If I have a bunch of tabs open in Safari that all relate to a specific job or task, Saft adds to my Bookmarks menu a “Bookmark this group of tags” function (as well as other “why didn’t Apple think of that?” functions), which bookmarks all of the tags in that open window, and places them in a bookmarks folder. This already came in handy to me earlier today when a client handed me a list of websites and said “These are my competitors.”
Save and Load Browser Window
Want to read that whole window full of browser tabs, but can’t get to it right now? You can save the window, and reload it later. Saft will even remember the browser size and position.
Shortcuts
You can set your Saft preferences so that just typing “a” into your address bar will take you to Amazon, or so that typing “dict blog” will bring you to Dictionary.com search for the word “blog” (a default Saft preference). Any such searches will also be loaded into your contextual menus, so that if you select a word in your browser and right-click, you can search for that term on any site you have set in your preferences.
Crash Protection
For those times when you have a bunch of tabs open Safari crashes. When you restart Safari, Saft will ask you if you want to restore those windows.
Type-Ahead Searching
Many browsers already have this, but this will highlight text on the page that matches what you type. Great for “clicking” on links without a mouse.
I tried the demo this morning and didn’t even flinch at the $12 price tag. Learning to use this along with Quicksilver, and you’ll wonder how you ever functioned before.
Now that kadavy.net is included in the sites drawer for NetNewsWire 2.0b10 (a great RSS Reader for the Mac), I figured it was time to gain a little edge with my own favorites icon (that little icon that is showing up next to the web address on your address bar on most browsers).
To make one for your site, design a 16×16 pixel gif and upload it to your root directory with the name “favicon.ico”. It’s best if you can stay within the standard 256-color216-color web palette.
Tip: When working at the pixel-level in Photoshop, it’s a good idea to have one window zoomed way in (like 1600%) so you can see each pixel clearly, but also have a second window open for the same document (Window < Arrange < New Window for document name) at 100%, so you can simultaneously see what it will look like at actual size.
One of the things I do at RDG, is occasionally draw maps. I also impart my knowledge of graphics programs such as Adobe Illustrator to those in the company who draw maps more often than I do, to enable them to draw them more efficiently and attractively.
An underlying theme in the the research I have done to achieve this has been to try to make things as live-editable as possible. Anyone familiar with Illustrator can imagine what a headache it may be to create, and make changes to, a map full of city blocks that look like those in the image below:
Changing the street routes or widening the streets, while maintaining a uniform street width, will be an enormous and time-consuming pain. And what if you want to change the amount of bevelling of the street corners? With Illustrator’s Live Effects and Appearance Palette, if you start your drawing off right, you can change these things in seconds.
For years, my home computer setup has been in need of an ergonomic overhaul. Not able to find any computer workstations that adequately accommodated my non-traditional setup, I have been using an art table for my computer. To say that it has made computer use undesirable would be an understatement.
I have noticed in looking around at desks of various people in my office, that some people, like myself, take a “Google” approach to organizing: everything is just in one big pile, and when you need something, you just sort through it and find what you need. Other people take the “Yahoo!” approach to organizing: everything is in nice, neat piles, or even filed away by project or what have you.
Don’t you hate getting a two-minute long voicemail from someone, at the end of which, they tell you their phone number so fast you don’t have time to write it down? People will like you much better if you leave your phone number both at the beginning and the end of your message. They get two chances to write it down, and if they miss it the first time around, they don’t have listen to the entire message again to get another chance.
A common trend in writing is to come up with “clever” names for articles. This annoying attempt to create reader curiousity is only appropriate for print design. The web is another story.
Not only is writing on the web for humans, but it is also for machines, or in many cases, humans using machines that help them find what they want. If a typical contemporary print magazine contained an article about naming articles, there is a good chance that it may be called “What’s in a Name?” While this is annoying to a reader who is trying to decipher what the article is about, this title will not be significantly detrimental to a reader’s ability to find it (though I have many times flipped through my magazines, trying to find that great article I read, only to find out after scanning over the right issue many times that it had been named irrelevantly). However, if that same article is put on the web, not only do you essentially exclude your useful article from search queries about “naming articles appropriately,” but you also run the risk of mucking up the search results for someone who is looking for the origin of the popular Shakespeare quote.
So, next time you write a blog, imagine, if you were someone searching for the information in that article, what words would be in your query. Then, try to include those words in the title of your blog. It’s true that the contents of the blog may be relevant to what someone is searching for, but that information only has a <p> tag around it. The title of a blog on my page has an <h3> tag on it, which holds much more weight as important information to a search engine than a <p> tag. Then, in the archive of my blog, each page <title> includes the title of the blog in it, which I have found to have more semantic weight than anything for determining search rankings.
Keep in mind that you should title your blog postings relevantly. Just because “brittney spears” is a popular search query, including it in the title of your blog post won’t help your search rankings any unless there is truly valuable information in your blog about brittney spears. Search engines such as Google will get you sorted out one way or another if your information isn’t truly pertinent to said search query. I know that seems to run contrary to my previous point about the Shakespeare quote, but nevermind that, just be a good web citizen and name your blogs appropriately.
Ever been confronted, in Photoshop, with this (totally useless) crop tool icon? Or been using a large paintbrush, and seen this equally useless icon: Even though your preferences clearly designate the “brush size” cursor should be used?
In either case, press CAPS LOCK. You will get the latter icon, which is the only good way to crop, if cropping, and you will toggle back to the “brush size” icon if you are using the brush tool (and your brush size is big enough).
It was quite awhile before I discovered this, and I always thought I had a buggy copy of Photoshop in the “brush size” situation. It seems everyone else I’ve encountered has thought the same, so I hope this helps you.
The Firefox Keyboard Shortcuts Table has (sort of) unlocked for me a way to browse almost entirely on my keyboard. I always loved how Firefox would highlight text links just by typing the first few letters of that link, and I always valued the ability to switch browser tabs on Safari using Cmd+Shift+arrow, but I could never get Firefox to switch tabs.
Funny though, that if you follow this table and press Ctrl+T in Firefox on a mac, it will NOT produce a new tab for you. This, I wouldn’t even notice, because I normally just register “Ctrl” to mean “Cmd” on a Mac, since that’s how it’s keyboard shortcuts usually translate from a PC, so as I would expect, one must press Cmd+T to produce a new tab on a Mac, however, Cmd+Tab does not switch tabs as one who uses this logic would expect. In this case, when they say “Ctrl,” they mean “Ctrl.” Press Ctrl+Tab and Firefox will switch tabs.
What do I have against using a mouse? Mice are primitive (mouse alternatives), and I find them especially uncomfortable given that I use a computer most of the day. To do the things I can’t accomplish on my keyboard, I rely on a Wacom Tablet.
