The new user interface keeps the same basic look of Dejumble, but makes it look even better. There’s a new tab bar on top that lets you switch between your main inbox and all of your projects. It’s easy to create a new task by just clicking the “New Task” button on the bottom or the icon on the top. You can add tags to these tasks by just using a hash tag. You can then search for these tags, or click on a tag, to quickly view all the tasks with that specific tag.

One of my favorite things about Dejumble 2.0 are the subtasks. In the notes section for a task you can easily add a subtask by typing a “-” in front of the subtask. This will add a check box to that line in the note and you can check these off to mark when they are done.

Projects have also been improved in Dejumble. You can view all of your projects by switching to the projects tab on the top. Here you can see all of your projects on the left bar, and switch between them by just clicking. Clicking the small plus icon will let you create a new project.

Dejumble 2.0 keeps the same powerful structure of Dejumble but adds a beautiful new interface and some useful new features. During beta the application is available to pre-order for a discounted price at $20. The full price will be $39. You can try out the beta yourself by downloading it at the Dejumble website.

The iPad version shares the same dark theme that the iPhone and Mac versions have but the extra screen space on the iPad makes it feel like an entirely different application.  In landscape mode the right half displays your timeline and the left half let’s you navigate between replies, lists, trends, and more. If you rotate your iPad to portrait mode the entire screen is used to display the timeline. Tapping a button in the top left will display the same menu that is shown on the left in landscape mode. There are also buttons along the top to refresh, view your profile, and post a new tweet. When you post a new tweet the keyboard slides up with a window to compose your tweet in. There is a small black button in the corner with options to shorten URLs or clear all text if you tap it. If this is a reply, the message that you are replying to will be shown below.

Each tweet in the timeline is given a very large space. On the right side of a tweet you can tap a star to favorite it, or tap an arrow to reply or send a direct message. Tapping the tweet will open a popup with options to view the conversation, view other replies, translate, email, or retweet the tweet. Tapping a user’s avatar will open their profile.

The iPad version of Twitterrific is a great Twitter client, but it is also missing many important features. There is currently no option to upload an image using a service like TwitPic, but this will be coming in a future version. You also can only browse lists that you created, not lists that you are following or included in, and you can’t edit these lists in the application. Finally, there is no way to save drafts of your tweets. This would be a great feature if you are not connected to the Internet, but think of something you want to post later. Most of these features will probably be coming in later updates, and Twitterrific is still my preferred Twitter client on my iPad.

While Twitterrific is missing a few popular features, it is still one of the best Twitter apps currently available on the iPad. There is a free ad-supported version available. If you want to use multiple Twitter accounts and get rid of ads you can upgrade to the “pro” version with a $4.99 in-app purchase. Twitterrific for iPad is currently available on the App Store.

In Chinatown Wars you play as Huang Lee, the son of a murdered Triad boss. You arrive in Liberty City to delivery one of your father’s pride possessions, his sword Yu Jian, to your Uncle Kenny. Right when you arrive you get shot and kidnapped, the sword gets stolen, but you escape. Throughout the game you complete missions for Kenny and many other people that you meet while you try to find the sword.

All of the games controls are displayed on screen. While you are walking you can use the joystick to move, and the other three buttons on the right side for actions. The button to the left is your weapon, which you can switch by tapping the pause button in the top right. The button to the right is to roll, and the button above is to kick. Once you get grenades or molatovs, you can just tap your player and drag to throw one. Once you approach a vehicle a button will appear in the lower center of your screen to enter the vehicle. Controls in the car are similar. There are two arrows for turning, a button to shoot your weapon, and buttons for gas and brake. Your GPS is found in the top left of the screen. If you tap the GPS you can view the full map, and place waypoints so your GPS will guide you to that spot. If you tap the small red dot above the GPS you can view your PDA. Here you can do lots of stuff, from viewing emails to ordering weapons online.

I haven’t completed the game on my iPhone yet, but I have finished the story mode on my DS. The story lasted around 15 hours, and the missions are varied. Even after completing the story mode, there is so much more to do. There is the drug trading game, which is a lot like dope wars, but with an occasional police chase. It’s also a great way to make some extra money in the game. There are quite a few side missions, and hidden cameras for you to find and destroy. There are also rampage mini-games. In these you are given one weapon, and get to go on a rampage for a high score.

There is a ton of content in Chinatown Wars, probably more than I’ve ever seen in an iPhone game. The graphics are somewhere in between the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP, but the price is much cheaper. I did encounter a few problems with the iPhone version. It lets you use a custom playlist for listening to music while you are in a vehicle, but the playlist starts with the same song every time you launch the game, and you can’t skip tracks. The controls can also get in the way. This is one iPhone game that you will be playing for a long time, and I think any fan of sandbox games should get this. It’s currently available on iTunes for $9.99.

One of Notify’s big features is the ability to have multiple accounts. You can set up Gmail, MobileMe and Rackspace accounts, or just use your own IMAP settings for any other mail account. Notify just sits in your menubar, and has a small envelope icon that lights up blue when you have new messages. When you click this, the main window for Notify pops up displaying a list of your new emails. There are also tabs on the top, so you can switch accounts.

