 So in this processor video series, we've talked a lot about the future of computers, but honestly, most of the time, I just end up going back to my Mac or a Windows PC. And I do that because you can really customize the way that the operating system works. But here's a question. Why would anybody bother doing that in the first place? So the reason I like customizing my computers, and I know that this makes me sound really, really corny, is that it makes me feel like I have superpowers. If there's something that annoys me about the way that my computer works, I can just go out on the internet and somebody else is inevitably annoyed by the same thing. And there's usually a utility that I can download and install that fixes that annoyance. And I'm talking specifically here about utilities and not apps. So I'm not talking about stuff like 1Password, which I love and you should go and install, or even Dropbox, which I also love. It's my favorite cloud utility app. Now I'm talking about utilities, things that change the way your computer actually works at kind of a deep level. And so in this video, I wanna talk about my favorite Mac utilities. We'll do Windows in another video later on. So let's get into it. So one utility that basically everybody who has a Mac tends to install when they get into this thing is a Window Manager. And there's a million of these, but my favorite is called Flexi Glass. And it does all the standard stuff that a Window Manager does. So you can hit a key combo to move everyone to the left or the right or full screen it or whatever. But the reason I like it, if we look at the preferences for it, you can see that it has this thing called a Window Mover. And what that lets you do is you can hold down buttons on your keyboard to adjust the placement of your windows. So let me explain. Normally, if you wanna resize or move your window, you've gotta move your mouse to a specific point, like down here in the corner, and it's really hard to hit. But with the Window Mover, you can just have your mouse anywhere in the window, hold down a key combo, and you can start moving your window around, or another key combo and resize your window. And so for 999, which is the cost of Flexi Glass, it gives you a way faster way to move around or adjust your windows on your Mac. Another utility I really like, especially if you're on the latest update of the Mac operating system, High Sierra, which you really should be, is, it's got a weird name, actually, hang on, I'll look it up here. It's High Sierra Media Key Enabler. This is a free utility, and it puts a little dot in your menu bar. And what it does is it makes your play, pause, next, previous buttons on your function bar actually work. So normally, if you hit that, it might start iTunes, or it might pause video on Safari, you never really know. But with High Sierra Media Key Enabler, you can set it to prioritize Spotify. So when you hit that play, pause button, it's just gonna send that command to Spotify, and it will always work. Another utility that a bunch of people install is a screenshot utility. Now, I know that you can hit Shift-Command-4 on a Mac, and it'll record a screenshot. But I use this app called Annotate. It was recently acquired by CloudApp, but it's still free. And when I hit Shift-Command-4 and take a screenshot, I can then draw on it. I can put little arrows on it. I can put some text on it. I can even blur out a certain section of it. And then when it's done, I can just hit the Twitter button to tweet it. I can save it, or I can even hold down the Option key and drag it directly to another app if I just wanna put it directly into another app. It's way more convenient than the built-in screenshot utility, and I really recommend, if you don't use Annotate, at least some kind of screenshot utility. So the next utility I wanna talk about is one I've talked a ton about. It's called Alfred, and I've made a whole other video about it. It's basically a better version of Spotlight. You can hit a key combo, and when you do, a search box pops up, and it's better at internet stuff than Spotlight is. And you can even do stuff like clipboard history and snippets of text and all kinds of customizations. But the tool that I use with Alfred is just as important. It's called Carabiner Elements, which is a funny little tool, and it lets you assign a button on your keyboard to something else. So for me, I've assigned Caps Lock to the F16 key, because if I want a shot on the internet, I'm gonna hold down the Shift key like I really mean it. So instead, when I hit the Caps Lock key, it pops up my Alfred search box, and then I can search for something on the verge really fast, and that's great. Now for Alfred to get the most out of it, you gotta pay 19 pounds for the app, but Carabiner Elements, which remaps your buttons, is free. Now this