Limbo is an independently developed side-scrolling puzzle game from Playdead that is available on a multitude of platforms. I first played it on the Xbox Live Arcade, but didn’t really get a chance to play all the way through it until I downloaded it on my Mac. Today I’m going to delve into the world of Limbo, and since the best part of playing the game is not knowing what comes next, I’m going to try to do it as spoiler-free as possible! Hit the jump to read on.

Aesthetic & Art Design

Limbo (n):  1 an uncertain period of awaiting a decision or resolution; an intermediate state or condition. 2 a state of neglect or oblivion

The first and most striking thing about Limbo is the design aesthetic, which beckons a brief discussion prior to getting into the meat of the game, since it so heavily influences the gameplay and story. Limbo’s game world is a monochromatic one, with characters and world elements having a somewhat silhouette-like appearance. Despite the black-and-white, the world is still a beautiful environment with complex lighting and excellent physics, both of which are most noticeable during scripted game sequences that drive the story.

Gorgeous, dark, and semi-industrial themed environments are increasingly complex and challenging.

I will get into gameplay and story a bit more later, but in the case of Limbo, the way the game makes you feel while you play is really a product of aesthetic as well. From the very beginning, the game makes you feel like you need to keep moving, despite the uncertainty about where (or why) you are going. To this end, Limbo holds very true to it’s name. And the dark, industrial theme keeps you interested in pressing onward.

Gameplay & Story

When you first begin Limbo, you’ll assume the role of a nameless (as far as I can tell), and nondescript little boy. The game opens in a grass field, where our hero awakens (demonstrated by small glowing eyes appearing in his head) and rises to his feet. Then you run. In what I can only interpret as a design choice meant to perpetuate the feeling of uncertainty, Limbo provides absolute no fourth-wall-breaking instructions or hints on how to play the game. Fortunately, the controls are simple and intuitive: the left and right arrow keys to move, and the up arrow key to jump.

Elements of danger, like these electrified surfaces, will result in almost-certain death until you get the hang of what to avoid.

At it’s core, Limbo is essentially a puzzle game. As you run, that feeling of uncertainty and urgency remains, even during the sequences where you have to stop and solve puzzles in order to move forward. I’m no game designer, but I have to assume that this balance is an especially difficult one to strike. The puzzles are challenging and increasingly complex, but not so much so that you feel held up, or that you ever lose that sense of urgency.

As you run, you’ll likely begin to piece together a bit of implied story about the world and the character you play. The game is void of any dialog whatsoever, and I find this particular storytelling technique fascinating. Where it gets tricky is trying to reconcile the small bits of story you are able to pick up on with some of the very bizarre and brilliant puzzles. The level design goes so far beyond “block pushing” and challenges you to think differently to solve light, gravity, and timing based puzzles.

Some of the puzzles require spatial reasoning and a working knowledge of gravity shifting. Luckily, gravity shifting is a hobby of mine.

Here seems like as good of a place as any to note a small disclaimer about Limbo. The game world provides an eerie atmosphere on it’s own, with the blacks and grays and shadows. But beyond that, there are elements of the game which may be disturbing to some players. Your character’s death is nearly inevitable (you’ll almost certainly die during several sequences, simply because you haven’t determined certain pacing yet), and this death causes your character to revert to ragdoll physics. Because of some death-trap like puzzles, and some thoroughly terrifying enemies, some of these methods of death will result in dismemberment, or worse. My opinion is that it is a perfect accent to an already ghostly and sinister gameplay atmosphere, but it most certainly caught me off guard the first time it happened.

Ouch.

As I mentioned above, I’m doing my best to preserve the uncertainty and avoid spoilers, because I feel that it is an essential part of enjoying the game. That being said, I simply can’t leave you today without mentioning the ending. I have a tendency to worry, during games (and books and TV shows and movies…) that the ending of a particularly cerebral story could end up being lame, or at the very least, disappointingly unsatisfying. Without revealing the ending, let it be known that all of these worries were quashed, and even though I didn’t know it beforehand, Limbo left me feeling exactly the way I now feel it should have.

Final Thoughts

The more I think about the game, the way you play it, the feelings it instills, and the way it ends, the more I realize how brilliantly titled it is. It wasn’t a terribly long game (though, you’ll almost certainly wish it was), but for $9.99, it is well worth the fun. With a low barrier of entry, simple-to-master controls, and a game world that isn’t overly complex or difficult to navigate, Limbo really focuses on absorbing you into the gorgeous landscape and story, creating a most enjoyable gameplay experience.

Our computers hold abundant amounts of personal data that most of us would rather not let get into the wrong hands. You might be surprised to see just how many applications are constantly sending data out of your computer, and it is important to be sure that all that stuff is going to places you trust. Fortunately, there are apps that help us monitor what our computers are sending out, and allow us to selectively block transmissions. Here we are going to look at two excellent apps called Little Snitch and Hands Off that aim to do just that.

What Exactly Do These Apps Do?

Every app that you use on your Mac that sends or receives something, from your email client to your RSS reader, sends certain pieces of data to a server out in the vast ocean of the internet. Most of these apps are ones you can trust, but certain apps may be more suspicious.

You can think of Little Snitch and Hands Off as your spies. Once you tell them who is allowed to communicate with whom, they monitor your outgoing connections and only allow those with the proper permission to actually transmit any data.

User Interface

Little Snitch and Hands Off approach their task in much the same way. Once you launch them, both begin to immediately watch for any app attempting to access data from a remote server. The first time an app does, you will get a dialogue box letting you know who was just caught.

You also get some basic information about what server is requesting the data. Hands Off seems to do a better job of communicating what is going on. For example, it told me that iChat was trying to communicate with “talk.google.com” which is obviously a place I trust. Little Snitch, on the other hand, only said that it was trying to connect with “17.173.255.222 on UDP port 16384.” I would prefer to know what that address actually is.

Hands Off gave me very specific information about what iChat wanted to do.

Little Snitch gives you similar options, but with slightly less helpful information.

The two apps then make it very easy to choose what you want to do after being alerted. Both ask you to select whether you want your decision to be permanent, to last only until you quit the app, or just this one instance. Hands Off also adds another option, which lets your decision last until you reboot your computer. Next, both apps give your four options. Little Snitch lets you decide to:

• Grant the app in question to freely access any connection
• Grant it access only to the specific port it is requesting
• Grant it access only to the specific address it is requesting
• Grant it access to both the address and port it is requesting

Hands Off also has four options, but they are slightly different:

• Grant access to any domain’s resolving
• Grant access to any domain’s resolving and outgoing connections
• Grant access only to the domain in question
• Grant access to the domain in question and allow outgoing connections

As you can imagine, it can be tedious getting popups at first as the apps have to go one by one through whatever you are opening or might have requesting access in the background. Both apps save all these decisions you make into a menu that is accessible from your menubar. You can see all the apps that have been given permission, and can sort by specific variables.

The menus of these two apps look very similar, but Hands Off (seen here) is slightly more streamlined.

Honestly, it’s shocking just how similar the interface on the menu screen is. Both apps refer to your permissions as “rules,” both allow you to search from the top of the window, both even employ similar graphical themes.

Little Snitch (above) has much of the same functionality as Hands Off, but can be a bit more cluttered.

Winner: Hands Off

Both of these options approach the alert system in a very similar way. I think Little Snitch does the presentation in a slightly more attractive way, but Hands Off breaks down the relevant information for you in a more user-friendly way. Overall, I found the interface of Hands Off to be slightly superior to Little Snatch.

Functionality and Performance

I did a series of tests by opening Little Snitch and Hands Off separately, and then opening several different apps on my computer to see if they both alerted me to the same things. Both performed exactly the same, (and Hands Off was particularly vigilant, even asking me if Hands Off itself had my permission to transmit and receive data). Neither one slowed down my system at all, and a check of the Mac’s built in Activity Monitor showed that both used a very small amount of RAM and processing power.

Hands Off (above) and Little Snitch both run in the background, so you won't need to keep them open.

You don’t just have to wait until you open an app for the first time to set up a rule. Both Little Snitch and Hands Off allow you to manually set up new rules. After choosing the app you want to limit, you can select a specific hostname, IP address, port, and many other options. Hands Off gives you a few more options on this menu than Little Snitch, as shown in these screenshots:

Hands Off gives you a bit more flexibility when creating a new rule.

Little Snitch's new rule input menu is similar, but slightly more limited.

Hands Off does manage to separate itself from its competitor in one important way: it doesn’t just monitor outgoing transmissions, but actually gives you the power to block incoming data as well. Both of these apps are primarily billed as ways to protect your privacy, but the ability to block incoming connections is a valuable weapon to combat threats such as viruses, trojan horses, keystroke loggers and other harmful programs.

If you are worried about someone coming and changing your rules, Little Snitch will let you lock your settings. Such a tool is probably for the most paranoid of users. It is unlikely that the developers saw this as a way for parents to block access of certain apps, since Mac OS X already has this function built in.

A nice addition that both apps have is a pop-out network monitor that shows real-time network activity. The Little Snitch window can appear whenever you mouse over the menubar icon, whereas the Hands Off window requires either a manual selection from the icon’s drop-down menu, or a keyboard shortcut. The menubar icons themselves also give a limited view of network activity.

Little Snitch (left) and Hands Off (right) both have network monitors that can you can open to show real-time information about what apps are actively transmitting data.

These apps are both designed to be background enforcers, and after taking the time to define permissions for your apps, they generally do stay out of the way. Perhaps the most important part of any app like this that has so much control over your system is the off button. Both allow you to either disable all your rules, or just turn them off temporarily. Hands Off gives you that power right from the menubar and via keyboard hotkeys, whereas Little Snitch makes you navigate into the preferences pane.

The preference pane on Little Snitch is where you'll find the disable button. Hands Off has this option accessible from the menubar.

Lastly, one very minor complaint I had with Little Snitch is that it makes you restart your computer after installation. Hands Off starts doing its job immediately.

Winner: Hands Off

The interfaces of these apps were designed in almost identical ways, but the functionality is where some more pronounced differences start to show. I was much more pleased with the way that Hands Off takes their protection a step further by preventing incoming access if needed, and found navigating to certain things like the enable/disable button to be much more user-friendly.

Pricing

Both of these apps have free and paid versions. The free versions have full functionality, but will automatically shut off after a few hours. Utility apps like these are most effective when they are always running, so I would recommend shelling out for the paid version if you are truly interested in monitoring your apps.

The full version of Hands Off is $25, and the full version of Little Snitch is $30.

Who Wins?

Make no mistake, these are very similar apps that do just about the exact same thing. Neither does anything radically different than the other, so the differences are very subtle.

I think Hands Off is slightly more user-friendly considering the easier navigation for certain tasks, such as disabling the rules right from the menubar. What makes Hands Off the winner for me is the ability to block incoming as well as outgoing connections. Since the two apps are indistinguishable in so many ways, this added functionality pushes it over the top.

For most competing apps, a five dollar price difference isn’t large enough to be much of a factor. However, I think in a case like this where the competitors have such similar products, it should play a part, and my preferred app, Hands Off, is the cheaper one.

Do You Really Need Either?

A natural question to ask about these programs is whether or not you need one. That, of course, is a subjective question. If you are someone who is very concerned about your privacy and are the type of person who doesn’t like sending user data to companies, then these apps are perfect for you. If you are someone who doesn’t just download your apps from the Mac App Store and instead like to download from slightly less reputable places where apps aren’t screened, Little Snitch and Hands Off will definitely benefit you. However, if you are someone that only owns a few apps, all of which come from developers you trust, or you aren’t overly concerned about your personal data being sent to strangers, these apps may be overkill.

Perhaps what could persuade me to use apps like this would be a developer or community driven blacklist that these apps could download and update periodically. If many users have identified a certain app that has proven itself to be untrustworthy, other users could have access to that information for themselves.

What Do You Think?

Now that I’ve shown you what my experience was using these apps was like, we’d love to hear what you think. Is there some particular feature in one of these that makes it the winner for you?

This man knows his software and rather than continuing along this very successful path, he decided it was time to give back to the developer community and he created Appsterdam – a community built for creating applications. Read on to see Mike’s story and how it all started for him.

So Mike, thanks for being with us today. Can you tell us a bit about your background?

It’s a long story, but I’ll try to keep it short. I took the long road to engineering. I studied journalism at the University of Hawaii before running out of money and dropping out, and didn’t start programming until much later, when I was working for Alaska Airlines in Seattle. It was a very dangerous job. I’d been injured several times, and a couple of my peers had actually died at work. I didn’t want to be next, so I took a piece of hard advice someone had once given me: “it’s called skilled labor; look into it.”

I quit flight school and sold my equipment to buy a used PowerBook so I could learn to code in the downtime between flights. I ended up getting together with a coworker who was teaching himself design to create an online training system for the airline. Just that test app represented an annual savings to the airline of $800K a year, so they gave us jobs writing training software, later branching into anti-terrorism software.

