Entries Tagged 'productivity' ↓

A few months ago I started using a program called MindManager. It’s a very powerful program used to create very aesthetically pleasing mind maps. I’ve been using it as a primary method of note taking in most of my classes. It doesn’t work so well for math, but for anything else, it’s a great option. I like it particularly because it easily allows me to link ideas together by adding relationships within the map, which aids me in recalling the information later.

There is also a feature that lets you add attachments to topics within the map, so that you can add pictures, or anything else that is appropriate. The reason I started using this to take notes was because I watched this video, which is a very good example of how students can make use of this program.

However, it’s not only useful for students, it can be used for anything. I’ve also been using this program to plan out various projects at work, and the recipients of these maps have been very impressed.

I’ve tried out several free alternatives for mind mapping, including FreeMind, but none of them make the maps look as good as MindManager does. It is definitely worth the investment for the product.

MindManager is available for both Windows and Mac.

A while ago on Lifehacker, they did a series called “Show Us Your Go Bag“, where the readers sent in tagged pictures of the contents of their go bag. I never got around to actually sending them a picture of mine, so I’m going to post it here. Clicking on the picture will take you to Flickr where you can see the notes attached to it.

Here is the contents:

• Leather portfolio
• Umbrella (this has come in handy lately)
• Camera
• Large notebook
• Morning newspaper
• Binoculars
• 15-inch Macbook Pro
• Graph paper sticky notes (I got these in highschool, they are fantastic)
• Various pens and pencils
• Calculator
• Ethernet cable (Very thin and small, came with my Fonero)
• Moleskine notebook (to track my to-dos and work)

What’s in your go bag?

Microsoft Office 2007 is by far one of the best products Microsoft has ever made, with the exception of one thing. Microsoft decided it was necessary to introduce a new document format. These include xlsx, pptx, and docx. For the longest time, their Office products have used the doc, ppt, and xls formats. In addition to this change, none of these new formats are backwards compatible with Microsoft’s older Office products, which has caused a lot of people undue stress.

I’ve had several clients and co-workers wondering why they can’t open their Office 2007 documents from anywhere else except their own computer. One of my professors upgraded to Office 2007 and posted a docx file to the course management software. The entire lecture the next day was in uproar saying that they couldn’t open the file.

Luckily there is a way around this so that you can still have the great functionality of the software, without losing the portability.

1. Every time you do a “Save As” you can change the drop down menu to save as a .doc (Microsoft 97/2000/2003 Compatible) instead of a .docx
2. You can change the default save options to automatically save as a format of your choosing.

Microsoft has an article in their knowledge base about making this change. For your convenience, here is the rundown for making the change in Microsoft Word 2007. The article also explains how to do it in Excel and Powerpoint.

1. Double-click Microsoft Office Word 2007, double-click Word Options, and click Save.
2. In the right pane, right-click Save files in this format, and select Properties.
3. In Save files in this format, select Enabled.
4. In the drop-down box, select a default file save format.
5. Click Apply to save the settings.

I’m sorry Microsoft, but the world needs a new document format, like the United States needs Bush in power for another 4 years. (Oops, probably shouldn’t have said that.)

I’d like to thank Phil and Warren for helping me test this process.

Yesterday I read a post on 43Folders about having a paperless office. It also mentioned a very affordable and hassle-free way to backup the data on your computer. Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) and JungleDisk provide such a solution. JungleDisk is a utility for Mac OS X that interfaces with Amazon S3. You can configure it to automatically synchronize certain folders on your computer at a time of your choosing. To give you an idea of how cheap it is, here is their pricing:

Storage
$0.15 per GB-Month of storage used

Data Transfer
$0.10 per GB - all data transfer in$0.18 per GB - first 10 TB / month data transfer out
$0.16 per GB - next 40 TB / month data transfer out
$0.13 per GB - data transfer out / month over 50 TB

Requests
$0.01 per 1,000 PUT or LIST requests
$0.01 per 10,000 GET and all other requests*
* No charge for delete requests

To give you an idea, I backed up all of my personal files; iTunes library, photos, documents, and emails, which is about 8.07GB of data, and it cost me $1.15. I think that might even be in USD, so really, I’m paying probably $0.02CAD by the time I get the bill.

If you’re looking for a hassle-free, dirt cheap(I even told Jake I think dirt is more expensive) way to backup your data, I definitely recommend this solution.

