Posts in Linked

The Omni Group Releases OmniKeyMaster Mac App Store License Tool→

From The Omni Group’s blog:

OmniKeyMaster is a simple app that finds App Store copies of Omni apps installed on your Mac, then generates equivalent licenses from our store - for free. This gives Mac App Store customers access to discounted pricing when upgrading from the Standard edition to Professional, or when upgrading from one major version to the next. Another benefit: since they don’t have to wait in an approval queue, our direct releases sometimes get earlier access to new features and bug fixes. OmniKeyMaster lets App Store customers access those builds, as well.

Tools like OmniKeyMaster have become quite common lately, as developers of third-party Mac apps keep struggling with the limitations imposed by Apple on the Mac App Store. Having new versions of apps every time a major upgrade is released isn’t an option for many developers, and they are resorting to workarounds like this to have the best of both worlds: the Mac App Store’s purchase system and the control on your own website and app updates. It’s a trade-off, and, in most cases, the process is quite convoluted.

In The Omni Group’s defense, their Mac App Store license tool seems easy to use and clever in how it finds all App Store copies of Omni apps on a Mac. Apple may not be interested in offering upgrade pricing on the Mac App Store, but developers find a way…or at least a viable workaround.

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Twelve South Introduces the GhostStand, A Clear Elevated Stand for Your MacBook→

Twelve South has been busy this year. Their latest new product, following HiRise, is a brand new laptop stand made out of lucite. From the product page:

GhostStand is a transparent, ultra-modern platform– and a brilliant work of art– that elevates MacBook to a more comfortable viewing height. Pair your MacBook with a full-size keyboard and mouse, then set it on GhostStand to enjoy desktop style comfort at home or work. While GhostStand makes it look like your MacBook is floating in midair, two sets of soft silicone rails keep your Mac safely grounded to this affordable lucite stand.

It’s also $34.99, and can alternatively be purchased from the Apple Store online. It would pair well with a lot of Mac accessories, including those famous Harman Kardon SoundSticks. I was under the impression that the interlocking pieces of glass could be separated, making the stand portable, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. This is very much a stationary piece for your desk, designed to look beautiful and give the appearance that your Mac is floating on air.

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AgileBits Teases 1Password 4 For Mac→

Dan Moren, in his preview of 1Password 4 for Mac:

Several of the newest capabilities originated in 1Password 4 for iOS, including the ability to mark your frequently used items as Favorites, support for multiple logins on the same site, and the ability to sync via iCloud. You’ll also find new types of items to supplement existing options, such as driver licenses and reward programs, and you can add custom fields to most items, to store any other information you want. And if you want to share a specific item between the Mac and iOS apps, you can do so by sending it via encrypted iMessage or email.

1Password for Mac received its last big update in 2009 with version 3, and, following the launch of 1Password 4 for iOS, a revamp of the desktop client is long overdue. I’m particularly excited about the Back to the Mac approach – 1Password 4 is one of my favorite and most used iOS apps, and the upcoming Mac app seems to retain much of the mobile counterpart’s functionality, enhancing it with features that make sense on OS X (such as the new browser extension).

Apple will provide its own password generation and sync solution with iCloud Keychain, and that’s great news because it’ll help users have safer logins with minimal effort. However, I want more from my password manager, and I’m looking forward to trying 1Password 4.0.

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The Future Of Feed Reading→

Shawn Blanc:

And so, could this hypothetical service take all that information, put it into a database, and then find and recommend things for me to read? I think yes. That’d be the easy part. The hard part is if the service could pick out articles for me as well as Pandora can at pick out songs, or as well as Netflix can pick out 4-star movies. Now, wouldn’t that be something?

Services like Feedly, Feedbin, and Feed Wrangler have pretty much nailed the filesystem of news idea of RSS readers (with some unique differences, as Shawn outlines for Feed Wrangler).

The next step is discovery of relevant and personalized news in an RSS-based environment. No one seems to be doing that quite right at this point and there are a lot of services and technologies that may be using RSS in the backend but that are trying different proprietary approaches. Flipboard with magazines and top stories; Zite with algorithms; Feedly with popular feeds; others with lightweight Twitter and Facebook integrations.

My primary concern is that a feature such as the one envisioned by Shawn – which I’d love, by the way – would require a tremendous amount of scale, data, analysis, time, and, ultimately, resources, which I’m not sure an independently developed feed reader could ever have (or pull off properly). But, yes, that sort of news recommendation inside a feed reader would be fantastic.

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Simplenote is Relaunching With Improved Syncing for Mac, iOS 7, and Android→

From the guys who make sharing notes between iOS, Android, and your desktop computer simple:

We’ve been beta testing new versions of Simplenote for Mac, Android, and iOS 7. They look a lot different: cleaner, simpler, and more lightweight. Our approach was to return to first principles and build anew.

A side effect is that some less frequently used features won’t be available, at least at first. Some people will cheer. Others, like those who adore sorting notes by reverse chronological creation date, may mourn. More details are coming soon.

Also of note are improvements to Simperium, which should make syncing between your devices faster and more seamless.

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Mirimage’s Editorial Workflows for Pocket and App.net→

Great demonstration of Editorial’s scripting capabilities. First, a workflow to fetch a random article from Pocket:

I’ve made 3 workflows; two for the authentication (Pocket Auth 1 & 2), and one that fetches a random article from the user’s unread queue and opens it in the Editorial browser. The Pocket authentication only needs to run once.

And then one to post on App.net (which could be nicely chained to my Post To WordPress workflow):

If you’re an App.net Developer, you can post to App.net directly from Editorial. I integrated this workflow into Federico Viticci’s Post to WordPress workflow, to post new articles to App.net in addition to Twitter.

Side note: I’m keeping track of Editorial workflows I find over at this Pinboard tag.

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