Category: Mac

We’ve collected the top four reviews, roundups and how-to articles from across the AppStorm network in December. Whether you’re interested in Mac, iPhone, Web, Android, Windows, or iPad apps, there’s bound to be something you didn’t spot over the course of the month. Now would be a good time to explore a part of the AppStorm Network you’ve never seen before!

Thanks for reading AppStorm, and I hope you enjoy looking over some of our favourite posts from last month!

Best of Android.AppStorm

Best of iPad.AppStorm

Best of Windows.AppStorm

Best of iPhone.AppStorm

Best of Web.AppStorm

Best of Mac.AppStorm

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Is there something in particular you’d like to see on the site next month? We’d absolutely love to hear your suggestions for articles, topics and giveaways. Just let us know in the comments. Thanks for reading AppStorm!

I know what many of you are probably thinking. Another notes app? Really? But Notebooks is truly a unique take on a notes app, enough to pay attention to. Notebooks started out as a powerful note taking / task management / file storage app on iOS. Demand for a desktop version with similar features prompted the Notebooks team to put out beta versions of Notebooks for Mac and PC.

I have had my eye on the iOS version of this app for a while now and jumped at the chance to test out the beta version for Mac. Comparing Notebooks to two of its main competitors, Evernote and Simplenote, I would say it is more Evernote than Simplenote, but still very distinct. Read on to find out more about this compelling note app.

Rich or Plain Text Notes

Notebooks lets you choose if you want to create rich text or plain text notes. This is one thing I found very appealing about Notebooks as I tend to take notes in both formats.

You can set the default note type in Preferences.

Rich Text Notes

I have to say I thouroughly enjoyed taking rich text notes in Notebooks. All of the basic formatting you would expect from a rich text editor are present: bold, italics, underline, font color, ordered and unordered lists etc. Other features are more characteristic of a full blown word processor, including: predefined styles for titles and headings, text alignment, linking text, and support for inserting images. Inserting html code into a note is also supported (the notes are actual html files). The default font, font size, and background color for rich text notes are set in the preferences.

Text from rich text documents can be copied as plain text, just right click the note and you will see the copy as plain text option.

Plain Text Notes

Prefer straight up plain text notes? Notebooks supports that. Prefer Markdown? Notebooks can handle that too. Here is a rundown of the Markdown workflow.

1. Simply write your plain text with Markdown syntax.
2. When you are ready to view the formatting, click on the gear at the bottom. You will have three options here:
   1. Preview as Rich Text.
   2. Always view as Rich Text. This will change the file to a .md file that shows formatting, but can still be edited in plain text.
   3. Make Rich Text. This will change the file to HTML and give it all the formatting options of a rich text note.

Alternatively, right click the note and choose Copy as Markdown or Copy as Rich Text to paste into WordPress or wherever you need it. The combination of rich text notes and Markdown is a major draw for Notebooks.

Managing Notes

Each “notebook” is basically a folder, so notes can be organized in a hierarchal structure. Moving notes around is as simple as dragging and dropping between notebooks. Dragging and dropping iWorks files, PDFs, and Microsoft Office files into Notebooks is supported, but only for viewing.

Uncheck the Save System Files option in Preferences to avoid the accumulation of .plist files from rearranging notes.

The most recent beta release is the first to include a search function. Searching for a word brings up a new window with a list of all the files that contain the word. Right now, the search function is still fairly weak—no searching as you type, no preview of where the word appears in the note, no searching within notes, and no shortcut.

The Interface

Notebooks has a tree style interface with three viewing options—from three panes to an editor only view. One gripe I had with the current interface is that notes cannot be opened in separate windows. Right-clicking on a note and then selecting the Open option will open in your default app for html files. This is TextEdit for me. While you can edit rich text notes in TextEdit, the formatting is often jumbled.

Fullscreen viewing is also supported by Notebooks. This feature does not use the OS X fullscreen mode, which means the app will not move into its own space. I am annoyed by apps that do set a page width in fullscreen view (e.g. Evernote)—causing text to spread across the whole screen making it difficult to read or edit. Thankfully, Notebooks does not do this.

Task Manager

Turning any notebook into a task list is as easy as right clicking on it and selecting Show as Task list. Right click on a note to set the due date. Tasks are automatically sorted by due date. The iOS version of Notebooks has an automatic folder for viewing tasks by due date regardless of notebook, this feature has yet to be included in the Mac app. You can, however, see the number of tasks in a task list and the number of tasks due today and overdue. The ability to assign contexts to tasks is another iOS task management feature not yet available on the Mac desktop version.

Integration With the iOS Version

Syncing with the iOS version occurs through a Dropbox folder. I tested many syncing scenarios and never ran into a syncing error. However, several features available the iOS version are yet to be implemented into the Mac app including:

• Voice memos
• Creating a note from the clipboard
• A website clipper for OS X browsers. Pasting from a website does render correctly with
• An automatic folder for recent items (although recent items are available through the File menu)

Final Thoughts

A few features I hope to see in future versions—hopefully before initial release—include adding the features available in the iOS version listed above, a system wide quick add feature, improved search, the ability to change bullet list levels using the tab key (rather than having to using increase and decrease indent), opening notes in separate windows, and more up to date OS X features (such as OS X fullscreen mode). The design also needs an overhaul, it does not have an OS X look and feel, particularly the toolbar.

Apps that try to combine features from several different types of apps often fail. The app tries to be too many things at once. I did not get that feeling with Notebooks. The past couple of weeks I have been using Notebooks solely to take notes, and the other features did not get in the way. The app’s beta status made rating it in its current form a little difficult. The developer’s track record with support and documentation make me fairly confident this app will continue to get better. I ended up giving the app a high rating because it is very functional, if unrefined, and full of promise.

MacTuts+ is the superb new site dedicated to teaching people how to use their Mac, and OS X, more effectively. We’ve got you covered for apps, but combine that with an in-depth knowledge of OS X and you’ll be unstoppable, limitless!

This is a quick roundup of the best tutorials from MacTuts+ in December, from Dan Benjamin on Running the Best Podcast Network on The Web to An In-Depth Look at iTunes 11.

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Best of Mactuts+

This year’s holiday season will bestow upon us many great captured memories that are yearning to be transformed into something interesting, like a photo album. I recently reviewed Photo Album 2 from Flippingbook and found that it could use a few more features. So now we are reviewing PulpMotion Advanced, the other end of the price spectrum.

PulpMotion Advanced rings in at a pretty $129 for a single license. So does the increase in price bring unbelievable features to create the perfect photo album? Read on to find out as we review PulpMotion Advanced from Aquafadas.

Creating your Masterpiece

I think creating slideshows in PulpMotion is probably the most fun I have ever had with static photos. PulpMotion makes it easy while still offering cool customization options. To begin, PulpMotion offers you the obligatory start screen to familiarize you with the interface.

Before you add your photos to the slideshow you first must choose your theme. PulpMotion Advanced comes with 154 themes to choose from. These themes are very cool and they range from an Egyptian themed museum to a winter themed wonderland. With this many theme options available, you really, in all probability, will not have to use the same theme more than once for many years to come.

To create your slideshow, you can simply drag your desired photos from the photo browser straight onto the timeline. The timeline is a interesting addition to a photo album app. If you were thinking that the timeline implies that the result might be more or less similar to a video, then you would be correct. The resulting photo album is very similar to a video you might create in iMovie, but its not. The timeline simply makes it a very straightforward process to add your photos in the order in which you would like them to appear.

Now that you have your photos in the timeline and your theme applied, you can now add audio and customize your title card. Audio can be imported from the usual bevy of Mac audio apps, such as iTunes or Garageband. You can also simply drag in audio files from Finder and add that into your slideshow.

Customization & Exporting

PulpMotion offers some extra customization to the themes that come preloaded with the app. You can choose what is displayed in the slideshow such as media title and date. If you import movie files, you can choose the audio sound settings and other settings. Quality settings are also up for adjustments.

Unlike other photo album apps I have reviewed recently, PulpMotion has a bevy of exporting options to allow you to truly export in your favorite format. Easy formatting and exporting for iOS devices and Apple TV are just a click away. The option to export into iLife applications for further development is also available. Facebook and YouTube export is possible directly from the app. PulpMotion really excels in giving the user the choice to export in your favorite format.

Look & Feel

PulpMotion’s design follows the convention that Apple established with its iMovie and Final Cut X apps. It uses the timeline and dark gray UI to seamlessly fit into your existing Mac apps.

Most of the functions are easily distinguished via the buttons on the main panel.

PulpMotion also is compatible with the full screen feature that many Mac apps are taking advantage of lately. However the full screen option only makes the media manager full screen, not the whole interface. So it is not possible to actually create the whole slideshow in full screen.

One other quirk, that I don’t so much care for, is how menus and options are displayed. For example when you click the “size” button, the actual options appear at the very top of the window. How much trouble would it have been to create a drop down menu on that button so the options are with the button? At any rate, the interface is familiar and well designed with the exception of a few small quirks.

Final Thoughts

PulpMotion Advanced is a premium solution to your entire photo album needs. PulpMotion Advanced comes loaded with themes that allow customization and integration with iLife apps to allow for easy importing of your media. The interface of PulpMotion is consistent with current Apple conventions and has a minimal learning curve. There are a few minor quirks in the interface as it pertains to the location of drop down menus and full screen implementation. The app offers a wide variety of exporting options to the user, including iOS devices and YouTube.

I would also like to take a moment and mention that during the testing of the app, it force quit several times. There are several older comments left on its Mac App Store page that shows this is a continuing problem. So keep that I mind, as I have with the scoring.

Overall, the premium that PulpMotion Advanced charges definitely is justified when using the app. What may not be justified is the price difference between Standard and Advanced, $49 and $129. Even the Standard at $49 is well worth the price and pretty much just as useful. That call will come down to you; is the extra $80 worth it?

Out of 10 stars, PulpMotion Advanced gets an 8. It really is a premium product that I enjoyed using. Although I would caution that those who are interested should perhaps try the Standard version first before spending the money for the top dollar Advanced version. Also keep in mind the possible reliability problems, such as force quitting. Free trials of both versions are available at the Aquafadas website, so give it a try and let us know if you like it.

There are two ways I get a job done: I keep copious notes from start to finish and do really well, or I don’t take any notes and I fail miserably. This means I’m utterly dependent on some sort of notes editor at all times, and if it has syncing, well, that’s even better.

I’m always on the lookout for a better way to do what I do, including keeping notes, so I was happy to give Moccanote a spin. With an uncluttered interface and iCloud sync with the companion iPhone app, Moccanote is definitely a contender. Can Moccanote’s notetaking and organization features cause me to jump ship?

Make a Note of It

There are two easy ways to create a new note, either from the menu bar icon or by clicking the plus sign to the right of the Moccanote window. You can get that accomplished in the File menu, too, which is where you’ll also be able to import notes. If you’re importing notes, though, they’ll need to be in plaintext or Markdown format or already in Moccanote’s file format.

Creating a new note only gets you a blank note, though. If you just start typing, the note’s content will become the note’s title, too, but you can always change that by clicking inside the title field. Add an image to your note by clicking the camera icon, but you’ll only really get a thumbnail next to the title.

Moccanote is a plaintext editor, so there aren’t any toolbars to let you change text styling or indent or add fun curlicues. It does support Markdown, however, which lets you set inline styles with hashes and asterisks. If you’re not familiar with Markdown, it may just look like a coding mess, albeit one that’s fairly easy for the layperson to read, but there are lots of quick start guides and references if you’re interested to learn. If not, you can just tap tap away in unstyled text, too, and be none the poorer for it. For those who choose to use Markdown, you’ll see your styling after you’ve saved your note and have it selected in the main Moccanote window.

Warning, Will Robinson! Moccanote doesn’t autosave. Thankfully, Moccanote won’t let you close a note without prompting you to save, but you can close the entire application without hearing boo about losing all your unsaved notes, so keep that in mind. To save, just click the button in the bottom left of your note; it’ll be glowing blue if your note hasn’t been saved yet.

