This was a parody post for April 1st. Unfortunately, Universal Powerline Cloud™ technology which allows for effortless and security free connection to your neighbours networks doesn't exist :)

Over the past few weeks, Andrew has been working on a new feature for version 0.9 which we've kept under wraps until now. This feature will make Alfred the most useful app in your household; it will help you communicate effectively with your community and influence what happens behind closed doors. Alfred will be more powerful than ever before.

So without further ado, here's a sneak peak of "Neighbours", the greatest feature for Alfred yet:

"Neighbours" feature

With the new "Neighbours" feature, no house will ever be an island again. Just use the keyword "neighbour" inside the main Alfred window and choose from the available list of neighbourhood computers.

Once you've chosen a computer to connect to, use Alfred with the keywords and shortcuts that you're used to. Alfred will help you quickly find documents on your neighbour's Mac or PC. Check out Jimmy's latest school report card, connect to their music library, or copy over the files you have been chatting about.

Security & hassle free

Because we are using new Universal Powerline Cloud™ technology, Alfred will be able to effortlessly connect to your neighbours networks and computers without having the hassle of authentication. Even better, Alfred doesn't need to be running on their computer (Mac or PC) to be able to browse and search their files.

It's convenient and fast and you'll never have to wait for your neighbour to take the time to send the files over! Just pop into Alfred, quickly identify the file you want, maybe take a peek at what they have been up to over the past few days and you are done, without them even having to know.

We give you Alfred Neighbours: Bringing you and your neighbours much closer together.

As Alfred is a true English butler, you are required to spell it "neighbour". No alternative keyword will be accepted.

When we updated our Macs to iTunes 10.2 a few days ago, we noticed that our album artwork seemed to have vanished for a number of our albums when browsing with Alfred's iTunes Mini Player.

After some head scratching and a dig around, it appears that iTunes has changed the way it references album artwork. Whereas iTunes previously allowed Alfred to see referenced artwork files, it now only allows artwork embedded within the file to be used. This explains why a part of my music collection appeared to have lost its artwork.

Thankfully, it's fairly straightforward to add the artwork to every track of an album:

• Open iTunes and pop up the artwork preview pane below the iTunes playlists column on the left
• For every album where the artwork vanished, first drag the artwork to your desktop
• Select all tracks from the album in iTunes and "Get info"
• Drop the artwork from your desktop into the artwork information field. iTunes will then embed the artwork rather than reference it in the iTunes database

How can you tell whether the artwork is embedded or not? The easiest way is to drill into your iTunes music folder using Finder and look at the files in grid/icon view. If the artwork has been embedded into a file using an ID3 tagger or other method, the artwork should show up. If the artwork is referenced the file will have a missing artwork icon, but if you look at the file in iTunes you will see the artwork there.

Can you help?

It's an easy fix, but one that can be somewhat time consuming for those with large music collections. If anyone has discovered an alternative fix, we'd love to hear it!

A huge thanks to Brian Van Peski for his email about iTunes artwork which put us on the right track to identifying this issue.

Next week, the Alfred team (Andrew, Anna and myself) will be heading to Austin, Texas. South by Southwest Interactive is a conference held in the city that likes to keep it weird. Developers, designers, marketing types and all sorts of interesting people gather for a few days of interesting talks and keynotes, as well as a lot of Tex Mex and margaritas.

If you're attending, please let us know on Twitter (@alfredapp) or look out for Anna and I who will both be wearing Alfred bowler hats. We'll be giving away Alfred goodies and stickers, so come and grab a sticker that you can wear with pride!

We'll no doubt tweet and announce an informal Alfred meetup, but don't wait for it, come say hi!

Cheers,
Vero

[Photo credit: David Herrera on Flickr]

When Andrew and I look back at how much has happened in the past year, since we first released Alfred on a Sunday night while watching the Canada vs USA hockey game during the Olympics, it's hard to believe it's only been a year.

Back then, Alfred did little more than launch web searches and search your local computer. Since then, we've added a vast number of features throughout the year, launched the Powerpack in August and built a wonderful community of users we love.

We wouldn't be where we are without you, so let us tip our bowler hat off to you. Since we can't invite you all over for a big party to celebrate, we are offering a 10% discount on the Powerpack for single user licenses.

To get your discount, use the code BDAYCAKE11 [now expired] in the coupon code field when you proceed to Google Checkout. Act fast as the discount is only valid until Wednesday 2 March 2011 4PM GMT/8AM PST and applies to single user licenses.

Here's to many more years of productivity on our Macs!

Cheers,
Vero

Yesterday, we released Alfred version 0.8.2, which contains more features, improvements and bug fixes than any previous release. We've worked hard to add polish and refinement to the features you already use and love, as well as bring on a few great new features.

New: Address Book integration

This is quickly becoming one of my favourite features! Search and access your Address Book contacts within Alfred, copy their contact details or launch an email addressed to them. Without launching Address Book, access all your local contacts by simply typing their name in Alfred. (You'll need to enable this Powerpack feature in preferences first.)

New: Colour theme import and export

Since 0.8.1, Powerpack users can create their own colour themes for Alfred. We've now added import and export to allow you to share your beautiful themes with friends. Themes can be shared as theme files or as alfredapp:// URLs, so it couldn't be any easier to spread the word.

Alfred fan Olivier Guerriat created a site where you can submit your own custom themes and custom searches, so pop by Alfredtips.com and share your best Alfred themes.

Most of the themes above were created by Yaro Manzarek and can be found on Deviant Art.

New: "In" keyword to search inside files

By now, you'll be an expert at using "find" and "open" to locate files on your Mac, right? The "in" keyword allows you to search inside the files on your Mac.

New: Share custom searches

Share your best custom searches by clicking on the Clipboard icon in your custom search editing box. Click on a URL beginning with alfredapp:// to import new custom searches to your own Alfred, including the search URL, title and keyword.

Visit Olivier's Alfredtips.com to see other users' great ideas for custom searches and contribute your own!

Over 70 changes for 0.8.2

We've added a scrollbar for the find/open/in views where you can see up to 40 results, the option for the iTunes mini player to only play longer albums when playing randomly, an option to make the 'email' keyword launch Gmail with an email for that contacs, as well as loads of new web locales. As this release contains tons of improvements, have a look at the change log for the full list.

Tempted by the Powerpack features? The range of advanced features for Powerpack users is growing with every release, so why not grab your Powerpack and support the Alfred development? :)

Cheers,
Vero