Best Mac Tools

When i switched to Mac from Linux for my desktop computing there was a lot to learn about the new environment. Most of the learing was relaively easy and was either a positive, or at least neutral in terms of useability.

However, I have to admit that the positioning of an application’s menu bar at the top of the screen was something that I never got used to. Worse still, when I started with my now standard dual screen configuration became a nuicance , and a productivity turnoff.

Even with a single large disply finding an item in the menu invovles switching focus from the task at hand, and back again.

?MenuEverywhere, from one man software house Binary Bakery Software, completely changes all that by adding access to the application’s menu bar to the main window. For a visual representation, see the screenshots below.

?MenuEverywhere will eliminate the frustration of having to reach out for the menubar and losing focus on your work. MenuEverywhere makes the menubar’s menu accessible from any window on any screen. It’s unobtrusive, and highly configurable.

Configuration options

“Out of the Box” the menu bar appears as a normal horizontal menu above the window. The menu is not permanent, ie it appears only when focus is on the window.

Alternatively, the menu can be accessed from a single button above the “traffic light controls”.

The menu button can also be configured to appear to the fight of the green zoom button.

The button can be optionally made to appear only when the mouse is over it so as not to take any screen real estate.

Finally, MenuEverywhere also works via hotkey, popping up the menu at the current mouse location. This may be disabled if so desired.

Conclusion

With a free trial available I strongly recommend MenuEverywhere. Registration is a mere $7 for a single user. Family and corporate pricing is also allowed.

I suggest this is a must have utility for anyone switching to Mac or for users with large expanses of desktop screens.

Today I had a wake up call to remind me about what I already knew – the world is seriously changing. In my view this change is for the better, even though it affects the very fundamentals of life as we know it. Let me tell you a short story …

Over a month ago I became aware that the smart people at 37Signals had written another book and I immediately knew that I would want to read this book as soon as it was released.

On the day of release in the USA I checked if I could buy the book in Australia. It seemed that I could, but further investigation proved that availability in Australia was actually delayed by about 7 weeks. Worse still, the cost of the physical book from a bookshop was going to be slightly more than the cost of the book on Amazon including express courier delivery.

So that’s a first level change … Distribution methods are really changing. Why would anyone buy a book that they know they want from a local bookshop?

So I ordered from Amazon, along with two other books to offset the effect of the freight, and waited for the delivery.

But, unfortunately my credit card details on Amazon were out of date and the expected delivery did not happen.

I duely updated my order, this time saving some money on the delivery by using the USA address of my forwarding agent. But then Easter arrived and I, the last of the immediate satisfaction consumers, faced more delays in getting the ideas of Reworked into my head.

But, before I started penning this post on Easter Saturday morning, I have read the first two chapters of the book which I now own, have not spent a penny on freight, and I have not yet risen from my bed!

So what happened? Well I was reading about the launch of the new Apple iPad which kept on mentioning eBook publication and distribution and I recalled seeing that 37signals had published on Kindle in Europe.

I can’t cut this long story short now, so here is the punchline. About 45 seconds after that realisation, I was reading the book, in bed.

Some time ago I had installed Kindle on my iPhone, so I fired it up, and a few taps later I had connected with Amazon and downloaded the Kindle version of the book for a mere $12 USD.

The purchace experience was seamless and easy, although helped by the fact that I already had an Amazon account (a side note for Amazon … Buying for Kindle is still significantly easier than buying physical product).

Electronic book purchase and reading is an easy, pleasureable process on my iPhone with Kindle. It will be even easier and more natural on the iPad that I will buy on the day it is released to Australia.

And the point about change? By the end of 2010 there will be about 10 million iPad owners, and I suggest, about the same number of people who no longer buy any form of printed documents!

My conclusion, even if you are not in the market for an iPad, you can easily switch to electronic reading with Kindle on your iPhone.

In a few days time I will have three copies (printed) of Jason & David’s book which I will never open. Contact me if you’d like one of them.

It was good to see the new release of Mac Speech Dictate yesterday that solves the problem of Dictate not working on the latest, top end, iMacs utilising the i5 or i7 Intel CPU chips.

So, if you’ve been waiting for this release or using the pseudo-microphone workaround you should install version 1.5.8 and get back on track.

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Path Finder by CocoaTech includes so many features which significantly enhance Finder that it is hard to imagine a power user who could not easily justify the $39.95 pricetag at the end of the 30 day free trial.

