Sameer Chandra

Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

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My Lessons in Productivity (Part 1 of 3): Tools of the Trade – OSX

In Productivity, Technology on March 19, 2013 at 8:26 pm

Today, I visited one of client to discuss an ongoing project, and took some files with me on USB thumb drives for them to review (in fact on 3 different drivers, just in case). To my surprise, the stakeholder(s) I’m involved with uses a Mac, and when I showed them my work, he had questions. I ended up showing them how i did things, tricks and how to fix things etc. etc on their mac. Suddenly, I’m their best friend.  They had no clue, that there were different options to do things.

This got me thinking, and became the basis of this post. Why dont I share my productivity tips with everyone. So this is going to be a multi-part post. First of which covers the “Tools”, basically the applications I use on a daily-basis (mostly), which have enabled me to do things in a smarter way. So here it goes;

Below is list of programs that are installed on my Macbook, some of which are on my iPhone and my iPad. The goal for using one over the other is to figure out, which has the most inter-operability or which is platform independent. The key is to be able to access anything and everything on all devices i use, or most of it. So, here it goes.

1Password ($69.99, OSX, iOS): A must have for me. I secured a copy, through a bundle and paid lot less for it. It is my central repository of all information, whether it is my logins, notes, software keys, anything an everything. It uses 128-Bit encryption, which brings some peace of mind. It syncs well with iOS Apps, bringing all the information to me, whenever i need it. This program falls under the “Life-Saver” category. It allows me to free my mind of all the information, that I may screw up, if not recalled on a regular basis.

Alfred (Free, OSX): A must have again. Using Alfred saves me time, from useless clicking and searching for stuff on my mac. Alfred works wonders, whether i need to open an application, send an email, open a webpage, or use system commands. There is a professional version, that allows custom scripts, of which i have no use.

Bartender ($15, OSX): This menubar app is absolutely required to condense numerous menubar icons for the all apps i have running in the background. I secured a copy through a bundle. So keep your eyes open, since this app is very popular, it will show up sooner or later in a bundle soon.

Boom ($6.99, OSX): A volume booster for mac. This app makes the difference between the standard audio output and enhanced experience. As a movie buff, and a music aficionado, I love this app and you’ll too.

Caffeine (Free, OSX): This menu bar app with a single purpose, to keep my mac awake, while i’m busy doing something else. Not an essential app, but makes life easier.

CheatSheet (Free, OSX): A background app, that brings all the shortcuts for any active app to the foreground by pressing “Command” key for more than 3 seconds. It’s a very nice tool to learn shortcuts, for stuff that you do often. A definite timesaver.

Cobook (Free, OSX, iOS): A Contacts enhancement app, which sits in the menubar, and brings all your contacts up, in real time. You can send email, SMS, or files through the app itself, rather than opening the applications to do it.

Doo (Free, OSX, iOS coming soon): This a relatively new app, which became popular in a short span of time. The reason is that it indexes the entire hard drive, or attached disks, cloud network (SkyDrive, Google Drive, Email accounts, Box) etc and makes then easy to find. It has OCR capabilities, so everything is indexed and is available through a search, quickly.

DropBox (Free, OSX, iOS, and Windows): A must have and I believe no description is required to explain the usefulness of this app.

Eisenpower (OSX): This is a relatively new app. But it is a GTD Task Manager, designed basically with four objectives in mind (a) Important and Urgent, (b) Not Important and Not Urgent, (c) Important but not urgent, and (d) Urgent but not important. It has a very clean interface, with no learning curve and is quickly becoming my default “to do” manager. It can create reminders, which sync through the iCloud and is accessible through Reminder App on iOS.

Evernote (Free, OSX, iOS, Android and Windows): This is default repository of information. News feeds, articles, book reviews, receipts, anything and everything goes here. It allows tagging, and is available on iOS, so accessible to me, anywhere and everywhere. I scored a premium account through a bundle, so keep your eyes open.

Fantastical ($19.99, OSX, iOS): This app enhances the interaction with your default Calendar. It makes it easier to view, add meetings, schedules, conflicts etc, without even opening the calendar. Time saver again!

FireTask ($39.99, OSX, iOS): This one a relatively new “To Do” application or Task Manager, but they key is interoperability on OSX and iOS. I happened to get this one through a bundle, and didnt know much about it till i started to use it. Now, it is one of the most used programs on my mac.

MacPaw Gemini ($9.99, OSX): A duplicate file finder and remover. Be it images, mp3, videos, documents. It finds all duplicates, and easily removes them. Very handy at times.

MindNode Pro ($19.99, OSX, iOS): Mind Mapping is technique that i use all the time, and this program though not the best one, allows me to capture my thoughts and export in multiple formats.

NameMangler ($18.99, Free lite version is available, OSX): This one is again a life-saver. This little app allows me to perform file actions in a Batch, whether it is renaming files, numbering files, adding/deleting part of file name, replacing text…

Onyx (Free, OSX): This application has resuscitated my mac on several occasions. However, a note of caution. You need to know what you’re doing with this app, and spend time going through the help pages, to make sure you understand what is going on, when you execute an action. Most actions are irreversible, and may make things worse, if you have no clue what you are doing.

