Usman Javaid

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TyperText: Use Keyboard Shortcuts To Launch Apps & Perform Text Expansion

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Looking for a text expansion utility that can save you from hours of typing and lessen the effort involved in performing routine tasks, such as launching application, running scripts, visiting websites etc? TyperTask is an application that comes packed with an overly simply, yet powerful text expander and application launcher. All you need is to specify the keywords that are to be replaced with specified text string and hotkeys to launch the application, open files and visit websites etc, in its Settings file. The settings file uses a simple syntax to associate hotkey combinations with application’s executable file and website URL etc, and performs text expansion functions. Read More

Simon: Monitor Website Changes And Track Server Failures & DNS Invisibility

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Website monitoring utilities help users identify all the surreptitious changes made to website as well as analyze the causes of server failures, domain invisibility and FTP connections issues. If you manage multiple websites and need a tool that can conduct HTTP tests to find websites changes and server failures, monitor FTP connection for uploaded files, query DNS to check if domain is accessible and run simple PING command to check remote location access, server response time and packet loss, Simon is a solid pick. It’s an application for Mac OS X that includes 4 monitoring services including DNS, FTP, Ping and Web. These services define the criteria of monitoring the remote servers and websites. You can use HTTP service to instantly detect changes and server failures for a website, apply DNS check to keep tab on domain visibility and employ FTP service to identify changes made to uploaded files. Read More

TimeMachineEditor: Schedule Time Machine Backup On Defined Day & Time

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A while back, we covered TimeMachineScheduler that enables users to replace the default Mac OS X Time Machine backup interval with custom backup schedule. The application has the ability to skip the backup operation within the user-defined time range and auto-mount the backup drive to seamlessly backup the system data. Today, we have stumbled across another Time Machine tweaking application, namely TimeMachineEditor, which has a slew of Time Machine backup schedule options. Unlike TimeMachineScheduler, it doesn’t require you to disable the Time Machine from System Preferences to tweak the system backup schedule. You can create a complete backup plan by specifying the day and time for creating regular backups. Other advance options to make daily, weekly and monthly data backups are also available. Read More

EasyFind: Mac OS X Spotlight Replacement With Better Search Options

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Although Mac’s Spotlight is an efficient index-based search feature, it’s devoid of some advance search options such as search file content, keyword-based search modes, etc., which compel users to consider third-party file search tools to find files, folders and content inside files with more speed and options. One such powerful application for Mac OS X is EasyFind that has been developed to replace Mac OS X native desktop search utility. Unlike Spotlight which creates virtual indexes to find files, folders, applications, etc., from the system, it is a standalone application that doesn’t require indexing your entire disk to perform search operations. Read More

DrawnStrips Reader Is Comic Reader With Mac Lion Multi Gesture Support [Paid]

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Supporting Mac OS X Lion Full-Screen feature. DrawnStrips Reader is a freshly launched comic book reader that supports both widely used comics format – CBZ and CBR. The application not only offers a minimalist user interface, but also supports Mac OS X Lion multi-touch gestures, which make it easy to navigate through comic book. You no longer have to use keyboard shortcuts to control the comic book; using the Mac OS X Lion touch gestures including swipe, pinch and scroll gestures, you can flip through pages, zoom in/out and scroll up and down the page. Moreover, it puts a thumbnail bar at the bottom of comic page to let you easily jump to your favorite section. Read More

Bear: View All GDI & User Objects Of Applications To Identify Memory Leaks

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You may know that Windows native Application Program Interface, namely GDI (Graphics Device Interface), handles and represents all graphics-related objects and transmit these objects to output devices such as display monitor, multimedia projectors, printers etc. Not only does it keep all graphical objects present in running processes including Explorer, DWM (Desktop Windows Manager ), Client Server Runtime Processes etc stable, it also enables user and system processes to draw graphical objects on multiple output devices (display monitors, printers, etc). If you're a software developer who likes to check GDI objects memory footprint for your developed applications, Bear is probably just what you need. It's a portable application that is developed to show resource usage of all GDI objects & user objects, and handle count. You can check how many bitmaps, palette, Font, DC, Brush and other graphical objects are used by each application and process. Since it displays usage of all graphical objects that are being used by applications,  you can easily identify objects of those apps and processes, which are causing memory leak problems. Read More

gfxCardStatus: Switch Between MacBook Pro Graphic Cards Based On Power Source

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If your Mac has both internal GPU and external graphic card installed on expansion slot, then you often have to check that which GPU is in use. Since it’s quite tiring to keep track of which graphic card your Mac is using, you may need an application that can show the currently used GPU. gfxCardStatus is an application for MacBook Pro, which not only shows the current graphic card, but also lets you switch between internal and discrete graphic cards with a click. The utility operates from system menu bar, and keeps a check on available graphic units. The 'i' icon in menu bar signifies that Intel graphic cars is being used, whereas the 'n' represents NVIDIA GeForce GPU. Read More

