Software
There is nothing like trying out a To Do app for yourself and before settling on OmniFocus. But there is this:
Robert McGinley Myers of the Anxious Machines site has made a video showing the major To Do apps in action and talking about what is and isn’t satisfactory about them. I’m shocked how many of these I’ve used and recognise.
Well, you’ve always been able to unsubscribe from advertising emails but Google is making it easier: if the email has a wee little unsubscribe link hidden at the bottom, Gmail will pop an unsubscribe link right up at the top where you can see it.
Two things to note. First, this is rolling out across Gmail but Gmail is big so this will take time and you may not see it just yet. But hold on, it’s coming.
Second – and trickier – think twice about unsubscribing. You know how you don’t always remember when you signed up to receive something? Occasionally you didn’t and it’s spam. In which case, hitting Unsubscribe sends a message – literally – to the spammer telling them that this is a real email account with a real human being reading it. No chance they’ll go “oh, okay, let’s take ’em off the spam list”.
Previously if I’ve had any doubt I’ve marked the emails as junk and let Mail (I use Apple’s Mail) deal with it. There is a wee problem with that: if the email is not junk, the fact that you junked it gets reported back to whichever company is delivering the emails. If enough people junk the emails, the sender is blocked. You can bet that spammers have ways around that so the only ones who suffer are legitimate companies that you really did sign up to receive emails from.
If you’re struggling with a huge amount of email newsletters and the like, take a look at Unroll.me. When you let it, Unroll.me scans your emails and gives you a list of everything that you can unsubscribe from – and lets you do that with a click. I’ve not used it myself but it comes recommended.
This is going to be like reviewing a car by detailing how good the radio is. I’ve been using Beesy for a few weeks and I like it but I’m very aware that I’ve used it to scratch just one specific itch.
I have been, I remain and I suspect I will long continue to be an OmniFocus devotee but I have two problems with that. The first is a minor one, for me, in that OmniFocus is designed for individuals so whenever I have to delegate a task out to someone, it’s a bit convoluted. Beesy is more project-management-like with its ability to assign tasks to people.
Two or three times a month, though, I also have meetings where I come away with a lot of tasks. When Beesy approached me, I was struggling with how to both make notes during meetings – I’m secretary for some of them – and collect tasks. I’d ended up with a process whereby I’d make lots of notes and interrupt them with lines like this:
— William to phone Acme re delay
Then at the end of the meeting, I’d look for every line that began with those two dashes and I would copy them into OmniFocus. It works, and I have a Drafts thing that lets me send a pile of them into OmniFocus in one go, but not always successfully and always with a bit a of a fiddle.
Plus because I was writing all the notes, I found that my own little tasks got written so briefly that I would later struggle to know what they were about. Which particular delay? Who at Acme? When has this got to be done by?
So Beesy came along with its ability to take meeting notes and tasks simultaneously. Fairly simultaneously: I still have to break off from the minutes to tap a task button but, for instance, with that Acme one I’ll tap the Call button and the task goes in as that, a phone call, rather than me having to specify it. Since this is my To Do list, I can presume that all tasks as mine unless I say otherwise so that’s another time saving.
I find I use those moments to make the task clearer:
Tell Jeff at Acme that Project Diatribe is waiting on test results
That kind of thing.
I found that very quick and rather useful. It’s taken me a time to get used to where everything is in Beesy: there is so much you can do with entering tasks, assigning details, managing projects, managing calendars that it is overwhelming and you will not pick this up in twenty minutes.
But if you dive in with a particular need, as I had, then I think you pretty swiftly get to use that. Then you can expand out to the rest. You need to devote some time to this and I think you really benefit from jumping in completely. Don’t try to run your life through both Beesy and OmniFocus, as I have, make it your only system. It is more than capable of that, it just does take some effort.
However, I think it’s effort that pays off and that over time you will become immersed in it to the point that it is both easy and automatic to use. The company has a nice line about how Beesy is really a note-taking app, that you just use it to make notes and then everything else comes from that. It handles tasks, it produces proper meeting minutes for you, it’s the To Do manager for people who loathe To Do lists.
I think the complexity of Beesy comes from the volume of options and that the ease of it comes from how those all work together. Look at your projects, look at your calendar, look at your tasks and you see the same things in different ways. You don’t tend to have to think about much when you’re entering a task, you just know that it is in the pot and that when you need it, it’s there.
