Category: Mac

It’s an application that everyone has been talking about recently, and we ran our own review last week. Fantastical is a menu bar application that provides a simple way of interacting with iCal. You can view your upcoming events, and enter new ones using a natural language engine that works flawlessly.

Today we’re giving you the chance to win one of two licenses for Fantastical, so you can get your hands on this excellent piece of software completely free of charge!

Entering the competition is really easy. All you need to do is:

1. Post a link to this competition – either on your website, or via Twitter
2. Leave a comment, letting me know where you posted the link!

Best of luck, and I’ll be picking the winners in just over a week. The competition closes on Wed 1st June, but I’d strongly recommend giving Fantastical a try for yourself – I really can’t recommend it highly enough!

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

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

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

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

LyX

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

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

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

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

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

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

iWork

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

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

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

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

Postbox

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

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

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

Adium

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

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

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

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

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

iStudiez Pro

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

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

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

Evernote

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

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

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

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

OmniGraphSketcher

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

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

Price: $19.95 (academic license)
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5 onwards.

Caffeine

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

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

iStumbler

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

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

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

MindNode

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

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

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

Twitterrific

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

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

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

Price: free (ad-supported, single account); $9.99 (full version)
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 and onwards. Intel only.

Skype

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

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

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

Dropbox

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

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

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

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

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

Alfred

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

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

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

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

Time Out Free

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

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

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

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

Grisbi

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

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

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

Parallels Desktop

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Isolator

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

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

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

MathType

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

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

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

Preview

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

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

Price: Free
Requires: Included with Mac OS X

Circus Ponies Notebook

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

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

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

Price: $29.95 (academic license)
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5.8 or later

Yep

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

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

Price: $39
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5.7 or later

Anxiety

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

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5 and above

Fluid App

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

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

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

Timeline 3D

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

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

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

Price: $39 (academic license)
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5 onwards.

Conclusion

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

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

In the meantime, best of luck with your studies!

Much has been speculated over the idea of Apple creating a competing service to Dropbox – either under the MobileMe/iDisk banner, or through a completely new service. Some people think it would be great for competition, and others think that Dropbox already has the market sewn up.

I’d hazard a guess that the majority of AppStorm readers are Dropbox users in some form or another (if not, you should be!) It’s hands down one of the most useful applications I’ve ever had the pleasure of using.

Will Apple launch a competing service? My hunch is no – at least not directly. There’s little reason for them to create a like-for-like competitor that allows storage of all your files in the cloud.

There is, however, a good opportunity for them to create a better sync platform, so that developers don’t feel the need to use Dropbox as a central storage location for syncing between multiple Macs/iOS devices. This would be much better handled by the OS, and it’s an area where I’d love to see some innovation from Apple.

What do you think? Have your say in the comments, and let me know whether you think Apple has a plan to get into this market!

I’m a sucker for notebooks. Paper or digital it doesn’t matter. I’ve got a stack of Moleskines right next to my Field Notes notebooks. And you don’t even want to know how many different journaling-type applications I have on my MacBook. Most of these digital notebooks don’t try to mimic a “real” notebook. The few applications that do try to look and feel like a paper notebook have always failed in that regard (though they often have other redeeming qualities).

But along comes Per Se, the new digital journal from Sprouted Software. It’s the first application that actually feels like a three-dimensional, paper journal. Too good to be true? Let’s take a closer look.

Per Se is the work of Philip Dow of Sprouted Software. He’s the coder responsible for the still-popular Journler application, which he abandoned a couple of years ago, and is now releasing for open source development.

Journler is a full-featured information manager with strong journaling features. Per Se appears to be taking the opposite approach, with a clean, almost minimalist interface. But appearances can be deceiving, because there is a little more going on with Per Se than meets the eye. But let’s talk first about what does meet the eye.

Per Se is not yet available through the App Store, so you’ll have to download and mount the disk the old-fashioned way. It costs a reasonable $19.95.

After it is installed and you fire it up for the first time, you’ll be asked to pick a theme for your new notebook. As of this writing, there are three themes available, but more options are in the works.

Once you’ve selected your theme, your new notebook opens to a two-page spread with that day’s date, and you can start writing your journal.

The interface is very simple. The date and page numbering appear at the top of the left-hand page, nine icons providing access to various functions appear at the top of the right-hand page. The screenshot above describes each of these functions, but we’ll look a little more closely at each of these.

Navigating Your Journal

The first three icons provide various methods for navigating and searching your journal.

Bookmarks & Tags

The first icon opens the Bookmarks & Tags dialog window. As the name implies, you set tags and bookmarks for individual entries within this dialog, and you search and select those tags and bookmarks when searching for specific entries.

The screenshot below shows the tags option opened, and I have selected the “Per Se” tag. As you can see, two entries are so tagged, and we can see the date and the first few words of each of these entries. Clicking on either of them opens that entry.

How efficient this will be with a year’s worth of entries and 40 or 50 matching tags is a question I can’t answer yet.

Search & Browse

The second icon opens the Search & Browse dialog window, which is a pretty straight-forward procedure. Just type the word or phrase you’re looking for and a listing of all matching entries appears.

The Browse option is handy for allowing you to look over your entries in a chronologic list. You can select what time ranges to display: before a certain date, after a certain date, or within a specified period of days.

Calendar

The third icon opens the Calendar for hopping quickly to a specific date.

Adding More Than Text

The next five icons access tools for embedding other types of information and media into  your journal.

Add a Quick Note

First up is the quick note icon. Open it, select a note style, and it is dropped onto the page. Quick notes are handy for keeping key information easily visible. You can drag the note around your journal page, and the text on the page wraps around it automatically.

As of now, at least, you can’t adjust the font or add formatting to the text of a quick note, but you can resize them by selecting the note and dragging one of the handles to the size that works best for you.

If you type a longer note, the text will scroll, but there is no scroll bar to indicate this, not something that should be an issue, as quick notes are not really intended for more than a handful of words.

