Are you going to be near Chicago on March 15, 2017? If so, you should join me and Katie Floyd along with 90 other Mac Power Users Listeners. We’ve opened up some additional space for a fun night.
MacPaw, makers of SetApp, is sponsoring so there will be plenty of grub and good times. Go sign up. If it’s full, sign up for the waiting list. We’re working on getting more folks in.
This week on Mac Power Users we dive deep into calendars and discuss the various cloud calendar services, sharing, calendar apps, best practices, and scheduling services.
This week MacSparky is sponsored by the app that I use as my own personal graphics toolbox, OmniGraffle. OmniGraffle was created as a diagramming tool but it is so much more. Using OmniGraffle’s powerful, but easily understandable tools, I am able to not only make diagrams but also maps, flow charts, court exhibits, garden plans, countless school projects, and even the family Christmas card. If I’m doing something that involves moving pixels around the screen, OmniGraffle delivers.
OmniGraffle users range from artists to data mappers to (even) geeky lawyers. The tools are fast and easy to learn and there are versions of OmniGraffle for Mac, iPad, and iPhone. I frequently hear from readers that are OmniGraffle-curious. They are interested in the app but not sure whether it is something they need. My answer is always the same. If you have OmniGraffle, you will find uses for it and the diagrams you make in it will look professional and better than anything you’ve been making before.
The OmniGroup has recently released OmniGraffle version 7 and the app has so much polish now. Everything is cleaner and easier to use and access to Stenciltown (where you can import and use other folks’ art work in your diagrams) is easier than ever. Best of all, there’s a free trial so you can download and try it risk free. Up your diagram game today with OmniGraffle.
Apple has a few new ads spots showing off iPhone 7 Plus Portrait Mode. Now that the shiny newness has worn off Portrait Mode, I’m curious how much it has stuck with users. I’m still using it, but deliberately. I need to plan taking a portrait shot, which is probably what Apple intended.
Another observation is that my non camera-fidly friends love Portrait Mode shots while my friends that own fancy cameras aren’t so easily impressed. I consider the fact that I can get a shot like this with my phone an absolute win.
This week’s home screen post features Robert Black (Website)(Twitter). Robert is a strategic cartoonist (bringing a bit of humor to corporate communications). Robert is also a geek and loves his iPhone. So Robert, show us your home screen.
What are some of your favorite apps?
When I originally studied engineering, we all had the classic engineer’s calculator, the HP15C, which used something called Reverse Polish Notation. RPN is kind of like the calculator equivalent of a Dvorak keyboard on a computer – much more efficient for difficult calculations, but as mind-bending to learn and use as it’s name suggests.
So although these days I don’t need a calculator nearly so much, and actually have the official HP15C emulator app stowed away in a folder on my phone for nostalgia, Soulver is the calculator that makes me grin from ear to ear every time I need to work out something simple or complex. I love it — it’s a brilliant rethink of how to make a calculator easy and useful!
On occasions when I have to make emergency changes or tweaks to my website from my iPhone, the combination of Textastic (code/html editing), Working Copy (a full, elegant Git client on a phone that integrates with Textastic!) and Prompt (the SSH client from Panic) is magic. It’s one of those moments when I have to pinch myself, that I’m actually doing what I’m doing from my phone.
Which app is your guilty pleasure?
Not Facebook! It would be Reeder. I’m an information omnivore, and I love gathering interesting articles from around the web by following the RSS feeds of clever people who’s instincts I trust.
What app makes you most productive?
I’m not sure I’d describe my time on the phone as productive. I don’t spend a lot of time on it, but if I have to pick something, I guess I’ll be boring and say Mail — it’s boring, but true.
Hey Siri on my Apple Watch has taken over an important function that I used to use the iPhone for — capturing task thoughts to my inbox as they occur to me, GTD style. But I do still use Drafts for capturing a cartoon idea if one pops into my head half-formed — I love the way Drafts greases the path to capturing first, and working out what to do with that text afterwards, which in my case is an action that appends the string to a text file of captured ideas that’s kept in Dropbox.
What app do you know you’re underutilizing?
I don’t use a 100th of the power of the text editor Editorial — it’s my iOS tool of choice for the text, Markdown and Taskpaper files that live in nvALT on my Macs. (I also have Ulysses and Scrivener, but the problem I have is that I just don’t write enough to make use of these fine tools. I spend my days drawing rather than crafting words. Well… strings of words longer than a cartoon caption, which does take some crafting!)
And FileMaker Go – I mean, I practically live in FileMaker Pro Advanced on my Macs, and it’s a literal miracle that you can design a custom app for your iPhone in FileMaker Pro and download it to FileMaker Go and have a fully-functional iPhone “app” that you put together yourself without writing a line of code, and yet, I personally haven’t found really compelling uses for FM Go on my phone’s small screen. But it boggles my mind that the whole FileMaker suite of products for small business are mentioned so seldom — they’re game-changing, and most people have never heard of them. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
What is the app you are still missing?
The full Adobe Illustrator… on a phone? I mean, I know there’s Adobe Draw for iOS, but it’s not the same thing. Hey, a guy’s gotta dream!
How many times a day do you use your iPhone?
That’s a good question. I suspect the only way to know for sure would be to film me surreptitiously, but if I were to hazard a guess, I’d say somewhere between 10 and 20 times.
What Today View widgets are you using and why?
Fantastical – well duh! Time Zones, because I publish stuff in multiple time-zones every week and stay up half the night to see what the reaction on the other side of the world is. And Weatherline, because I prefer its presentation of data.
What is your favorite feature of the iPhone?
The camera! I’m taking snaps of sketches or things for reference ALL. THE. TIME. Closely followed by Touch ID (magic!) and Air Drop (grumble not 100% reliable grumble)
If you were in charge at Apple, what would you add or change?
Phew! That’s a tricky one. The first thing that comes to mind is a renewed focus on coding quality around edge-cases, but I’m prepared to give them a pass on that for now… I suspect that the massive new Apple Campus 2 has been consuming a lot of their time to get perfect, because that’s going to pay and repay dividends to the future of Apple if they achieve the lofty goals they’ve set for it.
So instead I’ll say DON’T DROP THE BALL with APPLESCRIPT on the Mac!!! The scriptability of applications on the Mac is probably my most cherished platform feature, so the recent ructions with the sudden departure of Sal Soghoian worry me greatly for the future of the platform I depend on!
I mean it Apple (finger wagging wildly)
Do you have an Apple Watch? Show us your watch face tell us about it.
I have a Series 1 Apple Watch. On the face I use the Modular face, mainly to get the best use of complications. Front and center I have Fantastical’s complication, followed by Streaks in the lower left (hmmm, must up my effort to instill good habits today!).
Lower middle is Workflow’s widget, which currently has 5 workflows that can turn on and off our big TV, various living room lights and our Big Ass Fans Haiku. These Workflow workflows call urls from my watch, triggering Keyboard Maestro macros hosted on a Mac Mini sitting under the TV (also acting as our PVR), which make AppleScript calls to wither EyeTV or iRed 2, which in turn controls an IRTrans USB infrared transceiver to control the TV, fan, and lights.
Just for fun 🙂
Normally all the home automation stuff is triggered via an older Logitech Harmony Companion Universal RF remote control, which channels everything via Remote Buddy to Keyboard Maestro, which acts as the nerve-center for scripting all these moving parts.
What’s your wallpaper and why?
Stars – no particular reason.
Anything else you’d like to share?
I’ve probably said enough already!
Thanks Robert.
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.
In the latest episode of Free Agents, CPA (and fellow free agent) Andrew Carroll guests to explain accounting and tax challenges for independent workers. This is a great episode – especially with April 15 around the corner.
A few years ago I wrote about a then-new application, Trip Mode, that allows you to turn off the Internet pipes for particular apps on your MacBook. It’s a great idea, particularly if you tether your MacBook to your iPhone or iPad. Using Trip Mode, you can turn off data hogs, like Dropbox and iCloud, so you don’t unknowingly burn through all your mobile data the next time you tether to check email. It’s been a few years since I first covered Trip Mode and thought I’d take a moment to say this app really sticks. I’m still using it … often. I’ve also started using Trip Mode on my iMac when podcasting to keep apps like Backblaze from using up bandwidth while I’m on mic. (I learned that trick from my podcast partner Jason Snell.) Anyway, if you ever tether your Mac, get Trip Mode.
When I first started distributing the video field guides, I wanted to make it as simple as possible. Customers pay and then download a video. It worked great originally but lately I’ve been getting emails from customers that just work on iPad and iPhone. For them, getting a 2GB video file onto their device is not trivial.
For those customers, streaming the videos makes more sense than downloading. So I’ve been looking for a way to distribute the videos that lets customers stream, download, or both. Vimeo gives me that so new customers will now get the OmniFocus Video Field Guide through Vimeo where they can stream or download.
I’m pretty happy with this new distribution method. It gives customers more flexibility and allows me to update small portions without requiring everyone to download the entire video all over again.
Also, with the move I’ve also added closed captions to all of the chapters. So if you have trouble hearing or english is a second language, check the closed caption box while watching and you’re all set. If you’ve already purchased the OmniFocus Video Field Guide and want a closed captioned copy, please drop me a note.
Dr. Drang wrote over the weekend:
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“The biggest problem for the iPad is Apple’s unwillingness to let it become its own thing. Development of iOS is driven by the iPhone, which probably shouldn’t have the tools of a regular computer. But the iPad needs at least some of those tools if it’s to fulfill Apple’s promise to be a laptop replacement. Being yoked to the iPhone is holding it back.”
This is an excellent point and I should have made it in my iPad post last week. iOS 9 was the first time Apple gave features to the iPad that didn’t also go to iPhone. When they made this announcement, I assumed it was only a jumping off point but now it’s been over 18 months with no new iPad power tools. I’m crossing my fingers for better iPad tools at WWDC 2017 in June.
