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Work faster, increase your efficiency, and have more fun with automation! Version 5.0, updated January 29, 2024 Ever wondered if automation could make your life easier? In Take Control of Automating Your Mac, Fifth Edition, Mac expert Joe Kissell shows you how to save time and aggravation by using numerous built-in macOS tools, as well as helpful third-party apps, to automate routine tasks and procedures.n Looking for ways to work smarter and faster with your Mac? In this updated and expanded fifth edition of his popular guide to Mac automation, Joe Kissell shows how anyone, at any level of experience, can save time and effort, and avoid unnecessary errors, by using automation techniques that range from the simplest keyboard shortcut to the most complicated script. In this book, Joe teaches you how to automate routine tasks in a wide variety of ways. You can begin by making the most of productivity features such as Siri, Spotlight (for launching apps), and text replacement—and then move on to the more sophisticated automation tools built into macOS, such as Shortcuts, Automator, AppleScript, services, and shell scripts. In addition, Joe gives extensive information about third-party automation apps that can make a huge difference to your work efficiency, such as Keyboard Maestro, TextExpander, OmniGraffle, and many more. As an extra bonus, the book includes coupons for discounts on seven automation apps! Whether you’re new to automation, you just need a refresher, or you’re experienced with automation but want to go deeper, this book can teach you the skills you need to automate with ease. Take back your time, work more efficiently, and have more fun with your Mac, with Take Control of Automating Your Mac, Fifth Edition! With this book, you’ll learn how to: • Get started with the built-in macOS automation tools, including Shortcuts, Automator, AppleScript, and shell scripts • Take full advantage of input devices to save clicks and keystrokes • Customize toolbars and your Touch Bar to put hard-to-find controls at your fingertips • Use your voice to control your Mac with Siri and Voice Control/Dictation Commands • Automate text expansion for faster, more consistent typing • Control the Finder with a launcher and by organizing files with Hazel • Supercharge your clipboard to remember and reformat previous copies • Write macros in Microsoft Office and Nisus Writer Pro • Create rules to file email automatically in Apple Mail and Outlook • Log in to websites faster with a password manager • Automate cloud services with IFTTT and Zapier • Set up automatic backup and syncing • Run tasks automatically with Login Items, Calendar events, or launchd • Use Omni Automation for JavaScript-based automation tasks • Control nearly anything on your Mac with Keyboard Maestro
Increase Productivity and Reduce Stress! Version 1.1, updated 03/25/2020 Being productive is never as simple as putting items on a calendar or to do list and checking them off. Most of us struggle with too much to do, too little time, and only a vague idea of how to plan each day so we can achieve the best results with the least stress. If that sounds like you (and especially if you’ve tried a bunch of productivity systems and found them lacking), Jeff Porten’s expert guidance may be just what you need. As a professional technology consultant and an early adopter of both hardware and software, Jeff has tried nearly every productivity management system out there, and experimented with dozens of implementation styles. He brings his decades of experience to this book, helping you create a customized strategy that’s ideal for your needs, and—crucially—avoid common mistakes. Whether you’re a productivity junkie or someone who has struggled for years with a cobbled-together, informal task-management system, this book will help you get a much better grip on your personal and business time. In this book, you’ll: • Review the principles of successful planning—whether for immediate projects or for long-term and someday goals. • Understand your natural working style and preferences, including comfortable habits that may not be productive but that you don’t want to change, and create a more effective workflow that fits you. • Discover the best ways to think about projects, tasks, events, due dates, flags, contexts, and more. • Choose a task-management app that’s appropriate for your needs, no matter what devices and operating systems you use, and that integrates with your calendar, reminders, notes, and the apps you use to actually do things. • Develop a step-by-step process for tracking all your events and tasks and ensuring that everything happens in the right order. • Transition from an old system to your new system without worrying that anything will fall through the cracks. • Learn exactly how to keep track of all the things you need to remember throughout the day. • Improve your time-estimation skills when planning how long future tasks and projects will take. • Solve the problem of “10-minute tasks” that become all-day projects because they have a dozen things you discover you need to do first. • Get better at managing other people (and their expectations of you). • Review how well your productivity system has worked over time, using feedback loops and suggested best practices to continually improve your workflow. • Fail successfully! If something goes wrong—from a derailing large project to a life-changing crisis—learn how to recover gracefully and improve your system the next time around. • Know when and how to make changes to meet any new needs you have, and to ensure that what you do every Tuesday at 2 PM contributes to your overarching goals and most important roles in life. Although many of the examples in the book refer to Mac productivity tools, the advice is platform-neutral. The book contains tips applicable to any combination of operating systems, and a companion webpage provides additional details on apps running on Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, and the web.
AppleScript is an English-like, easy-to-understand scripting language built into every Mac. AppleScript can automate hundreds of AppleScript-able applications, performing tasks both large and small, complex and simple. Learn AppleScript: The Comprehensive Guide to Scripting and Automation on Mac OS X, Third Edition has been completely updated for Mac OS X Snow Leopard. It's all here, with an emphasis on practical information that will help you solve any automation problem—from the most mundane repetitive tasks to highly integrated workflows of complex systems. Friendly enough for beginners, detailed enough for advanced AppleScripters Includes major contributions from expert AppleScripters: Emmanuel Levy, Harald Monihart, Ian Piper, Shane Stanley, Barry Wainwright, Craig Williams, and foreword by AppleScript inventor, William Cook
Learn how to unleash your inner Unix geek! Version 3.3, updated February 12, 2024 This book introduces you to the Mac’s command line environment, teaching you how to use the Terminal utility to accomplish useful, interesting tasks that are either difficult or impossible to do in the graphical interface.n If you've ever thought you should learn to use the Unix command line that underlies macOS, or felt at sea when typing commands into Terminal, Joe Kissell is here to help! With this book, you'll become comfortable working on the Mac's command line, starting with the fundamentals and adding more advanced topics as your knowledge increases. Now includes complete coverage of Monterey, Big Sur, Catalina, and zsh! Joe includes 67 real-life "recipes" for tasks that are best done from the command line, as well as directions for working with permissions, carrying out grep-based searches, creating shell scripts, and installing Unix software. The book begins by teaching you these core concepts: • The differences among Unix, a command line, a shell, and Terminal • Exactly how commands, arguments, and flags work • The basics of Terminal's interface and how to customize it Next, it's on to the command line, where you'll learn: • How to navigate your Mac's directory structure • Basic file management: creating, copying, moving, renaming, opening, viewing, and deleting files • Creating symbolic links • The types of command-line programs • How to start and stop a command-line program • How to edit a text file in nano • How to customize your prompt and other shell defaults • The importance of your PATH and how to change it, if you need to • How to get help (Joe goes way beyond telling you to read the man pages) You'll extend your skills as you discover how to: • Create basic shell scripts to automate repetitive tasks. • Make shell scripts that have variables, user input, conditional statements, loops, and math. • See which programs are running and what system resources they're consuming. • Quit programs that refuse to quit normally. • Enable the command line to interact with the Finder. • Control another Mac via its command line with ssh. • Understand and change an item's permissions, owner, and group. • Run commands as the root user using sudo. • Handle output with pipe (|) or redirect (> or <). • Use grep to search for text patterns in files and filter output. • Install new command-line software from scratch or with a package manager. • Use handy shortcuts in the Terminal app itself and in zsh. Questions answered include: • What changed on the command line in recent versions of macOS? • What are the differences between the zsh shell and the bash shell? • Which shell am I using, and how can I change my default shell? • How do I quickly figure out the path to an item on my Mac? • How can I customize my Terminal window so I can see man pages behind it? • How can I make a shortcut to avoid retyping the same long command? • Is there a trick for entering a long path quickly? • What should I say when someone asks if I know how to use vi? • How do I change my prompt to suit my mood or needs? • What is Command Line Tools for Xcode? • When it comes to package managers, which one should I use? Finally, to help you put it all together, the book showcases 67 real-world "recipes" that combine commands to perform useful tasks, such as listing users who've logged in recently, manipulating graphics, using a separate FileVault password, creating and editing user accounts, figuring out why a disk won't eject, copying the source code of a webpage, determining which apps have open connections to the internet, flushing the DNS cache, finding out why a Mac won't sleep, sending an SMS message, and deleting stubborn items from the Trash.
Mac users everywhere--even those who know nothing about programming--are discovering the value of the latest version of AppleScript, Apple's vastly improved scripting language for Mac OS X Tiger. And with this new edition of the top-selling AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, anyone, regardless of your level of experience, can learn to use AppleScript to make your Mac time more efficient and more enjoyable by automating repetitive tasks, customizing applications, and even controlling complex workflows. Fully revised and updated--and with more and better examples than ever--AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition explores AppleScript 1.10 from the ground up. You will learn how AppleScript works and how to use it in a variety of contexts: in everyday scripts to process automation, in CGI scripts for developing applications in Cocoa, or in combination with other scripting languages like Perl and Ruby. AppleScript has shipped with every Mac since System 7 in 1991, and its ease of use and English-friendly dialect are highly appealing to most Mac fans. Novices, developers, and everyone in between who wants to know how, where, and why to use AppleScript will find AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition to be the most complete source on the subject available. It's as perfect for beginners who want to write their first script as it is for experienced users who need a definitive reference close at hand. AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition begins with a relevant and useful AppleScript overview and then gets quickly to the language itself; when you have a good handle on that, you get to see AppleScript in action, and learn how to put it into action for you. An entirely new chapter shows developers how to make your Mac applications scriptable, and how to give them that Mac OS X look and feel with AppleScript Studio. Thorough appendixes deliver additional tools and resources you won't find anywhere else. Reviewed and approved by Apple, this indispensable guide carries the ADC (Apple Developer Connection) logo.
Unlock the secrets of the Terminal and discover how this powerful tool solves problems the Finder can't handle. With this handy guide, you'll learn commands for a variety of tasks, such as killing programs that refuse to quit, renaming a large batch of files in seconds, or running jobs in the background while you do other work. Get started with an easy-to-understand overview of the Terminal and its partner, the shell. Then dive into commands neatly arranged into two dozen categories, including directory operations, file comparisons, and network connections. Each command includes a concise description of its purpose and features. Log into your Mac from remote locations Search and modify files in powerful ways Schedule jobs for particular days and times Let several people use one Mac at the same time Compress and uncompress files in a variety of formats View and manipulate Mac OS X processes Combine multiple commands to perform complex operations Download and install additional commands from the Internet
With the information-management app DEVONthink 3 , you no longer have to swim in a sea of web bookmarks, email receipts, RSS feeds, scanned memos, and downloaded bank statements. DEVONthink stores your digital documents and clippings, helps you scan and store paper documents, and serves as home base for organizing and viewing all your information. But mastering all that power can take effort, and this book-created in partnership with DEVONtechnologies-has the real-world advice you need to understand how DEVONthink can bring order to your information. You'll also learn how to extend your DEVONthink experience beyond your main Mac with detailed coverage of the many ways you can sync DEVONthink databases to other Macs and to iOS devices using the DEVONthink To Go iOS app. After covering essential DEVONthink vocabulary and concepts, including the completely reworked user interface of DEVONthink 3, Joe helps you start using DEVONthink effectively. You'll learn how to: Decide how many databases you need and set them up Determine whether to input or index data Configure where incoming data will go Import data from many different apps Import data from a scanner, including OCR options Use grouping and tagging to organize data Add and work with DEVONthink 3's expanded metadata capabilities Use simple (and sophisticated) techniques for searching Create smart groups that automatically gather newly imported data Use smart rules and AppleScript to automate countless activities within DEVONthink Create documents in plain text, HTML, Markdown, and more Edit documents in DEVONthink (or externally) Find the best way to sync DEVONthink data with other devices Work with reminders, smart templates, and other sophisticated tools Convert documents between formats Effectively use the DEVONthink To Go iOS app Share DEVONthink documents with other people Export documents from DEVONthink Back up and maintain healthy databases Questions answered in the book include: What is DEVONthink good for, and what should be left to other apps? What kinds of data can I import? (Short answer: Nearly everything!) How can I display my data in a way that works well for me? When I import documents from different sources, where do they end up, and why? Is it better to sort imported documents right away, or leave them for later? Should I group my data, tag it, or both? What are duplicates and replicants, and how can I tell them apart? Which types of data can be created or edited within DEV...
Preserve your data for posterity! How do you want to be remembered by future generations? You can make a will to handle your physical possessions, but what about your digital life--photos, videos, email, documents, and the like? This ebook, written by tech expert Joe Kissell, covers many aspects of preserving such electronic ephemera as part of your digital legacy. If you're not at the stage of life where you can think about this for yourself, consider that you may have to do so for your parents or other relatives. It's not all about posterity either, since following Joe's advice will also help loved ones access your key accounts and important info if you're incapacitated, which can happen at any time. The book will help you with these essential tasks: Identify your key digital assets: online accounts, photos, audio files, videos, passwords, documents, email, and more. Plan for each type of digital asset based on your priorities for today, for shortly after you are no longer around, and for posterity. Joe explains the ideal file formats to use, how to deal with social media sites, the best ways to digitize paper documents and photos, and strategies for sharing passwords with family members, among much else. Communicate your wishes in a "digital will" and designate someone to be its "digital executor." The book includes a template document that you can develop into a personalized digital will. Preserve your data for the future. You'll consider types of archival storage media, cloud-based storage services, backups, and what instructions to provide about maintaining your data as file formats and storage media types evolve. Whether you just want to ensure that your heirs get copies of your favorite family photos and a few key documents or you want to catalog and preserve tens of thousands of digital items, this book helps you make smart decisions about your digital legacy . Questions answered include: What strategies can I use for sorting and preserving email? How can I ensure that my email account will be available to those wrapping up my estate? What if I have digital data that should be destroyed when I die? What should I do with my huge photo collection (both digital and paper)? How can I make my passwords available to those who will need them--but keep them private for now? What should I think about when handing down purchased audio and video files? What should happen to my Facebook account when I'm no longer around? What choices are availab ...
Get to know macOS 12 Monterey! Version 1.2, updated June 29, 2022 macOS 12 Monterey builds on the changes in Big Sur, making your Intel or M-series Mac even more powerful and easier to use. This book teaches you how to prepare for a smooth transition to the new version of macOS—and what to do once you've upgraded. Learn your way around, find out about new capabilities (and a few pitfalls), and improve your privacy and security. Following 2020's Big Sur release, which massively overhauled the macOS interface and introduced support for M-series (Apple silicon) Macs, we have macOS 12 Monterey. Although the look and feel are quite similar to Big Sur, Monterey adds refinements, improvements, and interesting new features to books your productivity and your privacy. As was the case for Big Sur, we're not publishing a separate Take Control of Upgrading to Monterey book. Instead, complete upgrading instructions are included here, along with details about what to expect before, during, and after your Monterey installation. Among the many subjects covered in this book are: • How to tell whether your Mac is compatible with Monterey • Steps you should take before upgrading • Upgrading from the Monterey public beta • How to perform an in-place upgrade—or do a clean install and migrate your old data from a backup • Improvements to FaceTime, such as updated audio and video options, scheduled meetings, and (later this year) SharePlay • New Messages feature, including Shared with You better handling of photos, and new Memoji options • Changes in Safari 15—including last-minute changes to address design flaws in the new interface for tabs • The Focus feature that takes Do Not Disturb to a new level • Shortcuts, which has made its way from iOS/iPadOS to macOS and added new features • What's new in the Maps app, including more city detail, Driving mode, and better transit support • Small but interesting changes throughout macOS, such as AirPlay to Mac, iCloud+, improved password support, and Quick Note • Improvements to bundled apps, including Books, Finder, Mail, Notes, Photos, and more
Automate your iPhone, iPad, or Mac! Version 2.1, updated January 30, 2023 Automation is no longer just for advanced computer users! Apple's Shortcuts app lets anyone with an iPhone, iPad, or Mac automate day-to-day tasks, from the simple to the complex. This book is a complete introduction to Shortcuts, covering every aspect of building, installing, debugging, running, syncing, and sharing shortcuts. It also includes step-by-step recipes for creating numerous useful shortcuts yourself. Apple's Shortcuts app brings extensive automation capabilities to your iPhone, iPad, or Mac, using a drag-and-drop, fill-in-the-blanks interface much like Automator—but much more powerful. It lets you perform sequences of tasks, including ones that span various apps, with just a tap, a click, or a voice command—or even automatically when certain conditions are met. Shortcuts can save you time and effort, help you accomplish previously complicated tasks, and let you customize your device to better meet your needs. Apple finally brought Shortcuts to the Mac in macOS 12 Monterey. (The book now includes coverage of macOS Ventura, iOS 16, and iPadOS 16.) But for all its utility, Shortcuts is not self-explanatory, so it can be challenging to figure out its quirks and create effective, time-saving automations. That's where Take Control of Shortcuts comes in. Written by automation expert Rosemary Orchard, this book opens the world of automation to users at every level. With Rosemary's help, you'll learn how to: • Navigate the Shortcuts app: Understand the user interface (on each platform) and terminology, then install and run your first shortcut. • Run shortcuts: Discover many different ways to run a shortcut, from tapping or clicking an icon to using Personal or Home automations, Siri, and Apple Watch. • Build shortcuts: Start with simple, one-step shortcuts and work your way up to complex shortcuts with input, output, variables, conditionals, loops, and more. Debugging advice is also included. • Install and sync shortcuts: Download and install shortcuts others have written, sync your shortcuts across your devices, and share them with other people. Then, to both illustrate the main principles you've learned and give you practical tools to get you started, Rosemary walks you step by step through the creation of 25 sample shortcuts, most which you can also download and install using links in the book. Examples include: • Event templates • A daily overview • Converting and sharing images • Adding a song to a playlist • Logging expenses • Turning on lights automatically when you get home • Disabling rotation lock just for YouTube on an iPhone • Reminding you about upcoming deadlines 15 minutes after you arrive home • Automatically setting seasonal scenes for HomeKit lights The book also discusses how Shortcuts can use REST APIs to talk to various web services (with detailed examples), and numerous complementary apps that work in conjunction with Shortcuts. Whether you're completely new to automation or already have significant programming experience, you'll find plenty of useful information in this friendly, practical guide.