Category: Mac

The one part about a project that always gets neglected is documentation – it may that be tutorials, user guides, project notes or manuals. It’s time consuming and to do it well, you’ll need screen shots with annotations and much more. Shrinking away from this task often results in poor and visually appalling documents.

But what if there was an app that would do the bulk of the work for you? MacSnapper allows you to grab screen shots very easily, annotate them right within the app with only a few clicks and add text. Imagine going from a day’s work to mere hours. In the following review, we’ll show you how. And we’re sure that by the time you’ve finished reading it, you’ll look forward to your next documentation.

MacSnapper – A Quick Introduction

If one could explain really quickly what MacSnapper is, it would probably go like this: it’s a word processor merged with a basic image editing app topped off with HTML, PDF and even WordPress export. In short, it brings all the tools you need to undertake a documentation people will actually want to read (though the rest does depend on your effort).

The first steps are really easy: you create a new document, which can be structured into lessons, sub-lessons and steps. Imagine writing a tutorial on using WordPress.

Lessons can be used to give your document a general structure, while sub-lessons can provide some fine tuning and steps contain the actual content.

Steps are added to your lessons automatically as soon as you grab a screen shot. All that remains for you to do is name your step, annotate your screen grab and add some text to explain what’s going on. That’s basically it!

MacSnapper frees you of all the tedious work of manually post-processing a screen shot in a separate image editing application. It rids you of the nerve racking task of having to put it pixel-perfectly into a text document and then jump between applications as you progress.

Grabbing Those Screens

MacSnapper offers three choices for screen grabs: Adding a crop, a window or an entire desktop. Once you click on any of the icons on the upper left of the application window, MacSnapper will immediately spin into action. The resulting image is added as a separate step into your lesson.

Of course you can also add any image from your Mac: simply drag it into the application and a new step is created. That’s great if you need to import something that you might have created with an external application like Pixelmator or Photoshop.

Annotating Galore

Now you will want to focus your reader’s attention on a specific detail in your screen shot. For that, MacSnapper provides you with all the tools necessary.

I like numbers especially, as well as the ability to blur out parts of the image or highlight partitions. The ability to add numerals allows you to easily guide readers through multiple steps of a process, click by click. You can skip extensive texts (which no one usually reads anyway) and work with images.

Additionally, you can resize your image with the slider beneath it (though the quality does suffer from it). Also, you can trim it to the part that’s relevant, leaving out distracting backgrounds or cut away information that may confuse your client.

Writing What Needs To Be Said

While of course MacSnapper is all about integration images into your documents, you’ll also need to write out some stuff. For that the lower part of the window is reserved, resembling a yellow legal pad.

Whatever you write here is later displayed beneath the image. Apart from simple text you can use basic formatting options like bold, italics or underlined to highlight passages and insert links to online content.

I’m Done, Now What? – Exporting Your Document

MacSnapper really shines when it comes to exporting your document. For the quick-solution-types, simply select one of three options (HTML, PDF or WordPress).

If you want to fine-tune the export, you can do that as well. The preview-button lets you see how your result will look like, both for HTML and PDF export.  There are multiple templates available that can alter the look of your final document, so try them out and see what you like best.

The Not-So-Perfect Stuff

While MacSnapper is a fairly neat tool, there are of course aspects which are not optimal, as is the case with every app.

What bugs me most are fairly minor things. First and foremost, the fact that I can’t add more than one image to a step. Especially when trying to accomplish comparisons, it’s annoying. It forces me to either fool MacSnapper by not naming steps (therefore omitting headlines in my exported document) or to resolve to other apps like Pixelmator or Photoshop to prep an image.

Another area that needs work is the text editing. Given that the export templates for PDF, HTML and WordPress pretty much take care of laying out the text, I still wish there were options to use numbered or bulleted lists. When I create step by step guides using the numeral annotations on the images I want to be able to insert a numbered list quickly into the text area. Also, headings and other structural elements would be nice; while it can be accomplished by simply making text bold, the process could be easier.

More importantly though would be a wiki-functionality, meaning the ability to link content within the document. If I introduce the different content types of WordPress in the introduction, I would then like to link to the chapter of the manual where I explain articles or pages in detail. Right now, the reader is forced to leaf through the document to find the related chapter.

The Competition

As with most apps, MacSnapper is not alone on the market, there are a number of tools which allow you to do the same. Which of these is right for you will depend on your personal taste as well as your wallet.

MacSnapper was my first choice because it offers a time-unlimited demo, which just watermarks your exports without constricting you to a certain amount of chapters. With a price tag of $49, it is on the upper scale of the price range though.

MacSnapper’s main competitor is the well-known Screensteps by Bluemango. It works basically in the same way, the user-interface is similar too. In my personal opinion, Screensteps is slightly easier to use because important functions are more easily accessible. The app starts at $39, offering the same functions as MacSnapper, but if you need more – like collaboration and integration with 3rd party services – Screensteps offers more pricey versions as well.

Last, but not least, there is myManuals by MOapps. The app’s interface does not offer quite as much eye-candy as the other two contestants and it also won’t export in any blogs, but if all you need are PDF, HTML or xml, doc and rtf, myManuals might just be right. With its $19.95 price tag it is the most affordable and well worth a try (also, take a look at the included templates for export, they are stunning!).

Verdict

It doesn’t really matter which documentation tool you decide to use, the important thing is that it helps you accomplish your task much quicker and without the hassle that your normally have to go through. Instead of jumping across apps for screen grabs, image and text editing, you can do everything from within one single app.

Have you used a documentation app in a project before? What were your experiences? Let us know in the comments.

In our previous look at using GarageBand, we discussed the basic principles behind creating music with a Mac and GarageBand, talked about what terms like MIDI and DAW mean and dipped a toe into making music with virtual instruments.

Hopefully by now you’ve had a chance to get familiar with the basic sounds that come with GarageBand by default, because now we’re going to record a simple song using virtual instruments!

Setting Aside Personal Tastes

Your taste in music is a highly personal choice which reflects your own personality, so you’re likely to chafe at some of the stylistic decisions I make in this and subsequent tutorials as I attempt to cater to as many readers as possible. The important thing to remember is that we don’t have to agree on what sounds great to begin making music – once you have the basic principles down, you can implement everything you’ve learned and use them for your own goals!

Clean Slate

I think that the best way to approach this particular tutorial is to create a very basic song, which will give you a foundation to build upon. We’ll create a simple drum track using Apple Loops and then add another loop of guitar. Following this, we will use an interface to play some synthesizer, then top it all off with some rough vocals, if you wish to sing.

Let’s start with a clean slate and create a fresh GarageBand project by launching GarageBand and selecting New Project > Piano. You can leave the Tempo, Signature and Key settings as they are, but be sure to change the song title to something memorable like ‘Virtual Instruments Tut – Song 1′. You should now be presented with a screen similar to the one below.

In order to make sure we’re all on the same page, navigate to the menu and select Track > Delete Track and we’ll have a completely fresh project with which to begin. This done, let’s move on to making our rhythm track!

Apple Loops: Drums

GarageBand comes with a few different choices to get started making beats but for this article we’re going to use the simplest: Apple Loops. Bring up the Apple Loops browser by clicking on the small loop icon, shown toward the right hand side of the above screenshot. When selected, it will be highlighted blue and you’ll be presented with a screen similar to the one shown below.

Click on the ‘All Drums’ tag and preview a few of the loops by simply clicking on them. The loops which a blue icon next to them are audio samples, while the green icons are MIDI or softsynths. I’ve chosen a very simple and basic beat to get us started, ‘Modern Rock Drums 01′ – so drag that over to the left and into GarageBand’s main window, where a new track will now be made for it.

Remember that hovering over a button will bring up an explanation of what that button is for.

Working within the track, hover your mouse pointer over the right edge of the loop which you’ve just dragged and the pointer should turn into a small loop icon. Hold down your loop pointer and move it to the right for approximately 40 measures (around 1 minute 20 seconds of audio) – in order to do this you may need to drag the playhead to the right a little.

Now that we’ve got a beat, the metronome can be disabled. The metronome is located just to the right of the Play, Pause and Stop buttons – it looks like a small box and should be glowing blue. Once this is done, save your progress and have a listen to how the beat sounds so far.

Apple Loops: Guitar

Now that we’ve got a basic rhythm for our song, it’s time to add some guitar! Following the same steps laid out above, bring up the Apple Loops browser again, this time selecting ‘Guitar’ from the tag selection pane. I decided upon a loop named ‘Spacious Guitar 01′ but feel free to experiment. Next you need to once again hover your pointer over to the right of the icon and drag it to the right, so that you have something similar to the above screenshot (notice that I left the drums playing for two beats as an intro).

Stop and take a moment to listen – I think our song is starting to sound pretty good, but using only loops will get boring after a while, so let’s play something of our own to complement what we have so far.

Save frequently to avoid lost work and always remember that there is an undo function to save you from mistakes.

Playing the Synthesizer

As we previously discussed, this is where a USB interface will come in handy, though to be sure it is possible to record your parts without one (and I have indeed done so, in a pinch).

Create a new track by choosing Track > New Track and when prompted, select ‘Software Instrument’ as shown in the screenshot above.

I want to play something over my two existing loops and I’ve chosen a suitable virtual instrument; a nice, thick synth pad located at Synth Pad > Aquatic Sunbeam. A common misconception for non-musicians is that it takes a lot of training or experience to begin playing their own music – of course it’s very useful to have such skills, but the fact is that anyone can begin writing simple songs right away. Don’t worry too much about scales, rhythm or anything else for now, just play along to the music and if you like how it sounds, that’s good enough!

Hitting record, I waited until a few bars of music had passed to get a feel for the rhythm and then played a synth part which is about as simple as it gets: just two notes alternating to the beat, up until the end of the song, where I hit stop. I like how that sounds but it’s a little low in the mix, so using the small volume slider seen on the left of the screenshot below, I slid my synth up to maximum volume.

Notice how the music I’ve just recorded is represented by solid straight-line bars in a green icon? Well, we’re going to cover MIDI editing in a later tutorial, but just know for now that everything we’ve played is fully editable and those bars can be moved, copied or cut, opening a massive scope for songwriting and composing.

If in doubt, play less. Simple, tasteful backing is much easier to achieve than virtuoso soloing and you can build layers of simple tracks into something that sounds more complex.

Adding Vocals

Now that we’ve got a simple three-track foundation, you can decide whether to continue adding layers of instruments and loops or even include some vocals. To be sure, you’ll need a proper microphone setup for capturing good quality vocals, but for demo-quality singing, we can make use of your Mac’s built-in microphone.

First lower your Mac’s volume for a moment as microphone feedback can get nasty. Click on Track > New Track > Real Instrument and the ‘Track Info’ pane should also appear to the right of your screen, if not, click the small ‘i’ icon which is highlighted blue in the screenshot above.

Click the drop-down selection to the right of ‘Monitor’ and select ‘On’ so that you can hear the microphone input, then play through your song a couple of times, practicing as you go. Once you’re ready to record vocals, hit record and sing over it. Upon recording your vocals, you will probably need to adjust the tracks volume slider in order for it to be heard in the mix.

By following this same method, it is possible to add any acoustic instrument such as flute, acoustic guitar, or whatever. Without a real microphone you’re not going to get great quality, but your Mac’s built-in mic should at least offer a handy sketchpad to demo ideas.

Conclusion

Congratulations you’ve now created a simple song within GarageBand! Though it is still somewhat rudimentary and lacks a proper structure, the above steps will prove a solid foundation when we get into more advanced techniques such as MIDI editing, recording ‘real’ audio with a microphone and more. If you feel confident with what we’ve covered, I would suggest that you go through the steps above at least once more, but supplanting my choices with those that are completely your own while adding more tracks.

In the next tutorial we’re going to build upon what we’ve discussed here and create a significantly more complex song, relying less on Apple Loops and taking a look at basic MIDI editing in order to make something more unique.

Yesterday. A Wednesday night. I was home, watching TV. I had some friends over. One of them was using my iPad to read the latest DC comics. He’d been reading them for most of the night. All of a sudden, he looks up at me, shock written across his face. I’d assumed he had reached a cliffhanger ending. I chuckled, and asked him which comic he’d finished reading.

No. The tone of his voice was serious. He walked across the room, iPad in hand, and held it up to me. In the center of the screen was a notification from the CNN app. It’s surreal message: “Steve Jobs, aged 56, has died.”

I never met Steve Jobs. Neither had my friend. But judging by the look of shock on his face, you’d be forgiven of thinking Steve was probably a relative, or at least a close, personal friend. Across the Internet, across the world, there’s an outpouring of grief at this loss. This is a loss for mankind as a whole. This is the disappearance of a historical figure, a living legend. A man famous for his talents and abilities. A man we all thought we knew because we used the products of his mind each and every day.

