Category: Mac

Early in August, we helped to get you started with your Mac by introducing 50 Essential Apps for OS X Beginners. Today, we will take you to the next level with an incredibly comprehensive list of 70+ apps geared towards advanced users.

These apps are a mix of free and paid for software, and in order to provide you with as much information as possible, we’ve included multiple apps for similar tasks if available. This list is by no means complete, but it should help you to unlock some more of your Mac’s great potential!

Securing Your Mac and Your Data

We all love our Macs, but they are still computers that can fail from time to time. Securing your valuable data – documents, photos, movies, iTunes purchases – is a paramount necessity and the following apps can help you with that (sometimes daunting) task.

SuperDuper!

My favourite backup solution gets the prime spot. SuperDuper! makes fully bootable backups an easy task, even if you’re new to the entire process. You can automate your backups, you can backup incrementally (only exchange files that have been changed on your system without having to go through the entire backup process all the time)… there’s a wealth of options and you can be assured that your data really is kept safe.

Price: Free basic version; full version $27.95

ChronoSync

Another powerful backup app: it offers similar functionality as SuperDuper! regarding backup automation and making bootable copies of your hard drive. In addition, you get a synchronization option with ChronoSync which allows you to keep identical sets of data on multiple computers. For people working from different machines with files too large to upload constantly to the cloud, this might be worth a look.

Price: Free basic version; full version $27.95

Arq

If you’d rather have your backup in the cloud, there are multiple services that will help you achieve that. One of them is Arq, which utilizes the storage capacities of Amazon S3. That also means you can backup files of any size, as the developer promises. It offers smart backups (not duplicating content), and a version history – think of it as Time Machine in the cloud.

Price: $29 + additional cost for Amazon storage

ForeverSave

Not a backup solution in the traditional sense, ForeverSave offers the amazing ability to save and backup your documents automatically. Ever got lost in time while working on a huge Photoshop document, only to have the app crash on you after not saving for 5 hours? Ever hacked away to finish that important text document only to experience a power failure? With ForeverSave, you’ll be able to keep as many versions of your open documents as you want. This app is a life saver. Really.

Price: $14.95

Fan Control

Especially with mobile Macs it’s important to keep them cool. I remember that the early Intel Macbooks in 2006 got incredibly hot and I worried more than once if this could damage the hardware and in turn make me loose my data. With Fan Control you’ll have control over your Macbooks fans and can cool your shiny transportable Apple down again. And keep it on your lap. And your data safer.

Price: Free

SMARTReporter

Even with the best backup solution, we might get lazy. I do. I should backup more often, I just forget or put it off and more than once I wish I would’ve had some warning before a drive crashed on me. With SMARTReporter, you still cannot predict hard drive failure with 100% accuracy, but at least you’ll have an indicator as to when finally launch the backup app of your choice again.

Price: Free

Watts

Another app intended to help you with the health of your mobile Mac is Watts. It’s described as the calibration tool for you Mac battery. Watts will help you with the re-calibration process, which can help your battery run and last longer. You’re relieved from the need to monitor loading cycles – Watts will bug you via Growl when its time to calibrate again. A sound investment into the health of your battery.

Price: $6.95

DaisyDisk

No matter how hard we try, at some point or another we trash our drives with unnecessary files: duplicates, forgotten files in the expansive Downloads folder etc. Most of the time, we might not even be aware of how much space certain files take up on our hard drives. DaisyDisk scans your disks lightning fast and displays the contents of our drives on an interactive map, making it very easy to spot unusually large files and remove them.

Price: $19.95

GeekTool

The name might give it away: GeekTool lets you display all kinds of information on your desktop. In conjunction with iCal Buddy, you can bring all your events and tasks to your desktop or, if you are more into technical details, why not monitor your system performance? You mustn’t be afraid of the command line though…

Price: Free

dupeGuru

Not quite as pleasing on the eye as DaisyDisk, dupeGuru too helps you to regain hard drive space by finding duplicate files. It can do so by either scanning file names or contents. It contains a fuzzy algorithm that will find duplicates even if their names don’t match 100 per cent. Tweak the app to your liking to search for everything or just specific files.

Price: Fair

xSlimmer

Another fantastic app to help you recapture space on your hard drive is xSlimmer. It analyses the apps you have installed and removes unnecessary code from binaries. If you’re running an Intel Mac, you don’t need all the stuff included for other architectures. Similarly, you mostly won’t need tons of other languages and xSlimmer can remove them for you too. This tool is an absolute must have.

Price: $14.95

Clusters (previously Squeeze)

So, what if you have removed all unnecessary files, stripped your apps, but still your data almost fills up your drive? Meet Clusters. The tiny app works in the background and compresses your files. You won’t notice any difference while working with those files, but you will notice a difference in available disk space.

Price: $12.95

Little Snitch

Of course we love our developers for bringing us great applications to our Mac. But sometimes those apps send information home we are neither aware of, nor agreed to send. To prevent this background conversation and data leak, Little Snitch monitors all the traffic requests and lets you decide which conversations you’ll allow and which ones not.

Price: $29.95

Hands Off!

Similar to Little Snitch, Hand Off! allows you to monitor any incoming and outgoing connections to your applications. Additionally, you can also manage disk access and make sure that programs you’re unsure about may, for example, not write on your disks until you’re sure they’re safe.

Price: $24.95

1Password

1Password is easily the most important app I have on my Macs and mobile devices. It manages your passwords, helps you to create secure passwords, and stores away software licenses, secure notes and financial information. When running 1Password on multiple machines, you can keep the data in sync via Dropbox. And you can take all your information with you – securely – on your iPhone or iPad. 1Password allows you to forget your access information because you have it always at your fingertips. A must buy!

Price: $39.95

Espionage

Do you carry sensitive information on your computer? No? What about your emails? Your chat transcripts? The company report with the confidential employee evaluations or budget reports? Password protecting files might help you in some cases, but what if you’re not even aware of all the information stored? Espionage lets you target specific apps and encrypts all of their data. It doesn’t mean you can lose your laptop now, but if you do, you’ll at least have some comfort.

Price: $34.95

RedHand

If you’ve ever used a Windows PC, you might have come to appreciate the three-finger-salute that lets you quickly lock your screen. On a Mac, you can use fast user switching to show the login window, but wouldn’t it be nice to have a nice shortcut or to have the computer locked after a certain idle time? With RedHand, you can. For the geeks among us: RedHand can lock your computer by losing connection with a bluetooth device of yours (your phone?) and unlock the screen for you when it re-establishes connection after your return. Cool!

Price: $5

Transferring, Packing and Remotely Accessing Data

Especially when using the Mac professionally, you’ll more than likely encounter the need to transfer files to other computers or online servers. You’ll need to compress files for transfer, quickly document things on the screen, or manipulate lots of files at once.

You might have wished more than once for an app which could ease this often complicated workflow. Let’s look at the next category, aimed to help you with tasks like these.

File Courier

File Courier is aimed specifically for people who need to exchange large files for graphic or print jobs. It not only offers a wide variety of services to uploads file and folders to – ranging from SFTP, WebDAV, Amazon S3 to MobileMe and SMB. No, it also sends automatic delivery notifications via email. Especially with larger files which take a while to upload it can be calming to know you reached the client fine.

Price: $19.95

Transmit

Transmit is one of the most popular apps when it comes to file transfer. Like File Courier, it offers compatibility with a number of services, among them FTP, SFTP, Amazon S3 and WebDAV. Apart from a very slick interface it also offers very intuitive navigation and user friendly file sync.

Price: $34

ForkLift

On the surface, ForkLift looks like an FTP client. It supports the usual suspects (FTP, SFTP, Amazon S3, WebDAV) and comes with a very practical interface. But there’s one thing that ForkLift is really good at (apart from incredibly smart batch file renaming): folder synchronization. ForkLift lets you define folders and it compares the contents. Then it adds or removes files in the target folder according to your specifications. For a quick incremental backup of your data, ForkLift is perfect.

Price: $29.95

Folx

Safari already comes with a download manager, but of course it doesn’t hold up against a dedicated app. With Folx, it’s as easy as clicking a link and the app starts your download. You can prioritise downloads by dragging them on top of a queue and, should you go offline for any reason, Folx can resume your downloads automatically. No more incomplete files in your downloads folder! Folx comes as a free app with more features unlocked when you upgrade to pro.

Price: Free; Pro Version: $19.95

MacFuse

If you are a developer and work on creating file systems, MacFuse might be just right for you. The software consists of a kernel extension and various user-space libraries and tools.

Price: Free

NTFS for Mac

Switching from a PC to a Mac is a wonderful experience. Just about up to that point when you try an NTFS formatted drive (which most Windows hard drives are) and realise that you can’t write to it. I don’t suspect a conspiracy here – it’s just that the technology doesn’t mix. In order to access your early drives or to write something on someone else’s drive, Paragon comes to our rescue with NTFS for Mac, a driver that establishes the compatibility we wish were build in.

Price: $19.95

Rucksack

Rucksack is the German word for backpack and the app literally packs things up for you. It’s a beautiful – seriously – archiver which packs and unpacks all popular archive types, including RAR and Stuffit. It can even manage split files in RAR archives. It’s a drag and drop app, it offers password protection and it can split and combine files. One of the most useful utilities that blends perfectly into your shiny Mac GUI.

Price: $19

Snapplr

Of course, Mac OS comes with an inbuilt screenshot functionality, but sometimes we want to annotate our screen grabs and share them quickly with others. Apps like Little Snapper and Skitch are popular for that reason and Snapplr falls right into that category. It integrates tightly with your system and it doesn’t just offer automatic screenshot uploading – you can also use the live-feature where screenshots are taken and sent every time an URL is accessed. Handy.

Price: $19.99

Hazel

You’ve met the app DaisyDisk further up. It can show you where there are big files lying around or which folders are larger than they ought to be. But what if you learn that your desktop or downloads folder are regularly filled to the brim? Enter: Hazel!

With Hazel, you can automate your Mac house keeping processes. Define folders and organize the files within them according to rules you set (once). That includes opening files, archiving them, assigning them color labels, deleting unnecessary files and much more. Hazel is right for us slightly chaotic people who always plan to keep their Mac organised but rarely manage (not that we aren’t trying!).

Price: $21.95

Renamer

Ever had a batch of files that you had to rename by hand? Did you at some point get frustrated, including swearing at the task? Been there, done that. But of course, there is an easier way to do this: web designers, photographers, writers, sys admins – rejoice!

With Renamer, the tedious task of renaming files – best with certain variable parameters – turns a day long work into a matter of minutes! For simpler tasks, ForkLift might suffice, but Renamer is for you if you’re serious about large stacks of files that need your attention.

Price: $25

ShareTool

Have you ever been at home or at work and wished you could access your other computer remotely? With ShareTool, you can. It runs quietly in the background and routes traffic securely through and encrypted SSH tunnel. It features remote printing, iTunes home sharing and many more useful things.

Price: $19

Team Viewer

Another tool to help you with remotely accessing your computer is Team Viewer. It supports Mac, Linux, Windows and is even available for the iPhone. It connects to PC or server globally and allows you to remote control it just as if you were sitting in front of it.

Price: Free; Full Version: €499 – €1,890.-

Slink

Slink is the third app within the remote access category. It’s functions are similar to the other apps and, in the end, it will depend on your individual preferences which app you chose. Slink prides itself with simplicity of use and making shared services quickly available to you – or better: in the Finder, iTunes and other apps.

Price: $25

Apps to Enhance Your Everyday Productivity

Oh, you’re still here? Great! If you haven’t snatched any of the above apps, this category will definitely make you put some strain on your internet connection. It’s all about your everyday work and the little helpers that enhance Mac OS X to the point where it perfectly fits our very individual needs. We’ll go through the following apps:

• Finder Enhancements
• Useful Utilities
• Concentration & Window Management
• Time Management
• Business Workflow Apps

DockView

While running only on Snow Leopard, DockView extends Apple’s dock functionality. When you hover over a dock item with your mouse, it will show you a preview window. The previews are live previews (they update constantly), are customisable in size, and DockView also shows to which Space a window belongs.

Prie: $7.99

HyperDock

As the name indicates, HyperDock also enhances your dock. Just as with DockView, preview windows of all windows belonging to an app are shown when hovering over an dock item with your mouse. With powerful shortcuts you can quickly start apps, navigate the Finder and much more.

Price: Free during Beta

BetterZip Quick Look Generator

We all love and cherish the Mac’s Quick Look feature (selecting a file and seeing a large preview of its contents when hitting space). Unfortunately, the magic ends when it comes to archives. With BetterZip Quick Look Generator, you can now peek into a large number of archives, including ZIP, TAR, GZip, RAR, SIT and many more.

Price: Free with limited functionality; Full Version: $19.95

MenuEverywhere

As someone who’s used to working with a dual monitor setup, I more than once stare at the top of my second screen and wonder where my menu bar went. With the new 27″ iMac, I also sometimes feel that moving my pen over my tablet to get to the menu is quite the workout. With MenuEverywhere you have an additional menu sitting on an app’s window. Smart.

Price: $14.95

TotalFinder

TotalFinder enhances your Finder with some amazing stuff. First and foremost: tabs! Imagine not having to have a ton of windows open anymore. It’s like upgrading from IE6 to FF! Additionally, you can set certain sorting preferences (having folders on top and not mixed in with files) or enter the dual mode in which two Finder windows are displayed side-by-side. Lots of additional goodness.

Price: $15 or $10 Friends Option

Path Finder

Just like TotalFinder, Path Finder adds some shabang to your Finder. The features available are far too extensive to be listed here, but you get the tab-goodness, file sorting and filtering, dual pane browsing, application launching and much more.

Price: $39.95

Default Folder X

Ever been annoyed because an app didn’t remember a certain folder and you had to go through the file structure again and again? Do you wish you could have a “recently used” folder (just like windows has it)? With Default Folder X you can assign default folders for apps, access favourite and recent folders, and open to or save from Finder windows.

Price: $34.95

Leap

Feeling overwhelmed by the sheer amount of files that have accumulated on your computer? With Leap and some discipled tagging, you can finally find things again that you’ve just thrown on one big heap (meaning: if an organised folder structure is not your thing). Or maybe you have such a complex folder structure you’ve lost your way around it. Leap helps you quickly find files, no matter their file type or size.

Price: $59

Perian

Perian is the first app in the category of generally useful utilities. It’s a free, open source QuickTime component that adds native support for many popular video formats. Of course, you can simply use VLC, but for some uses it can come in handy if QuickTime actually understands AVI, DIVX, FLV, MKV MPEG1 &mamp; 2 and other files and formats. Perian is a preference pane, meaning it will sit in your system preferences, not be in the way or consume any resources.

Price: Free

Blast

Blast is a very smart little utility sitting in your menu bar. It keeps track of the files you’ve been using and gives you fast access to them. Imagine just having worked on a document, closed it and the containing folder. Halfway through your next task you remember another change you need to make…

Instead of going through the entire folder structure to get to your file, just let Blast point you to it. Or maybe you’ve just downloaded a file, but forgot the correct name. Your downloads folder is – as usual – filled to burst. Blast will show you the file in question immediately. No need to waste any time searching the folder or your brain.

Price: $9.95

Butler

As the name implies, Butler is at your service. Especially when it comes to ease your way around routine tasks like launching apps or opening documents, controlling iTunes, switching users and similar stuff.

Price: Free trial; Full: $20

Alfred

I know, this app has been mentioned in the article about apps for beginners, but there’s no way I could not mention it here. Alfred is – despite it’s beta status – a very powerful app. More than just an application launcher, it performs a multitude of tasks for you like searching (on your drive & online), controlling iTunes, managing files etc. It’s progressing at an amazing pace and is definitely worth a try.

Basic: Free; Powerpack: $12 (about $19)

Apptivate

Less feature rich than Butler, Apptivate focuses only on one thing – helping you launch your apps with the help of self-defined shortcuts. After installation it sits in your menu bar. When you add apps, you can define a shortcut through which Apptivate will launch them. Of course, you won’t be able to do that for every app if you have a full Application folder, but for your most used apps this can be a huge time saver.

Price: Free

Overflow

Overflow is another application launcher. It’s specialty is that it allows you to create categories for applications, files, folders … there’s no limit to your imagination. Instead of clicking your way through to an often used file, just put it into Overflow and it will be available to you with a few keystrokes. The same goes for often used folders and all your apps.

Price: $14.95

Berokyo

A self-described desktop organiser and application launcher, Beryoko takes the principle of Alfred, Overflow and Butler a step further. It puts your favourite and frequently used apps, documents, folders and websites into a highly customisable shelf, ready for your use.

Price: $18.95

Glims

If Safari is your main browser, you might have wished for some extended functions now and then. With Glims, some of your wished might actually happen. Meet full screen capability, favicons on tabs, type ahead support, dated download folders and much more.

Price: Free

Quiet Read

Ever come across an interesting link but didn’t have time to read the entire article right away? Don’t have your Instapaper or Delicious Applet at hand? With Quiet Read, you don’t have to. The app lets you store links for later use and even offers forwarding to popular services like Read It Later, Instapaper, Delicious or Pinboard.

Price: Free; Pro features: $9.95

DateLine

If you’re aiming to extend the usability of iCal, take a look at DateLine. It displays a linear calendar on your Mac desktop which provides easy access to iCal and your events. You can theme the appearance of DateLine to match you personal taste. Why use it? To have all your events available at one glance without having yet another app open. Not even iCal.

Price: Free; Pro features: $4.95

iCal Viewer

Similar in thought but not in function to DateLine, iCal Viewer also displays your iCal events on your desktop. But here the events are boxes moving towards a finish line (no pressure, right?). iCal Viewer also supports your to-do’s in this fashion.

Price: Free; Pro features: $11

iCal Buddy

If you’re not afraid of the command line, you should take a look at iCal Buddy to get your events and tasks onto the desktop. In conjunction with the above mentioned GeekTool, that process is even easier.

Price: Free

Alarms

So, you manage your tasks, maybe even with a dedicated GTD app. But does the app remind you when to do what? Or what if you need just a quick reminder but the issue at hand isn’t really a task that you can put in a category or context?

Meet Alarms, a wonderful app which allows you to add tasks effortlessly. You can drag and drop text, links or files onto it and specify a time at which you want to be reminded to take care of something. Beautiful, easy and useful.

Price: $15

Concentrate

Ever found yourself procrastinating while you should’ve been working hard? Those Twitter updates are just too interesting, right? And the RSS reeder keeps you entertained … and at some point you realise you will not get your stuff done in time. Concentrate can help you eliminate all those temptations by providing you with the applications you need, but blocking everything else that you don’t.

Price: $29

Focus Booster

Another app to help you focus on what needs to be done is Focus Booster. It’s based on the principles of the pomodoro technique – it helps you to break down working on your tasks in 25 minute increments, taking regular breaks and getting things done one little step at time by not looking at the huge task at hand but by just focusing on a piece of it. Interesting mind set.

Price: Free

SaneDesk

Many of us love Spaces. There are many ways to extend the power of multiple virtual desktops. SaneDesk is one tool to do that by allowing separate desktop icons, separate wallpaper, dock icons and effects and positions and so on. Just make sure you’re not getting lost in the unlimited number of desktops.

Price: $15.95

Breeze

Another window management app is Breeze. Breeze allows you to save a window state and apply that state to any focused window. The state includes the size and position of a window and works resolution independently (if you’re running two or more monitors with different resolutions).

Price: $8

Divvy

Divvy claims to be a new way to manage the multitude of your windows by “divvying up” your screen in exact portions. With a single click and drag you can resize your windows and move them to a relative portion of the screen.

Price: $14

f.lux

Have you ever sat in front your Mac late at night or early in the morning, in the dark, and squinted at the monitor? Because it was too bright? Of course, you could just turn down the brightness, but that’s a pain and wouldn’t it be nice to have an app do that for you automatically?

Meet f.lux. It will make the colors of your display adapt to the time of day, helping you to take better care of your eyes. Just never ever use this app if you’re serious about photo editing. Really.
Price: Free

SizeUp

SizeUp is the last app for window management introduced here. It allows you to quickly make a window full up exactly half of your screen (split screen), a quarter of the screen, full screen or be centred.

Price: $13

Billings

As a professional Mac user, you will probably earn your money on it. One of the best apps to keep track of your (and your team mates) time, your expenses and bills (and to actually invoice your work) is Billings, which is available for Mac, for iPhone/iPod touch and also via web interface, making it platform independent.

Price: $39.99; Pro Version: $199.95

Mailplane

Are you a heavy Gmail user? Then you should take a look at Mailplane. At first glance it might appear to be only a shell for the web interface of Gmail, but if you look closer you will see that it adds some usability to Gmail here and there. Multi Account support, drag and drop attachment insertion or being your default mail client on your Mac are among the features that will make you appreciate this app.

Price: $24.95

Postbox

Postbox is another great email client that might replace Mail on your system. Meet unified inboxes, a focus pane, quick reply windows, intuitive conversation views, tabbed email browsing, to-do-tagging … and that’s far from all. If you feel that Apple Mail is not giving you enough power over your inbox, you should definitely check out Postbox.

Price: $39.95

Sparrow

Meet the newest player on the ground for mail apps, Sparrow. Sparrow has a unique interface approach when it comes to mail clients. It reminds me strongly of Tweetie for Mac. It’s simple, smooth and beautiful, even though it’s not yet matured enough for power Gmail users. It doesn’t support labels yet or other IMAP providers, but it’s definitely an app you should keep your eye on.

Price: Free Beta

Fontcase

For many professional designers,font management is often a nuisance. You have too many to keep track of them and you hate to click through them to find the one you know you have somewhere. Meet Fontcase, an elegant and extremely powerful app by Bohemian Coding. It displays your fonts beautifully, helps you to manage them with ease and generally makes font management a joy rather than a burden.

Price: $53

Suitcase Fusion

If you’re looking for the mother of all font management apps, then have a look at Suitcase Fusion. it would blow the scope of this introduction to even attempt to list the most important features. Let’s just say: if there’s something you need to do with a font in regard to font management, it’s a pretty safe bet that Suitcase Fusion lets you do it.

Price: $99.95

Online Services for Advanced Users

We’re almost at the end of our list, and here are some apps that are not necessarily restricted to Mac users, but they are targeting users who just want more. Those who want that special kick in their presentations, who want that extra simpleness in sharing files…simply more.

Zootool

You know how it is – you browse the web and see an image, an article or a link that you want to save for later use. One application to let you collect all these information is Evernote, which will be very well known. Along similar lines is Zootool, which allows you to collect your stuff through a bookmarklet easily, organize your information via tags, and share it via multiple services like Twitter or Delicious.

Price: Free

CloudApp

If you want to share a file quickly with others without having to worry about web space, security or how to get a link for your upload, it will be your personal taste that will have you chose between Droplr or CloudApp. They both allow you to share images, links, music and other files by simply dragging them onto a menu bar icon and within seconds (depending on your internet connection speed) you’ll have a short link that you can send to your friends.

Price: Free

LastPass

For password management, my go-to app is 1Password (also because it has an iPhone/iPad app that allows me to take my passwords with me wherever I go). If for some reason you’d prefer to have your passwords stored online, you can take a look at LastPass.

Price: Free; Premium: $1/month

SplashUp

Don’t happen to have your favourite image editor available? Why not give SplashUp a try. The internet based image editor might not be a Photoshop replacement, but it can handle layers, layer effects, comes with brushes and filters … just try it. No harm done. You might even like it.

Price: Free

Prezi

Last but not least one of the applications I find most intriguing. Prezi will enable you to not simply create presentations, but make your audience follow you as they’ve never followed another speaker before. You can finally visualize your content in a way that will engage the audience without boring them to death. It might take a while to master all the finer points, but if presentations are a constant part of your work life, it will be time well spent..

Price: Free – $159/year

Conclusion

Phew. Hello there! Thanks for making it all the way down here. We hope it’s been an enlightening read and hopefully you’ve discovered a few apps to help you become productive in your line of work.

As we’ve said in the introduction, this is by no means a complete list, but it should help you get an impression of just what a multitude of apps are out there, waiting for you to discover them.

If you have an app you value above all other, please share it with us in the comments!

The announcement of the Mac App Store was something of a semi-surprise. We all considered it a future possibility, but there was a significant amount of doubt over whether Apple would actually flip the switch and implement the idea. As it turns out, in less than 90 days, we’ll have the Mac App Store sitting on our desktop!

For the majority of Mac users, this will be a great addition. It takes away the headache of a complicated installation process, removes the need to understand what a .DMG is, and gives them an easy way to find software they may not have otherwise.

Many people, myself included, take solace in the fact that this is “just one way” to install software on our Mac. We’re not tied to only installing software that has passed Apple’s approval process, and are free to tinker to our heart’s content. This isn’t a closed eco-system.

But will this always be the case? Today I’d like to ask what you think Apple’s future intention is with the Mac App Store. Will it always be “just one way” to install software, or will it one day be the only way to install new apps on your Mac? And would this be a good or bad thing?

Have your say in the comments!

With more than five billion photographs uploaded, Flickr is a global go-to site if you’re looking for images. There are all kinds of interesting ways of interacting with the site – I love searching for photos of an unknown destination before I travel there, and it’s always interesting subscribing to the RSS feed of photos tagged with your hometown, as you’re likely to come across unexpected ways of seeing your familiar environment each day.

If you have reason to search for images regularly, or if you simply enjoy hanging out on Flickr, then you might be pleased to learn about Viewfinder. The app comes from the hand of Fraser Spiers and his company, Connected Flow, who have also given the world of Mac apps the excellent FlickrExport for iPhoto and Aperture, and currently costs just £15 (though that’s set to increase to £18 when the next version ships).

Whether your interest is simply in seeing other photographers’ take on subjects you’re keen on, or you’re after images to use in your own blog posts and design projects, Viewfinder makes searching Flickr a simple and enjoyable process. Join us after the jump to find out more!

The Interface

Viewfinder has a very simple interface:

The crucial thing, of course, is that search box at the top left. You can click on the disclosure triangle beside the familiar magnifying glass to select whether your search goes through “all text” or searches only for specific tags.

Beneath that search box is the filter bar that lets you refine your search results to include or exclude Commercial items, those licenced under Creative Commons, or Derivative works. And then you can sort by Relevance, Interest, or Date, and select a minimum size for the search.

Working With Viewfinder

So let’s take a look how this works with a quick search for photos of where I live, Birmingham in the UK.

You can set the number of initial results returned in the application’s Preferences, and then use the ‘Show more’ button to view further results. Changing any of the criteria for the search instantly updates the results, and you can use the slider at the bottom-left to control the size of thumbnail images. Additionally, Viewfinder supports Quick Look, so hitting the space bar when you have an image selected brings up a larger preview:

I find this Quick Look functionality really valuable, and it tends to be the tool I use most when searching for images.

Double-clicking an image downloads the largest available size to your Mac – this alone could save regular users of Flickr plenty of time, since it can be quite time consuming to get to the correct size for your needs.

Buttons in the download window make it easy to set the image as your Desktop, send it to Keynote (make sure your presentation is already open in Keynote, or you’ll get an error message), reveal the file in Finder, or copy details of its attribution to the clipboard.

By the way, the beautiful frozen landscape I’ve chosen to focus on in my screenshots is by hartlandmartin. Check his page for more great pics of canals and landscapes of the English Midlands.)

Ctrl-clicking (or right-clicking) an image additionally lets you copy the Flickr page address, or copy the HTML block required to easily embed the picture in a web page. You can also drag and drop images from the Viewfinder window into other applications – an email message, say, or a document in Pages.

Conclusion

Viewfinder is another of those tools that’s designed to do a specific job, and does it very well indeed. Of course, you could just use Flickr’s built-in search features. Or you could use a tool such as Alfred to initiate a search from your desktop – of course you’d still be working on the Flickr site following this approach, but it might prove to be a bit quicker for confirmed keyboard warriors.

Where Viewfinder shines is in its workflow, which makes the process of moving images from Flickr into your documents or designs so straightforward and easy. And although Flickr has some great design features, you still have to deal with some (Flash) adverts, and with perhaps more visual information than you want to have to look at.

Viewfinder focuses the process of interacting with the site down to a single, uncluttered window, and simplifies various tasks down to single clicks. Just for the simplification and the streamlining that amounts to, I think it’s well worth the cost.

There’s a limited free version of the app available for you to test it out. It runs just like the full version, but only allows two downloads each time you run it, and downloads are delayed for 30 seconds. Give it a go, and let us know in the comments what you make of Viewfinder!

I’ve been a Mac user now for about a year and a half, give or take. As is common, I’m completely happy I took the plunge and will never look back. There is very little I dislike about my MacBook and OS X. If you’re looking to convert yourself I’ll tell right now, you won’t regret it. The rumors are true. It is a fantastic experience overall.

But there are certainly some possible areas of frustration. As an advanced Windows user, I found many aspects of OS X to be overly-simplified, and really quite alien. Today, I’ll be outlining a few of these examples – and explaining the best way to deal with this source of frustration!

The Switching Process

I was a Windows PC user growing up. I actually went to school to be an IT professional so as you would imagine much of my coursework revolved around Windows technologies. It is, and will be for a considerably long time, the dominant computer operating system in the world. Microsoft, love them or hate them for it, has done an incredible job becoming a mainstay in just about everyone’s computing life.

Apple does a beautiful thing and provides many “here’s what you did in Windows…here’s how you do it in Mac OS X” videos and tutorials. They’ve done a great job recognizing the apprehension people have when making such a significant change, especially when their products come at a premium cost. It’s not something you “just try out”. I suppose you could spend a few hours a the local Apple Store (if you’re lucky enough to have one nearby), but when it comes down to it you really just end up diving in head first.

From my experience, the transition wasn’t overly difficult, but there were certainly some frustrations I had when learning this new operating system and I think a lot of it stemmed from being more of a power Windows user.

Power User Frustrations

Windows does a lot of things wrong. A big part of becoming a Windows expert is learning to deal with those things and figuring out ways to work with all of the little oddities and idiosyncrasies that Microsoft was kind enough to not think completely though. Knowledge in this area gave me a lot of tools to troubleshoot problems, which is a big part of working in an enterprise Windows environment. But it also crippled me somewhat with learning a new operating system.

I originally set out to write about my general experience of the move from a PC to a Mac, but after some thought I stumbled upon an interesting idea. Mac OS X is far easier to learn than Windows if you are starting from scratch. And along those same lines, it is easier for a novice Windows user to learn Mac OS X than a power Windows user.

Here’s what I mean by that statement. I found that when I was learning to use OS X, I was essentially over-thinking. I was making everything much more complicated than it actually was and it caused a decent amount of frustration. I think my Windows experience had scarred me somewhat. The logical, easy method seemed just that. Too logical and too easy. My mind was always looking for the difficult, strange route to complete every task – not the simple, straight-forward one.

Figuring Out Finder

Getting comfortable with Finder was a significant step for me personally. Though it is fairly similar to Windows Explorer (depending upon what view you’re using) it was just different enough to throw me off. After some use the “Devices”, “Places”, “Search For” structure really started to make sense, and before long I realized how much more efficient it was.

Taking advantage of Spotlight takes that efficiency even further. The search tool in Windows was always a last resort for me so it took me a while to get used to relying more on Spotlight.

Settings Simplified

System settings are much easier to deal with in Mac OS X. With Windows there are some settings in the Control Panel, but many are in places that are a little odd and are difficult to find. With Mac OS X, the System Preferences are always easily accessible from the Apple icon. They are organized into sections and are all there in one central place.

I remember needing to adjust the internal microphone early on in my Mac days. I had no idea how to do it. I just went to the System Preferences (because it made sense), found the Sound settings icon and had it figured out in a matter of seconds.

The Simplest Solution Is Probably the Right One!

Mac OS X is really designed in a way that just makes sense. The best advice I can give someone coming over from the Windows world is to forget everything they’ve learned and just use the machine.

It took me a while to figure it out and shake loose from my old ways, but after I let go of where I thought things “should be” and how I thought things “should work” I was able to make more sense of OS X and really interact with my Mac.

Did you find yourself in a similar position after making the switch? Let us know in the comments!

I’m a fairly recent Mac switcher and, as a web developer, I started wondering which coding environment I would choose. I spotted two main apps that seemed to stand out from the crowd: Coda and Espresso. Although we’ve covered Espresso in the past, I thought it was worth taking another look at this fantastic web development app today.

When Espresso was reviewed here for the first time, it was still in beta. Though we could see what the app would look like and some of the features it would include, the app wasn’t complete. Since Espresso came out of beta, lots of things have been added to the product. Features such as a project manager and better publishing options have really helped Espresso become an all-round better candidate.

Espresso has some superb features, but also a few aspects that could be improved. And how does it stand up to Panic’s Coda? In today’s review, we’ll put Espresso through its paces.

Features I Like

The Interface

Espresso’s interface is beautiful. It’s simplistic look actually turns out to be a big time-saver; rather than trying out all the different features, you get down to coding. The interface is divided into three main sections: the sidebar, the editor and the tools sidebar.

Managing Open Files

The developers of Espresso innovated in this domain. Rather than just implementing tabs (like in TextMate or Coda), MacRabbit implemented the “workspace”. According to Espresso’s official website, the workspace area “combines the best of both worlds [sidebar and tabs]. Space efficient, organized and convenient like a sidebar; dynamic and flexible like tabs.”

The Project Manager

Added since we last reviewed Espresso, the project manager is a welcome addition. It shows you all the projects you have created in Espresso, fully searchable to easily find what you’re looking for as your project list grows.

You can set a color and an image for each website, making them very easily identifiable. The information concerning your project is stored in a file called Name of project.esproj, found in the folder containing your site’s files.

The Tools Sidebar

Espresso’s right sidebar is very complete. It is made of three sections: the code navigator, the quick publish area, and snippets. I enjoy all three of these “widgets” but some areas could be improved.

The Code Navigator

This feature gets particularly useful when working on larger sites. It shows you all the elements in the page you are currently coding. You can also replace elements from this “widget” with drag and drop. The elements are collapsible, making it easy to hide or show certain parts of code.

Espresso is probably the only editor that offers a code navigator that is so complete.

Quick Publish

When doing some “quick and dirty” editing on a webpage, this feature is invaluable. It’s functionality is quite simple: when saving a file, it also uploads it to the server of your choice.

Though this feature is very practical, it would be great if it could alert us once the file upload is complete (with a Growl notification, for example).

Snippets

The snippets functionality in Espresso is actually very smart. It has a few standard snippets built in, and you can add your own (just like in many code editors). The clever thing is that Espresso changes the snippets shown based on the language you are coding in at the moment. For example, if you are coding in HTML, the standard snippets provided will mostly be HTML tags and page templates. If you are coding in PHP, you’ll be shown relevant PHP functions.

One thing helpful addition would be the possibility to organize our snippets into folders to make them easier to find. For the moment though, this isn’t directly integrated into the snippets manager.

Advanced Publishing Features

Espresso gives you many ways to publish your files to your server: quick publish (which we saw above), right clicking on “Publish”, or (my favourite) the Advanced Sync Tools.

These haven’t changed since the last time we reviewed Espresso. You can choose between Update, Merge or Mirror, and Espresso will detect missing/outdated files and add, update or delete them. Once you get the hang of using it, you wonder how you ever managed without.

Version Control?

So many developers use version control today, it really feels like something that should definitely be integrated into Espresso. Whether it’s Subversion (SVN) or Git, a solution built directly into Espresso would be a huge benefit, and would certainly give it the crown of being an “all-in-one web development solution”. This is already supported in Espresso’s competitor, Coda.

Final Thoughts

In short, I really like Espresso. Before switching to a Mac, I had heard a lot about Coda and Espresso and couldn’t wait to try them both. It’s actually quite ironic that I wanted to try these two applications. One seems to be trying to pack everything in (Coda) and the other one seems to want to streamline the whole web development process (Espresso). Advanced publishing features and the code navigator in Espresso are very useful to me, but there are still a few things that need to be fixed.

To be very honest, both Coda’s and Espresso’s icons sit on my dock ready to be used. It depends on how I feel that day and the type of project I am working on. If I am working on a smaller, static site, I’ll probably use Espresso because it has a live preview, and because it doesn’t pack plenty of options I won’t necessarily need. On the other hand, if I work on a bigger project where I constantly need to preview dynamic files, I’ll probably end up using Coda.

The truth is, choosing a web development editor is a very personal thing. Take a look at the features you need the most, and decide which interface you’re the most comfortable with!

One of the key factors to becoming more productive while working with your Mac is to master keyboard shortcuts. Mac OS X includes a set of standard keyboard shortcuts that allow you to switch applications, close windows, quit programs, open new documents or browser windows/tabs and copy and paste between files.

Many Mac programs ship with application specific keyboard shortcuts as well, all in the name of streamlining your workflow and allowing your hands to remain on the keyboard. You can shave precious seconds off mundane, repetitive tasks, allowing you to focus more of your time and energy on the task at hand – rather than locating that rogue window, buried beneath 10 other applications.

Keyboard Maestro is an application that takes the idea of keyboard shortcuts and injects it with steroids. The result of which is a super-charged automation program, allowing you to execute several different actions with a single command. Read on to find out more, and see an example of just how powerful this app can be!

So What Can Keyboard Maestro Do?

Insert Text

Do you have different signatures for different email applications or email recipients? Are there certain phrases you constantly use? Enter the desired text within Keyboard Maestro and map it to a specific action (keystroke, application launch) and you’ll never have to re-type the same phrase again.

Re-map Keys

One of the nice things about Mac applications is their uniformity. Most applications have a certain aesthetic appeal that feels at home within your Mac OS X desktop – not just looks alone – certain keyboard shortcuts have become universal across the board. Most applications – not all.

Every once in a while, you come across an application that sticks out like a sore thumb and the keyboard shortcuts you’ve come accustomed to preform completely alien actions (the old Quicken for Mac, for example). Take back your shortcuts and re-map them with Keyboard Maestro. Command-A now selects all, just like you’re used to.

Automatically Launch Documents

I often use a TextEdit document to take notes while I read through my mail, jotting down important information that I can process later. With Keyboard Maestro, I can set a particular text file such as “MailNotes.txt” or “ToDos.txt” to automatically open whenever Mail.app is launched.

Let’s say I have an on-going list of actionable items in a text document, and whenever I start my day, I begin by emailing my team and catching them up on the day’s to-dos.

With Keyboard Maestro, I can set the launch of Mail.app to automatically simultaneously load my to-do list and open a new “Compose Mail” window, with the “To” and “Subject” fields automatically filled. If I want to get really crazy, I can copy the contents of the text document to the body of the email. I can even map the launch of Mail.app to a Function key.

Add Missing Functionality to an Application

A few months ago, I signed up the music streaming service Rdio.com. Since then, iTunes has been collecting dust and I haven’t had much use for the media playback keys on my MacBook’s keyboard. Rdio provides an extremely simple Adobe AIR application and as such, lacks global keyboard shortcuts.

Enter Keyboard Maestro. Using Keyboard Maestro, I’ve been able to create a global hotkey that selects the Rdio application, pauses the music and then immediately switches back to the application I was using. Pressing the hotkey again resumes playback.

How To Create a Macro

Choose Your Triggers

To do this, you press the “+” icon within the “Macros” column to create a new macro. A new macro editor opens. Be sure to name the macro memorably (it can easily get lost within the built-in list).

The first thing to do is select the trigger action. This can be a key press, a certain time, the launch of a specific application, logging in to or waking your Mac, if a status menu item is selected – and the list goes on.

Press the green plus icon to add your trigger – you can add multiple triggers for all manner of different taks.

Configure Your Actions

The next step is to set the desired actions. After setting the trigger, click the green plus icon labeled “New Action.” The new actions window will slide up in the left-hand sidebar. There are a large number of available actions, grouped into categories.

You can select iTunes or QuickTime controls, open a file, insert text, switch to an application, quit all applications, hide all applications, access Google, play a MIDI note, execute an AppleScript – and, again, the list goes on.

No matter your desired action, you can probably find a way to make it happen. You can also add multiple sequential actions. Double-click the desired action in the “New Actions” menu to add it to your macro.

I added the action, “Activate a Specific Application” – it defaults to Finder and includes the currently open applications in a drop-down menu for easy selection. I chose the “Rdio Desktop” application.

Once the window is activated (in focus), I want to pause the player. This is accomplished by default by pressing the Space bar. Within the “Interface Control” category is the “Type a Keystroke” action. Double-click it to add it to the macro and select the key, you can select a handful of keys from a drop-down list or simply press the desired key. I press the Space bar.

There is a “Try” button along the bottom of the macro editor that allows you to test the macro at any point. A test of my current actions brings “Rdio Desktop” to the forefront and pauses (or plays) the music. This is the desired result, but it also leaves the application at the forefront, forcing me to find and select the previous window I was working in. This is not ideal.

Enter one more action; within “Process Control” – the same category that allowed me to select a specific application – I add “Switch to Last Application.” Now, while I’m working in Pages, Chrome or Tweetie for Mac, I can press “F8” to quickly pause the music and continue working in selected application.

This is an extremely simple example of what Keyboard Maestro is capable of. By creating this simple macro, I’ve eliminated the need to locate the “Rdio Desktop” window, use the mouse to click the “Pause/Play” button and then switch back to the program I was using. It is now completely streamlined, and adds very little friction to my workflow.

Infinity and Beyond

At the risk of sounding cliché, the limits of Keyboard Maestro are simply limited by your imagination. With the inclusion of AppleScript support, the actionable steps are nearly limitless. Once you’ve set up a few automations, you’ll wonder how you ever got anything done prior.

There’s a reason John Gruber of Daring Fireball refers to the application as one of the “…apps Batman would keep in his utility belt if his utility belt were a metaphor-stretched Macintosh.”

Keyboard Maestro is created by Stairways Software and is available for a free trial, after which it will cost you a very reasonable $36 USD.

Today we’re kicking off a new competition to win a copy of TextExpander. We recently published a head to head of text expanding apps, putting different software in this category through its paces. Text Expander came out as one of the best apps available, and we’re thrilled to give you the chance to win a copy today!

We have three full licenses up for grabs, and entering is really simple. All you need to do is leave a comment on this post, letting us know why you’d like to win a copy!

The competition will run for one week, and we’ll announce the randomly selected winners on the Thursday 28th October. Good luck, and enjoy your weekend!

If you’re anything like me (hopefully you aren’t), your computer is a complete and total mess. The desktop is cluttered, the dock crowded (there are 34 applications in mine!), and keeping work and personal projects organised and separated was a well-intentioned but unrealised goal from the past!

SaneDesk is a very small app that enables you to create separate workspaces (desktop, dock, wallpaper) according to what you’re doing on your computer. It’s a simple concept, but aims to help you better distinguish between the various tasks you use your computer for.

Read on to find out more in today’s review!

Getting Started

This was the first time I’ve ever received a warning before downloading software… The SaneDesk website provides the following caution:

What a promise! Let’s explore the set-up process, and see the difference SaneDesk makes to my OS 10.5+ sanity.

Design and Interface

SaneDesk sits unobtrusively in the menu bar. From here you set-up your desktops – four as standard, or an unlimited desktops if you choose to pay for a registered version of SaneDesk. This costs $15.95, and also gives you the ability to rename an delete desktops.

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The preferences are light – appropriately so for a bite-sized app. These can be a bit temperamental, and several times during my testing the preferences pane wouldn’t launch at all. There are four hot keys available, and you can select whether you’d like each desktop to use separate settings (or alternatively, use the same settings for the dock, desktop or wallpaper, for all desktops)

Functionality

Setting up SaneDesk is a very straightforward affair – explained in five steps on the website. This can essentially be broken down into two actual steps:

1. Open SaneDesk, and select a desktop, for example, ‘Play’.
2. Customise the look and feel of your ‘Play’ workspace:
• Change the wallpaper.
• Rearrange the dock.
• Add or remove applications from the dock.

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If you use your desktop as a respository for all your working files, it won’t take long for your desktop to get cluttered. When you’re not working (and don’t want to think about work), a messy desktop is an unnecessary reminder of work that is yet to be done.

One of the useful features of SaneDesk is the ability to customise desktops for each set-up, and show or hide icons as desired. Set this up as required for each desktop, and escape the guilt and stress as the clutter disappears from sight. You can even specify which icons are viewable on each desktop – a very handy feature.

How Could You Use SaneDesk?

Example 1. Perhaps you’re working on several projects at once. Create a custom desktop for each project – selecting the applications you need for each project, and the files and folders relevant to each project that you’d like visible on the project’s desktop. You could even impress your client (when they come to see you) and use a custom wallpaper with their background on the desktop for their project!

Example 2. Perhaps you’re a freelancer, and you want to keep your work and play separate so that your time on the computer isn’t a constant reminder of overdue deadlines. Keep your work-related files, folders and applications in one desktop, and everything that’s fun (or at least not related to work!) on another desktop.

Example 3. Perhaps you’re a parent. Create a custom desktop for you, and one for your kids – to give them access to the folders, files and applications you need (and restrict their access to what they don’t need to see or use). Another option to achieve this objective is to harness the Parental Controls that come built into each Mac.

Comparison to Other Apps

SaneDesk is similar to Spaces – but with some additional functionality. Spaces lets you create multiple desktops, and select which applications you’d like available in each desktop. SaneDesk has some additional functionality that Spaces doesn’t provide, namely:

• The ability to name desktops
• The ability to customise the dock and wall paper for each desktop
• The ability to hide or show icons on each desktop

SaneDesk doesn’t seek to compete with Spaces, instead it sees itself as a complement to it:

“Imagine spaces as one layer that helps you work, SaneDesk as another. They work together nicely.”

Hyperpaces

A similar app is Hyperspaces, which comes in at AU$12.95:

Hyperspaces is a turbo-charged version of Spaces, and in my opinion, a slicker alternative to SaneDesk. Hyperspaces has much of the same functionality – e.g. the ability to name desktops, show/hide desktop icons, as well as some aesthetic options, including the ability to determine how to transition from one desktop to another. Hyperspaces also offers hotkeys – 13 in fact (compared with the 4 that SaneDesk offers), to customise and streamline the experience.

Conclusion

SaneDesk is $15.95 – perhaps a little pricey for a utility app, although this depends on how much you value your sanity and the desktop clutter that SaneDesk can reorganise for you!

If you have multiple projects on the go, or you use your computer for a combination or work and play, you’ll appreciate the separation and customisation SaneDesk provides.

The announcement of a new operating system is no small deal, so today has proven to be an exciting time for Mac enthusiasts everywhere. OS X Lion seems set to be a huge step forward for the Mac operating system, and there are some significant changes to be expected.

A few of the top highlights include a Mac App Store, Launchpad, full-screen apps, and “Mission Control”, but read on for the full lowdown on what to expect from Apple’s next big cat.

Mac App Store

The Mac App Store app has a very simple interface, reminiscent of the same experience on the iPad. There’s a simple one-click download button that grabs the application, automatically installs it, and places the icon in your Dock.

A really slick process, and one which will delight most mainstream Mac users. In addition, licensing is handled by the Mac App Store itself. Purchase an app, and it’ll be automatically licensed for use on all your personal Macs.

The Mac App Store isn’t just an OS X Lion feature, though, and you don’t need to wait until next Summer to try it out. Developers are being invited to submit their software to the store in early November, and it’s going to be available on Snow Leopard within the next 90 days.

Apple cited their iPhone and iPad App Stores as the “best place to discover and download apps”. They have certainly been very well received by iOS users, and definitely make the process of buying, installing and upgrading your software very straight-forward.

Are they the best place to find new apps? That’s debatable. It’s easy to find popular, high-revenue apps on the App Store, but it can be a real challenge to discover those small-budget indie apps that can be equally delightful.

Regardless, many developers are likely to embrace this new medium through which to sell their software. Unlike on the iOS App Store, there’s no requirement to sell exclusively through Apple (not yet, anyway!), which means that they’ll receive many of the benefits of the App Store without the negative aspects.

Launchpad

If you’ve ever wished for an “Home Screen” on your Mac, akin to that present on your iPhone or iPad, you’re in luck. Launchpad shows a translucent overlay across the whole screen, listing the different applications installed on your Mac.

You can drag and re-arrange them in exactly the same way as on iOS, create folders, and manage multiple screens. In short, it’s a good way to launch new applications without requiring an over-cluttered Dock. It’s also the perfect use of multi-touch; I imagine that flicking through these screens is a visual and interactive experience.

But is it really necessary? For me, no. The fact is that I don’t use 100 apps every day. I barely even use 10! All the software I actually open every day fits comfortably in my Dock, and anything else is just a few keystrokes away courtesy of Alfred. Launchpad will be great for some users, but I don’t foresee myself using it a great deal.

Full-Screen Apps

If you’ve ever been a little frustrated at the half-assed functionality of the green button on each Mac window, you’ll be pleased to know that it now has a useful function. Clicking it will transform the app you’re currently using into a “Full-Screen App”.

Generally, it seems that this has more of an impact than simply enlarging the window you’re currently viewing. The notion of a full-screen app becomes a core feature of the OS. They’re handled separately from a regular app window, you can swipe quickly between them, and they essentially take on their own state.

Swiping left on your trackpad or mouse will take you to Dashboard, part of OS X that seems to essentially have become a full-screen app itself. Rather than an overlay, Dashboard is an ever-present full screen app that remains easy to access at any time.

I’m actually quite excited about this idea. Although there’s a time and a place for software to run in full-screen mode, I’m glad that developers will need to give this more thought when designing their apps.

I often do want to be immersed completely in any given application, with the distraction of other open software completely removed. This functionality will do just that – hopefully with the added bonus of an interface that has been carefully crafted and optimized by the developer for full-screen use.

Mission Control

Mission Control seems to be a fantastic effort on Apple’s part to trim down the number of window management features that are present in OS X. It presents one unified view of everything that’s running on your Mac. This will include:

• Expose – all your currently open windows, sorted by app
• Spaces
• Dashboard
• Full-Screen Apps – these are treated differently to regular “windowed” apps, as I mentioned before

The part of me that strives for minimalism really likes this approach. One gesture immediately shows you everything, and lets you hone in on what you’re looking for quickly. It strips out the complexity of requiring a myriad of different shortcuts, and really helps to keep things simple.

Auto-Saving

This was hinted at by Steve during the keynote, but he didn’t elaborate any further on the concept (and nor does the Apple website). It’s clearly going to be present in OS X Lion, though, and it’s another feature that I think will be very well received.

Many people have noted in recent years that the notion of being required to manually save a document is incredibly archaic. We haven’t ever needed to do this on the iPhone, so why should we need to on a Mac?

I suppose the dilemma comes when you consider where a document should be saved at the outset. Auto-saving after you’ve already hit “Save As” is easy, but where is it stored up until that point?

This isn’t an issue on the iPad as there’s no file system (that we can see, at least). It’ll be interesting to see how Apple approaches this problem in OS X Lion.

Multi-Touch Gestures

Apple made a point of discussing how touch surfaces aren’t made to be horizontal, and that multi-touch on a laptop screen simply doesn’t work (hence multi-touch being built into MacBook trackpads, the Magic Mouse, and the Magic Trackpad).

It was said that Multi-Touch is going to play a greater role in OS X Lion, but in what way, we weren’t explicitly told. Swiping between different pages in Launchpad looks great, as does a system-wide gesture for Mission Control.

But what else does Apple have up it’s sleeve?

Pricing and Release Date

If you were hoping to get your hands on OS X Lion today, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed. The actual OS release is slated for sometime in Summer 2011, and even developers haven’t yet been given a preview copy to try out.

Snow Leopard was an unusually budget-friendly release, on account of the fact that it was mainly a “tune and tweak” OS upgrade, rather than a feature-packed affair. OS X Lion falls back under the umbrella of a major release, and is likely to be priced as such. Nothing has been announced yet, but I’d expect it to be around $99-$129.

Thrilled or Underwhelmed?

So what do you think of today’s announcement? Has Apple managed to shock and awe you into blind anticipation of their latest OS upgrade, or did you expect something more impressive?

Personally, I’m disappointed that we didn’t hear anything about better “cloud functionality”, or syncing with the internet and iOS. This is really proving to be a long time coming, and I sincerely hope that it’s one of the features that Apple held back to announce nearer the release of the OS.

Have your say in the comments, and let me know whether you’ll be thinking of upgrading next year!

As far as bundled software goes, iLife packs a serious punch. Apple’s suite of iApps is a serious selling point for OS X, and one of the reasons that many people are compelled to switch to the Mac platform. As with any software suite, there’s a constant battle between maintaining a solid, up-to-date set of applications without succumbing to “feature bloat”.

Today we’re going to be taking a look at some of the new features that Apple has added to iLife 11, along with talking about the two apps that were left out in the cold… Join us after the break to find out more!

iPhoto ’11

One of the key new features demonstrated in iPhoto ’11 was a far more powerful full-screen mode. Where this was only usable for certain functions previously, it now works for everything in iPhoto – you can live completely in full-screen if you decide to.

Along with this, you’ll notice various smaller interface tweaks and improvements. Everything feels smoother, and more coherent.

Slideshows are vastly improved – this seems to be more than just a set of “new themes” bundled into the app. The “Places” slideshow automatically flips between photos taken in a particular place, and various others make use of immersive 3D technology to provide a great experience.

The “Sharing” system for sending photographs elsewhere has received an overhaul as well. It now lets you know when and where you shared a photo, along with showing responses and comments left by others on social networking sites such as Facebook.

The new “Books” interface is absolutely gorgeous – it’s a 3D worktable! The whole system for creating books is far smarter than previously. It uses your album key photo as the book cover, displays higher rated photos in more prominent positions, and groups those taken in the same place at the same time. A great example of software using information you’ve provided in an intelligent way.

Finally, letterpress style greetings cards are available in addition to books. These are bound to be a top seller, though we’re yet to hear what they are likely to be priced at. This will be a major factor in whether they’re a good option for friends and family.

iMovie ’11

First up, in both iMovie project and event views, you can now see colour coded audio waveforms. They’re adjustable with drag and drop functionality, so you can easily adjust the volume in real-time by interacting with the audio waveform. It’s possible to do this with just certain segments of audio as well, and easily fade in/out levels changes.

Improved “one-step effects” give you a greater range of options for quickly and easily improving your videos. These include adding slow motion replays, swapping between colour styles, and plenty of other effects that lead to a really professional result.

A new “movie trailer” feature asks you to first fill out all the information about your “cast members”, location, video style, and a few other details. You can pick from fifteen different themes, each with it’s own original soundtrack recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra!

You then select various clips that should be inserted into your movie trailer at different points. You’re assisted by iMovie’s new “people finder”, that can automatically determine how many people are in a shot, and how close/wide the shot angle is.

The resulting effect of this whole process is absolutely amazing, and is a great way to have fun sharing video with friends and family.

GarageBand ’11

Last but not least, GarageBand has also seen a series of new features added. Groove Matching is a simple way to select one track that will act as the main “rhythm” for a song. This is then applied to all the other tracks, locking everything into the same timing and structure so everyone sounds to be playing perfectly in time! Think of it as “an automatic spell-checker for bad rhythm”.

Flex time turns your recorded audio into fluid, flexible being that can easily be manipulated with drag and drop actions. You can extend notes, shorten them, and match up different parts of a song easily.

Finally, if you’re a fan of using GarageBand for learning to play, you’ll be pleased to know that a huge range of new lessons have been added to the software. These are more advanced than ever, and include a scoring system to track how well you do at playing a particular song. It’s like Guitar Hero, but for learning to play an actual real-life instrument!

What About iWeb and iDVD?

As far as I can tell, neither iWeb or iDVD have received any updates or feature additions. Both are still bundled as part of the iLife suite, but they weren’t mentioned in Apple’s presentation today, and don’t have any new features cited on the Apple website.

They remain useful tools to have around, but it’s a shame to see that nothing new was added or changed. Many people think that iDVD is becoming something of a redundant tool, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple made the decision to drop this altogether in iLife ’12 next year.

Pricing and Availability

iLife is completely free with every new Mac, and it costs just $49 to upgrade to the latest version. It’s almost impossible to argue with the asking price for this suite of apps, even if two of them haven’t received an update this time around.

iLife 11 is available today – that’s right, you can go buy it now – so there’s no need to wait around for this one! If you think that the new features and functionality will make your life easier, you can pick up a copy from Apple.

What do you think? Are these feature additions enough to warrant a brand new release, or did you expect more from iLife ’11? Let us know in the comments!

Welcome to our coverage of Apple’s “Back to the Mac” event. We’ll be keeping you updated in real-time with news from across the web. You can see when things kick off in your time zone, so stay tuned for all our news and analysis.

If you’re an AppStorm reader, then there’s a good chance you are a Mac user. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say you’re pretty happy with the experience. You’re probably wandering about this site, checking out a few cool Mac applications and maybe looking to learn a thing or two about your fancy machine.

The Terminal is the command line for your Mac and can be used, among other things, to really fine tune the Mac OS experience. Many are aware of this capability, but are a little scared to deal with the Terminal.

But what if there was a way to make all of those little system tweaks and changes while steering completely clear of Terminal? Well, read on to find out more about MacPilot!

What Does MacPilot Do?

There are a plethora of hidden features available to all of us Mac OS X users. Unfortunately, many of these are only accessible through the Terminal which I know a lot of folks are frankly just not excited to deal with.

MacPilot is here to help. It will allow you to enable and disable hidden Mac OS features, normally reserved for a Terminal command, with the click of a button. All of the options available for the software you have installed are available to browse and try out.

MacPilot also has a host of other Mac maintenance and system capabilities. There is actually a staggering number of features available. Everything from simply supplying information about your system, to helping you easily complete routine maintenance, to adjusting system preferences and debugging. It is a pretty serious utility.

The Interface

MacPilot is not a flashy piece of software – and that’s fine. It’s a utility, and it needs to be functional first. Core categories are laid out on top and sub menus appear to the left depending on the category selected.

The software is organized in a way that makes all of the features pretty easy to find.

Functionality

As I’ve mentioned, MacPilot is a burly utility capable of a lot of different things. That said, I’d like to point out a few features that I find especially useful to the average Mac user, and also some that may be more beneficial to the more advanced user.

Run Terminal Commands

This is probably the biggest draw for anyone new to this piece of software. MacPilot gives you all of the power of the Terminal to enable and disable hidden Mac OS features and organizes them in a super easy-to-use manner.

On the General tab, you’ll see a list of the software installed on your machine along with the corresponding options available for adjusting. You’ll also see a mix of options that are only available to change via the Terminal, and others that are more visible within the software preferences.

Here’s a simple example. Let’s say I’d like to revert to the 2D Dock icons more familiar to older Mac OS versions. I could open up Terminal and enter this command:

defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES
killall Dock

Or I could open up MacPilot and check this box:

You’ll see a description when you select an option of exactly what the feature does or doesn’t do.

If you don’t like the change, just uncheck the box! It’s a flat-out simple way to make this type of adjustment. It’s certainly not a complicated process (even with Terminal), but something that many users will avoid simply because it requires the use of Terminal.

System Maintenance

MacPilot brings many system maintenance options into one tool. From something as simple as clearing your user cache, to something more complicated like verifying your HD volume structure.

So not only is it easy to find system maintenance items, you’ll also be more likely to spend more time on those regular maintenance tasks that are very easy to just forget about.

System logs are also accessible via the MacPilot interface. Logs are a great tool to troubleshoot problems, and having them so quickly accessible is a handy feature.

Settings Management

MacPilot also serves as an aggregate of system preferences. Network settings can be adjusted. Power settings can be tweaked. Login and start up items can be managed. All of these settings are viewed and managed in one central location.

Other Notable Features

An Information tab shows a few more options for generating information. Clicking the System information button will literally generate more information about your Mac than you’ll likely ever need.

The Key Combos button will create a searchable list of all the shortcut key combinations available to you as a part of your Mac OS installation. As many of you know, these can be incredibly helpful. The trick is remembering them. Problem solved.

Finally, a Save Point can be created to save a group of settings you have configured. It can be helpful to revert back to a previous state or quickly apply on a fresh Mac OS install.

Pricing

The individual license comes in at $19.95 (student $9.95) and is meant for one user and one computer. I’d say this is a completely valid cost for the capabilities you’re getting.

Volume pricing is also available to accommodate those multiple machine environments, and to make the system administrators happy.

At that price point, the software is incredibly affordable and completely worth it. A fully featured 15 day trial is available so you can give it a test run before you purchase.

Conclusion

There are other utilities that do similar things to MacPilot, but I have yet to find one that is nearly as feature packed.

The usefulness of this utility is really second to none. I would say that it would be especially handy in multiple machine environments, and maybe more specifically for a system administrator.

But don’t get me wrong – there are plenty of very useful features for the average user. In fact, I’d say it could turn an average user into a power user rather quickly.

Give it a try, and let us know what you think!

Extensions support is a relatively new thing for Safari, yet there are already a lot of options for users to take advantage of. Apple’s gallery is even neatly arranged into categories such as productivity extensions, twitter-related extensions, and plenty more to help you find one that meets your needs.

In this roundup, we will go over some of those that can save you time in a certain way. These will range from extensions that enhance your mail, to bookmarking extensions. Read on for your daily dose of time-saving extension goodness!

Conclusion

These are some of the best time-saving extensions that I could find, however everybody has their own ways of saving time, as everyone has different tasks to perform that require different tools. Even after you read this article, I recommend you take a look at the extensions gallery. Maybe you’ll find a tool that works better for your area of work than the ones we have mentioned here!

Don’t be afraid of trying these out. Safari makes it very easy to install and uninstall the extensions that you use. If you are even remotely interested in one of these, I’d recommend you try it out for a few days so that you can really get the feel of it. It’s the best way to decide what really saves time for you.

Feel free to share your own favourite extensions in the comments. I’d love to hear about those that you use the most!

There’s plenty of anticipation and hype surrounding Apple’s Mac event tomorrow, and I’m really excited to see which new features and functionality are announced. It’s about time that the Mac and OS X saw some love and attention from Apple.

So, what do I really want to see announced tomorrow? First and foremost, I’d love to see anything that helps to improve Apple’s support for cloud functionality and syncing. This has been a long time coming and, although it’s related to iOS as well, it might make an appearance as one of the new pieces of core functionality in OS X Lion.

Second, I’m excited about the potential that AirPlay has to stream content between devices in real-time. Being able to send a video wirelessly to my iPad or iPhone from my Mac would be fantastic, as would doing the same thing in reverse.

