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Filed under: Video, Odds and ends, Macbook Pro, MacBook, Found Footage, MacBook Air, Snow Leopard

Have a MacBook running Snow Leopard? Give someone your Autograph

Up to this point in time, if you wanted to "sign" an electronic document (other than a secure PDF), you either had to scan your signature with a scanner and import the resulting graphic into your document, or purchase a digitizing tablet. Ten One Design, the same folks who brought us the Pogo Sketch stylus, have come up with a way for anyone with Snow Leopard and a MacBook that supports multi-touch gestures to sign documents.

Autograph (US$6.95) is a signature capture application that works with your MacBook and a finger or stylus to make signing your name a snap. If you don't know if your MacBook will work with Autograph, you can download a trial copy that adds a watermark to the signature just to try it out.

To add your John Hancock to an email or document when Autograph is running (I have it set up to launch at startup), you can either select the menu bar icon or press control-option-A, and then a semi-transparent gray window appears. Using your finger or a stylus on your trackpad like a pen, you can write your name or draw a little picture. Pressing return embeds the signature or sketch into your document.

Autograph works great! I was able to use it in Mail, Word, Keynote, and Pages, and I'm assuming that it will work fine in any Mac application that lets you paste in a graphic. I know I'll be using this handy little program to add a personal touch to my documents. The short silent video below demonstrates Autograph in action.

Filed under: Cool tools, TUAW Tips, AppleScript

Random Signatures with TextExpander and AppleScript

TextExpander, a $29.95US utility which inserts snippets of text or images when you type a preset string of characters, has long been a TUAW favorite. I only recently learned that it can run AppleScripts within a snippet, which opened up a world of fun for me. Here's a quick script demonstrating how AppleScript can be used to randomize quotes within your email signature.

Create a new TextExpander snippet and set the content type to "AppleScript." Copy and paste the code that follows into the snippet content box. I'll run through what it does in at the end.

Read on for the script!

Continue readingRandom Signatures with TextExpander and AppleScript

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Cool tools, UNIX / BSD

Maintenance utility Cocktail 4.1.4 released

All the way since back when I started using a Mac, the program that's been most recommended to new Mac users in my experience isn't Adium, Transmit, or Quicksilver (although those are certain all terrific apps/reasons to be a Mac owner) -- Cocktail is the one that I've seen on the Top 10 Mac apps most often. And there's no question that while Adium and those other apps might be flashier or more UI-driven, Cocktail is the nitro you toss in your car's fuel line to supercharge all of the stuff under the hood. From disk repairs and standard maintenance, to network optimization and cache and log file clearing, Cocktail is exactly the kind of program you buy a Mac for -- it gives you control over almost everything going on in your computer.

They've just updated to 4.1.4, with a whole slew of optimizations to show for it -- the application itself has shrunk in size by 50%, and there are lots of upgrades for faster and more reliable performance. Additionally, compatibility with FAT32 volumes have been addressed, and they've upgraded Automator actions, so they've given you even more ways to control everything you've got.

Great app, well worth the $14.95 for a single-user license. All the other signature Mac apps will let you do your daily tasks in style and with a little flair, but Cocktail is the one that will help you do them quickly and cleanly.

Filed under: Software, How-tos

Use CSS in your Mail signatures

css in mail signaturesI'll have to agree with Dvorak that mail apps that don't allow HTML are lame lame lame. Apple's Mail will allow you to see HTML emails, but not compose them. I guess that's supposed to be a security/annoyance feature, but sometimes I would really like to make an HTML email... But at least we can have CSS for our signatures.

CSS, for those who don't know, is a way of styling web pages. It's more precise than plain ol' HTML, and quite frankly, more powerful and better looking. My personal site uses CSS exclusively (much to the chagrin of Netscape Navigator 4.7). Anyway, Melvin Rivera has a step-by-step tutorial on using CSS in your Mail.app signatures. You may want to learn a little CSS first, if you've never tried it before. Just like using a Mac, you may never go back.

Filed under: Software, Cool tools, Productivity, Internet Tools

Recipient-based Entourage email signatures with Other Signature X

Other Signature X is an applescript for Entourage 2004 that will allow you to assign signatures based on the recipient or group you're sending a message to. While I don't use Entourage myself and can't test this, it sounds like a great idea that I hope gets adopted by email apps in general. You can pick up the script from the developer's iDisk under the directory "Entourage X-2004 Scripts," while I found it at ScriptBuilders. If anyone tries this out, please let us know what you think in the comments.

Tip of the Day

Use Spotlight as a reference tool. Type any word in the Spotlight box and one of the top entries will be a definition. Click on it, and it will bring up the dictionary application to check the word in either the dictionary, thesaurus, Apple database, or Wikipedia.


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