Here’s how to get excerpts of your SuperDuper! log file to display on your Desktop.

Posted by Mirko at 04:24 PM | Permalink

Some TextMate automations interact with the user via GUI dialog boxes they display. Others show the user a web page with links that can trigger actions. We will take the road less traveled, though, and ask TextMate to respond to normal typing operations, turning it into a semi-interactive environment. This wouldn't be ideal for all commands, but it could be a useful technique for creating tools like a TextMate-savvy IRb (Interactive Ruby) clone or the shell worksheets some other editors have. It also makes fun calculators.

Posted by Mirko at 10:16 PM | Permalink

One nice thing about Mail is the Redirect feature, which lets you forward mail to a particular address so that it does not appear to have been forwarded from you. The final recipient sees the message just as you did when it arrived in your inbox.

One annoying thing about Mail’s Redirect feature is that it cannot be used on more than one message at a time. You can’t select, say, the entire contents of one mailbox and tell Mail to redirect all those messages to your Gmail account. If you select more than one message, the Redirect menu item is unusable. Here's the solution.

Posted by Mirko at 11:54 AM | Permalink

Apple introduced Final Cut Server, a powerful new server application that works seamlessly with Final Cut Studio 2 to provide media asset management and workflow automation for post production and broadcast professionals.

Continue reading "Final Cut Server provides workflow automation for professionals" »

Posted by Mirko at 08:58 AM | Permalink

The new version brings improved audio quality, the ability for the user to transfer calls to his Skype contacts – effortlessly. Please note that it is recommended for experienced Skype users only.

Posted by Mirko at 01:13 AM | Permalink

Downloading your favorite TV show is much easier than it was a few years ago with the help of torrent indexing sites and great software. With the arrival of the open source TVShows application, the whole thing just got even easier.

Posted by Mirko at 12:56 AM | Permalink

Those considering setting up a Windows partition on a Mac using the test version of Apple's Boot Camp might want to pay close attention to the licensing terms that accompany the beta software. According to the terms, which are posted on Apple's Web site, the software is only licensed until Apple comes out with a commercial release of Boot Camp, or until September 30, whichever comes first.

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

There may come a time when you have to bid a fond farewell to an old computer. Perhaps it just doesn’t have enough processing power or drive space to cut it as a message center or a backup server. Or maybe your small living area can’t hold yet another machine. Whether you want to sell it, donate it, or simply recycle it, you should take steps to protect yourself and the environment.

Posted by Mirko at 08:43 AM | Permalink

With GarageBand, you can create your own music, whether or not you play an instrument. Use your imagination to choose, combine, and arrange prerecorded pieces of music called loops to make your own composition. GarageBand includes a loop browser that lets you try out, or "audition," loops and a timeline where you can arrange loops into a song.

Posted by Mirko at 08:40 AM | Permalink

The Magic Number Machine is a free, full-featured, graphically laid out, high-precision, scientific calculator for Mac OS X 10.4 and greater. It is sdeal if you need to enter large expressions or have accurate precision. "Data" drawers allow an easy way to generate statistical data, linear regression and gaussian elimination. The extensive support of complex numbers and hexadecimal numbers is also a significant benefit for anyone who has to work with this type of data.

Posted by Mirko at 08:29 AM | Permalink

Just two weeks after Apple released its streaming media box to the public, hackers successfully installed OS X, Apple's desktop operating system, on the $300 device, making it the cheapest PC Cupertino has ever sold.

"The breakthrough is done, OS X runs on Apple TV!" wrote "Semthex," the anonymous hacker responsible for the mod, at his website. "Now we got (the) low-budget Mac we ever wanted."

Posted by Mirko at 03:39 PM | Permalink

Let’s say you’re reading an article online, and you read a sentence that you want to email to a friend. Don’t do the copy-and-paste thing. Instead, just highlight the text and drag-and-drop it right on the Mail icon in the Dock. It will open Mail and put that sentence into a new mail message.

Posted by Mirko at 09:21 AM | Permalink

Mac software is usually distributed in a way that encourages simple drag-and-drop installation. Uninstallation in such cases requires dragging the same file to the Trash. Google doesn’t use such a simple method nor does it use Apple’s standard installer. Google Desktop is delivered using another new Google app, called Google Updater. Read on at Daring Fireball for details on what goes on during installation.

Posted by Mirko at 01:33 AM | Permalink

Despite what Apple wants you to think, your Mac isn't invincible. While Macs may be less vulnerable to viruses and spyware than PC's, they're just as likely to get stolen or suffer from a hardware failure like a hard drive crash. When that happens, will it be a catastrophe, or just an inconvenience? It depends on whether or not - and how well - you back up your Mac.

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

Google Desktop makes searching your computer as easy as searching the web with Google. It's a desktop search application that provides full text search over your email, files, music, photos, chats, Gmail, web pages that you've viewed, and more.

The Mac version is finally out and it requires Mac OS 10.4+.

Posted by Mirko at 01:11 PM | Permalink

There are two huge advantages to off-site backup on a server. First, if something catastrophic happens, like a fire or theft, I need to have my critical files stored in some other location. Secondly, it enables you to access those critical files from any computer, anywhere. This tutorial has a pretty high geek rating - it requires you to use some programs you might not be familiar with, like Terminal, and the Applescript Editor. It’s written to be understood by casual computer users.

Posted by Mirko at 04:55 PM | Permalink

Mac users have more browsers to choose from then any other platform. The question is, which one delivers the most performance? Last year we tested four of the most popular browsers and found that OmniWeb (which uses a tweaked version of Apple’s WebCore engine) and the WebKit nightly build more or less tied on the test suite.

Posted by Mirko at 03:46 PM | Permalink

You are a busy person, aren't you? And there's an easy way to track all things that have to be done... and to get those things done!

iGTD takes some concepts from Getting Things Done methodology and makes them easy to understand and use in your every day life.

Posted by Mirko at 03:41 PM | Permalink

Do Something When is a system preference pane that allows the user to watch for drives mounting and un-mounting, allowing them to launch or quit applications, whenthese events happen. For example, you can launch iTunes when your music hard drive gets mounted, you can quit iTunes when you eject the drive.

Posted by Mirko at 12:06 AM | Permalink

Notae keeps all of your thoughts together. It lets you tag each item with words that are important to you, not just with predefined labels. Then, when you need that data the most, Notae lets you quickly search your data by content or tag to find what you’re looking for.

Posted by Mirko at 12:09 AM | Permalink

If you backup your files to optical disc, you know how fragile those backups really are. Scratches, labels – even just age or poor manufacturing – can make those discs unreadable within months. TrueDisc transforms your files into special “master copies” and burns those master copies to disc.

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

Do you have dozens of PDF files from your favorite scientific articles scattered on your harddrive? Do you also try to desperately organize them by renaming and archiving them in folders? Papers will revolutionize the way you deal with scientific papers. Search for papers using PubMed, directly retrieve and archive PDFs, and read and study them all from within Papers, your personal library of Science. For a review of Papers head over to Ars Technica.

Posted by Mirko at 12:01 AM | Permalink

Thinking Rock is a free software application for collecting and processing your thoughts following the GTD methodology. A lot of our mental energy is directed towards trying to remember and manage all the things that we want or need to do. Thinking Rock will allow you to clear your mind so that you can become more proactive and concentrate on what is important to you.

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

What if it were as easy to get stuff into your Mac as it is to find it with Spotlight? Enter Trapper Keeper, a light and accessible utility for managing your notes. Always available in the menu bar, if you’ve used Spotlight, you’ll find it instantly familiar (as in instant results).

Posted by Mirko at 02:56 AM | Permalink

Jason writes: "With the arrival of my Apple TV yesterday I needed a solution to get my Xvix/WMV/Divx files converted and imported into iTunes so that I can watch them. I already have Quicktime Pro, which with the recent release added the ability to “Export to Apple TV”. Since I have a lot of files, and no desire to sit around and convert these one at a time, it seemed like a perfect job for Automator."

Posted by Mirko at 01:45 AM | Permalink

Black Ink makes it easy to download and solve free puzzles from the Internet.

The ultimate crossword solving application for Mac OS X, Black Ink's intuitive interface and advanced puzzle solving tools are a joy for crossword lovers of all ages and skills.

Continue reading "Black Ink - solve crosswords with style" »

Posted by Mirko at 07:58 PM | Permalink

Home automation is a topic that both excites and daunts some of us. Gordon Meyer from O'Reilly's Mac DevCenter has incorporated some of those "hacks" to interface with Twitter. Twitter, for those who aren't familiar, is the (infamous?) microblogging platform that allows users to update their statuses via a multitude of platforms—IM, SMS, e-mail, web—as well as receive notifications from friends via those same platforms.

Posted by Mirko at 01:36 AM | Permalink

The fusion of web services and desktop software is a holy grail of computing bliss that few can claim. Anyone who has ever gone back and forth on whether to use the convenience and innovation of Gmail on the web vs. the power and integration of a desktop email client like Apple's Mail.app knows what we're talking about. While the melding of these two universes might seem like an impossible hope to some, Mailplane is a new desktop Gmail client in private beta that just may be a light at the end of the tunnel.

Posted by Mirko at 01:43 AM | Permalink

It’s only taken Apple engineers about a decade, but they have finally properly implemented support for Mac OS X’s Full Keyboard Access in one of their most widely used applications, i.e. iTunes. (I have been complaining about the lack of support for Full Keyboard Access in Apple’s own applications, including iTunes, for years.)

Posted by Mirko at 12:06 AM | Permalink

One of the best ways to keep up with information about the state of your computer is to embed it in your desktop as simple, plain text. Sure, Dashboard/Yahoo/Google/Vista widgets are big, colorful desktop toys, but they also can be distracting, space-hogging and stingy with vital information. If you like to monitor your system using age-old command line tools like uptime and top, you want the free GeekTool on your Mac. Today we'll cover how to automatically embed command output, text files and even monitoring images - like web site traffic charts - onto your Mac desktop with GeekTool.

Posted by Mirko at 11:58 AM | Permalink

Apple’s Aperture application is an extremely versatile digital photography workflow tool. In Aperture, once an image has been imported into a project in the library, the original file, called a master, is never modified. As images are adjusted and edited, instead of the space-intensive duplicate-edit-save cycle of Photoshop and other tools, Aperture’s workflow stores changes as very small recipe files called versions. When a particular version of an image is displayed or exported, Aperture reads the master from disk and applies the recipe. Changes to a recipe can be made and unmade at any time and in any order, resulting in a non-linear, non-destructive and very flexible workflow. onegolf.de Clubmitgliedschaft, erfahren Sie mehr!

Posted by Mirko at 09:52 PM | Permalink

Ed Eubanks writes: "Every now and then, my Macs begin to feel a little sluggish. There are many potential reasons why: I tend to run 8-10 applications all the time - and sometimes push 15 or more. This alone will bog down any Mac. When those don't speed things up, I've found a number of things I can do to encourage my Macs back to their youthful snappiness. Here are a few tips I've found for restoring my Macs to full speed without spending a penny."

Posted by Mirko at 07:32 PM | Permalink

Aside from bringing the application up-to-date with the latest security updates from the Mozilla/Firefox code base, there are a few fixes and new features: better support for importing iCab bookmarks and Internet Explorer ".url" shortcuts, an updated Java plugin, and support for restoring corrupted bookmarks from a backup.

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

There are four versions of Skype: for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows Mobile. Can you run all of them in one computer and have them talk to each other?

Posted by Mirko at 01:30 AM | Permalink

Your receipts, ebooks, scanned newspaper articles, tax forms, gadget manuals and client contracts can be available at your fingertips whether or not you're by your filing cabinet. And you can organize them using iTunes.

Posted by Mirko at 12:15 AM | Permalink

This blog post will show you how to make a firewall-related workflow more intuitive.

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

One of the often overlooked features of Safari is its Activity window, hiding in plain sight in the Window menu (or just press Command-Option-A for fast access). The Activity window shows activity related to the Web pages you are viewing. If you try to load a page and it stalls out with “loading,” for instance, the Activity window will show you exactly which item is causing the problem—just click the disclosure triangle next to the page in question, and you’ll see entries for every item on the page, and (if those items are loaded) their size or (if they’re not loaded) a message showing their status.

Posted by Mirko at 09:27 PM | Permalink

Apple has issued a collection of 8 security updates for both the OS X and Windows versions of its QuickTime multimedia software. French Security Incident Response Team (FrSIRT) issued its most severe security rating of "critical" for all flaws.

All 8 flaws affects current versions of Quicktime for Windows Vista, XP and 2000. Seven of the vulnerabilities also affect OS X versions 10.3.9 and later.

Posted by Mirko at 10:02 AM | Permalink

If you create slideshows with your photos and burn them to DVD for playback in set-top players, you might want to enhance your packaging with a nice album cover and liner notes.

Posted by Mirko at 09:10 AM | Permalink

Some times sensitive data needs to be sent via email and as it travels to it’s destination it can be intercepted by hackers, ISPs, the office IT geek or even a strict government. In this tutorial, we’ll discuss how to use Apple’s Mail application to send secure emails that are signed and encrypted. How does it work? Both parties get a free personal certificate from a trusted source and then we let Mail do the rest.

Posted by Mirko at 12:05 AM | Permalink

Hard drives have a way of filling up—especially laptop drives. Install OS X and your favorite apps, and then add your music collection, photos, and videos—and that space can disappear in a flash. If you can’t get a larger hard drive for your portable Mac, the easiest way to get more storage space is to get rid of stuff you don’t need. To start the process, consider the following suggestions.

Posted by Mirko at 01:21 AM | Permalink

VMware released a second beta of its Fusion virtualization software. This marks the second major release this week of virtualization software for running the Windows operating system on Macs. VMware rival Parallels released version 2.5 of its software on Feb. 27. Among the improvements in the new version of VMware’s Fusion is an ability to run Windows-designed 3-D gaming software.

Posted by Mirko at 11:30 AM | Permalink

With Backup 3, protection is easy to set up and schedule so backups can happen automatically, without your constant attention. Built-in Tiger Spotlight makes it easy to select exactly the files you want to back up. Backup 3.1.1 is highly recommended for all users of Backup 3. New in this version: backup and restore with external drives, memory management and the restore of bundled file types.

Posted by Mirko at 01:53 AM | Permalink

You may not realize it, but every time you save a PDF in OS X, you’re potentially sharing at least a bit of personal information: your name. This may not be a big issue to you, but for someone whose job is, for example, to anonymously review and comment on manuscripts, it could be a problem. Read this article to get tips on how to make some of the information disappear.

Posted by Mirko at 11:10 PM | Permalink

While how fast a browser can render a web page is certainly an important weapon in the browser war arguments, the difference is usually a matter of seconds at the most. To my mind, a more important measure of speed is how a browser affects the overall speed of your SYSTEM.

Posted by Mirko at 12:04 PM | Permalink

Encryption can be used to keep the contents of the email safe from prying eyes. It can also be used to certify that the message a person receives was actually issued by the individual listed in the messages from field. Email encryption is a complicated process that is simply convoluted for the average computer user. Mac users are no exception, so here’s a rundown on the ins and outs of encrypted email.

Posted by Mirko at 03:57 PM | Permalink

Soundstream has colorful Flurry-like streams pulse to the beat of music or bloom with ambient noise.

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

EyeTV-compatible tuners, like those offered by Elgato and Miglia, are the television tuners of choice for the Macintosh. These tuners provide analog and digital, standard and high definition solutions for Mac TV-watching. You can sit in front of your Mac and watch your shows as they record. But say you want to watch a show in your living room or bedroom? Sure you can wait for the show to finish recording, copy it over your local network, and then watch it. Or you can put on your hacker's cap and stream it in real time.

Posted by Mirko at 02:19 AM | Permalink

After a year in public beta, Adobe has released Photoshop Lightroom 1.0, a brand-new workflow tool that combines image editing and photo management with the ability to produce slide shows, high-quality prints, and Web portfolios. Like Apple’s Aperture, against which it competes, Lightroom is designed as a professional-level product that also appeals to serious amateur photographers. After a year in development, Lightroom is a feature-rich and powerful tool, even in its version-1.0 state.

Posted by Mirko at 01:38 AM | Permalink

Pierre Igot writes: "Mac OS X’s Mail has a pretty long history of sheer idiocy when it comes to sending e-mail messages. But there is one aspect that has always been particularly irritating to me, not just as a Mail user myself, but as someone who provides Mac tech support services to other Mail users."

Posted by Mirko at 12:02 AM | Permalink

Everyone loves the iPod. Not everyone loves iTunes. It's not that iTunes is a bad application, but it does limit what you can do with your iPod. This article will show you how to free yourself from the one computer, one music library shackles of iTunes using alternative software for managing the iPod. When you're done here, you'll be able to add music and movies to your iPod from any computer - and retain almost every other useful feature iTunes brings to your iPod.

Posted by Mirko at 01:34 AM | Permalink

If you want to run Windows applications on your Intel powered Mac, you will be happy to learn that there are three different ways. The first method is by using Crossover for Mac, the second is using Parallels, and the third method is using Boot Camp. Each has their own advantages and disadvantages. This article will explain the differences between these programs and from there you should be able to figure out which method works best for you.

Posted by Mirko at 12:51 AM | Permalink

MailTemplate automates the process of composing e-mail messages. Using predefined templates with embedded macros, MailTemplate dramatically reduces the time involved in composing both replies and new e-mail messages.

Posted by Mirko at 12:06 AM | Permalink

Every house has cardboard boxes and filing cabinets full of receipts, important medical records, old letters and income tax returns, usually inconveniently stuck in the basement somewhere. Yep finally gives you a tool to keep all these documents in one place, instantly retrievable and searchable.

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

If you need to have a collection of vital information always in your pocket but you don't want to carry a notebook around, you can always use PagePacker that enables you to use the technique of cutting and folding pieces of paper into little books.

Posted by Mirko at 12:00 AM | Permalink

Socialist is a revolutionary social bookmark manager that works with del.icio.us and your RSS feeds. You can quickly and easily subscribe to friends and tags on del.icio.us or to an RSS feed to get the latest information.

Posted by Mirko at 12:01 AM | Permalink

Converting a bunch of AVI files to a DVD shouldn't require a Computer Science degree. Getting movies from your digital camera to your iPod shouldn't take hours. Wading through a sea of video formats shouldn't pull you under. VisualHub bridges the gap between numerous complicated video formatting standards, and people that just want to get the job done - just what you would expect from the Mac.

Posted by Mirko at 12:00 AM | Permalink

To enable high-quality video calls with Skype for Mac, first download the latest version of Skype for Mac. You need version 2.5.0.85 or newer. Then follow these instructions.

Posted by Mirko at 02:11 PM | Permalink

Correo is an new open-source mail client that blends technology from two popular Mozilla projects, Camino and Thunderbird, to create a polished native Macintosh application.

Posted by Mirko at 12:01 AM | Permalink

All Lightroom fans will be excited to learn that a great book is to be released about it in March. PhotoshopNews has a free PDF download of Chapter 1.

As a professional photographer, author Martin Evening knows firsthand what photographers need for a more efficient workflow. He's been working with Lightroom from the beginning, providing feedback to Lightroom's public beta and monitoring the product's development. The book describes Lightroom's features in detail and with photographer's in mind.

Posted by Mirko at 01:03 AM | Permalink

Spyder makes it easy to keep in touch with your friends or fan-base by message or comment. Add as many friends as you want, Spyder allows you to send friend requests too. Spyder also helps you manage all your accounts, whether you have just a personal account or an additional band or business account you can easily switch between your different accounts.

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

Unity, the game development engine behind Ambrosia Software’s Gooball and Freeverse Software’s forthcoming Big Bang Brain Games, has been updated to version 1.6.1. A free update, Unity is priced starting at $249.

Posted by Mirko at 01:21 AM | Permalink

CoverSutra sports a variety of methods that let you control iTunes. See what's currently playing or enjoy your album artwork. Do not let yourself be distracted from your work, CoverSutra is never in your way but always by your side.

Posted by Mirko at 12:09 AM | Permalink

Google Notifier is a program I wrote that lets you know when there is new Gmail ready to be read in your inbox and when you have upcoming Google Calendar events. The basic features of Notifier are pretty obvious, but there are a few bits of trivia that Notifier users might be interested in.

Posted by Mirko at 04:22 PM | Permalink

If you use Mail.app a lot, this series of five tutorials are something to check out. The tips, ideas and workflows that demonstrated will be useful to everyone. Hawk Wings has all the details.

Posted by Mirko at 05:27 PM | Permalink

If you find yourself typing the same thing over and over again when answering emails, Ryan Carson has a real time-saving tip for you. Watch the video below to see how Text Expander can save you time on when answering emails.

Posted by Mirko at 01:18 PM | Permalink

Among many other fixes, the guys at Panic fixed a bug relating to hanging SSL connections, improved message count accuracy, improved message parsing, and made random signatures more random. It's not a super critical update — if Unison works well for you, you might be already set — but if you have a pet peeve bug stuck in your craw or just want the best Unison build in existence, go ahead and grab the update!

Posted by Mirko at 12:00 AM | Permalink

Scott writes: "My goal with this was to do the simplest thing possible while still ending up with something useful. It's a relatively short read by design — probably about twenty minutes. Essentially, you're shown how to launch Xcode, create a project, launch Interface Builder, add a few items and compile the result. There's no code, but we do bask in the glow of NSTextView's rich text handling."

Posted by Mirko at 01:27 AM | Permalink

If you’ve spent time in Terminal, more than likely you’ve made a typo or two—or two hundred thousand, if your typing accuracy is anything like mine! It’s one of the banes of working in Unix—after years of point-and-click, having to type sometimes long and complex commands by hand leads to inaccuracies. And, sad to say, Terminal isn’t nearly as lenient with my typos as are Word and my other text editors!

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

With Acrobat 8 Professional, Adobe offers a redesigned, Universal version of its flagship application for creating and distributing PDF content. With this version, which will be part of Creative Suite 3, Mac users now have only one choice: Acrobat 8 Professional. Once you get over the loss of the Standard edition, you’ll probably love what you see.

First and foremost, it looks and feels like a true Mac OS X application. It sports a redesigned, task-oriented user interface with customizable toolbars. And, on Intel Macs, it feels remarkably faster than its predecessor.

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

Posted by Mirko at 03:57 PM | Permalink

Here’s a little hack that makes the main window use a 3 vertical pane view, like the letterbox plugin does for Apple Mail.

Posted by Mirko at 03:45 PM | Permalink

FUSE stands for Filesystem in USErland, and it provides a generic interface that lets the operating system see virtually anything as a filesystem. Historically, adding new filesystem recognition to an operating system has meant modifying the kernel for each new FS. FUSE, though, provides a single interface that filesystem modules use to interface with the OS. Best of all, anything that provides the correct interface can be interpreted as a filesystem. One enterprising Python programmer even developed a script to let users mount their GMail accounts and use the extra space in their accounts to save files.

Posted by Mirko at 01:36 AM | Permalink

The Mac Macintosh Business Unit (BU) announced its intent to deliver the first Universal version of Office for Mac for PowerPC- and Intel-based Macs — Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac. Scheduled to be available in the second half of 2007, Office 2008 for Mac will allow Mac users to work smarter and more efficiently with new and enhanced tools that are simple, intuitive and easily discovered.

Continue reading "Office 2008 for the Mac is on its way" »

Posted by Mirko at 07:43 PM | Permalink

Roxio launched Toast 8 Titanium, a significant upgrade to its industry-leading Mac disc burning software.

Continuing to enhance and extend the functionality of the Mac OS and iLife applications, Toast 8 offers a range of new innovative features and ground-breaking platform firsts that enable users to see, hear, copy, and enjoy their entire digital lives on a disc and on-the-go.

Continue reading "Roxio launches Toast 8 Titanium" »

Posted by Mirko at 04:40 PM | Permalink

Everyone knows the MP3 format is used by more devices and people than any other file-based digital-audio format. Most also know that record labels prefer DRMed alternatives such as the ones sold by Apple's iTunes, because they make it harder for people to share music. Evidence is mounting that major labels may start to prefer the MP3 format, as impossible as that used to seem.

Posted by Mirko at 10:32 AM | Permalink

This article is for people who just want to figure it out and get going but fully realize that their initial questions are only going to annoy veteran users.

Posted by Mirko at 05:59 PM | Permalink

There are many ways to remotely initiate BitTorrent downloads, but most are complicated and require tweaking. Here’s an easy way to remotely download torrents with only an instant messaging application and a BitTorrent client.

Posted by Mirko at 12:00 AM | Permalink

Adobe announced that the next version of Adobe Production Studio, the integrated video and audio post-production tool set that is part of the Creative Suite family, will be available for the Mac.

Film, video and web professionals currently using Adobe After Effects, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator on the Mac will soon be able to harness the power of completely new Macintosh releases of Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Encore DVD and Adobe Soundbooth - all key components of an upcoming milestone revision to Adobe Production Studio.

Continue reading "Adobe Production Studio comes to the Mac" »

Posted by Mirko at 12:36 AM | Permalink

Scrivener is a project management tool for writers that acts like your own little writing shed at the bottom of the garden, where you have cork notice-boards, ring-binders, photos, clippings paperclipped to jottings, notebooks and reams of typewritten pages piling up - along with a secretary who keeps it all in neat piles and uses his speed-reading skills to find what you need as soon as you need it.

Posted by Mirko at 02:36 AM | Permalink

For Mac users who enjoy the simplicity of a typewriter, but live in the digital world. WriteRoom is a full-screen, distraction-free writing environment. Unlike the cluttered word processors you're used to, WriteRoom is just about you and your text. WriteRoom 2.0 adds a live word count, rich text, multiple documents, and lets you fine-tune your writing environment.

Posted by Mirko at 12:15 AM | Permalink

Dashcode is everything you need to create great Dashboard widgets. With Dashcode you will have your widget running in minutes, even if you've never written a line of code. You will start your project by selecting one of the bundled templates, creating a valuable widget that is ready to run - and ready to be customized. The integrated workspace will have you smoothly transitioning from design and layout, to editing code, to debugging JavaScript, and finally deploying your great new widget.

Posted by Mirko at 12:24 PM | Permalink

If Amazon's hot holiday seller list is any indication, a lot of you got new Macs this holiday season. If you switched to a Mac from a PC, you've probably noticed that there are a lot of differences between the two. This article will get you up to speed quickly on the differences so do take a look, this is very good material for new users.

Posted by Mirko at 12:00 AM | Permalink

Task List is the simple way to manage your homework. After all, it's bad enough that you have to do homework in the first place - why should keeping track of it be difficult too? It makes it easy to actually do something about your homework, with features such as multiple file attachments for each task, a built-in tabbed notes editor, and convenient reference information and links, just like your composition notebook.

Posted by Mirko at 04:04 PM | Permalink

A previously undocumented flaw in Apple's QuickTime media player could be exploited remotely by attackers to install malicious software on computers running either the Windows or Mac OS X operating systems, according to the inaugural posting by the Month of Apple Bugs project, a month-long effort that promises to feature a newly described security hole in Apple's software each day for all of January.

Posted by Mirko at 12:21 AM | Permalink

Garmin announced the Garmin Training Center software is now compatible with Mac OS X 10.4. Garmin Training Center software is used with Garmin’s Forerunner and Edge series fitness products.

Mac OS X Tiger users will now be able to download information directly from their Forerunner or Edge fitness device to the Garmin Training Center software. While using the software, fitness enthusiasts can create, analyze and store data from their fitness activities directly on their computer.

Continue reading "Garmin Training Center software now available for Mac OS X" »

Posted by Mirko at 03:25 PM | Permalink

Upgrading the DVD burner to a newer model will not only bring shorter burn times, but also Dual Layer capabilities. Opening the PowerBook is considerably more complicated than the Mac Mini - some experience working inside laptops will be useful if you intend to crack open an Apple notebook. First, though, you’ll want to make sure a new drive will fit.

Posted by Mirko at 03:13 PM | Permalink

Dave Girard writes: "Well, it was a long time coming, but I've been through the trenches and come up, sucking chest wound and all, with the Ars review of font management programs. I've also succeeded in not completely losing my mind while the developers updated the apps, nullifying half my criticisms in the process. Giving a lot of time to these programs in a production setting is crucial to seeing how they perform on a daily basis, and I am confident I've thrown enough varied scenarios at each to find out where they succeed and fail."

Posted by Mirko at 02:33 AM | Permalink

IBM's Lotus Software division is taking a bigger bite of Apple's Mac OS X as on Dec. 28 it formally rolled out the latest version of its Lotus messaging software package, dubbed Notes 7.0.2, which will include e-mail, calendar management tools and instant messaging that is specifically designed for Mac OS X users.

Posted by Mirko at 12:29 AM | Permalink

Retrospect Desktop 6.1, from EMC Insignia, is one of four editions of the software available for Macs. The Workgroup and Server editions add features to handle large networks and computers running OS X Server; the Express edition, bundled free with numerous hard drives and optical drives, omits network backups and tape drive support. Retrospect’s design caters to the needs of network administrators, who must grapple with backing up numerous computers (both Mac and Windows). For the average home or small business user, though, Retrospect can be intimidating.

Posted by Mirko at 12:43 AM | Permalink

It turns out that it is possible to install Windows to a USB disk without using Bootcamp at all. Here’s the recipe.

Posted by Mirko at 01:10 AM | Permalink

One of the areas in which Aperture excels is in managing, applying, and searching metadata about your images. To get the most of this feature, however, you need to make sure you add the appropriate metadata to your images in your library. It doesn’t take much time to edit the metadata for each image, but it does add up. There are several places in the Aperture workflow where you can work with metadata, but the most used place is the Metadata View panel.

Posted by Mirko at 03:50 PM | Permalink

The new VMware desktop product for the Mac, codenamed Fusion, allows Intel-based Macs to run x86 operating systems, such as Windows, Linux, NetWare and Solaris, in virtual machines at the same time as Mac OS X. It is built on VMware's rock-solid and advanced desktop virtualization platform that is used by over four million users today. With Fusion, you can run traditional PC applications on your Mac: if you need to run PC applications, you can now do so by leveraging the power of virtual machine technology.

Posted by Mirko at 04:57 PM | Permalink

Brian Warren writes: "The day-to-day usage of iBank isn’t anything transcendent, it is a personal finance application after all. In my opinion, an application such as iBank should be easy and quick to get in and out of. On that qualification, iBank does great. It’s easy to add new transactions, modify them and get a glance at your data."

Posted by Mirko at 01:32 AM | Permalink

Meetro and don't remember much from our previous coverage, a simple summary of the social app is that it's a "location-aware" instant messaging program. It detects (or you input) your current location and then displays users who are also logged on who are geographically close to you. Read about the features added to the most recent 0.65 Beta release in this article.

Posted by Mirko at 09:29 PM | Permalink

SmartBackup is a backup application to efficiently sync your files to a backup folder. It is very fast and very easy to set up, especially when it comes to defining what files you want to backup. Not wasting space and time for files already on your Mac OS X install DVD, you can also use a slower network share-point as a target.

Posted by Mirko at 08:19 PM | Permalink

Working with 3D graphics can be a cumbersome process in which the tools have to facilitate an artist's workflow. An effective 3D graphics application needs to perform complex tasks without impeding creativity. The 3D application space is also highly competitive, and building a devoted user base can be challenging.

Posted by Mirko at 08:18 PM | Permalink

Olivier writes: "It is frankly astonishing to learn that Mac users are prepared to spend this kind of money on shareware apps if they are presented in an interesting way. It also shows that Mac shareware app developers could make a lot more money if they would band together."

Posted by Mirko at 12:01 AM | Permalink

You can use the built-in audio units AUNetSend and AUNetReceive to generate audio on one computer and have it play back on another computer. Moreover, these computers do not need to be on the same local network, and the created audio can be though any program from GarageBand to VLC to iTunes.

Posted by Mirko at 12:36 AM | Permalink

Adobe introduced a beta version of Adobe Photoshop CS3 which is available as a Universal Binary which works FAST on Intel Macs. Packed with new features, this release also includes a pre-release version of a major upgrade to Adobe Bridge, as well as a preview release of the all-new Adobe Device Central. Photoshop customers can use Adobe Device Central to design, preview, and test compelling mobile content, created specifically for smaller screens.

A look at this major new release unveils a whole new user interface. Looks very good if you ask me, can't wait to give it a try!

For more interesting information do check out an interview with John Nack, the senior product manager for Adobe Photoshop.

Posted by Mirko at 05:36 AM | Permalink

BBEdit has long been the go-to text editor of choice for Mac-using geeks. But as it aged, BBEdit started to show its years, with new features piled on top of old features, which had been piled on top of still older features. In version 8.5.2, Bare Bones has given the old star a face-lift, restructuring and simplifying the interface to make BBEdit look like a hot new app. Along the way, they’ve added in some handy new features, giving this version a full set of enhancements.

Posted by Mirko at 12:45 AM | Permalink

Mitchell Lawson writes: "Sometimes I’m away from my laptop, and as in the case of emailing myself To-Dos that I want created automatically in iCal, there are times I jot down notes from something and want to email myself those notes. It would then be nice for Mail to automatically detect those emails, and create a new Note in Yojimbo with the appropriate title and contents. I hacked together a little script which does just that."

Posted by Mirko at 12:15 AM | Permalink

With OmniPlan, you can create logical, manageable project plans with Gantt charts, schedules, summaries, milestones, and critical paths. Break down the tasks needed to make your project a success, optimize resources, and streamline budgets. It's project management made painless.

Posted by Mirko at 12:54 AM | Permalink

A security update issued Tuesday for the Mac version of Microsoft Office was posted in error, the software maker said. The company encouraged consumers to uninstall the patch, which is still being tested.

Posted by Mirko at 12:09 AM | Permalink

Office 2007 applications are now available for Windows, and some businesses are going to start using them. By default, these new applications use new XML-based file formats, which are not backwards compatible. In other words, if you save a document in Word 2007 for Windows, by default it will be in a new file format (with the “.docx” file extension) that previous versions of Office for Windows and current and previous versions of Office for Mac OS X cannot read. What about users of Office for Mac OS X?

Posted by Mirko at 02:27 AM | Permalink

beaTunes analyzes the color and tempo (BPM) of your songs, intelligently creates playlists of matching songs, corrects your iTunes Music Library (typos, wrong genres, etc.), lets you blog about your playlists, and more. It basically lets you build better playlists.

A free 7 day trial copy is available here.

Posted by Mirko at 12:02 AM | Permalink

From flesh-eating zombies to arcade throwbacks to gorgeous games that take full advantage of the Mac’s graphic capabilities, the latest Hall of Famers are creative, unique, and fun enough to win over even the most pessimistic gamer.

Posted by Mirko at 01:59 AM | Permalink

Daniel Jalkut writes: "Today I’d like to highlight an infuriating behavior that iTunes has, of blocking the processing of all incoming AppleEvents while its preferences dialog is being displayed. What does this mean in most practical terms? iTunes can’t respond to AppleScript while the Preferences window is open."

Posted by Mirko at 12:00 AM | Permalink

If you download a song and find that you hate it, you've only wasted about 5 minutes and 99 cents, and a bad TV episode will set you back $1.99 and 45 minutes at most. An audiobook that sucks, however, will cost you at least $18.95 and, assuming you force yourself to listen to the whole thing, several hours of your time. So a free chapter is a very good thing for audiobooks in general, and for the iTunes Store in particular, in that it gives us consumers just enough of a book to know if we'd like to hear more. It's kind of like reading the jacket cover of the hardcopy and scanning the first chapter while browsing through Barnes and Noble, except now you get to do it while sitting at a stop light.

Posted by Mirko at 12:52 AM | Permalink

Photoshop CS3's interface is said to closely resemble the look and feel of Adobe After Effects 7, with easy palette organization and brightness adjustment for the overall interface itself. Palettes can be moved, minimized, customized or collapsed down to a single icon with ease; even that familiar two-column toolbar can be converted into a narrower single column bar, if desired.

Posted by Mirko at 02:48 AM | Permalink

A new public beta of Parallels was quietly released in a forum post on the virtualization company's website today.

Parallels Desktop for Mac Build 3036 Beta has numerous improvements, enough to qualify as a new release, really.

Posted by Mirko at 02:44 AM | Permalink

ClusterSSH is a small Perl/TK utility that controls a number of xterm windows via a single graphical console window to allow commands to be interactively run on multiple servers over an ssh connection.

Posted by Mirko at 11:05 AM | Permalink

James Duncan Davidson writes: "If you use Aperture, you probably really care about your photographs. You might be a pro with a library that ranges into the 100’s of GBs, or you might be an amateur with 20GB of data, but you care enough to take the time to do the right thing with your images so that you can fulfill your vision of what those images should be. So you calibrate your display, right? And you do it frequently, right?"

Posted by Mirko at 01:26 AM | Permalink

Parliant is now shipping PhoneValet Message Center 5.0 for the small office, home, and home office. PhoneValet's software and hardware platform turns a Mac into a virtual call center with unlimited voice mail boxes, call blocking, recording, logging and screening, automated dialing and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) capabilities - on single or multiple lines. PhoneValet has earned numerous industry accolades including two Macworld Best of Show awards.

Continue reading "Turn your Mac into a virtual call center with PhoneValet 5.0" »

Posted by Mirko at 01:25 AM | Permalink

Even if you're using Gmail as your primary e-mail account, there are many instances where having an offline version of all your messages is very handy. This article shows beginners how to do it.

Posted by Mirko at 01:12 AM | Permalink

Dave Jewell writes: "I’ve been fascinated by cross-platform programming for more years than I care to remember, and my interest has recently been sharpened by the acquisition of a number of Apple Macs – both Intel and PPC (PowerPC). This article focuses primarily on some technical aspects of Qt, Trolltech’s cross-platform C++ toolkit which, as you may know, is the architectural core behind the KDE desktop on Linux. At the end, I show how easy it is to create a simple application without writing a line of code."

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

iDefrag does have a nice interface, with very simple to understand controls, and an interface full of pretty colors that are fun to watch. Each of the blocks in the interface is supposed to represent a block of data on the hard drive. I was at first alarmed at how badly my disk was fragmented, as indicated by the amount of red blocks that were viewable. But then, the next question that popped into my head was, “why?”

Posted by Mirko at 12:12 AM | Permalink

JC writes: "For a variety of reasons, the Boot Camp Assistant sometimes fails to let you do the things you want to do. It doesn't work, for instance, if your drive is already partitioned. Many early adopters partitioned their drives before Boot Camp, hoping for an eventual dual boot solution either from Apple or elsewhere. In my case, I used Boot Camp to repartition my hard drive, then used that partition to install another copy of OS X for a test. Unfortunately, Boot Camp Assistant refused to reclaim that partition when I was done. That's 20GB down the drain!"

Posted by Mirko at 03:36 AM | Permalink

Jürgen Schweizer writes: "There are some rather useful, although somewhat non-obvious, Cocoa classes that are most helpful for writing a web server. In this article I will show you what they are and how to use them. I will also show you when it is necessary to (or when some additional benefits can be gained) use Unix or Core Foundation APIs. This article assumes a basic knowledge of Cocoa, so I won't explain any Cocoa topics here, but will show everything you need to get started with networking."

Posted by Mirko at 01:21 AM | Permalink

In this latest version users can send SMS messages to their friends directly from Skype. As system requirements go, you'll need at least Mac OS X v10.3.9 with 512 MB or RAM.

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

The Macintosh versions of the Adobe Flash Player 9 Update are now available from Adobe. Adobe Flash Player 9 Mac OS X (PowerPC) requires Mac OS X 10.1 or later.

Posted by Mirko at 12:18 AM | Permalink

Ryan Faas explains how to secure your mail server, prevent spam and viruses from reaching users' mailboxes, and configure your mail server to support email accounts across multiple domain names.

Posted by Mirko at 12:06 AM | Permalink

Ask heavy users of iTunes for their biggest complaints, and you’ll soon compile a lengthy list of “I wishes"—as with any tool, the more you use it, the more things you find that it can’t do. Many users are surprised to learn that you can address many of iTunes’ power-user shortcomings, especially those relating to media and metadata management, via AppleScript.

Posted by Mirko at 02:34 AM | Permalink

Easily create web photo, movie, and audio galleries simply by dragging the desired files into the application. Choose from a variety of customization options like adding rotation, inversion, brightness, contrast, sepia, auto-levelling, and so much more! For a limited time you can get Gallery Designer at 50% OFF so start clicking! :)

Posted by Mirko at 12:29 AM | Permalink

Apple's forthcoming iTV promises to place all your digital media on your TV. But what if you don't want to wait months before enjoying your iTunes music and video or iPhoto pictures in your living room? And is iTV really worth the price? Ryan Faas looks at the options that exist right now and tells you why you might actually be able to spend less money and get a more rounded solution today.

Posted by Mirko at 12:15 AM | Permalink

Derek Punsalan writes: "Development applications and utilities surface with announcements and updates on a regular basis promising increased productivity, time-saving innovative features, and my all-time favorite - the ability to “deliver awesome standards-based sites in no time!” If only achieving the end results were so simple…" Read on for a list of recommended tools.

Posted by Mirko at 07:55 PM | Permalink

As communication becomes more important to our lives, so does the need for automation. The Google Earth Action Pack is a set of Automator actions that makes it easy to share your view of the world with others.

Posted by Mirko at 09:38 AM | Permalink

This article shows you how to get control of a very large iTunes library — to save space by getting rid of stuff you’re not enjoying or listening to, as well as bubble up stuff you may not even realize you like. If you are an iTunes packrat but feel overwhelmed by your collection (or are simply running out of drive space), try these recipes for Smart Playlists to help you get it together.

Posted by Mirko at 12:09 AM | Permalink

Wouldn't it be nice if you could have a piece of mac software that display unread items in your Google Reader account? Wouldn't it be nice if they matched the official icons of Google Notifier? Direct access, to your online digital life, right from the menubar of the most advanced operating system to date - Mac OS X Tiger? Well, now you can.

Posted by Mirko at 03:12 AM | Permalink

Bare Bones Software released Yojimbo 1.3, the effortless information organizer, now with tagging for powerful grouping and retrieval of items stored in Yojimbo. Yojimbo 1.3 is also a maintenance release that fixes reported issues and adds several significant refinements to this reliable, effortless information organizer.

Continue reading "Yojimbo reaches version 1.3" »

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

Marketcircle has released a free public beta for Billings 2, its latest software designed for the unique needs of Mac-based business and creative professionals. Easy-to-use Billings 2 tracks time and expenses. In minutes, Billings 2 creates detailed and attractive customized invoices, project estimates, and reports.

Continue reading "Billings 2 public beta takes the pain out of tracking time and expenses" »

Posted by Mirko at 07:45 PM | Permalink

After the extremely viral marketing campaign during which many pre-ordered the Disco app without even seeing a beta version, a beta of the new lightweight alternative to Toast has been released and reactions are starting to pour in. While the majority is overwhelmed with joy with the innovative GUI, some are not so pleased.

Posted by Mirko at 10:53 AM | Permalink

Ambrosia released Dragster, a file transfer utility that takes the drag out of file transfers. Just drag and drop files or folders on Dragster's icon in the Dock, and away they go! Dragster can send files via eMail, upload them to remote servers, copy them to your iDisk, or copy/move files anywhere on your local drives.

Continue reading "Dragster - the fastest way to transfer files!" »

Posted by Mirko at 12:00 AM | Permalink

This may be nothing more than a simple curiosity to most, unless you're trying to debug some subtle email problems, when some of these settings can become quite useful. Mail.app has a number of settings which allow watching of the activities it is doing.

Posted by Mirko at 05:32 AM | Permalink

Parallels Desktop for Mac — the software that lets Intel Mac users install and run Windows and other operating systems side-by-side along with Mac OS X — has added a new feature called Installation Assistant. The software automates the installation of Windows XP or Vista RC2. A free update for registered users, Parallels Desktop for Mac costs $79.99.

Posted by Mirko at 03:29 AM | Permalink

Red Sweater Software released FlexTime 1.1, an innovative timer utility for repetitive activities. FlexTime's intuitive interface focuses on the metaphor of a "routine" made up of any number of timed activities and associated "cues." FlexTime costs just $18.95 and is available as a full-featured 30 day trial download.

Summary of changes:

• Major UI renovation. More compact presentation and an updated appearance.
• Added large elapsed/remaining timer UI while routine is running.
• Added an automatic software update feature.
• Removed German localization. Focusing on features without localization for now.
• Fix a bug that caused weird behavior when recent documents were deleted.

Posted by Mirko at 09:23 PM | Permalink

Using a handy Quicksilver plugin, you can access every menu item in the currently active application. It may not sound useful just yet, but do read this article for more information.

