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Pastebot: A Copy and Paste Playground

The best way to describe the handsome apps from Tapbots is as half tool and half toy. Mark and Paul have taken three straightforward utilities and converted them into three delightful apps for your iPhone. This third and most recent app, Pastebot, is perhaps the most useful and most delightful so far.

Pastebot is more powerful and versatile than its siblings, and it comes with all sorts of tricks and surprises floating around. To get the most out of it requires a minimal understanding of how the app works. When you first launch Pastebot you are guided through a cute and succinct tour. Later, when you find yourself in various screens within the app, little help tips will pop up to point out functionality.

Using and mastering Pastebot borders on entertainment.

Daily Usage

Other than the clipboard history in LaunchBar, I have never used a true clipboard manager. My ‘clipboard manager’ is Yojimbo. That’s where I throw random bits of info, web clippings, text, images, PDFs, and more — some to be stored indefinitely, some to be deleted when I don’t need them anymore, and some which will no doubt be forgotten.

Using a clipboard manager on your iPhone for boilerplate management is an obvious solution. At times it can be easier and quicker to copy and paste a canned response to a text or email than to thumb one out. And this is what most clipboard managers in the app store boast about: their ability to store text snippets for quick access. But very few brag about their ability to capture bits of info from your iPhone…

An app that auto-populates itself with the contents of your clipboard is surely the simplest way to throw bits of info into an app on the iPhone. Which is why a clipboard manager is, in my opinion, a foundational functionality for an attractive, capable Anything Bucket app for the iPhone. And Pastebot is the closest I’ve seen for this type of app.

On my Mac, the key to a good anything bucket is its ubiquity — that at any time, in any application, you can throw something into it. On the iPhone however, you can’t run 3rd-party apps in the background. Which is why the most important feature of Pastebot is launch time. In my usage with a mostly-full clippings folder littered with text, images, and other paraphernalia, Pastebot loads (and pairs with my Mac) in less than a few seconds.

Once running, whatever you last copied on your iPhone appears at the top of the Clipboard list. And if you’ve got the Pastebot Sync utility installed, anything you copy on your Mac pops right into the Pastebot app while its open.

From there it’s a copy and paste playground. You can sort, edit, add, delete, use, transfer, and more.

Miscellaneous Observations From Copying and Pasting Various File Types Between my Mac and my iPhone Using the Pastebot Sync Utility

  • Text: Even thousands of words copy over quickly, and text is the only data type that you can copy from one mac and past to another using Pastebot as the middle-man.

  • Images: Copying a photo from within iPhoto will send the actual picture. Though the title of the image from iPhoto does not transfer.

Copying a whole slew of images from iPhoto gives Pastebot a datatype that it doesn’t recognize:

Pastebot - Unknown Mac Data

However, it still maintains the data. For example, I copied 9 images from iPhoto, they showed up in Pastebot as unknown Mac data, but from there I was still able to paste them onto my Desktop.

Also, copying an image from Preview will get the full image onto your iPhone and allow you to use it on your iPhone. But copying the image file from the Finder only sends the file-type icon.

  • Audio and Video: Copying an audio or video file from iTunes sends the metadata to Pastebot. But it’s metadata based on where in iTunes the file was copied from. For example, trying to copy Star Trek to Pastebot from my Recently Added playlist sends this info:

Star Trek 2:06:47 J.J. Abrams 11/18/09 7:48 PM

(The same info that is shown in the playlist’s columns: Name, Time, Artist, and Date Added.)

But trying to copy Star Trek from the Movies playlist sends this:

Star Trek 2:06:47 Sci-Fi & Fantasy 2009
The greatest adventure of all time begins with Star Trek, the incredible story of a young crew’s maiden voyage onboard the most advanced starship ever created: the U.S.S. Enterprise. On a journey filled with action, comedy and cosmic peril, the new recrui
Star Trek – iTunes Extras Sci-Fi & Fantasy

On the other hand, if you copy an audio or video file from within the Finder it sends that file’s relevant icon to Pastebot. And if you then paste that icon back to the Finder, it will paste the audio or video file; pasting it when in a plain text document will paste the filename; pasting it in a rich text document or an email will attach the file; and trying to paste into iTunes does nothing.

  • Folders & Zip Files: You can copy an entire folder or zip file. It shows up in Pastebot as a folder or zip icon, but pasting it back to the Finder the whole folder, with all its contents, shows up unscathed.

You can email a file that Pastebot itself doesn’t recognize but it gets sent as an icon file. Sending a ZIP file you copied into Pastebot will only send the 512×512 icon titled as filename.zip. Similarly, sending a folder sends the icon of a folder named after the folder you had copied.

Pastebot - emailing a folder

  • PDFs: Copying a page of a PDF document from within Preview will send that actual page. You can then paste it into the finder and you’ll get the page as if it were dragged out from Preview.

Transferring Data from one Mac to another using Pastebot and the Pastebot Sync utility

Using Pastebot Sync you can pair Pastebot on your iPhone with as many Macs as you like. But as far as I can tell, the only data you can transfer between multiple Macs using Pastebot as the mediator, is text clippings. If any file or image originates on Mac #1 when it gets copied into Pastebot, it won’t paste to Mac #2.

Although anything that was added to Pastebot from within your iPhone can be pasted to any synced Mac.

– – –
They say a man buys something for a good reason, and the real reason. You buy an app from Tapbots because it does something useful, but in truth, you just wanted to play with it.

Pastebot: A Copy and Paste Playground

Reader’s Setup: John Rust

John Rust is a freelance videographer, web designer, writer, and college student. He also tends to constantly dabble in graphic design, photography, music composition, live audio productions, and programming.

John’s Setup:

1. What does your desk look like?

John Rust Desk 3

john-rust-1.jpg

John Rust Desk 2

2. What is your current Mac setup?

I’m using a mid-2007 2.2GHz MacBook Pro with an anti-glare screen. I have a 20″ Apple Cinema Display (the old aluminum kind) plugged into the MacBook Pro whenever I’m at my desk. I’ve got both a wired and a wireless Apple keyboard (the aluminum type), which I switch between depending on what I’m doing and my mood at the time. I consider my Magic Mouse to be the most amazing Apple product released in the last year.

Next to my computer are three WD My Book drives providing me with 2TB of total storage for photos and videos. I’ve also got a set of small speakers also on my desk; I don’t particularly care about the quality of them because I usually have my music playing pretty quietly in the background.

There is also an old eMac lying around somewhere which I use occasionally as a local web server. The problem with my setup, in a nutshell, is that I juggle hats so often that I’m constantly adjusting my setup to better fit what I’m doing.

3. Why are you using this setup?

I bought the MacBook Pro so I could have a computer that did everything I needed it to do — from video editing to document editing — and still be portable enough to take almost everywhere. It’s certainly not as powerful as a Mac Pro, and its limitations are more than obvious at times.

Even though it’s the smallest model, the Cinema Display is pretty much all I need now in terms of screen space. Sure, editing in Final Cut Pro is more fun with a bigger screen, but it’s not necessary (and it won’t fit on my desk very well). I can’t live without FireWire 400, and the hub on the back of the monitor is wonderful when I need it.

4. What software do you use on a daily basis, and for what do you use it?

I use a lot of software, and I’m usually testing and playing with new releases to see if I like them. Overall, my most-used apps are iTunes, Mail, Skype, iChat, Tweetie, Fever, and Safari, like pretty much everyone else who reads this site.

Besides that, my most-used apps would be:

  • The Hit List. I keep switching between The Hit List and Things, but The Hit List is usually my favorite. Hopefully there’ll be an iPhone version of it at some point in the near future.

  • Photoshop CS4. I upgraded from the original Photoshop CS, and the upgrade was definitely worth it. I can’t say anything glorious about an Adobe product, but it is what I use for photo editing, design work, mockups, and essentially anything having to do with image manipulation.

  • Final Cut Studio 3. I’m in a love/hate relationship with the applications in this suite. They’re incredibly powerful and functional, and do everything I could ever need to do in terms of video editing. Yet the work I do in them tends to slow my computer to a crawl, and I really wish the interface would get a facelift.

  • Espresso and CSSEdit. Basically everything web-related goes through these applications. I absolutely love the live preview feature of CSSEdit, and I enjoy tweaking stuff on my site (and other sites) with it.

  • Aperture. I completely fell in love with this application the first time I saw it in use, and I never could go back and use iPhoto. All my images (besides my LittleSnapper library) are cataloged in aperture, and in my opinion it has set a standard for how user interfaces should be designed.

  • MarsEdit. Because writing and editing blog posts in the WordPress admin area just isn’t fun.

  • TextWrangler. You can’t beat the price of this application. It’s everything I need in a text editor and more; I prefer it to Pages a good bit of the time. In fact, I am writing everything in this interview in it.

5. Do you own any other Mac gear?

I own a white 16GB iPhone 3G (the Evil Empire won’t let me upgrade to a 3GS), and the Apple Bluetooth Headset which I use in the car. I have an AirPort Express that tends to bounce around the house depending on where it’s most needed at the time.

6. Do you have any future upgrades planned?

I’m in need of a new computer at some point in the future, but I don’t know what to get. A MacBook Air is almost necessary for college (I’ve strained my shoulders enough carrying around a MacBook Pro and lots of textbooks), but incredibly limiting for everything else. A 27″ iMac would be great for everything except for school. I’ll probably just settle with a high-end MacBook Pro and hope I don’t have to deal with files from a RED camera anytime soon.

More Sweet Setups

John’s setup is just one in a series of sweet Mac Setups.

Reader’s Setup: John Rust

What to Get for That Nerdy, Design-Savvy, Coffee-Loving, Snowboarding, Person in Your Life

Nerds are hard to shop for. We know precisely what we want, but we’re curiously passive about letting you know. Instead, we want you to know what we want without us having to say anything. Furthermore, the trick to being a great gift giver is to get someone the thing that they didn’t even know they wanted until they open it. Therefore, you’ll find below a list of gadgets, trinkets, and power tools.1

Except for that iPhone dock you see below, and the classic thermos, I own and use everything on this list. Each of these are great gifts, and I’d be proud to give any one of them to my other nerdy, design-savvy, coffee-loving, snowboarding friends or family members.

Nerdy

Nerdy Stuff

  1. Wooden Log iPhone Docking Station: $68

  2. Twelve South BookArc: $50

  3. Star Trek (2009 DVD): $21

  4. Media Temple Web Hosting: $100

Design-Savvy

Design-Savvy

  1. Pilot 0.40mm Gel Pen: $16 / dozen

  2. Levenger Circa Notebooks

  3. 1-Year Subscription to HOW Magazine: $30

  4. Field Notes Colors Subscription: $129

  5. Gotham Typeface: $199

Coffee-Loving

Coffee-Loving

  1. Chemex Coffee Maker and Filters: $50

  2. A few pounds of Peets: $15

  3. Stanley Classic Thermos: $34

  4. Breville Conical Burr Grinder: $100

Snowboarding

Snowboarding

  1. Ride Concept Snowboard: $750

  2. Burton Lifeline Snowboard Mitt in Mocha: $80

  3. Spy: Zoe Black Gloss Sunglasses: $140

Miscellaneous Stocking Stuffers

Miscellaneous Stocking Stuffers

  1. The Little Red Writing Book: $10

  2. J Crew Magic Wallet: $22

  3. Dewalt Heavy-Duty Compound Miter Saw: $210

  4. J Crew Argyle Socks: $15

  5. Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations: $32

  6. Ticket to Ride: $38

  7. WoodWick Candle: $15

  1. This list may also come in handy if you end up getting one of those Snuggie blankets with sleeves and after you’ve returned it don’t know where to spend the money. ↵
What to Get for That Nerdy, Design-Savvy, Coffee-Loving, Snowboarding, Person in Your Life

Reader’s Setup: Adrian Hanft

Adrian is the creator of Font Burner, a site that hosts 1,000+ sIFR fonts. He also maintains Found Photography, a site where he documents his camera experiments (like building cameras out of Legos) and photography. He is also on Twitter. By day he is creative director for Red Rocket Media Group in Colorado.

