Voice Dream for Instapaper and Pocket Text to Speech

On the heels of our recent Read it Later show, I received an email from listener David Ianni concerning an app I’d never heard of before, Voic Dream ($10). If you’ve ever wanted to have your iPhone read out loud entries from your Instapaper or Pocket lists, Voice Dream is exactly what you’re looking for. It grabs any selected article and reads it to you out loud. I’ve always got more stuff I want to read than time to read it. I’ve also got a 30 minute commute each way every day. Using Voice Dream, I’ve started listening to the long form articles that I feel like I never have time to read. It comes with an American female voice but if that doesn’t float your boat, you can buy a variety of other male and female voices for three dollars each. I bought Rachel, a British female voice, because that’s just how I roll. Voice Dream can also read from your Evernote and even Dropbox folders. There is a crippled free version if you want to see how it works before buying.

In addition to reading you the words, it also displays them. I could see this being useful for someone trying to learn English as a second language. You can also set the reading speed. I’ve got mine set to 80 words per minute and it works just fine. Voice Dream is one of those apps that I’ve always wanted but never really articulated. It solves a problem in my life and it may for you too.

Helping Alice Verpoorten

Tim Verpoorten was the first person that ever put me “on the air” and a helluva nice guy. We all knew Tim was sick but his sudden death threw us all, including his wife Alice. Tim left a lot of Apple gear and Allison and Steve Sheridan have cataloged and put it all up on sale at Amazon. If you need some slightly used but well-loved tech gear and want to help out one of our geek family, go check out the details at MacRoundtable.com. They also have a donation link.

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So Three Nerds Walk into a Bar …

At least that is what it felt like last night when I sat down to talk to Adam Christianson and Ken Ray for today’s MacCast episode. We talked about Apple, Google, the baffling world of book sales, and I lifted my self-imposed ban to vent my spleen on patent litigation.

Delight is in the Details

Shawn Blanc is a tech blogger but also much more. Shawn frequently inspires me with his posts about motivation and finishing a project. Shawn just released a new book, Delight is in the Details. As Shawn explains, the subject of the book is how to create substantive work that delights and excites your audience. The book is in multiple formats and includes interviews with many people I respect including Marco Arment, Michael Simmons, Jory Raphael, and Federico Viticci. The ebook is $20 or the full bundle (with the ebook, an audiobook, and interviews) for $29. I’ve just downloaded my copy and I’m looking forward to reading it on vacation.

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Mac Power Users Show 150 Live this Saturday

Can you believe the Mac Power Users are about to record show 150? Katie and I will be broadcasting live this Saturday at 10am PST in a very special Mac Power Users where I confront my growing Sonos addition and some of our smartest listeners join in with some workflows that will knock you out of your socks.

Mark you calendars for Saturday, August 10, 2013 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern/10:00 a.m. Pacific. We’ll streaming live on 5by5 so you can join us in the 5by5 chatroom or listen on the 5by5 apps for iOS and Mac. I’ll see you there.

MPU 149: Read it Later

In episode 149 of the Mac Power Users, Katie and I tackle the growing list of read it later services covering what we like (and dislike) about each of them along with a discussion of unconventional alternatives for all of you rebels out there.

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Chatology – Improving Mac Messaging

I wrote a few months ago about the troubles I have with messages. At the time, I decided my solution was to start deleting all messages that didn’t require action. That strategy lasted about a month. It was just too much work deleting messages and it didn’t take me long to realize I might need those deleted messages. Just as I was trying to figure out a new approach to all of this, Flexibits (the same guys that brought us Fantastical) released Chatology.

Chatology indexes your messages. It keeps track of who you’ve chatted with and what was said. It also remembers when the conversations took place and any pictures or links that may have exchanged. Using all of this data, you can search your messages several ways. For example, if if you know someone recommended a great Thai restaurant to you in the last month but can’t remember the name of the restaurant or who told you, type “Thai” in Chatology’s search bar and you’ll find it. Another example comes from my wife, who often sends me great pictures via messages. Using Chatology I can isolate these images and put them somewhere more permanent.

So partly as a result of Chatology, I’ve flipped on my initial workflow and now I’m keeping all of my messages. Chatology brings a much needed dose of sanity to managing a large message database. As to my initial problem (and post), capturing OmniFocus tasks on the Mac from Messages is easy enough with the OmniFocus text clipper. On iOS, I can forward a text message to my Omni Mail Drop address. I think I’ve now got this problem more or less wrangled. I still, however, prefer that people send me actionable information some way other than messages.

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ScanSnap iX500 now Scans Wireless to Your Mac

This week Fujitsu released a software and firmware update for the ScanSnap iX500 that lets you scan to you Mac (or PC) without a USB cable. I updated my scanner last night and it works great. Now I’m rethinking the location of my scanner. I could put it anywhere in the house and free up some valuable desk real estate. I’m already eyeing flat surfaces throughout my house. Perhaps even a corner in the kitchen. I can see it now: mailbox, kitchen scanner, recycle bin. If you’ve got an iX500, run your update and try it for yourself.

The Moving Timeline Keynote Trick

While attending the World Domination Summit I got to finally see (and meet in person) Nancy Duarte. Nancy is a remarkable communicator and helped many high profile clients with presentations, including Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth presentation.

During the presentation she did some timelines where the timeline would move while she spoke. During the WGS geek lunch afterward, several people were asking how she did it. I was happy to explain this is a nut I have already cracked. In order to create a timeline that moves, you simply need to make a timeline bigger than a single slide and then stack them next to each other. Then you can use the Push transition to make it appear as if the timeline itself is moving when all you are really doing is transitioning from one slide to the next. For instance I will take the following three slides. Each one represents a small piece of a larger timeline.

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When creating this timeline, start out with one slide and get your timeline set exactly where you want it. Then duplicate the slide as many times as you need. If you need to make adjustments to the actual line, be very careful that you don’t move it vertically or it completely ruins the effect. I also usually add a small dot the beginning or ending of the timeline drawn with a keynote graphics element.

Then I will place them next to each other as they will appear in Keynote’s presentation. When assembled this way you can see it looks like one single timeline even though it’s three individual slides.

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After that it’s simply a question of setting transitions using the Push animation and setting a reasonable length so the audience can follow with you as the timeline tracks across. If this isn’t making any sense to you, I’ve made a short presentation that you can download here demonstrating the effect.

So many of the tricks I use in Keynote are just hacky little visual tricks like this.

Stop Motion Donkey Kong

Techhive pointed me to Guiz de Pessemier, who decided to build his own stop motion version of Donkey Kong using Perler Beads. Blink. I watched the whole video because growing up, Donkey Kong was my game. It was the game we played every time we got our hands on a few quarters. My best friend and I would call each other and make that great Donkey Kong jumping sound and hang up. There was no discussion whatsoever. No chance to make excuses or “ask my mom”. The recipient of the “jump call” then had no choice but to mount his ten-speed and race to the Donkey Kong machine at the corner of Vine and Holt. It was a matter of faith. On a recent family vacation I stumbled into a Donkey Kong game and played it with my daughter until, once again, I ran out of quarters.

I have a couple of complaints about this most excellent stop motion though:

1. Unless my dementia has gone off the rails, I’m pretty sure he has the levels out of order from the original coin-op machine.

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2. I really wish he had included the jump on level three that, if timed perfectly, let you skip most of the level. My friends and I simply called this “the jump” throughout our childhoods. My friend Scott would nail “the jump” every time. Not surprisingly, Scott is now an executive in the video game industry.

So here it is, my precious Donkey Kong.