Apps

Dec 1, 2024 ∞

Language Tool - Free is Good, Paid is Better, but Expensive

Mac apps have had rudimentary built-in grammar checkers for a while. Grammarly was the first well-know commercial product to elevate the capabilities of that tool genre, becoming extremely popular with students in particular. Lately, LanguageTool has surged in popularity. It is integrated into many well-known writing apps across multiple platforms, including macOS and iOS.

Professionally, I am tasked with composing Confluence (knowledge base) documents for Jira, the ticketing system my job uses. Personally, I maintain three blogs as a non-monetized blogs as a hobby. I write a lot as a result. I have been using the free version of LanguageTool for a couple of months. It does a better job than the native spell checkers I previously used, and it helps with things like missing commas and omitted words. I took advantage of a Black Friday sale to sign up for a year on the Pro Plan. As a result, the app now has a much larger range of tools for me to use.

LanguageTool has a plugin for Safari, Firefox and Chromium browsers. It has a tool specifically built for Microsoft Office, Google Docs, Apple's Pages and LibreOffice. For email users, it works with Apple Mail, Outlook, Thunderbird and Gmail. It even has a plugin for Obsidian, where I do most of my writing. On a Mac, it is also optimized for uses in other apps like Messages and Notes. There is a native editor app for Mac users.

Language Tools's capabilities are sizable.

Grammar
- Word order
- Verb tenses
- Subject/verb agreement
- Commas and in-depth punctuation
Style
- Repetition
- Over-used words and phrases
- Wordiness
- Foreign terms
Semantics
- Lack of clarity
- Word confusion
- Double negatives
Format and Typography
- Consistency for numbers and letters
- Spacing
- Time and date formats
Spelling
- Misspelled names and acronyms
- Casing errors
- Easy to import your Mac's personal dictionary

LanguageTool works not just with English, but with many other languages as well. It provides detailed stats on what it has done to aid you in writing. You can use a limited feature set or turn on what it calls "picky mode" for more frequent suggestions to strengthen your writing. It does not duplicate what macOS and ChatGPT offer in so far as it does not change the tone of your writing, but it will paraphrase sentences for you.

I am pleased so far with the suggestions I receive from LanguageTool. It definitely makes what I write more polished. It is not a cheap tool. Without the Black Friday discount, it is $5.83 a month, or $70 a year. Casual users can get plenty of benefits from the free plan, while students or more serious writers can benefit from deciding to go pro.

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Nov 30, 2024 ∞

Folder Tidy - On Demand Fast Power

Folder Tidy by Tunabelly Software is a tool anyone can use to perform quick sorts on any giant directories of files that seem overwhelming to tackle manually. It has built in sorting rules for 19 different types of files, including folders. These rules can be toggled on or off, but you cannot edit them. In addition, you can make your own very granular rules. The example they give is representative of the power of the app. "Move all files with the extension “DOCX” that contain the word “invoice” and were last modified in the past year to a folder labeled “Invoices."

What's remarkable is the speed at which Folder Tidy operates. It uses macOS technology called Grand Central Dispatch to use all available cores to accomplish the tasks you assign it. In my case, it took about a second to sort and move directories with hundreds of different media files to subfolders on a different drive. I had to do some troubleshooting after it failed to move all the files on the first try. It turns out that my Spotlight database needed to be rebuilt, a problem I've had before which also affects some search utilities, like Houdah Spot, that rely on it.

Folder Tidy is not a replacement for Hazel. While it does what it sets out to do quickly and well, it is a file sorting utility that doesn't have the depth of actions that Hazel does. If you already own Hazel, there is no reason to add Folder Tidy. One other important thing to know is that Folder Tidy is a manual app. It doesn't watch folders and run action on the enclosed items automatically.

I paid $2.49 for the app on Black Friday. It is ordinarily $9.99.

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Nov 29, 2024 ∞

Black Friday Software Sales

It's time for all the AppAddicts out there to load up during the yearly bargain day called Black Friday. The sites listed below have some repetition, but take a quick look through all of them. Some contain software for specialty roles, like devs, creators and designers.

So far this year, I've purchased:

Sales

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Nov 28, 2024 ∞

MacWhisper - Transcription Powerhouse

I made my first purchase of the 2024 Black Friday season by purchasing the transcription app, MacWhisper by indy developer Jordi Bruin for 40% off of the usual price of €49.99. This app uses OpenAI's Whisper technology to transcribe all types of audio files with quickness and accuracy into text.

It requires macOS 14 or higher and works best on Apple Silicon, although it is functional on Intel processors. You can use any type of input device, including your Mac's built-in microphone. MacWhisper can, if you choose, replace the built-in dictation on your computer. Transcription is done on your device, not on a remote computer. The default output is a .whisper file containing the original audio and the transcribed text, however it has numerous export choices:

SRT and VTT subtitles
CSV
DOTE
DOCX
PDF
Markdown
HTML

The transcription speed is remarkable, happening up to 30X over real time using metal and GPU technology. Transcripts may be easily searched. Filler words (um, ah, etc.) are automatically removed. You can edit the transcripts to correct spelling of names or other words.

With the Pro version of the program, I get batch transcriptions of multiple files. I can transcribe YouTube video and use my OpenAI key to take advantage of Cloud Transcription and ChatGPT integration. I can take advantage of translation services to convert text into other languages. It also adds a menu bar interface for global transcription and the ability to paste text into other apps.

Students, non-profits and journalists always get 50% off the price by contacting the developer. There is a free version of the app that lacks the AI integration of the Pro version. It is available on Gumroad.

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Nov 27, 2024 ∞

Clotski - A Clever Tool for Your Image Management Workflow

Clotski is a 99 cent menu bar app available in the Mac App Store. Its simple menu lets you designate watched folders where you keep images accessed as part of your workflow, for instance screenshots and downloads. You can view thumbnails of the images, the size is customizable and get info on them which includes name, size, dimensions, creation date, tag, caption and modification date. Tags and captions can be added from with Clotski. The information presented can be customized, and other metadata can be added if you wish. You can open the image with your default app or choose from other compatible apps from an "open with" menu. When viewing the list of images in a folder you can choose a list, grid or gallery view, and you can choose the sort order based on date or file size in ascending or descending order.

One feature that is especially helpful is Clotski's ability to automatically download any images you copy to the clipboard into a folder you designate. You can set your own naming convention, as well as choosing to save them in either jpg or png formats.

For keyboard warriors, Clotski can be summoned with a custom shortcut, and it can be navigated without the use of a mouse. For further organization, Clotski lets you create collections of photos along with tags and folders. Collections can be accessed from a drop-down menu within the program If desired, you can designate an automatic tag to be applied to images you add to newly collected images. You can use the tags just with Clotski, or you can sync them with the Finder.

While working with images in Clotski, you can copy or drag them into documents on which you are working. Clotski does not have any native editing functionality,

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Nov 26, 2024 ∞

Notesnook is the Best New App I've Seen in a While

There are many, many notes apps available for Mac users, from simple plain text notebooks to complex PKM managers. I thought I was familiar with the main players, but I just discovered an app with which I was unfamiliar, and I am blown away by its features. The app is Notesnook, and it reminds me very much of Evernote before it was enshittified. It's a privacy lover's dream app with features that anyone can love:

Notes importer
Automatic 2FA
End to end encryption
Mac, web and iOS apps
Web clipper
Pro plan is 34% of what Evernote costs and $10 for educational users

Notesnook provides real time syncing for free and paid accounts. The free plan offers plain text exporting and the pro plan lets you export notes to other apps as PDF, Markdown or HTML, unlike Evernote which has a proprietary format. It has unlimited storage and offers unlimited notebooks and tags in the pro plan.

Other notable features include:

Offline access
Unlimited devices
Images and attachments
Wikilinks
Three different 2FA options
Shortcut integration
RTF and Markdown formatting
Tables
Callouts
Reminders
Encrypted backups
Widgets
Shares extensions
Mobile web clipper

I will continue to use Obsidian for journaling and as an automated life record, but I'm moving my work notes, serial numbers, financial info and other reference material over to Notesnook.

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Nov 25, 2024 ∞

The Top 25 Most Downloaded Mac Apps

I looked at the list of the top 25 most downloaded apps as compiled by MacUpdater, who I figure are as good a source as any and drew a few conclusions.

