Category: Mac

Launching applications is a functional, necessary action that you take every day. Rather than being an exciting process, when it comes to opening an app, the less friction and interaction required the better.

For a long time, Mac users have favoured a dedicated application launcher for doing just this. Although you can store plenty of handy application shortcuts in your Dock, it soon becomes cluttered and difficult to navigate (and it requires the use of your mouse).

For speedy application launching, few options are better than a piece of software such as Quicksilver, LaunchBar or Alfred. For the purists among you, OS X’s built-in search tool – Spotlight – is perfectly adept at this. Just invoke it using Cmd-Space and type the name of the application you’d like to start!

But which do you prefer to use on a daily basis? Or are you perfectly happy with the OS X Dock? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

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

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

• Jumsoft – This is a fantastic selection of fifteen beautifully hand crafted themes for Apple’s Keynote, designed to make your presentations stand out from the crowd.
• Ensoul – With this nifty Mac app, you can create beautiful iPhone backgrounds and contact images with just a few clicks, work in a gorgeous interface, and transfer everything to your iPhone easily.
• Twitterrific – I absolutely love every application that the Iconfactory produce, and this Twitter client is no exception. It’s thoughtfully designed, beautiful to look at, and a pleasure to use.
• Pixelmator – One of my all-time favourite apps, this is a fantastic alternative to the increasingly-bloated Photoshop for all manner of graphic editing work.

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

When you open up your computer to get to work, you open up a world of distractions. As a writer, you could just pick up pen and paper, and forgo the entire digital realm – until, that is, you have to type up what you’ve written and double your workload. Minimalist writing apps like Byword attempt to recreate the simplicity of the pen-and-paper experience while supplying the benefits of digital convenience.

Whether or not these apps are necessary is itself a whole argument (Kevin Whipps’ article proved that people are very passionate about their workflows) but love them or hate them, how does ByWord stack up? Read on to find out whether it’s worth giving a try!

Using Byword

The app itself couldn’t be simpler: open it up, and you’re presented with a blank page. Writing with Byword is like writing with any other writing application – everything performs as it should, a Tab is an indent, Cmd + I italicizes, misspelled words are underlined in red.

The file you open by default is a Plain Text (.txt) file, meaning you can’t format the text (e.g. no underlines or italics). To convert to Rich Text (.rtf), hit Shift + Command + T or select it under the format menu.

Byword doesn’t have a boat-load of features like many other apps do, but the features it does have are mostly accessed through keyboard shortcuts. Command + T will bring up a popover with basic typographic options (size, bold/italic/underline/highlight) and formatting (alignment, bulleted list). Functions not accessed via a shortcut appear in the menu bar, which appears if you mouse over the top of the screen.

Features

Full-Screen View

The full distraction-free experience involves a full-screen interface, with nothing but a white background and cursor on the screen. Full screen mode is easily toggled via keyboard shortcut (Command + Enter).

I would agree that full-screen applications are very helpful for productivity, but most Mac users probably (hopefully?) know that Pages has a full-screen mode that is similarly distraction-free, so this feature isn’t exactly unique.

Focus

One of the more unique features of Byword is the ability to “focus” on only the line or lines that you are currently writing. You can choose to focus on 1-9 lines a time (or one paragraph) and other lines will fade away, re-appearing when you mouse over them.

I personally didn’t find this feature terribly helpful, but I do know people who have a hard time focusing on one sentence at a time when they’re panicked about the entire paper, and I would definitely encourage such people to try this feature out.

Word Count

As a student and freelance writer, word count is essential, especially in an app like Byword where the formatting and typography is non-standard, so you have a hard time judging page length. This was added in v1.1, and is a welcome feature to have.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Most of the functionality of Byword is accessed from the keyboard. One feature I appreciate here is the ability to select a word the cursor is focused on by hitting Command + Option + Up Arrow, and then select the entire line by hitting it again, or decreasing the selected area with Command + Option + Down Arrow, so you can apply formatting to a word or line without having to reach for the mouse.

There are keyboard shortcuts for all formatting, as well as for controlling the focus feature.

Substitutions

Byword offers a pretty powerful substitution feature for cleaning up typography. Using substitutions, you can correct quote marks, add em dashes, and turn URLs into links.

Byword also has a set of text replacements that you can add to, for example, replacing (c) with a copyright symbol. In addition to this, you’ll find the usual “find and replace” feature that functions like many other text editors.

Attractive Interface

Byword’s greatest appeal to me was the appearance of it. Rather than a harsh black or white, the background is a light grey, and instead of plain old Times New Roman (or worse – Cambria) you have the option of several pleasing, easy to read typographic styles.

Integration with Word

Any student knows that nine times out of ten, only .doc will do. While we wait for the end of this outdated standard, any useful writing application will be easily copy-and-paste-able into Word, or into any plain-text writing situation (like email).

