Category: Mac

We have a slightly different sponsor this week, in the form of Yellow Media Group. This innovative company offers a telephone support service for Mac developers, making it easy to add an extra level of support to users without spending 24 hours a day by the phone.

They work with companies such as MacPaw to offer various services that make it easier than ever for users to solve any problems they encounter when using your app.

Yellow Media Group are doing something really interesting in conjunction with their sponsorship. They’d like to know which applications you’d like to have telephone support for. Share your thoughts in the comments, and they’ll offer their services for free to the chosen developer!

Everybody knows about Safari, and most people agree that it’s good. It’s fast, it’s stable, it’s sexy —  and everybody knows about other popular web browsers like Firefox and Chrome. But there are several other lesser known web browsers that offer cool features that Safari lacks.

Although you don’t need to use them all the time, unless you want to, they’re nice to have around to utilize every once in a while. Whether you’re wanting social integration or parallel sessions, it’s a good idea to have them there.

Let’s take a look at a selection of Safari alternatives!

Give Them a Try!

Safari is good – it offers all the features the average user likes, but you don’t have to confine yourself to one browser.

For the Mac user who wants more out of their computer, other browsers have got a lot to offer as well such as social integration, workflow automation, visual tabs and parallel sessions. Just play the field!

Way back when I first became aware of the existence of a technology that could allow mobile handset-handset video chatting, my mind was thoroughly blown. Surely this was something that was only possible in the movies, and couldn’t exist in the real world, right?

But it was indeed possible. And long after it first became possible, Apple did what they always do, and refined power and utility down to awesomeness and perfection.

With the announcement of the iPhone 4, Apple announced to eagerly awaiting fans everywhere that their mobile device to trump all mobile devices would be capable of video chatting.

The Precursor

Apple’s venture into the video realm of device-to-device communication began with the iSight, an external camera connected to your computer via FireWire and used with iChat A/V, Apple-designed software for video conferencing. The external iSight was released in 2003, and while Skype was also founded in 2003, video conferencing wasn’t available on the platform until 2006.

Apple began embedding the iSight camera in the bezel of their laptops and desktop computers, and eventually discontinued the external FireWire iSight.

As of the Back To The Mac event in October, 2010, the iSight camera is being referred to as the FaceTime Camera, in accordance with the standard introduced in the iPhone 4.

The Standard

Apple built FaceTime using a collection of already-open standards including the H.264 video codec and the AAC audio codec, as well as the SIP signaling protocol for VoIP. However, despite these open standards, FaceTime is only available on Apple devices, and only over WiFi.

While FaceTime is currently a proprietary license, Apple intends to release it as an open standard and allow developers to work with it. But will this make it a communication standard for video calling?

The Future

In order for FaceTime to be adopted as an industry standard, Apple must follow through on their intention to open it’s availability to developers. This means that the technologies that power FaceTime have to be available for Windows, Android, and others (something that seems to me to be so un-Apple-like).

Also, the standard has to be able to be used over the cellular data network instead of WiFi only. This restriction (in my opinion) makes FaceTime a neat feature, but not exactly an example of streamlined communication. A major hurdle, however, in making FaceTime usable over the cellular network is data usage charges from the carrier.

FaceTime uses (as evidenced by jailbroken iPhones) roughly 3MB of data per minute of video chatting. This would pose less of a problem back in the days of unlimited data on the iPhone plan, but seems to me to be a serious issue when dealing with the cutthroat carriers and their thirst for monetizing every little item of your plan. Striking a balance between data usage costs and cellular network video chatting is crucial for FaceTime becoming a communication standard.

Finally, in order for FaceTime to become a communication standard, the proprietary-license grip Apple has on the associated technologies must be released. If it remains proprietary, it’s unlikely that it will become a widespread technology, much like Apple will (probably) never put BluRay drives (Sony proprietary license) into their products.

Conclusion

Personally, I think the idea of FaceTime becoming the standard for mobile device video communication is pretty fantastic. A uniform method for getting in contact with (and seeing!) people across multiple devices appeals to all the ideas that led me to become a Mac user to begin with.

However, widespread FaceTime usage will require Apple to play nice with others in a way that we’ve rarely seen them do before, and the likelihood of that happening remains to be seen.

Well, the end of 2010 is almost upon us! It’s been a fantastic year of technology releases, and announcements – not just in our Apple bubble, but across the whole industry.

For me personally, my iPad has changed the way I read, the iPhone 4 completely revolutionised my appreciation of screen technology, and I finally got around to purchasing an SSD (the verdict is in – they’re astounding).

A few weeks ago, I published a few thoughts on what I considered to be the Best Mac Software of 2010, but there’s a whole lot to look forward to over the coming year.

Whether you’re stoked about OS X Lion, excited to try out the Mac App Store, or on the edge of your seat about the iPad 2, 2011 is going to be an action packed year for Apple users everywhere.

But what’s the one thing that you really can’t wait for? Let us know in our weekly poll, and we’ll be extra sure to bring you plenty of news and coverage around that particular event next year!

I wanted to take this chance to show my appreciation to everyone who reads Mac.AppStorm, and wish all our readers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Whether or not you receive a shiny new Apple gadget as a gift this holiday, I hope you have a great few days away from the hustle and bustle of technology.

We have plenty in store for 2011, including the official launch of Android.AppStorm and Windows.AppStorm, as well as countless more reviews, how-tos, roundups and news! I hope you’ll join us on the journey, and am looking forward to sharing everything we have lined up with you.

Thanks for reading, and have a wonderful holiday.

Perhaps you’ve already made the move to digital media. Maybe you get your newspapers and magazines directly in your computer, instead of physically delivered to your door. Maybe you don’t even read newspapers anymore. With devices like the iPad and the Kindle, digital media has cannibalized physical media, and along with it, some of our traditions have been extinguished. Traditions like solving puzzles in the morning.

Do not worry, though. Here at AppStorm we have what you need to get back into those mind-exercising, and at times even frustrating, little puzzles. Read on to find some of our favorite apps for finding (and solving) crosswords and sudoku puzzles on your Mac.

Crossword Apps

Sudoku Apps

Conclusion

We hope you enjoyed our selection of puzzle apps. We tried to give you a wide range of prices, like the semi-free KrossWordz, and the free Macdoku. But perhaps you want something fancier and more expensive, like Black Ink and Kitty Spangles Sudoku.

Do you use an app that we didn’t get to review? Or do you have any other puzzle that you like to play frequently, and that isn’t crosswords or sudoku? Well, then please share it in the comment section below!

iPhoto is a great application for storing your photos. But as your library gets bigger and bigger, it can all turn into a bit of a mess and make locating that photo you’re after more of a mission than it should be. Shoebox from KavaSoft is a photo organization app which sorts your pictures by content based on tags and categories.

For those of you who feel like you are growing out of iPhoto, Shoebox might be just the solution. In this review I’ll take a look at how it compares to iPhoto, what it has going for it and what it doesn’t.

Overview

When you first open up Shoebox, it all looks quite different to other photo applications which is a little daunting. Don’t worry – as you get used to it, the change in layout makes sense. Shoebox is great at finding the exact photo you are after within seconds by searching by tags, and it sorts them a little like you might expect the Finder to.

Shoebox also packs a good range of other features that you wont find in iPhoto, such as backing up or storing photos on external media to save space and browsing photos full size directly from a camera without importing.

One notable difference between Shoebox and iPhoto, is that Shoebox doesn’t create it’s own giant file to store the photos in like iPhoto does, but rather links to their current location in the Finder.  This is good and bad, meaning you can keep the images where you want, but if you move them or change their filename Shoebox will lose track of them.

Shoebox uses the term “Categories”, but this essentially means the same thing as “Tags” or “Keywords” that you might be used to seeing in other apps.

Importing Photos

Shoebox makes transfering photos from your previous libraries a breeze. I imagine most people who try it out would already have an iPhoto library in place, and Shoebox offers a one-click import from iPhoto, whilst retaining any keywords and even ratings that you may have already added.

Getting Started with Categories

Of course, for search functionality to work seamlessly, there is a bit of manual labour involved; adding keywords to each and every photo you want to keep an eye on.  Shoebox does everything it can to minimize the effort;  you can quickly select multiple images to tag, and typing the first letter or two of a tag will automatically fill in the rest.

The Categories Window shows all of the various categories you will have created by tagging photos and allows you to arrange them, which is actually a powerful tool. This means that you can place “cats”, “sharks” and “bees” inside the category of “Animals”. This way, if you tag a photo “cat”, and then search for “Animals”, all the photos with cats in them will be displayed in the results.  This is a great feature and means you can give each photo less tags than you would normally need to.

Browsing

There are four ways to browse photos in Shoebox; by folders as they are in the Finder, by categories that you’ve created, by searching, or directly off the camera.

All methods are useful for different scenarios. The Category Browser has a helpful ‘progress-bar’ feature which lets you see at a glance how many photos each category has, relative to the others.

The camera browser is perfect for looking at photos off a camera or memory card without having to import, a feature which iPhoto lacks.

