Dashboard

Net Net: Drill down with 'Corporate Ipsum' widget

Merlin — Wed, 09 May 2007 14:28:30 -0400

Corporate Ipsum - Dashboard - Developer

As we all learned from Equus, we don't get to choose the things in life that fascinate and repel us, and, in retrospect, if I could have chosen to avoid the avalanche of empty businessspeak I've been exposed to over the past dozen or so years, I certainly would have. Alas, I could not. And, so here I am, alternately repulsed and amused by the twisted patois of nonsense that passes for communication in offices and boardrooms today.

If you share this sad affliction, you may enjoy the pleasures afforded by the Corporate Ipsum Dashboard widget, cleverly (and pointlessly) designed to generate paragraphs and paragraphs of empty insight for your next pitch, presentation, or VC meeting.

In one instance, this paradigm-shifting functionality was a solution-provider for the following bit of kimono-opening stone soup:

Synergistically engage cross-media human capital for out-of-the-box convergence. Objectively generate fully tested meta-services via market-driven sources. Interactively underwhelm long-term high-impact convergence rather than future-proof convergence.

At the end of the day: awesome. Sand Hill Road, here I come!

Many thanks to jwines' bookmarks on del.icio.us

”Net Net: Drill down with 'Corporate Ipsum' widget” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on May 09, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Dine-O-Matic (and the Dashboard widgets we love)

Merlin — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 09:14:07 -0400

Dine-O-Matic - Dashboard - Food

I've never quite taken to Dashboard the way a lot of folks have. Like that completely baffling Spotlight results "window," it seems to just kind of live off in its own little neighborhood -- one that's just far enough away to discourage frequent visits. “Jeez, Merlin, how lazy can you get about hitting F12?!?”

Annnnnnyhow, I finally found a "business case" for Dashboard today with the discovery of the perfectly-delightful Dine-O-Matic, a beautiful and free (as in beer) little widget from the graphical savants over at Iconfactory. This does precisely one thing: it chooses a random restaurant for you to eat at. That's it. No more whiny rounds of "'What do you want?' and 'No, what do you want?'" Because we now have comely robots to make these decisions for us. The dining-out singularity is near!

You just pop in the names and cuisine-types of all your local haunts, and then hit the big blue plate. The widget flashes and churns like a slot machine, then picks out the place you and your party will dine. Awesome. Yay, Dashboard.

setup	results!

We haven't talked too much about Dashboard around here, but I'd love to hear from you guys:

Which widgets have made you love Dashboard? Has Dashboard become an integrated part of your overall workflow? Or is it just a pretty amusement park? (not that this is bad)

”Dine-O-Matic (and the Dashboard widgets we love)” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on September 06, 2006. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

2 OS X timers to watch: Flextime & Meridian

Merlin — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 09:54:53 -0400

An alarmed timer is one of the most simple external systems you can employ, and many of us distracted geeks have come to rely on them as a way to improve concentration, redirect attention, and bitch-slap procrastination. Why make your brain be the time-keeper and scold when you can just make some little robot do all the heavy lifting for you? Exactly.

Lucky for the Mac-scented timer geeks out there, this is an area of software development that seems to be flourishing lately, with sexy little apps like Minuteur and Dashboard widgets like ProdMe arriving on the scene to ride herd on the wandering mind.

Further, in the past week, I've stumbled across a couple more new apps that look like promising additions for the time-addled brain -- and, I'm happy to note, they look especially useful for fans of the (10+2)*5 dash.

Meridian

Recurring Dream: Meridian

Meridian is a bit of a Swiss Army app for all things time. It allows you to create custom alarms, time-zone clocks, and stopwatches that can be reused and reconfigured quite easily. You can even create nonce events that happen at some time in the future.

You also get some nice display options, allowing you to choose how and where your alarms and clocks live -- in a floating window, on the Desktop, under a pulldown menu, etc. Also, in case you're getting sick of "Basso" farting your reminders at you, you get some lovely new alarm sounds to choose from (I like "Ventana").

I also like that the floating windows for timers and stopwatches afford a variety of actions and access to Preferences right from the teeny little window. It's also easy enough to double-click any window or clock and jump right to the Preferences and configuration options. Handy.

Meridian can be configured to pop up a notification window, which, thoughtfully, allows snoozing, although -- same beef I have with iCal -- I wish the snooze options were more varied and configurable. Also, it would be nice to have access to starting a different alarm right from the reminder window.

