Thanks to Steve (Twitter: @ptgn123) for turning me on to this nifty little, very much beta, app that adds new and shiny levels of goodness to your Magic Mouse.
Continue readingMagic Mouse Empowerment – Better Touch Tool
Bowers & Wilkens Zeppelin
Thanks to B&W for sponsoring MacSparky.com for a third month. The B&W Zeppelin iPod/iPhone speaker makes a statement with both its sounds and unique design. Check it out.
Continue readingNew Link – Katie’s Blog
My partner and co-host for the Mac Power Users, Katie Floyd, has started her very own blog, KatieFloyd.me. I’ve always found Katie’s opinions and insights helpful. Check it out.
Continue readingMac Roundtable – When Things Go Wrong
The most recent episode of the Mac Roundtable is now posted. In it we talked about what to do when things (spills, drops, and other mishaps) go wrong on your Mac. As always, it was a lot of fun recording and a bit of that rubs off on the listening so go download it now.
Continue readingOn Second Thought …
Just a few days ago, Microsoft executive Simon Aldous was explaining why Windows 7 emulates OS X.
“One of the things that people say an awful lot about the Apple Mac is that the OS is fantastic, that it’s very graphical and easy to use,” Aldous said. “What we’ve tried to do with Windows 7 — whether it’s traditional format or in a touch format — is create a Mac look and feel in terms of graphics…”
(as reported at Apple Insider)
What a difference a day makes. Today Microsoft denied Aldous’s comments. What is missing from the retraction is an explanation of some remarkable new similarities like the task bar and dock.
I’m not sure why Microsoft is making such a big deal about this. The OS manufacturers have been boosting ideas from each other since the very first operating systems. People used to joke that Cupertino was Redmond’s research and development office. Nevertheless, it is entertaining.
Don Weighs in on Things vs. OmniFocus
We’ve received lots of great feedback on the Mac Power Users Things vs OmniFocus episode. Most recently, Don McAllister of Screencasts online wrote a thoughtful piece about why he uses Things. Don’s screencasts on both applications are highly recommended.
Continue readingThe OmniFocus “Switch” Button
I’ve received several e-mails and comments concerning my discussion of the “Switch” button in OmniFocus during the task management episode of the Mac Power Users.
This button is among those available in the “Customize Toolbar” menu.
Simply drag it on your toolbar and you are set. Here is my OmniFocus toolbar.
The “Switch” button becomes useful when working through your list. I work most of the day in the context view. So, if I’m working through the phone context and perform a task like, “Call Rumpole regarding trial” and decide I need to add a task to that project after the call, I do not need to go digging through the project list for it. I simply press “Switch.” Then, using some strange dark magic, OmniFocus drops me right into that specific project for me to fiddle with to my heart’s content. When done, I simply press the “Context” button again and get back on my merry way.
Continue readingPagehand Review
If you’ve been reading me for any length of time, you’ll know that I have a “thing” for word processors. This is partly because I spend so much time writing but also because I remember the cowboy days of word processing when our computers were 8 bits and there were 20 different developers trying to build a better mousetrap.
Gladly, the Microsoft Word stranglehold seems to be loosening and independent developers are once again bringing their own particular take on word processing to the Mac. One of the most recent additions is Pagehand.
This version 1.0 application is all about the words. The interface is simple and tasteful developed to stay out of your way and let you get to the hard work of writing.
Thankfully, you can spend a lot of time writing in Pagehand without ever straying into the menu listings and there simply are no inspectors. All of its tools are presented in the toolbar and sidebar. One nice touch is font are grouping by style so if you are looking for a nice decorative sans serif, they are easy to find.
It is always refreshing to see a developer create an application with no regard to feature lists. However, there are a few things missing from Pagehand that could make it a deal breaker for some. You can’t track changes and there are no footnotes or endnotes. For me, that severely limits my ability to use Pagehand. Likewise the page layout and table support is present but not nearly as robust as in Apple’s Pages application.
The thing is, those features that Pagehand does include are done extremely well. I’ve always used paragraph styles but I’m the only person I know who does (and I talk to a lot of writers). I think part of the problem is implementation. Pagehand has made developing, customizing, and naming paragraph styles very intuitive.
In terms of character and paragraph customization, Pagehand excels. There are four different styles of underline and four styles of strikethrough. You can apply shadow and control the angle, offset, blur, and opacity. The hyphenation control includes sliders for the current paragraph and entire document.
Pagehand also changes the rules with file format. Pagehand’s native file format is called Pagehand PDF. This way, any saved Pagehand file can be opened in any PDF reader on any platform. What a great idea. In addition, Pagehand also imports and exports to the usual suspects including Microsoft Word and several text formats. Although importing Microsoft Word documents that include unsupported features, such as footnotes, led to some grief.
I can’t help but really like this application. The simplicity of the user interface and the moxy of simply ignoring several of the word processing features everyone expects is endearing. If you don’t need those missing features, Pagehand may be the answer you are looking for.
I suspect there will be some feature creep with future versions and look forward to seeing how the developer does this and keeps the elegant simplicity.
You can download Pagehand from Pagehand.com. The introductory price is $40 but that will eventually go to $50.
You can listen to this review on the Mac Review Cast.
Snow Leopard Gets Secrets
For those who would rather not venture into the murky depths of the Terminal to tweak their Mac settings, there is Secrets. This nifty little preference pane (that puts a pretty UI over a lot of terminal gibberish) is now Snow Leopard compliant.
Continue readingManaging Recurring Lists on the iPhone
During the recent Mac Power Users episode on task managers, I neglected to mention how I manage recurring lists. We all have lists that are not necessarily task lists but get used over and over again. I have them for the grocery and hardware stores with things like bananas and duct tape. I also have them for packing an overnight bag or heading out to a presentation (extension cord? check). These lists don’t lend themselves to OmniFocus but there is a solution, the free web service and $2.99 iPhone application, Zenbe List. (iTunes Link)
Zenbe Lists has a very simple web interface that allows you to build lists straight from your browser or iPhone.
You can then share your list or even publish it to the web as a widget. More importantly, using the iPhone application you can sync it to your pocket.
While this architecture builds a perfectly adequate task management system, for me it creates an even better recurring list manager. I keep the application on my iPhone right next to the OmniFocus application and while it doesn’t get used as often, it serves nicely when required.
Continue reading