Mac – Page 36 – Blancer.com Tutorials and projects

Voila: A Comprehensive Screen Capture Solution

The attention span of people is way shorter than it used to be, and it only seems to be getting worse. Waxing poetic about stuff isn’t an effective measure if you are in a quest to reach out to a wider audience (to be precise, the younger audience). Pictures and videos seem to do the trick, though.

When you are writing a tutorial, blogpost, or a book, screenshots at regular intervals for sure will increase the chance of getting the message across quickly. Video walkthroughs are even better. There are many free and premium tools that can help you with both the tasks. Voila is one among them and I hear good things about the app all the time.

A new version of the app went on sale recently, and I grabbed the opportunity to check for myself how useful Voila actually is.

The Yardstick

On a Mac, there are so many ways you can take screenshots without spending a buck. The keyboard shortcuts for screen grabbing in one fine example. However, if you are like me and have to take multiple screenshots everyday, highlighting menus that are tucked away or to grab an action using a timer, you’ll have to look for alternatives.

Then there is annotation and trimming. I use Skitch for all my screenshot grabbing and manipulation exercises. It isn’t perfect yet (it used to be before Evernote bought it), but the latest update has made it very much usable.

On the other hand, when it comes to screen casting, Screenflow has got the mindshare. It’s feature rich, easy to use and has a powerful video editor that a lot of professionals swear by. But, at $99, it’s out of reach for those with a limited budget.

For an affordable $29.99, I’d expect Voila to be far better than Skitch and do a decent enough job when it comes screen recording capabilities. Fair enough, right?

Image Capturing and Annotation

I always recommend people to buy a screenshot app that comes with timer control. Without that, capturing even simple web elements like dropdown menus becomes a tedious task. Imagine my delight when I discovered a dedicated grab button just for menus! It isn’t just the menus that have got their very own grab button, though.

Voila User Interface

With Voila, you can now capture and record anything and everything that you see on your screen. Full screen, windows, objects, menus and selected areas – the app captures them all. To shoot unconventional looking screenshots, use the circular, polygonal and freehand designs! If that’s not enough, custom shortcuts are definitely going to enhance your productivity.

Voila Helper in the Menu bar

Capturing images is just one half of the equation. Resizing and cropping them into the right sizes, sprinkling a generous dose of arrows and text, blurring and smudging sensitive data form the other half. Voila comes with great set of tools that take care of annotating images to the max. As icing at the top, there is an Effects section to add some Instagramish effect to your images.

Effects to Spice Up Images

Creating Screencasts

I was able to create screen recordings with ease. The full screen and area select modes help you cover the areas that you want to focus on. It would have been great if there was a way to adjust the borders of the selected area though.

The recorded videos were clear, crisp and there was no lag. Mouse clicks highlights are very distinct and the viewer won’t miss it. In the new version, you can now pause a screen recording, take a break and start from where you left off. Sadly, though, there isn’t a built in video editor. However, Voila lets you trim recordings with the help of the Quicktime player.

Organizing and Sharing

Organizing screengrabs for future use is part of my normal workflow. Right now, I use to create folders manually and save them for later use. Needless to say, this is a tedious and unproductive task. Thanks to Voila’s smart Organizer, I can save quite a bit of my time. The app organizes all images and videos under the Smart Collections section. You can quickly add new collections on the fly to easily access them without having to jump back to Finder all the time.

Accessing Smart Collections

With Voila, you can share your work as and when it is done and all with just a click. Choose to instantly share through various modes such as YouTube, Flickr, FTP, Mail (Postbox app support is now integrated as well) and more.

Final Thoughts

Voila performs as advertised. What works in its advantage though is the attractive pricing. When standalone screenshot apps are going for $20 and $30, at this price Voila looks like a bargain. Even in the absence of a built-in video editor, the combo of Quicktime plus Voila should be good enough in most situations.

I wasn’t a big fan of the user interface, though. It looks a bit dated and could definitely use some polish. That said, I’m convinced of Voila’s chops and I’ll be retiring Skitch from my toolkit!

Voila: A Comprehensive Screen Capture Solution

A new version of the app went on sale recently, and I grabbed the opportunity to check for myself how useful Voila actually is.

The Yardstick

For an affordable $29.99, I’d expect Voila to be far better than Skitch and do a decent enough job when it comes screen recording capabilities. Fair enough, right?

Image Capturing and Annotation

Voila User Interface

Voila Helper in the Menu bar

Effects to Spice Up Images

Creating Screencasts

Organizing and Sharing

Accessing Smart Collections

Final Thoughts

Thanks to Our Sponsor: Magic Mind

Do you find yourself looking for calming music or background sounds to make your day at work less stressful? Magic Mind, our sponsor this week, is an app that can help you out. It’s designed to help anyone who undergoes stressful situations at work, has trouble falling asleep, or wants to meditate.

No matter if you are looking for a lunch brake relax or a deep stress relief, this application has you covered. You can choose from 28 background sounds, including thunder, crickets, birds and more, to help you relax while tuning out other background noises. You can custom mix sounds and adjust the volume of each individual sound to get it sounding just like you want. Then, there’s 40 unique sessions with a predefined music track, which can be changed to any of 48 available different melodies.

Magic Mind includes:

48 Music Tracks, all of which work as endless loops
28 Background Sounds that you can custom mix
Custom Timer settings to control fade-out time and more
SoundScapes to save your favorite sound combinations

Go Get It!

If you’ve been wanting a way to get some calming background noise to help your workday be a bit more peaceful, Magic Mind might be just what you’ve been looking for. You can get your own copy of Magic Mind for $4.99 from the App Store. At half the price of a music album, it’s a cheap way to get your own calming soundtrack for your work life.

Think you’ve got a great app? Sign up for a Weekly Sponsorship slot just like this one.

Thanks to Our Sponsor: Magic Mind

Magic Mind includes:

48 Music Tracks, all of which work as endless loops
28 Background Sounds that you can custom mix
Custom Timer settings to control fade-out time and more
SoundScapes to save your favorite sound combinations

Go Get It!

Think you’ve got a great app? Sign up for a Weekly Sponsorship slot just like this one.

Instashare: AirDrop, Done Right.

In Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, Apple introduced what appeared to be a pretty promising feature called AirDrop. The goal was simple: to let you simply share files across your local network without the need for emails, flash drives, or complicated setups. Unfortunately, despite their efforts to bring the Mac and iOS to some level of feature parody, over two years later, AirDrop is still a Mac only feature.

Enter Instashare, an app which claims to be “AirDrop for iOS and OSX”, and plans to add Windows and Android versions in the near future. So, did the developers behind Instashare really beat Apple at their own game? Read on to find out!

Design & User Experience

First things first: Instashare is a beautiful app. On both the Mac and iOS, the app’s subtle, but unique style shines. Although it’s a cross-platform app, the developers did a great job of ensuring that Instashare’s style is consistent across platforms while still guaranteeing that the app works the way it should on each. That’s important, going forward, as they’re promising support for both Windows and Android in the near future. By defining a distinct but adaptable look and feel for the app, the developers ensured that it will play nicely across even bigger platform divides than just iOS and the Mac.

