Category: Mac

While recently reviewing Justnotes, a minimal Simplenote client for Mac, I remembered that I still had some data stored in Notes for iOS. Those notes have been around since iOS 4 and sync with email accounts that are set up on the device. However, Apple has now added a native Notes app in Mountain Lion. It syncs with iCloud and will one day be available on the web version of this celestial service as well.

Hopping back and forth between the two note services, I wondered which one I should keep around for daily use. While Apple’s solution does well for basic noting, it’s not the best app out there for more advanced users that avail features like Markdown formatting. On the other hand, iCloud Notes does have well designed native apps, the area that Simplenote falls short in with third-party clients similar to the aforementioned Justnotes. In the end, which one wins me as a steady user? The two services go head-to-head after the break.

Simplenote is Accessible Nearly Everywhere, but iCloud Notes isn’t Yet

 

For people who simply must have their notes with them everywhere they go, Simplenote is currently the best solution. There are apps for a wide variety of mobile platforms, from BlackBerry and Symbian to Windows Phone 7 iOS, and Android. If you’re without a computer or smartphone for a while, there’s no reason to worry about losing access to your precious data.

Right now, you can read your iCloud notes, but you can’t edit them. The beta version of iCloud’s website actually shows that there will be a Notes web app coming soon, possibly this autumn along with the release of iOS 6. Having read-only access is fine if you need to look something up, but there’s no way to write anything down when you’re away from an Apple device. Such a system, in my opinion, seems too restricted.

Collaboration and Exporting

Hypothetically, let’s say that you’re busy working on a summer project with some friends. Whenever an idea pops into your mind, you can jot it down in Simplenote and add your friends’ email addresses as tags to let them view it. You can then keep a journal, per se, that tracks every idea you’ve went over regarding the project. All the people you shared it with can edit it in real time, just like Google Docs.

iCloud doesn’t offer anything near this productive for group projects. There is a sharing feature that lets you send a note via iMessage or email, but nothing beyond that. It’d actually be great to see something similar to Simplenote’s export feature that allows you to publish a note as a live webpage. Apple could even use something like iWork.com – which will be discontinued on the 31st of this month – to let people collaborate.

Advanced Formatting with Markdown

This minor feature isn’t used by most people, but it should be. If you’re one for keeping documents formatted, Markdown is the key. It lets you quickly compose a note with simple syntax and later converts to beautiful HTML. I’ll admit that it sounded nerdy and hard to learn at first, but after I used it for a while, almost all the code became natural to type. It’s a lot easier than writing plain HMTL too.

iCloud Notes does have rich text support in the Mountain Lion app, but you wouldn’t know it. Apple hides this functionality behind shortcuts and menus that you typically wouldn’t be using. If you want to make some text bold, for instance, you can select it and then press CMD + B. A list of the available formatting options is available in the “Format” menu. The only problem with formatting stuff here is that there’s no way to do so in the iOS apps. I’m not sure why Apple included it in one and not the other, but hopefully they’ll add support for this in iOS 6.

Apps

The major downside of using Simplenote is the lack of apps. There are some decent ones, but if you prefer beautiful design over functionality, you’re probably going to resort to iCloud. In all honesty, the web version of Simplenote is far better than any Mac apps out there. Justnotes brought nothing new to the table, in both user interface and features.

If you do want some sort of native experience similar to Notes in Mountain Lion, I’d recommend trying out nvALT. It’s free and does the job. The layout is nearly identical to Notes, save for the search function and more graphical experience with buttons. No, nvALT is not pretty, but that shouldn’t matter if you only care about functionality.

Keep Things Organized

For some people, organization is a minor detail that doesn’t matter. I use it extensively though and Simplenote’s tags combined with search helps to keep things where you want them. iCloud Notes does have one form of customization: folders. You can actually use this as an alternative to tags, but it’s rather limited. You can’t move something to multiple folders unless you have the same number of copies. With tags, however, you can control exactly where a note appears.

The Simple Time Machine

Last up is my most used feature in Simplenote. It’s undo to infinity or, as Mac users would refer to it, “Time Machine for notes”. I’ve been able to go back more than 150 days before, grabbing some information that I left behind. One thing about backup versions of notes is that you can only have 10 per note in Simplenote’s free plan. Upgrade to premium, though, and you’ll get 30 backups with an RSS feed, Dropbox sync, and more.

There’s no doubt that backup versions is the most nifty of features to include in a noting service and I’m surprised that Apple didn’t add it to iCloud Notes. After all, they were the ones who introduced “auto save” and “versions” for documents. Why not have something like the latter for notes as well?

In the End, I Choose Simplenote

Beautiful native apps are nice, but I personally need something more than a quick jot-down service. iCloud works well for anything basic that doesn’t call for formatted text, while Simplenote excels here and everywhere else. I like the fact that I can access it from any modern web browser, that there’s added customization, and it’s always nice to see lots of room for expansion in the API.

After reading a comparison of features, which service do you choose?

This post is part of a series that revisits some of our readers’ favorite articles from the past that still contain awesome and relevant information that you might find useful. This post was originally published on July 8th, 2011.

Let’s face it, Macs are expensive. They are more than worth it of course, but there’s no getting around the fact that any recently released Mac, regardless of model, costs a significant amount of money and is a gleaming thief-magnet, liable to being dropped or lost. I love my iPad and iPhone, but as a freelance writer I need a ‘real’ computer for significant work when I travel.

I need a Mac that I can lug around, collecting accidental knocks without worry, a Mac that can act as temporary backup if my MacBook Pro ever needs repair. In short, I need an older, expendable Mac that I don’t have to worry about. If you need one too, here’s some advice on what to look for!

The Alternatives

Before we embark on buying an obsolete and unsupported computer, let’s look at some more recent alternatives for your beater, backup, or travel-friendly Mac and see if you’ll be well served with an older machine:

MacBook Air – The MacBook air is a beautiful and very capable computer. However, it is also expensive and I don’t think I’d feel comfortable leaving an Air at my table in the local coffee shop while I grab a refill, or on the living room floor while my Staffordshire Bull Terrier bounds around at high speed. If you’ve got the spare cash, this would be an excellent choice of backup or even main computer. I haven’t and even if I did, I could never treat a MacBook Air as carelessly as an older, cheaper computer.

Netbook – When fitted out with a lightweight Linux flavour such as Xubuntu, a Netbook can be a great option for a travel friendly computer, but the gain in portability and weight is offset by a small screen and cramped keyboard which would induce RSI for me when typing thousands of words. I’d also like to remain in the OS X environment if possible.

Hackintosh – There are many laptops able to be turned into a Hackintosh, look here for a compatibility chart and Gizmodo has a good guide here to get you started too. A couple of years ago I ran a Dell Mini 9 with OS X Leopard and it performed flawlessly but required a lot of hacking to get up and running, along with a bigger and faster Runcore SSD. Once one has expended the time and effort needed to get this working, it stops being expendable and starts to be a computer I’d not want to leave open to possible abuse.

Though one of the above options may well suit you best, none quite work for me and that’s why I’d like to propose buying an iBook G4…

In Defense Of The Venerable PowerPC

Before Apple adopted Intel processors for their Macs and thus became capable of running Microsoft Windows too, the Motorola designed PowerPC was the engine which powered OS X. Now they are obsolete and almost forgotten in the amnesiac world of tech, but that does not mean that they aren’t still capable machines, able to perform many user’s typical day to day computer needs; word processing, basic design, Internet surfing and emailing.

Buying The Right Model For Your Needs

When considering which older Mac to buy, I like to keep one principle in mind and that is, my secondary Mac must be ultimately expendable – which to me means it costs no more than $150 and does not take too much of my time to get up and running.

When deciding which model to choose, there is a trade-off between cost and performance and it is my belief that a G4 iBook is right in that sweet spot. Any older than an iBook G4 and it won’t run Tiger or Leopard very effectively, any more powerful and it starts to get too expensive to be a Mac for throwing in a car seat, lending to a friend and leaving around clumsy pets. You’ll probably want to be shooting for around 1Ghz processor speed and 1GB RAM, or at least a Mac which is capable of upgrading to 1GB RAM.

If you can purchase your Mac in person then that’s ideal because then you can check for any obvious issues but if you’re willing to take your time and accept some risk, great deals are to be had on eBay too. After looking around for a couple of days, I snagged an immaculate iBook 1Ghz G4 for just over $100, cheap enough so that I wouldn’t be hurting too much if it turned out to be a lemon.

A couple of additional points to consider when buying your old Mac:

Some iBooks will not come with an Airport wireless card, so make sure yours does or buy one separately if you’ll be needing a wireless connection.

When Apple designed the iBook they inexplicably made it very difficult to change the hard drive, so unless you’re experienced and confident enough to do this yourself or willing to pay someone who is, your hard drive will be an important part of your new iBook.

Choosing The Right Operating System

OS X Panther is really too old and unsupported, plus a lot of good features were introduced with Tiger, such as Spotlight and Expose. A general rule of thumb when choosing between Tiger and Leopard is that if the chip is less than 1Ghz then stick to Tiger – if it’s over 1Ghz and you’ve got at least 1GB of RAM then give perhaps give Leopard a try, though be warned that if buying a pre-owned version of OS X, you should only buy the retail version, not the grey system disks which are tailored to suit one particular model of Mac.

OS X Tiger is more likely to run well with an iBook’s limited resources.

Hardware Upgrades

The iBook range tends to come with hard drives which are uninspiring by today’s standards and I’ve got a few bigger and faster HD’s lying around the house so I followed this guide carefully to swap it out – it was a fiddly job and took around 1.5 hours, in all, just about in my threshold of what I’ll expend in time for this computer.

RAM is much easier to upgrade and inexpensive too. A visit to Cruicial will soon have you kitted out. Follow this guide to get it installed.

Software Upgrades

When setting up your iBook, it’s sound practice to wipe the hard drive and complete a fresh install. This done, be sure to get fully upgraded and repair permissions. Adobe no longer support flash for PPC so in order to get the best possible performance, you’ll need to follow the link given below to grab version 10.1.

Mozilla no longer support PPC either but the awesome TenFourFox provides an optimised version of Firefox 5 for your iBook. It works like a charm and can be used with much needed add-ons like Adblocker Plus and Click To Flash in order to keep your iBook quickly loading pages.

Here are some links to PowerPC and Tiger friendly software:

• TenFourFox
• Adobe Flash Player (81.7MB)
• Adium 1.3.10
• Skype 2.8
• MSN Messenger 7

Final Thoughts

As a long-time Mac user, I was frankly very pleased by my iBook G4. It boots in acceptable time and wakes up from sleep quickly and I found that using Tiger is no hardship at all, it’s a testament to Apple’s excellent forward-thinking development that the OS is still so usable and stable. Programs take longer to load than I’m used to on my late-2010 MacBook Pro, but once they do load, they are responsive. I’ve actually grown to like the older, more springy keyboard of my iBook very much over the last couple of weeks and look forward to using it more in the future.

I know that to some extent I’m going to be preaching to the choir here and many within Mac.Appstorm’s knowledgeable readership will be well aware of the usefulness of older Mac models. For those who are new to OS X however, the above will hopefully offer an idea of just what you can get out of these old machines, for a fraction of the price that a new Mac commands.

With Mountain Lion just around the corner, most of us will be running a new OS in the next few weeks. Among the deeper changes that Apple baked into their latest version of OS X, there’s a ton of new apps coming along for the ride: Notes, Reminders, Notifications Center, and more. Plus, long-time standbys like Mail are getting updates along with the rest of the system.

The interesting thing is, all of the new apps are ones that originally appeared in iOS, but Apple’s finally bringing them to OS X. Coming along is the skeuomorphism – mainly with stylized leather – that Apple recently seems to love applying to new apps.

Many of us already have ways we keep up with notes and to-dos, and perhaps have already used alternate email and calendar apps, too. This time around, though, do you think you’ll be using the new apps, or trying out the updated ones? Or will you stick with you existing apps, or perhaps even try a new 3rd party app instead? We’d love to know your thoughts in the comments below.

Remember when iCal didn’t look like it had been designed by a fifth grader learning to use KidPix? The only other decision I’ve ever seen Apple make that was so universally panned as the iCal redesign was Ping, but at least you could just turn that off. Whether your aversion towards iCal is due to its tacky design or its cumbersome method of inputting events, you fortunately have no shortage of alternatives when it comes to scheduling your day.

Of course, buried beneath the eye sores is one redeeming quality: iCloud syncing. Many alternative calendars for OS X and iOS still integrate with iCal in order to utilize that syncing power. SmartDay by Left Coast Logic lets you interact with your calendar and to-do lists from the menubar, while adding a few neat features. This isn’t a new concept, so making it an appealing option for Mac users means it needs to introduce some innovative features.

The Basics

SmartDay sits in your menubar, and acts as a quick way to access your calendar and reminders. The app lets you create a new event or search for one that is already created. Different views show you days that you have more events scheduled, helping you decide when you should try to schedule that next meeting. It syncs with your reminders, so anything you enter with your iPhone or iPad shows up.

Layout and Design

SmartDay employs a two column layout that automatically drops down when you click on the menubar icon. The left side has a text input field where you can either search for existing events or create a new one. Next to the field is a tag selection icon, that allows you edit tags or filter what you see.

Below all of this is a calendar, which highlights days that have events scheduled. You can scroll by month only; there is no yearly or weekly view. If you’d like to jump to today’s date, a button allows you to do so. Days that have more events show a darker shade of gray, whereas less busy days are lighter. Apple’s iCal does this as well in year view, though iCal’s design is easier to read because of a better color scheme (yellows and reds).

The remaining area of the left column shows your daily schedule. Events show up as they were entered in your iCal calendar. Viewing and entering new events is as intuitive as in any other scheduling app: Double click on a time and a box pops up allowing you to enter pertinent information. The right column, which can be hidden, shows you your lists and categories. You can choose which categories you want to display.

From a design perspective, SmartDay isn’t the prettiest scheduling app I’ve ever used. The typography choices aren’t the best, and even the alignment on certain parts of the layout aren’t optimized. When you expand the right column, the app takes up an enormous amount of real estate on your screen, thus negating the benefits of a menubar drop-down window.

Scheduling

To use the input box, you begin typing and SmartDay will give you suggestions based on past events and to-do’s. When you’ve finished typing the title, you can choose whether this is an event, a task, or a checklist. Unlike some of SmartDay’s competitors, there is no “smart” event input, which means you can’t just type “Meeting from 7pm to 930pm in main conference room” and have the app set the event name, time, and location automatically based on that sentence.

If you’re entering an event, the information you enter will look very much like creating an event in iCal. Where things diverge slightly with SmartDay is the ability to add tags. In my use, I didn’t find it particularly helpful to use tags, since I’d rather just sort events by category. However, I can certainly imagine other peoples’ workflows being compatible with tags.

Your daily view shows gray areas denoting time outside of your workday. You can pull these areas with your cursor to move the times, or just set defaults directly within the settings.

My task management typically involves using 3rd party apps for managing my tasks, (I prefer Things). With iOS 5 introducing Reminders, I’ve started using the feature for specific things I need to remember to do at a specific time or place, as opposed to a to-do that GTD and other systems involve. Its a subtle difference, but I’ve adapted both systems into my workflow. Nevertheless, I’ve never really bothered using reminders in iCal, and have actually hidden the sidebar altogether. I wasn’t even aware until recently that you could drag a reminder from that sidebar into your calendar to create an event, so as to block off time in your schedule in which to complete the task.

SmartDay allows a similar functionality. This app does expand on the concept, though, by letting you organize tasks using criteria such as “starred” or “due.” SmartDay’s calendar column shifts events’ alignments based on whether an item on the list is a scheduled event or a task.

Syncing

As I mentioned, many people such as myself stick with iCal (soon to be called “Calendar” in Mountain Lion) because of the syncing that it allows with other computers and your iOS device. But what if you’re not really a fan of app to begin with? SmartDay lets you use its own syncing service known as mySmartDay.

The developers also have an iPad version, and though this is not the place for a review of that separate app, I can say that it synced flawlessly in my experience. There is also a webapp that you get access to, and syncing worked fine, (although the design quite the eyesore).

Comparison to Similar Apps

If you’ve ever used Fantasitcal, all of this might look very familiar to you. At its core, SmartDay is essentially the same type of app. Both are menubar-based calendar apps that let you view and manipulate your calendar and tasks.

Fantasitcal is a much cleaner implementation of the idea, with a more attractive design and natural-language event input. Fantastical doesn’t offer its own syncing solution, but in addition to iCal it also works with other calendars such as Outlook, which is undoubtedly an appealing feature for many. Fantastical also integrates with your reminders, but moving them into your calendar with drag-and-drop ease isn’t quite as simple as it is with SmartDay.

If you’re deciding between these two apps, I would consider how you use a calendar and reminders in your workflow. Fantastical offers more keyboard shortcuts, has a more appealing design, and syncs with third party calendars. On the other hand, SmartDay’s full day view makes it easier to move events around, and drag reminders onto a time to schedule them as events. If you frequently reschedule things, SmartDay is worth a look.

At $20 each, we can eliminate a price difference as being a factor in deciding between the two. Are they exactly the same app? Well, they certainly aim to do the same thing. Personally, after using both, I am partial to Fantastical because it just feels sharper. But as I mentioned, SmartDay is actually more powerful when it comes to re-organizing events and scheduling your reminders. If you’re looking for a simpler solution, I can recommend CalendarBar. If you like the idea of integrating this sort of app with your reminders and want the flexibility to move events around, take a look at Alarms.

Positives

My favorite feature here may seem like a minor one, but it is something I wish more menubar-based apps would offer: The choice of where the window launches. Traditionally, windows that pop-down from the menubar appear just below the icon. SmartDay lets you choose that default option, or have it appear on the far left or far right of your screen. I’d love to see more developers doing this.

Being able to move a reminder into your day, just like you can in iCal, is also great. I think with reminders gaining in popularity among Mac users, this is a feature that could potentially get a lot of use. I especially liked the idea of being able to organize tasks into a “Today” vs. “Later” list.

Problems

For an app that is designed to be used frequently throughout your day, your shortcut options are shockingly sparse. If you are going to be opening the window, creating events, and moving things around all day you probably are going to want to speed up the process with your keyboard.

The lack of any other views for the calendar beyond monthly is a strange oversight. I personally like to look at my schedule on in a weekly view, but SmartDay prevents that.

If you are someone who uses iCal’s invitation function, SmartDay may not be a solid replacement for you. Inviting others to a meeting isn’t possible here, but you can still open an event created with SmartDay in iCal and manually edit invitees.

As I mentioned, there are a few poor design choices that hold it back. I’ve covered most of those problems, but one last (and very minor) design issue is the icon itself. Many apps come with a colorful menubar icon but give you the option to use a monochrome version because people like me prefer the menubar to be as free of distractions as possible. SmartDay’s blue icon sticks out like a sore thumb with no option to turn it black.

Conclusion

Overall, this is a productivity solution that should appeal to a wide-variety of users. In some ways, SmartDay feels like a natural implementation of iCal for the menubar. Being able to see events as blocks of time on your daily agenda helps visualize your day. The integration with reminders isn’t anything new, but the ability to move them into your day to make sure you focus your time on them is a bit more unique for this sort of app.

I really have a hard time overlooking an less-than-pleasing design when an app costs 20 bucks. Of course, the integrated syncing that the developer offers may help you justify some of that cost, assuming you have some aversion to just using iCal to sync your calendars. Design flaws aside, this app does perform well; I didn’t run into any bugs, and syncing worked fine. The biggest appeal I see here is the tight integration with reminders, and with Mountain Lion’s imminent release, that feature will likely only become more appealing.

For a while now, members of the Tapbots team have teased an upcoming release of Tweetbot for Mac by using it to Tweet, leaving the footprint of “via Tweetbot for Mac” all over their timelines. While there was a rumor going around Twitter claiming that the full version of the app would be making its debut today, the developer instead decided to release a free public alpha to let everyone be a part of testing a new robot masterpiece.

I spent a few hours using Tweetbot for Mac version 0.6 today and have jotted down all my thoughts on the new client. Is it worth trying out, or should you stick with the official Twitter app? How many bugs does it have? What’s the difference between it and stable alternatives on the Mac? Find out the answers to these questions and more after the break.

Before reading on, please remember that Tweetbot 0.6 is an alpha release, has its share of bugs, and is not intended for daily use. I’m going to give it some constructive criticism despite that, but this is by no means a full review of the app.

Same Old Experience with a New Look

If you’ve ever used the iOS version of Tweetbot you’ll find nothing new in the basic functionality of this app. It’s the usual Twitter experience that you’d expect from Tapbots, except on a Mac. As an alternative to the official Twitter app, it brings read-it-later support and better uploading services like Droplr and Twitter for pictures (the official app still doesn’t have the latter).

If you have a trackpad or Magic Mouse and enjoy using them to control your Mac, you’re going to love this client because it really speeds things up, allowing you to flick around the interface. (Instead of swiping left or right with one finger over a Tweet, use two fingers as if you’re scrolling.) So far, it’s good, but there is a lot of room for improvement. An example would be that you can get stuck in Conversation view and there’s no keyboard shortcut or gesture to get out. It’d be nice to see some additional actions supported in gestures and not just what the iOS apps have. What about a three-finger scroll to change timelines or accounts?

I think it’s a shame to see that Tweetbot didn’t bring anything more to the table than this. They have a chance to give users something completely different with Tweetbot and they’ve just gone and used the same layout as in the official app. It does have more polish on the user interface, which is always welcomed, but there’s nothing major in the app. As for mute filters, it would be nice if I actually had a use for them; I honestly don’t know anyone who does. What’s the point of muting someone when you could just as easily block or unfollow them?

When you go to a profile, whether it be yours or a friend’s, the interface is a bit confined. Instead of being able to scroll down their timeline and see their Tweets using the whole window to your advantage, it stays restricted to the a little area where their Tweets are. I’m not sure whether this is a bug or feature, but I hope they tend to it in the finished app.

My major problem with using Tweetbot instead of Twitter or Osfoora is that it doesn’t support Notification Center or Growl. I really wish they would have included some sort of notifications for daily use. Growl, for instance, would have been perfect for the job and doesn’t take too long to integrate. Without those, using this as my main client seems unrealistic. There’s also no support for iCloud sync yet since the app isn’t in the Mac App Store. Instead, you can use Tweet Marker, which is just as speedy in keeping Tweets, mentions, and more on all your devices in the same state.

User Interface

Like I said a few paragraphs back, there’s not much of a difference between the iOS version of this client and the Mac one in regards to the layout and user interface. You might as well use the iPad one because it’s actually on a touchscreen device and works as it should. When you take an app that’s meant to run on iPad and bring it to Mac without changing it at least a little in the process, it doesn’t seem so realistic to use. It feels a unnatural in areas and I’d like to see some more keyboard actions in the future just to bring have the desktop experience.

Other than that, the user interface has several choppy spots like the action bar when you hover over a Tweet, the preferences window, and font that’s on Tweets in a user’s profile, but that’s expected in any testing version. The designer could have done a lot better at making sure this part of the app was in agreement with the rest of the user interface. Right now, the buttons are too big and need a drop shadow to look like they actually belong in the app. It’d actually be great if font resizing worked as a universal setting, changing the button sizes as well. Just an idea.

I also wish there were some transition animations when navigating between timelines, like what Twitter’s official app has when you use CMD + ] or [. Right now, this portion of the app feels rushed and literally lurches from one tab to another. It makes things look tarnished and, to say the least, hastily made.

It feels like an iOS app on a Mac and not much more than that — yet.

It seems as if Tapbots has taken a superb iPhone app and simply brought it to the Mac, yet they actually had to work harder than you’d expect. Instead of simply porting Tweetbot, the developer had to recode it from the ground up. In this alpha release, most of the app seems to be a boring old port that needs a lot of testing. But hey, that’s why it’s in alpha and not on the Mac App Store.

Issues

As previously stated, Tweetbot 0.6 is an alpha release, so there are bugs and lacking features. I’ve rounded them up for you in a tidy list below.

• The preferences (gears) button in the bottom right corner does nothing.
• Scrolling lurches a lot and sometimes causes the app to crash.
• There really need to be more shortcuts like CMD + D to send someone a direct message when browsing their profile. This makes things much faster than clicking.
• When scrolling down a timeline, you may get annoyed by the little actions bar following along. I know it’s a helpful feature, but it’s really annoying to have it follow you while scrolling down a timeline.
• Oh, and did I mention crashing? Yeah, it happens a lot.
• You can’t modify your profile at all, even though the “Edit” button is there.
• There’s no way to keep things scrolled to the top constantly, which I use all the time because I don’t like to keep scrolling up just to see what new Tweets are in.
• Streaming may occasional stop working.
• CMD + U does nothing. The only way to find users is go to the Search tab, type in their username, and click “Go to User @[username]“.
• Saved drafts cannot be retrieved, so please refrain from using this feature.
• Adding location doesn’t work.
• There’s no CMD + ] or [ shortcuts to change tabs quickly like in Twitter’s app. I found this disappointing, but maybe they’ll add it in a future release.
• A shortcut or gesture to go back to the previous screen when in Conversation view doesn’t exist — you have to click instead. I suggest using the Details view (two finger swipe to the left) instead since you can get back out by swiping to the right with two fingers.
• The preferences window keeps resetting its position to underlap OS X’s status bar.
• There’s no way to open links in the background.
• Timelines may not always let you scroll all the way to the top. (You can see an example of this in the screenshot of @macappstorm’s Twitter account above.)

It’s An Alpha and Not Much More

Tweetbot will not support OS X 10.7 Lion once 10.8 Mountain Lion has released later this month.

Tweetbot isn’t the worst Twitter client that I’ve ever used, but there is really no reason for me to use it over Twitter’s official app. The few things that the app has going for it right now are its beautiful design, extra customization (uploading services, font size, and other display options), and support for Readability, Instapaper, Pocket, and other services that allow you to save content for perusing or viewing at a later time. Save for that, there’s nothing particularly exciting about this release and I had higher expectations.

Lastly, one of the biggest problems with any new Twitter clients from a third party is that the API may soon be shut down. There’s no word from Twitter on exactly what they’re planning, but their message has become even more clear lately: they don’t want users to have a third-party experience. Instead, Twitter wants to control the way you use its service. If the API does disappear soon, this app and other third-party clients out there will have no value at all.

The development team at Hexage has been creating multi platform games for years, and their recent offering, Radiant Defense, demonstrates they’re still at the top of their game. I first discovered Radiant Defense on iOS and thought so much of the gameplay and design, I sought out everything they’d made, and even tried out Radiant Defense on my Mac.

A tower defense puzzler, Radiant Defense has brought a breath of fresh air to the genre. But can Radiant Defense keep everybody, from casual gamers to hardcore players, happy?

Your Basic Tower Defense… In Space!

Radiant Defense is a tower defense game set in outer space, smack in between Earth and the alien horde. Your mission as the player is to prevent the evil alien attackers from getting past Earth’s defenses and reaching the vortex barrier keeping the baddies out. The Commander, a shoot-first kind of guy, and Doc, the scientist on the team, will dole out game wisdom and jokes at the top of every level

The mechanics will be familiar to fans of tower defense games, but even if Radiant Defense is your first outing with games of this kind, it’s pretty easy to figure out how to move around the game. At the beginning of each turn, or “wave,” you’ll load up on turrets and strategically place them around the screen. You’re limited, of course, by how much in game currency you have, and it doesn’t really re-up at the start of a new turn, so it can be helpful to pinch pennies if you want to afford the big stuff later. The Commander and Doc will hand out hints now and then if a particularly bad enemy is around the corner or you’re going to be facing something new, so you can have the right turrets ready.

Be a Defense Cartographer

Radiant Defense’s gameplay is par for the course so far, but it really veers from the norm by allowing the player to edit the map, altering the path the enemies take to the goal. Using construction modules provided by Doc, you can create real choke points or force the aliens to take a much longer trip to the vortex. Between waves, you have the option of moving your construction modules, and this is important, because not every map layout is ideal for every enemy.

A tutorial level will run you through how to work the construction modules and the three default turrets. Clicking on each turret or on the construction module will give you additional information, important if you want to maximize firepower against enemies who are only susceptible to limited attacks. If you’ve never played a tower defense or just want to brush up, you can return to the tutorial as many times as you like, and the module and turret info is always available in the game.

Freemium?

Radiant Defense is a freemium app, which means that while the game is free, there are lots of extras that will make the game more fun, but you’re going to have to pay for those. All of the really good weapons have to be bought in packs through in app purchases, and while I wholeheartedly am in favor of supporting developers with my money as well as my undying affection, having to make that purchase in the middle of a wave, while getting slapped by pink chewed-bubblegum aliens, just pulls me out of the game. By that point, I’d already died a couple of times and lost some progress. And maybe rage quit once or twice, but that’s just between us.

I’d already played Radiant Defense on the iPhone, and it’s essentially exactly the same game on OS X, so it did feel strange to pay for the same game content in both places. When I buy the same app for both my Mac and my iPhone, I expect and usually get some extra value for those two purchases; there’s a reason to own it on both devices, and the app doesn’t have the same utility on a single device. That’s not the case here, and while I’m happy to have Radiant Defense on my Mac and iPhone and happy to pay for it in both places, the freemium model made me feel like I’d ordered two games but there was only one in the box.

Conclusion

Radiant Defense is just a beautiful game to look at. The technicolor, day-glo aliens and cartoonish explosions are a huge draw for this game. It’s not the same, dated tower defense. Radiant Defense looks and feels updated, and it’s a nice addition to one of the older gaming genres. It was really exciting to play this one on a screen larger than my palm and let the graphics fill up my display.

I definitely came to Radiant Defense on OS X because I loved it on iOS, and it gives me the same warm fuzzies on my Mac as it did on my iPhone. While I can’t play it when I just have a few minutes to kill, the OS X version lets me really become absorbed in the game and the story in a way the quick fixes of iPhone gameplay never did. With Radiant Defense in full screen on my display and a full hour or three to waste on cupcake-shaped aliens, it’s a much more encompassing experience.

The graphics, soundtrack, and gameplay really all come together in Radiant Defense to make this a top notch game. It’s a must-play for tower defense enthusiasts, gamers looking for an exciting change of pace, or really anyone who’s looking to kill some time with a solid game.

As always every Wednesday, here are our weekly picks of the best (and free) deals on the App Store for this week.

Happy downloading!

Oh, and one more thing:

Check Back Next Week!

Remember to check back next Wednesday for some more hot (and free) App Store deals and if you can hardly wait until then, feel free to share your thoughts and comments on the apps featured above!

Us Mac users always seem to get some great deals, especially in the form of app bundles, and the iStack Mac Bundle from Cult of Mac is no exception. For $49.99, you can get 9 fantastic Mac applications and the first 5,00o buyers of the bundle get a bonus iOS app development course, worth $497, thrown in absolutely free.

The iStack bundle features the following applications:

• Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac – an easy way to run Windows and other operating systems such as Linux virtually on your Mac without having to restart into Boot Camp (RRP: $80).
• SnagIt for Mac – the ultimate screen capture tool for Mac which allows you to stamp and mark images (with logos, for example), organise them with auto-tagging and storing features and share them to presentations, social media sites and more (RRP: $50)
• iGlasses 3 – total webcam control with fune tuning adjustments, automatic image enhancement and over 50 effects (RRP: $20)
• Elasty – a video toolbox which allows you to customise movies with loads of different features, cropping, rotating and flipping of your movies and scene breaks and special effects (RRP: $50)
• HandsOff – monitors your computer, internet connection and disk drives for any errors (RRP: $50)
• Clarify for Mac – another powerful screen capture tool which can capture multiple images simultaneously and stores them for fast access (RRP: $30)
• PaintSupreme – a fun little image editor with plenty of built-in tools and layer support (RRP: $20)
• Disk Drill Pro – protect and recover any data in case of emergency (RRP: $89)
• TextSoap – save time by quickly cleaning up text and create custom groups for quick access to your text cleaners (RRP: $40)

The iOS app development course includes informative video guides on how to create an iOS application from scratch without any programming and is aimed entirely at beginners with no previous knowledge at all.

The iStack Mac bundle is simply great value for money, especially when you consider that at full price the bundle would retail at $953, and is on sale through till July 27th. You can grab it by heading over here.

Do you remember when you changed a file, saved it absentmindedly and then started to look for it frantically? Yeah, I know, it happens to me more often than I care to admit. I usually create a new file in the same app and go to the save dialogue to see which path is set and where my sought-after file could be.

Of course, there’s Spotlight and the wonderful Alfred to help you out as well, but if you can’t remember a file name, you’re in trouble. Well, there’s a fix for that and it’s called Trickster. Read along to get to know the nifty little utility.

Trickster – Finding Files Magically

I’m sure pulling a rabbit out of a hat is much more difficult than listing recent used files and apps, but why should you have to remember everything? Computers are meant to make our lives easier and Trickster is another step in that direction.

The app lives in your menu bar and keeps track of pretty much everything you do on your Mac.

If you download something from the web, if you open an image, if you create a Keynote presentation…Trickster will know and allow you to access everything more quickly and stop worrying about where you put something.

To the right, you can see Presets and custom filters: at the top you have your “inbox” – all accessed files and apps are in here. If you are not using an application launcher yet, for example, this will make it a lot faster for you to re-open apps that you might have quit just a tad too soon.

If that’s too messy for you, simply pick a category to see only apps, only images, documents, music, movies, folders, downloads or your Dropbox folder.

At the bottom there are more buttons, allowing you to change the appearance (basic row style vs extended style), sorting by time or alphabet or simply searching for something.

Don’t overlook the tiny heart at the upper right of the app window: clicking it will cause a pane to fly out with quick access to the most important folders on your Mac.

Working with Trickster

It not changed in the settings of the app, Trickster will keep all items in his memory for one week. That means, if you started to work on a presentation on monday, saved it somewhere and need to pick it up again on Wednesday, no need to rack your brain for the file name or location. Simply start Trickster, pick the documents category and open the file. That’s the simplest thing to do. There’s more, of course.

If you aren’t sure whether or not you picked the right file, why not use QuickLook? Either pick the option from the wheel visible when you select a file in Trickster or simply hit the Space bar.

If there’s more than one application capable of opening your selected file type, you can select that from the dropdown menu as well.

By the way, if you are into keyboard shortcuts? Don’t worry, Trickster has you covered as well: in the help menu you’ll find a handy list of all the available keyboard strokes that will keep your fingers away from your mouse.

Since Trickster is about making things easier for you, you can perform a lot of actions right from within the app: want to move a file? Simply drag it to a different folder. Want to mail the file you just re-discovered? Simply drag it onto your mail application.

Filters – Raw Power At Your Fingertips

One feature that is easily overlooked but makes Trickster a really, really powerful application are filters. Basically, the default categories to the left of the app window are filters already, but you can also set your own filters.

There are differente criteria do select what will be included: you can go by folders, file name, extensions or file types. Very convenient is the ability to define criteria to exclude certain folders from the search. It will put less strain on Trickster and save you from getting too much information to sort trough.

Once you’ve set up your filter, drag a file that will be affected by it to the test area to ensure that the filter works the way you want it to. In my case, I want a filter to show me all the screen shots I make on my Mac, because those are usually related to the article I’m currently writing. Instead of clearing my desktop from all windows or switching spaces, I can simply access all the files I need from Trickster.

Verdict

Trickster is one of those nifty little utilities that you might smile at at the beginning, but once you start using them, you’ll start to rely on them. I’m a heavy Alfred user and it has often helped me find stuff as well, but more often than not, if I don’t remember where I saved it, I also forgot how I named a file. And if you accidentally moved something and it’s not where it’s supposed to be … well, I guess, you get the idea. Trickster will help you with all of that.

How do you deal with moments of forgetfullness and attacks of “Where the heck did I just put that file?” Are there any other apps that help you or are you simply embarking on a quest through your folders every time that happens?

There are times when we import photos from our cameras or iDevices, and we dump them in a folder in order to leave them there until we have time to rename them all to something that actually makes sense — you know, instead of a bunch of numbers. Perhaps you just downloaded some music from who knows where and you want to rename those tracks, or maybe you just work with a lot of files throughout the day.

Well, if you are looking for something that’ll take care of that for you with ease, you’ve come to the right place. Better Rename 9 is here to help you with those renaming tasks in a variety of ways. Albeit not free, Better Rename is a great tool to have.

The stuff that matters: Batch Renaming

As a renaming application, batch renaming is perhaps the most paramount function that you want to look out for, and in this department, Better Rename 9 gets the job done with ease. Don’t let that confuse you though, Better Rename 9 can get pretty complex if you want get the most out of it. You have a lot of cool and intricate ways to rename your files depending on a bunch of different factors. From tag-based renaming, to multi-step renaming, you’ll be quite pleased with the renaming power of Better Rename 9.

Multi-Step Renaming

One of the first features to note is the ability to rename files with the multi-step panel. This easy to use multilayer feature lets you add renaming actions on top of each other. So, say you want to rename a few files with the replacing action converting “Sample.mp3″ to “Mymp3.mp3″. Once you’ve done that, simply activate the panel and then add another action to it. If we use the convert to caps action, we can then turn “Mymp3.mp3″ into “MYMP3.mp3″, thus eliminating the need to rename your files over and over again in different instances. You can add as many steps as you wish, so it should be quite helpful.

Tag-Based Renaming

So what happens with those files that contain ID3 or other meta-data tags? Well, Better Rename 9 has your back here, too. You don’t have to get messy with complicated code either. See, when you want to rename an MP3 file from “sample.mp3″ to something like “Artist Name – Song Name.mp3″, all you need to do is change the category to MP3/AAC Music and fill in the fields with simple tags like ” – ” which will render “Artist Name – Song Name.mp3″ for you.

The Looks

While the application doesn’t have an amazingly beautiful UI like some of those sexy applications out there, Better Rename 9 doesn’t quite need it. Sure, it could benefit from it, but it is really to-the-point and there is no harm in that. At least it doesn’t look horrible.

The straight forward nature of the application allows you to rename your files with ease. In the left side you have your actions (and if you open the multi-step panel you’ll have it pop-up in the left as well), while in the right side you will see a list of the files you are about to rename along side a preview of the end result. This gives you the ability to tell exactly what the action you are playing around with will do.

The Cool Extras

Better Rename 9 has a few little extras that can make things even quicker and simpler. These little additions help the overall usability of the product since you can use it with a set-it-and-forget-it mentality.

Presets and droplets are supported in Better Rename 9 and they are amazingly easy to use. If you have a renaming method that you know you will use often, simply save it as a preset and then come back to it later. If you don’t even want to bother with opening the app, you can take care of the renaming silently like a ninja by creating a droplet and using it instead. Simply drag files to that droplet and they will be magically renamed. You can also enable Better Rename service in the Finder so you can rename files with a simple right click.

In order to edit droplets simply close the application then double click the droplet to edit its contents. You can also turn on “silent droplets” in the preferences. That way the app won’t ask you if you are sure about the renaming you’re about to do.

The Verdict

Based on the amount of power, ease of use, flexibility, and the fact that is Mountain Lion ready, it is easy to recommend Better Rename 9 as a great tool for those out there who need to rename a lot of files.

With that said however, the $20 price may scare a few potential buyers away, after all it is only a renaming application. You could easy say that you can change 50 files manually, but think about how long that will take — forget how annoying that could be.

Still, Better Rename 9 is a great and powerful application that those who need to rename a bunch of files in a daily or weekly basis will be glad to spend the money on.

Many of us have noticed that our work is increasingly finding itself coming home with us. Plenty of times we transfer our files from one computer to the other, but what happens when we forget some? Will we have to turn around and go back? Or what if you need to use an app that’s not on your home computer?

Using multiple computers in different locations is a reality many of us face today, and the problem has always been accessing the one away from you. What you need is an elegant solution that can connect you, and that is where Remotix comes in.

Today I will be reviewing Remotix, the ultimate VNC and ARD client. Remotix, which is developed by Nulana LTD, is a new kind of refined VNC app for Mac. Nulana was kind enough to send us a copy of Remotix to review, so let’s take a look and see what it offers.

Introduction

To start out using Remotix, you either need a Mac or a Windows based PC running a VNC server. VNC or Virtual Network Computing is a piece of magical software that allows you to see and manipulate a computer over the Internet. However it does require software on both sides to operate; two reputable free options would be TightVNC and UltraVNC. If you are on a Mac, you do not need any additional software, as VNC serving is built into OS X in your Sharing settings.

Remotix is available on many platforms including iOS, Mac, and Android, so you can use it from your smartphone or tablet as well. For your Mac, though, Remotix is $24.99 and can be conveniently downloaded from the Mac App Store.

Features

Remotix includes a few cool features that make it very worthwhile. Quite possibly Remotix’s best feature is its speed, thanks to hardware acceleration. It also supports the security features you’d expect, such as SSH tunneling. One if its nicest features is that it can automatically find Macs and PCs for you to connect with in your local network, one of the many ways it makes using VNC simpler. Alternately, of course, you can enter VNC details manually to connect to a remote computer, which is the more likely scenario if you’re trying to connect, say, to your work computer, instead of just connecting to your Mac Pro from your Macbook Air in the living room.

If you need to enter precise and more advanced details about your connection, then you are in luck! Remotix gives you all the control you will ever need with more advanced setting available in the other tabs. Then, if you use Remotix on other devices, such as your iPad or iPhone, Remotix actually can sync all of your settings via iCloud.  That will be a great timesaver, especially since all changes to your logins will be securly synced in the same way.

Going from your VNC machine to your current machine can be a bit jarring, especially when it comes to copy and paste. Most clients do not offer copy and paste, but Remotix does. It intuitively share your clipboard with your VNC machine, making it much less jarring to work with remote apps Other smaller, but still nice, features includes screenshot capability, multi touch gesture support, zoom support, and international keyboard support.

Performance

As I stated earlier, the biggest and most striking thing about Remotix is how speedy it is. VNC and remote computing can be really slow and laggy most times. With Remotix, the lag seemed to be gone! Perhaps what contributes most to this perceivable speediness is hardware acceleration. Instead of placing the entire taxing burden of VNC on your CPU, Remotix uses hardware acceleration and other techniques to relieve your CPU of that heavy load. Once the CPU is freed, you do not experience your Mac coming to a crawl and everything picks right up.

Another way to control the speed of your VNC experience is color control. Many VNC clients do not give you the option of optimizing your colors for speed improvements, but if you have a slow Internet connection, it absolutely does not make sense to send full color through. Your goal is always to optimize your experience so that you get the greatest benefit from it. When connecting together Macs, you get 5 levels of color control. For Windows based machines, you get 3 levels of color-based controls.

The bottom line is, Remotix is astoundingly fast and gives you great options to further optimize your performance.

Design & Interface

Applications can have all sorts of features but if they have a horrible design, then it is all for nothing. Remotix has the design department under control, with a much slicker interface than most dated interfaces used by VNC apps.

As far as your connections are concerned, you can display them in either list or grid view. Remotix also features a live view window so that you can take a sneak peek into your VNC connection. Remotix was clearly designed by a team who knew how to encourage ease of use within the interface, which is important.

Final Words

After reviewing Remotix, I was blown away. Remotix is cleverly designed with an intuitive and easy interface, and great performance. Out of 10, Remotix receives a 9 from me. I really cannot fault Remotix and was pleasantly surprised when using the app. If there was one thing I would like to see, it would be a price drop. In my opinion, $24.99 is a little steep, although the app has been thoughtfully designed. While Remotix is $24.99 in the Mac App Store, you can try it for 15 days via their website at www.nulana.com

Have you used Remotix? What is your favorite VNC client? Sound off in the comments below, we love to hear from you!

Do you love Mac apps? Are you always on the look-out for the latest and greatest Mac software to work faster and be more productive? Do you have a passion for writing and engaging your audience? If so, you might just be a perfect fit for the Mac.AppStorm writing team.

We’re always on the look out for fantastic new writers across the AppStorm network, but we’re particularly wanting to find a few new contributors to Mac.AppStorm over the next few days. All our writing positions are paid, and we’ll work with you to choose apps to review and suggest article ideas.

To write for Mac.AppStorm having writing experience is vital, and we’ll only look at submissions with good linked examples. If you have both a passion for the written word and a love for all things Mac, then we’d love to hear from you. Register your interest here, and we’ll be in touch!

The Gold Master (GM) version of Apple’s new upcoming version of OS X, Mountain Lion, was released yesterday to registered Apple developers, hinting at an imminent release. This version is often the “final” version of the operating system before being released to the public, unless any bugs are discovered by developers and the OS code is “frozen”, often meaning no further changes are going to be made.

The release of the Mountain Lion GM version puts the operating system on a good schedule and although Apple haven’t stated any precise release date (in their WWDC 2012 keynote from last month they only mentioned “July”), when considered with the previous GM release of Lion it’s looking to be released in the last week of this month. Lion’s GM release was pushed out to registered developers on July 1st, with the final version coming 20 days later so we can hint at a release date somewhere between July 27 – 31st.

The release of the GM version has also prompted Apple to start requesting developers to push out Mountain Lion compatible version of their apps, which was displayed prominently on their developer page. Apple have seeded the GM version of their development software, Xcode 4.4, to help developers achieve this.

Several common Mac apps have already been updated to support Mountain Lion, including Sparrow and Skype and given the imminent release of the new operating system, expect most other common apps to receive updates over the next coming weeks. Apple also seeded OS X 10.7.5 to developers, which presumably readies the user’s Mac for the Mountain Lion upgrade, although there’s nothing in the version’s change log to hint at this.

For a full guide on how to ready your Mac for Mountain Lion, head over to Jacob’s very detailed tutorial on our sister site, MacTuts+, which was launched yesterday. And please feel free to share all your thoughts and excitement about Mountain Lion in the comments section below!

When I need to quickly jot down a thought, remember to do something at work, or create a list of films to go see, I typically use Simplenote. Why, you ask? Because it’s the best service out there for storing plain text notes, and can be accessed from any device that connects to the Internet. The service has also proven to be extremely reliable for me in the past and I’ve never lost any information that I’ve saved onto it, unlike alternatives like 6Wunderkinder’s Wunderkit.

One problem with Simplenote, however, is that there isn’t actually an official app for the Mac, or even Windows for that matter. There are a few third-party clients like Notational Velocity which work well, but have never been quite what I was looking for. Enter Matthias Hochgatterer’s Justnotes. The simple little app does an amazing and beautiful job of making your Simplenote experience on Mac a bit more enjoyable than the traditional web interface.

Setup

Tip: If you don’t want to use Simplenote, you can use Justnotes to write notes on your computer by setting up a folder to sync to instead of an account.

The first time you open Justnotes, you’ll need to enter your Simplenote account information to begin using the app. If you don’t have an account, you can just click the “Register…” button in the Setup tab to be taken to Simplenote’s account creation page. Once you’re all signed in, click “Finish” and you’ll be taken to the “Short introduction” note that’s included with Justnotes. This will help you to get acquainted with the basic functions of your new Simplenote client, so at least skim over it.

Managing Notes

Tip: To create a new note, just click the blue button in the bottom left corner or use the keyboard shortcut CMD + N.

If you’ve already been using Simplenote for a while, then you probably have quite a few strings of text in your account. Justnotes gives you a two different ways of editing a note that you’ve already written: in the main window and in a separate window. If you want to avoid distractions, then opening a note in fullscreen should do the trick. Just double click the note and click the fullscreen button in the top right corner of the window. The only complaint that I have about fullscreen is that it doesn’t actually make use of your entire display, which seems counterproductive in my opinion. The great thing, though, is that Justnotes’ interface looks very similar to Simplenote’s online interface, so its instantly familiar.

Sadly, the app lacks Markdown formatting, so you can’t preview any code that you’ve added to a note. I use this feature a lot and not having it is a bit disappointing, especially for what should be a full client. The web version has it and I’m sure there are other people who use the preview function quite a lot. If not, you may use the “Markdown Formatted” option in the web app and that’s not even in Justnotes. I know it’s not supposed to be a rich text editor, but support for Markdown formatting is something that should be included with any Simplenote client.

When it comes to organizing notes that you have, you can click the orange star on a note to favorite it, archive it to move it to the trash in Simplenote’s web app, or send it as an email. I’m surprised that there’s no option to keep it pinned to the top, which should be what the favorite function does since there’s also no way to access favorites anywhere but Justnotes. In addition, an inconsistency is present in the right-click menu; you can’t export as a PDF, but you can if you click the universal OS X share button in the bottom right corner. It’d be really nice if Justnotes had support to export as plain text or even Markdown – when the functionality comes to the app.

In addition to those little issues, there’s no way to access the history of a note. As you may recall from using the web app, Simplenote has a revisions function that’s just like OS X’s Time Machine, except for your notes. By clicking the clock icon and dragging the slider, you can look at every single thing that’s changed in your note, back to its original state. You can then restore anything you want to with one click. I’d really like to see this in Justnotes because it’s something I use often to correct little mistakes and look up old facts that I no longer needed in my notes.

Shortcuts

One really nice thing about using a native app instead of the web version of Simplenote is that the former has support for keyboard shortcuts, which means that your productivity might be boosted a bit from using it. You can do anything from simple navigation and note composition to restoring and opening notes in a separate window. I happen to use keyboard shortcuts all the time in other apps, so this has proven to be very useful in speeding up my editing process.

Search

Justnotes includes an enhanced search function that’ll look for more than just words. If you tag your notes a lot, then this will aid you in quickly finding the ones that have certain tags – it even has an autocomplete function. In my testing, I’ve not found the feature to be all that useful because I don’t have so many notes that I have to tag them to keep things organized. This doesn’t devalue the feature, though, and I think it can be useful to some people. Lastly, searching seemed to be very stable and always found results swiftly when I tried it out. One very nice thing, if you always found Notational Velocity’s combined Search and New Note box confusing, is that search is just search, and you click the write icon to write a new note.

Issues

I always manage to find issues that an app has, in addition to my little complaints about the basic functionality. Below is a list of the minor bugs within Justnotes..

• The scrolling is a bit jittery at times, even in shorter notes.
• If you create a new note and don’t add any content to it, the app will save it as a blank note in your account.
• The scrollbar in the notes list never disappears.
• The “Favorite” button in a note’s right-click menu should say “Unfavorite” when the note has already been marked as a favorite.

Conclusion

There’s a lot of room for expansion in this app. I actually think that Justnotes could bring some really nice new things to improve the Simplenote experience, but it’s not quite there yet. For instance, you could be using this as a very reliable cloud-based text editor instead of something like Byword or iA Writer. But right now, there’s no printing capability, no markdown support, no character count, no way to publish as a live web page, and a few bugs here and there.

The app could be very powerful, but maybe the developer doesn’t want to make it that way and there’s nothing wrong with keeping it this way and ironing out the little issues here and there. However, I would like to see a price drop because $9.99 is twice what someone should be charging for a minimal Simplenote desktop app. Notational Velocity is free, and it’s kind of hard to recommend Justnotes over that. It’s a good app, but it’s just not worth the price.

Editor’s Note: Unless it is worth the price to you. I happen to like it, and was glad to purchase it at full price, and now use it by default for my notes.

We’re excited to let you know about the latest addition to the Tuts+ family — Mactuts+!

Mactuts+ is focused on teaching you how to use your Mac more effectively, efficiently, and powerfully. You’ll learn about the basics of OS X, how to switch, how to use accessories and time-saving software, work with your Mac in an enterprise setting, and how to save time with advanced productive tips and tricks.

Read on to find out more about how the site will complement Mac.AppStorm, and learn about our $1,000 competition!

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Mactuts+ and Mac.AppStorm

So, we know what your first thought will be… How is Mactuts+ any different to Mac.AppStorm? Good question!

Unlike Mac.AppStorm, which focuses predominantly on reviewing apps, Mactuts+ is focused on teaching you how to use your Mac more effectively, efficiently, and powerfully. We’ll be covering a wide range of different techniques, and offering advice on everything from customising your desktop and using OS X, to automating complex tasks and delving into Terminal. So whether you’re completely new to OS X or you’re a seasoned pro, we’ve got you covered!

We’ll be publishing a combination of in-depth step-by-step written tutorials and screencasts/video lessons. Most weeks we’ll be publishing 4-5 high quality tutorials which delve into greater detail than you’re used to on Mac.AppStorm.

So, in short — Mac.AppStorm is for apps, Mactuts+ is for tutorials on how to make the most of your Mac and become a more proficient OS X user!

Visit Mactuts+ now and take a look at our first few posts!

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Win $1,000 — Submit Your Tips & Tricks!

We’re excited to let you know about our Mactuts+ launch competition, giving you the chance to win $1,000 to put towards a new Mac! You just need to submit a short screencast that showcases your favourite OS X tip, trick, or shortcut.

We’d love to find out more about how you use your Mac productively, and discover the tips and tricks that help to speed up your workflow. These might be related to a particular app, something built into OS X, an automator action, terminal command, or anything else!

Find out how to enter

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Subscribe, Follow & Stay Up To Date

Don’t forget to follow Mactuts+ on Twitter, Facebook, and everywhere else! Here’s how to keep up to date with what’s going on:

• Follow @envatomac on Twitter
• Like Mactuts+ on Facebook
• Find us on Google+
• Subscribe via RSS
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Our First Few Posts…

If you’d like to delve straight into the content, here are a few quick links to our first handful of posts on Mactuts+. We hope you find them useful — it’s a good taster of what’s to come!