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They say that necessity is the mother of invention. It would stand to reason, then, that with the emergence of the Internet, it would be necessary to have an invention that would help us cope with the massive amounts of information. Of course, the category of RSS readers has been present for some time, but it’s almost as if that isn’t sufficient enough anymore. I can set up my RSS reader to pull from several different websites, but I can’t limit my information absorption to 5 or 20 or even 100 different websites; it comes from everywhere.
Some of the other AppStorm sites have talking about Pocket, a web service formerly known as Read It Later. Pocket, and other similar services, aim to let you save various articles and videos for later consumption, rather than letting them interrupt your workflow. Today we’re going to look at Read Later, which is a Mac desktop client for both the free Pocket and the paid Instapaper. The app was originally released as ReadNow, but it’s evolved quite a bit since we covered it, so let’s see what’s new.
I love Apple products, and have been using OS X fairly exclusively for nearly seven years. Now and again, however, I have use Windows to get various chores done, and a feature that Windows 7 has down pat is the ability to snap windows around on the screen.
There are a couple of tools for OS X that attempt to replicate this, but the best one I have used so far is called Windownaut, from Binary Bakery. It makes arranging and snapping windows a breeze, and also has some extra powerful features that I’ve never seen before!
If there’s one game genre I’m all for, it’s board games. I love the feel of the dice in my hands, the touch of crispy play money, the thrill of running after the hourglass, and the exhilaration knowing that I’ve trumped my fellow players.
With that said, I found myself curious of what it’s like to play a digital board game after spotting Ticket to Ride Online on the New and Noteworthy section of the Mac App Store. The icon, the screenshots, and the uber-friendly conductor convinced me to check the game out, plus the fact that its iPad version has garnered numerous game awards in the past.
Will the Mac version of Ticket to Ride Online stand just as tall as its iOS counterpart? Let’s find out.
About a month ago, the world learned of one of the first malware threats to do real damage to a large swath of Mac users. Known as “Flashback” because it masked itself as an update to Adobe Flash, the trojan reportedly infected over half a million Mac users. Once the trojan successfully installed itself in a user’s system, it harvested user names and passwords from the web browser and sent them back to who knows where. It took Apple about a week to respond to threat, issuing a software update that removed “the most common variants” of the trojan, but that’s still a lot of user names and passwords that got compromised.
Prior to Flashback, Macs had been largely regarded as virtually free from malware. After Flashback, many Mac users might want to start thinking about getting themselves some security protection. With that being said, Mac-directed malware is still a bit of a rarity. Which is why, if you’re going to add third-party protections to your Mac, you might want to start your shopping with a price comparison. That’s where BitDefender Virus Scanner comes in. It’s a virus scanner at the perfect price: free. The question is, will you get what you pay for?
In the Apple universe, certain developers are rockstars – from the OmniGroup to Panic, their apps are high-quality, beautiful, and full of personality. So when developer Marc Edwards and his team at Bjango released their latest app, Skala Preview, the Mac community had high expectations.
Is this tool for designers a follow-up hit from the team who created iStat, or is Bjango just another one-hit-wonder? Read on and find out!
Browsing around online and trying to figure out which app to buy can be difficult. So many developers offer app demos and they provide a cool glimpse into the workings of the app. This is great for customers and developers alike.
If you are a developer you probably would love a way to showcase your app online. Online demos are the wave of the future and that is exactly what Sound Stage helps you create. Is Sound Stage the perfect solution? You will have to read on to find out!
In recent years, indie developers have surprised us with many innovative concepts that ultimately enrich our taste for their creative games. The creativity that goes into these projects often shows us that even a small group of developers can come up with phenomenal ways to entertain us. However, for a number of reasons, many “hardcore” gamers stray away from the indie territory all together. This should not be the case with Bastion.
Recently released for OS X via the Mac App Store and followed by a SteamPlay update, Bastion is a rich and well-delivered action RPG experience that no Mac gamer should pass by. The depth of gameplay, outstanding combat system, and the hours of fun this game provides make it a must have for any gamer out there.
Keeping track of the time you spend during certain activities can be useful for many reasons. The most obvious one that comes to mind is if you are a freelancer that needs to bill by the hour, and therefore need some proof of how much time you spent doing certain tasks. But that’s certainly not all, even if you don’t charge by the hour, it’s still useful to know how much time you’re spending doing certain tasks so that you can then refine your workflow or be aware of how much time you are investing (or wasting).
If your job depends on charging by the hour, you probably already use a time-tracking/invoicing app like Harvest or Toggl. However, plenty of users have tried to get into these apps only to ultimately abandon or forget them. That’s where Tictoc comes in. It’s a drop-dead simple time-tracking app that lives in your Mac’s menu bar.
Mac is a dream platform for designers. Depending on how many complex features are needed to get the job done, there are a myriad of apps available for designers. It goes without saying that a designer has to handle everything from an exciting new mobile app interface to a boring brochure. Usually, the latter design need not be as ground breaking as the former and not every aspect of it has be built from the ground up.
Be it an office party, garage sale or a freelance catalog, you might never know when you will have to whip up a quick flyer or brochure all by yourself. Swift Publisher is desktop publishing app for Mac that can help you with all your design and layout needs. Come, join me after the fold to test its chops!
Though I’m not quite ready to jettison my bookcase full of real paper books, ebooks have definitely won me over and convinced me of their worth due to both their portability and the fact that historical, classic and other copyright-free texts such as Leo Tolstoy’s complete works or Homer’s Iliad can be downloaded for free legally through resources such as the wonderful Project Gutenberg.
While there’s a decent selection of ebook readers for Apple’s portable devices, I’ve found the Mac software somewhat lacking and so welcomed the opportunity to give Kitabu a try.
