Category: Mac

For the past five years, I’ve been relying upon FileMaker’s Bento to manage structured data on my MacBook. Unfortunately, the Apple subsidiary recently announced that it was ending development of the friendly database application. The company will stop selling Bento after September 2013, and will end user support after July 2014.

It’s time for a new simple databasing app for the Mac. In this review, I’ll be looking at an indie database app called Tap Forms to see how it stacks up as a Bento replacement. It looks promising — and hopefully it can eventually take the Bento crown.

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How I use Bento

Back in the 1970s, I began keeping a record in a composition notebook of the books I read. When I got my first PC, one of those clunker Compaq “portables,” one of the first things I did was transcribe my reading list notebook into a flat file database program I bought just for that purpose. Over the years since I’ve had at least a dozen computers, and I’ve been able to move that original reading list file in one form or another — usually a comma separated value text tile — from database to database, computer to computer. For the past five years, that information has been residing in Bento on my two successive MacBooks. And more recently, I’ve been able to carry my reading list around on my iPod Touch and iPad Mini thanks to the iOS version of Bento.

Now that FileMaker has made Bento abandonware, I have to decide if I want to keep relying on it or if I want to find a new home for my reading list, as well as the other structured information I use a database program for.

For me a Bento replacement would need to meet the following criteria:

1. Can import and export data in a variety of common file formats, because someday it too will become abandoned or obsolete.
2. Easy to use. No programming necessary.
3. Versatile field types to handle various kinds of data.
4. Though this review is concentrating on the Mac app, I want to be able to have my information with me on the go, so a companion iOS app with seamless syncing is a must.
5. Adequate ability to filter, find and sort data as needed.
6. Affordable price.

Tap Forms to the rescue?

The first application listed when I searched on “database” in the App Store was Tap Forms, the product of Brendan Duddridge of Tap Zapp Software Inc. A review of the web site gave me good reason to believe that it might just offer the features I was looking for, so I spent the $24.99 to purchase the app (put a check mark next to “affordable”).

As the name implies, Tap Forms began life as a database for iOS five years ago. The Mac version came out about a year ago. The iPad version is $8.99 from iTunes, which will probably sound expensive to some, but if it works as advertised is well worth it to me. It is not a universal app, so if you want it on your iPod or iPhone, you’ll need to spend another $8.99. A little pricey for all three, but the total still costs less than the $50 the Mac version of Bento will run you.

Import and export options

Just about the first thing I did after getting Tap Forms installed on my MacBook was to export my Bento Reading List as a CSV file. I expected to have to create a file in Tap Forms to import that data into, but was pleasantly surprised when Tap Forms gave me the option of appending my data to an existing form or creating a new one. I chose the latter option and was able to import my precious data flawlessly.

You need to pay attention to the options for importing, adjusting the field type to match your incoming data. You also need to adjust the date format to ensure the information comes through making sense. My Bento data was formatted as yyyy-mm-dd, so I set the date field in Tap Forms to match (see the screen shot below).

Export from Tap Forms is equally easy. I had no trouble importing a CSV file exported from Tap Forms into a new Bento database — so moving to another app in the future, if needs be, shouldn’t be that hard, either.

Easy to use

For the most part, Tap Forms is very easy to use. It comes with 26 template forms (a form being the front end of a database), so you may be able to start using it for collecting data without having to create your own form. But making a new form is quite simple. Once you select NEW FORM from the FORMS menu (or press the + sign at the bottom of the forms navigator pane), you the EDIT dialog box with two tabs. The default tab is FORM PROPERTIES, where you provide a name for the form, categorize it, set the default sort fields, and more.

Once you’re satisfied with the form properties, you switch to the FIELD PROPERTIES tab in order to create and order the fields for your database. You have a wide selection of fields to choose from, but I’ll get to that a little later in this review.

You can edit the form and field properties, so you can make changes as your needs change. Then you just create new records and fill in the fields as you would in Bento or any database. There are a few nuances depending upon the type of fields you have, which I’ll cover shortly.

Tap Forms does not match Bento’s flexible viewing options. You can re-order your fields in the form, but you can’t move them around freely or add rules and boxes to the form as you can in Bento. And, to paraphrase Henry Ford, you can have any color form you want as long as it is white. You can, however, switch between two ways of listing your records. The single list view works essentially like an index, with your records shown in one long list alphabetized on whichever field you choose, and showing up to three pieces of additional data. There is not such an option in Bento.

And the column view essentially matches Bento’s table view. You can edit the fields of your records inline in column view.

Versatile field types

With Tap Forms you can choose from 20 different field types, so you can keep a wide array of data organized. (For comparison, Bento has 23 options when creating a new field.)

My Reading List data has common field types. Author first and last name, and title are all text fields. Category is also a text field, but it has an associated pick list called BookGenres. Pick lists are handled a bit differently in Tap Forms than in Bento (where this field type is known as a Choice), where the list of options is a property of the field that you create as you create the field. In Tap Forms, you create pick lists as items separate from your form, so you can use the same pick list in any number of different databases.

I also use a date field to record the date I finished reading the book. The field field works pretty much the same way as it does in Bento. Select the field and enter a date with the keyboard or click the calendar to select the date. I make use of a rating field to provide a 1- to 5-star review. I like how much more visual the rating field is in Tap Forms than in Bento.

And finally, I have a note field for making longer comments. In Bento, a note field is just an expanded text type field, while in Tap Forms you select a special note type of field, intended for longer text entries. When you fill in the text field in Bento, you just type the text directly into the box on the form. With Tap Forms, you click the note icon beside the field to pop open a mini editor window.

When you’re finished entering your text, you have to click the X control button in the upper left corner, then you have to confirm that you want to save the text. This may be a small nit-pick, but it feels like an unecessary step. I’d like to see a SAVE AND CLOSE button to speed this up. Also, while you can change the font and font style (adding bold for instance), this appears to apply only to the entire note, so you can’t just bold a word or phrase.

Companion iOS apps

As mentioned, Tap Forms actually began as an app for iPad, so you would expect it to have a solid synchronization between the iOS and Mac versions, something that turned out to be true. Setting up the sync via iCloud was a snap, and I quickly had my reading list database available on my iPad. I have not yet tested the iPhone version.

You can also transfer files to Tap Forms via Dropbox. This is a nice feature, but really only significant if you’re using the iOS app. Otherwise, the file attachment field type works just as you would expect it to in the Mac version.

In the iOS app, you first import the file into Tap Forms (which you can do directly from the Dropbox app, or from Tap Forms itself), then it becomes available to attach to a file attachment field.

Searching and sorting and organizing

Bento allows you to build advanced searches, which find records based on multiple criteria, as in the screenshot below:

This is not currently possibly with Tap Forms, which has a search function that is not particularly sophisticated, but is reasonably effective. Typing the search string in the search box reveals records which match the search, and provides an option to save that search as a sub-set of your database. But unlike in Bento, I can’t create a search that shows me all the five-star, science fiction novels I’ve read. I can, however, achieve that result combining search with grouping and sorting (which you set in the FORMS PROPERTIES tab of the EDIT dialog). This kind of sorting power makes many searches unnecessary.

Tap Forms’ other features

Tap Forms has several additional features, which are not part of my criteria for judging it as a Bento replacement, but are worth noting. First, Tap Forms is multilingual, with full unicode text support and localizations for 15 languages. It supports AES-256 bit encryption on the database and individual field level, to keep your data secure, and also has options to make complete backups of your data. Finally, Tap Forms has a built-in formula editor. Create a calculation field, then use it to calculate values based upon other fields in the record. Results can be displayed in plain, decimal, currency, or time formats (e.g. 10 hrs, 15 mins.). All of these are nice extras that make it a great tool to explore.

Notable differences between Bento and Tap Forms

In Bento you can adjust the look of your database with a couple of clicks, and you can arrange the fields on your form how you want, shifting field positions, lining them up on the same line, adding rules and boxes. With Tap Forms there is just one look, and the fields roll out in the order you have them sequenced. While this is mostly a cosmetic difference, it is not entirely that. With Bento you can make better use of screen real estate, which becomes significant if you have forms with many fields.

