Tools

This wouldn’t be a site that occasionally talks about productivity without talking about the various tools that I use.

Computer (home): 15″ MacBook Pro, mid-2015, i7 with 16 gigs of RAM and a SSD. Running Monterey because I can’t update to Ventura. I have Parallels on it, as well as Windows 11 (23H2, but there’s a story there). I tend to use more of Windows 11 on the laptop. We finally got around to updating our desktop, which is used more by my son than me these days — it has an Intel i7-14700K CPU and 64 gig of RAM. Work: 13″ MacBook Pro, mid-2020 running Sonoma (Mac OS 14), and a Windows desktop (using Windows 10) so I can use some accessibility software. I also have an iPad Pro 12.9″, 4th generation, updated to iPadOS 17.

Software I utilize on the Macs:

• Adobe Creative Suite (particularly Acrobat and InDesign, although I occasionally play with Photoshop, Premiere, and Audition)
• OmniGroup apps: OmniFocus, OmniOutliner
• Velja, since I have too many browsers on the computer (Firefox, Chrome, Safari, the Safari Technology Preview, Vivaldi, Brave, Arc, SigmaOS, and the DuckDuckGo browser. I’ve had Omniweb on in the past.
• 1Password 8 (the Mac 8 beta on my home machine, others straight version 8).
• Default Folder X – I haven’t even touched all of its functionality yet, but I know I can’t live without it. Version 6 is now out.
• EndNote 21 – I started with EndNote when it was version 1 for DOS by Niles – and I still have the 3.5″ floppy disk to prove it! It keeps my bibliographies for papers, as well as my journal articles. At this writing, there are a little over 6060 references in my database, and electronic copies of all of those references.
• Scrivener. It’s handy for writing long articles and papers, because it’s easy to compartmentalize the various parts of a paper into separate notes. Think old notecards plus the ability to still use EndNote.
• I’ve gone through all the different Office type programs: Office 365, the iWork suite, and yes, even WordPerfect X9 for Windows. (My dissertation was done with WordPerfect 5.2 for Windows, and the files are still compatible today.). I also have used Libre Office for the random student paper that comes in that format. I still occasionally dream of WordPerfect for Mac being updated…
• Fetch – for FTP
• Forklift, because it is what Finder should be. Version 4 is now out.
• Pins. For Pinboard, because there are far too many links to keep track of and read someday.
• Moom – makes organizing windows quite nice.
• Fantastical (paid version).
• DEVONThink Pro Office. I’m nowhere near using all of its functionality, but I’m finding that I’m using it far more. It’s where all my teaching tips live, and it’s also where I’m starting to put reference material for various classes I have taught/am teaching/might teach again someday. And it also holds a few other databases as well.
• Bartender. Because sometimes one just needs to tame all the icons.
• Hazel and Keyboard Maestro. I can’t even call myself a “Mac Power User” because I haven’t really scratched the surface of those programs, but they do help. I just need to devote more time to learning them. Summer?
• UBar. I’ll learn more about it as I go, but it was inconvenient trying to find applications on multiple screens. ^[1]Yes, I know that’s what Spotlight is for, and I use that too. But I have a different set of applications on my work laptop vs. my home laptop, and I don’t always remember which programs … Continue reading
• TG Pro. Because the old MacBook Pro’s fan runs a lot. It helps me see the temperatures, and be able to control fan speed.
• Better Touch Tool. I bought it – now to learn more about what to do with it.
• Downie for downloading videos when appropriate/allowable.

iOS software, the utilitarian programs:

