Go, Speed Tracer!

Design your site at freeway speeds

Building an attractive, functional website requires a breadth of skills, from user interface design to HTML and JavaScript coding. It’s rare to find a great designer who can turn out exceptional code, and programming geniuses aren’t generally known for their design acumen. Software companies tried to address this issue with WYSIWYG webpage editors that could generate HTML for you—often with dodgy results. Freeway 5 Pro, however, generates standards-compliant code.

For every useful, functional tool in the App Store lies a piece of software that serves no other purpose than to kill time. From games and sight gags, to visual teasers and flashlights, the App Store is filled with free and low-cost ways to make your commute—or morning meeting—that much bearable.

Check out the full review after the jump.

Comic Touch for iPhone adds words to any situation.

Turn iPhone pictures into single-panel comics with Comic Touch. This simple program elegantly slices the basic features of its desktop sibling, Comic Life, into a mobile marvel. In just a minute, you can add speech and thought bubbles, and head- or footnote captions. While the variety of the Mac application has been squeezed out, Comic Touch stiil generates impressive comics anywhere.

Check out the full review after the jump. 

Smile For Big Brother

Need to catch your little sister borrowing your Members Only jacket? Do you suspect your cat of having cocktail parties while you’re at work? If you’ve got an iSight or other Mac-compatible webcam, Periscope can be your eyes and ears while you’re away from your Mac, capturing images like a security camera would and providing multiple options for sending the pictures to yourself. Just be wary of the manual, which is deceptive.

Instant Filters: This Zoom effect takes time to render in Photoshop, but happens instantly in Pixelmator, thanks to Core Image.

Apple loads iPhoto ’08 as standard issue onto every Mac sold, and while the app makes sharing and organizing photos a super-cinch, iPhoto doesn’t offer much of the power of Apple’s real-time Core Image technology. So is there room for a Core Image–savvy contender in the sub-$100 category of image editors? Pixelmator seems to think so. The Pixelmator app offers a $59 alternative to Photoshop. While we love the real-time filter effects, there’s a quite a bit that does not thrill us with this initial offering.

Adjustment settings can be saved and quickly applied to new photos.

We have thousands of digital photos, but still feel nostalgia for the days of leafing through prints crammed willy-nilly into dented shoeboxes. Wouldn’t it be nice to get your jumble of digital images out of their virtual shoeboxes? Blow up that favorite, or frame that one from last year’s family reunion and send it to your sister in St. Paul. Aperture 2 handles these tasks and more without the nagging clutter—or sneeze-inducing dust clouds—of those old shoeboxes. Meanwhile, it lets you nudge exposure levels and retouch problems. It essentially manages your photo library from import to export, keeping track of your changes and making the daunting task of cataloging hundreds or thousands of photos much easier than you ever thought it could be.

If you like a little eye candy with your online applications instead of minimalist geek-chic, have a look at Acrobat.com, a new collection of free collaborative tools and software from Adobe.