mac

A Droplr lifetime subscription is available from StackSocial this week for $22. I let my subscription expire a while ago but this is a no brainer in my book. By way of @ttscoff

From the OmniFocus blog: But, with our latest updates today (OmniFocus 2.6 for Mac and OmniFocus 2.15 for iOS), your data will be completely encrypted before it leaves your device so that it’s encrypted on the server itself. This is a major improvement for me. I’ve always given the OmniSync server a side-eye for tracking tasks with sensitive information in them. This was especially true of tracking work tasks.

I think it’s fair to say I’m excited for the upcoming release of Scrivener for iOS. Between this and the new DEVONthink for iOS, 2016 is going to be a huge year for researchers and writers. Literature and Latte now has a series of preview posts on their blog that describe some of the Scrivener for iOS functionality. I’m giddy. It’s time to talk Syncing Outlines I’m hopeful that there will be more syncing options beyond Dropbox in the future.

This week BusyCal 3 for Mac is available and this release marks a first for BusyMac, an iOS companion app. I’ve used BusyCal for Mac since the first version was released six years ago. It’s not the best looking calendar app but it’s by far the most functional. Smart searches, banners, sticky notes, icons and built-in weather forecasts make it something rather special. Version 3 of BusyCal for the Mac brings a number of aesthetic improvements and some performance boosts.

A good deal on a bunch of excellent software. I recommend DEVONthink Pro Office, TaskPaper and Scrivener if you don’t already have them. An excellent collection of research and writing tools.

In case you haven’t followed the Scrivener blog, they’ve been hard at work on an iOS version. I’m not on the beta but I think their Mac app is one of the best all around writing tools on the market. Now I see word on Twitter that the release is likely coming in July.

Interesting options for ScanSnap owners: Scan to cloud services without a computer. The new ScanSnap Cloud is available on the MAS and configures the ScanSnap ix500 and ix100 to scan directly to services like Dropbox and Evernote without a computer. I think I’ll stick with my ScanSnap to DEVONthink workflow for now but I’m definitely interested to see where they take this. My ScanSnap is still one of my favorite pieces of hardware.

Several of my friends have pointed me to this new Alfred Emoji snippet collection. I’m not sure what that means about my relationships but I am sure this is a pretty stellar addition to Alfred for Mac. Just look at the announcement page for a free collection. It’s tremendous and ironically wordy for an Emoji snippet package. If you like the Slack implementation of Emoji snippets then you’ll love this collection.

The developers of Day One are making a bold move. A recent blog post outlines their current plans for end to end encryption but also puts outs a plea to critique the designs. I used Day One for all of my text journaling. It was one of my favorite apps for a very long time. But I don’t want them holding my information. I’m happy to see them developing in the open.

Hazel is one of my top 5 Mac apps. It’s taken me years to build up the scripts that Hazel runs on my machine, partly because there’s a steep learning curve and quite a bit of danger. But now, David Sparks has a video field guide to teach you all about Hazel so you can save a lot of anguish and get right to the magic. Here’s a 30 minute intro video for free: