Entries tagged “macosx”

ScreenFlow, a slick new $100 screencasting app for Mac, with a built-in editor and innovative features, such as the ability to record video from the screen and video from a camera simultaneously. The Mac has had a couple of simple screencast apps for a while, but nothing that competes with Camtasia Studio for Windows. ScreenFlow is a welcome entry in this market.

1Passwd, a password manager and automatic form manager for Mac OS X. Supports secure password generation, multiple browsers, syncing with .Mac, and more. Consider this a reminder to get your passwords in order for the new year.

I still have the problem of needing to access important sites from multiple terminals, and I don't have a .Mac account, may not be willing to use .Mac with some Macs, or some terminals may not be Macs. But if the alternative is to have horrendously insecure passwords on my bank accounts, I wonder if it's worth just giving up the ability to log in to some sites from lots of different computers. I also wonder if "security questions" and other such nonsense make secure passwords a moot point for thieves.

But 1Passwd can really shine for unimportant sites that require passwords, sites I don't need to use from just anywhere, sites I'll probably never use again after the first time, sites that may be run by small outfits with less than desirable security measures in place to protect my raw password which may or may not reveal how to access my accounts on other sites unimportant to me that might become important someday like Facebook. Using secure, complex, random, unguessable and unique passwords for the unimportant sites and a utility to manage them ensures that the stuff for which I'm not willing to put in the effort of picking a good password won't someday bite me in the ass.

Peggle, a new Mac game from PopCap that will most assuredly have you paying the $19.95 registration fee at the end of the free 60 minute demo. Despite a simple physics model, it's somewhat random, but stellar graphics, sound, music and good design make most random or otherwise unexpected behaviors very rewarding.

How to enable secret features in Mac OS X Leopard's screen sharing application. Control remotely or observe only, allow remote system to be locally controlled or lock it out, allow remote system's monitor to show what's going on or lock it out, remote screen capture, full screen mode, quality vs. speed control, ability to run screen sharing as a launchable application instead of from a Finder window.

NodeBox, a Python-powered visualization engine for Mac OS X, with the ability to export PDF or QuickTime.

Anxiety, a lightweight to-do list app for Mac OS X Leopard. Free.

I was so thrilled with Mac OS X Leopard's new version of Terminal that I didn't notice an important missing feature: You can no longer customize the 16 ANSI colors. This is important because dark blue is practically unreadable on dark backgrounds. Someone has a hack that adds this feature back in, though it uses an Input Manager (bad voodoo), so it's not ideal.

I like that iTerm is a free open source competitor to Mac Terminal, but I've never been that fond of it as an application. Before Leopard, iTerm was simply the only alternative to Terminal's (previously) atrocious preferences panes and limited feature set. For better colors alone, however, I'm willing to reconsider. Like Terminal, iTerm has grown some in the past year or so. Custom ANSI colors have moved in a recent version: They're now under the Bookmarks menu, under Manage Profiles..., Display Profiles. Select the Default profile and brighten up that blue!

Seems like once again, my ideal Mac terminal program is somewhere between Terminal and iTerm. If I could brighten Terminal's blue with a plist file or something, I'd go back.

Recent versions of the Mac OS X web browser Safari do an excellent job of displaying PDF files inside the browser window, much better than the Adobe Acrobat Reader plugin or standalone PDF viewers. Assuming you agree with that sentiment and want PDFs displayed in Safari, you might discover that upon installing some Adobe products (I presume Acrobat specifically), Safari no longer does its own thing. In my case, not only did an Adobe product install a plugin that subverts the built-in viewer, but the plugin fails to function, complaining it can't find Adobe Acrobat Reader.

To disable the Adobe Acrobat Reader plugin for Safari (working or otherwise), find and delete /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/AdboePDFViewer.plugin, then restart Safari.

OmniFocus, the new productivity app from Mac software superstars The Omni Group, is now in public beta after an extensive closed beta period. They're also taking pre-orders at 50% off the final price of $80, with an additional discount for OmniOutliner Pro users.

TidBITS Macs & Mac OS X: Spotlight Strikes Back: In Leopard, It Works Great. Another reason to have a really large hard drive and fill it with useful stuff: you can find it with complex Spotlight queries!

Two more Leopard reviews, if you enjoy reading about operating systems as much as using them: Andy Ihnatko: What's Leopard really worth? And for much, much more detail, John Siracusa's Ars Technica review.

I won't bother with a full Leopard review of my own, but I will say this after 20 minutes of playing with it: Holy crap it's fast! It's like everything happens instantaneously. Damn.

David Pogue's review of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. See also his follow-up article where he lists out some nice unadvertised new features in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Menu search! Spotlight app launcher! Spotlight calculator! Spotlight dictionary!

Mac OS X Leopard: 300+ New Features. Listed out like this, it can seem like most of the new stuff is insignificant, but there are some great game-changers in here. AutoFS and Kerberized NFS will be big where I work. Safari 3.0 may win me away from Firefox (I've enjoyed the beta). Screen sharing and presentations over the Internet in iChat. Screen sharing (VNC-like?) from Finder. Remote file access over the Internet built into Finder (not sure if this was built in before, other than FTP). The Dock Stacks feature. The AppleScript scripting bridge for Python, Ruby and others. UI recording in Automator. Major new features in Mail, iCal, Preview, DVD Player, and Spotlight. Possibly sufficient improvements to the Finder (?).

From past press releases, I had thought Time Machine was being spun as a layperson's version control system built into the OS. This feature list puts much more emphasis on Time Machine as a backup mechanism. Before, I didn't even know Time Machine could keep its data on an external hard drive. From this, I can't even tell if Time Machine can store data on the same disk.

Leopard ships October 26. If you bought a new Mac in the month of October, you can get a free (+ shipping) upgrade to Leopard via Apple's Up-to-Date program. I ordered my new iMac on September 29th, but it didn't ship until October 3rd. My request for the free upgrade appears to have succeeded anyway.

Zooom for Mac gives you additional options for moving and resizing windows, especially by clicking anywhere in the window. I've had multiple occasions where a change in display configuration, such as hooking up a projector, left a window with its top and bottom resize widgets off the screen. As far as I know, there is no solution for resizing the window in this situation, especially with apps that helpfully try to remember and reuse window positions. $19.95 shareware.

David Pogue: Apple Takes a Step Back With iMovie '08. iMovie '08 owners can download iMovie '06 from Apple's web site, and it's worth keeping both around.

Pogue's article says Apple says they'll make up the difference in "free software updates, like we always do." (I gather Pogue is paraphrasing.) I have a very hard time believing that they'll add a timeline view, audio editing and filtering, and chapter markers to iMovie '08 via Software Update, even if they are embarrassed. New features are for new major versions, and those take at least a year. I'm guessing iMovie '08 owners will have to buy it a second time next year to get the new features and the old features in one product.

$300 for Final Cut Express is starting to look like a good deal after all.