Instashare is simple yet distinct.

But as anyone will tell you, beauty is much more than skin deep. To that end, Instashare does the best job it could be expected to, without breaching Apple’s strict developer guidelines for iOS. On the Mac, the process of sharing a file is just as easy, if not easier than through AirDrop. Simply drag any file from Finder to the menu bar application, and you’ll be presented with either a list of already discovered devices or a pretty slick radar animation if it’s still searching. From that point, you only have to accept the file transfer on the receiving end and it’ll begin downloading.

Unfortunately, this process is made somewhat more complicated whenever you’re transferring to an iOS device since you’ll have to have the app open at all times. Again, this isn’t really the developer’s fault, and they did as much as could be expected given the limitations of iOS. Finally, although the Instashare shows a dock icon by default, most users will probably want to disable that through the app’s preferences, as it’s essentially just a menu bar app.

All things considered, Instashare is a perfect example of what a cross-platform app should look and work like. It’s distinct without being gaudy, and works exactly the way most users would expect on both platforms.

Functionality

When transferring files from a Mac to another Mac, the choice between Instashare and AirDrop is pretty much a draw, with similar speeds and functionality. If you have an older Mac, however, Instashare is probably the better option, with a wider range of supported models. Whereas AirDrop can work over WiFi or ethernet with a simple terminal command, Instashare supports both WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity. Again, this comes down to your individual situation, but it’s worth noting that Bluetooth is generally slower than either WiFi or Ethernet.

Transferring files is easy.

Where Instashare really shines, though, is in its cross-platform support. With apps for both the iPad and iPhone, it’s a far more compelling solution than AirDrop, which is still Mac-only. Then, there’s also the promise of apps for both Windows and Android in the near future. That’ll make it even more the best cross-platform sharing solution.

In reviewing the app, I tried transferring every conceivable kind of file, and Instashare worked without fail; as long as your device can open it, Instashare can send it. My only real feature complaint is that there doesn’t appear to be any easy way to send URLs via the app. While there’s plenty of other apps that can do this, it would seem like a reasonably sensible addition to Instashare, and would increase its usefulness by leaps and bounds.

Then, there’s the issue of the potential performance hit on your Mac, since just as with any additional app that will likely remain “always-on”, you can expect some extremely nominal hit in battery life and performance. But, in layman’s terms, Instashare only uses about twice the memory of Dropbox and about the same amount as Finder. For most users this won’t make a big difference, but for those with older machines, it’s something to note.

Companion Apps

The iOS app is a worthy companion.

For most users of Instashare, the main draw of the app is probably it’s cross-platform compatibility, and luckily, the Instashare iOS app is pretty great. Like the Mac app, they can work either over Bluetooth or WiFi and they’re able to both send and receive files. Unfortunately, due to the limitations in the iOS file system, you can only send photos photos from the mobile apps. Luckily, the developers came up with something of a workaround, enabling most types of files to be sent to Instashare through the “Open in…” dialog found in many iOS apps. It’s not a seamless solution by any means, but within the walled garden of iOS, it works well. Once you’ve received a file, you’ll see that “Open in…” dialog again, this time, allowing you to take files out of the app.

Conclusion

If you’ve got a Mac and an iOS device, you owe it to yourself to give Instashare a try. After using it for about a week, I can confidently say that it’s earned its place in my workflow as one of those apps I just can’t live without. Moreover, the app is completely free on the Mac, at least while in beta, with no advertisements included. On iOS, the app is initially free with the option to remove ads for just $0.99; the ads are pretty ugly, but the app is so useful that this would be a steal at twice the price. So you can grab the ad-free upgrade for your iOS device, use it for free on your Mac, and have the best possible Mac-to-iOS sharing experience.

So, while I’d love to see Apple bring AirDrop functionality to iOS devices, Instashare has proven itself a worthy alternative.

Instashare: AirDrop, Done Right.

Design & User Experience

Instashare is simple yet distinct.

Functionality

Transferring files is easy.

Companion Apps

The iOS app is a worthy companion.

Conclusion

So, while I’d love to see Apple bring AirDrop functionality to iOS devices, Instashare has proven itself a worthy alternative.

Colorful Adventures in Draw a Stickman: EPIC

Video games are becoming much more about art, and while gameplay will always remain an important aspect, the look of the game can weigh as heavily. That’s why I was excited to find Draw a Stickman: EPIC, because the artstyle and the gameplay seemed equally inventive, both relying on your own drawings to work.

That’s putting a lot of pressure on the player, though. Can my little stickman shoulders bear the weight of all that responsibility? We’ll get drawing and see how I — and the game — hold up.

Ready, Steady, Draw!

Unsurprisingly, you’ll draw a stickman (or sticklady, in my case) when you first load Draw a Stickman: EPIC. This will be your avatar for the game, and while you’re limited first time out in the colors you can use on your stickman, you don’t need to feel pressed to buy the additional colors. Instead, you can unlock them as you play.

This is pretty much photorealistic.

You’ll also draw your “damsel in distress,” the princess in another castle that you must rescue. I loved this part of the game, because I drew an orange tabby cat, named it Cat, and now my Draw a Stickman: EPIC adventure is subtitled “The Search for Cat.” I’ve bumped into Cat once or twice, too, before she was spirited away by an evil stickman.

There are plenty of pencils to use in the game, and lots of things to draw, but there’s less room for the artistic flair I showed with my stickgirl’s ginger ringlet’s. Use the fire pencil to set flammable stuff on fire. Draw keys with the key pencil. The cloud pencil has two uses, to create rain and shoot lightning bolts, but that’s as multifunctional as you’ll get. Your fires don’t even have to be fire-shaped, nor is there any reason why your axe can’t be shaped exactly like a hippopotamus. As long as you use the correct pencil, your drawing, whatever it is you draw, with behave accordingly.

My fire pencil is only going to draw fire, but at least I can blow stuff up.

Each level is a collection of nifty little puzzles, and it’s your stickman’s job to figure out how to use the pencils provided for the level to make it out safely. You won’t have necessarily have all the pencils for all levels, though, so some puzzles consist entirely of figuring out how many things you have to set on fire. Once you start combining pencils, it becomes both more challenging and more interesting.

Not So Well-Drawn

It’s great that I can draw in the game, making it interactive, but putting in an avatar that I created and building the game around the search for my cat drawing really makes the game something that’s been personalized for me. That was absolutely my favorite part of the game, and it’s too bad it was over in the first five minutes. I wish the developers could have extended the customization of Draw a Stickman: EPIC further, allowing me to draw some of the scenery, too. I could have drawn cracking trees, rocks, and tiki lamps. There’s a fire-breathing monster I would have liked a shot at making even more epic with my colored pencils.

This fire-breathing monster looks pretty nice, but I could have done better. Just look at Stickgirl.

There are games where you can draw neat things of your own invention to solve puzzles. You can draw slingshots or puppies or Cthulhu. Sometimes your idea sticks, and sometimes it backfires and you get eaten by Cthulhu. This is not that sort of game. You can’t draw puppies or Cthulhu. I mean, you can, but they’re not going to act like Cthulhu. They act like fire or keys or rain or whatever kind of pencil you used. While you’re absolutely not tied to a particular shape, you’re always tied the action of your pencil. After a while, I sort of just wished I had a toolbox and could select a key without always having to draw the thing first.

Draw Your Own Adventure

All that said, Draw a Stickman: EPIC really is full of inventive puzzles to solve, funny characters to interact with, and crazy enemies to run away from. I’ll admit that I went into the game with certain expectations, and that clouded my view a bit. I was expecting to be able to really control my environment in new and awesome ways. That’s not really what happened.

You can run away from the zombie, or, um, it will catch you.

What happened was that I ran away from a zombie that would become transfixed by pumpkins, and I was set on fire by a rock that could be stunned by lightning. That’s pretty cool. There’s also that fire-breathing monster guy I mentioned before who inadvertently helps me get a key-controlled robot out of a locked treasure chest. And I’m pretty sure I met the sarlacc from Return of the Jedi. (Don’t worry, the robot took care of him.)

The Writing’s on the Wall

My problem–and it arguably was my problem–was that I wasn’t expecting a point-and-click adventure game. I wasn’t expecting to use the pencils as more or less static tools. I thought I would be creating new stuff. Instead, I picked up tools as I moved through the game, and some of them were applicable in certain areas while others aren’t. Draw a Stickman: EPIC turned out to be an adventure game with a neat graphics style and a peculiar toolbox.

Look. There’s a cannon. That’s cool.

I’m a big fan of adventure games, and this sure is a fun one. Draw a Stickman: EPIC just happens to resemble, in both style and mechanics, the sorts of games where you can draw your own puppies or Cthulhu. But even without a Cthulhu puppy, it’s still a great game. I wish I had been able to customize more than just myself and my damsel, though, and all the tools are there to do it. Maybe I couldn’t draw my own zombies or fire-breathing rocks, but that doesn’t change how great the gameplay is, and Draw a Stickman: EPIC probably did just fine on those zombies without me.

Alfred 2 – The Productivity Powerhouse Arrives

Just a little over two years ago, when I moved from Linux to the Mac, I set out to find an app launcher similar to what I was accustomed to. At the time, Quicksilver was pretty much defunct and Launchbar… well that just didn’t click with me. Then I found Alfred and have never looked back.

Dubbing Alfred as a mere application launcher is very misleading though, simply because it’s capable of so much more. It a true productivity powerhouse, the backbone of so many of my workflows… An app without which I would feel crippled on a Mac.

As is the case with any vital tool, when I hear the words “New version” or “Major rewrite”, I cannot help but cringe and feel a little bit anxious with what lies ahead. Will it remain the crux of my workflow, or will the glue that holds the many intricate pieces together fail? Well… Will it?

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What Changed

One thing that can be said for Alfred, is that development never stopped. The team behind it laboured tirelessly, constantly adding new features and improvements. The downside being that many were an afterthought, a fact that became painfully apparent in the app’s cluttered and unwieldy preferences.

With version 2’s rewrite that has changed dramatically. From the first time you open the preferences, now a separate app, you’ll notice a cleaner interface with better layout. Settings and features are logically grouped making them easier to find and tweak.

A Closer Look

Three separate sections all merged into one.

As Vero had stated in her initial blog post, version 2 would still feel like home for veteran users. I was happy to see that it does, albeit a new, improved and redecorated home!

With one or two minor exceptions every single setting was where I’d expect it to be. A few settings, that in version 1 merited a separate section, have now been merged with others. As an example, Fallback Searches can now be found under Default Results, while Custom Searches, Web Searches, URLs and History have all been meshed together forming Web Search.

This type of reorganisation can be found throughout the app. But the changes aren’t merely cosmetic. A few features have matured and received some interesting tweaks. For instance, you can now disable unneeded default actions as well as asking for confirmation for specific System Commands.

You can now disable actions and ask for confirmation for System Commands.

Another feature to have been tweaked in a considerable manner is the Contacts Viewer. You can now define custom actions per contact field. This allows you to extend functionality and somewhat bend it to your will by passing the entry to a URL Scheme, copying it to clipboard or viewing it as large text.

These custom actions can be accessed from a workflow, but more on workflows a little later.

UI

Version 1 already had the ability of theming, but Alfred 2 brings it to a whole new level. Not only is the theming engine more intuitive and accessible, it is also vastly more powerful. Choose from an array of fonts, change font sizes, increase of decrease the padding between entries. Change the width of Alfred’s window as well as the corner radius. After creating a master piece, use the share button to export your theme, either as a URL or as a file.

The new theming engine, powerful yet intuitive.

Click on the background to change colours, giving you a better feel for how your design will look.

Workflows

Gone are the ragged and weary extensions of version 1. In their place you’ll find the infinitely more powerful, flexible and intuitive Workflows. What are they, you may ask.

Workflows, a feature found only in the Powerpack, allow you extend Alfred’s functionality in almost infinite ways by running scripts, launching hotkeys running system commands, and more. Workflows are made up of objects such as triggers, inputs, actions and outputs, each easily linked with the aid of a visual canvas.

The ability to feed results back to Alfred, a much requested feature, finally saw the light in version 2 giving way to many creative workflows.

The excellent Weather Workflow by David Ferguson showing results fed back to Alfred.

If you’d like to get started then there are a few examples or templates that will show you the basics. Examples are fully functioning workflows that will immediately give a feel for what is possible. Templates on the other hand provide you with the essential building blocks for workflows. All you have to do is then fill in the blanks.

An example of a few templates.

However, if that’s not your thing, you can easily import workflows created by the vibrant and helpful community of users that have rallied to create some amazing workflows. Simply choose the workflow you’d like to import, double click it and confirm the prompt in Alfred. There is much more to be said about workflows and for that very reason we’ll have a whole piece solely dedicated to them shortly.

Final Thoughts

At the beginning of this piece I asked a vital question: “Will it remain the crux of my workflow, or will the glue that holds the many intricate pieces together fail? I’m happy to report that after having used Alfred 2 for the past couple of months it has strengthened it’s foothold as one of the pillars of my daily workflow.

With all the great features that it retained from version 1, the inclusion of workflows and the budding community of workflow developers creating amazing things, I can state with a clear conscious that this is a must have app. The price of the PowerPack is easily justified by workflows alone. How much does a weather app cost? A good twitter client, or something akin to Mailhub? These are just a few examples of workflows that already exist!

If you’re still on the fence, then peruse the previous in-depth articles where I cover in much detail what Alfred can do. Though they are for version 1, the features and power remain intact. Install the free version and give it a test run… I’m sure you’ll love it. I feel so confident in fact that I foresee a couple of converts from other popular app launchers!

Rating an app isn’t always an easy task, but this is one case where I have no doubts and give it a solid 10! What are your thoughts?

Don’t forget, we’ll soon have an in-depth look at workflows, showcasing some great ones.

Collective Remembers Everything You’ve Put in Your Clipboard

I copy and paste a lot of text in my average day. The problem with that is I often override what I’ve already copied because I forget to paste it somewhere. When this happens, I sometimes find myself without the letter I wrote to a friend or even a password I had just created. I then have to go back to the source and write up everything again.

Operating systems should have a safeguard for such matters, but they don’t, so the folks over at Generation Loss Interactive took it into their own hands to create Collective, a great little app that holds your clipboard history.

Quick Access with Shortcuts

Collective has no setup process. It just tells you what you need to know and leaves you to using your computer just like you normally would. Except this time you won’t be losing things every time you use your clipboard: everything is still there. I’m glad it wasn’t hard to start using Collective. The app just sits in my menu bar and is accessible with two clicks or Command + Shift + V.

Being able to access a tool like this quickly is essential. Clicking its menu bar icon and then another button to launch it is not exactly what I had in mind as quick, but the shortcut does help balance things. As I used the app I noticed that it could benefit from having the menu bar as its host rather than being a standalone window. Either that or clicking the menu bar icon launches it immediately. Either of these methods would be far more productive in the long run since there are many who prefer to click rather than tap keys.

You can add anything to your clipboard history by dragging it into the app.

For daily use, the three-key shortcut works fine. It might take a while to get used to, but I eventually discovered that using the right Command and Shift keys combined with my left index finger on the V works best. If you’re not a big fan of this shortcut and prefer to have your own, you can configure one in the app’s preferences. It’s good to see that the developers give users that choice, because not everyone has the same habits.

Simple Interface with Fluid Transitions

The coolest feature in Collective are its transitions when you open and close it. It sort of pops up in a 3D way and then fades back into the screen when you’re finished, almost like a bubble in water — without the inevitable pop. Some would argue that these transitions are unnecessary, but I think it’s nice when an app has character.

Collective’s search results.

Collective’s main interface is simple and straightforward. There’s an X to close it, a menu to show only copied text from certain apps, a search field, and a pin button to keep it open when the window is no longer active. You don’t really need much more than that. The search field is global so you can pretty much find anything with it.

A Few Options for Customization

The app automatically saves your clipboard when you restart your computer, but you can tweak some stuff to your liking. How many entries are saved, for example, can be changed from the default 200 to 1000 or down to 10. You can also permanently pin the app, start it automatically at login (useful), and change the number of lines the preview of each entry is.

Changing the font.

Of course, my favorite option has been saved for last. Since some people love their fonts, the developer has included full Font Book support so you can use whatever vector you prefer. The nice thing is it changes all the text that you’ve copied to that font. Don’t worry, it will still be looking fine when you paste it again. You can even copy it as plain text by right clicking the entry.

It’s Nearly Perfect

Searching Spotify stuff.

Collective does an exceptional job of helping you with your daily clipboard activities. If you copy and paste a lot, it’s going to be the handiest thing you have in your menu bar. My only complaint is the way you open it with clicks. If it were one click away, the app would be perfect.

Zonebox – Timeboxing For Your Tasks

Productivity plays an important role in our daily lives and, therefore anything that can enhance it is of interest and deserves closer inspection. For that very reason, we recently reviewed two productivity apps based on The Pomodoro Technique.

Today I decided to take a look at Zonebox, an app aimed at timeboxing tasks. Timeboxing is another popular time management technique, which essentially consists of assigning time limits for the duration of a task. Although initially used by teams in software development, it’s gaining more and more traction among individuals as a means of boosting their productivity. Read on to see how Zonebox can help.

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UI And Usage

Zoneboxs initial window.

When launching Zonebox for the first, time you’ll be greeted with a simple yet functional window, comprised of a viewport for your tasks and a status bar with dynamic content depending on the apps current state.

Working With Tasks

There are two ways in which you can add tasks to Zonebox:

Either click ‘+’ in the status bar or type ctrl+N. Give the task a name and time limit and you’re set.
Copy a list of tasks from a text file and paste them in Zonebox. Each task will be given the default time (defined in preferences). This is a great feature for those who prefer plain text task managers such as TaskPaper.

Zonebox will show you the total amount of time allotted to all your tasks at the end of the list.

When you’re ready to start working on a specific task, click the Zone in or type ?? and Zonebox will start counting down. Type ?P to pause a task, ?. to stop it or ?/ to mark it as done. All these options are accessible from the apps menu too.

Once you mark a task done, it gets a strikethrough and the status bar changes to show a “trash bin”. When clicking on the bin all done tasks are deleted permanently. Take care though because there is no way of undoing a task if you mistakenly mark it done.

Click the bin button to remove done tasks and clear the clutter out.

Visual Feedback

Most apps of this genre provide some form of visual feedback showing just how much time is left on the clock and Zonebox is no exception. However, it tackles this in an interesting and unique way. Besides the usual menubar timer we’ve become accustomed to and a timer in the status bar, Zonebox also shows a progress bar running along both the bottom of the screen as well as it’s window.

Progress bar along the bottom of the screen and window.

The only drawback of this progress bar is that it covers the dock’s indicator lights. Fortunately, you can disable this in the preferences or simply run Zonebox on a second monitor (providing you have one of course).

The two buttons next to the status bar timer allow you to add or subtract time in 1 minute increments.

Another interesting feature of the app is study mode. This is intended for tasks that don’t require you work on your Mac yet want to timebox. Simply start the task and enter full screen mode. Zonebox will dim your screen and display the task with a time counting down.

Zonebox integrates well with OS X’s notification center.

Zonebox has support for Mountain Lion’s notification centre and will display a banner when a tasks time runs out. Clicking the banner will bring the app forward allowing you to quickly start a new task or restart the current one.

Where It Excels

Given the simple and minimal nature of Zonebox, I wouldn’t recommend it for any big or long term projects. However, it is extremely useful for organising the day ahead of you. It’s great to sit down with your morning coffee and start creating the tasks you’d like to accomplish. The total time allows you to see how your day stacks up and quickly prioritise your tasks based on how much time you have already allotted for the day.

I recently came across a very insightful tweet by Aaron Mahnke that sums this up very well.

We have three limited resources: money, time and energy. So why do we usually only budget our money?

A pre-planned day is budgeted time.

Where It Falls Short

I came across a few quirks that could easily be attributed to an oversight or a lack of attention to detail… I’ll let you decide.

The ability to pause a task is only available via menu or keyboard shortcut, no button or context menu which would’ve made sense. However, when you hide the app from the Dock this is only available via keyboard shortcut and unless you know what it is, you’ll miss it altogether (I almost did);
The menubar icon has an option to start a task but this only shows the first task in the list, regardless of the task selected, rendering this of little use;
If you hit the down arrow past your last task and then hit enter, you’re able to create a task on the same line as the total time;
Some keyboard shortcuts function in a seemingly random manner. If no tasks is active then hitting ?? once starts a task. If however there is a running task, ?? will edit the tasks name (as dose simply hitting ?). On the other hand, if no task is selected and nothing is running, hitting ?? will start the first task in the list.
You can only mark a task done if it’s running. This makes means that if a tasks timer runs out, you’ll have to start it again just to mark the task done.

