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A friend emailed me last night to ask if I had tried ‘Things’ from Cultured Code. I have — this is one of the GTD-based task management applications I will review in the coming weeks. So far, I’ve written about iGTD and OmniFocus, both excellent applications. The View from the Dock ‘Getting Things Done’ task manager series is taking more time than I anticipated, mainly because it takes a while to understand and fully evaluate each application.

But that’s not really what I want to talk about. In this same email, I was also asked if I had tried Cultured Code’s other product, Xyle scope. I thought I’d post a few thoughts on this.

I tried out the full-featured trial of Xyle scope this past summer. I think it’s is a really great application, especially if you’re learning HTML and CSS. What is it? I think of it as an all-in-one tool to dissect a web page. It offers a quick, clean and tidy way to view underlying code, which is very handy if you’re trying to figure out ‘how’d they do that?’ for a particular website that you like. It’s also great if you’re trying to match selectors with elements on a really complex page, or if you’re trying to locate a bug.

I really like how Xyle scope displays HTML in a hierarchical view (a tree structure). It’s much easier to grasp the structure of a page with this handy view. And if you click on any element on the page, you can readily see the code for just that element in the HTML pane. It’s a very well-ordered, visual way to present code. The CSS views built into this tool are also very well designed, easy to navigate and powerful.

What strikes me most about Xyle scope is how attractively it’s designed. I really like how it combines the ‘what you see’ on a given web page with the ‘what’s behind what you see’ in the code. It’s a real pleasure to use.

I almost bought this application but, in the end, I decided to stick with two free tools that perform most of the same feats as Xyle, even though I think they are much less elegant. I use Firefox when I’m working on websites, and have grown to rely on Chris Pederick’s Web Developer and Joe Hewitt’s Firebug.

Given that these two tools perform similar functions for free, I decided to stick with them. I also found that I preferred Firefox integration to opening up a separate stand-alone application when I want or need to quickly dissect a web page. It’s just easier, and I’m lazy.

What would convince me to reconsider? First, I should make it clear that I want Xyle scope in my toolbox for web development. I love it, I really do. Yet, I’m held back. It’s not really the price ($19.95). I think, rather, it’s that Xyle scope stops short of what could be a great all-in-one application. In other words, I want to use it to edit XHTML and CSS, too.

I would like to be able to use Xyle as an analysis tool with tight browser integration: I want all of Xyle’s power available within Firefox. Then, when I’m ready to edit, I’d like to flip a switch and start editing in a companion stand-alone application that integrates seamlessly with the analysis tools. Given the great design and sense of style of Xyle scope, I would love to see what Cultured Code could do if they took it to the next level. I would consider buying that — and I’d be willing to pay a higher price for it.

This is the third post in a series comparing task management applications that are based to some degree on the ‘Getting Things Done’ process. Today I’ll look at OmniGroup’s OmniFocus 1.0.

OmniFocus is the latest offering from OmniGroup, one of the most well-respected software developers for the Mac. As a long-time user of OmniWeb (my casual browser of choice), I’ve found OmniGroup to be quick to respond, helpful and friendly when contacted for support. This is a solid company, in other words, so I entered this evaluation full of optimism. I began using this app while it was still in Beta, and I’m now using the free 14-day trial of version 1.0 (which launched on Jan. 7). I did not opt to buy the program while it was still in Beta (for a limited time, Beta users could buy it for ). The program now cost , which is perhaps the most notable thing to say about OmniFocus. It’s expensive. Is it worth it? Before I get to that, let’s take a look at the program.

 

The Inbox

The OmniFocus Inbox is likely where you'll start out, and where you'll spend a lot of time (see Screenshot 1). Do yourself a favor: when you download the trial for this app, begin by viewing the available overview on their website to get a feel for it. I also found the tutorials in the Help files of the program to be simple and easy to follow, which I can't say for many of the programs I use. Then jump in and start adding some actions. Actions, in GTD terms, are either single things that you need to do or steps you take to complete a given project (the Project is a pretty straight-forward concept, so I'm not going to focus on it here). Adding actions is easy: click, type, enter some text, then hit Return for the next action.

Once you enter some actions, you assign them to projects and contexts (easy to choose from a dropdown list). Once you make all of your choices, you hit the ‘Clean Up’ icon on the top menu bar, and your items magically file themselves away, disappearing from the inbox.

This is similar to the ‘Process/Review’ function in iGTD, but I like the OmniFocus method because it’s easier. In iGTD, processing and reviewing all happens from the same tool (‘Process/Review’). With iGTD, you use keyboard shortcuts to fly through your tasks (iGTD calls them tasks, OmniFocus calls the actions) to re-sort or verify your contexts or projects, change a task’s status, etc.

In OmniFocus, you assign each tasks as many or as few parameters you want, and then ‘Clean Up.’ At it’s most basic, you can just assign a project and/or a context. At it’s most complex, you can assign each action a wide variety of parameters, which I’ll cover when I talk about the Inspector (since that’s where you’ll find these choices). Unlike iGTD, the ‘reviewing’ part of OmniFocus is a distinct feature, separated from the initial ‘processing’ of your actions. I’ll cover this shortly as well.

This workflow — dump actions in, add some specific parameters or goalposts, then dispatch the actions off with ‘Clean Up’ — is easy for me to grasp, and I like to see my Inbox empty when I clean up. It’s a bit of nice user feedback that makes me feel, well, organized (or at least approaching organization).

In the screenshot [Note: screenshots removed], you’ll also see some simple built-in color coding that appears once you assign due dates to your actions. The red text indicates an action that is past due; orange means it is due today. Easy enough. So far, this doesn’t do anything that iGTD doesn’t do.

Where it differs is in design and workflow. It’s obvious that the team who designed OmniFocus were striving for clean lines and simplicity while maintaining industrial-strength power under the hood. In effect, the powerful sorting/viewing guts of the app are carefully arranged and hidden until called upon by the user, whereas iGTD presents so many options and choices up-front, it feels as if you’re looking at the guts.

 

Contexts

While the term may vary, all of the GTD-based Mac task managers have a way to deal with the idea of 'context.' OmniFocus calls this idea, aptly, Contexts. Simply stated, contexts allow you to organize your lists based on where you are (see Screenshot 2). I think OmniFocus performs about as well as any of the apps in this review series when it comes to managing by location. They get high scores for making their user interface work as you would expect. Indeed, the interface (the means to add or subtract an item, for instance) will be familiar to you from other Mac apps. That's a good thing.

