If you like Markdown and own an iPad, I have some very good news for you. MarkdownMail is now available for the iPad.

The iPad version works much like the iPhone version that I mentioned earlier. From the makers of MarkdownMail:

MarkdownMail is the easiest way to compose and send HTML emails on your iPhone or iPod touch. Based around John Gruber’s popular Markdown markup syntax, you can now send emails with bold text, italics, bulleted lists and more. MarkdownMail will convert your Markdown formatted messages into an HTML message that you can send to your friends, family or colleagues.

Being able to send HTML emails is nice, I suppose, but MarkdownMail has another feature that I think is game changing for anyone who writes web content in Markdown.

A Markdown workflow recipe for blogging on the iPad

Ingredients

• WordPress for iPad
• Simplenote for iPad
• TextExpander for iPad (optional)
• MarkdownMail for iPad
• Basic knowledge of Markdown

Directions

Step 1: Compose your blog draft in Simplenote. Or, if you like to write in Notational Velocity like me, it’s likely that your draft is already in Simplenote. In any case, I recommend using Simplenote as a staging spot for blog posts-to-be.

Step 2 (optional): Take advantage of TextExpander snippets as you write. Here are a few iPad-specific snippets I use like crazy:

	Snippet	Expands to
	.h	#
	..h	##
	.b	*

Why do I use these snippets? On the iPad, symbols like # and * reside on what I call the “tertiary keyboard” of the iPad. They are two levels away from the main keyboard, and hunting them down constantly can really bog you down while writing and outlining.

Step 3: Once you're happy with your Markdown draft, copy all of the text in Simplenote.

Step 4: Open MarkdownMail, and paste. This is where the magic happens. MarkdownMail has a “Copy HTML to clipboard” feature that does just that. It puts the actual converted HTML code on your iPad clipboard.

Step 5: Paste the HTML code into the WordPress app. Now, you can title it, save as draft, or publish right away.

I followed these steps to put this very post into WordPress as a draft. (I inserted the screen shots later.)

Again, why this is awesome

John Gruber obviously created Markdown long before anyone outside of Apple dreamed of mobile apps, but it really is the ideal web-writing tool for the iPad. Markdown greatly simplifies the syntax required for creating HTML documents, and now it can be combined with the power of Simplenote sync, TextExpander automation, and MarkdownMail.

You now have everything you need to efficiently write HTML content on the iPad. Put another one in the “content creation” column.

Special thanks to MacSparky for making me aware of the iPad version of MarkdownMail!

Today, my iPad home screen was featured at MacSparky. If you want to see me gush about the iPad, go check it out. For me, it's definitely an honor to join the other great folks that have been a part of MacSparky's home screen series. I have a lot of respect for David Sparks. He's a leading authority on a variety of things Macintosh; he co-hosts one of my favorite podcasts, Mac Power Users, with Katie Floyd; and most recently, he became an author with the announcement of Mac at Work.

If ever there was a Mac workflow personality that walked the talk, it's David Sparks. If you have an affection for Mac productivity, you should be keeping a close eye on him.

[Photo by wiccked via Flicker]

In the waning years of the 20th century, a marked change occurred. Everyone became a composer. It happened almost at once.

Humanity encountered email.

In the many centuries before email arrived and trumped the sun as the true center of earth’s orbit, people were trained on the art of writing hand-written letters.

Few, if any, people have ever been educated on the art of writing email. The overnight adoption of email allowed little time for education.

Education matters.

If you were to hand a pen to an adult that was never taught basic writing skills, the end result would probably not look that different than the scribblings of a young child. And if their peers were all the same, none of them would know how poorly the tool was being used.

And that’s why email is what it is today: a highly accepted but primitively used, unevolved craft.

The war on email

Broadly speaking, there are three fronts in the war on email:

1. Inbox management,
2. Managing the obsession with checking email, and
3. Communicating effectively.

Merlin Mann branded a strategy for owning front 1: Inbox Zero. It works well, and I’ve written several posts describing how I’ve implemented Inbox Zero, like how to avoid turning email into a task list.

Front 2 has also gotten a lot more attention recently. Email has made us primal wrecks. I’ve noted email’s ability to make us wet our pants. Randy Murray sagely tells us to keep it in our pants. MacSparky even spotted an email monkey not long ago.

Fronts 1 and 2 have something in common. They're reactive, inbox-oriented strategies. Front 3 deals with your outbox. It's about proactively increasingly the quality of what you send, before you send it.

Evolving email purely for selfish reasons

“Evolving email” will be a series of brief posts on making email better before clicking the send button. Each post will focus on some aspect of the art of composing email, often with examples. I use the word "art" because writing email is not scientific. It's subjective, varies greatly by context, and should ideally reflect the awareness of a compassionate human mind.

That's not to say that email should be an elegant art form, and I'm not out to save the planet one email at a time. Rather, this is a utilitarian pursuit of self-interest. The primary goal is to get more value out of the time we spend pounding out letters between subject lines and signatures.

Some of the tips will be pretty mundane, so don’t get too excited. But they will all be aimed at correcting problems that I see every day—problems that should be going away but simply aren't.

In general, most tips will be based on the same way of thinking: put yourself in the inbox of the recipient. It may sound simple, but in practice I find that it rarely occurs; when it does, the effects can be quite profound.

This series will begin its evolution next week.

Note: This article has become somewhat outdated, though many of the tips and tricks below still work. For a more recent overview of Instapaper, see my Macworld article "The Expert's Guide to Instapaper."

