Dropbox – Free Syncing, Revision Control and 2GB
I’ve read about Dropbox awhile back and the general consensus seems to be of awesomeness with whipped cream and a cherry on top. Even though I’m already a heavy JungleDisk user, you can’t argue with something that is free and easy to use, so I gave it a shot.
Dropbox runs on Windows, Linux and Mac, makes file sharing very easy and (here’s what won me over) has simple revision control just in case you accidentally overwrite or delete anything. I can see using this for collaboration on a project for users who don’t want to deal with conventional revision control systems like CVS or Subversion.
Give it a test drive. Or at least take look at the screenshot tour or screencast.
AddressBookSync – Import Photos and Birthdays from Facebook (Mac OSX)
Here’s a neat little free app that allows you to import profile pictures and birthdays from your Facebook account into Mac OS X’s AddressBook and iCal.
via Lifehacker
Skitch – Best. Screenshot Tool. Ever.
Skitch is one of the best screenshot tools I’ve worked with. What sells me is how easy it is to annotate (notice my smiley face and additional text up there?) and how easy it is to just “drag and drop” everything.
It’s also free, so there’s no excuse to not get it.
Firefox 3 Add On – UrlbarExt
The UrlbarExt add-on for Firefox 3 is one of the handiest extensions I’ve seen.
The functionality of the default buttons include, from left to right:
1. Copy the current site URL or custom formatted URL.
2. Shorten the URL using your favorite service or right-click for more options.
3. Search the current site using Google for the selected keyword. Right-click opens a dialog for adding keywords.
4. Go up one level, or directly to the root of the current site with a double-click. Right-click gives you a list of levels to choose from.
5. Tag and bookmark the current page from a menu of tags.
6. Navigate through sequential URLs. (if the URL ends in a number, it will take you to the next numbered URL)
7. Surf anonymously using online phproxy servers. Right-click lets you view the Google Cache along with other options.
via Lifehacker
Path Finder – Mac OS X Finder on Steroids
Mac OS X’s Finder application (Explorer for you Windows folks) gets the job done, but I always felt that interfacing with it was somewhat cumbersome, most especially in folder navigation (with a deep folder hierarchy), drag & drop copying and being able to deal with version control repositories nicely.
Path Finder seems to be the answer to those gripes.
Multiple features abound, such as:
- keyboard navigation
- a “drop box” for copying things
- multi-pane viewing options
- Subversion repository support
- easier file searching capabilities
That’s just scratching the surface. Definitely check out their website and the video screencast.
At $40, it seems like a steep price, but when you think about all that you are gaining, it really doesn’t seem that much. I’m going to give the trial version a run for awhile to see if this will be worth purchasing.
Has anyone else used this?
via Lifehacker
Magic Number Machine
For those Mac owner’s who need some higher math tools, Magic Number Machine is the (free) app for you.
MacVim
I’ve been a VI-guy for a very long time. gVim was my text editor of choice in the Windows world. I’ve been waiting for a Mac port of this app for quite awhile.
Finally, MacVim is here.
MacBook Pro Clearance @ Amazon.com
Holy Frijoles! It looks like Amazon.com is looking to clear out their inventory of “old” MacBook Pros! A brand new MacBook Pro going for $1444? Dang.
Here’s what $1444 will get you:
- 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 3 MB on-chip shared L2 cache running 1:1 with processor speed, Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard
- 2 GB RAM (two SO-DIMM) 677 MHz DDR2 SD-RAM (PC2-5300), 200 GB 5400 rpm Serial ATA hard drive, slot load 8x Super Drive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
- One FireWire 400, one FireWire 800, two USB 2.0 ports, and ExpressCard/34 slot
- Built-in 10/100/1000BASE-T (Gigabit); built-in 54 Mbps AirPort Extreme (802.11n); built-in Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
- 15.4-inch (diagonal), 1440 by 900 resolution, matte TFT LED widescreen display with NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 256 MB of GDDR3 memory and dual-link DVI
Google Enters the Web Browser War
If you haven’t seen the buzz in the blogosphere yet, Google is releasing their own web-browser, dubbed Chrome, tomorrow. I just perused the info-comic (made by Scott McCloud of all people) explaining the ideas and architecture behind Chrome, and I must say that I’m curious.
Here is what stands out to me:
- Multi-process *and* Multi-threaded – Each browser tab will be its own separate process with its own thread pool. If a website causes a crash, the whole browser won’t go down–only that one tab. There will also be a built-in task manager that will enable you to kill processes and threads and also identify exactly what is causing the crashes. This will require more memory up front, but could potentially save memory in the long run.
- Process compartmentalization – Google reinforced process boundaries to an even higher degree to prevent malware attack and bad plugins from hosing the entire browser. The “sandbox” (as they call it) is completely user driven.
- Compiled Javascript – Instead of being interpreted, Javascript will be read once and then compiled into machine code. Huge performance increase potential here. Chrome will be using multiple garbage collection strategies to further optimize memory usage (e.g. precise and incremental)
- Using WebKit – The Webkit rendering engine is fast, light-weight and used in both conventional laptops/desktops and mobile devices. Potential iPhone app anyone?
- Omnibar - This will be Chrome’s equivalent to Firefox’s “Awesome” bar, or what we traditionally refer to as the location bar.
- Open Source – Google’s entry into the browser war can only help the internet as a whole. The entire Chrome project will be open sourced so I’m sure we’ll start to see some of these features absorbed into Firefox, Safari, IE (maybe), etc.
- Stability – Google has an index of, I daresay, trillions of webpages. Apparently they are subjecting test builds of Chrome to millions of websites each day and are approaching asymptotically that “100% compatibility” mark.
UPDATE (9/2/08):
Google Chrome is available for download now for Windows users.
Technorati Tags: chrome, google, open source, web browser
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