It’s also got a true Dwight Eisenhower grid view of your tasks: Eisenhower used to divide jobs into Urgent, Non-Urgent, Important and Non-Important. I’ve not been a fan of this, I think the time spent assigning priorities is usually better spent on doing the things but when you have a lot on, it’s a neat view. It’s just your tasks written out in squares but it works simultaneously for visual thinkers as well as word ones.
That’s in the app’s Dashboard view and, oddly, I’m least keen on this. It’s a simple overview with your calendar and that grid but I found I was always tapping on Project, People or Actions just to move on to those screens. It’s only an aesthetic thing: I’m not taken with how the app shows notes as pieces of paper at the foot of the screen. That’s a lot like the way Evernote used to do it and actually Beesy integrates nicely with Evernote. (So much so that Evernote wrote a blog about it.)
Very nicely, Beesy is being worked on extensively. I took a lot of screenshots as I was learning how to use it and then the software was entirely updated to an iOS 7 look. I was thinking about how you need your iPad always with you to use it – and then the company released Beesy.me, a web-based service that you can use anywhere.
Not to make this a Beesy vs OmniFocus scrap – they are both powerful, both take some learning but both are aimed in different directions – but it has been a common criticism of OmniFocus that it doesn’t have a web version. That doesn’t bother me but it does others and I see the benefit of a web version.
Take a look at the new video Beesy has done about its software and its web version.
Beesy for iPad costs £3.99 UK or $5.99 US. If you want to manage just one project you can use the web-based Beesy.me for free otherwise pricing starts at 5 Euros per month. It’s in Euros because Beesy is based in Paris: if I’d looked up their website while reviewing the software, it turns out that I could also have just looked up and seen them. I spent much of the time using Beesy in Paris myself, coincidentally just a couple of miles from their offices. This doesn’t help you or matter at all, but it tickles me. I love Paris and it’s good to see a French firm doing well internationally.
It’s interesting that it is so firmly an iPad app. I’d like there to be a native Mac and PC one as well but I suppose that itch is served enough by the online version. It’s also interesting that it’s so cheap. This is the kind of software tool that would’ve cost businesses hundreds of pounds in the past and I would call its £3.99 UK or $5.99 US a bargain if that weren’t such a huge understatement. Pricing helps you get noticed on the App Store but I do wonder if Beesy is undermining its own worth by being so cheap.
Still, that’s the firm’s choice: grab it now before they change their minds.
You can get Beesy for iPad here and there is much more detail about the software and its services on the official site here.
UPDATED 14 AUGUST 2014: Changed the official site address from www.beesy.me (where you can find the web version of the software) to www.beesapps.com where you can find everything.
It’s not great, but it’s okay. The security and privacy and just plain tedious issues around it have been exaggerated. True, Facebook is to privacy what Microsoft is to taste and, true, Facebook only profits by what it can leverage out of us. It’s becoming a saying: if a product is free, then you are the one being sold.
However, the specific issues around Messenger aren’t what they seemed. The complaint that most spooked me was that the app uses your iPhone’s microphone. It does. If you agree to it. Don’t thank Facebook for that qualification, thank Apple: apps cannot access your microphone, your photos, your contacts or anything else without asking you first. Android isn’t so bothered.
Facebook does make it sound as if it wants your mic for nefarious purposes where really it’s to allow you to send audio messages. I didn’t know you could, but apparently it is or it is going to be like the voice-text kind of thing that is currently in WhatsApp and will shortly be in iOS 8.
It also says that it might make calls on your behalf. Hmm. But that’s muddy-speak for if you tap a contact’s number on your Messenger screen, Messenger will dial them for you.
It’s not all sunshine and roses, it’s still a pain to deal with Facebook’s constant pressing for more access. I find it extremely annoying that I’ll get a notification on my Facebook icon for a new message in Messenger. Open one, then have to open the other, tap to go back, tap to get out, it’s just ugly.
But it’s not as murderously objectionable as I thought. Read more about this and what’s really going on over in TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog).
So far it is only available on the US iTunes Store but Microsoft has released a free iPhone app that lets you stalk – I mean, track your favourite celebrities. Seriously, why?
Okay, I’ve never bought a celebrity magazine, I have never chosen a film based on the actor in it – or the director, for that matter, though I have because of the writer – so I’m not the target market here.
I’m also not someone who would find the app’s name anything but irksome: it’s called SNIPP3T. All caps and with the 3 instead of an E. Cool. Like a naff password. If you’re interested and if you have a US iTunes account, knock yourself out here.
I have a love/like relationship with Adobe. Sometimes the firm is irritating – Adobe Flash just seemed to get more irksome every minute – but I think Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign are miraculous.
Usually I forget that I ever worked in computers. Certainly it is a jolt to be reminded that I was ever a programmer – I used to yearn to include dramatic plot twists in my software, I was never going to be happy staying there – but I even forget that I wrote extensively for computing magazines. But sometimes, just sometimes I’m so really glad I did. Because while I don’t think I ever wrote about Adobe products much, I was in the trade as this company came along and made the most astonishing impact on all of us.
You might find a book or a magazine or a newspaper that wasn’t designed in Adobe InDesign, it is just about possible. But you cannot find anything that didn’t go through Adobe Photoshop. Cannot. This one company touches everything we read and through that it touches every one of us.
About twelve years ago I had a really good time reading Inside the Publishing Revolution: The Adobe Story Hardcover by Pamela Pfiffner (UK edition, US edition). All the news I knew from my years in the computing press plus the story behind it, I was riveted. Slightly narked at how 100% pro-Adobe it all is and if had been published later than 2002 it might have had to have more gristle in with the positive meat. But it was a deeply interesting story.
And now there’s a video. This is specifically about Adobe Illustrator which is actually the Adobe program I know the least well, but I was riveted. I’m assuming it was produced for the 25th anniversary of Illustrator back in 2012 but I only saw it today thanks to The Loop.
The video is 20 minutes long and I’d have watched an hour without noticing:
I should say, Adobe products are all available on the official site here.
I definitely urged this in the latest edition of The Blank Screen email newsletter – do sign up for your free copy – and if I’ve met you on the street in the last few days I’ve undoubtedly pressed you on the issue. But I don’t think I’ve said it here and I must.
Buy 1Password for iOS now.
As in now. Please rush.
Well, you can take a little bit of time because it’s on sale and will be for at least a short while: it’s not one of those instant on, instant off sales. And as ever with things I recommend on sale, it is more than worth its full price so if you miss the discount, shrug it off.
So you know, the sale price goes thisaway: 1Password for iPhone is briefly £6.99 UK or $9.99 US (instead of £9.99 UK or $17.99 US). Check the maker’s website, though, because there are many options if you’re using more than one device: 1Password official site.
It’s a password manager – creates great passwords for you and then, this is the key part, both remembers them all and pops them into websites for you – and it’s also especially good at holding all your credit card details and, again, popping them into websites when you say Go. It’s also very cross-platform: I use it daily on Mac, iPhone and iPad but there is also a PC, Windows and Android version. They all play nicely, too, so if you’re a PC user with an iPhone or a Mac user with an Android phone, you’re fine. Possibly schizophrenic, but fine.
If you are on a PC or Android, my reason to urge you to buy 1Password is solely that it is so very good. Indispensable. I went from wondering why anyone would want such a thing to having it on my iPhone’s front screen and using it literally every day. Literally literally: there’s a thing I have to do every single day and I do it through 1Password because it’s so much quicker.
But.
If you’re on an iOS device, there is an extra delightful urgency to all this. Buy 1Password for iPhone or iPad on sale today and you will get the next version for free. The next version will be a significant upgrade but it won’t cost existing users anything and you will be an existing user.
I am an existing user, I am a now very long-standing existing user, and I’m excited by this – I don’t use the word lightly, I actually am excited – because of what’s coming in the next version.
The next 1Password will be the first or at most among the very first apps to use Apple’s new Extensions feature that lets one app use another. I told you that I do this thing every day: it’s using a website that I have to log in to and on my iPhone, I have to remember to go to it via 1Password in order to have the password app pop my details in. If I’ve just gone there via Safari, I either nip back and forth to 1Password, copying out my secure details and pasting them in to Safari – or I quit it all and start the job again in 1Password.
From the next version and Apple’s iOS 8, I will be able to just call up 1Password right from within Safari and have it do my doings for me. If I have the new 1Password, iOS 8 and a newer iPhone than I currently have, I’ll be able to tap my thumb in order to get it to enter secure details for me.
