Great Apps, Great Deals
The sale season is upon us, that special time of year that (some) folks celebrate by descending on shopping malls in ravenous hordes. Yet there is no need to sully oneself with such riotous behaviour; great deals can still be had whilst still wearing pyjamas. And least this becomes yet another post on “12 Great Apps That Let You Make Fridge Magnets Out Of Your Cat Photos”, here are some discounted apps[1] that we actually use and find incredibly useful
Note: None of these are affiliate links nor are they sponsors, so we don’t benefit in any way from this, other than the warm feeling in our hearts that we may have helped you.
TaskPaper
A recent addition to our stable, TaskPaper is a another contender in the crowded arena of to-do apps. If you like your to-do apps full of features, contexts, milestones and reminders, TaskPaper will not sway you. However, we like it as it revolves around simple text files. This wins us over because:
- It is very quick and easy to move tasks in and out of other apps
- Super-fast keyboard entry
- Text files can be read by almost any app, opening the doors for some fun scripting opportunities
- It only gives us the minimum that we need – projects, tasks and tag filtering.
DaisyDisk
Invariably, any digital-based filing system ends up accumulating files at a ridiculous rate. This isn’t an issue with a brand new 500GB drive, but there will come a day when suddenly you’re at 90% capacity and you’re left wondering “why is my drive so full?” Enter DaisyDisk; a single-purpose app that scans your drive and uncovers which files have gobbled up all your storage. Unlike other apps, DaisyDisk doesn’t presume which files to remove, leaving your free to decide whether you really need to keep that 8GB video of your cat sitting on a Roomba.[2]
Kaleidoscope
A somewhat niche app, Kaleidoscope lets you compare two files and highlights the difference between the two. While this may sound like a solution to a non-existent problem, do your future-self a favour and just buy it. It will sit in your apps folder quietly unnoticed for months, until that one special day someone gives you folders full of hundreds poorly labelled files that you need to sort through.[3] Now your future-self can give thanks to your present-self, and treat you to a hot chocolate.
Money
We use Money to keep track of, well, money. It’s simple, it works, and it’s more focused than using a spreadsheet. It’s also a great help when the tax year comes around.
Billings
We use Billings to handle our invoicing systems. It keeps track of our timeslips for us, and – like Money – it makes sure we don’t need to spend even more hours inside a spreadsheet.
TextExpander
If you spend a lot of time at the keyboard you really should get this. TextExpander let’s you create custom snippets of frequently used text that you trigger with simple shortcuts. We use it everywhere, allowing us to breeze through emails, code, documents and more.
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Yes, these are all Mac apps, because they are our primary workstations. If you’re after PC apps then Google will shower you with options. ↩
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If you need help with this, the answer is “no.” ↩
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In case it was too subtle; we speak from painful experience. We used it just once, and were quickly amazed that we had managed to survive without it. ↩