Add a Flourish

You can decorate your journal with floral flourishes and emoticons by clicking on the floral design icon next to the quick note icon. Just like quick notes, you can move these around your journal page and the text on the page will adjust itself. There is also an option for adding your own custom images, but I did not try this.

Add Audio-Visual Stimula

The next three icons open tools for embedding a home movie — direct from the built in computer camera — a voice recording, or a still picture — also from the built in computer camera. While I can see the possible value in adding a voice recording to my journal, the movie and the photo options seem a bit useless.

That’s not to say that you might not want to add a photo — you can, just by dragging it in, but I can’t see how taking my own picture at the computer would be of much use, unless I was tracking the development of a beard, or the tide going out on my receding hairline. Others may, of course, come up with great ways to use these features.

Per Se does very nicely handle photos, auto-sizing them and giving them a “polaroid” look.

Full Screen Mode? Maybe.

The final icon toggles between full-screen mode and normal viewing. But Per Se’s full-screen mode is a little different. Instead of enlarging the writing area to encompass the whole screen, the background expands, covering all the other distractions, while leaving the writing area — that is, the notebook — the same size.

I suppose this is the only real option if you want your application to feel like a notebook. And, truthfully, I kind of like it. But it may not be your cup of tea, especially if you’re used to applications like WriteRoom. As of now, the notebook stays the same size no matter how large your display, but the developer is working on providing an expanded notebook option for larger displays.

Acts Like a Notebook

In the introduction I said that Per Se feels like a real notebook. As you can see from what we’ve explored about the application so far is that it indeed “looks” like a real notebook. It has “pages” and can combine sticky notes and photos with your text, as if you pasted them into a scrapbook or journal.

But there is one other key function of Per Se that is the true beauty of the application. As you type and reach the bottom of the page, your writing automatically spills onto the next page. Sounds trivial, right? But I can’t think of one other piece of software using a notebook metaphor that actually provides this natural notebook feel.

With most of these applications (see Circus Ponies Notebook, Aquaminds NoteTaker, and Thoughts, for examples) the writing space just grows longer and scrolls downward as you fill up the “page.” This is standard word processor action, which most of us are used to. But I found something refreshing in Per Se’s approach. Just keep typing and the pages fill up. When you get to the end of one spread, the page automatically flips to the next spread, and you can just keep writing, as you would in a real notebook.

And when you want to review past entries, just flip through the pages — again, as you would a paper notebook. There is no having to handle the scroll bar to hunt out text deep down on the page.

Basic, But Serviceable Text Editor

Per Se has a lovely environment for writing, but how is it as a text editor? Not bad, not great. It uses the same text engine as Apple’s TextEdit utility, so you can do all the basic formatting. You get spell check, auto-correction and smart quotes. You can even include a table, although I found the table control a little finicky. I didn’t always get the result I was expecting, but it is possible this is pilot error.

The bottom line is the text editor is as capable as it needs to be.

Not Quite the Right Mix of Features

If there is a problem with Per Se, it’s that the purpose is a little confused. The developer says the emphasis is on writing, but then adds functions for dropping in movies and audio into the journal. I find this useless functionality. I also don’t understand the point of the flourish decorations. Even the emoticons are a bit of a gimmick, although I can see how it might be helpful to provide a quick key to my mood on any day.

Per Se is currently missing some of the functions you might expect from a journaling application. There is no Spotlight support as of now, but that is in the works. Export is limited to simple RTF documents, though more options are coming, as is password protection. But there is no support for uploading to weblogs.

Also in the works is an iOS version and support for multiple entries per day.

Summing it Up

Is Per Se a substitute for a fully functioned information management application like Circus Ponies Notebook, MacJournal or even Journler? Probably not. But it is not intended to be. The application still feels a little raw. The intended improvements will make Per Se a more serious journaling application.

The bottom line is that Per Se is a handsome place to write down your thoughts. And it gives the closest experience I’ve found to writing in a genuine paper journal — with, of course, a lot of the advantages of a digital notebook. Writing in Per Se is fun. If that sounds appealing to you, then give Per Se a try.

This week’s sponsor is a fairly unique application – Smoke. Not your usual graphics editor, Smoke is all about creating unique graphical effects.

It offers a unique type of brush that renders stunning graphics with the simplest mouse movements. Abstract backgrounds, lighting texts, art-house drawings – or anything else – this tool helps to convert an idea into a painting.

You can head over to the Smoke website to see an few examples of the application in action, or grab your copy from the Mac App Store. It’s definitely worth giving this unusual, unique application a try – you’ll be surprised by what it can do!

Instagram is a widely popular, but unusual, app. It has had a huge success on the iPhone, continually improving over the past few years, but you can’t really browse your pictures or view your profile if you are away from your iOS device. The support for desktop and web versions of Instagram is pretty much non-existent from the developer.

Fortunately, the API of the service is open to any developer who wants to take advantage of it. This gives people a chance to build on the huge community behind Instagram, and make it easy to browse images from locations other than the iPhone app. Today we’ll be reviewing Instadesk – an app that aims to do just that!

What Is Instagram?

Instagram is a wildly successful app for iPhone that allows you to take pictures, apply a range of different vintage effects, and share them with friends across social networks and email. The service has its own internal social “following” system, but the only thing lacking is a great desktop or web app.

Instadesk is a third party app designed to fill that gap. It aims to bring all the functionality and features of the iPhone app to your Mac. It sells for $1.99 on the App Store, and the first time that you use it you’ll have to grant it access to your Instagram account. Once that’s done, you are free to explore.

Browsing

On the sidebar, there’s a category of items called “Instagram”, where you can find menus like Feed, Popular, Popular Tags and News. Under the Feed menu, you’ll see all the pictures published recently by your friends. These are fairly large, accompanied by the name of the user who uploaded it, the comments and loves that it has had, the date when it was published and the comment that the uploader used in the picture.

The “Popular” menu is the same one than the one shown in the mobile Instagram app. It’s a collection of popular Instagram pictures all over the service. Something I found pretty weird is that while you can look at a collage of all the pictures, there’s a bug that happens occasionally meaning that you can’t bring them up to take a look at a large version, nor see details of the photo. You have to restart the app to get it to work again.

“Popular Tags” lets you choose from a list of trending tags, such as “birds” or “sanfrancisco”. Once again, you can only look at a collage of the pictures and you can’t really bring any of them up to look up info about them or take a closer look.

“News” is a feature that isn’t really used much by Instagram users, but you can take a look at your feed of news in this menu.

Viewing Pictures

The first thing you’ll notice is that whenever you hover over a picture, you’ll be shown a “Love” button. This is pretty handy and a much-needed fast way to bookmark and share your favorite photos. If instead, you click on a picture, it will be shown in a bigger mode and you’ll get to see the comments in a small sidebar.

Also in this sidebar will be the information of the uploader, the filter they used, the place where it was taken, the tags it’s filed under and a small box where you can shout your own comments.

In the toolbar above the picture you’ll see a few small buttons that are pretty self-explanatory: Previous/Next, Like, Download, Open and Share. The “Share” button will give you the link to the pic and the option to post in on Twitter, Facebook or email it.

Profile

In the Profile category of the sidebar you’ll find menus like “My Pictures”, “I Follow” and “Followers”. Under the My Pictures menu you can see all of the pictures that you have taken previously with Instagram.

There’s also the “I Follow” menu, which is where you can see all the profiles of the people you are following and bring each of them up to see their pictures and who they follow. The “Followers” menu is very similar, except with people that follow you.

Other Features

There are also other features, like the slideshows and the albums. The albums are very much like playlists that you can make by adding pictures to them manually. There doesn’t seem to be support for smart albums, but that isn’t really a useful feature in an app like this.

Slideshows are pretty cool, you can bring them up by clicking the “Slideshow” button on the toolbar. They take a while to load at first, but they have very good animations and they even let you select the time spent on each picture – and “love” the picture right there.

Smaller features include a user finder (which works only with Instagram’s usernames, no social network integration) and a menu bar icon that doesn’t seem to do much other than show the number of new items, and give you quick access to the app.

Conclusion

Instadesk does a pretty good job at bringing the full Instagram experience to your desktop. It has some small flaws and a few bugs and details that aren’t very pleasant, like the bug that I mentioned where you can’t view details or big versions of photos from the Popular categories, but these are minor and they could be easily fixed with an update.

Keep in mind that it is just meant to let you browse through pictures – you can’t really post anything other than comments – it’s just made to view your account and those of others.

I think the price is pretty decent for an app like this. But what do you think? The Instagram mobile app is free, so would you pay for this experience on the desktop?

I’m a huge Starbucks junkie. About two or three times a week I’ll spin by the local Starbucks store to work in the coffee-smelling, jazz-music-playing, over-stuffed-chair-filled environment. The wonderful aspect of most coffee shops is the free Wi-Fi hotspot. However, the open wireless hotspot is a dangerous space for everyone.

Today we’ll be taking a look at Sidestep, a simple utility that aims to automatically lock down your computer whenever you’re using an open Wi-Fi network. It’s a really fantastic idea, and definitely worth reading more about!

The Problem

Whenever you are surfing on an open wireless network, your data is being sent insecurely over the air. Because you cannot control who has access to the wireless network, you can’t be sure that the data you are sending isn’t being sniffed by some nefarious laptop user – possibly sitting at the table next to you.

Most websites don’t use high enough encryption that would protect you from start to finish, which gives these ‘hackers’ free reign to sniff through the data that you send to your webmail service, social network or even what you search on Google.

Now, this can be initially mitigated by the site’s use of the HTTPS protocol. This encrypts the data sent between your computer and the server – preventing people from reading it when you’re surfing on an insecure network.

Most banks use this by default, and some services allow you to enable it in the settings area of the web app. This includes popular services like Google and Gmail. However, whenever you leave the safety of these encrypted sites, your online data is open to the public.

The Fix

Sidestep is a super easy to use application that allows you to instantly redirect all of your internet traffic through a proxy server.

What’s a proxy server you ask? Well it’s essentially another computer that is connected to the Internet. Instead of sending your data directly to the web via Starbuck’s router, you send your data through this server first. The best part is that you have the ability to use this proxy server as HTTPS tunnel.

One of my internet pals explained it this way: if you’re in a room full of Cookie Monsters and you need to get your stack of cookies out without them seeing them, you’d set up a big hose and send the cookies outside through the hose.

Then the Cookie-Monsters would be none the wiser that you either had cookies to begin with, let alone were sending them out of the room. Just replace cookies with passwords and Cookie-Monsters with hackers…

The Setup

I’m going to go into setting up a proxy server with Sidstep. It’s pretty easy to do, once you have a proxy server of your own.  In this instance, I’m going to assume that you don’t have a computer at home… instead we’ll set up the proxy server using the donation-ware Silence is Defeat service.

If you’re really into security, using a donationware service means you’ll have to trust them with your data. Instead, you could use the server hosting your website, your computer at home, or for about $0.50 / month, you can set up an Amazon EC2 Instance that can act as your proxy server.

First off, you’ll need to download the Sidestep application. It sits in your menu bar and gives you a pretty good idea of whether or not your data is being re-routed through the proxy server.

Second, head over to Silence is Defeat and sign up for an account. To get an SSH account, which is what we’ll need, you will need to donate $1 or more. It’s a good idea to give a little more if you plan to use this as your primary internet service, say, if you travel a lot. It’s a one time fee, so be as generous as you can afford!

After giving the Silence Is Defeat system a few minutes to set itself up, you’ll get a welcome e-mail. Finally, enter your login credentials into Sidestep’s Preference window. Remember to use ssh.silenceisdefeat.com as your hostname. Give the server a quick test, and you should be on your way.

Other Features

Besides making it dead simple to setup a proxy server for surfing in open waters, Sidestep offers a few other little features that makes it easy to fall in love with the program. Sidestep is built into the menu bar and will change the icon when you are connected to a Proxy server.

