Category: Digital Life

Which programming language is the best one?

Is it really possible to answer this question?

Yes, the correct answer is: all of them. Or let’s ask another question first: for which problem?

There is not “the one and only” best programming language, there are tons. This question is simply not a good one. It’s good for endless discussion, but it’s neither complete, nor does it give you details about the problem to solve. An answer will not solve the unknown problem of the author. Every coding language has it advantages when it comes to solving a specific problem. But which one? There are advantages for JavaScript, Python, PHP, Java, Swift, Dart and others. But what if the author wants to write some firmware for a micro controller? Ok, you see the point.

But why do people ask those questions?

I see a lot of such questions posted on all social platforms. And as those questions are so incomplete, there are no correct answers. The results are endless discussions about the advantages of each coding language. And this is what most of the authors want: an open question which leads to endless attention. In detail: likes and retweets to pretend the algorithms to be an interesting account. Honestly, no one reads through thousands of responses. And if yes, you only see the advantages that each comfortable developer or user sees in his area of expertise. This might lead to some short attention, but it will never create some high quality and valuable content fo the users. And that’s a pity.

And what about: iOS or Android? Windows or macOS? Python or JavaScript? Same thing! The answers are just a time wasting mess.

Photo by Donald Giannatti on Unsplash.

 

Introducing Note to Self Mail: The New Key to Productivity

According to the Harvard Business Review, your to-do list is too long. We’ve all experienced the feeling of being overwhelmed with what we need to accomplish. While this may initially seem as though it may help our productivity, too many things to do actually harms our productivity. It causes a never-ending cycle of not feeling accomplished, a lack of focus, and ultimately, procrastination. But, what can we do to avoid these issues? Enter Note to Self Mail.

Note to Self Mail makes it easy to keep your focus on a single task while reducing the time it takes to write out your notes. This improves your productivity both in the sense of keeping your focus on a single task and reducing time spent composing that note. So, let’s take a deeper dive into how Note to Self Mail can improve your productivity.

Compose Notes in Record Times

With the Note to Self Mail app, you can compose notes and send them to your email in just five seconds. Classic mail applications take roughly 25 seconds to compose a single note. This results in a time savings of about 80%.

On top of saving time composing your notes, Note to Self Mail also allows you to send that note to multiple addresses, record audio messages, and attach photos, sketches, or files to your note. These features help you compose comprehensive notes in record times. So with Note to Self Mail, you’re never left scouring for that one piece of information you forgot to include in your notes that you need to accomplish your task. It even archives your notes for easy access to past information you may need at a later date.

Connects with the Top Productivity Apps

Through connecting with the top productivity apps such as Wunderlist, Trello, Evernote, Asana, and OmniFocus, you can create notes and to-do lists in these apps directly through Note to Self Mail. So, instead of having scattered notes across multiple apps and your email, you can maintain one central location for all of your notes and to-do list needs. You can also use this connection to tie notes to different projects you incorporate into these productivity apps for even more efficiencies.

Aside from offering the fastest method for composing notes, Note to Self Mail helps you stay more organized in your favorite productivity apps. If you’re looking to step up your productivity, Note to Self Mail is here to help!

 

Note to Self Mail: edit notes from other apps using the new share extension

Note To Self Mail

The latest update of Note to Self Mail (1.14.0) adds a long requested share extension. This new extension helps you to edit contents from other apps before sending the note to your inbox. The extension is available on most of the share sheets, as it supports most of the share file types. If the extension is not available file type, please let me know.

The new share extension

iOS share dialog

The share extension has the same design as the main app, but with less complex input possibilities. It also uses the same settings as the main app: font size and the behavior of the sending button. For example, if you already use the “quick send” option of the main app, you will find the same behavior on the extension: a single tap sends your note to the first mail address. Long press the button to open the mail selector.

Main view of the new Share extension

Improved behavior of audio recordings

Beside the simple text input, Note to Self Mail already supported audio recording for simple audio notes. The behavior of this feature has been improved in the latest version. Before the update, you had to hold the record button as long as you wish to record. This is fine for small devices like the iPhone. But for iPads, this is a little bit exhausting. In addition to the know behavior, you can start and stop the recording with single taps now.

To avoid endless recordings or data loss after you started the record, some additional adjustments have been made to automatically stop the record. This will happen when:

  • you lock your screen
  • the app is going to the background state (e.g. by pressing the home button or when a phone call comes in)
  • after a maximum recording time of 15 minutes

As Note to Self Mail is an app for small and fast notes, those “features” for automatically stopping the record should not influence your daily work with the app.

