Spring is in the air on the northern hemisphere, which means: time for some spring cleaning here at DEVONtechnologies: DEVONsphere Express is still new on the App Store and we’ve already submitted the second update. Not enough, we’ve also updated all our other applications, too, from DEVONthink and DEVONnote to DEVONagent and our freeware apps.

After Apple has, completely unexpectedly, released version 1.0 of a brand new app from us last week without any review delays and the update to version 1.1 yesterday we’ve finally officially announced it today. Meet DEVONsphere Express: the whole power of our unique artificial intelligence technology crammed into an easy-to-use app that sits in the menu bar and provides you with related data to whatever you’re working on. It’s like DEVONthink but without the need to keep you data in a database. (more)

German power user  ”Denkenswert” writes in his blog about how to use DEVONthink more productively. In two articles he talks about how to use pre-fab and user-defined templates to work faster with DEVONthink. (more)

Still nothing to read during the holidays? If you are interested in artificial intelligence, the Turing Test, and chatbots and would like to read something that makes you think have a look at Brian Christian’s ”The Most Human Human”. Here’s what Laura Miller says about it in her article, Can Computers Truly Think?: … (more)

All of us here at DEVONtechnologies wish you and your family a pleasant and peaceful Christmas time. May it be a time of peace and reflection for all of you, wherever in the world you are, whatever religion you believe in, and whatever culture you are part of. (more)

Some people use TJ HD’s excellent Language Switcher to start applications with a localization different than the system’s default language. Unfortunately this only starts the app in the other localization but breaks proper localization support for internal but independent elements such as smart templates or AppleScript scripts. So if you are using Language Switcher and experience that some smart templates or scripts don’t work please use it without Language Switcher.

Keyboard Maestro allows you to automate things in almost any Mac app and assign it a shortcut. Even cooler is that when you assign the same shortcut to multiple macros Keyboard Maestro shows a head-up display with a list of all macros with this shortcut for you to choose from. (more)

From time to time I cannot resist to posting some feedback we receive, especially when it’s from people who usually don’t give any feedback to companies. Like Tony Vanderharst from Melbourne, Australia: … (more)

Our friends over at TidBITS, one of the longest-running Internet publications, have set up a new membership program to support their excellent news service. By joining as a member you do not only support the editors but you also get access to some cool benefits like an ad-free view on the website, a full-text RSS feed, early access to new articles, and great discounts on all Take Control ebooks and Mac software like LaunchBar, 1Password, and … DEVONthink, DEVONagent Pro, and DEVONnote. Visit TidBITS, become a member, and save 25 percent on your apps!

If you are using email encryption on the Mac you are very likely using S/MIME, e.g. with a Verisign certificate. Unfortunately your certificate is not automatically synchronized with your iDevice so that you can read your encrypted messages also on-the-go. But, it’ became possible with iOS 5. Ars Technica has a good article about how to secure your email communication and make it work also with your iPhone or iPad. Read it here.