windows

Weekend read: Vanity Fair on Microsoft

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This is the kind of reporting that gets me back interested in computers: the endless grey boxes and blue screens of death drove my head away into drama and fiction and I’m good with that. But it really is a fascinating world for how it’s an incredibly fast-paced summary of all business issues. Problems come and they topple firms. Today’s right decision is tomorrow’s end of the company.

Quick aside? I once went to some talk or other where the speaker held up Dell as as an example of how to do business brilliantly. That’s a presenter who hasn’t updated his slides in a very long while and who isn’t actually interested in his own topic. Dell was a superb success but it shot itself in the foot and unless his next slide had praised their aim, I knew he didn’t know his stuff.

Back to the point. Vanity Fair has run a rather good piece about Microsoft and specifically about the pretty tumultuous changes it has faced and as yet has failed to conquer. There’s a really nice line in it:

In the old world, corporations owned and ran Windows P.C.’s and Window servers in their own facilities, with the necessary software installed on them. Everyone used Windows, so everything was developed for Windows. It was a virtuous circle for Microsoft. Now the processing power is in the cloud, and very sophisticated applications, from e-mail to tools you need to run a business, can be run by logging onto a Web site, not from pre-installed software. In addition, the way we work (and play) has shifted from P.C.’s to mobile devices—where Android and Apple’s iOS each outsell Windows by more than 10 to 1. Why develop software to run on Windows if no one is using Windows? Why use Windows if nothing you want can run on it? The virtuous circle has turned vicious.

The Empire Reboots – Bethany McLean, Vanity Fair (November 2014)

Do read the full piece. It’s a three-biscuit article and terribly interesting.

What to do when your computer slows down during a job

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Buy a Mac. Sorry, couldn’t resist.

Whatever type of computer you have, there comes a moment when you need to quickly do this particular thing or other and it is taking ages. I don’t know what happens now with Windows, but with a Mac it’s when you get that spinning beach ball.

Given that I keep saying you shouldn’t multitask, am I really going to say you should stay looking at that beach ball instead of going off to do something else?

A little bit.

Partly because, yes, multitasking is that bad for you. The time it takes you to switch over to a different task, mentally, is equal to the time it takes you to switch back and both times are huge. Much worse than you imagine.

So I would stare at the beach ball for a fair while before I’d be better off doing something else.

But there is another reason. Very often, if our computer is slow saving a Word document, say, then we’ll nip over to Mail on it. And now that’s slow. So we just open that graphic that we need to tweak in Photoshop. And what do you know, dammit, now Photoshop is slow.

Whatever was causing the original slow down, we are compounding it by turning to different tasks on our computer. So if we’d just stood sitting there, we wouldn’t be distracted, we wouldn’t be slowing down our computer and we wouldn’t therefore be getting frustrated at how everything seems slow now.

I just don’t know how long to give that.

I do know that sometimes I should really restart the whole machine and that if I do, things will work better. Taking the time to restart is hard but it can be worth it, you can repay that time soon.

But in the meantime, here’s a shorter answer to the problem: try a little patience, it’s worth the effort.

Is this good or bad? Quicken 2015 for Mac is out

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I’ve never used Quicken, not once, not on any platform, but when I was writing about computers I was aware of it as a popular accounts and budgeting application that ran on both Mac and Windows. Then I became aware that the Mac version became significantly poorer than the Windows one. Now after a seven-year hiatus without a new Mac one, there’s a new Mac one.

That’s got to be good.

But it’s still not on a par with the Windows one. I looked at the company’s chart listing great features both versions have and the first one is:

Free feature improvements included*

Golly. I’d consider that padding wherever it comes in the feature list but that it’s number one – and that it comes with a footnote which says this is only true until August 2015 – I’m not running to buy this.

Still, the Mac needs this kind of software: there are people who run Windows machines solely to run Quicken on. True, maybe today they run Windows in a partition on their Mac so it’s the same machine but it’s still a big and expensive faff.

I’m choosing to look at this instead as Quicken coming round to the Mac market and I’m choosing to see this as a first step. That’s partly because the company explicitly asks you to vote on what missing feature you’d like to see done next.

I don’t think that’s very impressive. Especially not as I understand that all the features on offer are already in and working for the Windows version. I get that it’s got to be harder converting them to OS X than it might seem, but still if I were tempted by Quicken, I think I’d wait a few years until they’d caught up.

If you’re in need of a money manager for Mac, take a look at the official site and see for yourself. You can’t try out a trial version of Quicken for Mac, there isn’t one, but the company does say that there is a 60-day money back guarantee. Look into the detail of that before you buy, though, okay?

Windows: block distractions with FocalFilter

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I can’t tell you if this is any good but its function is handy and its price is free so if you’re a distracted Windows user, take a look and let me know what you think, would you?

From the official site:

Focus Better and Get More Done

FocalFilter is a free productivity tool that helps you focus by temporarily blocking distracting websites. After the block timer runs out, your websites are available for you to view again.

1. Run FocalFilter.
2. You choose which websites to block.
3. Set how long they should blocked for.
4. Get more work done.

FocalFilter official site

This is how it should be: a Safari Extension I’ll use hourly

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Not only will I use it hourly but I want to use it hourly now. The quick news: 1Password will use Extensions so that within Safari, you can get it to enter your username and password.

The slightly less quick news with more detail and enthusiasm… In case you haven’t come across it yet, 1Password is one of those apps that stores your passwords for you. Fine. It also creates ones like Wel6cAct9iB9Bit (that really is one it created, I just got it to do that). It creates these strong passwords and then saves them for you so that you don’t have to remember. You just have to remember the one password you need to get into 1Password. It works on iPhone, iPad, Android, Mac, PC, Windows, all sorts.

The phone and tablet versions come with their own web browser too. So if I’m organised, I can go into my 1Password app, tap on the name of my bank and that browser will zoom off to their site. Goes to the site, enters my username and some of my security details, then it even presses return. Only with my bank do I stop there. With other things I log into like TheTrainLine.com, it does the lot. One tap takes me to the site and then into the site. Another single tap and 1Password has entered all my credit card details for me.

Except I’m often not that organised. Very often, I will go a site in the regular iPhone Safari web browser and after a lot of fiddling like picking train times, I will reach the login or credit card screen and wish I’d remembered to do this in 1Password. Usually, I nip over to the 1Password app, copy the detail I need and go paste it into Safari. But just occasionally, I’ve moved over to 1Password and redone the whole job just to save that schlepping about.

Not any more. Behind the scenes it’s going to be using Touch ID and Safari Extensions but no matter: in future, when I’ve gone to a site in the ordinary Safari browser, I will still be able to use 1Password to enter my details.

This is how it is on the Mac and PC: wherever I am, I can whack a login detail or an over-used credit card in with a tap or two. This is how it will be on iPhones and iPads.

The company isn’t saying when it will happen but there is a limited beta test going on now and it all requires the forthcoming iOS 8. So you can bet that when the next iPhones come out around September, so will the new 1Password. No idea yet whether it will be a paid upgrade or a freebie but whichever, I’m having it. (Though it must be said, as great as 1Password is in every other way I know, upgrading to a major new version is agony.)

Here’s where you can learn more of the latest official release of 1Password and here’s a shaky video of the beta in action:

Windows sees big 1Password update

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If you think that headline is contorted, it is. It was just about the best I could think of without making ‘1Password’ be the first word. I can’t begin a sentence with a number like that. Usually I will spell out the number or I will recast the whole sentence to avoid it.

There was no spelling out this time: 1Password is the name of the product I’m recommending.

Well, I’ve often – even regularly – recommended 1Password on iOS and Macs. I’ve recommended it on Android at least once. But I confess I haven’t paid any attention to the Windows version. That’s because I just assumed that if it weren’t identical to the Mac one then it was because it had some extra features I’d see on the Mac someday.

But it turns out that Mac came first. Because today, Agile Bits announced 1Password 4 for Windows.

Sorry, Windows users, I just thought you had all this already. But you do now:

After months of beta testing, a small lake’s worth of coffee, and a possibly illegal number of pizzas, 1Password 4 for Windows is here.

