Working Smart

MenuMaster Now Available for Mac Intels

Unsanity has finally released a public beta of Menu Master, one of my all-time favorite utilities, for Mac Intel computers. I have been checking their Website daily since I got my MacBook Pro. It had become so much of my workflow that I found it difficult to get along without it. I installed the program with no problems and it appears to be stable.

Menu Master is a system enhancement that allows you to change or remove menu shortcut keys in any application with a simple press of the key. Pull the menu down, navigate to the menu item you want, and then press a keystroke combination. It is automatically assigned to the menu item and instantly appears on the menu item itself. Don’t like your choice, just press the backspace key and delete it. Very cool and very easy to use.

Menu Master is on my must-have list of Mac software. At $10.00, it’s a steal. Grab a copy and give it a whirl.

Technorati Tags: apple, cool software, macbook pro

Using Keyboard Shortcuts to Improve Your Productivity

I have never met anyone really productive who relied on the mouse. It’s just too inefficient. For example, consider the following two methods for saving a file in Microsoft Word. Imagine you’re typing a report. You realize you need to save your file.

Approach 1: You take your hand off the keyboard, grab your mouse, move the cursor to the File menu, move the cursor down to the Save menu item and then click on the mouse button. Your workflow is interrupted and it takes you a few minutes to get back in “the Zone.”

Approach 2: You simply press ⌘S on the Mac or Ctrl-S on the PC and keep working. This takes a fraction of the time and has the added advantage of not interrupting your workflow. And, because it is so easy, you do it every time you pause to think. This ensures that you are frequently saving your work in the event your computer crashes.

Which makes more sense? It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it. Yet few people take the time to really learn the standard operating system shortcuts (Mac or Windows). If you haven’t learned these already, I would urge you to do so. Over time, you will see a major boost in your productivity.

But in this post, I want to focus on creating keyboard shortcuts for common, non-operating system tasks. Whether you are using Microsoft Entourage or Outlook, the concept is the same. If you are going to use either one as your workflow “dashboard,” you can vastly increase your productivity by creating one-keystroke shortcuts to create new email messages, tasks, events, and notes. To do this, you need a third-party macro processor. This software will allow you to perform a series of actions with a single keystroke.

When I had a Windows machine, I used Keyboard Launchpad from Stardock Systems. It’s still only $9.95—a tremendous bargain. However, since switching to the Mac, I am using iKey from Scripts Software. Unfortunately, it is $30.00, but it is still much cheaper than QuicKeys, which is $79.95. (I used Keyboard Maestro for a while. It was only $20.00, but I found it buggy. It didn’t always work reliably. I’ve been using iKey for a few months and love it.)

Regardless of which program you use, here are some keyboard shortcuts I have found helpful. Keep in mind that on the Mac, ⇧ refers to the shift key, ⌃ refers to the Ctrl key, ⌥ refers to the Alt or Option key, and ⌘ refers to the Apple or command key.

Keystroke	Actions
⌥⌘c	Switch to Entourage from whatever application you are currently in. Select the File | New | Task command.
⌥⌘e	Switch to Entourage from whatever application you are currently in. Select the File | New | Calendar Event command.
⌥⌘k	Switch to Entourage from whatever application you are currently in. Select the File | New | Task command.
⌥⌘m	Switch to Entourage from whatever application you are currently in. Select the File| New | Mail Message command.
⌥⌘n	Switch to Entourage from whatever application you are currently in. Select the File | New | Note command.

The beauty of these shortcuts is that they allow you to get ideas out of your mind and into the appropriate receptacle (e.g., task list, calendar, note, etc.) as quickly as possible with the least amount of interruption to your workflow.

In addition to these, within Entourage, I have also created a keyboard shortcut for filing the current message in my Archive folder. I do not try to file messages into a more specific folder as some people do. For me, this adds unnecessary complexity to my email processing. I want to focus on deciding what action to take with the message and then filing it in a common folder, so I can always work toward maintaining an empty email inbox.

