Upon launching Montage, one the most striking aspects of the application you'll notice is the native Mac interface. I wouldn't normally bring this up, but it's notable because most professional screenwriting applications are cross platform and as a result not only look like bad Windows ports, but lack OS X integration with services like the inline dictionary and spell check. Montage has both of these, as well as .Mac integration and Spotlight indexing support.

But Montage isn't simply a pretty interface. The application has all the expected screenwriting tools you find in competing applications  tools like automatic script formatting, title page support, and return/tab key-based navigation  as well as a few unique ones. For example, Montage has a useful Scene View mode for viewing and editing scripts. Unlike the normal Script View, which emulates how the document looks when printed, Scene View in Montage visually breaks down the script into sections, making it easy to spot where individual scenes begin and end.

Users of other screenwriting programs will be familiar to the other viewing modes available: Outline View organizes a script into scenes for annotation and easy reordering, Character View displays all the dialog and scenes for a certain character, and Location View shows all the scenes of a given location. Extra tools not directly related to screenwriting integrated with Montage include a contacts manager, a tasks to-do list, and a research file depository.

The best unique feature of Montage is the Smart View tool. The tool works like iTunes' Smart Playlists feature. You dial in certain variables and Montage automatically calls the portions of your script that adhere to the values and displays them. Montage also has a full screen feature for editing and writing — a useful tool noticeably absent in most of it's competitors.

Key tools which Montage has trouble with are change tracking and page locking. Tracking changes is essential when collaborating with other writers or managing different drafts. Similarly, when going into production, a script is often locked so that subsequent rewrites during production do not change page numbers for existing scenes. Montage has neither of these essential screenwriting features.

Montage is relative newcomer in a field where two giants, Final Draft and Movie Magic Screenwriter, have dominated for over twenty years. To compensate for this, Montage not only supports import of common text files like Rich-Text Format (.rtf), but also Final Draft (.fdr) files. For output, Montage can export MS Word (.doc), PDF, and Final Draft format (.fdr). Sorely absent is HTML export.

My evaluation of the Final Draft support was disappointing. My testing revealed many page synchronization issues, especially when a character's dialog overlaps onto two pages. The formating inconsistencies are minor when exporting to Final Draft files, and worse with import. The issues are magnified with longer scripts.

The biggest problem with Montage has nothing to do with the application itself. It's the competition.

Montage costs about $150. It's costly for a word processor, but somewhat fairly priced compared to other professional screenwriting applications. This is precisely the problem. Montage costs roughly the same as its industry standard competitors, yet does not have the feature set or industry support to warrant its price. Final Draft and Movie Magic ScreenWriter, considered by most to be the industry standards, both retail for about $175. Both may not have the native Mac goodness of Montage, but nonetheless are solid applications with tools that professional screenwriters need and Montage lacks.

For the price-conscious non-professional who can deal with the lack of key features like page lock and change tracking, Montage is even more unappealing. There are a plethora of free or inexpensive solutions that match or beat Montage's feature set. For example, the open-source Celtx is a cross-platform solution that offers nearly everything Montage advertises for free.

Montage costs $149.95 USD (A downloadable version is also available for $139.95) and is available from Mariner Software.

LiveQuartz has most of the standard image editing tools you might expect from a modern image editing application: layers, a rudimentary brush engine, selection lasso tools, a text engine, and filters. Like other editors powered by Core Image, LiveQuartz is fast and its filters operate in near realtime. Notable features which LiveQuartz lacks include layer styles and alpha masks.

With the exception of tool pallets, such as the color and fonts picker, everything in LiveQuartz is accessible through it's single window interface. Two collapsible sidebars, the left for layers and the right for filters, flank the image workspace in the middle. This relatively simplistic interface is not only space efficient, but is intuitive for newcomers to the application.

The exciting new feature in the newest release, version 1.8, is support for Multi-touch gestures. If you have a supported laptop, a MacBook Air or the newest MacBook Pros, certain features and tools can be activated with gestures. For example, the Pinch and Expand gesture controls zoom magnification while the Swipe gesture toggles between different image editing tools. These features are certainly a welcome addition, and help streamline image editing once you get used to the gestures.

