Friday iFAQ: Quicksilver
Every Friday we publish a list of inFrequently Asked Questions and answers to help you, the Crazy Apple user, get more out of your Crazy Apple products.
This week: Quicksilver.
Q: Greetings, master. I seek the benefit of your wisdom.
A: Approach, son, and I shall impart.
Q: I just got a new Mac, and I love it.
A: Truly, you have started on the path of wisdom.
Q: Yet there’s a problem. I don’t feel pretentious enough when I open my programs.
A: Explain, my son, and the pretense you seek may soon be granted.
Q: Well, I bought all the most self-congratulatory Mac-only apps I can think of, like BBEdit, and TextMate, and Delicious Library…
A: You have chosen well. In choosing two over hyped text editors and a program that shows you pictures of books you already own, you have embraced all that is most pretentious in the Mac community.
Q: …But when I open them, I have to click on the icon like some kind of 20th Century Windows user.
A: Indeed. And you seek a way to show your Windows using friends that your Mac skills are beyond their comprehension, while at the same time demonstrating your Mac to be the key of effortless computing.
Q: Yes, master.
A: I can help you my son. You shall achieve the pomposity you desire, but it comes at a cost.
Q: I will pay any price, if I may only show myself better than the sons of Gates.
A: The price you will pay will not be in money, for the key to your arrogance is free-as-in-free-beer, but we will speak more of the price later. The key of which I speak is Quicksilver.
Q: Tell me more, for I crave the mastery of this mercurial software.
A: Quicksilver allows you to launch, browse, change, transform, move, edit, tweak, and inspect all parts of your system with ninja-like skill and ease, with but a few taps on the keyboard. Indeed, a true user of Quicksilver need scarce touch the mouse again. Yet all this power is wrapped in an interface as graceful as the fall of a lotus blossom to the face of the waiting pond.
Q: Where may I find this potent blossom?
A: Seek the black tree, and look to the roots. Quicksilver may be found there.
Q: I shall do so master. But you spoke of the price. I would know what recompense I should prepare for the master of the black tree.
A: As I said before, my son, the price is not one of gold nor even of PayPal funds, but, much like the tree that must bend that it may not break, you must sacrifice your pride that you may further elevate it.
Q: What then is this terrible price?
A: Quicksilver is no longer actively developed, and you must therefore be content with software that isn’t updated every other week!
Q: Aaaaaagh! This indeed is a price beyond compare! How may my pride and arrogance survive in the face of such adversity?
A: That, my son, is up to you, but as you master your pride so shall you master all others. Also, it has this cool feature that makes words show up, like, really big on the screen!
Q: Hey, sweet!