If you have to also decide what folder to file the message in, you cut your productivity in half. And, honestly, I don’t think it speeds up the retrieval process appreciably. Instead, I let Spotlight do the heavy lifting. (If you are using Outlook on the PC, I recommend Lookout, a small add-in that plugs into Outlook and makes searching within messages a snap.) So, I just dump every message in an Archive folder and leave it at that. This enables me to fly through my email.

In order to set up such a shortcut in Entourage, first make sure you have a folder named “Archive” under your inbox. Then select a message. It doesn’t matter which one. Select Message | Move To. If you see the name of your folder, write down the exact name. For example, mine is “Archive (mhyatt)”. The “mhyatt” part indicates that the folder is actually a subfolder in my main Exchange mailbox.

If you don’t see the name of your folder, then select Choose Folder..., then select your folder. Press the Move key. This will actually move the message, so you may want to retrieve it manually and place it back in your inbox. Then re-read the last paragraph and get the exact name of the folder.

Okay, now you are ready to create the shortcut. Go to System Preferences | Keyboard & Mouse | Keyboard Shortcuts. Click on the + button, then select Microsoft Entourage as the Application. Then enter the exact name of your Archive folder in the Menu Title field. Finally, enter the keystroke combination you want to use in the Keyboard Shortcut field. Press OK. That’s it.

Now quit Entourage and relaunch it. You should now be able to use your shortcut to move messages to your Archive folder with a single keystroke. You’ll be surprised at how much this speeds up your workflow.

This is just a start. Pay attention to how you work. Whenever you find yourself doing the same thing over and over, automate it with a single keyboard shortcut. This will keep you focused on the work at hand, and free your mind up for more creative problem-solving.

Technorati Tags: entourage, gtd, mac, productivity, workflow

Capturing Movie Clips on the Fly

I love multi-media presentations. Steve Jobs is one of the best at this. (Click here to watch his iPod Nano presentation.) I especially like using movie clips to illustrate points. They are visually interesting and emotionally compelling. They often make a point that in a way that merely telling a story cannot.

As a result, I have been looking for a program to rip film clips from DVDs, so that I could use them in my speeches. (Yes, my attorney says this falls under “fair use.”) Previously, I was using Mac the Ripper to decode the DVD file then Cinematize to actually select the clip and save it as a QuickTime movie. It was a very involved, tedious, and time-consuming process. As a result, I didn’t make much use of movie clips. Bummer.

Over the weekend, I stumbled across Snapz Pro. It is way cool! Unfortunately, the Web site doesn’t do it justice. It looks like a simple screen capture utility. However, there is far more beneath the hood. Fortunately, it is available as shareware, so you can try it before you buy it.

Technorati Tags: apple, keynote, mac, movie clips, powerpoint, presentations, QuickTime, snapz

In addition to capturing static screens and windows on your computer, you can also record movies. These can be, for example, a movie of your screen activity with narration to create, say, a software tutorial. There are some examples of these on the site, illustrating the features of the program.

However, Snapz Pro really shines in recording DVD or Internet movies. It is so simple. You invoke the program with a hotkey, start your movie, and then play the DVD clip you want to capture. It records it, then saves it as a QuickTime movie. You can even select the compression format you want. The quality is amazing—at least to my amateur eye. I can’t tell it from the original.

Once I have the movie clip, I then insert it into a Keynote slide, so that it automatically plays when I display the slide. If you are using a Mac this is worth checking out. (If you are still on Windows—you are considering switching aren’t you?—check out Comtasia Studio.)

Google’s New Blog Search Engine

Google has just launched a very cool new blog search engine. It is called—appropriately—Google Blog Search. It being unveiled as a “beta” version.

I did a few test searches and was very impressed. As we have come to expect from Google, it is fast and thorough. Give it a try! (via The Unofficial Apple Weblog)

Technorati Tags: blogs, google, search

Digital Photography Workflow

Earlier this summer, my wife bought me a Canon Digital Rebel XT SLR camera for my birthday. Prior to that, I had a very portable Sony Cybershot DSC-1 (non SLR, point-and-shoot). I enjoyed the Cybershot, but I thought I might be ready to upgrade to an SLR camera. Thankfully, my wife agreed. Overnight, I became an addict. The Canon has brought me more joy as a hobby than anything I have done previously.