We’ll all miss you Mr. Jobs. We already do.

The Tools of A Craftsman

If you can judge a man by the quality of his tools, how do you judge the quality of the man who made those tools?

Apple has become a beloved company because of its commitment to quality. They offer their wares to people who appreciate that quality, and they don’t worry about the people who don’t. Growing up, as I have, with close friends and family members in the construction trades, it’s ever-more apparent to me how close the bond is between a tradesman and his tools.

For a carpenter or a painter, a wallpaper hanger or an electrician, anyone who works with their mind and their hands, it’s the tools that allow them to take what they have in their head and make it a reality that they cherish so dearly. Ask any expert craftsman about the tools of his trade, and he’ll wax rhapsodic about their importance.

Steve gave me the tools of my trade. And the tools of some many others. Anyone who uses an Apple product to create knows exactly what I mean when I speak of the emotional bond that develops between a craftsman and the tools he uses to make his craft. For we designers and writers, programmers and film editors, photographers and artists, the products of Apple are our beloved tools. And Steve was their personification.

It only makes sense that we’d make the same emotional connection with the maker as we would with his products. And that we’d mourn the loss of that connection when it’s unceremoniously severed.

The Word: “Legacy”

So much was said about the legacy of Mr. Jobs when he stepped down as CEO of Apple a little over 6 weeks ago. I suspect even more will be said now, today and tomorrow, and for quite a while into the future. People will point to the industries that Steve has changed, the products that he brought into the world. They’ll talk about the technological future that he helped to shape into a reality today. Perhaps they’ll even touch on the way he changed the movie industry. Because Steve Jobs was the principle investor and CEO of a small studio known as Pixar. Maybe you’ve heard of them.

And I’m sure every article will make a great case for all of these being examples of Jobs’ legacy. And they’re probably right. But I think if we had the opportunity to ask Steve what he thought was the best example of his legacy he’d say one word: Apple.

Not Apple, the products. Apple, the company. If Steve’s sense of taste, of aesthetic, of design, has permeated my own character, and I never even met the man, I can only imagine how it’s been infused into the people he worked with each and every day.

When Steve returned to Apple in 1997, there was no question that the company wasn’t the same one he’d left 13 years before. But the company that emerged, the one that exists today, 14 years later, is most definitely Steve’s company. It’s been crafted in his image. It’s been designed by him to execute his vision. Steve’s vision is gone now. But Apple still remains, and I truly believe its continued success will be his lasting legacy.

Apple, Inc. is Steve Jobs’ opus.

The Viral Nature of Good Taste

Someone should put together a visual history of Apple’s software. Because the UI patterns established by their various operating systems over the years have found their way into the design patterns of software in general. And that’s an impressive feat not mentioned nearly enough.

Without question, Steve Jobs had good taste. He was an auteur. His sense of design, his sense of style, it could be seen in everything he touched. But it had a unique quality: it inspired the same in others. I’m sure any designer of any medium would agree. I know it’s true for me. Jobs set the bar, especially in the field of technology, for the height of design. It’s a bar I always strive for. And I know I’m not alone.

And Now It’s Tomorrow

Despite all his talents and abilities, Steve Jobs was still just another human being. He was mortal. We all knew this day would come. Yesterday was the day Steve died. It’s now tomorrow. And life goes on. That’s the thing about life, it waits for no man. Steve knew that. He lived his life like he knew that. He was committed to doing the most good he could in the time he had.

I’d like to think that when someone we care about passes away, it causes us all to pause and reflect on our own lives. Not in a dreary or depressing way, but in a way that helps us reevaluate our priorities in life. That helps us to remember what we hold dear in our lives, what’s important to us, and reminds us to keep those things at the forefront of our lives.

It’s difficult to end a piece that is in many ways a conclusion from the start. It may seem odd to express gratitude to a person who I know won’t receive it. I wish there was a more personal, more profound way to express my gratitude though. The English language only gives me one phrase, two words. So that’s what I’ll use.

Thank you, Mr. Steve Jobs. Thank you for everything.

Web developers rejoice, Espresso 2 has finally been released and it brings tons of improvements that you’ll definitely want to check out.

Join us was we take a refreshed look at what Espresso is, what’s new about it and why it’s officially at the top of our list of awesome apps that web developers should have.

Espresso 2 is Here

I’m going to go ahead and admit that I’m a huge fan of Espresso. It’s hands down my favorite IDE and the central piece of my entire web development workflow. In fact, it’s one of my favorite Mac apps period.

Needless to say, when I started reading about the newest version, Espresso 2, I got very excited. Like many of you I had been using the Kaboom releases (beta) for a while but I’ve now switched over to the official stable release and it’s a beauty. Let’s take a look!

CSSEdit Merges with Espresso

I’ll start with the biggest news that accompanies this release: MacRabbit has discontinued its amazing CSS editing application CSSEdit and integrated its features into Espresso.

This is definitely great news for users of both apps as you now get the best of both worlds in one affordable and super powerful package.

Visual CSS Editing

So what’s so good about CSSEdit you ask? The answer is of course that CSSEdit provided a really nice visual UI for adding and adjusting CSS properties. This now appears on the right side of your CSS files in Espresso:

These controls actually write clean, valid CSS for you as you press the buttons. The panel is split up into three tabs: Text, Decoration and Layout, which together comprise a great deal of the CSS properties that you’ll ever work with.

I’m actually not a fan of WYSIWYG code editors, but this is really quite different as it’s entirely code focused and simply helps you style elements faster and more efficiently. It’s an excellent edition that I find myself using all the time.

Code CSS3 Like a Boss

Some really experienced coders might roll their eyes and wonder why they need a visual interface to help them code, but surely even this crowd will appreciate this feature when it comes to CSS3. Coding things like gradients by hand is a such a pain that there are a million online tools to help with the process. Now you can get these types of visual coding tools right in your IDE.

As further good news for CSS developers, Espresso 2 is packed with CSS3 support so you won’t have to memorize all those annoying browser prefixes and exact syntaxes. Just start typing and Espresso will finish your thought for you.

Interface

For the most part, the Espresso interface should feel just like it always did. There are a few slight tweaks and improvements but it’s close enough to the original that longtime users will feel right at home.

For those not familiar with how Espresso works, there are three basic columns. The first of these contains an interactive file tree for the folder that you’ve deemed the destination for a project (any folder works), your “Workspace” (the files that you’re currently editing), and the “Publish” settings, which allow you to upload files to your server right in Espresso.

