Some links don’t call for a full blog post, but sometimes I still want to share some of the good stuff I encounter on the web.
A.I.: A Means to an End or a Means to Our End?・A truly excellent — albeit very long — read, from Stephen Fry’s talk at King’s College in London. Possibly the best link that has — and will — ever appear on this blog. (via Meanwhile)1
WordPress Vs. WP Engine? It Doesn’t Matter. It’s Bad For The Internet.・A great piece by Ernie Smith on the matter, which was also very well summarised by Kev: “this is what happens when millionaires get butt-hurt…” (via Dan Gillmor)2
Miami Vice - In The Air Tonight Scene・Get ready to have this song stuck in your head for days after watching this great scene from the pilot episode. I never really watched Miami Vice because I think I was too young when it was on TV, and I never caught up. As a big fan of Michael Mann — who was the very influential executive producer of the show — and a fan of his movie Miami Vice (2006), maybe I should give it a go.
Nic Chan’s new website・Website/blog design of the year?
Tipping Point: The True Story of “The Limits to Growth”・I haven’t listened to this yet but it sounds very interesting, and everybody seems to be recommending it. I really like this kind of short-lived format: the podcast is only three episodes long. It reminds me of the “pop-up” style newsletter from Craig Mod. (via Kottke)
tapedeck.org・I love this so much. I’m not a graphic designer, but if I were, the design of audio cassette tape labels would certainly be one of the main reasons I’d have become one. I used to love writing on them, filling out the information and sticking them to the tape as if I were performing open-heart surgery, all for a bunch of songs cheaply recorded from the radio. (via Dense Discovery)
Kurono watches・These watches, only available in limited numbers, are quite hard to get but they have to be among my favourite watch designs around. Oh, by the way, on a totally unrelated note, my birthday is coming very soon…
How To: Highlight Text Fragments When Linking・A cool little trick from Rogue Amoeba’s Paul Kafasis: with a bookmarklet, you can share a specific part of a webpage, which becomes highlighted when opened. Also, Rogue Amoeba just updated their apps — including the great Piezo — to be easier to install, as if they needed more reasons to be recommended.
The Torment Nexus・Mathew Ingram recently launched his own publication/newsletter on Ghost, and, as a long-time reader of Mathew’s work — from his days at Gigaom, I believe — I can only highly recommend that you check it out if you are interested in the role of technology in society, media, and culture.
P&B: Justin Duke’s interview・”Writing to me is sort of like exercise. It’s very easy to say ‘ah, I don’t have time to do this’ and give it up, and then discover that there is some sort of gap in your soul, a bit of a spiritual unease and languor that comes from lack of creation and reflection.”
More “Blend of links” collections here
I agree that “AI” is harder to read than “Ai”, but I prefer to write “A.I.”↩︎
See also Michael Tsai’s post on the topic.↩︎
I never thought I’d be saying this, but I am now a BBEdit user (I think). The app is great, obviously, but I am surprised to see myself adopting this complicated, complex, and power-user app instead of the minimal, blazing fast, and really fantastic MarkEdit.
Maybe writing this very post will trigger another change, as it usually does, but somehow this time it feels different. I know it’s only been a couple of days since I published the list of all the apps I use on my Mac. I did mention BBEdit there, that I was using it for work for specific things and as a reliable, general-purpose scratchpad. I guess this is how the seed grew into a full tree, and I’m ready to bear its nutritious fruits. Unless, like the other plants and flowers on my balcony, it dries up and ends up in the bin.1
A few years ago, I used BBEdit properly for the first time during a week or so, when a new version of Drafts had a bug preventing it from being launched on my Mac. While I waited for the Drafts update — it was quick, two or three days later — I enjoyed BBEdit quite a bit, while I didn’t think I would. Like I said before, the app can be overwhelming at first, with dozens of menu options, a well-made but rich interface right out of the box (status bar, sidebar, toolbar, clippings window, navigation bar, &c.), and a jargon that can be a bit scary when scrolling through the menus. Stationery? Balance tags? Zap Gremlins? What?
But even back then, despite all this, there was already this sense of delight, this perception of quality; a feeling that made me want to use this app more, not less. Eventually, Drafts worked again, and I couldn’t be happier. For a while. As soon as I wrote about my “workflow” with Drafts, my needs changed.
Soon, I realised that I preferred to use a “file-based” text editor (like TextEdit, MarkEdit, or, yes, BBEdit), and not a “library-based” app (like Drafts, Tot, or The Archive).2
Last year, I switched to the fabulous MarkEdit, and I haven’t looked back since, which is a first. In the past, my favourite text editing apps changed every three to four months: The Archive, Tot, Drafts, uFocus, iA Writer, TextEdit, CotEditor, &c. MarkEdit was the first one since Drafts to be such a no-brainer for my needs: Markdown only, no HTML, no CSS, fast, reliable, nothing more. I will go as far as to say that MarkEdit is indeed a perfect app, one that truly excels at doing what it is supposed to do.
