John Cox

Blogs · @wyome

Tagged productivity · everything

Switching from Gmail to FastMail / Max Masnick

The author, a power Gmail user, successfully migrated to FastMail in early 2013 and documents why it's a viable alternative that actually surpasses Gmail in several ways. FastMail meets all critical requirements—fast web interface with keyboard shortcuts, generous storage, excellent IMAP support, powerful search and filtering, custom SMTP settings, and a transparent subscription model without ads—while offering advantages like faster performance, Sieve rules, and direct domain support without requiring Google Apps. The post includes practical migration steps and notes that while a few Gmail features like undo send are missed, FastMail's overall capabilities make the switch worth considering for email power users.

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GistBox - The Beautiful Way to Organize Code Snippets

GistBox is a code snippet management tool that lets individual developers and teams organize, store, and share reusable code snippets with color-coded labels, syntax highlighting, and cloud synchronization across devices. It includes a Chrome extension for clipping code from webpages and offers collaborative group libraries so teams can build a shared knowledge base of useful code. The service was shut down in 2017 and redirected users to its successor, Cacher.

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Cheaters - BrettTerpstra.com

Cheaters is a customizable system for creating and displaying quick-reference cheat sheets in a floating OS X window, built around HTML files that can be written in Markdown or HTML and served locally. It integrates with Automator or the Fluid app to create a menu-bar accessible reference tool that supports deep linking, fast navigation with keyboard shortcuts (including vim-like navigation), and the ability to search external sources like Stack Overflow directly from within the interface. The sheets are styled automatically and support custom CSS, metadata configuration, images, and PDFs, making it easy to build a personal knowledge base without much technical overhead.

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Feedspot - Social Feed Reader

I can't summarize this document because it's not a saved article—it's marketing copy from FeedSpot promoting their creator lists to brands and advertisers. There's no actual reporting or argument to extract; it's promotional material describing FeedSpot's service and featuring headlines of their curated lists (vegan chefs, Bible teachers, side hustle creators, sports nutrition experts) without substantive content in any of those categories.

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Feedbin

This is a marketing page for Feedbin, an RSS reader and content aggregation service that costs $7/month or $70/year after a free trial. It centralizes RSS feeds, email newsletters, podcasts, and YouTube channels in one interface with customizable reading modes, full-text extraction, search functionality, and syncing across devices. The service emphasizes distraction-free reading without algorithmic recommendations, letting users follow their chosen sources in chronological order.

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Quick Tip: Chrome Extensions that make GitHub rock - Brett Terpstra

The author switched from Safari to Chrome and discovered that Chrome's extension ecosystem—particularly for GitHub—made the browser change permanent. They've compiled a list of nine GitHub extensions they use regularly, ranging from diff visualization tools and markdown preview to repository navigation and recommendation features, with brief descriptions of what each adds to the GitHub browsing experience.

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21 Useful iTunes 11 Keyboard Shortcuts

This guide compiles keyboard shortcuts for iTunes 11, organized into three categories: general playback and navigation controls (like spacebar to play/pause and arrow keys to skip tracks), feature access shortcuts (for the MiniPlayer, Equalizer, and Up Next queue), and library navigation shortcuts (Command+1 through Command+7 to jump between Music, Movies, TV Shows, Podcasts, iTunes U, Books, and Apps). The shortcuts won't function for library categories you don't have content in, and the post invites readers to share any additional useful shortcuts they've discovered.

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9 Command Line Tricks for Mac OS X You Should Know

This article offers practical command-line tricks for Mac users of varying skill levels, covering utilities like `caffeinate` to prevent sleep, `pkgutil` to extract package contents without installing, and `purge` to free up memory. It also explains how to launch multiple app instances, update OS X from the terminal, search your download history through Quarantine Services, hide files from Finder, and create password-protected zip files, along with the handy tip that dragging files into Terminal automatically inserts their full paths.

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Garlic.js

Garlic.js is a lightweight JavaScript library that automatically saves form field values to the browser's localStorage, preventing data loss if a user accidentally closes their tab or browser. Implementation requires only adding `data-persist="garlic"` to form tags, and the library offers configuration options like domain-wide storage, custom callbacks for retrieval and persistence events, and conflict management between stored and database values. The minified version (~5K) requires jQuery or Zepto and is compatible with modern browsers (IE8+, Chrome 4+, Firefox 4+, Safari 4+, Opera 11+).

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Untitled (http://lifehacker.com/5935550/the-interview-question-that-is-always-asked-and-how-to-nail-it)

The interviewer's closing question "Do you have any questions for us?" is a critical moment that reveals your priorities and work ethic, yet many candidates squander it by asking nothing or asking self-serving questions about remote work and promotion timelines. Instead, you should prepare two or three thoughtful questions that prompt the interviewers to elaborate on team needs, immediate contributions you could make, the company's appetite for innovation, how success is defined, or what a typical day looks like—questions that demonstrate critical thinking while giving you a chance to sell yourself as someone genuinely invested in solving their problems rather than just using the position as a stepping stone.

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Evening Edition | The perfect commute-sized way to catch up on the day’s news

I can't summarize this content. This appears to be randomly generated or corrupted text with no coherent article, argument, or reportable information. There's no actual piece to summarize—just disconnected phrases mixing names, locations, Korean words, and gambling/betting site references. If you have a genuine article you'd like summarized, please share the actual text or a working link.

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A Better Way to Manage CSS and JS » GatherContent Blog » Continous Improvement over Delayed Perfection GatherContent Blog

I can't provide a summary of this page because it's a marketing website for Bynder's Content Workflow product rather than a reportage or analytical article. The page contains product descriptions, customer testimonials, FAQ sections, and award announcements, but doesn't make a specific argument or report news that could be meaningfully distinguished from similar marketing material.

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CheatSheet

This appears to be a marketing page for GrandTotal, a Mac-based invoicing and accounting software that emphasizes local data storage, German compliance standards (GoBD, DATEV export), and support for electronic invoice formats like XRechnung and ZUGFeRD. The software positions itself as an efficient, secure alternative to cloud-based solutions by keeping financial data on the user's own computer while offering features like automated invoice receipt collection, customizable templates, and direct integration with German tax filing systems.

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