Blancer.com Tutorials and projects

There is quite a bit of screenshot functionality built right into OS X. Using global shortcuts, you can grab the entire screen, a specific area or even a specific window and place it either on your desktop or into your clipboard. Also, with QuickTime, you now have the ability to record everything on your screen to a simple movie.

Despite all this functionality, there is definitely room for improvement. Apps like LittleSnapper and Screenium give you tons of professional functionality, but will cost you a whopping $30. So where’s the happy medium of an affordable utility that still packs plenty of great features? Screeny attempts to do just that. Read on to see how it fares.

Screeny Controls

Interestingly enough, Screeny doesn’t seem like it’s trying to replace the default screenshot functionality in OS X. You can’t simply select a window to grab and you can’t grab images to the clipboard. Instead, it focuses on improving the way you take shots of select portions of the screen with a simple set of controls.

Screeny Controls

As you can see in the image above, there are three sections to the Screeny controls. The first is a set of two buttons that allows you to choose whether you want to snap an image or record a screencast.

The fields at the bottom allow you to quickly enter a preset size for the snap area. This is immensely helpful and is probably my favorite feature in the app. AppStorm reviews like this one always require me to take screenshots at 620px wide so it’s very helpful to immediately be able to set the box to this size. This is much easier than trying to nail precise dimensions in a default OS X screengrab.

The middle section of the Screeny Controls allows you to choose a preset size rather than entering your own. In addition to six specific pixel dimension presets, you’ll also find an option to grab the entire screen.

Using a Preset Size

Snapping an Image

When you want to snap an image of the screen, hit ??C to bring up the controls and the preview box shown below (??2 takes the screenshot). The transparency of this box can be set in the app preferences.

Snapping an Image

In addition to selecting a size from the dropdown menu or entering one into the fields manually, you can also use the controls on the preview box to resize the screeshot area before you snap.

Having an area that you can adjust live on all sides is far superior to the “draw a box” method that OS X implements by default. This gives you much more control and makes fine tuning easy.

Another thing that I really like is that you can move and interact with the windows on your screen even while the screenshot controls are up. This allows you to make adjustments to the composition on the fly without exiting Screeny.

Once you’re ready to go, simply hit the screenshot button and the file will be saved to your desktop. You can change this location to another folder in the preference menu.

Recording a Screencast

To record a screencast, follow the exact same steps as for a screenshot, only this time hit the large record button instead.

It’s really great to be able to only record a specific portion of your screen. This not only helps focus your viewers to the right content, it limits the output file size.

Once you hit the record button, the Screeny controls will disappear and a box will appear on the screen to show you the area of the screen that is being recorded.

Recording a Screencast

Utilizing the Screeny menu bar options, you can start and stop the screencast at any time in addition to accessing other controls and preferences.

Menu Bar Options

Once you’re done recording, the movie file will automatically appear on your desktop. Screeny boasts lossless quality screencasts at a higher frame rate that QuickTime so if you’re concerned about quality, you can’t go wrong here.

Worth a Download?

If you work on your computer and regularly utilize screenshots and screencasts, Screeny is definitely worth a download. At $14.99, it’s not amazingly cheap but the app makes up for it in production quality.

For screencasts, the functionality in Screeny is simple, effective and clearly better than what you get from QuickTime. For screenshots, there are admittedly a few improvements that could be made. I’d love to see the option to create my own reusable preset sizes, the lack of a copy to clipboard option is significant and some control over the output file type would definitely be nice.

The developer promises that Cloud App and Quixly integration are coming soon in addition to Lion support so you can definitely expect to see plenty of improvements soon.

Conclusion

Overall, I’m quite impressed with Screeny. It’s one of those apps that successfully pulls off a minimal approach in a really slick way that feels just about perfect rather than lacking.

If you want a feature-rich utility that will conform to your every whim and completely change the way you work, Screeny and anything else in its price range are likely not it. However, if you want a nice little boost to the built-in OS X functionality for under $15, you should definitely give Screeny a shot.

