Keywurl adds keyword searching to Safari
Filed under: Software, Freeware The world of Safari plug-ins has a sparse and somewhat barren landscape; however, sometimes you run into some plug-ins that are must-haves. Keywurl is one such Safari plug-in. Keywurl adds the ability for Safari to do keyword searching just like Firefox does -- which will end up saving you time. You can assign specific keyword searches in the Safari preferences. So for instance, if I wanted to search for "Steve Jobs" on Wikipedia, then I would type "wiki Steve...
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TUAW Tip: use the Help menu to search Safari bookmarks and history
Filed under: TUAW Tips, Leopard Note: This tip is Leopard-only, sorry Tiger holdouts. The Command-? trick is easily one of my favorites among the less-ballyhooed feature expansions of Leopard. If you missed that one, it allows you to search for menu items in any application by pulling down the "Help" menu, which can be triggered from the keyboard with the Command-? (Command-Shift-/) shortcut. Typing the first few letters of the menu item you're searching for will highlight its location in the dropdown menus. I use it a lot, but somehow missed one great capability noted by TUAW reader Maarten: in Safari, the menu item search extends to your bookmark collection and Safari history! Because the bookmarks and history items are contained in the menubar's menus, they're searched along with the other menu items, allowing blazing-fast navigation of the sites listed in the Bookmarks and History menus. I like speed; I have my bookmarks toolbar set up with numbered titles which correlate to their Command-number shortcut (the first non-folder item in the toolbar can be accessed with Command-1, the second with Command-2, etc.), and I have keyword shortcuts assigned to my other most-accessed bookmarks using various tools. There's only so much room in my life, however, for organizing bookmarks and assigning keywords. History search can be a tedious prospect, too, even using Spotlight or Safari's History menu hierarchy. This trick provides instant search and it's only a keyboard shortcut away. Because the History results are sorted into sub-menus named by date, the results from the history menu appear with their access date first, so it's easy to navigate the results to find what you're looking for. The concept behind this tip applies to all kinds of applications. I started experimenting and found that the search bar in the help menu almost always included recent documents and open windows ... basically anything the application lists in its menus. The bookmarks/history search works in most other browsers, too. I use Firefox as well as Safari, so I was happy to find it worked there, with one minor caveat: the Command-? shortcut in Firefox opens the Firefox Help webpage, not the Help menu item, requiring a mouse click to focus the search box in the dropdown. I haven't found a way to add shortcut keys for top-level menu items in System Preferences, so if anyone knows that, or another way to access the search menu via a shortcut key, I'd love to know about it. Happy searching, and a big thanks to Maarten for the tip!TUAWTUAW Tip: use the Help menu to search Safari bookmarks and history originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 24 Nov 2008 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Searchlight goes native on the iPhone
Filed under: Software, iPhoneGravity Applications has released a native iPhone application to complement Searchlight, their remote search application based on Spotlight. Searchlight previously sported an iPhone-optimized web interface, and the native app builds on that. Some noteworthy benefits of the native app include storing logins for multiple servers, Bonjour discovery, and a speedier interface than Safari had provided. It also integrates a new feature found on the Searchlight server: the ability to send the files you locate to yourself or a third party via email. The iPhone app is basic, but it provides a solid foundation for building a richer feature set as it develops, according to developer Niclas Bahn. We discussed some cool features already existing in some of the iPhone file management apps like FileMagnet and Briefcase (iTunes links), and he was excited about implementing some innovations of his own. It will be fun to watch it develop. The Searchlight iPhone application is free, but requires Searchlight to be running on the computer you'd like search access to. Current users will want to upgrade their Searchlight server to the 2.1 release (the upgrade is free). If you weren't one of the lucky ten readers who got a free copy of Searchlight last time we mentioned it, and the $99 price tag was a bit too high, there's some good news: the price has dropped to $49USD. It may be a temporary price-drop, but it should last long enough for new users to take the demo for a spin and make an informed decision. Get it at Gravity's website, and happy searching!TUAWSearchlight goes native on the iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Evernote = Ubiquitous Personal Memory
Evernote, which was once a Windows-only, highly-complex clippings database, has re-invented itself with a new 3.0 beta release that combines a feature-smart client for OS X (& Windows) with creative and handy web & mobile functionality to ensure you never forget anything. I managed to wait in the beta line long enough to get an invite and wanted to share the first impressions of the program. The developers of Evernote seemed to have a single principle in mind when developing their new software/service: make it as easy and painless as possible to capture any bit of visual or textual information anywhere you happen to be at any time. From screen captures, to to-do lists, to quick notes via text or e-mail to impromptu captures from your cell phone camera, Evernote removes all barriers to memory. At its core, Evernote is just a simple, tagged database of images or text/HTML presented via the web and web service (unpublished and used only by Evernote). While you can perform many tasks in-browser, lets focus on some of the more interesting features of the Mac client. The Evernote Application As you can see from the screen capture, the Evernote main window provides a Mail-like interface to stored notes with collections (you store notes in “notebooks”) and smart-tags on the left (with an activity window in lieu of a status bar), note list on the top left with a “reading pane” on the bottom left. Single-clicking a note (or clicking on “New Note”) lets you edit or create a new note in the reading pane while a double-click opens a note in a new window. The editor is sparse, but provides enough functionality to enter basic information with minimal formatting. The entry above was generated by the Evernote bookmarklet which I placed in the bookmarks bar in Safari. After navigating to a web site, just click on the bookmark to have Evernote store a full HTML copy of that page. You can add tags to notes for searching or sorting and Evernote will generate metadata for your entries and will even attempt to OCR text it finds in pictures. Upon installation, you can customize three shortcut key-sequences that will then be available anywhere you happen to be in OS X. With them, you can take a partial or full screen capture and send it straight to the Evernote application, quick-paste any copied image or text right into Evernote or execute a search over your notes databases. The thumbnail view of the app would be much cooler if there were a “quick look”-type of feature, but the sorting options give it the “event”-like feel from iPhoto. Evernote will sync your local notebooks on startup and can be configured to sync every 5, 15, 30 & 60 minutes thereafter. Plus, there is the option to only enable manual synchronization, which is especially handy when you are in an area with limited Internet access/availability. Evernote Everywhere For Evernote to be successful, it must work well from any mobile platform. The Safari bookmarklet, Safari browser itself and Mobile Safari interfaces all put note taking & viewing right at your fingertips. Their e-mail feature works just like sending photos to Flickr or .Mac, and Evernote gives you the ability to generate a new “TO:” address with little effort (one button) in the event you accidentally disclosed it or the evil spammers finally iterate to it. Evernote Impressions The developers at Evernote did a great job making the application feel extremely Mac-like. The interface is well-designed, application preferences make sense and the integration with the system is narrowed to a small, targeted subset of specific and useful actions. I mailed a copy of a photo I took of a good bottle of wine my wife and I tried at Pair – a tasty (but $) local Seattle restaurant – in order to remember to try to find that particular vintage sometime in the future. I could have performed a similar task by syncing to iPhoto or e-mailing to Flickr or publishing to a .Mac gallery, but Evernote will allow me to easily store the information I find out about the winery, locations, price, etc right with the picture and will allow me to retrieve it anytime, anywhere or include it in search results when digging for wine options in the future. The bookmarklet is handy and is more of an augmentation to a service like Del.icio.us, but I made great use of it to note some collectables I wish to pre-order and can see many opportunities to use it to capture articles and information from interesting sites. Google Notebook provides some similar functionality, but lacks the feature-rich local client/sync (give them time, though, especially with Google Gears constantly adding functionality). It would be great if Evernote as a service published an API so you could do what you wanted (programmatically) with your data. They could also use a bit of social networking features and provide the ability to share notes with other Evernote users, allow for group notes collections/notebooks, send notes via Twitter or IM/SMS or provide RSS feeds of your stored information. While it doesn't pander to such mashupable “must have's”, there is no indication they are not planning support for such items in the future, and other sites seem to have some inside scoop that support for these enhancements are right around the corner. Giveaway Time! To share the joy of my newfound ubiquitous memory, I'm giving away 10 Evernote invitations to TAB readers. Just submit a comment before 2359 PST Saturday (April 5, 2008) and include your name/valid e-mail or @Twitter handle, if you have one (I'll DM you for a contact e-mail if you win). Winners will be chosen at random from valid entries and notified on Sunday (April 6, 2008). If you're also an Evernote beta user, don't let the entry-deluge sway you from tossing your opine in the comments. Your views and usage advice will be reaching more folks than ever!
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Remove the Google search box in Safari 3
I love URL keywords in Firefox, but I use Safari. Thankfully there are a handful of Safari plug-ins that bring keyword functionality to Safari (Sogudi, Keywurl, Saft, etc). These make the search box somewhat redundant. Previous to Safari 3, we were able to remove the search bar by just deleting it from the toolbar's NIB file. This doesn't work with Safari 3, however. I did a little poking around, and figured out a way to get it to disappear. Note: You must have Apple's developer tools installed, specifically Interface Builder. Here's what to do:Locate Safari.app in the Applications folder, control-click (or right-click) on it and choose Show Package Contents from the pop-up menu.Open Contents » Resources » English.lprojMake a backup copy of T...
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Favorite iPhone apps: Robert's take
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iPhone, App StoreNow that Steve, Victor, and Mike have all made their opinions clear, I get to tell you what apps I use most on my iPod touch. My first favorite is Exposure, an app that lets you browse Flickr photos. Personally, my favorite thing to do in a boring phone meeting is to browse Flickr's "Featured" category, and find new wallpaper for my iPod. Which leads me to my only feature request: it doesn't let you save images to the local "Saved Photos" album. (What you can do, however, is open the image in Safari, and save it from there.) Exposure does much more than this, too -- browsing photos taken nearby, or searching for photos by keyword. Exposure is a great image browser all around, and it's free, but ad-supported. A premium version (sans ads) is $9.99. The second is time:calc. It may seem a little strange, but I've always wanted a calculator that figures time instead of decimal numbers. As a freelancer, some of my contracts are retainer-based, so I have to calculate how much time I have left for a particular task after work has been done. time:calc does this effortlessly: just enter hours, minutes and seconds, and use mathematical operators as you would a normal calculator. For video editing, it also includes support for time code in a wide variety of frame rates. time:calc is $1.99, and well worth it. Last but not least is my new favorite timewaster: Trism. Mike wrote about Trism in February, and I remember wanting it really bad when I first saw the video. It's an extremely fun Tetris-like game using three-sided tiles, and uses the device's accelerometer to determine which way is "down." It's not unlike Burning Monkey Puzzle Lab, for those that remember that game. Trism has three game modes, and a training mode. It's $4.99. App Store Links: Exposure (free) Exposure Premium time:calc Trism Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Software Updates and New Releases for Week Ending 2008-10-04
My Apple TV woes managed to eat away at some of the time I would have dedicated to scouring for updates and new toys, but I managed to find some interesting applications and utilities. I didn't have time to put Stainless (a Google Chrome-like browser for OS X based on WebKit) through enough paces to really post, but wanted to give it a mention since it has some very interesting features and may be a glimpse into the future of Safari. I also wanted to take the opportunity to once-again thank Tyler Loch for his work on VisualHub (and other goodies) over the years. Your contributions to the OS X community will be sorely missed! AIM for Mac - Beta 1 - Much to the surprise of many, AOL decided to release a new beta of their instant messenger for OS X. The big question, as a result, is “Why?”. After testing it out, I can find no compelling reason to switch from iChat or Adium and no features that would make this a “must-have” application, but I welcome your thoughts in the comments. [10.4/10.5; Intel/PPC] Free! Gimp.app - 2.6.0 - Hot on the heels of the official Gimp release comes the OS X native (non-X11) release, complete with enhanced toolbars/docks, full panning beyond the image border, much-improved free-select tool and snazzy improvements to brushes. Much of the enhancements were under-the-covers and provided a foundation for future crunchy-goodness by integrating GCEL (Generic Graphics Library), a powerful graph-based image processing framework (think “undo”) and support for a wider range of color models and pixel storage formats when reading or saving images. The developers also improved plug-in support.The interface is not exactly perfectly Mac-like and feels awkward and clunky at times, but it is definitely usable and has a good feature set. Would you use it over Photoshop or even some of the newer Flash-based online editors? Let me know your thoughts! [10.4/10.5; Intel/PPC] Free! ReceiptWallet - 2.0.8 - This minor update will make folks in Switzerland happy (fixes an issue with that locale), but also fixes a couple of other annoyances (a “Cancel” button one that was – on occasion – catching me) and a few bugs. [10.4/10.5; Intel/PPC] US$39.95 Apple iTunes - 8.0.1 & Apple TV - 2.2 - As you saw on TAB, iTunes and Apple TV received updates this past week. The former improves music playback during Genius playlist creation (along with other improvements), and the latter provides support for HD TV shows and tosses a Genius into the tiny box for good measure. [10.3.9 (Apple TV update)/10.4/10.5; Intel/PPC] Free! Editra - 0.3.80 - Entering a candidate into the text editor fray on OS X takes guts. You are competing with the likes of BBEdit, TextMate, TextWrangler and many others, each of them having a loyal and vocal user-base. Editra is aimed squarely at the developers out there as it has most of the goodies you've come to expect (line numbering, commenting, indenting, syntax highlighting, etc.). The interface is straightforward enough, but it is obvious that the “0.x” version numbering is accurate since there is much room for many refinements. It already supports plug-ins (written in Python) and has the benefit of being cross-platform (it is written with the wxWidgets library), so you can use slide between platforms without losing your editing mojo. This application is definitely something to keep on your radar and in your RSS feeds. [10.4/10.5; Intel/PPC] Free! Perian - 1.1.1 - The self-dubbed “Swiss-Army knife for QuickTime” releases a two-dot update that I would have missed since the “update” button in the PrefPane did not work (and I just happened to hit their site from the other button in the PrefPane). This minor update fixes a problem with H.264 in AVI files, corrects a frame skipping issue, adds some codecs and incorporates a few additional bug fixes and feature tweaks. [10.4/10.5; Intel/PPC] Free! Schnippselchen Pro - 2.0.1 - I've been slowly getting back into software development (that may or may not be obvious from my posts) and came across this code-snippet saver which allows you to store, track and fully manage your bits of useful source with full support for syntax highlighting and drag-and-drop to Xcode or TextMate. The Mail-like interface should be quite accessible to everyone and the builtin search makes it pretty simple to find what you are looking for (especially if you've commented the snippets well). You can add a custom icon to each snippet and backup, export or share your library. The manual states that the app “will only store the data as long as [it] is running” but all my test snippets have been available across multiple launches. [10.5; Intel/PPC] Free? Remember, drop me a note on Twitter (@hrbrmstr) or in the comments if there is something you'd like me to try!
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Freeware Find: Karelia iMedia Browser 1.1.1
Filed under: iLife, Multimedia, Software, Odds and ends, Freeware, iWorkIt's easy to get spoiled using Apple's Media Browser, that little tool that pops up in many of the iLife and iWork applications and provides access to photos, music, graphics, and movies. But what about those cases where you want to use Media Browser and the application you're in doesn't support it?Karelia Software, makers of the popular website creation tool Sandvox, has just shipped an update to iMedia Browser. iMedia Browser 1.1.1 works with Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) and 10.5 (Leopard). It provides all of the functionality of Media Browser, but for just about any application on your Mac. This update adds international support and new media sources.iMedia Browser now supports the following media (information from Karelia's website): Browse Photos: iPhoto / Aperture / Lightroom library, Pictures folder, and other predefined folders. Browse Music: iTunes library, GarageBand songs, Music folder, etc. Browse Movies: iTunes and iPhoto libraries, Movies folder, etc. Browse Links: Bookmarks from Safari, Camino, OmniWeb, etc. Drag and drop any folder into the source list to add to your library. As the really old song says, "the best things in life are free", and iMedia Browser is no exception. Download it and start enjoying your media in almost every application you use.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Beta Beat: Glims for Safari
Filed under: Software, FreewareIf you're looking for a Safari plugin with the usefulness of Inquisitor and then some, then look no further than Glims for Safari. This (currently in beta) plugin gives you the same search functionality as Inquisitor, plus some extra and useful features like full screen viewing. Actually, the current feature list is quite impressive for this free little plugin: Generates thumbnails for Google/Yahoo search results Full screen browsing Add favicon to tab labels "Undo close tab" option Reopen last Safari session on start Auto-close download window Set focus on the search field on opening a new window Adds max window size for window resizing Glims does take a cue from Inquisitor's revenue plan as the developers get a referral fee for Amazon links in searches. Overall, Glims looks like a good alternative to Inquisitor, and hey, it's free! You can download beta 6 of Glims from the developer's website.Gallery: Glims for Safari: PreferencesRead | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Location Based Job Searching With JobCompass
JobCompass is a new application on the iPhone that allows you to search through millions of jobs, locating and plotting them on a map in relation to your current position. It pulls vacancy information in real time, so new listings appear on a regular basis. The idea for JobCompass was born when Titus Blair, the developer of the application, discovered that many of his friends and associates were being laid off. He explains that: Current website solutions are not ideal since they do not pinpoint your location to provide you with job listings in relation to where you are at the moment. I was also traveling regularly and thought it would be interesting to see what jobs were available in my field in the cities and places I was visiting. After pinpointing your location, JobCompass allows you to search for jobs by keyword, specifying the range from your current location which interests you (5, 10, 25, 50 or 100 mile radius). After finding a position which you seem well suited for, it's simple to send an email to yourself with a link to the job description or, for those with quick fingers and enough patience, to open the listing in Safari and apply for the job straight away. (more…) Concentric Hosted IT Solutions and Web Hosting Click here to save cost on your IT demands
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Realmac teases LittleSnapper
Filed under: Software, Internet ToolsOur friends over at at Realmac Software, makers of the popular RapidWeaver website creation app, have just posted some information on their next Mac app, LittleSnapper. From what I can glean from the promo page, LittleSnapper -- which is expected sometime at the end of 2008 -- is designed to be the ultimate mash-up of screenshot applications like Skitch and Paparazzi.Back in May, I tested and reviewed various (static) screen capturing programs and options for OS X. Although I did not have a chance to actually address the issue of full web page captures in that article, I was, and continue to be frustrated by the lack of a good, Leopard-friendly program that can capture an entire web site, and not just the portion that appears on the screen. Stitching together screenshots in Photoshop is time consuming and unfortunately, Paparazzi's Leopard support is kludgy (.43 works with Leopard, but .5 won't even open). I demoed Web Snapper, but it is a Safari plugin (or InputManager for the semantically correct), which is not always ideal.From the Realmac website, it looks like LittleSnapper is really designed to take the best aspects of a program like Skitch, the ability to capture portions of the screen and annotate and share with other people, with the ability to work with web browsers and also organize screenshot libraries. They even show off a DOM-highlighter, so you can instantly capture a specific element of a site, much like Safari's WebClip and CSSEdit's Inspector.We'll let you know more about LittleSnapper as the details eke out. You can sign-up for updates at Realmac's website. LittleSnapper will be a Leopard-only application.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments