Disco, the media burning app with a twist is now available as a public beta.

If you want to purchase it, you might consider doing the today-only offer on macZOT where you’re also entered into a drawing to potentially win one of three LaCie burners.

I have one copy of Disco to give away to a lucky reader, to get into the draw, simply comment on this article with your views on Disco, how you plan to use it, or how you would improve it. Winner will be selected at random on November 1st, so get commenting!

iUseThis, the Mac software community’s answer to Digg.

The one thing that has held me back from becoming an active user of the iUseThis community is the fact that I have to go through the site manually and click “iUseThis” on each and every application I have. I have over 150 application installed on my Mac, and not enough time to go through and click on each and every one of these.

Enter iUseThis Profile Maker.

iUseThis Profile Maker is more of a script that an application. You register at iUseThis, sign in, then run the application. What it does is search through your application folder, then send all the apps you have installed directly to your iUseThis profile, saving you hours of time over adding them manually.

iUseThis Profile Maker should be released next week, I’ll keep you updated on it’s status.

If you like, you can check all the cool applications I’m currently using in my profile here.

Technorati Tags: application, links, osx, sites, software, web

iTunes - No question, is the worlds best and most widely used music management application.

The main function of iTunes is to store your entire digital music collection. Some people have 200 tracks, others have 50,000. But where do people get all their music? People with bulging MP3 collections surely can’t buy every track they own, so where do they get them?

In this article, we will go over some of the common, legal ways to obtain music, and give you that music collection you have always dreamed of!

Your original CDs

Yes, all that money you spent on CDs, all that time you spent collecting them, was worth it. Import all of your original music CDs into iTunes. This way you have the original legal copy of the album, and the ability to import at any sound quality. Original music CDs are still the most popular source of music acquisition.

The Public Library

When did you last go to the library? Chances are, you didn’t know that most libraries now have hundreds, if not thousands of CDs available for loan. Most are free! You might want to be careful with copyright infringements though. If you don’t delete the music from your computer when the CD’s are taken back to the library; you could be in some big trouble with the RIAA.

LP Records

You can buy hardware and software specific for importing all of your old LP records into iTunes. This is a time-consuming process though, as the music needs to import in real time.

iTunes Music Store

With over three million tracks available for purchase, the iTMS is your gateway to a huge music collection. It costs 99c per song, and $9.99 per album. It’s a great way to purchase music, with loads of exclusive tracks, without leaving the iTunes application!

Torrenting

Torrenting copyrighted material is illegal, but you can find many unsigned, legal for download albums up on torrent websites. Torrenting is a fast way to download full albums and discover new talented artists.

Emusic.com

eMusic has thousands of songs available for legal download. They offer 50 free downloads. After that you pay $9.99 a month for 40 downloads (they have more expensive packages that lower the cost of each download even more). A pretty decent price, if you’re interested in the non-mainstream tracks they have to offer.

Amazon.com

Amazon has a download section of the site with thousands of tracks from unsigned and upcoming bands. They also feature cool remixes and mash-ups for download. Worth a good look at.

Download.com

Download.com is the ultimate software and wallpapers on the Internet. Not many know they also have a great sub-section dedicated to music downloads. These are all legal and many of the tracks are from actual commercial artists who post exclusive studio recordings.

But the thing is, these are only the ways to “obtain� your music. Where do you actually find music that is worth keeping? Here are some ideas:

Listen to the radio. Not any of the stations that play music in the Top 40. Instead, check retro stations playing songs that didn’t hit the big scene. Sometimes, these can be the best songs of all.

Another way to find music that might not occur to most people is to find out the favorite artists of the artists you already listen to. Use the Internet to find bios of the musicians you like, and find out which bands they enjoy listening to. Chances are, if you like their music, you’ll like music that they like as well.

Enjoy your new music collection! But before you start, make sure you have the right reason in mind about music. Music is for personal enjoyment. Not to beat someone else’s track count. Keep in mind this motto: “Killer not Filler�. Enjoy your music.

Everyone has their own illusion of their dream Macintosh setup. A 3.00Ghz Mac Pro powering 2 30″ Cinema displays, maxed out with 16GB of RAM and a MacBook Pro for the road. But realistically, less than one percent of people who want this setup, actually get it. Whats your dream setup which is actually affordable?

