I am pleased to announce the release of Hookmark 6.10, which includes performance enhancements and compatibility updates for Godspeed, DuckDuckGo, Spark (Setapp edition), and Heptabase — along with several other improvements and bug fixes.
SummerFest 2025 and updating your license
Also, we are participating in SummerFest 2025 —The Festival Of Artisanal Software. This year, Scrivener, BBEdit, EagleFiler, Bookends, Nisus Writer Pro, Hookmark, and other venerable Mac apps are 25% off their regular prices. I’m drafting this very newsletter in BBEdit’s Markdown mode, while writing a research paper based on dozens of PDFs in my Bookends library. The SummerFest discount applies to all Hookmark for Mac products, including Updates and Upgrades from Standard to Pro. So this is a great time to update your license. You can update now using the coupon code “SUMMERFEST2025” even if your license only expires in some months time because Hookmark calculates the start date from the first time you use the license following the anniversary of your prior license.
Hookmark Pal
As mentioned previously, we’re working on Hookmark Pal, and we expect to release it later this month. We’re still accepting TestFlight (beta) testers — just email support@cogsciapps.com if you’d like to join.
If you have feature requests for Hookmark for Mac or Hookmark Pal, please log them here on Hookmark’s forum.
Doing deep work
As a long-time advocate for cognitive productivity, I’ve written two Cognitive Productivity books and lead the Hookmark development team. One important concept I champion is deep work, popularized by Cal Newport — the ability to focus without distraction on cognitively demanding tasks.
On the Mac Power Users forum, I started a discussion about which Mac apps support deep work. I also explored the topic on our blog in How Hookmark Supercharges Deep Work. I invite you to take a look — and join the conversation.
I hope you’ll find those conversations useful and consider joining in.
Sleep and productivity
Sleep is essential to cognitive productivity. That’s why I developed the cognitive shuffle technique for facilitating sleep onset — which has received extensive media coverage this year, including features in The New York Times, BBC Science Focus, CNN, and The New Scientist. There’s both a technology-free and app-assisted way of doing the cognitive shuffle.
We’ve just updated our extensive, science-informed list of sleep tips. These aren’t mere folk recommendations — they’re grounded in research and designed to help with sleep onset, maintenance, and quality. If you or someone you care about struggles with sleep, please give it a look.