For a while I used OhLife to keep a daily personal log, but then began using Day One. Day One is just awesome and the soon-coming 1.8 version is out of this world. If you’ve got entries in OhLife that you’d like moved to Day One this Perl script does the trick beautifully.

You know how when you get a new Mac there are a few apps which you just have to install right away before you can do anything? For me, TextExpander is one of those apps.1

TextExpander 4 is a solid update. I use this app not just for expanding text but also for fixing common typos, making sure I spell certain people’s names right, powering through emails more efficiently, properly capitalizing certain product names, pasting code, and a whole, whole lot more.

If you consider yourself a Mac power user and you don’t use TextExpander, who do you think you’re kidding?

Though it’s not the same shortcut as it used to be:

Keyboard shortcut for Save As
Use Command-Shift-Option-S to save a document using a different name and location.

Still, much more elegant than my Keyboard Maestro hack.

(Via Chris Bowler.)

Fans of The B&B Podcast, this week’s episode turned out great I think. Ben and I talked about all sorts of dorky gadget stuff including Tweetbot for Mac’s cameo appearance on Twitter, Ben’s new Retina MacBook Pro, building your own desk, Thunderbolt drives, the just-announced Belkin WeMo, and, of course, the Microsoft Surface.

John Gruber:

Microsoft Surface is not fundamentally about Microsoft needing to control the entire integrated product in order to compete with the iPad on design. It’s about Microsoft needing to sell the whole thing to sustain its current profitability.

Not a minor update at all. The SSDs are faster, the CPUs are faster, even the USB ports are faster. But I don’t like how the Air’s MagSafe 2 cable ditched the previous round-end sideways-type design.

Launch Center Pro is the closest thing I’ve seen to having something like LaunchBar or Alfred on your iPhone. If Apple had reimagined the iOS Home screen last week I expect it would have had much in common with the way Launch Center Pro works.

We’ve all got that handful of tasks and actions that we commonly do on our iPhone every day. For me, some of those common actions are: starting a new note in Simplenote, entering a quick to-do into OmniFocus, sending a text message to my wife, taking an Instagram picture, posting a tweet.

Launch Center Pro’s aim is to help you do common iPhone actions quicker. The original Launch Center app was good at this, but the just-released version is so much better. The design, overall ease of use, and the speed have all been vastly improved.

My favorite example for how helpful Launch Center Pro can be is OmniFocus quick entry. Through the use of app URLs it is actually faster to get to OmniFocus’s quick-entry window via Launch Center Pro than it is via OmniFocus itself. Moreover, you can add custom actions in Launch Center Pro that will take your iPhone’s current clipboard and use that as the content for the to-do item’s name or its note.

My few examples are just the tip of the iceberg here. There is so much you can do with this app the only hurdle I’ve had is remembering to use new workflows.

Right now Launch Center Pro is on sale for just $3 in the App Store.

A great update to an incredible service. I’ve got a handful of Recipes that I use often and so I’m glad to see they’ll be bringing premium accounts soon. I also love that IFTTT has channels for the just-announced WeMo. (Via Macdrifter.)

It’s a subtle way to encourage customers to adjust the screen to a better viewing angle, and therefore touch the device. Sneaky.

(Via Dave Caolo.)

Jason Kottke:

For a piece of portable networking technology like a smartphone or tablet to be successful on the scale at which Apple operates, you need to have an ecosystem, a network of interacting devices, software, products, and services that work together…hardware + software is not enough.

And, suppose the Surface does strike gold, Horace Dediu asks if Microsoft’s software and hardware integration will be self-disruptive:

The challenge for Microsoft therefore becomes to build hundreds of millions of these devices. Every year. Sounds like they need a Tim Cook to run it.

I agreed with Mat that Microsoft is betting a lot on their keyboard-and-trackpad cover, but I disagree with this conclusion:

Because if Microsoft can solve input with its super slim touch typing keyboard and case, then it will have pushed the tablet market forward again, and that’s always a good thing.

I don’t think the Surface keyboard covers are primarily about solving the typing-while-mobile issue. The keyboards are a necessary component because of the software.

The Surface for Windows 8 Pro runs full-on traditional Windows apps — apps which you cannot use with touch input. You need a keyboard and trackpad for those apps. The keyboard is just one (albeit a big one) component in Microsoft’s reach for all those would-be tablet users who still have a foot firmly placed in the PC camp.

(Via DF.)

I think Matt Alexander nails it on the head regarding the target market for the Microsoft Surface: people who want all the hardware benefits of an iPad but with all the software benefits of a full-fledged computer.

To be sure, that market does exist. But the question is, for how long? How long until the sentiment that the iPad is a full-fledged computer worthy of being your primary device takes hold?

Sigh. (Via The Loop.)

Regarding his first bullet point: pretty much all the devs I spoke to last week were most excited about the new APIs being added to iOS. A lot of things which 3rd-party developers have been hacking around will now be more simply accomplished in iOS 6.

Regarding his third bullet point: I asked a lot of people how they felt about press or non-developers buying WWDC tickets and not a single person there cared about it; it was a non-issue. Though that sentiment is probably not shared by those developers who didn’t get a ticket in time.