Free Agents 33 – When You Say Yes to Everything



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The latest episode of Free Agents is up. We’ve fiddled with the show format a bit. Specifically, now that we’ve covered most of the topic shows we wanted to cover, we’re spending more time talking about the challenges we’re seeing on the ground. I’m struggling with how I’m spending my time. Jason is trying to figure out when to say no and he got some better perspective about how well his business is doing, prompted by a job inquiry from a former co-worker. 

Sponsors include:

  • Freshbooks: Online invoicing made easy.
  • Podcast Listener Survey: We rely on advertising as a way to support this show. If you could do us a favor and answer a few short questions, it would be really helpful to us.

The Disneyland Stress Test for the iPhone X

Matt Panzarino for TechCrunch reviewed his iPhone X by taking it to The Happiest Place on Earth. There are now several reviews posted with Apple seeding review units to several people in the press. One of the big questions in my mind was how well Face ID will work in the real world. If these initial reviews are anything to go by, it sounds like things will be just fine. Mine shows up Friday and I can hardly wait.

Plan Your Next Project with inShort – Sponsor



This week MacSparky is sponsored by inShort(website) (Mac App Store) (iOS App Store). inShort is a project planning application for the Mac, iPhone, and iPad that lets you plan projects and processes graphically across all of your Apple devices. Click on the above image to get the idea. This brings a new paradigm to process and project planning and is worth checking out. 

One of the more innovative features is the way it allows you to embed processes and drill down to the level of detail you need at the moment. The trick with inShort is to build a detailed diagram, and from there the application creates a Gantt chart to execute your plan.
Most recently inShort’s received an update making it easier to edit diagrams and input text. Routing connections also got better. 

The inShort development team has also added a satellite service, workflow.link that gives you a way to work with, edit, and manage your projects from any device with a web browser. 

Want to learn more? Check out the website and read the developer’s PDF. 

Jazz Friday: Happy Birthday Thelonious


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This month we celebrate the 100th anniversary of Thelonious Monk’s birth. While I’ve featured some of Monk’s music in the past, I’ve never featured the man himself. It’s time to fix that.

Thelonious Monk was one of the founding fathers of bebop and is a jazz giant. Both his compositions and playing style changed the course of jazz music. Some of his compositions are legendary like, like Round Midnight. Monk was one of the best composers of his time. One song that stands out for me is Crepuscule with Nellie (iTunes)(Apple Music), which is a rare jazz song that does not provide for improvisation. It was a composition written, start to finish, as a love song to his wife. One of my absolute favorite songs is his Pannonica, which I butcher on the Piano with this downloadable track.

Monk also played piano like no one before. I distinctly remember hearing Monk for the first time in the 70’s. I was about ten years old and it floored me. I immediately went to my piano teacher and begged to play Monk music. She preferred Bach but I eventually figured it out on my own.

There are so many great Monk albums that it really is hard to recommend just one. One of my favorites is a two album set of him playing the piano without his band, Thelonious Alone in San Francisco (iTunes)(Apple Music). I also really enjoy his collaboration with John Coltrane (iTunes)(Apple Music).

If you’d like to learn more about Monk, I recommend the documentary, Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser (iTunes)(YouTube).

Anyway … Happy Birthday, Monk.

Home Screens – Kent Sutherland


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This week’s home screen features Kent Sutherland (website)(Twitter). Kent is part of the Flexibits team and a pretty busy guy. Now that Kent has shipped the latest update to Fantastical and a brand new contact app, Cardhop, I asked Ken to share his home screen. So Ken, show us your home screen.


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What are some of your favorite apps?

Reeder is one of my favorite apps that also gets used all the time. I’m one of those weird people that still loves RSS feeds and uses them all the time. I also enjoy Words With Friends because it lets me distract myself occasionally and keep in touch with friends that I wouldn’t otherwise talk to as often. Pinner is used frequently so I can pull up saved recipies when I’m at the grocery store or when I’m cooking. For built-in apps, the Podcasts app gets used a lot although I’m not a fan of what happened to it with iOS 11 (it might be time to explore alternatives). Finally, it’s not on my home screen, but I don’t know how I’d type on my phone without Gboard.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Reddit, because it lets me look at stupid images and videos while I’m waiting for a bus or in line somewhere.