Shoebox also offers the choice of grid, list or slideshow view.

Other Notable Features

Shoebox lets you back photos up to an external HD or disk with ease, and if running short of space, even lets you shrink the backed up photos on your main computer.  This means that you can still see all of your photos, at a lower resolution, but when you connect the backup media Shoebox will automatically show the full resolution version.  You can also instantly restore the shrunk photos back to as they were.

Shoebox can also play slideshows fullscreen while using another monitor to list the pictures, burn photos to a disk, and look up detailed info on each photo such as the exposure settings like f.stop and ISO.

What’s Missing?

There’s a few things that Shoebox doesn’t have.  A big one that iPhoto users will miss is any form of photo editing – you can’t crop or enhance images at all.  Shoebox wasn’t designed to have this, and is intended to complement a photo editing application such as Photoshop or Preview, but I personally find it a timesaver having editing functions within the app that you look at your photos with.

Most still cameras can now also film in video, so it is unfortunate that whilst you can categorize videos, Shoebox doesn’t display thumbnails of many common formats.

Shoebox has also crashed a few times while I’ve been using it which is a nuisance but is almost instant to reopen.

Conclusion

If you’re finding that your photo library is quickly becoming huge, Shoebox could be just the right application for locating the exact photos you’re after.  It lacks a few things iPhoto has like photo editing, but also provides a far superior method of finding photographs; it basically comes down to your needs.

Shoebox can be downloaded in a limited trial form (allowing you to only view up to 25 photos at a time), and can also be purchased in Express for $30 and a Pro version for $80.  Shoebox Express allows for up to 10,000 photos while Pro is unlimited.

Tell us what you’re preferred method for photo organization is.  Do you use iPhoto, Shoebox, or another, perhaps more advanced application like Bridge or Aperture?

As well as sponsoring the site this week, I’m pleased to let you know that Realmac Software has offered to give away five copies of their latest application, Courier, to a handful of lucky readers (aren’t they nice!).

We wrote a little bit about Courier earlier this week, but essentially it’s an easy way to quickly share files, images, photos, movies, and more with all your favourite online services – including Flickr and Facebook.

Entering is really easy. All you need to do is retweet the following message, and leave a comment on this post with your Twitter username!

Just entered a competition to win a Courier license, courtesy of @macappstorm and @realmacsoftware: http://bit.ly/hJt3sA

Click here to tweet the message and enter!

Best of luck! We’ll be picking the winners in exactly one week, on Thursday the 30th December. Thanks for taking part!

So many of us have remarkably messed up iTunes libraries; artists written in the track names or missing altogether, grey music notes for album art, and an absence of album or genre information. I’ve always been pretty meticulous about my iTunes library, but I wish I’d discovered this application earlier – TuneUp is a brilliant extension to iTunes which can automatically look through your library and clean everything up!

If your iTunes library is a bit of a hodgepodge, then TuneUp could be exactly what you need to sort it out.  Read on to see what the app is capable of and find out whether it’s worth purchasing.

Overview

TuneUp is its own application, but latches on to the right edge of iTunes. It boasts a number of great features, separated by tabs at the top of it’s window. Amongst others, TuneUp can “automagically” fix up all song information, add cover art, display a rundown of videos, news, artist bios, and let you know of upcoming concerts. And it does almost work like magic.

Clean

The ‘Clean’ tab of TuneUp works simply by dragging your “dirty” songs from iTunes and dropping them into the TuneUp window. TuneUp then analyses the audio and compares it with a database of over 90 million tracks, as well as looking at the details already in the track to work out exactly what song it is… all within a matter of seconds.

You can then save TuneUp’s fixes, although it pays to check through the track info because it doesn’t always get it perfect. There’s also an Undo button, and a library Analyzer which looks through your entire library for clean and dirty tracks, dishes out some statistics and sorts your songs into three playlists: Cleaned, Dirty, and Not Found.

In the Clean Preferences you can customize exactly what TuneUp changes to your songs, including avoiding tagging tracks to compilations, setting how specific you want your genres to be, and picking which metadata information to save.

Cover Art

The Clean tab actually adds cover art to your dirty tracks, but the Cover Art tab is exclusively for making cover-flow look like it should. Tuneup looks through your library for missing art and does what appears to be a Google image search for the album art. It shows up with it’s best guess but also offers three others for when it gets it wrong – which it does (I was offered a picture of Ronan Keating for a Green Day album).

Because these pictures are simply taken from the internet, the image quality is often poor so I’d be inclined to just use the “Get Album Artwork” button under ‘Advanced’ in the iTunes menu as long as the album is listed in iTunes.

