Category: Mac

Adobe used to be best known as the company that sells a $700 dollar photo editor that’s all but ubiquitous in the design world. Now, it wants to be known as the company you pay $50/month to, for its whole suite of apps. Adobe’s rethinking their entire business in terms of a one-size-fits-all Creative Cloud subscriptions, which is either great news for you price-wise (if you upgrade every time and own one of the pricer Creative Suites), or terrible news (if you only own an individual Adobe app or don’t purchase upgrades that often).

Now, there are great new features coming to all of the Adobe apps we love in upcoming Creative Cloud releases, but lost in the limelight at Adobe MAX and the discussion about the switch to Creative Cloud is the great free stuff that Adobe offers. They’ve dropped a few things over the years — like the beautiful online office suite they used to have at Acrobat.com – but they’ve added enough stuff that Adobe still has quite the nice set of free offerings.

There’s Mac apps, fonts, and web tools here: enough for everyone, even those who swore off Creative Suite years ago. So here’s the best stuff you can get 100% for free from Adobe, today.

Adobe Brackets

A really nice free code editor.

Want a beautifully designed code editor or plain-text writing app? Adobe’s got you covered with their rather awesome Brackets app. It’s an opensource project itself, designed to let you code for the web with an app that’s itself built with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Brackets will let you code your whole project and live-preview it in Chrome. It has code completion, built-in extension support that lets you install extensions directly from Github, view quick CSS documentation in-app, preview colors from your code, and more. It’s still in development, but you can download milestone builds and get started with it today. And it’s easily one of the best offerings in this list.

A nice extra: it works great with Markdown formatting, and I’ve used Brackets to write this article in Markdown, complete with Markdown preview from one of the many extensions.

There’s one extra thing to note: Adobe also has the Edge Code app, which is based on Brackets, and it also currently free along with the rest of the Edge tools. It’ll be interesting to see if they merge the two, or how the future of Brackets and Edge Code progresses.

Adobe Revel

Picture syncing with a side of editing thrown in.

The only free app from Adobe in the Mac App Store, Adobe Revel lets you organize and backup all of your photos, share them in private albums, show them off in high-quality online slideshows, and even make (very basic) edits to your photos. It’s not Lightroom — not even close — but more like an online synced iPhoto. And it has one nice touch: you can have it not keep all of your originals on your device, letting you use cloud storage to actually free up local storage (unlike Dropbox and iCloud, which take up equal amounts of storage on device and in the cloud).

Free for unlimited photo uploads for the first 30 days, then you’ll only get 50 photo uploads per month after that unless you pay $5.99/month for unlimited photo sharing.

Story Free

Every great story begins with text.

Ever dreamed of writing the next Academy Award winning screenplay? Adobe has a free Flash-powered web app that might be just what you need to get started. In an interface that looks strikingly like Adobe’s desktop apps, Story Free lets you import from Word and Final Draft, write up your screenplay with industry-standard formatting, and integrate with Premiere Pro to quickly find shots and more. It even has automatic versioning and previous version comparison.

It’s fully free, though there is also a Pro version that is included with Creative Cloud or available individually for $9.99/month. It adds team sharing features and automatic scheduling, as well as offline support. But the free version is rather impressive on its own.

PhoneGap

It’s native, but not.

Are you a web developer that’d like to build native apps for iOS and Android? Then PhoneGap is what you need. It’s a free framework to let you build native apps for a wide variety of mobile platforms, using HTML, CSS, and Javascript. It’s already been used by the BBC and others for their native apps, and while it’s not going to give your apps the most native feel, it’s a great way to target multiple platforms at once.

There’s more for free. You can also use a free Creative Cloud account to get one app complied into native apps for all supported platforms, online, using PhoneGap Build for free. That way, you don’t have to maintain the SDKs locally, and can focus on your web code in your app – perhaps the code you’re writing using Brackets.

Typekit Trial and Edge Web Fonts

Fonts. And more fonts.

Want nice fonts on your site, for free? Adobe’s got two options for you. First, you can use Typekit’s trial account if your site gets 25,000 or fewer pageviews per month, or you can use Adobe’s Edge web fonts for free for any site if you’re content to stick with Adobe’s own catalog of 500+ fonts. It’s curious that they have the two services, but hey, the more the merrier.

If you want more beautiful fonts for your day-to-day use, Adobe has two free ones for you as well: the beautiful sans-serif font Source Sans Pro, and the monospaced Source Code Pro. They’re my personal favorite for writing and coding, respectively.

Kuler

Ohh, pretty colors…

A beautiful way to make and share color palettes sound nice? Good. That’s exactly what this nicely designed web app from Adobe does. Design your own palettes online, or make them from photos with the iPhone app, and either download them to use on your own or sync them with Illustrator CC (which, of course, isn’t free).

The Edge Tools

Pro web dev tools, for free

We mentioned Edge Code above, but that’s not all Adobe has to offer for free today for web coders. There’s also Edge Animate to code interactive, animated HTML and CSS, Edge Reflow to help you design for the responsive web and make sure everything looks great on all screen sizes, and Edge Inspect to preview your site in all sizes and inspect on your mobile devices.

All high quality, and all free — at least right now. It’s like Adobe’s reinventing what Dreamweaver should be in 2013, building it in small apps that work together with Adobe’s creative apps like Photoshop and services like Typekit, and giving it all away for free. Because that’s rather precisely what they’re doing. ‘Tis cool for web designers.

Creative Cloud

Image storage and sync, for free

Did we say Creative Cloud cost? Our bad. Adobe actually has a free Creative Cloud account available as well, which gets you 2Gb of storage for free, as well as access to all of Adobe’s free apps and 30 day trials of the rest of the CC apps. You can sync the files to your Mac or PC, share them with others, and organize them or add more files in your browser.

It’s not Photoshop for free, but hey, it’s something at least.

Photoshop Express Editor

Photoshop, or at least its core, in your browser

We did it again: turns out, there is Photoshop for free … if you squint. Adobe has a very basic photo editor online that lets you do a ton of simple touchups to pictures. You can crop, touch-up, adjust brightness, sharpen, add text and effects, and more. It’s far from full Photoshop, but it could give Aviary a run for its money in online quick photo editing.

And That’s All…

So there: over a dozen apps from Adobe that’ll 100% free. You could throw in Adobe Reader and Flash Player if you want, but I prefer using Preview for PDFs, and even Adobe’s starting to move away from Flash (hello, Edge tools!).

If you want some new Adobe goodies to play with without signing up for a Creative Cloud subscription, here’s you some apps to try out. And really, if you do any web design, give the Edge tools a shot. They’re rather cool.

When I get into the flow of working I often lose track of time. I find that my best work often comes in these periods when time seems to almost disappear. Much of the time this poses no problem, but sometimes I need to be reminded of something no matter how engrossed I am in my work. There are also times when I start something that will take a long time to finish, but I want to be able to work on something else and still be reminded when it’s complete. Either way, I need something to remind me what’s going on.

For events that take place at a specific time, the calendar works well. A reminder for a meeting at 10 A.M. or to meet someone for dinner at 7 P.M. does the job simply. It doesn’t work as well for things that are less tied to the clock. When I start laundry I just want to be reminded to check on it in thirty minutes. When I start a backup I want to be reminded to check on the status in an hour.

Timebar is an app in the Mac App Store that provides a simple countdown timer in your menu bar. This lets you keep an eye on the timer while keeping it out of your way. Let’s see how well it works.

Creating a Timer

Most of us are familiar with the kitchen timer. It alerts us when a meal reaches that moment between undercooked and burnt no matter where we are in the house. These timers can be set to a time and when complete alerts the user with either a bell, beep, or other sound to get our attention. Timebar offers the same ability to set a timer for any period from one minute to eight hours.

Creating a Reminder for my Laundry

Timebar adds an icon to your menu bar when run. Clicking on this icon will pop up window that allows you to set a timer. A slider allows you to pick how long from now you want to be reminder in. This can range form one minute to eight hours away in thirty-two increments that become further apart as the timer gets longer.

Below the slider you are also told the time that the timer will alert based on the currently selected length. You can also customize the color of the overlaid color on the menu bar, by default a shade of blue, which is previewed to the right of the color selection window. You can also specify a text string to display when the timer alerts. The app can also play an optional sound when the timer expires, but only can use sounds located in your ~/Library/Sounds folder. After making these setting, you start the timer using the start button.

Timebar in Use and When Finished

A Countdown in Progress

Once started the countdown begins and the color of your menu bar will be overlaid with the color that was specified when you set the timer. As the timer counts down, the portion of the menu bar that is highlighted gradually decreases from right to left to reflect the part of the timer that has passed. The animation runs very smoothly and for a short timer you can watch it decrease almost pixel by pixel.

A timer with just over three minutes remaining.

While the timer is in progress clicking on the menubar icon shows a digital countdown displaying how long remains in your timer. This window also provides a button to stop the timer before it has alerted in effect canceling the timer.

When the timer completes, I see the reminder to check my laundry.

When the timer completes the menu bar shading will have disappeared completely, and Timebar alerts you with a popup window telling you that time is up, playing the sound if selected, and displaying the reminder message you provided when setting the timer. The alert window provides a snooze option allowing you a short pause before being reminded again. The length of the snooze varies depending on the length of the timer. For short length timers it seems to go to one minute and five minutes for longer length timers. You can dismiss the window with a Close button.

Once the timer starts your settings are remembered and are used as the defaults for your next timer. The menu that pops up when right clicking the menu bar icon also allows you to quickly restart the last timer you used.

You can also download an extras pack that adds provides additional methods to set a timer. The pack includes a command line tool for etting and starting timers from a terminal. It also includes an Alfred workflow, allowing you set a timer through Alfred.

Conclusions

Timebar provides a nice app that does one thing pretty well. It provides a simple reminder of an event that will occur a set number of minutes from now. Whether the reminder is the time to boil an egg, your dryer to finish, or a commitment to work before playing a game, it helps keep you on track. I like that is stays out of the way when running and coloring the menu bar provides a great way to check the remaining time with minimal interruption.

I would like to see a few features. The ability to create and save a few commonly used timers would be nice for commonly recurring time periods. I’d also like to be able to group reminders to say remind me to check on dinner in ten minutes to turn and again fifteen minutes after that that the meal is done. As is though Timebar is a good app that works well and is worth the $2.99 price.

Web development remains one of the areas in which the Mac app ecosystem shines brightest. As the technologies underpinning the internet continue to evolve, we’re thrilled to see eager developers providing new tools to take advantage of those technologies and simplify formerly arduous tasks. Like producing graphics code, for instance.

Last year, I reviewed PaintCode, an app that facilitates the creation of Objective-C interface graphics using natural graphic design tools. PixelCut has expanded their reach with the brand new WebCode, an app that offers the same tools geared toward the creation of code-based graphics for the web.

After the jump, let’s dig in to see if the tools are as useful for web design as they were for app development.

Overview

So what are we talking about, exactly? Well, when a web developer is bringing to life her design, she must contend with the fact that some viewers will be accessing the final site on mobile devices, or limited bandwith connections. As a result, while it’s tempting to just slice up your Photoshop document and have big images wherever you need them, it’s not very practical to do so, especially with the competing challenges of designing for Retina displays (which need high-res graphics) and slower, capped mobile broadband (which need anything that’ll reduce loading time).

The alternative is to replicate as much of the graphical content as possible using code rather than actual image assets. The advantages are clear: significantly smaller filesize, faster loading times, resolution independence, and easy modification. On the flipside, creating graphics using code tends to be very tedious and antithetical to the creative flow — that’s where WebCode comes in.

By offering the same graphics tools that we’re used to in our design programs but having the output be code rather than a standard image file, WebCode offers the best of both worlds.

Interface

If there’s one thing PixelCut is consistently amazing at, it’s interface design. WebCode is both beautiful and functional: the ideal intersection at the heart of all good design.

A clean, blank canvas: ready for drawing!

Once you’ve loaded up a blank document, you’ll be presented with a well-organized collection of panels and areas, including the prominent canvas in the middle and the code preview panel at the bottom.

Similar to PaintCode before it, WebCode presents its various design implements in the tool bar along the top, and then arrays various panels around the main canvas, each dedicated to a specific aspect of the design.

For instance, the left side of the document window features a Shapes & Groups panel that contains each separate graphical element — be it a polygon, or a text box — and allows you to select them for editing. Immediately below it is a large pane that contains editing parametres appropriate for whatever item you have selected.

Tools of the Trade

Your toolbar contains the same exact items that were described in my PaintCode review, so rather than repeat myself I’ll zero in on the key functionality.

Like in any vector design app, you have a series of basic polygon shapes that you can work with, including rectangles (and rounded corner variants), ovals, polygons, and stars. The polygon and star items seem identical at first since they both allow you to choose the number of sides, but the crucial difference is that the star tool also allows you to adjust the “radius” of the shape to get everything from a dimpled oval to a circle of sharp spikes.

The same tool set from PaintCode returns.

You can then use these shapes as building blocks to assemble more complex forms. This assembly process is aided by a set of boolean tools that allow you to unite shapes in three ways: union, difference, and intersection. If you’re not quite ready to combine them yet, you can also simply group them.

Besides shapes, you’ll also find the text tool, which gives you access to your computer’s type collection, with the added advantage of having a sub-menu dedicated to iOS fonts if you’re working on a responsive design — very handy!

The Styles Library: Evolved

One of the most convenient features of PaintCode was the presence of a sort of bin where you could collect colours, gradients, and shadow presets that could be easily applied to whatever objects you were working on in your design.

This functionality has made its way over to WebCode, but the interface has changed a bit. Each type of style now has its own permanent panel dedicated to it along the right side of the window, and a little plus button allows you to quickly add a new style to the collection.

Selecting and modifying styles is a breeze in WebCode.

As before, each style can be applied to multiple objects, and subsequent modifications of the “master” style will affect every object in the document to which it has been applied.

The Final Product

Since the purpose of WebCode is to provide you with the HTML/CSS/JavaScript, the Preview pane will allow you to keep an eye on how your code is being formed as you go along. WebCode produces supremely clean and organized code, and I found it trustworthy and standards-compliant for the test documents I produced with it.

You can choose between three different rendering modes for the code. The first of which is the standard HTML + JavaScript Canvas. For different kinds of projects, it may be preferable to use HTML + CSS, though you lose the ability to create polygons and stars if you go that route (a fact that WebCode helpfully alerts you to with a warning area above the code Preview). The final option is for SVG rendering, which is a very flexible graphics format that can be modified easily using a basic text editor and is able to include both vector and raster elements, along with text.

Preview your final output, and address any warnings before export.

Above the Preview area, it’s nice to see the same buttons allowing you to customize the canvas (show grid, change size, etc.) as well as toggle Retina mode on and off. When you’ve finished, you can also use the Export button to package everything up.

When you’re ready to take things to the web, WebCode’s export options will give you a wide choice of avenues. Files can be exported as code, as PNG files (in both Retina and standard resolutions, or both at once), as well as SVG, TIFF, and even PDF formats.

Another Winner?

WebCode is a magnificent app, there’s no doubt about that. But there is always room for improvement.

There are a few issues with the software, ranging from the persistent lack of any project-based file format (allowing for multiple tabs within one master file) — something I complained about initially with PaintCode — all the way to minor things like there being no cursor change to indicate that you can actually resize the height of the code preview by dragging it (the horizontal resizing cursor appears just fine).

None of the issues detracts from the fact that WebCode will become indispensable for web graphics work. It follows very closely in the footsteps of its cousin, PaintCode, but its focus on web graphics will make it more appealing to the huge community of Mac-based web developers out there.

Conclusion

While there are tools that enchroach upon its territory somewhat, including Sketch, the now sidelined Adobe Fireworks, and even Photoshop plugins like CSSHat, there’s nothing that comes close to the level of polish and focused functionality that WebCode delivers.

The fact that the app features full iCloud integration and supports OSX’s fullscreen mode is icing on the cake, ensuring that it feels and operates natively.

Everything from its interface to its toolset are designed to streamline the process of creating beautiful and standards-compliant web graphics code without the headache of doing it by hand. The fact that it makes it easy for non-coders to work this way helps the internet as a whole benefit from better designed websites that are built to take advantage of the modern web.

Take the trial out for a spin and let us know what you think in the comments!

At this week’s Adobe MAX event, the firm behind the leading creative apps for Macs and PCs announced that Creative Suite is now dead. Its replacement? Creative Cloud, the new subscription version of Adobe’s apps. They’re still native Mac (or Windows) apps, like you’ve used for years, only this time, you buy them via a $50/month subscription instead of paying hundreds or thousands upfront for a full suite.

That’s not all bad news; if you used to upgrade every year or so to the latest Master Collection, you’ll likely save money with Creative Cloud. But if you used the same version of Photoshop for years without upgrading, it’ll be much more expensive (over time, at least) to upgrade in the future.

Then, though, on the Mac, it’s rather easy to skip Creative Suite these days. There’s amazing image editors like Pixelmator and Acorn, vector apps like Artboard and Sketch, Apple’s own Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for video and Audio, PDFpen and Preview for PDF documents, and more. There’s even Adobe’s own more affordable Photoshop and Premiere Elements if you need just the basics of what Adobe offers.

If you’ve switched, we’d love to hear what apps you’re using instead of Adobe’s staple apps in the comments below!

Fire is an element that many of us can identify with: it looks beautiful, its powerful, you’ve probably burned something with it, and it has different meanings. Let’s face it, there is something mesmerizing about watching flames burn, whatever they’re touching.

Fire in gaming is no different, we’ve seen it used in various ways, but what about a game where all you do is burn things – cute things, for that matter. This is exactly what Little Inferno is like. Granted, burning things can be fun at first, but in a game where all you do is burn things for the sake of burning things, Little Inferno leaves a little to be desired.

Little Inferno on Mac

Little Inferno was created by some of the staff behind the popular indie title World of Goo, but unlike World of Goo, Little Inferno grants gamers the ability to sit in front of a fireplace and burn different kinds of items until they are nothing but ashes.

These burnt items give you money which you can then spend on new items that become available to you as you buy more items. That’s Little Inferno. Buy something, burn it, get money for burning it, buy something else, burn that, too.

If that sounds like a stale experience, that is because it is. Don’t get me wrong, burning clocks, TVs, and other cool toys can feel empowering. Watching the flames you control consume whatever they come in contact with can be fun at first, but at one point, burning objects over and over again becomes a chore.

You may be able to burn one of these.

When I first sat down to review this game, I didn’t know what it was about, I didn’t know what I would be doing, I didn’t even know what genre this game falls on – I still don’t. I wasn’t expecting a game made for pyromaniacs, though. Okay, maybe that is a little harsh, but at first, the game seems to speak to you inner pyromaniac in one way or another. Even the cute little notes you get sound a bit creepy.

Pyromaniacs aside, once you burn a few items or buy everything in the first catalog, you’ll discover one important component of Little Inferno: the combo system. Turns out, Little Inferno is a puzzle game of sorts.

How to unlock the next catalog.

Revived by the combo system, Little Inferno becomes a little entertaining again. Suddenly you have a game that asks you to decipher some rather easy phrases by burning two or more items at once. As you discover combos, you are given access to more catalogs which contain, yup, you guessed it, more stuff for you buy and burn. In turn, you also unlock more combos. This gives the game direction and it also gives the gamer a reason to keep burning things.

Sadly, the little combo phrases are not that difficult, so solving these “puzzles” can become yet another chore instead of a gratifying game mechanic. Some can be gratifying, though. Not all phrases are easy, but you could finish this game pretty fast if you don’t get bored after burning through your first catalog.

Another thing that cripples Little Inferno’s gameplay is money and the delivery system. Money in Little Inferno is redundant and so is the delay caused by the delivery system. You see, when you burn items, you get most of your money back, so why have that system at all when you are almost guaranteed that you will have enough money to buy what you need?

The delivery system is also pointless. Once you order an item, you’ll have to wait for it to arrive. You can skip that by using stamps which you get by doing combos and burning things, but it isn’t practical – or fun.

You’ll talk to this character from time to time.

Little Inferno has one more little incentive up its sleeve, though: story. It isn’t a big elaborate story, though, but it does keep you guessing about what will happen at the end of the game (or if the game actually has an end?). Which ever the case may be, this gives the game a sense of intrigue and crypticness that lures gamers into thinking that perhaps, just perhaps, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Without spoiling anything, there is nothing special to look forward to when the credits roll. The trek was intriguing, but not very fun. By the time you get to the end, you’ll probably be burnt out (all puns intended!) on Little Inferno.

She isn’t as funny as Tiny Tina, though.

The Verdict

Little Inferno has an interesting direction. At first, burning things can be quite rewarding, buying things and combining them to make huge fires can be fun, and discovering new combos can give you a sense of accomplishment. At the end of the day, however, Little Inferno’s gameplay get’s boring, the story is an afterthought, the special feeling of burning things dies fairly quickly, and the puzzle mechanics don’t hold up a candle to other puzzle games.

Writing my contribution to the Apps We Use Feature after several others makes it interesting see how many applications we have in common. Like several of the other writers I’m a recent convert to the Mac, having started using a MacBook less than two years ago.

I now use my MacBook as my main computer; however, I’ve not made the complete switch and still spend as much time within Windows during my normal day as I do my MacBook. In addition to writing here, I have a day job as an IT manager and also do consulting, mostly in networks and web development. I tend to use apps I can use in both environments, or at ones that are compatible with similar Windows programs. Here are a few apps that I turn to every day to work and organize my work.

A Last Thought

My workflow is always changing and adapting as I try new programs and the demands on my time shift. Programs that would have been here a year ago, I seldom start today. Some of the apps I mentioned here were added to my workflow only within the last few months and have quickly become part of my daily routine. Ultimately I think these apps are here because they work the way that fits my needs and my processes.

If there’s any readers who are also Windows and Mac users that have to often switch between the two platforms, we’d love to hear your thoughts about your favorite apps in the comments below!

All right all you note taking app aficionados, there’s a new plain text note taker on the block: Just Type. You may be familiar with its iOS counterpart, which has been out for a while, but this popular iOS note taker just recently hit the Mac App Store.

This app is definitely worth a look, but is it worth switching to? Can it replace Simplenote? Read on to find out.

Interface and Feel

If you have ever used the iOS version of Just Type, the Mac interface will make you feel right at home. The UI is almost identical. In terms of how the interface works, the app is similar many other note taking apps like the native Notes app and Justnotes in that it provides a pane on the left that displays all your notes and the editor on the right.

A look at Just Type’s interface.

Rather than organizing the notes in folders or applying tags to notes, in Just Type, you can assign your notes a color for and then use colors to filter certain notes. There are seven colors to choose from, which means you are limited to seven filters. I like the idea of assigning colors to notes, and the colors are eye catching, but it seems like a better implementation would be to allow users to create filters, name them, and assign a color to them. Limiting and predetermining the number of filters just seems, well, limiting.

A look at Just Type’s filtering option

Important notes can also be starred for quick access.

Notes can also be opened in separate windows. This works just like the native Notes app, you can open as many notes in separate windows as you want. Full screen mode is also supported, but notes in there own, separate window cannot be viewed / edited in full screen. All in all, the interface is similar to the Native Notes app, but won’t slap you in the face with skeuomorphism.

In full screen mode, notes can still be opened in separate windows.

Any note can be viewed in a separate window.

Features

Note taking apps need to have sync capability these days in order to be competitive. Most people want to be able to view their notes on the go. Just Type syncs with the iOS version using iCloud, and I never had any trouble syncing. Thankfully, Just Notes supports import and export of plain text files, so if you currently use plain text for your notes, getting them into Just Type is a cinch.

The iPad UI looks very similar to the Mac UI.

If you find yourself often sharing notes, Just Notes probably has the sharing option to fit your needs: email, message, Twitter, Facebook, and email as attachment.

The sharing options for Just Type.

Just Notes also comes with other useful features including:

• In app searching of notes.
• Sorting of note lists by alphabetical order and date modified.
• Creating back ups of notes.
• Automatic list creation.
• Separate fonts for each note (unlike some plain text note takers where changing the font in one note changes the font for all notes).

What it Lacks

Simplenote is currently the plain text note taking leader and sports several clients for the Mac including Justnotes, Nvalt, and Metanota. Existing Simplenote users might find a couple of features missing from Just Type. First there is no markdown support, this will be a deal breaker for many. Second there is no web interface, so reaching your notes online is not an option. Third, Simplenote users who like tagging their notes might not be impressed with Just Type’s color filtering system. And finally, Just Type does not offer any services to quickly add text as a note (NValt offers this and there are also Chrome extensions for Simplenote that allow for quickly adding notes to Simplenote).

Conclusion

Just Type is a very solid note taking app for a 1.0 release. I never experienced a crash and sync was solid. Plus the aesthetics of the app are very pleasing. The only problem with Just Type is that it enters a crowded category — there are plenty of note apps that do similar things. Still, Just Type does offer some unique features and a unique interface that will definitely sway some users.

The most recent addition to the X-COM franchise, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, recently made the jump to the Mac. Including all the previously released downloadable content, this Elite Edition has been much anticipated by Mac fans of the franchise.

Let’s take a look and see how gameplay on the Mac matches up to console and whether it’s worth it to double up if you’ve already got XCOM on another system.

Run and Gun

Before we even talk about XCOM on Mac, I’m going to answer the question on every console player’s mind. Yes, this is the same game you have for your Xbox or PS3. I don’t have a PC, but I’m betting it’s the same there, too. There’s some extra content in the Mac version, but you’ve essentially got the same game without a disc.

Where do you want to set up XCOM HQ?

For everyone who hasn’t played XCOM: Enemy Unknown and doesn’t know what’s up, it’s pretty simple to get started. There’s even a tutorial level to get you going if you’re not sure what you should be doing. Before you get quite that far, though, you’ll need to pick a location for your XCOM base. Each continent has its pros, and I always choose Africa for the money bonus, but you can get extra engineers or scientists, too, if you set up shop elsewhere. As you’re moving into the game, you’ll also want to familiarize yourself with the controls and maybe turn the graphics settings all the way down. Let’s be honest, now, you’re playing on a Mac.

The game is split into two major parts, time spent on missions during which you’ll do the actual alien killing, and time spent at XCOM headquarters when you’ll build cool equipment and do experiments. There are several types of missions, and you’ll almost always have to choose among three sites. The location you choose will have a panic reduction, but the places you ignore will experience increased panic and may eventually leave the XCOM project, depriving you of resources.

Get ready to kill a lot of these guys.

Aliens come in all different shapes and sizes, and it’s not obvious why that is when you start playing. I’m certainly not going to let you in on the secret, but you’ll need to be constantly upgrading your weapons and armor if you want your team to survive. Oh yeah, that’s the other thing. When your guys and gals die, they stay down. There’s no do over, no Fenix Down. You’ll get attached to the old-timers, if only because you won’t want to spend the time leveling up squaddies, so you’re going to want your team to have the best equipment.

That happens in the XCOM headquarters. You’ll need to research all of the stuff you pick up from the aliens, including the aliens themselves. Using alien technology, you’ll create better guns, better armor, and even better first aid kits. With better tech, you can stay alive longer and kill more aliens. Everything costs money, though, and requires workers. Keep the XCOM council happy, and they’ll keep you in the pink, but neglect your member states, and they’ll withdraw their support. An easy way to keep everyone happy is to monitor the skies with satellites, but again, this costs you in money and people.

Build satellites and other stuff to keep ahead of the alien threat.

Officer Training School

Feral Interactive, the folks who published XCOM on the Mac, recommend you compare your system’s information to the game’s requirements before you make the purchase, and I couldn’t agree more. This is a big game that’s going to require a lot of resources. It’s about 14 GB, and that’s going to have to live on your hard disk somewhere, at least until you move it to another location. There are some pretty specific memory requirements and a whole list of graphics cards that aren’t supported. Read the requirements at the download page before you lay out your money.

Even if your machine will run XCOM, that doesn’t mean it’s going to have an easy time of it. Again, this is a big game. Before you get started, take a look in the game’s options. You’ll probably want to make sure the graphics are turned all the way down, or you may experience some serious lag. Don’t get me wrong, I love Macs, but they don’t come out of the box with the sort of graphics cards meant to play a game like XCOM, even if it is technically compatible.

Choose where you go wisely, because everyone else is going to be mad.

Options is the place to find the keyboard mapping, and there’s a lot of it. You’ll want to get really familiar, because there’s a lot going on. It’s the kind of thing that will become second nature once you’ve played a while, but when you’re starting out, you’ll be coming back to this screen often. Thankfully, XCOM is compatible with a whole range of gamepads, so if you plan to play with a controller, you won’t have to remember what the Q, F, and X buttons are all supposed to do.

You’ve Got a Promotion

Fans of XCOM may already be familiar with the downloadable content that was previously released. Users purchasing XCOM: Enemy Unknown – Elite Edition will get all DLC available right now, including the Elite Soldier Pack, Second Wave, and Slingshot Content. That’s some good stuff, most of which was only available with preorder or through paid downloads. You’ll be getting some fancy customizations for your soldiers, extra stat features to toggle on and off, and some bonus missions.

Check your soldiers out and get them ready for battle.

Be aware of all of that stuff when you’re starting the game up for the first time, because you can put yourself in a bad way if you’re not sure what you’re clicking during your first load. For instance, randomized damage and stats for your soldiers may sound great if you end up with a squaddie sniper with aim of 75 and that Thin Man only knocks your underleveled assault for a single hit point. But if it goes the wrong way, it will be a really sad day for XCOM HQ. There are some tough options there, to be sure, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t push your limits. Just give some thought to each option before you go click crazy and toggle everything on.

Final Thoughts

XCOM: Enemy Unknown is a great turn-based combat game. It gives a respectful nod to the X-COM franchise of games that came before while updating the series nicely. XCOM on the Mac looks and plays great, and it’s just a lot of brilliant strategic fun. If you already own XCOM: Enemy Unknown for another system, there’s not really a compelling reason to drop fifty bones on the Mac version, but if you haven’t invested in XCOM, yet–and especially if you’re a fan of the X-COM franchise–this one is definitely worth a playthrough.

We’d like to say a special Thank you! to our weekly sponsors from April for sponsoring our site and for the great apps they make. If you would like to feature your app on our site with an advertisement, be sure to check out our available slots on BuySellAds or register for a weekly sponsorship for your app.

If you haven’t already checked out our the great apps that sponsored our site last month, be sure to check them out now!

And a special thanks to you, our Mac.AppStorm.net readers, for reading and sharing our articles. We couldn’t do it without you!

Are you a movie buff that loves keeping track of your favorite movies, those you own and those you’ve seen at the theatre? For movie lovers and collectors alike, Coollector Movie Database, our sponsor this week, is your personalized movie database and video collection manager, all in one!

Collector includes a whole encyclopedia of more than 100,000 movies and series in its download. By rating the movies and persons, you’ll remember what you’ve seen and how much you’ve liked it, and you’ll highlight your favorite actors and directors. This personalization, combined with the IMDb rating and the Youtube trailers, will allow you to quickly estimate if a movie is worth watching or adding to your wish-list.

Coollector Movie Database will also take care of your DVD collection: you’ll keep track of the DVD technical details, their location, and which ones you’ve loaned out to your friends. Finally, if you have video files on your computer, the program will automatically scan them and you’ll be able to launch them by clicking the play icon.

Go Get it!

Ready to keep better track of your movies? You can download Coollector Lite for free from the App Store, and keep track of up to 50 movies with it to try it out. Then, you can get the full version of Coollector for just $14.99 this week, 25% off its normal price. But hurry: the special discount price is only available this week!

AirPlay Mirroring was one useful new feature Mountain Lion added to Mac OS. AirPlay Mirroring allows sending the screen of your Mac to display on a TV connected through an Apple TV. The usefulness for presentations is obvious, but I’ve found it most useful as a way to share a video to the room. While iTunes allows sending to an Apple TV, its limited in usefulness. AirPlay Mirroring let’s anything that can be displayed on your Mac to appear on an Apple TV. Instead of huddling around your MacBook display or the monitor on your iMac, everyone can watch it on the larger television screen your Apple TV connects to.

It’s not a perfect solution as the quality isn’t always great with stutters and pauses in the video a common problem. It also ties up your Mac when the display is mirrored. This works fine when watching short videos off YouTube or other online sites, but sometimes you don’t want to give up your computer for an hour or more to watch a longer video or move. Perhaps your roommate or significant other wants to watch a movie, but you’d just as soon catch up on email or finish a presentation.

Beamer offers a solution. It promises to send a video file to your Apple TV without having to completely give your Mac over to showing video. You can play any video from your Mac on your Apple TV. Since it’s an application the video can play while you continue doing other things. Let’s see how well it meets the promise.

The Beamer App

You download a demo of Beamer at the Beamer web site. This application is *not* available through the Mac App Store. The demo is fully functional, but will only play fifteen minutes of a video. If you decide to purchase the app it will cost $15 payable by a credit card, Paypal, or wire transfer. It requires a 2007 or later Mac running Snow Leopard or later. It also requires the second or third generation Apple TV.

The Beamer Demo Startup Window

Once you start the app you see it’s simple interface prompting you to drop a move onto the window to begin. You can also open a video file through the File menu where it also keeps a list of recently played videos. Beamer also adds itself to the Open With menu in Finder for supported video files. Once you select a movie the controls are simple. You can either start playing a movie or stop a playing movie in the app. All other actions on the video (fast forward, rewind, pause, etc.) are controlled through the Apple TV remote.

If you have multiple Apple TVs on your network, you can choose which to play the video on, but you cannot send a video to more than one Apple TV simultaneously. There is also support for subtitles in SSA/ASS, SubRip (SRT), SubViewer and MicroDVD formats for video files.

Beamer in the Open With Menu

The list of supported video formats is impressive. Almost any common video file is supported and the app claims support for AVI, MOV, MKV, MP4, WMV and FLV formats.. In my testing I threw dozens of different videos ranging from ones I or friends created with various programs, purchased video files, and anything else i could find and the results were impressive. Only one video wouldn’t play, a time-lapse created on a forgotten PC software program several years ago.

Why Use Beamer?

The question of why you’d use this program comes to find. I’ve never liked playing videos through iTunes as it supports limited formats. It also seems to bog down my Mac when playing. The option of playing a full screen video on the computer and using AirPlay to display on the screen works, but means dedicating the computer to the task of playing videos since anything onscreen appears on the TV.

Beamer Sending Video to My Apple TV

Beamer addresses these concerns. If you have a version of Mac OS before Mountain Lion where AirPlay Mirroring isn’t an option, then you now have a nice way to play any video from your Mac to your Apple TV. When playing videos through Beamer I also found the quality was usually better than when mirroring my MacBook to the Apple TV over my home wireless network using AirPlay Mirroring. It also seemed to have less negative effect on the other devices sharing the wireless network.

I was able to take advantage of videos with surround sound as opposed to the stereo sound which AirPlay seems to limit playback. It was also quite nice to be able to fully manage the video using only the Apple remote and not through the app. The wide support for videos was also a nice advantage. No need to convert videos to an Apple approved format for iTunes. As noted I only found one video that would not play through Beamer so its support seems pretty widespread.

The real use I found for this was allowing me to play a video without dedicating my computer to the task. While playing a video did take a noticeable amount of CPU power I still was able to use my computer for other tasks while it ran. I’m not sure I’d want to try building a panorama in Photoshop while it ran, but for routine tasks it worked fine including light programming.

Conclusions

There are a few features I’d like to see added. I’d like support for playing URLs and not just videos on your Mac. I’d also like to have the ability to build a playlist of videos for continuous play. Both of these appear to be on the company’s roadmap for the program.

If you want to play a lot of longer videos from your Mac on your Apple TV, Beamer makes a good option. It plays a lot of videos, the quality is good, and it integrates well with the Apple TV. I’m also surprised how much I like being able to play a video without dedicating my computer to the task.

It’s been a long time since Mac users had to wish that leading apps would come to their beloved platform. If anything, it’s the opposite today, and has been for some time. When I used a PC regularly, I’d wish there were apps like Things and Transmit, Pixelmator and — of all things — Preview (really).

But as many great apps as there are on the Mac today, there’s still some programs that haven’t made the leap over to our favorite platform. Whether it’s games that are still PC only, ancient DOS based business tools, or drivers for an old scanner that’ll only run on XP, many of us still run Windows regularly to be able to use legacy stuff — and some not so legacy stuff. After all, even though Macs have Office, Access has never made the leap, either.

It’s not just PC apps, either. I for one would love some popular iOS apps on my Mac. First off, iBooks: I’ve stuck to buying books in Kindle simply because I can read them on my Mac, too. Then, I’m sure a ton of other iPad apps would be more than welcome on the Mac.

So, if you could pick, what apps would you want to see brought over to the Mac first? We’ll look forward to hearing your comments below!

Before Halo rocketed to system-selling success, before Marathon showed how an intricate story could weave into an action-heavy first-person shooter, it was 1993 release Pathways into Darkness that put Bungie on the map. The company’s third game, PiD combined the first-person action of id Software’s Wolfenstein 3D with an exploration-focused adventure game.

It was a revelation, quickly reaching bestseller status and earning plaudits across the Mac-focused press. And now you can play it in OS X (without an emulator), courtesy of a port by Mark Levin and Bruce Morrison. I’ve spent the past few weeks struggling through its many twisty passages, and am pleased to report that it’s still a great game.

But boy is it hard — brutally so. Allow me to walk you through a little of Pathways into Darkness’s legacy and gameplay, and to explain why — difficulty aside — you should seriously consider giving it a try.

Dropped into a Nightmare

You find yourself plonked down into a dark and dank pyramid, with most of your equipment busted and your US Army Special Forces squad-mates nowhere to be seen. Strange headless monsters and bone-throwing zombies assail you from all sides as you try to come to grips with the situation.

Are you afraid of the dark?

Your gun has no ammunition, but you pick up another one soon enough. You’ll likely waste a lot of bullets before you realize moderation is key. Pathways into Darkness doesn’t ever hold your hand. In fact, most of the time it actively tries to blow it off. This is a game that delights in red herrings and baffling hints, and it has no qualms with kicking you when you’re down.

The difficulty would be manageable, however, if only you could save anywhere at anytime. PiD has save points, and it’ll often feel like an eternity between them. You can always back-track, and that’s an essential strategy at times, but every minute counts here.

It gets pretty harrowing at times, making periods where you’re stranded from save points all the more terrifying.

You might not realize it if you don’t read the manual (hint: read the manual, it’s included via the Help menu), but there’s a time limit at play here. If you take too long to reach the bottom of the pyramid’s catacombs and activate the nuclear device, you lose — the Earth is destroyed by an ancient god-like being. There’s plenty of time — more than 120 hours — but it gets sucked up quickly by periods of resting.

Aside from the relative handful of blue potions scattered through the levels, your only means of recovering health is resting. You lose seven minutes and gain one-seventh of your health points for each unit of rest, which makes every hit extremely costly.

You can be attacked while resting, so be sure to clear out all the monsters first. Or if that’s not an option try to save before you rest. If there’s no save point in sight, just hope for the best. And remember that resting takes precious time.

Aging Oddly

Unlike most shooters, PiD uses multiple native windows. The action takes place in the main window, with inventory, health/status, and messages visible in separate windows. You get dialog-box prompts for conversations and the map, among other things, which means that you can’t move around while examining the map.

It’s a good idea to heed the advice of dead men.

This interface is bizarre by modern standards, but you should get used to it pretty quickly. However strange it may seem, it’s probably actually more intuitive than the custom heads-up display you get in most games of this kind.

The controls didn’t transition quite so smoothly, though, which is perhaps why there’s now an extra key-mapping — one not found in the original — to something approximating the traditional first-person-shooter WASD combo. Except you use Q and E to strafe/dodge, while A and D turn you to the left or right and the Shift key lets you quickly look to your side. Mouse controls were omitted from this re-release, as far as I can tell.

You’ll need to master the dodge controls to survive attacks from these suitably-named Nightmares.

Besides running ambling around shooting and stabbing and hiding from things, you need to collect treasure that improves your score — which is tied to your maximum health — and to find items to help your quest. Talking to dead German soldiers — a feat made possible by a mysterious yellow crystal — helps in this regard, and there’s a neat conversation feature wherein you type keywords and they respond with colorful (helpful) dialogue related to their failed mission or the monsters.

Sign of the Times

Pathways into Darkness is very much a product of its era. The levels are claustrophobic, with low ceilings, narrow corridors, and small rooms. Visuals are a mix of texture-mapped 3D environments and sprite-based monsters/objects. You can set smoothing on or off in the Preferences, depending on whether you prefer jagged edges with sharp pixels or smooth edges with blurry pixels.

To really weird yourself out, turn off floor/ceiling textures and turn on smoothing.

Either way, the game looks its age. But it’s not without a certain charm, as the gruesome monsters and dead German soldiers each look frightfully lifelike — in a twisted, nightmarish cartoon kind of way. The creepy impact is helped by the darkness that pervades everything, and by the audio design.

Every shriek of a wailing monster sets me on edge; your faceless, body-less hero emits an awful barking grunt when hit, while the high-pitched tones of the crystal that lets you talk to the dead is suitably piercing.

Lasting Legacy

Bungie followed up Pathways into Darkness with Marathon, which is often described as one of the most influential games of all time, and you can see here the beginnings of the ideas that set that game — and later Halo — apart from the pack of so-called Doom clones. It’s always atmospheric, often chaotic, and tinged throughout with uncertainty over just who’s good or bad and what forces are at work in the plot.

It’s never more tense than when you’re creeping around in near total blackness, praying that there’s no monster hiding around the corner. Age has done nothing to blunt this part of the atmosphere.

It’s a shame that it’s so difficult, because PiD remains a fantastic game. Its relatively mature plot, creepy atmosphere, complex puzzles, and gruesome monsters all combine to make it age far better than its contemporaries — titles such as Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, and System Shock.

But you’ll be beating your head against the wall to finish it without the aid of both a guide (like this one) and prior experience playing the game. Monsters have a habit of showing up just at the wrong time, while some particularly nasty ones — such as the horrible phantasms — come to feel like the personification of terror — causing panicked key presses as your health drains away.

Level design layouts used to be so much more imaginative. And confusing.

Still Good, Still Unforgiving

As a port of a classic, Pathways into Darkness for OS X is near faultless. As a game, it shows its age as much through its unforgiving, excessive difficulty as through its relatively sparse, angular visuals. You should try it for its legacy, and for the fact that it was so well made. But don’t be ashamed if you can’t reach the end.

The Nazi corpses littered throughout the game have come to signify something extra in the intervening years since 1993; many have tried and failed to unlock the mysteries of this pyramid. Maybe it’s meant to be that way.

If you are in need of custom branding or UI elements for your next project, Microlancer might just be the answer.

Envato (the company that runs the AppStorm network) has just launched a new digital marketplace where you can connect with freelancers who offer services to help you get your projects off the ground. Microlancer puts you in touch with those who can provide logo design, app icon design, branding elements, UI features, web design and a whole lot more – easily, affordably, safely and transparently.

Why is it different to other freelance sites?

• You don’t need to set up a project and review bids
• You can review providers by the type of service you need
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• Prices, turnaround time and revisions are all presented up front
• Envato reviews all providers to provide peace of mind

There are some great services on Microlancer that could help your next app or project stand out from the rest, whilst saving you time and money.

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Like What You See?

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Of course, if you have the skills and are looking for ways to make extra money, you can sell your own services on Microlancer too! We’re currently accepting registrations of interest from those able to provide graphics-based services who want to sell on Microlancer.

Microlancer has just launched in the Graphic and Design category, and will add lots of new categories in the coming month.

If you would like to learn more about Microlancer, visit our How it Works page – or start exploring our services and see just how easy it is to get customized work done for your next app or project.

Whether you’re just learning to play guitar or you’re an experienced musician, it’s always helpful to have some music theory resources lying around. Chord books are especially useful for guitarists, they can help you find variations for playing known chords as well as new ones to play around with. But wouldn’t it be nice to have an interactive chord book on your computer?

ChordMate is just that, and much more. It’s a Mac app that can help you find new chords, new voicings, and even string together chord progressions right on your computer. Sounds interesting?

ChordMate

ChordMate

ChordMate is the ultimate app for any guitarist who would like to dwell deeper into chord theory: it can help you do everything from finding and hearing wild and obscure chord voicings, to putting together chord progressions.

Interface

Interface

The first thing that stands out about ChordMate is how antiquate and loaded its interface looks. It’s kind of overwhelming to look at: it has no color, a lot of sidebars, buttons, and overall looks pretty bland. It does a good job at letting you navigate through the app, but it doesn’t do it in an intuitive way, and it will take you more than a few minutes figuring out what the app does or how you’re supposed to do it.

But, that’s not to say that we expected some kind of amazing innate interface, most music apps tend to be quite complex and hard on the eyes. After all, what this kind of apps provide is content. So how does ChordMate fare in that regard?

Finding Your Chord

Chord Lookup

The main feature of ChordMate is of course helping you find obscure chords and new ways to play the ones you already know. Finding the chord you are looking for is pretty easy, you just have to type it in the search box, which will automatically suggest dozens of matching chords, even giving you a preview of the notes and formula for each chord.

Alternatively, there’s a “Symbol Lookup”, which will essentially show you all the known chords for any root note given, arranged with their name, notes used, symbol and formula. If you don’t know exactly the name of the chord you’re looking for, this is quite handy.

Voicings

Voicings

Once you’ve selected the chord you were looking for, a number of different voicings for it will be shown in the main area of the app. You can filter these through the preset filters on the sidebar of the app, which include “Open Chords”, “No Barre”, “First Inversion”, “All Chords”, among others.

You can set your own filters as well, tweaking a huge number of conditions, such as the top note or where the silent strings are located. The chords shown can also be automatically filtered by ease of playing, quality of the chord, or the fret at which they are played.

Progressions

Chord Progressions

Finding different ways to play your chords is just the tip of the iceberg for this app. Once you’ve found a voicing that sounds good or is convenient to play in your progression, you can drag it to the area found in the bottom of the app, where it’ll be added to your chord progression.

Having all your chords arranged in a progression here makes it easy to play them together in the app, rewind or forward between them and even finding more appropriate voicings for playing them in succession. Going back to the voicings finder for each chord is as easy as right-cliking them and choosing the “Find Other Voicings” option. You can start a song just by dragging the basic chords for a song that you’re working on, and from there start finding more interesting voicings for each of them.

Diagrams

Another cool feature that ChordMate offers are the diagrams. A diagram essentially allows you to select a number of notes that form a chord, after which the app will suggest a name for it or allow you to name it however you want. Diagrams are useful for finding out the name of a chord you’re playing, or for saving new chords that you’ve created.

Tuning, Capo, and Other Things

Tunings

ChordMate will also work with a number of alternative tunings. You just have to tell the app which tuning you’d like to use, and all the chords will be shown relative to that tuning. The same goes with capos, just select a position for it and all chords will be shown relative to it. And if you’re not quite sure how to tune your guitar with your newfound tuning, there’s a “Play Strings” button that’ll let you hear how each of them is supposed to sound.

There are also a few extra details that are pretty cool. For example, you can export any chord diagram as an image, PDF or as text. You can also play around with how chords sound: you can set the app up to play chords as a single strum, as a fast arpeggio, or a slow arpeggio; and select an acoustic, electric or classic sound.

Conclusion

ChordMate is a very powerful app, albeit a bit disorganized and hard to get into. Once you get the hang of it, though, it will become an immense resource for songwriting or just learning to play the guitar. Its many features like alternative tuning support, chord progression organizing, and chord diagrams, make it a sturdy app and a limitless music resource.

At $49 dollars, ChordMate comes as a considerable investment, at least until compared with other kinds of regular chord books which usually run at similar prices. I’m pretty sure ChordMate will be considerably more useful than any of those books, but what do you think? We’d love to hear the thoughts of any guitar players in our audience below!