Finished reading: Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King 📚
What's Up With My Username?
I think we now live in a time where people don’t really wonder about things like usernames anymore. But maybe some of you have wondered about mine? I’ve only been using esamecar for two or three years. Before that, I had a series of others, but for most services, I usually used the same one at the same time. I still somehow remember two of them. As a child or teenager, I naturally wanted a username that mainly sounded cool.
The biggest problem with owning multiple gaming platforms is choosing the right one for a particular game. Those are the really tough decisions in life, I guess.
TIL that when Safari on macOS suggests a username for a login and you have a Touch ID enabled Mac you can just directly use the sensor. In the past I always clicked on the popup with the mouse to select it first, and then used my finger on the sensor.
What caught my attention in week thirty-two, 2024
In continuation of week 31, here are a few thoughts and things that caught my attention in the thirty-second week of 2024: 🖥️ If you’re tired of always having to find a tiny free spot on an macOS app window to move or resize it, then this app might help: Swift Shift - Manage your macOS windows like a pro. 🖥️ BetterDisplay - Unlock your displays on your Mac - was updated to version 3.
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.
macOS Sequoia Permission Madness
9TO5Mac reports that Apple is apparently planning to present its Mac operating system users with a copy of Microsoft’s Vista disaster: With macOS Sequoia this fall, using apps that need access to screen recording permissions will become a little bit more tedious. Apple is rolling out a change that will require you to give explicit permission on a weekly basis to these types of apps, and every time you reboot your Mac.
What caught my attention in week thirty-one, 2024
In continuation of week 30, here are a few thoughts and things that caught my attention in the thirty-first week of 2024: 🖼️ I’ve mentioned the image viewers Lyn and PicArrange before, but this week Musebox made the rounds. I will take a closer look at it when I get a chance. 🔄 Speaking of alternatives: Diffraction might be a (currently free) alternative to Acorn. 🔍 And if you only want to find (even the smallest) differences between two images, you can check out ImageDiff.
Finished reading: Der Astronaut by Andy Weir 📚
There are a number of household product categories where it feels like you can only buy junk, even if you were prepared to spend more money.
Off the top of my head:
- kitchen scales,
- draining racks,
- kitchen thermometers, and
- laundry baskets.
Which ones can you think of?
Finished reading: Brüssel sehen und sterben by Nico Semsrott 📚
What caught my attention in week thirty, 2024
In continuation of week 29, here are a few thoughts and things that caught my attention in the thirtieth week of 2024: 📝 Might be handy, but not sure if I will actually use it: WeExpire - Create emergency notes that can be read by your trusted contacts only after your death. 🖥️ Apparency for macOS - The App That Opens Apps - received a nice update at the beginning of the month.
What caught my attention in week twenty-nine, 2024
In continuation of week 28, here are a few thoughts and things that caught my attention in the twenty-ninth week of 2024: 📱 Just in time for its tenth anniversary the rewrite of Overcast was released. I had canceled my subscription months ago, but since it hasn’t expired yet, I downloaded the new version and used it over the past week. It seems significantly more performant than before, but its UI is still confusing.
What caught my attention in week twenty-eight, 2024
In continuation of week 27, here are a few thoughts and things that caught my attention in the twenty-eighth week of 2024: 🆓 DEVONtechnologies released their free Neo Network Utility app for macOS. 🛠️ Another new app from Sindre: Menu Bar Spacing - Customize the gap between menu bar items. 📄 BeyondPDF - BeyondPDF is your intelligent document companion, here to change the way you search for content in your PDF files.
IndieAppSales Summer 2024
Indie App Sales! is running again, this time from July 9th to 10th. The last sale wasn’t that long ago, so the list of apps I checked out or bought this time is significantly shorter than my last one. However, this still means that those who didn’t make a purchase last time might find something they like this time. Authenticator App Widget - thinking about buying it; I should delete my Twilio account and I can still not decide if I should keep my 2FA in iCloud Keychain, hardware token, 1PW or an independent third party app Bookmarks - URL manager - I just have to buy and try every bookmark manager out there Bookmarks+ - c.
What caught my attention in week twenty-seven, 2024
In continuation of week 25, here are a few thoughts and things that caught my attention in the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh week of 2024: At the end of the 26th week, I suddenly became ill. It started with a sore throat, followed by headaches, cough, runny nose, and total exhaustion. I am still not completely fit. Covid tests were negative, but I suspect that I caught the summer wave 🤒. Since I spent a lot of time sleeping in bed, I could only evaluate a few things, but I bookmarked a few programs that might be helpful later on.
TIL that you can scroll the list of Shortcuts in Apple’s Shortcut menu item.
TIL that you can open a copy of a message in Apple Mail to edit and resend it via ⇧⌘D. I never thought about this feature, but it seems quite useful.
What caught my attention in week twenty-five, 2024
In continuation of week 24, here are a few thoughts and things that caught my attention in the twenty-fifth week of 2024: 🌐 The outrage about unethical behavior by big tech companies wanting to make money with AI features continued. See for example: How We’re Trying to Protect MacStories from AI Bots and Web Crawlers – And How You Can, Too or Perplexity Plagiarized Our Story About How Perplexity Is a Bullshit Machine.