Well after all my yacking about sticking with Treo I got sucked into the iDay hype and ended up buying an iPhone. I’ve spent a few hours with it now and love it. It doesn’t do anything particularly new, it just does everything much prettier and easier. I’ll probably do a more thorough review for Surfbits but for now I’m having too much fun.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always had a fascination with Jazz music. Throughout High School and College I played piano and saxaphone with numerous bands and even did studio work before falling into law school. It is a standing joke around my house that when everyone was listening to Duran Duran, I was listening to Miles Davis and Dave Brubeck. I first heard Thelonious Monk when I was about 12 but my piano teacher wouldn’t let me play his music. Well it took me nearly 30 years but here I am stickin’ it to the man. This was done in one take so there are a few funky notes but … ummm … those are correct .. it is Monk after all. Enjoy friends.
While I’ve been a member of the OmniFocus “Sneaky Peek” for some time now I hadn’t really embraced it yet. This is a result of the fact that things have been very busy lately and I’ve got such a smooth workflow with iGTD that I, frankly, wasn’t all that motivated. I then began a series of email correspondence with Robin Trew, who is, by they way, much smarter than I. Rob put together an amazing apple script that yanked about 250 tasks out of iGTD and dropped them into OmniFocus in as much time as it took me to brew and consume a cup of green tea.
Rob having saved me the tedium of transferring data, I began playing in earnest with OmniFocus a few days ago and it looks like I’m not going back to iGTD. I’m not taking anything away from iGTD which is a very good application (and free!). Indeed, with Quicksilver triggers and other features I think iGTD is, in several ways, superior to the current OmniFocus alpha I’m working on. However, after a few days usage I can already see the writing on the wall. Frankly I’m willing to have a little less efficient input in exchange for other benefits in OmniFocus. Specifically, I find the ease of use in moving and copying task groups, the better data management, the ease of use in designating projects with concurrent or subsequent tasks and the general fit and finish of the program have me hooked. Rob also explained the data security in OmniFocus is better. Being that I was an arts major and I still leave cheese out at nights just in case there IS a little mouse inside my Mac on a wheel, I’m simply going to paste Rob’s explanation here.
“The iGTD approach of storing everything in a single binary (SQLite) file does introduce a slight vulnerability - a binary file can be quite hard to retrieve things from if it gets corrupted. Omnifocus also uses SQL internally, but it stores everything on disk as a cloud of (gzipped) XML files - one for each transaction, which is inherently rather robust. (Regular backups are streamed out as single XML files, which, like the small transaction files, become human-readable as soon as you gunzip them in the Terminal).
There is a more lucid and authoritative account here.”
So it looks like I’ll be talking more about OmniFocus and less about iGTD. Unless, of course, OmniFocus is not up to the task and then you will hear all the gory details right here. For those iGTD faithful I say stick with it. If it weren’t for OmniFocus, I certainly would. I don’t think questions as to which tool you use to accomplish your productivity is really, at the end of the day, all that important. The question is whether you actually are productive.
I’m happy to post my first screencast. It took me about 5 minutes to record it and about 5 hours to figure out the fancy graphics for the entry. At least it gave me an excuse to learn to use Motion.
This screencast is about how to use Quicksilver to append text files. This is a trick I use frequently so check it out.
I also linked some other great quicksilver tutorials here.
You can Download it Directly Right Here
or better yet subscribe in the iTunes store
You can hear the below review in MacReview Cast #113.
My experience with Path Finder is an interesting one. When I first switched to my Mac, a friend told me to forget about the Apple Finder and use Path Finder. Well I downloaded it when my Mac was shiny new and it didn’t grab me. I used it a few times but found myself going back to the less intimidating Apple Finder.
Well I know quite a bit more about OS X now than I did during that failed trial and decided to give it another go. Now I can’t imagine ever working without it.
Path Finder is the Swiss Army Knife of file management tools. When you first open the application there is a group of six windows that are fully customizable. You can display a variety of data from your running applications, file and folder histories, volumes, selection paths, information, permissions, attributes, console, and even a terminal window. The binary view makes me laugh but hey, it must be useful to somebody. With so much variety you can make Path Finder can change to suit your needs rather than forcing you to change to meet the application’s needs as is so often the case.
In the main display window it has a Path Navigator that visually tells you where you are and where you have been as you drill down. Like the Apple Finder, Path Finder supports all standard view modes including list, icon, and hierarchical. Also, control clicking on an item in Path Finder gives me a lot more options than I am used too. Of course you can do the normal file management tasks like copying and moving but you can also email, compress, create a disk image, open in terminal and a variety of other options.
This program is very feature rich. So much so that in the week I’ve been using it I won’t pretend to say I’m familiar with them all so I’m going to focus on a few that really grabbed me.
The customizable bookmark bar is very nice. Taking a page from Safari and other web browsers, Path Finder has a bar of common file locations across the top of the screen with drop down menus. It has the usual suspects built in: Documents, Music, Movies and the likes. But you can also create your own custom drop downs like “downloads” or anything else you need frequently.
Another great feature is the Drop Stack. When I open a finder window it is usually to work on several files. With the Drop Stack it gives me a place to temporarily drop files while I’m navigating through multiple menus. Once I’ve assembled everything I need to work on in my drop stack, its all in one place and easy to get too. This just doesn’t mean moving and copying. I can also burn and compress items straight out of the Drop Stack.
Like Forklift and Leopard’s Finder, Pathfinder has an excellent preview pane that handles most image and HTML files and even quicktime movie files. I set one of the larger panes for preview and it is very helpful when moving or cleaning image files.
Using the “File History” setting, Pathfinder keeps a running tally of my most recently accessed files. This is nice as I’m going through my day if I am working on several projects.
Path Finder also brings some extra muscle to searching your Mac. I’ve found Spotlight to be very good at ferreting out lost files but occasionally something will get misplaced into a location that Spotlight doesn’t look. Path Finder has its own separate “Fast Search” engine that will search the entire system.
You can’t beat Path Finder for compression. A version of the StuffIt compression engine is built right in. When sharing with your PC friends, it also allows for ZIP compression.
Another nice feature is the application window. By holding down command-F8 you open up an attractive window that displays icons for all of your applications. This is great when I need to open an application but forgot its name.
Did I mention it has a built in console window, text editor, and easily allows you to see hidden files?
Looking at the preferences you will see that Path Finder is even more adaptable giving you control over the entire look and feel of the application.
Reflecting on the way I manage files I must give a nod to Quicksilver. Once you get accustomed to Quicksilver, you can’t really beat it for down and dirty file management. With just a little practice, you can move, copy, and trash files as quickly as it takes to open Finder or one of its replacements. I really use Path Finder and Forklift on file management tasks that take some heavy lifting.
Path Finder is my finder replacement. It is robust and bends to fit my needs. I would give Forklift the advantage for FTP but generally found Path Finder more useful for the way I compute. I will be keeping both programs and I am certain I will be using them both. If you are looking for just one, you should download and give each one a week or two on your machine to see what fits you better. Like Forklift, Path Finder also has a free trial period. If you get hooked, it will run you $34.95.
Well as the cool-aid logo implies, I do like my Apple gadgets. Unfortunately, the iPhone is not one of the gadgets I’ll be able to use. My office is on Verizon and my office calendar system will only sync with Pocket PC or the Palm OS (for now at least). So it appears I am out of the running for that tempting iPhone.
But of course technolust can breed a bit of creativity. I did a search at PalmGear for OS X and found a few apps that make my Treo “almost” feel like an iPhone. There are a variety of launchers and other fancy pants add ons but the two that I ended up using are Font Smoother and Icons Plus. Using these two apps I have been able to set my Palm system font to the Mac Lucida Font (or something Very close) and I’ve replaced the blocky Palm icons with the OS X set. For instance, Snapper mail now has an Apple Mail icon.
Now granted these cheap parlor tricks don’t give me the functionality or user experience of an iPhone, (Don’t EVER try to surf the web on a Treo BTW) but still it makes me smile and when I show it to other geeks they freak out a bit which is entertainment in its own right.
