Category: Mac

Intel has officially launched its new range of Ivy Bridge quad-core processors and some sources have revealed that Apple is busy eyeing up the new chips for use in its new range of iMacs and MacBook Pros, which are expected to be released this summer. Five new processors are due to be produced – three i5 varieties (with processor speeds ranging from 3.1 – 3.8 GHz) and two i7 varieties (with processor speeds ranging from 3.4 – 3.9 GHz).

Intel promises that the new processors offer around a 20 percent increase in performance with an average of 20 percent less power usage, a 5 to 15 percent jump in CPU performance over Intel’s previous processors, the Sandy Bridge range. The graphics performance has also been upped as well, with 4K video playback which supports a theoretical display resolution of up to 4,096 x 4,096 pixels, or retina display territory.

So what does this new release of processors mean for Apple? Well, we know that Apple are planning a major refresh to both its iMac and MacBook Pro line of products and it is rumoured that it has been eyeing up the Ivy Bridge range to feature in its new models. An Ivy Bridge processor would certainly support the resolutions required by a retina display and we have already seen some hints that Apple may be planning this, judging by the high-resolution icons in the Mountain Lion developer preview.

Ivy Bridge processors also support have direct on-chip USB 3.0 support, something which Apple computers still don’t support. This would allow theoretical transfer speeds of up till 5 Gbps (as supposed to the current speeds offered by USB 2.0 – a mere 480 Mbps), however this is unlikely as Apple will certainly be much more willing to push its own Thunderbolt system (which supports up to 10 Gbps of throughput, double that of USB 3.0), a feature which was introduced onto the entire MacBook Pro and iMac range back in February 2011.

Given the fact that both an iMac and MacBook Pro refresh is imminent, we can only assume that Apple is planning to marry the two together by this summer. However, even if we don’t get that retina display we’re all hankering after, it will certainly give our Mac a kick up the backside when it comes to speed, performance and graphics capability. And if that’s not a worthy upgrade reason, I don’t know what is.

Podcasting is all of rage these days. Podcasts are professional and fun, and have become easier to create with the right apps. The Mac has always been a creative tool and with the apps in this roundup, it can become your own radio headquarters and production studio.

To make the process as easy as possible, we recommend taking a look at these five apps, which perform all kinds of tasks from recording audio and screencasts to adding live sound effects. So get ready and read on because, your’re on the air!

Sound Studio 4

Sound Studio 4 is a great tool for recording your podcast. It has a clean interface and a great feature set. Of course you could use Garageband to record your podcast, but Garageband has lots of other uses. Sound Studio is only for recording, so it’s a little more nicely focused.

Sound Studio 4 allows you to record your audio, apply effects, edit, and send out to various popular media formats. You can go in depth with editing such as tweaking EQ, adding crossfades, and more.

Price: $29.99
Developer: Felt Tip Inc.

Soundboard

Soundboard is a complementary tool for recording your podcast. It has a clean interface and a great feature set. Any professional podcast will have a variety of effects, jingles, and pre-recorded audio that needs to be mixed in. You can do this in post when you are editing, or you can use Soundboard to do it live.

Soundboard holds numerous audio files and allows you to play them live, while you are recording. It even has a ducking feature so the audio is lowered when you speak. Soundboard is easy to use and fun! So go ahead and load it up with your sound effects and jingles.

Price: $49.99
Developer: Ambrosia Software Inc.

Audio Hijack Pro

Many great podcasts have cool features such as guest call ins and playing sound files. You need a way to record all of the audio coming out of your Mac, Audio Hijack Pro is the tool for that.

Audio Hijack Pro works as the recorder and it can record audio from Skype, your microphone, and even from Soundboard. After it is recorded with this program, you can take it into Sound Studio 4 to edit your masterpiece.

Price: $32
Developer: Rogue Amoeba

Screenflow

One of the most popular trends lately is to mix your podcasts with screencasts. They really help take certain podcasts to the next level and incorporates a little teaching into the mix. There are many tools available on the Mac that can handle the task, my favorite is Screenflow.

With Screenflow, you can record your screen in full HD video, view picture in picture recording from a video camera, and utilize other cool editing features. It also has easy share options to services like YouTube HD and Vimeo. You can add annotations, callouts, zoom ins and outs, highlights, and so much more!

Price: $99
Developer: Telestream

MarsEdit

So you have created your podcast and now you need to get it out there. You could of course code a website yourself, but most will use a Internet blogging service. Many of these services have web interfaces that many find cumbersome. The best way to tackle it is with MarsEdit.

MarsEdit allows you to write blogs and upload your content to WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, and other similar, popular services. Mars Edit is straight forward and easy to use. It is also my favorite and has been for years!

Price: $39.95
Developer: Red Sweater Software

What Apps Do You Use For Podcasting?

Now that you’ve seen these five great tools for podcasters, leave a comment below and let us know which apps play a crucial role in your podcasting workflow. What do you use to record audio? What supporting apps help you in other areas? We want to know!

I’ve been a gamer for a long time. I’v always been interested in heavy duty PC gaming and console gaming. However, the more time I spend on my Mac and various iOS devices, the more I find that my gaming focus is shifting to lighter weight games that require less of a time investment, both long term and on a ‘per sitting’ basis.

The perfect example of what I mean by this is Cubemen, a tower defense/real time strategy hybrid from 3Sprockets. Cubemen is a real time game played on a board of square spaces between you and another player or computer, and the object is to overwhelm your opponents forces. Read on to find out more about how Cubemen works.

The Basics

There are a few basic things you’ll need to know about playing Cubemen before we get started. First things first: the spawn points.

The towers you see at either end of the board above serve as the respective bases for each player. The base serves two primary functions. The first function, and perhaps the most important in Cubemen’s categorization as a Tower Defense game, is that they spawn wave after wave of units who automatically advance toward the other players tower. The specifics of this function vary depending on game mode, but we’ll talk about that later. In the mean time, assume that the enemy tower is spawning waves of units–if you allow 10 of them to reach your base, you lose the game. Likewise, the conditions of victory are such that you must weaken the enemy forces enough to allow 10 of your own units to reach the enemy base.