Today we’re going look way back to the beginning and see a platform and a company that was defined by breaking the mold and breaking free of restrictions and uniformity.

We’ll contrast this with a critical look at the direction that Apple is headed in today. Do their current goals reflect the anti-establishment personality portrayed in the infamous 1984 commercial or have they become the establishment?

It’s Good to Be Back

For those of you who’re faithful enough to read both sites, you may have noticed that I’ve actually left my post as the iPhone.AppStorm editor and taken over for David Appleyard here at Mac.Appstorm. My entire web writing career, now a full-time venture, started right here so I’m thrilled to be back writing about the Mac.

Aside from nostalgia, there are quite a few other reasons that I’m glad to be back. For starters, I love writing about the Mac as a platform for amazing development. Despite the fact that I absolutely love my iPhone and iPad, being a Mac nerd has been ingrained into my identity for well over a decade.

Having spent so long focused on iOS, it actually feels quite liberating to come back and write about Macs. The primary reason for this is that we’re “allowed” to do so much more with our Macs. Apple keeps such tight reign over iOS and its accompanying apps that one can’t really dig in and poke around without going rogue and ending up in a ceaseless back and forth battle with Apple (aka jailbreaking).

This line of thought has me wondering about Apple’s new direction for the world of software and whether or not it ends well for us.

Freedom

I absolutely love digging into my Macs as soon as I get them. I run custom terminal commands, set up shell scripts to run Geeklets on my desktop, break into and customize dashboard widgets and install applications that may slightly alter certain parts of the core OS. In short, I make the computer my own.

This is tricky enough that most consumers never attempt it and in reality don’t even know that half of it is possible, which keeps the experience shiny clean for them. On my end though, it’s always been one of the main things that I love about Macs; they have a rock solid architecture but can in fact be taught plenty of great tricks.

It’s important to note that none of this has ever really felt like I’ve done something wrong that Apple would condemn me for. Jobs and Woz are hackers from way back and fully understand the need to play around and see what can be done with a system. Shoot, AppleScript and Terminal are tools that have been provided just for these types of folks.

Regulation

Contrast this with iOS. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love the system, but the way that Apple has set it up is quite different. Here, in the place of freedom, we have an assumption that developers and users will screw stuff up if you don’t keep a close eye on them.

Instead of providing us with fun tools that allow us to bend the rules and stretch the possibilities, Apple spent millions attempting to literally make it illegal to hack your iPhone (fortunately, they failed). Jobs the hacker has suddenly forgotten who he was thirty years ago and wants to turn kids that act like he did back then into criminals.

All of this under the sacred religion of providing a better experience. Give people freedom and iOS goes down the tubes. An interesting argument given the impressive number of Jailbreak features that keep finding their way into the official version of iOS.

Where Is the Mac Headed?

Earlier this week we published an article containing ten apps that you won’t find in the Mac App Store. Interestingly enough, several of the apps mentioned simply aren’t allowed in, despite being on just about everyone’s list of “must-have” Mac applications.

iStat Menus is one of the most notable examples of this. In short, iStat digs into deep system files that Apple doesn’t like people screwing around with, so they won’t approve it. It’s an amazingly useful app, we all use and own it, but the fierce dictators at Apple wag their fingers in disapproval.

Fortunately, at this point, it doesn’t matter whether or not Apple approves an app for sale on the Mac App Store. iStat was popular before the MAS and can go on living without it. We’re all free to download and install any Mac apps we see fit to live on our machines.

I can’t help but wonder if the dictators are scratching their heads about how to fix this in the long term though. Will Mac OS always give us the freedom that we now enjoy or will we start seeing that freedom slip as the iOS framework slowly starts making its way over? How long before a version of Mac OS launches that only allows for apps to be installed through the App Store? How long before Apple starts a campaign to make it illegal to Jailbreak a Mac?

