Esquire magazine has been doing a wonderful job over the past number of years in providing interesting, engaging and informative journalism aimed at the male populace. In the past few months they have received particular praise from me for their distribution of HD quality videos to showcase photo shoots that appear in the magazine, see my previous post on their recent Kate Beckinsale promo video. As the Summer kicks in a new issue has hit shelves featuring among other things an interview and photo shoot with the absolutely gorgeous Daisy Lowe. Check out the preview video below! Esquire I love you guys : )

Image and video are property of Esquire magazine and are used only in a promotional context.

I had already spent some time with OmniFocus when first researching the options available for task management. I must admit that my first impressions were not very good, certainly as someone who found Things intuitive, well developed and extremely proficient in it’s task, OmniFocus seemed comparatively complex, lacking the UI polish of it’s counterpart and to further the comparison – like Thing’s Dad. A little dated, perhaps more suited to a maturer audience and a little lacking in the looks department. Age however isn’t everything, as my dear Mum always says the wisdom it brings more than makes up for the shortcomings that accompany it. A more prolonged time with OmniFocus then and I began to see the masterful way in which it had been designed, what first may have revealed itself as complex and lacking actually proved to by superior to it’s younger sibling and certainly better for it’s maturity. OmniFocus is a great application that provides not only a robust interface to support task management but does so in a way which is fully compliant with the Getting Things Done methodology, which for me and many others is a complete game changer.

OmniFocus from the OmniGroup is, as my discussion so far may suggest, a task management application. It allows for the capture, processing, doing & reviewing of all your ongoing activities. OmniFocus is designed to quickly capture your thoughts and allow you to store, manage, and process them into actionable to-do items. As previously mentioned it is 100% compatible with the Getting Things Done® system, but flexible enough for any task management style, OmniFocus helps you work smarter by giving you powerful tools for staying on top of all the things you need to do. Tasks can be captured through manual entry into an inbox or from within other applications via the quick entry process. Once captured tasks must be converted into actionable to-do’s given context and or assigned to projects. This process is cathartic and focuses the mind in and of itself as you mentally process what needs to be done and when. It is great to complete the mind dump process of getting everything into OmniFocus but actually have processed the tasks into actions is even more gratifying.

Once the process of capture is complete OmniFocus is great and keeping you focused on what must be done next, the next actionable step in any project is highlighted and due items made clear. Reminders can be setup to use Growl to flag up on screen when due tasks are approaching and lists can be printed in a very well formatted preset format for paper based task processing. As time moves on and projects evolve reviews can be setup to evaluate how things are going, this can result in new actions being added, additional contexts introduced etc. All serve to aid in the completion of outstanding tasks and promote reflection on the tasks you undertake. OmniFocus has proven itself to be a wonderful, complex and extremely powerful task management application. First impressions can be wrong and sometimes maturity reveals itself slowly – when it does however, sometimes you can be in for a real treat.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

CoverSutra launches as an application in your dock like most applications but the main interface to the application is to be found in the menu bar as great little music note icon : ) Clicking on this presents a search dialog box which allows for artists, songs, albums etc to be searched with the results displayed for selection. Tracks can be selected individually or an album selected for playback. In this way I can keep working with whatever I am currently doing but quickly and easily navigate through my iTunes library. There are many great little touches, with the change of every track for example CoverSutra displays a little pop up message to let you know the current track. Also you can access a separate control window via the application icon to adjust volume etc.

While by no means necessary CoverSutra does a fantastic job of enhancing the iTunes experience particularly for those that love using iTunes while they do other things. Some of the main features of the application are outlined below:

Now occasionally the need arises to work with versions of the files in both formats or more commonly a file currently in .pdf format is desired to be converted to .doc for editing purposes. In some instances this is easy as the master file from which the .pdf was created is available and edits can be made, but sometimes either through misplacement of the master file or indeed receipt of a .pdf from another source an editable version is not easily obtained. Up until now the only real solution was to type out the contents of the .pdf again and insert any tables or diagrams as appropriate. In a short couple of pages document this is a pain but in longer more structured documents it’s actually an impossibility.

Thankfully there is a powerful and intuitive solution from AnyBizSoft – PDF to Word which is now available for the Mac platform.

PDF to Word provides good conversion of .pdf files preserving:

• Batch-Conversion: Allow users to convert up to 50 PDF files at one time. This mode is useful when there are amounts of PDF files need to deal with.
• Partial-Conversion: Allow users to choose the page(s) to convert: Page Range, such as page 1-15 or Specific page(s), such as 5,7,14… This mode is useful when users just want to extract some pages but not the whole PDF.

I have used the application with MS Office 2008 Mac and PDFPen and everything works smoothly. Conversion is fast and files produced highly accurate with exact replicas of source files created. PDF to Word also provides support for encrypted files:

• If the PDF is protected by Owner Password:

PDF to Word for Mac can convert the PDF directly without entering the password.
*Owner Password: Password used to protect PDF files from editing, copying and printing.

• If the PDF is protected by User Password:

To protect the rights of the author or the owner of the PDF file, PDF to Word for Mac requires users to enter the user password to convert.
*User Password: Password used to protect the files from opening, so it is also called open password sometimes.

AnyBizSoft PDF to Word is a fantastic file conversation application for two of the most popular document formats in use today. It is highly recommended for anyone who works between these file types with any degree of regularity. PDF to Word is available via download and retails for $39.95

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

While still very much in it’s infancy the application is already reliable and fairly robust. To date I have experience one or two crashes but that was on launch day and the application has updated since release. The games currently available for the Mac platform are very small in number when compared to the PC platform but more have been promised for release on Wednesday of each week over the next couple of months. Furthermore Valve have confirmed that the Mac is now a tier one platform, along with the PC & Xbox360, which means that new Valve developed games will be released simultaneously on each. Multi-award winning titles like Half Life 2 and Team Fortress have been promised and Portal is already available for free up until the 24th May.

The interface is clean and well presented consisting of four main sections, the store, games, news & community. The store is the main hub for purchasing new releases and reflects the contents found on the Steam website. One of the best launch titles to pick up has to be Torchlight – a fantastic action RPG from former Blizzard employees. It oozes quality and is just great fun, certainly the best dungeon crawler this side of Diablo III. The games section is where all the titles you have purchased can be found, details about achievements obtained, friends progress and details about the game itself can all be found here. The news tab, as the name suggests, provides an insight into updates, upcoming releases, promotions and events. Finally the community tab is the social side of Steam where you can manage friends, develop your profile and find out what others are doing over chat.

Steam is a fantastic application and one that is very much welcomed on the Mac platform. While it will never rival the PC as a gaming device and I don’t consider that a bad thing, this is definitely a step in raising awareness of the Mac as a viable gaming outlet and one which Mac owners will surely welcome.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Having conducted some research into possible software solutions I discovered Pixelmator, appropriately tagged “Image Editing For The Rest Of Us”. Pixelmator is a layer-based image editor. You can quickly create layers from your photos, other pictures, from selections or even your iSight. Yes, Pixelmator can add a layer to your composition directly from your Mac’s little camera. Not only can you link and arrange added layers, but Pixelmator allows you to blend layers, change their opacity, create clipping masks or even add layer masks to hide some portions of layer. With Pixelmator’s powerful, pixel-accurate collection of selection tools you can quickly and easily select any part of your images. That means you can edit and apply special effects to portions of your pictures, remove unwanted objects or even cut out objects from one picture to put on another. Thanks to the masks palette in Pixelmator, you can even save your selections for later. Already you should be starting to realise that not only is Pixelmator a very powerful image editing application but that it offers many features that so called industry standard applications charge significantly more for.

The current version 1.5 Spider offers a robust suite of tools to allow for many image editing needs. Pixelmator features a simple and elegant collection of intuitive color correction tools. Using these tools you can fine-tune hue, saturation, and luminance; adjust exposure, color levels, brightness and contrast; use Auto Enhance to dramatically improve less-than-perfect images with one click; even use Curves, Color Balance, Channel Mixer and much more. Pixelmator is the real filter-machine. It has over 130 filters and special effects for your needs. Just choose any of nicely designed distortion, blur sharpen, color, stylize, halftone, tile generator, transition and Quartz Composer filters and boom – you see the result in real-time. Pixelmator not only comes with handy and powerful selection, painting and retouching tools, but it also has everything you need for typing text on your pictures, analysing colors, cropping, transforming, moving anything in your pictures or navigating through your images. With Pixelmator’s easy-to-use but powerful tools you can do a lot more with your images than you ever could before.

Pixelmator supports over 100 different file formats. You can open and save in PSD, TIFF, JPEG, PNG, PDF, EPS and scores of other image formats. Above all, Pixelmator can open and save Photoshop files with layers. Pixelmator is based on Core Image technology that uses your Mac’s video card for image processing. Core Image utilizes the graphics card for image processing operations, freeing the CPU for other tasks. And if you have a high-performance card with increased video memory (VRAM), you’ll find real-time responsiveness across a wide variety of Pixelmator operations. Pixelmator is blistering-fast on the latest PowerPC and all Intel-based Mac’s. What if you just love having fun with filters, but think that Pixelmator doesn’t have enough of them? Well, think again—Pixelmator significantly outshines other applications with its powerful plug-in architecture that takes advantage not only of Core Image units, but also of Quartz Composer compositions. This means you can simply download or create your own Core Image unit or even Quartz Composer composition and play with it right away in Pixelmator.

There is a great community that have bought and love the application and a host of learning materials available all across the Internet from YouTube to the Pixelmator podcast For $59 you get a professional and feature rich image editing application where really you will only be limited by your imagination.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

The wonderful people at Pixelmator have been kind enough to sponsor a competition through the blog. I have one Pixelmator serial key to give away. To win just respond to this post stating how you would use Pixelmator in your daily work flow. The winner will be chosen at random and announced in the near future. Good Luck!

Competition now closed – more competition news soon!

While the process of recording a screencast is fairly intuitive it does present the need for knowledge of many nuances relevant to the concept, software to use, suitable preparation, encoding settings, distribution, editing techniques. There really are a lot of things that a sound working knowledge of are needed to become efficient at designing recording and producing high quality screencasts. A few months back I reviewed a book then currently still in development relating to the process of screencast development, The Screencasting Handbook, which even then definitive in it’s description and addressing of the development of screencasts. The great news is that the book is now complete and has just been released!

The Screencasting Handbook weighs in at just under 130 pages and takes those completely new to screencasting as well as those that have some knowledge of the area through the processes and concepts involved in professional screencast production. The book deals primarily with techniques and approaches so users of no one application will feel isolated or left out. That said there are specific sections that relate content back to some of the leading screencasting applications Telestream’s ScreenFlow 2 & Camtasia Studio. As a ScreenFlow user myself I found the content relevant, useful and informative at all times and learned a few things that I wasn’t already aware of. The book opens with a general exploration of the concept, outlining where it can be used and how. From there the next couple of chapters deal with producing screencasts of varying complexity over different periods of time. The chapter on how to make a screencast in 30 mins for example providing a quick basic intro to what needs to be done while the later chapter on doing the same over a number of days details some of the more complex and time consuming factors involved in professional screencast production. It should become clear from these that screencasting while quick and effective should the need arise can also be a time consuming and complex process but one which presents many rewards when done right.

The book proceeds to deal with the export and distribution process often considered to be some of the most difficult due to the wide range of options available. Quite often screencasters will want to distribute their productions to a wide audience in a variety of formats for a range of devices. HD formats may be required for TV or computer playback, iPod specific versions, Flash encoded files for websites etc. The book does an excellent job of explaining the codecs available and how these may be tweaked to cater for different needs of quality and device specifics. Later chapters deal with resources relevant to screencasters, exploring microphones and equipment to be used to support the development process and specfic software solutions are examined in more detail.

Throughout the book is clear, concise and very well presented, Diagrams are used to good effect and instruction is clear at all times. Even those with an already good working knowledge of the process will pick up new tricks and tips worthy of the price of investment, at present $36. Anyone who works in education, demonstration, staff development, communication, software support or anywhere that enhanced communication would benefit what you do needs to check this publication out. It’s a sound investment in what I consider a detailed and well written exploration of a new media format that will grow more and more relevant as we evolve further into the age of collaboration. I wish to thank Ian Ozsvald personally for his investment of time and energy in the writing of the book and I’m sure many others will share my admiration. Check out The Screencasting Handbook now!

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Splinter Cell Conviction is the latest release in the Splinter Cell series and is available on Xbox360. You play the role of Sam Fisher a spy and weapons & special tactics master out for revenge for those that may have been involved in the death of his daughter. The game mechanics rely heavily on the stealth approach of the series but some nice new additions have been added such as new take down moves, execution mode and a tracer to show Sam’s last known position if he gets spotted. In addition to the single player campaign the game also features fantastic co-op play and multiplayer modes. The game has been getting very good reviews in the gaming press and now you have a chance to win a copy for yourself.

All you have to do is follow me on Twitter, retweet the competition info found here and answer the following simple question as a reply post on the blog.

What is the name of Sam’s daughter?

Competition Rules

• Entrants must be 15 or over to enter and have their parents or guardian’s permission to take part if under the age of 18.
• The competition will run for three weeks with all entries received before 11.00pm Sunday 23rd May UK time valid.
• The competition is only available to UK blog readers or those with a UK address.
• Only one entry per person based on a per email basis – please make sure to provide a valid email address as this will be used to contact you should you be the winner.
• The winner will be announced on Monday 24th May with the winner chosen at random by myself.
• The winner must have fulfilled all of the competition requirements, follow me on Twitter, retweeted the competition link, answered the question correctly, and meet entry legal requirements.
• My decision is final & I take no responsibility for loss of packages during postage – I will use Royal Mail recorded delivery.
• This competition holds no association with Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Conviction the video game and I except no responsibility for the quality of the product
• Rules are subject to change

Competition closed – winner will be contacted directly. Thanks to all for taking part.

The next step was to run Time Machine, Apples Leopard and above integrated backup application. I love the Time Machine interface and the whole concept of time travel coinciding with the process of backing up is sheer geekgasm. Time Machine works by essentially taking snap shots of the system as it stands, files folders etc as the exist at present are recorded and indexed by date. A wonderful Apple interface allows you to “go back and forward in time” to retrieve and restore files as needed. It all works wonderfully well and as I write this the process is running on my system : ) Time Machine required an external hard drive formatted as HFS+ Journal and I suggest getting a drive with as much space as possible. Once full Time Machine will start replacing older backups with newer ones informing you of such before it happens. It is an extremely useful way of maintaining a record of your files as they are at present.

In addition to having an incremental system snapshot facility with Time Machine it is also highly advised to have a complete clone of a given hard drive. A clone of a system drive not only means that you have a working copy of all your data files but that all of the applications and system settings will be maintained. To implement my drive clones I use Carbon Copy Cloner which is available for free for personal & educational use. CCC offers many advanced and useful features but the basic premise of offering a bootable clone of your main system drive is the key feature available. CCC provides functionality for block level copying of data which means that not all of a given file need be backed up once changed, only the blocks effected. This has greater significance with larger files but makes the whole backup process quicker. The initial backup or cloning of a drive can take some time but incremental changes thereafter are relatively quick. Carbon Copy Cloner is fantastic application offering an intuitive and clean user interface, it provides backup functionality for just about every need and is free for personal use. Customer testimonials suggest that it is very reliable and a provides for hassle free backups and indeed restores when the need arises.

The final component of my backup strategy is Mozy. Any competent backup process will involve the backing up of data to off site locations – I had already signed up with Mozy and their US backup facilities but recently Mozy offered backup for UK and Ireland residents to local European servers. The main reason for this was to comply with European backup law but it also means that people based in the UK like myself have a faster backup procedure available to them. Mozy is widely considered one of the best backup solutions on the Mac platform, a recent study by MacFormat magazine identified Mozy as the most Mac like backup application and I have to agree. Mozy offers 2GB of backup storage for free, you simply need to sign up for an account and paid solutions start at £4.99 a month for unlimited backup of one computer. All user data is encrypted locally with military-grade encryption prior to transfer via 128-bit SSL connection. Users can choose a managed encryption key or choose a personal key for added security. Data is stored in state-of-the-art data centers that employ the highest security standards and are SAS70 or ISO certified. MozyHome the version for personal use and the one which I am using installs as an application and provides access to backup configuration through a menu bar item. All that is required is to select what is to be backed up, when, using how much bandwidth and you are good to go. Backups can be scheduled to take place during the night for example, with initial backups taking days or weeks depending on how much data needs to be seeded.

