Optical Disks are rapidly going the way of cassette tapes, zip disks, floppies, and every other form of removable storage we’ve used over the years. Yes, CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray disks are still important, but they’re far from the most important thing for computer users today. We watch movies and listen to music online or download them from the iTunes store, we download programs from the App Store and games from Steam, and we backup and share files with Dropbox, iCloud, and dozens of other online backup services.
CD and DVD drives are annoying at best. They break more often than not (yes, I’ve seen over a half-dozen DVD drives break over the past several years), and keeping your disks scratch-free is an exercise in futility. Then you have to keep the disks around just in case you ever want to rip that song or install that program again.
That said, DVDs are still rather useful, if for nothing else than watching movies. Downloads are great, but when your internet connection is slow or the discount section at the store beats iTunes prices, the trusty old DVD still serves its purpose. That’s why I own a Samsung external DVD drive to use along with my MacBook Air (I know, Samsung and Apple, sitting together on my desk…).
How about you? Do you use an external DVD drive, or have you kicked disks to the curb as Apple has started dropping DVD drives from its latest Macs? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!
Back when I worked in quality assurance, good screenshotting applications that did anything more than what you could already do with Command+Shift+3 were few and far between. I ended up pasting together a lot of screenshots, wishing I could just hit a button and capture the whole webpage at one time.
Those days days are over. Web Snapper, with its range of tagging features and ability to snap an entire webpage, is a pretty useful tool to have. Add to that it’s multiple export formats, and is there anything this app can’t do? We’ll find out! (more…)
A few weeks ago the trackpad of my Macbook started acting funny. The bottom right side of it stopped working when being clicked, and since then it’s only gotten worse as the problem seems to be expanding to the rest of the trackpad.
This got me thinking what I would do if all of its clicking functionality eventually stopped working, and that’s how I came across the app that we’re reviewing today. It’s called DwellClick, and it’s a pretty unique app that lets you click and drag without using any buttons in your mouse or trackpad. It’s kind of hard to explain, so let’s get deeper into it!
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MacTuts+ is the superb new site dedicated to teaching people how to use their Mac, and OS X, more effectively. We’ve got you covered for apps, but combine that with an in-depth knowledge of OS X and you’ll be unstoppable, limitless!
This is a quick roundup of the best tutorials from MacTuts+ in November, from How to Upgrade Your MacBook Pro to an SSD to The 2012 Mactuts+ Holiday Gift Guide.
I love a good RPG, but sometimes I get tired of paying lots of money for a nice, playable game. I tend to not get a lot of replay value out of my games, so I generally prefer to pay less (and sacrifice some long-term playability). Juggernaut was a game that seemed to meet my criteria – only 5 bucks, and it looked like a decent game. I decided to check it out.
In the latest version of Juggernaut (Revenge of Sovering), the terrifying Sovering has taken over the land of Haradan. You play as one of 5 legendary warriors, better known as the “Scorpions.” Within your quest you must slay more than 100 evil beasts as well as complete numerous, terrifying quests. It all culminates in the final battle against a terrifying demon. Is Juggernaut worth your time and money? Stick with me after the jump to learn more about gameplay, strategy and what I really think about the game.
Changing the size or file type of your photos and other images should be a snap, but unless you’re comfortable on the command-line there’s no quick and easy built-in method in OS X. There’s many ways to resize pictures and save them in other formats — even Preview can handle that — but it takes several steps for each image.
Snap Converter fills the void. It’s a drag-and-drop image converter that can handle many file formats, resize images, add watermarks, and batch rename. Both simple and functional, it’ll handle all your basic image processing, but you may need to look elsewhere if you need more advanced tools. Let’s take it for a spin.
To most of our readers, our love of Alfred should be immediately apparent. It is one of those apps that is an integral part in so many of our workflows. I for one feel naked and lost working on a Mac without it. Therefore, it should come as no surprise to hear that I was giddy with the news that version 2 will soon be knocking on our eager doors.
In a recent blog post, Vero goes into a little detail, stating that version 2 has been secretly in the making for the past six months. The app has been rewritten from the ground up keeping very little of the original codebase and promises to be even more powerful, flexible and efficient. Vero also reassures Veteran users that they will still feel right at home in the new iteration of Alfred. Developers on the other hand, will have to tweak most of their existing extensions for them to work in the new version.
Details are still a little sketchy at this time but the team behind Alfred has promised to tantalise our senses in the coming weeks with sneak peaks of the new features. A beta of the new version is slated to be available sometime in January 2013, but it will only be available to Mega Supporters. If you haven’t yet bought a license then this would be the perfect time to do so, or alternatively you can upgrade your existing license and be part of all the fun when beta testing begins.
In the mean time, why not peruse some of our previous coverage of Alfred, where we delve into ways of making the best of it, or turning it into a top notch Notes Manager.
In theory, I love the idea of being able to easily take handwritten notes and have them stored on my computer. I’m going back to school and taking a bunch of math classes, so it would be nice to be able to handwrite equations and insert them in my notes, rather than using a dedicated equation editor. I could try to do the handwritten style notes on my iPad and take regular notes on my computer, merging them after class, but that seems unnecessarily difficult. Unfortunately, I kind of need something that doesn’t seem to exist quite yet, so in the meantime I’ve been exploring various apps to take handwritten notes directly on my computer.
PenJournal was my latest trial – it’s a simple program made to take handwritten notes, primarily using a graphics tablet. You can take notes, draw simple images, import/annotate PDFs and much more. Obviously, using a graphics tablet is not ideal for taking notes in class (my desk in class isn’t big enough for all that), but it’s still a program worth taking a look at. Stick with me after the jump to learn more about the features of PenJournal and how it stacks up to its pricier competitors, and how it works both with and without a tablet.
There are lots of RSS readers in the App Store, and with each release, it seems they’re each more feature-rich and impressive. What if you don’t need all of the bells and whistles and the sometimes hefty price tag? What if you just need to know when the sites you’re interested in get an update?
NewsBee, more or less just a menubar app that links to your favorite sites, may be the answer. It’s not really an RSS reader, since you can’t actually read anything in NewsBee. Instead, it aggregates the titles and links of all the most recent posts of a particular site. But is NewsBee just enough for a menubar RSS app or not even close? (more…)
Back in July of this year, I reviewed a highly rated Mac App Store app called “Photo Album” and found it to be very disappointing and lacking quite a few basic features. FlippingBook, the developers, has just released version 2.0 with new and improved features that hopes to bring their score up and become open to a new set of users. I will be looking at the new version and comparing to the original, and will also provide a fresh perspective.
The goal of Photo Album is to allow users to take all of their photos and transform them into stunning photo albums that they will share with family and friends. As a promotional special, Photo Album 2 is 25% off the regular price. Will version 2 erase all of version 1’s shortcomings? Read on to find out!
