mac :: Curvve Media Blog
An overview of 6 of my favorite, and most used, Mac OSX apps. The apps included in this article are DayOne Journal, Jumsoft Money, YummySoup Recipe Manager, Mac Family Tree Maker, Timing personal time tracker, and Investoscope stock tracker.
Growl has been (and still is) the defacto standard notification system for your mac. This latest update revives the interface and modernizes the app. Growl is one of those rare apps that instantly becomes indispensable, and you just can’t live without.
The Hit List is very powerfultask list that is dead simple to use; it's as easy as Wunderlist, and considerably more powerful. While I still continue to use Omnifocus, my wife has made the switch to The Hit List. It's perfectly suited for her needs without giving her the feeling of being overly complex and overbearing. There are a few features that I would still like to see before making a switch, but I am probably in a special class of tech users. I actually think that The Hit List would be a perfect solution for most people.
The wait for an updated desktop and iPhone app of the Hit List has been long overdue, and I think it was worth the wait. The Hit List's sync is blazing fast and extremely reliable. It's a great solution. Interestingly enough, if it wasn't for Cultured Code's lack of OTA sync for Things, I probably would never have switched away from it. I guess this is a true tale of the Tortoise and the Hare.
The Hit List for Mac
Simple, Powerful Task Manager with OTA Sync
The Hit List is very powerfultask list that is dead simple to use; it's as easy as Wunderlist, and considerably more powerful. While I still continue to use Omnifocus, my wife has made the switch to The Hit List. It's perfectly suited for her needs without giving her the feeling of being overly complex and overbearing. There are a few features that I would still like to see before making a switch, but I am probably in a special class of tech users. I actually think that The Hit List would be a perfect solution for most people.
The wait for an updated desktop and iPhone app of the Hit List has been long overdue, and I think it was worth the wait. The Hit List's sync is blazing fast and extremely reliable. It's a great solution. Interestingly enough, if it wasn't for Cultured Code's lack of OTA sync for Things, I probably would never have switched away from it. I guess this is a true tale of the Tortoise and the Hare.
- Clean interface; Does not seem overwhelming
- Very well organized.
- Entering tasks is fast and the keyboard shortcuts give it a very fluid feel
- Switching between list and context mode is very nice and well thought out.
- Printing looks as great on paper as it does on screen. This was a very big deal for my wife who likes to take paper with her.
- The Hit List also syncs with iCAL! This hasn't worked for Omnifocus for quite some time. It's a feature that I really miss.
- Over-the-air sync is lightning fast.
Again, the entire process is very simple and streamlined. The whole thing is incredibly well done.
Suggestions / Wish list
- The Repeating tasks feature is hard to find. I had written a portion of this article on the lack of repeating tasks before I found out that The Hit List actually supported it. I would consider adding a ‘Repeat' button in the taskbar.
- Project Start / Due dates. I would like to be able to set a start or due date for an entire task list, rather than having to assign it to each task.
- Predictive tag/context feature can be confusing to someone who doesn't understand what is going on. I would consider turning that off by default.
- There should be a way to define a default list for contexts or tags (e.g. Tasks in my Walgreens and Target contexts always fall under my ‘Shopping' list)
- Today shows tasks in the “next three days”. This is kind of confusing and annoying. The today view should only show you tasks that are due today. Upcoming should show you what's coming next.
- Add a Time field to the start and due options. This is useful for keeping appointments, or scheduling a task at a particular point in the day (e.g, ‘Take out Trash')
- Add the ability to enter multiple tasks in the Quick Entry window. Hit enter to cycle to the next task, or Esc when done entering tasks.
- Setting to hide tasks that have not started (or will not start for x amount of days). For example, I have a Bills list, which contain a list of monthly repeating bills that need to be paid. There should be an active filter to not show items which have not yet started. Seeing every bill in the list becomes confusing.
Ease of Use: 9
Look and Feel: 10
Functionality: 7
Overall Rating: 8.5/10
Price: $49.95 | Trial? Yes | Homepage | App Store Link
The Hit List for iPhone
The iPhone app was definitely worth the wait. It's not as full featured as I would like, but again, for someone like my wife, it's perfect. However, considering this is the first release of the app, I understand that it's just a starting point. Overall, it is very well laid out and extremely easy to use. The only downside that I've found is that it seems to be extremely buggy; the app crashes quite a bit for me.
- The rapid entry feature is by far my favorite feature of the iPhone app. All other GTD companies should take not of this feature as I consider it to be ground-breaking and simple.
- The interface is very well designed and streamlined.
- The batch moving feature is very useful.
Suggestions / Wish List
- Push Notifications for due tasks.
- Ability to reduce the font size of tasks of the tasks lists and folders. The size 16 font is a bit large. I would probably drop the icon size, too.
- When looking at a task, you should be able to click a field to edit it, rather than clicking edit, then the field name
- An iPad app
- Buggy
Overall, The Hit List is a great app which, depending on your specific needs, you should definitely consider.
Ease of Use: 9
Look and Feel: 8
Functionality: 6
Overall Rating: 7/10
Price: $9.99 | Trial? Yes | Homepage | App Store Link
If you work at your computer, and your work involves typing at all, TextExpander is a must-have utility. TextExpander is a time saving tool; You type in a shortcut key, and it inserts your frequently used text. This is tremendously helpful in saving time when working on repetitive emails and tasks.
SuperDuper is an advanced disk copying program, allowing you to create bootable clones of your Mac OSX hard drive.
PDFKey will unlock, recover and/or decrypt the password/lock mechanism found in PDF files. With a single click, this PDFKey will remove all document copy protection without needing the password.
The only three tools you should need to completely replace Adobe’s overly expensive Acrobat Pro. Everything you will need to read, edit, merge, create, and sign PDF documents.
Rather than reviewing some of the newer apps, I wanted to take a few segments and review some of the more essential utilities needed for new Mac users. A feature missing from OSX is the ability to easily and efficiently burn CDs/DVDs. Burn solves that problem.
Maxprog has created the ultimate tool for online email marketing. MaxBulk Mailer is an application that allows you to send mass emails (in bulk) to your mailing list for no monthly cost. It’s a great tool for online marketing and mailing list management.
It took me a long time to find a suitable Subversion client for the Mac. Cornerstone by far exceeded all of my expectations.
Archiver is a must-have tool for anyone working with archives. Open all popular archive formats including RAR, StuffIt, 7zip, and of course Zip. Safely backup your files with Archiver’s built-in encryption support. And convert easily between archive formats, such as from RAR to Zip.
One of the most simple and useful apps that every OSX users should have: AppZapper. A clean and simple way to uninstall files from your mac. Simply drag one or more apps onto AppZapper. Then, watch as it finds the extra files and lets you delete them with one click.
