Recently, GTD Times did a blog post on how to create a rule in your email client to keep better track of your sent messages.  I added a rule in my email client, Mail.  This rule takes emails with my name in both the from’ and cc’ fields and automatically moves these messages to my “waiting for” folder.  Here’s a screenshot for the rule set-up in Mail.  Of course, for the rule to work, I need to remember to cc’ me on those important messages I need to track.  Well, it’s worth a shot.  Thanks for reading!

Here is a nice tip for quickly launching apps from the iOS notification center

Use iOS’ Notification Center as a Quick App Launcher.

Yahoo appears to be the default search engine after the latest Firefox update.  Here is a link that will help you change it to something else:

Change Default Search in Firefox | Firefox Facts

Cheers,

Mai

This week, Apple released iOS 5.  If you haven’t been prompted to install it yet, then press the “check for update button” when you next sync your iDevice to your Mac. One feature I am a fan of is the notification center.  To view the notification center, swipe down from the top of your home screen to see notifications.

Customize your notifications (badge or alert style, sound etc) in settings by selecting notification center.  You will want to customize settings for each app you actively use.  You will also want to turn off notifications for apps you do not use.  For example, the default settings enable stock updates in the notification center.  I disabled this feature

My favorite feature in the notification center is that when you swipe across a notification that appears in the lock screen, then you go directly to that app after you unlock your iPhone.  For example, if I receive a notification for a text message, and I swipe over that notification, then I will go directly to the SMS app after I unlock my phone.

Thanks for reading!

How I use Facebook has changed because of the free Facebook Messenger app. Facebook Messenger, separate from the Facebook app, allows you to send messages to your to Facebook friends.  It is the inbox for your Facebook messages. Unlike the Facebook site, the Facebook Messenger layout does not change.

If the person you are sending a message to is currently on Facebook, then your message will appear as an instant message and you can start a chat.  If the facebook friend you are messaging in not logged onto Facebook, then they will receive your message as an SMS.  Using Facebook Messenger has curbed my text messaging habits which can be a nice money saver especially now that AT&T only offers unlimited text messaging for $20.

Thanks for reading.

Here is a nice collection of iPad tips and tricks. This site is a great introduction to the product and the tips are useful for both first and second generation models.

Thanks!

Mai

If you are like me and you frequently use the cut and paste option when working on documents, then perhaps you have gotten frustrated more than once by annoying formatting issues with pasted text.

You can say goodbye to those days of pasting by adding this new shortcut to your handy list of Mac OS keyboard shortcuts:

Command+Option+Shift+V = Paste minus any formatting using just Mac OS X

That’s right…this doesn’t require an added app, peeps.

Thanks for reading!

I could say something like “Hey, do you know about the bird on the cover of this book”? “What kind of bird is it”? Yes, those seem like okay questions now especially since I know that this person REALLY LOVES birds, but a few months ago, they just seemed like dumb questions that would look even lamer asked by a red in the face person so instead I just started reading the book.

As I read Freedom, I did not like it very much. I was surprised by this reaction given how much I had enjoyed Franzen’s The Corrections. The Corrections made me laugh and it made me feel better about my crazy family. But Freedom felt different. I did not find Freedom funny. I did not like the characters and I could not identify well with any of them. After reading half of the book and feeling frustrated with it, I exercised my freedom and put the book down for awhile.

I went back to figuring out other things I could talk about with this girl. And then I stopped thinking about conversations with her and started having them. We talked about drums and drumming, Tori Amos and her crazy songs, volleyball, Regina Spektor, liberal arts colleges, and Serbian meats. Last week, she took me bird watching and I remembered the cerulean warbler and picked up Freedom again.

This time I did not have an agenda for the book. The characters spoke to me more. I saw parts of Peggy, Walter, Joey and Jessica that I could identify with. I thought about the different notions of freedom that Franzen drew through his characters and their journeys. For however different their individual notions of freedom were, they shared the shape of a trap. I liked and didn’t like how some of the characters were able to find their ways back to each other at the end of the book.

Most of all, I felt very lucky to have found someone special to take me bird watching.

For a long time, the bouncing Mail icon was not my friend.  After months of watching it bounce and letting it shift my attention back to Mail, I turned this feature off in Mail preferences.  Earlier this week, I realized that a little bit of bounce could be useful.  Basically, I just want the icon to dance when my boss sends me an email.  I created a rule in Mail called “boss email” that triggers the Mail icon in the dock to bounce when it sees an email from my boss.

Here’s a screenshot of the rule.

boss email rule in Mail preferences

You can create rules by going to Mail preferences and clicking on add rule.

Thanks for reading!

Winter in Chicago is maybe drawing to a close, and wow, was it ever a long one filled with challenges, crises, and some bad weather mixed in too.  But spring is in the air, leaves are returning to the trees, and my eyes are teary from pollen so hopefully mother nature has some continuous warmth in store for us.  One of the things that made the winter manageable was the getting things done approach and the OmniFocus tool.  Don’t get me wrong it was  the support of friends, the playing of music, the long chats, the laughter, the movies, and all of the hugs that made life so much better.  And when it was time to return to the work of life and the work of work, OmniFocus was and is the system I rely on.  It’s important to have a tool that can help you manage everything from “Get over this effin’ virus” to “Get back into shape” to “Play more music” to “Help figure out post hospital treatment” to “Submit Mellon Proposal.”   The big things that keep me up at night became projects…messy ones but at least ones that have some actions that provide definition and some way of tracking progress.

I’ve been an OmniFocus user for a little less than 2 years and there’s still a lot to learn.  Fortunately, David Sparks, an attorney and one of the hosts of Mac Power Users, has put together a series of screen casts to help OmniFocus users understand the tool and get better and faster at using it.  David goes over things like how to set-up and use your inbox, how to create customized perspectives like “today” that will just show you actions with a start date of today, and what the keyboard shortcuts are that go with the program.  Many of the changes he suggests seem subtle, but they have transformed how I use the tool.  For example, he proposes a very simple, minimal view for the inbox where you subtract the tool bar up top and the sidebar producing a plain white box.  This new view of “in” has made me use it so much more because the clutter is gone and all that’s there is what you add.  You can check out David’s first installment in OmniFocus tricks here.

Thanks for reading!