Mac Power Users

MPU 013: Task Management Smackdown

feedback@macpowerusers.com (David and Katie) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 02:58:10 +0000

We’ve gotten a lot of requests for this episode, so here it is, our Task Management Smackdown. In one corner, David and The Omni Group’s Omni Focus. In another, Katie and Cultured Code’s Things. The duo discuss their system for managing tasks and how their preferred application helps to get things done. The verdict: the Mac has two excellent programs.

Links of Interest:
Things – Cultured Code

Omni Focus – The Omni Group

David Allen, Getting Things Done

Curt Clifton – Omni Focus Scripts

Things Wiki

OmniFocus GTD White Paper

ScreenCastsOnline Tutorials:

Advanced OmniFocus & iPhone Client

Jeremy Burton’s Take on OmniFocus v. Things

Note2Self iPhone App

MPU 012: Troubleshooting Your Mac

feedback@macpowerusers.com (David and Katie) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 01:55:18 +0000

Macs are typically very reliable machines, but from time to time they can cause you trouble. In this episode, we discuss recommendations for identifying and fixing problems. We also discuss tips for keeping your Mac running smoothly and discuss more listner feedabck on our security episode.

Links of Interest:
Reboot a Mac with Terminal
VersionTracker
MacUpdate
TinkerTool
Onyx
MacPilot
Cocktail
DiskWarrior
DriveGenius
Applejack (Warning: Check Compatibility)
Apple Certified Specialist Registry
Apple Discussions
MacFixIt

MPU 011: Services and Macworld 2010

feedback@macpowerusers.com (David and Katie) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 02:43:02 +0000

This episode provides an introduction to automation. Subjects include Applescript, Automator, and Snow Leopard Services. We also had Macworld Expo Director Paul Kent on to talk about Macworld Expo and Conference 2010.

Links of Interest:

Automator
Applescript
Snow Leopard Services
Applescript 1-2-3
MacBreak Video Services Episode
Listener Ken’s Post on Evernote Service
David’s Post on Title Caps Service
Macworld Expo and Conference 2010
David’s “Mac at Work” Session
David’s “Numbers Lab” Session

Our nest show will be about troubleshooting on your Mac. Stay tuned!

MPU 010: Mac Security

feedback@macpowerusers.com (David and Katie) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 01:46:34 +0000

This episode includes a survey of security issues for Mac owners. Subjects include virus and trojans, phishing and web security, and physical security and insurance.

Links of Interest:

Norton Anti-Virus for Mac

McAfee VirusScan for Mac

MacSparky Secure Disk Image Screencast #2

George Starcher Open DNS Screencast

1Password

TextExpander

Our nest show will be all about the new Snow Leopard services menu. E-mail us with your questions and favorite scripts.

MPU 009: Getting Ready for Snow Leopard

feedback@macpowerusers.com (David and Katie) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 23:00:00 +0000

We know, we were supposed to do a show about security this week. But with all the news coming out about Snow Leopard we just couldn’t help ourselves. In this episode we talk about how to get your Mac ready for Snow Leopard and our tips for a smooth install process.

Links of Interest:
Snow Leopard Specifications
Apple Up-to-Date Program
Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard
Mac OS X Snow Leopard Family Pack (5-User)
Mac Box Set (with Snow Leopard)
Mac Box Set Family Pack (with Snow Leopard)
Mac OS X Server version 10.6 Snow Leopard
Apple Insider Article on Snow Leopard Install Options
Typical Mac User Snow Leopard Prep Show

Note: Due to our schedules, the next episode of Mac Power Users won’t be released until early September. Feel free to take the time to catch up on past episodes.

MPU 008: Backup!

feedback@macpowerusers.com (David and Katie) — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 22:57:33 +0000

In this episode, David and Katie discuss backup tools, strategies and plans.

Next show: Security

Links of Interest

MPU 007: LaunchBar Blackbelt

feedback@macpowerusers.com (David and Katie) — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 16:05:10 +0000

In this episode we cover popular application launcher, LaunchBar. This episode goes beyond the basics and includes are several power user tips. We recommend you listen to this one in front of a Mac equipped with LaunchBar. Enjoy.

LaunchBar Discount Code – 15% Off, Valid through August 31.

