Posts Tagged → field guides

The OmniFocus Video Field Guide Gets Streaming and Closed Captions



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When I first started distributing the video field guides, I wanted to make it as simple as possible. Customers pay and then download a video. It worked great originally but lately I’ve been getting emails from customers that just work on iPad and iPhone. For them, getting a 2GB video file onto their device is not trivial. 

For those customers, streaming the videos makes more sense than downloading. So I’ve been looking for a way to distribute the videos that lets customers stream, download, or both. Vimeo gives me that so new customers will now get the OmniFocus Video Field Guide through Vimeo where they can stream or download.

I’m pretty happy with this new distribution method. It gives customers more flexibility and allows me to update small portions without requiring everyone to download the entire video all over again.

Also, with the move I’ve also added closed captions to all of the chapters. So if you have trouble hearing or english is a second language, check the closed caption box while watching and you’re all set. If you’ve already purchased the OmniFocus Video Field Guide and want a closed captioned copy, please drop me a note.

OmniFocus Video Field Guide Update Coming Sunday

I’ve been working the last few months on an update to the OmniFocus Video Field Guide. I’ve updated it for several new features and gone deep on the iOS Automation and URL linking. I’m making final edits and additions over the next few days and intend to publish it sometime Sunday (probably late). The update will be free for people that have already purchased the field guide. However, please note that for new buyers the price is going up to $19.99. So if you want to get in on the current $9.99 price, do so between now and Sunday afternoon when it goes up.

The Hazel Video Field Guide







I’m pleased to announce the release of my latest Video Field Guide. This one is all about Hazel. For years, Hazel has been one of the best kept secrets on the Mac. Using Hazel, anybody can automate large portions of their work. The thing I love about Hazel is the way it can turn mere mortals into automation gods. Anybody can do this. You don’t need a lick of programming knowledge.

The Hazel Video Field Guide assumes that the viewer has no knowledge of Hazel and starts with the basics but by the end ramps up to advanced techniques including home automation via Hazel. One of the workflows, for instance, shows the viewer how to automatically lock their Mac when they leave their home or office using a combination of IFTTT, a simple AppleScript, and Hazel.

The Hazel Video Field Guide is a two-and-a-half hour video screencast with 35 separate chapter markers that teaches you everything you need to know about Hazel.  You can start the screencast without knowing a thing about it and by the end of the screencast you’ll be using Hazel to automate everything from filing your bills to having your Mac play some of your favorite music as you arrive home. There is a lot you can do with Hazel and this screencast explains it all including:

1. MASTER OF DOCUMENTS

Hazel will manage your documents for you. Not only can Hazel help you name and file documents, it can also reach inside documents and look at their contents and then use that data in naming the file and putting it in the right place. Hazel is a document management beast and both more efficient and reliable than having a human manage electronic documents. Hazel is also an excellent copilot as you start tagging files. Some of the workflows in this Video Field guide explain how to automatically apply tags to categories of documents so you have the benefit of tagging without the work of creating them. 

2. TAMER OF FILES

Hazel can do a remarkable job of cleaning up after you on your Mac. Hazel can keep an eye on any folder on your Mac, including your downloads folder and your desktop, and keep things nice and tidy. Set your rules once and never have a messy computer again. 

3. MEDIA AUTOMATION

Sorting and filing your media is a pain in the neck. Hazel can take this burden on for you. Using Hazel, you can have your images automatically filed in the Photos application or you can have Hazel automatically sort and organize folders full of images by their date. You can even use a Hazel to automatically rename your images while you’re organizing them. Hazel can also manager music for you. Hazel has the ability to automatically import new music into iTunes so you don’t have to.

4. REMOTE CONTROL

Not many people realize what a powerful tool Hazel can be for automation. Hazel is always watching. It will jump into action with something as simple as a new text file being added to your hard drive. Moreover, once Hazel kicks in, it can do just about anything on your Mac. One section of this Video Field Guide demonstrates how you can use AppleScript and services like IFTTT to easily create automation scripts for your Mac. One of the sample Hazel workflows will automatically lock your Mac when you leave your house. Another will play your favorite music when you arrive home. Once you understand how these work, and I demonstrate every step, you can alter the scripts to make your Mac do just about anything you want at anytime you want.

5. Manage Your Trash and Smart App Deletion

Another common pain point for Mac owners is managing the trash. If you’re not watching it, your Mac’s trash can fill up your hard drive. Hazel takes care of this problem for you with the ability to automatically empty the trash after a set period of time or when the trash gets to a predefined size. The settings are easy and completely remove this problem from your life. Likewise, Hazel can also take care of deleting and restoring applications from your Mac. Hazel doesn’t just delete the application but all those obscure resource files that are scattered over your drive.

