Author Archive

Time Machine was an awesome addition to OS X, and it works brilliantly. However, to me, it can be a bit annoying to have Time Machine in the Dock; I’m always hitting it when I don’t mean to. So to solve this little problem, I’ve found a better place to keep it…Finder!

Time Machine is part of the Finder (thinking a little outside the box), as it is basically an extension of the Finder’s functionality, so why not make it a little bit more part of the Finder - Drag the Time Machine icon, from the Applications folder onto the top pane of the Finder window, et voilà! - you can remove it from your dock, and still have a quick way back to the past

There are literally hundreds of ways to monitor your Mac, from the basic Activity Monitor, to the extremely popular iStat; but new to the scene we have CheckUp, which quite frankly blows away the competition in many different ways.

Firstly, CheckUp is great for taking a quick look at everything in your system. I mean everything. Not only does it tell you about the usual CPU usage, and how much memory you’re using; it tells you much more. It tells you how much RAM your Mac can take, what OS it supports, and lots of essential information about your machine (Serial Number etc.), as well as information about installed fonts, Drivers, Apps, Pref Panes and much, much more. This really is an all-around app; but this is just the first of three things that sets it apart.

One day of the week is more famous than any other for our favourite, fruit-based company. Tuesday. Everything that is anything at Apple is revealed on a Tuesday, and I believe that a recent Fortune article has revealed why Tuesday is the day.

So “Why?” I hear you ask — well it sounds like it’s all due to Apple’s compulsion for perfection: Marathon Monday Meetings.

After topping Fortune’s coveted “Fortune 500″ list, Fortune has run a series of articles on the company, including an extremely interesting read — a rare interview with Mr Jobs himself, where he revealed the following:

Tuesdays are nearly always the Apple day of the week. It’s Apple’s release date of choice, and rightly so; it allows stock to be in stores, and hence people’s hands, by the weekend.

But 2008 has been an interesting year, and it all started with a comment at a small event, known as MacWorld from a Mr Steven P. Jobs (ever heard of him, I certainly haven’t):

I have been an advocate of Aurora since I found it. It works brilliantly to wake you up to either music, or by turning on the TV, when used in combination with EyeTV. But it’s always been free. Today, Aurora 4 makes the leap from Freeware to shareware with the all new (and I really mean that) Aurora 4.

*Editor: if you make it to the end of this review you will find a nice discount just for MacApper readers.

It’s been a long time and Elgato managed to keep it under wraps until the weekend, but EyeTV 3 is out and it looks like an excellent update. Included are some long requested features and a much needed graphical overhaul. With all the new features, it looks like EyeTV will remain the best way to watch TV on the Mac.

So, without any further ado, here are they key features of EyeTV 3:

New Interface - EyeTV’s interface now includes CoverFlow. It works exactly the same as iTunes, so if you can use iTunes you can use EyeTV.

Photos can be a pain when getting hard copies; iPhoto makes it easy to browse them, but if you want to print them, it’s not that simple or easy to do. Posterino helps you make great photo posters, as well as beautiful postcards without any of the associated hassles.

We here at MacApper love Mac freeware, and try to write about it whenever we can. If we can find a program that does as good a job as commercial offerings, we will do our best to bring it to your attention. Following along that vein of thought we prepared something we think you guys might find useful. It’s a list of the best and most popular freeware for OS X.

The list is sorted alphabetically by category and currently has 57 freeware mac apps.

It’s January, and it’s Macworld next week, but here’s a tidbit to keep your wallets nice and light.

We saw the introduction of new Mac Pros and Xserves on Tuesday, but with much of the Mac press covering that, it has been overlooked that you can now Pre-Order Office 2008 in any one of the three editions, detailed below.

Microsoft Office is one of the best selling Apps for OS X and love it or hate it, it’s going to be here to stay. However, this is the first time that it has had some real competition in the market space. Although still dominant in productivity apps, Apple’s own iWork is eating into the market, and Office ‘08 sales should be a nice indicator as to whether people have switched, for good.

There are literally hundreds of iTunes remotes, some live on the desktop, others on the menu bar, but this one is a bit different. You can control iTunes on your Mac or PC from your iPhone or iPod touch. And who doesn’t want to do that?

We have seen some attempts at this before, but the implementation was usually slightly weak, and usability was poor. Signal is honestly quite different. You launch the app, and it tells you the exact address to type into your iPod Touch or iPhone. Presto you’re done.

Back in August we told you how the BBC would bring the iPlayer to other platforms ‘in the autumn’. We can now welcome the iPlayer to the world of the Mac and any other flash-capable computer for that matter. A stop-gap solution it may be, but in all it’s flash glory you can now watch TV shows from up to 7 days ago; including some favourites such as Top Gear, The Mighty Boosh and the Beebs big soap, EastEnders.

Well I guess It’s December, and so it’s ‘that’ time of year again. It’s the Christmas season, and it is starting to become hard to ignore the festive feeling - at least where I live. So now that it’s Christmas again, we wanted to take a bit of a Mac spin on things, and today we’ve got three Christmas apps for you to brighten up your desktop.

And seeing as they are really just toys, they are all basically free to download and use right now. So why don’t you grab an egg-nog and let’s get down to it.

We caught wind of some interesting news here at MacApper, something that I’m sure that many people would have cast aside as a load of rubbish, just a couple of years ago.

iWork, Apple’s productivity suite, has managed to capture 16% of the Mac Office Productivity sales. This really is a fairly big achievement. Microsoft Office is a monster, everyone everywhere uses it and it is the standard for Office Productivity apps. So how have Apple managed to crack Microsoft’s dominance in this market?

Leopard has been out for just about a month now, and of course, its no longer got that ‘new’ factor. So, you can now breathe some life into your video chats and mug-shots by adding ‘MoreiChatEffects’.

Like Ronseal, it does exactly what it says on the tin. You get 24 effects, including some that were previewed at WWDC, but never made the final cut into 10.5.

For many iMovie is just not enough and Final Cut Studio is just too big and expensive. Enter Final Cut Express which just upgraded to version 4 today. It brings with it plenty of new features, including importing AVCHD (the leading HD Camcorder format but Intel only), iMovie ‘08 import, Open Format Timeline, 50 Brand-New video effects, and LiveType 2.

One of the great features in that list is Open Format Timeline, already found in Final Cut Studio. This allows you to drag in different format clips, and they’ll seamlessly blend together. Not only can this bring together HD and DV footage, but NTSC and PAL as well. (Don’t you just love AV acronyms!)