OmniFocus 1.0 Perspectives

OmniFocus perspectives help resolve the repetitious clicking involved when switching between modes/views that require specific filters/focus. By configuring a perspective or multiple perspectives, as shown above, you can achieve what you want with the click of a mouse button or keyboard shortcut. Additionally, adding custom icons to each perspective gives a nice visual cue to each perspective rather than the default and non-distinct icon.

In my case, all of my perspectives keep me in context mode with different filters used for each. For example, here is a detailed breakdown:

• Next Action - Selection: My “Home” context, Mode: context, Focus: none, Filter: remaining, Grouping: project, Sorting: project, Action Filter: next action, Time Filter: any, Flag Filter: any.
• Due Soon - Selection: Contexts (the root of all contexts), Mode: context, Focus: none, Filter: remaining, Grouping: project, Sorting: project, Action Filter: due soon, Time Filter: any, Flag Filter: any.
• Shopping - Selection: My “Errands” context, Mode: context, Focus: none, Filter: remaining, Grouping: context, Sorting: project, Action Filter: available, Time Filter: any, Flag Filter: any.
• Work - Selection: My “Work” context, Mode: context, Focus: none, Filter: remaining, Grouping: project, Sorting: project, Action Filter: next action, Time Filter: any, Flag Filter: any.

You can also add custom perspectives to the main menu as shown here:

As for me, I tend to keep the Perspectives dialog open as I do with the Inspector dialog as shown here:

(click to view)

Perspectives ultimately make getting around in OmniFocus must faster but is power-user feature that only becomes obvious only after you find yourself configuring the same settings often.

Tags: OmniFocus

OmniFocus 1.0 iCal Synchronization

I don’t know about you but the ability to synchronize OmniFocus with Apple iCal is not very useful. In my situation, I decided to setup my OmniFocus iCal Sychronization Preferences as follows (found via the OmniFocus main menu->Preferences->Sync):

(click to view)

Clicking on the “Sync with iCal” menu button as shown here:

…yields the following in my iCal application:

(click to view)

In the future, this synchronization ability might be worthwhile (especially if the ToDo list ended up on my iPhone). For now, I’ll just stick with keeping things in OmniFocus.

Tags: OmniFocus

LaLa Music Player

LaLa, a music trading service and online store, is also a useful service for sampling new music. Simply use the search box on the front page as shown here:

Depending on what your search criteria is, you might end up with an album selected for playback as shown here:

(click to view)

Generally, most music tracks are 30 seconds in length but every now and then you can find full length material. The best part is that you don’t even have to be a member to use this.

Tags: LaLa

Think Green

What are you doing to stay green? Here are a few things to check out when you have time:

• An Inconvenient Truth - Hopefully, by now, you have watched the DVD and seen what Al Gore has been up to (ultimately winning him a Nobel Peace Prize). Otherwise, add it to your rental queue, its worth seeing.
• The Story of Stuff - A 20 minute video that will cause you to think about (or remind you of) the side effects of producing consumer goods.
• Buy CFLs:
  WPvideo 1.10

VMWare Fusion 1.1.1

© VMWare

The full details of the new upgrade can be viewed on the VMWare web site but the following bug fix, alone, makes it all worthwhile:

“VMware Fusion now transparently remaps keyboard shortcuts when the user goes back and forth between applications in the guest and in the host. For example, VMware Fusion remaps COMMAND+X to Ctrl+X in the guest. The same remapping happens for COMMAND+Z/+C/+V/+P/+A/+F.”

Sweet, no more finger gymnastics!

Tags: VMWare Fusion

Odin Sphere

Odin Sphere is a surprisingly fun, 2D, side-scrolling, adventure/RPG game for the Playstation 2. The graphics are detailed and beautifully rendered while the game play is engaging with plenty of tactical choices to be made as you balance between growing plants, collecting phozons (a form of magic power), creating magical items, and fighting enemies.

My only complaint is that the levels are a tad repetitious. By the time you finish playing the third character, Mercedes, you will have realized that the world stages are being reused and so are the bosses unfortunately (not all but some). I definitely won’t miss fighting the same dragons for the umpteenth time when they should have been dead many times over. Despite this fact, the characters are a lot of fun to check out as each has a different style of game play as well as unique pyspher (weapon): spear, long sword, crossbow, short sword, and chains. It is also interesting to see how the stories are interwoven (all of which can be reviewed via the in-game timeline).

For more information, check out the reviews on IGN and Gamespot or watch this quick video review:

MyStudio Beta

© Studio One Media, Inc.

It looks as if the cat is out of the bag as Studio One Media, a startup located in Scottsdale, AZ, has added more info to their public web site that describes the business, what they are about, and how it might impact you. If anyone wanted to know more about what I was working on last summer, now you know.

Freelance Radio

© Freelance Switch

A while back I attended a Refresh Denver (Web Business Startups) meeting. While the meeting and some of the notes I captured were useful, I was still left with a lot of questions. I then stumbled upon a series of interesting Freelance Radio podcasts. I recommend listening to all of them. They are, however, lengthy (over an hour in some cases) but informative.

Should you enjoy the podcasts and be yearning for more information, I would recommend checking out the rest of the Freelance Switch web site and reading my Enterprise of One post as well.

Innovation Nation Podcast

(click to buy)

Dr. Moira Gunn recently interviewed John Kao about his book “Innovation Nation: How America Is Losing Its Innovation Edge, Why It Matters, and What We Can Do to Get It Back”. Good discussion topics brought up during the course of the interview:

• American Youth - They seem to have lost the meaning of “hard work” and feel they are entitled to everything.
• Melting Pot - America is no longer being perceived as a the melting pot of ideas, cultures, foreign influence etc.
• Talent Stickiness - Top talent is no longer staying but moving elsewhere.
• Legal Madness - The country is overrun by lawyers.

I recommend listing to the podcast (32:36 minutes) as found on the IT Conversations network. The book is probably worth checking out as well.