How I Do It

New Home!

Thu, 05 May 2011 02:05:00 -0400

I’ve moved over to MattWean.com, check it out!

What to Do About Passwords

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 00:14:08 -0400

The Problem

Lately I’ve been a bit concerned about digital security because of several websites that were hacked and some friends that had their email accounts compromised. I’ve been using 1Password for a long time, so I have incredibly long and complex passwords for almost all of my online accounts. However, there are still a few passwords that have to be memorable for times when I might not have access to my 1Password database. These are my MacBook firmware/user account, Dropbox account and 1Password database. Up until now, I’ve had one fairly weak password, with slight modifications, for each of these, and it made me worry.

The Solution

That changed today when I read this post (via TBR) that pointed out an interesting method for creating memorable passwords. In this article, Thomas shows that using a simple three-word password like “this is fun” is actually more secure (and much more memorable) than something like “J4fS<2”. He says that it would take more than 2,500 years to break this password using a common-word dictionary, but actually there’s no reason that the hacker would know your password is three words rather than 11 characters, so it would take even longer. This realization just made my day, because now I can have easily-remembered passwords that are secure!

It’s easy to be lax about our digital security, but it’s also easy to become paranoid. Avoid both of these problems by buying a copy of 1Password¹ and creating a handful of multi-word passphrases for accounts you need to remember. Now I can stop worrying about security and focus more on backups…

But make sure you go back and change all your old passwords!↩

Essential Mac Utilities

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 00:47:38 -0400

Macworld recently published a series of articles that described what they considered to be essential categories of Mac utilities. They decided on launchers, text expanders, clipboard managers and automation tools. I generally agree with these categories, because they are always the first programs I install on a fresh computer. These types of programs are also pivotal to increased productivity on your Mac. Take a look at what applications me and the Macworld editors prefer, and then give us your choices in the comments.

Launchers

There are really two forms of launcher applications: those that use the mouse, and those that are keyboard-driven. For mouse users, Macworld recommends DragThing as the best choice if you’re looking for a powerful application. I’ve always favored keyboard-based launchers, so I haven’t used any of the mouse-based options for very long, so I can’t say much about these. However, I have looked at DragThing briefly and was very impressed with the amount of flexibility available.

For the keyboard launchers, Macworld unsurprisingly recommended LaunchBar, which is my personal favorite. Quicksilver is very popular, but it isn’t in active development anymore and is not very stable on Snow Leopard. Even though Quicksilver is free, I still think it’s worth it to pay for LaunchBar and get something that won’t crash on you. Another contender is Butler, which has even more features and customizability than LaunchBar. At the moment, however, it is a bit too complicated for most users. But Macworld points out that the developer will be releasing an update that might solve this problem. If you need the extra features that Butler offers, then it is probably your best bet. Otherwise, you should go with LaunchBar.

Text Expanders

For anyone who uses their computer for more than an hour a day, a text expander application can save a lot of time by filling in common, repetitive bits of text by typing in a short abbreviation. The gold standard, and the program favored by Macworld, is TextExpander. TextExpander has the most features of any expander, especially with the new 3.0 update, and also enjoys the largest following. However, while I have tried very hard to like TextExpander, I just can’t use it. I love all the features, but there are a few glaring problems that keep me from adopting it.

The biggest problem I’ve had is that the expansions are too slow, which often leads to errors. I don’t think I’m a particularly fast typist, but when I use short expansions, the expanded text usually is either repeated for some reason or my curser ends up in the middle of the text so that I have to click back to the end of the expansion. I don’t know why other people don’t have this problem, but it makes the program absolutely unusable for me. Hopefully they can improve this soon.

Another problem is that TextExpander doesn’t allow you to choose whether a snippet will expand immediately or after a delimiter character on a per-snippet basis: they only have a global setting. Maybe I’m abnormal, but I generally expand immediately after spelling corrections but require a delimiter after things like email signatures.

There are also a few other little glitches like the auto-capitalization and removal of double-capitals features failing. I really want to use TextExpander because of its great feature set (including a cool iPhone app), but until they fix my problems with it, I have to stick with something else.

Right now I’m using Typinator. It doesn’t have the most features, but it’s lightning fast: most of the time I can’t even see the expansion happen. I recently downloaded TypeIt4Me, and it looks good, but I haven’t given it much of a trial. It is also missing the feature to set how expansions are triggered for each snippet. If you want to try one of these applications, I would recommend you start out with TextExpander, and if you have any problems with it, you can switch over to Typinator.

Clipboard Managers

Demo of CopyPaste Pro

I discovered clipboard managers only recently, because I didn’t know there was anything wrong with the standard copy and paste functionality built into OSX. But after being battered by articles about the best clipboard managers and why everyone needs one, I finally gave them a try. Now I can hardly use a computer without one.

Macworld recommends Jumpcut for anyone who wants a barebones application to try out without spending any money. Jumpcut might be a good introduction, but I don’t think it really gives a complete picture of what is possible with a clipboard manager. For one thing, it can only handle text, which limits its functionality quite a bit. Also, you can only access your clipboard through a menu bar icon, which I think hurts its ease of use.

