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 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.

The point of Flickery is to move all of the functionality of Flickr to your desktop. So, of course, you can upload photos with it. All you do is go to the Upload item in the sidebar, and either drag some photos onto the window, or use the Make Screenshot button to create and upload a screenshot. You can also click the Open button to choose some files to upload. These can be either pictures or videos. But, to make things even simpler, you can record a movie to upload directly from Flickery. Once you have chosen some images and/or videos, you can then add titles, descriptions and tags to them. However, from this screen, you can’t choose what photoset it will go into when uploaded.

Once a picture or video has been uploaded, you can still edit its information just by clicking Edit Info. To add a photo to a photoset, you just have to click the Add to Set button, and then choose one or more photosets. However, the sets it is already in don’t appeared as checked (in the window that pops up), so you can’t really tell if it’s already in one. This also makes it hard to delete it from a photoset, because you can’t uncheck the box. You can also show comments, tags and descriptions of anyones photos by clicking the Show Details button when a photo is selected. I really like the crumpled paper look of this screen, but it really doesn’t match the rest of the UI, so it seems a little awkward. To view a larger size of an image, you just double click on it. Or, you can click the Fullscreen button to view the image in fullscreen.

Flickery also supports easy downloading of any picture or video. If you’ve ever browsed on Flickr.com, you know it’s always annoying to download an image or video. But Flickery makes it just the click of a button away. You just select an image or video, and hit Download. A downloads window will then appear, allowing you to manage multiple downloads. Along with this, you can also add any photo to your iPhone library (not Aperture though). You just click the Add to iPhoto library. I’m not sure why you’d want to add someone else’s image to your library, but you can.

Like Flickr.com, Flickery allows you to Explore. Exploring is just a cool way to find all images that were taken on a certain day. You can also perform and save searches right in Flickery, which is really cool. You can also see all of your contacts and their photostreams by just clicking on their name in the sidebar. However, you cannot manage contacts directly from Flickery. I assume this is an issue with the Flickr API, and not the app though.

Flickery is a great desktop version of Flickr.com. It has almost all the features the Website has and a couple extra. You can buy it for about $20, and download a 15-day free trial from their site. Anyone who uses Flickr frequently, or who wants a better image search engine should definitely try out Flickery.

LucasArts and Aspyr Media have just announced The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition for for both Mac and PC.  So what makes this release so “ultimate”?  Journey with us to the dark side and find out.

In addition to offering the God of War style Star Wars experience that gamers were given last fall, expect to find new costumes, new characters to play as, and three new levels.  And while the prospect of playing as Luke, Obi-Wan or C3PO sounds pretty cool (if not downright confusing — what kind of powers could 3P0 use?) the real draw of this title for repeat players would have to be the three additional levels.

Contributing to the Infinities universe which takes a “what if?” approach to existing Star Wars mythos, the new levels break from the existing Star Wars universe (which Force Unleashed is considered a canon part of) and show how things would have unfolded in a world where the Apprentice defeated Darth Vader to become the Emperor’s right hand.  Expect to visit the Jedi Temple on Coruscant in an effort to discover the truth about your father, be sent to Tatooine to assassinate Ben Kenobi (and make a stop at Jabba’s Palace), and crush the Rebellion once and for all on Hoth.

Screenshots made available alongside the announcement showcase some of the new costumes, which appear to be less bonus content and more an integral part of the story presented in these three new levels.  Starkiller appears to be disguised as a sand person when on Tatooine, and is donning his new “king of the universe” threads when on Hoth.  Gamers who’ve gone through this adventure once before will be happy to hear that these three new levels will be available from the main menu rather than tacked on at the end of the single player campaign.

While action heavy third-person games don’t always pan out with a mouse and keyboard as well as one might hope, the addition of this new content should persuade even the most embittered of console veterans to check this out.  No specific release date or price have been given, but the powers that be have assured us that we should see a Fall 2009 release.  They’ve also assured us of something even more exciting; while no specific price has been set, The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition will not be shipping at the $59.99 MSRP that the console versions debuted at last year.  Fingers crossed that we get a real bargain.

1Password is an incredible application. Once installed, it automatically installs a plug-in into every browser. Any time a new password is entered, it gives you the option of saving it in 1Password. This seems similar to the password managers built in to many browsers, such as Firefox and Safari, until you realize that the passwords saved are available from any browser. Switching back and forth between multiple browsers, a common occurrence especially when testing out new websites that may not be complete, is made super easy with 1Password.

The application stores all passwords, as well as credit card information, license codes for software, pretty much anything that a user might need but would prefer to keep hidden. This is all accessible through an easy to use interface (primarily the aforementioned browser plug-ins), once a master password is entered. This password only has to be entered once per session, and then a keyboard shortcut is used after that to enter any password or login. 1Password gives you the option of creating new, super-secure passwords for any new web services that would be impossible to remember, but because of how the program works, it is not necessary to remember them.

One of the best things about 1Password is how easy it is, once a password is saved, to put it into a form. The user simply has to press a keyboard shortcut, and it automatically enters the login info into the provided boxes. This is not only easier than remembering your various usernames and passwords, it is also incredibly fast. 1Password also has the option of auto-submitting the information, so you don’t even have to click a button. This is true not only for login information, but also for billing addresses, credit card numbers, and so on.

1Password is not a perfect app. There were a few sites (although not the majority) that it didn’t notice when I was entering in a new password, and so didn’t take it up into its memory. Also, it is extremely difficult to enter a new login from the application itself, rather than from one of your browsers. Oddly, one of the reasons it is so difficult is that the program keeps reminding you that it is easier from a browser. 1Password consistently warns you about things that may compromise your security (using Apple’s built-in keychain software instead of the Agile Keychain), which is helpful, but can get annoying when it stops you from doing something you know you want to do.

The user interface of the application itself could be more aesthetic, like AllSecure’s, for example (a similar program). But, since most interaction is done through a browser, this is only a minor detail. Another issue I had, which is more an issue of usage than the actual program, is the suggested password. If a generated password, 16 random characters long, is used for an online banking site, that is fine when it is being accessed from the user’s computer, but it is impossible to get in from another computer, since the user does not actually know the password.

