Author: William Gallagher
Ballad of a Wifi Hero
Via Swiss Miss
Free OmniFocus tutorial video from Screencasts Online
I’m working on my own review for the new OmniFocus 2 for Mac – quick prom ahead, I’ve found two and a half things I don’t like about it and around eleventy-billion I do – but others are way ahead of me. And one, Screencasts Online, isn’t reviewing the To Do software per se, it’s just showing us how to use it.
Screencasts Online is usually a subscription service and joining it gets you an enormous and growing number of very good video tutorials. If there’s some software you’re using or you’re just considering, join Screencasts Online and learn all about it very quickly. Very easily and very thoroughly.
Just sometimes, though, the service will make one video free. Yes, I agree, it’s an advertising promotion but they do it with integrity: the last one they did was 1Password and it was made free because of the Heartbleed servility problem. The software 1Password is particularly good at security so their releasing the video free felt to me like a service to the community. Now they’ve done this one about OmniFocus 2 for Mac and I think it’s practically a kindness: showing us how it works and what we can do with it is better than a straight review.
Get more from Screencasts Online and, now you’ve seen it in action, get OmniFocus 2 for Mac.
Okay, maybe you can learn things from sport
You’re about to see the only athletics event I have ever watched from start to finish. It’s two minutes long. And the point of it doesn’t start until just over a minute in.
But perhaps it is true what I keep hearing, that sport is in some unfathomable way inspiring because I do rather like this:
How a fan recommends Nisus Writer
We're in a spot where Microsoft Word has lost its strangelhold on the word processing market and other alternatives are doing well. But before it got to that level, Word had competitors then too. One of them was Nisus and I knew it well from writing news stories in computer press that covered it. I'm not sure I ever tried it myself, though I must surely have done at some point, but I had and still have a high opinion of it for two reasons.
One is that Nisus introduced some features that all the best word processors now have – and yet which took them all years to adopt. I'm thinking chiefly of non-contiguous selection: the way that you can select this sentence, scroll down a bit, select another one and then when you copy or cut, those two sentences are taken.
But the other reason I rate Nisus without having much or maybe any direct experience of it myself is that it used to engender passion in its users. Nobody ever evangelised Word. But Nisus had its champions.
And now it does again.
Things turned around in 2011 with the release of Nisus Writer Pro 2.0. This was the first version of Nisus Writer to include both change-tracking and comments, plus most of my favorite features from Nisus Writer Classic and a bunch of new capabilities. All of a sudden I had my old toolkit back, in a modern package. It was as though I'd been limited to a machete and an open fire for all my cooking needs, and then walked into a fully equipped restaurant kitchen. In the years since, it has grown even more capable and reliable.
Tools of the trade: Why I prefer Nisus Writer – Joe Kissell, Macworld (21 May 2014)
The full piece is very interesting about Nisus's place in word processing history – and even its lore – but also specific about its advantages. If you're on a Mac and you dislike Word, take a look.
Look forward to Google ads on your fridge
“Look forward” is perhaps an optimistic – no, it's just bollocks, there's no looking forward to this, there's no optimism, it's just coming. We don't know when but The Wall Street Journal says Google intends to serve ads to everywhere:
In a December letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which was disclosed Tuesday, the search giant said that it could be serving ads and other content on “refrigerators, car dashboards, thermostats, glasses, and watches, to name just a few possibilities.”
Google made the statement to help justify why it shouldn’t disclose revenue generated from mobile devices, a figure the SEC had requested and that companies like FacebookFB +1.37% and TwitterTWTR -3.24% both disclose. Google argued that it doesn’t make sense to break out mobile revenue since the definition of mobile will “continue to evolve” as more “smart” devices roll out.
Google Predicts Ads in Odd Spots Like Thermostats – Wall Street Journal, 21 May 2014
The Onion – Experts Recommend Breaking Down Crushing Defeats Into Smaller, More Manageable Failures
SANTA BARBARA, CA—Offering advice to those who feel overwhelmed at the thought of becoming massive failures, a group of experts reported this week that the best way to approach a crippling defeat is to break it down into a set of smaller and more manageable setbacks. “The key to failing on a monumental scale is to take life one small misstep at a time,” life coach Jack V. Royce told reporters, emphasizing that people who hit absolute rock bottom seldom get there overnight.
Do read the whole thing, okay? Thanks.
Free OmniFocus iBook
Maybe it's because I used to write manuals for a living – you cannot conceive how long ago that was – but I do like a good manual. This is a good one: if you are havering over buying the new OmniFocus 2 for Mac, take a look at the free manual.
OmniFocus is the personal task management tool that helps you keep track of all the goals, plans, errands, and aspirations that come up in your life. Whether the task at hand is something small, such as setting a reminder to swing by the bike shop after work, or the tasks are part of a bigger goal, such as making plans for that long overdue vacation, OmniFocus helps you keep track of everything you need to do throughout your day.
Available on your Mac, iPad, and iPhone, OmniFocus is packed full of tools to help you prioritize steps within complex projects or simply jot a quick to-do list for a weekly meeting. OmniFocus works great as a standalone productivity aid or in conjunction with whatever time- and task-management scheme suits your personal style.
Excerpt From: The Omni Group. OmniFocus 2 for Mac User Manual
By the way, that last sentence is a coded reference to GTD, Getting Things Done (UK editions, US editions). OmniFocus works superbly with GTD but has no official connection with that system by David Allen.
More importantly, this smartly, clearly written manual is on iBooks and joins a growing set of free books from the Omni Group.
Marco Polo lost again – if you’re a woman
Previously… Marco Polo is a new 69p iPhone app for helping you find your phone when you've left it around the house. Just shout “Marco!” and your iPhone will reply “Polo!”.
The trouble is, it doesn't work for women. Or children. Or the Bee Gees. Hats off to The Unofficial Apple Weblog for bothering to test it out – and hats off to the app's maker, Matt Wiechec, who's taken TUAW's criticism and is dealing with it.
Read their coverage of his response and hear their test of the app too.
OmniFocus: your life in perspective
I love that strap line. It only makes sense if you’ve already used OmniFocus enough so one questions its worth as a general advertising slogan. but to an existing OmniFocus user, it is superb. I am an existing OmniFocus user, it is superb.
I am of course now, immediately, instantly an existing user of the new version of OmniFocus for Mac and I’ll be writing about it again soon. But for now, watch the Omni Group’s videos about OmniFocus on the official set.