Bento has dedicated fields for contact information, while Tap Forms has a field that links directly to a contact from the Apple Contacts app. This is useful for relating information to a contact, but it is not so helpful if you want to use Tap Forms for managing contact information. Tap Forms also can not print mailing labels (although the developer is considering adding that option), so if you use Bento heavily for, say, customer information, you may need to consider an alternative, or keep using Bento as long as you can.

The verdict

Tap Forms met my six criteria with flying colors:

• It quite ably imported my data from Bento.
• It is easy to use
• It has versatile field types.
• There are very functional iOS companion apps available to keep my data in sync across all my devices.
• It has a reasonable ability to sort and find the data I am looking for.
• It is reasonably affordable.

Tap Forms is not as elegant as Bento, and in some ways is less sophisticated. This should not be a surprise, as it is the work of a one-man shop, that is simultaneously developing the iOS versions. Given that, and given the price, it is a remarkably well-rounded program that will serve quite adequately as a Bento replacement, unless you make use of some of Bento’s more powerful features.

I’m farily confident that Tap Forms is going to have the honor of being the next in a long-line of applications that have hosted my reading list, but for the first few months I’ll continue to use both Bento and Tap Forms until I’m entirely sure the transition will be as smooth as I anticipate.

Marketcircle’s Billings was discontinued in June 2013 in favour of their subscription-based Billings Pro, an app which we’ve reviewed and think is awesome. Subscription-based software isn’t for everyone, however, and we’ve been frequently asked to recommend some alternative apps to Billings Pro that doesn’t require any recurring costs.

If you’re looking for an invoicing or time tracking app to replace Billings, or perhaps simply want to know what’s out there, here’s the 10 best simple time tracking and invoicing apps on the Mac today.

Conclusion

So there you are: the best basic time tracking and invoicing tools for your Mac. They’re cheap, don’t require a subscription, and are likely to be the perfect fix if you don’t need to send out invoices all the time — and still might fit the bill even if you invoice daily.

Got a favorite non-subscription invoicing app we missed? We’d love to hear about it in the comments below.

I do a fair bit of photo editing — everything from screenshots to engagement and wedding shoots — and there are some things that take way too long to do in Photoshop or any of its equivalents. One of those things is collages. Another one is setting up a background image.

In Photoshop, you’d have to create a background layer, adjust the colour, adjust the size of your next layer, and drag them around until it fit right. That’s great if you’re really particular and know exactly what you’re looking to do. But sometimes, you just want a really cool and quick way to show off your weekend at the beach. And you want it to take about ten seconds from conception to Facebook sensation. This is where Diptic comes in.

The Time of Your Life

Diptic isn’t a powerful photo editor. I need to get that right out of the way. Those of us who are used to our Canon EOS MK III cameras aren’t going to be able to switch from Lightroom 5 to Diptic. But if you do all your post-processing in an app like Aperture — or even iPhoto — it’s still really easy to use Diptic.

What’s most surprising about Diptic is that it’s incredibly easy to use. I’m always trepidatious about simple software, because it’s often the simple software that’s inexcusably bad. But Diptic is brilliant. You can tell the design was well thought out. Every button serves a purpose, and it’s just fun.

I review a lot of apps, and not all of them are fun. The first time I opened it up, I was having fun within seconds. And shouldn’t photo editing be fun? Aren’t we all just sharing memories with our friends and family, at the end of the day? This is perfect for that.

I love how quick the app is too. Granted, I have a very powerful Retina MacBook Pro, but the app is insanely snappy. It can handle the RAW files I throw at it from Aperture, but it’s really quick with JPEGs. I suspect it’d be a little slower with an older spinning platter hard drive, but I can’t say that would surprise anybody.

It’s the Little Things

Using Diptic is a piece of cake. Choose the layout of the photos, drag and drop photos in or click to add them from the Finder browser, adjust the size and position of the photos (along with some other minor tweaks) and choose a background colour. Voila — ten seconds after you’ve started, you’ve got a professional collage.

What’s cool about it are the little details. It’s really easy to change the colour of the background or round the corners. The corner rounding is a great feature. If you want to show off one photo at a time and want it to sit inside a circular frame, that takes about three seconds to properly set up.

The app allows you to make a few minor adjustments to photos — contrast, brightness, hue and saturation specifically — and although the tools are useful, they aren’t going to win Diptic any awards. They’re nowhere near as insatiably accurate as the same tools in an app like Aperture, but they’re worth their weight in gold for quick and easy access.

Small Beefs

What I don’t like about the controls, though, is that they don’t update in real time. If I go adjust the hue from 0 to +6, I don’t see all the changes in between. In fact, I don’t see any changes until I release the slider. In any other modern photo editing app that I’ve tried, changes are instantaneous and you can see the results as you make adjustments. That takes a lot of the trial-and-error out of the editing, so it’s a shame that Diptic isn’t quite there yet.

I would also like to see some keyboard integration. This is an app that requires me to use my mouse all the time. If I want to move a picture over by just a couple pixels, I have to be very careful with my mouse because Diptic doesn’t recognize the arrow keys. It’s a small nuisance in an otherwise great app.

Diptic doesn’t have any preferences. It doesn’t need them. The brilliant thing about the software is that it does one thing well and doesn’t try to be anything it’s not.

From the Top Down

The whole thing is a piece of cake, from top to bottom. What I like about the app is that they integrate existing OS X technologies where they can instead of trying to reinvent the wheel. They use OS X’s existing colour picker, also employed by apps like Pixelmator, and I think this is easier than any other design they could have come up with.

The app also has a small footprint — it’s less than one megabyte in download size, which means that even if you don’t find a use for it every day, it takes up almost no hard drive space. It’s got a clean and simple design, and that makes all the difference.

That small amount of hard drive space is really reassuring to me. This isn’t bloatware. This is an insanely handy piece of software that even pretentious photo snobs can use to save minutes out of their day.

When it comes to sharing your work, there are a couple things that I think many people will want to know. The first is that you can share to Twitter or Facebook straight from the app, but you can’t share anything to Instagram — at least, not until Instagram opens their API. Finally, Diptic is not a non-destructive photo editor. It doesn’t need to be and it shouldn’t be, but in the interest of being thorough, I wanted to make sure I included that. As well, you can export photos as either PNG or JPEG files, but not TIFF. Again, for Diptic’s purposes, I think this is mostly fine.

The Final Word

I’m as much of a photo snob as anybody else. I think that great photos can come from great gear, and I’m often inspired by incredible photography. As a professional photographer, I can also acknowledge the importance of these things.

But at the end of the day, I have to be honest: just about anybody can and should be able to take amazing pictures with whatever camera they have. Editing should also be a piece of cake for people, and collages shouldn’t be a Photoshop owner’s exclusive game. Diptic holds the same philosophies, and makes great software available to anybody for any astonishingly low price. You’re going to love Diptic, whether you’re a consummate professional looking for a quick way to share photos on your brands Facebook page, or just an ironic hipster taking street pictures with your iPhone.

Frustrated with all the blank music note covers on your albums? Combine that with messed up song info, and it can be terribly hard to find that song you’re looking for. If it’s easier to go grab the original CD than it is to find the song in iTunes, you need help. And that’s what TuneUp is for. It’s the iTunes plugin that’ll cleanup your library, adding album art and song metadata and getting rid of duplicate tracks in just one click with the just-released TuneUp 3. It’ll analyze your library, organize everything in easy-to-understand graphs about your music library, and make you wish you’d taken it for a spin sooner.

We called it “a great timesaver if, like most of us, your iTunes library is a mess” in our review, and that still holds true today — even more so with the revamped latest version.

TuneUp usually costs $49.95 for a lifetime license, but we’ve got 3 lifetime licenses of TuneUp 3 just for our readers this week. Sound like something you’d like to get your hands on? Then just leave a comment below and let us know how big your iTunes library is to get your entry in our giveaway. If you’d like an extra entry in the giveaway, just share this post on your favorite social network and add another comment below with a link to your post.

Hurry and get your entry in; we’ll close the giveaway on Friday, August 23rd. Oh, and for the record: my iTunes library currently weighs in at just over 6.2Gb, with around 1100 songs.

Envato staff or those who have written more than two articles or tutorials for AppStorm are ineligible to enter.

MainStage has long been Apple’s answer to the live music performance industry. While the company hasn’t listed names of popular bands who use the app (like they did with Logic Pro), there are quite a few artists who use the concert-optimized DAW for synthesizers and sometimes even mixing. I’ve been using the second version of MainStage to play synths at church for over three years now, and while it was a learning process to understand things, I’m fully invested in the app now, and I love it.

When I saw MainStage 3, I was excited to see new features like arpeggiators and drum machines finally making their way to the app. The sparkly user interface, too, looked like a nice change. After a bit of testing, I’ve come to a few conclusions about the app. Let’s go over them.

A More Fitting User Interface

The new design is much more modern. It fits the “professional” look that Apple is aiming for with this app. Since most concerts are performed at night anyway, there’s no need for the user’s eyes to be blinded every time he looks at the screen to tweak with things. It also doesn’t illuminate your face — that’s what concert lighting is for anyway. Best of all, this design is very cool, so when you’re using the app you actually look like you know exactly what you’re doing. The mixture of darkness and vibrant colors makes for a splendid DJ-esque look.

Also changed in the design is the sidebar full of patches. Instead of being limited to a certain number and resorting to scrolling, the Edit tab now allows for 22 patches to be shown on the screen at once. It’s really handy if you’re trying to see an overall picture of things.

New Instruments, a Drum Kit Designer, and Bunches of Shiny Presets

MainStage 3 brings a batch of fresh synthesizers and samples. My favorite is the Retro Synth, which is both beautiful and easy to use. I had a good time tweaking with the presets and getting a genuine sound out of the synth. It offers analog, FM, sync, and table oscillators for a diverse range of results. It includes two oscillators with a slider to mix them and about 100 presets to tweak with. I really enjoyed using this synth, and its interface is a nice look after seeing ES2 for ages.

The best thing about MainStage 3 is that you get all of Logic Pro X’s instruments. There’s no extra in-app purchase for them or anything, which makes this app a steal. $30 for the whole range of sounds and new plugins is the best deal on the market, even if you can’t record with such prestige as with Logic.

On to the Drum Kit Designer, which Apple is very excited about. It basically lets you take each component of a traditional drum set and replace them with elements from, say, a Middle Eastern one. You can then tune them to your liking, adjust the dampening, and even mix the kit. It’s a splendid way to make your own custom sound when playing live, though technically would be used more for recording.

Old Presets May Not Work

Since I’ve begun using MainStage 3, I’ve had to completely revamp my weekly church concert. If I use the old concert file from MainStage 2, the app constantly warns me that the “concert contains plugins that add output latency”, which will “cause a longer delay between audio or MIDI input and audio output.” Since that didn’t sound very appealing, I decided to make a new concert from the keyboards template and change things up. I mostly used the new presets that MainStage 3 includes, but I also copied and pasted some of my channel strips and settings from the older concert. This led to some problems.

Unfortunately, copying over an already-configured channel strip from MainStage 2 brings along all the latency issues, so I had to instead go into the synthesizer itself and save the settings as a preset. I then loaded them from my desktop and finally had the patch I had spent hours configuring before. When this was finished, I had another problem: none of my plugins were imported with the setting. I then had to go find my effects and tweak them exactly as I had them before.

Now, it’s easy to bypass this issue by simply clicking Ignore and checking the “Do not show this message again” box. The thing is, I want a clean setup, so I have decided to not use any legacy presets.

Arpeggiator, Chord Trigger, and Lots of New Plugins

Apple has finally added an arpeggiator to MainStage — it’s amazing! I’m surprised it took them this long since nearly every other DAW and synthesizer on the planet has employed this function for years. Of course, Apple’s version is much more beautiful than your average arp. Its feature set includes the same basic items: four octaves, four variations, the usual pattern presets, and a 16-measure pattern input area where you can draw the velocity of each note or use the preset ones.

There’s are new “EDM” presets sections to get people started with a mainstream electronic music sound. These include a “Dub Machine” which will help you produce decent dubstep without the hefty configuration process. It’s nice to see Apple making this style more available to people who don’t want to do as much programming.

One thing I couldn’t find in the arpeggiator was a tuning feature for the pattern. I use these often to make small looping riffs for leads. Usually arps have a tuning option for patterns — not just velocity — that let you adjust each note in a measure by cents. This come in handy during live performances and I’m surprised there isn’t an option in this arpeggiator.

Other handy MIDI effects include the Chord Trigger, Modifier, Modulator, Note Repeater, Randomizer, Scripter, Transposer, and Velocity Processor. I’m not going into detail on all of these, but I will say that the Chord Trigger is perfect for that synth-organ sound you hear in house music.

No Toolbar Customization or 32-bit Plugin Support

Now to the cons of upgrading to MainStage 3. First there’s the lack of toolbar customization. Unlike with the previous versions, you can’t change any of the buttons displayed in the top toolbar. This means no Tap Tempo button, patch and set switching buttons, or even a panic function. Since I use many of these features, the removal of them has affected the way I work with the app. Worst of all, there’s no CPU or RAM meter in the toolbar anymore, and since there’s not a customization option, you can’t get it back. When you’re using a MacBook Air like me, resources get used up fast and it’s nice to know where you are.

Moving past customization, let’s take a look at the worst problem with MainStage 3: it’s 64-bit only. This means that all 32-bit plugins, from the legendary Sylenth1 (which used to be one of my most used synths) to Native Instruments and even Ivory won’t work if you had them in 32-bit. Apple is forcing developers to make their plugins 64-bit, but there’s a downside to that: in the meantime, you can’t use your instruments with the new software. There should at least be a 32-bit option for people who still have legacy plugins to use.

The new 64-bit architecture also means that ReWire is not supported with 32-bit software. I had to buy a new version of Reason so I could still use it with MainStage, which was an otherwise unnecessary investment.

A Solid Live Performance Upgrade with Things to Learn

I want to like MainStage 3, but it will take me a while to adapt to its new ways of doing things. In addition to that, one of the more annoying things for me is a bug with the Musical Typing feature. It doesn’t stay on the keyboard side, but rather the piano one, so every time I open it I have to switch modes to play. It should remember what I was using last, but it doesn’t. I’m sure this, and other concerns, will be worked out eventually.

Something I would love to see in this app is iCloud sync for concert files. Obviously, this would just be for the arrangement saves, not the resources. Right now I use Dropbox and since Apple already uses iCloud for everything else, why isn’t it being integrated here?

Overall, this app will take some getting used to. Apple has changed a lot of the core functionality — more than I can go over in this review — and people will learn how to use it eventually. In the meantime, it will frustrate us. The good thing is, there’s enough good new stuff to make up for that.

MacBooks might look nice in their original boxes from Apple, but it’s not very practical to carry them around in the original box all the time. And you’d really, really better not carry around your MacBook on its own. That just sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.

So what should you do? Why, you’ll need to get a nice case for your MacBook. Whether you’re still carrying a thick MacBook Pro, or have switched to the slim MacBook Air, you’ll need at least protection for your Mac, and at most a place to put all of your cables and papers and more. There’s a ton of different bags out there, so we’ve rounded up our team’s favorites.

Here’s the MacBook bags, backpacks, sleeves and more that the AppStorm team uses.

Like the article? You should subscribe and follow us on twitter.

be-ez LA robe Air

via Pedro Lobo

I’m fortunate enough to be a telecommuter – meaning that half the work week I’m in one location and the other half in another. It also means that I end up doing my fair share of traveling. For that very reason, when I bought my Macbook Air, I wanted a sturdy sleeve that would afford my precious new machine all the protection possible without having to worry about which bag I’d be using.

