Tagamac

Numerous tagging applications received interesting updates in March (lack of timely coverage thanks to real-life distractions). Tag Folders was bumped to 2.0 (current version: 2.0.2) and now includes OpenMeta tagging support with two-way conversion of tags and numerous bug fixes. MarsEdit 2.3 was released and added Tumblr support. EagleFiler 1.4.5 includes OpenMeta tags import, improved ways to access tags via Applescript, and numerous bug fixes. Tags 1.2 is now available and includes improved Quick Look support, a new AppleScript interface, reduced conflicts with MailTags, and several other fixes and improvements. Evernote 1.3 was released (current version 1.3.1), including a new Safari clipper toolbar button, Safari 4 support, Growl notifications, and (in not so happy news) advertisements for non-premium users.

For more information, see the Tag Folders release notes, MarsEdit 2.3 blog announcement, EagleFiler 1.4.5 blog announcement, and the Evernote 1.3 Mac blog announcement. Tags does not currently have up-to-date release notes online.

Early this December Together, Hazel, StoryMill, and Evernote all received minor updates. Together 2.2.3 includes synching improvements and several minor bug fixes. Hazel 2.2.4 offers a number of crash and other bug fixes, including some minor UI improvements. StoryMill 3.2.1 fixes several bugs, including date entry problems and localization improvements. Evernote 1.2 primarily introduces a new feature for premium users only: file synchronization. Basically, premium users can now attach any file on your computer to a note and it will be synchronized between all of your Evernote clients (Mac, web, iPhone, etc.). The only limitation is that a single note cannot exceed 25 MB. Cool? Yes. Evernote has made a lot of improvements since I last wrote about it, so definitely give it a look if you need to access data from anywhere.

For more information on the various updates see Together’s release notes, Hazel’s release notes, the StoryMill 3.2.1 announcement, and the Evernote synchronization blog announcement.

Several programs received minor updates in the tail end of October and the beginning of November. Hazel, a useful utility for automatically handling your files, was updated to version 2.2.3. This update includes minor interface changes, bug fixes, and the ability to use “match/does not match” with “Source URL/Address”. EagleFiler was updated to version 1.4.1, and then soon after to 1.4.2. 1.4.1 included numerous bug fixes and minor feature improvements and 1.4.2 fixed a couple issues that apparently slipped through the cracks. Lastly, PackRat was updated to version 1.7.5, a version which fixes two 10.5 specific problems with Applescript and the Synchronize with Backpack Automator option.

For more information, see the Hazel release notes, EagleFiler’s 1.4.1 and 1.4.2 blog posts, or PackRat’s 1.7.5 blog announcement.

Once again I find myself slightly behind on the times, this time thanks to moving (no longer in a wasteland of apartments, I’m now living in lower Queen Anne; the difference is night and day). Some minor updates that may prove of interest include Shoebox 1.7.4, MarsEdit 2.2.1, PackRat 1.7.3, and Things 0.9.5. Shoebox now apparently has better Photoshop integration; MarsEdit fixes a number of bugs and introduces better AtomPub support; PackRat fixed some problems with Textile conversion; and Things now allows you to sort tasks by due date (along with bug fixes). Things also has a tentative release date: January 2009 at the MacWorld expo.

For more details about the MarsEdit update, see the 2.2.1 blog announcement. For more info about Things see the release notes or 0.9.5 blog announcment. The other software didn’t provide much in the way of release notes.

PackRat, the desktop frontend for 37signal’s Backpack, has received a price drop from $24.95 to $14.95.

Aside from the benefit of an OS X rather than web-based interface, PackRat also offers the ability to access your Backpack information offline. For more details about the program, see the PackRat website.

Pukka, a Delicious and Ma.gnolia client, was updated today to 1.7.2. This minor update brings no new features, instead focusing on performance and speed. Launch time has been decreased, and Pukka’s performance on background tasks has been optimized to make it much faster. (1.7.1 was also recently released, but it mainly contained minor user experience improvements like better keyboard navigation.)

For more information, see the 1.7.2 blog post.

For those software developers amongst us, you may be interested to note that M Cubed Software has released Lighthouse Keeper 1.0. Similar to PackRat, Lighthouse Keeper is little more than a desktop frontend to an existing web application, in this case the issue tracker Lighthouse. Lighthouse Keeper offers the ability to manage your Lighthouse projects without needing a site-specific browser or similar solution, as well as adding offline access to your Lighthouse-tracked issues and the ability to quickly add an issue with a system-wide hotkey. And, of course, tagging is a primary organizational offering of Lighthouse Keeper. Lighthouse Keeper is available as a free demo with a registration fee of €30.

I find it intriguing that the number of desktop frontends to subscription-driven web apps is increasing. Certainly for those people who use these web apps, a desktop companion that allows offline access (among other perks) would be fantastic, but for the vast majority of users the application is barely worth a cursory glance. Unless you have a Lighthouse account, you can’t even run Lighthouse Keeper to put it through its paces; the first thing you see when you launch it is a sheet that requires you to fill in your Lighthouse account details or quit. I think to some extent applications like this are approaching from the wrong direction: we don’t need desktop frontends to specific web apps; what we need are desktop applications with full functionality that can also tie into one or more web apps. Perhaps such functionality will make its way into Lighthouse Keeper down the road, but for now the program will only be of interest to those already using, or thinking seriously of adopting, Lighthouse.

PackRat, the desktop companion to Backpack, has been updated to version 1.7. This update fixes image update issues for all users (including PowerPC folks), and improves page rendering time thanks to a change in the libraries powering the software.

For slightly more information, check out the blog announcement.

MarsEdit, the trimmed down blogging software from Red Sweater, has been updated to version 2.2. This version introduces AtomPub support, customizable image markup using MarsEdit’s standard macro language, and significant performance improvements for launch time (along with a few other minor changes). The image markup in particular is a godsend; no more deleting width and height tags for every image and adding a custom class or two. Set it up once, and you’re good to go.

For more details about the update, see the blog announcement.

I got a little behind again last week and let a couple updates go by, but here they are: Code Collector Pro, the tag-based snippets manager, has been updated to 1.2.4, a minor update of mainly bug fixes (see the blog announcement or change log for more). Together was updated to 2.1.5, bringing some changes to Shelf behavior along with several minor bug fixes and small improvements (see the release notes for full details). PackRat, the desktop front-end for 37signals’ Backpack, was updated to version 1.6.2 which brings some fixes to images and attachments (see the blog announcement for info).

Along with those minor updates, Cha-Ching 2.0 has been released as an early public beta. I haven’t tried it myself yet, but it will be interesting to see if the second version is able to fix some of the many issues that marred the first. Cha-Ching is one of those applications that I want to love, but have trouble using regularly because it just isn’t quite perfected yet.