Articles

Daring Serif Style for NetNewsWire

The Daring Gradient Bar style by John Gruber is one of the better default themes that ships with NetNewsWire. It is a simple, good looking style that adapts to any type of post from any site’s feed.

The same can not be said for most of the styles available for NNW — default or not. Even the non-ugly ones that sport fancy CSS don’t necessarily mold well to the array of sites in a subscription list.

I have been using a modified version of the Daring Gradient Bar style for a while. Daring Serif sports Georgia for the body with red links. I prefer it, and I thought I’d share the love.

Download the Daring Serif style for NetNewsWire.

Daring Serif Style for NetNewsWire

iPhone’s Misplaced Decline Button?

I have now owned my iPhone longer than any other mobile.

Over the past decade or so, I’ve gone through a slew of pagers and cell phones. None of them sticking around as long as my iPhone. They each got boring or broken or sold on eBay. The iPhone, however, still feels brand new to me even though it currently holds the longest tenure of any other phone I’ve owned.

After 18 months of daily use, I’ve develop quite a few habits and familiarities. Such as the position I hold the phone when talking on it; or the direction it goes into my pocket; where I place in my car; the way I spin it when I’m bored; or how I hit the Lock button to end a phone conversation.

There is one thing that I still have not gotten used to: the location of the ‘Decline’ and ‘Answer’ buttons when there’s an incoming call and the phone’s screen is not locked. This throws me off every single time.

My screen is nearly always locked; it’s another one of my habits. I always lock it when I’m done with it, even if it’s sitting on my desk. Leaving the screen unlocked is like leaving the top off a bottle of Coke — it just feels wrong. And besides, it wastes the battery.

And so, when my phone rings, it usually looks something like this:

iPhone Locked with incoming call from my sister

But inevitably there are the times when I get an incoming call and, for whatever reason, the screen is not locked. (Usually because I’m using the phone for any number of reasons other than talking on it.) And when that is the case, the incoming call screen looks a bit different:

iPhone not locked with incoming call from my sister

The reason you have to “slide to answer” an incoming call on a locked screen is so you don’t accidentally reach into your pocket and answer a call you didn’t want to. But if the screen is already unlocked you are given a different way to answer. You now have the option to simply tap a button to answer or tap another to decline.

The locked versus unlocked options make sense. If you’re in the middle of using your phone and someone calls but you want to decline, it doesn’t make sense to wait 15 seconds for the thing to finally stop ringing, or be forced to lock your phone. The feature here isn’t the ease of answering a call — tapping the Answer button is just about as simple as sliding — rather, it’s the ability to quickly decline the call and get right back to what you were doing.

The trouble happens if you do want to answer the call. Now you’re dealing with the fact that iPhone offers two different locations to touch in order to answer an incoming call. If answering from a locked-screen state, you touch the bottom-left corner and slide to the right; if answering from a non-locked-screen state you touch the bottom-right corner.

If my screen is not locked and I answer an incoming call by muscle memory alone, chances are good I will accidentally decline the call when what I wanted was to answer it. Usually what happens is I press the area of the screen where the Decline button is by habit, but then realize I’m pressing ‘Decline’ and not ‘Answer’. So I hold my thumb down and slide it off the Decline button and then tap the Answer button.

If you do push the Decline button, and slide over onto the Answer button nothing happens because the Decline button is activated on release. Unlike the single-tap-hack for the period button before the 1.1.1 software update, you can’t answer a phone call by starting on the Decline button, sliding over to Answer and then releasing (a gesture that would duplicate the “slide to answer” action).

Furthermore, there are times that I press the Decline button, but realizing I pressed the wrong one, panic by letting off quickly and (in this case) sending my sister straight to voicemail. (Sorry Sis.)

If your standard response to an incoming call is to answer it, then the standard location is actually not where you’re used to it being—the bottom left corner.

On the other hand, if your standard response to an incoming call is to not answer it, this still doesn’t justify the placement of the Decline button. When locked, if you want to decline the call you can (a) ignore it, or (b) press the Lock button on the top of the phone two times (one press to silence the ringer and another press to send the caller to voicemail). You can still do this if the screen is unlocked and the Decline button is there, though it will interrupt your previous task.

This flip-flopped button placement doesn’t end here…

On the Visual Voicemail screen, the green Call Back button can be found on the bottom-left.

Location of Call Back button on iPhone voicemail

During a phone call, if you navigate to the keypad, the red End Call button is the one on the bottom-left of the screen, whereas the “continue-type” button (‘Hide Keypad’), though not green, is on the bottom-right.

iPhone Locked with incoming call from my sister

Finally, the default location of the Phone App’s green icon is the bottom-left corner of the iPhone’s Dock.

Default Dock Apps

Context vs. Consistency

As Jason Fried pointed out regarding the seemingly strange, right-hand alignment of the iTunes icon in the iPhone OS 1.1 update, button placement is not always done for the sake of consistency. Sometimes it’s for the sake of context.

They didn’t put it where consistency tells you to put it. That would be on the left side. They put it where context tells you to put it. On the right side right above the iPod icon. Even the icon’s arrow points right down to the iPod.

[…]

I love that Apple favored context over consistency in this design decision. Consistency is the easy choice. Context is the thinking choice.

Although the flip-flopping placement of iPhone’s “initiate a phone conversation” buttons is not consistent, they may be rightly placed given each one’s context.

On iPhone, standard movement between screens means that to get more detailed, or to “drill down” within an app, you should move to the right. Getting less detailed, or “drilling up”, means you move to the left.

