On MBW 48: Pick of the Week is Fly Gesture

MacBreak Weekly 48: The Next Big Thing

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Merlin Mann, Andy Ihnatko, The Macalope

Variable pricing comes to iTunes, iPhone hacks, and where’s the Mac?

Here’s a direct MP3 download of MBW 48.

My pick for this week’s MacBreak Weekly is Fly Gesture, which is a nifty little freeware app from Flying Meat’s boy genius, Gus Mueller. Like it says on FG’s home page:

FlyGesture is activated like Exposé or Dashboard, bringing up a transparent window of “guides” to move your mouse through. Moving your mouse through the guides lets FlyGesture know what action or actions you want to be performed, such as closing a window or opening an application.

Mac users are familiar with doing stuff by clicking predefined menus with a mouse or by executing key commands, but Fly Gesture – like Quicksilver’s Abracadabra or Firefox’s mouse gestures – takes a different approach, allowing you to invoke bits of Mac functionality by drawing shapes with your mouse.

For certain kinds of tasks – changing tabs in a browser, jumping to a favorite page – gestures can be a faster and more painless way to get around. Regardless of preferences, though, I think this is just a really pretty application, and it’s cool of Gus to give it away for free.

(Maybe say thanks by picking up the awesome VoodooPad.)