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The Problem

Lately I’ve been a bit concerned about digital security because of several websites that were hacked and some friends that had their email accounts compromised. I’ve been using 1Password for a long time, so I have incredibly long and complex passwords for almost all of my online accounts. However, there are still a few passwords that have to be memorable for times when I might not have access to my 1Password database. These are my MacBook firmware/user account, Dropbox account and 1Password database. Up until now, I’ve had one fairly weak password, with slight modifications, for each of these, and it made me worry.

The Solution

That changed today when I read this post (via TBR) that pointed out an interesting method for creating memorable passwords. In this article, Thomas shows that using a simple three-word password like “this is fun” is actually more secure (and much more memorable) than something like “J4fS<2”. He says that it would take more than 2,500 years to break this password using a common-word dictionary, but actually there’s no reason that the hacker would know your password is three words rather than 11 characters, so it would take even longer. This realization just made my day, because now I can have easily-remembered passwords that are secure!

It’s easy to be lax about our digital security, but it’s also easy to become paranoid. Avoid both of these problems by buying a copy of 1Password¹ and creating a handful of multi-word passphrases for accounts you need to remember. Now I can stop worrying about security and focus more on backups…

1. But make sure you go back and change all your old passwords!↩

Macworld recently published a series of articles that described what they considered to be essential categories of Mac utilities. They decided on launchers, text expanders, clipboard managers and automation tools. I generally agree with these categories, because they are always the first programs I install on a fresh computer. These types of programs are also pivotal to increased productivity on your Mac. Take a look at what applications me and the Macworld editors prefer, and then give us your choices in the comments.

Launchers

There are really two forms of launcher applications: those that use the mouse, and those that are keyboard-driven. For mouse users, Macworld recommends DragThing as the best choice if you’re looking for a powerful application. I’ve always favored keyboard-based launchers, so I haven’t used any of the mouse-based options for very long, so I can’t say much about these. However, I have looked at DragThing briefly and was very impressed with the amount of flexibility available.

For the keyboard launchers, Macworld unsurprisingly recommended LaunchBar, which is my personal favorite. Quicksilver is very popular, but it isn’t in active development anymore and is not very stable on Snow Leopard. Even though Quicksilver is free, I still think it’s worth it to pay for LaunchBar and get something that won’t crash on you. Another contender is Butler, which has even more features and customizability than LaunchBar. At the moment, however, it is a bit too complicated for most users. But Macworld points out that the developer will be releasing an update that might solve this problem. If you need the extra features that Butler offers, then it is probably your best bet. Otherwise, you should go with LaunchBar.

Text Expanders

For anyone who uses their computer for more than an hour a day, a text expander application can save a lot of time by filling in common, repetitive bits of text by typing in a short abbreviation. The gold standard, and the program favored by Macworld, is TextExpander. TextExpander has the most features of any expander, especially with the new 3.0 update, and also enjoys the largest following. However, while I have tried very hard to like TextExpander, I just can’t use it. I love all the features, but there are a few glaring problems that keep me from adopting it.

The biggest problem I’ve had is that the expansions are too slow, which often leads to errors. I don’t think I’m a particularly fast typist, but when I use short expansions, the expanded text usually is either repeated for some reason or my curser ends up in the middle of the text so that I have to click back to the end of the expansion. I don’t know why other people don’t have this problem, but it makes the program absolutely unusable for me. Hopefully they can improve this soon.

Another problem is that TextExpander doesn’t allow you to choose whether a snippet will expand immediately or after a delimiter character on a per-snippet basis: they only have a global setting. Maybe I’m abnormal, but I generally expand immediately after spelling corrections but require a delimiter after things like email signatures.

There are also a few other little glitches like the auto-capitalization and removal of double-capitals features failing. I really want to use TextExpander because of its great feature set (including a cool iPhone app), but until they fix my problems with it, I have to stick with something else.

Right now I’m using Typinator. It doesn’t have the most features, but it’s lightning fast: most of the time I can’t even see the expansion happen. I recently downloaded TypeIt4Me, and it looks good, but I haven’t given it much of a trial. It is also missing the feature to set how expansions are triggered for each snippet. If you want to try one of these applications, I would recommend you start out with TextExpander, and if you have any problems with it, you can switch over to Typinator.

Clipboard Managers

I discovered clipboard managers only recently, because I didn’t know there was anything wrong with the standard copy and paste functionality built into OSX. But after being battered by articles about the best clipboard managers and why everyone needs one, I finally gave them a try. Now I can hardly use a computer without one.

Macworld recommends Jumpcut for anyone who wants a barebones application to try out without spending any money. Jumpcut might be a good introduction, but I don’t think it really gives a complete picture of what is possible with a clipboard manager. For one thing, it can only handle text, which limits its functionality quite a bit. Also, you can only access your clipboard through a menu bar icon, which I think hurts its ease of use.

For me, an essential feature of any clipboard manager is the ability to open up the clipboard with a keyboard shortcut, select an item, and then paste it by releasing the keyboard shortcut. This makes it incredibly easy to paste into a document without leaving the keyboard, and it also mimics the standard cmd-v shortcut for pasting that most people are used to. As far as I can tell, the only clipboard manager that has this ability is CopyPaste Pro. This application has a lot of other great features and is my pick of the group. Macworld also recommends CopyPaste Pro, but slightly favored PTHPasteboard Pro for its syncing, search and statistics abilities. So, if you need these things, you might try PTHPasteboard instead.

I actually don’t use a dedicated clipboard manager. Instead, I use the built-in clipboard history feature of LaunchBar. It doesn’t have quite as many features as the high-end dedicated programs, but it’s already part of my workflow and has a great implementation of the keyboard-shortcut pasting functionality I described. If you have LaunchBar already, turn on this feature in the settings and see how it works for you. Otherwise, I would try out the trial of CopyPaste Pro and see how it improves your workflow.