In context to the “slide to answer” button on a locked screen, the thumb moves from left to right — in essence, drilling down to the next screen which is, in this case, a live phone conversation.

If this is truly the case, then the Decline and Answer buttons on a non-locked screen — though opposite in terms of consistency — are accurate in terms of context. To “drill down” to the next screen (which is the live phone call) you should be led to the right. Thus, the placement of the Answer button on the right-hand side.

But wait…

Even though drilling down to more detail means moving to the right, and drilling up means moving to the left, those directions are almost always led by the buttons on the top of an application’s screen, not the bottom (i.e. Mail, Text, Settings, iPod, Notes and others).

On a phone with physical buttons there is no choice but to design by consistency because the buttons are always in the same place. Since iPhone’s screen has no physical buttons, the placement of each screen’s buttons can also be designed to be relevant given the context of the current screen. Thus, there are times when a design decision can be based on more than just consistency — it can also include context.

When writing about my MacBook Pro in early 2008, I wrote about the implementation of multi-touch on the trackpad, saying:

Just like on the iPhone, the multi-touch gestures make perfect sense in context. Which means I don’t have to think about them. Once I settled that three fingers swiping from left to right means “next” I find myself naturally using it in places I hadn’t even thought about, without thinking about it. It already feels natural.

In iCal the three-finger swipe takes you to the next or previous day/week/month in your calendar. In Apple’s Mail the swipe takes you to the next email message. In Preview, you get the next page. And it’s the same with pinching: On the desktop, pinching enlarges or shrinks your icon sizes. In Preview, it enlarges the image or document.

My point being: when you are designing by context the user is best served when they do not have to stop and think about how to make the choice they’re being presented with.

Consider context verses consistency in a car. When driving forward, turning the steering wheel to the left turns the car to the left. When driving in reverse, turning the steering wheel to the left turns the car to the right. Imagine if auto engineers decided that turning the steering wheel to the left should always steer the car to the left rather than the wheels. If that were the case, the front wheels may react completely opposite to the steering wheel’s input depending on what gear the transmission was in.

There are times when designing by context is better than designing by consistency alone. Though the placement of the Decline and Answer buttons may make sense in context, it is so far from consistency that, in this case, it is the wrong decision. And after 18 months of use the dumb thing still throws me off.

iPhone’s Misplaced Decline Button?

Doubt is Torture

A while back, Rands gave a recommended book shout out on Twitter. Writing Down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg. I ordered a used copy on Amazon for about $4 and have been reading a chapter or two every night for the past few weeks.

Reading Natalie’s book is a lot like sitting in on a question and answer time where people ask all the right questions and she gives all the right answers.

You don’t have to read the book front to back either. The chapters are short and can be read in any order you like; each one is its own little nugget of advice or food for thought. After a short time of reading her book, Natalie already feels like a trusted friend; someone who’s not afraid to shoot it straight; someone who has nothing to hide.

So far I have been reading the book straight through, because I’m systematic like that. But last night I decided to skip to a random chapter. I landed on page 108, “Doubt is Torture”.

This chapter is so good I wanted to share it here:

A friend of mine was planning to move to Los Angeles with the hope of connecting with the music industry. He was a musician and songwriter, and it was time for him to follow his aspirations. Katagiri Roshi said to him, “Well, if you’ve really decided to go, let’s see what your attitude is.”

“Well, I’ll try my best. I figure I have to give it a shot, and if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. I’ll just accept it.”

Roshi responded, “That’s the wrong attitude. If they knock you down, you get up. If they knock you down again, get up. No matter how many times they knock you down, get up again. That is how you should go.”

The same is true in writing. For every book that makes it, there are probably thousands that don’t even get published. We must continue anyway. If you want to write, write. If one book doesn’t get published, write another one. Each one will get better because you have all the more practice behind you.

Every other month I am ready to quit writing. The inner dialogue goes something like this: “This is stupid. I am making no money, there’s no career in poetry, no one cares about it, it’s lonely, I hate it, it’s dumb, I want a regular life.” These thoughts are torture. Doubt is torture. If we give ourselves fully to something, it will be clearer when it might be appropriate to quit. It is a constant test of perseverance. Sometimes I listen to the doubting voice and get sidetracked for a while. “I think I’ll go into sales, open up a cafe so other writers can go there, sip cappuccino and write, or get married, have babies, be a homemaker and make wonderful chicken dinners.”

Don’t listen to doubt. It leads no place but to pain and negativity. It is the same with your critic who picks at you while you are trying to write: “That’s stupid. Don’t say that. Who do you think you are anyway, trying to be a writer?” Don’t pay attention to those voices. There is nothing helpful there. Instead, have a tenderness and determination toward your writing, a sense of humor and a deep patience that you are doing the right thing. Avoid getting caught by that small gnawing mouse of doubt. See beyond it to the vastness of life and the belief in time and practice.

What Natalie says here is incredibly relevant to the “self publishing revolution”. Yet she wrote this back in 1986 — way before weblogs were around.

I try to encourage people to start a weblog. I am amazed at how many people consider themselves a writer, or who hope to become one, and weblogs have done something that journals never did. They’ve given an extra push of motivation to those people who always wanted to write, but never did.

Unfortunately, it seems the same motivation which encourages us to publish, also feeds those voice of self-doubt that Natalie talks about. I don’t know how many posts I’ve started and deleted because I thought they weren’t relevant or exciting or interesting enough. Which is why I love this sentence so much: “Instead, have a tenderness and determination toward your writing, a sense of humor and a deep patience that you are doing the right thing. Avoid getting caught by that small gnawing mouse of doubt.”

I’ve been publishing online since the beginning of 2006. It is a medium that works for me, and I am confident without it I would not be writing as well or as often. But the difficulty and the doubt of writing never seem to go away. I either learn to press through or quit.

I’m digging Writing Down the Bones because it’s helping me become a better writer, not just to write better. And yes, there is a difference.

Doubt is Torture

Twitter Plugins for WordPress

For the two years that I have been on Twitter, I having been using Dave Kellam’s TwitterRSS plugin for WordPress to display my current Twitter status in the sidebar. Unfortunately it stopped working after my upgrade to version 2.7 a few days ago and was only displaying the status which was most current just before I upgraded.

Since Dave has ceased updates to his plugin I went in search of a new one.

This plugin from Rick Gonzalez is an excellent replacement. It is easy to style plus it displays a permalink and a time stamp for the latest status being displayed, which I think is nice. Furthermore, if Twitter is down you see a nice message: “No public Twitter messages”, instead of a blank space. (Or you can make edits to the plugin’s php file to show your own message.)

Twitter Plugins for WordPress

A Review of Two Things: One For the Mac and One For iPhone

How many task-management apps have you used in the past six months?

Finding that single piece of software which does exactly what we need when we ourselves don’t actually know what it is we need can be a pain. It’s a Tinkerfest.

Task-management apps are multiplying faster than you can say “get this done.”1 And the nerds that use them are moving to each new release in hopes of relieving the clutter and stress that is their life. It’s also a Switcherfest.

I don’t think the new spins on productivity software are because we have yet to witness the creation of the Ultimate App and Workflow. These unique and diverse apps are being written because people are unique and diverse.

Each of us has our own way of dealing with responsibility and our own expression of productivity. Tinkering and then switching is usually not the fault of the software. We’re not looking for the best app, but rather the best app for us.

Chris Bowler wrote, “One cost of consistent tinkering is that you never spend the time digging deeper in an application.”

I am not a GTD guru, but I do take being organized seriously. I have been using Cultured Code’s task-management apps, Things, for quite a while, and I have had nothing but fantastic user experiences and have witnessed un-anticipated scalability.

Also I am an evangelist of great software. If I have to use it all day every day it had better not be crap. And Things is not crap.

I Used to Just Worry About my Comic Book Collection

When I was a kid my cousin used to visit every summer, and our first job was working at a greenhouse.

It was my parent’s greenhouse so Nate and I got paid a very generous four dollars-per-hour. In cash (we didn’t have bank accounts), which was convenient so we could leave immediately after work to buy comic books and rare coins.

In those younger days we had just two things to be responsible for: (1) Be to work by 9:00, and (2) keep out of trouble the rest of the time.

Wow. It’s not like that anymore. But I wouldn’t want it to be…

In Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography, he says, “When men are employed, they are best contented; for on the days they worked they were good-natured and cheerful, and, with the consciousness of having done a good day’s work, they spent the evening jollily; but on our idle days they were mutinous and quarrelsome.”

Having responsibility can be fantastic. When there is a job that needs accomplishing, it makes a person want to get out of bed in the morning. It’s good for the soul.

When you are in charge of your own self, there are many things that need to get done simply to keep up with the pace of life. It’s not the same as when you were 12. It’s also not the same for every person.

Some people only need 10 minutes in the morning with a cup of java, a pen and a piece of scratch paper. They think for a moment, then they jot down all that needs to be done that day. And that’s the end of it.

For others of us the things we place on our to-do list carry all sorts of intricate details. We don’t live our life one day’s to-do list at a time. We have multiple projects, jobs, and responsibilities all spinning at once. They span over weeks, months, and years. They involve multiple people and multiple areas of life.

A system for Getting Things Done is much more than just a place to dump the multitude of tasks and responsibilities as opposed to absorbing them until you explode. David Allen knew that responsibility is good for you but that it can also totally stress you out. But with a cool head, a good tool, and some focus, you too can live a stress-free and productive life.

Things

Things came on the scene when Version 0.8a was released as a private alpha to 12,000 users on December 10, 2007. It later went public beta, until the spit-and-polished version 1.0 was released at Macworld on the 6th of January 2009, and went on to win the Macworld Best of Show award.

If you missed some of the development process of Things along its journey, I highly recommend you read through Cultured Code’s weblog archive. Some fantastic stories of how key features came about (such as the repeating task dialog box, or the iPhone app’s UI). And if you really want to geek out, you can peruse the release notes for versions 0.8a right on up to the latest.

Something that makes Things such a great task management tool is that it seamlessly scales to suit any person’s productivity.

From his interview with MacApper, Jürgen Schweizer, the president of Cultured Code says:

Right from the beginning we wanted to create a tool that was easy to pick up yet powerful. It is no exaggeration, with Things it is possible to manage thousands of to-dos, but Things is also the application with the most modest learning curve.

Things not only scales horizontally — working transparently for the light GTDer and the guru alike. It also scales vertically, easily allowing you to create massively-long lists, multiple projects and detailed notes. Or, if you prefer, very few.

When I first began using Things, I only had a handful of to-do items each day. I had no projects and only a few areas of responsibility.

Currently I have 8 projects, 6 areas of responsibility and close to 100 individual to-do items logged. 16 of the to-do items are in my Today list and there is one straggler task waiting in my Inbox.

As my dependance on Things has increased over the months, I have yet to hit a learning curve. Not once did I stop and reassess what the heck I was doing with the thing. It just flowed. And it’s as helpful and organized for me now as it was when I had much less to do.

The reason I’ve grown so fond of Things is that it helps me to set it and forget it.

