Your Windows system tray and Mac OS X menubar have become prime real estate for highly functional micro-applications that provide easy access to information, settings, and tasks. Here are our top ten favorites for both Windows and Mac. More »
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Top 10 Micro-Apps for Windows and Mac OS X [Lifehacker Top 10]
Posted on April 9, 2011
4 OS X Screenshot Tools
Posted on April 30, 2010
Taking screen captures in OS X is pretty simple and powerful. Today I’ll explain how to use the built-in screen capture functionality, the included application Grab, and a couple of third-party options that offer extra functionality.
Built-in OS X Functionality
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Command + Shift + 3
This keystroke results in a full screenshot and saves the resulting file as a PNG, to your desktop. The file is named with the date and time it was captured.
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Command + Shift + 4
Pressing these keys initially brings up a cross hair on screen that displays the coordinates of the cursor. Click and drag to select the area you want to capture. When you release the mouse button, the capture will be saved to the desktop as previously mentioned.
If you press the spacebar while the crosshairs are visible, it changes into a camera icon that you can position over a specific window that you may wish to capture. (That window must be visible when you initiate the keystroke.)
During both modes you may hold the Control key at the time of capture. Doing so will save the resulting shot to the clipboard rather than a file on the desktop.
Grab
The Grab application resides in the /Applications/Utilities folder. It’s pretty simplistic, and essentially duplicates the functionality of the built-in OS X feature, albeit, with a couple of small differences. After you’ve taken the screenshot, it is displayed for you to review at which time you must explicitly save it, if it is indeed what you wanted. This also allows you to choose where you’re going to save the file. There’s a Preferences window where you can choose from eight cursor images to be captured in the resulting image. Otherwise, things are pretty much the same. The keystrokes are different, as you’ll see next.
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Command + Shift + A
This keystroke results in a crosshair on screen that displays the coordinates of the cursor. Click and drag to select the area you want to capture.
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Command + Shift + W
This keystroke allows you to move windows around to select the one you’d like to capture.
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Command + Z
This keystroke results in a full screenshot.
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Command + Shift + Z
This keystroke results in a full screenshot after a 10 second timer elapses.
Skitch
Skitch is developed by the rockstars at Plasq. It’s super powerful and really easy to use. You get to edit size, crop, draw nondestructively, there’s multi-format export, web upload, copy to clipboard, review history and much more. The best part is, it’s 100% free to use!
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Command + Shift + 5
Pressing this keystroke brings up the (now familiar) crosshairs to select the region of the screen you wish to capture. The image is then opened into Skitch for further editing and use — this is the same for each key combo.
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Command + Shift + 6
This keystroke results in a full screen capture.
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Command + Shift + 7
This keystroke brings up a frame that you can resize to capture a portion of the screen. Initially this may seem to be the same as the crosshair — the difference is, the frame retains its dimensions each time, allowing you to capture uniform shots multiple times.
LittleSnapper
LittleSnapper is developed by RealMac Software. It approaches screenshots from an iPhoto perspective, allowing you to catalog, group, and tag your shots for later use. There’s a built-in browser for grabbing all or a portion of a webpage. The export feature allows you to save a webpage to a PDF file, or any screen capture to multiple image formats. There’s also an editor for tweaking the shots once you’ve captured them. With all this functionality comes a price — it’s $39. There’s also a free trial to see if it’s a good fit for you.
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Command + Option + 3
This keystroke produces a full screen capture. Once captured, it is loaded into the LittleSnapper gallery for further editing and use — this behavior is consistent with all key combos.
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Command + Shift + Option + 3
Similar to Grab, this gives you a short timer before the full screen image is captured.
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Command + Option + 4
This keystroke gives you the crosshairs to choose the region of the screen to capture.
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Command + Option + 5
This keystroke captures a specific window on screen. At least a portion of the window must be visible before initiating the keystroke.
So depending on your screenshot needs, there’s an app for that (sorry, I couldn’t help myself). The built-in tools are great and produce nice results. I personally opt for Skitch almost daily as it provides the level of control I need, but can see where something like LittleSnapper would be ideal for the designer types. There are plenty of other options out there too, if you want to get your Google on. But hopefully we’ve armed you with a little more knowledge today, to get that perfect screenshot the next time you need one.
Syphir Adds Awesome Advanced Filters to Gmail [Screenshot Tour]
Posted on March 31, 2010
Ever wish you could get even more nit-picky about your Gmail filters? Free Gmail-based webapp Syphir filters messages by arrival time, number of recipients, and whether they “need” replies. It really works, and it might just scratch your last, hard-to-reach inbox itch. More »
Screenpresso Takes Screen Captures, Adds Annotations, and Shares Them [Downloads]
Posted on January 12, 2010
Windows only: Screen capture tool Screenpresso takes screenshots of part of your screen, a specific window, or the whole screen with a shortcut key, then lets you edit, add effects, and even share with email or Twitter.
Once you've installed the utility, you can immediately begin taking a region capture of your screen with the Print Screen key—it's the same functionality you're used to from any number of great screen capture tools, but Screenpresso will guess the region you are trying to capture based on the position of your mouse, allowing you to capture just the content area of an application with a single click. You can still click and drag to select a specific region, but it’s a useful feature that could save you some time.
Once you’ve taken your screenshot, it will be saved into the history window, where you can access all of the screenshots you’ve taken, and either choose to share them with email or Twitter, or open them up in the included editor application, which lets you add arrows, shadows, text, or crop and resize the images.
There’s loads of other options to choose from, and while it’s still not quite got the polish of the reader favorite (and non-free) SnagIt screen capture tool, it’s a very capable free alternative that’s definitely worth a look. Screenpresso is a free download for Windows, though readers should note anonymous usage statistics can’t be turned off in the free version.
Screenpresso [via Guiding Tech]
Snagit for Mac Beta Brings the Popular Screenshot App to OS X [Downloads]
Posted on December 16, 2009
Mac OS X only: Many of you are familiar with screen capture tool Snagit (in fact, it won our Hive Five in the category), and now Mac users have a chance to try out a beta version of this feature-packed screenshot tool.
OS X's built-in screen capture tool Grab has quite a few options and serves many just fine—but if you're a hardcore screenshot taker, upgrading to a third-party screenshot app certainly has its advantages. Snagit can not only take screenshots of specific sections or windows on your screen, but you can also blur out parts of the picture and add annotations like text, arrows, bubbles, and color, all without having to open up a separate photo editor like Photoshop or GIMP. You can even share the screenshot via email right from the program.
The program is still in beta, so there are a few features missing at the moment, such as effects—but TechSmith says the software will be updated every 30 to 60 days, edited according to user feedback. The Snagit beta is a free download and requires an Intel-based Mac running OS X 10.5.8 and higher or 10.6.1 and higher. Post-beta Snagit will probably join its Windows counterpart as a paid app.
Snagit Beta for Mac [Techsmith]
OpenOffice.org 3.1′s Usability Tweaks [Downloads]
Posted on May 7, 2009
Windows/Mac/Linux: It hit the servers two days ago, but OpenOffice.org 3.1 is now in official release. The open-source office suite focused on anti-aliased drawing and usability tweaks for this release, which we’ve quickly previewed below.
Anti-aliased rendering for Draw (and charts): That should mean the world for those sick of seeing glaringly computer-rendered edges and intersections in their illustrations, along with the graphs and charts plugged into spreadsheets and text documents. Hard to visualize in a screenshot, but this one’s been zoomed in, and you can see the softer rendering around the circles.
Eye-friendly highlighting: No more of the Unix-y reverse-color highlighting; 3.1 introduces a softer, off-text-color highlight depending on what color you’re typing in.
Zoom slider for spreadsheets: It was a welcome addition to the Writer tool in 3.0, and now spreadsheets gets a slider bar in the lower-right corner to quickly zoom in and out on documents, rather than spend angry seconds pecking around the View->Zoom menu.
Hot hints for formulas: Not sure if this is entirely new, but the Oo.org team says they've made it easier to keep your context variables highlighted while receiving hints on how to use formulas in Calc. We know, we know—real engineers and math types can't possibly get by with Calc's formula support, so don't bother telling us so in the comments.
