Archiver 2 Overview

Archiver is one of those staple applications that you need to get through your day. Archiver 2 is the long awaited new version of the popular Mac OSX compression manager. It provides a number of new features and a snazzy new interface. There really isn’t much to say except that it’s one of those programs that you can’t live without.

Feature List

Features of Archiver 2 include:

• Extract Archives
• Create Archives
• Combine Archives
• Split / Join
• Encrypt
• Works with Zip, Rar, 7z, tar, .gz, LHA, Bin, XAR, ARJ, and many more

Summary

You can download a free trial of Archiver 2. Go get the app and try it out. You’ll instantly fall in love with it.

Overall Rating: 10/10

Price: $20 (and worth every penny) | Trial? Yes | Archiver 2 Homepage

The post Archiver 2 – The essential compression manager for Mac OSX appeared first on NightLion.

Acrobat XI Overview

Have you gotten your hands on Adobe Acrobat XI yet? If you find yourself working with and creating PDF files on a regular basis, the latest version of Adobe Acrobat is well worth a long look. Acrobat XI really beefs up overall performance, especially on a Mac. This new version also comes integrated with Adobe’s powerful new electronic signature service called Adobe Echosign — which nothing short of rocks!

Let’s take a quick look at some of our favorite highlights of Adobe Acrobat XI. Then, we’ll follow that up with a more in-depth look at Echosign from Adobe. Believe us, if your business involves a lot of signed paperwork being shuffled around electronically between multiple individuals, then you are going to want to check out Adobe’s electronic signature service.

The latest version of Adobe Acrobat comes with few noteworthy features that orbit around a single benefit – improving workflow to make your life easier. Here’s some of the new features that do just that.

PDF Editing

Users who design, review and share PDF documents will love the new editing features in Adobe Acrobat XI. The developers really stepped it up when it comes to the new PDF editing tools for text and images.

Password Protect

With editing now more accessible to all team members, you will be glad to know that this new version of Adobe Acrobat features enhanced security options for password protecting documents. The Restrict Editing tool prevents your PDF from being edited, copied or printed without your permission.

Interoperability

A third workflow enhancement from Adobe involves Acrobat’s ability to “play nice” with Microsoft Office’s PowerPoint, Word and Excel. One of the upgrades of this version is that document formatting stays intact when you transform PDF files into PowerPoint presentations.

Adobe EchoSign

Adobe EchoSign Takes the Hassle Out of Electronic Signatures and Document Management

If you are still printing and signing documents and then scanning them and emailing them back to the other party, then Adobe Acrobat’s electronic signature service EchoSign is a no-brainer. Adobe’s EchoSign not only speeds up the process of signing, delivering and receiving documents by leaps and bounds; it also manages all your documents, provides quick access to documents and it certifies deliver of PDF files. We also appreciate the fact that there is no bulky software to download as EchoSign is a 100% on-demand service.

Adobe Acrobat XI EchoSign Highlights

• Variety of electronic signature options including: hand-drawn, typewritten, image-based and certificate signatures.
• Document management and storage along with real-time contract status and team performance information.
• Quickly send documents and request signatures from other parties.
• Archived contracts and supporting documents stored securely in cloud servers.
• PDF file delivery certification with Adobe Certified Documents Services Stamp.
• Adobe Acrobat XI Echo App for iPhone, iTouch and iPad includes all of the regular features of this electronic signature service as well as the ability to host in-person signings.

The addition of this electronic signing cloud service to Adobe Acrobat XI definitely adds to the theme of improving workflow performance which we introduced earlier in the review. Its ease of use, quick learning curve, and Adobe EchoSign for iOS teamed up the tried and true performance of Acrobat make it a must-have for any size business that needs a simple signature or complex contract management service. When you upgrade to Adobe Acrobat XI, you are going to see improved workplace performance and quicker turnaround on creating, sharing and signing documents. This is one upgrade you do not want to miss.

The post Adobe Acrobat XI with EchoSign brings Cloud Document Signing and Management appeared first on NightLion.

Pixa Overview

What is Pixa? Pixa is essentially an image organizer similar to iPhoto, but geared towards designers and design professionals. Pixa contains a large amount of useful features, but the area where it shines the most is it’s ability to provide a way to organize my libraries of stock photos and icons in a way that I can quickly find them when I need them.

Feature List

Some of Pixa’s more notable features include:

Live Folders: Live Folders allows you to organize your images in Pixa without moving them from their original location. If you are working on a project that you want to be stored in Pixa you can make it a live folder which is “linked” to the actual folder you are storing the files on your computer. As you add files into this folder they are automatically added to
the live folder in Pixa.

Auto Tagging: Pixa will auto-tag useful information like colors and size; web address, extensions and metadata are also saved for the imported images.

The Loupe Tool: The Loupe tool lets you check your photos pixel by pixel copying the colors into the clipboard in many useful formats.

Pixa provides the user with useful tools for creating screenshots and analyzing images, being an indispensable tool for collecting inspiration.

Metadata Reader: Easily find Metadata, Exif, and more. If you select an image and click the little “i” in the bottom left hand corner of Pixa’s main interface, you’ll be presented with the Information Panel.

Summary

If you’re a designer, web developer, or someone who has a large number of digital assets that they use on a regular basis, this app is for you.

Overall Rating: 10/10

Price: $30 (and worth every penny) | Trial? Yes | http://www.pixa-app.com/”>Homepage | App Store Link

The post App of the week: Pixa – Organize and Catalog your Mac Graphic elements with easy appeared first on NightLion.

For quick access, you can assign this applescript to a shortcut key and run it once right before you do your daily task scheduling.

Download the Applescript

The post Applescript: Export Things ‘Today’ tasks to OSX 10.8 reminders & iCal appeared first on NightLion.

Blotter present your iCal calendar events and reminders right on your desktop with this stunning calendar viewer.

Blotter has quickly become one of my crucial ‘can’t live without this‘ apps. The idea is so incredibly simple.. A calender on your desktop. There’s really not a whole lot else to say except it is incredibly customizable and takes almost no effort to setup.

GTD Awesomeness

From a GTD perspective, everything is just a glance away. The only real problem I have (and this isn’t necessairly Blotter’s fault), is that I have no way of getting my tasks into the Tasks area. The tasks are populated by whatever is in Apple’s ‘Reminders’ app. The problem now is that most major GTD software have dropped support for this. Funny enough, I remember Things happened to be the one software that automatically syned your ‘Due’ items with Reminders. When I went back to try it, I realized that version 2.1 dropped support for this. Cultured Code continues to get *this* close to getting me to drop OmniFocus, and they keep blowing it. But I digress….

Blotter is the best $10 I’ve spent in a long time. If you use your calendar often, you should get this app. It rocks.

Overall Rating: 10/10

Price: $9.99 | Trial? Yes | Homepage | App Store Link

The post Blotter for Mac – Calendar on your Desktop for GTD Nirvana appeared first on NightLion.

Rosetta Stone v4 for Mac and iPad app is a great product for anyone looking to learn a new language. I’m sure you’ve heard of this language-learning software as the company pumps a lot of resources in its marketing and advertising. But don’t be under the impression that consumer overexposure is what makes Rosetta Stone so popular. The simple fact is that users love it because it is easy to use and it works. In fact, my wife used the product to learn Italian so we have first-hand knowledge of its success. Read on to get to know version 4 of Rosetta Stone for Mac OSX with an overview of why the TOTALe companion iPad app is incredibly effective for learning on the go.

Rosetta Stone Overview

Rosetta Stone v4 provides language learning for 31 different languages. When you purchase version 4, also known as Rosetta Stone TOTALe 4, you receive Rosetta COURSE, Rosetta WORLD, Rosetta STUDIO, and a trial to the TOTALe Mobile Companion (see the bullets below for more information). The “trial” put me off at first. It’s somewhat frustrating to have to pay an additional monthly fee on top of what you’ve already paid in software costs. This is the main area I think Rosetta Stone could improve upon.

Griping aside, the software is incredibly intuitive and uses easy to follow sounds and examples to help users learn the languages. One thing you should remember is that Rosetta Stone is no crash course. It is a comprehensive language-learning software that requires a commitment from the user to go through each level to learn a new language.

Here’s what you get

• Rosetta COURSE – The standard Rosetta Stone software found in previous versions.
• Rosetta STUDIO – Live online classes with native speakers as instructional tutors.
• Rosetta WORLD – Brings a social aspect to the software with gaming and a community.
• TOTALe Mobile Companion – Mobile app for iPad and other mobile devices.

Language Learning Course Structure

Next, I’ll take you through a quick look at the Rosetta Stone v4 for Mac course structure. If you are just starting to learn a language, you are better off going through the complete Rosetta Stone language-learning course. Following the tried and true method is the best way to succeed. However, I do like the ability to just “brush up” on a language you have learned previously. This is perfect if have travel plans and need a refresher course.

Language “Levels”

All of the levels in each language course consist of 4 units. Within those units, users will find 4 lessons. The lessons are then broken down into a variety of sections. Units touch on ideas like language basics, travel, past and future, dining and vacation, greetings and introductions, and friends and social life. Each lesson will have sections on reading, writing, speaking, grammar, etc. Take a look at what you do each and every day with your native language and you’ll see where they are going with these sections.

Obviously, the softwares support of a wide-range of VPN protocols is a major highlight of Shimo. However, there are many other features I love about this VPN software. Shimo can connect to a network automatically, store all of your VPN-related files in a central location and lets users customize their notification settings. Shimo also gives Mac users the ability to customize the functionality of the software in many other ways, or you can let the standard settings do all the work for you. This makes it perfect for expert users and easy to use for beginners. If you are using Mac OSX, then quite simple – this is the VPN software you must use.

Summary

The PROS: Rosetta Stone rocks. Plain and simple. It’s helped my wife learn Italian, and has helped me brush up on the language. The addition of Rosetta STUDIO is a nice touch. It really enhances the learning process by providing a native speaker to deliver live tutoring. Overall this is a great product. I am completely satisfied with my purchase.

The CONS: While the iPad app is free and nice in theory, you have to be online to use it. This doesn’t do much good when traveling and not in major wifi areas. The software isn’t so big that it can’t fit on my iPad, so there’s really no reason to have to stream it. The issue of affordability is also a problem with many users, and the additional monthly fee for the iPad app is somewhat annoying.

In the end, if you want to learn a language without paying for major instructor time, Rosetta Stone 4 is absolutely your best bet.

Overall Rating: 9/10

Price: Varies | Trial? No | Homepage

The post Language Learning on the go: Review of Rosetta Stone v4 for Mac & iPad appeared first on NightLion.

Got Security?

In short: Little Snitch 3 for Mac by Objective Development provides powerful protection from malicious connections.
With that being said, I’m sure you’re using a firewall, right? Most definitely you have virus protection? These are necessities for any computer user. Even us Mac users must protect ourselves from malicious threats trying to work their way into our private information.

But have you considered this: What happens when your personal information is accessed from the inside-out? If you haven’t considered this and obviously haven’t done anything about it, then you need to get hands on Little Snitch 3 for Mac. And we’ll help you do just that, after you read this review.

Little Snitch Overview

Little Snitch from Objective Development is like the guard at the front gate keeping the inmates from walking out the front door. If you – the warden – give permission for someone to leave, then Little Snitch 3 allows it. And in many cases the guard will open that door without bothering you – if that is one of the rules you have in place.

The Little Snitch Network Monitor: Which apps are transmitting?

Ever wonder where you data is going, or rather, which applications are sending data? I’ve come across this issue when trying to figure out why my bandwidth has suddenly tanked. The Little Snitch network monitor is great for seeing exactly what processes are sending or receiving data. This can be extremely helpful when trying to track down rogue processes or malware.

For the less security savvy, it’s important to note that your Mac is probably full of applications sending out private information. Most of this is done with good intention – often to provide software updates. However, most of the time, data is probably being sent out for tracking and statistical purposes. Most times, applications won’t even ask for your permission; they will just collect and send. This can cause havoc if this is done with malicious intent. Little Snitch 3 installs a kernel extension on your Mac to monitor and shut the door on those applications trying to initiate outbound connections without your approval.

That’s the simple description of what it does and that is why you need it. The Little Snitch application is much more complex. And while these complexities can make it confusing to new users, after some time using this Mac app, you’ll be happy with the protection it provides.

Product Features

Let’s take a look at some of my favorite features of Little Snitch 3 and some of its newer ones as well.

• Silent Mode – This feature allows you to silence warnings and not be interrupted. You can then review the Silent Mode Log File to set permanent rules for all warnings at one time.
• Profiles – I like profiles because I use my Mac in public settings, at home and in the office. With this feature, I choose the sets of rules based on my computing environment.
• Research Assistant – I’m no expert when it comes to each and every application and process on my Mac. The Little Snitch 3 Research Assistant gets you the information you need to understand why there is a request to connect to an outside server.
• Status Menu – The status menu is improved to provide quick access to features like silent mode, profiles, rules and summaries.
• Multiple Destination Matching for Rules – I love this clutter-reducing feature as your rules can now match a list of domains, arbitrary IP address ranges and hostnames.
• Rule Suggestions – Let Little Snitch 3 suggest rules based on your past network usage and then quickly define these as permanent rules when you wish.

The above suggestions are just a tip of the iceberg when it comes to Little Snitch 3 for Mac. And the great thing about the application is that it can be very complex or very simple in its functionality without losing its effectiveness.

Security .. and some cause for paranoia

I’m an InfoSec guy, so I’m naturally suspicious. I personally like to know what applications are trying to access the internet, mostly because I don’t like my personal information being spread around at the discretion of those or are trying to profiting form it. I have been a Little Snitch fan for some time, and the biggest feature that drew me to them in the first place was it’s Firewall monitoring capabilities. To quote Objective Development’s website, “Little Snitch allows you to intercept these unwanted connection attempts, and lets you decide how to proceed.” That statement alone should be enough to warrant paying the nominal fee for this tremendously great application.

Summary

I’ve been a fan of Little Snitch for a while, and version 3 brings a much needed breath of fresh air to the application. There are a lot of great new features and a very well polished UI. It’s unfortunate that most users don’t take an active role in their security. Most people, and large companies for that matter, have the jaded perspective that an incident will never happen to them .. until it does. There are some great security stories available on the Night Lion Security InfoSEC Blog. But I digress… back to Little Snitch.

As promised in the beginning of this review, we’re going to help you get your hands on a copy of this application. To register for a chance to win, just leave a comment telling us why you should be the person to get your free Little Stitch 3 license.

Overall Rating: 10/10

Price: $34.95 | Trial? Yes | Homepage

Free license GIVEAWAY

The developers at Objective Development were gracious enough to give away a copy of Little Snitch 3 to our followers. We will be giving away the app on Dec 31, 2012, right in time for the new year. Entry into the contest is extremely simple:

• Step 1: Tweet this message (Free copy of Little Snitch 3 for Mac giveaway, by @NightLion and @LittleSnitch. Product review and details here: http://bit.ly/VBJX5y)
• Step 2: Write a comment on this page telling us why you should receive the free copy.

If there are any problems, please shoot us an email at info (at) nightlion.net.

That’s it! Good luck to everyone!

The post Little Snitch 3: Network Monitor for OSX, Redesigned and Turbo Charged appeared first on NightLion.

If you’ve been around PHP for a while, you’ve probably heard about APC, the Alternative PHP Cache. APC is an opcode cache that can significantly speed up your PHP applications, by caching both PHP code and user variables. Adding APC to an application usually results in improved application response times, reduced server load and happier users. Thanks to 2bits blog for this guide.

APC is an opcode cache that can significantly speed up your PHP applications. When dealing with Plesk web servers with multiple users and websites, APC PHP cache might be required in order to achieve reliable server performance.

Step 1: Getting Started

The Alternative PHP Cache (APC) is a free, open, and robust framework for caching and optimizing PHP intermediate code. It’s an PECL extension which shares the packaging and distribution system with its sister, PEAR. In case you don’t have php-pear installed, run this command:
[code lang="bash"] yum install php-pear[/code]

Step 2: APC PHP Dependencies

Next, let’s install any remaining dependencies which are required by PHP APC

yum install php-devel httpd-devel

Step 3: Installing APC using the PECL command

pecl install apc

Step 3: Enable Alternative PHP Cache

Enable APC PHP cache in Apache’s configuration. By using command:

echo "extension=apc.so" > /etc/php.d/apc.ini

Step 4: Restart Apache

Lastly, restart Apache:

/etc/init.d/httpd start

That’s it. Enjoy!

The post How to Install APC PHP Cache on Plesk / Centos server appeared first on NightLion.

This should go without saying: make sure to backup your configuration files before trying any new settings!

Step 1: Modify fcgid.cpnf

nano /etc/httpd/conf.d/fcgid.conf

LoadModule fcgid_module modules/mod_fcgid.so

<IfModule mod_fcgid.c>

<IfModule !mod_fastcgi.c>
AddHandler fcgid-script fcg fcgi fpl
</IfModule>

FcgidIPCDir /var/run/mod_fcgid/sock
FcgidProcessTableFile /var/run/mod_fcgid/fcgid_shm

FcgidInitialEnv RAILS_ENV production

FcgidIdleTimeout 3600
FcgidIdleScanInterval 480
FcgidBusyTimeout 1800
FcgidBusyScanInterval 480
FcgidZombieScanInterval 12
FcgidErrorScanInterval 12
FcgidProcessLifeTime 0

# Change the rate at which new FastCGI processes are spawned under load. Higher=faster
FcgidSpawnScoreUpLimit 10

# Higher number = spawning more FastCGI processes decreases the spawn rate (controls runaway
FcgidSpawnScore 1

# Higher number = terminating FastCGI processes decreases the spawn rate (controls runaway)
FcgidTerminationScore 2

# Increase the FastCGI max request length for large file uploads (needed for some sites)
FcgidMaxRequestLen 1073741824

FcgidMaxRequestsPerProcess 100000
#FcgidMinProcessesPerClass 3
FcgidMaxProcessesPerClass 4
FcgidMaxProcesses 16
FcgidIOTimeout 1800

</IfModule>

Modifying your PHP.conf

Next, let’s edit our php.conf

nano /etc/httpd/conf.d/php.conf

AddHandler php-script .php
AddType text/html .php
DirectoryIndex index.php

Step 3: SWTune – Optional

Now we are going to create a special SWTune.conf configuration file. I’ve had mixed success with this, so please experiment with this. I believe this will be more effective on lower resource systems. You may choose to skip this step.

nano /etc/httpd/conf.d/swtune.conf

HostnameLookups off
KeepAlive Off

<IfModule worker.c>
StartServers 1
ServerLimit 2
MinSpareThreads 32
MaxSpareThreads 96
ThreadLimit 64
ThreadsPerChild 32
ThreadStackSize 2097152
MaxClients 64
MaxRequestsPerChild 0
</IfModule>

Step 4: CPU and Memory configuration

Finally, this next shell command will determine the best configuration settings based on your processors and amount of memory.

num_cpus=$(awk '/^processor/{count++}END{print count}' /proc/cpuinfo)
sed -i 's%[#]*HTTPD=.*%HTTPD=/usr/sbin/httpd.worker%g' /etc/sysconfig/httpd
sed -i 's%HTTPD_BIN\s.*%HTTPD_BIN /usr/sbin/httpd.worker%g' /etc/psa/psa.conf
sed -i "s/\(ServerLimit\s*\).*/\1$(( $num_cpus * 2 ))/" /etc/httpd/conf.d/swtune.conf
sed -i "s/\(MaxClients\s*\).*/\1$(( ( $num_cpus * 2 ) * 32 ))/" /etc/httpd/conf.d/swtune.conf
service psa stopall
service psa restart

Notes:- The earlier mentioned sequences or patterns will adapt the host limitations and Optimum Customers in respect to the CPU quantity.

The post Guide to Apache PHP / FCGI performance tuning on Plesk linux servers appeared first on NightLion.

