Jekyll2018-12-06T21:10:41+00:00https://chad.lafrenz.ws/feed.xmlChad LaFrenzPersonal Blog Site for Chad LaFrenzDigits 3 for iOS2018-08-08T00:00:00+00:002018-08-08T00:00:00+00:00https://chad.lafrenz.ws/blog/2018/08/08/digits-3-review<h1 id="finally-digits-3-has-been-released">Finally, Digits 3 has been released!</h1>
<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/digits-tape-calculator/id364500115?mt=8">Digits Tape Calculator</a> by Shift version 3 is out and a free upgrade to anyone that purchased version 2. I was a bit late to the Digits party as I found it right before iOS 11 locked out apps for not being 64 bit compatible. I had really started to enjoy the app about the time it was ripped from my workflow when I upgraded to iOS 11. I watched the Shift <a href="http://www.shift-apps.com">website</a> for updates about the new version but had to try and go back to previous calculators in the interim. It was really during this time I became painfully aware what what I had grown to love in a short amount of time about Digits and what other apps clearly lacked.</p>
<p>Digits floats a line between simple calculator and light-weight spreadsheet. There are a lot of times throughout a day or week where I have a set of simple calculations that I want to save but don’t want to have to launch the pig that is Excel or slightly-less-piggish Google Sheet or Pages etc etc. I just want an easy record of the numbers and to remember what the heck they were. Back in the day the tape calculator’s paper did the trick as you ripped it off and started making notes on it about the numbers. Then you would put it in a file folder and hope you didn’t have to actually find it again or maybe your would tape it to your monitor or desk. Take that simple process and you have what Digits does in spades plus a bit more thanks to the digital age and being an app.</p>
<h2 id="review">Review</h2>
<p>From the description ‘Digits 3 is a top-to-bottom rewrite made for the latest iOS and devices.” They added Split View support and Slide Over works too which is very helpful and a must have feature for utility apps in my book.</p>
<p>The UI is super clean and simple. There are some basic math functions if you swipe left in the “display bar” area, but this isn’t some replacement for your TI-84. The numbers are nice and big so they are easy to hit and if you have an if you have an external keyboard you can use it to enter numbers and operators as well. You can change the colors in the Settings if you don’t like the default Yellow and Black.</p>
<p><img src="https://chad.lafrenz.ws/assets/img/20180808/Digits-July-Tape.jpg#right" alt="July Tape" />
Starting entering some numbers and doing some calculations to get your “tape” going. In my screenshot above you can see I have a tape that I have edited most of the lines already including the total.</p>
<p><img src="https://chad.lafrenz.ws/assets/img/20180808/Digits-PopUp-Tape.jpg#right" alt="Row Popup" />
Tap one of your rows and the pop-up menu is where a lot of the power of Digits hides. Here you can delete a row, insert a row or total below the selected row, put the value in memory, copy the value to the clipboard, use the value as your next calculation value, add a comment and flag. The comment is like using your pencil on the old calculator tape. It allows you to document your numbers in a very simple way so they can make sense six months from now or help you find a value in a search (more on this later).</p>
<p>The other button that deserves a bit more attention is the one that looks like a sheet of paper which is the tape manager. It pops up a window that lets you make a new tape or rename, duplicate or trash an existing tape.<br />
<img src="https://chad.lafrenz.ws/assets/img/20180808/Digits-Tape-Browser.jpg#right" alt="Tape Browser" />
If you had Digits 2 a nice feature is that they have been preserved and if you click on them you can have them upgraded to the new format so you can use them again. I thought that was a very nice feature add that really a lot of devs would have not have done. A pop-up asks if you want to convert it or cancel. Being able to have multiple saved “tapes” is a powerful feature of Digits that allows it to be very flexible without a lot of fuss.</p>
<p><img src="https://chad.lafrenz.ws/assets/img/20180808/Digits-Share-Tape.jpg#right" alt="Share Tape" />
You can share your tape via the share sheet icon at the bottom as a PDF. Additionally, if you enable the Pro features you can also select a Digits tape file format or tabbed CSV format. The CSV is a nice addition as you use that format to send the data to a workflow or another app. I don’t like 30 tapes in the browser so I use the PDF format to archive a tapes in Evernote. With the Pro features, I might attach a Digits tape file to the archive as well now so I could re-open the tape later if needed.</p>
