MacApper » Alec Feld

Restoring An Entire Backup With Time Machine

Alec Feld — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 10:00:22 +0000

I don’t backup. Correction, I didn’t back up. When Leopard was released into the wild, my MacBook Pro began backing up my data hourly, a good precaution. Just weeks after my external hard drive became overflowing with backups and Time Machine had been hard at work, 10.5.1 was released, which ended up causing more problems than it was supposed to fix. My Mac froze during the installation, and the OS, plus some of my files, became corrupt.

Prior to having Leopard and Time Machine, my first thought would have been to do an Archive and Install, an option in the OS install that keeps all of your files, moves them, and drops shiny new system folders in. Sadly, since many files were also corrupt an Archive and Install wouldn’t help me there. Luckily, I had those backups Time Machine had been making for the past couple of weeks. I plugged in my external hard drive, popped in my Leopard Install DVD, and started the restoration process.

The process to restore backups is unbelievably easy, and takes few clicks to start. When booted from the OS X DVD, click the Utilities menu, and choose “Restore from Time Machine backup”. Select the hard drive on which your backups are located, choose the destination drive, and choose which backup you wish to restore. Hit “Start”, and walk away. The restore process can take anywhere between 1 and 2 hours, so it’s best you walk away from your Mac for a bit. Your Mac will reboot, and depending on what backup you chose to restore, you’ll be right back where you left off.

However, my Time Machine restore was a bit botched. The first restore failed, and the second restore just didn’t work. Three times a charm, as the third restore worked perfectly. After booting back into Leopard, Time Machine (for some strange reason) wiped all of my previous backups, which contained one or two files I needed. In my case, this wasn’t a big deal; however, it’s still a major issue that needs some debugging.

Time Machine is included with Mac OS X Leopard, which retails for $129.95 at the Apple Store.

Autopano Pro: Panoramas Made Easy

Alec Feld — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 10:00:52 +0000

I’ve always been curious about how to shoot panoramas, and yet even more curious about how to “stitch” them together on my computer. While shooting some photos in Europe, I decided to try my hand at a panorama, and solve this mystery. When I came home, I loaded the six connected photos onto my computer, and then went searching for the best panorama app out there. At first, I threw my pictures into Photoshop and used the “Photomerge” function to stitch them together. The photo came out distorted and warped. I searched for a new solution, and eventually found Autopano Pro. Autopano isn’t like most stitchers, as it’s automatic and does nearly everything for you. It stitches, blends, and even finds the best area to crop.

Using Autopano Pro is easy. First, drag your photos to the left side of the window. Press the play button, and Autopano will align and blend the images. It really is that easy and simple to stitch your photos with Autopano.

Afterwards, you’re free to make edits to the photo, as well as render the entire panorama to your specifications.

Why is Autopano the simplest panorama app? It really has shown the best results so far. Using the same six photos, competing products rendered a more distorted final panorama. The worst example was Photoshop’s “Photomerge” feature, which distorted the photo to the point that even cropping it wouldn’t fix the problem. Autopano however, delivered a straight image with no curves or bends (excluding the edges), and cropped it for me easily. You can check out my final panorama here.

Although Autopano is priced at a hefty Ã¢š¬99, it’s worth the price due to it’s simplicity, ease of use, and amazing rendering abilities. Autopano is available from Kolor, and can be downloaded as a free trial.

iTrip Auto: iPod On The Radio

Alec Feld — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 16:00:33 +0000

So for the past year or two I’ve been using a Griffin RoadTrip to send songs from my iPod to the car radio. I bought the RoadTrip after having a bad experience with an iTrip, one of the early models that hooked into the top of my 3G iPod. The iTrip had a weak signal, tons of interference, and always ended up playing my music with static mixed in. After a few years, I’ve decided to revisit the iTrip, using one of the latest and greatest versions, the iTrip Auto from Griffin Technology.

There’s not much to say about a charging FM Transmitter, but the latest ones from Griffin have been fantastic. On the signal side of things, everything is great, and the broadcast frequency changes with ease. There is a bit of static at times (compared to the RoadTrip with close to no static), but it’s fine. The quality is decent, but the iTrip Auto lacks a little bass and treble, so if your car offers an EQ, you may want to adjust it before using the iTrip. The only problem I had with the iTrip Auto was a bad piece of advice in the manual (PDF). While the manual says to tune to 88.3, 88.1 is the obvious choice as it is usually clear of other broadcasts. In fact, my RoadTrip’s manual says to tune to 88.1, so I’m wondering why Griffin changed their suggested frequency.

Otherwise, a great product. Sleek, a great design, and small. The iTrip Auto easily powers your iPod and sends a nice FM signal to your car radio without any hassle. At $69.99, its on the expensive side of FM Transmitters, but it’s well worth it.

How I Saved Time and Disk Space with WhatSize

Alec Feld — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 15:00:58 +0000

Even though we reviewed WhatSize before, I didn’t realize it’s usefulness until now, when my hard drive started acting up. I was browsing through my folders in the Finder, and saw that the “space remaining” on my hard drive was shrinking by the second. It went from 50 GB free, to about 64 MB free in about five minutes. I didn’t know what to do, and I thought I would have to wipe my hard drive to fix the problem. I didn’t want to have to back up and reinstall OS X, as that was a last resort. I remembered MacApper’s review of WhatSize, from ID-Design, and immediately downloaded the app.

I wanted to figure out what was using up all my space, so I ran WhatSize. Everything looked normal, until I found that my Library folder was taking up gigabytes upon gigabytes of space. Looking into that folder, I found that my Logs folder was over 40 GB in size. I trashed it, and my space was restored. I’m not sure why my logs suddenly decided to increase in size, but WhatSize helped me find the problem, and in the end, save hours of backing up, reinstalling, and restoring files.

Elgato Turbo.264: Say Goodbye to iSquint

Alec Feld — Wed, 23 May 2007 20:43:38 +0000

I’m not a big fan of putting videos on iPods. In fact, the last time I used my iPod video to actually watch a movie was over a year ago. Getting a movie from DVD to iPod was a long and tedious process. Converting the video to iPod format used to take ages, and was almost pointless at times. However, Elgato has recently introduced their Turbo.264, a hardware video encoder designed to speed up video encoding. Think of the Turbo as a processor that’s devoted to converting video.

The thumbdrive style device plugs right into your Mac, and quickly installs it’s codecs into QuickTime (which includes any app that uses QuickTime’s encoding). It includes four codecs, iPod (best), iPod (small), PSP, and AppleTV. OK, fine, it doesn’t encode at any user defined specification, but it does convert into the four most common, used, and wanted formats. If you’re not into using QuickTime to convert, Elgato includes their own app for converting videos.

The app can batch convert, gives a video preview of what it’s encoding at the moment, and shows estimated time left and frames per second. Speaking of FPS, the Turbo converted a DivX video of mine to iPod at 48 fps. Not bad at all compared to the 15-25 fps that QuickTime encodes at for me.

The Turbo is a great product for those who like to put videos on their iPods extremely quickly, or for people who just want to put all of their videos on their AppleTV’s. The encoding time and speed is greatly improved over QuickTime’s, and lets the user run other, processor intensive apps without worrying about if there’s enough speed. Although the encoder only allows four settings, the Turbo should be fine for most consumers. The Turbo.264 retails for $99 and is available now from Elgato.

Logitech VX Revolution: Scrolls Like Butter

Alec Feld — Fri, 11 May 2007 20:22:42 +0000

With my MX1000 crapping out, I went searching for the perfect new mouse. The Microsoft mice didn’t appeal to me, and neither did the Razer mice. The Mighty Mouse was out of the question, and I wanted something nice and clean cut, yet portable. I finally found that when I got my hands on a VX Revolution from Logitech, the portable little brother to the MX Revolution. Recognized and known for it’s advanced scroll and laser technology, the VX Revolution is a great mouse for any notebook or portable owner.

