I didn’t even know that I could import NovaMind mindmaps into DevonThink Pro, so this was a real eyeopener!

First, download the new Amnesty Generator from Mesa Dynamics. It’s a small app for OS X. Next, head over to Google and check out all the so-called Google Gadgets. These are small pieces of code that you can install on your page, blog, site, MySpace whatever.

Click “Add to your webpage” when you find something interesting, and paste the code in Amnesty Generator. And voilá! A new widget with that Gadget running inside.

Brillliant. And think about all the useful widgets you can make. Here are a few suggestions:

• Technorati tracker
• Uptime monitor
• Digg News
• Wine Spectator Daily Wine Picks
• Bejeweled
• Google Videos

Babelfish

Some of these may have OS X Widgets already. But especially in the Tools section on Google Gadgets, you’ll find lots of useful things worth putting in an OS X widget. Be aware that some may not work, and Amnesty Generator is a 0.5 version. Very beta. But most of the ones I tried making, also worked in Dashboard.

So here’s a small mindmap on how to rule the world, a project quite a lot of people seem to be having on their list.

Make the mindmap, and save it. When you make a document in OS X, you get a small icon right in front of the name of the document, in the title bar at the top. Before saving it’s greyed out, and everytime you make changes it also greys out.

But hit Apple-S and the icon gets colors. And – you can drag it.

Exposé is an amazing productivity tool

For dragging to be useful, I have set up Exposé like this:

In English: If you drag the cursor to the lower left corner of your screen, Exposé will show all your open windows, in all apps. That’s the one we’re going to use.

Now, in OmniOutliner Pro, make a new project (“Rule the world”) in your Kinkless file, and hit Apple and Esc to make a comment on it. This opens up a field just below the projects name, where you can put notes and stuff that are not sub-tasks. Like this:

In my example I’ve just typed a reference to my mindmap: “My mindmap for ruling the world”. Just leave the cursor where it is after typing that, and switch to OmniOutliner Pro. Click the little icon in the title bar and start dragging. The icon now becomes a little bigger.

Drag the icon down to the lower left corner of your screen, the one we set up in Exposé. Now all your open windows pop up on the screen. Look for the window with your Kinkless projects in OmniOutliner Pro. Move the cursor up again and “park” on top of that window. Wait half a second or so. Finder will now zoom in on that window. Drop the icon right after the text you wrote previously.

Now you have a link to the mindmap directly from your Kinkless projects. Double-click the icon, and NovaMind opens with your mindmap.

Other ways to do this

As always in OS X, there are many ways to do things. You can drag from a window to another, if both are visible. Here I’m dragging a file saved in TextEdit directly into OmniOutliner Pro.

You can also start dragging the icon from the mindmap, use Alt-Tab to switch between apps and then drop the icon.

Forget import or open commands

With this method, you almost never have to import or link to files with a dialog window. You make the document you need, save it to the right place, and drag it into the app you want to use it. I use it for Livetype files in Final Cut Pro, Photoshop files in Final Cut Pro and InDesign, and in general all kinds of graphics, sound, video and text files into apps that use them. No more Apple-I. A huge timesaver. At it looks cool.

Here’s a how-to on how to create quite realistic looking bubbles on your pictures, using Photoshop or GIMP. It’s based on the Amazing circles technique I have written about before. Join the Amazing circles group at Flickr if you make any, bubbles or not.

This works in TextEdit, Pages, Safari text fields, all text fields in iLife apps etc. Very useful!

But how do you enable comments on them?

Well, you cant. There is no such function.

So Chad Brantly made a way to hack this in. Just download his iComment software. It uses Haloscan to keep track of the comments.

Have a look here.

Hmmm. Open picture. Choose “Send to group”, scroll down to your new group, click, click “ok” on message. Click to open next photo. Wait. Repeat.

Way too much work!

Luckily someone has a halfgood solution until Flickr makes a system to handle this better:

A quicker way would be to use the organizr. Pull up the appropriate group in the right-hand window, the photos you want to add in the left-hand window, hold down the ‘a’ key and click on the photos one by one. This will add them to the group. Much faster than using the dropdown box method.

Great, curiouskiwi!!! Just what I needed. There’s a whole thread on FlickrHelp discussing this.

