Category: Mac

These days there are numerous ways that an aspiring webmaster can build a website, from the super complex down to the really easy. RapidWeaver from Realmac Software fits nicely in between, offering simple and easy to use ways of creating a website yet allowing enough flexibility for more advanced users to be able to spread their wings a little.

With Apple’s abandonment of iWeb, many home brew would-be website owners have been left without a way to easily build a site in a friendly WYSIWYG environment and RapidWeaver more than fills that void. Today we’ll be taking a look at how to make a simple website with RapidWeaver.

Getting Started

First of all, you’ll want to get RapidWeaver downloaded to your computer. This can be done either through the Mac App Store or directly from the RapidWeaver site. Once you’ve installed the program you can start building your site almost immediately!

Adding a Page

The first thing you’ll probably want to do when you set out is to add your first page and get some of your content into that page. Doing this with RapidWeaver is simple. To create a new page simply click Add Page and you’ll be presented with a drop down box with the various types of webpages that are able to be created directly within the software. If your aim is to create a standard webpage then it’s probably best to scroll down and choose the Styled Text option. Selecting this option will open a word processor style screen for you to add your content (but we’ll get that later).

For the more advanced users who have knowledge of HTML or other languages, selecting the option HTML Code allows you to add content using HTML, XHTML or PHP. I’d recommend studying the different options available in order to find the best types of pages to suit your own style of website.

Adding your Content

Some people say that a website is judged on the strength of its content and with RapidWeaver adding your content to pages is simple. With a standard Styled Text page, content can be added in much the same way as you would add content and text to a Word Processor. Text can be pasted, typed or dragged and dropped into the window and from there re arranged to suit your needs.

Any images that you may wish to add to your site can simply be dragged and dropped into the word processor style area and, as with text, moved around freely.

Choosing a Theme

RapidWeaver comes with a number (47 to be exact) of built-in themes that control how your website looks. Selecting and implementing a theme for your website is easy.

Simply click the Themes option on the menu bar to open up the themes menu. From there just click a theme and it will be instantly selected for use on your website. The cool thing with RapidWeaver is that selecting a new theme will not alter the style of your content so you won’t have to spend time re-sizing images or formatting your content again. This is a great system as some website builders fail to do this and can cause a great deal of frustration.

You can easily review how your website will look by using the preview switch at the bottom of RapidWeaver. Clicking from the Pen icon over to the Eye Icon will bring up a preview of your site with all your content and pages shown. Since RapidWeaver takes care of all the formatting for you when you switch themes this can be used to quickly find the best theme for you (the images on the theme menu are a little small to properly see what each theme looks like).

Adding Hyperlinks

Adding hyperlinks to your website is super simple in RapidWeaver. To add a link to another URL or even another page on your own website you simply highlight the word or phrase that you want to be a link and click the Add Link button at the bottom left of the editing screen. Doing this will open up a drop down box giving allowing you to control where that link will take the user.

Clicking the menu that reads URL will give you the option of linking to either an external URL or selecting any of the pages that you have created for your own website within RapidWeaver. You can also choose to link to a resource if you desire.

Publishing your Site

Once you’ve chosen a theme and organized your content so that you’re happy with the way your website looks it’s going to be time to get it published. Luckily, in RapidWeaver this only takes a few clicks of the mouse.

Before you click the all important Publish button in the top right of RapidWeaver you must make sure that you’ve added the relevant information regarding the setup to your site. To do this, hit the Setup button also in the top right and fill in some of the information such as site title, site footer and more importantly the web address that your site will be at. Once that’s been done hit the Publish button and fill in the information requested such as your MobileMe information (if you’re going down that avenue) or your own server information.

Conclusion

It’s important to note that this article is aimed at helping those who wish to create a very basic website. Within RapidWeaver itself there are a great number of help files and video tutorials which assist with a variety of difficulties that you may encounter when building your website. RapidWeaver is a great way to get your content and site out there!

Apple has rejected yet another application, Cambox, a quick and easy way to post your photos straight to Dropbox, from the App Store owing to the fact that “if the user does not have Dropbox application [sic] installed then the linking authorisation is done through Safari”.

This all sounds well and good but the developer goes on to say:

Once the user is in Safari it is possible for the user to click ‘Desktop version’ and navigate to a place on Dropbox site where it is possible to purchase additional space.

This circumvention of the App Store as a means of purchasing additional storage (i.e. a subscription) is frowned upon by Apple and therefore blocked by the App Store Review Guidelines, where no “external mechanisms for purchases or subscriptions” are permitted. Apple’s official rejection notes for Cambox pointed out to the fact that it allows the user to create accounts with Dropbox and Google and although this doesn’t seem a problem to most people, the fact that people could sign up to Dropbox account then pay for more space is really the thorn in Apple’s side.

