2026-03-22 22:17:16
Some small utilities become so embedded in my workflow that they start to feel like part of macOS itself. When I sit down at someone else’s Mac or a freshly set-up machine and they aren’t there, it genuinely throws me off.
I’m curious what apps fall into that category for you.
One of those apps for me is Shareful by Sindre Sorhus.
The Mac share menu has always felt like an afterthought compared to iOS. Many developers don’t bother implementing it, and Apple keeps it oddly limited. Shareful fixes that by adding a few practical actions that save me a surprising number of clicks every day:
It’s simple, but once you have it, the default share sheet feels incomplete without it.
Even though I’m very much a keyboard-launcher person (Team Raycast), there are situations where that approach breaks down.
Sometimes I need a small, obscure utility whose name I can’t remember. When your /Applications folder is as crowded as mine, scrolling through it isn’t realistic.
That’s where Start from Innovative Bytes comes in. Two features make it especially useful.
Utilities/Screenshots or Utilities/Clipboard, which makes browsing a large app library much more manageable.A good example is the file-conversion utility Consul, which lets you change an image’s format just by renaming it. Seeing a note like “file rename / conversion” when browsing makes it much easier to find again later.
2026-03-22 20:11:15
"Bad" by Michael Jackson
What song makes you feel braggadocious
As it turns out, MJ may have been a bit weird, but he wasn't a predator, so it's once again OK to listen to his music. I'm not usually a pop fan, but 80's era stuff brings back the feels from my high school years and early 20s.
2026-03-22 07:37:46
Resurf is a clever new app, currently in beta, with a lot of potential. This is one of those “I needed an app to do X, so I built one” projects; the difference is that it was built by a design engineer who clearly understands macOS conventions. The result feels native and thoughtfully put together.
Using it brought back a few workflow habits I haven’t used since the days when Evernote was king.
The entry point into Resurf is a floating capture widget that you trigger with a shortcut. From there you can use either the mouse or the keyboard to capture five types of content, with some overlap:
The same widget also provides a Spotlight-style search across your Resurf vault, which is essentially the folder where everything you capture is stored.
There are several ways Resurf can fit into a real workflow.
Screenshot 2026-03-21 at 10.43.11.png.A Resurf vault can live in iCloud, in another synced folder like Dropbox, or locally on your Mac. If you use iCloud, you’ll be able to pair the Mac version with the upcoming iOS app.
You can also maintain multiple vaults, each located anywhere in your file system.
Within a vault, Resurf provides several ways to organize what you capture:
A few small details show that the developer thought about real usage rather than just features.
Resurf is still early in development, and there are a few capabilities that would make it significantly more powerful.
You can read the full policy here:
https://resurf.so/privacy
Regardless of where your vault lives, your data remains private. The app only contacts Resurf’s servers to validate your license. According to the developer, no identifying information or user content is transmitted during that process or afterward.
The company is based in Canada. Because they never see your data, GDPR provisions around data access, portability, and deletion are largely irrelevant in this case.
$39
2026-03-20 05:34:08
I’ve been hearing about Octarine for a while. It’s one of those apps that people whose opinions I respect talk about with a certain level of admiration. After testing it as thoroughly as I’ve tested any app in a long time, I understand why.
Octarine is a tool for creating, editing, and organizing text-based information using connected but independent documents: Markdown files. Without relying on plugins, it supports images, video, PDFs, and files created by other productivity apps. Those files can be linked inside Octarine but still open in their native applications.
Octarine isn’t designed for a single purpose. It’s more like a flexible Markdown workspace you can adapt to several overlapping uses:
Octarine is available for Windows, Linux, and macOS, but it’s not a heavy Electron app. The download is just over 30 MB, and it launches as fast as TextEdit; effectively instant.
The interface is tab-based, similar to a web browser. It isn’t strictly native macOS UI, but it’s clean, responsive, and supports customizable themes.
Installation on the Mac is simple:
That’s it.
When you launch it for the first time, Octarine asks you to open or create a Workspace. A workspace is simply a folder of Markdown files; either ones you create or notes that already exist somewhere on your Mac.
You can download, install, and configure Octarine in well under a minute and immediately start creating documents.
