Alternatives to the Jetpack Plugin for WordPress

Jetpack is Automattic’s widely used mega plugin for standalone WordPress installations. Amongst others it brings features from wordpress.com to wordpress.org installations. Currently it comprises 36(!) modules that can individually be activated or deactivated.

You can see Jetpack either as an ample extension of WordPress, or simply as an example of pure bloat.  Continue reading Alternatives to the Jetpack Plugin for WordPress

Thoughts on the New Version of ‘Day One’ (Journaling App)

Bloom Built’s Day One for iOS and OS X was a very good and polished journaling (diary) application that I used with pleasure.

Now they’ve come up with the successor Day One 2 Journal + Notes. Despite some positive reviews (1, 2) this is a huge deception:

Continue reading Thoughts on the New Version of ‘Day One’ (Journaling App)

‘Delete Immediately…’ in OS X El Capitan

With OS X El Capitan (10.11) the Finder has gained a handy new feature, called Delete Immediately… .

To immediately delete one or more files or folders select them in the Finder, then hold down the Option and Command key and press Backspace. (⌥⌘⌫)  Continue reading ‘Delete Immediately…’ in OS X El Capitan

Timestamp Macros for Keyboard Maestro

These are macros for the magnificent OS X macro environment Keyboard Maestro 7, a highly recommendable program.

Basically the macros were just an experiment to see how well Keyboard Maestro works with Swift scripts. (Running Swift scripts is a new feature of Keyboard Maestro 7.) And it works quite well, I find.

The first macro gives also a nice example of conditional and value-remembering pop-up menus in the user prompt. (I discovered this only recently.)  Continue reading Timestamp Macros for Keyboard Maestro

Quick Comparison of some iOS Content Blockers

The new iOS 9 opened the door for third-party content blockers for Mobile Safari. A couple of days ago the first blockers appeared in the iTunes Store and the list is growing longer.

The “problem” is that almost all of them receive great customer ratings in the store. In no time I had downloaded a bunch of them (too many…) and still didn’t know with which one to go. In the absence of unbiased comparisons I made a little comparison myself.

Continue reading Quick Comparison of some iOS Content Blockers