A bug that allows text on the same line as the total. Restart app to fix.

On a Portuguese keyboard, the shortcut for marking a task done also toggles the help menu.

Final Thoughts

Zonebox is a relatively new app and that does show in a few areas that clearly need more work and thought. It does, however, have a few interesting things going for it and if you’re into timeboxing or would like to give it a try then this app could be a good companion. It’s fairly inexpensive and I’m sure we’ll see it progress in a more positive direction once the few quirks are ironed out.

This Week in Mac App News and Deals

The end of another week at the office is in sight!

We got some really nice picks to make your weekend feel closer. Here we’ll talk about the new Dropbox menubar functionality, a sneak peak of upcoming version of Pixelmator and, best of all, the long waited release of Alfred v2!

News from the World of Apps

Alfred v2 is Here!

After months of waiting, the latest version of Alfred — our favorite app launcher and all-around productivity tool — has finally been released today! Alfred 2 brings all-new Workflows that can let you do more than ever with Alfred, along with redesigned settings and appearance tools. The whole app has actually been rewritten in this upgrade, making it faster than ever. If you bought a Mega Supporter powerpack upgrade to try out the betas, you should have already received the new key in your email. Otherwise, check their site for more upgrade info, and check back here in a bit for our full review of the upgrade.

Alfred 2′s Workflows

New version of MoneyWiz is out with more than 50 new features

You may not have a lot of money, but everybody has some (at least I hope so). And no matter how much you have, financial management may improve drastically the way to check your finances and control your spendings sprees. MoneyWiz decided to go one step forward and its new version brings more than 50 new features. It’s so much that you better check our review on MoneyWiz.

GRID for Mac gained a release date: March 28th

Mark your calendar: March 28 is the day you won’t get any work done. The BAFTA award-winning racing game GRID strikes the Mac. The game supports LAN and online multiplayer modes and comes with 2 additional packs to offer more options of cars, events and tracks. It describes itself as “the sweet spot between sim realism and full-on arcade racing”.

Discover the new Dropbox menu on your computer

Now you finally have a reason to unhide the Dropbox menubar icon from Bartender. The update improves the functionality of the menubar icon, allowing you to follow files shared to you, modified and recently changed items. Sharing has been made much easier. It’s a pleasant update, tailored specially for people who use Dropbox as an essential work tool.

Dropbox brings a whole new functionality to its Mac app.

Native Instruments announces Komplete 9 Ultimate.

This application may not ring any bell unless you work with sound, however, to anyone willing to take a shot at the music industry or as a sound designer, this is worth taking a look. The regular version contains 33 products and over 120gb of sound, while the Ultimate version packs 65 products and 370gb of sound. A great tool for anyone who works with production, sound design or live performance.

Propellerhead releases Reason 7

It seems to be a prolific week for the sound specialists. Reason 7 comes with several new features to make music production easier. It has focused on improvements for the mixer, the rack and the sequencer. It comes with better instruments’ integration, a spectrum analyzer with visual EQ controls, a sound back with plenty of loops and drum kits and furthermore.

Sneak Peak at Pixelmator 2.2 Blueberry

Ok, we’re done talking about sound, so let’s chat about design. The well known Pixelmator released a preview of a new upcoming feature in its 2.2 Blueberry version. In a video, it shows how the Convert Text to Shape option will work, allowing you to do some fancy stuff with your writings. But the best news is that the update will be a free update via the Mac App Store, so if you already own the application, there’s nothing to worry about.

The upcoming version of Pixelmator is already making us salivate.

MacBook Pro Retina has the best battery when compared with the competition

In a search for the best Windows 8 laptop, considering battery life, the Apple product has beaten them all when it comes to browsing the web or watching videos stored in your hard drive. Still, keep in mind that if we relate price with battery life, some Windows 8 and Chrome OS options stand a chance.

Retina MacBook Pro succumbs to fan speed issue

But still, it’s not all sunny at Apple land. Owners of the early 2013 Retina MacBook Pro have reported an issue with the laptop’s fan speed. According to first reports, the fan will ramp up its speed to detrimental levels, as you can hear in this video. They also suggest that the issue is caused by the change of SSD from a Samsung to a Sandisk, causing an incompability. If you’re having this problem, check the official thread of take your MacBook to an Apple Store.

The Best App Deals for Your Mac

Radium 3 $19.99 -> $6.99

Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition $19.99 (NEW)

Kickoff – Chat and Tasks for Teams $27.99 (NEW – see our review of the beta)

Kickoff is a new application to make it easier to work within teams.

The Cave $14.99 -> $6.99

Rochard $9.99 -> $2.99

TuneSpan $14.99 -> $3.99

The PickABundle Bundle – $49 (check our review for this offer.)

Pick only the apps you want and save a lot of money in great apps.

Bundleecious Bundle (5 apps plus 3 months of Backblaze online backup) – $9.99

The Humble Bundle with Android 5 (6 cross-platform games) – Pay what you want

Pick 5 Classic Games from GOG. Save 80% – $10 to $14 (considering only the games available for Mac)

MacUpdate March 2013 Bundle (10 apps, including Parallels Desktop, DevonThink Pro, Prizmo, Motion Composer, and more) – $49.99

MacLegion Spring Bundle 2013 (10 apps – including Roxio Toast and LaunchBar – plus Trickster for the first 5000 purchases) – $49.99

Interesting Links

MacDock: The Minimal Dock for MacBook Pro Retina

The History of the Brushed Metal

A Beginner Guide to the Ports on your Mac

Steve Jobs to be manga hero in official Japaese comic series

Only 16% users will try a buggy app more than twice.

Did We Miss Anything?

That’s all of the news, deals, and interesting links for this week, but if there’s anything you think we missed, be sure to let us know in the comments below. Otherwise, check back next Thursday for more Mac news, deals, and more!

Tips from Web.AppStorm: How to Replace Google Reader

If you’re subscribing to Mac.AppStorm or any other sites via RSS, chances are you’re using Google Reader. Even if you’re using a Mac app like NetNewsWire, Reeder, or any of the newer news apps that have popped up in recent years, you’re likely using Google Reader to do the heavy lifting of syncing your RSS feeds. That’s all going to come to an end this July, as Google just announced that they’re shutting down Google Reader.

There’s a few options you’ve got. First, NetNewsWire can sync RSS feeds standalone already, so it can work without Google Reader integration, only you’ll lose the syncing options. Then, the Reeder team has announced on Twitter that Reeder won’t die, though it’s yet to be seen how it will continue syncing RSS feeds. On the Mac, Reeder only works with Google Reader, though on the iPhone it already works with Fever, a self-hosted online feed reader.

Then, if you used Google Reader online, you’ll just need to find a new app to subscribe to RSS feeds. Plus, you’ll need to export your Google Reader data, no matter what app you’re switching to. Over on Web.AppStorm, we’ve put together the tips and apps you need to make the leap from Google Reader. I personally switched to Fever, but there’s a number of options that’ll work no matter what your needs.

