Ray Troll, who made some great songs about the important evolution step that took part in the Devonian period, has a brand new web site. Nice!

When strange things happen on a Mac, like settings not being stored, license codes not being accepted, or DEVONthink databases behaving unexpectedly, file permissions could be the cause. UNIX permissions and Access Control Lists (ACLs) define what the logged-in user and the applications opened by her can do with items in the file system. If you want to learn more about permissions, have a look at Take Control’s new ebook Take Control of Permissions in Snow Leopard which explains this geeky subject in easy language and hands-on manner.

Do you use Safari or Firefox to access your DEVONthink Pro Office databases through the built-in web server? Would you like to get a more ‘native application’ feeling? Fluid is a Mac application that creates site-specific browsers, basically special web browsers that are hard-wired to an entered address. For example the address of your shared DEVONthink Pro Office. Open this mini application and it will show a single, simple window for DEVONthink’s web interface that looks nearly like a true Mac application. (more)

You may know that you can paste icons onto documents and groups in DEVONthink to easier distinguish them: Copy any picture, then open the Info panel for the document or group (Tools > Show Info), select the icon, and paste your picture. What you may not know is that you can do the same with DEVONthink databases in nearly the same fashion. Copy the icon you would like to use to the clipboard, then select the database package in the Finder, open the Info panel (File > Get Info), select the icon field, and paste your picture.

DEVONthink and DEVONagent are highly scriptable. Using AppleScript you can integrate them tightly into your workflow, automate tasks, or extend our applications with new functionality. AppleScript as a scripting language is not only powerful but also relatively easy to learn. Our power user Veritrope has published a series of excellent articles on his blog. Check them out. (more)

We were often asked if we had a manual for DEVONthink and DEVONnote to complement the build-in documentation. So we talked to the people who should really know how to write good introductions: Take Control Ebooks. And today they have just released a brand new ebook created in partnership with us: Joe Kissell’s Take Control of Getting Started with DEVONthink 2 has the calm, thorough, and real-world advice you need to understand how DEVONthink can bring order to your information life. (more)

For everyone using a ScanSnap scanner with Snow Leopard: Fujitsu has just posted an upgrade for their ScanSnap Manager software. You can download it from the Fujitsu website.

DEVONthink Pro Office uses Image Capture, Mac OS X’s own scanning framework, for accessing flat bed scanners, all-in-one devices, and document scanners (the Fujitsu ScanSnap is an exception, it uses a proprietary driver software). How would you know that your scanner is compatible? Simply try it. But, finally, with Mac OS X 10.6 ‘Snow Leopard’, there is a simpler way: Apple has published a list of compatible scanners: Click here to look up your scanner. Thank you, Apple! (more)

Just a quick note that Mac OS X 10.6.1 again breaks compatibility with the earliert version of the Mail.app plug-in. You may should know that Apple Mail does not support third-party plugins at all so what we did is basically a hack (one reason we did not make a plug-in for Safari but a bookmarklet). The solution is simple: choose Help > Install Add-ons… and re-install the Mail.app plug-in to update it. This installs a newer version of the plug-in which will happily work with 10.6.1.

Fujitsu has opened a site dedicated to ScanSnap owners and those of you who want to become one: the ScanSnap Community. So if you own a ScanSnap or plan to to so, check out the Updates, Testimonials, Tips & Tricks, and Ask the Expert sections to learn more about what you can do with a document scanner. (more)