UPDATE: Fixed some formatting on the price list. Thanks Phil for pointing it out.

I was just reading Jake Billo’s post These are a few of my favourite apps, and I realized that I haven’t ever discussed the different applications that I work with on my Mac. Jake breaks it into the different applications he uses on both Windows and Mac, but I’m only going to be focusing on the Mac applications I use. Additionally, I’m not going to make the title of this post a play on The Sound of Music.

Productivity and Writing

• Email - Google Mail - I was using Mail.app for the longest time, but I grew tired of the terrible search features it has. Gmail has always had superior search compared to any email client.
• Calendar - Google Calendar - I like the fact that I can access it anywhere, and that it is easy to view and share calendars with friends.
• Web Browser - Firefox - I’ve used Firefox for many years now. It crashes sometimes, but it is a very secure browser, and I love all of the extensions available.
• News Reader - NewsFire - I got this program when I purchased the MacHeist bundle. It is very light-weight and I like the ability to make smart feeds.
• Writing - Journler - I use this application for all of my writing and blog posts. It allows me to have a nice clean interface whether I’m online or offline.
• Quicksilver - A great application launche. It also makes tasks a lot easier with triggers. I can create tons of keyboard shortcuts so that I can minimize my mouse usage.

Uploading / Downloading

• BitTorrent - Transmission - I don’t use BitTorrent much at all, but when I do I use Transmission. It is very light-weight.
• Newsgroups - Unison - I don’t use newsgroups much on my main workstation. Most of this is done directly on to my file server. A great application for grabbing files quickly is Unison. It also has NZB support, which is a must.
• FTP - Cyberduck - Not the best FTP client I’ve ever used, but I still continue to use it. It’s certainly better than Fetch, which is a really old client for Mac.

Communications

• Instant Messaging - Adium - I use Adium because it’s a very light-weight client that supports almost every instant messaging protocol. This is important for me because I use almost every protocol there is on a regular basis.
• Voice Conferencing - Skype - Still the best voice conferencing program I’ve ever used. It’s great because it’s cross platform. It now has video conferencing built in.
• IRC - Colloquy - One of the best looking IRC clients on the Mac. It has every piece of eye candy you could ever want in an IRC client. It also has great integration with Growl.
• Additionally, I use Facebook and Jaiku to keep my friends updated on what I’m doing.

Programming and Development

• Eclipse - I use Eclipse to develop Java and Python applications.
• TextMate - Some people use PHP Eclipse to develop in PHP, but I prefer to just use TextMate. It is a very powerful text editor, and has some very useful bundles. It now integrates well with PHPDoc.

DVD/CD Burning / Video / Music

• DVD Ripping - MacTheRipper - This application is great because you can easily get rid of the blocks that they put on DVD that prevent you from skipping FBI warnings.
• DVD Shrinking/Burning - DVD2OneX2 - I like this application because it both shrinks and burns the DVD. No need for two separate applications.
• Music - iTunes - The best music management application I’ve ever used. It has the typical extremely user-friendly Apple interface. iTunes doesn’t necessarily run very well on Windows, but it runs impeccably on the Mac. I also purchase a good amount of music from the iTunes music store.
• Video - QuickTime Pro - I try to use QuickTime as often as I can because of the integration with Apple’s FrontRow. When I can’t run something in QuickTime, I use VLC.

Photos / Graphics Editing

• Digital Camera - iPhoto - I use iPhoto to pull all of the photos from my digital camera and make simple adjustments such as brightness, contrast and red-eye. This application makes it very easy to distribue photos.
• To upload photos to my Flickr account I use Flickr Uploader. It is a very simple tool. It also will resize your images for you in order to save bandwidth.
• Graphic Editing - Photoshop CS2 - I use Photoshop at work because it’s the most advanced photo editing tool on the market. It also has great integration with Adobe GoLive CS2, which I also use at work for the website.

That just about covers all of the applications I currently use on my Mac. For a more indepth look you can go check out my Wakoopa feed. Wakoopa is a Web 2.0 website that tracks all of the applications you run on your computer.

What is your setup? Do you have any suggestions to my setup that would help make my life easier? I would also like to invite any readers to try Wakoopa out and post their feeds here. It’s very interesting to see how other utilize technology. It has certainly made me a more productive person.