Those AirPods that were originally promised in October now look like they’re pushing to 2017. I guess you can strike this one off the holiday gift list. In my limited time with the AirPods, I sure did like them. Hopefully we’ll get them soon after the new year.
Jazz Friday – Billy Strayhorn
This edition of Jazz Friday features composer and arranger Billy Strayhorn (Apple Music) (Wikipedia). Billy started his musical career as a classical music enthusiast and wanted to become a classical composer. This never came to fruition, partly because racism. Eventually, however, Billy found a love for jazz and brought his classical music knowledge to jazz. He wrote Lush Life while still in high school!
In 1938 Billy met Duke Ellington which resulted in a collaboration that lasted the rest of his life. Strayhorn’s musical sensibilities fit perfectly with Duke’s vision for his own orchestra. As Duke later explained, “Billy Strayhorn was my right arm, my left arm, all the eyes in the back of my head, my brain waves in his head, and his in mine.”
Billy Strayhorn, a diminutive, mild-mannered, unselfish, and openly gay man in a time of extreme prejudice, is a jazz legend. Just a few of his songs are Take the ‘A’ Train (iTunes),Such Sweet Thunder (iTunes), and Chelsea Bridge (iTunes). I love listening to Billy Strayhorn jazz. There is a level of subtlety in it that you won’t find many places. His sense of harmony and syncopation, mixed with that original love of classical music combine to make something special. Billy and Duke also collaborated to write the music score for the motion picture, Anatomy of a Murder (iTunes). This was the first African-American-written score for a motion picture.
There’s a lot of great Billy Strayhorn music out there but if you’d like to just get one album, I’d check out Masters of Jazz – Billy Strayhorn (iTunes).
Home Screen: Zack Blum
Zack Blum (Website)(Twitter) is a clever guy that runs Fleetsmith, a company that helps folks manage fleets of Macs. Zack is also serious about his iPhone. So Zack, show us your home screen.
What are some of your favorite apps?
A few of my favorite apps are:
My notes app. It keeps my plain text notes synchronized on all my iOS devices and my Macs via Dropbox. It’s also how I keep track of my work, brainstorming, and ideas, so I can access and edit while on the go.
My public transit app. There’s something comforting about having the same, simple interface at home and while traveling!
My weather app. Knowing when rain is coming in advance is a sixth sense.
My podcast app. Features like Smart Speed and Voice Boost are game changers. I listen to podcasts like SaaStr and the Google Cloud Platform Podcast to stay in the loop.
My RSS app. I’ve tried them all and Unread nails the quick skim and the deep dive.
Which app is your guilty pleasure?
Snapchat. It has allowed me to connect with an entirely new generation, which has been eye opening. I’m older than most Snapchat users, so I had a few late teens/early 20s family members show me how they use it. I feel like I’m getting an authentic view into their lives for the first time. Social, visual storytelling has never been so frictionless.
What app makes you most productive?
Slack. Aside from the chat component, which is beautifully executed, the breadth and depth of integrations means information from other SaaS (and some non-SaaS) products we use at Fleetsmith is consumable by Slack.
Data like Fleetsmith customer support tickets, payment information, news, and other data gets to me instantly. I don’t have ask my team for recaps because I’m updated in real-time—as if I were in the office, or if I were to check each integration source individually.
What app do you know you’re underutilizing?
Photos and Camera. The latest Photos release feels closer than ever to something that aligns with my photos consumption workflow. The Memories, People, and Places albums are great for automatic organization. As far as the camera, I’m an enthusiastic (but still very much amateur) photographer, so there’s a lot more I could be doing to take better shots. Third party camera app recommendations anyone?
What is your favorite feature of iOS
Stability and security are a killer combination. With iOS, Apple delivered both in spades.
I also love that Apple innovates most around their devices’ unique human interface experiences. It makes each platform feel special while maintaining enough coherence ”whether you’re using macOS on a Macbook, iOS on an iPhone, or watchOS on an Apple Watch” to make them feel warm and familiar.
Do you have an Apple Watch? Show us your watch face tell us about it.
I do and I love it! I’m actually new to Apple Watch: my first one’s a 42mm Series 2, Space Gray Aluminum Case with Black Sport Band arrived couple weeks ago. I regularly rotate between three watch faces: Activity Analog, Modular, and Solar.
Activity Analog is my standard daytime watch face. It keeps me motivated to get up from my computer and move around. Paired with the battery, Dark Sky, and heart rate complication, I get a little more information on the watch, the weather, and how serious of a workout I’m actually getting.
The Modular face is my travel watch face. It shows me local time in the upper right, any alarms I’ve set in the upper left, the date in the middle, and the current times in San Francisco, New York, and UTC at the bottom.
The Solar face is my calm, evening watch face. It’s mostly black, with the date, time, and sun position. I’d venture so far as to call it relaxing!
Anything else you’d like to share?
I just launched a new Mac-focused company, Fleetsmith! My co-founders and I wanted to build something that made managing Macs as easy as setting up G Suite. Fleetsmith empowers anyone who manages Macs—IT, ops, security, office managers, and more—to manage an entire fleet easily, quickly, and securely.
It also automatically manages apps, settings, and security preferences across a Mac fleet, and offers fleet-wide upgrades to macOS Sierra with one click. You can find out more and try it for free at fleetsmith.com.
We’re in beta, so we’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback!
Thanks Zack. Good luck!
MPU Plus: A Christmas Wish
We just published a feedback show at the Mac Power Users.Topics include direct attached storage, auto-mounting volumes, iPad mini vs. Pro, recording Keynote presentations, using WeMo and MyQ with HomeKit and feedback on managing subscriptions, gift ideas and the new MacBook Pro.
Sponsors include:
- The Omni Group We’re passionate about productivity for Mac, iPhone and iPad.
- MindNode MindNode makes mind maping easy.
- Casper: Because everyone deserves a great night sleep. Get $50 off with the code ‘MPU’
Google PhotoScan
Google has released a clever new application, PhotoScan, that lets you digitize snap shots. The clever part is the way it assists you in moving the camera around the picture in order to remove glare. I’ve never seen this technique where the user moves the camera around the glare but it absolutely works. I tested it with some old family photos and it works great, particularly old photos with not-so-great resolution to begin with.
Once the photos are scanned in, you can save them to Google Photos (of course) or your Photos library. Below are a few screenshots from my tests.
Ulysses 2.7
Today Ulysses got a significant update to version 2.7. The new version adds several useful features.
Touch Bar Support
This new version fully supports the Touch Bar. It is interesting to note how some developers are using the Touch Bar to replace keyboard shortcut functions and others are using it to add new and different functionality. It is still early days and, since I am already pretty handy with keyboard shortcuts, I prefer the new functionality model. Ulysses’ update includes a little bit of both. It’s obvious that conscientious app developers are struggling with how best to take advantage of the Touch Bar and I expect the design language around the Touch Bar is going to evolve quite a bit in the next year.
Sierra Tabs
The Sierra update made it easy to add tabs to any application. This makes a ton of sense in an application like Ulysses and now it supports it.
There is More
Additionally, the new version supports storing images in external folders and Evernote import. Is it just me or does it seem like a lot of developers are finding ways to accommodate unhappy Evernote users?
This is a nice update for Ulysses and I’m happy to see the continued development and support. You can read more about the Ulysses update on their blog.
MPU: Setting Up Your New Mac
On this week’s Mac Power Users episode, Katie and I walk through all the steps necessary to set up your brand-new Macintosh.
Sponsors include:
- Squarespace: Enter offer code MPU at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.
- Pearl RearVision: The wireless backup camera redefined.
- PDFpen from Smile With powerful PDF editing tools, available for Mac, iPad, and iPhone, PDFpen from Smile makes you a Mac Power User.
- Making Light Get (or give!) a candle subscription and make some new habits. Use offer code “MPU”.
Incomparable 329: He’s More Man than Puppet
I participated in a recent Incomparable episode where we chose our least favorite parts of the Star Wars Universe. I can be critical … because I love.
Sponsor: Track Your Time Automatically with Timing
I’m pleased to welcome back Timing as this week’s MacSparky sponsor. Maybe you’ve never thought about it, but the ability to know how you’re spending your time on your Mac is a great way to find holes in your productivity. I’m a believer in time trackers but manual time trackers suck. They are a distraction and I always forget to use them.
This is where Timing comes in. Instead of making you do all the work, Timing automatically tracks how you spend your time. It logs which apps you use, which websites you visit, and which documents you edit. You can easily categorize activities into projects.
With Timing you can look back at the end of the day or week and see where you got work done and where you got lost. You can also reconstruct how many hours you spent working on a specific client project.
Timing does the job and gets out of your way. It’s a one-time purchase (no subscription) of $39, but with the coupon code MACSPARKY, it drops to $29. That’s right … I twisted their arm to give you $10 off, though only until the end of the week. So give it a try and see if you can’t fine tune your own productivity heading into 2017.
The Dangers of Knock-Off Power Adapters
Chartered Trading Standards Institute, a UK-based consumer safety company tested 400 chargers they purchased online and found that just 3 of them had adequate insulation. This issue is increasingly coming to light as we discover that many devices sold by Amazon and other online retailers are not all they’re cracked up to be.
Wondering if you have a dangerous charger? Trading Standards, via the BBC, has some pointers:
How to spot a dangerous fake charger
- Plug pins – Plug the charger into a socket, but don’t switch it on or connect to a device. If the charger does not fit easily, the pins may be the wrong size. There should be at least 9.5mm (0.3in) between the edge of the pins and the edge of the charger
- Markings – Look for a manufacturers’ brand name or logo, model and batch number. Check for the “CE” safety mark, but be aware it can be easily forged
- Warnings and instructions – User instructions should include conditions and limitations of use, how to operate the charger safely, basic electric safety guidance and details of safe disposal
The problem with all of this is that these shoddy manufacturers are shameless. They’ll forge all the CE markings and overall do a good job of making their power adapters look like the real thing on the outside while on the inside they are dangerous junk. At this point, there is no way I’d buy a charger for any Apple product from anyone other than Apple. I fully expect in 2017 we’ll start discovering how many online venders are also selling crappy USB-C adapters and cables as well. Be careful out there.