Secondly, your tower allows you to spend resources (cubes, which are gained from killing enemies) producing offensive units that can be placed on the battlefield to suppress enemy advancement, such as the units with pistols in the screenshot above.

The units are, in order of cost:

• Grill: Lightly armored unit equipped with a pistol.
• Flint: Lightly armored unit with a flamethrower.
• Moty: Heavily armored unit with a mortar. Good at a distance.
• Fred: Uses a freeze ray to slow down enemy units.
• Ricky: Uses a rocket launcher
• Lazlo: Lasers. Huge amounts of damage.
• Mike: Mike is a medic. He’ll automatically target your injured units and fix them up.

When you produce these units, you select a spot on the board for this unit to travel, and he will begin attacking anything in his range.

Game Modes

This is where Cubemen gets unique. 3Sprockets calls the game a tower defense/realtime strategy hybrid, and the balance between those genre’s depends on the mode you choose.

Let’s begin with Defensive mode, which is functionally the ‘tower defense’ aspect of the game. In the classic version of this game mode, the enemy’s tower will only spawn waves of footmen advancing toward your tower, and your tower can only spawn combat units purchased with cubes. The condition for victory in defensive mode is surviving a set number of waves. The combat units that you build can be placed on any square on the board, allowing you to set up a gauntlet of sorts to wipe out each advancing enemy wave.

Of course, there are variants on the Defensive game mode. You can play and endless version, a version where you can only build Ricky Rockets, a mode where you can only spawn a certain number of units at a time, and various others.

Skirmish mode is where the real time strategy aspect of the game comes into play. In Skirmish mode, both towers spawn footman waves and combat units, attempting to clear a path for their own footmen to reach the enemy tower. Unlike Defensive mode, the squares on the board onto which your combat units can be placed are limited, making unit placement a bit more strategic. Skirmish mode can be played against either a computer or another human player.

Final Thoughts

One of the main reasons I love writing about games that get released on the Mac App Store is because they are often in a state of continual development. A writer who reviews games for the Xbox, for example, is reviewing a finished product that, aside from a few minor patches, will probably never change. Cubemen, on the other hand, shows all of the familiar signs of undergoing consistent development, and evidence found on the webpage suggests that we could look forward to new levels and units in the coming months.

With larger and more complex boards, as well as a more intricate tech tree and roster of units, I think that Cubemen has the potential to be one of those games that remains simple in premise, but is still capable of sparking in-depth debates about strategy among it’s players.

Personally, I love it. I think that it perfectly fits that niche of games that are simplified and easy to grab a few minutes at a time with, but not so simple that it gets boring after a few plays. Cubemen is a great start, and I’m curious to see what the devs do with it next.

Our featured sponsor this week is Instant, an awesome app that brings the fun of Polaroid instant cameras to your desktop.

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.

You simply drag your digital photos to the big camera, choose your field of view, then hit the “Shoot” button and a Polaroid image will pop out of the camera. You can watch it develop as the image fades into existence just like in the old days! I personally own Instant and think it’s a blast to play with. It gives me a taste of the enjoyable retro photography experience without the cost of film!

Instant provides you with 8 Polaroid effect filters look ridiculously close to the real Polaroid styles and 20 other generic vintage filters that produce equally impressive results, all with the Polaroid classic border. You can even add handwriting to the images, choosing from ten different fonts. After you’re finished, you can effortlessly share your photos to Flickr.

See Instant In Action!

If you’d like to see this awesome app work its magic, check out this quick YouTube video, which walks you through the major features.

When you’re ready to join the Polaroid movement, you’ll find Instant on the Mac App Store.

As a writer about Mac, iPhone and iPad applications you sometimes think you’ve seen it all, apps being very similar, especially when they perform basically the same tasks. I should know better – it’s the details that can make all the difference and I tried to highlight that fact in an article I wrote a couple of weeks ago in which I compared five outlining apps for Mac.

They all had their strengths and weaknesses, but all of them will suit a different set of needs. Being only human, it seems I overlooked a rather popular choice: Scribe. Today, I want to remedy that faux pas and take a closer look at an outliner that comes with a lot of features and is quite simple to use.

Scribe – Easy on the eyes, powerful under the hood

After the very first launch, I waited for a couple of seconds to see if there “was more” to the simple white window that opened on my screen. There wasn’t. No help screen, no inspector … just a plain window with a couple of buttons in the header.

As it turned out, that’s really all you need. Scribe can be used intuitively. To start an outline, you simply start typing. By hitting the enter key, you start a new entry on the same level. Pressing the tab key will indent the next line, making it a child of the entry above. You can continue doing so, creating up to eight sublevels. I’m fairly certain it will satisfy the needs of most users.

The most important factor is the ease of use: both the enter and tab key allow to create any kind of structured outline, you don’t have to fiddle with many options or complicated keyboard shortcuts that need to be memorized. Most word processors behave just like Scribe, which means you don’t have to learn anything new.

For example, if you want to “un-dent” a level – make it a 1.2 instead of a 1.1.1 – you just hit Shift+Tab, as you would in Pages or Keynote or Microsoft Office documents. Having used Scribe in a business environment over the last week made me realize how important this is: during a meeting, when you’re fighting to keep up with notes, you don’t have time to think about what keys to press. You do it instinctively and Scribe just … works.

Of course, for those who prefer the mouse, there are some buttons at the top that we can take a closer look at. Going from the left: the first two allow you to indent and outdent a level. The next two allow reordering items on the same level. Beware that all child items of a parent will be moved with it!