Falling For Mac Apps
That was my first white collar job, which brought with it a new set of problems. I had to create documents to justify and explain my work. Soon I became as known for the documents as for the work, with people asking for my secrets to taming apps like Powerpoint and Visio. The secret was, I didn’t know anything about those apps. I was just using Mac apps like Keynote and OmniGraffle instead.

The secret, as they say, was in the sauce. I became obsessed with those apps. I wanted my own apps to be empowering like them, but in order to make that happen I had to get out of the enterprise. When industrywide cost-cutting came around to a chance to take early retirement, I left the company and struck out of my own. I went to my first WWDC in 2005 for $100. I used flight benefits retained from the airline and got a scholarship ticket from Apple. The $100 was a week’s stay in a sketchy hotel.

That’s where I met Wil Shipley, founder of Omni and Delicious Monster. The timing was such that his crew left to go to Apple, so together with Lucas Newman, we became the new crew. For my part, that required shedding my material possessions, moving into a tiny room in Wil’s basement, and working for free for the first year. I ended up serving as Wil Shipley’s protege for 3 years, earning an Apple Design Award for Delicious Library 2 in the process.

Delicious Library 2

Writing Apps For The iPhone
When the iPhone came out I knew I wanted to write apps for it. I ended up moving to Silicon Valley to work with some guys who’d bought all the good Jailbreak apps. That project became Tapulous, which produced a bunch of great stuff, the most famous of which was Tap Tap Revenge, the first game on the App Store to have a million downloads, and the only app I’ve worked on that’s appeared on stage with Steve Jobs.

After Tapulous I started another company called United Lemur. You’ve probably never heard of it, as we weren’t around for long, but we did contribute to a famous app, Obama ’08. Then the economy collapsed, I lost the retirement funds that had backed the company, and we all had to get jobs. I went to Apple, first working in Worldwide Developer Relations, then working on the Apple Store app project.

The official Obama app

Wow thats pretty intense! Now tell us about your current project, Appsterdam

Nearly two years ago, I left Apple to take a year-long trip around the world, speaking at conferences and staying with colleagues. My original intention was to figure out where I wanted to live and what I wanted to work on. The conclusion I came to was that Amsterdam was the best place in the world to live, a bit like Epcot Center meets Burning Man, a great place for adult activities like writing code and raising children.

The big realization, though, was that I was not the only one looking for a home. A lot of the people I was talking to were interested in moving, but it was more than that. It was like the entire industry was looking for a home. I realized we needed a homeland, a center of gravity, the way Hollywood is for movies, the way Broadway is for musicals. That was the idea that led to Appsterdam.

What started as a table of local App Makers became an organized volunteer force. Over the “Summer of Appsterdam” we used a series of initiatives to organize the community into the world’s most advanced infrastructure for App Makers, by App Makers, making Amsterdam the best city in the world to be an App Maker. We have lectures and meetups every week, and family gatherings and workshops every month. There’s something for everyone regardless of schedule, platform, or skill level. Appsterdam events are a way for engineers and designers to meet the business, marketing, and legal experts they need to turn great apps into successful companies.

Of course the Appsterdam movement has since grown larger than just the homeland project. Now we’re a non-profit meta-organization representing the interests of App Makers worldwide. We like to think of ourselves as gardeners of the ecosystem. Our operations go far beyond the city of Amsterdam.

For example, the Texas-based Appsterdam Legal Foundation’s Operation Anthill is providing information and legal representation to App Makers as we lead the fight against patent extortion. A number of Appsterdammers have returned home to open Appsterdam embassies in their home towns. Soon you won’t have to go far to experience the spirit of Amsterdam, a city known for centuries as a meeting place, with a name synonymous with tolerance, where all are welcome to bring their best to share.

Mike in his casual attire. Photo by Tom Hayton

What is it you think defines great software and why do so few achieve it?

Great software is a great product, and great products surprise and delight their users. I always think back on using Keynote and OmniGraffle versus their Windows equivalents. I didn’t know what I was doing, but the software made me look like I did. It was easier to use, and it made me look amazing.

My whole career has been dedicated to figuring out why. What I discovered is that it’s not about the size of the team or the amount of time taken. Indeed the one constant of all engineering projects is there’s never enough time and never enough people, yet adding either is unlikely to make things better.

Instead, what it comes down to is a question of discipline and humility. Most people either assume that what they have built is great, or they don’t care. That might sounds dismissive, but I think we all find ourselves in one of those situations. Even the most dedicated engineer, faced with budget restrictions and a deadline, can convince themselves something is ready to ship when it isn’t. Many of us even delude ourselves into thinking that making something great is a step that comes after getting it out the door.

The Steve Jobs Way

I later read Steve Jobs describing the process that I had discovered. When you are trying to solve a problem, and what is an app but the solution to a problem, your first attempt tends to be naïve—simple, but ineffective. After working through all the edge cases, you will end up with a solution that is effective, but no longer simple. This is the point when most people make the decision to ship, because the alternative—going back to the drawing board—seems insane.

In fact, it is going back to the drawing board for the “second 90%” that is the secret to achieving a solution that is elegant—both simple and effective. This is still a radical idea in software, but other industries have long since figured this out. Any writer knows finishing the writing and finishing the book are two different things. The edits and rewrites take as long as the writing, if not longer. Yet no self-respecting writer would ship their rough draft.

What many in the software industry call “churn” is just a normal part of the space between getting something out of your head and getting something ono the shelf. It is the willingness to throw away code, to invalidate work, to make your own products obsolete, that separates the good from the great. With so much short-term sacrifice in favor of long-term gain, it’s no wonder the people who produce great products always seem to run afoul of politics.

What does a typical day look like for you? Walk us through your usual schedule and activities.

I don’t really have typical days. I like leading a life of adventure, which means not falling into routines. That being said, there are some places you are likely to find me. I spend a lot of time in front of my computer, usually answering email or writing. I haven’t been writing much code lately. I write project proposals, blog entries, copy, and am working on some books, writing some of my stories down. I was a writer long before I became an engineer, and I’d like to spend this year writing books.

Of course much of my time is taken up with Appsterdam activities. We’ve set things up so I don’t have much to do with the day to day operations, which means I spend a lot of time in meetings, mostly with our COO or the other board members. Wednesday in particular is Appsterdam day, with a Weekly Wednesday Lunchtime Lecture during the day, and “Meeten en Drinken” at night. On the weekends there’s usually a family gathering or workshop that needs my attention, and on a lot of days I am attending some other non-Appsterdam events in the city or elsewhere. My mayoral presence is in high demand.

I am also in demand as a speaker, so I spend a lot of time outside the Netherlands at conferences around the world. I spent a year doing nothing but conferences, but have since tried to curtail my appearances by adding a small speaking fee and limiting my appearances to keynotes. If I also did workshops and track sessions I would literally do nothing else. With the number of conferences still increasing, we’ve started the Appsterdam Speaker Bureau to train people to fill those slots.

When I’m not in front of my computer or at an event, I’m usually out walking through the city. Amsterdam is such a wonderful city to walk through. It’s flat and beautiful and dense, so I can walk through familiar streets and still be greeted with unfamiliar sights. I usually walk as I work to clear my head when I’m stuck on a hard problem or suffering from writer’s block. Many of my staff meetings occur on foot. In the off-times and quiet hours, I like to spend time in close proximity to my partner, but since she also works on Appsterdam stuff, we often talk about work, even while cuddled up on the couch or something.  The idea of work-life separation seems artificial to me, like something that was invented to make it OK to spend half your waking life doing things you don’t like. I work all the time, but I love my work.

As a developer, do you feel you need to be always running the latest hardware? What’s your current setup like?

Quite the opposite. As a developer, I feel like I have an obligation to understand the average user. They are unlikely to have the latest hardware, and even less likely to have a bunch of power user stuff. That means I miss out on things like Quicksilver. Wil Shipley taught me to program on the slowest hardware that will run the current system. If you can make your software great on that rig, it will really fly on new stuff.

To demonstrate that point, I am only on my third laptop since I started programming.

My trusty 15″ 1st gen Powerbook, named “Eien” (Japanese for “eternity”), lasted me for a while into Delicious Monster, when I won a coding contest that earned me the rights to the Intel test rig, a 17″ first gen Intel Core 2 Duo machine. It came with a glossy screen, which I bitched about at the time. Shipley bitches about me bitching about it to this day. I called that machine “Sex Blimp,” from the Snake n’ Bacon comics where people were always shouting “Damn you , Sex Blimp!” We were pushing the limits of the Leopard beta with Delicious Library 2, and I was doing a lot of cursing in the general direction of my computer.

Wil was kind enough to let me keep that machine when I left, and it was my machine all through Tapulous and United Lemur. I kept it through Apple, sharing the load with work-issued machines. It died the summer I left after drinking a cup of coffee. I have lost more hardware that way. At the time I was working on a project for a friend’s company for very little money. Basically, he was taking me to my first Burning Man, and if I was going to trust him with my life in the desert, we were going to have to have the bond of brotherhood only working together can bring.

When I destroyed my laptop, he bought me a nice 17″ i7 with four cores and a matte screen—with his own money! That’s the kind of friend you keep, and I’ve kept the machine as well. I named it “Highwind,” after the airship in Final Fantasy 7, since I was planning on prancing around the world dressed like an airship captain, which I did. That’s the machine I use to this day.

I don’t use external monitors, relying only on my laptop screen. That way I never get used to the luxury of having all that room. Instead, my laptop is my whole workstation, which means I can work anywhere, and I do.

As someone who’s clearly no freshman to the world of development, what would be your suggestions to people looking to enter this realm?

Your best weapons against your own ignorance are your colleagues. If you live in a city of any size, there’s probably some group of like-minded nerds getting together at least once a month. You should join that group and get to know those people. They are cool people, and you will make lasting friendships that make a positive difference in your career.

When you go to a technical conference, the sessions are only there to justify the tax write-off. The real action is after the show when people go out to drink and get to know each other. Jump in there. Make friends. It’s called networking, and it’s good for you. If there’s some famous programmer you admire, don’t be afraid to approach them. Just keep a few things in mind. When you introduce yourself to someone then stand there staring at them, you make them feel obligated to entertain you, which they will try to extricate themselves from as soon as possible. Chances are, there’s a group of people there and there’s a conversation going on. Join that conversation. Take a deep breath and be cool. Your heroes are people too, just like you. Just be yourself and you’ll be fine.

When in social situations, resist the urge to be pretentious. Don’t pretend to know things you don’t, or that you are more than you are, or that what you are is any kind of big deal. People who are doing this right are willing, nay eager, to teach people new things. It’s so much better to just embrace your ignorance and take the chance to learn something. That’s an attitude that will serve you well in general. This stuff is hard, and to be any good at it, you’re going to have to spend your lifetime learning. If you’re not enthralled by the prospect, you’re not cut out for this stuff.

Do you have any predictions or hopes for the future when it comes to both software and hardware?

I have one major prediction, which is that we’re heading to a world of nanotechnology where we are engineering at the molecular level. At that point, there will no longer be such things as hardware and software, because they will be the same thing.

The important realization is that this convergence is already happening, and has been for a long time. Software represents configurability, the ability of a machine to change to suit different purposes. Computers are universal machines, tools capable of being reprogrammed into different tools, like a hammer that magically turns into a screwdriver. Something like the iPad then is not so much an advanced computer as it is a primitive colony. The apps we write transform that hardware into a book, or a piano, or a relaxing koi pond. Skeuomorphism might be a dirty word to some people, but that’s where we’re going.

That’s why Apple’s software has become increasingly extravagant even as their hardware becomes more minimalist. The iPad is not about being an iPad, it’s about being whatever your app wants it to be. The future of hardware is software. We talk a lot about changing the world and making the world a better place and people make fun of us for that. But when you look at how many tons of paper and plastic iTunes and iBooks have eliminated from our lives, you see the real power in what we’re doing here.

That’s the little stuff. I spend a lot of time thinking about big stuff as well. Our minds are the ultimate software, and they’re trapped in this rather clunky, unreliable hardware. Just think of the freedom, the power we could unlock, if that weren’t so. We’re so tantalisingly close to the Singularity. If the more dismal models of the Earth and our effects on it are correct, the race to escape our bodies may become more than an academic exercise. Let’s hope society gets its act together by then.

Thanks Mike,

Thanks Mike for giving up your valuable time, it is a truly inspiring tale and great to have an insight into a mind of someone so experienced. If you want to hear more of Mike you can check out his blog or follow him on twitter. I wish you the best of luck with Appsterdam Mike, we are all sure it will do wonders for the development community.

Today we’ll be taking a look at the Mac version of Mental Case. Could it make a big difference to your study? Read on to find out.