The first thing I noticed and played with was the VX’s scroll wheel. The wheel can be set to two different modes. The first mode puts the scroll wheel in a typical, normal state where the wheel ‘clicks’ as you scroll. The second mode, which the family of mice is known for, is the ‘free scroll’ mode, where the scroll wheel continuously spins until it slows down. This is great for scrolling long documents, webpages, and folders. The VX also ships with side scrolling, which is useful for horizontal pages and documents.

The second thing I noticed was the portability. The USB dongle that it ships with is incredibly small, and slips right into the mouse itself when not in use. This powers the mouse off as well, automatically conserving power and energy. To retrieve the dongle, hit the eject button on the bottom of the mouse, and the dongle pops right out. This also means that if one wanted to put this mouse in their bag, no extra parts are needed.

The actual hardware was fantastic, but the software was a bit different. After installing Logitech Control Center and figuring out why it wouldn’t recognize my mouse, I finally had everything set up. The drivers are great and allow complete control over everything the mouse does. However, after a few weeks, I had some problems. When I plugged in the USB dongle my computer froze, and I started getting numerous kernel panics, eventually forcing my computer to not boot. With all of these problems centered around the drivers, I am now using the mouse driverless until a newer, more stable version of LCC is released.

Overall, an awesome product. The VX Revolution is ultra-portable yet comfortable and sleek at the same time. The free scrolling makes scrolling through long documents and pages easier, and the laser allows it to be used on any surface with amazing accuracy. The Logitech VX Revolution retails for $79.99.

Switcher’s Giveaway 2nd Prize Winner!

Alec Feld — Tue, 08 May 2007 20:40:59 +0000

We had some fun announcing yesterday’s 1st prize winner in our switcher's contest, but the truth is that there are really two first place winners, both receiving the 23 apps and t-shirts from Insanely Great Tees. Unlike yesterday’s winner who was chosen by raw skillz and uber Mac talent, today's winner is really just a lucky duck. This morning we gave all the contest entries a number, and over Skype a few of us chose the other winner of this great list of software.

As I’ve said before, there are some fantastic written articles by some very talented people, and this one’s no different. We were also delighted to get so many entries from the ladies out there, and that the guys did not run away with both prizes. Soooo your second winner is…

Caitlyn Imburgo for her piece ‘A Female Apple Lover Looking to Expand her Horizons‘. Gratz Caitlyn! We will be in touch with you shortly. Here is Cait’s article, click on the images for a larger format.

Switcher’s Giveaway First Prize Winner!

Alec Feld — Mon, 07 May 2007 16:10:35 +0000

Wow what a week. Aside from school and my usual stuff I have had the massive job of pouring through nearly 150 creative contest entries, to our massive Switcher’s Giveaway from last month. It was really very interesting and tons of fun, but choosing a winner for these types of things is never easy.

So before announcing the winner I just wanted to thank all the great companies who made this possible, and just congratulate everyone who entered and posted about it on their blogs and websites. Once again the Mac community really pulled through. Also a huge thanks to Miles, Josh, Kyle, Kiro and the other great contributors here for coming together on this effort with your time and expertise.

Now for some great news. Our senior editor, Miles Evans, has promised he will reward 1 more switcher’s piece with a special runner up prize of $100 US dollars. So many of you have emailed asking us to unveil the winners on MacApper, we decided that we would publish the best entries, and the readers will vote for who deserves the $100 prize. So watch for these home brew articles all this week, and be sure to place your vote.

And without further ado, the grand prize winner of the MacApper Switcher’s Contest 2007 is: ‘Peter Gets a Mac’, by David and Peter Carpe. Congrats guys – you just won large and you totally deserve it! We will be in touch with you shortly.

But wait! Isn’t there also a lucky winner to be announced at random? Like a lucky draw? Did you think we forgot? You’re right, there is still 1 more winner, picked at random, lined up to take home 23 apps and a t-shirt – Check back tomorrow for that announcement guys!

MacApper Switcher’s Giveaway 2007

Alec Feld — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 09:22:47 +0000

Switching to the Mac can be a difficult process. Although the physical act of going to the Apple Store and buying a computer is easy and delightful, it’s often tough to find all the apps you’ll need to work productively and maintain a seamless workflow. There are various lists on hundreds of blogs describing what apps are necessary and best, and reams of opinions on how to convert. We decided to put together a list of apps we actually enjoy using ourselves. But really this list of switcher apps is very different. Why? Because we’re giving all of these apps away!

It’s a killer list so what’s the catch?
To win, we’re asking that you submit your switcher story – or your story of changing over to the Mac. It doesn’t matter if you switched 1, 5, or 10 years ago, as long as you’re using a Mac today. One switcher story will be chosen as the winner, and the author of that entry will win all the booty. But wait! We understand some users don’t have creative writing skills or the desire to pump us content, so we’ll also be randomly selecting one user, good story or not, and just giving that user every app listed. Every reasonable story entry is a chance to clean up!

Some Guidelines
If you’re writing, try to keep it between 500-1000 words. This isn’t Vanity Fair, we don’t need 15,000 word articles. But wait! Macs come with some amazingly creative software like iMovie and GarageBand. Feel free to make and submit a video, slideshow, iDVD project or whatever you can think of. You can bet we will favor articles using some form of rich media over those that don’t, so dig deep if you want the prize. The top entries will be published front page on MacApper for ultimate bragging rights.

Alright so we aren’t just giving away a handful of apps here either. We’re giving away (FREE!) 24 applications and other prizes worth over $750 per winner. Cool right?

The Booty:
Blog. First up is MarsEdit from Red Sweater Software. MarsEdit is an acclaimed blog authoring app which allows the user to create, edit, and publish blog entries. MarsEdit allows the user to see live previews of blog entries, has a sleek UI, and is compatible with most major blogging services.

Learn. Next up on the list is iFlash, from Loopware. iFlash allows the user to create flashcards and memorize them in a slideshow-like interface. iFlash auto defines words for quick vocabulary flashcards, can print flashcards and export them to an iPod, as well as place images and audio into flashcards.

Burn. Disco is on our list as well. The new disc burner serves up a fantastic interface, as well as disc spanning, a discography feature, and can burn many file types and disc types. Disco comes with some extra features as well, such as use of the sudden motion sensor inside of most Macs to prevent coasters, as well as the ability to burn VIDEO_TS folders.

Delete. AppZapper makes an appearance as well. AppZapper allows the quick and easy deletion of apps. Not only does AppZapper delete the application itself, AppZapper also deletes any associated files with the app, truly getting rid of the application and it’s resources. AppZapper allows the user to find the least used apps and how much space they take up, as well as has the ability to quickly delete preference panes, widgets, and plugins.

Download. Xtorrent is a brand new app from Dave Watanabe that is devoted to finding and downloading torrent files. Unlike most torrent apps, Xtorrent can subscribe to RSS feeds, keeping track of the latest torrents, as well as search the web for torrents. Xtorrent also handles groups, so the user can group torrents by category, essentially organizing their downloads.

Edit. TextMate, an all around editor from Macromates, is also being given away. TextMate can edit many file types, including PHP, HTML, and CSS. TextMate also tightly integrates with Xcode, replacing Xcode’s editor with a more robust solution. TextMate features tabs, a built in file browser, and tons of templates for quick starting HTML, PHP, CSS files, or many other types of files.

Calculate. Soulver, from Acqualia, is a different kind of calculator. Soulver allows math to be done in plain English sentences, and calculates problems instantly. The app finds the root, decimals, and more, instantly, and can save calculations as files. Soulver is text based as well, so problems are editable anytime while solving the equation.

Sleep. Pzizz, with the Sleep Module, allows the user to fall asleep quickly and easily. Using a series of sounds randomly put together on the spot, Pzizz allows almost anyone to get a good night sleep, easily. Pzizz naps can also be exported to iPod for on the go, or general home use.

Wake Up. Awaken, from Embraceware, allows you to fall asleep listening to your iTunes, but like its namesake the real magic is when Awaken wakes you up. With mutiple alarms settings, sleep timers, album art, and even podcast settings, Awaken is the only alarm app you need on your Mac.

Virtualize. A virtualization app, Parallels allows Windows, Linux, and other OS’ to be used side by side with OS X. Running in a separate window, or side by side in coherence mode, Parallels emulates the users CD drive, USB devices, and more right inside of a virtual machine. Parallels runs at near native speed, and is a great solution for those who need those services or apps that are not available on OS X.

RSS. An app from NewsGator, NetNewsWire is the most robust RSS reader for the Mac. NNW syncs with NewsGator to keep your feeds up to date, has a built in browser, and is completely customizable. Podcasts can be downloaded to your iPod, articles can be posted directly to del.icio.us, and Smart Lists can be easily created with the touch of a button.

Launch. Overflow, from Stunt Software, lets the user organize and launch apps, making going to the Applications folder a thing of the past. Just drag your apps into user created categories, and launch away. Overflow is activated at any time with a single click, and is a great way to get to those apps quicker, or just clean up your dock.

Upload. An upcoming FTP app from Brian Amerige, Flow does more than file transfer. Flow has a built in editor, which allows remote editing of files on the spot, and features quicker uploading by initializing multiple connections to the server. Flow allows quicker uploads and easier editing when working with remote files.

Control. CoverSutra, from Sophia Teutschler, allows you to control your music in style. Just hit F8 and the control window pops up, showing album art and controls to adjust your music without popping iTunes up. CoverSutra also submits songs to last.fm, and shows what track is playing and if the track changes. If wanted, CoverSutra will also display the current album art on the desktop.

Conquer. iConquer, from KavaSoft, is the game of world conquest for the Mac. iConquer features a friendly Aqua UI, a detailed world map, artificial intelligence, and multiplayer. iConquer also features a boss mode to hide the game when at work, as well as a map creator and in-game chatting.

Diagram. OmniGraffle Pro, from the Omni Group is the premiere diagramming application for OS X. Think Visio with amazing imagery (Scalable vector graphics) and a truly intuitive UI. if you do any kind of flowcharting or diagramming this is the only app you will ever need.

Manage. A new app from Midnight Apps, Cha-Ching lets the user manage money, bills and more. Just enter your purchase or income, take an optional picture, and you’re done. Cha-Ching also does Smart Folders, so you can track any type of purchase or income with ease. You can set up accounts, budgets, and even track your bills, all in one simple app.

Explore. When you use your Mac, file browsing options are important. That’s why Macintosh Explorer from the folks at RAGE Software offers the familiar hierarchal, two-pane file view known to Windows users with the superior Macintosh look and feel. This is a really well known app for Windows to Mac switchers.

Color. Painter’s Picker from Old Jewel Software puts an artists color wheel into the default OS X color panel that is used by many apps. Painter’s Picker lets the user choose from analogous colors and complementary colors, as well as find different color schemes to use. The plugin also blends colors, and is perfect for artists switching to the Mac.

Organize. Yojimbo from Bare Bones Software is the de facto standard in personal information managers on your Mac. You can store everything in Yojimbo from text, images, PDFs, and even your passwords and serial numbers. For something so simple and effortless you will be wondering how you ever managed your life before it.

Bookmark. For surfers we have Pukka from Code Sorcery Workshop which is a full featured client for both the del.icio.us and Ma.gnolia social bookmarking services. Running this handy app in your dock for easy drag and drop of your bookmarks, is the best possible way I can think of to interact with del.icio.us.

Backup. For backing up your Mac quickly, easily, and automatically, SuperDuper! from Shirt Pocket Software is the hands-down choice. Including features such as creating bootable disk image backups, incremental backups, and a very powerful scheduling engine, it’s the best way to back up your Mac without even having to think about it.

Edit. For quick and easy movie editing, Norrkross Movie from Norrkross Software is the perfect alternative to iMovie. The app has a green screen feature, unlimited layers, keyframing, nodal composing, and is based on Core Image. Norrkross Movie is a great way to get a lot more out of your video editing.

Collect. When winning 23 apps, you’re going to need a place to store all of those serials and keys. LicenseKeeper from Outer Level takes all of your serials, codes, and keys, and organizes them into a single window. LicenseKeeper auto-scans emails for serial numbers, autosaves data, and can export all of your licenses to a single XML file for backup. Never lose a serial again with LicenseKeeper.

Wear. The very generous folks at Insanely Great Tees will provide one shirt of their choice to each winner, and two runners-up will receive one shirt each as well. If you’ve never heard of IGT before, check them outthey have some really cool Mac-themed shirts at very decent prices.

How to Enter:
Get creating! Send your tale to macapper@gmail.com by 11:59PM EDT on Monday, April 30th. That’s one week, so you had better get cracking!

Legal Mumbojumbo:
One entry per person, no purchase necessary, we don’t have a legal team or any assets so please don’t sue us, judges decision is final, yada yada yada. Good luck!

Update:
MacDrive, Macintosh Explorer, Painter’s Picker, and some really sweet shirts from Insanely Great Tees have been thrown into the bundle, and entries are rolling in!

Almost forgot: Props to our man Kyle Nilson for supplying the imagery for the contest.

Something is Coming

Alec Feld — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 16:00:04 +0000

Apple’s Keynote at NAB: Coverage

Alec Feld — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 17:48:27 +0000

Check here from 11 AM Pacific (that’s 2 PM Eastern and 6 PM GMT) for updates at the keynote. Check out our predictions, grab a drink, and watch for updates as Apple hopefully unveils some cool new products. (Please release some new Cinema Displays!) We’ll be adding in some commentary on what’s going on, and give updates by the minute. So hold on for a bit, as the keynote starts in less than fifteen minutes. (I bet they’re playing Black Eyed Peas.)

10:56: 3 Macs on stage

11:00: Accidentally revealed Keynote window. Oops.

Image from Engadget

11:03: Large hall, MacWorld style. This has to be big. Will Steve actually do this NAB keynote? That’d be really sweet.

11:04: Sony executives at the event, some sort of partnetship happening here?

11:05: Lights go down.

11:06: “Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, there is no recording of today’s event.” -Engadget

11:08: Music goes off.

11:09: Rob Schoeben hosting. No Steve? . No intro, diving right into it.

11:11: 800k Final Cut Users

11:14: Introducing Final Cut Server

11:15: UK store is down

11:16: Final Cut Server works on PCs as well. Asset management, tons of file types, proxies, keyword searching, workflows, access controls, reviewing, encoding and publishing.

11:19: Video showing Final Cut Server playing

11:22: $1000 for 10 users, $2000 for unlimited.

11:23: Final Cut Pro 6, ProRes 422.

11:25: HDRCAM SR 1080p60 system introduced

11:26: Working with RED. You know, that way overpriced HD cam.

11:27: Edit 4K files on a MacBook Pro.

11:28: New HD encoder box, SD to HD conversion – called the IO-HD, available in July – $3495

11:31: More Motion templates

11:33: SmoothCam in Final Cut Pro, no more camera shaking. Motion templates also in Final Cut Pro. All intergrated. Awesome. iLife Pro?

11:37: Unrendered video plays smoothly

11:40: ProRes and uncompressed HD look pretty much the same – almost no encoding artifacts. New effects plugins.

11:42: Motion has 3D, light sources, navigation, paint, pictures, pen, pressue, sensitivity, match moving.

11:44: Retiming with behaviours, audio behaviours, control animations by volume and frequency.

11:49: 3D Glasses under peoples seats for demo. Awesome.

11:53: Introducing Soundtrack Pro 2, surround sound support. 3-up video HUD.

11:57: New conform feature. Sync changes, change tracking, etc.

12:01: Fade selecting, waveform editor, frequency spectrum view. Delete portions of frequencies that are causing problems.

12:10: Take editor, demoing conform, Soundtrack knows to resync, and does it well apparently.

12:11: Surround sound sound-effects and music (royalty free) are bundled. Six channels in one clip, no more multiple tracks.

12:13: Compressor 3, now with AppleTV and iPod presets, 3x faster, MPEG-2, H.264, VC-1, WMV, FLV, animated watermarks, chapter making. Live booksmarks in video, publish to iTunes.

12:25: $1299 for full version of FCS, $699 for the upgrade from previous versions of FCP, $499 from previous version of FCS, available next month.

12:29: New app: Color. Real time color grading, extension to FCP, color effects, geometry, tons of mattes, color correction, custom shapes for colorization, comes with FCS2.

12:54: That’s it! Keynote over.

NAB Keynote Today, Check Here Later for Coverage

Alec Feld — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 16:49:14 +0000

So today is the day, the annual Apple keynote at NAB. Now, NAB isn’t your typical keynote. It’s not hosted by Steve Jobs, and you usually don’t get all the marketing and financial filler before the unveilings unlike other keynotes. The NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) is flocked with professional broadcasters every year, and is therefor a perfect setting, each year, to unveil some professional products that broadcasters and video professionals will find useful. So, that being said, here are my predictions for NAB.

1. MacBook Pro
I don’t predict an HD screen. Why? Because even if you did have an HD screen, HD content wouldn’t look so different when put on the current 17″ MacBook Pro’s display. The resolution might increase, but HD content will look the same or, at most, a tiny bit different. Yes, the user could see full size HD videos, and edit them at their full size, but this is not a priority among most, and I myself find the current resolution of 1680×1050 more than enough. These HD displays would also increase prices beyond which, in my opinion, Apple would want them to. I predict speed bumps in these portables, from 2.33 to 2.66. I also predict RAM limits being pushed to 4 GB instead of 3 GB. That’s all for the 17″. As for the rumored ultra portable MacBook Pros, I highly doubt they will be released today.

2. Final Cut
Final Cut Studio will definitely be upgraded today, as the last large version update was about two years ago. Expect price drops (as we have seen with Shake) and, of course, Leopard compatibility. I also expect Final Cut Extreme, Apple’s rumored high-end pro editing app. Why Final Cut Extreme? Rumors about the app have said that it requires an extremely powerful machine, and this now makes sense as Apple has released the eight-core Mac Pro. Final Cut Extreme is rumored to go on sale for a hefty price of $10,000.

3. Cinema Displays
Please, Apple, please update these displays! The current form factor was introduced in 2004, and has only had very small updates and price drops since. The prices on the displays were also dropped last week, implying an update to arrive soon. My prediction is that prices rise again, resolutions increase, form factors possibly change, and built-in iSights. However, my prediction on the iSights has become less and less possible over time due to the fact that 10.4.9 supports most webcams. Expect these to be updated today, if not very soon.

The keynote starts at 11 AM Pacific time.

Leopard Delayed: Why Everyone Should Shut Up and Wait

Alec Feld — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 23:21:39 +0000

When Apple announced that Leopard was being delayed today, I said to myself “I knew it.” Of course Apple wasn’t going to ship out Leopard on time, the thing wasn’t anywhere near done or usable. Yes, at first I did complain about how I was going to have to wait six more months for the OS, but then I thought about why I didn’t need it right away. I came up with several ideas and decided to write a small post to calm all of those iPhone haters down.

1. Tiger is fine.
Seriously, Tiger was probably one of Apple’s biggest OS X updates next to Panther. Spotlight. Dashboard, QuickTime 7, Safari RSS, a new version of iChat, Automator, .Mac Sync, I think you get the point. Tiger is a great OS and I’m happy with it for now.

2. Do you really need Spaces right now?
Some of Leopard’s features can be used on Tiger with apps like SuperDuper and Virtue. These apps may not have the eye candy that Spaces and Time Machine have, but they work and get the job done. Do you really need to transform your Mac into the solar system right now?

3. Less bugs, better features.
I’d rather have a clean, polished, and bug free OS than one that was rushed out the door so the iPhone could be shipped. Giving Apple more time will allow a more stable release, and who knows, maybe an extra feature or two.

I’m not sure why everyone is rushing to grab Leopard, but a four month delay is fine, as Apple has time to clean up and polish the OS. Features like Spaces and improved Spotlight, at least for me, can wait until October. For now, I’m going to enjoy Tiger while it lasts.

How To: Organize Your Desktop, Dock, and Bookmarks

Alec Feld — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 16:00:07 +0000

OK, I’ll admit it, I use my desktop as a file storage area from time to time. Disorganization of your desktop, dock, bookmarks, and more can cause clutter and confusion. With a disorganized Mac, valuable time is wasted on finding files, apps, and more. Today I’m going to show you how to organize several parts of your Mac to make life on the desktop a bit easier.

1. The Desktop
The biggest source of clutter is the desktop. When you dump files on your desktop, it’s hard to find those files quickly, and it also slows down your Mac. A dirty desktop can be a big source of speed reduction. If you use the desktop as a temporary storage area, create a folder on the desktop and use that folder instead. That way, you will only have one item on the desktop instead of many items. If your downloads are the problem, go into your browser’s preferences and set the download folder to a “Downloads” folder on your desktop, as this will cause a big portion of your incoming files to be automatically relocated and organized. For a quick fix to a messy desktop, download DeskShade from MacRabbit and select “Cover Desktop”. This will temporary hide all icons on your desktop, and can give you some disorganization relief without resorting to cleaning up your desktop.

2. The Dock
The dock is the center of all things on the Mac, as it’s where your favourite apps, documents, and more are located. However, many Mac users throw ten, twenty, or thirty apps in their dock, creating a large line of icons at the bottom of the display. Keep your Dock down to the apps you use every half hour. For me, that’s Finder (that’s a given), Mail, Safari, iChat, and iTunes. This should greatly reduce the number of apps in your dock to about six or seven icons, and will allow you to find the apps you launch most, quicker. If you have a few more icons, you can sort them into categories using dock dividers. Although it’s available as an option, don’t put documents in your dock, unless its a document you use daily or very frequently, such as a Word template.

3. Bookmarks
Bookmarks are key to quick and easy browsing, and most users probably use them more than they use the address bar. The Bookmarks Bar can become messy in any browser. First, add bookmarks with the name “|” (pipe). These pipes will act as separators. Direct these bookmarks towards Google, or just a blank page. Add as many as needed. Within these separators, place bookmarks into categories. For instance, I have Apple, Work, and Tech. Yes, this could be done with folders, but I have found this method works a little better. For the Bookmarks menu, create folders, treat them as categories, and drag bookmarks into them accordingly.

Organization of these three elements can both speed up your Mac and speed up your workflow. The organization of the desktop will allow you to find files, downloads, and more, quicker, the organization of the dock will allow you to know where apps are in the dock, and will allow more room on the screen for other elements and the clean up of your bookmarks will allow you to browse and find your favourite sites even faster.

Logitech Z-10: Touch Your Music A Little Early

Alec Feld — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 13:00:57 +0000

Walk into an Apple Retail store and look at the speakers on display. JBL, Soundsticks, Altec Lansing, and similar brands appear on the shelves. However, none of these speakers are truly user-centric. They plug into your computer and that’s it. The speakers fade away and simply become part of your iTunes habits. Since the speakers are a prominent part of the music experience, the user should be able to interact with the speakers as if they were the iTunes control buttons themselves. Logitech has solved this problem with the Z-10 Speakers, a two piece interactive speaker set.

The Logitech Z-10′s aren’t your typical speaker. They’re rigged up with an LCD screen and touch sensitive controls. You can control your iTunes with the touch sensitive buttons, and see what track is playing using the LCD. One can also set up hotkeys or actions using the buttons labeled one through five on the speaker’s control panel.

But wait, how does a Z-10 work on a Mac? Technically, these speakers are Windows only. However, Marc Liyanage over at Entropy put together an app that fixes this, LogitechLCDTool. The app simply sends over HTML and Javascript to the LCD, as well as images. This allows the user to display almost anything on the LCD. LLT comes with a couple of templates, including an iTunes controller and a Stock Ticker.

Sound on these babies are impressive. I was weary about the Z-10′s having built in subwoofers, but they’re pretty decent. Bass was perfect and treble needed to be raised a bit. With a good 30W, these speakers will pump out great and powerful sound.

Pros: Great sound, USB, Backlit LCD and touch sensitive controls, sleek glossy look, auxiliary port for use with iPods, CD Players, etc.

Cons: LCD isn’t truly OS X compatible, expensive.

Price: The Logitech Z-10′s go for $150. It’s expensive, but it’s worth having the great sound, touch sensitive controls, and LCD. I don’t have to pop open iTunes as much if I want to pause or skip a song. Instead, I use the controls on the Z-10, which allow me to touch my music, well before the iPhone.

Trapper Keeper: Rosie O’Donnell Not Included

Alec Feld — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 13:00:05 +0000

Stickies can be a drag once in a while, with it’s UI and main feature list last updated in 2000. With Stickies, there is no true organization of notes, which can lead to clutter all over the desktop. With too many Stickies, finding the one you want can be tough which is a real pain. Introducing Trapper Keeper from LimbicLogic – an app that puts all of your notes into a single, searchable menubar item.

Trapper Keeper runs in the menubar, and opens via mouse click or hotkey. When opened, the user is presented with a search box. From here you can search through current notes, or click the plus button to add a new one. You can lock, delete, Google, or Spotlight notes, as well as copy notes straight to the clipboard. Trapper Keeper is a really great replacement for Stickies, it’s organized, quick, and simple to use. Trapper Keeper costs $18 and is available from LimbicLogic.

Showdown: Torrent Clients

Alec Feld — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 10:00:01 +0000

Being some of the most used apps today, torrent clients allow transferring of Linux distributions, podcasts, and more from one computer to another. With over five popular clients on the Mac platform alone, it’s hard to choose what app to use. Today I’ll be showing you which client prevails.

Note: Torrent clients should only be used to download legal files, such as Linux distributions, video podcasts, or other free and legal content.

1. BitTorrent
BitTorrent, the original torrent client, has been around for years. However, it’s criticized for being underfeatured, and is known for slow speeds in both downloading torrents and starting the app. Since BitTorrent is PowerPC only and not a Universal Binary, slowdowns are expected on Intel Macs. If you’re on a PowerPC, speeds will improve, but features will still remain a rarity. BitTorrent is as basic as a torrent client gets.

Pros: The original.

Cons: Almost featureless, not a Universal Binary, dated UI, slow.

2. Transmission

Transmission is a simple, lightweight torrent client that has few features, but is known for it’s blazing speed. The app shows download and upload speeds in the dock icon, auto-forwards network ports to ensure fast downloads, auto-deletes .torrent files, and adds new .torrent files to the download list when downloaded to a specified folder. Transmission also has a ‘Schedule Speed’ feature, where the torrent will download/upload faster or slower at certain times to save bandwith. And best of all, it’s free and open source.

Pros: Simple and lightweight, a solid yet basic feature list.

Cons: Only at version 0.7, may be buggy.

3. Tomato Torrent
Tomato Torrent is one of the simplest clients on the Mac. Think of Tomato Torrent as a Universal Binary, updated version of BitTorrent. It’s extremely simple and has few features, and displays each torrent download in a seperate window, which can a bit messy.

Pros: Universal Binary, open source, light RAM usage.

Cons: Each download is displayed in a seperate window, few features.

4. Azureus

Azureus is a Java based cross-platform torrent client, and is known for it’s abundance of features. Although slow due to it’s Java backend, Azureus downloads torrents lightning fast. Azureus is the only Mac torrent client that features Selective Downloading, so the user can choose to download certain files in the torrent and not the whole package. The UI is a radical change from other torrent clients, in that Azureus’ shows legal, ready to download P2P content in the ‘Content’ section. This section of legal downloads is similar to the iTunes Store, and one can search and choose what they want to download. Content includes movie trailers, TV show clips, video podcasts, and more. An alternative interface similar to ones from previous versions of Azureus is available as well. Azureus comes shipped with tons of features, including security options, logging options, and a handful of plugins. Azureus’ features are never limited, as one can download plugins for the app online. Plugins can add features such as improved security options and RSS feeds for torrents.

Pros: Endless options/features, legal content readily available, open source

Cons: Slow, Java, hogs ram, takes up large ammount of screen space.

5. Xtorrent
The newest edition to torrent clients on the Mac, Xtorrent is the latest creation from David Watanabe. Known for the eye candy in his apps, David designed Xtorrent around simplicity and elegance, yet loaded it with useful features and time saving options. Xtorrent can search for torrents via any search engine, can subscribe to RSS feeds for torrents, can organize searches and feeds into folders, automatically loads torrents, and can show download speeds in the dock icon. The UI is fantastic, reflecting NewsFire’s and Acquisition’s interface. The only downside to Xtorrent is it’s price, going for $18.99. Check out our brief Xtorrent Review.

Pros: Stunning UI, just the right amount of features, RSS torrent feeds, built in search, folders and organization.

Cons: No customizable toolbar, a rather large price tag for a torrent client.

Conclusion: Get Xtorrent. Sorry, but we love the RSS feeds, the built in search, and the folders. These three features really make torrent downloading feel a bit more organized and put together. The search feature saves time, and the RSS feeds help keep you up to date on your favourite torrents.

However, if you don’t have the money, go with Transmission. It’s simple and quick and has a good amount of features to keep you happy.

Honorable Mentions
There are tons of other torrent clients, but not all of them are stable or full featured enough for review. Opera and Acquisition download torrents on the side, but aren’t full featured clients. Another worthy mention is BitRocket, an upcoming torrent client. However, BitRocket is in it’s alpha stage and isn’t ready for primetime use.

Peel: MP3 Blog Lovers Rejoice

Alec Feld — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 10:00:56 +0000

RSS is used rarely on my Mac as I visit very few sites daily. However, I have started visiting many music blogs lately, and began using RSS to manage them. Also known as MP3 blogs, music blogs post music news, reviews, but most importantly, music. These blogs have tons of MP3s on them waiting to be downloaded. However, the problem lies in getting those songs on your Mac. You could browse the blog for links and manage the mess of downloaded files on your desktop. You could subscribe to the feed of the blog in an RSS reader, sort through the posts, and then download the songs. Or, you can use Peel, an app from Hjalti Jakobsson.

Peel is a unique RSS reader, as it’s built for music. Just enter a web address, and Peel finds all of the MP3s on the page and puts them in a list. Click any MP3 in the list and the song will start playing. You can skip around the track, adjust the volume, and download the track. Peel will even add the song to iTunes for you if wanted, as well as display the selected MP3 blog’s webpage if you prefer.

But wait, Peel sounds exactly like Songbird. Peel is very similar to Songbird, in that both of them make playlists for each site, automatically find MP3s, and allow downloads. The difference is that Songbird is in it’s alpha stages, making it a bug filled app. In other words, it’s not ready for primetime usage. Peel’s almost-1.0 status and impressive iTunes-like UI makes it an great choice for those music blog fans on the Mac.

Peel is free while in beta, and will cost $14.95 when released.

How To: Organize Your iTunes Library

Alec Feld — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 23:11:19 +0000

Apple’s renowned music application is used universally today. However, with massive amounts of music, iTunes can become a messy and hectic place. Today I’m going to show you how to clean up and organize your iTunes.

I have about 4000 songs. That’s a lot to go though every day, yet alone look at when iTunes pops up. I have about five artists that I listen to regularly, but I have to go through my library or search for them when I want to listen to their songs. iTunes doesn’t allow the user to just add favourite artists to a specified list, so we’ll just use the playlist area instead.

1. Create a new folder. iTunes folders are great for storing different types of playlists. To do this, go to the File menu, and then hit New Folder. This will bring up a new folder in the playlists area. Rename it to Artists or something similar. We’re going to store all of our favourite artists here.

2. Once you’ve renamed the folder, go to the File menu again and this time hit New Smart Playlist. In the window that pops up, make sure “Artist contains” is selected. In the empty box, type the artist’s name. Then hit OK, and drag your newly created playlist into the “Artists” folder. You’ve just made a playlist for one of your favourite artists. Repeat this step until all of the artists you want are in the folder.

3. Now we’re going to repeat step one, but instead of calling the folder “Artists”, we’re going to call it “Genres”.

4. Go to the File menu, and hit New Smart Playlist. Change “Artist” to “Genre” and “contains” to “is”. Then type the genre name into the blank box. Hit OK, and drag your newly created playlist to the “Genre” folder. Repeat until all your favourite genres are in the folder.

5. Create a new folder called “Apple” or something similar. We’re going to drag the Apple created smart playlists into this folder.

6. You should now have three folders with a bunch of playlists in them. But there’s one more thing to do. In each of your artist’s playlists, switch the view from List View to Album View. To do this, go to the View menu and click Album View. This will allow you to see all of the artist’s albums seperated into songs and corresponding album, including album art. This will also allow you to easily browse through your individual artist’s music.

You’ve now organized the playlist area, but what about the actual library? Here are some tips to cleaning the main library.

A. Keep basic genres. If something is Alternative Punk, just call it Alternative. It will give you less genres to sort through and will clean up the genre section of your playlist area, as well as the genre list in the browse mode.

B. No “Featuring” in the Artist metadata. If an album has songs that feature other artists, make sure to add that information in the song name metadata, not the artist metadata. That way your album will only have a single artist name, the artist metadata list will look cleaner, and it will be easier to manage your albums.

C. Fix songs without (proper) metadata. All songs should be easy to find and identify. Adding correct metadata will help you find songs quicker and easier.

Enjoy your newly organized iTunes.

Photography on the Mac: Importing

Alec Feld — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 02:57:07 +0000

This article is a piece in a series of upcoming articles.

Macs have been the digital photographer’s best friend for over ten years. Ever wanted to put all your photos on your Mac, being completely organized and edited? This series of articles will show you how to import, organize, edit, print, and show your photos using your Mac.

So you’ve gone out, snapped your photos, and come back home. Now you have to import them. How do we get the photos from the camera to the Mac? You can use a USB cable from the camera, but that’s usually slow and time consuming. The best way to import photos to a Mac, or any computer, is through a card reader. These things read the memory cards your cameras store their photos on. They’re quick, easy, and depending on your setup, always plugged in. They come in a variety of forms. The most commonly seen form is a USB card reader, coming from a variety of companies such as SanDisk, Iogear, and Sony. These are compatible with almost any Mac that has a USB port, and does not require any drivers or extra software. However, for those MacBook Pro owners out there, we recommend the Griffin ExpressCard/34 5:1 Card Reader.

This gadget is ultraportable, and pops right into the ExpressCard slot on your MacBook Pro. We tested it ourselves and found that it is one of the fastest, and most compact card readers we have ever used. One downside we found with the card is that it doesn’t take CompactFlash, which can be quite the problem considering it is usually the memory of choice for Digital SLRs. However, for those using other formats, such as SD, Memory Stick, and xD, we highly recommend the ExpressCard 3/4 5:1 Card Reader.

By now your memory card is probably popped in, and iPhoto is launching. iPhoto is the default photo organizer on the Mac, and is included in iLife. If you’re not managing large RAW files, iPhoto is probably going to be fine for the average user.

iPhoto displays how many pictures are on the card, and offers to import them. If you want, give the roll a name and a description, and choose if you want the photos deleted off the card after import. Now hit the import button. The card reader/camera will import the photos and if you chose, delete the photos off the memory card. You’re photos are now on your computer.

In the next article, we’ll show you how to manage and organize your photos in iPhoto, as well as Aperture.

School Productivity: Five Ways To Work Well On Your Mac

Alec Feld — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 14:00:13 +0000

I am always salvaging the web for new and cool apps to use. However, I always keep my eye out for apps related to work or school. The Mac can use all the school related applications it can get, and I went out and rounded up the best of the best – the apps I found most useful for school.

1. iFlash (Loopware, $14.95) When it comes to making flash cards, it’s a pain. So why not virtual flash cards? iFlash lets the user create virtual flashcards, store decks, and even upload decks to their online database. You can visit the database and download home made decks by other users, or upload your own. iFlash, if told to, even auto-defines vocabulary words you put on the front of the flash card.

2. Soulver (Acqualia, $13.95) Let’s face it – OS X’s built in calculator isn’t that great. Introducing Soulver, a simple yet very advanced calculator. Soulver lets you do calculations in a plain text box, with the answer appearing next to the problem. It generates the answers instantly, and also auto-calculates the square root, the mean, the average, the mode, and much more.

3. Sidenote (Pierre Chatel, Free) Stickies is a great application for jotting notes and such. In time, the stickies consume your desktop, cluttering it. Sidenote is a great alternative. Sidenote is a little notepad that sits on the edge of your screen, and only appears when you move your cursor towards the screen edge. (Of course, there is an option to have it open all the time) Sidenote has the ability to store many notes, change fonts, etc. It is a nice tool for jotting down little notes, and the best part: it’s free.

4. Assignment Planner (Logan Design, $5.00) I used to use iCal for assignments, but iCal was not built for handling assignments and work. Assignment Planner is iCal for assignments. Assignment Planner allows you to jot down assignments in a calendar-style layout or a list layout. You can file assignments into categories, sort them by complete and incomplete, and insert “metadata” for the assignments, including course, textbook, and type. Assigmment Planner also comes with a Dashboard widget, allowing you to view upcoming assignments in your dashboard.

5. OmniOutliner (The Omni Group, $39.95, $69.95 for Pro version) Word used to be my primary app for outlining, until I tried out OmniOutliner. Created by The Omni Group, OmniOutliner allows the user to create good looking outlines without the hassle. Outlines can include photos, attachments, and groups. You can collapse and expand portions of the outline, and have multiple columns in the outline. This allows more information to be entered, and allows better organisation.

These five applications will allow the user to be more productive and more organised. From taking notes and making outlines, to jotting down homework assignments and solving equations, these apps will help you out.

Reposted from alecfeld.com

The Power of Delicious Library

Alec Feld — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 14:00:31 +0000

Delicious Library from Delicious Monster is more than an app for keeping track of what DVDs, Games, CDs, and Books you own. It’s great for people with large DVD, book, music and game collections that want to see every single bit of information about what they have. It’s a complete media organizer, it’s a discovery utility that allows the user to see similar media to what they have, it keeps track of what movies your friends have hired from you. Delicious Library is a powerful app and today we’re going to look at everything it can do.

1. Media Organization

The most basic thing Delicious Library does is keep track of media. You can scan in music, games, DVDs, and books using an iSight or a Bluetooth barcode scanner, or you can type in the barcode number/title of media and Delicious Library with search for it on Amazon and immediately add it to your library. Scanned titles show up on the “shelf”. The shelf is where Delicious Library keeps all of it’s media. A nice touch is that it actually looks like a shelf so book, game, DVD, and music covers are lined up all across it. It’s pretty realistic and enhances the UI.

Art, along with info, is fetched from Amazon, so the user has to type in virtually nothing. Delicious Library has four sections, Books, DVDs, Music, and Games, each for their respective media. Clicking on a piece of media shows all of it’s information, including author/artist, release date, summary information of media, format, genre, and pricing (including retail price and current price). You can also create your own custom shelves. For example, if some of my books are stored in the living room instead of where I normally keep my books, I can make a Living Room shelf and drag all of the books that I keep in the living room on that shelf. It’s great for remembering which room you keep certain books in.

2. Suggestions

Using Amazon’s suggestion tool, Delicious Library selects similar titles to the ones you have, and recommends them. You can purchase them right through Amazon by clicking a single button in the app. This is great for finding new media if you’re stuck on what to do.

3. Loan System

Ever lend DVDs and more to friends and never have them returned back to you? Delicious Library can help. With integrated iCal and Address Book support, you can add borrowers, select what item(s) they are borrowing, and then set a due date. iCal and Delicious Library remind you when their item is due or overdue.

4. Catalog To-Go

You can take your whole Delicious Library catalog with you. You can print it into a tiny packet, sync it to your iPod, or stick it on the web with DeliciWeb. This is great when going to the book store, video store, or music store, as you can see what items you already own.

Overall, Delicious Library is one of the best media organizers out there. You can print catalogs, keep track of loans, get personalized recomendations, and see your collections on lifelike shelves. Importing items is easier than ever with iSight/Bluetooth scanning, as well as Amazon searching. It’s well worth the $40 price tag if you have a huge collection that you want tidied up.

Price: $40

Link: Delicious Library

Showdown: Mac Disc Burners

Alec Feld — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 10:30:47 +0000

Go to MacUpdate and search for “disc” and “burn”. Quite a few apps, huh? And these aren’t even all of them. There’s a plethora of burners for OS X, and more coming out each week. Each of them has their pros and cons, and today we’re going to see which one comes out on top.

1. DiscBlaze

Recognize the name? DiscBlaze is sold boxed in Apple Retail stores all over the world. It’s made it’s way to version 6.0, yet is still basic. The interface is wonderful. You can arrange “folders” of discs in the sidebar and burn them later, or just do a quick disc. DiscBlaze can also set a custom icon for your disc. The app also does PC Discs and Hybrid Mac and PC discs, as well as Audio CDs and MP3 CDs.

Pros: Intuitive UI, custom disc icons, disc “folders”, can burn many different kinds of discs.

Cons: May be a bit too simple, not many features, big price tag for such few features, takes a while to find all the features.

Price: $19.95

2. Burn

Burn is a simple and free open source disc burner for OS X. It does what a disc burner should do, burn files, music, videos, and can copy other discs/images. It burns different formats; from CDs to DVDs to VCDs to DivX Disc and burns Audio CDs. It may be too simple for some, though. The UI is simple but works, and best of all, it’s free.

Pros: Simple, does basic burning nicely, burns many kinds of discs, is completely open source and free, good if you don’t want to spend money on a disc burner yet want something.

Cons: May not have enough features for some, UI may be too simple, interface is not great, has a few bugs here and there which can get annoying, takes a while to get used to.

Price: Free

3. Disco

Disco is a brand new burning app. Disco has some features that other simple disc burners don’t have. It keeps records of all the discs you burnt, it can nicely span files over two discs, and has some great eye candy. Disco can also do multiple session discs, which is great if you want to add files to an already burnt disc. Smoke appears when you burn a disc, which really does make burning discs fun. The smoke is also interactive, play around with it using your mouse or blow it away by blowing into your microphone. The app is small and compact, it barely takes up room on your screen, yet it is very powerful.

Pros: Small but powerful, can burn multi-session discs, does great disc spanning, is compatible with many disc formats, keeps records of burnt discs, barely takes up room on screen, great eye candy.

Cons: UI does not fit in with OS X’s UI, eye candy can be distracting.

Price: $14.95 *You can save 25% by using the coupon code “MACAPPER” when purchasing*

4. Toast

Roxio has been in the disc burning business for ages, so they’re the ones to trust when it comes to burning. They recently released Toast Titanium 8, which adds some slick new features into their already huge feature list. Toast can burn almost any type of disc- from DVDs to Blu-ray. Toast can convert tapes, vinyl, or anything that can be hooked into your Mac through audio input into playable files and CDs, as well as rip (unprotected) DVDs and copy them. It can span discs and burn files on either Mac, PC, or Hybrid Mac and PC discs, can transfer TiVo & EyeTV shows to your iPod, PSP, DivX Disc and DVD, and lets the user mix their own audio discs with custom transitions between songs. It lets the user create photo montages, disc labels, and more, and also keeps track of what discs the user has burned.

Pros: Incredibly powerful and feature packed, can burn DVDs, rip DVDs, transfer shows from TiVo and EyeTV, can convert songs from records, tapes, and more, can mix audio discs, create photo montages and disc labels, can burn Blu-ray, keeps track of discs burnt, and has a nice UI.

Cons: Hefty price tag.

Price: $99.99

Update: I know a lot of you use LiquidCD and shadowBurn, but I didn’t want to make this article too long. I added these to the article at the risk of making it a bit longer.

5. LiquidCD

LiquidCD is one of the most popular free disc burners for OS X, and comes with a sleek and stylish UI. It does the basics, such as Music, Videos, Data, and Photos. However, it does them with a nice touch. You can set preferences, such as delay time, for each individual song burnt, as well as see the album art and extra metadata for the song. You can also add data to an Audio CD, such as Music Videos. Dragging photos on a disc will not only burn them, but, if enabled, create a PictureCD playable on your DVD burner. It supports burning VIDEO_TS folders, disk images, bin/cue files, and more. And best of all, it’s free.

Pros: Free, nice UI, burns PictureCDs and does very nice music burning.

Cons: Does not burn and convert video files to DVD, only VIDEO_TS.

Price: Free

6. shadowBurn

shadowBurn is yet another stylish burning app. It’s UI is a bit different in terms of choosing what type of disc you want to burn and file listings, but it works. It’s all built around simplicity and ease of use. It does disc images, Mac and PC discs, disk images, CDs, DVDs, and MP3 discs. It doesn’t do audio discs, photo discs, or videos.

Pros: Simple, easy to use, low price.

Cons: Doesn’t do audio, photo, or video discs, not many features.

Price: $15.00

Conclusion: Toast. The price is worth the app. You’ll end up using almost all the features sooner or later and will feel secure knowing you’re using an app made by a company who’s been in the burning business longer than most others. Toast has more features and is more stable than any of the other burners.

If you have no money, Burn or LquidCD is the answer, or just use OS X's built in burner! The built in burner may not do the fancy things that Toast and Disco do, but it definitely works, and is great for burning files quickly.

Update: I know a lot of you use LiquidCD and shadowBurn, but I didn’t want to make this article too long. I added these to the article at the risk of making it a bit longer.

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How To: Get Vista Up And Running On Boot Camp

Alec Feld — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 10:00:52 +0000

So you might be hovering your mouse over that Boot Camp Assistant icon, wondering if you should dare enter the Wonderful World of Windows. Vista, the new box out of Redmond, includes new features, like search. However, it’s not completely compatible with the current release of Boot Camp. In this article, I will walk you through all the steps to get a working copy of Vista on your Mac.

Step 1: Go out and buy a copy of Windows Vista. Any version will do, but Home Premium is what you’re aiming for (unless you need to connect to Active Directory Domains, in that case, go with Ultimate). It includes Aero and all that stuff that will make Windows Vista shine. Why not Ultimate? It’s overpriced, as well as includes few features that Home Premium doesn’t (such as advanced recovery and BitLocker). Be sure to get the Full Version as well. If you buy the Upgrade Version, you can try using this method to get a full Vista install.

Step 2: Download Boot Camp. Boot Camp is Apple’s bootloader for BIOS operating systems. After installing Boot Camp, launch the Boot Camp Assistant. Burn a Macintosh Drivers CD and set this aside. Partition your disks accordingly. Keep in mind that Vista takes up approx 8-10 GB alone.

Step 3: Install Windows. I can’t give you many tips here, as it’s pretty much to-the-point. However, when the Windows Installation asks you what partition to install on, make sure to choose the one that matches the size of the partition you just created.

Step 4: After installation and the setup wizard, Vista will check your computers performance.

Step 5: Welcome to Windows, but there’s a few things we need to do to get this thing up and running. Pop in your Macintosh Drivers CD. If you try running the setup, it’s not going to work, so we need to extract the drivers and manually install them. Hit Apple+R (your Apple key is now the Windows key). This will launch the Run window. Browse to your Macintosh Drivers CD and click on the install file. Then click OK. This should produce a line in the run window. Something like:

“D:\Macintosh Drivers for Windows XP.exe” (replace D with your drive letter, quotes included)

Now you need to add an extra command to this line to tell the installer to not install the drivers, but to just extract them. To do this, add /A /v to the line. The Run window should now look like this:

“D:\Macintosh Drivers for Windows XP.exe” /A /v (replace D with your drive letter, quotes included)

Hit OK. The installer may take a while to launch, so be patient. Once launched, hit install and it will instead extract the files to C:/Program Files/Macintosh Drivers for Windows XP.

Step 6: Go through the “C:/Program Files/Macintosh Drivers for Windows XP” folder.

Install the SigmaTel driver. This will give you sound. Install the Apple Keyboard driver as well. This will enable the eject key and more.

Step 7: Go to the Start menu (or orb?), right click on Computer and hit Properties (if you don’t have a right click mouse on hand, click on Computer, and on the toolbar above, click System Properties). Open Device Manager.

In your Device Manager, you should see a Network Controller with a question mark next to it. This is your Networking Hardware. You’ll want to double click this device. Click Reinstall Driver. Windows will now ask you if you want your driver to be automatically found or if you know where it is. Tell it to manually find it, and point it to the C:/Program Files/Macintosh Drivers for Windows XP Folder. If it asks you if you want to check your CDs or removable media, tell it not to.

If you already haven’t, remove your Drivers CD. Click search in the Install Driver window and it will find your driver. If it tells you that the driver is unsigned, continue to install it anyway.

Your wireless driver should be installed. We’re going to install a newer wireless driver later in the process to remove the choppy sound in the system.

Step 8: Do not install drivers for the iSight or USB Device yet. The iSight driver installs but the iSight won’t generate an image, and the USB Device is the IR Sensor for your Apple Remote. We’ll work on that later. Performance Counter does not have a driver so do not even bother. If you haven’t already, restart your computer.

Step 9: Almost everything should be installed. Wireless, sound, graphics, and more should be working. However, the sound is a bit choppy. To fix this problem install a new set of wireless drivers from here. Setup is self explanitory.

Step 10: There’s one more thing we want to get working, and thats the Apple Remote. There are some beta drivers that can be found over here. Just follow the instructions in the file and the remote should work. (Note: at the time of writing this article, this driver simply emulates the up, down, left, and right keys, as well as a few more. So, any app that uses these keys for control can be controlled via Apple Remote on Vista.

That’s about it! We’ve partitioned the disk with Boot Camp, installed Vista, went through setting up drivers, and even added a few extras. You should now have a fully functional setup of Windows Vista with most of the drivers installed. In the upcoming weeks, look for the final version MacDrive 7, a program for Windows that lets you transfer files from your Mac partition (MacDrive 6 is incompatible with Vista). But for now, you can use the MacDrive 7 Beta.

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Think 1.0: Fullscreen Mode For All

Alec Feld — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 13:00:54 +0000

We’ve seen a number of apps with fullscreen compatibility popup lately, such as Writeroom and Scrivener, but why limit this fullscreen mode to the apps that have it built-in? Introducing Think, from Freeverse.

Think lets you add fullscreen modes to almost any app. It simply allows you to focus on one window by putting a giant backdrop behind it, leaving all the other windows behind. So if you’re one of those people who doesn’t like being distracted by other apps, Think is definitely for you.

Think is a free download from FreeVerse Software.

Scrivener: Turn Your Mac Into a Writers Office

Alec Feld — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 15:00:28 +0000

App creators Literature and Latte bring a new kind of word processor to the Mac. Not just one that has font selection, paragraph options, and print settings, but one that lets the user organize their work. They call it Scrivener.

Scrivener helps the user organize their thoughts, manage their project, and write what they want to write. Key features include a Corkboard with index cards to organize parts of your article/essay/paper, fullscreen typing (imagine Writeroom with lots of extra features), a built in outliner, and a built in text editor. Scrivener also lets the user organize photos, movies, PDFs, web pages, and notes that might be associated with the project. Scrivener also has a screenplay and stageplay mode, where it formats the document appropriately. Scrivener also exports to any major word processor.

Pros: Tons of features, organization, fullscreen, nice UI, a complete writing application with nothing left out.

Cons: May be a bit too much for anyone who wants a simple word processor, no formatting inspector (only menu formatting).

Price: $34.99

Get it here.

Showdown: Mac Media Center Applications

Alec Feld — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 11:00:55 +0000

The concept of a Media Center app has been around for ages on the Windows and Linux side. However, not many developers have created Media Center apps for the Mac.

Within the past year, Mac Media Center apps have been showing up like popups in Internet Explorer. There are some that are fully developed, some that are in their alpha stages, and some that are complete, but don’t have many features. Today, we’re going to compare these apps to see which one reigns supreme.

1) iTheater

iTheater began as a concept back in January of 2005. With the Mac mini being announced at MacWorld SF, student Ed Wolf wanted to turn this tiny machine into a media powerhouse. He created an open source project called iTheater. Currently, iTheater is at version 0.1.3, so there aren’t many features, and it’s got more bugs than any other media center app out there. It’s features are basic so far. iTheater can play songs from your iTunes library, can flip through your iPhoto collection (at random), can show movies, and can display the weather.

Pros: This app has great potential in the future. As development continues, iTheater will bloom into a great media center.

Cons: Buggy, still alpha, can’t choose what iPhoto collections to display (displays photo collection at random), not many features.

Link: iTheater

2) CenterStage

CenterStage is yet another open source Media Center app which is not completely finished. CenterStage is currently at version 0.6.1, which the team still considers being alpha. With the latest release, the team took out the music module, but revampled the UI a bit. CenterStage has a movie management app that it relies on to display what movies a user has, BackStage.

Pros: BackStage will turn into a great movie manager, not just for iTheater, but for other media players. CenterStage, like iTheater, is open source, so anyone can contribute to the app.

Cons: No music module, still in alpha phase, no updates since October 2006.

Link: CenterStage

3) MediaCentral

MediaCentral is the most developed and worked on Media Center app for OS X. Developed by equinux, MediaCentral is worked on by professional coders daily and has new releases constantly. The app is also packed with features, such as games, IPTV, games, movies, music, photos, and videos, and much more.

Pros: Developed by professional coders, packed with features, support forÃ‚ Dolby® Digital Surround (when using the DVD feature), as well as support for Skype, and an impressive UI.

Cons: Slow startup, takes a long time to get around menus, and has a price tag ($29.95)

Link: MediaCentral

4) Front Row

Front Row is a media center app developed by Apple. It includes basic features, such as Photos, Music, Videos, and DVDs. Front Row is integrated into OS X and only works with newer Macs. Front Row has a great Apple designed UI.

Pros: Incredible interface, fast, basic but most needed features.

Cons: Only works on newer Macs, is just a frontend for iTunes, iPhoto, DVD Player, and QuickTime, no TV support.

Link: Front Row

Conclusion: Go with Front Row. It’s built right into OS X, is free, and does the job. However, if you have an older Mac, go with MediaCentral, as Front Row isn’t an option. Or just wait until these apps grow to their full potential.

Update: While writing this article, I was questioning myself about whether I should throw in Andrew Escobar’s solution for Front Row on older Macs, as it is not supported by Apple. However, since it is a solution and it does work, I will mention that you can get Front Row running on older Macs at andrewescobar.com/frontrow/. This solution requires a bit of tweaking, but it gets Front Row up and running on older Macs.

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