My Talk at CMD-D 2017


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Speaking of Automation and Sal Soghoian, Sal recently posted a video of my presentation at his CMD-D conference last year along with several of the other speakers. My talk was about the Workflow application. This was one of my favorite (and most challenging) talks because the audience ranged from people that had never used Workflow to the actual application developers. Yikes. This was before we learned about Siri Shortcuts but there is still some good stuff. Finally, Sal is going to do the CMD-D conference again this year, and it is a three day AppleScript intensive.

Automators 3 with Sal Soghoian


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Between moving into the new home office and dealing with the wildfire last week (that ended up a lot closer to my house than I would have liked), I neglected to post about the latest episode of the Automators.

Episode 3 is our first episode featuring a guest, and there is no one better as a first Automators guest than Sal Soghoian. Formerly at Apple, Sal has been an advocate of Automation with Apple gear for years. In this episode, Sal walks us through how to create an AppleScript. Sal created a website for this episode so you can learn along with him while sitting at your Mac. Rose did a complete write-up of the show over at her website. This is a pretty remarkable experience for an audio podcast, and I’m proud to have been a small part of it.

Get Ahead with OmniFocus 3 – Sponsor


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This week MacSparky is sponsored by the Omni Group and their latest version of OmniFocus for the iPhone and iPad, OmniFocus 3. The latest version adds several new features while still keeping it a beautiful (and usable) app. What features you may ask? Why don’t you try these on for size:

  • Tags! Make them for people, energy level, priority, location, or whatever floats your boat. 
  • The Forecast view now shows your tasks and calendar events in order, so you can better see what’s coming up in your day and adjust if needed. 
  • Enhanced repeating tasks are easier than ever to set up and they work with real-world examples, such as the first weekday of the month. 
  • Batch editing has been brought over from the Mac, and it lets you set due dates, tags, and other data for multiple tasks all at once. 
  • Flexible inspectors now allow you to show only the features you use and reorder them, so your favorites are where you want them. 

There is a bunch more. Just try it for yourself. Also, did you know that the Omni Group has world-class support? If you need help, they even have an 800 number. 

Conquer your task list today with OmniFocus 3.

The Next iPad

Jason Snell wrote up a nice summary of the current rumors and his opinions on the upcoming iPad at Macworld. It seems a near certainty that we’ll get at least one new iPad next month with Face ID since the current iOS 12 betas on iPad have gone out of their way to move all information to the top right and left of the screen, thus making room for a notch. That bit of evidence also makes me think the iPad Pro will have an edge-to-edge screen since the current iPad Pro design has plenty of room in the forehead to accommodate the Face ID sensors without adding a notch.

Another interesting point is that with an edge-to-edge screen, what will happen with finger detection on the edges? When the iPad was first released, Apple made a pretty big deal out of the fact that it needed borders so you could hold it without touching the capacitive screen on the device. I know they’ve been working around that on the iPhone but I expect that problem to be harder to solve on the iPad where everyone will nearly always have at least one finger holding (and touching) the front of an edge-to-edge screen.

Mac Power Users 443: Revisiting Music Management


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Join Katie and I on this week’s episode of Mac Power Users as we revisit music management and discuss the state of the two major streaming services, how things have changed iTunes Match, managing our music, and audio at home and in the car.

This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:

  • 1Password: Have you ever forgotten a password? Now you don’t have to worry about that anymore. Save up to 20% using this link.
  • The Omni Group: We’re passionate about productivity for Mac, iPhone and iPad. 
  • Squarespace: Make your next move. Enter offer code MPU at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.
  • Marketcircle: We help small business grow with great Mac, iPhone and iPad apps including Daylight and Billings Pro.

Get Automated with TextExpander – Sponsor


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This week’s MacSparky sponsor, TextExpander, is one of my favorite tools to recommend to folks interested in working smarter, not harder. TextExpander is a text expansion tool that changes your game. Text expansion tools have always been useful. Type “ccell” and the app automatically fills in your cell phone number, correctly formatted. 

What makes TextExpander so much better, however, is all the icing on the cake. And when it comes to TextExpander, there is a lot of icing. 

Need rich text and a picture in your snippet? Yup.

Want to add an AppleScript to your snippet? TextExpander does that.

Want to share snippets? You can do that. (I did that.)

Want to use it on Windows, Mac, and iOS. TextExpander does that too.

You can even get team accounts, so everyone in your company is giving out precisely the right message.

I use TextExpander every day, and the application saves me a ton of time. If you’d like to make your computer do the work, so you don’t have to, look no further. Check out TextExpander, and let them know you heard about it here for a discount.

Free Agents 53: The Value of Your Time


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Mike and I talk about protecting your most valuable resource and how to figure out what you shouldn’t be doing anymore on this week’s episode of Free Agents. Mike gets inspired during his personal retreat and learns how to say “no.” I learn the hard way from my recent travels, but I have a plan for what to do differently next time.

This episode of Free Agents is sponsored by:

  • Hover: Show the world what you’re passionate about with 10% off your first purchase.
  • Squarespace: Make your next move. Enter offer code FREEAGENTS at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.
  • FreshBooks: Online invoicing made easy.

Mac Power Users 442: Workflows with Joe Buhlig


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Joe Buhlig joins Katie and me on this week’s episode to talk about his iPadless life, analog tools for productivity, live streaming, managing a business, Discourse, and more.

This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:

  • TextExpander from Smile: Type more with less effort! Expand short abbreviations into longer bits of text, even fill-ins, with TextExpander from Smile.
  • 1Password: Have you ever forgotten a password? Now you don’t have to worry about that anymore. Save up to 20% using this link.
  • Squarespace: Make your next move. Enter offer code MPU at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.

Save Email Attachments to the Cloud with SaneBox


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This week MacSparky is sponsored by SaneBox, the email service that adds power features to any email system. With SaneBox at your back, you add a powerful set of email tools that can work in just about any email client. SaneBox will automatically sort your email for you, defer your email to a more convenient time, set reminders and automatically forward email.

The list of SaneBox features just keeps growing. One feature a lot of people overlook is SaneBox’s ability to automatically save email attachments to the cloud. Attachments are hard to find and take up lots of storage space in your email. Sane Attachments scans emails in your Inbox for attachments, puts them on Dropbox, and replaces them with a link. Not only does this save space in your email, it also lets you use Hazel on your Mac to perform automation on your email attachments (which appear in a Dropbox folder) as they arrive. Super useful.

These are just a few of the features that you get with SaneBox. Go check it out and use this link to get a discount off your subscription.