ldstephens weblog
ldstephens weblog
ldstephens
A weblog by ldstephens. This is my little corner of the web where I share whatever’s on my mind: stories, random thoughts, and the occasional rant.
Latest Posts
May 15, 2026 Monday I noticed an itchy spot on my upper back. By Tuesday, there was a hard bump where I’d been scratching it. Wednesday it was still itchy, and because of the bump I had Lisa take a look at it. Turns out it was a tick...
May 14, 2026 The other day I wrote in my notes: I'm contemplating migrating my task manager to the free version of Todoist. I'm speculating that Things 4 may be released soon, and I'm hesitant to pay an upgrade fee for three devices or a...
May 12, 2026 I’ve been refining my file-over-app workflow lately. For things like blog posts, daily notes, journal entries, and notes, I prefer working in a markdown text editor. In my case that’s MarkEdit. At the same time, most of the...
May 11, 2026 I installed Hyperduck by Sindre Sorhus on my iPhone and Mac back in February 2023. I don’t think I’ve used it once since then. This morning an update for the iOS app reminded me it was even installed. I had honestly...
I keep a monthly journal in Markdown; one file per month, each entry stamped with the date and time. For a while I was creating those files by hand. That got old fast. So I wrote a Python script to handle it and want to share it with...
May 8, 2026 I keep a monthly journal in Markdown; one file per month, each entry stamped with the date and time. For a while I was creating those files by hand. That got old fast. So I wrote a Python script to handle it and want to share...
On my Mac, I use Alfred for quick searches across specific engines. The setup is: custom URL patterns with keyword triggers gs in the Alfred bar launches a Google search, ds launches DuckDuckGo. The problem is Alfred doesn't exist on...
Most iPhone and iPad users know you can adjust font size globally by going to Settings > Display & Brightness > Text Size. But you can also change it for a single app without touching anything else. Here's how: 1. Open the app you want...
Recently I checked my iCloud storage and found I'd used 31 GB of my 50 GB plan. Most of it — 17 GB — was backups. When I dug into the backup list, I found one for an iPad I no longer own. Nearly 6 GB, just sitting there. Deleted it, got...
Fastmail has folders that can auto-purge emails? This feature lets you automatically delete messages from a folder after a certain amount of time. I’ve found it to be a great way to manage notification emails that I want to keep for a...
Sitting at my desk this morning, tinkering with Drafts, I found myself wondering why I'd been experimenting with Bear as a replacement in the first place. I switched to Bear because I prefer its UI. Specifically, I didn't like how Drafts...
My Bear Notes experiment is moving along nicely, though I was tempted to pull Drafts back into the mix this morning. The only thing still rattling around in my head is the app-vs-database question whether I want my notes living in a...
This morning I'm experimenting with Bear again. I love the UI and the way everything is organized in the sidebar with tags. I'm considering it as a replacement for Drafts. My issue with Drafts is how cluttered the UI feels, particularly...
Today I was working on a blog project collecting a bunch of post links to use in another project. When I need to visit a lot of posts on my blog, I do it through a localhost:8080 version of the site instead of the live one. I run an...
April 28, 2026 Today I was working on a blog project collecting a bunch of post links to use in another project. When I need to visit a lot of posts on my blog, I do it through a localhost:8080 version of the site instead of the live...