This post is the 6th and final post of a series, Getting the most from your new Mac.

You've settled into your new lifestyle; you're moving from Mac newbie to Macompetent. But when you hit the wifi café for an Americano and a little surfing Safari, you feel like all those other Macbook-wielding hipsters can tell you're not quite one of them yet.

That's because there's more to being a Mac user than your choice of computer. Going Mac is an attitude, an aesthetic, possibly even a philosophical position. Here's how to shift your mindset so that you and your operating system become one:

1. We're back, we're Mac, don't give us flack. This ain't 1998 (and thank god for that). Today's Macs are able to deal with just about any standard PC file format: Word files, Excel files, video files, etc. (Though if you're using Office 2008 on the mac, you may need to retro-format your files so that friends with older version of Office can read your files; just save as .doc or .xls instead of .docx or .xlsx). Don't apologize for your Mac: if they're sending you files you can't read, the overwhelming odds are that they are doing something weird on their end. Unless you're in a field that's using specialty, PC-only software (e.g. for health records), expect equal treatment as a Mac user. Let your colleagues, vendors and employers know it's not acceptable to insist on web sites or services that are Windows- or Explorer-only.
2. Don't be a Masshole. The flip side of expecting reasonable accommodation is to restrain your own sense of superiority as a Mac user. It's very tempting to look down your nose at Windows users: their ugly machines, their painful crashes, their sad efforts at imitating the Mac interface. Thinking of a Windows user as a Mac user who hasn't yet seen the light may reduce your sense of hostility, but it will only heighten theirs. So try to remember: as much as the Apple lifestyle works for you, there are many people who are genuinely more comfortable and effective as Windows users. (I'm far less convinced by BlackBerry users who insist that a physical keyboard is more important than the downright joyful experience of using an iPhone.)
3. Explore strange new worlds. If you've been a Windows user, and you have an even moderate level of risk aversion, you've probably been very cautious about downloading and installing new software. As a Mac user, you can be more adventurous: particularly if you've installed anti-virus software (though Mac viruses are rare), you can download software with a high degree of confidence in its safety and easy un-installability. (Uninstalling is almost always a matter of just dragging a file or two to the trash). So try stuff out! You may find new tools to recommend to me (that's what the comments are for.)
4. Reach out and iTouch someone. Mac users are rabid evangelists -- well, a lot of us are. We love sharing our advice, tips, favorite apps, and beloved Mac sites. Don't be shy about chatting with the Mac user next to you in the café, especially if they've got lots of stickers on their MacBook (a pretty strong geek indicator) or they're cute (it's always fun to talk to cute-looking people in cafés).
5. Love your computer. The best thing about being a Mac user is that you can stop thinking of your computer as that machine that you do your work on, and actually enjoy spending time online. My own switch back came ten years ago: I woke up one morning, and reflected that while I'd gotten into Internet reseach because I just loved messing around on my computer, I wasn't enjoying my computer time anymore. I went out that very day and bought a G4 Mac, and as soon as I left Windows behind, I loved being on the computer again.

Now that you've Mac-ified your soul as well as your computer, it's time to discover and share your own Mac secrets. Share your favourite tips here or send them to us on Twitter, and let us know if you have any Mac questions we haven't answered.

This post is part 5 of a series, Getting the most from your new Mac.

You've fallen in love; you never knew it could be like this. When you compare the object of your affection to your ex, you can't believe what you once settled for.

But like any lover, you can't help but noticing one or two things that could be just a tiny bit better. Maybe your beloved even has a couple of quirks that are downright annoying. And isn't it your job -- the job of any admirer -- to bring out the best in your darling?

Happily, it's easier to tweak your Mac than to upgrade your boyfriend or girlfriend. Here are some adjustments that any new Mac user should undertake, or at least consider, until your computer is exactly right for you.

1. Customize your dock. That row of icons at the bottom (or if you've gotten fancy, at the side) needn't contain the apps that Apple, in its infinite wisdom, stuck there. If there are apps you're not using, drag them out and poof! they're gone. Not gone gone -- they're still in your Applications folder. But the dock shortcut is outta there; now you can add the applications that you really use without ending up with an insanely cluttered dock. (A dock full of Apple's default icons is a sure sign of a Mac newbie.) Just drag an app's icon in there, or ctrl-click on the icon of any active application (all active apps show up in the dock) and select "keep in dock".  You can also resize your dock by hovering over the dotted line that divides your apps from your folders. Speaking of folders, here's a neat trick: putting your applications folder in the dock (just drag and drop); clicking that folder pops up a spring-loaded list of applications you can launch from there. And if you want to find new apps to try out, try looking over the shoulder of any Mac user; if you see unfamiliar icons in their dock, ask them what the app is and what they use it for.

   

2. Go Places. Your Finder windows and open or save dialogue boxes will show you a left-hand column with all the drives currently mounted on your computer, plus your favorite places (typically, your home directory, documents folder, pictures folder, etc). Just like the dock, this list of Places can be customized. If there are folders you don't use often, drag their folders out of this list; they'll disappear from the list but stay on your computer. Then drag any folder you use frequently onto the list of places (taking care not to drag it directly onto another icon; if you do that, the folder will be placed inside the folder you've just dragged it onto). Your frequently-used folder will now appear in your list of places, and be readily accessible from any open or save dialog or from any Finder window.
3. Be controlling. If you're missing your right mouse button, let me introduce you to the control key. Holding ctrl while clicking your mouse button acts just like a right-click on a Windows machine; it gives you a menu with lots of additional options for whatever you're clicking on.
4. Take the shortcut. Learning keyboard shortcuts will make you a much more efficent Mac-er. One of my favorites: holding the Command key (the one with the apple on it) while clicking a link in Firefox or Safari, to open that link in a new tab.  If you want to get really hardcore, or you just really hate your mouse, try Quicksilver, an application that lets you do just about anything you can imagine via keyboard, and then some.
5. Get smart. You can create smart folders or groups in the Finder, Mail, Address Book and iTunes, which essentially create virtual folders based on rules. For example, I've got a smart folder I created in the Finder, called "presentations"; it contains all the files on my computer that are either PowerPoint or Keynote files. The original files stay with the projects they're related to, but I've got a single place to look for all presentation files whenever I need to create a new presentation that draws on my previous work.
6. Just say no. There are some really hot-looking Apple doodads you may want to live without. I leave my screen saver turned off, because it annoys me to have my windows disappear; I only rarely use my Dashboard (which provides access to a range of small utility applications), and I personally find Exposé (which lets you get a bird's-eye view of all your open windows) to be dizzying, probably because I have so many open windows that it looks like this:

Make your Mac yours, and you'll find that your passion for the platform will deepen into lasting commitment.

Which Finder and system tweaks have made you love your Mac more than ever?

This post is part 4 of a series, Coming out as a Mac user.

Switching platforms is disorienting, at least until you get up and running with the core software that gives you all the tools you had on your old machine. But you didn't switch to a Mac just so you could do the same old stuff. You switched because you wanted to rock the house, set the world on fire, and bravely go where no Windows machine has gone before. Here are four Mac-only apps that should fill your heart with joy at your newfound powers.

1. Find your files. Default Folder X ensures you're never more than a click or two away from the folder you want to save a file to, or find a file in -- even folders that aren't in your list of Places.. It adds contextual menus to any "Save" or "Open" dialogue boxes, in any program, so that you can immediately access any folders that you've recently used, or are currently open in the Finder. I find that 95% of the time, the folder I want to save a document to is in one of those two lists. You can see Default Folder X's additional icons in the right-hand side of this screenshot:
2. Type less. TextExpander lets you create text shortcuts -- or "snippets" --  for any text you type frequently, like your address or the date, or for images you use frequently, like your logo or headshot. I use the key combination "ddt" to enter the date; anytime I save a file, I start by typing "ddt", which inserts the date in the form 2009-05-23 at the beginning of every file name. That means I can sort files by name in order to see them in chronological order by date of creation, (you can do the same thing by adding "View by date created" to your Finder's default columns -- under View/Show Options in your Finder's menu bar -- but I like to see date last modified, too, and that gets to be a lot of columns in the Finder.) Enter "%Y-%m-%d" as a snippet in TextExpander, and choose your own keystroke combo (like "ddt") to get automatic dates in the form year-month-day.
3. Say click. If you're enjoying the helpful illustrations in this post, you can thank Skitch: a really kick-ass screen capture utility with an online component. Install Skitch on your machine to do quick screenshots that you can crop, resize or annotate; then use the "save" button to add that screenshot to a permanent archive, or "webpost" to put it on a website -- so that you can easily embed images in your blog posts.
4. Collaborate in Mac time. If you like Google Docs or wikis as a way of collaborating with your colleagues to write documents, try doing it in real time. SubEthaEdit is a plain text editor that runs on your Mac -- and lets you collaboratively write and edit in real time if you have a colleague who's running SubEthaEdit too. Rob and I use SubEthaEdit to take notes together during meetings, or to live blog conference events (I transcribe, Rob cleans up as we go so it's ready to post right away.) If you're away from the wifi cloud (and still breathing), you can create your own computer-to-computer network by clicking on the Airport status icon in your menu bar; invite your fellow SubEthaEditors to join the private network you've created. Like this:
   
