Last week a friend of mine told me about his experience of using Microsoft Word to write a paper. I won’t share it here with you because of the abusive language he used. Suffice it to say that it wasn’t a good one. I recommended my workflow to my dear friend, as I’m very happy with it. I think the tools might be useful to you as well.

The workflow is simple to learn and simple to follow. I’m quite confident that some of you might drop Microsoft Word and the like for ever.

The Tools

1. MultiMarkdown is an enhancement of the famous Markdown text-toHTML conversion tool by John Gruber of Daring Fireball fame.
2. nvALT is a fork of the Notational Velocity editor, which I used quite extensively in the past. nvALT has a built-in preview window, which can render text formatted with MultiMarkdown. nvALT is free, but you should donate1 to support the developers.
3. Dropbox lets me access my files from anywhere. With Dropbox documents can be edited on the go with your iDevice without the need to sync through iTunes.

If you do not want to give up working with your favorite text editor you can use marked. This tool is much like the preview window built into nvALT. I haven’t used it myself yet, but I heard good things about it. It is available in the Mac App Store.

What is MultiMarkdown?

MultiMarkdown is a mark-up language like HTML, but designed for readability. Do not stop to read here, it is not as geeky as it might sound. If you ever tried to format a plain text email you probably have come quite close to MultiMarkdown without knowing it. Let me show you an example of the beauty of writing with MultiMarkdown. This is the text as you would write it with MultiMarkdown formatting:2

And here is the text in nvALT’s preview window:

This is neat and clean, isn’t it? The text you wrote with the MultiMarkdown formatting is readable. This is in stark contrast to other markup languages like HTML or XML. The preview window looks as if you have used HTML to write it. That is, because it is HTML. The preview window converts the MultiMarkdown to HTML in the background. You can even use this HTML to publish on the web, as we will see later.

What is nvALT?

nvALT is a plain text editor with incremental search built into it. nvALT makes it really simple to work on many different articles in one session. This is especially useful when writing a book or maintaing a blog. nvALT can search across all your documents and bring up relevant information in seconds. And it has a preview window for converting the MultiMarkdown formatted text into HTML and rendering it in a web view. You also can save the HTML as I will show you in a minute.

Using Dropbox with nvALT

When I’m on the go too, I still can edit my documents. nvALT has no internal document format, as, for example, in the case of Microsoft Word. nvALT saves the documents as plain text. This means you can use any editor to make changes to your documents. Just make sure to save the changed document in plain text. This allows me to work on my iPad or iPhone. I can work on my documents from anywhere, as long as I have access to my Dropbox folder. Nowadays I keep everything in plain text files formatted with MultiMarkdown. My exercise log. My ToDo list. My WordPress articles. Every piece I write. One workflow to rule them all.

Easy Workflow

As I said, the workflow is straightforward. Write your content with the nvALT editor and use the MultiMarkdown syntax to describe the formatting. You can see the ready formatted text in the preview window of nvALT. When you are satisfied with what you see, save the HTML source of your document and publish it via WordPress, or convert it to LaTex or PDF.

I keep all of my documents in one Dropbox folder and use nvALT to find the documents and make changes. nvALT makes it easy to find documents through its integrated search capabilities. Switching between many different articles is a matter of milliseconds. For me, this is one of the biggest advantages of working with nvALT.

nvALT also supports distraction free editing of your documents. One press of the key and it’s you and your text. The menu bar and all other windows will be covered by nvALT.

Advantages of working with nvALT and MultiMarkDown

• The basics of MultiMarkdown can be picked up in a minute.
• You can use MultiMarkdown to create HTML, LaTex, OPML, PDF, and Open Document.
• You can keep your documents in a DropBox folder and edit the documents on your mobile device. You do not have to worry about syncing your documents. If you want to edit your documents on the iPhone or iPad I recommend using the Elements app. Elements has a Markdown preview included in it.
• Future proof. You will always be able to work with your old documents, because the files are stored in plain text. One who tries to work on one document with different versions of Microsoft Word will appreciate this a lot.
• You are not bound to nvALT. You can use nvALT at home and use Notepad at work to edit the same document.
• Searching and switching between articles within nvALT can be as fast as lightning.

Publishing the text on your blog

Publishing your writings in your blog can be done with copying the HTML from the preview window into the edit window of your WordPress installation. To get to the HTML just open the preview window in nvALT using the menu Preview > Toggle Preview Window and then switch from preview to source with Preview > Toggle Source View. That’s it.

Conclusion

This workflow is easy to pick up and it doesn’t cost you a dime. It is painless, cross-platform and future proof.3 Give it a try and let me know how you like it in the comments.

When I searched Google to find a good tool with which I can write for Cute Machine, I found Eddie Smith’s excellent blog practically efficient. This is where I learned about nvALT. Check out his blog: you might enjoy reading it as much as I do.

I plan to self-publish a small book on Amazon’s Kindle Store in the near future. Using the workflow described above should help me in this endeavor. I will let you know whether the described workflow can keep up to what I have praised it for.

If you liked this article please consider to follow me on Twitter and subscribe to my RSS feed.

See you,
Joe

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Have you ever tried to forward incoming calls on your iPhone to another phone? Some weeks ago, when I was trying out the BabyFon application, I had to do divert all incoming calls. If you search through the iPhone’s phone application to find a button which lets you divert calls, you will have no luck. Instead, you have to go to the settings application: Settings > Phone > Call Forwarding. In the menu you can enter a phone number where you want to have your calls forwarded to. In the same menu you can switch call forwarding on or off. There is also another way to forward calls. This is the solution I prefer as it comes in more handy when you need to use call forwarding on a day to day basis: you can use GSM codes and make convenient short cuts in your contacts database.

Do you wonder what GSM codes are? GSM is the abbreviation for Global System for Mobile Communications. This standard defines various codes with which you can control phones which implement this standard. For example, you can configure call forwarding and other similar options too. In this article we will look at call forwarding only. You can control lots of other features with GSM codes, which I will discuss in a later post.

These are the GSM codes of interest, if you need to divert calls on your phone:

1. **21*a phone number#  – to register a phone number and activate the diversion of all calls to this number.
2. *21# — to activate divert all calls function (supposed you already have registered a phone number in the past).
3. #21# — to deactivate divert all calls.

You can enter these codes through the Phone’s keypad. Just open the phone application and tap on the Keypad tab. Enter **21*a phone number# to register a phone number to which you want to forward incoming calls. When you register a phone number, that will also activate call diversion. With the code #21# you can deactivate call diversion.

If you are like me you have every chance of forgetting to deactivate the forwarding function. Therefore, it might be a good idea to set an alarm in the clock application to remind you of turning off call diversion.

The next time you need to divert incoming calls, it is enough to enter the code *21#, as the number is already registered. If you need to divert to a different number you certainly can register a new number.

As I am not good in remembering GSM codes I have installed shortcuts in the address book. This is how you can do it:

• Open the contact to whom you want to divert the call to.
• Tap on the Edit button and select Add new Phone.
• Enter the GSM code together with the number you want to forward calls to (e.g. **21*08150815#).
• Press on the label beneath the phone field to add a custom field (Press Edit on the Label view, then select Add Custom Label).
• Do the same steps once more to add a phone number which will deactivate the divert all calls function.

This is how you can use GSM codes to forward calls to another phone. Look through the list I have linked to for further useful GSM codes. For example, there are GSM codes with which you can hide your caller id when making phone calls. Check the Quick Tip category in the coming days. I will write another short post about the caller id soon.

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The other day I was chatting with a friend who recently bought an iPhone. When I was looking at his iPhone I noticed some icons which I had never seen before. It turned out that these icons were bookmarks to his favorite websites. A nice little feature mobile Safari offers is the facility to drop bookmarks on your Home screen.

1. Open the site you want to have a shortcut for in mobile Safari.
2. Resize and move the page to the section you want to start off the next time you open the shortcut. Mobile Safari will remember the exact position.
3. Press the + sign in the bottom toolbar and select Add To Home Screen. The iPhone will make a screenshot of the page, which will be used as an icon on the Home screen.

Go ahead, now you have a convenient shortcut on your Home screen.

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The iPhone is not only a phone, but also a computer. And some people use it like a computer. But, strangely enough, when it comes to security, they are not taking the necessary steps to secure their data like they would on a normal desktop computer or laptop. They store contact information, documents, passwords and other confidential data. And yet they leave it all unprotected. Follow these security tips to make it harder for any villain to get hold of your valuable data.

