Category: Mac

I think it’s safe to assume that if you’re reading this, you’re a Mac user (or very close to becoming one). But what does “Mac user” really mean? The beauty of today’s powerful desktop and notebook computers lies in how they can be used for almost anything.

People are using Macs for designing, writing, producing and editing video, creating films, post-processing their photos, astronomy, controlling their home, running a web server, and even as a replacement to the slew of boxes that used to sit underneath their TV.

A Mac “user” could mean almost anything. So today I’m going to give you an insight into what this means for me personally, and ask that you also share your own story. How do you use your Mac, and what does it enable you to do every day?

It probably won’t surprise you that, as the editor of a Mac software website, I use my setup for all manner of different things. The actual basic hardware I own is fairly modest – a MacBook Pro connected to a 23″ Cinema Display. Nothing too fancy or over-specced!

Here are a few of the different tasks that I use my MacBook for, and the software that helps me get work done:

Writing

Unsurprisingly, I do quite a bit of writing and editing. Although I’d love to say that I use a fancy tool such as MarsEdit, that isn’t the case. The majority of the writing I do takes place either in the WordPress admin panel, or TextMate.

For anything slightly longer and more detailed (or requiring a degree of attractive presentation), I’m a huge fan of iWork and Pages. The days of cringing while clicking the icon for Microsoft Word are long behind me; I was very pleased to see the back of that spaghetti-esque mess of an application.

I also send quite a bit of email, which – in my book – counts very much as “writing”. I find a combination of Mail and Gmail to work perfectly for my needs, and I have a few filters set up at the Gmail end which make life easier. TextExpander saves me a few hours of typing every week, and was a fantastic investment.

Designing & Programming

In the time I spend outside of WordPress and Mail, I work on a few other web projects that involve quite a bit of designing and coding. I consider myself an intermediate level Photoshop user, though I’ve fallen in love with Pixelmator for simple tasks over the past year.

I have a slightly customized local installation of MAMP for testing out and developing web apps, and have recently switched over to TextMate from TextWrangler. The latter worked absolutely fine, but TextMate feels somehow more powerful and robust.

I’ve experimented with Querious quite a bit, but still find that the standard PHPMyAdmin tool is the easiest solution for basic MySQL tasks (sorry if this is getting a little technical!)

Photography

I really enjoy photography, and find that OS X is the perfect companion for my Canon SLR. I’m a big Aperture fan, though the frankly awful performance in the latest release is seriously pushing me to swap across to Lightroom. The prospect of moving tens of thousands of photos across is still a little too daunting at present…

Camera RAW and Photoshop make for a great post-processing package of tools, and I’ve been really impressed with the Flickr upload tool in Aperture for sharing my photos elsewhere.

Entertainment

There’s definitely something to be said for taking some time out, and my MacBook also acts as the “media centre” in our apartment. I don’t use any fancy software for this – just a simple combination of iTunes and BBC iPlayer.

I use a Drobo to store my (slightly ridiculous) 800GB iTunes library, and have nothing but good things to say about it. I love knowing that my media is safely backed up across two drives, and expanding for greater storage space is incredibly simple.

VLC is a brilliant solution for any video that isn’t in an iTunes compatible format.

A Paper-Free Office

Last but not least is the system I have in place for my paper-free office. This is something that I absolutely love, on account of my distain for clutter of any kind…

It consists of an absolutely fantastic ScanSnap S300M scanner, and a copy of DevonThink Pro Office (the version with OCR built in).

It means that I can quickly scan documents, have them recognised as searchable PDFs and organised in DevonThink, then shred the originals in the peace of mind that the file is stored on my MacBook hard drive, Drobo, and Dropbox. Backed-up paper-free bliss!

So How Do You Use Yours?

So that’s me! There are a few other apps that I use quite regularly, but to go through absolutely everything here would probably take all day…

I’d really love to hear what type of Mac user you are. Is is a tool purely for work? For entertainment? Or for something completely amazing that I’ve never heard of?

Either way, let me know in the comments – and be sure to share the apps that you use to get the job done. I’m hoping to pick a few of the most interesting respondents to interview over the next few weeks!

OmniOutliner provides a flexible and powerful workspace for performing a wide range of information processing tasks – from organizing a complex project to planning a best-selling novel. Heck, you can even create a shopping list with the program!

Combining power options with ease of use, OmniOutliner may be the best true outliner available. On any operating system. In today’s review, we’re going to take an in-depth look at what you should expect from a fantastic outlining application, and how OmniOutliner stacks up against the competition.

An Outliner by Any Other Name

Before beginning my review it will be helpful if I define just what I mean when I use the term “outliner.”

Everyone knows what an outline is, but there is some disagreement about what is appropriately called outlining software. For some, an outliner is any application that allows you to collect and organize free form information in a hierarchical structure. But just as I would not call every application that provides space for writing notes a word processor, I prefer to narrow the definition of outliner to those applications which focus my work on the outline itself. Give me one main window containing the outline, and this is where I will do most of my work.

For example, a terrific application like MacJournal allows you to structure your documents in a hierarchy, but your focus will be almost entirely on the editor window. MacJournal is not an outliner.

Another attribute of a true outliner is that any item (whether you call it a note, topic, or heading) can be the parent of sub-items. Going back to the MacJournal example, you can only build hierarchy with folders. The articles themselves cannot be parents of other articles. Most true outliners don’t even use the concept of a folder in the outline.

To be sure, most of the applications in this class fall somewhere along a spectrum. Outlines of a sort can be created in most of them. Nevertheless, I’m drawing this distinction because the criteria I will use to evaluate OminOutliner are not the same as I would use when discussing DevonThink or EagleFiler, for instance.

Two Flavors

OmniOutliner is just one of the applications developed by OmniGroup, a software company that has been around for over 20 years. OmniOutliner comes in two editions, standard and professional. Standard costs $39.95 and has all the features most people will need in an outliner. The professional version is $69.95 and adds some handy features for power uses. I’ll describe some of these below. You can also buy a family license. The 14-day free trial period is a little chintzy, but you should be able to put the application through its paces and get a feel for how well it works for you in that time.

