Quicksilver #1
If you love Macs and know nothing about Quicksilver, I won’t preach at you here but I will insist that you at least visit their site and read up a little bit on it because you are honestly missing out on the most powerful utility/app/interface to hit any software platform, ever. Even the Windows community talks about Quicksilver. If they’re talking about it, you should at least know what Quicksilver is. OK, I’m stepping off my box now… let’s get on with it.
What do I have to say about Quicksilver? If you are in any way serious about cranking up your speed and workflow, there are certain plateaus you need to achieve. At risk of getting all zen on yo’ass, it has to be said that you must become one with your computer. There, I said it; now how will you do it?
There is a saying that travels around a bit, “Act, don’t think.” If you are dragging a cursor around your screen with squinted eyes and a furled brow looking for something that is eluding you, then you have obviously never heard of this saying. If you have more hot-key combinations then you do keys on the keyboard, and they are all accessible with just your left hand, then you are fully aware of this mantra. This is, to me, what Quicksilver is all about. It’s all about doing what your brain wants and doing it from one place.
With Quicksilver I will contribute to a handful of blogs, upload images, launch apps, quite apps, work with apps, launch recently opened files, execute scripts, drill into folders without digging, find files without looking, email clients without opening an email client… all of this from one space, from one mindset… and it all starts with one hot-key combo.
The Quicksilver home page eloquently states,
“Quicksilver: A unified, extensible interface for working with applications, contacts, music, and other data.”
Think about that for a minute:
“unify – make or become united, uniform, or whole”
“extensible – an architectural property of a program that allows its capabilities to expand”
Whether you apply that to the app itself, you the operator or your workflow, it’s deep no matter what.
I know that familiarity with ones own computer environment is key to increased productivity and an intimate knowledge with ones own operating system and underlying foundation an important part of that. No single workflow should hang in the balance of any operators proficiency with one app, but one week with Quicksilver and you will undoubtedly become more productive at anything you do.
If this article has tweaked your interest at all about Quicksilver, then know there will be more from me.
Also, please take a moment to read articles from other Quicksilver advocates:
Merlin Mann | Dan Dickinson | The Apple Blog | Lifehacker
[tags]Quicksilver, Merlin Mann, workflow, productivity[/tags]