Mavericks and New Contacts

Did you know that in addition to returning to a sane user interface, the Mavericks Contacts application also adds the ability to paste a full address in one step? Just paste an address (single or multi-line) into a contact’s street address field and the application parses it for you. It doesn’t pull the contact name or phone number but the days of individually pasting street address, city, state, and zip are over. David Chartier over at Finer Things Mac even has some sample links to try this out.

More on the Email Field Guide

The initial reception for the new Email Field Guide has been fantastic. I’ve already received some great emails from readers explaining how the book has changed their game and feedback like that pushes every single one of my buttons.

There is an error in the book with respect to Screencast 4.20. I’ve posted the missing screencast on Vimeo and I’ve got it at the bottom of this post. I’ll fix this problem with the 1.1 update that will ship in December. If you haven’t bought the book, watch the screencast anyway so you can get an idea of its content. There are 36 separate screencasts in the book showing how to use different email technologies.

Over the weekend, the Mac Power Users published a new episode about email. I promise it’s not a one hour commercial for the book but instead some real practical tips for making email easier.

I honestly believe the MacSparky Field Guides are some of the best work I’ve done in my life. Thank you again everyone for supporting me in this.

Merlin Mann’s Great Discontent Interview

The Great Discontent did a great job on this interview with Merlin Mann. There is a lot worth quoting here but this passage really resonates with me.

“Over the years, I’ve learned to be a little bit easier on myself while simultaneously trying to be more realistic about what I can actually do. I think a lot about do-ability with whatever silly project I want to do next. I don’t think about whether something is easy or not: I think about what trade-offs I have to accept in order to do it well, on time, and on budget.”

I still find saying “no” and making hard decisions about what projects to take on extremely difficult. Merlin was the first person that confronted me on this issue and I’m grateful for that. My own neurosis aside, this is a great read.

Animated Sheet Music from Miles, Bird, and Trane

I so much enjoyed reading/watching this post. For your Sunday afternoon why don’t you sit back and watch Charlie Parker do something amazing with Confirmation.

Final Chance for the Productive Macs Bundle

There are just a few days left on the Productive Macs Bundle. You can get Default Folder X, Keyboard Maestro, Circus Ponies Notebook, FX Photo Studio Pro, Trickster, Vitamin-R, and Numeric Notes all for $29.99. I’ve bought most of those apps over the years and paid a lot more than that.

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Philippine Relief Fund Through iTunes

I’ve not said or written much about it but 20 years ago, I had the good fortune to marry into a Filipino family. I’m not bragging when I say I have the best in-laws in the world. Filipino culture is amazing. There is great food, and love, and compassion for one another without reserve. We celebrate each other’s victories and cry each other’s tears. Don’t believe me? Here is my mother in law last Christmas, who decided to jump on the coffee table to model her new jacket.

So I’m sure you can understand we’ve all been watching the tragedy in the Philippines with a lot of concern. I am contributing to the relief fund today through iTunes.

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The Email Field Guide

I just published the fourth MacSparky Field Guide. This one is all about email. I’ve spent most of the past year looking very closely at email and how it works. This new book explains the best methods, technologies, services, apps, and workflows to make email work for you.

There are over 300 pages and nearly 1.5 hours of video screencasts and 200 screenshots as I walk you through. I’ve also included several audio interviews with friends including Serenity Caldwell, Rob Corddry, Merlin Mann, Fraser Speirs, Jeff Taekman, Aisha Tyler, David Wain, and Gabe Weatherhead, that provide even more perspective on the best ways to tackle email.

The book features a new craftsman-style design and is illustrated by Mike Rohde. In a lot of ways, this book feels like the culmination of everything I’ve learned along the way. I’m really proud of this book and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed creating it. It is available in the iBooks Store and PDF for $9.99.

Buy the iBooks Store Version of the Email Field Guide

Buy the PDF Version of the Email Field Guide

Visit the Website

The Field Guide Mailing List

You may not know it but there is a mailing list for the MacSparky Field Guides. My goals is for it to be one of the lowest volume mailing lists on the Internet. All that being said, if you are interested in learning about new Field Guides and big updates, today would be an excellent day to sign up for it.

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Hands on With the iPad mini with Retina Display

I got to spend some time this evening with an iPad mini with retina display in the local Apple Store. The store was slow enough that I could take my own personal iPad mini and compare it side-by-side. I spent about 20 minutes putting the new iPad Mini through its paces and here are some initial impressions.

The Retina Screen

The retina screen is obvious and gorgeous. It’s everything you expected. Because it has the same pixel count as the larger size iPad packed into a smaller display, it’s actually sharper than the iPad air. All that being said, looking at the iPad mini with retina display and iPad air side-by-side, I couldn’t tell any difference. Pixels were invisible on both devices. As an aside, I never noticed before how Apple cranks up the brightness to maximum on in-store devices. That’s smart because they looked really great.

The Weight

I could not tell a difference between the weight of the two devices. I understand the iPad mini with retina display is slightly heavier than my existing iPad mini. I thought I could perceive a slight difference between the two until I had an Apple Store employee hand them to me with my eyes closed and I guessed the wrong one of the two as heavier. If you’re afraid about increased weight with the upgrade, you shouldn’t be.

Processing Speed

The new iPad Mini with retina display is a lot faster than its predecessor. Even doing silly little things like jumping between applications are noticeably quicker. It renders webpages faster, loads complicated applications faster, does Garage Band tracks faster, and generally kicks some serious ass. Having used an iPad mini for the past year, this upgrade was much more obvious than I expected it to be.

First World Problems

This truly has come down to the question of how big do you want your iPad. Whether you want large or small, there is an excellent option for you.

Bringing processor speed, weight, and retina screen parity between the two devices means everybody has a good option without having to compromise something. That’s right. I said it. This is the Apple version of “no compromises”. I suspect it’s going to be a very happy holiday for Apple.