Improved behavior of audio recordings

Hope this helps to make your notes faster and more structured 🙂

You want to support this app?

Note to Self Mail - The fastest app to send your ideas into your inbox. | Product Hunt

Join Note to Self Mail beta testing

TestFlight

You are already using Note to Self Mail and want to test new features and check out the latest improvements? The TestFlight service of Apple provides an easy way to do so. You can join TestFlight by opening this link:

Invitation link to join the TestFlight of Note to Self Mail:
https://testflight.note2selfmail.app/

What is TestFlight?

TestFlight is a service by Apple that …

Help developers test beta versions of their apps and App Clips using the TestFlight app. Download TestFlight on the App Store for iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV. […] To test beta versions of apps and App Clips using TestFlight, you’ll need to accept an email or public link invitation from the developer and have a device that you can use to test.

https://testflight.apple.com/

To learn more about TestFlight, how to get started an dhow to install and test beta apps, just open https://testflight.apple.com/.

You want to support this app?

Note to Self Mail - The fastest app to send your ideas into your inbox. | Product Hunt

Photo by Erol Ahmed on Unsplash

Note to Self Mail: create text templates for faster notes

Note To Self Mail

With the latest update 1.13.0 of Note to Self Mail, new text features have been introduced:

  • create static or dynamic text templates for faster input of contents
  • format the note text by using check lists or bullet lists

Use static or dynamic text templates

Text templates can be used for the input of repetitive contents. They can not only contain any static text, they can be extended with dynamic contents that are automatically replaced, when the template is inserted into the note. This includes: date, time, datetime or a unix timestamp. If you need additional contents, please let me know.

Text template selection

The first template uses Date as dynamic contents. Inserted into the note, it automatically adds the current date.

Text template with dynamic contents (date)

Text format: check and bullet lists

By default, a bullet list could already be used in previous versions of the app. Now, another toolbar action was added to insert also bullet lists. Both lists are made of pure text (without any html) to ensure a plain text note and therefore an easier parsing of the note in your inbox.

The app will handle the format of both of those lists automatically. Means, a new list item will automatically created with each new line.

Toolbar action for text format / check list in the note

Another helpful feature is the status change of check lists. Touching a checkbox will enable / disable the checkbox (see “Honey”).

Note text converted into a bullet list

Hope this helps to make your notes faster and more structured 🙂

You want to support this app?

Note to Self Mail - The fastest app to send your ideas into your inbox. | Product Hunt

Change default reading font in Outlook from Times New Roman to Calibri (or any other)

I use Outlook 2016 and some emails are shown in Times New Roman, even if the default font was set to Calibri. This is the case, when HTML mails do not have any CSS style. In this case, Outlook uses the default fall back font Times New Roman. It took me some time to realise that there is no setting for this in Outlook.

But: the related setting can be found in Word 2016 (yes, Word!).

To change the setting, open Word and go to:

File > Options > Advanced > General section > Web Options… > Fonts tab > Proportional font …

There you can change the setting with Times New Roman font to any other font. After the change you have to restart Outlook. Each unformated HTML mail should now be displayed in the selected font.

Photo by Federica Galli on Unsplash.

Note To Self: how to instantly create tasks in Trello

If you are using the mail import feature of Trello, you can speed up the notes with Note To Self Mail. The app creates notes in Trello in seconds.

Setup Note To Self Mail for Trello

1. Get your Trello email address

Get your Trello email address by open up one of your boards in Trello and go to “Email-to-board Settings” ind the settings section of the sidebar. Emails sent to this address will appear as a task in this board. The subject of the email will become the title and the body will become the description.

2. Add your Trello email address to Note To Self Mail

Add this email address to Note To Self Mail. You can also set the label to “Trello” or any other descriptive name.

Note To Self Mail > Settings > Add email …

3. Adjust the subject

Trello uses the subject as a main source of a new note. Set the subject to “Use first line of note”. This ensures, that the first line is used as subject and all the other text lines are moved to the description of the task.

Note To Self Mail > Settings > Add email … > Subject

Usage

There are some shortcuts or special chars that can be used in the subject of the mail. All available features are described in Trello’s documentation: Formatting Tips (opens in a new tab)”>Creating cards by email > Formatting Tips.

Now, you can send any note to Trello. With the following text …

… a new task will be created in Trello …

You might notice, that the task was placed in the correct list (as set in Trello) and was tagged with “home”. All the other contents of the input (line 2 up to the end) are moved to the task description. That’s it!

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Note to Self Mail - The fastest app to send your ideas into your inbox. | Product Hunt