Developed by MTA, Tunesque locates keyword related items in the iTunes Music Store and the Apple Mac store, and displays results in a single display. An app like this simply makes sense and you wonder why Apple didn’t develop it itself.

Quickly Search iTunes

Tunesque resides in your menubar where you click on its icon and enter a search query in the text field. After clicking the return key, Tunesque presents the results of search items in all categories of Apple’s online stores.

For example, a search for “Steve Jobs” reveals related songs, TV shows, iOS apps, e-books, podcasts, audiobooks, and iTunes University downloads.

So you can easily see how Tunesque saves you the trouble of opening the bulky iTunes application, and/or the sometimes the buggy App Store app, and then having to make several clicks in order to perform searches.

Incidentally, I also like how Tunesque doesn’t do intuitive searching—that is, start performing searches, Google style, as you type a term. That approach seems to sometimes complicate or slightly slow down the search process.

Search Results

As you might expect from looking at the user interface of Tunesque, when you move your cursor over an item, you get an instant preview of that item, including an image and description along with the listed price. Album descriptions, however, for some reason, don’t show up.

Clicking on an item of course will link you to its respective place in the iTunes Store or App Store.

If the drop-down interface of Tunesque seems a little too cluttered with results, you can simply narrow them using to specified keyboard shortcut.

Tunesque will also maintain your most recent search queries, so when you return to the application you don’t have to retype the search term again.

In my tests, the search results in Tunesque matched most of the results I got when I did the same keyword search in the iTunes Store. Results may vary for particular searches, but Tunesque is certainly a great place to get started.

Customized Searches

The developer also had the foresight to enable users to customize search results. In Tunesque Preferences you can disable store categories (like audiobooks, iTunes U, and podcasts) you’re not particularly interested in.

And on top of that, Tunesque searches in a local store of your choice, from the U.S. to the Ukraine and beyond.

And for users who don’t like the dark side, you can change up the color scheme to Light.

Tunesque may not be for those who like to click and browse around Apple’s respective stores, but it is certainly a welcome solution for those of us who like to quickly search itunes with a lot less clicking.

Tunesque can be downloaded free from the MTA web site or the Apple Mac Store. It does however require your Mac to be running Mac OS X Lion—10.7 or later.

Let us know what you think of Tunesque. Will it be a regular log-in item in your menu bar?

It is very common to forget the file name of the document you require but you almost always have a good idea about the contents.

Docfetcher is one such software that lets you peek and search documents for words to find exactly what you are looking for.

You can get DocFetcher here. It works with Windows and Linux. DEB packages are available for users on Debian or Debian-based distros. For Windows users, there is a choice between installer and portable versions of the software. Running DocFetcher the first time, you will be presented with a screen that looks like this:

First off, you need to create an Index of files that you want to be searchable. Click the file types that you want to be included in the index, then right-click inside the search scope and choose Create Index. Choose the folder you want to index and DocFetcher will create an index for all the documents inside that folder.

Keep in mind that index creation may take some time depending upon the number of files in the chosen folder and size of files. Index creation is a necessary step as it allows DocFetcher to know the contents of the files so that it can search documents for words and give you almost instant results.

With the index ready, you can now search for text inside your files. Just type the term in the search box and hit Enter; you will be presented with the results instantaneously. The results section display the relevance, file size and filename of each result returned. Clicking on any results opens up a preview of the file with the search terms highlighted. Double click on any result and the corresponding file is launched for you to work with.

DocFetcher automatically keeps track of additions and modifications to the folders you have configured it to watch. You don’t have to create/rebuild index again, it will automatically update the index if it is running or the next time it is run.

You can use operators in your search query to fine tune the results. An important point to note about DocFetcher queries is that by default, a search for “web development” will return documents that contain the word “web” or documents that contain the word “development”. This is in contrary to what you might expect (being used to Google search). So to search for documents that have both the words you need to search for “web AND development“. Frankly speaking, this requires a little getting used to and could have easily been fixed by the developer. Nevertheless, there are other operators that work as expected:

• You can use “-” to indicate a term that should not be present in the document
• “+” indicates a required word.
• You can also search document metadata, eg “author:varun” will search in documents created by me (as mentioned in properties)
• Last but not the least, you can also use the ubiquitous wildcards – the “?” and the “*” (with their obvious meanings)

DocFetcher also lets you specify file extensions that you want to be treated as plain text files. This can be especially useful if you do a bit of coding. As an example, you can tell DocFetcher to treat .php and .java files as text, this would make the source code inside these files searchable via DocFetcher as well. This can be specified via the preferences dialog, or while creating/rebuilding index.

DocFetcher is a great alternative to Google Desktop. Sure, it doesn’t index image files and may lack Google Desktop’s bells and whistles, but that is precisely what makes it worth trying. It’s lightweight, you can invoke it on individual folders, intricately specify what to index, share repositories and index, and has all the options you may need from such a software.

What is your preferred desktop search tool to search documents for words?

The usefulness of this tool that lets you search the Internet from any application is what makes us call it an integrated search agent. Look at Transfz from another angle; it takes away the dependency of search from the browser and extends it system-wide.

In this post we will take a look at Transfz v.1.22 (Beta).

Transfz runs from the system tray. All the functions of Transfz are contained within a context menu. The Global Menu is launched with a shortcut key press of CTRL+D. This key can of course be customized to anything of your choosing. The Global menu is not a part of the regular Windows right click context menu but it behaves like one in the fact that it can be called up in any application. We need to only highlight a piece of text and pass it on to any of the search engines that are configured with Transfz. Transfz can be made to work with any of your installed browsers.

The context menu has a few default engines like Google, Free Dictionary, Wikipedia, Digg, IMDB, Yahoo etc. Let’s bring it up with a press of the shortcut key and look at the features it provides”¦

Transfz comes with a few more helper utilities like a Clipboard History list which lists the last few (5 to 30) copied text selections. Text conversions ranging from case changes to searching and replacing along with functions like counting number of words and characters in the selected text or inserting date and time can be performed using the context menu. The OpenURL option takes a plain text URL and opens it directly in your browser.

But we have been only talking about the default features of Transfz until now. Transfz can be made to do a lot more via a few plugins and extensions. Functionally they are extra micro-apps that inject more power in the way Transfz can be made to perform.

The Micro-Apps That Add More To Transfz

Take a look at the Extensions page of the Transfz website to pick the one you need. The extensions can be downloaded and installed with a single click when Transfz is running. For instance, the TextMagnifier extension magnifies any text that is selected. The AddToNotepad extension helps by adding data quickly to any open Notepad window. Twitter fanatics will find the extension coded for quick posting quite handy.

Plugins extend the search reach of Transfz by giving you site or subject specific search aids. How helpful is a quick Blog Search via the context menu or an image search using Google from any application?

Transfz doesn’t stop there. It also gives the user the ability to create his own custom search plugins in just two steps using the Plugin Creator under the Options tab. Give the plugin a name and then go to your browser, find the site you want to add and search with Transfz as the keyword. Then go to the address bar of your browser and copy the string into the second field box of the Transfz plugin creator. You can now launch any lookup with your custom search engine.

The basic rationale behind Transfz is to bring into the desktop some of the quick search capabilities that are usually browser-specific. Has Transfz succeeded by following that road? With its extensibility and ability to function from any application plus its text handling capabilities, I certainly think so. What’s your take? Use it and let us know.

Transfz v.1.22 (Beta) is a 602KB download only and is supported on Windows NT/2000, XP and Vista.

So what would you do if there was a second chance in life? Would you start over from scratch and try to re-do everything better? That might be the case of Nicholas Jitkoff.

Jitkoff, the person who was once the developer of Quicksilver, was given a chance by Google to start over with Quick Search Box. He used everything that he’d learned from Quicksilver to build and refine QSB. That’s why QSB has an eerie similarity to Quicksilver, and yet they are also different in some ways.

QSB may lack the powers of Quicksilver (for now), but it’s cleaner and (for me personally) easier to learn and use.

Other QSB’s Quick Actions

Continuing on from the first part of the article where we discussed four basic quick actions that you can do using QSB,  here are some more:

1. Quick Basic Calculator: Doing quick calculations using QSB is very easy. Summon QSB and write down your query. For example, multiplying 3 and 2 is as simple as writing down 3*2. You don’t even have to hit enter to get the result. QSB can also do a more complicated calculation like (3+2)*12-40. The standard mathematics rules are applied here. It may not as flashy as a Calculator app, but QSB uses less steps to get to the same result.



2. Quick check of the weather: Will today be a sunny day? Or will the snowstorm come? You can quickly have your weather prediction by typing “weather city” or “weather zipcode” (sans quote and replace “city” and “zipcode” with your respective location). Please note that zipcode seems to be only working for US areas.



3. Quick iTunes control: You are taking a phone call but iTunes’ currently playing song is very disturbing. You can use QSB to control iTunes. Just type the command followed by “iTunes”. For example, you can type “Next iTunes Track” and QSB will complete the phrase even before you hit the “u” button. Press “Enter” to execute the command.



4. Other basic iTunes commands are also available such as: Previous, Pause, Play. You can also Increase/Decrease iTunes volume and rating. If you do it frequently enough, QSB will help you finish the command at the first or second letter.



5. Quick and emergency clipboard manager: There are many good clipboard managers out there, but for those who are still not using one, QSB can serve you as a decent alternative.Type “clipboard” and press tab/right arrow. You’ll see a list of recent clipboard item.



6. Choose an item that you need and press another tab/right arrow. Choose copy to clipboard.



7. You can then paste the chosen item anywhere using the usual Command + V. This method is less practical than using clipboard manager, but better than the one item limitation of the default clipboard.
8. Quick currency exchange rate: We live in the era when geographical boundaries are not as big problems as it used to be. A person can live in one country and work for a company located in some other part of the world. This, and many other reasons, would make quick currency exchange rates a nice and useful feature of QSB.Use Command + 7 (Google Finance) and type both currency codes. You’ll get an instant result and if the result is not complete, just hover your mouse over the result.



9. Create a quick email: QSB is integrated well with Address Book. This allow us to create a quick email. Just type the person’s name and press tab/right arrow, and you’ll have the option to create an email to this person. And if you’ve put your Google account in QSB, you’ll have another option to create the email using your GMail.



10. Quick Dictionary definition: Type Dictionary, press tab/right arrow, and write the word that you want to define. You don’t even need to open the Dictionary.

The Future Of Q

I’m sure there are many more variations of using QSB that I’m not aware of. If you readers know any others, please share using the comments below!

Meanwhile, a reader pointed out that Quicksilver runs flawlessly on his computers. He also suggested that I do a clean install of Quicksilver. Unfortunately, I’m not that lucky. I did manage to re-install Quicksilver. It runs normally until I try to install plugins. Everybody knows that one of the strong points of Quicksilver is in the availability of plugins.

QSB is also catching up in this plugin department. Even though QSB has far less plugins that Quicksilver, more and more people are creating QSB plugins for their favorite applications.

So for now, the Q in my Mac would be QSB. If I ever find a solution to the Quicksilver problem, I will probably install them both.

Several months forward, I wasn’t able to use Quicksilver anymore. It kept on quitting under Snow Leopard. Even the latest version – that supposed to go along well with SL – quit on me as well.

Like it or not, I had to find a substitute. And what could be more perfect as a replacement than another creation by the same hands, the reason why Quicksilver was abandoned (or so they said): Google Quick Search Box (QSB).

Quick actions using Google Quick Search Box

As the name suggests, the basic function of this app is to perform searches. You could perform a local search or internet search and act on the result. Google Quick Search Box also comes with plugins to extend its functionality.

There are many possible uses of QSB. I tried to list as many as I can and managed to come up with quite a few. To be able to discuss each point in detail, I divided the list into two. In this first part, we will look at several basic actions that I use most

1. As an app launcher: Since I use QSB to replace Quicksilver, this feature is highly coveted. To launch an application or a file, summon QSB, type a few letters of the name, and hit Enter.

   

   By default, the shortcut key to invoke QSB is Command + Command (pressing Command key twice). But you can change it from the Basics tab in its Preferences (Use Command + Comma while QSB is on focus to open the Preferences window). Personally, I use the default and add Command + Space to honor Quicksilver.
   

   

2. To tweet quickly: This feature has been discussed before. But I forgot to mention one thing back then: you can add more spice to Twittering by adding more than one Twitter account in QSB.

   

3. To perform Google web searches and more: Web searching is the core functionality of Google. Being a Google product, it’s only natural if one of QSB’s major features is to search the web.Type anything into the search field and QSB will give you the option to search using Google.

   

   But you can do more than just general Google searches. You could tell QSB to search within a specific Google product like: Image Search, GMail, Google News, even Wikipedia and YouTube. You can see all the options by clicking on the small arrow at the right end of the search box.

   

   To do that kind of search, just use the assigned shortcut in addition to QSB’s shortcut. For example, if I want to search something in the Wikipedia, I’d press Command twice (to open QSB) followed by Command + 4 (to assign the search to Wikipedia), write the search string and hit Enter.

   

4. To perform a site-specific search: The previous feature is limited to predefined locations and there’s no way to edit them or add more. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t get around this limitation.QSB can also perform a site-specific search, even without using the comfortable shortcut keys. Type in the site, hit Tab or Right Arrow key, type in the search string, and press Enter.

   

What I like about QSB is its ability to learn and adapt. For example, the first time I type in “Quick”, QSB gave me QuickScale, Quicktime and Quicksilver (in order of appearance).

After few more times at attempting to launch Quicksilver, the order is reversed and displayed Quicksilver at the top followed by QuickScale and Quicktime.

In the next part of this article, we will look at more advanced quick actions that you can do using Quick Search Box.

Do you miss Quicksilver? What did you replace it with?

Tagging is commonplace around blogs and websites, MakeUseOf too has its own tagcloud. We all agree that it’s a speedy way to scour out a web resource; nearly single click in its utility. We are so used to it that we perhaps miss it as a feature in Windows.

Windows XP was born much before Web 2.0 came about. So, there’s the easy explanation. Vista of course has file tagging and Vista Quick Search as a feature but with a leaning towards only Office docs and a few limitations for certain file types like TXT, RTF, and PNG etc. Even then with all ifs and buts, Vista’s search is better for it. Windows XP meanwhile lags behind, huffing and puffing in its file search.

To plug the want, there is always one or the other software. You might have tried out the previously mentioned TaggedFrog. Another of its type is Tag2Find.

There was a brief mention of it some time back. So, let’s take a closer look at how Tag2Find saves us XP users (why not Vista’s too?) some grunt work.

Tag2Find (ver. 0.10.2.5) is a 2.23 MB freeware that allows us to tag Windows files and make our search less tedious. According to the site, it’s still in the technical preview stage and the developers are looking to make further improvements.

The First Steps to Tag Windows Files

There are three pre-requisites for installing Tag2Find on your machine ““

• Windows XP (Home, Professional) or Vista (32-bit)
• NET Runtime 2.0
• NTFS-formatted file system

For installation, you need administer privileges on your system. The installation runs through a few configuration screens for setting up the location of the internal tag database which stores all the tag info.

Another sequence of steps is for selecting the files/folders and the extensions you want to tag during the initial setup (The Intial Tagging Wizard). That done the installer shows a brief video clip revealing how tag2find should be used. Don’t worry, it’s a cinch.

Tag2find covers all locations that make it easy to tag Windows files ““ desktop, explorer toolbar, system tray and the right click context menu.

Quickie tagging”¦

During installation, the Initial Tagging Wizard helps out by letting you select the files, folders and extensions which you want to include in your tags. The wizard can be opened later on too.

You can tag your Windows files by a selection or a drag and drop using three different approaches ““

• By a drag and drop on the Tag2Find explorer toolbar icon.
• By right-clicking on the selected file and using the context menu.
• By using the Floating Tag Box manually.

Going for any of these three processes opens up a Tag2Find window. The window displays the entire tag list, some suggested tags and info on the file that is to be tagged. Clicking on Details gives you additional file information and a preview if available.

Tag2Find also makes it simple for new files by actively monitoring selected file locations (watched folders). The New File Monitor pops up like an alert box and gives you a quick way to tag the file.

Find them out using tags

Tags wouldn’t be of much help if we don’t have an equally easy way of using tags to shortlist the files we want. Fill in the tag search term in the Tag2Find field box to display the files labeled by the tag in the Results Preview. Open the files from within the preview window or drag and drop it elsewhere. You can also view related tags by entering a comma after the first one. A plus is the graphical bar which is color coded to indicate the relative usage of the file in terms of the tag.

Get the big picture using the TagBrowser

The TagBrowser is like the centerpiece for all your tags. Browse, sort or filter your tags from the explorer like browser window. TagBrowser is also the tool for mass management of all  tags. Edit tags or set new ones for a bunch of files for rapid organization. One click filters easily set apart documents from other file types like movies and music.

What’s a tag without a tag cloud? The TagBrowser has the option of displaying all your tags either as a tag cloud (with the relative sizes for importance) or as a list.

This is not all there is to it the free software. Some little extras can be found within the settings for TagBrowser. Decide on the color of the tags, set the transparency of the Floating Tag Box, import export tags, auto-play and preview media files in TagBrowser or the tag detail pop-up make it quite a rounded application.

First impressions”¦

On first install and use, some users might just stop short, just because we are so used to web tags. The initial pause done away with, Tag2Find provides lots of flexible ways to tag all your files. Searching by tag is also snappy. It’s almost like an Explorer replacement”¦ addition of an Explorer-like directory structure might just make it one. The PDF help file provided on the site makes the learning curve less acute. The beginning looks and feels good.

If you are an old XP hand (or even a Vista user), give file tagging with Tag2Find a shot. Who knows it might be the ticket for a better organized computer. Are you familiar with any other tool to tag Windows files? Let us know in comments!

Image Credit: rooneyjohn