Excellent news! Despite the worries about Leopard’s plug-in architecture, Inquisitor works with Leopard Safari. Not that I am biased but Inquisitor is the single best browser plug-in …. ever. You can download the new version right here.
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I discovered, courtesy of John Gruber, a link to a very interesting article comparing the benefits of the keyboard vs. mouse interface that argues the mouse is faster. The money quote reads as follows:
We’ve done a cool $50 million of R & D on the Apple Human Interface. We discovered, among other things, two pertinent facts:
Test subjects consistently report that keyboarding is faster than mousing.
The stopwatch consistently proves mousing is faster than keyboarding.
This contradiction between user-experience and reality apparently forms the basis for many user/developers’ belief that the keyboard is faster.
People new to the mouse find the process of acquiring it every time they want to do anything other than type to be incredibly time-wasting. And therein lies the very advantage of the mouse: it is boring to find it because the two-second search does not require high-level cognitive engagement.
It takes two seconds to decide upon which special-function key to press. Deciding among abstract symbols is a high-level cognitive function. Not only is this decision not boring, the user actually experiences amnesia! Real amnesia! The time-slice spent making the decision simply ceases to exist.
Interesting food for thought for this Quicksilver junkie. Actually, I have always been pretty practical about these things. I just use what works whether it be the keyboard, mouse, or tea leaves. Anyway, you can read the full article right here.
I’ve been thinking about looking for a native photo application and this review was excellent.
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Some people are really up in arms over the three dimensional Leopard dock. Others love it. I’m somewhere in the middle. Regardless, innermindmedia.com just released a nifty dashboard widget that lets you waffle bertween the 3d and 2d dock to your heart’s desire. Check it our right here.
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Mail Act-On, an outstanding donation-ware application for Mail.app released a beta version for Leopard Mail today. I’m very pleased to have my Act-on back on. I reviewed it awhile back right here. You can download it right here. Now I just need SuperDuper to get its Leopard version out.
Continue readingI just noticed that if you are in the Spaces view with all of your virtual screens up (allowing you to move windows around) and you click one with the shift key down it zooms in on that screen v e r y slowly. Totally useless but still interesting.
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I was glad to see this morning that InDev has released a new beta of Mail Tags that works in Leopard. In the forums on their site, they explain that a working copy of Mail Act-On is not far behind it. These were the two applications I lost with the Leopard upgrade that I really missed. The developer explains the implementation of Mail Tags with Leopard as follows:
Indev is happy to announce that MailTags for Leopard, the forthcoming update to MailTags will be compatible with Mail 3.0 in Leopard. This update will be free for all registered MailTags 2.0 and 2.1 users.
Mail 3.0 in Leopard brings many new features and improvements to Mail, such as stationary, to dos and stand alone notes. With the new announced features for Mail 3.0, many people have asked about how MailTags for Leopard will work with Mail 3.0.
Metadata makes it better
Many of Mail 3.0’s new features are designed help you manage your information better. MailTags for Leopard is created to go the extra distance to transform Mail 3.0 into a powerful organizational tool. With keywords, project, priorities, tickle dates, and message notes, you can tag your messages to fit your organization scheme. And unlike Mail 3.0 notes, which do not relate to your messages, MailTags data actually are part of your messages. This means that when you view your messages, the tags will always be there. When you move your messages, the tags will also be moved. When you search for your tags, you find your messages.
Maintain your organization with others and over time.
With the ability to send tag and receive tags with message, you can share your metadata with others. With the ability to tags replies as they arrive, and the ability to easily locate previous messages in threads even if they are in different mailboxes, you can automatically maintain your organization system throughout your email conversations.
Tag your critical RSS feeds
In a flow of information, RSS feeds are about more than the latest headlines. Many organization systems now use RSS feeds to be notified of critical information, such as support tickets, user forums discussions, and database driven workflows. With MailTags for Leopard you will be able to tag RSS news items with the same project, keyword, priority and tickle you use for your email. When you look for items needing attention, you can find your tagged RSS items as well as tagged messages.
Indev says the program should be out of the public beta by January 2008. Check it out.
Lifehacker did a great little write up of 20 essential applications on your Mac. I generally agreed with their opinions. A few in particular that I find very helpful are …
Disk Inventory X – This application is great for sniffing out large files on your hard drive you didn’t realize are there. Before installing Leopard, I found 8 gigs of sample garageband song files that were easily moved onto an external drive.
Growl – Don’t question it. Just install it.
TextExpander – This application is a huge timesaver. The trick is to remember it is there and to keep updating it with new snippets. I’ve been using the new version that came out a few weeks ago and had ho problems with it in Tiger or Leopard.
A few of the applications Lifehacker recommends don’t really impress me so much. I prefer mail.app over Thunderbird and Safari over Firefox. Anyway, you can read the full article right here.
This morning I used the new Dashboard web clippings feature for the first time. I’ve got my fantasy football score in the Dashboard. It is very convenient and live updating. Setting it up was as simple as pushing the new button in the Safari menu bar and selecting the section I want updated. Thumbs up.
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