by Phil Shapiro

Shareware - US $27.
Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X versions.
http://www.typeit4me.com

One of the Washington Apple Pi email lists that I participate in is the PowerUsers list, a list for more advanced Macintosh users. In mid-January an email posted to this list by Abraham Brody, WAP's Vice President of Programs, asked for someone to review the software called TypeIt4Me. I had heard of this software and felt I ought to give a stab at reviewing it. Before deciding to review it I did a quick Google search to find out more about the program. I was thrilled to come across a narrated QuickTime tour of the program created by the author Riccardo Ettore. This QuickTime had me sold in no time flat. You can view the narrated QuickTime at http://homepage.mac.com/rettore/ty/download.htm

I send a lot of emails in any given week. TypeIt4Me is going to increase my productivity quite a bit, giving me more time to do what I do best -- being lazy.

What does TypeIt4Me do?

It is a "text expander." It takes abbreviations you type and then expands them into the complete text of any kind of phrase or other prepared text. So consider whether you type the same text over and over again in your emails. Are you constantly pointing people to a long web site address? Is there some canned text gives your emails that uniquely touch?

Granted, it takes just a little bit of work to have TypeIt4Me learn the text you want typed for you. But the time-saving dividends can be enormous for both slow and fast typists. I'm going to enjoy thinking of the text that TypeIt4Me will be typing for me. When it comes to laziness, I spare no effort in that regard.

Come to think of it, I'll be adding my Arlington Public Library card number to TypeIt4Me, so when I need to access the proprietary databases on the Arlington Public Libraries web site, I can do so in a flash. I won't have to go fumbling for my library card in my wallet.

Not only does TypeIt4Me have a lot of practical uses, it's the perfect tool for a prank befitting the great Wozniak/Jobs prank tradition. If you can anticipate some of the questions people might send you via email, prepare a thoughtful, detailed response and place it into TypeIt4Me. Then when someone sends you an email asking you about the thing you anticipated, use TypeIt4Me to send them a detailed response in less than 20 seconds. From the other person's point of view, it appears as if you have the ability to type at 500 words per minutes in perfectly formed, thoughtfully sensitive sentences. Let me tell you, it's pretty hard not to giggle when you send that kind of an email.

In testing TypeIt4Me, I was curious to see how well it worked in different applications. It worked flawlessly in Safari and TextEdit Plus, two programs I use a lot. It worked its magic in my Eudora email program, too.

I ought to share some comments about the documentation (help file) that comes with TypeIt4Me. For the most part, it's very well written. Admittedly, there are some geeky parts to this program that might be a bit much for some people. But the program installs quickly and does what it claims to do with little muss or fuss. (I've added the previous sentence to TypeIt4Me to use in future software reviews I write.)

TypeIt4Me has received so many shareware awards that Riccardo Ettore is running out of space at the top of the TypeIt4Me web site to list all the awards.

As a thorough sofware reviewer, I felt I needed to find what other reviewers had to say about the program. A Google search confirmed that other reviewers were as buoyant about this software as I am.

In commenting about TypeIt4Me on his web site, Jeffrey Zeldman sums it up just right when he says:

You type "ty" plus a trigger (such as the space bar), and Typeit4me spits out: "Thank you very much for inquiring about our services." It's great for saving URLs, passwords, serial numbers, XHTML markup snippets, sincere-sounding replies, and bits of JavaScript or CSS, not to mention your name, address, phone number, and other text strings you benightedly peck out hour after hour and day after day until you just wonder if life is worth living. Buy Typeit4Me and know that life is beautiful.

Phil Shapiro is an educator and technology access activist based in Arlington, Virginia. He can be reached at pshapiro@his.com and at http://www.digitaldivide.net/profile/pshapiro.

Rick Lepage has also reviewed TypeIt4Me see http://www.macworld.com/2003/07/reviews/macgems/

MACinations April 05