This week’s Focused has Mike and me doing an audit of our productivity workflows and share what’s working (and what isn’t).
This episode of Focused is sponsored by:
This week’s Focused has Mike and me doing an audit of our productivity workflows and share what’s working (and what isn’t).
This episode of Focused is sponsored by:
As I’ve been rethinking where the iPad fits in my life, I’ve been using a laptop a lot more for remote work lately. That sometimes surfaces new opportunities for me and one of those is improved time tracking with Timing. I’ve always run Timing in the background, but because I was doing so much work on iPad before, it wasn’t as useful to me. With the new order of things, Timing is now giving me incredibly accurate time tracking data without requiring me to push a button every time I context shift. I like that. I also really like Timing’s reporting functions.
Timing is out with some updates. To better reflects time entries, as opposed to tasks, “tasks” have been renamed to “time entries”, as that what is what this concept actually represents. They’ve cautioned that if you are using Timing’s AppleScript functionality, you might need to replace “task” with “time entry” and/or “timer” in your scripts.
The other update is a web app update. Now you can include app usage in the Timing web app’s reports if you’re a Timing subscriber on the “Expert” or “Teams” plan. With this update, you can use the “App Usage” switch to include or exclude app usage from your reports.
If you spend a lot of time working behind a Mac and want zero-effort time tracking data, check out Timing.
Starting with a pet project for Steve Jobs, all the way to a modern, web-infused set of applications across multiple platforms, iWork has expanded into a suite of tools more than capable of meeting almost anyone’s needs. This week on Mac Power Users, Stephen and I talk through Keynote, Pages and Numbers, giving tips and comparing them to office suites offered by other companies.
This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:
TextExpander from Smile: Get 20% off with this link and type more with less effort! Expand short abbreviations into longer bits of text, even fill-ins, with TextExpander from Smile.
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Electric: Stop stressing over scattered devices. Get a free pair of Beats Solo3 Wireless Headphones when you schedule a meeting.
In this episode of Automators, Rosemary and I dive into Rosemary’s updates to her home automation, smart locks, Home Assistant, and even a cute little robot mop.
This episode of Automators is sponsored by:
ExpressVPN: High-speed, secure and anonymous VPN service. Get an extra three months free.
Technology Untangled: Join Michael Bird as he untangles innovation through a series of interviews, stories, and analyses with some of the industry’s brightest brains.
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Make no mistake, Daylite isn’t just a CRM tool, it’s a Mac CRM tool. It isn’t for everyone, it’s for us. It’s for Mac people. People who ‘get’ that thinking exclusively and holistically about small business is actually thinking big.
Just like a Mac, Daylite is an intuitive way of instantly integrating your Apple calendar and Apple mail, reminders, notes, tasks and more. Online, offline, wherever, it’s completely shareable with any Mac user and accessible from any macOS or iOS device. Daylite allows you to minimize the juggling of accounts, tasks and projects while maximizing leads, customer relationships and profits.
At once, your small business has everything you and your team expect from a leading CRM tool while having the stress-relieving perks you’d only expect from a made-for-Mac app. Name one other CRM app with the productivity-boosting power to seamlessly work well with Apple integration.
It’s Daylite. Learn more.
I’m late with this news, but Chance Miller from 9to5mac shared how GarageBand for iOS and iPadOS has been updated with all-new Sound Packs, Producer Packs, and Remix Sessions to include some of today’s top artists and producers. There aren’t just new sounds to play with but because you get to hear and play with isolated vocals, loops, beats, individual instruments, and samples, you can get as creative as you want to make your own music in GarageBand. I’m excited to play around in GarageBand and just hear what some of the fun and weird stuff I can come up with.
I continue to think that GarageBand is one of the most underrated Apple applications. It brings real powerful audio production tools to everyone presented in an understandable way. We used to produce Mac Power Users with GarageBand. I’d have killed for this software when I was a kid.
My congrats to Federico, John, and the rest of the Club MacStories team on their big release today of Club MacStories Premier and other news. I know they’ve been working so hard on this. MacStories has really risen to the top in this post-computer magazine world into a trusted source for news and reviews.
I’m going to start doing free monthly webinars here at MacSparky and the next one is all about how I’m using Apple mail with a combination of AppleScript and other automation tools to make the application dance. I’ve got a lot of good ideas to help you make Apple Mail dance, so why don’t you join me?
If the date/time are inconvenient to you, go ahead and sign up anyway. Afterward, I’ll be sending out time-limited access to a recording.
In this feedback episode of Mac Power Users, Stephen and I discuss website redesigns, quote applications, encryption, virtualizing Windows, and a whole lot more.
This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:
1Password: Have you ever forgotten a password? You don’t have to worry about that anymore.
Squarespace: Make your next move. Enter offer code MPU at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.
Setapp: More than 200 powerful apps for your Mac. Try it free for a week.
Acorn is a quality image editor for MacOS that won’t break your patience or your bank. They’ve got you covered on the basics like touching up your images, removing backgrounds, color correcting, resizing, and cropping, but they can help you do so much more.
Acorn gives you choices. They’ve got a ton of photo effects to choose from, and they’re easy to use. You can really play around with filters. Not only can you combine filters together for endless combinations, but you don’t have to commit and can change your mind if you don’t like the filter you chose.
Gus Mueller, the gent behind Flying Meat Software, just keeps improving Acorn. Their last update gave us a new export workflow, a super accurate color picker, a tool to help fix perspective distortions, and altering or even creating your own animated GIF. Acorn on sale at only $19.99, which is 50% off the regular price but that is ending next week.