Software I Use

I hereby present my list of Geek Force Multipliers.... with URLs now:

Effort Reducers

• LaunchBar — CLI for the GUI. A revolution away from pointing and clicking.


• DragThing — the opposite of LaunchBar; still better than the Dock.


• Path Finder — still better than the Finder. Gets routine things done more easily, and copy operations are faster.


• Typeit4me — now I can type 80 wpm.


• Hazel — rule based refiling to keep up with the torrent. For instance, anything on the desktop with "receipt" in the file name gets moved to the receipts folder.


• MenuCalendarClock — I use this just because it lets me see the date in the menubar in yyyy-mm-dd format, and I don't suppose I need to say why that's so great.

Outboard Brains

• OmniOutliner — for a while every project had an outline; now I use it mostly for structured writing.


• TaskPaper — for the daily hit list.


• VoodooPad — like an extra large messenger bag, it's simple and versatile. Requires a change in mindset to get the most use out of it. Hoping it gains all of taskpaper's abilities over time.

System Utilities

• Cocktail — once every 6 months or so. Good for clearing out font caches, etc.


• Growl — good for use with hazel so you know what your robot is doing.

By the way, a couple of these are on sale this month only through MacSanta.