Fracturing Windows and Fear

If the most recent scuttlebutt is true, that Microsoft is planning a competitor to the Apple TV that runs a stripped-down version of Windows, this would be a smart move for Microsoft. In my opinion, it was Microsoft’s insistence that it run a full version of Windows on tablet computers that kept them down as niche devices for over 10 years. The sooner Microsoft figures out how to streamline their operating system for these emerging mobile devices, the better for them.

For Apple fans upset by competing set top boxes, get over it. Don’t be afraid. Apple stole a market once with the iPod but that will never happen again. Also remember, Apple products will only get better with competition.

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

Exploring GoodSync

I’ve started preparing an outline for my Macworld synchronization session and stumbled upon GoodSync, a $30 solution for syncing files on multiple devices.

GoodSync handles synchronization over multiple devices directly connected or over the Internet such as FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, and Amazon S3. There are both Windows and Mac OS X versions.

Most backup and synchronization software fails at the user interface. They are difficult to understand and impenetrable by mere mortals. Thankfully, this isn’t the case with GoodSync which, from the very first time you open it, walks you through the process of syncing files.

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

BusyToDo 1.0

Since the very first iPhone, we have all been wondering when Apple will finally turn the switch and let us sync iCal to-do items directly to our iPhones. Indeed, an entire cottage industry of to-do applications has grown up around this void. For those of you still waiting for this sync, your prayers have been answered, not by our friends in Cupertino but instead the coding wizards at BusyMac.

BusyToDo is a $5 trouble-free, lickety-split syncing solution to get your iCal to-do items on your iPhone. I played with it through beta and had no troubles.

Send to OmniFocus with E-Mail 2.0

One of my only complaints in the iPad OmniFocus review was its inability to process an e-mail inbox as easily as the Mac OS X version does. This is a limitation of the current iteration of iOS. I posted recently about using a mail rule to get around this. Today the Omni Group made this even easier unveiling the Send to OmniFocus Service.
Using this new feature you can take any mail message and forward it to send-to-omnifocus@omnigroup.com. For this purpose I created a new contact in Address Book called OmniFocus with the magic e-mail address so this will be easier from the iPad and iPhone.

The Omni elves will then apply their secret sauce to your e-mail and send it straight back to the originating e-mail address. The returned mail will have a Send to OmniFocus button that, when pushed, opens a new inbox item in OmniFocus with the message subject as the task title and the message content as the task note.

This works great for adding tasks from an iOS device or (gasp) Microsoft Outlook on your work PC. This works nearly as well as Omni’s Clip-O-Tron 3000, which also embeds a link to the original e-mail in the task so you can call it back up with one click.

While not perfect, this solution certainly lowers the barrier of entry for getting tasks into OmniFocus. I’m looking forward to see where Omni goes with this next.