I’m late in getting this out, but each year I like to list new software that I’ve been using and call out the evergreen mainstays. Instead of my best of list from the past year, I’m calling this my essential list for the new year.

The Newcomers

Newcomers are apps I either discovered this year or haven’t highlighted in previous posts.

Brave

Working in a school district, for many, means using Google’s ~~GSuite~~ Workspace for Education. Chrome is the obvious choice, but Chrome is bad. Microsoft Edge is better, and Chromium-based, but Brave is a nice choice, with less window (ahem) chrome, tab search, Brave shields, and the ability to make standalone apps from frequently used sites.

Excel and Sheets

I’ve never called out Excel in any of my previous articles, but the truth is, I use it for work, and constantly. I use it to scrutinize data, count students per program for scheduling, and many other similar tasks. Zi make prodigious use of pivot tables. Likewise, I use Google Sheets and work for smaller tasks, and share (and collaborate) with others. I like Numbers plenty, but simple things that I can do easily in Excel and Sheets are needlessly complicated in Numbers.

Workflowy

Workflowy is an outliner that you can use for notes, monitoring to-dos, outlining procedures, planning vacations, and anything else you might use an outliner for. Backlinks and mirrors, tags, and date support make this a personal knowledge information manager. The iOS applications are not up to snuff with the web or Electron Mac version, but they’re good enough if you fall in love with Workflowy, as have I.

Arq

I wrote about Arq when I set it up as an offsite backup strategy for my home Mac Mini. On the one had, I don’t use Arq daily in the sense that I interact with it (in fact, I barely ever launch it). Instead, every night, Arq backs up my data and reports any problems. I’ve had a couple of failures which I attribute to flaky internet. Otherwise, it just works.

MimeStream

MailMate is for work; Mimestream is for my home Gmail account. It looks like a Mac app, but understands Gmail in all the weird ways Gmail expresses itself. Mac-assed Mac app features like dragging messages out of the application window and onto the Desktop don’t work, but it’s in beta (and free, for now).

Hook

Hook is more plumbing than an app you interact with, but what it does should be an essential feature of all software: it copies links to files or data within files, and puts a link on your clipboard. This notion of working dispenses with the need to choose one app to rule your workflow, or to use apps that generate files that you can organize by folders. There’s plenty to say about Hook, and I took a quick look here.

Mosaic

I am a longtime user of Better Snap Tool, which does one thing that I like: emulates Windows’ Aero Snap. Mosaic puts a useful spin on the design, with drag areas

The Evergreen

Evergreen apps are not new to my software arsenal, and I have likely written about them in my annual essential post. They merit inclusion, though, for being stalwarts that I count on.

Fantastical

Fantastical makes adding Google Meet data to my work schedule seamless. Part of Fantastical’s allure is purely aesthetic, while other features–calendar groups and event proposals–are interesting but not useful to me. I did finally subscribe after sticking with the features from version 2 for a time. Across all three device class in the Mac ecosystem, it’s the most integrated and elegant calendar solution.

OmniFocus

Nothing new here: OmniFocus is the where everything I have to do or have to remember goes. The review is crucial, and OmniFocus integrates this into the software like no other task manager. I’ve been running the iOS and iPadOS betas of version 4 and OmniGroup are showing proving their commitment to thoughtful, useful changes and crowdsourcing suggestions.

MailMate

Still the king: Mailmate pairs a spartan UI with a powerful email engine. I rely on its search and smart folder functionality. MailMate is a Mac-assed Mac app for email.

DEVONThink

Keep It is gone, and DT is back. Version 3’s UI is refreshed and beautiful. Sync uses iCloud and is fast. Backlinks and translocations tick all the right PKM checkboxes. Markdown support is mature, and stylesheets let you move from editing in plain text to rendered beauty. You can fiddle, indefinitely, but it’s a valuable workhouse from a venerable developer in the Mac app space.

Drafts

I use Drafts on all of my Apple devices; it most cases, it’s where I start something that I will move to another application: OmniFocus, iA Writer for a post, MailMate, or DEVONThink. I often clip something I see that I want to post here on Uncorrected on my iPad, reading later at night or early in the morning, and then push it to MarsEdit once I’m done with it. The current version supports color themes, and the file type support includes both Markdown and Taskpaper. It’s I can, for example, start a Taskpaper list in Drafts and move it over to OmniFocus when I’m done thinking and writing out the steps to the project. It’s a great app, and an affordable subscription. I suspect that I could, without much effort, replace many of the applications on this list with Drafts. It’s that good.

NetNewsWire

Mac-assed Mac app emblematic of an era I miss very much. Competes with Reeder, of course, but the Smart Folders alone are worth a spin. Plus, it’s free.

