Since the introduction of the first Intel iMac, Apple included a simple white remote with every new machine sold (until recently where they started charging extra for the remote when purchasing a notebook). Up until the release of Sofa Control, the Apple Remote has been limited to controlling Front Row, iTunes, Keynote, and volume control. Sofa Control introduces a whole new way of using your Apple remote to control your Mac.
When you first launch Sofa Control a message will a appear telling you that Sofa Control is enabled and ready to interface with your Apple Remote. Now all you have to do is grab your Apple Remote, sit down on your sofa, and press menu. A nice translucent app launcher will appear immediately. From here you can launch the DVD Player, Front Row, or any other program that interfaces with Sofa Control. To really get a feel of how Sofa Control works, you can hold down Menu until the Global Menu pops up. From here you can set your sound volume, control your Mac using a virtual mouse, and even power down your Mac; all with nothing but your Apple Remote.
Sofa Control is also very customizable. To start, you can change the look of the control panel, add some costume Apple Scripts to your Global Menu, and even pick the main display you would like Sofa Control to run on.
Apart from the awesome in-app functionality, Sofa Control additionally works great with other applications such as Keynote, Preview, iTunes, and Quicktime. You can easily flip through slides in a presentation or play a Quicktime file, all with a click of your Apple Remote. A new cool addition to Sofa Control is the Mouse Light which highlights your mouse with a yellow circle, similar to Mouseposé. This feature is very helpful when giving presentations.
You can grab Sofa Control today from Gravity Apps for only $15.
OSX Leopard is such a compelling and creative platform that many times I find myself sitting at my laptop for hours on end working on a project for a client without realizing the day has passed and I haven’t even had time to get some fresh air outside. Recently, I found an app that changed all of this. Time Out has one main objective - to get you to take timed breaks away from your Mac.
Time Out has two different kinds of breaks, a micro break and a normal break. A micro break is a very small break which allows your eyes to adjust to something other than your display for a few seconds, while a normal break is slightly longer and often a good time to grab a bottle of water or take a quick walk outside.
In the Time Out preferences you can easily customize the time of breaks. During both micro and normal breaks, Time Out fades over your screen with a selected color and indicates the time left in the break with a progress bar. If you have to finish a very important task and Time Out goes into break mode, you can postpone the break by either 1 or 5 minutes. Time Out also gives you the option to skip a break.
Time Out is very customizable. In the preferences you’re able to set many different properties for the timer and appearance of the application. A preference that is often under looked is the ability to run Apple Scripts or Automator workflows at the end or beginning of each break. For example, you could have Coda automatically save and upload a HTML document to your server each time you go on a break.
Time Out is a very useful app to anyone that needs a helpful little reminder to take a step away from their Mac every so often. I’ve found that after taking a break from my Mac, I can come back to a project with some fresh new ideas. I’ve also noticed that I enjoy the time I spend at my Mac even more, because I’m always taking short breaks away from it. Best of all, Time Out is absolutely free and you can download it from Dejal Software.
