AppAddict

How My Self-Hosted Server Fits My Mac Life

When I retired in February, one of the first things I did was set up a home lab using the various components that I've been socking away for years. For me, 2025 has been the year that I've left the tech giants in my rearview mirror. To that end, I wanted to experiment with Linux, even though I don't plan to abandon the Mac or iOS as platforms. After a couple of months fooling around with Ubuntu on an old Lenovo ThinkPad, I decided to build a self-hosted server using the same computer and a bevy of external hard drives...

August 13th, 2025 Universal Apps

ProcessSpy

When troubleshooting system issues or thoroughly evaluating a piece of software, experienced and knowledgable Mac users often turn to activity monitor to get information on memory, CPU usage, power consumption and more. It's often helpful but at times it can be cryptic. The developer of Process Spy has an example. "I was juggling several Java apps, each using a different JDK version — and I couldn’t tell which process was which in Activity Monitor. All I saw was “java”. No version, no path, no details. So I built ProcessSpy — a developer-focused tool that shows full command-line info, version details,...

June 20th, 2025 Mac Apps

MountMate - A Tool I Didn't Know I Needed

I have an "always on" Mac on my desk with several external drives connected to it, drives I need frequently, but not continuously. I'd been putting up with a cluttered Finder and needless spin-ups for months when I discovered MountMate this week. MountMate is a menu bar app that mounts and unmounts external drives. Without MountMate, after a drive is ejected, I'd have to go into Disk Utility to mount it back, or more likely I'd just unplug and replug the drive, not a small task on a desk with three computers and eight external drives. Some people use shell...

June 19th, 2025 Mac Apps

Five Recent Finds at MacMenuBar

MacMenuBar.com is the best place on the Internet to find apps with that particular interface. Its recently added section is always worth checking out for new free, freemium and paid apps. Here are five recently added apps that are worth checking out. Always on TopAlways on Top lets you choose any window on your Mac to pin above all other windows. It's got a nice menu-driven interface and is a nice addition to your multi-tasking routine. (Free)[Always on Top] Signal ShifterSignal Shifter gives you a convenient location to control the inputs, outputs, Bluetooth devices and volume control right from your...

June 15th, 2025 Mac Apps

My Mac Contacted 63 Different Apple Owned Domains in One Hour - While Not in Use

During a one hour period today, my computer contacted 63 different Apple domains while i was not logged on and using it. I have been trying to minimize to the extent possible the reach of big tech into my life. A full 25% of the DNS queries from one of my computers (M2 MBA with macOS 15.4) are to Apple owned domains - even though my DNS provider (NextDNS) blocks Apple's native telemetry. Additionally, since I do not use Apple for my mail, contacts, calendars, podcasts or news, I already have the routes to those Apple services blacklisted. Interestingly, my...

June 11th, 2025

A Photo Management Workflow Without Big Tech

One of the things that make the tools of Big Tech so seductive to use are their rich feature sets. Photo management apps from Google, Amazon, and Apple require little more than flipping a toggle switch to begin uploading photographs from your phone. Each company provides you a ready-made website with the ability to create albums, share photographs, and do basic editing. All you have to do is to give them your data, your privacy, and I suspect your soul. This year I opted to remove all of my personal photographs from the servers of the big tech companies and...

June 10th, 2025

Use Obsidian in a Browser from Anywhere, Without Installation

I just got into self hosting about a month ago with an old Lenovo Thinkpad I pulled out of the recycling pile at work and a couple of big external hard drives. Tonight I discovered that there is a Docker version of Obsidian that works on my server. In a couple of hours, I had an https connection to a test vault, accessible over the Internet via a URL through a CloudFlare Zero Trust tunnel (which is a free service that does secure routing for you). You can password protect the vault to keep out intruders. You should also use...

May 31st, 2025

BlockBlock and KnockKnock from Objective-See

Anyone who tells you that Macs don't get viruses is misinformed, and you shouldn't rely on that person for computing advice. Mac malware exists. Having said that, the average Mac user is in much better shape than the average Windows user because the bad actors of the world tend to concentrate on the platform with the largest market share. Additionally, those who have a modern Mac running an up-to-date OS have built-in behind the scenes protection that requires them to very little to be safe. If that's you, and you get all your software from the App Store, move along...

May 30th, 2025 Mac Apps

Guilt Free Digital Media Pipeline Automation

After a nearly twenty year break from using peer-to-peer technology (torrents) to download movies and TV shows, I have decided that it's more ethically pure in 2025 to once again fly the skull and crossbones than it is to put money in the hands of the fascist billionaires who monopolize the entertainment industry. To be clear, I'm not advocating doing this to software from independent developers. It's the collaborating big tech companies that don't deserve your money any more. Don't do this without a VPN. Just to show you how easy it is for your ISP or anyone who has...

May 16th, 2025 Mac Apps

Mega Post: Protect Yourself Like Your Freedom Depends On It

Today was the day that I finally went through a comprehensive checklist to cut down my dependency on Apple web services to the fullest extent possible. I'm still a fan of their software and hardware, but despite their PR campaign to pose as a privacy first company, they cooperate with law enforcement a higher percentage of the time than Facebook does. Let that sink in. In a time when our right to due process in America is under question, I'm not letting any US big tech companies have any more access to my life than is absolutely needed. All of...

May 9th, 2025

Redirect Web for Safari

I've recently been using Safari much more regularly than I have in years. I found quite a few helpful extensions that improve the experience. One that I didn't find on my own, but that I am grateful to have discovered through a tip from a reader, is Redirect Web for Safari, which allows you to define how your computer handles links from certain sources. You can use predefined rules or build your own. Predefined Rules • Make Reddit links open in Old Reddit • Open Twitter links in Xcancel to avoid adding any traffic to the official site • Open...

May 8th, 2025 Universal Apps

BarCuts Brings Order to Your Shortcuts Menu

I make extensive use of shortcuts all day long on my Mac. I use them to import data into Obsidian, generate alt-text for images I post on my blog or social media, query Open.AI, dismiss notifications, quit all apps, launch multiple apps at once, perform backups and so much more. In the past, I've made extensive use of the option to add shortcuts to a native menu running from the Mac menu bar, but over time the list grew long and more difficult to mage. Just in the nick of time, one of the friendliest and most helpful developers on...

May 7th, 2025 Mac Apps

A Mac Guy Gets Into Self-Hosting

Before 2025, my self-hosting experience had been limited to running the media server software, Plex, on a 2009 iMac. When I retired that machine, I didn't resurrect Plex on my new Mac, although I did hang on to all the media files. I retired myself this year and resolved to start self-hosting some services as a learning experience. My home network consists of three Mac laptops, a Lenovo ThinkPad, that 2009 iMac I mentioned, plus five iOS devices and an Amazon Kindle Fire (Android). I elected to use the ThinkPad as a server, although the platform I chose, Unraid, will...

May 5th, 2025 Mac Apps

Five New to Me Apps for a New Week

iDrive Cloud Backup From Assaf at Labnotes - IDrive Cloud Backup I started looking into Backblaze alternatives, and so far iDrive is a strong contender. I chose the mini plan, 500GB of backup for $9.95 a year (it’s somewhere in the UI, look it up). It does have continuous backup, but so far I’m happy just running on a schedule. Can’t figure out how to get it to ignore repeat directories like every node_modules, or limit by file type/size (eg don’t backup large videos). And the UI is not pleasant, but neither is Backblaze (their restore is overly complicated), so...

May 4th, 2025 Mac Apps

How to Check All Your Apps for Homebrew Availability

I don't think there is any question on how useful the free Mac package manager, Homebrew, can be. You can download and install an app with just one simple terminal command, something like: brew install bbedit After it's installed, there is no ZIP archive or DMG file to clean up or manage. To update you apps installed with Homebrew, you don't need a special app or a subscription to anything. You just open a terminal windows and run: brew upgrade Your apps will be upgraded in place with nothing for you to clean up. To back up your configuration, you...

May 3rd, 2025 Mac Apps