After last weekend’s favorite note app recomendo. Multiple readers replied and recommended Simplenote as an alternative to Apple Notes and as a universal note-taking app. Reader Titus said, “I really like Simplenote. It provides a web interface as well as iOS and Android apps.” — CD

Often the best way to secure one object to another is with heavy duty double-sided tape. The bond may be as strong as screws or nails, without the need for holes. And unlike a glue joint, its tidy, and kinda removable. Put the two-sided tape on, zip off second coating, and squeeze together. Fast. I use this tape for mounting gear, electrical devices on walls and tables where I don’t want screws. The best brand is 3M Heavy Duty Mounting Tape. I am always surprised by how much weight it will hold. — KK

I use a lot of stock photo images on the various websites I work on. I recently discovered Scopio, which is offering a lifetime subscription for $29. I like the selection of photos, and the fact that they don’t look as generic as a lot of stock photos. Here’s a sample for a search for “red and white books.” — MF

I am enjoying Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh’s Mindfulness Essentials series of small “How to” books. How to Love is one I revisit often. Right now I am reading How to Eat — short meditations on connecting with the Earth, enjoying your food and eating with others. Below are three excerpts. — CD

• Wait without waiting — Standing in line at grocery store or a restaurant, or waiting for the time to eat, we don’t need to waste our time. We don’t need to “wait” for one second. Instead, we can enjoy breathing in and out for our nourishment and healing. We can use that time to notice that we will soon be able to have food, and we can be happy and grateful during that time. Instead of waiting, we can generate joy.

• Our ancestors are in the soil — In the soil are many people who have died, have been transformed, and have become part of the soil. Maybe in this mouthful of rice are also the bones of hundreds of generations as well as many leaves, worms and animal’s bones. Maybe in a previous life you had been there and died there, and your own bones have disintegrated in that land. During the time of eating, your practice is to look deeply into that grain of rice and enjoy all that has gone into its creation. There are so many things to enjoy and to discover in each bite.

• Eating and smiling — Sitting at the table and eating with other people is a chance to offer an authentic smile of friendship and understanding. The most important part of the practice is to look at each person and smile. Upon finishing your meal, take a few moments to notice that you have finished, that your bowl is now empty, and your hunger is satisfied. This is another opportunity to smile and be grateful that you have had this nourishing food to eat, supporting you on the path of love and understanding.

In this web-based game, Evil Corp attempts to con you into accepting its terms and conditions with 29 sneaky tricks (e.g., “Would you like to not receive our newsletter? Yes or No”). I managed to successfully outwit 27 of Evil Corp’s dastardly tricks. Let’s see if you can beat me! — MF

I’ve been predicting that the next big thing after smart phones are smart glasses at work in a Mirrorworld or a Metaverse. That still has not happened, and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen in the next few years. But I’m sticking with my prediction that it will be the next big thing. The best case I’ve seen for how this will be built is this very long technical essay by Matt Ball, which serves as the Metaverse Primer. — KK

Mohamed Samir is a senior product designer at Apple. In his spare time, he creates stunning geometric graphics using Arabic typography. Printmag assembled a selection of his posters, which are also on display on his Instagram account. — MF

Recomendo reader Kartini Cooper asked to hear recommendations for a good note-taking app. I asked Kevin and Mark and their answer was the same as mine: Apple’s built-in Notes app. It’s the easiest and it syncs with all the other devices. I’ve gotten better at the up-keep — revisiting and culling my notes. My longest running notes that I pinned to the top are: To-do Today, Do Not Buy List, Questions I Have, Stress Note, and Things to tell my Therapist. I’ve also started organizing them into folders like: Recipes, Instructions, Crafts, Dreams, Writing Ideas, Rabbit Holes, and my favorite folder: Revelations — all my late-night genius ideas that are some times hilarious in the light of day. — CD

I just finished enjoying 21 hours of a Korean drama on Netflix called Start-Up. It’s a heart-tugging, tear-jerking, melodramatic soap opera about ransomware attacks and self-driving car code! Super well-done, with world-class craft. And it has an absolutely terrific K-Pop soundtrack. It’s sweet, sappy, but not too predictable, and a great view into today’s Korea. — KK

My first stop for hiking trail information is AllTrails. This free website has the best trail maps, access location of trail heads, dog notes, elevation profiles, user reviews — almost anything you want. And they cover trails in most of the world. Their Pro version gives you mobile maps you can follow on trails outside of mobile service. — KK

I love this concept of the 2-way-door rule in Inc.com’s article “Why Emotionally Intelligent People Embrace the 2-Way-Door Rule to Make Better and Faster Decisions” (possibly behind a paywall). We avoid making decisions because we tend to think most are one-way door decisions, meaning irreversible because the door swings only one way, like quitting your job. In reality, most decisions are two-way door decisions where the door swings both ways, so if you step through and don’t like what you see, you can always turn around and go back through. Once you recognize this difference, you’ll find you actually seek out opportunities to make more decisions! — CD

Super glue is runny, which can cause it to drip when you apply it to a vertical surface or be absorbed when you apply it to a porous surface. Gorilla make Super Glue Gel, which solves both of these problems. I used it to glue together pieces of laser cut plywood to make these bowls. — MF

Beeple is the artist who famously sold a digital NFT of his artwork for $69 million. While that is crazy and hard to believe, what I find more remarkable is that the art piece was a montage of 5,000 paintings he did over 5,000 days. Without fail, he created a piece of art for 5,000 consecutive days and shared it. I found this short YouTube video of Beeple talking about this daily habit, before he was rich and a celebrity, so inspirational that I began making a piece of art everyday myself. (You can see my first 60 pieces archived here, or posted on my Instagram.) — KK

Mindat.org is a great website to lose time if you’re an amateur rockhound. It is a nonprofit project by The Hudson Institute of Mineralogy, and the “leading authority on minerals and their localities, deposits, and mines worldwide.” There’s a lot of ways to search for and discover new rocks, including a cool color search. If you’re more of a “pro” than an amateur you can contribute your own photos and data. My husband likes to bring home rocks from river beds and hikes and I gravitate more toward crystals, but it’s one thing to admire the natural beauty and wonder of our earth’s materials and another to learn about it’s importance and use in our world. — CD

It seems like Zoom and Google Hangouts will be permanent fixtures in my life. My Bluetooth earbuds have not worked well for me. The wired earbuds I use are foolproof. It’s just that the cable is too short for comfort. KabelDirekt’s 3-foot extension cable solved the problem for me. While Zooming, I can now stretch comfortably in my chair without having to worry about the earbuds falling out. — MF

I’m in love with retractable extension cords that work like the retractable cord in a vacuum cleaner. You pull it out to use it and then yank it to slurp up the cord when done. So fast and tidy. The awkward alternative is to try to untangle long extension cords and wrestle them back again. I’ve put a retractable cord reel in my studio, one in my workshop, and one in my garage that extends to the driveway and street — anywhere I find myself needing power temporarily. You can mount it on a ceiling or wall. I like this Dewenwils reel, which is 30 foot long, and inexpensive ($44). I also use a longer and heavy duty (12 guage) for my shop offered by Amazon’s own generic brand. — KK

Grief Deck is a free visual resource for grief support. All the cards were made by artists or caregivers or someone who has lost someone. Anyone can contribute if you have something to say about processing loss. You scroll seemingly endlessly for an image card that resonates with you, when you click on it, it flips to deliver a prompt or meditation to focus on and let your feelings arise. Grief has never been something I expect to go away, but it is something I learned to coexist with. The best advice I ever received regarding grief was to schedule it — daily if you need to. For a month, I would hold in my tears until I was alone and then I would cry until I was exhausted. After a month, it became less and less, but I never stop making space for it. Here is the card I contributed to Grief Deck, inspired by my father-in-law who we lost last year. — CD

Ask Metafilter asked its users: “What tiny purchases changed your life drastically?” The dozens of answers provide a wealth of useful tools and gear recommended by users. Example: “A cheap low-feature MP3 player, like they sell for $30 for exercising with. They have way longer battery life than a phone, so when you’re traveling you can have music the whole time without risking draining your phone and getting yourself stranded somewhere.” After reading this, I bought this tiny SanDisk 8GB Clip Jam MP3/FM Radio Player. — MF

Mark Rothko’s painting, Black on Maroon (1958), was defaced with a black graffiti marker in 2012. “Restoring Rothko” (on YouTube) is a 17-minute documentary that shows how the expert restoration team at the Tate Gallery in London tested solvents and cleaning methods for nine months to find the optimal cleaning strategy for removing the ink while preserving Black on Maroon’s delicate paint layers. Rachel Barker, lead restorer, spent nine more months painstakingly removing the surface ink and carefully touching up the painting’s surface with oil paints. — MF

I used to buy books for visual references, but nowadays websites can serve up fabulous collections of visual materials. So instead of buying a big coffee table book of old movie posters I go to the Harry Ransom Center Movie Poster Collection. Housed at the University of Texas at Austin it displays 10,000 movie posters from the 50s, 60s, and 70s in America for free. Many amazing designs. — KK