For me, an essential feature of any clipboard manager is the ability to open up the clipboard with a keyboard shortcut, select an item, and then paste it by releasing the keyboard shortcut. This makes it incredibly easy to paste into a document without leaving the keyboard, and it also mimics the standard cmd-v shortcut for pasting that most people are used to. As far as I can tell, the only clipboard manager that has this ability is CopyPaste Pro. This application has a lot of other great features and is my pick of the group. Macworld also recommends CopyPaste Pro, but slightly favored PTHPasteboard Pro for its syncing, search and statistics abilities. So, if you need these things, you might try PTHPasteboard instead.

I actually don’t use a dedicated clipboard manager. Instead, I use the built-in clipboard history feature of LaunchBar. It doesn’t have quite as many features as the high-end dedicated programs, but it’s already part of my workflow and has a great implementation of the keyboard-shortcut pasting functionality I described. If you have LaunchBar already, turn on this feature in the settings and see how it works for you. Otherwise, I would try out the trial of CopyPaste Pro and see how it improves your workflow.

Automation Tools

These applications allow you to perform even the most complex tasks by using keyboard shortcuts, snippets, system events and other triggers. They are incredibly powerful when you take the time to set them up, but this usually takes a good amount of time and dedication. There is a lot of overlap between automation tools and other utilities because most of them can perform text expansion and launch applications. Because of this, I haven’t really found a need for these programs. I did look at QuickKeys for a bit and was impressed by the vast array of features, and I’m sure I could do some cool things with it if I spent the time. If you think you might use something like this, try out QuickKeys or Keyboard Maestro and see how they work for you.

Apple makes a great operating system, and it works well for casual users. However, for people that use their computer a lot, these utilities are essential. If you’re not using any of these programs, try some out now and I’m sure you will see a boost in your productivity.

Two Great Apps

Sat, 03 Jul 2010 15:32:08 -0400

There’s two iOS apps that I’ve been really happy with lately. The first is an iPhone/iPod touch game I found recently called The Impossible Game (Opens in iTunes). It’s a very simple game, but totally addicting. And at only 99 cents, it’s a great value. There’s really only two levels right now, but getting through them will take most people a very long time. You can check out a video of the gameplay here. It’s a great little time-waster, and the music is fun and upbeat. Give it a try.

The other app is for the iPad and called Penultimate (Opens in iTunes). This app is one of many free-form notes/sketching apps available for the iPad. What has always set this one apart is how smooth and responsive it is. It literally feels like you’re writing with a smooth pen on paper. However, Penultimate always suffered from a lack of features. But in the last two versions, this app has become vastly more useful with the introduction of different colors, three different pen sizes, a smart eraser that changes size automatically and really amazing palm detection. This last feature is my favorite, as it allows me to rest my hand on the screen as I normally would while writing with my pogo sketch stylus. It’s really great.
As a side note, the makers of the pogo stylus just showed a proof-of-concept video that shows an app with pressure-sensitive drawing using a standard pogo stylus. They’re releasing the code for free, so hopefully it will be implemented by Penultimate. The only problem is that it uses techniques that are currently prohibited by Apple, so it might take a while…

So check out these two cool apps, and let me know how you like them in the comments.

MoneyWell on Sale

Sat, 26 Jun 2010 15:39:36 -0400

MoneyWell, the excellent personal finance manager (and the program I use) is having a 25% off sale in preparation for the upcoming release of their iPhone app. This application is indispensable for managing my finances and has a very interesting and unique way of budgeting. Go try it out and take advantage of the sale before it’s over!

iOS4 Update Breaks 3G/Edge Data

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 23:11:33 -0400

This afternoon, I installed the new iOS4 update on my 32GB iPhone 3GS and went out to dinner. When I got there, I found that my cellular data connection over 3G wasn’t working. I tried resetting the phone and resetting the network settings, but neither worked. I found this forum thread with many other people suffering from the same problem. It seems the only way to fix it is to restore to factory settings and then upgrade to iOS4 from there. Of course, you will lose all your data and settings if you do this. I was able to confirm this solution. Image by 160 over 90

If you have a lot of apps and data on your phone, I would suggest you wait until this issue is resolved. It seems like it only applies to 3GS models, but I wouldn’t take my chances with it. Let’s hope it gets solved soon. If you find another way to get around this problem, leave it in the comments.

Awesome Jailbreak App: QuickScroll

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 01:09:28 -0400

I recently discovered a great app for jailbroken iPhones called QuickScroll. This small utility adds translucent scroll bars (seen in the screenshot) to any app on your iPhone. I had always complained about how difficult it was to scroll through long web pages and documents on the iPhone, but this program solved the problem perfectly. You can activate the scroll bars by a variety of methods, set how long they stay on the screen, and even disable them for certain apps. This is a remarkably useful little program, and it’s free from either Cydia or Rock. Give it a try!