Tuniverse, Concerts & Share

TuneUp is more than just an iTunes fixer. The final three tabs, Tuniverse, Concerts, and Share let you discover more about the music you’re listening to and share it to the world, without ever leaving iTunes.

The Tuniverse tab offers videos straight from YouTube which are playable within TuneUp, a Biography of the band, News, Album Recommendations and even Merchandise from eBay.

Concerts gives you a run down of upcoming concerts in your area and “Share” offers Facebook publishing of posts such as “Songs Most Played”.

Drawbacks

TuneUp is undoubtably a remarkable application, but there are a few things that need work. One of the first things I noticed was that it definitely doesn’t like Spaces. If you drag the iTunes window into a different space, TuneUp will just disappear until you place iTunes back to where it was opened.

I also found the Cover Art feature to often yield disappointing results due to the fact that it simply performs an image search across the internet rather than looking at it’s own server of high quality album art.

One other quirk is that when scrolling around TuneUp with my Magic Mouse, it often does some funny stuff and messes up how it displays the content, but this issue goes away when dragging the scroll bar.

Conclusion

All in all, TuneUp is truly impressive and does a superb job of identifying music tracks and assigning the correct information to them. It makes the odd mistake, and the Cover Art feature doesn’t always come out with quite what your after, but it is so much faster than filling in this information manually. The Tuniverse is also a fun way to discover more about artists.

TuneUp can be downloaded for free with 100 track cleans, 50 cover-arts, and unlimited access to Tuniverse, Concerts and Share.

For $19.95 you get everything for a year, and for $29.95 it’s all unlimited forever. I’d definitely recommend giving TuneUp a go if your iTunes library is a mess and needs cleaning.

Let us know your thoughts on TuneUp in the comments below!

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.

Some of the topics covered this week include assessing the health of your MacBook battery, monitoring network traffic, pausing background applications, and picking a battery charger.

Read on for plenty of handy Mac knowledge!

Is there a free app for the Mac that can monitor network traffic? Net Monitor is a paid version, but paid versions are all I can find.

– James Crawford

We’ve actually written about this topic previously on the site, and there are a few utilities that are capable of monitoring network traffic and bandwidth. Of course, much depends upon the level and detail you require.

For simple monitoring, you can use the Network tab of Activity Monitor. This is fairly rudimentary, and doesn’t offer any advanced functionality (such as exporting logs or viewing historical data). It might do the trick if your needs are simple.

Alternatively, you could give SurplusMeter a try, which is specifically geared towards monitoring network bandwidth usage over a certain period. Not necessarily the best for in-depth, real-time analysis, but it’s completely free.

Net Monitor, the application you mentioned, comes in at $10. It’s fairly advanced, and isn’t exactly priced out of most people’s budget. Unfortunately, there isn’t an equally capable application available completely free of charge (as far as I’m aware!)

Do you recommend any brand of batteries or charger for the Magic Mouse? What factors affect battery life?

– Natalia Ventre

The first thing to mention in this regard is that it’s definitely not cost-effective in the long-run to buy “one use” batteries for your Magic Mouse or Apple Keyboard. These devices really chew through power at a rapid pace, and you’ll quickly find yourself spending a frighteningly large sum on new batteries.

A rechargeable solution is the way to go, and I’d definitely recommend considering Apple’s Battery Charger. This comes with six batteries, so you can always have two charging, and plenty left for both your Magic Mouse and Keyboard if need be. It’s priced at $29 – a wise investment in the long run!

There are, of course, plenty of other battery charging solutions on the market, ranging from around $12 upwards. Go for the best quality set of batteries and charger that your budget will allow, as they’ll last longer for each use, and have a longer overall lifespan.

Is there a way to restrict your Mac to only run one program at a time? I’m a photographer, and want to dedicate all my processing power to Lightroom.

– Joe

I completely understand your pain, Joe, and am pleased to let you know that this is definitely possible. Although there’s no way to do this on your Mac by default, as ever, an enterprising developer has already created something to fit the bill.

Head over to St. Clair Software and download AppTamer. After installing it, you’ll be able to select a variety of different applications that you do, or do not, want to be “paused” after a certain inactivity period.

For your purposes, a good idea would be to:

1. Open up most of your commonly used apps
2. Check “AutoStop” next to all of them, except Lightroom
3. Turn on App Tamer when you’re doing serious editing/processing, and turn it off again afterwards (otherwise you’ll probably be frustrated by various applications not running when you’d like them to)

I’d recommend AppTamer for many Mac users who suffer from regular slow-downs, but still like to have all their applications running concurrently. Just be sure not to select certain software that regularly needs to run in the background (e.g. your FTP application will need to upload files while you work on something else).