   Keep your SubEthaEdit disk image on your computer so that you can get your colleagues up and running with SubEthaEdit if you want to take notes together; you can transfer it to them using a keychain drive, or by dragging-and-dropping into their public dropbox once you're connected to the same network. (Just use shift-apple-K in the Finder to bring up a list of computers in your local network).

Which apps make you happy to be a Mac user?

This is part 3 in a series, Coming out as a Mac user.

Like any passionate affair, your romance with a new Mac can fizzle when you discover the limitations of your beloved. Your new Mac is much less likely to drive you crazy than that old machine running Windows Vista, but it's not without the occasional quirk. Here are five highly recommended investments that will help protect you from software frustrations or hardware failures:<!--break-->

1. Buy the extended AppleCare. It'll cost you a couple of hundred dollars to extend your AppleCare from 1 year to 3 years. Do it now! You can wait until your first year is almost up, but there's little financial advantage to doing so, and you run the risk of forgetting. And I'm almost tempted to tell you that if you don't need that AppleCare over the course of those two additional years, I'll refund your purchase. Because the sad truth is, your computer is likely to have the occasional problem; I'm on my seventh Mac, and I can't think of one that hasn't needed at least one major hardware repair. (This is especially true of laptops.) AppleCare is a fantastic warranty program: you can take your computer into any authorized Apple repair shop, and they'll fix it up free of charge. If you have persistent problems, you can talk to Apple itself, and I've found them to be exceptionally helpful. Please, get the AppleCare now.
2. Cultivate outer beauty. Your new computer isn't just pretty on the inside: it's pretty on the outside too. So keep it that way, with one of the sexy cases that are available for Macs (thanks to the fact that, unlike PCs, there are only so many Mac shapes you need to make cases for.) We like the Speck cases, available in a range of sizes and colours (though some have reported scratches from the case itself); the Marware Silicone Protection Pack for Macbook Pro 15-inch Aluminum Unibody - Silver; and the Pimp My Laptop customized stickers to cover the front of your screen. Get your protective gear as soon as you get your Mac so you can keep it in virgin condition.
3. Buy the Missing Manual. David Pogue is not only a musical theater composer, he's a technology columnist; his New York Times articles often have great Mac tips, and his Missing Manual series for the Macs are the best books for Apple users. Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Leopard Edition walks you through the process of starting your life anew after the bad dream that was Windows. Once you're ensconced, it's worth investing in Mac OS X Leopard: The Missing Manual(and consider upgrading to the latest version of both OS and book whenever the next one comes out). Office 2008 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual is a good purchase, too.
4. Subscribe to MacFixIt. If you're trying to figure out whether you're the only person who gets that weird error when you run the Installer, MacFixIt will likely have the answer. Pay for the premium version so you can search Forums according to the type of issue and/or hardware you have.
5. Add more RAM and get a new battery. If you're having trouble with your Mac, these are good places to start. More RAM is almost always a good thing. And if your MacBook is more than six months old and has crappy battery life, get a new battery; it's not cheap, but it will make you much happier. You'll likely need to replace your battery every 12-18 months but don't wait if it's driving you nuts.

Mac newbies, what other forms of protection are you considering? Mac veterans, what other forms of protection would you recommend?

This is part 2 in a series, Coming out as a Mac user.

As you embark on your new Mac lifestyle, you'll be faced with choices that challenge you to think about who you really are, and what's really important to you. Are you an iconoclast, a design freak, a fashionista who does everything with style and flair? Or are you a conciliator, a mediator, the kind to bring people together and bridge between worlds?

Choosing the right applications for your Mac often feels like a choice between these two different identities: the choice between a shiny, stylin' Mac-specific app, and an often less-shiny, cross-platform-compatible alternative.

But you don't have to choose between personal style and social substance. You can the coolest kid on the block and play well with others, as long as you've got your Mac kitted out with the right tools for every job. Here are my recommendations on the key software choices for every Mac user:

1. Safari or Firefox? Both. Use Firefox for any browsing you might to want to organize, track, or enter data into: there are more add-ons for Firefox, so things like adding bookmarks to delicious are much easier in Firefox. But with all those add-ons (and frankly, without 'em) Firefox is a memory-hogging beast: if your Mac slows down, or craps out, try quitting Firefox, and you'll often find that your problems will clear right up. So Safari is my choice for any quick Google searches or browsing that I don't plan on tracking, and in fact, if you specifically don't want to track your surfing (for example, while enjoying the latest clothing-free video offerings) you can turn on "private browsing" and Safari will keep your session off-the-record. And do use delicious to store bookmarks, rather than storing them in your browser: that way they'll be accessible from Safari, Firefox, and even from a PC if you need to use one.
2. iWork or Microsoft Office? Ideally, both. iWork's apps are great for specific things: Keynote makes super sexy presentations, Pages is great as a lightweight layout/desktop publishing app, and Numbers...well, I can't imagine why I'd use this over Excel but I'm sure that someone will now tell me. But for day-to-day document creation, and especially, document sharing, you might as well stick with Word and Excel. You're going to have lots of new stuff to learn on your Mac, so you might as well stick with these old workhorses and have your word processor and spreadsheet editor feel familiar. Plus, if you are doing any kind of collaboration with your friends from Before The Switch, those PC users are going to send you Office files that you'll find easiest to work with in Office. Just to be sure to go with Office 2008 as opposed to an earlier version -- it was a nice upgrade.
3. MobileMe or Google Calendar? Both. MobileMe isn't cheap -- $109 per year -- and lots of techies will point out that you can do just about everything it offers for free by using other services. Sure you can. But for $109, spare yourself the headache, and ensure your calendar, address book etc. are backed up and accessible via web browser (useful if you're on another computer). If you're an iPhone user, this is a must: MobileMe does an amazing, seamless, effortless job of keeping your iPhone and Mac synced in real-time, without any cables or manual backups. But MobileMe is very much a single-user tool: it doesn't offer much in the way of collaboration for teams. So if you need to share calendars with your colleagues, use Google Apps, and use BusySync and MobileMe to keep your Google Calendar perpetually synced to your computer and your iPhone.
4. Apple apps or Entourage? Apple apps. If you've been an Outlook user, it'll seem natural to go with Entourage, Microsoft's Outlook knockoff for Mac users. RESIST! There are some things to like about Entourage, like the one-stop-shopping for calendar, contact and mail info, but that's also what you need to be wary of: Entourage stores them all in one big database, so if one part goes down or gets corrupted (typically, your mail) then the whole thing is wrecked. That's the stick....but there's also a big carrot: the glory of Apple's own free, built-in Mail, Address Book and iCal applications. These are so core to the Mac system that you'll find benefits cropping up all over the place once you start using the native applications. Names typed in Address Book-enabled apps turn into easy links to that person's contact info; your iPhone and your computer can stay constantly and effortlessly in sync thanks to MobileMe;  e-mailed invitations convert to calendar events (I know, just like Entourage), and there is full, seamless integration between contact info, emails and calendars.

   If you really really want that all-in-one feel for your mail, address book and calendar, you can use a wrap-'em-up application like CRM4Mac; and if you've already made the (wrong) decision, you can get help switching away from Entourage. A final tip: if you ever need more help or tips for the Apple personal info management apps, you'll find that googling "Address Book" gets you exactly nowhere....or rather, everywhere, since you'll be swamped with results. Google for "mail.app", "AddressBook.app" and "mail.app" to find resources specific to the Apple applications.

