Check this out:
Yes, that last bit is the juicy one. According to the fledgling investigation in this as-yet short message thread, folks are suspecting that Leopard contains at least the building blocks for Apple to one day add a compatibility layer to Mac OS X for running Windows apps right alongside Mac OS X apps. “Just add Windows” and Boot Camp itself could fall off the list of ingredients for bridging these two computing worlds.
Here are a bunch of plug-ins for quicklook which allow it to open many more files!
I have been using OmniFocus now for over a week in my attempt to get back on GTD track. Also to determine if I should buy it before the pre-sale discount disappears. As I have said in another earlier post I had been a part of the private beta testing for this program, and quickly stopped using it. It was buggy and really I did not understand how to effectively use the system.
My system that I had been using failed me though, and forced me to decide on a new system, I tried out a few things here and there but nothing was working in a way that I liked to use it. So I called up the Omnigroup website once again and thought I would give it yet another try. And so far I am very happy that I have.
To effectively use OmniFocus you really need to have read David Allen’s Getting Things Done book, and or spent a lot of time reading about the GTD method on various websites. With that in mind it is still more than just a good idea to watch the introduction video on OmniFocus‘ website to get an idea how to properly use the program.
Delving into the program I have found that I really like it. It forces me to use GTD and the Project / Action workflow rather than just to write down a bunch of meaningless To-Dos. This was the best thing for me and put me right back on track. I have not experienced any major bugs so far with the releases that seem to come out twice a day.
There are however a few things that bug me. Syncing with iCal is a must have feature, and is built in, but I do not like the way it does it. It is not really all that usable, not in the GTD sense, it is very hard to follow what To-Do is for what when you sync it with iCal. The main reason for me that i wanted this was just so that I could see the To-Dos on another computer. Perhaps a .Mac syncing plug-in would be a better solution for OmniFocus.
The next is the iPhone, and this has been my main problem with GTD. I need to be able to enter in To-Dos while away from my Mac on my iPhone. There is no real way to do this yet. But I am hoping that Omni will develop such an App for the iPhone when Apple gives developers that power.
Overall OmniFocus is a great App, a specialized one, but one that serves me well for my GTD uses. I think that it will benefit greatly down the road as some of the kinks get worked out of the system.
I take a look at slideshow software options on my photography blog here.
I swear to you that there are only 7 messages in this mailbox. It is IMAP. 
Odd stuff…
As I posted a couple of weeks back I had made the switch from Backpack to iCal for my GTD system. All was going to well except I had forgotten my basic GTD principles. I was very good at making a list, looking at it, and dumping my thoughts into it. What I was not doing was making Projects and Actions.
iCal really is not conducive to this type of a system. I was not in search of a new system after having just changes, but I needed something. I was feeling more stressed than ever, something I do not put up with.
I had beta tested OmniFocus while it was in private beta, and never gave it the chance and respect that it deserved. So now that they are in public beta, and a discount if you buy before Jan. I thought now would be a good time to try that system again.
I watched the quick tour introductory video to get my bearings once again. That was what was missing for me with the private beta, there may have been a video, but i did not watch it. After watching the video it was like a big “oh yeah, no sh*t” moment for me. I remembered that just as important as making a list and checking it (dare I say twice) is making the list actionable.
I took about an hour this morning doing the initial brain dump into OmniFocus, and then getting it set up with projects and such. I am still not happy with the iCal syncing, but it is far better than it ever has been for GTD apps. Truthfully it is not a big deal until Apple allows the iPhone to sync tasks with iCal.
After only using it sense this morning I can report that I am already very happy. The reason I am so happy is not so much the program, but it is the program. Let me explain.
The program OmniFocus in itself is nothing earth shattering (in my opinion) but what does for you is forces you to use a Project / Goals based system with an actionable checklist. This is the most important part.
I will report back on the program once I give it a fair shake down. But so far I am really enjoying it, it has put me back into the GTD mindset, a much needed change.
I use Ecto as my blogging client, and always have. There is something about it that I really like. Up until today I had been using version 2, which is not like me. I would normally have signed up and used version 3 beta right away. For some odd reason I did not do that.
Well Ecto 2.4.2 in Leopard is terribly slow, so much that I thought it may not work. I have been light on posting so it wasn’t bugging me all that much. But today was the last straw. So I upgraded to 3.0b8. So far so good.
Bugs I can deal with. Slow opening of an app I cannot, just makes your computer feel so damned slow when apps don’t launch fast.
My only complaint so far is there is some kind of Server time error I get, and all my posts were gone, I had to redownload them, and that did not fetch all of them, oh well. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things.
The best new feature in Leopard is the growth of Preview, the universal open everything application on a Mac. Don’t get me wrong, preview has always been a great little program, but it has always just been a viewer. Now it is a real app.
It can do things. I use it mainly for PDFs and god knows how horrid Acrobat 8 Pro is on a Mac. Slow, clunky and annoying, are some words I use to describe Acrobat. Oh I have tried other alternatives PDFPen Pro for instance, no good. But Leopard’s Preview. Holy Grail.
What makes Preview on Leopard so sweet is the adding and deleting of pages in a PDF document. This is the most basic task that for me preview has made a joy to do. Every month I compile reports from Accounting and Operations to send out. I send them in one single packaged PDF. Until now I have used Acrobat 8 to do this. Inserting pages is not fast, it is slow, and it can crash things. It slows the computer.
Leopard’s way of handling this? Drag the PDF file you want to add into the sidebar and presto, pages added. IT IS THAT SIMPLE!
Runner Up
Also did you know that Text Edit can now open Office 2007 files, such as the dreaded .docx files? Oh it can, and it can edit and resave as an regular old .doc with no data loss.
Bravo Apple! Who is still holding out to upgrade now?
Ok nothing revolutionary here, but very nice indeed.
One of the new features of Leopard and a .Mac membership is the Back to my Mac feature. This allows you to access your computers from anywhere on the Internet, as long as it is on the same .Mac account. I am a .Mac member with two Macs so naturally I was very excited about this feature. I have been playing with it since I installed Leopard and am not very happy yet.
It does not work from my office, plain and simple. The router here must not be configured properly. It works from my Grandparents house to mine, and is surprisingly fast. Keep in mind though that the one instance that it did work, there was an Apple router on both ends.
Getting back to the office and it not working there. We have a custom built Linux router here at the office, and one that I have no control over. One of the big reasons for Back to my Mac was so that you could access a home computer from your office. So it seems to me that it would work, and work without having to ask a Windows IT guy to add some settings to the corporate router. Because that is not going to happen. I have relatively high rank where I work, and I cant get this to happen.
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I am forever perfecting and changing my GTD system. One of the most important aspects is being happy with your system. When I initially started I used iCal and MailTags to manage tasks, I quickly switched to kGTD. Then I made the move to Backpack. I have been with Backpack for quite a while now and it is still an excellent system, with one draw back, it is internet based.
In the past that was the winning point for me, it meant everything was synced up. Now it is a point dragging it down, I don’t always have fast enough internet to make it useable. With my new installation of Leopard I am going to make a move back to the system I liked least: iCal. I am glad that all my computers will be synced up and I can use Mail to add To Dos. Once the iPhone can get in on this game it is a done deal.
Until them I am changing my system once again, I am simply not happy with the speed of Backpack at my office internet connection. Though that is the network speed here not 37signals fault. I don’t pay for my office space, and the Internet (I have an sub-lease services in-kind agreement) so I can’t really fix that problem.
So here is hoping the new system can work!
