There’s been a lot of talk lately about subscriptions. How do you manage them? Are they even a good idea? This week’s Mac Power Users episode tackles subscriptions in truly nerd fashion.
Sponsors Include:
This week MacSparky is sponsored by MailButler. While Apple Mail has a lot going for it, Apple Mail is hardly a productivity power tool. That’s where MailButler comes in. MailButler adds new features to Apple Mail to make processing, respond to, and acting on your email faster and more efficient.
An example of this is the MailButler Direct Inbox where you can access your most-frequently used mailboxes right from the menu bar. It’s a great way to check in on email without getting lost in email. You can even perform a variety of actions on the email from the menubar without opening mail including replying, archiving, and turning into a to-do item. Integrated to-do support is another productivity boost for MailButler. With one button you can turn an email into a to-do item and continue on with processing your email.
If you’re like me and use Apple Mail on your Mac, you really should check out MailButler. It adds a lot of great features that seriously up your productivity. The entry level plan is free so what are you waiting for? Make your Apple Mail better today. Go check it out.
This week I guested on the Podcast Digest where I talked a little inside-baseball about how I got into podcasting and what it means to me these days.
Yesterday Apple cut the prices on most of its USB-C dongles. I suspect this is partly a result of the complaints that the new MacBook Pros are USB-C only and that most buyers are required to buy a pile of new dongles to go along with their new Macs. I think it’s a good idea. My only gripe is that the reduced pricing ends on December 31. This transition to USB-C will take a lot more than a few months. Apple hasn’t even released iMacs and Mac Pros with the new ports. These dongles are a necessary cost of moving into the future and Apple should keep these prices low to make it easier on buyers of their multi-thousand dollar computers.
There’s a bit of confusion out there about ports on the new MacBook Pro. They are all USB-C, a smaller version of USB-C that lets you plug in with either side of the plug “up” and no problems. It’s both smaller and better than the USB-A, the rectangular plug that came with the original iMac and is now pretty much everywhere. I had the USB-C port on my MacBook and I liked it. Better yet, the usual assortment of dongles and cords are now available.
The wrinkle is that with the new MacBook Pros the port isn’t just USB-C, it’s also Thunderbolt 3. Thunderbolt 3 is a wicked-fast new Intel protocol that allows you to push an enormous number of 1’s and 0’s through a cable. Thunderbolt 3 is the reason that the new MacBook Pros can drive two external 5K monitors. Whenever Apple next updates the iMac, you can fully expect it will also be loaded with Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports.
The trouble is that not all USB-C adapters and cables are Thunderbolt 3 compliant. If you’re getting ready to board the USB-C Thunderbolt 3 train, I recommend this article by Glenn Fleishman at TidBits where he explains everything in full and makes some product recommendations.
Free Agents episode 8 is now available. When you’re on your own, its easy to go broke while being “productive” with email. This episode has some great advice about how independent workers should tackle email.
This week MacSparky is sponsored by MailButler. MailButler is like an “awesome” button for Apple Mail. It adds a pile of useful features to Mail including a snooze button for email, tracking so you can see if the recipient actually opened your email, and the ability to schedule your emails so they are sent at a precise time. I particularly love that last feature when dealing with one of “those” guys that emails me back 30 seconds after I send an email. I write my reply and then tell MailButler to send it … in 5 hours.
Most recently MailButler has added task support. This lets users turn their emails in Apple Mail into items on a task list including due dates and reminders. Using MailButler’s task support, you can add due dates, reminders, and notes. All of this is accomplished from MailButler in the Apple Mail application so you don’t have to go into your task app to capture new items. The tasks feature works with Apple Reminders, Asana, Todoist , and Wunderlist.
Make MailButler your personal assistant for Apple Mail.
We got our pumpkin so right this year.
I recently appeared on the MacObserver’s Background Mode podcast with John Martellaro where I got to talk a little about my origin story as a lawyer and as a nerd.
We’ve all been wondering if Apple is out of the display business. Sounds like they are.