Next up are buttons for collapsing trees (parent items with their children). Why? Well, it saves you space if your outline is getting longer and sometimes hiding child items can help to see some structures better. There are shortcuts for all of this and any of the above functions, by the way, which can be learned by reading through the short help file.

Record, Listen, Find

An awesome feature that can be easily overlooked due to the grey and discreet icon is the ability to record audio while you create your outline with Scribe. That can literally save the day after a meeting or a class. If you realize that you’re behind in your notes, simply leave it at that and continue with what is currently going on.

Afterwards, use the slider of the audio recording to jump to exactly where you couldn’t keep up anymore. Or, maybe you had trouble understanding something that was discussed. Jump to the entry via the slider and listen to what has been said. When you drag the slider, Scribe will show you exactly at which entry in your outline something was recorded. Neat.

The only thing I wish for: If I put my cursor into any entry, the audio indicator should jump to the corresponding position. It’s by no means a bad solution as it is, but it would be a great alternative to the current method.

Dress it up

Say you’re working late. It’s dark or dusk outside and you’re using Lion’s feature of full screen, which is enabled in Scribe. The last thing you probably want is a white screen glaring at you and hurting your eyes. You could turn down the brightness of your Mac’s display. Or, you could simply run Scribe in dark mode instead.

For night owls like me, a feature like this can make all the difference of loving or loathing to use an app. But that’s by far not the only option that Scribe offers to style the appearance. You can change the font size (great if you’re sitting four feet away from a 27″ screen) and the line spacing, switch between a serif and non-serif font, and to top it off: choose between three different outlining styles (academic, legal, bullets).

Verdict

For an app that opened up in a single, plain white window, Scribe turned out to be quite powerful while remaining easy to use. The audio feature was a pleasant surprise and while the app might not offer the variety of options as OmniOutliner or the visual elegance of Tree, I found it pretty much perfect for going into a meeting and not having to worry about missing out on something.

After several sneak previews and a fully-functional beta version, Adobe has today officially announced the latest reincarnation of its popular Creative Suite software package, version 6, which sports among other things a whole wealth of new features, a massive overhaul to the default user interface and integration with Adobe’s new cloud service.


Like previous versions of Creative Suite, several “packages” are available aimed at different creative needs, and the versions available for this release are as follows:

• Design Standard, which includes Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat X Pro, Bridge and Media Encoder.
• Design & Web Premium, which includes all the programs from Design Standard along with Photoshop Extended, Dreamweaver, Flash Professional and Fireworks.
• Production Premium, which includes Premiere Pro, After Effects, Photoshop Extended, Audition, SpeedGrade, Prelude, Illustrator, Encore, Flash Professional, Media Encoder and Bridge.
• Master Collection, which includes all the programs from the CS6 range.

This version of Creative Suite has seen a radically different pricing strategy to previous versions in that Adobe has introduced a new “subscription” scheme for CS6, whereby users of the software pay a monthly fee of $49.99 (with a minimum one-year plan). Subscribers then receive the full version of CS6 along with full technical support and 20 GB of online cloud storage with Adobe’s new cloud service. The subscription scheme is also available on a monthly basis for the higher price of $74.99.

The subscription scheme is a great deal for people who want to use all the programs in the Creative Suite collection, as by my rough calculations you can get nearly four and a half years use out of it (when compared to the full retail price of the Master Collection – $2,599) before it becomes cheaper to buy the software outright (by which time, Adobe will have surely released a new version). Subscribers also benefit from the cloud service and increased technical support, however for casual users, it may be cheaper in the long run to purchase the program outright (especially if they are only interested in one program, for example Photoshop).

The Adobe website is accepting pre-orders for all customers (including educational users, small to medium businesses and upgrades from CS5 or CS5.5) and the products will, according to Adobe, be available for download “within the next 30 days”. We’ll keep you posted on anything new.

If you are a fan of Last.fm’s scrobbling service, like me, you’ve probably not been quite satisfied with the official app that has been around for quite some time now. Instead, you might have tried your luck with plugins or third party apps like Bowtie that allow you to scrobble without having to deal with the official app.

All that’s (hopefully) about to change with the new Audioscrobbler for Mac, which is in beta right now. Want to check it out? Let’s take a look!

What is Last.fm?

Last.fm is everything that any music lover ever dreamed of. It’s a radio service, a social network, an event calendar, and an information library for anything related to music. It also works as a tracker of everything that you’ve ever listened to so that it can then recommend music to you based on what similar users are listening to. It’s the best thing ever. But how do you interact with it from your Mac?

The Old App

Last.fm has had a Mac app for quite some time now, that allowed you to scrobble (“scrobbling” is the term used for tracking what you’ve listened to) from your computer and iPod, as well as listen to your radio stations from your desktop, and a few other minor things like viewing artist’s bios.

While it’s perfectly functional, the old app hadn’t been updated in a while and it was starting to show its age; the interface wasn’t ever very pretty and the whole app itself wasn’t anything impressive. At some point I had actually just stopped using it altogether, instead opting for the website and Bowtie to cover all my scrobbling needs. But that’s about to change with the new Audioscrobbler.

Audioscrobbler Beta

A few weeks ago the beta version for the new Last.fm app was made public, promising a more stable, complete and better-looking experience. I think it delivers.

Not only does it have a ton more features that the old app didn’t, but the new Audioscrobbler itself also looks and feels much more modern and friendly. Let’s get into a few of the new features and improvements:

Interface

The new interface makes the app feel much more like a native Mac app, with a kind of “mobile” feel where only the most relevant information is shown. The new app is simply divided into 5 submenus accessible through a sidebar on the left, while the actual content is shown on the main area, and the music controls being displayed on the top.

Radio

The radio was one of the few features on the old app that made it worthwhile, and it hasn’t changed much in this version of the app. On the “Radio” submenu you can find your recent and personal stations, as well as the famous “Type and press play” search bar.