<h2 id="wrap-it-up">Wrap it up…</h2>
<p>Version 3 is a very welcome successor and upgrade from version 2 and cements the Digits app back in my workflow. I don’t think a ton more needs to be put into Digits as it does most everything the previous version did and added some nice new features. I would like to see a left-handed mode where you can flip the keypad to be on the left side of the screen in both landscape and portrait views. A Today Widget and iCloud save for tapes I think would nice additions as well. Whatever the next releases bring I am just happy to have my tape calculator back and highly recommend you take a look at.</p>Finally, Digits 3 has been released! Digits Tape Calculator by Shift version 3 is out and a free upgrade to anyone that purchased version 2. I was a bit late to the Digits party as I found it right before iOS 11 locked out apps for not being 64 bit compatible. I had really started to enjoy the app about the time it was ripped from my workflow when I upgraded to iOS 11. I watched the Shift website for updates about the new version but had to try and go back to previous calculators in the interim. It was really during this time I became painfully aware what what I had grown to love in a short amount of time about Digits and what other apps clearly lacked.OmniFocus 3 for iOS2018-06-15T00:00:00+00:002018-06-15T00:00:00+00:00https://chad.lafrenz.ws/blog/2018/06/15/omnifocus-3-for-ios<h1 id="omnifocus-3-for-ios-take-three">OmniFocus 3 for iOS, take three!</h1>
<p>I used OmniFocus when it was first released and then bought it again for version two, but I started to drift away from it when I got more into automation and wanting a more simplified task management system. There were a lot of features I always liked. I read Ryan Christoffel’s <a href="https://www.macstories.net/reviews/omnifocus-3-review-more-approachable-and-powerful-all-at-once/">“OmniFocus 3 Review: More Approachable and Powerful, All at Once”</a> and my yearning to be back on the Omni-bus started to tug at my better judgement. You see, I very recently discovered NotePlan and was enjoying its retro-geeky glory, but it is new and really puts a lot of pressure on you to maintain a system. So, full circle once back to OmniFocus 3 for iOS. Ryan’s article is a fantastic review, so this isn’t going to be a review post except for a some agreement points and what I feel is still missing from OmniFocus 3.</p>
<h2 id="the-review">The Review</h2>
<p>I really like the UI refresh and the revamp of Tags. I especially enjoy the Forecast setup. On of the things I liked about Todoist was the “what coming up in the next X many days” view. I mainly worked in that view as a lot of what I do is holding myself and others accountable. That means a lot of juggling and moving things in/out of a “schedule” as we react to what is going on throughout a day and week. OmniFocus’ Forecast perspective takes that to a new level with very little effort. The “Pro” version allows you to even select a specific Tag that will show up in the Forecast view as well which I think is a nice touch especially since you can change the Tag so you aren’t stuck with some default named by someone else. I do agree that OmniFocus 3 is more approachable than other versions, but it is still very intimidating once you start to peel the onion even slightly.</p>
<p>My frustrations so far have been centered around the lack of getting information out of OmniFocus like I have been able to do with other software like Todoist when it comes to completed items. I log everything in Evernote. I have automation setup so every morning a new log is created with a weather report dumped into it and my template that I use to log my day including a section for links to meeting notes, another for “notable items/discussions from today” and the last “tasks competed today.” With Todoist when I completed a task an IFTTT applet ran that would append the task information to my daily log entry. This isn’t happening any longer. Currently I go into the Completed perspective select all the completed tasks for the day and then drag-n-drop them into my log at the end of the day. This isn’t horrible, but it surely isn’t automated. Normally this would be a deal breaker for me, however, the OmniAutomation that is in some of their other apps have is coming to OmniFocus. It sounds like this will do what I want it to do and more, so I will DnD until then.</p>
