QuickSilver for OSX

I do a lot of typing and programming so taking my hands off the keyboard to launch or switch to an application can become a bit of a pain. There is ALT-TAB but it only lets you cycle through already running programs, not something that is not open already. Spotlight is nice for finding weird things (like all the times you have mentioned the word banana in text documents) but it is just a little too slow for doing quick tasks like opening your favourite folders or launching an application.

QuickSilver fills this gap. It essentially does the job of a mini-Spotlight. After activiting it with a keystroke (in my case Option+Space) you type a few letters and it looks through your applications, mail, contacts and music to see if anything matches what you want. It is really fast and you can set default actions for specific files or folders. Pressing Enter performs the default operation otherwise you can tab through the different actions to perform a specific task.

At the moment it is in Beta and is free to download and use. It is really very nice and eliminates a heap of unnecessary grabbing for the mouse. QuickSilver can be downloaded from the very stylish BlackTree website.