MarsEdit

I don’t start writing in MarsEdit, but I publish most of my posts to Uncorrected using this Mac-assed Mac app.

iA Writer

Outside super-short posts that begin in Drafts and roll over to MarsEdit, this is where I write longish posts. It even helps me omit needless words.

1Password

Evergreen: The first thing installed on any device. I don’t know any passwords except for one, and I don’t use any other password manager.

Launchbar

Evergreen: LaunchBar is probably number 2 on my installation list for a new Mac, and I use it all day, every day. It is one of the examples I would cite about why I prefer working on the Mac over iPadOS day in and out. Does it launch apps? Sure. But it’s my clipboard manager, app switcher, file manager, and the place I go to initiate a web search. I love LaunchBar.

Bartender

Evergreen: Bartender makes your Mac’s menubar manageable. It’s great, it’s simple, and worth every penny.

TextExpander

I use this so much less than I used to, but I keep it around. It’s an example, in my mind, of an application that hasn’t gained much utility since moving to a subscription model, and in this case, the sub model works well for the developer, but not so much for me.

AnyList

Web app AnyList is what I use for storing recipes. It parses webpages for recipes, makes shopping and planning easy, and helps you resize your recipes. It’s not a great Mac app, which is a ding, but it’s a great cross-platform service and iOS app. The sub is cheap, too, and it benefits from regular, incremental improvements.

Matt Bircher:

1. In aggregate, critics and ordinary people are usually about 5 points apart.
2. Usually, ordinary people review the highest-grossing movies higher. This makes sense as they are voting for these movies with their wallets, not just their reviews. Critics, meanwhile, see everything, so in theory, these films are about the same as everything else for them.
3. 2020 and 2021 have seen a major divergence in scores. Critics were consistent, while audience reviews skyrocketed to the first 90% year ever.
4. The audience scores for movies in 2021 are absolutely ridiculous. Either this was the best year for movies ever, or there’s some phenomenon going on here I can’t see in just the data.
5. 2015 was a year of peace, as the critics and the audience agreed perfectly on the quality of the top 20 movies.

Matt created a great set of charts and tables, along with a geeky Keyboard Maestro how-to. Great post.

Critics vs “Real People”: Rotten Tomatoes (and Letterboxd) Data Tells All

I purchased App Zapper probably over ten years ago, and while it doesn’t seem to have been updated in forever, it still works. Another choice, curated by Nikhil Vemu at Mac O’Clock, is the uninspired-sounding Advanced Uninstall Manager.

These uninstallers go a step further than Apple’s suggested (and simpler) method by also removing anything the app created in other directories, typically your ~/Library and /Library directories (which Apple obscures from the user).

I don’t know if deleting apps using an uninstaller will actually speed up your Mac, as Vemu suggests. It can, however, uncover large data libraries of apps that create them. For example, my installation of MailMate takes up a whopping 8 GB of data in ~/Application Support.

No, Your MacBook Really Needs An Uninstaller — Here’s Why | by Nikhil Vemu | Mac O’Clock | Dec, 2021 | Medium

On the most recent episode of Upgrade, Myke and Jason discuss whether “Die Hard” is a Christmas movie. I hope we can put this matter to bed.

Table stakes in the task management app game are, without question, the ability to winnow the flood of obligations you’ve invited into your life into a discreet, manageable list. Your list, if your capturing input–even if you’re just normal-busy–consists of 100+ things to do, either now, soon, or in the future.

Todoist shared a helpful article on the Eisenhower Matrix, and how you can adapt it for Todoist.

You can, of course, replicate such a system in OmniFocus, bolstered by the OmniFocus’s ability to defer tasks to a later date. I created a tag group:

Matrix:
– Important
– Not Important
– Urgent
– Not Urgent

My “Do It” perspective focuses on items that are tagged as “urgent” and “important,” a la the Eisenhauer Matrix, as well as anything with an emergent due date. Tasks must also be “available,” in OmniFocus parlance, meaning not on hold or deferred.

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Here’s an interesting hack to incorporate “start dates” in Todoist. I don’t like it.

Grammar Girl:

But now I need to point out a British English versus American English difference:

British writers are more likely than American writers to treat all band names as plural. For example, it’s easy to find British publications writing about the recent Coldplay tour with lines such as “Coldplay are the headliners,” and “Coldplay are asking their fans to submit requests for European tour dates.”

This convention drives me bananas.

Are Band Names Singular or Plural?

Jonathan Jarry, writing for McGill about “Awaken with JP”‘s JP Sears:

It may come as a shock to find out that not only has he become the very thing that he once ridiculed, JP Sears is now using his massive online platforms to discredit public health measures against COVID-19 and to open the door to grand conspiracy theories. Distrust is the name of the game, and he does it with comedic flair.

