It’s been nearly 4 months since OS X Mountain Lion was released, and millions of Mac users around the world have already upgraded. Many of us upgraded our Macs as soon as it was in the App Store, while others were running it weeks earlier thanks to Apple’s developer program.
Mountain Lion brought many nice new features to OS X, from the Notifications Center and social network features to new apps like Reminders and Notes. Unfortunately, the new upgrade also left behind some older Macs, and many still don’t like the addition of more iCloud and iOS features in OS X.
I personally have been very pleased with Mountain Lion, and found the upgrade to be a great new change, but not everyone feels the same. That’s why we’re wondering: 4 months into the upgrade cycle, have you switched to Mountain Lion? Or are you still using Lion?
Is the cat that’s currently powering your Mac enough for your needs? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!
Our sponsor this week is Jaksta Music Miner, an app that makes it incredibly simple to record streaming audio on your Mac. If you’ve ever wanted to record audio from a live conference or an online radio broadcast, you’ll love Jaksta Music Miner.
Jaksta Music Miner makes it incredibly easy to record any audio you come across online. Just start Jaksta Music Miner and set it to monitor your audio. Then, start playing the audio you want to record in your browser, and Jaksta will automatically recognize it and save it to your computer. It’s that easy.
Once your audio is recorded, Jaksta Music Miner will automatically tag the audio with relevant metadata and save it to your iTunes library. Now, all you’ll have to do is sync it with your mobile devices or play it directly from your Mac whenever you want to listen to it again.
Go Get It!
If you’ve been looking for a great way to record streaming audio on your Mac, then you should definitely try out Jaksta Music Miner. You can download a free trial, which will let you record 10 streaming songs to your Mac. Then, when you’re ready to purchase a copy, you can get it for just $14.95 this week, 25% off its normal price, with the coupon NOV-JMM25. Just enter that coupon code in the Source Code field on the order form, click recalculate, and you’ll see the discount applied to your order.
We’d like to say a special Thank you! to our weekly sponsors from October for sponsoring our site and for the great apps they make. If you would like to feature your app on our site with an advertisement, be sure to check out our available slots on BuySellAds or register for a weekly sponsorship for your app.
If you haven’t already checked out our the great apps that sponsored our site last month, be sure to check them out now!
CourseNotes
Need a great way to keep up with your notes from school or college? CourseNotes might be the app you’ve been needing. It helps you keep track of all of your notes for each class, and lets you study on the go with companion iOS apps. From lecture notes to class schedules to team study groups, CourseNotes has you covered with everything you’ll need to keep up with your classes on your Mac.
Last5 Time Tracker
Keeping track of where your time goes throughout the day can be difficult and frustrating. Last5 Time Tracker simplifies it by letting you add buttons for the activities you commonly do on the computer. Then, you can just tap the button when you have a chance to quickly record how you’ve been spending your time. You can use Last5 from your iPhone or PC as well to keep track of your time no matter where you’re working.
Yate
If you take your music seriously, you’ll want to make sure all of your songs have all of the correct tags and metadata so you can find the song you want easily on your computer. iTunes’ built in tagging options leave a lot to be desired, which is why you might want to give Yate a try. You can import tagging info from MusicBrainz or Discogs, or bulk add your own tags to your songs, no matter what audio format they’re in.
Snapheal 2.0
There’s no excuse for not fixing your photos with Snapheal 2.0. The simple photo editor that has topped App Store charts is now more powerful and easier to use than ever. Snapheal removes unwanted objects from pictures, fixes skin imperfections and restores damaged photos faster and better than many expensive photo editing apps. With the new 2.0 update, it got even more cool features, including 3X faster erasing, a smart lasso for better selection, new algorithm for erasing big objects and skin healing, Clarity and 15 other new retouching tools, as well as Mountain Lion, Retina Display, and iCloud support.
Jaksta for Mac
Have you ever wanted to save streaming audio and video to your Mac so you can watch and listen to it anytime later? Sounds like you need Jaksta for Mac. Just open Jaksta, start your media playing, and Jaksta will automatically record it and save it in the formats you want. It works with most standard streaming formats on tons of popular sites, and can even add the recorded media to your iTunes library so you can easily watch or listen to it later.
And a special thanks to you, our Mac.AppStorm.net readers, for reading and sharing our articles. We couldn’t do it without you!
Our sponsor this week is Doxie One, the little scanner that makes scanning simple. Doxie One scans your paper – simply, automatically, and with no computer required. To scan, just push the button and insert your sheet. Doxie scans anywhere with a simple, elegant design.
