Five years ago Brian Lam left Gizmodo to start up The Wirecutter where they research the crap out of tech products and make recommendations. I’ve had such good success with their recommendations that it’s now become the default place I go when I’m getting ready to buy some bit of gear I don’t have much experience with. The site has grown and added some of my favorite writers like Jacqui Cheng and Dan Frakes. They make money from the affiliate links.

The thing about The Wirecutter is that it was a good idea brilliantly executed. It was already an Internet success story but today it became even more so when the New York Times purchased The Wirecutter for $30M. Let’s just hope the Grey Lady doesn’t screw things up.

In case you missed it, downloading the Relay FM app now puts a set of Relay FM stickers on your iPhone and iPad. In addition to all the other Relay shows and memes, there are stickers for both Mac Power Users and Free Agents. If you figure out a way to use them in conversations with your non-geek friends, you get not one, but TWO gold stars.

A few weeks ago indie developer Christian Tietze released a new app called Table Flip that simplifies the process of making tables in Markdown. A few days ago I was working on a project where I had an excuse to use the app and it’s great. Table Flip replaces a poorly written script I was using to make Markdown tables that felt like it was held together by rubber bands and scotch tape. Now I use Table Flip. My only gripe is the text size, which is too small. I understand that’s getting fixed soon.

I know that Markdown, by its very nature, shouldn’t require an app to create but for those of us on deadlines, having apps like Table Flip and Marked sure helps.

The below MKBHD video compares Siri and Google Assistant. It’s interesting to see how Apple and Google are approaching several common-type questions to their digital assistants. My overall impression is that they are pretty close except Google is better at follow-up questions. Apple needs to work on that. I think Google pushing the envelope with their own digital assistant is going to be great for Siri users. Apple’s at its best when there’s healthy competition. 

This is one of those emerging areas of technology that will be fascinating to watch.

One of my guilty pleasures is watching a new episode of Star Wars Rebels every week. I know this show is hypothetically made for kids but I love it. This week my friends on the Rebel Force Radio podcast invited me on to talk about the latest episode. If you’re a Star Wars fan, here’s an opportunity to geek out for an hour.

Imagine spending a year designing a product only to have it ripped off (including your product name) in one week. That’s what happened to one iPhone case/selfie-stick designer. While it’s pretty remarkable that in today’s world anyone can make a global product, it’s also pretty disheartening how easy it is for someone to steal your ideas. Ugh.

Episode 7 of Free Agents is now available for download. In this episode we discuss the right way to give notice and prepare for the aftermath. This episode is sponsored by Agenda Minder.

Since posting this morning Apple made it official announcing its “Hello Again” event. As Stephen Hackett explains, the “Hello Again” moniker has been used before to announce new Macs. I expect the reason we’re getting it here is the much rumored newly designed MacBook Pro. I know a lot of people that have been waiting to upgrade their MacBook Pros. I suspect they’ll be happy next week.