The apps in question are great. Gemini is a useful little tool designed at helping you find duplicate files on your Mac and features a cleaning interface similar to that of DaisyDisk with the beautiful, coloured wheel showing how much disk space is being used up by each duplicate file.

Gemini helps you remove duplicated files from your Mac

Ensoul is a great app if you’ve got an iPhone as it allows you to create bigger and better contact photos and custom wallpapers and has loads of built-in effects, meaning you can tweak your photos to make them look even better. You can edit photos from anywhere on your Mac (including iPhoto, Photo Booth and Aperture) and you can synchronise them all to your iPhone via iTunes.

Ensoul and its built-in photo effects

MacHider is designed to boost your existing Mac security by locking down and password-protecting certain folders and files. You can choose which files to hide (say, for example, bank account information or sensitive personal documents) and the app integrates perfectly with Finder, meaning that you can select which files to hide directly without having to go into the app itself.

The main interface of MacHider

Each app is priced at $6.99 (instead of the regular $9.99 asking price) and are available off the App Store. We’ve included the links for you here:

• Gemini
• Ensoul
• MacHider

Happy downloading!

Before Coda, developing websites required a number of different tools. You need a text editor for writing code. You need an FTP application for uploading and downloading files from your server. You need a web browser to preview your work. You often need a database utility to modify your database. And you would often need a terminal application to connect to your server over SSH and make changes. Coda rolled most of the tools needed for these things into a single interface and application.

And now Coda 2 builds upon that success.

Initial Impressions

Upon opening Coda 2 for the first time I was pleased to see that, though obviously different, there was something fairly familiar, if slicker looking. The sites that I currently had set up in Coda 1 were all right there, waiting for me and ready to go. One really nice touch though, and one I have personally wanted for years, was the ability to organize sites into groups. I immediately did a preliminary organization. It works very simply and is quite discoverable, especially if you have ever used an iOS device. Drag a site icon onto another site icon and a group is instantly created.

Coda 2 Sites with Groups

The slider at the bottom allows you to control the size of the site icons and folders. As an added bonus, if you slide the controller all the way over the left, you will get a list view, something that was not available in the original Coda. It’s another nice touch.

One thing though that pained me right away was seeing those horrible vertical window control buttons lifted straight from the initial release of iTunes 10.

vertical window controls

I have complained about this before and I will do so now for Coda as well. I believe this to be a horrible breach of UI aesthetics and muscle memory. I think we can all legitimately complain about how horribly broken the functionality of OS X’s green zoom button is and how it never behaves in the way you expect it to, and we can bemoan the way minimizing works in OS X. But at least for most apps we know where those buttons are located.

As with the initial release of iTunes 10, so it is now for Coda. Muscle memory is broken. When I want to minimize or zoom the Coda window it takes me a little extra time to find the buttons. It’s nit-picky but annoying. I use those buttons often enough that it bugged me quite a bit. And it’s not a matter of re-training my muscle memory because Coda 2 is the only app with the buttons like this. I’m lobbying for them to go back where they belong. Window controls belong on the top left horizontal plane of a window in OS X. I do not believe any exceptions are called for.

You would think I didn’t have anything to write about the way I’m carrying on about this minor annoyance, so it’s time I moved on because there’s a lot to cover.

File Management

Users of Panic’s Transmit will feel right at home upon opening a site in Coda 2. Though Coda does not completely displace Transmit if you need advanced FTP functions, it is certainly a workable solution and I think I will find myself using Transmit far less than I did before.

The initial view is a split view of local files on the left and remote files on the right. You will feel right at home if your work flow is to edit locally and then publish to server.

Coda’s Transmit-like split file view

As an ExpressionEngine web developer, I am almost always working on templates in the directory structure of the FTP server and not on local files so I switched off the split view and went straight to remote view. Aside from the fact that files have their own tab instead of a dedicated sidebar, this works as before. Double clicking a file either locally, or on the remote server will open the file up in a tab ready to be edited.

I actually like files having their own dedicated tab far better. I prefer it to the sidebar approach because there’s now more horizontal room for my code.

Fear not though, ease of file access is not gone. Coda 2 includes what they call an active path bar. What this means is while you are editing, the path to the file you are working on is displayed in the path bar. Clicking any segment on the path bar will pop up a list of files for you to open, or even move around or manipulate in other ways. It’s actually quite brilliant in my opinion. I’m fairly confident I will wonder how I ever got along without it.

path bar pop over file management

Tabs and Split Views

Tabs are another big improvement. In Coda 1, somehow tabs never looked right to me. I sometimes had a hard time seeing which tab was active, or which file belonged to which tab. Coda 2 introduces thumbnail tabs. I find this much more visually appealing and have had no trouble determining which tab is active at any given time. And it’s easier to identify which file belongs to which tab.

There are actually 3 modes for tabs: large icons, small icons, and text only (more like tabs in the previous version).

all three tab types pictured here

(Note that in text only tab view the window control buttons are oriented the proper way! I’ll have to think about running Coda 2 in this mode.)

On the tab bar you will also find a “plus” button from which you can do four things. You can start a new blank document, open a new SSH session, open a reference book, or start a MySQL session.

new tab functions

Split Views

One thing that has always been unique to Coda is the ability to split a tab view in half vertically or horizontally. I prefer to split my windows vertically, though Coda will split horizontally if that’s your thing. Spliting the window has received a bit of a makeover. When you click the split button, you are given a menu of options. It’s pretty much the same things you could do before (minus the CSS panel, which I’ll get to shortly).

options for splitting the view

split view — code editor on left, preview on right

Three Cheers for Code Folding

People talk. Sometimes they talk about Coda. When they do, they are often inclined to talk about its shortcomings. Among those shortcomings, someone would inevitably say, “yeah, I can tell you really like Coda by the way you wax eloquent about it, but can it do code folding?” That was the point at which you would turn red, mumble to yourself and try to steer the conversation in another direction.

Well no more, because Coda 2 includes code folding. And it seems to me to be much smarter and better than most other applications I have used. This is extremely valuable because it is easy (for me anyway) to get lost in nested divs and so on (usually when I’m trying to drill down into someone else’s code, which I seem to need to do way more than is healthy for my sanity). Code folding makes it much easier to figure out what is nested inside what.

Make no mistake, this is a huge feature.

code folding

The Sidebar Moved

Oh, and it got a complete remodel. They basically threw the old sidebar out and put a new one in it’s place. I’m still getting used to it being on the right instead of the left, but it’s not really a big deal. The dog has definitely learned some new tricks.

First off, on the home panel you can drag favorites up to the top in the same manner as you would drag items down to the toolbar in the iPhone music app. Here you will find clips, files and navigator among other things.

the sidebar moved to the right-hand side

• Clips
  Clips are still here and better than ever. In terms of inserting clips they pretty much work as before. For instance, I have “p” assigned to start a new paragraph tag pair. So I type “p + tab” and I get a paragraph tag pair with my cursor at the insertion point ready to type. In addition to the standard placeholder, you can also now have clips insert cutom text.
• Files
  Yes, the file view is still available in the sidebar. While I will as I said earlier likely use the dedicated file tab, there are times when I want to see the document list in the sidebar, and Coda 2 provides.
• Find In
  Allows you to search your files for content and optionally find and replace. Very handy
• Hints
  As you type, this sidebar area will give you hints about the code it thinks you are typing. I didn’t find this that useful.
• Navigator
  I never found the navigator to be all that useful in Coda 1, and Coda 2 appears to be no different for HTML. I can’t figure out what elements it decides to show and not show. So I’ll likely ignore it as I did before. For CSS however, it appears to replace the function of Coda 1’s CSS editor navigation so I will likely use it there. (More on that in a moment)
• Places
  Sort of like the Finder sidebar. Double clicking an item here will open it in the dedicated file browser tab.
• Publish
  If you are editing files locally, this will allow you to publish changes to the server.
• SCM
  Source Code Management. I don’t use Source Code management so I can’t really speak to this feature
• Shared
  Coda lets you share documents and collaborate over the local network. I’ve never used this since I usually do all my own code work but I hear it’s good.
• Validate
  This is a wonderful feature that will let you know if you have invalid code in your markup. This is much better than going through the W3C validator all the time.

CSS — Uh Oh

One of the big features that attracted me to Coda in the beginning was the CSS editing. The split view CSS editing was fantastic. It fit me well because I don’t have every CSS function memorized, but I could see the things I wanted to do in Coda’s CSS editor, add it, type in the value or whatever, and then if I needed to, I could edit the code in the code editor. And of course Coda wrote really clean CSS. So I was a little nervous when I heard that Panic was completely revamping the way CSS works.

And to tell you the truth, I’m very disappointed. This feels like the first real let down, maybe even the only real let down in this upgrade. The new way of working with CSS is called CSS Pops. What happens is that as you type code, pop-ups present themselves and you can choose what you want. For instance within a CSS bracket you can start typing the word margin, and all the margin rules will pop up. Select one and type enter and you are immediately kicked over to enter the value where you can again choose from a pop-up or just type the value. If the rule is a color rule, you will get a color chooser pop-up. If the rule has border or thickness options of some kind, you will get a pop-up with those options.

CSS Color Chooser

CSS Border Editor

CSS Margin Editor

I type in my CSS a fair bit of the time. So I consider the CSS Pops a great feature to have added to the CSS editor. But there’s a fair number of times when I want the CSS editor from Coda 1. I want to just click in a value box and enter the margin value. Or whatever. I don’t see what possible reason they could have had for removing the revolutionary CSS editor.

In fact, I would say that the Coda CSS editor is how I really started to pick up CSS and learn it well. Because I would not know exactly how to do something, but I would see the different things I could try in the CSS editor and so I would start doing things in the CSS editor and seeing what code it spit out. It was very helpful. And that to me was the beauty of Coda 1’s CSS editor. It was great for beginners, but you could still get down into the code and do stuff. It seems to me that the pop-ups would have been a great enhancement, but they are no replacement for the CSS editor.

Thankfully, we do have the code navigator to at least let us navigate in a similar way that the former CSS editor did. Consider this my plea to Panic to bring back the beautiful, elegant, and powerful CSS editor to work alongside the CSS Pops.

I have a feeling I’ll be going back to Coda 1 here and there to use the CSS editor.

What Else?

Theres a lot more than I can cover here. Panic says there’s over 100 new features. Some of them I’m not qualified to address. I’m really horrible with databases for instance so I’ll leave the new MySQL feature to someone else to talk about.

• The new reference books are awesome and I’m sure I’ll be making use of them.
• Quicklook right in coda is great, select a file, press the spacebar. It’s awesome.
• Autocomplete improvements are all welcome in my short time with Coda 2 thus far.
• There’s something a bit more pleasing about the syntax coloring.

Diet Coda

Just for a second, stop and revel in just how awesome that name is. Done? Okay. It really is such a great name.

Diet Coda is an iPad companion app. You can edit on the go with your iPad in this slimmed down app or you can use it with Coda’s new AirPreview feature, dedicating your iPad to previewing your work as you code. I don’t have an iPad, but this truly does seem awesome.

Upgrade Pricing

I wrote about upgrade pricing and the Mac App Store earlier this month, and I think that the way Panic is approaching the problem, while good and I applaud them for it, highlights the very problems I was talking about.

What they are doing to work around Apple’s lack of paid upgrades for apps, and still try to keep as much parity between buying straight from them, and buying from the Mac App Store, is making “upgrade pricing” available to everyone for a limited time. This really isn’t upgrade pricing, it’s discount pricing, but it’s really the only option available to them with the Mac App Store being the way it is.

So, here’s the way it all goes down. On launch day, Thursday, May 24, Coda 2 will be available at a 50% discount of $49.00 to everyone. After that first 24 hour period, Coda 2 will be available for $75.00 for a limited time (this is what they are calling “upgrade pricing for everyone”). And finally, Coda’s price will return to $99.00 after that.

If you purchased Coda 1 directly from Panic (not through the Mac App Store) after April 10, you are eligible to receive a free upgrade to Coda 2.

Worth It?

I think so. As I said, I’m sure I’ll be making trips to Coda 1 for the CSS editor, but hopefully that won’t be that often, and that‘s really the only major complaint I have. I love everything else that’s new in Coda. I plan to buy it right away.

The folks at Panic are a class act and make fine software.

Macs are becoming much more popular with college students nowadays, owing to Apple’s generous student discount (around 15%) upon purchase. But once you’ve bought your shiny new computer, you’ll be wanting to know which are the best Mac apps aimed at college students and which ones to download or buy.

Up until a few years ago, Mac users had very little choice of software as they were seen mostly as a niche platform and therefore only ran specialist software.

As I was in exactly the same position when I bought my Mac, I’ve now created – for all the students out there – a list of 25 superb applications recommended for you. I’ve tried to keep this list relevant to any major and, in order to save on costs, I have tried to include free software wherever I can.

All applications featured in the list run on PowerPC and Intel architectures unless otherwise stated.

LyX

LyX is one of a few word processors that uses the idea of WYSIWYM (What You See Is What You Mean), as opposed to WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) employed by word processors such as Microsoft Work and Apple’s Pages.

It allows you to type documents without worrying about the layout as the program does this for you – processing is done using the TeX system via the click of a button. For those of you who haven’t heard about it, TeX is a typesetting system that is used widely in academia as it produces standard, professional looking documents.

The LyX interface with a document being edited

LyX is also especially useful for anyone who uses a significant amount of maths in their degree as it renders mathematical equations very well and features an advanced equation editor – a definite advantage for anyone using a Mac seeing as it doesn’t feature an in-built equation editor (unlike Windows).

I use LyX mostly for university work such as writing essays as it means I can type without worrying how it will look on the page. The program is slightly more complicated to use than other word processors but it will save you time in the long run – it allows you to just write freely.

There are several templates available and the website features lots of useful help videos for anyone starting to use it. For anyone who is looking for an alternative to their word processor, LyX is definitely worth considering.

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.4 and above and a TeX system for document processing (MacTeX is the best one available for Mac, available here)

iWork

iWork is, in my opinion, one of the best word processors available for Mac and although I use LyX for most things, having a proper word processor which can read Word documents is a necessity. iWork features three programs, Pages (word processing), Numbers (spreadsheets) and Keynote (presentations).

Numbers '09, with a spreadsheet open.

All offer full Office support, meaning you can open and save documents in Office format so there are no compatibility issues. The clean, uncluttered interface is very easy to use and the in-built templates are well-designed and useful for all situations.

iWork is also priced very favorably against Microsoft Office 2011 for students ($59.97 if purchased off the App Store vs $149.99) so it is more within a student’s budget. Although there are free office suites out there, they just don’t cut it when it comes to functionality and looks, and although it is a slight price to pay, iWork is certainly worth it in the long run.

Price: $19.99 per application (Pages, Numbers and Keynote) if purchased off the App Store.
Requires: Mac OS X 10.4.11/10.5.6 or later

Postbox

Postbox has already been reviewed separately all the way back in 2009, but it’s worth mentioning once again here. As a student, I want all my e-mails in one place and Postbox is one of the most functional and best-looking mail clients out there for Mac at the moment.

The inbox view in Postbox

Postbox combines all the messages from your different accounts into one mailbox and you can organize your messages into different folders (for those of you who like to keep your studies and social life separate). It supports all major mail protocols and integrates well with your Address Book and even Facebook (if you want your contacts’ pictures showing up in messages). The features are too great to go into detail here but you certainly don’t mind paying $30 for such a feature-rich application. A necessity for all students.

Price: $29.95
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5 above. Intel only.

Adium

As a student, I like to keep in touch with all my mates, mostly via Facebook Chat. Unfortunately, the stock Chat application is utter garbage and crashes, freezes or just doesn’t send messages (come on Facebook, sort it out!).

Adium is a free instant messaging program exclusively for Mac which supports several chat protocols, including AIM, Facebook Chat, ICQ, MSN and Yahoo Messenger.

The main screen for Adium. All accounts are listed in seperate lists.

The user interface is clean and really ties in well with the overall Mac user interface. The app integrates with your Address Book and there are plenty of extras to be had including custom emoticons, sound sets and message styles (all of them free of course).

Finally, the icon is a sheer pleasure to look at and when you get a message, the little green (or whatever colour you choose him to be) duck flaps his little wings up and down! Cute and practical – a must have.

Price: Free
Requires: Adium 1.4 or later requires Mac OS X 10.5.8 or newer. Older versions of the program support Mac OS X 10.4 and downwards.

iStudiez Pro

Is anyone like me and forgets certain “important” deadlines like handing in essays and exams? Well, iStudiez Pro is a program designed specifically for students to prevent just this. It was already reviewed separately but I thought I’d just mention it here because it is so relevant.

The assignments view of iStudiez Pro.

iStudiez Pro keeps track of your homework, class schedules and your grades and can even sync with your iPhone/iPad, a definite necessity for students. You can color-code different things according to pretty much anything you like, and the interface is drop-dead handsome. It beats iCal hands down for practicality and is well worth the small price tag.

Price: $9.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later. Intel only.

Evernote

If you haven’t yet heard about Evernote, then you must be living in the Dark Ages, as it is probably one of the most useful apps of all time, not just for students. Evernote is a cloud-based note-making application which syncs across all platforms. The application is also available for Windows, Android, iOS, Blackberry, Palm and Windows Mobile.

The main interface of Evernote, showing a list of notes down the left-hand side.

As well as text notes, you can also clip web pages and make voice and iSight notes. Evernote avoids the need for having loads of little scraps of paper with bits of info scrawled all over them lying around and makes organization a lot easier. I like to have everything in one place and seeing as all your notes are hosted on the cloud, it makes accessing them from different places a lot easier – an absolute must at university.

Evernote is free, however there are some restrictions: the application is ad-supported (however these are quite non-instrusive) and you can only upload 60 MB of data a month (this equates to about 30,000 notes and 400 web pages), which is usually more than enough.

Price: Free (restricted, ad-supported)
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5.8 onwards.

OmniGraphSketcher

There’s going to be a time whilst you’re at university that you need to draw a graph or two. Unfortunately, drawing graphs on Word or a drawing program can be a nightmare and a particularly fiddly task – not something you want when it’s 2 AM and you’re finishing off the graphs in that essay due in in 7 hours. OmniGraphSketcher is one of the only programs that is designed to draw graphs on Mac OS X.

OmniGraphSketcher, featuring a graph I drew myself.

You can import data in from Excel or even draw your own and the application allows you to customize everything, including the axes, shading and points. The app will allow you to export your graphs in PDF, PNG, JPG and EPS format and it is very simple to use. The results are professional-looking graphs which look good in any situation, whether it’d be a presentation, essay or dissertation. The developers offer an academic license for students so go ahead and grab it whilst it’s hot.

Price: $29.95
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5 onwards.

Caffeine

Caffeine is a discreet little program that runs in your Menu bar which stops your Mac automatically dimming or starting the screen saver whilst you’re working on it (one of my pet hates!). Although it won’t do wonders for your battery life, it will certainly stop you throwing your computer out of the window every time the screen goes black whilst you’re slaving away on that essay…

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5 onwards (a version for Mac OS X 10.4 is available here)

iStumbler

iStumbler is a useful little utility which allows you to view all Wi-Fi networks in the local vicinity – very useful if you’ve got your Mac with you on campus or in the library and there is a load of different Wi-Fi networks knocking about.

iStumbler, showing a number of different Wi-Fi networks.

The app can even detect any Bluetooth devices in the vicinity as well and any Bonjour-enabled devices if you are wanting to share anything over the local network. iStumbler is a useful little accessory that saves you hunting around and makes WiFi connectivity that little bit easier.

Price: Free
Requires: iStumbler 99 requires Mac OS X 10.6 and above. Other versions of Mac OS X are supported via previous releases (see their website)

MindNode

Brainstorming is vital for any student, whether it’s for a research project, an essay or your final year thesis. MindNode is a great brainstorming program which allows you create professional-looking mindmaps – without any fuss – that suit any situation.

MindNode, showing several main nodes and sub-nodes

You can create them in a few seconds and export/print them as you wish. Mindmaps really help you get organised and help you focus on the task in hand, and MindNode makes it easy to create them with minimum fuss. A highly-recommended app.

Price: $19.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5 and above.

Twitterrific

Whether you use it to keep the world up to date with your happenings or simply to keep up to date with the world, Twitter has seen an explosion in recent years, with celebrities, companies and even university lecturers jumping onto the Twitter bandwagon.

There are a wealth of Twitter clients out there for the Mac but I find Twitterrific the most useable and feature rich.

The timeline of tweets in Twitterific

The free, ad-supported version only supports one account (how many Twitter accounts do you have?) but supports the standard Twitter toolbox, like link shortening, image/video uploading and retweeting. To preserve your sanity (and your Mac), just make sure you turn off the notification sound if you follow lots of people, as that twittering bird notification every 2 seconds a new tweet comes in does tend to grate slightly…

Price: $9.95
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 and onwards. Intel only.

Skype

Instead of shelling out your precious money to the greedy mobile phone companies, get a cheap contract, encourage all your mates to sign up to Skype and talk to them there. Skype allows you to make unlimited calls to any other Skype user (whether voice or video) for absolutely nothing, no matter where they are in the world.

The main window in Skype

You can even buy Skype credit to call landlines and mobiles from around 2 cents per minute, far cheaper than any deal you’ll get with your mobile. The Mac version is good for everything (including video calling) however it is a little awkward to navigate around though (especially if you were used to the Windows version). Skype is the future of telephone calls can save you a surprising amount on your phone bill, both locally and internationally.

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5.8 or newer and a Skype account (free – sign up for one here)

Dropbox

Dropbox is a cloud-based storage solution which allows you to upload files onto an online drive, thereby allowing access from anywhere. The service is web-based, however you can download clients for Mac, Windows and all the major smartphones (Android, iOS and Blackberry).

Your Dropbox folder integrates seamlessly with the Finder, meaning it shows up and you can save things onto it easily without having to upload each individual file.

You can even share your folders with other Dropbox users with just a few clicks.

I find this application very useful for transferring things from home to university, meaning I don’t have to e-mail documents back and forth. It’s a real timesaver and if you refer some mates, both of you get extra storage space – always a plus!

Price: Free (for 2 GB storage. Extra storage is available from $9.99 per month for 50 GB or via referrals).
Requires: Mac OS X 10.4 and above.

Alfred

If there’s any app that’s going to save you time, it’s Alfred. The developers of the little known company – Running with Crayons Ltd – based near Cambridge, UK have designed an app that almost every Mac user has been waiting for. Simply hit a hotkey (mine’s Command and Space) and a little box comes up, which you type in the first few letters of your application and hit Enter – hey presto! Your application starts running.

A search in Alfred

Alfred is far quicker than Spotlight as it caches your applications and picks out your most used ones depending on past searches. It also saves you hunting around for applications as when you install a new one, Alfred automatically recognises it and adds it to the list.

You can even use it as a file browser and as a controller for iTunes. If you’re going to download and install just one application from this list, make it this one!

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 and above and an Intel processor. A PowerPC version is available here (though no longer updated/supported)

Time Out Free

Picture the scene: you’re on your Mac, it’s 2 AM, you’ve drunk enough energy drink to actually be sweating the stuff, and you still have 2,000 words left of that essay to write. Your eyes start to droop but you keep on working, despite the fact you desperately want to take a break.

Well, Time Out Free has that covered. Whilst you’re working on your Mac, it’ll grey out the screen at regular intervals and remind you to take a quick break.

Time for a break!

You can set two kinds of break: a ‘normal’ break which is typically 10 minutes long every 50 minutes and a ‘micro’ break, which is usually 10 seconds long every 10 minutes. Not only does it help you preserve your sanity, it also helps you concentrate for longer so as not to let your mind wander……where was I? Oh yes: it’s a must for all students.

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.4 or later.

Grisbi

Although it won’t win any awards for looks, Grisbi is a very feature-rich free personal finance application available for Mac (it’s been ported across from Linux). I know how important managing your finances is for college students, and I like to know exactly how much I’ve got before I go out and buy something. Grisbi lets you do this without having to log on to your internet banking website every time.

The transactions view of Grisbi

Grisbi allows you to set up multiple accounts as well as schedule any bill payments (such as utility or credit card bills) so you don’t forget them. There is also a useful credit simulator, which calculates the interest and repayments due on any credit borrowed and the total cost due. The program is extremely easy to use and is highly recommended for anyone trying to budget prudently.

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5 above (separate versions for Intel and PowerPC)

Parallels Desktop

I thought I’d seen the last of Windows when I bought my Mac, but there are times that you really do need to use it (particularly for specialist software). Macs now do offer the option of Boot Camp, meaning you can install Windows on a separate disk partition and boot your Mac into either Mac OS X or Windows but personally I do find it rather annoying having to reboot my Mac every time I have to use Windows for one application.

Parallels Desktop means you can use Mac and Windows side-by-side without having to reboot your computer. It creates a virtual machine onto which you can install any operating system you want (not necessarily Windows – you can also other compatible operating systems such as Linux).

Windows 7 running virtually using Parallels Desktop

Unlike other virtualization applications, Parallels Desktop features a useful Coherence mode, which allows you to get rid of the Windows background and run all your Windows programs natively under Mac OS X (Parallels Desktop needs to be running though) instead of in a separate window.

You can even copy your files from Mac to Windows and vice-versa by simply dragging and dropping, and all your folders on Mac are shared and viewable in Windows.

You’ll need a fast host to run Parallels Desktop (at least 2 GB of RAM is recommended) otherwise the program won’t run very well. It also does slow down your computer quite a lot due to the amount of resources it uses so it’s not recommended for long-term use (use Boot Camp instead).

For anyone who needs to run Windows applications on their Mac, Parallels is highly recommended and the developers do offer an academic license, meaning that it is more affordable for students.

Price: $39.99 (academic license)
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5.8/10.6.3 or later and a full copy of Windows (or the operating system you are going to run). Intel only.

Isolator

Isolator helps you concentrate more by cutting out distractions. When you are working on your Mac, Isolator will blur out all the background windows, leaving the one you are working with in the foreground.

Isolator blurring out everything apart from the window you are working with

You can even set Isolator to hide the dock, giving you a distraction-free screen, or instead of blurring out the background, Isolator can hide it altogether, allowing you to focus on one window completely. It’s a very useful application and teamed along with a few other apps featured here (e.g. Time Out Free), it can really help you keep your concentration up.

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5 and above.

MathType

One of the complaints I had when I migrated from Windows is that Macs do not have an in-built equation editor (unless you splash out on Microsoft Office). This is a slight inconvenience if you use a lot of math in your degree and you’re having to type out a lot of equations. MathType renders this a thing of the past. It’s a fully-featured, easy to use equation editor for Mac allowing you to write and edit equations quickly and easily.

The editing window for MathType, showing an equation

One of the most useful things about MathType is the ability to simply copy and paste your formulas into different programs. The website has a list of all the programs supported (including iWork ’09) and a list of all the features, which are too detailed to list them all here! Although it is quite pricy, the developers do offer an academic license and for such a feature-rich program, the price is worth it.

