I don't often write about music albums, but it's kind of a chill Saturday for me and it feels fitting to mention my soundtrack at the moment, the recently-released Honestly by singer-songwriter Gabe Bondoc. I've been following this guy on Youtube for a while—starting with this video, if memory serves—and I always enjoy his music, which is especially good for driving with…
It's been over a year since we last mentioned 1Password on T&T. Given the recent discovery of the Heartbleed SSL bug that has people all over the internet changing their passwords, now seems a good time to remind everyone why 1Password is awesome. Rather than memorizing a bunch of different, complicated passwords, most people opt to use a single login for everything.…
My wife runs her own dance school, which often requires us to leave town for competitions and performances. On those trips, we track our mileage and travel expenses for tax purposes. Nothing a simple notepad can't handle, but I am a nerd so I enjoy the extra bells and whistles of an app like Mileage Log+ for iPhone. Made by the same…
I've been a fan of Tim Schafer's games since I was a kid, especially Grim Fandango and Psychonauts. The guy is a fantastic storyteller whose games are often charming, humorous, and even a little strange (in the best way). Schafer's newest point-and-click adventure game for Mac and PC, Broken Age, proves that he hasn't lost his touch. There are two teenage protagonists…
People have mixed feelings about Comic Sans. "Civilians" love the font for its casual handwritten look, while designers just love to hate it. Graphic designer Craig Rozynski decided he'd had enough of this divide, and designed a new typeface intended to make both camps happy: Comic Neue. In Craig's own words: “The squashed, wonky, and weird glyphs of Comic Sans have been…
Deckset is a Mac app for making slide presentations with Markdown. Compose your thoughts in your favorite text editor, send them to Deckset, and it uses one of several themes to give your words a little flair. Deckset recognizes Markdown formatting for headers, code (with automatic syntax highlighting!), blockquotes, and more. You can also add photos and videos to your slides. It…
Our friend Bradley Chambers updated his iBook and screencast series, Learning to Love Evernote, to version 2.0 today. He has re-recorded every video with new tips, tricks, and workflows to account for updated editions of the Evernote iOS apps. It's a free update for anyone who already owns the book. If you didn't pick up Learning to Love Evernote the last time…
Another Amazon gadget? This is getting weird. Amazon Dash is a supplementary device for members of the AmazonFresh delivery service (currently only available in certain zip codes of San Francisco, Southern California, and Seattle). It's a neat way to shop for groceries and other household items without leaving home. Out of milk? Scan the empty carton's barcode. Plan on making cookies soon?…
Fire TV is Amazon's new $99 media-streaming and gaming box for HDTVs. Like its competitors—such as the Apple TV, Chromecast, and Roku—Fire TV can stream from a number of services like Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube, Pandora, and more. One feature that sets it apart is the remote control's built-in mic, which allows you to hold a button and search…
Research has shown that sitting at a desk all day is terrible for our health, well-being, productivity, and even life expectancy. Standing desks—especially those that adjust between sitting and standing positions—are a good way to counteract the negative effects of all that sitting, but they can be pretty expensive. (A fact I'm all too familiar with; my current "standing desk" is a…
Monument Valley is a new game for iPhone and iPad that was clearly inspired by the art of M.C. Escher. You play as Ida, a silent princess who must navigate and exit a series of seemingly impossible architecture by solving puzzles and avoiding the strange inhabitants of each world. Each level presents a structure that looks impossible to traverse, but by moving…
Speaking of TextExpander Touch, it's been updated to version 2.5 and sports a new iOS 7 design along with some new features. They've made it much easier to rename and reorder snippet groups, as well as move individual snippets between groups. Groups that are only useful on a Mac can now be disabled for iOS. They've also added some external keyboard shortcuts:…
The only thing that ever bugged me about Fantastical 2 was that it was an iPhone-only app. I suppose it still worked well enough on an iPad in 2x mode, but thankfully our long national nightmare is over because Fantastical 2 for iPad was released this morning. The new interface is more like a dashboard than strictly a calendar. In addition to…
As slim as wallets have gotten in recent years, there are still times when it's unfeasible to carry one. Some mornings, I enjoy a quick bike ride to and from my local coffee shop but I'm often wearing shorts with no pockets. I could toss my wallet and keys into a backpack, but I don't need or want to carry all my…
WriteRight is an app for iPhone and iPad that probably won't replace your favorite iOS text editor (cough Editorial cough), but works nicely as a supplemental writing and editing tool. It analyzes your writing and offers synonyms and antonyms for any highlighted text, and will even show alternative ways to phrase a multi-word selection. It understands gender, number, and conjugation, so its…
The Leatherman Mako Ti Bike Tool, made from aerospace-grade titanium, packs several bike repair tools into a small, light package. It comes with everything listed below: A variety of box wrenches: 8mm, 9mm, 10mm, 15mm, and 16mm 14 and 15g spoke wrenches 5mm and 6mm Allen heads 2 Phillips head T25 Torx Bottle opener (it's not exactly a bike repair tool, but…
For a long time, my go-to recipe manager was Evernote. Then, it was Basil for iPad. It's been a while since that switch, but the limitation of Basil being iPad-only (amongst a few other quibbles) has finally started wearing on me, so I've been looking for another replacement. I should've known that our sister site The Sweet Setup had already compared recipe…
As I've mentioned in the past, the best tool in my kitchen is my cast iron skillet. My cheap metal spatula kind of sucks though, so I've been on the lookout for something better. Thankfully, The Sweethome did the leg work for me by testing a bunch of spatulas and naming the Mercer Hell's Handle fish spatula ($23) as their top pick.…
“What if bags could be more? What if bags could tell stories?” This is the question Quanda Ong asked himself in May 2013, when he quit his banking job to found fashion company Gnome & Bow. This mindset led him to develop an imaginative brand that focuses on making great bags and other accessories that use clever, subtle details to tell a…
If you're the kind of person that likes to know how the infrastructure all around you works, then you're gonna love Kate Ascher's books. In 2007's The Works: Anatomy of a City, she showed us the myriad factors that keep a city like NYC running every day. You find out all sorts of interesting things: how electricity makes its way from the…