While reading an article, I came across a link to a court document hosted on Scribd. However, Scribd charges a monthly fee of $12 to access their hosted files. Since I didn't want to subscribe just to read a document that is in the public domain, I used a website called Scribd.vpdfs.com to download the file instead. (You may want to check out the numerous complaints filed with the Better Business Bureau by users who claim that Scribd continued to charge them even after they canceled their subscription.) — MF

I need to transcribe a large number of recorded interviews every month.. I used to be a subscriber to Otter.ai, but it has a limit of 10 uploads per month. I have found a superior replacement, notta.ai, which is cheaper ($8.25 per month) and offers 1,800 minutes (30 hours) of transcription per month, which is more than enough for my needs. Notta's free plan provides 120 minutes, which should be sufficient for most people. I’ve also noticed that Notta is faster and just as accurate as Otter. — MF

If you need to merge, split, compress, or convert PDFs, try ILovePDF. This free site transforms PDFs into various file formats (and vice versa). You can also use it to edit, sign, unlock, encrypt, and repair PDFs. — MF

PowerOutage.us is a near real-time map of power outages in the United States. States are color-coded based on the number of customers experiencing power loss. By clicking on individual states, you can access more detailed information about the specific outages in the counties of that state. — MF

This website is a tool for ranking a list of items such as movies, video games, restaurants, songs, or anything else.  You start by inputting an unordered list of the items you want to rank. Then you click the button, and it displays two items from the list. Click your favorite of the two, and then it displays another pair of things from your list. After several rounds, the site generates a ranked list for you, ordering your items from best to worst. — MF

I’ve been using the new Readwise Reader as a repository for all my digital highlights. As an added bonus for users, there is a Weekly Wisereads newsletter that gives me the most highlighted content across the internet. That goes beyond just articles and includes the most highlighted YouTube video, Twitter thread, PDF or handpicked RSS feeds. The newsletter has also been gifting away free EPUBS by notable authors to add to your Reader. I’m an avid user of my Readwise highlighting app, so I really appreciate reading what everyone else is highlighting and reflecting on. — CD 

A lot of the dots in a QR code are superfluous, meaning that they can be arranged into a picture, and not just randomly. Thus you can make the QR code into a picture. This neat little free website called QArt Coder will generate a QR for a website you give it (say your homepage) using an image you give it (say your portrait), yielding a QR code with a stylized image of you (or say a logo, or totem). Short urls and small high contrast images work best. I’m making stickers from my impressionist QR self-portrait. Hold a phone to it, and it takes you to my home page. — KK

When I travel internationally, some of the websites I use for work and entertainment block connections outside the United States. For the last year, I’ve been using ProtonVPN, which is based in Switzerland and has strict privacy policies (it doesn’t keep logs of the websites you visit). I use ProtonVPN to route my internet service through one of Proton’s U.S. hosts, so all the websites I visit think I’m in Los Angeles no matter where I happen to be. They offer a free version, but I pay $100 a year for higher speed and additional options. — MF

Some computer and software problems can only be solved by getting the expert onto your computer. The way to do that remotely is with TeamViewer. My tech-savvy son acts as my IT-support guy, and so he comes onto my computer, from wherever he is, on his computer. We use TeamViewer which enables this remote connection instantly, easily, securely and for free. (Free for private use. TeamViewer’s income comes from businesses users.) He is able to control my machine remotely. It works like magic, and because we both have it installed, we’ll invoke it without hesitation. (Of course, be sensible about using or installing this powerful tool.) — KK

Think of Setapp like Netflix for Macintosh applications. For a monthly subscription fee, you get access to 210+ curated apps. I’ve recommended Setapp here before, but they have a few new apps I find myself using every day that I want to mention: Rocket Typist, Paste, and TextSniper. Setapp is usually $10 a month, but here’s a link to get a year for $69. — MF

I’ve been a paying subscriber to Setapp for years. It’s a subscription service to over 200 Mac apps. They carefully curate the apps and find ones that are well made and useful. Some of my favorites are CleanMyMac X, Luminar, Downie, CleanShot X, Permute, ClearVPN, World Clock Pro, and CloudMounter. It’s $10 a month, but new users can get their first year for $70. — MF.