ADRIAN’S SETUP:

1. WHAT DOES YOUR Desk LOOK LIKE?

One is my setup at work, the other is at home.

adrian_hanft_work_setup.jpg

Adrian Hanft Home Setup

2. WHAT IS YOUR CURRENT MAC SETUP?

At home I use a 17″ MacBook Pro which is almost always connected to my Sennheiser headphones. For digital photography I love my Panasonic Lumix LX3 with an Eye-Fi card that sends photos to my computer wirelessly. I just bought a 500gb external Western Digital drive that is powered by Firewire 800. As you can see, my home setup also includes a ping-pong table and a cat. At work I am on a Mac Pro (2x Dual Core 2.66Ghz). Possibly the most important technology in my toolbox is a sketchbook.

3. WHY ARE YOU USING THIS SETUP?

I try to never be too far from objects that keep my mind at play. You can see the toys above my desk at work, the wall of artwork at home, the headphones, and the ping pong table. I try to balance the utmost simplicity in my work space without losing the inspiration that I find from posters, artwork, toys, and games.

4. WHAT SOFTWARE DO YOU USE ON A DAILY BASIS, AND FOR WHAT DO YOU USE IT?

  • I use TextMate, Transmit, and CSSEdit for web development
  • There aren’t many days when I don’t open Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign
  • Adium for instant messaging
  • Google Search Box recently replaced QuickSilver for shortcuts
  • Fever for RSS feeds
  • MarsEdit for blogging on all my WordPress powered sites
  • Transmission is typically going in the background

5. DO YOU OWN ANY OTHER MAC GEAR?

I have an iPhone and an aging PowerMac G4. I still use an old 3rd Generation iPod for audio books on my commute. The internet reaches me through my Airport Express Base Station.

6. DO YOU HAVE ANY FUTURE UPGRADES PLANNED?

I am holding my breath for the rumored Mac netbook. If that doesn’t come into existence I might just try installing OSX on a netbook to create a hackintosh. I have to resist the urge to upgrade constantly. I would love a new unibody MacBook Pro and an iPhone upgrade, but realistically those purchases are at least a year away. I have had my eye on a 30″ Apple Cinema display for a while.

More Sweet Setups

Adrian’s setup is just one in a series of sweet Mac Setups.

Reader’s Setup: Adrian Hanft

Magic Mouse Miscellany

Last month I got a Magic Mouse. I would have bought a wired one if I could have because in all my experience with various wireless Apple mice the sensor-to-pointer communication has been poor and always made for rigid mousing.

Thankfully, the Magic Mouse works just as good as any wireless mouse I’ve used. So I’m keeping it, and now I’ve got a Magic Mouse at home. At work I’ve still got a Mighty Mouse, though.

It took about a week to get used to holding the Magic Mouse. It is a lot thinner than the Mighty Mouse, and therefore has to be held differently. Also, it’s constructed so much finer than its predecessor that my Mighty Mouse at work now feels like a cheap, overfed rodent.

But despite being fat, what I still love about my Mighty Mouse is that third button. Clicking on the scroll ball can activate different events. For me it’s Exposé, and it’s incredibly convenient when working a lot with the mouse.

Despite missing this third button, what I love about the Magic Mouse it’s ability to scroll with momentum. Just like on the iPhone, you can flick when scrolling a page, and it won’t come to a dead stop the very instant you stop scrolling but will instead slowly come to a halt.

Scrolling with momentum has quickly become addictive, and it now drives me bonkers to use my laptop trackpad because it doesn’t scroll like the Magic Mouse scrolls.1

  1. Smart Scroll is a $20 system-wide utility that attempts to mimic Apple’s momentum scrolling feature of the Magic Mouse and iPhone.

    However, with Smart Scroll you don’t flick, you “coast”. Which means the window will keep scrolling after you’re done moving your fingers on the trackpad even if you’re fingers are still on the trackpad. Not only does this break the law of physics, it also means you are always “smart scrolling” even when you don’t want to be. ↵

Magic Mouse Miscellany

Building a New Desk Is So Much More Fun (And Inexpensive) Than Buying One

The opportunity to build a new cave does not come along very often. Next month I’m moving into a new office at work, and so what better time to build a new desk?

Using a miter saw, a power drill, and a measuring tape I’ve spent the past three weekends crafting a 2-piece, 21-square-foot desk.

Joint

Joint 2

Joint 3

Freshly Stained

There are two desks, built to sit perpendicular to one another, forming an L-shaped Master Desk. The larger desk is 6-feed wide and 30-inches deep. The smaller is 4-feet wide and 20-inches deep. Put together, they crank out more than 21 total square feet.

The tops are three-quarter-inch-thick pine, and the legs are 4×4 cedar. Each desk stands 28.75 inches tall.

And as I write this, the fifth and final coat of polyurethane is drying in my living room…

Desks

Building a New Desk Is So Much More Fun (And Inexpensive) Than Buying One

Reader’s Setup: Justin Pennington

Justin Pennington is the IT Director at a wholesale distributor headquartered in the Midwestern USA. He spends a good majority of his time developing internal web applications, though he also manages every piece of tech and software at the company. Justin is 23 and happily married to his wife, Kim.

Justin’s Setup

1. What does your desk look like?

Justin Pennington Mac Setup 1

Justin Pennington Mac Setup 2

Justin Pennington Mac Setup 3

2. What is your current mac setup?

There are three different setups pictured … work, home, and a second desk at home.

My work setup has a Dual Quad-Core Nehalem Mac Pro with three 24″ Dell G2410 monitors, 12GB of RAM, 1.28TB internal disk space, 1.5TB external disk space (backup), Bose Companion 2 Speakers, Bose Quiet Comfort 3 headphones, a Logitech MX 1100 mouse, and a Fujitsu S500 document scanner.

