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Winners Announced
First of all, I’m pleased to let you know that SaneDesk have given us an extra three license keys to give away, bringing the total to eighteen. We’ve picked the lucky winners, and they are:
- AndyTheJoker
- Steve
- Erik Rasmussen
- Marius Stuparu
- Hiroshi
- Pieter
- Andrew Dilger
- Stephan
- The incredible Frank
- Niels K.
- Andrew S
- Dennis Nieling
- Selene
- Jaryre
- Animaster84
- Revell
- Cardiac7
- Andy Hutchins
Old Competition Details
We’re kicking off another competition today, this time to win a copy of SaneDesk. We’ll be writing a full review of SaneDesk in the next week or two, but I thought that you’d love a chance to get your hands on a copy for free!
SaneDesk gives you more power and control over your desktop, letting you set up different views and configurations so that your desktop appears differently depending upon your current task. It’s fairly powerful, and definitely worth giving a go if you often find yourself wading through a sea of cluttered desktop icons.
Entering is really easy. All you need to do is a post a comment below. The competition will run for one week, and I’ll pick fifteen winning comments at random on Monday 4th October. Best of luck!
It’s been over six months since we first took a look at Alfred, a fantastic application launcher for the Mac. Since then, I’ve heard about many of you switching to this system from Quicksilver, Google Quick Search Box, and various other launchers.
I’ve become a devoted fan of Alfred, and it’s probably now one of the most oft-used apps on my Mac. A recent update to the app comes in the form of the Alfred Powerpack, bringing a set of fantastic new features and significantly broadening the scope of what Alfred is capable of. He’s turning into a pretty handy butler!
I’ll be taking a look at some of these new “Powerpack features” after the break.
Whenever Apple announces a new feature or application update, there’s always a huge amount of commotion and furious opinion sharing. iTunes Ping was one such feature addition, aiming to broaden iTunes into a social network for music.
I think Apple is really starting to stretch the limits of what iTunes is capable of. What started as a simple application for collating your music library now stores TV Shows, Movies, and Podcasts as well, is a full-fledged music and video store, your iPod/iPhone/iPad sync tool, your Apple TV counterpart, an App Store, online radio player, and – now – a social network as well. Phew!
Almost all the software tools I love and use every day on the Mac succeed because they do one thing remarkably well. Simplicity is the absolute key for a successful piece of software, and Apple themselves know this. Most of their software for the Mac and iOS leaves out many features that are packed in by competitors (consider the one-button simplicity of the iPhone camera app, for instance).
My question for you today centres around your thoughts on iTunes Ping. Is this a valuable service for music lovers, or have Apple finally succumbed to the perils of feature-bloat?
I can’t believe that we’ve featured 75 MacTastik comics over the past 18 months. How time flies! It’s been a fantastic addition to our usual content, and always provided an interesting break from the norm.
Today marks the end of the MacTastik series, as we make some changes to our publishing schedule and move on to offer ever more useful and interesting content.
I’d like to say an absolutely huge thank you to N.C. Winters, the talented artist and writer behind MacTastik. You can still catch his work in the form of the Freelance Freedom comic strip over at FreelanceSwitch.
Without further ado, we’ll leave you with the final instalment of MacTastik. I hope you enjoy it!
Embedding this MacTastik strip elsewhere? Please provide a link back to this post and to NCWinters.com
Mac software bundles are big business these days, and new ones seem to be cropping up on a regular basis. Spawned by the still-popular MacHeist in 2006, bundle software sales always generate a stir in the Mac user community.
Whether this is down to the excitement of gaining a bunch of software for a really low price, or in kickback to the often poor deals given to the developers, most Mac users have an opinion on the issue in one form or another.
Whichever camp you fall into, you’ll be interested to know that two popular Mac bundles are drawing to a close over the next few days.
Winners Announced
We’ve chosen the winners of the giveaway, and congratulations are in order to:
- Brandon Roach
- Graphics Cove
- Dania G
- Mazi
- Steen
Your license codes will be on the way shortly! Thanks to everyone who took part.
Competition Now Closed!
We recently published a Quick Look at TrackRecord, and I’m pleased to let you know that we have five licenses available to give away today!
TrackRecord is a new time monitoring application for Mac OS X that integrates with 37Signal’s Basecamp. TrackRecord lets you track and manage the time you’re spending, filter your Basecamp account to see as much or as little as you like, and even edit and delete the time you’ve already posted to Basecamp.
It usually costs $20, but you have the chance to bag one of five copies for free! Entering is really easy. All you need to do is:
- Post a link to this competition – either on your website, or via Twitter
- Leave a comment, letting me know where you posted the link
The competition will run for one week, and I’ll pick five winning comments at random on Friday 24th September. Best of luck!
We’ll be starting to publish more content than ever across the AppStorm Network over the coming weeks, and we’re looking for a handful of talented writers to join the team. If you love apps as much as we do, you could make a fantastic addition to our ever-growing team of awesome writers!
The positions are regular work, and are paid – you earn between $40 and $150 per article depending upon the type of content you contribute. We’re looking for people with at least some writing experience, who feel they can match the type of quality we always strive for on AppStorm.
If you think you fit the bill, read on for our five-minute application form. We’d love to hear from you!
We’re kicking off a new weekly poll today, getting our readers opinion on a different topic each week. Hopefully this will give us all a chance to talk about a relevant issue, share our thoughts, and generally have a chat in the comments!
Today I’m asking something fairly general – how many people have you converted to the Mac platform? I’ve almost lost count of the number of people I’ve tried to haggle and persuade into buying a Mac – friends, family, colleagues – no-one is safe from my persistent nagging!
Do they all make the switch? Not everyone. But I reckon the number of loyal switchers I’ve managed to convert made the jump into double figures quite some time ago.
It’s just a shame that Apple don’t offer a commission every time you drag someone down to the local Apple Store…
Are you the same? Let us know – and do share your thoughts in the comments!
I’m pleased to announce that we’ve chosen the winners of our Alfred competition. Congratulations are in order to the following five people who will be receiving their Powerpack code shortly!
- Bretton L
- HBB
- Crazy H Studio
- Christine Lee
- Jared
Special 10% Discount!
We also have a great offer, just for AppStorm readers. Just use the code APPSTORM1 when checking out, and you’ll receive a 10% discount on your order! This offer will only run until Monday night (US time), so be sure to get your order in quickly!
Old Competition Details
If you aren’t already using Alfred App, it’s definitely worth downloading and giving a try. Alfred is quickly becoming one of the best application launchers available for the Mac – we’ve covered it previously on AppStorm.
Today we’re partnering up with Alfred to give you the chance to win one of five “Powerpack” licenses. This adds a range of extra features to Alfred App, including File System Navigation, Result Actions, and iTunes Mini Player, and lots more to be added soon. Usually priced at £12, we have five to give away for free!
Entering is really easy. All you need to do is:
- Post a link to this competition – either on your website, or via Twitter
- Leave a comment, letting me know where you posted the link
Simple! The competition will run for one week, and I’ll pick five winning comments at random on Friday 17th September. Best of luck!
Embedding this MacTastik strip elsewhere? Please provide a link back to this post and to NCWinters.com