Features such as tabbed file browsing and a file bookmarking, dual pane file browser, the “drop stack” and the integrated compression engine all will make common activities quicker and easier — and that’s what it’s all about when it comes to utilities for your Mac.

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Every now and again I stumble across software which redefines a task or process in a way which goes completely against the norm, or which simply introduces a new productivity improvement. FlySketch is one such application … although I’m not sure that the developer (Flying Meat) actually intended the outcome that I’m about to describe.

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I have to admit to being a Safari convert. I now have my default browser set to Safari and use Firefox as a backup in a couple of situations.

• when I need to use firebug
• for a few administration sites which work best with Firefox

But, there are a few things that I needed to make this decision … I’ve already posted the primary tricks to force Safari to open new pages in tabs, and to always show the tab bar. Continue reading »

The MacHeist 3 Bundle is a way of getting nearly $700 worth of Mac software for just $39 AND 25% of that goes to charity.

At the time I am writing this, nearly 40,000 bundles have been sold which means that nearly $400,000 has been raised for the supported charities.

I would be surprised if you cannot find more than one application in the bundle which will be a welcome addition to your applications folder. And MacHeist even allow you to gift any of the applications in the bundle before you place your order!

I’m particularly looking forward to trying Kinemac, a 3D animation package.

Anyways, I strongly suggest that you check to see if the offer is still current.

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This post is being prepared entirely with MacSpeech Dictate. I have been waiting for my copy of this software from the local Apple reseller for over two weeks and I finally received the call yesterday to tell me that it was in the shop ready for pickup. In between meetings, I collected the software (which includes a quality USB headset and microphone) and have spent the last 10 minutes or so getting familiar with how it works and training the software to recognize my voice.

Now I am simply sitting in front of my MacBook Pro dictating this blog entry for you and being literally blown away by the quality of the software and its ease of use. To give you an example of what I mean. I told Dictate to use Australian English, and it is quite correctly using Australian spelling of words such as favourite. My spell checker, which I still haven’t convinced that I’m in Australia, is highlighting that word as being misspelt. In these first two paragraphs that is the only misspelt word, and I have not had to repeat or edit any of this text.

One of the things that I have long known about myself is that I am a far better speaker then typist. Some say I can talk for hours, but then bemoan the fact that it takes me two days to get around to typing a simple e-mail!

At $299 (Australian), Dictate could not be described as cheap. But then I am dictating at virtually normal speaking speed and it is having no trouble keeping up. Also, up to now, I have not laid a finger on the keyboard. Paragraphs, punctuation, editing, has all been undertaken simply via the microphone. As a bonus I can also start up applications using the microphone. And I’m sure that there will be many more features to this amazing software which I will discover it after reading the user manual tonight.

Using Dictate is also going to allow me to adopt one of the strongly recommended techniques of writing, particularly when publishing regularly. This is to write continuously, without editing, from the beginning to the end of a piece whether it be a simple blog entry or a chapter of an e-book. Once this is done return to the editing task. I am aware that one of the reasons for it taking too long for me to write via the keyboard, is that I cannot resist the temptation to edit “on the go”. Almost invariably this means that after a few paragraphs, I am totally bogged down with trying to make the words perfect and never actually get to the end of the piece that I’m writing.

In my days in the big corporate world, with a personal assistant, I dictated everything from the simplest memo to a 100 page report. Editing the dictated draft came afterwards. Now, even though I no longer have a personal assistant, I can emulate that workflow model of creating the entire piece by dictation and then return to edit mode.

If this workflow model sounds as if it could work for you, or if you have been even considering the possibility of speech recognition for your publishing, I cannot recommend MacSpeech Dictate more highly. This is true even though I cannot say that I am a vastly experienced user of the software. It’s just one of those rare applications which falls naturally into place, is completely intuitive and does exactly what it is supposed to do without fuss.

Now for a quick edit with the old keyboard and my post is published. Gleeful clapping is heard from the Editor’s Desk!

Oh, and here is a bonus – Get 10% off any purchase at MacSpeech.com when you use the coupon code DICTATE10!.

On holiday in Adelaide (that’s the capital of South Australia) I naturally had to keep my MacBook Pro and iPhone close by. Then, OmniFocus, one of the software demos I had installed early in the piece expired. As the developers would have hoped, I’ve already come to depend on OmniFocus to manage my daily workflow. It’s dead simple  to create quick reminders of things to do as a result of browsing and reading my daily emails.

Therefore, OmniFocus has become one of the first licenses I have purchased.
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