Perian – The Swiss Army Knife for QuickTime
There are a few utilities that I count as must haves on the mac. And Perian is one of them, whenever I start using a new mac it is one of the first utilities that I ensure is loaded on and available for use. So what is Perian? Well the short answer is that it is an indispensable tool for viewing and listening to different audio and video codecs, many of which are not natively supported on the mac. But this quicktime component ads some more efficient codecs that make virtually any video file “sing”. What formats does Perian support? Here’s a short list:File formats:... Read More
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Paparazzi! – Website Screenshots that Rock!
Paparazzi! – What a name… hehe. When I first started playing with this app, I thought, what am I doing? Who needs another screenshot application? OS X allows you to take screenshots directly from a keystroke, and there are tons of other apps out there that at least claim to take different types of screenshots. But to say the least I was plesantly surprised with this sweet little freeware mac app. Unlike most of the other screenshot apps or widgets available out in the interwebs, Paparazzi! takes screenshots of websites. The cool thing is that it will take a single screenshot of... Read More
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Deeper – Tweak Your Hidden UI Options
Deeper is a relative of Onyx, that we reviewed recently. It is a sweet little application that like it’s older brother Onyx, gives you control of many of the well known or lesser known features of the OS X Graphical User Interface. And like it’s senior sibling, Deeper places all of the options into one simple easy to use interface so that you don’t have to go hunting around your mac to change them all, you can just click the provided checkboxes and select fields to set the values you want to change. Deeper has been around since OS X 10.4 (Tiger) and has seen a new version... Read More
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Onyx – Cleanup your Mac
Onyx? you ask. What is it and why should I get it? Well let me explain. Onyx is the Swiss Army Knife of Mac Maintenance Products. I know, I know you mac “Just Works” and rarely has problems, but when it does or as a preemptive measure it is nice to have a tool that will automatically take care of the regular menial tasks so that you can spend your time on real important stuff. And Onyx is just the app to take care of your schwack. Onyx has been around and free since way back in the good ole days of OS X 10.2 (Jaguar), and has released a new version of the software specifically... Read More
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Think – Stay Focused on Your Work
I’m sure you’ve been there, working away on your next development project, pushing to meet a deadline for work, or writing that ever elusive thesis paper. And suddenly you notice that you have new emails, or that your friend has just tweeted some new nonsense, or that someone has just decided that they need to IM you about something, or… you get the picture. When you notice that distraction, it derails your train of thought while you direct your mental energies to reading/responding to the distraction. Then when you return to the business at hand you find that you take a... Read More
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Spirited Away – Auto Hide Unused Applications
Spirited Away is a sweet little application that helps you manage distractions so that you can remain focused at all times. You’ve been there before, working hard on a project, opening lots of different windows for different applications, and pretty soon you cannot see what you are working on for all the other windows that are hanging around. With Spirited Away you can avoid getting distracted by focusing on the application that you are currently using, and it alone. How does this litte app get this amazing feat done you ask? Spirited Away pays attention to the apps that you are using,... Read More
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Meteo: The Weather Man Without the Man
Let me take a moment to introduce you to a sweet new FREE app the I just recently found. Meteo (short for Meteorologist) came to my rescue after a bout with the memory hogging Dashboard Weather widgets. It just seemed like they would never give up, always seeking for a new way to take up my ram at all hazard. After complaining about how much memory Dashboard was using I found some references online to the weather widgets being the biggest culprits, so I set off on a mission to find a solution to my problem. Turns out my solution was Meteo. Not only does Meteo have some amazing features and... Read More
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