Reviews

My fling with a Sony Reader

gordonmeyer — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 14:00:29 -0500

So there I was in Las Vegas, flush with cash and giddy with excitement. Seduced by the sleek lines, thin profile, and promised efficiency of the PRS-505. Call me “Sony Reader,” I imagined it purring, “and together we will travel the world.” It spoke to both the bibliophile and gadget hound that live deep within my soul. How could I resist?

The flight home to Chicago was our first outing. I didn’t have a computer with me to add my own text files, but little PRS-505 was thoughtfully pre-loaded with abridged classics and its manual. The screen; so crisp and readable! I danced from book to book, turning page after page, sampling everything like a starving man at the Bellagio’s buffet. I soaked in every step of every task in the French version of the user’s manual, not caring that I only speak English.

About midway through my flight home, I “accidentally” jostled my armrest-hogging seat mate awake; waving the Reader non-chalantly as I muttered my apology. I wanted him to see my futuristic, productivity-enhancing device. I think my ploy worked—the heavy breathing that soon followed revealed his unspoken envy.

Yes, life was good. The next morning, I connected Miss PRS to my iMac, grinning as its proxy icon popped onto the Desktop. I quickly copied over a half-dozen PDF files and smoothly slipped loose the connection. A moment later, the Reader sprung to life and started cataloging the new additions. I could hardly wait.

Oh how I wish that I had waited. If I had known that those were my final moments of consumer satisfaction and gadget nirvana, I would have savored them. But I didn’t know, and soon there was no turning back.

I eagerly pressed the button that would open the first of my PDFs. I barely recognized it. The page was squished. The text gray and hard to read. I remembered a word from the user’s guide—“paysage.” I held down the “+” button to change the display to landscape mode. Ah, that’s better. A little less distorted.

But. Still. Illegible.

Fuck.

None of my PDF files were remotely close to being readable on this thing. I turned to the ‘net for a solution. Someone reported that using Acrobat to convert the PDF to RTF would help. “I have Acrobat Professional, I’ll try that!” I nervously drummed my fingers, had lunch, and made a phone call while Acrobat launched. Yes, the resulting RTF file did produce readable text on the Sony Reader, but its mangled formatting and oddly-broken lines turned my stomach. Or maybe it was the tuna sandwich. Regardless, I couldn’t live with it.

I read MAKE’s tips on How to Optimize PDFs for Sony’s Reader. Good advice, provided that you have the document source and can create a whole new PDF just for use on the Reader. But what I have is over a thousand scanned documents from my paperless office. I can’t re-format those to the 3.5 x 4.8 inch dimensions that the Reader requires in order to avoid its page ~~mangling~~ scaling algorithm.

There’s a bit more to the story, but does it really matter? I could write about the 100 free classic books (in “BBeB” Reader-optimzed format) that Windows users can download using Sony’s iTunes-on-Meth online store. I could make fun of the way it handles RSS files or complain how the Sony website implies that the Reader can search the contents of books. (It can’t.) But all that sounds like sour grapes. The bottom line is that I decided to take the Reader on one more trip. This time to the ‘burbs where I ditched it at the Sony Style store in Skokie. Leaving behind my shattered dreams and a 15% restocking fee.

So long, little PRS-505. We’ll always have Vegas.

”My fling with a Sony Reader” was written by Gordon Meyer for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on November 11, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Resolve Conflict Quickly with The Four Agreements

MargaretMason — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 11:53:15 -0500

The Four Agreements
by Don Miguel Ruiz

I dread conflict. In fact, when I know a confrontation is imminent, it’s all I can think about. I mull it over when I could be labeling file folders, I ponder it while my inbox burgeons, while my 3x5 cards gather dust. Conflict is my productivity disaster.

Fortunately, The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz gave me a few significant tools for moving past conflict in any arena. The book is about four habits you can adopt that improve your life in general, but I find it especially helpful when I’m anxious about a tough meeting, phone call, email exchange, or personal conversation. Before I head into the lion’s den, I review the agreements to put myself in the right frame of mind:

1. Be impeccable with your word.

Words have immeasurable power, so use them with care. Say only what you mean, and remember your opinion isn’t fact. Silence is better than saying something you’ll regret.

2. Don’t take anything personally.

Here I’ll quote the book, “Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves.” That guy honking at you just spilled scalding coffee all over his lap, the boss screaming at you is going through a divorce. Their stuff has nothing to do with your stuff, and assuming you’re the root cause of someone’s behavior is not only self-centered, it’s also a big waste of energy.

3. Don’t make assumptions.

You can spend hours generating theories about why someone did something, or you can just ask. When someone lashes or does something unexpected, save time by seeking clarification.

4. Do your best.

Do the best you can with the conflict in front of you, and you won’t need to waste brain power on self-judgements or regrets.

When I can keep these guidelines in mind, I’m almost always able to diffuse a situation. Other benefits:

Resolution comes more quickly because you ask for clarification instead of jumping to conclusions.
You reduce time lost to stress because you don’t feel personally responsible for the other person’s anxiety or anger.
Initial conflict often turns into a productive conversation and leads to a deeper relationship, because you come from a more compassionate place.
You ideally come away without regrets, having resolved the situation instead of escalating it.

That said, I highly recommend that you read the whole book. It’s short and packed with information that will make you not only more efficient, but also generally superior in every way.

”Resolve Conflict Quickly with The Four Agreements” was written by Margaret Mason for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on November 05, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

TaskPaper 1.0 adds new features (and "fiddling" isn't one of them)

Merlin Mann — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 13:49:12 -0400

Hog Bay Software’s TaskPaper was recently released in a completed 1.0 version (previously), and if you’re the sort of person who casts about for a simple way to manage projects and tasks from a Mac, this just may be your app.

But, even more significantly, if you’re not looking for a simple action management system — if you’re that particularly pathetic sort of character who’s convinced that features like tagging, syncing, collaboration, graph paper generation, and the introduction of an onboard artisanal breadmaker are all that stands between you and getting your stuff done — well, you may need TaskPaper more than anybody. Because, friends, TaskPaper is just about fiddle-proof, and, frankly, I know a lot of people who could benefit from that today.

Here’s what a simple document looks like in TaskPaper:

There’s your projects, there’s your tasks, there’s your contexts, and there’s your ability to see what you’ve ticked off. THAT, as John Hodgman might say, IS ALL.

So, first off and best off, TaskPaper is just text. Although documents created with TaskPaper will have the “.taskpaper” suffix, you’ll find that you can open and edit the file with TextEdit, TextMate, or any other garden variety text app. Here’s what my test document looks like when opened in TextMate:

I like the clarity and simplicity of the document’s formatting, and how it virtually negates the ability to fiddle. Actually, on first glance, the magic of TaskPaper may look familiar to people who have used syntaxes like Chairman Gruber’s peerless Markdown. I mean it really is just endlessly portable and mungeable text; it’s TaskPaper’s li’l engine that turns that formatting into the hooks that let you “do stuff” like view by context or project, and so on. This latest cut adds tabs for doing this neato functional stuff, and I have to say it’s really appealing. The approach is similar to OmniFocus — but even more obsessively concerned with keeping the system focused solely on completing tasks (rather than grooming and feeding them for months while they grow long hair and learn how to drive a stick).

Yes: absolutely — TaskPaper will be way too simple for a lot of people’s needs (including mine). But, if you’re so overwhelmed with “flexibility” that you’re getting close to throwing in the towel on an electronic system and are considering going back to paper, (while I’d never be one to stand in your way) you might want to give TaskPaper a whirl. If you love text and could benefit from the portability of a simple electronic document, it’s definitely worth looking at.

TaskPaper is free to try, and it’ll only set you back $18.95 if you decide to buy a copy. Download ‘er now.

”TaskPaper 1.0 adds new features (and "fiddling" isn't one of them)” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on October 24, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

DailyLit: 5-minute literature chunks, via email or RSS

Merlin Mann — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 08:27:34 -0400

DailyLit: Read books by email and RSS.

To know me today, you’d never imagine how many hundreds of pages a week I read in college. Surprises me, anyhow. While I’ve devolved into an accomplished skimmer of Harper’s and the The New York Times Magazine, I rarely find (or, make) the time to finish a whole book about anything that’s not related to “work.” That’s why I’m intrigued by DailyLit, a service that leverages rather than battles the tendency to hang out online.

The idea is simple enough: select a “free” book that appeals to you, then, every day or two, via either email or RSS, the DailyLit robot sends you a section that’s readable in about five minutes. If you want more at any time — the digital equivalent of turning the page — just click to have the next installment sent, then keep on a’reading.

The variety of available selections is handsome, including favorites like Tristram Shandy, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, The Devil’s Dictionary and over 400 more. Feeling ambitious? Try War and Peace (675 5-minute parts), The Count of Monte Cristo (581 parts), or Don Quixote (448 parts). Want something a little lighter? You can’t go wrong with Candide (42 parts) or A Modest Proposal (4 [still hilarious] parts).

The site could benefit from a few additions — there’s no link to download a full version of the book or to directly request a dead-tree copy from the local library (ala) — but the clean design and stripped-down approach generally suits the functionality; the action is all happening in email and your feed reader, so the site just acts to manage subscriptions and afford finding new books.

I don’t thinks DailyLit’s intended as a replacement for holding a real book in your hand, and it would be cynical to imply that it is. Seems to me it’s basically a clever life hack for people who want to read more but who’d benefit from a short ramp and a timer. By sneaking the medicine into a mini-sized Oreo, we may just find ourselves getting back into a reading habit.

For myself, I’m not promising any college-style 1,000 pages per week, but I’m certainly game for giving T.S. Eliot five minutes of my time this morning. And then another five tomorrow…then another five….

[via: Cool Tools]

”DailyLit: 5-minute literature chunks, via email or RSS” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on August 01, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

rooSwitch for easy, restorable application profiles

Merlin Mann — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 06:16:07 -0400

rooSwitch - Shuffle Your Settings Around

When you’re testing a new version of an application (or just being a little paranoid), it can be a pain to deal with protecting your “real” data from being corrupted or overwritten. While something like SuperDuper is priceless for backing up a drive to a disk image, you want something that’s not only lighter in weight, but that is smart enough to deal just with the settings associated with a single program. That’s where roobaSoft’s rooSwitch comes in.

rooSwitch’s smarts come in being able to recognize which Preferences, Application Support folders, and related files belong to an app’s settings (but, not — it should be noted — its documents), so that you can then backup, switch, and restore a group of settings whenever you need to. This can be quite a lifesaver.

So, for example, if I feel like a build of the OmniFocus sneaky peek is being balky (Heaven forfend!), I just drop the OF icon onto rooSwitch’s drop-pad, and it saves the current prefs as “default,” allowing me to create a new, empty set of preference for testing the app. I can also duplicate a previously switched profile, and, of course, restore any set at any time.

Another one of those fantastic apps that you may never need — until the day you really need it.

rooSwitch is shareware from roobaSoft, and it will set you back $14.95 (approximately 1/47 of an “Alex”). Props to roobaSoft for easy PayPal payment and an instant serial number.

”rooSwitch for easy, restorable application profiles” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on July 31, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

My War on Clutter

Merlin Mann — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 09:44:14 -0400

As I mentioned the other day, I learned about the anti-clutter book, It’s All Too Much, when its author, Peter Walsh, was interviewed for the Unclutterer site.

Well, the timing must have been right, because I bought a copy, and by the time I’d finished the first chapter, a switch had flipped in my head. I say “timing” because, while the book is pretty good (if perhaps not particularly groundbreaking), the author’s observations on why people allow themselves to live with too much crap were an overdue existential bitchslap for me. And, I’ll admit, he has simple cures for dealing with this seemingly intractable challenge, and for me that’s a hard combination to beat.

Clutter of every kind has been the default state of my physical world forever. Although no official record of the conversation exists, I would not be surprised to learn that I tried to talk the staff who delivered me into letting me keep my first diaper; just because — y’know — you never know when it might come in handy. Bad habits formed early, bad habits stuck, and, for the most part, bad habits remain intact to this day.

It’s All Too Much
by Peter Walsh

I lugged unnecessary crap through 3 moves a year in college, then entered a young adult life of unopened cardboard boxes and the omnipresent cruft of consumer existence. In addition to being a bit of a pig, I was also what Cory Doctorow calls “a craphound.” I had ersatz collections of stuff everywhere. But it wasn’t just ephemerabilia — I also lived with last week’s dishes, last month’s beer cans, last year’s TV Guide. You name it, I was not throwing it away.

Despite at least two purges of epic proportion in the late 90s, I moved to California with a lot of those same boxes — still unopened — and, although I did leave the empty beer cans in Tallahassee, the bad habits happily flew cross-country with me. Today, despite 7½ years of gentle intervention from a wonderfully tidy woman, I can still see ample evidence of my bad decision-making, twisted sentimentality, and utter failure to sensibly incorporate my worldly belongings into the space that’s available to contain them.

This bit from Chapter 3 of Walsh’s book is typical of the sections I’d credit with highlighting my awareness of the need for a change:

The things you own are a distraction to getting started on the right path. The key to getting — and staying — organized is to look beyond the stuff and imagine the life you could be living. Put most simply: It’s about how you see your life before all else.

Good stuff.

The problem is about more than just cubic inches of physical space — it becomes about cubic yards of mindshare when the state of your surroundings starts to define the promise of your future. The mindless junk of your past crowds out opportunities and sets pointless limitations. Pretty soon those “collectibles” start to seem a lot less valuable, and the baseline junk begins to look a lot less harmless. At least that’s been the revelation for me: clutter is not without its very real costs every day.

Anyway, this is all in the service of saying I’ve now spent the better part of the last 5 days throwing out crap, and I’m just getting started. This has been so alternately exhausting and exhilarating that I wanted to share some of it with you.

So over the next couple days, I’ll be writing about and linking to ideas that might help you wage your own war on clutter. Most of this won’t be brand new insight by a long shot, but if you have the clutter (and the ears to hear about some solutions), maybe you can join me in digging a tunnel to a more crap-free life.

”My War on Clutter” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on July 02, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Panic releases lovely "Coda" web dev app

Merlin Mann — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 13:09:46 -0400

Panic - Coda - One-Window Web Development for Mac OS X

In conjunction with the celebration of their 10th anniversary — and cannily timed to be eligible for an Apple Design Award — Panic has released their new “one-window web development” app, “Coda.”

I’ve only been playing with it for an hour or two, so I don’t have anything revelatory to add to everyone else’s reactions. But, so far, I’m very impressed with the ease of use and lovely design. That said, hiding under the pretty is a lot of great stuff that should make prosumer web designers’ lives easier, including built-in SSH shell, a straightforward CSS editor, and a very configurable multi-paned window approach. I also love the low-key code validation, Hamburger Helper “Clips,” and what looks like a pretty nifty “Bonjour” sharing functionality.

The care that the Panic folks put into all of their apps and the humor and humanity that they express as a company makes me proud to use a Mac. They’re doing God’s work, and, whenever the opportunity arises, I’m all too happy to give them my money.

”Panic releases lovely "Coda" web dev app” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on April 23, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

iGTD: Strong OS X app with powerful Quicksilver integration

Merlin Mann — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 10:40:22 -0400

iGTD & Quicksilver

As I mentioned on MacBreak Weekly the other day, I’m very impressed with what I’ve seen so far in iGTD, a new “Getting Things Done” application for OS X.

It feels like a solid, powerful, and practical tool for managing action, and I’m pleased to say it’s steered clear of a lot of the GTD-ish visual theatricality that, in my opinion, has made some of the apps out there more pretty and fun to use than they are useful in the context of a mature, streamlined system.

I mention iGTD here because, in playing with it yesterday, I turned up this excellent page about iGTD’s Quicksilver integration.

Pretty mind-blowing (albeit geeky) stuff, since the detailed syntax allows you to enter tasks via QS from anyplace, while still identifying project name, context, priority, date due — and even allowing you to add a note.

(BTW, that image will make more sense after you read the whole page)

I encourage you to have a look at iGTD if you get a chance and take it for a spin. It’s evolving very quickly, with new updates available seemingly every time I open the app.

Like any GTD tool, it won’t be perfect for everyone, but in my own testing over a couple days, I’ve found it to be one of the clear leaders in what’s quickly becoming a very crowded field.

”iGTD: Strong OS X app with powerful Quicksilver integration” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on April 08, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Scrivener: Powerful OS X app for writers

Merlin Mann — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 13:14:53 -0500

Literature and Latte - Scrivener

Scrivener, a full-featured writing program that I’ve been raving about a lot lately on MacBreak Weekly, has now reached the 1.0 milestone and is available for purchase from Literature and Latte. Scrivener’s product page has also been updated with a terrific explanation of why this app feels so different.

Personally, I like the excellent fullscreen mode, built-in (round-trip) outliner, tricked-out Inspector, and all-in-one form factor, but my favorite feature (which can be hard to explain without actually using the app for yourself) is Scrivener’s use of the index card and corkboard metaphor.

If you write like I do (and I pray that you do not), you have a messy approach to drafting that is iterative, intuitive, and far from linear. You do a brain dump, then type a little, then research a little, then type a little more, then move a bunch of stuff around, then groan aloud, then 80% start over and so on until something is done. Yes, it would be more tidy if we all followed the mandate of our elementary school teachers and wrote perfect 5-paragraph essays straight from a completed outline. But, such is life. And Scrivener seems to get that.