Organization

So you’ve got yourself a nice-sized pile of notes but you don’t know what to do with all of them. They’re all in a big clump, and they’re not very well organized. Well, there’s a few ways to fix that. Moccanote uses “stacks,” or note collections, and you can create as many as you want. While you’re writing your note, click the arrow in the bottom right and choose the stack your note will live in or create a new stack to organize similar notes, and your new note will be filed away.

If you already have lots of unfiled notes in your Moccanote inbox, you can still shift those into your stacks without having to edit the individual notes. Select the note or notes you want to move and then click the down arrow in the bottom toolbar beneath your inbox or right-click on the notes. You can then choose whichever stack to which you’d like to move your notes.

Sometimes you’ll find you have notes that are of significant importance or that you access frequently. Rather than sort through all of your stacks, you can add those notes to your focus stack. Whether you’re editing the note or viewing it in the Moccanote window, click the star next to the title to add it to the focus stack. To see all of your focus notes, click Focus in the stack list.

And Yet, it Syncs

Though I looked at the Mac app, Moccanote works best when its syncing between devices, and the devices you can sync Moccanote on are your Mac and your iPhone. The two apps, the Mac and the iPhone apps, will have to be purchased separately, but once you’ve got them installed and configured for iCloud in your preferences, you’ll be able to share notes between your two devices. If a thought occurs to you while you’re out and about, you can jot it down in Moccanote on your iPhone and have it on your Mac when you get home. Alternately, if you create a note or list on your Mac and need it on your phone, Moccanote will make sure its there for you.

Moccanote uses iCloud to sync, and there were a few great reviews in the Mac App Store praising the seamlessness of Moccanote’s iCloud sync. I had some trouble, though, what the developer called an iCloud “hiccup,” and couldn’t get Moccanote to sync initially. There’s no support documentation, though the developer is working on that right now, but my emails for assistance were answered almost immediately, an experience backed up by App Store reviews.

After several tries that just didn’t work, restarting both of my devices fixed the problem and got sync going for Moccanote. While it would have been great if Moccanote’s sync had worked out of the box, it may not have been the app’s fault. Even if it was, the developer was on hand to sort out my troubles quickly and get me going with Moccanote.

Final Thoughts

Moccanote is a nice little notes syncing app, with a very trimmed down interface. If you’ve tried some of the other note editors and they were all just a bit too much for you, Moccanote may make a nice change. The layout is simple and attractive, but most importantly, it’s incredibly easy to use with very little learning curve.

There’s no web app to go along with Moccanote, just the Mac and iPhone apps, so if you depend on browser access or need to sync to another device, you’ll want to hold off on making the switch to Moccanote. If you find, however, you’ve moved away from using browser-based notes apps, as I have, and rely heavily on your Mac or only need to sync to iPhone, Moccanote will make a refreshing change from some of the bulkier notes apps.

The clipboard in your Mac can work for many things. Sure, its main intention is just to allow you to move text or files from one place to another, but you can also use it along with a note taking app or a simple text file to keep up with links, text and files that you would like to use later.

Wouldn’t it be nice, then, to have an app that could automatically track everything that you store in your clipboard, and keep it all organized? That’s what CopyLess is all about. Let’s take a closer look.

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CopyLess

CopyLess is an app that can extend the functionality of your clipboard, by storing up to 100 of the items that you’ve copied recently, and keeping them tightly organized inside the app, where you can preview, delete, or copy them again. It has support for pretty much any type of file that the system clipboard supports.

The app comes in two versions, a light and a paid version. The light version is free, but it only allows you to store 10 of your most recent items and 3 of your “favorite” items. The paid version removes these limitations, but costs $6.99 on the Mac App Store.

Interface

CopyLess runs discretely in your menu bar, keeping an eye out for what you’ve copied and storing it inside it for you to access later. If you click the menu bar icon, you can find a few buttons for pausing clipping, accessing the preferences and bringing up the main window of the app.

This main window holds all of the items you’ve clipped in a list, with each element being identified by the name and/or content of the copied content, and the icon of the app where it was originally clipped from. There’ll also be a small icon signalling which item is currently in the system’s clipboard. As you hover over each item you’ll see a “clip” icon popping up, with which you can bookmark content that will be stored in a separate “Favorites” list.

Along with the list you can also find a navigation bar with some buttons for pasting content into the app, copying the selected item to your system’s clipboard, previewing the contents of the selected item (with Quick Look), deleting items from the list, and copying items in plain text. There’s also a handy search bar for quickly looking up your clipboard items.

Other Features

Under the settings you can find a few extra features that CopyLess has under its sleeve. First off, it lets you customize a number of things, like the number of items that you would like the app to store (up to 100), as well as adjust a few behavioral and aesthetic settings for the app’s main window (transparency, compact view, etc.).

It also lets you set universal keyboard shortcuts for pretty much anything: opening up the main window of the app, activating the “plain text” feature, and direct-pasting from one of the 10 most recent elements or from your Favorites list. Then there’s a “ban list”, for specifying apps that you would like CopyLess to ignore.

Uses

CopyLess’ developer highlights the fact that it’s really easy to copy and paste pieces of information between one app and another with their app. You can just copy the parts that you would like to move from one place to the other, and then just drag and drop them from CopyLess into the new spot, instead of going back and forth between the two apps. That’s one of the many uses you can give to this app, but I found it useful for other tasks too.

In the time I used CopyLess while preparing for this review, I found myself using it as a quick go-to for saving things: instead of having to go out of my way to copy content to Evernote or Wunderlist, CopyLess provided a really simple way of saving any kind of things without having to lose focus on what I was doing. You can even type anything in whatever textbox you have around and copy it quickly to automatically save it as a “reminder” in CopyLess.

In general, keeping a history of everything that you’ve intended to share, move or copy in your computer is quite useful. There’s plenty of situations where you can lose content just because you forget to save it somewhere and then go ahead and overwrite it in the system’s clipboard.

Competition

CopyLess isn’t the first app to complement the Mac OS system’s clipboard, but it sure does a great job at it. A simple search in the Mac App Store will reveal dozens of similar apps, and we’ve even covered a bunch of them before.

