Tag: alfred

Alfred for Mac

Alfred for Mac has been available for nearly a year but I only recently tried it via the Mac App Store. It’s a productivity tool in the mould of the much loved Quicksilver and more recently Launchbar. Alfred can be used to quickly launch any application, find documents on your computer or quickly launch web shortcuts plus a whole lot more.

Alfred is still called a beta but it’s been rock solid so far in my usage. Downloading the free version from the App Store brings with it a host of functionality. Alfred is called via a keyboard shortcut which can be chosen by the user. I always use cmd+space for my launcher applications. So typing cmd+space opens the Alfred window and from there I can search for applications and files on my local machine or on the web. For example, type 1p and Alfred will start to list files matching the text 1p. As I’ve launched 1Password before, Alfred will present that as my favourite result.

If I don’t want to launch 1Password I can tap down through the returned results via he arrow keys or I can use cmd+number to open another file, contact etc. This allows for very quick searching and launching of applications and files. On a file or contact returned in Alfred I can press the right arrow key to conduct a series of actions – launch file, mail file, delete file etc. Alfred will never replace the finder for me but for seeking out a file to edit or mail on to a friend it’s far quicker than the default Mac tools. The free tool also comes with a calculator and spell checker as well as a variety of built in web searches. Type google searchterm and a Google search will be run for the given searchterm, opening in a new tab in your default browser. Custom searches can also be added so it’s easy to add a shortcut for Bing Images for example. As a free tool it’s great but there’s also a paid option for Alfred – the Alfred Powerpack.

The powerpack isn’t available via the App store as in app purchasing isn’t supported yet. Instead, buy the powerpack from the Alfred website for £12 and you unlock a far more feature rich tool. Fallback searching (if nothing is found then search via Google) is added plus the ability to e-mail form Alfred. However the bigger additions are iTunes and Clipboard extensions.

An iTunes mini player allows you to search and control iTunes not only selecting music and the usual play/pause controls but also rate music as well. A more useful feature is Clipboard History and Snippets. Launched via a separate shortcut or by typing snip within Alfred, the snippets extension will show you your clipboard history allowing you to easily copy old clipboard entries to application. Snippets allow you to setup a library of snippets for commonly entered text. I find that really useful for the podcast – I have path entries, twitter text, iTunes boilerplate text entered as snippets so I can paste them in when required.

Alfred is not only a very functional app but looks good with it as well. The original Quicksilver always looked great and although Launchbar is functionally more rich that both Quicksilver and Alfred, I find the performance of Alfred coupled with the better design to be much better (might be due to size of Launchbar index over time). If you already have Launchbar then the extra cost of paying for Alfred can’t be justified but if you’ve not tried a keyboard driven launcher before then fire up the App Store and try the free version of Alfred. I’m pretty confident that after a few days you’ll be paying for the powerpack version as the time saved over a few weeks is worth far more than £12.

DigitalOutbox Episode 74

DigitalOutbox Episode 74
In this episode the team discuss Apple and Steve Jobs, Google and Eric Schmidt, UK Gaming news and Rim.Jobs

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
1:13 – Steve Jobs Takes Medical Leave
– Team,
At my request, the board of directors has granted me a medical leave of absence so I can focus on my health. I will continue as CEO and be involved in major strategic decisions for the company.
I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for all of Apple’s day to day operations. I have great confidence that Tim and the rest of the executive management team will do a terrific job executing the exciting plans we have in place for 2011.
I love Apple so much and hope to be back as soon as I can. In the meantime, my family and I would deeply appreciate respect for our privacy.
Steve
– Perfect timing – take leave on a holiday, earnings results on the Tuesday
– Apple in safe hands though as proven over last few years
– Shares drop 5% on Tuesday
3:30 – Apple Quarterly Results
– Apple: $26.74bn revenue, $6bn profit, 4.1m Macs (+23%), 16.2m iPhones (+86%), 7.3m iPads, 19.45m iPods (-7%).
– Best Mac quarter but analysts expected more due to Air
– Best quarter ever for iPhone
– Lots of Touches sold – more than half of all iPods, 27% growth
– iPad popular 🙂 Total iPads sold since April – 14.8m
– Mac revenues were 20% of Apple’s total. iOS were 75% (13% iPod, 5% other music, 39% iPhone, 17% iPad), with peripherals at 2% and sw/ 3%
5:47 – Google Quarterly Results
– Google has once again posted optimistic growth this quarter boasting $8.44 billion in revenue, and increase of 26% compared to fourth quarter of 2009 in which revenue was $6.67 billion.
– Google also announced that co-founder Larry Page will be replacing Eric Schmidt as CEO of the company. This transition will take place on April 4, Google says.
Schmidt will take the role of “Executive Chairman” and will focus on “deals, partnerships, customers and broader business relationships, government outreach and technology thought leadership,” the company says. He will also continue to act as an advisor to Page and fellow co-founder Sergey Brin.
– Speaking of Brin, he’ll be working on “strategic projects, in particular working on new products,” the company says. His title will remain “co-founder”. So it sounds like no big change there.
– Perceived loss of edge at Google – lost out on a few deals recently, Facebook seen as the big new shiny – reason for change?
9:00 – Google Clarifies h.264 Stance
– It’s all about HTML5 – nobody will ever agree that H.264 will be baseline codec, hence their decision to drop H.264 and push on now with WebM – short term pain for long term pain
– What this means is that Flash (or Silverlight) is required to playback H.264
– Google will also supply plugins via WebM project team for Safari and IE9
– They will also be re-encoding all YouTube videos to WebM
– Who wins? Flash. Way to go.
– http://blogs.adobe.com/jd/2011/01/video-debate-cutting-to-the-chase.html
– Crazy post from John Dowdell
– Safari is non standard and is doesn’t allow extendability via plugins?
– But then a draft for HTML5 does say that browsers need to support plugins
11:59 – Instant Pop
– Sony & Universal to makes songs instantly available
– David Joseph, the chief executive of Universal Music, said: “Wait is not a word in the vocabulary of the current generation. It’s out of date to think that you can build up demand for a song by playing it for several weeks on radio in advance.”
– Songs used to receive up to six weeks radio airplay before they were released for sale – a practice known as “setting up” a record. But the success of selling the winner’s single immediately after the X Factor final has made record bosses think again.
– Google and YouTube searches were peaking 2 weeks after songs started airing
– Also demonstrating to government that they are willing to change in face of piracy
14:46 – Amazon buys LoveFilm
– Amazon today took full control of DVD rental and online video company Lovefilm, in a deal to buy the 58% of the business that it does not already own for an undisclosed sum.
– Lovefilm remains a leading player in DVD rentals since launching in the UK in 2004, and has 1.4 million subscribers across Europe. The company tripled its sales in 2009 to almost £100m, and in March last year launched its digital streaming service, enabling viewers to rent and watch movies over the internet.
– Within the past 12 months, Lovefilm has stepped up its movie streaming business, while leaving its physical DVD rental service to continue its growth. In 2009, Lovefilm declared that online was now its “primary” business – despite online rentals representing a 10th of DVD and Blu-ray rentals.
– Lovefilm customers can now also stream films over a number of internet-connected living room devices, including Sony and Samsung TV sets, and the PS3 games console.
17:00 – Cheap PC’s to reduce digital divide
– Race Online 2012, which aims to “make the UK the first nation in the world where everyone can use the web”, estimates that of the more than nine million adults in the UK who are currently not online, four million are socially and economically disadvantaged.
– The cheap computers will run open-source software, such as Linux, and will include a flat-screen monitor, keyboard, mouse, warranty, dedicated telephone helpline and delivery. Prices will start at £98 for a refurbished PC.
– The packages will be sold through 60 UK online centres which offer IT training and Remploy, an organisation that specialises in helping disabled and disadvantaged people find work and which runs the computer recycling scheme e-cycle.
– Race Online 2012 has also negotiated cheap internet packages using a mobile dongle, costing £9 a month or £18 for three months, to help people access the web.
– The 12-month trial is part of the Race Online 2012 scheme, which aims to reach out to the 9.2 million adults in the UK who are currently offline.
– Distributor Remploy hopes to sell 8,000 machines in the next 12 months.
19:09 – iPlayer Growth
– BBC’s iPlayer clocked in a record 145m programme requests in December 2010.
– That total is up 27 per cent on December 2009’s total, but only just under three per cent on November 2010’s total of 141m requests.
– Interestingly, requests TV programmes hit just 89.7m, showing that almost 40 per cent of requests – 83.1m – were for radio shows. The internet is perfect for radio, which is far less bandwidth-sensitive than the telly stuff.
– The BBC said Virgin Media viewers asked for 23.9m programmes to be played back. PlayStation 3 owners made a further 7m requests
21:56 – XBMC on iOS Devices
– Full XBMC for these iOS devices – not remotes – the full thing
– Need to jailbreak device but…
– Apple TV2
– Full XBMC install, this is not a remote or thin client streamer.
– No longer is your AppleTV2 chained to iTunes.
– Who wants transcoded video anyway?
– Share files on your network your way.
– Full hardware decode for 720p/1080p movies.
– Everything else you know and love about XBMC.
– iPad/iPhone
– You guessed it, this is full-blown XBMC. Not a remote.
– Launch XBMC like any other app.
– Drag and drop media from your computer, or share it on your home-network
– Also fully hardware accelerated for most formats.
– Works on iPhone4, though it’s currently frustrating to use.
– Challenge: Who will be the first to create a gesture-driven skin?
– Video demo -http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/20/xbmc-comes-to-the-new-apple-tv/
24:30 – 10 Billion Downloads
– App Store is about to hit 10 billion downloads
– If you download the 10 billionth you win a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card
– Handy for the Mac App Store 😉
25:57 – OneNote hits iOS
– Onenote
– Makes sense
– America only at the moment
– App is free but for limited time
– Text audio and picture notes
– Sync with Windows Live Skydrive
– Where’s the iPad version?
– Many get (including me) a login error – MS says it’s due to high demand – just keep trying or download Evernote.
27:52 – Games Sales Slip in 2010
– Games market in 2010 was worth £2.88bn – a significant drop from the £3.31bn recorded in 2009.
– Console consumption was on the up, though, with growth for both the Xbox 360 and the PS3. Sony and Microsoft combined shifted 2.3m units. The Xbox 360 outsold the PS3 in 2010, just, with sales of £232m to Sony’s £229m.
– In total, UK consumers bought 63m console and PC games – more than one for every man, woman and child in the country.
30:35 – Nintendo 3DS Release Date and Prices Announced
– March 18th or 25th
– RRP seems to be £249
– Games – £30
– Super Streetfighter iV and Pilotwings – look really good but not enough to buy
– Also does 3dtv – http://www.digitaltveurope.net/news_articles/jan_11/20_jan_11/eurosport_and_bskyb_to_provide_3d_tv_to_nintendo_3ds
– Nintendo has struck deals with a number of partners to deliver video content, including a two-year, pan-European deal with Eurosport, and a deal with Aardman Animations who will provide a series of original Shaun the Sheep short movies in 3D. It has also stuck a UK-only deal with Sky, who will deliver 3D content from its new Sky 3D channel, which is likely to include sports events.
32:26 – Minecraft Sells A Million Copies
– Game has just hit beta and already has this many sales
– It’s like lego without the restrictions…and with monsters
– YouTube is awash with Minecraft video’s
– It’s very addictive
– Single or multiplayer
34:39 – Most Inappropriate URL Ever
– RIM register rim.jobs domain as a quick URL to their career pages
– Someone somewhere is having a right old giggle within RIM

Picks
Ian
Alfred
– Productivity App for OS X – similar to Launchbar but thats ¢25 but does a lot more
– Launch app’s with shortcuts, instant access to web searches, bookmarks
– Browse and play music
– Perorm actions like email, moving files
– Reduces mouse reliance
– Speeds up activity
– Free on App store