PopClip (Free, OSX): Amazing add-on. Once activated, whenever you select a string of text, an iOS style pop-up will provide options/actions to execute with that text. There are free scripts available to enhance this application. I use this all the time, to create email, lookup words in dictionary, send text to Evernote, lookup addresses in Google Maps, Tweeting and getting word-counts etc. Very useful app.

Reeder (Link, OSX): This is my default RSS reader. It syncs with Google Reader and allows me to read, share and archive articles. Now, that Google Reader is going away, I’m hoping that the developers will adapt quickly to make it an aggregator itself. I’d hate to not be able to use this program, once Google Reader Shuts down.

SyncFolders (Free, OSX): A single task utility. Basically to sync two folders, irrespective of their location. Multiple arguments for syncing are available, and is quite handy to makes sure that all my backups are in sync.

TextExpander (OSX): One of the applications that I cannot live without is this one. I’m often doing work, that is repetitive, adding text, using acronyms, adding default language, legal jargon. This app allows me to use shortcuts, and insert the intended text, universally.

Wondershare PDF Editor Pro (OSX): An Adobe Acrobat replacement, which is quite robust. It allows for creating PDFs, editing PDFs, filling forms, combining multiple PDFs etc. Very handy.

WriteRoom (OSX, iOS): This app is where i dump my ideas, part of this post was written with this app. It allows writing without the distraction of multiple options, no menubars, no toolbars, just focus on writing.

Wunderlist (Free, OSX, iOS): This is also a “Task Manager” with lists. The beauty is in its interoperability. I can share tasks with family and friends, create a running list of movies i want to watch, or anything that’s worth keeping a tab on. It has a beautiful interface and above all it’s free.

This concludes the first of three parts. The next post will cover the iOS apps, and third will be on processes, habits.

iCloud…not ready yet!

In Gadgets, Technology on October 14, 2011 at 8:01 pm

The Apple’s answer to all “cloud” based services debuted with the iOS 5 this week. Though, it is similar to MobileMe (even after dropping few of the services), after two days of use, i can say it disappoints a bit. It’s not ready yet.

Contacts: It syncs all your contacts, but all your contact have to be on iCloud for them to be synced across all platforms. If you chose to keep your Address Book contacts, then you will see multiple copies of the same entry. Which is annoying, to say the least. There is no way to sync your contact with Google, in fact none of the iCloud services are Google compatible.

Calendars: This one is weaker in functionality than the Contacts. There is no way to import calendars, or use subscribed calendars (TripIt, Weather etc.) or to link Google Calendar to iCloud. In order to successfully use Calendar on all your platforms, you will have to recreate everything in your iCloud Calendar (either through web-interface or through iCal) then only it will push everything, everywhere. Seems redundant to me…why in the hell, would anyone with busy schedule, and thousands of entries, would want to do that? There is not even a drag-&-drop in iCal between iCloud and other calendars.

Use it, because it’s free, but not because its going to set fire to world!

So Long, Steve…

In Gadgets, Life or Something Like It, Technology on October 6, 2011 at 4:23 pm

Thank You Steve.

I mean that from the bottom of my heart, and crevices of my brain. Though, we never met, you’ve touched my life more than you can imagine (and boy you did have a vivid imagination!).

I heard the news of your passing, while i was busy watching DVR recording of the second most favorite entity…Dr. House…you obviously was the first (because you were real). I felt a vacuum, if that s possible. My wife broke the news to me, and I said ‘No Way”, she showed me the Apple’s Homepage to me…I stared at it for a few minutes, into your probing eyes…and that almost smile…as if you knew how i felt.

Woz, the other Steve, said that you always surpassed every goal you ever had…and even after you’re passing…your unreleased biography, shot from 140s to the number 1 pre-ordered book spot. So much similar to everything that you’ve been associated with while you were here…iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad…as if you were trying to make the statement, iRule, and yes you did.

Hard to say, if i’ll ever see a visionary like you again in my lifetime…i hope i do, and i know you’d want us to. The legacy however, will never fade. No one will ever be able to fill the shoes you’ve left behind…not because of their talent, their vision, but more so because, they’ll be afraid of failing…something that you experienced early, and overcame it, so that you never had to come face-to-face with again in your life…, other than death, of course.

Your famous words, from your Stanford Lecture, “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary!” mean a lot to me, and have shaped my thinking in more ways than i thought possible. Thank you for those words.

People have a strange connection to you, at least i do, there’s not a room in our home, that does not have Apple’s imprint…be it our AppleTV, iPod, iPhone, or iPad…so much so that, i’m writing this on my MacBook Pro. Everyday as i use these products, it’ll remind me of you…it will remind me of your words.

I’m not a religious person, but when I’ll see a rainbow, which shines brighter than the others i’ve seen before…i’ll know that you’ve suggested God to use…deeper violets than he usually does…in a way, i’m happy that you’re up there now, as you’ll give your thoughts on making everything better…and i believe that it eventually will be.

I know everyone is asking you to Rest In Peace….but knowing you, you wont. You’ll actually be busy making a dent in the universe as you ought to be.

When i see the world becoming better than it actually is, i’ll know that you had something to do with it, in time we’ll meet, hopefully.

On that note, so long Steve.