These are the best tried-and-true tools that I'm currently using and
loving. So much of this stuff is personal and what fits your workflow.
I'm constantly trying new software and sometimes replacing tools that
are falling behind with your needs.
There is always a
balance between cost and features. We are fully in the subscription era,
and it's a limiting factor for sure. (I don't even want to add up my
monthly subscription fees, but I really should. Sounds like a good blog
post.)
I sometimes use a less-featured app due to a lower
cost, while the extra features are nice. Are they worth the
price/benefit ratio to your life? I don't begrudge the subscription
model at all! As a hobbyist programmer, I know the many hours involved
in writing and keeping software up to date. The subscription model
allows these developers to make a living while spending many hours
improving their software. I always feel good knowing that I'm
contributing to the continued development of a great piece of software
or hardware.
This page will be continually updated as
things change.
(last update: December 27, 2024)
🚧 Under Construction 🚧
(sorry, I had to use it.
It brings back memories of the GeoCities
days,
here's a page of nothing but GeoCities under-construction
icons; warning: may cause eye-bleed)
Current Software
DayOne - I've tried too many journals and keep returning to DayOne. Find one and journal on the daily, the benifits are numerous. A great place to get journal tips, how to articles and the history of many famous journalers check out Jillian Hess's Noted. I found a year or so ago and have truly enjoyed her work. I've adopted many of her ideas on journaling.
Obsidian - This ebbs and flows but mostly flows—such a fantastic tool. You can make Obsidian into precisely what you want. This Field Guide will put you on firm ground.
Readwise and Reader - Reader syncs with Kindle, Apple Books and a myriad of other services and takes all of your digital book highlights and shows you a daily digest, it's highly customizable. I have additional daily digests that focus on health and meditation. This is a great way to not forget what you've read. You can also just open all the highlights from one book to refresh yourself. Readwise is a Read-Later service with all the bells and whistles. Together they are a bit pricy but if you truly use them the cost per day is minimal. I open both on a daily basis, Reader to get my daily digests of highlights from read books and PDFs and Readwise to look thru my RSS feeds and look at my saved articles. There is also a nice A.I. Summary of each article if you don't want to take the time to read the whole article, my number of saved articles far exceeds what I can read on the daily. Two peas in a pod. Over the years, I've tried many read-later services, but these two are for me.
Ivory - Mastodon client. From the same fine folks who made Tweetbot. I've used four different Mastodon clients, and this one clicked for me. Plus, it feels good to support Tapbots.
Things - Finding a ToDo app that fits your flow is challenging for most of us. I've been using Things for years and have attempted to leave, but I always return.
Drafts - Notes app for phone and desktop. Sync always works. There are great options and plenty of actions and skins to make your writing environment into what you need. I use the dictation feature on my iPhone almost daily to capture quick thoughts.
DEVONthink—Collect, organize, edit, and annotate documents of any kind. Have them automatically analyzed, connected, and filed. Sync them between your MMac iPhone and iPad. I use this app every single day. It holds my life! To honestly use its capabilities, buy MacSparky's DEVONthink Field Guide. You won't regret it.
CleanMyMac is clean, simple, and full of great tools. It's a daily driver. I highly recommend getting it via Setapp. As with most Jack-of-all-trades apps, some items are not the best they could be, but they're better than nothing, and I know they are constantly improving. I'm referencing their virus removal. You can read Macworld's review here.
SetApp—I'm Going on my eighth year with SetApp, and I can't imagine life (digital life... it's not in-real-life worthy!) without it. I currently use 14 apps on my Mac. They have hundreds to use, so check out their list and see if you can make the subscription worthwhile. Speaking of SetApp, we both get a free month if you use my referral link.
Hardware
I'm an Apple guy, through and through. I started using Macs back in high school around 1985. Through my twenties, I used predominantly PCs due to the cost of Apple products at the time, but I finally made the switch back at some point.
A desktop computer is a MacStudio M1 Max with 64GB of memory.
The laptop for road use is a Macbook Pro 16" M4 Max with 128GB of memory. When the MacStudio ages out, the plan is to switch to just one computer. Here is Jason Snell of Macworld explaining it like I could'nt. Zero issues with editing HDR video with this beast.