With support for Core Image filters and multi-touch gestures, LiveQuartz is a lean and fast image editor. Even with it’s limitations, at a price of Free, it's a steal. LiveQuartz requires OS X 10.5 Leopard and is available from Rhapsoft.

Renamer4Mac allows you to rename files with 5 variables. Search & Replace and Convert Case do exactly what they suggest. Insert and Remove allows you to respectively add or remove characters at any point in a filename. Finally, Renamer4Mac can number files in different ways, as in with numbers or letters or a combination of the two.

The application can also save presents of your actions, so you can recall them if you ever need to replicate them again. Although you can manually import files into the application through a dialog box or via drag-and-drop, Renamer4Mac also includes an optional Finder contextual menu plugin which streamlines the process.

The biggest new feature in version 3 is the price. Renamer4Mac was previously a donation-ware utility from developer Werner Freytag. the application has since been acquired by Dare to be Creative and bumped up to version 3. Renamer4Mac has gained a price tag… and not much else.

For example, the newly revamped interface: The new design is less cluttered and as a result may be more intuitive for new users, but is also less efficient in its use of screen space. The other minor new feature is the application updater, which automatically finds and installs updates from within the application.

As a user of the previous version, which was free, there's little incentive for me to upgrade to the new paid version. The new interface is nice, but compared to the old one it takes up more space and offers little else besides aesthetics.

Renamer4Mac is also a tad expensive, not only because the previous version was free, but compared to it's competitors. For example, Name Those Files! from developer Jonathan Nathan offers pretty much the the same thing and costs only $18.75 USD.

And then there are the free solutions. For example, Name Mangler from ManyTricks is free and offers an equivalent experience with more powerful features. Alternatively, if you know how to use Automator or the Terminal, you can accomplish everything Renamer4Mac offers within Mac OS X without any third party software whatsoever.

If you want to check it out, though, Renamer4Mac 3 is $26 USD and can be found at Dare to be Creative.

The idea behind Tofu is that vertically anchored narrow columns are easier to read than strolling through a single wide column of text. The application is basically a text viewer with a twist: Tofu automatically formats text into easy to read columns set against an eye-pleasing off-white backdrop. The application can open plain and rich-text files (.txt and .rtf respectively), or alternatively text can be imported into Tofu simply via copy-paste.

Tofu has a plethora of configuration options in it's preferences. You can change everything from the default font style and colors, to the line height and margin widths of the window. A nice feature not turned on by default, but worth mentioning, is the “Remember stroll position within documents feature, which saves the position data into the resource fork of text files, great for multi-session readings of long documents.

Tofu can also work with images. When documents containing images are opened with Tofu, the images are automatically resized and positioned accordingly.

Other nice features of Tofu include a find-as-you-type search feature which immediately begins searching for a word or phrase as you type it, as well as a system-wide services menu tool which allows you to quickly import text into Tofu with a global keyboard shortcut. There's also a useful, albeit limited, full-screen mode. Tofu could also be improved with support for more file formats for example Word, Pages, and PDF.

Tofu is free and can be found at the developers website.

When you open Houdini you're presented with a simple interface which guides you step-by-step through the parameters. Once parameters are chosen, users are presented with the standard OS X open/save dialog window with one key difference: hidden files and folders are temporally revealed. The application then allows you to create, access, move or delete files and folders through this dialog window.

If you're just looking for a way to quickly hide a file or folder, Houdini also has a drag and drop feature. Simply drag and drop any folder or file onto the application icon, and like a good magic trick Houdini will instantly hide the item (albeit without a poof of smoke).

For those who use hidden files and folders regularly, Houdini can also permanently enable or disable hidden files throughout the entire file system with a click, allowing you to interact with hidden files and folders with the Finder.

Houdini is free and is available from MacUpdate.

Splasm Software's informatively named Audiobook Builder solves these annoyances. Audiobook Builder merges audio files together and joins them into a single iPod friendly audiobook file (.m4b). This process accomplishes several things, including consolidating the book into a single file, creating chapter markers, placing the home-brewed file into the Audiobook sub-directory, and making the file bookmarkable (iTunes/iPod will remember and save your place for easy resuming).

