CM Smith

CM Smith is a technologist, writer, and husband. He holds a degree in MIS and CMPSC from Penn State. CM is also interested in personal productivity, creativity and how to use technology to get things done. Check out his writing at devburner.net or follow him on Twitter.

September 26 BY in Productivity, Technology

Use iOS 6 as Your Entire Personal Productivity System

28 Shares iOS 6 brings many new enhancements and additions to an already rock-solid operating system. With all of the new tools, could iOS 6 be your entire personal productivity system?

September 20 BY in Technology

How to Manage Notifications in iOS 6 for Better Productivity

86 Shares Want to get more done but keep getting "bothered" by your iPhone's notifications? Learn how to manage notifications in iOS 6 to increase your productivity.

September 18 BY in Productivity, Work

How to Be So Good They Can’t Ignore You [Book Review]

99 Shares Have you ever thought that while you’re good at what you do, you may not be at the level of being “so good they can’t ignore you”? Cal Newport's new book can help you get to the bottom of it.

September 9 BY in Productivity

Lifehack Review: The Ultimate Productivity Tool Kit from JetPens [Reviews]

JetPens offered to build CM Smith the Ultimate Productivity Tool Kit to get stuff done. Here is his review of this full-featured kit.

September 7 BY in Productivity, Uncategorized

The Top 12 Note Taking Apps for Getting Things Done in School

137 Shares The school year is here and you are going to be taking a lot of notes. Don't waste your valuable time trying to find the perfect app. Here are 12 note taking apps for getting stuff done in school.

September 5 BY in Technology, Uncategorized

Neat Brings the Paperless Lifestyle to Android with NeatMobile

40 Shares Today, Neat announced the general availability of their new NeatMobile app for Android. Take a look at what this app will bring to the Neat Digital Filing System.

September 4 BY in Technology

Slogger 2 Turns Your Day One Journal Into an Automated Social Log

51 Shares Want to automate your journaling habit? Adding bits of online social data automatically to your Day One journal is easy with Slogger 2.

September 2 BY in Lifestyle

6 Ways Journaling Will Change Your Life

318 Shares Keeping a journaling habit is a tough practice. But you can be inspired to keep going by learning 6 different ways journaling will change your life.

August 29 BY in Productivity

The Top 11 Tools You Can Use to Be More Productive

258 Shares Being productive isn’t about which apps, tools, and frames of mind you use to get things done. Enhancing your productivity is about using a set of tools and processes that can make up a full blown productivity system, becoming comfortable with and relying on those tools, and then using them to get important things done in your life and work. Instead of recommending the best app or scanner or type of paper, it’s better to give you the top 11 tools that anyone who wants to stay productive can use. Here are... More »

August 27 BY in Productivity, Technology

Battle of the Mac and iOS Productivity Apps: OmniFocus vs. Things 2.0

103 Shares If you are someone that likes to Get Things Done on a Mac, (and I do mean that in a GTD type of way) there have been two Mac apps that have been prevalent for most users in the past few years; OmniFocus by The Omni Group and Things by Cultured Code. Things sat on the sidelines for the last couple of years because of a lack of good cloud sync, that is, sync that didn’t require you to be by your Mac or on the same network, happened throughout the day... More »

August 22 BY in Uncategorized

26 Free Cross-Platform Productivity Apps to Help You Get Things Done

217 Shares Rather than pay for productivity apps for each platform, use these free cross-platform productivity apps to get your work done.

August 21 BY in Productivity, Uncategorized

17 Back to School Lifehacks to Start Your Semester

116 Shares Starting a new college semester can be tough, especially when trying to be more productive. Here are 17 lifehacks to get you through this semester.

August 19 BY in Uncategorized

Designing User Interfaces and Interactions With OmniGraffle

94 Shares One of the hardest things to do while creating any new system or software is to make sure that the user interface and design is easy and intuitive for users to understand and use effectively. Coming from a development background, this type of design and attention to detail that is needed to ensure that the software, web site, or system you are creating is usable is probably the the most important part of any software development project. The problem is that most times designing user interfaces is awkward, time consuming, and hard.... More »

August 17 BY in Technology

5 Things That Every New Developer Needs to Know

132 Shares Even though I have only been developing software “professionally” for around two years, there is a ton of information that I can pass on to fledgling developers and hackers. Learning how to program is just the beginning of learning software development and actually becoming awesome at it. If you are taking computer science or MIS/CIS courses at a university, I can imagine that you are learning technical aspects, system design, programming languages, computer logic, and maybe even a little user interaction design. The problem is that with any technical field, there is... More »

August 16 BY in Technology

Level Up OS X With These 8 Mountain Lion Tips and Tricks

90 Shares OS X Mountain Lion is the next step in making a “traditional” desktop operating system more like iOS. Some call it iOSification while others call it annoying and not needed. Personally, I like the direction, but just because Apple thinks something in your OS “should be a certain way” doesn’t mean that it has to be. And what’s awesome, is that Apple has relented on some of Lion’s changes to appease the power user. Here are 8 Mountain Lion tips and tricks to make this the greatest version of OS X yet.... More »