If you haven’t tried Shimo, then now is the time to jump on board. Shimo is the perfect VPN software solution for Max OSX. It supports almost every VPN protocol and let’s you organize all of your connections in one place. Shimo has a track record of providing Mac users with a VPN-client solution they can trust and with each version the software continues to mprove. Over the years, there have been improvements in compatibility, minor bug fixes and the addition of some very cool features. Here’s a brief overview of Shimo along with a few highlights of my favorite features.

Why Shimo VPN rocks:

Shimo Compatibility

Let’s take a quick look at the VPN clients and connections the Shimo software supports. As you can see from the list below, Mac users have a nice selection to choose from. This is quite the difference of the first version of Shimo which only allowed for connection with CiscoVPN.

• CiscoVPN Support
• AnyConnect Support
• OpenVPN Support
• IPSec Support
• PPTP/L2TP Support
• Nortel Support
• Juniper/Netscreen Support
• SSH Support

Shimo Features

The following are features this VPN software for MacOSX offers to its users. One thing I love about Shimo, is that the software continues to add more user-friendly features with each updated version.

• Multiple Concurrent Connections
• Use Keychain for Passwords
• Certificate Management
• Advanced Notifications
• Automated Connections
• Global Keyboard Shortcuts

My Highlights

Obviously, the softwares support of a wide-range of VPN protocols is a major highlight of Shimo. However, there are many other features I love about this VPN software. Shimo can connect to a network automatically, store all of your VPN-related files in a central location and lets users customize their notification settings. Shimo also gives Mac users the ability to customize the functionality of the software in many other ways, or you can let the standard settings do all the work for you. This makes it perfect for expert users and easy to use for beginners. If you are using Mac OSX, then quite simple – this is the VPN software you must use.

Overall Rating: 10/10

Price: $29.95 | Trial? Yes | Homepage

The post Shimo: The Ultimate VPN Client for Mac appeared first on NightLion.

What You can Do with Skeddly

I’m going to share seven of the most popular tasks. Those popular tasks are to:

• Automatically Start / Stop EC2 instances
• Create / Delete EC2 snapshot backups
• Create / Delete AMI images
• Create / Delete RDS Snapshot
• Registering / de-register instances with load balancers
• Grow EBS Volumes action to simulate the growing of an EBS volume.
• Generate Resource Report to create a regular report of Amazon AWS resources that may be costing them money.
• Automatically Change EC2 Instance Type to increase/decrease EC2 power as the server load changes.

The Two Sides of Skeddly

Skeddly provides users with two ways to deal with backups; either by setting up your own backup schedule, or by completely automating the process through a ‘managed instance’. Let’s take a look at both and let’s start with actions.

Individual Actions to automate backups

Your first option for automating backups of an Amazon EC2 web server is to create individual Actions to set up your backup schedule. There are five ways to do this:

1. Create an EBS snapshot of an individual EBS volume.
2. “Backup” an entire EC2 instance, which creates EBS snapshots of all EBS volumes attached to an EC2 instance.
3. Create AMI images of an EC2 instance.
4. Create RDS snapshots.
5. Delete EBS snapshots, RDS snapshots and AMI images as they get old, keeping only the newer ones.

Don’t think the above list is all the performance you’ll get out of Skeddly. The above Actions also allow for multiple options such as dealing with AWS resource tags. These options, along with a range of scheduling options, makes Skeddly highly customizable. In other words, you can create the backup strategy that suits you needs and saves your business time and money.

Managed Instances for rapid automation

An easy way for me to describe managed instances is to compare them to the automatic setting on a digital SLR camera. You push the button and get a great picture while the camera automates all the settings and does all the heavy lifting. Managed instances are an “easy button” for EC2 starts and stops and backups. A user creates a Managed Instance and Skeddly manages all the individual actions behind the scenes. This is the perfect option for beginners to start benefiting from the features of Skeddly while learning the basics of the software.

A note on Skeddly’s security

Most users like myself are very cautious about their security keys. The folks at Skeddly understand this and make it a point to encourage their customers to use very restricted Amazon access keys with Skeddly. A great feature that will help you do this is the built-in IAM policy generator. This tool examines the actions that you have defined for a particular access key and creates an IAM policy that is restricted to only the Amazon AWS functions needed to perform your Skeddly actions.

Summary

So there you have it; my brief introduction to Skeddly. The bottom line? It saves me a great deal of time, of which I never seem to have enough. I love the simplicity of the features of the software and the complexity of the benefits its offers to i. Skeddly is the SaaS solution I would recommend for anyone needing to automate Amazon server backups.

The post Skeddly: Automate Amazon EC2 backups, snapshots, sizing and more appeared first on NightLion.

Tracking infected web code in PHP, HTML, or Javascript code can be a nightmare. Luckily, this simply linux script should simplify that process.

Note: This script is not 100%. Due to the changing encoding methods of malware, there is no way to fully detect infection without manually looking through your files. However, this script should give you a pretty good lead on possible infection points.

First Step: Change account passwords

If you feel that there has been a breach of any kind, you should immediately change your Plesk server passwords. Parallels offers a mass user reset script.

Scanning for Web Server Malware

From your command prompt, run the following command:

grep -ilr 'km0ae9gr6m' /var/www/vhosts/ | while read arq; do echo $arq; 
echo $arq >> /root/infected.txt; sed -ni '1h;1!H;${x;s/km0ae9gr6m.*qhk6sa6g1c/virus removed/;p}' $arq; done;

Check the infected files in /root/infected.txt.

If you are still having troubling finding or resolving your web infection, please contact Night Lion Security offers website virus detection and removal services.

The post Script to Scan Linux Plesk Web Server for Malware / Badware Content appeared first on NightLion.

/usr/local/psa/bin/reconfigurator.pl --autoconfigure

The post Plesk 11 – How to Bulk Update Domain IP Addresses appeared first on NightLion.

Ideally, swap space would be allocated to an ephemeral volume, since the data does not need to persist, and there is no charge for I/O operations. However, since the t1.micro instance does not support ephemeral disks (and is, arguably, the instance most in need of swap space) we will look at setting up swap space on an EBS volume, below.

We start by creating an EBS volume – the smallest size is 1GB, which should be more than enough.

Attach the EBS volume to the instance – note the device you set it to (in my case, /dev/xvdg). To see which devices are active on your instance:

fdisk -l

Setup the swap area (the -f option is to force the command to proceed – omit it if you are unsure about the target):

mkswap -f /dev/xvdg

In order to have the swap space available after a boot, we edit /etc/fstab, adding the line below:

/dev/xvdg       swap    swap    defaults        0       0

Finally, we can turn on swap (without a reboot), but issuing the command below.

swapon /dev/xvdg

You can verify that the swap space is active with the ‘free’ command. As an example, the output below is from one of my t1.micro instances that has been running for 15 days. The last line shows swap (1GB), and a few (20) megabytes have been used.

free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:           602        576         25          0         48        347
-/+ buffers/cache:        181        421
Swap:         1023         20       1003

You can disable swap using the swapoff command, for example:

swapoff /dev/xvdg

Important Note:If your swap space is being heavily used, it is probably affecting the performance of your application. Also, with an EBS volume, you will be incurring a cost for every I/O operation. There is nothing wrong with swapping out pages, as long as it isn’t occurring too frequently. You can configure the ‘swappiness’ of your system, by echoing out a value from 0 to 100 into /proc/sys/vm/swappiness. Low numbers reduce the system’s tendency to swap. One view point is that the lower numbers increase perceived responsiveness for a desktop, but higher numbers allow memory to be best used on a server environment.

