Ben Stewart

(Continued from Part 1.)

In the first post I talked about instant messaging, e-mail, information organization, task management and calendar syncing all from within that small white-ish bar across the top of my screen. That covered the first five icons in my menubar. Let’s see what we can accomplish with the rest of the menubar icons.

Mozy (free*)

I try to backup my Macbook on a somewhat regular basis. But I’m a human just like the next guy, and so I often go weeks at a time without even thinking about firing up my backup solution of choice. For those times in between there is Mozy.

Mozy is an automatic, online backup solution for Mac and Windows. Basically, I tell Mozy what I want it to back up and it makes sure that everything lives in two places. I can choose specific folders or even data sets (like “all e-mail” or “my Address Book”). I can then setup how often I want it to backup by giving it a certain time of day and frequency, or having it automatically backup when my computer is not in use.

Any time I need to recover a lost file all I have to do is click the icon and choose “Restore Files…” and Mozy will show me everything that it has backed up to their server. It even keeps multiple copies of each file and it encrypts everything so my data is safe as it travels across the interwebs.

Thankfully I haven’t needed to use Mozy yet, but I definitely sleep a little better each night knowing that it is running.

* Mozy offers any user 2GB of space for free. Unlimited space is available for a modest $4.95 per month. They also offer business-class solutions called “Mozy Pro.”

iStat Menus (free)

A while back my Mac started running a little slower than normal. I often have Firefox open for days along with other apps like Mail, iCal, iTunes, Textmate, Twirl, Things, and others. It is usually at this point that I try to push my luck and open Photoshop and my computer starts running in slow-mo. I decided I wanted to keep an eye on what applications were hogging the most memory and CPU cycles. So, I installed iStat Menus and got so much more than I expected.

iStat Menus installs as a preference pane in System Preferences. This is where I can control how much or how little the app displays in my menubar and what each element looks like. I use vertical graphs for my CPU usage and RAM. Clicking on either gives me a list of the applications that are using the most of each resource. So, if my CPU meter spikes all of a sudden, I can click the icon and see which app I need to quit to regain control of my machine.

But the fun doesn’t stop there. If you look down further on my menubar you will notice my date and time listed. This is also being done by iStat Menus. Why should I let iStat Menus do that instead of just using the standard Apple date/time menubar item? Because I want more control over what it looks like and especially over what I get when I click on it. With iStat Menus I can click the date/time and see a full monthly calendar along with the current time in multiple time-zones. This helps to keep me from calling people on the west coast at 5am. (You’re welcome.)

iStat Menus will also display information about my hard drive, network connection, computer temperature, fan speed, and bluetooth connection.

Sync, Bluetooth, Volume and Battery

The next few icons are boring and I apologize. These are just some of the standard Apple items that live in my menubar. I don’t really have anything interesting to say about any of them.

MenuCalendarClock ($19.95*)

MenuCalendarClock gives me a nice looking display of the day of the month in my menubar. When I click the icon it shows me a small monthly calendar with all of the days that contain iCal events highlighted. At the bottom of that calendar view it lists the events that are scheduled for the currently selected day (color-coded by calendar). This offers me a quick way to view my upcoming schedule and see whether I am free for a meeting on a certain day without having to switch over to the full-blown iCal app.

* MenuCalendarClock can be used for free without extra features like iCal integration.

Spotlight

The last icon is the good old Apple Spotlight (search). While I actually don’t use spotlight much I still keep it in my menubar just in case. I reassigned the default spotlight keyboard shortcut CMD-Space to open Quicksilver instead of Spotlight. So I felt like I needed another easy way to get Spotlight open in case I ever need it.

Conclusion

That finishes our tour of my menubar applications. I hope you found some gems that you can use in your daily workflow. If you have an app that I don’t currently have installed that you think would rock my world, please leave a comment. I am always on the lookout for great Mac applications.

Shaun just made this schweet little promo video for the upcoming Compassion Bloggers Trip.

I have been using Cultured Code’s Things application for a while now. It is still in beta, but it is shaping up to be a wonderful task management app. What is “task management” you might ask? Think “to do lists.” But Things is more than just some lists with check boxes. Things has a wonderful tagging system, projects, “areas,” a Today list, a Next list, repeat tasks, and a bunch of other features that I’m just going to tease you with here. If you want to learn more about Things you should watch this video because this post isn’t about how great Things is, it’s about how I incorporate Things into my workflow.

As I said above, I use Things to handle my task management. I use Apple’s Mail application to handle my e-mail and I use iCal to keep up with my appointments. One of the big features in Apple’s Leopard operating system is “system-wide calendar.” This means that anything in iCal is available for other applications to read and manipulate. This also means that other applications can create things “in iCal” like events or tasks. I know, at first that doesn’t sound very interesting, but let me explain why that is a good thing. Things allows me to sync some of its “lists” with iCal calendars. This means that I can now create a new task in one application that syncs with iCal, and it will automagically appear in my Things list. If that doesn’t sound exciting let me demonstrate with a real world example… after the break.

Read the rest of this post »

The menubar in OSX is a wonderful place for unobtrusive apps that make computing both enjoyable and productive. Today I am going to run through some of the menubar apps that I currently have installed and running in hopes that you will discover new ways to increase your own productivity and possibly even enjoy using your Mac just a little bit more.

Get the scoop on these great apps after the break. Read the rest of this post »

Sometimes I feel like some “Christians” have an US vs. THEM mentality when it comes to people in the world who do not claim to follow Jesus Christ.

One example that comes to mind is the politician who says that I should vote for him because he is a Christian and therefore his morals are better than the other guy’s morals and he will make better decisions for my town, state, country than the other guy. He should win because he is better, and the other guy is bad because he doesn’t follow Jesus.

Strangely I don’t find Jesus practicing this mindset in his ministry. Now, before I get stoned for heresy, I definitely agree with the Bible when it says things like “He who is not with me is against me&hellips;” (Matt. 12:30a). However, in that verse Jesus is talking about church leaders who are trying to divide the kingdom and turn other church people against Jesus. This verse is not talking about The Church vs. The World, Christians vs. Sinners, US vs. THEM.

The Bible also warns about “loving this world.” This isn’t a warning against loving the people of the world, but rather it is a warning against following the ways of the world instead of the ways of Christ. For example: being selfish, boastful, waging war, etc. And even this warning is spoken to the Church and not the general population. It is only people who profess to be Christians that are expected to act like Christ.

And how do Christians act like Christ? By loving the rest of the world by serving them. “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves” (Phil. 2:3). We need to adopt an US for THEM mentality.

This mentality of humility and servanthood may not win as many elections or pass as many bills, but it just might actually further the Kingdom of God instead of the kingdoms of man. It may demolish arguments instead of strongholds. And it may challenge the Church to take responsibility for those in need instead of the government.

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete. (2 Cor. 10:3-6)