While Audiobook Builder was designed to be easy enough for novices to use, the application packs enough neat tricks to satisfy the digerati. For example, a beginner starting a new project can simply choose one of the built-in presets, while advance users can tweak the quality settings as they please–there are a plethora of audio options for the audiophile.

There are three options for importing audio into Audiobook Builder. Audiobook Builder can either use audio files you've previously ripped, grab tracks directly from iTunes, or rip a CD directly from within the application. Chapter markers are automatically created, but once tracks are imported, the name, position, and album artwork of individual chapter markers can be fully altered and adapted to your preference.

Adding metadata like the book title, author, and album art complete the process. With a click of the “Build button in the Finish module, Audiobook Builder does it's mojo and automatically adds the shiny new iPod friendly file into iTunes.

While an overall satisfying experience, Audiobook Builder has a few rough edges worth mentioning. For example, the darker unified window shade in Leopard 10.5 render some elements of the Audiobook Builder interface ineligible (the “Drag Cover Artwork Here droplet is a glaring example). Also, apparently due to a limitation of iPods, files created by Audiobook Builder are limited to 12 hours. Fans of longer books will have to deal with the inconvenience of multiple files for a single book–my copy of War and Peace came out to 6 separate audio files. Control over the precise point of division would be a welcomed addition in a future update. Currently, the severance is automated and often occurs at narratively unfriendly spots.

If you adore listening to audiobooks, but loathe the clutter they create upon digitization, then Audiobook Builder is the ideal tool for you. Although a few free utilities and scripts can be utilized to accomplish the same result, Audiobook Builder costs less than a paperback. The application is such a seamless experience that Audiobook Builder is worth the nominal cost.

Audiobook Builder costs $9.95 and can be purchased from Splasm Software.

NetFinder has all the features you'd expect from a modern FTP application. All standard FTP protocols are supported, including iDisk access through WebDAV. There are advanced synchronization and mirroring tools, as well as external editing support and integrated file previewing. A feature unique to NetFinder is the ability to add color labels and comments to files on remote servers.

Ortabe advertises NetFinder as Finder for the web, but a casual glance at the application will make you realize that the developers don't mean the unified Finder of OS X 10.5. Rather, NetFinder resembles the multi-window spatial Finder from the Classic Mac OS.

The result is an application that looks like an old OS 9 application running under emulation. NetFinder's interface isn't poor per se, but feels outdated and out of place in OS X. You won't find the usual OS X aqua interface quirks in NetFinder: drawers, sidebars, and standard toolbars are noticeably absent in NetFinder. Icons are flat and boxy.

Like the classic Finder, NetFinder uses a multiple window paradigm, so instead of finding all the tools you need in a unified window, tools are scattered about in contextual menus and buried deep in the menu bar. Opening up more than one connection and drilling down a few directory levels will likely drown your screen in a sea of various windows.

NetFinder isn't a bad program, useful features are implemented well enough, but there are simply better alternatives. Both Transmit and Yummy FTP are cheaper rivals that integrate more fluidly with OS X. Or if you prefer free open-source software, Cyberduck reproduces nearly all the functionality of NetFinder for free. NetFinder's only worthwhile asset is the remote labeling and commenting. Or nostalgia I guess, if you really miss the pre-OS X era.

NetFinder requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later and can be purchased from the developer Ortabe for $35.

What sets Tagebuch apart is the ability to work portably. Because all of the entries you write are self-contained inside the application bundle, and the application uses no cache or preference files, you can even run Tagebuch from a USB flash drive. And, like many journaling applications, everything you write in Tagebuch is automatically saved, so there's no need to worry about losing data.

While Tagebuch has some cool features, specifically it's free-standing nature and minimalist interface, Tagebuch falls short of a satisfying experience due to annoying usability issues. For example, inputting tags is more burdensome than it should be. After typing a tag into Tagebuch, the tag is automatically selected. So, if you want to enter multiple tags, instead of simply entering the words one after another, you must deselect each tag before entering the next. Also, the tag input box is only 1 line high. This effectively limits posts to only 3 or 4 tags, unless you want to blindly arrow around in the tagging box.

There are still more shortfalls. There's no way to search for more than one tag at once, nor is there a way to visually browse through the tags you've already used. There's no confirmation dialog box to prevent you from accidentally deleting entries, nor is there an undo command when you mistakenly do. Searches only work for the title of entries, not the body of text. The list goes on. Download the application and run it, you’ll see what I mean.

