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iAlarm Wakes Me Up to iTunes

Written on November 25, 2007 by Louis Gray and 9 people have commented

As far as getting up in the morning goes, there are all sorts of unpleasant ways to make the transition – blaring alarm clocks, AM radio interrupted by static and of course, the barnyard rooster. One more inviting way to start the day is to hear your own music from iTunes, and a shareware application, [...]

The World Is Your…Desktop

Written on November 25, 2007 by Louis Gray and 8 people have commented

Click for Larger Image
What’s on your desktop? Pictures of the kids? Your dream car? Maybe one of the stock images Apple provides with every new system?
The way someone organizes and presents their desktop can say a lot about a person – whether they are the cluttered, messy type, or someone who likes cleanliness and order, [...]

(Re-)building the dream home with Live Interior 3D

Written on October 23, 2007 by Billy Halsey and 1 person has commented

Although I’ve been fortunate, many of my neighbors here in San Diego are now finding themselves without homes because of the wild fires raging through Southern California. Live Interior 3D is a great tool for floorplanning and interior design, whether you’re rebuilding the home you just lost or you’re converting a spare bedroom into an [...]

Apple iPhone App SDK Coming in February

Written on October 17, 2007 by Louis Gray and 10 people have commented

From the mouth of Steve Jobs himself, Apple wants third party native applications on the iPhone and is developing an SDK for Developers, to debut in February, 2008. Steve notes, in a post on Apple’s Hot News site, that the company is both trying to enable an iPhone platform, while at the same time, protect [...]

Apple Launches iPhone Web Apps Directory

Written on October 11, 2007 by Louis Gray and 2 people have commented

As the company has with its Dashboard widgets page on Apple.com, Apple introduced a new directory for Web applications compatible with the iPhone and iPod Touch, announced through the company’s Hot News page (deemed by many to be Apple’s quasi-blog).
As anticipated by AppleInsider and others, the directory includes icons, screenshots, and short descriptions of the [...]

VMWare Fusion On Mac Delivers My Best Windows Experience Ever

Written on October 09, 2007 by Louis Gray and 28 people have commented

There’s something a little messed up when the most anticipated and intriguing application I’ve used on my new Intel-based MacBook Pro is one that lets me run Microsoft Windows, but it’s an absolute fact. 24 hours into my VMWare Fusion experience, I can easily say I’ve never been so excited to use Windows, to send [...]

eMusic: Now it’s universal

Written on September 07, 2007 by Billy Halsey and 11 people have commented

The big news this week is undoubtedly Apple’s announcement of the new iPod product line and the lower price of the iPhone. With new iPods comes a new version of iTunes — 7.4 in this case — but despite The Steve’s Thoughts On Music and NBC’s very public departure from the iTunes Store, iTunes [...]

Hazel 2 Now Available

Written on August 02, 2007 by Nick Santilli and 5 people have commented

Noodlesoft’s Paul Kim has released Hazel version 2.0 today. While this version has been in semi-private beta (you had to register in the forums) it is now feature complete and officially released for public consumption. Hazel 2.0 will cost new users $21.95 for a license, but the best news is that 1.0 license [...]

Video encoding apps go head-to-head

Written on July 26, 2007 by Billy Halsey and 24 people have commented

Macs having the reputation they do for creative endeavors, there are as many (or more) video and audio encoding tools for OS X as their are file formats in which to encode your media. Some of the tools available are free and open-source, but many of it are shareware, donationware, or fully commercial products. How [...]

Essential Metadata Tips

Written on July 23, 2007 by Nick Santilli and 18 people have commented

I’ve written at length about putting metadata to good use on OS X. There are many benefits to ‘tagging’ files, but topping the list are probably quick retrieval of files, and more intelligent storage methodologies. But the features I’ve put together on the topic have been aimed a little more at the advanced [...]

Snapz + Skitch = Jing

Written on July 19, 2007 by Nick Santilli and 4 people have commented

Alright, so while the title of this post is more or less accurate, the polish and full suite of capabilities are not there. But Jing certainly does a nice job of combining the power of Snapz Pro X’s video capture abilities with the simplicity of Skitch to grab screen captures.
Jing’s image editor is lightyears [...]

MDA Has CookBook Update

Written on July 12, 2007 by Nick Santilli and 7 people have commented

The CookBook application which was one of the 3 top spots in the My Dream App competition has some updated details. The pictures sure are pretty, and it looks like things are really coming together nicely. From the post, it sounds like it’s nearly decided to be Leopard-only, so we’ll assume no release [...]

Will Xcode Be Coming To Windows Soon?

Written on July 02, 2007 by Nick Santilli and 37 people have commented

Clearly Apple has shown their affinity for putting software out there for the Windows crowd. To date Apple has produced nearly a half dozen software applications for the Windows platform. These offerings include Quicktime (and the Pro version), iTunes, Software Update, and most recently, Safari. So what is to be Apple’s next [...]

An FTP Application to Break The Mold?

Written on June 28, 2007 by Nick Santilli and 15 people have commented

Last week I wrote about my failure to understand why everyone and their dog seems to be churning out FTP and Text Editor applications. The discussion that was generated in the comments was a good one, and many good points were brought to my attention that I hadn’t considered previously. The point that [...]

Default Folder X Updates for Leopard

Written on June 27, 2007 by Nick Santilli and 3 people have commented

As I was just about finished recording my latest screencast tonight, I got an uninvited (at least while in the middle of a screencast recording) notice that St Claire Software’s Default Folder X has an update available. This of course is a great thing, as I love this utility for the way it adds [...]

Keep Files in Singular

Written on June 26, 2007 by Nick Santilli and 5 people have commented

I recently came across a cool little application by the name of Singular. The point of Singular is to examine a directory (and sub-directories) for duplicate files. You get the option to find duplicate files by filename, size, or MD5 hash – which is the most reliable in just about every case. [...]

Let’s Talk Software Update Practices

Written on June 25, 2007 by Nick Santilli and 9 people have commented

Clearly there’s an active Developer Community for the Apple platform. I love that my favorite apps are regularly updated – being constantly made better, feature-rich, and all that jazz. But the process of updating some of these apps can be somewhat of a drag at times.
Let’s just put it this way: If [...]

Frenzic: The Next Bejeweled, Tetris?

Written on June 24, 2007 by Nick Santilli and 4 people have commented

Co-Founder of The IconFactory, Ged Maheux has laid-out his idea of a ‘match made in heaven’ and would love for your support in helping achieve it. With Frenzic’s recent release as the first game to come from The IconFactory, many a Mac-user found their next Tetris.
With the iPhone on the brink of release, what [...]

Exciting Software Updates

Written on June 23, 2007 by Nick Santilli and 5 people have commented

These things happen all the time, but every now and then there are the software update news items that really excite me. This week I went from being out of town, to being out of town… But finally this morning I caught up on the Apple happenings around the web, and couldn’t be [...]

Why Text Editors & FTP Clients?

Written on June 19, 2007 by Nick Santilli and 30 people have commented

Anyone who’s been using a Mac for a few months has probably noticed that there is a glut of text editors available for the OS X platform. If you’re in the web/design category, you’re undoubtedly familiar with the similar situation of too many FTP client options. What gives?
I’ll take the latter issue first. [...]