However, despite these flaws, 1Password is a great tool to streamline the internet—especially shopping and banking. It is available for $39.95 (with a money-back guarantee) from the Agile Web Solutions website.

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.

The Easy Way

Naturally the easiest way to keep your Palm Pre syncing with iTunes is to download an older version of iTunes, or refuse to upgrade to the new 8.2.1 release. This limits you to the features (and security) of the older version, and isn’t very practical. Although, if you have multiple machines, it could be just as easy to leave iTunes at 8.2 on an older machine. Click here to download iTunes 8.2 from Version Tracker.

The Other Easy Way

A few months back we previewed the doubleTwist software released by famous DVD encryption cracker DVD Jon and his small team. The concept of the software is simple: sync your all devices from one piece of software, without all of the hassle. doubleTwist is still fairly new, but it offers support for a few hundred smartphones, Mp3 players, the Sony PSP. Recently added to that mix is the Palm Pre. A note for Palm Pre PC users: the doubleTwist is available for Windows as well on the company’s website.

1) Download and install the doubleTwist software from the company’s website, and launch the app.

2) Sign up for an account with the company in the dialogue box that appears at your first launch.

3) Once loaded, you should be able to see tabs for your music, photos, and videos from your iTunes or iPhoto libraries.

4) Connect your Palm Pre (or other smartphone/device) with the USB cable to your machine.

5) Your device will show up in the column under the “Devices” section. This should look remarkably familiar for iTunes users. Then syncing both ways works the same way as it would in iTunes. Select the music you want to transfer to your device, and drag and drop it onto the device in the sidebar. When transferring video, doubleTwist will automatically convert the video for the right format of your device.

doubleTwist’s interface is attractive, yet sparse. It’s merely a sync manager,
you’ll still want to use iTunes for content management.

It’s as simple as that. While normally I would think it’s a hassle to have yet another step to sync to my phone, I find doubleTwist a friendly, simple, and intuitive solution.

This video is a company demo of how doubleTwist syncs content from an Android phone (or similar phone).

Often, throughout the life of a computer, the hard drive slowly fills with all manner of things: music, movies, preferences, support files, and so on. At a certain point this gets to be too much, and a user must clean house. But in order to do so, she must first discover which are the files that are taking up the most unnecessary space, and where they are. This is where disk visualizers like DaisyDisk come in. While it is nothing special, DaisyDisk is a perfectly competent and very aesthetic application for dealing with this problem.

This application is by no means the only visualizer out there. The problem of finding space on your Mac has been around for almost as long as the computers themselves have. DaisyDisk is, however, one of the best-looking visualizers on the market. Instead of showing files as simple rectangles, or even as a list, DaisyDisk shows all files as radiating outwards from the parent folder (marked with the full size of the folder, in the middle). This is where the name DaisyDisk presumably comes from, as the end result vaguely resembles a flower, although it is more similar to a pie chart, with the size of each file’s wedge based on how large it is.

The application presents its data in a format that is incredibly easy to understand. Once it is opened, it presents the user with a list of the various hard drives on the computer, with a bar displaying how full or empty the drive is (which changes color from green to red as more space is filled) Once a hard drive is picked, the disk is scanned (remarkably quickly compared to other visualizers), and navigation through the results, for the most part, is also very user-friendly. One simply clicks on the folder they want to explore—either in the list or in the graphic—and that folder slides into the center with a nice animation. This can be done indefinitely, drilling down (or outward, as the case may be) into smaller and smaller folders until the space-hogging culprit can be found. The path to the current folder is displayed at the top of the window, and if the center is clicked on, the parent folder opens, allowing easy access backwards. This can also be accomplished by a keyboard shortcut.

This app offers little more than a pretty interface. There are literally no preferences, no options to customize—color, layout, even canceling the transparent background which can be a little annoying at times. It also fails to allow for what can often be the most useful tool in any visualizer—a delete option. For the most part, people use this kind of application to find files they can remove to free up space. However, with DaisyDisk, once you find the file, you must right-click on it to open it in the finder, and then delete it manually. DaisyDisk does have a few features that beat out the competition—the most useful being integration with Apple’s Quick Look. Once a file is clicked on, a user simply presses space bar to hear the audio, see the video or text, which is a great way to see if you really need a file or what it is. But again, if you decide it is unnecessary, you still have to go to the Finder to delete it.

There is also no help available in the application. While it is a very simple program, it is not simple enough  to warrant no aid at all. The Quick Look integration, for example, I found out by accident. There is one option in the menu to scan as a Super-User, presumably to find invisible and hidden files, but this is not explained anywhere. The “Back” button next to the file path also does not function as one might think: instead of moving up a file path, it moves to the last view you were at, acting more like a web browser than a file browser. Despite being a fully released product, it is clear that this is still a work in progress. Besides these omissions and flaws, one of the few menu options that does exist is to submit Feedback to the developers. Hopefully they will quickly respond and change the options that need changing.

DaisyDisk is not a necessary application, nor is it a perfect one. However, for a visually appealing way of discovering the files on your hard drive, a user needs to look no further. While not necessarily the most useful visualizer, DaisyDisk is fun to play with and look at, as the animations are smooth, the colors varied, and the interface simple. DaisyDisk retails for the slightly expensive price of $19.95, and you can download a free 15-day trial from its website.

Stainless is the brainchild of the small software company Mesa Dynamics, initially meant more as a proof than a product. Mesa wrote the browser simply to demonstrate a multiple-process web browser similar to Google Chrome, but the app has since flourished due to fan demand into a full fledged web browser.

Stainless utilizes the same WebKit layout rendering engine used by Apple’s Safari browser and Google’s Chrome browser, but has a few extra tricks up its sleeve. Stainless has a unique feature called parallel sessions, which allows users to log into the same website multiple times with different accounts in each tab. Each tab open is designed to be its own process, so that if it stops responding, it doesn’t crash the entire browser. I noticed a number of subtle features in the course of using Stainless that really stuck out. One being that when you search for text on a page (Cmd+F), it searches on each page you click to afterwards automatically, something neither Safari or Firefox do. It was incredibly useful when looking for references of the same topic on multiple sites.