Make a square selection

1. Open an image in Photoshop (screenshots are from Photoshop CS2 on Mac). Higher resolution and size will give better results. I have used a picture I took myself some time ago. If you want to use the same picture for this How to, you can find it here.

2. You need to make a selection that is squared. Use the selection tool, and set the aspect ratio to fixed:

3. Enter the same number in both fields. 1 and 1 works.

4. Make a selection.

Apply the filter

5. Apply the filter Polar Coordinates:

6. In this step, use the bottom radio button, marked “Polar to Rectangular”:

7. Now your image will turn into something that may look interesting at best, but we're not yet there:

Rotate and apply filter again

8. Rotate the selection 180 degrees. There are a few different ways to do this. One of them is to use the Edit menu, then Transform and Rotate 180 degrees.

9. Now apply the same filter we did in point 5. But do NOT just choose it from the top of the Filter menu. We are going to change one of the parameters so you have to choose it from Filters > Distort > Polar Coordinates… again.

This time, choose the upper radio button, labeled “Rectangular to Polar”:

Crop and save

10. Crop your picture to get rid of the stuff surrounding your new Amazing circle:

11. Voila!

Save and upload to Flickr.

12. I have created a group for Amazing circles. Please join!

You might want to have a look at all the other posts I have about Flickr!

Update 1: 100 members

Now 100 members on the Flickr group. Read about it here.

Update 2: 400 members

As of December 25, 2005, the Flickr group has over 400 members, and appproaching 3 500 amazing circles. Wow!

Update 3: Digged

Digged!

Update 4: Amazing circles with GIMP

Flatfield at Flickr has posted instructions how to make Amazing Circles with GIMP.

Update 5: Dumpr.net

If you’re lazy just use the new automatic Amazing circles tool at Dumpr.net.

Sponsored links

Total training: New Advanced Adobe Photoshop CS Training.

Amazon.com: The Photoshop CS Book for Digital Photographers

Amazon.com: Adobe Photoshop CS2 for Photographers: A Professional Image Editor’s Guide to the Creative Use of Photoshop for the Macintosh and PC

First, read my previous entry about “Add spotlight tags”. Make the Automator action described and save it as a Finder plugin for ctrl-clicking.

Smart folders

Then, in Finder, make a smart folder called “@home”, one called “@work” etc. One for every category you use with David Allen’s brilliant book “Getting things done”.

Set up the folders like this: In Finder, choose File > Add smart folder. Or use the shortcut Alt-Apple-N. This brings up this window (mine is in Norwegian but you get the message).

Be sure to choose “Computer” (“Datamaskin” in my screenshot) in the header, to make the smart folder search your whole Mac, not just parts of it.

Remove the bottom search term by clicking the minus sign. And click the first menu for the first one, and choose “Other” (“Annen” in my screenshot).

This brings up a long list of things you can use in smart folders. To find the one we’re looking for, type “Spotlight” in the upper right corner. You don’t need to type the whole word, as the list will be shorter for every letter, leaving you with just “Spotlight comments” (“Spotlight kommentarer” in my screenshot).

Choose that one, and “OK”.

Now type “@home” or “@work” or whatever context you’re making a smart folder for, save it and put it somewhere visible. I put mine on the desktop.

Start tagging

Now, everytime you get a new file, just tag it by ctrl-clicking on it, and put in “@home”, “@work” etc. and the file will magically be listed immediately in your smart folder with that context. And it doesn’t matter where you put it on your drives. Put it anywhere!! It will still show up in your smart folder. This is just great!

Also tag files with other keywords while you’re at it. Example: If working with the “Redesign” project at work with your friend Mark, tag the Illustrator file both “Project:Redesign” and “@work” and “Projects” and “Mark”.

If you want to remove a tag from a file, just click it once in Finder, hit Apple-I and edit the Spotlight comments directly.

What do you think?

Do you have any experiences with this? Post them in the comments below! Also read my other posts about GTD and “Getting things done”.

It’s so fun. Highly recommended!

When your new comic is finished, put it on Flickr, and tag it “comiclife”. So far: 33 contributions.

And if you want to make your digital pictures look more like toons, check out this great tip from MacMerc.