In the message list each email shows the subject, and a short section of the full email. To view the full email you can either open the preview, by tapping the spacebar or clicking the preview icon, or open it in Gmail, by double clicking the message. You can also compose a new message, mark the message as read, delete the message, or reply to the message using the buttons at the bottom. Notify also includes notification options, which can be separately configured for each email account.

Notify is designed for people who use Gmail online, so there is no way to have Notify open Mail.app when you click on a message. Instead it launches your web browser. You also can not add attachments to messages that you type with the application.

Notify Pro costs $10, but once the trail expires you can use a free version forever. The free version lacks some features such as mail composing, full message preview, mark as read, and delete. You can download and buy Notify from the Vibealicious website.

Immediately after you launch Pastebot, the item that is currently in your iPhone’s clipboard will be copied into the app. Pastebot can store both text and images. In the clipboard you can browse your clippings and copy an item to your iPhone’s clipboard with a single tap. You can also tap the arrow next to the item to view the entire thing. After you tap on a clipboard item some information will popup. If it is a text item, you will see the character count. If it is an image, you will see the dimensions. Just to the right of this information will be two buttons. One to share it, and one to edit it. With text files, you can paste the item to your Mac, search via Google, send it as an email, or move the item to a folder in Pastebots. With an image you will also be able to save the image to the photo library on your device. You can also move multiple items to a folder, or delete multiple items, using the edit button.

Pastebot has a variety of filters to apply to both text and images. When you are viewing an image you can tap the gear icon to display the filters. For images, there are five options to choose from. You can change the brightness, convert to black and white, convert to sepia, invert the colors, and change the saturation. Tapping the edit button will also let you rotate and crop the image. There are even more options for text files. You can change the entire item to lowercase or uppercase, quote lines, find and replace words, and do much more.

Pastebot also includes one killer feature, you can sync it with your Mac! Once you install the free Mac application, anything you copy on your Mac will be sent to Pastebot (as long as your device is on the same Wi-Fi network, and Pastebot is open). If you tap and hold on an item in Pastebot, it will be sent to your Mac.

Pastebot seems to have everything covered. It’s a great clipboard application and even has a few nice editing tools. I didn’t run into many problems, but it would be nice if Mac syncing was possible with Bluetooth as well, for times when Wi-Fi is not accessible. Pastebot is currently available on iTunes for $1.99, the free Pastebot Sync utility for Mac is available on the Tapbots website.

Airlock is very easy to set up, you just need to turn bluetooth on on your iPhone and follow the directions on your Mac. Once you select your device, you can change some preferences to make sure Airlock works just how you want it to. First, you can change the range of Airlock. This is done with a nice little radar. A little blip on the radar shows your device, and you can drag the “activation range” slider to make the activation area on the radar bigger, or smaller.

Airlock has some more advanced features too. You can have Airlock automatically launch items when you come into range, or leave range, of your computer. Airlock can also increase the rate in which it scans for a device. This can decrease the battery of your iPhone or iPod if you set it very high, but it will also make your screen lock, and unlock, quicker. If you do not have your iPhone with you, you can click the small lock in the corner of the lock screen to type in your password. When you do this Airlock will be deactivated until it detects your device again. Currently Airlock only works with an iPhone or an iPod Touch, but they plan on adding support for almost any bluetooth device in the future.

Airlock does come with a few issues. If you want to save your battery, and you lower the responsiveness of the app, it will take a longer time to lock or unlock your computer. This is where the manual unlock tool comes in useful, but it still might be frustrating for some users. If you do not make the activation range large enough, you might suddenly get locked out, even if your device is near your computer. Be sure to try out the demo of Airlock first, because the developer does report that some users with bluetooth mice and keyboards are having issues. They are currently working on a fix for this.

Airlock is an interesting application. It does have a few issues, but it’s a cool app that I think everyone with an iPhone or iPod Touch should try out. A trial is available and you can purchase Airlock for $7.77 on it’s website.

ScreenFlow 2 adds some great features to let you create sleek screencasts.  There are now new transitions to flow between different clips. If you drag two clips together a transition will automatically be placed in between. You can change the type of transition by double-clicking the transition area. You can also drag new clips in from another screen recording and you can speed up or slow down clips.

This update adds a lot of features to help you edit the audio in your clips. First off, you can detach the audio from the video clip, and even copy it to a different video. You can also have ScreenFlow automatically fade out the background audio when you have a voiceover player, and fade back in after it is over. They have added live audio scrubbing too, so you can quickly scan through to get the the section in the audio that you want.

ScreenFlow 2.0 also added a few other useful features. You can now export your video to YouTube, right out of the application. And Telestream added a feature that lets you pause the recording, and then resume it later. Finally, they added a few keyboard shortcuts, improved performance, and added Snow Leopard support.

This is a great update to a great application. It is a little pricey, $99 for a new license or $29 for an upgrade, but I think that anyone interested in screencasting should try out the demo. If you just need a cheap simple application to record your screen, you might want to try another alternative. You can download the trial and buy ScreenFlow at Telestream’s website.

When you start up iterum2 your last used radio station with automatically load, so you can quickly start listening to music. While you are listening to music, you can view the artist and title of the current track along with album artwork. You can also read the lyrics for the song. Oh the side of the screen you can tap buttons to buy the song, search for the song online, or share the song in an email or in a tweet on Twitter. You can add stations to a list of favorites to easily access them.

