"That's Right (You're Not from Texas) (Live)" by Lyle Lovett Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. Which song do you associate with your favourite city? - That's Right (You're Not from Texas) by Lyle Lovett My son has lived in Texas longer than he … | Continue reading
Mac Apps I’m looking for feedback on a few apps. I’m looking for the answers to the following questions: Did this app solve a problem you had? If so, what was the issue and the solution. Who do you think is the target audience for the app What’s your favorite feature or bi … | Continue reading
"Suicide Is Painless (From the 20th Century-Fox film ""M*A*S*H")" by Johnny Mandel Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. What song did you discover in a tv show or movie? - Suicide is Painless (Theme from MASH)* It's funny that in my formtive year … | Continue reading
"I Saw Her Standing There" by The Beatles Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. Which artist were you a fan of first? Write the story of the song that made you a fan. - I Saw Her Standing There by the Beatles Say what you want about Boomers, they … | Continue reading
"The Big Chill" by Various What is your favorite soundtrack? - The Big Chill (1983) 01 - 0:00 - I Heard It Through The Grapevine - Marvin Gaye 02 - 05:02 - My Girl - The Temptations 03 - 08:02 - Good Lovin' - The Rascals 04 - 10:32 - The Tracks Of My Tears - Smokey Robinson and … | Continue reading
Tower For years I assumed GitHub was only useful if you were a developer. Turns out it's actually one of the best tools I've found for managing text-heavy Mac workflows. I now use Git repositories to version and back up things like: my 13K-file Obsidian vault (private) ~70 … | Continue reading
"Here I Go Again" by Whitesnake Which artist did you discover thanks to a music video? - Here I Go Again by Whitesnake I was just a mild fan of hair metal bands, but being male and alive in the 80s meant I was definitely a Tawny Kitaen fan. This, I think, is the most iconic of … | Continue reading
"Burning Down the House" by Talking Heads **What would you put on for a long brisk walk? - Burning Down the House by Talking Heads" I'm not usually grossly judgmental, but, if you don't like this one, there is something the matter with you. Seriously. It's an instant mood liftin … | Continue reading
"Love At the Five and Dime" by Nanci Griffith Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. Which song makes you emotional? Why? - Love at the Five and Dime by Nanci Griffith I miss Nanci Griffith so much. I think she was one of the best song writers of t … | Continue reading
Developers keep finding interesting ways to make our existing tech more useful. Sometimes that means refining how we interact with tools we already rely on. Other times it means applying software to problems that don’t obviously look like “tech problems.” Here are three apps that … | Continue reading
"She Thinks I Still Care" by George Jones Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. Post one of your favorite sad songs. - She Thinks I Still Care I first heard this song on James Taylor's live album from the mid-90s. JT's version is great (of course) … | Continue reading
AppTela I recently organized my /Applications folder; it contains more than 660 apps. The tool that finally made it manageable is AppTela, a layered, categorized launcher available for $4.99 on the Mac App Store. I tend to keep an app for every contingency. The problem isn’ … | Continue reading
"Deportees (Plane Wreck At Los Gatos)" by Pete Seeger Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. A song that you like in multiple versions Deportees (Plane Wreck At Los Gatos) was one of the last songs Woody Guthrie ever recorded before he entered the … | Continue reading
"Battle Hymn of the Republic" by US Army Band and Chorus Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. Which lyric always gives you goosebumps Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; / He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of w … | Continue reading
Navidrome My ten-year experiment with Apple Music is over. Over the past month I rebuilt my workflow for managing a large local music collection; roughly 36,000 tracks. After a lot of experimentation, these are the tools that finally clicked. Migration – Apple Music with … | Continue reading
"The Ballad of the Green Berets" by SSgt. Barry Sadler Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. A song that represents where you live My high school girlfriend lived in the same neighborhood where Barry Sadler did when he recorded The Ballad of the G … | Continue reading
"Where Did You Sleep Last Night (Live Acoustic)" by Nirvana Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. A song that's largely acoustic Showing a deeper appreciation for grunge's roots than most, Kurt Cobain's performance of this tune (AKA In the Pines), … | Continue reading
Radial I spent the afternoon experimenting with Radial 4, a rapidly evolving pie-menu app from independent developer Gustav Lubker of AppVerge. If you’re not familiar with pie menu apps, they present a circular menu divided into sections (or slices), each representing an ac … | Continue reading
"Wagon Wheel" by Old Crow Medicine Show Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. A song by a band whose merchandise you've bought - what was the merchandise My last concert was Old Crow Medicine Show in Winston Salem and I bought a t-shirt of course. … | Continue reading
BackiGo If you rely on iCloud but don’t have a true backup of that data, BackiGo is one of the simplest ways to create one. BackiGo is an iCloud backup app I can recommend for anyone looking for an alternative to Parachute. Parachute is a well-known iCloud backup utility th … | Continue reading
"The Times They Are A-Changin'" by Bob Dylan Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. What song would you play to counterbalance the world when it feels like a broken and unrelenting monolith designed to bring terror and tragedy Bob Dylan is the answ … | Continue reading
"Alice's Restaurant" by Arlo Guthrie Post one of your favorite relaxing songs. After we finish our Thanksgiving meal, my family has a tradition dating back to my childhood. We all gather in the living room and listen Alice's Restaurant, the story of Arlo Guthrie's arrest for lit … | Continue reading
DoubleMemory I’m always impressed when an out-of-the-box thinker builds an app unlike anything I’ve seen before. Iterating on proven concepts is fine, but after testing enough clipboard managers and voice-to-text apps, they all start to blur together. Give me something new, … | Continue reading
"Long Black Veil" by Johnny Cash Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. Post one of your favorite songs that has the name of a color in the title The Man in Black does a solid version of this sing-along classic. Other worthy versions include perfor … | Continue reading