Meridian is a good option for running dashes and alternating work/play cycles, although it does require you to manually click each alarm session to start -- I'd love a way to "daisy chain" and loop cycles of alarms, something that our next app, "Flextime," seems to do fairly well.

Meridian is $19.95 shareware and comes with a 30-day trial.

Flextime

Red Sweater Blog - FlexTime Nearing 1.0

Flextime is in a relatively young beta, but it might be the most promising alarm app out there right now -- at least from a productivity geek's standpoint. At heart, Flextime understands and supports the need for multiple repeating sets of alarms. As the site suggests:

Manage the work/play/break ratios for the time you spend at the computer.

Practice a stretching or martial art regimen such as Yoga or Tai Chi.

Set up a metronome for rhythmic exercises such as dance or music.

Arrange for scripts to be run at regular intervals throughout the day.

Just about anything that follows a schedule!

This is accomplished by creating a "Routine" that can be saved as a document for reuse. You set up each of the timed events and how you like to be notified, and then let 'er rip. I love that the default option is to repeat the Routine. One less thing to think about and fiddle with.

Although I haven't had time (and frankly lack the skillz) to experiment with scripting, it appears that you can associate custom AppleScript events with each alarm starting or ending. Would love to hear how people are using this (and maybe see the sorts of scripts you're building).

While it currently offers a fraction of the configuration options of Meridian -- for example, you have to make the Sophie-like choice between a text notification OR a sound OR a script etc. -- Flextime should be an attractive app to watch as it matures. The developer has some interesting plans for post 1.0 (Growl integration, print support, and, via email, functions like sticky alarms), and he seems to get how people might want this app to behave.

Flextime is a beta app that is AFAIK free (as in beer); not sure what the post 1.0 license and cost will be.

Quickie wish list

For what it's worth, here are few things I'd love to see in a next generation, productivity-centric alarm app:

Create and control alarm events via Quicksilver
Control and change ~~environmental variables~~ settings and Mac events, per alarm (like changing Desktop background, opening/closing apps, changing virtual desktops etc.)
Track usage and allow basic logging to be associated with alarm iterations ("What were you doing?" "Were you doing the thing you were supposed to be doing?")
Easy way to create another future ad hoc alarm/dash when the current one completes ("Remind me to work on this code for 15 minutes starting at 10:00am")

Got a Mac alarm you're loving these days? What are you using to run timed dashes?

”2 OS X timers to watch: Flextime & Meridian” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on July 19, 2006. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Paul Stamatiou on Mac productivity

Merlin — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 05:44:58 -0400

PaulStamatiou.com » Why I’m More Productive on a Mac

Paul Stamatiou lays out some of the ways his Mac helps him be more productive.

There is a reason why I’m always that guy using one of the few Macs stranded away from the sea of PCs in the library. It’s not because Apple’s OS X is superior to Windows in terms of stability and speed, but more along the lines that OS X lets me be extremely productive with several key features. I am adept in utilizing each system to its potential, having used both for years on end. Macs just let me do more. Here’s why.

Paul's hit parade includes:

Exposé (and some clever "corner" usage)
Dashboard (he uses it as a ready toolbox for various small tasks)
Spotlight (finding based on short strings of file names)
Quicksilver (well -- practically everything else ;-) )

”Paul Stamatiou on Mac productivity” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on June 06, 2006. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Three OS X Timers

Merlin — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 13:03:36 -0500

I know I'm not the only timer nerd here -- check out three Mac-friendly ways to time your activities and make sure you stay on track.

ProdMe - Dashboard - Status

Looking forward to trying this, but the DL link appears to be temporarily overwhelmed.

Clock chimes return to Mac OS X! ProdMe replicates this greatly-missed feature from Mac OS 9, and also provides two additional modes for repeating audio alerts. In addition to traditional clock chimes, ProdMe also provides the option to play a sound at any time interval, using any of the available alert sounds. Great for anyone who finds that time tends to slip away faster than expected.

Features:

Chimes can be set at either arbitrary time intervals or synchronized with the clock (like traditional clock chimes).

Multiple copies of the widget can be open at once, with independent settings for each copy.

Choice of five different background colors.

Honors 12-hour or 24-hour time format (as specified in the International system preferences).

Konfabulator - Gallery - TenPlusTwo

Haven't tried this one yet either (don't use Konfabulator, myself), but I'm a fan of its inspiration:

Can't stop procrastinating? Force yourself to work for 10 minutes, then force yourself to take a 2 minute break. Repeat.

