There are a few select ways to run Windows on your Mac, one of the more popular methods being virtualization.  Today I will be looking at one of the most popular choices for virtualization on the Mac, Parallels (the alternatives being VM Ware Fusion and the free and open source Virtual Box).  Parallels has been the forerunner mainly because it was the first Mac virtualization software to hit the market.  Since its initial release (it is currently on version 3), Parallels has become more of a reliable, and powerful application. In this review I will be covering some of the more interesting features, and discussing what sort of users would want to use this product in the first place.

Installation Options

Parallels makes it very easy to install the operating system of your choice.  With Windows especially, it cuts out all the nonsense and makes the Windows installation the way it should have been from the beginning.

One of the great features of Parallels is that it works in unison with Apple’s Boot Camp. If you already have an existing Boot Camp partition, you can use Parallels to access it with out having to reboot. It is a very simple process, and the only hinderance is that you have to reactivate Windows.  This usually consist of nothing more than a ten minute phone call to Microsoft support.

There are a lot of options for Parallels users as to how much of their system’s resources that they want to give up to their virtual machine. You can decide the amount of memory you want to give the virtual machine, graphics memory, and lots of other tidbits. At this point it may be good to mention that if you want to run Parallels “well”, then you probably want your Mac to have 2GB of RAM at a minimum; however for optimum performance you will probably want 4GB.

The Experience

Running Windows in Parallels is a very good experience overall.  Programs load at a decent speed, and you can’t really feel that much of a delay. The Windows experience you receive is almost complete, apart from one problem.  It lacks good graphics performance. Sure, you can run games on it, but it is a world away from running a game on a native Windows machine or through Boot Camp.

When running everyday programs such as Office 2003 and FireFox, Parallels performs tremendously.  With one of the features of Parallels that I’ll discuss later, I’ll tell you how to make that experience a little bit better.

If you happen to be running Vista, one thing I suggest you do is immediately turn off Aero.  Even if you have a large amount of memory available to Windows. The trade up of performance is not worth it.  If you choose to run Aero, then you can not guarantee a great day-to-day computing experience. Parallels also features full integration with USB ports so that when you plug a USB device in you are able to access it. The only problem with this is the continual pop-up that appears asking if you want Windows to use it.

Parallels Tools

You can quite easily enjoy Parallels as a standard package, but to unlock some of the more interesting and helpful features you really need to install Parallels Tools (just to be clear, it is free and comes included - it just requires an installation on the Windows side). By installing Parallels Tools, you are able to access Coherence, cut and paste between operating systems, plus a couple of extra features that make working with Parallels easier.

Parallels Tools increases your productivity ten fold, though sometimes you find a couple of glitches where you can see the desktop background of Windows in coherence mode.  I have also noticed that the copy and paste between operating systems doesn’t always work as nicely as people may expect.

Coherence

There are three ways to view your virtual machine in Parallels. Window view, which lets you see the desktop within a window.  Full screen mode where the screen can become one of your Spaces, and finally my favourite: coherence mode (which requires Parallels Tools). In coherence mode you are able to run Windows applications in unison with Mac OS X. They appear as if they are simply a program in a Window running.

Coherence mode allows for a more seamless experience. Knowing that most of the time you will only require one app, not having to divert to a full Windows interface is helpful. An extra touch to this being; when you minimize a Windows program it zooms into the dock just as if it were a native app to Mac OS X.

Snapshots

Parallels has also made allowances for the fact that (in my opinion) Windows tends to fail a lot. This feature is called making a Snapshot. Basically it allows you to take a Windows install and freeze it in time; so if Windows fails on you, you can revert back to a pristine Windows install. Though I haven’t had a chance to test this out under real circumstances, I have done one revert as a test and it worked very well. You might consider making a snapshot as soon as you have everything installed so you have a fully loaded version of Windows when you need to revert.

Parallels Explorer

What if you wanted to get a file from Windows and copy it over to your Mac? Well the problem is that you have to wait for Windows to start, and then for it to load up.  Parallels solves this problem with Parallels Explorer. This app allows you to access files in Windows without having to boot into the OS. I found this very useful when looking for Word documents that I needed.  In that case there was no need to launch Windows.

Conclusions

Parallels is a very strong piece of software.  From what started as an easier way to run Windows on your Mac, it has come a long way.  For me, it’s unique features and very reasonable retail price of $80 puts Parallels above the competition.

I have only scratched the surface of Parallels.  There are loads of more unique features out there ready for you to enjoy. If you have a spare copy of Windows around I suggest you at least give the trial a go.

Ok, so maybe that title is a little bit of an exaggeration.  However, there’s no doubt in my mind that when iPhone 2.0 software comes out in July, the iPhone / iPod touch combo will be become a viable computing platform when the collective minds of developers get moving.

With that in mind, here are some applications that I would purchase or start using the instant they become available.

WiFi scanner

I really do use my iPod touch as a portable computer, either on my university campus or while on vacation. Throughout my journeys, I’ve been ecstatic to find open WiFi networks available to hop on and do a quick Google search. If you’ve ever used the iPhone or iPod touch (let’s make this easier and assume that iPhone also means iPod touch) as a network scanner, you’ll know it’s not exactly optimized. A dedicated scanner application would make searching for networks much easier and convenient.  It would also save you money because you wouldn’t need a dedicated pocket scanner.

Unit converter

This application could simply be a port of the Dashboard widget. The widget does a great job with converting many popular units.  Having it on a portable device would be invaluable while traveling in a foreign country.

Native Wordpress app

If you watched Steve Jobs unveil the iPhone 2.0 software at WWDC, you’ll remember the demo of Movable Type’s application to blog without opening a browser. Why shouldn’t WP get some of this love? A local application that you could blog on the go with, and even insert iPhone camera snaps would be great. It doesn’t need to have all the admin features of the current panel, just a simple Write/Delete/Comment panel would suffice.

Instant Messaging client

I don’t think it will take a lot of time before one of these pops up. The guys at Adium have already written a blog post about porting Adium to the iPhone, and many of their previous concerns were resolved with the release of the official SDK. Hopefully the ‘app with the duck’ makes its way to the iPhone and I get better at typing with the on screen keyboard.

File browser

iPhones have a minimum of 8 GB flash storage, and the only way to access it directly is to jailbreak your phone. To get around that, I’ve had to email a file to myself, then view it within Mail. Clearly there is a more elegant way of storing files on the phone, and a simple browser could be the best. A network browser would just make me use the application that much quicker.

Keychain storage

Having recently returned from a vacation with my iPod, I can say that an application to store passwords would be fantastic. I don’t even need Safari integration, just something that can securely store passwords so that I can use them on websites from a separate computer. Being able to sync with my Mac would be great, too.  Wallet for the iPhone?

Final Thoughts

So these are just some applications that I hope come out quickly when iPhone 2.0 goes live in July.  What do you think? I hope the SDK and development environment fosters innovation, and that many interesting applications are released right out of the gate.

Update: The App Store now appears to be up and running.
App Store - Link

For awhile now Apple has been trying to go green. They have started making more of their computers aluminum, so that they can be more easily recycled.  If the rumors are correct, then the up and coming Macbook will be all aluminum, adding to the already aluminum Macbook Air and Macbook Pro.

Chemicals

The iPhone is known to contain a few harmful chemicals. Greenpeace has been after Apple to get the chemicals out of the iPhone for our own safety. Brominated compounds make up 10% of the weight of the circuit board, which when burned can create dioxin.  Also found were chlorine and toxic phthalate. The toxic phthalate can interfere with sexual development in mammals. It is a banned chemical in most of Europe, although not in America. The headphones are covered with the hazardous chemical. Hopefully, Apple has taken care of this problem when addressing manufacturing of the iPhone 3G.

