43 Folders

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Merlin’s weekly podcast with Dan Benjamin. We talk about creativity, independence, and making things you love.

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”What’s 43 Folders?”
43Folders.com is Merlin Mann’s website about finding the time and attention to do your best creative work.

Macs & OS X

Yes. Another Backup Lecture.

Daring Fireball: An Ode to DiskWarrior, SuperDuper, and Dropbox

Hard drives are fragile. Read as much as you can bear to about how they work, how incredibly precisely they must operate in order to cram so many bits onto such small disks. It’s a miracle to me that they work at all. Every hard drive in the world will eventually fail. Assume that yours are all on the cusp of failure at all times. It’s good to be spooked about how long your hard drives will last.

John's article, advice, and success story about doing smart backup is exactly the reminder that a lot of people need to hear right this second. Because, it's impossible to overstate the importance of automated, redundant, and rotated backups. Trust me. You will need them all. Soon. Repeatedly. Forever. Always.

Worst of all, every stupid cliche about backup that currently makes you roll your eyes in exasperation will be visited upon you tenfold if you're not using some flavor of the anal-retentive system nerds like John and I live by.

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`Nerdgasm.txt` - Notational Velocity Now Syncs with Simplenote

Happiest thing I saw on my phone this week

Notational Velocity - Version 2.0β2 Release Notes

Two of the best things on my Mac now sync programmatically and without the need for either spit or baling wire— that means syncing with "the cloud," syncing with my iPhone (App Store link), and, by extension, syncing with every computer I own via the game-changing Dropbox. Yes. Big.

If you live in text files and crave seamless, no-brainer syncing (that doesn't require growing a neckbeard), that little icon represents a milestone in the evolution of simple, low-friction workflows.

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TOPICS: Macs & OS X

Video: Merlin's Talk, "Toward Patterns for Creativity"

Merlin Mann - "Toward Patterns for Creativity" - Macworld PULSE

Here's a video of my presentation, "Toward Patterns for Creativity," from earlier this month at Macworld, here in SF.

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43f Screencast: Merlin's First Desktop Tour

Merlin’s First Desktop Tour on Vimeo (Full HD Version)

After a recent “Most Daysepisode, several people asked to see what all's in my menu bar, so I made this little video using ScreenFlow. It's a “proof of concept.” A “pilot program,” if you like. Again: an experiment. (Hint: this looks way better in full HD)

Watch this space next week for more info on these apps, plus discount codes and more.

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Best Mac Ever? Duh. SE/30.

The best Mac ever | Editors’ Notes | Macworld

I knew what the near-consensus would be before the page opened. Everybody knows.

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TOPICS: Macs & OS X

James Fallows on GTD apps

Bright side #5: interesting GTD software, including for Mac

The Atlantic writer (and recent Mac convert) James Fallows covers three apps that have caught his attention, including OmniFocus, ThinkingRock, and MonkeyWiki. Fallows says:

The GTD Way mainly involves habits of mind and action, but it also places a lot of emphasis on having the right tools, gizmos, and gimmicks to support those habits. Over the years I've used a variety of software to set up GTD-based systems on my computer.

And, if you're in a real "grab the shovel" mood, don't miss his link to a metric buttload of GTD apps.

As ever, though, friends, just remember: GTD's power is in what it does to your approach and to your thinking; it's not about magic beans and doo-dahs. Never allow yourself to obsess over tools to the exclusion of actually completing tasks. This is about action.

 
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