Tools of the Trade: Stardock Fences
I just discovered a sweet, free, Windows-only beta product from Stardock called Fences. Fences is a program that “helps you organize your desktop, and can hide your icons when they’re not in use.”
Basically, Fences creates separate areas on your desktop dedicated to specific types of icons (Programs, Folders, Recently Used, Games, etc.), letting you better organize the icon clutter from all your programs, files, and folders:
Three or four years ago I actually modified a desktop background to have groups like this, but it definitely wasn’t a great solution. Fences, on the other hand, seems to work really well and I can spot the file or program I need at a glance instead of getting lost in the typical mess of icons on my desktop.
Foxmarks Now Supports IE and Safari
Foxmarks, the bookmark and password synchronizer for Firefox, now also supports Internet Explorer 6 & 7 and Safari 3, letting you share bookmarks across multiple OSes and browsers. Last March, I wrote about using BookIt and Foxmarks to accomplish the same thing, but BookIt doesn’t support Firefox 3. Now, you can simply install Foxmarks. You can download Foxmarks from the Foxmarks website.
FontExplorer X Pro 50% Off / Fontcase Released
Mac font management tool FontExplorer X Pro is currently available for EUR 39 until the end of February. You can download a 30-day trial on the FontExplorer site.
In related news, Bohemian Coding’s Fontcase — another Mac font management tool — has recently been released and is selling for EUR 35. A demo can also be found on their website.
Tools of the Trade: Balsamic Mockups
Thanks to @masuga on Twitter yesterday, I discovered a product called Balsamic Mockups — an Adobe Air application for quickly and easily creating low fidelity user interface (UI) mockups and wireframes. Here’s a very quick sample of the top portion of my business website:
The interface and the drag-and-drop elements are all meant to have a handwritten/handdrawn esthetic, as if you were using pencil and paper to create the concept. This is so clients don’t confuse the wireframe with an actual design. Yet, despite the rudimentary look of the drawings, the mockups can be surprisingly detailed. For example, you can add scroll bars to windows, highlight table rows and tabs, add different icons, etc. Check out the sample mockups and the intro video to get an idea of what can be done.
Overall, Balsamic Mockups is very intuitive and easy to use. The elements are all drag-and-drop and most everything can be resized and repositioned as required. There is a version of the software for the desktop ($79 USD) as well as collaborative versions for Confluence, JIRA, and XWiki. Since the program is built on Adobe Air, it works on Mac, Windows, and Linux.
sIFRvault – A Repository of sIFR fonts
I don’t know what the legalities are or how long this site might last, but sIFRvault – A Repository of sIFR fonts looks like it could be a tremendous resource for web designers and developers who use (or want to use) sIFR on their websites. The site is essentially a collection of fonts that have been turned into sIFR-friendly Flash files that can be searched through, sorted, and downloaded. This is especially handy for those who don’t have Flash to create their own sIFR files (like me, for example). However, I don’t know if the site is breaking copyrights by having these fonts freely available for download. Having said that, I actually wasn’t able to download any files from the site — instead, I got the following error message:
It will definitely be interesting to see whether or not the site succeeds; I hope it does.
Update: As April pointed out in the comments, the downloads seem to be working now. There are already a bunch of new fonts to choose from, too.
LittleSnapper, Skitch, and Web Snapper: Why You Still Need All Three
… or, more accurately, why I still need all three.
LittleSnapper, Skitch, and Web Snapper are all screen capture utilities for the Mac. LittleSnapper, released yesterday, is the newest of the bunch; it lets you capture and catalogue “snaps” of your screen or web pages. Skitch, which has been in public beta for over a year, lets you quickly and easily grab and share portions of your screen or entire windows. Finally, Web Snapper integrates with Safari and captures web pages, giving you the option of saving them as images or PDFs.
While all three are great products, none of the three does it all. Below is a summary of what each program excels at.
Continue reading LittleSnapper, Skitch, and Web Snapper: Why You Still Need All Three »
LittleSnapper Released
Realmac Software’s latest app, LittleSnapper, is now out of beta.
LittleSnapper is a screen capture utility that lets you grab entire webpages, windows, or a portion of your screen. You can catalogue and organize your captures, annotate them, and share them via Flickr, FTP, or through Realmac’s own QuickSnapper service.
LittleSnapper is $39 USD. You can download a free demo from Realmac’s site, which lets you capture up to 30 images.
Tools of the Trade: Highrise
Highrise is the newest webapp from 37signals, makers of Basecamp, Backpack, and Campfire. Highrise is a contact manager and simple CRM (customer relationship manager), which lets you keep track of business contacts and opportunities, as well as what actions have been (or need to be) taken with regard to these leads.
Continue reading Tools of the Trade: Highrise »
Highbrow
A few weeks ago, I wrote about Choosy, a Mac utility that let’s you override the default browser preferences in OS X. Well, Highbrow from Helium Foot Software does the same, giving you control over your Mac browsers.
Highbrow runs in the menubar and has three basic behaviours:
- Use My Preferred Web Browser
- Use the Most Recently Used Web Browser
- Ask Me Which Browser to Use
Highbrow is currently in public beta and can be downloaded as a free trial. The app will cost $14USD upon release, but if you purchase it now, it’s $12.
Tools of the Trade: DebugBar
It’s been a long time since I featured a Windows program here, but this one is definitely worth looking at. DebugBar is similar to the Firebug extension for Firefox, except that it works with Internet Explorer.
Continue reading Tools of the Trade: DebugBar »