Now, would anyone like to predict what app Google will shutdown next?

Continue Reading on Web.AppStorm…

Moneywiz: Simple Yet Powerful Mac Money Management

I am a man of simple tastes, which is precisely why I love my Mac and the apps on it. I don’t want to have to read through lengthy tutorials and spend an hour of my time learning how to use an app before I can start playing around with it — to me, it should just be install the app, open it up and start using it. And it’s precisely this that drew me to Moneywiz.

I find that money management apps tend to overwhelm the user with their interface and countless features and aren’t really designed with the customer in mind. Moneywiz, however, defines simplicity, yet it does this without compromising on functionality and features. It is, in my mind, the slickest and most usable money management app on the App Store. Here’s why.

Introduction

At $24.99, Moneywiz certainly isn’t the cheapest offering on the App Store (I managed to grab a code from the developer for this review), so you may be inclined to toss it aside for cheaper options. But I believe you shouldn’t dismiss an app solely on price – sure, there are free options out there, but they simply don’t match up to Moneywiz’s power and functionality – and I believe that this alone is worth parting with 25 bucks for.

Setting up a new account in Moneywiz takes a matter of seconds.

Opening up the app was a breath of fresh air to me, as setting up an account is really nice and simple. Moneywiz features a sync service called Sync Everywhere!, so if you’ve got the iPhone or iPad versions of the app you can sign in and start straight away. Otherwise, you can set up a new account quickly and easily.

The main screen of Moneywiz.

For this review, I’ve created a sample current account with a starting balance of £10,000. The main screen lists all your transactions (which we’ll come onto in a minute) and gives you easy access to your budgets, scheduled transactions and reporting features.

Working with Transactions

Transactions are handled really nicely in Moneywiz and the entire app makes it easy to keep track of your finances. When you add a new transaction, you can set its category, payee, amount, date and time and also attach an image (say, of a receipt or invoice). I really like this approach as it means you can add all of your transactions quickly and easily, without having to worry about filling out a load of fields.

Adding a new transaction in Moneywiz.

Once you’ve added a transaction, it’ll pop up in the main transaction screen. Any income is colour-coded green and expenses are coloured red. This gives you a quick overview of all your transactions and allows you to distinguish easily between them – something that was very appealing to me. Moneywiz also presents you with a few options for each transaction: you can turn each one into a scheduled transaction (e.g. a regular payment, such as a utility bill or regular income, such as your salary or wage) and with version 1.4 (the latest version available), any scheduled transactions will be paid automatically – a real bonus.

The options available with each transaction.

One of the most notable features about the new release is the Refund button as you can see in the screenshot above. Although it’s a fairly simple transaction, refunding something actually presents you as the user with a bit of a problem if the option isn’t available. You could, of course, delete the transaction but then it would still show up on your account statement. You could also create a separate minus transaction (so, for my sample £20 iTunes transaction, I could create a corresponding -£20 transaction to offset it) but this approach is a little longwinded. In Moneywiz, you simply click on Refund, set the amount (you can set partial amounts, for example) and hey presto, the money flies back into your account.

This approach, to me anyway, simply emphasises the developer’s commitment to ease-of-use and shows how focused they are towards customers, rather than to small businesses (which I find most money management apps are geared towards), and it really impressed me.

Working with Budgets

Budgets are a great way to manage your money as they allow you to define exactly how much you spend each week on a certain thing. As a student, I know how important budgeting is and I regularly allocate funds for grocery shopping and going out (the latter tends to be much bigger than the former and often the allocation tends to drift, again in the direction of the latter…) so I can clearly see how much money is being spent.

Setting up a new budget in Moneywiz.

Moneywiz lets you set budgets for almost every single transaction category. In the screenshot above, I’ve set a monthly limit of £200 for fuel for my car and I’ve chosen to not have any unused money transferred to the next month (so, say I spend £100 this month, then I’d have £300 next month to spend). My budget resets itself on the 12th of every month (though you can define this – budgets can run daily, monthly and yearly).

You can easily keep track of how much you’ve spent by the green indicator bar.

As you can see, when I add a transaction (in this case, £50) it keeps it within the Budget screen and takes the amount off from my budget. A little green indicator bar gives me a quick overview of how much of my budget I’ve already spent. Out of all the money management apps I’ve looked at, I think Moneywiz is the easiest to use when it comes to working with transactions and budgets and I highly favour the developer’s simplicity approach.

Reporting

Of course, it’s always nice to know exactly where your hard-earned cash is going each month, and this is where the reporting features of Moneywiz come into play. You can create reports for virtually anything, including spending by category, your forecast income (if you’ve entered any scheduled transactions) and spending by payee (this is the category that tends to shock me the most!).

Reporting in Moneywiz is a really powerful feature.

Of course, you can customise your reports by time period and they can be exported as either PDF files or CSV files. One thing I really admired whilst looking at the Reports section was the sheer ease of displaying all my transaction information in one, easy-to-read image. Anyone who has tried to draw a chart in a spreadsheet program will know what I mean — there are tonnes of variables to define and your data is never displayed in precisely the way you want it. With Moneywiz it’s a case of click on the report type, select the timeframe and it appears on your screen…like magic, really.

Should I Buy It?

Without a shadow of doubt: yes. I can appreciate that 25 bucks is a lot for a Mac app and it certainly makes you think twice before clicking that Buy button but with Moneywiz I am confident that you will get your money’s worth. I’ve used both the iPhone and iPad apps quite extensively and both of them are absolute joys to use. With the built-in (and free) sync service I know that my data is always check across all my devices, so this means I can add purchases on the move and they’ll be ready and waiting for me on my Mac when I get home.

What impressed me with Moneywiz, however, was not just its ease-of-use and fluidity but also how customer-orientated and non-technical it was. Some money management apps like to bombard you with complicated definitions and blocky, unimaginative interfaces but this one really is a rare exception: a beautiful, appealing app that doesn’t skimp on features – something which annoys me greatly. I’d certainly have no problems in spending $24.99 on an app which I would get daily use out of and I’m sure you wouldn’t, either.

So, despite the fact there are cheaper money management apps out there on the App Store, go ahead and treat yourself to Moneywiz and start using it straight away. You’ll soon discover that both you and your bank account will thank you in the long run!

Bubble Browser: Visualize and Organize Your Evernote Notes

Evernote may be a brilliant tool for creating text, audio, and image-based notes that live in the cloud, but it’s still not so great when it comes time to actually browse through all of your notes — especially the older ones.

Bubble Browser tries to fix this problem, organizing your notes via colorful bubbles and presenting them in a three-panel browser that make it easy to explore Evernote visually. It’s a bit lacking in a few areas, and could do with more features, but its cool interface and straightforward navigation may be worth the price of admission alone.

Bubbles Everywhere

Bubble Browser is big on bubbles. There are multiple tiers of bubbles, starting with Notebooks, Tags, and Creation Dates, then drilling through relevant subcategories for each one. These are your core filters, and the first thing you see when you open the app (provided you’re logged in). Bubbles are a different size depending on the number of notes they contain. Simply click on a bubble to display notes that meet that filter.

This is where the magic starts.

It all seems very inviting, and should be fairly intuitive to learn your way around. The streamlined interface is a welcome change from Evernote’s rather serious, conservative (admittedly still clean and attractive) official look, too — lending an element of playfulness to navigation.

Notebooks naturally expands into all notebooks that have at least one note in them. Empty notebooks don’t get shown, which makes sense given that Bubble Browser won’t currently allow you to edit or create notes. Creation Dates lets you check out your notes by year, month, and day, drilling down through these.

I have nearly all my notes in one notebook, so it dwarfs all others.

Tags is the most interesting one, because it let’s you go much further in filtering your notes. Your first tag selection reveals not only the notes created with that tag, but also the other tags that have been used in conjunction with it. Let me give you an example.

Browsing with Filters

I have a Freelance tag, for any notes related to my freelance writing work. Then I have tags for the kind of freelance work — pitching, interviews, article ideas, specific stories, and each outlet I write for. Most notes tagged Freelance are also tagged with one or more of these other things. So I see a new tag cloud, with Freelance outside of it to show what my current filter is.

My tags and notes; Bubble Browser inspired me to be more consistent with tagging.

If I click on one of these tags (e.g.., “Interview”), I can see the union of Freelance and Interview. Then I’ll see that I have some notes tagged with Polygon, where I’m doing a feature article. If I click again, I’ll see only the notes that are tagged with Polygon, Freelance, and Interview. This is extremely useful.

Digging deeper.

You can filter by multiple tags in the official Evernote app, too, but it’s not as elegant, and you have no way of seeing ahead of time how many notes are in each tag or union of tags. Bubble Browser makes it easy to see at a glance, just by comparing the size of the bubbles — or by moving your mouse cursor over each tag (which displays the number in a floating dialog.

The middle column shows thumbnail previews, rather like Evernote’s Card View except with text too small to read. Meanwhile the right column displays the currently-selected note. You can hide either the left or right column with the buttons atop the middle pane; the middle one can also be hidden, but it’s a bit fiddly — with dragging things in and out.

If you’re pressed for screen real estate, hiding columns will be of great assistance.

Broken Bubbles

As is so often the case with impressive new apps that do something different, Bubble Browser has several issues that are cause for concern.

Images in notes are not resized to fit within the viewing area, making large photos difficult to see. They also aren’t selectable. This strikes me as strange because the app is otherwise fantastic about adapting to your window and window pane sizing — adding columns to the middle pane and redrawing the bubbles to fit in the left pane.

Even if I go full-screen on my 21.5″ iMac, I still can’t see that image properly.

While text and links do wrap automatically to window width and behave largely as you’d expect, they cannot be edited.

In fact, there’s no editing whatsoever — which is a big dampener on Bubble Browser’s usefulness. You also can’t change or add tags, delete notes, create notes, or check note statistics (each note has information about source URL, location, sync status, attachment status, size/length, author, edit history, and more associated with it).

This is all the metadata that Evernote keeps for each note; I’d love to see Bubble Browser make better use of it.

Audio notes are recognized, but can’t be listened to within the app — clicking on them opens QuickTime Player. There are no sorting options for source URL or size, or any kind of search tools, and also no location filtering.

What can you do, besides browsing via the Tags, Notebooks, and Creation Dates filters? Not a whole lot. You can read, provided any images included are small enough to fit on your screen without resizing. You can open a note in Evernote (there’s a button in the top-right corner). And you can jump to the overview for a related tag or notebook directly from the note view.

I found the experience of reading notes with small images and lots of text nearly perfect.

It should be noted, also, that I encountered stability problems. Bubble Browser seems to have an issue with some of my notes; the app crashed a number of times — repeatedly on two separate occasions, but generally out of the blue and unpredictably. Repeated crashes when scrolling past a specific note from around two years ago stopped occurring briefly, then started again.

I also couldn’t sync, even after reauthorizing and reinstalling, in the days following the much-publicized Evernote hack, but the developer was quick to troubleshoot the problem with me and get things back on track. (Turns out I needed to delete a Keychain entry.)

Cool App, But Underdone

Bubble Browser frustrates in that it’s just so close to being a brilliant app. Despite great ideas and solid execution, it falls short for me because it gives the sense that it’s too simple. I seldom use Evernote passively; if I’m not creating a new note, I’m looking through older ones and making changes based on new information.

But Bubble Browser is as much a nuisance as a boon for productivity, forcing you to juggle another app in your workflow for the little luxury of its fantastic visual organization and better navigation of your notes.

In its current state, the app can’t replace Evernote on your Mac. That’s a shame, and a shortfall that will turn some users away, but Bubble Browser probably only needs three things to push Evernote’s Mac app into the background: full editing support, more filtering/sorting options, and improved stability. Let’s hope those extras come soon.

The Apps We Use: Reid Leamaster

It’s a new week with a new set of apps we use daily. Much like Jacob, the first writer in this series, the apps I use vary daily with a few exceptions. But without fail, I will fire up my MacBook Pro and use a bunch of apps throughout the day. Some of the apps on my list are well-known favorites, others a little less known.

Putting together this list has been a joy; hopefully you’ll enjoy it too!

Day to Day Utilities I Can’t Live Without

There are a few apps that I would truly feel lost without them on my Mac. In fact, using a Mac without them just doesn’t seem right and in my mind, these apps should be standard on every Mac.

Alfred

Oh Alfred, I can’t live without you.

You have probably noticed that many of the writers here are fans of Alfred. As I have noted elsewhere, Alfred is great for managing plain text notes. I also use it for launching apps, searching files, browsing folders, opening bookmarks, uninstalling apps, looking up words, and adding reminders. I’m sure there’s more I use it for, but that’s all I can think of right now. I’m sure looking forward to version 2 and the new things I’ll use it for then.

Price: Free or $22 for the power pack.
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or above.
Developer: Running with Crayons

BetterTouchTool

Better Touch Tool is a great utility that adds a lot of functionality to the trackpad. I probably use BTT most for window management. The set up I have been using for a while is three finger swipes left or right to half windows to either side, four finger swipe up to maximize the window, and three finger swipe down to center the window. I am also a big fan of tip tapping with two fingers to use the OS X application switcher.

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or above.
Developer: Andreas Hegenberg

Path Finder

This souped up finder app has been mentioned on Mac.AppStorm several times in the past. You can do so many things with Path Finder, it is hard to pick out a couple of features to include in a brief summary. I find the tabbed file browsing in Path Finder to be its most helpful feature. I know there are other apps and free alternatives that do this, but it “just works” in Path Finder. I also find the drawers very helpful. I open the left drawer to get extra file information and use the right drawer for recently used files.

