some Little Snitch rules
    17. Better Touch Tool - multi-purpose automation app
    18. Find Any File - a search utility
    19. Things 3- a task manager
    20. Kiwi for Gmail - Not a well-known email app, but one I've used off and on for years

      Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇

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    My Raycast Extensions

    Raycast
    Raycast


    A Mastodon friend asked me to list the Raycast extensions I have installed. Raycast is a replacement for Spotlight that has considerable superpowers in its vast extension library. I use Raycast as my clipboard manager, emoji picker, window manager and I do quite a lot of image modification with it. As you can see, there are many more features available.

    90% of the feature set is free. The $10 a month pro subscriptions buys the ability to sync your settings between computers, interact with AI advanced features and some more options with Raycast notes. You also get regular backups of your settings.

    You can see a categorized list of extensions here.

    89 installed extensions

    Basic Bookmarks https://raycast.com/rauno/bmrks

    2FA Code Finder https://raycast.com/yuercl/imessage-2fa

    Alt-Text Generator https://raycast.com/jack\_casica/alt-text-generator

    Amphetamine https://raycast.com/gstvds/amphetamine

    Apple Reminders https://raycast.com/raycast/apple-reminders

    Auto Quit App https://raycast.com/koinzhang/auto-quit-app

    Battery Health https://raycast.com/o1y/battery-health

    BetterTouchTool https://raycast.com/dnnsmnstrr/bettertouchtool

    Bing Search https://raycast.com/maver1ck/bing-search

    Bing Wallpaper https://raycast.com/koinzhang/bing-wallpaper

    Bitly URL Shortener https://raycast.com/blessanm86/bitly-url-shortener

    Bluesky https://raycast.com/dharamkapila/bluesky

    Brew https://raycast.com/nhojb/brew

    Browser Bookmarks https://raycast.com/raycast/browser-bookmarks

    Browser History https://raycast.com/crisboarna/browser-history

    Browser Tabs https://raycast.com/koinzhang/browser-tabs

    Change Case https://raycast.com/erics118/change-case

    ChatGPT https://raycast.com/abielzulio/chatgpt

    CleanShot X https://raycast.com/Aayush9029/cleanshotx

    Clipboard Editor https://raycast.com/pomdtr/clipboard-editor

    Clipboard Formatter https://raycast.com/joshtemple/clipboard-formatter

    Close All Open Apps https://raycast.com/guide/close-apps

    Coffee https://raycast.com/mooxl/coffee

    Color Picker https://raycast.com/thomas/color-picker

    CopyQ Clipboard Manager https://raycast.com/andrewcincotta/copyq-clipboard-manager

    Day One https://raycast.com/AntonNiklasson/day-one

    Downloads Manager https://raycast.com/thomas/downloads-manager

    Drafts https://raycast.com/FlohGro/drafts

    Dropover https://raycast.com/jag-k/dropover

    DuckDuckGo Search https://raycast.com/tegola/duck-duck-go-search

    Easy OCR https://raycast.com/Rafo94/easy-ocr

    Emoji Search https://raycast.com/FezVrasta/emoji

    Fantastical https://raycast.com/devahschaefers/fantastical

    Flush DNS https://raycast.com/rasmusbe/flush-dns

    Folder Search https://raycast.com/GastroGeek/folder-search

    Font Awesome https://raycast.com/dutzi/font-awesome

    GIF Search https://raycast.com/josephschmitt/gif-search

    Google Drive https://raycast.com/vishaltelangre/google-drive

    Google Gemini https://raycast.com/EvanZhouDev/raycast-gemini

    Google Maps Search https://raycast.com/ratoru/google-maps-search

    Google Search https://raycast.com/mblode/google-search

    Google Workspace https://raycast.com/raycast/google-workspace

    Hide All Apps https://raycast.com/peduarte/hide-all-apps

    Iconify — Search Icons https://raycast.com/destiner/iconify

    Image Modification https://raycast.com/HelloImSteven/sips

    IMDb Search https://raycast.com/ryan/imdb

    Installed Extensions https://raycast.com/pernielsentikaer/installed-extensions

    Keyboard Maestro - List Macros https://raycast.com/eluce2/list-keyboard-maestro-macros

    Kill Process https://raycast.com/rolandleth/kill-process

    Link Cleaner https://raycast.com/MisakiCoca/link-cleaner

    Lorem Ipsum https://raycast.com/AntonNiklasson/lorem-ipsum

    MacUpdater https://raycast.com/kall/macupdater

    Markdown Reference https://raycast.com/codedbyjordan/markdown-reference

    Mastodon https://raycast.com/SevicheCC/mastodon

    Mastodon Search https://raycast.com/daveverwer/mastodon-search

    Meme Generator https://raycast.com/timoransky/meme-generator

    Messages https://raycast.com/thomaslombart/messages

    Microsoft Edge https://raycast.com/KartikKumarSahoo/microsoft-edge

    Music https://raycast.com/fedevitaledev/music

    My Daily Log https://raycast.com/frugoman/my-daily-log

    MyIP https://raycast.com/Kang/myip

    Obsidian https://raycast.com/KevinBatdorf/obsidian

    Obsidian Smart Capture https://raycast.com/millin\_gabani/obsidian-smart-capture

    omg.lol https://raycast.com/danpalmer/omg-lol

    Open Folders https://raycast.com/timothy\_boye/open-folders

    Open Link in Specific Browser https://raycast.com/koinzhang/open-link-in-specific-browser

    Open With App https://raycast.com/fturcheti/open-with-app

    Paste as Plain Text https://raycast.com/koinzhang/paste-as-plain-text

    Quit Applications https://raycast.com/mackopes/quit-applications

    Raindrop.io https://raycast.com/lardissone/raindrop-io

    Random Password Generator https://raycast.com/textnav/random-password-generator

    Reddit Search https://raycast.com/ewlcheng/reddit-search

    Remove Paywall https://raycast.com/tegola/remove-paywall

    Screenshot https://raycast.com/Aayush9029/screenshot

    Script Commands Store – Find and manage your Raycast Script Commands https://raycast.com/tholanda/script-commands

    Search HoudahSpot https://raycast.com/felixthehat/houdahspot-search

    Speedtest https://raycast.com/tonka3000/speedtest

    System Monitor https://raycast.com/hossammourad/raycast-system-monitor

    Things https://raycast.com/loris/things

    ToolBox https://raycast.com/Kang/toolbox

    Type Snob https://raycast.com/sawyerh/type-snob

    Unsplash https://raycast.com/eggsy/unsplash

    Vivaldi https://raycast.com/crisboarna/vivaldi

    Weather https://raycast.com/tonka3000/weather

    Wi-Fi https://raycast.com/koinzhang/wi-fi

    Wikipedia https://raycast.com/vimtor/wikipedia

    Xecutor https://raycast.com/GastroGeek/xecutor

    YouTube https://raycast.com/tonka3000/youtube

    YouTube Companion https://raycast.com/sasivarnan/youtube-companion

    YouTube Downloader https://raycast.com/vimtor/youtube-downloader


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    ∞

    Use Calibre to Back Up Your Kindle Books Before February 26

    Amazon just announced that you have until February 26, 2025, to download your Kindle content. After that date, you will no longer be able to access the books you've paid for if you have a legacy device or a Kindle that has experienced wireless issues. The only way to load what you've paid for onto a device will be through wireless sync.

    Thankfully, using the free ebook manager, Calibre, you can convert your Kindle content into formats readable on other ebook readers or into PDFs. You will be protected if Amazon ever removes books you've paid for. You do not need to download the Kindle app on your Mac to accomplish this.

    Log in to your Amazon account. In the account section, select Content Library>Books. You'll have to download each title you want to back up as a separate files in azw3 format.

    Download Calibre directly from the developer. To gain the ability to convert the books into other formats using Calibre, you will need to download a plugin from GitHub.. Make sure to install and set up the plugin before importing your books into Calibre. You will need the serial number from your Kindle to do this. You can get this information from the Amazon website or from the device itself.

    For detailed instructions, see this article.

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    Metadata Lab - Exif Editor

    Metadata Lab
    Metadata Lab

    Modern DSLR cameras and cell phones add extensive data to every photo they take. The information recorded includes camera settings like ISO speed, shutter speed, focal length, and other details. Including GPS location. After a photo is taken, and you've downloaded it to your computer, it's possible to add other information to its metadata, including a description, keywords and licensing/copyright information. Some of this information is more important to professional photographers than it is to regular people, but there are reasons why anyone might want to edit the details of a photo.

