welp...

t4stywh34t
2 Comments »

...I was wrong.


Although I must confess (in order to soothe my ego a bit), Quicksilver has changed a bit since I last used it.  I find it ironic that it's continually under "beta" status, because it sure works a lot better now.

And it does indeed do hotkey web searching...not to mention the feature that has made me definitely switch back to QS: quicklaunching any website.  For the most part, the hotkey feature suffices for a few websites I visit frequently to search with, such as Blingo.  However, QS has the option of making me SUPER lazy, because to launch any website at all, all I have to do is launch QS (command+space for me), type in the url, and hit enter.  That simple.  Holy cow.  And I have yet to fully delve into its depths, but an afternoon of messing around has yielded great riches.  The main sense in difference, ironically, is that Butler just does so much more than I need it to do...QS seems to run in the background a bit more smoothly, and it does indeed do everything I need it to do.  And, as Jeremiah said...it's super-sexy.

How ironic that in an effort to simplify, I actually went to a more complicated program in Butler?

the one app that i can't believe i forgot...

t4stywh34t
2 Comments »

...is Butler.

I always wanted to be the guy who did fancy app-switching using key combinations, opening files on the fly by typing in only a few letters, etc.  I thought Quicksilver would be everything I would ever need in a productivity app.  But here's the problem...though I have readily embraced the shortcut-key combo culture, I don't like it when it comes to manipulating files or opening apps.  It's just superfluous for me.  I don't run that many apps that I really need Quicksilver, and since I'm type-A when it comes to computer organization, I already know where everything is that I need on my hard disk.  Plus, some of OSX's own native features are good enough for me (putting folders in dock, namely).

Yet, thinking I was just missing something, I tried many other launcher-style apps.  The closest I came to settling was on Sapiens.  If all you want is app-launching, this is for sure the best - but only if you're just not into key combos, and you're a heavy trackpad/mouse user.  Sapiens works by moving the mouse in circles on your desktop, bringing up a radial menu of apps - but not just random ones.  Sapiens learns over time the apps you use the most, when you use them, and depending on what is currently running on your computer, will factor all these things into which apps appear in the radial menu.  Why didn't I settle on Sapiens?  Because, like I said, I don't really need an app launcher.  The point of productivity software is not to add steps to GTD (gettin' things done), but to shortcut those steps.  And this is why I settled on Butler.

Butler does everything Quicksilver does, but slightly differently.  It's definitely not as pretty.  However, it tailors to people who are gaga over menu-bar items, putting absolutely everything you could ever need - customizably (maybe I made that up...) - at your mouse point.  Just about everything is customizable with Butler.  Not only this, but you can change the way you interact with items by dragging them to hotcorners, or by dragging them to Butler's menu bar icon.  You can control iTunes via hotkeys.  You can do so much more...but there is one reason I keep it around: hotkey web searches.

I am a web-heavy Mac user.  I google (via Swagbucks) constantly.  I search a lot of other sites as well.  But I'm not a fan of the time it takes to load a browser and navigate to where I need to go in order to search.  Only Butler, from what I've seen, will let you create customizable web searches and then hotkey them.  For instance, I have it set primarily that when I press command-option-F, a little window will pop up that instantly lets me type in my search terms for Swagbucks:

You can hotkey just about any other search engine just by setting it up properly in Butler.  Like to compare prices on Froogle a lot?  Set it up.  Tracking packages via FedEx?  Set it up.  Look up movies all the time on IMDB?  Set it up.  I don't want a toolbar on my browser.  I don't want a giant search box in my menu bar.  I don't even want to have to open Safari myself, especially if I've got both hands on the keyboard and that means moving the trackpad/mouse.

So, in the end, I will stick with Butler.  One day I will plunge further into it's depths, but for now, hotkey web searching is the feature that truly contributes to my productivity.

a few mac apps to check out

t4stywh34t
5 Comments »


I rarely talk tech around here, usually because my good 'ol PowerBook G4 is in a state of flux when it comes to which non-standard apps I'm using.  I tend to try out productivity apps, especially, but rarely stick with any of them.  Here's a quick and dirty list of a few (not necessarily for productivity) that I've latched on to, however.

  1. last.fm.  Yes, there are several websites and apps that let you stream internet radio, etc., but last.fm is the only one I've found that throws your iTunes library into the mix.  I think they have a slight edge over Pandora anyway, but when you add in the factor that it keeps track of what I also play on my own iTunes AND my iPod (called "scrobbling"), last.fm screams ahead.  Call it musical voyeurism, but I don't mind sharing with the world that even though I may listen to Fleet Foxes while on the web, when I'm doing homework I'm listening to Chopin or Enya (among other things of course).  The main advantage of all this is that I don't really have to "teach" last.fm what I like, unlike Pandora - by reading my iTunes library and its play count, it knows what I like.
  2. Evernote.  Thanks to j. for this one.  Definitely productivity-based, Evernote helps you keep track of just about everything you may use when doing research.  You can organize things by class, project, etc., take screenshots of things from the web or even your iSight camera, import PDFs, and the list goes on.  The best feature, though, is Evernote's ridiculously good OCR text recognition...it not only reads text from PDFs and screenshots, but even handwriting!  Everything's indexed and searchable...no more scrounging through physical folders as well as virtual folders.
  3. Delicious Library.  This is a recent app I've gotten hooked on.  There are many free media organizers out there, including Books, which I've used up until now.  DL comes with a price tag, but it's worth it.  Not only will it catalogue your books, movies, and music, but even video games, toys, gadgets, tools, and clothes.  DL can visually organize things on bookshelves for you, sorting by just about every category imaginable.  The only hitch I've run into so far involves Library of Congress classification...which is probably going to be a hitch for only people like me.  Though it comes with a script to acquire said call numbers, the script doesn't seem to work because of the nature of the LoC's searching (that is, the site times out, so the script doesn't quite know what to do when it reaches that point).  It would be a really nice time-saver for people who like using LoC (DL does, however, automatically track down Dewey numbers), but at least they make it easy to enter it in manually (simply go to the LoC's site, plug in the ISBN - which DL fetches automatically when the book is entered into your library - and copy and paste into the appropriate field in the book's description).
  4. IceClean.  Yes, Mac is simple and intuitive, but a lot of stuff can accumulate in hidden recesses of your hard disk.  IceClean works to clean that stuff up.  It's not pretty, but it definitely gets the job done, and it works with native Mac functions to do it.
  5. AppTrap.  Like I said, Macs are great...but sometimes they can gloss over important things.  For instance, to uninstall an app, all you really have to do is drag it to the trash.  However, it does leave stuff behind, and if you're constantly installing and uninstalling programs like me, AppTrap is a savior.  It installs in your system preferences and works behind the scenes.  Whenever you drag an app to the trash, it will ask if you want it to track down all those other little files that get left behind.  This will definitely save you some space...for some of us without a gajillion-gig hard disk, that comes in handy.
  6. jDiskReport.  If you're like me, you sometimes look at how much space is left on your hard disk and wonder, "where the heck is all that going?"  With jDiskReport, you can find out.  Do you know how many gigs of printer drivers come default on your Mac?  Do you really need help files in Magyar?  Track 'em down and get rid of them!
Definitely feel free to post others that you've found rather helpful.