your favorite little computer program hoonja-doonja (mac version)

http://bpfrommer.com/newest_images_2/ermaBombeck.jpg

"i think I really want a widget to actually do all the tasks I need to do for me, but widgets seem unwilling to drive to another town and collect rent checks from people, take in my dry cleaning, or code bullshit webpages."

I use both xPad for lots of note storing and this To Do Dashboard widget that pulls from your iCal To Do list.

i use omnifocus because i am a total aspie, but i have heard good things about http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/products/taskpaper

Use taskpaper here.

I've started using Remember The Milk (on your recommendation, Stet!): web-based task manager that syncs with iCal. So far I'm impressed (even though the interface is a bit barking) and will probably stump up the cash for a subscription further down the line. Need to play with the iPhone client first.

I think you need to subscribe before you can use the iPhone client. I really like it though.

I think you can get a free trial for a couple of weeks.

ooh task paper looks neat. right up my alley. any tips?

Smoking Apples has a pretty thorough review of the four major task management apps at:
http://smokingapples.com/software/reviews/gtd-on-your-mac-part-1-things-and-the-hit-list/
http://smokingapples.com/software/reviews/gtd-on-your-mac-part-2-midnight-inbox-and-taskpaper/

FWIW I went with Things but for me an iPhone sync/client is mandatory. Task Paper is pretty cool, but I think if I was going to go that route, I'd just install Dokuwiki on my server and access it from anywhere.

Things just seems so pricey ... I'm quite sure it's magnificent, but I can't justify that outlay for functionality I can, ultimately, cobble together in other ways.

^yeah agreed, honestly it's hard for me to justify paying for these apps for generally a prettier version of this kind of thing

Things just seems so pricey ... I'm quite sure it's magnificent, but I can't justify that outlay for functionality I can, ultimately, cobble together in other ways.

I wouldn't disagree at all. Ultimately, I was in a hurry and needed something up and running immediately. Plus I realized that the purchase would be eligible for a tax write off and that's what got me to pull the trigger.

I bought DevonThink after thinking about a lot. I sprang for the top model which was very pricy but I played with the demo and the integration with OCR was excellent---I have lots and lots of scanned documents from which I spend plenty of time typing long excerpts, and now I won't have to. I still don't know how it's going to fit into my workflow but I'm optimistic.

cool, please post updates. i've tried a couple of times but felt like i was being slowed down.

I played with the demo and the integration with OCR was excellent---I have lots and lots of scanned documents from which I spend plenty of time typing long excerpts, and now I won't have to. I still don't know how it's going to fit into my workflow but I'm optimistic.

How does it's OCR compare with the one in Evernote? (assuming that you've used Evernote)

I've not used Evernote so I can't say. It's just the Abbyy OCR package, and it seems to have done a good job of recognizing the text from a pretty mediocre scan. But what was the real deal for me is how I can add the PDF to DevonThink and then just click a button to make it a text-searchable PDF, and it automagically adds the text to the database for further searches.

I also d/l'ed Scrivener and am using it to put together a talk I have to give in a couple of weeks. Normally I just work in whatever program I'm going to use for the final project (in this case, Keynote) but with Scrivener I can draft the talk informally and keep a bunch of notes for it at hand, and then ripping out the presentation should be straightforward in the end.

writing talks in keynote or powerpoint never works. i just use an outliner or text editor though.

I've written a lot of talks in recent years right in Keynote, but this talk is pretty complex and so it's not working. Maybe I just have been giving too easy talks in recent years! Actually, it's just that I'm still formulating what this paper is saying as I'm writing the talk; it's not just rehashing old thoughts.

i tend to structure my papers a little differently to my talks, so it always needs structural work even if i already have one to work from when writing the other.

any rec's for a finance/bank app? Just dl'd "PigMoney" which is very clean and simple and free and may be fine. For 50+ bucks though there's iBank which syncs with your bank and has thousands more features but looks like it could be needlessly complicated for my needs.

