How the rise of internet surveillance, algorithmic polarization of social media, predatory app stores, and extractive business models have eroded the freedoms once promised by personal computers.
In the short term, we can do things like support open projects like Linux, support non-predatory and open source software, and run apps and store data locally as much as possible. But some bigger structural changes are necessary if we really want to launch the era of Personal Computer 2.0.
A guide on how to create a detailed worklog that combines elements of a timesheet and a journal.
All is well in Micro Land! I have my books to read, my locally stored music to listen to. My family to interact with. We have not watched the “news” since November. The house is quieter, the stress is lower.
Since I started to thinker with private Mastodon threading, I’ve been experimenting with using Mona as a private note-taking app.
Hiding the Home tab from Mona makes the app feel more private. I only left the following tabs available because I want to optimize it only for my posts.
I read other people’s posts in Reeder; I use Mona for threading and journaling about ideas privately (and keeping up with my notifications and mentions).
Another thing I did is to replace the ⌘N keyboard shortcut with a custom Keyboard Maestro macro which creates private posts by default. This way, I can work on my threads in a private manner, but still see my notifications if I post something public.
These changes make Mona a note-taking app with built-in discussion features. I don’t know if we have any other app like this.
This is one of the things I love about the Fediverse. In essence, it is just a public place where we post things, but we can make weird mashups on top of it, like a note-taking app.
“Infinite Mac” is a project by Mihai Parparita that aims to make classic Mac and NeXT emulation easily accessible on the web using WebAssembly ports of various emulators, allowing a wide range of System Software/Mac OS versions to run online.
A few days ago I wrote about getting back to Mastodon, and it’s becoming an unexpected part of my workflow. While I initially set up my instance just to syndicate my blog posts, I found myself using it in ways I didn’t anticipate.
Remember how I loved Gibberish’s chat-like UI for drafting ideas? Well, Mastodon’s thread format accidentally became my new space for thinking out loud. I create private threads where I can ramble about stuff, just like I used to do in Gibberish, but with some nice advantages:
What I find fascinating is how this turned into a lightweight note-taking system. I write posts for myself, bookmark them, and can easily go back to review my thoughts. It’s like a poor man’s Zettelkasten, but the thread format adds this natural, conversational flow to my thinking process.
The best part? Mona’s sliding pane UI feels like it was accidentally designed for this kind of short-form note-taking. The way you can slide between connected thoughts makes it natural to build on ideas. I treat my posts as append-only – while I could edit them, I choose not to. Instead, I add new posts to clarify or expand on my thoughts. This self-imposed constraint helps in capturing the evolution of ideas.
I’m finding myself using Mastodon more and more for drafting ideas, alongside Gibberish. Not what I expected when I set up my instance, but it’s becoming a nice addition to my workflow.
Instead of striving for a 100 percent success rate, it’s better to aim for 80 percent.
Having a buffer allows you to move forward without feeling like you’ve failed when not everything goes as planned, which is often.
This is something I’m trying to learn currently. Most projects won’t even need 80%.
macOS Sequoia introduces another new feature labelled Help Apple Improve Search, which sends and stores various search queries from Safari, Spotlight, and other sources to improve search results.
This feature, too, is enabled by default and is well hidden at the very bottom of System Settings > Spotlight.
I turned this off.
A simple Mac app that colors the folder icon based on the tag color. It brings back the feeling of Finder labels.
roadmap.sh is a community effort to create roadmaps, guides and other educational content to help guide developers in picking up a path and guide their learnings.
Role-based and skill-based roadmaps, project ideas, best practices, and other resources for various areas of development including Frontend, Backend, DevOps, Full Stack, AI, and more.
CES: We made a tablet that you can fold up like paper.
Me: Ohh cool, when can I buy it?
CES: What do you mean? 🤨
Wow, my new “Edit in MarsEdit” button and the corresponding shortcut are such a quality-of-life improvement in my blogging workflow.
I always forgot that I have a global shortcut for microposting using MarsEdit. Although I’m not sure about what defaults it is using for the new post.
Looks like 37signals is building a new editor called House (MD). The code is already available in the Writebook project which I haven’t tried yet.
This new editor is based on Markdown, which I like, since their current Trix editor is WYSIWYG, although it works pretty well in my experience.
PrivTracker allows to share torrent files just with your friends, nobody else. Unlike public trackers, it shares peers only within a group which is using the same Announce URL. It really works like a private tracker, but can be generated with one click of a button.
This could be actually useful for sending large files, not just Linux ISOs. The code is available on GitHub, so could be used as a self-hosted service as well.
Dyet is a simple, native application that can dye your folder the color of its tags automatically.
I still use Drafts and am not planning to switch, but in recent years, I’ve seen a couple of nice quick-capture app alternatives pop up. Since I just stumbled upon the new version of Funnel, I thought I would share some quick thought-capture apps.
