Ettore Software Ltd. today started shipping an enhanced version of its long-standing text expander for Mac,
TypeIt4Me, introduced at Macworld Expo in January.

Since 1989, TypeIt4Me has allowed users to set up short abbreviations which expand to words, pictures, phrases, paragraphs or indeed entire pages when typed.

New TypeIt4Me version 4.0 will now automatically correct spelling mistakes.
Unlike competing products which require the user to set up long lists of typos and their correct spelling, TypeIt4Me’s AutoCorrect uses Apple’s built-in OS X spell-checker, AppleSpell and requires no user set up.

Users can turn AutoCorrect on/off via a hotkey, which also allows changing among up to three supported languages (including English, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Spanish and Portuguese).

Company founder and CEO, Riccardo Ettore says: “Users have long been able to define commonly mistyped words to expand to their correct spelling. With 4.0, they can now leverage the power of OS X’s built-in spellchecker and have their typos automatically corrected while they continue typing, instead of seeing it
underlined in red.”

Also new in 4.0 is Autocue, which allows users to define boilerplate text with variable parts to be typed when prompted at expansion time.

For a complete list of features, see: http://ettoresoftware.com/EttoreSoftware/TypeIt4MeFeatures.html

Available now for download from http://ettoresoftware.com TypeIt4Me 4.0 costs $27 ($14 for students/teachers). Upgrades are $9, but free for users who bought the previous version after 1 August 2006.

You will finally be able to truly conquer Time Machine and Spaces with Apple’s latest update, 10.5.2. With the ability to turn off Space’s funky spring view of the folders, you’ll be able to go back to that great simply listing of Tiger. Also fixed is Time Machine’s inability to see some external hard drivers as well as automatically popping up the status window when running. Also noted by Apple is, ” Improved general stability when running third-party applications.” That would be nice since 10.5.1 seems to crash so many of my applications when I was on that awful rev. No specifics if Windows Network shares are fixed, but this comment, “Addresses a hanging issue that may occur when connecting to an AFP network volume,” on Apple’s release notes seems to indicate maybe you mixed network folk should have no more issues.

Leopard users can initiate download via there Software Update on their Mac.

For a complete list of fixes in the near 400 MB upgrade, take the leap below…

After a long hard journey through months of coding and testing, Shirt Pocket has finally mastered Leopard’s changes and added some sweet new features to make this $30 archive utility something worthy of a Must Have on any Macintosh HD. SuperDuper! 2.5 (Build 84) not only backs up your existing hard drive to a bootable archive, but it also lives side-by-side Apple’s archiving utility, Time Machine. The release notes also specify that, “You can now store a bootable backup side-by-side with a Time Machine backup on a single volume.” Further, you can now copy Time Machine backup volumes to other drives as well as being able to execute scheduled tasks immediately with the “Run Now” button. Other changes include Exposé, Time Machine, Spaces and Front Row are added to the Leopard Sandboxes as well as the ability to ignore Google Desktop Index files.

All in all, this is a long anticipated update and we here at SvenOnTech highly recommend it for those looking for a simple, easy, and robust archiving utility that will work in conjunction with Time Machine.

eBay has come a long way with it’s web interface on the worlds most popular bidding site on the world wide web. But, there still could be some improvements made, namely, with speed. One of my main gripes with eBay is that it can be slow at times. Not a biggy when you’re browsing but it can mean the difference between winning and losing at bid time. It’s happened a couple of times to me. Granted, network issues could be related to the speed problem; however, with its complex layout, eBay can take some of the burden of blame as well. Thankfully, eBay has an API (Application Program Interface) that allows developers to tap into the eBay engine externally. This means people at companies like iwascoding can make an eBay manager that works as if you were on eBay…but better.

iwascoding are the makers of the well known GarageSale, an eBay sell manager. This has been the more popular use of the eBay API but fortunately, those whacky German coding guys understand that there is a need to manage sales as well manage bids, so they created GarageBuy.

When I first saw GarageBuy, I was hesitant. What could it possibly do better than eBay’s web interface? Yes, speed was my key draw to this application, but was it worth opening another application to take more resources away from my Mac? Needless to say, the cost, free, was the strongest pull for me to click that download link.

Once installed, GarageBuy asks for you to authorize the application, much like wonderful Flickr Uploadr (also free) does. Once authorized, you’re already signed in and ready to go. First thing GarageBuy will do is import any items on your Watch list and other eBay information locally. Then, you’re off to the races.