The channels in iterum2 cover many different genres; from reggae to spiritual. There are also some stations for talk shows. Most of the music channels play at 128kbps, which is pretty close to CD quality. You can also listen to music on Wi-Fi or on cellular connections.

iterum2 is a good application for internet radio, but it still has some problems. If you are listening to music and you switch to view the list of channels, or go to the settings, you’re music will stop playing.  I also had some occasional problems with the music slightly skipping. Finally, some genres only have one channel, and it would be great if the application had a wider selection.

If you are looking for an internet radio app that is similar to satellite radio, and isn’t like Pandora Radio, then you should try out iterum2. iterum2 includes a good list of channels, and more should be coming soon. iterum2 is currently available from in iTunes for $3.99.

When you first launch Bevy you will want to add a few folders. Just click the gear icon in the top left and select folders. Here you will tell Bevy where to search for applications, and Bevy will display you applications in different sections for each folder. This will let you easily keep things organized. You can also exclude some items that you don’t ever need.

Bevy can display you applications in a few different ways. You can view all applications, included applications, excluded applications, or running applications. You can view them all in one big group, or have then grouped by folder. Applications that are currently open will be in a box or have a stroke around them, which you can pick in the settings. You can also change all the colors of Bevy and adjust the opacity in the settings.

But Bevy isn’t just to launch applications. If you want to open a file in a certain application you can drag the file, launch Bevy, and drop the file onto an application. All applications that can open the certain type of file will be highlighted, and all other applications will be dimmed. You can also quickly find applications by holding a letter on your keyboard. This will cause applications that start with that letter to be highlighted.

However, Bevy could use a few other features. One thing that it lacks is an actual search. Bevy also doesn’t work with Spaces, and it will only show in one space. If you open Bevy while in a different space, you will switch to the space that Bevy is in. If you want to quickly access every application on their Mac, you might want to try Bevy. Bevy is available from bergdesign for $9.95.

To start using Keymote, you need to sync your device with your computer. Just download and install the Keymote Controller to your Mac and tap “Add Computer…” in the Keymote settings. After that, you need to start creating keysets. Keysets are extremely easy to create. Just tap on the plus icon in the keysets section of the application and add a name and category. For each keyset you can add keystrokes and spacers. Spacers let you add a blank spot in between keystrokes. These custom keysets make Keymote so versatile. You can start by adding some keystrokes that you use the most often, and Keymote will definitely prove useful.

You don’t need to create all of your keysets. Keymote also has a Keyset Store where you can upload and download user-made keysets. Despite it’s name, everything on this store is free. The store already includes many keysets. There are keysets for a numerical pad and even one for Adobe Photoshop. There are many options in the store that let you easily browse the Keyset Store; it’s almost like browsing the App Store. You can check out staff picks, what’s hot, what’s new, categories, or just view an alphabetical list. You can also search the store to quickly find a keyset for the purpose you want. Adding a keyset to the store is easy. You just need to tap the plus icon on the top right and select your keyset.

I think that almost every Mac user will be able to find a good use for Keymote. With this application you won’t need to remember tons of keystrokes, you just need to tap a button. It does have a few small issues. It takes some time to set up a large custom keyset, and some keysets from the store might not work for you. You might have different keystrokes set up than the person who created the keyset. Despite it’s small flaws, Keymote is a very useful application that many Mac users will appreciate. Keymote is currently under review by Apple and should be available soon on the App Store for $3.99.

Ecoute has a small main windows that feels a lot like an iPod. You can browse your music just as you would on an iPod or iPhone. When you play a song the window will shrink and display the album artwork for the song. Hover your mouse over the album artwork you can easly play, pause, and skip back or forward in the track. The bottom of the screen displays the time that is left in the track and you can click the search icon to search songs. Clicking the album artwork will display the song lyrics (if available).

Ecoute also has many features that iTunes lacks. You can add a small controller to your desktop. This will display the album artwork, song title, artist, and album. You can also use it to play/pause, and skip ahead or back. You don’t need to have Ecoute’s icon in the dock. It can be in the menu bar instead. Ecoute even has Last.fm scrobbling. If you don’t know what Last.fm is, it let’s you track and share what music you listen to.

Ecoute is a very basic app. While it would be nice if it included some more features, like playlist creation and the ability to tell if a playlist is new or not, it is a great application to listen to music and watch videos without opening iTunes. You can download a free trial of Ecoute from PixiApps and a license costs $10.

Ringer is a very basic application. The sidebar on the left lets you browse your iTunes library and the rest of the window is for creating ringtones. You can browse many different sections of iTunes including artists, movies, and TV shows. You can also search for the specific clip.

The ringtone creator is very similar to the one built into iTunes. It has the same features and tools. You simply drag a box around the portion of the song you’d like to use, and hit preview. You can also set the gap in between loops and have the audio fade in and out. When you click create the ringtone is instantly placed under “Ringtones” in iTunes and you will be able to sync them with your iPhone.

Ringer is a great app for creating simple ringtones, but it doesn’t have many advanced features. For some ringtones it might be useful to have a few simple audio effects. There is also no way to control the length of the audio fade. Ringer doesn’t have many features, but it does just what it should. It’s an easy way to create new ringtones in a few short seconds. Ringer is available for $15 from Pixel Research Labs.