INCREASE PRODUCTIVITY

Hazel does the tedious work so that you can do the important work. This lovingly crafted video is just shy of two-and-a-half hours. There are 35 chapter markers and the video covers every aspect of this super-powerful Mac application. Who doesn’t want to wield super-powers over their technology?

Get the Hazel Video Field Guide today for $19.99.

Want a peek? Here’s 30 minutes of the Hazel Video Field Guide.

MacSparky Fields Guides Now Available on iPhone


With the release of iOS 8.4, iBooks on the iPhone can now display iBooks Author rich media books like the MacSparky Field Guides. Hooray!

Often I receive emails from readers asking to read my books on the iPhone. Now you can. The books look great on the iPhone. Paperless, Email, Markdown, and 60 Tips all display in the alternative format (pictured). This allows you to also change the type size. Presentations displays in its original format, which looks great but doesn’t allow you to change type size.

Either way, I’m thrilled to have millions of potential new customers. If you’ve already purchased the books, they’ll load just fine on your iPhone today. If you’ve been waiting for them to become iPhone compatible, today is your lucky day. I’m already making changes to the next MacSparky Field Guide to make it even more iPhone friendly.

The Photos Video Field Guide



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Late last year I started outlining a new MacSparky Field Guide on photo management. It was one sweet outline and I’d even started writing words. Then I got my hands on the Photos beta and realized that Photos did something pretty remarkable. Photos manages large photo libraries loads better than iPhoto ever did and the iCloud Photo Library works far better than I ever expected. I started revising the “photo management” outline until I realized this was no longer a comparison of competing photo management services and instead an in-depth manual for Photos.

At that point I scrapped the outline and instead produced a Video Field Guide explaining how to get the most from Photos. After a few months of work, here it is.

The Photos Video Field Guide is a 2.5 hour screencast that teaches you how to install and use Apple’s Photos Application and sync all of your photos between your Mac, iPad, and iPhone using iCloud Photo Storage. Managing your photos with multiple devices has, over the years, come to feel like chasing a mythical white whale. Not anymore. Photos delivers the goods and this screencast teaches you how.

Topics Include:

1. INITIAL SETUP

While Photos attempts to make your initial setup simple and easy, there can be complications. What if you have more than one existing photo libraries? What if you’ve got folders of photographs sprinkled all over your hard drive? All of these can be imported into Photos but you’ve got to know the ropes. This video screencast shows you all tricks to run Photos on your Mac, iPad, and iPhone.

Photos also can use iCloud Photo Library to make sharing photos between your Mac, iPad, and iPhone easier than anyone ever thought possible. The Video Field Guide walks you through the initial iCloud setup, including advice on which cloud storage to use and how to get the initial upload of your photo library done with as little pain and suffering as possible.

2. PHOTO MANAGEMENT

Photos uses an intuitive organizational structure that lets you see your pictures grouped by years, collections, moments, and individual photos. This Video Field Guide shows you exactly how it works and sprinkles in several power tricks to make managing your library even easier. Once you’ve sorted that out, Photos also has options to create custom and smart albums, where the program seeks out photos for you pursuant to your instruction.

Photos also has specialized libraries that can identify the faces of your family and friends. You can even search you library so if someone says, “Hey! Quick! Find me that picture of Uncle Ralph from April 2007 wearing that ballerina tutu!”, you can deliver the goods. This stuff sounds complicated. It’s not. By the time you get to the end of this video, you’ll be able to embarrass Uncle Ralph in no time flat.

3. PHOTO EDITING

Photos also has a surprisingly large toolset to make your photos better. You can do simple edits, like cropping and rotating, but you can also make complex adjustments to color and light. On the Mac there are even more tools including a histogram, sharpening, definition, noise reduction, vignette and level adjustments. If all of this sounds like greek to you now, that’s okay. After watching the video it won’t.

The video also explains Photos built in filters and how they can be an excellent jumping off point for making your photos look great. It also covers has the semi-magical “enhance” button. If that’s not enough, there are workflows to get your photos out of the Photos app and into an external editor for further work on the Mac, iPad, and iPhone.

4. PHOTO SHARING

With the new Photos app, there are many ways to share your images with friends and family from something as simple as an email to full-blown shared iCloud albums. This section of the video covers all of the sharing options from the Mac and iOS. The Photos Video Field Guide also demonstrates how to make books, calendars, and cards from the Photos application on the Mac.

5. VIDEO

Believe it or not, Photos can manage your video files too. This section covers the best practices for managing video files in Photos and its limited editing capabilities.

