Drafts 5 special subscription offer

I’m going to do a 1 year subscription to Drafts 5. Under normal circumstances, I would continue using the free version because that’s all I need. But today the developer posted a tweet with a special offer that I’m interested in.

Now through the end of the day tomorrow, Sept. 18, 2019, all proceeds from new Drafts Pro subscriptions will be donated to support the @_RelayFM St. Jude Fundraiser. Details:. I’ve been thinking about donating but as of yet I haven’t done so. This is a perfect way to do it. I get Drafts Pro for 12 months and the developer is donating the proceeds of my purchase to the RelayFM St. Jude Fundraiser. That sounds like a win-win to me.

Thanks to Greg Pierce for this great offer.

Some thoughts on Apple’s Event – September 10, 2019

This week Apple announced the new iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, Apple Watch Series 5, and iPad. With all the rumors floating around over the last few months the announcements weren’t surprising.

Here are my thoughts.

iPhone
I’ll be trading in my iPhone 7 Plus for a new iPhone 11. My 7 Plus is starting to show its age and I’m getting bored with it. I plan on getting the 64GB model for $499 after my 7 Plus trade-in. Colors? Now that’s a hard one. I’ll have to see the actual phones to decide on that one.

iPad
I might also consider the new iPad or iPad Air with a larger display, pencil, and keyboard to replace my 5th generation iPad. I’m finding myself using my iPad more these days so it would be nice to upgrade.

Watch
I just bought my series 4 Watch this last April so no new Watch for me this year.

Brave browser not remembering per site Shield settings

The other day I wrote that I have been testing Brave on my Mac as my primary browser. So I’m in the process of setting everything up the way I want it. One issue I was having was Shield changes that I made on individual sites weren’t being remembered after quitting and restarting Brave. I tried finding an answer to this issue with a google search but with no luck.

So I did a little tinkering around and here’s how I fixed it.

Go to Settings > Additional settings > Privacy and security > Clear browsing data and make sure Site settings is unchecked in the Advanced and On exit tabs.

Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 DNS server issue

I thought I was having intermittent WiFi dropouts with my MacBook Pro. It started all of a sudden a couple of days ago. The odd thing is, it wasn’t happening on any other devices or my wife’s new MacBook Air.

It was getting frustrating. Websites would take forever to load. Sometimes they would time out. I rebooted my MacBook and turned WiFi on and off. I rebooted my modem and Eero. I ran a speedtest and that also checked good. And after all that the issue persisted.

At a loss for what to do next, I finally remembered that I’m using Cloudflare’s 1.1.1.1 DNS servers. Could that be it?

Yes! I switched back to my ISP’s DNS servers. After doing that everything was working as it should work. I then switched to OpenDNS servers and they worked fine as well.

I’m guessing Cloudflare is having some sort of an unresolved issue with there 1.1.1.1 servers.

Brave browser

I recently wrote about my disappointment that 1Password 6 isn’t going to work with Safari 13.

In Safari 13, the Safari Extensions Gallery is being replaced with Safari App Extensions. What that means is that Safari App Extensions must run through native Mac apps and will only be available through the Mac App Store. Extensions from Extension Gallery will stop working.

That means that my favorite privacy extension uBlock Origin along with other extensions will also stop working in Safari 13. I have a feeling that Safari 13 will have a lot of folks looking for a new browser. I’m one of them.

Based on lots of positive comments in the MPU forum I’m now experimenting with Brave privacy browser. Since it’s open-source and based on Chromium all the extension in the Chrome Web Store will work with it. I’ve been using it for about 2 weeks and so far I’m very pleased.

Reference MPU Forum
Surfin’ with Safari
Brave vs. Firefox vs. Safari?

By the way, the 1Password 6 extension doesn’t work with the current version of Brave browser. You’ll have to upgrade to version 7 or switch to a different password manager. As I mentioned before I’m in the process of switching over to Enpass 6. If you’re interested you can read about it here.

Update – Alfred or Keyboard Maestro or both

This is an update to my Alfred or Keyboard Maestro or both article that I wrote the other day.

I’m back using both Alfred and Keyboard Maestro. After using just Alfred for a few days I discovered a couple of Keyboard Maestro macros that I use that I wasn’t able to replicate in Alfred. So since I need Keyboard Maestro for them I switched back to Keyboard Maestro for all my automation.

I like the way Keyboard Maestro macros work better than Alfred workflows and as a side note, they execute much faster. I also prefer the way web searches are executed using Keyboard Maestro. It’s several keystrokes quicker.

I’ll be upgrading to version 9 very soon.