By the way, does anyone else wish Apple will make an iPhone without the phone? Kind of a souped up iPod with all those nice tricks and perhaps a WiFi receiver to surf the web when in range? If they do, sign me up!
I’ve been using the low tech Moleskine method for tracking to do items when away from my Mac a few weeks now and can report I’m very pleased with it. I read a few of the forums at iGTD and the Missing Sync and it still appears there is a certain degree of black magic involved with getting a reliable sync between the Treo and iGTD. You could spend hours on it and you still seem to risk data corruption with every sync. I just keep the Moleskine in my pocket and when I’m away from my Mac and something occurs to me that needs to get done, I jot a quick note. At least once a day I go through that list and, if it is an easy task, I just do it. Othewise, it goes into the iGTD jumble. At that point it gets crossed off the moleskine list and I’m done with it. I also keep a miniaturized print out of the iGTD database in my Moleskine pocket. Granted this would be nice to do electronically but until it gets just as easy and MUCH more reliable. I’m sticking with this system. Someone who saw me using it said, “Hey Dave … You are a geek why aren’t you putting that in you Treo.” While granted I am a Geek, I also just want to get these things done. Whatever works. It reminds me of something an incredible woodworker, Sam Maloof, once told me when I was taking a class from him. “Use whatever tool works best. If it is easier to use a saw, use as saw .. If it is easier to use your teeth, use your teeth.”
Okay … I must admit … I still love E.T. I think I like it so much because that WAS my childhood. The bicycles, the D&D, the late nights with friends, the whole thing (excepting the alien … wink). So I’ve been working on playing my favorite melody from the movie and got a somewhat passable version recorded over the weekend. I am going to try and do this with more orchestra instruments later but for now I was just happy to get to the end on the piano. Enjoy.
I sat down over the weekend and watched the keynote video. I also read a lot more of the reviews and media coverage of the keynote and have thought a bit more about it. I think the pundits (myself included) are missing the point. Granted most of the people reading this Blog have already figured out how to make a download folder or discovered great Tiger Applications like Path Finder to give us much of the promised future Leopard features. However, there are many Mac users, my daughter and wife among them, who will not do any of that stuff until Apple hands it to them, through OS X, on a silver platter. At that point we geeky folks will figure out some new hack to make it even more functional.
The other thing that occurred to me is that the next time Steve Jobs gives a keynote, I’m going to have a drinking game where you take a shot every time he says the word “cool”.
This review was recorded and posted on Surfbits MacReview Cast #112
When working in Apple’s Finder I often find myself opening multiple finder windows to allow me to work with files across different locations. Sure you can technically do this within one finder window but it never seems to work quite right and it inevitably leads to a lot more clicks than necessary. Somebody at BinaryNights must have had the same revelation because when you open up Forklift, the first thing that strikes you is the dual pane window. This isn’t rocket science but the simplicity of it is refereshing. You can assign the left and the right panes to different locations and file management will suddenly get much faster and much easier. It even supports tabs and drawers so you can have collections of locations on each pane making the set up of of your source and destination even easier.
When I say “destinations” I’m not just talking about a few directories on you home drive or an external USB drive. Forklift gets the whole enchilada: FTP, SFTP servers, Amazon S3, iPods, Bluetooth devices and just about anything else you can plug into or airport link with. Using forklift I am able to upload files to my FTP server just as easily as if I were transferring between two directories. It even can look at archived files as if they were unscrunched. I don’t have an Amazon S3 account but reading the forums and other web postings this appears to run fine. I spent some time trying to get it to talk to my Verizon Treo 650 but was ultimately unsuccessful. I don’t think this has anything to do with Forklift and a lot to do with and phone. Except for that hiccup it really felt as if I was working on a local drive the whole time.
The application gives you multiple ways to find and sort items from spotlight searches to smart folders to favorites tabs. Whether you are the neat and tidy hierarchical type or a bit more of an anarchist that relies on sorts and smart folders, Forklift will accommodate you.