However, CopyLess differentiates itself from the competition in a few aspects. Its main strength is all the customization that it gives you access to: having a keyboard shortcut for quickly pasting your bookmarked content can be a serious time saver if you use it wisely. And the price isn’t too bad either: The free version might be enough for most people, but if you really want to unleash the full potential of CopyLess, the seven dollar paid version is totally worth its price.

Conclusion

I can’t stress enough how useful this type of apps become once you’ve used them for a little while. Having access to everything that you’ve copied recently is immensely useful for many reasons. First off, it prevents content from getting lost once you’ve copied over it in the system clipboard; but it also helps you keep an organized history of everything that you’ve done, so that you can use it to your advantage as a content saving app.

CopyLess does a great job at what it intends, and its many features like favorites support and useful customization, make it worth the price for me. Depending on what use you think you might get out of it, you could do with the free version, or go the full way the $7 dollars for it.

But what do you think? Do you use a clipboard manager, which one, and what do you use it for? Let us know in the comments below!

After the holiday break, and with students heading into the new semester, many of us are trying to catch up on research for writing projects. Keeping track of sources for accurate citations is an important but time consuming part of research. Consequently, there are quite a few apps available to help organize citation libraries. Literature is a new app that seeks to provide a low cost alternative to other reference managing apps.

Currently, Mac users can choose from four main apps to organize their reference libraries: Endnote ($249.95), Papers ($79), Sente ($129.95), and Bookends ($99). Mendeley is also a viable free alternative with many useful features. At $19.99, Literature cannot compete with the feature sets available at the high end of this app category. Instead, it attempts to create a streamlined alternative that will attract users wary of the high price tags listed above. Let’s see how well it can fill in this segment of the market.

Getting Your Library Into Literature

The first step to using the Literature app is to import article PDFs. To accomplish this, I selected the PDFs from my desktop and proceeded to drag and drop them into Literature. Nothing happened. Okay, so there’s no drag and drop capability. Instead, I opted to use the import option in the file menu and to import the PDFs. While this method worked, it is less than ideal as only one PDF can be selected at a time. Hence, importing your library into Literature is a very laborious process.

After importing my PDFs, Literature informed me that it could not find the citations for the articles I imported on the PubMed database. You can search the database from within Literature, which I did, but my articles were not in this database. That’s hardly surprising, though, since I’m not researching medical or life sciences topics. For users researching outside fields included in the PubMed database, citation information will need to be added manually by clicking on the Edit article info option from the edit PDF options menu (this actually looks like the share icon in many other apps). Literature’s website does note that future updates will include Google Scholar integration, which will be a welcome addition for those of us not researching medical research.

In short, if you have a sizable citation library, it is not going to be a simple process to move that library over the Literature. If you are just starting to build your library, or only want to use Literature for one writing project, then it still may work for you, but you’ll have to most of the reference work manually.

Navigating and Organizing Your Library

Once PDFs are in the library, its time to start organizing. Literature has several default categories: All items, Unknown, Unfiled, and Trash. New categories can be created by clicking on the plus button on the bottom left. The categories work like tags. This means that a citation can belong to more than one category, which is useful because citations are often used in more than one project. Dragging and dropping is not supported for adding citations to categories, so to add a citation to a category make sure the information window is showing. If its not, click on the information button at the top right, and then click the Add/Edit Categories to add the citation to one or more categories.

Citations can also be sorted within categories using several sorting options. Clicking on the circle and star icons at the top right of the window marks citations as read/unread or starred, respectively. Categories can then be sorted by unread or starred status. This makes it easy to keep track of which articles need to be read and which are most important. Searching the entire library and within certain categories is also supported.

Using Literature for Research

Now that citations are in the library and organized, how does Literature perform for actually doing research? Better than it does for importing and organizing the library. This is definitely the area that Literature performs the best in.

Literature offers several standard viewing options for reading PDFs (one page, two page, continuous etc). It also supports text highlighting and will display annotations made in other PDF readers such as Preview. Clicking on the appropriate icon in the toolbar also displays a notes editor that supports rich text for taking notes on a PDF. Unfortunately I did not have any luck copying and pasting text from the PDF into the notes editor. If this can be improved in the future, the notes editor can be used for keeping track of possible quotes from articles.

One essential feature supported by Literature is the ability to search within PDFs. I use this all the time when I am trying to find a specific phrase or topic within an article. This is a big time saver and is implemented well by the Literature developers.

When it comes to actually citing, Literature does an adequate job. To cite, you simply select the citations you want included, then click on the PDF options menu and select Copy reference. From there simply paste into the word processor of your choice and the citations appear in alphabetical order. Using Literature, the workflow for a paper would be to make a new category, ensure all cites used in the paper are in the category, and then copy all the references in that category into the document.

While citing references using Literature is a fairly straightforward process, I ran in to a few problems using Literature to cite sources. First, when citation info is entered manually, there is a bug that displays the year previous to the year actually entered. For example, when I entered the year 2008, it was presented as 2007. Second, there are no fields for article volumes only issues. The citation style I use requires volumes, so the bibliographies created in Literature were incomplete for my purposes. Third, Literature only supports citations created from PDF imports. That means no books, edited volumes, or web pages can be included in the library. I cite books in every paper I write, so again, bibliographies created in Literature are incomplete for my purposes (and I suspect for many others too).

Likely Not for Professionals

Literature definitely has some limitations. These limitations make importing and managing a library more difficult than it needs to be. A few changes such as supporting, drag and drop, expanding the citation database, and allowing for book and web page citations will go a long way toward making this app more user friendly. It also has several bugs that need to be addressed, some of them mentioned in this review and others not.

Having said that, Literature does provide a clean, useful environment for reading and annotating PDFs. As is, Literature may be a workable solution for a student writing shorter papers, but is probably not for professionals with larger citation libraries.

 

A lot of us are going to make New Year’s resolutions this year, but most of us are going to find it hard to keep them. Whether we fall back into bad habits or don’t really commit to our resolutions in the first place, a lot of us end up feeling pretty disappointed in ourselves and more than a little disenchanted with the whole New Year’s resolution process.

But just like every year, the start of 2013 is a clean slate, a chance to start over. If you haven’t managed to keep your New Year’s resolutions in the past, you’re not alone, but with some help 2013 may be the year you succeed. We’ve gathered together some great apps to keep you on the path to resolution success, and with some planning and a bit of work on your part, 2013 may be the start of a whole new you.

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Get Organized

Read More

Write a Book or Keep a Journal

Get Healthy

Save Money and Pay off Debt

Final Thoughts

If you haven’t been able to make and keep your New Year’s resolutions in the past, it may have all been down to lacking the proper tools. At the end of the day, though, that’s all these apps are, tools, and it’s going to be up to you to put in the real work of making a change in 2013. With the right help from the right apps, you can really make a difference in your life, and of course, there’s always next year!

With content being distributed nowadays through many ways like Facebook, Twitter, Flipboard, and the rest of the sea of social networks, RSS has become kind of unnecessarily complicated. I don’t know about you, but I don’t really feel compelled anymore to open my RSS reader just to find dozens of new items that I will eventually see throughout the day in another place like my Twitter timeline.

However, there’s still a few sites out there that I don’t want to miss out on. That’s how I came across a few simple RSS notifiers that work with the Notification Center to give you almost immediate updates through RSS, without the need of using a big reader app like Reeder or NetNewsWire. I’ve put together some of them here, want to check them out?

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Bonus: Browser Extensions

If you are not a fan of the Notification Center, there are also a number of extensions for your browser that can work similarly to the ones that we posted in this roundup. Just a simple “RSS” search in your browser’s extensions marketplace will bring up a bunch of alternatives that might just do it for you. Some examples are Google Reader Notifier for Safari and Chrome, Feed Notifier for Chrome, and Google Reader Watcher for Firefox.

Conclusion

I used to be an avid Reeder fan, but gradually I’ve stopped using it in favor of other distribution ways like Twitter. Now I don’t really feel the need to have a complex RSS app or even to keep a huge list of feeds. I use these RSS notifier apps to keep up with the 2 or 3 sites that I really care about (you’re reading one them right now), without overcomplicating things.

If you have a handful of blogs that you like a lot and feel the need to keep up with all of the time, I think you’ll also find one of these useful. But tell us what you think. Do you still use RSS to get all of your news? Or have you substituted it with other types of media? Let us know in the comments below!

When it comes to drawing your next masterpiece, creativity is essential. If you have creativity, the next step is to get the best tools for the task at hand – that is where AppStorm comes in. As you know, we love reviewing useful apps that are often geared towards the creative beast inside us. But what if this task requires you to have a different form of input?

If your next masterpiece can’t be crafted by using your mouse, you are probably in need of a pen tablet that’ll work wonderfully with your Mac; if so, you are in the right place because after spending some quality time with a review unit sent by Wacom, we are pleased to introduce you to Wacom’s Bamboo Create pen & touch tablet.

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Bamboo Create Overview

At 8.5 x 5.4 inches of active area, the Bamboo Create is the largest tablet of the Bamboo lineup. It is also the the most feature-rich tablet as it possesses a wireless option (sold separately), four programable ExpressKeys, multi-touch input, and an extensive array of software that we will cover later on.

The Bamboo Create’s stylus also differs from others in the Bamboo family due to the addition of an eraser. This eraser automatically switches to the eraser tool of whatever program you are using as long as it is supported.

The stylus also comes with two programable buttons and a nice easy-to-grip handle. Overall, the stylus feels nicely in your hand, but the two programmable buttons can be pressed by mistake if one isn’t use to holding a pen-like tool with buttons.

Working with the Bamboo Create

Wacom’s Bamboo flagship tablet is by all means a wonderful tool to work with. Whether you are sketching, painting or drawing, the 1024 levels of pressure and a resolution of 2540 lpi are a great combination. If you are new to pen tablets, it will undoubtably take a bit to get use to, but with time this pen tablet will feel like your best friend.

With that said, the Bamboo Create has its downsides. For instance, multi-touch input is a welcomed feature that those without a multi-touch mouse or trackpad will appreciate endlessly; however, this feature can feel a bit awkward at times.

While all of Mountain Lion’s gestures are supported, the size of the tablet can cause a few input mishaps. Some times the tablet will think you are trying to rotate something when all you are doing is resting your hand on the tablet to begin drawing.

In addition to some touch functionality hiccups, the Bamboo Create comes with a very short USB cable. This is fine because, more often than not, you will be quite close to your computer or monitor, but in all honesty, it makes you feel a bit constrained.

Although there is an option to buy a wireless kit, the wireless feature should be built into the tablet. Putting your tablet in a place that isn’t your desk is a tough task with the provided cable.

Aside from these two small complains, creating and bringing your illustrations to life with this tablet is a dream. The programable ExpressKeys to the side of the tablet let you break away from the keyboard, and if you program them carefully, you won’t need the keyboard at all. It would be nice to see a few more buttons added. Granted, more buttons could make things a bit confusing, but with the ability to program them any way you want, it would be a good option to have.

Look and Feel

The Bamboo Create is a nice looking piece of hardware. While yes, its border can look a little cheap at times, it still does a great job at looking sexy – specially next to your MacBook Pro and other silver-colored peripherals like your Apple keyboard, trackpad or some of Western Digital’s external hard drives.

The Software

We haven’t forgotten about the apps! As previously discussed, the Bamboo Create tablet comes bundled with a few awesome applications that many will be obliged for. The apps included in the box are: Corel Painter Essentials, Adobe Photoshop Elements, Autodesk Sketchbook Express, and Nik Color Efex Pro 3.0 WE3. These apps make great use of Wacom’s tablet – not to mention that they give you even more bang for your buck.

But, it doesn’t stop there. Nope. Wacom is cool enough to add a few other things into the mix. There is a training DVD on how to use Photoshop Elements and Corel Painter Essentials as well as Wacom’s own Bamboo Dock which gives you access to even more apps, an interactive tutorial, and a settings pane where you can tweak your tablet and stylus settings (sadly there is no way to customize application-specific settings).

The Verdict

Without a doubt, Wacom’s Bamboo Create pen & touch tablet is packed to the teeth with comprehensive software and awesomely-reliable hardware at a more-than-reasonable price. The tablet alone is worth its price, and in all honesty, there are only a few minor details keeping it from being the perfect consumer tablet.

If you want to create a masterpiece on your Mac, you won’t be able to with that mouse, so do yourself a favor and get Wacom’s awesome Bamboo Create.

As a blogger, I’m always anticipating new apps that could take on a fresh approach to desktop blogging. Desktop blogging apps for the Mac are merely by the handful, leaving users with just a couple of blogging apps that can create and publish posts with ease. We’ve got MarsEdit 3, MacJournal, and Ecto as top recommendations, but the fact is we haven’t seen anything new in this sector of the app market for quite a while.

You can imagine my excitement then when I came across BlogEasy, a minimal desktop blogging app that publishes to WordPress blogs. Will this app finally break the silence and provide bloggers with something new and innovative to play with? Let’s find out.

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Blogging Made Easy

BlogEasy is a minimal blog client for the Mac built around a simple, straightforward approach to blogging. With a small set of core features and a clean native user interface, you have all you need to get your WordPress blog/s rolling.

BlogEasy’s minimalist concept incorporates the blogging experience as well, giving you two formatting options: write in HTML or in Markdown. As we all know, Markdown is a formatting syntax that enables plain text to be converted automatically to HTML when published. This allows you to focus entirely on writing and publishing your blog post.

BlogEasy only publishes to the WordPress platform, so those with blogs on other content management systems and services may want to look elsewhere for a desktop blogging client. This typically limits BlogEasy’s reach, but considering that there are over a million WordPress blogs running each day, there is a market out there that will show interest in this app.

How BlogEasy Works

Launching BlogEasy opens up the main overview where you have a set of functions on the top menu, your list of blogs on the left panel, the blog post details and the text editor on the right.

Opening up the app’s preferences, you can only add a new blog to BlogEasy or edit your existing blog’s settings. There are no other options available, such as changing font styles or working on the backend of your WordPress blog.

To add a blog, you can do so by opening Preferences or clicking on the plus sign found on the left panel of the app. This opens up a window where you input your blog’s details: blog URL, username, and password. Click “Save” and BlogEasy will pull your blog’s name and add it to its list of active blogs.

Depending on your blogging method, you can either fill up your blog’s details first then write, or vice versa. Blog post details include the title, category, tags, date to publish, and an excerpt of the post.

To write a post, simply click on the text editor and start typing. Take note though of the active format being used. You can publish in either plain HTML or Markdown, so choose your specific format by clicking on the options above the Compose window.

Once you’ve finished, direct your attention to the main menu bar. You have a number of options available, such as Manage Blogs (simply another way to open up the Preferences), options to add/delete/save as local draft/preview an entry, or to publish the final draft to your blog. Local drafts are stored, and you can go back to them whenever you decide to.

Previewing an entry allows you to see what your content looks like when published on the web. If you enclosed a phrase in bold tags (<strong></strong>), that phrase will appear bolded in the preview pane. It works the same way when writing and formatting content on Markdown mode.

At its current version, you can copy the generated HTML from the preview window, paste the text, and continue writing in HTML. If you’re sure that your blog post is ready for the world to see, click on the black quill icon to publish it on your blog. Unfortunately, there is no Preview on Blog feature available, so you will have to switch to your browser and head over to your blog to see the result.

WordPress Only

Completing all of these steps, the entire writing/publishing experience was easy, pretty quick, and straight to the point. BlogEasy really stood by its name as a minimal desktop blogging app, offering users all that they need to write, edit, preview, and post to their WordPress blog/s.

With that said, I wonder if BlogEasy aims to expand itself by extending its compatibility to other micro/blogging platforms (e.g. Blogger or Tumblr), or will it brand itself as a WordPress-only desktop client. If the developer wishes to see it expand while maintaining its simplicity, I would hope that performance won’t falter when publishing to a CMS or blogging service other than WordPress. This may lead to double or triple the work, but the app’s user reach would definitely stretch farther.

If, however, development is headed towards the latter route, this would be an entirely new concept altogether. I would then expect features that would allow me to further configure my WordPress blog’s settings, such as managing and responding to comments, working on the backend of the site, adding in users, and the like. If not all, then at least the basic admin functionalities that WordPress bloggers would usually busy themselves with.

Improvements

Focusing on the app itself, there are areas for improvement that I hope to see in future versions. For instance, it would help to save time if there were at least basic HTML options to use when writing/formatting on HTML mode; otherwise, there really isn’t much of a difference if I choose to write in plain text.

On creating content, I hope to see an option to edit the post’s permalink, since I would usually cut the number of words short before publishing. I would also like to see a Preview on Blog functionality that could show me what the post looks like on the blog (prior to publishing) and that could take me to the actual post afterwards.

For users who would add WordPress blogs with existing content, BlogEasy does not pull up these older blog posts, and so there is no way to revise and republish these posts on the app. All the content you create on BlogEasy are treated as local drafts, so once you publish them, they are gone from the list for good.

Other things I would like to see updated would be an enhanced UI that can compel and encourage you to write without sacrificing its simplicity. I have yet to encounter a blog text editor—desktop or web—that could make blogging as intuitive and beautiful as writing with apps like Byword or iA Writer.

A Great Start

Overall, I think BlogEasy is off to a great start as the next blog editor for the Mac. If you’d like to give it a try before buying a license at $9.99, head over to the official website to download a free trial.

As a blogger, would you use BlogEasy as your desktop blogging client? What other features would you like to see in future versions? Share your thoughts in the comments.

It was a premature spring day in March of 2011 that users began downloading Bloom Built’s Day One en masse from the Mac App Store. People initially reacted by asking for more features and bug fixes, as the comments in our review later in the month of March show. It’s not that they didn’t like the app at all, but rather that it was incomplete for what it was meant to be. The majority asked for something that was not being delivered — something that arrived a month later: search.

Now, 20 months after the release of version 1.0 on the Mac App Store, I’d like to take another in-depth look at the features Day One has adopted since we last told you about it.

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Password Protection, iCloud Sync, and Photos

Security

Keeping your personal thoughts secure never used to be a concern, because they weren’t digital. Now, however, that password on your Mac may not be enough to convince you that your information is safe. That is, of course, understandable, and the developers of Day One agreed, so they added password protection in version 1.2 (released in August 2011). It’s a simple feature that you can turn on in the Security tab of the app’s Preferences.

Along with this new feature come some options. First there’s locking. You can tell the app you want it to require a password after a certain amount of time has gone by without you having accessed your journal. By default, this number is 20 minutes, though you can change it in the Security tab or even uncheck the box to disable it entirely (which locks the journal right after you close it). Lastly, there’s a checkbox for locking the app when your computer goes to sleep, which is also enabled by default.

Cloud Synchronization Improved

Day One originally came with Dropbox support. Its purpose was to keep all your files saved in a secure remote server. Then, in October 2011, Apple launched iCloud, its own “cloud storage” that Apple product owners were supplied with for free. Since this was more appealing to developers than the multi-step authorization process of Dropbox, many migrated to it, but some stuck to the old ways. Right now Day One offers both. To set up iCloud, go to the Sync tab of the app’s Preferences and click “Use iCloud…”. The same goes for Dropbox, but sadly the app does not allow you to have them both enabled at once.

Photographs

The biggest feature that’s been added since version 1.0, besides search, is support for photos. That means you can now use the app as an alternative to Instagram, Facebook, or Flickr. It’s a personal photo diary that can only be accessed by you on your devices. To start using the photos feature, create an entry and drag the photo to it. Alternatively, you can browse for the photo by clicking the camera icon and selecting your choice. The one limitation to this feature is that you can only have one per entry; this does cause it to look a lot better on the iOS app’s gallery.

Automatic Backup, Markdown, and Calendar View

Backup

Version 1.5 brought a lot of great features to Day One, from fullscreen mode to printing to nifty shortcuts like CMD + S to save an entry. One of the most notable, however, was automatic backup. Dropbox and iCloud sync are appealing to people who trust the cloud, but if you’re one of those insecure people who enjoy the safety of their computer’s hard drive (or backup one), it’s better to have something that automatically backs up all your thoughts to a safe place.

If you head to the Backup tab of Preferences, you can set up automatic journal backups. (They’re actually enabled by default and set to save daily.) There’s an option to change the frequency of these automatic backups, though there are only three settings: daily, every two days, and weekly — nothing custom. The other settings in this tab are the backup location and maximum number of files you’d like to store in the directory. Be aware that each backup contains all your entries, not just the ones since the last time you secured them.

Markdown

Remember that cool code by John Gruber? It may not be Leet, but it sure is an easy way to format things without a lot of unnecessary keyboard shortcuts. Day One supports it, too. Now, if you’re planning on writing a lot of words and need to quickly italicize them, you can always press CMD + I and it will make things easier, but don’t forget that you are using a lightweight markup language. Make use of it — the app wants you to.

Calendar View

Perhaps the niftiest feature this app has, calendar view is your way of quickly browsing old entries by looking at a digital datebook. You can scroll through every month you’ve made an entry in, click the day, and browse the entries for it. Everything is organized nicely, though you may get some lag when you get to the bottom. Maybe it’s all those heavyweight entries finally catching up with you. Of course, if you’re looking for something on a specific day, don’t waste time clicking it; instead, hover over the day and scan the text.

Extensions Like Slogger Make it Great

Thanks to Brett Terpstra, developer mainly of Simplenote client nvALT, you can now import your social activity into Day One automatically. Terpstra created a tool called Slogger, which uses services like IFTTT, RSS feeds, and Twitter’s API to access your social activity and add all your thoughts into a single journal. For some people, this might be annoying, but for others it’s a great way to keep track of all their digital life. You can even save Last.fm scrobbles instead of writing “I’m listening to Awakening by Switchfoot” in a journal entry. Before you download the tool, make sure you read the developer’s guide on how it works and are clear on the more complex things. (It is a script, not a full app that’s a one-click setup. Then again, all good things are.)

Encryption and Tagging are Necessary for Survival

Password protection is one thing; keeping your thoughts completely safe is another entirely. You may think that adding a password to Day One will protect your thoughts from theft, but it actually won’t. First, it’d be very easy to decode due to lack of encryption and second, all the journal’s files are in plain text, which even a four-year-old could open without guidance. Knowing this, would you download Day One and trust it with your personal thoughts?

Another much-needed feature is the support for tags, which is something that every app of this type should have. It’s nice to know that your journal is organized, not that it’s a wreck. Even if you do have search, wouldn’t it be convenient to have a group of posts about the same thing rather than having to search for them? After all, that is why Apple added tags to iPhoto and other journals use this functionality. Why wouldn’t one of the most popular journaling apps do the same?

On Its Way to Glory Road

Day One has won many awards so far, and the developers should be proud of their creation. However, there are still many things users both want and deserve. Security should be the developers’ top priority, not just bug fixes. If encryption and tags are both in the plans for this app, then great — they’re on the right track. Right now, even with all its UI polish and high hopes, it’s still missing what savants would consider the base element and that’s disappointing, especially for the high price of $9.99.

Last month I looked at a couple of programs to improve the experience with Finder on your Mac. Several readers mentioned XtraFinder in the comments to that post. This program appeared to be very similar to TotalFinder so I decided to take a look at the program to see how it compares to the other Finder tools already examined.

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What is XtraFinder?

XtraFinder differs from both TotalFinder and Path Finder in that it’s a free program. It compares more closely to TotalFinder in that it extends Finder, but doesn’t replace it. To install you download the image file from the developer’s web site and run the installer file. The package also includes an uninstaller you can use to easily remove the program in case you run into problems.

When the installation completes, XtraFinder adds an icon to your menu bar to set the program’s preferences along with several other options. These additional options include making Finder pinable (always the topmost window), quickly tiling two Finder windows horizontally or vertically to ease file operations between folders, and hiding the menu bar icon. There are also menu items to manage the program such as checking for new versions and restarting Finder.

XtraFinder Features

It seems every Finder replacement or extension adds tabs and XtraFinder doesn’t break the trend. Tabs are listed as an experimental feature, but seemed mostly stable if occasionally a bit sluggish. The tabs can be styled similar to those in the Chrome or Safari web browsers. It also allows undoing the accidental close of a tab. Tabs are to me one of the most useful additions to Finder and XtraFinder does them well. I did see the occasional bug as you’d expect in a feature marked experimental, but overall they work quite well.

