One Figma file with every toast variant, every string, and the rule for which one fires when. Cataloguing them turned up several polite ways of saying the same failure. Code follows the file now, and it all gets checked on device. 🧑‍💻

Spent a few days last week building something that shipped zero lines of code. I was working out how moving between two capture modes in Todoist should feel, so I built it outside our repo where nothing had to be real. Archived it since. Still the hours that taught me the most! 🧪

Building a personal finance app on the side. No bank connection, so everything is entered by hand, which makes the entry sheet the product. Tags went from a text field to pills today. A text field is the most expensive thing you can put in a form. #productdesign #buildinpublic

Four days after getting home from our company retreat, the thing I keep telling people about is a Lego bank robbery that ends with a getaway boat, shot one frame at a time by five colleagues who should have known better. 🧱

"Cannot be read from simple people." My English holds up fine until I'm annoyed at 8 PM, and then the Greek grammar comes back for a visit. 😅 Claude understood anyway and stripped both cards down. More than my old English teacher ever managed with me.

The gap between what people think AI tools can do and what they can actually do is now measured in days or weeks of skipped work. I planned our family trip to New York in an afternoon by dumping every document I had into a project. ✨ ✍️ www.tsamoudakis.com/how-i-planne...

How I planned a family trip with Claude

A pile of booking PDFs, four wishlists, and nine days in New York. Here's how Claude turned it all into the single file that ran our family trip.

tsamoudakis.com

FlexiBits is out today. The second Ghost theme from theFineBits. It exists because of a single customer email. They needed dedicated landing pages for email campaigns, without headers and footers competing for attention. Most Ghost themes make that surprisingly hard.

Started a 14-day trial of a Mac app last week. Committed to paying on day 5. That doesn't happen to me often. Worth writing about.

The best welcome email advice I can give you: keep it under 200 words. Not because short is trendy. Because it forces you to cut everything that doesn't matter and keep only what does. 👉 thefinebits.com/journal/how-...

How to write a welcome email your Ghost subscribers will actually read

Most Ghost publishers skip the welcome email entirely. Here's how to write one that sets the right tone from day one, plus a free AI tool to help you draft it.

thefinebits.com

For months, I used ChatGPT to plan my meals. Describe my products, set my macro goals, and get a weekly plan. It worked surprisingly well. Until I realized I was redoing the same thing every few days. From scratch. Every time. So I built an app to fix it. 🧵

A side project that started as a personal frustration is slowly turning into something real. More on this very soon.

Been using Claude heavily lately and had no real sense of how much. Found usagebar.com through Reddit, and now I can see exactly where my usage goes. Turns out "just a quick question" adds up faster than expected.

$4.99. No subscription. Backs up iCloud without filling your disk. Sometimes the best apps are the ones that just do one thing really well. 👌 🔗 www.tsamoudakis.com/the-missing-... #IndieApps #macOS #Backup

The missing piece in my iCloud backup strategy

Keep a local backup of your iCloud Drive and Photos without filling up your Mac. Here's how Parachute Backup solved my decade-long backup dilemma.

tsamoudakis.com

Stack Overflow questions per month, 2008–2025. The developer workflow evolution: ⌨️ 2014: Google → Stack Overflow → copy → paste → pray ✨ 2024: ChatGPT → paste → pray The prayers haven't stopped. They just moved to a different altar.

Merry Christmas, everyone! 🎄 Wishing you warmth, good food, and great company. And if you need a breather between plates, I wrote about something I've been quietly building this year. ☕ 👉 www.tsamoudakis.com/reflecting-o...

Reflecting on the year and building for the next

A holiday reflection on falling in love with Ghost CMS and how a small side project quietly grew into something I'm proud of: theFineBits.

tsamoudakis.com

What if your blogging platform just... worked? ✨ No plugin updates. No speed issues. No SEO guesswork. We put together a complete guide on Ghost for anyone curious 👇 thefinebits.com/journal/gett... #Ghost #Publishing #ContentCreation

Getting Started with Ghost: A Complete Guide for Creators

Discover Ghost, the open-source publishing platform built for creators. Learn why it stands out, how to get started, and ways to monetize your blog.

thefinebits.com

🔥Hot take: Your to-do app is a better financial dashboard than most finance apps! Finance apps show you where money went. Your to-do app shows you what's coming—right where you'll actually see it. I wrote about the system that keeps me sane 👇 www.tsamoudakis.com/your-to-do-a...

