StackSocial is offering a bundle of 8 Mac Apps for $44.99. You can even use code ULTRA5 at checkout for an extra $5 off.
Things2, a sleek task management app, is part of the bundle. It alone retails for $50. Also included is the otherwise $99 ScreenFlow 5, a robust piece of software for screencasting and video editing on Mac.
Find the deal, with more details on each of the included apps, here.
The best iPhone time tracker I’ve seen is OfficeTime. It is simple, fast, effective, and easy to get in and out of quickly to start tracking time and get right back to work.
You can set up your Projects and Categories (I use these as two levels of task grouping), and tap on each to see how much time you’ve spent in a certain part of your work. I don’t use the Expenses feature of the app, but if you were a sub-contracting consultant keeping track of work for multiple clients, OfficeTime would be immensely helpful in tracking billing.
Pulling up a new time/task entry is easy:
“Notes” allows you to write more details about what task you’re working on.
Not only can you look at all your time entries in a week by Project and Category, but you can see (as below) a virtual Timesheet of your week.
The iPhone app can sync automatically to the desktop version of OfficeTime, though you have to actually be on the same wireless network to do it. Similarly, the iPad app can sync to a computer (and vice versa), but the data cannot sync automatically between iPad and iPhone apps. That is one of the few drawbacks I’ve found in OfficeTime.
I’ll post more in a future review about the desktop app, and also report back on exporting features.
The lack of a full-bodied sync option hasn’t really stopped me, though, since I can keep all the data on my phone and then sync with my work computer when I’m in the office.
OfficeTime has a free Mac trial version, and a free iOS version to try here. The paid iOS version is $7.99 and works on both iPhone and iPad.
If you are the time tracking sort, and want a full-bodied way to keep track on the go, OfficeTime officially rates the Words on the Word title of AppTastic.
Thanks to the makers of OfficeTime for giving me a download for the review. Check out the app’s iOS page here. See my other AppTastic Tuesday reviews here.
Don’t spend too much time checking out new productivity apps (hint: that’s an easy time drain to rationalize away), but if you’re looking for a calendar app, a to-do app, or even a couple good desktop clients for blogging, there are some good options for iOS and OSX on sale right now.
The iOS sale includes Calendars 5, Fantastical 2 (my new go-to calendar app), Workflow, Duet Display (lets you use your iPad as another screen for your computer), and a handful more. You can find them all here.
The Mac App Store sale includes Blogo and Desk, two sleek apps that let you post to your blog from a desktop client. Both are half off, and you can see the rest by going to the “Featured” section of your App Store computer app.
It’s Apptastic Tuesday here at Words on the Word, and there are few apps that are more AppTastic than Accordance Bible Software.
Today they’ve announced that there is a free demo version of Accordance 11 available. I can’t recommend their software highly enough. See my full review of Accordance 11 if you want to learn more, or just go here to check out the free demo and see what you think.
Logos, I appreciate you. I use your products. I was impressed with Logos 6. I even recently signed on as an affiliate to receive commissions for Logos purchases generated through a unique Words on the Word-based url. You’ve been kind to offer me a lot of great stuff to review.
You invest a lot of time and effort (and, I assume, money) in marketing.
I ignore most of it.
But you recently emailed me a link to an awkwardly titled blog post: 6 Reasons That Shouldn’t Stop You from Getting Logos 6.
This post has gone too far in trying to convince people to override their objections to spend more:
2. I already have enough books.
Even if you think you’ll never read through everything in your library, adding more books will make it more powerful and increase the value of the books you already own.
In other words, “If you buy more books to search, you’ll have more books to search.”
Dear friends at Logos, do we not already succumb enough to an insufficiency mentality in the world? I don’t have enough. I need to have more. My Bible study and teaching prep is good, but if I just had that one more commentary series, life would be awesome!
I’m as guilty of this mentality as anyone (probably more so)–and I want to fight it. Bible software marketing copy that taps into the culturally-rooted materialism that Christians are supposed to stand against? Not okay.
One other “reason” gave me pause:
4. I can’t afford a new base package.
If a base package isn’t in your budget right now, you have a couple of options.