* * *

Each time I think about how I read the web before Instapaper, I vomit a little bit. I actually used to stop what I was doing all the time to read things an inopportune times.  I also missed a lot of great articles because I didn’t have the time to read them – and no practical way to save them.

But that was yesterday, before I figured out how to turn the colorful, noisy web to calming shades of black and gray.

Now, virtually all of the (interesting) URL droplets that rain steadily on my attention during the day flow through various workflow aqueducts – some wide, some narrow – but they ultimately funnel into a common Read Later reservoir: Instapaper.

I hear people rave about Instapaper all the time, but I rarely see them expound on their affection in any detail. This post is pretty much the most thorough thought dump of how Instapaper works for me in 5 categories:

1. Uses for Instapaper folders
2. Instapaper search
3. Getting information into Instapaper
4. Miscellaneous Instapaper extras online
5. iOS Instapaper app options and tips

At the end, I wrap things up with my wish list for future Instapaper features.

1. Uses for Instapaper folders

By default, a new Instapaper account only has two folders: Unread and Archive, but you can add more. Here are some reasons you might want to:

• Use folders as parking places for content you want to blog, reference, or do other stuff with later. For example, if I read something I might want to reference here on PE, I move it to a PE folder. I’ve also used folders to store Cliffs Notes pages. You could also a add folder like “To Evernote” for stuff you want to clip up later. Instapaper folders offer a nearly effortless way to corral information for later use.

• Create an RSS feed for any folder, even starred items. Subscribe to it in Google Reader, or publish the feed somewhere for others to view. For example, if you want to share every article about Chilean birds you read, you can create a folder for that, then share the feed for that folder.

• Add a folder for another Instapaper user’s Starred items. You must know their Instapaper username.

• Create a “Videos” folder for video content that you’d rather watch at a full computer.

• Create folders that denote the amount of reading time needed for each article (1min, 5min, 15min, etc. or just “Long” and “Short”).

• Create folders for different genres of content (entertainment, technology, news, art).

• You can edit and reorder folders by clicking “edit folders” under your folder list online.

2. Instapaper search

Instapaper doesn’t currently offer a way to search archived articles, but there are a couple of tricks I use:

• Subscribe to your Unread folder’s RSS feed in Google Reader. You don’t necessarily have to read any of the articles in Google Reader, but you can use Google Reader to search the text of each article’s title. Google Reader keeps a long history of feed items.

• Export your Instapaper articles as a CSV or HTML file. Search the file for keywords, then past the URL into your browser.

3. Getting information into Instapaper

• The Read Later bookmarklet is the most well known way to save an article to Instapaper. It works in every browser worth a damn. The default Send To bookmarklet sends pages to your Unread folder, but you can also get one for any specific folder.

• I keep a "Send To" folder the bookmarks toolbar of every browser I use. I keep all of my Instapaper bookmarklets (and others) in that folder.

• If you use Google Reader, you can add Instapaper as a “send to” option. This is a quick way to move articles from Google Reader to Instapaper.

• Many mobile apps offer an option for sending links to Instapaper. A few I use all the time are Reeder and Osfoora HD (a Twitter app). More often than not, I send articles to Instapaper rather than read them in the app where I caught them. Even Android users can use the “Hard Copy” app to save URLs to Instapaper. Typically in an app that supports Instapaper, all you have to do is tap and hold a link to see the option to send to Instapaper.

• Add your unique Read Later Instapaper email address to your email contacts so you can forward links you receive through email straight to your Unread items. Don’t let links sit in email. Your Read Later address will look something like readlater.gobbledegook@instapaper.com, and it can be found under Instapaper Extras. Note: if you have the iOS app, see below for a quick way to add this address to your contacts without typing it.

• Email links from from your iPhone or iPad when you encounter links in apps without an Instapaper option. Most apps support email. You can also email directly from Safari on your iOS device.

• The subject line of the email you send to your Instapaper address will be the article title you see the next time you look at your Instapaper Unread folder. It’s totally editable too.

• Add links to your Unread folder manually by clicking the “Add +” link near the top of your Instapaper page.

4. Miscellaneous Instapaper extras online

• Use the text bookmarklet to instantly view any page in Instapaper format (does not save page to your Instapaper account). Aside: Readability is another cool (non-Instapaper) way to unclutter web pages.

• Find great articles at givemesomethingtoread.com, a collection of the top articles bookmarked on Instapaper. Each article has its own Read Later button. Give Me Something to Read is a Tumblr site, so you can follow it there too.

• Have your Instapaper items delivered wirelessly to your Kindle device (if you have one).

5. iOS Instapaper app options and tips

• Adjust font size and style in the reading view.

• Adjust the brightness setting in the reading view. I usually go for the dimmest setting I can see comfortably – particularly if reading in a dark or dimly lit room.

• You can create folders that watch specific RSS feeds. Just add a new folder in the iOS app, and you’ll see an option called “go to a specific site.” This is only available in iOS apps, not at Instapaper.com. [Update: This feature was removed in version 3.0.]

• Define words by tapping and holding. The built-in dictionary is one of the most powerful but undersold features of the app, in my opinion.

• Tap the share icon at the top of the page to send the article by email, post to Twitter, or Tumblr. You can also quote specific chunks of text on Tumblr directly from the Instapaper app. Just tap, hold, select text, and then tap share.

• Install the Read Later bookmarkets in iOS safari. Go to the Instapaper app settings, and you’ll see instructions.