When pasted into Word, writing from Byword retained the majority of its formatting, preserving indents, typography, and bulleted lists, but did not preserve highlighting. As far as I’m concerned, this isn’t really that big a deal, and for most purposes “keep source formatting” will give you a predictable result.

A Minor Gripe

One thing that became increasingly irritating to me while writing using Byword was that when I got to the bottom of the page and started writing a new line, the new line was sometimes half-faded out off the bottom of the page, so I had to scroll down with the mouse.

This has now been fixed in the latest release, and it’s great to see such a fast response from the developer.

Conclusion

Overall, Byword is a pretty useful little app. It does exactly what it sets out to do and has some surprisingly powerful features. Whether you need such a distraction-free environment is up to you, but I personally will continue using my clumsy combination of Word, Pages and Evernote.

The designer in me really loves the gorgeous look of Byword, and there’s no denying that I am productive when using it (I wrote this article about 30% faster than normal), but the lack of word count is a deal-breaker for me.

Unlike some other minimalistic writing apps, Byword maintains a minimal price: I got it for $2.99, and the price will increase to $4.99 over the next few weeks, which seems pretty reasonable considering the scope of the application.

If you’re looking for a break from the clumsy, crowded interface of Word, or need an app to strip away distractions, give Byword a try. You might just find yourself working a little more productively!

We’ve collected the top four reviews, roundups and how-to articles from across the AppStorm network in March. Whether you’re interested in Mac, iPhone, iPad, Web, or Android apps, there’s bound to be something you didn’t spot over the course of the month.

Don’t forget that we also launched a brand new site last week – iPad.AppStorm. As part of the launch, we’re giving away a free iPad 2 – you only have until tomorrow to get your entry in!

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

Best of iPad.AppStorm

Best of Android.AppStorm

Best of iPhone.AppStorm

Best of Web.AppStorm

Best of Mac.AppStorm

Share Your Ideas

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

I’d like to say a big thank you to this week’s sponsor, Flux. Billed as an advanced HTML5 Web design application, Flux is capable of creating stunning sites from scratch. Far from being a simple template based solution, it’s a creative design environment.

Flux can edit existing sites, or create brand new ones using HTML and CSS. You can even drag and drop in pre-designed objects like photo galleries and navigations menus.

Whether you’re wanting to create your first website, or you’re a seasoned pro, Flux is definitely worth giving a try! It’s always good to try out a range of design and development tools, and I’d certainly recommend experimenting with Flux today.

It’s priced at $119.99 on the Mac App Store, and you can download a fully-functional trial from The Escapers website to decide whether its for you.

I remember when I started playing guitar how useful a piece of software became to my learning. It was called Guitar Pro and it allowed you to download any sort of guitar tab to manipulate it and use it to learn the song. It had an amazing community behind it, and you could find a remarkable number of songs to download.

I’m not sure what happened to that app, as I haven’t heard much from the developers lately and I stopped using it quite a few years ago (it became too complicated and annoying to use).

The other day, as I was browsing for apps like Guitar Pro, I found an amazing piece of software on the App Store called Capo. It is much different than Guitar Pro – and it might even be better.

Want to find out why? Keep reading!

An Introduction to Capo

One of the many disadvantages that Guitar Pro had (other than its complexity), was that you couldn’t really get tabs from songs on your library. You had to tab them out by ear, or try your luck on the internet to see if you could find anything for that particular song. The first thing that caught my eye about Capo was that it uses the songs on your library to get you learning.

Capo is not exactly a tablature maker like Guitar Pro was, but it doesn’t really aim to fill that gap. Think of it more as a tool for learning. It can easily teach you the songs on your library, especially tricky parts in them like the solos or those parts where there’s a lot of instrumentation involved that makes it hard to differentiate everything. That covered, let’s get more in-depth with Capo’s features.

Learning to Use Capo

When you open Capo, you’ll first be presented with a Welcome window where you’ll be able to watch five videos that will teach you everything you need to know about the app. These are very short and do a great job of explaining how to find your way around.

They cover pretty much every feature that the app performs, and they do so in a short and interactive way. Capo is a very simple and Mac-like app, and you won’t have any problem figuring it out. That said, these videos sure make it easier and faster to learn Capo.

Once you get past this Welcome screen, you’ll have the option to open a music file from your library. Almost immediately after you choose your song, Capo will load it and show you a spectogram along with all the other features Capo has. Let’s get into some of them.

Pitch, Speed, and Looping

One of the most useful things Capo does is give you the ability to slow down parts of your songs so that you can hear them better and nail those tricky fast solos. Near the left corner of the app you have a few buttons that allow you to control the speed and the pitch of the song you have loaded.

The speed part has a slider, but you can also modify it by clicking on the 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and 1.5x buttons. These, of course, mean that if active, your song will play at quarter, half, or whatever speed you chose. Right below the speed button is the “pitch” one, which, as its name suggests, allows you to control the pitch of your song so that you can play with different tuning settings.

Then there’s also the looping feature. This is pretty self-explanatory, but it allows you to choose sections of the song and it will play them over and over again for you, in case you get stuck at a tricky part of the song. The looping feature combined with the slow down capabilities and the pitch changing feature make Capo a great tool for new musicians.

The Spectrogram

The spectrogram is the part of the app where you can visualize the frequencies that occur in the song, and it makes up for a great visual aid when you want to figure out what’s being played at a certain time in the song.

It is broken down into octaves, and there will be grey marks wherever a note is found on the song. One of the coolest things I found in the spectrogram was that if you click anywhere in it, the note corresponding will be played.

I frankly found the spectrogram to be quite misleading some of the time, as when there’s a lot of instrumentation involved in a song, it won’t be of much help to you. This is, of course, a problem with spectrograms in general and not with the app itself.

Chords and Tabbing

Here’s one of the most intriguing thing that this app does. Whenever your song is playing, you have the option to click a little button on the left and Capo will mark down the chord that was playing at the time you clicked. I have no idea how it works, but it is quite accurate and impressive.

If you find that the chord Capo displayed is wrong (which happens occasionally, as you can imagine), you can change it and add whatever chord you think fits better. Overall, this feature is my favorite of them all, as I usually struggle a lot trying to find chords that fit in a song.

Another useful feature that is more inclined to solos, is the tabbing feature. This is accessed by clicking on any tone of the spectrogram and dragging the cursor, creating a note on the tablature below the spectrogram.

This feature, as you may notice, is very manual and wil probably disapoint and annoy those who are more inclined to apps like Guitar Pro that give you the tablature immediately.

Capo also comes with a bunch of other features like sound mixing that we didn’t include here for fear of the review becoming too technical. Check them out for yourself!

Conclusion

It goes without saying that Capo is a tool for people that know or want to learn more about music. I got the impression from the app that it intends to help you learn songs by doing most of the work by yourself. If you want a tool that will help you generate guitar tabs so that you can play them instantly, this app probably won’t work for you.

Capo wants you to try to figure out the songs on your own and refer back to it whenever you feel stuck. As I mentioned, it’s a great tool for people who want to learn more about music and super-charge their learning process!

These days, there are a vast number of apps that aim to help you handle your tasks and get things done. Most of them, however, have far too many features that nobody would ever use, and cost too much for the ordinary consumer. People don’t need a huge interface full of icons, they just want a quick way to jot down their tasks for the day.

Todoozle could well be the solution. With a simple and intuitive interface, it couldn’t be easier to use. But does too much simplicity compromise its functionality, or is less really more? Read on to find out.

Getting Started

Todoozle is only available on the Mac App Store, so your installation process is very easy – Just click the “Buy” button, and it’ll hop right into your dock. Open the app, and you can get straight into adding tasks. There’s no need to go through any tutorial, introduction or help, everything is dead easy – You’re not going to get much more minimal than this.

Interface

If there’s one good thing I can say about this app, it’s that it has a great interface. With something simple like this, the designer doesn’t need to worry about fitting all kinds of icons and buttons in, and they can focus on how it looks and feels.

Laid out in a simple vertical stack of tasks and input fields, it feels very intuitive – You know exactly where everything is, and there’s no chance of finding a hidden feature anywhere.

You can also choose from four different themes in Preferences, all beautifully designed, and which feel like they fit into the OS X style perfectly. Which style you decide is up to personal choice (after experimenting, I found the default “Todoozle” theme the nicest), but whichever one you go for, you won’t be disappointed.

Organising Tasks

As with pretty much everything in this app, adding and organising tasks is very straightforward – Simply type your task into the “What do you need to do?” field, hit enter, and you’re done. You might want to disable the sounds in Preferences, as a sound every time you enter a task can get repetitive, and, quite frankly, very irritating.

You can organise a task into different categories, which is also very easy. Pull up the Categories window and add as many categories as you need. It would have been nice to just see the Categories appear in a tab, or sliding out, as opposed to a separate window, as having loads of windows open can make it hard to find the one you need.

It’s not all that quick to put something into a category. It would have been nice to just drag a task into the category to assign it to that category. Even a simple drop-down menu would have been nice.

What you have to do instead is right-click, and you’ll be given a list of all your categories when you hover over “Assign Category”. This isn’t hard, but it can be a little time-consuming if you have to do it in bulk!

You can view your individual categories, which is nice, but there’s no way to see all your tasks organised by category. A failure to be able to add a colour to a task means that it can be pretty hard seeing what task is in what category quickly, especially if your categories have a similar number of letters (“Home” and “Work”, for example). In short, sorting your tasks is pretty much useless in Todoozle.

When you’ve completed a task, just tick the box to the left of it, and you’re done. It won’t remove tasks when you’ve done them, so you’ll have to clear the completed to-dos every once in a while (which isn’t too hard – Just hit Shift-Command-Backspace).

Is “Minimal” Just Not Enough?

Sometimes, you want something simple, and too many features just becomes hard to handle. But there’s a thin line between “Minimal” and “Feature-less”. Todoozle is missing a few features which would be very much appreciated.

The first is simple – Adding notes to a task. More often than not, one line isn’t enough to detail everything you need to remember about a certain task. If I want to phone Steve to tell him about a meeting, I need to be able to access his phone number, the time, date, and location of the meeting too – “Phone Steve” just isn’t enough.

Secondly, and a very important feature in my eyes, is recurring tasks. If I check my e-mail one day, chances are I’ll want to do it the next day too. But having to enter “Check e-mail” every day is more effort than checking my e-mail.

The third feature that has yet to be added is a dealbreaker for me – a lack of cross-platform support and synchronisation. I don’t spend my entire day at the same computer, so want to know what I have to do at all times during the day, on any device I have.

At the very least, an iPhone, and an iPad version would be handy. If building two whole new apps is too daunting, a web app would be acceptable – Anything where I can see what I need to do, anywhere.

Conclusion

I love a bit of minimalism – It makes everything much less complicated and easier to use. But when you have to sacrifice essential features in the name of “Clutter clearing”, then that’s gone too far.

Unfortunately, Todoozle has gone too far. If you want a completely minimal to-do experience, this isn’t bad – but at a price of $4.99, it’s just not worth it. I can think of at least five minimalist apps that do the same job, better, and for free. Personally, I’ll be sticking to Wunderlist!

It’s time for another “Ask the Editor” post today. A big thank you to everyone who sent in their questions – it’s great to have the chance to help you out with your Mac-related queries and quibbles.

Today I’ll be offering some advice about ripping dual-layer DVDs, whether it’s worth upgrading to Snow Leopard with the imminent release of Lion around the corner, and suggesting a few utilities for “window snapping” tools.

Read on for plenty of handy Mac knowledge, and I hope you’ll find most of it useful for your own situation as well!

Is there an easy way to rip a dual-sided DVD. I would like to back up a few of mine to my iTunes Library and Handbrake doesn’t seem to support dual-sided DVDs…

– Jonathan

The best way to approach this is most likely to rip each side individually to your Mac, and then combine the two video files together afterwards. I used to use a fantastic app called VisualHub for this, but unfortunately development has now ceased (and it’s tricky to figure out where to download it…)

Another option is to use the slightly more technically-focused ffmpegX. The interface and usability is unlikely to “wow” you, but it will get the job done.

There’s a tab within the app called “join” which should let you accomplish what you’re after:

The other way to do this is using Terminal, and the following section of the FAQ from the ffmpeg X website.

What is the best way to upgrade the memory and hard drive space of your Mac?

– AK

As you’d expect, this process differs for every Mac model. The best place to start would be with either of the extensive guides we’ve posted on this subject:

• How and Why to Upgrade Your Mac’s RAM
• How and Why to Upgrade Your Mac’s Hard Drive

Depending upon the type of Mac you have, this process can be remarkably easy, or impossible in a few cases. For most MacBook models, iMacs and Mac Pros, you’ll be absolutely fine. Apple provide decent guides for each of these – such as this one on upgrading your MacBook’s memory.

Certain Mac models (such as the MacBook Air) don’t allow you to upgrade the memory at all – it’s soldered on to the logic board. For these, it’s obviously important to consider your needs a little more carefully when customising your order at the outset!

I’d like a utility that will snap a window to the edges of the screen when they get near it – I haven’t found anything like this for the Mac.

– Phillip Jacobs

You’re in luck. Quite a few of these have popped up recently, and there are a several applications you can choose from. I’d recommend giving the following a try:

• Divvy – Divvy is an entirely new way of managing your workspace. It allows you to quickly and efficiently “divvy up” your screen into exact portions.
• SizeUp – SizeUp allows you to quickly position a window to fill exactly half the screen (splitscreen), a quarter of the screen (quadrant), full screen, or centered via the menu bar or configurable system-wide shortcuts (hotkeys).
• BetterSnapTool – BetterSnapTool allows you to easily manage your window positions and sizes by either dragging them to one of your screens corners or to the top, left or right side of your screen.

We’ve also posted a “head to head” review covering a couple of these apps, which you may find interesting.

I’m currently using Mac OS X Tiger and I’m noticing that more and more apps are discontinuing their support for my OS. Would it be better to buy a new Mac once Lion comes out or just purchase one now?

– Tim Smith

There’s rarely a perfect time to buy a new Mac, and you’ll almost always find that there’s something just around the corner that you could wait for – a hardware upgrade, OS release, or discount (to name a few!)

OS X Tiger will be starting to show its age a little by now, and you’ll be missing out on a handful of new features such as the Mac App Store that are really worth upgrading for.

We don’t yet have a specific release date for Lion, though it’s slated for sometime this summer. Apple has a history of holding back on major OS updates until they’re completely satisfied with the finished result, so it wouldn’t be unusual to see the release date slip towards Autumn rather than “just after WWDC” as some sources are predicting.

After a big OS update, Apple has historically offered recent hardware buyers the chance to upgrade their OS for a nominal fee (around $5 to cover shipping). This is worth considering as it’ll likely cover you just in case you upgrade your Mac within a month of the OS X Lion release.

If I were you, I’d consider Apple’s hardware release cycle to determine when the best time to upgrade is. Hardware is the most important thing to consider when splashing out $1,000+ on a new Mac, and you can always upgrade the OS at a later date if you decide to!

Didn’t See Your Question?

If you asked a question but didn’t have it answered today, don’t worry! I’ll do my best to get to it in a future week. I love a challenge, so feel free to ask some weird and wonderful questions…

If you’d like to submit your query, you can do so here:Online Form – AppStorm > Ask The Editor

Thanks for reading, and let me know if you agree or disagree with anything I mentioned today!

RSS — “Really Simple Syndication”. It’s the Web’s answer to staying up to date. There are a myriad of RSS readers out there, from native apps for nearly every platform imaginable, to web apps that promise cross-platform synchronization and consistent UIs. Today we’re going to look at an app that promises the best of both worlds — native and web.

If you’re familiar with the hip web scene, you’ve probably heard of Shaun Inman. He’s the guy behind Mint, pioneered sIFR, and recently started development on an epic iOS platform game called Mimeo. He also created a unique solution to the RSS Reader conundrum — Fever.

But today’s article isn’t about Fever. Fever is a web app, and you can read a nice review of it on our sister site Web.AppStorm. This is a review of the app Chill Pill for the Mac — a Cocoa-based Fever experience. Read on to see how it leverages OS X to heighten the Fever experience.

Chill Pill’s Purpose

Chill Pill is designed as a native app version for Mac OS X of the web app Fever. The developers sum things up quite nicely on the Chill Pill site:

Chill Pill allows you to enjoy Fever’s rich RSS experience while taking advantage of Cocoa and all of the other modern technologies in Mac OS X.

That’s a common goal, translating a web experience into one native to a certain platform. It’s been done with Google Reader in apps like Gruml and Reeder for OS X. But when that happens, you become stuck between two UI designs. Do you retain the conventions of the web app? Or do you switch to one more at home in the desktop environment?

In my opinion, you should utilize the native platform you’re building on to the full. Native apps have advantages that the web can only dream of at this point. And that creates a niche for your app to live in.

Features

Chill Pill can be found in the Mac App Store for $1.99. Right there are two important features.

The Mac App Store is the hottest place to buy software right now. It’s got the weight of Apple behind it, and it shows no signs of slowing down. Being on there is an important feature for new Mac apps today.

The $1.99 price is also a feature. While some may look at that as a worrying sign of downward pricing trends in the App Store, I see a different reason for it. Chill Pill adds an additional $2 price tag to Fever. Fever costs $30 alone.

Already that’s twice NetNewsWire, one of the most popular Mac RSS readers. Chill Pill knows that it has to hit impulse purchase price, and I think it has.

From the outset, there aren’t a ton of obvious features that Chill Pill offers, beyond Fever itself. Across the bottom of the screen is a toolbar of sorts. In the left hand corner are three buttons — add, remove, and settings. In the right hand corner is a search box.

While the add feed and remove feed buttons are new additions to Fever’s feature set, the settings and search are prominent features of Fever’s current UI, and are still in the main Fever area of Chill Pill.

It seems to me that if they want to be “taking advantage of Cocoa and all of the other modern technologies in Mac OS X,” then they would be replacing Fever’s features — or at least their UI — with their Cocoa counterparts, rather than duplicating functionality.

If there’s a way to access Settings through Chill Pill that is superior to the way Fever natively does it, then why leave Fever’s way intact?

So, on the surface, Chill Pill doesn’t seem to add much to the Fever experience. But cracking open the Preferences gives us some more to play with. You can set Chill Pill to open articles in their built-in article viewer, a Webkit-based in-app browser which is nice.

You can set Chill Pill to display a Growl notification when new items appear, and Chill Pill also offers the ability to apply custom user stylesheets to Fever. They say you can customize it however you want.

See, this begs the question to me, if they have this kind of control, why don’t the utilize it to customize Fever themselves, removing that duplicated functionality I mentioned earlier?

Where To Grow

Ok, so maybe I’ve been a little harsh on Chill Pill. But, everything I’ve said has been in good spirit. Desktop clients to web services really need to justify their existence if they’re going to take off.

Look at the Twitter client market: Twitterific’s UI keeps people coming back, TweetDeck’s power and customization draw people to it. If Chill Pill wants to succeed, it has to really do what it claims, leveraging all the modern technologies of Mac OS X.

They’ve started. Growl integration is nice. Custom stylesheets are cool too, especially for the clientele of such an app. But there’s so much room to grow.

Chill Pill needs to take a look at Fever’s weak points and strengthen them, while making its brightest features shine even more. Fever’s built on a unique concept of grabbing the “temperature” of the news you’re interested in. That is — and rightly should be — the first thing you see when you crack open Chill Pill.

But once you move past “What’s Hot”, the experience of reading individual blogs could be better. Perhaps they could take that as an opportunity.

I think the biggest thing Chill Pill needs to do is expand the Cocoa integration of the app. Rather than layering on some buttons at the bottom of Fever’s current UI, they need to make more of the UI Mac-like.

Create a better navigation area for starters. Turn as much as they can from web technologies into Cocoa UI elements. If they can present an even better UI than Fever’s original, then they’ll justify their reason for being here. And they’ll win themselves a lot of fans.

Wrap Up

The bottom line here is — I do like Chill Pill. I think for anyone who uses Fever on a regular basis, it’s a steal at $1.99.

The basic feature set that it currently sports isn’t enough to entice a wide enough array of customers though. If they come back with a strong update that integrates Cocoa UI elements and features into it, they could take the Fever community by storm and carve themselves a well-earned niche.

It’s a problem we’ve all faced. You’re happily listening to a podcast or song when the phone rings or someone interrupts you. The track is paused, you deal with the distraction, and then get back to work. Only half an hour later do you realise that you never hit play again!

Although this isn’t an earth-shattering problem, a simple utility to combat this seemed like a great idea to me – especially one produced by the super-talented Iconfactory team.

Their Take Five application has been available on the iPhone for a little while, and today makes its debut on the Mac platform. Let’s take a look and see how it works.

In Your Dock or Menubar

After downloading and installing Take Five from the Mac App Store, it initially shows up both in your dock and menubar. Both of these locations include functionality, but you’ll find that this is predominantly a menubar app.

If you’d rather not have Take Five showing up in Dock, you can turn this off in preferences – something I did straight away!

Functionality-wise, this is a remarkably simple affair. If you’d like to pause the track you’re currently listening to, just click the menubar icon and then hit the big pause button. This will automatically pause your track for the pre-defined “default” length of time (five minutes).

Alternatively, you can click and drag the slider to change the pause duration if you want to choose something other than your standard default.

After clicking away, the menubar icon changes to a subtle countdown timer that ticks off the seconds until your music is due to start playing again. This is done in a way that isn’t visually distracting.

Ten seconds before the track commences playing again, the Take Five window will appear. This is an incredibly thoughtful design decision, and it’s vital to receive a short warning before your music starts. This gives you the option to extend the length of the pause if you’re still busy.

It’s Beautiful

As with anything that comes out of the Iconfactory doors, Take Five has a gorgeous interface. It’s an absolute pleasure to use, and makes the occasional popup a delight to see rather than an annoyance:

Tweaking the Preferences

Despite the fact that this is a very simple app, there are a few preferences for you to take a look at:

First up, you can change the “Default Timer Duration”. Your needs may vary, but I found a five minute window to be perfect – almost always enough time for me to deal with a distraction and get back to work.

There are also various key combinations to control the app – you can show/hide Take Five, start/stop the timer, play/pause your music, or show and hide iTunes. Some of these aren’t directly related to Take Five itself but are very useful nonetheless.

iTunes Only. For Now…

The single niggle I have with Take Five is that it only supports pausing and resuming iTunes. For many people, this won’t be a problem – it’s clearly the most popular media player on OS X and many people use it exclusively.

I’m a big Spotify user, and play almost all my music through their app during the day. This makes Take Five a little redundant for me, unless I’m listening to a podcast. The same would be true for all the Pandora fans out there.

Because the application is powered by AppleScript behind the scenes, this wouldn’t be a quick fix for the development team. The Iconfactory have confirmed to us that it’s high on the request list, so we’ll wait and see what happens – it’s certainly a feature that I’ll be thoroughly looking forward to!

Until then, Take Five has still gained a permanent place in my menu bar. I can’t recommend it highly enough, and strongly expect it’ll be one of those utilities that – after using for a few days – you can’t live without.

To celebrate the release of Watts on the Mac App Store, I’m excited to let you know that we have five promo codes to give away today!

Watts is a simple menubar utility that regularly walks you through the process of calibrating your MacBook battery. This is something you should do from time to time, to ensure that you gain the maximum life from the notebook battery. We’ve reviewed Watts in the past, and found it to be a really helpful utility for assisting with keeping your battery in tip-top shape.

Entering the competition is really simple – all you need to do is leave a comment on the post. That’s it! Let us know why you’d like to win, tell us a funny story, or just have a short rant about your terrible laptop battery life.

The competition will run for one week, and I’ll pick five winning comments at random on Wednesday 6th April. Best of luck, and be sure to check out Watts in the meantime and download a trial copy!

One of the great things about Macs is the high resale value they maintain over time. In the last 4 years alone, I’ve never had to pay more than $300 out-of-pocket for a brand-new Macintosh, and that’s because I’ve been able to get the most value from the Macs I’ve sold!

I’ve put together a simple list of everything to consider when you go to sell your Mac. Read on past the break and we’ll look at some steps for getting the most out of selling your Mac.

Step 1: Knowing What You’ve Got

When you sell a car, people want to know all the details: how big is the engine, what kind of transmission does it have, does it have power windows, air conditioning, etc. When you go to post your Mac online, it’s important to include a list of everything your Mac has and does.

Luckily, your Mac has a simple utility called the System Profiler that will tell you everything you need to know.

To launch System Profiler, just click on the Apple Menu in the upper left-hand corner of your screen. You’ll notice “About This Mac,” but if you hold down your Option key, that menu item will change into System Profiler, letting you go take a peek “under the hood” of your Mac!

Once inside System Profiler, you’ll find everything – from your Mac’s processor speed to the amount of memory your video card has. There’s more than enough info here to satisfy any curious purchaser.

Step 2: Packing Up Your Data

With the amount of information we keep in our computers these days, moving to a new one can feel more like moving to a new house. And of course, as in any big move, you’ll want to start by making sure you’ve got everything packed up and nothing left behind.

Luckily, the Mac makes it easy to “pack up” your data in a variety of ways:

1: Time Machine

Included with every Mac since 2007, Time Machine is the simplest and most convenient way to backup your files and move them to a new machine. All you need to do is plug in an external Hard Drive to a Mac running OS X 10.5 Leopard or later and follow the onscreen prompts.

If you go the Time Machine route, then transferring your data onto your new Mac will be incredibly easy; every new Mac asks during the initial setup process if you want to migrate data from a Time Machine backup. ?

2: Duping Your Drive

For users running an operating system prior to 10.5 Leopard or wary of Time Machine, creating an exact copy of your hard drive will be your next best bet. You’ll still need an external hard drive to store this “duplicate” on, so make sure you’ve got a drive with plenty of storage on-hand.

Apps like SuperDuper! from Shirt Pocket can be great options, or you can even use the Mac’s built-in Disk Utility to create a duplicate “image” of your hard drive!

A little more technical know-how may be required to go this route, so novice users or those who feel “technologically challenged” will still be better off using Time Machine if their Mac supports it.?

Step 3: Don’t Forget to Deauthorize!

Now that your files are all packed up, you’ll want to make sure and “turn the lights out” by de-authorizing your Mac from iTunes. Since iTunes purchases like songs and apps can only be stored on 5 computers at a time, you’ll want to make sure you’re not getting penalized by a machine you no longer own!

Simply launch iTunes, click on the Store menu, and select “De-Authorize this Computer.” Enter your iTunes password, and that old Mac will no longer count towards your 5 authorized machines.

You’ll also want to make sure you de-activate any serialized applications like Microsoft Office or Adobe Photoshop. Nothing stings like realizing you can’t use that $600 app because your serial number has been eaten up by an old Mac.

For information on deactivating third-party apps, refer to the support documentation included with the respective programs.

Step 4: Restoring Your System

Now that you’re packed and ready to move, it’s time to clear the old machine, leaving it empty and ready for a new owner to “move in.”

Restoring a Mac is pretty simple, and all-in-all should take you about an hour. You’ll just need the gray install discs that came with your computer. Insert the “Mac OS X Installation” disc, and restart your computer while holding down the “C” key on your keyboard until you see the Apple logo. Then it’s just a matter of following the onscreen prompts to erase your hard drive and reinstall OS X.

If you can’t find your restore discs, don’t fret! A quick call to AppleCare’s 1-800-MY-APPLE line can get you a new set for a few dollars shipping and handling. Otherwise, the Geniuses at your local Apple Store can help you through the restore process during a Genius Bar appointment.

Step 5: A Clean Mac is a Happy Mac

Have you ever seen an old Mac keyboard after a few years of use? It can be pretty frightening, and cleaning them can be a real hassle.

The fact is, computers get dirty. And people don’t like buying dirty things. So once your system is clean, you’ll want to spend some time on the outside of your Mac.

A few ground-rules before you start cleaning:

• No Alcohol! – If your Mac was made in the last couple years or so, then chances are it has a beautiful glass panel on the front. Using alcohol on this glass will cause a dreadful splotchy coloration to appear across it, and will virtually ruin your Mac’s display. Stick to water-based solutions for your glass!
• No Ammonia! – Commercial glass cleaners are full of chemicals which, like alcohol, will ruin your Mac’s display. Again, water-based cleaners are your best bet.
• Less is More! – Any cleaning solution you use should be sprayed lightly on a cloth, and then applied to your Mac. Spraying directly on your computer is never good for anybody.

Now, there are probably a hundred thousand different cleaning solutions for computers, but there are two in particular that have worked great for me:

iClean by Monster

A light spritz of this miracle solution on the included microfiber cloth will work wonders on the display and keyboard of your Mac. You can find it online, and at most Apple Stores.

Bausch & Lomb Clens

A set of wet wipes that will take the gunk off of your Mac, iPhone, iPad, iPod, or i-Just about anything else. Find it online or in the Apple Store.