Which steps could I take to determine whether my MacBook battery is damaged?

– Jose Carrillo

This depends largely upon whether you’re taking about physical/mechanical damage, or just the natural decrease in charge over many month and years of recharge cycles.

For the former, it’s definitely best to take your MacBook into an Apple Store for someone to take a look at the hardware. If it’s just a drop in charge that you’re noticing, there are a few ways to investigate this further.

I’d recommend downloading and installing Coconut Battery. This handy (and free) application shows you live information about your battery, such as how often it was charged, and how the current maximum capacity relates to the original capacity your battery had when it left the factory.

This will give you a good indication of what state your battery is in, and the type of improvement you would notice if you decide to purchase a new one. We’ll actually have an entire post dedicated to battery calibration coming on Sunday, so stay tuned for more information then!

What project management apps allow me to track projects, clients, time, and complex tasks?

– Eduard M

Sounds like you need an application that can handle an awful lot of different things! For most of what you’ve mentioned, I’d recommend giving Billings a try. It’s priced at around $45, but comes with a very powerful feature set. You can check out our review for a full overview.

For tracking complex tasks, Billings might not be the best solution. I’d actually recommend taking a look at a web application – Basecamp – that goes a few steps further than most simple “to do” list apps for the Mac. It also works well with multiple people, if the project is a collaboration.

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!

Last summer, my MacBook was stolen. It had no protection, no password, no data encrypted, and the thief had access to all of my emails through Mail.app. I even found out that the thief, or the subsequent buyer of my beautiful Macbook, had been using my Instapaper account to bookmark his own webpages! (I have changed my password since).

After that horrible experience was over and I had my new Macbook, some of the first things that I did with it were increase its security, and look into theft-recovery apps.

Anti-theft apps, or theft-recovery apps, provide you with useful information, like location and IP address, once your computer gets lost or stolen. Some even give you access to your computer’s webcam, and a few take care of the whole recovery process of your Mac.

Keep on reading to see some of our favorite apps!

Conclusion

Recovering your stolen laptop is bound to be hard, even with these sort of apps, but they sure make it easier for you to track down your thief. Their downside is that in order for them to work, the thief needs to connect your computer to a network, so that the app can detect that the computer has been stolen and that it should send info to their service.

If you need a password to access your computer and you want to use these apps, I’d recommend that you setup a guest account, to make it easier for the thief to access an internet connection. You should also setup a firmware password, so that it’s harder for the thief to reinstall the OS, wiping everything in your hard drive, including the theft-recovery app.

That being said, it’s definitely better to have one of these apps than not. You should definitely take five minutes out of your day to install a free alternative like Prey, but if you want to be more serious about it, I’d totally recommend you to go all the way with Undercover or Hidden, both great alternatives at different prices.

Undercover is pricier, but it makes the recovery of your laptop more likely; and while Hidden is cheaper, you will deal with reporting everything to the authorities yourself.

Whatever you choose, or if you have another alternative that you would like to share, we want to hear it in the comments!

For many people, Christmas Day is a great opportunity to switch off completely. I always try to avoid using gadgets and technology, preferring to spend quality time with the people that I really care about. It sounds cliché, sure, but days like these are incredibly important from time to time.

We’re all permanently connected to the Internet, and our access to emails, social media, and the ongoing barrage of communication is no longer limited to “the office”. If you’re anything like me, it sometimes feels that your iPhone is physically attached to your body, following you around everywhere you go.

Sometimes, this is brilliant. Being in constant communication and always “plugged in”, gives us a connection to the world that people would never have dreamt of a few decades ago.

But it’s no way to live your life every day of the year.

Whether or not you celebrate Christmas, why not consider the 25th December a day to leave your MacBook lid firmly shut, turn off your iPhone, and just enjoy the day with family and friends? You never know – it might just be something you want to make a regular thing!

I think we’ve all been there. It just feels like its time for a new furniture configuration. The ideas are flowing. “I could move the chair over there and then the coffee table over here and then…”. Out comes the tape measure (maybe) and we start trying to figure out what would fit where and how it would all look.

You think you have it figured out, start moving furniture around and then realize that you’ve blocked half your doorway. Frustration ensues as you try to remedy your “design” and, after a while you end up back where you started and all you got out of it was a workout.

Maybe a little help is in order?

MyFourWalls is interior design and layout, modeling, and floor planning application. It’s basic function is to help you plan the interior design of your home, office, or any interior space. Without too much difficulty, you’re able to recreate the exact space and then play with different wall treatments, flooring, lighting and furniture layouts.