A Forgetful Task App

For better or for worse, I am a naturally organized person, and my brain is always thinking things through. Which means I don’t very much want a task management app for the sake of remembering something, but rather for the sake of forgetting it.

I need a place to dump all the ideas, projects and to-do items that come my way so I can happily live in the here-and-now rather than in the what’s-to-come. And Things’ ability to handle vast amounts of tasks while keeping them in order with lists and notes is better than any other app I’ve used.

Since I am always thinking things through, the most important feature for me has to be an easy and ubiquitous way to input my thoughts. This is common practice for productivity, so Things isn’t breaking the mold here. But the way it helps you capture your thoughts are smart and out of the way.

On the desktop version there is the HUD interface. Like Quicksilver, the HUD can be brought up at any time, in any application, via a keyboard shortcut (so long as Things is running in the Dock).

Things HUD. Click for Full-size

On the iPhone version there is a plus (+) symbol that lives in the bottom left-hand corner at all times (unless the on-screen keyboard is active). Regardless of what screen you are, on adding a new task is only a tap away.

Things touch. The bottom plus symbol. It's everywhere.

Both of these core features shout, you can jot down that pesky to-do at any moment it strikes your mind.

Notice how these two identical features have a completely different implementation? It’s a testimony to how well each individual app was thought through and developed. Not only are the two applications parallel to one another, they also hold their own as individual apps and are best-of-breed for their respective platform. But more on that later.

Ubiquitous capture is a great start, but it is just the start. Things also needs to work with me as I process and organize those tasks.

Using Things

Other than the quickies, entering in a task usually involves three parts:

  1. The Task Title. No rules. I jot down whatever is on my mind so I can get it out of my mind.
  2. Task Notes. Many of my daily responsibilities revolve around sending and replying to emails, so I get a lot of action items via my email inbox. Often there are files attached to the email, or other valuable info which may be relevant for when I get to that task. The email gets linked in the ‘Notes’ box of the task, and then moved to the Action folder in Mail.Links to email are dynamic, so if you drop the email link into Things while the email is in your Inbox, but then you move it to another folder, the link in Things follows the email. Even to the trash.
  3. Due Dates. I don’t want to leave all upcoming projects in the Inbox, nor do I want them in the ‘Today’ view. But it can be easy for a few important tasks to get lost in the sea of all the other tasks. Especially if it’s not related to a current project.I usually assign a due date to the task and then drop it into its area of responsibility or the project it belongs with.

    If it’s a loner task, I pick the due date based on my schedule and current priorities for my job. There are a few times in my week that I have large chunks of time blocked out with no set agenda. These are my “Open Work Times” and they are when I work on my to-do list. Usually.

    By setting due dates, I know that my own computer will bring the task back to my attention by shooting it into the “Today” list at its appointed time. And if the task becomes a priority before the due date I gave it, I have no doubt someone will be sure to let me know.

The elephant in the room that I continue to ignore is tags. Not because I don’t see the use for them, but because I never felt that bothering with them on the front end would prove useful to me on the back end.2

Using tags in Things could make a lot of sense if my day was constructed in such a way that I could sit down at my desk for 30 minutes with a single focus of, say, returning phone calls. In this situation bringing up all the tasks pinned with the ‘Phone’ tag (ha!) would be genius. But I don’t work that way in real life. So I don’t bother with tags.

One way I might see myself using tags for would be to mark priority. However, priorities are relative. What may be a priority today, may not be a priority tomorrow. And vice-a-versa. Thus, I rest my case.

Quick Entry HUD

About 90% of my tasks get put into Things via the quick entry HUD; even when Things is the forefront window already.

I have the keyboard shortcut set as SHIFT+COMMAND+SPACE. Since it’s the second most used keyboard shortcut for me I set it to be nearly identical to Quicksilver’s (CMD+SPACE), which is the first.

Inbox Management

I don’t worry about keeping my Things inbox at zero.

There are rarely more than a handful of tasks sitting there at any given time, and it’s usually because I don’t have a spot to put them yet. Or because it has been a long day.

Usually they are not something to be done today and just need some info and a due date before I slot them into a current project or area of responsibility (both of which will also add the task to the master ‘Next’ list).

If it is a very contrite task it gets left as-is and put into the ‘Someday’ list. About once a week I peruse through the ‘Next’ and ‘Someday’ lists to see if anything needs doing. I usually take care of one or two tasks just to feel good about myself.

This process is nearly the exact same way Chris Bowler cranks through his Inbox as well:

The great feature that I feel separates Things from other task management applications is the differentiation between projects and areas (areas of responsibility). I receive a lot of tasks that are not projects. And they fall under one of my areas I am responsible for. Things makes this a real ease and pleasure to document.

Seventy percent of the time I add items to Things, it is done through the Quick Entry panel and added to the Inbox. So I usually organize these tasks once a day, near the end of the day. Tasks are dragged to specific areas or added to existing projects. And when needed, new projects are created.

Moreover, when processing a task there is a clever feature which comes in handy if the task you wrote down should have been a project. By dragging a task out of its list, into the sidebar and dropping it over “Projects” will take the name of the task and create a new project automatically.

This is very handy feature indeed. Especially if you’ve created a single task which you realize may need to be broken down into multiple, smaller tasks…

Drag-n-Drop a task into a new project with Things

Projects

Benjamin Franklin, a productivity and time-management mastermind, said, “Little strokes, fell great oaks.”

When building a task-list for a project, keep each task bite-sized. Each task should be something with a clear and tangible goal, helping lead to the end of the completed project. A good comparison is a tried-and-true technique my father-in-law teaches for those seeking to get out of debt — technique Dave Ramsey refers to as the “Debt Snowball”.