The development of a more robust backup plan has left me feeling a lot less worried about my critical data, I strongly urge everyone to explore the options available for themselves and take the necessary steps to implement a plan that suits you. Whatever you go with I guarantee you will feel better about it.

Having established the mass collaboration and sharing of information is inevitable and to be encouraged the next step is to facilitate in the process in a safe and reliable way. My experience with torrents has been something of a mixed bag, certainly back when I was using the PC platform it was a painful concept. Files failed to download, speeds were terrible, files I did get turned out to be something completely different than I desired and more often than not it involved security issues such as malware and viruses. Thankfully the downloading and distribution on the Mac platform, like most things I might add, has been painless and enjoyable. My BitTorrent client of choice is the freely available Transmission which provides a secure, easy to use and feature rich torrent management experience. Some BitTorrent clients provide the user with a dazzling amount of configuration options, form past experience tweaking these settings can reduce performance and lead to an application that almost doesn’t work. Even if you know what you are doing playing with the settings is not advised. Transmission provides a very much “works out of the box” scenario, after installation it’s simply good to go in terms of usage.

Another important function of BitTorrent clients are their memory footprint. Torrents whether it be uploading or downloading do take time – consequently it is desirable if that while they are running other system resources are free to allow other applications to function and perform well. Written in Objective C on the Mac Transmission provides Growl notification and dock badge notification identifying upload and download speeds. Moreover I have downloaded and seeded torrents while working away on lots of other things. Transmission has the features you want from a BitTorrent client: encryption, a web interface, peer exchange, magnet links, DHT, UPnP and NAT-PMP port forwarding, webseed support, watch directories, tracker editing, global and per-torrent speed limits, and more. I fully appreciate that the concept can and is abused on a daily basis but when used correctly torrents have a role to play in our digital society. They are a viable option for the sharing and distribution of data and Transmission provides a great client to support torrent management.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Ghosts provides almost two hours of music composed and recorded over a ten week period. The tracks are named sequentially 1 Ghosts I – 36 Ghosts IV and despite being self contained tracks in their own right repeated listens reveals a complex and progressive structure through the ordering. Trent describes the album, “I’ve been considering and wanting to make this kind of record for years, but by its very nature it wouldn’t have made sense until this point. This collection of music is the result of working from a very visual perspective – dressing imagined locations and scenarios with sound and texture; a soundtrack for daydreams. I’m very pleased with the result and the ability to present it directly to you without interference. I hope you enjoy the first four volumes of Ghosts.”

There is a looseness and carefree attitude throughout the collection, it really feels like a record unencumbered by the interference of a record company. While this may seem a little self indulgent for some and exempt of quality control for others, those that have invested have been blown away. This really a shining example of artists at the peak of their power – Trent’s uncompromising vision refining each and every track with outstanding variation. The industrial, heavy, scratchy, dirty undertones of Trent’s style are evident throughout but each track is a masterpiece of experimentation and craft. Characteristics of electronica, industrial metal and alternative rock punctuate the backbone of the collection but this is a unique offering from one of the most pioneering bands of my generation.

Ghosts is available in a variety of formats, from prepackaged deluxe versions featuring Garageband files for all the recordings to digital download versions offering accompanying artwork, wallpapers, web graphics and album linear notes in PDF format. All versions offer 100% DRM free tracks in high quality – the MP3 versions which I purchased were individually tagged with track artwork. The instrumental nature of the tracks may hinder some from exploring the collection but for me it offers the perfect accompaniment to getting things done.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Have you ever wondered where all the space on your hard drive went? Have you spent time aimlessly navigating through folders trying to identify files that you no longer need to regain some much needed space? I think most computer users will know what I’m talking about. Enter DaisyDisk a wonderful, graphic driven hard disk analyser. DaisyDisk provides a visual mapping of any drives currently mounted on your system, internal system drives, external Firewire or USB drives. Once the application launches a listing of all connected drives is displayed, selecting the scan command initiates DaisyDisk’s scanning process which from personal use I can testify is incredibly fast. A 500GB drive takes about two minutes! With the scan complete a visual map is displayed on screen which outlines where data is stored, the size of directories, what files are taking up the most space etc. Navigation through this map is simply a matter of selecting the colour coded section. It’s a relatively simple concept but one which is significantly missing form the Mac OS X suite at present. It’s great for as part of Mac maintenance, preparing for a backup or the cloning of a drive and indeed for simply reclaiming hard drive space. DaisyDisk retails for $19.95 and is highly recommended.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

AppZapper is another very handy tool to have at times of maintenance. The removal of applications on the Mac platform usually consists of simply dragging the application from the applications directory to the trash. While this works for the most part it does not actually uninstall the application, rather you are simply deleting the application file. All of the associated application configuration files remain on the system, taking up space and possibly causing conflicts. AppZapper presents a window to which an application to be uninstalled is dragged. This in turn presents the user with a listing of all files associated with the application making it clear what exactly will be removed. The user then selects the zap option and in typical Mac greatness the screen flashes to confirm the application has been successful removed.

Until recently I was less convinced by my need for AppZapper – I, like many others, thought that the traditional use of the trash option was more than sufficient. However when presented with a problem with Launchbar recently simply removing the application in this way and reinstalling did not fix my problem. One of the application configuration files had become corrupt so I used AppZapper to remove all of the Launchbar data from my system and attempted a clean install. Moments later the problem was resolved and I have Launchbar back fully functional all thanks to AppZapper. AppZapper is an essential investment providing a clean and reliable way to remove applications from your system, it retails for $12.95.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

This drive has caused something of a controversy among those that have purchased it – some stating it to be a great drive when configured while others, perhaps those a little less technologically aware, struggling to get it to work. The center of this issue lies with the installed software which is now standard across much of the Western Digital range, the rather inappropriately named SmartWare…

The software is mounted as a virtual drive on the drives as standard and provide backup functionality should a user wish to use it, unfortunately due to the way in which it has been installed it is very difficult to remove and can cause conflict errors with various systems. You might think that a format of the drive would resolve the issue but unfortunately that isn’t the case. I cannot understand why Western Digital would force it’s users down this path, a better option would surely have been to have left the installers for the software on the drive for users to install should they wish, not forcing them to know their way around their platform of choice in order to remove it.

The good news is that the software can be removed and the drive used for whatever purpose you wish (in my case as a clone destination for my main HDD) but it’s a little tricky to do. First if you are working on a Mac you will need access to both a Windows machine and your chosen platform. At present there are issues with one of the tools provided by Western Digital to resolve this matter on the Mac platform, if you are solely a Windows user you are good to go with just your PC.

The first step in the process is to update the drive firmware, Windows & Mac users should do this on the Windows platform using the utilities provided here and following the instructions on the same page. Once you have completed this step you then need to use the VCD Manager utility, again Mac users should do this on a Windows machine. This utility will disable the VCD Manager driver that attempts to install the software on drive connection. When this stage is complete Windows users should format the drive as they would normally – NTFS – this should provide you with a fully working, bloat free drive to use as you wish. Mac users have a little more work to do.

Using Disk Utility Mac users should partition the drive to The GUID schema and using as many partitions as they wish. One will give you the entire drive as usable space. Once this is done format the drive to HFSJ. This should now leave you with a drive that you can connect to your Mac as you would any other external drive and prevent any interference from the pre-installed bloatware.

I really cannot understand Western Digital’s thinking behind this move, nobody wants hard to remove software on their external drives, particularly software that causes compatibility issues and crashes. Thankfully following the steps above you can reclaim the drive to use as you wish but it does require working knowledge of disk utility to do so. The next step for me is the cloning process which should take place in the next couple of days.

Now a couple of days into reading Getting Things Done and having had an opportunity to put the theory into practice I can say that even at this early stage I feel more in control of what is going on in my life. I haven’t got a million things done that I need to, I don’t feel as if the pressure has been completely removed, but I do feel reassured that I am in control and that I am on course to get things done and eventually complete large projects. That might seem a little inconsequential to anyone who hasn’t felt completely snowed under by what they have to do on a daily basis, but believe me when you have as much to do as I do and when you simply feel unable to cope with it all, any change of significance feels like a minor miracle. Moreover I am only three days in & haven’t yet finished the book, I expect that a couple of weeks from now I will feel even more positive about the process.

So how have I implemented the Getting Things Done concept? The developers have something of an association with the Omni Group and their OmniFocus software. Having tried that application for myself I was less than impressed. Thankfully my task management software of choice, Things from Cultured Code, allows for the perfect implementation of the concept and at least for me does so in a much more intuitive way than OmniFocus. I’m not going to get into the details of the process here, ideally I would advise anyone that is interested to go pick a copy of the book up now but suffice to say that Things allows for the capture, processing, organising, doing and reviewing of tasks as the process suggests. “Stuff” arrives at a collection point which can be your email inbox, physical inbox, dropbox etc – collecting in Things can be done via manual input or the excellent quick entry option. Once you have collected “stuff” you must then decide if it is actionable – if not it must be delegated, held for review or referenced for use later. “Stuff” which is actionable requires a next step to be generated, that is the next step in the chain of events required to be done to allow progress to be made. If multiple steps are involved in the thing to be done it is assigned to a project and subsequent steps generated, if it is something that will take less than 2 minutes it is done there and then and if it takes longer it is scheduled as a to do.

The whole process works wonderfully well together and it is really only by experiencing it first hand that you really get an appreciation of just how effective it is. To coincide with my new found knowledge I am working on a series of screencasts on the use of things that not only demonstrate how Things works but how it can be used to support the process. Expect those very soon.

It all seems a little to idyllic and I can’t help but feel it’s the calm before the storm, I’m sure some of you will know what I mean. I’m not kidding myself, the next few weeks are going to be tough but I have to keep some perspective in order to maintain my sanity. For now I have to content myself in the moment. Much of what is ahead will be about Getting Things Done™ How may times have each of us said something along those lines? Personally speaking it must tens of thousands if not millions. Time management and productivity have become more and more important in my life and indeed inherently important of anyone that works in the age of digital media. Life demands a lot from us and work pressures are becoming more demanding, many of us will have external projects and interests that are every bit as important to us and our careers. Finding time to fit all of this in can be a nightmare and speaking from experience it can lead to all sorts of issues and problems.

I have read various books on the subject, listened to audiobooks and researched concepts on the Internet, yet I still struggle with those three words; getting things done. Recently a number of new media gurus from various podcasts I listen to have mentioned the book Getting Things Done by David Allen and have sung it’s praises from the rafters. Merlin Mann, Katie Floyd, David Sparks and many others are advocates of the approach. I thought it was about time that I invested in the concept. There is a complete system built around David Allens techniques with DVD’s, posters, seminars, podcasts and many other forms of information available. They all stem from the core principles contained in the book, which I have just ordered from Amazon.

I have already listened to some of the podcasts relating to book content and I believe Things from Cultured Code will provide me with the software needed to support the process. The Amazon order should arrive mid-week giving me time to put an initial phase of the process to the test before returning to work, expect a blog update in relation to that in the near future.

Along with Getting Things Done I also ordered a few other bits and pieces from Amazon including the latest edition of the wonderful Teaching Today A Practical Guide by Geoff Petty. It’s pretty much considered the standard text for an academic & already owning an earlier edition I know I am in for a great read. The new release contain many additional chapters & content not in the edition I own. Finally to aid in the work process in the weeks ahead I got myself a Moleskine 18 month academic weekly notebook. If you haven’t heard of the Moleskine franchise, I really can’t imagine where you have been living: ) – Moleskine® notebook is the heir and successor to the legendary notebook used by artists and thinkers over the past two centuries: among them Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, and Bruce Chatwin. A simple black rectangle with rounded corners, an elastic page-holder, and an internal expandable pocket: a nameless object with a spare perfection all its own, produced for over a century by a small French bookbinder that supplied the stationery shops of Paris, where the artistic and literary avant-gardes of the world browsed and bought them. A trusted and handy travel companion, the notebook held invaluable sketches, notes, stories, and ideas that would one day become famous paintings or the pages of beloved books.

Today, Moleskine brand is synonymous with culture, travel, memory, imagination, and personal identity–in both the real world and the virtual world. It is a brand that identifies a family of notebooks, journals, diaries and innovative city guides, adapted to various functions. With the diverse array of page formats, Moleskine notebooks are partners for the creative and imaginative professions of our time. They represent, around the world, a symbol of contemporary nomadism, in close connection with the digital world, through a network of websites, blogs, online groups, and virtual archives. With Moleskine, the age-old gesture of taking notes and doing sketches –typically analogue activities– have found an unexpected forum on the web and in its communities.

This post, being written in a stop-start format, has taken me up to mid-afternoon. My plans for the rest of today amount to some general sorting, a little cleaning, some WoW, resting & rounding things up with Pacific which premieres tonight on Sky Movies. The Pacific is a ten part mini series co-produced by Tom Hanks and Stephen Spielberg which tracks the intertwined stories of three US marines across the Pacific during World War II. Several key engagements will features across the episodes include Cape Gloucester, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. In many ways a spiritual successor to one of my favourite TV events of all time, Band of Brothers – the show has been very well received in the states and the showing in the UK high anticipated. I’m really looking forward to tonight’s double bill.

To wind up my musings for today let me revisit something I have discussed before on the blog. Anyone that knows me will know my absolute infatuation with Kate Beckinsale, she was recently deemed Esquire magazines sexiest woman alive and I for one agree. Esquire released a HD promo video for the shoot around about the time of the magazines launch in 720p, well now to further prove there is a God a 1080p version has materialised. Stunning in whatever format, check out Kate Beckinsale’s recent Esquire photo shoot promo. Enjoy the rest of your Easter whatever you are doing.

Video copyright Esquire 2010

Delicious Library is essentially a cataloging application, a digital repository for all of your stuff, CD’s, DVD’s, video games, books, gadgets, clothes, iTunes collection, toys, tools – you name it and this application can catalog it. Now if you think that sounds a little boring you are probably using a PC and would turn to something like Excel to do the job. Delicious Library is not only a great application it is a quintessentially Macintosh application, each line of code, each little subtle feature, the way the individual elements form a perfect whole – it represents in so many ways what is so special about the Mac platform.

From the second the application launches you are presented with a clean and pleasant interface, along the left hand side you have a listing of the various elements that make up your library. In the middle of the screen are the virtual shelves that hold your stuff with information about each of the items displayed on the right as they are selected. Be default there are two collections to start with, actual items that you own and your iTunes library elements. The first step is to get your stuff into the application, you might think this requires you to enter in the information, perhaps filling in a form with some nifty auto-complete functionality, but hey this is Mac – boring and limited are not options. Entry of information takes place via bar code entry, yes bar code entry – you click the camera icon from within the application and the iSight camera kicks into action with a scanning widow appearing along side the main interface. You simply align the bar code on the things you want to scan in and databases around the world are searched for matches, once found the item materialises on your shelf, accompanied by a audio announcement of what it is. All of the relevant information about the product appears in the information section on the right, including customer reviews and stats.

It’s a really wondrous and enjoyable process, I genuinely felt excited and happy as I scurried around the room finding stuff to add to my library. For the most part the comprehensive database will find what you scan in but on the occasions where it does not you can easily add the details through a manual entry process. You can give the items entered personal ratings and arrange and organise them as you wish using different filters. There are a number of reasons why this process is worthwhile, firstly it’s a great way of knowing exactly what you have and own, for example I own over 5,000 comics, books, DVD’s and video games – I have a fair idea of what I have bought but for comics in particular it can be hard to keep track. Second if anything should go wrong, flood damage, house fire etc – it’s great to know what you will be contacting your insurers for in terms of contents. Aside from those serious reasons it’s down right fun, genuinely geeky and the options to share your library online via MobileMe, FTP or to a local folder mean you can take the whole process one step further – building an online resource to show off the stuff you own and love.

It’s fairly obvious that I love this application – it’s a perfect representation of everything that the Mac represents – providing a solid, fun and unique way of cataloging your most prized possessions. I spend a lot of my spare time sorting through my stuff, going through boxes of old albums, old comic books – putting stuff away, taking stuff out to revisit. Thanks to Delicious Library that whole process has now been digitised and I cannot thank the developers enough. There are other great little touches such as the built in voice recognition for searches and the ability to export BibDesk compliant bibliographies but I think if you have read this far you are probably sold. If you own a Mac, have stuff and have an element of geek in your persona go buy this now.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

I have always believed I was born a scientist! As far as I can remember I always had my nose in a  book and was collecting insects and things I could find in my garden to look at on my microscope. I was also fascinated by the sea I used to learn off by heart all the latin names for shells! (As an aside, the first thing I ever wanted to be when I grew up was a “mer-ma-laid” and when that proved impossible I set my sights on being a marine biologist. I quickly realised we don’t live in the tropics and scrapped that idea!) My parents bought me the childcraft encyclopedias when I started school and I was forever reading and re-reading them – especially the ones on science & weather, maths and the human body.

You are involved in a lot of activities modeling, acting and the very worthwhile cause of promoting awareness in relation to breast cancer – where do you find the time to fit it all in?

The acting is by far the most demanding and when you are in rehearsals and on tour there is very little else you can do! It’s all about planning really. I did a lot of shoots before I went on tour and now while I have a break I will plan some more shoots. I suppose it’s the same for anyone who is self employed, you end up working 24-7 because even when you are not on a job you are planning where your next loaf of bread is going to come from. The charity work is very rewarding but probably the most difficult to organise on account of people making a world of promises and never following through!

How did you find your recent venture into the world of acting, do you have any plans to do more acting in the future?

I absolutely loved every moment of being on stage.  Previous to this I had no acting experience so to get up on stage with people who have ten years and more experience over you was a huge personal challenge for me. My fellow cast were amazingly supportive and I feel extremely lucky to have met them and had the opportunity to work with them. Hopefully in the future I will be able to do some more work in that area though I do have my sights set on getting into sports journalism and presenting because I am a huge football fan.

I’m a big fan of your modeling work (blushes) do you think attitudes towards glamour modeling have changed in recent years?

There are very different attitudes to glamour modelling here in the Republic compared to the UK. In the UK glamour models are ten-a-penny and the idea of being a glamour model to bag yourself a footballer is somewhat of a career move over there. Believe me, I’ve seen it plenty. Ireland is a much more judgemental place and for all I have achieved, I am very much still an anomaly here. I don’t believe that as long as I am the “Page 3 girl” that will ever change, and it’s not personal. Of course, when I do other things such as acting and writing, I am respected for my work in those fields, but I have only ever made it as far as I have because I have achieved so much academically and that is the one point girls who aspire to be like me miss entirely. There are no ‘easy paths’ in life.

I know, like me, you use Twitter quite a lot and you have your own blog – has social networking changed the way you interact with your mates, colleagues etc?

My friends who I have known a long time do not get in touch with me on the internet. They just pick up the phone! And I am the same, I tend to ring them. I think social networking, for all the many ways in which it has aided my career, can be bad for people’s personal lives and for that reason there is actually only one or two of my actual friends on my sites and none of my family. My career is heavily reliant on the internet but I think it’s important to separate the two.

What does Claire Tully do to unwind, quite night in or night on the town?

I spend a lot of time relaxing watching football games. Concentrating on a game helps me tune out any worries I have and of course it’s a conversation starter then with anyone. I also like to spend time near the sea or go for a facial and a massage (if I’ve the money!). Aside from when I am actually doing shoots or on stage, my job can actually be very lonely. Travelling around the world is not so much fun when you are waiting 6 hours in an airport on your own and sitting in a room on your own online can also be a killer! I am a sociable little thing and I like to be around people in my free time.

Could you talk a little about your favorite book, film, music at the moment.

My favourite book at the moment is “Angels in my Hair”. I actually reviewed this book over Christmas and only picked it because it had been really hyped. Of course, as a complete sceptic, I wanted to see what the fuss was about. I don’t think my preconceptions could have been further off the mark – it really is an exceptional story. In terms of writers and genres, my favourite writer at the moment is Lisa Gardner. I have always been a fan of crime fiction. This author is taking over from Patricia Cornwell in my life! In terms of films, I think one of my favourite films of all time has to be The Green Mile. I think it is an incredibly powerful and moving film and it never fails to impress me time and time again. I’m not usually into very serious films, I like a lot of films such as “Old School”, ” l Love You Man” and one of my all time favourites is “Meet the Parents”. I’m a closet dance fan, from my earlier years, though as I grown out of my teens I can listen to pretty much anything. I dislike when certain songs are overplayed. I don’t like Lady GaGa at all, though I can appreciate how extraordinarily gifted as an artist she is. It really annoys me when people say I look like her just because we have blonde hair! I look nothing like her!

You are leaving the house and can only bring three things with you – what would they be?

Phone, Laptop, face moisturiser.

What can we expect from Claire Tully in the year ahead?

More opinions, more acting and maybe even a new look

I would like to thank Claire for taking time out of her hectic schedule to answer the questions for the blog,

Take a common everyday work flow, the production of a screencast. This will involve a script in a .pages file, the ScreenFlow project file, the exported movie (perhaps in multiple formats), the need to upload files via FTP to a server directory, archiving of related resources into a folder, deleting any temporary files. There are probably more steps but as a case in point these will suffice, up until now each of these stages involved the manual saving, moving, deleting, uploading and processing of each of the file types. Since getting Hazel I simply focus my time on the creative aspects of production and let the application handle the administrative side!

Hazel watches whatever folders you tell it to, automatically organising your files according to the rules you create. It features a rule interface similar to that of Apple Mail so you should feel right at home. Have Hazel move files around based on name, date, type, what site/email address it came from (Safari and Mail only) and much more. Automatically put your music in your Music folder, movies in Movies. Keep your downloads off the desktop and put them where they are supposed to be. Hazel can open, archive, set color labels and add Spotlight comments. In addition, you can have Hazel rename your files or sort them into subfolders based on name, date or whatever combination of attributes you choose. With Hazel’s rule-based engine, you can create powerful work flows to automatically organise and process your files. It’s incredibly powerful and can knock minutes off a daily work flow.

Hazel also offers functionality to deal with application removal, when you throw away applications, they can leave behind support files that never get cleaned up. With Hazel’s App Sweep, Hazel will detect when you throw applications away, search for its support files and offer to throw those away as well. Uninstalling applications is integrated with your Trash so you don’t even have to think about it. Made a mistake? When you pull the application back out of the Trash, Hazel can re-install the support files for you so you don’t lose a thing. In addition, App Sweep can work for all users on the same computer. If you throw away an app, other users of the app will get a chance to have their support files thrown away when they log in.

Hazel works quietly in the background allowing you to focus on your real tasks. Just set up your rules via a System Preferences pane and let Hazel do its job. Hazel tries not to hog up resources. You won’t notice it’s there but turn it off and you will wonder how you ever managed without it. It’s a complete game changer, guaranteed to improve and optimise your work flow regardless of what you use your Mac for. There is a 14 day trial for Hazel available from the Noodlesoft website, the application retails for $21.95

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Image & Video copyright GMTV 2010

At the moment I have my dock crammed full of applications that I use with a degree of regularity, in fact I can’t at present come close to fitting all of my applications into the dock. Launchbar overcomes this problem providing quick and easy keyboard access to any application on my MacBook Pro. One of the key characteristics of LaunchBar is it’s use of the keyboard for all functionality, it’s amazing how much time this can save when you become use to the keyboard shortcut, files can be renamed, images re-sized, scripts run – it really is an amazing time saver. A simple press of ⌘ Space invokes the LaunchBar drop down panel into which all commands are entered, from there it’s a matter of key presses to execute any command. The application is also extremely intelligent remembering past choices and customising action lists to the commands commonly used by a given user.

LaunchBar has revolutionised the way I deal with files, I can now open, move, copy, rename and search files with a series of button presses without every having to touch my mouse. I can compress files into archives, copy a section of text and remove the formatting, add iCal entries without having to lift my hands from the keyboard. Yes it may take a little while to get use to but believe me, once you start using LaunchBar you will find it very hard to ever operate your Mac again without it. Up until now I have been a stickler for having as many applications as possible in my dock and a lot of my currently active files on the desktop, LaunchBar has tided all of that clutter and made my work a lot smoother and organised. It comes highly recommended, a free 30 day trial is available from the Objective Development website, LaunchBar costs 24 Euro.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

One of my favourite geeks is the absolutely gorgeous and incredibly funny Carol Zara. Carol comes from Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and currently resides in Canada. Carol was recently declared one of G4 TV’s hottest women of geek culture and I for one fully agree : ) Her blog DigitallyBlonde is a great resource where Carol comments on video games, movies, toys, conventions and other geek related goodness. There are also plenty of images of Carol (should anyone want to explore those for academic purposes).

Carol has very kindly agreed to answer some questions for my blog and I would like to thank her for giving me the time out of her busy schedule, it’s incredibly awesome to have someone of her stature as my first geek interview.

So Carol can you let us know a little bit about yourself?
I like to eat cheeseburgers and play video games in my PS3. All in thigh high socks.

What video games, TV shows, books, movies are you currently playing / enjoying?
Game: God of War 3; TV show: La-La-Land on HBO; comic book: Siege Embedded; movie: latest one I saw was Alice in Wonderland 3D, which I hated. Thought the 3D was horrible and the movie had no magic. I used to like Tim Burton before this epic disaster and I freaking love Johnny Depp.

You state pole dancing as one of your interests and I know you have a love of dancing – what started your interest in these activities.
I was a member at an all-girls-gym called Flirty Girl Fitness and some of the classes they have are things i think every woman should learn: pole dancing, chair striptease, coyote ugly dance, lap dance… Feminity and sexappeal will bring peace to the world. And more sexy catfights.

Your blog is great I love the content on there, how to you personally perceive your geek status?
I never thought of myself as a geek. I just do things I enjoy, then people started calling me the nerd princess, the queen of the geeks… I was like “alright if you say so, I’ll accept it”. Actually I’ve just recently found out that things I’ve been doing my entire life are labelled nerdy. I had no idea Buffy and Veronica Mars were nerd series. Grew up watching Dungeons and Dragons cartoon and playing Super Mario. My brother was addicted to RuneScape and Pokemon. By the way, I can sing the Pokemon song in Portuguese but I have no clue what it’s like in English.

Do you think attitudes to geeks has changed in recent years?
Not really. Like, I wonder why most geeks don’t dress up cooler? Geek T-shirts can be fun, but the rest is just so stereotypical… I respect people’s choices, but that doesn’t mean I like it.

What are your favourite tech gadgets at the moment – are there certain things you have with you all the time?
Oh definitely! My iPhone and Macbook are my babies. I treat them with love and feed them with battery juice.

You have inspired some very cool graphic design and have a section on your blog called zart – I especially love the Maxim inspired graphic. Do you draw? How do you feel about having images / logos etc of you drawn?
I’m really good at drawing stick figures. Mad skills! Let’s just say if people started a competition I’d win gold medal!

Are there any projects or activities you are currently working on that you can let us in on?
The only one I can talk about right now is the MTV one. I’ll be blogging for MTV’s new online magazine called FORA. They launch it in April. Super excited for it!!

Finally describe yourself in three words
Horny blonde girl. Thanks, Google AdWords!

I would like to thank Carol once again for giving her time.