Utilities
My screenshot secret weapon: Skitch
The Skitch interface is intuitive and just complex enough. You can't retouch a photo in Skitch, but resizing or cropping is a snap. Skitch sports a handy -- and relatively full featured -- editor. It takes just a couple of clicks to quickly crop or resize, and to highlight, annotate and scribble on your photos or screen grabs.
I love the little touches with Skitch. Edits are never destructive. Everything can be undone, or deleted, or edited later. When post a screenshot it is saved to your history with layers, so you can come back later and remix things as you wish.
Perhaps the best feature of Skitch is the integral upload capability. A single click posts your image to Skitch's own sharing service, or to Flickr, or to an FTP server you control. Once it's uploaded, one more click copies the link, all formatted and ready to paste in an email message or blog post.
Skitch is a neat little package that captures my entire screen grab workflow from start to finish.
Get Skitch
If you need a little more convincing, check out this killer screencast (courtesy of the Plasq/Skitch crew):
Layers is the coolest screenshot app I've ever used
Don't get me wrong, I still use Skitch1 for quick and dirty screenshots and annotations. In fact, I use it more than Layers. But Layers gets my vote for coolest screenshot app of all time.
Everything. On. Your. Screen. Is. A. Photoshop. Layer.
Do I need to say anything else? Try it yourself, they have a free trial.
- 1. The observant among you will note that I wrote this review before I wrote about Skitch. Isn't retroactive continuity great?
This tip calculator isn't ugly, doesn't suck to use.
I'd tip that.
Tipulator is a cute little tip calculator and bill splitter by a rad company called Tap Tap Tap. I don't usually pull it out unless I'm splitting a particularly hideous bill, but it has come in handy a few times. I'm personally keeping an eye out for their grocery list app as well.
Stage Hand makes Mac Keynote presentations seamless.
"Get a remote" is one of Seth Godin's Nine Steps to Powerpoint Magic. But what if you don't use PowerPoint?
Stage Hand is the ultimate Keynote remote. It shows you slide notes and previews, keeps a timer, and lets you jump around your presentation with ease. I used this app for my last presentation, and it made the whole thing not just seamless, but amazing.
Jaadu is my desktop Mac's missing multitouch touchpad.
You might not like this as much as I do, but it's really stinkin' cool. With this software, you can use your touch screen as a touch pad or remote for your Mac. You can control movies or iTunes with a touch. I love this one, but YMMV.
If this app sounds cool, but you don't think you'll use the full functionality, check out Jaadu Click. It does a lot of the remote functionality, but is significantly cheaper. It's also a great way to test the app before dropping a handful of cash for the full meal deal.
Evernote's native iPhone app isn't too shabby.
Evernote is a cool system that lets you keep photos, notes, thoughts and more all in one online profile, which you can access from the web, or via a native app on your iPhone, iTouch or your Mac or PC. This app integrates well with Evernote. If you're an Evernote user, or you think you might be, this program is for you1.
Get Evernote for iPhone/iTouch
- 1. I just couldn't give this app more <3 because I'm not fully converted to Evernote in general. I'll get back to you once I've done more than poke at it.
Create cross-platform synergy with Synergy.
If you ever use more than one computer on the same desk, you need Synergy. Synergy is a protocol that allows several computers to seamlessly share the same keyboard and mouse. It's cross platform: I use it to control my Mac laptop, a desktop PC running Windows and a Linux box. I plop my laptop down on the desk, it automatically connects to my desktop computer, and I can use it just as easily as I would a second monitor.
The protocol is really slick. Once it is configured, move your mouse to the edge of the screen and the cursor jumps to the next computer. Keyboard control and window focus follow the mouse. It even shares your clipboard—you can copy something on one computer and paste it on the next. On most platforms Synergy can synchronize screen savers and sleep as well. Check out this quality illustration of the idea:
Image source: synergy2.sourceforge.net
Since Synergy is a protocol rather than a program, there are quite a few apps to use with it. I wouldn't use the official Synergy application on any platform other than Windows. Here are some great alternatives:
On a Mac, I recommend installing SynergyKM. It provides an easy to use preference pane, a graphical tool for aligning displays, and sweet keyboard remapping, so your ⌃, ⌥, ⌘ and Windows keys get along, no matter which keyboard or operating system you're using. It supports multiple profiles, so you can set your laptop up for home and work. It even claims to use Bonjour to automatically configure client computers1.
Linux configuration can get a bit tricky. The command line version gives you the greatest control, but takes a .conf file or two to get going. If you're not feeling up to that, check out QuickSynergy, a GTK 2 app that makes configuring Synergy a breeze. To automatically start Synergy when you boot up (or log in) check out this guide.
QuickSynergy sources and distro-specific instructions here
Image source: quicksynergy.sourceforge.net
And for the unfortunate Windows users, check out the official Synergy2 application. It works great on anything >= Windows 95, so if your computer has a mouse you should be set…
- 1. But that hasn't worked out for me yet. YMMV.
You need Growl notifications.
If there's one utility that should be installed on every Mac, it is Growl. Growl provides a unified system notification interface. By itself, it does nothing. But it allows all other apps to interact with the user in a clean and consistent manner. Growl is inherently Maclike, as it creates a consistent, attractive and unobtrusive way to let you know what's going on with your whole system.
Growl settings are almost too customizable, allowing each user to define exactly how notifications should appear and act. Notification styles range from small bezel windows to giant marquees to synthesized speech. Notifications can even be enabled, disabled or customized on a per-application basis. Check out some of the stock Growl themes. If none of those quite do it for you, choose from an extensive collection of third-party skins, or even create your own!
But just because you can tweak it doesn't mean you need to. Apps that use Growl "just work" out of the box. Once you install Growl you will be surprised how many of your applications already support it. The list of applications currently supporting Growl is huge: everything from download notices to incoming messages to update notifications are delivered via Growl. Growl "Extras" also exist for Mail.app, iTunes, hardware notifications1 and lots of other system apps.
- 1. HardwareGrowler saves you from yourself by growling when your flash drive has finished mounting or unmounting.
Jumpcut keeps your clipboard around a little longer.
One of my biggest problems with the "clipboard" paradigm is that it only holds on to the last thing I clipped. I'm forever forgetting that I just clipped something I wanted, and haphazardly replacing it by copying something new1.
Jumpcut gives the OS X clipboard a healthy sense of history. It's a simple little menu extra2 that keeps track of a configurable amount of recent clippings, just a hotkey or a mouse click away. If the top of the screen is too far, you can hit ⌃⌥V to pop up a bezel window that pages through all your recent snips. This slick little app has become an indispensable part of my workflow.