Of course, the iPhone is not alone when it comes to harmful chemicals.  However, Apple has made it apparent that they are aware of these issues.  In June of last year, Apple moved its 15″ Macbook Pro to LED back lit screens in an effort to eliminate the use of Mercury.

Patents

Macrumors constantly has information about Apple patenting new technologies which promise to make Apple more environmentally friendly. Two examples of such patents are the latest of Apple putting solar cells on their products, or having a chip that can convert heat from a device into electricity.

Steve Jobs has written a list of problems he is going to try to fix. At the moment I don’t think much about the chemicals in any device. I know that there are chemicals all around me and I have grown used to it.  I would however be more comfortable if I knew there was nothing to worry about.

Recycling

Many of Apple’s products are made of aluminum.  Aluminum, along with polycarbonate and glass (used for Macbook enclosures and iMac display covers) are valued for their highly recyclable qualities.  Using these materials helps to encourage recycling, thus minimizing waste.  As you can see, Apple is trying to be as environmentally friendly as possible.  Or maybe Jonathan Ive likes aluminum…just kidding :)

Do you recycle your old computers?  Why? Why not?

Back in 2004, Realmac software released the first version of its popular RapidWeaver web development software.  Since its initial release, it has won many awards from Mac publications all around the globe, and still continues onward with that trend.  Just a couple months ago RapidWeaver 4 hit the streets, and is already changing the way consumers create websites.  From its more professional iWeb-like templates to its ease of creating pages, RapidWeaver 4 is sure to be an instant hit for people who want a simple way to create professional looking websites.

Make a Site.

It couldn’t be any easier. You simply click file > new project, and a new project will form. Once you complete that, whenever you want to add another page, you simply click the button in the top left hand corner.  It will ask you what kind of page you want - From Blog and Photo pages, to Blank and Contact pages as well. Simple as that. You can now choose from the abundance of themes that RapidWeaver has to offer, or you can download more themes form the Realmac website. Editing your site is also very easy and straightforward. You simply hit the edit button to edit the photos and text on the current page, and if you want to see a preview of your site, just click preview to see a version of your site as it were already online.

Publish a site.

To publish your website you created with RapidWeaver, you press the publish button.  From there you are presented with two methods of publishing. You can ether publish using your own domain name, or using your MobileMe account (previously dot Mac). You then fill out the form, and click publish.  Within a few minutes you have a professional looking website.

Features.

You can adjust almost anything you want about your website, whether it be the font, or coloring a section of a theme.  It’s all at your fingertips. Navigating through RapidWeaver is a breeze. It’s so simple, straightforward, and professional. The buttons are laid out perfectly, and the menus are super easy to use and customize.

Overall.

I love RapidWeaver 4. It’s so simple to use, and it gives me better results than iWeb ever will. With RapidWeaver 4, you can finally make sites with ease, and have them looking as if they were designed by a professional graphic artist. I would definitely recommend giving RapidWeaver a try, and seeing just how well your website comes out. You can try RapidWeaver for free for up to 30 days. My only gripe is that RapidWeaver 4 can only be used on a Mac running OSX 10.5 Leopard. RapidWeaver 4 retails for $79, but can be found on Realmac’s website for $59 for a limited time.

Happy Weaving!

Let’s say you want to start fresh. Perhaps a clean-installation of OS X, or a good cleaning (and CRON jobs) of OS X’s underlying BSD sub-system. Well, here’s a list of around 15 (mostly) freeware applications that are useful to have on your system. I have also included alternatives, just in case you have something against a certain application.

Adium (free)(more info)(download)

Adium is the most popular IM application for Mac OS X currently available. It’s open source, has a large, helpful community base and support for multiple networks (and is also multilingual). It’s available as a free download.

The Alternative: iChat (free)(more info)
Already on your Mac, iChat allows text, voice and video chat over multiple networks, including AIM, Jabber Open Servers, .Mac and Google Talk. Voice and video quality are fantastic, but your connection may come in as a factor.

Caffeine (free)(more info)(download)

Don’t you hate when your watching a movie and the auto-dimming feature kicks in. Of course you can turn it off from the System Preferences, but what if you only want to disable it while watching the movie? That’s when Caffeine is useful. Caffeine is a tiny little application that sits in your menu bar, ready for you to enable it in these sort of situations. In the recent update, you can now specify how long you want Caffeine to be active, or use the classic method of activating and deactivating Caffeine manually.

The Alternative: N/A.

Firefox (free)(more info)(download)

Now before anyone argues about this, I’d like to bring up the point that Firefox 3 for Mac is a lot more stable than the previous Firefox 2.0.12 and fixes a lot of bugs and specifically memory leaks which had held the browser back. It is now classified faster than Safari at rendering pages (and boot up time, but I still think Safari is faster) and the latest version brings a Mac theme to Firefox, looking much better than 2.0 series.

The Alternative: Safari (free)(more info)
Safari is Apple’s WebKit-based browser that comes installed on every Mac. Safari is fast, easy to use and has a beautiful interface that says ‘look at me, I’m designed by Apple!’. Both browsers are good, but in the end it comes down to what you find better to use.

Colloquy (free)(more info)(download)

If your going to want to use IRC on your Mac, your going to need a good, stable IRC client. One top pick is Colloquy. It is hugely popular, has a large community base to help out with problems and is pretty straight forward and easy to use. IRC classically is based on command-line windows and a whole list of commands. Colloquy simplifies chat on IRC, much the same as mIRC does on Windows.

The Alternative: XIRC (US$24.00)(more info)(download)
XIRC is a fully-featured IRC client for Mac OS X. It has been around since OS X 10.2 hit the scene and has grown in popularity over the past few years. It does cost $24.00, so I’d get Colloquy unless you can justify the cost of purchasing it.

Growl (free)(more info)(download)

If I was currently reinstalling Leopard (or previous versions of Mac OS X) on my Mac this would be one of the first apps I would install. Growl is an alert application that other applications use to alert you to certain things. For example; in Firefox, if your queued downloads finish downloading, Growl will pop up with a message stating ‘Downloads Completed’. Quiet simple really, but the application is absolutely essential in my point of view.

The Alternative: N/A.

Hazel (US$21.95)(more info)(download)

Ok, this isn’t freeware but it is one application that you will find on most ‘mac essential applications lists’. Hazel is a system utility that has multiple uses. One of the main uses for the application is folder actions, or rules. For example; you have your Downloads folder, unorganized, in short - a mess. Basically, you install Hazel and configure rules for that folder, based on all sorts of variables (i.e. file types, date modified… etc…). Hazel then automatically sorts the files based on your rules and makes the folder nice and clean. Hazel also has another handy function where, when you delete and application, it will find it’s support files and ask you whether you want to delete them as well, basically eliminating the need to have additional applications like AppZapper or AppClean installed. In brief, handy.

The Alternative:Folder Actions (free)(tutorial)
Folder Actions are scripts that are already built into Mac OS X. Not near as powerful as Hazel, plus scripting knowledge is also required.

VisualHub (US$23.32)(more info)(download)

Another piece of software you have to pay for, but believe me, it’s worth it. VisualHub is a piece of software that can convert (almost) any sort of video (or audio) file you throw at it, into existing presets (Apple TV, iPhone, iPod Touch, PSP… etc…) or user-defined settings. You can also set what quality you want the output video to be, and if you want to compress it to a smaller size.

The Alternative:ffMPEGX (free)(more info)(download)
ffMPEG is a free alternative to VisualHub. In contrast, they pretty much have all the same features, except that VisualHub has a nicer interface. So it comes down to one decision really; would you rather have a nice interface and pay US$23.32 or would you rather have a rough but usable interface and have all the same features for free. Your decision.

Transmit (US$29.95)(more info)(download)

Yet another piece of software you have to pay for. The extremely popular Transmit, from Panic is currently the most popular FTP client available for the Mac. It has an easy-to-use interface, FTP droplets and bookmarks plus support for SFTP, WebDAV and Apple’s .Mac storage solution, iDisk. The interface is clean and unobtrusive, just like every other piece of software produced by Panic.