It can also automatically connect you to the proxy server whenever you enter a unprotected network. This is a super awesome feature that takes remembering to turn on the service out of your head. Plus, everyone should be protecting their home network with a password, making it a no brainer to turn this on.

Backup Plans

Another similar service that you can setup is called Tor (The Onion Router). It’s a freeware service that routes your internet connection between a number of computers before actually allowing it to hit the world wide web. This way, there isn’t a way to track your online activities easily – as most of the time Tor sends your data across countries and continents.

The Downsides to Sidestep

While there isn’t anything wrong with the Sidestep app, it has everything to do with Proxy Servers as a whole. There is a noticeable delay in between say, clicking a link, and the page actually loading.

It isn’t that the internet is slow, the latency is just a bit higher now that your connection is being sent through another computer (this is even more of a problem with Tor).

Wrap-Up

Sidestep and similar proxy services make it super easy to protect yourself from the evil world out there. However it is important to continue to watch your back.

While Sidestep will prevent people from doing packet sniffing, it won’t prevent people from gaining access to your data in other ways. It is important to use different passwords for each online service, and ensure that you have your firewall and other Mac security features enabled. Finally, make sure no one is standing over you when you type in your Gmail password!

Have you set up Proxy services? How else are you keeping yourself safe online? Let me know in the comments!

Today’s competition is for an application we recently reviewed, called Rubbernet. This is a new piece of software from Conceited Software which tracks what apps are accessing your network connection, and how much bandwidth they are using.

Not only is this useful for monitoring bandwidth usage, but it can be used to detect any software which might be secretly sending out personal data of yours!

Entering the competition is really easy. All you need to do is:

1. Post a link to this competition – either on your website, or via Twitter
2. Leave a comment, letting me know where you posted the link!

Best of luck, and I’ll be picking the winners in just over a week. The competition closes on Friday 27th May, but you can head over to the Conceited Software site to download a trial in the meantime!

Perhaps it’s just me and my complete lack of musical ability, but any time I open up a bit of DJing software, I get completely lost – There are far more knobs, levers, sliders, options and timelines than any man could ever want. I do, however, quite enjoy doing a bit of casual mixing, but don’t want to go through a massive learning curve to get there.

Enter Djay, a very impressive DJing app from Algoriddim, which does everything most users will want it to, in a beautiful interface which is very easy to get to grips with. Sounds like your sort of thing? Read on to see just how good it is.

Getting Started

For an app with so many features, the free trial, which you can download from the Algoriddim website, is a mere 9.3 MB, so it’ll download nice and fast. You’ll then have the standard installation which we all know and love – just drag the application into your Applications folder, and Djay is installed and ready to use for all your partying needs. Couldn’t be simpler.

Djay is also available from the Mac App Store, if you prefer that route, although you don’t get the option to bring it for a test run first.

Interface

Music apps are known for their love of skeuomorphic interface elements (elements which look like their real life counterpart), and Djay is no different, with plenty of sliders and a beautiful turntable. You can instantly tell exactly what almost everything does, and if not, you can easily find out by messing around with it during a song.

While the interface is nice, to me, it seems that the graphics have been scaled up and don’t look as crisp as they could be. This is a shame, because it would give it even more of the “Wow Factor” were the interface to be as polished as some of the other DJ apps. Nevertheless, it’s not horrific, and it doesn’t make it impossible to use.

Basic Mixing

Like the best apps, Djay is easy to learn, but difficult to master. Upon first opening up Djay, you’ll see all of your iTunes music on the right, which you can drag onto the turntables and instantly create a song.

The BPM will be calculated for you, and saved on Djay for future reference (although not, however, ported back to iTunes, which would have been nice). You can sync the two tracks’ BPM in order for it to play seamlessly. This alters the speed of one of the tracks to match the other. Unfortunately, this results in the pitch becoming higher or lower, which, although sometimes fun, can be annoying.

There are plenty more features that anyone will be able to use, such as reversing a track, adjusting the equaliser, and the mixer. If you’re a casual DJ, you’ll be perfectly happy with these features, but for the more serious DJ, there’s plenty for you too.

Advanced Mixing

Djay is not just an app for those of us who have no musical ability whatsoever – it is also equally good for the true DJ, with plenty of features hidden in the menu bar. You have loads of effects and can alter just about anything.

You can also add multiple cue points which can all be accessed via the keyboard for some amazing results. I am essentially the least musical person there is, and even I could create some great effects using cue points and a bit of experimentation.

Trackpad and Keyboard Integration

As you would expect with a DJ app, the keyboard plays a big role, and there are over 80 keyboard shortcuts, enabling you to control everything with a few taps, from the mixer, to the cue points, to the speed and pitch bends.

Although it’ll take you a while to learn 80 shortcuts, you’ll quickly pick up a few crucial ones and be on your way to music heaven in no time.

What I find more impressive is the use of the trackpad. Place the cursor over any slider, and you can control it with a two-fingered swipe, which is pretty useful, but the magic is when you place your cursor over the turntable. A two-fingered horizontal will slide the mixer, and a two-fingered vertical swipe will scratch the track, making you really feel like a proper DJ.

The same things will work when scrolling with the mouse, but the trackpad just feels right, and you can really get into those big gestures.

Djay Expansion

Djay is not just a standalone app – it has all kinds of software and hardware which can turn your computer into a music-making beast. First up is the Djay Remote, an iPhone/iPod Touch app which allows you to control Djay from a distance, if both devices are on the same network.

This means that you can be the party-maker and the party-goer at the same time. It will knock you back $4.99, but considering how much most DJ software costs, that’s a small price to pay.

Secondly, Algoriddim have produced a lovely keyboard cover which will not only protect your MacBook’s keyboard, but will help you learn all those shortcuts with a colour-coded design and lots of detail. It costs $29.95, and works on MacBooks, MacBook Airs, MacBook Pros, and even PowerBook G4s.