• Quickly add your unique Instapaper email address to your iOS contacts by going to the Instapaper app Settings and tapping “Add Read Later by Email.”

• Turn on pagination by tapping the page icon in the reading view. When pagination is on, you can flip through articles one page at a time (no scrolling). I find this useful for longer articles.

• Adjust line spacing in the reading view settings.

The future of Instapaper

Instapaper is very popular right now. Its future is probably bright given that the founder of Instapaper, Marco Arment, recently left his position as lead developer of Tumblr to focus on Instapaper.

Here are a few wish list items I have for Instapaper:

• Native archive search online and in the iOS app.
• More support for direct RSS feeds. I think Instapaper could evolve into an RSS feed reader.
• Add PDF support. PDF are very pesky in my “read later” workflow. If I could somehow “pin” them to my Unread folder in Instapaper, that would be huge.
• Partner with popular magazines and newspapers to have content delivered in Instapaper format.

Let me know which Instapaper tips and tricks I missed.

Update: Thanks to Andy in the comments and David Sparks for pointing out the new Instapaper subscription service that I overlooked. For only $1 per month, you can support Instapaper. I have little doubt that good things will come to Instapaper subscribers.

Update 2: Instapaper 2.3 brings all kinds of new goodies.

Update 3: Instapaper 3.0 represents a brand new design. My favorite addition are the social features that make finding articles "liked" by friends super easy. Marco also removed the RSS feed option in this release.

There are three paths emails can take from your inbox:

1. Trash
2. Archive
3. Action

1 and 2 are easy. 3, not as much. Action requires you to do something. Doing stuff is easy when the impetus for action is clear. But often actions required by email aren’t clear. And even when they are clear, there is often a time gap between receiving the email and acting on it.

There is a special class of these actionable-but-abstract emails that everyone receives. They seem innocent, but they can be quite insidious. You probably get them often, maybe daily. I’m talking about “read later links,” which I’ll label RLLs for short.

RLLs come from all kinds of sources, often people we know. Friends, family members, and coworkers are always finding things they think we would be interested in. So they email them to us.

RLLs are pesky. Even if we do want to read them, we rarely have time to read them when we first see them.

RLLs and Inbox Zero

In my first year of Inbox Zero, I struggled with RLLs mightily. For a while, I was fooling myself into thinking I had “processed” emails with RLLs by simply starring (or flagging) the messages to, well, read later.

Goal 1 of Inbox Zero should always be the same: process your inbox to zero items.

The problem I had was obvious. How to fix it wasn’t. RLLs were staying in my inbox. I didn’t want to archive these because I was afraid that I would forget about them, particularly emails that I wanted to respond to.

I was reluctant to put them in my task system because I didn’t want to lose the email that delivered them. I wanted a way to 1) read the link and 2) reply to the sender.

I needed a way to get these non-time-sensitive emails out of my inbox and into a central pile that I could review at my own convenience.

Fortunately, I solved my RLL quandary with Instapaper.

A few reasons why Instapaper is great

Instapaper is the final destination for anything on the web that I want to read later. I funnel and filter all kinds of things into Instapaper. I love it for three main reasons:

1. Getting articles in is easy
2. iOS Instapaper apps are super readable
3. Letting articles go after they’ve been read is easy

The fact that I was already using Instapaper routinely as a dedicated reading spot made it the ideal choice for RLLs.

Fortunately, one of the many ways you can pipe web content into Instapaper is email.

Each Instapaper account has a unique email address. You can find yours listed on the Extras page of your Instapaper account.

A simple, practically efficient workflow for handling RLLs

1. Forward emails containing RLLs to your Instapaper email address.
2. In subject line add something like “(from Adam)” to remind you of the person that sent it to you.
3. Archive the email.

Later, when you’re going through your Instapaper material and you read that article, you’ll be reminded of who sent it. You can easily search for the archived message and reply.

Your inbox stays clean, you get to read the RLL when it’s convenient for you, and you’re able to easily respond to the send (if you want).

Share your own strategies for dealing with abstract email problems in the comments.

Last month, I stated that August 2010 was the highest traffic month ever in PE’s short history. At the time, I didn’t think I would be able to make that statement again the following month. I was wrong.

September 2010 saw yet another solid increase in traffic. I’m really overwhelmed and humbled by the response. And I’m also really enjoying learning from everyone that comments here and contacts me by email.

Highlights from a Practically Efficient September

• In “A moment for the mundane,” I talk about the value of taken-for-granted things in your workflows, like cut/copy/paste and undo. I also illustrated a few ways I use TextExpander to automate writing in Markdown.

• I dumped my thoughts about Google’s 20 percent time policy, why I value creative time, and I also discussed how the Industrial Revolution era is finally waning.

• I recommended using two browsers to boost productivity. I use Chrome as an email / social media / calendar client, and I use Safari for all other web browsing.

• In a brief post on Parkinson’s Law, I thought out loud about how we can sometimes create our own personal bureaucracies.

• In “You’ve (still) got mail,” I discussed how enormously prevalent and dominant email has become as a force in our lives. Shortly after that, I warned against using email inboxes as task lists.

• If you’re an RSS power user, you might be leaving some efficiency on the table if you haven’t thought about how you organize your feeds. If you’ve been to RSS hell, come back soon.

• Grocery lists are really helpful, unless you leave them at home. Here are some tips for being in the same place as your grocery list.