Price: $57 (academic license)
Requires: Mac OS X 10.3.9 and above

Preview

You’re probably wondering why Preview is in here. It’s a simple little application, available to all users of Mac OS X but don’t underestimate its features. Unlike most other PDF viewers, Preview allows you to annotate PDFs by highlighting, drawing arrows and crossing bits out, all in lots of different colours.

Preview showing a PDF created in LyX, with various annotations

I find this feature especially useful for highlighting journals and papers, meaning I do not have to print them out and when you save your PDF, your highlights and annotations are saved along with it. You can also delete and add pages to PDFs – useful if you are trying to compile a document together or get rid of unnecessary pages. For a built-in PDF viewer, Preview has a wide range of features and should not be overlooked.

Price: Free
Requires: Included with Mac OS X

Circus Ponies Notebook

One complaint I had about Microsoft’s port of Office to the Mac was that they left out OneNote, a very useful note-taking program. They have to tried to rekindle this with a version for iOS, but as of yet, no version for Mac has been written.

Circus Ponies have, however, written a full note-taking application for Mac with a wealth of features. With Notebook, you can clip text, entire documents, images and movies and you can add diagrams to your notes to make them more understandable.

The notes view of Circus Ponies Notebook

A useful feature for students is the wide range of built-in notebook templates, including one for writing a research paper. This allows you to pull together all your findings into one place, avoiding the need for bits of paper all over your desk. If you take your Mac into college to make notes, or if you just want to get more organised, then Notebook is a really useful program.

Price: $49.95 (academic license)
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5.8 or later

Yep

Yep pools your hard drive for any PDFs, iWork and Office documents and categorizes them in one place, avoiding the need to search around for a particular file. You can add tags and search for documents using the tags you created.

The main window of Yep, showing a list of PDF documents

Yep also integrates with your scanner (if you have one), allowing you to scan in all your little bits of paper and categorises them as well, making hunting around in endless folders a thing of the past. Unfortunately, the developers do not (yet) offer an academic license, meaning students have to pay the full price of $39 for the application, but it does help you keep organised and saves a bit of time. The other applications by the developer, Ironic Software, are worth a look as well.

Price: $19.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5.7 or later

Anxiety

Anxiety is a lightweight, To-Do list that syncs with iCal and Mail. The program sits quietly and unobtrusively on your desktop and helps you keep track of what you’ve still got to do, great for students who’ve got tonnes of deadlines looming on the horizon. It’s very small, but very effective.

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5 and above

Fluid App

Fluid is a small utility that allows you to create standalone “applications” from websites, meaning you can simply launch them from Finder instead of having to open your browser all the time.

A Facebook stand-alone application, created using Fluid

This is especially useful for websites that you visit a lot as it saves you from having to use your browser all the time. The paid version ($4.99) adds a few more features, such as the ability to pin your created applications to the Dock, but when you’ve got Alfred, who really needs this?

Price: Free/$4.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 and above. Intel only.

Timeline 3D

There will almost certainly be times during your studies when you need to use a timeline to display information either for a presentation, or just to help you keep on top of all your deadlines. Timeline 3D helps you create professional looking timelines in a variety of designs.

Timeline 3D, with a sample timeline created using events from iCal

The app integrates with iCal, meaning you can import your own deadlines, or you can create them using the program itself. Most importantly, Timeline 3D can export your timelines in a variety of formats, including via email, the web, YouTube and, most importantly, Keynote.

The timeline is saved as a QuickTime movie and can be played from within your presentation, which looks extremely cool and slick and can really spice it up. Timeline 3D avoids the need for spending time drawing timelines and with the developers offering an academic license ($39 instead of $65), it makes it that little bit more affordable for such a useful program.

Price: $65
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5 onwards.

Conclusion

I hope this list will help any students out there with their studies. I certainly found that the applications in this list will really complement your Mac and your university degree, making life just that little bit easier as well as ensuring you get the full functionality out of your computer.

I would appreciate any comments, including suggestions for other programs that you find useful, as I am always on the lookout for new applications that may be really useful. Now I better get back to my own revision….

In the meantime, best of luck with your studies!

This batch of apps is more likely to include apps that many of you won’t use, but as always, it’s nice to know they are there. And depending on what you do, it might turn out that your perfect utility was sitting right under your nose the whole time.

Disk Utility

I’ll kick off the list with this gem, since I could’ve included it in round one. Disk Utility is a one stop shop for all things hard disk. Whether you want to know how much free space you have, the number of files on your drive, or how your drive is formatted, Disk Utility is where to go.

Disk Utility

There are also a number of maintenance tasks that can be performed in Disk Utility. Use it to verify and repair disk permissions, manage virtual and external drives as well as mounted .dmg files, and to create images of your drive for back up purposes.

Boot Camp Assistant

When Apple switched over from PowerPC to Intel processors, Macs became capable of dual booting a Windows build along side OS X. Traditionally, installing a second operating system has not exactly been a straight forward process, so OS X began shipping with Boot Camp Assistant to help users of both systems. Boot Camp Assistant will also help you create archive copies of Windows install disks, should you only have that data in digital form.

Boot Camp Assistant

Grapher

Grapher is a utility that has been on Mac computers for ages. It’s a simple yet powerful utility that basically functions as a graphic calculator. Except that unlike your TI-83, Grapher can also graph complex 3D functions, like the one below.

Grapher

Grapher is capable of plotting multiple functions simultaneously, and has a lot of in-depth customization of graph appearance. Make sure to select some pre-built graphs from the Examples drop down menu for some really cool demonstrations of Grapher’s capabilities. Thanks to our reader Conor for the suggestion!

Audio MIDI Setup

Audio MIDI Setup is a relatively simple application for those users who use their Mac for audio production. Use MIDI Setup to configure your various input and output devices and ensure that the formats, sampling rates, and clock speeds match up between each of the devices in your signal chain.

Audio MIDI Setup

AppleScript Editor

This is probably the most daunting app in this roundup. If you have the programming chops to use AppleScript Editor, it can be one of the most powerful tools you can wield in commanding your Mac to bend to your will. I will admit that my knowledge of its capabilities are limited (and, as you can see in my project below, my knowledge of AppleScript itself is even more pitiful), but the adept AppleScript-er can write a sort of mini-application on the fly that will acutely customize his Mac’s behavior and workflow.

If you’re looking to get started with automation, check out our Ultimate Beginner’s Guide To AppleScript.

AppleScript Editor

DigitalColor Meter

DigitalColor Meter is a very simple app that essentially functions as a global eyedropper tool. It will display the RGB values (in a few various formats, including Generic RGB and Adobe RGB) of the pixel directly under the mouse cursor Use it check colors across your desktop, an app’s UI, or a page in a web browser.

DigitalColor Meter

The aperture size can be changed via the slider, and the magnification for the display window can be changed in the drop down menus.

Podcast Publisher

This one requires a bit of explanation. For quite some time now, OS X has shipped with two separate applications dedicated to producing podcasts for distribution via iTunes: Podcast Capture and Podcast Producer. The problem is that Podcast Producer resided on OS X Server, and Podcast Capture was the client-side utility for interacting with it. A comparatively small percentage of Mac users could reasonably expect to use these tools, so they largely fell into the ‘professional’ category of applications.

With OS X Lion, however, Apple created a new application: Podcast Publisher. Podcast Publisher is the consumer version of Producer, in much the same way that GarageBand is to Logic, or iMovie to FinalCut. Publisher is a production tool with a low barrier of entry that allows any Lion user to produce video, audio, or even screen-recorded podcasts and export them to their desktop, email or iTunes.

Podcast Publisher

There You Have It

There are few other various odds and ends in the Utilities folder, particularly depending on how much software has installed additional utilities into it. However, the apps covered in these two posts should have gotten you intimately acquainted with your Mac and its built-in software.

Even though applications like Photoshop and Illustrator are so widely used, you’ll often see complaints about different aspects of these tools. One common gripe is that the applications have begun to feel bloated after so many years of feature additions. If you’ve ever spent time with either Photoshop or Illustrator you are nodding your head right now. That’s probably why when a prospective, more simple, competitor pops up we’re all staring right at it hoping it can be just what we want. We hope that all of the great features we love in our CS applications make it over and all the fluff dies off.

The buzz about the release of Sketch 2 started a while back and being a designer myself I followed along closely. All things pointed to this thing being pretty darn cool so I decided to take it for a spin.

Intro

An application like this can lend itself to a lot of different specific graphic based jobs. The limit is really based more on the creativity of the user than the actual tools built into the application. Look at how we’ve turned Photoshop, actually built for professional photographers, into a web design tool.

Because of this craftiness I’ll be taking a look at this from more of an interface, mobile and web designer aspect as I think that there is some serious potential for the folks in that area. We’re not going to get too crazy here, but my examples will be in that vein. And I should note that Sketch 2 is aiming to be more of an Illustrator competitor as it is a vector graphics app by definition. That said, there appears to be some features that can be of direct benefit to the interface designers among us.

Interface

Coming from the Photoshop/Illustrator world, opening up Sketch 2 for the first time feels like a breath of fresh air. Oddly, the feeling I do get on some level is that this thing can’t possible do what I want it too. There just isn’t enough “stuff.” Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s just my conditioning from using the more bloated products I’m used to. As we get along we’ll actually see what the application is capable of. Maybe this feeling will be proved wrong. Maybe not.

Layers

There are four core areas of the application window that you’ll be working with for the majority of the time. The left-most panel will house the layers of the project. Each layer is essentially one element of the page. Each shape, hand drawn vector or text will live on its own layer.

The layers palette

Layers can be grouped into folders. When elements are combined, you’ll see one layer with an indicator noting that multiple elements make up that one layer. For example, if you combine shapes together to create one new shape you’ll be able to see the components that make up that new shape.

Toolbar

This is probably pretty obvious, but I’ll point it out anyway. The toolbar is located at the top of the application window and holds the tools that you’ll be using.

Toolbar

It has a very uncomplicated feel to it. There aren’t a ton of tools to worry about and they reside on this toolbar all the time. There’s plenty of white space holding large-ish tool icons. It feels roomy and it’s easy to quickly locate just what you’re looking for. There is some context interaction going on here as well that will make your life even easier. Different tools become functional and nonfunctional depending on what you are doing. If you only have one element selected, the union button won’t be active. It’s pretty obvious most of the time.

Inspector

The inspector resides on the right-hand side of the application window. This is where the all the fun stuff happens. This is the area that let’s you take action on the elements of your project. Adding drop shadows and gradients and such. We’ll get into this a bit more with a specific example.

Inspector

Let’s Make Something

In the interest of keeping this post at a tolerable length, I’ll try to illustrate some cool aspects of Sketch 2 while I actually design a log in form. This is something that I’d use an application like this for and it seems like other reviews I’ve seen have focused more on the illustration side of things. We’re going to go at this from a little different angle and hopefully it’ll be useful for you to see another use case.

First off, here’s what we’re going to end up with. It’s a very basic login form. I envision this as a modular box that would drop down from a top navigation bar. It’s a fairly common element and something I’m sure you’ve all seen before.

The final form we'll build in this example

The container box is a rounded corner rectangular form with a small triangle protruding from the upper border. This form is created by selecting the rounded tool from the shapes button on the toolbar. Then simply draw the shape. We can use the inspector to tune the radius width and exact dimensions. I then grabbed the triangle tool from the shapes again and drew a triangle on top of the box. With both items selected they became one by simply pressing the union tool from the toolbar.

Building the outer box and adding some styles

You’ll also notice that I’ve added a fill color, a drop shadow and a border. Those features can simply be checked and then easily tweaked as needed. It is also possible to add multiple fill layers and toggle them on and off as needed.

Next we’ll add in the form fields. Again, I’ll grab the rounded tool and draw the shape. This time I’ll simply duplicate that box. Automatic layout features help me to line up the fields just where I want them. This time I’ll add a subtle inner shadow to give the field some depth.

Now adding the form fields

A very cool feature of Sketch is the ability to link styles to multiple layers. If we click the link button on the top of the inspector we can add this style to the list. Then we select the second field and select that linked style. Now, every time we change that style on either element it’ll change on the other as well. That’s pretty awesome if you ask me.

The last thing to add is the button. You guessed it, we’ll draw another rounded rectangle just as we did above. Once the shape is in its place we can add some styles to it to make it look like a button.

Adding the button

This style was created by layer a couple different fill gradients. These are pretty straightforward to create. If you take a look at the screenshot above you’ll see a couple handles that can be dragged around to adjust the gradient angle. Their respective colors can also be changed. It’s a little different than what I’m used to, but after a few minutes of fooling around with gradients i caught right on.

You’ll also notice that I have been adding some text in the proper places as we’ve gone along. This is very simple and done using the obvious text tool. I added a couple basic styles to them to make the text pop just a bit as well.

And now we’re left with something like this.

And we're left with this

Copy CSS Attributes

Here’s a feature that would make web designers flat out giddy. Sketch does have the capability to copy the CSS attributes of what you’ve created. You’re then free to paste them in your projects.

Here’s what we get using this feature.

A portion of the code copied from this form example

The code isn’t amazing, but it’s pretty usable. It’s really well formatted and even commented based on your layer names. I will warn you that you will hit some limits in what can be copied to CSS attributes, but the cool thing is that you’ll see messages saying that certain elements weren’t brought over. I hit this when messing around with some background patterns. The message did read with a “this isn’t available yet” tone to it so that leads me to believe this functionality will be expanded with future releases.

Final Thoughts

I came into this with a basic working knowledge of applications like Photoshop and Illustrator, but otherwise no experience with Sketch. This is literally the first thing that I’ve made with this application and think it turned out pretty darn well. And I’ll be honest, it really didn’t take me all that long. A couple hours of fooling around and I had a fair amount of the application figured out. The application is much, much easier to get comfortable with when compared to Illustrator. It’s simple and at the same time pretty darn powerful.

For someone like me who is definitely a more novice Illustrator user, Sketch feels like a much better solution. I essentially never take advantage of Illustrator’s more advanced features and frankly the thought of trying to become an Illustrator expert seems really daunting and I’m not sure I’ll benefit much from the effort. At $49.99 Sketch is definitely at a much more appealing price point and for a lot of folks it will suitable to accomplish a good portion of your vector work. I know I’ve only scratched the surface here and I’m really looking forward to using Sketch more and more and giving it a more thorough run through on the interface development front. For me personally, it already has some exciting features and I’m very much looking forward to where things application heads.

Happy downloading!

Mailings Lite

If you send large amounts of personalised e-mail messages to a number of people, then Mailings Lite can help you both send and keep track of these. You can use it for newsletters, marketing campaigns and so on and the app has plenty of features in to help you do this, such as HTML support, attachments, a variety of built-in templates and automated setup. The Lite version doesn’t allow any adjustment of the settings, so unfortunately you’re stuck with the ones that the developers prescribe but if you need these, then the full version is priced at just $24.99.

Price: € 11.99 – free
Developer: Limit Point LLC
App Store link: Mailings Lite

Activity

There are certainly no shortages of task managers on the App Store but Activity tries to eliminate most of the clutter seen in other applications. You can filter your tasks by date and show which ones are either starred or overdue and your tasks can also be sorted into groups and colour-coded. Activity also integrates with Lion’s built-in autosave feature and has a really nice, simple interface.

Price: € 0.79 – free
Developer: Leonardo Chiantini
App Store link: Activity

SnappyApp

Snappy allows you to capture an area of your screen by using the default shortcut ⇧⌘2 and pin it above all windows, meaning that it is constantly visible. This is great if you need to remember something or if you are trying to compare two things (for example documents) without having to flick between two windows constantly. The app features built-in sharing with Pinterest and you can e-mail and print all snapshots directly from the Snappy app.

Price: € 1.59 – free
Developer: Nextwave Digital
App Store link: SnappyApp

Oh, and one more thing…

This coming Thursday, Coda 2 will be available for download, which is a massive update featuring a completely overhauled interface, tonnes of new features (over 100 in total, according to the developers) and a few surprises thrown in for good measure as well. The update will be paid however any customers that have purchased Coda in the past month or so will receive it for free. The developers are also running a 50% off promotion for the first 24 hours of sale as well.

The new interface of Coda 2, which is due to be released this coming Thursday.

Coda 2 brings a whole new kind of web editing with code folding, a much requested feature meaning that you can still focus on subsections whilst still managing large portions of code and a new smart complete function for auto-completion of custom variables and functions. There are also workflow improvements, such as automatic indentations and a new find and replace system, an indispensable tool for most developers.

The new Smart Complete feature in action in Coda 2

The user interface of Coda 2 has also been given a significant overhaul with an all-new tabbed interface and a customisable dock for your tools. The update also focuses on better site management, with iCloud sync for your sites and clips (if purchased from the App Store) and a new MySQL editor with a full GUI.

Alongside Coda 2, Diet Coda is also being released for the iPad, meaning that you aren’t tied down to your desk if you want to make a few quick tweaks to your website. Another groovy feature for Diet Coda is AirPreview, meaning you can view the changes to your website directly on your iPad without having to save and go into preview mode first, which is a definite bonus for developers.

Diet Coda will be also available this Thursday as well, allowing developers to make quick changes to their site wherever they are.

Of course, you’ll have to wait until Thursday to find about all the new features Coda 2 has to offer and We will, of course, be doing a full review of it when it is released so watch this space!

Coda 2 will be released this Thursday on the developers’ website as well as on the Mac App Store and will be priced at $75 (upgrade pricing).

May is coming to a close and June is upon us, which means one thing for the Apple community: WWDC, that famed yearly event that sells out faster than a U2 concert. WWDC typically brings with it an exciting look at what’s coming down the pipe for Apple.

With any luck, we’ll get a peek at both new hardware and software that Apple will have us shelling out for all year.

In our poll question today, we want to know which product you’re most excited about. Are you one of the thousands of people who have been waiting for months and months to see a new iMac or are your sights set on the next iPhone? Vote in the poll, then leave a comment below telling us why you’re excited and what you think is coming.

As a result, you lose track of what you’re supposed to do. You might just find yourself looking up, wondering where the sun went all of the sudden.

Here’s the good news though: there are apps that can help you solve this productivity problem. In this round-up, I’ll share 15 Mac apps that help you focus, whether it’s dimming the screen, blocking social networking sites, closing inactive applications, or working in time bursts. You can use one or mix a couple of these apps to fit the way you work.

Focus, Focus

Concentrate

Concentrate

Concentrate is a utility designed to help you focus by getting rid of distraction and temptation. To avoid distraction, it allows you to block apps that you don’t need for a specific activity while automatically launching the apps necessary for the task. To overcome the temptation to waste time, you can block websites like Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks while you work.

Price: $29
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5 or later
Developer: Rocket

Quiet

Quiet

Quiet aims to achieve focus and concentration by blurring your desktop with only your active applications up front. It silences notifications, changes your status on Adium or Skype to “Busy” or “Do Not Disturb,” and hides inactive or unrelated windows and apps (including Finder).

Price: $1.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: Wireload, LLC

Isolator

Isolator

Isolator is an open source menu bar application that helps you focus by dimming your desktop with only the active windows visible to you. You can easily customize the app’s preferences to fit your needs, such as the level of opaqueness, filter type, fade speed, and others. Lastly, it allows you to hide your dock to keep you from opening apps that could distract you from work.

The testing version (4.9beta) works on OS X 10.7.3, but you can download the older, more stable versions as well.

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5, 10.6, 10.7
Developer: Willmore.eu

Focus Mask

Focus Mask

Focus Mask is another Mac application designed to get rid of distractions while you work. But more than just putting the active windows on stage with the rest behind the curtain, Focus Mask allows you to selectively choose which window to bring to the front and to isolate a part of a window through easy shortcuts. You can do this either through pattern detection or by manually highlighting the chosen portion by dragging and clicking the selection.

Price: $0.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: TenTrip, LLC

Think

Think

Think is another great open source Mac application for distraction-free work. You can choose which applications to use by using a transparent control panel that hovers while you work. If you find that the control panel gets in the way, the developer has added a tabbed section of the Think homepage with instructions on how advanced users can customize Think’s hidden preferences.

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.4.9 or later
Developer: Freeverse

Spirited Away

Spirited Away

Spirited Away is a menu bar Mac application that checks the activity levels of the apps currently in use. The app then hides those apps that have been idle for a period of time, freeing your desktop of clutter and distraction.

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later
Developer: Drikin

Houdini

Houdini

Houdini is another menu bar utility app that hides inactive applications to help you stay focused. The app sports a simple interface and allows you to configure the settings for each hidden application. It’s inspired by Spirited Away and is free to download from the Mac App Store.

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: Nial Giacomelli, UglyApps

Anti-Social

Anti-Social

Anti-Social takes on a different approach as it only blocks off the “social parts” of the Internet. This means that you and your favorite social networking services are at the mercy of Anti-Social. Simply set the amount of time you wish to block these social sites and focus. The only way you’ll be able to get out of Anti-Social is to reboot your computer, which I think is a great motivator to keep you focused.

Price: $15
Requires: Mac OS X 10.4 or later
Developer: Fred Stutzman

Time Bursts and Breaks in Between

Pomodoro

Pomodoro

Distraction leads to procrastination, which is what Pomodoro aims to eradicate once and for all. Using the famous Pomodoro Technique by Francesco Cirillo, this app offers several features besides setting you to work in 25-minute time bursts. Some of these include Things/Omnifocus integration, exporting Pomodoro activity statistics, keyboard shortcuts, and the ability to create Applescripts to customize how the app works through an in-app editor.

Price: $4.99 on the Mac App Store
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: iUgol

My Little Pomodoro

My Little Pomodoro

Here’s another Pomodoro Mac app if you prefer a cheaper alternative and a simpler implementation of the Pomodoro Technique. While in the menu bar, it records your timed activities, allows you to customize the time lengths, integrates with iChat/Adium/Skype, and logs your Pomodoro activities/breaks by day, week, or month.

Price: $3.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: Voltage Software LLC

Focus Booster

Focus Booster

Built in Adobe Air, Focus Booster is another beautiful Pomodoro app for those who work according to the Pomodoro technique. Available on the web and for PC or Mac users, Focus Booster aims to help you get things done through unobtrusive design and simple but effective functionality.

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.4, v10.5 or v10.6, Adobe Air, Intel Core™ Duo or faster processor, 512MB of RAM (1GB recommended)
Developer: Focus Booster

BreakTime

BreakTime

BreakTime encourages you to take breaks in between bursts of productivity. Spending too much time sitting and staring at your computer screen can cause health problems for you, so BreakTime makes sure that you stand up and move away from your desk by disabling your dock and dimming the screen. For those who need to be stricter with themselves can activate “enforce” mode, which disables the ability to skip breaks.

Price: $4.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later
Developer: excited pixel

Time Out

Time Out

Time Out is another application that encourages you to take breaks in between work hours. By default, regular breaks are 50 minutes of work, 10 minutes for breaks with 15-second “micro breaks” in between. Once it’s time for a break, it slowly fades over your desktop and disables your dock to prevent you from doing anything but rest. The minute you launch the app, it begins to time your breaks.

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5 or later
Developer: Dejal

Vitamin R

Vitamin R

Vitamin R is a more powerful and feature-rich application for those who want to fully recapture their focus and fully motivate themselves to concentrate. It slices your tasks through short time bursts of between 10 to 30 minutes, while giving you full control over the way you work. This way, you free yourself of unproductive/incompatible productivity methods, procrastination, and the stress of getting things done.

Price: $19.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: Publicspace.net

Time Sink

Time Sink

I end this round-up with a simple but useful application called Time Sink. It keeps track of how you spend your time on your Mac by automatically logging opened windows and applications and recording the amount of time spent on these. At the end of the day, you can take a look at how you spend your time through detailed graphs. You can read our full review of Time Sink to learn more.

Price: $4.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later
Developer: Many Tricks

Conclusion

Depending on how you work, you can use a combination of these apps to achieve the ideal work balance. For instance, you can use Isolator to dim your desktop and focus, while using FocusBooster to work in time bursts. You can also use Time Out or BreakTime to push yourself to take breaks in between work to avoid feeling burnt out.

Give yourself a few days to test these apps out and see which combo works best for you. We hope your productivity levels and focus improve with the help of this round-up.

What other apps do you use to stay focused? Do you work in time bursts or by simply blocking applications and distracting websites?

Read on for our complete guide.

What Is Sandboxing?

Sandboxing is basically a term for restrictions implied on applications to stop them accessing certain system resources or functions. If it is enabled on an application, then the program cannot access certain features such as the ability to print or read and write from the file system (such as opening and saving documents).

Sandboxing is a generic term for restricting applications accessing certain system resources.

This would obviously be an extreme case as most applications need the ability to read and write from the file system (for example, in accessing files necessary for the program’s running). Currently, there are no strict limitations in OS X on what system resources applications designed for the operating system can access, however Apple is looking to change this from June 1st by imposing tighter controls on what can be accessed by Mac applications.

The new guidelines will give developers the possibility to enable Apple-supplied entitlements that allow access to certain system resources, such as printing, network features and reading and writing from the filesystem.

Apple has imposed a deadline of June 1st for all developers to submit their new "sandboxed" applications to the App Store

Why Are Apple Doing It?

Although this may be read by some as more stringent laws and regulations imposed by Apple, sandboxing does actually have its benefits. Programs firstly make specific use of the resources that are made available to it, meaning a more optimised running environment. Another advantage is error reporting. If a program crashes, then the OS X operating system can better isolate the problematic behaviour, seeing as it knows exactly what caused the crash (say, by accessing a certain resource) and for better security measures, block the program from modifying or accessing data in unauthorised ways.

The guidelines, which were originally planned to be implemented for March 1st, may have something to do with the upcoming Mountain Lion release, which is much more focused on security than previous releases (OS X has been criticised recently for its security, with some sources calling it “10 years behind Windows). The new upcoming Gatekeeper feature, a main feature of OS X 10.8, is designed to stop your Mac getting spyware and prevents the installation of malicious software from third-party sources.

Gatekeeper, a feature present in the upcoming Mountain Lion release, is designed to boost the security of your Mac

What Is Going To Happen With My Apps?

It must be noted that these sandboxing guidelines only apply to any new applications submitted for distribution on the Mac App Store (this includes updates as well). Apple does not require applications to be sandboxed to run on OS X and therefore any applications that are distributed through the developers website are not subject to these changes.

There may be a problem here, though, as non-sandboxed applications that are distributed through the App Store may no longer be supported (as they do not conform to the guidelines) so for updates, you may have to turn to the developer’s own website in order to download future builds, instead of relying on the automatic update feature on the App Store.

Most of the changes that are implemented are likely to be behind-the-scenes, meaning that you will notice no visible change in the design and running of your favourite OS X application.

Do I Need To Do Anything?

Simple answer: no! Although these new guidelines are a bit of inconvenience for developers (seeing as they have to modify their programs to conform with them), it’s ultimately the end user that will benefit. If you’ve purchased apps from the Store, you can expect updates for them being pushed through in the next week or so, so keep checking back to make sure you’ve got the latest version.

Share Your Thoughts!

As always here at Mac AppStorm, we’d love to hear your thoughts and comments on this matter. Do you agree with the new sandboxing guidelines and do you think that they will help improve OS X security? Or is it more regulation imposed by Apple without much effect? Share your opinions in the comments section below!

VoodooPad is one of the original desktop wikis for Mac OSx. Today, we’re going to take a look at the recently released version 5.0 to see if it lives up to the longheld VoodooPad legacy.

What’s New in VoodooPad 5

Mac.Appstorm published an excellent review of VoodooPad 4.0 a few years ago, so I won’t go into too much detail about the basics of the program, but some essential things have changed. The application is now available through the App Store or you can still purchase through the developer, Flying Meat. The upgrade price is $24.99. For what is called a “limited time offer,” everyone can purchase a new license for the same price.

Flying Meat is no longer developing the free “lite” version of VoodooPad, but the older lite version is still available at the web site.

You can run a trial of VoodooPad if you download from the developer’s site. You get a zipped folder that automatically unzips and the application is ready to run. Just drag it to your Applications folder. If you’re testing the upgrade, you should be aware that VoodooPad now uses a new file format, which does not provide backward compatibility, so be sure to back up your VoodooPad 4.0 (or earlier) files before letting version 5.0 have at ‘em.

Many significant new features and functions have been added to VoodooPad with this version, starting with the fact that it is now a 64-bit application. Other major additions and improvements include the following:

• New ability to publish straight to ePub and PDF.
• New Collections palette for an additional layer of organization.
• A new type of page that recognizes native Markdown editing.
• Find to-do items embedded within various pages and list them in the palette.
• New synchronization capability with Dropbox.
• Java scriptlet support, and revamped event script system.

I’ll look more closely at most of these below, then I’ll provide my overall impressions of VoodooPad 5.0. But first a few VoodooPad basics.

Some VoodooPad basics

Before delving into the new features, a few words about how VoodooPad works. To start, the basic interface will remind you pretty much of a standard word processor.

VoodooPad looks like your friendly neighborhood word processor.

Write or paste your information in the editor window. When you decide to create a new page, you have a few options for how to do so. If you’re referencing something for which you have text, say a name, just highlight the word or phrase, press command-L (or use the link button in the toolbar) and a new page is created with that word or phrase as a title, and a link to this new page is embedded in the text of the original page. That’s simple and pretty basic wikiness. You can also create a new page without creating a link in the current document. Just press the new page button.

To get to the real meaty power of VoodooPad, you will need to develop a familiarity with the Palette window and the various palettes it gives you access to.

The Palette window with the Info palette selected. The palettes give you access to a number of useful functions.

The screen shot above shows the palette pane with the Info Palette selected. You can choose which palette to display from the list on the left. These palettes will factor into our upcoming discussions.

And finally, a couple of definitions. In VoodooPad your open file is called a document, and your various notes are called pages.

Publish or perish?

It seems that everyone wants to get into the act of turning written material into an eBook these days, and VoodooPad is no exception. Version 5 has the added ability to publish your documents in ePub and PDF formats so you can “publish your document as an electronic book on Apple’s iBookstore, Amazon.com, or even your own website.”

VoodooPad 5 allows you to export your document to ePub format, in whole or in part.

I’m not an expert on ePub formats, but this function certainly appears to work fine. As you’ll learn below, I do have some reservations about how powerful this feature is. Nevertheless, it works and should prove useful in many situations.

New Collections palette and export functions

One of the advantages of a wiki database like VoodooPad is how you can grow your treasure trove of information organically, without having to consider how you want to structure it ahead of time. Sometimes, however, you may find that structure is important. The new Collections feature in VoodooPad 5 attempts to solve this issue, allowing you to build an organizational hierarchy to supplement your wiki network.

Let’s look at a possible real-life example. Say you created a VoodooPad document to manage a new project. You’ll probably end up with a lot of pages, only some of which you may want to export into a report for your supervisor. You might create a collection called Executive Report, which would allow you to assemble the report from the appropriate pages of your overall project document.

As with many of the functions of VoodooPad, you do this work in the Palette window.

Organize your VoodooPad pages hierarchically in the new Collections palette.

There are at least a couple of ways to build a collection. In the first, you select the pages to include in a collection via a drop down menu, as illustrated below:

You can use the drop down box to select pages to add to your collections.

This is a little time-consuming, so I recommend opening an additional Palette window, clicking to the Pages palette, then dragging the pages you want into the open Collections palette. Confused? This screen shot should clear it up:

A quicker way to build a collection is to open a second palette, switch to the Pages palette and drag pages from here to the Collections palette.

A Collection can be referenced when exporting to the new PDF and ePub formats. This is a nice feature, but it has some limits and functionality omissions that are important to note. For one, in the PDF export, each page from your Collection starts a new page in the exported file. There is no way to change this action at this time. This is a major issue to me, as it seems reasonable that you may want to combine some pages from VoodooPad into one section of your exported document, and not have each start a new page. There should be an option to toggle “make new page” on or off for export.

This would be less of an issue if you could use Collections when exporting to Word, because you could quickly and easily edit the document in Word after export. But as of this writing, you can’t reference a Collection when exporting to Word or any of the export formats other than PDF and ePub. (The developer has said that he’s added this to the features request list, so it may appear in a future update.) VoodooPad does include the ability to select which pages to export to Word, but that does not involve the Collections feature.

Markdown editing

VoodooPad now includes three page types: Plain Text, Rich Text and the new Markdown type. Markdown is a tool used to convert a specialized, plain text syntax to HTML. In other words, add the special character codes to your plain text document, then use the Markdown conversion tool to render your page for export to the web or, in the case of VoodooPad, to ePub format as well.

The new Markdown page type performs a quasi-preview for you. It will be easier to demonstrate this than describe it:

This is a Markdown formatted page with a small HTML preview window.

The screen shot above shows a Markdown type page. Bracketing “Abbey on Education” in double hash marks makes it a headline, and bracketing “Edward Abbey” in double asterisks makes it bold. the Markdown format page retains the syntax code, while providing a quasi preview in the main window. You can see a genuine HTML preview, as above, by selecting “HTML Preview” from the VIEW menu.

New features for task management

A very handy new feature of VoodooPad 5 is the To-dos palette, which shows all the instances in your document of the string “@todo:” followed by a line of text. This may be my favorite new feature. See the screenshots below to see this in action:

The To-dos palette searches the open document to find strings you designate as indicating a to do.

A closer look at the To-dos palette.

@todo: is the default action token that VoodooPad searches for, but you can also set any string of text that follows the @ sign to be an action token, such as defining a reminder or a phone call to make.

You can define your own action "tokens" for VoodooPad to search and list in the To-dos palette.

Another small, but very useful new feature is the ability to make any line or paragraph of text a Check Box Item via the FORMAT menu. You can use the action tokens at the start of the line of a check box item to add an additional dimension to your task management.

Another new feature of VoodooPad 5 is that you can add check boxes to your lists.

Synchronize with Dropbox

The new full-featured synchronization function is probably going to be very popular with VoodooPad users. Save your VoodooPad document to a Dropbox folder and you can keep it fully synchronized between two or more computers, and with the VoodooPad iOS app. You can even collaborate with someone else on the same document. I have only one Mac, so I was unable to test this function. (I must note, however, that the comments on the App Store about the iOS version of VoodooPad include several that are not very complimentary, for whatever that may be worth.)

Java and Event Scripts

Two additional new features may appeal to the more technically minded user — which is not me, so I am not going to try to explain or test them. Here’s what Flying Meat has to say about them:

Java Scriptlet support with Web Export, ePub, and PDF export!

You can now write mini-scripts into your pages that are rendered when you export to HTML, ePub, or PDF. Dynamically change the content of your page with simple <%= %> tags. Generate static websites without giving up dynamic content. Read all about scriptlet support in the documentation.

New Event Scripts

The event scripts system has been rewritten to make it easer to extend VoodooPad’s functionality. No longer do you have to make multiple pages and hook up crazy palettes just to customize what happens when a document opens or closes. Just create an event specific page, and write your script using JavaScript. Easy.

The World’s Easiest Personal Wiki

VoodooPad has always been a very good information manager. I’m not sure I buy Flying Meat’s claim that it is the world’s best personal wiki (my vote would go to the Windows application ConnectedText). But it is certainly the easiest wiki I’ve ever used.

If you know how to use a word processor, you’ll have no trouble with VoodooPad. I do think the application loses some of its wiki-flavor by moving much of the information management out of the main window and into the Palettes window, but this is also what helps to make it easy to use. By contrast, a lot of what VoodooPad does in the Palettes window can be done directly in the main window of ConnectedText, but this requires embedding some coding in your text window. VoodooPad’s Palettes handle all of that for you.

I’m not here to tell you which way is better, and it doesn’t matter. VoodooPad is fun and easy to use. The learning curve is quite flat for most of its functions. It does the job effectively and is a stalwart OS X application that just got better than ever.

If you tried and rejected VoodooPad before, I don’t think there is anything in the new edition that will change your opinion (unless you were holding out for synchronization). But if you already use VoodooPad, you will find it well worth upgrading. And if you’ve never tried it, now is the time to give it a whirl.

There are not many font management applications available for your Mac, but at least one clearly stands out as worth revisiting: Fontcase.

Fontcase 2's new look

Fontcase is an application developed by Bohemian Coding, who also made the recently updated Sketch application. Created to replace Font Book, or any other font management application, Fontcase is a beautifully designed, powerful application.

Design

The application features a gorgeous icon and a wonderful user interface that pays attention to detail. Living all inside one window, Fontcase consolidates your fonts into three different views: Collections, which are custom groups of fonts, Genres and Tags. In the settings, you can even create Smart Collections, like Smart Playlists, as well as organize your fonts by Foundry, Designer or Language. Fontcase even fills in the information for you. Using Typedia, a online source for information about thousands of fonts, most of the metadata information will be filled in automatically.

In all of these views its incredibly simple to preview fonts. Just click a font or font family and the preview pane changes to show off the different weights and styles of the font. Command + Click multiple font families to compare fonts or just scrub over the font in the main window to get a quick look at each variation.

You can preview fonts in short sentences, in body format or preview just the font’s set of glyphs (like then @ or * symbols). One of the neatest features is the ability to edit the preview text. Just double click and start typing.

Examining glyphs

Activation

No, I’m not talking about the horrible process of entering in a product key from Microsoft or a license code from Adobe. I’m talking about enabling and disabling fonts to help improve the performance of your computer. In some cases, your font library might number in the thousands. Having every font in your library open and running can majorly impact your memory usage and can even slow down your Mac.

When you aren’t using a font, or in most cases a collection of fonts, you can deactivate the fonts with just one click (or by pressing Command + Enter). The font family will have a green label when activated, gray when deactivated and yellow/black stripes to represent system fonts (which can neither be activated or deactivated).

Auto Activation

In some instances, you may deactivate fonts or entire collections that a file is dependent on. With Auto-Activation enabled, Fontcase can detect when a file is looking for a deactivated font and can quickly activate it so you don’t run into annoying errors.

I found the auto-activation to work as described. It was almost magical as collections and font families reactivated so my text wouldn’t revert to another font. Auto-activation is supported by most Mac applications, including iWork and Adobe’s Creative Suite. This auto-activation does not, unfortunately, work in InDesign. However, Fontcase does give you the option to automatically activate all fonts within the foremost InDesign document.

Semi-auto activation within InDesign

Typesetter

One of the flagship features for Fontcase 2 is the ability to test fonts on any webpage. Fontcase has a built in web browser with this special capability. To preview a font, just drag it onto the text that you are wanting to replace and the change happens instantly. You can even change the text’s color, size and line height.

The Mac AppStorm site looks great in red

The default page, called the Specimen, that appears when you open a font in the Typesetter window is also incredibly useful. Being able to quickly grasp all the different letters, characters and how they work together has been very helpful.

The "Specimen" page allows you to grasp how the font would work in different sizes

iOS

To get a closer look at your font choice, or to see how legible a font is on an iPhone compared to your Mac, you can use Fontcase Viewer. This $0.99 app is available in the App Store for both iPad and iPhone. Fontcase viewer pairs with your iOS device over a Wifi network.

View fonts on your iOS devices

Other Details

The metadata Fontcase uses, like ratings on your fonts, what collections you create, and more is all stored inside Fontcase’s vault, which is another term for their database that they use. This makes it easy to move between systems, or store your fonts on an external hard drive. I personally have stored my Fontcase vault inside of Dropbox. (Though it is important not to open the vault on multiple systems at the same time!) Fontcase’s minimal preferences window can also help you move your Fontcase vault around easily.

When dragging a new font you’ve purchased or downloaded into Fontcase, you also have the opportunity to add it directly to a collection or to a tag. Just drag it over the icon for Collections or Tags and wait a second. This makes keeping things organized a cinch.

Fontcase also makes printing your fonts out beautiful. It will generate a wonderful sheet that can be used to easily compare fonts on paper. I’ve found it to be really useful when working on print projects– just to make sure that I know how the typeface I chose will look in the real world.

Fontcase's printout for the font, Arvo

Wrap Up

Fontcase is an incredible application for designers and font-lovers alike. With features that let you organize to your heart’s content, automatically activate the fonts you need before you know that you need them, and even let you preview your fonts on websites and iOS devices, I haven’t found an app that can compare.

While I wouldn’t be hesitant to recommend this to a designer, I doubt the average person needs Fontcase. The price tag is also a bit of a hurdle at $34.99. It is available in the Mac App Store as well as in trial form on their website.

If you’re a designer or font lover, give Fontcase a spin, and let us know what you think!

There are plenty of options out there for Mac users who need a solid FTP client. The most important factors for most users when deciding which is best tend to be speed, layout, and price. Today we are going to look a fresh look at the recently updated ForkLift from Binary Nights (version 2.5), and see how it stacks up against the competition.

Getting Started

How quickly you get up and running with ForkLift, or any FTP client for that matter, depends on your comfort level with certain acronyms. If you know and understand things like FTP, SFTP, WebDav, S3, etc., then the setup process for ForkLift won’t be any more difficult to understand any other FTP app you’ve used. You simply click on the connect button to open up a menu, which allows you to enter server details and login information, and you’re ready to go. You get additional options here as you would expect with an FTP client, including changing the port number, local and remote paths, base URL, and encoding type.

The "connect" window is clean and easy to understand.

Design

ForkLift doesn’t differentiate itself from the competition in any major ways. The main window is divided into two areas, one showing the files and folders of whatever server you are connected to, and the other shows you your local machine. At the top of each window is a file path that helps you visualize where you are.

Ideally, I think a good Mac FTP client should simulate the experience of using the Finder, and in this way, ForkLift succeeds. In fact, one part of the window design that gives it a leg up on certain competitors is having a left hand column, just like Finder, that gives you a listing of devices, shared drives, current connections, and favorites.

Previous versions of ForkLift were eye sores full of excessively decorated icons cluttering up every pixel of the window. The current version has toned all of that down, and the graphics all fit nicely with the more subdued Lion theme.

The dual-pane window makes working with your local and remote files a breeze.

You can change the viewing format to icons, list, hierarchy, and cover flow. As with Finder, you can also choose what columns will appear in list view (such as date added, date modified, etc.).

Like many other FTP clients, ForkLift has the very useful tab feature (something that Apple needs to implement into Finder). Other FTP apps like Transmit have tabs as well, but what I like about ForkLift is that it lets you use tabs in both windows if you are using the dual pane view.

Being able to use tabs for both your local and remote panes is great for power-users.

The top of the window shows the progress bar. When inactive, it takes up an unfortunate amount of space, similar to the top of the iTunes window. I prefer Transmit’s progress bar that sits at the bottom of the window, where it is more out of the way. When you aren’t transferring anything, the activity bar in ForkLift just seems to take up too much space.

Supported protocols for ForkLift vs. Transmit.

Despite having been released almost a year ago, there are still some apps that haven’t made themselves full-screen compatible. FTP clients are definitely apps that benefit from having more screen space, because all the files you need to deal with can be accessed in a Finder-like window. Fortunately, ForkLift has made the jump, and using it in full-screen was a pleasure. Some may find it unnecessary to use ForkLift or any other FTP client in full-screen, but I personally prefer it. You can also use Quick Look inside ForkLift, which I found removes any need to exit out of full-screen to open Preview.

Performance

I decided to do a causal test of speeds for various FTP app that I have. In addition to ForkLift, I tested transfers with Flow and Transmit. There are a ton of other options out there that I’ve tried in the past, such as Cyberduck and FileZilla, but this is a review of ForkLift, and getting a comparison to two other apps should be sufficient.

The upload time for ForkLift was slightly faster in my experience than top competitors like Transmit.

I used the same 25MB Adobe file from my hard drive, and sent it to my web site’s server with each app. ForkLift took 35 seconds, Transmit took 41, and Flow took 44. Downloading the file, on the other hand, was much faster and about the same for each app. It is important to note that this was not a very scientific test and that your results may vary. I did perform the test several times, though, and ended up getting the same numbers each time with a negligible variance.

Aside from transfers, general performance with ForkLift was excellent as well. Everything is snappy, from opening folders to logging into a server. Speaking of logging in, I found ForkLift to be almost instantaneous, Transmit to take a half second longer, and Flow to be dreadfully slow in comparison. Further speeding up your workflow is a wide-array of available shortcuts, all of which can be customized.

All in all, ForkLift was the single best-performing FTP client I’ve ever used. I have been using Transmit for years and even it still hangs up frequently when trying to connect to my server. ForkLift hasn’t done that to me once.

Features

ForkLift has a ton of great features that I loved having at my disposal. The first is Stacks, which is a simple way to organize certain commonly used files. I was using ForkLift while working on a WordPress design, and I found Stacks to be great for keeping a few files that I frequently needed close at hand without having to create a separate folder on my computer.

Like many FTP clients, you can use a sync function to simply copy everything from one folder into another. ForkLift expands on this common functionality with “synclets,” which gives you a bit more control over the sync actions you need. Once you customize what you want to have synced for a given folder, you can save those settings, making any future syncs a breeze.

The dock icon next to ForkLift is a Droplet I used to quickly send files to a folder on my server.

One of my favorite features in ForkLift is “Droplets.” Droplets are shortcuts that you can place anywhere in your system, (I placed mine in the dock), and then anything that you drag onto it gets sent to the remote folder of your choice. If you’ve ever used DropZone, this feature will look familiar to you.

You can, like other FTP clients, mount connections to your server on your computer. One area where Transmit beats ForkLift here is the availability of a menulet for quick access to mounted drives. However, having that sidebar with devices in ForkLift sort of negates the need for a menulet.

Conclusion

In speaking with other people about FTP clients, I get the sense that Transmit is perhaps the most popular among Mac-users. However, after playing around with ForkLift, I would crown it as my favorite. Transmit certainly has a more appealing visual design, but I think ForkLift has a few features that make it a better value.

Some people spend a lot of their time looking at an FTP window, so Transmit’s eye candy certainly does matter. But if you are ultimately more concerned with a broader set of features and better performance, I think you might want to give ForkLift a try.

• PARTRIDGE2012
• pixelwonderz
• danpetersdesign
• midsummer
• pelculator

Congratulations to the lucky winners. Sorry to those who missed out, be sure to check back for more great competitions!

Original Post

For some of us, email seems to rule our lives. Wouldn’t it be cool to see how true that statement is? Mailsum is a unique and attractive app that offers you a way to track various statistics regarding your email habits: sent, received, average response time; track it all in style with Mailsum!

We’re happy to announce that we’ve been able to snag five copies of Mailsum to give away to our faithful fans. Read on to see how you can enter!

Mailsum

Tweet to Enter

Entering is simple, all you have to do is click the link below and send out the resulting tweet (or just copy and paste), then leave a comment below with a link to your tweet. That’s it!

We’ll announce the winners on Thursday, May 24th. Good luck to everyone who enters! In the mean time, be sure to stop by the Mailsum website to learn more about this awesome app.

As the self-proclaimed digital projectionist for the casa de la Stark, let me walk you through the basic steps and available software applications to get those movies off the plastic and into your Mac.

Introduction

If you assume that ripping your DVD collection into a digital format is a task that just isn’t worth your time, you’d be wrong. The typical cost of a movie from iTunes ranges from $10 to $20 dollars. Ripping DVDs you already own, or possibly DVDs you’ve picked up from Amazon.com, presents an opportunity for tremendous cost savings and greater bang for your buck. Those movies are just sitting there. Why not get them into a format that you can actually benefit from, and maybe get yourself even closer to breaking the cable!

When you first begin to rip your DVD collection it is important to map out a plan. Understanding the use of your final output can save yourself time and megabytes. For our purposes, the mission is to get a commercial DVD into iTunes so we can watch it on an iPad or through an AppleTV.

As you move through your DVD collection, you will find yourself fine tuning the process to make it perfect for your particular setup. I would also recommend that you keep all of your original DVD discs. I typically recycle the cases and store the discs on an old CD-R spindle to save space. Keeping the original disc somewhat handy in the beginning is helpful as not all rips will go perfectly, and you might not see the issue until its up on the big screen.

The Tools

The current software options for ripping a DVD are virtually endless. From free to costly, easy to complicated, the right ripping tool is completely subjective to the end-user. Ideally, find something that makes your life easy while allowing you to create an output file that meets your objective. For this exercise, I will be ripping a new copy of The Recruit that I purchased from Amazon.com for $4.25 (with free shipping). The end result for each of these tools is to generate a file that I can drop into iTunes to be played on my iPad and my AppleTV.

Handbrake (free)

Handbrake is an open source application that is beloved by a strong community of users. Try having a conversation about video conversion, and Handbrake will most likely be thrown into the mix. Unlike the other tools in this article, Handbrake by its own definition is not a DVD ripping software solution. Its primary purpose is about video conversion.

The importance of this fact is that it only works on un-encrypted video sources without the assistance of additional plugins or tools. Most commercial DVDs sold today have some sort of DRM encryption on them, and unless that encryption is bypassed, Handbrake won’t be able to access the video files to perform the rip (or more accurately – conversion). There are several options and third party utilities to help manage the encryption on DVDs. Handbrake, however, will actually offer to point you in the right direction and download a small package to help bypass most commercial encryption. To rip a movie using Handbrake:

1. Click “Source” in top left corner of Handbrake window.
2. Navigate to your DVD -> Video_TS folder. Click “Open”.
3. As it scans the DVD, it will (generally) pre-select the title you need. If it doesn’t, or you want to be sure, scan the available title tracks in the title dropdown. The title with the longest duration is usually what you need.
4. In the presets window, select “AppleTV” (or feel free to choose another preset that meets your need).
5. Click “Start”

RipIt ($24.95)

Featured on AppStorm before, RipIt is an easy program for ripping video from your DVD discs. Unlike Handbrake, it has built in tools to circumvent most forms of DVD encryption. It has been purposefully designed with less options in an effort to keep the process of ripping DVDs forcibly painless.

You can use RipIt to burn an exact copy of a DVD, or create a compressed video file (sans the menus and extras) to play on your mobile devices. For most users, RipIt is probably the best choice for getting your digital collection started. Interestingly enough, it uses the Handbrake CLI for the compression part of the RipIt job. You can change output formats and target a specific platform if you want (such as iPhone, iPad, etc). Personally, I think the default settings are just fine for a file that can accomplish this mission. To rip a movie using Ripit:

1. Insert DVD
2. Click Compress
3. Click Automatically Compress

DVDFab ($45.00+)

Relatively new to the Mac platform, DVDFab is a powerful ripping suite. Like RipIt, it too can bypass most encryption on today’s DVDs. Unlike RipIt, however, you can be very specific in your output options. You can create mirrored copies of your disk, or target the output for a particular platform.

If you are a cross platform user, DVDFab has a Windows client that operates in almost the exact way as the Mac version. Unfortunately, DVDFab is a bit pricey for most users and that license does not cover both a Mac and Windows installation. However, it does allow you to purchase specific modules which give you the ability to rip Blu-Rays as well as DVDs. To rip a movie using DVDFab:

1. Select DVD Ripper from the options on the right.
2. Select “More” from the preselects and then choose “Apple TV”.
3. By default, the main movie will already be selected. If you want to change it, do that before clicking start.
4. Click “display only forced subpicture” (optional). Typically, I will edit the profile and increase the volume for the ripped movies to 150%. I also change the audio output to Dolby ProLogic II for my particular entertainment output needs.
5. Click “Start”

Meta Information

These last tools are entirely optional. When you burn as many DVDs as I have, gathering DVD cover art can be a pain. Movie descriptions? Forget it. However, if you want your movies to look like you just downloaded them from iTunes, the easiest way to do that is with a tool like MetaX or iDentify. They use the title of the movie (which you can tweak) and scans different movie databases to pull in cast, art, and chapter information. It then adds this information to the output file itself, so when you drop it into iTunes it looks as professional as the big boys.

Final Stretch

Once you have your output file, its time to load it into iTunes. Simply grab your mp4 or m4v file and drag it over to iTunes. If you’ve used a meta program, then you will see your movie with a properly formatted title, description, and cover art. If not, then all you need to do is right click (or control-click) on the file and select “Get Info”. From here, you can update the name, add cover art, and update any other data you want.

Conclusion

Converting your own DVDs to a digital format is a pretty painless process. Using a few basic tools and some pre-planning, you can bring new life to that DVD collection collecting dust in your closet.

Some of the other AppStorm sites have talking about Pocket, a web service formerly known as Read It Later. Pocket, and other similar services, aim to let you save various articles and videos for later consumption, rather than letting them interrupt your workflow. Today we’re going to look at Read Later, which is a Mac desktop client for both the free Pocket and the paid Instapaper. The app was originally released as ReadNow, but it’s evolved quite a bit since we covered it, so let’s see what’s new.

Saving And Reading

Using Read Later with Instapaper requires a paid Instapaper account. Since that’s not something I have, I will be testing the app with my Pocket account. Adding bookmarks to Read Later can either be done externally (my preferred method is using the Pocket extension for Safari) or through the app (drag a URL to the dock or menubar icon). Regardless of how you do it, simply click the sync button in Read Later and all of your bookmarks will instantly show up.

The main view.

The default view for Read Later includes a familiar 3-pane window, much like what we’re used to from apps like Reeder. However, the panes can be hidden or shown to form any configuration at all. This is helpful if you want to keep your bookmark list open on the side of your screen even when you’re not viewing an article, hide the sidebar to eliminate distractions while you’re reading, or anything in between.

Your bookmarks display in a very clean, no-frills format, similar to that of Safari’s built in Reader. However, for those times when you’d prefer to view the webpage, Read Later sports a built in browser.

Organizing and Sharing

This is, in my opinion, where Read Later shines. Read Later allows for a folder structure of whatever complexity you desire, and bookmarks can be drag-and-dropped between them. They can also be tagged from the Edit pop-up in the upper right corner. In addition, the bookmarks list can ben sorted by tags, title, URL, or date, and your entire collection can be searched with the magnifying glass icon at the bottom.

Change the title or tags of bookmarks for archival purposes.

While the interface of Read Later doesn’t necessarily mimic that of Pocket’s web app or iOS apps, any of the organizational changes (particularly in relation to tags and read/unread status) are reflected in those counterparts.

News is becoming more and more social, and Read Later doesn’t try to stand in the way of that. Read Later supports URL-shorteners bit.ly and j.mp, Twitter, Facebook, Pinboard, Delicious, and can even send bookmarks to Evernote.

A Few Extras

As I poked around the Read Later interface, I was pleasantly surprised at the immersive amount of customization available to the user. You can change quite a number of settings that affect the way content is displayed (including a dark setting that inverts the colors), the font style and size of the content, the highlight color in the bookmarks list, and how dock/menubar icons are displayed.

You can also change the way that the app responds to certain input. Not only can you set keyboard shortcuts a few of Read Later’s functions, but you can also change the way that multi-touch gestures are used to navigate the app.

Custom gestures.

The Verdict

I’ve never used Instapaper, and I wasn’t a Read It Later user (until it became Pocket). I can say as a new user that Pocket has implemented a very effective and attractive sense of style and layout in its iOS apps, and one that I’d like to see continued into a native Mac app.

That being said, Read Later is a very well designed, third-party, multi-service client for Mac, and is currently one of the most elegant options for the offline consumption of your “saved for later” material. It allows me to spend a dedicated amount of time in the morning browsing my RSS feeds and saving webpages that I’d like to look at later, and then proceed with my day without letting the news pester my mind. I know that everything will be waiting for me at the end of the day when I can finally sit down to read.

I’m curious to know your thoughts on services like Pocket and Instapaper. What’s your preferred method for utilizing them on the Mac?

But what part of the television experience did Steve believe they “cracked”? Was it just integrating the iTunes Store and TV show subscriptions in a way that could directly challenge the cable package paradigm? Or maybe more exciting to imagine, did he have plans to revolutionize the way that we interact with the television?

Let’s look at some of the possible ways that Apple could let us interact with the big screens in our living rooms.

The Current Remote

The current Apple TV remote is about as bare-bones as it can get. It may not have revolutionized the way that we interact with a TV, but it was a radical departure from traditional TV remotes. Not only did it strip away the buttons and confusing interface that typical television remotes have, it completely ignored the paradigm of using channel numbers to reach your destination.

Apple's current remote is sleek and minimal, but could we hope for something more innovative?

I would like to think that if Apple plans to revolutionize the television, and convince people to switch from the expensive televisions they’ve already invested in, it will need to offer a more exciting way to interact with the screen. The directional pad on the remote can be slow and clunky when used for navigating through grids and menus.

Another thing to consider is that the minimal control scheme provided by this remote would really limit the potential of an App Store on this device. As we will see from the following examples, innovative control schemes could offer a whole new world of possibilities to developers, and could explain why Apple has been holding off on implementing a store into the Apple TV so far.

Siri

Some television sets released in the past few years, such as those integrating Google TV, have shipped with keyboard remotes that enable users to input web searches and other text. But as if existing television remotes weren’t intimidating enough, the extra 30+ buttons make these remotes even clunkier, and the accompanying televisions more complicated to interact with.

I don't see Apple coming out with anything like this.

A far more elegant way to input small bits of text to your television would be through Siri. Siri integration in an Apple TV is probably the most-rumored method of interacting with the device thus far. While televisions are traditionally turned off when not in use, it would be interesting if the Apple TV set were left in a sleep mode, ready to accept voice commands as soon as you enter the room.

This beautiful television in a Corning concept video has an idle mode showing time and notifications, and would always be ready to accept voice commands.

Imagine walking into your living room and saying, “Siri, what’s the weather look like for this week?” or “Siri, what movies are playing?”, and having that information quickly spread out across the large screen. You could also play specific shows or movies quickly with commands like, “Siri, play the latest episode of Big Bang Theory.”

There are already a number of products experimenting with this control scheme. For the Xbox 360, Microsoft released something called Kinect Voice Control, which allows you to control your TV with simple voice commands. Though voice control systems like this haven’t taken off yet, Apple has a history of taking existing technologies and making them mainstream, so Siri integration in the television would have the potential to cause a paradigm shift.

What would Siri look like on the Apple television?

But could voice be the only way that you could interact with a TV? If users have many apps, shows, and other media on the screen, browsing would involve a lot of navigation, and I don’t know if people would be comfortable telling their TV to scroll around all the time. Siri would be great for times when you know exactly what you want, but my best guess is that they would need to pair voice with some other method of control.

Secondary Touch Screen

Another potential method of interacting with the TV could be through a smaller, auxiliary touchscreen that users would hold. Instead of navigating through content on the television itself, users would browse menus and collections of media on the handheld screen. This screen could be the size of existing iPhones, iPads, or somewhere in between, and could be included with the television so users wouldn’t have to give up use of their iPhone or iPad when the family wants to watch TV.

Existing Airplay features may hint at the future cooperation between smaller touch devices and the big screen.

With the upcoming Wii U, Nintendo is using a similar control scheme, bundling the system with a small touchscreen remote. Just as Nintendo expects game developers to find exciting ways for the smaller screen to interact with the television, an app store on Apple’s television would open up a world of opportunities for independent developers.

Nintendo’s executives may cry themselves to sleep at night if Apple takes a stab at their console market as well.

Apple caught mobile gaming companies like Nintendo off guard when its iPhones and iPads turned into fun and affordable portable gaming devices; just imagine the impact it could have on the console gaming market if Apple gave independent developers the opportunity to bring their games to this television.

Body

When I think of using the body to interact with a screen, two things immediately come to my mind: the Xbox Kinect and Tom Cruise’s computer in Minority Report. Both examples are somewhat famous for demonstrating the potential of body-based interaction with user interfaces.

Would it be possible to pull off Tom Cruise's advanced gestures from the living room couch?

When announcing the iPhone, Steve said that it would utilize the best pointing device in the world: our fingers. Just as the iPhone eliminated peripheral tools needed to interact with portable devices, maybe Apple could perfect the remote-less experience of interacting with a television,

As demonstrated by the Kinect, there is a limit to how much precision you can have when moving your arms around to interact with a screen several feet away; gestures have to be fairly broad. Has the Xbox Kinect tapped into the full potential of using the body to interact with a screen, or could future innovations, such as projecting your fingertips on the screen and enabling intuitive gestures, improve our accuracy when interacting with a television in this way?

Projecting the user's fingertips onto the screen could assist in precision and performing gestures like grabbing, pinching, and rotating.

Pointing Device

The most successful example of a television pointing device has to be the Nintendo Wii’s remote. Nintendo made a bold move by adopting a radically different control scheme, and has been rewarded with success as the console reaches entire new audiences of gamers. If using your body to interact with a TV is not accurate enough for Apple’s tastes, using a pointing device could offer a greater level of control.

The Wii's pointing device offers more precision than the Kinect.

Apple would surely make a very sleek pointing device, perhaps one that looks like the existing Apple TV remote. Just as the Wiimote projects a large pointer finger on the screen, this pointing device would probably have some kind of cursor that you could use to select items on the screen. As evidenced by the variety of innovative games produced for the Wii over the years, this control scheme would be very conducive for an app store as well.

Touch

I find this method of interaction to be the least likely. Touch screens this large would be expensive and less practical, considering we generally watch television from several feet back. That being said, a lot of science fiction movies depict a future in which all screens have some touch capabilities, and this concept video by glass company Corning shows how the touch screen might be beneficial.

Would it be too much to ask for a 46", touch capacitive, retina display?

The man walks up to his screen in order to read text from news and emails clearly, and to quickly tap items he wants to view. A touch screen this large would also have huge value in educational and business environments, where it could be used as a virtual whiteboard. Interactive whiteboards from companies like SMART are becoming popular in schools around the country, but have to be calibrated often and have low quality displays. A large, precise, high quality touch screen would be popular in a number of professions.

Conclusion

What did you mean, Steve, you sly devil?

It was certainly uncharacteristic of Steve to reveal Apple’s future plans for a television in his biography. He must have known the effect that this small leak of information would have on the press and enthusiasts. It’s exciting to think that there is a high-security room in Apple’s headquarters likely filled with dozens, if not hundreds, of prototypes for televisions.

They have likely tried most, if not all, methods outlined in this article, and Steve seemed pretty confident that they had found the right pieces to make this television a truly revolutionary product. Hopefully, we will find out in the coming year or two.

Many thanks to Tyler Murphy for providing mockups for this piece.

There are a couple of tools for OS X that attempt to replicate this, but the best one I have used so far is called Windownaut, from Binary Bakery. It makes arranging and snapping windows a breeze, and also has some extra powerful features that I’ve never seen before!

Window Snapping

Main preference window for Windownaut.

Windownaut’s primary purpose is to enable flexible and powerful window snapping on a Mac, and has a lot of options to boot. It runs as an unobtrusive background application, and allows you to “snap” a window to any side of your screen either through dragging or configurable hotkeys. And you can go beyond the typical left/right/maximized options that Windows 7 gives you too: Windownaut allows you to pick any side, any corner, maximized, centered, or even moved to another Spaces screen. Talk about options!

Custom keyboard shortcuts can be assigned to any particular window snap option, so I have mimicked the typical Windows 7 left/right/max choices with the Option+Cmd+arrow keys, and it works wonderfully. Dragging to an edge to snap works well too, giving a nice semi-transparent block to show where the window will end up. Windownaut also works well with Spaces, if you have them enabled. Dragging windows between different spaces in Snow Leopard for example will first show the snapping animation, but then move the window to the next space without interference.

One area where Windownaut could improve its snapping behavior is in returning a window to its original size and position after you’ve snapped around to a couple of different orientations. Windownaut will remember the last size and position, but not necessarily the original, unsnapped one. This causes me to do a little more clicking and dragging to resize and reposition windows than I’d hope, but perhaps that will be added in future versions.

Window Button Enhancements

Add functionality to the traffic lights in OS X with Windownaut.

But wait, there’s more! Windownaut can also add extra functionality to the red, yellow, and green window buttons in the top left of every window, often referred to as the traffic lights. By either adding a right click or a modifier key, each of the buttons can perform new actions. For example, you can assign a right click of the red button to quit the application, instead of just closing the window. Option-clicking the yellow button could allow you to show the currently open document in the Finder. You can also choose to display the layout selector to snap the window to a certain position, or force quit the application.

This may seem like a departure from typical OS X behavior, but I’ve been surprised how often these additional options have come in handy for me. Hopefully more options will be available here in the future as well for even more powerful shortcuts.

Compatibility

An important thing to note is that Windownaut dives deep into how OS X functions in order to work its magic. There are other tools that perform in a similar manner (BetterTouchTool, etc.), but every time I’ve tried one of these apps I always end up experiencing problems clicking and not having the system respond as it should.

The developer of Windownaut, Hisham Khalifa, has worked extra hard to remove these types of bugs, and he seems to have nailed them all. Since the official release of Windownaut I have not experienced any hung clicks or stuck buttons, which is a major accomplishment.

Availability

Windownaut is available for purchase from the Binary Bakery website for $9.99 for use on up to two Macs, or in a three-pack for $16.99. There is a 14-day trial so that you can try it before you buy. If you are looking for a way to recreate Windows 7’s window snapping functionality with a lot of added power, I would definitely recommend trying out Windownaut.

The “utility” software niche is one that is extremely active in the Mac application community. There is an abundance of fantastic utilities currently available, and that list is ever changing. We love this type of software at AppStorm, regularly reviewing different apps that let you tweak and tune your computer.

With the area changing so fast, we decided to take a look at some of the best and most useful Mac OS X utilities that are available right now. What you’ll see here is by no means an all-encompassing list, but rather a collection of utilities broken up into some basic groups that I found to be very useful to a lot of people.

I hope you discover some applications that will be helpful for you!

System Utilities

Mactracker

Mactracker is a simple appliction that will provide you with about all the information about your Mac, iPod, iPhone or any other Mac piece of hardware for that matter, you’d like. This can be really useful information for purchasing software or hardware upgrades. Sometimes finding all the info you need isn’t that easy and Macktracker makes that process extremely straight forward.

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5.0 or later
Developer: Ian Page

DesktopMonitor

This application aids you in monitoring your Mac’s performance. You’ll be able to track things like fan speed, CPU/GPU usage and memory usage. An application like this can be helpful in tracking down hardware and software problems with your Mac.

Price: $1.99
Requires:
Developer: Buick Wong

MiniUsage

MiniUsage is an application that will essentially take all of the information avaliable through the Activity Monitor and place it in a quickly accessible place in the menu bar. You’ll see a running CPU percentage and, when clicked, you’ll see all of the other activities being monitored.

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5 or later
Developer: sekn

Cockpit

Cockpit calls itself the “missing Mac control center” and that fits the bill quite well. This application will automate many system tasks. These can consist of Automator workflows, AppleScript, or shell scripts. Easy to use for the novice and very extensible for the power-user.

Price: $3.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: green&slimy

Wallpaper Wizard

With Wallpaper Wizard you’ll be able to have a fresh wallpaper just about whenever you’d like. You can set the application to automatically change your wallpaper and even customize the types of images it cycles through. It is also possible to add your own images into the mix if you’d like. With over 100,000 images in the database you’ll have plenty of variety.

Price: $9.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: Coppertino Inc.

Caffeine

Caffeine is a super simple application that solves one problem. It will allow you to prevent your Mac from automatically going to sleep or dimming the screen. This is a menu bar application so it is easy to turn on and off.

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: Lighthead Software

SmartSleep

Another sleep management application here with the difference being that you’re able to customize how your Mac goes to sleep. You can set different sleep settings based on the battery level, or also just keep it awake permanently. This application adds a whole new level of sleep and power management customization.

