One thing that has helped me unwind at the end of every day is trying to solve logic puzzles on my phone. Something I always loved doing as a kid. I found this free, no ads iPhone app ($2.99 on Google Play) called Logic Puzzles by Egghead Games. There are puzzles for different levels of experience that you have access to, so you can start off easy and work your way up, or alternate between quick and more challenging games. It’s been two months since I downloaded it, and I have solved 80+ games, and I still have 16 more to go before I in-app purchase more, which I will, because it really is fun! — CD

I’ve been using a utility called CleanMyMac X for a number of years. I use it to completely undelete applications (and all their associated files), locate and delete space-wasting unneeded files, and scan for malware. It has a lot of other features, all of which are presented in a simple interface. — MF

You try to insert a USB plug and it doesn’t fit. You flip it over and it still doesn’t fit, so you flip it back to the original side and now it fits. Ugh! How many thousands of times has that happened? Just remember this: the topside of any USB plug will be smooth metal and the underside will have a groove down the center. Keep the smooth side up. — KK

As someone who is on the never-ending quest to learn how to draw, I really appreciate NYT’s How to Draw in Six Steps. The visual clips and tips are encouraging. Here is a sketch of Pablo’s face (my dog). — CD

Voracious adventure novel reader Josh Glenn put together a list of 250 of his favorite adventure novels of the 20th century, with a capsule review of each book. I’ve already added a bunch to my reading list. Many are available on project Gutenberg and other public domain book and audiobook websites. — MF

This blog is called 9-Eyes because the cameras on cars that take photos for Google’s Street View maps have 9 lenses. The anonymous curator of this site posts unusual photos they come across on Street View. Most of the photos are of people being people: acting silly, fighting, eating, pulling leashes attached to livestock, soliciting prostitutes, taking drugs, nursing their young, etc. Endlessly fascinating. — MF

For the entire month of May, the National Trust for Historic Preservation is sending out a daily email unlocking one historical site that you can explore virtually. On Friday, I toured Frank Lloyd Wright’s Pope-Leighey House in Virginia and fell in love with the Mayan-inspired motif and yesterday morning, the National Trust released a 27-minute concert video filmed at Nina Simone’s childhood home in North Carolina. There are still 29 more days to go. You can sign up here. — CD

Your phone is probably a better camera for streaming than your laptop or third-party webcam you are now using. To see how you can use your phone as a webcam, check out this technical video from Norm Chan at Tested. You’ll need two free open-source apps on your computer, and an inexpensive app on your phone. Following the instructions I got very high quality streams from my iPhone 8. This is good for YouTube, Facebook, Twitch streams but not for Zoom, Meet and other video conferencing yet.  — KK

I feel kinda dumb I had not figured this out earlier. We’ve managed to replace all the batteries in our household with rechargeable batteries, except for those 9-volt batteries. The ones with the two nipples on top that are in things like smoke alarms. But you can get rechargeable 9 volt batteries! Duh. As the current 9-volts die off, I’m swapping them out with these AmazonBasics 9-volt Rechargeables. I use this HTRC all-battery charger to charge them. — KK

We live in a house with walls that have chicken wire behind the plaster. They do a great job of blocking Wifi. To get around it, I installed a Frankensteinian hodgepodge of cables, powerline adapters, and wireless access points all around the house. They all had different SSIDs and the coverage was still spotty. It was frustrating. A decade later, I broke down and bought a Google Nest router and four wireless hubs. It set me back $500 but now we have great coverage throughout the house with no need to change SSIDs on our devices as we move from one room to the next. I expected my family to be grateful, Instead they are mad at me, “Why didn’t you get this sooner!?” — MF

Personally I know Kevin to be effortlessly wise and warm and honest, and his way of life is something I’ve strived to copy, so I treasure these 68 bits of unsolicited advice. There are so many sparks of clarity here and great guiding principles to adopt. These are my favorite:

• Pros are just amateurs who know how to gracefully recover from their mistakes.

• A worthy goal for a year is to learn enough about a subject so that you can’t believe how ignorant you were a year earlier.

• The universe is conspiring behind your back to make you a success. This will be much easier to do if you embrace this pronoia.