Installation is familiar for anyone who has used a Mac for any length of time: download and mount the disk; drag the application to the application folder; get started.

This Welcome Screen opens the first time you run OmniOutliner. Believe it or not, this is a OmniOutliner outline, which demonstrates some of the versatility of this application.

Head Space

Describing what you can do with OmniOutliner is a little like describing where you can go with a car. It all depends on what destination you have in mind. Essentially, it is a workspace for collecting information, but unlike one of the applications mentioned above, most of the information you put into OmniOutliner will probably come from your head. Do you need to plan an advertising campaign? Design a college course? Write an owner’s manual? Manage a work schedule? Organize a meeting? You name it. If you can break the information down into small pieces, you can manage it with OmniOutliner.

OmniOutliner includes three features, rare in other outliners, that help provide the power to do these tasks.

Key Features

1. Customizable Columns

With OmniOutliner you can add customizable meta-data fields to your information viewable in columns right in the outline. This is a crucial feature if you are going to keep your focus on the main window. For example, if you are creating a project outline, you can use meta-data to indicate which members of your team are responsible for implementing which tasks. Include due dates and priorities. Add a budget column.

Having this information directly in the outline pane makes it instantly visible and comparable. You can see if one task that is dependent on another has an impossible due date.

OmniOutliner is one of the rare applications not a true database that allows you to create your own fields in this way. And you can choose from several different column types (set through the column inspector): rich text, pop-up list that you define, date, duration, check box, and number. You can even optionally total a column of numbers, which is, to my knowledge, unique among outliners. You can sort the information in these columns, either throughout the entire outline or subsets of it.

Think of OmniOutliner as combining the advantages of an outline with those of a table or spreadsheet.

2. Inline Text

Most outliners provide the ability to create extensive rich-text notes associated with each item, but few provide the option of seeing those notes in context in the the outline, an essential feature if you are composing long documents, and very useful for other purposes. Outlines by definition break information into bite-sized chunks, but good writing requires pulling those chunks together into a comprehensible and coherent whole. Inline text is far more compatible with creating clear writing than viewing each chunk individually in its own window. With inline text notes, you can see at a glance if the preceding paragraph flows smoothly into the the one you are currently working on. In short, inline text provides a more “word processor” like experience.

OmniOutliner is one of the few outlining applications on any platform that incorporates inline text. By itself, this feature sets OmniOutliner above most of the competition. You can, optionally, view notes in a separate window, if that works best for you.

The screen shot below captures a hypothetical meeting I’m planning. Note that I’ve added two columns, one for the person responsible for each topic at the meeting, and one for the time I’m allotting for each. Also, the red text are inline notes. These are short notes, but they can be much longer if necessary.

3. Hoisting

The ability to zoom in on one single topic and its subtopics is called hoisting. With a hoist feature you can shift back and forth from a focused view on one topic to a broad overview. The more complex and extensive your outline, the more important is this feature.

OmniOutliner does hoisting very well, and the professional edition provides the Section Drawer, which allows you to navigate directly from one hoisted topic to another.

In the screen shot below, I’ve hoisted my meeting plan to the agenda so that I can focus on that during the meeting.

Not Cloning Around

One key outlining feature that OmniOutliner does not currently include is the ability to have one topic appear simultaneously under two or more headings – a feature commonly referred to as cloning (a similar concept to using aliases in the finder). Changes made in one location appear in all the clones. This is a useful feature in project outlines, for instance, where you might want to have a task appear under two different people who have responsibility for it; or in a writing project for which you may be unsure where you want to certain topic to appear.

Of the four features I’ve mentioned here so far, cloning is the one that is least important to me, so I don’t really miss it in OmniOutliner. However, some power outlining enthusiasts see this a gross omission. OmniGroup say they intend to add cloning in a future release, although it will not appear in the upcoming version 4.0 (intended for release by the end of the year).

Sprucing Up Your Information

When you create your outline in OmniOutliner, you can add any number of items and sub-items going down to virtually any level. Reveal arrows allow you to show or hide whatever level of detail you need.

The search feature is limited to the current open outline, but is robust and fast. With long, comprehensive outlines, it saves a lot of poking around time.

Through the Inspector Panel, OmniOutliner gives you a great deal of control over the look and feel of your outline. You can select to have the rows alternate background color, or switch on grid lines to help you visually navigate your data. You can choose to display a checkbox at the start of each item – fill up the check boxes in sub items and the top-level check box is automatically marked. You can select the numbering system you prefer, or turn off numbering altogether. You can change the text format item by item or use the extensive collection of styles tools to set the format on a level-to-level basis.

Outlines are not limited to text. You can add images, URLs, and – in the professional edition – voice recordings to your outline. You may have noticed the button-looking item in the first screen shot of my hypothetical meeting outline under the “Doug’s office downtown” heading. That’s an embedded screen shot of a Google map to the meeting location. Clicking on it reveals the image, like so:

Areas for Improvement

Creating new items quickly and putting them in their proper hierarchical order, and subsequently being able to quickly reorder the outline are crucial abilities for any outliner. Here OmniOutliner could use some work. Some of the keyboard shortcuts feel arbitrary to me, which is the same as saying I’ll never remember them. For example, the key combination of Shift-Command-] creates a sub-item, while Shift-Command-[ creates a parent item.

Moving items up and down the outliner with the keyboard requires using the appropriate arrow key in combination with the Control and Command keys, which is just plain silly since Command-Up Arrow and Command-Down Arrow don’t appear to do anything – why not save users the extra key stroke?

I’ll admit that these criticisms are a little nitpicking, especially since there are other ways to achieve the same results – drag and drop, for one. Still, the goal should be making the application transparent to the work at hand, and OmniOutliner does not quite achieve that goal as yet.

OmniOutliner can export to a wide range of file formats, but I’m disappointed in its inability to import or export comma separated value files, making it cumbersome to share data with a spreadsheet like Numbers. This is an especially odd omission given that OmniOutliner can import and export text files with tab separated values.

Sorting the Competition

The only outlining software I’m aware of that is more powerful than OmniOutliner is Neo (and its predecessor Tao). Neo is a full-featured, true outliner that does an even better job with inline text, plus it has cloning. However, it is much more complex and will take more determination to learn to use effectively. OmniOutliner is by far the better choice for novice outliners, and anyone who values ease of use.

If you don’t need a power outliner, but would like a handy list-builder, you might want to check out Opal. Developed by one of the people behind the popular Acta, an early outliner for Macs, Opal does not do columns or inline text, but handles nested lists with ease.

Circus Ponies Notebook and Aqua Minds Notetaker both have outlining as core functions. They are popular information managers, but when I want to outline, I need to focus and I can’t do so as effectively with the notebook metaphor these two applications use.

Put a Check in the Check Box

OmniOutliner is not the application I would choose to collect information from other sources. The professional edition does include a clipping service, so that you can drop text from other applications into your working outline. This is a handy feature, but is not robust enough to make OmniOutliner a proficient data storage option.

But OmniOutliner works extremely well when I want to turn my attention to one project at a time. It puts all the information I create about that project into a single window. Its combination of powerful, useful features is rare, and it is reasonably priced.

I’d give OmniOutliner a rating of 7 out of 10. Cloning, a more user-friendly collection of keyboard shortcuts, and a little more versatility with importing and exporting would elevate OmniOutliner to an almost perfect score.

One of the best things about your Mac is that it comes pre-loaded with tons of software goodness, right out of the box. Apps like Mail, Preview, iCal, and the iLife suite are all very functional, but sometimes they lack a little piece of extra functionality that more in-depth users need. That’s where more “pro” apps like Aperture, Adobe Reader and Photoshop come in.

Mail.app is not excluded from this situation, as it has had it’s reported share of problems and limitations. Even though most are not very significant, over time they can become annoying and sometimes switching to another application is the best solution. If you’ve had any problems with Mail.app, or if you have just grown tired of it, you should check out our eight alternatives below!

Conclusion

There are a huge range of Mail applications for Mac OS, and most of them would be a good alternative to Mail.app. It really comes down to what your needs are, and what you are looking for in a mail client. If you are a business man, or if you are used to Windows applications, you might be better off using Entourage. If you are looking for something simple and fast, you could do with Notify or MailCue. If you are a Gmail user, Mailplane is for you. And if you are simply looking for a nice, functional full-featured client, try Postbox and Thunderbird.

Price also plays a part here. A mail client is something that you will most likely use everyday, but if you make the wrong purchase you might have to spend more money on another app. That’s why you should first try a free trial for a few days, or even a free app like Thunderbird, Gyazmail or Mailforge.

Overall, I’d declare Postbox as the winner with its simple UI and feature set that can’t be found anywhere else. It’s not everyday that you fork out $40 for an application, but Postbox is definitely worth every cent.

Much has been said about solid-state drives (SSD) being the next “big thing” in terms of computer performance. If you regularly find that your Mac is running slowly when opening apps and booting, it might be obvious to immediately think that the problem is down to insufficient RAM.

Although the amount of memory in your Mac does make a big difference, we’re starting to get to the point where we all have plenty of RAM for everyday tasks (4GB is more than enough for most Mac users). The main piece of old technology inside your MacBook or iMac is actually the hard drive, and that can contribute significantly to poor performance with certain tasks.

Not convinced that you’ll notice a performance benefit? Check out this video and come back in two minutes. I’ll wait!

So why hasn’t everyone jumped ship to this new performance-boosting miracle? The main problem with solid-state drives at present boils down to price. They’re still far more expensive than a standard Serial ATA drive, and out of the budget of many Mac users.

The question I’m asking today is whether you’re sporting a shiny new SSD (and reaping the performance benefits), or waiting for the price to drop over the next year or so. Have your say in the poll, and let me know your thoughts in the comments. I’d love to hear what you all think!

In my search for the ideal money management application, I keep coming back to iBank. I reviewed Jumsoft Money here on Mac.AppStorm a few months back, and mentioned a few other options I’ve tried. I wouldn’t say it’s perfect – there are important features that I can’t use, and others that I don’t make use of – but on the whole it’s been stable and easy to work with, and I’ve not yet found an alternative that beats it.

We reviewed the last version here a while back, but now IGG Software has released a major update, so it’s time to revisit iBank and let you know how it works and what you get for your money.

How It Looks

Between iBank 2 and iBank 3, the UI received a big polishing – between iBank 3 and iBank 4, the same has happened again. Overall, this is down to an effort to simplify and clarify the interface in the new release.

Some are not going to like the changes – perhaps it’ll feel like a dumbing-down – but I feel that information is easier to read and quicker to identify in this new form.

If you prefer a more visual display of your transactions, you can switch to a Cover Flow inspired version, though it’s hard to see how this will really make it easier to work with your figures:

Returning to the first screenshot, then, let’s walk through the main interface features. The window is divided into two main sections, a left-hand panel that includes a list of your Accounts and their associated websites, your Reports and Budgets, and a Manage section that lets you control things like your Categories, Securities, and Transaction Templates.

The up-and-down-pointing-arrows button in the bottom row toggles display of a Summary Panel, which can be switched between a Net Worth or a simple Summary of money you own and money you owe.

How It Works

Getting your information into iBank 4 is easy. The first time you run the app, it will offer to import from the Mac or Windows versions of Quicken, Microsoft Money, or other finance applications. The ability to import your data in QIF, OFX, and QFX formats means that you should be up and running quickly whatever app or service you’ve used previously.

iBank 4 can also directly connect to many institutions to import your statement data directly from your bank. Sadly, this is one of the features that I’ve not been able to use, since none of my account providers allow this access – users in the UK are likely to have a similar experience, since it appears very few, if any, institutions here offer this kind of service. Still, though I know direct access would be quicker and easier, I’ve managed to get by fine for several years without it.

A middle step between direct access and importing from statement data saved in QIF or another format is using iBank’s built-in browser to access your bank. Simply enter the URL in the account settings and then click on Web Download in the toolbar, and iBank will bring up the site and catch any statement downloads as they begin.

If you do have to resort to importing from QIF files, iBank makes the job easy. The import window lets you see which transactions are already logged (items in the screenshot below with a green tick icon are new), so it’s easy to avoid duplication:

Once you’re set up, adding new transactions is simple – just click on the + button at the bottom of your list and you can enter information directly. Personally, I mostly rely on the iOS app, which I’ve found to be very effective (despite recent issues with it running extremely slowly…), and I would say the easiest and best thought-through of all the apps I have tried in this genre.

Reporting

One of the areas improved in the new version of iBank is its reporting features. The app has always been strong here, but the new implementation makes things even easier and clearer.

Setting up a new report is straightforward – just hit the plus button at bottom-left and select ‘Add Report…’ and then set criteria and select from different types of report, and you’re done:

Reports are interactive, so clicking on a heading or a section of a pie-chart will let you view associated transactions.

Budgeting

One of the new features in this version of iBank is the introduction of ‘envelope’ budgeting. This approach to keeping a budget is quite popular, and there are apps and online services that are specifically designed to help keep track of things following this methodology. You can read simple introductions to the approach here and here.

Setting up a new budget in iBank 4 is straightforward: you begin by choosing a name, frequency, and which accounts are to be included in the budget, and then select from the income categories you have set up, set your desired spending for each of your outgoing categories, and establish starting sums for each category, and you’re set.

This is a very effective and proven approach to budgeting, and the implementation here is straightforward and clear. I’m hoping that the iOS app is updated soon to allow users to carry their budgets on the go.

Other Features

iBank 4 can also be used to track your investments:

This is not a feature that I have used, so I can’t assess how it compares to other applications. If you have experience of working with this aspect of iBank, please chime-in in the comments so we can hear how it’s worked for you.

Exporting from iBank 4 is nicely handled – just set the date range, the accounts you want to export from, choose the location for the file, and you’re done.

In Conclusion

iBank 4 is a good upgrade of an app that was already quite solid. At $59.99 it’s not exactly cheap (upgrade pricing is available), but for its ease of use and its excellent reporting features, it’s hard to beat. In my experience over the last two major upgrades, the app is reliable and meets my needs better than any other finance app I’ve tried.

What do you use to keep track of your spending? If you’ve tried iBank in this or previous versions, let us know how you’ve found it.

BuySellAds, a popular internet advertising service (and the company we use for advertising on AppStorm), has today announced a new venture into desktop advertising. They are launching a new service that allows developers to integrate advertisements into Mac applications, in the same way you would a website.

Although this isn’t a new idea – various Mac apps have been ad-supported for several years – it does represent another tipping point in the ongoing shift towards paying for apps with your attention rather than your wallet.

Today I’ll be exploring what this means, and asking for your opinion on whether we should be welcoming this shift with open arms, or becoming a little concerned!

What are BuySellAds Offering?

Before we talk about desktop advertising in general, let’s take a look at what BuySellAds is starting to offer developers today. You can find out a little more at their developer site, which states the following:

Information on the mini-site is fairly scarce – this clearly isn’t going to become a flagship product overnight – but there’s plenty of documentation that explains how developers can integrate this feature into their applications today. Kiwi and Bodega are two applications that have already done this, and I’m sure that developers will see this as an interesting new source of revenue to explore.

BuySellAds has long had a focus primarily on design websites, and it’s not surprising to see that they are expanding towards the most design-centric desktop platform first. Details are only available for integrating ads using Cocoa, so it’s safe to assume that this is “Mac only” for now.

Do We Want Ads in Our Desktop Apps?

For me, it depends. Although I have become accustomed to sponsorship slots sitting toward the side of almost every website I visit, my Mac is a relatively ad-free zone. I don’t want this serene, beautiful software platform to become just another place I need to wade through an endless sea of advertisements. I can’t imagine anything worse than flashing, bright, colourful ads adorning the sidebar of Things.

But that might not become the case.

OS X and iOS developers generally seem to have a high degree of integrity when it comes to designing and monetizing their work. Most of my favourite apps have veered towards the likes of Fusion Ads and The Deck for advertising purposes – two of the most design-centric platforms I’ve ever come across. I heard many people comment that, even after purchasing Tweetie, they left advertising turned on because they found Fusion Ads’ content to be so relevant and appealing.

There’s no reason that BuySellAds has to be any different – publishers still have full control over the advertisements they accept or reject from appearing in their app. Hopefully we’ll still be treated to sympathetically designed ads in our desktop software – providing the desire of developers to cash-in doesn’t overcome that of producing something simple and beautiful.

Personally, I think that a near-perfect model is as follows:

• Allow people to purchase your app and remove ads if they so choose
• Provide a minimal number of relevant, beautiful advertisements to everyone else

What Do You Think?

I’m interested to hear what you think. Would you rather pay for a particular piece of software, or have an ad-supported version? Do you think that this is the model we’ll see developers taking with desktop software in the future?

Let me know what you think in the comments, and let’s kick off a debate!

We’re kicking off another competition today, this time to win a copy of SaneDesk. We’ll be writing a full review of SaneDesk in the next week or two, but I thought that you’d love a chance to get your hands on a copy for free!

SaneDesk gives you more power and control over your desktop, letting you set up different views and configurations so that your desktop appears differently depending upon your current task. It’s fairly powerful, and definitely worth giving a go if you often find yourself wading through a sea of cluttered desktop icons.

Entering is really easy. All you need to do is a post a comment below. The competition will run for one week, and I’ll pick fifteen winning comments at random on Monday 4th October. Best of luck!