Another nice feature is the “Preview”. I know a lot of people are excited about the Quicklook feature in Leopard. Forklift has a similar, though not quite so slick, version built in. When you click an image or pdf you see a little version in the icon view. It is very helpful for sorting through images, especially when I am not disciplined in naming them. It does not render previews for all file types. For instance, OmniPlan and OmniOutlilnes just give you an icon, whereas OmniGraffle, pdf, and photo files give you an accurate representation.
Forklift fully supports Growl so my Mac can still tell me when it is done with a file transfer. Likewise it has the spring loaded folders like the Tiger Finder but I rarely used them since the dual panes made it unnecessary.
In addition to providing an excellent file management tool, it also has an application deleter. This is an additional tool in Forklift that hunts down all related files for any application you want to delete. This helps keep the junk off your drive. I ran it against AppZapper and it was comparable. One time, with ChronoSync, AppZappers found a few files Forklift didn’t, but just that once out of ten tests.
I really tried to make it work using keyboard navigation but never got the hang of it. I’ve only been using it a week and perhaps that would sort itself out with some time but I constantly found myself simply resorting to the mouse.
Forklift is an upgrade over the Tiger Finder. The simplified, dual pane interface, the previews, and the seamless integration with FTP and other media make this a no-brainer. You can pick it up at BinaryNights.com for $29.95. They also have a 15 day trial so you can check it out before buying.
This review, however, is not the end of my quest for Finder alternatives. Following this review I am shutting down Forklift and I will spend the next week working exclusively with Path Finder. It will be very interesting to compare and contrast these two applications next week and see how they all sort out.
This weekend I am officially taking a break from the law and (in addition to playing/swimming with my kids) planning on spending some time with Logic. I have about 7 different music projects all in one state or another of completion. While I doubt I’ll finish any of them this weekend, I will have fun trying. In the meantime I found a great link at MacMediaCast for musicians linking some very good plugins right here. Check it out.
As I sink deeper into the depths of Mac Geekdom, I’m becoming a bit dissatisfied with the Apple Finder. Fortunately, there are several very good replacements. I just spent the last week playing with Forklift and prepared a review that I’ll post after it airs on the next MacReviewCast. I’m spending this week working in Pathfinder. I’ll be reviewing that one next week and hopefully I’ll have a few intelligent recommendations. Of course I’m not forgetting Quicksilver which I actually use for quite a bit of file management.
Check back and see how it all pans out!
Today iGTD released another update. I don’t know if Bartek has help or is just superhuman but this program just gets more and more polished with every update. I am using it for all of my task management and there are currently about 250 tasks being tracked in oodles of projects.
Granted I am a HUGE fan of the OmniGroup applications, OmniFocus really has a contender here. As an aside I’m now officially on the inside of the “sneaky peak” for OmniFocus but I don’t have time to really give it a look-see until this weekend.
I was watching Apple’s demonstration of the “Stacks” that will be released in Leopard and realized, “Hey, I’m already doing that!” I’m sure this is nothing new for many of you but using a series of smart (and not so smart) folders I already have my desktop set up in a way that drops downloads and other files into my desktop “inbox” for later sorting and action. Below is my desktop.
On the right side of my desktop there is an inbox, which contains a “download”, “media” and a few other subfolders that I find handy along with an “Outbox” which is where I put things that need to be sent off into the yonder. The “files” icon actually represents an encrypted sparse-image drive that I keep confidential work files in (I have a separate one not shown for personal confidential items) and the “Cabinet” is just a shortcut to my parsed set of document folders. I boosted this idea largely from an excellent series of screencasts by Ethan Schoonover on the Kinkless Desktop. Still and all, doesn’t that make me smart for adopting it?
It was fun reading the recaps and reports from the WWDC 07. I also really enjoyed looking at Apple’s updated movies and tutorials right here. While several of the changes look nice it really strikes me as incremental more monumental. The stacks are not much different than what I’m currently doing on my desktop with some smart and not so smart folders and the finder improvements are nice but I’m not sure how it stacks against pathfinder. All this being said, I can’t wait to get it on my MacBook Pro.
My wife’s PC is bluescreening pretty regularly and I was hoping we’d here about new iMacs but maybe that will come later.