• I put on my part-time economist/psychologist cap and discussed iRrationality and mobile apps.

• I wrote up my ideas for improving Notational Velocity as a web writer’s tool. If you use Notational Velocity, be sure to check it out.

• The month ended on a high note. Lots of new folks PE came my way via Patrick Rhone of Minimal Mac to see a few things I’ve written about TextExpander, Markdown, and how I use them in my writing workflows.

Earlier this month, I described how I use TextExpander to automate repetitive tasks while writing in Markdown/MultiMarkdown. Patrick Rhone of Minimal Mac recently posted a screencast of a very similar workflow. I think screencasts are a much better medium for communicating the power of these tools.

Be sure to check it out.

[vimeo 15339288]

Update: Most of the wishes in my Notational Velocity wish list have now been granted by Brett Terpstra and others. My current choice for Notational Velocity is Brett's nvALT.

* * *

The most popular PE posts by far continue to be several that I wrote earlier this year on Markdown, MultiMarkdown, and Notational Velocity and how I use them in my writing workflows:

• Building a better writing workflow with Notational Velocity, MultiMarkdown, and Simplenote
• My MultiMarkdown writing workflow with LaunchBar and Hazel
• My spreadsheet to MultiMarkdown table workflow
• Using TextExpander and Notational Velocity for fast, efficient writing
• A moment for the mundane (a TextExpander/Markdown workflow)

These workflows are made possible by three four key individuals. I owe them a huge thanks because I use their creations like crazy. These guys are:

• John Gruber and Aaron Swartz, creators of Markdown [Edit: apologies to Aaron for not including him originally here]
• Fletcher Penney, creator of MultiMarkdown (an extension of Markdown)
• Steven Frank, who forked Notational Velocity to create a version with a live-updating HTML preview pane

I’ve had several email exchanges with Steven about my personal interest in working on Notational Velocity. He’s been really helpful and responsive.

But the reality is that I’m not a programmer. Moreover, I just can’t find the time to get myself up to speed enough to do anything meaningful with the Notational Velocity source code myself. But I definitely have a few ideas on how it could be enhanced to add even more value to my writing workflows.

Given all the interest in (Multi)Markdown and Notational Velocity here at PE through comments, emails, and search traffic, I thought I would just throw out some of my own ideas for future enhancements.

How I can help you

If you are interested in extending Notational Velocity further, feel free to use the ideas in this post, leave comments here, or contact me.

If you implement any of these ideas (or others that come along later) to create a new stable version of Notational Velocity, I can help you in the following ways:

• Promote your work with a blog post
• Provide a permanent link to your work on this site
• Provide design feedback based on my own use
• General beta testing

So without further rambling, here is my wishlist…

4 ideas for extending Notational Velocity

Each of these is intended to enhance Notational Velocity as a web writer’s tool while keeping the interface as minimalist as possible:

1. Move HTML preview pane into a ‘fly-out’ drawer
2. View HTML source
3. Export as HTML
4. Add support for MultiMarkdown

Idea 1: Move HTML preview pane into a ‘fly-out’ drawer

If you’ve ever used a program like Path Finder, you’re familiar with the fly-out drawers that expand and collapse on each side of the main interface.

When I write in Steven’s version of Notational Velocity, I often keep the HTML preview pane at the bottom hidden until I’m ready to review things.  As I edit, I find myself going back and forth between the two panes as I edit what I’ve written.

I think that if the HTML preview pane was on the right side (and the same height as the Notational Velocity writing area), it would be easier to go back and forth. A “right to left” flow is also consistent with core Mac design principles that can be found in everything from file menus to iOS apps.

Here is an unartistic sketch of how an HTML 'fly-out' drawer might be implemented on the right side of the main Notational Velocity window:

The user would have the option of keeping the drawer hidden or exposed by clicking a discreet button somewhere, or perhaps through a keyboard shortcut.

Synchronous scrolling between the writing area and drawer pane would be a bonus too.

Idea 2: View HTML source

I’ve already written about how I use Hazel to automate the conversion of Markdown to HTML. If I could view the HTML source underlying the HTML pane in Notational Velocity, I could cut Hazel out of my workflow. (It won’t hurt her feelings; I promise.)

I’m pretty sure that the HTML preview pane is a web browser, so perhaps just adding “View Source” menu option (like a regular web browser) would suffice.

Idea 3: Export as HTML

As an alternative to Idea 2, a menu option that lets the user export the current note as an HTML file would also be great.

Idea 4: Add support for MultiMarkdown

This one is self-explanatory, I think. By adding support for MultiMarkdown, not just Markdown, the HTML preview pane would be capable of displaying MultiMarkdown-specific items like HTML tables.

From here

As I said above, I’m really grateful to everyone that’s played a role in creating these great tools. Steven Frank’s version of Notational Velocity is awesome, and it’s changed how I write for the better.

If you like or dislike my ideas above, let me know. If you have your own, let me know those too. Let’s worth together to make Notational Velocity as great as it can be.

A few more resources:

• The official home of Notational Velocity, notational.net
• The main Notational Velocity source code
• Steven Frank's version of Notational Velocity
• Git (required for working with Notational Velocity source code)

Steven Johnson recently wrote a fantastic essay for the Wall Street Journal called “The Genius of the Tinkerer.” I think you would enjoy it. I’ve written a couple of things along these lines myself, like how innovation results from recombining things and the importance of creativity.

