Mac Reviews

TypeIt4Me expands your abbreviations as you type, and works in all applications, not just one. It also lets you define meaningful abbreviations, so you can type them naturally, as part of your writing, without memorizing – or reaching for – obscure ctrl-cmd-xyz combinations.

Born in 1989, TypeIt4Me is still a teenager youthful 20 in human years, yet old & mature in Mac years.

No matter how much you type, I’ll save you wear and tear on those wrists & fingers.

• Never type your full name or email signature again;

• Never hunt around for that standard contract clause;

• Type a short abbreviation and have it expand to a word, a phrase, even several pages worth of text (with pictures, too);

• Trigger AppleScripts with your abbreviations instead of reaching for a menu or pressing obscure keyboard combinations.

Anytime you enter text in your Mac by typing it at the keyboard, TypeIt4Me can help you do it faster and more accurately. First you define a number of abbreviations and the full text entries that they represent, then you watch the Mac expand them on the fly even as you continue typing.

New in version 4.1:

TypeIt4Me 4.1 provides one new feature: a filter field just under the list of clippings in the system prefs panel:

Typing text in it will filter the list of abbreviations to show only those which include the typed text in either the abbreviation or the clipping.

For example:

Gives me:

System requirements:
Mac OS X 10.4 or later

System Support:
PPC/Intel

$27.00 Shareware

For more information, visit:
http://ettoresoftware.com/EttoreSoftware/About_TypeIt4Me.hl

[via AppleLink]

LogMeIn connects you to your desktop from anywhere in the world. What a rush!

The iPhone is a small computer in your pocket. But what if you need access to your actual computer–the one you left at home or the office? Maybe there’s a file you need to view, a program you need to run, or even a machine that needs troubleshooting. Whatever the case, LogMeIn Ignition makes that connection from afar.

The iPhone version of the popular remote-desktop service accesses your system (or a consenting friend’s) remotely. Once connected, you get complete control over the machine, just as though you were sitting in front of it. Of course, you have to operate within the crowded confines of the iPhone’s smallish screen and work without a physical keyboard or mouse. LogMeIn offers good alternatives to those devices, and except for a few bugs and input issues, it expertly handles virtual networking computing (VNC).

You’ll need to install software on the remote computers, then enter your LogMeIn password and computer password to connect. An on-screen keyboard easily translates key input, and Windows users can send Alt-Tab and Ctrl-Alt-Del commands. However, we couldn’t get similar application-swapping and force-quit commands to work on Macs.
Mouse control is trickier. By default, LogMeIn employs a screen-moving method; the mouse pointer stays fixed in the center of the iPhone, and the desktop scrolls underneath it as you drag around with your finger. To click a menu on the remote computer, you drag the menu to the pointer rather than the pointer to the menu. It sounds backwards, but it’s effective in practice. (Or you can switch to a traditional mouse-movement style.)
You can zoom in and out on the desktop with quick, familiar finger-pinches. The only real navigation problem is scrolling within documents; you’re supposed to use a “two-finger drag” to approximate a mouse wheel, but we just couldn’t get this to work well.

We also encountered frequent “low memory” messages when starting LogMeIn, and the program often crashed shortly after connecting to our remote desktop. Fortunately, an iPhone reboot seemed to solve these issues, at least temporarily.
LogMeIn Ignition supports Edge, 3G, and Wi-Fi connections, and in our tests it worked smoothly over all three (though EDGE was a bit sluggish at times). Even with the bugs, it’s an incredibly handy tool for your iPhone arsenal.

THE BOTTOM LINE

A no-brainer for existing LogMeIn users and an attractive option for everyone else, LogMeIn Ignition puts your (remote) desktop in the palm of your hand.

LogMeIn Ignition 1.1.85
COMPANY: LogMeIn
CONTACT: www.logmein.com
PRICE: $29.99
REQUIREMENTS: iPhone or iPod touch with 2.0 software update.

[via MacLife]

Find Any File 1.0.2 is a free program for Mac OS 10.4 and later that lets you search for files on your disks, primarily on HFS formatted ones.

Contrary to Spotlight, it does not use a database but instead uses the file system driver’s fast search operations.

This lets you search for file properties such as name, dates, size, etc., but not for file content (use Spotlight for that)!
Find Any File can find files that Spotlight doesn’t, e.g. those inside bundles and packages and in inside folders that are excluded from Spotlight search (i.e. system files), and Find Any File is fast. Not always as fast as Spotlight, but faster than other, similar file search tools you might find for the Mac.

Features

Find Any File has a few hidden gems:

1. If you hold the Option key down while choosing Find, you are asked for an administrator password – and then Find Any File will restart with root permissions, being able to find really any file on your Mac’s volumes (something that Spotlight won’t do).

2. It sports a new hierarchical view for the found items. You can switch to it using Command-2 or click on the right little icon at the top of the results window.

3. You can save your entered searches to files (they’ll have the extension “.faf”). You can later open them again from within the Find Any File application, or you can double click them in the Finder – in the latter case the search will automatically start, unless you hold down the Option key while Find Any File opens the document.

Limitations

This tool’s design was inspired by the Classic Mac OS’ Find File application, hence its UI design might look a little old fashioned. And the Icons aren’t snazzy, either.

Using this tool on volumes that are not Mac (HFS, HFS+) formatted, including network volumes, may not work well – or even not at all. You’ll notice. This won’t change – it’s the nature of this program to depend on the efficient search operations designed for HFS volumes.

The user interface of this app gets sluggish when it’s performing a search. This is mostly out of my control, as this app is written in REALbasic, which has a rather unsatisfying multi-threading implementation.

Key Features:
• Can search as root user
• Saveable queries
• Folder view for results

New in version 1.0.2:
Move to Trash works now; volume selection is observed with root search and saved searches; results update after moving items.

System requirements:
Mac 10.4 or later

Freeware

For more information, visit:
http://apps.tempel.org/FindAnyFile/

CaptureIt! is the amazing screen capture tool that you never seen before.

Forgot about complex shortcuts and your crossed and tired the poor fingers…

Just run CaptureIt! and make your task faster than ever by using the magic of user friendly interface!



You can make a screenshot, record a movie and export it to various formats (even for iPhone and YouTube).



You can record all your screen activity to demonstrate it in the future; for example, you could do virtual courses, record your game play to show your skills to your friends.



CaptureIt! for Mac is available as shareware version.

You can use the shareware version for free during a 15-day trial period.

The shareware version has a watermark that will be removed after buying a license.

FinderClean 2.0.2 (from the creator of the excellent application IceClean) is a free and powerful Finder optimization tool for  Leopard Only.

FEATURES

• Rebuild Finder Menu Items
• Turn Your Dashboard On Or Off
• Three Spotlight Features
• Show Hidden FIles and Folders
• Force Relaunch Your Dock
• Show Finder Quit Item
• Force Empty Trash
• Completely Remove .DS_Store Files
• Desktop Screenshot Capture Support
• Much More

Download