— CD

The Litter-Robot is what it sounds like – a cat litter box that performs a self clean every time one of my three cats uses it. The manufacturer sent me one to try out, and  it’s changed an unpleasant twice-a-day cleaning routine into an easy once-every-two-days task of dumping a tray of litter clumps into the trash. It’s basically a rotating barrel with a screen. Your cat hops in and does her business, and a few minutes after she hops out the barrel slowly rotates, depositing the clumps into a tray, and returning the clean litter to the barrel. It comes with a smartphone app, which I initially thought was ridiculous, but turned out to be useful in alerting me when it’s time to empty the tray. This thing costs $500, which is a crazy amount of money for a litter box. But think of it on a two-year timeframe: is worth a dollar a day to eliminate an unpleasant chore? — MF

I’ve been trying out Miro, a shared white board for video calls. This is a free web-based tool that allows all participants to draw, or post notes, on the same white page in real time. You open Miro in another browser tab while you zoom, so you and your collaborators can sketch, diagram, write down formulas together. Like standing around a white board. You’ll need a drawing tablet such as an iPad, Surface, or Wacom tablet on your end. — KK

A while ago I recommended a pen holder strap that I was really excited about (and still am because it’s French and pink), but thanks to Rayan Parikh sharing what’s in his bag, I’ve now discovered these adhesive pen holder loops ($6/5pk). I’ve stuck these on all my notebooks so that I always have a pen ready. — CD

I’ve been a guest on a number of live streams that use StreamYard. StreamYard is the emerging tool that enables you to broadcast live streaming video. The host invites up to 10 different guests to join via their incoming video connections. The guests meet off camera in a “green room.” Then like a studio producer, the host can mix which guests appear in the stream, which remain on deck in the green room, which other visuals to show, and overall to control what is streamed out live to YouTube, Facebook, etc., or your own website. Works pretty well. Conceptually this is a mini-broadcasting studio. It costs $25 per month to host, with a free trial option. Guests only require a web browser. — KK

At 3PM on a Thursday afternoon I’m one of 41,875 other people listening to the livestream of the ChilledCow lofi hiphop radio station on YouTube. Over 5 million people subscribe to ChilledCow, and I imagine the vast majority of them are students. I learned about it from my 16-year-old daughter who plays it on her headphones while she does her homework. I find that I can listen to the relaxing music for hours and hours while I work (that is, when I’m not in a Zoom meeting.) — MF

This infographic has 9 suggestions for focusing your wandering mind. A couple of them I’ve never heard before, like taking 1 minute to doodle to help cognitive performance, and a yoga hand trick to reduce stress. — CD

I like mechanical pencils, and my favorite is the Uni Kuru Toga with a lead-rotation mechanism (Model No. M54521P.24). Every time you touch the tip to the paper, the mechanism inside the pen ratchets the lead a few degrees. The result is the point stays rounded instead of taking on a chiseled profile as often happens with mechanical pencils. It’s inexpensive but very well-made. Mine has lasted for years. — MF

This helped me get out of my headspace for a bit: NASA’s What Did Hubble See on Your Birthday? I entered all the important dates I could think of and went down a Wikipedia wormhole to learn more about the Sombrero Galaxy and light echos. Every image is awesome and uplifting and teleports me out of my mental space to somewhere else. Which reminds me of a quote I’ve always treasured by Lao Tzu: “Do you imagine the universe is agitated? Go into the desert at night and look at the stars. This practice should answer the question.” — CD

Do yourself a favor and watch Shtisel, a two-season (24 episode) series on Netflix. It’s an incredibly written Isreali drama that is now a world-wide hit. It just happens to take place in an ultra-orthodox Jewish family. Ironically, it is a big hit in many conservative Muslim countries because these two traditional cultures overlap so much. Part of Shtisel’s charm is the full immersion into a world that is alien as Mars to most moderns, but the main attraction in this global gem is its universal humanism and real people characters. (Shtisel should not be confused with Unorthodox, another recent good Netflix series taking place in the same orthodox Jewish community, but with a very different ambiance and different artistic mission.) Shtisel is not loud or flashy; it is a quiet, low-budget masterpiece that leaves you feeling you encountered something remarkable. — KK