The Great USB Adapter Purge of 2020

At the new Apple Watch event last week, we got Apple’s first explanation of why they aren’t shipping USB power adapters. The reason, not surprisingly, is to protect the environment. The presentation had a surprising statistic (to me, at least) that removing the USB adapters from the watches and other work with their manufacturing partners reduces the carbon footprint by the equivalent of 50,000 cars.

The next penny to drop will be the new iPhone. If the watch is worth 50,000 cars, how many cars do you expect for the iPhone? It will be lots. I’ve written about this before. My initial thought was that Apple would also offer an easy way to get a free USB power adapter for those who need it. Now I’m wondering if they will go that far. So far, I haven’t seen a lot of negative feedback about this decision on the watch.

Maybe I’m too sensitive about the Apple-is-a-bunch-of-cheap-bastards line of thought, but I feel like with an iPhone announcement without an easy way to get a power adapter, if needed, we are going to see that argument used a lot next month.

Mistakes Book



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Dave Hamilton and Shannon Jean have been making The Small Business Show, a podcast about … well … small businesses, for five years now. It’s a great show, and I’ve even guested on it.

Recently Dave and Shannon released a book called We Love Mistakes that details so many potholes small business people often fall in. If you run a small business, or better yet, are thinking about starting a small business, this is required reading.

The Coming Research App Revolution

In the last several months, I have been experimenting a lot with  Roam Research and Obsidian. There is a lot to like about these apps and their crazy-powerful internal links. With both Roam and Obsidian, cross-linking is ridiculously easy. In the case of Roam Research, this isn’t just true for note titles, but instead every word in your database. So you can be writing away about subject A, but then easily cross-link to the 37th paragraph of something else you wrote about subject B.

Not only can you cross-link, but you can also even embed that paragraph 37 in your subject A text in a way that lets your reference or modify it right in the middle of your word pile on subject A.

With both Roam and Obisian, any phrase (or word) in your database can become a separate page by merely putting two brackets around it. That newly minted page will include links to every other page in your database that consists of that phrase. It is powerful stuff, and I am not doing it justice, but the cross-linking and dynamic page/note creation is an entirely different way to research and take notes. I am using it now daily for legal research and Field Guide development. Throwing all of my ideas in one big bowl and letting them mix around pays immense dividends.

This, however, is not going unnoticed by the rest of the development community. The Archive has been using a similar linked text system for years.  Bear recently added a new feature that lets you cross-link not only titles but also note subheadings. It does not go as deep as Roam Research, but it is a start. Moreover, my beloved Drafts, which also supports cross-linking note titles, have an ecosystem of mobile apps, and there’s already an entire Drafts action library that lets you cross and backlink to Drafts notes.

This influx of cross-linking, dynamic referencing, and the linkable chaos that these apps create feel, to me, like something entirely new, and that bell is not going to get unrung. Not only do I expect these apps to push further ahead with these tools, but I also anticipate other apps to develop in the same direction. A year from now, we are going to have some fantastic options.

One of the best parts of being enthusiastic about technology is when I witness something fundamentally change. I can’t help but think that is happening right now in the research and notes space.

Mac Power Users 554: Read-It-Later Services



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Read-it-later services can be a great way to save and enjoy an article later, away from the noise of social media or an overflowing RSS client. This episode of Mac Power Users has Stephen and I talking about some of the popular choices, and how to keep them from becoming just another thing to check. Then, a recap of Apple’s recent media event.

This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:

  • MarsEdit: Powerful web publishing from your Mac. Get 20% off.

  • Squarespace: Make your next move. Enter offer code MPU at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.

  • 1Password: Have you ever forgotten a password? You don’t have to worry about that anymore. 

  • eero: The WiFi every home deserves. Get your eero delivered with free next day shipping.

2020 Relay Membership Shows

All of my Relay.FM shows have now posted their membership shows. If you are supporting any of the Relay.fm podcasts, you should have access to this feed. The bonus shows this year were a lot of fun.

Windows Power Users

Stephen and I used Windows for a week and reported in on the bonus MPU episode.

Working for the Mouse

Both Rosemary and I worked for Disney. In this episode, we share the stories of how we got the gigs and fun things that happened to us during our time with the mouse. We also talk about the two kinds of former Disney employees.

Focused on Pens

Mike Schmitz has gone nuts with fancy pens. We made our own inferior version of the Pen Addict, where I shared my fancy pens, and Mike shared, and shared, and shared his.

Time Tracking + Automation = Productivity with the Timing App (Sponsor)


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This week MacSparky is sponsored by Timing  a Mac app that keeps granular track of your time without relying on you to keep pressing buttons like those guys on Lost. Instead, Timing automatically tracks which apps, documents and websites you use — without start/stop timers. It then intelligently sorts that for you, assembling a beautiful time-tracking report.

You can point it at your calendar to help Timing figure out what you were working on so if you are a time blocker like me, you are already ahead, again automatically. Timing also can sync data between multiple Macs and even gives you a web view of your data. And if you are away from your Mac, Timing has a web app to track time from anywhere.

The Timing team is even adding team support so members can share projects across an entire team. If you are interested contact Timing’s developer for more details.

I’m a fan of timing. There is no better way to get accurate time reports of what you are doing on your Mac. Go download the free 14-day trial today and get 10% off for the first year!

Shortcuts Field Guide Update, Discount, and Free Shortcuts Webinar



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Are you ready for iOS 14? Because it is coming today. I have to admit when I got my popcorn for yesterday’s Apple event, I didn’t expect Tim to announce they are releasing iOS 14 the next day. Regardless, I’ve been working on an updated to the Shortcuts Field Guide and I’m pleased to announce it is already published.

I’ve added 16 videos and 48+ minutes of new content all about iOS 14 features. If you purchased last year’s Shortcuts Field Guide, this is a free update to that. Just log in to your course and the new material is already there. If you’d like to get onboard with the Shortcuts Field Guide, I’m discounting the price by $5 for a short time to celebrate the iOS 14 launch and Shortcuts Field Guide Update. Just go to the Shortcuts Field Guide Webpage and the price is discounted for a short time. Everything is downloadable and I’ve got the iOS 14 materials both integrated into the course, and collected together so no matter how you want to learn it, I’ve got you covered.

Also, on October 1, I’m putting on a free webinar where I’ll be going over all the big changes to Shortcuts with iOS 14. If you sign up but don’t make it to the webinar, you’ll still get a link to the video replay. I’ll, hopefully, see you at the Shortcuts Webinar.