​Ivory
iOS, free while in beta
tapbots.com/ivory
testflight.apple.com/join/iDgGfyeO
The best Mastodon client for iOS made by creators of awesome Tweetbot. It's not easy to get into its beta, but developers promise to release it publicly soon. So, one link is to the official website, another one is to the beta in TestFlight.

Mastonaut
macOS, free
mastonaut.app
A desktop client for a strong and independent decentralised Mastodon. Right now it has its many flaws, but I hope it will get better. At least, until we get Ivory for Mac.

For the very beginners, Paul Stamatiou wrote a very detailed Mastodon overview. Subscribe to my Mastodon!

MacWhisper
macOS, free
goodsnooze.gumroad.com/l/macwhisper
Mac app that uses OpenAI's Whisper tech to transcribe audio to text. It works with audio files or you can just dictate. I tried it with different samples and the result is impressive. Though, you still need to edit a transcription manually because it makes a lot of mistakes.

Superstar
macOS, free
apps.apple.com/app/id1635833987
This app lets you read and answer to reviews left by your app's users.

Campsite
Web, free but will be very paid
campsite.design
This service is kinda a Twitter-style feed but only with screenshots of your colleague's designs. It's intended to be used internally to share design updates. I wanted something like that for a long time ago, tbh.

My Pod
iOS, free
apps.apple.com/app/id6443811423
The app that imitates iPod Classic on your iPhone. Download it while it's in the App Store, I guarantee that Apple will take it down. And check out its haptic clicks, feels so good and exactly like on a real iPod!

Music Remote, Music Widget, Music MiniPlayer
macOS, free
marioaguzman.github.io/music
Three fun retro-styled “widgets” to control music that plays in iTunes.

🧶 Den's Blog ∙ #usefulapps

​Just completed Kingdom Come: Deliverance, an RPG game that was released in 2018. It aged very well since then. As proof, I took some screenshots along the way:
blog.talala.ru/kingdom-come-deliverance

🧶 Den's Blog ∙ #games

​Mammoth
iOS, macOS, free
getmammoth.app
I've already recommended nice apps for Mastodon in previous episode of #usefulapps, but this one is also very, very nice. The best feature of Mammoth is customizability of literally anything. Settings section is huge, and you can not only change the app's icon and color tint, but for example hide search bars on every screen (what I did).

HiDock
macOS, free
hidock.app
New Rafa Conde's app for saving settings of your Dock in macOS depending on which screen you see it (read: external monitors). Might be useful if you're connecting your MacBook to many different displays or just one at your work place.

Lasso
macOS, 12 €
thelasso.app
Another window manager but this one is with nice user interface and a beautiful app icon made by Yannick Lung.

Cheatsheet
iOS, macOS, watchOS, free+
overdesigned.net/cheatsheet
Cheatsheet lets you save short texts that you can quickly enter anywhere with a third-party keyboard. It has the level of simplicity that I like in apps.

Eventually
iOS, free
eventually.app
Tiny app made by Daniel Eden that shows birthdays or other significant events in one list or in home screen widget.

QuickShade
macOS, free
apps.apple.com/us/app/quickshade/id931571202?mt=12
This utility app lets you control the brightness of Mac's screen more precisely than macOS itself. Thanks Evgeniy who found it!

► Den's Blog ∙ #usefulapps

​Updated the website for Urban Psychopaths, a band of my best friend, and yours truly:
urbanpsychopaths.com

​I recommend here interesting apps and utilities mostly randomly, but this time we have a topic: internet hygiene. There are plenty of apps that help to make internet more convenient for us, we just rarely use it for some reason. Here are some apps that fix problems you encounter every day.

Quitter
macOS, free
marco.org/apps
Quitter is a Mac app that automatically hides or quits apps after periods of inactivity. It’s great for minimizing distraction from social apps like Twitter and Slack, news readers, or even your email app.

Jellyfin
Crossplatform, free
jellyfin.org
Creating a Plex mediaserver never worked for me, it is just too complicated. And Plex itself looks like a programming IDE. Recently I had to find a solution and I’ve found one! It’s free and open-source media server Jellyfin. Give it a chance.

Eat the Shorts
macOS, $2
apps.apple.com/gb/app/eat-the-shorts-for-safari/id1668012393?mt=12
Tired of seeing a mass of YouTube Shorts every time you open YouTube? Browse YouTube as it should be, simply long form videos that you want to see. Block YouTube Shorts quick and easily with Eat the Shorts. Hide Shorts from your subscriptions, from channels and even browsing.

Minimal Twitter
macOS, free
typefully.com/minimal-twitter
Not that I care about it anymore but some people still do. This app allows you to customize your Twitter experience: hide view counts, remove “For you / Following” tabs, remove Trends sidebar, customize Timeline width, remove promoted posts, remove “Who to Follow” and other suggestions, etc.

One Thing
macOS, free
sindresorhus.com/one-thing
This tiny but beautiful utility just adds any text or character in the menubar. That's it.

Pure Paste
macOS, free
sindresorhus.com/pure-paste
Force macOS always strip down text styles when you copy–paste. I needed that a long time ago. Quality of life improvement!


Next 4 apps are made by the same developer Jeffrey Johnson. Our tastes in the internet of today match perfectly.

StopTheMadness
macOS, $10 ∙ iOS, $8
underpassapp.com/stopthemadness
A web browser extension that stops web site annoyances and privacy violations.

Tweaks for Twitter
macOS, $5 ∙ iOS, $5
underpassapp.com/tweaks
A web browser extension that improves the user interface of Twitter in many ways. Similar to Minimal Twitter (see above) and paid. But good.

Link Unshortener
macOS, $8
underpassapp.com/linkunshortener
Link Unshortener is a Mac app that expands shortened web links, following redirects until it reveals the destination URL. Never again click a link before you know where it's going!

Stop the Mac App Store
macOS, free
github.com/lapcat/StopTheMacAppStore
Stop the Mac App Store is an app for macOS 11 or later that automatically handles Mac App Store URLs instead of App Store app. If you allow Safari to open a Mac App Store URL in Stop the Mac App Store, the app's page will then open in the App Store. This lets you stop App Store from automatically opening.


► Den's Blog ∙ #usefulapps

​I didn't communicate it here because I usually try separating my projects so it's not the same in my channel, my blog, and my social medias. But sometimes I think it's worth mentioning. Showroom podcast has recently reached 200th episode and we celebrated it with some changes, including a new cover artwork.

If you one of my russian-speaking followers (which is 99% possibility), go and subscribe to one of my longest and most cared pet projects!

► https://russiancast.club/showroom

My first impressions and thoughts after Apple's keynote presentation at WWDC 2023 about Vision Pro headset:

https://blog.talala.ru/vision-pro

► Den's Blog ∙ #articles

Сделал обзор своего нового клёвого гаджета — портативного электронасоса Xiaomi Air Compressor 1S для велосипедов:

► https://youtu.be/L_Eqadb8j7k

Подробные впечатления об этом насосе и рассказ ещё об одном девайсе будет в следующем выпуске @podcastshowroom, подписывайтесь заранее!

​Once in a while I visit Letterspace meetups in Amsterdam where type designers give talks about their works. This time, July 12 2023, the meetup was at Oedipus Brewery, and the creative director of Oedipus (or, “head of color”) Victor Brangolo told us how he created a unique typeface for using it for beer labels and brewery's promo materials. I took some pics inside the brewery itself and its surroundings.

► http://blog.talala.ru/oedipus

​There are new posts in my blog with tons of screenshots from 2 games I finished (relatively) recently — Starfield and Alan Wake 2. I liked them both but in different ways. If you're ready to spoil everything for yourself, or if you've already played/finished these games, you are welcome:
► https://blog.talala.ru/starfield
► https://blog.talala.ru/alan-wake-2

This year I (re)started a hobby: photography. I've equipped to the max with overkill gear I don't know how to use and started publishing my photographic efforts on wonderful Glass:
► https://glass.photo/talala

If you're curious about my adventures, I previously posted some pics from trips to Norway and southern Italy, too:
► https://instagram.com/admirerden

Also, this year I hosted two friends here in Amsterdam. Artur mentioned me several times in his “digest” post (in Russian, again):
► https://arturpaikin.com/ru/digest-19

My “Year in Review” is short this time, because I don't have the energy for anything bigger. But I'm recuperating now, and I will come back to you in the next one with something surprizing, for sure. Happy holidays!

​A couple days ago I've updated my personal website:
► https://talala.info

It features my works and personal projects as before but better:
► https://talala.info/works
► https://talala.info/projects

And it now tells about me not only as a professional designer but also as a person with diverse hobbies. For example, Games section shows you my collection of (mostly) retro consoles and lists all games I've ever played:
► https://talala.info/games

Feel free to look around there!

​My new shots with beautiful architecture of Amsterdam:

1. https://glass.photo/talala/js1ELH6L2PSqv8EtE1OPo
2. https://glass.photo/talala/2h3WWwmOdKR9umWaP9ySNa
3. https://glass.photo/talala/172fjuwP2ugh1d75GcdPtl

​I recently visited the city of Almere and took some nice pictures there. Check it out!

► https://glass.photo/talala

I started using DuckDuckGo search several years ago as an experiment and it kinda sticked. I didn't have any problems with finding anything from that “Bing in disguise” since then. But recently I decided to make a reversed experiment and start using Google search for a while. And the following is what I learned.

It turns out that adding a key udm=14 to a search query for Google removes all the trash such as cards, AI answers, etc. It leaves only web search results, check it out:

👎 with trash:
https://google.com/search?q=scarlett%20johansson

👍 without trash:
https://google.com/search?q=scarlett%20johansson&udm=14

There is a website dedicated to this lifehack (remember this word?):
► udm14.com

Of course, nobody is going to add this key for every single search query. I solved the problem with a $1 Safari extension that I already use for a long time and that I previously recommended in this channel, Keyword Search:
http://safarikeywordsearch.aurlien.net

With Keyword Search, I've set up my search string like this:

https://google.com/search?udm=14&q=@@@

And now, when I type g scarlett johansson, it brings me nice and clean web search results.

​Intro / Back Again

I didn't post anything for over a year here. Meanwhile, the life didn’t stop. I didn’t stop being a designer living in Amsterdam. I didn't stop shooting pictures. I didn’t stop podcasting. I just stopped posting about it all because I had so much happening in my life. I missed having a place to think out loud — about tools, apps, design and aesthetics, creative ruts, gear I love (or hate). So I'm back!

Expect irregular updates about design, photography, tech, maybe podcasting. No content strategy. Just sharing what feels interesting — when it feels interesting. Thanks for still being here, if you are. If you’re new:
– Hi, I’m Den, nice to meet you!

My website that I didn't update for a long time:
https://talala.info

My photography:
https://glass.photo/talala

My social profiles:
https://mas.to/@talala
https://twitter.com/r3s3t
https://instagram.com/admirerden

A little review of my cool new computer mouse Pulsar X2 CrazyLight:
https://blog.talala.ru/pulsar-crazylight

I visited the AMC clinic in Amsterdam again (the first time was the Emergency room, after I accidentally cut off the tip of my finger, this time I had to get an X-ray, no big deal) and saw it from a different perspective. It turns out that it is not just a clinic, but a whole city under the roof, with streets, squares, and lampposts, with stores, coffeeshops, and restaurants… The scale is impressive.

I suddenly came across an amateur urbanist, Nick Laporte from Canada, who’s really into the Netherlands. He decided to bike across (almost) the whole country. Along the way he shows how cities are set up, how they’re adapted for bikes (with historical perspective), what other countries can learn from Dutch urban planning, and he interviews locals while biking (very Dutch!). Maybe he butchers Dutch place names, but his vlog turned out excellent and truthful. I think if anyone was planning to make a vlog about the Netherlands, they can drop that idea — doing it better than Nick will be quite tough.

Nick has already released 7 videos of his trip. Here’s the first one:
https://youtu.be/_cHwykyBxks

A gorgeous stallion I've met not far from a small village Driemond in between Amsterdam and Weesp.

Leica SL3
Sigma 85mm ƒ/1.4 Art

https://glass.photo/talala/1pTWlWURLR8gJGgcaNEOjm

Every time I ride my bike past a horse farm, I can’t help stopping to take pictures. These big, friendly animals are one of the most underappreciated gifts we have.

Leica SL3
Sigma 150–600mm ƒ/5–6.3 Sport

https://glass.photo/talala/N2KpJ5rITbQfCdWCLWHv3