May 8, 2026 I keep a monthly journal in Markdown; one file per month, each entry stamped with the date and time. For a while I was creating those files by hand. That got old fast. So I wrote a Python script to handle it and want to share it with you. Each time the script runs, it checks whether a journal file for...

On my Mac, I use Alfred for quick searches across specific engines. The setup is: custom URL patterns with keyword triggers gs in the Alfred bar launches a Google search, ds launches DuckDuckGo. The problem is Alfred doesn't exist on iPhone and iPad. That's where xSearch comes in. xSearch is a Safari extension for...

Most iPhone and iPad users know you can adjust font size globally by going to Settings > Display & Brightness > Text Size. But you can also change it for a single app without touching anything else. Here's how: 1. Open the app you want to adjust. 2. Open Control Center -- swipe down from the top-right corner. 3. Tap...

Recently I checked my iCloud storage and found I'd used 31 GB of my 50 GB plan. Most of it — 17 GB — was backups. When I dug into the backup list, I found one for an iPad I no longer own. Nearly 6 GB, just sitting there. Deleted it, got the space back immediately. Worth checking your own backup list if you haven't...

Fastmail has folders that can auto-purge emails? This feature lets you automatically delete messages from a folder after a certain amount of time. I’ve found it to be a great way to manage notification emails that I want to keep for a while, but not forever. Here’a how to set up an auto-purge folder: Go to the...

Sitting at my desk this morning, tinkering with Drafts, I found myself wondering why I'd been experimenting with Bear as a replacement in the first place. I switched to Bear because I prefer its UI. Specifically, I didn't like how Drafts themes failed to extend their colors to the sidebar and menus on macOS. But a...

My Bear Notes experiment is moving along nicely, though I was tempted to pull Drafts back into the mix this morning. The only thing still rattling around in my head is the app-vs-database question whether I want my notes living in a proprietary store rather than plain markdown files. I think I can get past it....

This morning I'm experimenting with Bear again. I love the UI and the way everything is organized in the sidebar with tags. I'm considering it as a replacement for Drafts. My issue with Drafts is how cluttered the UI feels, particularly on the Mac. On top of that, I find the iOS 26 version less efficient than the...

Today I was working on a blog project collecting a bunch of post links to use in another project. When I need to visit a lot of posts on my blog, I do it through a localhost:8080 version of the site instead of the live one. I run an AppleScript that opens it in Terminal: set projectPath to...

April 28, 2026 Today I was working on a blog project collecting a bunch of post links to use in another project. When I need to visit a lot of posts on my blog, I do it through a localhost:8080 version of the site instead of the live one. I run an AppleScript that opens it in Terminal: set projectPath to...

If you write about Mac keyboard shortcuts, there's a proper order for listing the modifier keys in a shortcut. The proper order is similar to how you see them at the bottom left of your keyboard. Control (⌃), Option (⌥), and Command (⌘) always go in that order. The oddball is the Shift key (⇧), which is just before...

April 28, 2026 If you write about Mac keyboard shortcuts, there's a proper order for listing the modifier keys in a shortcut. The proper order is similar to how you see them at the bottom left of your keyboard. Control (⌃), Option (⌥), and Command (⌘) always go in that order. The oddball is the Shift key (⇧), which...