Last month, I made the switch to Google Quick Search Box from Quicksilver on my Mac. While Quicksilver improved my efficiency and cut the time I spent searching for files, Google Quick Search Box has upped the ante even further by adding in the ability to speedily access all my Google services through the same interface. I’m very impressed with it. Read the rest of this entry »
Sometimes doing things via web apps is great. Everything is in one place: your browser. Even so, sometimes having everything in one place isn’t ideal. A browser crash could kill all of your work, not just one component, and it can be harder to keep your focus appropriately segmented if your tools are all mashed together. Here are a few great Mac applications that give you access to your web apps, but do so in nice, native software packages.
Propane
It’s a fine way to power a BBQ, but it’s also more than that. Propane is a new piece of beta software that does what I previously did using a Fluid browser instance. Specifically, it runs Campfire-based chatrooms, which are a popular tool for people who need to collaborate in real-time with a distributed team. I use Campfire rooms to coordinate with other writers at various blog sites where time and scheduling is a primary concern, but that’s just one possible use.
Like with a Fluid instance, Propane provides Campfire with the bare minimum of browser chrome, so that it does in fact look like a native OS X app. It also provides some nice bells and whistles that allow you to customize the how and why of notification sounds and messages, including Growl notifications. There’s also great tools for better file sharing, including automatic source detection when you drag content (text and images) from a Safari window into your active chatroom in Propane.
Mailplane
I’m not actively trying to rhyme these app names, it’s just working out that way. Gmail is great, and Mail.app is nice enough, but I’d rather not use the two together if possible. I love Gmail’s web interface, but I’m not crazy about trying to manage my email activities in a browser window. Maybe that makes me old school, but I grew up on Outlook, and old habits die hard.
Mailplane delivers all the Gmail interface goodness with a nice, native app wrapper. Basically it, like Propane, is just a browser instance with some additional features specific to the web app in question that makes it easier to use. It’s those features that make the app worthwhile, though. Mailplane takes advantage of Gmail’s keyboard shortcuts to allow you to view and create new messages, reply, attach media, and more using convenient buttons located along the top of the app window. It also badges the app icon in your dock with the number of unread emails, and can notify you of new mail using sound and Growl.
Those with Google Apps and multiple accounts are also in luck, because it supports easy account switching and storage. There’s also an option to display an icon in the menu bar, including new mail count. You can try it out for free for a month, but it is a paid program, and will set you back $24.95 if you do decide to purchase.
Gdocsuploader
This is less an app and more of a handy little applet, but the single, focused service it provides is incredibly useful: a simple drag-and-drop interface for uploading documents to Google Docs. It may not seem like much, but it saves a lot of steps vs. the traditional method, which can quickly add up if you do most of your document editing in Google Docs, like I do.
All you have to do to use it is keep the app icon in your dock, and then drag any document onto the icon to upload it. It’ll prompt you once for your Google name and password, and afterward it’ll just work. If you prefer, opening the app will automatically take you to a file browser for selecting a file to upload manually.
None of the above apps does anything that you can’t do using the web, but they do offer time-saving and usability enhancements that you won’t necessarily get using only the corresponding app for each in a normal browser window. Just because web apps are often convenient and user-friendly doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be more so with a more solid connection to your desktop.
Have any tips on how to make web apps more native? Share them in the comments.
Tags: applet, apps, campfire, client, droplet, Gmail, Google Docs, Mac, mailplane, os x, propane, uploader
I’ve long been a fan of the CrossLoop screen-sharing application as it provides an easy way to remotely provide support to clients, friends and family. Its straightforward setup and secure interface make it a great choice in a crowded field. However, its usefulness has been limited somewhat, because it was only available for Windows — a situation being remedied today by the availability of CrossLoop for Mac.
A compelling reason to use CrossLoop is the innovative Marketplace, which is a great place to find and offer tech support services. With thousands of registered support experts, you can get help with just about anything you can think of. The CrossLoop folks facilitate the connection and transaction, and handle the payment processing. The latest figures released show over 5 million sessions have been conducted through CrossLoop. With the Mac version available, support providers can now offer their services to Mac users, or use their Mac to provide services. As more households are switching to Mac, or going multi-platform, being able to support everyone makes a lot of sense. Obviously, for Mac users needing support, this also makes the full Marketplace of support providers available to you.
In the CrossLoop community, the demand for a Mac version has been loud and strong. With this milestone reached, they can now work to appease the Linux crowd.
The CrossLoop client is a free download for Windows 2000 or later and, now, for Mac OS X 10.4 or later. Costs for using Marketplace services vary, depending on the services required and choice of provider.
Have you used Crossloop for screen sharing? Does the availability of a Mac version make it an option for you?
Screensharing applications are one of the essential weapons in the web workers’ arsenal and a popular topic here on WebWorkerDaily; in the past we’ve covered services such as Yuuguu and Oneeko.
The latest to join the fray is Mikogo, a cross-platform (Windows & OS X) screensharing solution that’s just launched a new Mac edition with a “remote support” feature, which takes the product from a straightforward web conferencing application to a broader service, offering live support and desktop sharing for remote clients and customers.
As well as conferencing and remote support, Mikogo suggest that screensharing is useful for product demonstrations, webcasts and teaching applications. The technology allows for 10 participants in a session, more than enough for all of these scenarios. Read the rest of this entry »
Today marks the highly anticipated release of Tweetie for the Mac by atebits, developer of the iPhone version of the same app. Tweetie has enjoyed tremendous success on the iPhone, and for my money is far and away the best mobile client for my web workflow. Which is why I was first in line to download the new Mac client it this a.m. and see if it might be an improvement over Nambu, my current desktop Twitter solution. Olly Farshi over at our sister site TheAppleBlog has a full review, but I wanted to look at it specifically with web work in mind.
Things started off well, since Tweetie offers a full-featured, ad-supported free version in addition to a $19.95 (currently on sale for $14.95) ad-free version. I can live with one ad per hour in my tweet stream in exchange for a great free program. Heck, half of the tweets of those I’m following are probably ads anyway. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve been on somewhat of an OS X productivity tools kick lately, with posts on EventBox, Mindnode and Manhour. So I’m going to round out that journey with a quick peek at a useful little tool that was recently brought to my attention, Sentinel Design Group’s Serverskine.
You may support any number of web servers for your own projects or for your clients, and keeping track of account names, URLs, passwords, etc. can be tricky. Serverskine provides a notebook for storing your credentials for each account.
The free application groups each server’s credentials into server, FTP, database, hosting provider and domain provider subsets, enabling one-click access to remotely-hosted control panels and suppliers’ web sites, as well as the server in question.
Sadly, the application lacks some essential extensibility. For example, the ability to add groups for commonly installed applications, such as Movable Type, would be welcome.
Serverskine stores its data as binary, SQL or XML files. Somewhat worryingly, the latter pair of formats store passwords in clear text; similarly, there’s no way to secure the entire database with any form of authentication. And Serverskine takes no advantage of being a native OS X application.
Interestingly, the creators of Serverskine — the Sentinel Design Group — developed it as an internal tool for tracking and storing server credentials, recently flipping to a public release to share their creation with the wider world. They may want to consider creating it as an extensible web-based service as a way to overcome its current shortcomings but maintain its utility.
Serverskine is neither clever nor sophisticated, but it is a useful server configurations notebook, and it’s free.
What do you use for managing server credentials?
Nambu is a free social messaging client for Mac OS X. It’s still in beta, but it has swiftly become my client of choice for professional tweeting, thanks to its easy switching between Twitter accounts and a great interface.
At the end of last month, fellow WWD writer Imran Ali posted a wish-list for lifestreaming apps, those efficient little consolidation tools that are supposed to help make sense of the social network mess we’ve got ourselves into. There’s no doubt, as Imran suggests, that these apps could be doing a lot more than just putting everything in one place, which is really what most actually do when you get right down to it.
I was optimistic that maybe Nambu would provide something out of the ordinary, but it remains to be seen what kind of cross-service interaction will appear, since the current Nambu beta only supports Twitter accounts. Future versions will implement support for identi.ca, FriendFeed and Ping.fm, but they aren’t accessible in Nambu’s preferences as of yet.
Still, even without support for additional services, Nambu is a very useful little program with a feature-set that’s sure to please Twitter users who dislike TweetDeck’s cluttered interface. It more closely resembles an instant messaging application than most Twitter clients, and it offers IM-like features as well. Read the rest of this entry »
Web Work 101: How To Escape The Cubicle
