joeross.me

Firefox address bar modifiers - the tilde.institute wiki:

The address bar has become our entry point to the internet these days. Firefox in its default configuration does some sort of smart guess on what you type there. If it resembles a URL then the browser makes that request. If not, it sends the string you typed to your default search engine. It also includes some fuzzy search matches from your history and all that, which is fine 90% of the time, but sometimes you need a bit more control over what results it shows you.

I had no idea. These are super-useful.

(via Hacker News)

CEO Steve Huffman’s bumbling, slow-motion destruction of reddit would be a huge loss to collective knowledge on the web.

Without the ability to append “reddit” to most queries, Google Search is mostly worthless unless you’re looking for sponsored content or SEO-abusing nonsense results.

“Lawyers’ vile emails exposed”

Sometimes I write a long, angry blog post about a thing, fully intending to post it all for the world to see, but then I save it to my journaling app, and just post a link to what prompted the angry draft while I decide if I should make my angry thoughts public, whether I should edit them a bit, whether the anger is productive or will just be seen as virtue signaling.

This is one of those links. ¹

Oldest Search - Search for the oldest result on internet

This is one of those things I just love about the internet, a fun, simple thing, done well. The oldest result for my name is a 1982 NY Times obituary on Joe E. Ross, another New Jersey native, of Car 54 fame.

Markdown images are an anti-pattern | daverupert.com

Dave Rupert doesn’t see a place in Markdown for images, and I agree. Just use an img tag. But his good point and my agreement with it aren’t really the reason I’m sharing a link to his post.

I’m sharing it because he writes with the voice of a sage but slightly jaded manager who’s just trying to save new developers from bad habits and messy code. It’s refreshingly devoid of arrogance, and refreshingly full of practical examples of why his position makes sense.

It’s also how I try to approach working with less experienced lawyers. Just replace “developers” with “lawyers” and “code” with “argumentation.”

Thanks to Eric Meyer for linking to Rupert’s post on Mastodon, where I found it.

Craig Hockenberry, announces ‘Blank’ for Apple tvOS

I’m happy to announce the release of a new tvOS app called Blank. It turns your screen black and keeps it that way until you press any button on a remote. Seriously, that’s all it does.

Simple and useful.

Mac Gmail client Mimestream reaches 1.0

Jason Snell, writing at Six Colors:

If you’re a Gmail user, Mimestream will be a revelation. Since it was built from the ground up to understand Google’s approach to email, it doesn’t suffer from the weird workarounds required to map an IMAP protocol metaphor onto Gmail’s particular quirks. Instead, it behaves… like Gmail. But in a pure, Swift-driven Mac app.

Mimestream is by far the best experience a Gmail user can possibly have on a Mac. It’s been rock solid in my daily use throughout the beta, and having those familiar keyboard shortcuts let’s me move through email like lightning.

But, while betas are free, honest-to-goodness one-point-ohs have price tags, as they should:

The biggest change in going to version 1.0 is that, after two years of using an in-progress email app for free, it’s time for Mimestream to become a real app—with real money changing hands. The app is available as a $5 monthly subscription or a $50 annual subscription. (There’s a 40% discount offer for year one available for the next few weeks.)

I just put down my $30, and I won’t think twice next year to put down the full $50. Software that saves you frustration and time is worth every penny.