When will AI advertise itself right out of existence?

It’s been less than a year and the AI tools are pretty impressive. We’ve gone from nothing to research assistants to digital artists. And in that same amount of time, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook have eroded and ruined the experience. People are already concerned over AI bias and presenting information with a certain slant, but the new problem is the advertising it’s vomiting out. AI isn’t about collecting and disseminating information, it’s a new technology vehicle to serve up ads-ads disguised as information. It’s not about presenting information to help answer a question, or make connections people didn’t see before, it’s about selling products based on your queries. Every question and research topic will flood us with yet more ads. We’re already suspicious of the information AI presents. Were did that answer come from? What is the source? Where is the reference material? Who is the real author? Soon it will be, who paid to show me this answer that […]

The sad demise of Download Shuttle

Since we’re talking about download tools for personal use, Download Shuttle is another casualty of the continued lack of updates from Fiplab, which is a shame, because it was pretty sweet app. It was a lightweight and easy to use app to download audio and video to your local machine. It was basically a browser that scanned links on a page looking for content files. It was great for YouTube, but like Downie, you could use it against any site and have a lot of success. There is no “extraction” feature, it was a downloader, but it worked well against all sorts of sites. It was fast, powerful, and easy to use. I bought it as a companion app to Downie, or maybe it was the other way around. But, with the lack of updates, Download Shuttle isn’t what it used to be. And that’s an unfortunate story for Fiplab, because they have some great tools like Download Shuttle, Mini […]

Downloading Video and Audio using Downie and Permute

Once you find the right keyword, topic, or channel, YouTube is a rich source of content, and tools for downloading videos are commonplace. In fact, you can’t turn around without running into a YouTube downloader. There are dozens of similar looking and sound apps like YT-Saver, VideoDuke, Wondershare Uniconverter, Wondershare AllMyTube, Allavsoft, Bigasoft, Cisdem Video Converter, VideoPro, not to mention all the browser extensions. There are so many of them they all start to look alike. They’re made by different companies, right? So, with all these “free” tools, do you need a standalone video downloading app? If you want one or two videos, then no, but if you’re looking to download a series of tutorials, an entire channel, or extract some audio so you can listen to it offline, then yes you do, and you should look at Downie and Permute combo from Charlie Monroe. Downie handles the downloads and audio extraction for new files, while Permute handles conversion between […]

📝 A quick Markdown roundup

Since my compadres at work have brought Macs into their lives, they were asking about note taking apps, and which worked with Markdown. Ironically, in the Mac space, pretty much every editor supports Markdown. There are so many it can be a little overwhelming. I originally wasn’t on board the Markdown train, I didn’t see the point since it came across as a subset of HTML. I am not a fan of HTML and its 1990 style Wordperfect tags. But, I’ve been schooled and now see Markdown is much easier to understand and use. It’s also in dozens of other web based apps like Jira, GitHub, Slack, WordPress, etc. Oddly, Microsoft doesn’t seem to be on board with Markdown. The number of Markdown editors for Windows? In the days of yore, you would write a document in Microsoft Word (which is a horror unto itself) or the archaic tags of HTML, then run it through a converter or hope the […]

🤷‍♂️ The relevance of Microsoft Office?

I have to ask myself, what is the relevance of Microsoft Office these days? I don’t have it for my Mac, but I do have it for my office Windows 10 machine. I keep getting flyers offering Office for $30, and even at that price I ask why? Why would I waste that kind of money, especially for the Mac? I see why people get Outlook, it’s integrated with Exchange. It’s a terrible app, and you’d be better off using just about any other POP client to connect to Exchange, but I see why people use it. I connect to that same Exchange Server with my Mac and the Mail client from 2018 and it works without issue. Email and calendar items come in just fine. As for the rest, I simply don’t understand. Office had relevance 10-15 years ago. Word was at the front of word processing with its use of fonts and layout. Excel was soaring in popularity. […]