5. Preview or Acrobat? Preview is all you need to view a PDF, and it also provides all the support you need to create PDFs of most documents (by choosing "Print" and then working from the PDF drop-down in the bottom left of your print dialog box). The only reason to use Adobe Acrobat is to create complex or advanced PDFs like forms that people can fill out within the PDF itself.
6. Nambu or TweetDeck? If you're a Twitter user, you'll want a client to use on your Mac. People with multiple Twitter accounts will want to use Nambu, or possibly Seesmic Desktop (Nambu is prettier, but more crashy.) People with a single Twitter account can use TweetDeck, which is pretty and not crashy. Both Nambu and TweetDeck can be even more life-changingly awesome if you follow my recommendations for grouping your Twitter follows.
7. VooDooPad or EverNote? Right now, you probably take notes in a variety of applications: Word, TextEdit, even -- god forbid -- paper. As a result, it's a pain to find your notes, let alone have them all open when and where you need them. Please, please, please: switch to a dedicated note-taking program that keeps all your notes in one place and lets you organize them by keywords or categories. It will rock your world and change your life; just see my blog posts on VoodooPad and EverNote. Which brings me to my painful recommendation. VoodooPad represents everything I love about Mac applications and Mac developers: it's pretty, it runs fast, it's intuitive, it integrates with all the native Apple apps, and it has the most wonderfully responsive and helpful developer (I taxed Gus with many questions and suggestions, all addressed quickly and effectively). But VoodooPad is very much a local, single-user app; about a year ago, I switched to the cross-platform, web-enabled Evernote, which lets me access and edit my notes via web browser, too. Read my ecstatic reviews of both EverNote and VoodooPad to see which one is right for you.
8. Backup or Dropbox? Definitely, absolutely, positively both. Backup is MobileMe's service for backing up key files; it's not big or fast enough to replace regular backups to a local drive (using Apple's awesome Time Machine), but it's the easiest way to automate regular backups of key files (like your Documents folder). Dropbox is your answer for sharing files with a team, or keeping your files accessible across computers; just install Dropbox on your Mac, and any file or folder you put there will be backed up to a web server. You can choose to share some or all of your Dropbox folders with colleagues, and you'll probably want to spend the $99/year to get the large-scale capacity that allows you to store virtually all your files online. In fact, I'd recommend putting your Dropbox folder at the top level of your user directory (the folder that holds your documents, pictures, music folders etc.) and then stick all those folders inside DropBox so they stay synced and backed up.
9. iChat or Skype? Again, both. I use iChat as my primary chat tool for working with our team (we connect via AIM accounts, but iChat also works with your MobileMe ID); it's fast, it's got a lovely interface, and it uses Bonjour, Apple's local networking protocol, so I can stay connected to people in my office without being online with the whole world. But Skype is now the virtually universal platform for connecting via audio or video with clients and colleagues; I'm far more likely to schedule a Skype call than an iChat session, and when I'm on Skype for a call or meeting, I often use its chat function to share files or URLs while we talk.

I know, I know: I've promised to help you choose between software tools, but I'm mostly recommending that you choose "all of the above". But that's what's beautiful about the Mac: the consistency of the user experience across applications makes it relatively easy and intuitive to use a new tool, so you might as well use the best tool for every job. In many cases, that means using one software tool when you're flying solo (MobileMe, Keynote, Safari, Backup) and another tool when you want to tap the power of cross-platform collaboration through the social web (Google calendar, DropBox, Firefox, Skype).

What other software choices are you struggling with as a new Mac user? What software choices would experienced Mac users recommend? Let me know in comments below.

Rob and I have each been responsible for a few switch-hitters in our time, and we know it's not easy leaving the comfortable majority to be part of what is all-too-often seen as an "alternative lifestyle". You've been part of the 90% majority; now you're the one-in-ten.

We've spent many hours helping friends through the personal and professional implications of crossing over to the other side, and we've learned about how to make the switch a bit easier. In fact, we've found that for those who embrace their new identity, the switch is a process of discovery and celebration.