In the screenshot, you’ll see a list of actions that are due that I can only do when I am using my Mac. Note that only items in each project that can be accomplished while using the Mac are shown in this view. This is handy. The way that OmniFocus handles contexts, and the sorting and viewing of contexts, works for me. It’s intuitive and orderly.

One feature that sticks out is the ability to nest contexts within other contexts. For example, I have ‘email’ and ‘online’ as nested subcategories under ‘Mac.’ While this sounded good to me in theory, in practice it was more organization than I needed. It was enough for me to simply identify ‘Mac’ as a context. I don’t need or want additional sub-categories. However, I readily admit that this will be very handy for users with more ‘to do’ than me, namely business users (and those who like to be really, really organized).

Also note that some actions in the Context screenshot are purple. OmniFocus tries to be helpful by displaying certain colors for your actions. This can be useful, but it can also be confusing. Take the purple action: purple actions are the next items to do on your list. When you create a project, you can choose if the actions must be done one after the other (sequential) or in any order (parallel). A purple action means this is the next suggested action to do in your project (if order doesn’t matter) or it means that this is the next action you must to before you proceed to the next action (if order does matter). Personally, I think the purple text should only be used where order is important. If order is unimportant to me, I don’t need to have the first item on a parallel list to be highlighted. It’s not necessary.

Final word on the Context screenshot: you’ll note that I highlighted the ‘View’ bar, which I’ll discuss in brief next.

 

What's in a View

The View Bar (screenshot 3) is a fairly ingenious tool. Thankfully, the designers thought to add a subtle hint in each of the view options to remind you what it's supposed to do ('Show Actions with Status:' for instance is a nice clue that you're about to sort your actions by 'status'). The screenshot displays the dropdown menu for the Projects view. By way of example, you can change which projects are displayed by choosing from the following dropdown menu choices: remaining, active, stalled, pending, on hold, dropped, completed. Yikes. Is my project pending or is it on hold? Or maybe it's stalled? My brain is starting to hurt. Several of the other 'View' groups have similarly vexing choices. All I can say is, 'try them out. Play with it. See what it does.' I'll warn you though: it can start to get confusing when you mix and match view options. It's easy to lose 'where you are' in your data. Here's the good news: you don't necessarily need to use these power sorting and viewing options. You can use just a couple, or none. I think the developers, in offering this plethora of viewing and sorting choice, are aiming at people who need to balance hundreds of tasks and dozens of projects. I can see how sorting and grouping and flagging and estimating time duration, etc. could be helpful for these people. But not for me.

 

Focus

Now here's a feature I really like (screenshot 4): the Focus. This is a simple idea, and it's a useful idea. When you highlight a project and click the 'Focus' button on the menu bar, you will only see that project and its associated actions. The 'Focus' button will then change to read 'Show All' ... allowing you to quickly toggle back to the see all of your projects.

It’s so simple, I have nothing else to say about it.

Review

 

Now we’ll take a brief look at the OmniFocus review process (screenshot 5). The idea here is that you must periodically flip through all of your projects and actions to make sure they are still relevant, that they haven’t changed, and that they are filed correctly (in terms of due dates, status, etc.). OmniFocus tries to make this painless by automatically setting up a review process based on the time that you entered the data. This view (the ‘review view’) can be, um, viewed by selecting the choice from the ‘group projects by’ view drop-down list. What’s important here is that the program tells you what you should review by week and within the month, and you are presented with a right-menu option to mark each project as reviewed (once you do this, that project will automatically be rescheduled for review in a few weeks). This is a pretty good way to handle the review process, which is one of the GTD process steps to ensure you are staying on track with your actions and projects. If you’re like me, though, you may find this a little tedious. The ‘Review View’ is yet another example of just how many different ways a user can rearrange actions and projects via the View Bar. It’s truly amazing, truly powerful, and potentially truly confusing.

 

Inspector & Perspectives

These two items should probably not be lumped together because they are do different things. The one thing they have in common is that they both open up in separate floating panes. The Inspector pane is similar to many other Mac apps (Pages has a similar pane). Here, you can add even options for your projects, actions, contexts, and groups such as status, due dates, etc. Note that 'group' is one of the options here. I'm still not sure where these groups are, how I create one, and how I'm supposed to use the Inspector to further tag them. I stopped looking, to be honest, after mousing around for a few minutes. I have so many levels of organization in this program, do I really need to group items beyond placing them in projects?

At any rate, the Inspector is one of those Mac-like ways to stick a ton of metadata in one place and get it away from your main application window, presumably because we Mac users like our main window to stay clean and lean. I like that the program is smart enough to interpret what I enter in the ‘date’ and ‘time’ fields of the Inspector: you can type any of the following: ‘2d,’ ‘3 mo,’ ‘45m,’ ‘next wed 1pm’ … and OmniFocus will interpret the date and time correctly.

‘Perspectives’ (the other info pane in screenshot 6) is, as far as I know, an idea unique to OmniFocus. Essentially, a Perspective is a way to capture a certain view for later. This little organizational tool is like a super-bookmark: it reminds me of a similar OmniWeb feature which allows one to take snapshots of all open pages and current views on those pages to save for later. I love this feature. It’s a nice idea for OmniFocus — especially if, over time, you discover that you really like one particular view (or three or four) and would like to get back to that view quickly at a later time. Given the hundreds of viewing combinations one can choose from in this program, it’s a good idea to give the user a way to store it. The one potential pitfall of this is that you must remember you are storing a snapshot of all your data in one particular viewing state. If you forget this, you might choose to view a Perspective and incorrectly think that some of your data is missing! It’s not missing, of course, it’s just that your ‘Perspective’ only includes a subset of all of your data.

 

Quick Entry

I want to point out that OmniFocus offers what, for me, is essential: the ability to invoke a new action from anywhere at anytime on the Mac (screenshot 7). OmniFocus allows you to choose your own shortcut for this. It's simple and straightforward. Since I love Services, I want to point out that the app also places a little OmniFocus shortcut in your Apple Services menu. This allows you to select some text in any application and quickly insert it into a new OmniFocus action (even when the program is not open). While not all apps require the ability to enter data on the fly, apps like OmniFocus really do. You'll find yourself using it a lot more once you get used to quick system-wide data entry shortcuts.

 

The OmniFocus Right Click menu (Dock)

I thought I'd show you this final screenshot just as as indicator of the thought process that went into the application. I think it's telling that the right-click menu focuses on Contexts. OmniFocus does seem to favor them — apparently iCal also synchs based on contexts. This isn't necessarily a bad thing: I frankly never organized my task lists based on location before trying out these types of programs. It's a way of thinking that some will love and some will probably find abhorrent. Me? I tend to think in terms of projects, so I would rather see projects in a quick-access list. Better yet, I'd like the ability to toggle between projects and contexts.

The Verdict

1. Could I figure out how to use the application with minimal fuss (preferably without referring to documentation)?

No. I had to view the tutorial video and read the tutorial help files to really get going.

2. Was I still enthusiastic about using the application after a week of use?

Yes and no. I have a lot of respect for OmniGroup. I am impressed that they brought in productivity gurus to try to get this application done right. I can see that they tried hard to make it simple enough for basic use but powerful enough for serious business use. I think it’s a great start. I was still excited about the potential of this app a week later, but all of the sorting, viewing, and tagging options started to weigh on me. It’s too much work! I began to feel that I was spending too much time planning and not enough time doing. To get the most out of this complex app, I think the secret would be to stick with it for a long time — you would have to commit to it, get to know it inside and out, develop routines and workflows that work for you. Then, I imagine the curve would change: it will begin to feel more like a a powerful tool that helps you get more done instead of a powerful tool with too many options.

3. How well does the app integrate into the Mac OS?

Pretty good. Good integration for system-wide data entry (so you can easily enter new items, even when the program is hidden or closed). Not as many options for integration with other apps as iGTD (in fact, I think there is only iCal integration right now).

4. How well could I manage all of my tasks (work, home, play, etc.)

It did a good job of keeping track of the things I had to get done, but I found myself playing with the View options too often. I kept adding more metadata so I could use the various sort options to see how they worked. In other words, maybe there are too many options.

5. How did the program ‘feel?’ How ‘Mac-like’ is it?

I think the user experience is good, but not great. The application is very Mac-like, in that I immediately knew how to move data around. I like the clever way that OmniGroup embedded the Views and Perspectives — when you step back and look at all the sorting and viewing tools they squeezed in there and then ponder how clean the user interface still looks, it’s an impressive feat. The question is: are there simply too many viewing and tagging options? I felt bogged down in the end.

In conclusion: this will likely be one of the top three GTD-based task managers. It’s a solid program — and it’s only at version 1.0. However, it costs too much for most Mac users. Those who are willing to plunk down for this will likely be serious business users who are serious about task management. The rest of us? I for one am still still seeking something a little easier to grasp, an even simpler user interface, perhaps a few less options, and a lower price point.

Once again, I want to point out that ‘GTD’ and ‘Getting Things Done’ are registered trademarks of David Allen & Co. I still don’t want to get sued.

I’ve been using Omnigroup’s OmniFocus for several weeks now to prepare for my evaluation of this task management application (part of a series). It’s quite an impressive tool. I’m ready to put my thoughts together — look for it by the end of the weekend. Meanwhile, I want to comment on the iPod Touch.

I’m going to retire my battle-worn third generation iPod this weekend. Now that the iPod Touch offers much of the same functionality as the iPhone, I’m ready to ugrade. You might wonder why I’m not going to spring for the iPhone. The main reason is cost — not the cost of the iPhone, but the cost of the AT&T service plan. The cheapest plan equates to over $700 per year. Since I don’t talk on the phone that much (and my current employer provides me with a cell phone), I’ve decided the Touch is my best bet.

The only thing I think I’ll miss is the iPhone’s ability to surf the web and check email via the AT&T EDGE network when one is not near a WiFi source. But I’m confident that WiFi access points will continue to proliferate to a degree that will make it easier and easier to connect wherever I am. If I can’t connect in some locations, no big deal. I don’t really want to be connected in all places at all times anyway! When I’m on a business trip, however, it will be a particularly nice feature to be able to browse the web, get directions, and check my mail from my hotel room or at a nearby coffee shop.

The Infamous $20 Fee

Some iPod Touch owners are expressing outrage at Apple's decision to charge $20 for a major software upgrade of the device. This upgrade, announced this week at the Macworld Expo, adds five applications (mail, notes, maps, weather, stocks) to the iPod Touch — features that have been on the iPhone from the start. For those who buy a new iPod Touch as of last Tuesday, the additional apps will be included for free.

I have mixed feelings about this. I can understand why some early adopters feel like they are getting ripped off and, in effect, penalized just for being early adopters. However, early adopters bought the Touch with full knowledge that it did not have all the software features of the iPhone. Apple never said that these features would eventually be added, although many hoped for this.

It’s not surprising that Apple opted to charge a nominal fee. The real question, I think, is if $20 is “nominal”. I’ve read that a fee of some sort is legally necessary because of the Sarbannes-Oxley Act. This Act apparently states that you can’t add new features to something that you offer at a one-time fee without charging for the additional features. The iPhone is exempt from this because users pay running fees per month for this device. But what about the Apple TV? You don’t need to pay a monthly fee for this appliance, right? Yet Apple rolled out a major software upgrade for this at Macworld as well…and they’re offering it free to all, including existing Apple TV owners. Apple should better explain their rationale for the fee decisions they have made.

Still, I think it’s not that bad of a thing. If you buy a new Mac, you get Leopard and the latest version of iLife pre-installed. But if you already owned an iMac when these updates shipped, you have to buy these upgrades. I don’t see much of a difference between this and the situation with the iPod Touch. I suppose that’s easy for me to say since I’m going to get these additional apps for free.

So the question really comes down to this: why $20? Why not $5 (or whatever the minimum is to meet business/legal requirements). Twenty dollars seems a bit inflated. One thing is clear: this is a black eye for Apple. They have not offered a clear explanation to justify the upgrade cost for the iPod Touch, so people are drawing their own conclusions and forming unfavorable opinions. The impression Apple is leaving is that they may be getting a tad greedy…and they don’t care much about early adopters (faithful consumers that Apple should want to take care of very well).

Perhaps all the bad press will lead Apple to offer a discount of some sort to those who must pay this fee, as they did for the early adopters who bought the first iPhones only to see the price of the phone drop a whopping two hundred dollars just a few weeks later. Or perhaps they will simply ignore the grumbling of a few iPod Touch owners and press on.

As Apple’s market share continues to expand, I hope they don’t lose sight of what makes them special. I’d hate to see them become more like, er, that other company that sells PC operating systems.

Dvorak users of the world scored a little victory this week. The TextExpander team at SmileOnMyMac fixed the problem with the Mac OS Dvorak-Qwerty keyboard layout, detailed in an earlier View from the Dock post.

A recap of this bug: when using the Mac OS Dvorak-Qwerty option, TextExpander did not previously work. Now it does. How did this come to pass? Me and at least one other user asked that it be fixed. And it was fixed, very promptly. I’d like to thank SmileOnMyMac for listening. I am a very satisfied customer. And here’s more unsolicited praise for TextExpander — it saves me an amazing amount of time (I just used it to add the previous Em dash). My wife is a devoted user, too. She uses TextExpander to save keystrokes on her website.

Now I am going to try to get Adobe to fix their Creative Suite. Unfortunately, I must still switch to the QWERTY keyboard layout when I’m using PhotoShop and the other Adobe apps, and I shouldn’t have to do this. Maybe it will be fixed if Apple buys Adobe!

If you do your typing on a Mac and you use Dvorak, I want to ensure you know that you can quickly toggle between Qwerty and Dvorak (or Dvorak-Qwerty, or other languages). Once you enable these option in the International Preference Pane (found under Apple’s System Preferences), you can choose to show this input menu in the Apple Menu Bar. You may then quickly toggle between the different keyboard layouts using a keyboard shortcut of your choice (I use option-command-space).

A quick reminder: if you use Windows, check out SkyEnergy’s HotKeyz. This little freeware program allows you to easily remap shortcut keys (paste, save, copy, etc.) to match the QWERTY key positions while using the Dvorak layout. It works quite well.

Finally, I want to point out a new development that is full of potential for those of us who use alternative typing layouts. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to look down at my keyboard and actually see the Dvorak layout. I may be able to do just that in the not-to-distant future. Check out this ArsTechnica report about a recent Apple patent for a dynamically controlled keyboard.

Imagine a keyboard with organic LEDs on each key. If you’re curious about the possibilities, see Art Lebedev’s Optimus Maximus (it’s available now, if you can afford it). I imagine a future Apple keyboard that displays the Dvorak keys, then dynamically displays QWERTY keys when I press a command-key combination. And I envision my keyboard dynamically changing to display game-specific commands or key combinations for shortcut-intensive programs like Photoshop or Final Cut Studio. This is surely the keyboard of the future, and I can’t wait to get one.

I discovered the solution to the WordPress registration problem. You will now receive an email with your chosen user name and password when you subscribe to this site. The problem is with the last WordPress upgrade (2.3.1). With some hosts (including Bluehost, my host), this upgrade broke the auto-generated email. I don’t know why, but it did.

Here’s the solution if your interested: What you need to do is open up pluggable.php (which is located in the wp-includes folder in your WordPress installation on your host server). Look for line 228 and comment it out (to comment out a line on a PHP file, use //). It will look like this:

// $phpmailer->Sender = apply_filters( ‘wp_mail_from’, $from_email );"

Then save the file and you’re good to go. The only thing I don’t like about this solution is the email format. Instead of receiving an email from ‘wordpress@viewfromthedock.com,’ you will now receive an email from ‘viewfro3@box361.bluehost.com.’ What an ugly address! I’ll have to see if I can change this to a more user-friendly address.

This is the second post in a series comparing task management applications that are based on the ‘Getting Things Done’ process. I’ll begin with a look at bartek:bargiel’s iGTD 1.4.5.6.

I started testing this application out many months ago, right about the time that I started to learn more about the GTD process. This little application was then generating (and continues to generate) a lot of buzz: it's powerful, it's free (well, it's actually donationware, so it's a nice idea to give the developer some cash if you intend to keep using it) and it integrates nicely with many other Mac apps (e.g. it can synch with .Mac, synch with an iPhone, and meshes nicely with QuickSilver, the very capable and elegant data management and application launcher).

The Poland-based developer who created this program (who apparently developed this on his free time; he has a day job according to his profile) integrates the core ideas of the Getting Things Done model very well. The application is updated and improved with amazing frequency — it seems that every time I launch it, there's a new version available. I don't know when this guy sleeps.

I find the user-interface of iGTD to be both interesting and daunting. I admit I have a weakness for lots of options, and in this department iGTD excels. That's the interesting part: it presents you with an amazing amount of control for organizing your stuff. But all of these options come at a price. There are so many choices that it may make your head hurt. Check out the first screenshot (on the left) to see what the application looks like. At the simplest level, iGTD organizes your 'to do' items in two main ways: via 'contexts' and 'projects.' A context is simply a way to denote 'where I will do this task.' In screenshot #1, you'll see that the context for the item 'post iGTD review' is the 'computer.' In other words, I will post this review only when I'm at my computer. I can then add this item to a 'project' of my choice. In screenshot #1, I'm about to add the 'post iGTD review' item to the 'my website' project. This simple bit of organization allows me to quickly see what I have to do by context and what I need to do by project. I can choose which view I want by selecting the appropriate button on the menu bar of the application. When I view my items by context, iGTD displays what project each item in that context belongs to. When I view by project, I see what context each item in that projects belongs to. Make sense? You may want to download the trial from the developers site and try it out to better understand this. By way of example, I could have two items in my 'at the computer' context. When I sit down at the iMac, I say to myself, "Let's see what I'm supposed to do while I'm here at the computer." I see that I have two items: one is to post this review. The project for that item is called 'my website.' The other item is to 'back up my data.' The project for this one is 'mac management.' So, iGTD offers a a handy way to organize, particularly when you're dealing with a lot of items. I like how iGTD manages contexts and projects. It makes sense. But let's take a step back — the first thing your supposed to do if you follow the 'GTD workflow' is to transfer all those dozens or hundreds of things you have 'to do' from your head to the computer. For that you use the 'inbox.'

The inbox is simply a collection point for all your 'to do' items. When you're ready (that is, when you're done entering items and your brain is empty), you can start processing and categorizing those items to help you get better organized. I found that the easiest way to do this with iGTD is to drag items to the appropriate context (drag 'get groceries' to the 'errand' context, for instance ... and note that you can create whatever context you want), and then double-click in the 'Project' field for that item and choose a project to add it to (or create a new one). These ideas (placing your tasks in an inbox, then sorting them by contexts and projects) is a core idea of the GTD process, and all the apps I'm going to look at more or less follow similar organizational lines. Now I want to discuss a few finer points about iGTD in particular.