For me, the most important message in Steven’s article is the notion of the “adjacent possible.” I can’t describe it more eloquently than Steven, so I’ll just let him:

The adjacent possible is a kind of shadow future, hovering on the edges of the present state of things, a map of all the ways in which the present can reinvent itself.

As Steven notes, the adjacent possible “captures both the limits and the creative potential of change and innovation.”

It’s the ever-present set of opportunities at the boundaries of our reach. And:

The strange and beautiful truth about the adjacent possible is that its boundaries grow as you explore them. Each new combination opens up the possibility of other new combinations.

Examples of the adjacent possible

The adjacent possible is a highly scalable concept. As Steven notes, it was present in the “primordial innovation of life itself.” And it was the force that both inspired and challenged the “‘tiger team’ of engineers” who heroically brought Apollo 13 home after it literally glanced the physical edge of human reach.

The adjacent possible is the basic motivation behind all human progress. Countless people have died on the doorstep of new entry ways so that others could walk on in.  North America was once an adjacent possibility to Europe, and once found, further adjacent possibilities emerged in the west.

Geographical exploration may be out of fashion, but that doesn't mean we've stopped seeking the adjacent possible.

I can think of many current realizations. Mobile apps, for one. A idea first demonstrated as a few thumbnail-sized images on a touch screen has engendered an innovation landscape that moments ago was merely a science fiction fan's dreamscape.

On a personal level, I feel like I brush the adjacent possible each time I read or write something new. For me, it opens new doors and causes me to see things a little differently than before.

On the grandest scale, the universe itself represents the ultimate package of adjacent possibilities. Or does it? What opportunity set might be tangential to that which we consider everything today? It's a question that can only be answered by ultimately questioning everything.

Back to earth

The spaces we occupy, the tools we use, and the ideas in our consciousness cast this "shadow future" over us each minute of the day.

Are you aware of the adjacent possible in your life? Do you ever spend time looking for cracks in the walls of your workflows, or are you content to remain within them? Do your goals represent ends or means?

I'd like to hear to hear examples of how you discovered the adjacent possible, no matter how mundane.

I’d like to discuss a very cool term that you may have never heard of: redaction.

Beyond the obvious benefit of making you sound extremely sexy and smart at your next cocktail party when you throw the term around, redaction can also help protect your identity.

If you’re an attorney, work in government, or ever have to shuffle sensitive papers around, you may already understand and appreciate what it means to redact a file.

When it comes to digital documents, redacting text means blacking it out. In other words, censoring.

Even if you aren’t an attorney or secret agent…

Not long ago, I spoke with a friend that refinanced his home and sent all of the paperwork to his mortgage broker through email. It was a bundle of tax forms, account statements, and other items that would cause an identity thief to faint with delight.

As more people ditch fax machines and nearly-50-cent stamps, email will become an even more instinctive way to transport documents than it is now.

The great thing about email is that it can be sent and retrieved almost anywhere. The problem with email is that it can be sent and retrieved almost anywhere.

It’s important to understand the unique risks of sending an email. You probably already do if you’re reading this, but many people do not. That seemingly innocuous Send button in your email client is a powerful trigger.

Once pulled, it blasts your message not only to the sender, but also across countless servers. From the moment you release that particle of data into the cybersphere, it will be replicated countless times on countless disks that may or may not be kept secure until their ultimate physical demise.

It’s reasonable to assume that a sent email will live forever.

Getting back on topic

For years now, you’ve been able to “black out” things in images using basic photo software. On the surface, it appears that you’ve gotten rid of whatever piece you wanted to hide. And you have… on the surface.

If you simply place a black box over an image, usually you are NOT erasing the data underneath. All you’ve really done is put a piece of tape over it. Someone with reasonable digital photo savvy can peel that piece of digital black tape right off and see what’s underneath.

Just redact and get some sleep

One my favorite PDF programs for the Mac is PDFpen by Smile Software. Recently Smile unveiled a brand new release of PDFpen. One of the new features in version 5 is… wait for it… redaction.

When you tell PDFpen 5 to redact a selection, it literally tears that puppy out of the document. It’s like whipping out a pair of scissors. The blacked out part is really gone. Like unrecoverably gone.

PDFpen 5 offers several methods for redaction:

• Search and redact. Search a document for a specific piece of text (e.g. social security number, names, etc.) and wipe all occurrences.
• Redact text - erase. Erase a single piece of selected text leaving the page background intact.
• Redact text - block. Permanently cut out everything inside the selection you’ve made leaving a black box in its place.

PDFpen 5 even opens image files and lets you redact those too.

In the example below, I used “redact text - block” to black out a social security number on a W-4 PDF form.

Take away

If you need or want to send sensitive documents by email, I think it’s a good idea to redact as much sensitive information as you can. It’s likely that the recipient doesn’t need things like social security numbers, account numbers, etc.

If they do need those items, pick up a phone.

Whether you use PDFpen or some other program, redacting is a good idea. If you already work with PDFs a lot on your Mac, I highly recommend PDFpen anyway. It’s a great piece of software that has some nice features not found in the venerable Preview app.

If you have other tricks for securing outbound digital data, share them in the comments.

Is 99 cents a lot? What about $1.99? Depends who you ask, I guess.

Earlier this year, the slide-out keyboard on my Motorola Droid became even more deadweight and stopped working. I went to a Verizon store to see about getting a replacement.

At the time, I wasn’t sure how I would recover my paid apps, so I asked one of the store reps about it. He told me he hadn’t a clue. Furthermore, I was the first person he’d ever met in the store that had actually paid for an app. Wow.