Scrivener makes the anarchic approach to writing a little less chaotic by letting you create any number of “index cards” which contain a title and a short synopsis of what that index card is meant to contain. These cards live on a “cork board” and each can be moved around, nested, put into folders, and so on, very much like real index cards, but with a big bonus. (If you prefer, by the way, these same “cards” can be edited and moved around in the Outline view as well.) In addition to the title and synopsis, each card is associated with a given section of the actual draft you’re building. This section could be anything from a blank page to a single sentence to a few paragraphs to an entire chapter — whatever works for you. There’s no scarcity to the number of cards you use, so go nuts.

Once you get your head around this metaphor, consider how great it would be to write the parts you’re ready to write, scribble notes for a section that’s not quite there yet, and then eventually (yay!) declare this or that section finished and ready to go. Remember, at any point, using just the handy index cards, you can still re-arrange any of those pieces non-destructively and without having to manually copy and paste great gobs of text. Or — and this is what I love about the flexibility here — you can blow off the “index-cards-as-sections” idea altogether and just jump straight into drafting in a new folder. Whatever works. All I know is if I’d had this for my thesis back in the day, you’d all be working for me now.

As I say, this all makes a lot more sense when you try Scrivener, but it’s a powerful way to free up the process and give yourself permission to write in the stages that make sense to you.

Also not to miss in this version:

“Edit Scrivenings” lets you select discontinuous sections of your binder for editing or export.
“Snapshots” let you snatch a version of your draft in situ, much like creating a DMG image of your drive. Too many magic mushrooms during last night’s rewrite session? No problem: just roll back.
Screenwriting support makes it easy to output your draft in a format that will suitably impress weasel Hollywood producers.
Research to your heart’s delight and shunt all the results right into Scrivener’s (wait for it) “Research” section, pulling in web pages, images, and what have you. Sort of like a very lightweight DevonTHINK or Yojimbo.
If you’re the fiddly type, there’s support for keywords (aka “tagging”), labeling, status, split screens, and more.
Oh, and did I mention the Fullscreen Mode? Of course I did, but Scrivener’s version of this is lovely, configurable and can include handy stuff like word and character count as well as level of opacity to your preferred blackout.

My only substantial bitch about Scrivener so far is that it’s maybe not ideal for fast web writing. Although it has many configurable export options, I haven’t found an easy way to export super-simple plaintext or html that still honors the formatting and links you created back in the app’s native RTF style. The HTML it does put out can be pretty janky, littered with the kinds of whacky SPAN and P styles you’d get in Front Page’s dolorous heyday. (Correct me if I’m wrong on this, Keith, et al.)

Owing to my considerable liabilities as both a thinker and writer, I’m already a huge dork for Scrivener. But be assured that this is certainly not an app exclusively for employment by the dull-witted. Even if you’re already an organized thinker but are just tired of dashing to five different applications to tape your draft together, I suspect you’ll find Scrivener as satisfying as I have.

Scrivener, by Literature and Latte. Requires Mac OS X 10.4. $34.95. 30-day full demo available. Download now.

”Scrivener: Powerful OS X app for writers” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 21, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Task List: Handy student app for tracking assignments

Merlin Mann — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 05:58:41 -0500

Funkware - Task List

Task List is a promising looking new app for students who want to track the tasks associated with homework and other assignments.

As a former dysfunctional student, I like the way you can filter work by class, gauge progress on assigments, set priorities, and then track the results, such as the grade you received, etc. It also has support for “Classcasts,” syncs with .Mac, and seems to work nicely with iCal.

As with many tricked-out task apps, there’s plenty of room for bogging down in the sort of fiddly meta-work that’s more fun than, say, actually reading Bleak House, but this app is far from the worst attractive nuisance I’ve seen in that regard. Based on my 20 minutes of running through it yesterday, it looks like a useful application for managing the rat’s nest of tasks standing between you and your sheepskin.

Task List is the simple way to manage your homework. After all, it’s bad enough that you have to do homework in the first place - why should keeping track of it be difficult too? Task List 5 builds on the many features of Task List 4, and offers you even more ways to keep track of what you need to do. Even better, it makes it easy to actually do something about your homework, with features such as multiple file attachments for each task, a built-in tabbed notes editor, and convenient reference information and links, just like your composition notebook. Best of all, Task List 5’s new interface makes it easy to view your information in as simple or complex a manner as you wish.

What are you organized Mac students out there using to keep it all together?

”Task List: Handy student app for tracking assignments” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 02, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"