VLC
Pages
AppCleaner
Numbers
Keynote
iMovie
The Unarchiver
GarageBand
Android File Transfer
Speedtest
Amphetamine
Google Chrome
Blackmagic Disk Speed Test
Microsoft Teams
Transmission
HandBrake
Firefox
Microsoft PowerPoint
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Excel
ImageOptim
OneDrive
Bartender
Magnet
IINA

Only five of the apps in the list are paid apps. They are the big three in Microsoft Office, the menu bar manager, Bartender and the window manager, Magnet.

The vendor with the most apps on the list is surprisingly, Microsoft with five.

For it' market share to be as small as it, Firefox must have a higher proportion of Mac users employing it than PC users.

I would wager that VLC's popularity is due to its longevity and because of enterprise deployments. I know I have been putting it on images in the educational space for as long as I can remember. IINA seems more popular with more knowledgeable users,

Despite all the predictions made about Bartender's future after the botched handling of its sale, it is the most downloaded paid app in the ecosystem after Microsoft Office.

I have never been a big user of window management tools, and I had no idea Magnet was as popular as it is. It has 165,000 reviews in the App Store and a 4.9 rating.

I find it interesting that the top 25 apps did not include a single notes app, automation tool or clipboard manager. The only messaging app is Microsoft Teams, and I hesitate to say that is its primary function.

The presence of the six-year-old Android File Transfer app is mind-blowing. I suspect this indicates that the download figures are worldwide and include countries where Androids have huge market share.

The high ranking of App Cleaner is good for two reasons - it demonstrates that an app doesn't have to be updated constantly to be useful (last update was 2023-07-05). It also shows that lots of people believe in doing more than just dragging unwanted apps to the trash.

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Nov 24, 2024 ∞

Using Supercharge

Although I use a lot of apps that have a menu bar interface, most of them are hidden by Bartender. An app has to be super useful and be something I use frequently to remain visible at all times. The latest addition by Sindre Sorhus, Supercharge is an instant add. It has a great many uses and has replaced other utilities that have narrower focus. More tools are being added regularly, so if you have this app, make sure to install updates as soon as they are released to get new features. I won't cover them all, just the ones I use personally.

From the Menu Bar

The menu bar icon presents the following option in a drop-down:

Hide all windows
Show Desktop
Quit All Apps
Hide My Email (opens this buried item in System Settings)
Private Relay opens this buried item in System Settings)

Tweaks

Unminimize windows when app becomes active
Dim icons of hidden apps in the dock
Create new text file with Option+N
Open new files after naming
Auto-adjust column widths in Finder
Quit an app when closing its last Window (I don't usually like to mimic Micro$oft behavior, but I like this feature)
When clicking on an active icon in the dock, hide app
Add to Finder's context menu
- Copy path
- Copy file name
- Image dimensions
- Make symlink
- Move to...
- Copy to...
- Open in Terminal (for folders)

The ability to make those modifications in the Finder makes it much more powerful.

Shortcuts

Toggle desktop widgets
Open Passwords from menu bar
Hide all windows
Quit all apps (except menu bar apps)
Show desktop

I was using the beta feature to close visible notifications which definitely had a beta feel to it, until I discovered that Better Touch Tool's implementation of this feature closes not just visible notifications, but all existing ones. I'm sure Sindre will get this working similarly in future releases.

Tools

I work on an MBA at home and an iMac for work. For apps that don't have iCloud sync, using the export and import settings tool has been extremely useful and has saved me a ton of time. It's also useful when I want to experiment with how an app is set up, allowing me to revert settings if I don't like what I get after changing things around.

You can get a fully functional copy of the app here. The only limitation is a reminder to buy the app every 12 hours, and no automatic updates. All data and settings carry over if you buy it.

I suggest you just go ahead and buy the app. If there was ever an Instabuy, this is it.

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Nov 23, 2024 ∞

Mac Compression Utilities

When it comes to opening compressed files in just about any format, the most downloaded utility is The Unarchiver from MacPaw. There's not much you can throw at it that it can't handle, including old files from StuffIt and DiskDoubler. It can even extract files from some Windows .exe installers. The problem with The UnArchiver is that it does decompression only. If you want to make your own archives, you need another program. Natively, macOS can create ZIP and DMG files but that's it.

BetterZip 5 from macitbetter is a much more full-featured app, although it isn't free. It's $24.95 for use on up to five Macs for personal users. It is also available on Setapp. Better Zip has some pretty cool superpowers:

Quicklook extension for viewing files inside archives without opening them
Edit archived files in an external application, and BetterZip can save the changes back and update your archive.
Open and extract winmail.dat files.
Open, extract, and modify ePub files.
Extract images and sounds from PDFs
AES-256 Encryption, password manager, password generator
Finder Integration and share menu
Filtering - only extract certain files from archives
Integration with Alfred and Hazel

Keka is a perennial favorite of many Mac users. It has a free version on the developer's websiteand a $5 version on the Mac App Store. Keka has compression and decompression tools. Keka can divide large files into multiple parts that will automatically reassemble after decompression. You gain the ability to use 256-bit encryption. You can also take advantage of a drag and drop interface into the Keka main window, or by simply dropping files onto the Keka icon in the dock.

For those who want scripting and a CLI as well as a GUI, Peazip is probably the best bet. A free app, it also has the widest array of security features.

Offers two-factor authentication
Opens 200 types of compressed files in the GUI
Multiple file management features: convert archives, search in archives, bookmarks, tabbed browsing,
Portable - can be run from a USB or other external drive
Open Source
Cross platform (Linus, macOS Windows)

Some Finder alternatives offer compression and decompression, including:

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Nov 22, 2024 ∞

MarkEdit - A Pure Markdown Editor for Free

Markdown documents are written in plain text and generally saved with a .md file extension. Various apps like Obsidian and Bear use Markdown by default. There is a whole ecosystem of tools around the easy-to-use language where you use various keyboard elements to create styles that can be interpreted by browsers and other apps. Markdown lets you add:

Bold
Italic
Quotes
Lists (numbered, bullets, and checklists)
Links (to web pages and images)
Code blocks
Headers
Tables

There are different flavors of Markdown, but the most commonly used one is referred to as GitHub-flavored Markdown. As a blogger, I prefer to write in Markdown to format my posts for the web. The free app, MarkEdit uses 100% pure GitHub Markdown. Out of the box. The interface is pretty bare bones, but you can customize the toolbar to use the various tools on selected text. MarkEdit permits the insertion of multiple carats, so you can highlight disconnected blocks of text. MarkEdit is intended to be a minimalist writing tool. It has a good feature set. There isn't any bloat. There are plenty of other editors that have preview, different flavors of Markdown and more. It's just a matter of taste and what your needs are.

The latest version incorporates Apple's writing tools, allowing you to use proofreading and AI rewriting tools to change your text. Although I am not personally a fan of AI-generated content, there probably isn’t any harm in letting it make a business email more professional if need be.

MarkEdit does not contain a viewer to show your text with the formatting enforced. I suggest Brett Terpstra's app Marked 2 if you're not going to be looking at your content in a browser.

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Nov 21, 2024 ∞

Bluesky Resources, If You're Curious

Blue_Sky_Logo_Cropped-alpha

I am by no means an expert on Bluesky. My account is coming up on a year old and I have about 1400 posts on the site, the majority of them from cross posting. Until the great migration happened, I didn't have much real involvement with people there. As someone with an interest in tech, I've stayed abreast of what's happening behind the scenes and out in public. As a compulsive note taker and data hoarder, I've collected some information in the forms of guides and articles that I am happy to share. I'll be adding more and you can bookmark this page to see what gets aded. Also, feel free to send me any links you have to share.

You can also subscribe to the RSS feed for the collection.

If you want to connect on Bluesky, I am amerpie.lol.

Nov 21, 2024 ∞

Recents App for Mac - A Free Intelligent File Launcher

The Recent Items section of the Apple Menu lists your 10 most recently opened documents. There are some apps that let you increase that number, but not by much. At most, you'll have a couple of days work to refer back to. The app, Recents, will trace you work back by months in some cases.

Recents breaks your workflow down on a per-app basis and provides the most recently used documents for each one, even if the app itself doesn't have a recent files menu. For example, I use Rapidmg to open disk images. The program normally opens the disk image, moves the contents to my Applications folder, and then dismounts and closes without any intervention from me. There is no menu. Using Recents, I can see a list of the last 15 DMGs I've opened, and reopen them at will.

Recents works with a wide variety of apps and file types. In the admittedly confusing file structure we use at work, I often can't remember the exact path of saved documents, but I know the app I created it with. Using Recents, I can easily find and open what I am looking for in a centralized location. Some of the apps with which I use Recents are:

Microsoft Office
Console
Preview
PDF Expert
VLC
Obsidian (opens vaults, not documents)
Motrix

The app has a light and dark mode and can be set to mimic your system preferences. Recents can be access three ways:

From the dock
From the menu bar
Hidden and summoned from a hot key

Recents can be downloaded from the developers website. It is a free app.

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Nov 20, 2024 ∞

Two Free Apps for Mac OS Installation Ease

On most modern Macs, the later Intel builds and all Apple Silicon models, you can boot into recovery mode, access disk utility and download and install a new operating system. Unless you can't. Then you have a problem. Or, maybe you are experimenting with Open Core Legacy Patcher to install a later version of macOS on a device that doesn't officially support it. In that case, you are going to need a copy of an OS, preferably bootable, and some sort of media to copy that OS installation onto. You can do the installation through other methods, like target disk mode or various imaging applications too, but they take some know how. The other thing you can use these files for is when experimenting with virtual machines in something like Virtual Box, UTM or VMWare Fusion.

Mist

To get a copy of the firmware and OS you need, I know of no easier method than using Mist, a free app available on GitHub. With Mist, you can get everything from the latest beta, all the way back to Mac OS X 7.5. You can get Intel or Apple Silicon installers, or the universal installers available for macOS Big Sur and later.

Balena Etcher

If you are planning to use an SD card or a USB drive, things work better when you flash the media than when you try to fiddle with partitions and permissions on your own from the command line. Luckily, there is an app for that. It is Balena Etcher, a free app with built-in safeguards to keep you from erasing the wrong drive. Balena Etcher will also create bootable media for Windows and various Linux builds too.

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Nov 19, 2024 ∞

Bluesky Apps for Mac Users

The social media platform, Bluesky, has been getting a lot of press lately as a mass migration from X has taken place over the past two weeks. Bluesky has added nearly five million new users. For any Mac users wanting more than the default web interface, there are a few tools available.

Deck Blue

To mimic the old Tweetdeck experience, Deck Blue is your best bet. Best run as a progressive web app through any browser that supports the feature, Deck Blue offers a customizable multi-column interface. You can set how often you want the page refreshed, and you can hide certain types of posts. For a minimum of $1 a month, you can have up to four feeds and use post scheduling.

Skeets

Skeets is an iPad app that also runs on Macs with Apple silicon. It has more features than any other Bluesky client. Some features require a subscription, $1.99 a month, $17.99 a year.

Features
• Hold reading position when refreshing
• Edit posts
• Post notifications ($)
• Thread Unroll ($)
• Bookmarks ($)
• Drafts ($)
• Push Notifications filter ($)
• Trends in Search
• In-App Translations
• VoiceOver-friendly
• iOS Shortcuts support
• Actionable Push Notifications
• Alt-Text Generator (for images with text)
• Hide like/repost/comments numbers
• Async video upload
• Search within user profiles
• Shorten user handles
• Low data mode
• Customize main app color ($)

Sky.app

Sky is a free app available on GitHub. It looks very much like the iOS app, but it does add keyboard shortcuts for those that rely on them.

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Nov 18, 2024 ∞

Shareful - A Free App I Use Every Day

There are certain apps that really should be incorporated into the operating system. One of those is Shareful by Sindre Sorhus. The share menu on the Mac seems like an afterthought when compared to the comparable menu in iOS. Many developers fail to implement the feature in their apps, and Apple itself leaves it purposefully underpowered for some reason. Thankfully, Shareful exists with three supremely useful functions.

Copy

Copy the shared item to the clipboard and so you can quickly paste it into another app. This is my most frequent use case. I have a number of Apple shortcuts that have text output. I use Shareful to copy that output to use in other places. Without Shareful, I'd have to use the text to create a file, then open the file and copy from there. Another useful option is to use this app to copy a screenshot to the clipboard through the share menu.

Save As

Choose a directory to save the shared item to.

