Mac – Page 27 – Macinations

December 24, 2020

How I Use TextSoap

TextSoap is a tool I bought on a BundleHunt sale thinking it might come in handy one day. That has been an understatement. It’s now a text editor I use almost every day to clean up and reformat text. On it’s own, TextSoap is a great TXT and RFT editor, with all the standard features you would expect. Of course, the power comes from the built in cleaners, RegEx powered Search and Replace feature, as well as chaining together dozens of cleaners to transform text. And those cleaners can be used within other applications, not just within TextSoap itself. So, when working in Valentina Studio, the text can be reformatted without leaving the app. TextSoap can be called from it’s own menu bar applet, from a floating panel, or from other tools like Popclip. TextSoap comes with a dozen cleaners and formatters built in. My most common cleaners are: – Add an extra return between lines– Remove extra returns– Remove […]

December 21, 2020

How I Use TypeIt4Me

One of the quickest ways to gain efficiency and productivity is to use a text expansion tool. For the Mac, there are plenty to choose from: TypeIt4Me, Rocket Typist, aText, Alfred, Keyboard Maestro, and one of the originals, Text Expander. You can even use macOS built in feature. It's basically autocomplete for the entire system. The marketing usually focuses on text expansion for people in customer service or people who send the same emails or responses day after day. That is totally true, but the fact is, everyone can benefit from text expansion no matter what field they work in. At the core, you type in a keyword and the text is replaced with a larger block. This works across the OS, so it's available in every app. Keywords are available in Scrivener, Mail, Slack, iMessage, TaskPaper and DevonThink Office Pro. It works on web forms too. The main reason to use a tool ike TypeIt4Me, is organization. Text snippets […]

December 17, 2020

How I Use DevonAgent Pro

DevonAgent Pro is a tool I use a couple of times per week for deep dive searches across the Internet. It’s a way to gather up hundreds of web articles, remove duplicates, and filter for the content I’m interested in. If anyone remembers a tool from many years ago called Copernic Agent, it mirrors some of that excellent functionality. Google is great when you want a quick answer, or a summary, or just need clarification on a topic. Most of the time, the information you need comes up within the first two pages of results such as a product review, name of a product, or link to Wikipedia. But, when doing research, or trying to dig deeper into a subject, you’ll notice that those first 2-3 pages of Google results are in many ways the same article summarized and repeated on different sites. DevonAgent can sift through those repeated results to give more concise information. Once articles are located, they […]

December 14, 2020

How I Use DevonThink Pro Office

Taking note of my previous Time Sink usage, DevonThink Office Pro has days worth of usage associated with it. It’s my central hub for information and getting work done. It’s advertised as a note taking tool, but that is like saying a Lamborghini is a neat car. DevonThink Office Pro is a document management tool that I use as a repository for notes, PDF files, Jira tickets, test plans, web page archives, and RSS feeds, just to name a few. It should be noted I am using the DevonThink v2, while v3 is the current version. Once I get on board with the new Apple Silicon, I will make an upgrade. However, version 2 is still amazing and I’ve yet to hit a barrier to it’s functionality. DevonThink Office Pro can have as much or as little organization as you like. I currently have 6 databases. One is for RSS feeds and Internet information. Another is for my QA work […]

December 7, 2020

How the Mac Changed My Life

When I changed jobs 6 years ago, one of the things that sold me on the company was getting to use a Mac. For the past 2 decades, going back to Windows 3.1, I'd used Windows. More recently, I loved the iPod Touch, and the iPad, so the idea of getting paid to use a Mac was pretty badass. After getting over the short learning curve of understand what a DMG and PKG file were and what that install dialog wanted me to with it's big arrow pointing to Applications, I was in a good place. I was impressed with how many useful features were built into the OS. More than just Disk Utility or System Information, but things like Automator, Terminal, and Time Machine. I liked the Dock at the bottom, even going so far as to have a clone of it for my Windows machine. I liked the menu bar at the top. I liked Notification Center. I […]

How I Use TextSoap

How I Use TypeIt4Me

How I Use DevonAgent Pro

How I Use DevonThink Pro Office

How the Mac Changed My Life

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