AddictiveTips » Mac OS X

[Giveaway] Mailsum: Mac Email Client That Tells You How Well You Handle Your Mail

Fatima — Thu, 17 May 2012 15:58:52 +0000

If you’re someone who operates more than one email ID, and most people usually juggle a work and personal ID, you know that it isn’t always easy to manage the two side by side. Additionally, email is one of those things that just eat away at your time; if you don’t read/answer email, your work gets hampered, but if you set to answering every single email, you might just end up neglecting other important tasks. It’s one of the double-edged swords of modern day. Mailsum is a Mac app worth $4.99 that might help you manage your email better; the app gives you insight into how you handle email on your Mac. It gives a detailed account of how often you send and reply to emails, how much time you take to respond to an email, how many go unanswered and much more.

Note: Mailsum is a paid application worth $4.99 on the Mac App Store. We’re giving away five promo codes to 5 lucky readers, details for which can be found at the end of this article.

Mailsum supports as many accounts as you have in the default Mail app and you can choose to view stats from all or any one of the accounts. The great thing about the app is that it works not just on the new emails you receive after installing it, but also analyzes the ones you’ve received before. Be warned though, if your email is something in GBs, it might take the app a while to index all of it.

The two main tabs that will be of interest to you are the Stats and Graph tabs. The Stats tab tells you how many emails you’ve received, sent, and flagged. Additionally, it tells you how many of those emails were addressed directly to you, how many times you CC’d someone in an email and what your average response time is. You can view these stats in a line graph from the Graph tab, and easily choose which accounts you want to see a graph of.

Mailsum has the option to narrow down the stats by a date range and that helps you chart how productive you’ve been in different weeks.

To change which account you are viewing stats for in the Stats tab, select the little dropdown at the top-right, and choose one of the email IDs or select All Addresses to view consolidated stats from all accounts. Click the Refresh button at the bottom of the window to view updated stats.

An app like this can help you determine if you’re spending too much time answering email. It can also help determine whether you answer more official emails or personal ones. Since email is such an important part of both work and personal life, it isn’t surprising that the two overlap on our time and really can get out of control. It’s precisely where an app like Mailsum can help.

Admittedly, it might not be for everyone, especially those who don’t feel email can ever tax you, but when you feel you’re getting swamped with work, email is what you should try and get under control first.

Get Mailsum From Mac App Store

Giveaway: We’re giving away five promo codes for this Mac app. The giveaway will last for 48 hours. Participation is simple. Follow @addtips on Twitter, tweet/retweet the giveaway and in the comments below, provide a link to your tweet. Alternatively, you may comment on our Facebook or Google+ page, where the comment should preferably be under the shared post and not on the page itself. Our editors will pick the ten winners randomly. Good luck!

Add A File To An Existing Archive & Password Protect It On Mac [Tip]

Fatima — Thu, 17 May 2012 09:09:00 +0000

Compressing files and creating archives in Mac is easily accomplished through the default utility, Archive, which compresses to a whole host of formats. Files can be compressed in command line as well via the Terminal, but having to compress files or folders through the command line is much more complicated and inconvenient, which is why it’s best to use the tool provided. If you aren’t a fan of the native utility for some reason, there are plenty of other apps that you can use instead. and if nothing else works for you, the Terminal really isn’t going anywhere. One advantage that Terminal holds in this regard, is that, in addition to being able to create archives, you can add a file to an existing one through a few simple commands. This can save you a lot of clutter; you can add files to a single archive as per your need, and not have a mess of archives in a folder or on your desktop.

Move the file you want to add to the archive to the same directory as the original ZIP file. For instance, if your zipped file is on the Desktop, move the file you want to add to the desktop as well. Remember that finding a folder path isn’t difficult; you can simply drag & drop a folder onto the Terminal and it’s path will be displayed. Moving forward, assuming that both the ZIP and the file you want to add to it are on the desktop, in Terminal, write cd ~/desktop/ and hit Enter (cd means change directory, and any path that follows tells the Terminal to move to that directory).

Think of a password to protect the file with, and enter the following command:

zip –P Password –qr name-of-zipped-file.zip add-to-archive.mp3

Remember to write your password instead of Password in the above command, and enter the name of the ZIP file instead of name-of-zipped-file.zip. Likewise, add-to-archive.mp3 should be replaced with the name of the file you actually want to add, complete with the file extension.

Bear in mind that if you add a password to an otherwise unprotected archive, you will not be able to unarchive the other unprotected files in it. If you only want to add a file to an existing archive and forgo the whole password thing, skip the –P switch and write the command without it.

The command is useful if you’ve forgotten to add one file to an archive, or if you need to add it to a ZIP file you’ve received, but don’t want to go though the whole unarchiving process.

How To Set Default Apps For Files & Actions On Mac OS X [Tip]

Fatima — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:01:54 +0000

If you’re new to Mac or have just recently discovered that your Mac runs smoother if you use third-party apps as opposed to the default ones, you might be exploring how to set an app as the default one for its relevant file types. Unfortunately, this isn’t very easy to do. Many rightly go to the Open with… options of a file and set defaults there but either that doesn’t always work, or the changes are reverted for no apparent reason. What you need is a more permanent way to change default apps. In what follows, we will tell you how you can set an app as the default for one or several formats.

Set A Default App For A Particular Format

The painfully slow method of getting this done is to set defaults for each format one by one. For example, you have music files in several different formats and you want one of them, lets say MP3, to always open with QuickTime Player instead of iTunes. Select any MP3 file on your system, right-click the file and select Get Info. In the window that opens up, find the Open with option and from the dropdown select which app you want to open these types of files with. In this case, you will choose QuickTime Player. Just under this dropdown is a Change All… button; click it and select Continue in the confirmation box that pops up and the default app will be set for the format.

By following this method, you set default apps for a single format. In this very same example, QuickTime Player obviously supports a lot more than just the MP3 format but this method will only make it the default app for MP3 files.

Set An App As Default For Multiple Formats

If you have ever experienced difficulty setting default apps, you may have read in many places that being able to set an app as default is something the app takes care of by itself, and that you can’t do anything to change it. This is somewhat true (we will elaborate further upon this after the tip). Fortunately (like for everything in the Apple world) there is an app for that. More specifically, RCDefaultApp, which installs a preference pane and gives you a wide range of defaults to set. If you look at the app’s download page, it hasn’t been updated since 2009 but miraculously, it works in OS X 10.7.4 Mountain Lion, so no worries.

What the app does is list the major functions, i.e. Internet, Media, URLs, Extensions, Files Types, MIME and Apps. Under Internet, you will find all functions that require a command to be sent to your browser and you can set the default for each one. The tab you will probably be more interested in is the Apps tab. Select it and wait for the preference pane to load apps. All installed apps will be listed in the column on the left (the slight problem with alignment might have to do with it not being built for OS X 10.7 Mountain Lion). Select an app, for example VLC player. All file formats that the app supports are listed on the right and the ones that already default to this app are checked. You can select additional formats and once you’re done, click the Set As Default button and that is all there is to it.

Apps That Set Themselves As Default Apps

There are a few Mac apps that allow you to set them as defaults; Chrome and Firefox are excellent examples of this. If you chose to install RCDefaultApp and visit the Internet tab, you will notice that although Safari may not be your default browser, it is still the default one for other functions. These are basically commands sent from third party apps to your default browser which is Safari. You can’t change it by just making Chrome your default web browser. So, while it is up to apps to give you the option to set them as default, they still do not manage to set themselves as the default app for all functions. Web browsers are an easy example. Setting defaults is something that, annoyingly enough, you have to do yourself.

Get RCDefaultApp For Mac

Change Login Screen Background In Mac OS X Lion 10.7.4 [Tip]

Fatima — Tue, 15 May 2012 12:53:43 +0000

Mac OS X 10.7.4 has more than just the new version of Safari; it comes with added support for RAW images and fixes quite a number of issues, including one with the Reopen windows when logging back in option. One of the many things you may have experienced after upgrading to 10.7.4 is that the login screen is no longer the customized one that you had. For those of you who tried Mac tweakers like Deeper and Loginox (which are the ones that we tried, to no avail), they failed to change the login background. Did OS X 10.7.4 break Mac tweakers? Not exactly, it’s just changed where it keeps the background files, and is one reason why you are having difficulty changing the login background. Here’s how you can restore it to what it was before the upgrade.

Changing the login screen background requires nothing more than moving a few image files around and renaming them. The tricky part is to know where to look for these files. Go to the following folder and find the file named applelinen.png.

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/LoginUIKit.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/Log inUICore.framework/Versions/A/Resources

Replace this file with whatever background image you want to set, and rename your file appleLinen. You will need administrative rights to make this change, and should use a 1400×900 image for best results, although it will depend on your display size as well. The image should be in PNG format. Once you’ve made this change, lock your screen and your new background will replace the default one.

It is likely that Lion tweaking tools will catch up to this change and have an update for it soon, but if you can’t wait that long and staring at the default login background is straining your eyes, you can change it in a few seconds.

Update: Both Deeper and Loginox has released a new version that supports OS X 10.7.4

Amoneon: Add Neon Brush Strokes, Shapes & Text To Images [Mac]

Fatima — Tue, 15 May 2012 10:23:45 +0000

Slightly complicated but worth figuring out nonetheless, Amoneon is a free Mac app that lets you edit your pictures. The major feature that the apps boasts of, is its neon brush that you can use to paint over an image. It has a whole host of additional great features other than the neon brush; you can add shapes, solid color and gradient overlays, resize, crop, manage the hue, saturation, contrast and brightness of an image, and add text. The effects are brilliant, and in addition to the neon light brush, Amoneon also lets you add neon spirographs to an image. The dimensions of shapes that you add to an image can be customized, as well as the color and opacity. If used the right way, the app and it’s gradient overlay effects act as an excellent way of adding colorized effects to photos. The images bear no watermark; however, the app saves to its own format that you have to append an image format extension to.

Amoneon doesn’t support drag & drop, so you will need to add images from File > Open, or the open button at the top right next to the Save button. The top toolbar houses these two buttons in addition to the undo and redo commands. Along the bottom of the app’s window, there are options for accessing Tools, Effects, Palette, Options and History. Click any of these options, and an additional toolbar will open at the bottom or a small option window will open in the app’s window.

Select the Tools option; the toolbar that appears at the bottom lets you add brush strokes, text, manage the hue, saturation, contrast, brightness, add solid color or gradient overlays and pick colors from within the image. When you select a brush or shape, the window that opens allows you to manage the shape’s dimensions. To edit the colors of a shape or brush, click Palette and edit the colors. The radial control with the knob allows you to chose the direction of an image or a gradient. The vertical line with the knob allows you to increase or decrease the opacity.

The Effects options allows you to crop, resize and rotate an image. An image is resized as a percentage of the original.

Amoneon isn’t your traditional drawing tool; you can use it to create original images depending on how creative you are and your prowess with the neon paint brush. It doesn’t have your traditional effects, either, as it is more like an open field for anyone with even a small creative stint. Playing with the app alone is super fun, and you are likely to end up being in love with what you’ve created.

Get Amoneon From Mac App Store

[Giveaway] AirServer: Comprehensive Mac & PC AirPlay Suite With Screen Mirroring

Aatif Khan — Mon, 14 May 2012 15:50:12 +0000

I’ve never tried to hide my preference for iOS over Android, and for multiple reasons. While both platforms have a healthy share of strengths and weaknesses, iOS offers certain features (natively) that tip the scale, at least for me, in its favor, one of them being AirPlay. The formerly-labeled-AirTunes protocol received a feature and nomenclature overhaul back in 2010, whence it included not just audio, but any kind of media to be streamed to any AirPlay compatible device. Then, with iOS 5, Apple pooled in AirPlay mirroring, allowing you to replicate your supportive iPhone, iPod touch or iPad’s entire screen on the likes of compatible HDTVs, laptops, Macs etc. Speaking of Windows PCs and Macs in this regard, there’s perhaps no shortage of AirPlay apps for both platforms, paid or free, that offer pretty reasonable functionality. That’s why I was not too enthusiastic about AirServer, an AirPlay server application for Mac and Windows that claims to be way ahead of all its peers. Turns out, my skepticism was ill-warranted, as the app clearly blows away all the competition.

Sporting features like dual-mode AirPlay, optimized resolutions for the new iPad and iPhone 4S’ retina displays, on-screen adjustment tools and a very decent frame rate, AirServer is, hands-down, the best AirPlay server application for both Mac and Windows.

Note: AirServer is a paid application worth $15 for a standard Mac license, while $8 for a standard Windows one. AddictiveTips is giving away 5 standard licenses for Mac and 5 for Windows to 10 lucky readers, details for which can be found at the end of this article.

Depending on your OS, AirServer will sit either in the Menu Bar (Mac) or System Tray (Windows), and generally remains unobtrusive. It’s better that we take this fact into account beforehand that there are quite a few subtle differences between Mac and Windows variants of this program, and while the developers claim they’re working fast to bring the Windows version up to speed with its counterpart, it remains for now that Mac gets a more solid package. Hence, we begin with that.

The first launch of the program will prompt for access to your network. Allow that to proceed. While obvious, you must ensure that your IOS device and Mac are both on the same network.

Next up, go through the configuration panel to customize any parameters to your liking (accessible through the app’s Menu Bar icon). On Mac, the four man tabs include General, Audio, Display and Mirroring. The General tab shows version information and allows you to manage your Mac’s broadcasted name, (optional) password, icon visibility in Menu Bar, Startup launch, and, most importantly, Dual-mode AirPlay, among other features.

The Audio and Display tabs allow configuring which devices to use for those components, and are generally utilized if you have more than one of either attached to your computer. The Mirroring tab allows optimization of the screen for a particular device, which is rather useful when connecting the new iPad or iPhone 4S, since they both feature a retina display. A Slow Network switch is also available, but frankly, I didn’t get to play with that.

With the configuration panel out of the way, you may now connect any AirPlay enabled iPhone, iPod touch and iPad to your Mac. On an iPhone/iPod touch, double-tap the Home button to bring up the App Switcher tray. Swipe left twice to reach the volume slider. Assuming that AirServer is running on your Mac, and both the computer and iDevice are on the same network, an AirPlay button should show up. Tap that, and select your Mac from the list of available devices. Toggle mirroring ‘on’ alongside, and hit Done in top-right corner. The process remains the same on iPad as well, although you may need one swipe less to reach the AirPlay button in App Switcher.

There isn’t much to it after enabling mirroring, since you’ll be getting your device’s entire screen replicated on your Mac right in front of you. And that’s where the fun begins, because you can put it to any use that you like. Forget a simple slideshow show-off of your Camera Roll – you can record complete screencasts, give app demos, presentations and whatnot with this baby! Every action that you perform on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad, gets reflected almost instantly on your computer. This part, by the way, applies to both Windows and Mac versions of AirServer.

The developers of AirServer advertise it as “the game console for Mac,” and rightly so, thanks to the Dual-mode AirPlay option. This mode allows you to connect two iDevices at once through the AirPlay protocol, while the program automatically readjusts their screen sizes for best fit, depending on connected display(s). Taking from the developers’ example, this allows you to turn Temple Run into “Temple Race,” with you and your friend playing side by side on your own devices, competing for the longest run. The screenshot below exhibits my iPad running Flipboard while Temple Run is shown on my 4S next to it.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, as soon as you connect a second device, AirServer automatically shifts to theatre mode, giving not only aesthetic, but also a usability uplift, as it blacks out the rest of the screen.

On Mac, when you click the image of any connected device, you get some post-transmission parameters that you can tweak, including sharpness, brightness, contrast, saturation and hue, among others. These are missing in the Windows variant, for now.

Coming to the Windows flavor of AirServer, it’s lacking in quite a few areas, but getting up to the Mac version pretty fast. For now, there’s no Dual-mode AirPlay, for starters, plus no post-processing either. It, too, will require access through Windows Firewall. The biggest missing feature is lack of Audio transmission through AirPlay, which means that while you can play videos from your iPhone or iPad just fine, there would be no sound to go along with. We do understand the lack of Dual-mode support, but no audio seriously hampers the usefulness of this app.

The Windows version of the app is windowed (pun intended), and supports theatre mode just like the Mac one. The settings panel, accessible through system-tray icon, differs considerably from the Mac one, in that it lacks Audio and Video tabs altogether, and adds a new Updates one instead. Available options differ, too. For instance, Dual-mode AirPlay is there, but is greyed out, hence unavailable for now.

