Category: Mac

New subscribers to MobileMe generally know the basics: contacts, email, calendars and notes can sync across computers and devices, you get some storage, and a fancy email address to share with all of your friends. But if you’re anything like me, you opened up your iDisk for the first time, saw the Backup folder and thought, “What’s this for? There’s no way that a Time Machine backup would fit in the 20GB allotted for iDisk.”

Turns out, the Backup folder is for a program called Backup 3, which is made by Apple. What’s this for, and why would I need it if I use Time Machine?

Good question – let’s find out!

Why Backup

When Time Machine was introduced, backup freaks everywhere rejoiced. “Look, now we have an easy way to backup all of our files! Yay!” Although Time Machine is a great tool, there’s still a big issue: most Time Machine backups are kept on a USB drive stored next to the computer.

Unless you take that drive with you everywhere you go, chances are good that you’ll lose everything should tragedy strike your home or office. That would be bad.

Backup 3 doesn’t work like Time Machine. This is focused backup, aimed at backing up the important things on your Mac on a remote drive, which in this case, is iDisk. Once a day, you backup your info, and then once a week or month you back it up to CD or DVD for a hard copy. Simple, right?

What You Backup

Backup 3 focuses on the important things that you don’t want to lose. Choose between your Home Folder, personal data & settings, iLife data and your iTunes library. Pick between one of the four things — or all of them — and hit continue.

Once you’ve picked your poison, now you can get to specifics. By double clicking on the item in the list you can specify which folders and files are backed up, and where to.

By default, everything goes to your Backup folder on your iDisk, but if you’re not a MobileMe member you can choose your own location, like a Dropbox folder if you so choose.

Filter everything down from there, designating the time for the backups, how often they happen and so on. This means you could setup a backup to run every night at 3am, when it’s less likely you’ll need the processing power.

Getting Advanced

You can backup more then just the basics it turns out – you just have to dig into things a bit deeper. Backup 3 provides has a QuickPicks section that highlights all of the items you might want to backup, and even narrows it down to application type. So if you’re really paranoid about losing all of your Microsoft Excel docs, select that option to keep those spreadsheets safe.

If you have a specific folder you use frequently, choose that as well by delving into the Files & Folders option. Keep in mind that if you’re backing up to your iDisk that you’re limited on the amount of data you can move per month and store overall, so don’t pick a large folder unless you’ve paid to upgrade your MobileMe storage options.

So Why Use It?

That is a good question. Time Machine makes backing up stupid easy, so much so that people that never used to backup their computers are now doing it automatically. It almost seems redundant to have to backup programs running at the same time, even if they are free.

Turns out, there is no such thing as backing up too much. But more importantly, having an offsite location for your backups is critical. Without it, a tragedy could wipe out all of your data, and you with a heap of lost memories. Imagine losing just your iTunes library — to some, that could be devastating.

The problem is, Backup 3 isn’t super user friendly like Time Machine. The program seems geared more towards the pro user, because you have to click around a bit to figure out exactly how it works.

For example, I didn’t realize until 10 minutes into my first backup that I could select individual files or file types. If I hadn’t been hunting for it, I’m not sure I would’ve found it.

Verdict

Is Backup 3 the perfect backup program for all of your needs? No. Most likely that’s Time Machine, because it’s built into the OS and it’s very easy to use.

But if you want something more specific, a program that will backup very detailed things on your hard drive and send them to your iDisk account, this is the program for you. It’s a bit of a niche app, but for some people, that’s exactly what they’re looking for.

Mac OS X has a very high standard of interface design, more so than most other operating systems. This is thanks to designers to work extremely hard to make your software work the way you want it to. They may spend hours perfecting a single icon that you will use once and ignore – but it’s worth it.

Dmitry Novikov is a Russian designer who works for MacPaw, the software company that has brought you beautiful apps such as MacHider, Ensoul, and a personal favourite of mine that I couldn’t live without, CleanMyMac. Today, we’ll be talking to him about his processes, design decisions, and much more.

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

MacPaw is a small independent company. We passionately develop software primarily for Mac OS. There are 17 people in our team, responsible for different spheres of development and promotion of the products. Developers, designers, marketing, web-development, support, each of us is an irreplaceable part of the team.

Our company is based in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine and I’ve moved here just a month ago from Russia, because I worked remotely from there. We also have a lot of partners around the world.

How did you get into design, and, in specific, UI design?

Since my childhood, I always liked cartoons based on computer graphics and Hollywood movies with lots of CGI in them. Being a quite curious kid, it was extremely tempting for me to know how all those things are done and would it be possible to create something like that myself.

We did not have Internet access in our tiny suburban town at that time. Once I saw a poster at school saying that they were gathering a group for computer graphics training. I visited those sessions until I went to my institute. Later I was freelancing, creating sites and logos. Apart from that I enjoyed creating and optimizing software interfaces for Gnome (Linux) and this work with open source software brought a lot of experience.

One fine day, I met MacPaw CEO Oleksandr Kosovan at a freelance exchange, he ordered an icon for CleanMyMac and a company site. Oleksandr enjoyed the result a lot and I enjoyed drawing for MacPaw so we decided to work on a permanent basis.

What app interfaces are you particularly inspired by?

I thoroughly examine all interfaces, not only software. Objects from real life, whether it is a mailbox, a button panel in an elevator or a tap in a bathroom, those are all interfaces.

I like the concept of transferring real-life interfaces into virtual analogs of them. For example, the Notepad and the Books apps for iPad look like they are real and this makes the use of them really easy for an ordinary user. We tried to apply this concept in our Ensoul application

How do you approach a new project?

Here is the classic scheme that we use to create something new:

• Choose a really nice idea
• Set goals and tasks for the future project
• Discuss the functionality of the product in question, decide who will find it useful
• Create a scheme of the application, an algorithm of its usage cycle
• Create multiple interface sketches and select the most usable prototype
• Improve the selected prototype and create a design draft
• Provide the design for development to add graphics
• Test the application thoroughly
• Create final design for a release candidate
• And then we constantly receive feedback from our customers and polish polish polish, until we get a perfect application.

You add lots of fun, “eye candy” elements to your designs. Do you think that this helps the user engage in the app?

Life itself – as well as your work – must bring joy. Drawing buttons, checkboxes, progress bars and other interface elements is a real pleasure for me. And putting yourself in a role of a user, trying to see an interface with a fresh eye is always interesting.

As a rule, users are ordinary people and they love beautiful and high-quality things: leather car interiors, pleasant to the touch natural fabrics, harmonic colors. Applications are the same things, but virtual. Working with an application should bring pleasure exactly like driving a really nice car.

Your interfaces have quite a distinctive style. Was this a conscious decision to differentiate your apps from others?

There’s a lot of competition on software market and it is vital to stand out not only in advertising campaigns, but in products themselves. Our apps not only look different, they work differently as well. We and our users like this approach.

Why do you think that the Mac has such a wonderful standard of UI design compared to other platforms such as Windows and Linux?

I like all the platforms to be honest, as each of them has its advantages and disadvantages. However, Mac is more intuitive for users and it does not require a lot of time to learn the computer before you actually start using it fully.

Apple provides very usable instruments for developers and great documentation. I like that Apple treats developers like ordinary people and designers have rather good guidelines, written in a very simple language. Creating apps for Mac is very interesting and sometimes quite hilarious!

What’s your set-up like? Do you try to keep your hardware up-to-date?

Currently I work on a top-end iMac 27″. Basically it is even a little excessive in terms of hardware resources. I have a MacBook Pro 13″ at home.

The good thing is that graphic software doesn’t often raise system requirements and I work with current hardware until it starts to lag, which happens rarely. It is easier to change your Mac in the Apple world then try to upgrade internal hardware, and I recommend changing your computer every 3-4 years.

What apps do you use for interface design work, and what is your general workflow when crafting a new interface element?

Mostly I use Adobe Illustrator CS5. I think it is an ideal instrument for icons and interfaces. Besides, vector graphics provides certain advantages in terms of creation speed and flexibility of the ready components. Sometimes I also use Pixelmator and Icon Composer.

For someone interested in interface design, where would you suggest they start?

The main goal for an interface designer is to create usable things and then make these things look good. You can practice on real-life objects. Ask yourself what brings you any inconvenience or discomfort and try to improve this object or action.

Find a really unusable application and remake it on paper or in a graphic editor so that it suits your needs. Don’t be afraid to approach companies and offer to improve or remake their products.

Take older applications and redraw their interface elements, ask people if they like your result. Think of interface flexibility when you create an application, because developers would probably want to add or remove some functionality in the future.

Can you reveal anything about future MacPaw products in the pipeline?

The Mac App Store and Mac OS X Lion delayed some of our projects rather seriously. We had to introduce a lot of changes to fit new standards and requirements and basically re-build the apps almost on the very finishing steps of development.

Currently we are actively working on Ensoul and CleanMyMac 2, which will have very interesting capabilities and its interface and behavior should surprise and amuse our users.

In the near future we will also update our current CleanMyMac version and add some of CleanMyMac 2 features there. It will now have iPhoto image duplication search and some other very useful features. Also we are working on a very interesting project called DevMate. But I can’t tell you anything about it just yet!

Thanks, Dmitry!

Many thanks to Dmitry for talking to Mac.AppStorm and sharing his tips, insights and knowledge. We love meeting and learning about members of the Mac community, and Dmitry is no exception. We really appreciate his contribution, and wish him all the best with MacPaw and future software.

So, next time you use an application, have a look at its interface. That didn’t happen by accident – it was carefully planned out by skilled designers like Dmitry. Interface designers truly are the unsung heroes of Mac OS X!

One of my favorite things about Mac OS X is the menu bar. More specifically, the fantastic apps that are developed to work with it. You can find a menu bar app for pretty much anything – from the weather to your Twitter feed! They make it super fast and easy to keep up with information without opening a full-blown app and leaving what you are doing.

Today we are reviewing FaceTab and MailTab, two apps from developer FIPLAB that pretty much let you run Facebook and Gmail from your menu bar without losing any of the features that you get on their web interfaces. Want to hear more about them?

Mailtab

MailTab is completely free and you can get it from the Mac App Store. Think of it as “Gmail on your menu bar”, because it’s exactly what it is. Its interface is very, very reminiscent of Gmail’s web interface, but adapted to fit in the little drop down window of the menu bar. I liked it a lot because it looks familiar and it has pretty much every feature you would want to use.

Right now I use Notify Pro as a menu bar mail app, but I sometimes find it to be lackluster in features and a bit confusing to use, even though it’s supposed to be simple. That problem doesn’t seem to exist in MailTab as it’s completely based on Gmail’s familiar interface.

Features

Even though MailTab is filled with features, it manages to keep a clean and simple interface by hiding most of its features in sub-menus. For example, once you check off an email, a small bar will pop up, allowing you to mark it as read, delete it or archive it.

Every feature that you have in the web version of Gmail seems to be available here, other than the Chat and the ads. You have access to your labels, your spam inbox and all of your emails – even the ones with images. If anything, it’s a little annoying having to scroll through a big image you got in an email.

In fact, MailTab uses the Mobile version of Gmail and not their own interface, so what you get is pretty much the same thing as if you accessed Gmail from your iPhone.

Worth It?

As I mentioned, I am a Notify Pro user, which gives you pretty much the same range of features with a slightly more professional interface and a smaller, cleaner look. The thing is, I had to pay to unlock all of Notify’s features, while MailTab is completely free and does pretty much the same.

I would say, if you already use a menu mail app and are happy with it, you have no reason to switch to something like MailTab. Otherwise, give MailTab a try. It’s free and it’s good.

FaceTab

FaceTab is made by the same developer as MailTab, and because of that both apps feel very similar. It’s also free, and it can also be downloaded from the Mac App Store. And just like MailTab, it runs in your menu bar and you interact with it through a drop down window.

Features

This window is divided into a few tabs that include your start window, your profile, messages and friends. Each tab has its own set of subtabs, so it can get a bit confusing.

You can also access your notifications through a button on the right upper corner and there’s a search button on the other side. While the interface seems to be similar to Facebook’s web interface, there’s something “off” with it. It just feels very closed and very much like a mobile version of Facebook would feel like.

Issues

The most annoying thing I found was that it deletes everything you write after you close the drop down window. For example, I was writing a response for a friend and I had to copy a link from my browser. So I switched over to my browser to copy the link, but when I opened FaceTab again, the part of the comment I’d written was gone.

It’s a small detail, but this app seems to be filled with these minor niggles. Some of them include no support for Chat, only giving you the “Most Relevant” feed and not the “Most Recent” feed, an obscure comments button, and the window feeling too large for a menu bar app.

Worth it?

I don’t really see myself using this app, as I do not want to interact with Facebook so much as to have it on my menu bar running all the time. Even if I did, this app probably wouldn’t be my first choice. It’s just not that good if you want it to navigate through your feed and comment on a bunch of things.

I guess it would work better if you just want it to check your notifications once in a while and occasionally comment on your feed and post new statuses, but don’t expect it to replace your web-based Facebook.

There is a commercial version available for $1.99 that adds a few extra features (such as chat). This would definitely be worth checking out if you like the idea of FaceTab, but would like more functionality.

Conclusion

Both of these apps do a good job at bringing the experience of your web apps to your menu bar. MailTab is a great app for keeping up with your Gmail inbox from your menu bar, as it has pretty much all of the features that the web version of Gmail has, and it still stays simple.

FaceTab, on the other hand, isn’t very successful at mimicking what MailTab achieves. It’s a good app, and everything about it might seem fine at first glance, but once you spend a few moments with it you’ll realize that quite a few features don’t work exactly as you’d expect.

Like I said, it’s a great app for quickly checking in with your notifications, but if you want it to replace your web version of Facebook, this app just won’t cut it.

Most Mac users will find a need for an FTP client from time to time, and there are plenty to choose from. Forklift is undoubtedly one of our favourites and the latest incarnation in version 2 brings a fantastic range of new functionality.

Forklift will connect to any server you can throw at it (FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, S3, iDisk, SMB, AFP and NIS), can synchronise browsing between local and remote folders, split/combine files, mount remote volumes as a local drive, and much more. Usually priced at $29.95, we’re giving three readers the chance to grab their own copy completely free!

All you need to do is leave a comment below, letting us know how you use your current FTP app. Is it to manage your website? Backup files to Amazon S3? Or to connect to other computers on your network?

The competition will run for one week, and I’ll pick three winning comments at random on Wednesday, 20th April. Best of luck, and happy FTPing!

In our world of Social Networking, Twitter has emerged as one of the most-used and most useful points of connection to our world. Whether you use Twitter as a news source, celebrity gossip engine, or for just keeping tabs on your friends, having a dedicated app on your Mac can take your experience to a new level.

In this in-depth showdown, we’re going to take a look at a few of the most popular Twitter apps out there, analyse their features, and compare them against one another.

Read on past the break to see how the contenders stacked up.

Our Comparison Criteria

In comparing each of these Twitter apps, time was spent examining them for their unique and respective features. We’ll obviously evaluate the user interface, but each one also needed to compete in 4 main categories:

Media:
People love posting pictures to Twitter, and a good Twitter app needs to be great at handling, posting, and displaying these.

Conversations:
A lot of what happens on Twitter are replies and mentions, making Twitter not just a constant feed, but a place to converse. A great Twitter client needs to make it easy to see an entire conversation thread, without searching the Twitter-universe trying to find where a discussion started.

Multiple Accounts:
Twitter has evolved from being simply a personal social network. Today, Twitter is a viable means to broadcast news and information about one’s business and community. Many users have more than one Twitter account, so a good Twitter app needs to be able to handle these with ease.

Simplicity:
People don’t love their Macs because of how complicated, complex, or difficult it is to use. We love them because they are easy, elegant, and simple. So a great Twitter app needs to be the same.

With these 4 major qualities in mind, we also kept our eyes open for each app’s unique features. We’ll be sure to tell you what each app does well, as well as what each app offers that is completely unique. Here are the five clients we’re looking at, so you can jump to them as needed:

1. Echofon
2. Tweetings
3. Twitterrific
4. TweetDeck
5. Twitter

1. Echofon

After establishing itself as a wildly popular Twitter app for iPhone, Echofon has evolved into a robust, multi-faceted networking platform. But its capability is complimented by its simplicity.

