Nerve Endings Firing Away

Take some time today to really get acquainted with one specific tool that you use frequently. Poke around the menus and help files, search Google for “ tricks” and see what comes up. I think you’ll be surprised by what you find.

Brett Kelly offers a simple yet useful bit of advice. No application works just exactly the way you like it and will definitely not do everything you want it to. But few Google searches later, you can make it dance to your tune. I use NetNewsWire for my feed reading purposes. I like to share interesting links I find on Twitter. Tinu Cleatus whipped up the perfect Apple Script that made sharing the page I was reading a keyboard shortcut away. But not quite perfect. I use bit.ly to shorten my links because not only is it the most popular shortening service (hence more likely to survive) but also provides stats for clicks on your links. But Tinu’s script shortened the links using is.gd. Few days later, Sean did a little more tweaking and made it work with bit.ly. Perfection achieved. Not only did I find the original solution via Google and tinkering with NetNewsWire scripts but I assume so did Sean. That’s what makes open source and tinkering so cool.