Tag Archives: computers

A Note on Productivity

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These days, I’m as busy as ever, a mixed blessing in some situations. While I don’t have a lot of free time to play more Mario Kart on the Wii, I do have a lot of fun projects and clients to keep happy. Here’s a brief list of some of the stuff I use to stay productive:

  • Cashboard: Cashboard is a slick little web application, complete with integrated Dashboard widget for Mac OS X, that I use for managing tasks and time tracking on projects for clients. They even have a free version that lets you manage up to two projects. Subscriptions are nicely priced in different tiers depending on the amount of projects and contacts you need to manage.
  • anxiety-iconAnxiety: Anxiety is the best, most minimal To Do list I’ve used on the Mac. I’ve tried other apps like The Hit List, but keep coming back to Anxiety. It’s lightweight and very well integrated with iCal.
  • Mozilla Thunderbird: Don’t get me wrong, when I’m on my Mac, I’m a full-blown Apple Mail fan, but at work, we run Windows and Outlook is not my friend. I’ve got Thunderbird configured with a theme that closely matches the Mail experience on OS X, and a minimal folder/filing system that lets me use my inbox as a task list of pending projects. And speaking of email, I’m also a big fan of Merlin Mann’s “Inbox Zero” philosophy. Check out his great presentation here.
  • ical-iconiCal/MobileMe: I may be one of the few who doesn’t have constant troubles with Apple’s MobileMe, a service that syncs my desktop calendar and email with the cloud (online), so that I can pull up my schedule, emails, contacts, and more via web browser. I find the web apps very easy to use and stay connected with my main email account and calendars all day long.
  • chrome-iconGoogle Chrome: Quite possibly the best web browsing experience available on a Windows PC. I love its minimalistic user interface and speed most of all. Sure, Firefox has dozens of great, powerful add-ons, but when you want a browsing experience that is fast, Chrome is where it’s at! Chrome works great with Apple’s online web apps for MobileMe that I mentioned above.

Coming soon: A Note on Unproductivity (or better known as the fun stuff I distract myself with)

Backup Strategies, Part 1

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Backups are essential today–we’ve all lost files at some point and we all know our hard drives will fail at some point. That is why it is important to have a firm strategy and plan in backing up your files. Whether you use external hard drives or an online service like Mozy, you’re better off using one of these options than nothing.

New blog Managing Your Digital Life (MYDL.ME) has some great tips and discussions going on about managing backups on your computer. Many of the tips center around Drobo, a hot little product that makes expanding your backup capacities a snap. Drobo appeals to photographers, video producers, and other creatives who rely on large capacity drives to accomidate a horde of gigabytes of data. If one of the drives gets full, Drobo lets you know and  you simply pop in a new, empty SATA hard drive and Drobo intelligently moves your data and recognizes the new elbow room.

I don’t have a Drobo yet, but I’m currently relying on Apple’s Time Machine in OS X Leopard to backup my data weekly to an external hard drive. What are you using to manage your backups?

Hobbies: The Expense of Fun

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Tax season is right around the corner, and that thought is keeping me going right now. You see, about every four to five years, I feel the need to replace my computer for something bleeding edge. My PowerBook G4 is my main workhorse, and it was more than enough computer…in 2004. So why do I need something new?

I blame photography. When I bought my PowerBook almost 5 years ago, I was taking photos with a Canon PowerShot S50 and the typical photo was about 2 MB total. Today, I’m shooting with a Canon DSLR (Rebel XT), which shoots 8 megapixels in JPEG and RAW simultaniously. All jargon aside, this means my hard drive is filling up FAST, like a scout troop in quicksand and there’s no rope in sight.

Sure, I could get a new hard drive, but a new computer would give me a boost in speed, giving me more time to focus on creatively editing my photos in either Photoshop or Aperture. I have spent enough time in iPhoto to know that it is no longer meeting my needs. Those are the easy questions to answer. The brain stumper is currently whether to go with one of the sweet new MacBooks, or shell out for the 24-inch iMac.

Sure, money doesn’t buy happiness, but it does buy new gear! And with new gear comes a whole host of new abilities and ideas. 2009, here we come!