A key design choice is that Octarine uses the filesystem directly. Your workspace is just a folder containing Markdown files with human-readable filenames.
That means:
I verified this by opening a note in Typora, adding a table, and watching it render instantly inside Octarine.
Because everything lives in normal folders and Markdown files, syncing is straightforward. You can use:
The Git support also provides versioning for people who want a real audit trail for their notes.
Like most PKM-oriented tools, Octarine supports wikilinks. Typing [[ opens a searchable list of notes in the workspace. If you bracket a title that doesn’t exist yet, Octarine offers to create the note.
There’s also a knowledge graph showing connections between notes. Just remember: posting screenshots of your graph online costs you several internet credibility points.
Most formatting tools are accessible through a slash command menu (/), which exposes a wide range of Markdown and extended elements:
You could easily use Octarine purely as a writing tool. It’s a full Markdown editor with live rendering similar to apps like Typora.
Under the hood, however, the file remains a plain text Markdown document. You can open it in BBEdit, import it into Obsidian, or process it with any other Markdown tool.
Octarine also converts pasted HTML into Markdown, preserving elements such as headers, links, bullet lists, and text styles.
The left sidebar provides a file tree for navigating your workspace. Nested folders work exactly as you’d expect.
When you attach files such as images or PDFs to a note, Octarine automatically creates folders to store them.
Octarine also supports seven types of metadata, which can be used to organize and filter notes.
The most powerful organizational feature is something called Views.
Views are dynamic, database-style tables that display notes based on filters, sorting rules, and custom columns.
Think of them as smart saved searches that update automatically as your notes change.
Tagging is also well implemented. Tags are clickable throughout the interface, and a Tag Manager provides a centralized list of every tag in your workspace.
Octarine includes optional AI integration.
It works with:
AI operates within the context of the current note, allowing it to generate, rewrite, summarize, or refine content.
Like most AI writing workflows, the real learning curve comes from developing reusable prompts that produce consistent results.
Pro users can also download a 90 MB local model that can index an entire workspace to provide additional context-aware features:
Each message shows the sources used (folders, notes, or date filters). Icons and hover cards reveal the details.
A list shows which notes were consulted to answer your query.
Responses can be copied as Markdown or plain text.
Titles are generated automatically after the first response and can be edited using the Sparkles icon.
Clicking the Create Note icon in the chat breadcrumb saves the conversation as a note. Your questions become blockquotes, with each Q&A pair separated by a divider.
There’s no question that Octarine is powerful.
As someone who has spent years building PKM systems, I can appreciate how much functionality is available without needing plugins or complex setup. Many of the features Octarine includes by default require significant configuration in something like Obsidian.
That simplicity removes a lot of early decisions that intimidate people exploring tools like this.
Octarine is developed by a single developer, which might give some users pause. Personally, it doesn’t worry me much. Some of the most respected Mac utilities come from solo developers, including:
Looking at Octarine’s update history, development is clearly active and responsive to feedback.
The changelog shows frequent updates, and the roadmap includes plans for:
…and quite a bit more.
With the exception of AI features, most of Octarine’s functionality is available in the free version.
The Pro license currently costs $70 (early-bird supporter pricing) and unlocks all current and future features. That isn’t cheap, but it’s roughly in line with other established writing tools like iA Writer ($69) or utilities such as TextSoap ($45).
For users who want a structured Markdown workspace without the plugin rabbit hole, Octarine is definitely worth a serious look.
2026-03-19 18:25:36
"Hungry Heart" by Bruce Springsteen
Share the first song you ever heard from your favorite artist.
I'd been peripherally aware of Springsteen as pre-teen. My parents subscribed to Time Magazine and I remember when he was on the cover in '75, but it wasn't until I was 14 when Hungry Heart was being played on the radio constantly that I became a fan. My old man HATED the song because of the whole leaving the wife and kids in Baltimore thing. I loved it. I had a hungry heart then and I have one now.
2026-03-18 20:36:39
"I Feel Good" by James Brown
What's your favorite song to listen to while cooking?
It's hard to believe this James Brown classic is as old as I am because I'm old AF. I can use all the extra energy I can find when I am busy doing anything and I Feel Good delivers it. This is the James Brown we should all remember. Just let the sad pictures of him in his last years fade away.
