If you’ve been a Mac user for a while, then you’ve probably heard of Fluid. It’s a simple tool that lets you make websites feel like actual apps, with their own webkit-powered window and dock icon. You can customize icons, save userscripts for individual sites, and more. It’s quite the useful app if you use web apps often.
I’ve been using it more frequently lately to replace the Twitter clients I used to have on my Mac. Why, you ask? Well, there are a few reasons. Join me after the break for an example of how you can use Fluid to make your experience with Twitter and other apps on the Internet more up-to-date and smooth.
During today’s WWDC keynote in San Francisco, Apple announced some more new features that will be arriving with Mountain Lion. Even though the four developer previews that have been tested for a while have most of the major additions, there will be several more key features that are going to mean a lot to many users out there.
Keep reading for a deep look at all the major new things that will be coming in OS X Mountain Lion.
Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference rapidly approaches, taking place just next week from the 11th to the 15th. As usual, there will be a keynote on opening day of this conference at 10 AM PT. There are many, many expectations of what will be announced at this keynote, from rumors of a new iPhone and iOS 6 to new MacBooks and an OS X Mountain Lion release.
Join me after the break for a look at the most important rumors pertaining to this year’s WWDC.
When OS X Lion was released last year, Apple put a lot of emphasis on how speedy it was on their MacBook Air line of ultra-thin notebooks – or “ultrabooks”, if you will. An example of this can be seen all over the operating system’s main webpage as Apple seems to be giving attention to mainly the MacBook Air in their slideshow of the key features included with OS X Lion. It’s quite apparent that Apple is trying to say something with all of this, but what exactly is that message?
I believe the corporation is hoping to move towards the MacBook Air and oust the Pro from the picture almost entirely. It was obvious that they were going to do this when they discontinued the original MacBook last year; this in turn made the Air their entry-level notebook, which is what they wanted since it sported an SSD that was ten times faster than the white MacBook – regardless of the task. But what is their master plan for all of this? Let’s explore some potential scenarios.
When it comes to FTP clients, there are too many of them to count. You could go with FileZilla, since it’s free, but it’s really not the greatest solution out there since it lacks quite a few features that advanced users seek. Cyberduck, on the other hand, is another great client – and it’s open source, though you really should donate to help out the developers.
Up until now, I used Cyberduck for all my connections, assuming that it was the best free solution available. Well, if you’re willing to pay $9.99, then there’s something much better out there. It’s called Flow and it’s developed by Five Details. In my experience, this has been the best FTP client that I’ve ever used on the Mac. Read on to find out why.
In this day and age, everyone wants high-definiton content, and that means they either have to download the new 1080p video from iTunes or watch some Blu-Rays on their HDTV. Sadly, Macs still don’t sport Blu-Ray drives and probably never will, so why bother? Well, if you’ve already invested in lots of Blu-Ray films and TV shows, then it’s really not worth re-purchasing all your content on iTunes just to have it on your computer at the same resolution. I mean, there really should be a solution for this sort of thing.
And there is — sort of. You see, film producers decided that they would offer digital copies of their films with the physical copies. The only problem with this great idea is that many films do not include it and almost every TV show I know doesn’t, leaving the majority of what you own tied to your television and not playable on your Mac or Apple TV. Instead of fretting about this and going off to re-purcahse all your content on iTunes so that you can watch it on your iOS devices, Mac computers, and Apple TV, maybe you should consider ripping your Blu-Ray content. It’s not that hard to do actually, and I’m going to give you a full walkthrough, so join me after the break for some insight on getting all your high-definition content on your Mac.
If you’re a Markdown fan, then it’s likely that you’re always looking for a new editor with amazing capabilities. As of now, there are many of them on the Mac App Store, though they all differ in abilities and features. Some are just focused on writing (Byword, for instance), while others seem to concentrate more on including unique features that help you to do more than just write. The Markdown language is obviously more than just a tool you’d use for writing once in a while. It’s able to translate what you type into rich text or HTML without the need of a visual editor – and that’s what makes it so special.
Today I’m going to introduce a new type of Markdown editor to you. Instead of focusing just on distraction-free writing as most apps do, this one puts more of an emphasis on a special feature the developers call “combined view”. In addition to this, it has support for custom CSS, meaning that you can customize your document to many extents. The app is called “Valletta” and I’ll explain more on about after the break, so be sure to keep reading.
Are you ever in one of those moods where you want to solve a puzzle, but would rather play a puzzling game? If not, maybe you feel like playing something that will really turn your brain on and exercise it. I’ve been browsing the Mac App Store quite often lately to see if there are any great new games/apps that I’d actually enjoy playing.
Sure, there are a lot great games for this stuff, but the main problem is that there are too many of them. You’re probably looking for a short list of the best ones so that you can spend less time reading the list and start playing. Keep reading for ten great games that will really give your mind the workout that it’s been asking for.
Just two years ago today, Running with Crayons Ltd. released version 0.4 beta of their free productivity application for the Mac: Alfred. Alfred has made our lives easier by helping to speed up the things that we do throughout our day, be it launching an app, searching the web, controlling iTunes, looking up a word, or calculating a number.
And if that’s not enough for you, the Alfred Powerpack offers even more goodies like custom commands, file system navigation using only the keyboard, an iTunes mini player that allows you to find an album or rate songs in your library, an address book that will allow you to modify contact entries, clipboard history, and much more. The Powerpack costs £15, or about $24 for those of you outside the UK.
Today, we’d like to wish this wonderful app that keeps up our daily productivity a very happy birthday! Read on for a few additional details and a special sale that the developers are having on the Alfred Powerpack.
This week’s news isn’t quite as populated as last week’s because, as you all know, Mountain Lion made its first developer preview debut last week. However, there was some special news during the week including the Growl developers’ response to Apple’s latest operating system. You see, Growl was once a great notification system on the Mac, but now it seems that Mountain Lion’s Notification Center — which was conveniently ported from iOS — has replaced the small app.
This may come as a disappointment to some since Growl worked so well and had lots of customization, but the developers have responded in a blog post from last weekend assuring that the service is not dead and that the developers are in the process of investigating other options for Growl’s purpose in Mountain Lion. This is great news for the many users out there who’ve been devoted to Growl. Hopefully they will be able to integrate Growl into Notification Center or something in a way.
Check after the break for the rest of this week’s news. (more…)