The main home desk holds my 15″ unibody MacBook Pro (when I’m at home that is) and a 20″ Apple Cinema Display. The second desk has a 20″ white Intel iMac with three G-tech external hard drives (totaling 1.57TB), a Logitech DiNovo Edge keyboard, a Logitech MX Revolution Mouse, Bose Companion 5 speakers, and a 32″ Samsung TV connected to it for Hulu, movies, etc.

3. Why are you using this setup?

My work setup is about two months old at the time of writing. It was a gift from my boss for my two year-anniversary at this company. I develop web applications to extend our windows only ERP which means I need a Windows XP virtual machine running the ERP client and SQL Management Studio and a Server 2003 virtual machine running development databases. The screens are perfect for me as I’m most concerned with resolution and not accurate color.

My home setup is used for those late-night coding sessions to meet a deadline and some freelance projects. The desk with the cinema display is perfect for me as I prefer to work from my laptop at home and it allows me to just plug in and get the benefits of a desktop without having to transfer files over, get MAMP going, etc. The second desk is used mainly just to keep iTunes up all the time (see other Mac gear section for an explanation) and occasionally for my wife or I just to get on the internet real quick when our laptops are downstairs or in the car. She will usually use whatever desk I’m not at if she is on the computer while I’m in there (thus the reason for two desks instead of one big one).

4. What software do you use on a daily basis, and for what do you use it?

  • Dropbox – This made the top of the list because it is the best syncing utility on the market. Changes to your files are instantly synchronized across all of your connected computers on any platform (Mac, Linux, or Windows). This is critical for anyone with multiple computers. It is free for up to 2GB or $100/year for 50GB. (I’m not affiliated with them, just love their service)
  • Evernote – This is similar to Dropbox, but for notes. It instantly syncs across computers and handhelds. I can take notes in a meeting on my laptop and then just close my laptop and they are instantly available on my desktop when I get back to my office.
  • Mail – This is pretty self explanatory. I used to have the GrowlMail extension for this but it broke with Snow Leopard and I haven’t checked for an update since.
  • iTunes – I listen to music throughout the day, some on Sirius some from my library.
  • Safari – This is my web-browser of choice for everything but the initial testing of web applications I develop.
  • Firefox (w/ Firebug & Web Developer) – Firebug is a fantastic javascript debugger, and web developer allows you to see the HTML generated after the page load (injected with AJAX, etc.). I use Prism for the web-app platform for my users so I test early versions of the web-apps in Firefox (prism is based off firefox) so that I can be sure I have a working version first and then take care of the cross browser idiosyncrasies that pop up later.
  • Adium – Connected to my internal Jabber server, AIM, and MSN. To be honest though, lately I have been using iChat for AIM as file transfers seem more reliable in it and I haven’t taken the time to figure out what is wrong with Adium.
  • Things – This is the best task manager I have yet to find. It has WiFi syncing with iPhone and I sync the database up over Dropbox. The latter isn’t perfect but as long as I remember to only have one copy open at a time it works great (which is fine for me as I typically only need Things on my laptop when out of town).
  • Textmate – Best editor out there, hands down. I used to use Coda but recently switched to Textmate, CSSEdit, and Firefox/Firebug after I realized I was just using code/css editor in Coda and everything else outside of it.
  • CSSEdit – My favorite CSS editor.
  • Parallels – I have to run XP and Server 2003 and after several VMware / Parallels comparisons Parallels came out on top.
  • Apple Remote Desktop – It is a little more versatile than the basic screen sharing tool plus allows me to add normal VNC clients to the list.
  • Microsoft Remote Desktop – Used for server administration, all the servers at my primary job run Windows so this is critical.
  • Toast – Burning CDs and DVDs, however I don’t do too much of this anymore. The only time is to give a copy of a finished product to someone or to burn a lot of data that would be too large to efficiently send over the internet (15GB+).
  • Transmission – Favorite BT client.
  • Transmit – Favorite FTP client, offers MobileMe sync which is pretty convenient.
  • Visual Hub – They stopped development on this program and it will eventually become obsolete but it is still the best media convertor in my opinion.
  • VLC – Plays just about anything you throw at it.
  • Tweetie – My favorite Twitter app.
  • Terminal – Doing normal linux server administration stuff for freelance projects.
  • Pages – Better than MS Word.
  • Excel – Better than Numbers.
  • Fireworks / Photoshop – I switch between the two for image editing and layouts.
  • Pulsar – Excellent Sirius/XM internet radio tool. The web version at sirius.com (aside from having Snow Leopard problems) would prompt for a password each time, ask every hour if I was still listening, and had a very outdated interface. Pulsar is perfect, click the station, it plays, and that’s it (that is all it should do).
  • Balsamiq Mockups – I use this for quick web-app and web-site mockups. It has a lot of great built-in shapes and the sketch looking results promotes people to make changes in the initial design meeting (vs. 90% through development or during implementation).
  • Teleport – Great mac port/frontend of Synergy (and updated for Snow Leopard) that allows me to use one mouse/keyboard for multiple macs. This is most beneficial with my laptop on my desk, I can just move the mouse from the desktop to the laptop like it was just another monitor.
  • Fever – This is fantastic, self-hosted RSS aggregator that I actually found out about from another setup on this site. I use Fluid to keep this as a separate application in my dock.
  • Adobe ConnectNow – This is a great tool for online meeting. I checked out other alternatives like DimDim but found that ConnectNow was the easier for the participants and myself.

5. Do you own any other Mac gear?

My wife and I both have iPhones, her’s a 3G and mine a 3G S. Also, my wife has a 13″ unibody MacBook.

I have a 1TB Time Capsule for wireless backups. The Time Capsule and Airport Extremes are fantastic wireless routers as they have dual band G and N plus guest networking built in. They lack some of the options and flexibility offered by some others but when I’m at home the last thing I want to worry is tweaking a router for QoS, etc. … I spend enough time doing that at work.

