Fit and Comfort

As you probably know, you can change the size of the tips. If the default tips pass the Fit Test, you will still want to try the other tips. Both the default tips and the smaller tips gave me a good seal and passed the Fit Test, so I went with the smaller ones as they were more comfortable. I must have a generic ear size, as the comfort of the AirPods Pro is about the same as my AirPods, and I can’t shake them out. I know some reviewers found that the AirPods Pro didn’t stay in as well as the AirPods, but that wasn’t my experience.

Audio quality

I hesitate to even mention audio quality, as I haven’t yet done a side by side test, so my impressions on audio quality are just quick first impressions. That said, the sound quality didn’t immediately blow me away as noticeably different from my first generation AirPods. Keep in mind that I’m not an audiophile, I haven’t done a side by side comparison, and I mostly listen to spoken word.

Latency

Latency is improved over the first generation AirPods. I have an AirFly Classic wireless audio transmitter hooked up to the TV by my treadmill, for when I’m watching sports or other shows on the TiVo instead of using the Apple TV. The latency with the first generation AirPods, when connected to the AirFly, was so severe as to be too distracting to use. In my limited use of the AirPods Pro, the lag is still there, but improved. I can live with it.

Noise Canceling

Assuming the noise canceling is similar on a plane (which other reviews suggest it is), it will be good enough for me to no longer have an interest in buying a high-end pair of headphones. I had a funny moment when I activated noise canceling while walking on the treadmill, nearly eliminating noise from the treadmill. I thought the treadmill had stopped until I realized my legs were still moving.

Overall

If I never flew, my first generation AirPods would be fine. But since I’ve been considering noise canceling headphones for flights, having a pair of jack-of-all-trades earbuds is a win.

I’m actually using three shortcuts to accomplish this, but they automatically run as one.1

Shortcut #1 – The “Launch” Shortcut

This first shortcut is the shortcut I run to start the whole process. It prompts me for the type of case my meeting will cover. Right now, I’ve only set up two case types, but I will be adding more in the future. The shortcut looks like this:

When run, this shortcut has a popup with two case types (“MVA” or “Misc”). I tap one, and my answer will determine which of two embedded shortcuts will run next as Shortcut #2 – either the “New MVA” shortcut or the “New Misc” shortcut (see below for these). Each of those two shortcuts creates a different template in Drafts.

Shortcut #2 – The Template Creation Shortcut

As mentioned, Shortcut #1 will run one of two “template creation” shortcuts, depending on the type of case I pick in the popup. So, for example, if I choose the “Misc” option when running Shortcut #1, it runs the following shortcut to fill out my template in a new Drafts note: 2

This shortcut does three things:

• The first step of the shortcut (i.e., the first block of the shortcut, above) runs Shortcut #3, spelled out below, to get the title of my next calendar event.
• The second step of the shortcut contains the text I want to appear as my template in a new Drafts note. The first line of this step pulls the name of the calendar event from the block above it. The second line calculates the current date and time. The third line contains the text/template I want in my Drafts note. I haven’t expanded the second step in the screenshot, since this will be different for everyone.
• The third step (i.e., block) of the shortcut creates the note in Drafts, containing all of the text from the preceding step.

Shortcut #3 – Get the Title of My Next Calendar Event

The final piece of the puzzle, as mentioned above, is triggered in the first step of Shortcut #2. That first step runs a shortcut (“Get title of next calendar event”) that pulls the title of my next calendar event from my work calendar. It looks like this:

The End Product

The end product lets me tap the “New Client” shortcut (Shortcut #1, above) to start the process. I’m then prompted for the type of case. Depending on my selection, a Drafts note is created containing one of two templates. That note automatically contains the appointment title at the top, followed by the current date and time, followed by the template. This all happens within a second or two.

Downloads

Here are links to download all three shortcuts:

New Client shortcut (shortcut #1)

New Misc shortcut (shortcut #2)

Get Title of Next Calendar Event shortcut (shortcut #3)

Thanks to a tweet by Matt Bircher and a post from Andy Nicolaides at The Dent for pointing me in the right direction. My theme ended up being more complicated than I hoped, requiring a fair amount of tweaking.

watchOS 6 is not a massive update to the platform, and you will likely use your watch in largely the same way you always have, but there are some new apps, nice usability updates, no real regressions, and frameworks that will allow third party apps to get better in the future. Basically, it won’t all change your life, but there is probably at least one or two things that you’ll really enjoy in this new update.

The always-on display isn’t the only new feature of watchOS 6, and Matt’s review is a good look at the major new features for those who want to read a thorough review, but can’t afford to take half a day off work to do so.

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DEVONthink 3 is too deep of an application for me to cover all its features, do it justice, and still live my life, but here are some bullet point highlights of my favorite additions and changes, after using the DEVONthink beta for the past few months. I’ll also cover my two gripes. Please note that these opinions were formed using the betas. I have tried to identify any changes in the final release that affect any of my points, but if I catch anything later I’ll be sure to update this post.

Improved User Interface

Some users complained that the interface of DEVONthink 2 was unattractive. I wasn’t one of them, finding it to be beautifully utilitarian. But if you were hoping for a more modern-looking interface, DEVONthink 3 might satisfy you. DEVONthink 3 is an insanely feature-rich application, so there’s no way it is ever going to be sparse and contain lots of white space, but it is prettier than DEVONthink 2.

The two most obvious changes concern the sidebar, and the inspector pane. The sidebar now has a dedicated area for all your inboxes, as well as a section for smart groups and smart rules (more on smart rules below).

Smart Rules!

If you use Hazel on your Mac, and ever wished DEVONthink offered a similar ability to auto file, auto tag, and more, your prayers have been answered. While not as full-featured as Hazel, DEVONthink’s smart rules come close enough that I’ve moved almost all of my auto-filing into the app.

DEVONthink 3’s smart rules allow you to automatically file, tag, and rename (among several options) your files, based on the content of those files. I no longer need to apply various AppleScripts or Automator actions to documents outside of DEVONthink, to get them to go to specific locations in DEVONthink. Smart rules allow me to drop those files into my DEVONthink global inbox, and have DEVONthink do the work for me. You also can export those smart rules for use on other Macs.

Classifying Documents Now Works Across Databases

One of my favorite features of DEVONthink 2 is its use of artificial intelligence to suggest where I might want to file a document in my database. In DEVONthink 2, the artificial intelligence only worked within individual databases. So, for example, if my electric bill ended up in my web clippings database, DEVONthink wouldn’t be able to suggest I file it in another database housing all my bills. In DEVONthink 3, this filing ability works across databases.

New Sorter

If you’ve used DEVONthink 2, you may be familiar with the Sorter, a drawer you can position on the side of your screen for easy filing. Drag a file over the drawer, and the drawer expands to show pre-configured target locations within your databases. The new Sorter is much more robust. You can relocate it to the menu bar if you prefer, and now it shows all open databases and groups as targets, in nested-tree form, with your Favorites pinned to the top. The Sorter includes other features as well, such as web clipping, note taking, and the ability to capture various types of media. Unlike the old Sorter, the Sorter in DEVONthink 3 will only appear when the app is open.

Indexing

If you don’t want to move files into DEVONthink 2 or 3, you can keep them where they reside on your Mac, and have DEVONthink index them. They still show up in DEVONthink, and you can work with them as you would other files in the app, but they actually reside elsewhere. I was always leery of using indexed files in DEVONthink 2, because moving indexed files around from within DEVONthink wasn’t necessarily mirrored over in the files’ original location1. DEVONthink 3 tightens things up, mostly mirroring any changes you make either in DEVONthink or the Finder, so long as you don’t move files completely out of an indexed location2.

Encrypted databases on the Mac

Although you could encrypt your DEVONthink 2 data for sync purposes, so it would be secure online, that’s didn’t carry over locally. Of course your data was protected if you used FileVault and your Mac was locked, but if your Mac was unlocked and accessible, a database’s password protection was cosmetic, and circumventable. That has changed. With DEVONthink 3, you can encrypt your databases locally with a password.