Photography / Video
Adobe Photography Plan - LightRoom & Photoshop - Yes, like you, I've hated on Adobe from time to time, but it's the goat in many ways and, let's face it, the industry leader in many products. I've been using LightRoom/Photoshop for 10+ years. I've tried moving away to multiple different products and always come back. The Photgraphy plan is worth the money to me. I have access to Lightroom and Lightroom Classic (I'm now firmly in the Lightroom camp, so no more Classic for me.), Photoshop, and 20GB of online storage, which has been enough for me. The day I need more space, they have a 1TB plan, which would be more than enough.
Final Cut Pro is a very personal choice. Let's face it: there are three big players: FCP, Davinci Resolve, and Premiere. The learning curve is relatively steep, and once you pick one, you pretty much stay. I started with Adobe Premiere, but it never clicked for me. FCP is very friendly after some good instruction. You can find that good instruction over at Ripple Training. It's some of the best-quality instructional videos I have ever come across.
Motion - Special effects, rigging, and editing every one of your titles, generators, and transitions in FCP. Motion does it all. Like FCP, the place to learn is Ripple.
PhotoBulk - When you need a quick resize or watermark you can't beat the speed and options. Also available via Setapp. This lives in the dock right by all the photo apps.
YouTube
FromSergio - Apps,
productivity, and more. Sergio does a great job getting to the
point.
A Better
Computer - Matt does a great job with Apple hardware and
software of all kinds.
Teaching Tech - All
things 3D printer, CAD, and cool projects.
Explaining
Computers—I don't know what it is about
Christopher, but I love his videos on all things
computer-related. He has just started branching out into other
fields on a new
channel.
Learning
TBD
Testing
Supercharge - This app does a lot, but the one thing it does that's worth the cost is Auto-Adjusting column widths to filenames in column view in the Finder. I LOVE this feature. If this app is stable, it will soon be moving up the list. Sergio covers a few of the features in this YouTube video.
Ulysses and Craft - Two more Setapp apps that I want to explore to see if it fits better than Drafts for me at least in the realm of blogging ideas and writing rough cuts.
Blogs
Noted - Jillian Hess is an English professor at CUNY and a published author. She publishes a weekly newsletter all about journaling. It's really fun to see the old journals.
Bad Astronomy - Phil Plait's newsletter on everything Astronomy. I read it faithfully every time it comes out.
Craig Mod - What an incredible writer. I love reading Craig's stuff; a true master at the craft. Books and stories about walking across Japan and other walking adventures. I think you'll enjoy his stuff.
Steph Ango - CEO of Obsidian. I've enjoyed his blog posts; a lot of them make me think and sometimes change my relationships or attitudes about stuff. He's a deep thinker who explores outside the box and writes well about it. Look at this good one from 2023: Buy Wisely.
Kottke - Jason Kottke has been hypertexting since 1998. His site is a must-read every day. You'll either laugh out loud, be amazed, or leave much smarter, sometimes all three.
The Eclectic Light Company - A Cornucopia of Mac information and how-tos. Howard does deep dives on everything Mac. Want to understand precisely how TimeMachine works or a deep dive into Thunderbolt 5 performance? Howard is your guy. Plus, you can get a little culture by subscribing to his Art Articles. Also, there is a nice selection of free software to inspect things on your Mac that most people probably shouldn't.
Podcasts (only the ones that I listen
to almost every episode)
Search Engine - PJ Vogt. Search Engine is the podcast that tries to answer the questions that keep you up at night. A podcast made by humans that provides the answers that neither artificial intelligence nor actual search engines really can. I highly recommend that you join the premium feed, Incognito Mode.
Dithering - John Gruber and Ben Thompson. Three episodes per week, 15 minutes per episode. Not a minute less, not a minute more.
Making Sense - Sam Harris. Quality, in-depth, truly independent discussion.
ATP - John Siracusa, Casey Liss, Marco Arment. If you are a Mac nerd, you're undoubtedly already listening to this.
Deprecated / Superseded / Been Replaced
TBD