When you start up LittleSnapper Touch you will see a large wheel. Simply spin this wheel to select the different options. You can choose to upload images from your library, your camera, or you can take a websnap. Unlike LittleSnapper for Mac, however, the websnap will only be of what is currently showing on your iPhone’s screen. You can also add and delete accounts and visit the QuickSnapper website from the main menu.

Once you have a picture to upload you can enter the title, rating, description, tags, and type. Then just choose an account and tap share. The image will be uploaded and you will have the option to share it in an email or on Twitter. If you choose to share it on Twitter it will open up the Twitter application on your phone (Tweetie, Twitterrific, and Twitterfon are currently supported) and have the link in a new tweet.

While LittleSnapper Touch is great for uploading images, there are a few issues with the application. Other than uploading images, it doesn’t do that much. There isn’t anyway to annotate your images and, as mentioned before, the websnaps do not capture the whole page (obviously due to the iPhone’s limitations).

If you are expecting a full version of LittleSnapper for Mac on your iPhone, this is not what you are looking for. If you want a simple application to upload pictures to QuickSnapper, however, this is just for you. LittleSnapper Touch is currently on iTunes for $2.99.

Tweetie’s UI is quite similar to other Twitter apps; showing tweets in a long list style form, but on the left side of the app is the sidebar. Here you can switch between accounts by clicking the account avatar, and switch between the timeline, mentions, messages, and search. Sections with new tweets will have a blue icon on them. In the timeline you have multiple options. You can double click a reply tweet to view the entire conversation, you can reply to tweets with a small icon in the top right of the tweet, and you can click on a user’s avatar to view their profile. From the profile page you can view their timeline, replies, favorites, and basic information. As you dig through the timeline the bar on the top of the screen shows you were you are, and you can click on it to go back to certain locations.

Tweetie’s direct messaging feature looks a lot like iChat. Messages are sorted based on who the conversation is with and how recent the latest message was. When you click on a name you will see what looks like the iChat speech bubbles displaying messages. You can click reply in the top right to send a direct message reply. Tweetie also has the ability to search tweets. Just click the search icon and type in what you want to find. You can also click on a word marked as a tag (#) in a tweet. The search pages automatically refreshes to show new tweets and you can open searches in a new window to keep them separate from Tweetie. If you click the magnifying glass in the search box you can view a list of popular trends.

Finally, posting tweets. Tweetie handles new tweets a bit differently than other Twitter clients. When you want to post a new tweet a new window will pop-up. This lets you tweet even when the Tweetie window is closed, and is a great way to avoid some distraction. You can post a new tweet by clicking the button in the bottom right corner or Tweetie, click the reply icon in tweets, or just hitting a quick hot-key. In this pop-up window you can also drag and drop images from Finder. Tweetie also has a bookmarklet to tweet a website that you are browsing. Tweetie uses command-enter to submit the tweet to avoid accidental tweeting.

Tweetie works great for most people, but it lacks some features others would love to have. There is currently no way to save searches or sort people into separate groups. There is also no way to delete tweets or set a time interval for auto refreshing. Tweetie runs in both the dock and menubar, which could be annoying for some users.

Tweetie is currently available from the atebits website. You can purchase a license for $14.95 until May 4 when the price will be raised to $19.95, but there is a free ad-supported version available.

When you open Cha-Ching you first have to enter your (optional) four digit pass code. Then the safe opens and you can access your accounts. For each account you can view the current balance and your transactions. You can view your transactions from this month, flagged transactions, search transactions, or view your history. There is also a button to add a transaction. Tap this, choose a payee, and enter the amount to quickly add transactions on the go.

Payees allow for speedy transactions. When you first start using the app you will need to add in the places where you are making your transactions. Once you have a large list of payees you just need to choose a payee and select an amount to add a transaction. Each payee can have a location attached. This lets you quickly select a payee based on your current location. Cha-Ching also lets you track budgets in different categories. Syncing with Cha-Ching Touch and Cha-Ching for OS X is easy. Just go to the sync option on Cha-Ching Touch, then launch Cha-Ching 2 and click sync. Syncing is fast and works over a local wireless network.

I have had a few small issues with Cha-Ching. If you use more than one account the budget section combines the purchases in both accounts; so you can’t set separate budgets for separate accounts. It also takes some extra time to add a description to the purchase.

Cha-Ching Touch is a great financing app for the iPhone. If you use Cha-Ching on your Mac be sure to pick this up; but the application is great even without Cha-Ching for Mac. Adding transactions is a snap; and syncing is easy. Cha-Ching is available now on iTunes for $2.99.

Google Quick Search Box opens with a simple double tap of the command key. From here you can just type in what you want. Google QSB has some basic search features, including the ability to search your computer and certain websites (such as Google, Youtube, and Wikipedia). You can navigate results with the arrow keys on your keyboard. Sadly, web search results only showed up for Wikipedia and Youtube, and it only displays limited results. For the other options it just opens a link in your default browser.

Google QSB also includes some more advaced features. If you type in “Weather” and your zipcode the current weather conditions will show up. You can also use it as a simple calculator. It even searches your web browser’s history for results.

Although Google Quick Search Box currently doesn’t have many features it looks like a promising application. It is only a beta right now and more features will probably be added soon. You can download the app right now from it’s Google Code website for free.