I’d say that if I were you, I’d buy 1Password now. But if I really were you, you’d already have it.
It’s a video with jaunty editing, a kind of indie-pop-folk-happy soundtrack and lots of folk looking very happy with their computers. The only thing that stops this being an actual ad is that they ain’t paying me and I’m not trying to sell you anything.
Take a look at it, though, would you? This is aimed at small business owners and its a promo for FileMaker Pro, a database service. I used to run my Radio Times On This Day research through FileMaker Pro, I wrote The Beiderbecke Affair book using it, I like FileMaker Pro a lot.
And you can find more details about FileMaker on its official site.
There’s a bunch of productivity apps that have just had price reductions. As ever, the price of these is rarely all that much so if you miss a sale, shrug and buy at the full price anyway. But if you’ve been havering over any of them or you just want to try a category of app out, this is a good time.
From all the ones I can see, this is what I’d pick out for you. Click on the titles to go take a look.
MindNode
Mind-mapping software that plays very nicely with outliners and To Do lists such as OmniOutliner and OmniFocus. It’s now £2.99 UK or $4.99 US instead of £6.99 UK or $9.99 US
Appigo ToDo
This was the app I lived in before discovering OmniFocus. There’s a huge amount to love in it and I did deeply love it, I’ve just found OmniFocus is a far better fit for me. Since I moved on, Appigo has released a range of versions and I get a bit confused – some have Cloud syncing, some are for older devices – so read the release notes before you buy. But this one is now £1.29 UK or $1.99 US instead of £2.49 UK and $4.99 US
iDatabase
Never used it. Never heard of it. But it went on sale today and I’ve already told three people it looks worth a go – and they’ve all bought it. One has bought and is sold: it’s just what she needed. Now 69p UK, 99c US instead of £1.49 UK or
Very important: this is for the iPhone version of iDatabase and you’ll benefit from having the Mac version too – and that’s on sale as well. It’s an even bigger sale: iDatabase for Mac is now £1.99 UK instead of £13.99 UK ($2.99 US instead of $19.99 US) and the second I found that out while looking up the price for you, I bought it myself.
Fantastical 2 for iPad
The app that finally got me to change away from the regular Apple Calendar on both my iPhone and my iPad. Buy the iPad version now for £5.49 UK or $7.99 US instead of the usual £6.99 UK or $9.99 US and you’ll be buying the iPhone one soon. Right now that is also on sale: £2.99 UK or $4.99 US instead of £6.99 UK or $9.99 US.
Launch Centre Pro and Launch Center Pro for iPad
Use this to set up one button that, say, rings your mother. Instead of tapping on the phone icon on your iPhone, then contacts, then scrolling to your mother’s name and finally tapping on whether you want to ring her mobile or her landline, you just tap once and your iPhone does the rest. Maybe that would be handy enough for you but LCP can get really powerful – also, disclaimer, I found it a bit confusing – and it can do all sorts of things for you. Ridiculously detailed things.
I recommend you take a look but, confession, I keep popping it back onto my iPhone home screen and taking it off again. The biggest use I had for it was rapidly adding a new task to OmniFocus and it was faster than going through OmniFocus itself and tapping on Add Task. But now OmniFocus 2 for iPhone is so quick, I just don’t find the benefit.
Launch Centre Pro and Launch Centre Pro for iPad (two separate apps) are both $1.99 US now instead of $4.99 US
Take a potter around the App Store’s productivity category for more, but these are the best ones.
This is a clever idea: if you want to find something on twitter, it stands to reason that the best information is the one that has been retweeted the most:
Go to the Twitter search box, type any search term and append the operator min_retweets:[number] or min_faves:[number] to filter your search results. For instance, here’s a sample search that will only shows tweets pointing to the labnol.org domain that have been favorited or retweeted at least 5 times.
labnol.org min_retweets:5 OR min_faves:5
If you are brand manager trying to find out the most viral tweets generated for an event or a content, the min_retweets and min_faves search operators may save you several hours. You can also archive tweets to a Google Spreadsheet automatically.
A Twitter Search Trick You Didn’t Know About – Amit Agarwal, Digital Inspiration (25 July 2014)
The full article explains that you can do this most easily on Tweetdeck, the twitter client that includes a feature specifically for this, but the trick works everywhere with a bit of effort.
Hat tip to Lifehacker for spotting this.