If you're looking for a simple journaling app, and can live with the shortcomings mentioned above, Tagebuch is free and available from MOApp.

The interface of iMedia Browser (see image below) is minimal, but not limited by any means. All the tools you expect are available: Spotlight searching, thumbnail resizing, and captions can all be easily accessed. Options for changing the way iMedia Browser is available (via the Dock or Menubar) and visible (Always on top, or automatically hidden) are found in the preferences. I would have liked to see the ability to map a keyboard shortcut to the application, but this is easy enough to work around.

While iMedia Browser recreates the Media browser used by Apple applications, the application adds a few tricks of it's own. For one, the browser is not limited to Audio, Photos, and Video. iMedia Browser's plugin capability allows users to browse other file types. For example, you could browse through your Safari or Delicious bookmarks (a third party plugin is required for the latter).

The neat thing about Karelia Software's iMedia Browser is that the program is not just for consumers. The application is licensed under an open-source BSD-style license and an easy to use framework is available for developers. Much loved applications like Plasq's Skitch and Pleasant Software's Ãœbercaster are already using the iMedia Browser framework to give users a super quick way to interact with their media.

I found iMedia Browser slightly unstable; the program especially had trouble with video, but for what I suspect would be it's main use (photo browsing) the application is stable enough and is such a timesaver that it's hard not to recommend it.

iMedia Browser is free and can be downloaded from Karelia Software.

ASM includes more tools than you might assume from the vanilla name, but the main draw of the application is that it brings the functionality of the classic Mac OS application switcher to OS X. “Classic Mac OS users might remember switching between applications through a menu bar icon. ASM brings that back.

With some fiddling in the expansive preference pane, you can even make ASM look exactly like its classic doppelgänger: complete with a separator and a superfluous text label.

Why use something that emulates a tool from the 20th century? Well, besides nostalgia, AMS includes some nice extras such as classic window and single application mode. Classic Window Mode orders all windows of an application to front when it becomes active, while Single Application Mode automatically hides applications other than the front-most one. These two additional functions are small, but work together in such as way that ASM actually makes sense as a Dock replacement.

Application Switcher Menu requires 10.3 or later, works great on Leopard, and costs $15 for a single user license (family and site licenses are also available).

New in this release are various bug fixes, of course, but Plasq has also included quite a few major new features. The most obvious are the new image adjustment controls (Below, right). Users can now adjust brightness, contrast, sharpness, exposure, and saturation, all from within Comic Life. Other new features include the new jagged ballon tail style and the ability to rotate speech balloons (Below, left)

In addition, Comic Life 1.4 has a new object duplication tool, iPhoto '08 event access from the Library pane, multiple object selection, and improved image export quality.

As noted in our original Comic Life review, this app is a blast to play around with. And as fantastic as Comic Life is for, well, making comics, the application has other less obvious uses like annotating photos and creating eye-catching “How-to guides.

The standard version of Comic Life retails for $24.95, while a deluxe version (including more fonts, styles, and templates) is available for $29.95. The feature filled 1.4 update is free for all registered users and a 30 day trial is available. New Macs have previously included Comic Life pre-installed, so you might already have it. Check out Plasq’s Comic Life page for more info.

Correo’s goals are similar to the Camino project. Like Camino bundled the power of Firefox into a native OS X application, Correo borrows key Thunderbird technologies while simultaneously leveraging the power of OS X. For example: Correo uses OS X technologies like Address Book for contact management and Keychain for password storage yet uses the same widely praised Gecko rendering engine found inside Thunderbird.

Still in the early stages of development, new features in Correo 0.3 include better IMAP support (For example, subfolders load correctly) and international character encoding. And of course, Correo now supports Leopard.

In an age of perpetual beta products (I’m looking at you Gmail), it’s easy to assume that all beta products are happily supported and rock stable. Not so. Correo is very much a preview release. You won’t find much support in Correo. I still think it’s quite usable though.

Correo is free and can be downloaded from the developer's website.

