Here comes 2024! I’m beginning to sell sponsorship for the blog and newsletter for next year. If you’re interested, drop me a note.

When it comes to time tracking, it’s only as useful as the data is accurate. Setting manual timers often leads to bad data. As humans, we’re not very good at throwing switches every time we mode shift.

This week’s sponsor, Timing, gives you the benefit of time tracking without the inconvenience. Timing is an app for your Mac that automatically tracks your time. You don’t need to push buttons. Timing just does its job. It’s smart, it’s beautiful, and it’s easy to use.

Just download and install Timing, and it’ll start recording how much time you spend on each app, document, and website you use.

And now Timing will import your iPhone and iPad usage from Screen Time as well! This means you’ll get the complete picture of how you spend your time across all your devices.

If you haven’t tried Timing lately, you should. They added a new vertical timeline that is really nice. It’s easy to read and easy to edit. Time tracking gives me a lot of insight about where I am really putting my efforts. Timing is a great way to do it.

If you’ve tried time-tracking before and gave up on it, try Timing. It does the work for you. I’ve even made some videos showing how the app works.

This week MacSparky is sponsored by DEVONthink. There are a lot of ways to manage a database on your Mac, but in my opinion, there is no better tool than DEVONthink. Just a few of the things I use DEVONthink for include:

A reliable repository of research documents. DEVONthink will hold as many documents as you can throw at it. In addition, it makes import (and export) easy, so you can have all that power without feeling trapped.

A research assistant. DEVONthink uses artificial intelligence to analyze and connect your documents in ways that may not otherwise occur to you. This isn’t that new-fangled-kinda-dumb AI. This is search AI that finds shockingly relevant documents. It’s spooky.

An OCR Tool. Everything you store in your DEVONthink Pro library gets OCR’d. It just happens.

An Automation Tool. DEVONthink lets you build powerful automation subroutines into your library to help tag, move, and organize documents.

DEVONthink supports multiple sync methods and lets you even use your own sync password, so everything is encrypted. If you’ve got an iPad or an iPhone, you can access your DEVONthink data there, too, with DEVONthink To Go.

It is this combination of power and security that makes DEVONthink the clear winner. You can think of DEVONthink as your paperless office. You can automate your workflow from capture to filing, editing to publishing. It stores all your documents, helps you keep them organized, and presents you with what you need to get the job done.

And of course the DEVONthink team never stops making improvements. The latest update (3.9.3) improves quoting, working with custom metadata, viewing computer code in Markdown, and preserving image quality when running PDFs through OCR. (There’s a bunch more)

Interested? MacSparky readers can get a 20% discount on DEVONthink. Use the code MACSPARKY2023 at checkout. This is a limited-time offer (and about to run out!), so check it out now.

This week, MacSparky is sponsored by Hoban Cards, where they use a 1902 letterpress machine to make cards that your colleagues, clients, and customers will never forget. I sure love mine.

Evan and the gang at Hoban Cards are masters at the craft of designing and making letterpress calling cards and stationery. They have some beautiful templates to choose from, or you can roll your own.

I love handing out letterpress cards. It is always a conversation starter. Hoban Cards is where I go to buy them, and it is where you should too. Throw out those ugly, conventional, mass-produced, soulless business cards and reach out to Hoban Cards.

If you’re set on calling cards, I also recommend going to Hoban for your stationery. I bought stationery from them years ago, and I love sending it to friends and family. In a world full of text messages and email, personal stationery sends a whole different message altogether.

Best of all, use ‘MacSparky’ to get $10 off any order. Get yours today.

This week MacSparky is sponsored by a killer Mac utility, TextSniper. TextSniper is a Mac OCR app that can extract text anywhere on your Mac’s screen and automatically save it to your clipboard, so you can paste it anywhere you need it. It can even read the text to you. The whole thing works a lot like the built-in screen capture on the Mac, just way more powerful. You know those websites that won’t let you copy text? With TextSniper, you can. Do you know the pain of getting a phone number out of a document? It’s easy with Text Sniper.

That’s not all. With TextSniper, you can:

• Quickly get text from PDFs, Zoom calls, Presentations, and Videos. 
• Read QR codes and barcodes.
• Get text out of just about any image format, including JPG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, and BMP.

I use this app often. It’s made by a developer who spends much time making it the best capture utility on the Mac. You can even use your iPhone or iPad camera to take a photo for TextSniper to perform its magic.

Moreover, in an era where so much software is more about data mining than giving you a service, TextSniper doesn’t collect your data. The text recognition is processed on your Mac and does not require an internet connection. 

I personally use this app multiple times a week. My uses for it in the last week include: getting a UPS number without a link for package tracking (hooray!), getting a different number out of a “locked” PDF for my accountant to help pay my taxes (ugh.), and grabbing some clever chisel sharpening instructions from an ancient website that POSTED TEXT IN A JPG IMAGE! TextSniper can be just as helpful to you.

TextSniper works with macOS Catalina and later and also works with Parallels Desktop

Get TextSniper now and enjoy the fastest way to copy uncopyable text, wherever you find it. Use promo code TSMS2023 to get an additional 25% off.

Do Not Disturb was nifty little sign you could hang on the doorknob of a hotel room to let other people know they weren’t supposed to knock on your door or enter your room. You can also stick out a Do Not Disturb sign on your inbox with the help of this week’s MacSparky sponsor, SaneBox. SaneBox helps you keep your email sanity, and with Do Not Disturb, you can keep the distraction of email at bay when you don’t want to be disturbed and want to concentrate on what you need to do.  

Do Not Disturb is a feature you turn on. You choose a start and stop time, and during this time, emails won’t appear in your inbox. It’s like they saw the sign hanging on your doorknob that said, “Do Not Disturb,” and they didn’t disturb you. Where did they go? The emails that you were supposed to receive during your scheduled quiet time are moved into a Do Not Disturb folder. And this is all customizable, so you can set your desired start and end dates and times.  You can also set up delivery exceptions so that if you have someone or something important you need to get through, you can enable exceptions.

Manage your inbox and reduce the interruptions throughout the day with SaneBox. See if it works for you with a free 14-day trial, and if you decide you like it, you’ll get a $10 credit you can use towards a SaneBox subscription. Spend less time on email and more time on what really matters.