At the Sparks house, we don’t spend New Year’s Eve watching C-list celebrities dropping balls. Instead, we blow up the Death Star together. Specifically, we watch Star Wars, Episode IV, in such a way that the Death Star blows up precisely a the stroke…
Continue reading →MarsEdit 5
If you ever write for the Web, one of the first things you learn is to never write on the Web. Web-based writing tools treat humans like angry cats do. They occasionally knock your valuables off the shelves “just because”. For years, Daniel Jalkut…
Continue reading →DEVONthink, The Best Database Solution (Sponsor)
This week MacSparky is sponsored by DEVONthink. There are a lot of ways to manage a database on your Mac, but in my opinion, there is no better tool than DEVONthink. Just a few of the things I use DEVONthink for include: A reliable…
Continue reading →Limited Edition AirTag
Felipe Espósito reports Apple will do a special promotion in Japan for the Year of the Rabbit, with a cute rabbit emoji AirTag (which, btw, looks to me strikingly like Usagi Yojimbo). This is great, but not enough. Apple should do more limited edition…
Continue reading →Mac Power Users 672: Tech That Worked in 2022
Stephen and I reflect on the apps and services we’ve relied on for the past year on this episode of Mac Power Users, and one of us makes a rash vow about new Macs. This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by: TextExpander: Get 20%…
Listen & read notes →Happy Birthday PCalc
Today PCalc turned 30, and in celebration, it’s 30% off. There are two things to know when you use PCalc: It Is the Most Actively Developed Calculator App in the History of Calculator Apps James Thomson, the developer, is one of the best in…
Continue reading →Jazz Friday – Joey Alexander’s “What a Wonderful World”
While this isn’t technically a Christmas song, it fits in on any Christmas playlist. I’ve been covering Joey Alexander, the young prodigy jazz pianist, here for years. I simply love this track. Sublime. (Apple Music) (YouTube) (Spotify)
Continue reading →Pixelmator Pro’s Debanding Update
Color banding (or posterization) is a common type of image artifact especially noticeable in low-quality photos featuring gradients or large areas of solid color. I see this all the time in wallpapers and landscapes. Instead of smoothly blending together, colors jump abruptly from one…
Continue reading →Tinderbox: Notes and So Much More (Sponsor)
This week MacSparky is sponsored by Tinderbox, the Tool for Notes. Tinderbox is a workbench for your ideas, projects, and plans. It can help you analyze and understand them today, and it will adapt to your changing needs and growing knowledge. The thing I…
Continue reading →The Algorithm and You
The Wall Street Journal did an interesting study, as reported in 9to5Mac, where it attempted to decrypt the TikTok algorithm and came up with some disturbing results. TikTok looks at the videos you linger on and rewatch in particular, then starts feeding you more…
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