After hearing a lot of praise for --from none other than Macworld's own Jason Snell--I decided to download the trial and give it a run. After spending two weeks with the app, I was convinced and purchased a license.

For those not in the know, LaunchBar is an application launcher that can also do a variety of other tasks: on-the-spot calculations, online searches, opening websites, searching your computer, performing predefined actions liking controlling iTunes playback, running scripts, and so on. If ever there was such a thing as a productivity enhancer, this is it.

LaunchBar has a feature which allows you to create your own search algorithms and then use them to quickly search websites you frequent. Some of these----like Amazon, Apple Developer Connection, Flickr, IMDb, and YouTube--are built into the application, but you can easily create others. As an example, here's how you can create a search shortcut for Macworld:

1. Load up and run a search for any term, like xyzzy.

2. Once the results page appears, select the URL, then copy and paste it into a text editor, like Text Edit. (You can also edit-in-place in the URL bar if you wish; it's just a bit hard to see everything there.)