Your to-do app is already a financial dashboard; you just haven't set it up yet

Turn your to-do app into a financial dashboard. Learn how to track bills and subscriptions using your existing task manager for stress-free money management.

tsamoudakis.com

Ever take a screenshot… then immediately lose it in a sea of “Screenshot 2025-02-18 at 14.22.19”? Yeah. Same here. 😏 As a designer, I rely on screenshots constantly, yet macOS gives them names that are basically useless. So I fixed the problem with a little help from AI. 👇

Google Calendar has a hidden page that determines what actually appears in your third-party apps. Most people are unaware of its existence. 👀 www.tsamoudakis.com/unlocking-go... #GoogleCalendar #Productivity

Unlocking Google Calendar’s hidden Sync Settings

Learn how to access Google Calendar’s hidden Sync Settings page and make extra calendars like holidays, sports, and weather sync everywhere.

tsamoudakis.com

iMessage for family. Messenger for convenience. WhatsApp because I have to. Here’s my honest look at messaging in 2025 → www.tsamoudakis.com/my-messaging... #MessagingApps #DigitalLife

My messaging habits in 2025: what works, what doesn’t

Curious about chat apps in 2025? Get my personal take on iMessage, Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram, and more—and how they shape connection.

tsamoudakis.com

Not every idea needs a forever home. Antinote is the scratchpad for the right now—quick notes, math, lists, and exports in plain text. 🔗 www.tsamoudakis.com/the-simplest... #MacOS #WritingTools #Minimalism

The simplest way to capture notes on Mac with Antinote

Capture ideas instantly with Antinote — a distraction-free Mac scratchpad with tasks, timers, and exports.

tsamoudakis.com

Clarity beats hustle. I stopped trying to do it all—and finally started finishing the right things. Here's how: www.tsamoudakis.com/prioritize-t... #DoLessBetter #Focus #Productivity

Prioritize: The quiet superpower of doing less

Learn a practical system for prioritizing work, family, and personal goals using Todoist, clarity, and a “Someday” list.

tsamoudakis.com

My return trip from a company retreat in Thailand turned into a full-blown travel mess: ✈️ 3 flights 🕓 4 hours stuck on a plane ❌ 2 missed connections 💸 1 surprise ticket purchase Here’s everything I learned (so you don’t suffer like I did): 🧵

Career change isn’t just for 20-somethings. I pivoted in my 30s. Reimagined things in my 40s. Still exploring what’s next. Hope it resonates: www.tsamoudakis.com/why-your-nex... #LifelongLearning #GrowthMindset #Reinvention

Why your next career might be your best one yet

Find inspiration in the idea that your best work might still be ahead of you, especially if you're exploring a midlife career pivot or a career change later in life.

tsamoudakis.com

Just finished writing my WWDC 2025 recap. Not a feature list, just my honest take on what stood out as a designer. Give it a read if you're curious 👇 www.tsamoudakis.com/liquid-glass...

Liquid Glass, AI Hype, and other WWDC 2025 stories

WWDC 2025 recap by a product designer exploring the good the quirky and the missing features from Apple's latest ecosystem updates.

tsamoudakis.com

I didn’t realize how much I relied on 2FA autofill until it disappeared. If you’ve ditched Safari and miss the smooth experience, this might help. www.tsamoudakis.com/a-smarter-wa... #macOS

A smarter way to autofill 2FA codes outside Safari

Restore Safari-style 2FA autofill in Chrome or Firefox with a simple Mac utility that quietly saves your workflow.

tsamoudakis.com

Cross-platform file sharing, minus the hassle. If you’ve ever struggled to send a file to someone on a different device, this is for you. 👉 Full story www.tsamoudakis.com/effortless-f... #Productivity #RemoteWork

Effortless File Sharing even when you’re miles apart

Share files across devices and distances with a secure, fast alternative that works whether you're next door or continents apart.

tsamoudakis.com

Ever feel like macOS's Light and Dark Mode could be... smarter? Found a tiny app that fixes it in the cleanest way possible. 🌗 You’ll want this on your Mac — trust me. Details here → www.tsamoudakis.com/umbra-the-da...

Umbra: The Dark Mode sidekick for macOS

Give your Mac a seamless Light and Dark Mode transition, smarter wallpaper switching, and a polished desktop with this lightweight macOS app.

tsamoudakis.com

I’ve been playing with a new way of building products—one where you don’t write every line of code… You just describe what you want, and let the AI do the rest. Yeah, it’s called vibe coding. And it’s very real. 🧵👇

Ever wished your MacBook keyboard had the satisfying click & thock of a mechanical keyboard? 🎧👀