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Software

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    Apps that make me smile

    There are those apps that really do nothing productive but just make you smile while using your computer. One I really love is BananaBin a “playful reminder that it’s time to take out the trash”. Today Simon B. Støvring released another one of this kind: Festivitas, which “brings the holiday spirit to your Mac with festive lights for the dock and menu bar 🎄”. You can’t invest your money any better I think.

    Update 2024-12-07: laptopllama mentioned “Typibara (a capybara pal that types with you) and Ball (a crucial app for the times where it’s important for you to bounce a ball out of your Dock)”. I instabought Typibara and Ball is also awesome.

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    State of App and Services Subscriptions 2024 Edition

    I use a variety of apps and services across iOS, macOS, and the web. Most operate on subscription models, and although I aim to keep each subscription under € 5 per month, the total monthly cost can quickly become significant.

    At the end of 2023, I reviewed all the apps and services I was subscribed to and decided to cancel some of them.

    Now, one year later, it’s time to revisit my list of subscriptions. Some are new (➕), some I will definitely keep (🟢), others I need to (re)consider (🟡), some I won’t renew once their subscription period ends (🔴)1, others I already discontinued and no longer use (⛔), and for a few I bought a lifetime license (LT).

    Here’s my current list2 of all the apps and services I’m subscribed to:

    App or Service Cost / Month Type State
    Apple One Premium 31.95 € m 🟢
    MS Office 365 8.25 € y 🟢
    YNAB 8.19 € y 🟢
    PlayStationPlus 6.00 € y 🟢
    Nintendo Switch Online+ (Family) 5.83 € y 🟢
    Setapp 5.50 € y 🟢
    Feedbin ➕ 5.00 € m 🟢
    Micro.blog 4.63 € m 🟢
    Obsidian Sync 4.45 € y 🟢
    NordVPN 3.80 € y 🟢
    Readwise 3.71 € y 🟢
    Arq 3.22 € y 🟢
    omg.lol (2x) 3.18 € y 🟢
    trakt.tv 2.32 € y 🟢
    Play 1.92 € y 🟢
    Hemispheric Views 1.86 € m 🟢
    Mastodon 1.79 € m 🟢
    Drafts 1.71 € y 🟢
    Mercury Weather 1.67 € y 🟢
    EchoFeed ➕ 1.59 € y 🟢
    Chronicling 0.83 € y 🟢
    TV Forecast 0.83 € y 🟢
    Epic Weather Ride 0.71 € y 🟢
    HealthFit 0.50 € y 🟢
    TrainerRoad ➕ 21.01 € m 🟡
    Disney+ (Standard) 8.33 € y 🟡
    1Password 5.50 € y 🟡
    Kagi 4.78 € m 🟡
    FDDB 3.33 € y 🟡
    Ivory 2.50 € y 🟡
    iConnectHue 1.67 € y 🟡
    SwitchBuddy ➕ 1.50 € y 🟡
    Looks Like Rain ➕ 0.83 € y 🟡
    tinylytics ➕ 4.17 € y 🔴
    Frame Screenshots ➕ 1.50 € y 🔴
    Callsheet ➕ 0.83 € y 🔴
    Reeder ➕ 0.83 € y 🔴
    DayOne ⛔
    ifttt ⛔
    Neptunes ⛔
    Overcast Premium ⛔
    Personal Best ⛔
    Söka ⛔
    Timery ⛔
    Training Today ⛔
    Up Ahead ⛔
    Wahoo Systm ⛔
    Zenitizer ⛔
    Anybox LT
    Photomator LT
    Waterllama LT
    Total: 166.22 €

    In total, they cost 166 € a month and almost 25 € more than last year 🤔.

    Actually, my goal was to spend less money on software subscriptions, not more. It didn’t really work out. Let’s see how it will be in a year.

    As last year this list only covers tech related stuff. Charity and other related expenses are not listed here.

    1. If anyone reading here happens to have anything to do with any of the apps mentioned, please don’t misunderstand: Those are all awesome apps, otherwise I would never have subscribed to them before! 😄 ↩︎

    2. All subscriptions have been converted to Euros and annual subscriptions divided by 12. Some are family subscriptions, some are subscriptions with an education discount. ↩︎

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    App Defaults - 2024 Edition

    It has now been over a year since Andrew, Martin, and Jason of Hemispheric Views listed their app defaults, causing probably the biggest internet movement of 2023, documented with meticulous detail by Robb.

