Rhymes With Diploma

I often want to set a reminder to call someone at a specific time.

In the past, what I have done is gone to Due and added a note which would say something like "Call AppleCare" and then set the time/date when I want to be reminded.

(If you haven’t used Due, one of the things everyone loves about it is that it will keep reminding you to do something until you actually do it. You can have the reminders repeat every minute, every 5, 15, 30, etc. It’s the most-reliable way to get yourself to do something at a specific time or close to it.)

The problem with my method has always been that the reminder would do off, and then I’d have to do to the phone app, look up the person I wanted to call, and then select the phone number.

It’s that little bit of friction that doesn’t seem like much, but can make you resistant to actually doing the thing you need to do when the reminder goes off. Also, it’s easy (at least for me) to get distracted after I’ve dismissed the reminder from Due but before I actually make the call.

TIL: Due has a feature to make this easier.

I’m sure this is mentioned in the documentation somewhere, but I stumbled across it by accident.

I set a reminder in Due, but this time I added the phone number of the person I needed to call in the reminder in Due. When I dismissed the reminder in Due, it automatically prompted me to call the number.

Obviously, that’s much better.

Having the number right there means no searching for it, I can just do it. The friction has been removed.

The only problem is that in order to do that, I needed to copy the phone number from my Contacts.app into Due.

Which means that I won’t actually put the phone number into Due very often, even though I know it would make things easier for me later on.

Complication #2: Google Voice

(Note: Even if you don’t use Google Voice, there is an option of this shortcut for you. Keep reading!)

Adding to my resistance is the fact that many of the calls that I make are actually not made with via the iOS Phone.app.

I use Google Voice for all of my calls related to my day-job, and I need/want to use Google Voice for those calls because then the caller-ID will show the phone number that work-related people have for me, instead of my actual iPhone number.

So there’s another piece of friction.

If only there was some way to make this easier…

Cue “Shortcuts”

As most of the people who are reading this probably know, Apple just introduced an app called “Shortcuts” which is basically version 2 of an app which was previously not-by-Apple. Version 1 of the app was called “Workflow”.

I never really used Workflow much. Although Apple had approved it and let it into the App Store, I was certain that Apple would eventually kick it out of the App Store, and then I would be sad if I had built a bunch of things with it.

Well, as it turns out, not only was I wrong, but I was wrong in about as big of a way as possible. Instead of kicking Workflow out of the App Store, Apple bought Workflow, and renamed it “Shortcuts” which is now available for iOS 12.

Now that it is an official Apple app, I decided to start using it. But this was the first time that I had a problem that I really wanted to solve with automation on the iPhone:

“How can I make it easier to schedule calls on my iPhone?”

I was poking around in Shortcuts when I realized that I could send the name and phone number of a contact to Due fairly easily.

All I had to do was choose the person from my Contacts.app, and the shortcut could automatically copy the name and phone number, and sent both pieces of information to Due. Then all I had to do was pick a date/time for the reminder.

But what about Google Voice? Unfortunately the official Google Voice app doesn’t support Shortcuts (yet?), but there is another iPhone app for Google Voice called GV Connect which has an URL scheme, meaning that we can use it with Shortcuts.

“Due Schedule Call”

Putting all of this together, I made my first real Shortcut, which has 3 (or possibly 4) steps.

Select a contact from my contacts list

If the contact has more than one phone number, it will prompt you to choose which one to use.

Next it will ask if you want to use Google Voice or the regular Phone app

Finally it will send that information to Due, so you can set a time/date for the reminder.

Step #2 was the last piece that I figured out. If I didn’t have some way to have the user choose a phone number, I was either left with the option of sending all of the phone numbers to Due (which was a terrible idea) or just automatically picking the first one (which wasn’t a great idea, although better than the previous alternative).

After that, the real magic happens between steps 3 and 4, and it happens completely in the background.

If I choose the Phone.app, the shortcut just sends the name and number to Due. But, if I choose Google Voice, the shortcut reformats the phone number into the proper syntax for GV Connect, and includes that in the reminder text that is sent to Due.

By front-loading all of the decisions into the first part of the process (making the reminder), I have made it easier for Future-Me to actually make the phone call. It’s easier than it has ever been.

When I “check off” the reminder, Due will let me trigger the call with almost zero effort.

