The feed of updates to Bicycle For Your Mind.
Emacs I got distracted by MojoPad and Kosshi for a while there. Emacs has been plugging away. Always launched. Always handling my writing. It is the centerpiece of my efforts. I have been making changes to it. Nothing too big, but designed to improve my experience in it. I will talk about three of those in this article. Whitespace I like seeing the marks for return and tabs. Returns are valid for…
mojopad Product : MojoPad — a thinking space for your Mac · second brain & PKM Price : $59 Some of you might remember VoodooPad . It was a product marketed with the tag line “VoodooPad - You put your brain in it” I used it a long time ago. After version 5, the product got sold to a new developer who promised version 6. Users of VoodooPad have been waiting for a long time for that. We are still…
Kosshi Product: Kosshi - macOS/iOS Outliner Price : $24.99 from App Store The developer of Kosshi has been busy. He is working on fixing bugs and incorporating some of the suggestions that are coming from the users of the program. These are seven which got my attention. Move Content move comtent You can move content around the program with a keyboard command ( ⇧⌘M ). That is useful because you…
iA Writer Icon Product : iA Writer Price : $49.99 iA Writer 8 Growing Up With Care Major versions of iA Writer include a critical feature or two. The developers do not make huge changes to the program. They are deliberate about the changes/additions they make. Uniting Search and Navigation Search and Navigation (⇧⌘O) The most important feature of iA Writer 8 is the new search and navigation…
writing I have been thinking of Separate Writing and Formatting . This is an interesting discourse on the need to separate the acts of writing from the act of preparing to present. I agree with the premise. The Notion of a Canvas Conceptually I look on the task of writing as starting with a blank canvas. The words then come in and fill the page. I don’t think of how it will look on the final…
Emacs Org-Mode and the Capture System Org-mode has a capture system. You can be in any file in Emacs and invoke the capture system. Press a few keys and add text to a org heading in any file that you have set up a capture for. It is easy to set it up. Firstly you assign a keyboard command to the capture system. In my case, :bind ("C-c c" . org-capture) Org-capture You get this. Journal Entry You…
Emacs Update Things have slowed on the Emacs front. I am not tweaking the init file every day and trying to get things just right. It is a good state to be in. There are no pain-points in the use of Emacs which has been bugging me and after all this time, it is a relief. Don’t get me wrong. I love tweaking. I love discovering new packages and trying them out. That is fun for me. But the basic…
Kitty! A sticky note program which lets you write in Markdown. andrewyurmd-sticky I am not recommending this. It reminded me of using a web browser which was better than Netscape. OmniWeb test builds A great resource for people starting out with Emacs. cloudstreet-dev/Emacs-for-Goodness-Sake: Emacs for Goodness’ Sake An utility to convert things into other things. nuance-dev/convierto: A native…
Kosshi Product: Kosshi - macOS/iOS Outliner Price : $24.99 from App Store Kosshi is a new outliner for macOS and iOS. I am going to cover the macOS version. What does Kosshi mean? I asked the developer, Junichi Sato, and he said that the Japanese use the word “outline” to describe this kind of program. The native word for that concept is 骨子 (kosshi), probably Chinese in origin. The characters…
Icon Product : BBEdit 16 Price : $60 for new version, $30 for upgrade from version 15, $40 for upgrade from versions prior to that. Mac App Store version pricing is different. BBEdit keeps to an upgrade schedule of about two and a half years between major versions. It is about that time and there is a new version of BBEdit. Version 16. It is accompanied as usual by extensive release notes . This…
Keyboard Commands I ran out of keyboard commands. OK, that sounds weird. Let me explain. In Alfred, I have the following keyboard assignments: ⇧⌃A : App Store ⇧⌃B : BBEdit ⇧⌃E : Emacs I had covered the alphabet. Every letter had an application associated with it. I started a second layer. I assigned ⇧⌃⌥B to Better Finder Rename, ⇧⌃⌥E to EagleFiler and so on. Soon I was running out of choices…
capture icon Product : Capture Price : $7.99 · lifetime updates · up to 5 Macs · 7-day free trial Capture is a product designed to capture something, and move on with your life. It is an universal product, you can be in any application, Safari, Chrome, BBEdit, Finder, anywhere. You can press the keyboard shortcut to invoke capture. Fill in what you want to capture. Hit return and go back to…
Tools I get the sense that there are going to be more applications like this. I Shipped a macOS App Built Entirely by Claude Code Indragie Karunaratne This made me laugh. Emacs elevator pitch . I agreed with the pitch, but it still made me laugh. Jack and I do share this trait. I think I need a workflow intervention (aka Stop Leaving Emacs) Baty.net . I fight the urge with the acknowledgment that…
MarkEdit Product : MarkEdit Price : Free If you read my blog you know that I am an Emacs user. I write Markdown in Emacs. I write everything in Emacs. But I have been curious about MarkEdit for a while and decided to check it out. This is a free and open-source Markdown based text editor. The developer describes it thus “It’s just like TextEdit on Mac but dedicated to Markdown .” This is what the…
OmniOutliner Pro 6 Product : OmniOutliner Pro 6 Price : $99 for new users and $50 for upgrade price. They have a $49.99/year subscription price. Rationale or the Lack of One There was no good reason to buy OmniOutliner Pro 6 . I don’t need this program. I have the outlining abilities of Org-mode in Emacs. And dedicated outlining programs in Opal, Zavala and TaskPaper. They had a good upgrade price…
