Learning OS X

LaunchBar is a kick ass OS X application. How’s that for a lead-in?

So now that I have your attention, I have to tell you about my new favorite OS X application. LaunchBar is a swiss army knife application launcher. If you have used Quicksilver to quickly launch applications on your Mac, you should know that the original author of Quicksilver now recommends LaunchBar.

LaunchBar gives you instant access to files, applications, bookmarks, address book entries, basically anything you might need quick access to throughout your day, all without lifting your hands from the keyboard.

Rather than spend time reinventing the wheel. This post shows some tutorials from the a German blogger which should give you some sense of the power of LaunchBar.

This first video gives you an overview of LaunchBar, compares it to Quicksilver and explores some of it’s main features.

For the rest of the series, check out his blog.

Updated Jan 2010 – This used to be a list of my 10 favorite apps, I find I’m using a lot more each day to make my life easier.

After you have time to play around with the applications built into the Mac, you might be wondering what else is out there. Here is my list of essential applications that I use everyday to make my Macbook more productive.

• Adium – great cross platform messaging client. I prefer it to iChat because it cleanly manages all my accounts
• Cyberduck – FTP application. If you manage a website you are going to want this program
• Things – an awesome task list application. It’s great if you follow the GTD methodology. I’ve tried dozens of todo list applications and this one is the best
• Anki – Flash card program that uses spaced repetition to help you remember your facts
• Screenflick – inexpensive screencasting software. I use it to create the videos for this site
• Seesmic – very cleanly designed Flickr desktop client. There are many of these programs, I liked the interface for this one
• TweetDeck – I’ve dumped Seesmic for Tweet Deck, I like the layout and the support for multiple accounts
• Transmission – Bittorrent client, download content from the Internet, fast.
• VLC – if you download a video using Transmission and you need to play it, this application plays everything
• 1Password – great password manager, integrates with Firefox and Safari to keep all your passwords in a encrypted safe
• Quicksilver – great companion to Spotlight. Use Quicksilver to launch applications and run scripts without lifting your hands from the keyboard
• LaunchBar – took over the duties of Quicksilver. Quicksilver, you were fun but sadly, you’re not well supported anymore. LaunchBar was endorsed by the original creator of Quicksilver and it rocks. Allows you to drive your Mac without using the mouse. Get, Love it.
• VMWare Fusion – As much as I love OSX, I still occasionally need to run Windows applications. VMWare Fusion is the way to do it.
• Unison – This is a great program for downloading binaries from USENET news groups. It’s really cool because it supports NZB files. If you don’t know what any of this means, check out newzbin.com.
• Mac Office – the king of all office suites. I use it everyday and well, it’s really the best player out there.

If you have any favorite Mac applications that you can’t live without, tell us about them.

You might read this and think that this site has become a marketing arm for 1Password. No, it’s not but yes, I love this application that much. It integrates so well with OS X and I use it every day to keep track of all of my passwords, frequent flyer clubs, etc.

I was browsing through the iTunes store last night when I discovered that the 1Password folks are giving away the Pro version of 1Password for the iPhone (iTunes Link). This is a temporary offer good only until December first so, if you have an iPhone and want to keep your passwords sync’d between devices download this application today.

I’ve talked about how much I like 1Password, the password manager and automated form filler, before. Now, version 3 is out and it looks to be a great improvement over it’s earlier versions.

The new version of 1Password boasts over 50 new features, some of the highlights include:

• Password Anywhere which lets you securely use a web version of 1Password, storing your keys on an encrypted flash drive.
• A Software license organizer, so you can keep all of those pesky software licenses out of your email and in something secure
• The ability to edit your password items right from your browser
• Tagging to help you keep your passwords organized

All in all, a great looking release with some really cool new features. Do yourself a favor, pickup this software. It will keep your passwords safe and keep you from having to remember them all.

Alfredo Padillia over at The Apple Blog have begun a discussion around whether or not web based software will lead him away from a Mac. I’ve thought about this a lot over the last few months and I used to think the same thing. Now I’m not so sure.

Cloud computing, the idea of running all of your applications on the web, sounds like a great concept. The author’s notion of cloud computing is that all of the applications he uses are browser based. His examples are GMail, Google Reader, Remember The Milk, etc. While these applications are indeed running “in the cloud” I think it’s the wrong way to look at things.

The problem with web applications is not that they aren’t powerful enough to get the job done, it’s that they don’t operate efficiently together. I tried using the Google suite of applications. They are nice, but god forbid if you want to integrate them into anything else. I tried for months to come up with a solution for synchronizing my Google Address Book, GMail and GCal to my iPhone. There are some hacks to do it but in the end, I settled on using Spanning Sync with Address Book and iCal to keep my Mac client apps in sync and iTunes to sync those to my iPhone. Another great example is bookmarks. If I need to go to a specific website, am I going to go the the delicious website first or will I use the delicious plugin for Firefox. The plugin has a much tighter integration.

Where cloud computing shines is the idea of a ubiqitous data store. I like that I can drop ont a friends PC and in a pinch, check my calendar, or email. It doesn’t mean I still miss the convienience of interoperability between these applications. Standards based data formats will give me the best of both worlds and when we get there, cloud computing my finally get some legs.