Thirdly is the one for the serious DJs – the MIDI Controller. The Vestax Spin was specifically developed for Djay and will turn your Mac into a true musical powerhouse. There are plenty of other controllers which will work with Djay, but Algoriddim recommends this one. It doesn’t come cheap, however, at $280 (Djay software included), so it’s only really for the professionals.

Conclusion

I love Djay. I could sit, playing with it for hours. Even when I was supposed to be writing this review, I kept finding myself back there, getting lost in it for 15 minutes before suddenly realising I had work to do. It’s a joy to use, and produces surprisingly great results with absolutely no ability or learning required, which is something I can say about very few apps.

At just $49.95, I would say it’s well worth it, whether you want to play with it for fun, bring the house down at a party, or become a professional DJ. If you do nothing else today, buy, or at least try, this app.

In today’s interview, we’ll be speaking with Keith Blount – the writer and developer behind the phenomenally successful Scrivener. Created by the Literature & Latte team, Scrivener is a fantastic application for writers of all types, helping you organise your ideas and produce a piece of work to be proud of.

Keith will be talking about the Literature & Latte team, how Scrivener came about, giving back to the developer community, and sharing a few fascinating, high-profile examples of people using the app.

I hope you enjoy the interview!

Tell us a little bit about the Literature & Latte team – where are you based, how many of you are there, and what motivates you as a company?

Literature & Latte’s official headquarters are in Truro, Cornwall, in the UK. But that’s just a spare room in our house which has become my office – the team is actually spread far and wide. There are six of us, four of us full time, two part-time, and a seventh person helping out with the code on the Windows version. Three of us are based in the UK, two in the US, and the Windows team are in Australia.

As for motivation, Scrivener is our motivation and our raison d’être. A couple of years ago L&L was a team of one – yours truly – because it started out with me writing a piece of software I wanted for myself. We all use Scrivener ourselves (Lee, our Windows developer, was a user who was desperate to get it onto Windows, and our two support team members started out as enthusiastic users too), so we’re just trying to make the best writing software for ourselves as much as for anyone else.

With Latte in the name, does the company take its coffee seriously?

Ha, I wish I could go into detail about all the great coffees I brew but the sad truth is that my mornings start with a cup of Nescafé. The company name comes from the name I always wanted to use for a bookshop-café – I used that because I figured I’d never open a bookshop and I didn’t want anything that sounded too dry.

You can’t please everyone though – we received an e-mail from someone the other day suggesting we should go for something more “generic like Microsoft”. But I like it – and it is true that I can’t function without coffee, latte or not.

What does a typical day look like for you? Walk us through your usual schedule and activities!

Oh, it’s total rock and roll all the way (if you take “rock and roll” to mean sitting at a computer until your spine fossilises). My day starts – after taking the kids to school and that vital coffee of course – with technical support. I’m at my desk by 9am, and I spend the first hour replying to e-mails from users and answering queries on the forums (I’ll answer the occasional e-mail and question throughout the day, too, but I try to get most done first thing and before I finish in the evening).

I also look at issues that have been answered by others on the team, just so I always have a good overview of the most common issues users have – that’s always vital for working out what features to add and improvements to make.

After that it depends on how busy we are. If we’re not in a busy period then I’ll try to do two or three hours writing each morning. I developed Scrivener to use, so even if I never finish anything worth publishing, I make sure I set aside time for my own writing efforts – no matter how successful Scrivener might or might not become, it would seem a waste to me, having set out to write software that fits my way of working, were I never to use it in this way.

But this is also fundamental to Scrivener’s development, because as I use Scrivener myself I’m always seeing areas for improvement and a lot of the changes and updates are driven by my own needs as well as by those of other users. (For instance, the next update has some subtle improvements to outlining and a new “synopsis finder”, because I was working on an outline and wanted a better way of being able to jump back to edit earlier synopses without losing my place.)

After lunch I code for the rest of the day, and in busy periods I’ll code instead of writing in the mornings too. At the moment, for instance, I’m working hard on 2.1 so the coding is taking up all my time. Other than breaks for lunch and spending time with the kids, the coding usually goes on until 7 or 8pm, sometimes longer, and then I try to answer any e-mails or support queries that are left before wrapping it up for the day.

But it all depends on what’s going on. There are a couple of e-books coming out about Scrivener over the next fortnight, so a lot of my time recently has been taken up with proofreading those, and there’s the Windows version to test and various other odds and ends that need doing. We’re a small company, so we all pitch in and do various jobs.

What inspired the original idea for Scrivener – was there a particular piece of writing/novel that spurred the creation of the software?

Scrivener grew out of my own attempts to write a novel, and my experience of writing a thesis. I’m not the most organised of people, and I found that I would have dozens of Word files scattered throughout folders containing notes, ideas, partial chapters and so on. I’d copy and paste them all into a large Word file, then cut and paste the parts to restructure.

I would write synopses in Excel or on index cards to get an overview, shuffle them around to find the best sequence, and then go back to my Word documents and set about cutting and pasting it into the new structure once more.

I also came across an essay by (the now Booker-winning) Hilary Mantel in which she talked about her own writing methods – how she would keep notes on index cards and note paper, place them on a corkboard and move them around, then eventually move them into a ring-binder and keep arranging things and writing more in a non-linear order until the shape of the work became clear and she could see what gaps needed filling. She said that this was “really a method of growing a book, rather than writing one.”

It struck home with me because that was how my mind worked on longer texts too. And I kept thinking that there must be a better software solution for this way of working, something that would allow me to rearrange a long document using synopses, to allow me to edit the text in small pieces or as a whole and so on.

I tried out all the software that was available on both Windows and the Mac, but nothing did exactly what I wanted, so eventually I set about teaching myself to code so that I could write my own.

I was interested to see the range of components and applications that you’ve open sourced on your Free Stuff page. What was the reasoning behind this, and do you think it has impacted the success of Scrivener?

There’s a lot more stuff I keep meaning to put up there, actually. That page contains test projects that didn’t really go anywhere that someone else might be able to make something of, some utilities that I created for myself that are useful for single, rather esoteric tasks, and various code snippets.