Overview

Mental Case helps you to create digital flashcards which can hold rich text, images, video and sound. These are organized under different stacks in which you have collections of notes. A traditional flashcard only has two sides, but with Mental Case, sides are renamed “facets” and you can have as many as you like.

Mental Case opens on the Notes Browser, which lets you flick through notes by dragging your mouse across them, which feels like a natural motion. Notes can be rearranged and there are three different views available, all which are useful for viewing the facets hidden under each note.

Mental Case Notes Browser

Creating a New Stack

Creating flashcards in Mental Case is a fairly painless process. Upon creating a new Stack, you are prompted to name your Stack and choose between Question and Answer, Multiple Choice, Reversible Note, Simple Note, or Translation. These simply create a template for your notes so that it’s easier to create them specifically for your needs.

At the bottom is the Learning Schedule, which is actually quite clever. If you choose long-term learning, you will be tested often at the beginning, and over time the space between revisions will grow further and further apart, to ensure that the information stays with you. Alternatively you can choose to target a specific deadline or do some short term cramming, which will have a more intensive study structure.

These learning schedules are scientifically based, and Mental Case will list the stacks that are due for testing each day.

Creating a new Stack

With your Stack created, you enter the Note Editor. Here it is straight forward to add content to each facet of your notes. In the example below, I dragged an image of various flags into facet 1 and then wrote the name of the country on facet 2.

Create Notes with the Note Editor

Downloading Flashcards

Whilst creating flashcards is part of learning, it’s not the fastest process. Thankfully, Mental Case includes access to two flashcard stores (FlashcardExchange and Quizlet), from which you can download endless pre-made sets to suit your needs.

A quick browse through and I found myself revising my knowledge of the Japanese alphabet in no time. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for a while now but Mental Case made it a whole lot more appealing.

Download pre made flashcards from the online

Revision Time

When it comes time to actually learn your flashcards, Mental Case makes this a fun and interactive task. The slick animations certainly add to it. To start a revision slideshow, you simply select the stack of notes you wish to study, click the ‘play’ button at the bottom of the screen and choose “Notes in Selected Stacks”.

This switches Mental Case to display your notes with the answers hidden. You can either just flick through them, or type the answer underneath the notes and see if you were right or not. This will grade you as you go, or you can choose to grade yourself instead of typing each answer out.

One drawback with Mental Case that you’ll notice below is that the text is really tiny on the card. In the Note Editor I made the text larger, but after going back to the slideshow it was small again. Perhaps this is a bug which needs looking at, but studying alphabets would certainly be better with a much larger font.

Slideshow mode for revising and testing

A neat feature is the “Show Statistics” button which allows you to have a look at your progress over time and for the current study session, which helps with a bit of motivation.

Check on your progress

Conclusion

Mental Case is a well designed application that would definitely benefit many who need to learn heaps of new information. It is super easy to create your own interactive flashcards, even easier to download pre made ones, and offers a great way to revise and follow your progress. It has a few small things which need some work – I had to restart the app a couple of times when the interface layout got confused, but all round this is a great app to aid with study.

Mental Case is available for $29.99 and offers a free 14 day trial. Let us hear your thoughts on Mental Case or if you’ve got any other must-have apps for studying!

There are a million of these apps on the market but we’ll save the research and present five of the best options around for controlling your music from the menu bar.

Skip Tunes

Price: $0.99 | Developer: Greg Dougherty

Skip Tunes is the new kid on the block, only recently hitting the Mac App store. It’s effect was instant though as it quickly jumped near the top of the list of the most downloaded apps in the store. In fact, as I write this it sits at the number one slot for paid music apps.

So what makes this app so great? The answer may not be what you think. Some menu bar apps allow you to control nearly every facet of iTunes: volume, star rating, song meta info, etc. This isn’t one of those apps. In fact, it doesn’t have any of these features.

Instead of piling on fifty things that you’ll never use, Skip Tunes goes the simple and super attractive route. The menu bar item holds only a music note icon, and two buttons: play/pause and skip. Clicking on the music note will give you a gorgeous drop down menu with the information for the currently playing song and a few more contol options.

Skip Tunes

Skip Tunes does have one impressive trick up its sleeve. It’s not merely an iTunes control, it functions perfectly with Rdio and Spotify as well. I use all three of those apps regularly so I really appreciate this flexibility.

Control iTunes, Spotify and Rdio

CoverSutra

Price: $4.99 | Developer: Sophiestication Software

CoverSutra has been around for a while and offers a serious punch of functionality. It offers music search right from your menu bar, global shortcuts for controlling your music, floating bezels for additional control and beautiful jewel case artwork that sits on your desktop.

CoverSutra

In addition to all of these great features, CoverSutra offers Last.FM integration with Scrobbling. At $4.99, it’s not as cheap as the previous option but it is competively priced for its feature set.

Album artwork on your desktop

If you’re looking for a menu bar app that goes above and beyond the duty of playing and pausing, CoverSutra is a solid option that won’t disappoint. If you’re into other apps though like Rdio and Spotify, you’re out of luck with this one.

Tracks

Price: $4.99 | Developer: Conceited Software

Tracks is very similar to CoverSutra, the price point is the same and there’s plenty of functionality overlap. You can search through your iTunes library, Scrobble to Last.FM, define global shortcuts and receive Growl alerts for the currently playing song.

Tracks

Tracks has a few tricks of its own as well. For instance, you can extend your search beyond your own library into the iTunes Music Store. You can even listen to track previews and buy songs!

Impressive search functionality

Music Control for iTunes, Rdio and Spotify

Price: $4.99 | Developer: Americo Trading

If you’re looking for another option that takes control of not just iTunes, but Spotify and Rdio as well, this is a good option to consider. It has a cool and unique interface and offers a lot of great features.

Music Control for iTunes, Rdio and Spotify

When you click the menu bar item a little drop down menu appears with a dock that lets you choose which player you’d like to control in addition to the standard music player controls. You can also browse through albums and see the info for the currently playing track.

Another great feature of this app is the ability to not just control the machine that you’re currently on but any others on the network.

Control other Macs on the network

This app’s amazing feature set makes it quite enticing. However, one look at the reviews on the App Store and you can see that it’s still a little rough around the edges. There are some bugs and lagging functionality that need to be smoothed over. The developers seem to be fairly active though so hopefully any issues you run into will quickly be addressed.

You Control Tunes

Price: Free | Developer: You Software

As you can see, $4.99 is a pretty standard price point for apps in this category, making Skip Tunes above quite the deal. So what can you get for free?

The first thing that probably comes to mind is Bowtie, which is indeed a fantastic app (I’m a huge Bowtie fan). However, from a strictly menu bar perspective, there’s not too much functionality there (most of the functions are on the desktop widget).

One of the most thorough free apps that I was able to find that lives primarily in your menu bar is You Control Tunes, which is a free subset of a larger paid app called You Control.

You Control Tunes

You Control has a super impressive feature set given that it’s free. The menu bar appearance is fully customizable: scroll text and/or show one of several available sets of buttons. Then when you click on the app a huge menu opens up with all kinds of functionality.

Along with the information and album art for the current track, there’s some impressive browsing functionality. You can browse by any criteria you like: albums, artists, playlists, etc. You can also control the iTunes volume, activate on a Growl-like overlay and even assign start ratings.

Seriously in-depth options for control freaks

As you can see in the image above, there are a ton of customizable preferences to tweak to your own liking. It seems like every little piece of the app’s functionality can be changed. If you’re a control freak, you’ll love this app.

Conclusion

These five menu bar apps all offer a great way to control iTunes from your menu bar. Skip Tunes keeps it simple and attractive while offering the bonus of controlling three different apps, CoverSutra adds some awesome search functionality and augments the menu item with some really nice desktop display options, Tracks goes a little further and even allows you to search the iTunes store and listen to previews, Music Control is another option that works with three different apps and can even take control of other computers on your network, and You Control Tunes is an amazingly fully featured free app that allows you all the control you could want and more.

Now that you’ve read through our five favorite options for controlling iTunes from your menu bar, it’s time for you to chime in. Have you tried any of the apps above? Which is your favorite? Are there any others that you think are even better?

The Iconfactory recently released xScope 3: a  major update to their popular software, promising over 70 new features and improvements in interface and performance, let’s take a look at what’s new!

xScope 2 included seven main tools accessed via menubar: dimensions, rulers, screens, loupe, guides, frames, and crosshair. xScope 3 improves on all these tools, and adds one new and very exciting tool to it’s repertoire.

Introducing xScope Mirror

xScope Mirror is a powerful new tool for anyone designing content to be viewed on the iPhone, from native apps to web apps and mobile websites. Mirror is pretty much what it sounds like: you connect your iPhone to your Mac via wi-fi, and your iPhone will display everything on your Mac’s monitor in real time.

To use Mirror, download the free iPhone app and launch it while you have xScope running on your Mac (make sure both phone and computer are on the same wi-fi network). After selecting your computer, it only takes a couple seconds to make a connection and start mirroring your screen. You can change the area displayed by touching and dragging, and bring up a menu by tapping the screen. You can even lock the viewport so it won’t budge.

xScope Mirror: your Mac on your iPhone!

xScope Mirror is an excellent tool for iPhone and mobile web designers, offering a speedy, simple solution to what is often a tricky problem. Of course, it won’t mimic Safari Mobile’s rendering, or run your app in iOS, but it’s a fantastic tool for visualizing designs and making demonstrations.

Other Features

If you’re not an iPhone designer, xScope still has plenty of other features to offer designers of all types. Since we’ve covered the basics on xScope before, I’ll focus on the improvements in the new version.

Dimensions

Dimensions is a handy measurement tool that recognizes elements on your screen based on pixel and pattern similarity and captures their dimensions. In the previous version of xScope, I found this feature to be a bit tricky to use and usually didn’t bother with it, but xScope 3 has significantly improved its performance by adding in pattern recognition, so that you can measure regions with repeating backgrounds. You can also now take a screenshot of the measured area using Shift + Cmd + 7.

Make sure you have clear 'lines of sight' to the edges of an element for accurate measurement.

Rulers

Rulers is just what it sounds like: a ruler on your screen. The xScope ruler includes some fancy features you won’t find in your standard Firefox extension, however, including rotation (restrict to 45 degree increments with Shift), callipers for easily measuring objects, and position indicators to show your cursor’s distance from the origin. xScope 3 introduces edge-snapping (hold Ctrl), which is a real time-saver when you have a lot of measurements to make, and improvements to the ruler design make it easier to use.

Use the callipers to make sure you get the edges accurately

While the Rulers tool is certainly very full-featured, what I’d really prefer is a simpler, less intrusive measuring tool like Photoshop’s Ruler Tool that would just let me drag a line on the screen and show me its length.

Screens

The screens tool adds a viewport window to your screen that allows you to quickly see the dimensions of standard devices and preview your design as it would appear on them. Though the interface is a bit overwhelming on a small monitor, it would be very handy for designers on larger monitors who have a hard time guessing exactly where the 1280px cutoff is (like me on my work PC).

CSS-Tricks is a fantastically responsive web design.

xScope 3 adds more platform sizes, edge snapping, ‘safe areas’ for televisions, and a vision simulator, which approximates the appearance of your design to people with various vision impairments.

Loupe

The Loupe is a magnifying tool that displays the color values of the pixel under your cursor. xScope 3 allows you to copy any color to your palette using Cmd + Shift + C and copy values to your clipboard in your preferred format. You can also output the palette you’ve created in .aco format for use in Photoshop/Illustrator. One small but significant gripe is the fact that you can’t copy hex codes without the hash prefix, which means no direct pasting into Photoshop. Though Loupe has some fancy features, your Mac comes with a built-in magnifying glass called Pixie (in the Developer folder) which performs many of the same functions.

I think a bit of a drop shadow around the loupe window would better distinguish it from the background

Guides

Guides is easily my favorite tool in xScope, and is almost indispensable when designing in the browser. They work like Photoshop guides, only better: they have a Guide ‘Wizard’ that can create a repeating grid in seconds. There aren’t huge differences in the new version here, just some interface refinements, dual-monitor support, and ‘undo’ support for closed guides.

The ubiquitous 960px grid, in seconds

Frames and Crosshair

Frames and crosshair are pretty basic tools: one creates a box of a predefined size on your screen, one shows your cursor’s distance from the origin. These featuers are pretty self-explanatory, and haven’t changed much since the last version.

General Updates & Improvements

Along with some significant performance increases, xScope 3 includes some slick interface updates and handy app-wide features as well. By far the most useful of these features is ‘SmartTools’, which allows you to specify in which applications you want xScope to run. This solves the main issue I had with xScope 2, which was that I didn’t want to see all those lines and rulers when I was coding or using other apps. Since I use Firefox exclusively for development, I can have my guides only open in Firefox and be clutter-free browsing in Chrome.

xScope 3 features a reorganized and more powerful preference pane

A small but welcome change is the option to display all tools in a single drop-down menu bar item, rather than having individual icons for each tool, which can take up a lot of real estate on crowded menu bars.

I was disappointed that this version of xScope didn’t add an app-wide shortcut to close xScope tools, I’d really like to be able to close whichever tool I’m using with Esc instead of remembering that Dimensions is Cmd + 1, Rulers is Cmd + 2, etc.

Conclusion

xScope 3, like previous versions, offers a lot of useful, time-saving features for designers, especially for those who work outside of the Photoshop/Illustrator/Fireworks environment. Each tool offers a lot of information about what’s on your screen and displays it in an easy-to-read, easy-to-use way, and the new version adds significant improvements to these qualities.

xScope Mirror is a really impressive addition to the feature set, and I can imagine that iPhone designers might find the app worthwhile for that feature alone. Ultimately, however, if you’re not an iPhone designer, you might find xScope a bit overpriced for what you’re getting. $30 seems pretty steep for a menu bar application, and though the tools are useful, many of the functions can be found in free browser extensions or cheaper applications. xScope definitely offers a much nicer interface than many of these alternatives, but falls short in a few areas: a global toggle shortcut would be useful, and the tools can be a bit distracting with their abundance of information.

That being said, there are some features of xScope that I haven’t been able to find elsewhere that are really handy, especially the Guides feature. I can also see Screens being useful for both UI designers and web designers working on making their designs more adaptive, and Mirror could be indispensable for iPhone designers.

I’m not a full-time designer, so the time-saving features may not be as apparent to me, but xScope has a 40 hour free trial, so you can try it out and judge whether it meets your needs. I’ve mostly seen glowingly positive reviews of xScope, so I’d be interested to see if anyone else found it a little overpriced. I’m sure I’m missing a lot of alternative apps and browser extensions, so let me know what you use to help you design!

It’s that item in your iTunes sidebar, fourth from the top. The one that looks like a little figure, with weird circles radiating around him? You click on it, and iTunes tells you this is where Podcasts live. If it’s the first time you’ve explored this little crevice of iTunes, you’re given a nice little explanation of what a podcast is, where you can find one, and how iTunes will help you to enjoy them.

But there’s still one critical piece of information missing – what podcasts should you download?

Today we’ve put together a list of ten of the best Mac and Apple related podcasts. The list ranges from the perennial greats, to some of the new kids on the block. From pixel-perfect designer, to hardcore developer, from an OS X power user, to the most recent convert — there’s a podcast here for everyone.

The bottom line is, if you want to be entertained and educated about the Mac ecosystem, these are the podcasts for you.

Ten of the Best

MacBreak Weekly by Leo Laporte and Friends — from the TWiT Network

Started: August 12, 2006
Recorded: Tuesdays at 1PM EST/11AM PST
Released: Wednesdays

Part of the legendary TWiT netcasting network, MacBreak Weekly is one of the longest running Mac-related podcasts. It analyzes the week’s Apple-related news, providing thoughts and opinions from some of the biggest names in Mac journalism.

Andy Ihnatko from the Chicago Sun Times is a regular guest, as is Alex Lindsay of the PixelCorps. It usually runs around an hour in length, but frequently pushes an hour and a half and occasionally two hours when there are a wealth of topics to consider or the panelists get caught in parallel discussions.

It’s a regular part of my weekly podcasting regimen, and always the one I’m most excited to listen to.

Available in both audio and video.

The Talk Show by Dan Benjamin and John Gruber — from the 5by5 Network

Started: July 28, 2010
Recorded: Wednesdays at 12PM EST
Released: Wednesdays

The Talk Show started life back in June of 2007, then going on hiatus in October of 2009. In its original incarnation it starred Dan Benjamin, at that time mostly of Hive Logic fame, and John Gruber of the stellar Daring Fireball.

They talked about the tech industry as a whole, but always from the vantage point of two avid Mac users. It was revived in July of 2010 when Dan started the 5by5 Podcasting Network, bringing John back onto the podcasting scene.

While the topics of the show may stray from the Mac itself to the wider realm of Apple as a whole, or even out into other interests of the two hosts, I still consider it one of the best podcasts on the Web, and it definitely deserves a mention in this roundup. Shame on you if you don’t listen to The Talk Show each week.

Available in audio.

Mac OS Ken by Ken Ray

Recorded Live: Wednesdays at 10PM EST/7PM PST
Released: Monday-Friday

The concept of a daily podcast blows my mind. To produce one with the level of quality and polish that Ken Ray does is nothing short of amazing. It’s his personality and perspective that makes Mac OS Ken the podcast that it is.

Generally hovering around the 15 minute mark, Mac OS Ken gives insightful news and notes on everything Apple. Find 15 minutes in your daily routine and give Mac OS Ken a listen — you won’t regret it.

Ken is also trying to become that mythical creature — a paid podcaster. He’s created what he calls Mac OS Ken: Day 6, a sixth day of content chock full of Apple goodness. If you appreciate what Ken does and want to keep the quality podcasts coming, then why not try subscribing. Here’s what he says:

$10 dollars a month will get you at least four extra shows per month, featuring a recap of the week’s news, as well as conversations around Apple’s past, present, and future. That comes out to $2.50 per extra show if you want to think about it that way… or roughly 42-cents per show if you think of it as supporting the whole of Mac OS Ken, which is really what this is about.

Available in audio.

MacCast by Adam Christianson

Started: December 15, 2004
Released: Thursday-Sunday

Holding the title of “Longest Running Mac Podcast I Can Find”, MacCast from Adam Christianson is a classic in every great sense of the word. Adam comes from the Cult of Mac — those guys who go to user group meeting and know the real meaning of community.

That same style is infused into MacCast. The tagline is: “For Mac Geeks, By Mac Geeks”, and it’s apt. Beyond the podcast, MacCast.com is home to a thriving forum for Mac geeks everywhere. If you want a taste of the Mac community at its finest, give MacCast a listen.

Available in audio.

Enough – The Minimal Mac Podcast by Patrick Rhone and Myke Hurley

Started: January 20, 2011
Released: About Every 3-5 days

Enough is a different style of podcast from most others. Where most tend to go on for an hour or more, Enough clocks in at roughly 15-20 minutes. But then again, that’s exactly what you’d expect from a podcast that was spawned my Patrick Rhone of Minimal Mac — just enough, and nothing more.

Enough is a slightly different venue for Patrick to ruminate on his minimalist computer lifestyle and workflows. If you’ve visited Minimal Mac, and especially if you’re a fan of Patrick’s computing philosophy, give Enough a listen.

Available in audio.

Build and Analyze by Dan Benjamin and Marco Arment — from the 5by5 Network

Started: November 11, 2010
Recorded Live: Thursdays at 11AM EST
Released: Thursdays

On the surface, a podcast with a title that’s a play on the way an Objective-C developer debugs his code wouldn’t seem to have much mass-market appeal. But hosts Marco Arment of Instapaper fame and Dan Benjamin have strayed away from talking about the specifics of programming. If you listen to the first couple episodes, you’ll see why.

Basically, they view programming as a destination with many roads, and don’t feel that bickering over the “correct route” is productive or enjoyable. Because of this approach, anyone who is even remotely interested in how Apple’s new App Stores work — both Mac and iOS — or what kind of work and planning goes into making a successful app, should tune in each week.

Available in audio.

Hypercritical by Dan Benjamin and John Siracusa — from the 5by5 Network

Started: January 14, 2011
Recorded Live: Fridays at 12PM EST
Released: Fridays

Formatted much like The Talk Show, Hypercritical thrives on the the discussion and comparison of Apple to the rest of the tech industry. As the name implies, Hypercritical looks at the flaws, the “kinks in the armor” so to speak, the areas that Apple, the Mac platform, and even iOS need to improve upon.

Again, the topics of Hypercritical do vary, but the quality of the content, whatever the subject, is superb. Well worth a listen.

Available in audio.

Mac Power Users by David Sparks and Katie Flyod

Started: April 26, 2009
Released: Twice a month

Mac Power User — what type of person comes to mind? A web designer? How ’bout a Ruby or Objective-C developer? Maybe a graphic artist or illustrator? David Sparks and Katie Floyd, the hosts of the Mac Power Users podcast aren’t any of these — they’re attorneys. But don’t be dissuaded by that, it’s they’re greatest strength.

See, they approach Mac software from a different perspective, not a journalist, not someone who builds software for a living, someone who uses software for a living. Their semi-monthly podcast goes deep into a given topic, with insight into workflows and use-cases for some of the best Mac apps around.

Available in audio.

Typical Mac User by Victor Cajiao

Started: January 1, 2006
Released: Three Times a Month

As the name implies, the Typical Mac User podcast is aimed at the typical Mac user. There’s something here for anyone who uses a Mac. I’d highly recommend this one especially for those new to the Mac platform. If you aren’t quite as new, maybe keep this one in your back pocket and show it to your next friend or relative who’s just bought their first Mac. It makes the perfect gateway podcast to the podcasting lifestyle.

Available in audio.

Mac Roundtable from Various Mac Pundits

Started: January 23, 2006
Released: About Twice per Month

The concept of a roundtable is to facilitate discussion around a given topic. The Mac Roundtable podcast stands true to its name. A platform for conversation and debate, the Mac Roundtable features panelists from across the web who are Mac commentators, usually with a podcast or blog of their own.

Always spirited, Mac roundtable is an interesting show to listen to, showcasing different perspectives on the same subject — the Mac.

Available in audio, and on special occasions, video.

Bonus: Honorable Mentions

The following are three podcasts I just had to give a shout-out to — because they touch on Apple and the Mac platform, but they aren’t solely about it. Don’t let that turn you away though. The following are three podcasts just as worthy of a spot in your weekly podcasting lineup as any of the previous ones mentioned.

Back to Work by Dan Benjamin and Merlin Mann — from the 5by5 Network

Started: January 18, 2011
Recorded Live: Tuesdays
Released: Tuesdays

Ok, so this one isn’t really about the Mac — I mean, both Merlin Mann and Dan Benjamin (yup, another 5by5 podcast) swear by OS X — and when they do touch on software and digital workflows, it’s strictly Mac-related.

But frankly I just couldn’t do a podcast roundup without mentioning Back to Work. It’s so dang good, and should be mandatory listening for anyone and everyone who wants to create something great. Go. Listen. Now. You can thank them later, I think they check their email.

Available in audio.

GeekBeat.tv by Cali Lewis — from Revision3

Started: June 25, 2010
Released: Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays

Cali Lewis and her former podcast GeekBrief.tv were one the first podcasts I subscribed to. I have her to thank for my love of podcasts today. Her sweet and cheery disposition shined so brightly in an industry that can quite easily become mired with criticism and cynicism.

It too is about the broad arena of technology, but always has a slight Apple bias — see, Cali’s an Apple fan too. Go check ‘em out. I know you’ll enjoy it.

Available in video.

Tekzilla by Patrick Norton, Veronica Belmont, and Robert Heron — from Revison3

Started: September 28, 2007
Released: Tuesdays and Thursdays

Like every truly great podcast, Tekzilla thrives on the personalities of its hosts — and they’re some of the coolest people in tech reporting. Patrick Norton, who for the record, may be my favorite tech commentator of all time, Veronica Belmont, and Robert Heron make up the perennial cast of Tekzilla.

Like the other Honorable Mentions, Tekzilla’s focus it really on the wider world of gadgets and gizmos. But Apple’s products frequently come up, and frankly, its just a fantastic show — because face it, we’re all geeks at heart, and that means we love tech in all its shapes, sizes, and brands.

Nobody does a better job of helping you get your geek on then Tekzilla. Show ‘em so love and watch an episode or two. I know you’ll be hooked.

Available in video.

Wrappin’ It Up — By Which I Mean, “Go Download Some Podcasts!”

So, now that you’ve got a list of ten of the best Mac podcasts around, what are you waiting for? Go. Fill up that iTunes library with killer Mac podcasts to get your uber Mac geek on!

As ever, if there’s a fabulous Mac-related podcast we missed, leave us a comment to show some love to your favorite show.

Adobe is slated to release its "Creative Cloud" service in the first half of this year

CS6 is dubbed to have “huge improvements” over previous versions, the details of which are still unknown. The Creative Cloud subscription package is also set to come with a few extra features and tools over the standard retail version (including touch versions of some Adobe applications such as Photoshop) and will feature a much more active update cycle than other versions of Creative Suite.

It seems that Adobe is following in the footsteps of its predecessors, as more and more software companies are jumping onto the cloud computing bandwagon. Last year, Apple released its own iCloud service along with iOS 5, helping users to sync files, documents, contacts and more across their iCloud-enabled devices and with 2012 hopefully being the year of cloud computing, it seems like Creative Cloud may not be alone in this field.

