As the clock ticks down on today’s iPhone event, it appears there will be no live stream. That’s okay though, Jeff Richardson at iPhone JD has the skinny on the best live blogs for today’s event.
Script to Convert Google Documents to Markdown
Here’s a pretty clever script from Renato Mangini.
via @carlos_solis and LifeHacker
MPU 154 – AppleTV
Did you know there are about a million ways to use the AppleTV for fun and profit? This week’s MPU episode looks at the AppleTV in detail. We talk about using it for entertainment at home and presenting on the road. Listen to this episode to find out why I think the AppleTV might be the best $100 you can spend in an Apple Store.
iThoughtsX Winners
Yesterday, I tweeted out that I’d give some iThoughtsX licenses away to readers that submitted interesting iThoughtsHD maps. Wow. So many great submittals. Winners were Will, Mitch, Dan, Lars, and Chris. Thanks everyone who submitted.
One of my favorites came from Dan, who mapped all the IFTTT services. This was made awhile ago. Can you imagine how big this would be with all of IFTTT’s current services?
Writing On The iPad: Text Automation with Editorial
I think there is a collective opinion among nerds that the release of Editorial for the iPad was a watershed event. Writing on the iPad has always been about compromises and this app, in some ways, is easier to write on than my Mac. Federico Viticci is very knowledgeable about being productive on the iPad in general and getting the most out of Editorial in particular. Now he’s released a book on Editorial and it’s on sale for $3 for a limited time.
This would be great reading in preparation for an upcoming MPU episode where Federico will join us to talk about iOS text editing and Editorial.
Home Screens: Victor Medina
There are some really friendly, geeky lawyers out there. One such gent is Victor Medina (website) (Twitter) from New Jersey. Victor and I have presented together at the annual ABA TechShow on the Mac Track. As a labor of love, Victor runs the only tech-conference for Mac attorneys called MILOfest, which is held at DisneyWorld every fall.
This year, the conference is being held on October 24–26, 2013 and has my fellow MPU co-host Katie Floyd as one of the presenters. This is a great place to meet other Mac Savvy legal professionals and sharpen up your skills. As a bonus, Victor has agreed to open back up the Early Bird pricing for MacSparky readers.
Okay, Victor, show us your home screen.
What are some of your favorite apps?
DockWorthy
I run a law firm with 7 employees. I need a program that lets me work from the road, help manage other team members, and track the cases. Although I think there are some great solutions out there, the one that works best for me is Daylite. There are too many features to list, but I like that I can quickly check my calendar, or the pipeline status of any project, or even start a phone call that I can turn into a billing event right from the app.
I try not to live and die by email. But I fail, miserably.
I think everyone should have a program on their phone that reminds them how they don’t measure up to their own expectations in life. OmniFocus is that program for me. I declare OF bankruptcy like I get a doggy treat for it. Seriously, I wouldn’t be able to get half the stuff I done that I do without GTD.
Messages
I figured I was aged out of joining the “I only message people as my primary means of communication” club. I was gloriously wrong. Thankfully, I’ve convinced most of my family and friends to use iPhones and iPads, so I can use Messages – which syncs (most of the time) between my iOS devices and my computers.
Front & Center Apps
A lot of the apps on my home screen have been featured in other Home Screen posts, and those that avoid the folder (and are therefor on my Home Screen) are apps I use every day.
This is my default RSS reader, which I moved to after Google Reader shut down. I like its simple, clean interface and the fact that it syncs between the iPad & iPhone versions. I don’t read feeds on my computer, so I like this really well-designed iOS solution.
I haven’t tried many podcast-catching apps, but I like iCatcher because it can download new episodes automatically, and will sync across iOS devices. I can also throw video podcasts at it, which will also sync.
These are fitness apps that I use regularly. I’ve written about them before , but what I like about the apps are that they are beautiful. I don’t like ugly apps.
Which app is your guilty pleasure?
I have two guilty pleasure apps: NextDraft and PuzzleRetreat
Remember how I said I don’t like ugly apps? This has the ugliest icon and makes me wince whenever I look at it too long. However, the content inside is fantastic. Recommended to me by a good friend, NextDraft is a news app curated by Dave Pell. He is the algorithm. The articles are great, and the interface of the app is easy and fun to use. NextDraft is my night-reading.
I had to relocate this app to my second page, because I beat all the levels and it was sitting there mocking me with no new worlds to conquer. But,for about a month, I spent hours sliding virtual iceblocks across a virtual puzzleboard. I can’t wait for some more new levels.
How many times a day do you use your iPhone?
Honestly, it’s attached to me all day. I probably interact with my iPhone and iPad 5 or 6 times an hour. To be fair, though, everyone else I know has the same addiction. It’s comforting to know I’m not alone.
What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?
I’m not breaking new ground with this concept, but I enjoy how good the hardware feels in my hand. It drives me nuts to see how many people wrap these beautiful things in ugly cases. I followMacSparky’s advice on using a case, which lets me hold and use these devices as Jobs intended.