1. Protect your iPhone against unwanted access. Activate the Pin Pad under Settings > General > Passcode Lock. Also set the Auto-Lock to at least 5 minutes. This will lock the iPhone automatically after 5 minutes. You can also configure your iPhone in a way that will erase all data after 10 failed passcode attempts. I am not using this feature, because I am afraid that my 2 year old daughter will try to guess the code and will not achieve it under 10 attempts.
2. Ensure that you reveal your location only to those services you trust. Therefore deactivate location services by default. You can do this in Settings > General > Location Services. Yes, I am paranoid.
3. Configure your iPhone to ask for permission before connecting to wireless networks. Set Settings > Wi-Fi > Ask to Join Networks to on.
4. Whenever possible, use an SSL connection when you surf with mobile Safari. You can see that a connection is secure when mobile Safari is displaying a little lock in the address bar.
5. Whenever possible, use an SSL connection to retrieve your mail. Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Your Account > Advanced > Use SSL is the right place to do it.
6. Under Settings > Safari you can control various security settings for mobile Safari. You can deactivate JavaScript, block pop-ups and reject or delete cookies.
7. Use a secure data store application to store confidential documents. There are several offers in the App Store.
8. Use a secure password store application to store passwords. There are several programs which will do the job. Look for applications which do use encryption.
9. Do backup your iPhone regularly through iTunes. Apple has written a short article on their support pages about backing up your data and applications.

This list is not complete. For example, you can configure a virtual private network to use with your iPhone. The headline says easy to follow steps; therefore, I will leave the VPN to another post. You can also set restrictions on various iPhone applications. I do not consider these to be essential, but encourage you to play around with these (Settings > General > Restrictions). Certainly there are even more tips and tricks regarding iPhone security. Let us know your best tips and tricks.

I hope you are already determined to take security seriously. If not, read this funny story. Funny, because the story came to a good end. Imagine this happening to you. A nightmare!

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Here is a quick list of the features controlled by the four buttons of your iPhone. These are the physical controls available.

• Sleep/Wake button, on the top right of your iPhone
• Volume button, on the left side
• Mute switch, on the left side of the iPhone, just above the volume control
• Home button, on the front of your iPhone, just beneath the touch screen

The Sleep/Wake button lets you lock/unlock the iPhone respectively. Locking does not mean powering off though. It just turns off the touch screen. Any open application will continue to run. To power off the iPhone you need to press and hold the Sleep/Wake button for a few seconds, then drag the slider to the right side. To turn your iPhone on again just press the Sleep/Wake button for about two seconds.

The volume button controls the volume of the playback audio or the ring tone volume, depending on the context the button is used in.

The mute button mutes the external speaker. When the switch is down you can see a red dot on the switch indicating that the phone is muted. Before the introduction of the Software update 2.2 muting did not work properly. For example it was not possible to mute the sounds which came from the Koi Pond application or other third party apps. But it seems to be fixed in 2.2.

The Home button has several functions:

• Pressing and holding the Home button while you are on one of the Home screens lets you rearrange your application icons. The icons will start to wiggle. You then can rearrange the icons. You can also delete applications by pressing the x control on the top left corner of an icon. Press the Home button once more when you have finished rearranging and deleting.
• Pressing the Home button briefly while you are on one of the Home screens will bring you back to the first Home screen.
• Pressing and holding the Home button and the Sleep/Wake button will reboot your iPhone. When you hold the buttons for a few seconds a slider will appear on the screen. Drag it to the right to reboot your device.
• Pressing the Home button while an application is open will end that application.
• Pressing the Home button for about six seconds while an application is open will force quit the application. This is useful when an application is not responding anymore.
• Pressing the Home button twice quickly will bring you back to your first Home screen, open your favorite contacts list or, start the iPod application. You can choose which of these features you want to activate in Settings > General > Home button.
• Pressing the Home button twice while the iPhone is locked will launch the iPod widget, with which you can control the audio playback volume, start/stop the playback or, change the track.

Apple provides a user guide optimized for mobile Safari. There is a link in the bookmarks folder of mobile Safari, which points to help.apple.com/iphone.

That’s all folks. Have I missed a button feature? Let me know in the comments.

