Automators

This week David and Rose come to us live from PodCon with a very enthusiastic audience where they take the opportunity to dive into some of their travel automation setups. Once back in the studio they then go through some of the great feedback they've received recently.

A shortcut to help you append to Bear notes for David's home grown TripIt solution.

Rose's crazy packing list shortcut

These are the iBeacons Rose and David are using.

This is Rose's crazy battery pack

Automator, Alfred, AppleScript, Hazel - which solution?

This could potentially be solved with a mail merge.

You can purchase Launch Center Pro NFC Stickers here

A shortcut to help Rose quickly enter her travel to the airport

Myke Hurley is relatively new to automation but found many ways to simplify his day via automation. In this episode, Myke share several simple to implement, yet crazy useful automations.

Myke Hurley

In this episode Rose and David dive into time tracking, including the why, the how, and then most importantly - how to automate it!

The app isn't available yet, and doesn't really have a website, but keep an eye on it!

All of Federico's Shortcuts for time tracking are available here.

A Cortex listener created a way to automate time tracking on Android with Toggl and Tasker.

This screencast shows you how you can integrate time tracking with other Shortcuts allowing you to track time without thinking about it.

Rose and David tackle the challenge of journaling and how to use automation to make it easier.

Get out your artistically crafted paper notebook and favorite fountain pen as we talk about journaling in Automators episode 14. Actually, forget that stuff. Our intrepid hosts are nerds so while the focus of this episode is journalling, it’s really about automating the process so you can get more efficient at your navel-gazing.

Rose and David start out talking about the idea of journaling and why automation can help. The first app they recommend is Day One.

Day One is friends with Siri Shortcuts which opens you up to lots of potential automation, although David would like more. This leads to the discussion of automating Day One entries in a “prompt style” with a new journal entry generated out of Siri Shortcuts and used to create a Day One entry. David created a sample shortcut and screencasted it for this episode on a meditation journal. You can watch it in the Automators course at Learn.MacSparky or on YouTube.

Rosemary goes a step further by using Launch Center Pro to launch her Siri Shortcut to launch her journaling prompts. This lets her present different prompts on different days of the week. Clever. We’ve shared a link to Rose’s shortcut in the show notes.

David explains audio transcription in Day One, that works much better than you think it would be.

If This Then That (IFTTT) can also create a Day One entry, pulling data from other web services. Think about that one for a moment. Simple things, like a Google Calendar event, can be enough to trigger a new Day One entry. Rose has a cool automation that helps her log and journal television consumption using automation between trakt.tv and Day One.

Another way to automate journal creation is through text automation. You could use tools like Drafts or Text Expander to give you prompts to easily create journal entries.

Then our hosts talk about journaling solutions outside of Day One. Using third-party applications like Ulysses or even just a plain text file, you can use many of the above referenced prompt-based journal automation to create new entries. There can be some challenges with things like photos and other media, but it can work. David even at one point suggests using Pages, which would work better than you think if you want media in your journal.

Finally, David breaks out the pens and paper. Just because you have a fancy pen and paper, doesn’t mean you can’t bring some technology to the table. Use ScanBot or Scanner Pro to grab an image for a digital backup. If you like the idea of us a pen but not paper, there are some great iPad-based digital alternatives like GoodNotes and Notability.

It’s January and a great time to develop a journaling habit. Why don’t you use some automation to make it easier?

Join Rose and David in Seattle!

David built a meditation journal automation and screencasted it.

Download David's Meditation Journal Shortcut to your iPhone or iPad

Download Rose's Prompted Entry journal Siri Shortcut to your iPhone or iPad.

In this episode David and Rose dive deep into the new version 3 of Launch Center Pro - with David Barnard from Contrast! They look at the history of the app, changes in version 3, and how it fits into their workflows today.

David Barnard

The latest MacStories review of Launch Center Pro - with links to the previous versions.

It's holiday time so what happens when you throw two automation nerds at things like holiday decorations, festive music, and ? Listen and find out.

The holidays are upon us, and Rosemary and David are ready to automate. Our trusty nerds start with simple things like wallpaper and voice-in-a-can technologies.

Then our team talks about this episode’s sponsor, TextExpander, which they both love very much.

Then they get into their favorite automation contraptions for automating holiday lights. David admits Thanksgiving is a mere speed bump to his holiday preparations. David even admits to creating his own little Disneyland Main Street, and it all runs on HomeKit. Open David’s front door and the magic starts happening. Rose takes it a level deeper by invoking homebridge, third-party software that lets you run non-HomeKit gear with HomeKit.

Then the team talks about the best ways to automate holiday cards. It’s harder than you think. They aren’t done there, however, there is room in automation for present lists, grabbing multiple browser tabs via automation,

Why does David love this so much?

Here's a Siri Shortcut that lets you automate music playback.

A Siri Shortcut for adding list items to OmniFocus.

Have you heard of the Shortcuts home screen fad? Where your home screen is just Shortcuts? David and Rose explore all of the possibilities, advantages, disadvantages and fun things you can do with Shortcuts on your home screen - and beyond.

This week David and Rose dive into the popular web automation service Zapier and explain how you can automate your systems via the web.

Today we venture into the brave new world of web automation, and we start with grand-daddy, Zapier. We begin comparing and contrasting Zapier with other web automation services, like IFTTT and Microsoft Flow.

Did you know you can combine Zapier with Siri Shortcuts? We tell you how.

Next Rose explains some of the Zapier recipes we use to automate the production of Automators. (Of course … we do that.) You can even download a clever PDF showing you exactly how we do that.

This show is sponsored by TextExpander, which we both love very much.

Next Sparky explains some basics about triggers and actions. We know this comes up often in automation, but Zapier has it’s own unique snowflake way of covering that, so we explain it. Eventually, we get to Zap organization, which makes Rose very happy.

Sparky uses Zapier a lot on the legal side. He has a lot of web services and Zapier lets him tie them together, particularly with client on-boarding.

There are a few caveats, but we are both subscribers and Zapier believers.

Zapier makes you happier.

Our home on the web.

Here is a PDF document with all of the Zaps we use to produce and publish Automators.

In this episode David and Rose get to talk to Simon Støvring, maker of Scriptable an app which allows you to control your iPhone with JavaScript. Simon shares some of the journey he experienced making the app, and what you can actually do with Scriptable.

Simon Støvring

Putting files in the right places is a pain in the neck. It's tedious and way too easy to make a mistake. Our intrepid automators are here to save the day on the Mac and iOS.

What do you do with all of the files on your devices? David and Rose try to solve the problem of document filing. Since it’s something you can easily automate, Rose and David share their tips and tricks. Keeping them all on the desktop would be madness (or marital strife if you’re David).

File location and file saving is busywork and inaccurate. It’s dumb work and none of us want to do it, says David. You could spend your time organizing your documents but wouldn’t you rather spend your precious time doing something else? Yeah! So let automation do the work for you. It’s easy. David teaches one of his favorite moves (pun intended): Command + C and then Option + Command + V. Rose reminds us to take a look at what we’ve got and to ask ourselves where we’re going with this. We need a good foundation so everything doesn’t fall down around us and save us from angst down the line. Rose and David agree that nested folders and a good naming system are key.

When automating files on the Mac, Smart Folders, Hazel, and Keyboard Maestro will become your best friends. How? You gotta listen to find out.

David screencasts his Siri Shortcut/Hazel automation to save and file PDFs from iPhone and iPad.

David's File Automation Siri Shortcut

The holy grail of file automation tools

David's Field Guide on the holy grail of file automation. There is a discount at the end of this episode.