DT-37F9-D8EB

Links of Interest

LaunchBar

LaunchBar Features Page

LaunchBar Scripts

Timer Script

LaunchBar Search Templates

Wolfram Alpha Template

David’s favorite – Tea Timer

Other Launchers

Apple Spotlight

Google Quick Search Box

Quicksilver

Drag Thing

Butler

MPU 006: Setting Up A New Mac

feedback@macpowerusers.com (David and Katie) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:57:28 +0000

In this episode we talk all about setting up a new Mac. Do you want to migrate your data or start from scratch? What are the options for getting your old data on your new Mac? Katie and David explore the options and share their tips and tricks.

Links of Interest

Carbon Copy Cloner

SuperDuper

1Password

DropBox

PDF Pen Update

MacSparky Screencast (Multiple e-mail accounts)

MPU 005: Word Processing and Writing

feedback@macpowerusers.com (David and Katie) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 03:18:18 +0000

Episode five takes on word processing and writing on your Mac. It is no longer all about Microsoft Word. Apple’s own Pages is becoming a contender and there are several other tools that will help you write better.

Links of Interest:

Original Macintosh System Fonts

MPU 004: Staying in Sync

feedback@macpowerusers.com (David and Katie) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:32:12 +0000

In our fourth episode we talk about a subject that plagues many Mac users, keeping thing in sync. Whether you’re trying to sync documents or data to another computer, a mobile device, or the cloud we talk about various products and services to allow you to always have your data available no matter where you are. We discuss various options including MobileMe and Dropbox for file syncing, as well as programs that keep just specific types of data, such as music or calendars in sync.

Notes:
1) Please excuse the audio quality and some hard cuts in the editing. We had a horrible time with Skype dropping out while trying to record this show and had to put the show together from a series of recordings.

2) Our friend Don McAllister of ScreenCastsOnline recently addressed the problem of how to sync files using DropBox when the files have to be located in specific folders and can’t be moved to the Dropbox folder. Unfortunately, his show was published after we already recorded ours. You can find information on creating links to files and folders for syncing in his Screencast 202- Mac Hints & Tips Montage – 08

Links of Interest:
MobileMe
Dropbox
SugarSync
Google Sync
Evernote
ChronoSync
Spider Oak
Syncplicity
Zumo drive
Microsoft Live Sync
BusySync
BusyCal
Spanning Sync
SuperSync
My Tune Sync
Syncopation
TuneRanger
iPhoto Library Manager

PDFPen Applescript to Automate OCR

feedback@macpowerusers.com (David and Katie) — Sun, 24 May 2009 07:14:51 +0000

As discussed on Mac Power Users episode 3, “Going Paperless,” the nice people at Smile On My Mac put together an Applescript that, when combined with a folder action, gives you a way to automatically OCR documents using PDFpen or PDFpenPro. So here is the promised walk through:

What you’ll need:

1. Some scanned PDF images;
2. PDFpen or PDFpenPro (See my review here);
3. A bit of patience.

Step 1 – Load up the Script Editor

This little application allows you to create and save AppleScripts.

Step 2 – Copy in the below script

on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving added_items
try
repeat with i from 1 to number of items in added_items
set this_item to item i of added_items
tell application “PDFpenPro”
open this_item
set theDoc to document 1
repeat with aPage in pages of theDoc
ocr aPage
– Looks like we need to modify PDFpen so that we can detect when OCR is done; for now use 15 seconds
delay 15
end repeat
save theDoc
close theDoc
end tell
end repeat
on error errText
display dialog “Error: ” & errText
end try
end adding folder items to

————-

Note – if you use PDFpenPro instead of PDFpen, you’ll need to open the script and edit the command that reads “tell application “PDFpen” to read “tell application “PDFpenPro”.

Note 2 – Worpress “fixed” some of the text upon posting that garbled the script. Specifically, Wordpress seems to have converted the double dash before the comment in to an em-dash and the quotes to smart quotes. I tried to fix it with an edit but Wordpress keeps “fixing it” to my detriment. You’ll have to do that manually in your editor. If anyone knows how to post applescript to Wordpress, please drop me a note. -D

Step 3 – Save the script

You need to save it to a specific directory:

HD/Library/Scripts/Folder Action Scripts/

I named mine “PDFpen Scriptacular”

Step 4 – Create a folder

Save the folder wherever is convenient. Perhaps in your documents folder or (for you anarchists) on the desktop. By the way, did you know that command-shift-n gets you a new folder? I named mine “OCR Drop.”

Step 5 – Enable folder actions

Secondary click on the folder and enable folder actions under the “More” item.

Step 6 – Configure Folder Action

Right clicking the folder a second time gives you a new option, Configure Folder Action. Click it.

Step 7 – Pick Your Folder

On the menu that appears, hit the plus (+) sign under the “Folders with Actions” box.

Select your folder, wherever you located it. It will then ask you to pick a script. Pick the PDFpen scriptacular.scpt

It should now look like this.

Close the window and you are done.

Now just drag a few PDFs in and let the script go to work. Copy the OCR’d PDFs where they belong and you are done. There are a few additional points:

1. There is no Applescript command in PDFpen that reports when it is done doing an OCR so instead there is a 15 second timer. The PDFpen wizards report they are going to try and fix this in a future release.

2. While this script generally works, it sometimes gave me an error when I overloaded it. Be patient.

I want to give my personal thanks to the gang at Smile On My Mac, particularly Greg, who put this script together for Mac Power Users just because we asked.

MPU 003: Going Paperless

feedback@macpowerusers.com (David and Katie) — Sat, 23 May 2009 00:51:39 +0000

In this episode, we discuss all the steps necessary to take your piles of paper and get it into your Mac and organized.

Links of Interest

Fujitsu ScanSnap 300M Fujitsu ScanSnap 1500M

Prizmo – Scan with your Camera

Griffin Clarifi iPhone Case

Hazel

ScreencastsOnline Hazel episode

Yep PDF Management

Leap

ExactScan

EagleFiler

DEVONthink

The Neat Company

Paperless

Yojimbo

Evernote

PDFpen

Readiris – OCR Software

Encrypted Disk Image Video (MacSparky Screencast)

MPU 002: All About E-Mail (Part 2)

feedback@macpowerusers.com (David and Katie) — Tue, 12 May 2009 10:00:37 +0000

In part 2 of our E-mail series we go in-depth on our various systems for managing email, the pros and cons of each system, developing a good email work flow, learning how avoid becoming a slave to your inbox, email etiquette and other useful tools. If you haven’t had a chance to listen to Episode 1 yet, you’ll probably want to listen to that for background before picking up Episode 2.

(For links and other information, see our shownotes to Episode 1)

MPU 001: All About E-Mail

feedback@macpowerusers.com (David and Katie) — Tue, 05 May 2009 22:38:35 +0000

We actually talked about e-mail for 2 hours. But we didn’t want to scare too many people away with our very first podcast so we decided to release this episode in two parts.

In part one we talk about the differences between IMAP and POP and why we prefer IMAP, storing messages, Mobile Me and Gmail services, managing multiple email accounts, Apple Mail, smart folders, rules, spotlight search, data detectors, stationary, thread organization, To-Do management, mail stationary, plug-ins, archiving messages, spam filtering and more.

Part two will be released in about a week where we’ll go in-depth on our various systems for managing email, the pros and cons of each system, developing a good email work flow, learning how not to become a slave to your inbox, email etiquette and other useful tools.

Links of Interest

MPU 000: Another Mac Podcast, Really?

feedback@macpowerusers.com (David and Katie) — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 22:59:07 +0000

Episode 0: Why should you subscribe to another Mac podcast, and what this show is all about. (Running time: 4:55)

Subscribe to the Podcast in iTunes

Mac Power Users

MPU 013: Task Management Smackdown

MPU 012: Troubleshooting Your Mac

MPU 011: Services and Macworld 2010

MPU 010: Mac Security

MPU 009: Getting Ready for Snow Leopard

MPU 008: Backup!

Links of Interest

MPU 007: LaunchBar Blackbelt

Links of Interest

Other Launchers

MPU 006: Setting Up A New Mac

Links of Interest

MPU 005: Word Processing and Writing

Links of Interest:

MPU 004: Staying in Sync

PDFPen Applescript to Automate OCR

Step 1 – Load up the Script Editor

Step 2 – Copy in the below script

Step 3 – Save the script

Step 4 – Create a folder

Step 5 – Enable folder actions

Step 6 – Configure Folder Action

Step 7 – Pick Your Folder

MPU 003: Going Paperless

Links of Interest

MPU 002: All About E-Mail (Part 2)

MPU 001: All About E-Mail

Links of Interest

Apple Mail Add-ons

Task Management

Other Tools

Other Resources

MPU 000: Another Mac Podcast, Really?