T11M

Mac OS X has built in screen shot capabilities, but those capabilities are very limited.  I spent quite a bit of time testing different screen capture software and when I had finally had enough I found that Skitch was the easiest to use, most functional screen capture program out there.  Skitch is currently in beta, but from what I have experienced it is an extremely stable beta.  I have yet to have Skitch crash on me, nor has it ever given me any sort of error.  I honestly like Skitch better than its competitors because of a couple very handy features which I use practically every day (all screen captures I display on this site have been taken with Skitch).

First, and absolutely most important, Skitch allows you to easily integrate your screen captures with any program – the goal of screen captures.  At the bottom of the Skitch window there is a simple “Drag Me” button that allows you to drag your current screen capture into another program or in a folder instantly saving it.  You can save in six different file formats .jpg, .png, .tif, .pdf, .svg, and .skitch and Skitch automatically keeps a history of your most recent screen captures.  Second, you can quickly and easily doctor your screen captures inside the Skitch window with a variety of tools including arrows, shapes, text, and a pencil tool.  It took me literally 20 or 30 seconds to create the screen captures below.  Finally Skitch flawlessly integrates with OS X simply overriding the built in capabilities.  Based upon user preferences the Skitch icon sits in the Dock, the menu bar, or both.  When you minimize Skitch it disappears into the menu bar and will reappear when clicked on.  Hotkeys make quick screen captures quick and easy.

One last note about Skitch is the social network that is being built to function with the program.  To download Skitch you must join the Skitch network which is a place to host your screen captures for sharing with friends or simply for access later via the web.  So far I have not found any real use for the Skitch network, probably because I have so many other places I can save images.  However, the idea is an interesting one, and I am intrigued to see if there will be much user support of the Skitch social network.

If you are interested in Skitch, take a look at a couple screen shots below and visit their site.

OS X, Software beta, Productivity

So I finally was able to download the Windows 7 Beta. What a pain! They require ActiveX controls to be installed, which pretty much rules out downloading with an OS X only machine. So anyway, I finally got it downloaded using a PC at work.  Now on to the install…

9:30 am – I’m using VMware Fusion to load it as a virtual machine.  I chose all default settings, install from ISO image, and using Windows Vista settings (VMware doesn’t currently support Windows 7, but that’s expected).  Started the install.

9:50 am – Holy crap!  I’ve never installed any version of Windows that fast, let alone a beta.  I’m astounded.  Oh, and VMware tools is installing automatically.  I’m very impressed.  It’s as if Microsoft wants this product to be good!

9:55 am – VMware tools installed perfectly and readjusted my video settings.

10:00 am – Verified that VMware tools are actually working.

10:02 am – Entered Unity mode.  It’s really smooth and fast.  That’s a testament to both VMware and Windows 7.

10:05 am – Just for kicks I bound it to the domain at work.  I’ve never tested that before.

10:08 am – Waiting for my roaming profile to load.  It’s taking quite a bit of time, but that is the common experience so far in all Windows OS configurations.

10:11 am – Roaming profile loaded properly.  None of the logon scripts we have configured worked.  It said it couldn’t find the network resources… have to investigate that.

10:12 am – All of the network resources appear to be available.  I wonder if it is a problem with roaming profiles and VMware Fusion…?

10:16 am – Uh oh… Tried to restart to finish installing updates and got a Windows alert asking if I wanted to Force Quit applications or Cancel and close them myself.  Clicked Cancel and now just the background visible.

10:17 am – Ctrl-Alt-Delete allowed me to restart just fine.  Configuring Windows update and rebooting.

10:30 am – Installing Microsoft Office 2007.  At this point I am an hour in and have a very functional OS, not to mention it is inside of a Virtual Machine.  It seems like all of the software I have that worked in Vista is going to work just fine in Windows 7.  Nice.  Props to you Microsoft.  Props to you.

Windows beta, Windows 7