Mole is the best new app for cleaning your Mac

Hello friends! Welcome to Installer No. 128 is your guide to the best and edge-The most wonderful things in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, sorry this version is too heavy for Mac, you can also read all the old versions at Installer Home.)

This week I was reading about it David Attenborough and Screenwriters turned AI trainers and the Take the subway manAnd listen to a lot of FM Productivity Mix While I work, I finally write My coding worktesting out the Poppy AI assistant (and giving it more of my data than I honestly should), tracking my pathetic step count with my new Fitbit Air, and buying more AtlanticSummer reading list From what I will read reasonably well, and watch a lot Maxinomics Videos later One on quartz It went viral, drenched in nostalgia for all times Spotify wrapped playlist, And switching browsers for the first time is forever. More on that next week.

I also have for you a couple of really useful Mac tools, a new book in my favorite Installerverse series, a new federation management tool, and much more. Let’s get into it.

(As always, the best part of… Installer These are your thoughts and advice. What are you reading/watching/playing/listening to/cutting into neat shapes this week? Tell me everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you know someone else who might enjoy it InstallerSend it to them and let them know Subscribe here.)

today, Joanna Stern She gets the most important professional achievement in her life. No, not the Emmy Award she won, or her amazing book, I’m not a robot, Which just came out this week and you 100 percent need to buy and read multiple times. Not even New thingsher new media company/newsletter/YouTube channel. None of that. Today, Joanna Stern becomes the first ever Repeat guest in Installer date. Great day for her, honestly.

Joanna spent the last year of her life trying to use AI for everything, trying to figure out areas where AI might actually be useful. (If you want to hear some of her stories, in addition to reading the book, you can find them on every podcast on planet Earth for the past two weeks.) After all the experimentation, I asked Joanna to share some of the things she’s found to really work. Here’s what I shared:

What does your daily AI setup look like? I’m a Claude person and ChatGPT person. I use Claude Code and Claude Cowork for a lot of multi-step work and to integrate with my Google tools. I use ChatGPT more for editing and talking about things, mostly because of the superiority of the live audio and video mode.

What are some surprising things you’ve found that have really worked for you? I love the projects in ChatGPT and Claude. They have saved me a lot of time while writing books. And yes, “book industry” sounds like “baby industry.” To be clear, I wrote the entire book myself. I use AI to help with organization, reporting, and research, which I talk about a lot in the book, so you’ll have to buy it to learn more.

Back to the projects: I used the tools to create my own “BookBots”. You’ve uploaded research notes, academic papers, transcripts, deadlines, editor’s notes, and more. These BookBots have kept me on track and made it easy to find things while I’m writing. If I had questions about deadlines, what I needed to work on, or which companies/experts my research suggested were worth talking to, I’d ask BookBots.

Have you coded anything cool lately? Just the greatest site ever: joannastern.com. But seriously, I’ve been running a promotion for a while where people who pre-order the book can get a free pin. I coded the whole thing: an order form on the site, and a back-end workflow where each submission with an uploaded receipt and title one automatically adds to a spreadsheet and sends the publisher and me an email confirmation.

After a year of AI experiments, what sticks out in your mind? I talk to ChatGPT a lot in the car via voice mode. Also Meta AI in my Meta Ray-Bans. So, yeah, I talk to AI a lot. Mostly because you don’t return my calls.

I also asked Joanna to share some of the things she’s interested in right now. She…she didn’t do that. Joanna never does what I tell her. I shared this instead:

Well, David, when you write a book and publish it, you’ll discover that there’s absolutely no time for anything else. I look forward to that day for you and supporting you through it. There is no time for books, movies, other podcasts or even recipes for how to make food. So instead, here are six podcasts I recommend because I participate in all of them and that’s, in fact, what I’ve been doing with my time lately.

I also apologize to all the tech podcast listeners whose feeds I’ve completely taken over this week. If you purchase the book, you know it will be automatically removed from your feed. I love you all.

Here’s what Installer community this week. I want to know what you’re up to now too! Email installer@theverge.com Or send me a message on Signal — @davidpierce.11 ​​— with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we’ll feature some of our favorites here each week. For more great recommendations, check out the responses to This post is on topics and This post is on Bluesky.

“Like Lego and robots? Play Mars First Logistics. Build rovers to deliver increasingly complex objects across the Martian terrain. Tinkering is surprisingly rewarding and funny when your creation fails spectacularly and goes back to the drawing board. —Stanush

“We recently found out Garbage truck on Netflix and it’s one of those rare pieces of children’s entertainment that’s funny to me and a four-year-old. It’s very cute and low-key but with enough surprises that Lennox wants to keep watching. 10/10.” – Alison

“I document all of our weekly D&D adventures over the past five years, and add adventures from the same group before I joined this group. I keep these notes in a Google Doc and add them to LM notebook So the whole group can ask questions about previous characters, previous places we’ve visited, maps, important organizations in the world, etc. NotebookLM is absolutely perfect for this, but reviewing old notes is cumbersome. — Michelle

“Really enjoy devil may cry 5and the new season of The series is on Netflix– Aaron

“I recently learned about… PlintoWebsite maker. It is an alternative to the AT for Bento (RIP) protocol and pulls information from atmospheric applications. — Oscar

“reading Mason and Dixon. And it will continue to be so Mason and Dixon For a very long time” – Scott

“I’m not much of a horror watcher but I made an exception for this show Widow’s Bay On Apple TV. It blends comedy with horror very well and replaces expectations of horror. I usually cover my eyes with my hands when I’m anticipating a jump but not for this show. – John

“Cemetery keeper It was free a few weeks ago on Steam and I’m obsessed. Stardew Valley if you also make sandwiches and zombies from corpses. – Rob

“I’m listening to the audio book, Apple: the first 50 years By David Pogue on Everand. Great book, great audiobook, great alternative to Audible. – Rayyan

I’ve had something like half a week off this week, which mostly means I haven’t gone to any meetings (and taken a week off from podcasting) but I’ve still been around to do urgent things as they come up. I spent a lot of my free time organizing my home office, which turned into a disaster zone. I added two things that solved a lot of problems: The energy sector denied It sits on my desk and is the best combination of simplicity and accessibility I’ve found to date; And two 10-foot USB-C cables make it very easy to set up the charging and power system without stretching everything to its limits. I bought mine Whoever deniesbut you can get good, long cables from anywhere — and I’m already wondering if I should upgrade to Original union pop cableIt is coiled and stretchy and will not tangle easily. It might be good for my wallet to be back in business on Monday.