Join Advent AI Lab – a FB community of Christian AI enthusiasts.
AI: Benefit Your Ministry – EC3 Presentation Slides (80mb, may load slowly). The prompt anatomy section is probably the most noteworthy.
Text Generation AI (Also known as Large Language Models [LLMs]):
The big 4: ChatGPT/Bing Chat, Claude.ai, Google Bard, Meta Llama 2*
MacGPT – A neat ChatGPT client for MacOS. Sometimes, a promo code on the purchase page makes it free.
LM Studio* – Run Llama-based LLMs locally (7b models have a 16GB ram minimum, 13b models have a 32GB ram minimum, 30b models have a 64GB ram minimum, etc.)
Image Generation AI:
The Big 4: Midjourney, Dall-E 3, StableDiffusion*, Firefly
Dall-E 3 – The easiest to use. ChatGPT converts your natural language prompts into complex prompts. Comes with the ChatGPT Pro plan. Highly censored (religious themes sometimes blocked). Note: You can technically use Dall-E 3 for free via chat.bing.com or bing.com/create but they don’t offer portrait or landscape options and may take less input from ChatGPT to refine prompts.
Midjourney – The most popular, but not as easy as Dall-E since some prompting knowledge is required. It comes with a good parameter guide and runs within Discord.
StableDiffusion options (more complex to use):
– Leonardo.ai – Online, easiest version of Stable Diffusion.
– Fooocus* – Simplest local solution.
– Automatic1111* – The most popular local solution with lots of customizability.
– ComfyUI* – Competing with Automatic1111 for most popular since it runs a bit faster. Node-based. Very complicated to learn, but also the most flexible.
– SwarmUI* – Mix of Automatic1111+ComfyUI by Stability.ai
– InvokeAI* – Commonly regarded as an alternative to the more popular Automatic1111, but has introduced some node-based features.
Pinokio – A 1-Click “app store” marketplace solution for installing local AI models of various kinds, including many of the above Stable-Diffusion options.
*These AI solutions run locally on your machine and may require a good GPU with at least 16GB RAM or a high-end ARM processor with as much on-board RAM as possible. I wouldn’t even bother with less than 32GB RAM, as these run quite slowly on an M1 Max with 64GB RAM.
Mac OS, Browser, & iOS Apps
Definitive App Comparisons – Crowdsourced spreadsheet with comparisons for Browser, Calendar, E-Mail, Note, Password Manager, and PDF apps.
Affinity Design Suite (Paid, Mac/Windows/iOS) – Single purchase alternative to the Adobe design suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign) with a special feature that merges all of their apps into their publisher app. This makes an integrated cross-app workflow much faster since you don’t have to switch apps.
BetterTouchTool (Paid) – Set customizable gestures and taps on Mac touchpads. Huge time-saver.
Alfred 5 (Paid) – Spotlight replacement tool with clipboard history and a huge number of extensions. Huge time saver.
Voice Dream Reader (Paid iOS) – Text-to-speech app for improving your reading speed and experience. The Mac version is subscription only, but iOS is a one-time purchase.
Downie – (Paid) Download video from nearly anywhere.
Dropzone 4 (Paid) – Effortlessly move and copy files on your Mac.
ODrive – (Free Tier) Mount cloud drives locally for instant syncing without using hard drive space. Offers just about everything you should need for free.
Bitwarden (Free, Multiplatform) – Password Manager, time-saving autofill function, or hold CMD+Down arrow to trigger it in browsers.
Ferdium (Free) – All-in-one messenger and web app consolidator.
Vanilla / Bartender (Free/Paid) – Organize your Mac menu bar.
Eagle (Paid) – Organize your photo/font library.
Davinci Resolve (Free/+Paid Option) – Professional free video editing software.
Blender (Free) – Professional 3D software.
Xnconvert (Free) – Batch image converter and resizer.
Gemini 2 (Mac/iOS) – Duplicate file finder.
MacWhisper (Mac) – Generate transcripts of audio/video for subtitles and more.
Find Any File (Freemium) – When everything else fails, this will find it. I use it to track files installed in the last 2–5 mins after an install, so I know what to remove if I’m only trying something temporarily. Closest I can get to sandboxing on MacOS.
NoTunes (Free) – Blocks iTunes/Apple Music from ever opening when play/pause keys are tapped.
Transnomino (free) – Batch file renamer
Ulangi (Free) – Flashcards with spaced repetition that can be fed with a google sheet.
Unclack (Free) – Mutes your mic when typing. Great for zoom as long as you’re not talking at the same time. Don’t leave it enabled when taking notes while recording audio though.
XnConvert (Free) – Batch image converter.
Doodle (Web) – Simplify meeting scheduling and polls.
Sli.do (Web) – Live Q&A and Polls for your Meetings & Events
Poll Everywhere – Captivates audiences with live activities that deliver actionable results (25 responses free)
Social Fixer – Customize your Facebook feed, filter out undesirable topics (I.e. politics), and mark items as read.
Snapdrop (Web) – Cross-platform in-browser airdrop. No installation is necessary.
Video Speed Controller – browser-specific speed controls: Firefox, Chrome
Download Helper – Download videos from almost any website. Firefox, Chrome
Grammarly – Grammar Checker. Also notable: Hemingway Editor, Slickwrite
ZoteroBib – Easy free bibliography generator
Zotero – Citation collector and organizer. Automatically inserts accurate footnotes and bibliographies into your word processor. Requires some setup, but it is well worth it if you write a lot. The reason I like it over other competitors is that you can add a book by ISBN, plus it’s just faster to use than the other options I’ve tested.
Scrivener – The Photoshop of writing apps. Sort your writing into chapters and sections with snapshots to save and revert to different versions of your work. Doesn’t work with Zotero, but can take EndNote reference codes.
Text Workflow – I use this to automatically find and replace a large variety of common mistakes made by OCR at once.
Devonthink is great for maximizing your ability to search files for research. See how it can save you time below: