Mmmm… Fresh Quicksilver.
I have been waiting for ages for an update to perhaps the most often used application on my mac. Seriously, the time this thing saves me in just allowing me to find, launch, or manipulate info with a simple CMD-space is unreal.
According to Lifehacker, looks like it’s those crazy github coder kids (rather than the creator who is busy working on Chrome OS) who have pushed this one out to the eagerly awaiting masses.
If you happen to be looking at key-value stores and document databases for whatever little dev problem you have that might need to be looking at these, you’re probably like me and thinking you probably need to have a version of CouchDB on your trusty macbook to kick the tires on.
So, thank plok’s CouchDBX revival for sorting you out. Nice implementation, you can even run it independently of an already existing macports installation on your system.
Just pointed out to me that the latest Skype beta includes a iChat-like screensharing feature for users so that collaboration between OSX users is possible. Very cool. Haven’t had a chance to test it yet, and probably not as polished at iChat’s but still have to say this will be a killer feature when it works between OSX, Windows and Linux. It is definitely needed.
Apparently video and audio quality are also improved (great for my parents to worry about how I’m not taking care of myself).
I’ve been using the Firefox beta for a week now and I have to admit, it’s a wholesale improvement over the 2.x branch. More stable, uses lower memory and the OS integration is much nicer, particularly on OSX with the default Proto theme. Works just as nice as Aranox’s GrApple that I’ve been using.
Haven’t really taken advantage of most of the newer features they’ve developed though do like the way they’ve added tagging to the bookmarking though I imagine it will be a little while before the Delicious bookmarking Add-On moves in line with it.
Scarily, most of the most popular posts on my blog are not about my fascinating rock-star lifestyle, but actually revolve around:
It’s been ages since I wrote about the software I use on my desktop, and it definitely needs a refresh as the changes are huge compared to when I first posted on what was on the desktop , but I did want to draw some attention to some new apps that are out recently that are definitely worthy of attention.
If you’re like me and use the excellent menu bar extra Meteorologist to keep up with the weather everywhere you’re going (or want) to be, you’ve probably been pretty annoyed that it’s impossible to add cities for a while now due to a broken search function.
I don’t know how I missed it, but someone released an unsupported patch
that has a better solution to fixing the
non-updating problem than I supplied a /etc/hosts hack
for fixing both the update and the searching and adding cities problem.
I have a love/hate relationship with Apple’s Mail.app. It’s pretty and powerful and has good rule based filters, ok junk mail detection and good support for imap, pop and even Exchange accounts.
However, at times I have to say I’m looking longingly at other mail clients, in particular Thunderbird (so don’t even get me started on the fact I should already be back on Ubuntu… I’m looking for a good laptop before moving back.).
If, like me, you use the excellent Meteorologist toolbar application on OSX to keep track of weather in loads of different places (especially handy for travel, though I just noticed I track London, Paris, Vancouver, Kelowna, Whistler, San Francisco, Mexico City, Toronto and Amsterdam… ahem…) you were probably put out this week when it suddenly stopped working.
Normally, when this has happened in the past, it has been a problem with parsing the XML data that weather.com sends.
Just big props and a huge, hearty congratulations to my very dear friend ZA, the hottest greenpeace toxics campaigner and evil genius behind the Green My Apple campaign.
Steve Jobs’ announcement yesterday in the change in Apple policy (GPI’s take on it ) basically addresses many of the major points in the campaign and is a victory all round for the Greenpeace campaign, and most importantly, people and the planet.
Well done Ze! You kick ass!
I’m constantly shocked at the quality of software that is consistently available on the OSX platform every day. Despite my love of all things linux and a need to move back to ubuntu based laptops to start walking my own talk, OSX makes it harder every day.
Today, for instance, Actiontastic , the Getting Things Done app with tight integration for rapid to do making via Quicksilver announced it would be completely free as in beer and speech. Yep, better than what commercial companies have tried to develop, the developer has open sourced it as well. I’ve been using it in beta for a while now and have to say it has really allowed me to focus on the things I really need to get done at work. Highly recommended.