These are the best tried-and-true tools that I’m currently using and loving. So much of this stuff is personal and what fits your workflow. I’m constantly trying new software and sometimes replacing tools that are falling behind in meeting your needs.

There is always a balance between cost and features. We are fully in the subscription era, and it’s a limiting factor for sure. (I don’t even want to add up my monthly subscription fees, but I really should. Sounds like a good blog post.)

I sometimes use a less-featured app due to a lower cost, while the extra features are nice. Are they worth the price/benefit ratio to your life? I don’t begrudge the subscription model at all! As a hobbyist programmer, I know the many hours involved in writing and keeping software up to date. The subscription model allows these developers to make a living while spending many hours improving their software. I always feel good knowing that I’m contributing to the continued development of a great piece of software or hardware.

This page will be continually updated as things change.

Current Software

• Craft - I’ve been using Craft for a few months just for blogging, and it’s been going well so far. I wanted a Command Center, if you will, for all things blogging. A to-do list, blog ideas, a place to write posts, and a history of old posts. Craft fits the needs very nicely. I’m not a huge fan of their “text blocks” approach; it can be very frustrating. I’ve been able to export blog drafts to Markdown, then import them into my blog editor. I still prefer Drafts for writing blog posts because it’s pure Markdown with no block approach, and I can post directly to Micro.blog from Drafts, which is a very nice feature. The testing is ongoing.

• DayOne - I’ve tried too many journals and keep returning to DayOne. Find one and journal daily; the benefits are numerous. A great place to get journal tips, how-to articles, and the history of many famous journalers. Check out Jillian Hess’s Noted. I found her a year or so ago and have truly enjoyed her work. I’ve adopted many of her ideas on journaling.

• Obsidian - This ebbs and flows but mostly flows - such a fantastic tool. You can make Obsidian into precisely what you want. This Field Guide will put you on firm ground.

• Readwise and Reader - Reader syncs with Kindle, Apple Books and a myriad of other services and takes all of your digital book highlights and shows you a daily digest, which is highly customizable. I have additional daily digests that focus on health and meditation. This is a great way to not to forget what you’ve read. You can also just open all the highlights from one book to refresh yourself. Readwise is a Read-Later service with all the bells and whistles. Together, they are a bit pricy, but if you truly use them, the cost per day is minimal. I open both on a daily basis, Reader to get my daily digests of highlights from read books and PDFs, and Readwise to look through my RSS feeds and look at my saved articles. There is also a nice A.I. Summary of each article if you don’t want to take the time to read the whole article. The number of saved articles far exceeds what I can read on the daily. Two peas in a pod. Over the years, I’ve tried many read-later services, but these two are for me.

• Mona - Mastodon client. Clean interface with a plethora of options. I use it on desktop, iPad, and iPhone.

• Things - Finding a ToDo app that fits your flow is challenging for most of us. I’ve been using Things for years and have attempted to leave, but I always return.

• Drafts - Notes app for phone and desktop. Sync always works. There are great options and plenty of actions and skins to make your writing environment into what you need. I use the dictation feature on my iPhone almost daily to capture quick thoughts.

• DEVONthink - Collect, organize, edit, and annotate documents of any kind. Have them automatically analyzed, connected, and filed. Sync them between your Mac, iPhone, and iPad. I use this app every single day. It holds my life! To honestly use its capabilities, buy MacSparky’s DEVONthink Field Guide. You won’t regret it.

• CleanMyMac - is clean, simple, and full of great tools. It’s a daily driver. I highly recommend getting it via Setapp. As with most Jack-of-all-trades apps, some items are not the best they could be, but they’re better than nothing, and I know they are constantly improving. I’m referencing their virus removal. You can read Macworld’s review here.

• SetApp - I’m going on my eighth year with SetApp, and I can’t imagine life (digital life… it’s not in-real-life worthy!) without it. I currently use 15 apps on my Mac. They have hundreds to use, so check out their list and see if you can make the subscription worthwhile. Speaking of SetApp, we both get a free month if you use my referral link.

Hardware

I’m an Apple guy, through and through. I started using Macs back in high school around 1985. Through my twenties, I used PCs due to the cost of Apple products at the time, but I finally made the switch back at some point.

A desktop computer is a MacStudio M1 Max with 64GB of memory.

The laptop for road use is a MacBook Pro 16" M4 Max with 128GB of memory. When the MacStudio ages out, the plan is to switch to just one computer. Here is Jason Snell of Macworld explaining it like I couldn’t. Zero issues with editing HDR video with this beast.

Photography / Video

• Adobe Photography Plan - LightRoom & Photoshop - Yes, like you, I’ve hated on Adobe from time to time, but it’s the goat in many ways, and let’s face it, the industry leader in many products. I’ve been using LightRoom/Photoshop for 10+ years. I’ve tried moving away to multiple different products and always come back. The Photography plan is worth the money to me. I have access to Lightroom and Lightroom Classic (I’m now firmly in the Lightroom camp, so no more Classic for me.) Photoshop, and 20GB of online storage, which has been enough for me. The day I need more space, they have a 1TB plan, which would be more than enough.

• Final Cut Pro - is a very personal choice. Let’s face it: There are three big players: FCP, Davinci Resolve, and Premiere. The learning curve is relatively steep, and once you pick one, you pretty much stay. I started with Adobe Premiere, but it never clicked for me. FCP is very friendly after some good instruction. You can find that good instruction over at Ripple Training. It’s some of the best-quality instructional videos I have ever come across.

• Motion - Special effects, rigging, and editing every one of your titles, generators, and transitions in FCP. Motion does it all. Like FCP, the place to learn is Ripple.

• PhotoBulk - When you need a quick resize or watermark, you can’t beat the speed and options. Also available via Setapp. This lives in the dock right by all the photo apps.

YouTube

• FromSergio - Apps, productivity, and more. Sergio does a great job getting to the point.

• A Better Computer - Matt does a great job with Apple hardware and software of all kinds.

• Teaching Tech - All things 3D printer, CAD, and cool projects.

• Explaining Computers - I don’t know what it is about Christopher, but I love his videos on all things computer-related. He has just started branching out into other fields on a new channel.

Learning

• Ripple Training - It’s some of the best-quality instructional videos I have ever come across for Final Cut Pro, Motion, and Davinci Resolve.

• MacSparky Field Guides - David does an outstanding job with his Field Guides on a variety of topics; you cannot go wrong with any of them.

• MacStories - Newsletters, podcasts, deep dives into Shortcuts, Setups, and fun projects. You won’t regret signing up.

• ScreenCastsOnline - a whole team of great teachers with hundreds of tutorials on everything Mac and more.

Currently Testing

• Supercharge - This app does a lot, but the one thing it does that’s worth the cost is Auto-adjusting column widths to filenames in column view in the Finder. I LOVE this feature. If this app is stable, it will soon be moving up the list. Sergio covers a few features in this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLBQBTuSKII.

• Craft - Using the Craft App as a command center for all things blogging. ToDo lists, blog post ideas, and a place to store all posted stories. I really appreciate the fact that everything I do with blogging is in one place but I’m not a huge fan of Craft’s block text system. I still prefer writing in Markdown in Drafts. The testing continues.

• BusyCal - I recently ran into an issue where I needed to find all my visits to health professionals in Apple Calendar, and there is just no really good way to do that. I’ve always wished there were tagging within Calendars. Well, BusyCal has that, and I can use it with my Setapp subscription. Now I can tag events and have an easy way to see all tags with a few clicks. Testing underway.

Blogs

• Noted - Jillian Hess is an English professor at CUNY and a published author. She publishes a weekly newsletter all about journaling. It’s really fun to see the old journals.

• Bad Astronomy - Phil Plait’s newsletter on everything Astronomy. I read it faithfully every time it comes out.

• Craig Mod - What an incredible writer. I love reading Craig’s stuff; a true master of the craft. Books and stories about walking across Japan and other walking adventures. I think you’ll enjoy his stuff.

• Steph Ango - CEO of Obsidian. I’ve enjoyed his blog posts; a lot of them make me think and sometimes change my relationships or attitudes about stuff. He’s a deep thinker who explores outside the box and writes well about it. Look at this good one from 2023: Buy Wisely.

• Kottke - Jason Kottke has been hypertexting since 1998. His site is a must-read every day. You’ll either laugh out loud, be amazed, or leave much smarter, sometimes all three.

• The Eclectic Light Company - A cornucopia of Mac information and how-tos. Howard does deep dives on everything Mac. Want to understand precisely how TimeMachine works or a deep dive into Thunderbolt 5 performance? Howard is your guy. Plus, you can get a little culture by subscribing to his Art Articles. Also, there is a nice selection of free software to inspect things on your Mac that most people probably shouldn’t.

Podcasts

(only the ones that I listen to almost every episode)

• Search Engine - PJ Vogt. Search Engine is the podcast that tries to answer the questions that keep you up at night. A podcast made by humans that provides the answers that neither artificial intelligence nor actual search engines really can. I highly recommend that you join the premium feed, Incognito Mode.

• Dithering - John Gruber and Ben Thompson. Three episodes per week, 15 minutes per episode. Not a minute less, not a minute more.

• ATP - John Siracusa, Casey Liss, Marco Arment. If you are a Mac nerd, you’re undoubtedly already listening to this.

• Shell Game - I loved every episode! A podcast (and newsletter) about things that are not what they seem, hosted by journalist Evan Ratliff. In Season One, that thing was Evan’s voice. By creating a voice clone and hooking it up to an AI chatbot, Evan set out to discover what happens when you try to take control of the very technology that threatens to replace you.

• 404 Media - Jason, Sam, Joseph, and Emanuel are outstanding. Really enjoy the blog and podcast. Support Independent Media!

• Found My Fitness - Dr. Rhonda Patrick deep dives into the latest science to enhance well-being. No politics, no crap, just hard science on the latest findings.

• Making Sense - Interviewing great minds for actionable items that we can do today.

• Heavyweight - Jonathan Goldstein telling stories like only he can.

• The Last Invention - A deep dive into Artificial Intelligence from all sides, the accelerationists, the doomers, and everyone in between.

• The Rest Is History Club - Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook bring history alive with their unique blend of wit, wisdom, and good old-fashioned British banter.

• This American Life - Over 3 million listeners each week can’t be wrong. Ira Glass is an institution in himself. Beautiful stories, well told.

Food & Drink

• The Tea Spot - My go to for all things tea.

• Coava Coffee - Our house coffee for espresso and instant.

• Ladro Roasting - My all time favorite Dark Roast Coffee. Ladro gets this right every time. Tasting Notes of Walnut, Brown Sugar, and Baker’s Chocolate. A blend of Peru and Honduras beans.

• Decent Espresso Machine - I LOVE this thing. I use it every morning that I’m home. You can keep it simple with a one-button brew or nerd out and control every possible parameter of your espresso pull.

• Breadtopia - My all things bread source. Especially Sourdough Starter/Maintenance knowledge.

Books

For all things books, what I’ve been reading, good sources to find your next read, how to track your books, and more, go to my Book Page.