There is no clear guidance in the official App Store Review Guidelines on this matter, and indeed it seems like a bit of a grey area, but Apple seem to seeing the whole situation in that people signing up to a Dropbox account straight from the app could in turn sign up for extra storage, a subscription service. Why Apple would want to heavily restrict this is beyond most people, though. Maybe they are afraid of losing out on revenue (as they would most certainly take a cut out of subscription revenue, just like revenue from app purchases) or maybe they want to simplify the whole process and have subscriptions exclusively running through the App Store, and not via other websites.

The issue has raised concerns about whether Apple is controlling developers too strictly and of course, we here at Mac AppStorm would love to hear your comments on this. Have you had apps rejected from the App Store because they violate Apple’s terms and conditions? Do you think Apple are being too controlling on the entire app development cycle? Or is this carrying on Steve Jobs’ vision of having almost exclusive control over their products?

Share your thoughts and opinions in the Comments section below!

Update

After speaking to the developer, the problem has now been resolved. Apparently, the Dropbox SDK (software development kit) was causing apps to be blocked from the App Store due to the circumvention as described above. Cambox is now live and on the App Store for your enjoyment!

In recent years, indie developers have surprised us with many innovative concepts that ultimately enrich our taste for their creative games. The creativity that goes into these projects often shows us that even a small group of developers can come up with phenomenal ways to entertain us. However, for a number of reasons, many “hardcore” gamers stray away from the indie territory all together. This should not be the case with Bastion.

Recently released for OS X via the Mac App Store and followed by a SteamPlay update, Bastion is a rich and well-delivered action RPG experience that no Mac gamer should pass by. The depth of gameplay, outstanding combat system, and the hours of fun this game provides make it a must have for any gamer out there.

Presentation

Bastion’s story starts by giving you control of an unnamed character known simply as “the Kid”. As you awake from your unconscious state, you are greeted by a rather captivating voice that starts narrating your every move. This is perhaps the main hook of the game. The dynamic voiceover from the narrator not only chronicles the tale you are currently living, but he also utters certain things as you do them — which can be subtly comical. This bestows us with a clever and interactive story-telling mechanism that keeps the player engaged in the game’s universe and makes one come back for more. Sadly, the story can get a bit cryptic and bland. It is not a bad story, you can certainly understand it, and there are some quite surprising moments, but overall there is not a tremendous lasting appeal.

Regardless, the game is well presented. The menus and options you have available are easy to use, and the score is amazingly tight to the gameplay, immersing you in the action.

Graphics

Story aside, the world of Bastion is a beautiful one. The game is presented with a gorgeous hand-painted, colorful style that makes everything in the game pop. As you move forward through floating cities, forests, and bogs, the environment builds right beneath your feet. This gives the world life and engages you to explore; however, it is interesting that the developers decided to encourage the player to destroy many items and artifacts within the environments, even though the goal of the game is to rebuild after the apocalypse known as the Calamity.

Either way, the level design is undoubtably rich and striking. With that said though, Bastion does have it’s downside when it comes to moving around the world. At times, players will have a tough time if they are not careful. If the Kid falls from the floating city, he won’t die, instead he will take damage. If his health is already low, he will die. This can become a bit annoying if the Kid dies because of a misstep right after defeating a sea of enemies.

Gameplay

The gameplay is where the game truly comes together and shines, leaving anything that may be wrong with it in the dust. With shield in hand and two weapons ready to level your enemies, you battle through various foes; each enemy is different from the other, thus making you think about your strategy going forward. As you progress through the game, the enemies get tougher, the weapons get better, and this never stops throughout your whole play-through.

If that isn’t enough, throughout your journey you will collect idols, special abilities, and weapon upgrades. The depth of the game comes into play here as you have plenty of ways to fine-tune your arsenal. The goal here is to provide the player with the perfect weapon and ability combination. The game isn’t about getting XP as much as it is getting new weapons and buying upgrades to tweak them to your liking. Not only that, but upon building a place called “the Shrine”, the player is able to customize the toughness of his foes in return for more XP and fragments per enemy kills — it is the embodiment of “pick your poison”.

Once the player becomes comfortable with timed blocking and striking the enemy right after, the feeling of accomplishment is like no other — you definitely feel like one powerful kid.

Conclusion

With a lot of replay value, deep customization that allows the player to make the game unique and enjoyable gameplay that will satisfy you for hours, one can’t go wrong with Bastion. You not only get an alluring voice guiding you through the fun trek you’ll be part of, but you will undoubtably get more than enough bang for your buck.