The Alternative:Cyberduck (free)(more info)(download)
If you have been looking around the Internet for Mac FTP clients you probably would of stumbled upon Cyberduck at some stage. Cyberduck is an open-source FTP client for the Mac that is (usually) buggy and freezes a lot. It has a rough interface but it gets the job done, and most of all it’s free, compared to Panic’s US$29.95 Transmit. It has also just been updated to version 3.0.

VLC (free)(more info)(download)

Have a video/audio file that won’t open in other applications? Try opening it in VLC. VLC is commonly referred to as the ’swiss army knife media player’, in other words ‘if it doesn’t open in VLC, it won’t open in anything’ (unless you fiddle around with codecs and scripts). VLC is a relatively big download, but it is open-source, updated actively and has a huge support base. Plus it’s free!

The Alternative: QuickTime (free)(more info)
If you don’t want to install VLC, consider using QuickTime with Perian installed (see below).

Perian (free)(more info)(download)

Everyone knows QuickTime only opens certain files (mostly Apple formats). Perian is the swiss army knife (as it’s logo suggests) of QuickTime codec support. With Perian installed, QuickTime will open almost every video/audio file you throw at it. Preferences can be set in it’s control panel, located in System Preferences to uninstall or update Perian, or to configure sound output and subtitles.

The Alternative: N/A

HandBrake (free)(more info)(download)

This has to be one of the best (and free) applications for the Mac available. HandBrake is an acclaimed DVD to Digital Format converter that does what it is meant to do, convert raw DVD video files to a specified format of your choice. It has loads of presets, for example; best quality (cleverly named ‘bedlam’), fast converting (’blind’) or a device preset like a PSP, iPod or an Apple TV. Conversion is fast and the final quality (depending on your settings) is basically the same as the initial DVD.

The Alternative: MacTheRipper (free)(more info)(download)
MacTheRipper is a popular, freeware DVD ripper that can decrypt copy protection on DVD’s.

Transmission (free)(more info)(download)

Transmission is an open-source, cross platform BitTorrent client that is open-source, free and updated regularly. It uses a low amount of system memory, has a nice interface that integrates well with Leopard and also has scheduling abilities allowing you to use your peak and off-peak usages wisely. It features a web interface named ‘Clutch’ and has a large support base surrounding it.

The Alternative: Tomato Torrent (free)(more info)(download)
Tomato Torrent is a freeware, open-source BitTorrent client that is Leopard compatible, fast, easy to use and memory efficient. It is built on BitTorrent 4.2 and supports AppleScript scripting.

Twitterrific (US$14.95)(more info)(download)

This is an absolute essential if you are a Twitter user. Twitterrific is the most popular Twitter client by a long margin on the Mac. It uses a simple HUD interface which can be activated by either clicking on the ‘twitter bird’ icon in your menu bar or by pressing the keystroke Cmd+Shift+T (can be modified). The interface on the application is beautiful, simplistic and easy to use with a timeline field, showing all the recent tweets by your friends plus direct messages (and the tweets you post) and a message box below it. This application is available in a free, ad-supported version or a full version priced at US$14.95.

The Alternative: Spaz (free)(more info)(download)
Spaz is a good alternative to Twitteriffic. It supports multiple platforms as it is built on the relatively new Adobe AIR web application framework. This also means it’s fast, has a stylish interface and is as easy to use as Twitteriffic. Most of all it’s free.

Final Thoughts.

As you can see by reading the article, I haven’t included any ‘industrial-grade applications’ like Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator or Apple’s Aperture/Final Cut Pro as they’re not really applications that should be installed on every system (although Photoshop is now commonly found on many systems). Of course, I’m open to discussion so feel free to suggest any applications I missed or your views on some of the applications I suggested.

Ever wanted to know which applications or websites you spend the most time on? Well, look no further. This handy service can help solve your problems.

Rescue Time (for Windows and Mac), is one of the simplest, easy to use, online services, helping you see what your biggest time suckers are on your computer. You first have to download the free software, which runs as an application; basically monitoring your every click.

Analyze.

Once you have logged onto their site, you can then get access too all the data it has collected, laying it out in simple to read bar graphs.  This allows you to see the apps/sites you are using the most and also, how much time you’re actually spending on your computer.

Process.

You then have the ability to go back throughout the day and see exactly when you were on your computer and what you were doing. There are also charts for the day, week, month and year to help you look back at those productive and unproductive days, weeks and months. Tying into that, there is a tab labeled goals and alerts where you can set up reminders to yourself for general things in life, or to remind yourself of the apps or sites you are using a little too much.

One feature which I find extremely useful is that you have the ability to tag multiple apps or sites. So let’s say, you tag Textmate and Mars Edit (two wonderful text editors) with the tag “Blogging.” And then you put Safari and Mail under a tag called “Personal.” This is a great way to see how much time during the day which you spend on work versus play.

Implement.

Personally, I check Rescue Time once every 2 days, taking points of the things that consume the most time for me. I then gradually try and cut back at least 20 minutes a week, on these time consuming apps/sites. While this service might not be for everyone, I do encourage heavy computer users to take a look at it. Productivity and simplicity are two key traits in living a happy life.

Best of all, this is available as a free service for individual use.  Signup can be found here

Technology moves at a very fast pace. Products are continually updated with new features, and the prices keep dropping as cheaper manufacturing methods become a reality. However, purchasing a new product doesn’t always mean ditching the older one.

In my case, the updated product is the Airport Extreme Base Station with gigabit ethernet. I have used a D-Link wired router in conjunction with an Airport Express base station ever since I got into the wireless networking game, and when Apple came out with the new wireless N router, I knew it was time to upgrade. That got me thinking about what I could do with my older wireless G based Airport Express. As soon as I got my iPod touch, its fate was sealed: both routers would share my network to all areas of my house (I decided to ignore the Wireless N feature of the Extreme so that my iPod could join). But how?

After looking around for a while, I have the solution, and present that here so that others may benefit.

Set up the main base station

You may have heard of WDS before, probably in the fine print of an instruction manual. WDS — or wireless distribution system — allows multiple access points to share the same network and internet connection over a much wider area when compared to single systems. This tactic is often used on university campuses for complete property coverage. It has been a feature of every Airport Extreme model since they first came on the market, and it can only be used with other Airport routers.

To set up the main base station, you likely only need to make one change to your current setup. With Airport Utility (Applications/Utilities) open to the Wireless tab, you will see the box Allow this network to be extended, which needs to be checked. Once you save the settings and restart the router, you will see a new tab called WDS. That’s it for the main station, now you can set up the remote access point.

Set up the remote station

With my particular setup, I’m using an Airport Extreme and Airport Express, but any combination of Airport stations are acceptable, as long as they are using the same frequency (A, B, G, N, etc).

The easiest method for configuring this remote station is to reset it to factory defaults. For instructions about your particular model, have a look at Apple’s instructions for the Extreme, with links to the other stations. Most require you to simply hold the reset button while the station is plugged in.

With the base station reset to factory defaults, you will notice a new wireless network called Apple Network xxxxx. This is the remote station, and you will need to join this network before configuring the router.

Open the Airport Utility while on this network, and you will be able to use the Setup Assistant to do the dirty work, which I have found to be much more efficient than doing it manually.

The rest of the setup can be accomplished by following the assistant and inputting the correct options. The screens appear as follows:

• 1. Base Station details
• 2. Wireless network condidtions - choose I have a wireless network and want to add another base station
• 3. I want this router to wirelessly join my current network
• 4. Extend the range of my Airport Extreme network
• 5. Choose your original network from the dropdown menu
• 6. Automatically find the original base station’s address

When the Assistant has completed the setup and restarted the routers, you should see both base stations inside 1 Airport Utility window — much like the photo above. Both routers will show Participate in a WDS network in the Wireless panel.