Sharing the preference tab listing these Finder tab features are options allowing you to set the keyboard shortcuts for XtraFinder and a few options for dual pane mode. Dual pane mode as in TotalFinder and Path Finder allows one window to show two folders side by side to ease copy operations.

The Features tab under preferences contains most of the other options in XtraFinder. Most of these are minor, but useful changes to Finder. None are turned on by default. I like this choice as it lets you turn on only the changes you want without throwing a bunch of changes on the user when the program first runs. Many of these options are also present in TotalFinder such as Cut & Paste functionality and putting folders on top of listings. Other features add functionality to the Path Bar. You also have two unique features in automatically adjusting the width of the name column to match the width of the folder and file names and putting color back into the sidebar, a useful feature that makes icons more visually distinct.

The last group of additions that XtraFinder brings adds items to the Finder menu. Many of these are handy time saving options such as toggling showing hidden files, opening a terminal in a folder (including support for several common alternative terminal programs), launching a program as root, and opening a folder in a new window. The Copy Path option gives you a quick way to get the path to a file or folder in several different formats for use in other programs or terminal.

You can also select a shortcut key to allow fast selection of one of these new menu items.

Conclusion

There are a few advantages to XtraFinder compared to TotalFinder. It’s free where TotalFinder is a paid program. TotalFinder only supports Lion and Mountain Lion in the latest version where XtraFinder’s current version also still supports Snow Leopard. I did find XtraFinder a bit buggier and less stable than TotalFinder. The bugs were mostly minor and could usually be cleared away by restarting Finder and the rapid release pace means a bug is likely fixed quickly.

There are some areas I’d like to see improved. The preferences panel could use some cleanup to the layout. An example is that the Tabs panel contains more than just the tab settings and you’d not know that from the name. Adding menu items to the Finder menu is a bit inconsistent to where they appear. Some will show in context menus, others are added to the drop down Finder menus. It would be nice if the preferences provided some indication of where the new menu option would show. The documentation is also a weak point and this program could really use a demonstration video showing the added features in action.

I came away from testing XtraFinder impressed. Many of the features of TotalFinder are here along with a few additional ones I like. The program is also under very active development and sees several releases a month. The primary communication for XtraFinder appears to be the program’s Facebook page. The developer seems quick to respond to bug reports and feature suggestions made here. If you’re not already using TotalFinder, I’d definitely suggest giving the program a try. If you’re running TotalFinder I’m not sure there is enough here to change yet, but it’s definitely a program to keep an eye on as it continues to develop and evolve.

There’s so many Mac apps these days, it’s impossibly to use all of them. Odds are your Launchpad is filled with apps that you seldom or never use anymore. From apps you might have picked up while they were free or on sale to apps that you replaced with an alternate, it’s rather easy to quit using apps without even really thinking about it.

I’ve personally quit using several apps this year. Once Tweetbot for Mac came out, I pretty much quit using all other Twitter apps on the Mac, and only use Tweetbot online occasionally to schedule tweets. I’ve also quit using almost every other writing app I have installed other than iA Writer and Sublime Text, because no matter how many I try out I always come back to those two for writing and coding, respectively. Then, I quit using the Read Later for Mac app with Instapaper when Pocket for Mac was released, and comically that made me switch the web and iOS app I was using for web reading as well.

How about you? What apps have you quit using this year? This time, you’ll have to leave a comment to let us know!

After being featured on TechCrunch as well as being tweeted by our fellow sister site MacTuts, it seems that Inky has enjoyed an unexpected surge of interest this week, despite having been around since May of this year. The interest was generated after a random post on Hacker News generated a fair bit of chatter among users and gave the app a fair bit of attention – something that the Maryland-based developers certainly weren’t expecting as they’ve never really actively sought out press coverage before.

Inky promises to reinvent email – and this time it’s for good (none of those wishy-washy promises like from other companies) – and any company or software product that promises that instantly grabs my attention. So I thought it worth to take a quick look at Inky (it’s currently in the public beta stage at the moment) to see what all the fuss is about.

I, for one, hate doing e-mail and it is something that I see as a daily chore. If you don’t keep on top of your e-mail then it simply gets out of hand, but Inky does try to be different. It integrates nicely with all your existing e-mail accounts (almost any IMAP or POP account is supported) and thanks to the comprehensive account discovery engine, you don’t have to mess around scouting out port numbers.

Once you’re in, Inky then tries to automatically sort your message via relevance and gives it a teardrop icon – the bluer the icon the more relevant your message is. This is great for people who gets loads of e-mail in each day or use, say, one e-mail account for everything (newsletters, personal communication and so on) – Inky will let you focus on the more important mail first (you can sort mail by relevance) then concentrate on the less important stuff later. So, any frequent contacts and pressing issues appear at the top with a dark blue teardrop and any spam or irrelevant messages fall to the bottom of the pile.

Inky uses an automatic system to categorise your mail but sometimes gets it wrong slightly (important mail that was sent to me was marked “of little importance”) however you can always change this individually per message – Inky will remember your choice for next time.

Inky can also assign so-called “smart icons” to your mail which allow you to perform certain actions on it based on the content of the message. Each message gets a “teardrop”, like we saw above, but newsletters, for example, get an automatic unsubscribe button – so if you no longer want to receive it you simply click on the icon – no more searching around for the “Unsubscribe me” link (which is often, from experience anyway, buried down at the bottom among the terms and conditions in size 4 font).

It also works for other things, such as street addresses package tracking and limited-time offers and messages can be assigned multiple smart icons. Not only do they help you filter out important mail but they also let you get through your e-mail quicker – very handy if you’ve got a massive amount to deal with each day.

Inky seems to be doing what most people want – a different way of getting through e-mail and although its approach isn’t life-changing, it certainly makes communicating a bit more fun. At the moment, the app is in public beta status (there’s even a Windows version) but Inky, to me, seems like something to keep an eye on, which we will be doing.

In the meantime, go ahead and grab the Mac version from their website (direct download link) and let us know what you think of it in the comments section below!