This is a huge release for us, as it brings many of our latest features to Windows and a cleaner, more intuitive interface. Windows users can enjoy Favorites, Multiple Vaults, Wi-Fi Sync, and Security Audit, as well as our new, free 1Password Watchtower service that warns you when a Login’s site has been compromised and helps you decide when it’s safe to update your passwords.

All together, this release includes 374 new features, improvements, and fixes spread over 85 betas. You can comb through the full beta release notes, learn more in our documentation, or check out our feature overview down below the gallery.

1Password 4 for Windows is here – David Chartier, Agile Bits blog (17 June 2014)

That gallery and more is in the original piece over on the 1Password makers’ blog.

Overpriced

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It’s a discussion that comes up a lot. I’ve even joked about it in my book, The Blank Screen (UK edition, US edition). Every time it happens, it’s started by someone who dislikes Apple and they always say:

Macs are overpriced

And I or probably anyone who likes Apple, tells a tale something like mine:

My previous Mac lasted me seven years. I still use it for some jobs. Over that same period, X or Y replaced their PCs three times. Tell me what’s the better value.

I’m not sure which disappoints me more: the ease with which I come out with all this stuff or the ease with which people say Macs are overpriced. It’s the word overpriced: if they’d said expensive or just straight out that they cost more than PCs, I’d be nodding along with them. Well, there’s the stuff about MacBook Air knockoffs, how they still aren’t cheaper. But generally, Macs are more expensive than PCs.

It’s just that word overpriced.

That really disappoints me.

You can get a word processor for free now. So people call ones that cost £6.99 overpriced. They mean it costs more, they think it’s expensive – seriously? £6.99 for something you’ll earn your living using? – but they say overpriced. The word is used because it sounds better than calling the cheaper one cheaper. It implies a professional judgement: all things have been considered and that one is overpriced.

Anyone who disagrees has been consumed by the cult of Apple whereas you, the one making this overpriced judgement, are the sole voice of sanity.

Bollocks.

Follow:

Macs are cheaper than PCs therefore Macs are overpriced

Shoes are cheaper than cars therefore cars are overpriced

Hey, they both get you where you’re going, don’t they? But you look at that second one, you think I’m a smartarse, and you know shoes can’t do the same job as a car. That’s actually what I think when I look at the first line: PCs can’t do the same job as a Mac. You can disagree and there is every chance you will, but it doesn’t matter: that’s how I see it when I’m spending the money. All that matters is what you, specifically you, need. You’re thinking money matters too and it surely does, but:

If you love PCs and Windows, you have oodles of choice and you’re going to get a very cheap computer. I can’t see a single thing wrong with that.

If you don’t love PCs and Windows, why would you buy one? When you don’t like them, then the sole reason is price and I can see only wrong things with that. You’re choosing, you are electing to buy a computer you know you won’t like. That’s not a saving over a Mac, it is a waste of money. It’s one of the worst wastes, I think, because you then have to live with it every day you’re working.

I’m sure I’ll buy another Mac some day but when I do, I will be pricing it against what I need it for and what it will do for me. I won’t be comparing it to a PC.

I do thoroughly believe that you need to get the computer that works best for you and if that’s a PC, that’s a PC. I think I’m in a fortunate position that I’ve worked extensively with both so I know what works for me.

Buy a Mac, buy a PC, it’s completely up to you. But can we skip the bollocks about overpriced vs cheap and just get back to work?

Windows alternatives to OmniFocus

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Pity me. I go around doing workshops about being a productive writer and I've even written a book about it (The Blank Screen: Productivity for Creative Writers, UK edition, US edition) And it all makes sense, it all works – I promise you that and I have such gorgeous tweets and emails from people telling me so – but there is a big problem. It's the To Do list.

When I started this, the problem was that I'm on a Mac and quite a few people go for that there Windows thing. And my To Do manager of choice only runs on Macs. Actually, I say it's the To Do manager of my choice, I think it's more the To Do manager of my heart and soul. It used to be that in a workshop I would put up a slide showing you OmniFocus and where to get it. And then I'd say: “If you know a Windows equivalent, it would be a huge help for me to hear about it.” Or something like that.

But there are two problems now: I can't automatically and easily evangelise OmniFocus because the app is in a bit of a flux as new versions are coming.

