It’s perhaps not a good idea for Apple to truncate the names of software products on their Downloads page.
This is from the Featured 3rd Party Downloads pane today:
I mean, really. I know it’s childish of me to even point it out, but if I were the developer, I wouldn’t be happy about it.
This morning I listened to the latest episode of The Talk Show1, wherein our hosts discuss Apple Keyboards. Specifically, the Undisputed Best and Most Wonderful Input Device Ever: the Apple Extended Keyboard II.
I used that model for years, from my Mac IIci right up until the time I got my first Mac with USB inputs (an original blue and white G3, maybe? I don’t remember for sure). Every Mac I’ve owned since then has come with its own keyboard2, which I’ve used, with varying degrees of pleasure and productivity.
I’ll admit that I never paid too much attention to the quality of the keyboards I was using. Well, probably I did, because I sure bitched a lot about some of them. But I never actually did anything about it until fairly recently.
When I got my first metal-cased Powerbook, I fell in love with the keyboard. It fit my hands just right, it gave just enough tactile feedback without being too “clicky” on one end or too squishy on the other. By the time I upgraded last year to a new MacBook Pro, I was doing most of my work on the portable machine and not doing as much on the Mac Pro in my office, mainly because I was much more productive on the keyboard of the laptop. I tried replacing the stock Mac Pro keyboard — with its huge chunky finger-numbing keys — with a couple of models that seemed similar to the tactile characteristics of my laptop, but never found one I really liked. I tried a MacAlly, and I think maybe a Kensington, but neither really did the trick. They had function keys in weird places, and one of them didn’t have any USB inputs on it. Besides, they were just butt ugly3.
Then one day I was tooling around in the Apple Store, and started typing on one of the new aluminum extended keyboards. Wow. It’s not perfect, but it’s the closest thing to the feel of typing on my laptop. I walked out of the store with one, and now I can shift work between the laptop and desktop and not have that jarring feel from switching keyboards.
During the podcast, John and Dan mention that they would be happy to buy any new or new-ish Apple Extended Keyboard II’s that we might have lying around. I remembered that I do in fact have one, in its original box, and barely used. I bought it right before I got a G3 years ago, and it’s just sitting in storage. At first I thought of offering it up to them, but I might just try using it again.
I’ve been playing with creating an Automator workflow and Photoshop actions to create iPhone wallpapers. A few samples are above. If you’d like to use any of them, you can download them here.
Macworld has posted their review of OmniFocus, the new task management utility from the Omni Group.
Some people deploy elaborate project-management systems to make sure they get everything done. Others just jot down their day’s tasks on the nearest scrap of paper. Most of us are somewhere in between.
Yeah, that’s me. My personal productivity management system (ahem) consists mostly of a complex arrangement of sticky notes, colored index cards, iCal, and my iPhone. I’ve been using the app for nearly two weeks, and it has been fairly good in freeing me from the Tyranny of Colored Bits of Paper. But at heart I’m not a “GTD” person, and that’s made the learning curve a little difficult for me – it’s been hard to mold the app to my non-linear needs since it’s built around the GTD system.
More fundamentally, OmniFocus is not a simple program. It requires some learning and practice to really get adept at using it. It’s certainly possible to get a quick, simple list of the things you need to do today—but that isn’t the program’s default view. If you want a quick, unobtrusive way to keep track of your tasks, OmniFocus is too much.
That pretty much sums up where I’m at with OmniFocus. I’ve had some success using it, and it goes well beyond the super-simple “To Do” structure built into OS X, but if I’m not using its full capabilities in a GTD way, I’m not sure I can justify the $80 pricetag.