With the Mac being the go-to choice for many web developers and readers of this blog, I wanted to mention a gorgeous application for making sure no billable hour goes undocumented – TrackRecord. Sure, there are tons of applications for freelancers to track their time spent on different programs (RescueTime), time spent working (Billings/OnTheJob), but none of these apps offer the ability to sync your time recorded to the popular web app Basecamp.

TrackRecord does just that, and today we’ll be taking a closer look at what it has to offer users of 37signals’ Basecamp web application. Read on to find out more!

What’s Basecamp?

For those who haven’t heard, Basecamp is a collaborative web based project management application from the company 37signals. It’s a fantastic way to track large scale projects with colleagues across the room or across the globe.

One of the features rolled out to their premium plans is time tracking. However, to enter this information, workers must record their time separately and then enter in their billable hours on the website.

Bridging the Gap

TrackRecord aims to connect working on your Mac to tracking with your Basecamp account. It works like any native Mac time tracking application, placing both a timer in the menu bar and a larger application to manage the tracked time.

TrackRecord skips over the normal User Interface design standards on the Mac, opting instead for a classic, wooden feel. This is a nice change to other applications that make time tracking feel futuristic – but it definitely doesn’t match the rest of the Mac experience.

You can view all of your projects on the sidebar within the application. This way, you can focus on current projects and hide what you don’t need to see.

TrackRecord will import your projects from Basecamp and allow you to start adding billable time in seconds. You can do this either manually or through their built-in timer. However, there are a few other features that help TrackRecord stand out.

TrackRecord’s Best Lap Times

Syncing back and forth with Basecamp was seamless. I could easily add times to specific To Dos or projects on a whole. The application utilizes a Local-copy vs a Server-copy system. You can track time within the application and then post the times to Basecamp. This way, you aren’t accidentally posting too few or too many hours spent on certain projects.

Afterwards, the application keeps a local log of times that it has posted, and even changes the posted times without having to log into the Basecamp web app.

When you open the application, you can easily just press the giant Play button and the Flip Clock begins counting. You can get to work and deal with organizing your time slips later. TrackRecord also continues to work when you’ve left your computer. When you return, you have the option to omit it, say if you were on your coffee break, or continue to count it.

Finally, TrackRecord allows you to run multiple timers at once, and all can be controlled by the menu bar applet.

Things That Could Be Improved

I enjoyed using TrackRecord a lot, but some of the application’s features aren’t necessarily perfect. When you open up TrackRecord, it presents a read-only “Timer Filters” mode – listing just the time you have recorded within the app. However, it does not display time that has been entered manually on the Basecamp website.

The user interface isn’t very consistent either. The wood accents are interesting and very different, but do clash with the normal Aqua frame. There are a few different UI schemes for the different row headers as well as varying theming within the sidebar.

For instance, to add a manual time to a project, you can hover over the project and click a plus button. However, that button doesn’t match any of the UI elements. Finally, when the application is syncing, it throws an odd grey opacity layer over the sidebar with a Basecamp logo and an information phrase. Again, it just doesn’t fit into an application with such organic accents.

Why TrackRecord?

The main feature that will either make or break your thoughts on this app is Basecamp integration. TrackRecord requires a Basecamp account that has a time tracking feature available. If you are using the lower Solo or Basic Basecamp plans (which are also not free), you will not have the ability to record time into Basecamp and as such can’t utilize TrackRecord at all.

The minimum Basecamp plan that will allow time tracking costs $49 per month. This is pretty steep if you’re not using Basecamp on a team wide basis. However, if you are already using Basecamp for project and time tracking, then TrackRecord would completely make sense.

Basecamp doesn’t offer any sort of Mac or web based stopwatch or timer. Plus, with a monthly fee of at least $49, TrackRecord’s one time fee of $20 makes it feel like a great deal!

When I first started this review of Afloat, I seriously wondered what on earth it was good for. An app that can let you keep windows stay on top of others or make them semi-transparent? Why? You see, I usually work on a 21″ iMac with an additional 24″ HD screen attached and – for work reasons – I am switching to a 27″ iMac. Screen estate really isn’t an issue for me!

But then I whipped out my 13″ Macbook I had an epiphany. All of a sudden, the ability to stack windows became useful. And then I discovered some more awesome features that I never suspected this little app could hold. Interested? Then keep on reading!

The Purpose of Afloat

As mentioned in the introduction and as the name implies, Afloat is an app that lets you “float” your app’s windows on top others – even if that app isn’t currently selected. After installing it and restarting your computer (or logging out and back in), your apps will have additional menu items in the Window category.

A word of caution: Afloat only works with Cocoa based apps like Safari and iChat (and most other apps), but Carbon based apps like iTunes or the finder ignore Afloat. You can read more on Cocoa here and more on Carbon here.

The options relating to Afloat have a tiny cloud icon in front of them. If you choose “Keep Afloat”, the app’s window will always stay on top of others. I don’t know about the usability of that option since it would always obscure the view of the windows below. In conjuncture with “Transparency” you can adjust if and how much of the screen behind the app’s window should be visible, while it still stays on top of everything else. This makes the first option much more useable.

One of the main uses people find this handy for is making videos float on top of everything else. This is built in to apps such as VLC, but is lacking in iTunes, Safari, and many other apps you may find yourself playing video through.

Harnessing the True Power of Afloat

I personally only realized the power of Aloat after checking out what was behind “Adjust Effects”. A black overlay pops up, offering you even more control over a window’s behaviour:

You can pin a window to the desktop, which means that even icons that reside on the desktop overlay that window. This way, the window is out of the way of other apps and doesn’t keep you from quickly accessing whatever you’ve put on your desktop (files, folders, links etc).

For example, if I click on the Finder outside of The Hit List, I can then click as much as I want on my task management window, it won’t select the app! If I do not activate the app by clicking the icon in the dock or switch to it via CMD+Tab, it’s almost like a wallpaper.

This can come in very handy if you need to keep an eye on something (like I do with my tasks), but don’t want to move/delete/change something by accident.