You gather all your debts, and put them in order of amount owed. Nothing else. While paying the minimum on all current debts, you focus all extra money to pay off the debt with the smallest balance first. Once that debt is paid, you take the left-over money you’re not putting towards it and apply it to the next smallest. And so on until all your debts have been paid.

It’s great financial advice, and it has practical application in other projects beyond financial.

Breaking down a project into easily definable steps (“little strokes”), you are able to work with focus on a single goal at a time. Procrastination is easier to avoid when there is no ambiguity, which makes completing the project (“great oak”) on time with less stress a reality.

Printing a List

To keep the memory of old-fashioned lists alive, Things offers the ability to print your to-do list.

This can actually be very helpful if a project has multiple to-do items that need to be reviewed with your team and then farmed off to the poor sap who decided to sit in the corner.

Unfortunately, the printed version of a task list doesn’t look nearly as pretty as the screen version. Though I don’t want (or even expect) all the fancy UI elements to print out, I do want the list to be well-formatted. A cleaner layout, use of a serif and more white space would be a good start.

Things on iPhone

I use both versions of Things, and am very impressed at how much the two apps work and feel identical to one another. This may seem like a “well duh” observation, but think about the back-room thought that had to go into developing the iPhone version of Things.

When creating an iPhone version of a desktop app you can’t just drag and drop the code and click the “iPhoneitize This” button. You have to completely start from scratch. In this situation, the result was a fine-tuned, highly polished iPhone app which doubles as a fully functional, stand alone GTD tool. Not bad for one month’s worth of work.3

Those who use both the desktop and the iPhone version may not have considered that the iPhone version of Things had to hold its own since many of its users do not own a Mac or do not use Things on their desktop.

There are two dynamics to successfully building two versions of the same app onto two unique platforms (one for iPhone and one for the Mac).

  1. Both apps need to feel native on their respective platform. The iPhone version needs to feel like it belongs on the iPhone app, and the desktop version needs to feel like it belongs there.This doesn’t just mean the GUI should be different. It also means the layout and display of core functionality, along with the flow of navigation and the user interaction within the application all have to pull together to form a well developed iPhone app that still has striking familiarity to its desktop counterpart.

    It’s like the difference between Clue the board game, and Clue the card game. Same game, completely different implementation and interaction.

  2. Both apps need to feel like they are the same app. Meaning, the Cultured Code team had to reconcile the two-fold need for their iPhone version of Things to feel like a native iPhone app while also feeling like the very same application they made for the desktop.

Reconciling these goals was the same issue Apple had to tackle with their own programs such as iCal or Mail. iPhone’s Calendar app feels great all by itself. But if you use iCal on you Mac as well, you don’t feel like you’re working with two different programs. They are simultaneously the same and different.

And Cultured Code did it…

The desktop version of Things is very much Macintosh-esque. A great piece of software in terms of functionality and design. Mac users have high standards for their software beyond just that they work.

Similarly, the iPhone version of Things is very iPhone-y. All the functionality of a fully loaded task management app married to the ease of use of what feels like a native iPhone app.

In and Out

Things on the iPhone is only about as good as it is fast.

The sheer virtue that Things for iPhone is an app used on a mobile device means it will be used mostly by people when they are on the go. This is why the ability to create a new task from anywhere in the app is so important.

Something clever with Things on iPhone is that the “plus” (+) icon is dynamic. Meaning if you open up the task entry screen from the main window, the default location for that new task is the Inbox. But if you are working within an area of focus and tap the “plus”, then the default location for that new task is your current area of focus.

What I also like about adding new tasks to Things on the iPhone is that the keyboard slides up automatically and instantly, when the “New To Do” screen is launched. Though unfortunately it is not quite as refined as Mail on the iPhone where after tapping to create a new email message the on-screen keyboard slides up at the very same time as the blank email.

If you want to add a new task to a particular list or area of focus rather than the Inbox it is best to tap into the list you want to add the new task to first, and then create the task. Rather than creating the new task from the main screen and then selecting your desired location.

Choosing to create a new task from the home screen that you want to end up in the “Someday” list, the order would go something like this: (1) Tap the plus to invoke the New To Do window; (2) type in the task name; (3) tap the “Create In” box; (4) select from the lists, and finally; (5) Save.

That’s five total taps, not including the amount of letters and spaces in your task’s title.

If you add the new to-do from the already appropriate list you save yourself one tap: (1) Select list; (2) tap the plus symbol; (3) type in task name; (4) save.

Ubiquitous

I do not use Things on my iPhone to manage my shopping list when out on errands. I use it almost exclusively as my parking lot. Regardless if I’m in a meeting, at Wal-Mart, or waiting for the oil to be changed, there is no way to tell when a thought will pop into my head. When it does, I need a place to drop it.

Call Your Mother

I used to jot those thoughts onto the palm of my hand.

Then I bought a Palm Pilot. Then a pocket Moleskine, then a notepad. But through all that, the only thing I ever had with me all the time was my cell phone. I’ve had a mobile device of some sort ever since my first pager in 7th grade. It’s 2nd nature to check my pockets as I walk out the door. Keys. Phone. Wallet. Let’s go.

Once I owned a cell phone that sent emails too, I had two spots to drop my ideas: one was my to-do list manager of choice at the time, and if that wasn’t handy I would send myself an email. Then later, the email would get turned into a to-do item.

Though I originally bought Things for my iPhone based on the novelty of having a to-do list app that worked on both platforms and would sync between the two, I have found that I rarely use its full features. It has primarily become my input collector, which I then just sync to my Mac.