In the recent weeks, using BBEdit at work for various purposes has got me hooked. With BBEdit, you can basically do anything text-related. If you think something is possible or should be possible, BBEdit probably will allow you to do it. The features are not only endless, but they seem to work very well, and everything feels well thought out, smart, and efficient.
If this sense of power is addictive and appealing, the core of the app, the text editing block, is always front and centre, always snappy, always stable, always good. Most of BBEdit’s features live in the Mac menu bar; nothing is in your way, and everything feels in the right place: here when you need it, hidden if you don’t. The settings — which are an app by themselves — thankfully allow users to hide any menu items they don’t want and easily assign keyboard shortcuts.
Recently I’ve stumbled upon this blog post by Ty Bolt, and this part resonated a lot with me, even if the app mentioned is not BBEdit, but Panic’s Nova:
Nova is one of the best pieces of software I’ve ever used. It’s refined and polished and there’s no equivalent on Linux and Windows. It has its own personality, but also feels like an extension of the operating system. Which is a hallmark of a great Mac app. Folks in the community call them Mac-assed Mac apps. These apps are what make MacOS really great. The best apps I have used are all Mac apps.
A great app “feels like an extension of the operating system.” Amen to that. In my adventures in making my web browsing experience better, I’ve tried the browser called SigmaOS. You would think it’s strange for a browser to include the letters OS in its name when it’s not technically an operating system, but this is actually how the app feels: a full OS, using MacOS only as a launcher. Some people love this kind of app or service, and I understand them. I just don’t.3
BBEdit really feels like an extension of MacOS. It doesn’t only feel like a native app, but truly part of the system. Maybe this is what makes me like it so much? Maybe this is where this sense of “delight” comes from?
The result is that I’m here, exhausted but very satisfied, typing this draft in my shiny new BBEdit set-up. I spent most of my free time in the last couple of days configuring it the way I need it, the way I want it to be. Six months ago, I would have never bothered to spend a single hour doing that, but this time, somehow, I did, happily. I even plan to continue during the weekend, read more of the user manual, and tweak a few more things until every little remaining annoyance is ironed out. I’m almost there.
The app is worth the effort I’m certain, but even if it’s not, the time I spent discovering all of the things the app can do and learning some AppleScript is time well spent in my books.4 Some people like to spend dozens of hours playing video games, others will spend their weekends binge-watching the latest season of their favourite TV show; me, I’m very happy with the time spent taming BBEdit.
Now, if I’ve learned one thing writing on this blog, it is that telling the world about my habits, workflow, favourite apps, and software choices, means that I will change my mind right after. Maybe if I purchase the BBEdit licence I’ll stick with it longer? The free version seems to be enough for me, surprisingly. We will see how this turns out. In the meantime, I will keep MarkEdit installed on my machine, just in case.
UPDATE (Oct 1): And I bought a licence…
In this analogy, I guess that MarkEdit is a cactus? Stylish, requires very limited care, and is not really known for its fruits.↩︎
I know that some of the “library-based” apps listed here, like The Archive, actually use text files too, unlike Apple Notes, but working directly via the Finder is what I mean by “file-based” apps.↩︎
I’m always surprised at work how some of my colleagues love Notion, for instance. It’s very capable and can do almost anything, but as far as I am concerned, it does nothing well.↩︎
Oh, the joy of witnessing a freshly crafted script work as it’s supposed to…↩︎
I like first-party software. To be more exact, I like using good first-party software. It feels faster, better integrated, truly native, and purposefully designed to work with the hardware. This feeling may not be based in reality: some third-party apps can be better, and some preinstalled apps can suck.
On my Apple devices (don’t get me started on first-party software on Windows), I continue to use Safari for now, I love Apple Mail, and frequently use Maps, Notes, and Reminders. Other than these precious few, my overall computing revolves around a few third-party apps listed below.
Let’s start with the simplest setup of all: my dear MacBook Air. Uninstalling apps is one of my favourite things to do when it comes to organising my digital life, and, now that most of them have been uninstalled already, I am left with the essence of the software I need for my daily activities: four glorious apps.
MarkEdit・I’ve mentioned this app many times now, and it’s just great: pure, fast, with the ideal set of features and refinements.
Maestral・Easy to forget that it’s there: light, reliable, and the only GUI I interact with does its job well: indicating the status of the Dropbox sync in the menu bar (the way i publish on Blot).
NetNewsWire・I’ve tried many other good apps for RSS over the last couple of years: Unread, Lire, Readwise Reader, the old Reeder, the new Reeder, Readkit, and for me, none of them come close to the “barebones-iness” of NetNewsWire, which I’ve grown to love.
