Until now, many assignments have left college students with a pile of books stacked upon their desks; sticky notes popping out to mark places of importance. In the twenty-first century this really shouldn’t be an issue. And now for Mac it isn’t thanks to Reference Tracker by Maklinware.

Getting Started

To start using Reference Tracker you simply open it and click on the bright green “New Reference” button. From there you get a drop down menu which allows you to select the appropriate text that you are going to reference. There are a whole host of options to choose from varying from a chapter in a book to a article in a newspaper. Of course there is a generic “Book” option if you can’t find the exact template for your needs.

Bookmarks

Below all of the information that you enter is the cited text field. So if you have some quotes that you think you will use in the essay or paper that you are writing, you can drop them in such that they are easily accessible at a moment’s notice. Sticky notes are an added bonus as well. If you have something that you need to remember but have no special place to put it, just open up a sticky and place it wherever you want it in the window.

Look Up

One fantastic piece of technology that Reference Tracker employes is the ability to look up a book using it’s ISBN (That is, if you can’t find the book through the publication search). You just type it in and Boom! All the information about the book is filled in for you - including a picture of the cover!

Sorting

You can also sort your references into different groups. Once you are ready to print off your reference list, you hit the “Generate Reference List” button and you are given a tidy list to hand in with your paper.  Ultimately, this app cuts down your workflow, making it a lot easier for you to worry about what really matters - your writing.

Final Thoughts

Reference Tracker is a new piece of software for what is a very large market. However it manages to beat it’s competitors in one very important way that makes it stand above the crowd. Price. It’s $45. Good luck getting a nearly competent piece of software for the same price. Give it a try and I promise you’ll you’ll be tempted to buy it.

For a limited time, you can receive an exclusive $15 discount by using the following code.  It will only work for the first 50 people to use it, so don’t hesitate!

Coupon Code: NPES0DCUMCYDQ4O7

Malkinware - Reference Tracker

Enter Cronnix.

Cronnix is a GUI for OS X’s crontab server. Crontab is a system-level application that runs every minute and checks whether programs or scripts are set up to run at that time. It enables you to schedule programs at any time your computer is on, and accomplish tasks that would normally be time consuming to perform manually. Work like backing up websites and cleaning up your computer is prime for automation. Cronnix makes it very easy to schedule bash scripts or even regular applications.

I’m just starting to touch the possibilities of the crontab. Currently I have two programs set to run with Cronnix: one is a nerdy, complicated method for loading my MacBook’s uptime on my blog, the other is an Applescript to record the web stream of a local radio station. Both are too complicated to share here, but if you’re interested in the uptime system, head over to my personal blog.

Cronnix Usage

Using Cronnix is conveniently simple. As shown in the above image of the window, there are 4 tabs to give you options for editing and adding tasks. Every event is shown in the list, where you can make changes as necessary.

To add a new task, press New and fill in the options as shown above. The numbers and asterisks need to be in their right place for your task to execute successfully.

For example, the image above shows the correct options for running the application edge_record.app at 8 AM on weekdays. The * indicates that the time is irrelevant. This means if you wish to change the timing to 9:45 AM on the 5th day of every month, you would need to change the options to 45 Minute, 9 Hour, 5 Day of month, * Month, and check the box next to All days of the week.

With that style, you can set up any application to run at any time you wish.

The thing to remember is that the box marked Prepend “/usr/bin/open” should be checked if your application is not a command line script. Prepend “/usr/bin/open” means open the file with whatever application you have set as default. For example, if you’re running a bash script and leave the box checked, the file will simply open in your text editor, and not execute. If you want to run an Automator action, for example, you must remember to check the box.

Final Words

Cronnix is an easy to use application that has one purpose and excels at it. For scheduling your work without resorting to the command line, give Cronnix a try.

With the release of the iPhone 2.0 software on July 11th, the doors have opened for many creative and useful applications to change the way we use our iPhones (or iPod touch).

First out of the gate to show how to do a revolutionary application is Apple with their iTunes control software, Remote.

Remote turns your iPhone or iPod touch into a wireless controller for your computer. It works with v7.7 of iTunes on both Windows and OS X, and requires that iTunes be running.  However, it does not require that you share your library. I imagine using Remote while having your computer connected to a TV or speaker system, and controlling the music selection from the iPod. The system also has a “check this out” factor, as it is kind of weird changing the song from anywhere in the house.

Setup

Setting up Remote is refreshingly simple. From within the Remote settings panel, you are presented with a 4 digit code — much like streaming to an Apple TV. This code is then entered into the iTunes window of a computer running OS X or Windows.

In the iTunes source window, you can select your iPod and enter the code.
Naturally, the computer and iPod must be on the same WiFi network. Once the connection is made, the iTunes library you wish to control will be shown inside the Setting menu of Remote.

Usage

Can you tell the difference?
The difference between using Remote to control your computer and listening to music on the iPod itself is so minimal. I’ve included a photo here to compare the two. I don’t even remember which one is which anymore. You can browse playlists, by artists, song titles and albums in exactly the same way as local listening. I was pleasantly surprised at the responsiveness of the entire system, as there was minimal, if any lag between sending a command and the result. My network consists of an Airport Extreme base station and Airport Express station distributing the signal, but even when I tested it using a network created by my MacBook, there was no delay when pausing the song. It did take a little longer to copy the song lists, but once that was done, browsing was instantaneous.

Final Words

Remote offers a convenient, effective way to control your iTunes library. It is an excellent example of using the fantastic features of the iPhone and iPod touch to accomplish a single task in a completely new way.

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.

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.

How many sites do you visit regularly?  I bookmark sites constantly and add videos to my favorites on YouTube on a regular basis.  All of these links tend to get very unorganized, and as as you can imagine I now have hundreds of links and videos to keep track of.  In order to make this task as painless as possible, I now use an application called Shelved.

Whenever you have a link you want to keep, just drag and drop it into the shelved window. It then opens the site within the Shelved application.  In the left pane of the application, you can easily add and create new “shelves”.  This provides a simple way to organize links quickly. You can also go into Browse>Browse With, and select a browser to open a given link in. You can choose from any of the browsers you have on your mac, and they are automatically read in Shelved.

As you can see I only have 2 shelves of Technology and News. Although it is easy to create more by clicking on the + symbol in the bottom, left corner.

On the right side of the application there is a preview of the webpage. From the top right corner you can select the shelf you want to organize the webpage on, as seen below.

If you are a common user of Del.Icio.Us, then this is certainly for you. Not only can you keep all your links in the same application, but you can also export the links you want to share to Del.Icio.Us. All you have to do is log in to Del.Icio.Us from within Shelved, and from there you can then choose what to export.

The folks over at ExtraZeal worked hard and made this app one of the best link organizers for the mac. The application is currently in alpha stages, and is available as freeware.  You can download it here.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.