Notes
Problems first,products second.
Write-ups on the small, annoying problems our software was built for. Every piece is meant to be useful whether or not you ever install anything of ours.
What we look at before we build anything
The last of this series of notes, and the question behind all the others — how we decide whether something is worth making. Six tests an idea has to pass, and what they rule out.
Read it- A weekly social video that doesn't eat your SundayA weekly video is manageable when it is a routine, and exhausting when every week starts from nothing. Here is a format, a filming batch and a template edit that turn it into about ninety minutes of work — done on a phone.Video
- Undoing a bulk rename you regretYou renamed four hundred files and immediately realised the pattern was wrong. Whether you can get the old names back depends on what did the renaming and how long ago. Here is every route, from the immediate undo to reconstructing names from a backup.Files & naming
- Narrow tools beat broad suitesWe have argued the philosophy before; this is the practical case. Five concrete ways a set of narrow tools outperforms an all-in-one suite over a few years — and a checklist for spotting the hidden costs of a suite before you commit.How we build
- Editing on an iPhone versus a MacThe footage is already on your phone and the phone is fast enough, so why move to a Mac at all? Here is what each is genuinely better at for video editing, and a simple way to decide where each project should happen.Video
- Scanning a document with a phone and cleaning it upThe phone's built-in document scanner does most of the work, if you give it good light and a flat page. Here is how to get a clean scan, where the scanner lives on iPhone and Mac, and how to fix the shadows, marks and crooked edges afterwards.Images
- Working through a big address book on an iPadThe iPad's Contacts app shows one person at a time, which is fine for looking someone up and painful for anything bigger. Here is how to get more out of it, and what a workspace built for the iPad's larger screen changes.Contacts
- Renaming a folder you drop files into all dayScans, exports, downloads and camera imports land in the same folder all day with useless names. Automating the rename sounds simple, and it goes wrong in three specific ways. Here is how to set it up so it doesn't.Files & naming
- A Mac setup for people who handle a lot of filesIf your day is downloads, exports, scans and attachments, a few Finder settings and habits make the Mac noticeably faster to work with. Here is the setup we recommend — mostly built in, with no extra software required.How we build
- Keeping a project portable between machinesYou open a video project on another Mac and half the clips are missing, the fonts have changed and the music is offline. Here is why editing projects break when they move, and the habits that let you pick up work anywhere.Video
- Keeping up with AI releases without the noiseA new model, tool or benchmark appears every day, and most of the commentary around each one is recycled excitement. Here is a small system for following what matters to your work — primary sources, a filter, and a weekly slot — and ignoring the rest.AI tooling
- Drawing on an iPad versus a MacThe iPad with a pencil feels like paper; the Mac has the big screen, the keyboard shortcuts and the files. Here is what each is genuinely better at for drawing and image work, and how people who use both split the job.Images
- Reviewing a contact import before it landsImporting a vCard file is one click, and undoing it can take an afternoon. Here is what to check in the file before you import, what Contacts does with duplicates, and how to keep a bad import from spreading to every device.Contacts
- Renaming scanned PDFs from their own propertiesA folder of scans called Scan_0001.pdf to Scan_0412.pdf is unsearchable. Some PDFs carry a title, author and date inside them that could name the file for you; many scanned ones do not. Here is how to check, and what to do in each case.Files & naming
- Backups before any bulk operationRenaming a thousand files, merging an address book, re-encoding a folder of video — bulk operations are where one mistake is multiplied by everything. Here is the thirty-second backup to take first for each kind of data on a Mac.How we build
- What automatic captions get wrongAutomatic captions are good enough to start from and rarely good enough to publish unchecked. Here are the mistakes speech recognition makes most often, why, and a fifteen-minute review routine that catches them.Video
- What Apple silicon changed for small utilitiesApple's move from Intel to its own chips changed more for small Mac apps than speed. Here is what "native" means, how to check what your apps run on, and why some utilities, including ours, now support Apple silicon only.Archives
- Picking an API for a small productA small product does not need the most capable model or the biggest provider. It needs predictable costs, workable limits on a new account, a data policy you can explain and a way out. Here is a short, practical selection process.AI tooling
- A repeatable template for thumbnailsA thumbnail is made in a hurry every week, and it shows. A template decided once — size, safe areas, type, colour, where the face goes — makes each new one a five-minute job and makes the whole channel look consistent.Images
- Fixing company names that drifted apartAcme, ACME Inc., Acme, Inc and Acme Ltd are one company to you and four to your address book. Here is why it matters, how to find the variants, and how to standardise them without breaking anything.Contacts
- Filename collisions, and how not to lose a fileTwo files cannot share a name in the same folder, and the tools that move and rename files handle that very differently — some ask, some refuse, and some silently overwrite. Here is where collisions come from and how to avoid losing work to one.Files & naming
- When a free trial is honestSome free trials are a genuine chance to try software; others are a subscription with a delayed first charge, designed to be forgotten. Here is how to tell them apart before you tap Start, and how we design ours.How we build
- Aspect ratios, explained once16:9, 4:3, 2.39:1, 9:16, 4:5 — the numbers describe the shape of a frame, and mixing them is where black bars and cropped heads come from. Here is the whole idea in one place.Video
- Packaging deliverables for a clientThe work is finished; how it arrives shapes how it is received. Here is how to structure, name, check and send a set of deliverables so the client opens one clean package and knows exactly what they have.Archives
- Quantisation, the practical versionQuantisation is why a model that "needs" 140 GB runs on a laptop. Here is what it does, what the file names like Q4_K_M mean, how much quality you give up at each level, and how to choose.AI tooling
- Reading export limits: what 2048px really means"Export up to 2048 px on the longest edge" sounds either generous or stingy depending on what you make. Here is what it works out to for screens, social media, print and wallpapers, with the arithmetic to check any size yourself.Images
- The CRM you probably don't needA freelancer or a small team often signs up for a CRM, fills it for a month and abandons it. Here is what a CRM actually does, when an address book with good notes and saved views is enough, and the signs that you have genuinely outgrown one.Contacts
- Matching RAW files to their exported JPEGsShoot RAW+JPEG, edit in one app, export from another, and soon nothing matches — the JPEG called DSC_0421 came from a RAW now called something else. Here is how file pairing works, how it breaks, and how to keep sets together.Files & naming
- File formats that don't lock you inSome file formats will open in any software in twenty years; others only open in the app that made them, for as long as that app exists. Here is a practical list by type of work, and what makes a format safe to keep.How we build
- Music under dialogue without drowning itThe music sounded right while editing and buries the voice on a phone speaker. Here is how loud music should sit under speech, why some tracks fight dialogue no matter what, and a mixing routine that works on small speakers.Video
- "Unable to expand": reading the error properlyThe number at the end of Archive Utility's "Unable to expand" message is a standard system error code, and it tells you more than the message does. Here is what each common code means and what to try for each.Archives
- Rate limits, and what they do to your productThe model worked perfectly in testing, then launch day brought a wall of 429 errors. Here is what LLM API rate limits measure, why they bite at the worst time, and how to design around them before users notice.AI tooling
- Annotating a screenshot so people understand itA screenshot with six red arrows and a scribbled circle explains less than one with a single clear box. Here is how to annotate on a Mac with the tools you already have, the few rules that make it readable, and how to hide private details properly.Images
- What macOS Contacts syncs, and what it quietly doesn'tContacts looks like one address book, but it is several accounts with different rules, and some things never leave your Mac at all. Here is what syncs where, what gets lost on the way, and how to check.Contacts
- Naming conventions that survive five yearsMost file naming schemes work for a month and fall apart when the project grows, the team changes or the files move to another system. Here are the rules that hold up, and a template you can adapt.Files & naming
- Choosing tools that outlive their vendorSoftware companies get acquired, change pricing and shut down. The tools that survive that are the ones whose files you can still open and whose installed copy keeps working. Here is a short test to apply before you commit years of work to one.How we build
- Why your exported video looks worse than the previewThe edit looked crisp in the editor; the exported file looks soft, blocky or washed out, and it gets worse after upload. Here are the five usual causes and how to tell which one you have.Video
- Keeping folder structure and permissions when you zipA ZIP keeps your folders, mostly keeps permissions, and handles symbolic links and Mac metadata in ways that surprise people. Here is what survives, what does not, and which format to use when it matters.Archives
