At Your Services.

With the release of Snow Leopard, Apple has done a good job of polishing it's previous incarnation of it's operating system, Leopard. And while the snowy cat certainly doesn't deliver any where near the amount of new features and eye candy as it's predecessor, it does include many hidden gems and improvements. One such improvement, and something we find ourselves using everyday here at The MacDoctor, is the new improved contextual Services menus.

In essence Services are a system wide way of allowing common operations to be accessed in any and all suitable applications and in the Finder on any and all suitable files and folders. For a really good primer you could do worse than reading this MacWorld article. And the secret of Services are how easy they are to create yourself using Automator. A quick look in the office and I can see nine home-brew services across the three machines still switched on. From sending an audio file direct to Rogue Amoeba's Fission for editing, to a video conversion Service and an email attachment Service. Once you realise how easy Services are to create and how powerful and time saving they can be, there's no looking back. And our clients seem to agree. We've been surprised by how even novice users have taken to this deceptively powerful utility once it's been demonstrated to them.

So get in there, learn a little about what Services could do for you and start creating your own in Automator. And remember, if you're in Olde London Town and need some help, we're at your Service, so get in touch with The MacDoctor!