<p>My other complaints are more around keyboard shortcuts that I think should work but don’t seem to. It seems impossible to copy and paste a task to duplicate it without touching the screen. I am hoping I am missing something or it is just a bug to fix. Kinda long pressing to get a task pop-up menu to pop to copy and then do about the same where you want to paste it is painful to say the least. Also, step into the 9th Circle of Hell by trying to reorder your Single-Action-Lists and every time you try to move something it becomes a task underneath the SAL you were just trying to be listed under not become a child of. You might think that salvation would lie in the Edit “button” like every other app on the planet. Well, not so fast as you are in Hell remember. No, you push that, the familiar “delete” icon pops up in front of folders and items in the pane, but the three-line-icon that any sane app puts over to the right side is nowhere to be found. I gave up on reordering some things, deleted and recreated in the order I wanted. Sad, but true. Again, I hope I am missing something or it is a bug and not a feature.</p>
<p>Two tips to end this “review” section with. While the “hide some of the features to make the inspector not so big” is nice, if you don’t know what is being hidden you don’t look so tip #1 tap “show more” all the time in the beginning just to make sure you aren’t missing something. Tip #2 is there are a LOT of icons in the UI and no real pop-ups to explain them so got into Settings and read through the Help section. It is a quick read and well worth it to get your bearings and spark some ideas for how you can use OmniFocus.</p>
<h2 id="my-setup">My Setup</h2>
<p>Setups for task management systems are just wickedly personal. Something that works great for me might just suck for you so you are warned. Now that you can’t sue me for ruining your productivity I do think reading how other people have their systems setup enables you to better understand if yours is really working or could be improved. In general my system is based on David Allen’s <a href="https://gettingthingsdone.com">“Getting Things Done” (GTD)</a>. If you aren’t familiar I highly recommend his book. In a highly over simplified process flow, GTD to me means capturing everything, processing/planning what I’ve captured, and then doing something. There are some great articles on <a href="https://inside.omnifocus.com">Inside OmniFocus</a> that helped shape my setup of OmniFocus along with this <a href="https://productivityguild.com/t/managing-my-big-rocks-special-projects-in-omnifocus/1279">“Managing My Big Rocks (Special Projects) in OmniFocus”</a> by “wilsong”. Again, Big Rocks is a boil down of GTD which you can read more about in an article by Zen Habits called <a href="https://zenhabits.net/big-rocks-first-double-your-productivity-this-week/">“Big Rocks First: Double Your Productivity This Week:</a>.</p>
<p>These articles along with the system I have already been using led to my current setup of OmniFocus. There are some commonalities with how I have my Evernote setup as well especially with Tags and Project names. This helps keep things together throughout all my processes. Likewise, Slack channels for projects are the same names I use in OmniFocus and Evernote. I don’t think my setup will ever necessarily be “complete” or “perfect” or “done’ as it evolves as my life does. Don’t feel like you are going to be trapped and have to “get this right” before you can start. I’ve copied and pasted and started all over numerous times throughout the years. Sometimes I do it just to clear the crap out and start fresh after something big happened in my life. My main point being don’t let the perfection of a system stop you from starting to dump the clutter out of your brain. You can capture it in a system (even on paper) to be able to process and start doing what’s important to get stuff done. Hopefully showing you my setup along with the above articles will inspire your setup in OmniFocus and enable you become more productive or (like me) at least less forgetful.</p>
<h3 id="my-home">My Home</h3>
<p><img src="https://chad.lafrenz.ws/assets/img/20180615/OF3-Home.png#right" alt="My Home Pane" />
The Home pane is your springboard. You have a quick overview of what your Forecast is looking like for the week and into the Future. The rest are basically what OmniFocus calls Perspectives which are different ways to view your data. Projects and Tags are where you “setup your system” but in the end just remember you are creating different ways to look at a big long list of tasks/actions you’ve dumped into this container. Say you had a massive piece of paper that you had written all your tasks down on. Some of those tasks you had put address information in so you know which one are close to you now. You decide to write those down on a smaller piece of paper for easier reference. That is what selecting the Nearby perspective is like without all the paper and doing it on the fly so it changes based on your location at the time.</p>
<p>I’ve been playing around with some custom perspectives that revolve around some tags. I’ll talk about my tag setup next. For me there are a lot of tasks that I end up tracking that are waiting for others to do something. I made a Waiting perspective which is a shortcut to that view on my Home pane for easy access. That view is probably used about as much as the Forecast. I highly encourage you to explore what views you need the most and make a perspective to put it on your Home pane for easy access.</p>
<h3 id="tags">Tags</h3>
<p><img src="https://chad.lafrenz.ws/assets/img/20180615/OF3-Tags.png#right" alt="Tags Pane" />
To multi-tag or not? To group or not? To even tag at all are all valid questions. I tend to have a love-hate relationship with tags in most software. There are theories were nothing should be grouped except by tags and others where there shouldn’t be tags at all. Tags are just yet another way to help organize and view your tasks. Tags are in flux with my setup. There are some that are very core to help me organize and others I’ve never used and will end up deleting.</p>
<p>I put some tags into groups and utilize them to classify what my projects and single-action-groups don’t. Others are top-level tags like my tags for both business names that I have projects for. These allow me to have generic Work groupings of projects and then tag each individual project to which business they belong to. I have a Forecast tag that I put on anything that I want to have show up in the Forecast perspective (Pro feature). Other top level tags are Waiting and Personal.</p>
<p>The tag groups are Actions, People, and Locations. People and Locations are keepers. People is comprised of anyone and everyone that I assign tasks to or work with or receive work from. My People tags are instrumental in allowing me to use the Waiting tag like I do and let me know who I am waiting on. Locations are setup with various addresses to be able to have some location based tasks and reminders. These are more useful than they sound. You can even put in coordinates so if you have some of those things that you can only do or want to do the next time you are at XYZ location then these tags help you remember just that. Actions which contains Slack, Calls, Email, Create, and Code is most likely going to get deleted as naming my tasks better seems to make these kinda useless; however, I have left them for now while I evaluate whether I use them more or not.</p>
<p>I do assign multiple tags which is a new feature with OmniFocus 3 and very handy in my book. I have come to fully embrace that my tags and tagging are never going to be perfect and in a fair amount of flux and that’s ok. Again, experiment here and see what works best for you. The word of caution here is just watch out for duplication. It is very easy to fall down the rabbit hole and have 18 tags where two would work just as well if not better.</p>
<h3 id="projects">Projects</h3>
<p><img src="https://chad.lafrenz.ws/assets/img/20180615/OF3-Projects.png#right" alt="Projects Pane" />
This is where the bulk of my task organization lives. Sure a folder is another name for a tag group but OmniFocus has always been very project centric. Of all the versions this one definitely would let you not have single project if you didn’t want to, but to me that would be a bit crippling of a setup. I tried to make a conscious effort not to nest too deep. Another convention is surrounding single-action list names with brackets like [Personal]. I can’t remember where I read this but I thought it sounded like a good idea and gives a nice visual to let you know something is a SAL instead of a project.</p>
<p>The Work Projects, Personal Projects and Coding Projects are all pretty straightforward. They are for multi-step projects only. Work is divided into business units like Planning Projects, Operational Projects, Financial Projects, etc. As I stated in the tags section, each project get tagged for which company it is for so I don’t have to have multi-folders separating the business units out between the two companies. I tried having a single Projects folder and used the tags to designate Personal, Work, Coding, etc. This worked but as I started to get more and more projects it quickly muddy and too busy for me, so I broke them out into their own folders.</p>
<h3 id="actions">Actions</h3>
<p><img src="https://chad.lafrenz.ws/assets/img/20180615/OF3-Actions.png#right" alt="Actions Pane" />
