newsonaut
Turning inner space into outer space
Saturday, January 25, 2025
Hyperduck is quack-tastic
I’m a little late to the party with Hyperduck, but maybe you are, too, so I’m spreading the word.
Hyperduck is an app that you install both on your Mac plus one or more other Apple devices — iPhone, iPad or Vision. Once that’s done you’ll find a new option when sharing a web page from one of said devices: “Send to Mac”.
Choose that option, and the next time you’re at your Mac, you’ll see the page sitting there open on your default browser. This is super handy if you want to deal with something later and want it in your face so you don’t forget.
Hyperduck also sends other types of URLs — one that will run a shortcut, for example. There are few things I like better than a good automation, so I’m looking forward to exploring that one. Read this MacStories article to get started.
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Thursday, December 26, 2024
Default apps 2024
I joined a trend and listed my default apps last year at about this time, so why not give an update?
A few things have changed.
I now do most of my photo editing with Preview instead of Photoshop. It’s fast to load and covers my simple needs. Take the time to learn its quirks, and it might be enough for you, too.
I’m still all-in with Reeder. It took awhile to get used to the new version, but now I love it.
My main browser is now Safari on both desktop and mobile. I occasionally use Firefox for web development.
I deleted all Microsoft office apps after I moved on from the employer who made them available to me. For word processing or spreadsheets, I use Pages and Numbers. In a pinch, I might use Google’s equivalents.
For budgeting and finance, I use a pretty little app called Fleur. It’s a one-time payment, covers the basics, and works on all my Apple devices.
I still use Bitwarden for password management on my iMac because it's too old to upgrade to Sequoia. But on my iPad, I happily use Apple Passwords.
I've tried out many code editors, but keep coming back to the comfort of VS Code.
For music, I’m actually more likely to use Soma FM.
I don’t need a VPN any more.
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Friday, June 28, 2024
The best free Mac app you may not have heard of
Window management — or the lack of it — comes up a lot in forums where people talk about Mac stuff. The next version of macOS will improve the situation, but it will be minimal compared with some of the features you can get with an app.
I first learned about how much better window management could be when I was forced to use Windows for a few years at work. I disliked everything about it except the ability to move windows to the sides and have them each take up half the screen.
What impressed me even more was grabbing the space between the two windows and resizing the widths of both at the same time. I especially like this setup with a code editor on one side and a web browser on the other.
My search for free similar functionality on a Mac led to me 1Piece, which is humbly described as an app that “includes many features to improve the usability of your Mac.”
It then goes on to describe an amazing 21 features — plus “others”.
Among these features is window management, which includes my wish — the ability to resize the widths of side-by-side windows at the same time. But there’s lots more.
If you find it tedious to grab each window and drag it to the side, you can use the “left + right” command. It takes the top two windows and places them side by side with one click.
Split Assist creates a display of open windows you can choose from to take up the other half of the screen. Or you can decide to put two of them into quarters.
You’re not limited to the usual halves and thirds. You can, for example, choose the top two thirds. Or you can set up a four by six grid and choose whatever portion of the screen you want.
Of course, you can set up hot keys for any of these.
You can also create presets — get a window just way you want it, then use the preset any time you want it that ideal size.
A tweak function puts handles on the edges of the top window so you can change its size a pixel at a time by using your keyboard.
You might think this is a lot in a free app — and it is! But “window management” is just one of the over 21 features it has.
Another much requested function I see is the equivalent of alt-tab in Windows. 1Piece has this covered with a feature called Window List. You hit option-tab, and get a list of all your open windows along with previews. You can tweak the list by making it show only the windows in a particular app. You can also make it show only minimized windows — plus much more.
Related to this is Desktop Windows. When invoked, it displays an interface showing all the open windows, allowing you to choose the one you want.
Describing all the functions of this app would be a monumental task. I found myself going down many a rabbit hole when I opened the preferences. So I’ll mention just a few more that caught my eye.
Hitting control-option-command-M moves your mouse pointer to the centre of the screen. Hitting control-option-command-H hides it.
You can set up a favourite window, and create a hot key to bring it into focus.
You can open a contextual version of the active app’s menu bar by hitting shift-command-1.
You might be wondering where this app has been all your life. It first came out in 2014, so that’s 10 years of development. As of this writing, the latest version came out on May 27, 2024.
Who is the developer? Other than his name — Takahiro Fujita — there is precious little information. The website has a Japanese translation, so it’s a safe bet that he is based in Japan.
I’m also going to guess he is a fan of anime. It’s too much of a co-incidence that 1Piece bears a name so similar to One Piece, the story of a search for a mythical treasure.
1Piece itself is like a treasure chest overflowing with gems.
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Sunday, May 12, 2024
You can judge a Mac app by how it helps you
What makes an app a good Mac citizen? For many of us, it could be summed up in this statement on the CotEditor website:
“CotEditor is exactly made for macOS. It looks and behaves just as macOS applications should.”