GoodLinks・Without the recently-added highlight feature, it was already one of my four main third-party Mac apps, so, with it, it will be a tough one to uninstall.
Below are only listed the apps that I chose to install myself, not the few that are managed by the IT department.
Things・If you’ve read this blog for more than five minutes, you are probably aware that Things is one of my favourite apps around. The word I want to use the most when describing this app is “delightful” but this app is so much more than that.
MeetingBar・When you work from home 95% of the time, being able to quickly glance at your menu bar and know exactly when your next online meeting starts is great, but having a hotkey shortcut to join that same meeting is precious.
Pastebot・I’m pretty certain that there are better clipboard manager apps around, but this one has proven to be very reliable and efficient. I may only use about 20% of its features but it’s been working great for me in the past couple of years.
ChatGPT・In my line of work, it’s very handy to have an assistant like that able to provide me with good-enough translations, quick feedback on an outline or an idea, or help me find synonyms or different formulations for a sentence or title. The Mac app is decent, justified mostly by the quick access shortcut feature.
MacWhisper・I barely use this very good app, but when I do, I want it to run smoothly. That’s why it lives on the M1-powered MacBook Air from work and not on my personal Intel-powered MacBook Air. I’d appreciate it even more if it didn’t seemingly need an update every time I launch the app, though.
BBEdit・Yep. I’m surprised by this too. While I don’t plan to adopt it as my main app, it’s just a great powerhouse of a tool to have around. If you work with text, any kind, BBEdit surely will help. Straightening and educating quotes? Sure. Removing blank lines or line breaks? No problem. Advanced finding and replacing? You bet. This app can do so many things, while also being pretty darn good as a simple scratchpad or writing app: safe, trustworthy, and it has that intriguing je ne sais quoi that makes me want to use it more (Things has that too). It doesn’t suck® indeed, but what feels like hours needs to be spent in the settings and menu options for it to be efficient enough, which I find overwhelming. I use the free version, but once or twice a year I subscribe for a month while I need to use a few specific premium features.
I won’t list all the necessary banking and local transport apps here because I don’t really see any value in sharing them (Trainline is good though), so I’m just going to focus on apps that might interest you or may be useful to someone you know.
1Writer・From the same developer who is already behind GoodLinks, this app is one of the best Markdown editors for the iPhone. It recently replaced Apple Notes for my personal notes because I wanted to use text files instead of the Notes database. These files are now synced via Dropbox (which this app can conveniently connect to) because the iCloud Drive syncing was acting up.
WhatsApp・Hard to not use WhatsApp if one cares about staying in touch with friends and family in Europe. The app itself is actually pretty good: fast, well made, and most of its features make a lot of sense in a messaging app.
RAW Power・My app of choice when it comes to photo editing. I edit all the photos taken with my beloved Ricoh GRIIIx on my iPhone, using the RAW format. I find it much more responsive and efficient at managing large photos than my aging non-ARM-powered Mac. The app needs some time and effort to get used to, but it works well and does everything you need. I prefer it to the great Photomator because the pricing model works better for me: one-time buy, and you’re good to go.
Image Sync・The app I need to use to download pictures from my camera wirelessly. I wish it could connect faster to the camera, but it’s fine. I’ve also been very happy with the USB-C port of the iPhone 15 to import photos en masse to the phone directly in the Files or Photos apps via an SD card reader.
NetNewsWire・Just like GoodLinks, this app is also on my phone: I find the iOS version of the app to be just as good as the Mac app, if not better.
The Sequoia update pushed me to try the new Video Viewer Safari feature so the great Vinegar is not listed below. It may come back in a couple of days, but as I’m writing this, Vinegar is not in use. I want this list to be as accurate as possible. You’re welcome.
Wipr・The only Safari extension you need, I think. I only use the three content blocker parts and have disabled the “Extra” add-on to make my life easier when it comes to managing which website gets which content blocker activated or not (and potentially make Safari less sluggish?). The Wipr 2 release appears to be just around the corner, so I’ll keep an eye out for that.
Feedbin・The backend for my RSS syncing needs. The web app is great too, and although it’s rather on the expensive side, there is not a single thing to complain about in terms of its software.
EditGPT・My proofreading tool of choice. It is based on ChatGPT, but the UI makes a lot of sense for me and for my needs regarding grammar, spelling, and style checks. It will be interesting to see how this compares to Apple’s upcoming Writing Tools.
Many apps I love are sadly not installed on any device right now, because I don’t have a use for them, despite being great and lovable. Drafts, iA Writer, Tot, The Archive, StopTheMadness, StopTheScript, Piezo, Kino, etc. All great apps that I can only recommend.
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