Mac – Page 59 – Blancer.com Tutorials and projects

ControlPlane: Automation Cockpit For Your Mac

Computers should be so smart today, and yet, it feels like we have to babysit them, performing menial tasks, instead of putting the computer’s own power to work. We’re blown away by voice command apps like Siri, and yet our MacBooks that are far faster take more effort to use. There should be a way to automate it more.

ControlPlane is an open-source context-sensitive automation application. In short, what this means is actions can be triggered based on where you are, what you’re doing or when you’re doing it. There’s a vast number of ways you could put it to use, and it’s limited only by your imagination. So if your curiosity is already piqued, read on while I take you on a small tour.

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The Building Blocks

ControlPlane can runs as a menubar app or completely hidden

ControlPlane can be thought of as having two main blocks: Contexts and Actions. A context can be a place, a time or even a running application. It all depends on what your needs are and what rules you later define. Actions are what is executed once a context is triggered.

Once you get to know it, ControlPlane is rather simple and easy to use. However, it does have a few “moving” parts that will help to break it down into its various components. Let’s take a look first at all of the main features and parts of ControlPlane, and then we’ll look at ways you can put it to use to simplify your own life.

Contexts

You can nest your Contexts to create structure.

Creating a context is a simple matter of deciding upon a name, and hierarchy if so desired. Click the + and type in a name. Drag to reorder or nest to create a folder-like hierarchy. Once created, you use Evidence Sources and Rules to define when they are activated. It is possible to have more than one context active at the same time, thus allowing for great granularity in terms of triggering actions.

Evidence Sources

Remember to disable unused Evidence Sources.

There are many available Evidence Sources with which to define rules and due to constant updates by the developer and community the list of both Evidence Sources and Actions keeps growing. Having said that however, it is possible to disable Sources you don’t need or use in order to unclutter the list of available options when creating new rules (Owners of Macs without FireWire can disable that source, for example). Another advantage of disabling Sources that aren’t needed or used is that ControlPlane won’t “scan” them looking for context triggers which should lower the performance hit (which is already very minimal).

Rules

Pay close attention to Confidence Level of each rule.

Rules are how you tell ControlPlane what,where or when your context is. You can use any enabled Evidence Source to define a Rule. Simply choose what type you wish to create, fill in the available configuration parameters, choose the context and finally the confidence level. A Context is only triggered when the Confidence Level is higher than that of the threshold defined in the General tab. One rule can have a very high Confidence Level (say Current Location, provided by Apple’s CoreLocation) while other rules may have a lower Confidence Level (assigned IP for example).

Actions

This is where all the action takes place.

Actions, as the name rightfully implies, this is where all the action takes place. This is where you define what you want to happen when a specific Context is triggered. At the time of writing, there are over 30 available actions, one of which is the ability to trigger scripts (AppleScript or shell) vastly increasing what can be done with ControlPlane. The full list is available on the site but here’s a little glimpse of what’s possible:

Change the default printer
Change the display brightness
Change Incoming/outgoing servers in Mail.app
Mount/Unmount external and network drives
Open any file, including starting Applications
Run a script, such as AppleScript or shell script
Change Time Machine backup destination
Enable/Disable Notification Center (Mountain Lion only)
Enable/Disable Bluetooth
Enable/Disable WiFi
Start or stop a VPN connection

To create a new action, click the + and choose the action you want. Depending on what type you choose, the configuration parameters will vary. There are however a few that are global to all actions, namely:

Context that should trigger the action;
When you want to trigger the Action, on Arrival, Departure or Both;
Delay before triggering the Action;
Description for your Action.

Putting ControlPlane to Good Use

Now that you know the building blocks and how they piece together you can start putting this to good use. You may or may not be feeling overwhelmed or not quite sure what you could do with this so I’ll give you a few personal examples to get you started.

My Time Contexts

I’m fortunate enough to be a telecommuter and therefore, some days I work from home and some days I work from the office. Regardless of where I am though, during the weekdays I always have a set few apps that I need for work.

That’s where my “Weekdays” Context comes into play, opening all apps I’m going to need for work. Now if I so happen to use my MacBook on the weekends, none of these apps open up and bother me.

A “Work Hours” context opens my Work Tasklist in TaskPaper and an “After Work Hours” Context opens my Projects & Hacks Tasklist. Having this automated is a boon for focus because until it opens I know it’s all work and no play.
Although I’m a user of F.lux I also have a “Late Night” context that automatically dims the display brightness so as not to strain my eyes when working late hours.

My Places Contexts

As said earlier, I move around a lot and this is where my Places Contexts shine. A “Work” context sets my default printer to the one closest to me at the office, turns off Bluetooth and Wifi (no need for either at work) and finally connects to my most used network drives.

A “Home” context sets the default printer to my own and turns on Bluetooth and Wifi. It also changes my Adium status message so that my colleagues know immediately that I working from home that day.

Final Thoughts

As you can see from these few examples, the granularity that I mentioned earlier allows for a great deal of customisation with regards to actions. You can mix and match Contexts to fit your needs. You can find other interesting ways of using ControlPlane on its Wiki Page.

I’ve been using this application for quite some time now and have yet to have had any problems. Having said that, when bugs are found, the developer and community are quick to come out with bug fixes and new features. While not as feature rich as apps such as Keyboard Maestro, you can’t beat the price and feature set it already has.

If you enjoy automating and tweaking your system then I strongly urge you to give ControlPlane a try. I’m confident you will be thankful you did.

Let me know in the comments what interesting ways you’re using ControlPlane and how its changed your workflow.

Best of AppStorm in September

We’ve collected the top four reviews, roundups and how-to articles from across the AppStorm network in September. 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

40+ Android Wallpapers To Automate With Llama & Tasker

We all love our wallpapers, don’t we? Be it on the desktop or on the phone, everyone likes using some nice artwork to customize the screens the way they want. We have covered wallpapers a fair bit here on AppStorm, so I’m not going to bore you with why they are so awesome and why you should get some. Instead, let’s do something different this time.

Ever wished the wallpapers on your phone changed automatically every once in a while? How about if they changed – not randomly – but based on a set of conditions. One wallpaper for the day and another for the evening, maybe? Or a different one based on whether your headphones are plugged in or not? Or maybe based on the weather outside? That would be helpful, wouldn’t it?

10 Android Tablet Apps You Won’t Find on iPad

It’s no secret to anyone that Android tablets’ major competition is the iPad, which keeps outselling them worldwide. Despite the better specifications, innovative form factors, and recently improved Jelly Bean experience, the one area that seems to hold back Android tablets is the lack of optimised apps – that’s a field where Apple’s ecosystem excels. By comparison, the Play Store still lacks a dedicated tablet section to make it easier for users to find apps tailored for bigger touch screens.

However, due to the openness of Android, a few specific categories of apps exist for it that can’t make it onto the iPad in its regular state. Some would require a jailbreak to work, others wouldn’t even be technically possible. I have picked ten of these to showcase a small, albeit important, advantage of Android tablets.

Get Google Now on Your Ice Cream Sandwich ROM

I like to think that one of our big responsibilities here at AppStorm is to try out new methods of customizing and improving our phone experience, then translating the technical jargon of developers, and delivering to our readers a clear and concise method for that customization.

So, when I had been reading on the forums that a way had been worked out to add Google Now to a lot of ICS phones, I jumped right on it.

InFoto: Great Infographics About Your Photo Habits

The humble infographic has gone from the boardroom projector to online viral fame in the last few years. There’s no easier way to represent data to interest a person than by making it look pretty. Good infographics are simple to interpret and often cross language barriers effortlessly.

InFoto aims to tap into this, by converting the hundreds of photos you undoubtedly have stewing on your SD card into a pretty infographic that’ll probably get more likes on Facebook than your original snaps.