utility is the saddest, nerdiest thing, because it literally saves you like one click, but I still love it. It's called Tooth Fairy, and here's how it works. In your menu bar, it puts a little icon and shows you whether or not you're connected to Bluetooth headphones. So these are my Beats X headphones, and they're currently paired to my iPhone. I wanna listen to them on my Mac. So with Tooth Fairy, I can just click this button, and then it will connect up to my Bluetooth headphones, and then it'll even turn dark to show me that I am connected to my Bluetooth headphones. And you can set it up for multiple pairs of headphones. Now I know it just saves you one click, but that click makes a big difference to me. Okay, so last utility. You may have noticed that I've got a million menu bar icons, and it looks hellacious, but there's a couple of utilities that let you hide most of them. The one that I like is called Vanilla, and it's really simple. It just puts a little carrot in your menu bar, and you can just tap it, and it hides all of your icons. And then you can just hold down the Command key to drag icons in or out of the hidden section. It just makes your computer feel more comfortable. It's nice. So those are my favorite utilities for the Mac, and I've talked about this a lot, but I really do think that being able to customize your computer makes a huge difference. It makes it feel like it's yours, and not just a thing that got handed down to you. If you're using an iPad or a Chromebook, if there's something that you don't like, you basically just have to deal with it. But with a Mac or with a Windows PC, if there's something that you don't like, you can change it, and most of the time, I prefer the platform that you can change. Hey everybody, thank you so much for watching, and I wanna know what your favorite utilities are, because I'm always on the lookout for new ones, basically all the time, because I'm an obsessive nerd. And while you're down there leaving a comment, you could also hit that Subscribe button. It really helps us out.
 So in this processor video series,
 we've talked a lot about the future of computers,
 but honestly, most of the time,
 I just end up going back to my Mac or a Windows PC.
 And I do that because you can really customize
 the way that the operating system works.
 But here's a question.
 Why would anybody bother doing that in the first place?
 So the reason I like customizing my computers,
 and I know that this makes me sound really, really corny,
 is that it makes me feel like I have superpowers.
 If there's something that annoys me
 about the way that my computer works,
 I can just go out on the internet
 and somebody else is inevitably annoyed by the same thing.
 And there's usually a utility
 that I can download and install that fixes that annoyance.
 And I'm talking specifically here
 about utilities and not apps.
 So I'm not talking about stuff like 1Password,
 which I love and you should go and install,
 or even Dropbox, which I also love.
 It's my favorite cloud utility app.
 Now I'm talking about utilities,
 things that change the way your computer actually works
 at kind of a deep level.
 And so in this video,
 I wanna talk about my favorite Mac utilities.
 We'll do Windows in another video later on.
 So let's get into it.
 So one utility that basically everybody who has a Mac
 tends to install when they get into this thing
 is a Window Manager.
 And there's a million of these,
 but my favorite is called Flexi Glass.
 And it does all the standard stuff
 that a Window Manager does.
 So you can hit a key combo to move everyone to the left
 or the right or full screen it or whatever.
 But the reason I like it,
 if we look at the preferences for it,
 you can see that it has this thing called a Window Mover.
 And what that lets you do
 is you can hold down buttons on your keyboard
 to adjust the placement of your windows.
 So let me explain.
 Normally, if you wanna resize or move your window,
 you've gotta move your mouse to a specific point,
 like down here in the corner, and it's really hard to hit.
 But with the Window Mover,
 you can just have your mouse anywhere in the window,
 hold down a key combo,
 and you can start moving your window around,
 or another key combo and resize your window.
 And so for 999, which is the cost of Flexi Glass,
 it gives you a way faster way to move around
 or adjust your windows on your Mac.
 Another utility I really like,
 especially if you're on the latest update
 of the Mac operating system, High Sierra,
 which you really should be, is,
 it's got a weird name, actually,
 hang on, I'll look it up here.
 It's High Sierra Media Key Enabler.
 This is a free utility,
 and it puts a little dot in your menu bar.
 And what it does is it makes your play, pause, next,
 previous buttons on your function bar actually work.