Posted by Mirko at 09:10 PM | Permalink

Paul Burd writes: "After setting up the account through my host, and setting up the IMAP account in Apple’s Mail, I found that items weren’t being synced as they should. Anything I did through the webmail client did show up in Mail, but things I did in Mail did NOT show up in the webmail client." Read on for helpful hints.

Posted by Mirko at 12:13 AM | Permalink

Rob Griffiths writes: "Here’s a little tip to help you keep track of all those backup CDs and DVDs you’re burning. (You are making regular backups, right?). If you’ve got a full-bore backup strategy going, you’re probably copying most of your data to another hard drive (or perhaps to tape), and not to CD/DVD media—at only 700MB or 4.3GB, CDs and DVDs are not the most efficient storage solutions for today’s gargantuan hard drives."

Posted by Mirko at 08:54 PM | Permalink

After two long months of hype and voting, the My Dream App competition finally came to an end. The winning apps included Cookbook (3rd place with 6,109 votes), Portal (2nd place with 6,122 votes), and Atmosphere (1st place with 6,566 votes). According to the blog entry announcing the winners, there were some problems this round in the voting process.

Posted by Mirko at 04:28 PM | Permalink

Adobe Flex Builder 2 provides robust coding and debugging tools that enable developers to quickly build rich client-side logic as well as intelligent code navigation that allows users to easily understand source code and root out underlying issues. This prerelease of Flex Builder 2 for Macintosh enables developers on the Macintosh platform to productively build and test Flex applications.

Posted by Mirko at 02:22 AM | Permalink

Jacqui Cheng writes: "When Potion Factory announced on their company blog that they were releasing into Beta a new software called Tangerine, the eyes of OCD exercisers lit up. We asked the guys at Potion Factory, Andy Kim and Jin Kim, to do an interview with us about this piece of software that I've already fallen in love with. Their answers to my questions give a lot more insight into Tangerine and what they see for its future."

Posted by Mirko at 01:48 AM | Permalink

There are many options available for anyone on Mac OS X doing light database work. This article describes nine tools of the trade.

Posted by Mirko at 12:38 PM | Permalink

Disco burns CDs, and creates disk images. When you’re burning a disk image, as a visual indication of what’s happening, the Disco window actually smokes which is very cool indeed. But the amazement doesn’t even end there, you can interact with the smoke with your mouse, and blowing into the microphone blows the smoke too. Read the entire article here.

Posted by Mirko at 11:57 AM | Permalink

Quicksilver is a unified, extensible interface for working with applications, contacts, music, and other data. It can greatly improve your Mac OS X experience and automate your workflow. The screencast below provides some good tips.

Posted by Mirko at 09:29 AM | Permalink

If you want to really amaze your PC friends, use the motion-sensing feature of your MacBook and the terrific (free) virtual desktop software VirtueDesktops to turn your laptop into a SmackBook.

Posted by Mirko at 09:23 AM | Permalink

Overflow is an application designed to quickly launch applications, open documents, or access folders while keeping the size of your dock in check. Anything you want can be added to the Overflow interface, making it accessible though a few simple mouse clicks or keystrokes. The interface is resizable, and fully customizable. Create separate categories for your applications, work files, games, or anything else you want to be able to access quickly. After using Overflow, we think you'll find it just as indispensable as we do.

Posted by Mirko at 05:57 PM | Permalink

Productivity, both at home and at work, is something everyone would like to increase, and Mac users have a plethora of applications that can help you do just that. Here is a list of 10 apps that can help you increase your productivity. From burning disk images, to managing your time, giving your mouse and Apple Remote additional, time saving, functionality, and much, much more.

Posted by Mirko at 02:15 AM | Permalink

Adam Knight writes: "I've been playing with teleport a bit as I again have multiple machines at my desk and no KM switch to go between them. Being an iMac, an external display, and a MacBook Pro, I have three screens to use for a lot of things and teleport is phenomenally useful and suited for this task. I just really wasn't prepared for the unexpected benefits it can have in this case."

Posted by Mirko at 02:12 AM | Permalink

Steve writes: "The laptop is used when the user is on the road, and the tower for all of the internal office heavy lifting. The challenge for a user like this is finding a way to keep data in sync. This has been my situation for many years. In order to keep a smooth workflow, I had to find a way to keep my files mirrored between the two machines."

Posted by Mirko at 10:33 PM | Permalink

In this article you learn how to bring vertical movies into a workflow designed for horizontal ones, and how to embed movies in a web page without messy wads of code. Before reading, chech that QuickTime is indeed installed on your machine and fasten your seatbelt, it's a cool ride.

Posted by Mirko at 12:26 PM | Permalink

Red Sweater Software released FastScripts 2.3 that contains a number of significant changes:

- A refined grayscale menu bar icon.
- Support for unmodified keys as script shortcuts (10.3 and later only).
- New preference for toggling “Launch at Login” feature.
- Reorganized Preferences dialogs.
- Improved AppleScript access to FastScripts script hierarchies.
- Miscellaneous bug fixes.

FastScripts 2.3 is a free update for registered users. It costs $14.95 and is available as a full-featured 30 day trial download. The free "Lite" version of FastScripts was also updated to version 2.3 today.

Posted by Mirko at 02:18 AM | Permalink

This tutorial teaches you how to write a Mac OS X application with Microsoft Visual Studio Express (Visual Basic, Visual C#, Visual C++ or Visual J# Express). This article is not to suggest replacing Apple's Xcode with Microsoft Visual Studio, but in hope to provide Visual Studio programmers a faster way to port Windows applications to Mac OS X.

Posted by Mirko at 07:14 PM | Permalink

Rob Griffiths writes: "iTunes 7 sports a number of interface changes—everything from the reorganized sidebar to the black highlight bar to the vanished Equalizer buttons. Overall, I like the new appearance quite a bit, though my opinion isn’t shared by everyone. It seems many love the new look, many hate it, and there’s a large group in the middle who probably like some of the changes and dislike others." Well, you can always personalize it a bit.

Posted by Mirko at 12:15 AM | Permalink

Aperture 1.5 delivers compelling new features, including flexible library management that lets you store images anywhere you’d like. The free update also introduces third-party extensions that let you use Aperture as the front end to expanded workflows. Aperture 1.5 offers RAW support for more than 50 camera models from a wide variety of manufacturers (including Canon, Nikon, Fujifilm, Sony, and others) and extends support to all Intel-based Macs — from the Mac mini and MacBook to the Mac Pro. You can use the free Aperture 1.5 Update — available later this week via Software Update or from the Download page — to update any previous version of Aperture.

Posted by Mirko at 10:09 PM | Permalink

Mac Pilot allows users to easily and graphically tinker with over 300 powerful features of Mac OS X which normally require digging through Terminal commands.

Disable dashboard, enable debug menus, optimize your system for broadband, change Finder grid spacing (Apple's giving you this in Leopard - we're giving it to you now!), disable Finder animations, prevent Dock modifications, disable Safari PDF support, speed up Safari, schedule power events, completely customize Apple File Sharing, enhance the Login Window, and so much more!

Continue reading "Tweak Mac OS X with Mac Pilot" »

Posted by Mirko at 01:51 PM | Permalink

Derrick Story writes: "You don’t always need a table saw; sometimes a pocket knife will do. I just finished editing audio with Rogue Amoeba’s Fission, and it did exactly what I needed: no more, no less. This just-released Universal Binary sound editor focuses on cutting audio. Sounds simple, and you probably already have a tool to handle that. But with Fission, I can open a MP3 file, snip out an offending segment, then save the edited file without recompressing it."

Posted by Mirko at 09:33 PM | Permalink

The Google Maps Plugin is the easiest way to find your Address Book contacts using Google Maps and Google Earth.

Posted by Mirko at 01:25 AM | Permalink

Adam Pash writes: "Using Parallels Desktop for Mac, you can run Mac OS X and Windows (XP, Vista, you name it) side-by-side. Here's how I've set up my Parallels installation to make working in multiple OSes easy and fun." This a pretty good guide with several screenshots that will enable new users to get up to speed fast.

Posted by Mirko at 01:03 AM | Permalink

Support for assistive technologies enhances your application, and Cocoa does much of the work for you. Learn how to implement accessibility support in your Cocoa application.

Posted by Mirko at 02:05 AM | Permalink

Derrick Story writes: "Unfortunately iPhoto doesn't let you add straight audio files to its library. There has to be an image attached the audio file. So the dream of having voice memos associated with your pictures is only that, a dream. Or is it? By using this easy technique and QuickTime Pro, you can include voice memos with your images in iPhoto."

Posted by Mirko at 12:41 AM | Permalink

Merlin Mann writes: "Mail Act-On is a very clever Mail.app plugin that lets you create key commands that execute Rules you’ve generated in your Preferences. Sounds pretty dull, right? Absolutely. Until you start putting this stuff into action and learn how painfully slow all that draggy mc drag drag business is. Here’s how I’ve set mine up."

Posted by Mirko at 03:12 AM | Permalink

Having accurate information about the computers in your company can be critical for any number of tasks. General inventory, purchasing decisions, software license compliance, tracking usage patterns, theft identification, upgrade planning, and update deploying rely on knowing as much as possible about the computer you manage. Constantly keeping track of that kind of information is typically a daunting challenge unless you make use of Apple Remote Desktop's vast reporting capabilities. In this third article, find out how easy it can be to have detailed and current reports on everything you need to know.

Posted by Mirko at 04:23 PM | Permalink

A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks or other items linked to and arranged radially around a central key word or idea. 43 Folders has a list of Mac software titles that will be interesting to those of you new to this concept.

Posted by Mirko at 10:58 AM | Permalink

This new guide includes a step-by-step in how to rip the 640×480 resolution for the new iPod 5G software, well-known iPod video conversion guides, and how to categorize the movies more efficiently.

Posted by Mirko at 02:46 PM | Permalink

QuickTime gives filmmakers many ways of protecting their movies from casual copying. Apple's developer documentation discusses methods of copy protetcing movies. These methods are in common use for the QuickTime movies available online. This guide is intended for honest hackers, not thieves. With the iPod and the iTunes Music Store, Apple has shown that respecting customers – rather than treating them like criminals – is a winning strategy. This guide is offered in the same spirit.

Posted by Mirko at 02:57 AM | Permalink

With the release of Skype version 2.0.0.2 you can make video calls to anyone on Skype, no matter what kind of computer they are using. You need to have at least Mac OS X 10.3.9 and 512 MB RAM. If you're using an Intel Mac, don't fret since the program comes as an Universal binary.

Posted by Mirko at 12:21 AM | Permalink

Scott McNulty writes: "iTunes 7 has really breathed some new life into that venerable jukebox software. One of the most useful new features is 'Back Up to Disc,' which is located under the 'File' menu of iTunes. This feature allows you to back up all your tracks to either CD or DVD. Sounds great, right? But is it easy? Yes, yes it is. Read on for a detailed step by step tutorial."

Posted by Mirko at 02:30 AM | Permalink

It's only been a day since Apple updated iTunes to version 7, but the folks over at the Hymn project already have a new version of the program that can be used to remove the DRM from songs purchased from it. It's an updated version of the recent release that worked with iTunes 6.

Posted by Mirko at 12:26 AM | Permalink

After the launch of iTunes 7 yesterday, there have been many reactions, mostly positive. If you're interested in in-depth details on the new look, read this dissection and if you're in for a trip down memory lane than visit this page where you can see how the iTunes icon changed with every release.

Posted by Mirko at 08:02 PM | Permalink

Apple today announced iTunes 7 which delivers stunning new features such as the new album and Cover Flow views of music, TV shows and movies, enabling users to quickly find titles in their library as well as casually browse through and re-discover titles they already own. In addition, the iTunes Store is now offering over 75 movies from Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar, Touchstone Pictures and Miramax Films, that customers can purchase and download to watch on their computers and iPods, and soon on their flat screen televisions with Apple’s upcoming iTV player.

Continue reading "Apple releases iTunes 7, many new features" »

Posted by Mirko at 09:45 PM | Permalink

Zenopolis today introduced CDRevolution an easy-to-use CD copying tool for both audio and data CDs.

The software features a clean and intuitive drag-and-drop interface to make copying CDs very simple. Audio CDs are copied using lossless audio with the same between-track gap lengths as the original. Data CDs are copied byte-by-byte for 1:1 accuracy. When there are no blank CDs at hand, CDRevoluton can save a CD image for burning at a later date.

This application is priced at $20, requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later and is a Universal Binary.

Posted by Mirko at 02:57 PM | Permalink

With iPhoto 6 and a compact photo printer, you can create stunning postcards right at your desk. In previous posts, I've talked about using the greeting card function in iPhoto to create title graphics for slideshows, and then how to animate them. Now you have another use -- print your own postcards.

Posted by Mirko at 03:09 PM | Permalink

From the announcement: "In addition to a bevy of behind-the-scenes enhancements, Unison 1.7.7 also adds compatibility with Apple's Mac OS X 10.5 Developer Preview ("Leopard"). Sure, it'll be a really long time before most of us ever have to really worry about this, but we wanted to make sure that you cutting edge developers could continue to cut that sweet, sweet edge while using Unison at the same time! We've also fixed some issues with previewed items, reunited resumed transfers with their progress bars, further streamlined the cache folder, resolved some issues with dropped and inactive connections, and generally improved Unison in a variety of ways you may or may not notice. Unison 1.7.7 is a free upgrade for all Unison owners."

Posted by Mirko at 11:40 AM | Permalink

Merlin Mann writes: "TextExpander just got an update that adds a few features and fixes to this already essential OS X PreferencePane. I have to say, I just love TextExpander (formerly “Texpander”). Its functionality is not unique — users of, say, TextMate or TypeIt4Me will recognize the similarities. But, brother, is it ever easy to setup, modify, and use."

Posted by Mirko at 12:29 AM | Permalink

Tim Gaden writes: "Jim Correia of Bare Bones Software has posted a script to the Yojimbo mailing list that will pipe a selected email from Mail.app into Yojimbo. This is handy, (a) if you use Yojimbo and (b) like me, you find it a bit of a pain to import emails with the “Save PDF to Yojimbo” option in the PDF section of the Print dialog."

Posted by Mirko at 02:33 PM | Permalink

Although iTunes makes it easy to share media between multiple machines on a home network, you might want to keep more than one physical copy of your music library synchronized. Perhaps the most common example involves a family's home network consisting of a desktop and a laptop - each containing subsets of what is really a single music library.

Posted by Mirko at 12:36 PM | Permalink

Chanpory Rith writes: "With a little tinkering, I’ve put together an AppleScript to let FlexTime use the Growl system to gently remind you when a new activity starts, such as when to work and when to play. I call the script, FlexTimeGrowl. (Imaginative, huh?)"

Posted by Mirko at 03:57 AM | Permalink

Derrick Story writes: "Here's a great graphics trick that many people don't know. - you can easily build fantastic slideshow titles right within iPhoto 6. You have lots of design control. You can change backgrounds, switch themes and even change fonts and size."

Posted by Mirko at 05:10 PM | Permalink

Red Sweater Software released FlexTime 1.0.1, an innovative timer utility for repetitive activities. FlexTime's intuitive interface focuses on the metaphor of a "routine" made up of any number of timed activities and associated "cues." FlexTime costs just $18.95 and is available as a full-featured 30 day trial download.

Posted by Mirko at 05:08 PM | Permalink

Periodik Labs announced the immediate availability of Elektron 1.2, the latest version of its award-winning software for securing small business Wi-Fi networks. The software brings easy to use, enterprise-level Wi-Fi security to businesses without a full time IT staff.

Posted by Mirko at 03:16 AM | Permalink

GlowWorm FW Lite is a neat looking application that can help you protect your privacy by enabling you to control your computer at the network level. It works through a simple system of rules and gives you a possibility of easily defining acceptable behaviour for a particular application, host/ip address, port number, and any combination thereof.

Posted by Mirko at 05:17 PM | Permalink

Who said you can’t use Mac OS 9 because you have an Intel Mac? It is completely possible with a little bit of tinkering, and a really cool universal application called Sheep Shaver. Sheep Shaver is a full speed ‘Classic’ emulator for Windows, Linux, and Intel based Macs, that runs older Mac OS’s at shockingly full speed!

Posted by Mirko at 02:19 PM | Permalink

This software list is geared towards software most college students can benefit from. With the exception of one item, everything can be found online for free.

Posted by Mirko at 01:44 PM | Permalink

The Google Notifier is an application that shows you alerts in your menu bar, so you can see when you have new Gmail messages or upcoming Google Calendar events without having to open a web browser. Please note that some have reported slight problems with this applications since in some instances it requires them to login multiple times.

Posted by Mirko at 03:51 PM | Permalink

Let's say you are designing or documenting a Web site and you want to take a screen shot of a Web page. That's no problem if the page fits comfortably within the confines of your browser's window. Just snap the shot using the traditional tools at your disposal and you're done. But what if—as is often the case—the Web page is taller or wider than the browser window? Here are some solutions.

Posted by Mirko at 10:15 AM | Permalink

Jochen Wolters writes: "The addition of to-do’s and notes to Mail may indicate that Apple has some useful ideas for enhancing a “non-glamourous” application like Mail beyond just beautiful eye candy. It would be great if they would move further along this path by adding real workflows to Mail."

Posted by Mirko at 10:12 AM | Permalink

Cyberduck is a very popular open source FTP and SFTP (SSH Secure File Transfer) browser with an easy to use interface, integration with external editors and support for many Mac OS X system technologies such as Spotlight, Bonjour, the Keychain and AppleScript. Version 2.6.1 is an important bug fix release, you can download it here.

Posted by Mirko at 12:51 AM | Permalink

The Retouch tool in iPhoto 6 has more capability than most people realize. The default mode is a frustratingly blunt cross hairs that provides very little control. You can, however, enable an advanced mode that lets you set the diameter of the brush for more precise retouching.

Posted by Mirko at 01:58 AM | Permalink

With Yojimbo, a seasoned Mac development team took a fresh look and found the Mac platform provided the support it needed to finally create a product that had long been on the drawing board. The result combined several innovations in a product that is easy to learn and use.

Posted by Mirko at 01:21 AM | Permalink

When Apple announced that it was moving Mac OS X to the Intel platform, one thing that didn't get much attention was that Apple would not be open-sourcing the Intel Darwin kernel. Now, Apple has reversed its course and has quietly announced that it will open-source the kernel after all.

Posted by Mirko at 12:11 AM | Permalink

Interface Builder 3.0 lets you drag and drop even more luscious behaviors into your application. Want to imitate the iChat sliding list view? It’s a matter of minutes, not days. Or add Keynote-like transitions to make your applications drag and stun.

But enhancements aren’t all about pretty faces, Interface Builder 3.0 makes localization and diffing easier. And you can include your NIBs in global refactoring tasks. Make beautiful applications, elegantly and easily with Interface Builder 3.0. Get all the juicy info on Xcode 3.0 here.

Posted by Mirko at 01:24 PM | Permalink

Virtual machine developer VMware is scheduled to make an appearance at Apple's World Wide Developers Conference this Monday in San Francisco. What is VMware doing at the Mac event? The obvious conclusion is that the company will introduce a version of its software for OS X and/or OS X Server.

Posted by Mirko at 09:40 AM | Permalink

TubeSock grabs YouTube videos from the web and copies them to your video iPod, Mac, or PlayStation Portable. TubeSock knows how to convert the video using the codecs and bitrates best for each device. It can even add the video to iTunes for you.

Posted by Mirko at 11:24 AM | Permalink

Apple Computer has replied to criticism of its iTunes digital rights management policy, meeting a deadline set by consumer agencies in Scandinavia, an advisor at Norway's Consumer Council said on Tuesday. The Norwegian council is still reviewing the letter, which arrived on Tuesday morning, and hasn't yet released it to the public, said Torgeir Waterhouse, senior advisor to the Consumer Council of Norway.

Posted by Mirko at 12:12 AM | Permalink

Tim Gaden writes: "With the SwiftMail Dashboard widget, you can quickly dash off an email using your Gmail, .Mac, Yahoo or AOL email account. It offers a quick username and password setup or the option of entering detailed server information."

Posted by Mirko at 11:59 AM | Permalink

Peter Borg recently released version 2.0 of Smultron, his excellent open source text editor. So what’s new? Well, among other things…

Posted by Mirko at 11:23 AM | Permalink

Rob Griffiths writes: "With the release of iMovie HD 6, part of iLife ‘06, Apple included many nice new features. While these features are, for the most part, well documented, some are not necessarily obvious. Such is the case with today’s tip—it’s a documented feature in iMovie HD 6, but it’s one that you may not be aware of unless you’ve dug through the documentation. And just what is the feature? The ability to create time-lapse movies. Time-lapse techniques are used to condense very long periods of time into something that will fit into a typical movie. So instead of staring at a flower going through its bloom phase for three days, you can watch a time-lapse film of the event, condensed down into only a few minutes."

Posted by Mirko at 12:51 AM | Permalink

Shake is a 2D/3D compositing suite that was once in the budgets of only high-end studios and visual effects shops. Now priced lower than Adobe After Effects Professional, it's within the range of attainability for just about anyone using making a living in the visual arts, especially users of Final Cut Studio. Version 4.1 is the first Universal Binary release of Shake, offering support now for Intel-based Macs, including the 13-inch MacBook.

Posted by Mirko at 10:58 AM | Permalink

With OmniPlan, you can create logical, manageable project plans with Gantt charts, schedules, summaries, milestones, and critical paths. Break down the tasks needed to make your project a success, optimize resources, and streamline budgets. It's project management made painless.

Posted by Mirko at 10:55 AM | Permalink

Ethereal is a free and open source packet sniffer application, used for network troubleshooting, analysis, software and protocol development, and education. It has all of the standard features of a protocol analyzer. Ethereal is a GUI application that requires some flavor of X11 on your Mac and Fink will need the developer tools to compile some packages from source.

Posted by Mirko at 02:13 AM | Permalink

Anybody who packages software (or other files) for distribution on the Mac is probably familiar with the tedious process of setting up the icons “just right” in the Finder so that when your customer opens the folder for your app, they see things neatly organized the way you left them. Problems are solved with the NudgeFinderSelection scripts that simply ask the Finder to move all the selected icons in a given direction.

Posted by Mirko at 10:23 AM | Permalink

This is a somewhat in-depth review highlighting new features, revised features and missing features of the new build in its current form—it is important to remember that this build is not even at an alpha stage, nor has it been released to the general public at this point, bugs and rough edges are not only present but very much expected. Features and functionality could/will change at any point in the future.

Posted by Mirko at 11:24 AM | Permalink

The Mozilla Organization has released a first beta of the next version of Firefox, and Rob Griffiths looks at what to expect in version 2.0 of the popular Web browser.

Posted by Mirko at 12:39 PM | Permalink

The 3.1 version of Marketcircle Inc.’s Mac productivity management software is now available with an array of customization options that save time and put users more in charge. With Daylite 3.1 you can now quickly create list reports and print layouts to match your “live” view, send email reminders right to your mobile smart phones, use enhanced smart list capabilities to display and search on projects and opportunity pipelines, and self-select contextual menu content. Daylite 3.1 also offers support for the Growl Mac OS X notification system.

Continue reading "Daylite 3.1 eases your productivity management needs" »

Posted by Mirko at 09:20 PM | Permalink

Everyone has a to-do list. And everyone has a favorite way to handle it. No matter how you manage yours, your Mac can help. Here are some to-do list tips for Apple’s iCal, Microsoft’s Entourage, and plain old text files.

Posted by Mirko at 12:43 AM | Permalink

Curio is the ultimate brainstorming and project management application - a truly flexible and powerful environment which promotes visual thinking for gathering and shaping your ideas, while managing all the notes and documents associated with your project.

Curio's intuitive interface and tools encourage effective note gathering, research, and creative exploration. Its freeform, open environment encourages users to more easily visualize, associate, and recall information.

Posted by Mirko at 02:08 PM | Permalink

With unique killer features like native TrueType support and single-window Multiple Master editing, FontLab’s Studio 5.0.2 is the most capable font-editing tool available today, easily outpacing both the current Fontographer and the old FontStudio.

Posted by Mirko at 01:59 PM | Permalink

FlexTime is a generic timed routine scheduling application. Basically, it makes it easy for users to program complex time-sensitive scheduled activities, where it’s useful to be reminded at regular intervals that it’s time to “move along” to the next activity.

Posted by Mirko at 11:55 AM | Permalink

This update fixes vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer's memory with malicious code. This update also fixes issues in Microsoft Entourage 2004 for Mac and includes all of the improvements released in all previous Office 2004 updates.

Posted by Mirko at 11:57 AM | Permalink

As the name suggests, InstantGallery is about creating galleries in an instant. It's a tool for quickly turning a folder full of images into web gallery. It allows you to easily choose thumbnail and image sizes, watermarking, themes, thumbnail cropping and more all while your images are processed in the background.

Continue reading "InstantGallery 1.5 has been released" »

Posted by Mirko at 11:49 AM | Permalink

This test covers the latest versions of the browsers: Safari/Webkit 2.0.4 (the version that comes with OS X 10.4.7), FireFox 1.5.0.4, Camino 1.0.2, and OmniWeb 5.5 Beta. All four of the browsers are Universal Binaries which is good news for owners of Intel-based Macs.

Posted by Mirko at 11:45 AM | Permalink

Apple's Pages software is set to receive a number of significant improvements when version 3 rolls out early next year as part of iWork '07. Among the most notable will be the introduction of two new modes, Word Processing and Layout, that will each be optimized for their respective tasks as opposed to Pages' current handling of both types of documents with one common set of templates and tools.

Posted by Mirko at 12:00 AM | Permalink

Adam Knight writes: "Do you need to shell out hundreds of dollars for something like Apple Remote Desktop to see what’s happening to every machine in your home or small business? Do you have to SSH to each and leave a window open just to put uptime in a loop to see what it’s doing? Do you have to install something like Webmin and setup a monitoring cluster? Or even setup email reports in cron to get the output of the commands? Not really, no. Remote load and usage monitoring is built-in to Mac OS X."

Posted by Mirko at 01:53 AM | Permalink

Jochen Wolters writes: "For a geek, the second best thing to finding a new solution to an existing computer problem, is finding a new problem to an existing solution. While fiddling around with Mail.app a few weeks ago, I stumbled over the window that pops up if you choose “Get Info” from the action menu at the bottom of the mailboxes column. Its most interesting feature is a list of all the messages stored in the selected email account on the server."

Posted by Mirko at 12:49 AM | Permalink

Voice over IP, or VoIP, is an emerging technology that allows you to use your broadband Internet connection to place and receive voice and videophone calls. Macworld reviewed four Mac-compatible desktop VoIP applications: Apple’s iChat AV 3.1.4, SIPPhone’s Gizmo Project 1.3.2, SightSpeed 4.5, and Skype 1.4.

Posted by Mirko at 10:29 AM | Permalink

Unison 1.7.6 comes with some cool new features. For starters, it's now possible to create NZB files from within Unison. Just select a group of files, and choose "Export Files as NZB" from the "File" menu. The authors also changed PAR file creation so that it will automatically restart after a crash, heaven forbid. The "Save Attachments" feature is now much faster, and more memory efficient.

Posted by Mirko at 09:56 AM | Permalink

Jonathan Briggs writes: "Metadata is the power behind Aperture’s ‘stacking’ system, which is designed to do some of the organising for you, and is especially effective when you’ve captured a series of images or bracketed your exposures. This guide offers tips and tricks on how to import effectively and get stacking."

Posted by Mirko at 01:05 PM | Permalink

Whether you're taking digital photographs, putting your home videos on DVD, or writing your own songs, iLife ’06 has an easy solution for you. With these tutorials, you can watch step-by-step movies that will help you learn the great things you can do with iPhoto 6, GarageBand 3, iTunes, iMovie HD 6, iDVD 6, and iWeb.

Posted by Mirko at 12:07 AM | Permalink

Rob Griffiths writes: "Parallels Desktop for Mac is an OS X solution for running “guest” operating systems within OS X. Parallels utilizes the Intel chip’s hardware virtualization technology (VT). Although that’s a mouthful of buzzwords, what it means is simple: VT lets an Intel CPU act as if it were several distinct CPUs, which in turn enables guest operating systems to run much faster." Read the entire review here.

Posted by Mirko at 12:06 AM | Permalink

For Mac users who enjoy the simplicity of a typewriter, but live in the digital world. WriteRoom is a full screen, distraction free, writing environment. Unlike standard word processors that focus on features, WriteRoom is just about you and your text. Sounds simple and very useful. The best part? It's free!

Posted by Mirko at 02:15 AM | Permalink

How many shiny, new features make a software update worthwhile? A dozen? A handful? Three? The quandary that potential purchasers face with Final Cut Express HD 3.5, the new version of Apple’s intermediate digital video editing software, is that it only has three significant new features - most cocktail recipes include more ingredients. However, the advances in this update, while few, make it a more compelling upgrade than the move from version 2.0 to 3.0.

Posted by Mirko at 07:44 PM | Permalink

Merlin Mann writes: "The truth is, iCal works great with kGTD (mostly of course), and once you make your peace with the perplexing stasis of its feature set, there are some not-bad hooks and affordances hiding in its pastel, roundy corners. Here’s a few I like."

Posted by Mirko at 07:38 PM | Permalink

Dustin MacDonald writes: "With all the excitement around the preview of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard at this year's WWDC, everyone is just a little anxious to see what will come before Steve Jobs' keynote. In fact, creating fake screenshots is all the rage these days. Wouldn't it be cool to make your very own Leopard screenshots and be featured on all the rumor sites? You're damn right it would. Here's how to do it."

Posted by Mirko at 12:14 PM | Permalink

Shadow 3.0 is the latest version of NewTech Infosystems’ award-winning backup software for Macintosh, Windows and U3 devices. Their step-by-step set up process makes it easy for consumers to make a backup copy of their important files and folders. You can even set up Shadow 3.0 to monitor your system and to continuously check files for changes.

Posted by Mirko at 02:05 AM | Permalink

Dejal Systems today announced the first general release of Caboodle for Mac OS X. According to Dejal, everyone comes across information that they want to refer to later. Maybe gifts you've received or sent, product serial numbers, recipes, directions to someone's house, a photo of your pet, or anything else. Caboodle is a tool to help store and organize such varied bits of information.

Continue reading "Collect random snippets of text or images with Caboodle" »

Posted by Mirko at 10:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Rob Griffiths writes: "Have you ever wanted to print a number of e-mail messages in Mail? You can do so easily; just hold down Command, click each message you want to print, and then press Command-P. Simple. However, there’s a downside. Each message will print on a full sheet of paper, so if you print four 10-line e-mail messages, you’ll waste nearly four full sheets of paper. Ugh. There must be a better solution."

Posted by Mirko at 01:28 AM | Permalink

Daniel Jalkut writes: "It’s summer! The sun is out and the sky is (leans right to peek outside), well, sort of greyish. While the world celebrates the changing seasons, we’re all leaning over our keyboards and squinting into the screen, working on our LCD tans. All this warm weather puts me in the mood for Xcode tips! I’ve been saving up a few “gotta share” revelations. Are these tips no-brainers? Maybe for some of you. But it took me a while to “get it” and I’m hoping some of you will also giggle with glee when you learn out about them."

Posted by Mirko at 05:17 PM | Permalink

In this video, a 2 GHz MacBook sporting 2 GB of RAM is showing off the speed of the built-in applications.

Posted by Mirko at 12:50 PM | Permalink

If you need to make a Photoshop document of your application icons complete with the transparent background there is a quick way to create them.

Posted by Mirko at 11:11 AM | Permalink

Charles Jade writes: "Did you ever feel that if you could just get organized your whole life would suddenly make sense? While the number of notebook/outliner/organizer applications available for OS X may not be indicative of the validity of that belief, certainly an argument can be made that people are willing to spend money for such software. Enter Hog Bay Software and the release of Mori 1.2." A good review can be found here.

Posted by Mirko at 01:06 AM | Permalink

When you enable FileVault, the system creates an encrypted disk image of your user folder, which is automatically mounts when you log in. You can copy this disk image from machine to machine, which transfers your entire user folder in one blow. There are some setup gotchas though, so read this articlein order to get all the details.

Posted by Mirko at 12:06 AM | Permalink

This update fixes vulnerabilities in Office 2004 for Mac that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer's memory with malicious code. This update also fixes issues in Microsoft PowerPoint 2004 and Entourage 2004, and it includes all of the improvements released in all previous Office 2004 updates.

Posted by Mirko at 01:49 PM | Permalink

Need a great present but can’t afford to spend a lot of money? Why not create a custom hanging wall calendar using your own photos? It’s easy to do with iPhoto, and the results are very professional. Best of all, your friends and family will love receiving a personalized present you created.

Posted by Mirko at 03:30 PM | Permalink

You’ve dreamed of having your own Web site - a place where you can share your photos, movies, and life events. But who has the time to learn how all the pieces fit together? Now, thanks to iWeb, you don’t need to write a single line of HTML, CSS, or JavaScript code. All you need is a free weekend and this handy guide.

Posted by Mirko at 03:45 AM | Permalink

Back in the days of my first connections to the Internet, first webmail services were something very useful. It was tough to get a POP mailbox, so connecting over very slow and expensive dialups was the only way to go. Nowadays I have 9 different POP e-mail accounts, but still use one on a webmail provider. Gmail is powerful and versatile, so I like having one of my non-business accounts in a place that I can access from everywhere. In the last year or so I have tested a couple of Gmail related "interfaces", including widgets and a notifier. Here is my perspective on the pros, cons and wishes...

Continue reading "Working with Gmail on your Mac" »

Posted by Berislav at 01:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

If there’s one thing that can bring a document (or your system) to its knees, it’s using a corrupt font (meaning a font that accepts bribes — sorry, that was lame). Anyway, finding out which fonts on your system might be corrupt was no easy task, but in Tiger, it just got a whole lot easier.

Posted by Mirko at 12:52 AM | Permalink

If you’re ready to start playing with Lightroom, you can tap your iPhoto library to provide the source material. It’s really simple, and you have plenty of options along the way.

Posted by Mirko at 12:08 AM | Permalink

When it comes to hacking WordPress on your Mac, this article gives you some very good info on the subject. Daniel Jalkut writes: "By integrating my WordPress hacking with Apple’s Xcode, I can treat the technical underpinnings of my blog just like I would any other code project."

Posted by Mirko at 02:36 AM | Permalink

Not a Photoshop killer yet, but Pixel is an interesting low cost (US$32) alternative for your image editing needs. The software runs on OSX (no Universal Binary yet though) besides many other operating systems. It's a fast and small application that supports most scanners, printers, tablets and image formats. It can do layers and most color modes including 32bit/channel images that can be edited in full HDR quality. It has layer effects, some special animated brushes, retouching tools and many filters.

Posted by Mirko at 11:40 AM | Permalink

Small and inexpensive, Apple's Intel-based Mac mini also comes with an infrared remote control, an updated version of the Front Row multimedia management software, and 5.1 digital audio output. Does that make the mini ideal as the centerpiece of your digital world?

Posted by Mirko at 12:48 AM | Permalink

In this article, Ryan J. Bonnell will show you how to use Adobe GoLive's additon of Movable Type template tags to visually manage Movable Type's default templates.

Posted by Mirko at 03:27 AM | Permalink

Finally there’s a plug-in for Mail.app that splits your screen into three vertical columns, one for folders, one for the mail list, and one for the message. You can download the plug-in from here. This is a perfect solution for anyone using a widescreen display. I wish Apple would consider making this a standard part of Mail.app features.

Posted by Mirko at 11:08 PM | Permalink

John Hicks writes: "When it comes to testing and debugging sites, it seems that Firefox can’t be beaten. Other browsers have useful tools though, which gave me an idea for an ad-hoc series highlighting useful web development features, starting with Safari. While it doesn’t have an official plugin architecture like Firefox, that hasn’t stopped developers finding ways around it and providing excellent plugins."

Posted by Mirko at 01:31 AM | Permalink

Check Off is a to-do list that sits in your menu bar. Version 3.6 brings German, Traditional Chinese and Japanese localizations. It also includes several bug fixes for both PowerPC and Intel customers. Check Off is available for free, but donations are accepted and encouraged.

Posted by Mirko at 12:25 AM | Permalink

Let's say you have a cool slideshow but you need a professional touch. The first thing that comes to mind is a voiceover. The problem is, what to use in order to make one? There's so much software on the market. Don't get ahead of yourselves, there's always iMovie. It does the job well and it's really easy to use.

Posted by Mirko at 06:49 AM | Permalink

Bryan Veloso shows you how to replace the icons within Mail.app using anything you might want to see in your mail client in a step-by-step tutorial that uses Pixadex and Candybar.

Posted by Mirko at 06:33 AM | Permalink

I came across a number of situations where I needed to access my business e-mail from an insecure environment. I am talking about conferences, exhibitions, as well as airports and open WLAN hotspots. Majority of free e-mail providers, such as Google GMail and Yahoo! have options to login by using a https connection over secure sockets layer (SSL) or transport layer security (TLS). However, in my case, a couple of business mailboxes can be accessed via a webmail that doesn't offer any kind of encryption. The solution is pretty simple - create your own SSH Tunnel.

Continue reading "HOW TO: Securely access your webmail using SSH tunnels" »

Posted by Berislav at 06:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Although AppleScript is easy to learn, and considered a high level language, it is remarkably versatile at reducing or eliminating repetitive tasks, organizing files and projects the way YOU want, or moving data automatically from one application to another. Head over to this page and start learning some new stuff.

Posted by Mirko at 02:28 PM | Permalink

Derrick Story writes: "Many Mac OS X Tiger users don't realize that they have a powerful RAW converter bundled with their operating system. Every 10.4 Mac comes with a handy application called Preview that most folks think of only as a PDF viewer. Even Apple touts its PDF capabilities without going into much detail about its hidden powers. The most notable of these lesser known features is Preview's ability to decode RAW files and convert them to other formats."

Posted by Mirko at 02:09 PM | Permalink

VisualRoute is a tool aimed at networking professionals that need reliable diagnostics software. It comes in six versions that give you the power of connectivity analysis from a single computer, a remote desktop or a remote server.

Continue reading "Review: VisualRoute - traceroute on steroids" »

Posted by Mirko at 01:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

DoorStop X Security Suite puts a friendlier front end on OS X’s built-in firewall, making it an excellent solution for users who like the idea of using that built-in firewall but would like to be able to configure it more completely without resorting to the Terminal.

The question is, are you willing to pay $80 for such access? I think it’s definitely worth the ducats. But if you’re on a tighter budget, you can opt to purchase the firewall alone, without the rest of the Suite, for $49.

Posted by Mirko at 03:12 AM | Permalink

Tyler Hall writes: "I’m a paranoid person when it comes to backing up my files, but it took a hard drive crash of my own to make me realize how important backing up can be. Since then, I’ve gotten very good at making sure my data is secure. The setup I’m about to describe works for me. It’s based on how I prioritize my data and on the budget I’m willing to spend to keep everything safe. It’s not perfect for everyone, so take what I say with a grain of salt - an example of where to start and what’s possible."

Posted by Mirko at 01:19 AM | Permalink

If you have a very large screen - or use a multiple-monitor system - DejaMenu is a program you'll definitely want to use. It allows you to pop up the current application's menu directly underneath your cursor, eliminating long treks to the top of the screen to make choices from the menu bar. It's very simple, convenient, and best of all, it's free.

Posted by Mirko at 01:45 PM | Permalink

Xcode 2.3 is the latest release of Apple Computer's integrated development environment for Mac OS X. This release adresses many known issues and is a recommended upgrade for all Xcode users of versions 2.2.1 or earlier.

At the heart of Xcode 2.3 is a graphical workbench that tightly integrates a syntax-highlighting text editor, a robust build control system, a debugger, and the powerful GCC compiler capable of targeting both Intel and PowerPC regardless of host platform. Xcode is both easy to use, using assistants to create working projects in just minutes, and also powerful enough to build the largest Mac OS X applications. Xcode 2.3 is bundled with Interface Builder, AppleScript Studio, Java development support, and WebObjects development tools, among many others.

Posted by Mirko at 01:13 PM | Permalink

The Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) can be traced back to 1998 to the Intel Boot Initiative (IBI) program. The EFI specification, which was developed and maintained by a consortium of companies (including Intel and Microsoft), defines a set of APIs and data structures to be exported by a system's firmware, and to be used by a variety of clients such as the following.

Posted by Mirko at 12:45 AM | Permalink

Here is a list of short tips on using various UNIX tools under Mac OS X. Some of them are also applicable to other flavors of UNIX.

Posted by Mirko at 09:11 PM | Permalink

Apple today released Final Cut Express HD 3.5, a significant upgrade to its award-winning software solution for video enthusiasts. New in Final Cut Express HD 3.5 is Dynamic RT for real-time playback of multi-stream effects, Soundtrack 1.5 with a complete suite of professional level audio production tools and LiveType 2.1 with even more exciting animated text and titles.

Continue reading "Apple releases Final Cut Express HD 3.5" »

Posted by Mirko at 07:40 PM | Permalink

New Macs, new versions of Mac OS X, new software, and new school years all translate to one thing for Mac IT staff: determining the best way to roll out the new computers, software, classrooms, or configurations. Ryan Faas gives you an overview of the variety of tools available from Apple and third parties, and tells you how to roll out with less hassle and fewer headaches.

Posted by Mirko at 11:54 AM | Permalink

If you have a copy of Adobe Photoshop CS2 than this tutorial is going to get you closer to your own OS X style desktop.

Posted by Mirko at 12:19 AM | Permalink

With the release of Skype for Mac 1.4.0.49, Mac users now have the ability to show Skype status on the Web or email signature. It turns out that Mail.app’s signature editor isn’t HTML friendly and just pasting in HTML to the signature editor will not work as you might expect.

Here is a crash course to get you up an running with a presence enabled Skype button in your signature in Apple Mail so your friends can Skype you back instead of replying in email.

Posted by Mirko at 09:22 AM | Permalink

By now, you've probably heard that Adobe's new Lightroom application simplifies your photography workflow, especially if you shoot Raw. In this seven-minute podcast, O'Reilly editor and photographer Derrick Story interviews Julieanne Kost, and they discuss how Lightroom could change photography as we know it.

Posted by Mirko at 11:30 AM | Permalink

The file we’ll need to edit is the Apache configuration file. It is located in ‘/Library/Apache2/conf’ and is called ‘httpd.conf’. For this configuration example, we’ll assume that you have your web sites located in separate folders in the ‘/Library/Apache2/htdocs’ directory. Read the entire tutorial here.

Posted by Mirko at 09:47 AM | Permalink

Dave Girard writes: "I have to admit, I was very skeptical that Apple could whip together professional-quality RAW conversion for numerous camera models in a few months. Their competitors have been honing their technology for years and reverse-engineering your way into the subtle differences in manufacturer's RAW formats is not a matter of ticking the "unsuck" radio button."

Posted by Mirko at 12:05 PM | Permalink

Robert Daeley writes: "Last year, I worked out a method to create custom Mail.app announcement sounds by using the say program on Mac OS X, a CLI utility that converts text to speech and can output aiff sound files. And while nowadays I’m of the opinion that a totally hidden email program is a better way to go, it occurred to me earlier this week that it would be cool to have the equivalent of cellphone ringtones for Mail."

Posted by Mirko at 12:28 AM | Permalink

When it comes to your workstation, one of the things you certainly want to be aware of is what’s happening with your outgoing network connections. If you’re curious to find out if a program is sending information about your machine to a remote server or just want to see exactly what’s happening in the background during your usual surfing activities, Little Snitch will promptly tell you all about it.

Continue reading "Review: Little Snitch 1.2.2 - acts as a great informant" »

Posted by Mirko at 02:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

This new release features many improvements, including MacIntel support, a statistic system, the support of DV inputs on Linux, improvements in the Audio CD playback (CDDB), many new and improved video filters, a new AJAX HTTP interface, Winamp 2 Skins support, a Mozilla plugin on Mac OS X (PowerPC only), a new default skin, and more. Get your copy of VLC today!

Posted by Mirko at 01:29 PM | Permalink

Tim Gaden writes: "The developer of StickyBrain is either feeling the heat from Bare Bones’ competing product, Yojimbo, or is just inspired by it. A new StickyBrain beta (4.1b3) released today introduces at least three new features found in Yojimbo and offers a number of other significant new functions including a full-screen view, a post to blog option and new “Daily Notes” and “Journal” formats."

