Macbreak Weekly

MacBreak Weekly 85: Wombats, Pystar, NBC's Buggy Whips, Mitchell & Webb, and hacking Time Machine

Merlin Mann — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 01:07:32 -0400

MacBreak Weekly 85: You Look Mac Today

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Merlin Mann, and Andy Ihnatko

Wombats, Pystar clones, Back to My Mac, Aussie iPhones on Vodafone, and more.

Here’s a direct MP3 download of MBW 85.

This week my Audible pick is That Mitchell and Webb Sound, and my application pick is TimeMachineEditor. The former is a wonderful radio series by two British comics that I’m currently obsessed with, while the latter is a very handy app for manually setting how often Time Machine backs up your Mac.

Also, Leo was kind enough to acknowledge You Look Nice Today (iTunes), the new podcast that I do with my more gifted brother Twitterers, @scottsimpson and @lonelysandwich. We also live collectively on Twitter as “ylnt.”

I’m off MBW next week, but we should all be returning from our various conferences and travels with the full crew for taping on the week after.

”MacBreak Weekly 85: Wombats, Pystar, NBC's Buggy Whips, Mitchell & Webb, and hacking Time Machine” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on April 17, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

On MBW 48: Pick of the Week is Fly Gesture

Merlin Mann — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 09:35:43 -0400

MacBreak Weekly 48: The Next Big Thing

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Merlin Mann, Andy Ihnatko, The Macalope

Variable pricing comes to iTunes, iPhone hacks, and where’s the Mac?

Here’s a direct MP3 download of MBW 48.

My pick for this week’s MacBreak Weekly is Fly Gesture, which is a nifty little freeware app from Flying Meat’s boy genius, Gus Mueller. Like it says on FG’s home page:

FlyGesture is activated like Exposé or Dashboard, bringing up a transparent window of “guides” to move your mouse through. Moving your mouse through the guides lets FlyGesture know what action or actions you want to be performed, such as closing a window or opening an application.

Mac users are familiar with doing stuff by clicking predefined menus with a mouse or by executing key commands, but Fly Gesture — like Quicksilver’s Abracadabra or Firefox’s mouse gestures — takes a different approach, allowing you to invoke bits of Mac functionality by drawing shapes with your mouse.

For certain kinds of tasks — changing tabs in a browser, jumping to a favorite page — gestures can be a faster and more painless way to get around. Regardless of preferences, though, I think this is just a really pretty application, and it’s cool of Gus to give it away for free.

(Maybe say thanks by picking up the awesome VoodooPad.)

”On MBW 48: Pick of the Week is Fly Gesture” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on July 11, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

MacBreak Weekly 47: Merlin's picks

Merlin Mann — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 07:06:51 -0400

MacBreak Weekly 47: That’s Our Shooby!

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Merlin Mann, Scott Bourne, and Alex Lindsay

Universal challenges iTunes, iPhone hacks, and our software picks of the week…

Here’s a direct MP3 download of MBW 47.

This time we did our usual weekly software picks, but I also got to choose our Audible.com audiobook of the week. Can you guess what it is?

Audible.com Audiobook Pick - It’s All Too Much - I was glad I got a chance to mention the book that inspired 43f’s current series on clutter. Peter Walsh offers a perspective on getting rid of clutter that goes beyond shuffling and organizing “stuff,” to breaking down the emotional barriers that make you keep so much crap in the first place. Highly recommended for rethinking the way your current possessions (and the space they inhabit) map to the life you want. Also, if you’re not up for joining Audible, the audiobook is also available on iTunes, plus there’s always the dead tree edition.
(Hear Merlin’s Audiobook Pick at 00:59:10 of the podcast.)
Software pick - Mozy - Mozy (say: MOH-zee) is an online service that securely backs-up your files in the background. It’s easier to use than most online and S3-based services and much more robust than Apple’s .Mac and Backup.app. Mozy has a “set it and forget it” functionality that might save your butt. You can even schedule backups and throttle bandwidth usage during the day. The Mac-friendly version is in beta, but seems to work fine; free account gives you 2GB of storage while $4.95 gives you “unlimited” space each month.
(Hear Merlin’s Software Pick at 01:11:56 of the podcast.)

”MacBreak Weekly 47: Merlin's picks” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on July 06, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Merlin on MacBreak Weekly: iPhone Release Show

Merlin Mann — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 15:42:04 -0400

MacBreak Weekly 46: iDay

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Merlin Mann, Scott Bourne, and Alex Lindsay

iPhones in hand our MacBreak quartet gives you their first impressions of the latest from Apple…

Here’s a direct MP3 download of MBW 46.

Believe it or not, this week’s episode was about Apple’s iPhone. Yes, the iPhone. I know: I was surprised, too.

Also, we shot a quick MacBreak (video) on Thursday night where we visited with people queued up outside the Stockton St. store here in SF. I chatted with a bohemian clown, an expensive-looking video camera, and a man from Gizmodo who had a webcam attached to his head. Just another Thursday in Union Square.

Anyhow, the iPhone is out, it’s pretty, and lots of people are buying them. For further coverage of the iPhone and the experiences of its excited new users, kindly visit the entire internet.

”Merlin on MacBreak Weekly: iPhone Release Show” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on June 30, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

MacBreak Weekly 45; iPhone release night; Quicksilver mouse triggers

Merlin Mann — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 06:39:03 -0400

MacBreak Weekly 45: Talk Time

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Merlin Mann, Scott Bourne, and Alex Lindsay

iPhone gets a better battery and screen, MacGPS rumors, and Safari holes…

Here’s a direct MP3 download of MBW 45.

Gotta tell you: I’m really excited about the imminent arrival of the iPhone for an unconventional reason: the possibility that we can eventualy stop talking about the iPhone. (sigh)

Anyway. Two things related to this episode:

If we can scare up a video jockey, I’ll be at the Stockton St. store here in SF next Friday to shoot some stuff about that evening’s iPhone release for MacBreak. Maybe interviewing people in line; who knows?
My tip of the week in this episode is a very cool Quicksilver trick called mouse dragged triggers. Explaining how it works is — as you’ll hear — difficult, to say the least. So, herewith, I present my favorite tutorial on the topic, from the lovely and talented Dan Dickinson. He also has some great ideas for what to do with the trick:

If you have a shell command you need to run frequently, you can bind that and save yourself opening the terminal and typing the command.

If you’re frequently asked the same question and want a polite way to imply that you’re tired of it, bind Answer Text -> Large Type to a key and hit it the next time you’re asked. Trust me, this works.

I always found it annoying that there’s no hotkey to jump to your downloads folder (or any other folder you’d like), but this is easily resolved using triggers. Set them up just like Apple does - heck, you can even overrule the Apple ones.

To crib from my last tutorial: using the Search Contents action, you can create specialized Quicksilver instances just to search smaller pools. Try “iTunes -> Browse Tracks” for a subject, “Search Contents” for the action. Bind it to something similar to your existing invocation keystroke (I’m using Option-Space, since my primary is Command-Space), and voila, iTunes-specific Quicksilver queries. Way faster than switching to iTunes and messing with the search pane, and even a bit quicker than going through a basic QS query.

Read Dan’s post: Dan Dickinson: The Primary Vivid Weblog: Another Quicksilver Tutorial: Gold Trigger

”MacBreak Weekly 45; iPhone release night; Quicksilver mouse triggers” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on June 20, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

MacBreak Weekly: WWDC Special Edition

Merlin Mann — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 21:13:23 -0400

MacBreak Weekly 44: WWDC Deconstructed

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Merlin Mann, Scott Bourne, Andy Ihnatko, and John Gruber

We run down the WWDC announcements, and John Gruber explains why Safari for Windows makes sense…

Here’s a direct MP3 download of MBW 44.

Comments are open for your own thoughts on the WWDC keynote.

”MacBreak Weekly: WWDC Special Edition” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on June 11, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Hand-picked, artisanal, remaindered links, 2007-06-04

Merlin Mann — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 12:34:14 -0400

These are lower threshold links to stuff I’ve recently enjoyed.