Number 500!!! I posted my 500th app review this week. If you keep typing long enough, this is what happens. It makes me super happy and I hope I have helped some of you find apps that you've grown to use and love. If I have, please leave a comment, it will be motivating and … | Continue reading
"With a Little Help From My Friends" by The Beatles Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. Some albums have a good opening track, but the 2nd track is totally killer. What's your favorite 2nd track song? This was an easy one. I also love Joe Cocker … | Continue reading
"Somebody to Love" by Queen Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. Share a track by your favorite vocalist of all-time. I don't think anybody else has ever had the chops Freddie Mercury had. His is THE VOICE. View Lou Plummer's Crucial Tracks profi … | Continue reading
PicMal Every Mac user eventually ends up with a pile of files that need converting. Screenshots that are too large for the web. HEIC photos from iPhones that need to become JPEGs. Audio recordings saved at ridiculous bitrates. Video files that need to be optimized for shari … | Continue reading
"Jessica" by The Allman Brothers Band Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. What's your favorite instrumental song? Jessica by the Allman Brothers Band is my fave, although a few more stand out in my memory, like Misirlou and Wipeout from the surf … | Continue reading
Power User Apps I spend a lot of time trying to remove small bits of friction from my Mac workflow. macOS is a great system, but out of the box it still leaves a lot of obvious automation opportunities on the table. I spend a lot of time trying to remove small bits of frict … | Continue reading
"Carry On" by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. Share a song with some of your favorite vocal harmonies. Last year I would have picked a Simon & Garfunkel tune, but I'm mad at Paul Simon (ask me why). I don't think … | Continue reading
Automation I’ve become quite fond of Consul, a relatively new file conversion utility that’s both simple to use and easy to automate. The concept is almost absurdly straightforward: change the file extension to the format you want and the conversion just happens. You might … | Continue reading
"Street Survivors" by Lynyrd Skynyrd Post a cover that's done in a different style than the original version. The original cover of Street Survivors by Lynyrd Skynyrd showed the band standing in a street surrounded by flames. It was released October 17, 1977. Three days later, th … | Continue reading
"People Get Ready" by Eva Cassidy Share a track that has one of your favorite vocal performances of all-time. If I had a time machine, I would ride it straight to this bar on this night to watch the late, great Eva Cassidy perform her signature song. Gone much, much too soon. R … | Continue reading
Some small utilities become so embedded in my workflow that they start to feel like part of macOS itself. When I sit down at someone else’s Mac or a freshly set-up machine and they aren’t there, it genuinely throws me off. I’m curious what apps fall into that category for you. Sh … | Continue reading
"Bad" by Michael Jackson Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. What song makes you feel braggadocious As it turns out, MJ may have been a bit weird, but he wasn't a predator, so it's once again OK to listen to his music. I'm not usually a pop fan, … | Continue reading
Resurf Resurf is a clever new app, currently in beta, with a lot of potential. This is one of those “I needed an app to do X, so I built one” projects; the difference is that it was built by a design engineer who clearly understands macOS conventions. The result feels nativ … | Continue reading
Octarine I’ve been hearing about Octarine for a while. It’s one of those apps that people whose opinions I respect talk about with a certain level of admiration. After testing it as thoroughly as I’ve tested any app in a long time, I understand why. Octarine is a tool for c … | Continue reading
"Hungry Heart" by Bruce Springsteen Share the first song you ever heard from your favorite artist. I'd been peripherally aware of Springsteen as pre-teen. My parents subscribed to Time Magazine and I remember when he was on the cover in '75, but it wasn't until I was 14 when Hun … | Continue reading
"I Feel Good" by James Brown What's your favorite song to listen to while cooking? It's hard to believe this James Brown classic is as old as I am because I'm old AF. I can use all the extra energy I can find when I am busy doing anything and I Feel Good delivers it. This is th … | Continue reading
M4 Mac Mini When I bought my last new Mac two years ago, I set it up the way I had been setting up my personal computers for years: plug in a Time Machine drive and run Migration Assistant. On a modern Mac with an SSD, even if you have hundreds of apps installed like I do, … | Continue reading
"The Tracks of My Tears" by Smokey Robinson & The Miracles Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. A song that you discovered on a film soundtrack. One of the odder qualities of Oliver Stone's 1986 classic about the Vietnam War, Platoon was the qual … | Continue reading
"Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley and His Comets Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. A song from the 1950s that you like or means something to you. As a kid in the early 70s, the 50s seemed like ancient history. I found it hard to believe th … | Continue reading
Independent developers continue to build some of the most thoughtful utilities on macOS. These are small, focused tools that solve real workflow problems instead of trying to become the next all-in-one productivity suite. Here are a few that recently caught my attention. … | Continue reading
"Hill Street Blues (From "Hill Street Blues")" by The Daniel Caine Orchestra Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. A song from a TV show that you like. A couple of years ago, over the span of two months, I watched all eight seasons of Hill Street … | Continue reading
"Detroit Rock City" by Kiss Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. What is a song by an artist you don't usually like This is an oddly worded prompt. Is it asking for a song I like by an artist who usually doesn't appeal to me or does it just want … | Continue reading
"Barracuda" by Heart Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. A song from the first gig you went to. 1983 - I saw Heart with Eddie Money at the Cumberland County Auditorium in Fayetteville, NC. View Lou Plummer's Crucial Tracks profile | Continue reading
It’s always such a pleasure to find out when one of my favorite developers has released a new app. That’s how I felt recently, when I read that The Low‑Tech Guys not only had a new app but that it was going to be a pretty strong player in the Mac automation field. That prompted m … | Continue reading