Navigon MyRegion on Sale

Sat, 05 Jun 2010 16:08:45 -0400

From now until June 11th, Navigon is offering its three MyRegion GPS apps for only $14.99, a 50% discount. Image by App-Alooza

I originally bought Magellan, because I was impressed with the unique predictive keyboard, but I’ve since become unhappy with it. So far, I’m very impressed with Navigon. It has superior music controls and a cleaner interface than any of the other GPS apps available. At this price, I think this app is unbeatable, so I recommend you buy it soon. [via TUAW]

Syphir and Controlling Your Email

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 01:20:33 -0400

As I started learning about GTD and wandered around the internet looking for tips and tricks, I inevitably came across Merlin Mann. One of Merlin’s claims to fame is Inbox Zero. If you’re not familiar with it, you can read the original articles here and watch the famous 2007 Google talk here.

One aspect of this technique or mentality is to always process your email to empty whenever you look at it. This is pretty shocking for most people, and I’ll probably come back to this part of it in a later post. Today, however, I’d like to focus on the other part of Inbox Zero, which involves checking your email only a few times a day. This may seem crazy, but as Merlin points out, the constant interruptions from new email messages are down right catastrophic for your productivity. If you want to be more efficient with your work, you need to change your attitude towards email.

In a recent episode of the MacBreak Weekly podcast, Merlin mentioned an exciting new service called Syphir, which adds a new level of control to your email. This was the last piece of the puzzle for getting my email under control.

Syphir, in essence, sits on top of your Gmail account and adds several new filtering options. At first, this doesn’t seem very impressive, especially given the depth of Google’s built-in options. However, one of the new rules allows you to delay the delivery of messages, which turns out to be critical to my implementation of Inbox Zero.

The problem with simply disabling automatic mail checking is that there are some messages that should get through right away. With Syphir, I can delay delivery of all messages, except from my girlfriend, for example, until 11AM, 2PM and 4PM. This way, I’m only distracted by mail three times a day, and I process every message each time. This also helps me follow David Allen’s suggestion of only touching each inbox item only once. Three times a day, I either write a quick reply, delete or create a new action in OmniFocus for each new message, and I always have an empty inbox. And, if you really need to check for an email that’s being delayed, you can just check the “Delayed” folder that is created in Gmail.

Another great feature of Syphir is the companion iPhone app that can receive push notifications for only select messages. This way you will only be bothered by the most important things when you’re on the go.

There are many other great filters and actions available in Syphir to manage the deluge of mail, but just using this basic setup has really improved my email workflow. It’s scary at first to not check your mail constantly, but it’s also very freeing to not be interrupted by unimportant messages throughout the day. I encourage you to try this out and see if it helps you, and make sure to let us know how you deal with email in the comments.

The Case For Everything Buckets

Fri, 21 May 2010 00:32:44 -0400

One of the more popular categories of Mac applications is Information Managers or “Everything Buckets”. These applications, such as Together, Yojimbo and Evernote, allow you to dump in information of almost any kind and then organize, tag and search it all from a single interface. I recently read a post from Alex Payne that was very critical of these types of applications, calling them a plague. I would like to argue the opposite point.

Soon after I bought my first Mac, I came across the concept of the Everything Bucket, and immediately thought it was a good idea. There were all sorts of little bits of information that I wanted to keep for future reference, but didn’t seem important enough to organize into my filesystem. I started off with Evernote, but eventually decided on Together. I’m quite happy with this program and the underlying concept behind it, and I would like to refute some of Alex’s complaints.

His first argument is that “computers work best with structured data” and that people should have to put information in a “proper” place. I generally agree that data should be put into a dedicated application if possible; I have programs for just about everything. But if we have applications for a variety of different types of information, why shouldn’t we have a dedicated program that can hold things that don’t fit anywhere else? It makes sense to put contact information into Address Book instead of Evernote, but what about the name of a bottle of wine you really enjoyed at last night’s dinner? There are many types of data that don’t have a better place than an Everything Bucket.

Alex is also concerned by the closed nature of information management software. He’s right in that many programs (especially Evernote and Yojimbo) use proprietary databases, which could be corrupted or unsupported in the future, but there are applications that don’t suffer from this limitation. For example, Together stores imported information in its original format, within a very basic folder hierarchy. Because of this, all your information is accessible, even if you stop using the software.

He goes on to say that Everything Buckets are really nothing more than filesystems. This is precisely why I prefer the term “Information Managers”: because it emphasizes that these programs don’t just sort and organize files (as the Finder does), they deal with information. Going back to the example of the bottle of wine from last night, it would be overkill to create a text file to contain this information and then try to find a way to organize it so you can find it in the future. In this case, you could keep a list of wines to try, but there will always be one-off bits of information that need to be dealt with.

