You may not be familiar with the company Tronical but you will know their work because they are responsible for Gibson’s Robot Guitar tuning systems. Well judging by this video it appears that Tronical are about to launch some standalone systems that can be retrofit to pretty much any guitar be it a Les Paul [...]
Tag: Apple
10 Reasons To Use Apple’s iMovie ‘09
I have a been a long-time user of Apple’s premiere movie editing program, Apple iMovie. I have edited everything from family birthday parties to professionally shot wedding videos.
With the release of iMovie ‘08, followed by the ‘09 update, Apple significantly re-designed iMovie, to the dismay of many long-time users like myself. Although I still use Apple iMovie ’06 from time to time, I have discovered many reasons why the latest version, iMovie ’09, is a useful program for managing, editing, and producing short form videos.
Event & Project Management
If you start shooting and editing movies on a regular basis, be it with the video camera on your cellphone or with your camcorder, iMovie is a useful program for managing and accessing your movie files in one place.
When you import files into the program, you can save the footage to either a new or existing Event. So for example, an event might be a vacation trip, birthday party, or YouTube presentation. After you create an event you can always add additional clips to it.
Also, events are organized by year, which is helpful for keeping track of clips. Right- or Control- clicking on an event provides additional options for managing and accessing files.
Similar to Events, Apple iMovie ‘09 allows you to organize all your movie projects within the application, rather than as complete separate files/projects outside of the program. You can select to save your projects to one or more storage drives, but you can access them all from within the program.
Mark As Favorites
If you’re working on a large project, you can mark individual clips as favorites. This is useful if your Event browser has lots of clips and you need a way to narrow it down. You can also reject individual clips, which means they are removed from the Events Browser but not deleted from your hard drive or the project itself. You can un-reject them at any time.
Video Adjustments
If you know how to make exposure adjustments and enhancements in programs like iPhoto, you might be surprised to know that you can make similar adjustments to your movie files in iMovie. Click on the tiny gear button of a clip in either the Event and Project browser to bring up the adjustment panals.
You get choices for making exposure and audio adjustments, as well as the ability to crop and rotate clips as you would still photos. And even better, you can copy adjustments you make on one clip and paste them to another.
Go to Edit>Paste Adjustments….
Clip Options
An advanced feature of iMovie ’09 does what some third-party plug-ins did for previous versions of iMovie. You can, for example, drag a selected clip or a portion of it from the Event Browser on top of one or more clips in the Project Story Board. You then choose from the pop-up window how you want the added clip to be used.
For instance, you can create a quick cutaway shot or picture within a picture.
Voice Over
Apple iMovie ‘09 makes it easy for you to select a group of clips or an entire project and perform a voice-over production. This is great for how-to or documentary videos.
Export Options
iMovie ‘09 provides several export options for your completed projects. You can format projects for YouTube posting, your iPhone, Flash Video, QuickTime format, etc. You can also save projects in the Media Browser; these files in turn can be accessed from the Media Browser of other iLife programs such as iDVD and Keynote.
When you save a project to the Media Browser, iMovie compresses the movie according to your specifications. That way you don’t have to open iMovie in order to retrieve saved projects. With the latest version of iMovie you can also export movies to iDVD.
Edit To The Beat
When you want to create an advanced slide show, the Edit to the Beat feature of iMovie is very useful for getting the job done quickly. See my video tutorial for how to use this feature.
Project Properties
Before or after you begin a project, you can set default properties for automatic transitions between clips, the duration of transitions, the aspect ratio of clips, and the theme you want to use for a project. Go to File>Project Properties to make these settings.
Also in Properties, you can set the default for the duration time for transitions, titles and photo displays.
Favorite Fonts
In iMovie‘s Preferences, you can create a collection of favorite fonts you use for projects. You’re not limited to the default set. Click on an existing font and change it.
There are several other advanced features in iMovie ‘09 that I didn’t touch upon. If you have shied away from movie editing because it looks too complicated, I can assure you that it’s possible for anyone to learn, using iMovie ‘09. Start with Apple‘s own tutorials and then experiment with many of the features described above.
See our other MUO articles about online video tutorials and home movie making tips. If you’re an avid iMovie ‘09 user, let us know what features you like.
(Via MakeUseOf.com.)
15 System Preferences Items A New Mac User Should Adjust
System Preferences is a hubbub of settings and controls on your Mac computer. Yet, it’s quite possible that if you are a fairly new Mac user you probably have made changes to only a few of the many items found in the Mac System Preferences. You might have added another user account or set up your server connection. But there are other items that you should know about that will make you a more powerful Mac user.
The items I will cover are found in the Snow Leopard version of System Preferences. I’m not going to cover each section of System Preferences or some of its more self-explanatory items. I will cover some of the hidden and useful items that you may want to change or adjust.
But I won’t go over System Preferences items like Spaces and the Dock that have already been covered.
Application Launcher
One of the elementary items that every Mac user should know about is selecting applications that you want automatically launched when your computer is booted. To do this, open Accounts (in System Preferences, of course) and click on the Login Items button. Click the + button to add applications you want to automatically launch when your computer boots.
Later, if you find that your computer is taking too long to start up, you might want to cut back your number of login items.
Also, you can add apps to your login by right- or Control-clicking on an application in the dock and selecting Options>Open at Login.
Recent Items
When you need to access recently opened items, there’s no need to go hunting for them in folders. You can click on the Apple icon in the far left of the menu bar and select Recent Items where you will find a list of documents, applications, and Servers you have used.
You can control the number of items that show up on that list by going into System Preferences and clicking on Appearance. Near the bottom, you can select the numbers of recent items you want listed.
