From my day job: equinux has written about some of our Macworld experiences over the years and how we made the decision not to go back this year. It’s a good look behind-the-scenes at Macworld and worth reading if you’ve been or plan on going.
Posts Tagged: Mac
16
Jan 10
Jetlinked: 20 Beautiful Mac apps
Designreviver has a nice list of 20 Beautiful Mac apps that is worth checking out. There are only a few picks I disagree with:
- Pixelmator’s black icons on a HUD window background have always bothered me and seem like a bad UI choice
- iStatmenus is pretty, but never feels very Mac-like
- TuneUp is the antithesis of a beautiful Mac app. It leeches onto iTunes and looks & feels more like a Firefox plugin than a Mac app.
But the list has a few lesser-known entries as well, so it’s worth reading for a few gems that you don’t see on every other list (I’m typing this in blogo which I hadn’t heard of before…).
1
Oct 09
Review: CameraBag Desktop
Digital photography has made it easier for us all to take hundreds of near-perfect shots. But digital photography lacks some of the elements that made each photo taken with an analog camera unique. The type of film, processing techniques and photo-paper used all contributed to give each image a distinctive look.
CameraBag, by Nevercenter, gives digital photography enthusiasts an easy way to introduce some of that flavour back into their photography. Like its iPhone sibling (App Store link), CameraBag Desktop is designed to be straightforward and easy-to-use: Instead of presenting users with a confusing number of options, exposure settings, histograms and color profiles, CameraBag has 9 styles, that can all be applied with a single click.
The styles are based on a mix of classic analog cameras and media formats. The manual describes as such:
Helga: Square-format toy camera with washed-out highlights and old-school vignetting.
Lolo: Shoot from the hip and take life as it comes with vibrant, colorful shots.
Mono: Smooth, refined, balanced black and white
1962: Dynamic, high-contrast black and white from the photojournalism of a bygone era.
Colorcross: Hazy, chemical color-swapping straight from the darkroom.
Instant: No need to shake this instant-developing film.
1974: Your father’s camera: faded, tinted, and hip.
Cinema: Dramatic, moody coloring with a widescreen aspect ratio.
Magazine: Rich tones for glossy pages.
Once you’ve dragged your image into the main window, apply one of the styles by simply clicking its preview thumbnail. Each style will crop your image and apply a variety of filters. You can also mix & match styles by checking the “multi-filter” option. This will allow you to apply multiple styles on top of each other, creating distinctive looks and styles. If you want to start over, simply click the “original” thumbnail, to discard all applied styles.
CameraBag also applies a crop and border to your image, based on your style. If you prefer, you can also pick these manually though, allowing for even more image variations. If one of the styles doesn’t suit your taste, you can also “Reprocess” an image to see variations of that style. If a style produces an image that is too dark or lacking in contrast, reprocessing your picture will often deliver a much better result, so if you’re not happy with the way a photo turns out, try reprocessing it!
Some styles may not be everyone’s cup of tea, and I found myself using some more often than others. But most styles do a really good job of adding some flavour to your images.The CameraBag Photo Blog has some great examples of the kinds of results you can achieve, with nice before/after comparisons.
The UI is nicely laid out and very easy to use (although I’m not quite sure why the designers found it necessary for a user to “turn on” reprocessing). EDIT: @CameraBag clarifies:
“[...] reprocess auto-enables when clicked. It’s more about the off switch to get back to each filter’s signature look”
Styles are applied nearly instantaneously and while you’re finding the right style for your images the application feels very fast. Rotating and saving images causes a slight bit of delay, but both are extremely minor. For those who enjoy a good manual with their software, Nevercenter includes a detailed PDF guide, which I personally find a lot more useful than trying to find information with OS X’s built-in help system.
Overall CameraBag is a great and affordable way to liven up your shots. It’s an interesting new type of photo stylizer that works well as a complementary tool to traditional photo editing applications such as iPhoto or Picasa.
Available for just $19, it’s a must-have for every wannabe photographer.
22
Apr 09
JetLinked: Tweetie for Mac
Enough has been said about Tweetie for Mac, so I’m just going to link to it, in case you’ve been living under a rock and have missed it.
Bottom line is: The UI is fantastic, support for dragged in images is great and I believe it sets the bar a little higher for UI design on the Mac in general.
There are some additional features I’d like to see at some point, but from the look of the responses on Atebit’s Get Satisfaction page, some of them are already planned.
- Support for stored searches
- Sync state with the mobile version and across Mac
You can find out more about Tweetie on the Atebits website.
19
Apr 09
Review: Things – a stylish task management app for OS X
Things, a task-management application for OS X, debuted this year at Macworld after a lengthy public beta. Despite being Cultured Code‘s first foray into the world of task management apps, Things 1.x is an extremely polished, attractive app – but does it actually make you more productive? Read on to find out…
UI & Design
Cultured Code really nailed the visual presentation of Things: The UI is very “mac-like” and looks very nice. Features are easy to discover and UI elements are easily identified.
The list view Things uses to display your tasks feels as though it is very iPhone-inspired does a good job of displaying your tasks and metadata without clutter. Cultured Code make a point of not using the typical column-based layout you see in other apps, and only show the information you’ve entered – not empty columns.
You won’t find any revolutionary UI innovations in Things, but the UI works and is well thought out – far more important in this type of application.
Ease of use
One issue I’ve had with other todo managers in the past has been the barrier of entry: Managing todos is something you can easily do with a pen & paper, so a dedicated application needs to offer functionality beyond that. However: if entering todos is too convoluted and time-consuming, you may question whether it’s worth the effort – particularly if the task isn’t that important, time-consuming or complicated. Task managers can only help you avoid “I’ll get to it in a minute”-syndrome if entering tasks doesn’t become its own chore.
Extremely stripped down managers tend to be too simple – preventing you from adding supplementary information or tags to your tasks. At the other end of the spectrum you have todo managers that are too complicated, overwhelming you with sub-categories and scheduling features – so you end up spending more time managing your tasks than completing them.
Things manages to strike a nice balance between those extremes. You can use it as a simple notepad to scribble down a list of things you need to get done, but you can also set up projects, repeating tasks and areas of responsibility, if you’re so inclined.
Quick Entry
To allow for even quicker task entry, Things offers a Quick Entry hud-panel, that can be activated via a system-wide keyboard shortcut. Tasks added via the panel will be discreetly added to your Inbox, allowing you to continue working on whatever you happen to be doing.
Tagging
Things offers powerful tagging features, offering some features that cause clutter in other task management apps: You can of course just assign regular keywords, but Cultured Code also suggests assigning your tasks time estimates, difficulty ratings and priority levels. Using tags to add that sort of metadata is a very clever way of hiding complexity: Users that don’t need that kind of detail won’t be distracted by those fields cluttering up the task entry interface, but power users still get the features they need.
Adding tags to your tasks is also nicely supported: In addition to iPhone-esque tag autocompletion, Things also intelligently assigns each tag a keyboard shortcut. Just select a task and hit the corresponding letter on your keyboard to tag it. Shortcuts can be edited later on, but by automatically assigning keyboard shortcuts, Things removes another step on your path to productivity.
Syncing
Under preferences, you’ll find syncing options for iCal and a companion iPhone application, which I’ll be reviewing separately soon. Those two options make it simple to get your tasks onto your mobile device, but there’s no built-in support for Mac-to-Mac syncing. But Things does support selecting your own library location, so you can easily set up syncing using a free Dropbox account.
Suitability for students
Students will appreciate the flexibility Things offers: You can choose to create Projects for some more involved courses, or just add your assignments and reading requirements to a semester-specific project or area of responsibility.
For team projects, the ability to delegate certain tasks to teammates is also very useful, helping you to keep track of jobs and follow-up with collaborators if necessary. On campus the iPhone application has proven invaluable, as it allows me to quickly make a note of something I can later follow up with when I sync up with my MacBook.
(And if you think Things is a bit expensive on a student’s budget, be sure to check out Cultured Code’s generous educational pricing offer!)
Hidden gems
While preparing this review, I found myself frequently coming across little points of detail in the application, that just go to show how much attention to detail was paid by the development team:
- Ability to print lists with several formatting options
- Support for teammates, including iChat status indicators and Address Book integration
- Automatic regular database backups
- The Things wiki is full of useful tips and scripts, such as a useful ‘Mail to Things inbox’ script
Conclusion
Things has definitely helped me get organized and plan out my university assignments, work to-dos, personal projects and other errands. It’s easy to pick up the habit of adding even mundane tasks to your Things inbox and there’s nothing more satisfying than crossing off something you’ve completed.
The intuitive interface makes it easy to enter to dos, but also allows you to focus on certain tasks and plan out your day – something more basic task managers usually don’t offer.
But most important of all: Things stays out of your way and allows you to focus on your tasks and not on managing them, allowing you to get things done.
Things is available for $49.95 or $34.95 after educational discount. Be sure to check out the free demo!
30
Mar 09
OS X Bittorrent clients compared – 2009 Edition
There have always been a number of decent Bittorrent clients for OS X, however it’s only the last year or two that we’re finally seeing some competition in this area. For the purposes of this shootout I’ve decided to focus only on the clients that are updated semi-regularly. For that reason I haven’t reviewed clients such as BitRocket and Xtorrent, that haven’t been updated since the beginning of 2008.
The candidates
Based on the criteria outlined above, I’ve selected four popular clients that are under active development to compare. All of these clients are free and Leopard compatible.
Transmission
Transmission is a cross-platform client with a clean and simple interface that also boasts a small memory footprint. But underneath the relatively simple UI, there are a range of advanced features for power users as well, including an iPhone optimized web interface that allows you to monitor and manage your torrent downloads remotely.
uTorrent for OS X
uTorrent has been one of the most popular clients for Windows, largely due to its small memory footprint. So when the team announced a Mac version last year, it generated a lot of interest. uTorrent now belongs to BitTorrent Inc. and the Official Client is apparently at least partially based on uTorrent code.
uTorrent for Mac is currently still in beta, but it already supports most of the features that Transmission offers. The UI is sleek and performance is pretty good as well.
The official Bittorrent Client
As mentioned above, the Official Client is based on uTorrent code, so performance should be comparable. However: the UI of the official client is currently still Java based, and its feature-set is quite different as well.
Vuze (formerly known as Azureus)
Vuze easily has the most configuration options of all the clients featured in this roundup, boasting a Firefox-like plugin architecture and media transcoding for popular devices. But all those features do come at a price. The java-based interface stands out like a sore thumb on OS X and even when idle RAM consumption weighs in at a hefty 110MB.
Testing
The clients were compared by their memory footprint, (as far as can be ascertained by a user), feature-set and performance while downloading. The most important criteria – download speed – is also the most difficult to measure as factors such as number of seeders, network congestion etc. all play a role. So for purposes of this review, I downloaded the heavily-seeded Ubuntu 9.0.4 .iso torrent with each client to get an estimate if any app stood out. However the results are only a general indication of performance and shouldn’t be seen as absolute numbers.
The Results
As you can see, the speed results are close, so I’d call that a draw. Transmission and uTorrent are quite close when it comes to memory consumption. A lot of other features are quite comparable, so it mostly comes down to memory consumption and how picky you are about your user interfaces.
And the winner is…
For me personally, Transmission is the ideal balance between feature-richness and performance. Despite it’s cross-platform roots, it’s lightweight and fast, much like uTorrent, but has one or two features that the latter doesn’t. Vuze is great if you’re looking for a feature-packed client, but in my opinion it’s a bit too cluttered and tries to do too much. Both Vuze and the Official Client also a bit slow for my liking, but you might want to check out Vuze for some of it’s more advanced features such as automatic transcoding of video content.
Bonus tip: Be sure to check out Gizmodo’s article on how to improve your download speeds, – it makes a difference!
19
Aug 08
MobileMe users given another free extension
I just received another email from Apple regarding MobileMe. It seems as though they’re giving all users (regardless of whether you experienced trouble or not) an additional free 60 day extension on their subscriptions.
Whilst 60 days might not seem like a huge deal, it does show a certain amount of goodwill on Apple’s part and a willingness to put things right. More importantly this comes at a point when most glitches seem to have been worked out, so this news should be received much more positively than the initial 30 day extension some members were offered previously.