There was something great about the old instant Polaroid cameras, an allure that still lasts to this day. Instant is an officially licensed Polaroid app that seeks to bring this timelessly enjoyable experience to the Mac by mimicking the workflow of a real Polaroid camera.

We’re happy to announce that we’ve been able to snag five copies of Instant to give away to our faithful fans. Read on to see how you can enter!

Tweet to Enter

Entering is simple, 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 Wednesday, May 16th. Good luck to everyone who enters! In the mean time, be sure to stop by the Instant website to learn more about this awesome app.

The Mac App Store has changed our world. Apps are easier to find, buy and/or download, and upgrade than ever before. Developers can enjoy ease of use for customers, and great exposure with little overhead and minimal web presence if they want to (no need to host the app and worry about server load themselves).

But not everything is a bed of roses for developers in the App Store. Apple provides no clear paid upgrade path for major versions and therefore no incentive to continue developing an app to become even greater.

What’s a Developer to Do?

I’m not an app developer, but as a user of apps, many of them professional and expensive, I’ve thought about this problem a lot off and on since not long after iOS apps came out. Though certainly the problem is not as glaring on iOS because apps are usually relatively inexpensive. A developer therefore can release an entire separate application on the iOS app store and not have a lot of blowback because pricing is pretty good without some sort of paid upgrade strategy in place. But I did think about it some because I thought it inevitable that the App Store model would come to the Mac. And indeed it did.

But when the Mac App Store came along, the problem, in my estimation became acute. I recently read a really good article by Will Shipley of Delicious Monster: The Mac App Store Needs Paid Upgrades. This is a great read on the subject and I highly recommend you read it. Will breaks down the different various options that developers have, none of them good.

I completely agree that the App Store needs paid upgrades. I also think we’re past the point where we could say that this is just something that Apple has not tackled yet but they’ll get to it eventually. It’s been too long.

Drive By Development?

I think Apple feels that they are making things simpler for the customer by not including paid upgrades. One price for a product, and the developer continues to provides support for the one product that is available for the one price. The problem with this thinkings in my estimation is that it encourages developers to move on, to not support their software well. It encourages what I will call the “drive by app developer” mentality.

And you can see where some of this thinking comes from actually. Let’s take a very old application as an example: Photoshop.

Photoshop launched initially on the Mac in 1990, and though at first glance you can tell it’s Photoshop by the signature tool palette layout, it was a far simpler and slimmer application than Photoshop CS5. Photoshop has continued to grow and expand into the ginormous application that it is today. I use Photoshop almost every day in one form or another in my line of work. I’m even pretty good at making it do what I want it to do. But I doubt I know even a quarter of Photoshop’s capabilities. It’s just a massive application. Adobe has continued to evolve Photoshop. They work on major revisions and sell to existing users at an upgrade price.

The school of thought on this that I think Apple may be leaning toward here is that this model leads to bloat and lack of innovation. Companies and developers focus on cash cows long after they should have moved on and just left the app alone. But because they can roll some more bloat into it and charge a fee they do.

The reason I use Photoshop is because though there are no good alternatives, it is widely considered to have become a bloated, inefficient, spaghetti code mess. Designers, Web Developers, and Photographers all love to hate Photoshop. (I do have to say here that Photoshop CS6 Beta does seem like Adobe is putting in some effort to return Photoshop to it’s former glory.) People tend to think if we moved away from this upgrade model things would be better.

I do not think this is the case. I think instead what will happen is that Applications will never reach the status of an application like Photoshop because there is not really a good way for a developer to stay in business that way. Some may think this a good thing, but look around. What application can you use other than Photoshop to get done what you would do in Photoshop? The only application that comes anywhere close to doing what Photoshop does is Pixelmator. And I tried to use it. For me, it just does not do what I need it to do. Photoshop does.

But in the current Mac App Store culture, how is a company, or an individual dev even, supposed to monetize the development and refinement process? If a developer or development company has no way to monetize the work they are doing, they will not be able to continue the development process. This means to me that an app like Photoshop cannot exist in the current App Store environment.

Is It Really That Bad?

Why can’t developers just charge lower prices for apps, and when the next major version is ready, make it a separate app on the App Store at the same price? No one get’s special upgrade pricing, every version costs the same. Seems simple and clean right?

Hold your horses there for a minute and let’s consider this option. To be fair, it is viable, it can be done, and it has been done. But there are problems with this approach. Say you release “My Cool App Version 1” on the App Store. Then a year later, development on Version 2 is done and you are ready to release “My Cool App Version 2” on the App Store. What do you do with version 1?

Do you pull it from the store?

This means that you can no longer provide updates of any kind, security improvements, bug fixes, whatever. That’s it. That doesn’t seem like a good option. Many developers often provide support and bug fixes for a previous version or two of their app. So that’s a no go in my opinion.

So leave Version 1 Up on the Store.

But then it would still be for sale, people might accidentally buy Version 1 when Version 2 is out and available. That’s no good either.

There are of course additional problems. It’s just good business to incentivise your current customers that remain loyal to you, to upgrade to your newest version of your product, to make them feel like there’s a reward for being loyal. This is why I think the App Store desperately needs paid upgrades.

How Would I Make It work

There needs to be a way to make Version 1 no longer for sale, but still available for customers who already bought it. They should be able to re-download the version they bought at any time. Developers should still be able to release updates to that version.

Developers should be able to associate the new version of the app with the previous version. Some sort of logic in the App Store that says, “If you purchased previous version of ‘My Cool App’ then you can buy this version for ‘x’ amount” (where x is the discounted price). And if not, then you buy it for full price.

What About The Bloaty Cash Cow Culture?

What about it? Let consumers vote with their wallets. I buy Photoshop (again, just an example) because it is the best application in its class and it allows me to do what I need to do. At the same time, let developers compete. If there is an opening in the market, a dev will fill it. Pixelmator exists for a reason, and though it’s not a direct replacement to Photoshop, it does do many of the things that Photoshop does. And because of the general bloatware sentiment toward Photoshop, there was an opening in the market for Pixelmator. I know many people who use it and are happy with it. It does what they need it to do and so they use it.

Additional Resources

As I am won’t to do, I will refer you to the Hypercritical Podcast. In episodes 62, 63, and 64 John Siracusa discusses the problem. I found his take on everything to be excellent and mostly agreed with any conclusions he came to.

• Hypercritical #62: A Sack Containing Scum from a Pond
• Hypercritical #63: Talking to the Bear
• Hypercritical #64: You Will Die Instantly!

Software developer Jim Cloudman takes the position that this isn’t all that bad thing in his short piece:

• When Upgrading is not a Choice

So What?

“So what?” you may be asking. You may be thinking this doesn’t really affect you as an app consumer, at least not directly. But it does. It affects the culture of apps on the Macintosh (and iOS). It affects the quality of the third party tools we use and will be using. I think Apple is making a serious mistake on this, and for anyone who knows me, it is unlike me to say that. Apple needs a strong third party eco system for its devices in order to succeed and have a bright future. I think by not including a paid upgrade path, Apple is doing a poor job of curating and managing its third party developer culture. It’s sad to see really. And the “so what?” is that I want Apple to do well, I want them to succeed. I want to be using Macs ten, twenty, even thirty years from now and beyond.

Am I saying that Apple cannot survive without paid upgrades through the Mac App Store for third party devs? No, but I think it’s a factor. I hope Apple comes to their senses on this and solves the problem in typical Apple fashion, in a way that was obvious in hind site, well executed, clean, and easy.

Keeping track of the time you spend during certain activities can be useful for many reasons. The most obvious one that comes to mind is if you are a freelancer that needs to bill by the hour, and therefore need some proof of how much time you spent doing certain tasks. But that’s certainly not all, even if you don’t charge by the hour, it’s still useful to know how much time you’re spending doing certain tasks so that you can then refine your workflow or be aware of how much time you are investing (or wasting).

If your job depends on charging by the hour, you probably already use a time-tracking/invoicing app like Harvest or Toggl. However, plenty of users have tried to get into these apps only to ultimately abandon or forget them. That’s where Tictoc comes in. It’s a drop-dead simple time-tracking app that lives in your Mac’s menu bar.

Getting Started

Tictoc is a super simple Mac app that can help you track the time you spend doing certain activities. Sure, there are tons of similar apps and services, but what makes Tictoc unique and differentiates it from the competition is the fact that its gimmick relies on the features that it doesn’t have instead of the ones it does.

Tictoc makes it super easy to keep track of the time spent doing certain activities, but without being intrusive or hard to understand. It removes the usual features that you might find in similar apps (like clients, projects, invoicing, time tracking of each app, etc.) in order to create an easier experience and a much simpler and cheaper way of tracking time.

The Interface

Tictoc works primarily through your menubar. If you have any active tasks in the app, they will be shown right next to the menu bar icon with their name and the time they have been active for. Clicking on this area will bring up the main window for the app, which consists of a black, blue and grey menu with just a few elements. In it you will find a list with all the tasks you’ve setup as well as a few buttons for activating or stopping timers.

There are also a few buttons spread around for accessing the settings, creating new tasks, and exporting your data. Below the list of your tasks, there will be some information on how much time you’ve spent in total throughout the day and the week on your overall tasks.

Tasks

“Tasks” are the assignments that you’d like to keep track of. You can create several of them, and each task that you create can have different sessions inside of it, which are basically different set times where you have worked on the same task. Sessions will be automatically created when you track time at different hours or days, although you can also set manually any period (along with any notes) where you might have worked on the task without tracking time inside the app. To do this, you just need to click on the task and select the “+” button, and then select the date, duration and notes for the session you’d like to create.

Although this feature might not be too obvious, it is possible to track the time of different tasks at the same time. To do this, you need to deselect the “Stop timing the current task when starting a new task”, or hold the Option key when you start timing a new task. Otherwise, the app will stop tracking the current task everytime you try to track another one.

Extra Features

For being quite a simplistic app, Tictoc is surprisingly customizable and well-designed. Even if you’d still like to keep using a project management or invoicing service with this app, you can export all of your time-tracking done with it through an XML/CSV document. It even lets you select the range of dates that you would like to export.

You can also choose the way you’d like your current tasks to be displayed in the menu bar by going deep into the settings. There you can deselect the title and/or the timing of the task from appearing next to the icon of the app in the menu bar. Right there in the settings you can select a default “idle time”, which is the time at which the timer will stop if you haven’t used your computer, as well as choose a keyboard shortcut for the app.

Conclusion

Project managing services on the Internet are a dime a dozen, but Tictoc isn’t really up to the level of any of those apps. Instead, more direct competition for it would be new-ish Mac apps like TimeCop, or even any type of physical timer along with a notebook (sounds very primitive, I know).

I could definitely see myself using this app in the future. I don’t have any need for invoicing by the hour or organizing my projects in a intricate manner, so really the only things I want to use this app for is to keep myself focused on what I’m doing (being tracked helps a lot with distractions, personally), as well as have some hard data on how long it takes me to do certain tasks. If you’re anything like me, then you might also find Tictoc useful.

However, if you already use a proper project management app, you find yourself using most of its features, like invoicing and client support, and don’t have any problem paying a recurring fee for using it, then Tictoc might not do much for you, unless you want to use it as a secondary app for tracking time and then exporting it to your favorite project management service. It really depends on your workflow and the needs that you could have for an app like this. Thoughts?

In another routine update, Apple has pushed out new versions of both OS X Lion and Safari, bringing them up to versions 10.7.4 and 5.1.7 respectively. However, those who were expecting some new nifty features are likely to be a tad disappointed, as it seems that these two updates are simply routine ones, aimed at patching up bugs and fixing security holes.

OS X 10.7.4 fixes the FileVault bug that was discovered at the start of this week, a serious bug for anyone who has upgraded to Lion from Snow Leopard and has FileVault switched on. The bug meant that user details (such as login names and passwords) were stored in a plain text file which was able to be accessed by booting the computer up into firewire disk mode. The bug was first noted on Apple’s support forums back in February (interestingly, just after 10.7.3 was released) and has been patched up with this update. Anyone who uses Lion on a new Mac is (as always has been) unaffected by this problem.

The update also addressed a few other niggling issues, such as the constantly-checked “Reopen windows when logging back in”, compatibility with certain British third-party keyboards and RAW support for additional digital cameras (specifically the Canon EOS 5D Mark III).

Safari 5.1.7 was also released last night as a seperate update (Safari 5.1.6 came bundled in with 10.7.4) and can be installed after upgrading to 10.7.4. The new version disables any out-of-date Flash plugins to help keep your Mac secure and improves responsiveness when your system is running low on memory. Apple have also fixed the bug whereby webpages would lock up after using pinch-to-zoom – a comforting thought for most of us.

To grab both these updates (which are highly recommended), head over to Software Update on your Mac where they should be waiting for you. If you prefer to download them straight from the web, then we’ve included the links here for you.

• OS X Lion Update 10.7.4 (Client) – 692.68 MB
• OS X Lion Update 10.7.4 (Client Combo) – 1.4 GB
• OS X Lion Update 10.7.4 (Server Client) – 738.71 MB
• OS X Lion Update 10.7.4 (Server Combo) – 1.49 GB
• Safari 5.1.7 (Mac) – 44.98 MB

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 May 6th, 2011.

If you’re not already familiar with it, Kickstarter is a website through which you can crowd-source initial funding for a business idea or concept. Anyone can contribute a small investment in your idea, and receive something in return – the more you contribute, the better the reward is.

If a project meets the total investment target set, it goes ahead. If not, everyone gets their money back. People have different opinions about whether Kickstarter is a good idea. Last year, Frank Chimero generated over $100,000 in funding for his book – something that sparked a discussion about whether Kickstarter is appropriate for creative projects such as this.

Personally, I think it’s a fantastic idea. But why bring Kickstarter up in the context of AppStorm? Read on to find out…

Dialoggs

Dialoggs is a social network concept – coupled with a beautiful app – that is currently looking for funding over on Kickstarter. Drew Wilson, the creator, is aiming for an investment of $15,000 and currently has over $3,000 pledged at the time of writing.

Update: Sadly Drew came up short of his $15,000 goal. You can follow the actual project on Twitter here.

It’s certainly an interesting concept, aiming to fill the gap between Twitter, iChat, and Tumblr. It’s “more than just status updates, and it’s much more than a static blog with comments”. Dialoggs aims to offer realtime communication that is permanently stored and (optionally) publicly available.

I’ll let you head over to the site and watch the video for a full explanation of what Drew was aiming to do. He has some lofty goals, but the general idea is certainly an interesting one.

Other Apps & Products on Kickstarter

Although Dialoggs caught my eye, it certainly isn’t the only product you might be interested in checking out on Kickstarter. Here are a few others that have tried similar tactics, some of which even blew away their financial goals:

• Taposé – Taposé brings the once hyped Microsoft Courier functionality to the iPad. It’s a fun-looking app!
• “Full Metal Jacket Diary” – iPad App – An effort to turn the Full Metal Jacket Diary into an immersive experience on the iPad.
• Bendi – An iPad Stand Exactly Where You Want – Bendi allows you to position your iPad however you want, using a strong suction system. Flexible!
• iPad 2 Smart Shell: A Case Compatible w/ Apple Smart Covers – A sleek looking protector for the rear of your iPad 2, designed to work in conjunction with a smart cover.

Would You Back an App?

Using Kickstarter to fund the development of an app is an interesting concept. Embarking on a software development project isn’t something to be taken lightly – it takes time, money, and lots of expertise. Not to mention the risk that demand may not reach your expectations after you unveil your creation.

I’m all in favour of developers using platforms such as Kickstarter to get a head start on a new project. It gives them a chance to test the market demand for their app, receive initial feedback from potential users, and fund the time and expense require to embark on the development journey.

But would you back an application before a single line of code has been written? Obviously there’s an inherent risk that the software may never see the light of day, or that it may not live up to your expectations.

Of course every individual project should be judged on its own merit, but I’d say that this is a worthwhile risk on the whole – especially if you’re only pledging a few dollars. The chance to support a developer embarking on a new application is an exciting one, and something definitely worth considering!

Would this be something you’d think about doing? If so, why/why not? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Hot off the presses, here’s Mac AppStorm’s weekly picks of the best (and free) deals on the App Store for this week.

Enjoy!

Today, our computers and mobile devices house many stunning icons that often influence our desire to use a certain application or open a folder. The icons in our machines are practically part of our lives as we see them almost everyday. It is never a bad idea to customize these icons in order to make them even more appealing than they already are.

The icons below are only a few of the many beautiful design pieces people have created for your enjoyment. Replacing application or folder icons is amazingly easy to do, so don’t hesitate to use any of these free and sexy looking icons.

Bonus

Show Us Yours!

There you have it, over 55 stunningly beautiful Mac folder icons. No matter what size, shape or form, these icons are meant to customize the look and feel of your folders. Keep in mind that some are completely free even for commercial use, and some are only free for your own personal use. Also if you are having trouble changing icons, here is a tip:

You don’t need CandyBar in order to change icons, the simple copy and paste procedure works just fine; however, if copying the icon and pasting it in the info window doesn’t work, all you need to do is open the icon (ICNS) in Preview and select all then copy and paste it into the info window. This will pick up the various icon sizes that are within the ICNS file.

Let us know what you think of these icons and share your own collections in the comments below!

Mac is a dream platform for designers. Depending on how many complex features are needed to get the job done, there are a myriad of apps available for designers. It goes without saying that a designer has to handle everything from an exciting new mobile app interface to a boring brochure. Usually, the latter design need not be as ground breaking as the former and not every aspect of it has be built from the ground up.

Be it an office party, garage sale or a freelance catalog, you might never know when you will have to whip up a quick flyer or brochure all by yourself. Swift Publisher is desktop publishing app for Mac that can help you with all your design and layout needs. Come, join me after the fold to test its chops!

Getting Started

Swift Publisher is targeted both at seasoned designers and average joes alike. Irrespective of your design skill, the app helps you create great looking flyers, brochures, letterheads, booklets, menus and more, right on your Mac.

At launch, the app offers a help wizard that showcases a bunch of videos walking you through the various features of the app. The videos are very short, informative and don’t take a lot of time to get you going.

User Interface

Right from the help wizard, the level of effort put into user interface design is very evident. Besides a polished interface, the app also has a streamlined flow. The template selector is where you get started, which makes it extremely quick to start working on exactly the kind of design you had in mind. It also helps a lot that each and every category has a bunch of readymade templates.

Handling Assets and Dimensions

There are over 180 ready to use templates available across all the categories. I checked a few and found them to be complete in all respects. In most cases, all you need is name and logo changes if you are in a bit of rush. If you plan to edit a template extensively or create one from scratch, the app is no slouch in that department either.

The layout editor sports the familiar three column interface. Each of the columns is thoughtfully organized. The left column is all about content. Are you planning to either use the stock backgrounds, shapes or images of your own? You can add and manage them all from here. Swift Publisher is tightly integrated with iPhoto and Aperture libraries too which makes your workflow much simpler.

And the right column is the dedicated to manage the size and dimensions of the template you are editing. The fine grained controls should be more than enough to fine tune the design, whether you are making it for print or a digital medium.

Editing Tools

Predictably, the template editor canvas is present at the center. And yes, the much needed layered design workspace is at your disposal to ensure that you can go nuts with your creativity. In fact, I found the app to be equally easy to use when using the trackpad instead of a mouse.

From flowing text boxes to a layer based workflow, Swift Publisher offers all of the tools necessary to build your document from the ground up with ease. For seasoned designers, endless design solutions like drawing tools, gradient fills, shadows, image tiling, image masks, core image filters, among other things, should come in handy.

Collections and Companion Apps

The Swift Publisher team is not only good at coming up with great apps, they also back their claims with numbers. From the number of stock images and templates to the number of filters and image masks, you are provided with as much data as possible upfront even before you begin evaluating the app.

For those designers who want more inspiration at their disposal, there is an Extras Pack (to be bought separately) which expands the clipart collection to over 40,000 images and gives you 100 unique fonts. Additional companion apps are available to enhance graphic editing and font selection capabilities.

Final Thoughts

I’m not a great designer and taking that into account, I found Swift Publisher to be very intuitive and feature rich. Design related apps are usually pricey, but this app is available for purchase for an affordable $29.95. In my opinion, it’s a complete steal at this price. However, based on the type of licenses and the number of bundled images, the prices vary. Check out their complete listing here.

The number of readymade templates works wonders in favor of the app. For a casual or a semi professional user (like me), the templates save a whole lot of time and effort. True to its name, the app is really swift in every respect and should be in your shortlist if you are in the market for a desktop publishing app.

We’ve seen countless Chicken Littles screaming that the sky is falling for years, but in 2012 we seem to be seeing more stories than ever about the supposed end of the superiority of Macs when it comes to security flaws and outside attacks.

New reports are pouring in weekly of threats that Mac users need to be aware of: Flashback, Luckycat, password security flaws, the list goes on and on.

In our poll question this week, we want to know whether you buy into all the doom and gloom or you think it’s all a bunch of hype like we’ve seen in the past. There’s a basic but critically important question that needs answering: Do you still trust your Mac’s security? By this I mean the built-in security measures provided by Apple.

Once upon a time, most Mac users would’ve scoffed at the idea of downloading third party virus protection software, is this still the case or are these days long gone? Are we joining the Windows crowd in the need to personally take steps to safeguard our computers against outside threats or are Macs still safe “right out of the box?” Cast your vote in the poll and then argue it out below!

PDF has become a worldwide document type standard and you no doubt deal with these documents fairly regularly. Because the file tpye is so common there is a plethora of applications available to work with them.

It can be a bit tricky to wade through the large number of choices though, so I’ve attempted to pull out ten of the most useful apps for performing various functions. Everything from simply managing your PDF files to editing, extracting and more.

Conclusion

These are just ten of the many applications available to work with PDF files. There are some more expensive, “do it all” type of applications (i.e. Adobe Acrobat) available, but I think by and large most of us end up having specific needs at specific times. What a lot of these applications do is separate out some functionality and make that available at a really affordable price. As I mentioned a few times, the function may be specific with many of these, but it could also be really useful for the right person in the right situation.

I covered a broad range of functionality and I know there are some other good ones out there. I tried to grab some of the best from many different areas. Do you have any favorites that I missed? Leave a comment below.

Though I’m not quite ready to jettison my bookcase full of real paper books, ebooks have definitely won me over and convinced me of their worth due to both their portability and the fact that historical, classic and other copyright-free texts such as Leo Tolstoy’s complete works or Homer’s Iliad can be downloaded for free legally through resources such as the wonderful Project Gutenberg.

While there’s a decent selection of ebook readers for Apple’s portable devices, I’ve found the Mac software somewhat lacking and so welcomed the opportunity to give Kitabu a try.

Introducing Kitabu

First impressions count and the screen which one is presented with when launching Kitabu for the first time is somewhat underwhelming – perhaps some basic instructions or a few included public domain books would have been more pleasing to the new user. Still, on the other hand, to be completely fair to the app, there’s nothing at all wrong with Kitabu’s interface and once one starts adding books, its workmanlike interface becomes a little more engaging.

Adding your downloaded books is easily achieved by navigating Kitabu’s menubar and selecting Import to Library. Once this has been done, the ebooks then appear on the main Library window for easy navigation.

Features and limitations

At present, Kitabu is only able to handle ePub files, which may or may not be a deal breaker, depending on the format which your ebooks currently are. If, for example, you own a Kindle and would like to read Kindle’s standard ebook format on your Mac, you’re out of luck and would perhaps be better advised to make use of the official Amazon Kindle app for Mac.

Besides the lack of support for formats other than ePub, there is one far less forgivable limitation of Kitabu and that is its lack of bookmarking. Not even a basic bookmark is available, nor will the app remember where you left off, making the navigation of large books rather cumbersome.

Moving on from these issues, Kitabu does have some standard features, such as the ability to choose between standard black-on-white text, white-on-black or a sepia background with black text, with the aim of reducing eye strain. There are also options for many different fonts, a button for bringing up the table of contents and a view selector which switches between one, two or three column views. In addition, a bar at the bottom of the main windows shows the percentage of the book which is completed so far and there is also the all important fullscreen button.

The Competition

Considering the prevalence of ebooks nowadays, there are comparatively few well known Mac apps and the two main competitors which Kitabu must hope to displace are Kindle and Stanza, both of which have iOS clients as well.

Amazon Kindle

Amazon’s Kindle app is obviously by far the most popular ebook reader on any platform and with good reason too – able to sync between several devices and with a pleasing interface and integration with Amazon’s services, the Kindle will meet most people’s needs. However, Amazon’s growing monopoly of the ebook platform and the company’s patchy privacy history which includes, in high irony, deleting purchased copies of George Orwell’s 1984 from users devices following a publishing dispute, leaves many people uncomfortable and for this reason they look elsewhere.

Lexcycle Stanza

Like Kitabu and Kindle, Stanza is also free but the app treads a line somewhere between the stripped down Kitabu and the features which are offered by Amazon, boasting its own iOS app and support for most non-DRM protected book formats, such as HTML and plain text. However, though the functionality was originally promised, Stanza cannot currently read DRM protected formats like Amazon’s Kindle books.

It is also worth mentioning that Stanza itself is actually owned by Amazon, with the huge corporation having recently bought Stanza’s developers Lexcycle. Since this purchase, the Stanza project seems to have fallen into a period of inactivity and there are questions as to the app’s future, not helped by the fact that Lexcycle’s own website appears to be down.

Conclusion

Due to its lack of bookmarking and the restriction of only being able to handle ebooks which are formatted in the ePub format, Kitabu still feels very much like a work in progress and cannot really be considered a direct competitor to Kindle, nor a full successor to Stanza quite yet. However, Kitabu does show a lot of promise and, providing these significant but presumably trifling issues can be ironed out with subsequent updates, this free ebook reader could become very useful indeed and offer Mac users a non-Amazon option for their ebook reading needs.

There also appears to be big plans for Kitabu too. The app’s developers state that Kitabu is part of a cloud service to be released in 2012 and, assuming these plans come to fruition, Kitabu could very well be an app which could offer a compelling challenge to the Kindle Mac app, making this one app to keep an eye out for in the future.

Our featured sponsor this week is Chronicle, the easiest way to keep track of your bills on a Mac.

If you’re looking for a way to get more organized with your bills, Chronicle is your answer. It’s beautiful, easy to use and powerful enough to keep you on track. Set up bill payment reminders, track and reduce debt, keep a full payment history, view graphs of your spending, and more! From Mac.AppStorm to Macworld, reviewers everywhere are giving this app high rankings.

Chronicle now includes an in-app purchase for email reminders that will be sent to you via the cloud, even if the app isn’t running! Further, later this summer we’ll see the release of Chronicle 5 with iPhone sync, and anyone who purchases now gets a free upgrade to 5.0. What are you waiting for? It’s time to master your bills.

Try It Today!

Be sure to check out the free trial of Chronicle and give it a test drive to see what you think. I’m confident that you’ll enjoy it. Once you’re convinced that it’s the best bill tracking software around, head over to the Mac App Store and purchase your copy.

Whether or not you use the full version of Chronicle, you should definitely download the free companion menu bar app, Chronicle Mini, which allows you to view your upcoming bills, make payments and log them right from your menu bar!