Change Mac Time Machine Default Backup Time Interval Using TimeMachineScheduler

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Mac OS X native backup utility, namely Time Machine, offers the easiest solution to backup data on external storage mediums and Time Capsules, but doesn’t allow changing the default backup time interval. If you’re looking for an application that can replace hourly backup schedule with custom backup time interval, TimeMachineScheduler is what you probably need. It’s a standalone application that lets you disable the Time Machine default backup interval function, and replace it with user-defined backup schedule settings without having to fiddle around with com.apple.backupd-auto.plist. You can set backup interval from 1 to 12 hours, and skip the backup operation within the specified time range. Read More

Glogg: Use Filters To Highlight Important Events In Complex Log Files

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Many a times, database managers, programmers and system administrators need to find and analyze potential issues, errors, warnings, disconnections etc., from enormous log files of deployed solutions. The log files can be read by general-purpose text editors, but they don’t offer advance features, required to analyze the log files such as auto-refresh option to keep a check on system log files, filters to quickly search specific text string, highlighters to mark important keywords/strings in a log file. Glogg is a cross-platform log file explorer, developed to view, search and analyze large and complex log files. Supporting regular expressions, it lets you search whole text strings & keywords and apply defined character-based filters over the log files to highlight all the important events. Read More

HDRtist: Combine Image Exposures & Apply Tone Mapping To Create HDR Image

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Need to adjust light intensity levels and sensitivity in images? You probably need a HDR utility that can apply tone mapping techniques and merge multiple LDR or SDR images to define the higher dynamic range. For those who aren’t familiar with HDR (High Dynamic Range) Imaging, it’s a technique to bring real-life luminance range to photos; the purpose is to achieve utmost clarity and detail in photos by adjusting the brightest and darkest areas of an image. HDRtist is an HDR software for Mac OS X that uses 4 tone mapping methods to generate HDR image. These tone mapping methods, ranging from compression light, realistic to extreme can be applied to individual exposure to create a HDR image. Read More

Vox Audio Player: Apply Sound Effects & EQ Settings To Songs [Mac]

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If you’re an avid music listener and looking for an easy to use, visually appealing and free music player for Mac OS X, Vox could serve your needs. It’s a miniscule, yet powerful music player that supports a wide range of audio formats including MP3, AAC, Musepack, Monkey’s Audio, Apple Lossless, AIFF, FLAC, WAV, IT, MOD and more. Besides having a drop-dead UI, it contains numerous sound effects for music enthusiasts who love to tweak the quality of sound as per their taste. What makes it different from other music apps such as previously covered Enqueue and Cog is its ability to play all widely known audio formats, export audio tracks with enabled effects to AAC, WAV & Apple Lossless format, playback control and playlist navigation from menu bar. Additionally, the application is highly configurable in terms of sound qualities, audio channels and stereo left/right pan settings, volume limit, playback effects and modes. Read More

Simple Comic For Mac: Open Multiple Comics & Export Pages As JPG

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Simple Comic is an intuitive comic reader for Mac OS X that will enhance your comic reading experience by letting you control the way you want comics to appear. Not only does it allow you to change the page layout, it also lets you change the page order from left to right and vice versa and scale pages to 3 sizes including original size, window fit and horizontal fit.  While it has the ability to open multiple comic archives at the same time, it supports CBZ, CBR, ZIP, RST, TAR, 7Z, LHA and many other types of digital comic formats. Apart from pre-defined page scaling modes, you can zoom in on defined area and use page rotation options to change the orientation of comics. Furthermore, it enables you to extract individual pages from the comics archive; just use command-c hotkey combination and select the page you want to extract to local location as image. Read More

Enqueue Is Minimalist Music Player With Folder Monitoring & Last.fm Support [Mac]

