Latest news with #JustinPot
WIRED
16-07-2025
- WIRED
Get the macOS Finder to Do Just About Anything by Typing Natural Language Commands
With the app Substage, users can type out file management tasks in plain English, then use the commands it generates to convert file types, manage folders, create zip files, and more. View of macOS interface showing Finder app icon in Dock. Photograph: Shutterstock I'm genuinely not sure if large language models—often referred to as 'AI' in shorthand—are the future of computing. But I also don't think chatbots are how people will use this technology in the years to come. Substage, an indie Mac application by developer Joseph Humfrey, is a simple app that points to a potential alternative—one that's useful right now. This application floats under every Finder window, meaning you see it only when you're browsing files in macOS. You can type English-language sentences into it to do things like rename, convert, or compress files. The application uses the large language model to create a command, like what you could run in the Terminal. The application then shows it to you and asks whether you actually want to run it. Substage in action. Courtesy of Justin Pot I played around with the application for a couple of days, trying all sorts of things. I highlighted a video and asked for it to be converted to an MP3 with just the audio, and that worked. I opened a folder full of photos and asked for every picture to be converted to a PNG, and that worked too. I opened up the folder where I store my personal journal and asked for a zip file of every entry that mentioned pancakes—I got one (137 entries, apparently). This can feel a little like magic, but there's a caveat: You need a basic understanding of what is, and what isn't, possible to do with the command line in order to use the applications effectively. 'The goal was to make powerful tools more accessible—to bring the power of the command line to nontechnical users,' Humfrey tells me. 'But what I've come to realize is that it really shines in the hands of semi-technical users: people who understand roughly what's possible but appreciate a speed boost.' If you're reading this article I think there's a good chance that's you. Maybe you occasionally use the command line to do things after a little bit of Googling or reading some documentation online. With Substage you don't have to do that—you can just ask for what you want and, if there's a command for the job, you'll probably get it. It's best to have some experience with the command line before running these generated commands. Courtesy of Justin Pot None of this is without risk. Large language models make mistakes, which is why the application shows you the command before running it. This is another reason the application probably isn't easy to recommend to users with no command line experience. It's possible the generated command could do something drastic like delete your files, though I didn't run into problems like this. It's a good idea to double-check the commands as you go and to make sure your files are backed up before you start. There are a few other limitations. Unlike ChatGPT and the more advanced models, Substage's bot doesn't have a memory feature, meaning you can't reference previous commands in the one you're currently generating. The application also isn't aware of the contents of videos or photos, meaning you can't ask it to do things like put all the cat photos into a new folder. Humfrey, for his part, says his favorite use for the application is media conversion. 'I know how to use After Effects, but it's so much easier to say 'trim this 16:9 video to 16:10' and be done with it,' he said, saying the application offers the flexibility of ffmpeg without the need to memorize the manual. It's a compelling use case, one I imagine more applications will explore as large language models mature. Substage offers a two-week trial. After that you have the option to pay $4 per month to use it. Alternatively, if you run your own large language model on your local machine, or if you already have an API key for an AI model you use all the time, you can pay a one-time fee of $30.
WIRED
16-06-2025
- WIRED
Try This Free Version of Microsoft Office That Runs in Your Browser
If you can't afford Microsoft's $150 suite of office tools, there's a web-based version that's free to use—and nearly just as capable. I don't use Microsoft Office very often. I do most of my writing in Obsidian and my number crunching in Google Sheets. Every once in a while, though, someone who does use Office sends me a Word document or an Excel spreadsheet. What do I do if I want to open it, make edits, and send it back? In this situation, it's probably excessive to purchase Microsoft Office. A one-time purchase of the Microsoft Office suite costs $150, which is a lot for the occasional file. An alternative is Microsoft 365, which starts at $100 per year or $10 per month. Unless I subscribe for a month and then cancel (which is an option), that's also too much for light usage. But I don't have to pay or resort to using a third-party editor like the ones from Google or Zoho. There's an entirely free version of Microsoft Office. The catch is that it only runs in the browser. The Free Version of Microsoft Office Microsoft 365 for the web offers free, web-based versions of familiar Office tools. Courtesy of Justin Pot To get started, just head to this website and log in with your Microsoft account. You can create a Microsoft account for free if you don't have one. After signing in you will be redirected to Microsoft 365 with a free account. From here you can access the free, online versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneDrive, and Outlook. You can also click the Upload button in order to edit any file that you have on your computer. This will upload the file to your OneDrive, allowing you to open it in the web version of the Office program you need. The web-based version of Excel. Courtesy of Justin Pot You can then make changes right in the browser. When it's time to send the edited file back, you can share the file using OneDrive, which works well for ongoing collaboration. Alternatively, if the person you're collaborating with insists on emailing files back and forth, you can click File > Create a Copy > Download a copy—this will save your edited file to your computer. Yes, this might seem a touch more convoluted than using the desktop version of Microsoft Office, especially if you're used to the desktop version. For the occasional file, though, it lets you open Office documents without any formatting issues that might be introduced by the non-Microsoft editors available online. The Downsides Now, the web version of Office isn't perfect. You get only 5 GB of free storage, for one thing, though it would be hard to fill that up if you're using it only for the occasional file. You also can't use this version of Office without an internet connection. There are features that aren't offered in the free web version, though they number fewer than you'd think. Macros aren't supported, for one thing, and password-protected files are read-only. If you're interested in which features are missing from different applications, Microsoft offers feature comparison sheets for Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. You can check for the features that matter most to you. The Free Alternatives to Microsoft Office If you don't like Microsoft's free version of Office for whatever reason, there are a few free alternatives. Google Drive can import Office files and even edit them without converting them, which is nice, though there can be subtle formatting changes. If you'd rather run something directly on your computer, outside the browser, there are also open source options including LibreOffice, but they also have some slight compatibility issues. Still, they can both work well in a pinch. It's nice having this many alternatives.
WIRED
08-03-2025
- WIRED
How to Get Windows Games Working on a Mac
There are all kinds of reasons to prefer Macs over Windows-based PCs. Gaming isn't one of them. That isn't to say that you can't game on a Mac—modern Apple Silicon computers are fairly powerful. The problem is that many popular games don't offer downloads that will run natively on a Mac. Search the Mac App Store or Steam and you'll find a bunch of games for Mac—just not necessarily the specific ones you want. And there's another problem: Apple tends to break reverse compatibility faster than Microsoft does. For example, it's currently impossible to run 32-bit applications on modern versions of macOS. If you have a Steam library full of games that ran just fine on the Mac you had in 2015, you'll find that a lot of them won't run at all on the Mac you bought last year. It's frustrating. Before you give up and buy a gaming laptop, though, know that you've got options for getting PC games to run on the Mac. It's possible to get many Windows games—even recent releases—working on Apple hardware. It's just going to take some tinkering and, in some cases, spending a little bit of money. There's No Universal Best Option I would love to simply tell you there's a definitive best way to play Windows games on a Mac. The truth is more complicated, and likely depends on which specific game you want to play. The best place to get started is to head to the Apple Gaming Wiki and look up the specific game you're interested in. Every game has a compatibility chart, letting you know which tools people have had success using to get the game running on a Mac. There are also general tips listed there for getting things running well. In most cases you're going to want to use the tool with the best documented results here. There are generally three tools listed in results: CrossOver, WINE, and Parallels. We'll go over all of these options below. Another thing to keep in mind is that, for some games, there may be a dedicated port made by a third party. For example: Fans built a port of Sonic Mania for the Mac that can run the game if you buy the Windows version and copy the relevant files. Fans of Final Fantasy XIV also made a client. Such dedicated ports will generally be noted on AppleGamingWiki, so keep your eyes peeled for them. First let's talk about the best tools for the job. CrossOver: The Best for Most People Justin Pot CrossOver Mac is a $74 program that can run Windows applications. You can search for any game, and a lot of software, right in the user interface and get a guided installation process. This means anything your game needs in order to run properly is downloaded and configured for you. CrossOver is expensive, yes, but this guided approach could save you a lot of time compared to the free options. It's also nice having the ratings for how well the games work right in the application itself, instead of having to research anything yourself.
