My favorite Mac Tools

Yes, yes, yes, lists are cheap blogging, I know. But the lists on blogs I’ve most profited from myself, have mostly been lists of applications. I’ve found quite a few gems through them that I now use daily. So when I set up my new MacBookPro a few weeks ago, I wrote down every application that I installed in the process. Here they are.

• Chrome/Firefox 4 beta – I go back and forth between these two browsers and use the one which currently annoys me the least. 
• Evernote – I’ve promoted this app enough already. I use it as my main knowledge base for all the articles and studies, I find on the web etc.
• Notational Velocity – Basic note taking app which syncs with the cloud and works with SimpleNote on the iPhone/iPad. I’m writing this here in NV before copying it to the Squarespace editor in the browser. 
• Caffeine – Keeps the MBP from falling asleep through presentations and movies. 
• Dropbox – I store all my personal files in my Dropbox folder these days to keep a copy in the cloud.
• iStat Menu – I can’t work on a computer without knowing what it’s doing. I need to be able to watch the processor and network activities, I really need to. 
• Fuzzy Clock – Instead of telling me the exact time, this clock displays it to me like a person would tell it to me. “five to four,” “quarter past nine” etc. I prefer it that way as it gives me a better feeling for the time.
• Alfred – I’ve used Quicksilver to quickly launch applications etc. until the development stopped. Alfred is a great replacement and does a lot more than just launching apps.
• Mailplane – Yes, I live in Google Mail, too. Priority Inbox has spoiled me forever. Mailplane is basically a dedicated browser app for Gmail with some fine additional features.
• Knox – I save all client files in encrypted disk images on my mac. Knox is a great tool to organize these images. 
• Spotify – Please don’t ask me how to hack Spotify to work in Germany. I have no idea why it just works for me. 
• 1password – Another must-have application for me. It saves all my passwords from web applications, all my license information from bought software (yes, I still buy software) and even generates strong passwords. 
• Adobe Air – The Adobe framework, mostly used to run Tweetdeck these days.
• Tweetdeck – I have tried other Twitter clients but the column view has spoiled me forever. I can’t and don’t want to go every new tweet in my timeline on a usual work day so I rely heavily on lists so I can take quick glances in between work sprints. 
• Skitch – The perfect tool to take a quick snap of the screen. I find that I’m also using it a lot for little tasks like resizing images etc.
• TextExpander – There are certain words and phrases, we have to type all the time like our email address or passwords. This tool lets you type short key combinations and replaces them by the longer phrases. 
• Skype – Mostly used for instant messaging (not a big fan of telephone calls in general).
• Things – It has taken them forever to develop a good syncing mechanism. So I switched to
• Teux Deux – In my opinion, Teux Deux is the best to-do application if you spend a lot of your work time in front of a computer. The web app is free, very simply and beautifully designed and has just the right amount of features. I also use the iPhone app. 
• Adium – The instant messaging application for everything else but Skype. Mostly Google Talk, MSN and Facebook Chat currently. 
• Pastebot – Great combination of Mac/iPhone app that let’s you easily push clipboard content from one device to the other. No need to send emails etc. 
• SmartSleep – Little system settings tool that let’s you define exactly when you macbook should go to hibernation and when it should just go to sleep when you close it. 
• LittleSnapper – Great tool to take and organize snapshots of whole websites. 
• Coda – My weapon of choice for everything web development related. 
• DynaMite – Makes time-tracking with Mite much easier on Mac OS X. 
• LittleSnitch – Which application is generating all that web traffic and which is phoning home? This tool will tell you in details. 
• RescueTime – Never underestimate your own capability to guess completely wrong how much time you spend on what. This tool tracks exactly what you spend your time on while on your computer. Only use this if you’re ready to face the truth ;-)
• Tunnelblick – Great VPN tool. Combine it with BlackVPN and you have the quickest way around “This content is not available in your country.” It is also great for securing your connecting in open Wifis. 
• Watts – A great little tool for just one thing: getting the best from your macbook battery. It helps you to calibrate your battery correctly and in between, it’s just an unobtrusive battery icon in your menu bar. 

So what’s missing from this list that you couldn’t live without on your mac?

What Does Technology Want?

Steven B. Johnson (with Where Good Ideas Come From) and Kevin Kelly (with What Technology Wants) have both released new books that I desperately want to read. Both joined Robert Krulwich (from my favorite podcast/radioshow Radiolab) on stage recentely for an interview about some of the greater questions:

In a world of rapidly accelerating change, from iPads to eBooks to genetic mapping to MagLev trains, we can’t help but wonder if technology is our servant or our master, and whether it is taking us in a healthy direction as a society.

• What forces drive the steady march of innovation?
• How can we build environments in our schools, our businesses, and in our private lives that encourage the creation of new ideas—ideas that build on the new technology platforms in socially responsible ways?

There’s an edited audio version available from Radiolab, too. 

The Future of Money and Collaborative Consumption

With the financial crisis and stuff, there has been some great thinking about where our whole money system is heading. 

Venessa Miemis and Gabriel Shalom (of KS12-fame) got together to produce a video about the future of money for a keynote presentation at the SIBOS Conference in Amsterdam. They basically interviewed a lot of interesting people and edited a great selection of quotes from them. A great conversation starter although it seemed to fall pretty flat with the banker crowd at SIBOS, unsurprisingly. 

