Still trying to get my hands on the long-coveted domain from the other Jim Mitchell (.net TLD for those curious), but it’s dragged out long enough that I’m about to throw in the towel. There’s something about .net versus .org that lends nerd cred to a domain name which is why I covet it so badly.
I planned on publishing a post like this myself, but @canion beat me to the punch, getting his out first… I’m going to use the same criteria he uses for making the cut:
For my purposes, to be considered an App of the Year, the software needs to be something I used extensively, value and enjoy. I also must feel I would miss them if they suddenly went away. Of course, it also needs to be a Mac App.
Without further ado, my list of the top five…
I’ve been using LaunchBar since 2005, probably longer than any other Mac app I currently use, save BBEdit. I set up my wife’s old 2012 27" iMac last week to install macOS Sonoma via OpenCore Legacy Patcher, and through each step, I found my muscle memory wanting to launch some app with LaunchBar. I easily use this app a hundred times a day, every day.
I live and die by my calendar these days. For me, the only calendar application worthy of being used on a Mac is Fantastical, hands-down. The natural language input is super useful and slick. The premium feature I love the most is Openings. For my work, I’ve got too many people wanting to meet with me for this or that. All I have to do is give them a URL and tell them to find an opening. This has saved me hours. I hate subscriptions, but to me, this app is worth it.
I’ve been a Chrome user for many years now. But, two things made me change to Safari this year. First, Chrome has become a memory hog. As I write this, for the same five tabs open, Chrome is using 235MB of memory among 45 threads, whereas Safari is only using 151MB across 10 threads. Less memory and thread usage means better battery life. Second is the privacy philosophies between Apple and Google. Enough said on that one.
I’ve been on Mastodon since 2018, but as the platform becomes more popular and my use picks up, I find myself leaning more and more on Ivory. I started out with Mona as my Mastodon client – which is a great app too – but I just find myself gravitating more and more to Ivory. I can’t put my finger on why. It’s just the one I prefer between the two.
Parts of my job require me to transform and manipulate large amounts of data in all kinds of ways. When it comes to a text editor (for .csv files), BBEdit is the application of choice for me. I’ve been using BBEdit since version 1.0, even longer than I’ve been using LaunchBar. I’d die without this app. For me, it’s worth the $30 upgrade every few years. If you’re a long-time Mac user, you know what BBEdit is and what it’s capable of.
Since this is the first year of my list, I can’t really say what fell off the prior, but these are the apps I’ve found myself using less and less over the last year or two.
Every new year I tell myself “This will be the year I stop eating lunches at my desk”, and every year I’ve ended up failing on the very first day back in the office. This year was no exception. At least I’m consistent in my failings.
📷 Happy New Year from the top of SoCal!
I’m beginning the new year (a tad early) with a plan to read the LOTR storyline, starting with The Silmarillion. I’m a fan of the movies and read The Hobbit some 20 years ago, so I decided now was as good a time as any to tackle the task of actually reading all the books.
New theme for my site completed and installed. I like where it ended up. In total, less than 250 lines of CSS, including style reset and comments. I still have to add a dark mode media query, but that’s a small task for later.
Today’s challenge: Create a new responsive Micro.blog theme for my site using as little CSS as possible. I’m liking where this is going…
I just released a minor update to my Tinylytics for Micro.blog plugin that refactors some logic, squishes a couple small bugs and updates display labels. Look for v3.1.1 in your plugins area soon. If you want to see what changed specifically, check out the pull request on Github.
Our Holiday tradition… A pot of homemade Christmas chili.
Yep… I had to get in on it too. My bass-playing Funko Box alter ego.
Super excited to share that I’ve got a full functioning WordPress plugin for Tinylytics committed to its dev repository. If you have a WordPress site too, and want to give it a spin, hit me up.
Got a basic POC WordPress plugin for Tinylytics working in my dev environment this morning. Might put a little more effort into it over the next few weeks, but I’m really looking to unplug until after the first of the year. Progress though, and that’s all that counts.
Mission accomplished. 🎉 All projects have been successfully deployed to production environments ahead of the end of year code freeze on Monday. A total grind over the last three months to get here, but it’s paid off. Encouraged to know there is not one thing on the agenda for tomorrow.
I’ve been coveting a particular domain name for almost 25 years. After asking a few times over the last six, I’ve finally gotten the current owner to agree to sell it to me. The waiting to finalize the deal is killing me. I really, really, really want this domain…
Dragging a crap-ton of RSS feeds from an OPML file import into a folder all at once?
📷 Bear with me a minute…
📷 Campground peacock.
I don’t know why this just came to my mind, but I would absolutely love to have a Six Million Dollar Man metal lunchbox to bring my lunches to work in…
Uh oh… My mind has latched on to a Micro.blog theme idea this morning and won’t let go of it, even after sketching a thumbnail. So much for getting anything done today. 🐿️
Giving Arq Backup a try for my laptop using Amazon S3 for storage thanks to both @vincent and @manton. The hardest part was setting up the bucket on Amazon and provisioning access. Creating the backup plan in Arq was drop-dead simple. I may stick with this as a long-term solution if it works out well.