Alfred 3.2 is out this week with several nice updates to the workflow options. It now passes the current application focus so that a single hot key can behave differently in different applications. Snippets now support a cursor placement token, which makes it much better for expanding large chunks of text and positioning me right where I need to start typing. Alfred 3.2 also now supports integration with 1Password for families and teams.

Kurt Vonnegut would be 94 today. His words and thought experiments shaped who I am. He made me a better person. I’m glad he kept his shit together for as long as he did. From Kurt’s “Cold Turkey” essay in 2004: “There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don’t know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president”.

If you’re like me, then you may be looking for some distractions this week that don’t involve Twitter, the internet, television or even other humans. I’ve found solace in iBooks and the Kindle service. Hardbound and Viki for Wikipedia are also great distractions.

Bruce Schneier links to an terrifying new research paper: In particular, we developed and verified such an infection using the popular Philips Hue smart lamps as a platform. The worm spreads by jumping directly from one lamp to its neighbors, using only their built-in ZigBee wireless connectivity and their physical proximity. The attack can start by plugging in a single infected bulb anywhere in the city, and then catastrophically spread everywhere within minutes, enabling the attacker to turn all the city lights on or off, permanently brick them, or exploit them in a massive DDOS attack.

Thanks to internet good guy Merlin Mann, I use Fakespot whenever I consider buying something from Amazon. It’s a free service that attempts to analyze product reviews and ratings to identify deceptions. It also aggregates tests and scores sellers so you know if you’re buying from a supplier that is trying to manipulate the system. Now Fakespot has an iOS app that adds a new sharing extension for URLs. The extension does little more than open a web view with Fakespot results, but that’s enough.

It’s an interesting week for IFTTT. At the same time they announce a complete redesign (in both functionality and design), Microsoft dips their straw into the web automation milkshake. I was a huge fan of IFTTT for many years, but the lack of a solid business model a dramatic increase in venture capital lead me to cut ties. I like their technology and the new features look great. But I think I trust Microsoft more even if they have far fewer integrations.

The holiday shopping season is upon us (if you are an obsessive planner and early shopper like me). Every year I publish a list of things I bought on Amazon that wasn’t terrible which might also make a good gift list. Although, I recommend just using the Magic Erasers to clean up after a party, rather than giving them as gifts. Of course, all of these are affiliate links. If my dastardly plans works I’ll break even for the costs to run this site.

Two years ago, we released TapCellar for iOS. This week we removed it from the store. You can hear all about it, including what it cost to make the app, on the latest episode of Nerds on Draft. This was a labor of love to make an app that we wanted to use. While I’m sure it’s a disappointment to the awesome users that have said so many nice things about it, it’s a bigger disappointment to us.

The new MacBook series has made the switch from USB and Thunderbolt 2 to all Thunderbolt 3. Glenn Fleishman did a pretty good job breaking down the new order of things on Twitter: Just to be clear: USB-C ports can’t handle Thunderbolt 3 devices TB3 ports can accept both TB3 and USB-C devices He even goes so far as to link out to a quite excellent CNET article1

iThoughts v4 for iOS and Mac is out today with a great new feature: format with Markdown. This is just wonderful if you like Markdown. Format lists, links, footnotes or even just font weight with Markdown. I think the feature makes working between plain text files and concept maps really seamless. Check out the release notes. There’s also a quick intro to the features on the ToketaWare website with some nice examples of how it handles copy and paste from the web too.