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On this week’s episode, we cover our featured story, Safari 14 gives developers conversion capabilities for Chrome, Firefox and Edge Extensions, and other productivity and technology news from the past week!
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In this Cast | Safari 14 Gives Developers Conversion Capabilities for Chrome, Firefox and Edge Extensions
Headlines & Show Notes | Safari 14 Gives Developers Conversion Capabilities for Chrome, Firefox and Edge Extensions
Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context.
Microsoft Word can now transcribe your conversations on the web
GoodNotes Releases Collaboration Update — MacSparky
Amazon Halo arrives as new fitness tracker
Asana plans NYSE direct listing in September – Bloomberg (Private:ASANA)
What’s New in Todoist: Summer 2020 Edition
Google refines Drive shortcuts with migration set for 2021
Adding to your life by substracting
Via Negativa – not to do list on the App Store
Featured Story of the Week
Apple Reminds Developers That Safari 14 Supports Extensions Ported From Chrome, Firefox, and Edge
Raw Text Transcript | Safari 14 Gives Developers Conversion Capabilities for Chrome, Firefox and Edge Extensions
Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio).
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Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:01
Hello personal productivity enthusiasts and community Welcome to anything but idle the productivity news podcast I’m Sidney-Smith.
Augusto Pinaud 0:07
I am Augusto Pinaud
Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:08
and we’re your hosts for anything but idle. This is Episode 21. And we’re recording this on August 27 2020. Each week we cover the productivity news headlines of the week. So you know what’s going on and the current research tools, services, products and more in the world of personal productivity. And so with that, let’s get into our headlines for this week. gousto What is our first headline this week,
Augusto Pinaud 0:30
business wire is bringing a survey title, Americans have experienced increasing productivity and work performance since the pandemic but the wellness has suffered. It is really an interesting survey, you know, and isn’t reality that this pandemic has bring a lot of changes and I think at the beginning, a lot of people lose their routines, their gyms, their exercise before and after work and under dynamics for that was the social distances and everything else. It’s not a surprise for me that they are saying that they are bringing this issue that the wellness has suffered. But also I think it’s a matter of people getting into that new routine first people, for many people was working from home for the first time I’m getting used to that and getting used to be consumed most of the day or all day. Now, people he’s getting back to fine how they can get their routines. You know how they can bring equipment at home or do equipment at home or do exercise or at home or whatever. So, I think we are going to see towards the end of the year, I’m more balance into that now that people is getting into this new normal of working from home. Their best advice was that you build in this health, wellness and self care into your work day. And I think that’s a really powerful message, you know, based on that survey.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:53
Next up, we have some news out of Redmond, Washington, Microsoft has added audio up Upload and transcription to Microsoft Word. This does require a Microsoft 365 subscription. But in essence, what happens is you can upload an audio recording. Or you can actually record directly in the app, they have added a dictation feature for commands, not necessarily for dictating directly into the application. Google Docs, by the way, if anyone doesn’t know has that feature built into it. So you can open up Google Docs go to tools, and then voice typing and you can speak directly into your computer, you know, with a microphone, and it will transcribe live what you’re saying. This particular feature allows you to upload an audio recording or start the recording in the system than it does what similar applications like otter.ai does, and that kind of thing where it will then transcribe it, split the audio among different speakers, and then provide a transcription kind of side by side with the open Word document,
Augusto Pinaud 2:59
I think was a greeting Have the use of products like Google teams where people is getting into this meets and record in this meets and all this, really getting the file from teams thrown into work getting now the agenda and being able to send the agenda back was everything what he said. That way, it is a really, really powerful and clever move from Microsoft, no question about it.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 3:19
So from the article, it looks like you need a Microsoft 365 subscription. It says you’re limited to five hours of transcription per month and 200 megabyte files for uploads. It sounds to me from the way in which I read the article, you can record an unlimited amount of time within Word, and that the feature is available in Microsoft Word on the web only right now, and that they want to bring that feature to Android and iOS by the end of 2020. I’m presuming they’ll probably integrated into the desktop applications at some point, but that’s their current plans.
Augusto Pinaud 3:54
Next up is good notes. Good notes is one of my really applications. I probably use Most on, on the iPad I know, collaboration feature. So more like you do with Google note with Google Docs and Apple notes, you can now collaborate in these handwriting notes and bring things it’s not real time as it is on Google Docs. It takes right now 2030 seconds to do things to synchronize on the server but I’m sure that time is going to improve. But as you think about it, if we are doing drawings you know, with Apple Pencil and taking notes and, and putting images, it’s a really incredible thing to do that you can make the handwriting notes and they will come in less than 30 seconds to the other person notes in the same way. It is really fantastic
Raymond Sidney-Smith 4:45
and great to hear and I’m looking forward to playing with it myself. Next up. Spike has is the email application we’ve talked about in past episodes, but they are expanding to the Mac store with the new Download Manager and an in Integrated browser within the application,
Augusto Pinaud 5:02
we talked about a spike in the past, it was one of the apps I choose. And it is still, for my work email, my favorite tab, the fact that I can go that I can do many, many things. It is really powerful. I don’t leave on a Mac. But if you leave on a Mac, I’m assuming that the power between having both devices, it is going to be simply fantastic. And it is a really great application. One of the things I hope is that now that they are going to have more real estate, the note part of spike on the Mac. Also, it’s easier to access than what it is on the iPad or the phones,
Raymond Sidney-Smith 5:41
you’re gonna get the ability to use the new Download Manager, which means you can download multiple items within the spike application at a time and also the integrated web browser that they’ve put inside of the applications. You can open up and read articles and function in a website. If you need to. You can always update Launched your default browser. Next up, we have some news out of Amazon what’s going on with Amazon.
Augusto Pinaud 6:06
So I’m assuming lounge, their first fitness tracker, it’s called Halo or Halo, and it is going to have support for sleep for data for activity. And you know, it’s an alternative for the Apple Watch for the Fitbit integrated with that. And it is going to be you know, $65 it’s going to have a subscription, that is going to be $4 a month. And it is a really interesting to see Amazon, you know, playing with this new new thing, you know, a, it’s right now, you know, exclusive for some people, you know, $4 for the service, and it is it doesn’t have a screen you need to use your phone, to be able to access to all the health information but one of the things that That they talk is you will be able to create a personalized 3d model of you. So that way you could see how you are going to start looking or how you used to look. As you star, all these, you will be able to get, you know, they’re really trying to do and track the sleep and track waste and help you to improve. And obviously we’ll have the accessories, but it’s not a watch. It doesn’t have a watch feature, at least on this version, it doesn’t have a way to even tell you the time. So you’re basically going to carry the thing on your hands but without doing you any watch or anything. Maybe initial similar to the to the lower end fitbits.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 7:44
And with that, a word from our sponsor this week is aurvana, which you can find at Nirvana calm.
Matt Plummer 7:51
As a young analyst at a leading strategy and management consulting firm, experienced an ambitious professionals experience every week. I had a strong desire to To get promoted as quickly as I could, and I wanted to take on exciting side projects, and I wanted to do all that while spending less time at work, so my life outside of work wasn’t limited to exhaustion and recovery. My observations of my co workers told me this wasn’t possible. But I knew there had to be a way, I began to research and experiment and in two to three months, I had reduced the hours I was working by over 15%, or placing myself on the path to a faster than average promotion. My success led to the creation of Nirvana, a tool designed to give you the edge at work and in life. It combines a diagnostic abbreviated courses and a habit tracker into a single application to enable you to get the most out of your time in just minutes per week. You can start by taking the time finder diagnostic to find out how many of our hundred and 50 time saving behaviors you’re currently doing.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 8:52
All right, we are back and we are going to our next headline, a little bit of the business of personal productivity news. Asana is planning to basically go public through a New York Stock Exchange direct listing. And so a couple of really interesting things here is that many times in the personal productivity sphere, especially with software companies, we’re not really aware of their numbers, like how much money they make if they’re, they’re financially solvent, all of those things. And so this is a really unique insight into a company like Asana. And so Asana is going to divulge their financials. We could be hearing about this as early as next week, and then we’ll start seeing them publicize their analysis of their financials on a regular basis. They’re saying they’re roughly $5 billion in market value. And so we’ll see what happens. I’m really curious to see when they do file for the direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange. We’ll learn more about them from that afterward. So very curious to see. And I’m a big fan of Asana. So I’m looking forward to seeing what is going on under the hood so to speak, which we don’t get often we you know, we can see now slacks information because they went on to the stock exchange. We’re going to see that now with Asana.
Augusto Pinaud 10:16
Yeah, I think that’s, that’s awesome to start seeing, you know, for a person who has been on this productivity world with the apps and all that seen some of these companies really grind to a completely different level and, and see a Santa, you know, get into to this level, I think that’s something really, really important.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 10:33
Yeah, especially outside of the the major, you know, Microsoft Google space to see these these companies get to this level is really exciting.
Augusto Pinaud 10:42
The next is news. With to do instant to do it’s been really, really active with all this pandemic. So they bring this this summer edition of what they are doing so they’re really sign in liquid, the quick add for table for the web, so that way you can get a moment more modern and it seems to me not only modern, but it’s also a lot more functional. Same thing on the, on the phones now you will be used, you know, a fire forward slash so that way you put things inside of, of the category. So you can do a tag for houses slash painting and it will create, you know, a house slash painting category thing that’s that’s really something really, really cool to be able to add sections on a project you know that easy. So there is a link on the article of some of the things are scheduled later things but it is really, as I said to do is just been really really polishing their game on the on the past months, and it’s been a regular featured here in anything but idle because of that.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 11:52
Yeah, they’re adding themselves to iOS shortcuts for Siri and so it’ll be really interesting to see the various Siri shortcuts you can you can do now. And yeah, so I’m just I’m really pleased with a lot of the various options that they have added to the system. You know, we noted in past episodes to do is partnered with Verizon to give Verizon premium access to students and teachers for some period of time. And they have partnered now with Zoho to add team communication, like slack and Google Chat, and otherwise, that’s Zoho product, click. And they’re partnering with them to be able to connect the to do list and Zoho together. They’re just doing a lot. Now they have the board’s beta program running. They’re just really, really making a strong play in the market. And good on them for doing so I’m very excited to see what they what they bring. And then just a little bit of Google News, they’re bringing forward the feature set for shortcuts. So if you didn’t know Google has always had the ability for you to be able to link to Or create shortcuts to other files. And that allowed you to be able to have one single document, right, because that’s the single source of truth for that particular document, or folder. And now, Google is naming that it’s labeling it better as shortcuts, which makes a lot of sense. And they are going through that process of making it easier for everyone. So shift z will create a shortcut. And then you can place that shortcut almost anywhere in Google Drive. And they are doing that process of migrating the old shortcuts. And you’ll also be able to create, quote, unquote, target audiences. So you can create these groups of people you want to share with in an organization if you’re inside of G Suite. So this is like really, really powerful stuff here. Because that means you’ll be able to, you know, link to things and not have duplication in your system. And if you train your Employees properly, then you don’t have that kind of confusion over. Oh, well, I worked on this document. And then somebody worked on another document. And now you have conflicting changes across the board. With that. That brings us to the end of our headlines this week. Agusta and I come across many personal development time tasks, project management, and you name it tools and services each week. Some we use, some we don’t use, but we find really interesting. And so we wanted to share them with you here in this new tools of the week segment. tool number one this week, I have used this now with several clients who have just needed a tool to be able to do this function, which is to remove the background from an image to make it a transparent image in the sense of having a foreground subject and then removing the background from it. Maybe it’s a headshot. Maybe it’s a photograph of a client in an environment. Maybe it’s taking a product photo and being We’ll place that product photo on your website in your your product catalog. And the service is called remove background, and it’s just remove.bg. That’s the top level domain.bg. And so if you go to just remove.bg, you can upload an image, and it will just automatically remove the background. And then you can download that image. And you know, there are different versions of the software, you can pay for higher levels of quality and that kinds of thing. But it’s just really used useful and easy to use. I use other software for my general management of images and design and whatever. But this has just been a really quick and dirty tool for that one specific function. Okay, so what’s your tool of the week?