Addendum … After posting this my daughter asked me about leopard so I watched the videos again with her and she was blown away. Maybe that is the point. These new features are much more helpful/impressive to non-quicksilver geeks like my daughter’s dad.
Attention All of you Law Dads and Moms…During my fifth grader’s parent teacher conference I offered to come in and help the kids learn a bit about the judicial system and how it fits into our three branches of government. I had heard about a case that one of the bar associations had put together letting the kids roleplay a trial. Well it took me some six months to track it down but I finally did get the transcript for a kids trial. Humpty Dumpty … did he actually fall? or was he pushed? It is a great little trial where the kids play the roles of the judge, attorneys, parties, witnesses, bailiff, and jury.
I also put together a keynote presentation to give the kids before doing the trial (which has been exported to Powerpoint for those of you that are Mac challenged). The kids were very attentive during the presentation and asked some very good question. “How do you defend someone if you know he is guilty?” Since I’ve done all this work I thought I might as well share it.Below you can download “the case” along with my Keynote Presentation. For those folks still on Windows, download the Quicktime and it will work just like Keynote on your Dell. You can live life large. Grin. If you do use it, please drop me a note and let me know how it goes.
The kids seemed to have a good time and I’ve already agreed to go back to the fifth grade next year and do it for the next group (even though I won’t actually have any kids in the class)
By the way… My daughter’s class had two juries because of size. One said he fell, the other said he was pushed. Can anyone say double jeopardy?
I’ve added a few new links to the margin and thought I’d mention them in a post.
My friend Darren Rolfe is just like me, a semi-contributor to Surfbits (and about to be a little more involved there) and running a new Mac Blog. I really enjoy reading what is going on in Darren’s world and hope you will too.
I discovered this blog about 2 weeks ago and it has quickly risen to the top of My RSS feed. If there is time to just read one web site a day, it is this one. Leo writes on productivity, parenthood, and good living everyday. His site really strikes a chord with me and I hope some you enjoy it as well.
This review was recorded and can be heard on Surfbit’s excellent Macreviewcast #111. If you have a burning desire to hear me, check it out.
I am part of the first generation of lifetime computer users. My first computer was a Radio Shack computer with 4k RAM when I was about 10 and I’ve spent a large part of the last 30 years behind a computer in one form or another. I’m starting to see just enough grey hair in the mirror to make me suddenly listen to discussions about healthy computing.
It is with this in mind that I took a look at Desk Doctor from Einspine. Desk Doctor seeks to monitor the way you are using your computer and gives you subtle (and not so subtle reminders) on when you need to stretch and otherwise take care of OS Me. The risk to all of us computer users is RSI, Repetitive Strain Injury. Whether you are mining for gold in World of Warcraft or writing under a deadline, you are subjecting your body to the risks of RSI.
Desk Doctor starts out with a diagnostic test that takes about 30 minutes going over the various parts of your body and letting you identify your various aches and pains. This is a very thorough interview. Indeed more thorough than I’ve ever had with any doctor. Then the program takes you through a series of exercises to determine exactly where you are stiff and where you are not. Each exercise is accompanied by a video with the Desk Doctor lady showing you the way.
Once Desk Doctor figures out your particular needs, the program prepares a series of exercises for you. Again, the Desk Doctor Lady shows you each particular exercise. Not only does the program know what exercises you need, it also tells you when you need them. The program logs your activity on your Mac. It tracks them all, key clicks, mouse overs, mouse clicks. It actually keeps score giving you points for doing exercises and taking points for long periods of computing without rest or exercise.
Everything is customizable in the system preferences but the interface does not strike me as particularly clean or Mac-like. The score window is very small but does take screen space. You cannot see your score when it is minimized. It would be nice if they figured a way to integrate the score into a menubar item so your score is available but out of the way. I primarily use the audio alert feature. Whenever I work too long, Desk Doctor “barks” at me. Sure you can use the chime, but the “puppy” sound makes me grin.