 So normally, if you hit that, it might start iTunes,
 or it might pause video on Safari, you never really know.
 But with High Sierra Media Key Enabler,
 you can set it to prioritize Spotify.
 So when you hit that play, pause button,
 it's just gonna send that command to Spotify,
 and it will always work.
 Another utility that a bunch of people install
 is a screenshot utility.
 Now, I know that you can hit Shift-Command-4 on a Mac,
 and it'll record a screenshot.
 But I use this app called Annotate.
 It was recently acquired by CloudApp, but it's still free.
 And when I hit Shift-Command-4 and take a screenshot,
 I can then draw on it.
 I can put little arrows on it.
 I can put some text on it.
 I can even blur out a certain section of it.
 And then when it's done,
 I can just hit the Twitter button to tweet it.
 I can save it, or I can even hold down the Option key
 and drag it directly to another app
 if I just wanna put it directly into another app.
 It's way more convenient than the built-in screenshot
 utility, and I really recommend,
 if you don't use Annotate,
 at least some kind of screenshot utility.
 So the next utility I wanna talk about
 is one I've talked a ton about.
 It's called Alfred, and I've made a whole other video
 about it.
 It's basically a better version of Spotlight.
 You can hit a key combo, and when you do,
 a search box pops up, and it's better at internet stuff
 than Spotlight is.
 And you can even do stuff like clipboard history
 and snippets of text and all kinds of customizations.
 But the tool that I use with Alfred is just as important.
 It's called Carabiner Elements,
 which is a funny little tool,
 and it lets you assign a button on your keyboard
 to something else.
 So for me, I've assigned Caps Lock to the F16 key,
 because if I want a shot on the internet,
 I'm gonna hold down the Shift key like I really mean it.
 So instead, when I hit the Caps Lock key,
 it pops up my Alfred search box,
 and then I can search for something on the verge
 really fast, and that's great.
 Now for Alfred to get the most out of it,
 you gotta pay 19 pounds for the app,
 but Carabiner Elements, which remaps your buttons, is free.
 Now this utility is the saddest, nerdiest thing,
 because it literally saves you like one click,
 but I still love it.
 It's called Tooth Fairy, and here's how it works.
 In your menu bar, it puts a little icon
 and shows you whether or not you're connected
 to Bluetooth headphones.
 So these are my Beats X headphones,
 and they're currently paired to my iPhone.
 I wanna listen to them on my Mac.
 So with Tooth Fairy, I can just click this button,
 and then it will connect up to my Bluetooth headphones,
 and then it'll even turn dark to show me
 that I am connected to my Bluetooth headphones.
 And you can set it up for multiple pairs of headphones.
 Now I know it just saves you one click,
 but that click makes a big difference to me.
 Okay, so last utility.
 You may have noticed that I've got
 a million menu bar icons, and it looks hellacious,
 but there's a couple of utilities
 that let you hide most of them.
 The one that I like is called Vanilla,
 and it's really simple.
 It just puts a little carrot in your menu bar,
 and you can just tap it, and it hides all of your icons.
 And then you can just hold down the Command key
 to drag icons in or out of the hidden section.
 It just makes your computer feel more comfortable.
 It's nice.
 So those are my favorite utilities for the Mac,
 and I've talked about this a lot,
 but I really do think that being able
 to customize your computer makes a huge difference.
 It makes it feel like it's yours,
 and not just a thing that got handed down to you.
 If you're using an iPad or a Chromebook,
 if there's something that you don't like,
 you basically just have to deal with it.
 But with a Mac or with a Windows PC,
 if there's something that you don't like,
 you can change it, and most of the time,
 I prefer the platform that you can change.
 Hey everybody, thank you so much for watching,
 and I wanna know what your favorite utilities are,
 because I'm always on the lookout for new ones,
 basically all the time, because I'm an obsessive nerd.
 And while you're down there leaving a comment,
 you could also hit that Subscribe button.
 It really helps us out.