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How To Create A Smart Playlist For Multiple Artists In iTunes

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A smart playlist in iTunes is better than several regular ones for the simple reason that you can set parameters for the list to update itself. As opposed to being dependent on you for manually updating it, a smart playlist will maintain itself automatically. It can be created based on multiple parameters and this post details how you can create a self updating playlist of your favorite artists. It requires nothing more than your music collection and iTunes. Any version of iTunes should work but we’re using iTunes 11.0.1, (the latest one) so if you’re on an older one, you might see options appear slightly differently. Read More

Wirelessly Copy Videos Between Macs & iOS Devices With Ease Using MovieShare

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Copying files to your iPhone is not as simple as everything Apple makes; it is tied down to iTunes, which means your music, pictures, and videos have to go through it in order to reach your device. iTunes isn’t that bad an app; it just isn't as user-friendly or light on system resources as it could've been. There are times when you wish you could treat your iPhone like a mas storage device or just transfer things to it faster. MovieShare is a free Mac app that not only lets you easily share videos with other Macs, but also has a universal companion iOS app available in the App Store that allows transfer of videos to and from your Mac and any iOS device. The iOS client receives the video files and gives you the option to save them to your iPhone’s camera roll. Both Mac and iOS apps have free versions, though these are ad-supported and have limitations with respect to the file formats you can share. Upgrading the apps to their full variants removes ads and allows you to convert unsupported formats before transfer. Files are transferred over Wi-Fi, so both devices involved need to be connected to the same network. Read More

Backup, Share & Sync Data Securely Across Platforms With Norton Zone

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With the likes of Bitdefender, Acronis, Comodo and numerous other renowned system and internet security providers already having released their dedicated cloud storage solutions, it was about time that Symantec came up with a solution of its own. Available as a free (limited) beta, Norton Zone Cloud Sharing is a cross-platform online data backup and sharing tool for web, Windows, Mac, Android and iOS laced with quite a few sought-after features. As with several already existing services, Norton Zone Cloud Sharing is offering an initial 5GB of free cloud storage to each registered member, which can be further expanded by subscribing to various paid plans. In addition to the conventional online file backup, restoration & sharing tools, the app also offers stringent data protection mechanism through patent-pending encryption key management, complete control over shared folders, multi-account online collaboration, universal file format support, on-the-fly malware scanner integration, and the luxury to track, browse & restore file versions dating back as far as 3 months. Read More

Add Realistic Wood, Metal & Fabric Textures To Images With Elemento EZ For Mac

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Whether you’ve grown tired of Instagram and its filters, or you’re just upset the company sort of almost said it was going to sell your pictures for money, you might be in the market for something new to do with your pictures. If you’re interested in a desktop app that can make pictures more interesting, Elemento EZ is a free Mac app available in the Mac App Store that is a fairly good option. While it isn’t Instagram, doesn’t work on your iPhone, and won’t make your morning cup of coffee any more interesting than it is, what it will do is allow you to add textures to your pictures. With the free version of the app, you get two textures each of metal, wood, and fabric. While the color scheme for each texture is fixed, the app allows you to make some adjustments and change the brightness level. Read More

Get An Omnipresent Clipboard, File Storage Area & Notepad In Mac With Unclutter

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Unclutter is a very simple Mac app available for $2.99 in the Mac App Store. It acts as a clipboard manager, a file storage area, and a note pad. You can probably find other apps that do this, but Unclutter is different in two very significant ways. It is a clipboard manager and file storage app in one. Most clipboard managers only capture multiple instances of copied text and do not support images. Unclutter supports all types of files, and the storage area acts as a temporary file repository that helps move files around. The best feature, though, is how easy it is to call the app. It comes down to ease of access, and Unclutter does an excellent job in that area. Where most apps rely on keyboard shortcuts or Menu Bar icons, Unclutter makes use of gestures and mouse movements. It is omnipresent; you drag your mouse to the top of your screen and scroll downwards to get the Unclutter panel to open. Text or files on your clipboard are automatically copied to the clipboard section, files are dragged & dropped to the File Storage area, and the note can be edited to include important information. Read More

How To Set One Wallpaper For All OS X Desktop Spaces At Once

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First introduced in OS X Lion, Desktop Spaces provide an excellent platform for window management. Since then, the feature has become one of the most popular additions in OS X, though it is considerably limited in some areas. It’s the closest you get to a virtual desktop available system wide, so you won’t see too many complaints. At present, each desktop space operates somewhat independent of the other. You get the same desktop icons no matter which space you’re on, but you can keep windows and apps separate. You can also, by default, make the wallpaper for each space different. This might seem useful, but a fair number of users would prefer the same background across all desktops, and that isn’t possible in two clicks or less in OS X. It lacks any way to change the background for all desktop spaces at once, which is why you might need an app or script for that. We haven’t yet found an app that does so, but a simple script does the trick fairly well. The process of creating the script is simple, but a little lengthy, so we’ll break it down as best as we can to make it easier to follow. Read More