The Macalope On MacBreak Weekly - “Yes, it’s true. The Macalope will be on next week’s edition of MacBreak Weekly.” The MBW crew seems to remain convinced that I am the Macalope. Tune in this week, and we shall see…
Daring Fireball: iPhone SDK, iPhone SDK! Wherefore Art Thou iPhone SDK? - Gruber’s analysis seems spot-on to me: with a product this big, it pays to manage expectations and hold out the possibility of an unpromised lagniappe or two.
How to talk to the press | fortuitous - Mathowie talkes to the press a good bit more than I do, so I learned a lot from this. Love the tip about listening for frenetic typing.
Jonathan Coulton » Blog Archive » How I Did It - JoCo tells the story of how he got where he is with his music and the internet. Essential reading for those who want to go indie on the web today. Would love to see more of these from other folks as well.
Rosetta Stone for Unix - (PDF) - Ginormous table that lets you compare commands between different flavors of Unix. (via: adurity’s bookmarks on del.icio.us)
MailTags 2.0 leaves beta, goes official - The sine qua non Mail.app plugin goes 2.0. Can’t imagine using Mail without this guy plus Mail Act-On.
Twitter Blog: Are You Twittering @ Me? - “In other words, if somebody Twitters “@biz liking the new Replies tab!” it will get saved at Twitter.com/replies.” I love this feature. I can’t keep up with the (gulp) 2,300 folks who’ve been kind enough to “friend” me, but at least now I can see when they’re saying something in my direction. Very cool.
Facebook | Merlin Mann - In related news. I succumbed. Largely because of this awesomeness. (links require Facebook membership)

Submit your ideas for links to del.icio.us, and be sure to include the tag “for:43folders.”

”Hand-picked, artisanal, remaindered links, 2007-06-04” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on June 03, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Pick of the Week: Plain Text Wiki bundle for TextMate

Merlin Mann — Tue, 22 May 2007 12:42:42 -0400

plain text wiki (20 May 2007, Interconnected)

TextMate users in search of a simple wiki should check out Matt Webb’s new plain text wiki bundle. He’s made it very easy to quickly generate new “pages” and links using nothing but TextMate, the Finder, and CamelCase words:

This is exactly what I need: A bunch of text documents that I’ll be able to read at any point in the future, in a wiki structure that will be simple to implement in most extensible text editors.

I’d also note that Matt’s bundle works handsomely with Quicksilver’s venerable prepend/append and new file functionalities, so, once you’ve taken the requisite 45 seconds to set this up, you don’t necessarily need to even be in TextMate to make additions. You gotta love text.

Nice work, Matt.

Edit 2007-05-22 17:36:17 Forever confusing my British Matts; This bundle is by Matt Webb not the also-wonderfully-talented-and-funny Matt Jones. Many thanks to jjg for the correction. 43 Folders regrets the error.

”Pick of the Week: Plain Text Wiki bundle for TextMate” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on May 22, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Wikipedia on "ratholes"

Merlin Mann — Mon, 07 May 2007 07:34:07 -0400

Ratholing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ratholing is a used to describe a conversation or process that has deviated from its original productive purpose into a generally unproductive but long and winding detour that eventually comes to a dead end. The original discussion purpose may be to agree on a course of action. However, if one or more people rathole into a specific point of the discussion then the discussion stalls with no actionable outcome. This term is frequently used on the Macbreak Weekly podcast, resulting in the eventual creation of the “Rathole!” jingle^[1] and subsequent full-length song.^[2]

I first heard “rathole” used in the developer meetings run by my old boss and current friend, Richard Ramsay. Any topic that could be better handled offline or that took the group off the meeting’s stated agenda would be declared a rathole, and we’d immediately move back into the subject at hand. (Richard was great at this, by the way — one of many things I learned from him.)

Of course, as anyone who listens to MBW has figured out by now, our ratholes are usually the most interesting part of the show. I think of it like “You Bet Your Life,” where the “news” is an icebreaker for letting us talk about more compelling stuff than who sold the most chips the preceding week or whether the rumors of Apple’s iLawnmower carry any weight.

In any case, I salute Richard for teaching me this fine term, and — owing to my own fragmented attention and general lack of interest (or ability) in typical Mac punditry — I’m proud to have a role in bringing ratholes to a broader audience.

(Here’s The Official Rathole Jingle)

[via scottgladstone’s bookmarks on del.icio.us]

”Wikipedia on "ratholes"” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on May 07, 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?"