PC WEENIES

Tag: NetNewsWire

  • FrugalMac: Essential Mac Apps for Productivity

    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 screenshot

    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 settings.

    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.

    Turn off default screenshot shortcuts.

    Hyperkey settings

    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

  • My Mac Blogging Stack

    My Mac Blogging Stack

    Now that I’m back to regularly blogging once again, I wanted to document the software tools I use, along with my rationale for their use. My blogging chain is Mac-based, and each of the apps listed below are exclusive to this platform.

    MarsEdit, by Red Sweater Software, is my preferred tool for writing and publishing posts. Having local back-ups for each and every post is very important to me. MarsEdit offers this feature, and much, much more. The biggest benefit to using the program is that I can draft new posts locally on my Mac, without the need to login to WordPress.

    Every post on this site, with the exception of the first three articles, have been written using MarsEdit. MarsEdit removes the friction associated with posting to WordPress, making the process of drafting new posts something I actually look forward to.

    MarsEdit

    Transmit, from Panic Software, is a powerful and elegant FTP application for the Mac. I’ve used Transmit for three decades now, starting with its first version, released on classic MacOS. It’s fast and intuitive, making working between local files and servers a breeze. I also use it to quickly shuttle files between my Mac and my Linux boxen on my local network. 

    Transmit

    Reading is just as important as writing. For keeping up with my favorite blogs, I use NetNewsWire, an open source RSS reader for the Mac (and iOS). I have this application running on both Macs and my iPhone. I use iCloud to keep my RSS feeds in sync, so I can always pick up where I left off, regardless of what device I’m using.  NetNewsWire is free, fast, and intuitive (do you see a pattern here?). 

    NetNewsWire

    I also use a custom action to convert HEIC images shared from my iPhone to smaller sized JPEG files I can use with my posts.

    And that’s my Mac blogging stack. 

    -Krishna