Safari for Windows thoughts…

Apple has been taking a beating from the bloggers about Safari for Windows over the last couple of days. The criticism ranges from a bunch of security vulnerabilities that have been found to something as basic as font-smoothing. The press, ever eager to capitalize on this, have already predicted that Safari for Windows will fail. (more…)

Category: Apple,Opinion,Software

Does Adobe get it?

Adobe has been taking a beating lately from Mac users. It’s understandable, as some of the main tools that professional designers use, Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, are still not a Universal Binaries. Apple no longer sells any new PowerPC Macs, yet Adobe has yet to convert any of their shipping applications (Acrobat 8 will be the first Universal Binary when it ships in November).

Today, this pervasive feeling from Mac users that Adobe really doesn’t care about them got a boost from two pieces of news. The first, is the release of Adobe Contribute. Contribute is a Macromedia pick-up. This application allows everyday people to edit HTML pages that have been created with Dreamweaver. Contribute 4.0 is also not a Universal Binary. The release of a major application like Contribute as a PowerPC only application at this time reeks of carelessness and indifference. Contribute 3 was released nearly 18 months ago, so it’s development cycle fell very close to the Intel announcement in May of 2005. Releasing this application as PowerPC only without any explanation from Adobe as to when or if a Universal Binary update will be released is just arrogant. (more…)

Category: Opinion

10 Applications that rock (and most are under $25)

A couple of other Mac blogs have recently posted their thoughts on the top 10 Macintosh applications. I decided to take my spin on the topic and focus on the applications for $25 and under. All of these applications are used by me on a daily basis. Their existence is a tribute to the quality of software available on the Mac, and the ingenuity of the developers who produce these wares. All receive my highest recommendation.

1. Wallet 2

The first entry is a password storage/creation application called Wallet. It is the brainchild of Waterfall Software, which is lead by a 16 year old developer named Dustin MacDonald. The first version of Wallet was a nice Real Basic application that was better than the rest of the password storage applications available for the Mac. Wallet 2 is a complete rework in Cocoa. The attention to detail in this application is impressive. The only feature this application is missing is .Mac syncing. The author says he is currently working on it. Easily worth the $14.95 price tag.

2. skEdit

Another application by a lone developer under the age of 21. Sean Kelly’s web development coding environment is an amazing piece of software. Featuring code completion, hinting, integrated SFTP, site view, line numbering, search, HTML tidy integration, syntax highlighting, snippets and more.

If you do web development on a Mac, the $20 spent on this application will go down as one of your best investments ever.

3. Transmit

The reigning king of Mac OS X FTP applications. Version 3 adds a lot of useful features to the already established application like tabs, .Mac syncing, dock status icons, dock send, and much more. If you FTP, you need Transmit.

4. SuperDuper!

SuperDuper! has emerged as the best disk copying/cloning application on the Mac. It’s interface is super simple, and it’s results are super solid. Another piece of Mac OS X software that costs less than dinner and a movie ($20).

5. CocoaMySQL

CocoaMySQL just barely makes this list. Stuck at version 0.5, development on this open source application has languished since 9/11/03. Still, if you use MySQL on your Mac, this application makes maintenance and administration of your databases super simple.

6. Word Services from DevonTechnologies

When it comes to simple word processing, I like to keep it simple and use TextEdit. It does 95% of what I need from a word processor. The other 5% is handled by Word Services from Devon Technologies. This set of services adds several pieces of functionality to any cocoa application. Of particular importance to me – the statistics service, which gives me a count of words, characters, lines, and spaces in a document. As someone who writes papers that are counted by the word, I find this piece of code invaluable. And best of all – it’s free!

7. Snapz Pro X 2

If you do any sort of screen capture on your Mac, this app is a godsend. Apple provides you with some pretty good basic screen capture features in Mac OS X, but this program gives you a myriad of options for your static and motion screen grabs. A bit pricey at $69.00 for the full version, but well worth it. The upgrade price from version 1.0 is $20. Snapz Pro X was included on many Powerbooks that Apple shipped, so you might qualify for the upgrade pricing even if you didn’t purchase version 1.0.

8. EvoCam

EvoCam is a great application that will use your webcam (or iSight camera) to capture images and either store them locally, or send them via FTP or WebDAV to another server. I use this to keep an eye on my dog when I’m away from the house. $25 can buy a lot of piece of mind, can’t it?

9. Adium

Open source instant messaging application that words on AIM, MSN, Jabber and Yahoo protocols. A constantly improving feature set, along a kitchen sink approach to instant messaging makes this application a must have for any Mac user.

10. Still Life

Every year for Christmas I produce a DVD for the family. I’m usually short on video footage, but I have an abundance of still clips. Still Life allows you to take those clips and create movies from them. Much in the same way that you can use the Ken Burns Effect in iMovie, Still Life creates motion movies from images with start frames and end frames. It is much more powerful than iMovie’s KBE, and easily worth the $24.95 price.

Category: Opinion,Reviews