Jeroen Sangers

Version 2 of the popular OS X task management application Omnifocus is about to be released today. I have been testing the beta versions for some time and have seen how the software matured little by little.

Version 2 defers from the previous version in almost every aspect; it contains new features such as the review and forecast perspectives and also the user interface has been modernised. Especially the latter gave rise to many discussions on the support forums about the data density of the new design. Eventually, the Omni Group published a hack to change the layout of the task list back to a table of tasks more similar to Omnifocus 1.

This made me wonder what other ‘secret’ configuration options exist. So far, I have been able to compile the following list.

All configuration options are activated by opening a special URL starting with omnifocus:///change-preference in your browser, which opens Omnifocus and applies the configuration. The URLs in the list are clickable to apply the configuration directly form this post.

Alternate layout

Use omnifocus:///change-preference?ContentLayout=compact to switch to the compact layout, which only uses one line per task. Note that this layout is experimental and still has some issues. To return to the default layout you can use omnifocus:///change-preference?ContentLayout. The alternative layout looks like this:

Hide empty contexts in the main outline

If you’re in a perspective grouped by context, you’ll see that empty perspectives will also show up in the main outline, to mike it easier to reassign tasks by dragging them to another context. If you would rather not see them, you can remove the empty contexts from the main outline with omnifocus:///change-preference?MainOutlineIncludesEmptyContexts=false. You can also pass the parameter true to reactivate the empty contexts.

Hide On Hold projects in forecast view

If you put a project on hold, it’s tasks will still show up in the forecast view. The reasoning is that even though the project is on hold, its tasks still have a due date. If you prefer not to see those tasks on the forecast view, disable them using omnifocus:///change-preference?ForecastIncludesProjectsOnHold=false. Use omnifocus:///change-preference?ForecastIncludesProjectsOnHold to restore the default setting.

Reorganise the side bar

This ‘hack’ is a little bit more complicated. The issue was that the order of the perspectives in the sidebar could not be reorganised. Note that in the final release the default perspectives behave just like any other perspective, and can be organised in any way you like it. However, if you want to freak out with URL schemes, this is the way:

The default perspectives are on top (Inbox, Projects, Contexts…), followed by any starred perspectives. To add another perspective, you first have to star the perspective and open the URL omnifocus:///change-preference?SidebarTabs to get a list of the current tabs. Note the ID of the starred perspective, hdDT8UyDkVe in this case:

Once you know the ID of your custom perspective, you can define the order of the tabs with omnifocus:///change-preference?SidebarTabs=(hdDT8UyDkVe,ForecastTab,InboxTab)

Send clippings directly to the inbox

Whenever you clip something from another application, the Quick Entry window shows up so you can specify some further meta-information about the task – project, context, dates… – and change the task description. If you would rather send the clipped information directly to the Omnifocus inbox, use the configuration URL omnifocus:///change-preference?ClippingsGoToQuickEntry=false.

Sync settings

There are two setting for configuring the synchronisation interval. First, you can set the maximum sync time –in seconds – with omnifocus:///change-preference?MaximumTimeBetweenSync=600 (this sets the maximum to 10 minutes). Use omnifocus:///change-preference?MaximumTimeBetweenSync to restore the default setting of one hour.

The other option is for setting how long after making an edit Omnifocus should synchronise. The URL is omnifocus:///change-preference?TimeFromFirstEditToSync=15 and omnifocus:///change-preference?TimeFromFirstEditToSync to get back to the default setting of one minute.

Toolbar colour

If you have setup your mac to use the ‘Graphite’ appearance instead of the default ‘Blue’ theme, Omnifocus will have black and white icons in the toolbar instead of the modern coloured icons. If you prefer this to be different, you can use omnifocus:///change-preference?ToolbarItemTint=aqua to force the use of coloured buttons or omnifocus:///change-preference?ToolbarItemTint=graphite to get the black and white icons in the toolbar. As usual, with omnifocus:///change-preference?ToolbarItemTint you’ll go back to the default setting.

Set defer date when dragging a task in Forecast view

This option was contributed by Colter in the comments of this post. When in Forecast view, you can drag a task to another date in the calendar to change its due date. You can change the defer date instead by holding the ⌘ key. If you would like to change the defer date by default, you can use the URL omnifocus:///change-preference?ForecastDragSetsDeferDate=true.

Change the project hierarchy separator character

If you’re using folders, OmniFocus will show the complete path in the project selection drop-down list using a colon as the hierarchy separation character, e.g. Personal : Finance. You can configure the character used to separate the project hierarchy with the URL omnifocus:///change-setting?OFMNamedObjectHierarchicalNameSeparator=%20:%20 (note that %20 is the code for a space).