Comments become conversational: If you leave a note on a co-worker’s or collaborator’s document, and then you or someone else want to append to it directly to carry on a conversation, it’s now possible. Just right-click on the note in the margin and hit “Reply.”
Those are just a few of the 3.1 changes we thought the average user might appreciate, but there are more technical and core-based upgrades—like spreadsheet performance, sorting defaults, and built-in document locking—detailed at OpenOffice.org's release notes.
OpenOffice.org is a free download for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems. Thanks Mitchell!
SiteShoter Takes Web Site Screenshots Over Time [Downloads]
Posted on April 21, 2009
Windows only: Portable freeware application SiteShoter takes screenshots of web sites with a powerful array of features.
Using the utility, which (like all of the excelllent NirSoft applications) requires no installation, is easy—just add the URL to the web site you want to capture, choose a filename to save the image to, and click Start to save the screenshot. What makes this utility great is the wide range of powerful options, including a full-featured command line—you can place special formatting codes in the filename to specify a timestamp or add the URL to the filename, which becomes very useful if you wanted to save screenshots for multiple sites at once.
You can choose how often you want the screenshots to be taken—the default is every 5 minutes, but you could take a screenshot every few hours instead. Rounding out the great feature list is the ability to save your configurations for later re-use—you could use the GUI to save the options and create a command-line shortcut to run that configuration on demand.
SiteShoter is a free download for Windows only. For more great utilities, check out how to customize your right-click menu with ShellExView, or just look through our top 10 tiny & awesome Windows utilities.
SiteShoter [NirSoft via gHacks]
Rudder Manages Your Future Money Flow [Money]
Posted on April 16, 2009
What sets money management site Rudder apart from its competitors, like Mint and Wesabe? It's geared toward the future—bills to pay, paychecks to come, money to save. Let's take a peek at its features.
Note: We’ve already posted about Rudder’s daily emails, but thought a deeper look into how its money management tools work on the site itself.
Like Mint and Wesabe, Rudder takes your online banking credentials and uses them to get transactions, up-to-date totals, and transfer data from all your money pots. The Rudder team explains its encryption, privacy, and anonymity policies at its site; you can vet the credentials for yourself, but they’re fairly similar to how Mint, et al. reassure you of your financial data’s safety.
Onto the site itself. Here’s the “Dashboard” view you’ll see when you log in:
The key element is the “What’s Left” widget, which takes into account recurring bills you’ve been paying, assumes regular rent/mortgage, and indicates which way your total asset/libility ratio is going in the next 30 days, or beyond. As with automating your finances, your actual financial health is a lot more clear when you know what kind of remainder you’re really working with each month.
But note those little X marks in the upper-right corner of each box—they're actually widgets, which you can add and rearrange on your dashboard page:
That’s a pretty neat feature, and while there’s not a huge selection of them at the moment (about a dozen at last check), it’s a definite boon to be able to remove stuff you’re not really using.
Just like Mint, you’re able to categorize your monthly purchases and expenses, and have Rudder remember them and break them into neat, informative pie charts and statistical breakdowns. As with most everything on the site, it also lets you look forward and set budgets and goals for spending, so you can carve out money to be socked away in savings or investments.
Perhaps the truest differentiator Rudder has is a goal and progress tracker—which, unfortunately, isn't live yet, but which promises some pretty nice financial geekery.
You might have already seen that Rudder can send you daily financial reports. iPhone users can check the App Store for its iPhone app that puts account balances and other reports on their phone.
Has Rudder, Mint, or any other all-in-one money site swayed you into managing your finances online? What are you still waiting to see before taking the leap? Share your punch lists in the comments.
Portable Ubuntu Runs Ubuntu Inside Windows [Downloads]
Posted on April 3, 2009
Windows only: Free application Portable Ubuntu for Windows runs an entire Linux operating system as a Windows application. As if that weren’t cool enough, it’s portable, so you can carry it on your thumb drive.
Built from the same guts as the andLinux system that lets you seamlessly run Linux apps on your Windows desktop, Portable Ubuntu is a stand-alone package that runs a fairly standard (i.e. orange-colored, GNOME-based) version of the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution. It just doesn’t bother creating its own desktop, and puts all its windows inside your Windows, er, windows.
