In the latest episode of the Free Agents, we wrap up the year with a discussion of navigating holidays and vacations, my thoughts about getting projects to completion in the new year, Jason’s update to his Not-To-Do List, setting the bar high for taking on new clients, end-of-year appreciation gifts for clients, and holiday seasonality.
Last week Gabe Weatherhead wrote a post explaining how, for him, cloud syncing has become a non-issue. We discussed this recently on the Mac Power Users. It is remarkable how far we’ve come in the last five years concerning syncing data between multiple devices. At this point, I’m using two Macs, two iPads, and an iPhone and I spend very little time thinking about how or why my data is always in sync. As I am heading out the door, I will make my decision between an iPad and a Mac on a whim and no matter what I device I leave with I’ve got access to all the data I need provided there is an Internet connection.
It didn’t use to be that way. Just a few years ago, it required a lot of forethought before leaving and maybe running an application or two to manually sync data across devices. While Dropbox is the usual reason why this stuff works out so well, I’ve been using iCloud since the IOS 11 beta and had mostly the same results.
If there are any rough edges around syncing between multiple devices the days, it is application based. For example, I do a lot of work in iBooks Author, which is an application designed with little thought for synchronizing between multiple devices. While I store the iBooks Author file on iCloud storage, opening it up in two different instances on two different devices can lead to shenanigans. While users need to be aware of these edge cases, in large part the hardware and Internet backbone synchronization is all in place.
To me the obvious next step for technology companies after mastering synchronization is collaboration. Google is the front-runner in this space. Google documents and Google sheets synchronize flawlessly. Several elements of my MacSparky business are based on collaborative Google documents and Google Sheets, and it’s a service that I rely on every day. Apple is trying to up their collaboration game with iWork and Microsoft is doing the same with Office, but nobody has nailed this down as well as Google.
So one of the questions in my mind is whether or not collaboration is also something that will in the not so distant future become a solved problem. The necessary first step for all that is a reliable backbone synchronization engine. We have that. The next step is for software developers to take this problem seriously and give it the appropriate attention to make synchronization something that we can do without relying on the web-based applications. We’ve seen some steps in that direction, but I feel like we still have a long way to go.
Merry Christmas everybody. I hope you and your family are enjoying a great holiday. This year I shared my Yule jazz playlist, and its got lots of subscribers. I’ve heard from listeners that are using it for everything from cooking Christmas dinner to playing in the background while they perform surgery (that’s true!).
Anyway, if you’d like to listen to my favorite jazz Christmas music, check it out for Apple Music. Also, thanks to listener Alex for converting the list to Spotify and posting it on the Mac Power Users Facebook group.
The new year is just around the corner, and maybe you’re thinking about a big project or two you want to get off the ground. That may take some quality Mac software and this week’s sponsor, the Winter Festival of Artisanal Software will get you sorted out.
WinterFest is a collection of some of the premier Mac developers all putting their software on sale at a significant discount. Get 25% off Tinderbox, Nisus Writer Pro, DEVONthink, Panorama X, TaskPaper, Scapple, PDFpen, HoudahSpot, and more. It’s like a greatest hits list from Mac Power Users, and they’re all on sale. There isn’t a single app on this list that I wouldn’t recommend.
So go check out WinterFest and get the tools you need to go on the attack in 2018.
“Deck the Halls with Ones and Zeroes.”
In this episode, we break down all the ways to use your technology for the holidays including smart decorations, streaming audio (and David’s Yule playlist), managing parties with tech, recommended family-friendly Apple TV games, David’s holiday card production workflow and Katie’s envelope hacks, tracking gift giving, and setting up your network for visiting relatives and friends.
Sponsored include:
When working on a laptop, especially the tiny MacBook, I use a lot of full-screen apps and then the macOS Spaces feature is a big help. You just three-finger swipe up on the trackpad, and you get something that looks like this. (Click to enlarge)
You can also three-finger swipe sideways between Spaces. I guess Apple’s data shows that a lot of people go sideways and few people go up to pick a particular app. I’m an outlier. Because I’ll often have ten or more apps running as I get work done this way, swiping sideways is tedious and feels more like playing a slot machine than getting work done. It’s much more efficient for me to swipe up and tap on the desired app.
The problem with macOS Spaces, however, is that by default, macOS re-arranges the Spaces automatically based on recent use. The idea is that you should be able to get the most recent apps the easiest. Again, I’m apparently an outlier. Just because I haven’t opened OmniFocus for a few hours doesn’t mean I want it to move down to the end of the line. This preference scrambles my apps every time I swipe up causing further unnecessary delay. Fortunately, you can turn the preference off.
With this turned off I manually set apps where I want them and then long sessions of switching between full-screen apps is quick and painless.
One of the great things about living in Southern California is all the local nerds I get to hang out with. One such new friend I made this year is Daman Rangoola (Twitter). Daman is a clever guy and put a lot of time into his home screen. So Daman, let’s see it.
