new software in the mix

Posted by Shane Becker on 2004-11-22 at 8:50am

<p>i have an sickness. it's called LGS or in technical terms: "latest greatest syndrome." i'll admit it. because of this ailment of LGS, i'm always on the lookout for little apps that can make my computing life better, more efficient, more productive, prettier, et al. </p>
<p>i recently did a clean wipe and rebuild of my mac. in doing so i always wipe away all the apps i've installed, tried, never used again. and i also try to migrate to the apps that i've been meaning to but was <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=trepidacious">trepidacious</a> for some reason or another. so here's the rundown of what's changed and what i like about said changes.</p>
<ul>
  <li> <a href="http://jumsoft.com/process/">process</a> in, <a href="http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnioutliner/">omnioutliner</a> out</li>
  <li> <a href="http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/">quicksilver</a> in, <a href="http://www.obdev.at/products/launchbar/index.html">launchbar</a> out</li>
  <li> <a href="http://panic.com/candybar/">candybar</a> in, ...nothing had to go for that</li>
  <li> <a href="http://ecto.kung-foo.tv/">ecto</a> in for <a href="http://veganstraightedge.com/articles/2004/11/19/1/i-love-you-secret-admirer/">about two seconds</a>

</li> <li> safari inputManagers: <ul> <li> safariSource </li> <li> sogudi </li> <li> PithHelmet </li> </ul> </li> <li> subethaedit updated</li> <li> delicious monster </li> </ul> <h3>ok, the rundown.</h3> <p> delicious monster
delicious monster is sweet. everything i expected it to be. they updated, almost right away, to 1.0.5. just bug fixes. but important ones.
</p> <p> subethaedit udpated
subethaedit was awesome to begin with. the collaboration mechanism is awesome. local network. over internet. whatever. solo mode [ non collaborating ] is awesome, too. syntax coloring is generally pretty good. it flakes out on closing tags sometimes. i think its pretty fast. some people complain about its speed in rendering text as compared to, say, bbedit or something. because subetha uses NSTextView. i’ve tried bbedit, smultron, textmate and others. but none of them really do anything for me. and it plays well with others.
</p> <p> ecto
i blogged about this earlier. and then again.

</p> <p> candybar
candybar is made by panic software, the same folks that make the best ftp client ever. basically, candybar allows you to easily customize icons systemwide. meaning you don’t have to do a Get Info (CMD - I) on every icon you wanna change. plus, it will cascade down to new instances of the same kind, eg, dvds, new folder, textclippings, etc. in early version you HAD to drag in each icon into its spot in candybar. now you can import one file: a candybar iContainer. and the iconfactory has bunch of iContainers already to go.
</p> <p> quicksilver in, launcbar out
i have been using launchbar for quite awhile. i really like it. i rarely used my dock or applications folder or recent items menu to launch apps anymore. it was all CMD - SPACE, launchbar would pop down then i’d hit a couple letter abbreviation and off it went.
i kept hearing about quicksilver. i knew i’d prolly like it based on what i had heard and from whom i heard it. but still, i had vested a lot of time and energy and emotion in launchbar and didn’t wanna jump ship. and why break what isn’t broken, right? well, i finally gave it the ol’ 1-2 try [i’m not real sure what i mean by that]. immediately, i was blown away by how much faster it was than launchbar. so much more responsive. and honestly, it’s a LOT prettier.

i liked the preference options. everything’s really customizable. good stuff. right now it’s primarily a launcher [above], but they seem to have plans to make it much much more than that, noting that they don’t call it a ‘launcher’ on their website. they call it this : “An evolving framework for accessing and manipulating many forms of personal data.” it offers learning training to you.

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  it does a little 'what this new song playing in iTunes is' kind of stuff.
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  <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/veganstraightedge/153385997/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/51/153385997_e35d9ec686_o.jpg" alt="QS now playing in iTunes"></a>
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  but one of the coolest, most exciting and interesting things for me is the commands you can do in it. like this example: grab this file (preview.jpg), perform this action (open with), this app (preview). there's a lot of power here to be harnessed. this is but a very simple example. <a href="http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/docs/">more info at the blacktree site</a>.
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  <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/veganstraightedge/153385988/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/62/153385988_63be0fe6a2_m.jpg" alt="QS commands"></a>
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</p>
<p>
  <strong>process in, omnioutliner out</strong>
  <br>
  <a href="http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnioutliner/">omniOutliner</a> was good. and still is. it just hasn't bee updated in a long time. and <a href="http://jumsoft.com/process/">process</a> is a lot better. in a lot of ways. just look at the screenshots of each. most notably, its a lot better for serving my podcasting needs. i talk about that a bit in my upcoming podcast so i'm not gonna blog about it here.
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  <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/veganstraightedge/153386053/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/45/153386053_4f013fdad1_m.jpg" alt="omniOutliner Screenshot"></a>
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  <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/veganstraightedge/153386055/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/55/153386055_e32996d395_o.jpg" alt="process Icon"></a>

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  <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/veganstraightedge/153386063/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/51/153386063_f57daf12eb_m.jpg" alt="process Screenshot"></a>
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</p>
<p>
  <strong>finally, the safari extenstions[?] i'm using</strong>
  <br>
  <a href="http://www.tildesoft.com/Misc.html">safariSource</a> colors the source of a page when doing a 'view source.' helpful for debugging.<br>
  <a href="http://culater.net/software/PithHelmet/">PithHelmet</a> blocks ads (and other media, if you want it to) which is so fucking sweet.<br>
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  <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/veganstraightedge/153385979/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/75/153385979_da76c28e59_o.jpg" alt="PithHelmet"></a>
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  <a href="http://www.atamadison.com/w/kitzkikz.php?page=Sogudi">sogudi</a> allows for faster and more flexible searching from the address bar. for example: <code>wiki gender identity</code> in the address bar would run a search on the <a href="http://www.wikipedia.org/">wikipedia site</a> and ultimately <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_identity">land you here</a>. <code>a catch me if you can</code> searches amazon for 'catch me if you can'. and so on. comes with a bunch of built in defaults but can VERY EASILY add your own.
</p>
<p>
  jesus, fucking, jesus. this was a long goddamned post. sorry.
</p>