One blog to rule them all…

I recognized that my blog posts fell into several big categories—funny, productivity, family, writing & creativity, and design—and experimented with spinning them off into their own spaces. During that time I moved from posting infrequently on one blog I was posting infrequently on five blogs.

The end result of the experiment is that I am consolidating everything into one site—Southern Athenaeum—as your one-stop shop for infrequent blog posts by yours truly. Just forget about those other blogs. Thanks.

However, you may want to keep a bookmark for Stuff I read over on Tumblr. It’s a quick drop box for me to share some of the small things I find online.

Rands In Repose: A Creative Soundtrack

Rands polishes another gem and hands it to us with his latest post about the tools he uses for writing and a glimpse a new minimalist writing program called OmmWriter (now in beta).

Rands In Repose: A Creative Soundtrack:

The Writing Tools

For first drafts, I use one of two tools: a Moleskine notebook, or, TextEdit.

The choice of which to use often comes down to location. Is where I’m currently sitting MacBook Pro friendly or not? If that answer is yes, I’ll fire up TextEdit and get started. As sophisticated tools go, TextEdit is bare bones. It’s just a simple text editor (Sentinel, 15 pt, FTW) that allows me to do rich text editing, search and replace, bold, italics, and the occasional underline.

That’s it. No macros, no line numbers, no revision control, just pure writing simplicity.

(Via Rands in Repose.)

Seth’s Blog: It’s no wonder they don’t trust us

Seth’s Blog: It’s no wonder they don’t trust us:

I just set up a friend’s PC. I haven’t done that in a while.

Wow.

Apparently, a computer is now not a computer, it’s an opportunity to upsell you.

First, the setup insisted (for my own safety) that I sign up for an eternal subscription to Norton. Then it defaulted (opt out) to sending me promotional emails. Then there were the dozens (at least it felt like dozens) of buttons and searches I had to endure to switch the search box from Bing to Google. And the icons on the desktop that had been paid for by various partners and the this-comes-with-that of just about everything.

(Via Seth Godin.)

I think it’s well worth pointing out the difference between installing a new PC and installing a new Mac. The only thing they hit you up for is a mailing list (one checkbox during product registration) and MobileMe (click “Not now” to continue). Then you boot up to a desktop with a single icon for your hard drive.

Installing a new Mac is a beautiful and painless experience. Installing a new PC? Not so much…

My “Always On” Mac software

Some of the software I use is always running on my Mac to help me get things done. Here is a list of those programs that help me through each day:

• 1Password – Password manager so I don’t have to think so much.
• Acorn – For reviewing and editing photos. I know I could use Preview, but if I want to edit something then Acorn is ready to help.
• Adium – For instant messaging (both online and for SMS)
• DEVONthink Pro – My digital library and dumping ground.
• DragThing – For keyboard shortcuts. It does much more, but I just use it to assign keyboard shortcuts to the applications I use the most. The shortcuts work for launching and switching among apps.
• Evernote – To record a daily log and for items I may need to find at any time (from any computer or my iPhone).
• iCal – For appointments.
• iTunes – For listening music & podcasts, the iTunes store, and syncing my iPhone.
• LaunchBar 5 – An application launcher with some other talents as well. It replaced Quicksilver that was a little too crashy for my taste.
• Little Snapper – For taking real snapshots of Web sites and instantly uploading screenshots to Flickr to use in my blogs.
• Mail – For e-mail.
• MarsEdit – For editing, posting to, and managing my growing empire of blogs.
• NetNewsWire – To read RSS news feeds that interest me.
• OmniFocus – For Getting Things Done. David Allen recently endorsed OmniFocus as the official GTD application for Mac.
• Path Finder – An alternative to the Mac Finder.
• Safari 4 – For surfing the Web. I keep Firefox handy if things look a little wonky.
• Scrivener – For writing, which includes everything from free writing to collections of larger projects and other works in progress.
• TextMate – My digital scratchpad. The most capable text editor I’ve found on the Mac. Also nice that it hooks into MarsEdit for times when I have more complex formatting needs.
• Tweetie – For reading and posting on Twitter.

Other software bubbles up from time to time. I like Skim for viewing PDFs on an as needed basis. Apple Pages helps out when I need to produce formatted text.

If you were curious at all about what makes my Mac tick, I hope I have satisfied your curiosity. Maybe it will help you be more productive.

The key to getting any work done on a Mac—or any computer—is to find applications that do exactly what you need them to do and nothing more and learn everything you can about them. There is a glut of great Mac software out there. Shop around, find what works for you, and get busy.

61 Free Apps We’re Most Thankful For – Thanksgiving – Lifehacker

Computers have a lot to be thankful for courtesy of the wonderful developers in the world. Thanks developers!

As we prepare to stuff our faces with a bountiful Thanksgiving feast, we turn our Thanksgiving spirit to the gobs of free software we love to say thank you to the developers, and to give our computers a feast of their own.

Earlier this week we asked you to share the free apps you're most thankful for, and after rounding up thousands of your suggestions, considering our own favorites, and performing a little spreadsheet magic, we've cooked up our own cornucopia of excellent free software and webapps we're extremely thankful for. So whether you're an American celebrating the season or not, the selection of apps below is like gravy-drenched turkey and mashed potatoes for your computer. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

via 61 Free Apps We’re Most Thankful For – Thanksgiving – Lifehacker.

My life as a productive Mac user

Macs have been a constant in my life since the early 1990s when they were running System 7. I took a detour down PowerPC Linux Lane for several years but happily came back to Mac OS X when it was released in 2000.

I’ve always been more productive on a Mac than on any other operating system, but then I discovered David Allen’s Getting Things Done. Macs and GTD go together like filet mignon and a vintage cabernet sauvignon and Omnifocus is my loaded baked potato on the side.

This blog isn’t just about productivity. I’ll talk about all kinds of Mac software, iPhone and iPhone applications and the other hardware and software technology. Lots of good stuff happening here on Productive Mac.