When working on a large program such as Scrivener you often find yourself reinventing the wheel – having to create a control that seems to be used in many programs but for which there isn’t a standard, having to write word counting code and suchlike. So I try to place snippets of code that might be generally useful on there.

It’s also about giving something back – there are lots of great sites out there with Mac developers giving away code, and I’ve benefitted from a fair few of them so it would be nice if other developers benefitted from some of the stuff I give away in return. I’m way behind, though, as I say – there are lots of general-use components I developed during the 2.0 development cycle that I’ve meant to put on there but which I just haven’t had time to cut out and document yet.

I don’t think any of this has had an impact on the success of Scrivener directly, although the great nature of the Mac development community at large certainly has – but that’s the next question.

What’s the one thing you love about developing for the Mac?

I doubt I could narrow it down to one thing, sorry; there are too many things. There’s all the obvious stuff – the great hardware and OS X itself, which I love. And then there’s Cocoa – I really like the Objective-C development language, because it’s just such a human-readable style of coding.

If I really had to pick one thing, though, it would probably be the development community. So many developers are willing to help each other out and share code, and competition tends to be friendly. Of course, the Windows development community may be just as great, I have no idea.

Tell us a little bit about your Mac setup. What software and hardware do you use on a regular basis?

Until recently Scrivener had always been developed on the smallest machines – at first on an iBook 12”, then on a MacBook 13” through a couple of generations. Recently I decided it was silly to be sitting around waiting several minutes for Scrivener to build, though, so I bought myself a Mac Pro, which flies. So all of my development is done on that.

My other main computer is a MacBook Air 11”, which is my favourite machine since my original iBook 12” – it’s surely the perfect writing machine. A MacAlly IceKey keyboard and a Microsoft natural mouse completes a really comfortable set-up.

As for software, obviously there’s Scrivener – I use it to keep track of all of my development notes as well as for writing. I have a single Scrivener project with folders for upcoming and past releases, with documents on what features I plan to add and notes about them, release notes that get added to as I work and exported for release, and so on.

My main workhorse for coding is, of course, Xcode. I’m currently dipping into Xcode 4 as I’ve been putting it off, but I’m slowly getting used to it, although I’m mostly still on Xcode 3.

Skitch is one of my most valuable utilities for support – it allows me to take a screenshot, resize or crop it, annotate it and then either upload it to our servers for linking in a forum reply or drag it into an e-mail – all within seconds. It’s an amazing program, and I can’t even imagine how much time it has saved me.

I use Photoshop for creating or tweaking icons or images where necessary for Scrivener itself (although we use professional icon designers for most things these days). And then I have a lot of programs that I use to test Scrivener’s export and compatibility features – Microsoft Word, obviously, and Nisus Writer (which is my personal choice of word processor), Pages to a lesser extent (because Apple don’t make the .pages format publicly available it’s not really possible for anyone to support Pages directly, so that comes down to RTF and Word export); and then various e-book readers, such as Kindle Previewer, Adobe Digitial Editions and such like for testing e-books created by Scrivener.

What type of sales and customer response have you seen after launching Scrivener on the Mac App Store?

The Mac App Store has been really good for us, and we’ve been – what’s the US equivalent of “chuffed” or “stoked” – psyched? – to have made it as a featured app, and to have been kept on the front page for a few weeks. The Mac App Store has basically opened up a second stream of customers for us.

We were worried that it was going to cannibalise our regular sales (which would have been bad seeing as our regular e-store provider takes much less than the 30-40% Apple takes), but so far that doesn’t seem to have been the case, at least not too much. So all of our App Store sales have been on top of our regular sales, which is exactly what you would hope for.

I think it’s safe to say that the Mac App Store is still building its customer-base, too – which is natural seeing as it was only launched in January and is only available to Snow Leopard users (we have a lot of users still using Tiger or Leopard).

Aside from a couple of peak days, our regular sales channel still accounts for most of our sales, but it will be interesting to see how that will pan out in the future. Customer response has been great, though, and it’s fantastic to be able to reach more users and hear what they think.

What’s the most interesting use case of Scrivener you’ve ever come across? Maybe a particularly famous author, or unique/interesting writing project?

That’s a difficult one. We have quite a few bestselling authors using it (and were given a fantastic quote by Michael Marshall Smith which we use everywhere), and I’m always interested in how they go about their work. (In fact, one bestselling author, David Hewson, has written an e-book about how he uses Scrivener which has just gone on sale on Amazon – and he wrote and compiled the e-book in Scrivener too.)

I was excited when I found out that Scrivener was being used to write some episodes of the BBC series Spooks which I loved – and it was used by the same writer (Neil Cross) to write Luther starring Idris Elba (The Wire’s Stringer Bell) last year, so it was great to watch a fantastic series on TV and know it had been written for the most part in my software.

Recently I heard that one of the producers of Lost uses it, and I believe it was also used to write the script for the first Dead Space video game, which I didn’t realise until after I’d played it. Oh, and not long ago we received an e-mail from a witch using it to organise her book of shadows – that probably goes down as the most unique…

Which websites, Twitter users, and magazines do you follow in an effort to stay up-to-date with the activities of other developers, and the Apple eco-system in general?

AppStorm, of course! I also take a look at MacRumors occasionally, and check out all the magazine sites – Macworld, MacUser, MacLife, MacFormat and so on – and buy whichever magazines have the most interesting articles on any particular month.

In general, though, I tend to concentrate on the technical side of things, so spend more time using the developer section of the Apple site, and the excellent Apple-maintained developer lists and forums.

Do you have any interesting updates in the pipeline that you can give us a sneak peek at?

I’m currently working on Scrivener 2.1, which has some cool new stuff such as the synopsis finder mentioned earlier, and I’m working on providing a simplified view for Compile, for users who only want to tweak the most common settings rather than being confronted with customisation city when they are first learning the software.

2.05 introduced a feature whereby the user could have session targets automatically calculated based on a deadline date and the number of words they needed to achieve; 2.1 will allow the user to tell Scrivener which days he or she actually writes on, so that if you only write three days a week then the target will reflect that.

