3 posts tagged “itunes”
As someone who must constantly battle with myself to maintain focus on my work, it highly annoys me to have lots of applications open when I am only actually working in two or three. I wish that there was a way to say "Keep this application open but mute it and hide it from the tab switcher until I care about it again".
- iTunes which downloads podcasts periodically, some of which (due to the publisher's ignorance — NPR Hourly news I'm looking at you) will be missed if iTunes doesn't catch them before the next comes out.
- NetNewsWire which downloads RSS feeds, some of which have the same problem as the above for the exact same reason.
- Colloquy (IRC client) which I use periodically throughout the day by reading back over the log since my last check and responding. If you're not in channel, you have no log to catch up on and respond to. This is an example of an app that I sometimes want to be completely silent and other times to alert me when my name is written in channel (i.e. someone beckoning me)
- Billings.app which keeps track of the time I spend working on client projects. While I'm technically using this, I only interact with it periodically when I switch tasks, start or stop working.
- Skitch which I use to take screenshots. While I could just open this when I need it, that's a lot more keystrokes than just Command-5
- Desktop Folder X which adds nifty and important features to the open/save dialogs in Mac OS X
- Hardware Growler which posts notifications via Growl for hardware status changes (i.e. internet connectivity, disk issues, peripheral connections, etc.
- Last.fm which scrobbles anything you're listening to in iTunes to Last.fm
- MenuCalendarClock iCal which replaces the dock date and time with a much more useful version
- QuickSilver which, while being indispensible, is never, EVER accessed via the task switcher.
- The Finder which I don't need or use since I use PathFinder but which is opened every now and then by applications which are poorly coded and circumvent the standard API call which PathFinder intercepts. The worst way is the only way to kill the finder again is to stop and restart PathFinder.
My friend Andrew's company is doing some research and is looking for 25-35 year olds to answer five questions. They will be giving $25 iTunes gift certificates to selected respondents. He's a good guy and the questions aren't so dissimilar to the Vox QotDs:
- What gives you confidence?
- When do you know something is "high-end" or "luxury"?
- What does the phrase "expect everything" mean to you?
- What three words describe your group of friends?
- Describe a great moment in your life.
See here for the info.
Steve Jobs just became the best friend of everyone who doesn't sit on the board of directors for EMI, Sony, Universal and Time-Warner. Common sense in this arena has never come from such a high perch.