There you go. Now you can hang on to that early base station and create a network that covers more area than either could do on their own.

As the Web 2.0 trend continues to grow by leaps and bounds and websites become more complex, monitoring servers and websites has become a necessary task for webmasters and site owners alike.  I recently stumbled upon an app that handled this task with ease, all the while doing so in a simplistic yet intuitive environment.  Dejal Simon is aimed at making website and server monitoring as simple as possible, while providing you with all of the features and tools that you would come to expect.

At the heart of Simon is the monitor window.  From here, you can see the current status of all of your monitored servers, websites, and applications.  Included in this window is the “test table” which shows valuable information such as how long ago the last change or failure occurred, and when the next check will occur.  If you don’t feel like taking the time to read all of the statistics, Simon has that covered.  Also included in the monitor window is a graphical layout of the tests.

One feature in particular that I found very useful was Simon’s “Smart Change Detection”.  With this extremely customizable tool, you can narrow down the sections of your website that you want monitored for changes.  A huge benefit of this is that you will no longer get false positives from banners, ads, etc. It even works for port tests, allowing it to detect when the number of messages in your mailbox changes.

So Simon detects changes, failures, and recoveries.  What about when you’re out of the house?  You’re a busy person, but you need to know when these things happen.  Worry not; Simon has a handful of notifiers to get you the info you need when you need it.

A quality that I look for in any application is good use of screen space.  Simon has truly impressed me in its usability from both the dock and menu bar.  Its status menu allows you to quickly access global functions, all tests including their status icons, and sub-menus of quick-access operations all from the comfort of your menu bar.

Simon is a very useful tool for anyone who needs to monitor a handful of servers or websites. After using it for a while, I’ve noticed that I am more relaxed knowing that I will be notified at the first sign of anything gone wrong.  Not only does Simon monitor your servers and sites, it puts your mind at ease and lets you enjoy the more important things in life.  Simon says so.

Simon is available at Dejal.com with pricing starting at $29.95 for a basic license.

Inspiration comes in various sizes and forms, it can come from different sources, such as books, magazines, TV shows, and in this case, beautiful offices.

Here are ten inspirational office set-ups we’ve collected together for your viewing pleasure. Including offices which featured beautiful lighting, stunning desks, elegant simplicity, and high-tech gadgets and gizmos - we trust you won’t leave this page uninspired. On with the setups.

Please take a moment and take a good look at CoverSutra and Cover Stream, two full-blown, all-out iTunes controllers.

CoverSutra 2.1.2: Integrates a customizable album artwork display, a floating control window, a pop-up notification system for song/album changes, and a spotlight-esque search bar into one application.

Cover Stream 2.0: A CoverFlow browsing window makes it easy to find what you want to listen to. Has a quick search feature, a resizable album art display, and a notification pop-up for song changes.

You Can’t Judge an App by It’s Cover

On an initial superficial glance, these two iTunes controllers may look like long lost brothers, seperated at coding:

They both use HUDs¹, they both display album artwork on your desktop… even the preferences icons have similarities if you look close enough.

There’s a good explanation for this: CoverSutra and Cover Stream were primarily designed by the same person: Laurent Baumann, an undeniably talented graphic designer from France.

There’s a good story to this, really there is. Something we don’t often hear in Mac software articles is the story. How was this software created? Everything has a story. It’s only on rare occasions that someone asks just what it us.

The characters in this story are Cover Stream developer Fabian Kowalski and CoverSutra developer Sophia Teutschler, as well as Laurent Baumann. I contacted each of them for their insights, and, of course, for their story.

(In fact, my contact with Laurent inspired his personal blog post on this subject, which is very similar to what he corresponded to me. I will link to it later².)

An iTunes Controller Story

Back in the year 2004, long before either CoverSutra or Cover Stream existed in the flesh, Laurent Baumann was using the iTunes controller X-Tunes, which he was “a huge fan of”. “It was the first application to sport a ‘floater’³ with controls”, he remembers, “I had to remember a single hot-key to be able to be able to control every playback aspect.”

In 2005 Laurent started releasing icon sets and gained credibility in the design community. He says: “I felt the need to mockup ‘my dream controller’ (which I called AIR, standing for An iTunes Remote).”

Laurent describes himself as “a music lover and a big fan of artworks” so his dream application naturally “sported a black translucent controller, and the artwork of the song.”

“In October 2006”, he continues, “I took part in the beta testing of a new application called Coversutra. Unfortunately, Sophia [the developer] told us after two betas that she was dropping the development (mainly due to the arrival of iTunes 7, which intensively used artworks through CoverFlow and the new group list view)”.

Laurent pownced on the occasion to have someone actually develop his dream application, the one he had in his head from the get-go, and contacted Sophia with an updated mockup.

Apparently, she was impressed. In the coming months Laurent worked with Sophia until they released CoverSutra 1.0. “We kept working together, and while I was using it extensively, I really felt the need to be able to browse, or at least search for songs”, he says. So Laurent created a mockup that would eventually be lead to CoverSutra’s current search functionality.

In October of 2007, Laurent decided to quit working on CoverSutra. “I decided to quit working on CoverSutra because of unfortunate troubles me and Sophia were having”, he explains. “I couldn’t bear to use the application anymore, so I decided to sample other controllers. I installed and activated Synergy once more, the best alternative, in conjunction with SimpleScrobbler.”

Two months later, Laurent discovered Cover Stream 1.0. He enthusiastically describes his find this way, “It was like: Oh my goodness! Someone actually found a great solution to integrate my dream browser in a floater!”

According to Fabian Kowalski, Cover Stream started out as a personal project. And in his case necessity was the mother of invention. “It’s true there are a hundred different iTunes controllers out there”, he admits. “They all let you play, pause and skip music, some even let you search your music library for a particular song. The problem I had with all of them was that none of these controllers could be used to browse my music library, just search it.”

For this reason, Fabian found himself constantly listening to the same music over and over again, because it was the only music he could think to search for. “What I wanted wasn’t just a controller, but a controller and a search tool combined with a full-fledged browser, something that could replace iTunes altogether.”

He continues, “I always loved the original Cover Flow application by SteelSkies, but wasn’t very happy with the way Apple implemented it in iTunes.” Fabian describes Cover Flow in iTunes as ‘jerky’ and ‘sluggish’ and, for that reason, he says, he never really used it. “So I went looking for a way to extend Cover Flow to the desktop, and eventually came up with a working solution. I thought it was pretty cool and decided to make it public.”

Fabian is clearly still surprised with the response he received from the release Cover Stream 1.0. “The response I got was really quite overwhelming, despite the app’s rather simple user interface. I’m no graphic designer for sure, and didn’t even try to be when cobbling together the GUI over a cup of coffee.”

“Quite frankly”, he says, “all I wanted with the first release was to demonstrate the possibilities.”

Apparently, he did. After all, it caught Laurent Baumann’s eye.

Laurent realizes that Cover Stream 1.0 was not perfect: “Unfortunately, the application was lacking certain features, like desktop artwork, last.FM support, etc.” Nonetheless, Laurent kept an eye on Cover Stream. And finally, with the release of version 1.4 he decided to step in and offer Fabian a partnership.

“[Laurent] was still keen to finish what he started: making the best looking iTunes controller out there”, Fabian notes. “He had some really great ideas and so we decided to work together. We spent a month or two rethinking and redesigning my original project, exchanging ideas, me coding and he doing the graphics, and there you go: Cover Stream 2.0.”

The Difference

Now that we know the story, I’ll ask: What’s the real difference between these applications?

For one, the developer’s philosophies.

CoverSutra’s user interface looks great. There’s no doubt about that. It’s a wonderfully designed piece of software. One nifty thing it does is allow you change the look of your desktop album artwork to look like a Vinyl, a CD case, and a Jewel Case.