Annotations!

Maybe a similar feature was present in DEVONthink 2 and I just missed it, but I’ve fallen in love with the powerful annotation features in DEVONthink 3. In the improved and powerful inspector pane, you can add notes (annotations) to a document. Those notes show up not just in the sidebar, but also in another document in an “Annotations” folder in your database. So long as you’ve included a back link to the original PDF (a shortcut to add it is provided), you can jump easily between the original and the annotations, or just access the annotations from the inspector pane. This will be huge for lawyers who want to review records, and take notes as they go, since DEVONthink has always allowed you to grab links to specific pages of a PDF.

Summarize Highlights

Another annotation feature is the ability to take all of the highlights you’ve made in a PDF, and create a document listing those highlights in text form. In the early betas this was finicky for me, so I’ll be anxious to see how it works after I’ve used the final release extensively.

My Gripes

I initially had two gripes with DEVONthink 3, but one of them has been addressed. During the beta period, I didn’t like how the inbox for each database wasn’t visually contained in the database in the sidebar, but instead was contained in a list of all inboxes in the sidebar. This made for too much jumping around for me. Thankfully, there is now a setting in DEVONthink’s preferences to restore the old behavior, and return inboxes to their databases. So that brings me to my one main gripe . . .

My most useful view is gone

My main gripe so far is the loss of the three-pane view I used with DEVONthink 2. This allowed me to hide the main sidebar (containing my favorites and my database list), and use a layout familiar to many lawyers – folders organized alphabetically (Correspondence, Discovery, Litigation, etc.), and contents of those folders organized by date (so your most recent court filing, for example, would appear at the top). The third pane contained a view of the document itself.

Although it was tweaked during the beta period, the current setup still isn’t ideal for how I work. I mostly use List view, and have added the “Date Modified” and “Kind” columns in the middle pane. Beta 2 introduced the ability to expand your groups under each database in the far left sidebar.

So I now have the same three columns, but with the added clutter of additional information (other databases, smart groups, etc.) in the far left sidebar. I can reduce this by closing other databases prior to going into court or a deposition, but this takes extra times, especially since my normal workflow has me dropping documents into several other databases throughout the day.

A nitpick: No synchronization of Smart Rules and Smart Groups

My other gripe is nitpicky, and I suspect it will be addressed going forward. DEVONthink currently does not sync your Smart Rules and Smart Groups between machines.

Conclusions

DEVONthink 3 is the overhaul many users have been waiting for, with not only a nice facelift, but several enhancements and brand new features. I’ve covered my favorite features here, but for a more complete rundown of features check out the blog entry on the DEVONtechnolgoies website.

DEVONthink 3 is currently available for purchase from the DEVONtechnologies website in three versions – DEVONthink, DEVONthink Pro, and DEVONthink Server. Check out the feature comparison on the DEVONtechnologies website for a breakdown of the differences. I’ll be going with the Pro version, mostly for the OCR and email archiving features.

DEVONthink is a one-time purchase (i.e., not a subscription service), and this version has switched away from a “per user” model to a “per seat” model. Purchases of all versions of DEVONthink come with two seats, with additional seats available for purchase. The cost of Standard, Pro, and Server are $99, $199 and $499, respectively, for those two seats. I can’t speak to the upgrade costs from other versions of DEVONthink 2, but according to my account page, the cost to upgrade from DEVONthink 2 Pro Office to Standard, Pro, and Server runs $25, $99, and $399, respectively. You can get upgrade pricing from within DEVONthink 2 or by logging into your customer account.

I probably should have some deep thoughts about the anniversary, from years of crazy traffic (by my standards) and coverage on big sites, to the more cozy, personal place this is today, but all I have to say is yay, and thanks for reading. And a special shout out to Bobby Travis, who wrote with me in those early years. This site has opened some doors for me, and has been loads of fun.

Background

This post was inspired by Brett Terpstra, who has similarly configured his Caps Lock key, and calls it a Hyper key. The difference is that Brett uses his Caps Lock key as an Escape key, in addition to being a modifier key. I wanted mine to retain its Caps Lock functionality, instead of being an Escape key. In his post, Brett mentions in passing how to retain Caps Lock functionality, but I found I needed to add one additional line to a configuration file to get this to work.

Instructions – Step 1

Note: If you don’t want to mess around with editing a config file yourself, jump to the All-In-One solution, below, and download the file I’ve provided. Step 1, by itself, will remap the Caps Lock key as a modifier key, but you’ll lose Caps Lock functionality.

Out of the box, Karabiner Elements lets you change your Caps Lock so pressing it will trigger a press of Command+Control+Option+Shift, a key combination that normally requires some dexterity to press. Do this by going into Karabiner Elements’ Preferences, going to the Complex Modifications Tab, clicking “Add Rule,” and choose “Change caps_lock to command+control+option+shift.“

Instructions – Step 2

If you follow the basic instructions above, you’ve now remapped your Caps Lock key to be a modifier key, but it no longer works as a traditional Caps Lock key. It you want to restore Caps Lock functionality and use Caps Lock as a modifier key, you need to do a bit more wrangling. Here’s how.

You need to edit a hidden file, found at ~/.config/karabiner/karabiner.json. To view hidden files on your Mac temporarily, open Finder and hit Command+Shift+Period. Then go to your User folder, and browse down into the .config folder at the path above, until you find the karabiner.json file.

Just below the part of the file containing to_if_alone, find this line:

"key_code": "caps_lock"

and replace it with these two lines:

"key_code": "caps_lock",
"hold_down_milliseconds": 100

ALL IN ONE SOLUTION

If you want an all-in-one solution, allowing you to skip the above steps, I’ve uploaded my karabiner.json file for you to download. You’ll need to unzip the downloaded file, and move the karabiner.json file into the location mentioned in Step 2, above.

Final step

Whether you do this manually or download the file, above, you’ll need to manually quit Karabiner Elements and restart it. Once I did so, I was pleased to find Caps Lock worked as normal if I tapped it, and it worked as my modifier key if I held it down.

First, HomeRun now provides the option to set different complications to appear on your watch face throughout the day during select time periods. You can, for example, tell HomeRun that starting at 6:00am every day, you want its complication to trigger your ‘Good Morning’ scene, then at 8:00am it should instead trigger your ‘I’m leaving’ scene, and at 5:00pm it should change to activate ‘I’m home’. Not only will the action change, but the complication itself will visually transform at the time you’ve programmed.

If you have the nagging feeling that your Apple Watch should be better at triggering HomeKit scenes, check out HomeRun. You can add customized complications to your Watch face, and this latest update allows those complications to change based on the time of the day.

TECHSHOW 2019 – Mac Workflows

Paste the following text into the Script Editor app on your Mac (warning: I’m no coder, and did this through trial and error based on other scripts, so this script probably contains some completely unnecessary code):

on run
	tell application "BBEdit" to set theFile to file of document 1
	
	
	set appleScriptPath to theFile as text
	set currentURL to POSIX path of appleScriptPath
	set currentURL to ("file://" & currentURL)
	
	tell application "MarsEdit"
		activate
		make new document
		tell document 1
			set body to theFile
		end tell
		activate
	end tell
end run

Compile then save the AppleScript. For the final step, you need to move this AppleScript to the BBEdit scripts folder. Get there by clicking on the Scripts icon near the far right of the BBEdit menu, and choosing “Open Scripts Folder.”

Once the AppleScript is in place, it will appear at the bottom of the dropdown when you click on the Scripts icon. Selecting it will take the text in BBEdit, and open it in a new MarsEdit document. I wrote the initial draft of this post in BBEdit, before using the AppleScript to send it to MarsEdit for final edits, adding of the image, assigning tags and categories, and sending off to WordPress.