DEVONthink Field Guide Early Bird Pricing Ends Tomorrow

Folks are digging my new DEVONthink Field Guide. Here’s just one of the nice testimonials I’ve received:

“I wish I’d had this MacSparky Field Guide when I first started using DT 8 months ago; it would have saved me hours of reading manuals, watching videos, and reading blog posts to try to figure out how to use DevonThink. In his typical thorough and logical manner, David takes you by the hand and leads you step-by-step through everything you need to know to get the most out of DevonThink. Excellent, and a steal for the value!”
— Jim E.

Tomorrow the early bird price of $44 is going up so if you want that discounted price, now’s the time.

Announcing the DEVONthink Field Guide

Hooray! The DEVONthink Field Guide lives! I first started work on this Field Guide in April. Now it's ready for you.

The Details

  • DEVONthink secrets unlocked

  • 8.5 hours

  • 100+ videos

  • Over 9 gigabytes of video files

  • PDF and ePub transcripts

  • Downloadable data sets

  • Fully captioned

  • Combined videos for easier download

  • Six video interviews with DEVONthink power users where they explain how they use the app

  • Everything you need to take you from a DEVONthink novice to expert

The DEVONthink Field Guide teaches you, soup to nuts, how take advantage of one of the most powerful research / artificial intelligence / do-anything-with-your-files apps available for Mac, iPad, and iPhone. With 8.5 hours of content, the course starts from zero and, by the end, turns you into a DEVONthink pro. The material is accessible to beginners and power users alike, with a thorough explanation of DEVONthink and all its features.

I’ve continued to press down on the production values button, and these videos came out great. Also, there are 2 gigabytes of data for you to download to build a sample database as you are learning the app. To truly understand DEVONthink, you’ve got to throw some data at it.

DEVONthink is a powerful application, and I built this field guide to help you get the most from it. There is a limited time launch discount, so get it now.​

Field Guide Price Increase Starts Next Week

I've decided to raise the price of the MacSparky Field Guides starting next week to $49. There are a few reasons why I'm doing this.

First, I Think They are Worth It

I pour a ton of effort into the Field Guides. Nearly all of them are more than five hours of content with transcripts and downloadable materials included. My goal for every Field Guide is to turn anyone interested in a topic into an expert and give them everything they need to get there. Moreover, many of the Field Guides get ongoing support and free updates for several years. For example, I'm currently working on a free update for the Shortcuts for iPhone and iPad Field guide that will likely result in an hour of additional content for existing customers. This is the second major free update this course will receive.

So, in short, I think they are worth it.

Second, The Field Guides are Expensive to Produce

Every Field Guide I produce requires me to spend over 200 hours of my time and thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket expenses. I'm thrilled with the way the Field Guides have evolved into such a well-produced product. But if I'm to keep making them at this level, I need to charge more.

I hope you understand I did not make this decision lightly. This price increase is to make the business more sustainable so that I can put more time into new titles and updates for existing ones.

The price increase will not start until August 16, so if you'd like to purchase anything before the prices go up, now's the time.

Thank you for all of your support.

Field Guide Black Friday Sale

I don’t often run sales on the MacSparky Field Guides. Instead, I price the courses so, in my opinion at least, they are always good values. Nevertheless, I decided this year to make an exception. Through this weekend only, all of the MacSparky Field Guides are $10 off. That’s the biggest discount I’ve ever offered. So if you’d like to get better at something nerdy on your Mac or iPhone, now’s the time to jump on board. To get the discount, just scroll to the bottom of any course (or press the enroll button at the top) and select the Black Friday discount price before check out.

Hazel 5 and the Next Hazel Field Guide

Hazel Icon 2020

With the release of Big Sur, Paul Kim released a brand new version of Hazel. Version 5 adds several new features. Just a few of them include:

  • Support for macOS Big Sur.

  • A standalone app form factor instead of a preference pane.

  • A pile of UI improvements making creating and organizing rules easier and better.

  • Way better match text tools

If you purchased Hazel 4 anytime during 2020, you can upgrade for free. Otherwise, the upgrade is $20. I paid immediately. I’ve received a lot of email about the Hazel Field Guide. With this new interface and toolset, I will be making a second edition Hazel Field Guide in early 2021. It will be a new purchase but have an upgrade price for prior customers. Stay tuned. 


The AppleScript Email Extractor

I spent several hours putting together a super-nerdy Keyboard Maestro script that saves an Apple Mail message as a PDF and then uses some AppleScript to pull data out of the message and use it in the file name. I've already added the video, the Keyboard Maestro Script, and the AppleScript to the Keyboard Maestro Field Guide. Below you can watch the video and download the AppleScript here.

Fantastical 3.1 Releases and New Videos

Today Flexibits released a major update to Fantastical with version 3.1. This is the “working from home” update with a bunch of new features aimed at people surprised to find themselves working from home:

Time-Based Calendar Sets

Calendar sets have always been a cool feature. Now you can have them trigger automatically at a specific time of day.

Better Conference Calling

Fantastical’s Zoom integration is excellent. You can add a zoom call straight from the app. With this update, Fantastical can now auto-detect conference calls with several popular conferencing services, and it adds a one-click “join” button to your calendar (and your menubar) as the event approaches.

And More Improvements

They also added new Mac appearance options customized for both light and dark mode, added iMessage stickers, and made several other improvements and optimizations.

This is a free update for Fantastical subscribers. I made a few videos for Flexibits showing off the new features. Below is one, but you can find several more on Fantastical’s website. I like the way Flexibits has continued to release features of consequence since the app launch. I am using both the new time-based calendar sets and zoom integration daily. Learn more about Fantastical at their website.

If you subscribed to the Fantastical Field Guide, these new videos are also now available in the course for viewing and download.

Last Call for Introductory Pricing on the Photos Field Guide

I have been thrilled with the warm reception for the Photos Field Guide. I didn’t know what to expect, releasing it during a pandemic, but the feedback has been excellent, and customers are writing to tell me how much better they are at taking, organizing, and finding their photos.

Now that all of the transcripts and the ePub are in place, it’s time for the last call on introductory pricing for the Photos Field Guide. The price will go up to $29 later this week. If you want in on the discount price, now is the time.

Photos Field Guide Transcripts

The Photos Field Guide now has all closed-captioning transcripts in place, along with a written transcript of each course located below each video. Hooray!

I am also trying something new with the Photos Field Guide. I have added a PDF and ePub version of the complete transcript. This is not a written Field Guide, but instead a compiled version of the transcripts that you can download and read, if that’s your thing. It’s all available now for existing customers. Log in and go crazy.

Keyboard Maestro Script Using AppleScript to Create Contacts

Creating new contacts in Apple's Contacts app takes entirely too much mousing, clicking, and typing. This Keyboard Maestro script combines the power of Keyboard Maestro with a little bit of AppleScript to automatically create Apple Contact cards. If you dig this, there is an offer code to get $5 off the Keyboard Maestro Field Guide, “KMMAY2020”. Enjoy.