6. BACKUP

No photo management system is complete without a thorough backup system. The Photos Video Field Guide concludes explaining backup strategies and techniques. This section also demonstrates how to export images from Photos for additional backup.

The screencast is two and a half hours and fully bookmarked. You can buy it now for $9.99.

Did you ask for a sample video? I thought so. Here you go.

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New MacSparky Video Field Guide: Workflow




I’ve been spending a lot of time with the Workflow app (website) (App Store) as of late. Workflow is one of the most powerful apps available for the iPhone and iPad. Using Workflow, you can combine functions from different applications to make things happen on your iPhone and iPad wicked fast. Because it’s so flexible, Workflow is difficult to get started with. That’s where this new video field guide comes in.

The Workflow Video Field Guide starts with a few, easy workflows and builds upon them over the course of an hour to turn you into a Workflow pro. By the time you get to the end, you’ll be able to roll your own workflows and change the way you work on your iPhone and iPad. 

Some of the workflows in the video include:

  • Build your own animated GIF and share it.
  • Automate notifications to family and friends when you’re running late.
  • Send a message to your family so they know when to expect you home.
  • Get a Google Street View picture of the address of your next appointment.
  • Have your phone automatically give you the travel time and directions to your next appointment.
  • Share your location with friends and family with one tap.
  • Easily send screenshots to your Mac via AirDrop.
  • Automatically send photos from your phone to your Mac.
  • Have your iPhone show the location of your photos on a map.
  • Upload images to Dropbox.
  • Convert images to different file formats automatically.
  • Resize and send photos.
  • Blast photos out to multiple sharing services with one workflow.
  • Share your most played music.
  • Get walking directions to the nearest coffee or tea shop.
  • Have your iPhone or iPad look at your calendar for a given day and prepare a message displaying your availability.
  • Create custom iOS extensions
  • Save documents, websites, and other data directly to PDF
  • Create a custom workflow to take a picture of a receipt, give it a custom name, and save it to Dropbox.
  • Build your own tip calculator app. (Yup. Tip calculator.)
  • Set up a workflow to check your battery level, adjust your screen brightness, and send you a message.

Workflow has over 200 available actions that you can mix and match to make your iPhone and iPad dance for you. Don’t you want to see that? This screencast is fully bookmarked, an hour long, and engineered to make you a Workflow master. You can download it for $9.99.

Did you say you’d like to see a sample? Then here you go.

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The OmniFocus Video Field Guide

I’m pleased to announce the release of the OmniFocus Video Field Guide. This is a screencast, not a book. A lot of people have asked me to write a book about OmniFocus but instead I made this 2.5 hour video that takes you, soup to nuts, through the Omni Group’s supremely bad-ass task manager. The screencast can turn an absolute OmniFocus novice into a task-managing ninja.

The screencast is fully bookmarked, nearly two and a half hours, and full of awesome. I’ve been working on this screencast for months now and I’m quite proud of it. You can learn more and buy it for $10 from here. Below is a sample video.

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Email Field Guide Version 1.2




Speaking of email, I’ve been hard at work updating the Email Field Guide to version 1.2. It’s now live in the iBooks Store. There are a lot of changes:

  • Added additional Gmail backup solution, Backupify
  • Added Google Takeout to archiving chapter
  • Added new section on Apple Mail Drop
  • Added new section and screencast on the Apple Mail Markup Extension.
  • Added new section and screencast on minimizing draft messages on iPad and iPhone.
  • Updated section on Swipe Options based on iOS 8 improvements
  • Added an explanation of Apple Mail Handoff
  • Added a new section for VIP Threads in Apple Mail
  • Added KeyRocket for Gmail Chrome extension
  • Added bacn remover Unroll.me
  • Updated for Microsoft Outlook 2014

I love that I can update content for my readers. If you’ve already bought the book in the iBooks Store, you should see the update badge light up. I’m finalizing the PDF version and will have that up by the weekend. Also, did you know that the Email book has 99 reviews? That is just one shy of 100. I’m just making an observation here. No pressure.

The Presentations Field Guide is Now Shipping




I’m pleased to announce the Presentations Field Guide on is now shipping. The initial response has been fantastic and the book is currently at the top of the charts in the iBooks Store.

I spent a lot of time on the design and this book looks fantastic. Readers already are reporting they love the new design and layout. The content also came out great walking you through planning and giving a presentation in addition to all the parts you’ll be doing on your Mac and iPad.

The book is available in the iBooks and PDF formats. If you’ve been waiting, now is the time to go get it. I’ve got screenshots, the promo video, and a full description right here.