Moody is a rating application that runs in parallel to iTunes. Unlike the 5 star rating system in iTunes, Moody presents you with a 16 pane grid that works like a graph. The idea is that you listen through your songs and tag them depending on their mood. Then, when you break up with your significant other, you can quickly find the intensely sad songs in your iTunes library, and easily play them back.

The application simple in theory and execution. Moody opens with a brief explanation and guide, making it easy for first time users to dive into the application.

Moody has the same short comings all rating tools have, iTunes included. The system is really only useful if you categorize your entire library, or at the very least the majority of it. There is an extraordinary amount of labor a user must go through to get any value out of the application. Fortunately, Moody has a neat feature called “QuickTag to help elevate this problem.

QuickTag does two things which helps speed up the tagging process. One, Moody will skip a few seconds (adjustable in the preferences) into the song to quickly give you a feeling for the track. Secondly, once you rate the song, Moody will automatically skip to the next untagged track. Two simple features, but they help immensely to quicken the pain of having to tag songs.

A nice extra feature included with Moody is the ability to customize both the colors and labels of the grid. What's so great about this is that it allows you to use Moody for something other than, well, tagging moods.

At version 0.3, Moody is in it's early stages of development, and it shows in the usability of the application. Notably, the application is missing an “always on top feature, something essential in a symbiotic application like Moody. In it's current form, Moody's application window tends to get lost behind the iTunes window.

Moody can be downloaded for free from the developer, Crayon Room.

There has been a lot of activity in the OS X image editor realm lately. From new applications competing with Photoshop like Pixelmator and Acorn, to specialized tools like Skitch and Picturesque, there is no shortage of applications for the Mac consumer. Free image editors however, are difficult to come by. There is always the vulnerable venerable GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), but few have the patience to figure out its foreign interface and deal with the quirks of working in a X11 environment. For those Mac users who crave a free native cocoa image editor, Seashore is the answer.

We reviewed Seashore back in June but I thought it deserved another look. Seashore is an open source image editor based off GIMP, but don't let that four letter acronym scare you. While Seashore leverages some of the GIMP's powerful open source technology, Seashore is 100 percent Cocoa and integrates perfectly with OS X.

Most tools you'd expect from an image editor can be found in Seashore: a respectable brush engine, selection tools, layers, filters, and even a clone stamp tool. Unlike its distant cousin the GIMP, the tools are laid out in a logical and straightforward interface. There are some inconsistencies, commands you expect to be in the menu bar appear in the options pallet and vice versa, but for the most part the interface is well designed. Small details like tool instructions at the bottom of the options pallet and a spectacular 53 page user guide make Seashore especially easy to learn for beginners.

There are a few wonky things about Seashore however. Unlike nearly every other image editor, Seashore does not show live previews of effects and filters. You have to click on a preview bottom to have the effect rendered. And while the effects render quickly, the entire process seems pretty archaic, especially now that we've seen the instantaneous possibilities of Core Image. Another major downside of Seashore are the text tools. The level of control you have is extremely limiting, you can't even re-edit text once you've placed it in an image. On a related note, there are no vector tools in Seashore what-so-ever.

In an age where specialized tools are on the rise, is there any room for Seashore? I think so. For the user who wants to experiment with image manipulation without the constraints of iPhoto, Seashore preforms valiantly.

Seashore is free and open source, runs great on Leopard, and can be downloaded from the developer's site.

While OS X offers keyboard shortcuts for most commands in the menu bar, there are a few orphaned commands worth adopting. Not a problem though, because OS X allows you to easily adopt any menu bar function and map it to a keyboard command, without the assistance of any third party software.

To access this often forgotten tool, simply navigate your way into the ‘Keyboard & Mouse’ preference pane and tab over to ‘Keyboard Shortcuts.’ When you click on the plus sign, you’ll be presented with three inputs.

First select which application you want to commandeer. You can have your new keyboard shortcut effect a certain application, or work globally across all applications. The great thing about this trick is that you can also remap existing keyboard shortcuts. Secondly, choose which menu command to map by simply typing the menu title. For example, to add a keyboard shortcut for the ‘Zoom’ command under the ‘Window’ menu, simply enter “Zoom.” Finally, decide what you want the keyboard command to be.

It’s that simple. Restart the application and marvel at your new custom keyboard command. What are some of your essential custom keyboard commands in OS X?