This DEVONthink series by Stuart Ingram is a great introduction to DEVONthink and shows several different use cases and contexts. DEVONthink is one of those apps that is hard to explain precisely because its strengths change based on what you use it for. Series intro Setup and first use Student academic use Professional academic use Personal use

These tutorials by Jesse are a great introduction to TaskPaper. If you haven’t used TaskPaper in a long while, it’s worth another look. The application was completely redesigned and has several cool new features. Even the TaskPaper date picker is one of the most functional I’ve seen. Plain text doesn’t mean featureless.

I’m moving some of my Mac scripting solutions to iOS. One of my favorite Hazel setups on my Mac is for uploading files to an SFTP server and returning a URL for the file. I use this for almost every blog post the has an image. I select the file with Alfred and move it to a folder named “FTP” which is monitored by Hazel. There’s no other action required other than pasting the URL in my draft article.

On last week’s episode of Nerds on Draft (recorded in October) Jeff and I discuss what we like and don’t like about iOS 10 and our new iPhones. We’ve had quite a bit of time to adjust to the new features and there are some great new ways to get at information in iOS 10. The iPhone 7 Plus is my new primary computer and Jeff is still rolling with different iPhone sizes.

I’m not sure how but I stumbled across Diffen.com. It simply compares explanations or descriptions of two things. Some comparisons are quite extensive, like Sympathy vs. Empathy, Ethnicity vs. Race, or e.g. vs. i.e.1 Other comparisons are less than complete. But, I really like how it starts to tackle comparisons between complex topics, such as the Clinton vs. Trump tax plans. The Grammar section was quite enjoyable. ↩︎

I’ve taken a very specific stand against journalism paywalls in the past. It felt like an artificial barrier that restricted access to potentially vital information. It felt like a failure of foresight in an industry that refused to acknowledge the reality that they documented every day. I was wrong. My tactic was to avoid pay sites. I avoided following and sharing links to paywalls. I wrongly refused even the steepest of discounted access.

The big news is that Sal Saghoian is leaving Apple after many, many years as the heart of nerdy automation.1 That’s not the big story though. The big story is that Apple eliminated his position. Imagine a Mac without Hazel or Keyboard Maestro or FastScripts or Folder Rules or Automator. Now, imagine that it costs $4000. I’ve been a die hard Mac fanatic long after it went out of fashion. I don’t buy the talk that iOS is just as capable.

I read a lot. Until recently that included Twitter. To replace that source of information, I’ve shifted to other, more curated, sources like my RSS reader. I’m a big fanatic for Pinboard. It’s almost completely plain, minimally styled, text on a blank page. I capture every web link that I find interesting right into Pinboard. I also use it as a reading list. It’s great.1 I was asked on Twitter about using DEVONthink (DT) as an RSS reader or Pinboard alternative.

The iOS “Today” view is one of my most used screens on my phone. I wish it received more attention from Apple but I’m glad my favorite app developers pay it special attention. One area that it really shines for me is with weather apps. The only time I need to actually open a weather app is if there’s a big storm on the horizon. Otherwise my Today screen suits me just fine.

Once again, Bruce Schneier freaks me out: The ultrasonic pitches are embedded into TV commercials or are played when a user encounters an ad displayed in a computer browser. While the sound can’t be heard by the human ear, nearby tablets and smartphones can detect it. When they do, browser cookies can now pair a single user to multiple devices and keep track of what TV commercials the person sees, how long the person watches the ads, and whether the person acts on the ads by doing a Web search or buying a product.