One of my favorite things on my Mac is TextExpander, a PreferencePane that's come up here before and which lets you use text shortcuts for pasting larger blocks of text and graphics wherever your cursor is without batting an eye. Well, SmileOnMyMac has recently released a 2.0 of TE, that adds several useful features, including one that really got my attention:

• Snippet groups
• Add snippet groups from external files
• Add snippet groups from URLs (including password-protected URLs with Keychain support)
• Synchronize snippet groups using .Mac synchronization
• Print snippets
• Hotkeys to enable / disable and to create snippets from selection or clipboard
• Enable or disable groups on a per-application basis
• Sort snippets by date last used to identify unused snippets for possible deletion
• AppleScript snippets, which expand to the result of the script
• More options for sounds
• Sound settings on a per-group basis
• Update snippet groups from URLs and external files at regular intervals
• Improved performance with large numbers of snippets
• User interface improvements
• Additional improvements too numerous to mention

Mmmm..."Synchronize snippet groups using .Mac synchronization." I like the sound of that one quite a lot.

In fact, I wonder if one way to get me whining less about syncing would be for more apps to include built-in .Mac sync. TextExpander had been high on the list of contenders for adding syncing; believe me, you don't want to try and keep 661 abbreviations synced up with spit and bailing wire.

Also, for folks who have a large library, the addition of "most recently used" sorting is swell. Also loving the idea of keychain support (although I haven't tried that one yet).

If you're the sort of person who's struggling to get faster on your Mac, definitely start with TextExpander. You can shave minutes off every hour with this guy. I probably save an hour a day just not having to fix "thnaks" and "Melrin."

Bonus: Here's a MacBreak that Leo and I did on TextExpander: