I run across a lot of applications every day when I’m on the net. I check out all the latest postings on Version Tracker and keep my eye out for new software on Digg as well as some other blogs that I subscribe too. And the last place that I find software is MacZot. This application is one that I purchased as a bundle awhile back, a member of five apps that I got for something outrageous, like 5 dollars. I was a little disappointed when I read what was in the bundle because I hadn’t heard of any of them before and I wasn’t sure what the apps were capable of. Now I’m sharing KIT with you today as another application that you should seriously check into, especially if you want to get even more organized with your Mac.

Features

KIT has a bit role to fill: making your life more organized and productive. That’s a rather large project objective if you ask me. However, KIT goes a good ways to fulfilling that promise right from the start, you just have to let the application help you. KIT is based on a model similar to what all of us are familiar with in iTunes and iPhoto. KIT is based on a library model where you can easily import files of several different types, and then organize, tag, label, shuffle, search and just in general find what you need when you need it.

Upon first glance I wasn’t sure what role this application was supposed to fill since I use Spotlight for almost everything already. I use it as an application launcher and to find 99% of the files that I ever need. My Desktop is clear and I like to keep my dock as clutter free as possible as well. That just leaves me and Spotlight, a god-send in Tiger as far as I’m concerned. Therefore KIT has to do something more than just find your files easily.

After you import files into KIT, you can tag them for better and more efficient searching later. There is a sidebar that lets you easily add comments, just like Spotlight comments, so that when you search it will be easier to find it. You can create and delete categories, and assign colors to those categories so that it’s easier to identify what category a file is in at one glance, similar to what you can do in Mail.app with rules and highlighting (I use that feature a lot). From the sidebar you can quickly assign a category to a file, helping you out later down the road as we’ll see.

Since you can assign so much metadata to your files you’ve imported, cool features like Smart Groups, once again like we’ve seen in Tiger and iTunes, lets you aggregate your files from categories, comments, filenames, names, and much more. Very powerful stuff. There are also static groups that you just drag and drop files into.

Besides just being able to find your files easily, you can preview them right within the application, like a split view that we have in Mail.app This means your text files, movies, audio files, images, PDFs, and a really cool feature with webpages makes it easy for you to see what the file is without having to open up an external application. The Web Archive feature is really cool because it captures the page for you and renders it when you preview it. You can view the page offline and keep it for as long as you need it. You can also refresh and update the page later and there is an easy Action button so that you can open the page in an external browser or copy the address to your system clipboard.

All of this said, I’m sure that I’ve just scratched the surface of this application. Feel free to download a trial copy (regular price $25) and let me know if you find a use for it that I’ve missed. The app has a nice interface and is a cinch to use, so go give it a try today.

Music this week is “I Devise My Own Demise” by Papa Roach. Click on the album art in the site sidebar to go to music store.

Download your free trial copy of KIT here