When you launch the app you start on the main menu. In the top right is a skateboard wheel. You spin this to access the different menu options. You can view the tutorials, warm up, have a jam session, play in a competition, or change the options. In Touchgrind you view the skateboard top-down, and you can easily control everything with just two fingers. To move forward, you place two fingers toward the back end of the board. You can slide your fingers to the sides of the board to turn. Performing an Ollie is easy too; just lift up your front finger first and then your back finger. Tricks are a bit harder at first. When you lift up your fingers to perform an Ollie you need to swipe your fingers in different directions to perform different tricks. It is pretty hard to see the skate park in Touchgrind, but if you tap the magnifying glass you can zoom out to see the park. You also have small arrows around the screen that point you toward different elements, like a ramp or grind rail.

Touchgrind has three main modes: Warm-up, Jam Session, and Competition. In Warm-up you can practice in a small park with no time limit. Once you are ready for the big park you can try out Jam Session. Here you can practice in the larger park and master your trick combos. Finally, you can play in a competition. You have 100 seconds to get the highest score you can. If you get a nice score you can unlock more skateboards to play with.

Touchgrind has some other cool features too. If you ever pull a sweet combo and want to show your friends, you can pause the game and view an instant replay. On the side you can control the speed to fast forward or play it in slow motion. When you are watching a reply you will see two white dots where your fingers were. You can also set markers on the park which you will see when you zoom out. These can help you remember where to start a good combo.

There are a few issues with the game, though. When you’re playing it is hard to see what is in front of you. The arrows on the side do help a little, but you never know if you are going to hit the ramp perfectly. The replay function is also limited. You cannot end the replay and get back to playing; you have to wait until it ends. You also can’t save replays, which would be a really cool feature. Finally, there is only one park. It would be great to see a new park with some different objects.

Touchgrind is a very unique iPhone game. It uses the multi-touch screen of the iPhone in such a great way that it will impress your friends and keep you entertained for a long time. This game does have a few problems, but this is one polished game you don’t want to miss. You can get it on iTunes for $4.99.

Classics is a new book reader for the iPhone and iPod Touch that is meant exclusively for reading popular classic novels. Currently the application includes 14 different titles ranging from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea; but more are planned in future updates.

When you open the application you are greeted by a beautiful wooden bookshelf. Here you can slide up and down to view all the books, drag books organize them, or simply tap to start reading one. Books have nice, cream-colored pages which are very easy on the eyes. You can change pages by swiping, or simply tapping the right or left side of the screen. As you turn the page, the pages actually look like they are flipping, but if this annoys you you can turn it off in the options. If you want to skip to a different chapter, just tap the button in the top right to view a chapter list. You can also return to the main bookshelf by tapping the icon in the top left. As you return to the bookshelf a bookmark slides in onto the current page.

Although Classics is a great app, it still has it’s issues. First off, some people might not want just classic books, so this is not the application for them. Also, currently there isn’t a way to download extra books, and users will have to depend on the developer to release updates including more. If you love reading classic books and like a nice interface, then you might want to try out Classics. If not, you might want to try out Stanza, a free application that allows users to download hundreds of books. Stanza is also available in iTunes.

Classics is currently available in iTunes for $0.99.

LittleSnapper’s main feature is the ability to capture an entire website. As you browse the Internet, you can hit a keystroke and LittleSnapper will automatically save the whole web page as an image file. You can also open the current website in LittleSnapper and select a specific area to capture. When you open up a website in LittleSnapper you have two main choices: you can save the whole page, or you can select a section from it. As you hover your mouse pointer over sections of the web page, areas will become highlighted and you just need to click to capture it. LittleSnapper also includes the basic screenshot tools, so you can snap anything on your screen.

Once you have your screenshot, you can edit it. LittleSnapper comes with the basic tools. You can draw lines, circles, boxes, and arrows, and add text to your screenshot. You can also use the blur and highlight tool to hide or point out a section of the image. There is just one last step before you share your image: add information. You can add tags and/or a description.

LittleSnapper lets you quickly upload your images using Realmac’s QuickSnapper service. When you upload images to your QuickSnapper account people can view the image and add comments. QuickSnapper is currently in beta, so you may experience minor problems. Not only does LittleSnapper let you upload images to QuickSnapper, but you can also upload to Flickr or an FTP server.

With LittleSnapper you might be taking a lot of screenshots, so you can organize your screenshots in the LittleSnapper library. LittleSnapper lets you create collections and folders to organize your images. Folders can contain collections, and collections contain your screenshots. You can also create smart collections for easy organizing. You just need to set different rules, like rating or tags, and all applicable images will go straight to the collection.

LittleSnapper still comes with its flaws. While editing images, there isn’t a quick way in the toolbar to edit the text size and font. If you want to change the font you need to open the standard font window in the menu bar. There also isn’t a way to create a shape with a filled color. If you want to take a picture using your iSight and quickly share it, you would need to take the picture in a different application; LittleSnapper doesn’t have iSight support.

LittleSnapper is a great application to share screenshots. It works perfect for many uses, from sharing website designs to annotating images for your blog. You can download a free trial, or buy LittleSnapper for $39 from Realmac Software.