Also notice the “Preview” icon. One of my favorite things about Espresso is its preview window, which updates live as you change your code, no refresh needed. We’ll discuss this more in a little later.

Code Column

The next column is your active coding window, which shows whatever file you have selected. You can also use multiple tabs or drag out individual windows.

This section has everything you would expect in a solid IDE: syntax highlighting, a superb autocomplete, line numbers, code folding and more. There are also some excellent time savers like custom macros and built-in Zen Coding functionality, which should delight experienced coders.

Tools Column

The tools column is context-sensitive so it’s different depending on what type of file you’re viewing. For instance, above we saw that visual CSS editing tools that appear here. In an HTML doc though, you get the navigator:

Here you get an automatically generated outline of your file that allows you to click and jump to any specific portion. This is all pretty standard stuff for advanced code editors but trust me when I say there’s a certain smoothness and finesse to it all that you won’t easily find elsewhere.

Preview Window

As I mentioned above, Espresso has an awesome preview window that updates live without the annoyance of manual refreshes. One really cool feature here is the ability to not just see a local site you’re working on but also any site on the web. You can bring up any website you like and tweak the code while previewing the results live.

X-ray

Another great feature of the Espresso 2 preview window is X-ray, which allows you to visualize the bounds, padding and margins on an element and see the applied styles.

The X-ray HUD is directly connected to the CSS file so just double click on anything in that little window to be taken directly to that area in your CSS. This is really nice for troubleshooting those tricky layouts.

A Worthy Follow Up

This is the part of the review where I say that the app is good but could be better in certain areas, but I really only have positive things to say about Espresso 2. The Kaboom version, like all pre-release software, had some quirks but as far as I can tell all of these have been smoothed out so if you tried an early preview it’s time to take another look.

The inclusion of visual CSS editing is really icing on the cake of this already superb web development suite. It’s there when you want it to be and out of the way when you just want to code by hand, a perfect combination of useful and flexible. You can even use the controls to go back and tweak what you already wrote by hand.

If you’re a professional web developer, you simply have to try Espresso 2 for yourself. It might just streamline your entire process.

Conclusion

Inside and out, Espresso 2 is a perfect picture of why Mac software has such a stellar reputation. In a time where all of us are filling our Applications folders with quick and dirty $0.99 specials from the App Store, it’s incredibly refreshing to review an app as solid and deep as Espresso. Developers like MacRabbit were around far before App Store gold rushes and are obviously committed to quality in a way that’s not easy to find these days. Priced at $79, Espresso is worth every penny.

Want to get your hands on it before you fork out the dough? Stop by the Espresso website and download the 15-day trial.

Today we mourn the passing of a legend. According to several sources, Steve Jobs has passed away at age 56. We at AppStorm extend our deepest gratitude to Jobs’ family and friends.

As the editor of Mac.AppStorm and a long time Mac user, I have personally looked up to Jobs’ leadership and innovative spirit for well over a decade. He personally changed the course of technology several times over my lifetime. I only recently posted an article outlining just a small portion of his astounding body of work. If you would like to know more about the man behind the Mac, follow the link below:

5 Industries That Steve Jobs Helped Change Forever

Let’s honor our favorite turtleneck wearing tech guru with a brief look back at his amazing career and five industries that will never be the same.

read more…

We’d like to say a big thank you to last month’s Mac.AppStorm sponsors, and the great software they create! If you’re interested in advertising, you can purchase a banner advertisement through BuySellAds, or sign up for a Weekly Sponsorship slot.

Thank you to the fantastic applications we had sponsoring each week during the month, all of which we personally recommend you download and try out!

• Studiometry – Studiometry is a powerhouse of professional organization tools that’s been serving the industry for over eight years. Whether you’re managing contacts, generating estimates, tracking work, or billing clients, this one app has you covered in a single beautifully cohesive workflow.
• Translate Tab – Translate Tab is a super slick menu bar implementation of the popular Google Translate service. You can translate words, phrases, paragraphs or even entire sites into 57 different languages without leaving your desktop.
• Studiometry – Studiometry is a powerhouse of professional organization tools that’s been serving the industry for over eight years. Whether you’re managing contacts, generating estimates, tracking work, or billing clients, this one app has you covered in a single beautifully cohesive workflow.
• Radium – Radium is a fantastic, Lion-ready Internet radio player that nestles right into your menu bar. Don’t let that fool you though, just because it’s small doesn’t mean it isn’t packed with features. Radium allows you to listen to thousands of radio stations from around the world and gives you a song history, album art, keyboard shortcuts, social media integration and more! There’s even an equalizer so you can custom tailor your audio experience.
• CleanMyMac – CleanMyMac is the pinnacle of Mac maintenance software. This all-in-one solution to keeping your Mac in tip top shape will help you free up hard drive space, purge those pesky universal binaries and extra languages, clear out unnecessarily large cache files, locate stranded unused files, clean your external drives, securely delete files and a lot more.

Finally, thanks to you for reading AppStorm this month, and for checking out the software that our sponsors create. I really appreciate it – you make the site what it is!

Analog is a new retro photo processing app from rockstar Mac developers Realmac Software. In just a few clicks you can apply cool effects and borders, crop, rotate and share photos on your favorite social networks.

As the little niche of retro photo apps grows, can Realmac jump into the fray and come out with a success or will Analog just be another lackluster entrant? Let’s take a look and find out!

What Is Analog?

In answering this question, the comparisons to Instagram for iPhone are unavoidable. Instagram is an extremely popular app that instantly and easily applies retro film effects to your digital photos. There’s no complicated setup or annoying multi-step process, you just tap on a preset and you’re done.

Analog brings this same type of photo editing to the Mac. It’s not in any way a scaled down version of Photoshop but something else entirely: a quick and easy way to add a little bit of fun to your images.

Getting Started

Like everything else that Realmac builds, Analog has a super sharp interface. The contrast between the dark canvas on the left and the brightly colored iOS-style icons on the right makes for a simple but sharp UI that you instantly understand how to use.

As the image below indicates, the first thing you’ll want to do is open Finder or iPhoto and drag in an image.

As a test, I grabbed a photo that I snapped of our own AppStorm Manager Joel Bankhead in front of a foggy Golden Gate bridge. From here all you have to do is click on the filters on the right. Each effect will be instantly applied, if you don’t like it, move along.

Analog is fully Lion compatible and makes use of the new fullscreen app mode. Just click the “+” button or the little arrows at the top right.

Filters

There are currently twenty built-in filters in Analog. Just like in Instagram, each filter’s icon conveniently shows a preview of the results you can expect to see. It’s shown with a generic photo but with the processing power available on a desktop I’d love to see these icons actually update with a preview of the image you’re editing.

After clicking around for a while, it’s obvious that there are some definite limitations to one-click filters. Some are better on landscapes, others on people, none are really adjustable in any way. If you click on a filter and it blows out your subject, you either deal with it or find something else. For this image I chose to go with the Redscale filter.

Borders

More like Camera+ in this respect than Instagram, Analog allows you to apply different borders to your photo, which gives you a good bit of variety when you combine these with the various filters.

The fourteen borders allow you to create a Polaroid effect, an old film look or even the illusion of looking through an old, grungy viewfinder.

Crop, Rotate and Share

If you hover over the image, you’ll see a little button strip pop up near the bottom. Here you can rotate the image, adjust the crop, toggle the effect and export it to the web.

The sharing menu has a few options that you would expect such as email, Facebook and Flickr, and some nice bonuses such as CloudApp. The obvious exclusion is Twitter, I’d be interested to hear why they skipped over this, it might just be some API limitation I’m not aware of.

If you want to check out what Analog can do, you can check out some images processed with Analog on this Flickr group.

Worth a Download?

I want to stress to potential buyers that this is a very simple app, and it’s meant to be. There aren’t a lot of options and features, for the most part you just drop in your photo, click on and effect and border, and you’re done.

The experience is a solid one, the UI is very comfortable and intuitive, even the subtle sound effects are well done. The quality of the interface here is definitely a strong point that you won’t easily find in competing apps.

Given that the app is currently on sale for $7.99 and therefore likely to go higher very soon, I think many users will wish for a little more functionality. For instance, it would be great to be able to fade the opacity of filters so you’re not stuck with the default settings. As a huge Instagram fan, I definitely miss the built-in social network aspect in competing apps whether on the iPhone or Mac. Facebook integration is nice, but having a dedicated stream of images from your friends is something that takes a quirky occasional-use app and makes it something to visit every day. However, having recently shut down its image sharing service Ember, I’d wager that Realmac isn’t about to jump into another similar venture.

Ultimately, if you’re not a frequent user of Photoshop and Lightroom actions, Analog provides an awesomely affordable and simple alternative for instantly adding creative effects to the photos on your Mac. I would say the biggest draw here will be for users who don’t have an iPhone and have been itching to get in on the retro photo craze.

Conclusion

To sum up, Analog is a great little app that allows you to apply retro film effects and borders to your photos in just a few clicks. If you’re looking for a solid way to make your boring photos more interesting, you should definitely give Analog a download.

Leave a comment below and let us know what you think of Analog. Have you tried it yet? Show us some of your photos!

We’ve collected the top four reviews, roundups and how-to articles from across the AppStorm network in September. Whether you’re interested in Mac, iPhone, iPad, Web, or Android apps, there’s bound to be something you didn’t spot over the course of the month. Now would be a good time to explore a part of the AppStorm Network you’ve never seen before!

Thanks for reading AppStorm, and I hope you enjoy looking over some of our favourite posts from last month!

Best of iPad.AppStorm

Best of Android.AppStorm

Best of iPhone.AppStorm

Best of Web.AppStorm

Best of Mac.AppStorm

Share Your Ideas

Is there something in particular you’d like to see on the site next month? We’d absolutely love to hear your suggestions for articles, topics and giveaways. Just let us know in the comments. Thanks for reading AppStorm!

Our sister site iPhone.AppStorm had a big day today with Apple’s ‘Let’s talk iPhone’ announcement! As it’s pretty likely that at least some readers will want the lowdown on the news, it was only fair to give you a heads up. While this is a summary of the important facts, be sure to check back over the coming days for analysis and editorial articles.

Well it’s official, we have a new iPhone today and it’s called the iPhone 4S. There was a lot of big news that came out of Cupertino today, most of it covered live via Twitter.

But if you weren’t there to watch it all go down, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Hit that button and let’s get into all of the big news of the day.

Read more on iPhone.AppStorm…

The market for download managers has always been small and shady, at least for the Mac. I’ve never really needed one, although I am also not entirely happy with how the downloads are managed through the Downloads folder. However, for people who spend a lot of their time downloading huge files, sometimes the few extra features that download managers offer could come in handy.

While the market for these type of apps isn’t very big, here we’ll present to you some of the best options we could find. Why would you need a download manager? Which one suits your needs? Let’s find out.

Why Use a Download Manager?

As far as I can tell, download managers aren’t widely used anymore. With the average internet speed that ISP’s offer now being so high and the implementation of better handling of downloads from both browsers and operative systems, developers just have all but forgotten about creating apps like this.

However, some may argue that they still find them useful, and with enough reason. People that need to download huge files on a daily basis may find it very helpful to have an app that lets you organize, filter and limit the speed of each download to avoid slowing down their network.

But the truth is, as a conventional Mac user you are probably used for things being simple and uncomplicated. You want a completely integrated experience, and the Downloads folder that comes with your Mac (coupled with your browser of choice) provides just that. It’s a simple, easy to understand folder in your hard drive where anything that you download will be saved. I think installing a download manager, in a way, breaks that system integration and tarnishes that experience.

If you are an average user comfortable with your browser and Mac OS’s ways of managing downloads, you likely have no need for one of these apps. However if you want a little more control over your downloads, like scheduling them ahead of time, queuing them and limiting their speed so that it doesn’t slow down your browsing; then you should check out a few of the most popular download managers that we found for you.

Conclusion

Download managers might have been useful back when we had slower connections and were required to time and organize everything we downloaded, but currently the truth is, unless you are a power user or have a slow connection, you probably could do well without one. Even the market for these type of apps reflects that it doesn’t really get much attention.

But I am curious, where do you stand on using download managers? Have you forgotten about them? Do you still use them, and for what purpose? If so, which ones do you use and what do you think of the dying market for these type of apps? Let your voice be heard in the comment section below!

Last week while researching an introduction to Disk Utility I came across some extremely varied arguments regarding the usefulness of repairing permissions (check out that article for a discussion of what repairing permissions actually does).

I’ve personally long seen “Repair Permissions” as a nice little troubleshooting tool that I turn to when nothing else seems to solve a given issue. If something isn’t working quite right and I can’t hunt down the source of the problem, I repair my permissions to see if the situation improves. Sometimes it does, many times it doesn’t. Either way, it’s always worth a shot!