I remember watching JP do his “What if meat eaters acted like vegans” schtick and, having been a veg for a time in college, it was funny and cringey. It’s sad to see that he’s gone down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole, but I imagine he’s laughing all the way to the bank.

The Clown Prince of Wellness | Office for Science and Society – McGill University

I’ve been meaning to gush about Workflowy, my most recent software crush. Two days ago, the company announced improved backlinks a la VoodooPad (sorta), DEVONthink, Obsidian, and Drafts.

The lead prosecutor in the Arbery murder trial echoed an observation commonly made when discussing Kyle Rittenhouse’s claim of self-defense:

“You can’t start it and claim self-defense,” [Linda Dunikoski,] the lead prosecutor argued in her closing statements. “And they started this.”

Eventually trapped between the two pickup trucks, Mr. Arbery then ended up in a confrontation with Travis McMichael, who was armed with a shotgun and fired at Mr. Arbery three times at close range. Mr. McMichael testified that he feared that Mr. Arbery, who had no weapon, would get control of the shotgun from him and threaten his life.

I imagine anyone with a weapon fears that it will be used against them if things go sideways. Couldn’t the answer be for amateurs not to take up arms?

Buzzfeed asks what will happen to this argument in Marc Wilson’s case.

Three men are found guilty of murder in Arbery shooting

Dave Pell:

But here’s what really happened: Kitty Genovese’s murder was not ignored by residents in the area. She did not die alone. When police arrived on the scene and found her dying of stab wounds in a stairwell, she was being cradled in the arms of a neighbor.

It took more than 50 years for the real story to emerge. “The Witness” director James Solomon spent 11 of them following the obsessive reinvestigation of the story by Kitty Genovese’s brother Bill. A Vietnam vet who lost his legs in the war, Bill suffered (and I think suffer is the word) an indefatigable compulsion to ascertain the details of his sister’s final minutes.

I sat in Philosophy 101 at Ursinus College and had the Kitty Genovese story reported by Dr. Hardman. Fascinating, if no less horrible, to learn that the bystander effect if built upon embellishment.

I read more news than anyone. Trust me, people are better than we’re led to think. – The Boston Globe

“It’s OK to Bring Guns to Play Cops”-Van Jones, CNN.

The crucial question facing the jury in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse was whether he was practicing self-defense:

Every American has a fundamental right to self-defense. That right has been recognized in the law since ancient times.

Rittenhouse Jury Gets It Right

Critics of the jury’s decision, and those focused on the larger picture, consider whether showing up at a protest (or a riot, depending upon how you’re classifying the events in Kenosha) with a rifle in full view of everyone involved is an act of provocation.

The Atlantic’s David Graham recognizes this as the true point of contention, but as a political–not judicial–matter:

The larger and more socially important matter of whether 17-year-olds—or anyone else—should be acting as a vigilante defense force is not strictly a legal question, but a political one. No judge or jury can resolve that.

The desire for the justice system to sort out messy questions with what can seem like careful objectivity is understandable, especially when our (explicitly) political institutions are struggling so mightily. But no shortcuts are available here. Americans cannot rely on the justice system to do what the political system will not.

The Rittenhouse Trial Could Never Have Been What Americans Wanted

Which is kind of the problem:

Rittenhouse was an attractive example of vigilante justice for the right because the people he shot were white, and because one hit him with a skateboard, and because his actions could be laundered through a wider set of implicitly racialized culture-war staples like “rioters” and “the mob”; his supporters may take faith in the fact that many prosecutors and judges have deep biases not betrayed by the sounds their cell phones make. And while much of the country will be outraged by Rittenhouse’s acquittal should it come, there is a particular set of ahistorical assumptions also underlying the widespread horror at this teenage shooter. The concern is that it will set a precedent, that if Rittenhouse is allowed to get away with murder, he’ll send a message that white men can just grab a gun and shoot anyone they perceive as a threat.

Why Kyle Rittenhouse Is a Right-Wing Hero and Ahmaud Arbery’s Killers Are Not

Again, what is self-defense, and what defines an aggressor?

“If you display a firearm or you point it at another person, that’s a threatening act that ordinarily would give, I think, a reasonable apprehension of death or serious bodily harm,” [Cynthia Lee, a law professor at George Washington University] said.

Can Self-Defense Laws Stand Up to a Country Awash in Guns?

The Nation’s Elie Mystal sees this as a rigged legal system doing what it’s supposed to for the Kyle Rittenhouses of the world:

Rittenhouse’s freedom is not a “miscarriage” of justice—it is our white justice system working as intended. This system is designed to free people like Rittenhouse: white vigilantes who kill to maintain the best interests of whiteness.

