Currently Browsing
Reviews
Here at AppStorm, we review many games throughout our various networks. From Mac games to iPhone and Android games, we can’t help but to give some love to the gaming culture. With the recent addition of Game Dev to the Tuts+ network and our own Gaming Month here at Mac.AppStorm, we decided to review an app that isn’t a game, rather, a game creator: GameSalad.
GameSalad is an application that allows you to create games for a variety of platforms. So in essence, this app can help you create your first game in no time. If you are an indie game developer or someone interested in creating a soon-to-be iOS smash-hit, GameSalad is probably the best and easiest way to get your hands dirty and let your creativity run wild.
When it comes to choosing a personal finance app for your Mac, you’ve got quite a range to choose from. We even did a roundup of 15 of the best candidates a couple of months back and picking one can be quite difficult owing to all the different range of features in each one.
Well, we can’t look at all 15 individually (otherwise we’d be here until the end of the year!) but instead we’re going to look at three of the most popular in a bit more detail, Moneywiz, iBank and Money, comparing the features and, most importantly, which out of these three is the best personal finance app for you.
So, you’ve got a photo which is nice by itself, but you’d like to make it pop a little bit more. Perhaps you might want to focus someone’s attention on a part of the image, re-color other parts to change the meaning, or even blur parts as part of the artistic license.
While you would have to have had a whole laboratory ten or more years ago to achieve this with real film, digital images allow us a much easier workflow and with Color Strokes for Mac you can quickly put some unique touches on your photos.
Jump past the break to find out more!
Apple has been moving towards a more “mobile feel” with Mac OS for a while now. Lion introduced a few features like the Launchpad, Mission Control, and even some multi-touch gestures to make your Mac feel much more like an iPad or an iPhone.
The recently released Mountain Lion builds on that, by providing even more snappy goodies to the OS like increased compatibility with mobile devices through iCloud, a Game Center, social network integration, and, most notably, a newly introduced notification system called, quite fittingly, “Notification Center”.
How does it work? Where is it moving towards? What’s gonna happen to other apps, like Growl, that have done the same thing for quite a while now? Let’s take a look.
Spore is far from a new game. It was released almost four years ago to a tremendous amount of hype, in part due to it’s lead designer having a history of simulation games including the blockbuster SimCity and The Sims franchises. It received some criticism due to that hype, but it still turned out to be a fantastic game even if it hasn’t been awarded the same legacy and future that The Sims holds.
Spore is a simulation game based around evolution where you take a species from being a mere cell in an ocean to a galactic, space-bourn empire. Through the game you are slowly introduced to more civilised concepts of unity and, through hostile or friendly measures, eventually achieve world and galactic domination. As part of our look back on some of our favourite Mac games as part of Gaming Month, let’s take a look at this ambitious game. (more…)
Ever wanted to search through a user’s old tweets? Or maybe you’ve thought about archiving your timeline (for posterity, vanity, or perhaps future analysis). Problem is, there’s no easy way to do it. Twitter provides no such tools to its users (not directly, anyway). Thankfully, there are plenty of third-party services and apps for archiving and searching both your tweets and other public timelines.
Tweet Cabinet is the first app of its kind that I’ve seen for Mac. It keeps a local archive of as many users’ public timeline as you desire, allows advanced searching within this archive, and does not require authentication — you don’t even need a Twitter account to use it. But it feels underdone, with a poor user interface and limited non-search filtering options. Let’s take a look at whether there’s enough here to make the app worth your while.
(more…)
Some apps just don’t make sense at first. Grandview was definitely one of those for me. I love writing apps, and own almost every one available for the Mac. Yet, I could never wrap my head around the reason for Grandview.
Until I tried it out today, since its free right now in the App Store. To my amazement, it clicked for me. I’d still say it’s not for everyone, but here’s what I like about Grandview, and why I just wrote this article in it.
There have been many takes on Mac antivirus software over the years. Some people still refuse to believe that Apple’s prized computers can get infected, but the reality is that the Apple world is less secure than you might wish. ClamXav is a great app if you’re looking for some extra protections from the dangers out there, and it really works its hardest to keep your Mac safe. Our own Jorge Rodriguez reviewed this fine app at the beginning of this year, saying that “it feels trustworthy”.
But aren’t there some other worthy competitors to Mark Allan’s minimal virus protection approach? Why yes, and I think the most notable one comes from Symantec. It’s called iAntivirus. That’s right, the developer of Norton also made a Mac antivirus app that’s nothing you should overlook. It’s an extremely minimal approach with only four menu options, but there’s still a lot of protection offered. Let’s take a deeper look, shall we? (more…)
Typing has become as essential to life as writing and reading. It’d be impossible to use most tech products today without any typing skills, and if you use computers for any extended period, you’d better be fast while typing or you’ll quickly get left behind. Accuracy and speed are still crucial skills, even with AutoCorrect and speech detection built into OS X today.
Keys is an app that aims to get you typing faster than ever and to help you improve the accuracy of your typing. The average person can type around 50-70 words per minute, but with Key, you’ll hopefully be typing like the pros at 150 words per minute in no time. It might be the perfect app for back-to-school season, getting you ready to type up essays, or for any of us IT pros that want to speed up our typing. Let’s take a look and see if this is the app you need to make your typing more efficient on the world’s best OS for writing. (more…)
Bills are an inevitability of life, but spending a lot of time trying to keep track of them isn’t. It’s not unlikely that, throughout your life, you’ll have to pay mortgage payments, phone service contracts, credit card repayments, etc, and all at different intervals, costs, and dates. It can be a confusing financial landscape, but staying on top of things is something you have to do.
Enter Chronicle, a bill management software now in it’s fifth version that eases the process of keeping track of your due payments, and ones past. With the app, you can add payments of all sorts, be reminded when they’re due and log them once they’re paid. It’s on sell for just $9.99 to celebrate the new launch, and it’s a pretty nice, all-in-one solution, so let’s take a look. (more…)