Open In

Open the shared item in any app. You can open the current Safari URL in a different browser. In Safari, click the share button, select "Open In…", and then select a browser. There is a Raycast extension that also does this if you are a Raycast user.

Frequent use cases:

In Photos, use the “Open In” share service to open one or more photos directly in Photoshop.
Quickly copy content from an app that doesn't normally support copying.
In Safari, right-click an image, and use the “Open In” share service to open it directly in another app.

Shareful is available on the Mac App Store. If you do not have access to the App Store, you can download a version from the developer's website, although it is not updated as often.

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Nov 17, 2024 ∞

Another Curated Collection of Free Software

Here's a list of free software that I've tried and liked since the last time I posted a similar collection

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Nov 16, 2024 ∞

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

There's been a great deal of buzz recently about an iOS only app called Croissant that can post to X, Mastodon and Bluesky all at once. From all reports, it's a pretty nice app, but it costs $60. There is a free app, Openvibe, that also works on macOS and adds posting to Threads to its ability list, but it's owned by some crypto bros and that may give some folks pause. I've been using a free service/app for a while on my Mac and iOS devices that doesn't have those drawbacks, plus it adds a lot more services and has a built-in scheduler for up to 10 posts.

Additionally, if Mastodon is your jam you can get all kinds of info in your account including:

Recent follows
Recent unfollows
Follower info

The name of the app is Fedica, and it is available on the app store. It also has a web interface. The platforms it connects to are:

Twitter/X
Instagram
YouTube
TinkTok
Facebook Pages
Mastodon
Bluesky
LinkedIn
Pinterest
Threads

You can post polls and threads on platforms that support them, plus you get unlimited drafts to store posts you may want to make later.

There are some paid options geared more towards business owners than individuals that offer scheduling more than 10 posts and getting more frequent reports, but they are expensive, starting at $29.99 a month. For personal use, the free options are fine for most people.

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Nov 14, 2024 ∞

What Tabs Do You Keep Open All the Time?

tabs

It's hard to believe there was once a time when browsers didn't have tabs. Prior to 2002, opening more than one website at the times required opening multiple instances of a browser. Memory management wasn't as robust as it is now and computers had much less power. These days you often hear of people running hundreds of tabs at the time since browsers can hibernate unused ones easily. I am nowhere near that level, mostly because I don't have the headspace to make use of them all. I normally have two or three windows open at a time depending on whether I'm at home or work. Having 30-45 open tabs is the norm for me.

If you are one of those 500 tabs open at the time people, please, please leave me a comment and try to explain why you roll like that. I';d be fascinated.

These are the ones I almost always have open:

Window 1

Activity Watch - a time tracking app that monitors apps used a websites visited
Next DNS - one of my security tools
Gmail - After nearly 20 years of using Gmail, I still feel most comfortable using the web interface over any email app
Yahoo Mail - I use this account just for newsletters and mailing lists
Google Drive - I use this for different personal documents like tracking the words written during Writing Month and the list of apps I've reviewed as well as automated documents from IFTTT that I keep an eye on
Inoreader- I love the web interface of my RSS provider more than any app
Pocket - since the death of Omnivore this is my read it later service
Raindrop.io - my bookmarking service

Window 2

Social.lol - My home Mastodon instance
500.social - Another Mastodon instance I belong to
Onephoto.club - a travel photography Mastodon instance
Another private Mastodon instance with a few friends
BlueSky - mostly for POSSE
Threads - mostly for POSSE
Facebook - primarily for family use
LinkedIn - fascinated with how weird it is
Fedica - a free service to post to multiple social media sites at once and.or schedule future posts

Blogging Tab Group

The rest of the tabs I have open normally will include a news site or two, a few blogs and a few open Google docs. I use an app called HistoryHound that consolidates my history from several browsers into one searchable database when I need to reopen something.

Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇

Nov 14, 2024 ∞

Redact Privacy - An App for Cleaning Up Your Internet Presence

If you've been online for a long time, you very well may have accounts on dozens of services, including social media platforms. Despite your best attempts at privacy, there may well be old posts floating around that you wouldn't want associated with you currently. People change over time, and comments that seemed clever when you were a teenager may seem pretty cringe today. There are services out there that offer to clean all that up for you, but they are expensive and require that you turn your credentials over to a third party. Luckily, there is a universal Mac app that can do total or selective removal of your content from 30+ different apps, websites and services. It's called Redact Privacy. It removes posts, DMs, photos, videos, likes, and other unique content on various social networks. You can delete by keyword, sentiment, content type, and more.