2.1 also introduces the ability to import research files as aliases, for cases where you have large PDF or video files that you want to reference in the project without bloating the project size. Lots of other stuff, too – I’m hoping to have 2.1 ready some time next month.

Along with that, I’ve started testing out Lion compatibility. While I can’t really say much about Lion for obvious reasons, I can say that I’m very excited about its full screen feature – using Scrivener’s corkboard in conjunction with Lion’s full screen mode is a superb fit, for instance.

So the next thing on the schedule is to ensure that Scrivener takes full advantage of Lion ready for when it’s released – which I personally think is one of the most exciting OS X releases for several years. This time last year I was concerned that Mac OS X was being neglected in favour of iOS; now we have MacBook Airs and Lion on the horizon. It’s a good time to be a Mac developer.

Thanks, Keith!

I’d like to say thank you to Keith for taking the time out of his busy schedule to answer our questions, and offer a little insight into what goes on behind the scenes at Literature & Latte. All the best for the future success of the application!

If you haven’t already, head over to the Scrivener website and give it a try. You’ll be impressed.

It is a rare but welcome occasion when an app is developed to do something I’ve always wanted an app to do. Fantastical is precisely that app. Often, when adding an event to iCal, getting frustrated with date and time fields, and giving up on adding any details but the name, I’ve pondered “shouldn’t there be another way?”

The developers of Fantastical have endeavoured to answer this plea with a menu-bar iCal tie-in promising the ability to quickly add events in natural language.

Upon further research, I learned that Fantastical wasn’t the first app to offer such a handy feature, apps like the cheaper QuickCal promise the same features. So, is Fantastical fantastic enough to justify the price?

Interface

Fantastical sits happily in the menu bar whether your chosen calendar app is open or not. Fantastical features a beautiful interface with a detailed month calendar view with the current day circled and dots under days with events, much like iCal for iPhone.

Beneath the calendar is a list of upcoming events which display details when clicked and highlights the date when hovered over.

A handy feature of Fantastical is the “anchor” button which keeps the interface open and pins it in front of other windows.

Using Fantastical

Fantastical gives you the option to sync with iCal, Entourage or Outlook, and supports iCal delegates, an essential feature for those of us syncing with Google Calendar.

To enter a task, simply enter the event in natural language in the text field, for example, “Dinner with Rhiannon tomorrow 7pm at New Gen Sushi”. Fantastical picks out the date, time and location and instantly adds it to your calendar.

There are a few features I’d like to see here, like the ability to specify which calendar from the text field, like being able to add “in events” to the end and have it show up on my “events” calendar.

Though I don’t use the tasks feature in iCal, I’m sure those who do would appreciate if Fantastical could be used to add tasks too – perhaps by prefacing an entry with “todo:”. That might even get me to switch to using iCal for tasks…

Features and Options

Fantastical includes all the useful features you’d expect from a well-excecuted app, including custom system-wide keyboard shortcuts, customizable sounds and search.

You can select how many upcoming events you’d like to see, or how far into the future you want to see, decide what happens when a date is clicked (open in iCal vs. create new event)

Alarms

Fantastical gives you the option to set up reminders and alarms for both timed and all-day events. For example, you may want to receive an alert one hour before a dentist’s appointment, or an email a day before an important meeting.

You can customize the alarms for both types of events, and set the alarm to sound, message, sound and message, email or even to open a file. I’m too paranoid and constantly aware of upcoming events to need alarms, but I know some people will love this feature.

Conclusion

I have to say, I love this app. Fantastical works well, and does so effectively and beautifully. No, it’s not the only app to offer this functionality, and at $14.99, it’s certainly not the cheapest.

I’ve tried out QuickCal as well, and Fantastical’s main advantages are the ability to use delegate calendars (absolutely essential for me) and the slick, visual interface.

Is that difference worth $14? Personally I absolutely think so, and can’t recommend it highly enough.

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

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

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

System Utilities

Drive Management Utilities

File/Folder Management Utilities

Security and Virus Protection

Desktop/Workspace Utilities

Final Thoughts

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

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

After opening Skype to have a conversation with a colleague this morning, I discovered that my trusty Logitech headset had completely stopped working. It’s served me well for four or five years, and is always useful to have on hand.

There’s something about using my in-built MacBook microphone that feels sub-par in terms of quality – especially when not using headphones, as you tend to hear quite a bit of feedback.

I also picked up a Samson Studio Condenser mic last year for recording screencasts and podcasting, and am incredibly happy with it. The quality is second to none, and it looks pretty stylish.

I thought it would be interesting in today’s poll to find out what type of microphone you use when on your Mac – whether it’s for chatting with a friend, screencasting, audio production, or gaming. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

I’ll be honest: the past 18 years of school have made me a forgetful, disorganized, unmotivated procrastinator. Since I like shiny, pretty interfaces and putting off doing work, I’ve spent a lot of time looking into various GTD and to-do list apps. During the school year, I used a full-featured GTD app (Things) to track and organize dozens of readings, assignments and exams.

However, now that school’s out and I’m freelancing a lot more, Things is starting to seem a bit excessive, and I’m still waiting on the promised iPhone cloud-sync. Enter SpeedTask, the iPhone-turned-Mac to-do list app that promises clever, easy-to-use features and powerful cloud sync.

SpeedTask deserves to be looked at from three different angles: as a Mac app, as an iPhone app, and as a cloud-syncing solution, so we’ll discuss each feature one at a time.

Mac App

SpeedTask is a menu-bar app, and while I’ve been told many times that I have too many menu-bar apps, I like them for a reason: I notice what’s there whenever I check the time. Unlike other apps that have window interfaces with menu-bar functionality, SpeedTask lives entirely in the menu bar, so if you have a menu bar aversion, SpeedTask is probably not for you.

Using SpeedTask

To start using SpeedTask, you simply enter a new task in the text field at the bottom and hit enter, you have the option to set a priority for the task from a drop down menu, but the default priority is High. Once you create a task, there are three actions you can make on it in the main interface: complete, move to a different day, or share.