The post Add Swap Space to Amazon EBS on Linux EC2 Web Servers appeared first on NightLion.

It’s Fast Because it Displays Rendered Images, not Flash Objects

I used SiFR for a long time and the reason I didn’t stick with it was because of the amount of system resources and load time associated with the flash objects.

Fully SEO Complaint

Because it replaces text found within HTML tags, it is fully SEO compliant.

Tight CSS Integration

All of the parameters that generate the image are modeled after the standard CSS font parameters. So any styling that you do in your CSS will be reflected in your image.

WordPress Integration

For the not so technical, the is also a WordPress version. I’ve been using TTFGen on this website for a while and I recently switched to the WordPress version because it’s easier to manage.

Font Caching

Going back to my SiFR argument, once the image is generated, it is stored in a font cache folder on your webserver.

Benefits of the TTFGen WordPress Plugin Interface

• Ability to Upload and Manage Fonts via a web interface
• Ability to define and manage CSS associations without knowledge of jQuery
• Make changes on the fly
• Easily specify the replacement of div IDs, classes or full elements
• Ability to easily whether or not the text is a link, and your desired rollover color

Where to get it?

TTFGen is a free download, available at www.ttfgen.com

The post TTFGen: Embed Custom Fonts on your site – Free & Cross Browser Compatible appeared first on NightLion.

Log into your account via SSH and type the following command (replace your IP address first):

mysql -Ns -uadmin -p`cat /etc/psa/.psa.shadow` -D psa -e 'select name from domains' | awk '{print "/usr/local/psa/bin/domain --update " $1 " -ip 000.000.000.000 "}' | sh

If you would like to see the output of the command without running it, try this:

mysql -Ns -uadmin -p`cat /etc/psa/.psa.shadow` -D psa -e 'select name from domains' | awk '{print "/usr/local/psa/bin/domain --update " $1 " -ip 000.000.000.000 "}'

Finally, restart Plesk

/etc/services psa restart

Update: Plesk Amazon Script

I recently came across an update script built into Plesk 10/11 that will re-configure Plesk with your new IP.

/usr/local/psa/bin/amazon_setup_ip 10.x.x.x

That’s it. Your domains should automatically be reconfigured. If not, please refer to the script at the top of this post.

The post Script to Quickly Bulk Edit All Domain IP Addresses in Plesk 11 appeared first on NightLion.

But you can fix  this issue by using  robots.txt.what is robots txt? Robots txt is a text file, which come in use to keep control over search engines bot while they crawling your blog or website.you can check your robots.txt by typing http://www.yoursite.com/robots.txt . if don’t have create one and uploaded to your website root directory.

Thanks to Mike at WebTricksBlog for this awesome Robots.txt tip.

Just copy and paste the following text into the robots.txt file in the root of your WordPress site. Don’t forget to change the last line of the code to your domain!

User-agent:  *
# disallow all files in these directories
Disallow: /cgi-bin/
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /wp-includes/
Disallow: /wp-content/
Disallow: /go/
Disallow: /archives/
disallow: /*?*
Disallow: /wp-*
Disallow: /author
Disallow: /comments/feed/
Disallow: /page/
Disallow: /trackback/
Disallow: /wp-/
Disallow: /blog-/
Disallow: /?s=
Disallow: /cdn-/
Disallow: /xmlrpc.php
Disallow: /comment/reply/
Disallow: /comment/
Disallow: /useronline/
Disallow: /redirect.php*
Disallow: /wp-content/themes
Disallow: /category/
Disallow: /tag/
Disallow: /author/

User-agent: Mediapartners-Google*
Allow: /
User-agent: Googlebot-Image
Allow: /wp-content/uploads/
User-agent: Adsbot-Google
Allow: /
User-agent: Googlebot-Mobile
Allow: /
Sitemap: http://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml

The post WordPress duplicate content – Solving an SEO problem with Robots.txt appeared first on NightLion.

Rank Tracker

SEO Keyword and Rank Tool

Rank Assistant is designed to help you check your SEO keyword rankings across national and international search engines. For my current project, I am working on optimizing a 50-page site for our parent company, Night Lion Security. Using Rank Checker’s keyword research tools, I have configured the app to use about 150 keywords and key phrases.

The great thing about Rank Tracker is that if you don’t have a lot of SEO experience, you can pretty much run the app on auto pilot. Just load your keywords and press the Check Rankings button.

Rank Tracker features and overview

The app’s preferences are where its real power it hidden. Unlike any other app on the market, Rank Checker offers an incredible number of application settings that allow you to enhance the power of your searching. Rank Assistant also includes ‘search safety’ settings that try to mimic human behavior so that you don’t get blocked by google. You can specify the intervals between searches and key presses. Some of its other features include:

• Use of search engine API keys (most useful for Bing)
• Allow selection of which search engines to use (350 search engines, globally).
• Competitor keyword tracking
• Keyword Efficiency Index (KEI) tracking
• Ability to customize your application views and display reports and fields most important to you.
• Captcha prompting and anti-captcha settings

Proxy Rotation Support

If Rank Assistant were a bare app, its proxy support would be the deciding factor in my purchasing decision. This is such a simple and powerful concept, that I can’t believe any other software that I tested includes this feature. The idea is simple. Enter a list of proxy servers, and Rank Assistant will automatically rotate them through the search process. Proxy rotation, combined with the ‘search safety’ settings, has completely eliminated manual captcha entry.

Keyword Research

Keyword research is where I spent the bulk of my initial evaluation time. Keyword research is the most important part of the SEO process, so it was important that I felt I was getting the best possible research. This is an area that I feel sets Rank Tracker far above its competition. What’s really cool about Rank Tracker is its integration and support for outside keyword tools including Google AdWords Keyword Tool, SEMRush and Wordtracker (19 total). Each of the online services that I tried offered one or the other, but never a combination. Using Rank Tracker’s keyword research tools really simplified my process.

As part of its keyword features, Rank Tracker also show you how many times a keyword has been actually searched by real people over the last month, plus how stiff the competition for this keyword is. This “number-of-searches-to-competition” ratio is known as Keyword Efficiency Index, or KEI.

