One of my favorite web sites, Smashing Magazine features an article by Kitty Florido that lists 25 free productivity apps for the Mac. I’ll be honest, I thought that most of the stuff I had on my Mac was already ok but after seeing these apps, I’m inclined to install most of them.
Of the apps listed, the most recent one I tried even before I read the article was Name Changer. That’s a simple yet useful application for me. I process photos from my digital camera through Light Room but when I export them, I still need to rename some …read more

BBEdit was one of the first HTML/Text Editors I used when I switched to the Mac platform. I used it for a short time before making the switch to TextMate. The main deal breaker for me was the price. Currently BBEdit is priced at $125. Its price is slightly more than what I’d normally pay for a Mac app, except for Adobe apps. For a text editor it is quite expensive.
BBEdit now is on version 9 and along with it come new features and improvements from previous versions. Improvments such as Projects, a way of organizing files related to each …read more

I spent today at a productivity summit that talked about a variety of ways to increase productivity both personally and in your company as a whole. The first session discussed “Managing Email Productivity”. One of the methods shared was to reverse the composition of your email messages.
In the standard model we normally write emails in this order.

Input recipients
Write subject
Write body of message
Attach files

Robby Slaughter, the presenter of the summit shared his preferred method of reversing this process flow and the reasons behind each. I’m significantly paraphrasing but this is the basic premise.

Attach files – how many times have you sent …read more

Image via WikipediaThis is just a quick rant. Meets are a pain in the butt. I mean, sometimes it’s necessary to meet and talk about a project or get people up to speed on the latest information. We have them each week for the bloggers and our group and I usually held a network meeting each week at my last company but to have meetings to decide what will be accomplished at the next meeting is rediculous.
People who set these types of meetings up — and you know who you are — stop it! Email and …read more

I was looking at my Eee PC computer the other day and I was trying to figure what applications I should leave on there. I decided to ask you all what programs you might use on a daily basis. Then I decided I’d probably get answers like, “YouPorn and Firefox or my web cam for chatting up on CamContacts.” These would not be helpful to me as I need to keep these around anyway.
Image via WikipediaI looked through and figured out what apps I rely on. Firefox is probably the most used. I chat with …read more

Image via WikipediaIt’s a fact of life that information overload is not easy to escape. Whether you enjoy playing the license plate game or reading the New York Times on your way to work (Do they sill print a paper?), there is a lot to read, take in and retain out there in this cruel world. Luckily, with the help of many great Web 2.0 tools out there, it’s becoming a bit simpler. I’d like to point you in the direction of a few that I have used to simplify my life.
Google Reader (or any other web …read more