The makers of TextExpander, a very clever time- and finger-saving snippet utility, have posted a nice tip on the company’s blog.

It explains how to make a “smart snippet” using TextExpander’s %clipboard variable, which is replaced by whatever is currently on the clipboard when the snippet is typed.

The original author of the tip uses it to create Amazon affiliate links for his blog on the fly, but obviously it has wider uses too.

For example, imagine you run a blog that attracts a lot of emails asking how to do this, that or the other thing.

You can quickly run up a snippet like this:

Then, when the emails start to arrive, all you need to do is navigate to the link, copy it to the clipboard and then type the snippet into the reply:

Suddenly more of your life is your own. Clever.

If I sat around here long enough I’m sure I could think of a dozen other applications for this tip, but you might have more fun thinking them up for yourself.

TextExpander costs USD 29.95 and is available from the developer’s web site .textexpander, textpander, productivity, snippets, shortcuts, tips, helpful apps, clipboard, mail.app, apple mail

TextExpander, the utility formerly known as Textpander, has been updated.

The new version (1.4.1) fixes problems with abbreviations involving the Option key, describes named delimiters (space, tab, return, esc) properly in languages other than English and includes several other minor bugfixes.

Merlin Mann at 43 Folders uses this update as an opportunity to share some tips on the ways in which he uses the app to save time and fingers.

Also, TextExpander’s developers have posted a great suggestion from Timothy of Ohio on grouping shortcuts into contexts with distinct initial characters. Clever.

TextExpander costs USD 29.95 and is available from the developer’s web site .textexpander, textpander, productivity, snippets, shortcuts, tips, helpful apps

Andreas Amann has updated his very useful Eudora Mailbox Cleaner, a utility that simplifies the process of switching from Eudora or Thunderbird to Mail.app.

In particular, the app is much smarter about importing Eudora nicknames and much better at parsing them. It no longer identifies some nicknames as mailing lists. The whole importing process is much faster.

A number of smaller tweaks make EMC more stable, especially during the initial scan of files to be imported.

There has never been a better time to switch from Eudora.

Eudora Mailbox Cleaner is freeware (donations not refused) and is available from Andrea’s web site.mail.app, apple mail. eudora, thunderbird, switching, importing, nicknames, plugins, helpful apps

Will Henderson has written a “micro-app” that lets you quickly email a note, to-do or reminder to yourself in Mail.app.

He got frustrated by iCal’s to-dos, which didn’t quite do what he wanted, as he explains:

For a while now, I’ve been sending myself todos via iCal, but that’s not good enough – it requires a net connection and it doesn’t cover many usage scenarios, i.e.
• I want a task that doesn’t have a particular due date
• I want a task that can be filed or tagged (using Mailtags , of course)
• I want searchable notes attached to my task

Despite a small bug (notes are sometimes sent to the Drafts folder not the Inbox), the app does a good job.

You can collect the notes or to-dos in a smart mailbox easily. A condition that matches “Yourself” as a recipient catches them all.

This may appeal to people who are interested in using Mail.app as a personal information manager or as a “Yojimbo substitute” as well as those who like Will want more flexible and taggable to-dos.

Note to Self is donation-ware and is available from Will’s web site .productivity, information manager, mail.app, apple mail, notes, to-dos, iCal, helpful apps

Snail Mail is a stand-alone app that addresses and prints very nice envelopes based on the information in your Address Book (See an earlier Hawk Wings review).

It can print single envelopes or an envelope for every member of an Address Book Group. You also select multiple cards for printing on the fly.

An updated version released today (1.5) is a universal binary.

It also supports the swapping of first and last names, easier removal of a return address and a preference to omit the delivery country if it is the same as the return address country.

Snail Mail is donation-ware and is available from the developer’s web site .address book, envelopes, helpful apps, productivity

If you spend a lot of time taking screenshots (as I do), you will like Screenshot Plus, an image capture widget with a very neat trick up its sleeve.

Like other screenshot widgets (Capture for example) it can take fullscreen grabs, selections or particular windows. Unlike Capture, it can also do timed screenshots and grab individual widgets. These options are presented nicely on the front of the widget:

On the rear, the widget offers something truly time-saving. By default it displays the screenshot as a preview after capture, but you can set it (as above) to import the screenshot directly into your image editor of choice.

In my case that’s Photoshop. The time (and finger-wear) I will save by not clicking and dragging from Desktop to app is immense. It will even launch the editor for you if it’s not already open.

Of course, I can still make a cup of coffee while Photoshop loads, but that’s not the widget’s fault.

A drop-down menu allows you to specify your destination of choice—another image editor or iPhoto or whatever.

Images can be captured as png, tiff, jpg, jp2, pdf, gif, bmp, or pict files.

A new version released a few days ago adds 10.4.7 compatibility and better French language support.

Screenshot Plus is freeware and available from the developer’s web site . screenshot, capture, images, productivity, widget, time-saving, helpful apps, not apple mail

Export Address Book is an app which (unsurprisingly) exports all the data in your Address Book into an independent data file that you can archive, use with a Microsoft Word Merge or FileMaker database or import into your favourite web-based email service.

It is a universal binary and comes with an Automator action to automate repeated exports.

The app overs considerable control over the export process, allowing you to select which records to export, which fields from those records, how to order them and whether to give the exported data customised labels:

A new version (1.1) released today includes two new formats, CSV and HTML tables, for the exported data and more options for handling line breaks, as you can see from the new options pane:

Export Address Book is shareware (10 Euros = USD 12.50) and is available from the developer’s web site.address book, exporting, contacts, csv, tsv, html, helpful apps