No, this isn't the post about our new logo: it's my guide to switching to the Mac. Over the next week, I'll walk you through the five steps to becoming a happy and fulfilled Mac user after years in the PC closet. Here's what I'll cover:

1. Have it both ways: Yes, you're a now a Mac user, but you want to hedge your bets: maybe you wonder about switching back, or maybe you're not yet ready to let your PC friends know about your new lifestyle. Welcome to the wonderful world of cross-platform apps: applications you can use on your Mac, but let you keep your choice of platform as open -- or private -- as you want. For each of the key applications you'll need as a Mac user, I'll help you choose between the Mac-native option and the cross-platform alternative. Read it now >>
2. Use protection: Among consenting adults, there's nothing more beautiful than the embrace of a Macintosh. But like any major choice, it carries risks. I'll cover the ins- and outs of responsible Mac use, from the importance of keeping your hardware under wraps to the best sources of knowledge about safe play. Read it now >>
3. Enjoy the perks: Don't settle for equality: embrace the ways in which Mac users have it better than their PC-loving friends. I'll tell you about four Mac-only apps that will make you more effective than ever. Read it now >>
4. Be yourself: While Mac users are a loving community, no two Mac users are alike. Going Mac isn't about running the same OS your friends use, and there's no playbook that tells you the right way to be a Mac user. You need to put your own stamp on that Mac; I'll walk you through options for customizing your system and using the Finder in your own special way. Read it now >>
5. Celebrate Mac pride: Being a Mac user is about much more than the computer you use. You'll know your switch is complete when Mac attitude pervades not only your files, but your heart. I'll share my tips for getting in a Mac state of mind. Read it now >>

Work your way through these stages, and I hope you'll find plenty of joy in your new Mac lifestyle. To Rob Mickey, Sandi Millman, and all the other recent switchers in our life: welcome to the team.

Today I took a giant leap forward in my update-ability. (If date-ability refers to your in-person hotness, update-ability speaks to your hotness in the social media pressure cooker of Twitter, Facebook, Jaiku etc.) If I'm going to be entirely honest, my virtual hotness has been severely limited by my relatively infrequent Twitterings. Not only do I eat, change my musical selection and go to the bathroom without posting the minute-by-minute update, but I even sometimes have actually vaguely interesting thoughts that pass through my head without being captured in my conversation stream.

No more. If I'm going to hear about your gardening weather, the number of bookmarks you now have on delicious, and what your preferences panel looks like in the new Mac OS, then you're going to hear about the cute way my kid just scratched her nose, how that Mexican is food is sitting, and where you won't believe I just found my car keys.

The key to this earth-shaking transformation in my update-ability is a little doodad called MoodBlast. It lets me simultaneously update my status on Skype, iChat, Twitter, Tumblr, Pownce and Skype. (And thanks to the Twitter app on Facebook, it'll update Facebook too.) "Now I'm inhaling." "Now I'm exhaling." "Now I'm trying to decide how deeply to inhale." (Hey, this is Friday night in Vancouver. We think about these things.)

As much as I like MoodBlast's hegemonic approach to status updating, I'm pausing briefly to think about whether increasing my update-ability is, in fact, a good thing. (Now I'm pausing briefly. Here I am, pausing. Moving on...) Are all these updates for my benefit, or the benefit of my "followers"? (Kudos to Twitter for calling it like it is.)

Most people use status updates as what I think of as "expressive communication". Like many forms of online conversation, status updates make it easy to confuse the expressive value of communication with the effective value of communicaiton. I'm concerned about the expressive value of communication when I'm "getting something off my chest", "speaking my truth", or engaging in some form of creative expression. I'm concerned about the effective value of communication when I'm trying to get you to hear me, listen to me, or understand me.

In face-to-face conversation we're able to sit comfortably and move fluidly between effective and expressive communication. I sit down with my boss, Pamela, and get something off my chest ("I'm really having a hard time working with Jim") and I can immediately tune into the effective value of what I've said: its impact on the person I'm speaking with, and how it's being received. If Pamela's eyes glaze over and her smile freezes I know that I've got to tread carefully or I risk damaging our working relationship or my professional status. If Pamela leans forward and nods, I get the idea that she's interested in helping me solve this problem.

When we're engaging in any form of online conversation other than video chat (and even video chat has its limitations), we lose the nonverbal cues about the effective impact of what we're saying. We experience our speech (our blogging, our video posts, our podcasts) wholly subjectively, as a form of expression. That can be incredibly liberating: the web is now full of the creative self-expression of people who might never feel brave enough to post a poem, a drawing or a song if they were really conscious of the audience to which they would then be exposed.