Since AirServer goes bragging about it’s game-console duplication, we put the app through a test using Chair’s famous title, Infinity Blade. The frame rate was excellent, and the graphics looked crisp. Oddly enough, it fared better on Windows than on Mac, where the playback was rather laggy and choppy at places. Still, for less-intensive ones, you shouldn’t experience any hiccups. A screenshot is nevertheless provided for your pleasure.

AirServer, on the whole, is a brilliant app with a wonderful new implementation for AirPlay mode of iOS. While it performs better than any of its competitors even in its current form, it can still use a lot of improvement, particularly for the Windows client (and I am talking outside of the missing features). My recommendation: never enable autostart with system – it will kill your processor. My core i5 with 6GB of DDR3 RAM was brought to a crawl when AirServer was running in the background unnecessarily, so only run the application when you need it to. The developers may want to look into that.

Finally, we come to the pricing model. For both Windows and Mac, you get a 7-day trial for free, which is fully functional. Standard license costs $7.99 and $14.99 for both, respectively, while student licenses are available at $11.99 for Mac and $5.99 for Windows. A 25 license bundle will set your wallet lighter by $59.99 on the Mac flavor, while the same will cost you $29.99 for Microsoft’s operating system. One final annoyance (and a rather big one, at that) is that when you attempt to download AirServer, it asks you to sign in with Facebook and allow access, afterwards publishing an advertising message on your wall that you downloaded the application. My advice to the developers? DO NOT do this. It can turn off people enough to ditch your application altogether.

AirServer works on Mac OS X Tiger and above, and Windows Vista and above. Compatible iOS devices include iPad, iPhone 3GS or later and iPod touch second generation and above, all running latest version of iOS. It is also compatible with Android devices running doubleTwist+AirTwist combo. Mirroring is available only on iPad 2, new iPad and iPhone 4S.

Download AirServer

Giveaway: We’re giving away five Mac and five Windows licenses for this app. The giveaway will last for 48 hours. Participation is simple. Follow @addtips on Twitter, tweet/retweet the giveaway and in the comments below, provide a link to your tweet. Alternatively, you may comment on our Facebook or Google+ page, where the comment should preferably be under the shared post and not on the page itself. Either way, you must mention your operating system (Windows or Mac). Our editors will pick the ten winners randomly. Good luck!

Update: Great news! The developers have listened to us! Facebook login for download restriction has been removed, to the great relief of a lot of privacy-conscious users. Good luck with the giveaway to everyone who’s participated.

Update: Giveaway has been closed. Winners will be contacted shortly.

Update: Licenses have been sent to the winners. If you entered for the giveaway, please check your Twitter Direct Messages, Facebook Messages or Google+ feed.

Tag Folders: Add Tags & Spotlight Comments To Folders For Better Search [Mac]

Fatima — Mon, 14 May 2012 13:15:38 +0000

Mac OS X lets you add Spotlight comments to any file or folder you want. These comments help you find files later on; when you type a filename or a search query in Spotlight, the comments are also indexed and displayed with the results, helping you identify files. A much simpler approach to finding files would be to tag them, which, unfortunately, isn’t supported. Tag Folders is a free, open-source Mac app that adds this very feature. The app lets you add tags to all files and folders on your system, allowing you to create a special folder anywhere on your Mac. All sub-folders subsequently added to this folder are tags, and files added to them are associated with these tags. The tags are searchable in Spotlight in the standard comma- or space-separated formats.

Setting Tag Folders up takes a bit longer than your average app, as it will install several additional components that prompt you to add tags when you create a new folder and monitor folders for newly-added files. Launch Tag Folders and select where you would like to create this folder.

Once your initial folders have been set up, the app will install an additional component called Tag Prompter. Add the folders you want to monitor for new files.

Once the setup is complete, open the newly created Tag Folder in Finder and click the Tag Folder icon to launch the folder creation dialog.

Enter the tags for the folder and add Spotlight comments. You can choose to nest a folder and it’s tags within an existing folder in Tag Folder.

You may create new folders any time by visiting the app’s predefined directory. Once folders have been created, drag & drop items to them. These folders aren’t real directories; they simply keep track of which files were added to which folder. Hence, these folders, in effect, represent tags only. You will still access your files from their original locations; however, adding them to these tag folders will make it easier to search for them. To edit settings like which folder to watch or the format for comments, launch the app and choose an action from those listed in the window.

Although the app’s home page doesn’t say it is compatible in OS X 10.7, it worked perfectly well during our testing.

Download Tag Folders For Mac

How To Disable Elastic Scrolling In Mac OS X Lion [Tip]

Fatima — Mon, 14 May 2012 13:00:06 +0000

iOS devices have a very neat little trick to their scrolling, known as ‘elastic scrolling’, that is, if you continue to scroll past the end of a page or try to scroll upwards more than you can, there is a limit to which you can do that before the page or app snaps back to the bottom or top of the window. The utility behind this isn’t exactly clear (we believe it to be purely aesthetic), but it has been mimicked in OS X Lion. If you aren’t fond of trying to see just how low you can drag the page before it snaps back, you can disable this feature with a simple Terminal command. Read on for details.

Launch Terminal and enter the following command:

defaults write -g NSScrollViewRubberbanding -int 0

Quit and relaunch all apps that support Elastic Scrolling, and then execute the killall Finder command in Terminal. Elastic scrolling should now be disabled in all native apps, at the very least. While this tip might not work for every single app that you have installed, it will still do the trick for native apps and a reasonable number of other ones.

Should you ever miss the Elastic Scrolling and want to bring it back, run the following command in Terminal:

defaults delete -g NSScrollViewRubberbanding

Follow suit and quit all apps that were running, launch them again and run the Killall Finder command. Things should be back to normal, with pages snapping to the edge if scrolled too far up or down. Note that if you use an ordinary mouse, i.e., a non-Apple one, you won’t see this elastic scrolling at all. Even when using the Apple Magic Mouse, the effect isn’t easy to produce; however, for trackpads, it can be pretty annoying.

[via Lifehacker]

SlideMode Makes It Easier To Select Text With The Trackpad [Mac]

Fatima — Sat, 12 May 2012 08:00:59 +0000

The brilliant gesture support in OS X Lion is best complemented through the usage of Apple’s Magic Trackpad, or vice versa, should you prefer it that way. If you’re on a MacBook, you get a trackpad anyway. The gestures are all excellent, highly convenient and make you, well, feel like a ninja when you use them. But, as they say, all good things come at a cost, and there is one thing that is slightly difficult to manage with the trackpad – text selection. SlideMode is a free Mac app that makes this easier and adds two other simple tweaks for users who don’t have a trackpad. What the app basically does is make selecting text easier for you, whether you’re using a mouse or trackpad.

SlideMode has three tricks up its sleeve, the first one being Slide. This is for those who haven’t splurged on a trackpad and are still playing around with a mouse. It makes it easier to switch between desktops. As opposed to using Mission Control or the keyboard shortcuts, it lets you switch to a different desktop by sliding the mouse pointer along the top of the screen and into a corner. You can define any or all corners where the app will respond to this mouse gesture.

The DockShow option is simply for showing and hiding the Dock quickly. There isn’t anything very impressive about this, and you can even mimic the trick without SlideMode by following this simple tip.

The SlideSelection is the tool you’re looking for if you find it difficult to select text when using the trackpad. The app lets you select text by holding down Shift+Control and swiping two fingers on the trackpad in the direction of the text you want to select, i.e., to the left or right of the cursor.

The app is fairly new (version 0.0.4), so you can expect more features as it evolves. It seems like a more-than-decent attempt at making using Mac easier, regardless of which pointing device you have.

Download SlideMode For Mac

Easy Video Converter Supports 80 Media File Formats And Drag & Drop [Mac]

Fatima — Fri, 11 May 2012 19:05:17 +0000

Among all the genres of apps that we have covered, a large chunk probably consists of video converters. Being as abundant as they are, most of the free offerings are fairly functional and feature-rich. Easy Video Converter, as the name implies, is a free Mac app that converts video formats. What the name doesn’t imply is that it’s a media file converter that can convert files into 80 different formats. The app was previously worth $9.99 in the Mac App Store, and has now gone free. In addition to the large number of output formats that it supports, the app also lets you resize videos, and change frame and bit rates. You may manage these variables for audio and video files separately.

Easy Video Converter has a drag & drop interface, and lets you convert files in batches. You can drag & drop a single file or an entire folder onto the app. The second you drop files, conversion begins, which is why you should select the conversion format first. From the Convert To dropdown, select which format you want to convert the file to. Formats are categorized by the device/platform they are compatible with, and include Apple devices, Android devices, Other devices, Blu-ray Video/DVD Video, Video Formats, and Audio Formats.

To change the size, frame or bit rate, click Settings next to the Convert To dropdown, and from the panel that pops up, select the size of the video under Resolution and the frame and bit rate. The options on the left are for video, and the ones on the right pertain to audio.

The app, by default, saves output to a folder in ~/Library/Application Support, which is hidden under stock settings. You can change the output destination from the Set Destination option at the bottom. The app converts fairly quickly, but that will vary with system configuration Most formats are converted flawlessly; however, there was significant discoloring when a video was converted to GIF format. The result for other formats was good.

Get Easy Video Converter From Mac App Store

Mashduo: Compare iTunes Libraries & Export List Of Missing Songs [Mac]

Fatima — Fri, 11 May 2012 10:35:33 +0000

Creating a good music library takes a lot of time and effort. One scenario, the more common one, is where you just keep adding music files randomly to iTunes, but an organized library requires more than that. If you’re out to create the best music library ever, or just a reasonably good one that you can brag about, it might be a good idea to take a look at what you friends listen to and start off with the songs they have. Mashduo is a free Mac app that will help you do just that. The app compares iTunes library XML files. You can, at any given time, view the differences between two XML files, both graphically and in a list. You may then export the complete list of songs that aren’t common between the two.

Before you can start using the app, you need to locate the XML file that your iTunes library is stored in. Go to Music/iTunes on your Mac, and you will find a file named iTunes Music Library.xml there. Ask your friend to send you a copy of this same file from their system as well. The location for the file remains the same, regardless of whether your friend is on a Mac or Windows PC.

To keep things from getting mixed up, the app lets you enter your name above your own library file, and your friend’s name above theirs. Files are added to the app through drag ‘n drop. Click Compare to begin the analysis, or Advanced Options to filter the results. You can specify a certain genre that the app will restrict the comparison to, and have it ignore spaces, punctuation and parenthesis in the file name. Additionally, videos and DRM protected files can be excluded from the comparison.

The time taken by the app will depend on the size of the libraries being compared. The results are first presented in graphical form. You can easily see the number of songs that are common between the two libraries, and those that are exclusive to either. To view which songs are different, click See Results.

The app’s screen splits into two, each side dedicated to one library. You can see all songs and select which ones you would like from your friend’s list. Likewise, you can share songs from your own list. Once you’ve selected which songs you want, click any one of the export options at the bottom of the list.

Concept-wise, Mashduo is remarkable, and probably one of those apps that you should have lying around. It’s helpful for both building and expanding your music library, and also for exploring the music your friends are into.

Download Mashduo For Mac

Backup & Restore Emails From One Gmail Account To Another With Gmvault

Usman — Thu, 10 May 2012 09:15:50 +0000

When it comes to backing up Gmail email archive, most users opt-in for desktop email clients like Mozilla Thunderbird, Microsoft Outlook etc., to quickly backup not only emails, but also Google calendar and contacts. In order to backup emails from Google Mail account, one just needs to correctly configure email client for required account to save all the emails for offline viewing. Nevertheless, email clients do not support restoring backed up emails from one account to another, and often fail to retrieve the emails in original format. Gmvault is a freshly baked console-based application for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux OS that has been developed to change the way you backup and restore emails from multiple Gmail accounts. Even though it doesn’t offer you a GUI (Graphical User Interface) to perform the backup operation, the console application comes with a simple sync and restore commands support to quickly save emails on your hard drive and restore them to specified Gmail account. Details to follow after the jump.

The application includes a slew of features to customize email backup and restore functions. While it supports different switches to tailor the sync and restore modes, it saves all the emails from specified email account in a separate folder that can be moved to other systems for syncing and restoring emails. Apart from the full backup mode, it offers a quick sync mode that performs incremental backup operation to save only most recent mail items from your account. Additionally, Gmvault comes packed with quite a few customization options. You can even choose a set of emails that are to be backed up from a specific Gmail account. Using the custom sync mode, you can specify the date range to backup only required emails from your account.

Perhaps, the most useful feature of this utility is the ability to restore email to a different Gmail account. Once you’ve backed up your emails from one account, you can simply use the restore command to recreate the saved gmail mailboxes in any Gmail account. While restoring email to the other account, it preserves all attributes like email labels to recreate them with each mail item.

The utility offers a straightforward usage. Once installed, double-click its desktop shell icon to run the application in console. Before you start the backup operation, it’s recommended to view the help manual to understand the usage of each command it’s to offer. Just enter gmvault –help command to view help topics. You can view help section associated with sync and restore functions by typing in gmvault sync –h and gmvault restore –help commands, respectively.

The full sync (backup) operation can be performed using the following command.

gmvault sync

Once entered, it will ask you to log into required email account in order to grant access to your Gmail account. Just press Enter and it will open Gmail app access authorization page in your default browser. Once you grant the access, move to console and press Enter again to begin the backup process.

By default, it saves all the email items from a specified account in C:\Users\\gmvault-db folder. However, you can change the backup folder by using –d DB_DIR switch with sync command. The quick sync mode lets you quickly scan and backup emails from last 2 months at default/specified location. You can use the following command to perform quick backup operation.

gmvault sync –type quick

Restoring backed up email to Gmail account is easy. All you need is to enter the following command to restore backed up email archive to specified Gmail account.

gmvault restore

This will scan the default backup location and then start restoring the backed up email archive to specified Gmail account. However, If you’ve backed up the email items at different location, then you need to specify the location with restore command to restore the email archive. The restore command also lets you specify custom label with email items and restart the restore process from last processed/saved email id via –label and –restart switches, respectively. In addition, you can choose to encrypt the emails saved in your email database (gmvault-db folder) to prevent unauthorized access.

Gmvault certainly provides an easy way to backup and restore email archive to multiple Gmail accounts. Using the restore command, you can easily copy backed up email items to any Gmail account. Furthermore, the application has the ability to automatically resolve IMAP-related issues while creating email item database. You can check out different usage scenarios and supported sync and restore commands’ switches here. As of this writing, the application is in beta testing phase and works on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux OS.

Download Gmvault

[Giveaway] EdgeCase Prevents Unintentionally Moving Mouse Cursor Between Displays [Mac]

Fatima — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:50:06 +0000

If you work with multiple monitors, you must have noticed that your mouse doesn’t always understand that you didn’t mean for it to move to the next display, even though you continued to move it to the left or right of the screen. The mouse is meant to act like that, and it only makes sense that you would be able to move the mouse comfortably between two displays. There are, nevertheless, usage scenarios where the second display attached to you system is really meant to monitor a feed or an app or any other system activity. You don’t necessarily need it for performing your ‘work’, and that’s when your cursor jumping between monitors gets irritating. EdgeCase is a Mac app worth $4.99 in the Mac App Store that prevents the mouse from accidentally jumping between displays.

Note: EdgeCase has a price tag of $4.99 on the App Store. We’re giving away five promo codes for the app to 5 lucky readers, details for which can be found at the end of this post.

EdgeCase has three different modes for you to chose from through the app’s Menu Bar icon. The Bounce the cursor mode prevents the mouse pointer from moving to the second display when it is moved to the edge. In order to move the mouse, you have to ‘bounce’ it against the edge. This is like moving the mouse to the edge of the screen in two quick flicks. On the second ‘bounce’, the cursor will shift to the second screen.

The Hold [Ctrl] key or [⌘ ] key option will prevent the cursor from moving to the second display unless you hold down either the Control or Command key. This option is possibly the most rigid control over the jumping mouse cursor. The Wait for 1/2 second option in EdgeCase introduces a half a second delay. If your mouse cursor remains consistently at the edge of the screen for half a second, it will move to the other display. This prevents the accidental flick from moving the pointer. In terms of ease, the Control or Command keys seem the most convenient to use.

Remember that this app is only meant for those who work with more than one monitor. If you’ve set your MacBook up with an external display, the app will work for you. Likewise, if you’ve set up your Mac mini with two displays or added a second monitor to you iMac, EdgeCase will keep your mouse from moving to another display when you don’t want it to. Although slightly pricey for such a simple function, the app does work quite well and there aren’t any glitches to speak of.

Get EdgeCase From Mac App Store

Giveaway: We’re giving away 5 promo codes for this app. The giveaway will last for 24 hours. Participation is simple. Follow @addtips on Twitter, tweet/retweet the giveaway and in the comments below, provide a link to your tweet. Alternatively, you may comment on our Facebook or Google+ page, where the comment should preferably be under the shared post and not on the page itself. Our editors will pick the five winners randomly.

Update: The giveaway has been closed. Winners will be contacted shortly.

Have Mac Terminal Audibly Announce The Completion Of A Command [Tip]

Fatima — Wed, 09 May 2012 10:34:14 +0000

Growl notifications are perhaps the best, and arguably the most popular, desktop notification system for OS X Lion. Many app developers integrate support for these notifications in their apps, and OS X Mountain Lion now supports a similar feature. As far as notifications for apps are concerned, Growl handles them well. If, however, you need a notification system for Terminal, one that would tell you when a command has successfully completed, you can add one of your own. Unlike Growl notifications, these are audio alerts that announce when a command has been executed, and make use of the text-to-speech (TTS) utility in Mac. The process requires you to add an additional command and the text that should be announced, at the end of the command you are running. How? Read past the break.

When you execute a command, add the following at the end:

&& say –v Kathy “Type in text to be announced”

where -v switch is followed by which system voice should be used to announce the completed action. If you don’t specify a voice, it will use the default one. The text that is to be announced must be written in double quotes.

This is useful if you’re running a command that is likely to take a long time to complete, or even if you’re just multitasking and don’t feel like watching a black window and neon lettering. Additionally, if you’re just starting out with using Terminal commands to tweak your system, an audio alert might be reassuring, since it sometimes looks as if nothing happened even when a command has worked perfectly.

Since the appendage has to be made at the end of each command you are executing, it gives you the freedom to chose which completed actions need to be announced and which don’t. If you would like an audio alert for all completed commands, then this might be slightly inconvenient. It is, nevertheless, the only quick solution that requires zero installation.

[via OS X Daily]

Remove The Mac Dock Delay When Auto-Hide Feature Is Enabled [Tip]

Fatima — Wed, 09 May 2012 08:38:11 +0000

The Dock in Mac provides an easy way to launch your frequently used apps. The space it offers is limited though, and that is why most users reserve it for apps like a text editor or web browser etc. Mac OS X lets you auto-hide Dock when you aren’t using it and access it by simply hovering the mouse pointer. If you choose to auto-hide the Dock, then you may have noticed that it takes a few milliseconds (very long and annoying milliseconds) to reveal itself when you move your mouse to the edge of the screen. The time delay is obviously there to prevent the Dock from reappearing when you don’t intend to use it, but it can get annoying when you do want it to appear. This tip lets you remove that little time delay and have the Dock popping up on the slightest mouse hover.

There isn’t an option to manage the delay in the System Preferences, however, you can eliminate it with the following Terminal command;

defaults write com.apple.Dock autohide-delay -float 0

killall Dock

After you’ve executed these commands, the Dock will pop up at the slightest mouse movement on the Dock side of the screen. Of course, if it gets irritating, you can restore the delay with the following Terminal command;

defaults delete com.apple.Dock autohide-delay

killall Dock

Eliminating the delay doesn’t have any effect on the working of the Dock and it is a mere change in the response time. Remember that the delay is there so that the Dock does not perceive a momentary mouse movement as a cue to reappear. It is reasonable that if you have the Dock set to the left side of your display, you will be less likely to accidentally make it appear and can use this tip without a worry.

[via Macworld]

PhotoGrok: EXIF-Based Image & File Viewer With Metadata Filters

Fawad — Tue, 08 May 2012 13:48:05 +0000

EXIF, or Exchangeable Image File Format, is a standard that specifies the formats for images, sound and other important tags commonly used by digital cameras, scanners and other systems, which handle recorded image and sound files. You can view this metadata information in the default Windows properties of images and other files. The default Windows Explorer lists down all meta data of images in the Details view, but it is a bit limited in its EXIF data representation. Handling an image collection using just the default options can be a bit difficult for a professional photographer. PhotoGrok is a Java-based application that allows you to view images and other file types grouped together according to metadata. More on PhotoGrok after the break.

The application features a Folder Manager, enter a comma separated list of Tree Tags, and include and exclude Filters for searching and listing specific file types. The main interface is divided into 3 panes: the left pane contains the Folder Tree, the middle pane shows a preview of folders contents, as well as selected images, while the right pane lists all the meta data of a file. Whenever available, important information about an image, including its File Name, ISO, Shutter Speed and Focal Length, is listed below the preview of a selected image.

Click Tools menu at the top left to access different utilities offered by the application. The Folder Manager lets you add folders to the list, which will be searched for files while creating the Folder Tree.

The Tree Tag tool lets you enter a comma-separated list of tags that will be used to build the tree hierarchy. You can either enter the tags manually or click Advanced and choose them from a list.

Filters can be added for different file types used for creating the Folder Tree, including Contains, Doesn’t Contain, Starts With, Ends With etc. The filters can be set to either Match all of the following, or Match any of the Following options.

The Configuration window allows you to change ExifTool Path, Slideshow Duration, Export Width and Height etc.

Since it’s a java based application, it works on Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems, provided JRE (Java Runtime Environment) is installed. We did not experience any stability issues during testing.

Download PhotoGrok

Quickly View & Insert Accented Characters When Typing On Mac [Tip]

Fatima — Tue, 08 May 2012 13:28:04 +0000

If you’ve ever eaten at a French or Mexican restaurant, and afterwards tried to tell a friend over email or text message what you had, it’s likely that you had difficulty in spelling out the name of the dish, since both French and Spanish have special accented characters. Many words in the English language, like cliché and Résumé, that originate from French, make use of accented letters, and when writing emails or using them as part of ordinary everyday writing, you might face difficulty because your keyboard doesn’t have a quick option for printing these characters. For Mac users, these options are actually easily accessible in any app that allows text input.

Regardless of which app you’re typing in, whenever you need to insert an accented letter, hold down that key on your keyboard (for example, an i or e), and a small bubble will pop up with all available accentuations. The letters are numbered, so you can use either the arrow keys and Enter to insert the correct character, or hit the corresponding number key to insert it.

This method is much easier than using the Option key, as it does not give you the complete set of letters associated with a certain alphabet. Ideally, autocorrect should be able to detect when you write a word that has an accented letter in it, but perhaps, it is something you would find in a sophisticated word processor. From an OS comparison point of view, Mac fares better than Windows in this regard, since you won’t get any such facility in Microsoft’s offering for stock apps like, say, Notepad or Wordpad, whereas Apple has done accented characters universal across OS X.

[via Cult of Mac]

Walletx: Feature-Rich Password Manager With Encrypted Dropbox Sync Support [Mac]

Fatima — Tue, 08 May 2012 12:12:02 +0000

From a security perspective, Macs haven’t been having a great time lately. Just last month, the Flash Trojan had many people scanning their systems for a possible infection, and now the news of the password exposing bug in OS X 10.7.3 is going to leave you wondering how secure your login credentials are. Undoubtedly, Apple will have a fix for this, just like with the Trojan. In the event that you’ve been unaffected by either of these incidents, it’s time to count your lucky stars and at the same time, perhaps consider putting your information behind an extra layer of protection. Walletx is a free Mac app that lets you store your important information, like login IDs, passwords, credit card numbers, insurance information, home address, banking information, contact numbers, emergency numbers, and more. The app allows you to create several separate databases (or profiles), and save items to them. This is helpful when you want to keep your work and personal information in the same place, but avoid mixing them up, or just make it easier to retrieve later. The app additionally allows you to sync data to Dropbox, so that it is available across different Macs. Walletx saves information in its own format, and the data saved to Dropbox is password protected.

Launch the app and from the File menu and add a new database. Name it anything that will help you remember what kind of information is saved in that particular vault. You will be asked to enter a password for accessing the database. Once past that, click the plus button at the top left, and a panel will slide out with options for the type of information you can add to your database. Select any one of them and then add the credentials. By default, password fields are hidden; however, if you click the eye button next to such a field, it will reveal the password or hidden information in plain format. A small Copy button next to each field allows you to quickly copy the information to the clipboard.