In my research, I came across tons of other people who seem to share this sort of “cure all” mentality towards repairing permissions. Some go so far as to recommend repairing permissions as part of setting up daily maintenance scripts.

On the other side of the argument though there are folks that don’t see much, if any, value in this action. There’s an old blog post on the Unsanity site actually titled “Repairing Permissions is Useless,” which makes a very informed case against the idea that repairing permissions is a solution to a wide variety of problems, though the author does in fact accept that it should be tried as a last resort.

Today I want to know what you think. Help me decide whether or not to keep repairing permissions on my list of go-to strategies for troubleshooting. Vote in the poll and let us know how often you repair permissions, then leave a comment below with your argument for or against the action!

At AppStorm, I’ve reviewed all kinds of media players and managers for Mac, from the great (Plex), to the not-so-great (Songbird). I’ve always been looking for something that has wonderful management features, but is also a pleasure to actually consume media with. While I use and love Plex, it still hasn’t satisfied all of my media needs – There’s definitely a gap for something incredible.

Elmedia Player is a media player for Mac, which boasts a huge range of codecs, including support for SWF Flash files, and it also has support for downloading movies. Let’s take a look at how it compares, and if it’s the media player of my dreams.

Getting Started

Elmedia Player comes in two varieties – A free version, and a PRO version. Both do pretty much the same job, but the PRO version, coming in at $19.95, offers features such as downloading videos, converting videos into a series of images, and a few other bits and pieces.

Elmedia Player is not yet on the App Store, so you’ll have to download it from their site. The installation process is nothing new, drag the app into your Applications folder and you’re good to go.

I think it’s important to make one thing very clear from the get-go – Despite the name, this is not really a media player. It doesn’t handle music, nor podcasts, it just handles movies. If you were expecting a complete solution for all your media needs, this isn’t it. It you’re looking for a video managing app, you’ve come to the right place.

Importing your movies is wonderfully simple. All you have to do is drag them into Elmedia Player from Finder, and you’re done. What’s great about this app is that it doesn’t have to add it to some library, so it can import movies instantly. That said, when I imported my entire movie collection (About 60GB), it got a little confused and ended up taking about a minute. Even still, that’s blindingly fast compared to the competition!

Interface

If you’ve used iTunes before, you’ll be very much at home with the interface of Elmedia Player: Controls up top, sidebar on the left, a few other bits and pieces down the bottom; nothing revolutionary. Unfortunately, while it works, the aesthetics are a little bit off, and it doesn’t quite feel like a modern day app UI. There’s something ever so OS X Tiger about it.

In fact, if you’ve used iTunes before, you’ll be a little too at home here. It does feel like somewhat of an iTunes ripoff. The layout’s identical, and some of the elements, such as the controls, and the scroll bars, look like they’ve been taken from iTunes, pixel-by-pixel. I might have been able to let this pass, but iTunes hasn’t exactly got a great interface. If you’re going to be inspired so heavily by an app, at least make it a decent app!

Managing Media

After the amazingly easy importing process, the management options go downhill pretty rapidly. There are no meta-tagging options – The only thing you can change is the name of the file itself. This makes a change from something like Plex which has fields for just about everything, from writers and directors to tagline and original title. If you want to use this app, but also want an easily searchable database of movies, my best suggestion would be to put all of your tags in the title, and then either search for them or create Smart Playlists.

Speaking of playlists, this is one feature that Elmedia Player has that many others don’t. Like iTunes, you can easily create playlists and Smart Playlists, which make up for the lack of other management options to a large extent. For example, rather than having a genre tag, just stick all of your comedies in one playlist, and thrillers in another.

Alternatively, as I mentioned earlier, put “Comedy” in the title, and make a Smart Playlist which gathers all movies which has “Comedy” in their title. It’s not perfect, but it’s some consolation.

One thing which is much missed from Elmedia Player is a variety of views for your media. At the moment, all you have is a list of videos at the bottom, with a player above it (although you can bring the player into a separate window). I’d love options for a thumbnail view, or at least something else, as the current view is a little dull and difficult to scan over quickly.

Playing Media

Judging by the name, Elmedia Player should be pretty good at playing media, right? Well, it certainly has some awesome codec support – I have yet to find a movie format it can’t play, which is a massive plus for any media app. The playing of the media itself is quite average. It does most things you’d expect it to, but after that, it really hasn’t got any tricks up its sleeve.

One feature I would really love is support for the Apple Remote. I use my remote when watching movies on my Mac, and without it, it’s a pretty poor experience.

Downloading Videos

This is a massive selling point for this app, as it’s something most other apps don’t support. To download a video inside Elmedia Player, simply enter the URL of the video, and the app will provide you with a list of videos in that page which you can download. Many of the videos won’t be the one you’re looking for, so it may take a bit of digging around. With YouTube, it’s pretty easy, it’s the only FLV format video there. I couldn’t get the downloader to work with Vimeo, or YouTube videos embedded in another page. This feature is by no means unique to Elmedia Player, but it’s certainly a nice addition.

The Wrong Market?

Elmedia has been marketed as an app for your movies and personal videos, and whie it can do that, I think the app is better suited to a different market: professional movie editing. With support for all kinds of video formats, including camera footage such as .DV, this app would come in very handy to look over all the footage you need to edit. It’s nice and small, so won’t clog up your RAM, and even has an “Always on Top” feature. You can use playlists to organize your scenes too. Plus, since it’s a professional app, the devs would be able to charge 10x more!

Conclusion

If you’re looking for a media player to organize and play your digital video collection, you, will, unfortunately, be somewhat disappointed. It does the job, but not all that well, and $20 for a few extra features seems unnecessary. However, if you edit movies a lot, and want a cheap way to keep track of your footage, this will probably do the job quite nicely.

I’m a big fan of repurposing apps to suit your personal needs, and I think Elmedia Player is a great example of that. What apps have you repurposed to suit your needs?

Our sponsor this week is Finch, an amazing time tracking tool from Touch Studios.

Finch is an app that takes all the effort out of time tracking. If you can open it, you can use it! With virtually zero configuration, Finch sits quietly tucked away in your menu bar and collects data throughout the day. It monitors what windows and apps are active on the screen at any given time.

After reporting your usage for the day Finch will present you with a bar chart clearly displaying how you spent your time, or alternatively you can export straight to CSV to get control of your data (it’s yours after all).

Whether you are measuring your work hours in order to bill clients, trying to keep your time spent on Facebook under control, or just interested in seeing your usage habits, Finch is by far the best tool to quantify your activity.

