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YouTube experimenting with GIF-like video previews
According to a post on its help forum, YouTube began to experiment with video previews on the desktop a couple of weeks ago, albeit in limited fashion. But now the company seems to be ready for a wider rollout, as some users have started seeing the feature on YouTube's latest dot-com interface. As pictured above, soon you might notice a 3-second teaser when your computer's pointer hovers over a thumbnail, though it only works for videos that are longer than 30 seconds.
Plex shows you how to make your TV shows look great with its new Local Media Agent
Out friends at Plex have shuttled out a new Local Media Agent that'll enable you to make your TV shows look great. The updated software lets you add show and season posters, banners, background art, theme music and individual episode thumbnails to your recorded shows to make each one really, really good-looking. It'll happily handle PNG and FLAC files for those lossless enthusiasts and it'll even overlook a messy file structure to get everything looking great. Now, if you'll excuse us, we're going to catalog our Community episodes with thumbnails of Dean Pelton's outfits.
Opera 9 goes Universal
Opera, the little browser that could (and did - go free, that is), has finished its beta and reached version 9, going Universal in the process. New features include: a built-in BitTorrent client adding your favorite search engines to Opera's search bar simply by right-clicking them site-specific preferences for cookies, pop-ups, etc. thumbnail previews of tabs when hovering over them widgets (hey, at least they didn't call 'em 'gadgets') customizable content blocker and more This version definitely seems snappier now that it's Universal, and (say what you have to) these new enhancements like a built-in BitTorrent client show that Opera is blazing a trail faster than its competition. Give this version a whirl if you haven't touched Opera in a while but are still curious about it. If you need help with a browser transition, why not check out some of the del.icio.us tools (like my personal favorite: Delibar) we've blogged that take the 'bookmarks bar' out of the browser and into Mac OS X's menubar, removing the need for worrying about which browser you're using.
Saft 8.3.0
PimpMySafari noticed that Saft, a vital Safari plug-in, has been updated to version 8.3.0. New and updated features include: New feature: AutoComplete always on New feature: Tab thumbnails (like Shiira’s Tab Expose, not Omniweb style) Improvement: Also restore tab history when undoing closing tab Improvement: Undo support for closing other tabs Saft is available from haoli and sells for $12 for either Panther or Tiger, though the Tiger version is the only one being updated. A demo is available, but if you're already an owner, you can snag the 8.3.0 upgrade from haoli's Saft for Tiger download page.
Batch process your images with SmallImage
SmallImage is a nice piece of freeware for anyone who works with a lot of photos all day long. Just drop a folder full of images into SmallImage's main window, and you can remove your photos' embedded profiles, resize them, create thumbnails and then re-compress them with one click. As you can see from the screen shot to the right, SmallImage also provides a great deal of information on each image, like size, camera information, compression and metadata information. You can even remove or create your own preview icon for any image.SmallImage requires Mac OS 10.3.9 and is free.[Via FreeMacWare]
Widget Watch: iPhoto Mini
The iPhoto Mini is definitely one of the better-made iPhoto widgets I've seen available. Its function is pretty straight-forward: the widget can browse thumbnail-size images of the pictures you have in your iPhoto albums. A drop-down menu contains a list of all your albums, complete with total image counts in each album. Nice 'n sweet. It works well, and moves quickly even through large albums, but I wish it could interact with iPhoto. It'd be great if double-clicking an image opened that pic in iPhoto, or if maybe even images were drag-and-droppable. Oh well, a widget user can hope, can't he?