The radio service only works for subscribers, or residents of the United States, United Kingdom and Germany. However, as of now the beta version of the app will let you use the radio service even if you aren’t a subscriber or reside in those countries.

Profile

The new “Profile” submenu gives you quick access to the relevant parts of your profile, like your weekly and overall top artists, as well as some handy stats on your library.

Friends

The “Friends” submenu is one of the coolest additions to the app, as it lets you quickly see what your Last.fm friends are listening to and immediately jump into their radio stations.

Scrobbles

Under the “scrobbles” submenu, you can find a history of everything you’ve listened to recently, so that you can go back and “Love”, tag, share or buy anything that you’ve listened to.

Now Playing

“Now Playing” is where you can find information on the artist that you are currently listening to. Here, you can find the artist’s tags, pictures, biography, stats, similar artists, as well some links to their  radio station and their music store.

Menu Bar

The menu bar component of the app is still there, and it’s now even more useful, giving you quick access to Love, Ban, Skip, Pause, Tag, Share, enable and disable scrobbling and switch accounts.

Keyboard Shortcuts

A much appreciated addition to the Audioscrobbler is the addition of even more keyboard shortcuts. Now you can pretty much do everything with your keyboard, except for pausing. Some of the new shortcuts include loving, banning, skipping, sharing and tagging.

Bugs, Bugs, Bugs

Despite the much needed improvements that the new Audioscrobbler brings, I wouldn’t recommend completely switching to it as of now, and instead waiting it out for a more stable, official release. After using it for a few days I have found a few bugs that are somewhat annoying. For example, at times the radio would have a bug where the songs would not load properly until you paused them and played them again.

I also couldn’t get the iPod scrobbling feature to work, as the app would never recognize my iPod. From what I’ve read on the forums of the app, this is a common bug and the developers are aware of it.

Conclusion

The new Audioscrobbler provides a much needed update that was long overdue. Its new interface is much more modern and friendly, and I’m sure the new features will be received well by fans of the service. The app still doesn’t integrate all of the social aspects of the service, like the shouts and groups, but the core functionality for listening to and finding new music is there.

However, if you are going to consider downloading the new Audioscrobbler, be aware that it is still in beta release and you will likely find some annoying bugs. I wouldn’t go about completely switching from the old version to the new beta just now, at least not until they fix a few key bugs like the iPod scrobbling.

What do you think? Do you still use services like Last.fm, or have they been already been replaced for you with somewhat similar apps like Spotify? What about the old Last.fm app?

Everyone wants to be rich. That’s a great goal to have, but it usually takes a multitude of consistent steps over an extended period of time to actually get there. One half of the equation is to earn more than what you are making right now, and fast. From freelancing to running a business fulltime, there are so many options to explore when it comes to creating a new revenue stream.

Another half of the equation is taking control of your fund outflow by managing expenses. It might be a cliche, but a penny saved is indeed equivalent to a penny earned. Either way, you will have to keep track of both the income and expenses diligently. Squirrel helps you track and plan your finances on your Mac, let’s check it out.

User Interface

Squirrel is a personal finance application for Mac. In this day and age, managing personal finance has shifted largely to smartphone apps and a standalone desktop only version doesn’t make much sense. But wait! Squirrel has a companion app that syncs with your iPhone as well.

Squirrel doesn’t have a revolutionary interface design but instead comes with a standard three columned layout. An user interface with multiple columns isn’t anything new, but the layout is both attractive and effective. An option to collapse one column among the three at will makes the experience all the more pleasant.

Getting Started

I wasn’t sure how Squirrel found the country I was residing in but it automatically configured the app to the local currency, complete with the official symbol (the app might have got the info from the app store). To change it, head over to the Preferences section and use the drop down to select the right currency.

If you are from a different geographic area than the currency selected, Squirrel offers to convert it to the local currency too. Impressive!

Use the + symbol in the middle column to add new entries to the default account. All aspects of a transaction can be entered along with notes and tags. Use the down arrow to mark an expense or the up arrow for an income. Tags can be added on the fly and all tags can be accessed while adding a transaction.

Squirrel tallies every entry and displays the balance besides every account in the left pane. Bigger fonts would go a long way though!

Adding Accounts

You can create new accounts, folders or smart folders by using the + sign at the lower left corner of the window. Besides the name, you can select the currency for every new account and add the conversion value (if any) too. Once you create and add transactions to new accounts, the app balances all accounts and displays the total balance instantly.

Smart folders help you create filters to your transactions. Based on the type of criteria you set, transactions are filed into their respective folders. You can go nuts with the rules you can set and is a cool feature if you have too many transactions of similar kind.

Scheduled transactions and Budgets

Squirrel helps you track forthcoming scheduled transactions – like rent, bills etc. – and warns you when one of them is due to be paid.

The transaction amount can be static or dynamic. In cases of a dynamic transaction, you can specify any interests or cashback that the transaction might entitle and the values will be adjusted accordingly.

As I noted earlier, living within your means is the key to wealth and you can achieve that by setting a budget. Squirrel lets you watch your expenses and earnings using user de?ned categories or tags. Just set your allowances and stick to the budget by keeping an eye over the limits available every passing day. Squirrel also shows you the history of each budget, so you can analyse your spendings habits, and set your allowance accordingly in the upcoming months.

Reports

Colorful charts in the Reports section help you see your spending patterns. Squirrel generates interactive charts to show you where your money is going, based on your categories and tags. You can also print and export PDF ?les from your reports.

In addition to the colorful pie charts, you can skim through your past transactions using the history graph. Want to see what happened on a particular date? Just click on the graph and Squirrel will show you all the relevant transactions!

And for those particular about interoperability, you can import files in various popular formats like OFE (Open Financial Exchange), QIF (Quicken Interchange Format) and CSV (Comma Separated Values).

Final Thoughts

Squirrel features a powerful set of tools to allow you to manage your money from an attractive and minimal interface. When I say powerful, I really mean it! I have only been accustomed to a personal finance app on my iPhone and after seeing Squirrel, I really understand how useful a desktop companion app would be.

One major flaw with Squirrel is something we hardly ever come across. I encountered a spelling mistake in the menu item and the instructions on screen are poorly written and often tough to comprehend. Minor glitches these might be, but they make a serious dent to the image of an otherwise flawless app!

Online streaming, subscription based music delivery services are making an attempt to become the golden ticket solution for music lovers everywhere. Having access to a gigantic library of music is well worth the subscription fee for a lot of people and as the music libraries of these services grow they continue to gather steam.

The two big competitors in this field right now are Rdio and Spotify. Rdio released a major interface update recently that is a big step forward to separate itself from Spotify (only paid subscribers get a sneak peek). The interface changed substantially for the better with new features added and others more prominently placed. Not only is the update quite beautiful, it makes discovering new music an even more social experience. Let’s take a spin through the new Rdio.

I’m going to approach this as a review of the entire Rdio new application. We’ll cover the new features along with some overlapping features that were available with the previous release as well. I think it makes most sense to focus on the app in its entirety.

Design and Interface

The first noticeable feature of the new Rdio design is the fact that it received a lightening. The interface that was previously a darker, sort of gun metal hue is now a lighter shade of gray.

It feels more like a native application even when using the web application. The desktop version feels like it completely belongs on a Mac. I’ve always felt like the design of Rdio was excellent, but they’ve taken it up a notch with this new version.

Controls and Navigation

The audio controls were previously placed at the top of the application window in a similar iTunes fashion. Now, you’ll find them at the bottom of the application window.

At the top of the display you’ll find browsing arrows, buttons to open up the settings panel and your profile. You’ll also find a live search field and a button to toggle a pane that shows the users you’re following.

Along the left-hand side of the application window you’ll find some key navigational elements to discovering music along with ways to browse your personal music stash. We’ll talk a bit more about these things specifically in a bit.

The interface has a very sleek and open feel to it. A majority of the application is dedicated to giving you a large amount of space to browse and explore.

Music Discovery

Applications in this category all do a decent job at encouraging exploration and discovery of music, but with this redesign I think Rdio has taken a step ahead in this area.

A couple sections that you’d expect to see such as Top Charts and New Releases are ok for finding new music. Most of the time you won’t find anything to interesting and original here, but it’s a good area to have access to nonetheless. Where things get very interesting are with the Heavy Rotation and Recent Activity sections.

Heavy Rotation

In this area you’ll see selections that are based on a combination of what you and those you’re following have been listening to.

What you’ll see here will be the music that your friends have been listening to most often. This is a very cool way to discover music. Relying purely on sharing songs via an email or some other method works to a certain extent, but this provides some automation to the process. What you listen to regularly would probably be the stuff you’d be sharing with your friends anyway so this takes care of that.

Recent Activity

Recent activity is similar to the Heavy Rotation section, but a bit more granular. Here you’ll be able to see a stream of what your friends have added to their collection (more on this later) and synced with the mobile app right off the bat. You can also look at their listening history as well as everything they’ve added to their collection and any playlists they’ve created.

This may come off as a little be invasive at first glance. I thought the same thing. The more I thought about it and used it the more I really enjoyed this aspect. Music is something that should be shared and there’s nothing to be embarrassed about with regard with your listening habits. Ok, I may give my girlfriend a little crap if I see the Backstreet Boys in her collection, but that’s as far as I’d take it.

There’s no way to message anyone you’re following or anything like that right from the application. In general, I’ve discovered some really cool music this way and I hope others have discovered things from following me as well.

Top Charts and New Releases

These sections are pretty self explanatory and include just what you would guess.

One cool feature here is that if someone you’re following has recently listened to anything in either of these areas (as in all other areas of the app) you’ll see their name listed below the album or song.

Your Network

Following others is a big part of Rdio. A toggle button will display or hide a sidebar that shows either your network (who you follow) or a list of suggested folks to follow. The suggested list will be populated with people you follow on Twitter and your Facebook friends (if you elect to connect these services). You’ll also see some Rdio suggested people to follow.

Those that you are following will display in a list with those that are online at the moment at the top. You’ll see what that person is actually listening to at that moment.

Your Music

While Rdio is pretty incredible for fostering music discovery, it is an equally good tool to simply help you to better enjoy music.

Collection

Music makes it to your collection in one of two ways. It’s possible to have Rdio do a scan of your iTunes library and bring in that music into your collection. You also have the ability when browsing anywhere to add music to your collection.

Your collection will turn into essentially your entire music library should you chose to bring in your iTunes music. There are a couple different views and the collection can be sorted in several different ways. There’s also a live search field at the top of the list. With all that, it’s pretty easy to find the music you’re looking for in your collection.

History

For me, being able to refer back to my listening history is a really nice feature. I love to explore and eventually find myself listening to something I’ve never heard of. A couple days later I’ll try to remember what that was and will be at a loss. With my listening history easily at hand I can check that out and see exactly what that lost album was.

Queue

As you’re browsing you’ll have the ability to add any album or song to your queue. It works just like you’d think. Hop back here to see what you’ve got queued up.

Playlists

As you’re browsing the Rdio music library, you’ll be able to add music to one of your playlists. These can be created as either published (everyone can see and even subscribe) or private playlists.

You can also create collaborative playlists. There are two options for who is allowed to collaborate on your playlist. Those you follow or all of Rdio.

Play Station

Throughout the the application you’ll see this button that reads Play Station. This button creates a radio station based on the area that your browsing. If I’m viewing someones collection and play that button I’ll start to hear a custom music stream based on that individual’s musical tastes.

This yet another way to discover music. You can’t decide what to listen to, but typically agree with your friend’s taste in music. hit the Play Station button while in their collection and see where that takes you.

This would be a similar feature to a service like Pandora. You can also play a station based on a particular artists just like you can do with applications like that.

Mobile Syncing

If you’re an Unlimited Rdio subscriber you’ll have access to the mobile application as well. You’ll be able to stream music from the app just as you would on your desktop and you’ll also be able to sync music with your mobile device that will be available when you’re mobile device is offline.

Final Thoughts

Rdio was an attractively designed application prior to this redesign, but I feel like we’re seeing some really nice improvements with this latest version. Some significant changes in interface design were made and most I feel like point to enabling multiple methods of music discovery.

I’m not going to get into the Rdio versus Spotify debate here, but I will say that from my experience Rdio makes music discovery easier and more enjoyable. Music is meant to be shared and Rdio provides so many different avenues for sharing and exploring. This combined with the fact that the app is beautifully designed has sold me and I highly recommend giving the new version a look.

This version of Rdio has not been released to everyone just yet. If you’re a subscriber and would like to check it out, you can hop on over to the new Rdio website.

You probably already have a text editor built into your workflow, but what if you want to use Markdown and your editor doesn’t support it? Wouldn’t it be nice to see a live, constantly updating preview of your Markdown files? This is exactly what Marked does, and you’re going to love it.

We’re happy to announce that we’ve been able to snag five copies of Marked 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, April 25th. Good luck to everyone who enters! In the mean time, be sure to stop by the Marked website to learn more about this awesome app.

For decades now, voice control over any type of hardware has been the epitome of immersive user interface. From Star Trek to Iron Man, you have seen the benefits of vocal commands used over and over in many forms of science fiction. To date, technology still tries to mimic the essence of voice control from its sci-fi roots.

Like 3D, voice control has been a fun gimmick for computers, video game peripherals like Kinect and even televisions. More often than not, the software fails to capture the greatness that voice control could one day be. Recently however, Apple introduced the iPhone-4S-exclusive voice control behemoth known as Siri — which soon became the most popular feature of the handset. Why hasn’t this extremely helpful and rather cool piece of software made it to OS X yet? Better yet, why should it?

The Gimmick Breakdown

Before going further, there is one very important fact that should be noted about Apple products and technology in general. Technology always strives to make things simpler, faster, better, and as immersive as possible. When the iPad first came out, most people (myself included) believed it to be just a “huge iPhone that no one would want.” Interestingly enough, the iPad came out and it sold like fresh baked bread. The iPad became an amazingly useful tool for students, teachers, designers, freelancers, journalists, kids, parents, families and so on.

Although Siri is not a new invention or a new piece of hardware, the advances that it has over other software like it tells us that this technology is no longer just a gimmick. Most gimmicks don’t work as advertised, they are usually never practical and more often than not, they give us a headache rather than help us with the task at hand. Siri, like the iPad, is a simple, useful and powerful companion.

But if Siri is not a gimmick, why is this piece of tech absent from OS X?

The Hardware Requirements

If we look at the hardware specs for current Macs and compare it to the iPhone’s, we can see some technical challenges that Siri faces when being ported to OS X. The Mac’s internal microphone for instance isn’t as sophisticated as the iPhone 4S dual microphone setup specifically made for noise reduction. This means that your Mac won’t focus on just your voice, so Siri might get confused when listening to your commands. Your mac does a pretty good job at canceling noise, sure, just not as good as the iPhone.

Siri also relies on a continuous data connection in order to interface with Apple’s servers which contain all of Siri’s knowledge. Macs today don’t have 3G or 4G capabilities. This means the use of Siri on a Mac — or at least on MacBooks — would be limited.

Regardless of these few limitations however, there isn’t a good reason why Siri should not appear on a future release of Apple’s operating system. Take a look at the trackpad for example. I have a 2007 pre-unibody Macbook Pro with a trackpad that doesn’t allow me to take advantage of my software’s multi-gesture features. Apple decided that they wanted Mac users to manipulate OSX with gestures like those found on the iPhone, so they simply updated all MacBooks and peripherals accordingly.

If Siri really needs a better microphone and a constant Internet connection in order to be featured in the next iteration of Apple’s OS, it is really hard to believe that Apple won’t refresh its hardware — not to mention that in a few years most devices will connect to 4G.

The Benefits of Siri-Enabled OSX

Let’s forget about what Siri currently handles on your iPhone 4S; let’s think about everything you do on your computer. Siri on the Mac should be more than just a simple appointment-scheduling, event-reminding feature. Today we use many apps to handle tasks in a fast and practical manner. Apps like TextExpander, Alfred, Keyboard Maestro, QuickSilver can be utilized to open apps, run AppleScripts, do quick searches on various websites, handle automated functions, expanding text and so on. Siri, if implemented well, could handle all of these operations and more.

Imagine you are a web designer or a graphic designer and you are working on a few projects in Photoshop. In one window you are working on a logo and in the other, a website mockup is awaiting to be sliced, saved, moved and uploaded to your server from your FTP app of choice.

As you keep working on your logo, simply say: “Siri, save file X for the web to the desktop. Open Cyberduck in the background and upload file X to folder Y.” OSX would then handle the commands and work in the background as you keep working on that awesome logo. Normally you could do this simple process with Keyboard Maestro, but that means you have to be in the window you want to save and not do anything while you are waiting for the process to be over with.

By saying “in the background,” you can keep working on your project. This idea applies for just about any situation where you need to expedite your workflow. If you need to do some text expanding, just say what you need and it’ll be there. If developers work with Siri, apps like the ones mentioned above could be even more practical.

Wouldn’t it be great if you wake up in the morning ready to work on that next big article, school work or project and Siri is there ready to assist you from the get-go? While getting some coffee, you could tell Siri the following: “Siri, open Safari, Mail, Twitter and Skype. Open file X in Coda and Google image search ‘Twitter PNG Logo.’” When you are done with your breakfast or coffee, your computer is all ready for you to start working. You could even ask Siri to read your emails while you eat breakfast so you don’t waist time with distractions.

