2026-03-11 18:15:33
"Barracuda" by Heart
A song from the first gig you went to.
1983 - I saw Heart with Eddie Money at the Cumberland County Auditorium in Fayetteville, NC.
2026-03-10 23:44:11
It’s always such a pleasure to find out when one of my favorite developers has released a new app. That’s how I felt recently, when I read that The Low‑Tech Guys not only had a new app but that it was going to be a pretty strong player in the Mac automation field. That prompted me to approach the lead developer to learn more about the past, present and future of the company. But first, the apps.
Crank acts on triggers you define to take action without requiring user intervention. It’s more powerful than just Apple Shortcuts or Shortery, but at just €8 for a five-seat lifetime license, it stops short of Keyboard Maestro’s complexity and price.
Crank can do all of this and a lot more:
It was the quality of Low Tech Guys' previous applications that made me happy to hear about their new release. I first encountered one of their apps a couple of years ago when I discovered Clop. Since then, I have systematically gone through their portfolio to take advantage of the extremely useful, free, and low‑priced powerhouses they’ve developed.
If you’ve ever wished your external monitor behaved more like a MacBook display, you’ve probably encountered Lunar, the powerful monitor control utility from developer Alin Panaitiu. Over the past several years Alin has quietly built a small ecosystem of thoughtful Mac tools including Clop, rcmd, Crank, and others that focus on real workflow problems rather than novelty.
I asked Alin about how he got started, the challenges of building hardware-adjacent Mac apps, and what he’s working on next.
I got started in 2017 after buying my first external monitor for my MacBook; an LG 4K display with USB-C.
It was a great monitor, but something felt off. Unlike the MacBook, it had no adaptive brightness. In fact, the brightness couldn’t be adjusted at all.
That sent me down the rabbit hole. I discovered DDC, the protocol used to control monitor settings, and started building Lunar so my external monitor could adapt its brightness automatically.
For about four years Lunar was completely free and open source. In 2021 I took the leap, quit my job as a Python engineer, and started working full-time on the paid Lunar Pro tier.
You can read the full story here:
https://alinpanaitiu.com/blog/journey-to-ddc-on-m1-macs/
“I discovered DDC and started building Lunar because I wanted my monitor to adapt its brightness automatically.”
Is Low-Tech Guys your full-time job?
It’s my only source of income and where most of my effort goes. But the rhythm isn’t typical.
Sometimes macOS changes break something important and I end up working 14-hour days. Other weeks are quieter; answering support emails and fixing the occasional bug.
Which of your apps has been the most challenging to build?
Lunar, without question.
It operates very close to hardware; communicating directly with monitors, Raspberry Pis, and ESP32 chips. That’s very different from most macOS software.
Hardware is unpredictable. Firmware quirks, kernel panics, monitors that stall or behave strangely; problems that only occur on a particular user’s setup.
Those are incredibly difficult to debug because they can’t always be reproduced locally.
“Hardware can be unpredictable; stalling, kernel panics, wrong firmware, missing bits. Things that only happen on a user’s very specific setup.”
Sindre Sorhus for building an enormous ecosystem of Swift packages that macOS developers rely on, including Defaults and Hotkeys.
I also admire Ryan Hanson for creating Superkey, which finally allowed me to ditch Karabiner-Elements.
And Saagar Jha, whose work on macOS reverse engineering taught me a great deal.
No new apps for the moment. Crank and Pipiri took a lot of effort and I’m a bit drained right now.
Instead I’m focusing on rcmd v3 and Clop v3.
rcmd v3
The next version of rcmd will include:
• Native window switching
• Launching apps by holding rcmd and typing letters
Example: rcmd S P O launches Spotify
• Window search with quick typing
Example: rcmd X C jumps to Xcode → Crank window
• Searching windows by title
• Stages; saving sets of apps and windows as workspaces
• Instant switching between stages using rcmd + letter
• Optional trigger keys such as Caps Lock or Fn
Clop v3
Clop is moving toward a pipeline-based optimization system where multiple file operations can happen without repeatedly re-encoding data.
Example workflows might look like:
Images dropped into ~/Desktop/blog
• optimize
• resize to 1600px width
• convert to WebP
• move to ~/Projects/blog
Videos dropped into Dropzone
• optimize using a high-quality encoder
• speed up to 1.5×
• remove audio
• upload with Dropshare
• copy the URL to the clipboard
PDFs dropped into an Invoices folder
• optimize
• crop to A4
• extract text to a file
Other improvements include a dropzone that appears near the cursor and better support for external storage.
You can read that review here:
https://appaddict.app/post/new-file-finding-app-cling-is-not-everything
Cling is something I still want to develop further, but time is the limiting factor.
I started building a custom fuzzy indexing engine for it and got about 90% of the way there. As usual, the last 10% is the hardest.
The goal is to remove external tools like fzf and fd and bring everything directly into the app with faster and more accurate results.
Right now the fzf scoring algorithm simply isn’t well suited to what Cling is trying to do.
My original Clop review:
https://appaddict.app/post/clop-copy-big-paste-small-send-fast
Tax laws in my country changed significantly, forcing me to move from an LLC to a sole proprietorship.
To simplify accounting I consolidated everything under Paddle.
That meant ending contracts with Setapp, Apple distribution agreements, and other marketplaces. As a result, my apps are now free on the App Store, while paid licensing is handled through Paddle.
I don’t expect that arrangement to change anytime soon.
Talking with Alin, a theme keeps surfacing: the most useful Mac utilities often come from developers scratching their own workflow itch. Lunar began with a simple frustration; an external monitor that couldn’t adjust its brightness.