But how Fabian and Laurent approached this shows another philosophy. Laurent says, “We wanted to stick with ‘What Would Steve Jobs Do’ (WWSJD - an internal joke now).  For example, Apple doesn’t use Jewel-cases; in iTunes, Front Row or Apple TV, not even in the iTunes Store! I honestly thought, if Apple would have created an iTunes Controller, they would have used Cover Flow for browsing (Fabian also implemented an awesome search-as-you-type filter) and a Front-Row-like desktop artwork.”

“…We really want to stick with the Apple philosophy and style”, Laurent says, “this is what differentiates Cover Stream from CoverSutra”.

When asked what the main differences are between Cover Stream and CoverSutra, Sophia Teutschler, CoverSutra’s developer, added: “[Cover Stream] might be good for people who don’t want to see iTunes at all, where CoverSutra is an extension to iTunes by offering several aid ins that iTunes is lacking.”

I think that’s it in a nutshell.

Fabian Kowalski finally adds, “What I find most satisfactory about this release [Cover Stream 2.0] is that it is just the app I originally wanted. As a developer you usually make the app someone else wants. But this one I just did for me, and I guess that is what ultimately makes it appealing to others as well. It’s made with love, and I think it shows.”

Laurent Baumann has his final words too: “I definitely see Cover Stream as the genuine child of [the original] CoverFlow”, he says, “and I’m happy to have finally found and participate in, the development of my dream controller…”

Nicely put, Laurent.

Both CoverSutra 2.1.2 and Cover Stream 2.0 are €14.95 (roughly $23). You can get CoverSutra at Sophiestication and Cover Stream at its dedicated webpage.

Footnotes:

¹ A HUD (or heads-up-display) is simply a floating back translucent window often seen in Mac applications (e.g. iPhoto’s Image Correction panel)

² Laurent Baumann’s (strikingly-similar-to-what-he-corresponded-to-me) blog post: http://lbaumann.com/index.php?id=483050c1cc951

³ A ‘floater’ is a window or control that is there when you need it rather than being a normal application window, at least I think it is…

Many of us have to wake up far earlier than we would like, and Embraceware’s Awaken lets us do it in style. The interface is very polished, with interface transparency and iTunes-like buttons. The dock icon is a very cute aqua-ised alarm clock complete with bells on top. A large digital display (with the date underneath) reminds you of the time in a not-so-subtle way. A drawer below shows all the alarms you have set up at a glance. Of course, the main feature is that you can choose an alarm from your itunes music.

A Plethora of Options

With Awaken your experience can be customized endlessly. If you like your sleep and want to drift gradually into reality, set the awaken to fade in system volume gradually with the screen brightness after waking from sleep, playing a calming playlist in iTunes. If nothing short of bedlam in your bedroom will wake you up, set the system volume and iTunes volume to the max in preferences; then place your (laptop) Mac on the other side of the room and use your Apple remote to control it. If for some reason iTunes crashes or the music is unavailable, a selection of several short, but still jarring sounds get you out of bed-choose from ‘cuckoo clock’, ’sci-fi alarm’, or ‘buzzer (loud)’ among others.

Power Features

If you are too lazy (or busy) to open your RSS reader, email, or browser when you wake up, Awaken will do it for you. If you’re working on an important article or other file, these can be opened too. You can set a handy reminder note to show when the alarm starts (e.g. sync iPod, make hazelnut-with-an-extra-shot-cappuccino). If you find that music isn’t really right for you, add any custom sounds you like through a preference pane or choose from your podcasts instead. For a hidden-away look, Awaken can open at login as a menubar app, and alarms can trigger through this.

While I actually got my copy of Awaken as part of the MacHeist 2 bundle, the asking price of $12.95 isn’t bad, and you can take advantage of a fully-functional 2 week trial if you don’t feel like shelling out that much for an alarm clock.

Picturesque 2.0 is the latest application from Acqualia. This follow up version to their Apple Design Award winning application packs a handful of new features, and truly is a bloggers best friend.

Picturesque 2.0 features a redesigned single-window interface, tools for cropping, presets, and the 3D perspective effect. Using an animated “drag and drop”-style interface, Picturesque adds effects, such as 3D perspective, reflection, glow, shadow, curve, and stroke. You can also beautify images in batch, and with the ability to resize and apply effects on a whole folder of images, Picturesque is an an easy way to make sophisticated thumbnails and refined full sized images

Acqualia is an Australian based company, comprised of Zac Cohan and Nik Youdale. Founded in 2004, the company has created some very intuitive applications that have proven just as useful as they are attractive.

The Winners:

Tom Baker
Jordan Green
Steve Embleton
Jesse Dodds
Henrik Christiansen

Our sincere thanks to the 90 people who entered the competition. To the winners, your registration details for Picturesque will be on the way shortly.

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.

By now most people are aware of what multi-touch is. The uber-popular iPhone has put multi-touch in the everyday consumer market. With different companies vying for their share of the lucrative technology, it becomes more and more pertinent in every day life.

I’m sure most of Desktop Vibes readers will remember the popular video on youtube, where Jeff Han demonstrated the early prototypes of his multi-touch concept. The video is still incredibly impressive, regardless of its age, and Jeff hasn’t stopped there. He now runs Perceptive Pixel, which focuses on his multi-touch software. Seriously, check it out. You’ll be amazed.

Mainstream Use

This is all great but how will it affect the future? I don’t think I need to outline the incredible uses for multi-touch units, but this could make for some major advancements in a plethora of different fields. Most recently: CNN used Jeff Han’s multi-touch technology to explain the elections. The already popular concept has now reached prime time TV. There’s no denying this is the future.

I would be amiss if I didn’t mention the cow-sized Microsoft Surface. This obviously puts Microsoft in the bid for dominating the competition, but it won’t be easy. Simply put, the device is too big, too expensive and will only make it into the hands of mainstream businesses with a lot of cash to drop on new technology. This leaves the consumer market hanging.

Apple’s Part

Apple arguably sparked and controls the multi-touch market with the launch of the iPhone. On release, Apple set off a chain reaction of bad imitators and crappy phones. By using the already successful OS X and a revolutionary phone, Apple set foot into something that even they might not have realized.

To be honest, I think Apple is fully aware of what they have on their hands…the key to putting multi-touch devices into the hands of the every day consumer. They’ve already made the first steps with the iPhone and iPod touch, along with the multi-touch trackpads on its laptop line. With how polished and capable the Leopard operating system is, Apple has an incredible foundation for a multi-touch computer.

The Future

Apple has a choice to make: how to go about changing the way computers are used. The tried and true method of mouse and keyboard is accepted worldwide, and there will be plenty who will oppose multi-touch. But why let go of something so tactile? To put it plainly, I’m game.

Imagine what a university could accomplish with Xserve and multi-touch capable Macs. Graphs in math could be drawn and manipulated by hand, atoms could be observed in labs, medical students could play with virtual body parts, all done on multi-touch displays. I could continue for hours; the possibilities really are endless. Not to mention, Apple already has its foot in the door with many universities. Don’t get me started on what it could do for the entertainment industry.

However, what I truly want to see is a multi-touch Mac. While the idea is still in the distant future, I can see it been an incredible possibility. For anyone who has used a Mac and/or iPhone, you know why the idea of combining them is exciting indeed.

Since Leopard’s launch last October, one new feature that I’ve found myself using on a regular basis is Spaces. Spaces, otherwise known as virtual desktops among other platforms allows you to group your applications and be rid of annoying desktop clutter. In addition, Spaces can prove immensely useful in providing priceless screen space. While Spaces is a great resource on its own, I’ve found that the methods in which it is used (especially on a laptop) can occasionally slow down my workflow.

