K’s Weblog

Another week, another edition of the Global Geek Podcast.  Here’s the detailed notes from this week’s GGP Mac Lab Update.

The first application up this week is MacTracker by Canadian developer Ian Page.  This is an application that contains  historical data on virtualy every model of Apple computer and their peripherals released since 1983.  The current release (v. 4.3.1) also includes the updated iMac models from August 2007.

MacTracker provides detailed hardware specifications for each model, including:

• Detailed CPU information
• Hard disk and Optical Drive options for that model
• Maximum & Shipped RAM configurations
• Graphics card & Display details
• Expansion ports and more…

There’s also a MyMacs section for you to track specific details on the devices you own, this is particularly useful in case you ever need to call Apple Support.  Much quicker than trying to remember where your serial number is stored (or read the microscopic printing from the bottom of the case).

Finally, there’s also an iPod edition which allows you to look up much of this same information directly from your iPod.  If you’re in a job where you need to have this type of information at your fingertips, (or like me are just a total geek), this option is a great way to eat up a few more Megs on that 160GB iPod Classic you just bought.

MacTracker is a free download, but it is offered as donationware. If you get some good use out of it, consider making a donation to support the project.

The second application up this week is targeted at those of you, who like me, would rather put tacks through your fingers than rely on the mouse or trackpad for basic tasks on your computer.  I give you ABFL “A Better Finder Launcher”.  This application lets you bring up on a hotkey a dialogue box that you can use to find and launch applications.  For those of you who are Mac Switchers and have just come over from windows, this will work very much like the Windows “Run” menu, only smarter.

As you type characters in, ABFL will search your computer for files which match your search string, applications are prioritized and pushed to the top of the list.  Once you’ve typed enough for the program or file you want to appear at the top of the list, hit the enter/return key to launch it.

ABFL will also search for documents on your system.  The initial indexing process happened very quickly, so quickly in fact that I didn’t realize it had its own index until I was searching through the preferences dialogues.  I thought it must have tapped into the Spotlight index instead.  The preferences can be set to allow the application to index on a set interval, or manually.  When scanning the default locations, the indexing took approximately 12 seconds on my Macbook.

The only downside to this application is that there’s no way to terminate it and remove it from the Dock & Fast-switch menus) when an application is launched.  Other than that, it really does deliver as promised and has become another one of my favourite OS X tools.

Download ABFL from the developer’s website.
Last up this week is a bit of Apple-related tech news.  SixApart announced this week that it will be providing an iPhone (and iPod Touch) interface option for users of TypePad and MovableType.  This interface will detect the new Apple mobile browsers and reformat the screen to best advantage on the small display.  This will allow anyone with the supporting blogs to not only view their blog, but edit & create posts, manage comments and more from their spanky new Apple handheld.

It’s not enough to make me want an iPhone, or switch away from wordpress, but it definitely shows that SixApart is still capable of playing a leadership role in the CMS Space.  Of course it won’t be long until support exists for Wordpress as well.

Source: TechCrunch

Related Posts