In the past two days I’ve given five presentations and attended 4 parties. Other than that, I’ve not been doing much. Here’s my photo stream from the Macworld show floor.
Today at the Omni Group announced its expanded beta for the completely rejiggered Omni Focus 2 with a product release in June. The current beta is pretty complete. I started using it in the private beta about a month ago and for a few weeks now, it has completely replaced version 1 on my Mac.
The new version brings forecasting to the Mac and the Review mode brings the Mac a lot closer to iPad OmniFocus’s utility. There is a lot to like about the new version. I particularly dig the way the inspector becomes a permanent fixture. I’ll have a lot more to say when the final product ships but for now, if you’re interested, get yourself over to The Omni Group and sign up.
As I hit the publish button I’m cruising through the California central valley in the family minivan. I really love going to Macworld every year. I love all the geeky stuff on the show floor. I love the content and the parties. But most of all, I love meeting old friends and making new ones. I recently talked about Macworld with Chuck Joiner on his Mac Voices podcast.
If you are at Macworld this year and see me, please stop me and say hello, whether you are an old friend or a new one. If you are normally introverted, this is the time to put that aside and let your geek flag fly. We’re all family in Moscone at Macworld.
You can definitely find me at the following places:
Katie Floyd and I will be talking about how we use our Drobos.
Katie and I will be demonstrating some of our favorite workflows from five years of the Mac Power Users along with a few new ones.
Imagine a room full of geeks, with each getting only 5 minutes to explain something cool. I’m one of the speakers and hoping to make my few minutes special.
The Mac Roundtable is a collection of podcasters. We’ll be doing a live show on the show floor with Chuck Joiner riding heard.
Despite the book, I’ve never actually given a Paperless presentation at Macworld. That’ll change this year.
Jean MacDonald is running a 2 hour App Camp session starting at 10:00 AM. My family will be there in force with my wife and I helping Jean, my youngest daughter in the camp, and my oldest daughter shooting video.
The Incomparable podcast is recording a live session on Saturday where we’ll be doing a computer draft. This will be my first time on the Incomparable and have to admit, I’m pretty jacked up about it.
Today Kirk McElhearn weighed in for Macworld on the new Dragon Dictate. It’s better. I thought version 3 was pretty good and yet version 4 is noticeably better. I’ve received some email from readers following my initial thoughts on Dragon Dictate 4 on two subjects.
First, I’m asked if the UI is in parity with the Windows version. It’s not. The gap gets narrower with each successive release but most things (particularly voice corrections) just seem smoother on the PC version. For me, however, the ability to run it on my Mac trumps any difference.
The other subject I’m hearing about from readers is how they had such a hellish time getting their upgrade or experiencing some other hijinks with their purchase. I heard this from several people. It sounds like in most cases it eventually got sorted out but took much longer than it should have. That’s no excuse and Nuance needs to get better at dealing with individual consumers. All I can say in this regard is stick it out if you want the best possible voice recognition on the Mac. Dragon’s it.
This week Merlin Mann came back to the Mac Power Users. Merlin was our original workflow guest and his annual visits are always one the highlights of our year. This year we cover the emerging technologies in home automation and talk about what makes some apps stick while others never do.
This week’s sponsor is the GroovBoard. The GroovBoard is a lap desk and stand that turns your iPad into the perfect couch computer. Make yourself comfortable and get some writing done with a real keyboard while the GroovBoard holds your iPad at the perfect angle.
Like to pull up your knees but still want to use your iPad comfortably? No problem. Want to just relax and read an ebook without having to hold the iPad in your hand? Check. No matter if you want to use your iPad to write, read, draw, paint, make music, play games or watch movies, the GroovBoard will hold on to your iPad, Apple Wireless Keyboard and stylus, so you don’t have to.
Each GroovBoard is beautifully hand-crafted in Germany from a selection of fine hardwoods. Models currently come in alder, antique oak, apple (of course), bamboo, beech, cherry, maple and walnut and fit a wide variety of interior design styles. I got the walnut and keep it by my couch. It works great with my new iPad Air and it just looks classy.
The GroovBoard is made in Germany but if you use the coupon code MACSPARKY, you get free worldwide shipping. That’s a savings of $24 for shipping to the United States. The code is only good through March 30 so get yours now.
Thanks GroovBoard for sponsoring MacSparky.
If you set up your new Mac and don’t pay close attention, your short name (which is used for UNIX directories) might turn out kind of goofy. Moreover, if you have two Macs with two different short names, a lot of your automation scripts may not work without a lot more baby-sitting than they’d require if you had identical short names. For the longest time, changing your short name in OS X was a lot more difficult than it should have been and fraught with opportunities to screw up your Mac. I thought that continued to be true until I read this post by Dan Frakes yesterday.
Several website, including The Verge, are reporting that Microsoft is about to announce Microsoft Office for iPad. While we’ve heard this before, this one feels more real than past promises and threats. I believe there has been a war raging on the inside at Microsoft between factions that wanted to keep Office on Microsoft Platforms only (to help drive sales of Microsoft platforms, like the Surface) and those others that see the iPad as a 100 million plus potential Office customers. I bet it was ugly.
Assuming they do release Office for iPad, I hope they do it right and include advanced formatting like styles and track changes. A few weeks ago I’d have said that is unlikely based on what they did on the iPhone. It seemed more likely that the resolution to the internal conflict over Office on iPad was to release it for the iPad but make it so pedestrian that Office power users are still required to go to a Microsoft platform. However, having spent a little time with OneNote for iPad, I’m hopeful. Either way, my money’s on them requiring an Office 365 subscription to get in the door.
Of course it could also be possible this is, once again, nothing but vapid rumors. If that is the case, the question becomes at what point do we stop caring if Office shows up on the iPad? I know several people that have already crossed that bridge.
I read this article in Time with some interest. Recent research shows that most people spend less than 15 seconds on web pages and the that perhaps compelling content is more important than page views.
As I’ve grown the blog and the podcast over the years, I’ve occasionally bumped into advertising-types and conversations with them always devolve to CPM and “counting eyeballs”. The thing is, I’ve never been about that stuff. I don’t publish intentionally controversial content to gin up numbers. I don’t limit the RSS feed to just a portion of the articles I publish. In general, I try to not do anything hostile to my readers in the name of the almighty page view. While I’d like to take credit for coming up with this on my own, my thinking was really shaped by John Gruber, who was the first blogger I saw that simply refused to play whack-a-mole on his website. Ironically, I found the above-linked Time article through John’s site.
I hope that advertisers and content creators pick up on this. The relationship between blog readers and podcast listeners is one of trust, not click-throughs.
This week’s Mac Power Users is all about how Katie and I, as affirmed geeks, travel. In this episode you will learn some helpful tips AND the depth of my neurosis. I call that a win-win. As a follow up to my point about windshield mounts for your car, listener Paul writes in with this helpful link about exactly where you can legally use such devices.