Automation Tools

These applications allow you to perform even the most complex tasks by using keyboard shortcuts, snippets, system events and other triggers. They are incredibly powerful when you take the time to set them up, but this usually takes a good amount of time and dedication. There is a lot of overlap between automation tools and other utilities because most of them can perform text expansion and launch applications. Because of this, I haven’t really found a need for these programs. I did look at QuickKeys for a bit and was impressed by the vast array of features, and I’m sure I could do some cool things with it if I spent the time. If you think you might use something like this, try out QuickKeys or Keyboard Maestro and see how they work for you.

Apple makes a great operating system, and it works well for casual users. However, for people that use their computer a lot, these utilities are essential. If you’re not using any of these programs, try some out now and I’m sure you will see a boost in your productivity.

There’s two iOS apps that I’ve been really happy with lately. The first is an iPhone/iPod touch game I found recently called The Impossible Game (Opens in iTunes). It’s a very simple game, but totally addicting. And at only 99 cents, it’s a great value. There’s really only two levels right now, but getting through them will take most people a very long time. You can check out a video of the gameplay here. It’s a great little time-waster, and the music is fun and upbeat. Give it a try.

The other app is for the iPad and called Penultimate (Opens in iTunes). This app is one of many free-form notes/sketching apps available for the iPad. What has always set this one apart is how smooth and responsive it is. It literally feels like you’re writing with a smooth pen on paper. However, Penultimate always suffered from a lack of features. But in the last two versions, this app has become vastly more useful with the introduction of different colors, three different pen sizes, a smart eraser that changes size automatically and really amazing palm detection. This last feature is my favorite, as it allows me to rest my hand on the screen as I normally would while writing with my pogo sketch stylus. It’s really great.
As a side note, the makers of the pogo stylus just showed a proof-of-concept video that shows an app with pressure-sensitive drawing using a standard pogo stylus. They’re releasing the code for free, so hopefully it will be implemented by Penultimate. The only problem is that it uses techniques that are currently prohibited by Apple, so it might take a while…

So check out these two cool apps, and let me know how you like them in the comments.

MoneyWell, the excellent personal finance manager (and the program I use) is having a 25% off sale in preparation for the upcoming release of their iPhone app. This application is indispensable for managing my finances and has a very interesting and unique way of budgeting. Go try it out and take advantage of the sale before it’s over!

This afternoon, I installed the new iOS4 update on my 32GB iPhone 3GS and went out to dinner. When I got there, I found that my cellular data connection over 3G wasn’t working. I tried resetting the phone and resetting the network settings, but neither worked. I found this forum thread with many other people suffering from the same problem. It seems the only way to fix it is to restore to factory settings and then upgrade to iOS4 from there. Of course, you will lose all your data and settings if you do this. I was able to confirm this solution. Image by 160 over 90

If you have a lot of apps and data on your phone, I would suggest you wait until this issue is resolved. It seems like it only applies to 3GS models, but I wouldn’t take my chances with it. Let’s hope it gets solved soon. If you find another way to get around this problem, leave it in the comments.

I recently discovered a great app for jailbroken iPhones called QuickScroll. This small utility adds translucent scroll bars (seen in the screenshot) to any app on your iPhone. I had always complained about how difficult it was to scroll through long web pages and documents on the iPhone, but this program solved the problem perfectly. You can activate the scroll bars by a variety of methods, set how long they stay on the screen, and even disable them for certain apps. This is a remarkably useful little program, and it’s free from either Cydia or Rock. Give it a try!

From now until June 11th, Navigon is offering its three MyRegion GPS apps for only $14.99, a 50% discount. Image by App-Alooza

I originally bought Magellan, because I was impressed with the unique predictive keyboard, but I’ve since become unhappy with it. So far, I’m very impressed with Navigon. It has superior music controls and a cleaner interface than any of the other GPS apps available. At this price, I think this app is unbeatable, so I recommend you buy it soon. [via TUAW]

As I started learning about GTD and wandered around the internet looking for tips and tricks, I inevitably came across Merlin Mann. One of Merlin’s claims to fame is Inbox Zero. If you’re not familiar with it, you can read the original articles here and watch the famous 2007 Google talk here.

One aspect of this technique or mentality is to always process your email to empty whenever you look at it. This is pretty shocking for most people, and I’ll probably come back to this part of it in a later post. Today, however, I’d like to focus on the other part of Inbox Zero, which involves checking your email only a few times a day. This may seem crazy, but as Merlin points out, the constant interruptions from new email messages are down right catastrophic for your productivity. If you want to be more efficient with your work, you need to change your attitude towards email.

In a recent episode of the MacBreak Weekly podcast, Merlin mentioned an exciting new service called Syphir, which adds a new level of control to your email. This was the last piece of the puzzle for getting my email under control.

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One of the more popular categories of Mac applications is Information Managers or “Everything Buckets”. These applications, such as Together, Yojimbo and Evernote, allow you to dump in information of almost any kind and then organize, tag and search it all from a single interface. I recently read a post from Alex Payne that was very critical of these types of applications, calling them a plague. I would like to argue the opposite point.

Soon after I bought my first Mac, I came across the concept of the Everything Bucket, and immediately thought it was a good idea. There were all sorts of little bits of information that I wanted to keep for future reference, but didn’t seem important enough to organize into my filesystem. I started off with Evernote, but eventually decided on Together. I’m quite happy with this program and the underlying concept behind it, and I would like to refute some of Alex’s complaints.

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