When I first heard the idea I thought it was a college student’s half-baked end of year assignment he decided to throw up on the Google Play Store, but it turns out photos actually have a ton of data stored within them. The question is: does the app make impressive use of it?

Best of iPad.AppStorm

Go Live With Poster

I read a statistic once that said that WordPress powers over 22% of all new websites, worldwide. Wow. That’s a staggering amount of data, and yet the platform that many bloggers know and love is still going strong after years in the business. I’ve been using it on my personal site for years, and we use it here at AppStorm, too. It’s about as solid as you can get.

Problem is, the WordPress app for the iPad has historically not been very good, turning off quite a few users. But now, we have Poster, an app that promises to make the process of writing and publishing blog posts to your WordPress site much easier. Does it hold up, or is it just another flash in the pan? Let’s discover together.

50 Awesome iPad Games

If there is one thing the iPad is good at, it’s gaming. The 9.7-inch screen is the perfect canvas for any developer to make a killer game. Since us writers really love iPad games, we cover them a lot. Heck, it’s even Game Week here at iPad.AppStorm and iPhone.AppStorm.

With the growing market of games for the iPad, it’s quite hard to sort out the good from the bad. Of course, there will always be the classics that we can rely on, but there are tons of other lesser-known games that are just as great. This roundup brings the best of both worlds together. Did your favorite games make it to the top 50? Find out after the break.

Flip’s Escape: Surf the Stellar Wave

A little over a year ago, Shaun Inman introduced Flip to the iOS screen. Intergalactic war was drawing to a close, and Flip was the last rocket to roll off of the assembly line. Unfortunately, the ship became trapped in a star’s gravity field, and Flip had to escape before both he and the ship were swallowed by the star.

Flip managed to escape as the ship spiraled into oblivion, but the resulting stellar shockwave leaves little time for celebration. Shaun Inman’s Flip’s Escape reunites players with the star of The Last Rocket and his computer companion as he flees the impending wave, avoiding speeding astroids and collecting their orbital power ups. But does the second chapter of Flip’s adventure hold the same thrills and charm as the first, or is it a cosmic dud? Let’s find out.

Jetpack Joyride: The Game You Can’t Miss

At first mention of Halfbrick, the first app that many of us think of is Fruit Ninja. It makes sense — Fruit Ninja was the developer’s first smash game, but its presence somewhat overshadows the existence of their other amazing iOS games.

One of these overshadowed games is possibly one of my favorite games of all time. The app, Jetpack Joyride, features Halfbrick’s flagship character Barry Steakfries as you go on a fun-filled journey through a science lab. Read on to find out why Jetpack Joyride is among my favorites after the break.

Best of Windows.AppStorm

Whip Your Clipboard into Shape with ShapeShifter

The clipboard might be the most useful thing we take for granted in our computers. The ability to take something in one program and insert it somewhere else using the same process whether dealing with text, an image, or a file makes editing and creating so much easier. The common area means that you donít have to worry about if two programs know how to talk to each other, they both only have to know how to talk to the clipboard.

The biggest drawback to the traditional Windows clipboard is that it can only hold one item at a time. When you cut or copy an item into the clipboard, anything already there is now lost. Much of the time this works well. If youíre only copying or pasting a line of text from one document to another document or another place in the same document, you only need to hold one item. Otherwise, it tends to become a problem. Surely, there must be a way around this!

Multiplicity: Control Two Computers With Your Mouse And Keyboard

If youíre anything like me, youíll be quite used to working with more than one computer at the same time. Iím frequently using my main PC to copy encode video, while using my older machine get on with other things like surfing the web and writing ñ sometimes, my laptop even gets in on the mix!

Working with two or more computers simultaneously is great, but it does mean that you need a large desk to accommodate the two keyboards and two mice. You could install a KVM switch that lets you use one keyboard and mouse to control two computers, but if youíre looking for a free solution, Multiplicity could be the tool for you.

Windows Phone 8 and Unity 3D ñ A Killer Combination

Windows Phone 8 and Unity 3D: A Killer Combination?

Back in the old days of smartphone infancy, your options for some ravenous digital gaming were somewhat limited; anything more than downloading a basic open-source port of Civilization or some game from some site somewhere would require the ownership of one of Nintendo’s coveted Gameboy systems, lest you be relegated to the living room sofa. However most of the handheld consoles of the day were generally regarded as mere child’s play, certainly much too juvenile a pastime for the crisp-suit-toting, HP iPAQ-wielding business elite.

Of course, with the completely game-changing advent of the iPhone, iOS and Android, focus has turned to the viability of the modern-day smartphone as a viable gaming platform to rival dedicated solutions from Nintendo and Sony. So far we’ve seen some rather stellar results, with titles such as the casual hit Angry Birds and the more console-quality titles such as Infinity Blade demonstrating that the phone of the 21st century can entertain you in the gaming space, too. With the welcome introduction of the Unity 3D platform to Windows Phone, things could get a lot more interesting.

Make The Most Your Monitor With nSpaces Virtual Desktops

How big is your monitor? Big enough? There are very few people who could honestly say that their monitor would not benefit from being a bit larger; who wouldn’t love to have a 32 inch screen in front of them to work with?

But few people invest in such large monitors, with both cost and physical desk space being issues. Another option is to add a second monitor to your computer, but if space is at a premium, this may not be possible. This is where virtual desktops come into their own, and nSpaces is a great free tool that not only gives you more space, but also enables you to group related applications and windows together.

Best of iPhone.AppStorm

It’s Here: The iPhone 5

Today, it happened. We finally got the word that the iPhone 5 is here, and it’s ready to rock our world. So what’s the news and what do you need to know right now? Get the deets after the jump.

Hands on With the iPhone 5

You’ve watched the keynote, seen the unboxing videos and read the reviews. You know everything there is to know about the latest and greatest iPhone — what else could you possibly have to discover?

Well I received my iPhone 5 yesterday via FedEx, and I spent the afternoon testing it in various conditions. How well did LTE work? What is the hardware like in real life? Is it worth the upgrade? This isn’t your typical new iPhone review, it’s a walkthrough of the product with casual and real thoughts as it’s being used. Hit us up after the jump to find out more.

Lili is a Beautiful RPG With a Quirky Sense of Humor

A lot of RPG games boast stunning 3-D graphics and vivid gameplay environments, but Lili sets a new standard. This adventure game features a main character who’s tasked with completing some challenging find-and-retrieve tasks on a very beautiful and mysterious island, one populated with strange beings in possession of a very quirky brand of humor.

In other words, when the game isn’t making you work hard to lock in the next achievement, or making your eyes widen at the sight of detailed characters and lush island scenery, it will have you chuckling to yourself in amusement. Let’s take a look.

Rovio’s New Adventure: Bad Piggies

If you have an iPhone, had an iPhone, have thought about having an iPhone, known someone who had an iPhone, or even are only vaguely aware of the existence of the iPhone, it’s unlikely that you’ve escaped without some sort of cursory awareness of Angry Birds, the physics-based phenomenon whose popularity has hung around only slightly too long to still be considered a “fad.” Rovio first released Angry Birds in 2009, and has since pushed out all kinds of updates and new chapters, but the premise has more or less always been the same: load a bird into a slingshot, and launch it in an attempt to topple a piggy-inhabited edifice of questionable structural integrity.

Well today, all of that changes. The piggies want the spotlight now, and Rovio has given it to them in a brand new iOS game called Bad Piggies. Bad Piggies is very much set in the same world as Angry Birds, but the game is quite different. Grab a cup of coffee and hit the jump to take a look at this brand new physics-based puzzler.

Best of Web.AppStorm

Simple.com – A New Way To Bank

I hate dealing with banks. In a world where currency has more meaning on screen than it does in hand, you would think that banks would be getting better and not worse. The best bank is typically the one you never have to deal with. I generally have to mentally prepare myself for a few days before I call a bank as I know it is going to raise my blood pressure a few points.

Simple.com aims to change that. They believe that well designed web and mobile applications can improve the overall banking experience. In keeping it simple and beautiful, they believe they can make banking a positive experience.

So far, it’s working.

Create Professional Technical Documentation with Dozuki

I’m sure we’ve all heard of a site called iFixit, the site which provides easy repair guides for a wide range of products, including Apple devices, games consoles, digital cameras and so on but I’d hazard a guess at the fact that not as many people have heard of Dozuki, which is the fantastic system that actually powers the website and makes creating and running a “how-to” guide on the Internet a piece of cake.

Let’s take a look and see how it’ll work for your next documentation project.

iCloud: Shiny New Apps Finally Out of Beta

Apple’s hardware and software releases have become global news events, something even non-techies know about. Practically everyone that is any bit informed about the phone industry at all knows Apple unveiled the iPhone 5 this week, enough so that its already sold out in preorders. Yet it’s a slightly unknown fact that Apple makes some very nice web apps for iCloud, ones that bring many of its well known native apps to any browser.

This past week, right along with unveiling new hardware and iOS software, Apple also upgraded its iCloud web apps. They’ve now finally dropped their beta tag, and gained the new Notes and Reminders apps that have become standard parts of iOS and OS X. Let’s take a look.

PixelPipe: Transfer Photos & Videos in the Cloud

The bane of online existence is that our data is invariably scattered in different places. And nothing is affected more by this than photos. In all probability, you have pictures on different services – Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, Instagram, and many more. The end result is that when you need to find that one photo you are looking for, you don’t know where to begin searching. Wouldn’t it be better if all your photos were collected in one place, ready to be accessed at any time?

PixelPipe promises to make this easier by letting you migrate images and videos from one web service to another in a dead-simple interface. So whether it’s because you’re running out of space or you simply want to change your image host, this just might be the magic wand you have been looking for.

Best of Mac.AppStorm

The New Snapheal – Smarter, Faster, Prettier

Image editing can be fun, but it can also be tedious and frustrating, especially if you want to make changes that require either professional apps that cost a lot or skills that only come from years of experience.

Removing unwanted objects from photos – people, power lines, trash, you name it – can be either very easy, depending on the background and general composition of the image, or a huge a pain. Snapheal can make this a breeze for you. The editing app has received a major update and we’ll take a look at what has changed and how it will affect your workflow.

Stick Reminders to Your Screen with Sticky Notifications

Always forgetting little things and minor tasks? Do you walk away from your computer, then come back and wonder what you were about to do? The old-school solution is to write a note on a sticky and attach it to your keyboard or monitor. It turns out there’s an app for that.

Sticky Notifications lets you quickly create reminders that sit on your screen until you dismiss them. It does one thing, and it does it well — with several advanced features for power users and an easy-as interface for everyone else. But is it worth the $3 price tag? Let’s take a look.

Why I Can’t Get Around to Using Safari

Ever since Chrome first came out for the Mac, I’ve been happy using it. Throughout all these years, I haven’t even had the curiosity to play around with other browsers, as Chrome has always been simple, pretty and functional enough to keep me satisfied.

However, when Mountain Lion arrived, Safari became a much more integrated part of the OS, with more integrated gestures, iCloud syncing, and the new sharing options. I finally just had to experience for myself. After a little more than a month using it, here are my impressions of the latest version of Apple’s browser.

Going: Facebook Events in Your Menubar

You’ve probably gotten invited to more than your share of Facebook events, and if you’re like me, you tend to lose track of them fairly quickly. Either you RSVP that you can’t make it, and when you change your mind, you can’t find the event to save your life, or you did let the organizer know you’d be coming but promptly forgot until Facebook reminded you the day of the event.

With seemingly everyone using Facebook events to plan everything from baby showers to beauty pageants, I’ve thought there has to be a better way. So did the developers of Going, a menubar app that keeps track of all your Facebook events for you and even syncs up with Calendar. With the ability to RSVP, create events, and event post to Facebook, is there anything Going can’t do?

Share Your Ideas

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!

This Week in App News

This week has been another fairly quiet one in terms of app news but we’ve still managed to find a couple of stories to keep you ticking over till next week.

Enjoy!

Apple may be moving away from Intel chips?

We don’t often report on rumours here on Mac AppStorm but this one seemed so important that we felt it criminal to abandon it. According to a profile on the company by Bloomberg Businessweek, there is a desire within the company to shift away from Intel chips in future Mac models, replacing them with a different kind of technology (Apple were in talks back in 2010 with AMD about switching over to them). This change is certainly quite soon, as Apple only in 2006 transitioned all their computers from the ageing PowerPC architecture to the new chipsets.

Apple chose to migrate to Intel processors back in 2006 from the ageing PowerPC architecture, but may now be considering other options (e.g. AMD).

The move back then was extremely successful and warranted a revived interest in the Mac computer and its showcase in more mainstream life, as applications could be more easily written for the new platform. It also made Macs able to run Windows natively without any kind of emulation. Although the move isn’t imminent (mostly due to the logistics of migrating all Macs to a new processor architecture), it would allow Apple to distinguish its products further from competitors that run Intel’s chips and Microsoft’s Windows software.

We’ll keep you updated on this story if anything updates.

Amazon Cloud Drive update adds easy iPhoto uploads

The latest Cloud Drive update has brought not only support for the service to Italy and Spain but also a new “Import from iPhoto” option, allowing users to import their photos directly from their iPhoto library to their cloud drive. This option is fantastic for users who want an easy backup option of all their iPhoto albums, which are often squirrelled away within your home folder. You can also select from multiple iPhoto albums before uploading to Cloud Drive as well.

The update can be grabbed directly from Amazon’s website by heading over here.

Tweetbot for Mac submitted to the App Store

After remaining in both alpha and beta stages for several months, the final version of Tweetbot for Mac has been submitted to the App Store, according to a tweet by Tapbots, the developers of Tweetbot. If it is approved then it will fill the gap left by Twitter for Mac, which apparently is no longer in active development. Tweetbot for Mac will also be one of the few Twitter clients on the Store that is also optimised for the retina display on the new MacBook Pro.

We will have a full review of Tweetbot when it comes out on the App Store.

Supplemental updates to Mountain Lion and Lion released

Apple has pushed a couple of “supplemental updates” to both Mountain Lion and Lion which bring along fixes for three issues, according to the support documents. The version 1.0 Mountain Lion update addresses a couple of issues within Mail and Safari and for Lion it addresses an issue with Time Machine that may speed up the time of very long backups. As usual, the updates can be downloaded from Software Update and require a restart to be installed.

Heard Anything Else?

If you’ve heard anything else exciting that’s happened this week then go ahead and post a link to it in the Comments section below for the benefit of our other readers!

Best of Mactuts+ in September

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 September, from How to Launch Any App with a Keyboard Shortcut to Awesome Reader Submitted Mac Tips and Tricks.

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

Best of Mactuts+

How to Launch Any App with a Keyboard Shortcut

Today we’re going to rise up and face a challenge that was posed to me recently: how do I assign a keyboard shortcut to launch an app? There’s no obvious built-in functionality for achieving this, but with a little ingenuity we can pull it off with very little effort. Read on to find out how.

How to Clean Your MacBook Safely and Effectively

My MacBook is probably the thing I use most in a day, and that might just be the case for you too. Through the excessive use of our MacBooks, the need to clean them regularly becomes more and more evident. In this article, we’re going to take a look at some techniques for cleaning your MacBook both safely and properly.

Awesome Reader Submitted Mac Tips and Tricks

When Mactuts+ first launched, we gave $1,000 to the person who submitted the best Mac Quick Tip screencast. Only one person could win (props to Joseph Darnell for snagging first place), but we received a ton of really good submissions. We’ve tossed them all onto YouTube and rounded them up for your enjoyment and education. Take a look, you’re sure to learn something cool!

This Week in Mac News: Updates, Earnings, and Ping

This Week in Mac News is a new column we’re now publishing each Saturday, rounding up the latest Mac and Apple news. Just the fact here; no rumors. See, rumors are expensive, so we’ll stick to the facts.

Welcome to the first edition of This Week in Mac News. There’s so much going on in in the world of Apple, beyond just regular app updates, we wanted to be able to help our readers stay a bit more informed about what’s going on without having to trace down every rumor and Apple press release. That’s why we’ve started this new column, and we hope you enjoy reading. Let us know your thoughts about it and if there’s anything we’ve missed in the comments below.

With that out of the way, let’s get started with this week’s news. Briefly, Apple released a OS X 10.8.2 and 10.7.5 supplemental update with bug fixes, the company’s fourth quarter earnings will be announced on October 25, and Ping closed at 11:59 p.m. September 30. Keep reading for full coverage of these topics.

OS X 10.8.2 Supplemental Update Released with Bug Fixes

OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.2 received a supplemental update on Thursday, October 4. It includes fixes for an issue that prevented Japanese characters from appearing correctly in the Mail app, an issue that didn’t allow Macs with 64 GB or RAM or more to start up properly, and fixed a bug that caused the DVD Player app to crash. One major fix was for the operating system’s default Web browser: Safari now allows secure Web sites to be accessed when parental controls are enabled. The full list of changes is available on Apple’s official support page for the update.

To download the OS X 10.8.2 Supplemental Update, either click the apple in the top left of the screen and click Software Update, head to the Mac App Store and click the Updates tab, or download it directly from Apple’s support Web site. OS X 10.8.2 may also be available if you didn’t download it when it was released in the third week of September.

OS X 10.7.5 Supplemental Update Released with Two Bug Fixes

Early Thursday afternoon, Apple issued a second update to OS X, this time for the older 10.7.5 Lion. As with the Mountain Lion update, it’s supplemental and not a full incremental version increase. This update fixes a bug that hinders Time Machine backups from completing in a reasonable amount of time and fixes an issue with Gate Keeper’s Developer ID function that didn’t allow signed apps to launch. The full list of changes is available on Apple’s official support page for the update.

To download the OS X 10.7.5 Supplemental Update, either click the apple in the top left of the screen and click Software Update or download it directly from Apple’s support Web site.

Apple Inc. (APPL) Q4 Earnings to Be Announced October 25

On Monday, October 1, Apple Inc. announced that it will be announcing its fourth quarter earnings on October 25. (Apple uses a fiscal year, which means that its fourth quarter ended on September 30.) The earnings will be announced in a conference call with the CEO and other executives. It will take place at 2 p.m. Pacific time and a live webcast is available on Apple’s Web site.

After launching the iPhone 5 and subsequently selling out its initial preorders at the end of its fourth quarter, the earnings are expected to be high, if not higher than last year. Tune in at the aforementioned date and time to find out.

Ping Bids Users Farewell

September 30 marked the end of Apple’s social music network, Ping. After just over a year, the iTunes-based service was not used enough to support, so its retirement was imminent. If you ever used Ping, it was probably for sharing what you just bought. Most users didn’t even know they had it and every time they purchased or “Liked” something on the iTunes Store, it would show up as activity in Ping.

The hopes for this network were good, but Apple clearly didn’t see a future in it. The corporation’s CEO, Tim Cook, said that ”the customer voted and said ‘this isn’t something that I want to put a lot of energy into’” during the D10 All Things Digital conference in June. With that news, the death certificate of Ping was signed, but not dated. Apple then announced that Ping would be removed from iTunes at the end of September. Interestingly, iTunes 11 is slated to include native OS X sharing, so you can share your purchases and more on Facebook and Twitter. For most of us, that’ll be much more interesting than Ping sharing.

That’s It for This Week!

With Ping out of iTunes, that marks the end of this week’s Mac news. It’s worth noting that Steve Jobs died a year age Friday (October 5). The Apple.com main landing page paid its respects to the entrepreneur with a dedicated video and page in which Tim Cook memorialized his influence on Apple and all of us. If you missed getting to see Apple’s tribute video, you can watch it again in full at this link,

If you’ve found any other interesting Apple news, tell us about it in the comments. Until next week, then? See you on the 13th.

Markdown Pro: Worth the Price?

Markdown is kind of a big deal right now. It’s one of the most popular ways to turn plain text into formatted text, and it’s showing up everywhere from blogging tools to note apps to comments online. The App Store is filled with text editors built around Markdown, each priding itself on having a minimalist interface that makes it easy to write in plain text. It’s hard to know the best one to use.

We’ve covered more then a few markdown apps in the past, and the list of Markdown apps is constantly growing. In this stage of the game, app authors need to create an app that stands above the pack to be competitive. Is Markdown Pro one of those, or just another editor in the pack?

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Markdown in 60 seconds

If you’re unfamiliar with Markdown, I’d recommend taking a look at John Gruber’s (of Daring Fireball fame) introduction to Markdown. I couldn’t possibly go in to that much detail, and as always it’s best to get your information from the source… seeing as he’s one of the brains behind Markdown. In a nutshell, I do everything in Markdown. It’s incredibly useful for note taking (not for the faint of heart), email formatting, creating HTML without actually knowing HTML syntax, and documentation writing, to name a few use cases.

With the numerous use cases out there, you can see why the Markdown app market is so competitive and constantly growing. Lets move on to see how Markdown Pro stacks up.

A Look at Markdown Pro’s Features

Lets start from the top: Markdown Pro’s gorgeous. Markdown apps, good ones at least, are designed to stay out of your way and let you do what you came here to do, write. Markdown Pro does this exceedingly well. With the toolbar closed you’re left with a window with either a text editor, preview pane, or a split window with both.

Markdown Pro showing off side by side live viewing.

The toolbar, when visible, gives you options to change the view, text size of the editor window, find text or a few useful functions such as export to PDF, print and the very useful syntax reference help menu for newbies. The quick access to the help menu has been a godsend, even though I’ve been using Markdown syntax for a few years.

The navigation bar, when visible, offers some helpful functions.

Below the editor window there’s a handy word count and template selection dropdown. Markdown Pro comes with 10 preinstalled templates and while some are quite readable and useful others… not so much, but maybe to some. Exporting documents to PDF or HTML uses the template you have selected and does so quite well. Both the HTML and PDF exports look identical to the preview window and the HTML passes the W3C Markup Validation Service.

All the Lion/Mountain Lion features are present as well. If you’re a full screen aficionado, well, full screen away. Versions are available if you need to roll back, auto saving, and if you write in middle eastern languages full right-to-left support is present. For Retina display users, text is displayed in full retina resolution, but a few icons haven’t been updated yet though I wouldn’t call this a deal breaker, especially if you leave the toolbar hidden.

The popup help guide helps you wade markdown syntax.

The 90 lb. Mou in the Room

Joshua Johnson wrote a review of Mou back in November 2011, and the similarities between these two editors is unmistakable. Mou adopts the two pane editing, has the Lion/Mountain Lion features, Retina Display support, and an awfully nice price tag of $0.00 (while in beta) verses Markdown Pro’s $9.99 Mac App Store price. If Markdown Pro was made by Apple, and Mou by Samsung, these two would be in court in seconds. Fortunately for us, neither of these apps is likely to get blocked by the courts.

Thoughts & Conclusion

If these two applications are so similar, Aaron, why would I spend the $9.99 on Markdown Pro over a free Mou? Polish. That might be a tough sell for (most) everyone. Mou is a fantastic markdown editor, and can do 95% of what Markdown Pro can but that other 5% is where I constantly go back to Markdown Pro. Most notable is the templates: Markdown Pro has 10 templates where Mou has 4, or 2 variants of 2 themes rather. The Github v2 template on Markdown Pro is identical to Github’s markdown theme, where Mou’s differs slightly. That in itself makes it nicer to use.

I’d find it a hard sell to say that Markdown Pro’s $10 price tag is justifiable over a free Mou, but according to the author, Mou won’t always be free. Like I said opening up this article, there’s more then just these two markdown editors out there, so I’d suggest taking a long hard look at the options available to you before making a decision. Just remember: you can’t go wrong with either of these best-in-class editors, in my opinion.

Quickly Launch Everything with Speedy

The old days of Mac OS 8 and 9 are now far behind us, but there are certain features I — and many of my fellow veteran Mac users — still miss. Besides the fabled WindowShade, and Finder windows that behaved predictably, I long for the flexibility and power of the Control Strip, Launcher, and Application Menu. These have all been replicated in OS X to some degree, but sometimes the Dock and the new Apple Menu just don’t cut it.

Speedy resembles the old Control Strip, with a narrow bar of icons that each contain a separate menu, but it functions more like a Launcher and Application Menu combined. It offers a list of all running apps and open windows, quick access to your favorite files, folders, or recent/favorite web pages, clipboard snippets, workflows handling, and more. I’ve fallen in love with it. Allow me to explain why.

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Quick Access

It’s right there in the name: Speedy. The app is for fast and easy access to files, folders, apps, windows, and other areas of your workflow. You can use it as either a menubar item or a small bar that floats over other windows. I use the bar, so this review will refer to it in that form. There are nine icons, each bearing a drop-down menu. From left to right, there’s Settings/About, Files, Folders, Apps, Shortcuts, Web Pages, Clipboard, Workflows, Open Apps/Windows.

I usually keep Speedy in the top-right or bottom-left of screen, where it’s accessible with a quick diagonal swipe of the mouse. But you can put it anywhere, even smack-bang in the middle of your display.

The magic is that you have both recent and favorite choices, and where applicable these get sorted into groups. Files are grouped according to the app that would open them by default; web pages get moved within a submenu for the website that they are on; clipboard items get split into plain text, rich text, images, and links. It’s the most elegant mouse-based system I can recall seeing.

Snippets

Set the phrases you type a lot as favorites, and look through recent clips according to type.

I use copy and paste a lot. Links, email addresses, images, tweets, quotes, names, articles — I’m such a serial copy/paster that I make routine use of Briksoftware’s CuteClips to keep multiple things in the clipboard. But Speedy’s implementation of clipboard support has weaselled its way in as the backup tool.

It remembers the most recent ten clips (switchable to five or 15) in each category, along with any commonly-used favorites that you set, making it the perfect go-to for when you want to use an old clip. To bring up the contextual menu of clips with the keyboard, press Command-Option-Control-v (you can change this shortcut in the Settings).

First-in, Last-out

By default, Speedy lists your ten most recently-used folders, apps, websites, and file types. I say file types and websites — not files and web pages — because it actually hangs onto more than ten altogether. Suppose you’ve been creating and editing a lot of images in Photoshop, then exporting them to Preview, while also coding HTML or writing documents. Altogether you’ve got some 20-or-so files across the three or four apps. Speedy will list the recent files for each of these apps, sorted into submenus.

The same principle is true for web pages. Up to ten recent web pages will show up in a sub menu on each of the ten most recent websites, allowing potentially faster traversal through recent history than in the web browser itself. This functionality will integrate with your default browser, whatever that is — you don’t have to be a Safari user for the recent history to show up.

Recent files get sorted into submenus for their default app, with up to ten files for up to ten apps saved at a time.

You can customize the order of your favorites list in each category, while recent lists get sorted according to time last used.

Workflows

The second icon from the right unlocks one of Speedy’s most powerful features. You can add Automator and AppleScript workflows that make life easier, with five included by default (Create a New Folder, Eject Disks, GoWeb!, Hide All Applications, and Quit All Applications). This is incredibly useful once you get used to it, with powerful shortcuts available with just a couple of clicks. I use it to open my “work” apps — the apps that I currently need to do the majority of my writing work.

Five workflows come built-in to Speedy, but you can add your own and change the order in which they appear on the list.

Bringing Back the Application Menu

I’ve saved what I see as the killer feature for last. Mission Control is handy for seeing every open window and app, but I already know what they look like, and if I have many things open I can’t just glance to find what I want — I instead have to laboriously scan across and down the screen. For this, it’s much easier if you do away with thumbnails and just give me a drop-down menu listing the names of every open window. That’s how it used to be done, before OS X, and that’s how Speedy does it.

With a single click, I can see at a glance what’s open — with the list for apps separated from the list for windows. These are sorted according to most recent use, however, which may be consistent with the rest of Speedy but is more of a burden than a boon for this function. I know what my apps and folders are called, so I want to easily glance at the alphabetical point in the list; instead I have to keep track of extra information or accept the extra second it’ll take to skim through the list. I hope a toggle option appears in the Settings of a future update.

I keep a lot of stuff open; Speedy makes it easy to check, and to bring a window to the front.

Not for Keyboard Lovers

If you like to keep both hands on the keyboard, or you’re set on using keyboard shortcuts to speed around your workflow, Speedy probably isn’t for you. It has keyboard shortcuts, but you need to use the mouse to unlock its full potential. For the keyboard and macro worshipping, Spotlight replacements like Alfred, Quicksilver, and LaunchBar can handle most of Speedy’s features with gusto (and a whole lot more).

For the rest of us, Speedy quickly establishes itself as an essential system add-on — with touches of the old Mac OS packaged in a slick OS X shell. I wholeheartedly recommend giving it a shot.

Learn to Budget With You Need a Budget

It’s really hard for me to find a personal finance app that draws me in, as I think it probably is for most sane people. So when our previous articles about popular personal finance apps were overrun with comments about You Need a Budget (commonly shortened to YNAB), I knew I definitely had to give it a try. The love that Appstorm users have for YNAB was overwhelming … and boy am I glad I gave it a try!

YNAB is a fantastic app which helps you to create, track and maintain a budget based upon their four simple rules of saving and spending. The software, which syncs between the computer and mobile apps, is wonderfully designed and incredibly intuitive. If you buy into the premise of the app, you can see incredible results. The constant reader plugs for YNAB now make complete sense to me – stick with me after the jump to learn why.

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The Premise

In order to get the most out of YNAB it’s important to understand that, initially, it requires a bit of a commitment. I’d recommend starting out by reading up on the history of the app and the basic premise (the four rules). If you don’t want to read up right now, here are the basic rules:

Give every dollar a job.
Save for a rainy day.
Roll with the punches.
Build a buffer.

Really using YNAB means committing to this system, much like using Omnifocus effectively means using the GTD method. YNAB is set up in such a way that the program really isn’t useful if you aren’t striving for the goals set by the maker – that is, budgeting everything, saving money, and making it so you are living on the previous month’s income, rather than the current month’s income. They’re pretty simple and straight forward and really make a lot of sense – it’s not a bad thing to commit to.

Accounts and Transactions

Once you’re familiar with the rules, you can start to take a look at the app. You’ll notice from the beginning that YNAB really helps you through every step. In addition to the in-app tutorials the first time you use it, there are online tutorials and great service from the YNAB team. It can be an intimidating program at first, but if you take advantage of the resources you can get a lot out of it.

A sampling on the tutorials available – including a free online seminar.

Setting up your first account is a piece of cake. You just enter a name, balance and date. Then select from a variety of account types – they range from basic checking and savings accounts to credit cards, mortgages, investment accounts and more. You can even add a PayPal account – the first time I’d seen that. Lastly, make sure you choose whether or not the account affects the budget. Likely, you want it to affect the budget, especially for your first account.

Adding an account.

You can also add transactions to your account from the accounts page. Adding a transaction is easy as well – Just add the date, payee, category and any necessary memos. Then put the amount into inflow or outflow, depending whether it’s income or expense. Choosing a category is extremely important – that’s what affects your budget and ensures that you make sure your dollars are going to the right place. One incredibly handy (and rare) feature is the ability to split an expense across categories – e.g., your grocery store bill might be 80% groceries and 20% home goods. This feature ensures your ability to make sure your dollars go to the right place.

Adding a transaction.

To gloss over a few other features worth noting on this screen – you can use the search function to go through all of your expenses in one go. You can input transactions manually or you can download and import a .ofx, .qfx or .qif file. You can set recurring transactions and transfers at intervals and dates of your choosing. Lastly, you can easily reconcile your account with your bank statement using the account reconciliation tool.

Adding recurring transactions.

Budgeting

Ok, so you’re all ready to take the next step – giving every dollar a job, aka creating a budget. With YNAB, the eventual goal is to be living off of the previous month’s income, and the budgeting system is geared towards that. On the screen, you can see three months at a time – the goal being, of course, that you get to the point where the money you’re earning is budgeting for two or more months down the line.

Budget overview.

At the top of the screen, you see an overview for each month. You can see the amounts owed from last month, the amounts you have leftover from the previous month, the income for that month and the amount budgeted for the month. This section helps you keep on track when planning budgets for future months and also allows you to get a quick overview of how well you’re covering your expenses in advance.

The monthly stats in budget view.

Below this section, you see the categories. This is the most important part of the budget, and it’s good to take the time at the beginning of your app setup to make sure the budget is accurate and truly fits your needs. The app comes preinstalled with a bunch of categories, but it’s easy to add and delete as necessary to make sure your budget suits your needs. Once you’ve got the appropriate categories set up, estimate how much you’ll spend per category. Don’t forget about things like saving, credit card payments, and of course some fun money!

An overview of my categories.

YNAB also makes it incredibly easy to track and adjust your budget from month to month. Any over or under spending is highlighted and carries over from month to month. It’s up to you to adjust as needed when setting the budget for the upcoming month. Once you get through the initial set-up, it’s easy to continue on from there. Each month should take just a minute or two to adjust.

Reporting

The last section to cover is the reports section. It’s important to keep up to date on how you’re doing – whether you’re over or underspending, how you’re spending your money and so on. Luckily, YNAB offers a pretty great report section. Within the section you can choose to view reports about spending by category or payee, income v. expense and net worth.

Checking out a report.

The reports are a great way to track how well you’re doing – and an amazing way to get a swift reality check when you first start utilizing the application. You can view the reports within the app, as well as print and export them. Don’t hesistate to take advantage of these valuable tools.

Worth the Investment?

In a word – yes. I think YNAB is absolutely, hands down a solid $60 investment. I’ve not found myself previously excited about a personal finance app like this. YNAB exceeds my expectations in many ways. First, the premise is solid. The four basic rules are something I can really buy into. They seem practical, achievable and a great way to get my 22 year old finances in order, now that I’ve been on my own for over a year. It’s about time I stuck to a budget.

So what else is great about YNAB? The design is amazing. It’s cute without being cutesy, appeals to a wide audience and somehow manages to make a finance app look not frightening. Rather than ugly color schemes and hard to read numbers paired with a confusing user interface, YNAB has bright colors, noticeable labels and directions to guide you every step of the way. The budgeting system is easy to use from month to month. Most importantly, YNAB really helps you to feel immediately empowered – more so than any other personal finance app that I’ve used.

Lastly – the support for other devices is good and improving. YNAB offers an iPhone and Android app which allows you to access your budget on the go. Everything syncs via Dropbox, ensuring that you won’t lose your valuable financial data. It all plays well together, and at $5 the app is fairly affordable.

Even The Best Isn’t Perfect

Are there things to improve? Certainly. I hope that at some point, YNAB is able to integrate directly with my bank account information so that I don’t have to manually input transactions or download/sync the transaction file from my bank. Is it a big deal that it doesn’t? Not really.

There’s also a whole lot of set up at the beginning. It’s absolutely frustrating – but totally necessary. Same with the learning curve. It’s a bit steep, but necessary and totally worth it. Even if you find yourself getting frustrated, power through. It’s worth it. It’s a definite negative, but one that I don’t really see a way around.

In order to help eliminate disappointment, you also need to keep in mind what YNAB is made for when considering whether or not to try it. If you find yourself in debt, struggling to stick to a budget or just don’t make a lot of money and like detailed spending plans, YNAB is going to likely be right up your alley. If you make more money, live well within your means and have lots of savings/investment type accounts to track, then YNAB probably isn’t right for you. Make sure you consider what you’re looking for in your finance app of choice. All in all, however, if you think YNAB is right for you in any way, go grab the trial. Right now.

Your Thoughts?

Once you’ve set it up and tried it out, come on back. Let me know what you think. Or share what you already know … have you tried YNAB? Are you an avid user? Do you absolutely hate the app? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

TunnerBear: Secure, Private and Open Internet

Couple of months ago, a movie studio obtained a John Doe order and got a bunch of popular video sharing and torrent websites offline. I found this highly repulsive in two significant ways. First, they were retarded enough to leave YouTube from the list and got Vimeo banned instead. Raise your hands if you’ve ever watched a pirated video song or a movie on Vimeo.

And second, as a proud citizen of the largest democracy in the World, I found this a gross violation of my freedom and an extension of the Great Firewall of China. That’s not a proud title to wear around your neck. Such infringements occur time and again even in highly democratic countries.

Not knowing that there are so many ways to sidestep these stumbling blocks is a mistake from our end. One of the most efficient and trustworthy services I have discovered in the last year is TunnelBear. After the break, let us see how you can enter the open Internet by just flicking a switch!

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Bear Awesome!

I’m a paranoid porcupine and I’m always weary about using any VPN or proxy service that I stumble upon. TunnelBear was no exception. I still remember using a dedicated browser with cookies disabled while using the app and not entering any sensitive data when using the VPN session. Gradually, I discovered that the bear is harmless and is actually trusted by tens of hundreds of people.

Pricing

The app itself is free to download and comes bundled with some free bandwidth to test the waters. Nicknamed the Little TunnelBear, you get 500MB of free bandwidth each and every month. That’s not much, but if you are a heavy user, opt for the unlimited plan at $4.99 a month. In addition, if you are open to promote the app by tweeting about it, you’ll be rewarded with free 1GB of bandwidth.

Setting the Bear Up

A Gorgeous User Interface

You’ll need a TunnelBear account to login to the app. Once logged in, getting access to the free and open Internet is as simple as flicking a switch. When I mean flicking the switch, you actually have to flick the switch from the user interface that resembles a radio!

Once the service is on, you can connect to the Internet as a user from USA or UK. In my experience, I have found that with IP’s from either of these countries, you won’t have trouble accessing any website in this whole wide universe. By design, VPN services are a bit slow and TunnelBear is no exception.

But the good news is it’s hardly noticeable. I took the occasion as an excuse to stream and watch a full 20 minute video and found that there was no lag at all. I have used similar services in the past and they offer a number of servers for each geography. So, when one server gets blocked by the ISP, they can go on with their business without any hitch using another one from the list. While there are no such options available in the app, I guess the TunnelBear algorithm automatically routes you through the safest servers with lesser number of connections.

TunnelBear at Work!

All connections are encrypted end to end and depending on the plan you are subscribed to, the encryption only gets stronger. The bandwidth transfer rate and the amount of bandwidth left in your account can be monitored in real time as well.

Naturally, the argument against using a service like TunnelBear is access to unlicensed content. There is always that negligible number of people who find a shady use case for any great technology. To me, VPN services help securing your connection and to break away the clutches of anarchy. If you are someone whose purpose falls in either of this category, then TunnelBear is the obvious choice!

AppFanatix is for Winners!

If you love apps, gadgets, and great deals on software as much as we do at AppStorm, and you haven’t had a chance to sign up for the AppFanatix newsletter yet, then you’re missing out! AppFanatix is a classy fortnightly email newsletter that distills the very best content from around the network and will regularly bring you:

An exclusive discount or giveaway for a fantastic application.
Some of the best content published on the AppStorm network.
Stylish desktop wallpapers.
And much more…

It’s been going strong for 32 issues now and we’d hate for you to miss out on everything we have in store. Subscribe now and make sure you’re on the list to receive the next awesome app discount!

Weekly Poll: Are you Using Mountain Lion’s Built-in Social Networking Features?

Are you using Mountain Lion’s built-in social networking features?

Social networking isn’t a new thing of 2012, but it’s sure hit a mass saturation point. You can’t ride public transit or eat at a restaurant without seeing people checking Facebook and tweeting pictures. It seems you’re more likely to see a Facebook page mentioned on an ad than the company’s own website, reminiscent of companies advertising their Aol. keywords back in the late ’90s.

So, it’s not surprising at all that the latest OS X and iOS feature deep Facebook and Twitter integration. You can share most things you do on your Mac in a click, sync birthdays from Facebook with Calendar, get Facebook and Twitter avatars in Contacts, and push notifications when you get @replies. It’s great for those addicted to Facebook and Twitter, but not so much for those who avoid social networking or who’d rather use another network like App.net.

Have you started using the Twitter and Facebook integration in OS X Mountain Lion? Do you like it, or would you just as soon they’d left it out?

App Deals This Week

The Mac App Store is rife with price cuts this week, so come take your bounty from Mac.AppStorm’s deals.

FX Photo Studio Pro

Last week, Snapheal, another app by the developer of FX Photo Studio Pro, was on sale. It was a universal photo editor that did every photo some good. Photo Studio Pro is more focused on being an Adobe Lightroom competitor: it makes editing very simple with lots of presets and beautiful filters. From selective black and white to HDR-esque looks, the 173 presets and filters, 40 frames, and 20 other “professional” editing tools make this app great for amateurs who just want to touch up a photo quickly.

Price: ~~$39.99~~ » $18.99
Requires: OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: MacPhun LLC

Feeds

Email notifications are a trinket of the old days. In modern times, the standard is RSS or Atom feeds for everything. Feeds combines all the feeds that you add to it — whether it be the two above or Dribbble, Basecamp, GitHub, Trello, and more — and displays them nicely in your menu bar. Whenever someone on Dribbble posts a new creation, you’ll see it in the feed. If a project on Basecamp is underway, you’ll see its progress in the feed. Feeds supports many protocols and services right now, but if there’s one left off the list, notify the developer.

Price: ~~$4.99~~ » $2.99
Requires: OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: Spotlight Mobile

MoneyBag

Well-designed apps are, to say the least, desirable. Taking things further, if one app is more beautiful than another and also has more features, it’s typically denoted best in class. MoneyBag is no exception. The app is a masterpiece in the money management market. It’s aimed at helping every type of person organize a budget better. There are also iOS apps coming soon so all your activity can be seen across devices. At 67 percent off, the only reason not to get this app is if you already own other financial management software.

Price: ~~$59.99~~ » $19.99
Requires: OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: MoneyBag

Byword

If you enjoy distraction-free writing, Markdown, or just love text editors, then this app is a must. It’s been on sale since June, but the developer decided it’s time for the 50 percent off tag to go away, so it’s your last chance to grab Byword. Tessa Thorton originally reviewed the app here last year and gave it a 9/10. I’ve been using it as my main text editor since it released, often writing all my reviews with it. There are some who would say that iA Writer is better, but the text is just too big to concentrate on a whole paragraph. Byword has a wide variety of fonts and a dark theme, so give it a try.

Price: ~~$9.99~~ » $4.99
Requires: OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: Metaclassy Lda

Bundle Hunt “Mega Fall Bundle”

Last, but not least, is a grand bundle from Bundle Hunt. The autumn edition consists of Kinemac, Moneywell, Printopia, MailTags, PDFClerk Pro, GarageSale, Interarchy, a user interface pack from Impressionist, two e-books from SitePoint, four premium WordPress themes of choice from Tokokoo, and four responsive themes of choice from ThemeSpectrum. This isn’t just full of Mac apps, you see, for there are Web design tools and books too. The bundle costs $49.99 and the software is valued at $1,209, so it might be worth grabbing sometime in the next few days.

Did We Miss Anything?

Are there any other great deals out there this week? Let us know in the comments. We’ll see you next Wednesday!

Story Tracker: Do You Need a Database to Track Your Story Submissions?

Have you ever lost track of where you submitted a story or article? Or had to go searching through your email to remind yourself of the status of one of your submissions? Or are you simply unsatisfied with your current system for keeping track of your submissions?

If you find your self answering yes to any of these questions, then Story Tracker is likely the solution you are looking for. It’s an app for serious writers that submit articles, stories, and more to multiple publications, and want to keep track of them all. Let’s check it out.

Database or Spreadsheet?

For an app like Story Tracker to be “worth it”, it needs to bring additional functionality that a spreadsheet or project management app lacks. To be frank, Story Tracker is not for everyone. In my opinion, serious writers juggling upwards of ten submissions at a time will find Story Tracker useful.

Ask yourself if you need a database to keep track of your submissions, or if a simple spreadsheet will do. If you are thinking database, think Story Tracker. If you are using a spreadsheet now, you can import it into Story Tracker—no need to reenter all the data.

Basically, the utility of this app comes down to if you need a database rather than a spreadsheet to track your submissions. A database is usually preferred over a spreadsheet when you have a large amount of data and you are not looking to tabulate rows or columns. But another advantage of using a database packaged in an app like Story Tracker are the flexible options for viewing the data. Read on to see what I mean.

The UI

Storytracker allows users to view the data they have entered into the database using three views. Each view has two sortable columns—title and status. The status column is especially helpful because it shows when the next submission for a particular story or market is due. First, let’s look at the Story View. Here you get a list of all of the stories (or articles in my case) entered in your database.

The Story View lists all of the stories in your database along with the associated market (publisher) and submission status.

From this view you can add new stories, or double click a story to edit it or view the submission history.

Clicking the Submission History button brings up another window that lists every previous submission for that story.

If you ask me, the Market view is better thought of as the Publisher view because this is where the user keeps track of where they have submitted stories. There are several useful entry fields here including information about the editor and the pay rate of the publisher, which is then used to calculate earnings from submissions.

The Market view keeps track of the publishers you have sent submissions to.

Finally, the Submissions view lists all the submissions you have ever entered into the database. So if you have submitted a story several times, each submission will show up as an entry in this view. Similar to the other views, a new entry can be added or edited from this view.

The user interface is what makes this app great. The ability to view your data by story, market (publisher), or submission brings a level of flexibility and organization that you can’t get from a spreadsheet or task management app. Take this situation for example: you need to know how many submissions you have sent to a certain publisher. Double click on the publisher in Markets View click on Submission History and you have your answer.

Other Features and Weaknesses

Although you cannot tabulate your data like you can with a spreadsheet, Story Tracker does allow quick and easy access to statistics about your database.

