Sunday Morning Blog

January 25, 2006

I've Got a Butler

How many auto parts salespeople can say that? And how many can say that their Butler is the best?

Butler is actually a new launcher utility (new to me at least) that I have added to my iMac. For many people, the idea of a launcher utility is probably old news. For this new iMac owner, however, Butler is a program that has revolutionized the way I access applications, searches, reference look-ups, menus, bookmarks, files and url's from my computer. To put it as simply as I can, a launcher utility gives you the ability to launch all of these and more by assigning key combinations, abbreviations and "hot corners" (screen corners, mouse button, key combinations). Butler does this and much, much more. The productivity and time saved mousing and clicking around makes me wonder what I have been doing without such a utility for so long.

Just a few examples of some of my favorite new shortcuts:

* control-i opens my Images (or Pictures) folder

* control-command-t opens a Technorati search bar

* control-command-g a Google search bar

* control-command-n NetNewsWire, etc., etc.

Being new to this, I am certainly not capable of comparing this launcher to others, or even critiquing its ease of use. Still, I can tell you that I am loving the possibilities already. I highly recommend giving this, or a similar program a try if you spend much of your time using your computer for work or play.

Posted by capecodcyclist at January 25, 2006 09:04 PM