• Omnigroup apps (same as Mac)
• DEVONThink to Go for iOS.
• Pinstachio is my Pinboard client of choice for right now on iOS.
• Liquid Text – where most of my articles that I use in classes live. Yes, I could use DevonThink for this function too, but I only keep the articles that I assign students in Liquid Text; other articles that I use for preparation live in DevonThink.
• Airtable – What I’ve used on the Council of Forensic Organizations website to handle some databases.
• IVPN for VPN duties. I used to use Encrypt.me – nothing wrong with it, but it’s gone through a few owners, and IVPN is very highly rated. I’m also not locked into yearly/monthly subscriptions with IVPN, which is handy, since I don’t travel as much as I did when I coached forensics.
• Toodledo – Holds things I want to do, but I’m going to get to…someday.
• Lynda.com (I can’t get myself to change to LinkedIn Learning) – Just like podcasts, I have far more on my list than I’ll ever get to watch.
• Microsoft’s suite of iOS programs and the iWork suite, although I find myself using for iOS more and more. I do appreciate the ability to write with the Apple Pencil directly on student papers, even if it’s a bit finicky when it comes to Word documents that have a background template. 🙁
• EndNote for iOS. While I don’t do most of my data entry on iOS, it’s always nice to have multiple copies of journal articles available. And EndNote for iOS means I have copies on the laptop, Clarivate’s cloud, and the iPad, as well as on a backup drive.
• Notability, which I still use from time to time. It handles notes and audio recordings simultaneously.
• GoodNotes, where I tend to take most of my notes.
• iCatcher for all the podcasts.
• A variety of news apps: Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Economist, BBC. Also Next Draft. (Did I mention that I did extemp in college and that I used to coach college debaters and extempers?)
• Reeder, Innoreader, and Fiery Feeds for the RSS feeds (which I used to use a lot for writing Extemp questions).
• BigBen timer and Stopwatch+. Yes, I have multiple stopwatches even though iOS comes with a clock app. It’s the old forensics coach in me!
• Carrot Weather for the giggles and the great variety of weather information one can have. It keeps getting better and better.
• “Open in Apple Maps” Safari extension.
• Vinegar for changing YouTube viewers into real HTML.
• Stop the Madness Pro, for getting rid of some of the annoyances of web surfing.
• Web Inspector for seeing HTML code on the iPad.
• Play for saving YouTube lists.
• I’ve been playing with a few different apps for marking up papers on the iPad, and Nebo seems to have a slight lead. But I’m still looking for the one that wows me by being robust and easy to use in the Files app (which is why MarginNote and Flexcil 2 fall a bit short, as does PDF Expert). But I’ll save the rant for a future post. 🙂

Email programs: I can see why David Sparks decided to do a whole show on iOS email apps. I too like some things about some programs, but haven’t found the perfect one. Now that I’m working at an Office 365 campus, I’ve had to switch my app usage: Outlook for work. Apple Mail for home accounts. And trying to slowly move all my email to Fastmail. I love the ton of aliases that I get in Fastmail. I’m also playing with Preside for work email because it’s the only iOS app I’ve found that uses categories, which I’m trying to use more in desktop Outlook. But I haven’t really found an iOS app that I’m in love with that handles categories. Clean App for helping to reduce the piles of email (I love the interface better than Mailstrom. I had Mailstrom too – but the higher price of Mailstrom led me to get rid of it. That said, I did like the weekly reports from Mailstrom that show if I’m actually making progress in reducing the email piles.).

Windows software:

• NVDA, for accessibility testing — it’s a screen reader for Windows.
• PAC 2021, for accessibility testing
• TeraCopy on my home desktop – a better copy program that even tells me how fast the copying is going and how many files have been copied, which is a good thing, since I’m often downloading 14 gig of photo files for soccer.
• ChessBase 17 and a few databases, because I’m hoping that I’ll learn how to fix the mistakes I’m making while playing chess.

Non-academic iOS software:

• Logos: They are constantly updating their software and their book collections. And there’s lots of good stuff that I probably don’t have the time and/or money for.  That said, some of the guilt of spending lots of money with them is assuaged by the fact that a former student of mine works there. I can say that I’m supporting her, right? 🙂 
• Adobe Lightroom Classic. Someday I’ll finish going through the tons of photos I’ve taken of Joshua playing sports (and all the other pictures). 
• Various magazine apps (NPhoto, and a few others have taken a bunch of my money… News+ has actually been worth it for me, but then again, we have an Apple One subscription.)
• Yomu is where ePubs live.
• TeamSnap, because my kid is in sports.
• GameStats, because my kid is in soccer, and I used to keep the passing stats.
• Sofa, but I wish it would have a true offline mode for entering books. I’m now going pro because I’ll admit that being able to see the actual covers of books for me is worth it…. even if that costs more than I wish it did. But software developers need to make a living too. And Sofa 4 did include one of my requested feature updates — articles can now be included as a media type. My goal is eventually to put the academic articles I want to read in Sofa, but first I need to find a way to get the deep links in there (EndNote doesn’t do that.).

Non-Academic Windows/Mac software:

• Topaz Labs suite of programs, because I don’t always take good pictures in camera, and AI can actually help to reduce the noise.

Wishlists:

• Meeting/Agenda software that would allow me to write with Apple Pencil and type notes, and do a better job translating “Apple Scribble.” I don’t write terribly, but most of the agenda apps seem to bungle the handwriting (unlike Goodnotes, which does fairly well).