Part of why I enjoy the camera so much, I think, is it gives me an opportunity to express myself artistically. In addition, it satisfies my enthusiasm for gadgets and love of software. The only downside is that it can get expensive. Fast. The upside is that I don’t have any film costs, and I can shoot hundreds of photos with nearly instantaneous feedback, thanks to the LCD screen on the camera itself.

Initially, I used iPhoto to manage my burgeoning photo collection. (If you haven’t tried a Mac before, this application could almost justify the purchase. It’s a model of usability and coolness.) In addition to organizing my photos, it also provides a really simple but elegant image editor that is sufficient for 90% of my photo retouching needs. At least, until I discovered Photoshop Elements (available for both Mac and Windows). Now I am using it for the other 10% of my photos—the ones that need something that is beyond what the iPhoto editor can do.

For example, a couple of weeks ago I was showing my daughter a picture of her that I had taken. In it, she had a giant smile that was magnetic. She liked the picture, but she didn't like her teeth. “Can’t you make my teeth whiter, Dad?” “Hmm,” I said, “I’ll have to get back to you on that.”

Unfortunately, I couldn’t do it with iPhoto. However, I stumbled across a tutorial for Elements that was just the ticket. It was on a great site called PhotoshopElementsUser.com. The tutorial was called simply Smile. The tutorial took me less than five minutes. I then worked the magic and showed it to my daughter. Both of us were amazed. (If only we could make these kinds of quick touch-ups in real life!)

Now I’m considering moving to iView MediaPro to manage my digital images and using Elements for 100% of my image editing needs. The nice thing about it is that the most-used features—cropping, red-eye correction, levels, healing brush—are readily accessible with keyboard shortcuts. (In that sense, it is even easier to use than iPhoto.) I am considering MediaPro for a number of reasons. For one, it has a much larger capacity than iPhoto, and my images are multiplying like rabbits. Second, it allows me more flexibility in terms of defining my digital workflow.

Speaking of which ... if you use MediaPro, I’d like to hear from you. What is your digital workflow? What specific steps do you go throough when you’re ready to download your images? How do you name your files? How do you structure your folders. Inquiring minds want to know!

What Was That Keyboard Shortcut?

I hate using my computer’s mouse. Every time I have to take my hand off the keyboard to reach for it, I suffer a slight decline in productivity. That’s why I try to memorize every keyboard shortcut I can. It just makes me more productive.

Up until now, this has required an up-front investment in learning each program’s shortcut keys. However, I recently stumbled across a program called KeyCue. Unfortunately, for you Windows users, this only works with the Mac.

Here’s how it works: From within any program you press the Apple key (i.e., ⌘) and hold it down for a user-defined amount of time. (I have it set to one second.) Immediately, a screen pops up, showing all the keyboard shortcuts for the current application. This is an amazing way to learn shortcuts and is only a keystroke a way. I find myself using it all the time. It’s not free, but at $14.99, it’s a bargain. (Thanks to Todd correcting me on the price in the comments below.) I highly recommend it. I guarantee it will make your more productive.

iPhoto—Almost Perfect

I don't pretend to be a great photographer. I know just enough to be dangerous. However, I really enjoy manipulating the images and creating slide shows for my family. It's amazing what you can do with today's digital cameras and image editing software.

When I was still on my PC, I was using Adobe Photoshop Elements and loving it. I have never used a piece of software that so elegantly balanced power and ease-of-use. I could do just about anything I wanted. However, when I switched to the Mac, I decided to give iPhoto a whirl.

No doubt about it, you can do some very cool things with iPhoto. It is a great album organizer. It is also a wonderful tool for sharing your photos. For example, emailing photos to friends is a snap. I simply select the photos, select Share | Email and the program opens a new mail window in Entourage with all the photos attached. (You can specify your default email program.)