After adding the information to a database, you can now sync it to Dropbox by clicking the Dropbox Sync button at the top right. The app will first need permission to access your account, and you will be taken to the web interface of Dropbox (in your default browser), where you have to allow access for Walletx. Once you’re done with that, the app will ask for a password to protect your data stored in Dropbox.

To change the password for a database, go to Tools > Change Password. This will change the password for the database and not for Dropbox. There doesn’t seem to be a away of editing that password; however, you can quickly disconnect the app by going to Tools > Clear Dropbox Keys, and then delete the file from your Dropbox folder. The app uses AES encryption standard to keep your information safe.

Get Walletx From Mac App Store

[Giveaway] DragonDrop Makes Drag & Drop Easier By Providing A Temporary Holder For Copying Files [Mac]

Fatima — Mon, 07 May 2012 15:50:58 +0000

If you’ve used a Windows PC, you know there is no such thing as Desktop Spaces like there are in Mac, and, without question, they are an excellent feature to have. While they make it extremely easy to manage windows and group your work by the apps you have opened, it can sometimes be inconvenient when you have to move an item from one desktop space to another. DragonDrop is a Mac app, worth $4.99 in the Mac App Store, that acts as a ‘holder’ for any file, folder or text you want to copy and paste from one location or space to another. The app works entirely in the Menu Bar and captures anything you drop onto it, leaving you free to use your mouse for clicking, selecting and dragging other things around.

Note: DragonDrop has a price tag of $0.99 on the App Store. We’re giving away ten promo codes for the app to 10 lucky readers, details for which can be found at the end of this post.

When the app is launched, it adds a shield-like icon to the Menu Bar. Adding items to the app simply requires you to select them and drag & drop onto the Menu bar icon. You can hold down the Command key and select multiple items to drop on the icon. While you can add multiple items to the app, you can only do so by selecting them at the same time. Once an item is added to the app, if you drop another file or folder to it, it will replace the previous one.

The app has an additional feature that you can enable from its preferences by selecting the Activate when I shake mouse option. When you select an item, and (while still holding down the mouse button), shake it slightly on the screen, and DragonDrop will capture it.

Droppy is a similar app that does the same and is worth $0.99, but does not have the mouse shake and capture feature and is less responsive.

Get DragonDrop From Mac App Store

Giveaway: We’re giving away 10 promo codes for this app. The giveaway will last for 48 hours. Participation is simple. Follow @addtips on Twitter, tweet/retweet the giveaway and in the comments below, provide a link to your tweet. Alternatively, you may comment on our Facebook or Google+ page, where the comment should preferably be under the shared post and not on the page itself. Our editors will pick the five winners randomly.

Update: The giveaway has been closed and promo codes have been sent to the winners.

View Character, Word & Paragraph Count For Selected Text From Mac Context Menu [Tip]

Fatima — Mon, 07 May 2012 12:15:28 +0000

Counting the number of words in a file is probably something you do when you’re in college and you have a paper of a specific length to turn in. There are few other occasions when you would actually need to count the number of characters or words in a file, but if you do, there isn’t a quick way to do so in Mac. A Terminal command does exist that counts characters in a text file, but if you need a more universally applicable solution, you can use this script to create a service that does just that. You will be able to run it from the context menu, and can forgo having to copy text to the clipboard and then pasting it into an app that does the same.

Open the Automator and select Service when it asks you what you want to create. To create a service, you will need to add an action; in this case, it will be Run AppleScript. Make sure that Text is selected under Service receives selected and Any application is selected in the second dropdown. Paste the following script and save it with any name that will help you remember what the service does.

on run {input, parameters}
	try
		set MyText to input as string
		set NombreSignes to the number of characters of MyText
		set NombreMots to the number of words of MyText
		set NombrePara to the number of paragraphs of MyText
		set LeResultat to "The selected text contains :" & return & "- " & NombreSignes & " sign(s) ;" & return & "- " & NombreMots & " word(s) ;" & return & "- " & NombrePara & " paragraph(s)."
		display dialog LeResultat buttons {"OK"} default button 1 with icon note
	on error errmsg number errnum
		display dialog errmsg & " [" & errnum & "]" buttons {"OK"} default button 1 with icon stop

	end try
	return input
end run

Go to any app, select text, right-click and choose Services > Name Of Service You Just Created, and small window will appear, giving you the total word, character and paragraph count for the selected text.

The response is a bit slow, but the service works perfectly otherwise. The service will be available in any and all applications that support text.

[via Mac World]

Free Video Converter Embeds Subtitles In Videos, Converts To MP4 [Mac]

Fatima — Mon, 07 May 2012 10:10:54 +0000

Video converters are as common as they get for pretty much any platform. Even if you don’t have the perfect desktop video converter, there are plenty of web apps that let you convert video formats and you can use them without having to worry about platform compatibility. What’s harder to find is an app that will let you add subtitles to your videos. Free Video Converter is, as its name implies, a free Mac app that does precisely that. Not only does this utility batch convert videos from various formats to MP4 (including FLV to MP4), it also embeds the specified subtitle file within the converted output, so you can play it wherever you want, however you want. Converting and adding subtitles can be done in bulk, that is, you can convert multiple media files at once. The only downside to this otherwise-reasonable app is that it’s ad-supported.

To begin with, drag & drop a video onto the app’s interface, and it will be queued for conversion. You can add multiple files at once using the same drag n drop method. Hovering your mouse over any file queued in Free Video Converter makes three buttons visible, one each for moving the file up or down in the order list, and a cross for removing the video.

To add subtitles to a file, click the dropdown that reads ‘No Subtitle’ and select Add Subtitles. Select the subtitle file from the dialog box that opens, and click the refresh icon at the bottom of the app’s window to begin conversion. You will notice a banner ad at the bottom of the window; while you can close it, another one will open when you perform an action. A timer will appear showing you the estimated time needed to complete the conversion. Pause and remove buttons appear in front of every file in the queue, should you choose to halt the process or cancel it altogether.

The app’s preferences allow you to choose the default encoding for subtitles from the General tab. The Convert tab lets you choose the output folder where converted files are saved, and also what to should do if the output file already exists. Available options in this regard include rename, overwrite or skip.

The biggest downside to Free Video Converter is the fact that the output is generated solely in MP4, and while the program can take input from various formats, it will always render an MP4 file when the conversion is done. This restriction is certainly stringent enough to prove a deal breaker for many, but still, given MP4′s popularity and wide support, you may still find use for this otherwise-nifty app.

Get Free Video Converter From Mac App Store

Reddit Notifier: Menu Bar Notifications & Audio Alerts For New Reddit Messages [Mac]

Fatima — Mon, 07 May 2012 10:01:13 +0000

When it comes to web portals, Reddit is an amazing one; it may waste a lot of your time, but you will still end up learning a ton of new things in the process. While the site is one of the many reasons people all over the world don’t manage to get to sleep as early as planned, it is also a great place for raising awareness about important events. If you obsessively read everything on Reddit, and are more than the average lurker, Reddit Notifier is a Mac app (worth $1.99 in the Mac App Store) that you may find useful. It gives you notifications in the Menu Bar and sounds audio alerts when you receive a new message on Reddit. The alerts are customizable, so you can set them to sound once, continuously or not at all.

When you first launch the app, a grayed-out envelop is added to the Menu Bar, and a sign in window pops up. Enter your Reddit credentials and sign in. The app’s icon turns orange when you receive a new message. However, that is if you’re an ordinary Redditor; if you’re a moderator, the app’s icon turns into Sno’s head with red and orange outlines.

To manage the audio alerts, click the icon, and from Audio Notification, select what you want the app to announce when you receive a new message, and how frequently the audio alert should play.

As stated earlier, this isn’t the kind of app that every Redditor will use. Its usefulness for you really depends on how active you are on the website, and how much you obsess over it. The app takes you to your Reddit Inbox if you click the Inbox option, and it would be nice if Reddit Notifier also showed the number of unread messages in the form of an icon badge.