After searching around, I settled on a be-ez LA robe Air (in black/wasabi). It’s thick shape-memory foam, makes it the ideal sleeve for me. I can simply throw (albeit gently) my MBA into whichever backpack or travel bag I may be using that week without much concern. I have a separate bag for accessories and chargers though most times it’s not needed since I have duplicates at each location. After a few years of constant use the sleeve still looks and feels new. In fact, I’m so happy with it that I ended up buying it’s little sibling for the iPad Mini.

Price: From $25

Case Logic PBCI

via Rita El Khoury

I have had this Case Logic bag for roughly five years and it’s still in excellent condition. Granted, I don’t carry my Macbook every day, but it’s still a testament to the case’s materials and build quality that it lasted this long without any wear and tear.

I picked this bag because it fit my 13″ White Macbook very snugly but still offered enough pockets and room for the wall charger, and a few accessories when needed. The tight fit makes sure it can almost be considered a sleeve with only the Macbook inside, but can expand to house the charger, some cables, and even a T-shirt and shorts!

Price: $41.80

Mac Case Messenger

via Pierre Wizla

This is truly “the most versatile laptop bag ever”. My absolute favorite feature is that it is a combo: you get a MacBook sleeve with it, and this sleeve is awesome. And of course you can choose the sleeve color: white, black or silver. Nowadays Apple goes full aluminum but not so long ago this color choice had its importance 😉

The bag has some unique features:

• a shell that adds an additional layer of protection in the rear compartment
• a bright, almost fluorescent green interior that makes it super easy to find anything within

Though I don’t really use my Messenger bag anymore these days, my MacBook and its sleeve are inseparable. And while having a soft, comfy touch and being light-weight, it’s super resistant: bought it 6 years ago and it’s still as new. It’s lifetime-warranted, and I bet it will really last long.

Price: $59.95

 Be.ez LE Reporter

via Jacob Penderworth

After spending about a week researching messenger bags, I decided on this one because, two years ago, it was cheap at $70, very nice-looking, and included a fully waterproofed canvas. I still enjoy the satchel, but it’s not what I’d call my “dream carrying case”. The thing that most annoys me is that the rear zipper pocket can’t fit any normal-sized notebooks, even though the case is tall enough for it. That means I have to invest in Moleskines or other, smaller pads to jot down my thoughts and sketch things. Additionally, the bag is better for a MacBook Pro than an Air. With my 13-inch Air, it “flattens” a bit at the top and the velcro doesn’t fully fasten unless I manually align it.

Other than the little quibbles, I like this bag for daily use. I did enjoy the other colors it came in, but Amazon.com didn’t have anything else at the time so I decided to just run with black/saffron. It was a good investment; I’m thankful, and rather surprised, that the velcro still works perfectly after all this time.

Price: $99

Wenger Pegasus SwissGear backpack

via Bill Morefield

I’ve had my Wenger Pegasus SwissGear backpack for almost six years. It’s from the time when laptops were expected to be big and heavy and built to carry one up to 17″. I’ve carried four different laptops including my current 15″ MacBook Pro in it. It gives me enough room to also carry an iPad and Kindle with me when traveling and side pockets for an umbrella or bottle of water.

The best feature is that it’s tough. It’s ridden in overhead compartments and under seats on airplanes and between my legs on a bus many times. Almost daily it rides in my car to and from work. And after all this time it shows only a little wear and tear and none in the important areas.

Price: Around $80

Incase Nylon Sling

via Mark Simpson

The protection offered the MBA is excellent with this case. The bright green felt interior is like the inside of a top quality winter jacket, with strong double-stitching around the seams. A single zipper seals the MBA snuggly into the centre compartment, and I’ve found a prefer to put the rear of the laptop in first so the the tapered end is nearer the handle.

All-in-all, this is a sumptuous and practical case with a high-quality finish. Recommended.

Price: From $39.95

Incase Terra Sleeve and Belkin Evo backpack

via Jordan Merrick

I have an 11″ MacBook Air and use a combination of an Incase Terra Sleeve and a Belkin Evo backpack which I got from Amazon. Belkin doesn’t seem to have a product page for it and, after some checking, I think it was actually made to be sold exclusively through Dell!

The Incase sleeve is what you’d expect from Incase – perfect in every way. I’ve yet to use an Incase product that I haven’t liked. It’s certainly a little on the expensive side but you do get what you pay for, a robust case that’s designed exactly for your Mac. What’s more, if you’re like me and can’t stand neoprene (it’s like scratching a chalkboard) then it’s a great alternative as it’s made from canvas, instead.

The Belkin backpack is exceptional and feels just as good as anything from Incase. In fact, I’d probably say it’s actually better than some of their range simply because of the plethora of zips and compartments at your disposal. It’s lightweight, well padded and small considering it’s suitable for a 15″ laptop. A bit big for an 11″ MacBook Air, but I occasionally carry a larger laptop around so using the Incase sleeve with the Belkin bag make for a great combination.

Price: $44.95 and around $40, respectively

Timbuk2 Messenger Bag

via Jonathan Garro

Not strictly for MacBooks, but I use a Timbuk2 that has a built-in laptop sleeve that fits the 15″ perfectly. As a bicycle commuter, it works great. The material is waterproof, and there is plenty of space for papers and other odds and ends.

Price: $96.75

A Generic Bag From a Shoe Store

via Matthew Guay

I love laptop sleeves, but half the time I travel I need to take at least some extra documents with me, if not a charger and other cables, so that option’s out. And, I’d rather spend my money on my Mac and apps, so I’m notoriously cheap when it comes to buying laptop bags. It doesn’t help that local stores don’t tend to stock exactly what I want in a laptop bag: a thin case big enough for my MacBook Air, with room for the charger and various extra cables, and perhaps a small pocket to put my passport. It seems there’s only sleeves, or huge briefcases that looks like you’re planning to rob a bank (or move).

So, I head to shoe stores — in my case, a local store called Taywin, who’s site doesn’t even list their bags. But they do sell them: basic laptop bags that are padded, have extra pockets, made from decently durable canvas (I’m on my second one in 5 years; make of that what you will), and are cheap enough for my tastes. Just what the doctor ordered. Don’t even try looking in normal superstores; theirs are usually too junky to bother with. But if you can find a decent shoe store that sells handbags as well, they just might have some decent laptop cases tucked away in a corner.

Price: Your mileage may vary. Around $20 for me.

How about You?

Our team has incredibly diverse tastes on MacBook bags and sleeves and backpacks — though it looks like InCase is the crowd favorite. So what do you use? We’d love to hear about your favorite MacBook cases in the comments below.

AirPlay is a fantastic feature if you want to listen to a podcast wirelessly on your home speakers or watch a film that’s available only on Amazon Prime Video (which is not included with the Apple TV). However, it is missing one feature: the ability to stream from your iPhone to your Mac, rather than a TV. This could be handy if you use your iMac as a TV and want to play your movies and games on the big screen, or don’t want to take your iPhone out of your pocket to listen to a podcast while in the coffee shop (because you didn’t buy Instacast on both platforms).

There has long been a solution available, properly titled AirServer. The thing is, we never got around to reviewing it here at Mac.AppStorm, so today I’m going to do just that. Is the little utility worth the price and does it do everything that’s promised?

Setup is Quick and Easy

You’d usually expect a utility like this to have a short setup process, but all you really have to do is drag and drop the .app file into your Applications folder. It doesn’t even present a setup screen when you first launch it. Instead, it’s a menu bar app with a few options here and there. The app employs its own pane in System Preferences for changing things like the computer name, sound and display devices to be used, and optimization.

Protection for Public Networks

If you choose to keep your AirServer open all the time, which is the best idea since it’ll always be ready for you, it’s best to set a password so people can’t just start sending content to your screen in a coffee shop or library. This can be done easily by going to the app’s preferences pane and selecting a password option in the General tab.

If you don’t have a router near you, use your own private network for AirServer by creating one on your Mac and connecting to it with your iPhone.

