30 May 2015
Smile Software have just released a new update to their TextExpander product that brought a particularly interesting new feature. The option to run JavaScript based snippets. At first this may appear unremarkable given that the previous OS X snippets could take advantage of AppleScript, or shell script based options such as BASH, Perl and Python (to name just a few). The exciting thing to me however was that the JavaScript based snippets could also run on the iOS version; whereas AppleScript and shell script based snippets cannot.
As an initial foray into using JavaScript snippets on my iOS devices I decided I’d try recreating one of my existing snippet groups.
Read More29 Apr 2015
In Q1 of 2015, Nakisa released the latest iteration of their visualisation suite (VSN) of applications - version 4.3. With 4.2 being an interim release for Nakisa’s Performance and Goals product or perhaps an internal working version, 4.3 can probably be considered an upgrade from the 4.1 SP2 release. As well as rolling in various bug fixes and general performance improvements, version 4.3 includes some great feature enhancements.
Read More28 Apr 2015
During my career I’ve encountered dozens of processes, agreements, work packages, projects and changes that have, for one reason or another, failed. Whilst the contributing factors varied, there was one that has almost always appeared somewhere in the chain of events responsible for the failure. A deficiency in communication.
Read More29 Mar 2015
Even with the advent of iOS8 and custom keyboards and customised keyboard lines in specific apps, one thing I still find myself wishing I could get on my iPhone and iPad keyboards is a tab key. Fortunately there is a nice easy way to work around this using one of my favourite iOS utilities - TextExpander Touch.
Read More21 Mar 2015
TextExpander is one of my most frequently used Mac utilities and I have all sorts of snippets that help me with all sorts of tasks. From correcting my seldom perfect typing and inserting standard sets of boilerplate text through to more advanced ones that produce fill-in forms and carry out conversions of clipboard text. This focus of this post certainly falls into the latter, but does so in doing something surprisingly simple. It takes plain text and simply adds HTML paragraph tags in at the appropriate locations.
Read More26 Feb 2015
Continuing with my little spate of sharing workflows for the iOS app known as Workflow, I’ve decided to share another simple action extension workflow that allows you to save web pages as a simplified style PDF Whilst I personally use Evernote as my snap shot repository and page cleaner of choice, sometimes I want to be able to send other people a snap shot of a page and Workflow provides a relatively easy way to do this.
Read More25 Feb 2015
I use various services for web pages I want to take a deeper look at later, Pocket and Evernote being my favourites for my personal reading. However I frequently come across things I want to take a look at more closely for my work. Rather than creating a task (which I’ll then probably defer ad infinitum) I choose the simpler option of mailing myself details of the page. Whilst this has never been a particularly onerous task I found that I could use the wonderfully flexible iOS app Workflow to help me make it even easier.
Read More24 Feb 2015
I continue to find great personal uses for the iOS app Workflow. One of the ones I’ve been experimenting with recently relates to quickly taking contextual notes and adding them into Evernote.
Read More18 Feb 2015
It’s amazing how many computers we all work with these days. Our phones, our tablets, work computers, personal computers, remote servers, Raspberry Pis; the list goes on. I frequently find myself wanting to action things on a computer other than the one in front of me and I now have another tool in my arsenal to do this … the iOS app Workflow.
Read More24 Jan 2015
I’ve been experimenting a lot recently with the iOS Workflow application and whilst it is an initial release it has a lot of power and a vast amount of potential. Whilst there are a number of features I’m hoping will be included in upcoming releases I have a few workflows that are already saving me some time and one of those relates to a site called jaymantri.com. The site offers up a set of photographs for download each week and when the e-mail comes to let me know they’re available I dutifully went to the site to download each of them from. But now with Workflow I can grab them from across the site with the push of a button.
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