But liberating cuts both ways. By experiencing communication entirely as expression, we lose track of its impact. We lose much of its effective value; we lose the ability to shape, if not control, how we are received.

When we think about the person or people who read our blog post and tweets, we reconnect to the effective value of communication -- without losing its expressive power. We can make a conscious decision about how much to indulge our expressive needs, and we can be intentional about what we want our effect -- our impact on others -- to be.

It's not a tough thing to do. In fact, Twitter gives us a little help, by showing photos of our followers: really look at those faces, and picture them as they people you're about to enlighten with, or inflict upon, your update. MoodBlast, with its deliciously minimal interface, does the reverse: it totally dissociates what I'm saying from what (someone? anyone?) is hearing.

In adopting the practice of visualizing your audience, there's more at stake than whether your status updates make you look like a self-absorbed narcissist or a thoughtful sharer. Audience awareness is a muscle: when you think about audience, about the effective value of your speech, you strengthen your connection to the people you want to reach. You sharpen the focus of your language, your message, your very reason for speaking. You can still tap into the power of expressive value of communications, but now you are realizing its effective value, too.

If you're a communications professional -- in fact, if you're anyone whose work involves communicating -- your work demands that you continually strengthen your capacity for effective speech. Picture the audience -- for your ten-second tweet, your ten-minute blog post, or your ten-months-in-the-making site relaunch -- and you ensure that the satisfactions of expressive communication are matched by the impact of effective communication.

Since upgrading to a 3G iPhone, I've gone on periodic app binges in which I download every app that looks remotely interesting and take it for a whirl. So far, the best discover I've made is a free app called Evernote -- and it's changed my computer use even more dramatically than it's affected the way I use my iPhone.

Evernote is a notetaking application that lets you take notes on your computer (Mac or Windows) and keep those notes synced with your iPhone and the Evernote web site. Any note that you take on your iPhone gets synced back to Evernote, too. You can keep multiple notebooks (e.g. one for draft blog posts, one for grocery lists, and one for each client project) and choose to keep some or all of these notebooks local (just on your computer) or online (synced by Evernote). While you can keep as many notes and notebooks as you want on your local computer, the free version of Evernote limits data uploads (i.e. syncing) to 40 MB a month. But it only costs $5 per month to get an account entitling you to 500 MB of data uploads, which Evernote says is enough to hold thousands of typed notes, five thousand snapshots, or 450 audio notes.

The Evernote interface

That's right: audio notes and snapshots. Use Evernote to capture audio notes on your iPhone and they'll automatically sync to Evernote on the web and on your computer -- no waiting for your next iPhone sync. Use Evernote to hold your iPhone snapshots and they're synced, too.

And since Evernote features optical character recognition (OCR), any text you snap with your phone (or another camera whose contents you drop into Evernote) becomes searchable. For those of us who are whiteboard-dependent, that means you can now capture your whiteboard notes and they'll be searchable! Ditto for business cards, flip charts, signs -- whatever you care to shoot. (OCR only works on notes that have been uploaded to the web, so if you want your images to be text-searchable, you'll need to put them in a notebook you keep synced online.)

The Evernote interface makes it very easy switch between notebooks, and to move notes back and forth among them. You can tag any note with as many keywords as you want, so that provides a further layer of categorization.  In other words, it's a terrifically easy, flexible and powerful way to take notes on your computer or iPhone, and keep them in sync. (NB that you can't edit pre-existing notes on your iPhone, however, including those you created on your phone; and it would be MUCH easier to take notes on the iPhone if Evernote let you rotate the phone to use the wider version of the iPhone keyboard.)

If you install the Firefox clipper extension (or the "clip to Evernote" bookmarklet in any browser), you can use Evernote to store and tag your favourite web clippings, too. Unlike del.icio.us this lets you stash the actual web page (or highlights) rather than just the URL and description. Unlike del.icio.us there's no sharing feature, however, so it's not a del.icio.us substitute if you like the social in social bookmarking. (I'm hoping some clever person will hack together a tool for saving a web clipping to Evernote and del.icio.us simultaneously, or keeping web clippings synchronized between the two.)