Password Protect
If your computer is accessible to other people on a regular basis, you might want to password protect it. Select Security>General and click on Require password. The password will be the same one you use for your account. After the time you set, your computer will log out and will require a password to log back into your account.
CDs & DVDs
Clicking on CDs & DVDs in System Preferences, you can set what you want to happen when you insert a disk into your computer. For example, by default, you might want iTunes to open each time you insert a blank CD, because you typically burn songs to a disk. Or maybe when you insert a photo CD you want Photoshop to open instead of iPhoto.
Keyboard Shortcuts
There are a whole slew of items and controls under Keyboard. In this area you can add, change, and delete keyboard shortcuts for nearly all the applications on your computer. Click Keyboard Shortcuts and then select Application Shortcuts. It’s there you can select an existing application and change or delete corresponding shortcut keys.
You can also add shortcut keys to menu items of any application. Read this article to find out more.
Limit Spotlight Searches
You can do what is called a Spotlight search of everything that is saved on your Mac hard drive, but you might only want certain places to be searched. After clicking Spotlight in System Preferences, you can click off items that you don’t want search results from, such as iCal events or fonts. You can also drag the order in which you want results to appear.
Active Screen Corners
You paid a hefty price for your Mac, so learn to use every inch of it. Click on Exposé & Spaces. Under the Exposé tab, you can assign a few actions to the four different corners of your computer screen. If, for example, you want to quickly put your computer to sleep without using a keyboard shortcut, you can arrange to activate it simply by putting your cursor in an assigned corner.
You will also notice that there’s another set of pull-down buttons for you to assign F-stop keys to perform various actions.
And by the way, if you don’t use Dashboard anymore – very few of us do – you can use its assigned F12 key for something else. So click on the pull-down button and assign no key to it.
Default Sound Settings
If you’re using a couple of sound outputs, for your external speakers and headphones, you can set the default for the level of sound. Click on Sound and then select Output. Select the sound device and then adjust output volume to your liking. For instance, you might want the headphone volume lower than the speaker volume. Now whenever you select a volume output device, it will be at the volume level you set.
In the next part of this article, we’re going to go over a few advanced items in the Mac System Preferences. Let us know if you have any questions concerning this part of your Mac.
(Via MakeUseOf.com.)
Apple Releases Safari 5.0.1, Turns on Extensions Gallery
Apple today announced the release of Safari 5.0.1. What’s significant in this point release is that Apple has turned on support for the Extensions Gallery. When Safari 5 was released in June, it included support for extensions so that developers could start building them, but without access to the Extensions Gallery, users had no easy way to find and install those extensions.
The Safari Extensions Gallery is accessible from the Safari menu or via extensions.apple.com. Users can download and install extensions from the gallery with a single click, with no need for a browser restart. Extensions can be automatically updated and are managed within Safari.
Safari Extensions are built with HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript web standards. Every Safari Extension is signed with a digital certificate from Apple to prevent tampering and to verify that updates to the extension are from the original developer. Safari Extensions work in a sandbox, so they can’t access information on a user’s system or communicate with websites aside from those specified by the developer.
While the Safari Extension Gallery is launching with a range of extensions from the likes of Bing, the New York Times, Twitter and eBay, it’s nowhere near to matching the usefulness of Chrome’s extensions, let alone Firefox’s gigantic range of add-ons. Apple’s decision to include extension support in Safari is a smart one, but until developers start porting the most useful extensions to Safari, I’ll find it tough to switch from my favorite browsers.
You can download Safari 5.0.1 for both Mac and PC for free from Apple.
(Via GigaOM.)
100 Incredibly Useful & Free Mac Apps
Everyone loves free applications. One of the greatest things about Macs is the wealth of extremely talented developers that are willing to share their amazing creations without asking for a single cent.
We’ve compiled an enormous list of 100 amazing free Mac applications that you can download and start using today. These apps span multiple categories and offer an incredibly diverse pool of functionality so there’s definitely something here for everyone.
Music & Video
Boxee – Boxee is the best way to enjoy entertainment from the Internet and computer on your TV. Watch shows, listen to Pandora, stream Netflix and more.
Handbrake – HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows. (Translation: Rip DVDs to your Mac.)
Hulu Desktop – Hulu Desktop is a lean-back viewing experience for your personal computer. It features a sleek new look that’s optimized for use with standard Windows Media Center remote controls or Apple remote controls, allowing you to navigate Hulu’s entire library with just six buttons. For users without remotes, the application is keyboard and mouse-enabled.
MacTheRipper – MacTheRipper is a DVD ripper (extractor). It removes CSS encryption, Macrovision protection, sets the disc’s region to ‘0′ for region-free, and is capable of removing RCE region checking. It can also copy ARccOS copy-protected DVDs. This is to backup your legally-purchased DVDs onto your hard drive.
Miro – Download torrents and podcasts, play any video, and do it with style. It can play almost any video file and offers over 6,000 free internet TV shows and video podcasts. Miro has a simple, gorgeous interface designed for fullscreen HD video.
Since Miro downloads most videos, you can take your shows with you, even on an airplane. Quite simply, Miro is a better way to watch all the video you care about. Best of all, Miro is 100% free and open source, developed by a non-profit organization and volunteers around the world.
Miro Video Converter – A super simple way to convert almost any video to MP4, Ogg Theora, or a specific phone or iPod. Miro Video Converter has presets that will convert video to the correct sizes and formats for popular phones, iPods, and other media players. Just convert your video and copy it to your device.
