Category: Mac

Fresh off the presses, here is MacAppStorm’s weekly news roundup.

Happy reading!

RIP, iWork.com

iWork.com was the next Apple web-based service to take the hit this week, as the company reminded users of the service that it will be shut down come July 31, with all services moving to iCloud.

The message on iWork.com, reminding users that the service shuts down on July 31.

Apple has provided instructions on their website on how to save copies of any existing documents on iWork onto their computer before the deadline arrives, along with an message encouraging users to migrate over to iCloud, which offers cloud-based remote storage of both documents and data.

iWork.com was first launched as a beta in early 2009 with integration with iWork ’09 and has since then complemented MobileMe as Apple’s online storage and integration system, which was given the final chop last week. The new, upcoming version of Mountain Lion, scheduled to be released later this month, will offer tighter iCloud integration along with synchronisation of any documents created in iWork across all devices, including the iPad and iPhone.

If you are a user of iWork.com, then you can find Apple’s official instructions on how to migrate your documents in their support article.

What happened to App Store updates this week?

Apple received a slight bit of controversy this week as it was found that the company was pushing out corrupted updates to Mac and iOS applications via the App Store. The issue was first noted by Instapaper’s developer Marco Arment, who highlighted that the latest version of his app, 4.2.3, crashed immediately on launch and would not load even after deletion and reinstallation.

The App Store page for Instapaper, with a warning to users not to update the app.

The issue mostly was related to iOS apps and only a couple of Mac apps were affected however the problem did attract some criticism, especially as it was discovered that it was an Apple issue, not a developer one. The company released a statement on Tuesday stating that the problem had only affected a “small number of users” and that DRM (digital rights management) was the reason for the faults experienced.

The issue has since then been fixed and Apple has also stated that it will remove any one-star reviews that developers received owing to the issue. Users of any affected apps are strongly advised, if they haven’t done so already, to head over to the App Store and update them all to ensure that they work fully.

Sparrow updated with Mountain Lion and retina-display support

Sparrow received an update back last week to version 1.6.2, which brought along retina-display support for the new MacBook Pro along with full Mountain Lion and Notification Centre support, as well as a few minor bug fixes (including sending and archiving in Quick Reply and Growl notification support with Growl 1.3 and POP-based e-mail accounts). The update is available either for download either via the app itself or through the App Store.

MadAppDeals.com, a new Mac app deals website, goes live

A new Mac app deals website, Mad App Deals has been launched which plans to feature four great Mac apps that will be discounted for a 24-hour period. The website is backed by FIPLAB, a British-based Mac developer that has already given us favourites such as MenuTab for Facebook, and Tab for Google+ and you can sign up to their newsletter on their website which will alert you weekly about the latest deals on the site.

Mad App Deals is a new website offering weekly Mac app deals every Friday.

Developers of Mac apps can also sign onto the promotion scheme by submitting a form on their website with their app for consideration and new deals are pushed out every Friday for some early weekend cheer!

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!

Standing in front of a group of people can be intimidating enough. The last thing you need is to be overdosed on caffeine and suffering from lack of sleep because you had to pretty-up your presentation until the last minute.

Fortunately, there are some awesome templates out there that can make working with Keynote a pleasure, and will help you engage your audience even more. Granted, these templates will cost you a couple of bucks, but I’d dare to say that a meager $15 is more than adequate for a well-designed presentation. You get the looks, you get the animations … and that enabled you to focus completely on your content.

Here’s our fresh list of creative Keynote templates, including designs for every taste, business, and style. All of the following themes are ones creative designers are selling on GraphicRiver, another project from our parent company, Envato, but we think they’re nice enough to be interesting for our readers, too.

1. Interactive Menu

Usually, you need to keep your presentations simple along the lines of less is more. But if you have a lot to show and a complex structure for your content, this is the template to go for. It comes with some interactive elements, such as a slider for the images on the overview-page and menu that slides out if needed, that make the content appear less heavy. Also, the interactivity captures your audience and holds their attention much better than any average text only slides.

Interactive Menu – Keynote Template Full HD

2. E-Commerce Infographic

Got a lot of numbers? Don’t put them into tables. No one ever reads them without falling asleep and the folks at the back of the room will squint at the tiny font. Instead, turn your numbers into interesting graphs. Everyone will be able to grasp the meaning instantly, and you can explain the intricacies verbally instead of forcing your audience to read them line by line.

E-Commerce Infographic Keynote Template

3. Infographic Survey

If your numbers are not about commerce but you’re in the market for statistics, this template is right for you. Interest your customer with the results of surveys or studies – and head off arguments caused by misunderstandings by displaying your data in a compelling visual way. Remember: you audience doesn’t want to read your slides (that’s what leaflets or reports are for), they want to be entertained and enlightened.

Infographic Survey Keynote Template

4. Market Bees

So, your company needs a compelling presentation ASAP? And you’ve got no time to design something yourself? Well, Market Bees has you covered. It’s got all the templates  and styles you need for a company presentation: welcome slides, overviews, service displays and much more. Of course, it may not conform to your CI, but just change the colors and add your own logos. It’s still a lot faster than starting from scratch. And if your task is to create a template for future presentations, this is as good a base to start from as you will get for this price.

Marketbees Keynote Template

5. Karbon

I’ve mentioned it earlier: with presentations, less is often more. You need to talk to your audience, not force them to read. Also, you need to focus on what’s important. If you don’t need fancy graphics or images, Karbon is made for you. It boils your content down to what really matters – and if you do have a photo you want to show, it comes with an awesome full-page template for that as well.

Karbon – Keynote Presentation Template

6. ReWork

Need to be bold? ReWork will bring your message across. It comes in two themes, dark and light, and an interesting contrasting color-scheme. Of course it’s adaptable to your own color scheme, as are all the other templates introduced here. Also, ReWork will look great on both 16:9 and 4:3 screens and, thanks to the included layered PSD files, you can easily change the look and feel without having to start from zero.

Rework Keynote Presentation Template

7. Course

Course relies quite heavily on icons and graphics to present your content. Which is great, because your audience will grasp the meaning of an image much faster than getting your message from reading a text. The template includes different pages for different kinds of content and it stands out through its bright colors, which are still in harmony.

Course Presentation

8. Minimalist

If you want to go as minimalistic as possible, give this theme a try. It’s all about icons and images. It won’t be suited for every type of content nor will it be suited for every presenter: you need to know your stuff and spin a compelling story to help your audience follow you. If you think you can pull it off, Minimalist is the perfect template to support your presentation rather than carry it on its own.

Minimalist Presentation

9. Vintage Photo Album

This is a special theme geared towards photographers. Instead of just slapping your photo onto a blank canvas, why not go for this template? There are different styles to choose from and a lot of templates for multiple photos or single presentations. You can add captions and text. While it will give your slideshow a very professional look, why not also use it for a private photo show? Digg out those old images of your parents and grandparents and surprise them with some vintage feeling. Or show your kids and grandkids stuff they only know from history books.

Vintage Photo Album Keynote Template

10. Retro Slides

Our last template is also a specialty one. As you can see, it’s retro all over. Again, probably not suited for most business uses, but why not use it for restaurants, museum, or historical sites? Those need to show off stuff as well. And who knows, a well-designed presentation like this might go down a lot better with sponsors than your average black and white slides. At this price, you’ve got nothing to loose.

Retro Slides – Keynote Template (Full HD)

Conclusion

So there you have it: 10 high quality themes from GraphicsRiver that can make your Keynote presentations prettier, more professional, and simpler to put together. Do you have a favorite 3rd party Keynote presentation theme you like? We’d love to hear about it in the comments below!

Welcome to the land of multiple monitors. The land where you can sit on your desk and immerse yourself with your work, your gaming, and your media. A land where our inner geek comes out and takes complete control over you while salivating over the amount of real estate those screens possess – not to mention how amazingly cool it looks.

But. This land can get a bit daunting. There is a lot of space to use, as well as applications to manage and keep organized. To facilitate this process, we have put together a list of a few apps (old and new) that will help you manage windows, the menubar, and even use other devices as your external monitors.

AirPlay Mirroring (Mountain Lion)

Lets start this roundup with something that isn’t out yet, but it should be out this month if Apple keeps their word. AirPlay Mirroring is one of Mountain Lion’s features that lets you, well, mirror your screen onto another display hooked up to an Apple TV. Now, yes, this isn’t a dual monitor, but it does provide you with more real estate. Adding more displays can be possible.

Price: $19.99 (Mountain Lion upgrade)

Secondbar

Our second app is a small one, but it can be rather useful as it’ll speed up your workflow. Secondbar, as the cool little picture says, allows your to have a menubar on your second screen. The app comes with a few settings that you can play around with, so give it a try.

Price: Free

Swapp

Need to move all your windows from one monitor to the other really fast? Well, have a look at Swapp. Swapp allows you to do just that with just a few key strokes. This app works with many kinds of monitors, even when using your iOS device as your second monitor.

Price: $4.99

TV Row

TV Row is a small app that simply lets you display Front Row on your external monitor. I personally use this little app, and it works as advertised. Even better, it is free!

Price: Free

DisplayPad

DisplayPad is our first iOS-device-as-a-second-screen app in our roundup as it transforms your iPad into a second screen. There are a few requirements to follow with this app, however. Snow Leopard users are covered, while Lion users with NVIDIA GeForce 9400M are not supported as stated on the app’s website.

Price: Mac app is Free, iPad app is $2.99.

MenuEverywhere

This app is a bit like Secondbar, but it goes beyond what Secondbar does. It does duplicate your menubar on other screens, but it can also attach a menu bar to the app window or even pop-up the menu using a shortcut. Either way, your menubar will be pretty much everywhere.

Price: $14.95

Multimon

Although this app’s name sounds like a Digimon, and it probably is, Multimon is actually a bit like secondbard as well. It adds menubars to other monitors, and it also has a few window management features.

Price: $9.99

Power Mover 2

Power Mover is a handy tool that will also help you move windows from one monitor to the other with ease. This app also animates how windows move, so if you like that kind of thing, give it a try!

Price: $0.99

ScreenRecycler

Have an old iMac or Windows PC collecting dust somewhere in the house? If you are looking for a second monitor for cheap, why not just use that one? ScreenRecycler will help you with the process. You can use many computer monitors, even Windows PCs. Now, if only my old HP’s screen wasn’t completely broken and useless…

Price: $29.00

Display Maid

Need to keep your displays tidy? Manage your workspaces with Display Maid. This app helps you keep windows organized across all your external monitors. This app even saves window positions.

Price: $4.99

Air Display

(mac to mac, mac to android etc)
Air Display is the power house when it comes to using other devices as your second monitor. With this app(s) you can use your Android, PC, iPad, iPhone, or Mac for a second or third monitor. If you have any of these laying around, I reckon you should get it.

Price: Mac app is Free, iOS app is $9.99.

Synergy

Synergy is a nice app that easily lets you share your mouse and keyboard between multiple displays and across operating systems. It is free and open source, so have a look at this one.

Price: Free

Wormhole – Mouse Warping

Ah, yes, this is our first mouse moving app and while it isn’t as awesome as a Stargate, it can help you get your mouse from one screen to the other real fast. So, if you are always misplacing that mouse, this app can help you.

Price: $0.99

PowerDest for Mac

This app, according to the website, “improves the way multiple applications are managed on a multi-monitor set-up”. It goes with the Matrox DualHead2Go Digital.

Price: Free

Multi Monitor Wallpaper

Want to have one awesome image as your wallpaper across all your monitors? Check out Multi Monitor Wallpaper. It does an amazing job at arranging your image to be displayed across many monitors.

Price: $1.99

iDisplay

iDisplay is another app that helps you use your iOS device as a second display. This one is five bucks, so if you are on the look out for a simple and low cost solution, you have this one here.

Price: Mac app is Free, iOS app is $4.99.

Stay

If you always set up the same working environment, perhaps you should check Stay. Stay helps you keep your windows wherever you want them to be at all times. It can store many different arrangements. The only complain that may bug some, is the price.

