Posted by Scott Laird
Sat, 03 Apr 2004 03:18:24 GMT
Since everyone was raving about Quicksilver this week, I broke down and gave it a spin. Quicksilver is similar to Launchbar; they’re both keyboard-driven shortcut tools for OS X. You just hit their activation key and start typing, and they’ll search for an app or a bit of data or whatever, and try to show it to you.
I’m kind of liking Quicksilver, which is odd, because Launchbar never did it for me. I’m probably the only OS X person around who has tried it and given up on it. Anyway, the thing about Quicksilver is that it does a nice job searching everything–it knows about Address Book entries, web bookmarks, web history, developer tools and documentation, applications, email addresses from old email, and a pile of other things, and it’ll search through it all instantly.
Its one big downside for me right now is its memory use. On my Powerbook, it’s using around 50 MB of RAM right now, which is more then a little excessive. Admittedly, I have almost all of its options turned on, but that’s still way more then I’m willing to lose for a program that I’m not going to use much. So, the big question is am I going to use it enough to make it worth it?
If anything, this may turn out to be one of those programs that I never knew I needed, but after using it for a few days my needs have grown past what it can provide. I can see a ton of things that I’d love in a Quicksilver-like interface that I doubt it’s going to provide. I’d really like a fast full-text email search, for instance, and a fast document search. More then anything, though, I’d really like to be able to use Quicksilver as a quick way to enter Google queries. Instead of tracking down Safari and clicking on the Google box, I’d love to be able to hit Command-Space and type my query. It probably wouldn’t be that hard for Quicksilver to use Google as the Search of Last Resort, but it’s not exactly what they’re aiming for right now.
Of course, the holy grail would be Quicksilver’s incremental search combined with Google–just start typing, and it’ll start flipping through web pages that match. I’d kill for that. Of course, it’d make Quicksilver’s 50 MB footprint look like chump change.
For now, I’m still testing Quicksilver. It has its good points and its bad points. After a couple days of use, I’m still not very attached to it. Most of my favorite tools, like NewNewsWire and iView Media Pro were habit-forming almost immediately. I’ll probably stick with Quicksilver for now, and see what new betas turn up.
Posted in Mac stuff | Tags apple, macosx, quicksilver | no comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Mon, 20 Oct 2003 07:02:09 GMT
I finally finished Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver. I can’t believe it took most of a month to read it, but I’ve been juggling kids, work, house cleaning, and a few other projects, and I never seem to have time to read any more. All in all, it’s an interesting book, but it’s not at all what I was expecting. Most of his previous works were more or less science fiction, up until Cryptonomicon, which was more “geek fiction” then anything else; it’s frequently called SciFi anyway though, because no other description fits it any better. Before Quicksilver, I’d have ranked Cryptonomicon in his top three, along with Snow Crash and Zodiac (I’m probably in the minority on Zodiac, but I liked it). Some days, I like it better then Snow Crash, and other days it’s down to number 2 or 3, but it’s always up there somewhere.
Now Quicksilver has jumbled things up a bit. First, it’s even less SciFi then Cryptonomicon (although there’s always the Enoch problem in both books). At least it fits into an identifiable genre–it’s clearly historical fiction (err, mostly–Enoch). But, it’s geeky historical fiction, where technical and philosophic advancements mean at least as much as political events, but the two are starting influence each other, as science begins to emerge and the modern world starting being constructed.
I’m going to reserve final judgment on Quicksilver until I’ve had time to read the rest of the set–The Confusion is supposed to be out in April, and System of the World is due out late next year. Quicksilver is clearly just Act 1; at the end you’re aware that he’s spent a lot of time setting up events that are going to take a long time to resolve. Except, since it’s historical fiction, it’s obvious what’s going to be happening–of course Charles II died, leaving the throne to James II. Of course William of Orange took it from James. Of course it passed from William and Mary to Anne, and then onto Sophie’s offspring. Any history book (or Wikipedia) will tell you that. Somehow, though, Stephenson manages to make all of that as interesting as the gold hunt in Cryptonmicon. So, even though he managed to leave characters hanging in the most irritating places at the end of this book, I’m looking forward to the next installment in the set. Even though I already know how it’s going to turn out.
Posted in Books | Tags books, quicksilver, stephenson | no comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Wed, 01 Oct 2003 22:49:36 GMT
I’ve been slowly working my way through Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver. It’d be a faster read if I actually had time to sit down and read it–as it is, I don’t think I’ve managed more then 30 minutes of uninterrupted reading in over a week. So far, it’s proving to be a fascinating read, but not for the reasons that I expected–the history in this book is really the fascinating part. I’m not sure how historically accurate all of it is (I should really check when I’m done), but the way he presents the origin of the scientific age is deeply thought-provoking.
Posted in Books, Personal | Tags books, quicksilver, stephenson | no comments