Rank Tracking

Every time you check your rankings, Rank Tracker will conveniently show you the ranking difference, so you can easily see if your site has moved up, or if it has slipped down for whatever reason. There are also some really flexible graphs and reports that you can run to see how your rankings have changed over time. Rank Tracker keeps a daily, weekly and monthly change record to notify you where your site ranks for any search term, at any time.

Final Thoughts

Overall Rating: 10/10

Price: $99 | Trial? Yes | Suite Discount Available | Rank Tracker Homepage

SEO Spyglass

SEO Backlink Checker

SEO Spyglass

SEO SpyGlass is next in the SEO PowerSuite toolkit. Spyglass is a competitor backlink checker. I used this tool a lot in building my link building strategy. There’s really nothing better you can do than spy on your competition and see what citation sources they are using to generate traffic.

How it works

Modern search engines place a huge value on links. The more links you got, and the better quality these links are, the higher you’ll rank. If a site is linking to you, they are essentially casting a vote of trust. And the more “votes” you got, the more trustworthy your site is to Google, which naturally translates into better rankings.

Features include:

• The total number of backlinks your competitor has
• The Google Page-rank of every backlink (see how important these links actually are to Google.)
• The Alexa Traffic Rank of every backlink (uncover your competitor’s biggest traffic sources.)
• The total number of Page-rank 0 to Page-rank 10 backlinks your competitor has (mirror these numbers, and you’ll be able to beat your competitor’s Page-rank.)

Overall Rating: 8/10

Price: $99 | Trial? Yes | PowerSuite Bundle Discount Available | SEO Spyglass Homepage

Link Assistant

Backlink Research and Strategy Builder

LinkAssistant is one of the most unique tools I have ever come across while doing SEO.

Link Assistant Overview

Link building is the core of any website promotion strategy. A successful linking campaign depends on two cornerstones: the overall number of links you have, and the quality of each particular link.

LinkAssistant It allows you to search and compile a list of websites, forums, and blogs that are related to your specific niche. It will then search and find relevant contact information for each of the sites. The next step is to contact the owners of those sites and try to arrange a link-partnership with them in order to start building your page ranking.

The idea is dead simple, and brilliant!

Overall Rating: 10/10

Price: $99 | Trial? Yes | PowerSuite Bundle Discount Available | Link Assistant Homepage

Website Auditor

Website SEO Audit Tool

Last but not least in the SEO Powersuite toolkit, is the Website Auditor. The product does exactly what the name says: it audits the SEO of your website.

This is currently the 2nd most used tool in my arsenal at the moment. Implementing your keyword strategy can be difficult, so it’s good to have this system in place to check your work. It is also packed with all of the same features that you will find throughout the toolkit which makes it even more powerful.

WebSite Auditor is the only SEO software that lets you optimize your website on two levels: on-site (domain) and on-page (content). It helps you both power up the ranking potential of your whole site and make specific webpages rank high for your chosen keywords.

This way you can spot every single area where your site’s performance falls short and fix it. WebSite Auditor will help you easily find and fix the following problems:

• Broken links
• HTML code errors
• Duplicate content
• 404 and other server response code errors
• Not indexed webpages
• Missing or too long titles and meta description
• and all other issues that interfere with your site’s rankings

Overall Rating: 10/10

Price: $99 | Trial? Yes | PowerSuite Bundle Discount Available | Link Assistant Homepage

The post Best SEO Tool Review for Mac OSX: SEO Powersuite & Rank Tracker appeared first on NightLion.

http://line25.com/tutorials/how-to-create-your-own-custom-wordpress-theme

★

The post Guide: How to create your own WordPress theme appeared first on NightLion.

A note on the Lightroom 4 preset engine:

While initially writing this article, I ran across a few obstacles in trying to use the new Lightroom 4 presets. Mostly, it appeared as though all of the presets were not making any significant changes to the photos. After a few months of experimentation, I finally figured out that the all presets seem to work better with higher quality images. After changing my camera settings from 5 to 9megapixels, (or trying RAW mode), the presets began working flawlessly.

With that hurdle out of the way, I’ve taken the last few months and really gone through a lot of the premium preset packages, and come up with a list of the top presets which I feel are essential to any photo enthusiast or hardcore professional.

Color-Shop Presets

There are a wide variety of Color-shop plugin packages available. I recommend checking out their product page to see which ones fit best. Color-shop also offers plugins bundles at significantly discounted prices. For professionals, the Master Suite is a steal. http://www.color-shop.co/products-page/

Retouching Brushes
Color-Shop has also recently introduced their beauty and retouching brushes for Lightroom 4. I had no idea that you could customize brushes for Lightroom, and once I got to playing with these brushes, I was shocked at how awesome they are. They have really put a lot of time and effort into these brushes. I highly recommend checking them out.

Master Presets Collection products page
Color-Shop effects gallery
Brushes Collection

Color-Shop is offering a special offer to our readers. Save 30% on all preset packs, use this code at checkout: nightlion-colorshop-promo

Kubota Presets

My second choice for great modern photo effect presets are the Kubota plugins. The Vintage Delish plugin pack is my personal favorite. It contains 42 “modern retro” presets. The mini-art collection also contains a lot of very nice presets worth checking out.

For more details including samples and purchasing info, visit Kubota Online

The post Adobe Lightroom 4: Top premium presets packs for 2012 appeared first on NightLion.

In order to install MacPorts, you must have the XCODE Command Line developer tools installed.

sudo su -
mkdir -p /opt/mports
cd /opt/mports
svn checkout https://svn.macports.org/repository/macports/trunk
cd /opt/mports/trunk/base
./configure --enable-readline
make
sudo make install
make distclean
/opt/local/bin/port -v selfupdate
/opt/local/bin/port edit libxml2
:%s/reinplace/reinplace -local C/g

Article referenced from: Theengguy

Be sure to check out our parent company, Night Lion Security .

The post How to Install MacPorts on OSX Mountain Lion 10.8 appeared first on NightLion.

Fireworks CS6 is an instant winner for me. The integration of jQuery Mobile theme skinning makes it a web designing powerhouse. There are some other really cool additions include the ease of building CSS sprites and CSS code extraction. For this article, however, I would like to focus on Fireworks’ main new feature: the addition of jQuery Mobile Skinning.

The jQuery Mobile theme-skinning feature lets you create or modify the default jQuery Mobile theme in Fireworks CS6. It also allows you to generate the associated CSS style sheet and sprite assets. Areas for theming include:

• Rounded corners, boxes, text shadows, and gradients
• CSS3 backgrounds and gradients
• Great set of starter icons

Starting a jQuery Mobile Skin in Fireworks

I know I said this already, but the built in jQuery mobile theme support is unbelievably cool. I’ve never really had the opportunity to dig into the advantages of Fireworks for web development, but this may have finally convinced to switch from photoshop.

Help built right into the theme layers

The mobile theme in fireworks comes layered with helpful pages and templates

Previewing your work

When you’re ready to see you’re work, you can preview the mobile theme right from within Fireworks.
This seriously rocks.

Final Thoughts

If you’ve been reading this review, you should already know where I stand on Fireworks CS6. Adobe has really put Fireworks into overdrive and made it the focus of designing websites, putting Photoshop back in its rightful place of heavy duty photo editing. As a developer, this tool is a must have for me. I can’t recommend it enough. If you’re still sure, give it a free spin with the 30 day trial.

Overall Rating: 10/10

Price: $149 | Trial? Yes | Homepage

The post Adobe Fireworks CS6: Mobile Theme Design at its Finest appeared first on NightLion.

Coda 2 is out and is taking the mac community by storm. It’s an incredibly well built IDE, and one that I’ve been using exclusively since it came out.

Here is a port of my dark color theme to Coda 2.

Like this theme? Please check out our parent company, Night Lion Security.

The post Coda 2 Dark Color Theme for Mac OSX by Night Lion appeared first on NightLion.

Overview

Dreamweaver CS6 has added new tools for working with sites that scale from desktop, to tablet, to phone, using some of the latest CSS features. Even so, it’s still the familiar Dreamweaver with the same mix of design and code, and support for just about any web authoring technology you can think of. Dreamweaver CS6 has integrated a wealth of new tools and options to its already impressive list of features:

Fluid grid layouts
CSS3 transitions
Enhanced jQuery Mobile support
Updated PhoneGap Build integration

Improved layouts in Dreamweaver CS6

Developers keep their code-first view, while designers get improved layout tools that work with a range of modern web technologies. The result remains flexible, and it’s easy for designers and developers to share a workspace. However there’s still little or no support for code repositories and other team working features. Dreamweaver CS6 is still for the lone designer/developer, something that feels increasingly out of place in today’s world of large teams of both designers and developers, all working together on the same site.

Fluid/Responsive Grids

Perhaps the most important of the new features of Dreamweaver CS6 are the fluid and responsive grid layouts for mobile development. This provides you with the basis for a website which reworks itself for three different viewport widths, described by Dreamweaver as ‘mobile’ (480px), ‘tablet’ (768px) and ‘desktop’ (1,232px). Responsive web design exists primarily because of advances in web standards, and these have also introduced new elements and styles. Suitably, Dreamweaver CS6 brings more robust support for HTML5 and CSS3, including a new CSS transitions panel.

In Dreamweaver itself, Live and Design views enable you to switch between different device previews and amend how HTML DIV tags are stacked in each. It’s a surprisingly elegant solution to a complex problem (from the standpoint of a visually oriented tool), despite limitations regarding DIV nesting.The Resolution Switcher contains three icons for Mobile, Tablet, and Desktop sizes. Click the icons to control the size of Design view as you design layouts.

jQuery Mobile Framework Support

This is another big one for me, as a lot of my recent development work has been in developing mobile content. The new jQuery Swatches panel to see the entire list of jQuery Mobile themes and button icon options in Dreamweaver. You can apply a theme to update an entire application or select individual elements to style them separately. This new features makes complete sense, and I’m glad to see that it’s been integrated.

Phone Gap Build for Mobile Development

The mobile web isn’t just about browsers, and Adobe Dreamweaver CS6 adds tools for working with PhoneGap, Adobe’s tool for packaging web applications into apps that run on the major phone platforms. Instead of publishing to a web server, mobile applications can be delivered to Adobe’s PhoneGap Build cloud service. You can control which platforms you’re building for using the PhoneGap Build panel in Dreamweaver, which reports on build status for each platform you’re targeting. Once a build is complete, all you need to do is download your app from the PhoneGap site for testing, and eventual publishing on an app store. There’s even the option to use a QR code to load an app straight to a device from the PhoneGap Build site, and you can use one to send clients to a public page for their app approval.

Wish List

Theme Support
Every other editor supports changing color coloring themes. Why hasn’t Adobe picked this up yet? A simple import/export color theme option would allow people to style their code panels the way they want, instead of being forced to look at the start white code background.

Conclusion

Overall, Adobe’s embrace of mobile development in Dreamweaver CS6 makes it a worthwhile upgrade for dedicated dreamweaver developers. It’s deep integration with Photoshop and Fireworks also make it a great tool for rapid development.

Ease of Use: 8
Look and Feel:8
Functionality:10

Overall Rating: 9/10

The post Adobe Embraces Mobile Development in Dreamweaver CS6 appeared first on NightLion.

Adobe’s long awaited Lightroom 4, soon to be 4.1…

I have to say, it is an impressive update, which I am eager to recommend to all of my friends. There’s a lot to cover, so I will keep this review focused on the two areas which I feel are the biggest improvement: The interface controls and Video editing.

Interface Controls

In Lightroom 4, Adobe revisited the interface for these controls. The image editing controls have been renamed and organized in a more intuitive way. New control sliders for Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Whites, Blacks, replace the former Exposure, Recovery, Fill Light, Blacks, Brightness, Contrast. The order they are in feels much more logical, and the new names give a better sense of what they do within an image. I think new users will also find this naming convention more understandable. It’s intuitive, and it reflects the way many photographers think about their photos.

The first thing I noticed when opening raw files is that the default version of images appear to look better than they did in Lightroom 3. This is no doubt due to the improvements to the rendering engine. In Lightroom 3, I was always switching from the Photoshop CS5 to LR3 because I was never quite happy with how 3 rendered the default image. I would end up having to edit in image in Photoshop first, then import it into Lightroom 3, which would lengthen the editing process. Also, the mid-tones and shadows just never seemed quite right. In Lightroom 4, however, I am surprised at how good the default images look before making any adjustments. I am seeing more shadow and highlight detail, and images looks more realistic upon import.

I also like the fact that all the controls at a center default “0″ setting with – negative settings to the left, and + positive settings to the right. This follows the convention all cameras use for exposure settings. That detail makes Lightroom 4 more intuitive for new users.

One last comment on the controls — I feel that one of the One of the most powerful features of Lightroom 4 are the flexible brushes. The brushes that let you make adjustments to specific parts of an image, allowing you to bring out specific details of targeted areas. A special brush makes white balancing a very easy task, even when shooting single images with varying lighting.

An Additional Perspective

From a novice perspective, my wife also wanted to throw in a comment: “First I’d like to say that the filmstrip description box that immediately popped up upon installation was very helpful. In the past, when using LR3, I was confused about how to apply similar results and edits to subsequent images, (all being shot in the same lighting scenario) The tips box, although a novice feature, was a good little reminder tutorial. Love the Tips box!”

Video Editing

Hands down, my favorite improvement in Lightroom 4 is its video editing capabilities.