Get Reddit Notifier From Mac App Store

[Giveaway] Video Flow: Create Screencasts, Split/Merge & Annotate Them [Mac]

Fatima — Sat, 05 May 2012 15:40:47 +0000

If you’re in the market for an amazing screen casting tool, look no further than Video Flow for Mac OS X. The app is a video creation and editing tool, which allows you to create screencasts, annotate them with text, and add videos or audio files to your screencast, or simply annotate existing videos that you may have downloaded or recorded yourself. The app lets you split videos, and also supports video-in-video frame sets (whereby you can start a video within the current one), truly setting itself apart from its peers. It allows you to resize your screencasts to the right size for viewing on an iPod, iPhone, iPad or YouTube. Additionally, when saving your file, you can choose the frame rate it should be saved with. The available range is from 10 to 45 fps. The only downside is the rather hefty price tag, which stands currently at $50, but you can skip that if you’re lucky enough to win a license in our giveaway.

Note: Video Flow currently has a price tag of $29.99 on the App Store (normally $49.99). We’re giving away five promo codes for the app to 5 lucky readers, details for which can be found at the end of this post.

The app adds a small record button to the menu bar when it is launched. Its interface comprises of a display window for viewing the screencast or movie, and a panel to the left that lets you add text or additional videos. Four buttons allow you to toggle the text and media panel, crop or resize the canvas, start recording or play a video. A timeline along the bottom of the app lets you reorder text and videos.

When you first launch the app, it will ask you to select recording preferences, i.e., the size or area of the screen you want to record, and the audio and video source. You can record from your screen and via your webcam at the same time by checking Record Screen and Record Video from and selecting the video input source.

Once you’re done recording, use the menu bar icon to stop the app. You can now edit the video you made and add annotations and additional media files. The left panel is divided into two tabs, Text and Media. The Text tab lets you enter text in any color, size and font, alongside the possibility of adding a stroke. Once added, the text box appears in the timeline. You can drag it to any part of the timeline, and drag the edges outward or inward to adjust the length of the interval it should appear for.

When you add a video or audio file from the Media tab, it does not appear in the timeline automatically like text. Right-click the video and select Add to Timeline, and it will be queued. You can split the video by clicking the cog wheel icon on the video in the timeline. If two videos are set to play during the same interval, they will be played one over the other, so you can choose to alter the frame size of one video and make it smaller. This will give the video-in-video effect.

Once you’re done, you can save the video or export it from the Share menu. When exporting, you have to chose the frame rate it will be saved with. The default rate is 25 fps, but you can increase or decrease that. The higher the rate, the longer it will take to export.

Video Flow supports keyboard shortcuts for starting or stopping and playing/pausing a recording, which you can modify in its preferences. Additionally, you can choose an output path and the countdown interval before the app begins to record.

Video Flow is a feature-rich screen recorder, unlike any other that we’ve seen lately. Despite the rather-hefty $50 price tag, you can grab it for free by participating in our giveaway. If you don’t win here, you may still grab the app from Mac App Store at a discounted price of $29.99 while their sale lasts.

Get Video Flow From Mac App Store

Giveaway: We’re giving away 5 licenses for this app. The giveaway will last for 48 hours. Participation is simple. Follow @addtips on Twitter, tweet/retweet the giveaway and in the comments below, provide a link to your tweet. Alternatively, you may comment on our Facebook or Google+ page, where the comment should preferably be under the shared post and not on the page itself. Our editors will pick the five winners randomly.

Update: The giveaway has been closed. Winners will be contacted shortly.

Update: Winners have received their promo codes. If you entered for the giveaway, please check your Facebook giveaway, Twitter direct messages and Google+ feed.

FileDesk LITE: Tabbed File Browser With Command+X Cut Support [Mac]

Fatima — Sat, 05 May 2012 08:39:03 +0000

Mac’s default file browser, the Finder, isn’t one of the things you hear users complain about. It works reasonably well and for the few things that are missing, you can always enable them via a few simple Terminal commands or apps. For some, the Finder may not be a matter of too few features, but rather too many of them that you might not use or need. FileDesk LITE is a simple file browser for Mac that lets you browse files in tabs. The app mimics how you would use a web browser and has a ‘up one level’ button that lets you return to the previous or parent folder. Additionally, the app has Command+X support for files (cut functionality), which is missing in Finder. The app doesn’t support complex features; labels and shortcuts (aliases) are supported but the app is interface focused and is meant for someone with simpler needs. The app runs in a single window and tabs allow you to view different folders separately.

Launch the app and start browsing files. The app lets you add new tabs via the New Tab button or the Command+T shortcut (just like in Safari, Chrome and Firefox). Tabs can be moved by clicking and dragging them on the tab bar, however, they cannot be detached to open in a separate window.

The app supports other functions too that are intuitive for you if you’re a long time Windows user who’s switched to Mac. The Backspace key lets you return to the previous folder you were viewing. This functionality is different from the ‘Up one folder’ button on the app’s toolbar that allows you to go to the parent folder of the current one. The app has a sidebar similar to the one in Finder and you can add folders to it. It allows you to view either these quick access folders which are called ‘Bookmarks’ or view the list of folders in a directory. You can change what the sidebar shows from the dropdown menu on each tab.

You can grab an app or folder and drag it to another tab to easily move it. Additionally, an app, file or folder can be ‘cut’ using the Command+X shortcut. The app also has a small bar along the bottom of the window that allows you to see file and folder paths. It isn’t meant for power users but is excellent if you’d like to keep window clutter to a minimum.

Get FileDesk LITE From Mac App Store

How To Cut & Paste Files/Folders In Mac OS X Lion Finder via Keyboard [Tip]

Fatima — Sat, 05 May 2012 07:38:00 +0000

If you’ve used Windows or have had the opportunity to hear a Windows user describe in detail how Microsoft’s OS is better than Apple’s Mac, you probably know that Windows users take pride in the right-click context menu options provided by the OS, and the fact that they have easy Cut, Copy and Paste for files as well as text. The fact is that all these options are available in Mac as well, one just needs to do a little digging around. When it comes to moving a file or folder from one location to the other in Mac, you have to select and drag it to the new location. This proves that the Cut functionality exists, just not via Command+X. Here’s a little tip to reproduce the same effect with keyboard shortcuts. It is super simple and you need only learn a slightly different hotkey.

Open a Finder window or just select a file or folder from the Desktop and copy it using the conventional Command+C keyboard shortcut. Open a different location, and when pasting the file use the Option+Command+V shortcut and your file or folder will, in effect, be moved to this location instead of being copied to it.

If you pull down the File menu in Finder, you will see that the Command+X option does indeed exist but it is for text only. If you were to select a file path or file name, it would work perfectly, but to apply this function to a folder or file, you need to change how you paste it.

5 Tricks For Tweaking Finder In Mac OS X Lion

Fatima — Fri, 04 May 2012 15:50:17 +0000

Mac OS X Lion does quite a few things differently from Snow Leopard, and for the most part, users have either reconciled with it or found an app, script or tweak that helped restore it to how it looked or worked before the new version. Whether you are yet to upgrade to Lion, have recently done so or are already using it without any modifications in the hopes that you will eventually get used to it, here are a few things you can do to bring back some functionality to the Finder.

View File & Folder Path

A while back, we covered a small Terminal command that puts the path of a file or folder in the Finder Toolbar. We also covered an app, XtraFinder, that allowed you to easily copy or view the path from the context menu. If either of those options aren’t what you had in mind, and would much prefer the old status bar, go to View > Show Path Bar, and a bar will appear at the bottom of the Finder window, displaying the location of the selected file or folder. You can double click the folders in the path and quickly switch to them in the same window.

View Free Space & Number Of Items

We’ve covered tools like DaisyDisk (read review) and FindSpace (read review), both of which help you find directories that take up the most space on your hard drive. If you just want a quick look at how much free space you have on your hard disk, and see how many items are in a selected folder, go to View > Show Status Bar.

Default Folder View

If you haven’t already tweaked the Finder to open a different folder by default, i.e., anything other than All Files (where it is almost impossible to find anything), you can do so easily from Finder Preferences. In the General tab, select Other… from the New Finder windows show: drop down menu, and navigate to your most frequently used folder. Whenever you launch a new Finder window, it will open the folder you just selected. Think of it like selecting a default homepage for your web browser – only that this works for Mac’s native Finder.

Change Icon Size In Sidebar

One of the little quirks in OS X Lion is that you can’t change the system’s font size. Some might prefer it that way, while others would simply demand more control in their own hands. While you can increase or decrease the text size for folder names displayed in Finder, you can’t do so for the Sidebar items. If you want them to appear smaller or larger, you will have to visit the General tab in System Preferences. From the Sidebar icon size dropdown, select one of the three listed sizes.

