June 28, 2023

🖱 MyPoint Pro

I’ve had MyPoint Pro installed for nearly a year now, and not only is it beneficial, it’s also fun. I originally discovered MyPoint while looking for a tool to darken all my screens for a focus mode. It’s a pretty popular tool, but some of the prices were ridiculous. You really want $6 for that? MyPoint offers this simple feature, and a dozen more. It can darken one, or all of your monitors. It can change the “shade” to a different color. It provides a locator, so clicking CTRL, reveals the mouse location. It has a visual cue when you click the mouse. It shows the mouse coordinates as well as a grid and crosshair. All of these are awesome for multiple monitors and screen presentations. Finally, and for me the coolest feature, is the Halo. This is a picture you can attach to the mouse pointer. This helps to locate the pointer if you have a lot of screen […]

June 25, 2023

💥 Fun with Comic Life 3

Comic Life is a full featured desktop publishing app for the design, layout, and publishing of comics. I’m not an artist, nor do I work on comics, but I have a great time using this tool to entertain my kids, and antagonize my teammates. For my kids, I like to make paneled comics with web images or screen captures from a movie. I set up my panels, drop in my images, then add speech bubbles to say something funny. I use this a ton during the holidays, especially Halloween, and Christmas. My other use is to antagonize my team by writing smart ass phrases using Comic Life’s Lettering feature, then drop them into Teams. I amuse myself to no end with Batman style Shazam! WTF? Or a giant Challenge Accepted banner in chat. I use these enough to have a whole library of them hooked up to text expansion keywords. Comic Life is like Affinity Publisher, but Comic Life focuses […]

June 22, 2023

🗯 Some quick thoughts on my new 2013 Mac Pro

I haven’t put this Mac Pro through all it’s paces, but I’ve loaded a few apps, done a few things, and have a few thoughts. It’s not the colossal case of the 2010, but the 2013 Mac Pro is still a good looking machine. It’s a radical departure that only got one iteration, but I like it. It doesn’t really look like a computer. At first place you could easily mistake it for a bluetooth speaker. It’s compact, so doesn’t take up much room, runs almost silently, and has plenty of ports to work with. It’s from 2013 and has USB 3.0 so you can plug in plenty of hardware. As far as workstations go, it’s a solid unit. That compact size does put out a fair bit of heat though, even at idle. You can put your hand over the top and feel it. The same is true for my 2010 Mac Pro, which has plenty of heat coming […]

June 21, 2023

🛑 AdGuard on Every Machine

First order of business when setting up my 2013 Mac Pro was to install AdGuard – ad blocker and VPN. Pretty sure that makes only one unprotected query for the new machine. No need to download other apps until I mask my activity from prying eyes. I have the plugin for every browser, as well as the full desktop version. You can get the AdGuard Lifetime license for dirt cheap from places like StackSocial. The browser plugin works for my instances of Firefox and Waterfox. I beefed up that protection with the desktop version to cover browser capable apps such as DevonThink Office Pro, DevonAgent, Downie, and others. This means ads are blocked in apps that have their own browser, or use some form of Webkit. For example, I use DevonThink Office Pro as my news reader. It gathers articles from dozens of RSS feeds. I can also use it to browse a site and follow links. Normally, DevonThink Office […]

June 20, 2023

🌎 The Joys and Pains of using a VPN

There’s a lot of talk about VPNs these days, to the point they’re sponsored in YouTube videos. And if it’s in YouTube video, it has to be good. But, are they worth it? Most people/ads advise using a VPN when connecting to a public WiFi. Good advice, but I use a VPN 100% of the time on my home connection. To be blunt, everyone is spying. Search engines track what you search for and where you go. ISPs track every place you visit and for damn sure are using or selling that info. Sites pinpoint your location and sell the metrics. Oh look, he’s searching for X, in location Y, send an ad! Blanket the area with flyers! Investigate the zip code! Using a VPN adds a level of privacy and security. Where you go, what you look at, and your interests are your own business. Your ISP doesn’t need to know the research you’re doing on Wikipedia, or what […]

AdGuard Stats

1,055,701 Ads blocked and 269,762 Trackers blocked for 61.64 GB saved, since June 4, 2020.

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