Kyle Rittenhouse Has Gotten Away With Murder—as Predicted

It would be easier to make the argument that showing up with a gun is an act of provocation if, more sensibly, it were illegal to carry “a rifle” in plain sight:

The rifle possession was probably legal. Even if it wasn’t, it clearly was not provocative. The legality of open-carrying of a long gun is the rule, not the exception, in Wisconsin. Plenty of people were openly carrying weapons. This behavior, done by law-abiding people, has the effect of discouraging violent crime. It thus cannot be deemed provocative.

Rittenhouse Prosecutors Seek to Criminalize Constitutional Self-Defense

“Probably” legal? Again, this is a crucial point of disagreement between gun control advocates and NRA from-my-cold-dead-hands types. Why would it be OK for minors to openly carry guns?

Due to unclear legislative language, there is some ambiguity on this point. Although minors are prohibited from openly carrying weapons (including all handguns) in Wisconsin, state law does allow 16 and 17-year olds to carry long rifles. The apparent intention of this exemption was to allow minors to hunt. As the Wisconsin Legislative Council advised in a 2018 memo, except in cases of “hunting, military service, and target practice, a person under age 18 is generally prohibited from possessing or going armed with a firearm.” Nevertheless, at Rittenhouse’s trial, Judge Bruce Schroeder accepted the defense’s argument that Wisconsin law forbids 17-year-olds from carrying handguns — but allows them to openly carry semi-automatic rifles – and dismissed the charge of illegal firearm possession.

Kyle Rittenhouse’s Defense Was Strong It’s also a threat to the rule of law.

The AR-15 isn’t really a hunting rifle, and Mr Rittenhouse didn’t have one for that purpose.

Tom Grieve, a Milwaukee attorney and a former Waukesha County prosecutor, speculated that the long-gun exception was drafted to ensure children could hunt and lawmakers didn’t envision it could be used to protect children who carry long guns at protests like the demonstrations in Kenosha.

“I think it was designed with an eye toward hunting and enabling law enforcement to add additional charges against minors hunting without a license,” he said. “Wisconsin is a hunting state. When people talk about long arms, they’re thinking in the hunting context.”

Explainer: Why did the judge drop Kyle Rittenhouse gun charge?

In any event, this interpretation prohibited the jury from imposing any sentence or finding of wrong-doing.

For those of us disinclined to wage vigilante justice and brandish weapons, the notion that Mr Rittenhouse shouldn’t have armed himself and rolled into Kenosha takes hold. Both sides agree, but The American Conservative’s Declan Leary thinks there’s nothing else a boy can do when the adults vacate their responsibility:

The standard line from sympathetic but critical liberals like Atlantic columnist David French is that he never should have been there. This is true, actually. Kyle Rittenhouse should not have been there, because other people should have. The city’s police force should have been capable of maintaining peace on the streets. If that failed, the elected governor should have sent in the National Guard. As the last resort, private citizens should be capable of stepping up. When the maintenance of order demands the use of force, public spaces should be protected by men with guns, who know how to use them and how not to.

Kyle Rittenhouse Deserves More Than Acquittal

Speaking of productivity systems, some time ago I read “How Square Defangs Difficult Decisions with this System — Here’s How.” The cheecky “Kombucha Scale” system turned out to be the Eisenhower Matrix:

You consider inputs according to a quadrant, where:

• things that are both urgent and important are done asap, but perhaps grudgingly;
• Important but not urgent, which is where the truly important work lies;
• urgent but not important, which is to be delegated, and
• the unfortunate neither urgent nor important items, which are deleted. These items don’t make it to your to-do manager.

But what about the other three quadrants? They do, in fact, have a place in your GTD system. Todoist has a great article on adapting their app to the matrix.

I struggled some time ago with using the Eisnehower Matrix with OmniFocus, but it’s only because I didn’t know what it was called. There are plenty of articles on it, notable this one from Effective Remote Work.

I’ve been playing around with Todoist for task management, and one of the endearing qualities of the product is the time the company puts into posting articles about productivity. There’s even a quiz to help you adopt a style that suits your self-assessment. Having taken the quiz, Todoist recommended that I “eat the frog”:

Eating the frog means you take on the thing about which you are procrastinating or prevaricating straight away. This clears the decks for other work later in the day.

Eat the Frog: If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning

I just installed the updated version of Notability (after all of the hubbub about their subscription model switch) and found some sketches I did for the site’s favicon. I wanted to highlight my former life as a copy editor and wink and the lack of it here on Uncorrected. I’m still happy about how it came out.

For reference:

• copy editor’s marks
• I read somewhere, back when print was a thing, that black text on white paper, with red design accents, is the authoritative design. Is that true? I don’t know. But that’s what I went with, here and there.