Archive for the 'MacApper Videos' Category

The difference between a new computer user and a power user is all in the keyboard. With the many menu commands in Mac OS X, if you really want to save time on your computer, you have to use keyboard shortcuts. Though it can be hard to memorize all the keyboard shortcuts in all your applications at once. Keycue, from Ergonis Software, presents a viable solution to this problem by allowing you to learn new shortcuts as you work.

Have you ever found yourself in the position where you need to archive an online receipt or article or web page? Instead of just copying and pasting the text, would you like it to look exactly like the web page? Well, if so, then Web Snapper is the perfect tool for you, because it does all of that and more!

Recently at MacApper, Emily did a comparison of YummySoup! and Connoisseur. Since HungrySeacow Software has given us three licenses to giveaway, I thought I would outline a few of my favorite things in YummySoup! with a video tribute.

One of the features that sold me on YummySoup! was the Automatic Import feature that supported the heavy hitters of online recipes. I’m not one to create a recipe, but I definitely know how to mooch. Thus, recipe management software that can automatically import is a must.

Way back in April of 2007, I reviewed djay v1.2 for MacApper. Since then, djay has hit v2.0 and received many improvements, and new features. Among these improvements include a new interface, live undo/redo, and an improved audio engine.

If you looked at djay when it was still at v1.2 and found it wasn’t for you, I recommend you take a second look. You can tell that a lot of work has went into improving this application. Make sure to watch the review and look for the giveaway at the end of this post. UPDATE: A new video has been uploaded, which fixes the problem with the sound.

I’m a believer in desktop applications that enhance the online experience. I don’t think that doing everything online in a browser window is the answer to everyone’s computing problems. Instead, having a powerful desktop application that integrates seamlessly with an online service, produces the ideal experience for the user. Photonic brings the photo-sharing site, Flickr, to the desktop, in a beautiful and functional interface that makes interacting with Flickr all the better.

If you are a graphic or icon designer, and are looking for an app that is easy to use, beautiful, and very powerful, Opacity is the perfect app for you. Having just come out on February 13th, this brand new application takes advantage of Leopard Core Animation to create a powerful and beautiful environment for making icons, buttons, and graphics.

Have you ever been writing something on your Mac, and found that you needed to use a special character? Whether it be a foreign currency symbol, obscure accents, or even another language, PopChar is here to help. PopChar is a little application that sits in the background on your Mac. When you need to insert a special character, all you need to do is click the little “P” in your menubar, and PopChar will appear. It offers every single character that you will ever need - both ASCII and Unicode.

I’ve never been rich enough to afford a house keeper - that is, in real life. Hazel however, is a cheap, powerful housekeeper for your Mac. It keeps your Mac organized automatically, without you having to even give it much thought once configured. Hazel uses the power of rules to file away, and perform actions to your files, media, and applications. The only real limits to these rules is your imagination.

In the following video I will go over the basic power of Hazel in a standard workflow, along with some tips on how I use the software to keep my files organized, and my Mac clean of clutter.

Undoubtedly, the most-awaited feature in Mac OS X Leopard was Time Machine, the automatic backup software that allows you to visually go back into time on your Mac. However, Time Machine wants a little too much control. There is no option for you to set the interval of time between automatic Time Machine backups. That is until now. TimeMachineScheduler puts you back in the Time Machine driving seat, and lets you schedule when you want Time Machine to automatically backup with a simple slider.

Check out how easy it is to set your backup duration in this video review.

One of the applications I have open every time I use my Mac is iChat. I’m always chatting with people, sending files, talking, or screen sharing. iChat is Leopard is so well done, that it’s all I use. But then along came Chax for Leopard. And just as they innovated in iChat for Tiger, they did it again for Leopard. Chax 2.1 Beta has just been announced, and it comes with a slew of new features. Screensaver auto-away messages, unified contact lists, and AV and screen sharing options all enhance iChat 4 to what it can truly be.

Undoubtedly, the most talked about feature in Leopard is Stacks. While it works well for folders with few files, often if the folder has too many files it quickly loses it’s usefulness. Many people have longed for it to be like it was in Tiger, where you could navigate the hierarchy of the folder from the Dock.

Quay returns the functionality back to that of Tiger, while allowing you to keep your current Stacks in place. It also offers more advanced sorting and viewing options which were not in Tiger. In the following video I’ll show you how I use Quay to have instant access to my entire Mac’s file system via a hierarchical menu Stack.

Uploading and sharing your screencast has just gotten a lot easier. It’s an application by the name of Jing and it comes from the guys at TechSmith, the same people behind Camtasio Studio and Snagit.

The Jing Project is built around the idea of capturing screenshots or recording video of your desktop and allowing you to upload them to screencast.com. Once on screencast.com you are able to share your video or image with friends, colleagues, or readers. Best of all this entire process is free.

Check out the following video review to see exactly how this whole Jing thing works.

This is the third and final video from the Delicious Generation Party held June 13th in San Francisco. In this portion I talk with the guys from Monkey Business Labs, the developers behind Picturesque, a quick hint about Mac Heist II, and a good chat with the brotherly dev team behind the upcoming new image editor, Pixelmator. This final segment showcases some of the coolest things that went down at the DG party so I hope you guys enjoy it.

Watch for the video after the jump and be sure to subscribe to our feed so you don’t miss any of our premium Macalicious content.

Most of us know Coda as the radically productive web development tool from Panic, which recently won the User Experience Award at WWDC. Coda has some features none of the competition has including live editing, a built-in CSS editor, and a library of reference materials for programmers. MacApper already did a full coda review way back in late April when it was released, but I thought it would be cool to do a video review of this tool, to better illustrate some of its core features.

I’m sure most of you have had a chance to play with or at least coddle an iPhone this weekend. If not you are totally missing out. There are some great forum threads going around and even some more well known pundits offering their first impressions. Now some of the guys at MacApper have procured iPhones but I was asked to throw together a usability and real world video review for the unit. I hope it covers some bases and gripes not covered elsewhere, and would love to hear some comments from some of the 250,000 - 525,000 of you who fanboy’ed out, and are the first on your own block to own one.