Keep Your Data Private

Competing apps have a habit of uploading your content to their servers. Touch Studios, the authors of the app, will never have your data as it is stored locally on your own machine. Finch does not require an internet connection and is completely private.

Go Get It!

Finch is available on The Mac App Store for only $8.99. Go grab your copy today and start automating your time tracking activities!

There are two types of Mac users, those that keep their desktops sparkling clean and those who use their desktops as a digital junk drawer that holds every random scrap of content they come by.

I’m the former type. I like a good, clean desktop, often with an extremely minimal wallpaper graphic. However, I also really like added functionality. GeekTool is one of my favorite apps because it lets me make use of that void of desktop space in an attractive manner.

Today we’ll explore an alternate use of that blank desktop space by taking a brief look at Desktopr, an app that allows you replace or add to your wallpaper with a functioning web page

Meet Desktopr

When you launch Desktopr, the Preferences panel should show you a bunch of built-in options for sites to apply to your desktop. These include social media options like Facebook, news sites and even some fun options like a random Wikipedia page.

For our experiment, I’ll take the custom site route and enter something manually. I really like the simple task management service TeuxDeux and think it would be helpful to have my task list right on my desktop. All I have to do is enter the URL into the field.

For the most part, Desktopr should work just fine on almost every website you can think of. You can set your desktop up to show anything from YouTube videos to your favorite blog feeds.

Multiple Sites

Desktopr doesn’t just allow you to set one website as your desktop, you can have a whole list of sites. Basically, you craft your list the way you want it and set the duration for each site. Dekstopr will then automatically switch between the options in the list based on your settings.

Additionally, you can switch through the options via the menu bar icon. Just click on it and hit the “Skip to next item” option.

The Web on Your Desktop

With that, you’re all done. As you can see in the image below, my wallpaper has disappeared and in its place is the TeuxDeux website. Pretty cool!

The Desktopr menu bar icon allows you to enable and disable “Browsing Mode,” which determines whether or not you can interact with the web page. With Browsing Mode disabled, the site is locked and clicking on the desktop is just like clicking on your wallpaper: all the icons are fully selectable, etc. However, with Browsing Mode enabled, clicking on the desktop allows you to interact with the site just as if it were in a web browser.

Settings

Desktopr has a modest selection of settings that you can set and tweak to make the experience a little more to your liking. You can set the font size, enable/disable JavaScript, and choose whether or not to play movies in fullscreen by default.

One particularly handy option is the ability to reduce the opacity of the website, which can make for a much less distracting experience that’s easier to look at. In this case, your site will fade and the original desktop image will show through.

A Better Desktop Experience?

For the most part, Desktopr works like a dream. I used it off and on for a couple of weeks without any noticeable bugs. I was initially concerned about how it would all work but the ability to easily flip on browsing mode really makes for a solid experience.

The biggest wall that an app like this hits is really just a conceptual one. It sounds like a cool idea, but when it comes down to it, do you really want a website as your wallpaper? I think the answer will be different for everyone and largely depends on just what you plan on doing with it. If you’re the kind of person who pops open a news site every morning with your cup of coffee, this could be a really practical way to evolve that habit into something effortless.

It’s important to note that in Lion you have not one but several desktops and Desktopr is capable of targeting one specific desktop. So if you only want your morning news on desktop three but would prefer a basic wallpaper everywhere else, that’s perfectly possible.

One thing that I would like to see is the option to not have the site take up the entire desktop space. It would be nice to have some sort of “web clip” feature that was more of a widget-ized portion of a web page.

Conclusion

I’ve seen quite a few desktop hacks over the years, everything from screensavers to videos. Desktopr is definitely one of the more practical attempts to rethink the desktop space. It’s actually quite nice to have one of my desktops devoted to my TeuxDeux list and I can easily think of fifty other sites and services that would work just as well.

If you think the web on your desktop sounds like a decent idea, I recommend checking out Desktopr. At $0.99, it’s super cheap. Further, it’s flexible enough that you can continue to adapt how you use it until you find what works best for you.

Steve Jobs’ recent stepping down from his duties as CEO of Apple has left many of us feeling reminiscent, looking back over his career and the life of Apple as a whole. Instrumental in Apple’s well-documented comeback from the brink of disaster was the launch of OS X, an operating system which seemed to herald a new age for Apple and since then, the Cupertino alumni have never looked back, increasing sales each year and ultimately dominating the home computer market.

But what about OS 9? Well, despite the public funeral Jobs gave the venerable Mac OS 9 on a 2002 Keynote, it is still being used and even developed for, with users attracted to its speed, unique UI and, most importantly, the untold wealth of applications which have never made the leap over to OS X.

If you’ve only become familiar with Apple computers since OS X like myself, you may be forgiven for having no idea about this rich software history which is just waiting to be explored, read on below to see how you can get started!

Getting Bitten By The OS 9 Bug

I recently wrote a guide to setting up a beater Mac with a G4 and OS X Tiger. While I still stand behind the article (and indeed am using that same Mac to write this very piece), it was something of a learning experience and I’ve since realized I was a little too hasty to dismiss anything pre-Tiger as too old to be useful for users today. I have come to realize that even the oldest of Macs can be useful and attract talented enthusiasts hell-bent on keeping the machines capable of productivity in a post-internet world. So why go so low as OS 9?

Well, beyond the fact that it’s simply good geeky fun to have a play with older systems and software, there’s actually a lot of compelling software available for OS 9. Aside from the myriad of Word Processing applications, Graphics and Music software, Task Management and Number Crunching tools, there is one particular area in which OS 9 excels which may surprise you: retro-gaming, with countless titles to have fun with, such as X-Plane 6, Caesar I, II & III, Another World, Descent and more.

OS 9 is often referred to as Classic, though I’ve kept away from this term to save confusion when I discuss Apple’s own emulation software which goes by the same name

Then there’s abandonware:

The legality of abandonware is arguably dubious, but unlike popular 1980′s console games, we’re talking about niche software which cannot really be bought in any quantity, is no longer supported and cannot be run on any modern machine without significant knowledge and time spent. This is software which the developers have, quite literally, abandoned and so is generally considered fair game. I’m not going to talk you through finding your own abandonware here, but suffice to say it’s a very simple matter to discover titles to download – just make sure that the game or application is not still for sale anywhere, as on occasion (such as Text Edit Plus), the developer will be actively selling it.

