Faster Printing with Quicksilver

Mark Fisher shares terrific tips on how to use Quicksilver Proxies for faster printing:

Use this method when you want to print files that are on the Desktop or are all in the same folder.

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1. Select the files that you wish to print by Command clicking them.
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2. Invoke Quicksilver (by default, ?–SPACE)
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3. Type the name of your printer until QS displays its name e.g. “Lexmark”
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4. Hit the TAB key to select the next pane.
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5. Type “open” and select “Open File”. >
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   • I recommend making “Open File” the default action for when you type “open”. You can do this by Ctrl clicking “Open File” and selecting ‘Set as Default for “OPEN”.’
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6. Hit TAB to select the next pane.
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7. Type “current” until QS displays ‘Current Selection’.
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8. Hit ENTER.
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9. Your files should start printing.
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Also check out how to use the "comma trick" to print multiple files. Great stuff.

After the jump is the video for the episode of The Merlin Show where I talked about using proxies to access application menus.

Powerful bookmarklets for your iPhone

Chanpory points out that, in addition to the iPhone applications that are out there, you can also use bookmarklets inside of Safari to do your functional bidding when you're on the go. He's pulled together a few favorites, and here's a sampling:

5. List all links
Takes all links from the current page and lists them in a new window...

8. Wikipedia
Find an article on Wikipedia...

12. YubNub
This is my personal favorite. It let’s you rapidly access over 10,500 search services and tools via shortcut commands...

Treat your email more like Photoshop

My pal, Colleen, has written up a short, designer's take on handling email. She suggests you treat messages the way you'd handle Photoshop PSDs; streamline, automate, and fear not the rule nor template:

Once you’ve done enough of the same kind of work in Photoshop or Illustrator—say, resizing photos or creating a certain size of flyer—you devise ways of creating your templates quickly...

Apply the same principles to processing your inbox and you will vastly reduce the time you spend horsing around in your email client. There are as many “best practices” with email as there are organizational gurus, but the same principles generally apply:

1. Handle things once
2. Process all at once, at scheduled times
3. Clear your inbox, don’t use it as a holding bin

Right on. And as good a point as ever to re-point-out my beloved MailTemplate, which is still the easiest way I know of to create customizable boilerplate templates for Mail.app and Entourage.

Random Bonus: Here's some video (direct MOV download) of me interviewing the MailTemplate/MailTank guys at Macworld back in January.

In the latest episode of MacBreak Minutes (subscribe), I talked about a favorite PreferencePane of mine called LiteSwitch.

Opting Out: New Jersey Governor Rejects E-mail

David Shipley, author of Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home, did an ATC commentary on NJ Gov. Jon Corzine's saying he's swearing off email. Shipley thinks it's a teachable moment that shouldn't be missed:

How about: writing better.

How about: a little more thought about what we are saying on email before hitting that send key?

How about trying all this...instead of giving up...?

Instead of quitting, why doesn't Governor Corzine turn this into a moment to teach us how to email better. Should New Jersey schools teach email the way they once taught typing and composition?

By the way, how we doing on that Richard Scarry Book of the Future?