One of the many things I learned from the book Getting Things Done was that there should be no resistance to storing information for future reference. At least for me, creating a text file, coming up with a name and finding a location in a complex folder hierarchy to store it is a huge barrier. With almost all information manager programs, on the other hand, you can call up a text entry box and jot down some information without needing to name or save it, and without even leaving what you’re currently working on. You can also use things like bookmarklets and global importing hotkeys to grab information quickly and easily from any source. This is a huge advantage for me, because it means I store everything I might want, so I’ll never lose something that ends up being valuable.

Tagging has come a long way on the Mac, most notably with the development of the OpenMeta standard. However, the tagging capacity and ease of an Information Manager application is vastly superior to even the best Finder-based alternatives. For example, Gravity Applications’ Tags is my favorite tagging program, but searching for and visualizing tags in it is still pretty awkward compared to most Information Managers. And the tagging solution suggested in the article, using symlinks or aliases to files, is simply laughable in terms of ease and usefulness.

Next, he talks about how having “unstructured” data puts a strain on your computer because it needs to be indexed. I guess I don’t understand what he means by “structured” data, because a string of letters will be indexed by Spotlight no matter what, unless they’re concealed in some proprietary file. Putting an address in Address Book shouldn’t take much less indexing than having the same address in a text file. On the other hand, many Information Managers have proprietary databases, which means that their searching capabilities are independent of Spotlight. For some reason, I find Spotlight to be terribly slow lately, so this is actually a big draw for me. If I could put all of my information into a SQL database, I’d be pretty happy.

I think one of the main points Alex is making is that Everything Buckets should not be used for everything. It doesn’t make sense to use something like Yojimbo to store all your passwords, addresses, bookmarks, todo lists, etc. This doesn’t mean there’s no place for Yojimbo, however. Everyone has little bits of information they gather from random places and in various formats, and an Information Manager program is the perfect place for them.

For another rebuttal of Alex’s article, be sure to read this great post from the makers of ShoveBox (which I really like). Feel free to comment on how you feel about Everything Buckets and which program, if any, you prefer. [via MacSparky]

They Just Don't Get It...

Sat, 15 May 2010 19:15:35 -0400

I thought they were making some progress with Windows 7, but Microsoft still doesn’t know how to make a decent interface. [via Engadget]

Maximizing Your Keyboard: Part II

Thu, 13 May 2010 22:52:10 -0400

Last week, I discussed a few ways to improve your productivity with the keyboard. This week, I’ll continue with some slightly more advanced techniques. One thing I forgot to mention last time, was the most important way to improve your productivity on your computer, and that is to learn to type faster. I’m shocked I’m shocked to see how many people still hunt and peck at their keyboards. If you spend any meaningful time at a computer, you need to be able to type quickly.

Move the Arrows

The main reason using the keyboard to navigate your computer improves speed so much is because you don’t have to take time to move your hands to and from the home row. Other than moving down to the trackpad from time to time, the only reason for my fingers to move is to use the arrow keys. This is especially annoying when I’m moving around a document making edits, where I have to switch from typing to arrows constantly. I found a solution to this in the form of KeyRemap4MacBook. I mentioned this app in an earlier post, but I want to bring it up again, because it’s essential for efficient keyboard-based navigation.

I use this little preference pane to remap option-j,k,l and i to the arrow keys. And, because I earlier remaped my caps lock key to option, I can easily switch between typing and moving the cursor. One cool thing that I’ve been using a lot lately is hitting cmd-option-k to open a folder or file while navigating in the Finder. If you enter numbers more than you use the arrow keys, you can set up your right-hand keys to as a number pad. I suggest you try this out for a while and see how it improves your speed your computer.

Activation HotKeys

I use Spaces extensively to divide up my applications so I don’t have to hunt for windows, but sometimes things still get crowded. Using cmd-tab and Exposé work pretty well, but they each have their problems. I recently started using Witch to augment my application switching, but I’m still not totally satisfied with that solution.

A while ago, I tried a program called TotalFinder, which is an application that modifies the Finder to give it extra features. One such feature was a hotkey that would bring a Finder window to the front of the screen and then hide it again when hit again. This was surprisingly helpful, because then the window wouldn’t get in the way, and would just pop into view whenever I needed it. Another program that has something like this feature is iChat. In its preferences, you can set a shortcut that will bring your iChat window to the front.

I was so happy with this feature that I started looking for a way to get this functionality in other applications. I ended up finding two programs. The first is FastScripts, which sits in the menubar and can run any type of script with a keyboard shortcut. It takes a little work to set up a script, but it gives you a lot of control. FastScripts is free for up to ten scripts. The other program I found is Apptivate. This menubar app works much the same as FastScripts, but is easier to set up. You simply click the plus sign and browse to the app you want to set up a hotkey for. It’s really simple, it works great, and it’s free.

Moving Windows

When I switched to the Mac, the biggest annoyance, I think, was not being able to maximize windows like I was used to. Clicking the green button in the corner of windows seemed to do random things, so I just stopped trying. I also found that I routinely wanted to arrange two windows side-by-side. This is really helpful with today’s widescreen monitors, because you can easily have a text editor and a browser or outlining window next to it with no reduction in readability. In general, it’s just a pain to try to position windows around the screen quickly and easily.