However, some die-hard CS users may resent to paying the grand total of $600 a year for a subscription to Creative Cloud and it may be cheaper in the long run (especially for companies) to simply buy the licence outright. But the temptation of having documents synced across all platforms, along with more frequent updates, may just sweeten the deal for some consumers.

Using NewsBar

Interface

News readers tend to use one of two interface approaches: the ‘email-style’ approach, where you have a list of subscriptions and badges letting you know when there are new articles; or the ever-popular ‘paper’ visual metaphor, attempting to replicate the experience of reading a newspaper. NewsBar has a different approach—an auto-updating, unobtrusive vertical bar at the side of your screen, where new stories scroll in at the top the list, and you can read a preview of the article in a bubble displayed when clicked.

NewsBar's basic interface

The app window has a very minimal UI, with small buttons for minimizing, searching, subscribing, viewing starred articles, or changing settings, and does not behave like a normal app window in that it sticks to the side of the screen and does not have a standard Mac toolbar. Clicking an article brings up a preview in a bubble, and you are given the option to open it in your browser (which you can also do by double-clicking the headline), but unlike many popular RSS readers, it does not support reading the full article within the app.

Disappointingly, NewsBar does not feature keyboard navigation, so you have to scroll and click through the articles. This is definitely a deal-breaker for some, though developer Andras Porffy says it will be included in a future update.

Google Reader Sync

The first task with using an RSS reader is adding subscriptions. In NewsBar, you can either add subscriptions to the app by itself, or sync with Google Reader. If you choose to sync with Google Reader, you have several options for managing your subscriptions (Preferences->Google Reader): importing of all your Google Reader feeds (replacing whichever ones you have added locally); replacing your Google Reader feeds with those you’ve added to NewsBar; or merging NewsBar and Google Reader feeds without removing any of them.

Google Reader Sync options

These sync options are one-time actions, meaning there is no constant communication between NewsBar and Google Reader, the syncing only occurs when you tell it to. Depending on your preference, this may be a positive or a negative. Personally I prefer it this way, because I feel like I have more control over my subscriptions. However, if I frequently read my RSS feeds from another location, I’d definitely prefer if subscriptions and read articles synced automatically.

Managing Subscriptions

Like most RSS apps, you can add a new subscription with the plus sign at the top of the window, and the URL field will usually be auto-filled from your browser if you have the feed page open.

Adding a worthwhile subscription to NewsBar

Subscriptions added to NewsBar are not automatically added to Google Reader, you have to open tell NewsBar to “Sync Now” from the settings menu.

Features

Though its functionality appears very basic at first glance, NewsBar has a lot of customization features that allow you to get the most out of your news.

Keywords

My favourite feature of NewsBar is the ability ‘watch’ for certain keywords. When an article containing one of your keywords comes in, you can get an alert to sound, and the article will be highlighted in your feed. I found this extremely useful while making travel plans, because I could set it to filter through the many travel deals sites I’m subscribed to.

Setting some keywords to look out for

Customization

NewsBar gives you a lot of customization options for both appearance and behavior. You can customize nearly every detail of its appearance, including colors, fonts, opacity, icon size, story height, and highlighted stories. You can choose a refresh rate, a maximum number of stories to display, when to scroll to the top, maximum age of articles shown, and more.

Custom matching colors make me happy.

You can also customize the appearance of individual feeds (Settings->RSS then click the ‘Settings’ button while a feed is selected) and adjust font and background color, refresh rate, and number of stories. You can also customize the feed icon by dragging and dropping an image from any source on top of the current icon beside a story.

Other Features

• Horizontal swipe on trackpad to hide read items
• Marking articles with stars
• OPML import/export
• Multiple display support (though I haven’t tested this)
• Very low CPU usage

Coming in Future Versions

• Auto-removal of read items
• Quick share functions
• Organization into categories
• Twitter integration

Conclusion

NewsBar certainly isn’t for everyone, and doesn’t have a lot of the same features as the most popular RSS apps, like social media integration, Instapaper/ReadItLater support, cloud syncing, or in-app article reading. It’s interface also won’t appeal to some users who like to go through their news items one at a time in an organized way. It’s more suited to those who want to casually browse through headlines without being bothered by alerts or unread story counts. The sticky window also might not appeal to people with limited screen real estate, and would definitely be best on a bigger monitor. I’m also really missing keyboard navigation like I enjoy in Reeder.

Other than the keyboard navigation issue, these ‘missing’ features likely won’t bother the type of user this app is targeted to. NewsBar isn’t a one-size-fits-all reader, but what it does do it does well: lets you scroll casually through headlines, while still making sure you see what’s important with keyword alerts. Add in the extensive customization options and NewsBar starts to look like a serious competitor in this crowded field. You can get a feel for the interface by downloading NewsBar Lite, which will limit you to two feeds. If you’re looking for something a bit different in your RSS reader, I really recommend giving NewsBar a try, it’s a surprisingly powerful and enjoyable little app.

With that in mind, I tried to stick to programs where pressure sensitivity is used, or where having a tablet is exceptionally helpful, even without pressure sensitivity. I’ll cover the basics that you most likely already know of if you have a tablet, give you some freeware apps to check out and then show you some new and exciting apps that you might not have thought to use before.

Photoshop/Photoshop Elements

Photoshop/Photoshop Elements

Photoshop is a classic tool for designers and photographers, and as with all of their software, Adobe does a great job of incorporating pressure sensitivity into the application. Adobe Photoshop is designed in a way that makes using a pen tablet very easy and natural. They offer a multitude of controls – pen tilt, pressure and the finger wheel can control elements including (but not limited to) size, color, opacity and exposure.

Photoshop Elements of course offers these same options when paired with a graphics tablet. Quick masks and layer masks are another great function that a tablet can help with. Layer effects can be applied with sensitivity. Photoshop is a fantastic (but pricey) piece of software that works wonderfully with a graphics tablet, so much so that Photoshop Elements often comes pre-bundled with graphics tablets.

Price: $699.00 for Photoshop, $99.99 for Photoshop Elements
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5.8 or higher
Developer: Adobe

Nik Color Efex Pro

Nik Color Efex Pro

Nik Color Efex Pro is a great tool to pair with Photoshop and a graphics tablet. This app is an add-on to Adobe Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. The app offers a number of filters (dependent upon which software level is purchased) that can be applied in Adobe Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. The filters pair with the Photoshop brush, and the tablet can be used to “brush” on the filters. This allows for a more artistic approach to photo filters than you might find using traditional Photoshop tools. The app creates layers and masks automatically, so you’re able to truly experiment within Photoshop. It’s a great, well-designed tool that really lets you use the tablet for what it was designed for.

Price: $99.95 for select edition, $199.95 for full edition
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5 or higher
Developer: Nik Software

Adobe Creative Suite

Adobe Creative Suite

Photoshop and Photoshop Elements are, of course, not the only Adobe software products that offer great ways to use a graphics tablet. Lightroom offers several ways to utilize a tablet. You can use the pressure sensitivity tools when editing individual photographs.

Your workflow can be greatly improved in Lightroom by using a tablet when editing, creating a slide show or organizing your library. Illustrator offers tools and options that seamlessly integrate with the use of a graphics tablet when taking on tasks such as digital illustration. The tablet can be used as a mouse pad and the pen can be of great use in speeding up video and music editing.

Price: Varies, dependent upon suite purchased
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5.8 or higher
Developer: Adobe

Corel Painter

Corel Painter

Corel Painter is a heavy-hitter in the world of digital painting and illustration. The software offers great integration for a graphics tablet. The RealBristle brushes are something that Corel Painter is really known for, and these brushes make great use of a tablet. Painter incorporates pen tilt as well as sensitivity, so whether you are using a pen, paint brush or chalk, Corel Painter will do well with a graphics tablet.

The newest version of Painter also offers some really cool new features that you won’t find in other dedicated painting apps. You can make kaleidoscope effects in your paintings for a unique creation. The app also offers great watercolor effects that are extremely realistic. You can even control the direction of the “wind” as the paint is “drying” for a realistic masterpiece.

Price: $349.00
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5 or later
Developer: Corel

Sketchbook Pro

Sketchbook Pro

Sketchbook Pro is a great piece of software developed by Autodesk used for painting and drawing. It is available for a lesser price-tag than Corel Painter, although it doesn’t offer quite as many options. It does have great drawing tools though, including many well-known brush types and customizable markers, pencils, pens and airbrushes. You can use a tablet to draw basic shapes in the drawing mode, or add text thanks to a recent update to the software. Sketchbook Pro incorporates pen tilt and sensitivity options into all of the major drawing tools.

Price: Priced from $59
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5 or later
Developer: Autodesk

Art Rage

Art Rage

ArtRage is an easy to use, stylish painting package for many different platforms. ArtRage’s big selling point is the natural usage of mediums and tools. This app offers an experience that is great for beginners, professional artists and digital artists (plus everyone in between). If you’re new to digital art, you can import a photograph to use as a guide in your digital painting.

Professional artists will appreciate the familiarity of the tools, and will particularly enjoy the realistic way that paint and tools are used within the program. ArtRage has great focus on how tools are used, and how the pigments would act in real life. Digital artists are able to give their artwork a more natural feel due to those same reasons. ArtRage incorporates pressure and tilt sensitivity into all of their tools for the most realistic digital painting experience possible.

Price: $29.90 for Studio, $59.90 for Studio Pro
Requires: Mac OS X 10.4 or later
Developer: ArtRage

Studio Artist

Studio Artist

Synthetik Software’s Studio Artist app offers a unique experience. Synthetik creates software that incorporates both science and art. Studio Artist offers a variety of features, and does offer full incorporation of pressure and tilt sensitivity for all brushes/tools used in the program in manual mode.

The most unique feature of Studio Artist is the “automatic or assisted drawing mode.” In this mode, a picture or video is imported into the software. This is where the scientific portion of the software comes into play. The software is able to generate a replica of the source media, based upon the style or effect selected by the user. You can also utilize the “assisted” drawing mode, which allows the artist to be guided in creating a replica of the source media. There is, of course, a manual mode that can be utilized as well.

Price: Free trial, $399.99 for full license
Requires: Mac OS X 10.4.10 or higher
Developer: Synthetik Software

GIMP

GIMP

Most likely, you have heard of the GIMP software. GIMP is a freeware, open-source alternative to Adobe Photoshop. It’s a great image manipulation tool that offers thorough (if buggy) graphics tablet integration. The software is full-featured, and while it doesn’t have quite everything Photoshop does, it’s getting closer and closer as the software is developed. GIMP offers in-app options to utilize pressure and tilt sensitivity for the brushes and tools in the program. Thanks to the open-source nature of the program, there are also a number of add-on scripts and tools that allow the user to delve even further into the capabilities of the graphics tablet.

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X + Apple’s X11 environment
Developer: GIMP Administrators/Open-Source

Inkscape

Inkscape

Inkscape is also free and open-source. Inkscape is a vector-based drawing program similar to Adobe Illustrator and Corel Painter. It offers the same pressure and tilt sensitivity options found in the other softwares. A very popular feature of Inkscape is the calligraphy tool. Utilizing the graphics tablet when using the calligraphy tool creates some truly breath-taking results. While the calligraphy tool can be used with just a mouse, getting the fast sweeping strokes required in calligraphy can really only be obtained with a tablet, making it a great tool to incorporate into your Inkscape workflow.

Price: Free
Requires:
Developer: Inkscape Administrators/Open-Source

Maya

Maya 3D

Autodesk’s Maya 3D is an animation software application that offers tools for animation, modeling, simulation, visual effects, rendering, matchmoving and compositing. Using a graphics tablet in this 3D animation app will do you no wrong. The software utilizes a graphics tablet to really improve precision and accuracy. The standard tilt and pressure sensitivity options are solidly incorporated into the software.

There are a number of pen-enabled toolsets to help with workflow, whether you work in design, advertising, television, film, advertising or game creation and animation. The software is extremely pricey, so it’s unfortunately only ideal for those working in an industry that really requires such a tool.

Price: Priced from $3,495.00
Requires: Mac OS X
Developer: Autodesk

Mudbox

Mudbox

Autodesk’s Mudbox software is a 3D sculpting and digital painting application. This software enables the creation of ultra-realistic products, whether it is character creation, environments or even props. The software is intuitive and well-designed. Not only can graphics tablets be used for all standard tools in the program, with many offering increased options for graphics tablets, there are also a number of stencils and brushes created specifically for use with a graphics tablet. This is a great app for anyone interested in creating 3D artwork, and having a graphics tablet only makes it easier.

Price: Priced from $745
Requires: Mac OS X
Developer: Autodesk

Blender

Blender

If you’ve got a graphics tablet and really want to try 3D sculpture and animation without spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars, Blender is a great freeware alternative to expensive programs like Maya and Mudbox.

Unfortunately, three-dimensional digital art is not something I have a great deal of knowledge about. That being said, Blender seems to offer a great deal of features for an extremely low price (free!). Creations ranging from simple character creation to full-blown 3D animated movies can be created using this app. The application offers a number of features that incorporate pressure and tilt sensitivity, making for a simpler and more intuitive user experience. If 3D is something you’re interested in, definitely check out Blender for a great way to try for free. I know I will be!

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5 or later
Developer: Blender/Open Source

Music Unfolding Midi Controller

Music Unfolding – Midi Controller

A growing trend in the music industry is utilizing a pressure-sensitive graphics tablet for music creation. There isn’t a lot of software out there at this point that completely utilizes the capabilities of a tablet in music creation, particularly for Mac.

One app to try is Music Unfolding’s Midi Controller. This app is dedicated to creating music and uses the tablet in innovative ways. Features such as key, volume and control can be changed using pen tilt and/or sensitivity. This is an exciting direction that pressure sensitive tablets are heading in, and I’m personally thrilled to see more and more audio and music creation/editing applications begin to incorporate tablet usage.

Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X
Developer: Music Unfolding

Autograph

Autograph

Graphics tablets can be used for not so creative purposes as well. If you need to realistically sign a digital document or email, a tablet can be of great help. This applies to personal and office/corporate usage.

Autograph is an application that was originally built to allow the capturing of signatures using the a mouse or trackpad. The software has updated to incorporate tablet support. The application allows you to capture a signature on the tablet, and then seamlessly place it in documents and emails. It’s a very useful application and a great way to use a tablet outside of the creative world.

Price: $2.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: Ten One Design

Ink2Go

Ink2Go

Something we’d all often like to do that isn’t so easy to do with just a mouse is annotate digital documents. Ink2Go is a great piece of software that allows the user to easily annotate PDF and many other documents. This software lets you write, draw or highlight any content being shown on the computer. It works with webpages, slideshows, video, documents and even the presentation mode of Keynote and Powerpoint. Of course all annotations can be done using only a mouse. However, incorporating a graphics tablet can be great for writing and drawing on the documents. Using a tablet provides the opportunity to have an experience much more like annotating a document in real life. While there aren’t tablet specific tools offered, replacing a mouse with a tablet pen can provide a much better experience in this and similar applications.

Price: Free 15 day trial, $19.90 for a license
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later
Developer: Eye Power Games, Ltd.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, software that truly incorporates graphics tablets and utilizes them to their fullest ability tends to be on the pricey side, as does most graphic design software. That aside, I’m curious about your favorite apps to use with a tablet? Any new and unique uses out there? I’m curious to hear all you have to offer.

OS X Lion was announced way back in October of 2010 and released in July of 2011. You’ve now had lots of time to prep for the switch and over six months to make the purchase and upgrade your system (granted that your Mac can handle the upgrade). So have you? Are you running Lion on your primary Mac or are you still on Snow Leopard?

For the readers who are still kicking it old school, we want you to chime in as well. Are you still running Leopard or perhaps something even older like Tiger or Panther? We want to know!

After you vote in the poll, leave a comment below and tell us why you run the version that you do. If you’re on an older version, is it because you simply haven’t felt the need to upgrade, haven’t had the cash or are you being help back by an older Mac that can’t upgrade any further?

Thanks for reading AppStorm, and I hope you enjoy looking over some of our favourite posts from last month!

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Is there something in particular you’d like to see on the site next month? We’d absolutely love to hear your suggestions for articles, topics and giveaways. Just let us know in the comments. Thanks for reading AppStorm!

One of Ramotion’s primary strengths is icon design. Stop by their icon portfolio for some samples of their work along with a collection of amazing free Mac OS icons.

Beautiful icon design

They also design and develop gorgeous iOS apps. Pick’n'Roll is an innovative Dribbble client for iPad, Tap & Call is a brand new way to organize your iPhone contacts, and Pitty the Conquerer is a wonderfully illustrated iOS game about a small screw traveling up from the bottom of the toolbox.

Amazing iOS app design and development

Follow Their Work!

In addition to stopping by the Ramotion website, be sure to say hello on Twitter and keep an eye on their latest projects on Dribbble. If you have any projects where you want to really push the limits of awesome design, give Ramotion a shout, they are always looking for new opportunities and would love to help you out.

JDownloader even offers a special multi-link capability that lets you paste as many links as you wish into a box and the app will automatically start downloading them in order. This stuff is great for power users, but today I’m going to show you a new app that offers the same capability in a more simple manner, it’s called SpeedTao.

Please be aware that this app is in beta and does have a few bugs, which I will fully disclose later on in the review.

Getting Started

The first-time startup screen on SpeedTao

Once you download SpeedTao, you can either drag it to your Applications folder, which is recommended, or leave it in Downloads and test it from there. When first launched, SpeedTao will ask you to select what browsers you’d like to enable the downloader on. It gives you the option of Firefox, Google Chrome and/or Safari. Next, you’ll need to decide whether you’re going to use the ED2K and torrent capabilities that SpeedTao offers. If you check disable, then you can always update your choice later in SpeedTao > Preferences > P2P by turning the P2P setting on. After you’re done with this setup process, you’re ready to begin downloading!

Features

Main preferences screen of SpeedTao

In the features department SpeedTao is just about the same as every other download manager out there, except it tries to offer more ease-of-use than others do. It works great for power users as well as normal ones.

• Fast downloading. SpeedTao accelerates your downloads using multi-thread technology.
• Peer-to-peer support. SpeedTao supports nearly all popular P2P transfer protocols, including ED2K (also known as eMule) FTP, HTTP, and HTTPS. Sadly, the app’s current revision is lacking magnet support, but the developers are confident that it will be in a future beta and definitely in the final build.
• Simplicity. SpeedTao offers the simplest way to initiate multiple file transfers. Even though the aforementioned JDownloader also does well at this, SpeedTao seems to simplify the process quite a bit. The user interface is also much straightforward and
• Growl notification when download has finished. This is a useful feature for those of you who have other work to perform while the download is
• Speed limit. You, the user, have the ability to set a transfer limit on SpeedTao so that it doesn’t use all your network’s bandwidth and you can continue your daily activities without disruption.

Lacking features

Naturally, there must be some things that are lacking in a beta. I’m not going to mention the bugs in this section, but I will go over a few features that I’d like to see in future betas and hopefully the final release.

• Hover-over descriptions for menu buttons. When you’re using the app, it’s kind of hard to tell what the five menu buttons on the left pane even do without clicking them. (If you’re curious, the first lists all your transfers, the second your items that are currently in the process of downloading, the third your items that are currently in the process of uploading [P2P transfers], the fourth your finished downloads, and the fifth offers a search function for ED2K.) I’d like to see something like what Twitter’s native Mac client does with their hover-over menu buttons. The other buttons could also benefit from this feature.
• Better, more descriptive menu button icons. The aforementioned menu buttons may be lacking the hover-over descriptions, but the developer could help us some by providing a more descriptive graphic for each.
• Less choppy interface. Throughout SpeedTao I’ve noticed that there are a lot of rough edges, be it on the buttons or elsewhere.
• Download status on the dock icon. This would be extremely useful for those who are using SpeedTao daily. I’d like to see something like uTorrent’s little speed indicator as an overlay on SpeedTao’s dock icon — Chrome has this as well, but without a percent or transfer rate.
• Instant search. Instead of needing to press enter after searching for a download, why not integrate some sort of instant search like Spotlight has?

Bugs

You have a right to know some of the bugs before downloading beta one. I’ve tested the beta to the best of my ability, and here are the issues that I’ve found.

• Known issues for beta1 0.8 r320: open button does not always work, redownload button does not work for torrent downloads, changing download location in preference is not possible, resume/redownload hover tips are mixed.
• Quits when a download is paused and restarted.
• Doesn’t animate when a download is preparing to start — this could also be a lacking feature, but you’ll have to take that up with the developer.
• Takes an additional ten seconds to quit after user requests it.

User Interface

The main download screen of SpeedTao

While there are some issues with it, SpeedTao isn’t too lacking on its user interface. The main idea is similar to that of Twitter for Mac and Sparrow — a mail client. I am partial to this design and the implementation is well done, except for one detail: the background. I really don’t like the off-white noise as a background throughout the app. For some reason it just doesn’t flow well.

In addition, when you scroll past the edges it just turns to plain white, which looks a bit strange. I’m sure this is merely a bug that will be worked out eventually. While I do love the implementation of this Twitter app-like design, one additional issue pertains to the buttons. As I mentioned above, many of them are quite choppy and don’t look very nice on my display. In addition to this, the speed limits button seems to be chopped off at the bottom, strangely.

Conclusion

For a beta, SpeedTao is doing well, even though I have been putting quite a bit of pressure on a few of its lacking elements. I hope to see many, many new features released in new builds along with bug fixes in a few areas. With this, I believe that the app will gain a lot of recognition for its simplicity and good feature list. If you like what you’ve read about, then head over here to grab the first beta now!

Does it deliver on its promises, or does this app get too much “hype” for its own good?

The state of animation on the web

Lets be honest: unless you have been living under a rock for the past 15 years (in which case it would be surprising to find you reading this), you will know very well that Flash has been the tool of choice for most animation on the web up until relatively recently. For over a decade now it has been (and continues to be in many cases) the de-facto standard for animated content on the web. The reasons for this are many, including the wide install-base of the Flash browser plugin, and the fast that Flash as a platform has a relatively low barrier to entry, (it is possible to learn the basics very quickly for most people), and is very flexible (you can build everything from a simple button up to full, interactive, websites).

It is only within the past year or two that CSS3 has reached a stage where browser vendors have been interested in starting to support the burgeoning standard, and even now support is far from universal. The latest builds of Safari and Chrome carry the best support, with Firefox and Opera shortly behind. IE9 has added some CSS3 support, but any version prior to that will see no love for your animated creations.

CSS3 brings with it the possibility of animating elements individually using nothing but the same kind of code web developers generate daily anyway (albeit with some new syntax to learn), and these animations will work on iOS devices such as the iPad and iPhone while Flash, famously, will not.

Javascript also has a part to play in this equation, too. It is possible to leverage Javascript’s control over the page to animate elements, but for most people the code needed to do this is simply too arduous to write. jQuery makes things a great deal easier by including a framework that you can build around (basically allowing you to set end values for CSS attributes such as position or opacity and doing all the work in-between for you).

Up steps Hype

The main problem with the use of CSS3 and/or Javascript to achieve your animation goals, though, is that you have to know (and write) a lot of code if you are hoping to achieve anything but the most simple of animations. Secondly, the lack of an immediate visual representation of what you are doing will make this a difficult approach for many people. For example, you might want to move an image from point a, to point b. Point a is easy – that is probably where the image starts, but where is point b? How many pixels do you need to move it to get it in just the right place?

This is where Hype comes in. Hype is essentially a WYSIWYG front-end to all of this coding, allowing users to produce the same effects using the same techniques (and theoretically producing the same code) as described above. The main advantage with this is that it takes away the high barrier to entry that CSS/Javascript animation presents to most people. With Hype, you never have to write a line of code (if you don’t want to).

Hype's user interface should feel instantly familiar to anyone who has worked with, or seen, Flash in the past.

Hype will seem instantly familiar to anyone who has had even passing experience with Adobe’s Flash authoring environment. Sure, the pallettes and toolbars are different, but the essence is the same. You drag elements to a stage and animate various properties including their position and opacity using keyframes. Sound familiar? That’s because it is. Just about every time-based media application, including video editors, effects packages, and Flash itself, operate using this method, or a variation thereof.

Using Hype

Whether or not you have had any experience with animation or time-based media before, Hype should not be a hard application to pick up and learn. On the whole, the interface is remarkably intuitive. It feels rather like a cross between Apple’s Pages and a WYSIWYG web editor, which in actuality is quite similar to what it is.

Hype's scenes bar makes it easy to add and rearrange the scenes in your project

The main focus of Hype’s user interface is the stage, onto which you place images, text and other elements to compose your design. Above this is the scenes strip – Scenes allow the user to compose more complex animations composed of multiple separate compositions, similar to the different shots in a video project. At the bottom of the window is the timeline, which lists all the elements in which ever scene the user is currently editing. Separate to this window is the inspector pallette, which houses all the controls and settings for the elements placed on the stage, including text formatting, sizing and positioning, color and animation.

Hypes timeline gives users a quick view of their keyframes, and the attributes that are animated

To animate an element, it is a simple matter of placing it on the stage and creating a couple of “keyframes” to animate between. With the timeline scrubber on a keyframe, any settings you change for that element will be changed for that frame, and animated to from previous keyframes. It is a simple matter to set up a couple of keyframes and fade an element in or move it from point a to point b, or to rotate an item over time. Set your starting state with one keyframe, and your end state with another, and Hype does the rest.

You can even set a keyframe and hit the “record” button and move elements around, and Hype will record all the animation in the meantime and automatically set up the options for you. What Hype does not do, however, is offer any easing options (which would allow a user to have an animation “ease” in and out, meaning that the animation starts out and ends at a slower pace than in the middle, which often looks more natural than a purely linear animation such as those Hype generates).

After about 30 minutes playing with Hype, you will likely have a fairly good handle on the bulk of the WYSIWYG portion of the app, and you may be ready to try exporting your first basic animation. Before doing that, you should probably preview your animation in a browser, and here Hype has you covered.

If you have Google Chrome installed, Hype allows you to preview a temporary version of your composition in one click. If all looks ok there, then it is time to export your animation. It is worth noting the document settings tab in the inspector at this stage, which allows you to set your target browsers (which dictates what warnings Hype will show you when exporting).

Hype will display warnings about your content based upon what browsers you tell it you are looking for your animation to work in. This is particularly useful for the less experienced user, who likely will not know about the various capabilities and shortfallings of different browsers. Hype tests against a good range of common browsers, including Safari (both mobile and desktop versions), Chrome, Firefox and, importantly, Internet Explorer from the current version 9 down to the antiquated but rapidly dying version 6.

Hype's browser warnings will be useful for novices

It is my feeling that hobbyists and beginners in the web-world will benefit hugely from the ease of use and built-in compatibility checking that Hype offers, and that helps make it a compelling choice for those users. Backing this up is an ability to dive under the hood and manually edit the Javascripts that lie underneath, allowing a greater amount of control for those who want or are able to take it.

The Problem

The problem with so much Hype is that it is often extremely difficult to live up to. This, sadly, is also the case here. Hype has a number of problems that to some may be no big thing, but to others will be deal-breakers.

First, and lets make this very clear, Hype has at most a “fleeting” relationship with HTML5: Yes, it is possible to add video to your Hype projects and this will be added using the HTML5 <video> tag, and yes, Hype will use the new HTML5 shortened doctype declaration for the documents it exports, but that is about where the relationship ends.

What Hype actually exports, on the whole, is good-old HTML4, CSS3 and Javascript. This is fine, but why tout HTML5 when HTML5 actually has so little to do with the product itself? Hype makes no use of any of the new semantic elements provided by HTML5 (such as header, footer, nav, section, article etc.), nor does it make use of any of the other useful things HTML5 allows you to do. This means no web-workers, no local data storage, and perhaps most importantly, no history API.

That Hype is lacking in ability in these areas may seem like a small concern, but the fact that the History API is totally absent means that animations made with Hype “break” the browser’s back button; Imagine you wanted to create a set of slides to go with a presentation using Hype. That’s fine, but good luck if you want to be able to link anyone to a particular slide, or to allow users to page back and forth between said slides using standard browsers controls, such as the back and forward buttons, keyboard shortcuts or mouse/trackpad gestures. None of this will work with a Hype animation unless you delve in to the script yourself and add the features in. Whilst there will undoubtedly be some potential users of this app who are skilled enough to do this, does it not kind of defeat the point of having a WYSIWYG app in the first place, if it leaves you having to fill in holes after you have used it?

Hype also makes no use of Canvas elements, meaning that each element placed in your animation will be wrapped in a div. This is not only a semantic nightmare, but fails to make use of a powerful feature available in most of the browsers that the technology Hype uses targets. I can understand not supporting new, untested, poorly supported features such as WebGL, but Canvas is supported natively by each of the major browsers at their current versions, and plugins are even available for IE8 and below to enable support there.

The final significant problem with Hype is that instead of leveraging any kind of existing framework such as jQuery or Prototype, the developers have chosen to create their own animation Javascript library. This is great, in that it places no dependency on outside scripts, but the downside is that even on a very short animation with only a couple of transitions, the Javascript weighs in at over 95Kb. That’s one large script file!

I can only imagine how this might end up with a 10-scene masterpiece with 50 animated elements in each scene. The main problem here is that this file will be served to users viewing your animation regardless of whether their browser needs it all or not. Many users with up-to-date browsers will have support for CSS3 animation, and so won’t need a lot of what is contained therein, but the server won’t know that so will serve it anyway. This has the potential to be quite a drag on your server.

The Verdict

I really wanted to love Hype because it represents an alternative to Flash that was based around technology natively supported by web browsers rather than by a plugin that, let’s admit it, has never been very good on Mac. There is no doubt that Hype is easy to use, and you can create some nice looking results relatively quickly. The interface is, on the whole, intuitive and responsive and the app itself behaves very well.

However, there are just too many shortcomings for my liking when it comes to the actual content that Hype generates. For an app that markets itself on building “HTML5″ web content, the lack of any kind of support for the history API is baffling. I understand that this is not supported by older browsers, but there are workarounds. The fact is that Tumult just haven’t implemented them. This is particularly surprising when you consider that they paid enough attention to detail to implement “old-fashioned” Javascript animation for those browsers that don’t support CSS3.

With that being said though, Hype is a perfect choice for those wanting to get started with animation on the web without the expensive entry point of Flash, or the necessity for an encyclopaedic knowledge of code. It is easy enough to pick up and use with a very limited learning curve, and does produce good results visually.

Its interface is mostly very polished, and the app itself seems very reliable. At a relatively low price point of $29.99, Hype does constitute a good entry point for most people. Experienced web professionals, though, may find the many short-fallings mentioned here more of an issue, and may want to learn to do things the hard way, instead.

As a professional web developer myself, this puts me in a quandary in trying to come to an overall opinion about Hype. On one hand, Hype is an easy, relatively inexpensive entry point to the world of animation on the web for a great number of potential users. On the other hand, I personally would prefer that the code that came out the other side was of a higher quality, and that accessibility and usability of the exported product weren’t second class citizens here. I’m a huge advocate for a better quality websites, and I have felt over the past 10 years of development that Flash is a prime culprit of exactly this kind of sin: low-quality websites produced by all because an application made it too easy.

It’s a toss-up for me between whether to encourage users to give Hype a go and hope that it leads them to learn more about the platform they are developing for, or whether to discourage them from picking up a piece of software that could lead them down much the same road as Dreamweaver or similar WYSIWYG applications, leaving them with bad websites and no deeper understanding of how things work under the bonnet than before they started.

What do you think about Hype? Have you used it? Are you a hobbyist or a professional? Let us know in the comments!

Thank you to the fantastic applications we had sponsoring each week during the month, all of which we personally recommend you download and try out!

• Postbox – Postbox is an unbelievably great Mac email client that you just have to try for yourself. The newest version, Postbox 3, has been completely revamped with a new interface and lots of great new features like Dropbox support and gestures.
• Artboard – A truly impressive vector drawing application that’s simple enough for everyone to use. Artboard has all the features you need in an advanced vector editing app: over 20 tools for drawing and navigation, custom shapes, clip art, boolean operations, layers, advanced style creation and a lot more. And it’s only getting better!
• PhotoStyler – A fantastic and unbelievably easy way to edit photos on your Mac. With dozens of gorgeous presets, you’re never more than a click away from beautiful photos. You can also venture off on your own and leverage a powerful but simple toolset to customize the result.
• Chronicle Mini – The best free way to keep up on your bills from your menu bar. Chronicle Mini is an amazing little app that sits in your menu bar and helps you stay on top of your reoccurring bills. In just a few clicks you can set up a new bill (say a mortgage payment or a cell phone bill), create a reminder in iCal and set the bill to repeat on the first of every month.
• MailTab Pro for Gmail – The best way to check Gmail from your menu bar. If you’re hunting for a quick and slick way to keep an eye on your Gmail account, look no further than MailTab Pro. It’s never more than a single click away and it gives you full access to Gmail’s features. Check, search and send email all right from the menu bar.
• MenuTab Pro for Facebook – An easy and amazing way to access Facebook from your menu bar. I know what you’re thinking, you’ve seen menu bar Facebook apps before right? Well this one is the best. MenuTab Pro is simply packed with awesome functionality that gives you the full Facebook experience right from your menu bar, no compromises.
• Clarify – An awesome utility for capturing and editing screenshots. Taking screenshots is easy enough, but when it comes to compiling multiple screenshots with text annotations, you’ve got your work cut out for you. Clarify drastically simplifies this process and automatically creates a single document from multiple screen captures. It’s fast, easy and looks great.

Finally, thanks to you for reading AppStorm this month, and for checking out the software that our sponsors create. I really appreciate it – you make the site what it is!

• ilumire
• bquorning
• flussberg
• caiobianchi1
• mgdphotography
• krchkn
• Designator
• crepato
• douseemeatall
• gustaoo

A huge thanks to the folks at Postbox for sponsoring this giveaway and to all of you that entered. We’ll be back with another competition soon and next time your name could be on that list of winners!

Original Article

Postbox 3, the latest iteration of this awesome and powerful Mail.app alternative, brings about a ton of great new features and enhancements. The interface has been completely revamped to be more slick and streamlined, great Lion features like fullscreen mode and gestures have been added, there’s better Gmail support and social integration and they’ve even added Dropbox support as an alternative to traditional email attachments.

We’re super excited to announce that we have a whopping 10 Postbox licenses to give away this week!.

Postbox

Tweet to Enter

Entering is simple, all you have to do is click the link below and send out the resulting tweet (or just copy and paste), then leave a comment below with a link to your tweet. That’s it!

We’ll announce the winners one week from today on Wednesday, February 8th. Good luck to everyone who enters and thanks for reading Mac.AppStorm!

Enjoy the interview!

How did you get started with the Mac and how did you make the jump into app development?

I’ve never owned a PC, so I’ve been using a Mac all the way back since System 7, or basically as long as I can remember.

Dustin MacDonald

Can you tell us a bit about Acrylic Software?

Pulp is one of Acrylic Software's most popular apps.

Acrylic was started in April of 2008, the same time of the launch of our first product, Times for Mac (now called Pulp), and was more or less a one man show. We’ve since grown to developing four products, hired additional help on the engineering and support side, and work out of a beautiful office in Vancouver, Canada.

How did Acrylic Software become your full-time job?

I started Acrylic right after finishing school. I had been working on Mac apps on the side for almost ten years during that time, and knew immediately it was something I wanted to pursue full time once I was done.

You run the show at Acrylic. How do you manage being in charge as well as being developer/designer?

We’re a very small company by design, so management right now isn’t as huge of a burden as it is for some other developers. When we start working on a new project I’m focused very much on the foundational design aspects, transitioning to the engineering side later on, and by the end I am usually switching between the two endlessly.

What are some of the other challenges you’ve faced as an independent app developer?

When you’re trying to compete with companies who take millions of dollars in funding and then give away their stuff for free without any real business model, it can be tough to convince users to pay for your app and support indie software. Eventually these companies have to start plastering ads all over their stuff or get acquired, but by then it can sometimes be too late to make an impact.

Your apps are incredibly beautiful, what inspires your design aesthetic?

It sounds obvious, but I’ve always been inspired by Apple and the simplicity, elegance, and attention to detail in their products. There aren’t many technology companies out there doing what they do, and I doubt I’d even be involved in this industry without them. The world would be a better place if more companies adopted those basic principles.

How do you differentiate your apps in the face of some pretty tough competition, like 1Password and Reeder?

Our focus has always been on innovation and great design. We steer clear of feature bloat and “do everything” kinds of products, aiming instead for simple, elegant and focused solutions.

We also make sure we’re always working on new and interesting ideas. Our projects are never designed to directly iterate upon existing apps. Both Pulp and Wallet stem from my personal desire for new products & features that simply didn’t exist before. Those ideas ultimately get copied by others, but by then we’re hopefully already moving onto the next thing.

How has the Mac App Store impacted your business?

We decided early on to start selling our apps on the Mac App Store exclusively, and the impact in terms of sales and overall growth has been huge. Having the weight off our shoulders of managing downloads and license keys for both us and our customers is a big deal, and I think the Mac App Store is just a great place in general to discover new apps.

Apps by Acrylic are among the App Store's most popular.

At the same time, we get burned out with really lame things like long review times, unexpected rejections, and a lack of any feedback loop with our users before they go posting negative reviews. I also think the Mac App Store would really benefit from free demo versions of apps, and the ability to have paid updates for major new releases. It’s a love/hate relationship for us that will hopefully improve in the near future.

You develop apps for both the Mac and iOS, what’s it like working with both?

iOS is easily the most interesting and exciting platform in technology right now, so it’s always fun to see the kinds of things Apple is implementing there and figuring out how we can apply them to our own apps.

At the same time, we love the Mac and use OS X every day. The foundations of Mac and iOS are very similar, so taking some of the new ideas and technologies in iOS and applying them to Mac apps can be incredibly powerful. Sometimes we even share the same code between both platforms.

What advice would you give to anyone hoping to break into the app development space?

Make sure you absolutely believe in what you’re working on and love doing it, because it can be really tough to see a project through to the end unless you do. If you’re not in it for the long haul, you won’t get very far.

What are some of your favorite apps not made by Acrylic Software?

