Posts Tagged ‘mac’
Thinking About an iPhone?
Now that Verizon customers can use an iPhone, should you get one? I get asked all the time for advice about which handheld device to purchase. Frankly, they are becoming more and more alike and much of it now comes down to personal preference. You need to consider that they are more like a handheld computer that makes phone calls, than they are like a cell phone (assuming you are in the market for a smartphone).
I think the three most important questions to ask yourself before a smartphone purchase are:
1. What do I want to use my handheld device for?
2. Which platform (Google, Windows, Mac) do I currently use the most, and do I plan to continue in this direction?
3. How tech savvy am I?
Number 1 is relevant because if you only want to use it to make calls, then any smartphone will be overkill. If you need a device that allows you to access the internet, from which you can sync your calendar and contacts, and perhaps have other conveniences, like driving directions and an mp3 player, then a smartphone is the best choice.
Here’s why number 2 is important to consider: If you are a big fan of Google, and you use Gmail, Google Calendar, Docs, Voice, etc., then an Android phone might be the best fit for you. If you’re a heavy Microsoft user, favoring Live and Sharepoint for collaborating, and running your life via Outlook, then a Windows Mobile device might be your best option.
Having noted both of those things, I must admit to being a huge fan of the iPhone. It’s true that it’s easiest to use iPhone if you are an Apple user anyway, but really the iPhone does integrate pretty well with other platforms.
Number 3 is relevant because for example, if you are mostly a Windows user, there will be a bit of an adjustment, and some “tweaking” necessary to get an iPhone to sync with your Windows applications.
In the event that you do choose an iPhone, you might be interested in two articles I’ve written about my favorite apps, here and here.
If you’re still confused about which device is right for you, I invite you to call or email me. Advice is always free and I would be happy to discuss it with you.
Thanks for reading!
Are Your Productivity Tools Complicating Your Life?
Being a productivity trainer, I get asked about my personal productivity tools a lot. There are a few rules for tools which I think are true, and valuable:
- Everything in one place. Some people look at the “one place” as their computer, but I think if you can drill down more than that, it’s better. If everything is on your computer, but in 5 different programs or documents, that’s not as efficient as if everything is in ONE program.
- You need to consider FIVE things for comprehensive productivity: calendar, to-do list, contacts, email, and notes. If they all can’t be in one program, then the programs should at least play nicely with each other (the ability to easily create a task or calendar event from an email, for example.)
- You are most productive when you can refer to your system on the go, meaning a handheld device will increase your productivity. However, your handheld device shouldn’t be your only tool, or even your primary tool, unless you are a true road warrior and are almost never in front of a computer. Handheld devices are not designed for convenient entry of data. Do the entry on your computer, accessit on your handheld device when you are away from your computer.
Another thing that’s really crucial to personal productivity is an effective methodology. (I use my Empowered Productivity System. But I’ll have to discuss those specifics another time). So, given those rules, I used to use Outlook with a Palm handheld, then later with a Windows Mobile phone. If you are a PC user, Outlook syncing with a Windows Mobile device is a very powerful combination. (If you are a Mac user, come back tomorrow when I will continue the post). Outlook plus a Windows Mobile device handle all five things very well, and it is very easy to integrate each of the five things together in Outlook (creating a task from a to-do, or birthdays in the contacts appearing in the calendar, for example.)
A single installation of Outlook does have some drawbacks, however. It’s not a project management tool, but I think there are many ways to get around this shortcoming that work just fine. I’ll have to save those for another post. One of the biggest drawbacks is the inability to share calendars. Because of this, some people abandon Outlook and use only Google Calendar. I think this is a mistake, because Google doesn’t yet handle the other four items at all, or as well as Outlook does. I have two suggestions if you need to share calendars. One is to consider a hosted Exchange solution, like from MailStreet.net. The problem with this is that it’s not free, but for a small business it’s inexpensive and easier than hosting your own Exchange server. An easier (and free!) solution for an individual is to just use Outlook as your primary calendar, but sync it up to Google calendar to share with others.
IMHO, that’s the best solution in personal productivity tools for a PC user. A couple of years ago I switched to a Mac. I’ll explain what I use now in tomorrow’s post.
Have thoughts? Comments? I’d love to hear them. And you can follow me on Twitter where I try to post lots of productivity-related information @mnthomas.