Remember when I said the interface was both interesting and daunting? I want to hit on the daunting (or potentially confusing) aspects of this program. For starters, iGTD allows you to assign 'priority' and 'effort' for each of your items. Power users may like this, but I found it to be tedious. I tried setting both 'effort' and 'priority,' but it quickly became cluttered and confusing as the task list grew. Do I need both? What's the difference? The 'effort' bar (seen in Screenshots 1 and 2) seems like overkill to me, but perhaps those of you with a penchant for extreme organization will enjoy it. If you don't like or need to numerically prioritize and/or visualize your 'effort level' for each item, you can always ignore these functions. The application doesn't care.

iGTD also allows you to add start and due dates to items which, of course, is critical for managing tasks across time. This works great and is easy to do in iGTD. But there's more. With iGTD, you can also mark items as 'pending' or 'waiting for' (this is graphically represented in iGTD by a little Play/Pause button that shows up in a column right before the name of each task. Personally, I think the terms 'pending' and 'waiting for' are too similar. It confuses me. Start dates and due dates are enough. In fact, due dates are enough for my needs.

I'm also not comfortable with the sorting functions available below the task list (see the drop-down lists that say 'Current & Future' and 'All Tasks' in Screenshot #1). There are just too many options. From these drop-down lists, you can choose from 'Current & Future,' 'Current,' 'Future,''Maybe,' and 'All' ... and once you make this choice, you can further filter your tasks by choosing one of these options: 'All tasks,' 'to do,' 'to wait for,' and 'delegated.' This exemplifies the problem for me: there are too many views, filters, and organizing fields. Who might need this level of fidelity and amount of power? Probably people using this app for business, where one is faced with managing many projects over time that involve many different people (and for this, iGTD offers the ability to delegate ... perhaps this is when one might deploy the 'waiting for' tag). I could go on about the confusion factor when delving into dates, reminder tags, notes, links and time tags, but suffice it to say that this is likely going to be the point where some people may say "my head hurts."

I forgot to mention that you can also right-click on each item and get even more options (as seen in Screenshot #2). Here, you'll find the 'Maybe' tag, which is peculiar to GTD. It means 'maybe I'll get to this someday.' I like that. I always have some items that I want to do in some vague, undefined time and place in the future, and it's nice to be able to track these items without cluttering up your concrete time-sensitive items. When you mark an item as 'Maybe,' by the way, the 'play/pause' button changes to a little question mark in a blue bubble. What about the other choices you get when you right-click on a task? Suffice it to say that there are many more options, and the best way to see it is to try the free demo for a week or so. In my opinion, the developer did a fine job in offering up so many methods and shortcuts and sub-menus, etc. to organize your data, but I reiterate that it may be too much to easily grasp for many users. Here are a few more screenshots for you to peruse [screenshots removed]:

The first of these three is an image of the 'QuickAdd' box (screenshot #3). This is an example of excellent system-wide integration. I can be surfing the web, hit the F6 function key (provided iGTD is running), and this handy quick-entry box will pop up. I like this, but as you'll see in the screenshot, I'm still not sure what to do with those 'pending' and 'waiting' checkboxes. Screenshot #4 shows yet even more options available from the Dock (with a right-click on the Dock icon). That reminds me, iGTD ALSO offers a menu item up in the Mac menu bar. This is yet another way to quickly add your data, synch your data, and categorize your data. Finally, screenshot #5 shows the iGTD Services menu. Why show this? Because I love Apple's Services menu, and it's surely one of the least used features on the Mac.

The useful Service item here is this: if you highlight some text in whatever program you are currently using, you can go to the Services menu (click on the program name in the Apple Menu Bar and choose 'Services' - it's available in every application you use) and choose iGTD. Here, you'll find 'Put to iGTD inbox.' iGTD does not need to be running. What this will do is open up iGTD, create a new task in your inbox, and place the highlighted text in the 'Task Notes' field of iGTD. That's handy — you can't use the F6 key to enter new data, after all, if iGTD is not running. But you can always use Apple Services. (Take a look at your Services menu. You may be surprised at how many apps offer little time-saving shortcuts here).

The Verdict

1. Could I figure out how to use the application with minimal fuss (preferably without referring to documentation)?

I could figure out the basics, but some aspects of the program baffle me.

2. Was I still enthusiastic about using the application after a week of use?

I was enthusiastic for several months, then my usage trailed off. I was only using a fraction of the programs power, and that bugged me. I got tired of looking at all those options and blank fields that I just didn't require for my basic life organization needs.

3. How well does the app integrate into the Mac OS?

Extremely well. From the Services menu, to the Menu Bar item, to the Dock menu, to the function 'hot keys,' to the integration with tons of other apps, iGTD is extremely integrated, and extremely powerful. According to the developer's website, iGTD integrates with Quicksilver, LaunchBar, Safari, Firefox, Camino, BonEcho, Opera, Apple Mail, MailTags 2.0, Microsoft Entourage, NetNewsWire, endo, Journler, Yojimbo, DEVONthink Pro, Microsoft Word, Apple Pages, TextEdit, TextMate, TextWrangler, Finder, PathFinder, EagleFiler, MacJournal, Mori, WebnoteHappy and VoodooPad Pro.

4. How well could I manage all of my tasks (work, home, play, etc.)

Very easily, but it got confusing when I started to organize by dates, pending, future, maybes, etc. However, I want to caveat this: you don't have to use all of the available options and power features. And remember, we're talking about a free application here. Maybe you could live with a few too many options for the cost of a donation to the developer.

5. How did the program 'feel?' How 'Mac-like' is it?

It feels complex and heavy. I tend to initially like complex and heavy applications (probably just because of the 'gee whiz' factor, as in 'gee whiz, look at all the things I could do with this'). But I find that, after some time, complex and heavy just weighs me down. It comes down to the difference between what I could theoretically do with a program and what I really am doing with it in reality. Perhaps some aspects of iGTD wouldn't be so confusing if I were better versed in the semantics of GTD. But I'm a novice, and I think the winner in this war of GTD-based task organizers will be the one that doesn't require a customer to know much about GTD. It should simply make sense, shouldn't feel bloated and it should be a pleasure to use — the elusive Mac-like quality.

In conclusion: this will remain a strong GTD task management contender for the Mac because it is rich in features, looks great and is free. When you consider that this is made by one person, as opposed to a powerhouse Mac software company (like OmniGroup's OmniFocus ... which I'll look at next), it really deserves to be a contender. It's a great piece of software. If you are a GTD wizard, you will likely love this program. If you are not, you may find it's a bit like using a chain saw to cut butter. The last word: iGTD Version 2 is now being developed (you can try an Alpha release of it by visiting the developer's site). It'll be worth another look once this new and improved version hits the streets.

By the way, I better add that 'GTD' and 'Getting Things Done' are registered trademarks of David Allen & Co. I don't want to get sued.

I've decided to get better organized in 2008, so I've been trying out task management solutions for the Mac.

What I'm looking for is a well-designed application with powerful features that cleanly integrate with the Mac operating system. I want to be able to group my varied tasks into project groups that are easy to view and are logically organized. I want tag my list items so they are easy to find and search. I want one central place where I can quickly see what I have to do today and what I have to do next. I want a central place to store everything in my head. Above all, I want to enjoy using this application. No, more ... I want an application that makes me want to use it. A tall order, perhaps, but this is what the Mac user experience is all about.

Seeking Alternatives to Apple's Mail/iCal

Unfortunately, I think Apple missed the mark with their improved Mail/iCal 'to do' management introduced with Mac OS X Leopard. Granted, it's better than what existed in Mac OS X Tiger and all other previous OS X versions (which, essentially, was nothing). But it's still not there. I tried using the 'Apple option' for a couple of weeks before I abandoned it. While the Mail/iCal solution is simple and well-integrated and may be enough for many people, it's just not working out for me. It doesn't feel right. I don't like the overly simplistic to-do list in Mail. I can't group items into bigger categories or projects. I can't tag items. I can't easily archive completed items. I don't like how it integrates with iCal. As for iCal, the to do list view is fine is you just have a few items, but it quickly becomes unwieldy and hard to read as more are added. I could go on. Suffice it to say that Apple's offerings seemed underpowered to me, so I moved on.

The good news is that there are an overwhelming number of third-party task management applications out there for the Mac user (there are also a number of plug-ins available to enhance Mail and iCal task management and a host of web-based solutions to help manage your life). That's the great thing about the Mac - the third-party developers who make applications for Mac OS X are unmatched on any platform. I truly believe that.

 

The bad news is that it's hard to know where to start because there are so many choices. My solution? I chose to focus on a peculiar subset of task management applications based on a system called Getting Things Done. Why? Because many geeky mac users that I respect are oddly enthusiastic about this model, and have been for quite some time.

Getting Things Done on the Mac

If you follow the mac community buzz, you may have heard of David Allen's 'Getting Things Done' framework for, well, getting things done. Over the course of the past year, it seemed I couldn't escape the chatter about this revolutionary way to manage one's daily and long-term tasks. Intrigued by the noise, I checked out an audiobook of 'Getting Things Done' from the library. Allen's ideas are indeed innovative and clever.

In essence, GTD is a systematic way to organize your thoughts that begins with dumping out the contents of your brain in an 'inbox,' then organizing those things along the lines of when you plan to get to them (e.g. today, next week, someday), in what context you will do these things (e.g. at the computer, at work, on the road), and how you group these things (into different projects). GTD is way of capturing all these little bits of 'things I want to do' and 'things I need to do' so you don't have to worry about remembering them all. Once you get all those thoughts down, GTD offers up a nifty way to organize it in a meaningful way over time.

At some point, Mac developers who adhered to the GTD model began creating clever applications and scripts to capture this process. While I haven't closely followed the evolution of this development, I noticed that it seemed to really get going in mid-2006 ... and this most certainly had something to do with organization guru Merlin Mann of 43 Folders, whose tireless efforts helped to popularize this system, particularly on the Mac platform.

Over the course of 2007, I came to associate GTD with Mac task management as more and more applications based on this model began to appear. Over time, I've watched as available mac-based GTD programs evolved from the relatively simple (see kinklessGTD) to the increasingly sophisticated (see OmniFocus, iGTD).

The 2008 showdown

As the options continue to evolve and refine, I think we're heading for a final shake out in 2008. My prediction: this will be the year for the Killer Task Management Application for the Mac, and that application is going to be based on the GTD model.

This will be the year when a small handful of really great Mac-based task managers vie for the mainstream — you may never have heard of GTD, but if these task managers are successful, you won't need to know anything at all about David Allen's system. All you'll have to do is pick your favorite and start getting organized.

Here are the applications that I will compare: iGTD, Cultured Code Things, Midnight Inbox, coalmarch Park and OmniFocus from OmniGroup.

As the dust settles over the next year, I think that one application will stand out above the rest. I've made my choice, but I'll save my opinion for the end of this series.

How I will review these apps

To keep things simple, I evaluated these power organization apps with a few questions in mind:

 

• Could I figure out how to use the application with minimal fuss (preferably without referring to documentation)?
• Was I still enthusiastic about using the application after a week of use? 
• How well does the app integrate into the Mac OS? 
• How well could I manage all of my tasks (work, home, play, etc.) 
• How did the program 'feel?' How 'mac-like' is it?

 

This last point may need a little clarification. You may have heard or read that a particular program is 'mac-like.' What this means is this: Apple software is generally renowned for simplicity, consistency, lack of clutter, and a great user interface. A 'mac-like' application, then, exemplifies these qualities. I also consider a program to be 'mac-like' if the interface is instantly familiar and obvious because it's similar to other Apple programs I use, such as the Finder or iTunes. Last but not least, a good mac application should integrate seamlessly with the rest of the Mac OS.

In the next post, I'll begin the comparison.

I recently completed a project that began with installing VMware Fusion on my Intel iMac and (unexpectedly) ended with an old Compaq Presario laptop running Linux. If you’re an adventurous type and wish to reclaim an old PC, or if you just switched to a mac and now have an old PC collecting dust, read on. In my case, a friend donated an old Compaq laptop to me (she switched to an iMac) so I could use it to test out websites on Internet Explorer. It did the job … but just barely. Windows XP just doesn’t run well on 58MB of RAM! My workflow went like this: launch Explorer, go for a snack, take a bathroom break, play with the cat, then arrive back at the laptop to either (a) load the page I wished to preview or (b) discover the machine had inexplicably froze.

Thankfully, my intel-based iMac is now handily running Windows XP and the old laptop is now obsolete. Or so I thought. On a whim, I installed Ubuntu Linux on my iMac (again, using virtual machine wizadry) just to test it out. I was amazed - it was fast, enjoyable, and very useable. One nice thing about Linux is that the OS shares the same Unix underpinnings as Mac OSX, so if you’ve been using X for a while, you’ll feel fairly comfortable in the new environment. When I started learning more about Linux, I was surprised at the dozens of ‘flavors’ of this OS and the vaster number of open source (free) software applications that run on it (all of which can run on Mac OS too, by the way). I am in awe that there are so many people out there developing this stuff out of sheer passion and dedication. How cool is that?

