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IN THIS MONTH'S ISSUE!
Wild Cards
Not all Mac apps fall into your neat little categories. These five break the mold and completely deserve a place on your hard drive.
Bricksmith
Virtual bricks you can't lose or step on? Sold!
Legos are the official plastic brick of Mac|Life--we’ve
had many discussions about the empires we built in our childhood
bedrooms and how much we miss “playing Legos” as the soulless adults we
are today. Bricksmith (free, donations accepted; Allen Smith; bricksmith.sourceforge.net)
lets you recapture the magic in a highly geeky way. It’s a 3D
Lego-model creator, offering drag-and-drop construction using thousands
of parts in every color of Lego’s rainbow. Tutorials and the one
finished model that’s included show you the ropes, and once you’re done
with your virtual creation, you can export step-by-step instructions to
build it for real. There’s even a mini figure generator where you can
design and outfit a matching Lego man and insert him into your model.
This software couldn’t be cooler.
We can't believe an application this sweet is donationware.
CameraBag Desktop
Give your photos a new identity or some old-timey charm.
We
named the iPhone version of CameraBag one of our “101 Essential Apps
for 2008,” and now the same fun can be had on your Mac, thanks to
CameraBag Desktop ($19, Nevercenter, www.nevercenter.com).
You drag in a digital image, and the app re-creates the look of a real
film photograph--choose from Helga, Lolo, Mono, 1962, 1974, Instant,
Magazine, Cinema, or Colorcross.
For more variations, click the
Reprocess button, and all the options will change their look and
coloring just slightly. Or check the Multi-filter box and experiment
with adding multiple filters to a single photo. Of course, you can
export your altered images back to your hard drive without affecting
the original file. The novelty of taking an everyday digital snapshot
and making it look like a Polaroid image or washed-out 1974 photograph
never gets old.
Your digital photos, plus extra personality.
SousChef
Recipe database + shopping list + cooking assistant = one kitchen lifesaver.
SousChef ($30, Acacia Tree Software, acaciatreesoftware.com) edges out MacGourmet ($49.95, www.marinersoftware.com)
in the cooking-assistant category for its cloud database of recipes.
Every time a SousChef user enters a recipe (133,000-plus at press
time), it’s synced to the cloud, and you can search those and import
them into your own library. You can also opt out of sharing your own
recipes so Aunt Erma’s secret matzo ball soup stays in the family.
Once
a recipe’s in your library, you can edit, print, email, or blog it--or
even add its ingredients to your grocery list. Click the Cook button
for a full-screen view of the instructions that you can read from
across the room, keeping your Mac out of the splatter zone. The Mac’s
built-in speech recognition lets you advance the recipe’s steps with
your own voice, or you can use the Apple Remote or a Keyspan Front Row
Remote.
Temporis
Attractive, drag-and-drop timelines make it easy to "show, don't tell."
Everyone
loves a good infographic, or at least geeky types like us do. (And the
geeks shall inherit the earth, don’cha know?) Temporis ($24.99, Bartas
Technologies, www.bartastechnologies.com)
makes it easy to create neat-looking timelines on your Mac, which you
can then print or export as PDF or TIFF files that are ready for
importing into your presentation software, word processor, or
page-layout app.
Adding new events is just a Command-click away,
and it’s a snap to drag the start and end dates around on the timeline.
The Arrange button will automatically stagger your timeline’s events
into the most logical and easy-to-read order, and the Inspector lets
you tweak fonts, colors, titles, labels, and your timeline’s span and
intervals. You can even export the event data separately as an XML or
CSV file.
Manga Studio Debut 4
Create your own comics and manga, and even manga-fy your photos.
Manga Studio Debut 4 ($49.99, Smith Micro, my.smithmicro.com)
is a must-have for fans of Japanese manga or anyone who wants to make
their own comic books. Its ingenious Beginner’s Assistant groups
together the tools by processes so you can intuitively wind your way
through a typical manga workflow: sketch, panel, draw, tone, and add
character dialogue.
You can scan or draw your own art (graphics
tablets supported, natch), play with the included samples, purchase
manga content from www.contentparadise.com,
or even import your own digital photos and watch Manga Studio make them
all comicky-looking. Draw speed lines, add dialogue bubbles, move your
pages around, and then print or export your finished comic book.
Manga
Studio Debut 4 is the younger brother to professional-level Manga
Studio EX 4 ($299.99), but Debut has plenty of advanced features too,
including layers, templates, customizable patterns, and more.
Mac|Life Staff Picks
Bass Tuner
I’m
a beginning bass player--like, very beginning. So it’s a huge help that
I don’t have to worry about staying in key. This terrific, simple, and
streamlined little app ($9, www.rustykat.com)
lets me quickly get in tune in front of my MacBook using the built-in
mic. With that necessity sorted, I can fire up some tracks and
tablature and focus on struggling to play along.
Multiwinia
Multiwinia ($19, www.ambrosiasw.com)
offers crazy replayability. You devise a strategy for your stick-figure
army, then watch them take on up to four other teams in six game types
on 40 vector-graphic maps. Online multiplayer against Mac and Windows
players works flawlessly and keeps me coming back for more. No Napoleon
complex necessary.
MetaX
If you need to tag a large amount of MP4 files, you could use iTunes’ painfully slow process. Instead I found MetaX (free, www.kerstetter.net)
for all my tagging needs. The app will search the IMDB catalog and plug
the information into the appropriate fields, then share that info via
tagChimp. You can even scan DVD barcodes via iSight!
Bean
For a word dork like me, word processors are a big deal. Bean (free, www.bean-osx.com)
is a lightweight, open-source word processor. It’s missing many of the
blinky lights and thingamajigs of the big boys, and that’s exactly the
point. Fewer distractions equals better writing, faster. And for anyone
who needs to hit a certain length, the live word count rocks.
Fluid
I often find that Firefox has the tendency to crash when I have too many Web applications running. But Fluid (free, fluidapp.com)
lets me create a site-specific browser out of my most essential
websites, like Google Docs and Flickr. Simply plug in the URL, and
voilà! You have a separate application running that won’t go down if
something else does.
Next Page: More Gaming Bang for 50 Bucks >>
Don't forget the sister apps to RipIt
Submitted by heosat on Tue, 2010-01-12 22:56.
Evom and Rivet should really be on this list!
Skip Connect 360
Submitted by skellener on Tue, 2010-01-12 23:23.
Get Rivet instead
Rivet
http://thelittleappfactory.com/rivetI have both and Rivet is far superior in performance.
How about Sauerbraten,
Submitted by LeftClicker on Wed, 2010-01-13 18:07.
How about Sauerbraten, Blender, Firefox, The Gimp, and Google Chrome?!
what about google(service)
Submitted by wsblackcat on Thu, 2010-01-14 01:01.
what about google(service) SuperDrive Firmware and iphone ringtone maker which work on mac and iphone os
so many software under $50
Submitted by amanda110 on Thu, 2010-01-14 01:07.
Thanks for sharing i think these softwares are also useful and cheap iMageFit only $9.95 iCollage for Mac $29.00 Veenix TypeBook $49.95 useful font tool
Super Home Entertainment Software
Submitted by luckyemma on Thu, 2010-01-14 02:06.
There would be no one who doesn't like to share his fun or happiness with others. That's why home entertainment shot videos now are so popular. The brand new super powerful video to dvd burning software DVD Creator for Mac now is only $39.00. You deserve to own.
Perfect DVD to iPhone Converter
Submitted by hotsummerwater on Thu, 2010-01-14 03:38.
iPhone now is a popular portable player for new people to enjoy DVD, but there is problem in front of you, you need a nice software for you rip DVD to iPhone, so today I will recommend you a powerful and easy-to-use DVD to iPhone Converter just for windows version, and for Mac version, I share with you DVD to iPhone Converter for Mac. Click how to rip dvd to iphone on mac to get it.
Software that may help you a
Submitted by danfeiyan18 on Thu, 2010-01-14 23:22.
Software that may help you a lot on dvd copying is Aimersoft DVD Backup for Mac( it's the world's best and cheapest dvd copy software for mac os x 10.5 Leopard and 10.6 Snow Leopard), which can easily backup dvd to ISO file/VIDEO_TS folder/dvdmedia or burn dvd to a new dvd disc on Mac without losing quality.
What about Powder?
Submitted by mac_daddy on Sat, 2010-01-16 10:58.
I got a great little application from powder.unaligned.org that is "a physics simulation game". It's like those stupid falling sand games online, only a whole lot better, because you can build things and choose where to put the volatile materials! That, and you don't need to be online to play it. The only downsides are it eats up battery life and precious processor availability. Basically you turn your mac or pc into a short-lived space heater, but you have fun while doing it!
Houdahspot
Submitted by ngc7000 on Sat, 2010-01-16 20:21.
The app in which SpotLight could only wish it could be!
There would be no one who
Submitted by swdd swdd on Wed, 2010-01-20 05:34.
There would be no one who doesn't like to share his fun or happiness with others. That's why home entertainment shot videos now are so popular. The brand new
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Inkscape
Submitted by Scion of Tytehran on Fri, 2010-01-22 16:19.
I think Inkscape looks interesting but it won't run. It tries to open and then just quits and all the help information is disconcertingly difficult to navigate. I guess it was a good try but not a lot of joy for an awful lot of digging around trying to get something to just open and run properly or at all.
iPhone Ringtone Maker for Mac
Submitted by Jactory on Thu, 2010-02-04 02:02.
Well, as a Mac and iPhone user, iPhone Ringtone Maker for Mac should be in the list cause it 1. Convert almost any audio/video format to iphone ringtone 2. Make,sync and manage ringtones skipping iTunes
Fluid
Submitted by Wintermute on Fri, 2010-02-19 15:20.
Thanks for bringing Fluid to my attention! It's a very useful app. Also, I have to say that SohoNotes trumps Macjournal any day of the week!
buy dvd online
Submitted by pressure cleani... on Tue, 2010-04-06 02:48.
Cheers for the info. It was a good read.
http://www.dvdtime.com.auhttp://www.dvdtime.com.au
dvd duplication
Submitted by pressure cleani... on Tue, 2010-04-06 02:50.
Useful info. Hope to see more good posts in the future.
http://www.admsolutions.com.au
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