Author: Krishna

FrugalMac: Alfred is My Launcher of Choice

There is no shortage of Mac launcher apps available. But in the end, after carefully weighing my options, I’ve decided to stick with the venerable Alfred.

How long have I been using Alfred?

Since October 26, 2010. Almost a decade later, I purchased the Alfred PowerPack. Alfred is a launcher, and PowerPack is a set of powerful features that adds to and extends Alfred’s capabilities.

A few years ago, I purchased David Spark’s excellent Alfred Field Guide, which helped me immensely in understanding the capabilities and power of the combo.

Alfred is a very capable tool, but it’s showing its age in its overall user interface. Alfred has many options to configure it just as you’d like. But without any affordance of a Search bar, it can be daunting to find what I’m looking for.

The PowerPack extends Alfred by way of customized workflows. Conceptually, I understand what a workflow can do, but it still feels unintuitive for me to make one on my own.

Alfred includes theming options to configure it’s appearance. Colors, type, margins and the like can be changed on a near granular level, but the interface to do so feels clunky.

For my M5 Pro MacBook Pro, I’ve intentionally crafted a custom theme for Alfred, called BattleBeast. It uses the Google Font ShareTechMono. I prefer a clean, minimal look, with tight margins – and I feel that the BattleBeast theme reflects those decisions.

Alfred’s developers have teased the upcoming Alfred 6, which I’m eagerly anticipating. I’m hoping that Alfred’s Workflows receive an overhaul and that the UI complexity gets some much needed refinement.

-Krishna

June 4, 2026
WWDC 2026 Predictions: macOS
WWDC 2026 is upon the world in less than a week. Amidst all of the usual kerfuffle that surrounds the event, I remain solely fixated on what Apple will bring to macOS. Like others, I’ve written about what I hope to see in macOS 27, but for this post, I’m going to share what I think Apple will actually announce.
1. A user option to set a cohesive visual appearance across all Apple devices from the Mac. For example, if I want every Apple device to have the same wallpaper, accent color, etc. I can set it once and it will apply itself across all Apple devices.
2. Related to the above, the ability to have the same wallpaper generatively scale and resize across Apple devices. Set once, see everywhere.
3. The ability to toggle Widgets and Desktop icons ON or OFF from the Control Center.
4. A built-in icon / wallpaper generator using Image Playground, that will feed into the above unified appearance prediction.
-Krishna
June 3, 2026
The Right to Repair Is Important

Yesterday, I took apart my GE Profile dishwasher for the first time ever to replace a worn and damaged control panel. This panel serves as the touch interface to control the dish washer. Here’s what it looked like. The entire outer trim was gone. While functional, the plastic laminate was badly bent, twisted and coming apart. It was an eye sore.

I watched several YouTube videos to better understand the installation process. To replace the control board, I had to first remove the dish washer door from the unit, and then separate the inner door from the outer door. (More on that in a bit.) Feeling somewhat confident, I ordered a replacement OEM part from iFixit, for about $200US.

The part arrived within a week, and was an exact replacement.

I have never taken apart my dish washer before, but I’ve tinkered with all manner of tech, so I felt up to the challenge.

The most difficult part was removing the inner door from the outer door. Not because it was difficult, but because each video i watched failed to mention that two screws on either side of the inner door had to be removed.

The whole process took me about six hours – and two of those hours were spent trying to separate the inner door from the outer door. Having gone through the process once, I feel that I can easily perform the entire task in under an hour. While I had the dishwasher apart, I addressed a pair of rusty hinges that connect the door to the dishwasher frame.

I learned a lot by performing this repair. There were some easy wins, some difficult struggles, and moments where I wanted to give up and call a repairman. But ultimately, I persevered and completed the install. Looking at a new dishwasher panel that I installed felt immensely satisfying.

Being able to purchase a part to fix things is important. If I bought it, I want to be able to fix it. This is the crux of “the right to repair” movement. All manufacturers should take notice.

-Krishna

June 2, 2026
Mac Security Begins with a Level Head

A few weeks ago, as I was working on my Mac mini, I received a rather odd notification, warning that my Mac was at risk for malware. The notification included a link to perform a scan. Of course, I knew better and did not click the link. But I can easily see a less tech savvy user clicking the notification in a moment of panic.

As a rule, I tend to be very cautious when it comes to browsing sites on the Internet. One self-imposed security measure involves avoiding unscrupulous websites. As such, I was perplexed at how such a notification could have come about. Thankfully, the issue was resolved quickly. I documented my troubleshooting steps in the hopes that others can avoid getting tricked into installing malware.

Being level-headed had a lot to do with it.

-Krishna

June 2, 2026
Create Vector 3D Structures for Use with Raster Art

My latest instructional video takes repeating vector elements to form 3D structural geometry that can be incorporated within raster art. The featured image for this post, along with the Silver Surfer image below, utilize the techniques I’ve shared within the video. Integrating vectors into my work has been exhilarating and I’m beginning to see new possibilities and directions for my work.

-Krishna

May 31, 2026
FrugalMac: Two Macs, One Keyboard and Mouse

This weekend, I rearranged my desk setup to accomodate both MacBook Pro laptops. On the left, in the image below is my M1 MacBook Pro connected to the left Dell 2515H display. On the right is my new M5 Pro MacBook Pro connected to the right Dell 2515H display. Two computers, with two separate keyboards and trackpads.

The external Nuphy keyboard, numpad and mouse are connected to my M1 Pro MacBook Pro. Moving between each Mac requires switching keyboards. Not ideal.

And then I remembered Synergy, from Symless, which allows multiple computers to share the same keyboard and mouse. I’ve been using Synergy on and off since 2015. It’s been a solid tool, for the most part. Several years ago, I ponied up extra funds to support its development. Fast forward to today. Synergy still works across Mac, Windows and Linux platforms – and there’s even a specific Apple silicon optimized version. I downloaded the update and installed it on both Macs.

Synergy’s on-boarding has greatly improved. After installing the software on both Macs, Synergy automatically found them and paired them up. To make Synergy work between two computers, one computer must act as the server, while the other is the client. In my case, the M1 Pro (Prometheus) is the server (denoted by the keyboard and mouse icons below), while the M5 Pro (BattleBeast) is the client. This means that I can share Prometheus’s keyboard and mouse between both my Macs.

The screen layout below coincides with the physical layout of both Macs’ displays. And speaking of which, Synergy supports multi-monitor setups, making it easy and natural to move between both computers. I can even copy and paste text between both Macs, making it a real convenience.

Synergy has come a long way since I started using it eleven years ago. It’s the perfect addition if you want to share your keyboard / mouse between two or more machines.

-Krishna

May 30, 2026
Comics You Should Be Reading: Escape

Escape is a gritty World War II inspired comic, by Rick Remender and Daniel Acuna. The story follows Captain Milton Shaw, a bomber pilot shot down behind enemy lines. Captured by the enemy, he must devise his escape.

Unlike conventional war stories, the characters in Escape are anthropomorphic. Captain Shaw is a bear, and his fascist enemies resemble bats. While the character’s faces and emotions are stylized, make no mistake, this isn’t a “funny animal” book for kids. It’s every bit a serious, tightly-executed thriller, where both the protagonists and antagonists aren’t human.

The comic series explores the brutality of war, survival, and moral ambiguity. The art itself is detailed, expressive, and cinematic. Acuna seamlessly blends realistic environments, vehicles and weaponry with non-human characters – pulling the reader into the narrative. And the violence is real.

Escape is currently on its seventh issue. Although I am missing a few issues from the series (notably issues 2, 3, and 5), the story has been clear and engaging.

I give Escape my highest recommendation.

-Krishna

May 30, 2026
My Top Three Terminal Command Line Tools

Using Ghostty has been a pleasant experience. It feels modern and clean, making the Terminal.app seem dated by comparison. Similarly, adding Homebrew has made the command line experience much more enjoyable. One big benefit with Homebrew is that I can quickly install and remove apps right from the shell.

Some of my favorite command line apps are:

1) eza. (This command is a modern replacement for ls.) My favorite command is eza’s built-in tree command, which lets me view the structure of my folder hierarchy.

2) btop is a more modern and visually parsable implementation of the classic top command. Invoking btop lets me glance at Mac’s memory, CPU usage, battery charge level and more.

3) bat is a modern spin on the venerable cat command. I use bat for quickly viewing the contents of a text file from the command line. Below is the output when running cat.

And now, the same result when running bat. The information appears in a much clearer format, complete with line numbers and color coding.

With Homebrew installed, these apps were all easily added by typing:

brew install <app>

This go around, I’m reallly focusing on keeping an organized, annotated and manageable .zshrc file.

-Krishna

May 28, 2026
FrugalMac: Essential Mac Apps for Productivity

Working within the confines of macOS’s first party offerings has been frustrating. In an earlier post, I lamented about window management inconsistencies that lead me to install Rectangle.

MarsEdit – this application has become essential to my blogging workflow. Blogging with MarsEdit is easy, and if it’s easy, I can do it more often.

NetNewsWire – with my new Mac, I’ve limited the number of RSS feeds I follow. This isn’t to say I won’t add any new feeds at some point in the future. With NetNewsWire, I can easily keep up with my favorite blogs. It’s fast and free. It also offers iCloud syncing, but I’m not ready for that just yet.

1Password – I haven’t found a better password management application, so I’m sticking with this Electron app for now. Apple’s Password app, while serviceable, doesn’t have a key feature I really need (saving attachments). There was a time when 1Password was best in class as a native Mac app.

macShot – a powerful, free screenshot and screen recording utility that competes quite favorably against the subscription-based CleanShot X. I haven’t spent too much time using this app, save for making the screenshots that accompany this post. I plan to test its screen recording capabilities soon. If it succeeds on that front, I may be able to ditch CleanShot X once and for all.

Remember to turn off Screenshot keyboard shortcuts if you plan to use them with macShot.

Hyperkey – a simple, free app that turns the (rarely used) Caps Lock key into a Hyper key. Pressing Caps Lock with Hyperkey is like pressing Shift Option Command Control simultaneously, without the awkward finger gymnastics.

Ghostty – My post on Apple’s Terminal software led to a suggestion on Mastodon to check out this advanced terminal application. So far, in my very brief usage, it feels modern and fast. Without my current command line utilities, I really can’t gauge how it will perform over time. (On this new laptop, I have also installed Homebrew because I need a proper package manager.)

BBEdit – a proper text editor that blows the doors off of TextEdit. I have paid for earlier versions of BBEdit, but I want to see if the free version will suffice for my usage.

Still left to install: a proper Mac launcher app. I’m leaning towards Alfred, but I want to examine other options before committing.

-Krishna

May 27, 2026
The Blended Brain | My TEDx Talk

Last Fall, I achieved a bucket list milestone: Give a TED Talk. I was the opening speaker at the TEDx Talk event hosted by St. Petersburg College. The topic of my talk is “The Blended Brain: Left-Brain vs. Right-Brain Thinking”, which encapsulates the idea that one can be creative AND structured. In my talk, I discuss how my background played a role in that discovery. I also touch upon the idea that teaching must consider students who exhibit both left AND right brain traits.

-Krishna

May 26, 2026