Having a Blast

We all know that file management, particularly when it comes to post-production is essential to a seamless workflow. Like me your probably dealing with multiple files in multiple folders while importing files from key drives, emails, remote servers & dropbox's - you can oftentimes loose track of certain files. Sure spotlight can help out and lead you directly to the file, but only if you know the name of the file, so you can start typing and hope for the best.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could click just one simple little unobtrusive icon in the menubar and see the last file you imported or were working on just sitting there nicely waiting for you? Well with Blast by Apparent Software you can.

It does exactly that. Every file that you have just worked on, imported, moved or manipulated in any way is sitting there in a nice tidy dropdown menu.

I've been using Fresh by Ironic Software from some time now & every time I hit the shortcut I almost feel like ducking as the two giant green bars fill the screen with the last files worked on appear MASSIVE across the screen. It also is very resource heavy being a constantly open app in the dock just sitting there purring away.

Blast on the other hand, sits neatly in the menubar. I'm a big fan of neat little menubar apps. When working on a large application such as Final Cut Pro, thats pretty much all you want open. Thats how I like to work anyway.

Fresh for some reason fails to identify certain files too I've noticed which can be rather frustrating. Anyone working in video will know that files are massive and sometimes its necessary to split files into separate RAR files in order for them to be safely uploaded & downloaded over a network or the internet. Fresh fails to recognize recently "unrared" files, which is my biggest problem with Fresh, Blast on the other hand passes with flying colours which makes it a winner for me.

The only gripe I have with Blast is that the only option with files is to "Open in Finder" whereas Fresh offers "Open in Finder" "Open with…" "Rename" "Move to Trash" among others, offering the user a lot more options than Blast.

But, having said that, its the unobtrusiveness that wins out with Blast & considering its currently a very young v1.3 one can hope that more options will be offered in future updates.

Both Fresh & Blast are under $10. with Blast being a mere 95c more expensive but well worth the extra few pennies.

Now where did I put that text file so I can post it on my blog, oh wait a second there it is!

Buy Blast HERE or download the trial HERE