List Lite Is A Gesture-Based To-Do List App That Imitates Clear For OS X

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They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Meet List Lite, a free to-do list Mac app that mimics Clear, which is worth $9.99 on the Mac App Store. The app is a fairly good imitation with some slight interface differences but full gesture support. It responds well to trackpad gestures and runs in the Menu Bar, though it will add an unnecessary icon in the Dock as well (just like Clear). There are no preferences to manage in the app, and you can start adding items immediately. You get a select number of colors to differentiate between the tasks, but unlike Clear - where the color of tasks gets successively lighter (much like a heat map) according to priority - the colors for a task in List Lite stay fixed. Read More

Sync Files Between Macs Through iCloud The Dropbox Or iDisk Way

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iCloud is a little more than a year old, but it has a large user base. Apple first made the service available through iTunes and has, since then, slowly integrated it with OS X and iOS. In its current form, it lets you upload photos from both your mobile device and desktop. Additionally, it syncs app data, which is something neither SkyDrive in Windows 8 nor Ubuntu One in Ubuntu 12.10 do. What it doesn’t do is let you save files directly to iCloud. It still depends on apps to add files (iPhoto for images and TextEdit for text files on OS X). For some users, this means they can make limited use of their iCloud storage. iClouDrive is a free Mac app that lends greater flexibility to how you use iCloud. Once installed, the app lets you use iCloud as if it were Dropbox or Google Drive. You can add or remove files by just dragging & dropping them onto the iClouDrive folder that the app creates. Read More

Maxthon Cloud Browser Boasts New UI, Cross-Platform Sync & Sharing

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We already have several options when it comes to feature-rich and visually attractive cross-platform web browsers, and the newest addition to the list is Maxthon Cloud Browser – Maxthon’s freshest attempt to compete with the likes of Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera and other major players in the industry. Just released for Windows, Mac, Android and iOS, Maxthon Cloud Browser v4.2 introduces plenty of cloud syncing options for its desktop and mobile clients to offer users a seamless and unified web browsing experience across their various devices. Besides a complete interface overhaul, the app brings the option to remotely push URLs, photos, text, tabs and downloads to your dedicated Maxthon Cloud as well as other devices connected to your home network. The app’s stern integration with its dedicated cloud service ensures that you can access your personal data, browsing sessions and downloads regardless of the platform you’re currently using, whether you’re at home, in office or in transit. Read More

[Giveaway] Hypegram: Stream Unlimited Songs Gathered From Music Blogs

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A big music appetite is hard to satisfy, but if your taste in music isn't particular to a specific genre, or you  find online radio stations from services like Pandora or Grooveshark aren't picking the right kind of music, try Hypegram. Hypegram is a  $4.99 Mac and Windows app that allows you to search for and listen to unlimited music. The app is essentially a client for music blog aggregation and discovery service Hype Machine. It allows you to follow blogs and view music selections from them. The app differs from other online music services because the music is selected by people and instead of following radio stations for a particular artist, you can follow music blogs. This gives you a larger variety of music to listen to. You aren't restricted to a particular genre, and you can refresh the app to get a new playlist each time. Songs can be favorited and purchased on iTunes. Read More

Share Links From Menu Bar With Another Mac On The Same WiFi Network

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Sharing files between two computers is something users do so frequently that the market for apps that facilitate the transfer of files is growing all the time to keep up with their needs. For Mac users, Air Drop is a simple native file sharing solution that is available on most post 2009 models. Now, assume it isn't files you want to send; it’s links. You have your messengers for this purpose, but should you grow tired of going through your chat history looking for a link shared a day or an hour ago, there is The Great Link. It’s a free Mac app that allows you to send files between two Macs over a Wi-Fi connection, provided you have Bonjour enabled. The app keeps a complete history of links that you've sent and received, it can copy links from an active browser window (Chrome & Safari only), open an incoming link, or copy it to your clipboard. The Great Link runs in the Menu Bar and supports Notification Center if you’re on Mountain Lion. Read More

Easily Set Any Image As A Folder’s Icon Using Plaster For Mac

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For those who love to customize their Mac, there are a large number of folder icons to replace the default ones. Though they are good for adding a personal touch to your Mac, these custom folders don’t really offer much utility. Plaster is a free Mac app that takes the concept of having custom folder icons and puts it to good use. The app allows you to take any image of your choice and set it as any folder’s icon. The result is a folder that, in addition to being identifiable from its name, can also be identified with the image on it (much like a book’s illustrated cover). Read More

Create A Separate Mailbox For Ungrouped/Unimportant Contacts In Mac

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Not all contacts are equally important, which is why people group and sort the important ones so that they’re easier to manage. The contacts you don’t email often, or who send you unimportant emails too often, rarely get sorted into anything more than an unnamed group. If you’re using Mountain Lion and have synced your Twitter and Facebook contacts with the Contacts app, it is likely you’ve got an even larger number of ungrouped contacts. Now imagine those contacts, grouped and ungrouped ones, all emailing you. You have a single mailbox, or perhaps two or three set up, but one or all include emails from the not-so-important contacts and you’d like to sort them so that they have a mailbox of their own (which you can ignore). You can manage them in one of two ways; invest some time and group them properly, or have Smart groups in Contacts and Smart Mailboxes in Mail to do all the heavy lifting. Read More

Take & Sync Notes Across Windows, Mac & iOS via Dropbox With Notebooks

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Every once in a while, a new service comes forth and claims to be unique, productive or an improvement over what’s already available in the market. And when this service or product is being offered for free, it instantly becomes a lot more appealing. Notebooks - available for Windows, Mac and iOS - opts for an understandably similar approach. It basically allows you to create and synchronize notes via Dropbox and WebDAV. Why would anyone use Notebooks over Evernote or OneNote, you might ask? Well firstly, OneNote is a paid application and secondly, the native Dropbox integration gives Notebooks an edge over the former (and Evernote, for that matter) by virtually freeing you from any limitations on the maximum number of notes you can have. Read on for the full review! Read More

View Email Notification Alerts For Select Accounts In Mac OS X

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The Notification Center in Mountain Lion is one of its best features but so far, it offers little customization at the app level. You can only choose which apps to receive notifications from and can’t select whether you want a notification for each event / action of the app, or just a few select ones. This limitation is most obvious if you've added more than once account to the Mail app. By default, you receive a notification for new emails received on all accounts. If one of those accounts is your personal account that you don’t want to be bothered with while you’re working, these alerts can be less than welcome. While there isn't an official way in Notification Center to customize notifications for each account, you can work around this one with the Mail app by making use of Smart Mailboxes. Read More

Upload Screenshots From OS X To Your Public Dropbox Folder With UpShot

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Dropbox is more than just a cloud drive; with an API that allows other apps to add Dropbox integration, it’s been used in a lot of unique ways. Not only does it make collaboration easier, it also allows developers to create apps that can sync their app data over to it. One of the more frequently used features of Dropbox is the public folder where you can upload files for public viewing. Anyone with the link to your files can view or download them, and they don’t even need to have a Dropbox account for this. UpShot is a free and open source Mac app that makes use of the public folder to share your screenshots publicly.  The app runs in the Menu Bar and while enabled, it automatically uploads the screenshots you take to your Dropbox public folder. Read More

Rearrange Windows To A Previously Recorded Layout On Mac With Slate

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Small screens don’t usually give you enough room for viewing multiple app windows side by side but a large screen does. Considering how big your screen is, you might be able to arrange two or three windows on it in any sort of arrangement. The only shortcoming with this is that you have to rearrange them each time you launch your apps. This is because while apps do remember their last window size, they don't keep track of their last position on the screen. Mac users on any version above Lion might find this a bigger problem since they have desktop spaces that apps can be assigned to, but the window arrangement is still not remembered. Slate is a free Mac app that partially handles this problem. It remembers the arrangement of windows in a single desktop space, and can restore it provided those apps are running. Read More

Sorter Runs Rule-Based File Actions On OS X Without Automater Or AppleScript

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Advanced Mac users can use AppleScripts to get a lot of things done. These simple scripts can be written to execute actions on files; files and apps can be opened or closed in response to another action, and processes can be started or ended. Not everyone can be good at writing scripts however and for the not-so advanced users, there are apps that help you automate functions like this. Sorter is a free app available in the Mac App Store that allows you to monitor folders for files and enter rules for executing actions like deleting or moving them, redirecting them to an Automator workflow, or running a script on them automatically. The app is useful for ordinary as well as power users. The rules you create with Sorter are executed manually or based on certain triggers, and there isn't any way to set the app to run them periodically, which might make it less useful for power users. However, this doesn't diminish its usability for the rest of us. Read More

How To Bring Back The Shortcuts Sidebar In iTunes 11 For Windows & Mac

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Let's face it, iTunes hasn't really been known for changing with times and adapting to newer UI trends. So it came as a rather pleasant surprise when the new iTunes 11 finally shed all its extra baggage and came up with a neat interface. Having said that, many users have become so accustomed to the older way of doing things that this update has really left them feeling lost. The biggest change in the interface is iTunes’ apparent breakup with the sidebar view. By default, the sidebar that houses all the important shortcuts in older versions of the suite is no longer there in iTunes 11. If you are really missing it though, you will be pleased to find out that Apple has just hidden it instead of removing it altogether, and you can easily bring it back just the way it was before. Read More

Hands-On With New Features In iTunes 11 [Review]

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In what might be the most delayed iTunes release from Apple ever, iTunes 11 was finally bumped to the users a few hours ago. The management suite’s major revamp was announced with the release of iOS 6, but it took a few months for it to actually become available. iTunes has always been unpopular, even with the most loyal Apple fans. With the recent update though, it is nice to see that almost all the issues that caused many horror stories of data loss and syncing failures have been addressed in the revamped interface. A lot of unpopular features (like Cover Flow and iTunes DJ) are gone and replaced by things that actually get the job done. Although still not perfect, iTunes’s iCloud integration is now much more comprehensible than before. In iTunes 11, Gift Cards can be scanned using a Mac or PC’s camera, which will surely save users a lot of bother in the upcoming holiday season. Read More