I have neither the money nor the space for something like this in my life. But I love the idea of it so much. There is just something about the sound of all those clicky mechanisms going off at once.
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SaneReminders For the Win (Sponsor)
This week MacSparky is sponsored by SaneBox, the power tools you can add to any email application. SaneBox brings a pile of tools to your email, making it easier to manage and conquer your email. One of my favorite features is SaneReminders.
Have you ever sent an email to someone asking “Where is that thing?” and then struggled to figure out how to follow up on that? Do you add a task to your task system? (Too time-consuming and tedious.) Do you just hope you’ll remember to follow up? (Too unreliable.) There really wasn’t a good solution to this problem, until SaneReminders.
With SaneReminders, any time you want to do one of those follow-up emails, you just copy (or blind copy) the email to some increment of time at SaneBox.com. For example 2days@SaneBox.com or Monday@SaneBox.com. The SaneBox robot then tracks that email you sent. If your recipient replies before the designated day, SaneBox assumes you got an answer to “Where is that thing” and leaves you alone. If, however, there is no reply to that email, SaneBox sends you a reminder telling you that you never got a reply. In the amount of time it took you to fill in a BCC field, you solved the email reminder problem, with SaneBox. I use this feature multiple times a day.
If you’d like to get SaneBox at your back, go check it out today. You won’t regret it.
Hey Email Gets Multi-Account Support and Hey for Work Released
The Hey team has been hard at work with several updates for Hey Email released today:
1. HEY for Work is now released. I’ve been trying it with one of my accounts and I’m impressed with its collaboration tools. Thread sharing with people on your team without hitting that damn BCC button is a massive improvement to team email. You can also move your work domain into Hey for Work as part of the setup. Another nice features is that the labels (tags) work everywhere and are consistent. That is not an easy nut to crack with other Mac email solutions.
2. Multi-account support. If you have multiple Hey accounts (e.g., work and personal) you can now see all that email at the same time or filter by account.
3. Revamped Forwarding + SMTP send-as support. There is better SMTP support so you can reply using alternative domain email addresses rather than your @hey.com address (partially depending on your alternative email host).
One of the big questions when Hey first arrived was whether it was going to be sustainable enough to merit continued support and development. It looks like that is no longer a worry. I’m impressed with the service, but I still don’t like the icon.
macOS Big Sur 11.2
While I wouldn’t normally cover a maintenance update, this one brings many much needed bug fixes to Apple Silicon Mac users. There were problems with external displays and BlueTooth connection issues. I was seeing that with my M1 MacBook when connected to a monitor and my external trackpad and keyboard kept disappearing.
Hopefully, that’s the end of Apple Silicon hiccups.
Focused 118: Tasks and Habits
Tasks are great but sometimes the wrong tool. On this episode of Focused, Mike and I make the case that habits are underrated and can help you where projects cannot.
This episode of Focused is sponsored by:
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Timing: The automatic time-tracking app for macOS. Use this link to save 10% on your purchase.
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ExpressVPN: High-speed, secure and anonymous VPN service. Get an extra three months free.
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Indeed: Get a free $75 credit to upgrade your job post.
The Text Case Gets Flows
Text Case, a text transformation app, is out with a new update. Version 2021.1 adds quite a bit of new functionality as the major feature of this update is the addition of flows. Now it turns the various formats into building blocks that can be combined so you can create a flow with a single format, or as many as you like to create more complex and personal text transformations. Tap on a flow to have it apply the transformation to your copied text. In regard to Shortcuts, just like the formats, you can access your flows from Shortcuts, so they are just as automatable. Play around with it and have your text work for you, instead of the other around.
For awhile now, Text Case has been my weapon of choice for modifying text. It’s nice to see its continued development and these new automation-friendly features.
Mac Power Users 573: Rosemary Orchard Returns
The Queen of Automation drops by the latest episode of Mac Power Users to talk about her current gear and use of Plex, as well as how she is using HomeKit and managing files.
This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:
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TextExpander from Smile: Get 20% off with this link and type more with less effort! Expand short abbreviations into longer bits of text, even fill-ins, with TextExpander from Smile.
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Pingdom: Start monitoring your website performance and availability today, and get instant alerts when an outage occurs or a site transaction fails. Use offer code MPU to get 30% off. Offer expires on January 31, 2022, and can be used only once.
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Indeed: Get a free $75 credit to upgrade your job post.
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DEVONthink: Get organized—unleash your creativity. Use this link for 10% off.
The BIG Ready Conference
Mike Vardy is putting on The BIG Ready conference on February 2. (I’ll be on the retreat panel.) It looks to be an interesting conference with a lot of speakers lined up. It’ll be the first such conference I’ll be attending during the pandemic, so I’m curious about that. Regardless, I know Mike has put a lot of love into this conference and it should be good if that’s your thing.
Automators 68: Stephen Millard and ThoughtAsylum
Stephen Millard from ThoughtAsylum joins us on this episode of Automators to share his automation journey and his extraordinary ecosystem of plugins Drafts.
This episode of Automators is sponsored by:
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The Intrazone, by Microsoft SharePoint: Your bi-weekly conversation and interview podcast about SharePoint, OneDrive and related tech within Microsoft 365.
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DEVONthink: Get organized—unleash your creativity. Use this link for 10% off.
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AirBuddy: Experience AirPods on your Mac like never before. First 100 Automators listeners get a 20% discount with this link.
The Annual Six Colors Apple Report Card
I participated in Jason Snell’s annual Apple Report Card, that published today. In general, it seems the community is pretty happy with the way Apple is doing things lately. Most notable to me is the steady increase in satisfaction with the Mac.
That jump is entirely due to Apple Silicon, and Apple is just getting started.