I really like how there are “Onscreen Password” and “Onscreen Passcode” options to make the process more like pairing a Bluetooth device than connecting to a wireless network. You can set a fixed password, but it’s a lot easier to have the app display a special code each time you connect a device. One problem with this feature is it doesn’t save each device, so you have to re-enter the password if you disconnect from the network. Still, it’s worth turning on when you’re on a public network. You can always have the app ask you each time a device requests connection to your AirServer, which is a good alternative.

Audio Streaming is Top-Notch

This app has fantastic audio streaming capabilities. In addition to the usual music streaming, it allows for a separate AirPlay receiver just for lossless audio. This means that you can get the full FLAC or ALAC experience on your Mac, not just a bunch of compressed files. It does take a powerful router, though, and I’d highly recommend using something more qualified than a typical wireless-G device.

Overall, the audio quality was far superior to anything one would find in iTunes Match.

I did find that the app requires me to manually quit it after I stopped playing music. Apple TVs, on the other hand, always go back to the main screen once the streaming process has wrapped up. AirServer should do the same thing, but it doesn’t.

Video Streaming and Mirroring is On Par with Apple TV

Just like with an Apple TV, you can stream videos from your iOS device to your Mac with the help of AirServer. It worked well in my testing. The more notable feature is mirroring, which allows you to use your Mac as a larger version of your iOS device’s display for games and even Web browsing, if you wish. This feature has a bunch of adjustments, from post-processing stuff like sharpening to scaling preferences that let you stretch the image, fit it to the screen, or display the original size.

Mirroring did have a bit of a lag, but when I compared it to the latest Apple TV, there wasn’t a noticeable difference. There are optimization options for slow networks or FaceTime, too. Strangely, I was not able to connect my iPhone 5 to AirServer. I tried a friend’s phone, a different network, and even my Windows machine, but nothing worked. Our editor, though, has been able to use his iPhone 5 with AirServer without any trouble at all, so your mileage may vary.

There’s another tool out there called Reflector, which we looked at when it was titled Reflection. The thing is, its only benefit is the ability to record the screen you’re mirroring, which can be good if you often take videos of your iOS device or make tutorials for the platform. Otherwise, AirServer has proved to be a better all-around utility.

A Fantastic Budget Solution to Apple TV

With AirServer, you can simply connect your TV to your Mac as an external display and AirPlay content to it. If you already have a Mac mini as your media center device, add this utility to it and you’ll be set to watch films and listen to music. The developers like to think that it’s a good alternative to game consoles like the PS3 since there are hundreds of thousands of games available on the App Store, but that’s not really a fair comparison. Rather, this app is a good budget solution to the Apple TV, should you already own a Mac. It’ll be nice for mirroring games, sure, but we’re not at the point yet to compare iOS games over AirPlay to console games.

The app doesn’t make much sense if you have a MacBook because you’ll still be missing AirPlay mirroring functionality, but it’s really handy for streaming podcasts to the computer that’s on your lap. Just beware of the little issues plaguing it, like the issues I encountered mirroring my iPhone (which may just be a bug). Everyone will have their own use for it — what’s yours?

We all love our Macs, but for many, business realities often mean that you can’t use them for your work. Perhaps your company is already standardized on another OS, and the IT department won’t let you bring your own Mac. Or perhaps you have to use older software or hardware that won’t work on a Mac. I’m always amazed how often I still see Windows XP and even DOS in use at companies, and even spotted the latter running on a cash register computer at a Mac retailer recently.

Then, there’s others that use another platform on purpose. Perhaps you like developing on Linux, even if you love the apps and design of the Mac. Or — like myself — perhaps you use a tablet for your on-the-go computing and a Modbook Pro never really made sense for you. So, you find yourself using iOS or Android instead of OS X for your work.

Whatever the reason, we’d love to hear what other platform you use the most. Don’t include what you use on your phone — we’re mostly still not using our phones as alternate computers, however powerful they are today — but feel free to select iOS or Android if you use a tablet for a significant part of your computing life.

The fictional world of yestercentury was not a good one for Arstotzka, an Eastern European country facing a seemingly endless slew of immigration requests. Poverty is everywhere and unemployment is high. For even the chance of work, one must be awarded a position in a monthly lottery, earning only the bare minimum needed to pay the rent, keep you and your family fed and healthy, and try to improve the quality of life.

Papers, Please is a newly-released indie game that puts you in the role of a newly-placed border inspector who needs to analyse individual immigration requests, letting the applicants in or denying – and in some cases, detaining – them. It’s been getting attention for its unique storyline — and here’s your chance to see how the game works before you get your own copy.

Glory to Arstotzka!

Papers, Please takes place in the fictional country of Arstotzka, a territory presumably located in Eastern Europe, starting off in the mid 1980s. Though you won’t exactly be exploring the world yourself, a scene is set of a country plunged into rising unemployment, the extent of which requires key labour to be assigned through a lottery. Fortunately, your name is pulled and you are awarded an apartment for you and the family you need to take care of.

Each day you’ll head to work at your border checkpoint. Upon calling a potential immigrant, it’s your job to either approve or deny their request based on the requisite documents they hand over. The rules and requirements can change drastically every day, responding to events in the fictional canon, so keeping an eye on your rule book and the news is important.

If details don’t match up and you suspect foul play, you can interrogate an individual, leading to them somehow remedying the situation or causing you to deny their application. In some cases, you might need to take fingerprints, do a full body search (and that is a full body search, so you might want to turn off nudity in the in-game options if that’s not your thing) or even send your applicant to the guards to be detained.

Your performance is not without consequences. Processing applicants earns you money, money needed to pay for the rent of your apartment, food, heating, medical supplies and other key resources and upgrades. Fail to keep up with your finances and you’ll be removed from your position, only accelerated if you perform badly by denying valid applicants and approving those with incorrect documents.

Uprising at the Border

Being in charge of a major international border naturally comes with some breaks from the tedium of stamping visas. The game has various small story arcs which regularly come up in your days at work, ranging from a man asking you to let his wife through to processing international diplomats. You can be rewarded for playing into the requests of these individuals – either through in-game bribes or Steam achievements – but you’ll be punished if you’re ultimately not doing your job correctly.

Some of these events are more cryptic than others. Within the first few days of play, strange items can be dropped from the slew of immigrants and they probably won’t make a lot of sense until later on in the game. While the intervals at which these events trigger don’t seem to change from game-to-game, the interruptions do provide a little more depth and enjoyment to the game than if it were entirely comprised of processing standard applications.

Standard Issue Arstotzkan Dress

Papers, Please is a mostly top-down, single-view experience in a 16-bit-era style. However, the game still has an atmosphere of poor, anonymous dictatorship, so much like most indie games without the resources to power AAA-level graphics, the style still promotes a strong charm and level of immersion.

There isn’t much audio in the game and dialogue is handled through transcribed text rather than speech. The song effects trigged when you call new applicants or action other events in the game do get annoying after the first few days – to the extent that I just turned the song off a short while into playing – however, Papers, Please does have a title screen track that matches the atmosphere of the game perfectly.

Final Thoughts

Papers, Please seems really boring at its core concept, but the atmosphere of the game and somewhat frequent story-related interruptions in the Story mode tackle that well and still leave you feel like you’re having fun. The game isn’t as repetitive as it is complex and frustrating at times. From the second day onwards, you begin to learn of more and more things to look out for and this frequently leads to situations where you’ve got more documents to investigate than you have space and the eventual scolding you get for missing one piece of information gets incredibly frustrating.

Papers, Please is $9.99 and, even in the non-story-based Endless mode, it doesn’t have an awful lot of replayability. Based on it’s own merits, I’d recommend Papers, Please because it is an enjoyable experience and a good way to waste a few hours. However, those looking to get the best value for money could understandably hold off until a future Steam sale or look into buying an alternative game with a more significant degree of replayability.

Ever wished Quicktime could export in more video formats? You don’t need to wish any longer. MacX Video Converter Pro, our sponsor this week, is the app you need to convert any video you want to the format you want.

MacX Video Converter Pro can convert video to and from over 320 different formats, so you can make sure your media will play back perfectly on any device. You can get your videos exported in the perfect formats for your iPhone, iPad, Android phone or tablet, Playstation Portable, or any other device you have. It’ll also make it easy to trim or crop your videos, merge multiple videos together, and add subtitles and watermarks to any of your videos so they’ll look just like you want.

Then, MacX Video Converter Pro will also let you download YouTube videos to watch offline, and can record your screen to help you make screencasts. It also has a built-in video slideshow tool that makes it easy to turn your summer photos into quick videos.

Get Your Copy of MacX Video Converter Pro Today!

It’s a great time to get your own copy of MacX Video Converter Pro, since it’s currently on sale for $34.95, 30% off its normal price. It’ll help you get all of your summer videos in the formats you want, and more!

Adobe promised with their move to Creative Cloud subscriptions that they’d be updating their apps quicker and adding more value with services. The quicker updates have already been coming, with new editing features coming to Premiere Pro only a month after the new CC version had been released, but the services part hadn’t come along quite as quickly. We’ve been waiting for the originally promised file and Typekit font sync ever since the new Creative Cloud’s release. Just when it seemed that it’d never come, though, Adobe finally opened early access to syncing that’s been rolling out this week.

Apparently good things still come to those who wait, because Creative Cloud file and font syncing works very nicely. Here’s what you can expect when your Creative Cloud — or standalone Typekit Portfolio — plan gets desktop sync enabled.

The Revamped Creative Cloud App

If you’ve kept your Creative Cloud sync app up-to-date so far, you actually won’t need to install any new updates to enable file and font sync. Instead, when it’s enabled on your account, you’ll see the Font and File tabs now offer to let you start syncing. You’ll then get a new Creative Cloud folder in your user directory that’ll have any files you’ve previously uploaded to Creative Cloud online, but for fonts, you’ll still have to go online and find what you want — it won’t automatically sync the Typekit fonts you’ve been using on your websites.

The Creative Cloud app itself stays the same, mostly: it’ll now show how much of your storage you’re using on the files tab, and the fonts you have synced in the fonts tab. You can’t drag-and-drop files to the Creative Cloud icon to share them, or anything else special. It’s still just the hub for all things Adobe on your Mac.

So let’s look at what both file and font syncing bring to the Creative Cloud equation.

Sync 20Gb of Files — Any Files

File sync isn’t 100% new to Creative Cloud; the original Creative Cloud that was sold alongside CS6 last year included file syncing, with 2Gb free for anyone. There was a desktop app that, essentially, kept your files synced with the cloud storage service, and little more. That app was killed when the new Creative Cloud app was released in June, and we were left without file syncing at all in the interim. Now, though, file syncing is working great again, and it’s better than before.

With a paid Creative Cloud account, you get 20Gb of online file storage included with your subscription — and if you don’t have a paid Creative Cloud account, you can signup for a free account for 2Gb of file storage. You’ll then be able to upload files from CreativeCloud.com, and, once your account gets sync enabled, you’ll have a Creative Cloud folder in your user directory on your Mac where you can save files to have them synced to the cloud. It works much the same as Dropbox, and is nearly as fast at syncing. And, surprisingly, you can upload almost any type of file to Creative Cloud. I tried adding PDFs, Pages and Word documents, zip files, videos, and of course PSDs, and all of them uploaded fine. That makes it a great place to backup documents and files online if you’re already paying for a subscription.

There’s not tons you can do with files in Creative Cloud directly from your Mac, though there is an option to see file and its activity online, or to send a link to it. Each of those options will simply open the file’s online view in your browser, where you can choose to make your file “public” so you can share a link to it with others (it’s still only public to those who have your link, though, similar to sharing a file directly from Dropbox or with apps like Droplr or CloudApp). Or, you can view older versions of your file and revert to them online — file formats that Adobe apps recognize will show a full preview of each version of the file, while other file formats (say Pages or Word documents) will still show older versions but won’t have a preview of the file. Then, again with Adobe files, you’ll be able to dig deeper into the file online by paging through PDFs or turning on or off layers in PSD files or generating a Kuler color palate from almost any creative file.

It’s really a great cloud sync option for creative files, and definitely not a bad option to use for other files if you’re already paying for Creative Cloud. It doesn’t make Creative Cloud’s price worthwhile on its own — after all, Dropbox costs $10/month for 100Gb of storage — but it’s at least a nice thing to have along with your Adobe apps.

Typekit Font Sync

The really new addition to the equation is Typekit font sync, which today brings your choose of 205 fonts to your Mac, gratis, with your Creative Cloud subscription. Or, if you have a standalone Typekit Portfolio or higher account, you can download the Creative Cloud app and signup for the aforementioned 2Gb free account, and then get font sync as well. Synced fonts are the real deal — you’ll get every weight of the fonts you choose, ready to use in any app for any project you want.

To get the fonts you want, you’ll first need to head to Typekit.com and find the fonts you want from the ones that are licensed for desktop use. There’s a lot of nice stuff, from a number of FontFont’s typefaces and most of Adobe’s own catalogue of fonts (which, incidentally, you likely already have many of the latter installed with your Adobe apps). Once you find what you want, click the Use Fonts button on that typeface’s page in Typekit, and select to have it synced to your desktop. That’s it.

Seconds later, the Creative Cloud app will let you know that your fonts have been synced, and you can start using them in any app. Or, you can go find more fonts to add to your local collection, and download them as well. Right now, Typekit has no limits on how many fonts you can sync locally, though it says it will add some limits eventually, similar to the way it limits how many pageviews you can get on your account for web fonts.

Fonts synced from Typekit through Creative Cloud work perfectly in every app we tried, including built-in apps like TextEdit and 3rd party apps of all types, from Microsoft Word to text editors like Ulysses III. As long as the Creative Cloud app is running in the background, you’ll be able to use the fonts in any native app even if you’re offline. And you’re even licensed to use the fonts in any of your work, including embedding them in PDFs, ePub eBooks, and other digital documents or design works.

The only thing you’re not allowed to do is keep the fonts on your computer if your Creative Cloud or Typekit subscription expires, or share the fonts (aside from embedding them in documents) with others. And it’s not so easy to find the actual fonts themselves on your computer, at any rate. The fonts won’t show up in your Font Book app and likely won’t make an appearance in other font management apps, even though they’ll show up as fonts available for editing in any other apps. If you really want to dig, you’ll find the XML files listing the Typekit fonts synced to your computer in a hidden livetype folder in your Creative Cloud sync folder, and will also find the actual font data files hidden in another livetype folder in your Adobe Application Support folder — which is where the Creative Cloud app is locally serving your font data for your applications to use.

Essentially, Adobe is still sending you the real OTF fonts that you’re syncing from Typekit, but hiding them on your computer and making them accessible to your apps through the Creative Cloud app. It’s perfectly understandable why they’d obscure it to a degree since you’re “renting” the fonts, and since it works seamlessly in apps, there’s nothing to really complain about. It’s just not quite as obstructed as you might have imagined it’d be — and it’s actually bringing you the real fonts, not “hacking” web fonts to appear in your web apps and streaming them from the cloud live when you’re using them, as I thought it might be when I at first only found the XML files in the Creative Cloud sync folder.

Oh, and one more thing: you won’t be syncing your own fonts through the Typekit font sync. You could sync them through your Creative Cloud folder, perhaps, but that wouldn’t keep them working across all of your computers. It’s too bad there’s no simple solution for that yet — one could hope that Adobe could add that to Creative Cloud font sync in the future, though.

Conclusion

It’s great to finally have the promised file sync and font sync in Creative Cloud — and if you don’t have it yet, be sure to signup for early access and you should get it very soon. And, perhaps, it’s better to have it come late but work great out of the box, rather than having a buggy release a couple months ago. It doesn’t necessarily make Creative Cloud a more attractive offering on its own, but everything together does work out to quite a nice set of creative tools.

For Adobe, though, this is still only the start. File and font sync were promised with CC’s release, and we’re all looking to see what they bring next. Better subscription options, perhaps with a subset of their apps for a cheaper monthly price? All-new features in their main apps far sooner than traditional upgrades would have brought them? The ball’s in Adobe’s court, still, and we’re all waiting to see how they deliver on the promise that the move to subscriptions is going to be better for us all. File and font sync are a great step — and yes, they’re a very logical way to make a subscription offering make sense — but we’re still waiting for more.

I first heard about The Settlers of Catan in CBS’ The Big Bang Theory, and I was surprised to never have played such a popular title. The board game, if you don’t already know, was invented in Germany and became extremely popular outside Europe, selling over 15 million copies in the U.S. by 2009. It’s also available as a video game on common platforms like the Nintendo DS, PC, and the Mac.

While the game has been available on iOS since late 2009, there hasn’t been an official Mac app until this July saw the release of Catan. I’ve been playing it for the past few days to get a hang of things. The board game is great, but will the legend live on in a Mac world?

3D Graphics are Too Shiny, But There’s An Alternative

Some developers like to completely rethink the experience of a game when making it digital. Battleship, for example, has been adapted many times, some of the variations good and others downright unfitting of the title. Catan, sadly, has a 3D mode that renders a bunch of fancy, completely unnecessary textures. It looks more like Settlers of Pandora than Catan. Additionally, after playing the game with a friend, we both agreed that the ornate looks only take away from the game. Due to coloring schemes, font choices, and duplicate textures, it’s hard to tell what numbers are on hexes when you’re zoomed out and sometimes zooming in just renders things even worse.

The game doesn’t automatically start in fullscreen, so use OS X’s fullscreen button to make things more focused.

The regular graphics mode is fantastic. It looks exactly like the board game and you can rotate it any direction by holding down the secondary mouse button and dragging. I found it to be a perfect adaptation of the traditional board. It also didn’t take nearly as much CPU on my MacBook Air, though I will say that the 3D rendering only spun up the fan slightly.

Gameplay Takes a Bit of Practice

Catan has quite a few idiosyncrasies in its gameplay. When you first start, it helps you by pointing out what areas you can place a settlement on, which is handy, but if you don’t already know how to play, the app doesn’t offer a tutorial in Scenario mode (which is basically a quick match). If you play the Campaign, it guides you through some of the gameplay, but I still didn’t find it sufficient and ended up having to ask a friend for help in areas.

You can’t zoom out when placing a road next to your current settlements, so make sure you look around the map before clicking that build button.

Speaking of tutorials, the game does have them — just not on the main menu. You’ll find a list of ten guides in the Help menu for anything from setup to the Cities & Knights expansion. Most of them do a fair job of explaining things, but overall I was left confused with some areas. For example, when you’re trading with the computer, its response to your trade appears near its icon in one of the four corners, but lies hidden behind a dark semi-transparent layer, often leaving you to wonder what happened to your exchange.

The computer has a trading addiction and needs an intervention. Every time I rejected a trade, it would continue to spam me with offers, “sweetening the deal” each time. There should be a “reject all future offers” button for this.

The Voice-Overs are Pointless

During a scenario, the computer characters in Catan don’t know whether or not they wish to use audio for communication or post pop-ups with text. Every time I played with Sean (a pre-defined AI), he’d boast about something silly in a short pop-up quote, then start rambling about something audibly five minutes later. All of this seemed very inconsistent.

My biggest quibble about the audio in this game was not that the music lacked in originality, but rather that the game didn’t know how to manage its volumes. When playing the campaign, the voices would cut out to make room for the crashing oceans or wind in the background. This made it difficult for me to progress through the campaign without reading the blurbs, making the voice-overs unneeded.

The campaign’s voice acting was fine, but didn’t match the character’s mouth movements at all — I don’t mean it was unrealistic, I mean it was terrible. Their mouths just moved in a pattern until the little scenes were finished. Ah well, I wasn’t looking for a campaign anyway.

Local Multiplayer is Good, But It’s Not Even LAN

This game would be a lot more fun if it were possible to play other humans over the Internet, or even the same network. Instead, though, you are forced to play your friends on the same computer, which interferes with Victory Points and other development cards. Other players shouldn’t be able to know that you have a Knight before you play it, because then they can use up their resources to avoid getting too many things stolen.

If you’re all playing on, say, a desktop, everyone will see what you have and know if you’re close to building another settlement. They can also predict what you will trade for, and so on.

As my friend said when we were testing out this game, “If you’re going to make a video game for Settlers of Catan, the main feature should be online multiplayer.” The developers could have at least included a LAN mode for friends to play the game cross-platform. I understand that an online one would require a server, so LAN would be more realistic, but they neglected to provide either.

The Board Game Will Remain Superior

I enjoyed this game, but after playing it I ended up wanting to close my computer and play the actual board game with friends. It’s a lot more fun than passing a computer or staring at the same screen while your opponents build their cities and steal from you.

This game would be more playable if it included online multiplayer. I hope to see it in an upcoming version, otherwise I won’t be playing Catan very often. I’d prefer to roll real dice and move the robber with my hands, even if it’s over twice the price.

Oh, and if it’s a classic game, make the graphics so!

At some time or another, we’ve all used eBay to sell something. From a small ornament to a MacBook Pro, it’s far and away the most popular service to sell items online. But when you’re using eBay on a regular basis, you’ll often feel that the website can be quite limiting when it comes to regularly listing items and any flare you’d like to include in your listing requires an in-depth knowledge of HTML and CSS.

GarageSale is a complete eBay selling tool that includes some powerful features and a wide range of design templates. Should you buy it now or is it not worth the reserve price?

Feature Rich

As soon as you launch the app, you’re instantly aware that this isn’t just a simple front-end for eBay. There are a whole host of powerful features aimed towards those who use eBay frequently, such as traders. There are features such as multiple account support for regular eBay users who have more than one account to list with and template presets so your preferred shipping, billing and pricing information will always be set for new auctions.

In GarageSale, you start writing your auctions by creating Templates. Every template is saved, even when listed, allowing them to be re-used. This isn’t something that infrequent sellers would necessarily find useful, in fact, you’ll often find yourself deleting templates as soon as you’ve created a new listing. For trader regularly listing new stock, however, it allows a one-click option to re-list products as needed.

Templates can be duplicated and even scheduled to start using the Events function. GarageSale needs to be running when you do this but it means you can list an auction on a specific date and time.

Bring Auctions to Life

Designing your listings is a joyous process, especially when compared to eBay’s website. There are two modes of template editing: Preview Mode and Edit Mode. The former allows you to edit the action using a WYSIWYG editor, seeing your changes live. The latter is more useful when you already know how the auction is laid out and just want to get on with editing.

One particular feature that surprised me was the app’s support for Markdown. As somewhat of a Markdown junkie, I think this is a great feature to provide.

Included within the app are a wide range of differing template designs for your auctions. As eBay allows the use of HTML within auction listings, auctions are more like websites than just plain text. GarageSale has some truly remarkable layouts and designs you can pick from. What’s more, there’s the option to purchase more designs from the app’s built-in Design Store. In my time using GarageSale, I’ve never found need to purchase any additional designs but it’s good to know that fresh new layouts are available at a reasonable price.

Perks

By using GarageSale, you take advantage of some great additional services such as their image hosting. You’re able to use GarageSale’s free image hosting for up to 20 images at no charge, making it cost effective when compared to eBay which will charge for any additional images beyond the first. Alternatively, you can use your own web hosting via FTP and have GarageSale upload images for you.

To save you needing to visit eBay’s site further, GarageSale supports eBay messages so you can read, compose and reply to messages within the app. Furthermore, power users with scripting knowledge will be pleased to know that GarageSale supports AppleScript and includes a variety of scripts within the app.

Once you’ve listed your auctions, they’re available to view in the app and it’ll update whenever there’s been a bid or an item purchased. Any auctions you list in another app or through the website will also be imported for you to keep track of. Whilst you might not want to keep the app open all the time. GarageSale includes a Dashboard Widget you can install so all your auction activity is just a click away.

