simpleworker

iPhone Ninja move for telemarketer calls

noreply@blogger.com (Isaac) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 21:49:00 +0000

How many times have you answered an unidentified phone call only to realize it's a telemarketer you've heard from before?

Here's something cool you can do those calls: Once you hang up, press the little arrow to the right of the incoming number in your iPhone's "Recent" calls history. Tap the "Create New Contact" button to create a person called "Telemarketer" in your contacts.

Next time that number calls, you won't even have to think - your iPhone will display "Telemarketer."

Start adding all unwanted numbers to this contact with "Add to Existing Contact". Eventually, your "Telemarketer" contact will have a few dozen phone numbers associated with it, and you can ignore all of them in confidence.

Web meeting with Adobe

noreply@blogger.com (Isaac) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 22:18:00 +0000

This is a screenshot from a recent Webinar hosted by Jive Software. They had four speakers interacting in a mock version of Jeopardy - with moving slides, and full audio. It worked pretty well.

They also had a live chat window in the lower left, and it was pretty interesting because instead of just taking questions in a queued/moderated way like LiveMeeting does, it actually was an open chat room session, and the moderators and several viewers were getting into some rowdy side-discussions!

Safari is the bumblebee

noreply@blogger.com (Isaac) — Fri, 30 May 2008 22:36:00 +0000

I love this error page. It comes up every time I log into the expense coding system. It's pretty ominous, and encourages me to use one of these other options for a browser.

The old quote says "

"Based on weight ratios to wing power and wind resistance, the bumblebee should be incapable of flight, yet, the theory says, the bumblebee doesn’t know that, so it flies anyway."

So what do you do here? Just click "Upgrade Later" and go on ahead. Safari doesn't know it's not supported, and so it works like a champ.

Supercool use of neoprene

noreply@blogger.com (Isaac) — Thu, 22 May 2008 18:30:00 +0000

Well, you don't see this every day.

These Built Bags neoprene-skin-cases at Koyono are some of the most interesting I've seen. The backpack seems like something that a future human-cyborg robot-flesh organism would wear, if those creatures actually carried 17" Macbooks (of course they will). Seems like you should wear that with a speedo and carry a speargun, a la Thunderball.

Not sure I have the muscles or skintone to do that, but the green laptop sleeve is certainly an option. Stick your cables and chargers in the expanding slits just like you're feeding some mutant underworld sea anenome, and pack the whole extraterrestrial glob under your arm to your next meeting. Definitely a way to turn heads.

Fwd: Mac support group: Cool application launcher

noreply@blogger.com (Isaac) — Thu, 22 May 2008 04:10:00 +0000

One quick tap on the power button also gives you this Restart/Sleep/Shut Down menu. At least it's defaulted to that. You can program it to sleep when you hit it . I didn't know about the key combo.

Another cool trick when you find an app not responding (Like Entourage) is Apple(Command)+Alt +Esc to pull up the Force Quit menu. It's sort of the Mac version of the Ctrl-Alt-Del command in Windows.

Also -- John -- not sure you saw my note about Apple ` (right above the Tab key) for toggling through windows in a single app.

Man we need a blog/wiki to post this stuff.....:)

On May 8, 2008, at 7:45 AM, Andrew Dunn wrote:

Hey John, I just tried citrix over VPN from home – works fine. Not sure what changed but I'm glad that it did.

Question for the group: I have the Microsoft MSN Live client installed and it works great EXCEPT when I'm on the VPN. Seems weird because I know with the windows version it works regardless of being vpn'd or not. Interested to see what others are noticing?

Also wanted to share my favorite keyboard shortcut: control-eject. This gives you a restart/sleep/shut down menu similar to windows. At the end of the day I just Alt-Q every app and then ctrl-eject to close 'er down :)

cheers, Andrew

On 5/2/08 11:50 PM, "John Hegarty" <jhegarty@gci.com> wrote:

Hi -

Pretty Nice.

On the Citrix while VPN'd issue. Seems as if this now works from several locations, home, hotel. Nice to have this functionality back. I'd like to see what others find.

Andrew – you mentioned a keyboard short cut to browse files within an application, that is Alt tab gets you to excel but is there a shortcut to tab through all open excel docs?

Thanks,

John

On 5/2/08 11:23 PM, "Andrew Dunn" <adunn@gci.com> wrote:

Adding the applications folder to the dock works pretty well, but this little tool is more like the old Windows start bar. Gives you a nice hierarchical menu up on the menu bar to access all your apps.

http://softbend.free.fr/himmelbar/index.html

Re: chat to text

noreply@blogger.com (Isaac) — Wed, 21 May 2008 03:53:00 +0000

MSN Messenger doesn't do the auto Chat-to-SMS relay. It only works
with AIM.