    Time to update my list. Indicated are unchanged entries (🔒) and updated entries (✨). I still use the various categories as written by Andrew:

    • 🔒 Mail Client: Mail.app
    • 🔒 Mail Server: iCloud with custom domain and posteo.net
    • 🔒 Notes: Obsidian and some stuff left in Notes
    • 🔒 To-Do: Reminders (and Things at work)
    • 🔒 iPhone Photo Shooting: iOS Camera
    • ✨ Photo Management: Photos, supplemented by Photomator and PowerPhotos
    • 🔒 Calendar: Calendar
    • 🔒 Cloud file storage: iCloud Drive
    • ✨ RSS: Classic Reeder (macOS) and Lire (iOS) in conjunction with Feedbin 1
    • 🔒 Contacts: Contacts
    • 🔒 Browser: Safari
    • 🔒 Chat: iMessage, Threema, WhatsApp
    • 🔒 Bookmarks: Anybox
    • 🔒 Read It Later: Readwise Reader
    • 🔒 Word Processing: Pages (MS Word at work)
    • 🔒 Spreadsheets: Numbers (MS Excel at work)
    • 🔒 Presentations: Keynote
    • 🔒 Shopping Lists: Pons
    • 🔒 Meal Planning: Mela
    • 🔒 Budgeting & Personal Finance: YNAB
    • 🔒 News: Mastodon, tagesschau.de
    • 🔒 Music: Apple Music
    • ✨ Podcasts: Apple Podcasts
    • ✨ Password Management: Apple iCloud Keychain with 1Password as backup

    1. In between, also the new Reeder and Tapestry. I have the feeling that this will change a few more times in the near future. ↩︎

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    Sindre's New App: Supercharge

    I purchased Sindre Sorhus' Mac app Supercharge, not because I’ve tested the demo version extensively or think I really need it or will even use it, but because Sindre has released so many different, really great software for free so far. I wanted to take this opportunity to reward him for his wonderful apps. For now though, I’m going to install Supercharge and see what it has to offer. I am sure I’ll enjoy using this one, too.

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    I have recently started collecting again

    I’ve recently started collecting something new again. I don’t mean video games, LEGO minifigures, retro handheld consoles, SAKs, or virtual Pokémon trading cards 1.

    This time it’s crown caps.

    I did this already as a kid, and at a certain stage, my own kids started doing so too. But, the collection needs physical space and always looks a little messy. I have never found a nice way to store or display them.

    A few weeks ago, I just decided to do it virtually. I use the app Collections together with a Apple Shortcut I set up. I can take a picture, use my shortcut to enter the name of the company, the beverage type and the shortcut extracts the location of the photo, the date, removes the background of the picture, and exports everything into my Collections database.

    CleanShot 2024-11-16 at 10.36.45.

    There, I have a nice list or grid view of all the crown caps I’ve collected. I can open a map and see where I found them, and I really do enjoy this kind of virtual collection so far.

    Who knows, maybe you’ll find something you’d like to collect in the form of virtual memories too? If so, I can recommend the app Collections.

    1. BTW my ID is 3136836414506186 😎 ↩︎

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    Switching to lire

    I was using the new Reeder app for the last couple of months, but today I quit. For my number of subscribed feeds, it simply takes far too long to refresh. There are bugs, there is no support, and there is not even an OPML export feature. So, I purchased lire and set it up with Feedbin, a service I was not using before either. I’m curious to see what will come of this.

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    Automated Translations in Apps: A Threat to Quality and Credibility

    Apps that clearly contain automatically generated translations that no native speaker has reviewed are so disturbing to me that I can’t use them1. I don’t think the developers realize the damage they are doing to their software. Such apps come across as incredibly unprofessional to me, and I find it very difficult to spend money on them because I judge the quality of the entire project based on this sloppy usage of automated (AI) translation, which is now so easily accessible. Two examples that come to mind: Appraven and Twos. Unfortunately, there are so many more.

    1. Sometimes I give them a second chance by switching the language to English, which is thankfully possible on iOS and macOS. ↩︎

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    macOS apps I wish were better

    I am a long-time macOS user and over the decades I’ve tried a lot of different apps. Many I have used only briefly or they were discontinued after some time. However, some grow close to my heart, accompany me for countless years, and make my daily life easier. Nevertheless, sometimes some of them eventually lose their shine or fall behind, and I use them just out of habit or nostalgia, even though there are (supposedly) better alternatives.

    Currently, there are mainly three programs for me that fall under this category:

    DevonThink could have become the native macOS version of Obsidian for me, but with Version 3, I somehow lost access to it. Nowadays, I only use the app, which once shaped my workday, as a storage place for PDFs. That makes me sad.

    Launchbar hasn’t seen any real innovations for a very long time, and more significantly, sometimes it starts with a delay on my Macs, which leads to unwanted keystrokes in other programs. There is a plugin system, but I wish the community was as motivated and diverse as with Raycast.

    1Password was such a great password manager. Since the update to Version 8 and the switch to Electron, it no longer feels native, it’s sluggish and buggy. The Safari integration1 has become unusable for me, and I currently keep my passwords in both 1PW and Apple’s Keychain. I think with the appearance of Sequoia in the fall, I will probably say goodbye entirely. Even though it will be hard for me.

    1. for sure this is not only 1PW’s fault ↩︎

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    Bartender Alternatives

    Bartender was acquired and neither the original programmer nor the new owner informed about it. Since the app requires extensive permissions to perform its service, including screen recording, and the communication about the sale apparently went rather catastrophically1, many users are somehow concerned and are looking for an alternative. Fortunately, there are some, but I have not dealt with them much, as I have been using Bartender since its initial release many years ago.