Any thoughts?

Does mint.com work for you?

I'd never heard of it. How do they make money?

OK, I see how. Y'all use this?

i do

I have no idea, possibly by slowly siphoning your account balance 1 cent at a time. My girlfriend loves it though, I haven't linked all my us stuff to my social security number yet, but will probably start using it when I do.

(In their FAQ they say they earn cominssions of some of their "money saving tips", I presume they must get a bung if you use a price comparison sight or sign up for a CD or credit card through them.)

that's what I read. If they suggest a CD or new account or whatever and you take it, then they take a fee from the bank, not you.

Really the one thing it does right away is the ability to add notes to transactions. I hate going to my bank's website and not being able to remember what a transaction was for.

it is doing some weird renaming of things, like I purchased stuff from "NA Graphics" and in it's effort to "humanize" I think, has just renamed the transaction "Graphics", which obv. is not so useful.

Ok, I bought my first Mac last week and need something for extracting .rar files - any suggestions?

for a while osx just came with a free program called unarchive utility or archive utility. I used it for a long time but noticed recently it dissapeared!

Anyway, just get free Stuffit Expander....

http://my.smithmicro.com/mac/stuffit/index.html

great, thanks.

stuffit expander stalls out on me sometimes so i use unrarx

if you're thinking of the same app as me, the built-in unarchive utility has not disappeared. it's always been well hidden in /System and called BOMArchiveHelper.app or something ludicrous. by default it's the app used to open any archive it will read (i.e. not rars).

stuffit expander is super annoying skanky OS 9 software in my experience, but maybe things have improved. apple took it off the default install on new macs because it was getting to be nagware. unrarx is free, very lightweight and simple (if ugly), and handles passwords. http://wakaba.c3.cx/s/apps/unarchiver.html is promising, but i can't get it to open do password rars yet.

I don't love stuffit, but I bought it because I need something robust and have to deal with different situations where zip files or sit or sitx files are requested.

I've been able to deal with any zip files right out of the box, and use unrarx for .rars.

I use the imaginatively named Rar Expander. Does exactly what it says on the tin.

does anyone still ask for stuffit files? even quark users have moved on, surely? i just make zips with control-click.

i make a lot of stuffit files and put them on my zip drive ;)

I make .SEAs and put them on my Jaz.

Ah, the 1990s.

binhex on syquest ftw.

The Unarchiver is what you need.

Revive for the Snow Leapord world, I guess. Anything newish of interest kicking around?

defcon screen saver no longer works. horse anus.

loving Click2Flash. Makes the internet faster and less annoying, and easy to load flash when you need/want it.

sounds cool

yeah, flash loads as a blank gray box, and you just click on it to load it...or click the pulldown to select to load all flash videos for the page, or add the page to always load flash.

Just read a recommendation for Song Sergeant when it came to cleaning up music files -- as I'm approaching the end of a massive library project I'm thinking this might be plenty helpful. Anyone used it, or can recommend similar?

have not used it but recently downloaded a similar program called Dupin. It's on that Doug's iTunes Scripts page:

http://dougscripts.com/itunes/itinfo/dupin.php

but isn't a script but an app. I tried it for a second and gave up. In the end I just can't bring myself to remove dupes half the time because if one song appears on two different releases/compilations, I don't want to mess with the integrity of a particular release. Not because I'm anal but more because sometimes I'd think to look at that artists releases and other times I'm searching by the compilation. For instance, I have all this stuff for when I DJ weddings and I may have a song on the Atlantic R&B box set, but then I also have it on the greatest hits of that particular artist, and I hate the idea of looking at the box set and missing songs because I deleted dupes!

it's so frustrating.

yeah itunes should allow the same file to have multiple sets of metadata for exactly this reason.

honestly i think that approach would make things even more confusing, though i get the gist. for albums i can understand wanting them complete, but for comps is it really worth the effort? even so, might as well just leave it be, hard drive space is plentiful nowadays, unless you have like 5 copies of the same song