If you got into the beta, remember to leave feedback on their site, as will assure a bug-free and stable final product. Good luck on getting into the beta!

So, what exactly is My Dream App and what inspired you to start it?

John: My Dream App is a concept where we've attempted to solicit great app ideas from people who don't have software development skills and then have them developed by professional, experienced development teams. The ideas were weeded out by the dev teams then were voted on by the public with the help of “celebrity judges.

The initial inspiration for My Dream App came to creator Phill Ryu during one of his “creative moments where he felt that combining Mac software with something American Idol-esque could be an interesting idea. After he assembled the team into place, we all helped build it up with him into what is it today.

Who works at MDA and what do they do?

Austin: MDA is headed by Phillip Ryu. John Casasanta handles development and management, and myself, Martin Ott, and Jason Harris are the developers. Scott Meinzer handled creating the web site and offering moral support.

One of the winners of the contest was Cookbook – can you explain more about what the application will actually do?

Austin: Cookbook is designed to be the ultimate recipe manager for your Mac. In addition to allowing you to browse your recipe collection, we've built in features for creating shopping lists and viewing your recipes full screen while you cook.

Do you think it will be successful?

Austin: Based on the momentum My DreamApp and other related projects have going for them, we have some pretty high hopes.

Can you tell me how the development of Cookbook is coming along?

Austin: Cookbook development is progressing at a steady pace. We are currently still in the design phase for many parts of the app, working with Wolfgang Bartelme. Some of the core interface and management portions have been implemented, however.

What were the other two apps that won?

John: The other two winners were Portal and Atmosphere. Portal, in development by Martin, is an app that will handle file synchronization across multiple computers with a streamlined and Mac-like interface. Atmosphere, which is being worked on by Jason, puts the weather on your desktop.

Out of the three, which is your overall favorite?

John: I'd have to say that Cookbook is since I do almost all the cooking in my household (my girlfriend pretty much just makes scrambled eggs and salads) so it's the one I'd most likely use myself.

Has MDA turned out how you wanted it to?

John: It definitely turned out better than we were hoping for for the contest stage. I'm really enjoying the development stage that we're in now and can hardly wait for when we ramp up the marketing stage and actually have apps ready to be released into the wild.

And finally, can you give some details of what My DreamApp 2 will be about? What are your plans for it?

John: Since My DreamApp 1 was so incredibly successful so far, I think we'd be crazy to change much. The one thing that we're planning, though, is having a developer competition before the actual app competition happens next time. I'm sure it'll be fun and interesting¦

Here I have compiled a list of free alternatives to normally expensive Mac apps, that are just so useful you gotta have ‘em.

AppZapper
AppZapper is an awesome little utility, and it does its job of removing apps from you system very well. However, most people seem to think that its not worth the $12.95 thats its being sold for. Luckily, there are a few alternatives.

uApp – again, it does whats it’s supposed to do. Nice, simple interface.

* Editor: CleanApp was removed as it is not free, but $10. Sorry my bad, I was late getting the day’s stuff up.

Photoshop
Photoshop is honestly one of the main reasons a lot of people move to the Mac, and is really one of its most well known and oldest applications. The reigning king of photo manipulation tools from Adobe, Photoshop comes with a hefty price tag and a steep learning curve.

The Gimp – If you’re like most people you don’t have $600+ lying around to buy a photo manipulation tool. While PS does a lot more than just manipulate the families images, it’s sadly out of reach for most users. Happily Linux user’s have known about an amazing alternative for years. The Gimp is an open source solution that came out of Berkeley 10 years ago, but today is likely Photoshop’s most fairly matched rival. It might not be any easier to use than Adobe’s giant but, like most open source offerings, there is a great community of users online offering plenty of free help.

Disco
Disco is possibly the most well known disc burning app for the Mac platform, aside from maybe Roxio’s Toast. It has a kick-ass user-interface, and it is really easy to use. However, it comes with a fairly steep $29.95 price tag.

Burn – a lightweight and simple data, audio, video and DMG CD burner. You get what you (don’t) pay for, so its never going to beat Disco, but it will suffice if all you need to do is burn a couple of discs once in a while.

Transmit
Panic make great software, and Transmit is no exception. It boasts a shedload of features, and is really easy to use, but great features don’t come cheaply – Transmit retails at the price same as Disco, $29.95, which seems like a lot of money when you consider its function.

Fugu – It’s good enough to win an Apple Design Award! This fairly old client comes with drag-and-drop, Aqua interface, keychain integration and much more.

Cyberduck – Cyberduck comes with a host of useful features, such as spotlight integration, keychain access, iDisk syncing – pretty much everything you could possibly want from an FTP client.

.Mac Backup
I think we all agree that Apple’s online .Mac service is overpriced. However, it comes come with some good features, such as Backup, software to easily backup your important files. But you can’t use Backup without subscribing to .Mac for $100 per year, so here are some free alternatives, which are just as good.

iBackup – Probably the best free Backup app for the Mac – features include multilingual support, scheduled backups, smart folders, profiles and more.

PsyncX – Another backup app boasting ease-of-use and some sexy good looks.

And if you have any more apps that you know free alternatives to, or you would like us to find a free alternative to an app, just drop a post in the comments.

And best of all, we have 5 copies to give away! That’s right, 5 full licenses! To win, just post an answer to this question:

Q: Would you like to see some discussion forums at MacApper.com?

Good luck! If you don’t win, but like the sound of NetNewsWire, you can get it for $29.95 from NewsGator.

With CSSEdit, you can instantly preview your stylesheet. You don’t even have to export anything to see it! Like any good editor the program can give you a live in browser preview with the touch of a button. Made a big error and didn’t save? No worries, CSSEdit automatically creates milestones to prevent you from losing any hard work. The editor also helps to weed out design errors with the validation tool and explains what needs to be fixed. To make this easier, the user is presented with an X-Ray of your stylesheet, which highlights all of your divs and other styles in the live preview. The app can also overwrite any external webpage’s stylesheet file so that yours is shown instead, as well as import a stylesheet from any source for direct editing. CSS newbiie? No problem – this editor can help you create styles using its UI, so almost no knowledge of CSS is required to use the app. Tight.

CSSEdit is really easy to use, even for someone like me who knows nothing about CSS! It’s priced to move at $29.95, and is available from the MacRabbit Store.

To win your very own license to this app, just post a simple answer to the following question:

Q: What do you like best about macapper.com? Be nice

Good luck!

App Update

App Update comes with plenty of features such as Growl support, ability to manage application versioning data, support for preference panes, quicktime plugins and frameworks, and more. It also has a built-in help function that you can access at any time by pressing “Shift+H”.

You can specify the directories in which you keep your applications on App Update’s back (use the ‘i’ button to flip it over).

You’ll also be pleased to know that App Update is free, available right here.

LittleSecrets is a Mac OS X app for storing, you guessed it – secrets. You can entrust notes of any kind to the program and save them encrypted on your hard disk. It’s up to you for which purpose you use the app, e. g. storing passwords, account numbers, provider data, serial numbers, project ideas, URLs etc. LittleSecrets keeps your information in a safe place and makes sure that only you can access the information inside it.

LittleSecrets uses a very secure 448 bit security system and you simply choose a password to access your protected data. However, if you forget that password – basically, you’re doomed. Only the person with the right password will be able to decrypt the data that LittleSecrets hides. And I guess that’s the point right?

To store the passwords for your documents, LittleSecrets may optionally use your personal key chain provided by Mac OS X. Due to this feature it won’t be necessary to enter the password every time you open a LittleSecrets document.

LittleSecrets is a $9 shareware app, available here!

Features:

• Create encrypted files
• RC4 Encryption
• BlowFish Encryption
• Purge Safari, Firefox using 35 passes
• Purge all Logfiles using 35 passes
• Secure erase free disk space
• Create encrypted archives
• Toggle hidden System files
• Purge files and folders using 35 passes
• Hide/Unhide files and folders
• Burn Disk Images
• Run Cron Script, Repair Disk Permissions
• Convert files and Folders to encrypted disk images
• Checks for Software update at launch

dryptAway is shareware, priced at 6,95⚬ (or around $10) for lifetime upgrades and available from here.

Update: We have 5 copies to give away! Just reply to this post in a comment to be in with the chance to win!