We have four Airport Expresses and two Apple TVs that I have picked up over the years. The Airport Expresses are solely used for airtunes (and one as a bridge for a wired printer). With Apple’s remote iPhone app we can be in any room and play any music from the iMac library (which is why it is always on) to any main room in the house (living room, kitchen, my room (office), wife’s room (scrapbooking), or master bedroom) with the flick of a finger.

6. Do you have any future upgrades planned?

I would like to get a 24″ LED Cinema Display to replace the 20″ Cinema display at home. That being said it isn’t a priority since I try not to work too much from home and I already have the 20″.

I would like to get a Macbook Air again. I bought the first generation one on launch day and it was so horrifically slow for what I did it just sat around until I eventually sold it. I have read the new model is significantly better and want to try it out again. My job entails that I always have a computer with me when I travel (granted, I wouldn’t travel without a computer anyway) and sometimes the MacBook Pro is a bit of a bear to lug around when the only thing I plan on using it for is to check email and post some pictures. If Apple releases a tablet I will certainly get one of those.

I’d really like to pick up a pair of the Dr. Dre Beats (studio) headphones, they sound fantastic. I need to find out if they have a rechargeable battery though. My Bose ones do and there is no worse feeling than getting a dead battery mid-day because I forgot to charge them all week. I would gladly go through a AAA every week or two not to have to worry about recharging the battery every couple days (and not having to bring the recharger with me when I travel).

More Sweet Setups

Justin’s setup is just one in a series of sweet Mac Setups.

Reader’s Setup: Justin Pennington

Reader’s Setup: Stephen Hackett

Stephen Hackett gets paid to be a nerd. He’s the service manager at an Apple-Authorized Service Provider right outside of Memphis, Tenn. When not healing Macs, he takes a photo a day as part of an on-going art project, babbles away on Twitter, writes on his blog about Macs, design, and journalism, and chills with his wife and their 11-month old son. The most important thing you need to know about Stephen is that he has a dogcow tattoo.

Stephen’s Setup:

1. What does your desk look like?

The desk of Stephen Hackett

The desk of Stephen Hackett

2. What is your current Mac setup?

For my day job, I carry a 13-inch MacBook Pro, which is pretty much the perfect notebook. It’s small, light and very powerful.

At home, I use a 24-inch iMac powered by a 2.93Ghz processor and 4 GB of RAM.

To house my massive iTunes and Aperture libraries, I have a 1TB RAID housed in a Guardian MAXimus box hooked up to the iMac via FireWire 800. I also have a set of Western Digital 750GB ‘My Book’ drives that are used for rotating backups. When one is at home, the other is locked up at work.

I type on an Apple Extended II keyboard hooked to the iMac via a Griffin iMate ADB-USB adaptor. The Extended II is the best keyboard Apple ever shipped, and with a little utility called Keyboard Maestro, I have the function keys mapped like on Apple’s new chiclet keyboards.

My wife hates that keyboard.

The SoundSticks were a gift from a client, and while they’re old (and take up a USB port), the sound is fantastic — way better than the built-in speakers on the iMac. And boy, can that sub rumble.

The desk was a gift from my wife’s uncle. It weighs like 200 pounds and is ugly as sin, but I love it. Interestingly, it has an AT&T inventory tag on it, dated 1991. It’s probably stolen property.

3. Why are you using this setup?

The MacBook Pro is just perfect for what I do for a living. In any given day, I’m sitting at my desk, slaving over the repair bench or stuffed into someone’s server closet fixing a sick Xserve — usually all three by lunchtime. The 13-inch MacBook Pro is small and powerful, and the battery life is fantastic. And with FireWire 800, it really is a professional machine. You can’t get a better notebook for $1200. Period.

On the home front, I opted the 24-inch iMac for a couple of reasons. I wanted a powerful machine without having to spend the money for a Mac Pro. With it’s 2.93Ghz Core2Duo processor and NVIDIA GeForce GT 120, this machine cuts through Aperture and the CS 4 apps like butter. I never find myself wishing I had opted for the tower.

My wife and I don’t own a television, but with the 24-inch model, we can watch anything we want to on the iMac easily. Between Hulu, Netflix and iTunes, anyone can go without a television. Try it. Your brain will thank you later.

The RAID allows me to store my iTunes and Aperture libraries in a way I know they are safe (even though that box is backed up offsite as well). I also use the RAID to store all of the various software installers and images I’ve collected over my years as a Mac technician. I mean, I never know when I’ll need to burn a copy of the OS 8.5 install disc.

I’ve got the army of backup hard drives because you can’t be too careful with data. Especially if that data includes baby photos.

4. What software do you use on a daily basis, and for what do you use it?

Here’s a brief list, excluding the built-in apps like Mail, iChat and Safari:

  • Lightspeed to track service tickets and repairs at work.
  • MarsEdit for blogging, as it’s far superior in every way than WordPress’ web interface. Likewise, I am in love with Tweetie.
  • Aperture for my photography work. I tried Lightroom, and just couldn’t get used to it.
  • Adobe CS4, Transmit and CSSEdit for any freelance design projects.
  • I use MobileMe to keep data between the two machines and my iPhone in sync. After trying to live without it, I simply can’t. I use Dropbox instead of MobileMe’s iDisk, however, because it’s more reliable and much faster.

Under it all, I’m running Snow Leopard. I live on the edge because my customers do.

5. Do you own any other Mac gear?

I have a 16 GB white iPhone 3GS, a 2nd generation iPod Shuffle and a 3rd generation 40GB iPod. The 3GS is the best iPhone yet, and I went with white this time around just to mix it up, and man, it looks good. I rock the old iPod in my truck. I don’t need videos while driving, so why have a newer model? Plus, carrying an old iPod has done great things for my street cred. I think.

I’ve got an Airport Extreme – the first box-style one, before the Gigabit Ethernet model – and an Airport Express hooked up at home. They’re great, and have never given me any trouble.