Mac Shortcuts
Some friends asked me on Twitter to elaborate on some Mac shortcuts I mentioned in this post. I wrote about how I’m using QuickSilver and Fluid to access things quickly on my Mac. QuickSilver comes in really handy to quickly “do things with things.” What the heck does that mean? Well, first of all it works as a launcher. If there are too many programs that you use to fit comfortably on your Dock, but it also feels like too many clicks to go to Applications to find the program, QS comes in handy here. Once you install QS, you can select an activation sequence. I used F1, then enter. On my laptop keyboard, it’s Fn+F1. On my external keyboard, it’s just F1. This launches a small window where I can type the first couple of letters of the program I want. It shows me the closest match, and then selecting “enter” completes the action I’ve programmed. In my case, the default action is “launch.” So, for example, I type F1+”Add”+Enter and Address Book opens.
QuickSilver also allows you to quickly perform many other tasks, with many other file types, not just applications. Type the first few letters of a document you were working on recently, and get lots of choices including open it, copy it, emai it, etc. Many thanks to @MegaJustice for showing me this a long time ago.
Now, Fluid I learned about by using OtherInbox (as if you needed another reason to use OIB. If you aren’t yet, Sign. Up. Now! BUT, I’m using OIB on the beta site, and it doesn’t seem to work with Fluid. If OIB staff reads this, please comment.) Fluid is an app called a “site specific browser.” What this means is that if there is an application you use often on the web, you can use Fluid to make it like it’s a desktop app. For example, I’m not using Tweetdeck or other Twitter aggregator, because I haven’t been using Twitter that long and I had just figured out how to use the Twitter web page, so I didn’t want to complicate things with another program right away. So rather than launching Firefox, and then navigating to Twitter, I create Twitter in a site specific browser using Fluid. So then I type Fn+F1+Tw+Enter. Twitter launches in it’s own, standalone “browser window,” which actually looks just like a desktop app with it’s own menus & stuff. You can even put the icon in your Dock and launch from there if you want to. Very cool, and very fast.
If you have more questions, please feel free to email me, or post a comment here and I will reply. I hope that this information will save you some time! And if you’re not already following me on Twitter, I’m @mnthomas.
What I Learned as a SXSWi Newbie
o I’m still trying to come down after attending my first South by Southwest Interactive Conference. I learned a few things about the conference in general and I learned a TON from the sessions I attended.
The first thing I learned is that the conference is, in fact, attended primarily by “techies.” (If you’d like to know what led me, a mostly non-techie, to attend, read this post first). These people are definitely the hard-core technology fans and early adopters. So it seems to me that paying attention to what’s going on here can give me a glimpse into the future. And following that logic, the future is:
- Macs & iPhones
But aside from that, there are sort of three parts to SXSWi: the education, the connections, and the partying. I couldn’t do all three. In fact I found it kind of exhausting to do just one. I was there for the learning. I packed my days full of sessions, and I went home every night feeling simultaneously completely exhausted and completely motivated. I learned so much to apply to my business that I wanted to get started on all of it right away…but first I wanted a nap. 
In the last couple of years I had jumped on the Apple bandwagon so at least I was caught up there. I fit right in when I took notes on my MacBook and whipped out my iPhone to check my calendar for the next session. But one thing I couldn’t NOT do was Tweet. Luckily I had been toying with the idea for a couple of weeks so I was ready to jump in at SXSW. It was really interesting how Twitter was being used to take questions at panels, to alter people’s schedules when they heard what was going on in real time, to follow other panels that you weren’t at, and to meet up with your friends (to see what I learned about Twitter specifically, read this post.)
Some new services debuted and they look really great. Here are the ones that look the most exciting to me:
- Otherinbox (I’ve actually been using this for months since they launched in beta and I’m LOVING it. The cure for email overload!)
- PeoplePond: Search Engine Optimization for People
- Animoto: Automatically produce your own professional-quality videos
- Digital Chalk: Rapidly deliver multi-media courses online
I also attended some really great sessions and learned a lot from some very smart people. Many of these are available for podcast so I suggest you check them out. My top 3:
- Change Your World in 50 Minutes: How to Make Breakthroughs Happen (Here’s a great blog post about the session, and I suggest you check out Kathy Sierra’s blog. Her talk was fantastic.) I also enjoyed the opening remarks from Tony Hseih of Zappos.com and the presentation Social Engineering: How to Scam Your Way into Anything (podcast).
I’ll be watching my email for news that tickets for SXSW 2010 have gone on-sale. Hope to see you there!