Wrapping Up

Although GarageSale can be used by anyone, some of the features may prove rather overwhelming for those unfamiliar with eBay or who don’t use it frequently. This is something that is also reflected in the price; at $39.99 it isn’t cheap if you’re planning to sell a few old CDs and games now and again, but for eBay sellers creating many listings a week, it can be seen as a worthwhile investment.

Ask most people about internet telephony and they’ll probably think of Skype. After all, it’s the most popular service of this kind in the world and available of a wide range of devices. But Skype isn’t the only internet telephony service out there; far from it! In fact, there are thousands of services all over the world using open standards that provide the ability to make and receive phone calls over the internet.

No matter which service you choose to go with, you’re going to need an app to actually make and receive calls. Telephone, as you may have already guessed, is a VoIP client that provides this functionality. I put the app through it’s paces and see if it really does what its name suggests.

Hello?

Internet telephony is more commonly known as Voice over IP (VoIP for short) and use a communication protocol called SIP. Unlike Skype which can only be used with its own apps, SIP isn’t proprietary so any developer wanting to create their own app can. Think of it as the difference between iMessage and AIM. You can use iMessage only on Apple’s Messages apps but you can use AIM on any app that supports it.

Small Doesn’t Mean Simple

With that in mind, Telephone is a SIP app for OS X. On the surface, it really doesn’t look like it does much. The app consists of a small, dialog-box size window with a text field and nothing else.

What sets Telephone apart from many other SIP apps for the Mac (and even iOS) is that it does away with all the additional features that many of us don’t need, keeping the interface as uncluttered as possible.

Continuing this minimalism, many controls you would expect to see during a call are kept at bay in the menu, as well as accessible via keyboard shortcuts. If you’re on a Mac with a big display, such as an iMac 27-Inch, then you might find yourself doing a lot of mouse moving to mute or transfer a call if you’d prefer not to use keyboard shortcuts.

Setting Up

The app offers a simply setup screen when adding a new account which requires some basic information regarding your VoIP provider. Most of the time, the information it prompts for is all that’s needed. Some providers require additional information to be entered which can be done once you’ve performed the initial setup. You can even add multiple accounts and use them at the same time.

Telephone provides excellent audio support and can be set to use a different audio device than your Mac’s default option. This means you can use a USB headset without worrying about changing the audio before accepting a call. And because it uses OS X’s native audio you can even use Bluetooth, letting you keep your speakers plugged in but all calls are sent through your Bluetooth headset.

I did find Bluetooth a bit unreliable due to a mixture of relatively poor support in OS X for Bluetooth devices and Telephone crashing if I didn’t switch the headset on before launching the app. Whilst Telephone can pause iTunes automatically when a call is made, it doesn’t appear to work for other audio apps such as Spotify or Instacast.

Core Functions

At it’s core, Telephone offers the ability to make and receive calls, transfer calls to other extensions (if you’re using it as part of a phone system) as well as muting options. Telephone integrates nicely with your Mac’s Address Book and offers autocompletion when entering a name or phone number. Should there be multiple numbers then the app will display all of them for you to select.

The main window offers the option to set your availability which will control whether or not incoming calls come through or if they are simply diverted immediately based upon your service provider settings.

Conclusion

I’ve been using Telephone for a while now and it’s become one of the few apps that is permanently in my Mac’s Dock. It’s hard to believe the developer has released the app for free as it’s an app I would gladly pay for.

Telephone may look like a rather featureless app but it’s a prime example of an app that doesn’t need any bells or whistles to do it’s job. In fact, if you compare it to an app such as Skype which has grown from a similar appearance to the rather bloated and heavy app we have today, Telephone provides a very refreshing alternative.

If you use any VoIP service that is compatible, you must give Telephone a try. It’s free, easy to configure and ever so simple to use.

Want to use your real phone with your Mac? Check out our review of Dialogue, an app that lets you receive and make calls on your Mac through your iPhone or other cellphone via Bluetooth.

MacBook Airs, as we all very well know, have much less internal storage than their sibling, the MacBook Pro. This can be a major downside for artists — photographers, musicians, video editors, etc. For example, if you’re a photographer, you probably have a hard time keeping your entire portfolio on your MacBook. You could just plug in an external hard drive and travel around with that, but it’s just an extra device you don’t need to carry, so why not optimize your image files for a smaller hard drive?

JPEGmini‘s developers claim the app can compress your existing images into JPEGs that have a much smaller footprint without compromising quality. Being a person who works with images on a daily basis, this sounded a bit fake to me, but I decided to give the app a try anyway. Here’s our thoughts on the app — and a chance for you to win a free copy of JPEGmini!

Does It Work, and How Well?

Away with app introductions and what not: let’s get right down to JPEGmini’s core functionality, then we’ll discuss the details. As a test, I took an entire folder of JPEG images taken with my T2i and dragged them into JPEGmini. In order to prevent the app from replacing my originals, I first clicked the “Optimize Originals” button and changed the setting to “Export to Folder” so I could evaluate the difference between the images and not lose my originals.

The app quickly processed 25 images. On my base model mid–2012 13-inch MacBook Air, it took just 41 seconds to compress them. As it worked, a small convex progress bar displayed showing how much space had been saved, which I found to be nice, but only necessary to occupy your time while the app processed things.

The results were surprising: 4.2 MB files were reduced to 3 MB, 4.1 MB ones to 2.5 MB, and a massive 7 MB image to just 5.4 MB. JPEGmini’s compression doesn’t really have a set ratio. Instead, the app intelligently slims down the details of an image. Thankfully, this doesn’t mean it looks like you ran a noise removal plugin, but rather that it was captured by a slightly lower quality camera. When I say slightly, I mean it.

Interestingly, the app skipped some of my photos because they were above 28 megapixels, which is the limit for its compression. I was surprised that it didn’t even try to compress them, but rather read the Exif data and moved on entirely.

To compare my images, I copied the originals to the folder and did a side-by-side view of each one. Since I couldn’t see any difference in quality, I decided to open them up in Photoshop and zoom in. I panned to the same spot on each photo and made sure the zoom was exactly 153% on both of them. The difference was hardly noticeable.

What Goes On In the Background?

You may be wondering what this app is doing behind the scenes. What kind of witchery compresses an image so well that you can barely notice the difference between the original and optimized result? JPEGmini’s technology page describes the process as “a patent-pending photo recompression technology” that “is capable of reducing the file size of standard JPEG photos by up to 80% (5X)”. The developers say that it examines the original quality of the image with a tool that “imitates the perceptual qualities of the human visual system” and delivers a result that’s only slightly altered in appearance, but significantly lighter in weight.

More information on this compression method is available on JPEGmini’s website.

Quick and to the Point

I like how this app doesn’t bombarde you with tutorials or a bunch of unnecessary features right when you launch it. Instead, it presents one bit of functionality: compression. Could Photoshop do better? Well yes, but there’s no need to spend $400 on the suite just so you can get image compression. Besides, the batch functionality is hidden in Photoshop and isn’t as easy to use as JPEGmini. I also found that when the same image was compressed to 1.1 MB (equivalent to JPEGmini’s output size of that image), Photoshop’s had less details. (Not perceivably so, but when I took a closer look, I could tell that one was compressed more.)

I was surprised at how well this app performed. If, like me, you backup your photographs to the cloud (I use Dropbox), this app is incredibly useful. While $20 may seem like a lot for only one feature, the space saved by it is worth the price. You could do the same thing with Preview, but in my testing the result was significantly less satisfying. If you’re just looking for an app to do everything in one click, this is it.

Win a Copy of JPEGmini

If JPEGmini has piqued your interest, and you’d like to get your hands on a copy of it for free, you’re in luck. We’ve got 5 copies of JPEGmini to giveaway to our readers, thanks to the developer’s generosity. All you’ve got to do to enter is leave a comment below and let us know why you want to use JPEGmini. We’ll close the giveaway next Friday, August 16th, so hurry and get your entry in!

Envato staff or those who have written more than two articles or tutorials for AppStorm are ineligible to enter.