Apple Mac HQ

I was out of town this weekend so I’m a little late on this news, but it’s important and I wanted to share it with everyone. On March 1st, David Watanabe made NewsFire, his popular RSS reader, freeware. So why would he make this program free? David said, “Call it an experiment to draw people into the fold. Call it temporary insanity. Call it good will. Call it stupidity. I’m never really sure what my motivations are, but this one feels right in my gut.”

You’ll remember that it wasn’t that long ago when NetNewWire became free too. In that article I said, “This really makes it hard for any other Mac developer to sell an RSS client.” It looks like that statement is looking a little more true today. My hunch on why NewsFire became freeware is that sales were slowing due to NetNewsWire becoming freeware. Rather than kill the project, giving it away is a great way for people to experience your software and increase the likely hood of a return customer. David sells two other products so giving away NewsFire is a way to promote those pieces of software.

I’ve never used NewsFire but it is often recommend on various forums as a great RSS reader. If you don’t like your current method of reading feeds, you should give it a try.

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One of my absolute favorite programs on the Mac has gone freeware. NetNewsWire, my RSS reader of choice, has been updated to version 3.1 and simultaneously been released as freeware. As in it costs zero dollars to buy and use. This is absolutely an amazing piece of software and I’m shocked it is now free. The ability to sync my RSS subscriptions across all my devices was the reason I purchased NNW to begin with. Now these features are free for everyone. This really makes it hard for any other Mac developer to sell an RSS client. In my opinion NetNewsWire was the best RSS client to begin with and was a bargain at $30. Why are you still reading this? You should go download NNW now!

[Via Brent Simmons, developer of NNW]

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This wouldn’t be a blog without some type of end of the year list. So without further ado, here is my first end-of-the-year-list post on Apple Mac HQ. I have very much enjoyed my first year of using the Mac. I’d like to thank the developers of the applications listed below as they made life on the Mac great. These are the applications I couldn’t live without in 2007, in no particular order.

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. The addition of the Media Manager in v2.0 made the decision to upgrade a no-decision. 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.

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).

Caffeine is a one trick pony but it works like magic. When watching TV shows or movies, just activate Caffeine and it will stop your display and Mac from going to sleep. You don’t have to mess with your power settings, just a click to activate and a click to deactivate it when your done watching your video. Preventing your display or Mac from going to sleep couldn’t be easier.

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