OmniFocus for iPhone has already been radically updated and I like it a lot. OmniFocus for iPad hasn't and won't be until OmniFocus 2 for Mac is done. Do you buy now or wait? It's easy with the iPhone version: buy it. It's sort-of easy with the Mac one: buy the current OmniFocus 1 for Mac and you'll get version 2 for free when it's released. But OmniFocus 1 for Mac is hard work. I understand it now and I adore the power, but it took me a long time to get there. Even last year's failed OmniFocus 2 beta was a significant improvement in some key areas so surely OF 2 will be too. So I'd wait for OmniFocus 2.

When you buy any Mac version of OmniFocus, do it from the main Omni Group website itself, don't go through the Mac App Store. As handy as that is, there are problems upgrading for free when you have bought via the App Store.

You have no choice with the iPad and iPhone ones and that's also why I hesitate: the iPad one is already the best of the three, can they actually make it any better? Very likely.

But here's the thing. I have all three versions of OmniFocus and I use them all. But when OmniFocus 2 for iPad or Mac comes out, I'm buying them again immediately.

Because I truly don't know of any other To Do software that is this good.

I ask about that and about Windows and so far so far nobody has ever piped up with an answer during the workshop, during the after-session nattering (possibly my favourite part) or over the many emails I get later.

That's not a scientific or statistically valid sampling of people to call from. For the most part, I don't presume any computer knowledge and I don't ask anyone in advance what equipment they prefer to use. But most festival or university blurbs that describe my talk use one of the many texts I give them and they they invariably include the phrase “make your computer work harder for you”. If you were deeply into Windows software already, or Mac for that matter, I don't think that line would sell the workshop to you. So very broadly, I think one can expect fewer than average power-users in a typical workshop. Which means we can equally expect fewer people to know Windows software well enough to tell me what they've got that is as powerful as OmniFocus.

I know I'm right in all this but I want to tell you that I doubt it matters. I doubt that there is actually an equivalent to OmniFocus in Windows. But telling you that now, six years into this post, feels a bit rich. So let me show you what I've been working on for the workshop I'm doing next week. This is a special limited-number workshop for a specific group of writers that I work with on Writing West Midlands' Room 204 programme. I know them so I have an idea of how they like to work and what kit they use. Many are PC fans and I will ask them for advice but I think it's time I stepped up.

So I've been looking into this in detail. Or at least as much detail as you can without owning a Windows PC. I've checked reviews, I've tried all the online web versions I can find and I've downloaded iOS companion apps. No Android, I don't have the facility to test that nor the patience of Job to go through all the Android permutations.

There is nothing in Windows that is as strong as OmniFocus for Macintosh.

However.

I've boiled it down to a few that have one of the core things of OmniFocus: the start date. Let's just take a second to think about that term and what we'd use it for. If I enter a new task in OmniFocus then I can, if I'm fussed, also give it a deadline date. An end date. If I want to, though, I can also stepm in and add what's now called a Defer Until date. In my head it's still a Start Date. But whatever you call it, OmniFocus uses it and uses it for this one specific purpose: to hide it from you.

It's little short of disturbing. You enter a task, tap in a start date and you're sure you've saved it, you're sure, but you cannot see it anywhere.

That's not entirely true. You can see it whenever you do a review of all your tasks. (Reviews are a big part of Getting Things Done, the ideas behind many successful To Do apps like OmniFocus and yet, weirdly, not many systems include it. Note, too, that the iPhone version of OmniFocus hasn't got reviews either. I truly don't understand why and I think it's a big gap. I'm okay because I just do my reviews on the iPad, where it is a gorgeous system. I do think once you start on OmniFocus you'll buy all three versions, but again, they're in flux. I don't know what to suggest.) There are other ways to find and see this new task but the kicker is that you don't get to see it on your main To Do List. It ain't there. At all.

It isn't there on your list and it isn't going to be there until that start date comes around.

Here's a typical, practical use for that. I'm doing The Blank Screen workshop at the Stratford Literary Festival in May. I've done everything I need to do to get that going, now I don't even have to think about it until mid-April when I'll update and rewrite the presentation. So get it off my list until April. I don't want to see it and I don't want to have to keep thinking “Is it April yet?” (Tell me I'm not the only person who would have to stop to think that.)