A big test is the Help menu. Apps made by Apple generally set the standard with “Name-of-app Help”, which opens an in-app browser with instructions on how to use the app.
I was surprised to discover that CotEditor does this, too. I was expecting to have to search for documentation on their website, because this is the norm with other code editors.
Most of them are cross-platform so it’s to be expected. If the help is on their website, they only have to do it once for all the platforms they support.
That doesn’t explain Nova, though. Despite calling itself “The native Mac code editor that's fast and amazing,” the help menu takes you to their website, where you can search through articles. I’m pretty sure this could have been implemented with an in-app browser.
Besides CotEditor, here are some other Mac apps that pass the test of in-app help: iA Writer, Tot, ImageOptim, Photoshop, Affinity Photo, BBEdit, Moom, and Scrivener.
Here are some otherwise great Mac apps that fall short by not offering in-app help: Bear, Little Snitch, NetNewsWire, Reeder, and SnippetsLab.
The worst are the ones that have a help menu with “Name-of-app Help”, but when you click on it you get a window saying, “Help isn’t available for Name-of-app Help.” Why have a help menu at all?
I have a habit tracker called Streaks that has no help menu, likely because it’s an iOS port. It’s not great, but seems a little more respectful of my time.
In-app help is so hit-and-miss that I often don’t think to look there. But I’m going to be doing it more often. And I will be silently judging the apps that don’t have it.
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Monday, April 8, 2024
Your Mac's Preview app is free, fast and more powerful than you might think
Here’s a little thing you can do that, as far as I can tell, is unique to Photoshop: size and crop at the same time.
You go to the the crop tool and specify the size you want the image to be. You then make a box for what part of the image you want. Hit enter and you’re done. It’s the right size and the right shape.
I tried doing this in several other photo-editing apps, but couldn’t figure out a way to do it. You can crop. You can size. But you can’t do both at once.
So if that’s the way it’s going to be, why not see if you can do it with a free app that comes with your Mac?
That’s where Preview comes in.
I have a web app where all the pictures are 100 pixels wide by 200 pixels high. The images I use are grabbed from the internet and vary greatly in shape and size.
The first thing I do is crop so that the space above and below the image looks about right. I find that it’s easier to get the height right and play with the width later.
After that, I change the size to 200 pixels high by whatever for the width.
Lastly, I adjust the width to 100 pixels, and hit Command-K.
Yes, it takes three steps in Preview compared with one in Photoshop, but there are advantages.
Preview starts up a lot faster. In the time it takes to wait for Photoshop to start up, I can have the job done in Preview.
Preview, of course, is free. I have Photoshop on my home computer as a perk of a job I recently moved on from. I have a feeling that will end soon, and I will have to pay if I want to keep it.
Preview is worth exploring. It started off as a way to look at PDFs but can now do a lot more. For basic photo editing, it’s certainly worth looking at.
Macworld has a two-part series here and here on the “superpowers” of Preview. It’s dated 2015, but mentions removing the background, which, I’m pretty sure, was just recently added — a feature, by the way, that I find quite handy.
Apple’s user guide is comprehensive.
Hacker News has a surprisingly long thread about the pros and cons of Preview.
I was curious to know about the history of Preview, but there is precious little to be found. Going by memory, it started off as a way to open and view PDFs, but I’m not sure that explains why it’s called Preview.
There is a thread on Quora that may be enlightening. The gist of it is that, back in the days of desktop publishing, the app was used to preview a document to see what it would look like on paper.
Wikipedia has a skimpy entry for Preview with a small section on history. Apparently, it dates back to 1989 and the NeXTSTEP operating system.
ChatGPT, on the other hand, says it was introduced in 2001 with Mac OS X. That would make sense if Preview was brought along when Apple made the switch to OS X, which was based on NeXTSTEP.
That Hacker News thread refers to Preview as “the Mac app people forget about.” Why download stuff when there’s a free app on your Mac that does a lot more than you might think?
More posts in the Apps category
Monday, March 25, 2024
Use Apple's Calendar app as a timetable
If you need a timetable to keep yourself on track with daily routines, look no further than the Calendar app that comes with your Mac, iPhone and iPad.
I’ve configured Calendar to outline how I want to spend my time Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to noon.
Step 1: Create a new calendar. As you probably know, you can have multiple calendars within Calendar. Call this one “timetable” or “morning routine” or whatever works for you.
Step 2: When creating an event, look for “Add Alert, Repeat, or Travel Time”. Click on this option, then tap on the button next to “repeat” and choose “custom”. I chose a frequency of weekly, every 1 week, on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
For example, I have a block from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m., Monday to Friday, where I work on writing for newsonaut. I’m doing it right now!
Step 3: Deal with alerts. Your Calendar app is likely synced across your Mac, your iPhone and maybe an iPad. That means all these apps will now want to alert you about the events you’ve set up in your timetable. I just want my timetable for reference, so I turned off the alerts for that calendar on all three of my devices. On the iPhone or iPad, go to the Calendar app and find the list of calendars. Tap the “Info” icon next to the timetable calendar and turn off “Event Alerts”. On your Mac, right click on the timetable calendar and choose “Get Info”. From there you can check “Ignore Alerts.”
Step 4: Deal with the Up Next widget. I don’t need timetable events cluttering Up Next, so I stopped those as well. On your iPhone or iPad, go to the widget, then press and hold so you have the edit option. You’ll see an option for “Calendars” that defaults to mirror all calendars. If you turn this off, a new option will appear where you can turn off individual calendars. On your Mac, open up the widgets and press the “Edit Widgets” button. Then tap the Calendar widget and look for the “calendars” option.
Step 5: Optionally, you can hide the timetable calendar. I turned it off on my iPad and iPhone, because I only want to see it on my Mac.
More posts in the Apps category
Sunday, January 7, 2024
When you're in control, tracking is a good thing
There are tracker apps aplenty, but be sure sure to look at the fine print before you download them. Some of them siphon off your personal data and do god knows what with it.
Here are three that sync across Mac, iPad and iPhone. They have beautiful interfaces, a reasonable one-time price and respect your privacy. Find them all in your local app store.
Streaks — a habit tracker
You can set up pretty much any habit you can think of and decide how often you want to do it — or avoid it.
The only data collected — crash data — is not linked to you.
Fleur — an expense tracker
Keeping on top of all your personal expenses and incomes gives a great of feeling of control over your life. This app makes it a pleasure.
It’s a little more intrusive but the data is not linked to you — purchases, diagnostics and usage.
Book Tracker — yes, it tracks your books
Reading is one of the habits in my habit tracker. And now that I’m in the habit, I’m having fun getting my reading life organized.
It collects no data at all.
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Saturday, November 25, 2023
Default apps 2023
Inspired by Chris Coyier, who was inspired by MattCool.tech.
I'm struck by two things — how all-in I am with Apple apps, and how generic the names are for most of their apps.
Mail client: Mail
Mail server: Apple
Notes: Bear
To-Do: n/a
Photo shooting: iPhone SE
Photo editing: Photoshop
Calendar: Calendar
Cloud file storage: iCloud
RSS: Reeder
Contacts: Contacts
Browser: desktop Firefox, mobile Safari
Chat: Messages
Bookmarks: Firefox
Read it later: n/a
Word processing: Word
Spreadsheets: Excel, Numbers and Google Sheets
Presentations: Keynote
Shopping lists: pen and paper
Meal planning: Mela
Budgeting and personal finance: Numbers spreadsheet based on template
News: Reeder
Music: Triode, Poolsuite FM
Password management: Bitwarden
Code editor: VS Code
VPN: GlobalProtect
Special mentions: iA Writer for writing, Tot for temporary notes, Transmit for FTP, ImageOptim for photo compression, SnippetsLab for code snippets.
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Monday, May 8, 2023
The other places to find free Mac apps
They say nothing in life is free, but I've done my best to create a collection of Mac apps that are indeed free. At thriftmac, I'm closing in on 300 apps that can be used forever with all their features and no strings attached.
It would be more accurate to say that few things in life are free. In this case, I can think of only two other sites with collections of free Mac apps, and both also have paid apps.
The best of the two is MacMenuBar.com. It claims to have 800+ menu bar apps, with a collection of about 350 that are free. I like the fact that it's curated — not just a dump of every Mac menu bar app in existence.
The site is ad free, which is refreshing and perhaps a little suspicious. I know people might wonder why there are no ads on thriftmac. The reason is because it's a hobby that I've enjoyed over the years. Also, I don't like ads on other sites, so why would I foist them on my visitors? MacMenuBar.com does collect analytics but that could be just curiosity to know who's visiting. I've done the same myself.
The other site offering a collection of free Mac apps is MacUpdate. Under Recently Updated, click on See All, then choose Free under Price. You can further refine your search by category, when the apps were updated, popularity and downloads. As of this writing, you start off with 4,873 apps.
There will never be thousands of apps on thriftmac. I select the apps that I think are well crafted and will be widely appreciated. I currently have a list of about 30 candidates that I'm not sure about adding.
Yes, my selection is biased, but it is my site — and I'm happy for people to make suggestions.
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Monday, December 26, 2022
How to sign up for a free trial without fear
A truly free app in the App Store is a rare thing. Most have in-app purchases. In some cases, you have to sign up for a free trial right away if you want to use the app at all.
Yes, it's scammy, but this is the world we live in. The thing I fear most with a free trial is that I will forget to cancel before it ends and wind up with a charge on my credit card. These charges can be pretty expensive — over a hundred dollars in some cases.
So how do you sign up without fear? Right after you sign up, go straight to your list of subscriptions and cancel. The free trial will keep going for as long as it would have, and it will end automatically without you getting charged a cent.
Don't worry, you'll get plenty of reminders continuing past the trial. Apps may be hit and miss about reminding that you're about the be charged, but there's no doubt you'll get reminders about un-cancelling.
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