ComicBookFonts Annual Sale Today

If you’ve ever wanted to add some whimsical fonts to your library, there probably isn’t any better place than ComicBookFonts.com. This is a resource for professional comic artists and there is a dizzying array of fonts available. I purchased their Hedge Backwards years ago and still use it all the times in presentations when I want something different. (I even occasionally use it as my dictation font just to switch things up.)

Anyway, these are professional fonts with professional costs. Hedge Backwards, for instance, normally sells for $129. But not today. Every year they have a New Years Day sale with fonts at a penny per year. So for today only just about everything is $20.17. I buy an additional font from them every year on January 1. Check it out.

Productive App for Habit Tracking

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Happy New Year. If you’ve been thinking about changing some habits as we head into 2017, why not game the system with an app? I have fallen off the wagon with habit tracking so I looked at a lot of the popular habit tracking apps before settling on Productive as my favorite. It has a bit of whimsey in its design and is customizable in just about every way you can think of for a habit-tracking app.

You can have habits run multiple times a day (like flossing in the morning and the evening) or much less frequently, like paying bills twice a month. You can have reminder alarms fire off or have the app remain completely silent. I even like the way it has a selection of categorized pre-built habits the first time you run the app to get you started.

The app is free to get you started with a one-time upgrade for more than 5 habits and some other additional features. If you’re trying to get some momentum today, check it out.

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Talking Rogue One on Rebel Force Radio

The day after Rogue One released, I joined the Rebel Force Radio gang to debrief the movie. I actually didn’t join in until about half way through but it’s an excellent show, start to finish.

iPhone City

The New York Times digs deep on the iPhone manufacturing hub in China that’s capable of building 500,000 iPhones per day. It’s interesting that this story comes out on the same day that the Wall Street Journal reports Apple is also exploring the possibility of manufacturing in India. Is it that the Chinese capacity still isn’t high enough or that they don’t want all their eggs in one basket? I suspect the latter.

The AirPods After a Week

I wrote about my new AirPods after one day. Now I’ve been using them over a week and have a few additional observations worth checking in on.

The AirPods charging case fits nicely in that little coin pocket in your jeans. This makes them easy to access and less likely to get all scratched up by your keys.
I still haven’t given them a real stressful battery test. As I go through the day, I am constantly recharging them in their case. I plug the case in at night so it’s getting charged once a day. With this method, battery simply is not an issue.
I’ve now used the AirPods to make approximately 70 calls with no drops, lost connections, or complaints about audio quality.
I use the AirPods with one ear probably 70% of the time. Specifically, if I’m on a call or listening to a podcast or audiobook, one ear is fine. I use both AirPods when listening to music. Switching between one and two ear mode is as easy as pulling them out of your ear.
I’ve always had an aversion to that guy that walks around with a Bluetooth things in his ear at all times. I realize that I’m leaning that way with these AirPods but my concession is that I only have them in my ear when I’m actually on a call or listening to Audio, which leads to my next point …
The smart connection between AirPods and the iPhone is really nice. When I’m not wearing them, my iPhone puts audio and its ringer through its speaker. When I put an AirPod in my ear it switches. With prior Bluetooth headphones, I missed a lot of calls because audio was going to Bluetooth headphones when I thought they were turned off.
Over a week and no cord tangles. So nice.
When somebody does approach me while I’m wearing the AirPod(s), I just pull one out of my ear. Double tapping and audibly telling the AirPod to “pause” while somebody is standing there looking at you is goofy. Pulling it out of my ear lets me focus on the person in front of me.
I received emails from a couple readers saying they don’t like the force required to double tap the AirPods. It doesn’t bother me. I would add, however, that figuring out the right amount of tap force takes a few days.
I’ve used them a lot more with Siri since my initial write up. It doesn’t feel to me as if Siri is any more accurate through an AirPod than it is through the built-in iPhone microphone. One big difference is you no longer have a screen to rely upon for feedback. Maybe because of this, I feel like I see the rough edges around Siri more with the AirPods than I do the iPhone.
They haven’t fallen out of my ears. I seem to have Apple-compliant ears.
I still don’t like using the double tap and Siri commands to pause or play or skip a track. I suspect I will never get used to that. Like I wrote last time, the Apple Watch helps a great deal.

Overall, I’m still really happy with these AirPods. For someone like me, who spends a lot of time on the telephone and listening to audiobooks and podcasts, they’re pretty great. I haven’t used any of my other Bluetooth headphones in the past week and that’s not a result of me trying to pull a stunt for this blog but instead a result of the fact that the AirPods are just so damn convenient. (That doesn’t mean I’ll be abandoning my noise canceling headphones on my next flight.)

Thank You Carrie

I was at an impressionable age when I first saw Star Wars and Carrie Fisher showed me that a princess could be fierce, smart, and the one who does the rescuing instead of the opposite. While Carrie Fisher was so much more than her role in that galaxy far, far away to me … she’ll always be royalty.

MPU 357: Workflows that Worked in 2016

It’s the end of the year so Katie and I did a show focussing on our favorite new workflows from 2016. I thought this show came out great with a little something for everybody. Enjoy.

Sponsors include:

Fujitsu ScanSnap ScanSnap Helps You Live a More Productive, Efficient, Paperless Life.
Marketcircle We help small business grow with great Mac, iPhone and iPad apps including Daylight and Billings Pro.
1Password Have you ever forgotten a password? Now you don’t have to worry about that anymore.