The Actions folder holds my Single Action Lists (SALs) for Work and Personal. Work Actions is a folder so they get broken into SALs for each business unit. They are [Planning], [Operations], and [Financial]. Each task is then tagged with which company it is for so both companies can share the same folder structure. I had started with a single [Work Actions] SAL but it quickly became obnoxiously long and hard to read through. This led to breaking the Work actions into the business units for a bit more clarity. Don’t forget to designate the project as a SAL in the inspector for the project. You might have to click on “Show More” to get the “Type” selector to show.</p>
<p>I really try and stick to the rule that if something has more than one step it is a project. I started getting into a habit making a task name about 3 sentences long and entailing about 3 things that needed to be done to complete the task. This lends itself to tasks not getting completed and not really knowing which step you were on. Break problems down into their smallest pieces of work then make those tasks of projects and be very strict by keeping tasks that you put into your SALs actually single action tasks. OmniFocus even has some icons that you can tap to make an action a project or a project an action if the scope of something changes from when you initially created the task or project. I done this quite often during my review time.</p>
<h3 id="routines">Routines</h3>
<p><img src="https://chad.lafrenz.ws/assets/img/20180615/OF3-Routines.png#right" alt="Routines Pane" />
Routines is a very specialized group of SALs. All of my repetitive task are documented and tucked in their own special area. In the “Big Rocks” article I saw this setup and it struck a cord with me. I have a lot of tasks that have to be done weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc. and I don’t want to forget them and I didn’t really like them jumbled in lists with other things that are complete and forget. Some work examples are “Audit weekly tickets” and “Create new column for report” and seasonal ones are “winterize the jet ski” and “order new anode for water heater in the Spring”.</p>
<p>Every task that goes into a Routines SAL is a repeating task. If it doesn’t repeat then it goes into the appropriate Actions SAL. Small difference for sure, but one that helps put my mind at ease for remembering things like “Submit Payroll to ADP.” It also groups them together nicely for easy review and removes them from cluttering other SALs for non-repetitive tasks.</p>
<h3 id="parking-lots">Parking Lots</h3>
<p><img src="https://chad.lafrenz.ws/assets/img/20180615/OF3-ParkingLots.png#right" alt="Parking Lots Pane" />
The last specialized folder in Projects is my Parking Lots. This is an offshoot of having all those meetings where you used the big pad of paper or special corner of the whiteboard as the “Parking Lot” for ideas that came up during the meeting that weren’t on the agenda so they weren’t going to get discussed yet you didn’t want to forget. I have a [Work Lot], [Personal Lot], [Wants Lot], and [Code Lot] to basically store ideas. I also have a Templates directory here for when automation and scripting are supported I have a spot for blank project and task templates to live.</p>
<h2 id="in-closing">In Closing</h2>
<p>I am excited for the automation stuff that is being promised to arrive. I am probably going to need to learn some JavaScript since that is what Omni has chosen for their automation language of choice. I do miss automation most about this setup vs. my Todoist setup.</p>
<p>Lastly, I didn’t touch on the Review perspective, but I do love it. I love how review dates are automatically put in and you can set it yourself. Reviewing everything you have put into your system is very important to maintaining that system.</p>
<p>That’s my task system. It has been working for me and I am definitely enjoying the new OmniFocus 3 for iOS. It is super flexible and looks great on both my iPad Pro and iPhone X. I hope I have given you some inspiration that will either enhance your current methodology or spur you to actually start one for yourself. Just remember that it is very rare that anyone can remember everything, so dump as much as you can into a system that works for you and free up your brain to do important stuff instead of just trying to remember stuff.</p>OmniFocus 3 for iOS, take three!Site Launched…2018-05-17T00:00:00+00:002018-05-17T00:00:00+00:00https://chad.lafrenz.ws/blog/2018/05/17/site-launched<p>Initial “Hello World” post that seems to be what is done these days. I get asked
a fair amount of questions due to being in the technical fields for so long. This
is really probably overdue at this point.</p>
<p>Upcoming topics will focus on iOS and how I use my iPad as it has been my “laptop”
since I got the iPad Air 2 and was able to split view and multi-task with iOS 9.</p>
<p>I will touch on some Python, Workflow, IFTTT and Slack since I have done some unique
