I bought software online for the first time in my life today. Handed over my card details, got emailed the license key.

It’s not exactly shareware, given that the unregistered product is crippled, but it’s significant, I guess; I’ve been using shareware since the age of six, and have never registered any until now – mainly because it usually required sending credit card details to the US.

Which, in my case, at six I did not have.

Anyhow, I bought Launchbar. From the first time I used Launchbar 4, I swore I’d buy it when it was done. Unfortunately, for about the past six months, I’ve had to download a new copy every 30 days. Not any more. Today, I downloaded Beta 9, and found that I could purchase it (in order to uncripple it). So I did.

It’s a remarkable piece of software, indexing not just files, but information and metadata galore. It’s easier just to try it than to explain it, but now I’ve got it, I can confidently state it pretty much makes many items that are in my Dock obsolete. I grew up on command lines, but my mastery of *nix is pretty lousy. Now, I can let my fingers walk through my entire hard disk, finding contacts, files, apps, and internet searches.

If you’ve got OSX, I really recommend buying it. It’s changed the way I use my Mac, and made my Dock a lot tidier.