Stainless has a useful minimalist interface

I see the app’s main feature as it’s simplicity. Stainless gives all the screen real estate to the web page, rather than cluttering it with it’s own icons and menus. The simple 3-button control bar, address/search combo bar, and thin bookmark column felt comfortable. I was surprised how much I liked the icon-only bookmark column WebKit gives the browser that zippy feel that we’ve all come to expect in Safari, though Stainless is possibly even speedier. I found in an informal speed test between the new Firefox 3.5, Safari 4, and Stainless, that it definitely edged out on top in rendering and application responsiveness.

I do have a few quipes with Stainless though. It’s obviously still a beta, but I had trouble moving the app around in Spaces, and then switching tabs in the new space. The app wanted to jump back to the originating space, so I presume that this is related to the multiple-process architecture. Also, the switch to the browser was tricky without a bookmark or settings import wizard, something I’ve come to expect from a browser if it expects me to switch.

All in all Stainless is a fantastic piece of software. It’s obviously been planned out well. It’s handsome, integrates fabulous features like parallel sessions, and Google Gears, while maintaining performance. It’s sparse, but after a few days I realized that it had everything you NEED in a browser, nothing more, and nothing less. In the Mac world right now I’d call Safari the flashy browser, Firefox the extendible browser, Stainless the speedy browser, and Chrome the vaporware browser. If you’re waiting for Chrome, Stainless provides an excellent preview of what to expect.

One of the most useful things about the Dock is that it tells you with a quick glance what programs are open. I can see that I have, for example, four different browsers running, and that’s probably what’s making my computer slow. Or, the reason I can’t find that window is not because I accidentally moved it but rather that the application quit itself. I can also easily see if there are files in a folder, using the Stacks. When this feature first came out, I was one of the people who were a little suspicious of its utility, but I have since been converted. I have a Temporary folder where I put things I have to deal with, and I can tell quickly whether or not there’s anything in there. I can also see whether I have to empty the Trash (a task that is much less arduous than its real-life counterpart, but still one I often forget to do). All of these tasks are very difficult to do with Quicksilver.

Now, you can move files through Quicksilver. You just have to find the file, usually by browsing through a directory, then tab over to the action panel, type in “move to,” and then tab again, and find the final resting place. But, with a few folders in the Dock, you can just drag the file straight in. I find this a lot easier, and a lot less time consuming. Although I might save time by using Quicksilver, I still open up the folders afterwards and make sure that the file was actually moved. That is one big problem with anything done through Quicksilver—opening applications, moving files, and so on—there’s no feedback. When you click on or drag something to the Dock, it bounces, or fades, or slides. You know something has happened. With Quicksilver, you just have to trust it.

But the biggest reason I keep my Dock around is for the sake of art. There are many programs out there, like Dock Library, SuperDocker, and so on, that allow you to customize the way your Dock looks. I can always be content that my Dock matches my Stack icons and the style of my computer by being “wooden.” You can customize Quicksilver too, but that’s only up for as long as you’re using it. With the Dock, you can also admire the well-designed icons of the world.

I wouldn’t want to compute without the Dock. It may not be my go-to application for launching applications, but it serves so many other purposes that it’s still worthwhile to keep around. Sure, there are scripts, programs, and hacks floating around the internet that allow you to do away with it, but I’m standing by my old friend. A launcher like Quicksilver is the easiest way to be quick, but the Dock adds style and utility to a desktop.

The first thing you will notice about Snowtape is its amazing interface. It uses a completely custom UI that really works for the app. It also includes a mini-comtroller (just like iTunes) that is also unbelievably good-looking. It doesn’t just have a good UI though, it is very easy to use. There is a directory where you can search for stations, and there is also a repository of recorded tracks that you can edit and send to iTunes. It’s very simple.

In the directory, Snowtape sorts all stations by genres. Each station can have many genres, so some may appear all over the place. With the recent 1.1 update, Snowtape now has 700+ stations built-in, so you may never have to add your own. If you ever do, though, you just go to File>Import URL… if you have the URL of the playlist (for the station) or File>Import File… if you have the actual playlist file. You can sort stations by title, description, genre, number of streams, quality and popularity. The streams usually range from 320 kbps to about 16 kbps with most at about 128 kbps.

Snowtape’s main purpose is to record internet radio. And this is very simple to do. When you are listening to a stream, simply click the record button, and until you click the button again, everything will be recorded. Once you have recorded what you want, you can go to the Last Recorded section and see what you have. Your recording will be split into tracks based on the song that was playing. However, the track data from internet streams doesn’t always change exactly when the song changes, so you may have to do some editing. But, if some of the song gets cut out, you are out of luck. Although you can cut a track, you can’t add from one track to another. Luckily, you can decide for Snowtape to not cut it into tracks by going to the Recording tab of Preferences and deselecting the Enable automatic cut at track boundaries checkbox. Using that feature comes at a cost.

Once you have finished editing a track, you can get artwork for it by simply clicking the Get Album Artwork button. You can then choose from the images it shows you. And once you have done that, you can export to iTunes. The track info will already be filled in, and if you choose artwork, it will be there too. Recording in Snowtape could not be simpler.

One thing that may be overlooked by some users of Snowtape is RadioURL.com. This is a service provided with Snowtape that allows you to share what you are currently listening to to other Snowtape users. When you are listening to a station, just go to Action>RadioURL.com and choose what you would like to do. Others can then click on the link created and listen to what you are.

Snowtape retails for $29 and you can download a free demo from that link as well. Having artist alerts would be nice, but with 700+ stations, by the time you got the alert, the song would probably be over. It is extremely well designed, and just nice to use. I was not much of a radio fan before it, but now that it’s so easy, I listen and record all the time. I think everyone should try out this app.

μTorrent sports a handsome native cocoa interface

Users are greeted with a somewhat-vacant main window when they load .torrent files, but a well organized one. Windows users who have used μTorrent on XP or Vista will recognize the interface, but miss a few of the more robust features available for the Windows client. One major feature of this app that sets it apart from some of its other Mac competitors is its ability to load multiple torrents and manage them well (I realize that Transmission does this, but when downloading 2 or more files it gets difficult to manage).