I’ve got a pile of old machines as well: a couple of Mac SEs, an iMac G3, a Clamshell iBook and a Pismo. The Pismo is my favorite of my older machines. It was a great notebook and runs Tiger pretty well.

6. Do you have any future upgrades planned?

At this point, I’m running current hardware all over the place. Due to my ever-expanding media collection, that 1TB RAID is going to be full by the end of the year, so I’ll need to address that soon — probably in the form of a Christmas present to myself.

More Sweet Setups

Stephen’s setup is just one in a series of sweet Mac Setups.

Reader’s Setup: Stephen Hackett

Frequently Used Keyboard Shortcuts From My Day

I. LaunchBar

To invoke LaunchBar I use command + space. My most frequently used LaunchBar initials and their respective applications are:

S Safari
M Mail
IT iTunes
IC iCal
F Fever
T Tweetie
N NetNewsWire
C Coda
TR Transmit
ME MarsEdit

II. FastScripts

AppleScripts I use regularly, executed with keyboard shortcuts by FastScripts:

SCRIPT: KEY COMBO:
Activate Mail shift + command + m
Send Mail message to Yojimbo option + command + y
Non-top-posting email reply option + r
Send Web page to Yojimbo option + y
Title case service control + option + command + t

III. Etcetera

A couple of my favorite apps which make use of universal hotkeys for the keyboard enthusiast:

ACTION: KEY COMBO:
Invoke the Quick Entry dialog in Things shift + command + space
Invoke Thing’s autofilled Quick Entry dialog shift + command + t
Invoke Yojimbo’s Quick Entry Pane shift + command + y
Frequently Used Keyboard Shortcuts From My Day

Good Morning

The beginning and the end are my two favorite times of the day. This is when my thoughts are most clear and distractions seem most distant.

Mornings are usually spent quietly in my office with a hot cup of coffee.

Good Morning

Half the recipe to a good cup of coffee is a good cup, and this mug from Peet’s is my favorite. It’s my companion as I journal new thoughts and ideas, check my email, read a book, or watch a lame YouTube video my sister sent.

It’s this time early in the day that I cherish the more than any other. The coffee is fresh, and even though I have half-a-dozen meetings planned and a to-do list as long as my arm, the day still feels like a blank canvas.

Good Morning

A Pretty Good Script for Creating a Yojimbo Bookmark From Safari, With Tags, Comments, and Growl Support

Up until last month I had always just used the “Archive to Yojimbo” and “Bookmark to Yojimbo” javascript bookmarklets which the Bare Bones team provides. Saved as triggers that I launched through Quicksilver, I had been getting on fine with them for quite some time.

But after my switch to FastScripts instead of Quicksilver it seemed a good time to finally write my own, ideal script for crating a Yojimbo bookmark. Though a slew of AppleScripts out there already do this, none of them work quite the way I wanted.

Since I never know what words I’ll use when searching for some long lost bit of info in Yojimbo, I’ve found that the more metadata I can give an item when it’s created the easier it will be to find it some day. Which is why, in addition to tags, I wanted a ridiculously simple way to get a portion of text from the Web page into Yojimbo’s Comments box when creating a new bookmark.

The easiest way to do this is to take a highlighted chunk of text from the Web page and tell the script throw it into the new bookmark item as a comment. And that is precisely what this script does.

When invoked, the script takes the frontmost tab in Safari and creates a new bookmark item in Yojimbo. You’ll be given the opportunity to enter any tags before the bookmark is created, and if you’ve selected any text from the Web page you’re bookmarking it will get pasted into the Comments box of your new Yojimbo bookmark. Finally, once the script has successfully run, a Growl notification will let you know.

Additional cleverness comes to play in the case that your URL is already bookmarked in Yojimbo. If so, a dialog box will let you add the URL again or open Yojimbo and edit the pre-bookmarked item. Or you can simply cancel and pretend like you knew all along that you’d already bookmarked that page. (This bit of functionality is based heavily on another bookmark in Yojimbo script written by Jim DeVona.)

The section of the script that prompts for tags is based on a script by John Gruber. His original code looks like this:

set _tags to {}
try
    display dialog "Tags:" default answer ""
    set _answer to text returned of result
    if _answer is not "" then
        set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ", "
        set _tags to text items of _answer
    end if
end try

 

It’s short and clever, but once you run it you’re committed. Sometimes I invoke the script and, for whatever reason, I change my mind. But with the above code, hitting the “Cancel” button doesn’t quit out of the script — rather it just continues on without generating any tags and the bookmark is still created.

And so I modified John’s tag input code to bail if you hit Escape or click “Cancel”. To bookmark an item with no tags just leave the input field empty and press Return or click “OK”.

set _tags to {}
set _dlog2 to display dialog "Set tags (if any):" default answer ¬
    "" default button 2 cancel button 1
set _action2 to the button returned of _dlog2
if _action2 = "" or _action2 = "Cancel" then
    return
else
    set _answer to text returned of _dlog2
    if _answer is not "" then
        set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ", "
        set _tags to text items of _answer
    end if
end if

 

Download

Updated on March 20, 2012:

  • Zachery Jensen updated the script so that it now properly takes the selected text from your current Safari window and places it as a comment in the Yojimbo bookmark.
  • The `tell` command which previously referenced “GrowlHelperApp” now references “Growl” in order to support the Mac App Store version of the app.

P.S. Mail To Yojimbo script updated also

The MailToYojimbo script is updated as well with the improved Tag support (added October 2009) and fixes for the new Growl (added March 2012).

A Pretty Good Script for Creating a Yojimbo Bookmark From Safari, With Tags, Comments, and Growl Support

Reader’s Setup: Patrick Rhone

Patrick Rhone is a Technology Consultant, Mac Geek, Productivity Nerd, and Blogger. He lives in Saint Paul, MN where he lives and loves with his wife, two teenage sons and toddler daughter. For the time being, he is probably best known as the Curator for Minimal Mac, a site focused on making your Mac simpler.