Mr.Clean Magic Erasers

Many people scoff at the suggestion, but these little white squares are great at picking up dirt from your Mac’s keyboard, and do amazing things for Mac notebooks.

Simply leave the eraser completely dry and buff away the dirt. White iBooks and MacBooks especially will benefit from a visit by Mr. Clean.

Time to Make That Sale

Now you’ve got a beautiful Mac with a fresh system install, and a nice clean enclosure. Your last decision should now be where and how to sell it.

Everyone will tell you their own preferred method or marketplace, but I will say from experience that you are always best dealing locally through sites like Craigslist, or other user-populated classifieds.

Online auctions will require additional fees, and you’re likely to incur shipping charges. Plus the elevated threat of getting scammed is pretty high with online auction houses. Post locally, take cash only, and meet someone in a public place!

Hopefully, you now feel ready to polish up that Mac and post it for sale. Let us hear your own success secrets in the comments, and happy selling!

It’s time to ditch that ageing wallpaper on your desktop for something fresh and inspiring. There’s nothing better than a simple wallpaper that looks beautiful while not cluttering your display. Today we’re on a mission to find just this type of desktop background…

Whether you love simple graphic lines, typography, or photography, there’s something for you here. We’ve broken our collection of sexy wallpapers down into different categories to make it super-simple to find the right image for you, and even have a few exclusive OS X Lion wallpapers to share!

I hope you enjoy browsing through our collection of outstanding desktop wallpapers.

If you’d like to jump to the section that interests you the most, give one of these a try:

• Lines and Graphics
• Typography
• Photography
• OS X Lion Wallpapers

Lines and Graphics

These wallpapers are full of graphical goodness. Whether it’s cartoon-style simplicity, or something a little bit more in-depth, they’re simple enough to retain a minimalist desktop while adding that little touch of personality…

Typography

Who needs a crazy abstract wallpaper when you could settle for some beautifully rendered typography? All of these wallpapers use type in an elegant way – some with a simple result, and some with a little more complexity…

Photography

Using a photograph as a wallpaper can be a tricky thing to get right – even some of the images bundled with OS X are a little bit too “busy” for my taste. Here’s a collection that should fit the bill perfectly – many are taken from the outstanding Fifty Foot Shadows site, and I’d definitely recommend heading over there for plenty more outstanding photographs.

OS X Lion

We’ve also included the following three wallpapers that are available as part of the next version of OS X – Lion. You might not be running the big cat yet, but you can try out one of the new wallpapers below!

Share Your Own!

If you’re using a beautiful wallpaper that we haven’t featured before, we’d love to hear about it. Just drop a link in the comments below so we can all take a look. Feel free to take a look at a few of the other wallpaper roundups we’ve posted as well!

• 60 Minimal Apple Desktop Wallpapers
• 50 Mac Desktops for Maximum Visual Goodness
• 50 Hot Designer Mac Desktops
• 6 Places to Find a Gorgeous New Mac Wallpaper
• 160+ Original & Awesome Mac Desktop Wallpapers

Over the last twelve months the iPad has literally taken the technology world by storm. Apple has carved out a brand new niche in the industry, establishing the iPad as the best tablet computer available on the market. And the momentum behind this gadget shows no sign of slowing down…

Since the launch of the iPad, we’ve received countless requests from readers for a new site that’s completely dedicated to the device. I’m incredibly excited to let you know that today marks the launch of a new member in the ever-growing AppStorm family – iPad.AppStorm!

Don’t Miss Out: Subscribe Now!

We have some absolutely fantastic posts lined up over the coming week, and we’d hate for you to miss out… There are a few different ways to subscribe to iPad.AppStorm – hopefully one of the following options will work for you!

• Subscribe to our RSS feed
• Follow @ipadappstorm on Twitter
• Sign up for Email Updates
• Stay up-to-date on Facebook

Win an iPad 2!

To celebrate the launch of iPad.AppStorm, we’re going to be giving one lucky reader a brand new iPad 2!

This is the latest and greatest piece of hardware to emerge from Apple HQ, and today you have the chance to get your hands on one completely free of charge!

It’s a marvel of technology, and would be the perfect way to browse the new iPad.AppStorm site! Find out how to enter.

Everyone needs a text editor – whether it’s for in-depth coding, or jotting down a quick note. There are plenty of scenarios throughout the day that don’t require a full-blown word processor, and there’s no shortage of different options available for the Mac.

Much of your decision will likely come down to specific requirements. Do you need a simple syncing solution? Maybe Notational Velocity would fit the bill. Is full-screen, distraction free writing important? Take a look at WriteRoom.

We’ve written about this extensively before, looking at 10 Versatile Text Editors for OS X.

Personally, I flutter between TextMate for coding, and Notational Velocity for everything else – I love knowing that everything I’ve written will be easily accessible through Simplenote.

I’d love to know what your preference is – feel free to leave a vote above, or share your thoughts in the comments!