Kibbles & Bytes Blog

Quick Look is one of my favorite features of OS 10.5 Leopard and OS 10.6 Snow Leopard. Quick Look provides instant, full resolution (but not editable) previews of many files simply by selecting the document and pressing the space bar. I use Quick Look to preview photos, read Pages documents without launching Pages, skim through movies and to scan PDFs. It’s great to have access to a file without having to wait for its parent application to launch. I would pay for Quick Look; it’s great that it’s built into the Mac OS.

Quick Look can natively open PDFs, HTML, any QuickTime readable media including of types of images, ASCII and RTF text documents, Apple Keynote, Pages and Numbers, Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, and most RAW camera images.

However, Quick Look can’t natively open Illustrator, InDesign, Swatch Exchange (ASE), EPS and Freehand documents. Many times during the week I have to access Illustrator files in particular. Thankfully, there is a plugin for Quick Look called SneakPeek Pro that enables this functionality. SneakPeek Pro also allows you to see fonts, images and colors used in many CS3, CS4 and CS5 documents. That’s right, SneakPeek Pro is already CS5 Compatible.

SneakPeek Pro costs $19.99, and is worth every penny considering how much time it has saved me.

“Click here to download SneakPeek Pro as a free, fully functional 15-day demo.”:http://www.code-line.com/software/sneakpeekpro/

Once SneakPeek Pro is installed, you can configure its options from within System Preferences. The software publisher includes an uninstaller “on their website.”:https://www.code-line.com/software/sneakpeekpro/

Also, I just want to note that I’m recommending this plugin solely because it has solved a problem for me. We don’t get any kind of renumeration for mentioning it!

_Dear Friends,_

We are in an alternating weather pattern here in Vermont with rain one day and sun the next. The strawberries are ready and it is such a relief to finally get real berries–not the ones that are in the stores in the winter that seem to have no taste but a long shelf life. The deer are munching at my garden this year and my baby plants, especially the broccoli and peas, seem to get eaten each night. We are using some old-time Vermont remedies to keep them at bay; Hammerhead and I have primary responsibility for deer repellent application.

Speaking of Hammerhead, he so much loves going to our South Burlington store. I drop him off at the store when I have meetings up in Burlington and he goes right to work as our “greeter.” He meets every customer, most of whom stop to pet him and all of whom seem to smile after his greeting. The kids especially like him and he is so gentle and tolerant of them.

Our new Hammerhead Verso iPad cases have been a big hit and our initial production run is nearly sold out. More are on the way and we are very happy with tis product–I think it is the best iPad case, but then again, I am very prejudiced. This product was a direct result of my visit to China in April where I visited the leather factory where the cases are made.

I think the new Mac mini is a great improvement over the previous model and it is much easier to upgrade the RAM. Plus, it now includes an HDMI port to make it easy to connect to your TV. See more details in the article below.