Doxie’s different than other scanners. It’s small – about the size of an empty paper towel roll – so you can tuck it in a drawer when you’re not scanning. Setup is easy: Connect power, insert an SD card (included), press Doxie’s button, and you’re ready to start scanning.
When you’re ready to organize, sync scans to your Mac or iPad, just like a digital camera. Doxie’s elegant Mac app creates multi-page searchable PDFs you can save to your computer, send to your favorite apps like Evernote and Dropbox, or share via iMessage. Doxie even works with your iPad with both Apple’s Lightning and 30-pin SD Card Reader accessories.
Doxie’s app sends your paper to Evernote, Dropbox, and even to friends or colleagues with iMessage on iPhone, iPad, and OS X – so it’s easy to share, back up, and access your paper everywhere you go.
Doxie is paperless for everyone – shipping late November for just $149. Reserve one now.
It sure is frustrating when an app you love gets sidelined by its developers. From the recent demise of Twitter for Mac, Sparrow being bought out by Google and promptly sidelined for Gmail.com, and Read Later being turned into Pocket for Mac and leaving Instapaper support behind, I’ve had a number of apps in my own workflow that have been abandoned lately.
It’s a normal problem we all face, and it’s not surprising at all when lite apps and games don’t get updated. But when something we rely on gets abandoned, it can be far more frustrating. You’re left with the option of continuing to rely on an app that might break with a future OS X update, or searching for something else that might fit the bill.
For me, I’ve given Pocket for Mac a shot, switching away from Instapaper for a trial run. I’ve bought Tweetbot, as I’d already been using its beta for months. But I’m still using Sparrow, as there’s no other mail app that works as good for me. I’m sure hoping something else better will come along before it gets abandoned for good.
How about you?
Our sponsor this week is Jaksta for Mac, an app that lets you record streaming audio and video from thousands of sites. If you’ve been looking for a way to watch your favorite online media when you’re offline, Jaksta for Mac is the app you need to try out.
Whether you want to watch YouTube videos offline, or want to record streaming internet broadcasts, Jaksta can record them all to your Mac, and can even handle multiple captures at once. Just open Jaksta, start your media playing, and Jaksta will automatically record it and save it in the formats you want. It works with most standard streaming formats on tons of popular sites, and can even add the recorded media to your iTunes library so you can easily watch or listen to it later.
It’s your one-stop-shop for recording streaming media on your Mac.
Go Get It!
If you’ve been looking for a great way to record streaming media on your Mac, then you should definitely try out Jaksta for Mac. You can download a free trial, then we have two special offers for our AppStorm readers this week. First, you can purchase a copy for just $39.95 with the exclusive sponsorship coupon code OCTJAM-APPS.
Then, if you purchase a copy, you can get a copy of either Jaksta Video Converter or Jaksta Music Converter for free. After purchasing Jaksta for Mac, just send an email to [email protected] with the app you want and the name of an audio or video site other than YouTube that you enjoy, and you’ll get your free bonus app!
Ever find yourself thinking of the games that you played years ago, perhaps on your first computer? They were simple by today’s standards, with low-res graphics and insanely low system requirements, but the captivated us and inspired many of us to learn to program. The GOG (Good Old Games) team has been working to bring back the magic of classic gaming to modern computers, rereleasing titles that were originally released 15 or more years ago.
After starting out supporting games on Windows, GOG just recently added Mac support to a number of their top games. Let’s take a look at how GOG games run on the Mac, and take one of my old favorites – SimCity 2000 – for a spin in Mountain Lion.
This morning, I woke up to a Reeder full of articles about Apple’s new announcements in yesterday’s keynote. Living in Asia makes it a bit tough to watch keynotes live, and Apple usually doesn’t even stream them live online. After reading through the articles and checking through Apple.com, I didn’t really feel the need to watch the full keynote. I enjoy watching Apple’s product launches, but this one felt like one I could skip. Incidentally, it turned into a very exciting keynote for Mac users, with new iMacs and Mac Minis, but still, I could find what I needed to know from Apple.com’s pages.
That said, I’ve watched tons of Apple keynotes over the years, especially while Jobs was still alive and doing his magic on stage. I’ve gone back and rewatched portions of old keynotes to see how Apple’s changed (ouch, the fonts in old keynotes hurts to look at), and listening to Jobs’ speeches from when he first came back to Apple gives a unique perspective on the company.
So how about you? Do you always watch Apple’s keynotes, or do you just pick choice ones to watch? Or have you never watched an keynote before (is that even possible)? We’d love to hear your thoughts below!