Kent Sutherland (ksuther.com developer) has recently released his latest version of an add-on for leopard called Warp. Warp is aimed at eliminating that slow down and making Spaces all the more productive and efficient. When installed, Warp adds a preference pane to the system preferences menu which allows you to navigate through Spaces using your mouse.

So, how does Warp work?  Warp is activated by simply moving your cursor to the edge of the screen.  In doing so, you will move to the space adjacent to that edge. To avoid accidentally changing spaces, there are optional modifiers and the ability to change the activation delay.  I find this much easier than reaching for that key combination.

Kent has incorporated many options into Warp’s preference pane, allowing you to customize it in a way that suits you best. This is where the added functionality comes into play. He has left no base uncovered, providing options such as warping the mouse when switching spaces, and warping on edges with the menu bar/dock. However, the features that I feel really make this add-on shine are clicking the screen edge to warp (providing a preview of what is in the adjacent space), and Wrap around spaces, which allows you to move to the opposite side of the spaces grid in the same row or column (very useful for grids larger than 2×2).

To put it simply, Warp adds a new level of functionality to Spaces. While Spaces was a big change to get used to and incorporate into daily tasks, Warp adds a new sense of usability and makes it even more worthwhile. Don’t let its simplicity fool you, it hasn’t only increased my productivity, but changed the way I work all over again. If you find yourself looking down at the keyboard every time you want to change spaces, give Warp a try. Changing spaces can be as easy as a flick of the wrist.

According to Wikipedia, freeware software is defined as:

…computer software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee.

This idea came to my head while I was sitting at my MacBook and peeking at the icons stealing the precious space in my dock. There were the usual suspects including Microsoft Office, iMovie, iPhoto, etc, but sitting right next to them were icons for Adium, Transmission and Skype. These applications are available free of charge and do not come with a trial period, and are also uncrippled whether you choose to pitch in a few bucks or not.

Why are there so many great applications available on OSX for free? When friends asked me how to convert movies for their iPods, I quickly suggested Handbrake for DVDs and iSquint for regular videos files. Once they said they used Windows computers, I had to stop and think for a minute. Whenever I’ve tried to run a special operation in Windows, it seemed like it required an application that cost money. On the other hand, I can often find a similar applications on OSX for free.

What is it about OSX that makes people work hard on applications, then give them away for free? In many cases, freeware is more capable and more intuitive than the regular applications. Especially with the open-source movement, there is something cool in drawing skill and creativity from the entire community. I may not have a definitive answer to why, but I do hope that the free software community never dies.

In-case you’re wondering, here’s some of the free applications I use regularly (from top left to right):

• Butler — Application launcher
• Transmission — Bit Torrent client
• iSquint — iPod video converter
• Handbrake — DVD to iPod video converter
• Adium — Instant messaging client
• ffmpegX — convert any media to anything else
• Parsley is Atomically Delicious — properly tag iTunes media
• Chicken of the VNC — VNC viewer

Zac Cohan, Mac software developer residing in Australia is one of the two developers of Acqualia Software, the makers of World of Where, Soulver, and most recently - version 2.0 of Picturesque, an application used for preparing images for the web. Or as I know it, an application I couldn’t blog without.

Picturesque 2.0 features a redesigned single-window interface, tools for cropping, presets, and the 3D perspective effect. Using an animated “drag and drop”-style interface, Picturesque adds effects, such as 3D perspective, reflection, glow, shadow, curve, and stroke. You can also beautify images in batch, and with the ability to resize and apply effects on a whole folder of images, Picturesque is an an easy way to make sophisticated thumbnails and refined full sized images.

It has been a major part of my blogging toolset for the past year, once you start utilizing some of the fun, time saving features, working with images will never be the same again.

Competition: Five Copies To Giveaway

We have five copies of Picturesque to give away to five individual readers. Simply leave a brief comment below and we’ll draw five comments by random on the 18th of May. Oh, and while on the topic of RSS, why not subscribe to our feed for easy access to fresh content.

Dion Tavenier’s Office: Consisting Of

Mac Pro 3GHz // 8GB RAM // 4x 750GB/32MB // X1900 XT // Blu-Ray // 30″ ACD // Airport Extreme // iPhone 8GB // Pacemaker // Logitech Z-5500 Sound System // Phillips Living Colour // Wacom Tablet //

// Samsung 40″ Full HD TV // Xbox 360 Elite // Playstation 3 //

About The Workspace

I’m using my Mac Pro most for (web)design. I’m currently a starter and do this next to my job as assistant shop manager at a local Apple-retailer. I also use the machine for encoding HD-movies for personal use on the 360 or PS3, not professionally, just for my own collection. The desk is the Galant-series from IKEA.

The gaming corner isn’t used that much for gaming. I mostly use it for streaming my music and movies. I’m really a Full HD-fan. Once you go 1080p..

Tonium’s Pacemaker is a new gadget we also sell in our shop. I haven’t spend much time with the Pacemaker yet, but I can already tell that once you’ve used this device you’ll see it as your new iPod. The idea of mixing and saving on the go is great! The Philips Colour lamp was a gift of my dad which you can adjust the LED-light to suit your mood. It’s really nice.

Planning ahead I’d like to add a top of the line 17″ MacBook Pro to the desk in the near future. Handy to use between work and home.

More Views

This is a problem that many Mac users have debated over for years. It’s not exactly a problem more as a personal preference, but where you do keep your dock?

Like most, I started with my dock on the bottom. In fact nearly the entire time I used Tiger I left the dock untouched, just sitting at the bottom of my screen. It didn’t exactly bother me until I really thought about the dock and its relation to UI and productivity.

With the update of Leopard though, I moved my dock to the left of my screen and it’s amazing how such a simple move can make such a difference, especially for those with limited screen real estate. The decision to give the dock a “stylish” reflective look actually steals precious vertical space that could be used for other purposes. 

Think about it. How often do you need to use horizontal space? When it comes to design and page layout, you don’t usually see horizontal space being abused. Actually, take a look around you. Books, magazines, and paper all have the same concept; they read down in a narrow column. It’s only natural that applications reflect their real-life counter parts.

The trend of technology generally tends to support this also. As widescreen becomes more and more popular, vertical space becomes limited while horizontal expands. 

So, give a try. Most tend to hate it at first, but the benefits are worth it.

When it comes to media libraries, iTunes is undoubtedly one of the most popular applications on both Windows and Mac OS X with hundreds of millions of copies in the wild. I tend to be very obsessive compulsive with my iTunes library. Everything must have its place and be organized perfectly. Album art on every album - and if the album art can’t be found on the Internet, I scan it in manually. 

One of the advanced iTunes features that I didn’t begin using until recently are Smart Playlists. While I occasionally played with the default “Top Rated” and “Most Played” playlists, I didn’t really use the feature to the max. Over the past couple weeks, I’ve begun to discover the true power of Smart Playlists in iTunes, and how they can help you get the most out of your music.

All songs:

One of my pet peeves with iTunes is the way it handles music. The so-called “Music” tab is mixed with PDF documents and Music Videos. When you create a smart playlist, it includes songs, podcasts, movies, and anything else in iTunes. The best way to get around this is to create an “All Songs” playlist. This will automatically exclude podcasts, movies, PDF documents, and other non-music files. This playlist will become the foundation for other music-only smart playlists.

Forgotten Lovers:

This is one of my favourite new playlists, and one that I find myself spending a lot of time in. When you have a large music collection it’s easy to lose track of one of your favourite songs and forget about them. “Forgotten Lovers” scans through your iTunes library for songs that are three to five stars that haven’t been listened to for over 2 weeks. As you can see, to avoid this playlist from including podcasts and movies, we only have it gathering songs from our filtered “All songs” playlist.

Rate Me:

Having thousands of songs in my iTunes library makes it hard to go through and rate every single one. However, I try to rate as many as I can. This playlist makes it easy to do so. It gathers all the unrated songs in your library that have been played more than three times, and skipped less than three times. Usually this means that I like the song, but haven’t yet rated it.