I frequently download new Linux ISOs when they’re first released, ranging from 700mb to 2gb. Now getting the entire thing down can be a game of cat and mouse with the seeding ratio and upload/download limits, but μTorrent handles the connections quite nicely. Many users (including myself) have noticed significant down speed increases with the new μTorrent client. I was a Transmission user for a few years, but even when configured identically downloading the same torrent there’s no question that μTorrent is faster.

The preferences panel is well organized and gives users control
over all aspects of their Torrent experience

The app is great for downloading torrents and configuring network settings and preferences, but it doesn’t go much further than that. There is a search that launches to Google for searching, and some control of bandwidth priority, but overall in feature-set the client is rather light. It is quite quick, I found launching and quitting significantly faster than Transmission. All in all it’s a great client, but I found myself missing the RSS torrent download features available to Windows users. I used to be able to let μTorrent stay on top of the latest Ubuntu releases, but now I have to track down a number of different distributions from different pages. I hoping in future releases more of these features are integrated, but in all fairness the app is still in beta. Transmission users, trust me: it’s worth the switch. For now it functions as a solid client, just bare of some of the creature comforts that come with other apps.

SweetFM is a mash up of sorts, mixing Last.fm streaming with your average iTunes helper app. Like all other iTunes helper apps, SweetFM displays the album artwork of the song your currently listening to and that functionality also works with music you stream from Last.fm. It also has an indescript spot where you are suppose to enter what you want to listen to on Last.fm and an arbitrary arrow button next to it. One would think you could just enter an artist name into the box and get Last.fm to play it but this is not the case. Instead you have to press this arrow button to display a group of addition buttons labeled “Artist”, “Tags”, and etc. You then have to hit one of those buttons and enter further information into the box. For example, if I wanted to listen to Pink Floyd on Last.fm, I would have to open up SweetFM, click the arrow, click artist, and then enter “Pink Floyd” in the box.

In reality all they are really doing with this convoluted process is adding a little tag behind the information you enter into the box. You would think they could automate this or have a little bit of magic happen behind the scenes, but unfortunately that is not the case.

Aside from that the application feels more like a beta than a final release, I’ve encountered multiple bugs in the few days that I’ve been playing with it. The first of which is that what the application shows as playing and what is actually playing in iTunes don’t match from time to time, even though SweetFM says the right info in it’s menu in the menu bar. Also, the progress indicator, which allows you to scrub through songs, occasionally does not work.

But the most disappointing part of this application is it’s user interface. Even though they are touting the fact that you can design skins for this app using HTML and CSS, a well built one should still come bundled with the app. Fibre, the included skin, is an overly glossy, distracting waste of desktop space. Personally, I like my iTunes helpers to be pinned to the desktop and just meld with everything else their but Fibre is just not capable of doing that (the melding at least). Silly things like having the horizontal volume slider bumped right up to the “Scrobbling” button for Last.fm makes it seem as though the slider has something to do with “Scrobbling” when in fact it does not. The semi-transparent background in particular is my least favorite part, why does it need to be there? Take a page from the designers doing skins for Bowtie and just get rid of the app background all together, it works so much better with the desktop. Luckily choco moko has a skins directory on their website but at the moment it only has one additional theme, which seems only like a slight redesign to Fibre and nothing more.

If your at all interested in helper apps for iTunes, I would recommend you stay away from SweetFM. Although if your a fan of Last.fm it is worth checking out. It is available from choco moko for $29. If you are just looking for an iTunes helper, check out the free Bowtie.

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.

Songbird’s interface look familiar? A ghost from iTunes Past?

The most interesting thing about Songbird is the open-source code it’s built off of: Firefox. That’s right! The folks over at Pioneers for the Inevitable have built the entire thing on top of Mozilla’s popular browser, which brings me to my biggest complaint: my TI-84 graphic calculator could load my music library faster! Songbird’s Achilles heel seems to be it’s speed. It’s like trying to play streaming video on dial-up. The slow start times and rendering speeds that seem to plague the Mac version of Firefox get even worse in Songbird. I’m relatively impatient when it comes to app responsiveness and loading, but others I’ve spoken to agree: Songbird can be a bit of a clunker.

Songbird integrates Last.fm in a very classy way

Aside from my quips about speed, Songbird can be fun to use. Through extensions and themes (called “Feathers”), it has a number of fantastic features, and room for expansion. iPod support, Last.FM integration, QuickTime FairPlay integration, as well as the benefits of a built-in tabbed-browser (which I’m using right now to post this review). I know I was harsh on the developers earlier for using Firefox because of the speed, but it’s also my biggest compliment; browsing the web with your music elegantly placed in the same window is quite nice. Besides, the built-in web browser allows for easy integration of other Mp3 stores, and easy searching for legal music downloads on the web.

Firefox users will be met with a familiar preferences panel

Other features such as a Mini-Player, the ability to re-order your music window panes, song ratings, easy library search, and organizing features puts Songbird in contention with iTunes. It really is an intuitive program, and such an easy switch from iTunes, that you may not notice the difference (apart from the speed of course). Songbird will even import your iTunes library complete with music, playlists, and playcounts. If there isn’t a feature available built into Songbird check out their add-on’s page, where a number of incredibly useful plugins are available for download.

I do have one last issue to take with Songbird, and it’s video. When I imported my iTunes library, it brought in all of my video podcasts and integrated them into my music library. Songbird doesn’t support video playback, but will play the audio in a video. Putting my library on shuffle, I found it incredibly annoying to have to constantly stop and delete video from the library. Plus because I had Last.fm scrobbling enabled, I had to dig through my recent plays and pull them out. If the software isn’t going to support video, it shouldn’t allow it to import into the library.

All in all, Songbird makes a fantastic attempt at an iTunes replacement, but a number of short comings make it impossible for me to jump ship. If you can handle the slightly sluggish interface and you’re looking for an alternative to iTunes with support for other music stores, and iPod support; Songbird might just be your match.

The purpose of Prizmo is to scan without a scanner. So, you can scan anywhere (so long as you have a digital camera [no, a film camera will not work]), on-the-go, at anytime. And, it only takes about three steps: Take the picture, open Prizmo and load the picture, and select the part of the picture you want and do a little bit of tweaking.

