Incidentally, I just got a new desktop keyboard (Matias One)which allows me to type on my mac & my iphone or ipad using the same keyboard. I don’t work for the company or have any other affiliation with them, but I just got it & find it to be a huge step forward in my workflow.

Any recommendations on how to automatically obtain the URL to the clipboard instead?

A pretty good paperless workflow… Thanks for all your tips and tricks.

David, you mentioned that you use Keynote (and I assume a Keynote episode will happen at some point). It sounds like you limit the text included on Keynote, but do you ever find the need to export OPML data to Keynote (e.g., from OmniOutliner or iThoughts HD)? I think it can be done on Mac OS, but it would be great it there were such options on iOS.

Thanks for this episode. I recently finished a bachelor’s degree program using the iPad for 90% of the work. I used it for taking notes, composing papers, keynotes, scanning documents, downloading videos for keynotes and pretty much everything else. For my final research project consisting of 35 pages or so, I did need to use Pages on the Mac, as well as a statistics program for Mac, but that’s about is. When I started the program in Sept, ’10 I was the only one that had an iPad, when we finished, about 1/4 of the students and even the professor had one. What I learned is that there is a great opportunity for someone to come up with a standardized way of sending and sharing documents other than email… Great show today, thank you.

My own experience attempting to do something useful with Automator began with its Tiger release. Then Leopard. Then Snow Leopard. It seemed “actions” disappeared and / or were added at each iteration. Kinda’ frustrating, as if in Basic “goto” became “thengo.”

Now still running Snow Leopard I have a couple of reliable Automator actions set as “Applications.” Quit All Applications is simple, and nice because when I know I have backed up, and closed all my files, I can exit my session gracefully.

I’ve also managed to create an “Action” to same-size and reduce a folder of high res photos to 30%, much friendlier for emailing.

But as Ben kept saying, Automator does not always work as one one expect, and sometimes works inconsistently. May be the “nut behind the wheel” problem, but for most tasks (sorry David) I found it a far more efficient use of my time to carefully plan manual workflows than attempting to automate them. TextExpander is an excellent tool for naming files as they’re saved (ugh to loose of SAVE AS in Lion), and with the design of a coherently named, structured, and aliased file system, dropping the file TextExpander helped me name exactly where I want it is never more than a couple of clicks.

As to naming lots of files, I recommend NameMangler, a GUI program from Many Tricks. Cheap and very powerful. (And quite possibly based on Apple Scripts! ) http://manytricks.com/namemangler/

Even my image resizing Action has downloadable equivalents. Here’s one of many found by searching MacUpdate.com for “image resizer”

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/32728/batch-image-resizer

Automator could be “fun.” Automator SHOULD be fun. But I played with it enough to conclude my effort to automate and mechanize my workflow was distracting me from getting the actual work done.

If you’re interested, play with Automator. But if you have real work you need done on a deadline, do it first. If you have repetitive tasks you want to Automate, consider apps readily available that for nominal cost ($10 for NameMangler) do it flawlessly. AND if you want to make more productive use of your Mac for everyday tasks, think through your tasks and reduce them to their essence.

Even if you decide to “Automator” ‘em, having reduced what you do to the most essential will be invaluable as you automate.

I’m wondering about physical maintenance.

Is dustiness a problem inside machines?

Any tips for cleaning out laptop keyboards etc?

I’d love to know how Katie and David (and listeners) keep these macs clean over years of use.

Thanks again

Scroll down to Print Preview and click “Disable” restart Chrome.

To 3.0 -> 4.0

I think that this makes the updates more visible to the user, so it seems like there are more updates.

Visio is the MS office diagraming software.

I’ve pulled ReadNow from the Mac App Store because of an infringement letter. In my current situation I’m not allowed to provide any further information.

I’m very sorry, but ReadNow is not available for download until the future of it is completely clarified.

– Michael

I assist Bob that iCab mobile is a great browser for iOS. Next to unlimited tabs the cool thing is the download ability. Safari on my iPad always drives me crazy whenever I want to download a podcast or sth. else.

And I also highly recommend iSwifter for iPad when you need to see a flash website on the iPad. I use it quite often for checking video clips on a broadcaster website I work for.

And I like the OmniWeb browser with the sidebar and the workspaces.

Thanks again for the show.
Michael

Camino, which was recently updated, is a Mac-specific iteration from the Mozilla base. It is slick, reliable, and easy to reset (meaning, return to bare, no cookies, etc). Open source, community built.

I use Camino when I want to browse freely without “security” like Ghostery and NoScript.

Give it a try: http://caminobrowser.org/

Ford introduced seatbelts into production cars way back in 1956. They were optional. Seat belts were mandated on US autos beginning in 1968.

But, hey, they were in use in military aircraft long before cars!

So you’d think StarFleet could have met at least the safety standards of the Italian Air Force —

My own premise about the missing Star Trek seatbelts was the need for drama. Their big “special effect” was a shaking camera, some POOFs from the electronics going bzzzzzzzt, and the crew rolling around on the deck.

Wouldn’t have looked like much action had the crew not been hurled around the bridge.

I don’t think any of the browsers that support Flash do a great job of it (although Skyfire is a pretty good general purpose browser), but of the ones I have used, the one that supports Flash the best is iSwifter, which not only plays Flash videos, but some Flash games as well.

Thanks for the heads up on Speed Dial 2, I have been using Speed Dial, which isn’t nearly as capable.

Great show!

Here is the link to GrowlVoice: http://www.growlvoice.com/

It looks like a very interesting I’m wondering if anyone on this list has used it and their feedback about it.