I find almost everything on my home screen to be invaluable on a day to day basis, but the two that stand out are Downcast and Tweetbot. I also have Overcast, which I find to be a great app in it’s own right, but after spending so much time tweaking my settings in Downcast and having the app work great for me – I haven’t felt the need to totally make the switch.
Twitter is somewhere I find myself all day whether it’s for monitoring the news (in tech and otherwise) during the day and then diving into the glorious world known as “NBA Twitter” – following along with all the basketball games with a phenomenal community of basketball diehards. Tweetbot has consistently proven to be the best Twitter client for my usage but due to Twitter’s API limitations for third-party apps, I also use the stock Twitter client frequently, thus it also lives on my home screen.
I would say Tweetbot but I can conjure up enough professional purpose to open it to not feel as guilty about it, so I’m going to say Threes. It’s still the best game I’ve ever played on the iPhone – it’s the only game I downloaded and have never removed from my iPhone. It’s challenging, fun, and most importantly – I can play for 2 minutes or one hour and it doesn’t require constant attention.
Strictly speaking, Asana. Slack is vital to my work but I get most of my daily tasks done in Asana and having an on-the-go view of everything I’m working on has been a great addition to my workflow. If I’m away from my desk but an idea hits me or I am talking to somebody and a task presents itself, I can quickly add it into Asana and lose the burden of worrying that I will forget something.
This will be of particular interest to the owner of this website: Workflow. I know I can make great use of this app, and I know how powerful of an app that it is, I just haven’t put in the proper time and effort into getting the app working for me in that way yet.
WhatsApp for iPad, please! WhatsApp has become the go-to communication method for my family (locally and abroad) and for several groups of friends, and it has no iPad client yet.
Constantly. If I’m not reading something on my iPhone, I have my iPad open next to my Mac at all times for work with the Notes app open with my Pencil charged, jotting notes all day. There is virtually no part of my waking hours that I’m not actively or passively (listening to podcasts etc) using either of my iOS devices.
The ecosystem. There are a lot of reasons to individually love my iPhone X and the 10.5” iPad Pro, but the way they work together is my favorite single feature of iOS.
I think it’s time to allow for default apps for major app categories to be changed. I wouldn’t do it like Android, I would make it very difficult to qualify to become a default. I would create a new App Review system for becoming a default, ensuring a good experience for the user.
Two of the biggest examples that would be great for me? Allowing Google Maps to become the default Maps option and allowing Downcast or Overcast become my default podcast player. There are more categories out there that could qualify (like Internet browser) but those two would be game changers for me.
I use my Apple Watch for the following: seeing the time, monitoring my activity, monitoring my notifications, and Apple Pay. I have never been interested in apps on the Watch, even though they are greatly improved, simply because it’s not what I’m personally looking to get out of it.
The bottom complication is what I refer to as “Mean Boss Time” – my boss is rarely in the same time-zone as me, so it’s important for me to know what time it is for him (and he’s sick of me asking lol).
I swipe right to the Activity Analog face when I’m going to the gym or doing any other workout to track my activity in a focused way.
I am absolutely in love with the new OLED display of the iPhone X and to get the full effect out of it, I changed my background to be pure black, which is stunning especially in comparison to non-OLED displays. Similarly, I have changed my home screen background to accentuate the stunning black:
It’s just gorgeous!
I have a no folder policy on the home screen of my iPhone. There was a time where I put everything in folders to only have one total page for all my apps, but I enjoy having the ability to see everything clearly and every app on my home screen being one press away. If I need to launch any other apps, I enjoy using Spotlight most of the time.
Thanks Daman
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. With Tinderbox you can make a mind map, a check list, make 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 your brain make connections that weren’t there before.
Did you know that Tinderbox recently released version 7.3 with more than six dozen visible improvements and a bunch of new technologies?
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.
People use Tinderbox for writing, managing their business, project management and just about anything else where you can benefit from having your own digital personal information assistant.
Go check out the latest version of Tinderbox today. You can download the free trial and see this fantastic app for yourself.
Every year, Splash Data reveals its list of the year’s most commonly used passwords. This year the usual suspects, like “123456” and “password”, are, again at the top of the list. I had to grin that “starwars” has made its way to the list this year at #16. Funny. I would have that guessed that #diejarjardie would rate higher.
If you’re reading this blog, I’m guessing you already have a good password system and are not using any of these rubish passwords. Your family and friends, however, are most likely using lots of them. If you are spending time with some of the damned over the holidays, send them the Splash Data list and try to get through to them just how dangerous these common passwords are. I’ve been using 1Password since it launched and that’s a good recommendation (use this link for 20% off) but regardless of what system you put them on, put them on something.
Speaking of disaster preparedness, my friend, and fellow geek, Rogier Willems, had the latest wildfires show up on his doorstep. He had to evacuate in a hurry and reports in with some excellent advice. One mistake he reports is taking his networking gear when he left. This blinded his security cameras so he had no idea what was happening to his house while evacuated.