For the first time ever it is just as easy for me to use Google Voice as it is to use the built-in Phone app!1

See For Yourself

I made a short (about 1 minute) screencast of this shortcut in action.

In it, I setup 2 reminders:

I selected a contact named "Apple" (which has multiple phone numbers) and scheduled a call to be made with the Phone app.

I selected a contact named "AppleCare" (which only has 1 phone number) and scheduled a call to be made via GV Connect.

You can see it here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/76g1ot5zxrxu605/Due-Schedule-Call.mp4?dl=0

(Be sure to make it full-screen so you can see things more easily.)

You can get the shortcut here.

Thanks

Thanks to Andreas Amann, GV Connect's developer, who helped improve this shortcut.

Thanks also to Raymond Velasquez who helped me solve another part of the puzzle via a post on https://talk.automators.fm, which is a great place to get automation help for iOS or Mac.

As a final side note: if you aren't listening to Automators with Rose Orchard and David Sparks, you really should be.

Update 2018-10-13

It occurs to me that this shortcut might be useful to more people if I offered a variant without the Google Voice portion. After all, if you don’t use Google Voice, there’s no sense in having to choose the phone app each time this shortcut runs.

So I made a version without Google Voice. You can find it here:

Due Schedule Call (without Google Voice)

An Investment in Not Dying (Any Younger Than I Have To)

After looking at it for months (if not years) I finally pulled the trigger on a LifeSpan TR1200-DT7 Treadmill Desk in the hopes that it will get my body to be less… well, let's just stick with “less”.

I'll never be thin, but right now I don't feel healthy, and I want to do better.

A Sermon on Luke 12:49–56

A sermon on Luke 10:25–37

I was very pleased to be a guest on episode 321 of Mac Power Users which will be released later today. However, when I listened to the episode after we recorded, I realized that I said something completely wrong.

We were discussing Mac Power Users #306: Tackling Contacts - Relay FM where David Sparks talked about how much use he was getting out of contact groups. I wrote A Cautionary Tale About Contacts and Backups to warn that:

a vCard backup of Contacts does not include groups information

the only way to restore contact groups is to restore from a “Contacts Archive” which will overwrite your current contacts information.

Furthermore, I talked about an iOS app which could backup individual vCards, which OS X cannot do without AppleScript.

However, during episode 321, I incorrectly stated that the iOS app would backuo/restore contact groups. That is incorrect, and I have no idea why I said it, other than a temporary brain glitch.

So there you have it: followup to an episode of Mac Power Users which isn’t officially out yet, where I sent feedback correcting myself. Katie mentioned that I often send feedback on Monday mornings, well, turns out that when I am on the episode, I can spot mistakes even faster.

We regret the error. And by “we” I mean “me”.

Enter into Joy – A sermon on Luke 24

Read the sermon.

a web page

a PDF

a plain text document

Listen to the sermon.

You can listen to the sermon from this page, or you can:

Download the mp3

Add to HuffDuffer

Ohio River, 2016-04-13 around 7:00 a.m., iPhone 6S, HDR

On this week’s Connected (Episode #86: A Tangerine in my Trunk - Relay FM), Myke mentioned Bushel:

… a cloud-based Mobile Device Management (MDM) solution for the iPads, iPhones, and Macs in your workplace. Bushel makes device management accessible and affordable for everyone, so businesses can support their users without help from IT.

I had signed up for it when they were a podcast sponsor last year, but then had gotten busy and never really followed up. Now that I have taken another look, I would really like to start using it.

They have a program which will let you manage 3 devices (Mac or iOS) for free, and they have a referral program that means that I can earn up to 10 more spots for free.

I started counting the devices that we own:

My iPhone

My iPad

Tracey’s iPhone

Tracey’s iPad

Ethan’s iPhone

Ethan’s iPad

12" MacBook

Mac Mini

iMac

Ethan’s MacBook Air

If I can get 3 referrals (people who sign up for Bushel using my link), I can manage all of our iOS devices using Bushel for free. If I can get 7 people to try it, I can manage all of my devices for free. Which would be awesome.

I’ve only started using it, so I can’t offer much by the way of testimonial, but setting it up so far has been dead simple: sign in to your Apple ID account, upload a file, download a file, and Boom! ready to go.

I love the idea of being able to manage all of our iOS devices from one centralized location, even for just the 3 of us.