Lightroom 3 had very limited video file support. Version 4 adds playback for a wide variety of formats. Adobe has also added some basic editing features that should up the bar of what’s expected of a program handling video. Most impressive is the fact that you can do some simple balance and tone alterations on your video footage. Lightroom also lets you scrub a video thumbnail to preview its contents, which comes in handy if you want to make a quick video edit.

Finally, the icing on the cake: Lightroom 4 allows you to apply effects to your video clips using the quick develop panel. This process is the same as applying effects to still images. Using the Quick Develop panel, you can apply makers can apply standard Lightroom presets (such as sepia toning), adjust white balance, change exposure, and tweak whites and blacks—all non-destructively. Much like with photos, you can even make virtual copies of video clips so you can experiment with different effects without maxing out your hard drive.

Wish List

All in all, Lightroom 4 is pretty awesome. The only feature I would like to see added is the ability to apply custom user presets to videos. Hopefully this is something that will come up in the next version.

Conclusion

Lightroom 4 is a substantial upgrade which provides users with additional granularity, quality, and control in the image editing process. The additional improvements to areas such as the video editing capabilities continue to solidify Lightroom as an industry standard. At $79, this upgrade is worth every penny.

Ease of Use: 8
Look and Feel: 9
Functionality: 10

Overall Rating: 9

Price: $79 | Trial? Yes | Homepage

The post Lightroom 4 – New Interface Controls and Video editing make Adobe’s product a worthy upgrade. appeared first on NightLion.

Overview

I am an old school Snagit fan from my Windows days. Snagit was one of my most used tools. With the release of version 2, Techsmith is really making strides to catch up to the smoothness and functionality of its windows counterpart.

For those of you that don’t know, Snagit allows you to take screenshots of an entire webpage, or specific portions of your screen. It then organizes those snaps into a library where you can modify, tag, and catalog them for future use.

New Features

The powerful image editor in Snagit comes with some built-in vector tools that allow you to mark up and modify your images with text, callouts, shapes, lines, arrows, blurs and highlighting. The annotations are all non-destructive allowing you to hide and show them at a moment’s notice. I’d have to say that my favorite feature of the image editor is the cutout tool, which allows you to hide sensitive parts of the image; This is especially useful for blog posting.

Version 2 also includes video capture, something that immediately caught my attention. I’ll be honest though, I’ve never used it. It seems like a cool feature to have, but I don’t really have a need for it yet. Maybe someday I will.

Snagit also has a little window which sits to the left of your screen and pops out as you need it. This is supposed to add ease to the capturing process, but I personally don’t like it. I assign specific keyboard shortcuts in the program settings, so anything else is just noise to me. However, it does have a cool feature that allows you to set a delay before capture. I appreciate that not everyone likes to use keyboard shortcuts for everything, so some people may find this popup to be really useful.

Snagit Extensions

I had no idea that Snagit had extensions until I happened to be looking on their website for image screenshots that I could use for this article. These extensions are pretty cool. The “Send to Facebook”, “Send to Email”, and “Send to Evernote” are three extensions that I all be using regularly.

Areas for Improvement

1. Overall, the application interface feels a little bulky; it’s not very Mac-esque. I’m a minimalist at heart, so I believe in streamlining, and trimming as much fat as possible. In my opinion, an application can be biggest and best thing ever — but if it doesn’t look pretty, most people won’t spend much time trying to get to know it.
2. I would recommend changing the task-bar icon. Similar to the interface, it’s a bit bulky especially compared to the other well designed Mac icons in the task bar.
3. There is no option to auto-start snagit. The app should have the option to auto-start in the menu bar. If not, when I try to use my hotkeys to take a screenshot, nothing happens. I then have to manually open snagit first, before snapping the image.
4. It would be great if there was a way to only keep the menu option open without having an open icon in the dock. My dock space is precious and extremely limited. Unfortunately, if I close the app from the dock, it also closes it from memory and removes the task bar icon.

Conclusion

Overall, Snagit is a great little app. It’s an incredibly useful utility, which has already replaced LittleSnapper and incorporated itself into my daily workflow.

Ease of Use: 10
Look and Feel: 6
Functionality: 9

Overall Rating: 8

Price: $49.95 | Trial? Yes | Homepage | App Store Link

The post Snagit 2.0 – Powerful Screen and video capture utility for Mac appeared first on NightLion.

I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this review except to say that I have been waiting for an RSS client THIS GOOD for a very long time. I’ve been using the out-dated NetNewsWire for years now. Caffeinated is a beautifully developed breath of fresh air for Mac OSX RSS readers. It is a feature packed RSS client for Mac OSX which syncs with your Google Reader account.

If you’re looking for a more in-depth review, check out Gadgetero.net’s recent review of Caffeinated.

Ease of Use: 10
Look and Feel: 10
Functionality: 10

Overall Rating: 10

Price: $8.99 | Trial? Yes | Homepage | App Store Link

The post Caffeinated – A beautiful Google Reader client for Mac OS X appeared first on NightLion.

Download it FREE here: http://www.dougscripts.com/itunes/itinfo/jointogether.php

★

The post Easily join or merge MP3 / AAC files on Mac with Join Together appeared first on NightLion.

My wife has been wanting to learn Italian for some time now, in order to be able to fully communicate with my family. For the most part, my family speaks mostly italian, with bits of broken english. My mom does a great job of translating for her at the dinner table, but she would rather be able to hold conversations one her own.

Enter Rosetta Stone. I’ve heard nothing but good things about their software and learning program, and with the introduction of their iPad app, it seemed like a great way for her to learn on-the-go.

Over the next few months, I will be writing a series of reviews on Rosetta Stone, and my wife’s progress in learning Italian. This is an article I wish I would have been able to find, so I’m glad I’m the one writing it. We just received our software the other day.. More details and a through review will follow. Stay tuned.

The post Teaching my Wife Italian with Rosetta Stone TOTALe (Part 1) appeared first on NightLion.

I wanted to take a few moments and commend the Subgraph staff on their excellent work of their open source vulnerability scanner, Vega.

Vega does a fantastic job of scanning targets and listing potential vulnerabilities in a very short amount of time. Vega has quickly become my primary web vulnerability scanner, and the absolute first tool I use when I’m performing any type of web app testing. It’s fast, and continuously comes up with more resulting data than any other scanner I’ve come across.

As a Mac OSX user, I generally do most of my penetration testing from within a Backtrack virtual machine. Since Vega is built on Java, it runs on Mac OSX. It’s fairly new software, so it has its fair share of bugs, but you can always download and compile from their development branch to get the latest, cutting-edge updates.

There is also a feature for a built-in web proxy which I will write more about in a more detailed review. In the meantime, I suggest you check out Vega. It’s an absolute 10.

The post Vega – My #1 Web Vulnerability Scanner for Mac OSX and Linux appeared first on NightLion.