things with those in my daily work flow. I am no Python expert as I am entirely
self-taught, but I do firmly believe that everyone could use a little Python in
their lives to help them accomplish something.</p>Initial “Hello World” post that seems to be what is done these days. I get asked a fair amount of questions due to being in the technical fields for so long. This is really probably overdue at this point.iOS Essentials2018-05-17T00:00:00+00:002018-05-17T00:00:00+00:00https://chad.lafrenz.ws/blog/2018/05/17/ios-essentials<h1 id="ipad-essentials">iPad Essentials</h1>
<p>There are certain apps that I have been using for a number of years and at this point they have become essential to my daily workflow. Some of these make it on to my iPhone X as well, but for the most part my iPad is where most of the “work” happens. At one point I was shoving more and more on my iPhone with it doing more and more. I’ve since reversed this as it is rare that I don’t have my iPad around so my iPhone is more tuned to being a phone first then camera, music player, and clutch document editor or Slack messenger, etc. I am going to high level talk about the apps here in this post. Later posts might hone in on some of them in more detail. Most of them have excellent resources and detailed write-ups on them so I will concentrate more on how I specifically use them that others might find interesting or helpful.</p>
<p><br /></p>
<h2 id="tldr">TL;DR</h2>
<p>Here’s the list of my essential apps:</p>
<ul>
<li>Builtins (Mail, Safari, Reminders, iCloud Drive, News, Podcasts)</li>
<li><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/1password/id568903335?mt=8">1Password</a></li>
<li><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/drafts-5-capture-act/id1236254471?mt=8">Drafts 5</a></li>
<li><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fantastical-2-for-ipad/id830708155?mt=8">Fantastical 2</a></li>
<li><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/evernote/id281796108?mt=8">Evernote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/noteplan-markdown-calendar/id1180443101?mt=8">Noteplan</a></li>
<li><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/day-one-journal/id1044867788?mt=8">Day One</a></li>
<li><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pdf-expert-by-readdle/id743974925?mt=8">PDF Expert</a></li>
<li><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/notability/id360593530?mt=8">Notability</a></li>
<li><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/scanbot-scanner-app-scan-pdf/id834854351?mt=8">Scanbot</a></li>
<li><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gladys/id1257526927?mt=8">Gladys</a></li>
<li><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tweetbot-4-for-twitter/id1018355599?mt=8">Tweetbot</a></li>
<li><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/radarscope/id288419283?mt=8">RadarScope</a></li>
<li><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/weather-radio-by-wdt/id413511993?mt=8">WeatherRadio</a></li>
<li><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wunderstation/id906099986?mt=8">WunderStation</a></li>
<li><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ifttt/id660944635?mt=8">IFTTT</a></li>
<li><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/workflow/id915249334?mt=8">Workflow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/working-copy/id896694807?mt=8">Working Copy</a></li>
<li><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pythonista-3/id1085978097?mt=8">Pythonista</a></li>
<li><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/blink-shell-mosh-ssh/id1156707581?mt=8">Blink Shell</a></li>
<li><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/screens/id655890150?mt=8">Screens 4</a></li>
</ul>
<p><br /></p>
<h2 id="the-built-ins">The Built-ins</h2>
<p>I used to scour looking for apps that did more than the Apple built-in (BIN) apps as they were not real grand a lot of times. This has changed over time and iOS updates. With every update to a BIN app I would evaluate if it could replace the 3rd-party app I was using especially if that 3rd-party app was on a subscription model. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not anti-subscriptions, but I do worry about death by a thousand subscriptions if every app used that model. Just like with TV, I am not going to pay $5 a month for every single channel. I have a budget and there isn’t room for all my apps charging a monthly subscription fee.</p>
<p>There are some BINs that I think are really good, but I don’t use due to lack of some functionality that I feel is missing. The most notable (pun intended) is Apple Notes. It is a great app that has come light years from its initial roots. For a lot of users Notes would be more than sufficient to meet or exceed their needs and they can dump Evernote/OneNote. For me the only thing that holds me back is automation. I have IFTTT and other services auto-creating meeting notes, a daily Captain’s Log, and more. Surely I could just creat those manually or have a Workflow that does it that I would run but that isn’t quite the same and the time/effort saved by Evernote’s ability to be automated keeps me paying that yearly fee. However, iOS 12 is right around the corner and I will be watching for any improvement to Notes that will allow me to finally ditch my Evernote subscription.</p>
<p><br /></p>
<h2 id="1password">1Password</h2>
<p>This is the “never leave home without it app.” It is on my iPhone, my iPad, my Mac Mini and even in my Windows partition that I have to run for work every now and again. It is the first app that gets installed on any new device and recently switched over to their Family Plan subscription and got the entire household setup with it on their iPhones and iPads. I’m not even sure how long I’ve been using 1Password. I know when I started there weren’t apps for Windows and Android and I remember being excited when their iOS app came out, so pretty long time. There are other password keepers out there but I’m so used to 1Password it would take a lot to even test something else at this point. If you don’t have a password manager, please please get one and I would highly recommend it be 1Password.</p>
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<h2 id="getting-things-done">Getting Things Done</h2>
<p>Drafts 5, Fantastical 2, Evernote, Noteplan, and Day One are the core of apps of how I create, track, document and store almost everything. Meeting notes, notes about the things that happened in a day, tasks, events, etc. Textual documents start their existence in Drafts. This blog post was written in Drafts. Ideas, tasks, quotes, and longer email drafts are all examples of things that get started or captured in Drafts. Drafts is great at processing your text however you want. It is another app that I gladly pay for the subscription. I even made an action bar for Noteplan that I shared in the Drafts 5 Action directory. You can find it <a href="https://actions.getdrafts.com/g/1Hn">here</a>.</p>
<p>Noteplan is a little new and recently replaced my Todoist subscription when I coupled Noteplan with Apple Reminders. I will say that Noteplan is a bit more on the geeky side of life and definitely not for everyone. I love it. It gives me a retro-command line warmth when I use it. It makes me want a config option to have it support VI keyboard shortcuts. This whole topic of how GTD will be detailed more in another post.</p>
<p>I stuck Day One in this grouping as it is my personal journaling app. I have over 1600 entries covering over 1400 days. I made a decision almost 4 years ago now to start journaling and I have missed a single day since. I try and not put anything work related in it although some of that does slip in, but mainly when I am personally struggling with something work related. Every New Year’s Eve I sit down and go back through the year with the family highlighting things we did or events that happened. Day One isn’t an app that I’ve subscribed to since I had purchased all the versions and only use one journal. I do like the “On this Day” and being able to scroll through entries so easy. Day One also has some great integrations with IFTTT that I use (like saving my Tweets automatically). I am very glad I am the decision to journal every day. I definitely recommend it to everyone. Life moves very quickly and being able to reflect on the depth and breadth of yours I think is very important. It is also therapeutic.</p>
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<h2 id="pdfs-handwriting-and-scanningoh-my">PDFs, Handwriting and Scanning…Oh my!</h2>
<p>This next group (PDF Expert, Notability, Scanbot, Gladys) are some of my work horses. Anything beyond basic PDF markup gets done in PDF Expert. I’ve tried a ton and keep coming back to PDF Expert as it just seems to suit me best, my mind likes the interface, and they update it constantly.</p>
<p>Notability is my go-to for all things handwritten. I gave up on Penultimate and Evernote’s hand writing support is pure junk. OneNote had great hand writing support but I just couldn’t get over the UI and lack of automation. So, Notability and my Apple Pencil are a great combo. I have a number of default templates for various notes like meetings, brainstorming, paper types (grid, ruled, soccer field). One thing I don’t do is leave notes in Notability. Once the note is created it gets put into Evernote with everything else. Notability’ s most recent upgrade added search for hand written text and the ability to convert from hand written to actual digital text.</p>
