Author Archive

When it comes to organization, one of the most simple things you can do to organize data is create an outline. OmniOutliner is an application that allows you to create an outline without hindering your thought process. Many of you have probably heard of OmniOutliner and may even have it on your Mac if you bought a MacBook when Apple was packaging OmniOutliner with them.

The main window of OmniOutliner is quite minimal, opting to have many of the formatting control etc., in an inspector. This makes for a very clean and distraction free window with only 5 buttons (7 in the pro version). The inspector has 5 parts to it, Appearance, Row, Column, Document and Style Attributes, each with it’s own options for editing an element of your outline.

A few weeks ago I reviewed an application called Flux, which is a website creation tool using the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) concept. Shortly after the review was published, we had a 3 license giveaway, and today we have the winners (randomly chosen) of that giveaway.

The winners were:
Simon
Phillz
John Wells

The winners have been notified.

Thanks you for your comments, and stay tuned for future giveaways.

As you may remember me saying at the beginning of my review of Flux, I am a big fan of the WYSIWYG concept (What You See Is What You Get). It was RapidWeaver that originally introduced me to the concept, back when I received a license as part of the original MacHeist bundle.

Since v3.6 (the last version, reviewed by myself on MacApper), RapidWeaver has undergone a major Leopard overhaul (as a free upgrade) to improve on everything from interface to publishing.

If you have ever wanted to keep track of your media on your Mac (Books, DVDs, CDs, etc.), then you have most likely heard of Delicious Library. Two weeks ago, Delicious Library, from Delicious Monster, has received a major upgrade, going from v1.6 to v2.0. Delicious Library 2 takes advantage of many Leopard-only technologies, that aim to build upon the success of Delicious Library v1.0.

Recently, one passion of mine that has really taken over my spare time is photography. I have been interested in photography for some time now, but earlier this year I really stepped it up by purchasing a DSLR (a Nikon D40 to be exact). I am the type of person who learns by doing, so I purchased this camera not knowing what Aperture, Shutter Speed or what an 18-55mm lens was. These are all terms that I have learned since my purchase, but one term that I only recently started to research is HDR.

If you write for, or maintain a blog, you know how tedious it can be to fiddle with the online interfaces while writing. If you write for multiple blog, this tediousness is compounded. For this reason, developers have created desktop blogging clients.

Of the people that I have spoken with, many prefered the likes of MarsEdit and Ecto. I was thinking about getting one of these to use myself, when I came across a client called Blogo that I thought I would give a try.

Back in November of last year, a group of European developers held a promotion called “Give Good Food to Your Mac.” This year, the promotion is back, but with a developer twist. Most of the applications in this promotion help people to develop on the Mac platform. Just like last year, the more applications you add to your “recipe,” the better the discount. 3 apps nets you a 20% discount, 4 apps 30% and 5 apps+ gets you a 50% discount. The full list of participating applications is after the jump.

A few weeks ago I reviewed Flux for MacApper. Flux is a website creation tool that is based on the WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) concept. The developers of Flux (The Escapers) have kindly given 3 licenses of Flux to be given to 3 of you lucky readers.

If you would like to be eligible for 1 of the 3 licenses, all you need to do is comment below with how Flux could be useful to you in creating a website, or what sort of features you would like to see implemented in the future. Flux is still a young application, and your feedback is invaluable to the developers.

Burn-in (or Image Persistance), on LCD Monitors, is caused by “the continuous display of static graphics on the screen for extended periods of time.” This causes pixels to become “stuck” and only display one color. If you have ever had this happen to your screens, you know that it can be annoying, and depending on where the persistence is, difficult to work around.

A few weeks ago, I was looking at a photo full-screen in iPhoto on my iMac, when I noticed a line of white at at the top of the screen (pictured below), where the menubar usually ends. Restarting didn’t seem to fix the problem, so it was at that moment, I realized that I might have Image Persistence.

John Casasanta is a man of many projects. Many of you right now are/have probably been used or been involved in something he has worked on, like iClip, or MacHeist. This interview was originally going to be a joint interview with both John Casasanta and Scott Meinzer (MacHeist I/II Web Developer), but due to time constraints, only John was able to send back my questions.

This interview covers everything from getting involved in the Mac scene, to MacHeist to MDA. At the end of the interview, he also gives us a sneak peak at the interface for the iPhone app he is developing along with Sophia Teutschler of CoverSutra.

I am a big fan of the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) concept. Applications like RapidWeaver, and Sandvox make it easy to create a website with pre-designed templates, and edit them to your hearts content. Over the past few months I have been learing as much as I can about web development, to the point where these applications have begun to become limiting.

One application that is relatively new to the WYSIWYG scene is Flux, from The Escapers. This app aims to give you complete control over the look and feel of your websites, while not limiting you to only being able to adjust a few parameters of pre-installed themes.

Way back in August, I reviewed an application called BurnAgain DVD, from FreeRideCoding. This application was designed to make it easy to backup files to removable media like DVDs and iPods. Now, BurnAgain DVD has been reborn as BurnAgain FS, with a new interface, new features, and a whole new take on re-burning optical media.

One of the most helpful features that was introduced to Keynote with Apple’s last revision, was Instant Alpha. Being able to remove the backgrounds of images with solid-colored backgrounds is something that a lot of applications sometimes struggle to do. But what do you do when the back grounds get a little more complicated?

A few weeks ago an application by the name of Decompose was featured on MacUpdate’s MU Promo (I suggest subscribing to both MU Promo and MacZOT’s mailing list. It’s a great was to build up your Applications Folder on the cheap). Decompose is an application that lets you remove the background from an image by selecting the foreground, outline and background of the subject you want the background removed from.

With yesterday (May 12, 2008) being the deadline for Apple’s esteemed Apple Design Awards, there was a flurry of activity this past weekend of application updates. Some brand new applications have been unveiled, while other applications have received major updates.

I have been keeping a eye open for some of these new releases the past few days, and have compiled a list of some of the applications that have been introduced, and ones that have been updated.

Last week, I reviewed Misu, an application for transferring music from one iPod to another. The developers kindly added a 10 license giveaway to that post, for the first 10 people to comment with where the name Misu came from.

The winners have been chosen, and licenses have been sent. The winners were:
fmyakos
Shawn
John
marieboyer
Marlo
Barrie
Denis
Paul
Zander
Ben Cunningham

Congratulations, and enjoy Misu.