    Some higher end photo management applications have metadata editing capabilities, but if you are piecing together your own workflow, the free app, Metadata Lab is a quick and easy way to add, remove or change information on any photo you have. The app is compatible with RAW, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and many other formats (including video/audio files). You can import photos from the Mac Photo's App into the Metadata Lab. Not only can you edit the EXIF data, you can also edit IPTC, PDF, PNG and QuickTime metadata.

    Use Cases

    • Correcting date and time data if it was incorrect on the camera
    • Adding GPS data for later personal reference
    • Removing GPS data for images shared with third parties or on the Internet
    • Adding keywords for cataloging purposes

    More information is available on the developer's website. You can download Metadata Lab on the App Store.

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    5 Great RSS Feeds for Good Reading Every Day

    RSS

    This is a special edition containing links to five of the best sources on the Internet to keep abreast of the latest trending topics and discover new writers. And then there is a bonus feed.

    1 follow my favorite IndieWeb bloggers via RSS to stay abreast of what they are up to, for inspiration and education. I also have an RSS feed that's mostly for curated reposts of the best of the web each day. If you'd like to build a list like that, here are some great feeds to get started with. Keep these in a separate app or however you want to segregate them, but don't mix them up with all your other subscriptions or they will just get lost.

    1. Jason Kottke - one of the Internet's OG bloggers who posts regularly and who alwways seems to be finding the best stuff. - RSS Feed
    2. I've been reading NextDraft for well over a decade. Dave Pell says "I pluck the most fascinating news items of the day and then create a modern-day column which I deliver with a fast, pithy wit that will make your computer device vibrate with delight." -RSS Feed
    3. Feedle is a search engine for the IndieWeb where any search you fo can be turned into an RSS feed. Try it for any subject that interests you. In the meantime, subscribe to their curated feed of some of the best blog posts they've found -RSS Feed
    4. BearBlog is the home of two of my own online endeavors. It's also the home of many fine bloggers. Reading the most popular posts on the platform each day is a good use of your time and a good way to discover new writers - RSS Feed
    5. Murmel is a service that tracks the most shared stories on social media. The main feed covers a giant cross-section of the Fediverse, but you can subscribe to a personalized feed to see what the people you follow are sharing. - RSS Feed
    6. The last feed on the list is in way over its head. If you have a hard time sorting out where all the stuff I write about is being posted, you can subscribe to a single RSS feed and get it all out of one fire hose, including my weekly bookmarks and my updated /now page in addition to AppAddict, Living Out Loud and Linkage. - RSS Feed

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    Librewolf for Security and Privacy

    Librewolf
    Librewolf


    If you become more concerned with privacy and surveillance regarding your online activities, moving to a more secure browser is a definite step in the right direction, along with using a reputable VPN, a privacy focused DNS setup and good ad and tracker blocking extensions. The ultimate in privacy for most users is probably using the TOR browser and network. That comes with a significant performance hit. If you are looking for more privacy without the usability issues of TOR, Librewolf is most likely your best option for a daily driver.

    LibreWolf is a privacy-focused fork of Firefox. Its primary benefits include:

    Tracking Protection

    • Strict default settings protecting against trackers, ads and scripts
    • uBlock Origin included by default
    • Fingerprinting resistance, including protection against canvas, font, and WebGL fingerprinting.
    • Encrypted SNI:preventing your Internet Service Provider (ISP) from seeing which websites you visit.

    Privacy

    • No telemetry or data collection
    • Privacy-focused search engine, DuckDuckGo enabled by default, although you can change it to Kagi or the engine of your choice:
    • Cookie AutoDelete to automatically purge tracking cookies after each browsing session
    • HTTPS-Only Mode on by default

    Security

    • Blocks known malware sites through disconnect.me's list of over 5000 tracking and malicious domains
    • WebRTC disabled by default to prevent IP address leakage
    • Strict default settings for website permissions for your location, camera, and microphone

    Open Source

    • Open Source
    • Ethical community members
    • Removes sponsored content, distracting elements on the home page, and search suggestions
    • Wide range of customization options

    The most important element in your security setup is you. No amount of consumer technology can protect you as much as limiting what you share online. Making use of encryption technology to share highly sensitive data can be a necessary step if you are engaged in conduct that hostile actors could intercept.

    The recommended way to install Librewolf is using Homebrew. You can download a DMG, but you will lose access to automatic updates.

    brew install --cask librewolf

    Download site.

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