Even to me these start to sound like the paranoid delusions of a madman. “Apple would never…” is my response. The truth is though that Apple already has, and they seem to be loving the control. iOS is widely praised as the future of computing in this “Post-PC” era and I can’t help but wonder if that era will be defined by only those applications and utilities that our gracious protectors have deemed appropriate for us to have. I can’t help but wonder if Apple is on the road to playing the part of Big Brother in the 1984 commercial while the Jailbreakers and hackers take up the symbol of the heroine hurling the hammer.

What Do You Think?

At this point all I have is questions. Please feel free to chime in on any and all of them.

Will Apple continue to tighten their control over developers? Is the regulation that we see in iOS making its way to the Mac? Is Apple using App Stores to launch an “Information Purification Directive” that will result in a big brother scenario? Does the scene in the famous 1984 commercial bear a strange resemblance to the WWDC of the future?

It’s very easy to make your own iPhone ringtones with GarageBand. Those who already know their way around Apple’s beginner-friendly Digital Audio Workstation will be able to breeze through this guide with a few quick glances, but for Mac users new to GarageBand, the seven steps below will guide you along the way.

Step 1: Choose A Song

Selecting A Song In iTunes

First we need to choose a song to use as a ringtone, so browse through your iTunes library and find a song you’d like to use. I’ve chosen Manchester post-punk band, The Fall, with their cover of Victoria. Once the song is decided, we’re finished with iTunes for the time being.

Step 1 can be skipped if you’re comfortable importing songs with GarageBand’s media browser

Step 2: Launch GarageBand

Launching GarageBand

Now launch GarageBand and you will be presented with the launch screen. Selecting “iPhone Ringtone” from the left window pane will bring up the screen shown above. Click “Example Ringtone” and “Choose”.

New Project

You will now be presented with the above dialog box. Though important when creating a song from scratch, the settings can be safely ignored for our purposes. All that is needed is a title (song name with ‘ringtone’ added is a good choice), so leave all the other options as default and hit “Create”.

Step 3: Introducing GarageBand

GarageBand

Depending on your version of GarageBand, you should now be presented with the above screenshot, or something similar. I am using GarageBand’s latest iteration from iLife ’11, but these instructions should still suffice for older versions with some slight tweaking.

It’s worth taking a few moments to familiarize ourselves with GarageBand’s basic interface. Keeping our gaze toward the bottom center of GarageBand’s window, we can see a set of self-explanatory buttons for play, pause, skip and record. Moving to the right of these, there is a timer and further right still, the “Cycle” button (which should remain highlighted), “Metronome” and “Volume Slider”. Hovering the pointer over a button for a moment will present a brief explanation of its function.

Though this guide is catered toward iPhone ringtones, it should be useful for any phone which is able to accept custom ringtones

Step 4: Getting Started

Track Audio

Keeping our gaze in the center of GarageBand’s screen, but now moving upwards, there is a track of music already inserted. This is labelled ‘Jingles’ and the blue graphic to the right of this is a visual representation of the music it contains. Click play to hear the jingle.

Now we need to free up the space currently taken by the jingle, so click on the blue graphic and choose ‘Edit’ from the menu, then ‘Delete’ to clear our track of its audio. We’ve now got a nice clean track (still called ‘Jingles’) ready for putting our would-be ringtone into, as shown below.

Blank Track

Arrange GarageBand’s window so that you can see iTunes and your chosen song is selected. Click and drag the song into GarageBand’s main window, directly where the previous blue graphic was. If you miss the correct place, your song will be inserted onto a new track – if this happens, simply click and drag onto the correct one. Now would be a good time to save your progress.

Step 5: Editing Ringtone Start

GarageBand has now imported our song as you can see on the screenshot below.

Cycle Region Unchanged

You will notice a small yellow bar above the audio graphic, this is called the “Cycle Region”. The Cycle Region specifies what length our ringtone will be and it can be dragged left or right to stop and start the audio where we choose, so any point in the song can be converted into a ringtone.

Cycle Region Edited

Victoria begins with a drummer tapping a four bar intro. That doesn’t really fit with how I want my ringtone to sound, so I’ll adjust the Cycle Region with a click and drag to the right until the song begins in the right place. This may take a bit of practice at first, depending on the song choice, but as you can see above, my ringtone now begins as the music kicks in. Clicking on ‘Play’ will confirm this. Our next step is to perform the same process for our ringtone’s end point.

Step 6: Editing Ringtone End

iTunes will only allow a maximum ringtone length of 40 seconds, so, staying in our main window, press play and listen for a good place to end the ringtone. When listening to the song, you will notice that the audio only plays as far as the Cycle Region bar is set, which is currently 17 seconds or so into the song. The Cycle Region should now be extended to the right, to the point at which you want the ringtone to end, making adjustments when necessary.

In this case, I have chosen to stop right at the moment before the vocalist starts singing the chorus.

Cycle Region End

Play the song once again and take some time trying to make the ending as smooth as possible. This may take a little while if you do not have experience editing audio.

Step 7: Exporting Your Ringtone

This is the final step.

Make sure to save in GarageBand. Then have one last listen to the ringtone. If you are happy with the beginning and end points, simply click “Send Ringtone to iTunes” – which is located on GarageBand’s menu bar, under “Share”. Your ringtone should now be available in iTunes under the “Ringtones” pane – if this pane is not there for whatever reason, go into iTunes’ preferences and enable its view.

iTunes

Now the above process can be repeated again with whichever songs you like. With some practice and the correct song choices, it should take only a few minutes to get each ringtone made and exported into iTunes.

All Finished!

Wasn’t that easy? You should now be equipped to create tons of custom ringtones for your phone. Leave a comment below and let us know if there are any other tutorials that you’d like to see from the iLife suite.

Although we usually spend our hours reviewing applications from others here at AppStorm, next week we’ll be doing something slightly different! We’ve developed a delightfully simple app for freelancers, called “Unwind”.

Unwind encourages you to take regular breaks from working at your machine, with a simple countdown timer and a relaxing environment to enjoy during your time away from work. We have some soothing music, and beautiful photos from Envato’s upcoming photo marketplace.

It’s a fun little utility for Mac-using freelancers, and we can’t wait to share it with you next week. To secure your copy, all you need to do is join the AppFanatix newsletter! We’ll be sending out an email to all our subscribers on Monday with details on how to download their free copy of Unwind.

AppFanatix is already enjoyed by over 6,000 people, and it’s the best way to stay up-to-date with the latest developments at AppStorm, receive fortnightly deals on fantastic software, and hear about promotions such as our Freelance Mac App Bundle!

Subscribe now, and secure your free copy of Unwind!

Don’t Forget to Grab the Freelance Mac App Bundle…

We’ve now sold over 1,000 copies of our awesome bundle, that contains every essential Mac app for freelancers: Billings, TextExpander, LittleSnapper, Alarms, Arq, Radium, WriteRoom, 1Password, and much more. Time is ticking away, so don’t forget to grab your copy before it’s too late!

I’ve been using Reeder since the very beginning, since back when it was just a wee little app with no subscription management or automatic refresh.

Since that first public beta, reeder has grown from a buggy iOS port to a fully-featured, beautiful Google Reader client. There’s no shortage of Mac RSS applications, and many have developed loyal fanbases across many niches. In this crowded market, can reeder really offer something new?

Layout and Design

Reeder features a richly detailed, iOS-inspired design, with many customizable options, allowing you to browse through your articles as you please. The default layout is a typical three-column affair with columns for subscription list, article list, and preview/browser pane. You can also browse Reeder in a minimized, two-column layout, which only shows full articles when double-clicked.

You can customize the details of Reeder’s appearance, from color and texture to font size and contrast. My only minor complaint here is that the app window is dimmed when you’re customizing the appearance, so you can’t really tell what the color looks like.

Reeder interface with "classic" layout and "standard" color options

"minimized" layout and "iOS" color scheme

Reeder’s interface is well-designed and straight-forward: the reduced layout features only the bare minimum of buttons, allowing you to view starred, unread, or all articles. By default, clicking the “mark all as read” icon (the checkmark) has a confirmation prompt, which is a little annoying, but can be removed in preferences. Reeder’s interface is customizable to the point that that you can change pretty much anything you don’t like about it to suit your own preferences.

Reading preferences

Multi-Touch Browsing

Without a doubt my favourite feature of Reeder is the customizable multi-touch support. Without setting any preferences, the multi-touch interactions work pretty intuitively and are really a joy to use. Use three fingers to scroll through unread articles, swipe with three fingers to view an article in minimized layout, or view an article in the built-in browser in the classic layout. I have gestures set up to open an article in Chrome when I pinch open, and send to ReadItLater when I pinch closed.

“Swipe to Navigate” has to be enabled under System Preferences / Trackpad or Mouse for full multi-touch support. Full support currently only works for multi-touch trackpad, and ther is limited support (swipe left and swipe right) for Magic Mouse.

Multi-touch support is completely customizable, I have it set up so that I can browse my articles without a single click or keystroke. It feels super futuristic.

Customizing multi-touch gestures

Keyboard Shortcuts

If you’d rather go the keyboard route than the multi-touch route, Reeder’s keyboard shortcuts feature even more options than gestures. Reeder uses simple keyboard shortcuts without the cmnd prefix, which will be familiar to users of Google’s web apps.

Customizing keyboard shorcuts

Integration with Services and Other Features

Reeder supports integration with a slew of bookmarking and offline reading services, including Readability, Instapaper, ReadItLater, Pinboard, Delicious, Zootool and Twitter. You can customize which services appear in the toolbar, and which ones are activated with specified gestures or keyboard shortcuts.

Saving an article to Delicious

Readability

Reeder features full support for Web and Mobile web reading app Readability, which functions much like apps like Instapaper or ReadItLater, but with direct browser integration that allows you to view any article on the web in a clutter-free environment. Readability charges a monthly fee for accessing their “read it later” feature, and 70% of your fee goes to writers and publishers to compensate them for allowing content to be viewed without ads. Within Reeder, you can use Readability to filter out ads in RSS posts (though I found this feature inconsistent) and to pre-load full articles from partial-feed posts (allowing you to get around feeds that only let you read a “teaser” from your RSS reader). I found the “toggle readability” feature a bit confusing and couldn’t always tell what it was doing. You can also send articles to your reading list as you can for similar apps.

Google Reader Features

Reeder supports Google Reader features like sharing and notes, shared articles and those with notes can be viewed in the “all articles” view, and notes appear at the top of articles. After adding a note, however, I found it didn’t always show up right away.

iPhone App

Reeder syncs with the original iPhone and iPad apps app, which are also wonderful apps. Check out Jonas Wisser’s review of the iPad app over at iPhone Appstorm.

The Little Things

Reeder excels in attention to detail, from the smoothly animated interactions to the unread article count displayed on the side of the icon. Though there may be other RSS readers with more powerful features (like more fully featured subscription management) I think the beautifully designed details more than make up for it.

Conclusion

Using Reeder is like interacting with the future of Mac applications, the developer has taken all the best parts of mobile development, including a gesture-based, simplified interface, and seamlessly integrated them with the power and flexibility of a desktop application. The result is an intuitive and enjoyable experience with all the functionality you need in an RSS reader.

In this crowded category, Reeder sets itself apart in a number of ways. The multi-touch interface is probably the most unique and innovative element of Reeder, but its seamless integration with all the major bookmarking services gives it a broad appeal to all types of users. Reeder’s extensive customization options allow you to read your news as you please, without having to learn a new set of keyboard shortcuts or gestures.

I had largely given up on RSS a couple months ago, using Vienna felt more like checking my email than keeping up with the latest news. As we transition away from traditional news sources like newspapers and magazines, there is room to craft a new user experience of the consumption of current media, and Reeder feels very much like a big step in this direction. Without falling back on a predictable newspaper-inspired interface, Reeder offers a truly enjoyable way to keep up with your favourite content in a way that feels engaging and new, and is not merely an attempt to replace traditional media with a close digital analog.