There is a class of young, intelligent, creative people who are disillusioned with the debt-based monetary system, and are busy building the infrastructures for a commons-based economy, which is emerging, right now, in parallel to what currently exists. The foundation of this economy is built on trust… and transparency…. and the ability of distributed networks to self organize. And using the Web as a grounds for experimentation, we’re learning more effective ways to link unmet needs with unused resources, innovate, generate wealth, and build resilient communities.

This is the prototype of the future. This is where the opportunities are.

Venessa Miemis

Rachel Botsmann has researched and written a great book called ‘What’s mine is yours – The Rise of Collaborative Consumption’. She took an in-depth look at how technology is enabling alternatives to the basic goods/services-for-money model. 

Pressing environmental concerns and the global financial crisis has led to a questioning of the health (in all dimensions of the word) of consumerism on a scale we have never seen before. We are feeling a sense of emptiness, a distrust with ‘big’, and turning once again to each other. The phenomenal growth of Facebook and farmers markets may not seem connected but they are. We are seeking to be a part of a community of people with a shared interest (both in the physical and virtual worlds); to feed the part of us that seeks connection and belonging. It’s a perfect storm of drivers fusing together to create “The Big Shift”; away from the 20th Century defined by hyper-consumption, towards the 21st century, the age of Collaborative Consumption. It’s a new era marked by trust between strangers, access over ownership and the primacy of experience over “more stuff.

Rachel Botsmann

With the trust in our financial systems at an all-time low, these two videos can help us start thinking about future alternative that are already emerging. 

Jason Fried: Why work doesn't happen at work

Another great rant by Jason Fried from 37signals, talking about the problems of the modern workplace. Provoking and maybe a bit to broad of a brush stroke. Not really anything he hasn’t said before. But what’s interesting to me is that my own situation has changed so that I have a new perspective on it. 

Now that I am my own employer, I have much more freedom on how to organize my own way to work. Well, not as free as a solo self employed as I have two co-founders. But nevertheless, I can be much more flexible. So, what am I doing with this freedom?

I totally agree with Fried that the deep thinking and ideation is usually not happening at my desk at the office. It never has. Too much distraction and disruption happening constantly, even at a three person company. Nevertheless, the office is the right space to coordinate, plan and connect which is an important part of founding and running your own company. 

The big question for me is how to organize my work time between the office, my home, coffeeshops, trains etc. I’m a believer in using every place for what it does best. So my home is great for writing and thinking in the morning when I’m the most awake. Coffeeshops and trains are good for soaking up all kinds of inspiration and information through reading and browsing. 

My ideal work day may look something like this: Starting at home, writing and brainstorming for a couple of hours. Go to lunch and spend one or two hours in a café to read. Go to the office to work on maintenance and planning tasks, coordinate stuff with my co-founders etc. So much for the theory. Gonna reality check that approach throughout the next week. 

Btw. 37signals build a new office recently and put a lot of thought into the challenges that Fried mentioned in his talk. I think the office turned out quite inspirational.

The Bucket Brigade

For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat and wrong.

H.L. Mencken

When Bud Caddell started his Kickstarter project to get some funding for a book he wanted to write, I didn’t hesitate. Buds work and writing has been a constante source of inspiration for my own work and thinking. So whatever he would write a book about, it would be well worth investing into it to get it made. I also saw the $100 as a ‘thank you’ for all the value he has given me. Little did I know that these 100 bucks would be some of the best money I’ve ever invested. 

It first dawned on me when Bud set up a Basecamp account and invited everyone who gave $100 or more into it. When people started to introduce themselves, it became quite clear that Bud had brought together an eclectic group of mostly young planners, thinkers and doers from the world of advertising and marketing. Not only would I be able to get the insight scope on Bud’s thinking, all the other bright minds from my industry that I’ve been following would be in the same room, too (unfortunately, minus anyone else from Germany). 

I was also surprised to learn that Bud is writing a book about what I’m founding a company for and which is nicely summarized in this slide by Bud.

It took some time for Bud to figure out what was at the heart of what he wanted to write about and for the group to get what he was talking about. But the process has been gaining a lot of momentum which has lead to this major presentation that Bud has released a few days ago and that gives you the core idea about what the Bucket Brigade is and where we’re going. 

Solving the Most Complex Problems

View more presentations from Bud Caddell.

In the future, I see a global network of 21st century problem solvers with the understanding and know-how to solve the most massively complex problems; challenges that face corporations, governments, and citizens. These individuals work together to unleash their passion and creativity towards ambitious objectives and tangible change. They undertake projects such as: increasing family retirement investing, ensuring the welfare of the poor, identifying new energy sources, protecting the world from terrorism, and making consumption more conscious – challenges that must be confronted, but have always been too complex for any single corporation, government, or voting block. And each objective, because of its complexity, results in a handful of simultaneous clients benefitting from the thinking and creating of this group (how or if this network charges for its work is a decision to be made by the group at a later date). This may seem like a fantasy today, but it’s nearer to our grasp than you realize.

Read all of Buds thoughts here.