A while ago I did a full roundup of GTD personal management apps, my clear and decisive winner for this roundup would have been The Hit List except at that time there wasn’t an iPhone app.

Over the past two years this app was vaporware — at one point Andy Kim, the developer of THL, posted a screenshot on Flickr of the interface, only to vanish from the the earth another year. Finally, yesterday (July 6th 2011 at 10:23a.m.) he appeared on THL Google Group to notify users that THL iPhone would be launching on the app store within a few hours. So, finally, THL has arrived.

I’ve purchased the app and signed up for the year long sync service, so far, things are beautiful. Syncing works like a charm, I dare say on the same level as Simplenote. The interface is jaw dropping, and the speed of the app is on par with other top-tier iPhone apps.

I will give a full review when I’ve gotten my whole life switched back into THL, but until then I wanted to let people know the new iPhone version seems like a winner and might actually have been worth the wait.

After patiently waiting for their arrival, Taylor and I received our new SSDs yesterday. Rather than migrating our data over from our old disks and potentially cheapening the solid-state experience, we both opted to start with a fresh slate. (By all accounts, he’s a glutton for reformatting his system. It’s a hobby of his.)

I was reluctant, mostly in anticipation that I’ll want to start fresh again in a few months when OS X Lion is released. Having just started on this machine a few months ago, I’m also keenly aware of how long it takes to get a system up and running and configured to my tastes.

Out of both curiosity and to make it easier on myself in the future, I decided to keep track of my installation and configuration process.

In roughly the right order:

• Google Chrome

  Faster than Safari

• Sparrow

  Sexier than Mail.app

• Adium

  Smarter than iChat

• Twitter

  Better than the browser version

• Growl

  Alerts FTW

• Stacks

  Group task management finally makes sense (shameless plug)

• TextMate

  My editor of choice. (See also: http://wastm2released.com/)

• Transmit 4

  Gotta move stuff

• Adobe CS5 Web Premium

  (Wow, they’re really pushing 5.5)

• Alfred

  Because I only used QuickSilver to launch applications

• Clyppan

  Clipboard manager

• xScope

  Clutch for UI development

• Sequel Pro

  MySQL database management

• Base

  SQLite database management

• CoRD

  RDP client

• VirtualBox

  Virtualizer

• Windows 7

  I know, I know.

• Xcode 4

  It took 7 hours to download from the App Store

• Homebrew

  Package manager

• Git

  DVCS

• Mercurial

  DVCS (Yes, we use both.)

• RVM

  Ruby version and environment manager

• Ruby 1.9.2

  Upgraded from 1.8.7 that ships with OS X

• Rails 3.1.2

  Upgraded from 2.3.5 that ships with OS X

• Node.js

  Server-side JavaScript

• NPM

  Package manager for Node

• iStat Menus

  I like to keep an eye on my CPU and RAM

• SuperDuper!

  Drive cloning

• YouControlTunes

  iTunes controls in the menu bar

• Alarm Clock 2

  Waking up has never been more miserable

• Fliqlo

  A huge clock screensaver

After carrying around my iPhone 4 for a few days I was starting to get pretty paranoid, not about the dropped calls, but about physically dropping or scratching it up. The bumper case, while not the most protective piece of plastic in the world, looked like a good fit and offered enough protection for me to feel better about setting it on a table or desk.

First, the bumper for the most part is a great little case. It’s hard to emphasize, but having external buttons on the side really make the whole thing feel like it’s a part of the phone. Unlike other cases I’ve used where you have to pinch your fingers into a hole to reach the buttons. Notice in the picture below how the volume buttons are actually on top of the bumper case, not wedged into a small carved out spot.

Okay, so the case for the most part is a nice addition to the phone. The “for the most part” is because of a few small issues. First, the headphone jack is a bit tight with the case, if you’re planning on plugging in a large headphone jack plug it’s not going to fit. Take a look at the default iPhone earbuds, if the plug is more than a few millimeters larger it won’t fit. Second, if you use 3rd party charging cord or car plugs you might not be able to plug into the bottom of the phone with the bumper on. I noticed this on older iPod plugs that have the two side pinchers. See image below:

Last, when I first got my bumper it felt a tiny bit loose. To be fair, I’m pretty picky and it’s possible others aren’t bugged by this. The fact is that the bumper, while fairly snug had a little bit of give on the sides (IE :I could slide it up and down slightly, maybe a few millimeters) and same with the top. After some reading I found information suggesting that heat might shrink the rubber and plastic just a bit. I briefly considered boiling my bumper, but decided against that. The second option was leaving it in my hot car for a few hours. So, the next day I took off the bumper and left it on my dashboard for four hours, it was about 90 degrees out. Low and behold when placed back on my phone the bumper was snug. Problem solved.

Now that bumpers are going to be given out for free I think this trick could come in handy for others. Let me know your results if you give it a shot.

A few of us here in the Imulus office have iPhone 4’s and we’ve all been able to reproduce the reception problem at our office location. You can see here the new update provides slightly different bar lengths and does seem to produce different reception expectations. Here is one office phone on 4.0.1 and the other on 4.0. We had them right next to each other laying on a desk. The one with four bars is the 4.0 version.

Further, we called the new 4.0.1 phone from the office landline and took a video. You can see the call is fine for a few seconds, then we apply pressure to the death spots and by 30 seconds in the call is dropped. Even though the phone never shows “no service” it still drops the call. Apple stated this update was just a reception formula fix, still, it shows that even with 1 bar of 3g being reported the call will still drop if those spots are covered.

Before I dive into this review, you should probably have some background information. First of all, as the title suggests, I am a graphic designer for a web design company. I spend 90% of my time on Adobe Creative Suite programs (most of that time is dedicated to Photoshop). Second of all, I am a female. This piece of information applies to this review because as a woman, I am genetically predisposed to have smaller hands than (most) men. Lastly, I have run through the gambit of Apple mouses since 2004. That being said, lets get started, shall we?

The good:

1. The size. I love the way this thing conforms to my hand. So much so, I feel like all other mouses feel too large and clumsy. I have read reviews where people have claimed this mouse is too small and light. I have not had this problem – however as stated previously, I have normal sized hands for a 5′8″ female which means they’re relatively small.

2. The scrolling. The predecessor to my Magic Mouse was of course the Mighty Mouse. One of the main problems I would have with the 360 scroll ball on the Mighty Mouse was it would become gritty and would stop being functional. This could always be cured by holding it upside-down and puffing can o’ air into the recesses of the 360 ball. Obviously this problem is cured by Magic Mouse. Please note – being a control freak while using Photoshop, I turned off the momentum scroll. I have been told this is a nice feature, but I can’t say that from personal experience.

3. The right-click. Although the right click is functional with the Mighty Mouse (as long as that is specified in the system preferences), I feel like the Magic Mouse’s right-click is more responsive and intuitive.

The bad:

1. The sensitivity. This is a double-edged sword. Sure, it’s nice when you WANT to scroll, but when you don’t it’s a pain. This rears it’s ugly head often when I am using Photoshop. An example of this is when I have the color picker window open. Notice on the screen shot the field next to the “R” (meaning red) is highlighted; this happens by default when one opens this color picker window. What happens when this field is highlighted is the scroll functionality on your mouse can easily add and subtract the color red. Many times I have barely brushed the top of the mouse and it will change my selected color without my consent. There is no clear area on your mouse where the scroll sensitivity begins, so just laying your hand on the top of the mouse can create a scroll with any slight movement.

2. The two finger swipe. This also goes back to the sensitivity problem. I had to turn this option off after I was working on code in our CMS and my fingers brushed the top of the mouse. The mouse somehow gleaned from this that I wanted to go back to the previous page in my browser, and thus losing all of the work I had just completed.

The conclusion:

After turning off the two finger swipe functionality, life has been easier along with learning how to deal with the problems in Photoshop. I haven’t yet ditched this mouse for the older Mighty Mouse (which is still in my possession), but that’s only after adapting to its downfalls. Basically my conclusion to this review is I would NOT recommend this product to a Graphic Designer, but I would recommend it to people who don’t use Adobe Creative Suite.