macOS Big Sur 11.2

While I wouldn’t normally cover a maintenance update, this one brings many much needed bug fixes to Apple Silicon Mac users. There were problems with external displays and BlueTooth connection issues. I was seeing that with my M1 MacBook when connected to a monitor and my external trackpad and keyboard kept disappearing.

Hopefully, that’s the end of Apple Silicon hiccups.

Focused 118: Tasks and Habits

Tasks are great but sometimes the wrong tool. On this episode of Focused, Mike and I make the case that habits are underrated and can help you where projects cannot.

This episode of Focused is sponsored by:

  • Timing: The automatic time-tracking app for macOS. Use this link to save 10% on your purchase.

  • ExpressVPN: High-speed, secure and anonymous VPN service. Get an extra three months free.

  • Indeed: Get a free $75 credit to upgrade your job post.

The Text Case Gets Flows

Text Case, a text transformation app, is out with a new update. Version 2021.1 adds quite a bit of new functionality as the major feature of this update is the addition of flows. Now it turns the various formats into building blocks that can be combined so you can create a flow with a single format, or as many as you like to create more complex and personal text transformations. Tap on a flow to have it apply the transformation to your copied text. In regard to Shortcuts, just like the formats, you can access your flows from Shortcuts, so they are just as automatable. Play around with it and have your text work for you, instead of the other around.

For awhile now, Text Case has been my weapon of choice for modifying text. It’s nice to see its continued development and these new automation-friendly features.

Mac Power Users 573: Rosemary Orchard Returns

The Queen of Automation drops by the latest episode of Mac Power Users to talk about her current gear and use of Plex, as well as how she is using HomeKit and managing files.

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.

  • Pingdom: Start monitoring your website performance and availability today, and get instant alerts when an outage occurs or a site transaction fails. Use offer code MPU to get 30% off. Offer expires on January 31, 2022, and can be used only once.

  • Indeed: Get a free $75 credit to upgrade your job post.

  • DEVONthink: Get organized—unleash your creativity. Use this link for 10% off.

The BIG Ready Conference

Mike Vardy is putting on The BIG Ready conference on February 2. (I’ll be on the retreat panel.) It looks to be an interesting conference with a lot of speakers lined up. It’ll be the first such conference I’ll be attending during the pandemic, so I’m curious about that. Regardless, I know Mike has put a lot of love into this conference and it should be good if that’s your thing.

Automators 68: Stephen Millard and ThoughtAsylum

Stephen Millard from ThoughtAsylum joins us on this episode of Automators to share his automation journey and his extraordinary ecosystem of plugins Drafts.

This episode of Automators is sponsored by:

  • The Intrazone, by Microsoft SharePoint: Your bi-weekly conversation and interview podcast about SharePoint, OneDrive and related tech within Microsoft 365.

  • DEVONthink: Get organized—unleash your creativity. Use this link for 10% off.

  • AirBuddy: Experience AirPods on your Mac like never before. First 100 Automators listeners get a 20% discount with this link.

The Annual Six Colors Apple Report Card

I participated in Jason Snell’s annual Apple Report Card, that published today. In general, it seems the community is pretty happy with the way Apple is doing things lately. Most notable to me is the steady increase in satisfaction with the Mac.


Six Colors Apple Report card.png

That jump is entirely due to Apple Silicon, and Apple is just getting started.

SaneBox – A.I. For Your Email (Sponsor)

The term Artificial Intelligence is thrown around so much these days that it should be a drinking game. Lots of folks talk about it, but there are few places where you can see it working for you. One of those, however, is this week’s sponsor, SaneBox. SaneBox is like having a robot to manage your email. Imagine for a moment that instead of waking up to 200 items in your inbox, you wake up to five, and those five are the most critical emails that you need to read. You can have that experience with SaneBox.

SaneBox is the solution to so many of my email problems. What if you had an assistant who worked for you 24/7 that did nothing but sort and manage your email? Wouldn’t that be nice? That is what SaneBox does. SaneBox is the email service that adds a pile of productivity features to your email, regardless of what email client you use. For a lot of folks, email is a constant pain point, and it doesn’t need to be. With SaneBox at your back, you can:

  • Wake up every day to find the SaneBox robots have automatically sorted your incoming email for you so you can address the important and ignore the irrelevant.

  • Defer email for hours, days, or weeks, so it is out of your life until a more appropriate time. They have even added a new feature that can optionally auto-reply to snoozed email with something like, “I’m sorry, but I’m underwater right now. I’ll get back to you in a few days.”

  • Set secret reminders so if someone doesn’t reply to an important email, SaneBox gives you a nudge to follow up.

  • Automatically save attachments to the cloud (like Dropbox).

  • Use their SaneFwd service to automatically send appropriate emails to services such as Evernote, Expensify, or Kayak.

  • Move unwanted email to the SaneBlackHole and never see anything from that person again.

The list goes on, and MacSparky readers love this service. I have heard from so many readers over the years who finally figured out email when they signed up for SaneBox. Why not straighten out your email by getting a SaneBox account? If you sign up with this link, you even get a discount on your subscription. Want to learn more? Check out this video.

Innovating when You’re Big

Yesterday Apple had a good day. They reported 2021 Q1 income and things are going gangbusters. $111 Billion (with a B) in one quarter. Moreover, Apple now reports 1 Billion active iPhone users. It’s all nuts.

Success like that makes it hard to innovate. Everything has to be at such a scale that you can’t afford to make any mistakes. That is one of the reasons I’ve been so fascinated with the recent Mac renaissance and Apple Silicon. It seems right now that the Mac is where Apple can take risks. Hopefully, they do.

Retaining Knowledge with Readwise.io

I read a lot in areas ranging from the finer points of cooking gumbo to recent developments in California trade secret law. For a long time now, I’ve done this reading digitally. I read long-form articles in Instapaper and books in the Kindle app on my iPad or directly on a Kindle device.

I have friends who lament about reading books digitally. They tell me about the experience of reading paper books and feeling the weight of it in your hand. I remember when paper books were the only option, and I remember their weight alright. I remember how heavy my bag was with three or four books in it back in the day. I also remember how frustrating it was when I carried all of those books only to find I left the book I needed at home. So I am fully invested in the idea of digital books. I don’t need the feel of them, I just need them to be with me.

The convenience of digital books took on a new level for me recently with my subscription to Readwise.io. Readwise is an online service that can sync with your Amazon Kindle account. Readwise can then look at your Kindle books and collect all of your highlights from a book. You can then export your highlights as a Markdown file to add to your research notes on the book (or use any other way that makes sense to collect highlights).

My workflow is:

  1. Read the book, making digital highlights.

  2. Collect and export the highlights from Readwise.io to my notes app.

  3. Read the highlights and make a second set of highlights of the highlights.

  4. Summarize critical points in my own words.

In addition to automatically collecting highlights from my Kindle account, it does the same thing with everything I’ve highlighted in the Instapaper app. There are several more connected services, including Pocket, Medium, Hypothesis, Goodreads, Airr, Feedly, Apple Books, and Twitter. They even have a way to save to Readwise with an extension on iOS. If you’ve read other books without digitally highlighting them, Readwise can share a list of their most common highlights from that book as well.

Another cool Readwise feature is the option to send you a daily email with a collection of highlights from all of your resources. Every morning, I spend a few minutes looking through this list at ideas I thought were important enough to highlight. It’s one more way Readwise helps you retain what you’ve learned.

The system is all digital, all searchable, and always with me. I’ve done variations of this since I was in college in the ’80s. This is, by far, the best implementation.