When I first switched to Mac some 5 years ago, I was hesitant to install software that wasn’t released by big known companies. Coming from the constant burn that is Windows, the risk of a faulty program crashing my system or much worse, infecting my system vastly outweighed the possible benefits of the new installation. My other dangling impression at the time was that less quality software existed for the Mac, which was why Apple provided so much out of the box. While partially true (Apple makes a great computer out of the box), I simply hadn’t explored the world of smaller but high quality 3rd party developers.
Nowadays, I don’t think I could get through a single workday without the bevy of beautifully designed, independently published programs like Transmit, Quicksilver, TextMate, and lately, Skitch.
Without the diversity and creativity of these developers, Mac OS X would not be the beautiful and powerful platform that it is. And skitch is really pushing the envelope.
If you don’t know what Skitch is, you should watch this video to get up to speed quickly. In essence, Skitch is a hybrid of Apple’s screengrab utility (creatively titled: Grab), an extremely user friendly ImageReady for editing, and Flickr for secure storage and sharing. All of this, wrapped in a gorgeous interface, and on STEROIDS.
Once installed, skitch sits in your menu bar, ready and waiting. With a couple clicks of the mouse, you can grab a portion of your screen, snap a picture with your iSight, and then illustrate and resize, and finally upload directly to your free storage on myskitch.com or directly to your Flickr account.
I personally use it on a daily basis to do things like capture design elements I like on websites, send samples to clients, or just goof off while I’m bored.
It should be noted that this is a Mac-only program (Universal), and requires 10.4.6 or later.
So here’s the deal: I have 50 invites to give away, thanks to the wonderful people at Plasq. Considering that Invite Share has over 242 waiting users, I consider this highly in demand. Therefor, you will have to do a little work to get your invite.
Using the comment form below, please insert your name, email address (not shared, used for sending invite) and a short passage describing a particularly embarassing incident from your past. It can be about anything, anywhere, anytime, but please put some effort into it. At least a paragraph. And bonus points if it’s geek/tech related, and super points if you make me laugh, cry, whatever. First come, first serve.
Recipients
- Derek - Cold Sore
- Colin - Mudbutt Emergency
- Derek P. - Crossdressing
- Keith - Sculpted Brows
- You?
Ok. Only going to share this because skitch looks awesome!
I have a cold sore… but it is not herpes (Just thought I’d get that out of the way).
So, understandably since I am going on a cruise, I want to get rid of this blemish on my face (at the right-hand lower corner of my lip… I feel the need to reiterate it is NOT herpes. That would be pretty much impossible). After work yesterday I went to CVS to get some Anti-Cold Sore cream.
While waiting for the Pharmacist to finish helping other people so I can get a recommendation, I see the rack with all the condoms on it. I say to myself, “Hey, I’m going on a cruise. What the fuck? I’ll pick some up just in case.”
I get the cream and head up to the counter. I put my only two items down on the counter and look at them. I look up at the cashier and say, “I just realized how bad this looks.”
Hoo boy!
yea. thats. awkward.
should probably get that checked out anyway..
thanks for kicking off the comments, skitch invite en route!
So, I was recently in NYC shooting a poster, my weekend was pretty much entirely fueled by beer, and Jeremy’s wonderful fresh brewed coffee. Needless to say, my bowels were not functioning well after such an assault and I was about to have a serious case of the mudbutt (if you don’t know what it is, just think about it). Well, would have been okay except that our other host, Becky, decided about 5 minutes prior to my mudbutt emergency that she was going to shower in their only bathroom. Cool I thought, I’ll just wait it out for a few moments and then hop in there when she steps out. Oh, how wrong I was.. I lay out on the floor in agony for nearly a half hour as Becky washed, shampooed, shaved and I believe even cleaned the bathroom.. Finally I made it in to do my business, but not before seriously embarrassing myself in front of two others who watched me squirm in pain.
An ode to colin:
Here I sit, broken-hearted,
Came to shit but only farted.
I’m not sure how I missed the Skitch boat but I sure want to get onboard. One embarrassing moment:
I’m an April Fools Day kid so naturally, people enjoy a prank or two on my birthday. One particular incident happened after a day at the swimming pool. Little did I know, but as I floated innocently along the surface of the pool, friends had quickly jimmied my locker open and swapped all of my belongings with a nice Sunday dress, shoes, and a hat to match. To make a long story short, I spent the first 30 mins after getting out of the pool trying to convince anyone to get my clothes back. Sadly, I succumbed to the embarrassment and was forced to model the dress for all to see before getting my belongings back.
Now.. If you don’t mind, I will gladly help exhaust one of your Skitch invites ;)
Derek - No photo, didn’t happen.
This is more or less an ongoing embarrassing story that always seems to get a chuckle when others find out. When I was a kid, for some reason or another, I felt as though I had rather large eyebrows. When I was about 12 years I decided to take matters into my own hands. I scrambled to the bathroom, sifted through the medicine cabinet and there I saw it…the ever-elusive BIC disposable razor. I proceeded to spend the next 15 minutes sculpting my eyebrows to “perfection”. As I exited the bathroom I felt so badass but that mood was suddenly brought to a halt as my sister began cackling at me. When my parents asked me what happened I came up with the brilliant answer that when going down the hill, I fell off my bicycle and they fell out…genius huh?
Now seriously…give me…oh and check out http://www.keithmorrisonphotography.com
Hey,
Looks good. Unfortunately I’m still running Panther so I’m out. If you’re on Leopard though, you might want to check this out.
http://www.naked.la/light/
(formerly Anon)
Secretly I believe that all those little doo-dads that you run is why your Macbook often resembled Columbia on its way back in from orbit.
Although, that’s not much of a secret.
and by doo-dads do you mean “applications”? Maybe its just me, but I think a $1,600+ piece of equipment should be able to not only run the stock software that ships with the machine, but also the occasional 3rd party developer program. And that macbook was a goddamn lemon. End of story.
P.s. if you aren’t on skitch yet, you are missing out. So where’s the embarrassing story?
OK so, once, i was over at this really hot guys house that I met on the internet. And he was totally wasted and I was having a few drinks and I kept noticing that my stomach was turning, so I was trying to find an exit to go use the bathroom. All of a sudden, he decides that he’s going to go take a piss, and I’m like, “OK, well i’ll go after him.” So he goes upstairs and I’m sitting on the couch with this stomach cramp and I farted to ease it up some except I didn’t fart, I actually shit myself. So I’m sitting on his couch in some really tight pants with no underwear on and I jump up and shove my hands down the back of my pants to see what the damage was, and I have the glob of oatmeal shit sitting between my ass cheeks that I can kind of cup with my fingers. So I’m like, “WTF am I going to DO?” I realize that I got so fucking lucky because the shit didn’t actually hit the back of my pants, so I ran over to the kitchen sink and scoop the shit out and start rinsing it down the sink. Except he had this really wide, flat bottom sink and it wasn’t going down the drain, it was kind of floating around the edges of the sink. Mind you, this has all happened in the space of about 90 seconds, because this guy was just upstairs taking a piss. So i’m cleaning out my ass into this guys kitchen sink and trying to get the shit to go down the drain when he comes downstairs, and I was just like “fuck it.” So I say to him ” Be right back” and try to sort of sidle my way up the stairs to the bathroom where I actually clean myself up for real ( with the sink soap). I get back downstairs and this guy is totally fucking wasted and we go upstairs and had sex. He never had a clue.
So while not technically embarrassing, I was definitely mortified.
There’s your story. But I don’t think I’ll use Skitch.. Although I might try it.