Chris Cooper

@dreadfulwriter
5 Followers
76 Following
18 Posts
Higher Ed leader, tech nerd, pen addict, and dog dad.
Websitehttps://chriscooper.me
Pen Bloghttps://abetterdesk.com
Chris CooperAug 21, 2025
Tot is such a great example of how fun design and artificial constraints can create an amazing user experience. The app makes no sense in theory but is the only note taking app that’s stuck for me. Such a joy to use and an easy recommendation. https://iconfactory.world/@Iconfactory/115068211757329384
The Iconfactory (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image :tot_app: Your tiny text companion gets even better on Tuesday, Aug 26! Tot 2 lets you collect and edit text on iOS, macOS & watchOS. There's lots of new stuff to love like text dividers, a re-designed UI, customizable smart bullets & much more. Stay tuned! https://tot.rocks/ #TotRocks #Productivity

Mastodon
Chris CooperAug 6, 2025
I love the concept of Tapestry and the new Reeder, but their poor performance with paywalled articles and Tapestry’s lack of customizable swipe actions led me to Unread. I immediately missed being able to scroll feeds without having to manually mark articles as read then realized Unread has a scroll to mark as read setting! Very similar benefits to the new feed apps but better advanced features and article parsing performance! Then I realized I’m a nerd.
Chris CooperAug 3, 2025
I have been looking for an rss reader that lets me access paywalled articles for sites I subscribe to and has a nice reading experience. Absolutely no luck until I stumbled upon @unread And it has a read later bookmarklet too! I used this app years ago and am so happy to see that it’s just as beautiful but also has one of the best geeky feature sets too.
Chris CooperAug 2, 2025
I’ve been exploring services to host a simple personal site, and Micro.blog has been amazing! Highly recommend for any teacher friends.
https://news.micro.blog/2025/08/02/we-are-making-microblog-available.html
Micro.blog News -

We are making Micro.blog available for free to teachers and nurses. Manton has blogged more about it: Thanks everyone who has helped make Micro.blog what it is, and what it can still become. If you know a teacher or nurse who might enjoy Micro.blog, let them know!

Chris CooperJul 23, 2025
Seeing this opinion from Apple nerds everywhere, even those who are traditionally Apple optimists. Combine the doubling down on poor design choices with a complete failure in the AI realm, and you have a recipe for a pretty rough year for both Apple and its users. https://mastodon.macstories.net/@viticci/114902500017514674
Federico Viticci :ticciseal: (@[email protected])

To be completely honest with y'all, I'm feeling the same sense of dread about iOS 26 as I did with Stage Manager in iPadOS 16. And it's actually even worse, because design touches *everything* across platforms. The more time passes, the more I feel like the entire idea of Liquid Glass needs to be scrapped. The material is bad; the few structural ideas they had are functionally worse than before. I'm feeling very demotivated. iPadOS 26 is the only great thing I'm using so far.

MacStories on Mastodon
Chris CooperJun 5, 2025
Show threadJohn GruberJun 5, 2025

@santry @marcoarment Whose interview style do you think I should have copied? I suspect you're thinking along the lines of Mike Wallace interviewing Ayatollah Khomeini on 60 Minutes back in 1979.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hX9UpCuTvo

A look back at Mike Wallace's tough interviews

"60 Minutes" correspondent Mike Wallace has died at age 93. He was best known for his investigative reporting and thorough questioning of his interview subje...

YouTube
Chris CooperJun 3, 2025
Just realizing Omnifocus has had bare key shortcuts for the last two years! I have actively avoided it because it was such a pain to tab through the task fields 🙄
Chris CooperJun 2, 2025
This is absolutely the most wild implementation of an age check I have ever seen. Check the box to confirm your age and sign up for emails. No option to do one without the other. I love it when corporations are just unapologetically evil 🤣
Chris CooperMay 27, 2025

“In a moment where machines churn out mediocrity, make something yourself. Make it imperfect. Make it rough. Just make it.

At a time where the government's uncaring boot is pressing down on all of our necks, the best way to fight back is to care. Care loudly. Tell others. Get going.”

Mastodon is like 2007 Twitter. Just quirky people making delightfully colorful stuff like this. No bots talking to other bots trying to garner the most bot outrage. I love it here.
https://omfg.town/@dansinker/114560247015152692

Dan Sinker (@[email protected])

We're living through the Who Cares Era, where completely disposable things are shoddily produced for people to mostly ignore, while the government stomps its uncaring boot on our necks. But there's an easy way to fight back: Care. I wrote about it: https://dansinker.com/posts/2025-05-23-who-cares/

omfg.town
Chris CooperMay 26, 2025
I’m creating a simple writing-focused personal website and blog with Wordpress, and the platform is just so clunky and bloated! Looking for something that supports markdown, is simple and a bit more fun/playful. Seeing @omgdotlol pop up a lot, and it looks like a place I want to be! Anyone with positive experiences or cool sites to share?