TextExpander (formerly Textpander) is the best of the best Text Macro Apps. In this post I hope to explain to you why you must get TextExpander.

If you were to ask almost any Mac Power User what they have installed on their computer in the way of must have utilities, a sure answer is TextExpander. What exactly is TextExpander? Well it and automated typist for your computer. Ok let me clarify that a bit, it can take the very tedious task of typing the same bits of text over and over again and make them simple abbreviations. Ok that may not sound that important at first; however, after you install TextExpander you can see how easy and effective it really is.

TextExpander can do a whole lot more once you understand the basics of what it can do. It is very easy to take large blocks of boilerplate text and make them expandable in a few keystrokes, but the real power comes from using TextExpander with the many collections of snippets shared on the Web. Smile Software (formerly Smile on My Mac) has made a great list of “Predefined Snippet Groups” available on their site for you to download, install and maybe be inspired to create more of your own.

Examples

HTML: leading character is a comma

Example: ,img expands to:

<img src="%fill:url%" alt="%fill:image description%" width="%fill:width%" height="%fill:height%" border="%fill:border%" align="%fill:alignment%" />

When you trigger this snippet, TextExpander will prompt you to fill in the attribute specs. You can leave any of the specs blank, if not needed.

ACCENTED WORDS

Fixes words that are spelled with diacritical marks, aka accents. If you are used t typing these words like an American TE will autocorrect them so as you won’t offend anyone, like your third grade French teacher.

Example: creme brulee => crème brûlée.

TidBITS AUTOCORRECT DICTIONARY

This list contain 2400+ of the most common misspellings compiled by TidBITS, the newsletter and Web site for Mac users. I find this one very useful as it doesn’t just point out the mistake like spell check, It autocorrects them and makes a ping sound so you know you just misspelled a word.

Some Heavy Lifting

TextExpander can do some every heavy lifting for hardcore scriveners or code monkeys. I use these tools a lot but rather than messing up the explanation I’ll send you to read Brett Terpstra’s post on TE tools and how he uses them. Thanks to Brett, I’m becoming a Markdown Maven using TextExpander tools to get my writing done light years faster.

Another great plus to TextExpander is the integration with it’s mobil app offspring TextExpander Touch which brings many of the snippets and auto completion features to you handheld devices. I have found this to be a lifesaver when needing to get a fast response out via my iPhone or iPad. This also make the mobile platform perfect to blogging or just free-writing. It does have some limitations on iOS but Smile offers this note as a work around:

Given the current feature set of the iPhone OS, TextExpander touch cannot work in the background (as it does in Mac OS X), expanding text snippets while you work in other apps, except for apps with TextExpander-integration built-in. You must first compose your text in the TextExpander touch Compose screen, and then transfer it to another app.

TextExpander is available in the iTunes AppStore

How to Get TextExpander

TextExpander normally sells for $34.95, Mac Update Promo is running a special for $17.95 for a limited time and then $26.21 for the duration of the sale.

Check out the Tutorials on the Smile Software site for a great quick start to this wonderful application

The is a lot of fodder flying around the blogosphere after Neilson’s report on Twitter Retention.  I think the study was a bit flawed and needed a bit more foundation on real people not just numbers.

My chime in on the conversation as posted on Linkedin.com Twitter Group:

As with any new from of communication there will always be those that dont get it. This was true, of email, pagers, cellphones and blogs. All of the aforementioned are very pervasive now and are just common vernacular today.

Twitter has bot the power and the buzz to be the next household communications word.

You may not get it now but than you may not be trying to get it because there is no immediate upside for you business today, don’t let this get you out of the conversation.  Todays memetic behaviors of consumers often spread faster than the swine flu when the right catalyst hits.  Twitter is just waiting one of these catalyst. ie: @AplusK and @CNN battle and @oprah

My advise hang in there, just start communicating with people, network, look around but don’t try to sell yet, when the damn burst you’ll be there.  Keep the big white Motorola Cellphone in the back of your mind thinking of the days when we all said who the heck needs to be that ready to use a phone… my god that thing is huge… cellphones “I don’t get it…

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• 5 Ways to Share Images on Twitter (mashable.com)
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• You: 60% of Twitter Users Quit Within the First Month (via Mashable!) (mashable.com)
• Twitter Co-Founder Dorsey Talks Retention and Stability (marketingpilgrim.com)
• Proof That Nielsen is Wrong; Twitter’s Retention Rate is Not 40% (marketingpilgrim.com)

I love Evernote for both my MacBook Pro and My iPhone.  I started using Evernote when they first came out and am now trying to find ways to superuser this damn thing. It already rock so much it is actually hard to find a way to hack out any cooler features. especially when they keep updating it so fast. Thanks Evernote Crew for an awesome app.  Below are some details from http://blog.evernote.com about the latest features of Evernote.app for the Macintosh

UPDATE: Today they just dropped Evernote for the BlackBerry:
DOWNLOAD Evernote for BlackBerry http://blog.evernote.com/2009/05/11/evernote-for-blackberry/

The latest Evernote for Mac update introduces some great user interface enhancements, as well as a number of behind-the-scenes fixes and improvements.

Get the latest Evernote for Mac: DOWNLOAD NOW

Best thumbnails ever

We designed Evernote for Mac to be a visual memory aide, and easy-to-scan thumbnails are a big part of the fun. We’ve completely redesigned the thumbnails in this release to make them easier to use and prettier to look at. The thumbnails now have different shapes based on the content of your notes; adding a new dimension to your visual memory. They now also sport badges to quickly indicate and identify file attachments. These new thumbnails are available in both Thumbnail and Mixed views.

Other visual enhancements

• Visual update to left-hand navigation
• Improved the search explanation menu alignment
• Improved Mixed View thumbnails and text layout
• Updated look for the Monthly Usage meter

There are also a bunch of bug fixes, as well as support for the “audio/amr” file type for both free and premium accounts. If you already have Evernote for Mac installed, just check for updates and grab the new version. You can also download it from here.

For all of you Evernote for Windows users out there, do not fear. There are some exciting updates coming your way soon.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Evernote finally comes to BlackBerry (bbgeeks.com)
• Evernote Updates iPhone App With Landscape Mode and In-App Browsing (mashable.com)
• New iPhone firmware reveals code for next model (news.cnet.com)
• Evernote for BlackBerry Has Arrived (lifehacker.com)

Here is a download link.

Source: Mel Martin of TUAW

While no connection is made to Apple, the company has been one of Samsung’s more significant customers and is rumored to be using Samsung memory for the next iPhone alongside flash from Toshiba.

ZipSkinny is one of the coolest websites on this list. The site provides an interesting “first glance” at a ZIP Code area. Just enter your zip code and learn all sorts of interesting factoids about your neighborhood.

for now got see it yourself:

Tweetie for Mac 1.0 is now available. http://www.atebits.com/tweetie-mac/

It is worth your full attention for 5 mins. you may want to watch a second time or more and stop on the slides that hurt to watch the most. This is why we need to start paying more attention to what is going on around us and not be such a me generation.

Please pass this along to as many people as you can.