Today's Friday Favorite is a new one to me, but it's been around for a while. I just picked up the latest version of HistoryHound from St. Clair Software -- more famous, probably, for Default Folder X -- and have been using it constantly for days. Its hotkey already has its own spot in my muscle memory. Here's what it does:

HistoryHound indexes bookmarks, history and cache from all of your browsers, with presets for Camino, Firefox 2 & 3, Flock, iCab, OmniWeb, Opera, Safari, Shiira and URL Manager Pro. It means being able to bookmark willy-nilly in any browser and know that you'll be able to quickly locate noteworthy sites again, in any application.

Not just the bookmarks, though; in the background -- with a very low footprint -- HistoryHound starts indexing the full text of each page. Then you can search for exact or fuzzy matches, or with Spotlight-style boolean keywords for any text on the landing page. Search comes in two flavors: a tiny popup panel which can be assigned to a hotkey and provides a list of matches as you type, and a full, Webkit-enabled search window with page previews and a multi-column result list.

A few weeks ago we covered the Bookmark app, a subsystem for playing and bookmarking audio books. I was quite impressed with it, but some comments dinged it for not playing in the background when the app is closed. It also only handled audiobooks and some felt it would be more useful if it covered any audio file in your iTunes library.

SayAgain [iTunes Link] is another bookmarking app which solves both of those problems, but not nearly as well or as elegantly. It is compatible with the iPhone and iPod touch and requires iPhone OS 3.0 or later. It sells for US$1.99.

One of my pet-peeves is that many apps give you no instruction on how they work, and SayAgain is one of those. When you run it you are presented with a lined screen titled 'Annotated Media'. To the left is a + button and to the right is an edit button. Now what? Clicking on the developer link in iTunes brings you no help, only a description of what the app does. Nowhere in the app is an info button to bring some direction. But, one might say, it's intuitive. You don't need help. I say, nonsense. Everyone comes from a different level of experience and assuming intuitiveness is a bad assumption. Bookmark, on the other hand, gives full instructions and a tutorial right inside the app.

SayAgain is a generalist audio bookmarking app, allowing you to add bookmarks to any audio file in iTunes. This is quite useful since you might want to bookmark a story in podcast or even a great drum solo as well as a place in an audiobook.

There are two ways to use it. Either play something in iTunes and then run the app which will display your audio file as Now playing, along with the name of the song or file. Or you can run it without playing anything and hit the + button which brings up iTunes. Leaving the app doesn't stop the audio, a major advantage. To add a book mark you click the star (which in other apps means favorites), and you'll get a window with a keyboard and buttons to 'Set start marker' and 'Set end marker'. On top of the screen are buttons marked back and play.

Read on to see how well it worked.

The Bookmark app [iTunes Link] has solved a number of problems I've always suffered while listening to audiobooks on an iPhone. It isn't pefect yet, but what is currently in the app store is the best implementation of digital audiobook listening I've found. It's earned a place on my home page and that alone is quite a recommendation. I'll get to a play-by-play in a bit, but first a bit of context is in order.

Looking for a cheezburger to go with your iPhone? You're in luck. The goofballs (and I say that with fondest affection) over at ICanHasCheezburger have created an official iPhone app so you can cart the cats around with you wherever you go. Just bookmark this on your phone's Safari browser and whenever you visit you'll be greeted by the 30 most recent lolcat pictures. It even updates every time there's a new post.

Don't have an iPhone? To dream and drool, check out the demo page the creators put together (it's only viewable on a Mac).

Now this site needs the same treatment.

I don't know how I missed this post at Hawk Wings a few weeks ago, but I am glad I found it at least sooner or later: Tim Gaden has been keeping a watchful eye on the Yojimbo mailing list, and he caught a set of scripts written by Dylan Damian that can take a link from either Safari or NetNewsWire, bookmark it on del.icio.us with Pukka (which I highly recommend as a paid user) and then archive the link in Yojimbo using the same tags you used on del.icio.us. I completely agree with Tim: after testing these scripts out with NetNewsWire, they work like a charm and have just been added to my toolbelt.

You can score the scripts by checking the Yojimbo mailing list archives (they're online here if you aren't subscribed), or simply by heading over to Tim's post at Hawk Wings, as he is hosting the files himself.

Striking another blow to .Mac's usefulness, SafariDepot allows bookmark synchronization over FTP and FTPS (secure FTP). It's actually a clever little app that also includes a couple of scripts that are ripe for automation through Quicksilver, Login Items, cron jobs, and more. It's also smart about downloading and replacing Safari's local bookmarks: once a download is run, it will automatically restart Safari (if it's running) and backup your local copy before replacing it with the version from your server.

SafariDepot might not have that "it just works" aura about it that .Mac Safari syncing does (since you have to roll your own automation or *gasp* run it manually), but it's certainly yet another alternative to one of .Mac's prized features.

[via MacUser]

Online bookmaking systems are all the rage these days (I certainly rely on nothing but Pukka, delibar and Quicksilver's del.icio.us plugin now), but what if, while amassing your library of 'marks, some of them go dead, are taken down or otherwise disappear? dead.licious might just be the tool for you, as it's a utility that checks each of your links to see if at least something is still there.