Last night, I wanted to upload some photos of my new two-week year old granddaughter to a Website where my family and friends could enjoy them. I opened a trial membership to .mac (pronounced “dot-mac”), selected the pictures I wanted to upload, chose a “theme” for the Web page, and clicked “Publish.” The whole process took less than 15 minutes.

As satisfying as this experience was, I am not equally happy with the image editing functions of iPhoto. The red eye tool, for example, is very weak—virtually useless. You have very little control over it. You cannot identify the area you want to change other than by clicking in the center of the subject's pupil. The program then decides what to do with the red color. If the color is orange or less than really red, the tool doesn't work. You're simply out of luck.

At first I thought it was just a particular picture. But I had nearly the same experience with every picture I tried. By contrast, I emailed a few of the photos to my wife's computer. She pulled them into Photoshop Elements for Windows and neutralized the subject's red eye with two clicks. This worked with every picture. (The worst part is that she winked at me and said, “Maybe you should switch back to a PC!”) I spent the next hour reading the iPhoto help file pertaining to red eye. I also visited the Apple iPhoto discussion group. Evidently, I wasn't the only one experiencing this problem. Bummer.

So this morning before work I downloaded the trial version of Adobe Photoshop Elements for the Mac and iView Media Pro. The latter looks particularly interesting. However, I don't know if either of them make sharing pictures as easy as iPhoto (especially in terms of emailing photos or uploading to .mac). Another option is to continue to use iPhoto for organizing and sharing and use an external image editor like Elements for image editing. Fortunately, iPhoto provides a way to use an external editor.

If there are other options I should consider, please let me know.

Concept X7: Worse Than I Thought

Believe it or not, my bad experience with Concept X7 got worse. When the software did not work as advertised, I uninstalled it. What I didn’t realize was that this simple action also disabled the Windows XP Tablet PC Edition’s ink capability. According to the TabletPCBuzz forum, several other users had this same experience.

Initially, I didn’t notice this problem. Since I was on vacation, I wasn’t using the ink-enabled applications I normally use when attending meetings at work. However, I tried to load GoBinder this morning to check some notes and got an error message. Thankfully, I had been following the thread on Concept X7 in the TabletPCBuzz forum, otherwise I may have thought the problem was with GoBinder.

I then tried to load OneNote. It flashed the splash screen and then choked my system, forcing a reboot. Once I had Windows loaded, I tried to load Windows Journal, which gave me a message that there was something wrong with Windows’ inking capabilities. That was all the confirmation I needed.

I then did a system restore and now—thank God—everything is back to normal. (I actually had to do this twice, since the first time I didn’t pick a restore point early enough.) All in all, this experience cost me about three hours of frustration.

So what did I learn? Four things:

1. Stay away from the “bleeding edge.” Don’t install every piece of seemingly cool software without checking to see what other users have experienced. The best place to research this is in the many user forums on the Web.
   
   
2. Pay attention to the marketing. If you experience problems with the developer’s Web site and download procedure, it may be a harbinger of things to come. If they are sloppy with the marketing, they may also be sloppy with their code—which was exactly what I experienced with Concept 7.
   
   
3. Create a system restore point. Do this before installing any new software. On most systems, you can find this under Start | Accessories | System Tools. This way you can “roll back” your system to the point before things went awry. Force yourself to get into this habit. (I’m preaching to myself!)
   
   
4. Warn other users. Hopefully, you can save other users the pain of wasting their time and potentially damaging their systems. Again, the various user forums are a great place to do this.

The Concept X7 Sales Prevention Team

I heard about Concept X7 on the TabletPCBuzz forum. It sounded like a cross between MindManager, GoBinder, and OneNote. I visited the Web page to check it out and was impressed, especially by the screen shots. However, I am convinced that the developer must employ a “sales prevention team.” Why? Here are the problems I experienced.

Problem #1: The Price. The program sells for $298. What?! Okay, maybe I’d pay this much for Microsoft Office or Adobe Photoshop, but few programs are worth this much. GoBinder is only $79.95. OneNote is $99.95. MindManager X5 is $199 (and worth every penny). Well, fortunately, I thought, they offer a trial version of the program.

Problem #2: Download Difficulty. When I clicked on the Trial Version link, the Web page asked me for my e-mail address, promising to send me the download instructions by e-mail. This isn’t that unusual, so I entered my address and clicked on the “Send” button, thinking an autoresponder would automatically send me the information. No such luck. I never received the download instructions. I checked the TabletPCBuzz forum again. Evidently, I wasn’t the only one with this problem. Fortunately, someone posted a link to the download page. I then downloaded the program.

Problem #3: Crippleware. Beware, the trial version is not the full-featured version. It’s crippled. Before the installation started, the program displayed the following dialog box:

Obviously, several features are disabled. So, I wrote to the developers and asked for a full-featured copy of the software. (More about that in a moment.) I went ahead and installed the trial software. The installation went without a hitch—or so I thought.

Problem #4: Deadware. I then tried to run the program. I received the following message (click on the image to see the dialog box in actual size):

Note that the program has died. It’s not responding. I tried rebooting my computer. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling. Nothing worked. I spent way more time on this that I should have. I went back to the TabletPCBuzz forum and posted my results. I was not the only one who experienced this problem. At least, it’s not my system.

Problem #5: Marketing Stupidity. I was still hopeful that I could get the full-featured version of the program running. Today, I received an e-mail message from Alexandra Han of SoftwareForAll, the site where I downloaded the program. Here’s the text of the message. (I’m not making this up.)

Hello

Sorry, no fully funcitional copy of any softwares available for trial usage, if you want a fully functional copy, you will have to pay the registration fee.

Best regards
Alexandra Han

Softforall Technology
webmaster@softforall.com
http://www.softforall.com

Amazing. Let’s think this through. Granted, I don’t have the most popular blog on the planet. But I get about 2,000 readers a week. That’s a lot of prospects. Wouldn’t it make sense to provide a free copy to me in the hopes that I would write a positive review and influence my readers to buy the software? Instead, Alexandra tells me I have to buy a copy.

This is what you call “pennywise and pound foolish.” I mean, the software doesn’t even have a cost associated with it. News flash: It’s a digital download. It would have cost her company nothing. Instead, she ticked me off enough that I am spending my Thanksgiving morning writing a negative review of the product.

Someone may argue that I can’t hold the developer (WebPlanet) responsible for the lame response of the distributor (SoftForAll). On the contrary. The developer picked this distributor. He also chose not to send me the download instructions. Regardless, I’ve completely lost interest in this software. Rather than making me more productive—as the developer promised—I’ve wasted several hours trying to get it to run. I’ve now uninstalled it. Good riddens!

Google Your Desktop

Google has become the de facto Internet search engine of choice. It is so ubiquitous that the word “google” has become a verb, as in, “I’ll google that and get back to you.” I don’t even remember the last time I used another search engine.

But what about those thousands of e-mail messages, documents, spreadsheets, slideshows, and photos lurking on computer’s hard disk? Wouldn’t it be cool if you could also search for those with the familiar, simple-to-use Google search engine? Well, now you can.

Google has just released a beta version of Google Desktop Search. It carries the familiar Google logo:

If you know how to use Google-and who doesn’t?-you already know how to use Google Desktop. It couldn’t be simpler to use. You download the program, let it index your hard drive, and then search as you normally would. (Warning: the first time you index your hard drive, it will take several hours. I recommend starting this process at night before you go to bed.) There’s virtually nothing new to learn.

As the President of a 600-or-so employee company, simplicity is a major selling point. Every new software introduction carries with it at least three costs: (1) the initial cost of the software, including deployment, (2) the cost of user training, and (3) the ongoing cost of upgrades. Right now, Google Desktop Search is free and easy to download. Virtually any user can do it on their own. In addition, since people already know how to use Google, there are no training costs. The only thing that remains to be seen is whether or not Google will eventually charge for this or introduce a “professional version” with more bells and whistles that you have to pay for.

Yes, there are probably better desktop search alternatives. One that looks particularly interesting is Copernic Desktop Search. However, it would have to be substantially better than Google to entice me to invest the training time to learn a new tool. For now, Google Desktop Search is all I need.