For the second entry in our new “Smileworthy” category, in which we highlight software we like and use from other software companies, we chose SpamSieve. Like our first entry, LaunchBar, Philip, Greg and I all use this. It is another application we would not want to live without. SpamSieve will keep your email inbox nearly free of unwanted email. It uses Bayesian filtering to determine if an email is spam. And it is smart! It gets better at filtering the longer you use it. If something spammy gets by SpamSieve, you mark it as spam and SpamSieve learns from that. Likewise, if a “good” email is snagged by SpamSieve, you can mark it as such. In practice, I get a few spam emails in my inbox everyday, but the vast majority go into the Spam folder automatically. I rarely get a “false positive,” i.e. a good email that is falsely sent to the Spam folder. Another thing we at SmileOnMyMac can really appreciate: great customer support. All my emails to the developer are answered very promptly–and very helpfully.
PDFpen at the Alderwood Mall
Here’s a photo at the Apple Store in the Alderwood Mall in Lynnwood, Washington, north of Seattle. Being Labor Day, we took my young friend Clara for some final back-to-school clothes shopping. I spotted the Apple Store, and Clara graciously posed for me. Clara might not know what a PDF is, but she does know all about Macintosh, despite being raised in a PC household. She loves making little movies with me on my MacBook Pro, and she always asks to see the latest “Get-A-Mac” ads. iPhone to the Rescue Neither Clara’s mom (my best friend from college) nor I had ever been to the Alderwood Mall. We had no idea where anything was or even if we were in the right place when we first pulled into the parking lot. “Not a problem,” I said. “We’ll find the mall directory on the iPhone.” And we did. I pegged the cool meter with Clara, to boot. (Just don’t ask me to go back to Abercrombie & Fitch…) C’mon, all you mall rats. Send photos of PDFpen at your local Apple Store to jean@smileonmymac.com – and get a free SmileOnMyMac app!
TextExpander: TidBITS AutoCorrect Dictionary
TidBITS AutoCorrect Dictionary contains over 2400 misspellings that TextExpander can automatically correct.
Adam Engst, TidBITS publisher, and Micah Alpern put this massive resource together for a MacHack conference years ago. They originally created it for Eudora Mail users, but put it into the public domain so others could use it. Taking our cue from Ergonis Software, which released a version for use with Typinator, we decided to make a TextExpander-friendly version available as well.
This dwarfs our current autocorrection offering, which I compiled last year. That file contains about 100 of the most common misspellings. The TidBITS file is exhaustive – it has 15 variants of misspelling just the word “necessary.”
I’m sure there will be a lot of users who want to avail themselves of this industrial strength correcting, but I’m going to stick to using the original file myself. I just don’t want to load thousands of snippets into TextExpander.
Of course, as the erstwhile spelling champion of Ojus Elementary School, maybe I don’t need quite so many correction snippets. 
Smileworthy: LaunchBar
LaunchBar from Objective Development. All three of us use LaunchBar and none of us can imagine using a Mac without it. With LaunchBar, you can instantly access applications, documents and information from most anywhere on your hard drive.
When I think how I used to go to the Finder, open a window, click on the Applications folder, find the application and double-click on it to launch it, my fingers and wrists hurt.
With LaunchBar, you hit Command + Space Bar, type a short abbreviation, hit return, and your application opens. LaunchBar learns abbreviations from your choices. The first time you type the letter “P”, LaunchBar will show you a list of choices that begin with “P”. If you choose PDFpen from that list, LaunchBar will assume you want PDFpen the next time you type “P”.
LaunchBar’s handiness is not limited to applications. You can open documents, look up a contact’s information, run Apple Scripts and more. Much more. In fact, I know I don’t come close to using LaunchBar to its fullest. Objective Development just released version 4.3, and I’m inspired to try out some features I’ve overlooked.
If you use LaunchBar and have any tips, please do share them in the Comments.
TextExpander: The Sound of Productivity
regular contributor of TextExpander tips, found out. From his blog, in which the TJ household has finally upgraded from dial-up internet:
So I’m sitting on the bed with my laptop, and Tracey is working on the Desktop. We’ve been here for several hours — in fact I don’t remember the last time Tracey was up this late. A few minutes ago she turned around and said “What’s that noise?†We then had the to-be-expected conversation of me asking What Noise? followed by her trying to imitate the sound and then me mocking her. She claimed the sound was coming from my computer. I told her it was all in her head. I thought it was over until a few minutes later she said, “Right there! That noise! What was that?!?!†“Oh†I thought, realizing exactly what it was (and that her impression of it wasn’t all that bad, I just no longer “heard†it because I was used to it… It’s the sound TextExpander plays by default when you use a shortcut.TJ suggests one might want to disable that sound in TextExpander Preferences in the interests of domestic tranquility.
Maybe she needs a copy of TextExpander of her very own — then she’ll come to associate that sound with the pleasure of having saved time and energy.