The most popular columns I have written this year have been about applications that lightened office workloads. The response to the mention of Page Sender, the faxing software, and Spamfire, the spam-filtering software, was incredible. Based upon this, I thought you might like to hear about some other handy office helper applications. If you type similar things day after day, it would be handy if your Mac read your mind and typed the words you were going to type. Well, with Typeit4me ( www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/mac/12930 , US$27), it almost can. Typeit4me stores words and their abbreviations so that, whenever you type in an abbreviation, Typeit4me fills in the larger word. In most offices, certain words and phrases get typed dozens of times a day or even per document. This application, properly set up, will save you time and finger strokes. If your word processor is a Carbon application (a native OS X application such as the Hog Bay Notebook below) you may prefer the less expensive AutoCompleter ( www.catchysoftware.com , US$15). Aside from guessing the word from one or two letters, it has the advantage that it is self-programming. If the applications you use every day will support AutoCompleter, you will fall in love with this handy tool. Remember OS 9, when the Mac had the incredible Location Manager? Those were the days. The Location Manager kept track of all the settings necessary for networks, printers and modems at each location where you used your computer. Unfortunately, OS X does not yet have those capabilities. But to the rescue comes LocationX (homepage.mac.com/locationmanager, US$10), which, with a single click, will update the appropriate time zone, e-mail settings and more. I set up my computer in five locations and it is impossible to remember all the settings. If you are in the same situation, you should look into LocationX. Sticky notes are OK for phone numbers, grocery store lists and single-sentence reminders, but I document conversations, meetings, experiments and ideas at great length. Before computers, I used scientific notebooks and diaries to log my daily progress. So it was with great delight that I discovered the Hog Bay Notebook application (available from www.hogbay.com/software/notebook , US$19.95). Aside from being a logbook, the Hog Bay Notebook is also a slick filing system for your notes and has the best find-by-content search capability of any application I have used to date. It cannot yet replace MS Word, but two or three new features and I will use it for everything. I am occasionally called upon to speak in front of groups of people. When I first started, the anticipation often made me forget some of what I wanted to say. I corrected this by preparing ahead of time with flashcards. There are a number of Mac flashcard creation applications and most are free, but Studycard Studio (freeware or US$29.95 for the pro version, www.digitalmeadow.com ) takes flashcard creation and use to a whole new level. The application is so complete that you can create quizzes and tests, and use movies, photos and graphics within each card. There is nothing handier for memorising species, chemical symbols, laws, foreign language objects and anything else.