When you open Prizmo, you are presented with a nice animation telling you where to drop your image. But, there’s also a button that allows you to choose an image from a camera that’s connected to your computer or your iPhoto or Aperture library. Although Prizmo will accept most image types, I have had issues when feeding it RAW files, so you may want to convert to JPEG first (if you shoot in RAW).

As soon as you find your picture and drag it into Prizmo, you will so the editing window. This is where you will put the bounding box around the object you would like to ’scan.’ The bounding box gives you four points to put at the four corners of the thing you are scanning. If you’re trying to scan a triangle, or a five-and-more-sided-figure, then you’re out of luck. Here, you will also find options for crop, lens distortion and processing. The crop tool just allows you to choose a size to constrain to. Processing just gives you options for brightness, contrast, sharpness and saturation.

Now for lens distortion. This can be a problem when trying to scan objects, because it, well…Distorts your images. Not many people will know how much to pull the distortion sliders, and Creaceed thought of that. They allow you to calibrate your camera, and even get data from other users’ calibrations. If you click the Search button, Prizmo will look through its online database for calibrations from people with the same camera (and lens for DSLRs). But, if it doesn’t find any, you can do it yourself. Just go to Tools>Calibrate Camera… (Command-K) and you will be presented with an assistant for calibrating your camera. Because no data was there for my camera and lens, I decided to do this. After following the directions and taking some pictures, it failed to recognize the checkered pattern on any of them. I was doing it in RAW at the time, so that could have been an issue. Then, though, I converted them to JPEGs and tried to add them, but they wouldn’t add. It seems there needs to be some fixing in the calibration.

Prizmo retails for $39.95, and you can download a free trial from the site. My results were great, despite not being able to calibrate for lens distortion, and it could definitely act as my only scanner. But, it really isn’t only a scanner, it can be used on anything. If you see a movie poster or an ad that you like, and would like to have documented, just take a picture, and Prizmo will help you with perspective, cropping and everything else.

Hulu Desktop brings the best of Hulu.com while adding an intuitive albeit somewhat confusing user interface, but after playing with the app for a little while it all makes sense. Upon opening the application, the video you were previously watching begins to play and you are given the options: Start Watching, Menu, and Switch Profile.

Diving into the menu system, you are given options for looking at Popular and Recently Added videos as well as TV, Movies and even Search. In actuality, the navigational system is very similar to that of it’s web version except it is all “live” and you don’t have to worry about pages loading or having to stop watching your video to find something else. The menu is easily accessible at all times by simply hitting the ESC button on your keyboard or by hitting the Menu button on your Apple Remote.

While watching a video, you are given a very familiar bar indicating your current position in the video but it has one very helpful feature that its web counterpart does not have. When putting your mouse over the timeline you are given a picture of what is at that position, something that is handy when looking for a particular part of a video. When you click on the video and pause it, a menu pops up on the left hand side giving you the feature that Hulu.com has, like Closed Captioning, Ratings, and etc. In that menu you will also find a help section which gives you all the keyboard and Apple Remote shortcuts, allowing you to watching your favorite videos without the aid of your mouse.

Overall, Hulu Desktop is an intuitive copy of its web-based brother, Hulu.com. The only real additions simply come from the app no longer being in your browser, things like not having to wait for pages to load and being able to have the video continue to play while you search the bowels of the menu system. So if you are an avid TV viewer and frequent Hulu.com regularly or just want the convenience of a desktop app, you can pick up Hulu Desktop for Windows and Mac at Hulu.com/Labs.

MusicBox acts a lot like it’s brother product, VideoBox. You just drag a URL onto the window and choose the format and where to save. This would make sense because they are related products. So, once you are at the page you would like to download audio from, just drag the URL from your web browser of choice into MusicBox. It will then attempt to find audio on that page to download. If it doesn’t, though, it will prompt you with a WebKit view where you can press play, and then it will know what to do.

There is more than one way to choose a URL. MusicBox includes a Safari plugin that allows for one-click downloading. Just go to a URL, click the toolbar item, and you’re all set. To instal this go to MusicBox>Install Safari Plugin. The plugin even works with Safari 4 BETA.

MusicBox gives you a few formats to output the audio to. You can choose from raw, wav, mp3 and mp4, and also choose a bit rate (for all but raw). You can also choose to use the input file’s settings so no extra space is used for increasing quality that cannot be increased.

I do have a few gripes with MusicBox too. The main window shows a white-to-orange gradient with white text on it, which can be a bit hard to see, and looks a little funny. Also, one of the output options is mp4, but since MusicBox is only for audio, there is no reason to optput to a video format. Instead of mp4, m4a (AAC) should be included for maximum iTunes compatibility (or just for wanting all your songs in the same format). And one last thing is more of a warning that in issue. If you use any WebKit plugins to block flash video unless you click on it, you will usually have to play the clip for MusicBox because, well, the clip is being blocked.

MusicBox, by Tasty Apps retails for $15 and you can download a free trial from their site. It makes downloading music from the Internet very easy–You can do it in really only 2 steps. However, it is mostly for those who listen to music online and would like to bring it offline. Even for just downloading a bit of audio every now and then it can be very helpful, but for many it is unnecessary.

If you don’t have a remote, Hulu Desktop also allows control via keyboard and mouse. Another great feature is the ability to link it into your Hulu account, allowing you to access your que, subscriptions, and viewing history as well as change settings such as closed captioning and video quality.

Unfortunately the app requires an Intel Core Duo processor (at least 2.0 GHz), at least 2 GB RAM, and at least a 2 Mbps internet connection, so this leaves out some Mac users. During the beta period, Hulu plans to “plan to gather and incorporate user feedback to improve the service.” I think this desktop app is a great step forward for Hulu and with their willingness to incorporate user feedback, this app has a lot of potential. Hulu Desktop can be found on the Hulu Labs website. Look for a review soon!

The main window is uncluttered, yet powerful.

Meet SOHO Notes, the anything and everything note-taking app. Put notes into folders and sub-folders, label them, encrypt them, scan them in, record and link audio files as notes, set alarms, define your own forms for quick notes, sync your notes with MobileMe, write them in full screen: the list goes on and on.