Definitely recommend getting a free AIM account. You can download
pidgin to have both your AIM and MSN accounts in one application.

Then just add a new buddy called "+15035551212" which equals your
friend's cell phone number and ping it to send an SMS right to their
phone. They can reply to the message directly, which will appear in
your chat window.

On May 20, 2008, at 8:40 PM, kedwards wrote:

> How is it I add a TN to my MSN so I can send text messages to any
> phone directly from MSN? I've done a quick Google for it and can't
> find anything.

Mobile Evernote

noreply@blogger.com (Isaac) — Thu, 15 May 2008 20:44:00 +0000

Impressed more and more daily by Evernote. Check out the mobile versions. I turned my friend Arthur onto it recently, as he's been using Remember The Milk for several months. He's also got a T-Mobile Dash running Window Mobile 6, so I'm curious how he likes the Evernote mobile app.

Adding the date to the Mac menu bar

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Thu, 15 May 2008 17:30:00 +0000

Something that has bugged me since switching over to the Mac is a convenient way to see the date. By default the menu bar displays the time but not the date. This tutorial (via LifeHacker) is an easy way to fix that.

http://lifehacker.com/software/mac-tip/display-the-date-on-the-menubar-316029.php

Great bag for a 17" laptop and your Super Ego

noreply@blogger.com (Isaac) — Wed, 14 May 2008 03:58:00 +0000

I've been using the Super Ego bag from Tom Bihn for the last 4 months or so to carrry around my 17" Mac laptop. I bought it used from a friend.

Here's what I like about it:

It's big
It's red and black
The Brain Cell laptop sleeve has hard sides, and removes easily to make a flat lap-table for the Mac on my lap.
The front pouch under the pack has a great kangaroo-like pocketability that holds lots of pens, cards, papers, cords, without letting them spill out
It has cool side zippers for receipts, wallets, and things you just don't want to lose
It has a comfy strap AND a belt strap for biking stably
It has waterproof zippers

What I don't like

Sometimes, it's a little TOO big
It feels a little homemade compared to Timbuk2 bags
The straps don't detach easily

But it's great overall. I've had several other laptop bags, mostly Timbuk2, and there is a roomy, stretchable quality to this that keeps me using it every day. It's great on a bike, on a plane, ferry, bus, or just strutting down the street across my back.

Zooming in on Mac OS X screen

noreply@blogger.com (Isaac) — Wed, 14 May 2008 03:43:00 +0000

One of the cool Jedi Master Mac tricks I learned a while ago that no one seems to know is the ZOOM.
1) Hold the [ctrl] key
2) Slide two fingers up the trackpad

Once you're zoomed to the place you want, let go of [ctrl] and use one finger to pan around the screen. It's kind of like having a glass magnifying loupe on an old-fashioned light table. Not useful all the time. But pretty cool for certain things nonetheless.

Experiment in hacksharing

noreply@blogger.com (Isaac) — Wed, 14 May 2008 03:03:00 +0000

This is a blogging experiment in hacks and simplicity/productivity discoveries. My hope is that this blog becomes a place for people to find tips, software, lifehacks, methods and ideas that will simplify and improve their workstyles.

Evernote taking the GTD notebook to all fronts

noreply@blogger.com (Isaac) — Tue, 13 May 2008 16:16:00 +0000

I've been working with Evernote for the last couple of weeks. I know, you say, "who needs another online notebook to-do app?" and I agree. No one.

Evernote is doing something new and different. It's a beautiful hybrid of installed software (like OmniFocus or OneNote) but it syncs with its online counterpart Web-app so you always have your notes online, on any computer, and on Windows Mobile or iPhones.

But the BEST part is this crazy snapshot-note thing. From the Mac OS X Leopard installed app, you can click "snapshot note" and hold up a business card or page from your notebook in front of your iSight camera, and it shoots a picture and lets you tag it as a new note. Then hit sync and Evernote's text-recognition software indexes the words in the camera. So you can find what you wrote no MATTER where. It's sort of the ultimate in paperless imaging.

For example - look at this card I scanned. I typed in "Stark" and it found the word on the guy's address. Pretty powerful. The response of the data running on your computer is much faster than searching in an online app, even a Google product.

I'll keep working with this, but it's easy to see that this could become a searchable dumping ground for lots and lots of random information.

Trying out the best

noreply@blogger.com (Isaac) — Mon, 12 May 2008 22:54:00 +0000

This site is dedicated to finding better ways to work in the information age. Covering Web apps, software, mobile devices, proces, productivity and more.