The Miles Davis Film

Don Cheadle is doing an Indiegogo campaign to fund a movie about Miles Davis. Miles has both the brilliance and flaws required to make an interesting movie. I grew up obsessed with his older music and not so interested in his then-modern fusion stuff, which I’d argue really hasn’t held up over the years the way his early stuff does. I finally got a chance to see him live and he spent the entire set playing his red trumpet and facing the drummer. Only Miles.

The movie’s campaign description says they’ll be focussing on a “very specific point in his life”, which seems to be the way people do bio movies these days. I actually prefer this. They can go a lot deeper with the characters when focussing on a short period than the usual “… and then he/she did this” biopic. I hope this gets made and portrays Miles honestly, red trumpet and all.

Can Apple Deliver on the Promised New iCloud Services?

Now that WWDC is over and we’ve all had a chance to digest Apple’s announcements, I’ve been thinking about Apple and the cloud. Right up until WWDC, there were several questions in my mind.

1. Does Apple realize how important cloud data is to the future of iOS and the Mac?

This question seems silly in hindsight but right up until a few weeks ago, I wasn’t even sure this was on their radar. It seemed as if every few years Apple announced some new semi-cloudy initiative but things never really changed. It felt as if this were an issue that received lip service but no actual attention. That changed this year with Apple not only announcing some very aggressive cloud tools but also committing to use these very cloud tools for their own software tools (including picture management).

2. Is Apple working on catching up with cloud services?

I use the term “catching up” intentionally. While there are many areas for which Apple remains an industry leader, providing fast, reliable cloud services is not one of them. Moreover, because they are so secretive, we had no idea whether they were taking steps to improve the situation or sitting around convincing each other this isn’t a big deal. (See point one above.) 2014 WWDC’s announcements including iCloud Drive, CloudKit, and the initiative to store all of our photo libraries on their servers answers this question. They have been working on it and they’ve got some pretty big aspirations, which leads to the last question.

3. Can Apple deliver worry-free cloud services?

All of the promise of WWDC will be forgotten if these new services are slow, unreliable, or otherwise not up to snuff. This is the part we are waiting on. While the narrative that Apple can’t do the cloud is fun enough, it’s not really true. They serve a lot of data every day through their app stores. Pieces of iCloud, like contact and calendar sync, have always reliably worked and they include millions of users. Apple’s cloud problem, in my mind at least, has always involved pushing big blocks of data. Does anybody remember how bad iDrive was at moving anything bigger than a Pages file?

In fairness, this question will not get a definitive answer on day one when all of this goes live. You can’t reliably load test these types of services for hundreds of millions of users. You do your best, stock up on duct tape, and then you push the green button and stand by. I’m certain there will be some hiccups. However, at some point in the not too distant future, we all will make a decision whether services like iCloud Drive are just as reliable as Dropbox or not. Only in that final judgment will we be able to answer this last question.

MPU 198: Evernote Power Tips

To KatieFloyd’s infinite delight, I’ve been getting more invested with Evernote as of late. This week’s Mac Power Users episode focuses on how both Katie and I use Evernote to get work done.

MPU Bonanza

This week you don’t just get one episode of the Mac Power Users but two:

MPU 196 – Workflows with Tim Stringer

MPU 197 – MPU Live: Wargames

Both episodes are loaded with ideas, tips, and workflows. Go nuts.

LaunchBar 6

Yesterday Objective Development released LaunchBar 6, the latest version of their app launcher, phone number finder, file sender, calculator, calendar entry tool, do-just-about-anything with your keyboard application.

The new version features an improved user interface and the ability to select between themes for the entry window, including the somewhat translucent Frosty that seems a bit prescient based on last week’s Yosemite announcement.

The new user interface is a definite improvement and looks particularly good on my MacBook Pro’s retina screen.

LaunchBar also now has its own custom script–based actions that can be written in most scripting languages including AppleScript, JavaScript, Ruby, Python, and PHP.

Web searches also render live suggestions that populate as you type. This was always a feature that I had to go to the browser for. I’m happy to see it working from right in the launcher.

The index also receive some love. In addition to your files, calendar, address book, and the usual assortment of data, LaunchBar will now also index Finder Tags, Emoji, Reminders, Safari Reading List and Top Sites, and iCloud Tabs.

Another useful new feature is the ability to browse file info. LaunchBar can now display information on selected files and drives including file size, image dimensions, disk capacity, Finder tags, browsable file contents, word counts and more. The below screenshot is the text file on a post I did about Macworld 2014.

LaunchBar has really upped its game with this update and I’m looking forward to digging in deeper (particularly with the scripting).

Learn more from Objective Development here. Also, Shawn Blanc did a superb job of documenting all the features in this extended review. Finally, it’s a bit dated, but a lot of the content in this 2009 Mac Power Users episode still applies.

Chronosync Turns 4.5

Chronosync, my favorite application for syncing selected files between networks/computers/drives released its 4.5 update today with some pretty nice upgrades.

Everything is faster with speed improvements to scanning (by about 30%) and copying (by about 10-15%). I ran the new version on some of my bigger syncs and the difference is noticeable. The application is also now 64 bit and has retina artwork throughout (Hooray!). They’ve also added better scheduling and some intelligence to know when you are trying to move forbidden files. In that sense, Chronosync protects you from yourself.

They continue to honor their “free upgrades for life” policy and my upgrade came down no problem. To learn more, go here.

My OmniFocus Perspectives

I’ve not officially written up my thoughts on OmniFocus 2 for the Mac but suffice it to say, I’m a fan. I’ve received a lot of questions lately about my perspectives so for this post, I thought I’d dive into the weeds and share all of my perspectives.

Why Are Perspectives a Big Deal?

OmniFocus is a powerful tool. It can hold a lot of tasks with a lot of associated data. Perspectives give you the ability to filter all that information in ways that make sense. I use many perspectives and am constantly flipping between them as I go through the day. Perspectives, created on the Mac, drive down the iOS versions of OmniFocus so whether you are in line for tea or bearing down at your desk, they are there to help.

Perspectives and OmniFocus 2 for Mac

One of the improvements with OmniFocus 2 for Mac is the ability to more easily create perspectives and, more importantly, their constant visibility down the left side of your screen. There is a default set of perspectives, but you can also add your custom perspectives (assuming you are using OmniFocus Pro) to this list from the Perspectives window. Like on iOS, you can add a perspective to this left menu by starring it in the Perspectives pane. I love this.

Inbox, Projects, and Contexts

I use several of the built in perspectives and while I’ve made specific selections from available options, there is nothing particularly interesting in the Inbox, Projects, or Contexts screenshots.

Forecast

Checking the Show Deferred Items is huge for me. As explained in the above linked article, I manage tasks by deferring them out to future dates. I’m not forecasting tasks that are due in the future so much as I am tasks that are set to begin. I also set the calendar display to 7AM since I often have early morning meetings.

Flagged

I’m using flags more now than I did before. I’ve explained how I use due dates sparingly. Flags allows me to set even fewer due dates. If I’ve got some task that is important but doesn’t have a due date, I flag it. Today, for example, I had two tasks flagged and it felt pretty good checking them off. Getting back to this setting, if I push something into the future and flag it as important, I don’t want to see it until it becomes available so I apply the “available” filter.

Completed

Rarely, I need to go back through completed tasks and when I do, this perspective gets the job done. You’ll note I don’t have this starred to appear on the left side of my screen because I use it so sparingly.

Changed

This perspective shows all my recently changed tasks. Sometimes I’ll get ahead of myself when organizing OmniFocus. The first line of defense in that case is Command+Z but if that doesn’t work, this gives me an easy way to go back and make corrections.

Added

This one is somewhat related to the Changed perspective. A lot of times I capture tasks and only partially process them, particularly when I’m working on the go. This Perspective gives me a list of recently added tasks when I need to make sense of it.

Clear

Occasionally, I need to clear the decks. Clear gives me all available tasks ungrouped. I can Command+A to select them all and push them out if necessary with the defer date in the inspector. This is also a good perspective to sort out date discrepancies. If I’ve got a lot of tasks with various (and old) defer dates. I’ll select them all in the Clear perspective and set their Defer date today in the inspector.

Clients

This is a Perspective that just points at the Professional/Clients folder. If I just need to focus on client issues, I’ll select this. (I added a similar Perspective for MacSparky tasks as I wrote this article.)

Errands

This perspective shows me all tasks from the Errands context. I don’t refer to this context much either but it is handy on weekends.

Law

This is somewhat related to my Clients perspective but broader. It includes everything relating to my day job: administrative, clients, business management, continuing education, legal speaking, the works.

Today

This is the perspective that a lot of readers have already adopted. It sorts all “available” tasks by project with nice little project labels. It’s a great way to see what’s on deck for the day and an essential tool if you are managing tasks with defer dates.

There’s More…

I’ve been toying with a “Waiting” context but haven’t got it right yet. Anytime you look at OmniFocus and don’t see the information you want at that moment, you should investigate creating a custom perspectives. They are very flexible and you should be able to do just about anything you want.

About Those Icons

I downloaded the new icons from Github. Josh Hughes made this great set that really fits in nicely with the native OmniFocus icons and has them in multiple colors. This too is a work in progress as I continue to fiddle with my perspectives.

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MetalTV

One thing that’s been lingering in my mind since last week was the number of times everyone kept describing the new Metal platform as providing “Console” quality graphics. That’s pretty great and I’m looking forward to seeing some powerful iPad and iPhone games but how would this impact on the rumored updated AppleTV. There are lots of rumors that Apple has teams working on the next AppleTV and it is going to get more than a face lift. What if game developers, using Metal and the next Apple chip could push enough pixels to actually be in the ballpark with existing game systems (or at least close behind) and Apple put it’s weight behind a game controller? These things seemed inconceivable until last week’s Keynote but now I’ve got to wonder. Maybe the push for Metal was more about the AppleTV than iOS.

PDFpen’s “Get a Little, Give a Lot” Promotion

Over the years, I’ve become friends with the team at Smile Software. Smile is a group of incredibly smart people trying to do do right for their customers and the world at large. This is why their latest promotion came as no surprise to me.

Right now, if you buy PDFpen from Smile’s website, you’ll get 20% off and Smile will donate a copy to your favorite non-profit of choice. They’re calling it “Get a Little, Give a Lot.” If you haven’t bought PDFpen yet, this is your chance to get a deal and help someone out.

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