productivity

I love this stuff. Another OmniFocus CLI. Typical amazing and clever work by Brett Terpestra. This is the second OmniFocus CLI in the past month. Something tells me the Omni Group should be working on a blessed version.

Back in January I posted about a workflow for automatic processing of DVD's. This is really handy if you are processing a bunch of home movies from DVD to an AppleTV friendly format (or any other format). I've updated my settings (and corrected a typo) from that post. I like the look of strict anamorphic video better on one of my videos so it was easy to simply modify the Automator workflow.

I really loved the OmniFocus CLI posted over on dirtdon.com. I loved it so much that I decided to build my own, but instead of a shell script, I wanted to explore a solution in Python. I solve quite a bit of my own little problems using Python. I’m no expert, but I like this scripting language for small solutions. I also wanted an excuse to learn more about Python’s Natural Language Processing (NLP).

Just a quick addendum to my recent post about intercepting the CMD-Q keys in apps. I wanted to let the developer, Peter Lewis, know that I changed his suggested macro to make it more universal. He responded to my email right away and blew my mind with another option. Keyboard Maestro supports the Boolean conjunction “or” via pipes (that key just above the backslash on your keyboard) for arguments. Here’s a snippet from his email:

I’ve been enjoying Dr. Drang’s tales of file format lock-in and his crusade against closed formats for his data. His stories always feel eerily familiar. I bounce back and forth between Macs and Windows machines in my daily life. My OS polytheism goes way back. I started with an old custom built 386 PC in high school. In undergraduate, I took advantage of the steep Apple student discount and acquired a Mac IIci.

This feature alone is enough to warrant the PathFinder price tag:       If you spend any time on Windows, you know that the Mac Finder is missing cut and paste in the OS. Don't even get me started on the other awesome features of PathFinder or this post will take all day to write. Let's just say the Drop Stack functionality is insanely useful.

After listening to David Sparks’ OmniFocus video series, I’ve been rethinking how I use due dates for tasks. Well, actually, I’ve been rethinking it for quite sometime. Usually when I’m postponing due dates. Forecast I love the OmniFocus for iPad’s Forecast mode. It’s a custom view into tasks, that presents them in a timeline with past due tasks colored red and near term tasks colored orange. This is a great way to see what you are up against for the coming week or check out what slipped through the cracks.

Routines are a necessary and valuable part of getting stuff done with as little friction as possible. However, I try to avoid routines for the most part. I find that they make life feel monotonous and stifle creativity. The routines I do keep, I find fulfilling and enjoyable. They also give me piece of mind when all is said and done. I thought I’d share a few of my routines that involve my iPad and Mac.

I have been a long time fan of the Logitech Revolution MX mouse. It was a comfortable mouse with a good bit of functionality. The prize feature was the weighted free-spinning scroll wheel. I could really zoom through a long post (which was much more useful before sites began spreading posts across multiple pages to scrounge for more views). I really liked the MX. However, it was a flaky piece of technology that lived fast and died young.

I am generally skeptical of file tagging systems. Tags are volatile and can be inconsistent. I much prefer the file naming systems described by Benjamin Brooks. However, some systems do not lend themselves to file naming as a method of organization. I keep all of my bookmarks in Pinboard which has very good tagging support. One issue I have always had with tagging is that as projects begin new tags get created to track resources.