trms

Dark Mode for the Web in Safari

The release of macOS Mojave will be remembered for being the one that introduced Dark Mode. The toned-down colors have a great design, they look great, and definitely help the eyes. Until you open pretty much any website.[efn_note]Guilty as charged.[/efn_note]

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Track your Intermittent Fasting with Zero

Occasionally, you come across an app which does exactly what it promises, and does it so well you don’t feel like it should improve in any way. For me, right now, that app is Zero. It’s free, for iOS and Android. I am not affiliated in any way with the app or its makers.

Now, I won’t go into the merits of intermittent fasting, as that’s not really what this blog is about. However if you do…

Here’s some more cool stuff from the Internet.

GTD in 15 minutes. The world of productivity on the internet is chock-full of snake oil. There is a method, however, which is simple and has found success with many, me included. This website explains David Allen’s Getting Things Done method quickly, for free, with no tricks or things to sell you.

SankeyMATIC Beta. Sankeys are these graphs, like…

How to Create Custom Keyboard Shortcuts for Anything in macOS

I would normally be against the idea of writing a whole post for a single macOS feature but this is a banger.

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A Gentle Introduction to LaTeX

With this post I aim to introduce complete beginners to LaTeX. My assumption is that the reader might have heard the word “LaTeX” at least once before but does not effectively know what it is or how to use it. By the end of this post, I aim for the reader to be able to create simple documents and be prepared to further discover the world of LaTeX on their own.

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A collection of interesting things I find around the Internet.

Tech

nanoc, a simple, lightweight, open-source, extensible framework for small static sites and blogs

miraheze.org. Ever wished you could have your own Wikipedia? You can easily and for free at Miraheze, with no catch and no ads.

keybr. Touch typing is arguably among the must-have skills in the modern age. Keybr teaches you how to…

100 Days of Swift

A couple of days ago, I chose to start learning the programming language Swift, and committed to practice it every day for 100 days, following Hacking With Swift‘s 100 Days of Swift course plan. While I do have some previous, minor experience with it, I chose to just start from scratch following a well-structured course, as to hopefully build some solid foundations.

Since many of these medium-…

You Need a Quarterly Review

In this post I will tell you why you need a quarterly review and what one is.

Why?

I believe I can say with confidence that most of us are so deeply concerned with running our life on a day-to-day basis that we often forget about the long term. What is it that you are trying to achieve, exactly? Being productive every day feels great, but what are you ultimatelyworking towards? I feel this…

A Beginner’s Guide to RSS

In this post I will tell you what RSS is, why you need it, and how to set it up.

What’s RSS?

Imagine being able to see your favorite blog posts, podcasts, YouTube videos, news, and any other kind of Internet media from your outlets of choice in one single, solidified, consistent feed. This is what RSS allows you to do. You can think of RSS as a sort of Twitter feed, but instead of only…

Check Your Mac’s Battery Health with coconutBattery

Back when Apple started throttling devices with degraded batteries, much ado was made around iPhone battery health. So much ado, in fact, that they not only published a very lenghty explanatory page about it, they also added a profusion of battery-related functionality to iOS. Graphs, buttons, statistics: you name it, it’s in the Battery section of the Settings app.

But what about iOS’s older…

How to Stop Procrastinating on the Internet

You know it. YouTube rabbit holes, Twitter threads, Netflix binges, we’ve all been there. Some, in an attempt to redeem themselves, completely go off the Internet for a while. But that’s like throwing the proverbial baby out with the bath water, not to mention that many of us need the Internet in order to do our work.

Let me give it to you straight: sheer willpower does notwork.Moller, Arlen…

The Archive Custom Theme: iA Writer

The Archive is an outstanding piece of software for personal knowledge management, especially of the kind I spoke about in my last post. Among its strengths[efn_note]which you can read about here[/efn_note] is its custom theme engine, allowing users who are willing to tweak a few .json files to create new color schemes from scratch. Since I love iA Writer‘s design, I thought: why not make The…

Knowledge Management with Zettelkasten and iA Writer

In this post I will talk about my personal knowledge management system, how it developed into a Zettelkasten, what Zettelkasten is, and why I think iA Writer is pretty much perfect for it.

Background

Finding a stable, reliable, and pleasing way to digitally organize personal knowledge has been a pet peeve of mine since I first got a computer. I’m for taking notes while reading, and in…

That time of the year's come again, where I go over the apps I've used throughout the last twelve months, evaluate them, talk about them a bit, and determine whether or not they've been good to me this 2018. Here we go!

For reference, I am an undergraduate student in the social sciences. My main platforms are macOS and iOS. I am not sponsored by, or in any way affiliated with any of the products mentioned in this post.

Writing

iA Writer – for daily writing

For those who don't know iA Writer, it is the distraction-free writing software. Clean, lean, mac-like, no-fuss, no-Electron1, no scammy subscription models, it just works. This app was in the list last year, and it keeps its hard-earned spot as my writing app of choice for good reason. Throughout the year the developers have kept on updating it, carefully adding functionality, ironing kinks out, and quickly adapting to new macOS features (see Dark Mode), but without giving in to feature creep. Every new feature added in the last months is initially invisible unless the user specifically chooses to make use of it. It's incredibly lightweight, responsive, and clean. That's all one needs from a writing app. And the year isn't over yet, as they are planning to release a new major version before Christmas.

TeXShop – for formal writing

Of course this category would be taken up by a TeX2 editor, but which one? There are admittedly a number of very valid TeX editors for macOS (Texpad to name one), but none can hold a candle to TeXShop. Don't be fooled by the old-school website. It's free and open source, lightweight, minimalistic, very regularly updated, and complete with everything you might need to compile documents in LaTeX, including the highly sought-after command autocompletion. You might start to notice that the word lightweight appears quite a lot in my mini-reviews: as I'm often on the go and on battery power, it's very important for me that the software I use cause as little battery drain as possible.

OmniOutliner – for outlining

OmniOutliner is quite honestly overkill for my needs. It's a über-professional outlining tool, allowing you to organise information hierarchically. It's just one of those things that you have to see to understand, so here's a picture of my typical use case:

The software is so flexible that I've read people online using it for speech writing, and all other sorts of interesting uses. As someone who really likes to organise their info under "headings," this is good stuff. I like to, for instance before exams, just take the time to create an outline with everything that's been done so far throughout the semester. This, then, gives me full control over the content: if I want to have a bird's eye view, I can. If I want to delve deep and nest information 40 levels down, I can do that too. Yet, I still feel like I've only scratched the surface of what this software can really do. And again, as with every other app mentioned so far, it's lightweight and a true, honest-to-god Mac app.

MarsEdit -- for blogging

Not that I post a lot, but when I do, I do it with MarsEdit. It's a text editor and interface that allows you to post to your blog, be it WordPress, Tumblr, or whatever else, straight from the desktop. There are advantages in using something like MarsEdit over using the platform-offered web-based editors. For one, you can compose your posts while being offline. Then, MarsEdit offers a live preview function which updates as you type, showing you what your post will exactly look like even before it ever leaves your computer. I'm using it right now and, as far as I know, it's the best in its category.

Productivity

Things – for to-dos

The to-do app war is over. Things and OmniFocus are the only two powers left, and everyone else needs to do their bidding. While Things might not have the same "depth" as OmniFocus, I like its simplicity and cleanliness, and its seamless, free syncing with iOS. It strikes a perfect balance, for me, between features and overall simplicity. It's good. Only real downside is the price, plus the fact they charge separately for the iPhone and the iPad app. That turns me down, but not so much as not to use it. (I just run the iPhone app on the iPad).

Beeminder -- for forcing myself to do things

I have talked about it extensively in another blog post, so I won't delve too deep here. What it is, it's a website to which you give money if you don't stick with your habits. Threatening, but effective.

Thyme -- for keeping track of time

I like to keep track of how much I read, and Thyme helps me with that. It is my favourite kind of software because it's free, open source, it does one thing only and does it really well. Thyme is, simply, a stopwatch which sits in your menu bar. You can configure a global shortcut to start and stop it, and that's all. When I start reading, I press the shortcut, and when I stop, I press it again. It keeps a database of your last couple of data points. 10/10.

Security

AzireVPN -- for online privacy

You've just got to have a VPN these days, to help protect your identity online. Of all VPN services I've tried (and believe me I've been through at least 5), Azire is the one for me. It strikes a balance between price and speed: I quite literally do not even notice when it's on, and its prices are among the most competitive in the market.

Apple Keychain -- for password management

If you use the same password everywhere, stop! That's exactly how I got my Spotify account breached in the past. You need a way to create passwords "randomly" and a way to store them somewhere. Apple Keychain gives you that, and best of all, it's free and already included in your Apple devices. Whenever you sign up for a service, or go to the "change password" section, your device will suggest a strong password for you to use. It will then also store it for you and synchronise it with all of your devices. It will also make sure to enter your username and password for you when logging in onto apps or websites. It just works. Yes, sure, there's other password managers around, but why use a third-party tool and add unnecessary overhead when what you have already works well enough?