Syncing

To sync Things on your iPhone with Things on your desktop simply make sure they are both on the same wireless network, then launch them both. If they have not yet been paired, a you’ll be asked to enter a 4-digit pin onto your phone. It is a cinch to set up and virtually no trouble at all to keep the two in unity.

When a sync is in progress your iPhone goes into “don’t touch me I’m syncing” mode, with a large black screen and a spinning “ticker-wheel”. At the same time, on the Mac, this progress bar appears:

Things syncing on a Mac. It almost looks like it's spinning, doesn't it?

If you want to force a sync, simply open the preferences pane on the desktop version, select iPhone and click “Sync Now”.

I find it interesting that the only way to sync Things’ iPhone library to the desktop’s is through a wireless network. You can’t plug it in to sync, and there is no cloud server offering over-the-air syncing like MobileMe does.

If you are not near a wireless network, you can still sync by using your computer’s airport card to create a network. Click the airport menu icon, and choose “Create Network…” Then join that network on your iPhone, via the Wi-Fi menu under Settings.

Additionally, Things does not currently sync between two desktop Macs. Trying to use the iPhone as a mediator or carrier of info between two computers is doable, since each Mac must be paired to the iPhone individually for over-network syncing.

Since I only use one computer, this is not an issue for me. But for those of you who do use multiple Macs, Cultured Code has documented a work-around which uses Dropbox to keep your Things library in sync, and which many people seem to be doing successfully.

More Reviews

This is just one of a handful of winded and entertaining software reviews.

  1. Without much work at all, I was able to pick out 10 task-management apps for the Mac (not including Things): iCal and Mail (on Leopard), iGTD, OmniFocus, Midnight Inbox, TaskPaper, Kinkless GTD, Anxiety, The Hit List, What’s Next, and The Action Method. ↵
  2. Not just for Things, but for all the applications I use. ↵
  3. And currently enjoying the #1 for-pay productivity app in the iTunes App Store. ↵
A Review of Two Things: One For the Mac and One For iPhone

Slight Updates

I recently made two minor, yet highly significant (to me) changes on this site.

The first is that I reversed the layout of the default title tag. For the past year and a half, the title shown in the browser bar has been the WordPress default. It is incredibly ugly and I’m ashamed I left it the way it was for as long as I did.

When fixing it, there were many options I considered. Including:

  • Shawn Blanc: Slight Updates
  • Shawn Blanc :: Slight Updates
  • Shawn Blanc – Slight Updates
  • Slight Updates :: Shawn Blanc
  • Slight Updates | Shawn Blanc

The final one in the above list is still a good option in my mind, but as you can see, it currently reads like this: “Slight Updates – Shawn Blanc”.

They say that by putting the article title before the weblog’s name it makes for better SEO. Which is nice. But my main reason for updating it (aside from the ugliness of the default) was that I figure everyone already knows they are on Shawn Blanc’s website, and even if they don’t, it’s not like my name is very important. Therefore, let the article title get the most attention.

Secondly, I have modified all the permalinks. Until now, the each have had a simple “…/year/article-name” structure, like this:

https://shawnblanc.net/2009/slight-updates

I remember purposefully setting them up that way in order to keep the URL as short and sweet as possible. When I am reading other weblogs I often glance at the URL to reference when the post was published. And I now feel that having my posts liked by their year of publication alone leaves a bit to be desired by the reader.

Comparing two articles — one written on December 31st, 2008 and the other on January 1st, 2009 — it may seem as if they were written an entire year apart, instead of one day. And similarly, two posts — one written January 1st, 2008 and the other on December 31st, 2008 — may seem chronologically near, but are actually not.

Thus, the permalinks now look like this:

https://shawnblanc.net/2009/01/slight-updates

By adding the month of publication to the URL it is still short, and there is now an added reference to aid the savvy reader. Additionally, the new permalink structure is a three-in-one tool for reading. You can peel back the layers of the URL to dig deeper into this site.

If you delete the article name from the URL you will find yourself at the archive listing for the year and month of that article’s publication date. If you then delete the month from the URL you get the archive listing for the whole year.

Implementing the new permalink structure for all posts was as easy as selecting a radio-button in the WordPress Dashboard. Old links will be kept intact and redirected Automattically.

Slight Updates

It’s No Totebag

Thanks to all of you who participated in the RSS Feed Subscription Drive yesterday and sent in a favorite feed of your own. In return, here is a list with a few of the sites which stood out to me as worth checking out.

It’s No Totebag

Thingsday

The best task management tool is one that helps me forget.

I have been using the public beta of Things for who knows how long (probably just as long as many of you), and this week we rejoiced when Things 1.0 was officially released.

It is a rarity to find an application that marries look, feel and function all into a single, polished, top-shelf solution. I have had nothing but excellent user experiences with Things on my Mac and on my iPhone; and I use both of them every day.

Of course, then we cried as we finally had to get off our butts, pull out our wallets and pay for the software we’ve so long been using free of charge.

Things Purchase Pane

Ironically, not too long ago I was an advocate of good ole’ fashioned pen and paper to-do lists. Yet I now find myself eating the words I wrote just 6 months ago:

…I will never be a completely paper-free individual. My to-do list has always existed on paper. And it always will.

Oops.

At least the principle I mentioned in that article still stands true: Necessity Necessitates the Necessities. I moved away from a paper to-do list because I needed to.

Over the past 8 months more and more of my daily responsibilities revolve around sending and replying to emails. It’s a big part of the way things are run around here, and thus I get most of my action items via my email inbox.

Therefore moving to a software-based system with a task management app that had good email integration was the necessary choice for me. Though not fully embraced at first, it was actually an easy transition for me to go from tactile to digital.