Power users are likely going to want to start out by heading up to the Preferences panel, where they’ll be met with appearance tweaks, shortcuts, blog publishing settings, MobileMe and iPod syncing options, backup settings, security, and more. SOHO Notes features a basic text editor with standard rich-text formatting options very similar to TextEdit. Each note’s title is highlighted by a bold navy blue title bar that really helps distinguish between different notes.

One of the pre-built forms is for software serial numbers

The app has an integrated web browser to allow web research to be done from inside the note taking area, and web archives can be saved to pull webpages down to the app. Notes can be viewed full screen, in tabs, and inline with the app.

Naturally everything is searchable inside the application, and SOHO Notes also fully integrates with Spotlight to make locating notes incredibly easy. Smart folders as well as custom folders can be made inside the app to help quickly sort the notes. The app also integrates quite nicely with iPhoto, Address Book, Mail, and iCal.

SOHO Notes functions in both single-user and multi-user environments. SOHO Notes allows remote databases to be accessed over a network, allowing for employees to share meeting notes and other company documents. Users can be assigned read/write privileges to certain folders and access a number of encrypted databases on a server.

The Database Manager helps users create and access shared databases

The amount of features is quite frankly staggering (way too many to list here, though we’ve tried), but the application feels very manageable and intuitive. A single-user license sells for $39.99, with a family pack for $69.99. SOHO Notes can also be purchased inside of the SOHO Organizer suite. Chronos has really done it with SOHO Notes. Its a clean, un-cluttered app, with an extraordinary amount of power. SOHO Notes is only compatible with Leopard.

This brings prices on apps like Transmit from $30 to $15 and Coda down from $100 to $50. Again, this is a fairly big deal. What’s also cool is that by participating in the sale, you also knock down the prices for future major (paid) upgrades to these apps, which is something we haven’t really seen before with these promos. Panic notes that “too busy building new things for later this year to notice how crazy this is.” I think we’re all pretty thankful for that in more ways than one. You can get in on the action by visiting https://www.panic.com/sale/.

The gameplay in Plants vs Zombies, like in all PopCap titles, is deceptively simple.  As a property owner, you’re tasked with protecting your home from the oncoming zombie invasion.  Their weakness?  Plants.  But these are no ordinary plants.  Each serves a special purpose or has a specific attack that it can use to take down the zombies.  The goal of the game is to eliminate all of the zombies each round without letting any of them reach your house.

Some critics are claiming this is PopCap’s take on the tower defense genre, and while it’s easy to see where they’re coming from, they’re not entirely right.  Plants vs Zombies feels more akin to a game of football than it does tower defense.  The zombies start in the street (their end zone) and move their way from one side of the screen to the other in an attempt to reach the house (your end zone).  Tower defense games generally include things like pre-determined paths or set entrances and exits.  Because the zombies can enter from any point in the screen and continue along that path, there’s a different element in play than you’d find in a traditional tower defense game.  But then again, that’s PopCap for you — nothing they ever do is traditional.  I think that’s a lot of the reason almost everything they touch turns to gold.

Still, a lot of tower defense elements still exist in the game.  Money, for example, is a must have for expanding your army.  You’ll need to earn “sunshine” to purchase more plants, which can come from sunflowers (and additional plants later in the game) or from the sun itself on the daytime levels.  There’s a huge variety of plants available in the game, with a new one usually unlocked at the end of each stage.

A good deal of strategy can be implemented in the game as well.  You’ll only have so many seed slots available, which means picking and choosing the types of plants you want to use wisely.  Every ten stages your environment will change slightly, adding in a whole new element of gameplay.  Night levels, for example, mean you need to work extra hard to get sunshine by can use mushrooms in your fight against the undead (mushrooms being unavailable in the day).  Other levels might introduce a backyard pool and aquatic plants.  There’s enough variety here to really keep you on your toes.

In addition to the variety offered by the changing environments, the stages are occassionally broken up by mini-games like “whack-a-zombie” or “wall-nut bowling.”  The mini-games are a nice touch, and help to keep things fresh in a game that plays largely the same throughout.

Plants vs Zombies is great fun, and smacks of the delightful PopCap personality that we’ve all come to know and love.  The only real complaint to be had is that it’s just too easy.  Previous PopCap games have always offered that extra level of challenge that makes their games exciting for players of any skill level.  But after awhile, you’ll get into a groove with Plants vs. Zombies and find yourself getting through stages with zero difficulty.  The game tries to keep throwing new things at you like changing conditions and zombies with different strengths and weaknesses, and while these keep things fresh they don’t provide the level of challenge that might incentivize you to keep playing.

Plants vs. Zombies is a fantastic title that puts a new spin on the tower defense genre, and will easily be remembered as another gem in PopCap’s crown.  It’s something that should be experienced by everybody.  Just be prepared for a game with a lot of personality and charm, but not a lot of challenge.

Plants vs Zombies is available from PopCap Games for $19.95.  A free trial is also available.

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.

Those of you who have used the mac for a while are probably saying, “Hey, can’t you just press the Return button to choose the default button on a dialog box?”  Yes you can!  So, why not choose your mouse to hover over the Alternate Button instead?

LazyMouse is very customizable.  You can even have the preference put your mouse back to where it was before the dialog box appeared.  And if you need even more notification, you can have LazyMouse play a sound when the cursor moves – with a choice of 3 volume levels.  You can even exclude applications when you feel the need to put in the extra effort.

Overall this preference pane will speed up your productivity if your work requires a bunch of dialog boxes.  It works extremely well and uses little to no processing power.  LazyMouse requires a mac running Mac OS X.4 or higher to run and is available at http://www.old-jewel.com/lazymouse/index.html for the price of $9.95.

Few things can impact a blogger as negatively as their own workspace.  Even with the best of intentions, writing an article in one tab of your browser and fact checking in another can lead to a few quick emails, a twitter update, checking out Facebook — the next thing you know you’ve been reading articles on digg for an hour.  Our productivity tools often lead us to being anything but productive.  This was a trap I found myself falling into more and more as they days went on.  Then I discovered the secret world of minimalist word processing.

What is minimalist word processing?

Minimalist word processing is, at a glance, not unlike taking a time machine back to the 1980’s.  Full screen text editors that allow for zero distraction, both WriteRoom and JDarkRoom offer nothing more in terms of visuals than text on background.  Removing the dock, the taskbar, and any other feature that would make your desktop recognizable, these apps will give you zero reason to start clicking elsewhere and lose yourself to all of your other daily tasking.  But how can two such simple programs really differ?

WriteRoom, Hog Bay Software, $24.95

WriteRoom has the distinction of being the granddaddy of distraction free writing software.  Inspired by the early days of wordprocessing, WriteRoom was the first program available to offer a minimalist approach to your writing environment. Starting out with green text on a black background, you can dive right in and get to work or tweak to your hearts content.

Both font and color scheme can be changed to your liking.  Tapping Escape will bring you back to your desktop with a basic text version of you document displayed in a window.  That window can be tweaked to display relevant information like word and page counts.  You can even add a plug-in that will add an “edit in Writeroom” option in the Edit Menu of other applications.

On the downside, being first on the block and offering a solid set of features also means that you can set your own price.  WriteRoom is currently available for the surprisingly steep price point of $24.95, with a free 30-day trial of the full version also available for download.

Grade: A-

JDarkRoom, Code Alchemists, FREE

The release of JDarkRoom owes a lot to it’s predecessor.  JDarkRoom is the Java-based alternative to DarkRoom, a Windows-only WriteRoom clone that ran on the .NET framework.  Looking for something that worked outside of .NET, the coder behind JDarkRoom inadvertantly created a program that could work across all three major OS’s (Windows, Mac, Linux).  That’s how I first came across this — looking for a WriteRoom alternative for my Windows-box.  And on Windows, it performs exactly as you’d want it to.  But on the Mac?

It appears the free alternative to WriteRoom is a glitchy mess.  The first thing you see when firing up JDarkRoom is a message letting you know Command-SHIFT should bring up the help menu.  It doesn’t.  Having experience with the Windows version, I tried F5.  That worked.  Getting out of the help menu though?  Impossible.  It treats the help menu like it a document you want to modify.  You’ll need to quit the program to get out of it, thereby losing any work you may have done to that point.  Many of the commands in the help menu, such as accessing the options screen, line and word count, or inserting the date and time either work sporadically or don’t work at all.  As well, I wasn’t able to ALT-TAB out to other programs, as JDarkRoom continued to block my desktop when I tried.

The bare bones of the program, writing and saving files, works fine.  Anything beyond that is a disaster.  While the  entire idea behind minimalist word processing is to do nothing more than write, there are some basic tweaks and commands that are required to make that experience complete, and they just can’t be relied upon in the Mac version of jDarkRoom.  If this were this Windows version it would get a stellar A+ grade.  But it’s not.

Grade: D

Conclusion

What we had expected to be comparing were two programs with a nigh-indistinguishable set of features.  Unfortunately jDarkRoom couldn’t live up to the promise.  While the Windows version offers a solid alternative, that’s just not something that’s going to be of much use to our readership.  WriteRoom offers a complete set of features, a bug free experience, and the quiet solace you’re looking for when writing. The $24.95 price tag may be less than attractive, but after trying the 30-day free trial you’ll be hard pressed to go back to the days of desktop distraction.

Recommendation: WriteRoom

The biggest and best new feature has to be Amazon S3 support. If you don’t know what that is, it is a service from Amazon that allows you to host files. You can now easily add an S3 account to your accounts list, and connect to it like it is a USB or FireWire drive. But, this means much more than just that. Most people buy hosting for a website or web service. But, one of the points of Amazon S3 is offsite backup. So, when your S3 is treated like a regular hard drive, this makes things so much easier. ExpanDrive even includes a contextual menu in the Finder for changing permissions on files.

The next biggest feature – or upgrade – is the engine itself. It has been completely rewritten for this 2.0 upgrade, and you should notice a nice speed boost. You should also notice faster browsing. Of course, nothing can make up for a bad host, a bad server or a bad Internet connection, but ExpanDrive uses more of what’s there now. ExpanDrive can now detect edits that have been made on the server too, as a part of this new engine. This feature is still experimental though.

There are two other features that are also very notable. The first one is that FTP/FTPS (not to be mistaken with SFTP) has come out of BETA. When version 1.3 came out, they introduced FTP/FTPS as a BETA feature, but it is no longer that. The second one is actually two. First, they’ve updated the GUI to make it more Mac-like. There is now an eject button on each connected server in the list too. The second part is the customization of drive icons. If you drop an image into “~/Library/Application Support/ExpanDrive”, it will appear in a list of icons that you can choose from when creating a new drive. ExpanDrive also has 5 icons built-in.

ExpanDrive retails for $39.95 and you can upgrade from version 1 for $19.95. It is a nice upgrade, but still may seem to expensive to some. There is still one thing I would like to see in it though, AFP support.

Rather than being a small feature in a giant software suite, EasyCrop is a standalone program that can handle all of your cropping and resizing needs with little more than the click of a mouse.  Unlike PhotoShop, the program loads up in seconds.  Simply drag any image — be it on your desktop, in a folder, or even in your browser — into EasyCrop’s left window.  Use your mouse to select the area you want to crop and it will appear as a cropped image in the right window.  Drag that new image to your desktop and voila!  You have a freshly cropped image.  From clicking on the EasyCrop icon to having a newly cropped image file can take you less than 10 seconds.  It’s glorious.

While EasyCrop doesn’t offer up much more than this, you’re also present with the ability to resize your new photo.  A slider will let you adjust the size if you just want to eyeball it, but if you know the sizes you need you’ll be able to pop in those numbers too.  The resizing always keeps things in proportion, so you’re not going to accidentally stretch things out and make your image look wonky.  Mind you, if you’re looking to stretch things out, you’re not going to be able to accomplish it with EasyCrop.