I often come across text on my computer that I can’t copy, such as error messages, screenshots, PDFs, or Kindle Cloud reader pages. I bought a $4 optical character recognition utility called TextSniper that lets me grab uncopyable text that’s on my display and save it as plain text to the clipboard. (It also reads QR and barcodes!) I quickly have become dependent on it. (It’s Mac-only.) — MF

I’ve been using CleanMyMac X every day for a few years now. It’s an all-in-one Mac utility and health monitoring system that makes it easy to check my internet speed, see how much storage I have on my hard drives and cloud storage accounts, completely delete applications, scan for malware, and find and zap space-hogging files. The latest version has M1 support, improved navigation, and a quick way to remove unneeded code from Universal binaries. — MF

I wanted to learn a 3D modeling program and everyone told me Blender was good and free. I downloaded it and watched a one-hour tutorial video on Skillshare (Skillshare is $10 a month for unlimited tutorial videos. Here’s a link for a free 14-day subscription). While watching the video, I made this vase. I watched a few more videos and then made this toy, which includes primitive animation. I’m having a lot of fun exploring what I can do with this powerful application. — MF

Adobe Illustrator is mission-critical for my work so the monthly subscription to Creative Cloud – which costs $53 a month and also includes Photoshop, Acrobat, Premiere, Audition, and InDesign, all of which I use frequently – is worth it. The problem is a Creative Cloud subscription works on up to 2 computers at a time, and there are times when 3 or even 4 members of my family need to use it. So I bought this Mac app called Amadine, which is a very nice clone of Illustrator. One of my daughters uses it now and likes it just as much as Illustrator. I tried it and agree, it’s excellent, as are the tutorial videos for it.  It’s usually $20, but it’s on sale for $10. A great deal. — MF

Permute is a Macintosh desktop app that converts video, audio, and image files from one format to another. It’s versatile and has not failed me yet. I was able to use it to convert a video that was terribly jittery that no other application could fix, but Permute converted it to an mp4 and it came out perfect. It costs $15 from the developer and it also comes with Setapp’s large library of applications available by subscription for $10 a month, which is how I found it. You can try Setapp for 7 days for free. — MF

I recommended Dictanote a few weeks ago. It’s a Chrome-based application that converts speech to text. It’s faster and less buggy than my Mac’s built-in dictation. Recently, Dictanote released a Google Chrome extension that lets you use Dictanote within almost any website. Now I’m using it to answer emails in Gmail, which has been a big time saver. It doesn’t work with Google Docs, which is unfortunate, but for longer form speech-to-text writing I use Dictanote’s notebook and copy and paste the text (in fact, I’m using the notebook to write this recommendation). It’s $19, and because I’m such a terrible typist, it paid for itself within the first day or two. — MF

GPT-2 is an application that produces novel text based on a text prompt (Here’s how to install it). Most of what it generates hovers on the border of sense and nonsense. Here are four pieces of advice it has given to me.  — MF

• “If we cannot make sense of the present, we cannot plan for the future.”

• “The more we change to meet the challenges in our lives, not to stay where we are, the more successful we will be.”

• “If it is an animal you have seen, do you think it will be like you, too? This is the first statement of my doctrine, that all things are one thing. Do you want me to prove it, or to let it pass?” —Philosopher Epicurus (384-399 A.D.)

• “Your gut tells you it’s not right to continue investing in some idea–it’s too risky, because its consequences are hard to understand. Your gut is right about one thing, though: there is no way of knowing it’s not wrong to spend your energy making the best decision for yourself and your goals.”

I’ve been using TextExpander for at least 10 years and it has saved me hundreds of hours of typing. It’s a global utility that converts short snippets of text into canned text. For instance, when I type “mf” it changes it to “Mark Frauenfelder.” When I type “adr” it changes it to my home address. “Bio” spits out my biography and a link to my headshot photos. I have a lot of canned boilerplate for email responses that save me a ton of time. It can also add anything that’s saved in my clipboard to a chunk of boilerplate. It also corrects frequently misspelled words. The Mac OS has snippet expansion but lacks many of the features and the snap of TextExpander. I can’t stand using other people’s computers to write or do email because not having TextExpander slows me way down. — MF

Setapp is a subscription service for Mac applications. I pay $10 a month for over 180 useful applications. I don’t use all of them, but the ones I use are indispensable throughout my day. I use Meeter to quickly enter scheduled Zoom meetings. I use Mosaic to move and place windows on my desktop. CleanMyMac X has a bunch of useful utilities to free up disk space and delete apps and large files. IM+ puts my Google chats and Slack groups into one convenient place. Downie makes it easy to download YouTube videos. Forecast bar is a great menu bar weather application. I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Setapp also adds new applications into their offerings frequently, and I’m always eager to check them out. If you have a Mac and are interested in design, productivity, and utilities, this is a no-brainer. (I’ve mentioned Setapp on Recomendo before but they’ve added so many useful apps to their collection that it was  time for an update.) — MF