With a small, concise interface, Echofon keeps little hidden from view. Tabs along the top of the window let you switch between your timeline, replies, direct messages, lists, and searches with ease. A nice clean entry field along the bottom will get you posting to Twitter in seconds, and the paperclip in the entry field lets you add a variety of attachments.

Media

Echofon adds thumbnails for any attached media in your timeline. Clicking the thumbnail pops out a separate window with a large image. Quick and easy is how we like it, and having thumbnails inline is a great feature.

Conversations

Tweets that are part of a conversation display a small speech bubble, and clicking the bubble will slide out a conversation view, letting you scroll through every related post. You can also use the arrows in the conversation view to move between the various conversations happening in your timeline. Conversations in Echofon are simple and complete.

Multiple Accounts

Setting up multiple accounts requires a simple visit to Echofon’s preferences, and is just like setting up accounts in Apple Mail. You can then switch accounts by clicking your profile picture down in the entry field. A very clean, simple solution for handling accounts.

Simplicity

Echofon is a very clean, very easy to use app. Users new to Twitter will have no trouble diving in and figuring things out, while experienced users will appreciate the unique features Echofon has to offer. If you’re looking for simple, look no further than Echofon

Bonus Points

Echofon gets bonus points for a couple of neat features. To start, Echofon is available for Mac, iPhone, and iPad. To make the experience complete, Echofon’s own servers will sync the read/unread status of your tweets across all of your devices. This is a great way to make sure you’re always up-to-date.

Echofon also gives some great options for attaching more than just pictures to your tweets. With a single click you can add a link to your current Safari page, add your currently playing iTunes track, or even attach a screenshot. All without leaving Echofon. These may not be huge wins for most users, but we found them to be great inclusions in Echofon.

Overall

We applaud Echofon for it’s simple interface, ease of use, excellent media handling, and optional iOS sync. There is very little missing from this app, and it’s a very solid 9/10

Echofon is available from the Mac App Store, and has both a free ad-supported version, and a full version for $19.99.

2. Tweetings

Tweetings is another simple, clean Twitter app for Mac, iPhone, and iPad. While Tweetings doesn’t sync across your platforms, it’s still a nice solution for the Mac. The interface is similar to Echofon, with tabs along the top of the window to take you between your Timeline, Replies, Direct Messages, and Searches.

Media

Tweetings’ media handling was a standout in this lineup. Tweetings provides you with extra-large thumbnails, giving you a great view of images before opening them in full view.

Conversations

Like Echofon, conversations are denoted by a small speech bubble at the bottom of a Tweet, and a single click will open up the entire conversation for you. However, instead of opening them in an attached drawer or popover, Tweetings opens conversations in a separate window.

This led to a sense of clutter, ruining the clean appeal of the app. The multi-window approach was close, but no cigar for Tweetings.

Multiple Accounts

Handling accounts was easy in Tweetings. Simply clicking on the Accounts button at the top of your timeline lets you manage, add, or switch between accounts. This was the easiest app reviewed for adding new accounts, and it makes the process a breeze – especially for less savvy users.

Simplicity

Using Tweetings is a cinch. Users will have no trouble getting in, getting started, and getting connected. However, some of the multi-window functions of Tweetings cause unnecessary clutter. Also, navigating through Tweetings preferences and menus was surprisingly unfriendly. This app was almost there as far as a perfectly simple interface goes.

Bonus Points

One added bonus was Tweetings’ option of interface themes. Users can opt for a classic light theme, or the stylish dark theme. This may not seem like a deal-breaker, but the option will be a welcome addition for many users.

Overall

A solid app with a fairly simple interface and only a few shortcomings. Most users will be at ease, but there are still certain elements that will make life a little harder for less experienced users. But for the price, it’s hard to beat.

Tweetings gains a solid 8/10, and can be purchased for $2.99 from the Mac App Store

3. Twitterrific

The Iconfactory has been developing Twitter apps since before the first days of the App Store, and has made Twitterrific better with each release. The current iteration, Twitterrific 4, borrows heavily from the design of Twitterrific for iPad, and couldn’t be more enjoyable to use.

Media

Twitterrific uses, in perfect iPad form, charming popover menus to show you media. While we were disappointed by the lack of thumbnails in Twitterrific, clicking any embedded image link opens a great popover to display the image. Clicking away from the image returns you to your timeline. Clean and simple.

Conversations

Conversations in Twitterrific are brilliant. Simply click on the “in reply to” text in a tweet, and prepare yourself for window-free popover happiness. This is really a great approach to conversation view, and was by far the best of all the apps we tried out.

Multiple Accounts

While Twitterrific does an exceptional job handling multiple accounts, it does so only in the paid version of the app. This may be a definite deal-breaker for many users, especially when all of the other apps we tried supported multiple accounts without any charge. Changing accounts is as simple as clicking the profile picture on top of the window, but paying $10 to do so may not be something most users are willing to do.

Simplicity

Being so heavily influenced by Twitterrific for iPad makes Twitterrific for Mac astonishingly simple, easy to use, and beautiful. The app looks great and functions better than any of the apps we reviewed for this showdown. In terms of simplicity, Twitterrific takes the cake.

Bonus Points

Twitterrific wins bonus points for having a customizable toolbar. Users can add the buttons they’ll use most to the Twitterrific window, while removing what they don’t need. In today’s world, customization is often king, and Twitterrific wins in this area hands-down.

Overall

Twitterrific could have been a shoe-in 10/10. It’s beautiful, simple, powerful, and truly a joy to use. But without being able to add multiple accounts in the free version, we just can’t quite give it the perfect score it deserves. The free version receives 9/10, but the $9.99 version is a perfect 10/10.

You can buy the full version from the Mac App Store, or the free version can be downloaded from The Iconfactory.

4. TweetDeck

While most Twitter apps aim to be simple and minimalistic, TweetDeck takes a unique approach. The aim of TweetDeck is instead to give you as much of Twitter as you can possibly handle. The interface is divided by a set of user-defined columns, which can display anything from Timelines and Replies to lists of Twitter users. The result is an app which is powerful, feature-rich, but fairly overwhelming.

Media

TweetDeck seems to follow a function-over-form philosophy of design. There are no thumbnails for images, and the app displays links to embedded images in the same way as normal web links.

This can make finding tweets with pictures a tad difficult. Images do open in-application as long as they’re uploaded with yFrog, TwitPic, or another commonly-used photo sharing service (sorry Instagram users, no built-in support.)

Conversations

Clicking the small “in reply to” text in a tweet does open the entire conversation thread. However, it does so by opening a new column at the end of the TweetDeck window.

While the idea of keeping the conversation open and updating is sound in concept, it would only take a very short time before you find yourself with dozens of columns open. Each one has to be manually closed once you’re finished reading the conversation.

This may not seem like a deal-breaker to some, but after spending time with TweetDeck, this process of conversation handling felt very cumbersome.

Multiple Accounts

For handling multiple accounts, TweetDeck is the clear champion. While the columns were cumbersome for conversations, they are the best way to handle multiple accounts.

Simply add your accounts in TweetDeck preferences. Once the account is verified, then you can create columns specifically to display timelines, replies, DMs and more for each account.

Instead of switching between accounts, you can just scroll the appropriate column. TweetDeck stole the show when it came time to handle more than one account.

Simplicity

TweetDeck is far from simple. At first glance the interface can appear extremely complex, and many inexperienced users will find themselves unsure of where to go or what to do. TweetDeck is extremely powerful and robust, but requires a lot of confidence and commitment to get things running the way you want them. TweetDeck is not for the faint.

Bonus Points

TweetDeck is not just for Twitter! When you go to add new accounts in the preferences, you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how many social networks can be brought under one roof. TweetDeck supports Twitter, FaceBook, Google Buzz (RIP), Foursquare, and LinkedIn at the time of this writing.

More will likely be added in the months ahead. For people looking for a powerful “command-center” over all things social, TweetDeck is the go-to app.

Overall

Power users need look no further than TweetDeck. Users wanting a fast, simple Twitter experience however may want to keep shopping. Despite it’s list of great features, using TweetDeck was surprisingly difficult. Even advanced users will have to spend some time making the app work for them, and it also suffers on account of being an Adobe Air app.

We’re giving TweetDeck a 7/10, and it can be downloaded from Tweetdeck.com.

5. Twitter for Mac

It would seem silly to talk about Twitter clients for the Mac without spending quality time with the only official client available. What started as a great indie app called Tweetie, has now become a robust, beautiful application. Twitter for Mac is easy, elegant, and an all-around great Twitter client.

Media

Twitter doesn’t put in any thumbnails, but clicking an embedded image link will open a nice window with the full picture. Clicking away closes the image. The result is clean, simple, and elegant. We miss the thumbnails of Echofon and Tweetings, but Twitter still does a good job.

Conversations

When you find a tweet that is part of a conversation, double-clicking will slide out a drawer with the full thread. This felt simple and intuitive, and didn’t add any clutter to the Twitter interface.

Multiple Accounts

A quick visit to Twitter preferences will step you through adding more accounts. Switching accounts is as easy as clicking the respective profile picture in the left hand side of Twitter. Again, this is a simple feature handled extremely well in Twitter for Mac.

Simplicity

Twitter for Mac is incredibly simple to setup and easy to use. It looks great, and works great. You’ll need only a few minutes to get everything working the way you’d like.

Overall

Users may find that Twitter doesn’t go as in-depth or offer as many features as apps like TweetDeck, but if you need quick, easy, and beautiful, Twitter is the way to go.

Twitter for Mac is available for free on the Mac App Store, and is a solid 9/10.

The Big Conclusion

	Echofon	Tweetings	Twitterrific	TweetDeck	Twitter
Mac App Store
Image Thumbnails
Conversations	Same Window	Separate Window	Same Window	New Column	Same Window
Multiple Accounts			Paid Only
Cost	Free / $19.99	$2.99	Free / $9.99	Free	Free
Score	9	8	9	7	9

Hopefully you’ve found this breakdown of Twitter clients insightful enough to go download some new apps, and maybe even make a purchase to support the developers working hard to make the Mac such an exciting platform.

We refrained from naming who we thought was the “winner” in the Twitter client showdown, because much of it depends upon what you’re specifically looking for. Twitterrific took our highest rating, but an application such as TweetDeck might be perfect if you’re a Twitter power-user.

Of course, there are lots more applications available than those covered here today. It wouldn’t be useful to cover every single client on the market in one huge post, so we’ve just picked a handful that we particularly enjoyed using.

Feel free to share your thoughts and opinions in the comments!

It’s not often that you see customers queueing for a new product release. With the exception of the occasional video game or smash-hit novel, Apple are fairly unique in their ability to encourage masses of tech geeks to congregate outside their stores a few times each year.

I’m far from immune. Over the past few years I’ve queued for an operating system, a couple of iPhones and, most recently, the iPad 2 (which garnered the biggest line I’ve ever seen).

Although the general media relish the opportunity to ridicule these events as being attended by gadget-obessed Apple “fanboys”, this isn’t always the reality.

I met a huge range of people queuing for the iPad 2 – from kids just finishing the school day, to a handful of 70+ year olds. Some people were disgruntled at the notion of having to queue to get their hands on Apple’s latest gadget, but many people enjoyed the experience. It’s a fun, social atmosphere and a good chance to chat with like-minded tech enthusiasts.

I’d be interested to know how many of you have stood in line to get your hands on a new Apple gadget. Is this something that I’m unique in enjoying, or would you agree that it can be a fun experience? Share your thoughts in the comments!

If you’re a web or graphic designer, you know how useful a desktop color picking application can be. There’s nothing more ridiculous than loading up Photoshop just to identify a particular color value. Although OS X does have a native app for this in the form of DigitalColor Meter (in Applications/Utilities), it’s a fairly simple app.

ColorSnapper bills itself as the missing color picker for Mac OS X. Although this is a little bit of an overstatement (OS X does have one, after all), this doesn’t change the fact that it’s a pretty neat app.

I know a color picker is something that I use on a regular basis, so let’s see whether ColorSnapper really can offer an advantage over DigitalColor Meter…

Overview

Let’s clarify a couple things first. For many people, it probably isn’t completely clear exactly what a color picker is – or why anyone would ever have the need for such an application.

A color picker’s main goal is to be able to look at a color on your computer and tell you what the color is. I’m not talking about “blue” or “red” necessarily, I’m talking about the color in either hexidecimal (#FFFFFF) or RGB (255,255,255) format.

Now this information may seem pointless to a lot of people, but it can be extremely helpful for graphic designers, web designers, developers, and other visual design professionals such as photographers. The software used by folks in those professions (and I’m sure I’m missing many others) almost always uses HEX or RGB to denote colors. And it goes one step further – the Web (HTML/CSS) speaks that color language as well.

Design professionals often look to the Web for inspiration for their projects. Color is often an important aspect of a design so being able to quickly grab colors while browsing is a very welcome feature.

ColorSnapper – as a locally installed application – can be used to grab colors from anything on your machine. I only say this because there are some Web browser add-ons that have similar functionality with the exception being that they only work within the Web.

In that situation you wouldn’t be able to pick a color from a photo in your iPhoto library for example. A utility like ColorSnapper is really the best way to go as you can pick colors from anything your Mac is displaying.

Pick a Color

ColorSnapper will default to running as an icon on the menu bar. Clicking on the icon will bring up the option to pick a color. If you’d prefer, the menu bar icon can be turned off, and the picker can be activated by way of a keyboard shortcut.

Once the color picker has been activated, your cursor will turn into a magnifying glass allowing you to see that portion of your display at the pixel level. You’ll also see the RGB or HEX value (depending what you have set to display) of the color you’re currently hovering over.

This is a genius feature. By being able to see the colors at the pixel level you’re able to pick the exact color you’re looking for.

A frustration I’ve had with other color pickers is that it can be difficult to click in the exact spot for the color you’re trying to grab. The magnification (which is adjustable within the application preferences) takes that completely out of the picture and makes it much easier to be more specific with your color selection.

Once you see the color you’d like to record, select it, and the value of that color will be stored within ColorSnapper. The application remembers the last five colors you have selected and stores them for use.

It would be nice to be able to store more than five colors at a time, but I wouldn’t call it a big issue. In my experience, more often than not you’ll grab a color you need and either use it immediately in a project or document it somewhere for future use.

With that in mind, storing the last five color picks should be completely sufficient. After all, this is a color picker application – not a color management application.

Using a Color

Selecting the color is only half the purpose of ColorSnapper. It will also enable you to copy a particular format of the selected color for use elsewhere. If you’re a Web developer working on some CSS code you be able to grab the HEX value or the RGB value (could be helpful for some HTML5 work). If you’re a photographer or graphic designer you could grab the color and copy it into the Photoshop color tool.

By simply selecting the color you’re looking to use from the ColorSnapper menu the set format will be copied to the clipboard and ready for use. If you’re looking to grab a HEX value for your CSS code, click on the color you need, hope back to your text editor and paste in the value. It’s that simple.

The format of the colors can be changed very easily within the preferences of the application. Here you’re also able to select an alternative color along with the global shortcut key combination for launching the picker.

Conclusion

Although OS X’s built-in color picker works fine, there’s no doubt that ColorSnapper offers a few more useful features (and a slicker implementation). It feels more like a tool that can be left open all the time in your menu bar, rather than the very modal operation of DigitalColor Meter.

The one thing I felt would have been a nice addition would have been a bit more on the color storage and management side. I know I said the application isn’t built for that, but a little expansion in that area would be welcomed. Besides that I couldn’t find anything I wanted ColorSnapper to do that it couldn’t.

At $4.99 ColorSnapper is priced at the higher end of the color picker utilities that I’ve seen. Whether it offers enough style and functionality to draw you away from OS X’s built-in app will be very much your decision!

I’d like to take a moment to say a big thank you to this week’s sponsor, Jumsoft. In particular, we’d like to highlight a fantastic offer they’re running at the moment on two of their Pages products: the Inspiration Set, and Clipart.

Both of these are currently on offer over at the Mac App Store for the reduced price of $9.99. This is a great deal for a large collection of Pages add-ons, which can really boost what the application has to offer.

The Pages Clipart package contains a total of 1,200 polished clipart pieces to help you compose even more thrilling text documents. This isn’t your average, boring Microsoft Word clipart – the high quality of design fits what you’d expect in graphics built for an Apple app.

The Inspiration Set includes 150 Pages templates: 100 from the previous version and 50 brand-new additions that have only been released in the past few weeks.

Check out the offer on either Clipart or Inspiration Set, and make the most of this reduced price before it ends on Friday 15th April!

First things first – I’m not a “hardcore” gamer. In fact, some of the few games I play are Flight Control, Plants vs Zombies and racing games like the Need for Speed series. I was asked to review Asphalt 6: Adrenaline newly available on the Mac App Store and was interested to hear that it was a ported game from the iOS platform, which I why I was eager to take a look at it.

Now we’re all familiar with the “Back to the Mac” ideology where developers bring back elements of the iOS platform into Mac applications. One of the best examples is Reeder and Day One. How well would this work with a game though? Would the UI stay the same or would it be just the major game elements that would match?

Ignition

Asphalt is similar to most regular car racing games out there. If you’ve played Burnout, Need for Speed or other similar games, you’ll be able to start out without a problem.

One of the big things this game lacks is a plot. I am at least used to having some silly backstory that you don’t really pay attention to. Maybe that is why Gameloft dropped this extra part of the game.

When you launch the game, which sits at a little over 1GB, you’re presented with a pre-rendered view of a race. It looks great and I immediately got too hopeful that the graphics would be like this.

The graphics aren’t terrible – most of the 3D structures, tunnels and features are fine – but the trees and other smaller structures seem like a clip-art afterthought. It’s pretty terrible and distracting. However, the tracks were well designed, interesting and beautiful to look at throughout the game.

Cars, Cars and More Cars

One of the biggest draws to racing games is the ability to drive cars that you might never get to see in real life. These include multi-hundred-thousand dollar cars like Lamborghinis, as well as concept cars that might never make it out of the test track.

Asphalt let’s you drive cars from some of the most prestigious manufacturers, including:

• Ferrari
• Lamborghini
• Aston Martin
• Ducati

What Asphalt Is Great At

As with most Asphalt games, regardless of platform, the Mac version sports a number of great cars. They have most models that you’d be used to in other games, including some speciality cars that I’d never heard of. It’s awesome gawking at the multi-hundred-thousand dollar cars and tweaking them to look perfect.

As you play, beat the AI, and make money, you have the ability to buy the keys to better and better cars. Besides winning each match, you can make money by knocking other competitors into hard objects “disabling” their cars. You can also make money by taking ramps and “getting air” or “drifting.”

One of the more humours parts is the very Burnout styled aspects of destroying property and other people’s cars. It’s fun to run through a ‘cafe’ and get a few thousand dollars while tossing chairs up in the air.

Another great feature is the multiplayer game mode. It supports both online racing as well as local network (LAN) play. It allows up to six people online and locally to race against each other. It does require you to have a Gameloft Live account to play, but that’s free to sign up for.

My biggest annoyance was with the in-game signup process. It felt so out of place and ended up bringing up an in-game browser to edit my profile on Gameloft’s website.

What Asphalt Needs to Work On

I assume that this might change as I near the end of the game, but about halfway through it, I didn’t notice any difference in cars that had better handling or better “Boost” speeds. It was kind of frustrating and made it seem that buying new cars should be entirely based on speed, acceleration and the size of the car- which played much more into the game than tweaks or upgrades to your car.

It would be difficult to get the Mini Cooper (the first car in the game) to handle well, and not feel top-heavy, even though it was a car that was super low to the ground and actually easy to handle in real life!

Also, for what it’s worth, the buttons and User Interface Elements are very iOS. They are bigger than necessary and clunky. This became slightly annoying when I’d have to move my mouse all over my screen to make changes to my car or move around the menus. (Which would work to their advantage on a touch screen, but not with a mouse.)

Through the Finish Line

I enjoyed playing Asphalt 6: Adrenaline, but I did feel that I might have more fun if I connected a steering wheel or joystick to my Mac, instead of using the arrow keys. It was made for a touch screen originally, and it shows.

The UI elements would really benefit from a refresh to make them more computer and less touch screen based. This, and the small structure graphics, were the only visual turn offs. I would say that the porting job was done very well within the actual game. It was the other little details that seemed to have been forgotten as they rushed to push it to the App Store.

Have you played Asphalt 6? What are your thoughts, and how do you feel about games moving to the desktop from iOS in general?

On my 13-inch MacBook Pro, screen real estate is at a premium, so I often have a hard time seeing all the windows I need to see at once. BetterSnapTool aims to help organize windows on your Mac for more efficient multitasking, or for working with multiple apps at once.

Since Windows 7 introduced Snap, several Mac apps have surfaced to mimic its window-resizing behavior, including Cinch, SizeUp, and Divvy.

BetterSnapTool is the new kid on the block — how does it compare?

Using BetterSnapTool

Getting started with BetterSnapTool is easy, there’s no necessary configuration and the app hides away nicely in the menu bar. To invoke BetterSnapTool, simply drag a window to either a corner or side of the screen and the window will re-size to half or one-quarter the size of your screen.

To bring the window back to its original size, simply drag it away from the ‘hot corner’ and it snaps back to normal (though I found this feature a little glitchy sometimes).

If you want more options than one-half and one-quarter screen, you can configure the settings for individual applications to take up a certain percentage of the screen.

For example, I don’t need a lot of space to be taking notes in TextEdit, but I’d like to see as much of the BetterSnapTool website in Firefox as possible. To do this, I click on the menu bar icon and select “Specific Settings for Current Application” and select a percentage of the screen for the application to occupy.

I’d like Firefox to take up 70% of the screen, and sit on the left. Now when I drag Firefox to the left-hand side of the screen, it snaps to 70%. For TextEdit, I do the same, except select 30% on the right slider.

If you have spaces configured to move a window to an adjacent space by dragging to the edge of the screen, you may find BetterSnapTool conflicts. I just deal with it but some people might find it pretty annoying.

Keyboard Shortcuts

BetterSnapTool allows you to configure keyboard shortcuts for resizing the window of a current app – they aren’t active by default, you must activate them under preferences.

You can set shortcuts for all the four-quarter positions, as well as for centering on the screen, or even moving a window to a secondary monitor. Since there are so many options, you may have a hard time finding keyboard shortcuts that aren’t already in use by other apps, so be careful!

Customization

BetterSnapTool allows you to easily customize the appearance of the application ‘guide boxes’ that give a preview of a window’s size. You can select color and opacity, as well as border-width, rounded corner radius, and animation length.

Limitations

As handy as BetterSnapTool is, you will no doubt be a little disappointed to find that some apps just don’t play nicely with being re-sized. Most apps have a minimum width below which they won’t collapse, and any app that uses a 3-column interface will likely not re-size much below 70% (iTunes is the surprising exception).

The popular applications that I found uncooperative were the Mac App Store, all Adobe programs, Reeder, and Sparrow, but I’m sure there are more.

With these limitations in mind, there are still a lot of really useful applications of BetterSnapTool that work perfectly. I often have Word and Pages open side-by-side, for example. It’s also very useful for moving files between Finder windows, taking notes on websites or PDFs, or reading email and scheduling events, or any number of multi-app tasks.

Comparisons

I’ve had Cinch installed on my Mac for a couple months after getting it with a software bundle, and I did use it occasionally, and it works in much the same way as BetterSnapTool. However, Cinch is lacking the extensive customization options featured in BetterSnapTool, and is missing the added power of keyboard shortcuts.

SizeUp is a lot like Cinch, but uses all keyboard shortcuts instead of dragging.

Compared to these two options, BetterSnapTool comes out as the best of both worlds, with a much more palatable price tag ($1.99 compared to $6.99 for Cinch and $13 for SizeUp). I think BetterSnapTool is a clear winner in this category.

Conclusion

BetterSnapTool sets out to do what other applications have done before, but better. In this goal I think it certainly succeeds. Despite limitations imposed by other applications, BetterSnapTool is still powerful and very useful.

With the release of the 11-inch MacBook Air and the popularity of the 13-inch MacBook, I think a lot of users will find BetterSnapTool helps make the most of limited screen space for a very reasonable price.

Ever since Apple’s initial foray into touch screen technology with the iPhone, people have wondered whether touch based input would make the transition to the Mac desktop. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to have an iMac that you could reach out and touch, swiping between applications and interacting with your media?

Well, maybe. Consumers are divided on whether or not this would be a good thing and, despite many other computer manufacturers including this technology in their machines, Apple has taken a fairly out-spoken stance against it. It’s now almost four years since the release of the first iPhone and we’re yet to see any sign of touch screen input making its way to the Mac.

But will this always be the case? And – even if Apple does decide to start shipping new-fangled touch screen Macs – would it be something we’d really use?

No Stranger to Experimentation

Despite many people outwardly rebuking Apple for not shipping touch screen desktop and notebook computers, they are no stranger to experimenting with – and receiving criticism for – input methods.

Over the past few years they have released a range of gradually improving gesture-enabled trackpads and mice, along with all the software that accompanies them. I’m a huge fan of the Magic Trackpad built into my MacBook, and am now certain that the Magic Mouse is the best mouse I’ve ever owned.

Let’s also not forget that it wasn’t until 2005 that Apple even shipped a two button mouse, so strong was their conviction that one button was the simplicity that most people needed. This is a company that sticks by their guns.

Jobs Says No

Unlike many of the subjects we Apple geeks speculate about, there’s some strong evidence to suggest Apple’s view on this specific debate. In 2010, Steve Jobs spent some time talking about touch screen Macs while presenting at their “Back to the Mac” special event:

We’ve done tons of user testing on this, and it turns out it doesn’t work. Touch surfaces don’t want to be vertical.

It gives great demo but after a short period of time, you start to fatigue and after an extended period of time, your arm wants to fall off. It doesn’t work, it’s ergonomically terrible.

Strong words, but they certainly make sense. I can’t for a moment imagine spending hours interacting with a touch screen Mac, and even the notion of typing on one could probably give you a bout of RSI.

It’s clear to see that Apple hasn’t stuck it’s head in the sand and ignored this opportunity altogether. The technology is out there, but Apple has done the user testing and decided that it doesn’t make sense.

Of course, sometimes it can be advisable to take Steve Jobs’ words with a pinch of salt. Times change, and so do Apple’s priorities – it was only back in 2003 that Jobs make it very clear that Apple had “no plans to make a tablet“.

Back to the Mac

One argument for the inclusion of a touch screen centres around the range of apps that are making the move from iOS to the Mac App Store. These were all originally designed for use with a touch screen, and many feel fairly un-natural when used with a keyboard and mouse.

Angry Birds, for instance, is a great way to demonstrate the capabilities of gaming on the iPad. All that magic disappears instantly when you’re dragging birds around with your mouse – it just isn’t the same.

This argument certainly holds some weight – there are thousands of apps available for iOS, and many of could instantly be available for use on the Mac if a touch screen were introduced. People wouldn’t use it for typing out long documents, but it could be a fun extra for desktop gaming and software that has a high level of interactivity.

That said, I suppose Apple’s response to this would simply be “get an iPad”. It’s a device made for touch screen interactivity, and has features such as an accelerometer that could simply never work on an iMac (unless you’re this guy).

The Resolution Issue

A trend in Apple’s latest MacBooks has been towards a higher screen resolution in their smaller displays. The new 11″ MacBook Air, for instance, has the equivalent resolution of the 13″ MacBook. This means that everything appears slightly smaller, with greater detail in a tighter space.

This is perfect for a device such as the MacBook Air, making an 11″ screen a usable choice for most tasks. The tradeoff you make when choosing a tiny form factor is lessened, as you can still fit plenty of content and information on the smaller display.

For those of you hoping to see a completely touch-enabled version of OS X, this poses a problem. If you’re wanting to use your MacBook at the recommend native resolution – anything else would look awful – you’ll be left with tiny targets to try and tap with your finger.

Anything other than a mouse pointer doesn’t cut it at this resolution, and it would be an unpleasant, frustrating experience to use the MacBook Air with a touch screen. And just to pre-empt any mention of it, let’s not get dragged into a discussion about the humble stylus. I think we’ve established that Apple has no intention whatsoever of releasing a stylish stylus – however beautifully designed it would be.

No Time Soon

The bottom line is that Apple has looked into this, built the technology, and done the user testing. Touch screen Macs certainly exist somewhere in the research labs at Cupertino, but they won’t be seeing the light of day any time soon.

Although the arguments for a touch screen-enabled Mac are getting stronger every year (and OS X Lion seems set to make this even more apparent), I wouldn’t get your hopes up. This is a technology that Apple know an awful lot about, but it simply doesn’t yet make sense to port it to the desktop.

Personally, I’m fine with Apple’s stance on this issue. I can’t see myself having any use whatsoever for a touch screen Mac, but your opinion may well differ! I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments, so feel free to share. Is this something you’d really like to see? And if so, why?

Let me be frank. Full, up-front disclosure: I’m not a graphic designer or a photographer. I know very little–all things considered–about light, exposure, hue, saturation and filters and all of those other things that prolific users of Photoshop concern themselves with.

What’s interesting is that it ended up seeming as though it were these precise qualities (or lack there of) that made my reviewing Imagerie rather fitting. App4Mac set out design an image editor for every day use–for people without the expertise needed for professional grade image editing software. For people like me.

But is Imagerie the tool for the lay-persons image editing needs?

Visual Appeal of a Visual App

It would stand to reason that an image editor–primarily concerned with improving the aesthetic quality of visual media–would likely have a slick interface. Unfortunately, that doesn’t necessarily hold true; at least not to the extent to which you might expect.

The interface is not what I would call unattractive, but certainly not slick. It seems a bit unbalanced and cluttered with unnecessary buttons and functions; mostly awkward in general.

For example, the app has three different ways to rotate a selected image that are all visible at once (buttons on the toolbar, a rotation dial in the inspector, and a draggable rotation handle on the image itself.) As an unversed image manipulator, that’s even too many controls for me.

Unfortunately, Imagerie falls short in the areas where intuitiveness matter–especially in an app designed for people otherwise untrained in visual media manipulation.

Jack of All Trades, Master of None

Imagerie has a little bit of functionality for everyone. There’s a built in bitmap editor, vector tools, filters, color control panels, and layers. While I appreciate the functionality, I can’t help but feel like the app misses the mark here. While my everyday image editing needs certainly aren’t voluminous, Imagerie appears to be a case of too many features that aren’t as powerful as they should be.

The vector tools (quantitatively) are pretty standard.  You can place polygons, text, arrows, and draw with a pen tool.  You can fill objects with patterns, linear and radial gradients, and solid colors.

The bitmap editor, on the other hand, leaves me longing for MS Paint.  You can pencil, brush, and paintbucket, change the color, and zoom in and out.  You can’t, however, draw shapes.  (I suppose this is covered by the vector tools, since they don’t seem to provide infinite scalability.  Isn’t that a major advantage of vector?)

Without the raw power that the big guns like Photoshop and Illustrator have, these tools seem to be mostly capable of providing “cutesy” results.

One exception is the Quick Edit Module. This pop up window allows you to change settings of your image in real time. The feature seems robust, which is more than I can say for the other features. However, if this is what you end up using most, there’s probably a free, more lightweight app that can get the job done just as well.

Beyond the specifics of image editing, there are several features that I absolutely must commend. First and foremost would have to be the history navigator, which is brilliant in its simplicity. A toolbar button activates an unobtrusive panel in the bottom of the window, and you can drag the slider back through the edits you’ve made to the image.

I’ve used the professional grade software before (Photoshop, Illustrator), and I must say that this implementation of the standard “undo” feature is fantastic, in comparison.

I’m sure other users will agree that it can be infuriating to continuously click “undo”, or use the drop down menu to determine which “brush stroke” you want to go back to. With Imagerie’s slider, you simply drag backward until you see the image you want to work with.

The other features that I really enjoyed (and that I feel are appropriate for an everyday image editor) are more meta than the previously discuss features. Imagerie includes toolbar buttons that allow you to email your image directly to someone (without having to save or render–pretty neat) and to export your image or upload it to an FTP client. The app can also take direct input from a webcam.

The Bottom Line

Ultimately, I’d like to say Imagerie is great. I think the reality is, however, that the idea is great, the audience is great, and a few of the features are great, while the overall execution unfortunately misses the mark.

This app’s utility could be dramatically improved by narrowing the scope, solidifying the target market, and implementing a successful execution. Imagerie is designed (at least ideologically) around the concept of simplicity.  The interface and functionality should mirror that.

I admitted at the beginning of this post that my knowledge of, and experience with, image editing is relatively limited, so I’m curious to know what features you’d look for in a lightweight, everyday image editor.

What functions do you want your “express” editor to handle, and what can be left to the big boys like Photoshop?

We’re taking a step away from the usual weekly competition today to bring you something a little more exclusive! This week only, Mac.AppStorm readers can get a copy of Wallpaper Wizard completely free (usually $6.99).

This is an application we’ve covered a few times in the past, and our review is a great place to start if you’d like to find out more. The bottom line is that Wallpaper Wizard gives you a great solution for finding and applying thousands of fantastic wallpapers for your Mac desktop.

Read on to find out how you can grab your own free copy of the full version!

Claim Your Free Copy

Here’s what you need to do to grab your free full version of Wallpaper Wizard:

1. Download the Lite Version from the Mac App Store
2. Follow these instructions to get our exclusive code, then enter it into the app as shown
3. Your copy of Wallpaper Wizard will be upgraded with access to all the paid features and full collection of wallpapers!

If you’re having problems upgrading, don’t worry. Wallpaper Wizard are working on a fix, and you can email them at [email protected] in the meantime. They’ll get you upgraded as soon as they can!

It’s that simple! We really hope you enjoy the app, and would love to read your thoughts about it in the comments.

Share the Love

This isn’t a requirement, but if you’d like to tell your friends about our offer, we’d be really grateful! Here’s a tweet that you could send out:

Just grabbed @WallpaperWizard for free instead of $6.99 thanks to @MacAppStorm: http://enva.to/gUG17f – No strings attached!

Or you could like the giveaway on Facebook:

Thanks for helping us spread the word, and I hope you enjoy some wonderful new wallpapers. This promotion will end in exactly one week on Wednesday 13th April, so act soon!

Brent Simmons, the author of inessential.com, has just released a new free version of popular RSS reeder NetNewsWire. It’s called NetNewsWire Lite and is available on the Mac App Store.

Stripped back and simplified is by far the best way to go with any ‘lite’ version of software as it gives new users an easy way into your software and, in the wake of some huge Mac App Store successes, can lead to increased interest in the full version.

Let’s have a look at whether it can work for NetNewsWire…

How Light Is Lite?

This new version is specifically designed to be ‘fast and light’, and it is. NetNewsWire Lite is called such because it doesn’t have Google Reader syncing, tabs, Combined View and other features you might be used to. It does however, make an attempt to nail the basics for folks who like their apps light and lean. (There will be a full version of NetNewsWire 4.0 with Google Reader syncing and other features)

Interface & Design

The interface of NetNewsWire is clean and effortlessly sleek. Imagine what it would look like if Safari had a child that was an RSS reader and you’re probably on the right track. The colour scheme is almost identical and the icons are uncannily similar.

This is, however, in no way a criticism of NetNewsWire. In fact, it’s one of the main reasons I think the stripped back version works!

It’s aimed directly at casual users, some of whom may never have used a Mac App of this ilk before. The similarities to Safari and the intuitive layout and key commands are what will suck people into the wonderful world of the RSS reader. I particularly like the use of simple key commands, the arrow keys do exactly what you feel they should do allowing you to seamlessly move between sources and articles.

Tapping the right arrow key while on an article will neatly open the nearest link, while tapping the space bar will scroll the article just the right amount…

Also worth noting is how immediately logical the three column layout is. It just works. It’s clear how everything good about NewNewsWire Lite stems from an admirable attention to detail and commitment to thoughtful design on the part of the developer. My only qualm on the design front is regarding the dock icon… perhaps I’m just a little too fussy.

Functionality

After using NetNewsWire for some weeks its easy to forget how much impact the simple details have on your reading experience. It rarely hesitates for anything more than a nanosecond to load an article or switch to a different source.

It’s also drastically easy to add new sources. NetNewsWire even helps you out on this front by allowing you to enter a web page rather than the address of an RSS feed, it’ll then go and faithfully try to find what you’re looking for.

On the functionality front NetNewsWire pretty much hits the nail on the head. It does exactly what it says it will. The three prominent central buttons are just what you need in that position. If you have 900 unread items then simply hit the ‘Mark All as Read’ button and feel the panic drift away, if you want to share your discovery then hit ‘Share’ and select your favourite method:

• Mail Link
• Send to Instapaper
• Send to Twitter

Pressing the ‘Share’ button and choosing ‘Send to Twitter’ will open the official Twitter desktop client.

I’m not going to go into length about the obvious functional shortcomings of NetNewsWire Lite, things such as the lack of Google Reader syncing, because that’s precisely the point. There are things it doesn’t do!

It does, however, function extremely well as a introduction to RSS readers and would be the perfect App for any casual reader to use – straight out of the box.

If you find yourself becoming overwhelmed by the sheer number of feeds you have then simply add some folders and organise to your hearts content!

Comparisons

There are inevitable comparisons to be made with the multiple other RSS readers for Mac out there, but I’m going to look at the biggest potential threat to NetNewsWire Lite – Reeder for Mac.

While it’s not actually been released yet, and so a review would be wholly unfair, it is in public beta. Reeder has a beautiful interface but does move further away from the Safari experience. This isn’t a problem, I prefer Reeder’s minimal approach, but could impact those people who’ve never used an RSS reader before – NetNewsWire Lite’s prime target audience.

Ultimately though the comparison is slightly pointless. Reeder for Mac will, in reality, be competing with the full version of NetNewsWire and that’s a story for another time. In its own field NetNewsWire Lite is an extremely adept App that provides a very enjoyable reading experience.

It is definitely worth giving Reeder a try while it’s still in public beta though!

Final Thoughts

I like NetNewsWire Lite. It’s unassuming and feels very natural to use, perfectly mimicking the kind of user experience you get with Safari. It’s not a RSS reader for hardened advocates and Google Reader users (probably one and the same), but rather a fast and light version of an excellent App that would suit many people down to the ground.

NetNewsWire is a worthy download from the Mac App Store and perfect for anyone who hasn’t yet tried to streamline their internet reading habits.

Dropbox is one of those tools that spends most of its time sitting in the background, and yet has become an essential app for users on just about every platform. Dropbox as cloud storage, as a syncing solution, and even as a way to host a website is an incredibly useful tool.

That utility isn’t lost on app developers. Software that works with Dropbox is springing up everywhere — sometimes as a built-in function, and other times as a user hack. Either way, it makes life among many gadgets easier to have certain files accessible anywhere, anytime.

Here are some apps that you can start using to take advantage of cloud storage even more.

Word Processors

Dropbox integration in text editors and word processors has become common in recent times, and it’s all thanks to the iPad. Given that users aren’t able to look around for files on the iOS filesystem, making sure documents are easily available for later use requires developers to come up with their own solution.

Often, that solution is Dropbox. Here, we look at OS X apps that sync to Dropbox for the sake of working with iPad apps, and iPad apps that use Dropbox to sync back to the computer.

iA Writer

Writer is an iPad app created by iA, a firm that specializes in user experience design. Writer is an app written to make focusing on the writing easy.

Like many iOS apps, Writer has built-in Dropbox support to get around the constraints of the operating system’s file system and make sure it’s easy to get to your work.

Setting up Writer to sync with your Dropbox account is easy. Simply tap on the folder icon in the app’s top left corner, and then tap the “Link Dropbox” button at the bottom of the window that pops up. Follow the prompts from there.

Remember to synchronize when you’re finished writing so that your work is up-to-date in Dropbox.

PlainText

PlainText is an iPhone and iPad application for text editing that is designed to emulate working with paper.

The application is minimal and the developer intends to keep it that way. Building the app around simple Dropbox synchronization rather than working with other, messier ways to sync certainly helps keep the app loyal to the minimalist philosophy.

To set up PlainText with Dropbox, tap the cog button to enter Settings, then tap Dropbox. Here you’ll need to specify the folder you want PlainText to sync to before you link your Dropbox account, and then it’s simply a matter of tapping “Link to Dropbox Account” and filling in the blanks.

Notational Velocity

Notational Velocity is sort of like an Evernote-lite for the Mac. It features a very simple interface, half of which can be seen on the right side of the image above, and can synchronize natively through Simplenote or with a bit of a workaround using Dropbox. You can configure the Dropbox sync to work well with PlainText and iA Writer.

