Brain Murmurs

Xcode has a very, very good set of searchable documentation that you can access from within Xcode by going to Help->Documentation. It comes with a set of bookmarks including:

• Interface Builder User Guide
• AppKit Reference
• Foundation Reference
• Web Kit Reference

For a long time I used the browser-based documentation located under on the hard drive under /Developer/Documentation. Unfortunately, it’s not the best reference for searching and, as far as I can tell, is mostly limited to general API documentation. As a consequence of this I spent a lot of time looking up minutia about NSTableView and it’s brethren on google instead.

I had seen the Documentation link before, but had assumed that it was going to be some lightweight fare about the basics of using the Xcode IDE, not a set of developer’s documentation spiritually equivalent to Safari Bookshelf.

I’ve known about what I’m about to say for awhile, but I’ve been so embarrassed that I missed it that I’ve really sat on this instead of mentioning it. Hopefully this will be useful to anyone else that didn’t know.

Follow up

Mike Lee of Delicious Monster pointed out that you can pull up said documentation at any time by pressing option, command, shift, and ? at the same time. Works well.

He also mentioned that you can look up specific terms in the documentation directly from your source code by holding down the option key and double clicking on the term of interest.

Thank you, Mike.

Filed under: Professional Services by Daniel
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We’ve just launched the latest build of the Mentat BlackBerry Client with some nice new features:

* Email to Task option:

As promised, provided you are using the Mentat BlackBerry Client OS 4.2 download, you can now convert emails to tasks. To try it out, first download the latest build then:

1. Log in to Mentat
2. Press the escape key to back out to the main screen
3. Open the BlackBerry Email Manager program and find the message you want to convert to a task
4. Open the message and click to bring up the menu. You will see a new menu item at the top “New Mentat Task” Just click on that and you are ready for conversion!

The message subject will be auto-filled as a task summary (if you need to change it so something more task-worthy, just press alt-delete and it will clear out quick) and the body of the message will automatically become the task description. You can edit either of these if need be.
You’ll also see a handy project selector to choose where the task goes. Just click on that til you see the project you want (space key also works) or type the first letter of your project to jump right to it.

5. Hit the Save button and the task will be sent off to Mentat. You’ll be back at the Email manager screen to rinse & repeat as needed.
This should help you keep that Inbox free & clean by converting important, actionable emails to tasks for later, and clearing out the rest of the junk so it won’t distract you. GTD all the way.

* Public Projects

We’ve also added in public projects, letting you post a project for all to see in case you want to share with members outside your workgroup (customers for instance). In fact, we’ve created a public Mentat Public project here , for you all to share in. Let us know your ideas or report any bugs you encounter directly into tasks for us.

To create a Public project, you have to be an admin (so any projects you created yourself are fair game, otherwise you’ll need permission from the creator). Just click on the pencil shaped icon next to the project name on the home page, or the admin link on the project page and then choose Public from the dropdown selector. Easy.

We’ll review our public project and get to those tasks as we can (or maybe have senior engineer Garrett Kelly handle them).

Just look jazzed he is!

I hope you all enjoy the latest Mentat BlackBerry build and we look forward to hearing your feedback.

-Erik

Filed under: mentat by erik
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The Mentat BlackBerry Email to Task feature will be up in tomorrow’s new build release. GTD fans, prepare for some awesome.

Filed under: mentat by erik
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We’re in the midst of finishing the much requested Mentat BlackBerry Client feature to let users open their BlackBerry’s email manager and convert actionable emails to Mentat tasks at their whim. Keeping a clear inbox by filtering (the important) emails into actions has been a topic on several GTD sites and everyone seems to be searching for a good method. Soon, Mentat will make that easy for you!

Here’s how it will work :

* Once you’ve logged in to Mentat and it’s running in the background, you just open the email you want to convert, bring up the menu and you’ll see a choice at the top “New Mentat Task”.

* Choose that option and it will open up Mentat’s New Task form, pre-populated with the email subject as a task title and the body of the email as the task description. Of course, as some have pointed out (thanks Isaac) the email subject is not always an ideal task/action title, so you can just hit alt-delete to wipe the whole thing and type your own and skip the whole delete key ‘drum solo’.

* Choose a project for the task, hit save and you’re back to the emails for more conversion!

We have success on our test server making tasks for emails, and we’re currently polishing this feature up for the next Mentat release. Anyone who already bought the Mentat BlackBerry Client will get this as a free update, so join them if you’ve been waiting for a handy email to task system or contemplating the Zen of ‘inbox zero’. Watch for an update with the next Mentat release!