Pandora Boy – Love Pandora.com, but tired of having to run it from a web browser? Ever wish you could control pandora without even being at your computer? Well then, look no further. PandoraBoy allows you to control your music with global hotkeys or your Apple Remote. Additionally, it supports Growl notifications so that you always know what your listening to.
SizzlingKeys – Have you ever wished you could control iTunes without leaving your current app? SizzlingKeys is an iTunes controller that lets you do just that – and more – in an intuitive and unobtrusive way.
Whether it’s to pause the player, adjust the volume, skip a track or rate a song, you can do all that and more with simple customizable keystrokes. That’s not all. You can even search your iTunes Library or Playlists with a simple keystroke, all without switching to iTunes!
VLC Media Player – VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player supporting most audio and video formats (H.264, Ogg, DivX, MKV, TS, MPEG-2, mp3, MPEG-4, aac, …) from files, physical media (DVDs, VCD, Audio-CD), TV capture cards and many network streaming protocols.
It can also convert media files, transcode and act as a streaming server over unicast or multicast and IPv4 or IPv6. It doesn’t need any external codec, program or codec pack to work.
Productivity
Anxiety – Anxiety is a super-lightweight To-do list application for Mac OS X Leopard that synchronizes with iCal and Mail. Its aim is to provide a streamlined, easily accessible interface to add and check off your tasks, while remaining poised to melt into the background at a moments notice.
Backboard – I love my Mac and my Backpack Account. Both together gives me not only the possibility to write my notes and tasks down, but more important to write them down EASILY!
Evernote – Evernote makes it easy to remember things big and small from your notable life using your computer, phone, and the web. Everything you capture is automatically processed, indexed, and made searchable. If you like, you can add tags or organize notes into different notebooks.
Lumina – Lumina is focused to show you a simple way to track your time. The concept of Lumina is based on three columns: Projects: A project is a bundle of tasks, Tasks: A tasks is a bundle of durations, Durations: A duration is the smallest brick to calculate your total time.
Pluto – Pluto menubar is an easy-to-use tool for the management of your events, tasks, projects and notes in the most effective and productive way possible. Pluto menubar is seamlessly integrated with iCal on your Mac, on MobileMe and the iPhone. Pluto menubar is placed – of course – in the menubar and designed to always run in the background and can be accessed with one click or even better – with a global hotkey.
QuickNote – QuickNote is a combined notepad and clipboard manager, useful to quickly jot down ideas and todos, store quotes, code snippets or whatever.
QuickNote is easily accessible from the menu bar, or with keyboard shortcuts: one to pop up a new note, one to edit the clipboard and one to save the clipboard without any further ado.
Snippely – Snippely is a basic text and code organizational tool. Instead of storing bits of code, quick notes, and memos in text files all over your hard drive, this application will let you save and organize ‘snippets’ in one convenient location. A snippet is a collection of one or more pieces of code and notes. Snippets are stored in groups for organization and quick retrieval
Task Mate – The to-do list made simple again. Just click to add, remove or complete tasks. Your completed tasks are easily accessible. Export your tasks to other applications via TextEdit.
Think – Let’s limit our attention to one application—any application—at any time. Let’s make it easy to change focus when we have to. Let’s allow ourselves to bring other apps up quickly if we need them, but put them out of sight again just as quickly. Let’s rediscover how to focus, and get back to thinking.
File Sharing and Transfer
CloudApp – CloudApp allows you to share images, links, music, videos and files. Here is how it works: choose a file, drag it to the menubar and let us take care of the rest. We provide you with a short link automatically copied to your clipboard that you can use to share your upload with co-workers and friends. Additionally you can view, track and delete files right from your menubar.
CyberDuck – Cyberduck is a libre open source FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, Cloud Files and Amazon S3 browser for the Mac. It features an easy to use interface with quickly accessible bookmarks. The outline view of the browser allows to browse large folder structures efficiently and you can quickly preview files with Quick Look.
To edit files, a seamless integration with any external editor application makes it easy to change content quickly. Both Amazon CloudFront and Cloud Files from Rackspace can be easily configured to distribute your content in the cloud. Many OS X core system technologies such as Spotlight, Bonjour and the Keychain are supported and 30 translations make you feel at home.
Dropbox – Dropbox is software that syncs your files online and across your computers. Put your files into your Dropbox on one computer, and they’ll be instantly available on any of your other computers that you’ve installed Dropbox on (Windows, Mac, and Linux too!) Because a copy of your files are stored on Dropbox’s secure servers, you can also access them from any computer or mobile device using the Dropbox website.
droplr – Droplr is the best way to share files from your Mac on the internet. Period. Whether you want to link to an image or embed one somewhere, Droplr makes sharing images on the web easy. Need to share a text note? Or how about a code snippet? We’ll even syntax highlight it for you.
Filezilla – FileZilla Client is a fast and reliable cross-platform FTP, FTPS and SFTP client with lots of useful features and an intuitive graphical user interface.
Jing – Snap a picture or take a video of your screen and share instantly over the web, IM, email.
Transmission – Transmission is a cross-platform BitTorrent client. Transmission is designed to balance power and usability. We’ve set the defaults to Just Work and it only takes a few clicks to configure advanced features like watch directories, bad peer blocklists, and the web interface. When Ubuntu chose Transmission as its default BitTorrent client, one of the most-cited reasons was its easy learning curve.
Application and File Launchers
aLaunch – It is an application launcher, and is operated via the status menu. You can chose to display icons at 16 pixels – 64 pixels. Files and folders can be registered with aLunch as well. Folders will be opened in the Finder. Different categories can be registered by using groups and separators.
Google Quick Search Box – Quick Search Box is an open source search box that allows you to search data on your computer and across the web. With Quick Search Box you can search for information from just about anywhere. You can then perform actions on the search results, such as launching applications, emailing friends, or playing a song.
Quicksilver – A unified, extensible interface for working with applications, contacts, music, and other data. Quicksilver is an application launcher on steroids. Though no longer in development, it can still provide plenty of additional functionality to your system. Read our beginner’s guide here.
Image and Text Editing
Bean – Bean is a small, easy-to-use word processor (or more precisely, a rich text editor), designed to make writing convenient, efficient and comfortable. Bean is Open Source, fully Cocoa, and is available free of charge! MS Word, OpenOffice, etc. try to be all things to all people. But sometimes you just want the right tool for the job. That is Bean’s niche.
Blender – Blender is the free open source 3D content creation suite, available for all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License. Discover the wide toolset available in Blender, defining a complete pipeline (from modeling to sequence editing) controlled by a flexible and consistent user interface.
DrawBerry – With DrawBerry, you have all the possibilities the vectorial drawing offers you in a free, easy to use and powerful application. If you don’t need applications such Illustrator or Inkscape and you want to create some simple (or less simple) illustrations, DrawBerry is for you.
Fraise – Fraise is a free text editor for Mac OS X Leopard 10.6 which is both easy to use and powerful. It is designed to neither confuse newcomers nor disappoint advanced users. It should work perfectly for a whole variety of needs – like web programming, script editing, making a to do list and so on
Fraise has all open documents in a list with beautiful Quick Look icons to your left just like e.g. iTunes so you can easily switch between many documents – you can also choose to display them as tabs if you prefer it that way.
GIMP – GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages. Numerous digital photo imperfections can be easily compensated for using GIMP. Fix perspective distortion caused by lens tilt simply choosing the corrective mode in the transform tools. Eliminate lens’ barrel distortion and vignetting with a powerful filter but a simple interface.
Google SketchUp – Google SketchUp is software that you can use to create 3D models of anything you like. Redecorate your living room. Design a new piece of furniture. Model your city for Google Earth. Create a skatepark for your hometown, then export an animation and share it on YouTube. There’s no limit to what you can create with SketchUp.
Inkscape – An Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format. Inkscape supports many advanced SVG features (markers, clones, alpha blending, etc.) and great care is taken in designing a streamlined interface. It is very easy to edit nodes, perform complex path operations, trace bitmaps and much more. We also aim to maintain a thriving user and developer community by using open, community-oriented development.
OpenOffice – OpenOffice 3 is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose.
Picasa – Picasa is free photo editing software from Google that makes your pictures look great. Sharing your best photos with friends and family is as easy as pressing a button!
Pixus – The AIR pixel ruler application. A handy tool for web and interface designers. Measure the screen objects in pixels using both mouse and keyboard control. Preview your design with skins and presets.
Seashore – Seashore is an open source image editor for Mac OS X’s Cocoa framework. It features gradients, textures and anti-aliasing for both text and brush strokes. It supports multiple layers and alpha channel editing.
It is based around the GIMP’s technology and uses the same native file format. However, unlike the GIMP, Seashore only aims to serve the basic image editing needs of most computer users, not to provide a replacement for professional image editing products. Seashore was created by Mark Pazolli who led the project until the end of 2009.
Scribus – Scribus is an Open Source program that brings award-winning professional page layout to Linux/UNIX, Mac OS X, OS/2 Warp 4/eComStation and Windows desktops with a combination of ‘press-ready’ output and new approaches to page layout. Underneath the modern and user friendly interface, Scribus supports professional publishing features, such as CMYK color, separations, Spot Colors, ICC color management and versatile PDF creation.
TextWrangler – A general-purpose text editor for light-duty composition, data-file editing (where the data files consist of plain [unstyled] text), and manipulation of text-oriented data. TextWrangler supports working with both plain-text and Unicode files (with the exception of files written using right-to-left writing systems, such as Hebrew or Arabic). TextWrangler also features an integrated spelling checker, as well as integration with Word Services-aware spelling and grammar checkers.
Communication
Adium – Adium is a free and open source instant messaging application for Mac OS X, written using Mac OS X’s Cocoa API, released under the GNU GPL and developed by the Adium team. Based on the libpurple protocol library, Adium can connect you to any number of messaging accounts on any combination of supported messaging services (see further down for the list) and then chat with other people using those services.
Colloquy – Traditionally, chat clients on the Mac have been anything but glamorous. Colloquy is an advanced IRC, SILC & ICB client which aims to fill this void. By adhering to Mac OS X interface conventions, Colloquy has the look and feel of a quality Mac application.
Google Notifier – The Google Notifier is an application that shows you alerts in your menu bar, so you can see when you have new Gmail messages or upcoming Google Calendar events without having to open a web browser.
ooVoo – With ooVoo, you can connect with anyone, anytime, with video calls, video messages, phone calls, text and more. Use ooVoo to get face time with people you can’t meet in person (and save travel time and money!). ooVoo makes life easier and more fun.
Skype – Skype is software that enables the world’s conversations. Millions of individuals and businesses use Skype to make free video and voice calls, send instant messages and share files with other Skype users. Everyday, people also use Skype to make low-cost calls to landlines and mobiles.
Thunderbird 3 – Thunderbird, as a messaging system, is uniquely positioned as the tool that users can use to integrate as many of their communications as they want. By combining an open architecture, a powerful extensibility and customization framework, and a person-centric perspective on communications, Thunderbird is a powerful yet enjoyable tool to help individuals manage their online interactions — whether that’s email, instant messaging, social networking messages, or other types of message.
System Utilities
AddressBookSync – AddressBookSync is a free Mac OS X application to download profile pictures and other Facebook data to Address Book cards. This is a handy tool to keep your contacts’ pictures updated if you have numerous Facebook friends in your Mac OS X Address Book.
AppCleaner – AppCleaner is a small application which allows you to thoroughly uninstall unwanted apps. Installing an application distributes many files throughout your System using space of your Hard Drive unnecessarily. AppCleaner finds all these small files and safely deletes them. Simply drop an application onto the AppCleaner window. It will find for the related files and you can delete them by clicking the delete button.
AppFresh – AppFresh helps you to keep all applications, widgets, preference panes and application plugins installed on your Mac up to date. All from one place, easy to use and fully integrated into Mac OS X. AppFresh works by checking the excellent osx.iusethis.com for new versions and lets you download and install available updates easily.
Camouflage – Do you have way too many items on your desktop? Do you hate cleaning up that mess? Camouflage is the right utility for you. It hides all the icons and leaves nothing but the pure wallpaper.
ClipMenu – ClipMenu can manage clipboard history. You can record 8 clipboard types, from plain text to image. To paste a recorded item, you just pop up menu by invoking the shortcut key, and select a menu item from the menu. You can also register texts you frequently use, like e-mail addresses, user IDs and so on, as snippets. You can paste these snippets from the menu, too.
coconutBattery – coconutBattery isn’t just a tool which shows you only the current charge of your battery – it also shows you the current maximum capacity of it in relation to the original capacity your battery had as it left the factory. You also get information about the battery-loadcycles (how often did you fully load your battery), the current charger (coconutBattery even warns you if you plugged in a wrong charger for your Notebook) and last but not least information about the age of your Mac.
Burn – There are a lot of ways to approach burning discs. Burn keeps it simple, but still offers a lot of advanced options. Keep your files safe and share them. Burn your files to a disc so you can access them later on. Choose different filesystems so you can share your files with people with different operating systems. Change advanced settings like, file permissions, the disc icon, file dates and more on the fly in Burn’s inspector.
Caffeine – Caffeine is a tiny program that puts an icon in the right side of your menu bar. Click it to prevent your Mac from automatically going to sleep, dimming the screen or starting screen savers. Click it again to go back. Right-click (or ⌘-click) the icon to show the menu.
Carbon Copy Cloner – Spinning for years at 75MPH, your hard drive’s catastrophic crash could really hinder your productivity. Use CCC to make a bootable backup of your digital life today!
DateLine – DateLine displays a linear calendar on your Mac desktop which provides easy access to iCal and your events. The appearance of the DateLine is endlessly customizable and themeable.
Desktop Curtain – Desktop Curtain displays your favorite desktop picture just in front of your real desktop, so you won’t have to clean up each time you need to take a screenshot. And it’s really easy to control — just control- or right-click on Desktop Curtain’s desktop picture to access its settings or quit.
Dock Dodger – Sometimes, you find an application that you really, really like, but when you run it, the icon takes up valuable space in your Dock. With Dock Dodger, you can rid almost any application of its Dock icon, giving you your Dock back. With Dock Doger, removing the Dock icon is as easy as Drag and Drop. Simply drag in the application you want to Un-Dock and Dock Dodger takes care of the rest. When you re-launch that application, it will be sans Dock icon. Want the Dock icon back? Just re-drag the application into Dock Dodger and everything’s back to normal.
DockSpaces – A tiny application that allows you to have up to 10 different docks and swap anytime you want from the menu bar.
FlyGesture – 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. Not getting it? Here’s a movie that demonstrates creating and using a new gesture to open Safari.
GeekTool – GeekTool is a PrefPane (System Preferences module) for Mac OS 10.5. It let you display on your desktop different kind of informations, provided 3 default plugins: File plugin to monitor MacOS X activity with /var/log/system.log, or any file that you want to follow.Shell mode to launch custom scripts or commands like ‘df’ to check space left on filesystems, ‘uptime’ to monitor load of your machine… Finally, Image mode helps you monitor bandwith usage, CPU loads, memory availability of your server, via tools like MRTG or RRD.
Ghost – There are lots of files on your computer that you can’t see. Apple has conveniantly hidden many system files from you, so that your computer doesn’t look like an ugly, cluttered mess.However, they have not provided any easy way to create your own hidden files, or even to view theirs. Ghost provides a simple, user friendly way to do both of these things. Simply drag and drop a file or folder into the list, then uncheck (or check) its checkbox and the item will be instantly hidden or un-hidden.
Growl – Growl is a notification system for Mac OS X: it allows applications that support Growl to send you notifications. Notifications are a way for your applications to provide you with new information, without you having to switch from the application you’re already in.
Jumpcut – Jumpcut is an application that provides ‘clipboard buffering’ — that is, access to text that you’ve cut or copied, even if you’ve subsequently cut or copied something else. The goal of Jumpcut’s interface is to provide quick, natural, intuitive access to your clipboard’s history.
Monolingual – Monolingual is a program for removing unnecessary language resources from Mac OS X, in order to reclaim several hundred megabytes of disk space. I don’t know about you, but I use my computer in only one (human) language — English. And I’m willing to bet that you do too, albeit perhaps not English. So why do you have a bunch of localization files for the Mac OS X operating system filling up your hard drive? Enter Monolingual — a handy utility for reclaiming your space for more useful things… like international mp3 files, email or whatever you like.
NameChanger – NameChanger Rename a list of files quickly and easily. See how the names will change as you type.
Name Mangler – The Finder is good at a lot of things, but renaming a lot of files is not one of them. Automator can help, but it can be a bit intimidating to use. Enter Name Mangler, which makes short work of all your file renaming tasks.
Paparazzi – Paparazzi! is a small utility for Mac OS X that makes screenshots of webpages. It’s written in Objective-C using the Cocoa API and the WebKit framework. It was inspired by webkit2png, a commandline tool written by Paul Hammond in pyObjC.
SaveCircle – SaveCircle is a little tool that can save in chosen time the document of the frontmost application, so that you don’t have to worry about loosing some work. This is simple, transparent and efficient and work with every applications.
Shoo Apps – Shoo Apps allows per-application granularity in hiding inactive applications to keep your workspace uncluttered.
SnapNDrag – SnapNDrag lets you take a screenshot by just clicking a button and dragging the resulting screenshot off. For example, to email a screenshot, you would drag the screenshot from SnapNDrag to the Mail application. It is that simple. No hard-to-remember key combinations, no file conversion to deal with, no file dialog boxes to navigate, no temporary files to erase later on.
Teleport – Teleport lets you use a single mouse and keyboard to control several Macs. Simply reach an edge of your screen, and your mouse teleports to your nearby Mac, which also becomes controlled by your keyboard. The pasteboard can be synchronized, and you can even drag & drop files between your Macs.
TinkerTool – TinkerTool is an application that gives you access to additional preference settings Apple has built into Mac OS X. This allows to activate hidden features in the operating system and in some of the applications delivered with the system. The tool makes sure that preference changes can only affect the current user. The program will never change any component of the operating system, so the integrity of your system is not put at risk, and there will be no negative effect on system updates.
Todos – Sometimes you just don’t want to take time going to your Applications folder or searching around your hard drive. Just click a quick hotkey (Command-Option-Control-T) and Todos will simply appear. Todos’ job is simple. Todos doesn’t do more than it says. Like its definition in Spanish, Todos will show you everything. Todos shows you all your applications in a complete dock. All of us have a plethora of programs, and the Apple dock just can’t fit them all.
Wallpaper Clocks – Vladstudio and Softshape Development proudly introduce Wallpaper Clocks – desktop wallpaper which refreshes every minute to keep your time and date precise as well as stylish in many artistic ways!
YemuZip – Drag, drop, done. Making zip files cannot be any easier. YemuZip is an easy-to-use application for making zip files. Just drag, drop, name your zip file and you’re done. The Finder’s Archive function makes zip files that contains Mac-specific information that, when extracted on a PC, looks like garbage. YemuZip lets you choose between a PC-compatible format and a Mac format that preserve all the Mac-specific metadata.
Internet and Browsers
AllBookmarks – AllBookmarks adds a new item to your Mac OS X menu bar giving you quick access to all your bookmarks. All your Safari, Firefox and Flock bookmarks are shown and can be selected. AllBookmarks also gives you access to your 1Password 1Click bookmarks so you can navigate to a page, fill the form, and submit it, all with a single click!
Aptana Studio – Aptana Studio is a complete web development environment that combines powerful authoring tools for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, along with thousands of additional plugins created by the community.
Camino – Camino is an open source web browser developed with a focus on providing the best possible experience for Mac OS X users. Built from the ground up exclusively for Mac OS X, Camino is designed to make your browsing experience better. With features like annoyance blocking, tab overview, and phishing and malware detection, Camino keeps you browsing safer and faster on the Web.
Cruz – A web browser with innovative multi-pane browsing and an integrated Twitter feed. Read our review here.
DownloadMonitor – DownloadMonitor enables your computer to automatically react to specific conditions of your downloads.
You choose how, when, and which downloads the computer ought to react to.
Flock – The award winning social browser (Twitter, Facebook and blog integration). The people here at Flock are committed to building a browser unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before – because we start by focusing on user needs. We take pride in solving for common behaviors on the Web that seem clunky today, and will seem ridiculous tomorrow. We’re taking you there.
Fluid App – Web applications like Gmail, Facebook, Campfire and Pandora are becoming more and more like desktop applications every day. Running each of these web apps in an individual tab in your browser can be a real pain. Fluid lets you create a Site Specific Browser (SSB) out of any website or web application, effectively turning your favorite web apps into desktop apps.
Mocha – Mocha is a tool that monitors your network activity and keeps a record of Ip / Mac address pairings and firewall logs. It will give a warning when it notices any suspicious activity, like any changes in Mac address or any connection attempt to the firewall.
NetNewsWire – Looking for an easy-to-use RSS and Atom reader for your Mac? You’ve found it! The Eddy award-winning NetNewsWire has a familiar three-paned interface and can fetch and display news from thousands of different websites and weblogs.
Newsfire – Simple to use and packed with features, NewsFire makes it a joy to keep atop the constant flow of information on the web. It’s easy to filter and organize your news with NewsFire’s smart groups. Build your own feeds with custom rules, or drag and drop to create groups of related content.
Opera – Surf the Web with lightning speed, using the fastest browser ever. Everything from how Web pages load to how you open tabs is optimized to happen almost instantly. You can even speed up browsing on slow connections, with Opera Turbo.
Quiet Read – Quiet Read is my new application that lets you save any link for later. Sometimes, when I am browsing the web, I want to store a link for later. There are note taking applications and everything-buckets to do that, but I wanted something light and simple. Simple as dragging a link onto a menu bar item to store it.
Shiira – Shiira is a web browser written in Cocoa. It uses the KHTML rendering engine provided by Apple’s Web Kit. Since this is the same rendering engine used by Safari, HTML content rendered by Shiira will look the same as in Apple’s own browser. All source code is publicly available under the BSD license. We hope that our code will help other developers just starting out on their own Web Kit projects.
Simple CSS – CTo help you work with CSS, we’ve created a free tool called Simple CSS, which runs on Mac OS X and Windows. Simple CSS allows you to easily create Cascading Style Sheets from scratch, and/or modify existing ones, using a familiar point-and-click interface. With Simple CSS, you can manage multiple CSS projects and import your existing style sheets. Simple CSS supports CSS2.
SiteSucker for Mac OS X – SiteSucker is a Macintosh application that automatically downloads Web sites from the Internet. It does this by asynchronously copying the site’s Web pages, images, backgrounds, movies, and other files to your local hard drive. Just enter a URL (Uniform Resource Locator), press return, and SiteSucker can download an entire Web site.
Sunrise – Sunrise is an open source web browser based on WebKit for Mac OS X. The main window of Sunrise has the browser, bookmarks, downloads, source codes and find bars. You do not need to look for the hidden panels because the one window has all of them.
Wyzo – Wyzo is an awesome new browser that optimizes your online media experience. It will accelerate your web downloads, let you download torrents with a single click, discover media in your browser and much more.
Xyle Scope – Using Xylescope it is easy to fine-tune CSS values. Simply select the desired element by clicking on the rendered page to bring up the whole cascade of rules applied to the selected element and its ancestors. Change any CSS value and hit return to see the resulting effect immediately regardless in which style sheet the altered style rule resides.
Misc
Bodega – Welcome to Bodega, the world’s most innovative way to discover and obtain the hottest and latest applications for your Mac. Bodega is like a storefront right on your Mac’s desktop, one that’s chock-full of software apps from Mac developers around the world. Just download and install the Bodega app, and you have access to an ever-growing catalog of software to meet your every computing need.
iPhoto Library Selector – Select your iPhoto library before launching!
MAMP – The abbreviation ‘MAMP’ stands for: Macintosh, Apache, Mysql and PHP. With just a few mouse-clicks, you can install Apache, PHP and MySQL for Mac OS X! MAMP installs a local server environment in a matter of seconds on your Mac OS X computer, be it PowerBook or iMac. Like similar packages from the Windows- and Linux-world, MAMP comes free of charge. MAMP is installed in the typical Mac fashion: very easily. MAMP will not compromise any existing Apache installation already running with your OS X. You can install Apache, PHP and MySQL without starting a script or having to change any configuration files!
Help Us Find More!
That should be enough apps to feed your need for apps for at least a week. Let us know which of the downloads above you found to be the most helpful.
Also, be sure to leave links to all your favorite free apps that aren’t listed above so we can all check them out.
(Via Mac.AppStorm.)
Netflix For The iPad
Seeing as today is April Fools Day, no one seems to have any idea which stories to believe and which to think are bogus. Yesterday, the blog AppAdvice had an exclusive story that Netflix was bring a free app to stream movies to the iPad. Plenty of people thought this was just an early April Fools joke because, quite frankly, it seemed almost too good to be true. But it is very true. The app is now live in the App Store.
Assuming you’re a Netflix member, the new iPad app lets you watch as many movies as you want (assuming they’re available on Netflix’s Watch Instantly service) streaming to the device. Yes, this gives you access to some 20,000+ movies and television shows. You can also browse movies and manage your queue from the app. And you can even pick up watching them from where you left off on your TV or computer.
And since the iPad is currently WiFi-only, you don’t have to worry about streaming over 3G, so performance should be good. It will be interesting to see what happens with this app when the WiFi + 3G models of the iPad hit later this month.
And yes, the app is currently iPad-only — there is no iPhone or iPod touch version. At least not yet.
(Via TechCrunch.)
How to clean your Mighty Mouse
Apple’s Mighty Mouse (now also called an Apple Mouse) has a dirty little secret. While the scroll ball performs its duties as intended when the mouse is new, it can become clogged with dirt and grime over time.
Its performance then deteriorates dramatically, with the ball sticking and failing to scroll. There are a number of things you can do to try and free the ball, and return it to its full 360-degree scrolling glory.
First of all, try turning it upside down and rolling the ball around. Roll it on a piece of paper, hoping the debris and dirt will rub off onto it. Give it a blast with a can of compressed air, or a rub with computer-cleaning solution or a wet wipe. But if all else fails, a drastic course of action may be required.
Removing and cleaning a Mighty Mouse’s scroll ball isn’t particularly easy. A considerable amount of disassembly is required before you can clean the ball and its housing.
In this tutorial, we show you how to get inside your Mighty Mouse without damaging it, and how to clean and reinvigorate your scroll ball to get everything up and running again. It should take approximately 20 minutes, but be prepared to invest a little more time if needed, especially the first time you clean your mouse in this way.
A word of warning
Caution! Disassembling your Mighty Mouse involves breaking off a component that’s glued into place. It’s not easy, and if you make a mistake, you’re extremely likely to damage or even ruin the device.
We can’t take responsibility if your Mighty Mouse is broken while following this tutorial, and as a result we can only recommend that you attempt it if your mouse is in such poor condition that you feel you’ve nothing to lose, if you give it a go.
It is recommended that you read the whole of this tutorial before you start, especially Steps 2 and 3.
8 Companies That Are Reinventing TV Online
Web television has matured significantly in 2009; we’ve seen the introduction of the Streamy Awards, Dr. Horrible seized control of the Emmys, and the launch of more internet TV-related startups than we can count. TV-over-IP is starting to hit television sets thanks to set-top-boxes, TVs, and disc players with built-in streaming capabilities, and like print media before it, traditional broadcast television is beginning to grapple with the inevitability of an Internet-driven future.
Here are several companies that believe they are well-positioned for the transition — big and small, old and new. This isn’t a complete list by any stretch, but these samples will give you an idea of where the industry is headed in 2010.
1. Hulu
Along with TV networks’ own websites, Hulu has been one of the de facto destinations for users seeking network television programming on the web. It’s a joint venture between NBC, FOX, and ABC, and while it still isn’t profitable, it’s arguably the best example of giving users what they want from a site that streams professional content.
At the 2009 Digital Hollywood conference NBC executive Mark Graboff said, ‘Hulu is basically an anti-piracy move.’ If you’re a major TV studio, it’s better that viewers are getting the content from you with minimal advertising than from BitTorrent and RapidShare pirates with no advertising at all.
In addition to shows from participating broadcast and cable networks, Hulu distributes some programming that originates on the web. You can’t be sure where Hulu is ultimately going to go — though premium subscriptions have been discussed — but at the moment it’s a strong proof of concept.
2. Apple
Never mind the fact that the Apple TV set-top box has been a niche success at best, iTunes is the world’s largest online distribution platform for pro-quality videos. You’ll only beat its variety of programming by subscribing to cable or satellite television.
The downside is that it’s expensive — $2.99 per episode if you watch in HD. But insiders have said that Apple is approaching TV studios to sign them up in a new plan: $30 per month for an all-access pass. If you have a set-top box or home theater PC to watch all those HD shows in your living room, getting cable or satellite for twice the price suddenly seems pointless. Oh, and you’ll be able to watch those shows on your iPhone or iPod, too.
If Apple succeeds in convincing the producers of content to cooperate, it’ll be a red letter day for Internet TV.
3. Boxee
Boxee doesn’t produce video content, and it doesn’t distribute anything on the web, either. Instead, it provides an interface for watching the stuff other people have made and distributed on your television set. Boxee software is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux home theater PCs, and you can run it on an Apple TV box too.
Using Boxee’s media center, you can browse videos from all over the Internet in an interface that is usable several feet away from the screen with a remote. Boxee also offers social networking features; you can rate everything you watch and recommend stuff to your friends.
Getting web TV into the living room is critical for the medium’s future, and Boxee is near the front of the line.
4. Clicker
At launch, web TV guide Clicker indexed 400,000 episodes from 7,000 TV shows. It lists content from distribution channels like Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon, and numerous smaller sources. There’s not a better place to search for professionally produced content to watch online and the company has also partnered up with Boxee.
The size of the database isn’t the only draw — Clicker also provides tools for browsing shows without typing in text searches; that will be a big deal when and if the service makes its way to tablets and other mobile devices. The database is organized by network, genre, and several other tags. The idea is that you can go to Clicker thinking, ‘I’m in the mood for a science fiction comedy produced by the same people who made that other show I like,’ and find something to satisfy your craving.
5 & 6. Revision3 and Next New Networks
The Revision3 network was founded in 2005 by several TechTV alums, including Digg founder Kevin Rose. The network produces, distributes, and markets several shows for niche audiences. (Most of them are tech-related talk shows.) Just over a year ago, Revision3 began distributing and marketing shows produced out-of-house.
Next New Networks launched in 2007, and it operates several websites that each push out videos on specific themes. For example, Barely Political focuses primarily on politically satirical music videos, and Indy Mogul runs several film-themed programs.
These two ventures are included here as examples of bona fide TV networks on the web, delivering regularly scheduled programming just like NBC, ABC, FOX, CBS, or The CW do. Both Revision3 and Next New Networks employ a super-distribution strategy — that is, they send their content to as many outlets as possible, including BitTorrent, YouTube, iTunes, and numerous others.
Revision3, Next New Networks, and other networks produce shows for niche audiences that mainstream television can’t afford to reach due to limited over-the-air shelf space. The New York Times thinks that might be the strategy that will win the race.
7 & 8. Mutant Enemy and Gary Sanchez Productions
Some Hollywood celebs are trying their hands at this, too.
Joss Whedon’s Mutant Enemy Productions was behind the broadcast TV series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, and Dollhouse. It’s listed here because of just one web project: Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. From the Hollywood camp, the three-act show starred Doogie Howser and Barney Stinson himself, Neil Patrick Harris. Opposite him was Felicia Day, Internet-famous as the creator and star of the web TV series The Guild (though she has appeared on TV, including an 8 episode stint on Whedon’s Buffy).
Dr. Horrible won seven Streamy Awards, became a minor pop culture phenomenon, proved that people are willing to watch long-form content on the web, and — as we mentioned earlier — briefly took over the Emmy Awards ceremony when Neil Patrick Harris hosted.
There’s also Gary Sanchez Productions. The company is owned by Saturday Night Live alums Will Ferrell and Adam McKay. Their flagship product, Funny or Die, is a site that streams short comedic videos made by recognizable names like Judd Apatow and Zach Galifianakis. Users vote ‘Funny’ or ‘Die’ when watching each video, and the videos that get good reviews inevitably go viral.
Mutant Enemy and Gary Sanchez have demonstrated that figures from traditional TV media can make a big impact on the web. We’ll see how many more celebs successfully follow in their footsteps.
(Via Mashable!.)
Would You Use iTunes on the Web?
Apple’s acquired online music streaming service Lala, and ‘people familiar the matter’ are confirming that Apple is planning on bringing a web interface to iTunes—we want to know: would you use it?
Currently, Lala allows for 89-cent MP3 downloads and 10-cent stream-forever purchases (per song, that is). It’s unknown at this time whether this business model would change, but it is likely that it would allow you to use iTunes without downloading the software, store your music in the cloud, and stream music to your Apple devices (such as the iPhone).
(Via Lifehacker.)
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