Category Archives: Mac Software

Mac Bundle Box Is Back With Another Software Bundle

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If there is one thing us Mac users can count on, it is that every couple months there will be some kind of software bundle/deal offered. The deals vary in applications and methods. Some deals are a flat fee and you get the entire lot of applications. Other deals give a sliding discount based on how many applications you buy, the more applications you buy the bigger the discount.

The Mac Bundle Box is the former type of deal. For $49 you get 13 applications. The entire bundle is valued at over $300 and includes:

If you in the market for a few of these applications, it makes the price of the bundle very attractive. I don’t need any of the applications myself so I’ll pass on this particular bundle. The folks behind Mac Bundle Box are donating %5 of each sale to charity: water. charity: water is a non-profit devoted to bringing clean water to people in developing nations.

The bundle will run for 11 days according to the website, but I don’t see a mention on when that “timer” started.  If you’re interested in a few of the applications, it’s probably better to buy early than later.

Applications I Couldn’t Live Without In 2008

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At the end of 2007, I listed a number of applications I couldn’t live without that year. I recently realized I hadn’t updated the list for 2008 so I decided to do it now. Some applications remain unchanged, but others have been replaced or dropped off the list all together. I’d like to say “Thank You” to all the Mac developers out there who help make the Mac the premier computing platform today. These are the applications I couldn’t live without in 2008, in no particular order.

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Blogging wouldn’t be as fun or as easy without MarsEdit. The ability to draft posts offline allows me to work anywhere and publish once I get online. I love the ability to add new categories without visiting my WordPress powered site. If you blog without MarsEdit you aren’t being as productive as you could be. My one wish for MarsEdit would be bullet and numbered list support.

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While there are a number of good ftp clients for the Mac, many of them aren’t free. I’m not a power ftp user and Cyberduck allows me to get the job done. Cyberduck supports ftp and sftp and has integration with Spotlight, the Keychain, AppleScript, and Growl. If you don’t want to spend money on an ftp client, give Cyberduck a try. If you try Cyberduck and use it frequently, consider a donation to the developer (I donated).

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In 2007 I used iBank to manage my household finances. Sometime in 2008 I switched to Cha-Ching as my Mac money management application of choice. Neither application is perfect, but I liked the UI and ease of use of Cha-Ching. Cha-Ching 2.0, currently in beta, improves the UI and a number of other features. There is even a Cha-Ching iPhone application in beta (I’m testing it right now) that will sync your Cha-Ching database to your iPhone. When both of these Cha-Ching applications are officially released, it will create a killer experience.

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Macworld 2009 Keynote Recap

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Don’t want to watch the entire 2009 Macworld Keynote? Here’s a rundown of what was announced and a little commentary.

iLife 09
iLife 09 will be released sometime in late January. iPhoto and iMovie received the largest updates. New organization features Faces (facial recognition) and Places (geotagging) allow you to more easily find the pictures you’re looking for in iPhoto. iPhoto now includes direct upload capability to Flickr and Facebook. iPhoto also includes some pretty sweet slideshow functionality. iMovie now features video stabilization (which looks ridiculously slick), more precision editing, dynamic themes, and a cool travel map feature. GarageBand and iWeb were also updated; iDVD is the same. The cool new feature in GarageBand is the new artist lessons feature. The artist lesson feature is a video where various artists teach you to play their songs. iLife 09 is $79 and $99 for a family pack. You also need OS X 10.5 Leopard to run iLife 09.

iWork 09
I’ll save you the boring details on iWork 09. Basically, increased functionality across all applications. Pages includes a new full screen mode to help remove distractions. Mail Merge is also now included with Pages. Also new is a cool $.99 iPhone/touch application to control Keynote presentations called Keynote Remote (iTunes link). Numbers got a cool linked chart feature when adding Numbers based charts in Pages. iWork 09 is available now for $79 or $99 for a family pack. You can also purchase iWork 09 with a new Mac for only $49.

Mac Box Set
The Mac Box Set is a new product that includes iWork 09, iLife 09, and Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard for only $169. Considering Leopard is $129 by itself, this is a remarkably good deal.

iWork.com
iWork.com is a sharing and collaboration site for iWork documents. iWork.com will be available on a subscription basis (price not announced) at a later date. You need iWork 09 to use iWork.com. Though not officially announced, it looks like iWork.com is available for use now.

17″ MacBook Pro
The 17″ MBP looks exactly like the new unibody Macbook and 15″ MBP. The downside of the 17″ MBP is the fact that the battery is not user replaceable, but does get “up to 8 hours” of battery life. The new battery can be recharged up to 1,000 times, “3x the recharges of the standard notebook battery”. The 17″ MBP is available with a new anti-glare option for an extra $50. Video editors will be happy with the new 17″ MBP because it supports 8GB of RAM.

iTunes

  • Beginning April 1st, songs sold on iTunes will be available with variable pricing, $.69, $.99, and $1.29.
  • 80% of the songs available on iTunes are now DRM free. The remaining 20% will be available DRM free by the end of this quarter.
  • The iTunes iPhone/touch App can now operate over the cellular network. This works over Edge and 3G.

My Analysis
The most important announcement was easily iTunes becoming DRM free. Perhaps this is truly the final nail in the DRM coffin?

Perhaps the most interesting announcement is iWork.com. Though it initially seems limited, could this come to rival Google Docs?

Mac Giving Tree – Free Apps

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The crew behind MacHeist are at it again. This time, the Mac Giving Tree is giving away free Mac applications. Just visit the Mac Giving Tree and sign in if you’re an existing MacHeist user, or register if you’re not. Once you sign in, you’ll get Enigmo 2 and Synergy for free. Come back on Christmas Day and you’ll get some more free goodies.

If you stay on the Mac Giving Tree website, you may notice that iPhone App icons are growing out of the tree. When they start to wiggle, just click the wiggling icon for a chance to win the application. This giveaway uses App Store promo codes, so the free iPhone Apps are US only. I’ve clicked on about 10 iPhone App icons and I haven’t won yet. Good luck to all and thanks to MacHeist for the free goodies.

Fix Your iTunes Track Information Automagically With TuneUp

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I’ve had the opportunity over the past day to test out a pretty cool new Mac application. TuneUp is a iTunes companion application that can “clean” up your music collection. It can find lost cover art and all the information within the ID3 tags (album, track info, etc). To get a sense of what TuenUp can do and how it works, watch the short video below.

Video no longer available online.

I’ve played around with the application and it’s something that I could definitely see myself using. I was able to easily update the ID3 information and cover art on a number of my tracks. What I like about the application is that once you’ve cleaned your tracks, the application is still useful. “The Now Playing” and “Concerts” tabs along the top provide valuable information about the contents of your iTunes library.

The “Now Playing” tabs take the currently playing track and shows matching YouTube videos, upcoming shows, Amazon album recommendations, recent news via Google, and eBay auctions. Playing a Black Keys song showed news headlines, including information about the lead singers upcoming solo album; cool!

The “Concerts” tab shows concert matches from artists within your iTunes library. There are links to purchase tickets right from the application. When you sign into the application, you input your city/state/country so it knows what concert venues to list in the Concerts tab.

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While the application is certainly useful, it just doesn’t quite feel like a “true” Mac application. When you open the application, it “sticks” to the right side of iTunes. You can’t move it away from iTunes. When you reopen iTunes, TuneUp also starts up. I’ve tried to close TuneUp first and then iTunes, but TuneUp still starts up when reopening iTunes. In fact, I haven’t yet found a way to open iTunes without TuneUp opening too. TuneUp also shifts upwards when I move iTunes from my MBP monitor to my external monitor. This is likely a side affect of the “sticking” feature. I also had a beachball when accessing some of the menus but this has been reported as a known issue and should be fixed by the release date. I hope some of the other issues are fixed too.

TuneUp has been available for Windows since earlier this year. The Mac release is scheduled for release sometime today. You need Leopard and an Intel Mac to run TuneUp. Tiger support is scheduled to be added “shortly after launch”. TuneUp is free, with TuneUp Gold costing $11.95 a year or a one time fee of $19.95.

Update 12/11/08: A contact for the TuneUp folks notifed me that you can set the TuneUp start up preference.  Do a Ctrl click on the TuneUp interface and choose Preferences.  It looks like they are also going to make the preference pane more visible too (hopefully as a menu bar option).  Glad to see the company behind TuneUp is listening to feedback!

Search Your Google Docs In Spotlight With Precipitate

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In the past year I’ve really began to utilize Google Docs. It’s a great way to write content on any computer and have it accessible from anywhere. Google Docs also allows for easy document creation and sharing across any platform, all you need is a browser! There is even an iPhone optimized website for viewing your Google Docs when you visit via Mobile Safari.

The other day I ran across a cool little Mac application that integrates Google Docs with Spotlight. The application, called Precipitate, is a System Preference pane used to tell Spotlight what to index from your Google account. In addition to Spotlight searching your Google Docs, it can also search your Google Bookmarks and Picasa Web Albums.

After downloading the application, just unzip the file and double click the preference pane file. It will ask if you want to install the preference pane for just you or all accounts. Chose your preference pane installation option and then open System Preferences and open the Precipitate preference pane.

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Fill in your Google Account information and select the items you want to be searchable with Spotlight. Click the button in the lower right corner and wait for Precipitate to sync your selected content with your computer. The sync process only took a few minutes for me but I don’t store a ton of information in Google Docs. Precipitate stores a copy of the items on your computer along with a link to the file online.

Now just do a Spotlight search for your content and it will show up in the results! Selecting the item in Sportlight will launch your default web browser and take you right to the file online.

Precipitate is free and requires OS X 10.4 or later. If you frequently use Google Docs, this is a must have on your Mac.

Update: I forgot to mention one thing in my original post. Precipitate will sync your Google content every hour after setting up the software. One improvement I hope the developer makes is the addition of different sync time settings (e.g. once every 2, 4, 8 hours).

1Password – Free And On Sale

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1Password is perhaps the most frequently used application on my Mac. What is 1Password? 1Password is the ultimate password manager for Mac. You’re able to manage all your web passwords across every browser on your Mac. There is even a free 1Password iPhone/iPod touch application that syncs your 1Password logins and passwords.

1Password is currently offering a buy one get one free license sale. In addition to that, 1Password is also 15% off (use this link) the $39.95 regular price.

For the readers of Apple Mac HQ, I’ve got a deal for you too. Just leave a comment on this post with a reason why you want a copy of 1Password. I’ll draw a winner randomly from the comments and send you a free 1Password license. The deadline for your comments are tomorrow (Sunday Nov 30th) at 6PM EST.