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If you’ve been looking for iTunes alternative that can play and manage your iTunes Music Library, you may want to have a look at Enqueue. It’s a minimalist music player for Mac OS X that includes a host of features including drag&drop support, track tagging, keyboard media keys support, audio equalizer and more. Moreover, it not only supports importing iTunes Library to playlist but also provides you with features that are not available in iTunes such as Last.fm support, global hotkeys, and FLAC and OGG file support. Read More

Svchost Process Analyzer: Identify svchost.exe Worms & Analyze All Instances Of The Process

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Want to check which user application or Windows utility initiated a specific instance of svchost.exe process? The svchost is basically a small executable file that resides in system32 folder. It is a generic Windows host process that plays a vital role in keeping all the system and user initiated services stable. Since Task Manager doesn’t provide a detailed information on running instances of svchost executables, you may need Svchost Process Analyzer to analyze the services and applications that run multiple instances of svchost.exe and to identify all the svchost related malwares. It helps you prevent Windows from those malwares and viruses which create a fake svchost.exe file at different locations to exploit user’s access rights; it lists down all the running instances of svchost processes with detailed information, so that you can easily identify malware infected svchost.exe files. Read More

cmdQuit Disables Mac Lion Resume Feature, Quits All Apps With A Click

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Earlier this year, we discussed how red close button of Mac OS X app window behaves and recommended RedQuits to run command-Q command every time you click the red close button in order to completely quit the application in question. Since it becomes quite tedious to manually close applications using RedQuits or command-Q hotkey combination before shutting down the system, you may need an application like cmdQuit to automate the process. It has the ability to show/hide running apps, list all currently active processes and quit all running applications in one go. Read More

Easy Email Extractor: Extract Email Addresses From Files, Folders, URL & Text Snippets

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Want to extract email addresses from documents and text files but hate scrolling up and down the document to manually copy the email addresses to the list? Easy Email Extractor may help. It’s an application for Windows that saves you a lot of time that you’d have spent finding the email addresses from not only documents and plain text files but also from given text string, folder and URL. It automates the process of finding and listing down the email address without having to search email address specific character like ‘@’ from the document. Moreover, it can be integrated into Windows Send to menu to send the selected document/file/folder to main interface for performing email address extraction process. Read More

PSRenamer: Rename Files According To User-Defined Rules [Mac]

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File renaming utilities come particularly useful in situations where one needs to replace one specific sequence of text string in file title with another or append characters at the start/end of the file name. PSRenamer is a powerful, java-based application to rename files in bulk. What makes it unique from previously covered applications for Mac OS X including NameChanger and PowerRenamer, is its ability to rename file extensions with more options and assign a series of sequentially numbered file names. You can perform file rename-related actions such as Replace, Replace Chars, Insert Before/After based on Begins With, Contains. Ends With and Equals conditions. Read More

Gem Collects Commonly Used OneNote 2010 Options & Functions In Single Tab

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OneNote 2010 comes with a host of features and tools to make note taking a breeze, but it doesn’t allow categorizing most frequently used options into groups, such as, print out, create new page, section & indented page, adjust size, arrange printouts, view inserted files and so on. Since it becomes quite a wearisome task to manually find these options from OneNote 2010 interface, you may need a plugin that can collect these functions under one hood. Read More

Simple Backup Utility: Backup Mac System / User Data To Network Drives

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Although Mac OS X Time Machine provides a one-stop solution to backup and restore both system and user data, it comes with some limitations, which force enterprise clients/network users to consider third-party backup tools for backing up their important data to remote locations. You may know that Time Machine can only backup data on external storage medium and Apple Time Capsule (a Wireless router, network hard drive and print server packed into one). If you’ve been looking for a simple, yet powerful tool that can automatically mount network drive in order to seamlessly backup data to specified remote location, have a look a Simple Backup Utility. According to developer, it’s been designed for enterprise clients who are unable to use Time Machine in routed environments. Read More

ControlPlane: Auto-Change Mac Configuration Profiles By Defined Rules

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Configuring the system according to location or situation is arguably a difficult task, as one needs to change all the major system elements’ settings ranging from network settings, CPU and memory usage, connected peripherals, audio output devices to Wifi adapter, display monitor and so on. If you often have to configure your Mac according to location i.e for home and office, we recommend using ControlPlane instead of configuring system elements manually. It’s a comprehensive yet easy-to-use context-sensitive utility for Mac OS X that caters to all configurable system components including display monitor, Bluetooth, Wifi, network settings, instant messaging apps, sound devices, chat clients and so on. Read More