- Reading a model release noteA model announcement is written to impress; the release note and documentation underneath it are written to be used. Here is what to look for in them, in the order that affects whether your product keeps working.AI tooling
- Preparing an image for print versus screenAn image that looks perfect on screen can print small, blurry, dark or with its edges cut off. Here is what resolution, colour and bleed mean for print, and how to prepare one file for each destination.Images
- Moving contacts between accounts without losing notesMoving from Google to iCloud, or out of a work Exchange account, is where contact notes quietly disappear. Here is why the Notes field is uniquely fragile, and a migration routine that checks it survived.Contacts
- Regular expressions for renaming, without the jargonRegular expressions look like line noise, but renaming files needs only about a dozen pieces of the language. Here they are in plain English, with the examples people actually need.Files & naming
- Why our unreleased products have honest pagesOur catalogue lists products that do not exist yet, and their pages say almost nothing. That is deliberate. Here is why we do not publish feature lists, release dates or waitlists for things we have not finished.How we build
- Speeding up and slowing down a clipSpeed changes look easy until slow motion stutters and sped-up speech sounds like a cartoon. Here is what frame rate has to do with it, what to do with the audio, and which speeds work for which jobs.Video
- Keyboard sound on calls: when to switch it offWhether other people on a call hear your typing depends on your speakers, your microphone, the call app's noise suppression and whether you are sharing audio. Here is how to tell, and a routine that avoids the problem entirely.Keyboards
- Archive formats macOS handles, and the ones it doesn'tDouble-clicking an archive works for some formats and silently fails for others. Here is what Archive Utility opens, what the built-in Terminal tools can do beyond it, and which formats need something else.Archives
- What benchmarks don't tell youEvery model launch comes with a table of benchmark scores, and the table is rarely what decides whether a model works for you. Here is what the numbers measure, how they mislead, and how to build a test that answers your actual question.AI tooling
- Non-destructive edits with adjustment layersEvery time you brighten, recolour or sharpen an image directly, you throw away the version before it. Adjustment layers keep the change separate so you can alter it, mask it or remove it later. Here is how they work and when they are worth it.Images
- Contact groups on macOS, and what they're good forGroups in Contacts are simple and quietly useful, but they belong to an account, not to your Mac, and Smart Groups never leave the machine. Here is how they work, what they are good for, and where they stop.Contacts
- When Finder's Rename Items stops being enoughBefore you buy a renaming tool, macOS has two more free ones most people never try — Automator and Shortcuts — and they cover several jobs Finder cannot. Here is how far each one goes, and the signs you have genuinely outgrown all three.Files & naming
- Software that does one thingSingle-purpose software is easier to finish, easier to trust and easier to replace. It also has real costs, and a suite is sometimes the right answer. Here is how we think about the trade-off.How we build
- Turning a screen recording into something watchableA raw screen recording is ten minutes of waiting, wandering cursors and "um, where was it". Here is how to record it so it needs less editing, and the five edits that turn what you have into something people finish.Video
- Menu bar apps that earn their placeThe menu bar fills up one small utility at a time until the ones you need are hidden behind the notch. Here is a test for which apps deserve a spot, and how to clear out the rest.Keyboards
- What a safe extractor checks before it unpacksAn archive is a set of instructions for writing files to your disk, and a malicious one can write them somewhere you did not choose or fill the disk entirely. Here are the tricks, and the checks that stop them.Archives
- Open weights is not open sourceA model you can download is not necessarily a model you can use however you like, study, or rebuild. Here is what "open weights" actually gives you, what the licences attached to it say, and what to check before you build on one.AI tooling
- Making a clean social graphic from scratchAn announcement, a quote, a launch date — you need one image for a feed and you do not have a designer. Here is the size to start from, the few layout rules that make it look deliberate, and how to export it so text stays sharp.Images
- vCard exports that actually import cleanlyYou export contacts as a vCard, send the file, and at the other end only one contact appears, the photos are missing, or the names come through as gibberish. Here is why, and how to make a .vcf that imports properly.Contacts