Augusto Pinaud 15:43
My tool of the week is called via negativa. And I linked the app on the app store in this in the notes as well as an article from the Art of Manliness that talks about it and you know, I I have talked for many years. About my do not do list about my do not need list. And being negative basically tells you to improve your life by removing things. And it is how can you remove things so that you can be more productive, more effective. And all that is a really interesting app and is the first time for a person who’s been talking about, I do not do list for really over a decade, it is really interesting to see an application that really focus into that. So it’s been a great addition, it’s actually allow me to remove some of the stuff that I have, you know, like those things from OmniFocus put it in the application and focus was that so it’s been a great application, great article to read. And
Raymond Sidney-Smith 16:46
that brings us to our featured story this week, and this week, we’re talking apple and Safari 14 which will allow for conversion support for Chrome, Firefox, and EDG extensions, give us a little bit of background on this gousto what’s happening in iOS 14 and Safari 14.
Augusto Pinaud 17:08
Apple finally will, you know, there has been Chrome. It’s been, you know, known for the great extension. So, early this year, we saw Firefox we saw edge based on that chromium so they could use this extensions. And now finally, Apple. It’s going to allow the use of these extensions on safari when Safari 14 comes in, in the Mac store. And it is a really, really big deal for developers and for people to be able to convert these extensions. I have a lot of clients who their business requires some of these extensions for the day to day, and then they need to work into Chrome to make it happen. Now with big sore on safari 14, you will be able to add all those into Safari and use Safari. That’s it. What you like the most, but I like the thing that it’s going to be available. And I think it’s a big step for Apple to really integrate those extensions, and for US consumers to really now be able to get a mass access to this.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 18:17
And my criticism is that, you know, Safari should have done this years ago, they lost a lot of market dominance to Google and to Microsoft, in terms of the browser market, maybe to Mozilla Firefox as well. But you know, they could have really done a much better job of doing this earlier in the, you know, in the development cycle for Safari. That being the case, I’m appreciative to see it happen. One kind of minor note, but important for those who are developers. If you’re a software developer, and you’re thinking of bringing in porting your web extension from Chrome, Firefox, edge ecosystems over you do have to Have an apple developer program membership. So you have to pay that $99 us per year in order to be able to have access to the functionality to be able to convert it. And of course, not all extensions are going to be able to work in Safari. So just depends upon some of the back end stuff that’s necessary to to connect the pieces. But this is a huge, you know, opportunity for a lot of folks. And I’m looking forward to seeing many of the extensions that I do using Chrome that are not available on safari, hopefully come over. Again, that’s going to be a financial decision for those developers, especially since many of them are free, and are not, you know, they’re just not they’re not doing it for money. They’re just wanted to create an extension to be useful to Chrome users or to Firefox users or otherwise, and paying that hundred dollars per year. You know, us to Apple may be too much of a barrier to get over the threshold to make that happen. So then there’s a business model, you know, discussion that needs to be had about, you know, every extension. So I’m really curious as to whether or not this is going to provide more extensions on the safari ecosystem, if not a faster development of those. And so just looking forward to seeing what happens. And I think, either way, it’s a good kind of step forward, I’m hoping that Apple maybe thinks a little bit more about how they use the apple developer program, membership license fee, whatever, for people to be able to get access to it. So with that, that’s our featured story this week. Thank you gousto. And as we come to a close a few items, if we missed a story, we place any extra stories in our extra section in the show notes, so you can check out any other headlines that we didn’t put here in the story in the episode in the show notes, but if we missed something, feel free to head over to our contact page. at anything but idle.com. There, you can contact us. You can also tweet or dm us on Twitter at anything but idle. That’s our Twitter handle. And so you can find us on social media by finding our links through anything but I will calm. If you can, please leave a rating or review on Apple podcasts or Stitcher, those two, those seem to be the two platforms that allow for ratings and reviews. If your favorite podcast app does allow for it, feel free to give us feedback there. We’re really happy and excited to hear from all of you. So thank you for helping us grow the anything but idle audience. And finally, thanks for listening to anything but idle, the productivity news podcast until next time, here’s to productive life.
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Download a PDF of raw, text transcript of the interview here.