Day One Shared Journals

Day One just introduced a new, interesting feature: Shared Journals.

The idea is that you can share a journal. Multiple people could contribute. An individual’s entries are not editable by other participants, but it’s an excellent way to build a journal among friends and family.

This goes against the grain of journaling in that journaling is usually a very private thing. However, I see a use for this. I’ve already set one up with my wife, where we’re journaling our trips to Disneyland. It’s a way for us to create a record together, and it will be enjoyable. It has the added benefit that she is now regularly using Day One and is now doing more personal journaling that isn’t shared with me.

Overall, it’s a nice new feature, and if you’ve got loved ones also using Day One, I recommend giving it a try.

Testing PodHighlighter.io

People have been looking for a way to grab quick notes from a podcast for a long time. PodHighlighter.io is the best option I’ve seen to do this yet. It uses a Shortcut along with Overcast and some AI to get you notes and summaries from podcasts. In this video I show you how it works and how to set it up.… This is a post for MacSparky Labs Level 3 (Early Access) and Level 2 (Backstage) Members only. Care to join? Or perhaps do you need to sign in?

The Mac Turns 40

There are a lot of nice articles today about the Mac’s 40th Anniversary. My favorite was at the Steve Jobs Archive. The Mac was not a big “boil-the-ocean” project at Apple but something else, designed by a small team and largely left alone by the corporate types. The later “Think Different” ad campaign easily applies to the people who brought the Mac to life. I was a junior in high school when the Mac first arrived, and it was immediately obvious to me that computers would be “just like this” going forward.

If you’re interested in more of the story behind the development of the Mac, I recommend Andy Hertzfeld’s Folklore.org. It’s a gold mine of early Apple anecdotes. I’ll finish by saying that despite it’s age, my Mac remains the bit of Apple technology that I continue to use and rely upon the most.

Mac Power Users 728: All About AppleCare

Apple has several variations of its warranty offerings. On this episode of Mac Power Users, Stephen and I detail the differences between various AppleCare products and discuss their value to customers.

This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:

  • 1Password: Never forget a password again.
  • NetSuite: The leading integrated cloud business software suite. Download NetSuite’s popular KPI Checklist, designed to give you consistently excellent performance.

Dropzone: One of My Favorite Mac Utilities

This week I’m welcoming back Dropzone as a sponsor at MacSparky. Dropzone is a productivity tool that enhances drag-and-drop on your Mac. Drag files onto the menu item and a beautifully designed and animated grid of all your actions opens. Share with services such as AirDrop, Imgur, FTP, Amazon S3, Facebook, X (Twitter) and many others. Move and copy files, launch applications, and even develop your own actions using the powerful Ruby-based scripting API.

With Dropzone, you can easily add actions to your grid with the new Quick Add menu or by dropping folders or apps onto the ‘Add to Grid’ area. Quickly reorganize your actions using drag-and-drop and delete them by holding the Option key. The new in-grid progress bars let you keep track of task progress. Also see how tasks are progressing at a glance in the new animated menu item.

Drop Bar has another great feature: Drag files you know you’ll need later onto the Drop Bar area of the grid to stash them temporarily. Drag stacks on top of each other to combine them. You can even drag a stack onto another Dropzone action.

One of my favorite new features is Add-on Actions, where you can add pre-configured actions to Dropzone. Want to resize files, search images, download from YouTube? Those actions (and a lot more) are available to you.

Dropzone menu bar icon with its window revealed, showing the various files saved to it.

I use Dropzone daily. Here are just a few things I do with Dropzone:

  • I keep some of my most commonly used image files (MacSparky Logo, podcast artwork) permanently saved in Dropzone. Anytime I need them, they are there waiting for me.
  • Often I’ve got temporary files when working on a project. I put them on the DropBar in Dropzone so I can use them as needed.
  • When working on my laptop and I’ve got apps in full-screen mode, Dropzone hold any attachments I need to move between files.
  • When I want to keep a YouTube video, I drop it on the Dropzone YouTube downloader.
  • I’ve set certain folders as repeating Dropzone targets. Now I can move files to my Action folder or copy items to the Desktop with just a drag.

I’m a big Dropzone fan and happy to have them as a MacSparky sponsor. Check it out today.