Link to Apple’s Knowledgebase for full details.
29
Jul 08
How to cancel a MobileMe trial subscription
Since a few people have asked me, here’s the lowdown on how to cancel a MobileMe subscription within the free 60-days trial period.
16
Jul 08
Apple accidently charges users for MobileMe trial
And this is why forcing users to enter credit card details to test a free trial of your somewhat troubled online service is a bad idea – here’s one users experience after signing up for a trial:
“I have just checked my card account online and apple have put a £121 pending transaction on the card! that’s not even 1 years subscription.”
Link to the relevant Apple Support Discussion thread.
12
Jul 08
MobileMe trial now requires Credit Card & Opt-Out
In what I believe is a change from the previous .mac trial model, Apple is now requiring potential customers to enter credit card details in order to test mobileme for 60 days. That in itself isn’t too bad, but the trial membership will now also automatically be upgraded to a full membership unless you cancel the subscription during the trial. I think requiring users to opt-out these types of trials always seems a bit dubious and isn’t the most user-friendly approach to take.
I suppose it helps to prevent people from “freeloading” by using multiple email addresses to use the service for multiple trial periods, but I find it hard to imagine anyone actually bothering to do that (especially considering some of mobileme’s features have excellent free alternatives). But I’m sure some people who have a more casual interest in the new services and want to ‘try before they buy‘ may be inclined to not bother signing up for a trial because of this.
Ideally I see a trial model where users are encouraged to enter Credit Card details, but are presented with a simple dialog window at the end of the trial period that offers a single-click option to automatically upgrade to a full membership. Sure, Apple would miss out on a few customers that simply forget to cancel the subscription, but I think the customers retained anyway would appreciate the entire experience all the more due to the “pro-customer” approach.
2
Jul 08
Backup strategies compared
OS X 10.5.4 has just been released, so this seems like a good opportunity to talk backups. Even though I expect this update to go as smoothly as the others of recent memory, it’s never a bad idea to use OS updates to make sure your backup system is in good shape. I used to run a backup immediately prior to each 10.4.x update, just in case any weirdness occurred.
Here’s a few setups I’ve tried over the years that helped me stop worrying about backing up by automating the entire process.
1
Jun 08
MobileMe predictions
So it looks as though this year the long-rumored .mac overhaul might finally be on the cards.
Not only did the 10.5.3 update introduce a placeholder for the word “.mac” in various locations across the system, the domains “me.com” and “mobileme.com” are both apparently being held for Apple.
(Perhaps Apple will also try to nab one of those fancy new Montenegrin “.me” domains – “mobile.me”.)
So here’s my predictions for some of the changes we’ll see to .mac:
28
May 08
DropBox vs iDisk- it’s not even a contest
I’ve been participating in the DropBox beta now for a few days and whilst there any many similar competing services out there, the DropBox guys have really been able to distinguish themselves through their seamless OS integration.
Competing services such as Omnibox, Moxy etc. offer similar OS clients, but DropBox is the first that seems to match Apple’s own .Mac iDisk in terms of seamlessness: Your DropBox appears in the Finder and 
adding a file is as simple as drag and drop. A utility that runs in the background then uploads that to your DropBox account.
I’d even go a step further and say that it actually seems to work better than the iDisk. Adding files to your iDisk is a sluggish process that usually ends in a two second progress bar claiming your 200MB file has been uploaded in record speed, followed by 2 hours waiting for .Mac to “finish” the file.
The DropBox folder looks and feels like a regular local folder. The default behaviour is even “move” rather than “copy” when you drag items into it, which is a bit disconcerting at first. (Tip: Use option drag!)
Once you’ve dragged in a file, DropBox takes care of the rest silently in the background. Files are instantly visible online at your Dropbox account, even whilst they’re still being uploaded.
I’ll have a some more impressions later this week, but initially it does beg the question:
Why on earth doesn’t .Mac work this well? Apple already has OS integration baked in, so there’s almost no excuse for the current state of the .mac iDisk. For me at least, snappy, pretty DropBox – even in its current beta state – beats the pants off the iDisk in every respect.
Let’s hope the “.mac overhaul” the rumor-mill has promised for WWDC pans out.