Posted by Mirko at 01:27 PM | Permalink

Thanks to a stupid law, every DVD player is sold being able to play only discs with the same region as the country it was sold in. That includes Macs too, sort of. On a new Mac, the DVD drive is automatically locked to the region code of the first DVD it is used with. From then on, this can only be changed four more times. Here's a solution to this problem.

Posted by Mirko at 12:06 AM | Permalink

John Gruber writes: "Last week when I wrote “Aperture Dirt”, regarding Think Secret’s scoop regarding the dispersal of the Aperture development team and the future of Aperture, I emphasized that the sources for my own information were second-hand. Since then, I’ve heard from additional sources at Apple, including a first-hand source: one of the developers from the original Aperture engineering team."

Posted by Mirko at 09:06 PM | Permalink

How does ssh work with kerberos in a directory environment (like Active Directory)? Can it be restricted to specific network groups, perhaps via use of Mike Bombich's saclutil script? Read this article and find out.

Posted by Mirko at 09:36 AM | Permalink

Andrew Escobar writes: "Enabler is back online and available for download. I no longer believe the email from Apple is legitimate. Now, if the email was legit and Apple can communicate with me through a more verifiable method (am I the only person who digitally signs emails?) then I would be willing to straighten this matter out."

Posted by Mirko at 09:30 AM | Permalink

Two Pilots has released Spool Pilot for Mac, a Macintosh application that allows you to save printouts from arbitrary applications in several popular graphic formats as easily as in a PDF file. From the point of view of the user, the procedure of saving printouts is very much the same.

Continue reading "Spool Pilot for Mac - convert your output in different sorts of virtual paper" »

Posted by Mirko at 10:46 AM | Permalink

This page is a repository of plug-ins and tools that extend the functionality of Apple's Mail.app. Also interesting is a large list of things the author thinks Mail.app should incorporate in the near future.

Posted by Mirko at 12:40 AM | Permalink

Mac OS X includes many open source projects that contribute to the stability and robustness of the system. While Apple provides working versions of these for both PowerPC and Intel architectures, sometimes you want to build your own to tune performance or enable custom features. Plus, distributing a single binary is often preferable to keeping track of separate, architecture-specific binaries. These objectives can be accomplished by building the project as a Universal Binary, a file that contains code for both the PowerPC and Intel architectures.

Posted by Mirko at 01:26 AM | Permalink

Parallels has been creating a lot of buzz with their Workstation software that allows Intel Mac users to run almost any version of Windows, Linux and many other OSs right inside of Mac OS X, without the need for shutting down what you're doing in Mac OS X to reboot into the other OS.

Posted by Mirko at 11:41 AM | Permalink

Rumors of Aperture's death have been greatly exaggerated. Blake Seely, a blogging freelance Cocoa and Mac OS X programmer (not to mention the creator of the wonderful MugShot Flickr management tool), revealed yesterday that he was joining the Aperture team.

Posted by Mirko at 11:29 AM | Permalink

Robert Daeley writes: "I had occasion recently to need to remotely delete a user — let’s call him “George” — on a Mac OS X box that is running the Client version of Tiger. I have ssh access to that machine and, since I keep meaning to learn how to do it, I decided to take the time to make a few notes on the process for the next such occasion."

Posted by Mirko at 06:52 PM | Permalink

This chapter introduces Interface Builder, a tool no less important to Cocoa development than Xcode itself. IB is used as a straightforward tool for laying out windows and views. You'll see how to set the many options for automatic sizing of embedded views and how to use Interface Builder's own simulation mode to verify that your layout and sizing choices work.

Posted by Mirko at 06:48 PM | Permalink

Apple recently asked the engineering team behind its Aperture photo editing and management software to leave. The move, which resulted in the departure of several engineers while others were transferred to different projects inside Apple, raises questions about the future of Aperture, Apple's most heavily criticized and bug-ridden pro software release in recent years.

Posted by Mirko at 08:59 PM | Permalink

(S)FTP has a valuable place in the hearts of web builders and developers, and is still one of the most practical methods of getting files from one place to another in a secure manner. In this article, Giles Turnbull surveys six FTP clients for the Mac platform and shows you the major characteristics of each.

Posted by Mirko at 04:16 PM | Permalink

That's the question this special project attempts to answer. In this shoot out we'll put today's four major font management utilities through a series of head-to-head comparisons.

Posted by Mirko at 08:54 AM | Permalink

Allan Odgaard writes: "Mac OS X has a keychain which is intended for storing and retrieving passwords in a secure fashion, and this service can fortunately be accessed from shell, so that is what I use for my passwords. The command to access the keychain is security and it has a manual page. But let me save you some time and give you the gist of it."

Posted by Mirko at 01:12 AM | Permalink

Andrew Escobar writes: "A big eyesore for me is the “Podcasts” list in Front Row. Here’s a quick fix to make Front Row a little more aesthetically pleasing."

Posted by Mirko at 12:06 AM | Permalink

This article walks you through installing Subversion (also called “SVN”) on Mac OS X. Subversion is a free/open-source version control system. It remembers every change ever made to the files and directories in your projects. This allows you to recover older versions of your data, or examine the history of how your data changed.

Posted by Mirko at 12:05 AM | Permalink

I usually disregard news and articles dealing with running Windows on Mac hardware, but I came across a rather interesting benchmark related to Windows XP running on MacBook Pro. Dave Nagel writes: "So what kind of performance can you expect to see when you're running Windows on the high-end MacBook? In a word: impressive." Read on for the full benchmark results.

Posted by Berislav at 06:48 PM | Permalink

Whether you want to find out how to do that cool CSS effect or you need to debug a gnarly specificity issue, diving into (X)HTML and CSS doesn’t have to be an unpleasant experience. At least that’s what the people who built Xyle Scope believe.

Posted by Mirko at 05:49 AM | Permalink

Apple Security Update (APPLE-SA-2006-04-18) includes the following information: J2SE 5.0 Release 4 is now available for Mac OS X v10.4.5 and provides fixes for a couple of security issues that can cause the untrusted Java applications to obtain elevated privileges. J2SE 5.0 Release 4 may be obtained from the Software Update pane in System Preferences, or Apple's Software Downloads web site.

Posted by Berislav at 11:01 AM | Permalink

Gammawork gives Mac OS X users the ability to adjust the colors on their monitors to correspond to other device such as a printer. It will adjust up to four connected displays, independently varying red, green and blue color channels, giving total control over color settings. Gammawork can also save and quickly load configurations tailored to specific needs.

Posted by Mirko at 01:17 AM | Permalink

Peter Cohen writes: "You can turn to shareware or free programs to burn backups of DVDs or transcode DVD videos to other formats. So why would anyone want to pay $50 for a commercial package that does many of the same things? Because the commercial package in question happens to be easy to use and reliable—that’s certainly the case with Roxio’s Popcorn 2."

Posted by Mirko at 12:14 AM | Permalink

Dan Frakes writes: "For the most part, Mac OS X doesn't need a lot of day to day maintenance -- it crashes less than the "classic" Mac OS, and individual application problems are less likely to affect other applications and the operating system itself, so most users will find that serious file, drive, and directory damage are fairly rare. That being said, don't forget Murphy's law - eventually something will go wrong. When it does, you may as well be prepared, so it's a good idea to have the right tools handy and to polish up on your troubleshooting skills. You can kill a number of these birds with a single stone using the handy utility AppleJack."

Posted by Mirko at 01:03 AM | Permalink

On machines with more than 4GB of RAM, the Disable VM Buffering plug-in can eliminate pauses during painting operations at some cost in performance with very large documents. It will have no effect on machines with 4GB or less of RAM.

Continue reading "Performance tweak plug-in for Photoshop CS2 Mac available" »

Posted by Mirko at 10:33 AM | Permalink

Melvin Rivera writes: "The default interface for Mail signatures allows you to do rich text signatures using the fonts and colors palette. You can even drag an image into the compose signature window and it will be included in every email as an attachment. This is fine for most people, but attachments should be just that, an attachment of a file I am sending, not an image in my signature. So here’s an easy guide on how to do CSS signatures referencing images on an outside server and not as an attachment."

Posted by Mirko at 07:55 PM | Permalink

Unixgeek writes: "A complaint I've frequently encountered on some Mac OS X Server related forums and mailing lists is that there is no documentation on how to enable VNC access in the Terminal. A good number of former Windows-only businesses have purchased an Xserve G5 without a video card because they needed to use both PCI slots for other components or they naturally assumed that a computer would come with a video card. Some people familar with Mac OS X Server might read this and say, "Hey, just run the server administration tools on your Mac desktop or laptop. Er, you don't have another Mac?""

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

Mozilla released a new version of its Firefox browser that adds native support for Mac OS X running on Intel processors, and contains a number of important security fixes for all Firefox users. This should speed up Web browsing on these new systems, which had previously relied on Apple's Rosetta translation technology to run Firefox.

Posted by Mirko at 04:32 PM | Permalink

Scot Finnie writes: "After putting Apple's Boot Camp Beta through its paces, I have to applaud the company's decision to release this functionality. The work Apple has done so far is excellent. With some additional hardware support and a few tweaks, Boot Camp will be all that it can be. And nothing will put a smile on your face faster than watching how fast Windows XP runs natively on a 2-GHz dual-core MacBook Pro. Boot Camp is a boon for both Mac and Windows aficionados — not an easy thing to achieve."

Posted by Mirko at 12:54 PM | Permalink

Do you wish your Campfire chats were contained in a dedicated application? Would you like to see the number of unread messages on the Dock icon? Would you like the Dock icon to bounce when new messages appear?

Pyro does all that. What’s more, Pyro keeps a connection open to all the rooms you are in, making switching between rooms instantaneus. Finally, why clutter your screen with a browser’s tab bar full of Campfire rooms when Campfire itself has a perfectly good tab bar of its own?

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

Andrew Escobar writes: "I dread the days when Mail decides it doesn’t want to work properly. This particular bug drives me insane. Mail keeps rejecting my email password, even though its correct, to the pint of utter insanity. Every couple of weeks, Mail will actually interrupt everything with a dialog box telling you that your e-mail password is incorrect or has been rejected, and asks that you re-enter the password –even though the existing password is perfectly correct, of course!"

Posted by Mirko at 12:21 AM | Permalink

Continuing its campaign to push into the enterprise market, Apple has updated its desktop management software operating system to provide systems administrators with greater control over software distribution, asset management and remote assistance activities. Remote Desktop 3 has also been optimized to run on Intel-based Macs. New features or enhancements include speedier searches across multiple Macs; automation of more than 30 repetitive system administration tasks; a dashboard that allows administrators to observe remote systems; and autoInstall for installing software automatically on mobile systems when they return online.

Posted by Mirko at 12:07 AM | Permalink

You've got a bunch of photos, some images from the web, a few scanned documents and you want to share them. Enter InstantGallery, your one stop, drag and drop solution to instantly creating web galleries of your images. Even add an RSS photocast so other people can view your pictures in iPhoto '06 or their prefered RSS reader.

Posted by Mirko at 04:24 PM | Permalink

Ted Landau writes: "Just as unwelcome as the application freeze is the application crash. In this case, you’re not trying to force a program to quit; you’re trying to prevent it from quitting on its own. When an application crashes, you typically see a dialog box informing you that it has “unexpectedly quit”. As with application freezes, the good news is that these crashes rarely bring down an entire Mac—they usually affect just one application. But you’ll still want to end this ailment. Try these methods, one by one, until the problem disappears."

Posted by Mirko at 03:39 AM | Permalink

While software developers love to talk about their work, sometimes this is impossible until a product ships. Other times the company that hired them doesn't want to release information on who worked on the software so the possible praise from the developer community doesn't arrive for the author even after the product has shipped. The Read Sweater Blog has a very good entry on this topic that discusses just how much we all want our work to be acknowledged and what the reality is.

Posted by Mirko at 01:50 PM | Permalink

One of the best ways to keep your Mac working smoothly is to make sure all of your software is up to date. Developers routinely issue updates to their programs to fix bugs, add features, and ensure compatibility with the latest Mac OS and hardware. If you ever wished that Software Update feature worked not only on Apple’s software, but rather on all the software installed on your computer, then VersionTracker Pro may be of interest to you. This program attempts to take over where Software Update leaves off by letting you know when your third-party programs are out of date.

Posted by Mirko at 01:21 PM | Permalink

Codepoet writes: "You can use the groff tool to convert manual pages into PostScript, PDF, or HTML form for pretty viewing, printing, posting to a webpage, easy searching with Spotlight, or any other purpose, if you like. Manpages are stored in a simple mandoc format for which the groff formatting tool has an understanding (indeed, groff is used by man to display the page in the first place). groff also has an understanding of a wide variety of other formats to display things in, however man only uses the normal display format so only the few that look into such things would notice the fun to be had."

Posted by Mirko at 01:35 PM | Permalink

James Eagan writes: "In the course of writing my email un-attachment plugin for Mail.app, I found that Apple has a capable, but entirely undocumented, plugin API. I’m providing this tutorial in the hopes that it may be useful to anyone else considering implementing a plugin for Apple Mail."

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

Enzo Sparacino writes: "I leave my PowerBook G4 (running OS X 10.4.5) mainly unattended, and I want to be able to access it remotely; to do that, it has to be always online. From time to time, my Internet connection drops and I've come up with an AppleScript which reconnects to the Internet by performing all the necessary tasks. The script is launched automatically every half an hour by iCal."

Posted by Mirko at 01:24 AM | Permalink

The Mac OS X platform utilizes the RSS format in many ways. Read this article to learn how to provide content through RSS in your application or on your website, and the tools that can help you manage RSS delivery.

Posted by Mirko at 03:45 AM | Permalink

If you’ve recently updated Mac OS X to 10.4.6 and you’re having an issue with Adobe Photoshop CS2 saving files over a network (to a server), an interim fix has been found until Apple releases and official fix.

Posted by Mirko at 12:33 AM | Permalink

Joe Barr writes: "The software for the Nano and most fourth- and fifth-generation versions of the iPod is experimental - but, well, you know me - Linux on my desktop, workstation, laptop, Tivo, and router. I had to have it on the Nano, too. Here's my report how I converted my stock iPod Nano into a dual-booting, sweet MP3-singing, iDoom-playing monster. "

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

EntourageABMenu is a convenient and intuitive way to utilize your Microsoft Entourage address book data through a system-wide menu. The application provides quick access to your contacts’ phone numbers, email, and postal addresses. Selecting a menu item will trigger an action such as displaying the content in large type, copying it to the clipboard, creating a new email, dialing the phone (accomplished by running a customizable AppleScript), or showing an address on a map using the Google Maps service.

Posted by Mirko at 06:07 PM | Permalink

37Signals, the company behind ingenious products such as Backpack and Basecamp, today announced the availability of the Basecamp API. The API allows programmers to access/read/write Basecamp data from third-party systems like Mac OS X Dashboard widgets. For more infomation point your browser here and don't be shy to let us know if you come up with something cool.

Posted by Mirko at 05:51 PM | Permalink

Tim Gaden writes: "Scott Morrison has released an update to the latest version of MailTags. MailTags 1.2.1 offers a number of small tweaks to the initial release. Mail.app preferences now close correctly when MailTags is installed and the default Calendar preference now sticks persistently."

Posted by Mirko at 04:03 PM | Permalink

Apple today introduced Boot Camp, public beta software that enables Intel-based Macs to run Windows XP. Available as a download beginning today, Boot Camp allows users with a Microsoft Windows XP installation disc to install Windows XP on an Intel-based Mac, and once installation is complete, users can restart their computer to run either Mac OS X or Windows XP. Boot Camp will be a feature in “Leopard,” Apple’s next major release of Mac OS X, that will be previewed at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference in August.

Continue reading "Apple Boot Camp enables Intel-based Macs to run Windows XP" »

Posted by Mirko at 05:57 PM | Permalink

Pierre Igot writes: "As a general rule, I like my e-mail messages to be grouped in threads, in spite of the occasional shortcomings of Mail’s threading algorithm. But what I definitely do not like very much is the user interface for expanding/collapsing threads in Mail."

Posted by Mirko at 01:35 AM | Permalink

While browsing in search of an interesting application I stumbled upon something out of the ordinary - Onlife. It's an application that observes your every interaction with apps such as Safari, Mail and iChat and then creates a personal shoebox of all the web pages you visit, emails you read, documents you write and much more. Onlife then indexes the contents of your shoebox, makes it searchable and displays all the interactions between you and your favorite apps over time.

Posted by Mirko at 12:02 AM | Permalink

You've heard that Apple's iWeb is easy to use, and you've seen some great examples of iWeb sites. But can you really create those great sites in half an hour, even if you don't know anything about HTML and have never tried designed a Web page? Yes, you can. Ryan Faas takes you through the process step by step.

Posted by Mirko at 11:56 AM | Permalink

Delicious Library is an award winning application that allows you to catalog, browse, and share all your books, movies, music, and video games.

Changes in this version include:

• Improvements to barcode scanning.
• Fixed a crash that could occur when importing a Booxter library.
• Fixed an issue where localized preferences could be displayed incorrectly.

Posted by Mirko at 08:20 PM | Permalink

MacTracker provides detailed information on every Apple, Motorola, PowerComputing, and UMAX Mac OS computer ever made, including items such as processor speed, memory, optical drives, graphic cards, supported Mac OS versions, and expansion options. Also included is information on Apple mice, keyboards, displays, printers, scanners, digital cameras, iPod, AirPort Base Stations, Newtons, and Mac OS versions.

Posted by Mirko at 03:48 PM | Permalink

PureFTPd Manager is a simple Cocoa frontend to PureFTPd, "a free (BSD), secure, production-quality and standard-conformant FTP server based upon Troll-FTPd", for Mac OS X. PureFTPd Manager's goal is to integrate nicely PureFTPd on Mac OS X client and server. A startup item that loads PureFTPd while booting your system is provided as well as Rendezvous support so your server is instantly visible to everyone in your local network. To help you set up your server, an assistant will be pop up first time you launch PureFTPd Manager. All in all, if you need to access remote machines - give it a spin!

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

iPods, Power Mac quads, the venerable Newton, and the list goes on. This excerpt from Apple Confidential 2.0: The Definitive History of the World’s Most Colorful Company reflects on Apple’s origins and the chain of events that helped launch today’s cutting-edge computer and media company.

"Wozniak was comfortable pulling down $24,000 annually from his job in the calculator division at Hewlett-Packard, and with a new wife at home he wasn’t about to quit to sell a bare circuit board to hobbyists. He didn’t share Jobs’ vision of a huge personal computer marketplace, nor did he have the ambition to build his own company to exploit it."

Luckily for us, what happened was completely different :)

Posted by Mirko at 12:27 AM | Permalink

Most of the Ruby on Rails documentation on deployment for Mac OS X glosses over key parts of the plumbing. In this article, Luke Burton walks you through a Rails installation on Mac OS X Server.

Posted by Mirko at 01:35 AM | Permalink

Have you ever wanted an easy way to backup all the important files in your home folder? Are you tired of sifting through the Library directory to find the folders you need to backup? Give BackityMac a try.

Posted by Mirko at 12:08 AM | Permalink

Sven Semmler writes: "I recently switched from Mail.app, iCal and Address Book to Entourage. This has no hard consequences for me since Entourage now has Spotlight support for mails, contacts and events. It also automatically synchronizes the contacts with Address Book and the events and tasks with iCal." Check out this article for some tips from a fresh switcher.

Posted by Mirko at 12:05 AM | Permalink

Dan Frakes writes: "You read about them on message boards and Web sites, in chat rooms and email: Someone’s Mac is having problems, and a helpful soul writes, “Download XYZ and clean your caches.” Or a user wants to know how to tweak a specific setting in Mac OS X, and several people chime in with suggestions for obscurely named utilities such as Onyx, DoktorKleanor, and TinkerTool. There are many of these software titles out there for Mac OS X."

Posted by Mirko at 12:51 AM | Permalink

Codepoet writes: "Have you ever thought that having that emergency partition on your desktop was hackish and ugly? Or have you thought that it would be truly handy to have a boot DVD available via NetBoot for recovery purposes? Well, good news, Mac OS X can act as a NetBoot server just as well as Mac OS X Server itself can. All a Mac needs to NetBoot is a server running TFTP and either NFS or HTTP, and all are built in to a normal Mac OS X machine."

Posted by Mirko at 12:30 AM | Permalink

Using Apple's Xcode to develop websites with PHP unfortunately is a bit unpolished. There are of course other development tools more tailored towards PHP - also for the Mac. But Xcode is a very fine development tool, so why not try to make it a bit more comfortable also for PHP developers? ODPHPTools for Xcode are free and feature a PHP system function lookup as well as a PHP help lookup.

Posted by Mirko at 12:10 AM | Permalink

On The Job is an elegant and user friendly time tracking software. This long-awaited release is a free upgrade for existing On The Job customers while new customers can purchase the software from Stunt Software's online store for $24.95 USD.

A a 20 day free trial version can be obtained here (.dmg). On The Job requires OS X 10.3 or newer and is a Universal Binary.

Continue reading "On The Job time tracking software reaches version 2.0" »

Posted by Mirko at 08:40 PM | Permalink

Kinkless GTD is a free set of Applescripts that work with OmniOutliner Pro to create a framework for implementing David Allen’s Getting Things Done task-management methodology.

Changes in version 0.83 include:

• Everything syncs: all changes to all columns are now synchronized across all views of a task (Projects/Actions/iCal).
• Deletions now handled with the good old delete key on your keyboard.
• Singleton tasks section, now a full citizen.
• Better QS action… and fancy “task shorthand” to make it easy to send a task to a specific context/project.
• Task aging.

If you're not a fan of procrastination and you're eager to find out ways to beat it, do check out 43 Folders - a great resource that's full of good pointers.

Posted by Mirko at 12:12 AM | Permalink

You .mac subscription is coming to an end and you wonder whether you really need it. Maybe you're a new user that is thinking about what you could use it for. In any case, with some knowledge and inexpensive hardware you can make something similar to .mac by yourself. This article shows you how to build an alternative that retains the popular Disk, iSync (between computers), iCal sharing, and Backup features.

Posted by Mirko at 01:03 AM | Permalink

Erica Sadun writes: "Apple's free developer tool collection contains many overlooked gems. These aren't limited to programming-specific utilities. Mac enthusiasts of all stripes and all experience levels can regularly find tools to help them enhance their day-to-day use of OS X applications. It's just a matter of knowing where to look. Take Quartz Composer, for example. It's a free utility that can bring new life and interest to your iMovie projects. In this article, you'll learn how to use your own pictures to create a simple but flashy animation." If you find this interesting I suggest you take a look at this article over at the Apple Developer Connection.