The best way to deal with this problem, by way of the keyboard, is with SizeUp. This little utility allows you to resize and move windows to predefined positions with simple hotkeys. I mostly use it to quickly maximize windows or put two windows next to each other, but there are many more possibilities. SizeUp costs $13, but I encourage you to try the free demo and see how much it speeds up your workflow. And, if you find that you would like even more control, you should try the very popular app MercuryMover.

LaunchBar

Spotlight’s ability to search your Mac for files with nearly instantaneous results and launch any application with a few keystrokes is certainly one of Apple’s better magic tricks, but LaunchBar takes these abilities to a whole new level. As you can see by the screenshots on the right, LaunchBar has a wide array of capabilities. I also find that LaunchBar is quite a bit faster than Spotlight in many cases. This might be because you can customize the LaunchBar index to only look at the files and folders you want it to. It also learns what keys you normally use when you’re looking for certain things, which makes subsequent searches even faster.

File manipulations like moving, emailing or opening in different applications all used to require reaching for the mouse, but LaunchBar makes these operations incredibly fast. There is also a powerful multiple-clipboard feature included in LaunchBar that saves a lot of time when copying several items. You can even browse through your entire file system right from within LaunchBar. And, if you use the arrow key-remap trick from above, you don’t have to ever leave the keyboard.

You may think that you have no use for all of LaunchBar’s powerful features, but I promise that you can start out with simple searching and application launching and slowly build from there. It can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be.

LaunchBar is an amazing application. Macworld recently reviewed it and gave out a rare 5 mice. If you’re a fan of Spotlight, or you really want to take keyboard-based productivity to the next level, I would give LaunchBar a try. I’ll be doing a more in-depth look at my LaunchBar usage in the future, but in the meantime, you should check out this episode of the great podcast Mac Power Users.

Conclusion

The keyboard isn’t just for typing. If you can implement some of these programs, tips and tricks into your workflow, I guarantee you’ll be faster and more efficient on your computer. I’m not totally against using the cursor, however, so stay tuned for a look at a variety of ways to improve your effectiveness with your trackpad and mouse. Until then, make sure to leave a comment with your favorite keyboard tricks. Image by NathanBowers.com

Maximizing Your Keyboard: Part I

Tue, 04 May 2010 02:04:31 -0400

A lot of people say that switching to a Mac made them more productive, and that has certainly been the case for me. One of the biggest reasons for this is the ease with which you can control a Mac from the keyboard. It may seem like a throwback to the days of a black screen and a blinking cursor, but it’s surprising how much faster you can be when you keep your fingers on the keys. Most people don’t use the keyboard nearly to its full potential, so here’s a few tips and tricks for getting the most out of it.

Use Shortcuts

Mac operating systems and software, by default, make use of a staggering number of keyboard shortcuts. Learning and using these will certainly speed up your workflow. I suggest learning one at a time, and trying to use it as much as possible for a few days until it’s second nature. For example, did you know that hitting ⌘(command)-D in an open/save dialog takes you to the desktop? If you look around in the menus of your favorite application, you’ll find a bunch of commands that you use frequently have keyboard shortcuts.

If, however, there are menu options that don’t have a shortcut already defined, you can always add your own. Just go to the keyboard preference pane in System Preferences, and click the Keyboard Shortcuts tab. In the left box, select Application Shortcuts and then click the plus button to create a new shortcut. Find the application you want, and then in the Menu Title box, enter the name of the menu item exactly as it appears in the application. Finally, enter your desired shortcut, being careful not to select something that’s already taken. You’ll probably have to restart the application before the new shortcut will take effect.

You can apply shortcuts to a surprising number of things. One great use for custom shortcuts is in Mail. For example, if you have multiple email accounts and would like to quickly change the “From” address, you can add the address (including the angled brackets) to the Menu Title field. After restarting Mail, you’ll be able to change addresses with a keystroke.

Once you’ve found a handful of shortcuts that are helpful and created a few of your own, you might have a hard time remembering all of them. If you have this problem, try KeyCue, which solves this problem by bringing up a window with every available keyboard shortcut by holding the command key. This program is especially helpful for remembering shortcuts for software you don’t use all the time.

Remap Caps Lock

I’m sure there’s a good reason for it, but I find the caps lock key utterly useless. And it also occupies prime real estate on the keyboard. A while ago, I stumbled upon a neat trick that puts this key to good use. If you open up the keyboard preference pane again and go to the Keyboard tab, there is a button on the bottom called Modifier Keys. Clicking on that brings up this window, where you can change the function of any of the modifier keys.