Typinator Product : Typinator Price : $49.99 (one time for macOS only) or $29.99/yearly (for macOS and iOS version) I was a TextExpander user and switched from it to aText when TextExpander went to a subscription model. Been using Alfred for snippet expansions for well over… Actually I have no idea how long. Every since Alfred added that feature I suppose. There are expansions which require input,…
Emacs Haven’t written an update on my usage of Emacs for a while. Decided to stop tweaking the configuration to concentrate on getting familiar with what I have setup. That lasted for two seconds. Emacs developers are coming up with new things and I have severe FOMO. I have additions. Kirigami Kirigami “The kirigami Emacs package provides a unified method to fold and unfold text in Emacs across a…
Keybaord noctuid/general.el: More convenient key definitions in emacs , is a critical package for my usage of Emacs. One of the features of Emacs is the keybindings that are usable in the program. Keybindings is another way of saying keyboard commands. The base program comes with its own keybindings. Every time you add a package to the program, it comes with it’s own keybindings or it asks you to…
Tools I don’t know what is Apple’s endgame for the Fn/Globe key, and I’m not sure Apple knows either – Aresluna . I can’t replicate the Fn key in my ZSA Moonlander: Next-gen Ergonomics | zsa.io . When I run into the necessity for the Fn key, I change the keyboard command to something I can press on the Moonlander. It is a pain, but it does work. Interesting article on how Emacs and Vim need to…
Links Broken The six-colors folks do an end of the year evaluation of Apple every year. Apple in 2025: The Six Colors report card – Six Colors just landed. Read it for a complete roundup. The condensed version: The hardware was on the whole great. The software not so much. Not too many fans of Liquid Glass. My take? I have a new iMac. I love it. Tahoe or macOS26 is the worst macOS version I have…
The Road Hardware I got a new iMac. Apple M4. The only regret. It has 16 gigs of memory. Should have gotten 32. I forgot how Safari and Chrome love memory. I love the machine. It is quick. The screen is smaller than my 27 inch iMac (mid-2011). I am not missing the screen real estate. I live in Emacs, in full-screen and that is perfect for me. Tahoe is the OS. That has been a disappointment. Buggy.…
Windows Window managers don’t make sense to me. I have tried a whole host of them. Moom . Rectangle Pro . Magnet . Yabai . Amethyst . I have used a workflow each in Alfred and Keyboard Maestro to manage my windows. I don’t get the utility. In Sublime Text , there was a plugin called Origami which I tried out. It was interesting, but never became essential to me. I am a one document, one…
Tools Grila Grila - Calendar for keyboard addicts This is a free application which does a great job of letting you view your reminders and calendars. It is a smart, little menu bar application which is beautiful to look at and useful to have around. Grila doesn’t let you edit any of your content from the calendars or your reminders. That is deliberate. This is good for display and not much else.…
Road With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations. 2nd Inauguration To…
Emacs md-capture md-capture is a package which lets me capture information to a Markdown file like org-capture. Okay, not fully like org-capture with all of its options, but a reasonable solution in the Markdown world. ;; markdown-capture (use-package md-capture :load-path "~/.emacs.d/elisp/md-capture.el" :commands (md-capture) :init (setq md-capture-targets '("~/Dropbox/org/markdown…
Choices For those of you missing the Launchpad in macOS 26. Here is a free alternative. Launchie . I use Alfred for launching applications, and a whole host of other tasks. Another person doing a deep dive into Emacs. Apple to GNULinux Journal - GNU Emacs . Learn keyboard commands. KeyBegin - Magic Keyboard for Mac (Interactive) Another clipboard manager for the macOS. This is free. PasteBar -…
Hello Sticking with it – Manu . Manuel “Manu” Moreale writes about sticking to the tools he uses. The continued use of a product for a long stretch of time makes it possible for you to know the innards of the tool. Using the tool becomes second nature to you. The keyboard commands embed themselves into your muscles. The experience becomes fulfilling and productive. Min A fast, minimal browser that…
Emacs Go Read This emacs — Matt Gemmell Matt is a writer. He has found Emacs and he describes it. I wish I could write like him. Dear God. I read this and laughed out loud. Dear God, show me the … | ConatusPrinciple Dear God, show me the way to be content with my fully working Emacs-config and give me strength to resist temptation to tinker with some fancy bullshit functionality or package that…
Icon Product : FileFillet - Efficiently manage files on MacOS Price : $7.99 There are a ton of solutions available to make it easier for you to copy/move your files in macOS. In essence, they give you a shelf. You drag files on to it from the Finder, and then drag them to a folder of your choice. Incomplete list of competitors of FileFillet. Yoink for Mac - Simplify and Improve Drag and Drop…
this is not a good idea An user called Skywatcher, in the OutlinerSoftware Forum posted the following question: Outliner Software About the survival of our Data ( when Apps die ) . He was a heavy user of iThoughts and was surprised by development on the product being terminated and the product being abandoned. Let me try to address the question that is underlying his post: “…what might happen to…
Icon Product : Antinote Beautiful Temporary Notes and Calculations Price : $5 I am all-in on Emacs. I use it for everything and have been consciously avoiding every other application which handles text in any way. It was going well. Antinote changed that. The developer describes Antinote as: Antinote is a productivity scratchpad exclusively for macOS. It’s meant for temporary notes, calculations,…