¶ As recommended by just about everyone, I installed Quicksilver and set it to bezel mode. Fantastic. I was getting a bit tired of the Dock for switching open applications, and more particularly fed up with the Finder for launching new ones. Coming from Windows, I also use alt-tab to toggle open applications (a Panther addition as I understand it), but I’m finding Quicksilver is easier even than that. And I haven’t even used the ‘shelf’ yet.
I digress. So, I was typing a few letters into Quicksilver, as you do, and I saw a calculator appear on the list. Nice to know there’s one built in (it’s in Utilities for you fellow OS X newbies). The calculator is pretty similar to the one built into Windows – it has two modes: basic and scientific/advanced. But it also comes with a unit converter, and even better, a currency converter! which you can sync to get up-to-date rates. And what’s more, the calculator remembers your recent conversions (pounds to dollars, feet to metres, etc). And it’s got an editable paper trail of your current calculation. Bloody brilliant.
Comments
1
You might like to take a look at http://www.macworld.com/2004/03/features/panthersecretsdeclassified/?pf=1 and seach for “Add New Calculator Modes”
2
I gotta say that although Quicksilver is nice, I still think LaunchBar is just a bit better. LaunchBar has been out for a couple of years and the new 4.0 beta they launched several weeks ago is really really nice. It will be interesting to see how the final versions of both of these utilities stack up since they are essentially the same in what they are trying to accomplish.
3
I only discovered the currency thing in Calculator a few months ago! Its so useful though.
I’d tried Butler and LaunchBar, but Quicksilver just works the way I like. I haven’t tried Pathfinder yet, but I’ve heard many good things about it.
4
I used to use LaunchBar, but grew tired of the indexing it does after every boot. Perhaps that’s changed since I switched to Quicksilver. I’ll have to check out that beta.
By the way, Calculator is in the Applications folder in Panther. Unless I moved it. Hmm…
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