Amerpie by Lou Plummer

"Do You Feel Like We Do (Live)" by Peter Frampton Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. Post a song that uses an instrument in an abnormal way - Do You Feel Like We Do by Peter Frampton The talk box turns the guitar into a voice-like instrument, especially in the live version from Frampton Comes Alive!. View Lou Plummer's Crucial Tracks profile

"The Streets of Laredo (Mono)" by Johnny Cash Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. **What song has the same vibe as your favorite book? Which book? Streets of Laredo by Johnny Cash" The great American novel is Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry, on the surface, just a western, but underneath it deals with the the roles of men and women, the lives the previously enslaved and Native Americans. It speaks to the rule of law, of the military and of big business. It's…

Airspace, an app I downloaded today, has a lot going for it. It removes a classic Apple friction point by letting you name your virtual desktops, customize their appearance, and assign keyboard shortcuts to jump between them. It also helps me illustrate a point. Making a decision about the right price for an app has to be one of the hardest parts of releasing something new. Some of the most versatile and useful apps in the Mac ecosystem are priced absurdly low. I am looking at you,…

"Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" by Bob Dylan Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. Share a song you call something other than its official title. What do you call it? - Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 by Bob Dylan I just call it by the chorus - Everybody must get stoned, which really isn't the drug reference all the squares think it is, but a reference to the Book of Acts in the Bible and that old religious practice of killing folks who don't act they way they are told to.…

When the free app DockDoor was released in 2024, it was the first time I had seen a developer add window previews to the Mac Dock in much the same way that other operating system from Redmond handles them. For kicks, it also included a Windows-style application switcher, also free. I have been updating some older reviews, so I went back to check on DockDoor. Not only does the original free version still exist, but the developer has also added a paid Pro version with a much larger feature set.…

"Play a Train Song" by Robert Earl Keen Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. Share a song you discovered via another artist's song (cover, sample, featured artist, etc) - Pay a Train Song by Robert Earl Keen I love Robert Earl Keen and the late Todd Snider equally. I don't know whose version of this sing-along classic I like the best. View Lou Plummer's Crucial Tracks profile

Top Shelf For the past few weeks, I’ve been beta testing a new release of Bartender; an app with an interesting, and at times slightly controversial, history. Despite that, it’s a utility I’ve relied on for years. I recently did a deep dive into the problems macOS changes have created for menu bar managers and what those changes mean going forward. Even with a few lingering issues in the category, I still came away viewing Bartender as the best overall option for serious Mac users. The new…

"A Day In the Life" by The Beatles Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. Share a song from an album you think has great cover art. - A Day in the Life by The Beatles View Lou Plummer's Crucial Tracks profile

Droppy An update to Droppy by developer Jordy Spruit dropped this weekend. What started as a free notch app has evolved into a paid, but still inexpensive, suite of Mac productivity tools. The licensing recently changed so that Droppy’s one-time payment now gets you a license for two Macs instead of one. The change is retroactive and applies to all users. From now until May 31st, the price is €6.99. After that, it will be €9.99. Both prices include lifetime updates, including major version…

"How You Remind Me" by Nickelback Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. Post a song by a band you think is overrated, but the song is almost enough to convince you otherwise. - How You Remind Me by Nickelback This Prompt is designed to let people share the Nickelback song they hate the least. View Lou Plummer's Crucial Tracks profile

"Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In" by The 5th Dimension Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. Post one of your favorite Broadway songs. - Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In by The 5th Dimension I'm sticking with the mainstream on this one. This was the most successful Broadway hit of the rock era. View Lou Plummer's Crucial Tracks profile

"House of the Rising Sun" by The Animals Post one of your favorite standards. - House of the Rising Sun by The Animals Eric Burdon has one of the greatest rock and roll voices of all time. Enjoy! View Lou Plummer's Crucial Tracks profile

Substage Substage is a command bar that attaches beneath your Finder window. Select files, type what you want in plain English, and Substage generates a Terminal command, previews its side effects, and runs it with confirmation when needed. Think of it less as an AI assistant and more as a natural language layer between your intent and the Unix tools already built into macOS. The key distinction; the AI’s role ends once the command is generated. After that, real shell tools do the work: sips,…

"Fire and Rain" by James Taylor Listen on Apple Music "Post one of your favorite weather-related songs. - Fire and Rain by James Taylor" This song is definitely part of the soundtrack of my life. My Mom played this record so many times. The picture of JT on the cover seems like a family photograph. If you aren't familiar with the stories behind the tune, it's essentially a 3-part autobiography detailing the suicide of a childhood friend, depression and addiction and finally the challenges of…

"Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) [Single Version]" by Sly & The Family Stone Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. **Share a song you love that has parentheses (in the title). - Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) by Sly and the Family Stone" Any time I get a chance to celebrate this band, I'm going to do it. They were ground breakers in so many areas - a mixed gender, mixed race group of musicians who were fronted by a certified genius. View Lou…

BundleHunt For bargain hunters, BundleHunt makes the holidays happen four times a year. Many well-known and popular apps have appeared there over the years at prices 70% to 90% below what's the apps typically sell for. This current bundle is no exception The oldest receipt I have for a purchase from them is from 2015. I've purchased over 50 different apps without ever having a bad experience. Here's the current selection. I've posted links to ones I've reviewed in the past. Apps I've Reviewed…

Find Any File The spring sale for Bundle Hunt doesn't officially open until tomorrow, but I have some inside info on what's coming this time around for the bargain hunters out there. One of my favorite apps for over two decades is going on sale for $2. Mac users have a wide range of file search tools, from the built-in Spotlight to professional options like Foxtrot that cost north of $100. The right choice depends on how you actually search. I tend to run the same kinds of queries repeatedly,…

"O Death" by Ralph Stanley Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. A favorite a capella (no instruments, only vocals) track. - O Death by Dr. Ralph Stanley The soundtrack to the Coen Brothers classic film, "O Brother, Where Art Thou" was one of the best selling and highly regarded crossover albums of all time. It sold over 8 million copies in the US and was only the second soundtrack ever to win a Grammy for Album of the Year. This track by the legendary Ralp…

"Gentle On My Mind" by John Hartford Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. Which song was the first one that made you realize music can give you goosebumps? Gentle on My Mind by John Hartford Yes, this a great song, a true classic that changed John Hartford's life. The goosebump part isn't so much from the song as it is from the mass appeal it's had over the years. It's been recorded over 400 times and been on the Billboard Hot 100 five different times. Here are…

"Atomic Power" by Uncle Tupelo Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. Post one of your favorite country songs. - Atomic Power by Uncle Tupelo Uncle Tupelo is one of those bands that I'm just glad I got to be on the same earth with them while they were making music. There is no other group to have affected my adult listening habits like they did. The whole altcounty/Americana/indie/whatever you want to call it scene traces its roots back to these boys in the early…

Tolaria Tolaria is a free, open-source desktop app for macOS and Linux built by Luca Rossi, the author of the Refactoring newsletter. Rossi created Tolaria to manage his own collection of 10,000+ notes. That origin story matters. The feature set feels like it grew out of solving real problems for a real workflow; not something assembled by a product manager or stitched together from an AI roadmap. At its core, Tolaria is a very 2026-style Markdown editor; modern, opinionated, and not trying to…

"Rapper's Delight (Hip-Hop Remix Long Version)" by The Sugarhill Gang Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. What song is your current obsession? Rapper's Delight by Sugarhill Gang On a recent camping trip with six of my grandchildren, I was horrified to learn that none of them had ever heard Rapper's Delight, one of the seminal songs of modern hiphop. Well, all of them have heard it now - multiple times. I take my responsibilities seriously. View Lou Plummer's…

"Crazy" by Patsy Cline Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. Post a song written or co-written by one of your favorite songwriters. - Crazy by Patsy Cline It''s a little know fact that Patsy Cline's signature hit was written by none other than Willie Nelson. I love this song so much that I taught my parrot to whistle it. View Lou Plummer's Crucial Tracks profile

"Who'll Stop the Rain" by Creedence Clearwater Revival Post one of your favorite songs about rain. - Who'll Stop the Rain by CCR Enjoy this video, where John, playing with his children, tells the story of writing this song. It's based on a true story - performing at Woodstock, in the rain. Silencing John Fogerty for years was one of the worst things the modern music business has ever done.CCR wrote and recorded so many great songs in such a short amount of time and then... nothing. I just feel…

"Annabelle" by Gillian Welch Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. Post a track by a solo artist you haven't yet posted. - Annabelle by Gillian Welch Gilliam Welch is one of the best song writers alive today. She's been crafting amazing songs since the 90s. I saw her live at the NC Art Museum a few years back View Lou Plummer's Crucial Tracks profile

"Get Back" by The Beatles A song with a memorable video or TV performance - Get Back by The Beatles The Fab Four played for 42 minutes on the roof of Apple Studio on January 26, 1969. It was their last performance together. Thank god, it was recorded for posterity. View Lou Plummer's Crucial Tracks profile

"Blinded By the Light" by Bruce Springsteen Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. Post a song you consider to be a musical masterpiece. - Blinded By the Light by Bruce Springsteen Little know fact - The Boss wrote this song in perfect iambic pentameter while seated at his kitchen table in Asbury Park, NJ in the early 70s with a paperback rhyming dictionary. BTW, the word is "deuce" not the other word. View Lou Plummer's Crucial Tracks profile

Dockside Most Mac users already rely on drag-and-drop constantly, but macOS never really gave us a good place to stage things temporarily. Finder windows work, but they’re clumsy for quick hand-offs between apps. Dockside turns that gap into a system. It acts like a permanent drop zone beside your Dock where you can park files, preview them, batch them, trigger actions, and move them between apps without juggling Finder windows. Turning Drag and Drop Into a System Just because you want to use a…

"Because the Night" by Patti Smith Group Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. What is your favourite cover song? Because the Night by Patti Smith The man who wrote this song is the poet laureate of a generation as is Patti Smith. View Lou Plummer's Crucial Tracks profile

"Stayin' Alive" by Bee Gees Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. What song did you hate at first and then fell in love with? Staying Alive by the Bee Gees I was very unimpressed by Disco as a world-weary sixth grader in the 70s. I didn't understand why these guys were singing with such high pitched voices or why the guy who played Vinny Barbarino on Welcome Back Kotter was starring in a dumb movie about dancing. View Lou Plummer's Crucial Tracks profile