Typical, practical and shorter example: if I'm doing a particular job every week on a Tuesday, keep things off my list until the Monday when I need to think about them.

I could talk to you all day about OmniFocus and it would just be cruel if you're on a PC. But if we just and only talk about start dates, then we've got some options here. The following are all Windows apps with web versions that work crossplatform: if there's one you fancy, see whether it has a companion app that works with your phone.

Toodledo
By default, there are no start dates. But go to Account Settings and look for the many fields you can choose to switch on for a task. One of them is start dates and once you've ticked that, every task you enter has the option for a start date.

Appigo To Do
I was a big Appigo To Do user until I found OmniFocus. Since then it's become a little suite of programs including a web client and I'm honestly a little confused over what option gets you what. But as of a few months ago, Appigo To Do includes Start Dates.

It's rather poorly done on the iPhone version: you have no way to realise that this icon is for setting the end date and that one is for setting the start date. None. Do what I did: press everything. When you know which button it is, though, you're set.

Well, nearly. Appigo doesn't have the same control as OmniFocus so it's a touch less refined in what does and doesn't show you. But a task with a start date that isn't today will get separated from more urgent tasks on your list.

Asana
This is team-wide To Do management and that would put it outside my usual sphere of interest: I want to make you, personally and specifically you, more productive. Not companies. I reckon if everyone in a firm is as good as you then that's great, but it's you I'm working with.

It also tends to mean complex. Enterprise-wide software takes some learning and I haven't done that. But Asana promises start dates. It's even an automatic thing. Yet I couldn't figure it out.

There's a line somewhere between To Do apps and Project Management software. I think it might be here.

I'm disappointed that there are no start dates in the best-named To Do software ever: Remember the Milk. Going by the chatter on its support forums, there never will be either. So I'm afraid that means RTM is out for me.

They all are, I suppose: I've said before that you'd need Primacord explosive around my waist to get me away from OmniFocus on a Mac, iPhone and iPad. But there is Primacord, it is possible and I thought – I still think – that it will happen that some day there's going to be a better To Do manager. But it isn't today and it unquestionably isn't on a PC.

Reeder 2.1 now out

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You can argue whether this is screamingly productive of me or not, but I use Reeder perhaps forty times a day. In case you don't know it, Reeder is a newsreader so when I have a moment standing by my kettle, I'll flick through headlines and read articles there. At least it's quicker than going to each of the 200-odd news sites I read. And definitely quicker than going to them and finding that nope, they don't have any new news since the last time I checked them three minutes ago.

There are many newsreaders: just search the App Store for the phrase 'RSS' as it's that little-used Really Simple Syndication that powers them all. RSS makes news come to us and I can't fathom why it hasn't taken over the world.

But I got into it very many years ago and have used very many RSS apps yet now it would take primacord explosive wrapped around my waist to make me stop using this particular one. Reeder is that good. It used to be even better when there was an iPhone, an iPad and a Mac version and it will be better again in the same way. Some day. Hopefully soon.

In the meantime, Reeder was updated for iOS 7 while I was away on holiday and I bought the new version immediately. You and I hadn't met on here then or I'd have rushed to enthuse about it to you. Instead, I had to tell everyone in earshot and they all looked like thank you, yes, that's really great, William, whatever makes you happy.

Now that you're here and version 2.1 has just this minute dropped on the App Store, let me enthuse about it live. Here's the only bit you really need to know, here's the App Store link: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/reeder-2/id697846300?mt=8

But I'd also like you to know that among the myriad bug fixes and semi-demi-myriad new features, there is a particular fix I am going to enjoy. Recently when you ran Reeder in the iPhone and there was a new story with an embedded video, no power on Earth would make that play in landscape. It as solely in portrait. This was the only thing that ever made me think I preferred the previous version of Reeder. But now it's apparently fixed. At least on the iPhone it is.

I say apparently because that's how quickly I've rushed the news to you: the update dropped this minute, this moment, and as we've been speaking, the app has been updating itself on my iPhone. Off to watch some video landscape and also to go get it all for my iPad.