BrettTerpstra.com

I pushed a couple updates to Journal, my command line journaling tool today.

As a reminder, you can add a natural language argument to your journal command which will set the date of the entry, e.g. journal mood "yesterday 8pm". This allows you to create entries in post with historical data you might have missed. One thing that it didn’t do well, though, is to get the correct weather for any weather type questions in the journal when using past dates. This latest update is able to get historical weather data and insert it correctly in the entry. No changes required for the user, just enter a past date and Journal will figure it out.

Second, I’ve noticed my mood and sleep shifts with the moon phase. I’m not into astrology or anything, but that seemed like useful data to track and start to draw better conclusions from. So now a question type of weather.forecast will include the moon phase as a moon_phase key, and you can use weather.moon to get just the moon phase for its own entry. The forecast in Markdown will also now include the moon phase.

That’s it, just tying up some loose ends. Journal is working pretty well for me to collect data and provide my therapist with detailed mood/behavior information. Let me know if there’s anything it doesn’t do that might help you out!

The latest version can be installed with gem install journal-cli. Visit the Journal project page for more info.

The Winners

The CleanShot X giveaway has ended, and I have three winners to announce!

Congratulations to:

Scott Rychnowski
Darren Everden
David Brown

Each winner should have received an email with a redeem link/code, please let me know if you didn’t hear anything!

But I Didn’t Win!

If you didn’t win, sorry, but CleanShot X is still worth checking out. It’s by far the best app for screenshots on the Mac, no matter where or how you’re using them.

You should also consider a subscription to Setapp, which will include CleanShot X among a couple hundred other amazing apps.

Coming Soon

Next up is Timing (the perfect app for automatic time tracking on Mac). Check back every Monday through December for more giveaways. Upcoming apps include:

If you want to suggest an app you’d like to see in this series, let me know on Twitter or Mastodon, and join the email list for early access!

Thanks to Sanebox for sponsoring BrettTerpstra.com again this week! I just trained 3 new senders into custom Sanebox folders today (just by moving an email from them once) and will never have to see them in my Inbox again, and will be able to easily locate them when I do want to see them. It’s so easy!

SaneBox is once again under the spotlight for their cutting-edge solutions to the age-old problem of email clutter. Having earned the endorsement of seasoned professionals, it’s worth diving deeper into another feature that makes SaneBox the power tool for email management. One feature that is particularly enchanting? Custom Folders.

Imagine this: You receive countless emails daily from various sources. Newsletters from your favorite brands, updates from work, personal emails, bulk offers, and then, those pesky spam mails. Now, think of an assistant who not only sorts your emails but also does it exactly how you would. That means keeping in mind your unique preferences and priorities. That’s what SaneBox’s Custom Folder feature offers.

At the core of SaneBox is its learning ability. For example, as you shuffle emails in and out of folders like @SaneLater or @SaneBlackHole, SaneBox observes. Over time, it finds patterns in your preferences and ensures similar emails find their rightful place automatically in the future. It’s like training your dog to fetch. Once it learns which toy is its favorite, it fetches it every single time.

One particularly intriguing aspect of this feature is the flexibility it offers. Let’s say you’re working on a project, and you want all communications about it to be in one place. Simply create a Custom Folder named “@ProjectX.” As you get emails related to the project, drag a few to the new folder, and then SaneBox will quickly learn to play fetch.

The beauty of SaneBox’s Custom Folder feature lies in its adaptability. It’s not just about categorizing. It’s about creating an email ecosystem that aligns with your work habits and priorities. The more seamless a process is, the more likely you’ll be to use it. So that adaptability is critical.

In essence, SaneBox’s Custom Folder feature is more than just about organization. It’s about crafting a personalized email experience. It’s a testament to how adaptive technology can be when it’s designed with the user at its core.

If you’re still juggling with emails and feeling the stress of a cluttered inbox, perhaps it’s time to give SaneBox’s Custom Folder feature a try. And remember, signing up today can even get you a $25 discount on any subscription. Make your email work for you, not the other way around!

Web excursions brought to you in partnership with MindMeister, the best collaborative mind mapping software out there.

Toolbox Pro, Logger for Shortcuts, and Nautomate: Snailed It, run by my friend Rosemary Orchard, has taken custody of several apps developed by Alex Hay after his tragic passing last March. They’re in good hands, and will see the love he would want them to.
iPhone 15 Pro facts and estimates: I love it when Dr. Drang nerds out about Apple stuff.
The SSD Edition: 2023 Drive Stats Mid-Year Review: The semi-annual drive stats report from Backblaze is out (SSD edition). I love the amount of data they collect on hard drive reliability.
Adding sound wave overlays to videos and pictures using FFMPEG: I did not know ffmpeg could do this. Thanks, Christian!

Check out MindMeister and start brainstorming, collaborating, and boosting productivity.

I’m super excited about this one, as I consider CleanShot X to be one of the best Mac apps developed in the last few years. Hands down the best screenshot/recording app, but also just a highly elegant app all around.

Note that if you’re reading this via RSS, you’ll need to visit the site to enter! Check out the CleanShot X website for more details on this amazing app.

I have three licenses ($29 value) to offer to BrettTerpstra.com readers. Sign up below and I’ll draw random winners on Friday, September 29th.

Sorry, this giveaway has ended.

Stay tuned for more giveaways every week through December (and maybe beyond).

If you have an app you’d love to see featured in this series of giveaways, let me know. Also be sure to sign up for the mailing list so you can be the first to know about these!

