Author Archive

CSSEdit 2.5 Released

CSSEdit iconWhile they may have had a bit of their thunder stolen by the guys at Panic, MacRabbit has released version 2.5 of CSSEdit. If you don’t know how to code CSS by hand, or just can’t be bothered, this app provides the best visual solution for editing CSS I have ever seen. This version adds a number of user requested features including:

  • Enhancements to the X-Ray.
  • Innovative Selector Builder.
  • iPhoto-like HUD inspector panes.
  • Tabs, which let me tell you, are some of the nicest going around.

KPsaver: Pranks are Fun

kernel panic dialogI just came across this little gem of a screensaver that basically emulates what a kernel panic looks like. For those that don’t know, a kernel panic is the worst type of software crash your Mac can have. If you don’t know what it is, be glad you don’t know.

I haven’t seen a kernel panic in quite some time so I don’t know how the screensaver compares to the real thing. From what I remember it looks pretty accurate. To see it in action, the link above has a video and it looks very convincing to me.

The best little Widgets for your Mac

There are a lot of widgets out there, we all know that. I love widgets, but sometimes some of them are so big they don’t leave room for much else. For those like me who don’t want a third of their Dashboard taken up by one widget, I’ve compiled a list of the most useful little widgets.

Minutes WidgetFirst up, and yes this is one I’ve reviewed before, is Minutes. This is the best countdown/timer widget out there. A very intuitive interface and packed with features despite its small footprint. It has recently been updated, now allowing a simple noise to be played. You can select from any of the system sounds you have on your computer. This sits alongside other options like playing or stopping iTunes and launching specific files. Get Minutes here.

iStat nano 2 Available

Fresh from the iSlayer development team, a new version of this exceptionally popular system monitoring widget is here! The new version sports a great redesign of the interface and is packed with new features.

iStat nano windowsThe new interface is delightfully animated with crossfades and while it feels a bit unnatural at first, once you have adjusted it really is a pleasure to use. The back of the widget is a lot bigger than the front so don’t position iStat nano too close to the bottom of your screen or it will hang off when you flip it over. Some other negative differences I noticed between this version and its predecessor are:

Review: Dock-It

Dock-ItDock-It is a multiple dock manager from Gideon Softworks. As one would expect, Dock-It allows you to create multiple docks… and manage them. Unfortunately, Dock-It isn’t really as good as many of the other Dock managing apps out there. Dock-It takes some time to adjust to once leaving the default OS X dock. It does not allow you to drag and drop straight into the dock, instead you must manually choose to add the files through menu options.

Dock-It does not behave like the default OS X dock, and there are many important differences. For one thing there is no magnification and when you move the cursor over a Dock-It dock, it doesn’t have the same sectioning and rules.

MainMenu: Convenient Access To System Tools

MainMenu from Santa Software is just one of those apps that will make your life easier. It sits up in the menu bar and allows quick access to many of the essential tasks, tools and scripts that keep your mac running at its best.

MainMenu

Rebuilding your Spotlight library for faster searching, repairing permissions, cleaning caches to improve application performance, and even more advanced settings — such as enabling and disabling the Dashboard — are no more than two clicks away.

Minutes: Great Countdown Widget

Minutes IconMinutes is a great new widget from the developers of the Shiira web browser. In fact, I came across it while looking up info on the Shiira project. Minutes is a countdown timer widget. It is extremely small, easy to use and surprisingly feature packed. To set the timer, just turn the knob to the desired number of minutes, the minimum is 1 and the max is 600 (fair enough as I think no-one should ever be sitting at their computer for more than 10 hours).

sixtyforce: Play N64 on your Mac!

sixtyforce iconDo you ever feel like pulling that old Nintendo 64 out of the cupboard and dusting it off for a quick trip down memory lane? Why go through all the hassle of setting it up, not even sure if it works after all those years? Instead, try sixtyforce, an N64 emulator for Mac OS X.

Sixtyforce is nothing new, in fact it’s been around for 7 years, and yet the developer continues to work on releases. The result is a very mature emulator. A Universal Binary was released late last year and it got me back into playing some timeless classics like Super Smash Bros, Super Mario 64, F-ZeroX and a whole list of others that work pretty much flawlessly.

Democracy: Internet TV

Democracy Icon
The developers tout Democracy as “The Only Video Player You Need”. I decided to run it through its paces. The version I tested was 0.9.5 RC2. Keep in mind that it may be a little unstable, as beta versions tend to be, but I’m sure everyone reading this will settle for nothing less than the bleeding edge of software development.

Yep: iPhoto For Your Documents

Yep Icon Yep is an application that has been dubbed by it’s creators as “iPhoto for your documents”. It is a tool for collecting, organising and viewing all the PDF files in your life. Yep boasts many features made popular by other apps like smart folders, tagging, .Mac syncing and Spotlight integration.

I have found myself using Yep more and more to keep up with managing all my Uni work and assignments, etc. I write most of my work in Pages, then export Word and PDF versions so I can open them and edit them almost wherever I go. Many of the PDFs are ending up in Yep, where I can organise them into folders based on subjects and then have Yep tag them automatically.