You can take advantage of interest-free payment plans and spread out the cost over up to 24 months. That means you only pay a fraction up front, pay for the rest over time, and start using your new software right away.
Let me help with the rewrite:
If a base package isn’t in your budget right now, you have one option: don’t buy one right now.
“Our mission is to serve the church,” you say. How does enabling and even encouraging churchgoers and pastors to take on new debt serve the church?
I think it’s time for some serious evaluation of the sort of marketing mantras that (however unintentionally) undermine Kingdom values of sufficiency and wise financial stewardship and promote instead the harmful values of incessant accumulation and overspending.
Saying, “What I have is enough,” and curbing credit-card-style overspending are actually two excellent reasons not to upgrade to Logos 6.
UPDATE: The “6 Reasons” email I received from Logos had no author’s name on it. I didn’t see an author’s name on the blog version of the post, either, until just before this post was about to go live. I direct my critique, though, to Logos as a whole, since the individual post is emblematic of Logos’s marketing approach in general.
Sure, there’s a chance that over-reliance on a monetized chore chart can have negative effects on children. But we parents also want to teach our kids about the importance of work, responsibility, and the basics of financial management.
There’s still not an iPhone app for making you a better parent. In fact, probably less time on apps in general makes better parents. However, a number of us moms and dads already spend time each day managing tasks, finances, and other activities on a phone… so why not a chore chart?
Enter iAllowance.
Those are my sweet kids (names blurred out–you see their names on the app).
They’ve got their own corner of the app where we track their stars (earned or docked for behavior) and money (allowance, and stars converted to money).
The app has a bunch of pre-set chores you can select to track for each kid–at a frequency of your choosing.
And you can add your own. (We added, “Make the bus on time”–everyone gets a star when that happens!)
You can set how many stars equate to a monetary amount, and then have the app make the transfer for you. We were paying our kids 10 cents a star, but we were doling out a lot of money! So we changed it to 5 cents a star.
You can also set up different accounts for each child. We have one for Church, one for Savings, and one for Spending. The Totals screen shows you all that, as well as Stars and Time (one of the few features I haven’t used in the app):
iAllowance is a really a great (and fun) app. It syncs via Dropbox or iCloud with an iPad. As a universal app, if you buy it, you can use it (and sync it) on any iOS device.
The kids love it, too. It’s been an effective motivator, and really fun for them to tap their stars at the end of the day–or tap on “Bad Behavior” and see a frowny face. 😦
Any time you tap next to a chore (which you can do in the Day view or Week view) you get an accompanying sound effect, too. And the allowance deposits happen automatically, in the amounts and to the accounts that you specify.
The app runs smoothly, and the developer is one of the most responsive (if not the most responsive) developers I’ve ever been in touch with.
I can’t say whether a incentive-based program will work for you and–if it will–whether you should run it from a mobile device. But I can say that both the overall setup of stars and allowance, as well as this particular app, have really helped perk up some listening ears around here!
Now… I’ve got to go give myself a star for posting another Apptastic Tuesday review, Blizzard 2015 notwithstanding.
Thanks to the developer of iAllowance for giving me a download for the review. Check out the app’s site here. You can find the full (paid) version here, and try the free version here.
Last week on AppTastic Tuesday: Rules! This week: Captio.
The goal of Captio is a simple one: to very quickly pull up a screen into which you can type text or stick a photograph, and then email it to yourself.
It works in iPhone in both portrait and landscape mode. Here’s the New Note screen, which lets you (a) enter text, (b) select a photo from your phone, or (c) take a new photo:
You might quickly pull up Captio to jot down a reminder or bit of information you want to access later. Then you tap Send, and your text or image is sent to your email address.
You can adjust some settings–for example, have a prefix of “Captio” or “Remember” or anything else in the subject of the email that Captio sends:
And, what is best, you can send it to any email address. This is especially helpful if you have a to-do system (like Evernote or OmniFocus) that allows you to email items directly into those apps.
This is where I’ve found Captio most useful. It can take Evernote and (especially) OmniFocus a few seconds to load and sync–Captio, by contrast, gives you a text entry screen as soon as you tap it.
Captio is also available within other apps via the Share Extensions:
I’ve not personally seen a need to use the Share Extension–it works great, but if I’m saving a Web article to read later, I’ll just use the Evernote Share Extension anyway. Or the OmniFocus Share Extension to create a task from a photo. But for folks who primarily rely on email to keep reminders (not a good idea, but a widespread practice), Captio can help from just about anywhere on your phone or iPad.
Captio also stores all the notes you send, right on your device, so you can use it with or without Internet/data connections.
And, though all the shots above are from an iPhone, Captio is a universal app. So for $1.99 (at the time of this post), you can use it on both iPhone and iPad.
Thanks to the makers of Captio for giving me a download for the review. Check out the app’s site here.
Today begins what will be a mainstay of Words on the Word in 2015: AppTastic Tuesdays. First up: the iOS app Rules!
Rules! is part zone-out tapping, part memory-training app. The gameplay itself is fast-paced, fun, easy, and aesthetically pleasing. Watch this short trailer to get caught up:
The actual tapping of icons is easy–the game is quite touch-responsive and fast. And the rules are clear enough:
When you complete what rule 1 calls for, you move up to rule 2. Having completed rule 2 on the screen, you then apply rule 1 to the remaining icons. There are 100 levels of rules, though I have barely made it past 15.
When the game introduces a new rule, you get a screen like this:
But then after completing rule 13, it tells you simply, “Now follow rule 12,” “Now follow rule 11,” “Now follow rule 9,” and so on.
So it’s more than about the gameplay itself–you’ve got to memorize the rules as you go; you’ve got to know them by number.
This makes it a less-than-ideal zone-out game. Threes is by no means boring but mindless enough that you can come home to it at the end of a long day. Rules! is not so. It demands more of your mind.
You will probably find yourself, as I did, using some mnemonic device to remember 8-10 rules at once, so you can perform the appropriate actions on the screen in front of you.
There are three game modes: Beginner, Expert, Timeless (i.e., no countdown clock). The scoring rewards you for speed and accuracy:
The need to memorize a host of rules in order to do well caused me to lose interest more quickly with Rules! than I have with other iOS games.
But Rules! especially excels in two areas: (1) its accompanying music is pretty, well-written, and good for focusing, and (2) its layout and design is gorgeous. Even the fail screen looks good:
So, for $1.99 in the App Store, if you’re up for a mental challenge with good music and beautiful design, check it out and see if you can–as one player on Twitter recently did–get through all 100 levels.
Thanks to the makers of Rules! for giving me a download for the review. Check out the app’s site here.
Accordance Bible Software has recently released a bunch of N.T. Wright resources, including his newly published and massive Paul and the Faithfulness of God. There are two bundles Accordance offers (here and here), and both are on sale this week.
I’ll be posting an extended book note on Wright’s new two-volume work before too long. Consider it a 2015 New Year’s resolution.
In the meantime, I commend to you Accordance 11, which I suspect will be a nice way to access and utilize Wright’s work.
Want to read the Old Testament in Greek on all your devices? This is the cheapest way I’ve seen to get started: until midnight PST tomorrow (1/6/15) night, you can get this Septuagint bundle for less than $50. It includes
This is really an incredible deal, given that the Rahlfs-Hanhart text in print is about $50 (and doesn’t include running parsings). The LEH Lexicon in print runs anywhere from $40 to $80.
What can Olive Tree do, you ask? See my gathered posts here, including my recent review of a five-volume dictionary set that is still on sale.
The advantage to having the above combo in Olive Tree is that you can tap any word in the Rahlfs-Hanhart Greek text and get instant parsing information.
You can instantly access that word’s lexical entry in the LEH lexicon. I especially appreciate LEH’s inclusion of word frequency counts, according to sections of the LXX:
Using the split window setup, here’s what the Rahlfs text with apparatus looks like:
Though Rahlfs never intended his apparatus in this volume to be fully critical, it does help you at least compare LXX readings as found in Vaticanus (B), Alexandrinus (A), and Sinaiticus (S).
And because Olive Tree is fully cross-platform, you can sync any notes you take or highlights you make and they appear on any device on which you have Olive Tree.
Find the whole bundle here, on sale for just a little while longer.
Words on the Word 