One (of several) reasons I’ve soured on bundle deals is that I really prefer buying apps through the Mac App Store. Zero Ninety Nine is the first Mac App Store bundle-ish deal I’ve seen. Several apps are marked down to 99 cents for the rest of today. This is interesting. I wonder if it will take off.

Macworld has a nice write up about buying refurbished Macs. I’ve bought several Macs over the years this way. Indeed both of my current Macs and my wife’s MacBook all come from the the Refurb Store. I’ve never had a problem. An argument could be made that refurbished Macs have even more love and attention before shipping to you than those hot off the assembly line in China.

If you go that route, there are a few tips:

• Be Patient. Sometimes it takes awhile. Once I decided to replace my iMac, it took 5 weeks for the ‘right deal’ to show up for me in the refurb store. I ended up getting over $600 off on exactly the Mac I wanted.
• Pull the Trigger Fast. When you do see the Mac you want, buy it. The best deals don’t last long.

Last night I was a guest on the MacCast with Adam Christianson where we talked about iCloud, holiday gifts, and other random bits of nerdery. Lots of fun.

The Internet was abuzz yesterday about rumors of a version of Microsoft Office on the iPad. Why not? Some believe this will never happen. The reason, they argue, is that Microsoft needs to establish itself in the mobile space and the best way to do that is to keep Office exclusive to Microsoft’s tablet platform. If people need a Windows 8 tablet for Office, they will theoretically abandon iOS and Android. I’m sure some at Microsoft think this is the right move. It isn’t. Microsoft would be foolish to not embrace the iPad (and Android) for a couple of reasons:

1. Microsoft is a software company.

Since the beginning, Microsoft is about software. As of September 2011, there were are already nearly 40 million iPads in the wild. After the holidays, that number will be substantially larger. Let’s say Microsoft sells a stripped down Office for $30 and 1/4 of existing iPad owners buy it. That is $300M.

2. Microsoft Needs to Maintain Office Ubiquity

For the longest time, Office was the ubiquitous productivity suite. Everybody used it. Nobody considered using anything else. However, since this mobile revolution started, even non-geeks are starting to question whether Office is still all that. I had breakfast this morning with a CPA who does all of his work in Google docs. There is an entire generation of future workers going through high school and college now who don’t even have Office installed on their computers. If Microsoft has any hopes of keeping Office relevant, it needs to be everywhere, including the iPad.

To corral Office to just some future Microsoft tablet would be a mistake. That is, essentially, betting Office’s future relevance on the possibility that Microsoft will become a dominant player in future mobile computing. Instead, what would happen is that the millions of iOS and Android users will snap out of the Office trance and move on. Once they realize they don’t need office on their tablets, its utility on their desktops will also be questioned. Ubiquity lost.

MacSparky.com is sponsored by Bee Docs Timeline 3D. Make a timeline presentation with your Mac.

I talked about this on Mac Power Users but I thought it worth mention here. Thanksgiving weekend is the perfect weekend to share the 1Password love with all our family members. While us nerds get it, everyone needs a secure way to create, store, and access passwords. 1Password scratches all the itches and this weekend it is half off.

MacSparky.com is sponsored by Bee Docs Timeline 3D. Make a timeline presentation with your Mac.

I know times are tough but if you are looking for a reason to give thanks, Seth Godin nails it:

Your job, your internet access, your education, your role in a civilized society… all of them are a platform, a chance to do art, a way for you to give back and to honor those that enabled you to get to this point.

For every person reading this there are a thousand people (literally a thousand) in underprivileged nations and situations that would love to have your slot. Don’t waste it.

Of course there is also turkey.

Plans are afoot for Macworld 2012. I’m really excited about two sessions I’ll be participating in:

Workflows with Rob Corddry

Rob Corddry is an actor and comedian that you’ve probably seen several times. Rob’s work includes The Daily Show, Community, Hot Tub Time Machine, W., Harold & Kumar, and more. He also is Dr. Blake Downs on Children’s Hospital.

In addition to Rob’s many talents, he is a Level 1 Apple nerd. Rob agreed to join Katie Floyd, Merlin Mann, and myself for an Entertainment Workflows session on January 27, 2011 at 11:00 a.m. This session will be entertaining and educational as Rob explains how he uses Apple technologies in the entertainment business. With both Merlin and Rob going at full speed, I’ll consider myself lucky just to keep up.

40 Tips in 40 Minutes

This session is going to an absolute nerdfest. On January 27 at 10:00 a.m., Brett Terpstra, Merlin Mann, and I will be firing off as many Mac tips as we can in 40 minutes. (I guaranty it will be more than 40.) We’ve already started planning this magic show and it is going to be fantastic. This is the session I’ve always wanted at Macworld and can’t wait to make this happen.

Getting In

Both the Rob Corddry workflow and magic show are part of the Tech Talks. You can currently buy a $75 pass that gets you in all the Tech Talks. This is a significant discount over prior years (where the conference tracks cost over $1,000). There are lots of interesting Tech Talks plans in addition to these two and you’ll definitely get your money’s worth. However, the prices will go up slightly after December 5 so if you are interested, now is the time.

My annual trip to Macworld is always one of the highlights of my year. If at all possible, get yourself to Macworld in January and join the party.

Two weeks ago, my friends at the Omni Group told me OmniFocus was about to get Siri friendly and asked if I’d do some demonstration videos for them. Hell yes. So I’ve been sitting on my hands the last two weeks as I added tasks to my OmniFocus inbox using Siri and not telling anyone. It is a fantastic feature that completely removes all of the hacks we’ve all been using for years to quickly capture new task items.

There are three videos. Here is my favorite.

OmniFocus + Siri: Configuration from The Omni Group on Vimeo.

You can watch all three on Omni’s blog post.

So having used this feature for a few weeks, here are some tips.

• Asking Siri “Remind me to …” always results in Siri prompting you for second question, “When would you like me to remind you”. That creates an OmniFocus due date for the task.
• Asking Siri “Remember to …” creates the task without prompting for a date.
• Although you don’t have to, creating a separate Reminders list called “OmniFocus” [including capitalization] creates a nice place to put OmniFocus bound tasks. When OmniFocus adds those tasks to your OmniFocus inbox, it clears them out of the Reminders list. Doing it this way you can also keep non-OmniFocus tasks. For instance, I have a Reminders list called “Groceries”. With the Siri command, “Add Haggis to my Grocery List”, Siri puts it in my Grocery list Reminders list and OmniFocus leaves it there.

This really takes OmniFocus to a new level for me. If I think of something while driving down the road, walking to lunch, or gazing at clouds, I’m just one Siri click away from capture.

As for making the videos, it was a blast and the process probably merits its own extended post. Suffice it to say it was a lot more work than I expected but all fun. Also, thanks to JF Brissette (Twitter – @profmac) for the most excellent music.