Here’s my current setup (picture above):

• iMac 17″ Core Duo 1.83Ghz, 1.5GB RAM, 160GB HDD
• MacBook 13″ Core Duo 1.83Ghz, 512MB RAM, 60GB HDD
• iPod 5G 60GB, iPod Dock

I host all my files, applications, and media on the iMac which is the machine I use 75% of the time. The MacBook only stores application on it, and accesses the infomation on the iMac over my wireless network.

If I’m heading away for the day and need files, I move them to the MacBook before I leave, then drag and drop them back to the iMac upon getting home. Therfore leaving the MacBook totally free of clutter, and with a nice free hard-drive.

My dream setup:

• iMac 20″ Core 2 Duo 2.16Ghz, 2GB RAM, 500GB HDD
• MacBook 13″ Core Duo 1.83Ghz, 2GB RAM, 60GB HDD

Doesn’t take much to please me huh? I’d just max out the RAM on the MacBook, and replace the 17″ iMac with the 20. It’s something I do see myself doing after the iMac receives a radical re-design sometime in the future, as I’d love the extra screen resolution for Aperture/Final Cut Express and running all my apps in a “can see” enviroment.

What’s your current Mac setup, and what is a realistic setup you could see yourself upgrading to in the foreseeable future?

For all those system maintenance junkies out there, MainMenu 1.7 - “Your Make My Day System Management App” has just been released. Never heard of it before?

MainMenu is full of powerful maintenance tools to keep your Mac running like new, within a slick, simplistic interface.

Don’t have time to run all the various tools and scripts to keep your Mac running smoothly? MainMenu makes these tasks quick and easy, right from your menu bar.

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

If you clicked through to the site and seen that the description has been copied and pasted from their company website, no need to tell me to stop stealing, because that is the reason I’m in the about window under “Special Thanks To.”

I was contacted by the developer, Rakka, to construct and write the description and tag-line for the application, as his usual copywriter has fallen sick. So there you have it, my name is now in the about window of an application which has been downloaded over 1/4 of a million times.

Want to increase that above number? Click here to download your copy of MainMenu 1.7.

The menu-bar on your Macintosh can help define what kind of person you are, and what you do. If you have a extra icons such as iChat, Adium, and Skype, you’re a social person. If you have menu-meters, you like stats and monitoring how your system is performing. If you have an iTunes controller, and an iTunes-rating icon, you love music.

If you have Mouse Distance Measurer, I can’t begin to describe you, but you must love mucking around with pointless apps…or is it really pointless?

Mouse Distance Measurer is a crazy yet cool application by AlphaOmega Software. What does it do you ask? It perches in your menu bar, calculating the distance your mouse has travelled in any given day.

Why should you give this app valuable menubar real estate? How is it handy for everyday use?

Almost everyone has had sore fingers and strained eyes from too much compute use. Why does it happen? Because we spend too long in one sitting at the computer without resting or breaks.

Mouse Distance Measurer can help you with this. By looking at the distance moved at regular intervals, you can have a quick break every set distance; for example, every 100 metres the mouse is moved you could take a quick stretch before sitting down again.

Overall, Mouse Distance Measurer is fun little app (menulet), but it wont appeal to all.

Technorati Tags: application, software

Sick of your dock been crammed with dozens of applications when you typically only use around 5 at any given time, and the others are used less frequently but you still want quick access to them? Thought you were, let’s fix this cluttered dock problem once and for all.

Overflow 2.0 is made by Stunt Software, the same people who made On The Job. Overflow is designed to minimize the clutter in your dock and provide a small, well designed application/folder/file launcher at your fingertips.

The basic window of Overflow is just that, basic, clean, and easy to use. You can create different categories in the sidebar to accommodate different file types for easy access, and change preferences such as icon size, if the text shows under the icon or not, and a few different design elements.

To add something to Overflow, go into the category you wish to add it too, click edit, and drag and drop the icon onto a free “crate”.

Want to see what Overflow can do for you before you go off and download it? Check out a short video tutorial here.

If you are like me, you will have been doing all you can these last few weeks to prepare for 9rules round 5 of blog submissions.

For those new to the 9rules concept, it’s a blog community (much like a network) where people apply to be included into the network when they have “inclusion rounds”. The site’s that get into 9rules will be sites which have great content, updated on a regular basis, a desire to improve your site and your skills, and a commitment to the 9rules community, whether that means helping fellow members or just giving advice to a new writer.

So, how can you increase your chances of getting into the 9rules network this time around?

• Make your site searchable
• Always tell the truth, and nothing but the truth
• Make your titles detailed yet interesting
• Let people know what your site is about in a glance
• Tag your posts to make your site’s subject known

Once you’ve done these things keep pumping out the content, not just in the lead up to the submission day, but keep going even after you have submitted your site for inclusion - and if you dont get in, dont give up hope. Keep working hard on your blog as these submission rounds come along often enough.