Please leave a comment if you know of any other configuration option for Omnifocus 2; I will keep this post up-to-date.

In preparation for the iCloud launch in autumn, I have been thinking about its impact on my use of Apple services. Our family uses several iDevices and the better syncing options offered by iCloud will be very welcome. However, I have some concerns about purchasing and synching.

At this moment I use two different accounts to access Apple’s services: I have a regular Apple ID which I use for purchasing Apps and home sharing media, and I also have a MobileMe account for synching data between my Macbook and the iPhone. The MobileMe account is used just by me, while all iDevices share the same Apple ID for the obvious reason that I don’t want to purchase apps twice. Furthermore, by using two separate accounts we are able to access all iTunes libraries from the AppleTV, without being obliged to synchronize calendars as well, as those are being synched using another account. In short: the Apple ID identifies the family/home, while MobileMe is used to identify a person.

When Apple activates iCloud, my Apple ID will also become the token for synching information, which is a problem for me. I would like to continue using the Apple ID to make purchases for the whole family and stream media between the devices of our family, while on the other hand each member needs a personal ID for synching calendars, mail accounts and other personal data. When Apple closes MobileMe I will be forced to sync my calendar through iCloud, but my wife has no interest at all in my appointments (and vice versa).

As far as I have been able to find out, iCloud will not offer such granularity. I assume that my situation is quite common and that many families with several devices will face the same issue. Does anybody know a solution for this problem, or do we simply have to wait for the final version of iCloud and hope that Apple has already a solution?

Google has released a new security measure to help you protect your ever increasing amount of data stored on their servers. This 2-step authentication means that when you log in to your Google account with your username and password, you will receive a code by SMS message. Only after entering this code you will be able to get to your data.

Even though I don’t have a lot of data on Google’s servers (I hardly ever use Gmail or Google Docs, mainly just Google Reader) I thought that it was a good idea to activate this service – better safe than sorry, right?

Activating 2-step verification

So I went ahead and activated the service. The procedure is fairly easy: First you switch the service on, then you configure your mobile phone number and activate it with the code you receive by SMS. Finally you have the possibility to print out a list of backup verification codes. Google advices you to keep this list in your wallet, which I found very strange: if you loose your wallet, you give the lucky ‘finder’ the possibility to get into your Google account without needing the SMS confirmation.

I immediately tried it out by opening Google Reader, and yes: after I gave my Google credentials I received a SMS message with a new code from Google. They appear to be sending them from the UK, which means that –with the current roaming rates in Europe– they are willing to spend a small fortune on better security. When I entered the verification code I noticed that fortunately there is a possibility to remember the verification on a computer for 30 days. It worked!

External applications

Satisfied I closed the browser Window and went on with other issues. Later that day I opened Reeder on my iPhone to read some news, but got an error. It appears that by activating the 2-step verification all access from external applications is blocked automatically. To re-enable access to your Google account from a third-party application, you will have to generate a special password for that application only:

Some mobile or desktop applications that work outside of a browser aren't yet compatible with 2-step verification. These applications are hard-coded to ask for a username and password, and do not prompt for a verification code. If you want one of these applications to access your Google Account, you must enter an application-specific password, not your Google Account password, when asked for a password.

I went ahead and generated passwords for IMAP access, Reeder for iPhone, FlipBook, Reeder for iPad, Feedly, Google Earth and a bunch of other applications. After generating each password, Google warns you that you will not be able to see the password anymore once you close the screen, so I made sure to configure each application immediately and test it before going on with the next application.

Does it make sense?

After a while I started wondering what the heck I was doing. On one side I had made my account more secure, because whenever I access my account through the browser I have to give the SMS verification code. However, if instead of the browser I access my data through an external application, I can choose from a whole list of valid passwords for my account. API access went from a single username/password combination to a whole bunch of passwords valid for the same username.

I know that Google sees the browser window as the principal interface to their services, and for users who work that way, the 2-step notification process is quite an improvement. However, I see the browser as just one of the many interfaces/applications I use to access my data on Google’s servers. To me it makes no sense that –even though one application increased its security– the security level for all other applications is significantly lowered.

I finally disabled the 2-step notification for my Google account, when I found out that I can’t use Google anymore as my OpenID provider, since I am required to generate a new password for each blog or web –those that require registration– I want to comment on. Too much of a hassle to be functional…

After some weeks of work –though I only spend 1-2 hours every week on this project– I am re-releasing brain tags. I have lost the count of the version numbers of this blog, but is should probably the 6th or 7th overhaul. I am very excited about it, as I see it as a fresh start with some important changes:

A new CMS

After many, many years, I have exported all data from my old Movable Type Pro installation, and installed a fresh copy of Melody on a fresh new account. For those who are not familiar with those two applications, Melody is a fork Movable Type version 4.

I choose to move to Melody for several reasons. First of all, I was not completely happy with the latest versions of Movable Type, which added a lot of unneeded bloat, such as the possibility to create sites. In fact, Movable Type obliges you to first create a site to be able to create a weblog. But the biggest reason is the fact that support for Movable Type is decreasing, now that the owner is focussed on advertising, and development on Movable Type takes place in Japan.

Melody was created by two former employees of Six Apart –one of them was product manager for Movable Type– and a very active community member. They have already been able to solve a lot of the main issues in Movable Type in Melody, and I simply trust more in them than in the current developers of Movable Type.

A final note on the change: while both Melody and Movable Type can handle multiple blogs and I traditionally have managed all my blogs from a single installation, I am now separating them again. This way I can make my customizations without making my other blogs more complex. It also gives me a way to test out things.

A new theme

Melody comes with a very nice minimalistic theme as the default theme, DePo Clean, and I decided to keep it. For the moment I haven’t personalized the templates, though I did fix some minor bugs in the theme. Once I figure out how to make diff files, I will probably submit the patches to the Melody developers.

I do have a list of wishes and desires for the theme, so don’t be surprised when things change over time.

Comments are disabled

Even though the combined Akismet and Typepad spam filters are very effective, I still had to deal with several comments in the moderation queue every week. Since nowadays there are plenty of other ways to express your opinion, I have disabled the comments function. If you want to share your opinion, feel free to send me a [tweet]6 or mail.

Less images, more text

When importing the old entries, I left out all decorational images. In the last years, I always accompanied each post with an image to make the post more attractive. Those images are now gone, you will only find images which help making my point. I want the focus to be on my words, and will also try to write longer, more thoughtful posts from now on.

I am very excited about this new start. What do you think?

Starting Monday May 23rd I will be moving this blog to a new platform on a new server. This migration serves as a test for the migration of El Canasto and I will be trying out many different things in order to make the migration of El Canasto run smoothly.

Since my available time is limited and I can only dedicate a few hours per week to this test, I expect Brain Tags to be down during a significant period of time (read: days).

The reason for moving from my beloved Movable Type Pro to Melody (a fork of MT) is simply the fact that most of the community effort has moved to Melody and I expect a better support in the future now that the development of MT only takes place in Japan.

The mobile revolution is shaking up the software market. Old paradigms (bigger is better) disappear and new ones are created.

One area where these changes are specifically noticeable is the relation between applications and the file system.

Most computing environments are in what I call the second generation, where the file system is the dominant part of this relation. The file is the centre of our activities. To start working we open a file and the associated application is automatically launched. We only start application directly when we want to create a new file.

This has not always been like this: in the past (first generation) the applications were the core, where applications gave access to data on the mainframe or in databases. There are some situations where we work in applications without having any idea of the underlying file- or database structure. E-mail is one of the uses of this system.

Like I said, the mobile revolution is changing this again. Mobile operating systems as iOS, Symbian and Android give very limited access to the file system and force us back to the mainframe era. Even the desktop operating systems don’t give you direct access to the file system anymore, but rather a virtual system mounted on top of the real file system.

It looks like file system abstraction is the future, but I don’t think that applications will be the centre of our universe. The operating system of the future won’t be centred on files or applications, but will use processes and tasks as the leading parameter.

In the operating system of the future, you will be able to say that you want to write, and a simple text editor will open. The moment you access more advanced editing functions, the application will automatically switch to another editing engine. Of course, you text is automatically saved and can be used in many ways.

In the future, operating systems will actually help you being productive. Trust me.

A recent trend in the blogosphere has been to add tweets as comments on posts. I understand where this comes from, as in general commenting on blog posts has decreased in favour of twittering. By adding all tweets mentioning your blog posts, your posts look more alive and will probably attract more readers.

Whenever I think about features for my blogs, I always ask myself what the value is for my readers. In the case of tweets as comments, I look for the answer based on my own experiences. It happens frequently that I find an interesting post with let’s say 20 comments. When I finished reading this, otherwise interesting, blog post and get ready for participating in the conversation, I find out that there actually are only two real comments, followed by a tweet of the author and 17 retweets adding absolutely nothing to the post or the conversation. Immediately my motivation to participate in the conversation is gone and I quickly move on to the next blog.

Although in theory tweets are comments about your posts (or at least mentioning the post), they hardly ever contribute to the discussion. If you absolutely want to display the tweets on your blog post, go ahead, but don’t mix them with the comments. If in the example above the tweets would have been separated from the comments and the blogs metadata would have shown me that the post has 2 comments and 18 tweets, I would not be so disappointed and probably would have left a comment as well.

A comment is a comment and a tweet is a tweet.

Ante la inclusión en el Anteproyecto de Ley de Economía sostenible de modificaciones legislativas que afectan al libre ejercicio de las libertades de expresión, información y el derecho de acceso a la cultura a través de Internet, los periodistas, bloggers, usuarios, profesionales y creadores de internet manifestamos nuestra firme oposición al proyecto, y declaramos que…

1. Los derechos de autor no pueden situarse por encima de los derechos fundamentales de los ciudadanos, como el derecho a la privacidad, a la seguridad, a la presunción de inocencia, a la tutela judicial efectiva y a la libertad de expresión.
2. La suspensión de derechos fundamentales es y debe seguir siendo competencia exclusiva del poder judicial. Ni un cierre sin sentencia. Este anteproyecto, en contra de lo establecido en el artículo 20.5 de la Constitución, pone en manos de un órgano no judicial --un organismo dependiente del ministerio de Cultura--, la potestad de impedir a los ciudadanos españoles el acceso a cualquier página web.
3. La nueva legislación creará inseguridad jurídica en todo el sector tecnológico español, perjudicando uno de los pocos campos de desarrollo y futuro de nuestra economía, entorpeciendo la creación de empresas, introduciendo trabas a la libre competencia y ralentizando su proyección internacional.
4. La nueva legislación propuesta amenaza a los nuevos creadores y entorpece la creación cultural. Con Internet y los sucesivos avances tecnológicos se ha democratizado extraordinariamente la creación y emisión de contenidos de todo tipo, que ya no provienen prevalentemente de las industrias culturales tradicionales, sino de multitud de fuentes diferentes.
5. Los autores, como todos los trabajadores, tienen derecho a vivir de su trabajo con nuevas ideas creativas, modelos de negocio y actividades asociadas a sus creaciones. Intentar sostener con cambios legislativos a una industria obsoleta que no sabe adaptarse a este nuevo entorno no es ni justo ni realista. Si su modelo de negocio se basaba en el control de las copias de las obras y en Internet no es posible sin vulnerar derechos fundamentales, deberían buscar otro modelo.
6. Consideramos que las industrias culturales necesitan para sobrevivir alternativas modernas, eficaces, creíbles y asequibles y que se adecuen a los nuevos usos sociales, en lugar de limitaciones tan desproporcionadas como ineficaces para el fin que dicen perseguir.
7. Internet debe funcionar de forma libre y sin interferencias políticas auspiciadas por sectores que pretenden perpetuar obsoletos modelos de negocio e imposibilitar que el saber humano siga siendo libre.
8. Exigimos que el Gobierno garantice por ley la neutralidad de la Red en España, ante cualquier presión que pueda producirse, como marco para el desarrollo de una economía sostenible y realista de cara al futuro.
9. Proponemos una verdadera reforma del derecho de propiedad intelectual orientada a su fin: devolver a la sociedad el conocimiento, promover el dominio público y limitar los abusos de las entidades gestoras.
10. En democracia las leyes y sus modificaciones deben aprobarse tras el oportuno debate público y habiendo consultado previamente a todas las partes implicadas. No es de recibo que se realicen cambios legislativos que afectan a derechos fundamentales en una ley no orgánica y que versa sobre otra materia.

NOTA: Este manifiesto fue redactado conjuntamente por periodistas, bloggers e internautas. Si estás de acuerdo, copialo, publícalo en tu blog, leelo en tu podcast, imprímelo y difúndelo por todas las vías que puedas.

I just discovered that it currently is not possible to comment on this blog. At first sight it looks like the problem is caused by the AJAX part that tries to publish the data to another domain.

However, it has been a while since I last touched the templates, and the commenting feature worked fine in January, when I received the last comment.

When I have time I will try to fix it or I will simply remove the fancy AJAX part. I’ll keep you informed.

[Update 2009.03.16] I have removed all AJAX stuff from the templates, so commenting should be possible again. I still have to remove some rough edges though.

I am back from the CeBIT show. Actually, I came back on Monday, but have been too busy to post. This year has been been a huge success for our company, mainly because we had a better place for our booth and because we presented right in the middle of this crisis a revolutionary low cost product on which we have been working for three years (sometimes you need a little bit of luck).

The show has been such a success that this year I haven't been able to visit the other halls of the show to see what is happening in the IT sector. Anyway, nowadays we don't depend on big trade shows anymore to inform us about the latest new products.