What I have done in the second week of 2023 (teaser: playdate, macOS apps, podcasts, movie)
After all, this is the second time this year that I've managed to write down a bit what has been keeping me busy during the week. 🥳
😔 So, this was my first week at work and thus, unfortunately, again far too little time for things I really enjoy. (I'll have to think about my work situation in great detail at some point).
🕹 Playdate: After the two pre-installed games on my playdate, the first two new games included in Episode 1 arrived for me on Monday: Crankin's Time Travel Adventure and Boogie Loops. Unfortunately, I'm completely musically untalented, so I haven't looked at Boogie Loops yet, but I despair of Crankin's Time Travel Adventure. As a now completely inexperienced player, I fail grandiosely at this game. For me it is extremely difficult. I just got to level 20 and I was told that there must be 50 levels. Another game on the list of games I will never play through. Bloom meanders along. I find it a bit of a pity that in the dialogues there are really only the same statements available, each worded a little differently. I don't feel that you can really influence the story. I'm not 100% sure if I would buy the game again. I had a quick look at EYELAND. However, it doesn't support savegames and so far I haven't felt like trying to tackle it in one go.
🍿 I've watched Avatar: The Way of Water in the cinema with my family. Bombastic, sure, but - as expected - completely irrelevant and above all predictable plot. Still, I didn't regret going to the cinema again.
📺 Together with my wife I finished watching the third season of For All Mankind. I think I liked it better than the second and I'm looking forward to the fourth.
🤓 Because of omg.lol , I tried to understand IRC. It's been a long time since I was on it. It felt like back in the Amiga days. I've installed irssi via Homebrew, was able to connect, but failed with its operation. I'll have to look at it again some other time. Even though I am not a fan of, I understand very well why Discord etc. have become famous 🤦♂️
🍩 I've 3Dprinted some small things, primarily for household or work purposes, such as an iPad Stand, to use it as a second monitor at work and a tea bag drainer. And of course things for my AnkerMake M5 itself, like Spare Parts Box and Accessory Bins. (I was already afraid that this is another hobby that is only concerned with itself. In other words, you do things with it that you only do because you now have this thing that does things ... You understand me.)
🤯 For me, I still haven't been able to conclusively determine on which platform I want to follow whom and where I want to post something and how. The interoperability of the fedivers (micro.blog <-> mastodon together with RSS etc.) is ingenious, but it also leads to a lot of friction and redundancy at least for me. I definitely need to get better at this. In all the experimenting I've been doing over the last few days, I've often had the problem of finding the exact URL of an RSS feed. To achive this via Reeder or similar was too cumbersome for me and the times when the browser I use simply displayed the feeds prominently are also long gone. I have therefore created an iOS/macOS shortcuts. I'm not good at it, but it does the job I hope.
👨💻 Oh, I almost forgot. The battery on my private Intel MacBook Pro was dead. I had it replaced. It cost me € 229 - not exactly cheap. But the whole thing, including sending it in (to the Czech Republic, repair and return) took less than three days 👏. However, I got a new top case with a new keyboard etc., which probably wasn't a bad idea for that model. Since it had already been in use for several years, I decided to completely rebuild it. I would have preferred to save myself the experience. So many little macOS (iCloud) bugs in the process really annoyed me and the new system settings are hell.
🙋♂️
🤔 When exactly did IFTTT actually become this unreliable, completely confusing service? I only use it to pipe RSS feeds into DayOne but I think I have to look for alternatives.
After all, this is the second time this year that I’ve managed to write down a bit what has been keeping me busy during the week. 🥳
😔 So, this was my first week at work and thus, unfortunately, again far too little time for things I really enjoy. (I’ll have to think about my work situation in great detail at some point).
🕹 Playdate: After the two pre-installed games on my playdate, the first two new games included in Episode 1 arrived for me on Monday: Crankin’s Time Travel Adventure and Boogie Loops. Unfortunately, I’m completely musically untalented, so I haven’t looked at Boogie Loops yet, but I despair of Crankin’s Time Travel Adventure. As a now completely inexperienced player, I fail grandiosely at this game. For me it is extremely difficult. I just got to level 20 and I was told that there must be 50 levels. Another game on the list of games I will never play through. Bloom meanders along. I find it a bit of a pity that in the dialogues there are really only the same statements available, each worded a little differently. I don’t feel that you can really influence the story. I’m not 100% sure if I would buy the game again. I had a quick look at EYELAND. However, it doesn’t support savegames and so far I haven’t felt like trying to tackle it in one go.
🍿 I’ve watched Avatar: The Way of Water in the cinema with my family. Bombastic, sure, but - as expected - completely irrelevant and above all predictable plot. Still, I didn’t regret going to the cinema again.
📺 Together with my wife I finished watching the third season of For All Mankind. I think I liked it better than the second and I’m looking forward to the fourth.
🤓 Because of omg.lol , I tried to understand IRC. It’s been a long time since I was on it. It felt like back in the Amiga days. I’ve installed irssi via Homebrew, was able to connect, but failed with its operation. I’ll have to look at it again some other time. Even though I am not a fan of, I understand very well why Discord etc. have become famous 🤦♂️
🍩 I’ve 3Dprinted some small things, primarily for household or work purposes, such as an iPad Stand, to use it as a second monitor at work and a tea bag drainer. And of course things for my AnkerMake M5 itself, like Spare Parts Box and Accessory Bins. (I was already afraid that this is another hobby that is only concerned with itself. In other words, you do things with it that you only do because you now have this thing that does things … You understand me.)
🤯 For me, I still haven’t been able to conclusively determine on which platform I want to follow whom and where I want to post something and how. The interoperability of the fedivers (micro.blog <-> mastodon together with RSS etc.) is ingenious, but it also leads to a lot of friction and redundancy at least for me. I definitely need to get better at this. In all the experimenting I’ve been doing over the last few days, I’ve often had the problem of finding the exact URL of an RSS feed. To achive this via Reeder or similar was too cumbersome for me and the times when the browser I use simply displayed the feeds prominently are also long gone. I have therefore created an iOS/macOS shortcuts. I’m not good at it, but it does the job I hope.
👨💻 Oh, I almost forgot. The battery on my private Intel MacBook Pro was dead. I had it replaced. It cost me € 229 - not exactly cheap. But the whole thing, including sending it in (to the Czech Republic, repair and return) took less than three days 👏. However, I got a new top case with a new keyboard etc., which probably wasn’t a bad idea for that model. Since it had already been in use for several years, I decided to completely rebuild it. I would have preferred to save myself the experience. So many little macOS (iCloud) bugs in the process really annoyed me and the new system settings are hell.
🙋♂️
🤔 I think I should dig more into this Home Assistant stuff. But I am really afraid going down this rabbit hole. https://www.home-assistant.io/
Sure, shortly after I’ve published the short list of non-work related macOS apps I really like it came to my mind, that I forgot the most important ones. But hey, I never claimed it was an exhaustive list 😇
So, I’ll just continue and list randomly some more apps, I enjoy using:
Mela: “Mela is a simple, elegant and modern recipe manager that syncs with iCloud." I recently switched from Paprika, which is also a very good recipe manager. But I do prefer the app from Silvio Rizzi (Mastodon/rizzi@gloria.social) because of its more modern design and the build in recipe RSS feature 👨🍳. RSS is something Silvio knows a lot about, as he is also responsible for my RSS reader of choice:
Reeder: “Keep control of your news reading with Reeder, RSS reader and read later client in one app, now with support for iCloud syncing." Of course there is a bunch of other RSS readers 📰. If I had to switch, I would probably go with NetNewsWire.
Dropover: “Dropover is a macOS utility that makes Drag and Drop easier. Stash, gather or move draggable content without having to open side-by-side windows." Before I’ve stumbled upon Dropover I’ve used Yoink for years (Setapp). I do like both apps. With the former, you don’t always have to wander 🖱️ all the way to the edge of the screen to drop files. I kind of liked that. Yoink also has a counterpart for iOS.
Soulver: “Soulver is a notepad calculator app for Mac. It’s a notepad that gives instant answers to calculations in your text." Soulver is also such a macOS classic. Since version 3, the Mac app is unfortunately no longer compatible with the iOS version and I have a little impression that the developer has lost a little desire 🥱. But nevertheless, it’s a great tool. [Update 19.01.2023: I have learned, that the iOS version has been discontinued but instead the Mac version is now on Setapp.
Money Money: “Alle Bankkonten im Blick mit MoneyMoney." Okay, Money Money is specific to the German market. But if you have a bank account there and don’t want to deal with the web interface of your bank 🏦, Money Money is a great choice. The app only costs money once and I don’t remember ever being asked to pay for an update. (That scares me a little bit, I have to admit).
Day One: “Day One is a journaling app for the iPhone, iPad and Mac. From once-in-a-lifetime events to everyday moments, Day One’s elegant interface makes journaling your life a simple pleasure." My first entry 📔 dates back to 2012, and I have ~10 k entries saved in there. I think that says it all 😄 I do pipe a lot of stuff to Day One with the help of ifttt.
Bartender 4: “Bartender is an award-winning app for macOS that superpowers your menu bar, giving you total control over your menu bar items, what’s displayed, and when, with menu bar items only showing when you need them." I run a lot of menu bar apps. Therefore this app (Setapp) is indispensable for me on my 13” MacBook 💻. Speaking of menu bar apps:
Coca: “Coca is a tiny app that puts an icon in your menu bar. Right-click the icon to prevent your system from automatically going to sleep, dimming the screen or starting screen savers." Very handy in certain circumstances, e.g. you want that backup / download to finish over night etc. There are lots of similar apps, like Amphetamine or Caffeine ☕.
AirBuddy: “Take Control of Your Wireless Devices on macOS." If you own Air Pods 🎧 and want to switch from iPhone to Mac, have a look at this utility (Setapp). And speaking of music:
NepTunes: “A desktop accessory that allows you to see and control your music (Apple Music, Spotify) with customizable shortcuts, advanced Last.fm support and beautiful themes." Any nice app that results in me having to open Apple’s music 🎵 app less often is a win.
Here is a short list of apps I use a lot under macOS privately (so not only work related) or I have recently discovered and think I’ll stick with them.
Bunch: Bunch describes itself as “a macOS utility that uses plain text scripts called “Bunches” to automate context switching. It sits in your menu […]. Bunches can open apps, specific files, web pages, and more. For the Power Users, It also allows advanced scripting, system commands, and integration via a URL handler”. It’s free to download, developed by Brett Terpstra. I switched from Workspaces by Apptorium, which has a much more sophisticated visual concept. I also like the app very much and is also available via Setapp.
Typinator: “Enter words, sentences, or even entire paragraphs by typing just a few characters. Save time for the really important things in life." If I use a Mac without Typinator installed, I can hardly operate it. Therefore, it is one of the first programmes I add. (The second one is 1Password, but if I would start from scratch I would try to use the new build in password manager of macOS / iOS.) Many use Textexpander, but I feel more comfortable without a subscription model.
Raycast: “Raycast is a blazingly fast, totally extendable launcher. It lets you complete tasks, calculate, share common links, and much more." Before I discovered Raycast, I’ve used Launchbar for over 15 years. It was one of these apps I would have taken with me to an lonely island. Other apps like Alfred did not stick with me. I still like Launchbar a lot but enjoy the I am currently enjoying the immense expandability and dynamic development of Raycast. Right now Raycast made even my beloved window manager Moom obsolete.
Craft: “Create documents, make impact." I really enjoyed using Craft for some time. But actually I think, I should not use another note silo and try to achieve what I want with Apple Notes. Nevertheless, the app is very comprehensive, cross platform and easy to begin with. If you have a Setapp subscription, you should definitely check it out. (At this point, of course, Obsidian and Notion must also be mentioned, but neither of which I use in a private context so far.)
Anybox: “Manage bookmarks like a pro. A perfect replacement for your browser’s bookmark manager." I have never been able to make friends with Safari’s bookmark management and used to use various services, including del.icio.us. Then I migrated to pinboard.in, and in the meantime I only used it sporadically. Pins, a very good iOS / macOS pinboard client by Anh Do, motivated me again to use pinboard more extensively. But recently my use declined rapidly again - I don’t know exactly why. I didn’t like well-known alternatives like raindrop.io and then Anybox came along. It’s available for macOS and iOS and more or less saves everthing but I use it solely as a bookmark manager. I’m actually very happy with it, although I’m curious to see whether the developer of pins can motivate me to switch again with his new app Interlink. (I hardly know why I save my bookmarks in the first place. Most of the time I look them up again using a search engine anyway.)
CleanShot X: “Capture your Mac’s screen like a pro." Before I stumbled across CleanShot X, I used the native screenshot function of macOS, which is also quite extensive. In addition I used OwlOCR. A utility that allows you to capture areas of the screen and then copy the text contained therein directly to the clipboard. (Textsniper is also often recommended, but I liked the pricing and the support of OwlOCR much better. BTW Textsniper is on Setapp.) I use this function daily and frequently. I would not want to do without it any more. In the meantime, on the latest version of macOS it is possible to extract text with board tools, at least in photos and I think also in other apps, but I have become so used to cmd+shift+2 (my assigned shortcut) that I no longer want to do without it. What does all this have to do with CleanShot? This function is also implemented and so much more. Also available via Setapp.
Rocket: “Mind-blowing emoji on your Mac." I really enjoy using this emoji picker. Tried using the one from Recast but went back to Rocket.
Quitall: “Before you Force Quit, QuitAll. A fresh start without a restart." If it wasn’t included in my Setapp subscription I probably would not have bought it. I know it’s a bad habit under macOS to quit apps but sometimes I have so many of them open, that I prefer a fresh start. That’s were Quintal comes into play.
Hookmark: “Search Less. Focus more." If you haven’t heart of Hookmark yet, go and check it out. It’s really awesome and I wish something like this was build directly into macOS. You can more or less interlink everything. Also available via Setapp.
👀 Okay, I will do this for the rest of my day now LUMON. Thanks a lot @zioibi ;-) #Severance
🤔 Is there a way to get an RSS feed of my Mastodon bookmarks as for my general feed? Or are there apps that allow me to import them to pinboard or similar services?
🤒 Woke up with a cold and headache. Let's see what the day brings.
😄 Yesterday my defective MacBook Pro was picked up for repair, it was repaired today and will be back tomorrow. The repair costs are not cheap 😡, but the turnaround time is of course brilliant. #statuslog
🤔 I don't know, somehow I had hoped that something would get better at work in the new year (e.g. the availability of IT, a reliable network would be nice). How naive! #statuslog
😅 Called back an email via Mail.app for the first time. It's really great when you need it! #macOS #statuslog