All of this monitoring does not come without a price. Desk Doctor uses a lot of system resources. When in monitoring mode it adds between 5 and 20 percent to my menumeters processor stats. It is generally on top of my activity monitor and when I run the videos it sends both cores of my Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro into the 40-80 percent range. This is actually my second attempt to review this program. A few months ago I tried to review it but it was causing all sorts of mayhem on my intel Mac. The new version is Universal Binary and while it does use resources, I used it for 2 weeks without any crashing or other strange behavior. I was actually impressed with the developer who was very inquisitive after my first failed attempt at using the program and appears to be very interested in making this program work.
Because of the resource usage, I don’t run Desk Doctor when playing in Logic or Final Cut. I do, however, spend a great deal of time working at my Mac in work related applications such as NeoOffice, the Omni applications, and Keynote. It runs just fine then. I think I’m actually more productive with it. I dig in and work hard until Desk Doctor’s puppy starts barking. Then I do an exercise or two and dive back in.
There are high res and low res varients. I used the low res version to save a bit of disc space and make it easier on the processor. It is not cheap at $129 but that really isn’t much more than a single trip to the chiropractor so perhaps it is not as bad as it sounds. There is a free 15 day trial so if you are like me and actually remember what a Radio Shack Color Computer is, it probably wouldn’t hurt you to give it a trial run. If you are listening to this, you are the type who is taking care of OS X, so don’t forget to take care of OS Me as well.
About three weeks ago I gave up on my windows based task system and switched over entirely to iGTD. I keep my laptop with me just about everywhere and this seems to work out. One issue, however, is the inability to keep my task list on my Treo 650. I must sync the smart phone with my office windows lawyer-type program (TimeMatters) and I’ve found out (the hard way) that syncing a Treo to two different computers can be a very bad thing for data integrity.
Anyway, quite often during the course of my day someone will call, email or walk in my office and tell me of something that will require further action or processing by me at a later time. Stopping what I’m doing and making an iGTD entry is very counterproductive and I needed a better solution. I played around with a few options. I’ve tried typing tasks into my Treo’s task list item but it takes several button presses and the thumbpad doesn’t lend itself to spontaneous entry. The best solution I found is to simply scratch a note when I’m away from the Mac and update iGTD next time I’m working in it. So I’ve been finding myself with this daily pocket full of business cards, sticky pads, napkins, receipts and other flotsam and jetsam that I’ve written a reminder on. (Did anyone know that you can actually write on a corn chip with a felt tip pen?) When I have time I then empty out my pockets and either take care of the action right their or process it into iGTD.
I was in the book store doing a bit of shopping I saw a display of pretty Moleskine notebooks and had one of those “Aha!” moments. $9.95 later I’m the proud owner of a pocket size Moleskine that has now replaced the scraps of paper and chips in my pocket. So far I’m just making a daily list and scratching things off when they find themselves into iGTD. I did, however, leave the first 10 pages blank in case I decide to go crazy and use one of the many interesting Molekine hacks all over the net like here, here, and here. I’ve only been using it a few days but so far it is working out nicely. In the pocket I’m keeping a $20 bill, a few cards, and a shrunken printout of the iGTD database. I do need to get a pen that will fit in my pocket though. Maybe I’ll find one that attaches to my keyring.
Any other Moleskine users out there? Drop me a note and tell me how you are using yours. As a side note, I also bought the pocket music transcription book. I’m writing a bit of music again and thought it would be handy.
The internet is hot with rumors about Leopard and ZFS. Apparently some mucky-muck at Sun Microsystems disclosed that the ZFS file system will be the primary file system in Leopard. I guess it is not as big of a secret as everyone was initially saying however since I’m hearing the alpha/beta testers of Leopard have been saying for some time its already in the build. Regardless, all this speculation led me to the question of what, exactly, is ZFS? I read the Wiki article here and it helped a little bit for my non-tech brain but then I really got a handle on it when listening (as a complete coincidence) to the Macbreak Tech podcast where it was explained along with a few chuckles. I’d give you a link but Macbreak Tech is very new and I can’t seem to find one. Just do a podcast search in the iTunes store and you are set. Now if you want me to explain what I understand of ZFS, that just isn’t going to happen. Monkeys shouldn’t do brain surgery and I shouldn’t attempt to explain ZFS.
Recent Comments