On the Mac, I use Transmit, the world’s best FTP app, and Versions, a Subversion version control client, almost every day. I also recently discovered a simple little app called Degrees which is a well designed menubar widget for showing the weather. On iOS, I like Delivery Status Touch, a great app for package tracking.

What does your current desk setup look like? What computers do you use regularly?

"The new MacBook Air is finally powerful enough now to do just about anything"

I’ve actually recently migrated to solely using a 13″ MacBook Air with a 27″ Cinema Display set up at my desk. Having the sheer portability of the Air and a giant display at hand when I need to do some serious work is a great combination. The new MacBook Air is finally powerful enough now to do just about anything, although I’d really like to see a 15″ model.

Can you give us a peek at what’s next for Acrylic?

I can’t talk much about our next big project, but we do have some interesting updates coming soon for Wallet and Pulp, specifically if you use iCloud. Stay tuned!

Thanks, Dustin!

I’d like to say thank you to Dustin for taking the time out of his busy schedule to answer our questions, and offer a little insight into what goes on behind the scenes at Acrylic Software. If you haven’t already, head over to the Acrylic Software website to check out their latest Mac and iOS projects. I guarantee that you’ll like what you see.

Enter NetSpot. It’s the WiFi network survey tool for anyone. It claims to be dead simple to set up with the reports generated being super helpful. And all of this for free. It sounds pretty great, but does it actually work? I took it for a spin and here’s what I found out.

The Map

NetSpot will essentially create a survey of the WiFi coverage for any defined area. One slightly tricky aspect to this (at least for me) was the initial creation of the area to be surveyed. NetSpot needs some sort of a map to create the survey from. An example map is provided for you to take a look at, but one that is actually structured like the area you’re surveying would obviously work the best.

It is possible to create the map within the application itself. There are some basic tools that can be used to draw the map. It’s not too terribly difficult, but it’s not exactly lightning fast to create anything too elaborate.

Draw your own survey space

If you have the capability and ability, it’s best to create the map in an application your more comfortable working with and that is maybe a little quicker for you to work with. I just did a quick map outline of my apartment using Illustrator. I was just going for a rough map, but the alignment tools were helpful to quickly getting the map created.

On the initial screen after the application is launched you’ll see options to load a map, draw a map, start with a sample map, or start with a blank map. Loading a map that you have is going to present you with the best results in the end, but drawing your own is certainly an option and starting from just a blank map can also work. I’ll make some notes about this as I continue along through my process.

Begin a new survey

Loading your own map is easy enough. Locate the file and load it. If NetSpot doesn’t think the map is orientated correctly it will suggest that your rotate it. After this step you’ll see your map on the screen. Next, the application needs some frame of reference with regard to distance. It’ll ask you to input the actual distance between two points on your map. It’s pretty straight forward. Click on two different places on the map and enter in the actual distance between in either feet or meters. Once that has been done you’ll be able to click the next button to move forward.

Define an actual measurement

The entire process works like this. At each step you’ll see the directions for that particular step at the top of the screen. On the bottom of the application window you’ll find any input space that is required as well as the navigation buttons that allow you to move the process forward along with a little feedback. If you’re not giving the application what it needs you’ll be notified there.

The last set up portion before we can actually begin the site survey is that we need to define the boundaries for the area we’re working with. I stumbled a bit with this as my apartment is a bit of an odd shape. The instructions tell you to put a marker in each corner, when basically what you’re doing is defining the boundaries of the space you want surveyed. NetSpot will help walk you through the process by showing you any overlaps (which it does not like). Once your area has been defined on your map you’re ready to get started on the survey.

Set the borders of the space

The borders of your space don’t need to be perfect. Obviously the closer you can get the more detailed your results will be. I mentioned earlier that there may be some merit to choosing a blank map as a starting point. If you have a straight-walled space this would obviously be the easiest method, but it could also be used to just do a really quick survey of an area. You just drop in the dimensions of the entire space and don’t define any borders. Defining specific areas of your space (more on that in the next section) may be more accurate, but you can still get some decent information about you WiFi coverage without them.

The Survey

Now we’ll start surveying the space we’ve defined. NetSpot will ask you to walk around to locations in your space and click on the map to show where you are.

Just about to start defining location markers

As you click on the map a survey will begin of that small location. You essentially wander around your space clicking where you are physically standing. Once you have a few points marked on your map you’ll begin to see WiFi networks being detected.

Some location markers are now set

As you drop location markers you’ll see a green circle after that spot has been defined. The idea is to get as much of your space covered in green a possible. This will provide you with the most accurate survey. I just walked around my apartment dropping markers wherever I could. As I mentioned, my space is a bit oddly shaped so I had to make quite a few location marks to get full coverage.

Finished with my survey

You’ll see the path that you’re taking while your dropping markers. This seems rather pointless to me and it can be toggled off. As you can see from the screenshots I had to do some back and forth stuff to make sure I was getting the space covered properly. As far as I can tell, the path you take really doesn’t make any difference in the results fo your survey.

After you feel like you’ve defined the area sufficiently you’ll simply press the stop scan button at the top. It’s time to check out our results.

Survey Results

This is where you’ll begin to see the fruits of your labor. There are a handful of reports that can be generated and exported and each of these can be viewed prior to doing so. A drop-down list at the top of the application window allows you to quickly change what report you’re looking at. As you switch from one to another you’ll notice a short delay while the report is being generated.

Signal level visualization

You are restricted to the visual options available. There is no creating of custom reports. It is however possible to toggle which networks that the survey picked up are being factored into your reports. Hovering over a network name will also give you some additional information about it which can be useful. You could pick up a channel conflict more easily perhaps.

Noise level visualization

You’ll see your home wireless router displayed on your map. I appears that NetSpot will attempt to display its actual location without any intervention. I didn’t have an exact map of my apartment, but the location ended up quite close. You’ll also see two devices listed for my network. This would be my main WiFi network and my guest WiFi network.

Signal to noise visualization

A lot of great information can be seen from this view right within the application, but sometimes you may have the need to show someone else what you’ve found. Maybe you need a little leverage to get a repeater in your area. An export to PDF option is available as you’re viewing any of the visualization options. Export a couple of these and email them to your boss. Proof of your shoddy WiFi network.

Export example

The export packages all of the information available to you as you’re working in the app in a really nice format. You’ll have a tabular view of all of the networks detected along with all of that extra info for each. You’ll then see the visualization at the bottom with a key. They are quite nice and require zero effort past pressing a button to generate.

Conclusion

NetSpot is a really cool application. Is it something that I’m going to use every day? Absolutely not. But there are definitely scenarios where it becomes incredibly handy. Setting up a new WiFi network or just troubleshooting why a current set up isn’t working properly immediately come to mind. It may be something I just decide to do periodically in my current space to make sure something out of my control hasn’t changed.

The amount of information you can receive about your WiFi network is impressive. It’s even more impressive given that the application is free and so simple to use. With that in mind I haven’t seen anything comparable. With the amount of money you pay for your Internet connection it make sense to spend some time making sure you’re taking full advantage of it and a simple utility like NetSpot is a great way to help you do just that.

All that’s needed to delve right into this ecosystem is an Apple ID, so let’s get started on this third part of Mac 101, which will take a look at creating an Apple ID and using it to maximum effect.

Creating An Apple ID

Creating an Apple ID is easy, quick and free

Your Apple ID is like a digital passport into the world of Apple and it can be used for all kinds of things, such as purchasing songs from the iTunes Store, logging into iCloud or making a reservation at an Apple Retail Store and more.

It’s quite probable that unless you’re completely new to all things Apple, you’ve already got an Apple ID lying around somewhere, even if unused and long forgotten. That said, if you’ve somehow managed to avoid creating one, or would just like to start afresh with another, head over to Apple’s My Apple ID page, from which you can create your Apple ID. The same page on Apple’s website also has provisions to help you try and hunt down that old ID if you’re not sure whether you have one or not.

iTunes

iTunes is a premier outlet for your media needs

Since its original launch as simple music player, iTunes has evolved into the premier digital location to both consume your existing media and purchase new media too, whether you’re looking for music, movies, audiobooks, TV shows or iOS apps.

The finer points of managing your iTunes media and the more advanced (and very cool!) aspects of the application, such as iTunes In The Cloud, should probably be revisited at some point in a subsequent Mac 101 article, but for now let’s just take a look at the very basics.

Before you dive in, be sure to take a glance at the various tutorials which welcome the new Mac user on first launching iTunes.

Adding Media

Adding your media to iTunes is as easy as File > Add To Library

To add media to iTunes, we can follow the same basic process for whatever media it is that we wish to add. However, for the sake of simplicity, let’s assume its audio-based. Within iTunes, click on File > Add To Library and then navigate to the audio files in question. All being well, they’ll be imported into the correct place and still have their names, artwork and other assorted data. If not? Well, that’s what the following section is for.

Organizing Media

If your Post-Punk music collection is categorised as Pop, don't worry - your credibility is safe with a few tweaks

When importing audio media into iTunes that isn’t music, such as an audiobook for example, it’ll often show up in the wrong place, with iTunes mistaking it for music. Similarly, iTunes may import an album but not tell you who the artist is. To fix this, we can take manual control over the way which iTunes organizes our media.

To do this, let’s start by making sure that we’re on the same page, so to speak. Click on the ‘Music’ tab on the left pane of the iTunes window and then navigate to View > As List (don’t worry, you can bring back the far more attractive Grid view later by looking in the View menu again). This done, you can now easily highlight several files, whatever they are called and right-click to sort them and rename if required.

You can specify music as an audiobook, or tweak EQ options under the 'Other' preference pane

For further organizing, head to the ‘Options’ pane and from there you can choose the Media Kind, handy if you’re importing podcasts or audiobooks and want to ensure your iPhone remembers where you left off.

For advice on moving, restoring and syncing your iTunes media, check out this great article by Quintin

Purchasing Media

Music, Audiobooks, Movies and iOS Apps all reside in the iTunes Store

To begin spending some money in the iTunes Store, simply click on the tab of that name which is located on the left-hand pane of your iTunes window. Once there, you’ll be able to browse through several categories which include Movies, TV Shows, Music and the App Store – not to be confused with the Mac App Store, this particular App Store is for iOS software only.

iCloud

iCloud is Apple's latest attempt at making cloud-computing compelling

iCloud is the latest in a long line of attempts by Apple to provide a seamless online suite of tools to complement the Mac OS X computing experience, a quest which goes all the way back to the turn of this century and the company’s initial foray into the cloud, iTools. While iCloud only achieves its full usefulness when one owns multiple Apple devices or computers, the great thing about iCloud is that Apple offers the service free of charge and so there’s no real reason for Mac newcomers not to dip their toes in the future of Apple’s cloud-computing.

Providing your various devices are properly configured with iCloud, you can move iWork documents seamlessly between machines and sync bookmarks, contacts and calendars too. In addition, iCloud is accessible via a web browser so that your data is accessible even on non-Apple computers.

The Mac App Store

The Mac App Store has been a great success since its launch and contains thousands of essential Mac apps

While you’re completely free to acquire your software the old fashioned way, the Mac App Store is a great place to find much of the latest and greatest Mac OS X apps at a great price, or even free, with the additional benefit that it’s easy to keep track of needed updates too.

To start doing some online shopping, just launch the Mac App Store application and you’ll be presented with something that looks a lot like the above screenshot. Depending on when and how you created your Apple ID, you may have to enter it in, along with your password. Your account can be managed from the main page (under the ‘Account’ tab) and newly downloaded apps will be added to Launchpad and they can also all be updated through the App Store’s interface.

iChat

iChat is a intuitive and very slick messaging solution

iChat has been with Mac OS X users for a decade now and the popular instant messaging service can make use of text messaging, in addition to support for audio and video calls and screen-sharing. While iChat is exclusive to the Mac platform, it can be used with AIM, Yahoo and Google chat accounts, to talk with users on other operating systems.

To get started with iChat, launch the app and then add your Apple ID and any other accounts you’d like to use.

FaceTime

Unveiled alongside the launch of the iPhone 4, FaceTime has been subsequently rolled out to the other iOS devices and Macs too. Indeed, recently released Mac computers come with a newly upgraded high definition iSight camera to make the most of FaceTime.

While detractors may fairly point out that FaceTime offers basically the same functionality as the already existing and far more popular cross-platform app Skype, what FaceTime lacks in ubiquity, it undeniably offers a very special user experience. Getting started with FaceTime is easy, just enter your Apple ID!

Conclusion

That concludes our Mac 101 introduction to the Apple ecosystem, I hope that you’ve gained some additional knowledge about how each of Apple’s products are designed to work together and offer an additional functionality which goes beyond the hardware that Infinite Loop sell, or even the operating system which they design to run on it.

In the next Mac 101 article we’re going to be looking at the ten Mac apps that every new user should rush to get installed their new Apple computer as soon as possible.