- Find and replace across hundreds of filenamesFinder can replace text in many filenames at once, and for simple jobs it is enough. Here is how to use it, the four ways a find-and-replace rename goes wrong, and when you need patterns instead of plain text.Files & naming
- Reading an App Store privacy labelEvery App Store listing has a privacy label, and most people never scroll far enough to see it. Here is what each section means, what the words "collect" and "track" mean to Apple, and what the label cannot tell you.How we build
- Picture-in-picture for a product demoA screen recording with your face in the corner is the most common product demo format, and the most commonly botched. Here is how to record the two parts, keep them in sync, and place the overlay so it helps rather than hides the product.Video
- Input Monitoring on macOS, explainedHow the Input Monitoring permission actually works on a Mac — where it is stored, why apps need a relaunch after you grant it, why it vanishes after some updates, and what Secure Input does to it.Keyboards
- Compressing a large folder to send someoneRight-click, Compress, attach — and then the email bounces, or the ZIP is barely smaller than the folder. Here is what compression can and cannot do for a large folder, and how to actually get it to the other person.Archives
- Context windows: what the number really buys youA million-token context window does not mean a model reads a million tokens well, or that you should send them. Here is what the number measures, what it costs, and when retrieval beats stuffing everything in.AI tooling
- Cropping to an exact aspect ratioA 4:5 crop that is "nearly" 4:5 gets letterboxed or trimmed by the platform. Here is the arithmetic, the tools on your Mac that lock a ratio, and the one step people skip.Images
- Cleaning up an address book after years of importsOld phones, SIM imports, a work Exchange account and a Gmail sync later, most Mac address books are a mess of half-cards and near-duplicates. Here is an order of work that cleans it up without losing anything.Contacts
- Renaming files from a spreadsheetWhen the new names come from somewhere else — a client's list, an export, a stock database — no pattern rule helps. You need a mapping, and the failure modes are specific.Files & naming
- How to audit what an app sends homeYou do not have to trust a privacy policy. Three tools on a Mac will show you exactly what an application contacts, and the whole audit takes about ten minutes.How we build
- Recording and placing a voice-overThe room matters more than the microphone, and the edit matters more than both. Here is how to get a usable voice-over on a Mac without buying anything.Video
- Does typing sound actually help you concentrate?The research on auditory feedback is thinner and more interesting than either the enthusiasts or the sceptics suggest. Here is what is reasonably established, what is not, and how to test it on yourself.Keyboards
- 7z or ZIP: which one to send7z compresses noticeably better and the person receiving it may not be able to open it. That trade decides almost every case, and the answer is usually not the efficient one.Archives
- Estimating token cost before you buildA feature that costs half a cent per call is fine until ten thousand people use it daily. Here is the arithmetic to do first, and the four things that make real bills exceed the estimate.AI tooling
- PNG, JPEG or HEIC: picking a formatOne of these is lossless, one degrades every time you save it, and one is half the size but will confuse the person you send it to. The right choice is almost entirely determined by what the image contains.Images
- Making phone numbers consistent across an address bookFour hundred contacts collected over a decade contain at least six phone formats. It matters more than it looks, because inconsistent numbers break matching, dialling from abroad, and every export you will ever do.Contacts
- Adding sequential numbers to a folder of filesNumbering files is trivial until you need them to sort correctly, start at something other than one, or follow the order you actually want rather than alphabetical order.Files & naming
- The Mac App Store sandbox, and what it stops an app doingSandboxing is the strongest privacy guarantee available on a Mac, because it is enforced by the system rather than promised by a developer. Here is what it actually prevents, and what it does not.How we build
- H.264 or HEVC: which to export and whyHEVC produces roughly half the file size at the same quality and will be rejected or silently re-encoded by a surprising number of things. Here is the decision, per destination.Video
- Building your own keyboard sound packRecording a keyboard well takes about twenty minutes and one decision most people get wrong — how much silence to leave at the start of the sample.Keyboards
- Why a ZIP file won't open on your Mac"Unable to expand" is one message covering at least six different failures. Working out which one you have takes about a minute and decides whether the file is fixable.Archives
- Hosted API or local inference: choosing honestlyThe break-even point is further away than enthusiasts claim and closer than vendors imply. It depends on your volume, your privacy constraints, and whether you have counted your own time.AI tooling