Stuf lets you share your computer’s clipboard with other Macs in your network. You just need to open up Stuf on all of your Macs and select which clipboards you want to share. All shared clipboards will show up on the other computers. If you need some security, you can easily set up a password for your clipboards.

Stuff also lets you create multiple clipboards. You always have the system clipboard, but you can drag some of your most used items from the system clipboard into a new clipboard. These items will be saved forever, and are always there for quick access. Stuf even has TinyURL support. You can instantly convert URLs to TinyURLs by right clicking them in the clipboard and selecting “Create TinyURL”. Finally, Stuf has a great search feature. Just type in a phrase in the search box and push enter. All related clipboard items, even networked ones, will show up instantly. There is one small issue I found with Stuf. Stuf doesn’t like Spaces. If Stuf is in one space, it will always show up in that space until you move it. Hopefully this will be fixed in an update.

Overall, Stuf is a great clipboard application. It is a quick, easy way to share your clipboard with other Macs. Stuf is currently available from The Escapers for £12.99 (~$20 USD). There is also a free 30 day trial available from their website.

We have reviewed Newsfire OS X and we found it to be a great RSS reader. Newsfire OS X is now available for free here.

MacPilot has a pretty basic interface. Separate categories are in the top tool bar while the main portion of the window displays the main information. MacPilot has many different categories, like general apps, network settings, tools, and much more. Under General you can change many system and application settings. Just find the application in the list on the left and browse the different hidden features. Under the Disk and Network categories you can find many options and lots of information about your connected disks and networks. MacPilot also has many helpful tools. It even includes a large list of key combos, useful when you forget some.

MacPilot is an easy-to-use application, but sometimes it can just get confusing. But don’t worry! On the bottom of most windows you can find a help guide. Hover your mouse over an item and it explains what it does. This helps you find what you want and avoid doing something wrong. Everything is pretty well organized and easy to find, although a search feature would be nice.

MacPilot is available for $19.95 and has a 15 day free trial. If you don’t want to buy MacPilot you can always try the free Secrets, which has many similar features. These are both great applications for changing some of those hidden settings in Mac OS X.

Fantasktik, from Dockland Software, is a thin, slightly transparent taskbar that resides under the menu bar or at the bottom of the screen. It displays the icon of each open application with a small number on each one; this is the number of open windows for that application. Next to the icon are small bubbles for each open window. You can hide or expand the windows by double clicking the icon of the application. If you hover over a window in Fantasktik, a quick preview appears. These quick previews are great for easily identifying the window you need to switch to. Also, you can click and drag to scroll through the open windows. Each side of the taskbar has a small circular icon. Clicking this hide the whole taskbar, and clicking it again reveals the taskbar.

Fantasktik is great for window switching. It has a simple interface and great features like quick preview. Still, it comes with a few problems: The taskbar covers up most applications if they are at the top of the screen. Also, if you use Spaces, Fantasktik only shows up in one space. But these issues should be fixed in coming updates, according to the developer.

Fantasktik is only available for Mac OS X 10.5. It currently costs $9.99, but the price will rise to $14.99 after September 30. You can download a 15-day trial and purchase the application from Dockland Software.

Headline is different from other RSS readers because of it’s size. It has a small window that looks much like the iChat buddy list. For each feed entry the status is represented by a dot: green if it’s new, yellow if it’s from the week, or white if it’s older (there will be no dot if it has already been read). These look just like the iChat icons and help you easily find new feeds. The number of new items also appears as a badge in the dock icon. One other useful feature to find new feeds is just to hit the spacebar; this will switch to the next new feed. There is still an issue with this, though; it only goes to the newest feed below the selected feed. If you have any new ones above it you need to scroll up and select that feed.

On top of the Headline window you can change the filter and search for an entry. There are a few different filters to select. You can filter by date or choose to view only unread or favorite entries. One thing missing from Headline, though, is the ability to sort your feeds into categories. This option is in many other RSS readers and is a very useful feature.

The bottom of the window includes a button to switch to view your RSS feeds instead of entries. It also includes some other tools and functions. To open the content button you can click an icon or you can just double-click a feed. There is also a button to open the media window and one to mark as a favorite. When you mark an entry as a favorite the read icon is replaced with a heart. Finally there are a few buttons to share the entry; you can send it as an email or share it in IM. Currently iChat is the only supported IM application. A couple of things that Headline is missing, though, include a way to view one website at a time and the ability to sort feeds into different categories.

When you double-click a feed the content window appears. This is where you can read the full entry. You can also leave this window open as you browse your feeds and it will show you the currently selected feed. The feed window appears as a HUD style display. On the bottom of the feed window are two buttons: “Open in Browser” and “Close Preview”.

Adding new feeds to Headline is very easy. Just click the feed button in the bottom left and the entries will switch to show you a list of feeds. Here you can click the plus and minus buttons to add and delete feeds. You can not rename feeds or just view the entries from one feed. If you already use an RSS reader you can easily import your feeds from different applications or an OPML file. Headline uses core animation to add some cool effects. There is a slight fade effect when you switch between feeds and entries. There is also a pop in effect when you open the preview window. Headline even supports growl.

Headline is a very innovative RSS reader. The minimal UI is great to leave on the side of your screen. It is still missing a few features but hopefully in the coming months more features will be added. Headline costs $19.95 and a demo is available at Doseido Software.

The first time you open Sequence you are greeted by a welcome box. The box displays the main features and lets you change the settings. Sequence has two main uses. Screenshots and screencasts. It also has something I have never seen in screen recording software. The ability to paint right on the screen. You can paint before the screenshot or screencast. But you can even paint during a recording. You can choose the size and color of the brush stroke. Screen shots are very easy to take. Just align the box around the area of interest and click the scissors icon. A snap will go off and then a window to name and save the screenshot appears. For screen shots you can set it for fullscreen, free selection, or fixed size.

Screencasting is also very easy. You select the area and click the record button. If you click the plus button you can view even more features. You can change it to fullscreen, free selection, or fixed size like in screenshots. You can also turn on the microphone and iSight on your computer. When you click the iSight button a small window will appear displaying your camera. You can drag this anywhere you want.

Sequence has many other features. Under options in the menu bar you can choose from many different destinations. This will automatically send your photo to the chosen place like iPhoto, email, even iChat! You can also upload your file to your MobileMe iDisk or your personal website.

Sequence is missing a few features that some other screen recorders have but it is still a great screen recorder. It is very easy to use and only costs $19. You can try out a demo and purchase Sequence at the app4mac website.

The window in Iris is very simple, with tools on the left side and colors, layers, and options on the right. In the middle is the image you are currently editing, and under that is a bar which displays other open images. This is a great way to get avoid extra windows and it makes it very easy to switch between pictures. The tools are pretty basic to most image editors and you can access more by holding your mouse button on some of the icons. The options section displays different controls for each tool. You can also view colors as different sliders or a color spectrum to make it easy to pick the right color.

Iris has many great tools to use. It has all the basic tools found in many image editors, like marquee, paintbrush, red eye fix, blur, and much more. It also has many adjustment options like levels, brightness, and saturation, as well as a large selection of filters (including blur filters and other styles). When you use a filter or adjustment, a small HUD shows up which lets you adjust the filter and see the effects in real-time.

There were a few problems in Iris that I hope will soon be fixed. For example, some of the image adjustments seemed to be very strong, and it was hard to make slight changes to something as simple as brightness. Also, sometimes the image does not update when I switch pictures or delete a layer. Another issue is that there are not many layer blending options. There are also some bugs with undo and some of the filters.

This is just the first release, though, so hopefully some of these will be fixed soon. If so, then Iris looks like it could be a great choice for people looking for a good image editor for their Mac, even if it isn’t the “ultimate” right now. Iris is available for $79 and a demo is available at the website.

Squirrel’s main window displays your transactions for the selected account. When you add a new transaction a bar slides up from the bottom so you can easily edit your transaction. You can choose the date, description, category, and amount. Then you can add different tags so you can easily organize them. On the top half of the window you can view a graph of your transactions. If you hover your mouse over any part of the graph you can view the date and the amount in your account at that time. You can also choose to view only incoming or outgoing transactions with the buttons at the top. If you set a URL for your bank you can also view the website by click the Netbanking icon in the top right. You can add different accounts and edit your tags and categories in the preferences.

Squirrel also includes two other useful features for managing your money: You can create reports and budgets. When you create a new report you choose a name, the accounts that will go into the report, and the dates that the report covers. Reports show information in two different ways: Two bars in the list view and pie graphs on top which both show you your spending in your categories. In the pie graph view, hovering over a section of the graph pops it out of the graph and displays the category name and amount spent in it.

Budgets help you avoid spending too much in a certain category. First you can choose your criteria for the budget, which can be sorted with tags and categories. Then you pick the amount and the time frame. In the list view a bar is displayed showing how much you have spent in your budget. You can also view bars on top showing how close you are but also showing how much you have spent other months. This helps you keep track other months also.

Although Squirrel is missing just a few features that some of the other applications have, it has an amazing design. It is also currently in version 0.5.5, so expect many more features coming soon. If you purchase Squirrel before it reaches version 1.0 you can get it for ⚬6.99 (about $11) with free updates until version 2.0. Once Squirrel does reach version 1 it will be available for ⚬25 (about $38). You can download a trial and purchase Squirrel at the application’s website.

SketchBox is a small little window that holds all of your notes; just double click one and it will move out of the box to its position on your screen. The left side of the window displays your folders and the right side displays your notes. You can zoom in on your notes to view them easier before opening them. One problem with this window, though, is that it’s a bit big and on smaller screens it could get in the way, but hiding the window can easily fix that. Once you have created a new note (command-N) you can do many things with it. On the top is the close button, note color change button, and the options button. On the right are three tabs: one for drawing, one for typing, and a third for setting alarms.

I’ll start with the Drawing tab. On the bottom of the note are options. You can switch between Eraser and Pencil and change the color and width of the pencil stoke. When you change the color of your pencil your mouse pointer also changes colors, so you can tell which color you are using. There is also a screenshot tool built into the drawing tab. Just click the camera
icon and the whole note turns into a viewfinder. Just set up the shot and click on the window. You can then draw on the picture and save it to your computer.

The next tab is the Text tab. If you have already drawn a picture or taken a screenshot this will overlay the text on top of the image, but with the image faded in the background. If you switch back to the drawing tab after typing, this will switch; the image will look normal but the text will be faded. The text is very simple. On the bottom of the note you can change the size and make the text underlined, bold, or italic. You can change the font by clicking command-T or by going to Format–Font in the menu bar. Sadly, there is no option to drag the text around. If you want to place it in an area on your screenshot you have to use Enter and Tab to place it.

The third tab is the Alarm. The Alarm is very easy to set — just drag the sliders in each section: Days, Hours, and Minutes. On top of the note you can see exactly what time and date your alarm will go off at. In the preferences you can choose between an analog or digital alarm noise. You can click the button at the bottom to have it reset. If an alarm is on then a small orange alarm icon will be displayed in the corner of the note in the main SketchBox window.

SketchBox has many great features that can not be found in Stickies. It even has tablet support which supports pressure sensitivity and the ability to use the end of your tablet pen as an eraser. If you have been using Stickies, or some other note taking application, you should definitely try this out. SketchBox is freeware and can be downloaded here.

Dejumble stays in the menu bar. To view your tasks just click the check mark or hit its hotkey. Once the main window is open you can drag it around to detach it from the menu bar icon and have it anywhere on the screen. Dejumble can also has the option to always be open, so you can always view your tasks. The Dejumble window has two main sections: one to view your tasks and one to add a new one. On the top is a search bar to quickly find a certain task.

Adding new tasks is easy. To add a new task just type in the task under “New Task”, add a due date by clicking the gear icon to display a calender and pick a date, and then add any notes. You can also manage many extra options about the task by clicking the “More…” button. Next, choose which group to add the task to and click “Add Task”. Once you have added some tasks they are very easy to view and check off. Above your tasks there is a grey bar. This allows you to easily filter your tasks. You can click to view all your tasks, today’s tasks, tasks already due, and more. You can also click “Group” on the left to have your tasks sorted into groups. The Dejumble window displays a lot of information for your tasks, including the due date, name, notes, tags, and priority (rated by stars). By clicking the eye icon you can view and edit more information. If you click the due date a calender pops up so you can easily change the date. When you complete a task just click “Mark Completed” and the task is moved to the bottom of the list and a large check mark is added to it.

By clicking “Options” at the bottom you can change many settings. The main preference panel lets you change the hotkey, choose to have Dejumble always on top, choose to have Dejumble start on login, and choose how many days to show completed tasks. On the groupings panel you can edit your groups: you can select a color label for each group and change the name and notes for that group, and you can even choose to have it syncronize with iCal, which will also display your tasks in Apple Mail.app. In the iCal panel you can choose to have Dejumble display calender events from iCal. Finally, in the last panel you can change Dejumble’s look. You can choose from three different skins — just pick your favorite!

Dejumble is a very powerful task management application. It includes many great features in a small, easy-to-use package, and I highly suggest it for anyone who wants a to-do application. The developer is also working on an iPhone version and a Blackberry version that will automatically sync with your computer. You can try a 30 day demo and purchase Dejumble today for $19 from the Dejumble website.

The main interface of TapeDeck is made to look like a tape recorder. In the middle is the selected tape, which can be controlled with the buttons at the bottom: Record, Play, Rewind, Fast-forward, Stop, and Pause. Right below the tape is a progress bar, which you can click on to skip to a section of the tape. Next to the progress bar is the time and volume, and under the progress bar are the main options. You can change the recording quality between high, medium, and low and you can change the audio to stereo or mono. Next to that it displays the microphone input.

You can even add notes to your tapes in TapeDeck. When a tape is selected, just click the “notes” part of the tape. The whole tape view switches to a text field where you can type as much as you want, and when you are done just click “Done Editing” at the bottom. You can also change the name of your tape by clicking on the name. To better organize your tapes you can change the color of the text and icon. Just click the “A” icon and the color will change. There is one problem with this, though; if there is a color you want, you have to keep clicking until you get to it. When you click the gray rectangle on the right side of the window the tape drawl slides open. Here you can view all of your tapes. Just click and drag or use your scroll wheel to scroll through the list. The list displays most of the info about the tape, such as the name, quality, length and day recorded. To play a tape, just click the one you would like to listen to and it will slide into the main window. The icon in the list will then be replaced with “Tape Loaded”. With the search bar at the bottom you can quickly find the tape you want.

TapeDeck includes many other useful features. You can customize different hotkeys to start, pause, and stop a recording and you can control TapeDeck using the menu bar item. Another cool feature is that the icon turns red when it is recording. The problem with this, though, is that there isn’t any notification if it is paused, which would be very useful when the main window is hidden. TapeDeck also includes sharing features. You can easily export the tapes to iTunes to easily transfer to your iPod and email the tapes to a friend. When the tape is copied to iTunes the album artwork is a copy of the tape’s icon, so each tape will have unique album artwork when you are browsing through your tapes on your iPod. When you email a tape TapeDeck automatically creates a new email with the subject “TapeDeck Recording: TITLE” and attaches the tape file as an MPEG4. Low quality tapes are very small and work great for emailing.

TapeDeck is great for recording any audio using a microphone. It has many different options and makes tapes easy to share. Although there are just a few annoyances TapeDeck is a great app and I highly suggest it. TapeDeck is made by SuperMegaUltraGroovy and toastycode. You can buy TapeDeck for $25 and download a demo at the apps website.