Yes, there is such a thing as a free launch
Everyone knows you can launch apps with Spotlight. Just tap Command-Spacebar, type in enough letters for Spotlight to find it, then hit enter. Why, then, are there so many launchers available that do much the same thing?
I can tell you why I started looking. It’s because Spotlight — at least on my iMac — often goes into a tailspin of a few seconds before it finds what I’m looking for. A few seconds is not much in the grand scheme of things, but the point of a shortcut is to make things faster.
Another problem with Spotlight is that it doesn’t seem to learn. I have to type “photosh” every time for it to make Photoshop the top hit.
So I took a look at some freeware launch apps for the Mac and tested each of them three ways: 1) Speed, 2) find and launch Photoshop, and 3) find and launch a file called pastorfile. For the sake of comparison, I’ve included Spotlight.
Here are the other apps I tried, divided between not recommended and recommended:
MOappsAppLauncher (not recommended)
Speed: Slow to launch and no indication that it is still starting up. You can wind up flailing away, trying to activate it, when it’s not yet ready.
Photoshop: Needed to type “ph” first time. Next time “p.”
pastorfile: Could not find it. (App launcher only.)
Namely (not recommended)
Speed: Initial launch takes a few seconds, but speedy after that.
Photoshop: Needed to type “photosh” first time. Next time “p.”
pastorfiile: Could not find it. (App launcher only.)
Launchy (not recommended)
Speed: Initial launch takes a few seconds, but speedy after that.
Photoshop: Needed to type “photosh” first time. Next time “ph.”
pastorfile: Could not find it. (Should launch files as well as apps.)
Chuck (not recommended)
Speed: Starts up and works quickly.
Photoshop: Needed to type “photosh” every time. Could set up “p” as shortcut.
pastorfile: Could not find it. (App launcher only.)
Google Quick Search Box (recommended, but barely)
Speed: Slow to launch.
Photoshop: Got it with “p” on second try.
pastorfile: Found it with navigation.
Quicksilver (recommended)
Speed: Initial launch takes a few seconds, but speedy after that.
Photoshop: Needed to type “photos” first time. Next time “ph.”
pastorfile: Found it with navigation. Can set up hotkey (e.g. Control-P).
Launcher (recommended)
Speed: Starts up and works quickly
Photoshop: Needed to type “photosh” every time. Could set up “p” as shortcut.
pastorfile: Could not find it. Could set up “pa” as shortcut.
Spotlight (recommended)
Speed: Can be speeded up by limiting searches in preferences
Photoshop: Must type “photosh” every time to make it top hit.
pastorfile: Must type “pastorf” every time to make it top hit.
Alfred (recommended)
Speed: Starts up and works quickly.
Photoshop: Got it with “p” on first try.
pastorfile: Found it. Can go directly to files by first tapping spacebar.
In the end, I went with Alfred. It learns fast and has a system for quickly finding files. It has the best chance of finding what you want with the fewest keystrokes. But I still like Spotlight for backup because I can absolutely count on it to find anything I’m looking for, including files and folders. I don’t yet have confidence that Alfred will do the same.
Alfred, of course, is just a personal preference for now. I like the way you can set up shortcuts in Launcher and hotkeys in Quicksilver — making both of these impressive alternatives. Also, if you’re looking for app launching only, I would go with Chuck. It’s very fast and has handy shortcuts.
Posted Friday, November 11, 2011 in Reviews
One to watch: Saluto
I’m leery of programs that try to roll all your social media into one place. They tend to be bloated and take all the fun out of it. Saluto, on the other hand, is nice and slim at version 0.0.1.
I signed into Twitter and Facebook with no problem. The catch is that you get the same interface that you would by going to the individual websites. That’s a bad thing if you’re expecting something fancy. It’s a good thing if you just want an easy-to-use, all-in-one app with no learning curve.
Also available are MySpace, Google Wave, Bebo and Blogger. OK — including Google Wave is bizarre since it’s no longer being developed. But Saluto is just taking its first baby steps, so give it some time. It has the potential to grow up into a fine, young app.
Posted Sunday, April 24, 2011 in Reviews
Sparrow Lite is too light for me
Now that there’s a Sparrow Lite, I decided to download it from the Mac App Store and see what all the fuss is about. It didn’t take long for me to fall in love with it.
Sparrow reminds me a lot of Twitter for Mac — small vertical window with icons down the side and a slick look that borrows heavily from iOS. It makes Apple’s built-in Mail program look cumbersome by comparison. But you can’t alway judge an app by its looks — as tempting as that may be. So what about features?
One of the things I like most about Mail is the rules you can set up in preferences. I use them to shuffle incoming mail into various boxes or into other accounts. It’s a handy way of sorting email before I look at it. That feature doesn’t even exist in the iPad version of Mail, let alone Sparrow.
I also wonder about spam. Sparrow allows you to mark mail as spam, but I could find nothing in the FAQ to indicate whether it “learns” spam they way Mail does so it can automatically be trashed.
One other feature in Mail that I like a lot is the ability to change your signature. I can use a friendly sig for friends and something more formal for business — all with the flip of a popdown menu. With Sparrow, you can change your signature in the preferences, but there is no convenient way of making the change when creating a message.
And of course with Sparrow Lite, you’re limited to just one account. That would never work for me because everyone here at thriftmac headquarters has their own account. I’m not averse to paying $9.99 for multiple accounts in the full version, but I’d also need some of the features currently found only in Mail.
One other note — Sparrow Lite (and Sparrow) currently only supports Gmail, but support for general IMAP is said to be coming soon. You should also know that Sparrow Lite is supported with ads.
I’m really looking forward to trying Sparrow again once it’s loaded up with features, but for now I’m sticking with Mail
Posted Saturday, February 26, 2011 in Reviews
In praise of Alarm Clock
Twice my forgetfulness has caught up with me. Alarm Clock has come to the rescue once and I expect it will do so again. In gratitude, I have added this great app to Scrimpy’s Picks.
In the first instance, I forgot to pick up the kids after school. This is something I used to do every day before starting my evening shift at work. But now that I work a day shift, I have to remember to stop what I’m doing and get away from the office. Needless to say, I got busy one day and the next thing I knew I was getting calls from the school and the daycare centre.
I would have forgotten again the next day if I had not installed Alarm Clock. This nifty little guy sits in your menu bar and lets you set up alarms, timers and stopwatches in ways that are highly configurable. Your reminder takes the form of a classic beeper or the music of your choice from your Mac’s library. A semi-transparent bevel with the time also shows up and allows you to stop the alarm or snooze. I set it to go off Tuesday to Friday at 2:20 p.m. (my wife takes care of Mondays), and I was glad I did. I don’t want to relive the trauma.
The second instance was when I forgot a haircut appointment. That one wasn’t so bad, because I simply rebooked. But I’m getting pretty shaggy, so I turned to Alarm Clock to ensure I don’t forget again. It’ll go off next Saturday at 12:15 p.m. Chances are that I’ll be somewhere near the computer and either hear it or see it.
Alarm Clock is getting a little long in the tooth, but it still looks good and works great. Download it here.
Posted Saturday, January 22, 2011 in Reviews
A first look at Twitter for Mac
I have to admit I was among those skeptical about an update to Tweetie. Back in November, I even went so far as to recommend alternatives. How wrong I was.
The Mac App Store opened today, and right at the top of the free section — along with glowing reviews — is Twitter for Mac. It’s no longer called Tweetie. My first impression is that the interface is drop-dead gorgeous, but I do have a few nits to pick.
The first thing I wanted to do was move the window to a more convenient spot — I prefer the upper-right corner of my Mac’s screen. But where do you grab it? Tweetie has a nice fat bar across the top that’s easy to hit. Twitter for Mac has reduced this to a tiny grey strip that blends in with the tweets below. You can grab onto the sidebar, but be careful you don’t click on one of the widgets by mistake.
Another thing I like about Tweetie was that clicking on its menu bar icon brought it to the front or hid it. For me, an easy way to hide the constant stream of tweets is important, because it can be a real distraction. With Twitter for Mac, you’re forced to hide the app the old-fashioned way — right-click on the icon in the dock and choose Hide. The icon in the menu bar actually repeats functionality available in the app’s main interface. Update: I just noticed you can change this in the preferences. My bad.
On the other hand, Twitter for Mac addresses a problem that always bugged me in Tweetie. I would often open the little window to write a tweet, then switch to another app so I could find a web address or other info that I wanted to copy into the tweet. But when I switched back to Tweetie, the tweet window would be lost in the background. It’s not a big thing, but kind of annoying. With Twitter for Mac, that little window stays in the front no matter what.
Once I’ve had a chance to dive into more of Twitter for Mac, I may have more to say. In the meantime, I’m left wonder whether the app is available exclusively at the Mac App Store. I wasn’t able to find it anywhere else. It’s possible that Apple made an exclusivity deal with Twitter. It would be a great way (from their point of view) of encouraging people to try out the store. I know it worked on me.
Posted Thursday, January 6, 2011 in Reviews
Kod proves there is no end to innovation in text editors
In some ways, a text editor is about as basic as you can get. You type words (or bits of code) and they appear in a window. Compared with a word processor, formatting is limited. There is no such thing as spell check.
What makes them special is that they are used to create the very foundations of almost everything we do on computers. They are used by programmers to build the the apps we work with. They are used by coders to create the websites we visit. And the people who do all this programming and coding are constantly looking for ways to improve their craft and the work environment in which they implement it.
On the Mac, we are lucky to have at least a couple of good freeware text editors: TextWrangler and Smultron (recently forked as Fraise). There are also some excellent paid apps: the powerful BBEdit and TextMate, and the innovative Coda and Espresso. I’ve tried them all and find each to be superb in its own way. I was lucky enough to have an employer pay for my original copy of BBEdit, and it is the text editor I keep coming back to.
Still, I can’t help being curious when I learn of a new text editor under development. Such is the case with Kod (pronounced “code”). This open source effort is spearheaded by Swedish designer Rasmus Andersson. He worked for Spotify and has moved on to a position with Facebook.
Kod is interesting because it is an honest effort to build something new — “from scratch,” as he puts it. Given that text editors with a ton of features already exist, this makes Kod a huge challenge. It is currently in beta at version 0.0.2, but even now incorporates a look-and-feel you might expect from a designer: Chrome-inspired tabs, elegant shades of gray, an iOS-style scroll bar.
As for features, there are already people who feel Kod is good enough that they have decided to make it their default editor. Just have a look at the comments in this Google Group. As for me, I was impressed by the ability to tear off a tab and move it to a different window. But I gave up trying to figure out how to use the sidebar — I get the feeling it’s not quite ready for prime time.
If you’re at all interested in checking out new text editors, or even just enjoy seeing what developers are doing to break new ground, then Kod is well worth a download.
Posted Wednesday, January 5, 2011 in Reviews
FountainPen's backdrops block out distractions
I’m used to writing in a place where there is plenty of distraction — people talking, phones ringing, scanner blaring. Sometimes the TV or a radio will be on. Still, I’m intrigued by developers who claim to have a program that provides distraction-free writing.
The latest is FountainPen. It’s a nice little app with a pretty interface, and a pleasure to use. It helps block diversions with the use of a backdrop. This is akin to a desktop picture that goes over top of your regular desktop to hide other programs you have open or the files and folders you have strewn about your workspace. It also removes the dock from view. Several backdrops are included, but you can also drag and drop your own.
Being a bit of a skeptic, I wondered if a backdrop was really necessary. In order to get a backdrop, you have to open FountainPen’s preferences and check a box. But why not simply pull down the app’s menu and choose Hide Others? Yes, good old Hide Others — a feature that’s been available in every Mac program for as long as I can remember. Unfortunately, it doesn’t help if you have a messy desktop, so a backdrop does have its place.
I tried using the backdrop while writing this article in FountainPen, but found it frustrating when I wanted to access my Mac’s desktop. FountainPen’s backdrop remains in place, covering any files or folders you have on your desktop, even when you switch to another app or the Finder. The only way to get around this (that I could find) was to hide FountainPen. I’m not sure if this is a compromise I want to make.
Also worth mentioning is that your writing is automatically saved in a central location. If you want a separate file, you must output the text as HTML (using Markdown) or Rich Text. In the case of this article, I simply copied and pasted the text into the Textpattern interface that thriftmac is based on.
Aside from the promise of no distractions, there are other features that should be noted. For example, FountainPen’s choice of fonts and colours have an inspirational level of sophistication. Plus, you can set goals for yourself, such as the number of words you’ll write in a set amount of time. For some people, this is a good way of imposing self-discipline.
And in the end, self-discipline is what it’s really all about. A computer program can only do so much — your success as a writer will depend mainly on the mental ability you develop to focus on the task at hand.
Posted Wednesday, December 29, 2010 in Reviews
Taking out the trash
We now have three freeware apps listed for cleanup when you delete a program. Many programs have preferences, plists and whatnot associated with them. If you simply delete a program, these will be left behind. Typically they take up very little space, but they can add up after awhile if you’re doing a lot of downloading.
The latest addition to the thriftmac collection is TrashMe — listed as an Also Try under AppCleaner along with AppTrap. What makes it a little different is that it can scour your Mac and find orphan files. These are files that are not associated with any program and could be tossed out. TrashMe found 477 of these guys on my Mac.
Many of them were prefs for long-forgotten programs that I checked out and discarded. With TrashMe, I can go through the list, click on the ones I don’t want, and delete them. With hundreds of files to go through, it would be tempting to simply trash them all. But you never know — some of them might be vital files that were listed erroneously.
In any case, if you have yet to find the ideal freeware uninstall helper, TrashMe is definitely worth a look.
Posted Wednesday, December 8, 2010 in Reviews
One to watch: Gruml
When it comes to free newsreaders for the Mac, there are really only two that matter: the ad-supported NetNewsWire and Vienna. But these days it’s becoming common for people to access the news from several devices: iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, laptop, computer at home, computer at work — and on it goes.
That’s why the ability to sync with Google Reader gives NetNewsWire a distinct advantage. Vienna is a great app that equals NetNewsWire in many ways, but its inability to sync between devices is a serious shortcoming.
One solution would be to use one of half-a-dozen Safari extensions available to enhance Google Reader, and be done with the desktop. I can’t quite bring myself to go this route — it just seems awkward — so I was pleased to find that development of Gruml continues apace.
This Google Reader for the Mac has been in beta for at least a year, and as such has been free for some time. The interface is similar to what you’re likely used to in NetNewsWire or Vienna. Feeds are listed on a sidebar to the left, headlines are in a top panel to the right, and articles are shown below right. (In fact, some of the widgets used in Gruml are identical to those used in Vienna.)
While still rough around the edges, Gruml makes a valiant attempt to outdo its competitors. In addition to starring or flagging an item, you can also “like” it, although the difference may be too nuanced for some users. Much more interesting is the ability to tweet an article. Just click the tweet button and you can post to Twitter with a headline that can be edited.
You can also send articles to a host of other social sites ranging from Buzz to Tumblr, or dash it off in an email. In my testing, all of these services appeared to work fine. You can also post to your blog with helper apps such as MarsEdit.
NetNewsWire offers some of these abilities, but the lack of a Twitter function is a glaring omission if you consider its popularity.
Documentation for Gruml is skimpy at this point, so it’s not clear how some features work. For example, I’m not sure what to make of sections for “People you follow” and “Recommended items.”
Gruml holds much promise, and I look forward to the day when all the bugs are worked out. Meanwhile, it’s quite usable as-is if you’re attracted to the extra features and you’re willing to overlook its flaws. Also, and this is a big one for some people, there are no ads.
Posted Tuesday, August 31, 2010 in Reviews
One to watch: Babble
With all the Twitter clients out there, it’s hard to find one that stands out from the crowd — even if you narrow it down to freeware. So it was nice to come across Babble, a program that combines feeds from both Twitter and Facebook.
The interface is similar to what you’re likely used to in apps such as Tweetie. The big difference is that there is a separate tab for Facebook. In our tests, we found that Twitter worked as expected with all the usual features. What’s nice is that if you double-click your way into another timeline, it shows up as a new tab.
The stumbling block was the Facebook tab. We were able to gain access to the thriftmac account without any trouble, but nothing showed up in the timeline. Babble is still in beta, so bugs are expected. On the other hand, Facebook doesn’t exactly have a sterling reputation, so it could be a problem at their end.
Babble is at version 0.9.60, and if it remains free would be a great alternative to apps such as Socialite that combine social networks in one place.
Posted Thursday, August 26, 2010 in Reviews
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You'll find nothing here but 100 per cent, totally free software for Mac. There are no demos, no crippleware, no "freemiums." The only exceptions are for programs supported by tasteful ads. In some cases, developers ask for a donation — and we encourage you to make one if you find the program useful. Let us know if you find an app here that is not totally free, and we'll delete it. And if there is a program that deserves to be here — but isn't — we'd like to hear about that, too.
