It's that time of year; Meeting new fellow students, cracking open the first page of a new notebook, heading to class and getting ready for the school year ahead.

Or maybe I graduated too long ago and forgotten that, in reality, it's more along the lines of grabbing a large coffee to stay awake through class and hoping that the new professor isn't too weird.

Whichever way you plan to start your school year, Alfred can help you get things done better and faster with web searches, custom searches and extensions.

Default web searches

Alfred comes packed with useful default searches to help you be more productive. Start your search with the keyword "wiki" to search Wikipedia - but remember to check your sources!

DuckDuckGo is a super useful tool that lets you search a vast number of search engines with the !bang shortcuts. Start with the keyword "duck" and see just how flexible it is. If you're using the Powerpack, you can set DuckDuckGo as your default fallback search, so that you can use the !bang shortcuts without the "duck" prefix - even better!

Need to translate text? Type "translate" and paste the text or URL of the page you want to translate. Hit return and Google Translate will work its magic.

Custom searches

Custom searches give you the ability to add searches for anything you might need frequent search access to. For example, search your Delicious bookmarks library (replace our username with your own) or search Pinboard for your own bookmarks.

Creating these is very quick yet can save you a lot of time, so have a look at our help page on creating your own custom searches for internal wikis, study resources or almost any site. Check out the fan-run Alfred Tips site for many of the favourite custom searches out there.

Extensions

If you really want to kick it up a notch, the Powerpack allows you to use extensions, along with many other great useful features like Clipboard History and 1Password integration.

While writing essays, use Dave Ferguson's Word Counter to track your progress.

If you're a fan of Evernote, as we are, you'll find a wide range of Evernote extensions for adding notes in our extensions gallery.

Sweating bullets before your first class presentation? Can't help you there, but you can use Seb Clarke's Caffeine Manager to switch on Caffeine.app with a keyword to make sure your laptop doesn't go to sleep mid-presentation, leaving you to concentrate on keeping your classmates awake!

Entertainment

The school year, of course, isn't all work and no play. Sneak a bit of fun into the classroom with Kailey Lampert's Hangman extension. Start by typing "hangman new", then see how good your vocabulary and guessing skills are! [Kailey and Alfred take no responsibility for time having disappeared when you next look at the clock!] 

Need to get something ordered? Use the "amazon" keyword followed by your search term for quick access to your local Amazon online store.

If you're like me and can't study without music, you've got plenty of options. The iTunes Mini Player, part of the Powerpack, gives you keyboard-based access to your iTunes collection. If you prefer Spotify or Rdio, some Alfred users have created some brilliant extensions for each one of them, which you can find in the Music page of the Extensions gallery.

Whatever you may be studying and whether you're starting or finishing this year, may it be a great year! Learn everything you can, meet everyone you can and enjoy yourself. :)

Cheers,
Vero

[Image credit: Kate Ter Haar on Flickr]

Today, Alfred 1.3 is available through auto-update [non-Mac App Store] and from our website with lots of lovely additions. We've been using these new features ourselves over the past few weeks and already can't live without them!

Multi-file Buffer

You can now pick multiple files directly from Finder or navigate to them in Alfred and add them to your file buffer. Once you've picked all your files, you can perform an action on all of them. With this feature in your hands, Speedy Gonzales will be left in the dust behind you!

QuickLook

You've been clamouring for QuickLook integration, and here it is.  Preview your files and documents using OS X's QuickLook by pressing Shift or ⌘Y. Simple yet so useful!

Compact View

We've added a compact view in Alfred's Appearance preferences, allowing you to make Alfred's results view smaller. Handy for users of the shiny new Retina Display MacBook Pros.

Show more results

Alfred will now show you all matched results for your Default Results searches; Just keep scrolling down for more results.

1Password improvements

We've made the very popular integration with 1Password even better, by making Alfred find and handle your 1Click bookmarks even more intelligently. You can also choose to include your 1Password bookmarks in default results without the "1p" keyword and copy the 1Click URL to clipboard with ⌘C.

And much more...

Once again, the change log for this release is pretty hefty with many more improvements and fixed, so if you're curious, grab a coffee and read all the details.

Cheers,
Vero

Apple recently announced OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, which contains great new security features to keep your Mac safe from malware. One of these new technologies, Gatekeeper, prevents unauthorised code from running on your Mac.

Gatekeeper - the perfect solution for Alfred

Gatekeeper aims to keep you safe from malware when downloading apps outside of the Mac App Store. By default, Gatekeeper allows you to install apps from both the Mac App Store and from developers who digitally sign their applications with an Apple-certified Developer ID.

The great news is that Alfred 1.2 is already signed with our Developer ID. In simple terms, this means that Alfred and his Powerpack work great on Mountain Lion 10.8 without having to change any security settings, keeping your Mac as safe as possible!

What about the App Store?

Many of you have asked whether we intend to put Alfred's Powerpack in the Mac App Store. In November, we explained why we planned to keep Alfred out of the MAS due to the new Sandboxing requirements. Today, 1st June, Sandboxing comes into place in the MAS.

In a nutshell, Sandboxing aims to protect users by restricting what an application can do by keeping it in its own "box" and only allowing limited authorised access to specific files and resources on your system. Sandboxing also makes it much easier for Apple to review applications into the store as apps simply can't do things outside of this "box".

Meanwhile, Alfred works deep into the heart of your Mac. He gives you very fast access to everything your Mac has to offer, especially with the Powerpack - searching, scripting, file interactions and many more richly integrated features. Thankfully, Apple's new Gatekeeper paves the way for us to keep Alfred as productive as possible without having to work within the limitations of a sandbox.

On the topic of new features...

You'll continue to find the free version of Alfred in the MAS, as Apple allows existing apps to remain in the store and receive bug fixes. However, if you're looking for the big juicy new features, your best bet is to download Alfred from our website. With this version, you can take advantage of the Powerpack and of pre-releases, which give you a sneak preview of new features.

Andrew has also been hard at work on the next release, which brings you the much-anticipated QuickLook, 1Password integration improvements and many more improvements. That's something to look forward to in the next few weeks!

[Photo credit: Nick Schooley, The Gates at Buckingham Palace on Flickr]

We've just released Alfred version 1.2, which brings an absolute boatload of new features and improvements.

It's now available to download by checking for updates in the app, from our website or from the Mac App Store. Both the free version and the Powerpack have received a lot of love in this release so read on for the full details of this fantastic release.

Fast access to your 1Password 1Click bookmarks

We couldn't live without 1Password so this new Powerpack integration is a marriage made in heaven!

Enable the 1Password bookmarks import in Alfred's Features preferences, then let Alfred bring up your list of password bookmarks when you type "1p" followed by your search term. Your default browser is launched, and you are logged straight into your 1Password stored site. It's completely safe as your browser still requires your 1Password master password if you aren't already authenticated.

The 1Password team also blogged about 1Click bookmarks in Alfred earlier this week.

Large type with ⌘-L

Whether you plan to use it to view phone numbers on your screen from a distance, share the solution to a maths equation or to tease classmates sitting behind you in class, large type is a useful addition to the Powerpack. Hit Cmd + L to show the typed text as Large Type on your screen.

Two new colour themes

A few weeks ago, we announced that two new themes - Dark & Smooth and Pistachio - will be added to the default themes in Alfred's core (free) version.

Clipboard Merge

Clipboard Merge allows you to merge a second item with the previously copied clipboard snippet. Once enabled, it's simple to use: Hold ⌘ and press C twice to merge the selected text with the previous history item. You'll hear a sound confirming the snippets have become one!

New hotkeys

We've added a few new handy hotkeys:

• New global hotkeys to take action on currently selected text in OS X
• New global hotkey option to paste the latest Clipboard History item as plain text without having to show Alfred first
• Global hotkeys can be assigned to Snippets for instant pasting, e.g. your favourite email signature

File search overhaul

This may sound like hocus pocus but I can assure you that you'll find that the improved file matching algorithm will help you find your files more easily than before.

If you're curious to see how Andrew has refined file matching, have a look at his Tumblr post outlining what has changed.

A boatload more...

Version 1.2 is a big release in terms of improvements and bug fixes as well, so have a look at the Change Log here for the full list of changes.

Thanks again to everyone who helped us test this release over the past few weeks! :)

Cheers,
Vero

What makes developing Alfred so much fun is the amazing community that has grown around him over the past two years. And sometimes, Alfred users simply blow us away with their creativity!

Hot on the heels of last week's search for the perfect custom themes to add to version 1.2, long-time Alfred friend and extension creator Kailey Lampert created a new site, Alfredthe.me, where you can share your custom themes and discover new ones.

You can watch a useful video on importing, exporting and customising your own themes on Alfredthe.me.

As an aside, Kailey is also the creator of the rather awesome Hangman extension, amongst many others. Play a sneaky game of Hangman using Growl and the boss won't even notice! ;)

Happy theming!

Cheers,
Vero