I’m pleased to welcome back Tinderbox as this week’s MacSparky sponsor. Tinderbox stores and organizes your notes, plans, and ideas. If you’re like me, you’ve got a lot rattling around in your brain and Tinderbox helps you make sense of it. Tinderbox is a powerful but personal content assistant that helps you share your notes through the cloud and on the Web.

Best of all, Tinderbox is part of the WinterFest 2016 festival of artisanal software. This is a collection of some of the very best software available, much of which works together.

For example, Tinderbox and DEVONthink are an excellent combination. You can store your research materials in DEVONthink and make sense of them with Tinderbox. Another great combination is Tinderbox with Scrivener. Organize your novel with Tinderbox and then write it with Scrivener. All of these apps work brilliantly together and are on sale with rare discounts as part of WinterFest 2016. 

Heading into the new year, get yourself some powerful tools to accomplish some big goals in 2017. Check out Tinderbox and WinterFest 2016 now before the sale ends.

This week MacSparky is sponsored by SaneBox, the email service that can start saving your bacon today. As the end of the year approaches, it’s a good time to look at your workflows that work … and those that don’t. For a lot of folks, email is a constant pain point and it doesn’t need to be. With SaneBox at your back, you add a powerful set of email tools that can work in just about any email client. With SaneBox you can:

• Wake up everyday to find the SaneBox robots have automatically sorted your incoming email for you so you can address the important and ignore the irrelevant. 
• Defer email for hours, days, or weeks so it is out of your life until a more appropriate time.
• Set secret reminders so if someone doesn’t reply to an important email SaneBox gives you a nudge to follow up.
• Automatically save attachments to the cloud (like Dropbox).
• Use their SaneForward service to automatically send appropriate emails to services like Evernote, Expensify, and Kayak.
• Move unwanted email to the SaneBlackHole and never see anything from that person again.

The list goes on. Why not straighten out your email in 2017 by getting a SaneBox account and bringing a gun to a knife fight. If you sign up with this link, you even get a discount off your subscription.

This week MacSparky is sponsored by OmniGraffle. Did you know that the Omni Group recently released version 7 of OmniGraffle for the Mac? The new version adds several useful new features including Touch Bar support and the ability to convert lines and text into shapes. They’ve also dramatically improved the import and export features. But of all of the new features, my favorite new one is the infinite campus. As I build OmniGraffle documents, they often grow with my ideas. The infinite canvas makes it possible for me to easily do that.

I originally purchased OmniGraffle for the law practice. I use it to create diagrams for presentations and legal briefs. The application is perfect for that job but since then I find I use it for a lot of other things than the day job. In this last week, I used OmniGraffle to create our family Christmas card and also some sweet new Star Wars based Apple watch faces.

OmniGraffle manages to combine powerful tools with an easy to learn interface. This lets anybody use the application while at the same time giving you plenty of room to grow. If you ever find the need to create diagrams and images using your computer, you should really check out OmniGraffle. They’ve got versions of the application for the Mac, iPad, and iPhone. Head over to the OmniGraffle website and download your free trial. While you’re at it, let them know you heard about it from MacSparky.com.

This week MacSparky is sponsored by my favorite mind mapping application, MindNode. MindNode walks that line of providing powerful tools while still keeping a simple (and delightful) interface.

Mind mapping is something you really should try if you haven’t recently. I was originally unimpressed with mind mapping but when I bought my first iPad I tried it again and it just clicked for me on the tablet form factor. Now I use MindNode every day with copies on my iPhone, iPad, and Mac all syncing data together. One of my favorite uses for MindNode is brain storming. Watch the below video to learn how to brain storm with MindNode and get yourself a copy of MindNode to get more productive.

This week MacSparky is sponsored by OmniOutliner. For many years OmniOutliner has been my go-to outlining application. The Omni Group has been hard at work on OmniOutliner and they just announced version 5, which will be shipping soon. In the meantime, you can try out the public beta. You should. I’m already hooked. There are some great features including:

Outline Filtering

You can now filter your OmniOutline based on column values, status, note content, and more. You can save each filter to reference later.

