I prefer OmniFocus but if you like Things, The Sweet Setup has a really nice course they’ve just released. I watched it and was impressed. My favorite part, however, is the additional materials where Shawn shares some of his own productivity and planning workflows. That material is useful no matter what apps you use.
Tinderbox – Get a Discount on the Tool for Notes (Sponsor)
This week MacSparky is sponsored by Tinderbox, the tool for notes. Tinderbox is a Mac App that lets you collect your thoughts and slice and dice them any way your brain prefers. The application does a great job of adjusting to the way you think. With Tinderbox, you can make a mind map, a check list, timelines, charts, outlines, and more. My favorite feature is that you are not tied to any paradigm with this app. Put your data in and start moving it around to help you make connections that weren’t there before.
People are using Tinderbox in all sorts of ways from writing novels to planning a computer network to organizing a complicated corporate merger.
Tinderbox recently released version 7.3 with more than six dozen visible improvements and a bunch of new technologies. The app continues to improve. Tinderbox can now look at your ideas from Notes, Evernote, Dropbox and more on iPhone and iPad. The new version also has quick links to connect notes instantly and composites to build big ideas from small notes. The new fonts also look fantastic on your Mac.
Perhaps best of all, the Tinderbox developer has agreed to give MacSparky readers a limited time $50 discount. That’s a great deal so if you’ve been wanting to try Tinderbox, this is the time. Go check out Tinderbox today.
Alto’s Odyssey Coming Next Week
Alto’s Adventure continues to be one of my top 5 ever iPhone games. They are releasing the sequel next week and I’ll be first in line.
The 2018 Emoji
Emoji are increasingly a bigger deal to me. And I say that non-ironically. I recently sent an octogenarian client an email telling her that her corporate minutes were done and she responded by sending me a text message with a smiling face and heart eyes. That was it.
As text messaging and email have taken over for in-person and voice communications, emoji do fill a role to add context to words. I use them a lot more than I used to.
All that said, the people in charge of Emoji have announced 150+ new emoji and Emogipedia made a cool video showing them off. You can probably expect these in the first major update to iOS 12.
Here are my official awards:
- Favorite overall: Superhero
- Runner-up for favorite: Pirate Flag
- Favorite new animal: Llama
- Favorite new food: Cupcake!
- Best new emoji for use in emergency situation: Toilet Paper
- Social Justice Award: Red Hair
- Most awkwardly familiar: White Hair
- Happiest new Emoji: Partying Face
- Most likely to be misused: Bone
Free Agents 40 – Like Being in a Boat, with Kourosh Dini
In the latest episode of Free Agents, Psychiatrist, writer, musician, and free agent Kourosh Dini joins us to discuss his long journey to being an independent worker, mixing his various jobs, dealing with the stress of being on your own, and much more.
50 Years
Today I celebrate my 50th birthday. I know this is a big one. Right?
For a long time now I’ve known this day was coming, and at the appointed day I’d leave my 40s behind me. At the same time, I felt ambivalent about it. It’s not that I don’t like celebrating my birthday. I love cake as much as any other guy. We even have traditions in my house on my birthday. It’s all fun for me and who doesn’t like being special every once in a while?
The thing I’ve felt ambivalent about is the gravity of the integer. If turning 50 was supposed to be a big turning point, I don’t feel it. Indeed I woke up today feeling a lot like I felt last night, back when I was in my 40s. I don’t feel older. I don’t feel suddenly smart or senile. I definitely don’t feel wiser.
Instead, my root feeling is the same that it has been for the past several years … satisfaction.
I had a great run in my 40s. My MacSparky thing got pretty big. I wrote some books. I started some podcasts. I quit my law firm and started my own legal practice. And I did all of that on my own terms. Looking back at the last decade, I made a pretty good showing. Best of all, where I did fall on my face, and that happened plenty, I was able to stand back up and keep marching.
I think it is that underlying satisfaction that explains why I’m not too worked up about turning fifty today. I also think that’s why I’ve never experienced a midlife crisis. In my head, at least, I’m just getting started. I’ve got more plans and optimism at this point in my life than I’ve ever had.
There isn’t really a point to this post. It started out as a diary entry, but as I read it, I realized that the reason for my very happy 50th birthday is that people just like you care enough to read my blog, my books, and listen to my podcasts and I wanted to share and say thanks.
Thank you … for everything.
BBEdit 12.1
The wheels at Bare Bones Software just keep turning. Today they released BBEdit 12.1. My favorite new feature is the ability to open files over 1.5GB. That’s right. BBEdit, largely used for development text files can now open 1.5GB files because for some people, a 1.5GB cap on text files was a problem. That is just how extreme some BBEdit users are. Additionally, BBEdit is now fully 64-bit and includes Touch Bar support for the MacBook Pros.
MPU 416 – Consuming Content
This week at the Mac Power Users, we explained our workflows for consuming digital (and some analog) content. We discuss keeping up with blogs, magazines, books, spoken word, movies, television, news, and more. It’s pretty remarkable how much the technology behind content consumption has changed in the last few years.
Manage Time Zones with World Clock Pro – Sponsor
There are a lot of time zone apps out there but there are very few that go beyond the basics. What if I want to know a time difference for some time other than now? What if my friend doesn’t live in a major city so the app can’t figure out their time zone? I’ve always wondered what it would be like if someone really sunk their teeth into making a time zone application. I got my answer with this week’s sponsor, World Clock Pro (website)(Mac App Store) (iOS App Store). World Clock Pro converts times throughout the world within seconds. It doesn’t just show you time conversion. It also helps you plan meetings, travel, and coordinate with other people. One of the things I like is the ability to drag an indicator inside the application to change the start time for your time zone calculation. If I’m trying to set a conference call with someone in Manila or Luxembourg Tuesday afternoon, World Clock Pro makes the task trivial. You can even add events to your calendar directly from the application. World Clock Pro supports 142,000+ locations.
World Clock Pro is not for everyone. It’s sold on a subscription model but for professionals, who deal with time differences on a regular basis, there is no better tool. There are versions for both iOS and Mac. The application even gives you the weather for every time zone you’re looking at.
Also, World Clock Pro’s developer was kind enough to give me a few promotional codes for the application. If you’d like to enter the contest, send me an email with the subject “World Clock Pro Contest”, and you’ll be entered in the random drawing. Please note the winners will be awarded by February 9.
OmniFocus 3 and the Next OmniFocus VFG
The Omni Group has been hard at work on OmniFocus, version 3, for some time now. The new version is going to include a lot of new features, including tags, manual sorting, better notifications, and more. It’s a big update, along with visual changes, and a bunch more.
I’m already setting up the OmniFocus Video Field Guide, version 3. It’s going to release with (or shortly after) OmniFocus, version 3. It’s a big project and it is going to be a new purchase. Anyone who buys the current version of the OmniFocus VFG in 2018 will get a free version of the new edition. Now let me get back to work on this outline …