I have used GTD apps before, but never with longevity (mostly because I never found one that worked or felt right to me). For better or for worse, I am a naturally organized person, and my brain is always thinking things through. Which means I don’t very much want a task management app for the sake of remembering something, but rather for the sake of forgetting it.

I need a place to dump all my ideas, projects and to-do items so I can happily live in the here-and-now rather than in the what’s-to-come. And Things’ ability to handle vast amounts of lists, notes, tags and data-mapping is better than any other app I’ve used and far better than my paper system.

I like Things because it’s finally the task management app that helps me to forget about stuff.

Thingsday

Regarding Feedback

I like to keep my car clean because I’m the one that drives it every day, and it is very much in my personality to keep things clean and tidy. But there’s something that puts a skip in my step when a friend jumps in and says, “Whoa. This thing is clean.” That feedback adds a bit of motivation for me to keep cleaning my car.

Although I try to write for myself it’s honestly not quite that pure. The truth is, there is a bit of a high I get from posting a link-list item, or writing an article that I know someone out there is going to really enjoy.

Giving a monolog to the same group of folks every day can become difficult and dry after only a few days. But having a conversation with friends every day can keep you motivated, excited and creative. And the unfortunate downside of a comment-free site is the natural lack of dialog between author and reader.

My point is two-fold. First of all, since you can’t comment on my site, please do communicate your thoughts, critiques, hints and more via email or Twitter.

And secondly, thank you very much for reading — it helps me keep writing.

Regarding Feedback

Champ

Every guy I know has a short list of dream cars. And a lifted Jeep Wrangler is on every one of those lists, including mine. Yet today I’m selling my Jeep.

Champ. A 1990 Lifted YJ

Over the past eight months the Wrangler, affectionately known as Champ, has become part of the family. If you have ever owned a Jeep you know what I’m talking about; they simply have personality in a way that no other car does. They become an extension of you.

We bought it because we needed a second car, and my wife had the gloriously un-selfish proposal of getting “a truck or something fun”, and Champ was the epitome of “something fun”.

I’ll never forget my introduction to the un-spoken Jeep Wrangler Fraternity on the day I first drove it home. As I was about to pass another Wrangler for the first time I decided to wave. But to my shock, they waved first. If you own a Wrangler, you know what I’m talking about.

Or the first time I took it to the rock park; I was freaking out, scared a wheel was about to pop right off, while Anna was having a blast and calling me a wimp.

Or the trips to get ice-cream and play frisbee at the park during the summer.

No doubt the Jeep has been a blast to own, but little did I know how much it would disrupting my lifestyle to keep it maintained.

You can’t own an old Jeep without wrenching on it. They’re not like Hondas where you just drive them and put gas in them; you’ve got to be committed to work on your Jeep. And I simply don’t have the time or know-how to keep Champ running like a top.

The good news is that the Jeep will be going to a good home, and I am now in the market for a new car.

Champ

Stocking Stuffer 2.2

Software updates are a lot like stockings on Christmas morning.

Stocking stuffers are never as exciting or expensive of presents as the wrapped ones under the tree, and you can usually see most of what you’re going to get before you even dump out the sock.

But a present is a present, and there is always the hope that at the bottom of the stocking there will be a few unexpected surprises. Such as a fix to that one pesky bug I keep noticing, and maybe, just maybe, a snappier OS.

The bug I was hoping to see fixed was in the SMS app. Before this software update my text messages had been intermingling with one-another. When I got a text message from someone, that message would often display inline with my most recently opened SMS conversation. Moving up one level to the top-level list in the SMS app and then opening up the conversation would fix the problem. Fortunately, since the update I haven’t noticed it at all.

In hopes of a snappier OS, there is the rare occasion in which you can clearly tell that the OS is faster. But usually, minor software updates are more like placebos regarding response time—some people swear the thing is lightning fast now, and others can’t get over how darn slow it got.

And now, in good old-fashioned unordered listery, here is a short handful of thoughts on the actual software update:

  • After the update my screen was noticeably more dim. I went in to adjust the brightness meter, anticipating the phone had set the level at 10% for some reason, but oddly the level was set at the same place I normally have it (around 70%). Moving the bar up to nearly 95% now gets me the same level of brightness as I previously had. My first concern is if this will affect my battery life.
  • Streaming a podcast via the Edge network works great for me. What threw me off when streaming a podcast, is not that it continues to play even if you leave Mobile iTunes, but that the stream is not controlled via the iPod app. You have to go back into Mobile iTunes to pause or stop it.
  • I am a big fan of the Home button’s new ability to get me back to the Home screen. That was a clever idea, for sure. It’s amazing how many things they can get just one button to be capable of doing.
  • The feature I am most glad about? Better audio quality for voicemail. Seriously. I don’t know what happened but one day all my voicemail messages began to sound like they had been recorded in a tin room by a robot. Thank goodness I’m getting messages from the real world again.
Stocking Stuffer 2.2

The iTunes Genius

The most significant feature introduced with iTunes 8 in September was Genius: the automatic playlist generator. John Gruber describes Genius as being “like the shuffle feature but with a hint.”

Genius is, in fact, so clever that I now have a hard time listening to music any other way.

Once Genius is enabled1, your computer anonymously sends information about your music library and listening habits to Apple’s iTunes Store where it is combined with the information of millions of other iTunes users and then processed. The results are continually sent back to your computer in order to “update” your personal Genius’ algorithms—effectively making the Genius feature smarter every single day.

