Of course, I was going to post about the NVAlt 2.2 Beta. As I said on the Twitters, this free application is the brains of a huge amount of what I do. It is the glue that holds my cardboard fort together.
At the risk of alienating Zachary, Brett and Elastic Threads, I have one request. Please make this a paid product. Please charge for it to ensure its continued growth and support. I don’t care what the price is, I’ll pay it.
Just for the record, it wasn’t hard to determine that this comment from MG was not true. It took a total of 20 seconds and less than 12 clicks.
Pot: “Hey, look at those lazy, stupid black kettles. They are sooo bad at journalism.”
EDIT: For clarification, I think it’s O.K. to report hearsay, if that’s what you think is worth your time. But if you’re going to go around picking fights and making comments about bad journalism, I’m going to hold you to a much higher standard.
I use Fever for RSS. One reason I switched is that I want to own my data. Fever is by far the best RSS experience I have had in a web application but it still lacks one big feature: Export of saved bookmarks.
No fear, since Fever runs on my own server, I have access to the database behind the service. With some very basic SQL, I have access to all of the saved links, along with the feed content in html format.
First, get Sequel Pro for the Mac. It’s donation ware, so throw them a couple bucks. It’s totally worth it.
Next, setup the mySQL connection. This will be dependent on your hosting service. Sequel Pro provides an option to make the connection over SSH (and save it as a favorite).
Run the following SQL to extract all of the saved Fever items.
SELECT *
FROM fever_items
WHERE is_saved = 1
Export to either CSV or XML.
That’s it for now. I have a backup copy of all of my saved links and their content. There are other options to accomplish the same thing. I could publish the feed as an RSS feed and extract that content. I don’t think anything was as easy as this (for me).
The Loop links to a job listing site that now includes employer support for Macs.
This is just the tip of the iceberg in my opinion. I know of several companies in the Biotech sector that never considered deploying Apple products that are now currently supporting iPads and iPhones and planning on supporting Macs in the future. While designers in the corporate communications offices were vocal about wanting Macs, no one else really cared. Now everyone wants a Mac, from the executive branch on down. This phenomenon did not exist until individual employees began to bring in their own hardware. They bought iPhones and iPad in droves and demanded access to their email and calendars.
One of my biggest gripes of my current job is the lack of Mac support for desktop computing. I am far less productive on Windows.1 Just yesterday morning I wasted 10 minutes doing my morning restart-dance with Windows 7. Every day I perform this dance. If I don’t, the rest of the day is fraught with hangs and slow application switching. At this point in my career, Mac support is quite high in the list of things I would look for in a new job.
For the first time in my memory, IT is being driven by the employee and everyone appears happier. IT departments are being pushed to conform to Apple’s philosophy of making the end user happy before anything else. And for the first time, everyone actually likes the IT group. Ok, “likes” is a strong word.
Before I get any hate mail, I’ve been a Windows user since it only had four colors. Before that I was a Dr-DOS user. I use Windows every day, 8-10 hours per day. That’s how I know it sucks. ↩
This is perhaps my favorite thing on the Internet right now. A Pinboard.in account turned into physical, dead-tree, indexed books. Complete with QR codes (I hate those) and beautiful typography.
If you know of Shawn Blanc, then you know he’s been making great content at ShawnBlanc.net. You may not know that he is supported full time by his work at ShawnBlanc.net. I’m a member because he makes great stuff. The Shawn Today podcast is just one of the perks that comes with membership.
$3 a month is a small price to pay to support the ideal that Shawn is working toward. People are willing to pay for individual producers to make good stuff. It’s at least worth a shot.
Oh, and Shawn just made a big announcement. So there’s that too.
Say hello to Noah Blanc. instagr.am/p/HhC8-dORjn/
— Shawn Blanc (@shawnblanc) February 27, 2012
The latest update for iThoughts adds a URL import mechanism and a shortcut script for Safari on iOS. The shortcut sends the current page URL to iThoughts HD as a map element.
They have also tuned the selection and movement of map elements. Manipulating items feels very fluid and natural. Oh, and support for Emoji if that’s your thing.
Is there any mind-mapping application on any platform as good as iThoughts HD on the iPad?
Here’s something to consider. What would you do if your entire email archive (work and personal) was blown away overnight? That’s becoming a reality for many people at large corporations.1 It’s also a real possibility for anyone using email in general. GMail provides no guarantees. iCloud provides no guarantees. Even my own SMTP server does not provide a guarantee. That’s the single best reason I can think of to process email as often as possible and to get every bit of valuable information our of email and into something more permanent. Email is a crappy filing system.
Litigation and E-Discovery makes historic email dangerous goods. Perpetual storage also is not very cost effective. ↩
I’ve learned enough about Agile Programming to know that it is not a work practice I would like. Then again, I program for fun and not profit, so I don’t have a good position to argue from.
Agile does have good ideas though. This post from Pete Sergeant at WriteMoreTests.com does an excellent job framing the reasons behind some Agile techniques. The valuable bit for the layperson is that he shows how they are relevant to any kind of work that involves estimating tasks and projects, which is pretty much all time constrained work.