-Erik

Filed under: mentat by erik
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If you use Twitter you can get news and announcements about our service by following @mentat.

Filed under: mentat by Daniel
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We’re currently working on a way to generate Mentat Tasks from emails you receive on the BlackBerry. (This will come into play for other Mentat clients as well).

As Mentat users, how would you like to see this work? Share your ideas or examples and we’ll check in with you here and at the forums as we make progress!

-Erik

Filed under: mentat by erik
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We won’t have a booth at MacWorld this year, but I will be there next week, representing for the Brainiacs. Anyone interested in hooking up with me can either D message me on twitter (dlpasco) or email me at daniel AT brainmurmurs DOT com.

See you next week!

-Daniel

Filed under: JIVA by Daniel
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Hi there! There’s been considerable interest in our new project, Mentat.app, so I thought I’d take a moment and show some of our initial prototyping. Most of the work so far has been under the hood (network code, data model, and so on) but we’re starting to get into the UI development now and I thought I’d share a few lo-fi screenshots for the curious or easily amused.

Most of these images are shown on a desktop with other applications in order to provide a sense of scale relative to the rest of your environment.

Primary display

Here’s a screenshot of the current Mentat Alpha. It has quite a way to go but it should give you an idea of the basics:

Here is a close up:

The current design is dual-purposed in that it is meant to help us visualize the forthcoming iPhone interface and will also serve as an alternate, minimalist interface for our desktop offering (although it is likely that, for initial released, the HUD view will pretty much be the main application UI).

It is likely that the task creation form will be moved into a pop-up display ala Things in the near future.

Project view

This next view shows the obvious influence that the Icon Factory’s Twitterific application had our our design approach. These guys did great work and we love their app here. (Thank you, Craig Hockenberry!).

This view shows the task editor as well, which is invoked by simply double clicking on the task of interest. All of the fields are editable, but clearly, the drop down menus haven’t been implemented yet.

Technorati Tags:
GTD, GUI, Mentat, organizer, user interface design, os x

Filed under: mentat by Daniel
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Effective immediately, the Mentat Service is available for private use by individuals and businesses.

Pricing will be $2000 for unlimited users and full server source code access. Businesses under 10 employees can license the server for $500. Prices are subject to, but also unlikely to, change in the future. Licensees will receive free updates code updates for 12 months, or indefinitely with an annual subscription fee (pricing TBD).

Brain Murmurs is available for support and custom server development at a rate of $100/hour.

Many customers have approached us requesting a way to use Mentat without having to have their sensitive data hosted by a 3rd party, a common complaint heard against competing products like Basecamp. This move will allow our customers to leverage Mentat’s great productivity suite securely on their own machines, with total, private access to their data, while still enjoying the benefits of our native Mac and BlackBerry clients as well as Jott task transcription support.

Requirements: The Mentat service will run on most linux or unix servers. We strongly recommend that customers considering hosting Mentat in their own organization do so on Apple computers running Leopard Server, which supports Mentat out of the box.

About Mentat
Mentat is a task management system created by Brain Murmurs, Incorporated patterned after David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology. Although similar to standalone products such as Omni Focus or Things, Mentat is distinct in that it is designed with team collaboration and mobility in mind.

In addition to the Mentat browser interface, Brain Murmurs also sells handheld and desktop software designed to work with the Mentat server - currently dedicated clients for the RIM BlackBerry and Apple computers, with additional support for Windows, the Apple iPhone, and Linux in the coming months.

Parties interested in learning more about the Mentat service can explore our free, hosted service at http://gomentat.com

For sales information, please contact us at sales@brainmurmurs.com or by phone at 206-216-3923.

Technorati Tags:
brainmurmurs, GTD, Mentat, organizer

Filed under: mentat by Daniel
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We’ve also recently updated the Mentat BlackBerry client with a few fixes:

* You can now close delete tasks from the site and have that recognized by the BlackBerry client, and vice versa.

* We’ve made the default task sorting by priority, from highest to lowest (customizable by the Sort menu option for your own needs of course)

The goal is to keep everything smooth & up to date, so within 5 minutes of something happening to one of your tasks, you will be aware of it whether you are at your desk or on the move.

–Currently, there appears to be an elusive bug that sometimes throws a “setFocus” error error if you are simultaneously logged in to the Mentat BlackBerry client and the site and you delete a task from the site, then move to working on the BlacKBerry client.. We’re looking into a fix, but if you happen across that bug in the meantime, the workaround is easy: just start Mentat again & all should be well.

Filed under: mentat by erik
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