Almost as much – if not more – I love the idea of being able to manage all of my Macs from a centralize service.

So if this sounds like it might be of interest to you, checkout Bushel today.

As you’ve probably guessed already, the links in this article contain my referral code, so if you use that link, you’ll help me earn free spots. It’s free for you, and who knows? Maybe you’ll decide it’s for you too.

Today, Smile announced TextExpander Adjustments, describing the changes in a blog post after last week’s announcement was met with a wide variety of emotions.

In this post they pretty much nailed it when it comes to listening to what people had to say:

“$50/year is too much!” Now it’s $20 for existing customers, forever. Lots of people said they would pay $1-$2 month. This works out to $1.67. Assuming people do sign up, which I suspect many will, it will demonstrate that people are not against sustainable pricing as much as they were against an annual fee that was much greater than what they were previously paying.

TextExpander 5 will continue to be developed. This was true even before today, but it’s important to understand. This gives people a way to sync their snippets via Dropbox, iCloud, or BitTorrent Sync. The difference is that before today it seemed like there was an eventual end-date to TextExpander’s life, and now there seems like a future which will be more accessible to more people.

TextExpander Touch for iOS will be put back in the store. You can say that this never should have been removed, but dealing with App Store issues of confusion is an ongoing problem that developers deal with every day.

Best of all, today’s announcement leaves me feeling much more that there are available options rather than “This is the future, either get on-board or get left behind.”

I heard several people say that “syncing is a solved problem” in reference to Dropbox and iCloud. I disagree. While there would be reasons to be concerned about being forced to use Smile’s sync service without clarity about security (both when data is in transit and “at rest”), I reject outright the idea that the developers at Smile are either so dumb or so greedy that they thought “You know, we have a perfectly good system, but let’s make our own sync.” I am not a developer, but I know enough developers to know that (almost) no one wants to make their own sync. They make their own sync because they have seen problems and shortcomings in existing systems. Anyone who reads Brent Simmons’ Vesper Sync Diary and can still think that sync is a “solved issue” (even with the iCloud improvements that came later) probably doesn’t understand all the edge cases. Developers of 1Password, Day One, Yojimbo, and others have all decided to make their own sync solutions. So, maybe stop saying that sync is a “solved” problem just because it works for you.

Does that make Smile’s decision to roll their own sync solution the right decision? Not necessarily. For what I need, BitTorrent Sync works perfectly, but I don’t need all the things they want to do. (The internet would be a better place if we could all remember that “X works for me” does not mean “X works for everyone and no one needs anything better than X.”)

Diana Krall, Live in Paris- A Case of You

With all due respect to Joni Mitchell, who I respect, admire, and adore, some covers are better than the original.

Like this one.

Oh, I am a lonely painter I live in a box of paints I'm frightened by the devil and I'm drawn to those who ain’t afraid

I remember the time you told me love was touching souls Surely you touched mine Part of you pours out of me in these lines from time to time

Oh you're in my blood my holy wine You taste so bitter and you taste so sweet

Oh I could drink a case of you I could drink a case of you, darling And still be on my feet And still be on my feet

The problem is that I just don't understand why I should pay $4-$5/month to use TextExpander 6.

Today, Smile Software released version 6 of TextExpander, and announced that it will be a subscription service with a monthly fee. While I understand why Smile wants people to sign up for Software As A Service (SaaS), I have no idea why I would want to pay them a monthly fee for TextExpander.

Let me be clear: I have been a TextExpander user for a long, long time. In fact, I was a “Textpander” user before there was ever a TextExpander. That was 10 years ago. I talked about TextExpander on MacPowerUsers, and I wrote about it. I replied to people who said “Why is it so expensive?” by saying that it was worth it for something that I use every day.

But as soon as I read about the subscription service, my reaction was simple:

Dear @TextExpander: I love you & have used you since “Textpander”, but there is no way in hell I’m paying $5/month.

Judging from my replies, mentions, and iMessages, there are a lot of people who feel the same way. Searching Twitter for “TextExpander” showed a lot of unhappy users.

But is this just another case of “Users are cheap and don’t value developers’ time?” I don’t think so. I happily signed up for 1Password for Families which will eventually be $5/month, although I could have gotten away with using the app as I have previously. There’s no question that this will be (slightly) more expensive for me in the long term, but after using it for a few days it was obvious that 1Password for Families was going to save me time and frustration. In fact, it was so good that I even said to a few people “I could imagine using 1Password for Families even as an individual, just for the bonus features.”