As you can see, I chose to remap caps lock to option. This puts both the command and option keys right next to my thumb and little finger while I’m typing, which is ideal for using keyboard shortcuts. I’ve also set LaunchBar to open with option-space, which is very easy with this configuration. Finally, the option key is used heavily by the OS for modifying a variety of actions. For example, it is used to bring up extra options when clicking on the standard Apple menu bar icons and allows you to Force Quit an application while clicking and holding on its dock icon. It also toggles some menu items (go to the Finder menu, click on File, and then hold down option for an example). Probably the best use of the option key, however, is being able to delete whole words when you hit the backspace key; try it, it’s really cool. This simple change has saved my quite a bit of time, so if you don’t use caps lock, it’s worth trying out.

Come back soon for more keyboard tips and tricks, and be sure to add your own in the comments.

1Password Arrives on Windows

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 12:40:25 -0400

1Password, the wildly popular password management app for the Mac, is finally coming to the PC. If you’re adventurous, you can download the Windows beta from the 1Password forums. It’s still very rough around the edges, however, so it might be best to allow it to mature a bit before relying on it.

While you wait, there are already two methods for accessing your passwords away from your Mac. The easiest way is to download one of the 1Password apps for iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. The mobile version syncs with the Mac app, putting your passwords in your pocket. If this isn’t an option, you can use 1PasswordAnywhere, which allows you to set up a secure website that gives you access to your 1Password database from any browser.

If you haven’t tried 1Password yet, I recommend downloading 1Password for a 30-day trial.

This is really great news for anyone who has to use a PC from time to time. [via TUAW]

GTD and the Hot List

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 00:21:22 -0400

Today, I listened to a great episode of the David Allen Company podcast (opens in iTunes) called “Best Practices of Doing”. In it, David and two other GTD (Getting Things Done) coaches discussed some ways to actually do the things on your todo lists. One thing that came up was how to decide what task to actually work on from your task list.

When most people make a todo list, they feel the need to prioritize their tasks. Even since adopting GTD, I still get the urge sometimes to arrange my lists by order of importance. This is the wrong approach, however, because you can accomplish much more by thinking in terms of contexts instead. In GTD, contexts are the people, locations and tools needed to accomplish a task (e.g., a phone, your boss or at your desk). Grouping your tasks by context allows you to focus only on the tasks you can accomplish with the resources you have available. With this system, there is no place for prioritization of tasks. You simply have a list of actions for each specific context.

So once you have all of your tasks broken down by context, how do you decide what to do? Let’s say you’re waiting at the doctor’s office with only your phone and your phone context list. If you just have a couple calls to make, you don’t have to think at all; you can just start at the beginning of the list and run through your list. However, let’s say you have 10 calls on your list, and you can’t finish them all right now. What do you do now? The context list won’t help you decide at that point.

In his book, David Allen addresses this problem by giving a hierarchy of factors to use when deciding what to do. First is context, followed by time available, energy and finally priority. So, in the situation at the doctor’s office, you would look down the call list and pick the ones that fit the few minutes you’re waiting. You could also narrow it down by the effort involved in making the call. If you’re feeling run down, you might avoid calling a client to explain a new proposal. And, as a last resort, you can pick and choose among the tasks that you have time and energy for based on their importance.

The beauty of this hierarchy is that it focuses on fixed resources first. You can’t make more time, and it’s really tough to suddenly have more energy, so no matter how important it is, you just won’t be able to make a two-hour phone call waiting at the doctor’s. Priorities only come into play when you’ve whittled your list down to what’s possible.

The context list is a great tool, but what if you have pages of tasks for a single context? If you have 100 emails to write, it’s not productive to try and scan through the whole list to decide which to write first. This problem really isn’t addressed in David’s book, but in the podcast, one of the coaches brought up the idea of a daily “Hot List” of actions that you would realistically like to accomplish today. It’s important to note that this isn’t a normal todo list. The tasks all still maintain their contexts, and each day, the list is made from scratch. It’s best to think of it as pre-processing your lists a bit so it’s easier to choose tasks during the day. By using a daily Hot List, you avoid feeling overwhelmed by tasks and you can focus on a few things that will move you towards your goals. The next day, you can choose a new set of tasks.

When making the Hot List, you use a combination of priority, time and energy to decide what would best suit the day. When I make my daily list, I sit down with my calendar to figure out how much time I have that’s not taken up by meetings and other commitments. Then, I look at upcoming due dates to find tasks that need work most urgently. Finally, I pick the tasks i feel like working on the most. I’m left with a manageable list of items that I can work on during the day.

By focusing more on concrete constraints like time, tools available and energy, tasks will fit into your day more easily. And, if you implement a Hot List, you will also have a laser-focused set of tasks to guide you through your day. Give it a try and see how it works for you.

What About the Air?

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 23:29:12 -0400

One thing that really surprised me about the recent Apple laptop update was the lack of love for the MacBook Air. It could be that Apple is expecting the iPad to take over as the ultraportable workhorse, but I think this is the wrong way of looking at the Air. It isn’t so much the end result as it is a direction for the future of the whole MacBook line.