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After using the iPhone daily for nearly half a year, I realized that the headphone has a button to control several features. I guess sometimes it helps to read the manual which comes with the iPhone. If you do not read manuals, do not worry, everything is here:

• You can answer an incoming call by pressing the headphone button once. Press it again if you want to hang up.
• While you are listening to music on your iPhone, you can press the headphone’s button once to pause the music. Press it once more to start the playback again.
• Use a double click to play the next track in your playlist.
• There is another interesting feature. If you want to jump back to the beginning of the current track, you need only to press the button three times in a row. If the playback is a few seconds in the track, the playback of the previous track will be started. This will need some practice though.
• Pressing the button while no music is playing, the iPhone will pick a random track and start the playback.
• Pulling out the headphone while you’re listening to your iPod, will stop the playback. When you start the playback again you will notice that the iPod is repeating the last two or three seconds. This is especially useful when listening to podcasts.

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Here is a short list of the tips and tricks you might find useful when surfing the web with mobile Safari. Some of these weren’t that obvious to me, so I thought I should share them with you.

• Rotate the iPhone by 90 degrees to surf in landscape mode.
• Double tap on a column zooms that column in for better reading. Double tap anywhere on the screen to zoom out again.
• A tap on the status bar (where the carrier, time and, battery information is shown) propels you right to the top of the current web page. This actually works in some other applications as well.
• Tap and hold down the finger on a picture to save that picture into the camera roll of the Photo application.
• You can sync the bookmarks between mobile Safari and your Safari installation on your desktop computer.
• When you are entering URLs you can omit the www. part of the address.
• When entering URLs into the address field you can use the top level domain shortcut I described in The Advantages of a Virtual Keyboard.
• A little lock icon on the left of the address bar shows you whether you are using a secure https connection. This is useful, because normally you will not see the scheme name (http, https, etc.) of the URL.
• Sometimes you want to see where a URL is pointing to before opening it. Tap and hold down the finger on the URL for a second. A little bubble will show you the link’s name and destination.

That’s all that comes to my mind when I think about how to best use mobile Safari. Have I forgotten some useful tips and tricks? Leave a comment to share your secret power tips with us.

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With software update 2.2 it is now possible to turn auto-correction on or off. I think this has been the second most often requested feature right behind cut and paste, which was by far the most often requested one. You can find the auto-correction switch in the settings application under General > Keyboard > Auto-Correction.

Another feature which might be useful to you is the “.” shortcut. If switched on, you can tap the space bar twice to enter a period followed by a space character. The switch can be found in Settings > General > Keyboard > “.” Shortcut.

Have you noticed the little globe key to the left of the space bar in the keyboard screen shots? You can choose from different international keyboards in the settings application under General > Keyboard > International Keyboards. For example, when you need to write emails in different languages this is a convenient method to switch between different keyboards and languages. Just press the globe to switch to the next configured language. This will not only change the keyboard layout, but also the auto-correction dictionary. When you have pressed the globe, the language you have switched to is displayed on the space bar for about one second. For me, switching between different keyboards comes in handy when I want to write emails to my Spanish speaking friends.

One feature I wasn’t aware of before I read about it this week is the capability to hit the shift key twice to switch to caps-lock mode. You also need to enable this feature in the settings application under General > Keyboard > Enable Caps Lock. You might want to use this feature if you need to yell at your COLLEAGUES, when writing them an email.

If you need to enter special letters like German umlaute (ü, ö, ä) or the Spanish letter eñe (ñ) just tap the underlying key and hold it for a short period. You will notice that a contextual menu appears where you can choose the special letter from. This also works when entering email addresses or URLs, as depicted in the screen shot.

Last but not least, here is one of my favourite keyboard tricks. You can enter characters by swiping on the keyboard. This is helpful when you need to enter passwords which are often a combination of letters, digits and special characters. For example, you can enter a digit by tapping on the 123 key and then swiping to the number key you want to enter. When you have entered the number just release the key and you will notice that the keyboard switches back to the mode for entering characters again.

Now, try these tricks with a device which has a real physical keyboard.

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Did you know that the iPhone has a built-in scientific calculator? Just open the calculator and rotate your iPhone by 90 degrees into landscape perspective. You will see that your plain old calculator application has much more to offer. Just explore it and feel the difference.

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