By having the updated algorithms downloaded, it also eliminates the need for Genius to be constantly connected to the Internet to function. Also, these Genius algorithms are synced with your iPod and/or iPhone.

To create a new Genius playlist you have two options: you can start a song and then click the Genius icon located in the bottom right corner of the iTunes window, or CTRL+CLICK a song and choose “Start Genius” from the contextual pop-up menu.

Once you’ve effectively created your Genius playlist there is a info/menu bar near the top of the iTunes window. From there you can select how many songs you want in the playlist, you can refresh the list and save the list. Refreshing builds a new mix of songs which are based on the original first song you began with; saving will create a new Genius playlist titled after the song-title the playlist is based on.

What’s interesting is that you still have the option to “refresh” a playlist even after it has been saved as its own list, though you cannot re-save a saved playlist even if it’s been refreshed. It seems to me that perhaps the point of saving a Genius playlist is not to keep the order of songs in tact, but rather to quickly access the song which the playlist was built on. If this is the case, it would make sense to build a handful of Genius playlists based on your favorite songs from the different genres in your library.

Something I discovered today – though I am sure it is not a new feature – is the ability to “gift” somebody a playlist via the iTunes Store. When a playlist is selected the “iTunes Store arrow” appears. Clicking the arrow gives you the option to gift the playlist or create an iMix.

iTunes Gift a Playlist Option

When I was a kid, gifting a playlist meant creating a mix-tape through hours of play/pause recording on a dual tape deck.

Genius also gives you the option to buy more songs from the iTunes store to ‘complete your playlist’. Regardless of what context you are listening to music in, if the Genius sidebar is open you will see related music available for sale on the iTunes store.

Michael Mistretta summed up his thoughts on Genius by saying, “…in the end, it will simply be used to sell you more music.” And rightly so.

Through iTunes, Apple is in the music selling business. And what better way to capitalize on permission and word of mouth marketing, then by brilliantly recommended songs and albums right from the familiarity of someone’s own computer?

Additionally, as Dan Philibin said in the comments of the aforementioned article, “Genius is only possible because of the amount of people that use iTunes, something that’s taken years to improve and perfect.”

The Genius engine not only exists as part of iTunes 8, but also as part of every new iPod and every iPhone or iPod touch using iPhone OS 2.x.

Building a Genius playlist on iPhone’s mobile version of iTunes works exactly opposite of the desktop version of iTunes, though it is never confusing in context. On the desktop version you create a Genius playlist by selecting the song first, whereas on iPhone you select the song last.

To build a Genius playlist on mobile iTunes you start by selecting “Playlists” and then “Genius”. iTunes then asks you to choose a song to create a Genius playlist and shows you a list of all your songs in alphabetical order. If that is not how you want to pick a song, you can still select “Artists” or “Albums” from the bottom navigation menu without leaving the Genius song-selection state. What you cannot do is rotate your phone to cover-mode and select a song that way.

UPDATE: So, apparently you can start a Genius playlist on the iPhone by selecting the song first. When a track is playing, and you tap the cover art to reveal the timeline bar, there is the Genius icon right in-between the repeat icon and the shuffle icon. Tapping the Genius button builds a playlist with 25 songs in it. From there you can Save, Refresh or build a new Genius playlist.

On my iPhone, with just a little over 5 GB of audio from 65 or so albums, Genius has no trouble creating a fantastic playlist which is always delightful for airplane rides or waiting while getting an oil-change. My point being, Genius doesn’t need a whole ton of songs to build a good playlist.

Now, when I want to listen to music I find the one song that I most want to listen to, and let Genius do the rest. The success rate of a great playlist via Genius is better than simply shuffling all songs, and the amount of thought which goes into building a quality mix is virtually zero when I let Genius build it for me.

After several weeks of use, I have more confidence in Genius than in myself to build a good playlist. I have so much confidence in fact, that when I was asked to provide the music for a friend’s wedding reception a few weeks ago I simply chose one good jazz song from my iTunes library and let Genius do the rest, un-monitored.

It is simultaneously humbling and fascinating that Genius is a better DJ than I am. Even without a massive music library (25.52 GB), Genius has no problem finding all the songs I had forgotten I owned and am delighted to hear again.

What makes Genius so fantastic is not so much the algorithms it builds behind-the-scenes, but the fact that it is what it says it is: Genius is a genius.

Thanks to the massive success and user-base of iTunes Apple now has the ability to tell people – with surprising accuracy – what they want to listen to.

  1. Genius is not automatically enabled in iTunes. You have to turn it on under the “Store” menu.↵
The iTunes Genius

Ads Powered by Fusion

Advertising is a tricky thing.

The Internet has opened wide the possibilities to get a product in front of millions of potential buyers at a fraction of what it used to cost to get that sort of exposure. The problem is that the vast majority of online advertising does not see much return on investment. And there are not many options to get a genuinely great product in front of a relevant group of people.

Secondly, for the weblog author who doesn’t want to clutter their site with several generic advertisements, their options are also slim.

This is why I am proud to join and support a new online advertising network, Fusion Ads.

Fusion Ads displays just one, tasteful advertisement on each page with a small amount of text (as seen in my sidebar). This format not only offers zero competition for the advertiser, it also keeps the design of the site clean; solving two major issues right off the bat.

Moreover, Fusion Ads is able to offer targeted and relevant advertisements because membership to the ad network is by invitation only. This keeps the demographic scope in-line with the advertiser’s target audience and maximizes the relevance of a campaign run on the Fusion Ads network.

If you’re interested in advertising here, and on all other marvelous sites in the Fusion Ads network, visit the Fusion website or just email Michael Mistretta directly.

Ads Powered by Fusion