MPU 205: Geek Vacation

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about using technology on vacation and how to maintain actually enjoy time away from work in this strange always-connected world. Katie and I covered these topics and more in the most recent Mac Power Users episode.

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Little Snitch to Keep LTE Costs Down

Today I discovered several people have been writing up ways to use Little Snitch to hold down LTE data costs as tethering becomes more common. The idea is to have Little Snitch clamp down on data hogs, like Dropbox, iTunes, and online backup services, when you are tethered so you don’t burn through your LTE data. Eddie Smith and Guillaume Ross have both covered the technique admirably and it is enough to get me to re-install Little Snitch after not having used it for years.

I particularly like Eddie’s footnote about Dropbox and how he gets burned when people he shares folders with drop files in his Dropbox account with no warning. Having written a media rich book with Eddie, I’m pretty sure he could have changed that to read he gets burned when David Sparks shares large files with no warning. 

1Password Keyboard Shortcuts


Few software companies get blogging the way 1Password does. They just posted a helpful guide to using keyboard shortcuts in 1Password that had a few tricks I didn’t know. For instance, did you know holding the Option key will reveal a password and Command-Shift-C copies the password without any pesky mousing? Follow the above link for all the details.

Sponsor: Mighty Deals Email Templates




This week MacSparky is sponsored by Mighty Deals. Mighty deals puts together deals on some of the best tools and resources available for your Mac. This week they are featuring an email template package that includes 11 professionally designed templates from ChocoTemplates. These include over 100 color variations and over 500 layered PSD files. They are highly customizable and work with all major email clients. The templates connect with MailChimp and Campaign Monitor so you’ll be able to use the templates on your next email blast. The above example is just one of the eleven you’ll get, all for just $12. If you have ever sent out campaign emails or ever think you may, you should go buy these templates now.

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Incomparable Meetup

With the San Diego Comic-Con in full swing, a lot of the Incomparable gang is in southern California. Tonight they are going to do a meetup at the Stone Brewing Company in Escondido at 6pm. I’ll be the one running around like a great big fan boy.

Pasting Plain Text with TextExpander

There are a lot of ways to paste text. The most common way I do it is with the Command-C and Command-V shortcuts. However, a lot of times you are working with text that is carrying a lot of formatting baggage and when you use the standard paste, the text shows up in your document unusable. Most apps that deal in text give you an option to paste and match formatting and the keyboard shortcut for that is usually Shift-Option-Command-V or some near-variation of that. The trouble is that the shortcut isn’t universal and, even worse, some apps that involve text fields don’t have any support for an option to paste as plain text.


TextExpander to the rescue. This is perhaps the easiest snippet I’ve ever posted. I just invoke the clipboard formatted as plaint text. My snippet is xpt (X-Plain-Text). This works everywhere on the Mac. (Even Microsoft Word.) I find typing x-p-t much faster than wrapping my fingers around more complicated combinations or mousing into menus.

I’ve also got one for pasting rich text from the clipboard, x-r-t, that I use much less frequently. 

I know this is a bit obvious but I showed this to a friend recently and she thought it was pretty swell. You can download my clipboard snippets below. Also, I’ve got a lot more snippets for download over here.

Clipboard TE Snippets

The Yosemite Public Beta

Apple is releasing the Yosemite public beta today, which is pretty remarkable. It’s been a long time since Apple has opened up an operating system beta to the general public. In the abstract, I think it is a fantastic idea. Developers are, generally, power users and bugs slip through that developers may never experience but would be obvious to non-power users. Jason Snell explains the details at Macworld.

All of that said, I don’t recommend jumping into this beta unless you have an extra Mac sitting around. Even then, you have to be careful. Apple is making a lot of changes to iCloud and iCloud data is very much in flux right now in the betas. There be dragons.

Fantastical for iOS 2.1

Today Flexibits released Fantastical version 2.1 for the iPhone and iPad. There are some useful features in this update including:

  • Snooze support
  • The ability to search and add contacts or locations when creating a new event
  • New event invitation notifications and app icon badge option
  • Upcoming birthday notifications
  • Event preview when duplicating and moving items
  • Keyboard shortcuts when using an external keyboard

There are more but the above features really jumped out for me. The apps are also on sale. The iPhone app is half off at $5 and the iPad app is 33% off at $10.

Delight is in the Details, Version 2

Shawn Blanc has been obsessing on creativity and released a multi-media book worth checking out. It is called Delight is in the Details and includes audio interviews, videos, and more. The books is 25% off until tomorrow. As Shawn explains it:

Average, “good enough” work is no longer good enough. Our success, our products, and our reputations all rest on the details, the delight, the intention, and the vision we bring to our work.

Delight is in the Details is packed with practical advice, tips, encouragement, inspiration, and insight. Resist the prevailing tide of “good enough” work that leads to forgettable products and a dissatisfaction in your work life. This book and interview series will teach you how to reach for excellence and find joy and delight in the journey.

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