The Future of Siri

When I talk about Siri and the iPad, there are a few works of fiction that come to mind. Star Trek for instance. One day when I walked into an Apple Store after the iPad had released, the place was run buy people with iPads in hand checking for your Genius Bar appointment. I immediately thought: “I’m on the Enterprise.” Even restaurants today use iPods and iPads to get menu orders. There is no need for pencil and paper anymore, you can do that with your iPad and you can be certain that there will be an app for that.

With Siri, you can immediately relate it to a few Sci-Fi greats. KITT from Knight Rider (heck, Siri already sounds as cocky as KITT use to), Jarvis from Iron Man, and Computer from Star Trek The Next Generation, can all be compared to a future, more polished version of Siri — one that perhaps doesn’t depend on a constant connection to Apple Servers. Just picture yourself telling your Mac to call you “Captain.” Every time you forget to do something, Siri will say: “Captain, what should I name this saved file as?” Or “Tony, you have a meeting today at noon, should I cancel it?” Siri could ultimately grow to be as powerful as Jarvis or the computer on the Enterprise. It has much room to grow beyond the common reminder of appointments.

In The End

Siri today is in beta, so perhaps it won’t make it to the Mac just yet, and honestly that is fine, but there is no reason why it shouldn’t in the long run. Siri should be ported not only because it would be great and cool to have, but could ultimately help Apple sell more Macs. Perhaps Apple plans bringing Siri to OS X when an updated lineup of Macs are announced. They could even advertise them as the only computers that support Siri — much like they did with the iPhone 4S.

It would undoubtably be a great moment when you have the option to control all aspects of your computer with your voice. As always share your thoughts in the comments below.

Video editing programs are big and bulky and take a lot of resources to run. I regularly use Adobe After Effects and Premiere, but my computer isn’t always happy about that. It doesn’t make sense to use Premiere or After Effects for the little tasks, but I don’t particularly care for iMovie so I often find myself having to open up Premiere just to do a simple conversion or little edit, which doesn’t make a great deal of sense. I’ve been looking for a light-weight program to take care of the little edits and Shave Video is definitely one I like.

Shave Video is a simple and quick program that’s great for basic cutting, chopping, splicing and conversions. Shave Video is useful no matter your skill level. Novice users can complete simple edits like cutting a scene from a phone-video. Professional editors will appreciate the simplicity of the software for use in prep work or batch conversion. Read on to find out how the program works as well as what I really thought of it.

Major Features

Shave Video offers users the ability to do simple edits or to convert video to different formats. Regardless of the project at hand, importing the footage is the first step. Importing is fairly straight-forward, but make sure your video is in the proper format. If you are editing video, Shave Video supports QuickTime, Windows AVI (with Perian installed), MPEG-2 and MPEG-4. If your project just involves conversion, all of the above formats are supported, as well as Mastroka MKV (with Perian) and DV Streams.

After your footage is imported, Shave allows you to easily cut up and splice together footage. I had a video that I shot on my phone that I wanted to cut a few seconds out of, thanks to the fairly intuitive controls in Shave I was able to import, edit and export within just a few minutes. Trimming scenes is easy: just set “in and out” (start and end) points for the clip and then choose the trim option. If you want to use a clip in another video, set your in and out points and use the extract tool. Lifting works just like extract, but leaves the original scene intact. The editing mode is also the place to add any additional video clips, audio and even still images.

Converting video is another big feature. It’s just as simple and straight-forward as cutting and exporting. Just open up the footage you want to convert, select the export format and let Shave do the work for you. To make things even simpler, if you have several files to convert Shave also has a “batch convert” feature. This feature allows you to queue up and convert several files at once to the same format. This feature is useful for multiple complete, original files or for exporting various clips from the same video as separate files.

If you are working on only one file, the export options are pretty decent, given the level of software. Files can be exported as 3G, Windows AVI, Quicktime (.mov), MPEG-4 or DV streams. You are also able to change a variety of the settings for video and audio. Options include the compression time, frames per second, dimensions and sample rates. If your video is going online, this is also the place to make sure it is optimized for online playback.

Advanced Features

While Shave is definitely great for all skill levels, if you are an advanced user there is some further functionality that definitely benefits you. First, Shave is accurate down to the frame for the best quality editing possible. You can easily trim down to precise frames or scroll the footage one frame at a time. This accuracy ensures that any prep work done in Shave Video can be used in more advanced editing programs.

Advanced users will also appreciate the plethora of keyboard shortcuts, similar in many ways to the shortcuts found in professional-grade editing applications. From the basic program controls like opening and closing files to editing and playback navigation shortcuts, the program makes it easy to master the shortcuts and use them to easily speed up workflow. Shave also supports some gesture controls, although there are not nearly as many and they are not as useful as the keyboard shortcuts.

A few other notable features include the ability to add watermarks to the video (via the tools menu) as well as the ability to export still images from the videos. These images are able to be used as either thumbnails or preview images for the video you are working on. Both tools are simple to use and are helpful in the editing process.

It is worth noting at this time the things that Shave is lacking in. You will not find fancy effects or transitions in this program. This is not what Shave is designed to do, and for that I am thankful. The one thing I wish they would add, at least in a very simple way, is the ability to add some text. I don’t wish for scrolling text or fancy shapes and colors and customization. If the program is aimed (at least in part) at an audience that wants to simply trim down a video and put in on a social media site, the ability to add at least a title to the video would be fantastic and I believe much appreciated. I am glad that Shave has stuck to the simplicity throughout the application, but a basic text tool would be great.

Final Thoughts

Shave Video has found a permanent place in my workflow after testing it out. As someone who works with video on a regular basis, I love the batch conversion tool and the ability to do some easy prep work (with frame accuracy) before I have to open up the more intensive program. If you are looking for a light-weight program for use in the professional world or just a simpler replacement for the extremely bloated iMovie, then check out Shave Video.

Of course, I am excited to hear what you all think about the program as well. Have you tried it? Does it help you in your daily workflow? I’d love to hear from all levels – professional editors and novice iPhone shooters. Share your thoughts below.

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 April 23rd, 2011.

Time management is be a daunting task for many of us. I excel in writing down my appointments and time blocks into iCal, but if I don’t assign an alarm to them, I miss them. More than that, knowing that I have a lot crammed into a day discourages me to even open iCal – which doesn’t really improve the situation!

With Blotter, you can display your iCal content on your desktop and so keep an eye on your important stuff much easier – and surprisingly enough, find that there just might be time to do everything properly.

The Idea Behind Blotter

The application is aimed at those iCal users who want to keep an eye on their appointments and scheduled tasks without having to switch to an application for that permanently.

Blotter sits on top of your desktop background, but beneath everything else: your icons and open application windows are on top of the displayed dates.

Of course, you could just have iCal open at all times, but then you’d have to switch between apps, enlarge the window etc. With Blotter being in the background but always present, you can simply use the Mac’s standard keys to show your desktop and have an instant view of your appointments.

If iCal Understands It, Blotter Shows It

A lot of criticism in the App Store reviews was directed at the feature set of Blotter, especially its iCal only sync. What seems to be ignored by some of the critics is that you can integrate other calendars into iCal, for example Google Calendar – meaning that you can display those events just fine. And even the color of your calendars is correctly reflected in Blotter.

The only annoyance here is that you have to actually open up iCal for a sync now and then. Since the third-party app fetches everything from iCal, it naturally can’t display any changes you made on another device/service and which haven’t yet been synced back to the desktop application.

Beware: Blotter is a display-only app. It will be part of your desktop, you can’t click anywhere or make changes to iCal data.

Tasks & Right Now

I’m very picky about having my current tasks displayed as well – and to my pleasant surprise Blotter meets this need. Tasks which are entered into iCal have their dedicated spot.

Another helpful feature is the Right Now aspect. While the normal calendar view of Blotter shows an entire day in a 7-day week, the “Right Now” view focuses on the current day and the current time. I personally prefer the Narrow view of Blotter, where I can see all my current tasks and focus on what is happening right now (or better: what I should be doing at the moment and what is coming up next).

The display of the events scrolls ever so slowly upwards, so that your current appointments are always in focus.

Setting It Up

There are not a lot of preferences for Blotter. On the bright side – you won’t waste too much time tinkering! You can define where on your desktop you want the calendar displayed, which is very neat if you have certain windows always in a specific spot. Also, if you have multiple monitors, you can select on which one you want Blotter to work its magic.

What I particularly like is the option of setting the size of the displayed calendar. You have three options to choose from and depending on how good your eye sight is, or how well you can deal with a cluttered desktop, you can pick what works best for you.

If you select either the normal or full view, you will see seven days displayed. You can choose if you want to see the calendar week or if you’d prefer Blotter to start with the current day, giving you seven days from this moment on.

By default, all calendars are selected to be displayed. You can of course select the ones that matter most to you and uncheck others.

Areas of Improvement

I personally don’t mind that Blotter does just one thing – displaying the content of iCal on my desktop. It does so well and it helps me to keep on top of things. There are some things I’d love to see improved, though.

First and foremost, the rendering of text in the calendar views needs to be improved. Readable as it is, the fonts are just not smooth enough to look nice on the desktop. The developers are aware of this issue and are looking into it.

Another small annoyance is the difficulty to access the app preferences. As it is right now, you have to go to the dock, click the application, then move all the way to the upper left of your screen and select the preferences option from the menu bar. On a 27″ screen, that’s quite a way to travel. I pointed this out to the developers as well and they are looking into it too.

Verdict

I like Blotter. For the simple reason that it allows me to keep one more app closed (iCal) and still have a complete overview over my appointments and current tasks. It’s absolutely non-intrusive as it operates in the background, but it’s accessibly quickly enough to be of true help.

There are alternatives out there, for example Zipline, but you’ll have to let your personal style of work and taste decide for which app you go. If it’s Blotter, just make sure you’re using a nice wallpaper, so you’ll be able to read what it’s displaying!

I was very reluctant to adopt Final Cut X and Motion 5 due to a number of reasons, one of the biggest of which was my favorite plugins working with the new software. I am very happy to say after many months, plugins are now available and coming out strong.

Let’s go on a little video lover’s escapade into the world of digital video and check some cool plugins! I even threw in a plugin for those who have not switched over to FCP X.

Which Plugins Do You Use?

There you have it, ten fantastic Final Cut Pro and Motion plugins for every range of skill level and budget. Now that you’ve see our favorites, leave a comment below and let us know yours. Have you used any of the plugins above? What did you think of them? What did we miss?

Here’s Mac AppStorm’s picks of the best deals on the App Store for this week, 11 – 18 April (there is also a little surprise waiting at the bottom of the page as well…).

Happy downloading!

BONUS: 8 Mac apps for only $49!

The spring Mac SuperBundle has gone on sale for only $49 for the next two weeks. The included software (total value: $453) is as follows (all software included is the full and most recent version and is Lion-compatible):

• Roxio Toast 11 Titanium – the ultimate digital media toolkit for Macs along with disk burning.
• RapidWeaver 5 – powerful and easy to use Mac website design software.
• Panorama Maker 5 Pro – turn your photos and videos into stunning panoramas.
• Hallmark Card Studio – create your own greetings cards right at home on your Mac.
• Disk Drill PRO – recover important data in almost any disaster situation.
• Houdah Tembo – a fast and flexible file finder.
• Musicbox – take your music with you wherever you go.
• Font Explosion 500 Vol. 1 – 500 professionally designed fonts for almost any occasion.

The bundle also includes an extra goodie, Compartments, a home inventory software package. You can buy and download the bundle here over the next 14 days.