The Winners

The Tap Forms giveaway has ended, and I have two winners to announce!

Congratulations to:

Jonathan Laniado
Doug Lionetti

(I swear the giveaway robot has no preference for last names starting with L. It’s purely chance.)

Each winner should have received an email with a redeem link/code, please let me know if you didn’t hear anything!

But I Didn’t Win!

If you didn’t win, sorry, but Tap Forms is still worth checking out. You can easily store and work with any kind of data. It’s the missing database app for Mac and iOS. If you didn’t win, you can still save 30% on the direct version with the coupon BRETT-TF5-2023. Go to the site and click the Buy Now for Mac button to use the coupon, or download the free trial version and enter the coupon when using the in-app purchase.

Coming Soon

Next up is CleanShot X (the best screenshot app there is). Check back every Monday through December for more giveaways. Upcoming apps include:

If you want to suggest an app you’d like to see in this series, let me know on Twitter or Mastodon, and join the email list for early access!

In case you missed it, I recently released Journal, a CLI for keeping a journal with structured data that can be queried and analyzed. An update is live with a couple of nifty new features.

First, instead of just a type of weather for a question (which inserts the current condition and daily forecast), you can now specify sub-types of weather.current and/or weather.forecast. This outputs separate data entries to the JSON, and creates individual answers in the Markdown/Day One versions. You can still just use weather as the type to insert all data.

Second, you can now apply conditions to questions to determine whether they’ll be asked or not when creating an entry. Right now only time-based conditions are implemented, but I plan to add some functionality around basing a question’s appearance on the answer to a previous question, like “if health rating is less than 5, display the health notes question.” But for now you can add condition: before noon or condition: > 2pm to any question or section to only display the question(s) at certain times of day.

I needed these conditions because I like to create a mood entry in the morning with data about sleep and coffee, and in the evening I don’t want to repeat that data, but do want to ask some different questions about how the day went. I could create two separate journals for these, but this way I can compile all of my data in one file. Questions that are skipped get a null entry in the JSON, so when I’m parsing I just test for nil and skip entries that don’t contain the information I’m trying to output. Unanswered questions don’t get added to the Markdown/Day One entries at all.

This release includes a couple of bug fixes as well. I recently removed the requirement for the gum CLI, if it doesn’t exist it will now just use Readline for input. When using the gum inputs, you can’t CTRL-c to cancel an entry, which I’m trying to figure out a way around right now.

Update using gem install journal-cli. Visit the project page for more info and installation instructions.

I’m starting up giveaways again on BrettTerpstra.com, and I’m exited to kick it off with 2 free licenses for Tap Forms for Mac. It’s an amazing database product that lets you organize and access your data on any device. It’s available on Mac, iPhone, iPad and even Apple Watch. This giveaway is specifically for the Mac version.

From the developer:

Accounts, recipes, expenses, inventory — life is full of things that we don’t want to forget or misplace. Tap Forms helps you organize all kinds of things in one place — secure, searchable, and accessible on your Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch.

Check out the Tap Forms site for more info.

Sign up below to enter. Two winners will be randomly drawn on Friday, Sept 22, at 12pm Central. Tap Forms for Mac costs $49.99, so this is a great chance at saving $50!

Sorry, this giveaway has ended.

I reached out to my mailing list to see what products people were interested in, and Tap Forms was a top pick. I have several more developers lined up to offer free stuff, so stay tuned. If you have an app you’d love to see featured, let me know. Also be sure to sign up for the mailing list so you can be the first to know about these!

So, a long time ago I wrote this Jekyll plugin that does countdowns and I don’t think I ever really used it. You just give it an end date and it inserts a countdown into the post. But I needed something to count down to, so I’m running a 40% off Marked sale using the coupon COOLPLUGINBRO until Saturday, September 16th. Here’s your countdown:

Time’s up.

Did it work? I hope so. Use this link to apply the coupon directly, or enter COOLPLUGINBRO at checkout. Learn more about Marked at marked2app.com.

Thanks to TextExpander for sponsoring BrettTerpstra.com this week! I can’t count the number of hours I save using TextExpander. Oh wait, I can, because they email you a report every week to let you know…

So you think you know productivity? Can you name 20 different productivity methods?

Maybe you’ve heard of the Pomodoro method, the 80/20 rule, or time blocking, but have you heard of Eat the Frog? Have you set SMART goals for 2024? Ever developed an Eisenhower Matrix?

Over at the TextExpander blog, we’ve cataloged 20 of these productivity habits. There are lots of ways to boost your productivity.

One of the best ways to boost your productivity is through text expansion. Type something short and get something long. Do you find yourself writing the same emails repeatedly? Why? Let TextExpander handle it and save yourself hours and even days every year.

And that applies to pretty much every industry that involves typing:

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Peter van Teeseling, Executive Director of Dscoop, saved over 27 hours in 2022 with TextExpander
Automattic saved 693 hours in three months

TextExpander can handle short messages, emails, code, or pretty much any text you can throw at it, including formatted text and hyperlinks.

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Welcome to the lab.

Historical weather for Journal CLI

The CleanShot X giveaway winners!

The Winners

But I Didn’t Win!

Coming Soon

Web Excursions for September 26, 2023

CleanShot X giveaway!

The Tap Forms giveaway winners!

The Winners

But I Didn’t Win!

Coming Soon

Journal updates with weather types and conditional questions

Tap Forms for Mac giveaway!

A silly Jekyll plugin and a big Marked sale