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone! I was sitting around with my amazing family this morning, listening to Ella Fitzgerald and unwrapping my Star Wars toys (yes … mine) and it occurred to me that if 12-year-old me could see how 48-year-old me spends Christmas, he’d only say, “Well done older me. Well done indeed!” I hope your holiday is as full of joy as mine.

About the Hamilton Card

In the Sparks house, we like to make custom holiday cards and often they have a pop culture bent. This year we went for a Hamilton card, which I made with Pixelmator and OmniGraffle. The two MVP features were Pixelmator’s Quick Selection tool, which is like Instant Alpha (just way more powerful), and Piexelmator for iPad and the Apple Pencil. I had to hand draw in several elements. (Strangely, I don’t have any knee high boots and my wife does not actually own a hoop skirt.) The Pencil and iPad Pro really delivered.

Home Screens – Rishabh Dassani

Rishabh R. Dassani (Twitter) is a creative nonfiction writer and a management consultant at Dazné. He writes short essays on personal effectiveness for design and business leaders. You can find them at right here and also sign up for his weekly Newsflash. So Rishabh, show us your home screen.

What are some of your favorite apps?

I have used most of these apps for many years now. I find them indispensable in getting work done. Please note they may not all be available on the App Store as some of them are quite old and sport older UI.

Things (App Store)(Website): is a list manager that I find fast and a pleasure to use. I have found its Sync feature second to none.
Tweetbot (App Store)(Website): Although I have used the newer version, I find myself coming back to the older version (3.6.3).
Simplenote (App Store)(Website): I use it with Notational Velocity on the Mac to keep small snippets of text for quick access between my Mac and iPhone.
Ninjawords (Website): Super fast dictionary. Sadly, the app is no longer available. But they have a website that you can use to look up words quickly. You can even add it to your iOS home screen.
Articles (App Store) (Website): is my Wikipedia app of choice. It has remained without update since 2013, though that hasn’t deterred me from using it.
Due (App Store)(Website): I use it for time-sensitive reminders. Great app.
Dialvetica (App Store)(Website): I use it for dialing contacts quickly. It has remained in my Dock for years.
Fantastical (App Store)(Website) is great for quickly adding calendar events. Also, the week view is great in landscape orientation.
Evernote Scannable (App Store)(Website) works great for scanning documents quickly.
Overcast (App Store)(Website) is my podcast app of choice, though it is far from perfect.
Letterboxd (App Store)(Website) is great for keeping track of films watched.
Deliveries (App Store)(Website) app is an old favorite for keeping track of shipments.
Cloak (App Store)(Website) is great for keeping yourself (and your data) safe using VPN.
Fast (Website): Not really an app but you can add it to your iOS home screen. It shows you the download speed of your internet connection.
Productive (App Store)(Website) for keeping track of new habits.
1Password (App Store)(Website) for managing my passwords and credit cards.
Find Friends (Website): I use it for keeping track of my family members for emergency/safety reasons.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

YouTube. (Website) I spend way more time with it than I should. Tweetbot and Instagram are a distant second.

What app makes you most productive?

Things on the iPhone (App Store)(Website) works great for me to capture items on the go. Later I use Things on the Mac (2.2.6) to process them.

What app do you know you’re underutilizing?

Drafts. (App Store)(Website) I only use it for a handful of things right now, though I know it can a lot more.

What is the app you are still missing?

I want my Apple Watch to track my sleep automatically. There are apps out there that let you do that but you have to turn them on/off manually.

More than an app, the feature I most want in my Apple devices is Proaction. I want these devices to learn from my use patterns. For instance, it knows that when I am at home, I turn off the Cellular Data (and turn on wifi), and when I am away, I turn on the Cellular Data (and turn off wifi). It would be great if it learns from you without you having to do it every time.

How many times a day do you use your iPhone?

I use my iPhone a few times (10+) during the day. I am trying to cut it down.

What Today View widgets are you using and why?

Fantastical (App Store)(Website) for viewing today’s calendar.
Battery widget (iPhone and Watch).
PCalc (App Store)(Website) for doing quick calculations.
Activity for keeping track of Move, Stand, Exercise.
Shazam (App Store) for quickly identifying music I come across.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone?

3D Touch: I use it all the time on my most-used apps. For instance, I use this feature with the Phone app to turn on/off Cellular Data and to put phone in Low Power Mode quickly.

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

I would have longer cycles (more than a couple of years) between hardware and software releases.

I would also make the new macOS more mac like. One of the reasons I haven’t upgraded to the newest OS is because I found its UI to be less pleasing to the eye. I also find the older iTunes 10 better. I am happily using Mountain Lion (10.8.4).

Show us your watch face.

I use the Modular watch face most of the time as it can have as many as 5 complications. The complications I use are Activity, Timer, Day and Date, Time, and Calendar. I also use a Utility watch face with the same complications. Although, there are now third-party complications available, these are the ones I have found to be essential.

What’s your wallpaper and why?

I use wallpapers from a collection called Focus Backgrounds (no longer available) designed by my friend, Joe Darnell. I have been using them on my Mac (10.8.4) and iPhone (iOS 10) for quite some time.

Anything else you’d like to share?

I am excited to share that earlier this week I put out my 100th piece for my weblog. Please have a look at the Archive page to see what tickles your fancy. And if you like something, please share it with others.

Thanks Rishabh.