A quick click or key combination (command-T) reveals some very useful statistics about your database.

Income is automatically calculated based on information provided in the database. Keeping track of how much you are bringing in off of your submissions couldn’t be easier!

Another great feature StoryTracker provides is the ability to create multiple databases. This could be useful if, for whatever reason, you needed to keep data completely separate.

iOS Integration

Story Tracker for Mac also includes an iOS companion app. While full cloud synchronization between the Mac and iOS versions is not available, it is very easy to get stories, markets, or databases from your iOS app to the Mac version or vice versa. All you need is a a wifi connection with the two devices connected to it.

Importing stories or markets is seamless.

Limitations

Up to this point, I have been lauding the flexibility of viewing your database using Story Tracker. Unfortunately, the app is not as flexible as it could be. Users are forced to use the predetermined fields for each story, market, or submission. The ability to create custom fields would be a much welcome addition to the app’s functionality. Also, I found myself wanting to rename the main data types almost immediately (story to article and market to publisher ). A few more options in this area could go a long way towards improving this app.

Conclusion

Story Tracker is for serious writers. While definitely more of a niche app, Story Tracker does what is says it does and does it well. I would recommend this app if:

You are having a hard time juggling dozens of submissions.
You need more flexibility for viewing data on your submission than a spreadsheet provides.
You need a simple and effective way to keep track of income you make off of your stories or articles.

Thanks to Our Sponsor: Last5 Time Tracker

Our sponsor this week is Last5, an app that makes it incredibly easy to track the time you spend on work and more each day. It’s designed to be the “Minimum Effective Dose Of Time Tracking” you need, just enough to track your time without taking you away from the task at hand.

Last5 was designed by Jonathan Yankovich, a freelance web and user experience developer who found that the worst part of his job was accounting for how he spent his day. After working all day out of coworking spaces and other distraction-prone environments, he wanted a tool that would let him move fluidly between people, projects, and conversations without having to punch in or out.

With most time tracking apps, you either wait until the end of the day and try to reconstruct your day (or worse, week!) from memory, which is stressful and time-intensive, or you use timers which are prone to being forgotten. Last5 is designed to let you think as little as possible about tracking your time. You can setup your projects, then throughout the day, Last5 will ask you what you’re working on. Just hit the correct button, and go on with your work. That’s it!

You can then see a breakdown of how you’ve spent your time from the dashboard, and integrate it with Harvest for accounting if you want. Last5 is also planning to add Basecamp and Freshbooks integration in the future, and currently lets you export your data in Excel format from pro accounts. Best of all, you can use Last5 from your iPhone or Windows PC, in addition to your Mac, so it’ll work wherever you’re working.

Go Get It!

If you’ve been looking for a more efficient way to track your time, Last5 might be just what you’ve been needing. You can sign up for a free Last5 account to get started, and when you’re ready to get more serious with a project dashboard, and Excel export, you can go Pro for $8/month or $60/year.

Best of all, you can get 20% off a year membership if you sign up before the end of the year with the coupon code appstorm. What better way to finish out the year and start the next than with a discount on an app that can help you be more productive?

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

Ride Waves of Light Through Space in Waveform

Games don’t often show players the future implications of their decisions or the systems behind their interactions, but for Eden Industries’ Waveform this is a core feature. It tasks you with guiding a wave of light safely through levels, layering ever greater complexity on a simple idea.

Colorful visuals, great music, and slick presentation combine to make Waveform a compelling, atmospheric experience well worth your attention, although the game falters and frustrates at times.

Wave-Time Manipulation

Waveform has just one control mechanism — move the mouse cursor up/down and left/right to adjust the amplitude and frequency of the on-screen sine waveform. By reshaping the wave on the fly, you guide your ball-shaped avatar clear of obstacles and into the path of light orbs. It’s a simple and intuitive concept to build a game around, and the developers managed to get a lot of mileage out of it.

You get points for collecting light orbs, travelling along colored waves, and grabbing score multipliers (along with a few other things introduced later on). Your movement speeds up when you do well, and it slows when you take damage. Your health is also tied in to orb collection, and your round ship grows or shrinks as it gets stronger and weaker.

Move the mouse to resize the wave, guiding it clear of obstacles and onto light orbs or colored waves.

I ran into frequent issues with performance and stability when first testing the app, but recent patches have mostly resolved this. Waveform does still crash occasionally without warning, however. Thankfully it saves automatically after each level.

Save the Universe

You start near Pluto, with hints about some sort of “singularity” affecting the stability of the universe. A nonsensical plot develops as you progress, but it’s nothing more than an excuse for the level designs. You’d be well advised to pay attention, though, because the loading screens and sparse story elements give hints and tips about mastering the gameplay.

Each world is a part of our solar system. There are 11 in total — one for each planet, plus Pluto, the Asteroid Belt, and the Sun. You can also buy DLC for a 12th world, Eris. Worlds are broken into levels, of which there are more than 100. You unlock levels by collecting stars, which you earn by collecting light orbs and maximizing your score. You get a rating out of 100 for each level, with stars awarded at multiples of ten.

Every world has a set path and at least one optional level, along with an Endless Mode that unlocks when you beat the boss.

You’re unlikely to have any issues with this for the first several worlds, even if you barely scrape through the majority of levels, then you may hit a roadblock. I reached a point close to the end where I had to re-play four or five levels — increasing my ranking to eek out a few extra stars — before I could unlock a new one, and then repeat the process over again. Waveform’s difficulty curve is not one for the feint of heart; casual players may never reach the end.

The final level of each world is a cute twist on the traditional boss fight. You don’t fight the boss — the mysterious entity referred to as the singularity, which functions rather like a black hole. You run from the boss. It’s heart-racing, head-pumping action, as you struggle to collect enough orbs and rockets and powerups to increase your speed, or to reach the portal that puts fresh ~~ground~~ space behind you — staying just ahead of your unstoppable foe.

Run for your life.

Frustratingly Brilliant or Brilliantly Frustrating?

At its best, Waveform is stunning. You get drawn into a world of music and color, lights and sound, where you become painter, conductor, and musician all at once. Your wave of colored light dips and arcs across the screen, gracefully reshaping itself to your mouse movements as you guide it into the path of oncoming orbs and prisms. You feel as though a part of this organism, which is beautifully abstracted from our own infinite universe.

When it works, Waveform is brilliant.

But Waveform is seldom at its best, or even near it. The game seems determined to show you how clever it is, luring you into nasty traps and breaking this immersive flow. Challenge is important in a game like this — without it we’d get bored and stop playing. But Waveform takes the challenge too far; it adds challenge at the expense of experience, and at its core Waveform is an experiential game.

Take the space squids, for example. I’m convinced that their only purpose in the game is to piss me off, such is the manner in which they’ve been distributed through the later levels. They stick to objects — and each other — and are attracted to your waveform. Avoiding them gets tricky, especially when there are asteroids and the like floating nearby. I’d come out of a tough spot, expecting a brief respite before the next challenging maneuver, only to find space squids waiting for me — watching me, with their glowing freakiness that manages to trip me up time and again.

Space squids are tricky to avoid, and they have a real knack of hitting me when I’ve got some sweet powerups.

Caught Between a Rock and a Hot Place

Waveform offers staggering depth; besides the sizeable campaign and DLC discussed above, there’s a New Game+ mode that remixes the levels for a second playthrough, loads of achievements, and a randomized survival-tinged Deep Space Mission on each world — which suffers in the absence of hand-crafted design but is otherwise great. It’s a beautiful game, too, considering the small team and low price.

But I can’t help feeling that the developers overextended themselves. Waveform would be stronger if it were shorter and more focused. Its concept reaches the stars, but the execution gets stuck in orbit.