40Tech

As a follow up to my recent post on the World’s Most Awesome Automated Filing System, I intended to write a post on how to get your Windows-only ScanSnap Scanner working on your Mac. This would have been important to those of you who switched from Windows to Mac, and wanted to use your old scanners. Until recently, Fujitsu, the maker of the ScanSnap, created an artificial distinction between their Mac and Windows scanners. The hardware was identical, which should have meant that as long as you had the correct driver for your system, either scanner should have worked on your machine. Unfortunately, Fujitsu built a check into their drivers, so that a Mac would see that you had the Windows-branded version of the ScanSnap, and not be able to use the scanner. This was an incompatibly cooked up out of thin air by Fujitsu. As much as I’m a huge fan of the ScanSnap line, this had the stench of an attempt to create more sales. Fortunately, those days appear to be over.

If you have a paperless filing system, wouldn’t it be nice if you could drop a bill into your scanner, and have it automatically scanned, renamed, and filed in the proper place on your computer, with no effort on your part? And wouldn’t it be nice if you could have access to that document from any computer, with minimal security worries? With a combination of two programs on the Mac, you can do all of that.

In our last post I wrote about the 3-2-1 backup rule, a backup method that builds in a few layers of redundancy, so that you have peace of mind knowing that your backups are safe. I have a system in place with my iMac that has served me pretty well. Depending on your interpretation, it doesn’t strictly follow the 3-2-1 backup rule.

Prior to the Flashback malware fiasco, Apple’s platforms had a reputation for being secure. That reputation might not have been deserved, if a report from the first quarter of 2012 is to be believed. That report, which predated the discovery of the Flashback trojan, took a look at the number of vulnerabilities that major tech vendors reported. The numbers might surprise you.

A few months, I wrote about ten of my favorite apps in the Mac App Store. Not all apps are in the App Store, though, for a variety of grounds. Among other reasons, some apps hook deeper into the operating system than Apple allows from App Store apps, while other apps aren’t there due to developer concerns over the upcoming sandboxing requirements for App Store apps. Whatever the rationale, I have a number of crucial apps that aren’t available in the Mac App Store. Here are ten of them.

I’ve been a big fan of Toodledo ever since I first reviewed it back in 2010. Recently, though, I’ve been unfaithful. I’ve abandoned Toodledo as my task management app of choice, and moved on to OmniFocus. While there are some reasons not to switch, a few compelling reasons helped me to decide to make the move. Here are some reasons to switch, and some reasons to stay put.

Do you ever have to upload a file to share with someone? You could do this with Dropbox, which is one of our favorite apps, but then you need to make sure that your recipient has a Dropbox account. If you want a dead simple way to share a file, take a look at Dockdrop. When properly configured, Dockdrop allows you to drag a file to the Dockdrop icon on your Mac’s dock, which will trigger an upload to your preset destination, and then copy the file’s location to your clipboard. From there, it is simply a matter of pasting your clipboard contents (such as into an email message) to retrieve the file location.

With a Mac operating system, the more that you use it, the more you will explore it. There is so much to do with a Mac that this exploration process looks unending. In this post, I have compiled a list of some of the top hidden features of Mac OS X Lion. These secret Mac OS X Lion features are less popular than other well-known features, which is why I’ve labeled them as hidden features. But this does not imply that these features are any less useful than other features.

OmniFocus is a fantastic GTD application, boasting many great features. One of my favorite features is the quick entry box. This allows you to tap a key combination to call up a task entry box. That entry box will hover over whatever app you’re using and then disappear after you enter your task and hit the Return key. The big problem is that OmniFocus is a Mac-only app. I’ve liked it enough as I tested alternatives to Toodledo, that I looked for a way to make it easier to implement in a world dominated by Windows. I found a very slick free app called Win2GTD that brings an OmniFocus quick entry box to Windows.

If you come from the Windows world to a Mac, you may be surprised to find that there is no readily apparent way to lock your Mac if you step away from it. There are some ways to do this, such as forcing your Mac to the screensaver and requiring the password to unlock the screensaver. The quickest method I’ve found, though, is by using previously discussed BetterTouchTool.