Project Gutenberg has digitized over 60,000 books, but they’re often rather rough. If you’re interested in reading classic titles, check out the versions from Standard Ebooks, which are spruced up for modern devices. For those who use Apple’s Podcasts app, beware that the newest version may be chewing up free space on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac—read on to learn how to put a stop to its wanton downloading. Finally, Adam Engst explains why TidBITS has switched to Xero for accounting and why he’s never had so much fun running the numbers. Notable Mac app releases this week include Safari 14.1, Carbon Copy Cloner 5.1.26, Mailplane 4.3.2, and PDFpen and PDFpenPro 13.0.
The Standard Ebooks project is building on the work of Project Gutenberg to spruce up classic ebooks for modern devices. Find out how you can use it to expand your ebook collection.
There are numerous complaints about Apple’s latest update to its Podcasts app, but its nastiest surprise may be gigabytes of unexpected downloads. Here’s how to turn off the downloads and recover your space.
Technology transitions with accounting packages are scary—you don’t want to mess around with your organization’s financial tracking if you can avoid it. With MYOB AccountEdge failing to break through the 32-bit barrier, we at TidBITS chose to move to the cloud-based Xero. After a few initial setup confusions, Xero has given us a fast, modern workflow that makes managing our finances fun.
Watchlist
Enables you to customize the Start Page section order and addresses a number of security vulnerabilities. (Free, various sizes, macOS 10.15+ and 10.14+)
Bug-focused maintenance release for the drive-cloning and backup utility. ($39.99 new, free update, 19.5 MB, macOS 10.10+)
Introduces a new preference option that automatically shrinks large images for better readability. ($29.95 new, free update, 78.2 MB, macOS 10.12+)
Major new release of the PDF editing apps with a revamped, friendlier interface. ($79.95/$129.95 new, $35 upgrade, 90.2/142 MB, macOS 10.14+)