- Removing a background by hand with a maskAutomatic background removal is excellent right up until it eats someone's hair or half a chair leg. The manual method takes ten minutes, is completely reversible, and is the only one that handles a difficult edge.Images
- Searching inside contact notesThe Notes field is where the useful information lives, and macOS Contacts search is inconsistent about looking in it. Here is what the search box covers and how to find the person you can only half remember.Contacts
- Getting spaces out of filenames on macOSSpaces in filenames are fine on a Mac until the file touches a script, a server or a URL. Here is when they genuinely break things, and what to replace them with.Files & naming
- What "no third-party analytics" means in practiceAnalytics SDKs collect more than page views and the app's own developers often do not know the full list. Here is what a typical SDK gathers, and how to check an app for yourself in about ten minutes.How we build
- Trimming and splitting clips on a MacQuickTime can trim, and for one cut that is the right tool. The moment you need three cuts in the right order, the free options start costing you more time than they save.Video
- Why typing-sound apps ask for frightening permissionsInput Monitoring and Accessibility are the two most powerful permissions on a Mac, and a surprising number of small utilities want them. Here is what each one actually grants and how to audit what you have already agreed to.Keyboards
- Opening a password-protected ZIP on macOSmacOS will prompt you for a password on an encrypted ZIP and then fail on some of them anyway. The reason is that "encrypted ZIP" describes two different things, only one of which is worth trusting.Archives
- How much VRAM you need to run a model locallyThe parameter count tells you roughly nothing on its own. What decides whether a model fits is the quantisation, the context length you want, and the overhead nobody includes in the arithmetic.AI tooling
- What layers are actually forMost explanations describe layers as sheets of transparent plastic, which is accurate and useless. The point of layers is that you can change your mind later.Images
- Exporting macOS Contacts to CSVContacts exports vCard, not CSV, and every converter you find online wants you to upload your entire address book to a stranger. Here is what the formats actually do and how to get a spreadsheet safely.Contacts
- Rename photos by the date they were actually takenThe file's modification date is almost never the date the photo was taken. The real date is inside the image, and using it turns an unsortable folder into a chronology.Files & naming
- On-device processing: what it actually meansEvery app claims your data never leaves your device. Some of them mean it, some mean it except for the interesting parts, and you can usually tell which from things the marketing page does not say.How we build
- Exporting video for portrait and 4:5 feedsEvery platform wants a different shape, and cropping a landscape edit to portrait usually decapitates someone. Here are the sizes that actually matter and how to shoot and edit so reframing does not destroy the shot.Video
- Mechanical keyboard sound on any keyboardYou can have the sound of a good mechanical board without buying one — but most apps that do this ask for permission to read every key you press. There is a way that does not.Keyboards
- How to open a RAR file on a MacmacOS has never been able to open RAR files, and the App Store is full of utilities that want a subscription for it. Here is why the format is awkward, what your actual options are, and what to check before you extract anything.Archives
- How to compare LLM API prices properlyPer-million-token prices look comparable and are not. Output usually costs several times input, tokenisers disagree about how long your text is, and caching changes the bill more than the headline rate.AI tooling
- Resizing an image on a Mac without wrecking itPreview will resize anything in about four clicks. Whether the result looks right depends on three things it does not explain — resampling, the difference between pixels and DPI, and which format you save to.Images
- Merging duplicate contacts on a MacmacOS has a Look for Duplicates command that works on exact name matches and quietly decides what to do with everything else. Here is what it merges, what it misses, and how to clean an address book without losing the notes.Contacts
- How to batch rename files on a Mac without the TerminalFinder can rename a thousand files at once, and most people never find the menu item. Here is what it does well, the four things it cannot do, and how to avoid the rename you cannot undo.Files & naming
- Why we sell software once instead of by subscriptionSubscriptions are honest when a product costs money to run every month. For a utility that does its work on your own machine, they are mostly a way of charging rent on a finished thing.How we build
- Adding captions to a video on a MacMost people watch with the sound off. Here is how captions actually get onto a video on macOS, what the automatic ones reliably get wrong, and when burning them in is the right call.Video