The iPhone 5 is like a jeweled watch. The iPad mini is perfect in my small, meaty hands. Honestly, only the iPad Grande seems unwieldy and I don’t see myself ever getting one again.
If you were in charge at Apple, what would you add or change?
I would make it much easier to add an app to a folder that’s located in a corner or at the edge of page. As it is, I pick the app, drag it over and try this about a dozen times until I can perfectly line it up with the folder. This only happens with folders in a corner or on the edge. It’s like “catching” the folder is its own game. Am I alone here? Utterly frustrating. I would set it up so that I can tap the app to select it, and then tap the folder to drop it in.
Oh, and I would totally make an iPad mini with Retina Display. That’s a device that I’d wake up at midnight to order. I’m hoping it’ll be announced on September 10th.
Anything else you’d like to share?
Appearing on a Home Screen post at MacSparky is a Bucket List item for me. I can die now. Thanks David.
Umm … Thanks Victor. Attending MILOFest one of these years is on my bucket list so we’re even.
John Chandler WordPress Video Series
When we recorded MPU 121 about building a website, I wanted to bring in someone that does nothing but eat and drink WordPress. That guy was John Chandler and he delivered. John pays for his shoes building beautiful WordPress sites and now he is sharing some his knowledge in this Mijingo screencast series.
If you are running a WordPress site and want to get better at it, here is your chance.
iThoughtsX for the Mac
I’ve made no mystery of my love for iThoughtsHD. It is a great iPad app that finally brought home for me the utility of mind maps. It wasn’t long after I got hooked that I wrote the developer, Craig Scott, explaining how much I wanted iThoughts on my Mac. Craig wrote back with a very nice note explaining how he was focussing on iOS for the time being. So you can imagine my surprise when Craig wrote me about a month ago with a beta of iThoughtsX for the Mac. I’ve been using it ever since and now it is released for sale. If you like iThoughtsHD, you’re going to feel right at home with iThoughts X on your Mac.
Many of the features I like about iThoughtsHD also appear in iThoughtsX. The color pallet includes Ethan Schoonover’s great Solarized color scheme. There is a rich assortment of line and box types along with icons and images. (I’ve got to admit I’ve never used iThoughts’ clipart feature.)
The Mac version also inherits the iPad version’s quick entry method. Need a child branch? Tap the space bar three times. Need a sibling branch? Tap return three times. This is so second nature to me that I spit out mind maps as fast as the ideas hit me.
Using these tools I’m able to quickly start assembling ideas for later use in writing or dictation. I described this workflow at length in MPU 82, Cooking Ideas.
Like its iPad predecessor, iThoughtsX also can export to several formats including PDF, Image, Docx, Powerpoint, OPML, Markdown, and CSV.
The Markdown support is particularly clever. You can drag Markdown text into a blank canvas and it automatically creates a mind map based on linked images and heading levels. You have to see this part to believe it so I made a short video. (Sarah, my 11 year old, provided the Ukulele music.)
The file format (.itmz) is the same used on iThoughtsHD for the iPad so you can move the file back and forth between the two platforms. The app is sold directly by the developer and not in the Mac App Store. Sadly, that means there isn’t any iCloud support but all of the iterations of iThoughts play nicely with Dropbox.
You can watch additional screencasts and view galleries at the iThoughts website. The app is $60 and available now.
Rating iTunes Music with an Unrated Smart Playlist
I’m increasingly relying on ratings for my iTunes playlists. Setting up smart playlists that just include four and five star music make it really easy to get your favorite music on an iTunes Match enabled iOS device. The trouble is I don’t have time to go hunting down unrated albums and when I do, I tend to spend way too much time fiddling with iTunes. Instead, I’ve created an “Unrated Jazz” smart playlist that looks like this.
I’ve got several Jazz Genres including Cool, Bebop, Classic, Contemporary, Vocal, and more. They all have the word “Jazz” in their genre so this smart playlist pulls from them all.
I’ll load this up in iTunes and then open the I Love Stars app that puts a rating doo-dad in my menu bar. I can start playing this smart playlist then and rate the songs as I work. Once I rate a song, it dissapears from the list and stops playing. I’ve then got to hit the play button on my keyboard or in I Love Stars to get the next song started.
I’ve been doing this for about a month and it is working. I’m getting through my jazz library without spending a lot of time fiddling. Moreover my other smart playlists built on ratings are getting a little better every day. Once this is done I am going to alter the list to attack some of my other favorite genres.
ReadQuick Arrives on the iPhone
Clayton Morris’s ReadQuick (App Store) (Website) recently received a nice update. The App now works on the iPhone. We talked about ReadQuick at some length on MPU Episode 127. If you are unfamiliar with it, ReadQuick is an app that helps you speed read through your marked articles. It probably sounds nutty but it really works and I use it often for both work and fun related reading.
They’ve also got a content partnering deal with Macworld and TechHive. Since these are two of my favorite publications, this is a great source of material even if I don’t have anything marked.
This is a free update if you’ve already bought the iPad version. if not, ReadQuick is $5.