If you chose to make the window an overlay, it will stay on top of all other windows (as in “afloat”). But – and that’s a really neat thing – all clicks fall through that app’s window and affect whatever is below that window! So, how does that differ from pinning it to the desktop? What if if you need to keep an eye on something (maybe the video codec description you get from Quicktime inspector) while searching for related information (the video codecs that iTunes can handle and that are listed on the website)?

This way, you can keep the QT inspector window open while using the entire screen for your browser and still see all the information at once. Again, just one of countless examples.

Let’s get back real quick to the afloat option … after all the app is named for it so it must have some use, right? I discovered one while doing some research for another article. In my example, by setting the Text Edit window afloat and giving it about 50% transparency, I could write down some information I saw on a website without having to jump between applications. It seems like something insignificant, but again – if you don’t have a lot of screen estate, this might become an incredible time saver.

Adding Missing Functionality to Windows

Apart from managing a window’s position, there are some really, really cool things Afloat can also do. These are features I wish would come as a standard functionality in Apple’s Finder, but since they don’t, Afloat closes that gap in useability.

First of all, Afloat lets you drag a window by grabbing it anywhere. Yes, I mean anywhere as in the middle of the window. By using a keyboard shortcut (CMD+CTRL+Mouse) you don’t need to go fishing for the top bar of the window anymore.

Second, and this is my absolute favorite of all the functionality the app offers, you can also resize a window from anywhere! Using the same keyboard shortcuts but then the right mouse button, you can forget about squinting to see the tiny right bottom corner. Or about having to move a window up again before you can access the resize area. With Afloat, just click anywhere inside the window and the resize. Time saver, big time.

Verdict

My first scepticism about Afloat has been replaced by absolute delight. For small screen devices such as your Macbook, the ability to keep windows afloat, pinned and/or transparent can make work so much easier. And both on portable devices and on desktops, the additional abilities to resize and drag windows from anyhwere improves the useability of the entire system (and I still wonder why Apple doesn’t include it).

Did we mention the best part: Afloat is free! There’s no reason not to give a try and see for yourself how much it can ease your every day working experience on your Mac.

An essential tool for both web and software developers is a text editor. Text editors streamline the process of working with code, and save time by providing shortcuts for repetitive tasks. Text editors are also useful for other web users – for example, they are very handy for tidying up text that has been copied online, before pasting it into a blog or word document.

Fraise is an app that sits at the ‘basic’ end of the market for text editors, and performs these basic (and some more advanced) tasks well.

Our 5 Minute Screencast Overview

We’ve produced a quick five-minute screencast overview as a companion to this review, just to give you an idea for how the application looks and feels. You’ll receive far more insight from the full review below, but this might be a helpful look at how the application works. Hope you enjoy it!

Getting Started

Fraise makes it easy to clean up text and edit code in a very simple and easy to use interface. Fraise prides itself on being “designed to neither confuse newcomers nor disappoint advanced users.” This is a fair assessment of a text editor that will come in handy for a range of users.

Fraise is developed for Mac OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and is based on the open-source text editor, Smultron. Development on Smultron has ceased, but Fraise is faithfully continuing the legacy – the help manual for Fraise even refers to ‘Fraise’ as ‘Smultron’ (with the Fraise logo)!

In Depth

In terms of design and inteface, Fraise is clean and simple, and will be a familiar sight to Mac users. It uses the standard Mac layout and controls, all executed in a clutter-free fashion:

Fraise incorporates Quick Look icons in the left-hand menu, which is a nice touch when flipping through different pages and documents:

The functionality of Fraise is well demonstrated by what’s available in the toolbar. This resembles that of a basic word processing application, with similar options to customise the menu bar as required:

It’s a simple observation, but an important one – the basic toolbar is surprisingly comforting to see when you open up Fraise. Compared with some of the more advanced text editing apps (e.g. TextMate) that don’t even provide a toolbar, the Fraise toolbar helps newer users know where to begin!

Some of the other useful functions of Fraise include:

• Split the document into two windows (or open in a new window)
• Easily view all of the functions in use in your document
• Access code snippets to speed up repetitive tasks
• Save all of the open documents as a project
• Manage the colors of syntax in use in the document

Fraise also includes a handy ‘find and replace’ function – with the ability to find a term in the current document, the current project, or all documents, and replace it with another term.

One of the areas where Fraise stands out is its localisation – Fraise is available for in 13 different languages (including two Chinese localiations), making it a tool of universal appeal.

The only (very minor) frustration when using Fraise was the inability to rename documents from the left-hand menu. This functionality has become so commonplace in apps with similar menu set-ups, that it was surprising not to be able to do this with Fraise.

At 9.6MB, Fraise isn’t going to take a dent out of your hard-drive, and its small frame enables it to zip along and perform its role at speed.

Comparison to Other Apps

The text editor marketplace is reasonably busy, and there are several quality apps competing for attention. Starting at the bottom, TextEdit comes standard with every Mac, and is the most basic text editing application (suitable for not much more than cleaning text).

Fraise would sit on the next level of functionality, with others, such as TextMate and TextWrangler in a similar, though more advanced league. Some of these more advanced apps contain functionality that is absent in Fraise – for example the ability to see the differences between two files, and merge the two to incorporate the differences, as well as larger libraries of snippets – to name a few. However, the primary consideration isn’t necessarily which app has the most functions, but which app has the functions that you need.

For example, BBEdit has been on the scene for years and is a highly respected text editor (many would say the best in market), but it comes at a price – US$125 for an individual licence. In part, this is because it includes functionality that you may not require in a text editor – such as its advanced software development tools.

Pricing

Fraise is available at my favourite price – free! In comparison, TextWrangler is also free, while TextMate is available for US$53.

Conclusion

Fraise is a little bit more than a bare-bones solution, at a bare-bones price. When an app is free (as Fraise is), you can’t complain!

If you need a text editor, give Fraise a go for yourself – for a free application, it’s surprisingly nimble and suitable for the needs of many people looking for a text editor. It won’t let you program a web application or edit a novel, but it’s great for basic requirements.

