2025-11-17 21:39:54
The folks at Bundlehunt have managed to get the developer of Keyboard Maestro to offer the app at half price for seven days only.
Keyboard Maestro by Stairways Software is the preeminent automation application for macOS. It acts on nearly 30 triggers to perform almost any Mac function you can think of. It can launch tasks, control applications and manipulate text and images. It's easier to demonstrate its powers than to explain them, so I'll share my top 10 macros.
This is an example of a macro that runs an iOS shortcut, in this case one that adds my most important task of the day to my Obsidian daily note. I launch it with a keyboard shortcut.
This macro uses a time of day trigger to launch Sync Folders Pro every morning at 2am. That application then runs an automated sync of my Obsidian vault to my Google Drive folder where it gets uploaded automatically into the cloud. Keyboard Maestro shuts the program down five minutes later.
Every evening I trigger a macro from my menubar to use a template in Drafts to create my daily checklist in Things 3, complete with the due date, tags and areas. Mike Burke wrote a great piece on how to create the template for Things in Drafts.
My daily driver at home is a M2 MacBook Air. Every night before I go to ned, I plug in a backup drive so that Time Machine can do its thing while I sleep. Every morning, 30 minutes before my alarm goes off, a time of day trigger causes a macro to execute that runs an AppleScript to eject the drive, so that when I start work in the morning, all I have to do is physically disconnect it.
Every morning, right before I wake up, Keyboard Maestro launches my browser, Obsidian, Fantastical and the Photos app. That way I'm ready to start my daily note, keep up with my appointments and post a picture to Pixelfed, a daily habit.
I use a hyperkey (CAPS LOCK) mapped as shift+control+option+command with Karabiner-Elements in combination with a hotkey to launch a variety of my most used apps, Edge, Drafts, Things, Bartender, Path Finder etc. All of that runs through small Keyboard Maestro macros.
At the end of a work session on my computer, I hit control+shift+Q and it quits all my open apps. That way everything can back up properly and I don't have to worry about open files.
When I launch App Cleaner, it serves as a macro that arranges the windows on my computer automatically so that App cleaner takes up the right of the display and Path Finder, opened to the Applications folder, takes up the left half. Then it's just a matter of dragging over the app I want to remove.
For privacy reasons, unlocking my computer triggers an Apple Script that hides all open applications. That way I don't have to remember what's on my screen nor do I have to worry about any prying eyes from nosy neighbors.
I have mapped control-shift and the arrow keys to control window positions for top, bottom, left and right. I get more granular control using Raycast but for most cases Keyboard Maestro does just fine.
If you've ever considered getting this app, now is the time. Keyboard Maestro at Bundlehunt.
I have a collection of 800 macros on Github you can download and use.
2025-11-17 10:33:00
One of the kindest, most thoughtful people I know is my sister, a minister in the United Methodist Church in the southern coastal town of Southport. She was an English teacher and a writer for may years until deciding to go to get a graduate degree from Duke University and pursue ordination. Despite attending church from childhood well into my adult years, I haven't considered myself a Christian in a long time. I'm glad to live in a society where people can (currently) choose to believe or not to believe as they fit. I am committed to working with socially conscious people to build a just and fair society. But, I've lived in the Bible Belt my whole life and I reject any histrionic argument that attempts to paint all Christians with the same reductive brush.
Having established that, let me also say that there are large, visible elements of self labeled Christians who have a long documented history of racist and violent behavior and who seek power by whatever means they feel will help them achieve their aims. I feel like my beliefs are informed by facts. If you are curious, or want more information, I present you this reading list.
2025-11-17 01:30:02
"Karn Evil 9 1st Impression, Pt. 2 (2014 Remaster)" by Emerson, Lake & Palmer
What's your favorite opening line from any song? “Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends. We’re glad you could attend. Come inside! Come inside!”
2025-11-16 06:48:42
My voice-to-text use case is almost exclusively dictation (in
English) in lieu of typing. There are a lot of transcription apps, many
of them very powerful with advanced features for enterprise and academic
users in multilingual environments. I don't need that. I just need
something dependable and free that works well and saves me from having
to type so much. After trying a great many apps, I'm most satisfied with
Spokenly.
This is not a plug-and-play app for absolute beginners. You have to choose what model you want to use, and they aren't all the same. Luckily, Spokenly does offer some suggestions. If you go with a local model, you have to download it, and if you're short on hard drive space, the models are about .5 GB on average. If you want advanced online support, you'll need to obtain your own API keys or be prepared to pay for the pro version ($7.99 a month). Also, depending on your configuration, you may experience lag if you're on an older or under-powered device.
2025-11-14 20:39:30
"She Thinks I Still Care" by George Jones
What song do you turn to when you need to cry? Country music, real country music, not that Nashville shit they make today, was so full of emotions, most of them sad and remorseful.Songs about broken hearts can break your heart and no one does it better than George Jones.
2025-11-14 05:26:21
When it comes to multi-monitor setups, users have wildly different
demands. Some people make extensive use of spaces, while others won't;
their applications must be tiled the exact same way at all times. My
personal use case in the two-monitor setup that I use is that I want
apps to open on the same monitor with each use. Although Stay does
remember tiled window positions in its profiles, I don't care so much
about that, because I tend to use most of my apps in full-screen mode. I
absolutely do not want to have to drag windows around from monitor to
monitor so that my muscle memory can take over as I work.
To accomplish this task, I use the free utility Stay from Cordless Dog Software. The core idea is that Stay lets me snapshot window positions (size + location + display) for particular configurations (e.g., laptop display only, laptop + external monitor) and then restore them when my display setup changes. It's not so much a fully featured window management tool as it is a "put my windows where I left them" solution across display changes and reboots.
Stay is free, and it supports Apple Silicon. It does not need Rosetta.
It isn't perfect or bulletproof. Apple Spaces are flaky, and anyone who says they aren't hasn't made extensive use of them. Stay can sometimes get confused, placing a window sized correctly in the correct position on your monitor, but in the wrong space. Apps that use non-standard windows (Steam, X11, Adobe Creative Cloud) don't always work well with Stay. Stay works best with a static setup. If you often open and close various windows and want tiling, automation, and snapping, Stay is not the product for you.
Now, the biggest drawback for some people is that Stay appears to be abandonware. It's abandonware that works, so I'm fine with it, but some people won't invest 30 seconds of setup time in an app that hasn't been updated since 2021.
If you want a top-shelf, well-maintained app to do what Stay does (plus a lot more), my recommendation is Moom from the great team at Many Tricks Software. It’s more refined than Stay, featuring window-snapping and custom grid resizing. You can save and recall layouts, but it’s less strict about returning windows to exact positions when changing monitors.
There is also a new player in the space, Snaps of Apps, which I have not personally tried yet.
