2026-02-26 17:39:55
"We're Not Gonna Take It" by Twisted Sister
If today were a genre, what would it be? Pick a matching song.
**We're Not Going to Take It by Twisted Sister"
The genre is Protest Music. I love the Dee Snider quote after Trump tried to use this song "“Attention QANON MAGAT FASCISTS,” he tweeted. “Every time you sing ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ remember it was written by a cross-dressing, libtard, tree hugging half-Jew who HATES everything you stand for. It was you and people like you that inspired every angry word of that song.”"
2026-02-25 21:31:29
Unless you’re seeing severely degraded performance during large writes, or macOS is actively warning you that you’re out of space, you can usually let the system manage storage. It does a solid job.
If you do need to step in and make selective deletions, a newer app from Switzerland—Trace—offers genuinely informed assistance.
When it was introduced on Reddit, some commenters dismissed it as yet another vibe-coded “optimizer.” That assumption doesn’t hold up. Trace has thorough documentation and a deep feature set. It’s not a one-click wrecking ball, a “system optimizer,” or a fake RAM cleaner. It’s a disk analysis tool built for people who want to understand what’s actually taking up space—usually user-created files—and make deliberate decisions.
Every removal option is clearly classified as Safe, Questionable, or Not Safe. That framing alone separates it from most consumer cleanup tools.
One of the most practical features is its quarantine system. Instead of deleting immediately, you can move files into quarantine and run your Mac normally to confirm nothing breaks. If everything checks out, send them to the Trash. If not, restore them to their original location with a click. That’s how deletion workflows should work.
Trace organizes findings into categories:
Apps
Shows the app’s bundle size plus associated support files in ~/Library. The built-in App Inspector identifies removable caches and estimates reclaimable space if you reset them. There’s also an uninstaller that goes beyond simply dragging to Trash.
Files
Lists user home directory files by size. On my system, the biggest offenders were local LLM models, iPhone videos, and illustrated books in my Calibre library. The directory inspector lets you drill down into any folder and its subfolders for precise analysis.
Media
Reports the size of Apple media libraries (Music, Photos, TV, etc.). Useful for spotting duplicate libraries or old “Previous iTunes Libraries” folders that quietly accumulate over the years.
Communication
Breaks down Mail and Messages storage.
Games
Separates games from standard apps and exposes associated mods, caches, and saved games.
Developer Tools
Analyzes Xcode data, Homebrew, Rust, Git, Python environments, and more. If you’ve been experimenting with toolchains, this view is illuminating.
System Data
Breaks down space used inside ~/Library and other system folders, including removable caches. On my M2 MacBook Air, Apple Intelligence alone accounted for 11GB.
Other
If you’ve been experimenting with local AI tools (Open Claw, Ollama, Parakeet, Osaurus, etc.), this category helps identify where those model files actually live and how much space they’re consuming.
Trace includes an optional background process called TraceAgent. When you trash an app, TraceAgent monitors the event and later suggests related files that may also be removable.
Important details:
This strikes a reasonable balance between helpful automation and user control.
An unexpected bonus feature is a consolidated default app selector. It centralizes system defaults for:
It’s a small thing, but having this in one interface is practical.
If you download the trial (which I recommend), read through the documentation and the FAQ. This is not a “click and hope” utility. It’s built for users who want context.
Trace requires Full Disk Access. It contains no telemetry and has no cloud dependencies. The developer has stated that if development ever stops, the code will be released as open source.
It’s not available in the Mac App Store due to sandboxing limitations. Licenses are transferable and not locked to a single machine. Pricing is straightforward:
This isn’t a magic broom. It’s a diagnostic instrument. Used thoughtfully, it can help you reclaim space without breaking your system—or your workflow.
2026-02-25 18:17:39
"Long Black Veil" by Mick Jagger and The Chieftains
What’s a remix or cover you like more than the original
Long Black Veil by The Chieftains featuring Mick Jagger
This sounds like a traditional folk tune but it's not. Written in the 1950s, it's been performed by such luminaries as The Band, Johnny Cash and Dave Matthews. It's easy to sing along to and deserves to be made into a movie.
2026-02-25 09:31:49
When it comes to disk management, old myths die hard.
Many of us remember when hard drives were tiny and expensive. My first PC had a 140 MB drive. I was furious that the WordPerfect executable alone was 12 MB. One app. Twelve megabytes. That felt criminal.
Those early experiences left a mark. Even today, people worry about “memory” when they really mean disk space. Years ago, I jokingly told a user she should stop using large fonts because they were filling up her drive. She believed me.
That’s the level of mythology we’re still dealing with.
The reality: macOS 26 manages disk space remarkably well. Most users don’t need to think about disk usage until they’re around 90% full or seeing real warning signs. Yes, bugs happen. Eventually you’ll encounter a runaway process that eats tens of gigabytes and refuses to let go. But that’s the exception, not the rule.
Unfortunately, some developers—usually large, marketing-driven ones—sell fear. For forty years, the internet’s most persistent question has been: “What program can I run to make my computer faster?” That question fuels an entire ecosystem of apps that range from mildly helpful to actively harmful.
