Observing the varying types of content available via RSS feeds today and how each require different treatment.
All posts in applications
A look at Apple’s recent paring back of features, refinement of the UI, and applied consistency to the iWork applications. Specifically Numbers.
A major factor that drew me to the Apple and OS X (pre-iOS) was the strong community of independent developers. The applications and utilities that were available because of these devs were so far from what I was used to in corporate IT and the Microsoft dominated, locked-in-licensing environment. Making the change in my career was partly due to my desire to pick my own tools. And so I have always believed in the idea of paying for these wonderful tools made available by 3rd party developers in…
Easily control the size and position of all your desktop applications on multiple displays with Moom
Like many other geeks, I'm constantly evaluating my tool set. With Google Reader’s imminent shutdown, I've been considering the alternatives for RSS, as well as the options for getting news in other ways. And in the category of bookmarking and read-it-later services, I've moved back and forth between different services over the years. The news of Instapaper’s sale [http://www.marco.org/2013/04/25/instapaper-next-generation] got me considering the options once again. I've tried the big ones. I…
A well designed application, whether native or web based, will have clever UI elements that make the usage more pleasant. Some are obvious from the start, others are delightful surprises that you come across during your usage. Rdio [http://www.rdio.com/] is an application that gets you on both ends. I love the service since it has given me access to so much new content that I could never afford to purchase on iTunes. And in the course of finding all this great new music, there are often times w…
I've seen a lot of people talk about Alfred in the past year. I don't use it — apart from a quick download/launch/delete I have no experience at all with it. Not because it isn't a great tool, but simply because I already have a better option in my tool belt. But whenever I see someone writing or tweeting about it, I wonder why more folks don't give LaunchBar [http://www.obdev.at/products/launchbar/index.html] a try. So many of us started out with Quicksilver. But, until quite recently…
If you're an OmniFocus user, you need to give two [http://www.practicallyefficient.com/2011/03/14/Omnifocus-what-now-p1/] posts [http://www.practicallyefficient.com/2011/03/15/Omnifocus-what-now-p2/] from J. Eddie Smith IV a read. He's sharing his setup and usage of the application, but the real essence of his message is that OmniFocus is just a tool. And like any tool, it's usage is only as good as the execution of the one yielding the tool. I know that OmniFocus has a lot of power that I'm no…