There’s the rub for Smile and TextExpander: I don’t see anything that I really need in TextExpander version 6. I’m not using it with a “team” and my family members probably have no interest in sharing a group of text snippets with me. Yes, I realize that Smile made their own syncing service, but I have used iCloud, Dropbox, and BitTorrent Sync, and they work fine for TextExpander. Creating their own syncing service was solving a problem that I didn’t have.

Compare this to 1Password for Families, which does solve a problem for me (managing multiple vaults of passwords for multiple family members), and it is completely optional, and I can see why 1Password would benefit from steady income; namely, they have to keep working on maintaining and expanding compatibility with _every website on the internet that uses a login form. Oh, and encryption.

Why does Smile need steady income for syncing text snippets? 1Password does something for me that I could never do myself, and does it far better than I could ever come close to doing. On the other hand, TextExpander makes things a little easier, which was enough to justify the initial price of TextExpander and upgrades, but not a monthly fee. Office 365 is $10/month, so I tend to compare any other monthly subscription to that. Is TextExpander worth 1/2 of Office 365?

To be clear, I'm not saying that the Smile folks are bad, evil, mean, money-grubbers or anything like that. What I am saying is this: as an experienced power-user of your software, I do not have the slightest clue why you decided to make this service mandatory when it seems to offer very little for individual users, and I have no idea why I should pay a monthly fee for something that has worked fine before. What problem does TextExpander 6 solve for me?

I can’t answer that question.

And if I can’t answer that question, Smile has a big problem. They may be 100% right and I may be 100% wrong, but they’ve done themselves a grave disservice in the way they handled this rollout.

Since people have been asking about alternatives:

Personally, I am moving everything to Keyboard Maestro, which can do everything that TextExpander did, and more. There’s no automated process for migrating these, so I’ve just turned off TextExpander expansion, and whenever I find something that doesn't work, I make a Keyboard Maestro equivalent. Keyboard Maestro is $36, which is less than TextExpander's previous price. However, since I already owned it, the effective price was $0.

aText - Text macro utility for Mac. will import your TextExpander snippets. You might have to do a little editing, but otherwise it works really well. And it’s only $5. The only downside for some will be that there is no iOS component. That's not a big deal for me. I plan to keep using the older version of TextExpander on iOS for as long as possible.

TypeIt4Me has Mac and iOS versions, for $20 and $5, respectively. I’ve never used this but I’ve heard a lot of people who like it.

OS X and iOS Text Substitution: This is the cheapest solution, since it is baked into the respective OSes, but it does not handle anything complex, and sync can be unreliable. In fact, someone on Twitter said that he uses this and then said that he didn't even realize that it was supposed to sync.

Q: Do you think that middle space between traditional orthodoxy and cultural relevancy, between doctrine and compassion, is viable?

Right now, Christians who claim to be in the middle tend to be on the right fringe with a quasi-compassionate view painted over it. So-called “middle-ground” Christians are changing their behaviors only in terms of method.

But it is not the ways that we talk that are primarily the problem, but the ways that we behave: there is a general malaise when it comes to Christian action about the suicide epidemic among LGBT Christians, the homelessness epidemic among LGBT Christians, and untold psychological effects that are experienced by LGBT individuals, oftentimes exacerbated by the rhetoric of the church. You know the apostle John was unambiguous when he said, “You can say you love someone, but if you do not do love, you are a liar.” The church is going to have tangible, visible and aggressive expressions of what it means to love LGBT persons. And we have yet to see that.

Have you ever said to yourself “I know that TJ posts his sermons to the church website every week, but they are in mp3 format, and although I know I could subscribe to a podcast of them via iTunes or any podcast app, I’d really prefer to read them than listen to them”?

Well, if so, then today is your lucky day. 

As of this past Sunday (aka “Easter”) I am making transcripts of my sermons available, for free, to anyone who would like them.

The mp3s are still there, easily linked to every post so you can listen on the page, or download the mp3, or subscribe to my “sermon podcast” feed, but there will also be a transcript for those who prefer that.

Great article, and I have already pre-ordered the book it comes from: