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Things I Can't Live Without #3

Alrighty then. Now that everyone is done stuffing their faces with ham, turkey, lamb or whatever it is that all those meat-hating vegan heretics stuff their faces with, it's time to get down to business again. Put your chocolates aside and let's talk some about boring computer stuff.

I've become a Mac advocate during the last three years. That, however, doesn't mean that I'm a zealot fanboy who queues 3 days on a cold pavement if Steve Jobs takes a dump on a precision-machined aluminum plate and calls it iCrap. Alas, no product is without its faults, not even Macs. I'm sure every user has their own pet pewees, but for me personaly it's Finder.

For frequent use the damn thing just doesn't cut it as a proper file manager. Even simple stuff like like proper copying and pasting in list mode is major pain in the ass, not to mention moving files around. Then there's also the pesky way how Finder lists folders amongst the files. As much I abhor Windows these days, there's one thing I haven't been able to let go; show me the bloody folders first no matter how I decide to order my files!

Upside of living on a planet with nearly 7 billion fellow hairless apes is that if you have a problem, someone else most likely has the same problem and is willing to fix it for you for a small fee. This is where TotalFinder comes in. In a nutshell, TotalFinder adds tabs, dual view mode and ever-so-useful folders on top. Antonin from Binary Age was kind enough to provide me a complimentary license for testing purposes, but the mere price of 15 USD is hardly highway robbery. In comparison, Path Finder 5 by Cocoatech which I was previously using costs nearly 40 USD.

The biggest difference between Path Finder and TotalFinder is that the former is a stand-alone application designed to replace Finder, where as the latter is a plug-in that augments Finder with new features. I'm inclined to favor TotalFinder's approach, since this way one doesn't need to learn new shortcut-keys and all the useful features like quick look are still available.

So there you have it, boys and girls. Lesson of the day is to make life easier with nifty little utilities that won't cost you an arm and a leg.