Images can also be sharpened and saved in different formats if needed (JPG, PNG, TIFF, GIF).  A few other perks like the Destination Drawer (which lets you save up to six locations to store your newly cropped files at the click of a button) and the built in screen capture tools make this a rather meaty offering for such a no frills presentation.  The program has a number of little handy extras like this, but it doesn’t offer anything that doesn’t make sense.  EasyCrop is light on frivilous add-ons and big on sensible extras. Asides from these little tweaks, EasyCrop is a program that does little more than live up to its name.  It’s easy.  It crops.  That’s it.  And that’s all it needs to be.

The only complaint we had was with the lack of an “undo” feature.  If you fiddle with the adjustments a little and want to revert to an earlier choice, you’re stuck.  It’s a strange situation, and one we hope to see remedied in future iterations.

While there could be any number of smaller features included in EasyCrop, that’s missing the point.  EasyCrop succeeds not because of what it does, but because of what it doesn’t.  By stripping away all the needless bells and whistles that so many photo editors come bundled with, Yellow Mug Software has designed a photo editor that focuses on a single task and handles it effectively and efficiently.

EasyCrop is available from Yellow Mug Software for $11.95.

The first new feature is the customization of mouse clicks–You can now show users your mouse clicks. There is a new Mouse tab where you can customize the size, color, duration and strength of your mouse clicks. You can even display the button name for the click. This means, if you click the left mouse button, it says, ‘Left’ where you clicked as well as showing the animation. You can visualize all these styles without having to create a video in the Mouse Actions Preview box at the bottom.

The second major feature added was optimized export workflows to easily export videos to a few places. All you do is right-click on a video, and you will see a list of 3 pre-defined exporters. So now, you can export for the iPhone just by clicking that and then clicking okay.

Screenium by Synium retails for $29 and you can download a free trial from their site. If you would like more in-depth info about it, you can look at our Face off of screen-capturing apps.

When downloading the disk image, two things come packaged inside of it.  The app itself, and the broadcasting preference pane.  To control your iTunes library from afar, you need to have the broadcasting preference pane activated.  To do that, double click it from inside the the already downloaded and now mounted disk image.

Be sure to drag the slider in the bottom left-hand corner to “ON”.  You may also choose to turn on the broadcasting feature every time you login by clicking the appropriate check box.

When opening TuneConnect on the computer that you want to use to control your library with, you’ll get an automatically updating list showing you  which computers are broadcasting their libraries.  If you’ve set up a password, you’ll need to enter it in order to control the computer.  If not, just go ahead and click your library.

The main window looks like the one to the right.  The song, artist, and progress are shown at the top.  You can drag the slider to go forward or backwards in the currently playing song.  Below that is the album art of the currently playing song.

At the bottom is a volume control along with and rewind play/pause, and fast-forward buttons.

In the bottom right-hand corner of the main window is a button that takes you to a window that resembles iTunes’s main window.  You then can browse through your music – playlists and all, to choose and play your songs.

In terms of performance, TuneConnect does not disappoint.  In it’s second iteration (at the time of writing v2.1) TuneConnect has been through it’s bumps and bruises already.  Controls are quick to respond and viewing large libraries take seconds.  Everything seems well thought out.  In order to use TuneConnect you need to have Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, however 10.5 Leopard is recommended.

One might compare this app to Apple’s Remote app for the iPhone and iPod Touch.  Both are extremely useful apps.  It all depends on what you have and what you are using at the time.  Both apps allow you to browse your library and play what ever you have.  If you like the ability to type in what you are looking for into a search box, then TuneConnect happily obliges.  If you aren’t near a computer but have your iPhone or iPod Touch, then Apple’s free remote app is the one for you.

TuneConnect is available at http://www.tuneconnect.net/ for the unbelievable price of free.

Think of Airmailr as your gateway to all of Twitter’s services without using your web browser.  Though there are many apps that already syndicate your timeline and publish you latest tweets, Airmailr does this in using Apple’s quick-at-a-glance feature – Dashboard.  Dashboard was designed to show you information any time you want to see it.  This is exactly what Airmailr does with your Twitter timeline.

When first installing Airmailr, a built in setup system takes you through a couple easy steps to get itself up and running.  You first have to allow Twitter to communicate with Airmailr.  Clicking on the given link in the setup takes you to Twitter’s “allow -this app- to communicate with Twitter” page.

Type in your account username and password and hit “allow”.  Continue the setup process by going back to the widget in Dashboard.

Airmailr’s interface resembles that of other Twitter clients with the standard up-and-down visual timeline along with a small thumbnail provided by the Twitter user.  Hovering over a Tweet in the timeline darkens its background.  A quick RT or “Re-Tweet” button in the bottom right-hand corner of each hovered tweet allows you to forward this tweet to your timeline allowing all of your friends to see the same message.  Clicking on someone’s screen name allows you to view a page of specs including their profile information as well as how many tweets they have posted.  Quick links are also provided in this spec page that allow you to quickly see their latest tweets and go to their profile and specified web page.

Navigation tabs at the top of the widget take you to different features.  ”Friends” takes you the timeline of just your friended twitterers.  ”@Replies” filters down to all of the tweets that were publicly directed towards you.  ”DM” which stands for “Direct Message”, filters down to all of the tweets that were privately directed towards you.  ”Search” allows you search the entire “Twitterverse” with a search box.

The bottom toolbar has four items.  ”Prefs” takes you to the widget’s preference pane.  Here you can adjust settings such as how often Airmailr checks for new tweets, how you want Airmailr to interact and use “Growl”, and how many tweets you want to see in your timeline at a time. “Logout” does exactly what it says – logs you out of Twitter.  ”Refresh Symbol” tells Airmailr to refresh and look for new tweets.  The right-hand icon that resembles a speech bubble allows you to post a new tweet.  You can also enter in a shortened URL so that the URL itself doesn’t take up the entire tweet message.

All in all, Airmailr is a great Twitter client even though it is still in its BETA form.  Using the speed and accessibility of Dashboard, Airmailr preforms without a hiccup and with great speed.  Getting and sending tweets takes seconds, and with it’s built in growl support, you don’t even need to open Dashboard to have your tweets automatically popup.  For those of you who are looking for a lightweight twitter client who also uses Dashboard a lot, this is the widget for you.

Airmailr is free and available at airmailr.com.