Let’s break this down clearly.
macOS automatically runs daily, weekly, and monthly maintenance scripts. These mainly:
They do not:
If you want to manually run those built-in scripts (not required), you can use tools like:
These apps also include developer-written routines that clear caches and other temporary files. Remember: caches exist for speed. Delete them and macOS will immediately rebuild them—using CPU cycles to do it. You usually gain nothing.
In my experience, the “maintenance” features are useful in narrow cases:
Beyond that, it’s mostly cosmetic.
The tweak panels in OnyX, Cocktail, Mac Pilot Pro, and 1Piece are a different category. Those are customization tools, not maintenance necessities.
This is where real utility lives.
Even careful users forget about a 5 GB Linux ISO, a duplicated Calibre library, or a long-abandoned Docker image. A good disk analyzer shows you what’s actually consuming space.
I use DaisyDisk occasionally to hunt anomalies. It’s excellent at surfacing:
Other solid options:
These tools don’t “optimize.” They give you a visual overview of your drive and that usually proves helpful.
These are incredibly useful for media libraries and absolutely the wrong tool for deleting system files.
Good use cases:
Not good use cases:
Apps I trust:
Used carefully, these can reclaim serious space. Used blindly, they can wreck things.
Some people want an app that turns a 2018 Intel MacBook Air into a 2026 MacBook Pro with a single click.
That app does not exist.
Thankfully, we’re past the era of MacKeeper, which kept many consultants (including me) busy removing it from client machines.
Modern tools like CleanMyMac often get lumped into that category unfairly. CleanMyMac isn’t malware. It’s a bundled utility suite that includes:
If you’re already using single-purpose tools like:
…then you’re already covering those bases—and usually with better depth. CleanMyMac trades specialization for convenience.
Another strong suite is MacCleaner Pro by Nektony. Their apps are consistently high quality, well supported, and reasonably priced. Their confusingly named App Cleaner & Uninstaller has one of the better app-update workflows I’ve seen.
The key question isn’t “Is this app good?” It’s “Do I need all these functions in one place?”
Dragging an app to the Trash is no longer sufficient for many modern apps.
Browsers, note apps, and tools like Day One can leave large support folders in ~/Library. That space doesn’t magically disappear.
Two reliable uninstallers:
Both are excellent at identifying associated files. Still, always review what’s being deleted before confirming.
In most cases, you can ignore:
macOS is designed to manage these dynamically.
Below ~10% free space, you may see:
That’s when you target the real offenders:
Notice the pattern: you created them.
The biggest disk consumers are almost always user-generated content, not some mysterious macOS subsystem.
Speed comes from CPU, RAM, storage performance, and workload—not ritual cleaning.
Your best protection is understanding, not software.
The largest space hogs are almost always files you intentionally created or forgot about. Use visualization tools when needed. Avoid magical thinking. Don’t let marketing prey on fear.
Plan ahead, keep an eye on the big stuff, and there’s a good chance you’ll replace your Mac with plenty of free space still sitting on the drive.
2026-02-24 19:19:16
"If I Had a Boat" by Lyle Lovett
What’s a hidden gem or underrated song you love
If I Had a Boat by Lyle Lovett
Every time I go to Austin, I do so hoping that I bump into Lyle Lovett, just so I can tell him how much I love his music (and have for more than 20 years). This is my favorite tune of his and while it's not unknow, it is certainly under appreciated.
2026-02-24 00:52:51
I'm a big fan of BundleHunt,
the quarterly software sale website. Lingon Pro, app app I've covered
several times went on sale today for $4.00. It is also the last day to
get Fluent at the sale price of $4.99.
Fluent, by presents a smart panel you interact with directly. That panel can stay persistent or disappear depending on your preference. The experience feels less like firing off commands and more like working alongside an assistant. Fluent is context-aware, supports back-and-forth conversation, and allows chaining actions together into something closer to a workflow than a single command.
Fluent also includes RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation). In plain terms, that means the model doesn’t rely only on its training data — it can reference files you provide to generate responses. You can organize these files into areas like projects, emails, or a catch-all bucket for your writing style. In practice, that means it can use past examples as context rather than guessing blindly. If you’re writing a billing summary, for example, it can reference previous invoices to match tone and structure.
Everything you add to Fluent stays on your Mac. Nothing is stored in the cloud. The output quality largely depends on the quality of the material you feed it — garbage in, garbage out still applies.
It’s worth clarifying what Fluent is not. This isn’t a local, continually learning replacement for ChatGPT. It isn’t training a model on your data or improving itself over time. It simply retrieves relevant information from your files and uses it as context for each request.
Fluent’s regular price is $29.99 on the Mac
App Store. Right now, it’s on sale at BundleHunt for
$4.99
There’s a broader pattern worth noticing here: AI writing tools are starting to split into two camps. One camp gives you fast, one-shot utilities that stay invisible until needed. The other tries to become a persistent collaborator that remembers context and rides along with your workflow. Which one fits depends less on features and more on how you actually write — quick surgical edits versus ongoing conversation with your tools.
Lingon Pro has been around for more than two decades, which is practically geological time in Mac utility years. It remains one of the best GUI front-ends for launchd - the scheduling and background-task system built into macOS.
You can create jobs that run:
If you run scripts, backups, or maintenance tasks behind the scenes and don't want to babysit cron files or plist syntax, this is one of the cleanest ways to do it.
Developer Price - $23.99
BundleHunt Price - $4.00