Before getting started, here’s a disclaimer:

This guide is not aimed toward the complete novice. Rather, I hope to appeal to the kind of people who like to tinker, who like to reminisce and who enjoy doing cool things with their machines. If you want everything to work in the flawless fashion we’ve come to expect from the modern Apple experience, then turn away now!

Planning Your Route To OS 9: Vintage

The simplest and most direct way to run OS 9 applications is by booting into the OS natively on an older Mac such as an iBook G3 Clamshell, which can be picked up very cheaply – as in the cost of a night at the movies cheap. Be aware that if OS 9 is not already installed, you will either need to install it yourself and pick up a copy of OS 9, or stay in OS X and run OS 9 applications in Classic, which I’ll cover in more detail below.

This Wikipedia page highlights Mac OS 9 compatibility, though I found this guide on Every Mac a little easier to follow.

Planning Your Route To OS 9: Classic

If you already own a PowerPC Mac running any version of OS X up to and including Tiger, you can employ Apple’s own built-in emulation software ‘Classic’ to run OS 9 applications and games. As with any emulator, there is some software out there which may not run perfectly, though everything I’ve been able to test has run flawlessly and so this is my own favored method of using OS 9 software.

There’s a lot of confusion on the internet when looking up how Classic actually works, so I’m going to break it down below using a method which I’ve tested on a G3 and G4 running both Tiger and Panther with no issues – I understand that each earlier iteration of OS X should work too.

First step, System Folder

This is probably the single biggest challenge of running Classic. If you decide that Classic is for you, then you’re going to need a working System folder, which can come from the hard drive of an OS 9 running Mac, or an install disc. It’s a shame that Apple doesn’t sell copies of OS 9 or at least offer a download of the System folder because it drives people to pirate copies for lack of availability. While I can’t condone breaking any copyright laws, if you are able to grab an OS 9 System folder off an old Mac then you’ll be in good shape, otherwise there’s always garage sales and online auctions.

In order to copy an OS 9 System folder, simply boot into the older Mac in question, then make sure it’s fully updated. If this is the case, copy and paste into an external drive (I used an iPod) and put it somewhere safe on your other, newer Mac. It doesn’t need to be in the root of your newer Mac’s hard drive, so a suitable choice could be in your User folder.

OS 9.2.2 isn’t technically mandatory for Classic, though it is very much recommended you use this updated version since it will likely save installation headaches (I haven’t managed to run Classic successfully on earlier updates of OS 9, such as 9.0.4).

Second Step, Run Classic

Upon copying OS 9′s System folder over to your newer Mac, navigate to OS X’s System Preferences. Within System Preferences, the ‘Classic’ preference pane should appear (as shown in the screenshot above), from which you can tweak options such as whether to automatically start Classic on boot or not. Classic is relatively light on resources and robust, in addition to providing a seamless experience, somewhat comparable to using Windows on your Mac with the aid of VMWare – you can even keep your OS 9 apps right in your dock as you would normally!

to use OS 9 software, you can simply drag and drop into your usual Applications folder

Why Not Intel?

There are two popular applications for running OS 9 on PPC Macs running Leopard and Intel Macs running any version of OSX, these are called Sheepshaver and Basilisk II – so why aren’t I recommending you make use of them?

Well, after five days intensive testing of Sheepshaver and Basilisk II on two Intel Macs running Snow Leopard and Lion, plus some time spent using it on a PPC Mac running Leopard, I felt that it was not up to the task of running OS 9 satisfactorily enough for me to potentially encourage you to spend your time and money trying them out – that’s not to say it can’t be done and indeed, many people use the applications and love them, but I’m not going to recommend embarking upon something so complex if it doesn’t pay off with enough of a user experience.

In addition to this complexity and somewhat disappointing user experience, setting these programs up often means breaking Apple’s copyright policies or taking a long route around to avoid doing so.

Ploughing Ahead

Having said all that, if you’re really determined to give OS 9 a try on an Intel Mac and feel savvy enough to delve right in, I’ll briefly list some tips to point you in the right direction:

The official installation guidelines for Sheepshaver are laid out here and you can download the latest version from here.

Sheepshaver has the best support for OS 9 but there is also a popular method of installing old versions of Mac OS using Basilisk II (download here) detailed in a blog not affiliated with the Basilisk II developers – I’m not going to link to this blog as it also contains ancient but copyrighted Apple software, however a quick search for “redundant robot sheepshaver” (without quotes) will get you there.

OS 9.0.4

Frustratingly, Sheepshaver needs a slightly earlier version of OS 9 (9.0.4) than is recommended for Classic and so adds yet another level of complexity to those wishing to test both methods. Though specific system installation discs can apparently be modified to work, it’s best to aim for a retail version of OS 9 if at all possible.

OS X Lion

OS X Lion does currently work with Sheepshaver but it has issues entering fullscreen and seems overall a little more unstable. There does appear to be an updated version in the works, however.

Using OS 9 Applications

So now all the hard work is done, what kind of OS 9 Applications should you use? Well, there’s really so many that they are worthy of a whole article for themselves and a quick look around the internet should point you in the direction of a thriving scene of OS 9 enthusiasts. That said, here’s a few quick picks which caught my attention:

Classilla Internet Browser

OS 9 can be used with an old version of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer but using it is not really much fun. Luckily for us, web browser Classilla is available for free download and is still being developed.

When one considers the age of the operating system it is running within, Classilla loads websites very quickly and renders most with ease. Obviously Classilla is not as standards compliant as huge modern projects like Google Chrome or Safari, but it is no hardship to use by any means – give it a try and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised! Click here to download Classilla.

AppleWorks 6

In use, AppleWorks feels like a precursor to iWork and though it may not be as slick and modern as iWork, it is still an impressively productive suite of tools in its own right, more capable of being used for real work.

AppleWorks contains several applications, such as; a word processor, painting program, drawing program, spreadsheet, database and a presentation application.

Caesar II

I’m a hopeless ancient history nerd so love games like Rome:Total War and Caesar II is a classic of the genre which deserves to be ranked among the best. With somewhat similar gameplay to Sid Meir’s Civilization, Caesar II tasks the user with creating a city and province, then steering them to greatness, dealing with the usual disasters which one would expect.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, it would be impossible to cover every aspect of OS 9 in one article, it’s simply too vast! Nevertheless, I do hope that this guide will serve to whet your appetite and highlight the incredible potential buried in this comparatively ancient operating system.

If you’ve got any recommendations of OS 9 software which I haven’t covered here, please let us know about them in the comments.