Pixelmator Winners

Congratulations to Oliver and Anna for winning the Pixelmator license giveaway. Thank you to everyone for participating and a big thank you to the folks at Pixelmator for their generosity.

Google Reader to Evernote Tango

While there is no doubt Evernote is an amazing bit of technology, I've never been quite sure what to do with it. Nevertheless, with their recent addition of OCR on uploaded PDF documents (paid accounts only), I'm starting to warm up to it. Today I discovered you can also send clippings right from Google Reader. It appears I may be rethinking some of my cloud storage and increasing my usage of Evernote.

iPhone Satisfaction

Today AppleInsider reports on a 99% satisfaction rate with the iPhone 3gs. I am not surprised. My new phone has been fantastic. The increased speed is great for games and even better for OmniFocus. Likewise there are a lot of other small tweaks that demonstrate Apple is trying to refine and perfect the product.

I know Apple has taken a beating over the App Store lately. I really took offense to the Ninja Words dictionary modifications. However, looking at the above numbers just reminds me that so much of these complaints are merely the ramblings of the digirati. I think even Apple now agrees the App Store needs work but how many "normal" iPhone users even know that Google Voice exists? I simply don't see a mass exodus of iPhone developers. There are too many devices sold and too much money to make.

Perhaps even more important, Apple needs to rethink its carrier relationship. Never again should it be at the mercy of a carrier with unreasonable demands and inadequate networks. I see the failings of AT&T as the single largest vulnerability to the iPhone. The good news is there are some very smart people at Apple even more intensely aware of this than I.

Regardless, with customer satisfaction of 99%, I don't think the sky is falling just yet.

TextExpander Signature Redux

The MacLitigator, an excellent blog for Mac Lawyers, has an interesting post about using TextExpander for your signature on mail that requires you to lick a stamp.

MercuryMover Review

I am most certainly what you would call a keyboard jockey. As much as I like my mouse, I'd prefer to keep working on the keyboard. One task that, until recently, always took a bit of mouse work was the process of sizing and moving windows. That was, until I discovered Helium Foot Software's MercuryMover.

MercuryMover is a preference pane that enables keyboard shortcuts to move and resize windows directly from your keyboard. While I found the default keyboard shortcuts to work for me, you can easily change them to suit your needs.

Once activated, you can resize and move your windows on the fly in 1, 10, and 100 pixel increments. If you go overboard and overshoot your window movement, there is undo support. I particularly like the shortcuts that allow you to slam a window into a border or center it on your screen. Both of these are instantly useful on a laptop. This is also very helpful on those occaisions where you have a window nearly off screen and no "handle" to grab with the mouse.

If you have particular sizes of windows, you can save them as a preset. This feature is very helpful if you have different configurations in certain applications. For instance, in Keynote I normally run it in two sizes: a large size that fills the screen and a smaller one that affords room for inspectors and other applications. Using the hot key presets I can force the application into these predefined configurations with just a few keystrokes. This sets the window exactly where I want it in a fraction of the time it takes to accomplish driving a mouse.

I have been running it on two Macs for three weeks and experienced no stability problems. It has no troubles with multiple displays.

The tipping point is the fact that you have to memorize a few hot keys. If you are a fellow keyboard jockey, that shouldn't be a problem. If you'd rather reach for the mouse, this one isn't for you. After using it for a few weeks, it has become second nature to me and is much faster than my prior methods involving rodents.

A license is $20 and can be obtained from Helium Foot Software. There is a free trial so give it a try and see if it helps you.

You can listen to this review on the Mac ReviewCast, # 220.

Mac Power Users 8: Backup!

Mac Power Users, episode 8, published over the weekend. This one is all about backup. Get it before it's too late.

Text Expander E-Mail Signature Mojo

I love hearing from readers and listeners with interesting questions. Recently, reader Teri wrote asking about how to make clickable links using TextExpander for an e-mail signature. I have been doing this for some time by using the entire link. For instance up until very recently, part of my e-mail signature looked like this:

Teri's question was whether, using TextExpander, she could put a link in without spelling out the link specifically. Turns out you can.

The trick is:

1. Enable Formatted Text and Pictures with the snippet:

2. Type out the entire Link:

3. Context Click and Create URL

4. Go Into the Created Link and Edit the Text

5. Customize the Text

Set your fonts and colors. Here is my final product.

Thanks to the gang at SmileOnMyMac for helping me sort this out and for their continuing effort on TextExpander.

MacSparky Shop

I'm getting ready to pay for another year of hosting fees and related expenses and finally got around to setting up an Amazon associate account.

I've installed a widget that allows you to purchase Snow Leopard upgrade on the sidebar and a separate page, appropriately called "Shop" with some of my favorite software and hardware. If people show interest, I will begin adding other products. Please don't feel compelled to shop here. If you do want any of these products, however, buying them through my link does help support the site. Thanks.

Pixelmator Giveaway

The nice folks at Pixelmator, the fantastic photo and graphics app I reviewed a few weeks ago, have agreed to give away two licenses to MacSparky readers. If you are interested, send me an e-mail with the words "Pixelmator Contest" in the title. Please only one entry per person. I'll announce the contest winners in a week. In the meantime, go download the Pixelmator demo and make something beautiful.

Apple Scores High Marks in Tech Support

Another reason to switch. The next time someone complains to you about Apple prices, have them spec out a system with the same components on Dell. Then have them add the price of Apple's built in software. If there is a price difference at that point (there may not be) ask them how much they like spending hours on the phone with tech support.