The first tool I showed was Swivel. This is a great and easy tool for taking data and creating interactive graphics from them. Here’s an example:

Swivel is free, though if you want to keep the data private, you have to pony up some cash.

The second tool I showed was AudioBoo. This is a nifty podcasting app for the iPhone. Not for listening podcasts, but for making them. Here’s how it works:

1. Download the app
2. Create an AudioBoo account
3. Use the app to record audio
4. Snap a photo to go with the audio
5. Title the audio and tag it with keywords
6. Publish the clip

The result is both a file and an RSS feed that one can subscribe to through iTunes. One can also automatically publish the audio to Twitter, Posterous, Tumblr, and more.

Here’s an example of the embedded audio player:

Those were the two main tools, but we had some extra time, so I offered two bonus tools.

The first bonus tool wasn’t really a tool, so much as just something too damn cool not to show. Specifically, Yelp!’s secret “Monocle” augmented reality tool. Basically, it works by layering information over a live camera image. Here, watch this YouTube video to better explain it:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQSwG2v6hFw

And here’s the last one: regular expressions, also known as grep, or pattern-matching search.

Basically, this is a method of search or find-and-replace that uses wild cards and variables. Say, for example, you have a list of names, like this:

• Jefferson, Thomas
• Washington, George
• Adams, John
• Franklin, Benjamin
• Lincoln, Abraham
• Hancock, John
• Jay, John

And, you want to change the order of each name to make it first name, space, last name. That is, instead of “Jefferson, Thomas” you want “Thomas Jefferson.”

Without grep/regular expressions, you’d have to cut/paste a bunch of names or retype them. (Or, you could find the comma and replace it with a tab, copy the lines to an Excel spreadsheet, change the orders of the columns, then copy the lines back to a text editor and then find/replace the tabs with spaces.) But, there’s a far easier way.

If you have a grep-enabled text editor, like TextMate, TextWrangler or BBEdit (among others), simply search for this:

(.*), (.*)

and replace with this:

\2 \1

So, how does that work? Simple. The period is a wild card for any character. The asterisk means “repeat.” So .* means “any character followed by any character, followed by any character, etc.” Because .* is followed by a comma and a space, that first set will find all the characters until it reaches a comma and space. And the parenthesis assigns that text string to a variable. So, it will find “Jefferson” and assign it the variable “1.” (The first set of parentheses gets the variable “1,” the second set of parentheses gets “2″ and so on.)

After the space, another .* will find the remainder of the line and, thanks to the parenthesis, assign it the variable “2.”

Finally, it replaces what it finds with the value of “2,” followed by a space, followed by the variable “1.”

See? Yeah, I know it’s kind of obtuse. But, play with it and check out this awesome grep reference site.

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1Password: This manages (and creates) passwords and auto fills them from any browser. Syncs across computers and devices. Extremely handy way to auto-enter information and maintain security. http://agilewebsolutions.com/products/1Password

A Better Finder Series: This makes it super easy to batch rename files in complex ways. For example, you can easily change a bunch of files that are named “FirstName LastName.jpg” to lastname-firstname.jpg” and more. http://www.publicspace.net/ABetterFinderSeries/

Adium: This is a multi-client instant messenger program. http://adium.im/

AppFresh: This will automatically alert you to updated software. http://metaquark.de/appfresh/

AppZapper: This will delete applications and all of their associated files. http://www.appzapper.com/

Audio Hijack Pro: Super easy way to capture and record audio from any source, such as a video stream or iTunes. http://rogueamoeba.com/audiohijackpro/

Automator: A super-easy way to create automated workflows. http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/automator/

Default Folder X: This utility allows you to set default open/save dialog box folders and simplify the navigation of open/save dialog boxes. http://www.stclairsoft.com/DefaultFolderX/

Dropbox: This is a Web-based tool for synchronizing folders across the Web and devices. You can create a drop box on your machine and create a Web interface so that others can easily upload files to it. Sort of like FTP but easier. http://getdropbox.com/

Komodo Edit: This is a cross-platform text editor, like TextMate, TextWrangler and BBEdit. This is particularly useful for PC users. http://www.activestate.com/komodo_edit/

LittleSnapper: This is a great screenshot utility and manager. That is, it will take and manage your screenshots, including full Web pages with Flash on them: http://www.realmacsoftware.com/littlesnapper/

MacFuse: This is an add on that allows you to use Mac OS X file handling on non-native volumes (i.e., Windows, etc.): http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/

NeoOffice: This is an open source version of Microsoft Office, including a database that can link to SQL, like Access. http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php

OmniGraffle Professional: This is an awesome flow chart and wire framing tool. I can’t speak highly enough about it: http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/OmniGraffle/ Be sure to also check out their other offerings.

OpenOffice.org: Like NeoOffice: http://www.openoffice.org/

Path Finder: This tool replaces your standard Finder. One great attribute (and there are many) is that when you copy a file, it copies the entire path: http://www.cocoatech.com/

Perian: This is an awesome QuickTime components utility to make all kinds of video files work on the Mac: http://perian.org/

RipIt: Great DVD ripper: http://ripitapp.com/ (Also check out MacTheRipper (http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/14414), VisualHub (no longer downloadable) and Handbrake (http://handbrake.fr/) for ripping and encoding video.)

Saft: This is a Safari add on that remembers your open Tabs and lots, lots more: http://haoli.dnsalias.com/Saft/index.html

SuperDuper! This is a data backup and copying utility. Has saved my butt many times: http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

SWF and FLV Player: This will play SWFs and FLVs directly, and will also tell you their dimensions: http://mac.eltima.com/freeflashplayer.html

Switch: This is audio encoding software. Takes your audio and makes them MP3s. http://www.nch.com.au/switch/ (Max is another: http://sbooth.org/Max/)

TextSoap: This is a multi-step text cleaner. In other words, you can link multiple find/replaces in one step and clean up text automagically: http://www.nch.com.au/software/index.html

Transmit: The best FTP client out there with drag-drop interface, droplets and more: http://www.panic.com/transmit/

TweetDeck: A great Twitter client with multiple panes for direct messages, searches, etc.: http://tweetdeck.com/beta/

WireTap Studio: Very similar to Audio Hijack Pro: http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/wiretap/

Xmarks: This will synchronize your bookmarks (and passwords) across platforms and computers. So, your FireFox and Safari bookmarks will always be in sync.: http://www.xmarks.com/

YouSendIt: This is a way to e-mail somebody giant files.: http://www.yousendit.com/

OpenID: This isn’t an application, but a service that will unify different profiles under one ID. For example, you can link several Basecamp accounts under one OpenID. http://www.myopenid.com/

Regular expressions: This isn’t an application either, but rather a way of doing complex pattern-matching search and replace. Let’s say you want to search “Josh is a buffoon” and change it to “What a buffoon Josh is!” You could do that by searching “(Josh).*(buffoon)” and replacing it with “What a /2 /1 is!” It’s easier to demonstrate.

Concatenation in spreadsheets: Also not an app, but a way to take columns of data and turn it into XML. More here: http://www.hatchomatic.com/2009/02/18/simple-xml-template/

Batchgeocode: Need to get lat/long for a place, or a bunch of places?: http://www.batchgeocode.com/

There are more, but this is a pretty good list. I hope it’s helpful to folks.

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