Maybe the guy was new. Maybe he wasn’t. Maybe I’m an oddball. Okay, I know that last bit is true, but let’s stay on topic.

Stats support the notion that free is preferable. A recent study found that 81 percent of all app downloads in Apple’s App Store are free.

App (user) behavior

There is a funny paradox with paid apps. People have such an expectation of free that even something that’s slightly not free (99 cents) presents a major rationalization problem.

I think this inebriated logic is brought on by a cocktail of anchoring bias and loss aversion.

People get too hung up on the price tag of an app, no matter how small when making a purchase decision because there are so many free apps out there (anchoring bias). The mere existence of a non-zero price tag is an impassable obstacle.

And as soon as a financial cost is imposed on a decision, you have the chance of losing something. Studies show that the fear of losing something usually outweighs the prospect of a gain (loss aversion). Put simply, the fear of losing 99 cents when an app doesn’t work as advertised takes center stage in your mind; the possibility that the app will work faces unfair odds.

What makes this more paradoxical is that (I suspect) many of the same people that cringe at a 99-cent price tag don’t give the same amount of concern to their monthly mobile bill, or more importantly, the total cost of ownership of their mobile device.

For example, an iPhone or Android phone costs about $200 with contract, and let’s just say that most people pay at least $85 per month for service (rough guessing for the sake of illustration). Over the 24-month contract period, that totals $2,240.

A 99-cent app is about 0.04% of that total cost ownership. Why does 0.04% of the cost generate so much more anguish than the rest?

It’s really a problem of mental inertia, one of the most powerful anti-logic forces in the universe. How powerful? Think about it: the $85 bank draft happens 24 times over the contract period, each time with virtually no mental angst, yet you may stalk a 99-cent app for days as you weigh scenarios in your head.

You’re resigned to spending the $85 in 24 installments, but pulling the trigger on 99 cents requires a standalone, optional decision.

And here’s the thing: Your “app phone,” is worthless without the apps. Just like a computer is worthless without software, an app phone can’t reach its full potential without great apps.

Practically efficient tips for fighting irrationality

• Fight anchoring bias by thinking in terms of value. What are you getting in return for that 99 cents? If an app solves a problem and makes your life better and more efficient, I’m guessing that it’s worth more than 99 cents. In some cases, it may be worth a lot more.

• Fight loss aversion by not looking at purchase decisions in isolation. Adopt a the mindset of an experimenter. Accept that some things will fail, and that you will lose money on lemons. But you will never find the winners if you don’t experiment.

• Fight mental inertia by looking at the “lifetime cost” of decisions. Try very, very hard not to focus on monthly or recurring prices. Maybe you should allocate more thought to the decision to buy that iPhone. It’s not cheap over a two-year period. Companies advertise services as “only $30 per month” instead of “only $360 per year” for a good reason. One looks a hell of a lot better psychologically.

The bottom line, your bottom line

Value is worth paying for. This concept extends well beyond apps. How do you make value-conscious decisions?

Disclaimer: I am not a psychologist. Rather, I’m someone with an interest in behavioral finance who probably spends way too much time relating it to tech trends.

[Photo source]

Oh yes. It seems like every week I read where another friend’s email or Facebook account has been hacked. You’ve seen these apologies and frantic pleas. “I’m very sorry for all the emails. I promise I wasn’t trying to sell viagra!” or maybe “Please do not wire any money to Egypt….I am IN the US….my Facebook account was hacked!”

Such attacks are embarrassing, disruptive, and… almost 100% preventable.

Earlier this year, I wrote a fairly verbose series on passwords.

One point I tried to stress is that:

You may be unintentionally broadcasting your passwords via Facebook (or other social network).

In one of the posts, I tried to illustrate how easy it is to give away the keys to a thief unintentionally. I pointed out that if you have a password that seems unguessable but says something about you, it’s probably quite guessable. For example, suppose you’re a golfer and your password is lovetogolf…

Do you like to talk about golf on your Facebook page, Twitter, or other public sites? Do you tweet during golf events? Do you talk about Tiger Woods? If so, you’ve already told the world you “lovetogolf.” I bet it didn’t occur to you that you gave out your brokerage account password last Friday when you posted “I’d so rather be on the golf course today.”

I concluded that series by recommending a password manager, which is by far the best way to create and manage secure passwords.  I still feel that way -- strongly. I also emphasized that password managers increase productivity by remembering and filling passwords for you.

My personal favorite password manager remains 1Password.

Why I’m rehashing this

Your password strategy is probably good. You’re probably doing the right thing.

But clearly, others aren’t.

So I have a simple request: If you understand the importance of using strong passwords to secure email, social networks, and bank accounts, then please educate others. Talk about it. Teach your friends, your family, and especially, your children.

People haven’t and won’t learn this stuff in schools anytime soon. But understanding how to protect your data in the 21st century is no less an essential survival skill than reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Remember that your data is in their email too.

[Photo by B Tal via Flicker]

The conventional grocery list is plagued by a recurring flaw: there’s no guarantee that it will accompany you on your journey to the grocery store.

We’ve all done this to ourselves, and it’s blood-boilingly frustrating. You arrive at the store, reach into your pocket or purse, and the damn list is just not there. So you walk out to your car. It’s probably pouring rain, hailing even.

Not there either.

