With Snow Leopard came an updated Automator, and along with it, and updated version of my Instant Podcast workflow. I made several changes to incorporate new actions, and the results are improved. Here's a rundown:The first action grabs the URL for the page you wish to convert. The page needs to have an RSS feed, so blogs usually work best. As tribute to Andy Ihnatko, who sent me along this road, I've used his URL for my example.
The next steps grab the RSS feed and the text from the feed articles, respectively. Sites that publish only article excerpts, in lieu of full text feeds, are of less value IMHO. I want to hear the entire postings, but then again, I'm an unabridged sort of guy.
The next step is vital, but I can't find a way to make it happen using Apple-only actions. The BBEdit concatenate action takes all of the articles and combines them into one long string of text. Without this, the workflow generates a series of individual MP3s, one for each article. If you can find a method of resolving this problem using no-cost tools, please share.
The rest of the workflow is straightforward and similar to the previous incarnation. The text is converted to an audio file. (I wish I could listen to Andy's postings in Cepstral's William voice, but the current version is incompatible with Snow Leopard. Until a fix arrives, Alex will have to do.) The date and time of conversion is added to the file name for future reference, audio is encoded to MP3 to save space, the original audio file deleted, and the MP3 is imported into iTunes and added to to appropriate playlist for syncing.
The updated workflow is available here.
I've been using an iPhone for several months now. As you may recall, I wrote briefly on what an iPhone would need to provide before I'd consider a purchase and monthly bill. The decision was made for me when I was promoted at work and provided an iPhone at no cost. Here are the apps I'm using to increase my productivity.
Calendar, Mail, Maps -- As might be expected, I use these default iPhone apps more than any of the others. MoblieMe syncing keeps both my iPhone and iMac up-to-date, almost in real time.
CarbonFin Outliner -- For quick and dirty list creation, this is my favorite iPhone app. Sometimes a comprehensive task management system (see OmniFocus, below) is just too cumbersome--your Christmas or grocery shopping lists, for example. CarbonFin Outliner syncs with the company's free online web application, so your lists are also available on any Internet-connected desktop machine.
Delicious Bookmarks Pro -- Bookmarks Pro accesses your del.icio.us account on your iPhone. You can browse your bookmarks by tags, and even identify favorite tags. Adding and tagging new bookmarks is a breeze, even from the iPhone OS version of Safari (using a bookmarklet). I'm hoping for an update that will include tag bundles, which would make this a truly killer app.
Dropbox -- No need to remember my USB thumbdrive or to constantly email files to myself with this free service. Dropbox keeps a folder on my home computer, work computer, and iPhone all in perfect sync. Files are also accessible from any computer via the web app.
Evernote -- I'm testing the free version of Evernote as my "Everything Bucket." Using the service, I can access my notes from desktop applications, an iPhone app, and a web browser. I haven't used it quite enough to make it especially effective, however. Perhaps as I integrate it more into my daily routines, it will become invaluable. Of course, it would be nice if the most recent version of the iPhone app didn't crash most every time I use it.
NetNewsWire -- Like everyone else in the tech world who doesn't sit at a computer all day, I am struggling to make an RSS reader a useful part of my life. The common problem is that an aggregator doesn't provide any guidance on which feeds and articles are most valuable. This means, without fail, I have thousands of unread RSS items at all times. More on this rant some other day, however. I use NetNewsWire because it syncs with my Google Reader account and has a free Mac desktop application with a nice interface.
OmniFocus -- A GTD task management system. It syncs with the Mac desktop application in various ways. I use OmniFocus for all of my work and personal projects. It is robust and feature-rich. As iPhone apps go, it is quite expensive ($20) and worth every penny if you are responsible for many un- or inter-related projects.
Stanza -- A reader app with direct access to more than 100,000 books, some free and some for purchase. The look and feel can be altered significantly to a reader's preference. Bookmark and annotation functions are available to the reader. Dictionary entries for individual words are just a few finger taps away. Search functionality is also included.
I really thought I would miss having a laptop, but the iPhone is an outstanding substitute. I occasionally miss having my laptop (for instance, when I'd like to do some organization using a Mac-only app like Notebook while at work), and will probably buy a replacement eventually. For now, however, I am getting by quite well using the desktop-iPhone combo.
Dropbox has become my replacement for USB thumb drives. It functions in the cloud, but unlike the iDisk and other remote storage technologies. Instead of mounting a drive to hold your files, you download and install a small application. The application places a folder on your desktop, the contents of which are synced to online storage automatically. Once installed on multiple computers and devices (e.g., the iPhone), you always have your updated files at hand. And when you're on someone else's computer, you can access your files via a web interface. It's slick, and it's free. You pay for extra storage space over the first 2GB.
It was a lovely August morning when my TiBook went bye-bye forever.
I was busy prepping for a presentation when my laptop, which had been a semi-reliable friend for more than six years, shuffled off this mortal coil without even requesting last rites. I'm no newbie when it comes to assisting electronics as they limp along toward their graves (my graduate assistantship was in electronic music, for goodness sake), so you can take my word for it when I say there was no hope. None that would have made fiscal sense when compared with a new computer purchase, I mean.
And so I immediately slid over to the Apple web store and purchased a new 24" iMac. It arrived a few days later. (And it is, without a doubt, a beauty. Particularly when compared with my "veteran" laptop.) Alas, as I was cleaning my desk for its arrival, I made perhaps the most boneheaded move of my life: I picked up the 500GB G-Drive that held my file backups without first powering it down. Yep, you guessed it. The bad boy kicked like a handgun as the heads slammed into the spinning platters. Double-oops.
As you might imagine, I was concerned. I did have one ray of hope, however. I was fairly certain the TiBook failure was an electronics issue and not another catastrophic hard drive failure. I crossed my fingers that I might coax the old laptop drive contents onto my new desktop machine. Luckily, I turned out to be right.
I hopped over to Best Buy and purchased a Rocketfish 2.5" drive enclosure. Well, purchased isn't honestly the correct term. Instead, I utilized what we Once Upon A Time--in a former life as a Radio Shack employee nearly twenty years ago--termed a "30-day free rental." (If you can't deduce how this might work, shoot me an email.) The Rocketfish worked like a charm, and all my files were safely on the new machine. Replacing the guts in the G-Drive and my new backup strategy are topics for another day, however.
I'm torn over what I should do with the TiBook's carcass. This is the first time I've ever replaced a dead Mac; all my other purchases were upgrades. I had planned to set up all my old computers--from my Atari 800XL to the TiBook--in the Hobby Room of our new home. I'm certain I can get my old LCIII (I'd like to use her as a central system for my model railroad) and PowerMac 5200 (perhaps for HyperCard programming and use as a household X10 system) humming again, but the TiBook seems beyond hope. For now, she's tucked away in my laptop bag, until I buy her replacement.
From al3x.net:
The Mac software ecosystem faces a plague. A plague of Everything Buckets. Indulge me.
If you search for “productivity” or “organization” software for the Mac, you’ll find variations on a particular type of application. These applications claim to be “your outboard brain” or “your digital filing cabinet” or similar. They go by many names: Yojimbo, Together, ShoveBox, Evernote, DEVONthink. There may be differences in their implementation and appearance, but these applications are all of the same sinister ilk. They are Everything Buckets.
Alex Payne is off his rocker. "Everything Buckets"—a simply dreadful misnomer, by the way, that would make a marvelous title for an Oprah's Book Club selection—can be fantastic productivity tools. In fact, I use three of the five he mentions in the quote above: Shovebox as a virtual GTD Inbox; Yojimbo to store notes that then sync with my Treo; and DEVONthink as a storehouse for research projects, PDF software manuals, etc. I also use Circus Ponies Notebook as a centralized app to store my career-related brain books and to organize information for my writing projects.
Of course, I might be biased. After all, I'm pretty sure I coded the very first Mac "Everything Bucket": the packrat.
