contextual

Right-clicking (or Control + clicking) on a Dock icon will bring up a contextual menu with available options for that application or file. This trick will allow you to customize the language of that contextual menu, further personalizing your Mac experience.

For example, when you have Safari open, if you right-click on the Safari icon in your Dock, the contextual menu offers you the options of New Window, Options, Hide, Quit (as well as showing you the current page name). You can change Quit to anything you want, like say, "End" or "Close."

This trick, from mactipsandtricks.… Read more

After our recent article that discussed some confusion Windows switchers might have with closing windows versus quitting applications in OS X, another key difference that a few people have mentioned is the difference between the location of application menus in OS X and Windows.

The difference is simple: While Windows includes menus in each application Window, OS X places all application menus in the system menu bar, though some applications have document-specific menus that appear in a window's tool bar (e.g., the font and formatting options in TextEdit windows). While this difference is basic enough and pretty straightforward, … Read more

We've seen quite a few screen capture utilities, and although most of them are pretty similar, occasionally these programs have features that set them apart from the competition. CaptureScreen is one such program; although it's not quite as easy to use as some other applications we've seen, it does offer features that we don't think we've come across in similar programs.

CaptureScreen's interface is plain, consisting of a resizable, transparent rectangle. For basic screenshots, users simply drag the rectangle over the portion of the screen they wish to capture, right-click on it, and select … Read more

FinderPop is a free preference pane that extends the functionality of OS X's contextual menus, helping you more quickly browse, open, move, preview, and get info on folders, files, volumes, and apps using your mouse, in much the same way that other "launcher" apps increase efficiency with keyboard commands. This popular, venerable application has been around since Mac OS 9, and one of its main purposes is to emulate the old Apple Menu Items folder.

At its most basic, FinderPop lets you browse the contents of a folder or volume just by control-clicking on it, while also … Read more

I'm a big fan of my browser's contextual menu. This menu, which can most easily be pulled up by right-clicking your mouse is commonplace for really useful extensions that are polite enough not to clutter your browsing experience with extra keyboard shortcuts or UI.

Firefox extension SimpleSearch is a really good example of this concept. Once installed it lets you search from a handful of sites like Wikipedia, IMDb, Google Maps, and dictionary search engine Definr. You just highlight the word or phrase you want to search and do a quick right-click to hop to the results.

The … Read more

Yahoo has struck an agreement with LucidMedia in a move to enhance contextual display advertising on its Right Media Exchange, the companies announced Tuesday.

The arrangement comes as Yahoo and its competitors, which rely heavily on ad revenue, face a challenging environment as the economy softens and advertisers pull back. With the agreement, Yahoo is seeking to grab market share from Google and Microsoft.

Under the agreement, Yahoo's Right Media will support buyers and sellers that use LucidMedia's contextual advertising engine ClickSense. The arrangement will allow Right Media users to categorize their display advertising inventory, using targeted tags … Read more

Vysr RoamAbout, a browser add-on for contextual search that launched earlier this year at the Web 2.0 Expo, is opening up its service for developers Monday morning.

Vysr founder and CEO Guda Venkatesh says he wants the platform to be a veritable (and ultimately profitable) sandbox for developers.

The add-on tucks a small sidebar in the corner of your browser, letting you highlight text and quickly search various Web services to find out more--all without leaving the page.

Lately, I've seen a few publishing services that let content creators do this (see Apture and Zemanta) , but Vysr's … Read more

It's freezing in Austin (39 degrees last night....) but nonetheless SXSW Interactive is about to kick off today. There is no doubt that the conference is hitting the mainstream this year (with Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg as keynote speaker and most of the big high-tech players participating). The program, which is notoriously hard to navigate, has grown even more in terms of depth and breadth.

SXSW has therefore teamed up with Microsoft and frog design to create a rich, interactive online community hub that facilitates real-time conversations around conference events while also providing an easy-to-us panel calendar. The Silverlight-based … Read more

Asterpix, a video tagging service we looked at late last year is launching some exciting new technology later this month. It's a new automated tagging service that will go through any video you plug in and use its recognition algorithms to tag and link whatever's in your video to informational resources about it on the Web.

In its current state, the service lets you accomplish a similar feat, adding text and URL links to various objects--although the process is manual. On the 17th, users will simply be able to run videos from many major hosting services through Asterpix'… Read more