No, your grocery list is 30 minutes away – at home on the kitchen island or perhaps still decorating the refrigerator door. At that point, your list can only help you to the extent that you’re able to visualize what you wrote on it. But I’m guessing that if you need a grocery list in the first place, you’re not very good at remembering the items (like me).

Like I need to tell you why this sucks

Forgetting to bring your list to the store has several consequences.

It may mean a second trip to the store later in the day or week. It may mean that you just don’t get to cook the meal you wanted because you can’t remember all the ingredients. Or it may mean that you end up buying too much milk because you can’t remember whether you have half a gallon or half a spoonful left.

Until, very, very recently (I mean blink-of-the-eye recently), humankind had to accept this as a fact of their universe. Physical objects – including human bodies and lists – will sometimes find themselves in separate locations at undesirable times. It’s just going to happen every now and then.

Virtual lists to rescue humanity

Or at the very least, sanity.

If smartphones only made grocery list-making easier and more efficient, that would be enough to justify their existence.

In my opinion, it’s no longer about whether you should use your smartphone to make grocery lists, it’s about which tool is best for you. And tools, there are a plenty.

The virtual list-making tool you use doesn’t really matter to me, but to be most effective, I think it should have these characteristics:

• It should be with you a lot
• Putting items on it should be really easy
• Checking items off should be easy as pie

How to Remember the Milk (and lots of other stuff too)

As I’ve often mentioned before, Remember the Milk is my productivity task app of choice. Making grocery (or more generally “store”) lists is just one of the myriad useful functions it performs. Perhaps the name reflects that grocery lists were the driving force behind its initial creation.

In true GTD fashion, I have several context-based lists inside Remember the Milk. I denote them with an @ symbol. I keep one general-purpose list for anything that I need to buy at a store, groceries included. It’s called @Store.

There are two main ways that I enter items in @Store:

1. Directly entering individual items using the RTM app for Android/iOS and the RTM website
2. Emailing longer lists into @Store using the RTM import email address

Directly entering individual items

One of the true god-send qualities of a smartphone is that it’s almost always with you. If you’re low on bread, just get out your phone and put it down. If you run out of light bulbs, put them down too. There’s no need to attempt to temporarily store this information in your head. It’s full already.

The chances that you’ll remember “memorized” items when you enter a store are low – especially large stores like Home Depot and Target – both of which fire a memory-erasing laser through your head when you walk through the doors. So don’t fall into this trap. Write it down ahead of time. It’ll be with you when you go to the store.

Emailing longer lists

If you need to quickly make out a longer list, the most efficient way to get it into Remember the Milk is to email the list of items to your account’s import email address. You can find that special address in your account settings.

Put your store list (@Store in my case) in the subject line, then simply write the items one on each line like:

Milk
Liver
Beef tongue
Eggplant

When you send the email, RTM will create a task for each item and place them all in the list you put in the subject line of the email.

The most obvious place to make out an email list is at a computer, but I sometimes do it right on my mobile device and email it to my RTM import address because it’s such a fast way to make out long list.

@ the store

When I’m actually at the grocery store, all I have to do is go to my @Store list and begin completing items as I buy them. There is something really satisfying about using a task app like RTM to check off grocery items. As you check them off, they disappear, leaving you with a smaller list each time – making it even easier to ensure that you don’t miss a thing.

Other choices for making virtual grocery lists

There are so many great apps that you could use in similar ways. Examples include Evernote and Simplenote. Both of these are as ubiquitous as RTM, but for me, the ability to check off tasks and make them disappear makes RTM preferable.

You can also find apps dedicated to making grocery lists. I’ve never looked into any of them myself because my existing toolset works so well for the job.

If you have tips or tricks on making grocery lists, share them in the comments.

Generally, OS upgrades are welcome news. The coming OS 4.2 update for iPad has been touted no differently. 4.2 brings major changes, including printing and of course the much-coveted ability to multitask.

From my experience with Android, I know what multitasking means. It’s essentially a constant invitation to stop what you’re doing and begin doing something else – often.

I was in the group of people that ordered the iPad day one. But even before my iPad came in the mail, I was somewhat contrarian in my appreciation for the iPad’s inability to multitask.

In March 2010, I linked to a great Computerworld article called The iPad paradox: Less is more:

A strange trend has emerged that violates the more-is-better ethos of American consumer culture. Some products and services are touting limitations as desirable “features.” And consumers are loving it.

This strikes some as Orwellian doublespeak: “War is peace.” “Freedom is slavery.” “Less is more.”

But the truth is that people don’t buy consumer electronics for the quantity of features. They buy it for the quality of experience.

I agreed completely. I was buying the iPad for the quality of the experience. And I wanted my core experience to be reading. I was afraid that if the iPad did multitask, it would detract from my reading experience, and I noted that:

The human mind simply isn’t wired to be able to read an article, chapter of a book, or any other reasonable amount of text while bells, whistles, and sirens are going off around the page.

I still feel that way. In fact, my favorite app on the iPad is the Kindle app, which gives me one white page of text at a time. Since getting an iPad, I’ve actually been reading books at a faster rate than before. E-books are a win thanks to the iPad + Kindle.

But that was my generation one experience. Will things be the same after 4.2 arrives?

A recent 99% article points out that I’m not the only one wondering:

In the months since the iPad’s release, a growing volume of committed users have noted that the power of the [iPad] as a productivity device comes not in spite of the lack of multitasking but as a result of the lack of multitasking. You must use it in a single-minded manner – you have no choice.

Beginning in November, we will have a choice, constantly.

