512 Pixels

On today’s episode of Enough, Patrick and Myke ask me about Notification Badge Anxiety Disorder.

I love the Metro UI on Windows Phone 7. It will be interesting to see how it scales to the desktop. If Microsoft pulls the trigger on this, it will be the biggest UI change Windows has seen in years. Part of me is sad that currently, the company is showing this off as an alternative interface, that works beside the standard UI.

Of course, this is part of a larger trend — OS X Lion pulls lots of UI elements from the iPad.

I’ve written at length about OmniFocus here before. It’s a fantastic app, and has quite a following.

This isn’t an OmniFocus-specific phenomenon. Mac nerds cling to and defend their favorite programs will a fervor rarely seen. The TextMate guys beat up us TextWrangler folks on Twitter, while MarsEdit fans scoff at those who like living in WordPress’ web interface.

But in the GTD landscape, the fighting is fierce. Everyone has an opinion on what app and what method is best. But Chris Bowler gets it:

Adam King recently wrote a great post on his paper based “stay-on-top” set up, titled The Daily Rind. It’s the kind of post I’ve always enjoyed ever since this topic started to replace actual real work.

I say that with tongue in cheek, and I’m laughing at myself, not Adam. I always enjoy getting a look at how the people I admire process things and complete their work. The difference for me now is that I quickly recognize the pull to adapt my own habits because their’s seem a lot cooler in the flush of caffeine-fueled excitement. Call it what you like, but I’m going to call it maturity.

I like the word maturity. And while I love Bowler’s point that everyone needs to get work done — instead of just talking about how they do work — we’d all be better off.

So, we should be getting things done, and we shouldn’t let GTD get in our way.

This is an interesting thing to think about. So often, I think about OmniFocus as a helper, but sometimes, it isn’t.

Case Study No. 1

My job — like most people’s — includes long-term projects and oddball “here and now” tasks. For example, last week, I was working on a strategy for a component of our marketing, but got interrupted by a user with a sick Windows 7 notebook. She needed my help. So I helped. I didn’t stop to create a “Fix Bethany’s HP” project in OmniFocus, with tasks including “Reinstall Symantec” and “Run updates.”

I just did the work.

That said, I wanted to enter it into OmniFocus. I even thought about adding it after the fact, just to mark it as complete.

Case Study No. 2

The other version of OmniFocus guilt involves the app itself. This weekend, for example, I had a big freelance project that I had to complete on a very tight deadline. As such, the things I had planned to do got pushed back. With each task that I moved back, I felt a pang of guilt.

Truth is, I got work done this weekend. It just wasn’t the work I told OmniFocus I had planned on doing. I felt like I had let my GTD system down.

The Solution

I think Chris gets this right — it’s more important to do things than to keep a system up and running. Of course, as with all things, there is a balance. I need OmniFocus in my life, but I don’t need it to be handicapped to it in a way that slows me down.

Balance is key to avoiding the guilt, I suppose. Imagine that.

This could be very interesting.

Well… me, over at Macgasm:

Lodsys has confirmed that it has begun filing suits against app developers today, before the deadline the patent holder had previously given. In a blog post, the company said “Lodsys chose to move its litigation timing to an earlier date than originally planned, in response to Apple’s threat, in order to preserve its legal options.”

Bastards.

Well, I know what I’m doing with my eMate tonight.

Brooks Barnes at the NY Times:

Studio chiefs acknowledge that the industry needs to sort out its 3-D strategy. Despite the soft results for “Kung Fu Panda 2,” animated releases have continued to perform well in the format, overcoming early problems with glasses that didn’t fit little faces. But general-audience movies like “Stranger Tides” may be better off the old-fashioned way.

Fun fact: Seeing a film in 3-D makes me quite sick to my stomach. I really hope it is a passing fad.

The Apple PR Machine:

Apple CEO Steve Jobs and a team of Apple executives will kick off the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) with a keynote address on Monday, June 6 at 10:00 a.m. At the keynote, Apple will unveil its next generation software - Lion, the eighth major release of Mac OS X; iOS 5, the next version of Apple’s advanced mobile operating system which powers the iPad®, iPhone and iPod touch; and iCloud, Apple’s upcoming cloud services offering.

Ben Brooks:

Interesting that they announced this in a press release so early, meaning that there is potential for a “one more thing” that will be great.

Not sure what to make of this move — other than to say that even if we know what is going to be announced, we still don’t know the impact of what will be announced.

I’m not sure this announcement is that interesting. I think it is pretty clear that Apple wanted to set expectations early, so that when no iPhone is announced, people don’t freak out. A nice side effect of this is that people will still be going out and purchasing the iPhone 4.

I disagree about the One More Thing. I think that Apple’s announcements — an overhaul to all of the company’s main software — is plenty to discuss already. If there is an One More Thing, it will be related to the agenda Apple PR’s already announced.

Tony Long at Wired:

The Golden Gate Bridge was an engineering marvel. The site alone — buffeted by high winds and split by the swirling currents of the Golden Gate — made construction treacherous. The sheer size of the bridge (the longest suspension bridge in the world until the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge opened in 1964) required several innovations in bridge-building technology, especially when it came to constructing the two colossal towers in — and under — turbulent water.

Of all the mind-boggling statistics surrounding the bridge’s construction, and there are plenty, perhaps the most jaw-dropping involves the two main suspension cables. Each measures 7,659 feet in length and each used hundreds of pencil-thick wires bound together to make a cable just over three feet in diameter. In all, more than 80,000 miles of steel wire was needed, enough to circle the Earth three times.

Of all the things I saw when I was in California a few years ago, the bridge was my favorite.

I was psyched to be invited to talk on the Minimal Mac podcast. On this episode, we discussed Memphis BBQ and my new 11.6-inch MacBook Air.

Patrick and Myke are great guys and I had a real blast recording with them. I hope you enjoy it. I know I did.

Twitter’s Matt Harris, on the DM thing:

All of this information has helped us to improve the OAuth flow for you and your users. But, we know that we’re getting close to the DM enforcement date and that some of these new features aren’t available to you yet.

We understand this means you might not be able to fully test your updated flow so we are going to extend the deadline until the end of June.

This makes the new enforcement date Thursday, June 30th, 2011.

This whole thing really makes Twitter look like a bunch of amateurs.

Mathew Ingram at GigaOM:

In the course of any news event, whether it’s an earthquake or a shooting or a revolution, there will be times when Twitter makes sense as a tool — as Stelter showed with his reports from Joplin, and as Sohaib Athar showed when he effectively became a journalist for a few hours during the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound. But that doesn’t obviate the need for articles or commentary or features.

Twitter is a great way for journalists to connect with readers and share info on the go, but there will always be a need for new coverage more than 140 characters long.