As for all the rumours surrounding tweaks to the OS X interface? I could take it or leave it. I’m a big fan of the look-and-feel of the current Snow Leopard UI and, short of adding iOS style scrolling (and “pull to refresh”), there isn’t much I’d change.

What are you hoping to see tomorrow? Let us know your favourite potential feature in the poll above, and give me a shout in the comments if what you’re excited about isn’t listed!

No matter if you are coding web pages, writing lots of text, or typing out the same replies to emails constantly, I bet you’ve wished more than once for a faster way to accomplish the task of typing the same content over and over. Believe it or not, there is!

With the help of a “text expander” application, all you need to do is memorise a couple of quick abbreviations, and all this repetitive typing can be a thing of the past. Although TextExpander itself arguably holds the crown in this department, we wanted to put it to the test against some other competing software today.

Read on for our head-to-head comparison of four popular text expanding applications for OS X!

So What Does a Text Expander Do Again?

The basic principle of all text expander apps is the same (that’s why, when reviewing the apps, I’ll focus on what sets them apart from one another). You create a short abbreviation for the content you use regularly, and the software expands it for you as you type the abbreviation.

For example, if you answer the same type of emails with a “thankyou” note, you could come up with “tty” and the expander would turn that into something like:

Dear Person X,
Thank you very much for your inquiry. We will get back to you as soon as possible.
Sincerely,
Your Name.

And if you like, you could have your signature inserted as an image or the logo of your company added. Similarly, when you code, you can set up some short hand code for the basic structure of a website (DOCTYPE declaration, head, body, basic css stylesheet links and so on).

With maybe three or four keystrokes, you could have the framework of the website set up; something that would normally take you up to two or three minutes. Now, that’s what I call a time saver!

How to Create a Good Shortcut

Now that we are clear on what text expanders do, how can you use them most efficiently? The key to actually improving the speed of content creation and reducing unnecessary effort is an intelligent abbreviation. For that, your shortcut should be

• Short
• No real word that you’d use
• Nothing you’d type accidentally
• Something that is easily typed (doesn’t force you to twist your fingers unnaturally)

For example, if you want to create a shortcut for the closing of an email, something like “wkr” is easily typed and is easily remembered when you need “With kind regards,…”.

By the way, when I say that something should be easily typed I am referring to the flow of your typing. Try to use meaningful abbrevations that can be typed with both hands. The longer it takes you to hit the right keys because you have to go hunting for letters with one finger and interrupt your flow, the less time you’ll save.

To minimize the number of abbreviations you have to remember, try this simple trick – double the first letter of a keyword! “tthanks” is something that you normally wouldn’t write and it can be very easily recalled when you need to quickly reply with a “Thankyou” note.

Presto

Presto is an app by the well-known App4Mac. I would refer to it as the simplest of all of the choices presented here. It doesn’t offer any of the extra and exciting functions the other apps do, but it is very easy to set up and use.

That’s where it scores highly for me. If you don’t want to mess with a lot of options, but want do want functionality such as image or timestamp insertion, Presto might be the right choice for you.

Despite the simplicity, it offers app targeting, something that it shares with mightier competitors. App targeting means that you can decide in which app a certain shortcut works – or not.

For example, if you are writing a novel and the full name of your character is “Sara Paula Andrews” and you give it the shortcut “span”, you wouldn’t want this to be an active abbreviation while you code a website (as “span” is an HTML tag and you’d be majorly annoyed if it was replaced with a name while you code).

Presto brings everything you can expect from a text expander, but since you can have Typinator, which offers many more functions, for the same price, you should compare at least those two before you make a buy.

Typinator

I’ve been using Typinator by Ergonis for a couple of years now. It was the app that first made me appreciate what a time saver expanding can be. It has some powerful features under the hood, so don’t be fooled by the lack of a pretty interface.

Abbreviations can be sorted in different folders, which unfortunately are squashed into the tiny window at the top. If you have a lot of different categories, it can get cumbersome to manage. But that’s about the only issue I have with it.

Funtion-wise, Typinator comes already bundled with some absolutely awesome sets of expansion options, which you can activate in the settings as you please. Included are auto correction for English (US, UK), French and German as well as File Maker 9 funtions and – hold on to your hats – 111 HTML snippets!

I was completely blown when I discovered this set in the new version, and my coding speed has significantly increased with it. Apart from the usual functionality concerning time stamps, image insertion and formatted text, here are some things that come in extremely handy:

• Cursor position: You can define a position in your expanded text where your cursor will be placed afterwards, allowing you to insert personalized information in a breeze. Unfortunately, it works with only a single position.
• QuickSearch: If you don’t remember the abbreviation for something, just hit CTRL+ENTER and a search bar pops up. Enter one of the words in the expanded text you’re looking for and Typinator will present you with all the abbreviations in question. Simply awesome.
• Dropbox and MobileMe sync: Yes, you can take your Typinator library with you to any other computer. I don’t think I can stress enough how much of a help this is, even though it takes a moment to set up.

Of course there is much, much more to Typinator, but these functions set it miles apart from Presto. So, if you are on a tight budget and don’t want to spend more than the least amount possible, Typinator should definitely be on your wish list.

TextExpander

TextExpander by Smile Software is generally regarded as the standard expansion software. And after testing it, I have to admit that brings some extremely useful functionality that is not included in the other apps.

The interface is comparable to Presto, with the abbreviation management to the left and the expanded text and insertion options to the right. It doesn’t look overly impressive at first, but once you dive into the options the tiny buttons beneath the text window offer, you’ll probably be craving these functions soon:

• Snippets: You can use snippets within snippets! So, if you are setting up an expanded text and you want some text in there that you already defined a shortcut for, just insert that very same shortcut. TextExpander gives you an easy-to-use menu to pick the snippet, so you don’t even have to remember it.
• Key: Insert a certain keystroke after or within an expansion like ENTER, TAB or ESC. It doesn’t sound like much, but it can greatly help you to stay in your writing flow.
• Clipboard: Why not just use CMD+V? Well, what if you want to put an anchor tag around the URL you just copied? Just define the HTML code with {clip} following the href declaration and once more you’ve saved valuable time and prevented yourself from spelling mistakes.

The best I’ve saved for last: Fill-In. It’s not be confused with inserted cursor positions, which TextExpander offers too. No, Fill-In means that you can define multiple fields that will be fillable when your snippet gets expanded.

You can easily navigate the fields with the TAB key and, through this method, significantly cut down on the time needed to type out personal replies. For example:

TextExpander also comes with Dropbox and MobileMe syncing, though it’s not quite as easy to set up as with Typinator (you can read up on the TextExpander method here). In addition, there is also an iPhone/iPad app that is supported by quite a wide range of other software (meaning: you can use TextExpander’s funtionality right within third party apps like Twitter, Things, 2Do, Write Room, and various others). If your Mac and your iDevice are on the same network, you can even share snippets between them.

TextExpander offers you possibilities you might not even have considered before, but with a $35 price tag, it’s worth considering if you really need all the power-user features.

Snippets

Snippets is not a text expander in the classical sense. It’s an app targeting developers who are reusing bits and pieces of code extensively. As we all know, the biggest enemy during coding is spelling mistakes.

By saving code snippets that you’ve already used successfully for later use, you can eliminate that danger and, of course, save plenty of time. You could think of Snippets as a code repository, rather than an automatic expander of short hand code.

Snippets already comes with some pre-defined groups and code examples to give you a head start with the app. The CSS reset and the basic HTML declarations alone demonstrate the app’s usefulness (I always have to go hunting for these things at the beginning of a new project).

There is no automatic expansion of short code, as I already mentioned, but Snippets recognizes your code editor and allows you to beam the snippet right into it (in my case, you can see the Espresso icon in the menu bar).

So, do you need Snippets? That depends. You can of course manage those snippets in your average text expander as well (and define shortcuts so they get expanded automatically and circumvent the drag & drop method).

But with Snippets, you get code highlighting, which will make editing larger snippets much easier. If you earn your money with coding, you should definitely take a look at Snippets.

Conclusion

Now that you’ve read this comparison, which text expander is right for you? There is no definitive answer. All of them bring unique and useful functions, and the decision rests not only on your budget, but also on your workflow and personal taste.

You can’t go wrong with Typinator, which offers many more options than Presto for the same price. Typinator is updated regularly, and upgrades are offered at a discounted price.

With Text Expander, you get it all (well, apart from the awesome quick search functionality of Typinator) and additionally you have a syncing option for iDevices, should you own one. Whether the additional $10 is worth it is entirely up to you. As I mentioned in the review – if the Fill-In feature is something that makes your jaw drop because you can see yourself using it multiple times a day, go for it.

Snippets is an app that will appeal to the coding geeks but, as handy as it is, it remains a repository and not an expander. Only through an evaluation of your own coding habits will you be able to decide if it’s worth a hefty $40.

Nevertheless, after reading this article, you should go for one of the suggested apps. Why? Because they really, really will make your life so much simpler. Except for Presto, which puts a limitation on the number of snippets you can test, all apps offer you a thirty day trial.

So go and see for yourself how much more productive you can become. I bet that after those 30 days are up, you won’t want to go back to working without a text expander!