I did a test search, “Purple Birkenstock”, to see how well the search would perform. To my surprise, it was quick and presented very nicely. The left side of the column shows your search term along with the hit count. To the right is the results. These results include brief auction information and a picture (if available.) With a limited pool of results, I went for something I wanted: NAS. NAS, short for Network Attached Storage, is a need at my home-based office. I’ve been looking for a rack mount product but this hardware form factor starts at 3k. Ouch! But what better way to test GarageBuy’s speed and see if I could find a deal? Well a deal indeed is what I found and speed was another feature rich benefit. My results quickly filled up the screen (over 700 total) and within minutes I found the perfect NAS at the perfect price. I’m sure I would have found it on my web browser as well, but no way would it have been this easy and this pleasurable.

Why pleasurable? The layout is so intelligently done that one would think iwascoding spent countless hours and Euros on this program. So why is this free, guys? On the right side, the Gallery display, where all your hits are shown, you can sort by time left, current price, Buy It Now price, or title. Above this sort line you can narrow down the results by clicking on soft buttons that differ from search to search that allow you really get into the details. You can also increase the size of the Gallery picture if you’d like. To watch an auction or hide it from the results, just click the appropriate button on the tool bar above.

To bid on an auction, all you need to do is click the money icon and up comes a new window with bid information including a place for your bid. The window is updated in real-time, so the auctions remaining time is displayed in countdown fashion along with the price being updated with the current bidders name. Placing your bid couldn’t be any easier than typing in your price, clicking the bid button, confirming the bid (which you can have disabled for future bids) and that’s it. Your bid is in and the screen updates with your information! It is very fast!

The left column will keep you up to date on your bids and other items you are watching. Green colored bubbles mean you’ve won the auction, red indicates a loss, and light red with dark red means it’s in auction your watching but you haven’t bid on yet (or your losing the bid.) Yellow is for the ended auction without a winner. Another nice feature of GarageBuy is the darker color will progress to the right as a time indicator. The closer it fills up the bubble, the less time you have left. It’s just so easy to glance at any auction and know when time is almost up.

GarageBuy is fully Growl compatible, so if you’re watching an auction, you’re notified when the bid changes. All other actions by you are also shown such as making a bid.

In short, GarageBuy, the first officially certified client for the Mac by eBay, is nothing short of awesome. Any user of eBay with a Mac should have this in their Applications folder. Light users to heavy users are going to thoroughly enjoy this eBay buyer manager. I know I am.

Nearly twelve months and counting. That’s the first time I saw Skitch at Macworld Expo. It started off as a tease and now has been a private beta for almost a year. When we say private, we mean private. Not that we’re big names or anything, but we’d at least think we could get in on this beta after sending a couple of requests in. We haven’t. From what it sounds like, only those with connections or well known names get in on this. For example, Merlin Mann of Mac Break Weekly has been using the beta from the start. He went on and on (listen…about 42 minutes in) about how awesome this application was…back in the early summer. We don’t doubt Merlin’s impressions, in fact, more times than not, we agree nearly 100% on like matters, but what has happened in those other six months? You really can’t blame Leopard as Plasq had to have a beta of that to work with. Even if not, compatibility issues shouldn’t have been too difficult to sort out. My SnapNDrag works just fine without an update for Leopard.

We love Merlin (we miss you on MBW) and no offense to him, but man, Plasq, where’s the goods? How long can one company have a product in beta? Publicly? Shesh, Apple’s Leopard was in beta about the same amount of time and it’s a freakin’ entire operating system! What’s your excuse?

From what I saw at Macworld Expo and what I’ve read and heard, Skitch sounds to be the best screen capture utility made. Note I didn’t say out there. It’s caused me to hold off on buying other products, but at this rate, it’s pretty much time to move on and forget. I’m sure Skitch will see daylight, maybe, at Macworld Expo in January, but after this long delay, it just doesn’t seem to be that big of a deal anymore. It may have been much wiser for Plasq to keep its mouth shut on this last year and then surprised us with it this year. Basic marketing trick, guys.

I often find myself wondering if there is a freeware application of something I may be looking on any particular day. I’ll Google hunt, but sometimes I can spend more time than I want looking for the application than it’s sometimes worth in the end. I can also search some of the mega-download sites but then I get peppered with shareware. I just need something easy and I’ve found it. The new way for me to find freeware is to use Eagle of Liberty’s XTastes.

With XTastes, you can browse categories and then drill down to a specific application. At this level, you can see its latest version number, size, the date it was updated, and you can leave a five star scaled rating if you’d like. More information about the program is just a simple click away with full details on the app including a link to the authors website.

XTastes also allows you to use CoverFlow if column view ain’t your thing. In this mode, you get a large icon of the application with a drop down drawer containing application information…in French as it were for us. Hopefully us English speakin’ folk will get an update to that real soon.

So if you’re looking for an easy way to find some freeware and you don’t wish to open your browser and wouldn’t mind a snazzy interface to do it in, whelp, hit the XTastes, baby. Oh ya, it’s free.