Posted by Mirko at 03:35 AM | Permalink

With an eye toward its core audience of non-professional photo enthusiasts, Adobe has made improvements to its fourth version of Photoshop Elements that make it easier than ever to edit, organize, and share digital photos. The Macworld review finds that despite its consumer-level price tag, Photoshop Elements 4.0 sports some new tools that gurus wish the full-blown Photoshop had.

Posted by Mirko at 12:53 AM | Permalink

In this interview at Forbes, Bruce Chizen, chief executive of Adobe said: "Acrobat is coming in the fourth quarter of 2006. Creative Suite 3 will be introduced in the second quarter of 2007. Acrobat will take advantage of the Macromedia assets. And you'll see a lot of activity in the CS3 launch. There will be a lot of integration between Macromedia products and Adobe products as part of those offerings. By the time we launch CS3, the value of the two companies will be clear."

All MacBook Pro and new iMac users can rejoice once more! I can't wait to see all the integration they wil do with these products.

Posted by Mirko at 12:20 PM | Permalink

The PHP Function Index (PHPfi) is a very fast documentation viewer to look up any PHP function. Its search offers realtime-filtering of the function list and it downloads and caches the user contributed notes from PHP.NET for instant lookup. Additionally its AppleScript interface lets you look up PHP functions easily from within your favorite editor. Best of all, if you don't earn money with PHP development then you don't have to pay for the software. In any case, check it out and consider making a donation if you find it useful.

Posted by Mirko at 12:15 AM | Permalink

Scott Byer at the Living Photoshop blog writes about one of the most anticipated software releases at the moment - Adobe Creative Suite 3 - and explains why the transition to Intel is not easy as many believe. Finally some details on exactly why the process takes some time. This just shows how good can a blog be for a company to communicate with its customers.

Posted by Mirko at 08:27 AM | Permalink

Mohit Muthanna writes: "One significant productivity-enhancing feature that arrived with Tiger was Spotlight that has many advantages over traditional file-searching tools. It is a complete indexing and search framework that is tightly integrated into the OS. In addition to filenames and paths, it also indexes by file metadata and content and returns query results based on what's inside the file. Spotlight benefits can also be enjoyed on the command line, and this article explains how you can take full advantage of it from inside the OS X Terminal window."

Posted by Mirko at 02:56 AM | Permalink

Cyrus Farivar writes: "With a digital video camera and Apple’s iMovie HD, anyone with the inclination and the creativity can become a movie producer. But making the movies is only half the battle—you also have to find an audience. How? Create a video Podcast. Viewers sign up for your video feed once, and any new movies you create are downloaded to their computers automatically. It doesn’t get much easier than that."

Posted by Mirko at 12:35 AM | Permalink

Flicksilvr lets you grab photos from the Finder, iPhoto and elsewhere and send them directly to Flickr with some tags.

Posted by Mirko at 12:31 PM | Permalink

Rob Griffiths offers the insiders’ tips you won’t get from Apple, including ways to drag and drop print jobs between printers, cycle random Mail signatures, build smarter iPhoto albums, control Exposé via voice and much more.

Posted by Mirko at 02:35 AM | Permalink

Apple has criticised a French law that could break the locks tying songs from the iTunes store to iPod players. In a statement Apple said that if the law were passed it would result in "state-sponsored piracy".

The law to open up all online music stores is due to go to France's upper house of parliament for final approval.

Posted by Mirko at 01:25 AM | Permalink

The Java Native Interface (JNI) lets developers mix Java code with C or C++ source code. It provides access to platform-specific features that Java does not provide, so that Java applications on Mac OS X can take advantage of the wide range of powerful Apple-only technologies to provide the best possible user experience. Using the JNI, your Java application can access a user's Address Book, make Spotlight queries, take advantage of Core Image and Core Video, and leverage many other rich features unique to Mac OS X.

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

Personal Information Managers (PIMs) rank high on most users' lists of software they use every day. If you're switching to a Mac, you might be worried about the availability of productivity software. Microsoft's Entourage for the Mac works a lot like Outlook on Windows, with only a few subtle differences. There are other games in town as well, in both the commercial and freeware category. Paul Ferrill looks at a number of options for anyone making the switch from the PC to the Mac.

Posted by Mirko at 02:28 AM | Permalink

This document describes how to setup a system for automatically backing up a Mac (OS X 10.2 or later) to an external drive using the freely available rsync utility. This applies to any kind of external drive including FireWire, USB and network drives. It does not apply to CD-R or DVD-R media. It also does not apply if you want to implement an incremental backup system.

Posted by Mirko at 12:12 AM | Permalink

Tom Negrino writes: "These days, e-mail is so essential to the way we work that even the slightest hiccup in the flow of messages can ruin your day. You don’t have to put up with a cluttered, creaking inbox or attachments you just can’t seem to send. Here’s how to deal with common pet peeves."

Posted by Mirko at 04:10 AM | Permalink

While you're working in your Mac OS X environment, often you need to make an operation that requires a password (access e-mail, a password protected website, etc.) or you need administrator access to perform a certain task. As you use more services and access more systems, over time this entails the input of a multitude of passwords during your daily work.

Continue reading "Mastering your passwords with Keychain Access" »

Posted by Mirko at 01:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (17) | TrackBacks (1)

Ray Robertson of Scripting Matters will be leading free seminars in New York City Thursday, March 23, at the Adobe Customer Briefing Center on 8 West 40th Street near 5th Avenue in Manhattan. Learn how to use AppleScript with the Adobe Creative Suite and see demonstrations of scripts for InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator.

Continue reading "Free seminar: automating Adobe CS 2 with AppleScript" »

Posted by Mirko at 06:11 AM | Permalink

The contest has been won - nearly $14k to narf2006 for submitting a working solution to dual-booting Windows XP and Mac OS X on an Intel-Powered mac. I don't really understand why someone would like to run XP on a Mac but it's still news.

Posted by Mirko at 03:51 PM | Permalink

Codepoet writes: "This is kind of crazy, but it works like a charm. I was trying to find a way to just encrypt and password-protect my mail without going and putting my account in FileVault (evil). I noticed that Mac OS X would mount a disk image to open a program it knew was once on that disk image and, well, I put two and two together: what if my mail was on an encrypted disk image that also held the only working copy of the Mail application?"

Posted by Mirko at 12:57 PM | Permalink

Matthew Russell shows you how to add better bookmarks to your audio books, add slideshows to your music files, create enhanced podcasts, and share your favorite mods with others - even if they're on protected audio.

Posted by Mirko at 12:52 PM | Permalink

Phil Zimmermann thinks Zfone is better than the other approaches to secure VoIP, because it achieves security without reliance on a PKI, key certification, trust models, certificate authorities, or key management complexity that bedevils the email encryption world.

Posted by Mirko at 08:51 AM | Permalink

Looking to add a Safari-style tabs implementation to your project? Look no further; all the heavy lifting has been done in PSMTabBarControl. The author calls them "Auto-binding" tabs which means that when a tab is created, it attempts to establish bindings to a controller object that you provide, and will automagically update a progress indicator, an object counter, an icon, and the tab title as changes occur. No glue code on your part if you follow the documented object pattern (which is also present in the demo app). Should you choose not to provide the object pattern, no problem - everything still works as expected.

Posted by Mirko at 04:29 AM | Permalink

Tim Gaden writes: "A web site offers you the opportunity to track the path of your emails using Google Maps. Paste in the headers of an email and it traces the jumps from server to server. If you choose your email carefully, it can also show you the location of a particular server."

Posted by Mirko at 03:47 AM | Permalink

I am one of those computer users that have hundreds of icons on the desktop and stuff lying all around my user folder. I often tend to complicate my life by not organizing files, so often my iBook gets clogged. In the process of finding cool tools to help me in my "spring cleaning", I came across a piece of software that should at least assist by finding duplicate files.

Continue reading "Review: Take care of duplicate files with Tidy Up!" »

Posted by Berislav at 07:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

OS X FOSS portable applications are packaged so you can carry around with you on any portable device, USB thumb drive, iPod, portable hard drive, memory card, other portable device (or also on your internal hard disk).

Posted by Mirko at 12:04 AM | Permalink

David Chartier writes: "Quicksilver's website says it is a "unified, extensible interface for working with applications, contacts, music, and other data." Basically, that means it's an easy way to search for just about anything on your Mac and *do* something with it - kinda like Spotlight except, as of this writing, Quicksilver can't really search inside of files like Spotlight can. Quicksilver rises above and beyond Spotlight in that it allows you to do far more with Mac OS X and the items you search for, as you'll soon find out."

Posted by Mirko at 12:12 AM | Permalink

Most people would prefer not to see the spinning beach ball when working in Photoshop. Although eliminating it is not always possible, you can go some way toward doing that by managing your resources wisely. To that end, it’s worth spending a few minutes fine-tuning Photoshop to squeeze the maximum performance out of it.

Posted by Mirko at 12:45 AM | Permalink

This article takes a look at RapidWeaver, Sandvox, and iWeb, in an attempt to fathom their differences and drive a wedge between their feature sets. Can one of them do it all? Or are they slightly different tools, each suited to building different kinds of websites?

Posted by Mirko at 03:31 AM | Permalink

Yes, Apple Remote Desktop offers more than just observation and management tools. Ryan Faas gives the skinny on how non-IT Mac users and professionals can use Remote Desktop's least-known features for teaching, presentations, and collaboration. These are, without a doubt, its most overlooked uses, yet they may be the most innovative (and they are certainly the ones that can have broad application for users in any number of professions).

Posted by Mirko at 02:06 AM | Permalink

Tim Gaden writes: "If you are very busy person or a hardcore ToDo list maker, you are going to love ToDo X. It is the fully-tooled-up Rolls Royce of To Do lists, with dedicated features that leave iCal’s comfy Corolla in the shade."

Posted by Mirko at 12:15 AM | Permalink

David Chartier writes: "Yesterday Quicksilver started acting a little goofy, and I wasn't surprised; I have just about every beta and extra turned on as I just can't stop exploring all the neat stuff this app can do. During my troubleshooting efforts I resorted to the simple trick of quitting Quicksilver and simply moving its preference file (located with other preference files in ~/Library/Preferences) to my desktop, forcing Quicksilver to re-create a clean new preference file. This fixed the issue, but it also forced me to dive back into my preferences to tweak, toggle and change some of the options I use to make Quicksilver do what I want."

Posted by Mirko at 05:27 PM | Permalink

Tim Gaden writes: "MailTags 1.2 has been released. It brings integration with iCal To Dos, compatibility with Intel Macs and greater stability. It also addresses a number of small bugs like occasional crashes when applying rules and the “dreaded flickering project popup”."

Posted by Mirko at 08:31 AM | Permalink

JC writes: "I have talked up my Mac mini running OS X Server quite a bit in regards to how I use it as the center of my home entertainment center, but I never really touched on why I use OS X Server. The mini is a great little beast, and I use it heavily. Aside from running Front Row on it via a neat little hack, it also acts as my sandbox webserver, my torrent box, and my backup server."

Posted by Mirko at 12:33 PM | Permalink

The excellent RSS reader NewsMac Pro has evolved into version 1.2.4 which brings some cool updates. Everything is packed into an universal binary that will bring goodness to all new Mac hardware owners. The feature I've been waiting for, and that I noted when I reviewed NewsMac Pro, is finally here - Bloglines integration.

Posted by Mirko at 12:22 PM | Permalink

Almost every picture has some details burried in the high resolution abyss. As much fun as it is to have all your photos on an iPod, most details are lost due to screen size and image resolution. SplittingImage joins the game and splits the high resolution image into several smaller tiles so you can scroll through your photo and zoom away!

Posted by Mirko at 12:06 AM | Permalink

Thom Holwerda writes: "This week saw the introduction of various new Apple products. Everybody has their own opinions on these new products. Another issue, however, which got considerable less attention, was that of pricing. And no, I'm not talking about expensive-or-not. I'm talking about price differences between the US and Europe. And quite frankly, it's pissing me off." I suggest you also take a look at the comments below the article, some are very interesting and give an insight on why the price difference might be as high as it is.

Posted by Mirko at 03:15 AM | Permalink

Cyberduck is a very popular open source FTP and SFTP (SSH Secure File Transfer) browser with an easy to use interface, integration with external editors and support for many Mac OS X system technologies such as Spotlight, Bonjour, the Keychain and AppleScript. To make things even better, now there's a widget you can use with Cyberduck, get it here.

Posted by Mirko at 12:36 AM | Permalink

SlashLinks is a tool for automatically mirroring links from the popular social-bookmarking service del.icio.us to your personal or institutional website.

Posting, tagging, and management still occur within the del.icio.us interface, but design and layout can now be fully customized on your mirrored site.

SlashLinks also adds blog-like year/month/day archives (similar to Kottke.org's remaindered links) to the typical del.icio.us or flickr style tag browsing.

SlashLinks was motivated, in part, by the desire to keep the intuitive URL navigation provided by del.icio.us and common with blogs while allowing for design/layout customization to suit the user's taste.

Additionally, when republished on your own site, all of your links become accessible to search engines - effectively casting your vote for what other sites or pages deserve top placement in search results.

Posted by Mirko at 07:27 AM | Permalink

Ruby on Rails lets you create great web applications backed by SQL databases. Read this article to learn why Mac OS X is the preferred platform for this dynamic new tool. It should come as no surprise that Mac OS X is a favored platform for Rails development. Rails and its supporting cast of web servers and databases thrive on the rich Mac OS X environment.

Posted by Mirko at 12:01 AM | Permalink

I've been enjoying using Backpack for a while now and I was waiting for someone to take the Backpack API for a spin and come up with a desktop program to work with the web application. The result is PackRat, a $24.95 app that lets you use your Backpack data when you can't be on the net. Before you hit the road just sync up with Backpack and your data is duplicated in PackRat's database. View it to your heart's content. View it in ways only a desktop application can. Looks very interesting and I wonder why 37Signals didn't make an app like this in the first place.

Posted by Mirko at 06:26 AM | Permalink

Encyclopodia is a free software project that brings the Wikipedia, which is one of the largest encyclopedias on the world, to the iPod. It has been successfully tested on a third-generation iPod and on an iPod mini, but it should also work on other iPod generations.

Posted by Mirko at 05:48 AM | Permalink

Ben Long writes: "By adding pro-level tools while keeping a surprisingly low price, Adobe’s $89 Photoshop Elements 4 is an important upgrade for any digital photographer who doesn’t want to - or simply can’t - spend hundreds of dollars on a copy of Adobe Photoshop CS2." Read the entire article over at Macworld.

Posted by Mirko at 10:17 AM | Permalink

It's the hottest sensation to sweep the nation: Pink Noise! Also known as a signal with even power distribution on a logarithmic frequency scale, pink noise masks background noise to help you concentrate. Now with source code and white noise, for those less colorful.

Posted by Mirko at 12:16 AM | Permalink

How does your website look on Apple Safari? Many designers (I can't figure out why) don't use a Mac and have no way of seeing how their work looks like when viewed in Safari. There is a solution to this problem. Visit this website, enter an URL and SafariTest will return a screenshot of your page as viewed with Safari. Note that frames and Flash movies are not perfectly supported.

Posted by Mirko at 12:06 AM | Permalink

Adobe announced wide-spread support from the photography community and ecosystem partners for Adobe Lightroom Public Beta 2.0 and Photoshop CS2. With two open and extensible architectures, both applications allow for new, customizable workflows and innovative plug-ins and devices.

Continue reading "Adobe highlights Lightroom Beta and Photoshop CS2 at PMA 2006" »

Posted by Mirko at 05:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Keyboard shortcuts can not only improve your efficiency in Photoshop, but they can even provide you with functionality that might not be available by any other means, like zooming while a dialog window is open, or inserting a "Select forward layer" into an action. This PDF contains a myriad of shortcuts.

Posted by Mirko at 03:00 PM | Permalink

Jim Dalrymple writes: "As MacBook Pro laptops arrived this week, users of the first Intel-powered Mac portables began firing up their new machines for the first time. What they haven’t been able to do, however, is find versions of some pretty high-profile professional applications that run natively on the MacBook’s Intel Core Duo chip. And, according to the public pronouncements from software makers such as Adobe and Microsoft, they shouldn’t expect Universal-binary versions of those programs to appear any time soon."

Posted by Mirko at 12:00 AM | Permalink

When Mac OS X was introduced, one of the complaints about it was that there weren't any good browsers available for it. Apple solved the problem in 2003 by introducing Safari, but it is really the best OS X browser?

Posted by Mirko at 12:28 AM | Permalink

Chax is a collection of minor modifications and additions that make using Apple's iChat more enjoyable. Chax requires at least Mac OS X Tiger and is completely free.

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

If you’re using Mac OS X Tiger and Flickr, you might be interested in the ability to send images to Flickr by right clicking and hitting send. This is useful if you use Flickr for image hosting for your blog or you just want a really quick way to upload images to Flickr.

Posted by Mirko at 12:32 AM | Permalink

For anyone that has been wishing to switch to Apache 2 on their Mac, this is the time to do it. PHP 5 has also recently been updated and this tutorial describes in detail, the best method to both build and install these programmes on your Mac.

Posted by Mirko at 12:08 AM | Permalink

Quicksilver never ceases to amaze! You can now create mouse gestures to do anything Quicksilver can do using a plugin called Abracadabra.

Posted by Mirko at 12:21 AM | Permalink

PDF Kit lets you handle PDF documents in your Cocoa application without writing a lot of custom code. Read this article to get started with this important Mac OS X Tiger technology.

Posted by Mirko at 12:09 AM | Permalink

ShapeShifter is a product that lets you change the overall appearance of your Mac using 'themes' - the look of windows, menus, apps, buttons, absolutely everything. Version 2.3 brings several new features like: "Growl" (if present) will be used to indicate that themes were applied successfully when the normal indicator sheet has been turned off; ShapeShifter's Download tab now has a shiny indicator that lights up when new themes are available for download; you can now type the name of a theme to select it (Tiger only).

Posted by Mirko at 01:08 AM | Permalink

Joe Kissell writes: "While OS X may be pretty well tuned for performance, individual applications aren’t. You can tweak your apps in plenty of ways to make sure they’re operating at top speed. Here are a few of our favorite tricks."

Posted by Mirko at 12:12 AM | Permalink

A cool piece of software to try out for all you people that want to dominate your OS X system in a whole different way is definitely FlyGesture. It works a lot like Automator - you can create a single action, or chains of actions to be invoked by the simple movements of your mouse. FlyGesture is activated like Exposé or Dashboard, bringing up a transparent window of "guides" to move your mouse through. Moving your mouse through the guides lets FlyGesture know what action or actions you want to be performed, such as closing a window or opening an application.

Posted by Mirko at 12:11 AM | Permalink

Mark Shead writes: "There are several situations where you might want to dump a DVD to your hard drive to watch later. For instance, I get significantly better battery life when watching a video from my hard drive than I get when watching it from a DVD. If I’m stuck in a plane for several hours, having my movie on the hard drive can be the difference between finishing the show, or running out of power halfway through. I use a PowerBook and in OS X 10.3 and earlier you could just use the built in Disk Utility to copy a DVD to your disk, but it stopped working in 10.4. However with a few free tools you can accomplish the same thing and more."

Posted by Mirko at 03:05 AM | Permalink

If you use Firefox and love themes I suggest you take a look at this website that offers a few themes designed with Mac OS X in mind. Quality stuff and nice visuals!

Posted by Mirko at 02:19 AM | Permalink

Codepoet writes: "It's time to take the pain out of backups. I'll discuss some solutions for both of these problems and I'm sure some of them will fit your workflow. First, however, I'll talk about the types of backups – especially the kinds you don't need as a consumer."

Posted by Mirko at 12:26 AM | Permalink

Unfortunately, while iTunes can display half-star ratings there is no way within iTunes to set half-star ratings. Using simple AppleScript though, a song’s rating can quickly be increased/decreased by half a star.

Posted by Mirko at 12:42 AM | Permalink

Tim Gaden writes: "MailMergeApp is an AppleScript Studio application that allows you to use Mail.app and Address Book to create “merged mailings”. It works with Mail.app but plugins are available to make it work with Entourage, Mailsmith and Eudora as well."

Posted by Mirko at 12:01 AM | Permalink

The Apple Blog has a great list of Quicksilver tutorials that will suit every level of knowledge. If you want to work in a more productive environmet I suggest you take a look at Quicksilver right now.

Posted by Mirko at 02:01 AM | Permalink

Here's a brief excerpt: "What’s your pet hate about Mail.app? I’m going to assume pet hate means something I just get annoyed at versus something that’s just fundamentally wonky, like its IMAP support drunkenly feeling around the alley looking for an excuse to wee on itself." Read more in the interview at Hawk Wings. If you don't know who drunkenbatman is, and I doubt it, check out his blog.

Posted by Mirko at 01:38 AM | Permalink

Did you know you can use your keyboard to quickly accomplish many tasks in Mac OS X Mail? Apple has built into Mail many shortcuts for common commands, look in the menus of the Mail application or see the menu shortcuts below. To do an action, press the keys indicated below. Keep in mind the list is pretty long and it will be quite hard to remember them all.

Posted by Mirko at 12:31 AM | Permalink

I had a situation where I needed to control two computers over the Internet. The best solution for me was to use VNC networking technology. VNC stands for Virtual Network Computer and is a real nice way to remotely control computers through a GUI interface in which you see the remote desktop. I tried all of the Mac OS X VNC clients I came across and from my experience Chicken of the VNC is the way to go.

Continue reading "Review: Chicken of the VNC - the way to go" »

Posted by Berislav at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

Mindful of the questionable legality of decrypting commercial DVDs, Cinematize 2 leaves that task up to you to perform separately using a DVD ripping tool. If you wish to extract clips from an unprotected DVD (such as one you authored with iDVD), there's no need to rip the DVD content to your hard drive first; Cinematize can read it directly from the original DVD or mounted disc image.

Posted by Mirko at 02:41 AM | Permalink

Scott writes: "Those Intel-based MacBook Pros and iMacs will soon be in your hands. But before you open those boxes and fire them up, there’s a few things I think you should know." Very good article aimed at fresh switchers that covers a lot of ground.

Posted by Mirko at 01:35 AM | Permalink

TurboTax has consistently been the best tax-prep app available for the Mac, and the latest version includes several minor improvements that should make your yearly wrestling match with the IRS a little easier. The Macworld review finds that TurboTax is a great program thanks to its ease of use, excellent educational features, navigational freedom, and superior error checking.

Posted by Mirko at 12:25 AM | Permalink

Joe Kissell is a frequent contributor to Macworld magazine and the author of numerous books and ebooks about Mac OS X software, including Take Control of Apple Mail in Tiger and Take Control of Spam with Apple Mail. Read more about him in this interview by Tim Gaden.

Posted by Mirko at 01:21 AM | Permalink

Ken Collins writes: "Like most people that create networks I did not realize that the Mac Mini includes 3 high speed network interfaces and that with a little bit of work and the right architecture they can be used to operate in much the same manner one would see in a high-end network operations centers. I manage one such NOC and I wanted my home network to function like most companies who do serious business online."

Posted by Mirko at 12:49 AM | Permalink

Shelley Weiner writes: "Phew! You finished installing Mac OS X Tiger, your network is humming along beautifully, everything works ... time to put away that Install DVD. Hang on! You have no idea what you are missing by not installing Xcode (aka Developer Tools). No way, you say, I am a teacher (or writer or ...), not a geek. To that I say: You have no idea what you are missing."

Posted by Mirko at 12:39 PM | Permalink

Matthew Russell writes: "Recently, Novell released some pretty amazing preview videos of their upcoming desktop, Novell Linux Desktop 10. They're pretty durn slick, and you should take a look. Among the list of cool features include: translucent windows, wobbly windows (when you drag the window it wobbles), enhanced accessibility via zoom, an exposé clone, and a user switch with a cube transition. Any of this sound familiar?"

Posted by Mirko at 04:29 AM | Permalink

Chris Barylick writes: "Filling in where Apple left off, MailTags inserts metadata functionality into Mail.app, allowing for additional functionality and features that otherwise wouldn't be available to the program. Once installed, metadata allows for full search functions of all your e-mail messages through Mac OS X 10.4's Spotlight feature (which is, ironically, metadata-based)."

Posted by Mirko at 02:03 AM | Permalink

Giles Turnbull writes: "I've spent the last couple of days messing around with iWork 06, getting to know the new features and writing an article about them at the same time, and I noticed an interesting little something. One of the nicest new features in iWork is the ability to do the same kind of image editing within Pages and Keynote that you can do in iPhoto, using the Image Adjust panel we've grown accustomed to."

Posted by Mirko at 12:05 AM | Permalink

With her AirPort Express, Maria Langer has figured out a way to get some phenomenal sound from some of that ancient Mac equipment collecting dust in her living room (along with the more modern stuff, of course).

Posted by Mirko at 01:29 AM | Permalink

Originally scheduled for a March announcement, Apple's Logic Pro 7.2 has been released and is currently shipping. If you're not familiar with Apple's flagship audio development software, it's known for it's strength and flexibility in digital audio recording, digital signal processing (DSP), MIDI sequencing, and notation.

Posted by Mirko at 03:19 PM | Permalink

MacMinute reported that Adobe Systems has just posted a question and answer PDF document covering its support for the new Intel-based Mac systems. The company says it will not be releasing updates for current products as Universal Binaries, but it will take advantage of Intel-based Macs with the next major release of its product line.

Posted by Berislav at 11:53 AM | Permalink

So iTunes has a unique position. It is much, much more than a music player. It is Apple's representative to the non-Mac world, a focal point for Apple's growing media empire, and a pioneering combination of desktop application and online service. With all that in mind, let's ask ourselves: how can we mess around with iTunes? Read on.

Posted by Berislav at 02:32 PM | Permalink

Inquisitor is an InputManager plugin from David Watanabe that adds live predictive searching to Safari. This replaces the current search bar functionality with a fast live-search style drop down. As soon as you start typing your search, the list appears with possible queries.

Posted by Berislav at 01:56 PM | Permalink

Tim Gaden writes: "When Bare Bones Software launched their new information manager, Yojimbo, last week I decided to give it a go. I’ve been using it a lot and I like it."

Posted by Mirko at 04:07 AM | Permalink

Get noticed with creative design tools that include over 300 customizable logo templates, 1200 unique logo objects, a slogan/tagline library, and a diverse assortment of object and text tools to help personalize your look.

Continue reading "Macware releases Logo Design Studio" »

Posted by Mirko at 12:36 PM | Permalink

Glenn Wolsey writes: "This year’s update to iPhoto is a substantial one. Apple has worked hard, improving current features, and also introducing some cool new features. Upfront, the notable change you will see when launching iPhoto 6 is the interface. The interface now matches that of iTunes 6, which looks very smooth and attractive."

Posted by Mirko at 12:32 AM | Permalink

Right on the heels of its release, nearly a dozen reviewers gave Apple a pretty good thrashing over Aperture, Apple's new professional photography software. Not all of the reviews are bad. Some offer very positive insights. But many focus on perceived problems. After delving into Aperture, I've come to some conclusions about where many of the critics went wrong.

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

Apple Computer this week is expected to begin widespread testing of Mac OS X 10.4.5 update, the next in a series of maintenance updates to its Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" operating system and the first update to address bugs lingering the company's initial release of Mac OS X 10.4.4 for Intel-based Macs, AppleInsider has learned.

Posted by Mirko at 01:27 PM | Permalink

Franklin Tessler writes: "At first glance, it’s easy to dismiss Keynote 3 as a minor upgrade - even the icon hasn’t changed. But lurking beneath the surface are many new features Keynote users have been clamoring for. Although the program still isn’t perfect, those enhancements make Keynote an even more compelling alternative to Microsoft PowerPoint 2004."

Posted by Mirko at 01:09 PM | Permalink

NetShred is a stand-alone app that protects your privacy on the Internet by shredding the browsing histories and caches of your browsers and email clients.

Posted by Mirko at 12:53 AM | Permalink

Bare Bones Software, the company behind BBEdit and TextWrangler, announced the release of their new software - Yojimbo information organizer. The product empowers Mac users to manage, effortlessly and securely, the onslaught of information encountered every day at work and at home, even across multiple computers.

Continue reading "Bare Bones releases a new Mac information organizer" »

Posted by Berislav at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

David Chartier writes: "I finally got around to playing with the Lightroom beta over the last couple of days and I have to say: it's fantastic. I'm running it on the latest version of the 15" PowerBook G4, with a hi-res screen, 1.67 GHz G4 and 1.5 GB RAM, and it runs quick. App startup time is virtually nil, and the whole thing just feels zippy."

Posted by Mirko at 11:17 AM | Permalink

It may not be official, but a version of Firefox that will run on Apple Computer's new Intel-based Macs has been released by the one-man development team responsible for the open-source project. Josh Aas, the Mozilla coder who has been working on Mac Intel browser, released a working build Tuesday that runs on the new Intel iMacs under Mac OS X 10.4.4.

Posted by Mirko at 12:38 PM | Permalink

Intel has released betas of its software development tools for Mac OS X running on the Intel architecture. The tools were announced in August of last year, with the beta release coming immediately after Apple's launch last week of iMac and MacBook Intel computers. The tools consist of a Fortran and C++ compilers, a math kernel library and a performance primitives library.

Posted by Mirko at 01:56 AM | Permalink

Adobe AfterEffects 7 delivers with the same power you’ve come to expect, and does it all with a new look and new features.

The first thing you’ll notice when you first launch After Effects 7 is the redesign of the user interface. By default the floating panels and palettes are gone, replaced with an interconnected workspace that fills your screen. This is useful for Mac users who for years could still see the desktop behind their work.

Posted by Mirko at 12:16 AM | Permalink

Kelly Turner writes: "iPhoto 6, the latest update to Apple’s consumer-level photo management and editing software, may not have as many revolutionary new features as past versions - the addition of the Adjust panel in iPhoto 5 completely changed the way I use the program - but it does have something special those other versions lacked: a sense of fun."

Posted by Mirko at 12:18 AM | Permalink

When Apple migrated the Mac operating system platform to Mac OS X, one of the key components was an underpinning based on the FreeBSD operating system. The use of an open source operating system as the core has in turn led to an increase in the use and availability of free and open source software.

Web browsing in the free software space is now based around two main camps, those based on the Mozilla codebase (Camino, Firefox, Mozilla) and those based on the KDE sourced KHTML rendering engine (Safari and OmniWeb).

Posted by Mirko at 12:22 AM | Permalink

A couple of weeks ago we received a review copy of Comic Life. Until that moment I wasn't introduced to this piece of software, but I always liked comics, so I took this software from our review queue. As you can probably figure out yourself, Comic Life gives you the possibility of easy creating your own comics or comic style photo images. I must say I am quite impressed with it, but read on for all the details.

Continue reading "Review: Comic Life 1.2 - a deep look into making comics" »

Posted by Berislav at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Software company GenieCommands today introduced a Macintosh software program designed to give consumers more control and fun over their digital entertainment experiences in their lounge room.

GenieCommands is a unique programmable software application that allows you to control all your applications and media via simple menus, in a theatre or lounge room environment.

Continue reading "Programmable Media Center software GenieCommands has been released" »

Posted by Mirko at 12:25 AM | Permalink

Rob Griffiths writes: "Luckily, iWork ’06 was basically immediately available, and I’ve been using it somewhat extensively this week - I updated all of my presentations to take advantage of some new features in Keynote, and I’ve taken a look at the changes in Pages. Since not everyone can get down to the Expo to check out iWork for themselves, here’s a more detailed look at the changes in iWork ’06."

Posted by Mirko at 12:02 AM | Permalink

Owen Linzmayer is not exactly a big fan of Entourage, the personal information manager component of Microsoft Office 2004. Read his top 10 list of "features" that are turning him into a disgruntled user.

Posted by Mirko at 12:01 AM | Permalink

Despite pledging its support for Apple's platform, Microsoft has backed out of future releases of Windows Media Player for Mac, and the company's Web site now directs visitors to download a third-party application from developer Flip4Mac.

Posted by Mirko at 11:59 AM | Permalink

Acutus Trading released Compost 1.8, a Mac OS X utility that seamlessly manages the OS X Trash. The software solves all your Trash problems by letting you set a time limit on your trash, cap its size and maintain a minimum amount of space. The software also offers some valuable functions such as secure deletion and file shredding.

Continue reading "Take care of your Trash - Compost 1.8 released" »

Posted by Berislav at 01:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Derrick Story writes: "Adobe promotes Lightroom as “the efficient new way for professional photographers to import, select, develop, and showcase large volumes of digital images.” Unlike Photoshop, Lightroom is aimed squarely at photographers.

"That said, Photoshop complements Lightroom when there’s a heavy image-editing task to handle. And Lightroom makes it easy to open a picture in Photoshop. Generally speaking, though, the tools in Photoshop that photographers need most of the time exist right within Lightroom" Derrick adds.

Posted by Mirko at 12:12 AM | Permalink

iSeek is an indispensable tool that allows you to instantly search for anything on the Internet, no matter what program you're running at the time. iSeek puts a familiar search field in your menu bar, always at your beck and call, needing just a click or keystroke to start your search. No lengthy startup times, no cumbersome interface to navigate, just streamlined Aqua goodness.

Continue reading "Ambrosia releases version 1.1.0 of Internet search utility iSeek" »

Posted by Mirko at 12:05 AM | Permalink

Microsoft and a pack of enterprise developers say they are on target for creating Intel-native Mac software despite Apple's surprise Macworld Expo release of the first Intel-based Macs six months ahead of schedule.

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

Quark announced that QuarkXPress 7, the next version of its desktop publishing software, will be the first major publishing application to run natively on both Power PC and Intel-based Macs. A beta Universal Binary version that supports both processor architectures will be available by the end of January and the production version will ship later this year.

Continue reading "QuarkXPress 7 will run natively on Intel Macs" »

Posted by Mirko at 08:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Microsoft Corp.’s Macintosh Business Unit (Mac BU) today announced at Macworld a formal five-year agreement that reinforces Microsoft’s plans to develop Microsoft Office for Mac software for both PowerPC- and Intel-based Macs.

Continue reading "Microsoft commits to new versions of Office for Mac" »

Posted by Mirko at 09:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

As expected, Apple today announced iWork '06. The new iWork includes major enhancements within Pages 2 and Keynote 3 including stunning three-dimensional charts, iPhoto-like advanced image editing and masking tools, and spreadsheet-like tables that make it easy to get great results in minutes.

Continue reading "Information on the just released iWork '06" »

Posted by Berislav at 07:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Airfoil is a cool piece of software that enables you to send any audio you want to Apple's AirPort Express device. It works in conjunction with your AirPort Express and any audio player. You can use it to send audio from Realplayer, Windows Media Player, QuickTime Player, or even your web browser.

Continue reading "Rogue Amoeba releases Airfoil 2.0" »

Posted by Berislav at 01:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Maria Langer learned the value of backups the hard way. Follow her example (the good example, not the bad one) and use .Mac Backup to protect the essential information you're probably not backing up right now.

Posted by Mirko at 12:56 PM | Permalink

Thom Holwerda writes: "The iMac G5 in its current form is, in my opinion, the best personal computer for home and/or office use that money can buy. If you compare the iMac to what Apple's competitors have to offer, it becomes painfully clear just how far Apple is ahead when it comes to making user-friendly, visually attractive, and plug-and-play home computers." Read the entire review here.

Posted by Mirko at 02:08 PM | Permalink

Adobe introduced the public beta of Adobe Lightroom, an all-new digital imaging solution for professional photographers. With its modular, task-based and streamlined environment, Lightroom’s goal is to deliver a complete photography workflow.

As Adobe collects more feedback from photographers, modules and feature sets will likely change, as customers decide on their popularity and priority within digital photography workflows. Initially available as a beta for Macintosh, Lightroom will later support both the Windows and Macintosh platforms.

Continue reading "Public beta of Adobe's Lightroom available for Mac only" »

Posted by Mirko at 01:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

DiggUpdate gives you quick access to the front page stories of www.digg.com in your Mac OS X menu-bar.

DiggUpdate will display a small icon at the top right of your screen. When there are new front page stories you have not seen, the lamp in the icon will turn yellow. Simply click on the icon and you will see the new front page stories in your menubar as long with a short description. You can click on any of the stories to visit them.

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

Whether you are a programmer or a designer, the production of code and markup is hard work. Without an editor dedicated to the task, it is also often cumbersome, overwhelming, and repetitive. Especially when you are dealing with a lot of files at once - like most projects do. TextMate puts you back in control, reduces the mental overhead, and turns manual work into something the computer does.

Continue reading "Code and markup editor TextMate reaches version 1.5" »

Posted by Mirko at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Emily Hambidge writes: "Since iTunes has become so popular, I thought it might be nice to have a basic tutorial on how to use it. There is a plethora of functions available with the application, and Apple is constantly improving it. To help you get the most out of your iTunes experience, I have outlined the most popular and important functions."

Posted by Mirko at 09:23 AM | Permalink

Since Gmail is all the rage, here’s another way of getting your contact information out of Address Book and into Gmail’s web interface or into Thunderbird.

Posted by Mirko at 12:04 AM | Permalink

FileMaker has announced the immediate availability of FileMaker Server 8 Advanced, an enhanced version of FileMaker Server 8 that lets administrators securely and reliably manage and deploy shared FileMaker Pro 8 and 7 database files over networks, intranets, and the Internet.

Continue reading "FileMaker Server 8 Advanced now available" »

Posted by Mirko at 04:03 PM | Permalink

It's that time of year again, time to dust off the crystal ball and prognosticate about what Apple has in store for us. Macworld Expo opens in San Francisco soon and predicting Expo announcements has become nothing short of a sport. So before you lay your money down for that shiny new computer, here are Jason the Greek's Vegas odds on Steve Jobs announcements.

Posted by Mirko at 03:47 PM | Permalink

Don't have a shiny new iMac G5? But you want to make a Mac the center of your home entertainment system? Don't despair. Instead of shelling out thousands for a system, use this guide to connect an existing Mac to your home stereo and television. Emory Christensen shows you why it's not as hard as you think.

Posted by Mirko at 12:06 AM | Permalink

In this article Emily Hambidge shows you how to unlock the power behind your digital pictures with Apple's iPhoto 5. She covers importing, editing and sharing your photos among other topics.

Posted by Mirko at 02:17 PM | Permalink

Tim Gaden writes: "Ever wanted to send an encrypted message in an email but haven’t wanted the trouble or difficulty of obtaining a digital certificate? Chibi Ninja, a new app released yesterday, might be for you. It allows you send an encrypted message (and image if you want) through Apple Mail which the recipient can decode using the same password you encrypted it with."

Posted by Mirko at 01:29 PM | Permalink

MacFixIt reports that Apple has released a 1.0.1 version of their all-in-one production tool Aperture. Some of the improvements in this release include white balance adjustment accuracy and performance, image export quality, book and print ordering reliability, auto-stacking performance and custom paper size handling.

Posted by Berislav at 02:03 PM | Permalink

Macintosh speech recognition authority MacSpeech has released a new ScriptPak for Final Draft 7. The new ScriptPak installs almost 250 commands into iListen that allows the user to do virtually anything by voice in Final Draft 7 they would normally do using keyboard shortcuts or menus.

Continue reading "MacSpeech releases ScriptPak for Final Draft 7" »

Posted by Mirko at 12:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If you are using the Safari web browser, you probably either have your own solution for this, or you are in a desperate need to solve the little thing that gets on your nerves. I am talking about preventing Safari from automatically closing all tabs if you accidentally click the Quit Safari key combo.

Continue reading "Taming the Quit Safari keyboard shortcut function" »

Posted by Berislav at 03:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Dennis Sellers writes: "iDive is easy to use, a great time saver and looks so gorgeous you’d think it was an integrated part of Apple’s iLife suite. The latest version (1.5) adds a Mosiac feature that makes the app—which is also great for Final Cut users—even better, especially if you’re a pro user or 5G (video) iPod owner."

Posted by Mirko at 07:35 AM | Permalink

FastScripts is a utility whose custom keyboard shortcuts, and superior integration with running applications make getting your work done quickly and elegantly its top priority.

Execute scripts from anywhere on your Mac, without leaving the keyboard. Anything that FastScripts can execute from its menu can be configured to run quickly in response to your desired key combination. Keyboard shortcuts defined for your application-specific scripts are only effective while that application is active, so you can define the same shortcut to do different things in different applications.

Posted by Mirko at 12:06 AM | Permalink

Dejal Simon is a site monitoring tool that checks servers for changes or failures, and notifies you via e-mail, sound, speech, or other means. You can use it to track updated sites, and to alert you when an important server goes down or recovers.

It can be used to monitor your own website and servers, track posts and new comments on your or friends' blogs, check for web mail, get notifications of updates to favorite news and entertainment websites, keep an eye on auctions, and many other uses.

Posted by Mirko at 03:42 PM | Permalink

This release fixes all remaining issues that were reported during the testing period; as a result Synergy is now a fully-fledged Universal Binary that will run identically (and natively) on both the Intel and PowerPC platforms.

Posted by Mirko at 12:01 AM | Permalink

Ever wondered: "What's that song?" and you just missed the announcement? Now there's help that can be waiting right on your Mac.

Let Tunatic hear the song and you will get the artist's name and the song's title within seconds. Tunatic is the very first song search engine based on sound for your computer. All you need is a microphone and Internet access. The best part? It's free.

Posted by Mirko at 11:40 AM | Permalink

Miraizon has added new functionality to its DVD movie clip extractor, Cinematize 2, to directly generate movie files for iPod video and PSP units, as well as for sharing on the Web.

These new features change what used to be a multi-step process into an easy single-step operation. The newly added output formats include Apple's H.264-based iPod video format for iPod and the MPEG-4 format for iPod, PSP, and web.

Continue reading "Cinematize 2.05 now offers direct output for iPod, PSP and the Web" »

Posted by Mirko at 02:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Unison 1.7.2, the new version of this popular Usenet newsreader, offers a number of improvements: it cures a potential hang with marking files read, fixes an issue with incomplete NZB files, and increases the speed of marking lots of items as read, among many other improvements and optimizations.

Posted by Mirko at 11:43 AM | Permalink

Open Source Mac is a list of free and open source software for Mac OS X. In their own words: "We aren't trying to be a comprehensive listing of every open-source mac app, instead we want to showcase the best, most important, and easiest to use. This page should be a handy reference and a useful tool for getting more people to start using free and open-source software." We all love free software so check it out and enjoy.

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

Here’s Tim Gaden's list of the top 10 plug-ins, add-ons, scripts, and helpful apps that every Apple Mail user should have. If you're a Mail.app user this is a must read.

Posted by Mirko at 05:40 PM | Permalink

If you have a video iPod and want to watch ABC's "Lost" on it, you don't necessarily have to pay Apple Computer for the opportunity to download the show from the iTunes store. That's because Hauppauge Computer Works has released Wing, a software application that, in conjunction with its WinTV-PVR hardware--a plug-in card that brings personal video recorder technology to PCs--allows users to record television shows directly to their video iPods or Sony PlayStation Portables.

Posted by Mirko at 01:29 AM | Permalink

I just came across the following info from Microsoft: "As of January 31st, 2006, Internet Explorer for the Mac will no longer be available for download from Mactopia. It is recommended that Macintosh users migrate to more recent web browsing technologies such as Apple's Safari." Finally, the software was not updated for ages; it automatically froze after startup (it was unable to render "modern" MSN homepage) and the bottom line - it was developed by Microsoft. I would say RIP, but... (evil grin)

Posted by Berislav at 05:05 PM | Permalink

Chronos announced the release of StickyBrain 4, its fourth generation note manager for Mac OS X. This new version adds significant new class-leading features including seven new types of notes, support for Spotlight, a built-in web browser for viewing bookmarks, and a new streamlined interface.

Continue reading "Chronos releases StickyBrain 4, the note manager" »

Posted by Mirko at 03:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Podcasting has exploded over the past year. Justin Williams gives you an introduction to creating your own podcast using Mac OS X and Apple's Soundtrack Pro. Keep in mind that this is part 1 of 5 - I expect this series to be very in-depth when complete.

Posted by Mirko at 11:45 AM | Permalink

Cocoa UltraSMS is a free utility for extracting SMS messages from a mobile phone into a simple MySQL database for use within your own applications and websites.

Posted by Mirko at 12:15 AM | Permalink

Because of the low rating Aperture got in the in-depth Ars Technica review no wonder their review sparked a lot of discussion. In order to clarify some of the things readers asked about they published a follow-up to the review with even more details.