Patrick’s Setup:

1. What does your setup look like?

The Mac setup of Patrick Rhone

The Mac setup of Patrick Rhone

The Mac setup of Patrick Rhone

The Mac setup of Patrick Rhone

2. What is your current Mac setup?

My main machine is a “Blackbook” 2.0GHz 13-inch that I have upgraded with 4GB of RAM and a 320GB, 7200 RPM hard drive. I rarely come close to using all that that power and space. In fact, I currently have 240GB available.

I don’t have any music or movies or such (we will get to that later). I really do try to keep my own computing world as stripped down to the basics as possible. As a tech consultant, I do need to have it available if the need arises for a client. For instance, there are times when I may need to recover a couple of hundred gigs of data from a dying machine. Having more hard disk space than I need for myself allows me to avoid having to carry an external drive.

While at my desk, I use an Apple Bluetooth Wireless Keyboard (the tiny, sexy one) and a Logitech VX Revolution mouse.

3. Why are you using this setup?

I am a big fan of portability and, at the time I bought it, this was the most portable of Apple’s lineup. Previous to this, I had a Powerbook G4 12-inch which is my favorite Mac of all time. When the second one of those died on me Apple no longer made them. This was the best choice available (and it was Black). My business requires me to be out of the office on a regular basis at client locations. Therefore, I really need to have a good machine with me for information retrieval and troubleshooting purposes.

If I had my druthers I would have a Macbook Air but it lacks the ports and space I need to get my job done most days.

4. What software do you use on a daily basis, and for what do you use it?

It may be boring to some but Safari, Mail and TextEdit are actually the most used programs on my Mac. If I have to write anything it usually begins in TextEdit and moves along from there. I think it is the most underrated program on the Mac.

I am also a big fan of Fluid.app, which allows you to make site specific browsers. I have one for Helvetireader. I have one for the 37 Signals suite of apps, because I use those for my business. There are a few more for other projects too. It is a great way to reduce distraction and focus in on just one website or a small group. It even has a full screen mode (and I love me some full screen mode).

Beyond that, the list is varied. I use BusyCal for my calendar, Notational Velocity for quick notes, Yojimbo for longer and graphic heavy stuff (PDFs, Websites, RTF, etc.), Tweetie for Twitter, and Concentrate for, well, concentrating.

Of course, my Mac life would not even be complete without Quicksilver.

5. Do you own any other Mac gear?

This is where it gets fun…

I still have a Powerbook G4 12-inch, which I keep on my workbench. I currently have it set up as a “Writing Mac“. If I really need to get some writing work done I have been doing it there lately. My workbench also always has miscellaneous client machines and projects strewn about.

I have an old Mac Mini G4 that is the nerve center for my backup (using CrashPlan Pro) and media center setup. It sits headless and runs a copy of Mac OS Server 10.5. I remote into it when I need to configure anything but that is rare. I have it connected to a Drobo that is currently providing 2 Terabytes of storage space. Not only does this allow me to provide backup to my family and my clients, I also have a ton of (legally purchased) movies and music being served up to…

My iMac 20-inch, which acts as a media center for the house. My wife and I do not watch enough TV to justify having cable. Instead, we use this. It runs Plex which is a fantastic media center interface. Not only does it allow access to the media on the Drobo, it also has plugins for Hulu, Netflix, BBC, and much, much more. If it is available as an internet stream you can watch it through Plex. It also has an Elgato EyeTV hooked up for watching and recording over the air DTV.

One of the beautiful things about the setup above is that I can stream music and watch movies on any of the other machines in the house as well. This alleviates the need to keep it locally on any of the other machines.

I also have an Airport Extreme for the wireless router with an Airport Express to stream music to our office/bedroom/loft space and provide ample coverage (we have a 2800 sq ft home).

I also have an iPhone 3G, a 5G 80gb iPod (both of which sync to the iMac for the music, movies, etc.), and lots of other miscellaneous pieces and parts because it’s an occupational hazard.

6. Do you have any future upgrades planned?

I think this setup will serve me well for a long time to come. I can’t imagine needing anything else, unless Apple serves up the iTablet anytime soon of course.

More Sweet Setups

Patrick’s setup is just one in a series of sweet Mac Setups.

Reader’s Setup: Patrick Rhone

Reader’s Setup: Grant Blakeman

Grant Blakeman makes magical things on the internets. He runs [gb] Studio, a small, Boulder, Colorado-based design studio where he designs interfaces, brands companies, and builds web apps. He also likes to help bands promote their music.

In his spare time, he pretends to write, takes photos, and makes the occasional video.

Grant’s Setup:

1. What does your desk(s) look like?

Gran't Setup at Trident

Gran't Setup at Work

Grant's Setup at Home

2. What is your current setup?

In the few years I’ve now been working for myself, one thing I’ve come to realize is that space is important. My workspace, whether it be digital (on the computer) or physical (where I’m sitting at a given moment) has a huge influence on both my creativity and productivity at any given moment in time. I’ve also come to recognize that I work best in focused chunks of time, and that changing my work venue throughout the day is simply more enjoyable than working from one place for 8-12 hours straight.

The Rotation

I rotate my work day between several different work spaces. I usually start the day at Trident, my favorite coffee shop in Boulder. It’s about a 5 minute walk from my apartment, in the heart of town, on the west end of Pearl Street. I like the mix of people, and, after showing up at relatively the same time every day for a couple years, the community. For whatever reason, it’s one of the most creatively stimulating places for me. If I need to sketch some logos or mull over a creative problem, it’s often the space I turn to.

I show up, get a pot of green tea, and crack open the 15″ MacBook Pro. I’ve got one of the weird 2.33 GHz Core 2 Duo versions that can only address 3gb of RAM—even though it has 4gb installed—but it gets the job done. Mornings are usually spent catching up on email, perusing blogs, and maybe getting one significant chunk of work done on what’s left of the battery.

The office is usually the next stop in my day. I’m lucky enough to share some office space with skinnyCorp Boulder, the fantastic folks behind Threadless. Their building is another 5 minutes walk from Trident, to the other end of Pearl Street. I love being able to walk everywhere, and the breaks in my day create nice distractions or impromptu meetings with others from around town. My own office is hard to miss as you come up the stairs. Former officemate, Andrew Hyde, and I decided to deck it out as a legit mountain log cabin. We even grabbed some pine boards from a sawmill and hung them on the wall. Let’s just say I have a permanent pine air freshener.

In the office, I network my laptop with my Mac Pro via firewire. Projects I’m currently working on always reside on the MacBook Pro for mobility, but in the office I take advantage of the 2 2.66GHz Dual-Core Xeon chips and 7gb of RAM in the Mac Pro. I love Apple’s aesthetic, but I couldn’t beat Dell’s prices when it came to 24″ and 20″ monitors. I also use Teleport. to control the laptop that sits beside my desk with the keyboard and mouse from the desktop.

Some days I play ping-pong work late into the night at the office, others I head back home to my apartment home office—the third of my primary work spaces. I use the MacBook Pro at home, and also keep an old HP ScanJet scanner handy for pulling in sketches and other stuff. My apartment is small, but I love the flexibility of being able to work from home so it is still important to me to dedicate space in the apartment for work. I use MobileMe to get back into the office virtually if I need to.

3. Why are you using this setup?

Your mileage may very, but for me, it’s important to mix the day up. I work a lot of hours, and the little breaks and transitions between places help keep me going. I also love having the ability to choose a different work location based on a whim—what kind of mood I’m in, or what kind of creative space I am looking for. The MacBook Pro and MobileMe keep me, well, mobile, but I love the power of the Mac Pro and large screens for heavy lifting. Having an office outside of my home, with other amazingly creative people, also allows me to set a personal/work boundary when I need too and not feel like I should be working whenever I’m at home. When I first went out on my own, I worked exclusively from my house and this became a problem.

On the more technical side, the Mac Pro has 4 500gb drives in it. One is for active projects, a second is for archival. Both of those back up to the other two internal drives on a nightly basis via SuperDuper. The laptop is backed up automatically when I’m home via a 500gb Time Capsule. I also use 2 sets of 500gb Lacie Drives in rotation for offsite backups. Once you lose work due to a hard drive failure like I did years ago, you take backups very seriously. There is also the expectation in the design industry that former clients could come back even years later and ask for access to files they assume you still have.

4. What software do you use on a daily basis, and for what do you use it?

Desktop Apps

  • Mail – I also use it for my RSS reader (please don’t hold that against me)
  • iCal – I love how MobileMe synchs calendars/contacts between my two computers and phone. It’s rather seamless.
  • Tweetie – I can’t imagine why someone would use another Twitter client. There, I said it.
  • Adium – I’m not available to chat much because I find it distracting, but when I am, it’s nice to be able to combine AIM, MSN, Google Talk, etc., all in one place
  • Safari (well, really Webkit) – daily surfing and development
  • Firefox – for development (although Webkit’s Web Inspector is weaning me off Firebug)
  • Photoshop – I mainly use this app to view the Spinning Beach Ball of Death, and sometimes for designing.
  • Illustrator – I love me some logo work and vector goodness.
  • iWork – the only Mac MS software on my computer is Sliverlight (*cough*, ahem, Netflix).
  • Textmate – frontend HTML/CSS coding is a joy with Textmate, but I really love how well it handles full Rails projects.
  • Terminal
  • Transmit – I’ve used it for years and just don’t think anyone can beat this multi-talented file transfer tool.
  • Navicat – for managing databases (what can I say, I’d rather not write SQL queries).
  • Parallels Desktop – for browser testing on the Windows side – the Mac Pro has 3 different WinXP images depending on what versions of browsers I need to test.
  • SuperDuper – King of Backups.

Web Apps

  • Basecamp – project management & client communications.
  • Blinksale – invoice management.
  • SliceManager – for managing my Slicehost servers. I do most of my hosting through them.
  • Backstage Mixing Board – Custom-built app for checking Backstage sales/download stats & customer service.
  • Google Apps – mail for all my different ventures (and clients’ mail).
  • Brightkite – I track everywhere I go so it’s easier for people to stalk me.

Server Software

  • nginx – seriously, I love this little web server.
  • Phusion Passenger – I’ve just started using Passenger and it makes Rails hosting ridiculously easy. Just add water.
  • Mongrel – I run Mongrel on top of nginx for the sites that I haven’t transitioned over to Passenger yet.
  • MySQL – you know, for keepin’ the datas.

5. Do you own any other Mac gear?

6. Do you have any future upgrades planned?

I just ordered the Mac Box Set with Snow Leopard. Eventually I’m guessing a 3GS will find its way into may hands, and I’m actually having to come up with good reasons not to buy a new MacBook Pro, because I really don’t need one. I’m also hoping to do some sort of Mac Mini / Flat-screen TV combo in the not-too-distant future.

7. More Photos

More Sweet Setups

Grant’s setup is just one in a series of sweet Mac Setups.

Reader’s Setup: Grant Blakeman

The Omega Karate Student Creed

For over a decade across my teenage years I studied and practiced Karate and Tae Kwon Do.

Shawn Blanc Karate Kick, Circa 1995

Martial Arts isn’t just about kicking wooden boards held by your cringing, fellow fighters. It’s also about becoming a better person. A true Martial Artist has physical goals as well as internal values: speed, skill, flexibility, and the ability to take a punch; honesty, integrity, perseverance, and respect.

Every day at Omega Karate we would recite our student creed — reminding ourselves that yes, we wanted to be like Bruce Lee, but we also needed to grow in character.

  1. I will avoid anything that could harm my mind or body.
  2. I will practice honesty and integrity in all my doings.
  3. I will show respect to myself, my instructors, my parents, my fellow students, and my Do Jang (the Karate studio).
  4. I will alway honor my word and my commitments.
  5. I will see all my tasks to the end.
  6. I will use Karate for self-defense only.

It’s been nearly another decade since I last tied on my Black Belt, but, because of these values, I never really took it off.

The Omega Karate Student Creed