🔨 The Right Tool for the Right Job

It’s not just about having a tool; it’s about having the right tool for the right job. Just because you’ve paid for an app, doesn’t make it the right app for every project. Just because you have an awesome Thor-like hammer, doesn’t mean you should use it to screw in a lightbulb. I used to work with a guy who thought he was an expert with Excel. He knew a couple of functions, including the dreaded VLOOKUP, and thought Excel was the answer to all his projects. He would use it for everything like storing passwords, SQL statements, and any other text he could jam into it. Instead of using a database to find products, or using “grep” to find something in a text file, he would spend hours trying to load everything into Excel. He would also spend days formatting tables. Not use one of the built in ones to make it easier to see the lines, but custom […]

🎮 The Future of Legacy Mac Gaming

It wasn’t my original intent, but I installed Steam on the 2013 Mac Pro just so it could have some fun and play a few games. Don’t mock me, the Mac can play games… For recent games it works like a charm, not that I’ve got anything that really taxes it, although a mega-city in City Skylines could be a fun test. However, I’ve come across the “Not compatible with 10.15 Catalina or above” message when browsing through my Steam library. And I’m a bit surprised. I figured that devs coding for Mac would just go straight 64-bit. Poor Windows, still living in its 32-bit world. Interestingly, Sid Meier’s Railroads plays just fine on Monterey. But the original Hand of Fate isn’t compatible. When new games come out, there won’t be an issue, you kind of sort of have to make them 64-bit if you make them for the Mac. But what about the legacy games I’d like to keep […]

JixiPix Summer Sale with 40% Off

There is a fantastic sale going on for 40% off the entire JixiPix line. Use the coupon HOT40SALE to save on the Premium Pack, Bundles, and individual titles. I’m a huge fan of JixiPix and their art tools. Over the last two years, I believed I purchased each app they offer. I started with the Premium Pack + Pro Bundle, then filled in the rest over the next few sales. I use them standalone and within Affinity Photo. I discovered them on a search to make a portrait look like an oil painting. That led me to Portrait Painter, which I love messing around with. Portrait Painter led me into Spektral Art, which can make images appear to glow, or melt, or look neon. I’ve got an entire desktop wallpaper collection of Spektral Art and beach scenes. Thing is, these are incredibly versatile tools that can run standalone or within another app. And the collection of effects is near endless. […]

🖱 Adding functionality to Finder with Mouseboost Pro

Mouseboost was a random discovery with features I couldn’t pass up. Despite the name, Mouseboost is targeted at improved File and Folder management in Finder. PathFinder was my disk management tool of choice, until it proved itself to be a subscription, and got deleted. Now back to using Finder, I wanted some of the same functionality – copy path, new file type, move/copy to a defined location, delete immediately, send to an app. All of that and more is possible with Mouseboost. Mouseboost adds quite a bit of new functionality to Finder, or makes existing functionality easier to get to, through the right click menu. You can define common folder locations, send a file to a common app not necessarily the default app, launch a script, cut, and copy path. These are all very handy features that once you start using them, you miss them when they’re gone. I use Copy Path all the time when working with macros. Finder […]