Thursday, December 28, 2006

New AP Grapher

New version 1.1 of AP Grapher is now available.

Monday, December 25, 2006

bookit 3.7.1 Review

bookit icon

There are many decent web browsers for Mac OS X such as OmniWeb (see review), Safari, FireFox, Camino, and Opera. Each browser offers a slightly different feature set and as expected, some browsers perform certain tasks better than others. As a result, it is often desirable to move between browsers on a daily basis; e.g., you may use OmniWeb most of the time, but Safari for a few pages, and FireFox for some others. Having your bookmarks remain consistent between all your browsers is virtually impossible to achieve by hand since there are several file formats in use - that's where a tool such as bookit steps up to the plate.

Bookit merges all your bookmarks and allows you to manage them within its interface and sync them with all your browsers. Alternately, if you have one master browser which you use most of the time and manage your bookmarks with, bookit will read them in and allow you to overwrite the bookmarks of your other browsers with the master browser's bookmarks. Other features include an optional global bookmarks menu extra and dock menu. Nearly every web browser for OS X is supported.

*****

Friday, December 22, 2006

AP Grapher and MacBooks

A few people with MacBooks and MacBook Pros (especially Core 2 Duo's) have reported problems with the scanner window of the new AP Grapher 1.0. A new version which addresses these issues and adds many more features is imminent; stay tuned.

Monday, December 18, 2006

svnX 0.9.9 Review

svnx icon

Freeware svnX is a front end to the popular Subversion version control system. Although Xcode has built in support for svn, third party tools such as svnX offer more flexibility and support a wider range of Subversion commands. With svnX, you can manage all of your version controlled projects and repositories in the same GUI environment. Tasks such as tagging, rearranging your repository, removing files, browsing, and committing changes are easy to accomplish. Although svnX feels a little rough around the edges, it has been progressing nicely and makes a worthy companion to Xcode or whatever program you're using to edit version controlled files.

***__

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

AP Grapher Universal

The new universal binary version of AP Grapher has been released. It took a bit longer than expected, but this version is a huge upgrade from the old one and should be rock-solid. Check it out!

Monday, December 11, 2006

PowerMail 5.5.2 Review

powermail icon

PowerMail is an IMAP and POP capable e-mail client which features blazingly fast and easy to use search thanks to homegrown "FoxTrot" search technology. Searching by content through the author's entire email database of tens of thousands of emails using PowerMail takes less than one second! The search function has plenty of options to help narrow down your search, it's fast, and results appear in a separate window for each query. No longer will you be afraid to look at other messages lest you lose your search results.

PowerMail also features SpamSieve integration (see review), syncing with Address Book, multiple accounts, text clippings, location specific server settings, Spotlight integration, and a built in HTML reader. It should be noted that PowerMail doesn't feel quite as refined as Apple's Mail and its handling of picture attachments and HTML email is not as smooth or seamless. However, it's a worthy client and one you should seriously consider if you are fed up with your current choice or just ready for a change.

****_

Monday, December 4, 2006

MacTracker 4.1b2 Review

MacTracker icon

MacTracker is an incredibly useful application which tracks the technical specifications of every Macintosh ever produced (including clones) as well as most other Apple hardware such as iPods, displays, and AirPort Base Stations. The hundreds of details available are very specific and even include an area for keeping your own notes and comments. Although similar information is available on Apple's web site for current products, it can often be difficult to locate for out of date machines. MacTracker makes it quick and easy to look up the details on nearly any Apple product you can think of.

Great for researching possible upgrades to your system, troubleshooting, or simply amazing yourself with the fast pace of technological innovation. Other features of note include an iPod version (via the notes feature), timeline by year of models produced, indication of Apple support status for each model, and links to firmware updates for relevant machines. This product would come in handy in any situation where multiple Mac models have to be supported, e.g., at a business or school.

*****