Have fun, and good luck!

Are you a frequent user of iChat, Apple’s IM chat application? If so, you know how hard it is to keep track of hundreds of contacts at once. Let’s get organized!

Organize By Groups

Grouped organizing is nothing new, but finding a convenient way to name and manage your groups can be difficult at the best of times.

Start by creating three groups with these names:

• Very Frequent
• Frequent
• Occasional
• Hardly Ever

Now go through each and every one of your contacts and add them to the applicable group. These groups are based on the frequency you talk to them.

So if it’s someone like your girlfriend who you are constantly talking to, you could add her to the Very Frequent group. But if it’s the manager of your web-hosting account who you only talk to when you have problems with your website could fall under Hardly Ever.

This way you can use the collapse feature in iChat to collapse all the groups apart from Very, and Frequent, allowing you to see the contacts who really matter to you easily.

Happy iChatting!

• TUAW is looking for some new bloggers. Interested?

• Need help working out mathematic problems? Soulver is the answer. Expect a review coming next week.

• Apple’s Finder bugging you with it’s basic feature set? Check out ten alternatives to the Finder here.

• Need a nice theme for your Wordpress blog? This list of the best Wordpress themes should be all you need to get started with a beautiful blog.

Transmission is an open-source bittorrent client which is pretty popular among the Mac community. I got my hands on the Beta version of Transmission 0.7 and checked out some of it’s cool new features.

This is the main window of Transmission, simple and light weight, just how I like applications. You can easily see your currently active transfers, and then have a few simple options in the toolbar above.

The changes to this version of Transmission are more “preference sided”. In the general preference window you now have the option to size the window to fit all current active downloads, not a huge feature but it’s the little things which count.

Clicking on the bandwidth tab you get a few more new options. Firstly, the Speed Limit Mode. This gives you the option of setting restrictions on how, and how fast torrents can be downloaded. You can enable this feature by hitting the little turtle button in the main Transmission window. Very handy if you want to cut down on your bittorrent usage during the day when you want to have your internet connection free and speedy.

You can also set a speed limit between certain hours, I will personally be using this feature a lot, having the speed capped between 6AM - 9PM daily.

The final new feature is found in the Transfers preference window. Where you can tell Transmission to watch a certain location for new .torrent files - so when it finds one in this chosen location, it will automatically add it to Transmission and begin downloading.

In all, a nice stable release with some great new small features which continue to grow on Transmission’s already large, but simplistic feature set. Get your hand’s on version 0.7 here.

Technorati Tags: application, gui, osx, bittorrent, software, web

Tired of poorly designed money tracking applications like Quicken which are a pain to work with, and always have you cringing at the thought of sitting down and getting your finances sorted?

Cha-Ching changed my whole attitude towards tracking cash-flow and now even has me wanting to get sorted. How could one application have such a large impact on me? Answer: An intelligent, well thought out, fun application UI. Cha-Ching is not loaded with features (…yet), but what it lacks in that aspect it makes up in sheer UI brilliance.

To be totally honest, I dont really need to track my finances. Sure, having them sorted and tracked help’s in the long run, but it’s not a necessity. But Cha-Ching is such a well built application it’s making me want to track my finances, just to play with it’s cool UI! Let’s take a look at what it has to offer.

After you open the application, press the little + button in the sidebar to create a new drawer, or account. After naming this, in the main window press the + button to create a new item. No confusing actions required to get it working, it’s as simple as 1,2,3 (clicks that is).

After entering the details of the transaction, you can add a photo using Cha-Ching’s awesome in built Photo Booth type window.

When adding a new transaction you have the option of adding an image to accompany it. Hit the green “Photos” button in the details window, and you are presented with a tidy photo window where you have the option of adding an existing image on your HDD, or taking a photo with your iSight camera. Perfect for items like magazines, games, and movies among others.

After you press the confirm button to lock in a transaction, the balance at the bottom of your screen will go into debt, showing exactly how much money you have, or dont have to spend.

Does Cha-Ching kill Quicken? In my eyes it does, but that will vary on a person to person basis. Cha-Ching has everything I need in a financial application, and it should have everything you need if you’re more of an advanced user by version 1 or 2. Remember, this is still Beta software, it’s currently only into version 0.2, so it does have some minor bugs as expected.