There are two things that you probably hate: being late, and your boring alarm clock. And there’s also one thing that you most likely love: Your Mac. Well then why not use your Mac as your own alarm clock, and wake up to your newest iTunes acquisitions?

Whether you want to wake up to the most recent episode of your favorite podcast, or you are simply looking for something to replace your old boring alarm clock, we have something for you.

Conclusion

There are a lot of options that can suit your needs when it comes to alarm clock applications; there are plenty of free apps that would satisfy most people, but if you need features that are more specific then you’ll need to spend a few bucks.

Awaken is a very simple, yet functional app and it isn’t very expensive, but the free version of Timer is also very good and has a lot of useful features. Luckily, most of the paid apps have free trials that you can use to determine whether you need the extra features that they offer or not.

Have fun trying them out, and let us know which you prefer in the comments!

It’s been over six months since we first took a look at Alfred, a fantastic application launcher for the Mac. Since then, I’ve heard about many of you switching to this system from Quicksilver, Google Quick Search Box, and various other launchers.

I’ve become a devoted fan of Alfred, and it’s probably now one of the most oft-used apps on my Mac. A recent update to the app comes in the form of the Alfred Powerpack, bringing a set of fantastic new features and significantly broadening the scope of what Alfred is capable of. He’s turning into a pretty handy butler!

I’ll be taking a look at some of these new “Powerpack features” after the break.

File System Navigation

Taking Alfred to the next level, this feature removes the limitation of acting as a simple “launcher”, and makes Alfred far more useful for actually browsing your Mac’s filesystem. It’s incredibly fast, looks great, offers file previews, and is generally pretty fantastic all-round!

I never really fell in love with Quicksilver, finding that it took a little too much time to become familiar with. A good application shouldn’t have a learning curve, or else it’s audience is limited only to those who have the time to tinker, explore, and generally geek out over how everything works. Alfred is a tool for the rest of us, who simply want to hit a shortcut key and get to work!

Result Actions

Once you’ve found that file you were looking for, you can – of course – launch it. But what if you want to do something more? Maybe it needs to be copied, deleted, emailed, moved, or something else altogether? Thankfully, Alfred has added “Result Actions” letting you do just this.

It’s fairly self explanatory, and works just as you would expect. Frill-free, and beautifully designed to appeal to those with something of an interface obsession.

iTunes Integration

The final new “headline feature” provided through the Powerpack is integration with iTunes. This allows you to ditch another menu bar or desktop app for quickly interacting with iTunes, and adds another string to Alfred’s bow. You can search your library, rate tracks, and quickly see what’s currently playing.

More to Come

The Alfred team have plenty more in the pipeline – address book integration, AppleScript actions, third party app integration, clipboard history, and plenty more!

I’m a fan of the pricing model that Alfred have taken here. £12 isn’t a great deal to ask for these extra features, and you’re guaranteed to reap the benefit of the new additions as and when they become available. Application launchers are undervalued. We’ve all become accustomed to using Quicksilver and similar tools for free, but I would be more than happy to pay for a tool that saves me so much time every day!

Head over to the Alfred Powerpack page for more information, and to get your license code.

What do you think? Is the new Powerpack worth the money, or are you happy with just the basic features?

With the use of tiny USB flash-drives becoming increasingly common in our lives, it is scary how heavily we rely on these not so reliable storage devices. They can go missing, get stolen, or just pack it in and die. And if you haven’t backed up all your files from it, then this can be really devastating.

But few people remember to regularly backup so here’s an easy tutorial on how to get your computer to automatically backup your flash-drive for you. Following this, you should be able to rest assured that everything is safe. This how-to uses SilverKeeper, a free backup application made by Lacie.

This article will also show you how to make backups happen as soon as you mount your flash-drive using Do Something When, and a basic Automator workflow. Without further ado, let’s get started!

Setting Up SilverKeeper

Download the free SilverKeeper from Lacie and open it up. If you’ve never used it before, you should be asked if you’d like to use the setup assistant. Just click ‘Later’ as I’ve found it much easier just to do it manually.

You’ll now see the SilverKeeper window. Basically the application takes all the files from the Source folder you select on the left, and copies them into the Destination folder you choose on the right.

Click on the ‘New Set…’ pull down menu and click ‘New Set…’ Navigate to your flash-drive and choose it. You should then be prompted to pick your Destination. I would recommend creating a new folder inside your Mac hard drive just for flash-drive backups, and choosing this.

Be careful when choosing the Destination for backups. You need to make sure you choose an empty folder to backup into, to ensure than you don’t overwrite or lose anything you don’t want to.

Once you’ve set the Source and Destination, hitting the big ‘Go’ button will initiate the backup. Simple!

Schedule & Settings

In the section at the bottom of the SilverKeeper window are some tabs to explore. The Status tab gives you a basic run down on what it’s been up to.

If you’d like to set it up to run the backup on a regular basis, click on the Schedule tab and tick ‘Scheduled Backup’. You can set how often you want it to backup, and when. When the next backup time arrives, SilverKeeper will launch itself and run the backup.

The options tab holds some important features; you can set SilverKeeper to keep a set number of backups by ticking ‘Copy Set to Folder’ and entering in the amount you’d like. This is useful if you realize you need to revert something to how it was a few backups ago. Leaving ‘Never Remove Files’ unchecked means that if you delete a file from the Source, it will be deleted from the Destination upon next backup.

The Exceptions tab lets you inform SilverKeeper of any files you don’t need backed up, or of files in the Destination that you don’t want deleted.

True Automation

There is a problem with scheduling backups. Being so portable, a flash-drive may not always be plugged in when SilverKeeper tires to do it’s thing. When this happens, SilverKeeper will let you know that the backup failed. It becomes your job to manually do it next time you connect the flash-drive unless you wait out for the next scheduled backup.

But there is a solution. If you don’t always have your flash-drive in your computer at the same time each day or week, read on to learn how to automatically trigger backups each time you mount your flash-drive.

