2025-12-06 05:15:38
"Carolina In My Mind" by James Taylor
Share a song that captures the feeling of being homesick. I've seen JT perform a couple of times, not far from where he lived as a kid in Chapel Hill, NC. I think he has one of the most distinctive voices in American musical history. My god, he's written some of the most iconic songs of my lifetime and I have listened to them since my Mom played the LPs on a record player at our house in Raleigh.
2025-12-06 04:04:24
I've built what amounts to a database of my entire digital life stretching back to the early 90s, using the super powers of EagleFiler from C-Command Software and the highly respected, veteran developer, Michael Tsai. EagleFiler is the ultimate everything bucket for my needs. With it I can quickly locate any email, social media post, blog article or work document that I have ever created, plus more. EagleFiler is much faster than Spotlight at finding what I am looking for. It provides a very scalable way to organize, annotate and expand any project.
EagleFiler isn't just a repository for historical data, it's a great app for organizing projects on an ongoing basis. Using hotkeys, it's easy to quickly add web archives or new blog posts and other documents. If using tags and folders isn't granular enough, you can have multiple libraries. More than one library can be open at the time and multiple pages can be open per library.
EagleFiler uses the finder for the documents you have. There is no duplication caused by importing the very same info into a different database. EagleFiler's own data consists of its index of what you've added, your tags and notes. If you use Finder tags, they remain with the original document. One benefits of using EagleFiler search s that you can skip folders and tags if you aren't inclined to use them and just search for the information you want.
Once you have data in EagleFiler, there's a three-pane interface where you can view and edit files directly, without having to open, close and save in separate apps. You can also quickly create new files of different types in the current folder or tag where you're working.
Exporting your emails from practically any client or service makes gives you a leaner daily driver and can speed up searches in Outlook, Gmail etc. I've encountered more than one person whose sole use of EagleFiler is for email archiving. Rob Griffiths (of the late, great OS X Hints website) said "Import from Mail is ridiculously easy—select a mailbox or a number of messages and press Option-F1 in Mail."
The list of apps that integrate with EagleFiler is long and comprehensive. It includes text editors like Bbedit, browsers including Arc, Brave (and Chrome and other Chromium based browsers), utilities like PopClip and Hookmark, just about the whole gamut of Microsoft and Apple productivity suites, task managers like Omnifocus and even RSS readers like NetNewsWire and Reeder.
Yes and no. At a high level, both products are used to store, search, sort etc. documents in a structured database format. I asked Michael Tsai to give me his stock answer to the inevitable comparison questions and he said "There are many features in common. I know that some people prefer DEVONthink because of one or another feature that it has and EagleFiler lacks. Customers who have used both generally tell me that they prefer EagleFiler because it's easier to use and faster and because of the way it handles e-mail archiving and integration with the Mac file system and other apps." EagleFiler is $69.99 and if you are the sole user of the app, you can install it on two computers. DevonThink pricing is complicated, but at the simplest level it is $99 for the standard version and $199 for the pro version that also includes the companion mobile app.
The latest (free) update to EagleFiler was in October, 2025 includes the following enhancements:
When I asked Michael about his plans for the future of EagleFiler her gave me quite a list. "The top priority is making it fully Apple Silicon native and at the same time rewriting it in Swift. Another high priority is adding a widescreen view (i.e. with the preview pane on the side instead of the bottom). Lots more new features, optimizations, and refinements are planned. I love EagleFiler as is (and use it every day to run my life as well as to help develop the app itself), but I think there's so much potential to make it even better."
I asked about the Rosetta issue and he explained, "It's compatible with Apple Silicon Macs, but currently only part of the app (the indexer and web page fetcher) runs natively, so Rosetta is still required." This can be a deal breaker for some folks, so you've been warned.
2025-12-02 21:14:21
This is the third annual edition of my personal tech stack. In 2023, I saw many people talking about their default apps as a result of an episode of the podcast Hemispheric Views.. I learned about a lot of great software that I wasn't familiar with. I wanted to get in on the fun, so I started a blog for that express purpose, and the rest is history.
The biggest changes in 2025 happened as a result of cutting ties with Google, Microsoft, Meta and Amazon. I've tried to move as much of my back end tech stack out of the US for privacy reasons.
Apps with a ⭐ are new choices since last year. There are links at the end to my previous year's choices.
2025-12-01 20:37:52
With nearly over 500 apps installed on the MacBook I use for testing, keeping everything updated is a daily chore. If I wait a week between scans, I end up with 60-80 available updates to install. Based on my experience, the app updater that catches everything doesn't exist. Historically, the app that does the best job is MacUpdater, but, absent any breaking news, it will become deprecated at the end of December.
Today, I ran several updaters on my system to determine how they compared.
2025-12-01 17:47:31
"Bang the Drum All Day" by Todd Rundgren
Share a song that perfectly soundtracks your commute. Well, I'm actually retired, so my commute is the hallway from my bedroom to my computer desk, but I still get the regular honey-do list from Wonder Woman. I've played this song for years at full blast when I wake up with an attitude.
2025-11-28 19:02:20
If you have been taking advantage of all the Black Friday sales, You've got a bunch of information to track - serial numbers, download links, upgrade policies etc. I keep all my software licensing information in KeyKeeper, an app by the same team that operates Bundlehunt. I've been buying Mac software since the days of the classic OS. Believe it or not, some apps I purchased as far back as 2004 are still functional, requiring the original license key when I set up a new system. Shout out to SuperDuper!
I've used various methods to track licensing information: a spreadsheet, Evernote, an email tag, Obsidian, the freeware app, Licensed All of them are functional enough, but when I saw the features in KeyKeeper, I decided to try it out.
KeyKeeper is security focused, requiring a password to enter the database. The design follows modern Mac conventions. There are all of the database fields you'd expect for this type of app, but you can add unlimited custom fields and file attachments, useful for screenshots and apps that have downloadable license keys. The fields for URLs are live, so if you need to visit a product website or redownload the app, you can do both right from KeyKeeper. A feature I like is the ability to create your own categories for your apps and make your own assignments. You can also create a favorites list. If you've been tracking your app purchases in a spreadsheet, you can import the data into KeyKeeper and save yourself all the manual data entry. Once you have the data in KeyKeeper, you can export it into a spreadsheet as well. You can use Python to convert the exported spreadsheet into Markdown notes for Obsidian, if you think that would be helpful.
A single license for KeyKeeper is good for use on two Macs. The regular price is $21.99 if you miss the Bundlehunt special.
