Having been a Mac convert for over two years now I’m still amazed at the amount of free apps that are truly useful on OS X compared to Windows (no this isn’t a Windows bashing post). grabUp is another of those online / offline utilities that appears to be truly handy for dealing with screen grabs that you want to send to other people
The idea is that you install this little System Prefs application and using the hot key combo COMMAND + SHIFT + 4 you can grab a selected area and it is automatically uploaded to the grabUp website and a unique (and fairly ‘secure’ – due to its convoluted nature) URL is created that you then paste in to your mail, web page or IM so that anyone you want to see it can.
It is very useful, but I have a few reservations (maybe these niggles will be ironed out in future builds). Firstly it overrides the default functionality that OS X already has for grabbing a selected region of the screen. So if I didn’t want to send it to the grabUp site and just save it to my desktop I have to disable the app in my System Prefs. Not that useful in those cases. I could easily just paste the link and download it from the site. That to me sounds a little long winded and of course won’t work at all if I am offline. This needs changing – it either needs an override or moving to another key combination – Perhaps COMMAND + SHIFT + 5 (I’m not sure if this already does something on OS X though).
[UPDATE] I’ve just noticed that is doesn’t replace the selection functionality built in to OS X. It just augments it. So it still places your screen grab in the folder you have specified (the default ids your desktop, mine is in a folder called Screen Grabs – hence why I missed this). So one of my initial grumbles is now null and void :D [UPDATE]
Secondly, while it’s great the links are unique and therefore somewhat secure (in the loosest terms). There is no way for me to find a grab I have uploaded again unless I manually save the URL myself. I’d rather have the option of having an account so I can manage the files I have uploaded, set permissions, delete etc
Overall a great idea and probably very useful for the vast majority of casual users. Personally I’d like a few more “advanced” features. Regardless, if you haven’t tried it you can get a copy at grabUp.com
For those of you who still on Windows: there’s a free tool I wrote, it’s on SourceForge (vvcap), also available at http://www.vvcap.net, does exactly same thing. Welcome to try it out. If you’re interested, source code for both server and client available for download. Also features DES encryption of the images, which means that it’s a lot harder to hack and steal your pics