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The quest for the perfect information store is unending. Many of us long for a single place where we can put everything so that it’s easy to find and work with. Of course you could use various folders in a complex directory structure – I did that for years, nesting folders for months within folders for years within folders for particular areas of interest.
Needless to say, this soon became unworkable! So then I broke down my intricate folders and dumped everything into a single big ‘Archive’ folder, trying to rely on Spotlight to find what I needed. That worked better, but I sometimes found it difficult to track down what I was after.
My system’s gone through a few more transformations since then, and I have tried several different apps along the way. Together is one of the best I’ve used, and it has some features that might make it the ideal solution for many people.
With iFlicks, you can manage your entire video collection through iTunes. iFlicks imports video files of almost any kind (.avi, .mpeg, .mkv, etc), tags them with all the meta data you could wish for and even converts videos into a different file type – but only if necessary!
The days of searching for files across drives and spending hours with conversion processes are finally over. In this review, we’ll be taking an in-depth look at how iFlicks makes managing your digital TV shows easy!
Apple’s System Preferences are fairly extensive, and certainly allow you to quickly alter the most common settings related to your Mac. Though this is perfect for most users, occasionally it becomes necessary to dig a little deeper into your system configuration.
This is where Cocktail comes in. It’s a standalone application that provides all manner of advanced options for you to configure – everything from how the interface of various apps behaves, to adjusting Spotlight, Time Machine, and emptying caches.
We’ll be taking a look at just how powerful this little utility is!
PDFs are in part designed so that they cannot be edited. However, often you may need to change or correct something in a PDF document. PDFpen from SmileOnMyMac is a wonderful tool that lets you do just that.
Though important, the ability to edit text is only a small part of PDFpen’s abilities. This review will investigate what can be achieved using this application; from merging pages to character recognition, as well as what could be improved.
Mekentosj is a delightfully geeky company, specialising in science and research related software. Although they publish a few other applications, they’re best known for Papers, which won an Apple Design Award back in 2007.
The app used to be billed on their website as ‘Your personal library of science’, a subheading I’m pleased to see they’ve changed now to ‘Your personal library of research.’ Previously, it stood a chance of getting stuck in a kind of science-ghetto, where it might seem less interesting to others who would definitely benefit from it.
For researchers and students across all disciplines, writers and journalists, or basically anyone who needs a reliable focus and storehouse for their research, Papers is a great application and has few – if any – real competitors.
Isn’t it annoying when you import photos from your camera and they are all labelled some variation of ‘P1163954.jpg’. With Renamer, you can quickly and easily batch rename all your photos to ‘Car1.jpg’, etc, or even change the file extension. Renamer doesn’t stop there, it has the power to batch rename any type of file. Through a series of Automator like actions, your files can be renamed in a matter of seconds!
Renamer is developed by the team over at creativebe – who have also brought you some other fantastic apps such as iArchiver. The application doesn’t contain any unnecessary ‘frills’ and is excellent at what it does.
Alarm clocks are great and all, but if you find yourself becoming immune to the repetitive noise they make or hitting ‘Sleep’ far too often, it might be time to look elsewhere to get you out of bed in the morning.
Awaken from Embraceware Software is a marvellous alarm clock app that lets you wake up to your choice of music or sound in a great interface, even if the application isn’t open and your computer is asleep. This review will look into what else this app can do.
Let me say right at the outset that I’m not an obvious choice for reviewing this application. I’m not a designer, and I don’t currently work on maintaining any websites; I have little use of software for working out effective color schemes in my day-to-day life and work. These facts might make me either entirely the wrong person to assess ColorSchemer Studio 2, or just the right guy.
I used to be involved in running the website of a big local authority, and I have seen first-hand the damage that can be done by untrained eyes when the thought arises “Wouldn’t it be nice just to add a little splash of color to this page?” With ColorSchemer, this needn’t be such a big problem any more.
This is a really clever app that simplifies the work of coming up with effective and attractive color combinations for websites or any screen design work. You don’t need to be a professional designer to appreciate its great features or to find it useful whenever you do need to work with colors.
Have you ever needed to do some simple photo editing or creation, but didn’t want the hassle of opening up Photoshop, or are too afraid to learn it? Then Acorn is for you! It’s a lightweight image editor that allows you to do many of the functions of more advanced programs (such as Photoshop), but doesn’t have quite the same learning curve or price.
Developed by Flying Meat, Acorn is an image editor that allows you do paint, draw and crop photos. It is also jam-packed with other features and a range of useful filters.
We reviewed an earlier version of Acorn last year, but will be covering new features and exploring the basics in greater depth today.
DVDs can be a nuisance to carry around. They also scratch, break, or go missing over time. RipIt, from The Little App Factory lets you rip your DVDs to your Mac so that you can watch them at anytime without the DVD inserted in your drive.
RipIt is an application so beautifully simplistic, even your mum would have no problem using it. This review will have a look at why RipIt is better than other apps out there, highlight how the process works, and take a look at what’s missing.