To set up Dropbox sync, go to Preferences and select the Storage tab. Under “Store and read notes on disk as” select any option except for Single Database–most likely you’ll want Plain Text Files, particularly if you want to sync with PlainText or iA Writer. Then, drag your Notational Velocity data folder from ~/Library/Application Support/ over to your root Dropbox directory. Notational Velocity will know where you’ve moved the folder, and will be able to sync with other computers once you set them up.

To set up other computers, configure the Storage preferences exactly as you did on the first computer, and then go to Notes tab in the preferences window. Once there, click the “Read notes from folder” dropdown and choose Other. From there, select the Notational Velocity data folder in Dropbox and click OK.

Scrivener

Popular novel writing software Scrivener 2.0 supports a few types of sync, including a folder sync that’s appropriate for use with Dropbox. Scrivener uses text files for this, rather than the app’s own format, so that you can work on your Scrivener projects from the plethora of Dropbox-based text editors for iOS like those covered above.

Go to the File menu and, under the Sync sub-menu, select Folder Sync. Select the Dropbox folder you want to use to sync a particular project with and use your own judgement to set the remaining settings.

To-Do

Task managers have been around as long as personal computers have been, but the expectations are quite different these days. If a task manager doesn’t sync to your many devices and multiple computers, it’s considered as good as useless — and let’s be honest, the way we use technology these days, that’s a fair call.

Unfortunately, some of our preferred task managers don’t have sync features built in. Below, we’ll show you how to set up those that do, and work around those that don’t.

Things

Things doesn’t really work with Dropbox–not in the sense that there’s built-in support for Dropbox-based sync. But, since Things hasn’t released any syncing functionality in its years of existence, enterprising users have used Dropbox as a syncing workaround.

Create a folder in Dropbox where you’ll put your Things database. Go to ~/Library/Application Support/Cultured Code and you should see a file called Database.xml. Copy (don’t move, in case of problems) this file to the Dropbox folder you just created. Now, hold Alt/Option as you open Things, and you’ll be asked to select an existing database. Navigate to the file in Dropbox and select it, and you’re good to go on the first computer.

For additional computers, start from the last step–hold Alt/Option while opening Things, navigate to the right place in Dropbox, and select the file as your database.

The downside: you can never run two synchronized instances of Things at once, and you can’t open Things on system startup as Dropbox won’t have time to sync.

The Hit List

Setting up The Hit List‘s Dropbox sync trick is pretty much identical to setting up Things. Navigate to ~/Library/Application Support/The Hit List and move The Hit List Library.thllibrary to a new location in Dropbox.

Hold Alt/Option while opening The Hit List, and you’ll be asked to specify a new location for the app’s library. Navigate to Dropbox and select the file, hit Okay, and you’re good to go. Repeat this process of holding Alt/Option and selecting the file for each computer you’ll be working with.

As with Things, you need to quit the program before using it elsewhere, and you need to let your Dropbox folder sync on startup before you open The Hit List.

OmniFocus

Dropbox doesn’t know what to do when you’re editing a file from two locations at once, which is what makes Dropbox sync for Things and The Hit List a fiddly hack that requires you to remember to close the app before using it elsewhere. Fortunately, productivity stalwart OmniFocus has built-in capabilities for handling cloud synchronization.

In OmniFocus, go to Preferences and head over to the Sync tab. There are several options here, including MobileMe, Bonjour, Disk and Advanced. You want to choose Disk. Click the Choose button next to Location, and navigate to Dropbox, preferably in a folder you created specifically for OmniFocus.

Press Sync Now to get started. For additional computers, the setup process is the same. With this approach, you won’t need to close the app on other computers before you can use it–OmniFocus takes care of conflict resolution for you.

Media

If you like to enjoy all your media on the move, most solutions are either expensive or tricky. When I upgraded to the iPhone 4, it was because the 16 gigabytes on my old 3G was infuriatingly insufficient (that’s an example of expensive).

Dropbox can alleviate some of that. You’re not going to want to sync huge media libraries this way, but if you’ve got a good connection and enough time, it can be done with smaller libraries.

iTunes

If you’ve got a small media library or you’re paying for one of the Pro plans that gives you 50-100GB of data storage, you can actually sync your iTunes libraries by hosting them on Dropbox.

Unfortunately, iTunes handles libraries on Windows and Mac differently, so if you’re a multi-platform user you’ll have to pick one for the synchronization to work.

Copy your iTunes library folder over to Dropbox, and then go on vacation for one or two weeks. I’m mostly kidding there, but how long all your music and movies take to upload will depend on the size of your library. Mine would probably take longer than that if it could even fit, but this might be more practical for you.

Launch iTunes while holding Alt/Option so that it gives you the option to specify a new location for your library, and direct it to your iTunes folder on Dropbox. Now you can log in to your other computers and take another vacation while they grab the files from the cloud, and the redirect them to the new library location.

Unfortunately, you won’t be able to use iTunes on more than one computer at a time. Fortunately, for most situations where you’d want to do that, iTunes itself now has you covered with features like media sharing and AirPlay.

iPhoto

Like iTunes, your iPhoto library can be synced through Dropbox. The process is largely the same. Copy the library, located in ~/Pictures, to your Dropbox folder. Hold Alt/Option while opening iPhoto so that you can point the app towards the new location, and rinse and repeat for each computer you want to sync.

The golden rules apply here: never have iPhoto open on more than one computer at once, and always make sure Dropbox has an up-to-date sync before opening the app.

You can follow the same process if you’re an Aperture user.

Information

Information managers are the apps where we keep our most important data — the serial numbers for expensive software, passwords, perhaps even your spouse’s birthday, just in case. This is the information that Dropbox is most often used to keep available everywhere we go. Here’s how to set up Yojimbo and 1Password.

Yojimbo

Yojimbo is an app for storing and organizing information — a bit like Evernote, but with better organizational tools. Unfortunately, the app has been left behind a bit by the developers in comparison with Evernote thanks to the lack of a sync feature and lackluster iOS versions.

To get our work-around Dropbox sync going, make sure Yojimbo is closed and run these Terminal commands:

mv ~/Library/Application\ Support/Yojimbo ~/Dropbox

ln -s ~/Dropbox/Yojimbo ~/Library/Application\ Support/

In short, that’ll move your Yojimbo library and tell Yojimbo where to look for it in the future. Test Yojimbo to make sure everything’s working and you’re ready to set up other computers — after Dropbox has finished syncing on those, of course.

You’ll run that second command on each computer you want to sync up with the original library:

ln -s ~/Dropbox/Yojimbo ~/Library/Application\ Support/

And then you’re good to go! Unlike other apps where we used workarounds, you don’t risk corrupting your library by using the app in two places at once — only because Yojimbo will refuse to launch when the library is in use elsewhere.

1Password

Popular password manager 1Password makes keeping unique, super-strong passwords for all your accounts easy. But what happens when you’re out of the house and you can’t get into an account because of those super-strong passwords? Though never re-using passwords and keeping them all as long as possible with a mixture of letters, numerals and punctuation marks is best for security, it can make getting into accounts without 1Password a problem since you won’t (and probably can’t) memorize the passwords.

Dropbox is the perfect solution to this problem. With 1Password, it’s also incredibly easy to set up.

Go to Preferences, and on the General tab you’ll see a button labeled Move to Dropbox. Click that button, and it’ll take care of everything for you.

On the computers you want to sync with, it’s as simple as going to your Dropbox folder, ensuring everything is synchronized and up-to-date, and then double-clicking your 1Password file. It’s usually called 1Password.agilekeychain. No need to ensure that only one instance of 1Password is in use at a time — the developers have taken care of the quirks of Dropbox syncing for you.

Back Up Before You Proceed!

As you’ve no doubt noticed, there are just as many unofficial, risky ways to sync your data via Dropbox as there are supported features that the developers intended. It’s very likely that you’ll lose information while you’re playing with those DIY methods. I lost a huge chunk of my Things library this way when I first tried the method a few years back. It was stupid and unnecessary, so do yourself a favor and learn from my mistakes.

Get your data backed up before you proceed, for all of these apps, but especially for those where the methods are unsupported work-arounds. You’ll hate yourself for it if you don’t take a few seconds to make copies.

Conclusion

Dropbox has made it so much easier for millions of people to work between multiple computers with minimal disruption. Even the free plan provides more than enough space to do away with a whole bunch of daily inconveniences.

There are more and more great apps that support Dropbox synchronization coming out all the time. Let us know about your favorites in the comments!