The coolest parts about Portable Ubuntu are:
- It actually works (in most cases, on most systems).
- It fits on a (larger) thumb drive and can run entirely from it.
- It can work on, and save to, your Windows folders and files.
- It’s persistent, so changes you make and apps you install are carried around with you.
- It’s easily manageable from Windows, and works great on dual monitors.
Wanna give it a go? Grab the latest Portable Ubuntu package (about 438MB as of this writing), then double-click to unpack it to a folder. On Vista or Windows 7, you’ll have to open your command prompt as an administrator (hit Windows key, type in cmd, then right-click on the “Command Prompt” option that appears and select “Run as Administrator”); on XP, you’ll probably just have to launch a command prompt. Head to the folder where you extracted your Portable Ubuntu, and enter run_portable_ubuntu and hit Enter to launch the .bat script.
Your machine will whir and decompress for a while, and you’ll likely get a few prompts to “Unblock” coLinux and a few other apps’ abilities on your system. Unblock all of them, and you’ll eventually get a small, move-able menu bar on your desktop, as seen in the top screenshot. Drag this wherever it’s comfortable to keep it, and you’re on your way.
From those three pop-out menus—Applications, Places, and System—you can accomplish pretty much the same thing as any Linux user can, just without the full desktop. Launch a program, and it appears in a window that looks like any other on your Windows system. Open a file browser from "Places," and you can get to your Windows files by heading to /mnt/C (or substitute your drive name/letter for “C”). Feel free to carry around Audacity, GIMP, or any other editing programs that lack a Windows equivalent and start getting creative with them.
Whatever changes you make to your system stick with it. So if you, say, want to install VLC media player for some on-the-go media, you can install it from the Add/Remove dialog or tackle it manually in Accessories->Terminal, and it'll be planted right in the Sound & Video menu. The same goes for system tweaks or startup apps you add to your little Ubuntu package.
Update: For those who miss it over at the Portable Ubuntu page, the default root password is 123456.
Portable Ubuntu makes for a great place to test out your more cutting-edge stuff, without having to worry about messing up your working Windows system. The latest beta of Firefox 3.1/3.5? Even easier to run than the portable solution, and you can keep both your Windows and Portable-Ubuntu-launched Firefox browsers open at once.
When you’re running Portable Ubuntu, Windows treats it like any other program. You can close down individual app windows from your taskbar, and pop it onto and off your desktop with little hassle.
Portable Ubuntu is a free, portable download that runs from Windows systems only. Drop your Linux-inside-Windows ideas and other geeky stuff in the comments.
Pod to PC Transfers Music from Any iPod, iPhone Onto Your PC [Downloads]
Posted on February 10, 2009
Windows only: Pod to PC can grab the music and movies off nearly any Windows-formatted iPod for transferring to your PC, and avoids duplicates while doing so.
Install and fire up the software, and if your iPod is connected by a USB transfer cable, Pod to PC should find it and offer up basic stats:
Most notable is that, along with an iTunes-like read on space use, iPod name, and the like, Pod to PC shows how many of the tracks on a device are already loaded into iTunes on your computer. So that “Automatic Transfer” button smooshed into the lower-right corner (Pod to PC has a pretty rough graphical interface, in case you couldn’t tell) does exactly that, grabbing uncopied tracks and placing them. Or you can tackle a transfer manually:
Advanced visual cues show you what’s in your library already, what’s protected or free, and what type of media each file is. Select the files you want, or use the upper-right search bar to narrow-as-you-type search. When you’re done selecting, head to the File menu, hit “Initiate transfer,” and you’ll get a pop-up window giving you the report. Pod to PC can’t place the files in iTunes itself, but it does create an “Import File,” a simple text document, that iTunes can read to bring in multiple files at once.
The caveats: Pod to PC is not the most stable software we've tested—the inteface is a smooshy thing, and crashes and freeze-ups, especially when attempting to preview a file, aren't exactly rare. But it does work with an iPod touch or iPhone just as well as a first-generation white iPod, and does a nice job of sorting what you do and don’t have already. For a full guide to reliable transfer software, check out our guide to copying music from your iPhone or iPod to your computer for free.
Pod to PC is a free download for Windows systems only.