I love reading about how other people work: what software they use, what hardware they use, their office setups, how they go mobile, etc.

One of my favorite features is Workspace of the Week over at Unclutterer. I’ve found several tips reading this feature.

Now comes a round of interviews by Daniel Bogan at waferbaby.com called The Setup. He’s got five interviews up so far, but I’m assuming he’ll add more.

A colleague of mine was sporting a Richard Solo backup battery for his iPhone yesterday. After listening to him rave about it, I was set to buy one.

Then this morning, before I headed to the Solo website, an article from Cult of Mac popped up in my RSS feeds featuring a new backup battery that is set to be released from Phonesuit.

The Richard Solo battery, shown below, attaches to the connector at the bottom of the iPhone. It adds a bit of length to the phone, which admittedly is not ideal. And, as one poster on Cult of Mac pointed out, it can add a bit of strain to the connector. You can charge both the phone and the battery simultaneously with the provided cable. The Richard Solo sells for $49.95. (There is a second version for $54.95 that has a light and laser pointer.)

The Mili Power Pack, shown below, from Phonesuit fits the iPhone like a case or a glove. While fitted into the Mili Power Pack, you can charge your iPhone and the back-up battery via a USB port. You can even charge a Bluetooth headset from the Mili via the USB port. The Mili will sell for $79.95.

For me, I’m still leaning toward the Richard Solo. First, it’s a good bit cheaper. Secondly, I use a Griffin Clarifi case with my iPhone, so the Mili would require switching out cases when I needed the extra battery. That’s a non-starter in my book.

There is no “best” Twitter application, this I’ve decided. It seems that of the three I use, one has a feature I long for when not using it.

Twitterific

Twitterific is simple, straight forward, I can post from NetNewsWire and it has awesome keyboard shortcuts. Plus, the icon is the best of any of them, for what it’s worth.

But it lacks some key functionality, such as Retweeting and being able to view user details in the app. Simply put: Twitterific is limited in functionality.

Twhirl

Twhirl has just about as much functionality as you could want: Retweeting, looking up users in the app, follow, unfollow, you name it.

In fact, there is little about Twhirl I don’t like. It was my app of choice until TweetDeck came along.

TweetDeck

I’ve heard countless people praise TweetDeck, so I thought I’d give it a shot. My first impressions: Ugly icon, not the prettiest interface but WOW, what you can do with it.

TweetDeck allows you to organize people by groups, which makes reading tweets a lot easier. I’ve got groups for close friends, Mississippi folks, tech folks, news, etc.

You can also set up groups for searches. Want to know what people are saying about an app or a movie? It’s easy enough to do. This is extremely useful for a blog that I manage and for keeping up with certain apps I’m watching.

And the only thing I can’t do in TweetDeck that I can do in Twitterific or Twhirl is post from NetNewsWire (Twitterific only), which while nice is not in the least bit essential.

Of course, I’ve noticed that TweetDeck doesn’t always get good information back from Twitter on people I follow. For instance, I was trying to add someone to a group by viewing their profile (which is a nice little tool), but when I did so TweetDeck said I wasn’t following them. When I went into the setup screen for the group itself, I was able to add them, though. So, a minor glitch. (I’ve also noticed a few times that TweetDeck cannot tell if I’m following someone or not.)

There are three things I’d like to see changed about TweetDeck:

1. Every time it receives an update, the app unhides itself. Granted, it stays in the background, but that’s some really annoying behavior.
2. Users should be able to set sound notifications based on updates, replies and direct messages. As it stands now, TweetDeck either plays a sound notification for all updates or for none at all.
3. In creating a group, I’d love to be able to create and “Everyone Else” group that lumps all the people I’m following who are not assigned to another group into a group by themselves. Right now, it must be done it manually.

I’ll give TweetDeck a run of a few weeks and either settle on it or move back to Twhirl. Of course, if the developer ever makes the first two above changes, I doubt Twhirl will be able to compete for my attention.

Before I started using Google Apps for Your Domain, I was a power user of MailTags and Mail Act-On, both apps developed by indev.

Not too long after moving to a Google-based system, I abandoned MailTags, which is a terrific app. At the same time, I stopped using Act-On as much. When I switched over to a web interface, I abandoned both pieces of software.

Now that I’m back down to just two active accounts (with three others forwarding to a primary account), I’m back in Mail.app. Since I love my keyboard shortcuts, it took me no time to pick back up using Act-On to shuffle email into the proper folders.

But that was the first incarnation of Act-On. I had never made the step up to Mail Act-On 2. So this morning, I jumped over to see what it included. I liked it well enough in two informative videos (here and here), so I downloaded a trial.

What I found has revolutionized Mail.app for me. It is superb. I don’t have the same functionality I had in Gmail (jumping straight to folders with two keystrokes, but I come close).

Here’s a few features I love in Mail Act-On 2:

1. CNTRL-click function. Using CNTRL-plus the Mail Act-On shortcut applies the Act-On rule to the selected email. No need to bring up a menu and select the proper rule.
2. Added control over rules. Act-On expands Mail.app’s rules to three pains, for Inbox, Outgoing Mail and Keyboard Rules.
3. Open folders. With a couple of keystrokes, you can open any folder in Mail.app. It’s almost as quick as using Gmail’s shortcuts to get to a label.
4. Copy or move email. Act-On gives you the option to copy an email to a folder or move it to a folder. This is great if you need multiple copies, or if you are using a Gmail account in Mail.app and want to apply multiple labels.
5. Main menu controls. With all the new functionality, you can get confused at first. So Act-On has a built in “main menu” of sorts that is activated by default with F1. From there, you have access to all functions.

If Mail.app can make a rule, Act-On can apply it. Act-On 2 makes Mail.app a more powerful email client. It’s free to try for 30 days. A license runs $24.95.

I’m in the market for a scanner that will serve one purpose: Transform paper files into pdf’s. That’s it.

At one of my newspaper stops, I used the Fujitsu ScanSnap S510M, which is the standard-bearer of pdf scanners for Macs. It’s where I was headed, until I stumbled across the S300M model.

What holds me back from the S510M model is the price tag. At more than $400, it ain’t cheap. The S300M comes in at just under $300, so I naturally took a keen interest.

The S510M is faster, but the S300M is smaller, can run off USB power and is theoretically portable (I’m thinking between home and office, which is key.)

The last test for the S300M was simple: Are the pdf’s it creates searchable? After all, I’m dumping my pdf’s into a couple of different programs, and I want to be able to read them.

Unfortunately, the S300M does not create searchable pdf’s. That’s a big blow, and may have made my decision for me.

I’ll have to take a closer look at Evernote’s capability to read pdf files, which I remember being fairly limited if they are not created as searchable files to begin with. (Ironically, I’d be better scanning to jpegs for Evernote than to pdf’s…)

For now, I’m leaning back toward the S510M. It’s a great machine, and while it is a bit pricey, I’m sure it will more than pay for itself over a year’s time.

I’ve never been a power user of either iChat or Adium. I use both from time to time, and I favor iChat for their interface. But Adium has some useful features that iChat would do well to duplicate.

One of those is being able to use Adium for Facebook chat. Truth be told, most of the people with whom I would spontaneously chat are on Facebook. So not having to keep a Safari window open and logged on is a plus.

You can “technically” use social.im as a plugin for iChat (or Adium) to chat with Facebook friends, but your friends must have it installed as well. That defeats the purpose.

So for now, I use Adium for Facebook and iChat for everything else. (I know, but I like iChat, damn it, and I don’t want to switch.)