<p>On the scanning front, Scanbot’s my fav. Like PDF Expert it suits me best out of all the apps I’ve tried. I do like the fax option for those archaic places that still make us fax (boggles the mind). I also like the “workflows” that you can save so when you scan something you can hit your workflow like “Send to Evernote Inbox” and it will do just that.</p>
<p>Lastly, Gladys is my “tray” app of choice. I like how you can take something (like a Tweet or image) and extract some specific link or data out of it that Gladys exposes vs just being an app that holds stuff that I’ve dropped into it.</p>
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<h2 id="news-and-weather">News and Weather</h2>
<p>This next group is how I get most of my news/rss and keep watch on any potentially severe weather. I switched from RSS to just following company’s and sites on Twitter a while back. I’ve been toying with moving back to RSS again. I do miss a lot of features of reading my feeds in an actual reader app. Tweetbot is my jam for Twitter. I am interested to see what happens with 3rd party Twitter apps with all this odd-ball pricing stuff coming from Twitter for their API’s and feeds.</p>
<p>Since I live in the South where the weather can get quite deadly at times I have numerous apps that help keep me up-to-date and hopefully safe. - RadarScope is extremely geeky and highly detailed if you understand what you are reading. RadarScope is another app that I pay for a subscription to. You are basically pulling feeds right from the radar that you select and you can even set what data feed you want and even some tilts. I use WeatherRadio for basically one thing and that is warning me about lightning strikes in the area. The app hasn’t been updated in a while so fear it is dead but it seems to have the best push notifications for lightning strikes. WeatherBug’s Spark does active location alerts (I think) so might have to switch back to that if WeatherRadio dies. Lastly, WunderStation is my favorite for checking out the hyper-local weather stations that people have connected to it.</p>
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<h2 id="automation-and-coding">Automation and Coding</h2>
<p>This last grouping isn’t for everyone. IFTTT and Workflow are two applications that I wouldn’t want to live without but others might never find a single use for. There is nothing wrong with that as automation isn’t for everyone and for some people it is detrimental to how they work best. I definitely use IFTTT more than Workflow but I replaced some of the things I did in Workflow with scripts on my Raspberry PI that I could run automatically via Cron jobs. Told you this section isn’t for everyone.</p>
<p>Speaking of scripts, Working Copy and Pythonista are two unbelievably great apps. Working Copy has went from basic Git client on iOS to enabling people to replace parts of their workflow with their iPads. If you do anything with Git you have to check out Working Copy. If you collaborate on documents with others and need better versioning control, take a look at Git as it isn’t just for programmers anymore. Pythonista lets you have a Python interpreter on your iPad including the “batteries.” I learned Python a long time ago when I wanted to do more with Linux servers than what shell scripts were allowing me to do. As I became more manager and less tech I used it less. I got back into Python with 3.5 and have been using it as my relaxation method. Odd? Yeah probably, but I had always wanted to get into programming more but never really had the opportunity. I am definitely into the intermediate-hobbyist level now and quite enjoy the coding I get to do now. It has included some middle-ware items for work in addition to some personal projects. I’ll do some posts on those at some point. You should learn a coding language and Python is a great one to start with and if you want to learn Python and have an iPad then get Pythonista.</p>
<p>The last two apps are used to access other computers either work servers, my Raspberry PI or my Mac Mini mainly. Blink Shell is wonder as it supports Moshi-shell which is fantastic for trying to access a server via ssh over mobile. Screens 4 is the app that I use when I want to VNC to another device. These are again not for all but immensely indispensable for those that they are for.</p>
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<h2 id="you-made-it">You made it.</h2>
<p>That’s it. The end of the first post. I appreciate you taking the time and hope you find something useful. More to come. Now go outside and enjoy yourself.</p>iPad Essentials