#macos
macOS apps, utilities, system tools
Writing
- My Local LLM On A 32 GB M1 Pro
How I adapted an M1 Max guide to half the machine by handing it to pi and letting it grill me first, plus the exact, reproducible steps that came out the other end.
- How I Optimized My Zsh Startup Time
An audit of my zsh config turned up shell forks, redundant plugins, and eager evals. Here are the eight fixes that shaved an estimated 400-700 ms off cold start.
TIL notes
Wispr Flow
Back on Wispr Flow after six months on local speech-to-text (FluidVoice with Parakeet, plus Whisper). Local transcription is fine. The cleanup is what’s missing: fixing misheard jargon ate the time dictation saved. Flow’s correction pass, OS-level integration and phone keyboard win. It matters more now because models follow high-level intent well: I speak the intent plus constraints in one go and let the LLM structure it. Whisper mode works even when you speak softly. Want to try it? My referral link gets you a free month of Pro, and I get one once you’ve dictated 2,000 words.
Recordly
Recordly does video recording, screenshots, and demo editing in one open-source Electron app. Not in Homebrew core, but easy to ship via a personal tap:
brew install --cask theskumar/tap/recordly. Replacing my previous screenshot/recording workflow with this as the single default (see Default Apps 2025).FluidVoice
FluidVoice with paraquet v2 is soemthing i’ve been using now as my default speech-to-text on Mac, after evaluating WisperFlow, Handy and VoiceInk.
thaw
thaw a fork of Ice. I’m switching to it, as Ice seems to the inactive now.
Handy
VoiceLink
Learnt about VoiceLink, an alternative to [Wispr Flow] that have been using as my STT software, with it’s pricing model VoiceLink might be better replacement if it performs as good as WisprFlow
New tools
New tools:
- gh-actions-lockfile to generate and verify lockfiles for gh-actions
- Proxyman is more user-friendly http debugging proxy than Charles Proxy on MacOS