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The thing that I love the most about Google Docs is its no frills interface. I’m a vocal advocate of the app and thanks to it, I haven’t used Microsoft Office in the past three years. But, Google Docs isn’t perfect either and has a bunch of quirks that haven’t been addressed properly by Google so far. Offline access and multi account login are two that top my list of gripes.
A couple of weeks ago, I got the chance to review Google Drive for Mac. Unfortunately, it didn’t offer either of the two above mentioned features. But, the app is a step in the right direction. Not discouraged by the launch of an official client, the developers of Collections have ventured with a Mac app of their own to help you organize your cloud documents locally.
If you’re a web developer or just like to use every character imaginable in your daily routine, Macs have a menu for that. Whenever you’re in a text field, you can just click “Edit” and click “Special Characters…”, or simply use the shortcut CMD + Option + T. It’s a nice, easy way to insert pictographs and the like, but what if you want a little something more, there’s a new app in town.
Being the sheriff and all, I introduced myself to him. He’s an outlaw of third-party sorts; says his name is Characters. He carries his fair share of trusty bullets and stars and even tries to hit you with a few arrows once in a while. Even though his supply of said objects isn’t as plentiful as that of Apple’s, he’s been taught some Greek and Latin to talk his way out of any predicament. This fellow don’t mess around. I happened to haul him in for questioning and found a few extra developer tools on board. Let me take you back to the Old West for a few minutes while we examine Characters. (more…)
Minecraft is a phenomenon. The game that was born from one man’s mind has sold nearly 7 million copies and generated an immensely devoted community of fans. It’s been heralded as one of the best games of all time, and it’s not at all difficult to see why.
When we reviewed it last, Minecraft was still in beta, version 1.9, and has since been officially released, taken out of beta and received a wealth of significant updates. With Minecraft 1.3 hot off the presses and hitting as a free update, it’s time to take another luck at why this game is so successful and offer some update views. (more…)
With so many task management, GTD, and to-do apps available, for a new task management app to be worth the trouble to try out, it has to give you that extra bang for your buck. A good task management application has to identify a hole and try to fill it, and do a really good job at the same time, or it’s just not worth moving from another task app that’s getting the job done.
Currently available to download for free while in beta, Nokumo is attempting to solve your task management woes, make your workflow more productive, and make it worth your while to switch to a new app. Giving you a space to keep your contacts, events, tasks, and projects under one roof, Nokumo looks to be a powerful application. But can it deliver on its promises?
The official Google Drive Mac app made a somewhat underwhelming debut. While it features full Finder integration and syncing options that matched those of the Mac Dropbox client, it fails to leverage the power of Google Drive on the web — which includes a full office suite and a plethora of sharing and file management options. And neither the Mac app nor web app are particularly user-friendly.
I’ve wondered why it has to be so hard. Apparently the developers of Archy felt the same way, so they created an app to make Google Drive and Docs easy. The app’s still in beta, but I can already say confidently that they succeeded.
Macs aren’t known for being easily customizable, but if you put a little work into it and have the right tools, you can make some great changes to really make you Mac your own. This is especially true with your application icons. With the exception of your wallpaper, switching out the icons that represent each of your applications is perhaps the easiest change you can make to your interface. Sometimes, though, the image or icon you want to use isn’t in a format that’s going to work as a Mac application icon.
iConvert Icons wants to fix all that. I’ve been using their webapp for years to convert images and Windows icons to something I could use in OS X, and I’ve never found a Mac app I’ve liked near as much. They’ve finally released an app that can live on my Mac, though, and save me the trip online every time I need a change of scenery in OS X. But will the new Mac app be as good as (or perhaps even better than) their webapp? (more…)
I love arcade-style games. They offer such simple pleasure, with quick thrills, a mantra of easy to learn but hard to master, and you can drop in and out of them at any time. The Mac has seen its share of great arcade space shooters over the years, thanks to shareware classics from the likes of Ambrosia Software (Maelstrom, SketchFighter, Mars Rising) and Pangea Software (Pangea Arcade), among others.
While Sad Cat Software’s Violet Storm is a decent and mostly-fun game, it doesn’t hold a candle to these or other popular recent games owing to the legacy of 1979 arcade hit Asteroids (such as Geometry Wars, to which Violet Storm is highly indebted). But at $1.99, it might just be worth a look anyway. Allow me to explain why.
Our giveaway is now closed, and we’ve randomly selected our 3 lucky winners from the many entries we had. Congrats to Chris, Crazyhunk, and Lucas, who just won a free copy of Mountain Lion! We hope everyone gets to try out Mountain Lion sometime soon; it really is a great OS (though we might be biased…)
Today, Apple has finally released their latest addition to the OS X family with version 10.8, also known as “Mountain Lion“. This new version brings with it a whole host of improvements, most of which focus on bringing features such as the Notification Center and iCloud from iOS to the Mac. In addition to those new features, 10.8 also includes systemwide refinements, which make the OS feel like what Lion should have been. And, at only $19.99, it’s the most affordable version of OS X yet.
Read on for our in-depth review of Apple’s latest big cat, and a chance to win a free copy of Mountain Lion!
The summer is drawing to a close for many and the summer vacation season is also near the end. The need to share all of your great vacation photos with your family and friends is becoming more apparent and now is the time to do it. You could of course just email all of your photos to family, but that would be cumbersome and boring. While there are many online photo sharing websites, you might like something with a little more flare. Hoping to bring that little something extra is Photo Album by FlippingBook.
Photo Album allows you to transform your photos into sharable photo albums. The goal of Photo Album is simplicity and ease of use, but does it live up to that expectation? That’s what we’re here to see.
Finding images on the Internet tends to be difficult and time-consuming. You have to switch from one search engine to another, clicking through to a separate page for advanced settings if you need specific types of images. Then, looking at a larger version takes you to another page, from which you can check out the full-size image or the website it was found on (with yet another click and page load). I hate it.
Skyscraper (formerly Pandora; renamed to avoid confusion with the popular music service) tries to solve that problem, giving you an app to search for images online from the comfort of your Mac. It has a raft of handy features that stand it as a major player in the image-search apps arena, and does a decent job of fulfilling its tagline: “Find and download images of anything.” (more…)