WIRED
07-02-2025
- WIRED
Photopea Is a Free Photoshop Alternative That Runs in the Browser
When you need to edit photos, you don't have to download expensive or complicated software. Photopea is free to use, easy to grasp, and does most of what you need. Sometimes you need to quickly edit a photo but don't want to bother paying for Photoshop or installing an unfamiliar desktop image editor. Photopea is a free, ad-supported application that runs entirely in the web browser. It offers many of the same features as the marquee photo-editing applications but does not require you to download anything or pay for an expensive user license. Photoshop needs no introduction among photographers and other creative professionals. And there's a pretty great free alternative to Photoshop already: Gimp, an open-source photo editor that's very powerful. Why bother with Photopea in a world where that application exists? Well, for one thing, Photopea runs inside a browser tab, meaning you can use it on devices you'd rather not install software on. For example: if you're helping a family member organize their photos and need to quickly edit a couple of them, it's easier to open a website than it is to install an entire tool they're never going to use again. The same thing goes at work: you might not want to, or have permission to, install software on a work device, particularly if editing photos isn't normally part of your job. Chromebooks are another example. Photopea is perfect for all of them. Adding Files to Photopea To get starting using the app just head to that simple. You don't need to make an account to use it. Just drag any photo you want to edit from your file browser and drop it into the browser window. Any image format is supported, including RAW files. You can also upload PDF files, though when I tested those, the results were mixed. Just drag and drop your image files onto the workspace to get started. Courtesy of Justin Pot Photopea also, notably, supports Adobe's native file formats including .PSD (Photoshop), .AI (Illustrator) and .XD (XD) files alongside .FIG (Figma) files. This means you can edit files created in those applications. There's even support for importing .ATN files, which are automations you can create in Photoshop to adjust multiple image parameters with one click. Photopea supports saving any image as a PSD file and preserving the file's image layers, meaning you could in theory use it to collaborate with someone working in Photoshop. It can also export to common image filetypes like JPEG and PNG. It's worth noting that Photopea, despite running in your web browser, runs entirely on your device. This means you don't need to upload your photos to the internet in order to use it. It also means you can disconnect from the internet and continue editing—just don't close the tab or you'll lose your work. If you'd rather store files online, the web app supports saving files in Dropbox, OneDrive, and Google Drive. Editing Files in Photopea Photopea, like Photoshop, would be hard to fully explain in a single article—there are just too many features to list here. I recommend checking out Photopea's documentation, which is quite thorough. To put it simply, most everything you can do in Photoshop you can do in Photopea. The tools won't always be identical, granted, but they come surprisingly close. And the user interface of Photopea very closely resembles that of Photoshop. I used Photoshop a lot back when I worked at a weekly newspaper, and everything in Photopea is exactly where I expected it to be. This means you can do things like adjust the levels or apply filters by using the menu bar. It also means the left side panel, full of icons for things like selecting tools, drawing, and adding text are right where you'd expect to find them. On the left side you will find the history and layer drawers. Basically, if you know your way around Photoshop, you're not going to have a hard time adjusting. And the features all work quite well. I'm not a Photoshop expert, and I'm sure a true expert will find many shortcomings. But for just about anyone who needs to do some photo editing or collaborate with somebody using Adobe's tools, Photopea is a capable replacement that can step in to serve in a pinch. It's a common saying among photographers: the best camera is the one you have with you. Photopea is the photo editing software that you always have with you, provided you have a web browser. The Downsides There are a few limitations to consider. For one thing if you close the tab where you have Photopea open, your work is basically gone. I wish there was a pop-up warning. The biggest drawback for me is the gigantic wall of ads taking up the right side of the screen. These ads change frequently, making for a visually distracting experience. Ad blockers don't help much; the big empty void next to your workspace remains and you're constantly seeing pop-ups asking you to turn off the ad blockers. The only way to get rid of the ads is to pay Photopea a $5 monthly subscription fee that also adds AI features and 5 GB of online storage. Whether that's worth the price is probably going to come down to how often you use the application. It's a great deal cheaper than Photoshop in any case; paid subscriptions for that app start at $23 per month.