Once you have the All Songs playlist set up, iTunes makes it simple to create powerful playlists that you can use on a daily basis. The sheer amount of metadata that iTunes stores is mind-boggling, down to the precise number of times a song has been skipped. Smart playlists in iTunes help people with large music collections rediscover their music all over again. 

It’s something which we’re constantly told to do, but something very few of us ever actually take action on. What are we talking about? Backing up your precious data.

It was made immensely easier when Apple integrated Time Machine into every copy of OSX Leopard, but now there’s a new kid on the wireless block which makes backing up all the Macs in your house a simple un-daunting task.

Not only does the Time Capsule backup wirelessly but it also doubles as a 802.11n router, which allows 5X faster network speeds and twice the range of a traditional .11g router. Not to mention, when you plug in a printer to the USB port on the back of the unit, it also can be used as wireless print server with over 50 Macs or PCs on your network. Now we’re talking.

Design

Time Capsule looks strikingly similar to the Airport Extreme, with its sleek Apple-like design and sheer sexiness. If you were to place both the Airport Extreme and Time Capsule next to one another, you would notice that Time Capsule has a chrome Apple logo and is slightly thicker due to the integrated hard drive and cooling system.

It looks phenomenal on my desk, next to my iMac and my MacBook Pro.

Setup

Setup was extremely easy both on a Mac and a PC. On a Mac, you simply install the Airport Utility which you use to manage all wireless connections around your house. Once you get the utility up and running you answer a few simple questions, follow several steps, and before you know it, your connected.

It’s just as easy using a Windows machine. Setting up Time Machine for wireless backup was also a snap. Simply click on Time Machine, slide the switch to the on position, and then select your Time Capsule to begin your first backup, which depending on how much data you have, can take some time for the initial backup. From there, the incremental backups should be brief and painless for the network.

Life with Time Capsule

I have a 1TB Time Capsule that my MacBook Pro and my iMac share. Over the past several months I have been quite pleased with it, except for when I have occasional printer troubles, which can become very aggravating. The wireless printing feature hasn’t worked in weeks - although this could be a problem with my network settings.

It’s super quiet except for the occasional spin of the hard-drive when it’s backing up. Quite honestly, I would have never backed up if it wasn’t for this product. I recommend it to anyone who has a MacBook Air, or any Mac portable for that matter. After all, who wants to be tied down for hours at a time while your computer backs up, or worse off, lose data from not backing up at all? Errr, not me.

Sticking to a subject we been talking about a lot this past week, is Dustin MacDonald’s stunning new RSS reader Times.

Mikio Inose, the designer Dustin employed to design and create the application icon, today posted a few images on Flickr showcasing the full process of designing the icon from start to finish. In addition to the computer based mockups, Mikio also uploaded images of the initial sketches and an array of different concepts.

This is well worth checking out if you’re interested in seeing what goes into creating an application icon as stunning as the 512×512 one used for Times. View the Flickr photoset here.

Times is the latest addition to Dustin’s achievement list and the first application he’s created under his new company Acrylic.

Most people would describe software as boring, bland, dull tools that are only necessary to simply get a job done. Sadly enough, most modern software actually matches this description pretty well. Acrylic is different. We think of software as something much more - an amazing medium to express new ideas and experiences to the user. We strive to create innovative, beautiful, fun software that makes using a computer more enjoyable. - Dustin MacDonald.

Trying to reinvent the way you read news, they’ve created the best possible news experience straight from the ground up. Instead of treating news like email (as most RSS readers do), Times presents you with headlines and photos from a variety of sources all in one place, letting you more easily discover the news you want to read.

The Winners

Our sincere thanks to the 138 people who entered the competition. This may be the first competition we’ve run on Desktop Vibes, but it most certainly won’t be the last. Expect another within a fortnight.

Jordan Chark
Michael Mistretta
Katherine Fellows
Ebbi
Stephen.

Your registration details for Times will be on the way shortly. Enjoy a completely new experience of RSS.

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.

Software developer Dustin MacDonald is well recognized in the Mac software industry. Although just 19 years of age he’s already well known for his success with personal data organization application Wallet, which is now in version 2.7 and used by thousands of Mac users around the world.

Times is the latest addition to Dustin’s achievement list and the first application he’s created under his new company Acrylic.

Most people would describe software as boring, bland, dull tools that are only necessary to simply get a job done. Sadly enough, most modern software actually matches this description pretty well. Acrylic is different. We think of software as something much more - an amazing medium to express new ideas and experiences to the user. We strive to create innovative, beautiful, fun software that makes using a computer more enjoyable. - Dustin MacDonald.

Trying to reinvent the way you read news, they’ve created the best possible news experience straight from the ground up. Instead of treating news like email (as most RSS readers do), Times presents you with headlines and photos from a variety of sources all in one place, letting you more easily discover the news you want to read.

You’ll be impressed by the sheer attention to detail in Times. Every feature was carefully crafted to work as intuitively and naturally as possible, while still keeping with Mac design philosophies.

Times uses many advanced OS X technologies, like Core Animation - which allows for clear and concise animations throughout the interface, making it easy to always see what’s going on. - Times Website

Like your own personal newspaper, you can put feeds into separate areas, create pages for different subjects, and more. The best way to understand how Times works, and if it’ll work for you is by downloading a trial.

Competition: Five Copies To Giveaway

We have five copies of Times to give away to five individual readers. Want a chance to own the latest RSS application to the Mac platform? Simply leave a brief comment below and we’ll draw five comments by random on the 6th of May. Oh, and while on the topic of RSS, why not subscribe to our feed for easy access to fresh content.

This year marks the start for a new uprising of web services which focus around the concept of Cloud Computing, the ability to run high end and useful applications from the web using an ordinary internet browser. One such experiment is from Adobe Lab’s which is the web version of Photoshop aptly named Photoshop Express (BETA).

Photoshop Express (BETA) is a Flash powered website that allows you to perform the basic Photoshop operations on photos such as colour adjustment, cropping, red-eye removal, and special effects. To get started you simply create an account (currently you can only join by stating your country as the US), login and then upload your photos. Now this presents PSE’s first hurdle, redundancy of data. Now this is intended for quick touch ups and edits, just like it’s competition which is the mediocre applications that ship with digital cameras. The advantage with these applications is that any inexperienced user can plug in a camera and be instantly downloading and editing their photos. I found it annoying to have to use my browser to look for the photo I wanted to edit, it was just a step I felt I could do with out.

What I think Adobe may getting at sooner is extending this service into their AIR platform, allowing the AIR application to directly access the user’s hard-drive and pull all the photos they have on their hard-drive or memory card. This is something that could be a real winner for Adobe, allowing my grandma to visit our house and immediately show us her new photos without having to email a 50MB zip file.

But, Adobe also does allow me to import my photos from Facebook, Picasa or Photobucket so I can edit a headshot of me for later use. Something that if promoted would win over the Facebook crowd.

The first couple of features are pretty stock standard such as Red-Eye removal, Auto Correct and Exposure. One feature that really striked me as quite attractive was the Touchup feature, allowing me to select an area that may be blurred or scratched and replace it with a swatch from another area. It takes a little getting used to because you need to adjust the red circle (the area you wish to copy) before clicking the green circle (the area to replace) otherwise it may accidently take a swatch from the background or some random area.

With White Balance, PSE has some nifty presets for adjusting based on the lighting conditions at the time. Highlight adds extra light to a photo which, unless the photo was taken well, will result in just a washed out photo. Sharpen and Soft Focus perform exactly what their names imply.

Pop Colour is a nifty effect allowing you to select a specific colour and have it stand out, much like those photos you see with a greyscale photo encapsulating a coloured object, for some artistic users they may enjoy producing art basically on the fly. The Hue, Black & White, and Tint effects are what you’d expect from any photo application. Sketch transforms photos into something like it had been drawn while Distort allows you to bend photos creating “fish-eye” effects.