Price: $14.99

Window Mover

Window Mover is yet another application that lets you move windows across monitors with ease. It also helps you with resizing your windows.

Price: $2.99

EdgeCase

Have you lost your mouse whilst using multiple monitors? I have. Kind of annoying, isn’t it? EdgeCase allows you to enclose your mouse in one display so you don’t misplace that mouse. Hold a hotkey and you’ll be free to move across monitors with ease.

Price: $4.99

Mirror Display

Mirror Display is like one of our previews items. It simply lets you stream your current screen content to another computer. The website says that this can be done with iOS devices and PCs or Macs as well. You can connect up to 10 computers.

Price: $1.99

CatchMouse

CatchMouse is a free alternative to moving your mouse from one screen to the other with a simple shortcut. When you move the mouse, it will always be in he middle of the screen, so you don’t have to worry about finding it.

Price: Free

ArraySync

Want to play content across multiple monitors? Check ArraySync. It will help you use your monitors to view a quicktime video from one source. This is great for trade shows, conferences, offices, or just your living room.

Price: $29.99

Mouse Warp

Mouse Warp is another “wrist saver” application that enables you to move your mouse to other screens with ease. This one relies on active applications. Check the link for all the details!

Price: $0.99

Optimal LayOut

Optimal Layout is normally used to organize your workspace, but if you have multiple monitors hooked up to your main computer, you can use Optimal Layout and take advantage of all its power.

Price: $13.99

Window Magnet

This is another app you wouldn’t think to use with multiple monitors, but it does support that function. Window Magnet enables you to stick windows in certain areas of your screen and the windows will fit in perfectly.

Price: $0.99

Flexiglass

Flexiglass is another great window management app that works great with multiple displays. It even comes with some great multi-touch gestures.

Price: $9.99

DoublePane

If you want window management at a lower price, Double Pane is one way to go. It works much like Windows’ snap feature does but you can also tweak it and make it work for your needs.

Price: $2.99

BetterSnapTool

Another window management tool that works great with multiple monitors is BetterSnap Tool. This one gives you visual help when you’re trying to rearrange your workspace. It is also a buck less than the one above, so shop around and see what suits you best.

Price: $1.99

SizeUp

SizeUp is a quick and easy way to resize your windows with many keyboard shortcuts. It also supports a multiple monitors setup, so you are good to go with this one. If you purchase it and don’t like it, return it within 60 days and get your money back!

Price: $13.00

MenuPop

MenuPop allows you to access the menubar as a context menu. It is quite useful when you are working on another monitor and you need to access the menubar.

Price: $4.99

Windownaut

Yet another awesome app by Binary Bakery. This one allows you to move and resize your windows. This one also works well with multiple monitors, so check it out!

Price: $4.99

Share Yours!

So, there they are. These are just a few apps for your multiple monitor setup that’ll help you with a wide variety of tasks. Granted, some are a bit old while others are new and updated often, but there are many people out there who will find some of these useful.

If you have some multiple monitor apps (or hardware for that matter) that you enjoy, feel free to comment below; the comment section needs your love!

Two weeks ago we started a competition that gave AppStorm readers a chance to win a slick video to show off their app or site. This week we’re giving you all a chance to choose which apps get a Wyzowl promo video!

Click the links and have a look through the choices, then pick your favourite app in each category.

I’ll name the winners in a week!

I’ve followed the evolution of Google Drive right from the start. What started as a bare bones online word processor in the form of Writely turned into the cloud based productivity suite we know as Google Docs, which finally culminated into an all-in-one digital drive and file sync utility. Google Drive was a long time coming, with speculation that Google would make a Dropbox competitor circling the internet for years now.

Google took their own sweet time to actually launch Drive, but when they finally did, it turned out not to be the dumb digital storage box everyone was expecting. So, not only is it possible for you to store and sync any type of file, but you can also edit most of them from any Internet connected device, and have fast access to your online documents from Google Docs and other apps, as well. After the break, let’s learn how to extract the most out of your Google Drive on a Mac.

Getting Started

Surprisingly, the official Google Drive page doesn’t carry the link to download the file. You will have to either sign up for an account or use your existing Google id to access Google Drive on the web. From here, just click on the Download Google Drive link at the lower left corner to get started.

Sign In Screen

After installation, the app finds itself a nice little spot on the menubar at the top. It just sits there idly, so click on it to bring up the sign in screen. For some reason, the keyboard shortcuts for pasting login credentials weren’t working. Thankfully, a right click allowed me to paste login info to the app.

Getting Started

At the end of a two step Getting Started Wizard, there is the Advanced Setup option that allows you to control your file syncing abilities.

Advanced Setup

From this screen, Google Drive lets you pick and choose the folders you want to be synced to your Mac locally. Alternatively, you can sync all the files and folders. You might also want to enable Offline Viewing, but some file formats are still not supported for viewing or editing in the offline mode.

Accessing Files

A colorful notification alert and a spinning motion keep you informed of the sync process. Given the fact that it’s syncing from Google’s servers, the process should happen at the peak download speed of your Internet connection.

File Sync in Progress

Google Drive quietly creates a place for it on the left sidebar of Finder and all the files and folders can be accessed from this location. Files carry the familiar icons from the web app with a tiny mark indicating whether the file is up to date or if sync is underway. I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise that you won’t be able to edit or view most of the file formats from apps installed in your machine.

All documents are just shortcuts to their web versions and clicking on them opens them in a web browser for editing. Sad, but at least you get to sync documents you add to this folder. One interesting thing is Google Drive only lets you sync the Google Drive folder, similar to the way Dropbox only lets you sync the Dropbox folder.

Google Drive in Finder

On the brighter side, images, multimedia files, PDFs, and more can be opened in apps of your choice. Zip archives can be extracted and any changes you make are synced back. Files you create, edit or delete either in the web app or elsewhere are instantly synced back without any noticeable lag.

The menubar icon lets you keep an eye on the file storage limits and also has a link to purchase more if necessary. By far, Google Drive has the most affordable prices for adding more room to your cloud storage space, with 25Gb of storage coming in at only $2.49/month.

Final Thoughts

It is an open secret that I’m a big fan of Google Docs and now, Google Drive. It’s awesome and for a free service, there are so many things going in favor of it. But, I understand that not many people are not as thrilled about Google Drive. One major reason is that it largely doesn’t work like Dropbox. Then, of course, that’s not what it’s meant to be (though it does most of the things Dropbox is good at).

I admire Dropbox and I use it in all my devices, but Google Drive is a totally different ball game. Yes, there are so many things you couldn’t do with the app – like editing online documents locally – but, this is just the first version and there is a very good chance Google will make this feature available. With much cheaper storage and deep web app integration, it’s easily enough for you to leave Dropbox behind if you can get by without simple public file sharing and integration with mobile apps. If you could get past that Dropbox fixation, it wouldn’t take long for you to see how useful the app really is and the cloud power it brings to your workflow!

Firstly, I must start this review with a confession: Even as an experienced IT professional, and despite the advice I frequently give out to friends and relatives, I don’t back up my data anywhere near as much as I should do. I have an Apple Time Capsule at home, but that has ended up being used more as a central data store for my home than anything and, whilst I know it is important for me to back up regularly, I just don’t seem to get around to it all that often.

Then, the inevitable happens, and a disk fails to boot or mount one day, sometimes even without warning. In these cases, sometimes Apple’s own Disk Utility can help, but more often than not if the problem is serious, it just won’t cut it. Disk Utility is great, but when there are major problems on a drive, it generally spits out some cryptic error message and does nothing to help you fix the problem.

I experienced exactly this problem with a media drive connected to one of my Macs at home some time ago, and so it was with great interest that I discovered Alsoft’s DiskWarrior. The drive had been misbehaving for some time, occasionally losing files that had been added the day before, but now the drive wouldn’t mount at all, and I was worried. There were some irreplacable photos and videos stored on this drive, and I wanted to try and recover them the best I could.

DiskWarrior to the rescue

I had done my reading, and tried all the usual tricks with Disk Utility, but that was getting me nowhere. Still, OS X refused to mount my drive. This is when I discovered Disk Warrior. There are a number of utilities to run diagnostics on the health of a volume and to scan files or folders for potential issues, but by far the most important one is that it allows you to rebuild the partition table of a damaged drive or volume. This kind of damage often occurs through “bad sectors” developing on your drive, which generally means its on its way out anyway, but the ability to recover from such failures can be invaluable. I once managed to make a very unhappy external drive limp along for about a month purely thorugh the use of Disk Warrior.

Disk Warrior's UI isn't the most attractive in the world, but it is functional

At $99, Disk Warrior is not a small investment for a utility you will (hopefully) use only very occasionally, but on the other hand, $99 is a good deal cheaper than most data recovery firms will charge to take a look at your borked hard drive. Obviously none of this is a substitute for regular backups, but it is nice to know that all need-not be lost if the worst does happen.

Once you have loaded up Disk Warrior, you will be presented with a very simple screen that asks you to select which drive you want to repair. The list will show you all your working volumes, and any broken ones that are attached (but probably not mounted). Click “Rebuild” and Disk Warrior goes and does its stuff. Before too long, it will come back with a list confirmation and a report for you. This report details files recovered, as well as files that were recovered but could not be placed in their original folders. This is useful for figuring out why your files are not where you expected them to be, and for reference if you decide to copy them back to their original locations. Once your done with that, Disk Warrior will write the new partition table to the volume and you should be back up and running – it will even automatically re-mount the volume for you.

Disk Warrior can also "graph" a drive, showing where files are out-of-order, much like a defragmenter would

The competition

Disk Warrior’s main is Cleverfiles’ Disk Drill. The Pro version of Disk Drill costs slightly less than Disk Warrior, and arguably has more features, allowing the user to recover files deleted or lost through repartitioning (and it certainly has a nicer user interface). However, Disk Drill does not seem to allow for the repair of a damaged partition table. It will recover files from a damaged partition by doing a raw scan, but Disk Warrior has the advantage here in that it will actually put the drive back in to action, at least temporarily, to allow you to transfer files to another drive. Any files it locates but cannot figure out where they belong, it puts into a “lost and found” folder in the root of the volume. Both do, however, feature bootable DVDs that will allow repair or recovery operations to be performed on the primary boot volume of your Mac (should you ever, God forbid, be in a situation to need to).

Disk Drill is a prettier alternative

It is worth noting that there are other utilities around which may be able to help in these circumstances. TestDisk, by CGSecurity, for example, claims to be able to recover lost partitions and make non-booting drives bootable again. Its also free. On the other hand, most recommendations I have seen point right to Disk Warrior, and not having a failing drive available to test it on, I can’t give a direct comparison. It’s certainly looks worth a look, though.

In conclusion

I should probably round off this review with another confession, which may be entirely warrantless by this point: I am an unabashed fan of DiskWarrior. The fact that it saved a large amount of irreplacable data for me made it a “must own” app in my mind. The fact that it can now create a boot disc with which it is possible to repair your Mac’s boot partition just makes this an even more essential piece of software in my mind.

There are some Mac users who have a habbit of saying things like “Mac’s don’t fail – They are so reliable”. Whilst this can often be the case, allow me to assure you from past experience, it is not always the case. Hard drives degrade and fail over time, regardless of the platform you choose to conduct your every-day computing on, and those in our beloved Apple machines are no different. For these eventualities, Disk Warrior is one of those utilities that you should always have installed on your Mac, even if you barely ever look at it. Lets also be honest here, Disk Warrior doesn’t come cheap. At $99.95 it is one of the most expensive utilities you will ever see for your Mac, but the safety it provides can’t have a monetary value placed upon it. Yes, Disk Warrior’s UI could do with sprucing up a little (To the best of my knowledge it hasn’t really been updated, well, ever), but on the other hand, when you’re desperately trying to recover a volume, is the apps UI really at the forefront of your mind?