Add Folders & Apps To The Sidebar

Adding folders to the Sidebar in Finder isn’t a big deal; you simply have to drag & drop a folder onto the Sidebar, and that’s it. A small blue line tells you where exactly you’re dropping it, for sake of better placement. Adding apps, however, is a bit trickier. You will first have to drag & drop the app’s icon onto the Finder Toolbar. Once done with that, open Terminal, and run the killall Finder Command. The app will now appear in the Sidebar as well, although its icon won’t. You can then remove the app from the Toolbar, and continue using it from the Sidebar.

Although these tweaks are pretty simple, users might still be unaware they exist, and that OS X Lion really just changed some defaults from Snow Leopard. There’s no question that apps exist to help you do all this, but in this case, they are obviously unnecessary.

Time Sink: Record & Generate Reports For Usage Time Of Mac Apps

Fatima — Fri, 04 May 2012 13:21:22 +0000

As much as you may convince yourself that you’re a productive, well focused and difficult to distract person when it comes down to work, the fact is that the internet is ruled by kittens and you just can’t get enough of them. For many people, especially those who work remotely, the temptation to check your Facebook feed or read an interesting article is sometimes too much to overcome, often leaving them wondering where the time went. Time Sink is an excellent Mac app, worth $4.99 in the Mac App Store, that tells you just how you’ve been spending your time. Not only does the app have an excellent interface, but is feature rich, allowing you to create ‘app pools’ to measure the time spent on a particular task which may involve using more than a single app. It additionally gives you the option to run either as an application window, or from the Menu Bar. At the same time, it supports an activity monitor in its Dock icon, which pretty much means you can’t escape the fact that you’re wasting precious time.

Time Sink starts tracking your usage of other apps the second it launches. It measures time separately for active apps and those running in the background.

The tool asks you to choose at start up if you want to run it as an app or from the Menu Bar. You can change the options at any time afterwards. Note that the app measures time for apps in the background separately. You can create a ‘pool’ of apps by dragging and dropping them from the top half of the window to the bottom half. The pool measures the collective time you’ve spent on the apps added to it. To get a summary of how productive you’ve been, click the Activity Report tab, and app usage will be displayed as a graph.

To switch modes, go to Time Sink’s preferences and toggle the Run as dockless menu bar application to suit your needs. The app allows you to define apps or windows that it should ignore within the Blacklist tab in preferences, lets you customize which items are reported in the activity report, and also lets you export it.

Overall, the app is feature rich and the interface is amazing. Depending on how you like to work, you can keep it open as a window on the desktop, or send it to the menu bar for a more unobtrusive monitoring.

Get Time Sink From Mac App Store

FileWard DES: Encrypt/Decrypt & Create Checksum For Files, Folders & Clipboard Content [Mac]

Fatima — Thu, 03 May 2012 19:08:05 +0000

Encrypting files or folders on Mac isn’t as easy as you would expect. If you often encrypt folders to ensure your data is always safe should it fall into the wrong hands, and remains inaccessible for as long as possible, then FileWard DES is a free Mac app that might be extremely useful for you. The app has an excellent, yet simple interface that supports drag & drop. It allows you to encrypt and decrypt files and folders, uses the OS X password assistant to suggest passwords, and also lets you generate checksum values for files and folders. Additionally, the app lets you securely delete files, so that they are not recoverable.

Launch the app and drag & drop the file or folder you want to encrypt onto it. The app prompts you to enter a password and then verify it. If you click the small key icon next to the password input field, the password generator will open. Enter the password suggested by the app, or make one of your own, re-enter it in the verify field, and click Encrypt.

The output file will be saved with the same name, and the original extension appended with .ld0 (see screeshot below). This format will be used in case of a file only. When a folder is encrypted, the output file is saved by the folder name and nothing else. If you drag & drop multiple files on the app at once, it will encrypt them individually, but with the same password you entered.

To decrypt a file, double-click it, and FileWard DES will launch automatically. You will be asked to enter the password used to encrypt it. If entered correctly, the file or folder will be decrypted with its original name.

To create a file or folder Checksum, go to the app’s File menu and select Create File Checksum or Create Folder Checksum. You can also verify a file and delete it securely from the options available in this same menu.

The app used the DES encryption standard, and has an excellent yet minimalist interface. The fact that it’s feature rich and free, is a good reason to add it to your preferred security tools.

Get FileWard DES From Mac App Store

TXTcrypt: Encrypt Private Text Messages Before Sending Them [Mac]

Fatima — Thu, 03 May 2012 19:02:50 +0000

If you enjoyed making up your own language as a kid and using it in front of your parents to make them think you were up to something, and for some reason, haven’t outgrown this fascination, it might appeal to you to code the messages you send. Whether this, or because your life’s circumstances are such that you would like to add an extra layer of security to your communication. TXTcrypt is a free Mac app that lets you do just that. It can both encrypt and decrypt text. The encryption requires a passkey, which may be up to 8 characters long. The app does not encrypt on the AES standard; instead, it uses the RC4 standard, which, while not as secure as AES, nevertheless provides a reasonable level of protection.

The app’s interface is simple and not the kind that you’ll fall in love with. The major part of the app’s window comprises of a text input box where you paste the text to be encrypted or decrypted. A small password field follows, with blocks that correspond to each character you enter. You can set a password up to 8 characters long. It’s best to use as many characters as the app allows, because the longer the encryption key, the harder it is to crack. Encrypt and Decrypt buttons allow you to choose what action you want to perform on the text.

If you’re wondering how something like this could possibly be of any use, think of a situation where you might have to share personal information like a phone number or home address in a public forum. You can encrypt it, and only the intended recipient will be able to read it after decryption. Even if you aren’t up to something super sneaky like training a rat army, it might be useful if you want to hide messages from family members who you are sharing your Mac with.

Get TXTcrypt From Mac App Store

Scrapbook: Clipboard Manager That Remembers Copied Items Even After System Restart [Mac]

Fatima — Thu, 03 May 2012 15:15:39 +0000

We’ve covered quite a few clipboard managers in the past, each with its own special feature to set it apart from the rest. Scrapbook is yet another free clipboard manager for Mac that lets you copy and paste text, files and folders from your Mac and text from apps, for pasting anywhere. The app uses Bonjour to connect and send snippets to other Macs on the same network. What’s particularly unique about this app is that, unlike other clipboard managers that are erased when you restart your system, Scrapbook remembers the items you copied. Additionally, the app allows you to categorize your clipped items into folders, which makes it an effective way of keeping links and text organized for future reference.

The app adds a clipboard icon to the menu bar; you can access your clipped items and the app’s preferences from it. Before you start using the app, open the preferences and configure it.

In the Scrapbook tab, you will find three tabs; General, Clipping Data and Options. From the General tab, select if you want the app to start at login, enable Growl support and select the appearance and position of the app’s icon. From the Clipping Data tab, you can stop the app from copying files and images to its clipboard. The Options tab lets you chose the number of items that should appear in the Menu Bar when you right-click the icon, the maximum number of items it should save at a time (up to 900). It is a good idea to check the Click on menubar icon opens the Scrapbook window option, as it will open all items in a separate window, making it easier to sort, filter and use them.

From the Filter tab, you can add filters or scripts and run them on any item. From the Bonjour tab, you can set up sharing with other devices, the limit for the number of items that can be sent at a given time, and a password to protect the items you share. The items you clip can be locked, and if you want to enable sending them over Bonjour, you will have to select the Send locked Clips option.

From the Hotkeys tab, you can enable hotkeys for copying and pasting items, preventing the computer from sleeping, and erasing formatting from text and activating or deactivating the app.

Once you’ve set the app’s preferences, you can start copying items. To view copied items, click the icon in the Menu Bar and a window will open. Click the item you want to copy and paste it wherever you want. The window is divided into two parts; the top part lists all the copied items, and the bottom one, all the folders. To add a folder, right-click in the folder area and select Options > Folder. Drag & drop items on to a folder. To delete a folder, select it and hit the Delete key. To lock an item, right-click it in this same window and select the Lock option. To run a filter, select Filter and chose one from those listed.

The app really is extraordinary, and the ability to remember copied items even after you restart your system, only adds to its usability.

Get Scrapbook From Mac App Store

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