Misc

NightOwl -- for night and day

I'm not one of those who defends dark mode with their life (you must know at least one person like that). I also don't exactly sing the praises of light mode either, though. You know what's best? Using light mode when there's light outside, and dark mode when it's dark. It just makes sense (to me at least). NightOwl is a tiny utility which sits in your menubar. You can set it to switch your system between the modes at a set time or at sunset/sunrise. Simple, unobtrusive, functional.

Reeder -- for RSS feeds

If you have a couple of blogs you want to follow, or news sites, chances are they support RSS, and you can get their feeds directly onto your computer by using an RSS reader. Reeder is one such readers, except it's the best. Full keyboard shortcuts support, various themes to choose from, macOS and iOS apps, beautiful typography, and professional-looking. It's been good to me.

Preview -- for viewing media

I know Preview is one of the first-party tools preinstalled onto every Mac. That doesn't make it any less powerful though. Preview has matured incredibly well while maintaining its trademark lightweightness. Fully annotate PDFs? Check. Quickly make edits on pictures/documents? Check. Extensive support for almost all kinds of files? Check. What's not to like? I tried other PDF readers and while they are incredibly functional (special mention to PDF Expert), Preview is more powerful than you think.

Bartender -- against menubar clutter

It's a very simple utility: it's like a box in which you put menubar icons you don't always use, so that they don't sit there cluttering your field of view every day. Bartender is one of those classic Mac utilities which will never go out of vogue (unless Apple includes it into the OS themselves).

Alfred -- for accessing things quickly

You know Spotlight in macOS, the thing you can activate with ⌘+Space to search files and open apps? Alfred is like that times 900, as it allows you to set up custom web searches and much more. For instance, you can just type wiki France and it will open the relative Wikipedia article on your default browser. Of course all of this is fully customizable. I really want to use an open source alternative to this though, so if you know some, please do leave a comment below. Same for Bartender really.

Conclusion

There are virtually no changes from last year. That's actually a milestone for me as I was changing things around all the time, and it's nice to finally find a degree of stability. I also feel better recommending these workflows too, as they are proven to be working for me. Thank you for reading.

For those who do not know what Electron is, it's essentially a way to embed an instance of Chrome inside a regular macOS "app window," so that a developer does not have to truly develop for Mac but can instead develop for Web and then just publish on the Mac. Since when you run the program you are essentially running a fully-fledged instance of Chrome, it's absolutely murderous on battery life, not to mention it's just un-Mac-like. ↩︎

With the introduction of iOS 11, Apple improved upon how photo permissions are handled in two ways:

Firstly, the user can choose to allow apps write-only access to the Photo Library. This is a huge privacy improvement, especially towards apps like cameras which do not need to read from it. Then, parallel with the release of the Drag and Drop feature on iPad, apps in iOS 11 are able to receive one photo or media file in a “container”. What this means is, if you drag and drop a picture onto an app, the app does not get access to your entire library but to that one picture only.

As it stands now, on iPhone, if an user wants to, say, upload one photo on Instagram, they have to give it access to the entire library. This is the issue. I believe Apple should and could make it so that there is a full split between the Photo Library and the app, and make it so that using existing photos on apps works similarly to how Drag and Drop already does. A button in the app calls a Photo Library overlay, the user chooses a picture to share with the app, and the app receives it in a sealed container.

I am not affiliated in any way with any product or service mentioned in the article.

The problem

If you're anything like me, you're not very good at sticking with habits. You tell yourself that you should "walk more", "exercise more", or "read more", only to then relapse after a couple of days (or weeks, if you're good). I can safely say, for instance, that throughout the entirety of 2017 I have exercised for maybe 6 or 7 hours, in total, and that's being generous. Why would I do it, after all? My monkey brain cannot see past the short-term goal of "get a rush of sugar from this pudding" to the long-term goal of "be a healthier person". That's normal.

The solution

This is where commitment devices kick in. A commitment device is essentially something that is external to you, independent from you, which forces you to stick with things. It sounds weird but bear with me.

If you think about it, most of your goal-setting is context-dependent. When you're in bed about to sleep, for instance, that's usually when you come up with the grandest of plans for your life. This happens because at that moment, there is nothing you can do about your goals, hence you are able to think about what an "ideal you” would do. When you are up and running, though, it takes a lot of willpower to actually go through with your plan. That's because you can actually do something about your plans, and who wants to do stuff? So how about something which takes your great bed plans and actually tries to turn them into reality without your puny, awoken self getting in the way? Commitment devices.

Alright, I think I've convinced you on why you should use one. Now let me show you one: beeminder.

I won't go into the details of how it works, since their website it quite self-explanatory, but essentially you open it up, you set your goals, and it will start tracking you for whatever habit you've put in. I have a couple of habits in there myself, you can check them out here if you want. Now, beeminder is incredibly fair. It gives you a lot of leeway, you can tell it when you go on vacation, but the gist of it is that if you consistently fail to stick with your habits, you will be charged actual money. The first time you slip you're charged 0$, just to scare you off, then it goes up, until it reaches an upper ceiling of your choice. Mine is 10$ because that's enough to coerce me into doing my habits, but you can set it to be quite high if you want it to.

I know, it sounds crazy. Why on earth would I give money to some random strangers if I fail to keep up with my habits? Because that's the most effective way to keep you doing them. Many people wonder why the money does not instead go to charity. That would defeat the purpose, since you would not feel as bad slipping off. The entire point is that you have the constant threat of your money being burned away were your short-term you to ever take control of things. It sounds terrifying. But it works. The results are there. Last year, I could not exercise for more than three days in a row: now I have an uninterrupted streak dating back from January 2nd. When you just set up a goal, you have a week in which you can delete it immediately. After that deadline, if you wish to delete a goal, it will be deleted only one week later. This is to avoid your short-term brain into trying to come up with excuses to not do the thing today.

Of course, you’ll hate it. You’ll wish you hadn’t started it. Yet while short-term, blind you will be bumping their fists on the table, long-term you will be eternally grateful.

Here’s state of the apps! this is a list of software I actively use to this day (december 2017), together with a brief explanation on the how and why I use it. fyi, I am an undergraduate student in the social sciences.

Writing

iA Writer — for everyday use, assignments, short papers

I know, I know. There’s a trillion text editors. The thing is, they all have their strenghts and weaknesses, and iA strikes a perfect balance, at least for me. Its focus mode allows me to, ehum, focus on what I am writing at the time, something that’s crucial when drafting that paper you need done, like, quick.

Then, it allows for granular file managing without leaving the app, and lets you export beautifully-formatted documents easily from only a pure, simple, markdown file. Its UI is sublimely minimal, but not too bare that’s hard to get things done.

It’s good.

Texpad — for fancier, longer papers

For when I need or want to create something fancier, in LaTeX (obviously), I’ll jump onto Texpad. It’s a very minimal, two-pane app: on the left side, your .tex file, and on the right side, live-reloading, your output .pdf. It doesn’t get much better than that. I am aware that Vim + vimtex does something very similar, but live previewing on macOS is not quite there yet, and although you don’t strictly need it, it’s nice to have. Texpad also supports .bib files, and that’s pretty crucial when writing papers with a trillion sources (or even just three).

CotEditor — for code, technical stuff

Well, that’s the one I am using right now. I have sung its praises earlier here on my blog so I won’t repeat myself on that front. It’s really lightweight, I just love it (for code).

Reading

Reeder — the RSS catcher

I can only really speak for the mac version of the app, which is the one I use. Reeder is a RSS reader, as simple as that. It displays articles in a very readable and customisable way, has great keyboard shortcut support and is just overall a very lean mac RSS app. If you don’t have RSS in your life, you need it. Go and get it.

Organising

Things 3 — the to-do app

I have long been searching for a well-designed to-do app and, well here it is! It’s functional and does what it promises to do very, very well. It’s also packed with features for the power user, but they are not so in your face that it’s bloated. It syncs seamlessly across my devices and it’s (partially) designed to work with David Allan’s GTD methodology, which I use. And, perhaps most important of all, it does not have a subscription model! It’s a good old pay-up-front thing, which for me is just the best. 10$ and the app is yours to use for however long you want, including its cloud sync thingie across devices. That’s pretty good if you ask me.

Miscellaneous

SelfControl — the resist distractions app

This macOS app is pretty nifty: you create a blacklist of websites (domain names), give it a set amount of time, and it will block those websites on your machine. Like, they won’t even load at all. What sets SelfControl apart from other similar apps is that it’s fully open source, and once the timer is set, not even a system reboot will stop it. It is literally unstoppable and it saved me so many times from the “come on, just for this once…”

Safari

Same as with text editors, it’s hard to talk about browsers on the internet without getting a lot of flamey comments. Still, all I really care about is battery life, and Safari gives me plenty of that. Also, it is actually pretty fast. Only real downside for me is the lackluster extension gallery, but other than that, it’s more than ok for me.

Mail.app, Calendar.app, Preview.app

I am as basic as they come. These default apps do more than well for me.

Spotify