With any change comes gains and losses. Multitasking is not all bad. For example, it will be nice to leave Pandora running while I read RSS feeds or check Twitter. “Nice” but probably not necessary.

Time will tell if multitasking lowers the overall quality of the iPad experience. I’m hoping it won’t. But I’m betting that I will miss the “good ole” one-thing-at-a-time days when all I want to do is get lost in a book.

What do you think about multitasking?

Really simple syndication (RSS) can get unsimple in a hurry. When you first discover RSS, it may feel as though you’ve been bestowed a gift from the cyber gods. RSS initially feels like a vessel that can take you from ignorance to the information promised land.

One day, however, you may look up to see that Charon is piloting your RSS ferry.

3 landmarks along the path to RSS hell

1. Discovery. Wow, RSS is awesome! I’m going to subscribe to every page with an RSS icon, starting with the high-volume blogs and major news sites. Where has this been my whole life?!?!
2. Delusion. Yikes, this is getting a little out of hand. I can’t figure out what to read first. I need to devise a sophisticated tagging taxonomy so that I can see my new content by category. Okay, sweet. These 49 tags will definitely help. Back in business!
3. Hell. Tags aren’t working! I’m spending way too much time on this. I’m reading RSS all day. And if I miss a few days, my RSS reader explodes, and I’m in jail. And so many duplicates! Apple just surpassed Microsoft in market share 17 times in 12 different feeds. I can’t remember the last time I ate, slept. I feel gross. I have a kid?

Like any other tool on your belt, RSS should ideally be more of a blessing than a curse. If on average I hit my thumb 8 times out of 10 with my hammer, I’d probably look for a new way to drive nails.

But don’t worry. RSS can be very useful; it just takes a bit of focus and maturity to keep it in its place.

Tagged: blessing, curse

When it comes to tagging systems, the sky is the limit. That’s a huge part of the problem. Tags are simply medicine – they can help, but only if taken in the right quantities. Overdosing can be more harmful than not treating the problem at all.

I have a theory that we tend to abuse tags for the same reason we overuse any other digital “object.” It’s because there is absolutely no (ostensible) physical or financial incremental cost incurred when using them.

In the non-digital world (known to some as “IRL”), we tag objects too. They usually have sticky stuff on them (price tags, name tags, etc.). But using IRL tags requires physically doing something, often paying for something, and quantities are limited. Keyword: limited. Natural limits keep things in check offline.

When you are not IRL, limits only come from one place: you.

Being practically efficient with RSS

There are so many different tagging approaches you can take. And what works for one person may not work for another.

Me? I find that a tagging system that ranks frequency over content helps me use RSS the most efficiently. Knowing which feeds I can blow off when I’m busy really helps keep me focused – and it helps ensure that I get to see the stuff I most likely want to see.

The three main tags I use are:

• shovel
• favorites
• research

Tag: shovel

Merlin Mann is the first person I heard coin the term “shovel blog.” I won’t call any out by name, but you know who they are: the blogs that pump out 30+ posts a day like it’s their job. Okay, it is their job, and that’s why they do it.

I only follow a handful of shovel blogs. Regardless of their genre, I tag them as “shovel.”

I find that my time is best used if I don’t check shovel blogs more than twice throughout the day. It’s better to just let my shovel tag accumulate unread items and then scan headlines at the end of the day.

In this way, I impose a limit on how often shovel blogs can invade my realm of focus. The shovel tag is like a reminder that my time is limited, and I can only read so much of them. The update frequency outweighs the genre’s importance.

Shovel is also the first place that I declare RSS bankruptcy if I need to. I’ve made peace with the fact that I will miss a lot of what lands in shovel. I am NOT going to try to read it all. But every now and then I do see an interesting headline, and for that, it’s worth my time to do quick scans.

Tag: favorites

Sites must satisfy two criteria to get tagged as a favorite.

1. They mustn’t update more than twice a day on average.
2. They must be interesting to me.

I enjoy going into my favorites the most. I know that I will find really interesting articles typically written by single-person blogs. With few exceptions, my favorites tend to be less newsy and more “thought” oriented.

Tag: research

I’m always researching something. It’s just what my DNA told my brain to tell my fingers to do on a regular basis. I use Google Alerts to carry out some of my web-based research. Google Alerts are basically saved Google searches that run constantly.

I have mine set up so that when they find pages matching the search, they put the pages into an RSS feed. All of my Google Alert RSS feeds are tagged “research.”

Research also tends to be a high-volume tag, and I certainly don’t attempt to read everything that goes in there. Rather, when I want to “check my nets,” I can quickly scan for useful content, then purge.

Other tags

I have a handful of other tags that I use for feeds that don’t quite make the “favorites” cut but aren’t high-volume either. These get reviewed on a less routine basis.

The moral of this RSS story

If you find that my RSS strategy is useful for your own purposes, that’s fantastic. But the main message I’m trying to get across is this:

It’s well worth spending some time thinking about your RSS habits. Develop an organization scheme that promotes efficiency by minimizing the time you spend in your RSS reader.

If you’re the kind of person that feels like they need to see and read it all, please tread carefully with RSS. You may end up wasting a lot of time there. Remember that people existed long before RSS, and we got by fine.

RSS is just a tool.

Even if you only catch one or two interesting articles a day, you’re more informed than you were without RSS. You don’t have to read it all.

If you’ve been to RSS hell and made it out to tell the story, share it in the comments.

[RSS icon by barrymieny]