    So far, I have come across the following apps, which can now be looked at more closely with regard to their privacy policy and, of course, their suitability as a replacement:2

    Which one are you using?

    Most people seem to be very happy with Hidden Bar and Ice, both FOSS. And there is now an official (?4) response from Bartender’s original developer Ben Surtees you can read here or here. And another statement from the new owners was published on their blog as well.

    Updates

    • 2024-06-07: added footnote 4
    • 2024-06-06: added update above and a link to Michael Tsai in footnote 1 😎
    • 2024-06-05: added OnlySwitch, thanks to Marcus, link to the github version of Hidden Bar, and link to AppleInsider
    • 2024-06-13: added link to new developer statement
    • 2024-07-17: added BTT

    1. There is only one small note on their support page informing about a certificate change. The full extent of this has been very nicely summarised on AppleInsider. You can read some more responses to this whole saga on Michael Tsai’s blog. ↩︎

    2. Alternatively, one can potentially revert to a Bartender version prior to the sale (5.0.48) and additionally block its connections to the internet, e.g., via Little Snitch. ↩︎

    3. That’s the one I just started using without any particular reason and it works just great so far. ↩︎

    4. Of course, there are already speculations that the texts were not written by him and were created by ChatGPT. ↩︎

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    Fun stuff with Obsidian and Dataview II - costs per week

    You can do so much fun stuff with Obsidian and Dataview. I added notes for all of my electronic gear and based on properties for purchase date and price an inline dataview calculates the costs per week for each item, every time the note is opened 🤩

    This is the actual inline calculation for cost/week:

    =round(number(replace(this.preis,",",".")) / number(durationformat(dur(date(now) - this.kaufdatum),"w")),2)

    with

    • preis: price property; as I am located in GER I use a textfield with an entry like “42,99 €”; therefore the replacement of “,” by “.” and conversion to a number
    • kaufdatum: purchase date property
    Obsidian dataview with costs per week based on purchase date and price

    Update 2023-12-05

    Here is a slightly improved version of the inline field:

    =replace(string(round(number(replace(this.preis,",",".")) / number(durationformat(dur(default(this.nutzung_bis, date(now)) - this.kaufdatum),"w")),2)),".",",")

    with

    • nutzung_bis: a properties date field that marks the end of usage; the cost is calculated either until this date or if it is missing until today

    and it changes the ENG decimal point back to the GER “,”

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    Fun stuff with Obsidian and Dataview - pico-8 game launcher

    You can do so much fun stuff with Obsidian and Dataview. I added notes for all my pico-8 games, containing the cartridge png itself and added some Templater and Properties magic. With the help of Keyboard Maestro I can now click on the little play button in my Dataview table and the game just launches 🤩

    pico-8 games list in Obsidian with built-in launcher
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    Indie App Sales 2023

    It feels like every day for weeks now is a special day and everything is and will be discounted. Oh, wouldn’t life be nice if things were just generally cheaper and my inbox was spared the flood of advertising? Anyway …

    There’s another Indie App Sale this year and there are now over 400 (!) programs listed for macOS and iOS. Fortunately, I already own the ones that interest me most and bought three additional apps this year:

    Nevertheless, it’s an impressive list that also includes many Mastodon developer accounts that I didn’t know about before. Definitely worth looking into.

    I also noticed the Apps campaign: 10 applications for you and your Mac. It really only lists great apps. And even though I use Moom, I’ve been dancing around Lasso for a long time, maybe I’ll buy it this time?

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    App Defaults

    Shamelessly stolen from Robb  and inspired by Hemispheric Views 097 - Duel of the Defaults! here are all the apps I use in the various categories as written by Andrew:

    • Mail Client: Mail.app
    • Mail Server: iCloud with custom domain and posteo.net
    • Notes: Obsidian and some stuff left in Notes
    • To-Do: Reminders (and Things at work)
    • iPhone Photo Shooting: iOS Camera
    • Photo Management: Photos
    • Calendar: Calendar
    • Cloud file storage: iCloud Drive
    • RSS: Reeder
    • Contacts: Contacts
    • Browser: Safari
    • Chat: iMessage, Threema, WhatsApp
    • Bookmarks: Anybox
    • Read It Later: Readwise Reader
    • Word Processing: Pages (MS Word at work)
    • Spreadsheets: Numbers (MS Excel at work)
    • Presentations: Keynote
    • Shopping Lists: Pons
    • Meal Planning: Mela
    • Budgeting & Personal Finance: YNAB
    • News: Mastodon, tagesschau.de
    • Music: Apple Music
    • Podcasts: Overcast
    • Password Management: 1Password
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    MS Office Reset

    TIL that you can easily uninstall your entire MS Office package under #macOS with Office Reset (https://office-reset.com/), then download only the app(s) you need from the Mac Appstore and use your existing Office 365 subscription. I always thought you had to purchase a new one somehow via Apple IAP. Cool, now I’m rid of all that garbage MS AutoUpdater.