Category — software

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It’s a common symptom among new Mac users to be really ecstatic about their new MacBook, praise the speed and functionality, then after a month or so start seeing some flaws; much like in any relationship, where your passionate blind love from the first weeks starts to fade, giving way to more realistic assessments.
Some hard-core Linux geeks will probably miss their configuration files, kernel hacking and source code install. Windows users might miss their favorite software(Picasa, Winamp or Total Commander). I didn’t miss my Windows machine one bit, partly because I got used to other essential Mac software, partly because I use my Windows software from within Windows virtual machines, and mostly because I realized the Mac offers me all the productivity tools I ever wished for, out of the box or for free.

This article lists several essential but frequently forgotten configuration tips that make the most of your Mac. A future article will cover some vitally important FREE (or really inexpensive) Mac OSX software for your daily chores.

Faithful readers might have already read these tips here, on HackTheDay, but I do hope they’ll learn a few new things as well.

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Quick question: what is the One and only most essential tool for any productivity fan?

You guessed it - the calendar.

There are many reasons why you’d want to use Google Calendar for your time management: first of all, it’s free; second, it’s online(you can access it from everywhere). Third, it has SMS alerts, which is probably the single feature I use most. The one major downside of Google Calendar has is… being an online tool; a less than perfect user interface, less than instantaneous responsiveness. Luckily, this all is in the past as of today:

Google announced CalDAV support for Google Calendar in Apple’s iCal(version 3.x - on Mac OS X v10.5+ ). In layman’s terms, this means seamless bidirectional synchronization of calendar events. No more awkward emails, no more missed meetings(actually.. this isn’t such a good news, as we all know it - meetings are productivity killers).

Here’s a step by step walkthrough in setting up Google Calendar synchronization:

1. First, you download on your OSX 10.5 mac the setup tool, called Calaboration. It’s in zip format, so you’ll want to unarchive it. Go ahead and run it, entering your Google login credentials, then click Sign In.

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I never really managed to get GTD working for me.
The basic concepts of the GTD (Getting Things Done) method are really easy to grasp and pretty useful:
Write stuff down instead of trying to remember it, do the easy tasks quickly to get them out of your way, divide projects into smaller tasks and review your tasks periodically.

However, just like so many things in my life, turning a nicely put “method” into a productive habit is… almost impossible for me - my attention span lasts at most a couple of weeks, as if I were related to the common goldfish.

The one method that’d work for me… generally, would be one where I could write down my projects and goals, somehow mark my progress (I’m in constant need for confirmation and gratification, just to keep me going), automatically have it under my eyes on a regular basis (I kept forgetting to open up the GTD software I’ve been trying for the last couple of years), help me prioritize between different tasks and, most importantly, be really easy to use(no complicated setup, hierarchies or folders).

There is a lot of software out there that meets this criteria, offline or online. The one I use for the time being is TaskFive. Gorgeous, really easy to use, pretty effective.

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During the last year I almost never reposted the links and resources readers of HackTheDay have send me. It took a simple comment(might be a spam, but I hope it’s not) to make me want to get back to blogging over here on HTD.

So, here’s a couple of productivity-related links received from my readers during the last year or so, togetger with a bit of link love :

• 45 mobile resources for the road warrior
• A simple GTD online tool - Task Writer
• Time management teleseminars from time experts
• GTD agenda - another nice looking GTD online tool
• Eluma - “It’s like iTunes, but for your web stuff instead of your music, a free desktop-downloadable personal productivity tool”
• GTDInbox, a Firefox addon for Gmail that “transforms Gmail into a powerhouse of productivity”

Enjoy your productive day, and keep in touch : I’m back, baby!

Phew, the title took more to write than what the post really should contain, that is:

Keep Command key pressed while dragging the Sync icon out of the menu bar.

Now, why would you do this? Maybe, like me, you have a fresh Leopard install and you NEVER use MobileMe, and you want to declutter the menu bar. Easy, ain’t it?

Google just released Google Visualization API, which is a really cool great way to generate and embed beautiful charts into any webpage.
While the API is really Javascript based targeting web developers, the really cool thing about it is that you’re now able to generate Gadgets from within any Google Docs spreadsheet.

Easier done than said, actually. Just take a peek at this nice chart attempt:
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I mentioned it already: I love Firefox’s feature of “Manage Search Engines” (Internet Explorer 7 has copied introduced a similar one as well). Simply love it, and the reason for it is that it saves me lots and lots of time.

One of the “custom” search engines I had installed was called Flickr Tags. Ironically, though, using it was always a burden. Most of the times I didn’t want to simply search Flickr; what I wanted instead was to search Flickr for Creative Commons images(ones I could put on my blog, for instance), sorted by interestingness (to keep the lame ones out). One way to do this would have been to simply search Mycroft Project for a better one. One other way, though, was to just create my own custom search engine, and this proved to be much simpler than expected (the proof is the little plugin over on mycroft.mozdev.org called Flickr Creative Commons Interesting).

For tutorial purposes, I’ll show you how to build, step by step, a Firefox Search Engine for Twitter contacts.

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Quickly, tell me the web browser you use most frequently.

What? Do I hear anything other than Firefox? You’re most certainly way behind on our Productivity 101 lesson.

Quickly, tell me what’s your most frequent way to google or search stuff online.

If you tell me you click on Firefox’s address bar, type www.google.com then Enter, then you’re definitely not making good use of your time and fingers. There’s a better, faster, easier way to google from Firefox - the quicksearch field on the right-top corner. Just type Ctrl+K (or, on Mac, Cmd+K) and you’ve changed focus to the quicksearch field. Type what u want to search for, Enter, and Google opens up with the results.

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I spent the day before yesterday cleaning up my MacBook hard drive and reinstalling anew my Tiger operating system.
Sure, OSX is a very powerful system, but even it gets cluttered after months of intense usage and hundreds of apps installed. So.. nothing like a fresh new install to get rid of all unwanted apps, documents, archives or garbage.

So, if you are a new Apple owner, here’s my list of 9 tips for you to do on a fresh OSX install:

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Any mobile geek has more than once craved to have access to online maps from their phone. You know, when you’re stuck in traffic and looking for directions to the nearest Sushi restaurant or to that old vintage clothes shop you saw online yesterday. Yes, the iPhone has Google Maps integration, but it won’t help you much without GPS and with the limited set of features.

Undoubtedly the best mobile maps application around is Mobile GMaps. Free as in beer, it was the first mobile application of its kind, and the several years of age and sustained development turned it into the best and most feature-rich mobile maps piece of software. [Read more →]