Getting Started

The first time you open MyFourWalls, you’ll be presented with a few template options to start from. This is a nice option if this is the first time you’ve used the software or any other modeling type of software as it will give you a starting point to explore how everything works.

I’ll throw myself into that category. I’ve never used any software like this and being able to start with something essentially gave me a playground to figure out the functions and features of the software.

MyFourWalls also offers an option to start blank if you’d like. If you’re going to be doing a project you will have to go this route more than likely. A template may be close enough to your current dimensions, allowing you to make some adjustments and continue along.

You may be able to get some ideas from the templates as well, but there are only five to chose from so you probably won’t get too many ideas. If you’re really interested in designing and laying out a space you’ll want to start from scratch.

Design and Layout

MyFourWalls feels like a very polished piece of software. Overall, the design is as simple and clean as is possible with all of the features available. I’ll say that I was able to figure out the basic functionality without looking at any help documentation (although there is some nice documentation available).

Everything works, and is organized in a way that just makes sense. If it feels like you should be able to delete something a certain way, odds are that is possible. It was easy to get the hang of, and I attribute much of that to the way the software is designed.

Functionality

The window is divided into three main sections, the 3D view, the 2D view, and the Inspector.

2D View

The 2D view shows the floor plan for the space you’re working on. This would be sort of a “blueprint view”. It shows you measurements of windows, doors and walls, the direction doors and windows open, and the overall layout of all the furniture and other items you have placed in the space.

There is actually a CAD view option for the 2D window if you really want that “blueprint” feel, although it really doesn’t provide you with any additional information. It just strips the color out.

Within this view, the actual structure of the space you’re working on can be altered. This is done fairly simply by just selecting walls and dragging them around. The software seems pretty intelligent and usually figures out if you would like walls to connect, or would like walls at right angles.

There are some buttons above the 2D viewing window that allow you to select the cursor, wall, partition, door, or window. The cursor is the tool that you’d use for interacting with the view. For making adjustments and moving items around. The other tools are pretty self explanatory and do just what you’d think.

The 2D view is fully interactive. Meaning you can insert pieces of furniture and move items around all within that view. You’re able to quickly move the camera to adjust what you’re seeing in the 3D view as well.

Logically enough, there is a camera icon within this view that shows exactly what the 3D view below is showing. It’s very simple to just drag the camera around and super handy to give you a quick 3D glimpse of something you’ve just changed. The alternative is to walk around within the 3D view to find what you’re looking for which is certainly possible, and not that difficult, but a little more cumbersome.

Inspector View

The Inspector view is really where you are able to do all of the serious customization. It displays the adjustable properties for any selected object (this includes walls, windows, and doors along with just about everything else). You’re able to adjust the width, depth, and height of any object along with its orientation and vertical positioning.

For example, if you were working on a layout for your new office, you could mimic the exact dimensions of the desk and also of the computer monitor – even down to something like the garbage can. This is a very powerful feature as it gives you the ability to re-create almost exactly (at least dimensionally) any room and anything within it.

The geometry can be adjusted by entering in exact dimensions or by using a slider. The rotational orientation can be adjusted by entering in a degree of rotation or by using a knob. You’ll have a few vertical options that will allow you to place an item directly on the floor or ceiling or stack on another object.

There is also a manual offset option so you can fine tune even further. Depending on the item selected, you may find some additional attributes that are also customizable.

Though the Inspector view isn’t essential to use, I will say that it is a very powerful piece of the software and really should be taken advantage of if you want to use MyFourWalls to its full potential.

3D View

The 3D view allows you to become immersed into the space you are designing. You can essentially walk around and look at the layout from the perspective of actually being in the room. This is a very cool feature, as it will allow you to get a true feel for how something will actually look in the real world (sort of).

An idea in your head — or even a layout on the 2D view — may not look like you hoped it would when you’re actually in the room. The 3D view gives you the ability to get a feel for that without actually having to push around all that furniture.

There are some controls within the view to aid you in wandering around your space, but I found the easiest way was just to use the mouse to move around. Using the scroll ball of your mouse or touch pad its pretty easy to move around.

Furniture and Materials

A big part of a piece of an application like this is being able to view some actual furniture in your space along with some different wall and floor treatments. MyFourWalls comes bundled with a pretty large variety of furniture and also materials to use for walls, floors, ceilings and other surfaces.

The furniture and materials are displayed in the same space as the Inspector and are simply shown via toggle buttons at the top of that view.

The furniture is broken up into categories. You pick a category from the drop down menu at the top of the window and you’ll see all the available pieces. To add a piece into your layout you just drag it into either the 2D or 3D view. From there you’ll be able to move it and rotate it to the exact location you’d like.

The library is quite adequate. You’ll not only find tables and chairs and sofas, but also items like plants, stereos, paintings, appliances, and lots more. You may not find the exact item you’re looking for, but with some custom dimension changes you should be able to get pretty close.

If you feel like there is something that is definitely missing, it is possible to import items. The catch is that they need to be in COLLADA-format (*.dea). Not a huge deal, as that is a bit of a standard in the 3D modeling world (as far as I can tell).

Though Google Sketchup file types are not supported for import, many other modelers have built in the COLLADA format and have items available for download in the Google 3D Warehouse.

I imported a few pieces and had good results for the most part. It wasn’t perfect for all imports, but worked pretty well overall.

The materials window works in a similar fashion as the furniture window. The main category is chosen from the drop down menu, then the available options within that category will be displayed.

The materials can be applied to any surface in your space by simply dragging the material into either view. Each material can also be customized. So here again, if you want to spend the time, you can re-create just about anything you’d like to see in your space.

Structure

To go even further into the possible customization of MyFourWalls I should mention that you are also able to customize the structure past adding and adjusting walls. You’re able to adjust the ceiling height and roof angle as well.

If you’re trying to plan an attic type space with an odd angled ceiling this could be really handy. This isn’t difficult to do and it is adjusted by angles, so you’re able to replicate exactly if you’d like.

The floor can also be adjusted in a similar fashion should there ever been a need for that as well!

Lighting

This relates somewhat to the furniture section, but I thought I’d pull it out separately as it is a pretty interesting feature. Lights can be placed from the “Lights” furniture section anywhere in your layout.

These can be adjusted to the point where you are able to see how certain lights work in certain places. You can adjust the radiation angle, color, and intensity of each light.

It’s definitely not a scientific method to planning your lighting schemes, but it’s pretty darn good, and a nice additional perk to this software.

Pricing

MyFourWalls runs at a cost of $29 per license. With each license you are able to install the software on two machines. From what I’ve seen with this software I’d say that cost is completely justified. Not only is it powerful, but it is quite easy to use even considering its complexity.

A demo version is also available if you’d like to try it before you purchase. It’s a little different demo than I’ve seen before, but it did the trick. You are able to use the software without a license code fully functional (minus saving) for 30 minutes at a time.

You can keeping opening it back up, but every 30 minutes it will warn you that you are using the demo version and force you to quit or purchase a license.

Conclusion

I’ve never used a piece of software like MyFourWalls before and I have to say I had a lot of fun just playing around. The more I used it, the more useful it seemed. I started to think about the time I’ve spent with the tape measure trying to visualize how rooms would look if I moved this over here or that over there. It just never seems to work out, but with MyFourWalls it would be possible to visualize the space without actually moving anything around.

I always assumed that software like this was too complicated to even waste my time on. After all, I’m no interior designer so my usage would be sporadic at best. MyFourWalls is powerful enough to accomplish everything the average planner/designer would need and probably pretty close to functional enough for even the professional – and all at a really reasonable price.

The real kicker is that it is still simple enough that I’m confident I could fire it back up after a month away and have no problem jumping right back in.

This is definitely a different genre of software to review for me, but I’d have to say that if you’re looking for a piece of interior design software for the Mac, it is absolutely worth checking out. Powerful, simple, and the price is spot on.

Sponsoring the site this week is a relatively new app from Realmac Software – Courier. This fantastic piece of software makes it easy to quickly share files, images, photos, movies, and more with all your favourite online services – including Flickr and Facebook.

It’s wrapped up in a functional and beautiful interface, capable of tracking where your file is sent around the world as it uploads. This is a great touch, and adds a physical element to the process of sharing content across your favourite social media sites.

Seven built-in plugins mean you’ll be able to start sharing in under 30 seconds – and with Amazon S3, Ember, Flickr, Facebook, FTP / SFTP, Vimeo and YouTube support, Courier has the most-requested services in the bag!

It’s rare that such an interesting new app graces the Mac software world, and I’d definitely recommend taking Courier for a spin if you haven’t already!

There are plenty of rumours surrounding how to take care of your batteries. I remember people used to say that whenever you buy a new product, you should leave it charging for at least a day, so that the battery gets “used” to having full charge. Some other people say that’s not necessary nowadays since new batteries are designed differently. The truth is, your battery will lose capacity over time; it’s inevitable. What you can change is how fast it deteriorates.

