I thought this week’s Amplified episode was fascinating. In it, Jim Dalrymple explained how he transitioned The Loop from one of pixel chaos to pixel serenity. I remember how noisy The Loop used to be and I am behind what he’s done 100%. The Loop is now gorgeous. Indeed, after having Jim show the way, I spent some time redesigning this little back-water corner of the Internet with the same principles: simple, fast loading, and ads that don’t make you want to drive an ice pick though your retinas.

As a complete aside, while I’ve always enjoyed Jim Dalrymple’s writing, I adore his belly laughs. If you haven’t tried listening to Amplified, you should.

Today Smile released TextExpander 4.0. This new version includes some really useful new features. Specifically, Smile went nuts with Fill-In forms, now giving you the ability to add single and multi-line, option based, and selection based fill-ins. I’ve been using it for about a month and it’s great. This version will not be sold through the Mac App Store since its inherent awesomeness violates the sandbox rules. Get it here.

I recorded a short screencast showing off the new features. Enjoy.

TextExpander 4.0 Fill-In Feature from David Sparks on Vimeo.

As the sandboxing rules kick in, several of my favorite apps are punching eject. Many Tricks’ Moom is an excellent app to arrange application windows. Unfortunately, they’ve announced there will be no further updates for the current iteration in the App Store. They do, however, have a solution that, with a little tedium, gets you a fully licensed, updatable, copy based on your App Store license.

I’d much prefer to keep getting App Store updates but this will have to do. While I understand why Apple is putting sandboxing in place, I wish there were a way to accommodate some of my favorite utility apps.

Things have died down on the “GTD is not for creative work” meme that I wrote about a few weeks ago. I’ve been thinking about that whole exchange and my own reaction. In particular, my response – that GTD enables instead of inhibiting creativity – was probably too narrow. I think any systematic plan for dealing with taking out the trash and paying bills enables creativity.

MPU listener Jason Ayala sent me a great quote from French novelist Gustave Flaubert, “Be regular and orderly in your life like a bourgeois, so that you may be violent and original in your work.”

Gustave got it right. Perhaps my greatest asset is the fact that I’m not very sharp. My mother told me some great stories about the herculean efforts it took to teach me to read. While I may not have been sharpest pencil in the box, I was wise enough to recognize it. I knew very early that I’d need focus and discipline to have any chance. It worked. I did well in school not because anything came easy, but because I worked my ass off. I sometimes think I invented life-hacking in 1974 at the age of six.

Since then, my life has been one long string of self-imposed constraints and one gargantuan exercise in mindfulness. When I pull it off, great things happen and I get to be violent all over my creative work.

I always wondered.

I’m really digging the new version of Reeder for iPhone. Despite my short attention span and constant quest to find the shiniest bauble, I’ve been using Reeder on my iPhone, iPad, and Mac for as long as they’ve been around.

There are several nice UI improvements to the new version. I particularly like the new individual article view. Much better. The new version also adds support for FeedAFever.com, a self hosted RSS service.

To learn more, read Shawn Blanc’s exhaustive review.

Why is it I can’t help but look at these things?