So, to conclude, Disk Warrior is a rather expensive utility that you will hopefully not have a great deal of need to run, and its UI is looking rather dated now. To read that as a standalone statement would lead you to believe that I’m not a fan of Alsoft’s work here, but in truth I will probably never use another Mac where I don’t have access to this essential little piece of software. TestDisk also looks worthy of further investigation, but as I said earlier in this review, I would need to be able to run a direct comparison before recommending it. What I do know is that Disk Warrior has saved my skin (and, perhaps more importantly, my files) more than once, and so Alsoft has my heartfelt thanks for this.

Do you have experience using Disk Warrior? Do you use another data/disk recovery solution? Let us know in the comments!

Today’s review is a little bit technical, as it is specifically aimed for web programmers and designers, or anyone that would like to learn more about CSS. More specifically, we’ll be looking at the newer version of it, CSS3, which comes with a few new goodies like the ability to implement gradients, shadows, border shapes, and other new features in your styles.

These new features, however, are not as easy to code out manually, and making it compatible across multiple browsers is even harder. Today we are reviewing an app that can help web developers to implement these features without getting into too much trouble, as it can help you create new styles and generate the code to implement them. It’s called CSS3 Toolkit, and let’s check it out!

CSS3

CSS or “Cascading Style Sheets” is a language used to give format and styling to otherwise plain markup text pages. It has been widely in use for over 15 years and has seen several releases, the latest of which is CSS3. Among the many new features that it brought to the language, we can find a few styling features used to create gradients, border radiuses and shadows to your objects. All of these are features that CSS3 Toolkit can help you easily implement.

CSS3 Toolkit

CSS3 Toolkit

CSS3 Toolkit might not be a super complex app like, for example, Hype is. It might not help you visually code a whole site out, but if you are a wep programmer or designer and you would like some visual help for testing and implementing a few of the new features that CSS3 provides over its older version, then this app will be of great help and a huge timesaver to you.

It provides you with a few modifiers for setting up the right visual styles with new CSS3 features like gradients, border radius, box shadows and inner shadows. These styles are shown to you in a WebKit-based preview window that the app has, and then when you are happy with what you’ve been shown you can copy the CSS code output wherever you want to use it. Let’s get deeper into its features.

Features

CSS3 Toolkit consists of a preview window, a code output window, and a toolbar where you can find all of the new CSS3 features that the app can help you implement. You can easily select and deselect any of these features, as well as modify them to create the visual styles that you need. The features that you’ll find in the toolbar are:

Canvas

Canvas

The first thing you might want to adjust when using CSS3 Toolkit is perhaps the canvas style, which is reflected on the preview that you can see on the app. You have a few options to modify it, such as the width and height, opacity, border width, and the color of the elements (such as the canvas and borders).

Although most of these are pretty basic and you could most likely modify them quite easily in your final code, it’s nice to have the ability to switch them around to get a more realistic preview of your final output. Where things get a little bit harder is with the actual CSS3 features…

Border Radius

Border Radius

The “border radius” feature can help you shape the corners and edges of your objects. In CSS3 Toolkit, you can shape all of the corners together, or you can shape each corner individually to create uneven formed objects.

Gradients

Gradient

CSS3 Toolkit can also help you create liner gradients with up to 5 “color steps”, and you can even select the angle at which the gradient is formed. Unfortunately, you can’t really make radial gradients as of now with CSS3 Toolkit.

Box Shadow and Inner Shadow

Shadows

Another available feature is the box shadow, which allows you to create a shadow behind your object, and set the “distance” (or edge offset), opacity, color, blur of the shadow, and the angle at which it is reflected from the object. The Inner Shadow is pretty similar to the box shadow, except it goes into your object instead of outside.

Typography

Type

With CSS3 Toolkit you can also add text inside your objects and style them with CSS3 features, like shadows (including the edge offset, blur, angle, color and opacity), as well as the usual font settings like size, family and other usual type settings.

Code Output

Code

Once you’re done creating your styles, you can easily show the output code by clicking the “Show CSS” button on the bottom right corner. This will show a new window on the side with the CSS code for the class that you’ve created, ready for it to be copied and modified to adapt to your website.

What makes CSS3 Toolkit extra helpful is the fact that its output code already has the appropriate prefixes for each of the different browsers to ensure maximum compatibility, such as the appropriate Webkit (for Safari and Chrome) prefixes and the Mozilla ones (for Firefox).

Conclusion

CSS3 Toolkit might not be a huge app that could help you code a whole site from zero. All it can do is provide some much needed help for using a few of CSS3′s new features that might be a little bit too tough to implement manually. Instead of having to find a reference to find out how to properly implement a gradient or a shadow, with this app you can create them hassle-free and with a responsive preview of the final results.

You should also keep in mind when implementing these new CSS3 features that some of them are not yet fully compatible with most browsers (for example, most versions of Internet Explorer), and probably will not be for a long time. If you are coding for newer, updated browsers (like recent versions of Chrome, Safari and Firefox) these features should work fine, but you should keep in mind that they are still in experimental stages.

What are your thoughts on CSS3 Toolkit?

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 December 20th, 2011.

If you’re a fan of CSS preprocessors, then you know that despite their usefulness, they can be a bit of a pain to work with at times. Most of them require some sort of Terminal voodoo to compile, which immediately scares off a good portion of potential users.

As always, the Mac development community has come to the rescue with some amazing tools that completely take the effort out of the process. Follow along as we take a look at five great apps that will help you work with LESS, Sass, Stylus and even some non-CSS languages like CoffeeScript and HAML.

What Is a CSS Preprocessor?

A CSS preprocessor is a tool that makes writing CSS easier, more flexible and arguably even more fun. Some purists despise preprocessors and wouldn’t dream of using them, but others, such as the folks at Twitter, have used them as the cornerstone for massive frameworks that rapidly speed up web development.

Typically, a CSS preprocessor adds some interesting functionality to CSS such as variables, mixins, functions, nesting, etc. Some even seek to dramatically redefine the CSS syntax so it’s quicker and easier to write. Developers differ on which preprocessor is the best, but ultimately the output is plain old CSS so which you want to use comes down to a matter of preference. Here are the three current forerunners in this area:

• LESS – The dynamic stylesheet language
• Sass – Syntactically Awesome Stylesheets
• Stylus – Expressive, dynamic, robust CSS

As I mentioned in the introduction, there are several Mac apps that make working with CSS preprocessors much easier and more enjoyable. Let’s take a look.

Five Apps to Process Your Files

LESS.app

LESS.app is a little older and narrower than some of the other options on the market today but it still works perfectly for all your LESS projects. LESS used to require a ruby implementation but these days it uses a .js file to automatically compile your code in the browser.

However, for live sites, you’ll still want to use the resulting CSS in its pure form. This requires you to view the source in the browser and copy/paste the code, which is definitely not ideal. With LESS.app, all of your .less files are automatically compiled and output to a .css file. LESS watches your project folder so as you make changes, everything is kept perfectly in sync.

Do note, though, that while LESS.app is still supported for new versions of LESS.js through 2015, the app itself won’t be getting new features as the developer is focusing his work on CodeKit now.

Price: Free
Supported Languages: LESS

LESS.app

Crunch!

While most of the apps on this list are aimed at simply compiling files, the Crunch! AIR app goes one step further and is actually a full blown text editor specifically created for LESS. With it, you can write in LESS with full syntax highlighting, organize your code libraries and of course, automatically compile your .less files to .css files.

The app’s UI is unique and attractive and despite the fact that I’m not typically a fan of AIR apps, I really enjoy using Crunch! to write LESS. Even if you don’t like LESS, it’s a decent free CSS editor!

Price: Free
Supported Languages: LESS

Crunch!

LiveReload

LiveReload is a really useful utility that just about every web developer should have, whether you’re working with alternate CSS syntaxes or not. It sits in your menu bar and watches a folder for changes in the files. If a file is updated, it automatically refreshes your browser so you get an up to date look at your page without hitting Command+R every ten seconds.

The beauty is that it goes beyond refreshing the browser and actually processes any code that needs it. For instance, CoffeeScript files are output to JavaScript and Sass files are output to CSS. No word yet on how much it will cost when it finally releases but for now you can enjoy the beta completely free.

Price: $9.99 in the App Store
Supported Languages: CoffeeScript, SASS/SCSS, LESS, Stylus, HAML and Jade

LiveReload

Codekit

The developers of the LESS.app above have moved on to a new project, it’s very similar in nature with a lot more “wow” thrown in. Codekit not only watches and compiles your LESS files, it also handles your Sass, Stylus and CoffeeScript files. Like LiveReload, it automatically reloads your browser when any files are updated.

It doesn’t stop there though, it goes one step further and allows you to set up frameworks that you can easily reuse in new projects without copying your code. And that’s still not all! As one final trick it can even optimize all the images in your project so that everything stays nice and speedy. Impressive no?

Price: $25
Supported Languages: CoffeeScript, SASS/SCSS, LESS, and Stylus

Codekit

Compass.app

Compass is an open-source CSS Authoring Framework that is built on Sass. It contains a ton of useful tools such as pre-built CSS3 mixins and it’s easy to extend to suit your own needs.

The Compass.app is a Sass compiler specially built for use with the Compass framework. It compiles your code, reloads your browser and works perfectly with all your favorite Compass extensions. And if you’d like an advanced HTML prototyping tool, you can try out their Fire app, which for $14 lets you use Compass’ Sass features to prototype HTML sites.

Price: $10
Supported Languages: Sass

Compass.app

Commenter Additions

Our commenters have pointed out a few great apps that should be added to this list. Here they are:

• SimpLESS – A free and simple LESS compiler.
• Scout – An open source, free compiler for Compass and Sass.

Conclusion

No matter which CSS preprocessor you favor, the tools above will help you compile your code and perform various other functions with almost zero work on your part. Considering that most of them are completely free, you might as well give these apps a shot and see what you think!

Have you used these or any other similar apps? Leave a comment and let us know!

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

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

Best of Android.AppStorm

Best of iPad.AppStorm

Best of Windows.AppStorm

Best of iPhone.AppStorm

Best of Web.AppStorm

Best of Mac.AppStorm

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!

If you’re looking for a better way to backup your DVDs and burn media to disks from your Mac, you’ll be excited about today’s giveaway. We’ve got two copies of Roxio Toast 11 Titanium to giveaway to our readers from our friends at StackSocial. They’re featuring a 50% discount on Roxio Toast 11 already, so it’s only $50 this week from StackSocial, or you can enter here to win a copy totally for free.

Roxio Toast 11 Titanium lets you backup your CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray disks, or create new ones from your own media or media you’ve ripped with Roxio Toast. It can also convert a wide variety of video formats to play on any of your devices. You can check out all of Roxio Toast 11′s features in the video below:

Tweet to Enter

If you’d love to win one of 2 free copies of Roxio Toast 11 Titanium, it’s easy to get your entry submitted. All you have to do is click the link below and send out the resulting tweet (or just copy and paste), then leave a comment below with a link to your tweet. That’s it!

We’ll announce the winners on Monday, July 9th. Good luck to everyone who enters!

Envato staff or people who have written more than two articles or tutorials for AppStorm are ineligible to enter.

The first Mac I ever used was a Bondi blue iMac G3 at a friend’s house sometime in ’99, though I don’t remember much about the experience other than admiring the translucent case. Months later, though, I began using an Apple product on a daily basis: a Newton MessagePad 100, given to me by an uncle after the company he worked for decommissioned them.

It ate AAA batteries and weighed a ton, but it was a rather cool device to play with even without internet or new apps. I wrote a journal (turning off the writing detection) and used it for keeping a calendar, and messed around with every menu and dialog in the system, discovering a hidden temperature indicator in the process. Sadly, it got stolen from our house several years ago, so I don’t have it around.

The best part of having a Newton was discovering little Newton things years later in Apple’s later projects. The trash animation in the Notes app on iOS looks just like the trash animation when throwing away a note on the Newton. Plus, the smoke puff when removing an icon from your OS X dock looks just like the delete animation on the Newton when you drew a w type squiggle over anything on a note.

Did you ever get to use a Newton? Have you found yourself looking for Newton features in other Apple products? Or do you wish you could have tried one out? We’d love to hear any Newton stories you have in the comments below!

It’s been an exciting month at Mac.AppStorm, with a new editor, a ton of exciting giveaways, and more great articles from our team. We’d like to say a special Thank you! to our weekly sponsors from the past month, for sponsoring our site and for the great apps they make. If you would like to feature your app on our site with an advertisement, be sure to check out our available slots on BuySellAds or register for a weekly sponsorship for your app.

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

Magican

A Swiss army knife of Mac utilities, Magician is a great way to monitor and clean up your Mac. It’s a free app that boasts advanced features that you’d expect from a paid cleanup app, like clearing up space from old files and caches and monitoring your Mac’s temperature and fan speed. It’s a great app you should try out if you’d like to take better control of your Mac.

Onde Audio Recorder For Mac

It’s simple enough to record audio from your Mac’s microphone using QuickTime, but what about recording audio from other apps? Recording say, a Skype call for a podcast can be tricky without the right tools, and even then, it usually takes a ton of tweaking to get everything right. That’s where Onde Audio Recorder comes in. It lets you just select the apps you want to record audio from, as well as any mics or audio inputs, and then saves the recording the way you want.

TaskBurn

Completing your todos can get a bit boring, so why not add some flame to your tasks? That’s right: TaskBurn lets you literally burn your todos off your list, so they won’t be filling up your plans for the day any more. It’s a serious task manager with iCloud sync, task groups, and more, with the extra addition of a fun animated design to keep your productivity sizzling.

employment:app

HR tools and other business apps are often outdated and boring, looking like they were designed a decade ago, and are often only made for PCs. employment:app is a refreshing change, with a modern Mac UI, iCloud support, and advanced reporting and export options, in addition to the tools you’d expect to manage your employees and their documents.

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

Today is not only the 4th of July, but also a great day to pick up some App Store bargains! Let’s see what’s on offer.

Moka

Moka is a great, minimal way to read and share RSS streams on your Mac. The app links with your Google Reader account and has functions for sharing stories and posts directly, syncing every 5 to 30 minutes depending on what you choose. Moka also has additional functions that help you filter your feeds so you only see news that is entirely relevant to you and its minimal, fresh design makes it a pleasure to use.

Price: € 3.99 – free
Developer: Coco Beans
App Store link: Moka

Monotomy

Monotomy is a feed reader that sticks to its principles and doesn’t overload you with complicated features and overpowering user interfaces. YOu can subscribe to RSS and Atom feeds directly from the application, and once a new article arrives, Monotomy will discreetly alert you using Growl. There’s no Google Reader support and no customisation but, as I said above, Monotomy sticks to its roots of being a simple RSS reader. It’s both minimal and extremely functional at the same time, something which some apps find quite hard to achieve.

Price: € 1.59 – free
Developer: Tim Schroeder
App Store link: Monotomy

Aydox

We all love a free Mac game every now and again and Aydox is a great way to waste away a couple of hours yet still get something beneficial out of it. It combines strategy, anticipation and interactivity in one sweet package and the aim of the game is to challenge and improve the way you work with numbers. It’s suitable for all ages (including children) and you’ll soon pick up the concept of the game once you’ve been playing it for a short while!

Price: € 2.99 – free
Developer: Aydox
App Store link: Aydox

And, because it’s the 4th of July, there are three special deals for Mac running only for today!

Call of Duty 4 – Modern Warfare

I’m guessing that Call of Duty really doesn’t need any introduction so I won’t bore you with the basics of the game! This version is more community-orientated and features a robust leveling system, a variety of unlockable goodies and over 100 challenges to keep you busy. Before downloading, check that your Mac is capable of running the game (the specifications are listed in the App Store) and be aware that the download is a beast: 7 GB in total!

Price: $39.99 – $19.99
Developer: Aspyr Media Inc
App Store link: Call of Duty 4 – Modern Warfare

djay

djay is a great DJ software package for your Mac that integrates with your iTunes library and allows you to either mix on the go or automix using your chosen songs from your library. There are plenty of built-in features to help you achieve the perfect mix, including Harmonic Match (key detection and matching), BPM sync for perfect tempo matching and plenty of effects, such as Flanger, Phaser and Echo. It is priced very reasonably for a DJ software (some can cost upwards of $200) and although it’s not the most professional offering out there, if you’re simply looking to play at a block party, then it’ll get the job done.

Price: $19.99 – $9.99
Developer: algoriddim GmbH
App Store link: djay

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!

And we’d like to wish a Happy 4th of July to all our American readers!

Pinterest is a great tool, used for many different purposes. Whether you use Pinterest for image curation, education, saving recipes, planning weddings or any of the hundreds of uses, sometimes using the web application just isn’t really ideal. For those of you that prefer a desktop application or simply a supplement to the web application, PinBar Pro is definitely a tool worth checking out.

PinBar Pro is a menubar app for Pinterest, offering you the ability to view your feed, re-pin/comment/like pins, add new pins, and more. The application also has pop-up notifications, a rarity in the world of Pinterest applications. You can utilize the application directly in the menubar or you can choose to try out the desktop mode, which offers a larger screen and further options for utilizing Pinterest. Read on to learn more about PinBar Pro and whether you should try it out.

Basic Pinning Features

The basic menubar app offers a number of features that are essential to any Pinterest user. First, when you log in, you are presented with the basic feed of all users that you follow. It is easy and convenient to peruse Pinterest in this way, and PinBar Pro provides a great looking interface to give you the best
Pinterest experience possible.

Menubar viewer – checking out my feed.

While viewing your feed or any other part of Pinterest, you are also able to use all of your favorite Pinterest features. It is a piece of cake to comment on, like, and repin images from your feed.

Easily comment, like and repin from the menubar viewer.

From within the menubar app there are a number of ways to browse. The default viewing mode is your feed, but you can also easily view your profile and boards. You can choose to browse by category or simply search and view those images. However, you cannot edit anything from the menubar app, so you won’t be able to tweak your boards or change something on your profile.

Different search and view options.

Another important, basic feature to note is the ability to switch between viewing modes. The application, by default, appears in the menu-bar mode. This is definitely my mode of choice whenever possible – it provides a streamlined view with all of the basics and not much else. You can easily switch to the desktop mode at any time, which provides the full feature set of the website. This is where you can take advantage of the more advanced features that Pinterest has to offer that are not yet present in the menubar view.

The desktop viewer mirrors the web application.

Lastly, uploading images to pin is a necessary function of Pinterest. This functionality is available only from the desktop viewer, which means that the only way to upload an image to pin is via the Pinterest site. This is definitely a lacking feature.

Uploading an image via the desktop viewer.

Unique Features

PinBar Pro definitely takes the time to include accessibility to all basic Pinterest functions, so I was intrigued to see what new and unique features they would add to the application. I was definitely pleased with some of the offerings found within the app. First to discuss is the inclusion of pop-up notifications. The app page in the Mac App Store claims that they are the only Pinterest application with pop-up notifications, and this is true at least for the applications I’ve tried up to this point. Having pop-up notifications is nice at times, although I do wish there was an option to turn off the notifications without having to quit the application completely.

The only settings/options available for the application – definitely a bit lacking.

Another great feature found in the menubar application is the “zoom” capability. With this feature, you can easily click the magnifying glass when looking at any image to switch to a full-screen view of the image. Full-screen, of course, refers to the size of the menubar app screen at that time (which is easily resized at any time with a simple click and drag).

Lastly, what is probably my favorite feature is actually found within the desktop view rather than the menubar view. The “sweep” feature entails you clicking the little broom icon in order to remove all distractions. You are presented with just a page full of images, with all text and icons removed until you hover over the image. This is definitely my favorite way to browse Pinterest, so it makes sense that this is my favorite feature.

Distraction free browsing – definitely best when you use the app in full screen mode.

My Thoughts

All in all, I think that the application is pretty well done. I love the viewing modes, whether I’m viewing my feed in the menubar application or using the excellent distraction free viewing mode in the desktop viewer. It’s convenient, and I like that I’m able to use the application to focus solely on curating my Pinterest account.

While the application definitely has a lot of great things going for it, there are a few things about it that make me scratch my head. First, I wish that the viewing options were all as sleek and smooth within the menubar application as the page where you simply view your feed. It appears that the app designers did a fantastic, well-thought out job on that first page, but then neglected some of the other viewing modes. Viewing your profile, for example, is pretty rough and the options are extremely limited.

I wish that there were more options to configure the application. I’d love to have the ability to turn off the pop-up notifications, or to set them to only appear during certain times. I wish that the application always opened on the menubar viewer, even if you used the desktop viewer last, or for that to at least be an option. Lastly, I think that because the application is made for the computer rather than the web, that there should be a better way to upload your own images to pin. Right now, the only way to do so is through the Pinterest site in the desktop viewer. I think that’s definitely a feature to include within the menubar viewer.

All in all, however, I think it’s a pretty decent app. It’s inexpensive, well-designed and easy to use. Criticisms aside, I’m definitely keeping this app installed, although I don’t know if I will launch at log-in until a few more features are added.

As always, I want to know what you think. Have you tried the application? Did you love it or hate it? What’s your favorite Pinterest app for the Mac? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

In the past few months, I’ve enjoyed using the popular music streaming service Rdio to listen to my favorite tunes on my Mac, in the car with my iPhone, and in coffee shops with my iPad. As I never wished to create a Facebook account just so I could use Spotify, Rdio seemed to be a great solution and it also included a much more decent user interface throughout all the apps – the designers worked hard to make sure the experience didn’t fall short in this area.

Last week, however, someone seems to have stumbled in a hole, for the service announced on it’s blog that they were refining the look of their web and Mac apps to be lighter, apparently both on the eyes and bandwidth. Sadly, it’s far from pleasing to my eyes. In fact, I’ve found it to be worse than Spotify. Please allow me to explain…

Contrast

Now, while this element could be one of little importance to some, I think that it has a significant amount of influence on an app’s overall appeal. In the new Rdio, everything from the sign in screen and main interface to the close, minimize, and zoom buttons is completely lacking in contrast. I really can’t believe that there’s not any sort of dark gradient whatsoever. The majority of this new user interface is a horrible #fffff with a tad #89949B and #2998D8 here and there, but surely not enough.

Not even the OS X buttons at the top are without lightness.

The navigation buttons in the top left corner looks very strange with barely any shadow to distinguish them from the white in the background. I’d say that the only prominent contrast that can be seen in light Rdio is within the search function (above). Other than that, it’s blinding. Even their main website has a terrible choice of colors with even lower contrast yet.

Gone Metro?

There are some who think that the designers at Rdio are attempting to implement a certain iteration of the new Windows 8 Metro guidelines within their Mac, web, and Windows apps. This makes sense, but I really wish they wouldn’t have been so bright in the final release, lacking all color but one shade of blue. I mean, even Metro has a good variation of colors and looks very nice in some areas – I’m not saying all because it really doesn’t everywhere.

I think the only thing about this new “design” that even looks like it could live up to what the word truly means is the icon. It’s still unique, looks nice, and actually makes me want to keep using the service. It even has a little bit of a 3D look, suggesting that not all non-Metro appeal has been stripped from the app.

Bad Decisions

What happened to this beautiful interface?

One of the main reasons that I used Rdio to listen to music was not the core functionality – it was the user interface. Before last week’s near-monochrome atrocity, I could tell people that every app they’ve ever made had a good deal of eye candy. But now it’s not even on the level of another competitor; it’s below them all completely in design. I wish I could say it had more going for it than that, but the new “lighter” Rdio is just a failure in all proportions.

This new design looks terrible on Macs and even on Windows computers. I just don’t understand how the designer got a sudden urge to change everything about the app into a bland excuse for design. Until something about it changes, I’m staying away from Rdio and trying out something like MOG instead. At least it’s not as hurtful to my eyes.

Now that I’ve spoken, what do you think of Rdio’s new “design”?