2026-04-03 18:17:52
"Where Did You Sleep Last Night (Live Acoustic)" by Nirvana
A song that's largely acoustic
Showing a deeper appreciation for grunge's roots than most, Kurt Cobain's performance of this tune (AKA In the Pines), a Leadbelly song has been one of my favorites.
2026-04-03 06:32:17
I spent the afternoon experimenting with Radial 4, a rapidly evolving pie-menu app from independent developer Gustav Lubker of AppVerge. If you’re not familiar with pie menu apps, they present a circular menu divided into sections (or slices), each representing an action or command. When configured well, they map naturally to muscle memory and can be extremely fast to use.
Other pie-menu apps I've used include:
In Radial, pie menus can include the following types of actions:
The only obvious thing missing right now is deep-link support for tools like Raycast and similar command launchers.
Radial is much more than an app launcher, but it works well for that role. You can create multiple menus and switch between them once a Radial menu is invoked with a keyboard shortcut or mouse gesture. One practical approach is to build menus around categories of apps you use regularly.
Examples:
This kind of grouping works well because the direction of the slice becomes the memory trigger rather than the app name.
Radial calls menus that are available everywhere global menus. It also supports context-aware menus that appear only in specific apps or groups of apps.
Because Radial includes a template feature, you can create menus that behave consistently across your main working apps. Anything that can be triggered with a keyboard shortcut can live in the menu.
If you place common commands in the same slice position across multiple apps, muscle memory kicks in quickly.
Examples of commands that translate well across apps:
You can still add app-specific commands; just keep their placement consistent so your muscle memory stays intact. I created Radial menus for Safari, Things, Obsidian, and Drafts using this approach.
Where Radial really shines is as an automation hub.
Instead of launching apps individually, you can trigger an Apple Shortcut or a Keyboard Maestro macro that launches an entire workspace with a single click. A second action can close the same apps when you’re done.
If you combine this with a window manager like Rectangle or Snaps of Apps, you can go even further and launch apps on specific displays and in specific Spaces with windows already arranged.
Another useful trick is reducing menu-bar clutter. Many utilities can have their core actions exposed through a Radial menu instead of living permanently in the menu bar.
Examples of apps that work well this way:
I also adapted my morning checklist into a Radial menu using a mix of actions:
Once it’s set up, everything can be accessed from a single menu instead of hunting through menus, booksmarks and other launchers.
I couldn’t find a formal privacy policy on the AppVerge website beyond a statement that AI queries are not retained.
Radial includes an AI feature powered by Groq that can generate actions automatically. I don’t use services tied to X or Groq, so I didn’t test this feature. Ideally, future versions will support additional providers.
Radial is developed in Denmark, which means it falls under EU privacy regulations.
Radial offers a seven-day free trial. The full license costs €14.99 and covers five seats, which is fairly generous for a utility in this category.
Radial’s website includes solid documentation and clear explanations of how the system works.
2026-04-02 17:19:25
"Wagon Wheel" by Old Crow Medicine Show
A song by a band whose merchandise you've bought - what was the merchandise
My last concert was Old Crow Medicine Show in Winston Salem and I bought a t-shirt of course. Wagon Wheel is the unofficial state song of NC. A little known fact - Bob Dylan gets half the royalties and a co-writers credit. Dylan recorded the chorus in 1973 while OCMS added verses 25 years later.
2026-04-02 08:08:50
If you rely on iCloud but don’t have a true backup of that data, BackiGo is one of the simplest ways to create one.
BackiGo is an iCloud backup app I can recommend for anyone looking for an alternative to Parachute. Parachute is a well-known iCloud backup utility that was recently acquired by a company with a solid reputation, but also a history of price increases and subscription transitions.
BackiGo is particularly useful if you:
Sometimes Apple’s logic escapes me. Nowhere is that more obvious than in the opaque world of iCloud.
If you don’t have a method for keeping a versioned backup of your iCloud documents and photos, you should set one up sooner rather than later.
The simplest approach looks like this:
This works because Time Machine will keep historical versions of those files.
Unfortunately, that approach isn’t practical for everyone. If, like me, you pay for 2TB of iCloud storage but your Mac has a much smaller internal drive that can’t be upgraded, downloading everything locally simply isn’t feasible.
Experienced Mac users already understand the core issue: iCloud is a syncing service, not a backup.
If you overwrite a file, the new version replaces the old one everywhere. If you delete a file, it disappears everywhere. If a file becomes corrupted, that corruption syncs too.
Even with Time Machine running, you still won’t have copies of many files if Optimize Mac Storage is enabled, because those files never existed locally on your Mac.
The core idea is simple: get a second copy of your iCloud data somewhere Apple’s sync engine can’t touch it.
One more thing - you can find multiple stories of people permanently losing access to their iCloud accounts through ID theft, malware and Apple’s own policies.
This is where BackiGo comes in. The app lets you create a copy of your iCloud data and store it in a variety of locations:
Some of the features I’ve found useful:
AmerpieMBA/2026/04)No data collected.
BackiGo – Complete iCloud Photo backup and restore solution for iOS and Mac
Available on the Mac App Store with Family Sharing enabled.
2026-04-01 19:47:34
"The Times They Are A-Changin'" by Bob Dylan
What song would you play to counterbalance the world when it feels like a broken and unrelenting monolith designed to bring terror and tragedy
Bob Dylan is the answer to everything. Yes, times are dark these days, but they've been dark before and we made progress. As long as there are people willing to sacrifice, and there are, there is always hope.
2026-03-31 16:45:47
"Alice's Restaurant" by Arlo Guthrie
Post one of your favorite relaxing songs.
After we finish our Thanksgiving meal, my family has a tradition dating back to my childhood. We all gather in the living room and listen Alice's Restaurant, the story of Arlo Guthrie's arrest for littering in a Massachusetts small town in the late 1960's.
