Personal website of Aaron Czichon, Software & Web Engineer

Mona, the Mastodon client for iOS, iPadOS, and Mac from Junyu Kuang, is out today with a significant version 6 update. Mona is my choice for using Mastodon primarily due to what John referred to in his review as its ‘epic level of customization.’ Everything from how the taskbar at the bottom of the screen

Please, not another “unexpected item in the bagging area.”

I got my iPhone 15 Pro Max last week, and I’m loving the possibilities opened by the Action button combined with the Shortcuts app. But as I was playing around with different ideas for the Action button, I had a thought: Wouldn’t it be great if instead of just one shortcut, I could toggle between

Are you a plant and nature lover looking to make the most of your garden? Look no further! This article will provide you with the top Apple shortcuts for tracking germination, monitoring growth, and more. You can easily take advantage of the iOS to ensure your plants are given all

Threads has taken the world by storm and established new playbooks, and although it isn’t my favorite social network, I’m enjoying kicking the tires

Personal computers, including smartphones, are really general purpose computers in that they and their software is built for, well, everyone. Their operating systems and most of their apps are desi…

Setup Home Assistant to post (Toot) to Mastodon via an automation

Things 3.17 is out for iPhone, iPad, and Mac with greatly expanded support for Shortcuts. That opens up a much wider variety of possible automations than ever before. It’s a lot to take in at once, but I’ve been playing with these actions since the end of last year, so I thought I’d highlight what

We will begin to introduce several new capabilities to GitHub Copilot in 2023 to continue delivering responsible innovation and true happiness at the keyboard.

Tech can expose police abuse, but activists say its uses are limited.

After playing around with the Shortcuts betas, I noticed two changes and shared about them on Twitter — first, we have updated groups for symbols, and second, keyboard shortcuts on the iPad:

On Wednesday, after the Apple Watch Ultra reviews dropped, I wrote up a quick story about the total apps that support Shortcuts now (as announced at WWDC) and how many of those can run from the new Action button on the watch.I'm hoping to get my hands on one soon and try it out, plus I'll be sharing my technique for turning the one dedicated shortcut into a multitool (as I mentioned in the post):

Christina is off this week. Jeff interviews Brett about why and how he builds the tools he builds.

Last week, I published a story for iMore covering the Menu Bar applet for Shortcuts on the Mac and gave a few examples of how to build your shortcuts to work well when triggered there — check out the example shortcuts for sure:

Rosemary Orchard has released the second edition of her book Take Control of Shortcuts, a guide to everything Shortcuts for iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

When the Share icon appears, your shortcuts are near.

In this episode, Rose and David explain some of their favorite small automation tools and how they work.

Finally, a way to deal with all of those tabs you have open.

This spring, I relaunched my entire Shortcuts Library with over 600 total shortcuts, including a special set of 150 bundle shortcuts attached to each folder page that compiles all the shortcuts in a category into a single multi-tool shortcut (for members only).Check out the full collection and see what's new — I'm adding iOS 16 beta shortcuts and new folders regularly starting with the public release:

I am excited to introduce RoutineHub's new owner, Chris Mendez.

YouTube is great for music discovery. Here are 3 ways to convert your discovered YouTube music videos to your music app for regular listening.

With iOS 15 reaching its last beta cycle and the anticipation of iOS 16 on the horizon, here's why you should spend some free time this summer setting up Shortcuts.

John: One of the hardest things about a new project is keeping it under wraps until it’s ready. That was true of Automation April in general, but it was especially true of the Shortcuts Contest. As soon as we’d decided on the outline of what the contest would be, we knew it was something that

Lapsed Auto Writer and self-described Software Historian. My Drafts-specific GitHub repo for documentation and config stuff. Actions Fetch contents of # Tot Dot | Drafts Directory Send Draft to Telegram Saved Messages | Drafts Directory Append to 7th Tot Dot | Drafts Directory List Action Shortcuts, Comma-Delimited | Drafts Directory Markdown Footnote (Variation) | Drafts Directory Markdown Emphasis (*) | Drafts Directory Embed Action Groups NeoCities | Drafts Directory Themes The Psa...