Since then that curiosity has grown into a small but influential set of tools used by Mac power users around the world. And if the roadmaps for rcmd v3, Clop v3, and eventually Cling are any indication, Alin is far from done refining the Mac experience.
For users who care about thoughtful utilities and deep macOS integration, his work is well worth watching.
2026-03-10 18:25:16
"Masters of War" by Bob Dylan
What's your favorite protest song?
This was a tough choice. There's so much to protest and so many songs that do it well, but the lyrics in this one always get me. It's especially appropriate right now as the ghouls in power shrug off the death and destruction their little power play in Iran is causing.
2026-03-09 22:34:09
I get a lot of use out of my Elgato Stream Deck. It’s one of the best hardware purchases I’ve made in a long time.
It didn’t start that way.
Shortly after I bought it, I discovered that the device falls under the privacy policy of its parent company, Corsair. The policy reads like it was written by lawyers trying to cover every possible future use case.
According to the policy, potential data categories include:
That’s a lot of potential data collection for what is essentially a programmable USB button panel.
The Stream Deck itself doesn’t need the internet to do its core job. At its heart, it’s a USB device that sends keyboard shortcuts, launches apps, and runs scripts. None of that requires a network connection.
However, the official Elgato software integrates a plugin marketplace and update system. Plugins can call APIs, communicate with remote servers, and run Node.js components. That’s where the network traffic starts.
The simplest solution is to block the Stream Deck software from accessing the internet.
A Mac firewall utility like Radio Silence, Lulu or Little Snitch can block outbound connections for:
Stream Deck.appcom.elgato.StreamDeckOnce that’s done, the device works exactly the same for local automation.
Two additional precautions:
With that out of the way, you can focus on what the hardware is actually good at: triggering useful automation.
Here are the ways I use mine.
One press creates a new working object in the app where I need it:
This removes the friction of navigating menus or remembering shortcuts.
One tap moves the current window to a specific layout:
It’s faster than dragging windows or remembering a dozen keyboard shortcuts.
One page of buttons is dedicated to my daily startup routine.
Each button jumps directly to the next task:
It sounds simple, but it prevents the usual morning “where should I start?” drift.
The Stream Deck is also a convenient launcher for scripts I run regularly:
For repetitive maintenance tasks, a physical button beats digging around in Terminal history.
Several buttons interact with the clipboard:
These are tiny actions that happen constantly during writing.
I keep a page of buttons for frequently visited sites and tools.
Another page opens my favorite YouTube channels directly in the external viewer I use instead of the browser.
The Stream Deck is also a control surface for CleanShot X:
This turns screenshot workflows into one-tap actions.
Dedicated buttons jump directly to specific macOS Spaces.
That’s faster than swiping or using Mission Control when switching between focused workspaces.
One page acts as a control menu for system actions:
Think of it as a customizable hardware control panel for macOS.
I also use the Stream Deck iOS app.
It’s subscription-based, but it gives me a second Stream Deck surface on an iPhone or iPad. That’s useful when the physical device is already full or when I want a secondary control panel on another screen. You have to own a physical Stream Deck in order to use it.
For something that started out looking like an overengineered YouTuber gadget, the Stream Deck has quietly become one of the most practical automation tools on my desk.
2026-03-09 17:53:15
"Turn, Turn, Turn" by The Byrds
A song you didn't realize was a cover?
This was a hit for The Byrds, but the song writing credit is Pete Seeger's and he was the first to record it. Of course, he didn't really write the lyrics, as they are from the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible.
2026-03-09 01:10:03
macOS 26 (Tahoe) is now months into its lifespan. The UI chaos it caused for menu bar management apps has calmed down a bit, but the situation is still far from stable.
A combination of API limitations, OS-level redesigns, and tighter security controls broke many of the assumptions apps like Bartender, Ice, and Barbee relied on. As a result, behavior that used to be predictable is now anything but.
Common symptoms include:
Even something as basic as determining whether a menu bar icon is visible has become unreliable. For example, NSStatusItem.isVisible can return true even when the icon is hidden behind the notch or pushed offscreen by menu titles.
The new OS-level menu bar controls are also incomplete. Tahoe will quietly hide items when the bar gets crowded, and apps receive no notification when that happens. From a developer’s perspective, the OS is moving the furniture around without telling anyone.
To work around this, some menu bar managers now request:
That understandably makes some users uneasy. Worse, Tahoe’s restrictions on these permissions sometimes cause side effects such as ghost clicks, cursor interference, or other input glitches across the system.
None of this is malicious; it’s just what happens when an ecosystem built on clever workarounds collides with a new security model.
Long term, the situation likely resolves in one of three ways:
The third possibility is already happening.
Launchers are increasingly taking over tasks that used to live in the menu bar. The bar itself is drifting toward a status display, not an interaction surface. You glance at it to see whether something is syncing or connected. When you actually want to do something, you open a launcher.
Over the past few months I’ve tested most of the menu bar managers currently available. Like many power users, I ended up choosing the option that annoys me the least. That is not the same thing as finding a solution that makes me happy.
Different setups behave differently. The manager that works well for Power User A might be completely unusable for Power User B depending on hardware, display configuration, and which menu bar apps are installed.
Here’s where things landed for me:
For now, Bartender still wins in my setup because nothing else matches its feature set:
To keep things stable, I avoid several features that add extra system hooks:
One tactic that has helped a lot is simply reducing my reliance on menu bar interfaces altogether.
Many tasks I used to perform through menu bar icons now live elsewhere:
In some cases I just disable icons entirely using the menu bar controls in System Settings. A few functions have migrated to Control Center as well.
The result is a much quieter menu bar.
Back in August 2024 I wrote a post about everything living in my menu bar at the time:
I had 43 icons.
Today I have six:
And honestly, that feels about right.
