One of the programs I use the most on my mac is a free application called Fluid (http://www.fluidapp.com). Fluid very simply, creates a copy of safari that is restricted to a certain website. So you can create an “application” that only runs facebook, or google calendar, or whatever you need. It’s more powerful than that, with built in support for URL shortening, plugins, and skins. Also, if your app crashes, it won’t take the tabs you have open in Safari with it. Here’s how I use it. Today’s examples are going to be google calendar, google tasks, and the excellent music site www.lala.com.
Google Calendar is an easy one. You simply launch fluid, put in the URL (http://www.google.com/calendar), and hit go. It creates the .app, places it in your applications folder and launches it. You can then launch the app, stick it in your dock, and most importantly access it instantly from quicksilver.
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this feature places it nicely out of the way... in your menubar
Google tasks is slightly more complicated. Use this URL (http://mail.google.com/tasks/iphone), and hit go. For extra flair, you can go to the menu bar, and select “Convert to Embedded MenuSBB”. This places it in your taskbar as a handy menu item that drops down on click. Very handy.
the asterixs are wildcards, allowing you to hit any page on the site
Lala.com has one special feature that I will highlight. Lala.com can share the current playing track on twitter, but fluid.app by default restricts your browsing to the domain you set it up on originally. You can expand these restrictions in the pref pane, under Advanced Preferences. Just add twitter.com as one of the options. If you don’t do this, it’ll open up the link in your default browser.
google voice is a very handy app... as is delicious, and google docs!
Lastly, as a mac fiend, we usually like things very pretty. Fluid has an option when you create the app to choose an alternate icon. If you don’t, it’ll use the website favicon, which isn’t quite high enough resolution for me. A great source of icons is http://www.flickr.com/groups/fluid_icons/. Plenty of user submitted high res png goodness to choose from.
So that’s it. As you start to use this, you’ll find yourself sticking more and more of the sites you use constantly in these fluid instances. It’s a bit like a bookmark, but it’s really handy, especially for you social network nuts. PC users, you don’t have to feel left out. The same basic principles hold true for Google’s Chrome browser, which has a very similar feature. If you have any ideas, questions, or suggestions, please leave a comment.