To edit priority, set an alarm or delete a task, the arrow on the right of the task takes you to the edit interface.

SpeedTask uses a day-based organization system, where each added task is assumed to be due today, but you can push it forward a day or two with the arrow icons that appear when the task is hovered over, or in the edit panel. I found the way this information was displayed to be pretty unintuitive, especially the top bar of the panel, which allows you to switch between days. A simple improvement would be to use more human-friendly date indicators, “today”, “tomorrow” etc.

Another thing I found a bit confusing was the difference between the two “modes” of viewing tasks, I eventually figured out that one mode lists all tasks organized by day, and one only shows today’s tasks. The arrows on the top bar allow you to switch between days, and displays alerts over the arrows indicating how many tasks you have tomorrow/how many you didn’t complete yesterday.

Alarms

One of SpeedTask’s more powerful features is the ability to set alarms or reminders for time-sensitive tasks, and display a count-down until the task is due. I know a lot of people that won’t get tasks done unless they’re yelled at, so alarms could be a really helpful feature.

When the task is due, SpeedTask displays an alert and plays a sound (if you want) on both your Mac and your iPhone so you hear the alarm wherever you are. It uses the standard Mac alert in the middle of the screen, which is nice, but I’d prefer Growl. Growl for everything!

Complaints

I have a number of complaints about SpeedTask for Mac after using it for task management for about a week. Hopefully these issues are merely symptomatic of SpeedTask’s young age, and will be addressed in future updates.

Quick Entry

SpeedTask boasts two ways to quickly add tasks: dragging selected text to the menu bar icon, and right-clicking on the icon to bring up the quick entry input. Neither of these features works exactly as I’d like, though.

It would be nice if after dragging text to the icon, the panel would open so that I could edit the details right away. The right-click quick entry works as advertised, but unlike most menu-bar apps, where the display disappears when you click elsewhere, the SpeedTask window remains open until you re-click the icon, and you can’t use the right-click quick entry if the panel is already open.

Learning Curve / Support

I guess this is a pretty significant complaint, because a productivity app boasting simplicity should be easier to figure out. The introduction screen is only somewhat helpful, and it took me a while to figure out what all the little icons meant.

For example, I probably wouldn’t have guessed that clicking the tiny “speech bubble” icon would open up my mail client to email the task.

Clicking on the “SpeedTask Support” link from the App Store only took me to the app homepage, which features a log-in form and little else. I should mention, however, that Liquify Studios quickly answered all my questions via Twitter.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Or rather, lack thereof. When you open the app from the menu bar, you have to click on the text field to focus on it, and if there are any shortcuts at all, I haven’t found them. In my opinion, keyboard shortcuts are key for productivity apps. Some people may not use them, but I think it’s a deal-breaker for all us keyboard nerds.

Minor Interface Gripes

I’m obsessive over everything being polished and pixel-perfect in apps I use frequently, and there were a couple things that bugged me about the interface that will hopefully be resolved. For example: the “preferences” button sometimes glows blue, and I have no idea why.

Changing Dates

If you want to assign a task to be done tomorrow, it’s easy to just click the “right” arrow once. However, if you want to put something off a couple days, you’re stuck clicking the button until you get the date you want, and I’ve “lost” a couple tasks to unknown days like this.

iPhone App

I like the SpeedTask iPhone app much more than the Mac app, likely because it’s older and has gone through a longer process of refinement (this gives me hope that the Mac app will be improved). It features a stylish cork-board appearance that goes with the “paper” look of the tasks.

The iPhone app also has a handy mini-calendar at the bottom which allows you to see an overview of the number of tasks due in the previous and next two days. It has a classic pull-down-to-sync function that is always appreciated, and has a much more attractive task editing panel.

Cloud Sync

SpeedTask’s cloud sync option is easily its best feature. I’ve used many apps that sync between Mac and iPhone either through the cloud or wi-fi, and none of them worked nearly as seamlessly as SpeedTask. I never once had to prompt either app to sync, and it worked quickly and unobtrusively.

Another useful element of the cloud-based nature of the app is the ability to share URLs for tasks. When you click “share” on a task, your email client opens with a message containing a link to the task. The URL leads to a simple web page containing the task which allows a user to complete a task and have it sync back with the original SpeedTask account.

You can also view your to-do list in the browser from another computer by logging in at speedtaskapp.com which will of course sync both ways with your Mac and iPhone to-do lists.

iCal Sync

You can subscribe to your SpeedTask tasks in iCal using the URL found in “preferences”. This worked perfectly for me when I tested it, and I was impressed with how quickly it updated.

Make sure you turn off cloud-syncing when you have no internet connection, or you’ll receive annoying alerts from both SpeedTask and iCal.

Conclusion

I had high hopes for SpeedTask, given the rave reviews on the App Store and its huge popularity. In many ways, I still do have high hopes for this app, I can tell it has a lot of potential.

Unfortunately, at this stage in its development, it has too many barriers to truly user-friendly, intuitive use for me to recommend it as a task manager for the masses.

However, if cloud syncing is important to you, or you regularly use multiple computers, you may be able to overlook some of the other shortcomings, because SpeedTask handles cloud sync extremely well. If you’re looking for a way to manage today’s tasks in a way that keeps you on task with alarms and menu-bar icons, SpeedTask might work perfectly for you, but I didn’t find it a great solution for managing longer-term items.

Although we usually feature a Mac application as our weekly sponsor, today I’m excited to tell you about a different company – SoftFacade. They specialize in designing user interfaces for mobile apps, websites and the media – and their work is absolutely fantastic.

You can see a few examples over at their website, and SoftFacade’s previous client list includes FormSpring, Radium, Project Noah, Speedtest.net, Swipely, and various iOS apps.

You can contact the SoftFacade team from their site, follow them on Twitter, or check out their latest creations on Dribbble. Even if you’re not looking for any design work in the near future, I’d recommend checking out their site to see a few examples of icon and interface design at its best!