Keyboard Shortcut Sets

You can customize nearly everything with custom keyboard shortcuts.

Distraction-Free Writing

The new full screen mode hides the toolbar and sidebars. I like this better than I thought I would.

Built-In Themes & Templates

There are new themes and templates. Your outlines will look better than ever.

There’s a lot more. Go check it out.

This week MacSparky is sponsored by MailButler. While Apple Mail has a lot going for it, Apple Mail is hardly a productivity power tool. That’s where MailButler comes in. MailButler adds new features to Apple Mail to make processing, respond to, and acting on your email faster and more efficient.

An example of this is the MailButler Direct Inbox where you can access your most-frequently used mailboxes right from the menu bar. It’s a great way to check in on email without getting lost in email. You can even perform a variety of actions on the email from the menubar without opening mail including replying, archiving, and turning into a to-do item. Integrated to-do support is another productivity boost for MailButler. With one button you can turn an email into a to-do item and continue on with processing your email.

If you’re like me and use Apple Mail on your Mac, you really should check out MailButler. It adds a lot of great features that seriously up your productivity. The entry level plan is free so what are you waiting for? Make your Apple Mail better today. Go check it out.

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This week MacSparky is sponsored by SaneBox. Email is hard and if you’re going to have any chance against it, you need some powerful tools at your back. That’s where SaneBox comes in. 

The SaneBox robots are like having my own email personal assistant. SaneBox sorts my mail as it comes in so when I look at my inbox I just see the seven most important emails instead of three hundred emails with those seven important ones buried in there … somewhere.

That’s just the beginning though. SaneBox also has a great anti-spam service called SaneBlackHole. They also have a reminder service that can send you automatic reminders when people don’t respond to your email.

Best of all, it’s server-based so it can work with any mail client. I’ve been a paying subscriber to SaneBox for years and am a very satisfied customer. If you need help with email, check out the below video and give SaneBox a try with this link to get a discount. 

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This week MacSparky is sponsored by MindNode. By now you’ve probably heard repeatedly how useful mind mapping can be to help you brainstorm and organize your thoughts. The trouble is, mind mapping applications are–as a breed–generally frustrating and complicated.

That’s not the case with MindNode. MindNode has a simple, easy to use interface that makes creating mind maps a breeze. It uses iCloud to sync your data across all of its platforms so you can use the application on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. I love using MindNode to brainstorm. When I’m getting ready to start a new book or presentation, I create a mind map for in MindNode. Then, as ideas come to me I constantly update the mind map, whether I’m sitting at my desk with my iMac or taking a walk with my iPhone. You’d be amazed at how many problems your subconscious mind can solve if you keep a mind map to hold your ideas as they percolate to the surface. This little practice is super-useful and anyone can do it.

Why don’t you turn MindNode into your own secret weapon? Head over to MindNode.com to learn more. They’ve even got a series of videos (by yours truly) that walk you through the basics of creating mind maps with MindNode. Below is the introductory video just to whet your appetite. Thank you MindNode for supporting MacSparky.

This week MacSparky is sponsored by PracticePanther, legal practice management software for the modern attorney. Practice Panther includes tools for attorneys to manage contacts, matters, and documents, track tasks, track time and send invoices, and manage expenses. Using PracticePanther, it takes less than one minute to create and email an invoice to a client. You receive an email confirmation when the client makes a payment, and the software even alerts you when a client views the invoice. Practice Panther also lets attorneys interact with clients with a client portal, notification & chat.

PracticePanther also offers email and iCal integration. See everyone’s calendar in one central location. Attorneys can add events in their native calendar and it appears within PracticePanther’s dashboard.

There’s a lot more including custom intake forms, document integration with Dropbox and Box. PracticePanther was designed to be powerful, secure, and easy to use and it seamlessly integrates with all of the apps that attorneys are used to like Gmail, Outlook, Office 365, Quickbooks and many others.

Learn more at PracticePanther.com.

Schedule a demo today and get 50% off your first two months.