contextual menu

Apr 27 2009

Social Bookmarking

Social Bookmarks are the way to surf the freshest waves on the ‘net.
Hot trends are bookmarked and tagged by other surfers, and in a click you can see what’s heating up the web.

There are a heap of different sites that host social bookmarks. You pick might be influenced by the complementary software, or the site’s unique features. Here’s the best…

del.icio.us

The leader of the pack, delicious relies on a minimal interface and boosts a large number of users. There are plenty of free applications to make delicious all the more tasty to Mac users.

mu Social BookmarkingCocoalicious

Access and post bookmarks to your del.icio.us account. This free application will even load bookmarked pages in a preview pane.

mu Social BookmarkingDelibar

Rather access your del.icio.us bookmarks from the menubar? Delibar’s your choice. Just don’t ask me about the icon.

Firefox users will be happy to know there’s two extensions for integrating del.icio.us into the browser. delicious lets you manage your del.icio.us bookmarks in a sidebar, and post to your account from a contextual menu.

Foxylicious brings your del.icio.us bookmarks right into your browser bookmarks. You can set it to sync from your account daily.

Grease Monkey users will be interested in these user scripts. Safari users, don’t despair, delicious2safari will get your del.icio.us bookmarks into Safari.

Spurl

Spurl offers a sidebar for saving and searching your bookmarks through their free service. It supports about every browser out there.

The Firefox spurlbar extension adds toolbar buttons and contextual menu items to add bookmarks.

StumbleUpon

This social bookmarks manager has the most straightforward interface. You can browse and rate bookmarks from like minded surfers from the StumbleUpon toolbar.

You can post to StumbleUpon (as well as Spurl, del.icio.us and more) from Firefox with the Slogger extension.

Not enough for you? There’s Furl, Blogmarks and Simpy. Prefer to roll your own? You can install Scuttle or the code behind de.lirio.us on your own server for antisocial bookmarks.

Now, grab a wave and share the surf. Goodness knows there are plenty of choices.

Brian

mu Social BookmarkingDownloads provided by MacUpdate

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Apr 27 2009

Click Wisely

Brought to you by: James

If you’re in an environment that demands quick actions, nothing could improve your workflow more than simply clicking wisely.

If you have a one-button mouse, you probably won’t be using it to economize your workflow any time soon. That single button is referred to as “left click”, because it carries the functions of the left button on most two-button mice. Left click is used primarily for selection. Fortunately, few know that there are actually four different methods of selecting files via left click.

Click selects one file.

Click and Drag, when used away from a file, will create a rectangular “lasso” with which you can select multiple files.

Shift + Click selects all files between the first and last sift+click. This is useful for selection a large quantity of files that are already presented in an ordered fashion. For example, selecting the entire contents of folder filled with over a hundred objects.

Command + Click allows you to individually select multiple files. This is useful for selection a large quantity of files that are not presented in an ordered fashion. Every file that receives a command+click will be selected.

If you have a two-button mouse, then you’re in luck. Now you can truly experience an improved workflow by clicking wisely. The right mouse button, or “right click”, opens the horizon to more than you think. On most mice, right click will activate a contextual menu. This menu provides a set of actions that can be done on whatever object the mouse pointer is currently hovering over. Single button mouse users can emulate a right click by holding down the “control” button while clicking. Most mouse manufacturers also provide software that allows you to change the behavior of the right mouse button.

If you are fortunate enough to have mouse or trackball that has more than two buttons, then you’re on the home stretch to having an improved workflow. Many popular mouse manufacturers, such as Logitech and Kensington, provide mice and trackballs with far more than two buttons. These manufacturers also provide software that allows you to customize the function of each mouse button to your wildest imagination. One single click could launch an application, open a file, visit a website, or even activate a Photoshop action.

Now, buy a mouse or trackball with two or more buttons, and enjoy clicking wisely!

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Apr 27 2009

RetroMac Special– a Look Back at 9

Steve Jobs may have held the funeral service, but the OS now termed a classic is far from dead.

Years of Mac OS programming has left us a legacy of great software and freeware for Mac OS 9. This week we’ll take a look at a few of my picks…

FileCM

Most of these enhancements mimic what were envied Windows features that have since been incorporated into OS X. The first of which is FileCM by Andy Finnell. This indispensable add-on comes in the form of a Contextual Menu item.

filecm1 RetroMac Special a Look Back at 9

When installed, FileCM adds the ability to copy files from one folder and paste them into another with a “right” or control click.

filecm1 RetroMac Special a Look Back at 9

Going one step beyond OS X, it also allows you to cut a file from one location to paste elsewhere and allows you to paste items as an alias. Nice.

Joke Ridge

This control panel adds the ability to open Windows “Joliet” formatted CDs without file name truncation. This may not seem like a big deal, but when you have to rename a dozen or so GRAPH~01.JPG files, you won’t be laughing.


Natural Order

Another quirky little feature of OS 9 was it’s habit of listing numbered files out of order.

naturalorder1 RetroMac Special a Look Back at 9

As cute as that was, it’s nice to see things in their “natural order”. This System Extension by Stuart Cheshire fixes the Finder’s and other applications’ dialogue boxes to list numbered files like this:

naturalorder2 RetroMac Special a Look Back at 9

Essential? No, but it is a great fix. This is the first and only of today’s utilities that will function in the “classic mode” of OS X.

Jerry’s Finder Patch

Before you get scared by the idea of a “patch”, know that Jerry has this down to a science. This self applying patch to your Finder adds useful keyboard shortcuts for things like sleep and shut down along with a slew of other enhancements. Jerry’s redefined Finder also has a larger memory heap and a “quit finder” command.

jerrysfinder RetroMac Special a Look Back at 9

Install it for yourself to find its many more features, but remember, should something go wrong and cause you to lose your data (including your 700 megs of ABBA mp3′s) it’s not our fault. I claim no responsibility for your music tastes. Having said that, I have never had a problem with this patch, or ABBA.

Until next time, keep it real with the Classic OS.

Brian

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