Posted by Mirko at 12:06 AM | Permalink

Mac OS X, in its current 10.4 Tiger incarnation, is well suited as a MySQL-supporting platform, especially since it includes Apache and the P-languages out of the box. (MAMP has yet to catch on as an acronym, but maybe someday.) Earlier versions of the OS supported MySQL well enough, but only recently have MySQL AB's installer and documentation support begun to shine.

Posted by Mirko at 12:02 AM | Permalink

Xcode Build Settings allow you to customize your build process in an intuitive way, giving you greater control managing complex project settings. This article shows you how.

Posted by Mirko at 12:05 AM | Permalink

Although its capabilities are limited compared to a laptop, it is possible to use a full-sized, color-screen iPod to run presentations developed in PowerPoint or Keynote. You’ll need to attach the iPod to a projector or a TV so that everyone can see the presentation, and to speakers if you have a soundtrack or narration to go with the presentation.

Posted by Mirko at 12:01 AM | Permalink

In this synced-up, wireless world, keeping information at hand has never been easier. But having your calendar in your PDA doesn't mean that you won't forget to look at said calendar and notice that you're supposed to pick up your cousin's son from soccer practice! With a little help from Mac OS X Tiger's Automator, however, you'll never miss an appointment again.

Posted by Mirko at 11:09 AM | Permalink

Find Spotlight slow when searching your e-mail? Justin Williams reviews MailSteward, a new utility that archives your e-mail and allows you to search it in a variety of ways.

Posted by Mirko at 11:07 AM | Permalink

IDG World Expo announced a major focus on digital photography at Macworld 2006. Several new features have been added to this year's event that will provide attendees with more education, services and product insight about digital photography - always one of the most popular topics at Macworld.

Posted by Mirko at 12:01 AM | Permalink

Apple has a series of articles that will be of interest to anyone moving from the PC to the Mac and I'm sure many will after the holidays :)

Posted by Mirko at 04:06 PM | Permalink

Annoture lets you transfer annotations from iView MediaPro catalogs to Aperture projects and albums and back. This two-way transfer of IPTC and metadata information means you are not tied to any one application for your image management and workflow needs. Annoture also features a modular interface that can be extended to support additional applications in the future.

Posted by Mirko at 02:50 PM | Permalink

LANrev now offers an extensive integration with Microsoft’s Systems Management Server (SMS). This integration allows LANrev to transfer Macintosh computer data to the SMS database allowing management of the data from within the SMS framework.

The result is the further leveraging of previous capital costs to increase efficiencies and add functionality to existing tools.

Continue reading "LANrev 1.5 - a desktop management system" »

Posted by Mirko at 09:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

If you are running Firefox on a Mac, you’ve more than likely came across the problem that it has no idea what to do with a .dmg file. Ideally we’d want it to open the .dmg just like it does a .zip file and here you can find out how to do that.

Posted by Mirko at 04:02 PM | Permalink

This all-new edition of Deep Freeze Mac allows for a completely non-restrictive working environment where there is no need to be concerned about system misconfiguration, corruption, or malicious damage to a Mac OS X system; a simple restart eradicates all changes down to the last byte and ensures that the standard system configuration is available at all times.

Continue reading "Deep Freeze Mac 2.0 secures your work environment" »

Posted by Mirko at 03:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

This is (it will be when finished) a complete installation and configuration guide for changing your Mac mini into a full blown internet connected server to be used for all your needs at home.

When finished it will be able to be your web, mail and more server which you can put on the internet connected to your broadband connection. For now, you can read about the prerequisites, building a proper mail server and configuring it.

Posted by Mirko at 01:21 PM | Permalink

Jennifer Berger writes: "It’s been a month since I started out as a Mac minimalist, challenging myself to only use the software that came on my well-equipped Mac mini. And what a month - my Mac mini was uncluttered, just cruising along. I was smug, I was feeling good…Until I had to work at home one day and found that my Office 2004 Test Drive had expired."

Posted by Mirko at 11:21 AM | Permalink

DivX 6 for Mac includes the new DivX Converter for Mac, a one-step video creation application that represents the first official stand-alone DivX encoding program for the Mac platform.

DivX Converter is a lightweight, drag-and-drop application that enables users to create high-quality DivX videos from a variety of sources in one easy step.

Continue reading "DivX 6 for Mac lets users create and play highly compressed, high-quality video" »

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

Unison, the popular Mac OS X Usenet newsreader, has been updated to version 1.7.1. It's got major new features, and best of all, it's a free upgrade for all users. It offers a ton of fixes, improvements and tweaks. The guys at Panic added additional rules and improved the grouping algorithm. But most importantly, they added binary uploading. That's not all, if you buy Unison before December 30th, you very well could win a special Panic-engraved iPod Nano.

Posted by Mirko at 01:01 AM | Permalink

The developer of what used to be a Mac OS X tool for displaying song lyrics of the track currently played in iTunes writes on his website: "As of December 6th, 2005 pearLyrics is no longer available due to a cease and desist letter from Warner/Chappell Music Limited. As a freeware developer I can not afford to risk a law suit against such a big company, although personally I don't see where pearLyrics should infringe any copyrights handled by them. After all pearLyrics only searches and accesses publicly available websites, displays, and, at the users wish, caches its content. Something that can easily be done with any combination of search engine and webbrowser too."

Posted by Mirko at 12:12 AM | Permalink

There's an abundance of software titles and services you can use to keep an eye on RSS feeds. Today I'm taking a look at NewsMac Pro, a software title that's been on the market for a while and has received praise for both its usability and overall feel. The target of this review is NewsMac Pro 1.2.2, the latest version of the program, released only a few days ago.

Continue reading "Review: NewsMac Pro 1.2.2 - manage your RSS feeds with style" »

Posted by Mirko at 02:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

VoodooPad is a new kind of notepad, it automatically links each page together, to form a miniature world wide web, on your desktop. The new version has just been released and some of the features are: export your pages as HTML documents, Automator actions, Spotlight integration, multi-alias support, and more.

Posted by Mirko at 01:56 PM | Permalink

This tutorial will walk you through a complete Dashboard implementation of Virtual Earth.

Posted by Mirko at 11:32 AM | Permalink

Inside your Mail folder (~/Library/Mail) there are many files and folders. What are they all and what does Mail.app use them for? Find out here.

Posted by Mirko at 01:36 AM | Permalink

This page has reader reports on using Apple's Broadband Tuner 1.0 that (basically) increases the TCP send and receive buffers for high-speed/high-latency connections.

Posted by Mirko at 12:55 AM | Permalink

What if you could combine Cocoa (that easy-to-use extension to C that is the primary language used for development on the OS X platform) and Java (one of the most widely used languages on the Internet) to create an OS X native application that utilizes the power of Java's libraries? Marcus Zarra does just that in this latest article in his series on Cocoa from the Java developer's perspective.

Posted by Mirko at 12:44 AM | Permalink

The good thing about sites like this is that you are always in the loop with news on the latest Mac software. Yesterday we were informed by one of our visitors about a new software that adds up to 5 new-mail indicators to the Mail.app dock icon. I always wanted to have this feature, so I promptly bought it. Here are my thoughts...

Continue reading "Review: DockStar 1.0 - make Mail.app more powerful" »

Posted by Berislav at 01:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

What happens when a talented amateur with a solid rig picks up Aperture? Tom Bridge writes: "There's a steep learning curve, but Apple's come through with some great training videos that are included with the package."

Posted by Mirko at 12:58 AM | Permalink

DockStar is an add-on for Mail.app that adds up to 5 new-mail indicators to the dock icon. This lets Mail users keep track of email as it arrives in various accounts and local mailboxes. In addition, DockStar brings customizable shapes and colors to the Mail dock icon. Seamless integration allows users to control every aspect of the dock icon directly from Mail's settings panel. It's an ideal addition for people with multiple e-mail accounts.

Posted by Mirko at 12:19 AM | Permalink

Want to break free of the iDVD pre-set themes and create your own disc menu screen for your DVD masterpiece? With new features and options, iDVD 5 makes it easier than ever to create professional-looking DVDs - from choosing background music to creating your own screen layout. Jaemi Loeb will help you take the best of what iDVD has to offer and make it yours.

Posted by Mirko at 12:38 AM | Permalink

Hawk Wings, an informative blog dedicated to Apple Mail, has a listing of many plug-ins and add-ons you might want to try. For example, did you know that there is an AppleScript called RCMail, that when attached to a rule in Apple Mail, sends commands written in an email to the shell for processing, logs the results and emails them back to you? Pretty good stuff so if you're a Mail.app user do check it out.

Posted by Mirko at 12:55 AM | Permalink

John Gruber over at Daring Fireball delivers a quick tip for those of you developing web sites on your Mac.

Posted by Mirko at 12:30 AM | Permalink

Dan Frakes over at Macworld recommends EasyFind as an alternative to Spotlight: "If you’re tired of Spotlight’s slow performance—especially for the most basic types of searches—give EasyFind a try. It’s free, uses very little memory when running, and is blazingly fast for many types of searches."

Posted by Mirko at 12:16 AM | Permalink

Dan Benjamin writes: "What follows are updated instructions for manually building and installing Ruby, Ruby on Rails, MySQL, and LightTPD on Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger). Compiling and installing these tools this way is well worth the effort, as the end result delivers an easy-to-upgrade, system-independent, stand-alone development platform that is impervious to potential problems that can be caused by system updates, operating system upgrades, etc."

Posted by Mirko at 12:05 AM | Permalink

This article will show you how to easily setup a free DNS service that will give your Mac computer a static hostname. There are a lot of possibilities you can use this for, as most of the Internet connections offer dynamic IP addresses. Having a dedicated hostname can make it easier to remotely connect to your computer and run any kind of server.

Continue reading "Give your Mac OS X computer a hostname with DynDNS" »

Posted by Berislav at 03:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (16) | TrackBacks (0)

David Pogue does it again. He's one of the most prolific writers when it comes to Mac related material and his work is quite impressive. Since Pogue has the freedom to write about the flaws in the programs as well as the features, his Missing Manuals are better than the books that would have been in the box. In this book, he blended coverage from his "iMovie HD and iDVD5," "iPhoto5," "GarageBand 2" and "iPod and iTunes" manuals, into one powerful, inexpensive how-to guide. Get all the information about the book here. A chapter in PDF format is available for download at this location. If you're in a shopping mood head over to Amazon and get the book right away.

Posted by Mirko at 01:12 AM | Permalink

In this aticle, he author notes various things he's not satisfied with in Safari. Although I agree with most of them, this is one that I would like to have changed first: "There are several problems with Safari's tabbed browsing. The first is that it isn't on by default. It really should be, particularly because even with it on, it doesn't break anything."

Posted by Mirko at 12:35 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

NewsMac Pro is a fully featured RSS and Atom news reader with podcasting support, smart folders, advanced headline searching and much more, all wrapped in a beautifully crafted Aqua interface. The new version comes with a plethora of new features: tabbed browsing, a channel directory, support for groups in OPML files and new download options.

Posted by Mirko at 12:22 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Robert Daeley writes: "Last year, I worked out a method to create custom Mail.app announcement sounds by using the say program on Mac OS X, a CLI utility that converts text to speech and can output aiff sound files. And while nowadays I'm of the opinion that a totally hidden email program is a better way to go, it occurred to me earlier this week that it would be cool to have the equivalent of cellphone ringtones for Mail."

Posted by Mirko at 09:44 AM | Permalink

Toast 7 will burn just about any sort of optical disc, but one major addition to the update that potentially affects every disc type is the iLife media browser. From the Toast options drawer, the media browser gives you direct access to your iPhoto library and albums, iTunes library and playlists, the Movies folder and the content of available DVDs (including VIDEO_TS folders). Read the full review over at macHOME.

Posted by Mirko at 09:32 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

As Apple transitions the Mac platform to include the Intel architecture, software developers who have been using the CodeWarrior IDE are moving their applications to the Xcode IDE. The reason is simple: by moving existing CodeWarrior applications to Apple's Xcode, they can create universal binaries—applications that include executable code that runs on both PowerPC and Intel-based Macintosh computers. Developers using Xcode are able to compile their applications to work on Intel-based as well as PowerPC-based Macs.

Posted by Mirko at 03:09 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Peter Cohen writes: "If there’s one word you can use to describe Mac gaming in 2005, it’s diversity. There was a little something for everyone this year, from strategy games to first person shooters, excellent shareware titles, massively multiplayer online games and more. Just consider the 2005 inductees to Macworld’s Game Hall of Fame as an example of the depth and breadth of Mac gaming this past year."

Posted by Mirko at 02:30 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

All you need is an old Mac Plus with 4 MB of RAM, a hard drive, System 7 or later, some free software, and an Internet connection. Oh yeah, and this article to get you started. You can have your very own web server for your website, and even a Mac Plus can handle a decent load, but not a whole lot.

Posted by Mirko at 12:48 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

You can get the new version here. At the moment of writing there hasn't been an official announcement yet, but the mirrors are opening and the downloads have started. I believe many new enhancements and bugfixes will be introduced with this release. I've been running it for the past 20 minutes and no problems yet :)

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Interest for Aperture is very high and although we've seen several reviews in the past, however this is one that has a myriad of screenshots. Don't expect in-depth analysis but rather an article that will give you a visual feel for the program. In case you didn't know, Aperture is shipping.

Posted by Mirko at 01:48 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

If you’ve got an iPod photo, iPod with color display, iPod with video, or iPod nano, you know that you can put photos on your iPod for viewing on the iPod’s color screen. But how do you get photos off that iPod? Read this article and find out.

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Kevin Schmitt writes: "Ah, yes...the venerable Aqua buttons Apple unleashed on the world lo those many years ago. Sure, they may seem a little turn-of-the-century these days, but you still see them littered about like so much confetti. And since the basic Aqua button was heretofore unattainable in Flash without the use of some creative Photoshopping, I can't think of a better model to use for a tutorial on how you can implement Flash 8 's new filters and blends to create clean, scalable interface widgets like our old friend the Aqua button."

Posted by Mirko at 01:56 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Backup is one of those actions the majority of users doesn't do often enough, some never. There's a variety of tools for the Mac that can help you automate this sometimes tedious task. MacZealots.com has an in-depth review of one the most known titles on the market - SuperDuper.

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The Broadband Tuner allows you to take full advantage of very high speed Internet connections that have a high latency (5 Mbps or greater). The installer increases the default values for the size of the TCP send and receive buffers. With larger buffers more data can be in transit at once. A startup configuration file is also updated so that these changes will persist across restarts.

Posted by Mirko at 01:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Reading your favorite RSS feeds on iPods is a piece of cake. Naturally there will be questions regarding the actual need of reading RSS items on your iPod, but you should know that a lot of web sites offer full articles inside their feeds. I just tested a free utility called iFeedPod and it does the trick.

Continue reading "Use your iPod to read RSS feeds" »

Posted by Berislav at 07:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

TextWrangler's feature set includes such diverse elements as multi-file search and replace with optional regular expression ("Grep") pattern matching, function navigation and syntax coloring for numerous code languages, the ability to easily work with files on remote FTP and SFTP servers, and comprehensive support for AppleScript and Unix scripting. The updated version of this popular, general-purpose text processing tool includes maintenance fixes to reported issues and a few minor interface refinements. TextWrangler 2.1.1 is available free of charge.

Posted by Mirko at 06:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Swift Publisher is a Macintosh page layout application for designing and printing colorful flyers, newsletters, brochures, letterheads, etc. It has a variety of editing tools and a great choice of templates: 23.000 high quality images, 100 unique masks and about 100 professionally designed templates. Read a review of this title over at Spymac.

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This new release features many improvements including a new VLC cone, new Mac OS X wizard and extend controls dialogs, tree playlist skins2 support, HTTP interface CGI handling, UPnP and Bonjour service discovery, shoutcast stream forwarding, new languages, and more.

Posted by Mirko at 01:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Many have opted for a GMail account because of its storage size and ease of use. Now let's assume you would like to really take advantage of the 2.6+ GB storage space and import all of your existing e-mail into your GMail account. GMail Loader and this tutorial will help.

Posted by Mirko at 12:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Due to Apple's uncluttered design philosophy, many of iTunes's features are buried deep within menu items or aren't even documented. The tips and tricks in this article are all relevant to iTunes 6 for the Mac and will help you maximize your musical enjoyment, no matter your experience level.

Posted by Mirko at 12:15 AM | Permalink

In this new article from a Java perspective, Marcus Zarra discusses Core Data, which is a new framework that was introduced by Apple with the release of OS X 10.4 Tiger. Core Data replaces the need for building data objects and helps manage storing data in a flat file, XML file or SQLite database. Marcus walks you through some of the basic usages of Core Data and tells you why it is so useful.

Posted by Mirko at 03:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There's no question that iTunes and the iPod have revolutionized the way we listen to music. If you aren't familiar with iTunes, or if you think there's some feature you're missing (and there probably is), this chapter will give you the run-down on iTunes and how it will change the way you listen to music.

Posted by Mirko at 03:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

BBEdit is the leading professional HTML and text editor for the Macintosh. Specifically crafted in response to the needs of Web authors and software developers, this award-winning product provides an abundance of features for editing, searching, and manipulation of text. BBEdit reliably transforms text with high performance. BBEdit 8.2.4 is a maintenance release that fixes reported issues and adds minor interface refinements to this award-winning HTML and text editor. The BBEdit 8.2.4 update package is available free of charge to all registered BBEdit 8 customers.

Posted by Mirko at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Giles Turnbull at the MacDevCenter writes: "Anyone with the need to write daily notes should take a serious look at Journler. The name suggests its use is restricted to writing a journal, but it offers much more than that. Written by Philip Dow to meet his own needs, Journler uses every Cocoa trick in the book to bring you additional features and clever ways of organizing your data."

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CenterStage is on open source project to build a powerful and intuitive media center application for the Mac. The latest release features an improved skin (optimized for 1280x720), much faster browsing of media, resolution switching in the preferences, and much more.

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Bluetooth - its name is cool, but what can you really do with it? If you're curious, let Michael Yuan take you on a tour through the myriad use cases for Bluetooth-enabled devices, from car kits to social networking. He also provides overviews on the technology behind Bluetooth, and how to use it. If you're considering Bluetooth, either for app development or to create your own cable-free personal area network, this is a good place to start.

Posted by Mirko at 02:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We all have different jobs, hobbies and ways of using our Macs. Some are programmers, others are designers, office clerks or just casual surfers. It doesn't matter what you use your Mac for, there's always some software you can't live without. This is exactly the point of this article where the author presents two lists, one for the novice Mac user and one for the advanced user. Check it our, it may contain software you haven't tried yet.

Posted by Mirko at 02:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

LensTweaker is a great tool to go with your digital camera. With just a few simple steps you can calibrate your camera lens and automatically remove the lens distortion from your pictures. Features include: camera calibration, automatic distortion removal, manual distortion removal, easy image brightness, contrast, saturation, tint and exposure correction, metadata visualization.

Posted by Mirko at 01:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

ConceptDraw MINDMAP enables individual users, professionals and teams easily capture ideas, sort, structure and present various information as clear visual maps. MacNN posted a review and they seem pretty satisfied:"The mind map helps to organize your ideas, procedures, and notes, so that a cohesive whole process is drawn out." In case you're interested, there is 30-day trial version available.

Posted by Mirko at 12:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

MemoryMiner, a desktop application for Mac OS X (version 10.3 and higher), enables users to link together pictures, audio, video and other mementos to create meaningful and coherent digital stories spanning across generations, location and time. This new application is now available for a free beta-trial download. Early adopters will be instrumental in the further development of this new multi-media platform.

Posted by Mirko at 01:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Mac GNU Privacy Guard is the Mac OS X port of the popular security utility. I have been using GnuPG for more than 5 years now and it is the best available open source solution for various encryption purposes. This article guides the reader through Mac GNU Privacy Guard installation, as well as its basic functions.

Continue reading "Install and use Mac GNU Privacy Guard" »

Posted by Berislav at 01:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (1)

This tool enables you to view, search, save and share the webpages you’ve visited. You can also surf thumbnails of your browser history, export web pages as PDFs to save or to share via email and more, all in a simple interface.

For more information and a trial download check out this page.

Posted by Mirko at 03:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Unsanity released a new product - Chat Transcript Manager - that will index all of your iChat and Adium X chat transcripts and allow you to find what you need in a snap. Some of the features include: fast transcripts import, dynamic chat updates, full address book support, customizable chat display, and much more. The software is shareware and since it's new the people at Unsanity are offering everyone a $10 discount, valid 'till the end of the month.

Posted by Mirko at 02:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A Better Finder Rename is the most comprehensive file renaming solution for the Macintosh and transforms the tedious and time-consuming task of renaming multiple files into a simple matter of seconds. A Better Finder Rename 7 is the result of a complete 10-month rewrite of the 70,000+ lines of code that made up the version 6.9.5 release.

Posted by Mirko at 01:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

On2 Technologies announced that it is extending high quality Flash 8 video encoding capabilities to users of Apple Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro. With the release of On2 Flix Exporter 8 for Macintosh with built in support for Apple Compressor, Apple's automated media encoding tool integrated with Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro, the entire Apple community of digital media designers now have the ability to output digital media content to high quality Flash 8 video formats (FLV).

Continue reading "On2 Flix Exporter 8 for Macintosh" »

Posted by Mirko at 03:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

iStumbler is the leading wireless discovery tool for Mac OS X and in this interview with its creator, Alf Watt, you can read about the project in general, various wireless security issues as well as recent developments that will make iStumbler a paid tool in its Pro version.

Posted by Mirko at 01:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

While you may use your computer for a bunch of different things, I presume that at least once you needed to do a screen capture. Because of its friendliness and availability, Dashboard is a great place to host a screen capture software. “Capture” was the first widget I installed after buying my iBook and it served me quite well. It is time to share my thoughts on all the aspects of this handy utility.

Continue reading "A closer look at the Capture widget" »

Posted by Berislav at 01:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

First off, this is still not confirmed. However, Think Secret reports: "An Apple developer recently put together a 13 minute video demonstrating the capabilities of a yet unreleased development tool dubbed Dashcode. Designed to make developing Widgets as easy as possible, Dashcode sports an efficient and polished interface that can accommodate novice and expert JavaScript/Widget developers alike." The idea is great and I think it's only natural for Apple to come out with a product like this.

Posted by Mirko at 12:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)