What app makes you most productive?

I’ve found my phone doesn’t really help make me productive, as getting real work done requires my Mac. Slack at least helps me keep track of our build system and any issues that might come up when I’m away from a computer though. Judging from my home screen, my phone is frequently used for communication (Viber, Facebook Messenger, Messages, Slack, and Words With Friends are all used for text messaging).

What app do you know you’re underutilizing?

I should probably be using Pocket more often. I’d be a bit more efficient if I deferred reading for later, but I’ve gotten out of the habit.

How many times a day do you use your iPhone/iPad?

Who knows, but probably more than I’d expect. To try to minimize that number I often keep my phone on do not disturb while I’m at my computer, which helps to reduce the chance that I’ll get distracted by push notifications.

What Today View widgets are you using and why?

Fantastical in the expanded month view and Weather Underground. I’m pretty light on widgets, but I get regular use out of both of those. There’s only really room to see a couple of widgets at once, and I found I never used the others if I had to scroll down to get to them.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

My favorite little feature on the iPhone is the 3D Touch gesture to switch apps. I was distraught when they removed it from iOS 11, and I was very happy with they said it was coming back.

If you were in charge at Apple, what would you add or change?

In terms of iOS, I’d make iOS faster to use. The iPhone and iPad are fast computers now, but that speed is often locked behind all of the animations and gestures. For example, switching between two apps takes a second or two for the app switcher animation, then another to tap on another app and wait for it to appear. In my perfect world there would be an option to disable all of the unlock and app transition animations. I’ve used iOS enough to know exactly where on the screen everything is going to appear, and if I could tap without delay the time savings would add up quickly.

Do you have an Apple Watch? Show us your watch face tell us about it.


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My watch it spends most of its life on the charger, as I’m not much of a watch person. It does get used to test Fantastical’s watch app and complications, and the timer occasionally comes in handy when I’m doing laundry.

What’s your wallpaper and why?

My wallpaper is one of the cloud and star pictures from a previous version of iOS that has long since been removed. My lock screen is a picture of a jellyfish that I took in a zoo. I set it a long time ago and it seems to have just stuck.

Thanks Kent … and great work with Cardhop!

Get Mac Help with Willems Tech (Sponsor)



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This week MacSparky is sponsored by Willems Tech. Rogier Willems is a wicked smart IT professional that specializes in Macs and security. Rogier and his team do remote IT for customers all over the world, and they are a great asset if you need any help managing your Apple network. 

As long as your Mac connects to the Internet and powers on, Rogier and team can assist with all Mac problems and even to a complete Tune-Up to make your Mac run like new again. They untangle email, contact, and calendar problems.

Finally, Willems Tech does a lot of consulting in data privacy and security with the knowledge that most IT professionals lack, like email encryption for instance. If you need some IT help, reach out to Willems Tech.

Dropbox Professional

This week Dropbox announced a new individual tier, Dropbox Professional. For $20 a month you get 1 TB of storage, which is the same amount of storage with the Dropbox Plus plan at $10 a month. However, there are some additional features like smart sync, which lets you access all of your Dropbox-stored files without necessarily keeping them on your device and full-text search, which lets you search the contents of your files stored on Dropbox.

The sharing and collaboration tools also include some additional features including shared link controls which lets you manage access and visibility of shared documents.

At this point, I have largely divested myself of Dropbox except for some of its sharing features as I’ve been continuing my iCloud experiment. If iCloud didn’t exist, I probably would upgrade to the professional plan. The additional features are useful, mainly if you’re running on a laptop with limited storage. I do wish however that for $20/month they provided more storage than the same amount you get for the $10 tier. Dropbox has a page outlining the differences between the various individual plans.