Price: $39.95, Upgrade $19.95
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or above.
Developer: Developer Name

Productivity

There are a few apps I use to help me stay focused and keep myself working effectively. This is so important for many of us these days who don’t have a manger and rely on self motivation. Here are my favorite productivity apps.

Fluid Apps

I recently wrote an article on how I use Fluid with the Todoist web app to keep track of my tasks. With Fluid, you can put any web app in the menu bar for quick access. So even though I use a web app to manage my tasks, they are always just a click away in the menu bar. Pretty cool.

I also recently moved from Mail.app over to Gmail. I was fed up with the lack of functionality on the iOS version of Mail and wanted something that was more consistent across platforms. Gmail has been that app for me. I created a Gmail Fluid app and added a few user scripts to hide the adds and clean up the interface. Another reason I switched to Gmail is because of its integration with Todoist. With the Todoist Anywhere bookmarklet, I can add emails as tasks in Todoist and help keep my inbox clean. Oh, and I am also loving the Gmail shortcuts.

My Todoist Fluid app in the menu bar.

Price: Free or $4.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or above.
Developer: Celestial Teapot Software

Notes.app

The search for a perfect note taking system is never ending for me. I did the Simplenote / NValt thing for a while, then I tried plain text files in regular folders, and for a while I went exclusively with Evernote. My system is quite a bit different now. Any note I write myself (that is, anything that is not clipped or copied) goes into the Mountain Lion Notes app.

Apple did a good job with the native Notes app in Mountain Lion. Its, fast, simple, supports folders, has rich text, and syncs well with the iOS versions. Now, if the iOS Notes app can catch up with a few of these features such as rich text editing and the ability to move notes around in folders, I will be all set.

The Mountain Lion Notes app is a big improvement over its predecessor that was integrated into Mail.app.

Evernote

Any type of information that I need to keep track of — other than things I type up myself — goes into Evernote. I am an avid user of the Evernote Web Clipper for Safari. I save articles into Evernote almost daily using this extension. When I am on my iOS device, I forward articles and snippets of information using the Evernote upload email address that comes with every Evernote account (for some neat tips on using Evernote more efficiently, see this article on our sister site MacTuts).

Evernote is also where all of my handwritten notes end up. I used to scan all my handwritten notes into Evernote, but now I write them up in the awesome iPad app Penultimate, which was recently bought by Evernote and now automatically syncs with the service.

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6.6 or above.
Developer: Evernote Corporation

Safari

I realize Safari might not fit best under the productivity heading, but I do find Safari to be the most effective browser out there. One of the main reasons I use Safari is because Safari bookmarks are indexed by Alfred. I also find the Reading List and Reader features helpful. Chrome is always tempting me with its abundance of extensions, but for now, I am sticking with Safari. If Alfred 2 indexes Chrome bookmarks, I may just be making a switch.

I use Safari in-part because of the Reading List function.

Blogging

I use a specific set of tools to get blog posts out. I am still tweaking my workflow, but the following apps are often essential for helping me get posts out.

Texts

I recently reviewed Texts — a minimalist text editor that acts like a rich text editor, but keeps HTML in the background. This app is great for writing drafts of blog posts. The minimalist interface assists in helping writers focus on writing, and the fact that you don’t even have to think about Markdown syntax to create a perfectly formatted posts makes this my go to text editor for blog posts.

Texts is a great text editor for creating blog posts.

Price: $15 for a limited time.
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or above.
Developer: Texts Software

SnapNDrag

SnapNDrag is a great utility for quickly taking screenshots. It provides four options for taking screen shots: Selection to manually select where to take the screenshot, Window to take a shot of any open window; Screen to capture your whole screen, and Timed for those shots that you need to take after a certain amount of time. One of these options works for about 90% of the screenshots I need to take.

Price: $2.99 or free.
Requires: Mac OS X 10.7 or above.
Developer: Yellow Mug

Ondesoft Screen Capture, LiveQuartz, and ImageSmith

Every once in a while, I need to take a screenshot that requires something different than what SnapNDrag has to offer. In those cases, I go to OndeSoft Screen Capture ($29.95). Ondesoft is useful for taking screenshots of menu items, individual panes of application windows, and taking shots of multiple open windows. For any screenshot that requires some extra editing—such as combining a couple of images in one screenshot—I use LiveQuartz by RahpSoft ($4.99). LiveQuartz is a powerful image editor that won’t break the bank.

This a a recent screenshot I created using Ondesoft Screen Capture and LiveQuartz.

Image Smith is a utility for batch editing images. Rather than resizing, formatting, or cropping (among other things) images one by one, Image Smith does it in batches. Needless to say, this is a big time saver.

Image Smith allows users to save a lot of time by batch editing images.

“Real Work”

My day job requires a lot of document creation, presenting, research, and data analysis. These are the apps I use to get that work done.

Ulysses

For longer documents or book length works, I use Ulysses. Choosing between Ulysses and Scrivener was an agonizing decision for me. Eventually I went with Ulysses because I felt that the focus on semantics ultimately did help my writing. Additionally, the export options meet my needs and the customization made the geek in me happy.

I use Ulysses for longer manuscripts.

Price: $11.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6.6 or above.
Developer: The Soulmen

Pages

I am a Pages over Microsoft Word guy. Word has always been buggy for me — documents over 20 pages tend to cut off paragraphs at the end of pages, footnotes often disappear, and tables often behave oddly. Pages, on the other hand, is not buggy, launches fast, and has a better interface. Plus, creating tables is much less headache inducing in Pages. All of the people I work with use Word, and I find Pages to be compatible with Word most of the time.

Price: $19.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.7.4 or above.
Developer: Apple

Keynote

I also prefer Keynote over Powerpoint for creating presentations. The way master slides work on Keynote is brilliant and allows me to quickly create slides exactly the way I want them. As compatibility between the iOS and Mac versions of Keynote has improved, I have started creating presentations on the Mac and then using the iPad to present.

Price: $19.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.7.4 or above.
Developer: Apple

VMware Fusion

I boot up my virtual machine for one application, MaxQDA. In my opinion, this software is the best out there for analyzing qualitative data and is currently only available on Windows. VMware Fusion works fine for running MaxQDA. I was using Paralells 6 until it broke with OS X 10.8 and while Fusion is a touch slower, I have had no problems with it. I was very excited to find out last month that MaxQDA will soon be coming to the Mac! Woo-hoo! It is also worth noting that MaxQDA is the only qualitative data analysis software, that I know of, that has a companion iOS app.

Price: $49.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6.7 or above.
Developer: VMware

Sente

For keeping track of research citations, nothing beats Sente ($34.95 to $129.95 Third Street Software). It definitely has some shortcomings — I can’t search inside a PDF, really? There is also currently a serious bug with iCloud documents. However, the ability to create a works cited list using some simple tags in the text of a document is almost worth the price of the app by itself. If you need to keep track of a lot of citations, this app is certainly worth a look.

Sente is a reference manager that simplifies the process of citing sources.

What About You?

Phew! That is a long list, but I sure did have fun putting it together. What do you think about the list? What am I missing? Which apps need to be replaced on the list? We’d love to hear from you!