MUST HAVE

• Ocen Audio - light weight single track audio editor. Useful for checking audio before delivering. Can do simple operations, like adjust the gain and apply fades, very quickly.

• uBlock Origin - Browser extension that blocks ads, including on YouTube. May break certain websites.

• OneDrive — Running this as an application means you can manage your OneDrive files and folders through Finder. Similar to iCloud managing your Desktop and Documents, this can cause issues with some files or projects, so recommend using this primarily for BACKUP and ARCHIVE.

  <aside> 📢

  • As a reminder, you get 5TB of storage through OneDrive as a JHU student. </aside>

• Blackhole virtual audio driver — use this to capture system audio when doing screen recordings.

GOOD/FUN TO HAVE

• Raycast — similar using spotlight to launch applications (you are using spotlight to do this, right?) or search for files… but much more useful and powerful.
• Transnomino — batch rename files, more powerful than the batch rename feature built into MacOS.
• Fluor — change the behavior of your FUNCTION keys depending on which application you are using.
• OmniDiskSweeper — show the contents of your storage to identify how you might be able to make space.
• Bitwarden — password manager. Reusing passwords is a security risk. Let Bitwarden do it for you.
• LadioCast — route audio, particularly for screen recording or Zooming. Hasn’t been updated in years, but still works as of MacOS 14 (Sonoma)

Kennedy’s Dumb Little Apps to Fix VERY VERY Minor Annoyances

1. Show Your Hardware’s Sample Rate in the Menubar.

SampleRateMenuBarV2.app.zip

Avoid the grade penalties, and get a visual reminder if you are not working at 48k!!!

This app displays the sample rate of MacOS’s main audio device in the menu bar. You can set a preferred sample rate and it will turn red and blink at you when your actual sample rate is different. Out of the box, this is set to 48k. You can change it to a different sample rate, but WHY WOULD YOU?!?!

2. Media Conversion Automator Scripts:

Automator Workflows.zip