People love netbooks because of their portability. But if you’ve ever used a netbook, the main problem is space. The keyboard is cramped, the screen is cramped, the storage is cramped, and the performance is cramped. With a device not much faster than an iPad trying to run a full modern OS, the experience isn’t going to be ideal. With the MacBook Air, however, you get a full-sized screen, keyboard and trackpad, on top of a decent amount of computing power. As I see it, the trend will be towards ultraportables like the Air rather than netbooks as a mobile productivity solution.

Many people accept the Netbook’s weak performance because of its small size. However, most Netbook makers are so overly obsessed with the width of their devices that they end up ignoring their thickness. I’m sure some people will disagree with me, but I think the thickness of an electronic device is much more important than the other dimensions. Anything you might use to carry a Netbook in (messenger bag, backpack, etc.) is easily large enough to hold my laptop. The limiting measurement of most bags is the depth. In that sense, something like the MacBook Air is more portable than a thicker Netbook. And with the extra keyboard and display real estate, there’s no doubt in my mind that a person would be more productive on an Air than any given Netbook.

Of course, another big draw for Netbooks is their price: you can get any Netbook on the market for a fraction of the price of an Air. However, your productivity takes a huge hit by saving that money. The size and performance of the Air, in my mind at least, makes it worth much more than any Netbook. Also, advances in chip and memory design will surely reduce the cost premium for thin notebooks like the Air in the near future.

Even if the Air is more powerful than a Netbook, performance still needs to be addressed before it can be taken seriously. While an ultraportable laptop should not try to take the place of a 17” MacBook pro with dedicated graphics, it’s reasonable for it to have parity with mainstream 13” portables on the market. Productivity would be seriously hindered without this level of power. Fortunately, processor technology has been moving towards cooler and more efficient models rather than simply faster speeds. This will make it easier to put the same processor that’s in a MacBook Pro into a smaller case. As this becomes more possible, the Air form factor will take over as a mobile computing solution.

Many people feel that the future of portable productivity lies with devices like the iPad. I don’t think this is a viable solution, however, because I still think you need a good deal of power, a standard operating system and a full keyboard. Apple hasn’t stood behind the Air as much as many would have liked, but I think its future looks bright.

New MacBooks and Dealing With Apple Envy

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 23:14:51 -0400

About six months after buying my first mac, a 13” unibody, a new model was released with three new features: roughly double the battery life, an SD card slot and a lower price. Having a good familiarity with Apple’s development cycle, I knew that my shiny new laptop wouldn’t be state of the art for very long, but I never would have guessed it would lose its luster so quickly. I also thought I could handle seeing a better laptop without too much pain, but I was wrong. Almost immediately, I started looking for someone to buy my MacBook so I could upgrade. Fortunately for my checkbook, however, I held off long enough for the desire to pass.

I was faced with this again these last few weeks, as rumors of a MacBook refresh began to surface. I began preparing for another round of laptop lust. I didn’t know what the new release would bring, but I was sure I would want it; I was wrong about that too. I survived another round of MacBook upgrades without succumbing to envy for Apple’s new products.

There are relatively few changes with this update. The 15 and 17-inch laptops now come with Intel’s i5 or i7 CPUs, which should give a noticeable speed improvement. The 13” model regrettably keeps its Core 2 Duo processor. However, it does gain a discreet graphics card, which is a boon for gamers and video editors. It also has a battery life of 10 hours. You probably won’t get that with heavy use, but it should give you a solid workday of juice.

To me, the 13-14 inch range is ideal for a laptop because it gives good screen real estate without weighing you down too much. The new 13” MacBook is now an even more compelling machine for a power user thanks to its new discreet graphics. Add to that an SSD hard drive and a healthy amount of RAM, and you have a powerful, and portable, mobile workhorse.

Clearly, Apple has released a strong lineup of laptops. And if my current MacBook wasn’t working so well, I wouldn’t hesitate to pick one up. However, I’m happy with my current laptop, and I don’t feel much envy at all for one of the new computers. Sure, I would love to have that iPad-esque battery life, but I really don’t need the enhanced graphics, and it’s just not worth it to me to upgrade at this point.

I feel like I’m getting a bit better at resisting the urge to upgrade every time a new product rolls out of Cupertino. On the other hand, this update wasn’t the most tempting, and seeing those pictures of the new iPhone makes my mouth water, so I’m not sure how well I’ll fare next time something new comes around…

A Great New Home for Your MacBook

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 00:57:12 -0400

A dock for my MacBook is something I’ve always wanted but never needed. Up until recently, there was nothing that really tempted me, but the Henge Dock makes me want to run out and buy a monitor just so I have an excuse to get one of these cool new MacBook accessories. It has an ingenious design, with cables routed up inside the dock where they line up with the ports on your laptop. Just slide your MacBook in, and it’s connected.

One of the most annoying things about having a laptop is having to hook it up to things when you get to your desk. You can easily have a monitor, power cable, set of speakers, external hard drive, keyboard and mouse that all need to be plugged in. But with this dock, it’s no longer an inconvenience. One caveat, though: you’ll pretty much have to buy a spare power cable to live with this thing, so it’s a bit pricey. Still, anyone with an external monitor should seriously consider getting one of these right away. (via Engadget)

Why I'll Still Jailbreak My iPhone

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 23:31:53 -0400

Several months ago, I finally broke down and decided to jailbreak my iPhone. I had avoided taking this step because of the complication it would add to my iPhone experience. I reasoned that Apple’s whole point with their phone was that it would just work, and I would never have to worry about it. This worked fine for over a year with my iPod touch and several months with my iPhone, but I eventually decided that having something “just work” isn’t always good enough.

Once I was sure there would be no irreparable harm done to my phone, I gave jailbreaking a try with the blackra1n utility. After a minute or two I was happily installing apps not approved by Apple. While some of the features of my newly-jailbroken phone were strictly esthetic, there was some great new functionality. Jailbreaking was great, but I would still rather have the functionality I want implemented by Apple.

With this in mind, I was practically giddy waiting for last Thursday’s iPhone OS 4.0 announcement. With all the rumors of possible features, I thought that I might be able to switch back to an unaltered iPhone. But while I was overall very pleased with the changes made for OS 4.0, I quickly decided that I will still need to jailbreak my phone, and here’s why:

Image by interstink

Home Screen

Apple has made some improvements to the iPhone home screen with the addition of folders and custom wallpaper, but it is still not terribly efficient. One of my favorite abilities of my jailbroken phone is having five columns of apps instead of the usual four. This doesn’t seem like such a big deal, but if you have a lot of apps like I do, it can reduce the number of home screens significantly.

Another surprisingly useful feature is a scrollable dock. This lets you have up to 100 apps in your dock, accessible from any home screen. With this, you can have all your most-used apps close at hand so you don’t have to switch back and forth to the first screen.

I also love being able to open apps with gestures and button presses. For example, I have a double press of the power button to open the Camera app for quick shots and a long hold of the home button to bring up a home screen exposé view — another helpful utility.

Finally, there are several enhancements that are simply esthetic. These don’t necessarily improve productivity or add new features, but they make using my iPhone more fun. Two of my favorites are being able to rotate the home screen like an iPad and adding more attractive themes. Image by modmyi.com

Fast Access

By fast access I mean access to information and settings without a lot of effort. To see the weather, for example, you currently have to unlock your phone, find the weather app, and wait for it to load. The same goes for your calendar, tasks, message notifications and so on. With a jailbroken iPhone, you can display pretty much any information you want on your lock screen, making it instantly available. Image by Sparthappy

Even more irritating than the tedious access to information is the pain of adjusting settings. For example, I hate leaving my Bluetooth radio active because it drains the battery more quickly. However, to change it I am faced with a series of four taps after finding the settings app. Again, this doesn’t seem like much, but it’s enough to stop me from ever switching off my Bluetooth. The same goes for the 3G radio, WiFi, screen brightness and others. Again, jailbreaking saves the day with a utility that allows you to change these settings with a swipe of the status bar and a single tap. This little app is so useful that it singlehandedly convinced one blogger to jailbreak his phone after the OS 3.0 update. Every time I get on a plane and am able to switch to airplane mode with a single tap, I know I wouldn’t be happy without it.

If you have ever tried to copy several bits of text from one app to another on the iPhone, you know it’s quite a chore. Even with the fast switching being introduced in OS 4.0, it still won’t be a pleasant task. A jailbroken phone counters this problem with having the option for multiple clipboards. Along with performing many other contextual functions, Action Menu allows you to paste several recent text snippets. I’m sure there are many uses for this, but I use it almost exclusively for pasting in both the user name and password from 1Password to Safari. If you access a lot of secure websites, this could be worth the jailbreak on its own. Image by MacStories

Tethering

There really isn’t much to say about this. Apple really has no control over the tethering situation in the US, so the only current option is to use one of the unapproved apps. Something that stands out with the unofficial tethering solution, however, is the ability to create a WiFi hotspot and share your phone’s connection with any device you want, much like the Verizon MiFi. And for early iPad adopters like me, this provides an internet connection to my WiFi-only iPad. Image by Rock Your Phone

Apart from what I’ve mentioned, there are many little improvements and possibilities that come along with jailbreaking your iPhone. And there are amazing new things being added all the time because of Apple’s strict app approval process. Probably the best part about having a jailbroken phone is that you can make it exactly how you want, but you can still have all the benefits of Apple’s amazing software and hardware.

Back in January, The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) made a list of features they hoped would make it into OS 4.0. After the announcement, they published a “report card” of how many desired features were actually included. There’s a bit of overlap between my list and theirs, but I think this mostly shows that a single device and operating system is never going to please everyone. The “it just works” mentality may be fine for the general public, but for the tinkerers and techies, I think there will always be a reason to jailbreak.

What a great use for the iPad: following the iPhone OS 4.0...

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 00:47:00 -0400

What a great use for the iPad: following the iPhone OS 4.0 announcement while busy working. You’ll notice one of the problems of the beautiful glass screen though-lots of glare.