My verdict, a solid effort, this application has real potential to raise to greatness and hopefully an Apple Design Award at next years WWDC 07. I bought it for the Beta stage special of $14.95, I think you should consider it too.

So, what do you like about Cha-Ching? Do you feel in the coming months it could pull off a miracle and bury Quicken in the dust. Leave me your views below in the comments section.

If you haven’t already, get your copy of Cha-Ching here.

Technorati Tags: application, gui, money, osx, shopping

Google has laid speculation to rest — it is buying YouTube for US$1.65 billion in a stock transaction.YouTube operates a wildly popular Web site showing original videos in a range from amateurish to professional.

It will continue to operate independently after the Google acquisition “to preserve its successful brand and passionate community,� Google said Monday when it announced the deal.Bringing YouTube into the ever-growing Google empire will mean that users have a “better, more comprehensive experience� when they upload, watch and share videos, Google said.

It will also provide more opportunities for professional content owners to get their work out to a wider audience, the company said.

Macworld: News: Google to buy YouTube in $1.65 billion stock deal

This was unexpected to say the least, speculation seems to have been going on for months about who would acquire YouTube to fund it’s massive bandwidth bills and continue to make it grow. In my views, no better company could have taken it over, I cant wait to see what this acquisition does for YouTube.

My little blogging client which I use to connect with the WordPress API has been updated and is now available in an “Intel” only binary, making is super fast. It now opens in half a bounce in the dock, alike Mail and Safari.

If you are not farmiliar with Ecto, it’s an application which allows you to compose blog posts locally, then save them as drafts to edit later. You can use Ecto while you offline so it’s a great way to store loads of material ready to post when your creative side doesn’t feel like coming outside.

Ecto also features some nice time saving features such as drag and drop image placement and uploading. While your editing your entry simply drag images from your machine into the text area, place them as you like, and when you hit publish the images will be uploaded to your server and placed just as you had them into your blog post.

Ecto 2.4.1 Intel is just a placeholder until the much anticipated Ecto 3 is released.

Check out the Intel build here, and the preview to Ecto 3 over here.

Following up from the two last editions which proved so popular (both on Digg homepage), here is the 7 Slickest Mac Setups: Take Three, where I have selected another 7 setups from Flickr to showcase.

One of the publics major gripes about OSX 1.4 Tiger is the Finder, it’s clearly outgrown it’s life, and it’s showing. Many cant wait for Leopard (including myself) to see what Apple does to the Finder. In the meantime, there is another app in town…

FileBrowse is a new, easy-to-use file/media browser for Mac OS X with many unique features, such as 3D icons/thumbnails, large in-context previews, and powerful grouping and sorting.

It lets you view files and media content on your Mac using features lacking in the Finder, such as thumbnails for most common file types, including images, movies, songs, PDF, RTF, Word documents, and Web pages.

For example, if you have a folder with images in it, FileBrowse will show miniature icons and thumbnails of the items inside, and large previews for most file types. This comes in really handy if your searching for a particular folder of images but dont want to keep clicking on folders to find it. FileBrowse will generate previews of files inside folders to help you pinpoint what your after.

You can’t perform file management tasks with this application yet. If you wish to copy/move or delete a file/folder then you are recommended to select the desired object and then press Command + Return to select the object in Finder.

In the limited testing I’ve put it through, I see potential in this application not as a Finder replacement, but a very advanced, speedy Preview application.

You can check out a video I produced of FileBrowse in action here.

There are now so many applications out there which allow you to upload images to the online photo sharing site Flickr, it’s difficult to choose which one to use.

My personal favourite, Flickr Uploadr is a nice, simple application which let’s me do everything I want to with my images before an upload. Such as title them tag them, add them to groups, batch tag, and more.

My only grip about Flickr Uploadr is it’s still not a Universal Binary application, which is an annoyance for me running it on my Intel iMac or MacBook. Sure, it’s still fast, but not optimum.

Gleam is a new application who has entered the “Flickr” market. It’s main feature would have to be it’s visual appeal, and the fact it’s Universal.

When you open Gleam, you are presented with a clean window like this.

Click Add Photos and make your selection of what you would like to upload to Flickr.

Once you’ve selected which images you would like to upload, click “Toggle Details View” and add your tags in for each image. One extra tagging feature I would like to see implemented here is “Add to group”. It’s a minor annoyance still having to do this browser side after the upload, especially when similar applications (Flickr Uploadr) already have this option.

Finished tagging? Hit upload and you will get a nice visual representation of the images you are uploading to your photostream.