Step 1: Download Do Something When

First, we’re going to be downloading another application for this, called Do Something When. This application sits in your System Preferences, and as the name suggests, it triggers an action when something else happens. We want to trigger the backup each time you mount your flash-drive. Once downloaded, install it so that it’s ready for later.

Step 2: Automator Workflow

Now to make the action that is triggered, Automator is the way to go. Fire it up from your applications folder, and drag the action ‘Launch Application’ from the library on the left into the workflow on the right. Click on the pulldown menu to find SilverKeeper.

So far, this workflow will just open SilverKeeper for us. Now we want it to press the go button. Because there appears to be no way to manually trigger backups in SilverKeeper other than physically clicking ‘Go’, we need to record ourselves doing this in Automator. Make sure you’ve got both the SilverKeeper window and the Automator window visible, and click the red ‘Record’ button in the upper right of Automator.

Now as quickly as you can, move the mouse and click ‘Go’ in SilverKeeper, and then the Stop Recording button in the black floating window that appears. It wouldn’t hurt to drag the Playback Speed slider all the way up so that everything happens fast on the new workflow segment that appears.

That’s it! Workflow complete. Give it a test by pressing the ‘Run’ button and see if the curser clicks ‘Go’ and initiates backup. From the menu go File > Save As… and save it as an Application.

Step 3: Linking It All Together

Open up the Do Something When preference pane inside the System Preferences, and enter in a rule name down the bottom such as “Flash-Drive Backup”. Next to ‘When’ find your flash-drive, and chose ‘Mounts’. Beside ‘What’, choose ‘Open’ and then locate that automator application you just saved. It may be a good idea to enter in a short delay.

Now press ‘Save’, hit the ‘Start’ button at the top, and check ‘Automatically Start on Login’.

Conclusion

Provided everything worked smoothly, your flash-drive will be backed up automatically every time you connect it to the computer, to the location you set in SilverKeeper. This is a great method for ensuring that if you do ever loose it, your backed up work should be safe and pretty up to date. You can of course use SilverKeeper and Do Something When with other types external media as well if you need to.

Let us know if you have any questions or comments on backing up your flash-drives below, and I hope you find this useful!

Have you ever wanted a fully featured command center for your Mac, allowing you to create a iCal event, control your iTunes library, or anything else? How about an application that lets you map all those commands to keyboard shortcuts, giving you access to them with only a few keystrokes?

Cockpit for Mac is all that and more. Cockpit is the perfect way to control all your applications and increase your productivity. Easily manage and add new commands with the built-in Actions builder, which uses Apple’s Automator style drag and drop to make both simple and complex actions.

Getting Started

Installing Cockpit is as simple as drag and dropping it into your Applications folder. It runs in your menu bar using a tiny amount of your CPU and only about 70MB of RAM. Click on the little Cockpit symbol in your menubar to bring up the control menu. Use the drop-down menu to change from application to application, even control system commands like opening System Preferences, shutting down the machine, or bringing up the Force Quit menu.

Cockpit’s real functionality comes into play with the ability to add more applications and actions. Using the Actions builder, you can build something as simple as launching a new application, or as complex as batch resizing and renaming an entire folder of pictures.

Control Has Never Been So Easy

Cockpit comes preloaded with support for iTunes, Safari, iCal, Mail, iPhoto, Keynote and system settings. While this might be enough for some, the developers included the ability to add all kinds of new controls into the application.

Creating a new set of controls is really easy. Opening Cockpit and clicking the gray gear will show a drop-down menu of options. Select Manage Control and you will brought to a menu for customizing the pre-set controls that come with the application:

Creating Your Own Controls

Clicking the plus sign at the bottom creates a new set of controls. Start by clicking Actions and the app will launch it’s Actions builders.

Cockpit uses the same action interface as Automator, allowing you to select the commands you want and drag them onto the main builder window. You can customize options for each action and use multiple actions to make a complex workflow.

Drag the Get Specified Servers and Connect to Server actions to make a script that will connect to specified servers and prompt you to login.

Once you have your finished actions, you can try testing it or just click OK to return to the previous screen. While using Cockpit, I was able to build several actions for connecting to servers, creating and exporting a screen recording, and batch resizing a collection of photos.

Don’t worry if you don’t understand how to create new actions in Cockpit. The developers have an online gallery of several useful pre-made sets of Controls. Here are a few of my favorite Cockpit Controls from their online library:

• Capture Control by Steffen Romberg
• Clean Up Control by Steffen Romberg
• Adium Control by Raj Shah

Keyboard Shortcuts

Cockpit has full support for keyboard shortcuts, allowing you to easily map certain actions like setting your computer to sleep, creating a new event in iCal, or pausing iTunes. Even custom-created workflows can have keyboard shortcuts set, which will increase your productivity no end!

Setting these shortcuts entails opening Cockpit, clicking the gray gear, and clicking Manage Controls. The Manage Control menu allows you to customise the pre-made and self-made controls. Select an application from the sidebar and scroll down until you find the command you wish to map to a keyboard shortcut.

From there, you can record any shortcut for wish (as long as it isn’t already used by something else). I tend to map my main actions like creating a new event in iCal, opening a new mail message, or adding another Safari window, to the command key and the number keys.

Whatever your shortcut may be, map it to something that you’ll remember, or else all this will have been for nothing! You can always go back to this menu to remember which key you set for each action.

Conclusion

Cockpit is great for power users who want the ability to control several different applications with keyboard shortcuts or a quick click of a single menu.

Photographers can use the Controls creator feature to create a workflow that would automatically crop, resize, and rename any new pictures in a certain folder, and be able to launch that workflow by pressing only two keys. Office workers can create a workflow actions allowing them to connect to a group of servers and open work related applications when they push a button in Cockpit.

I loved the Automator-style action builder, which made it simple to build complex actions. The user interface is stunning, giving it a futuristic look and feel. The only thing I feel needs minor improvement would be icon picker for new controls. It only supports image files and when you try to add an application, it doesn’t grab the default icon file which is inside every application. Adding this feature would make it easier for users to add controls for non-included applications.