Leave this countdown timer running, and it changes colors and plays sounds to indicate what you should be doing.

Minuteur 4.3 - MacUpdate

Finally, in other timer news, my own timer of choice, Minuteur, just keeps on adding great little tweaks. From the version 4.3 update notes:

Add fullscreen mode.

Add Dock menu.

Add dynamic Dock icon.

The ruler contextual menu is now editable.

Fullscreen mode is pretty sweet if you want to run a timed dash but not let the allure of your Mac distract you. Just creates a big old black screen with the time counting down. Very cool.

And don't forget -- Minuteur's got tons of neat little affordances to control the timer, so be sure to read the "About Minuteur" section for instructions.

”Three OS X Timers” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on November 15, 2005. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

GeekTool's new Tiger compatibility (and using it to build your own _Batcave_)

Merlin — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 09:52:48 -0400

Mac Geekery - Geektool and Bash One-Liners

I’m an old-school fan of GeekTool, a smart little PreferencePane that lets you trick out your Mac’s Desktop background with a variety of customizable stats, photos, and status info. Most folks’ favorite use is to display the output of shell scripts and simple CLI commands (e.g. “cat ~/todo.txt” or “tail -n 10 /var/log/crashreporter.log”)

To be honest, I hadn’t used GeekTool in a while, but apparently there were some Tiger compatibility issues that were vexing fans. Now Mac Geekery’s rupa deadwyler points to a branched version (2nd item) that provides fixes for Tiger.

He also writes up a good post on a few of his favorite uses for GeekTool:

Processes

There’s a few ways to run this. Right now, I like:

ps -cm -U username | awk '/:/ && $5!~/Dashboard/'

c omits the full path of each process, m orders the processes by memory and -U username shows all processes owned by that user. Plain ps only shows processes run through the terminal, ps -A gives me more than I want to see, ps -U was pretty good, I thought. Replacing the m with r orders the processes by CPU usage, I haven’t really decided which one I like better.

My own favorite feature? Probably the least tech-y thing you can do with it: GeekTool can pull photos from the web on a regular schedule, which makes it easy to see weather, traffic, and web cam output right on your desktop (my Desktop, ca. 2004-11).

With a little bit of creativity, experimentation, and poking around, GeekTool can help you put together your own Information Batcave.

”GeekTool's new Tiger compatibility (and using it to build your own _Batcave_)” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on October 04, 2005. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Dashboard Widget for Unix 'Remind'

Merlin — Fri, 03 Jun 2005 11:46:25 -0400

Remind Widget

A few months back Mike Harris wrote us up a great article on Remind, a very cool and flexible little UNIX app for tracking date-based events.

If you enjoy Remind and are using Tiger (OS X 10.4), checkout Nick Vargish’s Remind Widget for Dashboard. Gives you all the power of Remind in a pretty and configurable view.

Great work, Nick!

”Dashboard Widget for Unix 'Remind'” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on June 03, 2005. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Calm Technology: How do I know when I need to know?

Merlin — Mon, 09 May 2005 05:20:00 -0400

Designing Calm Technology

This nine-year-old article on “calm technology” seems more relevant than ever today.

A calm technology will move easily from the periphery of our attention, to the center, and back. This is fundamentally encalming, for two reasons.

First, by placing things in the periphery we are able to attune to many more things than we could if everything had to be at the center. Things in the periphery are attuned to by the large portion of our brains devoted to peripheral (sensory) processing. Thus the periphery is informing without overburdening.

Second, by recentering something formerly in the periphery we take control of it. Peripherally we may become aware that something is not quite right, as when awkward sentences leave a reader tired and discomforted without knowing why. By moving sentence construction from periphery to center we are empowered to act, either by finding better literature or accepting the source of the unease and continuing. Without centering the periphery might be a source of frantic following of fashion; with centering the periphery is a fundamental enabler of calm through increased awareness and power.

I’m convinced—as I believe Danny is—that doing this sort of thing well will become increasingly important to overstimulated, easily-distracted people (like me). There’s no way we can process all the stuff that begs our attention, so we’ll need to rely heavily on smarter, less disruptive ways to know when our attention is really needed. To do this with a minimal amount of focal change is a challenge in need of some very clever solutions.

[Via: heyblog: Thoughts on Dashboard and ambient information]

”Calm Technology: How do I know when I need to know?” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on May 09, 2005. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"