I ran into this post the other day about Script Debugger getting retired.
January 2025 marks Script Debugger’s 30th anniversary. It’s been a very long run for a two-person effort. Script Debugger began as a Classic MacOS product, survived Apple’s near-death experience, transitioned to macOS X and migrated across 4 CPU processor types. We are so grateful for the support we’ve received over these years. This support allowed us to keep working on Script Debugger much longer than we ever imagined.
Shane and I are retiring and the effort and costs associated with continuing Script Debugger’s development are too great for us to bear any longer.
I bought this app about 2-3 years ago because I was getting serious about learning AppleScript, and in a short amount of time, it became an important part of my workflow. As I mentioned, I learned AppleScript with the help of Script Debugger’s awesome live inspection feature.
Since then, I have used this app to build many scripts that I use in my everyday workflow.
I don’t know the current state of AppleScript inside Apple, but I know that the difference between Script Debugger and Script Editor is night and day. Script Debugger should be part of the system, which is why I feel sad that another great Mac app, especially one with such a long history, is getting retired.
In June 2025, Script Debugger will no longer be offered for sale and all support and maintenance will cease.
At this time, Script Debugger will become a free download. Links to all versions of Script Debugger back to 5.0 will be posted, along with registration numbers that can be used to activate the software. These free versions of Script Debugger will be provided as-is and without any maintenance or support.
Currently, the developers plan to leave it as is. The problem with this approach is that any future macOS update could break Script Debugger. It’s not like 1Password 7, which, after years, I still keep around because I’m not going to migrate to their stupid Electron app. Script Debugger is a complex beast, so any new Windows Vista-style “security” dialog could kill it in an upcoming version. And boy, Apple has been really into “Cancel or Allow” lately.
Will Script Debugger become an open-source project? No. Unfortunately, there are portions of the Script Debugger source code we do not have the right to release.
I’m not sure how the app could be saved. I created a topic on MPU to let people know about it. Open-sourcing will not work since there are licensing issues, so the last resort is for someone to buy it. Or maybe some people in the Macscripter.net community could take care of it as Late Night Software “contractors.”
I don’t know yet, but it’ll be pretty sad the day when Script Debugger stops working.
Just an aside: it makes me wonder why we have Emacs and Vim still around alive and well…
I used this guide (with a little help from ChatGPT) to setup my Mastodon instance.
In this guide we will only focus on using the prebuilt images from Docker Hub.
I subscribed to Gibberish again. It’s a pretty simple app with a weird idea: you can write blog posts by typing out your thoughts in a text messaging-style UI. Each message represents a paragraph.
Why that’s great? The messaging UI somehow triggers me to spit ideas into a chat thread, which I can revise later. Well, the “revise later” part is not the strongest suit of Gibberish, but creating the first draft is the best I found for me.
I just love this chat UI for capturing ideas. It’s not coincidental that people text themselves a lot. Also, it just makes sense how the app calls drafts “thoughts” and published stuff “posts.” I love small touches like this.
Though these are not posts, and I’m not writing a blog here, since I have to publish a post to get the “Copy Post Text” menu working, I figured, why the hell not? I’m not going to share the URL of my Gibberish “blog” since it is just a side effect of using the app “wrong,” but because I love this way of drafting things, I’m going to keep it around. I don’t care if people find it.
Since I’m using the app just kinda right (I don’t care about the blogging part), I wish it was just a private thing that syncs over iCloud (or whatever) with better support for exporting my “thoughts” into other apps like Drafts. As mentioned, I only publish my posts there to get the “Copy Text” option working.
So, essentially, I just want an app that I can use to ramble about stuff and then export to revise the content somewhere else. Gibberish would be an awesome app for collecting thoughts without having a blog behind it.
Wow, Bertrand Serlet is a legend! I haven’t listened to this interview yet, but I’m sure it’s going to be interesting.
Nice, I can have a custom Bluesky handle using my own domain. Updated the links on my blog to @zsolt.decoding.io.
After years of focusing on my blog and staying off social platforms like Mastodon and Bluesky, I’ve decided to set up profiles there. Why now? Here’s what’s changed.
I’ve mostly set up Mastodon and Bluesky profiles to publish my posts to social media platforms. This could also be a way to have conversations around my content. I might occasionally post short status updates, but the main way I’ll share ideas will continue to be through my blog.
I also want to try out new iOS apps like Ivory, Croissant, and Reeder which are integrating with these services.
If you’d like to follow along, here are my profiles:
Feel free to follow me, say hi or share something interesting.
The blog will remain my main hub for new posts, which are also shared to Mastodon and Bluesky via Micro.blog and replies to these posts should appear as comments here on the blog too.
Well, I was reading Simon Willison’s post about his blogging process, and I realized that I often write about weird ideas, thoughts, and things I discover online, but I usually keep them in a private journal.
Some of these things are available publicly on my Zettelkasten as notes or annotations, but not here. I think I’m going to change this habit.
While I don’t always have interesting content to blog about, I shouldn’t keep these thoughts to myself either. Most of these ideas are just ramblings, but if you visit any blog or social media platform, you’ll realize that it’s mostly people rambling about random stuff.
On the other hand, you can find interesting sparks for ideas, peculiar thought chains, workflow tips, and bits and pieces that I actually enjoy more than coherent and lengthy blog posts.
So, I’m going to publish more of these fragmented ideas that I’ve kept private until now.
CoverSutra 4.0 got open-sourced (actually, it was open-sourced on Christmas, but I just got around to blogging about it).
Originally launched as an iTunes controller in 2007, CoverSutra is making its comeback as a standalone music player for your Mac! Version 4.0, code-named Cappella, brings you seamless music access directly from your menu bar. With its elegant interface, you can instantly search by album, artist, or song—all while staying focused on your work without needing to switch apps.
I used to love CoverSutra back in the day. In fact, I even created a Hungarian localization for the app (here’s an archive.org link to my old hungarian blog which looks like some old MySpace crap).
However, the app mysteriously disappeared around 2013. If I remember correctly the developer, Sophia Teutschler, was hired by Apple at that time.
A few months ago, Sophia brought CoverSutra back, but I’m not particularly pleased with the new version. It has become a separate music player, which is quite different from the original app.
These days, I primarily use Sleeve, which is quite similar to the early version of CoverSutra. It retains the feature of displaying the current song’s album artwork on the desktop, just like the CoverSutra did. I also use Sleeve to scrobble my music to Last.fm like it’s 2007 again.
Interesting story from James Thomson about the development of the early version of the Mac OS X Dock.
So, we are coming up on a little anniversary for me this weekend. On the 5th of January 2000, Steve Jobs unveiled the new Aqua user interface of Mac OS X to the world at Macworld Expo.
By the way, my birthday is January 5th too.
On the other hand, I got a little bit angry when reading this part (especially how Space Karen talks crap about remote work lately).
Steve left, and then visited my manager’s manager’s manager and said the fateful words (as reported to me by people who were in the room where it happened).
“It has come to my attention that the engineer working on the Dock is in FUCKING IRELAND”.
I was told that I had to move to Cupertino. Immediately. Or else.
I did not wish to move to the States. I liked being in Europe. Ultimately, after much consideration, many late night conversations with my wife, and even buying a guide to moving, I said no.
They said ok then. We’ll just tell Steve you did move.
As a software developer who has been working remotely for more than 15 years, I have never understood why it’s so important to be in the office…
Interesting use-cases for the Reminders app.
Even so, there are some neat features of Apple’s Reminders that can make your life a lot easier.
I haven’t found anything new about Reminders in this article, but it can be useful to others.
On the other hand, the use case of birthdays just doesn’t make sense.
A couple of years ago I quit Facebook. One of its last remaining utilities was helping me remember friend’s birthdays and I meant to transition everyone to a Reminders list, but only got a handful done. Even so, it’s been nice to have a short list of birthdays to check out every time I worry I forgot someone’s birthday.
For birthdays, use the Contacts app in conjunction with the Birthdays calendar in the Calendar app.
You can also create a smart list in Contacts for upcoming birthdays in the next N days.
Update: by the way, I forgot that I also wrote a lengthy article on how to use Apple Reminders for GTD.
If you work in shell/terminal often enough, then over time the history will become your personal knowledge vault, documentation and command reference. Being able to use this personal documentation efficiently can hugely boost your productivity. So, here are a couple of tips on how to optimize your shell history configuration and usage to get the most out of it.
Well, I’m not sure how effective the shell history of being a “personal knowledge vault, documentation, and command reference,” but optimizing its use doesn’t hurt.
I also looked into ShellHistory, which can create notebooks from the command history. Actually, this can be a pretty cool way to document processes, like installing a Rails app and its dependencies or starting a full stack of software.
With the ShellHistory you can easily keep years of shell history, search history using Full Text Search, back it up to iCloud, create Notebooks.
On the other hand, I could just keep the history synced between my Macs.
This is the ideal blog format for me. A list of daily notes grouped by day.
GTD is a collection of relatively simple tactics for coping with, prioritizing, and organizing the things you want to do. Many of the methods relate to organizing your own projects, using a handful of context-based to-do lists (e.g. a list of things to do at the office, at home, while waiting in line, etc). These lists consist of simple tasks. Those tasks are, in turn, derived from another list, of “projects” – things that require more than one task, which can be anything from planning dinner to writing a novel to helping your kid apply to university.
I have never seen next actions mentioned like this: tasks that are derived from another list, a list called projects. The thing I like about OmniFocus (and TaskPaper) is that projects are outline headings, and next actions are simple rows. It naturally blends the two together.