• The Omni Group - OmniFocus - OmniFocus 1.0 officially hit the streets this week. So proud of all my hard-working OmniPals, who've made the app I always wanted. Kudos.
• Mother Tongue Annoyances › How to Attain Serenity Before Giving a Speech - "I find that when I am [speaking] from this 'serene-state,' for lack of a better word, my mind is as sharp as a tack, and my energy is channeled on the audience and the subject matter..."
• 10 ways to get the most out of Quick Look - (TUAW) - Most of these are new to me. Which probably explains why I hadn't been using Quick Look too much. Good tips.
• RulesofThumb.org - I loved Parker's RoT books, and the site looks like a fun, user-driven collection of these bite-sized bits of wisdom. - [via BB]
• Things - task management on the Mac - Haven't spent much time with Things yet, but this looks like a beautiful and promising-looking app for doing GTD on your Mac. Very pretty.
• ThinkGeek :: SnūzNLūz - Wifi Donation Alarm Clock - "...everytime you hit the snooze button, the SnūzNLūz will donate a specified amount of your real money to a non-profit you hate." You have to respect a Rube Goldberg device that's attached to your personal sense of outrage. [thanks, overhang]
• Products [Merlin Mannerism Widget] - "The Merlin Mannerism Widget provides a different Merlin Mann quote each day from 1 Jan 2008 through 4 Jan 2009." Oh, lucky you. [thanks, hongkongphooey] That said, if you enjoy this sort of thing, you can also get up-to-date (and very economically worded) Mannerisms from my Twitter posts. On the other hand, if you don't enjoy this sort of thing, I'm sure you're not alone.

Howard Rheingold, online pioneer and dapper man of the mustache and Indiana Jones hats, has started a new video blog to update his seminal 1992 essay, “A Slice of Life in my Virtual Community,” with how he spends his time online with today’s technologies. The first video is a little remedial, but what caught my eye is his promise to clue us in to his daily process, including not only his office time, but time spent on hobbies like painting and gardening. Looking back at that sentence, I know that sounds about as exciting as getting a flu shot, but I’m a sucker for watching how smart people manage their days. Should be worth a watch.

Merlin's Mindful Eating and Keeping Weight Off reminded me of the best tool I've found for prompting mindfulness in virtually any situation.

It's the Powerseed, and while it is marketed primarily for weight loss, it turns out to be a useful reminder/timer for virtually any activity where mindfulness is important. It's a sleek, battery-powered pod about as big as the end of your thumb. It offers both visual and audible cues, and operates in a couple of different coaching modes. The basic idea is that it is a discreet coach that prompts you to "check-in" with yourself. It signals both short and long regular intervals, which are useful for being aware of time passing, as well as performing different routines are each mark.

Making life easier isn't always about massive, miraculous changes in habit, or chucking vast quantities of your belongings. Sometimes, preventing just one little hassle can make your day.

You know how the little bit of soap left in the cup after you dump it in the wash always manages to leak down the side of the bottle when you recap it? Usually, you don't notice it until the next time you do the wash, and have to pry the jug loose from a sticky, lint-colored pool. To prevent this from happening, toss the cap in along with the wash instead of recapping the bottle right away. It comes out squeaky clean, and you just have to shake off a little water before screwing it back on the bottle. I suspect this would work with the top of a dish soap bottle too, though you'd have to ask Ray, the gallant cleaner.

An Interface of One’s Own

I was delighted to see my favorite OS X writing app, Scrivener, turn up in today's "The Medium" column of the New York Times Magazine. I reviewed Scrivener about a year ago, and still use it whenever I have to research, plan, and draft anything more complicated than a blog post. In fact, as luck would have it, I was actually working on my upcoming Macworld talk in Scrivener when I took a break to read the paper and saw this article. Kismet or something.

Columnist, Virginia Heffernan, notes the app's beloved full-screen capability:

To create art, you need peace and quiet. Not only does Scrivener save like a maniac so you needn’t bother, you also get to drop the curtain on life’s prosaic demands with a feature that makes its users swoon: full screen. When you’re working on a Scrivener opus, you’re not surrounded by teetering stacks of Firefox windows showing old Google searches or Citibank reports of suspicious activity. Life’s daily cares slip into the shadows. What emerges instead is one pristine and welcoming scroll: Your clean and focused mind.

High fives to other great apps mentioned in the article, including Ulysses, WriteRoom, and Nisus Writer. Slightly lower fives go to Microsoft Word, which, once again, takes its usual drubbing as The Application Everyone Wants To Get Away From™. Poor Microsoft Word, the mascara-smeared Gloria Swanson of word processors.