Today we’ll be giving you some tips on how to make your Mac’s battery stay in tip-top shape through a bunch of easy and fast actions like calibration. We’ll also be taking a look at some applications that can help you with this actions, including Watts and CoconutBattery.

Some Starting Tips

Even though we’ll be talking mostly about the app Watts in this post, you don’t really need it, as you can do everything we are going to tell you by yourself as long you are well organized and informed. First off, here are some things that you should do if you want to keep your battery in good shape.

The first is to make sure that you unplug your computer once in a while. If you have your computer running plugged in to the power all the time, your battery won’t get any action, and it will begin to deteriorate. Watts has a setting that reminds you to unplug your battery once you have worked for a certain amount of time with it plugged it (but you can easily do this by yourself with a simple reminder).

If you are using your computer on-the-go and you want to preserve your charge, try minimizing your performance. Keep only necessary programs and windows open, and kill any processes or apps that you don’t need. Lower your screen brightness as much as you can and mute the speakers.

Make sure you don’t have a CD or DVD inserted, as your computer will spin it up occasionally. Turn off the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth if you aren’t using them. If you do all these things and keep your usage to only a couple of apps – like your browser or a word processor – most likely you’ll get the advertised battery time of your computer, and perhaps even more.

If you won’t be using your computer for a long period of time, Apple recommends that you leave it stored with 50% charge, otherwise it won’t be able to hold a charge, or it could fall into a “deep discharge state”.

And most importantly, you should calibrate your battery at least once every month. Most people don’t know what this is or how to do it, and that’s where apps like Watts come in. But first, we’ll teach you how to calibrate your battery by yourself.

Calibrating Your Battery Manually

Calibrating your battery is not a hard process at all, but it is a little inconvenient. Basically, you need to completely discharge your battery and then charge it fully again. You need to do this so that the readings of your battery are accurate, and so that your battery stays in good shape. This should be done every month or few months, depending on who you ask. Personally, I try to do it at the beginning of each month. Here are the steps you should follow:

1. Charge your battery to its full potential (optional: after it’s fully charged, leave it plugged in for at least 2 hours)
2. Unplug your battery and use your computer until the battery is drained and the computer goes to sleep by itself.
3. Leave it unplugged for a few hours (I usually leave it overnight)
4. Plug your computer in and leave it charging until it’s fully charged.

As you can see, this is a pretty easy process and it can be done effortlessly. However, if you’d like a reminder, or a step-by-step aid, you can count on an app like Watts.

Calibrating Your Battery With Watts

Watts is an app that runs in your menu bar and is supposed to replace the Mac OS battery indicator. It provides plenty more features than the usual battery icon, such as the health of your battery and the calibration helper, as well as customizable Growl notifications.

Under the “Calibration” option, you’ll see a window where you can easily calibrate your battery through a bunch of accomplishable steps, that include info on what you are doing and the requirements for it to be completed. Here you can also get a table of every calibration you’ve done and the dates of them.

The steps given in Watts are pretty much the same ones I described above. The difference here is that Watts guides you through every step and it makes it easier to know when you’ve completed a step. For example, it’ll notify you once you’ve left your charged battery plugged in for 2 hours.

Every notification is also delivered through Growl, and it’s very easy to calibrate your battery with it. Once you are done calibrating, it will add that date to your table and then a month after, it will remind you that you should calibrate again.

Other Useful Watts features

Watts is not only useful for helping you calibrate your battery. It also has an “Information” tab where you can see stats on your battery like the cycles you’ve done (a cycle is a full discharge) and the current capacity of your battery.

Watts also has a “Notifications” tab where you can set certain messages up, such as notifying you when you plug/unplug the cable, when you’ve run your computer plugged in for a certain time, when the battery charge is low, and a few more.

A Free Alternative: CoconutBattery

Coconut Battery is a free simple app that can give you useful information on the status of your battery. It doesn’t have any of the fancy features that Watts has, like an assistant for calibrating your battery or a menu bar interface, but it gives you useful info and it’s free.

CoconutBattery can provide stats on the current capacity of your battery, as well as the current charge. It will also tell you the cycles of your battery and the age of your Mac. If all you are looking for is a simple info outlet for your battery, this app does it. Another free Dashboard alternative is iStat.

Conclusion

Keeping a battery on good shape is not easy – there will always be some degrading occurring eventually. However, if you follow our recommendations and make your calibration on a schedule, you should be able to keep your battery in decent shape for a few years to come!

We hope that the advice we gave you was helpful, and if you have any other recommendations to keep your batteries on good shape, please share them in the comments!