As you may of noticed that effects are pretty standard, but this is a powerful web application for quick edits and novice users. I am found myself using it when I need a quick crop, it saves me the wait of Photoshop to load or to have iPhoto want to first import it into its 6GB library.

Photoshop Express is a winner for anyone on the go wanting to edit that little blemish or produce a mug-shot in a snap, it especially appeals to those running Windows who right out the box want to edit a photo without loading some trialware enhanced application. I will certainly be using this a lot more in the future.

Ever since Mac OSX Leopard was introduced customizing the dock has become a popular tweak to the operating system. At first the only way of customizing the dock was by transplanting the files yourself, or using an automator action. And if you don’t know what you are doing; things could go wrong.

Panic’s Candybar also has a way of allowing you to change the dock design (and do lots of other UI changes) - but it does, of course, cost in the region of $30, It’s a fair amount of money, there must be a free option if all you want to do is change your dock?

Enter, Dock Library, an easy way to customize your dock with ease, all within a clean GUI interface. Editing your dock with Dock Library couldn’t be easier. Dock Library also comes with a few popular docks for you to try out when you download the app; but if you want to find more, all you have to do is go to a website, such as LeopardDocks.com, choose the dock, you want to try out, download them. and open up Dock Library.

From here you can then go hit the Import Button (see bellow), choose the downloaded dock and you’ll find it has appeared in your portfolio of docks.

Now, all you have to do is select the dock and click activate and your dock will automatically change to your preferred design.

Of course, changing the design of your dock is only half of what Dock Library was designed to do, with the clean interface you can easily organize all the docks you have in your collection, so when you get bored of your current dock, it’s as easy as opening up the app and clicking on the new style you want to use.

To put it in a nutshell, it’s as easy to change a dock with Dock Library as it is to change your Mac’s desktop background in system preferences.

As you can see, Dock Library is currently the most efficient way of modifying your dock. The best part about this app, is that it is free (though donations are encouraged, especially if you want more cool applications like this). If you’ve been waiting for a quick easy way to modify your dock, this is the answer.

Longer Battery Life

Initial reactions from users of the MacBook Air SSD model report an increased battery life expectancy of around 10-15%, providing them with an extra hour of productive work while on the go.

Without the moving mechanical parts that cause latency issues, SSDs are not impeded by spin-up, seek time, or rotational latency. This equates to faster boot times, faster application loading, and greater overall system responsiveness.

No Noise From Drive

While typing away on the MacBook Pro, two noises can be heard. The fans cooling the processor, and above all else, the hard-drive spinning up and down as required to access files. The Solid State Drive has no moving parts, which means the drive doesn’t spin - providing a noiseless working experience.

Reliability From Bumps

SSD stands for Solid State Drive. Solid State means no moving parts. No moving parts means the data cannot be destroyed by bumping a head of the drive which is reading or writing. Get the picture?

SSDs are extremely tolerance to shock and vibration caused by the user.

Quicker App Switching

While some standard hard-drives will still beat solid state drives when moving or copying large chunks of data, the SSD moves ahead with leaps and bounds when asked to open multiple applications at once, and while switching between them. It’s areas like this where you come to appreciate the SSD, as the comparable hard-drive chokes and burns under similar conditions.

Lower Heat Levels

With no spinning heads, Solid State Drives do not require any fans to keep them cool. SSDs produce little-to-no measurable heat because they have no moving parts, thus helping keep notebooks operating cooler.

The Flip Side

Although they exceed performance of most conventional notebook drives, SSDs are still at a price premium in the current market. With Apple charging a very competitive $999 for the 64GB SSD build-to-order option in the MacBook Air, been an early adopter of the technology is not a cheap thrill.

Prices are expected to fall at the rate of 40% per year, so the $999 drives we see today are expected to cost only $200 by 2010. By that stage I’d expect Apple’s full range of notebook computers will ship with a solid state drive as the standard configuration.

I’ve been thinking abut the way I use the computer a lot over the past seven days. A majority of thinking has gone into the process so far and as the week has past, I’ve noticed developing trends regarding which applications I’m using most frequently.

While a switch to a MacBook Air may or may not be on the cards for various reasons, the decision turners for making the change (or not) will fall into its own post later in the week.

The increased use of Safari is also down to moving away from three desktop based applications (Mail, NetNewsWire, TextEdit), moving to three similar browser based Google applications - Gmail, Google Reader, and Google Docs.

After keeping a close eye on which applications I used over a seven day period, I came up with the above chart. Overall, it doesn’t really surprise me considering I spend most of my time on the computer writing, while listening to music, keeping an eye on email and RSS, while occasionally popping open iMovie to export video to YouTube and editing images in Aperture.

The only thing holding me back from the MacBook Air at this current point in time? The 15% area on the chart dedicated to Aperture & iMovie.

Late Addition: I’m going to stick with the MacBook Pro - install a new internal HDD, and see what Apple has in store with the next revision of the MacBook Air. I’ll keep riding this laptop until I see a need to change, adding a 2nd rev MacBook Air at a later stage looks likely - however.

I try out dozens of new applications each and every week, and get along well with a handful of software developers . Based on my experience with Macintosh software, I have my own standards and my own personal opinion on what makes a Mac application exceptional in its field.

My three points of consideration? Interface, simplicity and usability. Of course, an application needs to fulfill a suitable function, but these three pointers are what pulls me in to software and get me hooked.

I’m sure most of you have heard about AppZapper at some point or another. If not, AppZapper allows you to confidently uninstall virtually any application as easily as it was installed - just drag and drop. Drag one or more unwanted apps onto the main AppZapper window and watch as it finds all the extra associated files and lets you delete them with a single click.

The first thing which attracted me to AppZapper was not only the elegant ability to uninstall applications which has been carried out so well, but the complete usability and overall simplicity of the application, it immediately leaped into my dock and hasn’t left since, same goes with many other applications such as Delicious Library, Coda, MarsEdit, and Transmit. They are all so elegantly developed, with attention paid to both form and function.

Two standout examples of companies paying severe attention to detail are Panic Software with their lead applications Coda, Transmit and CandyBar. Along with Delicious Monster’s application “Delicious Library.”

Potential For Greatness In Form

Other applications, including DVD-ripping software HandBrake, have the potential to be amazing with some work on the usability and form. HandBrake is a wonderful application but it doesn’t come across as elegant and as easy to use as an application like AppZapper. Of course, it fills a much larger function than AppZapper and requires a large scale of features - which I believe could be carried out in a different manner.

Why is that? Because consumers want applications that are extremely easy to use. Austin Sarner, the developer of AppZapper, hit the sweet spot when designing it: he knew exactly what the people wanted and how to give it to them. AppZapper is so simple to use that it’s ingenious.

Companies like Panic and Delicious Monster have got all aspects right on design and user interface which in my opinion is a contributing fact to why they have enjoyed so much success. Form & function my friends. Pay attention to the vital details.

The Apple Store (U.S.) - Aperture 2 -

Aperture 2 gives photographers incredible tools to manage massive libraries, speed through photo edits, make essential image adjustments, and deliver photos online and in print using one simple, integrated workflow. Whether you shoot RAW or JPEG, Aperture lets you get the most out of your photography.

Optimized for speed, while more intuitive and accessible, Aperture 2.0 has been released at a lowered price of $199 USD. I’ve been hooked on Lightroom 1.3 these past few months, and my entire 2006/2007 image archives are stored in a Lightroom library.

Could Aperture 2.0 sway me back from Lightroom? I’m looking forward to playing with it and passing judgement.

AppleInsider | MacBook Air face-off: HDD vs SSD (with video) -

Solid state drives are expensive, but costs are