It has a free tier that will :

Delete unlimited tweets, retweets, and likes from Twitter/X
Anonymize unlimited Reddit posts and comments
Delete up to 30 days of content on Discord & Facebook

To access the other services requires a subscription, but paying for a single month for $7.99 should give you adequate time to clean up your posts. Subscribing lets you take advantage of scheduled deletions if for some reason you need that. The app is available on the Mac App Store.

The paid version offers:

All social media services fully unlocked
Full access to the automated scheduler
Deep-scan your posts with the File Importer
Advanced social media management tools
Edit and Deletion modes
Priority, 1:1 support
Custom text editing options
Manage entire servers or communities with "Moderator mode"

Included services include:

Discord
Twitter
Facebook
Anilist
Reddit
Linkedin
Slack
Imgur
Letterboxd
Deviantart
Disqus
Gyazo
Pinterest
Skype
Spotify
Steam
Github
Pixiv

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Nov 13, 2024 ∞

AMA - Morning Person or Evening Person?

sunrise

Today's Ask me anything is - Are you a morning person or an evening person?

I love to sleep as much as anyone I know. My ability to lapse into unconsciousness is my superpower and one for which I enjoy a certain bit of notoriety among my friends and family. But, when I am done with a nap or a night's sleep, I'm not one to lie there and try to drift back off. When I am done, I am done. I'm ready to get up and do something else. I love to get up most mornings. The thought of that first cup of coffee and the chance to catch up on eight hours of missed news is too tempting to pass up.

I am nearly robotic upon waking, which is normally around 4:30 AM. We have one of those wonderful Nespresso one-cup coffee makers that brew great coffee quickly. I stand by it, bleary-eyed but patient as I wait for it to dispense its life-giving elixir. I make my way to my laptop, disconnect my backup drive, and begin the morning IT routine. First, I start my daily journal in Obsidian, one I will transfer to Day One at the end of the day. Then I add my daily app review, written the day before, to Reddit at r/MacApps. I don't even link back to my blog anymore. The moderators there added AppAddict to the sidebar, and that drives plenty of traffic my way. Then I check Mastodon and Micro.blog to see if I got any messages overnight. My friends in Europe are typically active already, so I see what they're up to.

Wonder Woman gets up at the same time I do. We spend the first 30 minutes or so together before she leaves for her morning run. Sometimes she's only gone for 30 minutes or so, but it is not unheard of for her to run a half-marathon before work, particularly if she's working from home and has a bit more time. Prior to having my knees replaced, I used to go for a walk in the mornings, a habit I need to rekindle. I loved being out on the dark streets listening to music or a podcast.

One of the other things I enjoy looking at in the morning is retrospectives from the day's history. I can do this in the Photos app, in Day One, and on Facebook, where my account is now 16 years old. It's fun to be reminded of past getaways, and to see pictures of my grandkids when they were younger. What's not so fun is to see what outrage Donald Trump has committed on this date in history. As an example, today I see posts relating to his quid pro quo attempt with Ukraine when he withheld military aid in an attempt to get them to investigate the Bidens. That got him impeached the first time.

By the time Wonder Woman has returned from her run, I am usually into the part of my morning that many people find funny. It's my pre-work nap. Despite just having slept for eight hours and having consumed coffee, I normally try to doze off for another few minutes before showering and getting dressed for work. For most of my working life, I had to leave a great deal earlier than I do now. I used to have to be on the job at 7:30 AM. My office was 30 miles away. These days, I don't have to be at work until 8:00 AM to an office that is less than 10 miles from home.

As much as I enjoy my job, a low-pressure tech support role at the same university where Wonder Woman is a big wheel, I don't always relish the start of the day. I routinely remark with something grouchy and profane when she summons me to get in the car for my chauffeured ride across town to our lovely campus. By the time we get moving though, I cheer up. My wife is my favorite person. I enjoy the brief interlude to chat about the day ahead, to crack jokes, and make plans for the evening. Everyone should be so lucky

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