It was then that inspiration struck. Why not install Linux on my old Compaq paperweight? What a great way to use an old machine, and to learn more about Linux (and Unix) - skills that will make me a better Mac user too. I was not dissapointed. Linux turned my Compaq into a very usable machine that is suprisingly responsive (I won’t say it’s speedy - but it runs like lightning compared to running Windows). For the first time in my life, I actually enjoyed using a Compaq (despair over a Compaq drove me to switch to a mac in 2000!). I now have a risk-free platform on which I can learn about Linux and develop my Unix skills. It also serves, simply, as an extra PC around the house. True, I can also learn Unix commands via the Terminal on my mac (on Mac OSX or using a virtual machine to run Linux), but it gives me greater peace of mind to explore the inner workings of Unix on a totally separate machine. I can try things I would be hesitant to try on the mac. And if I really mess something up on my Compaq (and I already have), I don’t really care. I just reinstall the operating system and try again.

The Linux version I’m using — Puppy Linux — is under 100MB, so it’s quick to reload. A warning to you, though: it took me (a Unix novice with no prior Linux experience) several days of experimentation to get everything up and running on the laptop. Now that I have the process down, I can reformat the partition of the hard drive and reinstall a clean version of Linux in about 15 minutes. But you should know that you may have to get under the hood and expirement to get it working (here, I’m mainly talking about the drivers for your USB plug-ins, network connection, or printer) … but that’s what makes it so much fun. It’s a good way to learn.

To be fair, I think my experience had a lot to do with the Compaq and my inexperience and little to do with the Linux packages I tried (searching user forums, I discovered that many people aptly refer to these old Compaq laptops as ‘craptops’). If you are installing Linux on a newer laptop (newer than my Presario 1200 running at 500Mhz with 58MB RAM) or perhaps on a laptop of higher quality, you may have no trouble at all. I had plenty of trouble. And that leads us to the first rule to follow before you start any project like this: backup any data on the target machine that you wish to keep! I’ll post about how I choose a Linux version to install and the steps I took to get it running very soon. I want to end on this note: you will not get a laptop out of this that can run all your mac or pc applications. You’ll be using freeware versions of applications that do much of the same thing. So what’s it good for? You get a machine for light text work, email, and web browsing on a machine that was formerly unbearable to use. You get to experience an operating system that is increasingly used around the world because it’s free and it works well. And you get a platform on which you can learn Unix. Not bad for a PC I formerly considered trash.

I had two problems with this website over the weekend.

First, I was unable to view or send files to this site for over 48 hours. I was able to see my files via the online 'control panel' of my web host. However, I could not connect using HTTP (viewing from a web browser) or FTP (transferring files using an FTP application). I only had this problem for this specific website. My internet connection was working just fine, and I could connect to my other sites without a problem.

Second, when I viewed the files for this site via the online host 'control panel' of my web host (during the period of no-access, I could still see the files this way and only this way), I discovered that my style sheet...the one I had painstakingly and lovingly created over weeks...was zero kilobytes in size. All of my CSS information was gone. My most recent backup was a week old, and I had changed a lot during that week. Mea culpa. I probably will never know why this file was erased. It could have been an FTP transmission error, it could have been the fault of the (previous) company hosting this site. The point is it does not matter – I should have had it backed up.

I'm happy to say that my problems are solved. My connection is up and running on a brand new web host. I decided to switch to a new host as a result of this bad experience. I also have my style sheet back in order, which I had to manually re-create. Here are the lessons learned.

Lesson #1

If you're having a weird connectivity problem, check your router first (if you have one). It turns out my problem was not with my service provider, but was with my router. For some reason it was blocking my access to this specific server space on my web host only. My host (1&1) never figured this out, and I wasted a weekend talking to tech support. All they could tell me was that it must be my problem because they could not find any errors on their end (more on how they told me this later).

My solution was not as simple as resetting the router. I tried this early on. I unplugged it, then plugged it back in. I rebooted my mac. I tried to force a change to my external IP address in case that address was being blocked by 1&1. Nothing worked. Then, over two days later, I thought, 'Hey, what if I plugged my Ethernet cable directly into my primary mac?' If you are a network-saavy person, perhaps that would have been the first thing you might have tried. For me (definitely not network-saavy), it didn't occur to me to take the router entirely out of the equation. Why? I had online access for all my macs in the house through this router, and I could access all sites ... except this ONE SITE. I thought resetting it would fix any issues.

At any rate, my connection worked just fine after I connected my ethernet directly to my mac, and now I had isolated the problem to my router. The lesson here is this: if you try resetting your router and rebooting your mac and you still have a connectivity problem, it's worth a shot to take your router out of the loop to see if that helps (and thus isolate your problem). This is easy to do and it's a good first step before you call tech support. In my case, I discovered that there was a firmware update available for my router (I'm using the Linksys WRT54G). Once I updated my firmware, the problem was solved. I'm not sure if the fix was the firmware or because the firmware wiped out some corrupt settings or data. In either case, I learned that there is no way to tell if you router is up to date unless you go online and manually check. There's no auto 'check for update' feature in this wireless router model, at least.

Since we're talking about routers, I'll add that a hardware router is your best firewall defense - it effectively hides your internal addresses and devices from the outside world. In other words, all the outside world sees on my home network is my router - nothing else. It's worth getting one, in my opinion; and it's necessary if you want wi-fi in your home and/or you are sharing one connection with multiple macs). The built-in Mac OS firewall is good (don't forget to TURN IT ON - it's not on by default when you install Leopard!), but you're first and best line of defense is a hardware router. My Linksys was cheap ($50) and it's worked well for me, save for this weekend. When I'm in the market for a new wireless router, I think I'll go with an Apple product. Why? Ease of setup, ease of configuration. Period. If you have a Linksys, you know what I mean. The browser-based interface isn't very intuitive. (Note to Linksys wireless router owners, check your web-based admin panel for the link that says 'firmware update' if you find you need such an update. It's pretty straight-forward).

Lesson #2

Choose a web host carefully.

