Archive for the ‘SmileWorthy’ Category

The Mac Switcher Bundle

Wednesday, December 10th, 2008

We’re announcing a very special collaboration with some of our favorite people in the Mac development community. The Mac Switcher Bundle offers 3 popular and top-rated Mac OS X utilities (TextExpander, 1Password and Witch) along with a special series of video tutorials aimed at the new Mac user from ScreenCastsOnline. This bundle (a great gift for the new Mac users in your life!) is only $49.95, a discount of over 50% of its value.

We wanted to give new Mac users a taste of what makes the Mac OS X experience so great. All three of these utilities are favorites among those who make the lists of must-have Mac software. All three have been awarded 4.5 mice by Macworld. But we wanted to go beyond a great software bundle, and add the top-quality ScreenCastsOnline video tutorials that help new Mac users take full advantage of the power of their shiny new hardware.

For me, the collaboration is also emblematic of what makes the Mac so great: a wonderful community of fellow enthusiasts. Dave Teare at Agile Web Solutions supported the idea from the beginning. We’ve both worked with Don McAllister of ScreenCastsOnline and know firsthand the value of his video productions via his TextExpander and 1Password tutorials. We knew that an educational component would make this bundle unique.

Finally, Peter Maurer of ManyTricks suggested Witch as an ideal program for easing the transition from Windows to Mac by offering a window-switching functionality that former Windows users were accustomed to. (And Peter is the original developer of Textpander, so it comes full circle…)

We have really enjoyed working with these guys to put this together, and we are looking forward to spreading the word about the Mac Switcher Bundle at Macworld 2009, coming up so very soon…

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MacSanta has come to town!

Thursday, December 13th, 2007

MacSanta_logo.gif

Quite a number of our fellow Mac software developers have teamed up to bring a little joy to Mac users this holiday season, in the form of the MacSanta 20% discount!

Every day, until December 24, five different developers’ wares are featured at 20% off for one day only. SmileOnMyMac is featured today! Besides the daily 20% off specials, you’ll find extended savings of 10% off during the rest of the MacSanta festivities. (One of our “smileworthy” picks, SpamSieve is among them!)

Thanks to Paul Kafasis of Rogue Amoeba for organizing this great gift for fans of Mac software.

SmileOnMyMac’s products can help with the holidays. Use DiscLabel to make CDs, DVDs, and packaging for holiday gifts. Use PDFpen to handle last-minute corrections to your family’s annual letter. Use TextExpander to save time typing your thank you notes. Use PageSender to fax your Christmas list to Santa. Use BrowseBack to provide a visual history of your Web search for the perfect present. Use PhotoPrinto to create stunning photo albums on your ink jet printer.

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Smileworthy: SpamSieve

Wednesday, September 12th, 2007

For the second entry in our new “Smileworthy” category, in which we highlight software we like and use from other software companies, we chose SpamSieve. Like our first entry, LaunchBar, Philip, Greg and I all use this. It is another application we would not want to live without.

SpamSieve will keep your email inbox nearly free of unwanted email. It uses Bayesian filtering to determine if an email is spam. And it is smart! It gets better at filtering the longer you use it. If something spammy gets by SpamSieve, you mark it as spam and SpamSieve learns from that. Likewise, if a “good” email is snagged by SpamSieve, you can mark it as such.

In practice, I get a few spam emails in my inbox everyday, but the vast majority go into the Spam folder automatically. I rarely get a “false positive,” i.e. a good email that is falsely sent to the Spam folder.

Another thing we at SmileOnMyMac can really appreciate: great customer support. All my emails to the developer are answered very promptly–and very helpfully.

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Smileworthy: LaunchBar

Friday, August 3rd, 2007

We’re inaugurating something new: a category we’re calling “Smileworthy” to feature software we use and really like. Philip, Greg and I often trade recommendations on software from other developers, and we want to share those recommendations with you.

We’ll launch this feature (pun totally intended), with LaunchBar from Objective Development. All three of us use LaunchBar and none of us can imagine using a Mac without it. With LaunchBar, you can instantly access applications, documents and information from most anywhere on your hard drive.

When I think how I used to go to the Finder, open a window, click on the Applications folder, find the application and double-click on it to launch it, my fingers and wrists hurt.

With LaunchBar, you hit Command + Space Bar, type a short abbreviation, hit return, and your application opens. LaunchBar learns abbreviations from your choices. The first time you type the letter “P”, LaunchBar will show you a list of choices that begin with “P”. If you choose PDFpen from that list, LaunchBar will assume you want PDFpen the next time you type “P”.

LaunchBar’s handiness is not limited to applications. You can open documents, look up a contact’s information, run Apple Scripts and more. Much more. In fact, I know I don’t come close to using LaunchBar to its fullest. Objective Development just released version 4.3, and I’m inspired to try out some features I’ve overlooked.

If you use LaunchBar and have any tips, please do share them in the Comments.

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