Magnifique is a is a nifty app that allows you to theme your Mac with a completely revamped interface. Many themes (which you download and apply with Magnifique) are available for free, and are for the most part very well-designed. It’s intuitive and effective, and an excellent app to have if you’re getting bored with the Mac OS X UI (or just want to get rid of those nasty Aqua elements!). My current favorite theme is “Disinmaso”, which is a mashup of two themes by interface designer Susumu Yoshida called “Disingenuous” and “Umaso”.

WARNING: As of this writing, Magnifique is NOT compatible with Snow Leopard. It is only compatible with Leopard. A Snow Leopard-compatible version is being planned, but will likely require a rewrite of the entire application, so it may be some time before it’s available.

Rating: 5/5. Easy, functional, and has a bunch of awesome themes available for free download.

Developer site:
MagnifiqueApp.com

Poladroid is a fun little app that converts your images into Polaroid-style photos, complete with post-processing. It adds a great (and editable) vignette, and changes the colors of your photos. My favorite part is that you actually have to wait for the images to develop, and you can watch them slowly appear over time. The interface is simple–just drag and drop a photo, then wait. It’s not exactly the most useful application out there, but it’s a lot of fun to mess around with.

Rating: 4.5/5. Finish localizing the menus, and it’ll be perfect.

Developer site:
Poladroid.net

Colors is an extremely simple app that can get the exact RGB value of any color on your screen, and copy it to your clipboard in several different formats. It’s great for web and/or graphic designers who find the “perfect color”, and need to use it in their work. The UI is a minimal HUD window with a small magnifying glass that you can click. This then zooms in onto a small portion of the screen, allowing you to select the exact pixel you want.

Rating: 5/5. Stylish, accurate, and easy to use.

Developer site:
MattPatenaude.com

One of the more frustrating aspects of dealing with USB-based connectivity is that there’s no standard for deciding how devices are dealt with when plugged into your computer. Cameras by Flexibits takes an ultra-simple approach at filling this software gap by providing one place to specify what should happen when you plug in a camera. Within its pane in System Preferences, you can choose what you want to happen when certain cameras are plugged in. It supports an unlimited amount of cameras, and even iPods. It will only ask what you want to do (in the form of a popup dialog) once, but your decision can be changed within the aforementioned pane. In summary, if you have a lot of USB devices, Cameras can help you sort out the actions so you won’t be overwhelmed when plugging them in.

Rating: 4.5/5. Very simple, and has a very nice icon, but I’ve had trouble getting it to pick up my Canon Rebel T1i.

Developer site:
Flexibits.com

AddressBookSync matches your Facebook friends to your OS X Address Book contacts. It then adds profile avatars, birthdays and location info to your contact cards. Obviously, it can’t sync that information if your friends didn’t fill in those fields on their profile. AddressBookSync also allows you to manually match a Facebook friend to a contact that it doesn’t recognize. This is helpful for friends who, for example, only have their last initial and not their full name on their profile.

Rating: 5/5. This app works exactly as advertised. It is the perfect antidote to birthdate forgetfulness, and a great way to add contact photos to your address book.

Developer site:
DanAuclair.com/AddressBookSync

Evom is a relatively new video conversion app that’s currently in public beta. The UI is dead simple (drag and drop, choose a format, and click export), and includes nice functionality like the option to add the video to iTunes, among other things. The developer also created a bookmarklet that allows you to download Flash video from the web straight into Evom for conversion. Evom can even upload videos to YouTube, after optimizing them in terms of size and quality. This app has essentially become my replacement for iSquint, which is no longer in development. If you’re looking for a no-frills, very fast video conversion app, make sure to check out Evom.

Rating: 4.5/5. While I’m all for simplicity, I’d like to see a few more comprehensive options in terms of video export.

Developer site:
TheLittleAppFactory.com/Evom

It’s been a while. Believe it or not, though, FreeMacAppaDay is still alive. Summer has begun, and I can get back to updating frequently. I feel terrible about going months at a time without posting even once, but it was the price I had to pay to keep on top of my schoolwork. You can expect (hopefully) daily updates again soon.

In other news, I’m looking for help. It’s obvious to me now that I’m unable to maintain a daily updating website alone, especially during school. If you think you have what it takes, please send me an email using the contact form on the main page (and, well, every other page for that matter). Thanks, and I hope to receive some emails soon.

Oh, and one last thing. I’ll be doing a small shareware (yes, paid applications) giveaway soon, in return for everyone’s patience in the last few months. I’ve been talking with some awesome developers, and will have some licenses ready for you guys soon. Stay tuned.

Ivory is a clean-cut mahjongg game that has great 3D graphics. As far as mahjongg games go, it can be difficult to achieve uniqueness, but is about as close as you’re going to get. Surprisingly, Ivory is cross-platform, but still has a fully native Mac version (which is quite unfortunately uncommon). The controls are simple, and the camera movement shows off the smooth, 3-dimensional aspect of the game. If you don’t like the look, of the tiles, there are several replacement sets available. This is how mahjongg should be.

Rating: 5/5. Simple, clean, and fun. How it should be.

Developer site:
IvoryMahjongg.com

XLD, short for X Lossless Decoder is an awesome audio converter that I stumbled upon a while back. It supports a lot of file formats (including the lesser-known FLAC, OGG, APE, WV, and TTA), and can convert them without any quality loss. What sets XLD apart, though, is the speed. XLD can convert huge, lossless quality FLAC files (30MB+) to iTunes-compatible M4A files in just a few seconds, or up to 50x real time. It’s also a fully functional CD Ripper and burner. Heck, it can even create cue sheets for CDs. Another added bonus that sets XLD apart is that it comes with a fully-functional command line tool. If you’re in need of a nice audio converter or a solution to play FLAC files in iTunes, look no further. XLD is your solution–I’ve never seen a faster converter.

Rating: 5/5. A plethora of options and unmatched encoding speeds.

Developer site:
TMKK.HP.InfoSeek.co.jp/XLD/Index_E.html

DropLink is a new Mac app that’s in the beta stages currently, but looks very promising. Essentially it’s a droplet that sits in your Dock and lets you upload a file by dragging it to the DropLink icon. Once the upload finishes (indicated by an out-of-the-way progress bar and a Growl notification), the link is copied to your clipboard. It’s simple, yet effective reminder of the usefulness of minimal applications that can make your life that much easier.

Rating: 5/5. Perfect, great Growl integration. I can only hope this will be kept free!

DropLink.me