The Hickensian

7.07.05 Just to update you

14 comments
Tagged with: hicksdesign, updates

I have a habit of asking questions and pronouncing apps on my blog (and some people have been asking for follow-ups), so I just wanted to take a moment and tie up some loose ends…

Deskspace

Remember I was looking to get out of the house? Original Post

I am finally back in the land of the real people, and renting deskspace at a local print design company. I have my own little corner, but still have other creatives to talk to. I think it was Dave Shea who recently advised freelancers to never work from home, and I can see why. My productivity has really improved since moving out (and Daniel can finally have his own room).

Accounting App

Trying to find a cocoa app to do the job of MYOB – Original Post

In the end, I discovered that there is no one app that will cover all of MYOB’s functions, so there’s a gap in the market there for an indie developer to get their teeth into! Instead, I decided to hire an accountant to do my bookkeeping, and have gone over to iBiz for my project management/invoicing needs. Don’t let the name put you off, this is a great app. While its not perfect, and Billings definitely has the better interface, it offers vital features such as invoice customisation and being able to start invoice numbers from a number other than 1. It integrates with iCal and Address Book, and makes emailing invoice pdf’s a snap. Its the one I wish I had when I first started freelancing.

To pep up its interface, removing the metal with Unifier instantly makes it a whole lot nicer to look at. I like metal, but I think this is one instance where I think its irrelevant.

Safari RSS

The best thing about Tiger? Original Post

OK, so run Safari as your RSS reader for a while, and it does start to slow down, even if you set articles to be removed after a day or week. Once more, Safari becomes unresponsive – click a tab, wait for it show. I’ve whittled my feeds down to about 200, but even then, “View all RSS Articles” increasingly becomes a drag. That whole clicking twice thing is starting to grate too.

Comments | RSS

No.1

∞ Ben said 1678 days ago:

After discovering that Newsfire, while being infinitely easier to use, has trouble importing OPML files and can’t imprt grouped feeds, I have had to move to NetNewsWireLite, which is a shame but how else do you keep the same feeds at home or work – that solved that dilemma for me.

No.2

∞ Travholt said 1678 days ago:

> but how else do you keep the same feeds at home or work

Shrook

Not only the same feeds, but it keeps track of what you’ve read, too. Sort of like IMAP for RSS.

No.3

∞ Peter Holloway said 1678 days ago:

Ah, the joy’s of XP! I use Quickbooks for accounts, which allows me to do PFF invoicing. I use FeedDemon for RSS and can’t fault it. Fascinating to hear the Mac side – I keep promising myself I will buy one to play with, but so far haven’t taken the plunge.

No.4

∞ Dale Cruse said 1678 days ago:

Peter said, “Ah, the joy’s of XP!”

Every once in a while I hear a phrase and think, “No one in the history of the world has ever strung these particular words together.” Thanks for adding to my list!

No.5

∞ matt Carey said 1678 days ago:

from a longtime iBiz (and previously iWork) user thanks for the tip about removing the metal interface!

No.6

∞ Jon Hicks said 1678 days ago:

oohh Shrook! (shudders), now there’s an app I couldn’t get on with. NNW does the same syncing of feeds and read/unread status, and its infinitely preferable to me.

No.7

∞ ConÃ¡nn said 1678 days ago:

I know bloglines doesn’t float your boat but rojo is a prettier version of the same thing except you can tag and keep stories.

Ahh The Joys of XP! I just bought an iMac instead of yet another joyfull XP!

No.8

∞ Travholt said 1678 days ago:

Now I’m curious. What don’t you like about Shrook? There are a few things that bug me about it, but I’ve learned to live with them.

I just checked NNW’s feature list, and it seems like it has picked up and even surpassed Shrook. At the time I went looking for feed readers, Shrook was the only one that featured syncing. I’ll have to give it a second chance, but I think I’ll wait until August. It’d be kind of silly to start a 30 day trial period just as I’m starting my summer vacation …

I wonder if NNW has the ability to view web pages directly, preferably as a per-channel preference. Also, something I’m really missing in Shrook, is having the reader remember zoom settings individually for each channel. Some web sites have tiny font sizes …

No.9

∞ Andy said 1677 days ago:

Just curious regarding Safari RSS, to avoid the double clicking thing, have you tried leaving your RSS tab (or tabs of select categories) open and simply by-pass using “View All RSS Articles” (except to initially open the tab), and refresh feeds by clicking on “Last Seven Days” (or whatever you prefer) in the sidebar? It is very handy and quick to get to that link, even if it is temporarily hidden when you’re at the bottom of the page, by using the keyboard shortcut to get back to the top. This seems to work well for me on the first click, except on the rare occasion. I leave that tab showing all my RSS feeds open all day, view articles I want to read in other tabs and never have to visit “View All RSS Articles” under the menu again. By the way, I find both of your sites very enjoyable and useful.

No.10

∞ Jon Hicks said 1677 days ago:

Thanks Andy – I always keep a tab open for feeds, and I hadn’t thought of that. In fact, I found out that you can just refresh the page, and will show the new feeds and changes the unread count accordingly. Nice one!

No.11

∞ Andy said 1677 days ago:

I used to simply refresh the page, but in my experience it seemed like it was similar to using “View All RSS Articles” in the menu in terms of slowness and more glitches. I have no idea why this is, but when I use a sidebar link (be it under Sort By or Recent Articles), the refresh is much more immediate, showing the new feeds, changing the unread count, and best of all, no double clicking (almost always).

No.12

∞ Andy said 1677 days ago:

Just a few more thoughts on this, for what they’re worth. Perhaps I should have made clear in my last post that this suggested “sidebar method” seems to work well only if, first, you’re content with the frequency settings in RSS preferences where Safari automatically checks for updates of your feeds at the specified interval behind the scenes and, second, if you have your RSS folder displayed on your bookmarks bar so you can easily see by the unread count that there are new articles (like in your screenshot, Jon). Then using a sidebar link will display the new articles very quickly on the page, but it will not cause Safari to check for any new updates. To have Safari check for updates more frequently than the set interval would require that you refresh the page or use the “View All RSS Articles” link. This makes me wonder: Is this why it is slower and often takes two clicks—the first click for Safari to go retrieve new articles and indicate the unread count, the second click to actually display them on the page?

No.13

∞ Andy said 1677 days ago:

Sorry, I didn’t get the link in the last post. The screenshot I was referring to was in this article.

No.14

∞ Andy said 1677 days ago:

This is the link I keep failing to make work for the screenshot I had in mind: http://pimpmysafari.com/blog/change-the-appearance-of-safaris-rss-view