T11M

While on the topic of online aggregation services I thought I should give a rundown of BackType.  BackType’s goal is to bring together all of the blog comments posted on the Internet and allow users to track them.  This service effectively provides two functionalities – it makes tracking comments by specific people very easy and it allows BackType users to ensure that they are not be impersonated on the web.  I’m not very interested at following other people’s comments, I’m much more interested in good blog postings and news.  However, I am very interested in making sure that my comments are attributed to me and that my identity is not being used by someone else to post spam or fake comments.  For much more popular people (Barack Obama, Leo Laporte, Kevin Rose, etc), I’m sure BackType is a very powerful service.  I’m sure they are constantly being impersonated and fake/spam comments are being posted using their identity.  BackType allows anyone to quickly and easily make sure that their commenting identity is not being abused.

So far my test of BackType’s service has been fairly limited, however it has pulled in all of the comments I have posted on blogs.  Unfortunately, BackType has not recognized my comments on Lifehacker.  BackType did extend its service a few months back to include Reddit and Digg, but they obviously haven’t gotten all of the major sites that aren’t strictly blogs.  I’m curious to see how the service will develop over the next few months and I’m really hoping for better support on sites like Lifehacker.  If you do a lot of commenting on different blogs, I encourage you to visit BackType and sign up for an account.

Web Blogging, Productivity

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

While I’m on the subject of customizing the OS X desktop environment there is another nifty little piece of software that can do great things for you.  Tinker tool is simply a graphical user interface (GUI) that allows access to a wide variety of neat customizations not available through the standard OS X GUI.  Tinker Tool is completely safe because it does not modify the OS in any way.  It simply accesses the the apple .plist files (preference files) and modifies the defaults.  The functionality is already built in, Apple just has not made it available to the general user.  The same functionality that is made available through Tinker Tool is also accessible using .plist changes from the Terminal – very doable, but if there is a GUI why mess around?

I’ve used Tinker Tool for quite some time now and have found a few customizations that I really hate to function without.  My favorite customization by far is in Finder and causes the selected items path to be displayed in the title bar of the Finder window.  Another great customization deals with sheets – the dialogues that pop up when you click print or save.  Tinker Tool allows you to prefer expanded save sheets and expanded print sheets, which saves me the extra click needed to expand the sheet so I can save to the location of my choice.  A couple of changes that make Leopard slightly less annoying are the ability to remove the “always in foreground” preference that is default with the Help dialogue box and the ability to keep Time Machine from always asking if you want to use a newly connected drive for backups.  One last change that I make is adding the Develop menu to the menu bar in Safari (the Develop menu is where you find the console for debugging in Safari – a must for web development).

If you like the sounds of it, Tinker Tool is available from Marcel Bresink’s site.

OS X, Software Productivity

I’m always trying to find ways to customize my Mac so it and I can work efficiently together.  I use Exposé and Spaces to spread tasks out across three desktops, but one application I try to avoid at all costs is the Finder.  It adds windows to my workspace that I then must either work around or close.  I usually opt to close them and less than a minute later have to open another one to pull out another file.  Don’t get me wrong, I much prefer Finder of Windows Explorer, but my goal is to get away from launching new windows when accessing my most used files and folders.  Stacks has helped greatly in making those files and folders readily accessible by placing them in my Dock, however I still feel that there must be a better solution available.

The latest piece of software that I have been testing to see if it will integrate well and solve this issue is called MaxMenus.  This handy little piece of software creates colored activation points in each of the four corners of the screen.  When clicked, these colored corners display a menu that contains the content you specify in the MaxMenus preferences (located in System Preferences).  At first I was a little hesitant because the corners of the screen are Exposé’s activation point.  Exposé allows me to view and select from all my open windows or my desktop by simply pushing the mouse to the corner of the screen (Exposé offers more customization, those are simply the two functions I use all the time).  I can then access anything on my desktop or select the open window that I want to work in next.  So, as I said I was hesitant of using a program that might encroach on Exposé.  But after some use and much customization, I’ve found that MaxMenus allows me to have quick access to the files and folders I use most with minimal interaction with Exposé.  I now have the upper and lower right corners of my screen dedicated to Exposé and the upper and lower left corners of my screen dedicated to MaxMenus (the activation points still show in all four corners, but that I simply ignore them).  The one downside to MaxMenus is the inability to move files and folders around within the views – that functionality is still relegated to the Finder.  Ah well, can’t have everything I suppose.

Take a look at a few screenshots which show MaxMenus in action.  If you like the looks of MaxMenus there is a free download on Version Tracker.

MaxMenus Preferences Pane

MaxMenus Activation Point

Recent Documents in upper left corner

You can set folders to be in expanded view (like “JS” above)

OS X, Software Productivity