Price: $3.99
Developer: Patrick Stein

Shuttie

Shuttie is a basic scheduler application that will give you the capability to set times when you’d like your Mac to shutdown, restart, sleep, or log out. It proves itself very handy in certain situations.

Price: $1.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5 or later
Developer: Kuko.sk

MacPilot

MacPilot gives you access to easily enable and disable hidden features in Mac OS X, optimize and repair your system, and perform lots of other routine operations all without needing to use Terminal. There are many many features that can be enabled and disabled with the click of a button along with maintenance tasks that are easy to initiate.

Price: $19.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later
Developer: Koingo Software, Inc.

Cocktail

Cocktail calls itself a general purpose utility for Mac OS X. This application basically simplifies many complex UNIX functions. Performing certain maintenace tasks regularly can make a world of difference for your OS X experience and Cocktail makes those tasks dead simple to perform.

Price: $19.00
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6
Developer: Maintain

OnyX 2.2.1

OnyX is a free Mac OS X utility that allows you to verify the Startup Disk and the structure of its System files. It will also run all sorts of maintenance tasks. OnyX has got you covered.

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: Titanium’s Software

AppleJack

AppleJack allows you to run some maintenance tasks from single user mode. This is extremely handy when you don’t have your OS disk handy or can’t load the GUI at all. A utilitarian application for sure, but a handy one that can really bail you out.

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6
Developer: Kristofer Widholm

Geekbench 2

You’ve just made some hardware upgrades to your Mac and now you want to know how much better your performace will be. How do you do it? GeekBench is an application that will measure your Mac’s processor and memory performance so you can really see if you’re getting the gains you had hoped for.

Price: $12.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later
Developer: Primate Labs

NovaBench

NovaBench is a benchmarking tool as well, but this is a free one. You may not get quite as much detail from this application, but you will get some really solid system performance information. Kick it off and in a couple minutes you’ll have your results.

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5 or later
Developer: Novatech Network

Drive Management Utilities

MacCleanse

MacCleanse is a tool that will give your Mac a good “clean”. It will run through a range of tasks for you to free up some hard drive space. It does things like erase caches, logs, cookies, histories among other things. You’ll get detailed information on everything the application did.

Price: $19.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.4.4 or later
Developer: Koingo Software, Inc.

Smart Drive

Hard drive failures suck. If you’re vigilant about your backups, it’s not a huge deal, but they always come at unexpected times which creates more problems than you want to deal with. Smart Drive is an application that will analyze your hard drive’s health and allow you to predict when things are going bad – before they really go bad.

Update: Smart Drive appears to be a dead project, you may want to try Disk Warrior instead.

Price: $2.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: Lestat Ali Productions

DaisyDisk

Running out of drive space is often a frustrating issue, and Daisy Disk puts a fresh spin on managing your storage. It will display an interactive visual map of the files on your machine. You’ll be able to see exactly what the space hogging files are, and even access them directly from the app. It’s a great tool to clean your drive of files you don’t need and didn’t even know you had.

Price: $9.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6.0 or later
Developer: Software Ambience Corp.

Space Gremlin

Space Gremlin has a similar functionality to Daisy Disk, but uses a different method of visually displaying your files and the space they are occupying. It arguably isn’t quite as pretty, but it is functional nonetheless and I would venture a guess that some folks would even like this style even better.

Price: $3.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: 10 Million Apps

Carbon Copy Cloner

Carbon Copy Cloner is an application that will allow you to clone your hard drive, and you can create a bootable backup if you’d like. It is also a very handy tool for migrating to a new hard drive. Backups can even be scheduled so you don’t have to remember to run them. A really great tool for a variety of situations.

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS 10.4 Tiger (10.4.8 or higher), Mac OS 10.5 Leopard, Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard
Developer: Bombich Software, LLC

File/Folder Management Utilities

TotalFinder

TotalFinder really makes the OS X finder what it should have been in the first place. It makes Finder just flat out more useful and easier to interact with. It’s one of those applications that just blends right into the OS. The 30-day trial will certainly hook you. Give it a try, I dare you.

Price: $18.00
Requires: OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard)
Developer: Binary Age

Telling Folders

Telling Folders is a little utility that lets you customize the look of your folders. Drag an image onto the folder and you’ll see the custom icon. A handy undo fuction will bail you out if you make a mistake.

Price: $1.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later
Developer: omz:software

The Unarchiver

This application is a simple tool to extract about any file type you can throw at it. It claims that it is the only unarchiving program you’ll ever need. A good one to have in the toolbelt.

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later
Developer: Dag Agren

Cloud

Cloud is an application that works in conjunction with the CloudApp web application. It is a tool that allows you to quickly share files. Drag a file onto the menu bar icon and a shortcut link to the file is placed in your clipboard ready to share. A really helpful application for sharing things with your team.

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: Linebreak

FileShredder

This application will allow you to quickly and securely delete files from your Mac or an external USB drive. It can be added to the Finder toolbar to allow for quick removal of files.

Price: $3.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: VoidTech Inc.

FileSorter

I’ve have a folder where I throw things that I’m not sure belong any other place. It’s a “catch all” folder, essentially. Sometimes there are things I need to keep from there, but it’s tough to figure out what is what. FileSorter simplifies the file sorting process and allows customization by creating rules and assigning actions that are taken on the files.

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: Clemens Schulz/a>

Singlemizer

Singlemizer will sift through your files and find duplicates. I’m sure we’ve all got multiple copies of the exact same files occyping disk space on our machines. This application offers a quick and easy way (that also guarantees 100% matching) to clean up those unneeded files.

Price: $9.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: Minimalistic Dev.

Blast Utility

Blast is a menu bar utility that aims to help you be more productive. It keeps track of all the files, folders, and applications you’ve recently been using. I know we’re all supposed to be super-organized, but sometimes you can remember exactly where you saved that Pages document you were working on last night. You’ll see it in Blast and open right from there. You can even save your favorite folders for quick access.

Price: $9.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5 or later
Developer: Apparent Software

Security and Virus Protection

PwGenerator

As you may have guessed from the name already, PwGenerator is a utility that creates passwords and Wi-Fi keys for you. Customizations in characters used will allow you to tweak the passwords generated. You’ll also be able to see how secure the password you just created actually is.

Price: $1.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later
Developer: devserahug

1Password

1Password is really the mother of all password utilitiy applications. It can generate and save passwords in a secure and easy to organize way. Browser plugins aid in password completion for you as you wander the Web. Accompanying applications for mobile devices make this utility even more useful. As complicated as the online world is today, this utility is one that can do great things to keep your info secure and make your life easier.

Price: $49.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard)
Developer: Agile Web Solutions

Padlock

Padlock is a very simple utility that fills an oft-lamented gap in Mac OS X. It allows you to start your screensaver or put your system to sleep with a single keystroke. This can be accompanied with locking your machine so that you can quickly secure your Mac should you need to step away for a few minutes.

Price: $2.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later
Developer: Mizage

ClamXav 2

Virus and malware isn’t necessarily a prevelant problem with Mac OS X at this time. That doesn’t mean there aren’t threats out there, so it may still make sense to take precautions. ClamXav is an open source virus scanner that is actively supported. Being free, easy to use, and actively updated makes it a no brainer to have on your Mac.

Price: Free
Requires: Requires at least Mac OS X 10.4
Developer: Mark Allen

VirusBarrier Plus

There are not a lot of full featured antivirus and anti-malware utilities available for Mac OS X out there, but this is one of them. It will offer some added functionality over ClamXav in a little nicer interface. With that does come a cost, but it is still very affordable.

Price: $9.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later
Developer: Intego

Desktop/Workspace Utilities

XMenu

XMenu is a handy little utility that adds one or more global menus to the menu bar for quick access. Quickly access your most used directories and even insert text snippets or web addresses into email messages or Pages documents.

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: DEVONtechnologies, LLC

MenuStrip

This utility will allow you to create custom menus that will either live in the menu bar, or as a separate menu strip that can be placed anywhere. Tons of customization options are available to make this a very useful utility. It can even place a menu strip on a secondary monitor.

Price: $9.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: Indeeo, Inc.

Clean Slate

Clean Slate is a utility that will quickly clean up your desktop. “Clean” maybe isn’t the right word. It will hide everything on your desktop. This could be really handy for folks that do a lot of screencast recordings, demonstrations, or presentations using the Mac. You can keep your desktop as messy as you’d like and just keep that to yourself!

Price: $1.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: Old Jewel Software

CalendarBar

iCal does have some shortcomings, but is overall a decent calendar application. CalendarBar extends its functionality by allowing you to see calendar events in the menu bar. It will also show events from Facebook and Google Calendar. iCal todos are also supported.

Price: $1.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later, 64-bit processor
Developer: Clean Cut Code

Contacts Cleaner

Contacts Cleaner is a utility that will analyze your Address Book and report any potential problems back to you. A contact list can easily and quickly get out of control and unorganized unless we give it some attention. This utility automates that tedious process.

Price: $4.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later
Developer: Spanning Sync, Inc.

Tembo

Tembo is a robust search tool for your Mac. Spotlight is pretty great at doing quick basic searches, but Tembo takes that functionality up a few notches. It does context searches, filtering and also groups certain file types together to help you more easily find what you’re looking for.

Price: $14.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later
Developer: Houdah Software

Alfred

I suppose you could call Alfred a launcher utility, but it really is much more than that. The developers describe it as a “keyboard-driven productivity application” which is basically right on. I’m an avid Alfred user and can say that it is one of my most used apps and one that certainly does save me a lot of time and frustration. This is one of my favorites on the list.

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5 or later
Developer: Running with Crayons Ltd

Hyperspaces

Hyperspaces works with OS X Spaces and allows futher customization of that utility. Customization if the name of the game here. You’re able to make each space noticeably different from the other. Spaces is a really powerful way to organize your workspace and Hyperspaces just adds a little extra goodness to it.

Price: $12.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later
Developer: The CocoaBots

DockView Lite

If you’re a big Dock user this one will be really useful for you. It displays a preview window of what applications are currently open when you hover over the correlating Dock icon. I should note that the free version will only display one window. The full version carries a $7.99 pricetag.

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: Kapeli

Moom

Resizing windows to optimize your workspace can be a pain in OS X. Thankfully there are some utilities available to help us out with this. Moom is one such utility that will allow you to resize windows to predefined and custom sizes and locations using the keyboard or mouse.

Price: $4.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later
Developer: Many Tricks

Divvy

Divvy is another window management utility, but it is more robust than any others you’ll see in this list. It essentially lets you divvy (who would have guessed?) up your screen between applications to take full advantage of all available real estate.

Price: $13.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later
Developer: Mizage

iSnap

iSnap is a window management utility that works a bit differently than the others in this list. By dragging windows to various sections of your screen you can optimize the available space. Keyboard shortcuts can also be set to accomplish the same things.

Price: Free (on sale now)
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: T-bone

Cinch

Cinch allows you to organize windows by dragging windows to pre-defined hot zones. Drag a window into the zone and you’ll see the space it will fill. Release the window and it will take up the defined spaces. Pull it away and it will go back to its original size. Simple, but handy window management.

Price: $6.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6.5 or later
Developer: Irradiated Software

Final Thoughts

As I mentioned, this is by no means a complete list, but I do think that these are some of the best – and most useful – OS X utilities available right now. Hopefully you’ve discovered some applications you weren’t aware of that can be helpful to you.

This developer community is so active that I’ll guarantee we continue to see more and more incredible utilities as the days go by. If you think I missed some important apps, or one that you find especially useful, please mention them in the comments below!

This article has five utility apps that I use just about every day but haven’t ever read or heard much about. The apps range from a screenshot application to a great touchpad tool that I love. Read on to learn about five of my favorite free apps that you should check out today.

PixAM

The first application is an all-in-one screenshot taking, editing and sharing application. If I use PixAM on my computer, the shot I take is automatically synced to the cloud for access on my computer, iPad or iPhone. You can utilize the application for immediate editing with a variety of tools and colors. It even provides a URL with every screenshot to share the shot with friends or co-workers via email.

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: Sergey Bolshedvorsky

Pix.AM

Desktop Curtain

Desktop is a simple tool that allows you to hide your desktop. It’s useful if you need to hide the desktop clutter during a presentation. I personally like to use it if I need to take a screenshot on a clean background if I’m writing a review. It’s a fantastic, free utility and offers every feature I need from it. However, there is a paid version available on the App Store that offers a few more features, such as a hot key.

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later
Developer: Many Tricks

Desktop Curtain

Better Touch Tool

I used to be (and still often am) a huge fan of keyboard shortcuts. I had a shortcut for virtually everything that I did. Then, I got a MacBook Pro and realized the beauty of multi-touch gesture support. Better Touch Tool was my app of choice to start really taking advantage of the trackpad. I also love that the app allows you to utilize the ability to snap windows to either side as that was one of the only things I missed about my Windows computer. With this app, you’ll enjoy a huge amount of new functionality available to for free.

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: Andreas Hegenberg

Better Touch Tool

EasyFind

EasyFind is an application that can either replace or supplement the Finder and Spotlight. If you’re doing a simple search, the Finder might work just fine. However, if you need features like boolean operators, searches that don’t require indexing, or the ability to find invisible files, then EasyFind is what you need. EasyFind is a great app that takes little to run and does an awesome job.

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: Devon Technologies

EasyFind

What Free Hidden Gems Do You Use?

These are, of course, just a small selection of the great free applications out there. I definitely think these five are worth a download. You will find they fit into your workflow quite nicely and soon you’ll wonder why you hadn’t heard about them sooner.

These are five applications that I think should be extremely popular. As always, I’m curious to know what your choices would be. What free apps do you think deserve more publicity? Share your thoughts below.