One social thing you CAN do with Evernote is to share a notebook, and optionally publish it as a widget on your blog or webpage. I've created a little notebook of web clippings about how to use Evernote, and set it up as a shared notebook, which you can see here. Once you make a notebook public you can add it to a Facebook page, or to your blog, as a widget that looks like this (click on any box to open that note; you'll need pop-ups enabled):

Evernote's interface, syncing and clipping features make it a very tempting choice as a primary notetaking application. For the past three years I've been a devoted user of Voodoopad, and it's painful to think about giving it up -- not just because the migration process will be a bit arduous (see below) but because of how much I've loved VDP. It's hard to think of an application that's had a more profound impact on my work habits: where my notes used to be scattered across an assortment of paper notebooks (remember those?), Word docs, text files and scraps of paper, just about every thought, phone message, meeting record and blog post I've written in the past three years is captured in one of a dozen Voodoopad notebook. (I use one for each major client or project, plus a catch-all file.) Vooodoopad makes it a snap to keep and retrieve notes, and its creator, Gus Mueller, is the most responsive developer I've ever encountered.

But the iPhone syncing and the Evernote interface are significant advantages. Since I routinely use about a dozen different Voodoopad notebooks, I end up with a lot of open windows. In Evernote it's much easier to switch between notebooks. Also I really like being able to sort a notebook's contents by date -- something that I still can't do in Voodoopad.

On the other hand Voodoopad has one MAJOR advantage over Evernote: data import and export. Right now there's no easy way for a Mac user to get data in or out of Evernote.  The Windows client offers an option to import databases, export a note or notebook to HTML. (Both Mac and Windows users can send notes by e-mail.)  While Evernote suggests that export might become available to Mac users in the future, for now the only exit path is via Windows. That makes switching TO Evernote a big pain (I'll have to export my Voodoopads, then run Evernote on Windows in Parallels to get the data in....and why does that sound like a nightmare?) and switching to a future app just as annoying.

The wishlist item that would make Evernote REALLY rock out -- or convince me to stick with Voodoopad -- is if either program offered Google Doc- or SubEthaEdit-like collaboration. (SubEthaEdit is a 100% real-time collaborative editing program that's great for writing documents, code or note-taking with your colleagues.)

I'd love to have collaborative notebooks on Evernote, in which I invite a designated set of colleagues to access and/or contribute to a notebook. In an ideal world this would include complex permissions options so that I could designate any synced notebook as "publish only" (make all notes in this notebook visible to the people I'm inviting), "publish or contribute" (my invitees can add their own pages to the notebook as well as viewing mine), or "publish, contribute and edit" (invitees can view pages, add pages, or edit existing pages). In my super fantasy scenario you could also turn on live collaboration for any note you're currently editing, so that you can do live collaborative notetaking the way you can with SubEthaEdit.

I'm not sure whether collaboration is in the cards for Evernote, but I'm hopeful. It's clearly a feature-rich program with lots of bells and whistles I've only begun to explore. For example, it was only in researching this post that I discovered Evernote will sort notes I create on my iPhone according to where I was when I created them. If I create a notebook of restaurant notes I'll be able to find all restaurants I've visited within 1 mi of my current location.

I'd love to hear from other folks about their experiences with Evernote, and particularly about any neat features I may not have discovered. And if you've tried both Evernote and Voodoopad, which one have you landed on?

I just discovered that Google Docs finally work in the Safari web browser. (Up until now, Mac users had to access their Google Docs via Safari.) I think we may have the iPhone to thank for this; all those iPhone users wanted mobile access to their documents! I wonder what else the iPhone will finally bring to the Mac platform.

If you're not using Google Docs, this is a great time to start! Google Docs let you create, edit, store and share documents and spreadsheets; the word processor feels very much like Microsoft Word, and the spreadsheet editor like Excel, so you'll be right at home. But unlike the desktop versions of those apps, Google Docs let you collaborate with your colleagues. Here are some of the ways we've used Google docs and spreadsheets in our work:

• as part of a strategic planning process: brainstorming results in rows, participants in columns, with each participant marking their favorite ideas
• manage our docket of clients and projects (one client per row, one week per column; each week we insert a new column and add notes, current status, and upcoming actions and status
• capacity planning: clients and projects in rows, weeks/months in columns, to track upcoming hours required
• document creation: one person drafts in word and uploads, others fill in their details/examples