For example, why Fibonacci numbers (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377…) are used to bucket time estimates for tasks and projects.
the more complex a task is, the less chance you have of accurately estimating it, and you should account for that. When torn between two numbers, go for the larger – you’ll usually be right.
The more complex the task or project, the less accurate your estimate can be. The Fibonacci sequence just helps to choose an appropriately large and inaccurate number.
I was flattered to be involved with the excellent 2X4 interview series over at Lifehack.
The series focuses on Creativity and Productivity and has included many of my favorite creators on the web. If you care what a charlatan like me thinks about those two topics, you can find it here. However, I recommend starting at the archive and read all the others.
Brett Terpstra has posted a number of very cool things that can be done with the OS X and iOS application DayOne. They were so compelling that I gave in and bought the suite. They are all solid and attractive applications but it doesn’t fit my workflow as well as plain text files.
If I am actively working on a problem, I record notes in Simplenote (big surprise). On Windows, I either use ResophNotes or the Simplenote Web site. On my Mac, I use either NVAlt or several custom scripts for adding short entries to a text file.
I call it logging, rather than notes, because these are not complete thoughts. They are bread crumbs describing how I got to a solution or how to avoid a worse problem.
DayOne could accomplish this for me if it was the only thing I kept in it. DayOne is a diary. It does not differentiate between entries for a project and entries for anything else.
My notes are complete thoughts. They are conclusions, plans, designs, theories and ideas. I usually take my time to write notes. My notes are intended to be read at some later date when I may have forgotten my motivations or lost the inspirations.
DayOne can capture notes, but there is no way direct way to distinguish them from Logs.
I keep several journals in plain text. I keep an accomplishments list. This comes in handy when someone asks me to list what I accomplished at work over the past 18 months. Normally I could only recall the details of the last few months. By journaling when I complete a project, I leave myself a script of what I did and how well I think I did it.
I also journal project overviews. When a project ends, I record some thoughts for myself about what went right and what went wrong. These are brutally honest. They are only for me. It’s the most honest self assessment I can come up with. It’s purpose is to tell the future me what I’m good at and what I suck at. Past-me is kind of a jerk.
I journal the occasional personal event.[1] It’s a record of my life for my far-future self. The future self with a shorter memory and a weaker bowel. I try to write these entries soon after they occur so that I can capture the nuances. The things a brain is poor at recording. These don’t happen often, but it’s nice to look back. It’s the past-me making up for being a jerk.
Has DayOne found a place in my workflow? Yes. In a deeply personal way.[2]
I don’t normally share my personal life on this site. My family is not up for comment, ridicule or criticism. I’ve never posted a personal photo to Macdrifter. Until now.
That’s my daughter[3]. She’s awesome.
Last year my Father, died. He did a crappy job of taking care of himself and his body was fed up with it. He smoked from the time he was 10 years old, ate hotdogs for dinner and drank way too much. He died from complications of doing whatever the hell he felt like.
I only knew two aspects of my Dad. There was the Dad I had when I was a little kid. He was kind of an asshole. He tried, but mostly we didn’t get along.
Then there was the Dad I knew when I was an adult. He was a genuinely kind person. He literally gave the shirt off his back to a total stranger. He offered a helping hand to anyone. He also told the best dirty jokes I’ve ever heard.
The intervening years between the Dad that raised me and the Dad that was my buddy, were not simple. My Dad contracted a brain infection in my senior year of high school. Cryptococcus infected his brain. It grew to the size of a baseball until it caused grand mal seizures and changed his personality. Turns out that there’s not much extra space in the ol’ brain sack. To make room for the baseball his brain expelled some of his personality.
Over the course of several years, he recovered. He lost some memories and his speech patterns changed. He became a child-like version of my Dad. He was kind, sweet and slight. The adult-me never got to know the adult-Dad. A fungus took that opportunity away from me.
There are very few things I could say I am truly proud of. I grew up being poor in the 70’s. I managed to go to college rather than prison[4]. I was proud of that. I finished college worked as chemist at a pharmaceutical company for four years. At the height of that career, I gave it all up to go to graduate school because I loved chemistry. I was proud of that. I finished graduate school and got a job. I was unimpressed with myself by that time. Then my daughter came along.
My daughter taught me one thing. I never really experienced pride before. The first time I really felt pride was when she said “I love you.”
So how does all this relate to a trivial review of an application like DayOne? It’s the first time I’m keeping a journal for someone other than myself. Every other thing I write is for me, but what is going into DayOne is for my Daughter. With DayOne’s Reminder integration, I get an alert every day to add another entry. A subtle encouragement to do the right thing.
DayOne is my time machine. I use it to write letters to my future daughter.[5] When she will be by age, my body will be almost 90. There’s little I can predict now about that future. I need to tell her about our family and what I was thinking while she was growing up. I try tell her about the moments that she will never remember. I hope I can explain who she is now. In these entries, I will travel to the future and explain who her dad was when she was small. I wish my Dad could have.
It’s not all that different from how David Sparks uses DayOne. ↩
Fair warning. This is not my normal review. It is personal and lacks a lot of the sarcasm and flippant remarks that I typically rely on. ↩
Ironically, it was my Dad’s illness that allowed me to go to college. Because I was the only one earning any income in my household, I was eligible for enough financial aid to pay for all of my education that part-time jobs couldn’t cover. ↩
Of course I export to plain text. I’m no fool. iOS XII will probably not support DayOne files. ↩
Warning: This post is egotistical and self involved. I’m a “blogger.” What’d you expect?
A couple of very generous people on Twitter suggested I take sponsorships for Macdrifter.com.
@macdrifter Seconded. RT @potatowireRegarding item number one, you should set up a sponsorship program. I like to pay for good writing.
— The Mindful Bit (@themindfulbit) February 23, 2012
That’s pretty awesome, right? So I got to thinking about it. I’ve said before that this site is a hobby. It does cost me some money to run, but spread over 12 months, it’s not much. I’ve occasionally included affiliate links, but honestly, that’s a pain. Since my Simplenote blog posting system came online, I post a lot from my iPad and iPhone. It’s tough to lookup links on the go.
I also don’t do real advertising right now.1 Marked is an awesome application. I want it to do well, so Brett makes it more awesome. I try to spread the word in my little corner of the inter-tubes.
So what should I do? Well, I decided to include a donations page. The page serves two purposes.
First, it’s a little perpetual soapbox for me to push my moral agendas. I’ve included several charities to donate to. I don’t look at outbound clicks and I don’t track the charity donations. I think donations should be private. I did go to a good amount of work to research the charities.2 I’ve provided links to their ratings where possible. I endorse all links on the page. They are not random or sponsored.
Second, the page provides a way for readers to directly support Macdrifter.com. I do this with other sites I like. I’m a Shawn Blanc member and I make anonymous donations to many other sites. It makes me feel good.3 You don’t need to donate to Macdrifter.com. This site is self sufficient. I’m an incredibly fortunate person. If it makes you feel good, then I greatly appreciate the kindness.
If you do support the site directly, you might get me to spruce things up a bit more around here. I’ve put off hiring a real designer (i.e. someone with taste) and engineer (i.e. someone that actually knows something about programming) to change things around here. What you see now is hand-crafted by a one-eyed color-blind chimp (i.e. me).
Mostly I want to say thanks for the awesome people that come through here. Macdrifter.com has given me access to brilliant strangers and Internet heroes. It’s totally worth the price.
I reserve the right to run paying ads some day. Depending on when you read this post, there may be an ad. Fair warning. ↩
Charity Navigator is a great site that evaluates how efficiently listed groups operate. They even include the CEO salaries, which I look at. Any “charity” that pays a CEO $1M is wasting my donation. How can someone work for a charity and accept that kind of money? ↩
I’m not a believer in true altruism. I’ve read too much Freud. ↩
This might seem obvious or dumb, depending on your sensibilities, but the new Messages app makes a decent universal clipboard.
Yeah, it’s a little kludgy and ugly but it works. Since when is a clipboard pretty?
Sending a file from the Mac version works too. On iOS I get an option to “Open In…” another app. Unfortunately I do not see a way to send a file from iOS. ↩
GoodReader is the all purpose file manager on iOS. It’s a great PDF reader too. It also integrates well with OmniFocus.
From GoodReader, I select the file (in this case, a PDF I want to finish reading) and copy the link to the iOS pasteboard.
I then paste the link into the notes section of a new OmniFocus inbox action.
Now I can directly open the PDF in GoodReader and pickup from where I left off. Note: It should be obvious, but this only works on iOS since there is no GoodReader for Mac.
From the file action menu in GoodReader, I can also choose to open the PDF in any number of supported apps. This list is getting long for me. I have a lot of PDF readers.
I posted a tip for creating a Markdown cheat sheet a week ago. That solution used Marked to display the Markdown as formatted text. But I wasn’t happy with needing to open and then close a Marked window. So I got to noodling around and remembered how useful Automator is.
I’ve created a very simple Automator workflow that uses the URL viewer. Rather than loading a remote HTML file, it loads a local file that I created with Marked.
I take an ugly MultiMarkdown file with a bunch of tables like this:
and load the file into Marked.app. Marked converts all of that awful markdown to a lovely styled page like this:
I then export the HTML to a local file and use that file as a source for my Automator action.
There are a couple of tricks to make this work well. First, escape any problematic characters in the tables. For example, I place a backslash in front of the asterisk and pipe characters so they are not processed as Markdown.
Second, I change the Automator URL view to simulate the iPad browser. This ensures a small display window. I have several smaller versions that use the iPhone browser too.
I think this works nicely. The pop-up hovers over top of other windows, so it does not get lost and the Esc key closes it immediately. Of course, I trigger this with a Keyboard Maestro macro tied to my F6-key. The pop-up looks like this:
