Seveneves by Neal Stephenson

I stayed late every night this weekend finishing the last third of Seveneves. Although being tired on a Monday is not a great productivity plan, it was worth it.

Neal Stephenson books have been hit and miss for me. I loved Cryptonomicon ¹, enjoyed Snow Crash, and have abandoned Quicksilver twice. So his sometimes dense writing is not an instant win with me. I think he may have dialed down in Seveneves, or maybe I was thirsty for some complex sci-fi.

Seveneves is basically three books in one — or more accurately, a trilogy in one book. This is not only in length (it’s 881 pages long) but in structure: you get 3 good sci-fi books that together make a great one. There’s 1) a disaster sci-fi, 2) near-future space sci-fi, and 3) far-future space sci-fi.

As usual with Stephenson, his sci-fi is heavy on the Science. But unlike some of his recent books, you can skim a little if you get bored with the engineering advanced course, and not miss a critical plot point. I was surprised of how few times I took shortcuts on Seveneves — maybe like Cryptonomicon and cryptography, my interest in Seveneves space travel backdrop helped me not loose my attention. YMMV.

If you liked Cryptonomicon and enjoy sci-fi, read Seveneves. It has all the ingredients of classical sci-fi I love: epic story, characters with dimension, open questions that force you to think a bit, and wonders of technology that seem like magic but are explained.

Trello scrum board labels

When you’re in charge of a team board, you usually get a chance to set the rules for your domain. I’ve struggled a bit with labels, since there’s a tendency to make them very specific. This is counter-productive because it becomes more difficult in active boards to group tasks via filters.

After a few projects, I’ve narrowed down my list of default labels to:

• Feature
• Urgent
• Bug
• Blocker
• Improvement
• FrontEnd
• BackEnd

Although Trello sorts them by color, they are somewhat related to each other:

1. Type of Task: Feature / Bug / Improvement. Shouldn’t be more than one. Labelling tasks correctly will help in sprint planning if you want to balance a release among the three kind of tasks, or if you want to focus in a specific one.

2. Level of importance: Urgent / Blocker. Most tasks should have neither. Urgent is top-down red flag. Blocker is typically a bottom-up signal. Both of them at the same time… it’s a fire.

3. Layer: FrontEnd / BackEnd. The separation is a bit arbitrary and it’s mostly to have an idea which team the task involves. It’s possible to also involve both, but shouldn’t be that common.

Remember: A task/card should not have more than three labels. If that’s the case you actually have more than 1 tasks, and should split them up for clarity.

The One Big Thing / 1-3-5 task list

I had forgotten where I had seen this tweet, and had been looking for it:

New technique for time management: 1 big thing, 3 medium things, and a few little things to accomplish each day. pic.twitter.com/4qBhfYhtnC

— John Zeratsky (@jazer) July 30, 2014

Not earth-shaterring, but powerful in its simplicity. I’m all over the place right now with my productivity organization, but have been gravitating towards Trello as my repository of tasks — with a post-it note with what needs to be done for each day.

As usual, I’m a sucker for some sort of framework… so will giving this a try for a few days. And of course, there’s an app for it.

Palette and colors links

I usually hide my lack of fashion sense and design skills with simple greyscale colors — black is always the new black.

But for those times that you must add some colors, here are my kaleidoscope web tools:

• Palettable: when you don’t what you’re looking for.

• Color Hunt: when you need a quick solution.

• Color Supply: when you are ready to go down a color rabbit hole.

• Adobe Kuler: when you’re almost there.

A summer project: Colofón Podcast

On Tuesday I published the first episode of Colofón — a new interview podcast in spanish about setups and general getting things done ’ness.

Since we stopped recording ñerds, I’ve felt a lack of geek creed. Or maybe it was a lack of geek creativity. Colofón is my attempt to get out of my comfort zone, both personally and ability wise, and create something during the summer slowdown.

Hope everyone subscribes and gives it a try¹, I really enjoyed the first episode with Mauricio, and I’m excited about the ones lined up:

• RSS
• iTunes.

Last call for Evernote

Evernote announced this week more limitations to its Basic plan, and increased prices for Plus and Premium.

This was expected. Even with the annoying main screen customization restrictions, the Basic account provided little incentives for many to upgrade. The loss of OCR on the Plus plan ($3.99/month) stings a bit, since Premium goes up to $7.99/month.

I have a soft spot for Evernote. I started using it on Windows on my first job in 2004, and it was installed in all my computers (later devices) ever since. The feature creep made me try the Apple Notes last year — and I haven’t switched back.

At the same time, Google Keep continues to improve¹. Its OCR is as good as Evernote ever was, and the design is cleaner.

Here’s hoping this is a one-two punch: price increase now, and after the noise dies down, and updated Desktop version with a simplified interface.

I suffer from placebo effect with new productivity tools, but Tunnel Vision was noticeably useful today:

See your next available Trello tasks every time you open a new tab.

Currently only for Chrome, but a Safari beta is in the works.

Find your own quote

I’ve been playing with the concepts of the five minute journal, and one of the elements is the daily inspirational quote. Of course I quickly went down a rabbit hole of automating a daily quote among the many available sites.

But for the next week I’m going to try finding my own quotable thought from something I’ve read.

Just one day into the exercise, I like where it’s taking me. It changes the way I skim articles during the day, and makes me more selective on what I’m reading if I haven’t found today’s quote.

With that said, here’s the one for today:

[…] there are dot-com people and there are web people.

Megnut — I’ve been thinking a lot

What’s my meta-theme?

Michael Pollan talked about his meta-theme or topic on a podcast with Alec Baldwin.

He mentioned realizing his arch-theme on all books was about human’s relationship with nature.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot since I heard it last week. My simplistic theme has always been about being geek. But there’s more to it — probably related to digital tools and how to use them efficiently.

Will struggle with it some more to get at something more coherent.

Sonos Lock-Screen and Now Playing support

Seems I joined just in time so wouldn’t have to wait for lock-screen and now playing to be introduced.

With just a few days, the lack of easy play/pause/next from the iPhone screen was a bit uncomfortable. Never mind that it didn’t allow the Apple Watch to control the music¹.

Today’s update makes the muscle memory of going to the lock-screen or pulling up control center to act on music useful again.

Abomination by Gary Whitta

Very surprised how much I enjoyed this book. Unlike Sci-Fi, fantasy is very hit-or-miss with me, but Abomination was a page turner.

I was skeptical about gruesomeness some mentioned on the reviews, but it played its part and didn’t distract from the story.

If you like fantasy and want a fun summer weekend read, you won’t get bored with Abomination by Gary Whitta

Father’s day surprise: Sonos Play:1

Ana and Robie surprise me with a Sonos Play:1 today… and boy does it sound great.

Knowing the extremely picky tech buyer I am, Ana also made it clear that we can return it. Been playing with it all afternoon, it really is a well designed and great sounding speaker.

Will play with it a few weeks, but it sure looks like a new member of the family¹.

Gotta teach them while they’re young…

https://twitter.com/rmateu/status/744200714033954818

We bended the rules a little and watched some TV during lunch today¹.

Using the iPhone naked

This week I used my iPhone 6s naked. I obviously was feeling brave because my iPhone has AppleCare, but I still got some weird looks — almost like I was practicing the other kind of nudity.

Up until my iPhone 5s I’d never used and case on my iPhones. Part was school of thought (Jobs used his naked, so of course…), but I also didn’t like how it looked and felt on the devices.

After a year with the 5s, when I decided that I was not going to buy the iPhone 6 ¹, I followed Nav’s steps and got a black Apple Leather Case. It looked really good, but also felt great.

A month later when I received my iPhone 6 — don’t judge, I’m weak— I immediately got a black leather case, which lasted into my iPhone 6s this year. I never considered not using a case, since the 6/6s are as slippery as an almost consumed bar of soap. When the leather case surface started feeling sticky, I switched to a silicone case, which had the same great fit but seemed more resistant.

Brett Terpstra’s post about the Lizzytape made me want to try it out (it arrives this weekend) but in the meantime; I wanted to compare the iPhone au natural before and after the tape.

I have to say… while still slippery as hell, forcing myself to use the phone without a case is very nice. It’s so much easier to get in and out of my pocket, and feels much more sleek in the hand. I also enjoy being able to reach the screen borders for easier gestures. It has made me use the 3D Touch of the left corner to switch apps much more natural than before.

However, if the Lizzytape doesn’t work out I’m probably going back to a case. The 6/6s is just too easy to drop at any time. I’ll update in a week.

Given the reviews, it seems like the OnePlus 3 is the Android phone to recommend for the summer.

Looking forward to seeing one live, but it does look nice enough. The price is also extremely competitive at $399 with features that are comparable to the Galaxy S7 and HTC 10.

Every year after Google IO the curiosity to try an Android phone bites me, but I still don’t get the 5.5-inch screen sizes¹.

But for any Android user thinking of upgrading, I’d seriously consider the OnePlus 3. Specially after the disappointing Moto lineup this year.

I’m starting to reap the benefits of journaling after a year of consistent¹ writing. However, what really got me finally started was my failure to start a meditation habit.

I negotiated with myself that on the days that I didn’t meditate, I would at least write something on Day One. A few weeks later, a habit was born.

While mediation is still something I want to get into, I feel a daily entry covers a few of the same areas: introspection and reviewing the day.

If you’re restless at the end of the day; for whatever reason, I strongly suggest you drop a few lines somewhere. I garantee you’ll feel better.

Helium: A floating browser window for video on macOS OS X

On the of the seven features demoed yesterday for macOS Sierra was Picture in Picture for videos. While this is a productivity catastrophe, it’s a cool feature.

If you don’t want to wait until October for this feature, give Helium a try. It works great with YouTube videos, by taking over the whole window.

Helium

There’s a life cycle for cool apps becoming (easier to use) features in the OS, this is one of those cases.

5 word WWDC Keynote 2016 review

• macOS: Old faithful still has it.

• WatchOS: They realized it was broken.

• tvOS: So sorry we are late.

• iOS: The millennial is growing up.

WWDC 2016 Keynote wishlist

That time of the year again, when good boys and girls await to be told why our toys are better that everyone else’s — and if we’re lucky… we even get expensive new ones to buy!¹.

Here’s my wishlist for tomorrow’s event:

Software:

• macOS 12: I like the rumored new name, OS X / Mac OS X / MacOS X / 10.12.x was always very geeky.
  • More Window Management options: Allow 3+ apps in fullscreen, and not only vertical tiles.
  • Spotlight: Siri integration.
  • Notes: Speed improvement and easier creation of notes — let me add notes by dragging text jezz.
  • Photos: Bring more basic iPhoto functionality, especially automatically grouping by event.
  • iOS Apps: At least some easier path for iOS developers to brings their apps to the Mac.
• iOS 10:
  • Siri for 3rd parties.
    
  • Useful lock-screen for TocuhID: figure out a flow where I don’t have to touch home button with nail if I just want to see recent notifications.
  • Customisable Control Center.
  • Keyboard: two simultaneous languages and new autocorrect UI.
  • Photos: Google Photos level search.
  • Stable 3rd party keyboard APIS.
  • No autocorrect for hardware keyboards.
• watchOS 3:
  • Rethink the UI.
  • Custom watch-faces.
  • Less graphics, more speed.
  • Always on time.

Hardware:

• MacBook Pro
  • Faster, thinner, lighter.
  • 13in with 16GB of memory and 512GB of storage for $1799
• Siri Speakers
  • Great sound.
  • Modular: add additional speakers easily.
  • Apps: don’t have to AirPlay everything
  • Less than $200.

Likelihood of getting everything I want is very low, but wishing anything less wouldn’t be in the spirit of WWDC.

On keeping a life GPA

Over the past few weeks I’ve remembered something Martin Short mentioned on his book regarding keeping a score on all areas in your life.

He said that when his work wasn’t that great or fulfilling, he would work extra hard on his home life. The way you’d keep your GPA high even if your work grade was low.

Sometimes you have less control than you’d like on some areas in your life, but rather than affect all the rest it should give you the incentives to be able to concentrate on the ones you can accept.

Work right now is feeling somewhat repetitive and without a clear needle to move. But I’m very happy with how I’m able to share with Ana and Robie at home. Health wise, I feel good with my diet, just need to add some exercise to improve. And writing here gives a satisfaction that given the level of effort makes it a very cheap and easy way to get a good grade on an easy subject.

Movie: The Nice Guys

For our first night out since Robie ¹, we went to the movies — and Ana let me choose.

I absolutely loved The Nice Guys. It reminded me a lot of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which is one of my favorite movies, so it’s in really good company.

For me, this is the sort of movie worth a ticket (and a babysitter now): it’s funny, smart and very well acted.

As any buddy movie it has some clichés, but they’re not overused don’t feel forced.

Highly recommended.

Today’s biggest tech news by far, Uber will soon allow book cars in advance. In my list of top 100 #firstworldproblems, scratch one and still 100 to go — there’s always another problem that gets added because, like, it’s literally the worst.

Two long articles today from Phil Schiller interviews about the upcoming Apple App Store policies.

This gives some much needed fresh air to developers. Subscriptions are clearly the way to go, and the ability of doing longer intervals (3-6 months) pegs this closer to a continued upgrade cycle.

The Search Ads don’t bother me much. I rarely explore the App Store via search, since I mostly rely on recommendations.

Also interesting is how this comes before the WWDC keynote next week. Could it be really be that full of announcements?

Dear new Nest CEO

I really wish your predecesor hadn’t bought Dropcam, but you’re right, lets not dwell in the past. Let’s have a quick chat about the present, and the current mess of features in the Nest Cam:

1. Notifications per camera and not per account.
   We give access to Robie’s crib camera to the grandparents. They love it. They check every morning and afternoon. Your recent update to allow family members made this easier, but you still don’t allow to have different notifications. So if I setup to have a sound/movement alert go off, you drive our parents crazy¹.

2. Nest paid plans are by camera.
   $10 a month, for-each-camera. Here’s the thing, I’ve been pissed at this from the start because I read it wrong when we bought the Nest Cam. I thought it was for each account… my bad. But please, make it $10 a month for 3 cameras and suddenly I have more incentives to buy more than 1. I know video storage is not cheap, but your parent company might know a bit about cloud stuff.

3. No AppleTV app.
   I’m not even going to whine about not having an Apple Watch app, but AppleTV? One big screen where I can see in HD all my cams? Who would want that…

4. Flash only video on website.
   I have three letters for you: OMG.

Good luck, and I really hope Google Alphabet didn’t hire you to sell Nest, because then we’re really screwed.

MacBook Pro rumored OLED keyboard screen:

https://twitter.com/markgurman/status/739886080560766981

I’m excited because I can’t really see the use-case for a dynamic keyboard, so I’m expecting to be surprised. For me, looking down at the keyboard is an UI failure: either the keyboard shortcut assignment is not logical enough, or I can’t find the feature on-screen.

The simplest explanation is that it’ll be app aware keyboard shortcuts. Which seems like a cool-looking feature, but not that useful.

I really do hope it has nothing to do with the Dock or notifications. They would be a trying to do a hardware feature to fix a window management limitation — an area where both Windows and ChromeOS have been more innovate than OSX in recent years.

OmniDiskSweeper

OmniDiskSweeper is really great at what it does: showing you the files on your drive, in descending order by size, and letting you decide what to do with them. Delete away, but exercise caution.

I was helping a friend find where the space on her MacBook Air had gone, and realized I hadn’t recommended OmniDiskSweeper yet.

A previously paid App by The Omni Group now free. Still works perfectly, and is the best way to find what’s eating up your space. Can’t recommend it enough.

Sacrifice it is not

Translation from DayOne entry earlier today:

With a son you better understand the concept of sacrifice. I’d always automatically started a counter in my head when holding someone in an uncomfortable position. You rationalize your effort versus the need for whatever support the person needs and out comes a number: 30 seconds, 5 minutes, 20 minutes.

With Robie I just know that as long as I’m able to do it, I’ll hold him to make him comfortable. It’s not a question of time, but of how much you can give.

My arm was numb for a while, but it was a glorious nap.

Siri on the spotlight

Thinking a bit more about bots, and the one place I’d see myself taking advantage of them is via Spotlight. Imagine hitting cmd+space and writing so it reminds you to buy milk, or track a package, even order a pizza.

Sounds just like Siri. But since I’m a child of the 80’s, I want the interface to be via text.

Rumors say the next MacOS (macOS 11?) is going to have Siri for sure. I just hope voice is not the only way to interact with it — that would make basically useless for me.

Bots, what are there good for?

Just realized that with all the talk about bots being the next big thing, I don’t use any.

I consider myself a very early adopter, is it then that I’m an old geek and bots are my new Snapchat? Or am I a good proxy for services over promising and under delivering?

Twitter forever

Over the past week profiles and articles on Twitter are again asking the question about how Twitter is going to survive. The icing on the cake arrived with news today that Snapchat surpassed Twitter on daily users.

There’s no denying that Twitter growth has stalled. But unlike friendster, myspace, and even their own Vine, its importance hasn’t.

The problem is that importance without growth means little to Twitter stockholders. My argument is that you could apply the same logic to email.

Of course, email is a platform. But for me that’s what Twitter should aspire to be. Just as Apple let go of the notion of the Mac beating Windows, Twitter has to accept that it won’t catch-up Facebook.

Twitter needs to either take two steps backward and allow its stream to be the foundation of other apps, or move forward and invent the next app.

If they push to become a platform, some would argue that as soon as the services grew enough they would abandon Twitter — but not even Facebook has been able to replace email as the communication tool of last resort.

The alternative requires them be way more aggressive and alienate current users. But in photos, videos, messaging and news… they haven’t been really successful¹.

Title: A new Macbook Pro

As we wait for Mark Gurman¹ to spoil the new MacBook Pro, the rumors are starting to pile. The latest shows an unibody frame with only four USB-C ports — and a headphone jack. I agree with Marco that the MacBook Pro has a great track record: there’s never been one I didn’t want — just many that I couldn’t afford.

Still, with x86 speed improvements not being as exponential as before, I will seriously consider a current generation MBP vs the new one. My main requirement is disk size: I want/need 1 TB SSD². A pimped out older model could be good value, especially if the newest one changes a lot.

All of the above is a rational plan, which I’m required to share before I go bezerk when Apple tells me why I need the newest one.

Update: And we have an official date for my madness: June 13.

On writing everyday — in May

Managed to post something everyday this month. I started with post calendar, but after a week it again became a last minute sprint at the end of the day.

Last week I had decided that after today’s post I was going to change strategy from posting everyday to writing everyday. Which would allow for some better quality, and a bit more developed ideas. But I changed my mind today.

I still don’t have a writing habit. It’s only when I check the blog after posting that I get the endorphin rush. So I’m going to try to keep the writing streak one more month.

This month I’m go to try to do more commentary on the news. Basically striving to be a passable copycat of Seth Godin style¹. Also will try to do more quick snippets posts — which I visualize as anything that would have been a few tweets together.

In case, thanks for reading and hope you tag along a bit more.

On tracking poop and sleep

The exact moment I realized parenthood had arrived was when I celebrated a really dirty diaper. And I have to confess how genuinely happy and relieved I was¹.

We’re almost six months in with Robie, and tracking output and input have now taken second place to sleep time.

Tracking your baby’s business is important. At some point the tiredness and sleep depravation starts blurring the days together. If can’t rely on your memory to remember your computer password — it happened — for sure you won’t remember if he ate 2 or 4 hours ago… much less what the last diaper theme was.

After trying a few apps, I can safely recommend BabyTime. It does three things really well:

1. Clear and good UI:
   There’s many eyesores in the app store. BabyTime is actually good looking and useful in how it displays information and how you enter information.

2. Sync:
   While the sync isn’t lightning fast, it works, and we haven’t had any lost data. It’s very useful to be able to reliably see what your partner has tracked. I wish it allowed for handing off tasks — right now only the device that started the tracking can end it, but its a workable limitation.

3. Responsive developer:
   There’s a lot of baby apps in the store that are abandoned. A few weeks back I emailed the support email wondering if I could get an export of the data, and within a few hours I had a reply with the data attached.

At $2.99 it’s a steal compared to some other apps and devices we tried. And although the app hasn’t been updated in over a year, it’s still delivers the best experience imho.

Hide visually triggering apps from your homescreen

Don’t know how I missed this post¹ from January by Tristan Harris: Distracted in 2016? Reboot Your Phone with Mindfulness.

The whole article is really worth a read, but one section resonated with my empty content calories App diet:

As part of its generous employee perks and benefits, Google stocks its micro-kitchens with seductive snacks and candy so its employees can keep snacking during work. But they ran into a problem: employees found themselves eating more unhealthy snacks than they wanted.

[…]

They made two interventions:

1. They put the candy into opaque, white porcelain jars with a lid (while putting alternatives like healthy fruit in see-through glass jars)
2. They replaced the candy’s visual packaging with a neutral white placard and neutral font (e.g. “Peanut M & M’s” written in Comic Sans)

[…]

We can do the same for apps on our home screens. Colorful app icons (the blue Facebook [F], or yellow-orange Instagram camera) visually trigger us to unconsciously consume just like candy wrappers.

His recommendation is to place the visually triggering Apps on the second folder page of the second homescreen. I instantly saw the light with this idea. So Tweetbot, Reeder and Instagram are back on the phone… but out of easy reach — and it seems to be working.

I truly think digital dieting is going to be a thing in the upcoming years. Many tecnologies have been competing for attention during the last century (books, newspapers, home movies, videogames, etc), but the bandwidth was so limited — and the costs so high — that it was easy to not be overwhelmed. The smartphone changed everything, and now we have unlimited stimulation for a very low costs (paid in cash or advertisement viewing.

Bossypants by Tina Fey

As expected, this was a fun, quick book. The fact that it’s read by Tina Fey herself gives it an additional conversational tone.

I enjoyed the SNL and 30 Rock insider stories, and I had to bookmark a breastfeeding section to share with Ana. She laughed out laud with it.

Not a life-changing book, but a solid series of stories told by a successful, smart and very smart writer.

New links page

I’ve tried many ways to post links on the site. Here goes a new one: 5typos.net/links.

This is nothing more than a linkroll of the latest 25 Pinboard.in bookmarks I find interesting.

You can think of it as window into my procrastinating wanderings on the internet — with a touch of whatever fixation I’m into this week.

Blendle: pay-per-article service is worth a look

I don’t know if Blendle is the future of magazines, but without a doubt it’s a future.

With today’s release of the iOS app, the shortcomings of the mobile web version are gone. Not only that, the App shines on the iPad. It’s fast, simple and very respectful of the print versions of the articles.

I added $10 to my account to see how much I can stretch it. I’m a bit concerned that the cheapo in me will start counting pennies and be too selective when opening articles. But after just one day of using it, I’m starting to value not seeing ads every other page — even on paid apps ¹.

Friction vs bankruptcy in productivity flow

Hello, my name is Roberto and I’m a productivity appcoholic.

There’s no denying that I constantly hide procrastination behind switching tools so I have a semblance of getting something done that day.

That said, sometimes it’s ok to declare productivity bankruptcy and move on to a new setup.

Roles and tasks change, and allowing friction with changing tasks is a good way to prioritize and apply your bag of tricks to new problems. But sometimes the whole environment changes so much that is your bag of tricks that need changing.

This week I returned to an old friend: Omnifocus. The combination of Apple Reminders, Fantastical and Trello that had ruled my life for the first quarter of the year, stopped making sense.

My tasks have gradually changed over the past few weeks. With the new site launched ¹, the intensity of the team sprints and scrumb planning have decreased. I don’t talk to developers every few hours, rather wait for weekly meetings or even send emails to them. The increased friction of keeping everything in Trello did not justify the time and effort — since there’s minimal collaboration in the new ongoing tasks.

So it’s time for a change. Rather than clear big objectives, I now have many small tasks. Time to put the hammer away and bring out the drill with dozens of bits. It’s what’s needed to get the job done today.

Pebble Time 2

I need to finish my Pebble Time review, but the short version is that the Pebble Time is a better watch than the Apple Watch. And since the Apple Watch not at great smartwatch, then the Pebble pragmatically wins.

Or at least this is what I told myself when I preordered the Pebble Time 2 on Kickstarter today.

Archangel Comic

Just started Archangel by William Gibson. It’s really good. May even go and buy the printed edition.

Thanks for nothing and everything

Earlier today my best friend’s parents had a sadly common Caracas scare: armed thugs entered the house to rob them; tied them up and proceed to threat them with guns to say where the items of value were hidden (not even thiefs want Venezuelan cash anymore).

Luckily, the police arrived quickly and the criminals escaped without a hostage situation.

I’m now going to bed sad, because of how happy I was that they were both ok. It’s not always the case.

Still, how buried underground the bar has to be, when you actually tell your friend that you’re grateful that — other than his mom being freaked out and probably traumatized — everyone is ok.

I worry of how far my standards have fallen. And I’m in the relative near-mythical state of comfort in Miami. What other shitty kind of things are Venezuelans being grateful for everyday?

Stickies: Best kept Mac secret app

Stickies Assemble!

Three Stickies tips I use everyday:

1. Create a sticky from any selected text with Cmd-Shift-Y
2. Minimize them and arrange under Window > Arrange by. You can do Color, Content, Date, and my favorite: Location on Screen,
3. You can make a sticky float on top of all windows with Cmd-Option-Y or under Notes in the menubar.

I have a few dozen apps that can do snippets, but somehow still nothing beats the speed and versatility of Stickies.