It isn't quite everything it could be, however, as the author lists a number of improvements already on the list:

• Support for 10.3.9 and maybe 10.2.8. E-mail me if you really, really want this tool for 10.3.9 and I'll see what I can do to expedite the process along (donations wouldn't hurt either).
• Faster checking of websites by checking several at once instead of one at a time.
• Keychain support so you don't have to type in your username and password each time.
• Determining which websites have been added since the last update and only checking those.
• Editing bookmark information and submitting the changes back to your del.icio.us account.

With this in mind, a discussion of whether dead.licious should even be called a 1.0 app could certainly be warranted, but instead of getting nit-picky over version guidelines, why not give it a whirl and submit some feedback (and a buck or two while you're at it) to show the dev you care.

I wish I had more to say about this update, like it doubles your Mac's performance or solves world hunger, but it mainly fixes login problems by updating to the new del.icio.us API. Delibar, for those scratching your heads, is what I consider the missing link of social bookmarking which actually makes your 'marks useful; it's a menubar item that provides access to all your del.icio.us bookmarks, even storing them in a folder hierarchy (the first tag is the main folder, second tag is a subfolder) and displaying tag bundles you create at the site. It's an indispensable utility in my arsenal, and if you've been having login issues like I have (Quicksilver's del.icio.us plugin can't seem to login anymore either), this 0.8.2 update should fix your issues.

Delibar is donationware and available from Whamoo.

Everyone's favorite social bookmarking site, del.icio.us, is great and all, but is lacking when it comes to quickly bookmarking sites as you browse. That's where Pukka comes in. Instead of being taken to a page on the del.ico.us site, as one would if using the default bookmarklet, Pukka pops up a sleek little interface on top of the page you want to bookmark, just as if you were bookmarking within your browser. Just enter a few tags, a description, and viola! Recently updated to version 1.3, Pukka now supports private posting, so you can bookmark all those "questionable" sites without fear that your friends and family will see them and disown you. Release 1.3 also introduces full AppleScript support. Pukka is available as a Universal Binary download from Code Sorcery Workshop.

[via Hawk Wings]

Finally, after months of small alpha version bumps, Flock, the social web browser based on Firefox, has unleashed a 0.7 beta with a whole slew of updates, improvements and bug fixes. Along with a site re-design, check out their blog entry for a thorough rundown of what's new and what's still on the way.

This beta-worthy version has been a long time coming, and my copy is downloading as I write this. In case you aren't familiar: Flock has Firefox at its core, but includes a ton of features and capabilities built around the concept of using and interacting with the web - not just surfing it. Features like built-in blogging, uploading to/keeping tabs on Flickr and integrated del.icio.us bookmarking are all on the feature list. It's quite a slick browser if you've been looking for a solid, integrated tool for both browsing and participating in the web. Check it out.

[via Download Squad]

Yojimbo, the information collection app from Bare Bones Software that helps you 'master the onslaught', has been updated to version 1.2. Among the additions and improves are a Quick Start movie for new users that launches on first startup, search term highlighting, browser bookmarklets for one-click bookmarking or web archiving in Yojimbo, AppleScript importing and much more.

A 30-day fully functioning demo is available, while Bare Bones offers full single user, family and educational licenses for $39, $69 and $29, respectively.

Concierge is a bookmark assistant plug-in for Safari that offers a multi-function scratchpad, bookmark managing tool and history sorting in a drawer on the side of the browser window. The scatchpad sounds like the most interesting feature, as it allows users to organize URLs, email links, Address Book contacts and even links to files and folders; great for heavy surfers and researchers alike.

This latest version addresses a few bug fixes and brings Universal Binary super-powers to this shareware utility. Check out Concierge's product page for a demo and quite a few more details on all you can do with this handy plug-in, and a license will run you $10.

Pukka, the versatile, multi-account and light-weight del.icio.us posting client, has been updated to version 1.2. New features and fixes include:

• Pukka now uses the new SSL del.icio.us API for increased security as well as a more reliable means of storing passwords in the keychain.
• The tags field now resizes in height as necessary to accommodate all of the tags that you type.
• There is a new option to disable warning messages when resetting, closing or quitting with unposted data.
• Bug fixes and tweaks: hiding behavior, more reliable determination of successful posting, success dialog "Visit del.icio.us" button, pasting into tags field, added tooltips, smaller font in Bonjour drawer, problem with semicolon in posting fields, only attempt to use Growl when it's running

A demo of Pukka is available from Code Sorcery Workshop, and a license will cost a mere $5.

C.K. blogged delicious2safari what feels like a year ago, and not much has changed since. It still allows you to import your del.icio.us bookmarks into Safari as either a flat list or in folders according to your tags, except now it has gone the way of the Universal Binary.

delicious2safari is freeware and available from Christina Zeeh's site.

I know there are various plugins, addons, widgets and thingamabobs that will allow Safari to bookmark a group of tabs you have open. If you haven't installed any of these extras or you're just an applescript fan at heart, I found a one-trick script over at ScriptBuilders that should pull this trick off just fine. However, I haven't tested this yet, and the script's page doesn't state whether its compatible with Tiger and/or Panther, so if you try it out, please post your thoughts.