Cheapest is not always best. I know this to be true, but I admit I choose 1&1 because of the price. I have to say it worked well for me until I needed support. I called 1&1 three times this weekend. Each time, a live person answered the phone within a minute. That was impressive, but my experience went downhill from there. When I called 1&1 on Friday, I was told to wait four hours before trying to connect to viewfromthedock.com and it would probably work. When I tried to get a bit of an explanation of why this might be so, I was told that I must have been trying to connect to my files too many times in too short of a period of a time. Because of this, my IP address was temporarily blocked. I thought this was strange, since I was doing nothing out of the ordinary. Alas, twelve hours later I had the same problem. I called 1&1 again. This time I was asked to try a 'traceroute.' The tech support guy then proceeded to explain how to do this on a PC. When I said I was on a mac, he told me to forget it and that my issue would be sent to 'Level 2' tech support. I was also told I would be contacted. Lastly, he told me to wait for 24 hours until I tried to connect to my site again. Quite frustrating. I was annoyed that I still could not transfer files to my site. And I was annoyed that my use of a mac seemed to stop tech support dead in their tracks - this despite me telling him that I knew how to do traceroute and could take a screenshot for him of the result. By Sunday night, I had still not heard from anyone, so I called again. This tech support helper seemed to have no prior knowledge of me ever contacting 1&1. I don't blame him, of course. I do fault whatever tracking system they are using. All he could tell me was that the problem was likely located at my computer, not with 1&1. This was actually quite helpful, and led me to the router solution. I then switched to 1&1 to Bluehost.

Why? I had actually been pondering a move to this hosting company for a while. This gave me the push I needed. Bluehost is known for good customer service, and they are known to be mac-friendly. The biggest reason for me, though, is that they support Ruby on Rails development. 1&1 does not officially support this. Since I'm trying to learn Ruby on Rails, it made sense to jump to a host with good built-in support. Price-wise, it's not that much more expensive if you sign up for the two-year package. I'm not crazy about the two-year lock-in, but it did lower the price to the equivalent of $6.95 a month. That equates to $50 more than 1&1 for a two year time block. Not too bad. The control panel is a little confusing. My friend Brandon, a Bluehost user, pointed this out. The vote's still out for me. I can say that I love the ease with which one can backup files and databases with Bluehost. As you might imagine, I checked out this feature first! I'll post on my Bluehost experience more at a later date after I've used it for awhile. I think the web is lacking good third-party reviews of hosting services. If you've ever searched for an independent review of a web host, you know what I mean. Search engines generally return dubious 'top 10' lists — I say 'dubious' because I don't trust these sources.

Lesson #3

Transferring a WordPress installation from one host to another is surprisingly simple.

The easy part is copying all your WordPress files from the old server to the new one. There's nothing to it: you just copy them over. The more difficult part is transferring your MySQL database. Conceptually, it goes like this: you copy all of your files over. Then you export your MySQL database that holds all your WordPress posts, comments, etc. Then you import that information into a new MySQL database on your new host. Lastly, you change your WordPress configuration file so it properly points to this new database (if you use Wordpress, this is the same wp_config.php file that you modified when installing WP. I've included four screenshots here to illustrate what this looks like. Note that your host may have a set-up that looks different than mine, but the options will be the same if your host uses MySQL and phpMyAdmin. For a quick checklist, check out these Wordpress Codex instructions.

Lesson #4

Develop your site design locally on your mac, then transfer the finished theme over to your live site. Fortunately, this is easy on a mac. Why did I not do this for my site? I actually did, but once I uploaded my 'finished' theme I decided to totally change it. I was lazy, in short. I decided to just kept editing my live WordPress installation directly on the server using the Panic Transmit. The easy mac solution for running a virtual server on your mac is called MAMP. It's dead simple to set up. It includes a dashboard widget that allows you to easily start and stop your local server. What a cool tool. And it's free.

That's it for this post. Oh, and don't forget to back up your data .

I encountered yet another Dvorak bug today. For the benefit of those (ok, probably all of you) who do not know what Dvorak is, it’s an alternative keyboard layout. It’s generally considered faster and more efficient than the standard QWERTY layout.

I can certainly type quite fast and, since the Dvorak keys are not in the same place as the QWERTY keys, I learned to type without ever looking down … it wouldn’t help anyways. Never needing to look down is a plus in my book. Anyhow, it turns out that TextExpander does not support the Dvorak-Qwerty keyboard layout. Dvorak-Qwerty is a Mac OS option (available via the International/Input Menu preference pane) that allows one to type in Dvorak but still access the command shortcut keys in their designated QWERTY positions. That means that I can type in Dvorak, but still use the QWERTY Command-C/V/Q etc. The tech support guy (who responded to my query very quickly, I should add) said that the add this support to the feature request list, although he was not authorized to say if it would or would not be fixed to add this support.

So what’s the bug? When the keyboard setting is DQ (that’s short for Dvorak-Qwerty), TextExpander cannot expand text. You type in the short cut, and your shortcut is replaced by … nothing. You just get an empty string where your expanded text should go. This is frustrating. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only Dvorak user out there, though I’m sure I am not. A great feature of the Mac OS is the built in Dvorak support with QWERTY command keys. While Windows supports Dvorak as an option, it does not (and apparently will never) support the QWERTY command function.

Even though I use this alternate layout, I am a slave to Mac keyboard shortcuts (the QWERTY style shortcuts). The Mac OS has long supported this, recognizing the need amongst mac users to have command-C map to the ‘C’ character printed on the physical keyboard, even though it’s not the ‘C’ character in the Dvorak layout is located where the I character is printed. Make sense? Windows does not have this. I was using a freeware program called Hotkeyz on my Windows (work) machine to remap my keys. This solved the PC problem beautifully. But, alas, my IT staff made me take it off because of my workplace ‘no shareware or freeware policy.’ Blah.

Anyhow, most mac programs work fairly well with Dvorak-Qwerty. Except for TextExpander, and except for Adobe CS3 (actually, I don’t believe Adobe products have ever supported Dvorak-Qwerty … and except for Mac MS Office (which I don’t use - iWork handles Dvorak quite well). What this means for me is that I have to turn Qwerty on when using Photoshop, because Command-C otherwise does not work. I could re-learn the shortcuts for the remapped Dvorak keys, but I don’t want to. I like the shortcut keys mapped to what’s printed on the keyboard. Besides, I’m so conditioned to type the Command key shortcuts that it would take major reconditioning to learn the alternate locations. The bottom line for me is this: I know there aren’t many of us out there, but there are people out there that rely on Dvorak-Qwerty. The combo, exclusive to the mac, is one of those little things that makes my mac experience better than my work-a-day PC experience. I can’t imagine it would take much of a code fix to support this feature … it is built in to the OS, after all. So, Adobe and Smile on My Mac … please support the DQ keyboard layout!!

By the way, I found this nice little freeware app that fixes one annoying DQ layout problem - the inability to use command+shift in DQ