December 3, 2022

📕A quick look at note taking on Mac and Windows

This is an interesting turn of events, two developers I work with bought Macs during Black Friday sales, and wanted to know some of the software I use, including note taking. Another developer, no Mac yet, wanted to know what I used for note taking on Windows because Notepad++ is unruly with too many tabs. Through sharing my screen, they saw some interesting apps, and figured I was the person to ask. I have an answer for both, so let’s have a look. For me, there are two kinds of notes, short and long term. Short term: Notes that are meaningful for a day, week, or maybe the length of a sprint. They are related to the ticket I’m working on, such as test data, user details, or something that won’t matter a few weeks from now. These notes will be committed to the ticket, so I don’t need to keep them. Long term: Notes I want to archive and […]

Mac 0 4 min read
November 13, 2022

⌘ Getting started with Keyboard Maestro – Positioning windows

Another easy macro to get started with is positioning windows. Since I have multiple monitors, two in landscape, two in portrait, I have a specific layout for my apps. For example, I want TextSoap, at a specific size, and specific position on my first vertical monitor. Instead of me having to move and resize the window, I can have Keyboard Maestro do it. In fact, we’ve looked at this macro before, but it’s worth revisiting as we work toward making workspaces. We’re going to us Keyboard Maestro to help find the size and position of the windows once we have the correct layout. The first step is to arrange windows in the desired location and at the correct size. For me, this would be positioning TextSoap, where I want it on the vertical monitor. That done, it’s time to create a simple macro to record the window locations so they can be used in another macro. Keyboard Maestro has built-in […]

Mac 0 2 min read
November 6, 2022

⌘ Getting started with Keyboard Maestro – Launching apps on a schedule

Another simple Keyboard Maestro macro I use to keep myself on a schedule, is to close Microsoft Teams at the end of the day, and reopen it first thing in the morning. This might not sound like much, but it helps to keep a consistent work schedule since I work remotely. I don’t want to be “available” at 9pm just because Teams is open. Nor do I want to forget to restart it in the morning. The Close macro is triggered at a specific time of day, in this case, 5:20pm.The Action is simply to close down Microsoft Teams. The Launch macro uses the At System Wake trigger, which means, when I wake up my Mac and log in. The Action is to first pause for 30 seconds to give the machine a chance to truly wake up, and establish a network connection. It then launches Teams. Again, a very simple macro, but this makes sure that I log off […]

Mac 0 1 min read
October 23, 2022

⌘ Getting started with Keyboard Maestro – a simple mouse macro

When I bought Keyboard Maestro over two years ago, I didn’t realize how much I would come to use it. It’s now an essential tool for the way I work. As I learn more about it, I find more ways to use it. My macros have gone from simple shortcuts to applications with user input and output data. However, when you look up what Keyboard Maestro can do, it seems confusing. It is for shortcuts? Is it a clipboard manager? Is it a text expander? Does it playback keyboard commands? It’s yes to all the above, and more. But, out of the box, Keyboard Maestro seems to do everything and nothing. There’s building blocks galore, a clipboard, an app launcher, and a host of other options that you need to connect together. But, where to begin? Let’s have a look at a simple example to get started with Keyboard Maestro. I have a Razer Naga gaming mouse with a keypad […]

Mac 0 3 min read
October 16, 2022

⌘ Getting started with Keyboard Maestro – What is it?

If you look up tools related to productivity and automation on the Mac, Keyboard Maestro comes up. But, the question is, what is Keyboard Maestro and what does it do? Out of the box Keyboard Maestro looks like Automator. As such, it may seem like it doesn’t do much. “I’ve got it, now what? How is this going to help me?” To get the most out of Keyboard Maestro, you will need to assemble some blocks, like putting Lego together. It’s easier than it seems once you get the hang of it. And don’t worry, there are hundreds of examples on the Keyboard Maestro forums. To get started, Keyboard Maestro is based on two concepts, Trigger and Action. As the name implies, the Trigger, is what causes Keyboard Maestro to act. This can be pressing a keyboard shortcut, a mouse click, a typed keyword, or an event like a device connecting, something being copied to the clipboard, system idle, or […]

Mac 0 2 min read

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