How to vet an AI first open source desktop app before you commit
Office software has been getting heavier for years, and most of that weight is AI features nobody asked for, bolted onto apps that worked fine without them. A new open source office…
#productivity
90 articles
GitHub lawyers taught themselves to ship code without an engineer seat
I keep meeting smart people who say the same thing: I could never build something useful at work. That sentence is almost always wrong. What they usually mean is that nobody ever…
Lifestyle blogs that aim lower tend to survive a real Tuesday
Most lifestyle writing I have read in the last year opens with the same promise: rebuild your morning, fix your week, change your life by next month. Then the calendar fills up…
The iPhone battery settings that matter over three years
Your iPhone has two battery problems, and most advice mixes them together. One problem is getting through today without hunting for a charger. The other is keeping the battery useful after hundreds…
Five changes that made Claude useful between chat sessions
My first months with Claude followed the same loop: ask a question, get a polished answer, copy part of it somewhere, then lose the useful context before the next conversation. The model…
OpenSign: a real e-signature tool that does not charge per seat
I have been looking for a legitimate open source e-signature tool for about three years. I wanted something that did not cost $10 per user per month, did not lock my signed…
Stop Windows Update from restarting your work: a tiered guide
Windows Update is one of those background systems that works fine until it does not. The default behavior on Windows 10 and 11 is to download updates in the background and install…
Hard drive errors: how to triage before you lose the data
A failing drive rarely announces itself with a single dramatic crash. More often it whispers for weeks: a file that will not open, a save that takes five seconds longer than it…
15 terminal calendars worth installing on Linux in 2026
I keep a paper notebook for sketching and a digital calendar for everything else. The digital side lived in a browser tab for years until I wanted a calendar I could open…
Stop paying for Windows cleanup and learn Sysinternals
I have removed more paid “PC cleanup” suites from family computers than I have installed. The pattern is familiar: a yearly subscription, a red warning badge, and a dashboard that claims the…