Writing copy text that’s easy to read is, well, not easy. Especially Germans like me tend to build long nested sentences. Fortunately there are simple mechanical tools like, e.g., the Automated Readability Index. It counts the sentences, words, and letters in a text and returns an estimate on how difficult it is to read. The number it spits out correlates roughly to the US grade level. (mehr)

Susan Young at the technologyreview.com:

DNA can be used to store information at a density about a million times greater than your hard drive, report researchers in Science today. George Church of Harvard Medical School and colleagues report that they have written an entire book in DNA, a feat that highlights the recent advances in DNA synthesis and sequencing. [more] … (mehr)

Backups are something that every computer user is supposed to do but nobody really enjoys doing it. Apple’s Time Machine makes it a lot easier, at least when you have a second hard disk or a Time Capsule. However, if you’re like me and you don’t want to clutter your desk with yet another piece of hardware you might like Haystack Software's Arq. (mehr)

Our power user Luc Beaulieu, professor for Physics at the Université Laval and researcher at the Quebec City University hospital,  has turned his office completely paperless and shares on his blog how he achieved this, from the hardware and the software (unsurprisingly, DEVONthink Pro Office plays a key role) he uses to his workflow. (mehr)

Do you think about going paperless, e.g. with a document scanner and DEVONthink Pro Office? David Sparks’ field guide Paperless gets you started with everything you need to know from why you should paperless to a selection of tools and David’s own paperless workflow. (mehr)

Ever wondered what DEVONsphere Express is actually about and how you could use it make your Mac smarter and your life easier? I have added a number of real-world usage examples to the product page. If you’re still unsure if and how DEVONsphere Express could be useful for you, click here to check them out (near the bottom of the page).

Rich text (RTF) is great for text with different fonts, sizes, or colors. The Style panel allows you to save often-used styles and apply them again with a few clicks but it’s not really an example of the Mac’s famous user-friendliness. Power user Alfred Schlatter sent us a tip for adding convenient keyboard shortcuts to styles to make your life with rich text easier: … (mehr)

Adding the ability to ‘rate’ items in DEVONthink, e.g. with stars, is already on our to-do list. Forum user Truhe couldn’t wait and simply used labels for his ratings. To create your own ratings use e.g. the Unicode characters ☆ and ★ to name the labels from ★★★★★ to ☆☆☆☆ and set the colors to support the rating. To enter the stars use the menu command Edit > Special Characters, switch to Bullets/Stars and double-click the symbol you’d like to insert. (mehr)

Michael Malzahl has updated his DEVONthink Arbeitsbuch, an introduction and step-by-step guide to DEVONthink in German language. If you have purchased a copy of this ebook from us you’ll receive an update notification and download link soon.

PopClip is a marvelous little app that gives you an iOS-style contextual menu for selected text with the usual options: Copy, Cut, Paste, etc. But beyond what is available out of the box it can be easily extended. Install the DEVONthink Pro (Office) PopClip extension from our Download Extras page and clip selected text to your inbox or search your databases for the text with just one click. (mehr)