Tag Archives: Mac OS X

Shortcat Lets You Interact With Apps & Buttons Using Only Your Keyboard [Mac]

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Desktop computers need two essential input devices; a mouse and a keyboard. If you use a desktop computer, you’ve subconsciously developed a system that tells you when to switch between a mouse and keyboard. You hardly think twice about which input device you’re going to use, and unless you’re using complex software, you will never have to rethink how you interact with your system. Generally speaking, the mouse is used to scroll and click buttons i.e. perform GUI actions and the keyboard is used to mainly input text and occasionally execute certain commands. Shortcat is an app that aims to end or minimize your usage of the mouse by making your keyboard smarter. It is activated via a keyboard shortcut and works with any selected app. The app lets you hit buttons without having to switch to the mouse; you just need to type in the action text on a button and hit enter. Read More

AudioSwitcher: Quickly Switch Between Audio Devices & Set Input/Output Volume [Mac]

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Switching between audio input and output devices on Mac isn’t that hard. If you plug in a pair of headphones, it automatically detects and sets it as the default output device. If you have multiple devices connected to your Mac, you can hold down the Option key, click the volume icon in the Menu Bar and switch to another source. Strictly speaking, this is probably as much as the average user needs. For users with slightly more complex needs, including frequently switching to different audio input or output devices, you might even find holding down the Option key a bit inconvenient. AudioSwitcher is a small utility for OS X that allows you to quickly switch between audio input and output devices connected to your Mac. Not only that, it also allows you to control the volume for input and output separately without having to visit System Preferences. Read More

Set Follow-Up Reminders For Important Emails With RSVP For OS X

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Going through every unread email in your inbox everyday is how many people start the day, but going through new mail isn’t enough. Often emails from the previous day need to be followed up on, and it takes time to go through the old ones too to check which ones you were expecting a reply for. Even if you overlook the time you spend going through these emails, you can’t brush off the consequences of overlooking important emails, which is why you need a smarter way to keep track of them. RSVP is a Mac app, worth $1.99 on the Mac App Store, that lets you keep track of emails you haven’t received a reply for yet, so that you may send a follow-up mail to check on your recipient. The app beats out general reminder apps as it works with the Mail app and doesn’t ask you to copy a message to it first. It links to the original email so you don’t have to search for it when a reminder pops up. Reminders can be deactivated or snoozed. Read More

Batch Find & Replace Text In TXT And RTF Files With Replacr For OS X

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The Find and Replace option that you will find in text editors is a great and super easy way to make corrections in a document and to ensure that you don’t miss out any of the words you meant to correct. Some of the less feature-rich editors might not have the replace function, but  they still have the Find function. Now, imagine you have a bunch of documents, each with the same recurring mistake. While it sounds unlikely, it can actually happen when templates are used to create documents. This could include mistakes in address, phone number or email that might have been part of the footer or header text. In situations like this, you have little choice other than to correct each document one by one. Replacr is a Mac app worth $4.99 that allows you to find and replace text in multiple files. Files do not have to be opened individually and the text to be replaced is also only entered once. For now, the app supports only text files and not PDFs or DOC/DOCX files. Read More

Poptagram Shows Specific Tagged Instagram Photos At Regular Intervals [Mac]

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Instagram is a more-than-familiar name for most amateur photographers, and its user-base has definitely grown with the app being launched for Android OS and the company’s acquisition by Facebook. All this means more pictures are being uploaded. There’s quite a few Instagram browsers available for desktop platforms, but since there isn’t an official app, you will find a host of unofficial ones. Poptagram is yet another free Instagram app for OS X that allows you to search Instagram using a single hashtag. The app then regularly checks for new images that have the same tag, and shows them in the top-right corner of your screen. It's like a bulletin for the latest tagged Instagram images. Read More

Easily Capture Selected Screen Area & Save It To Pictures Folder With EasyScreenCrop [Mac]

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Mac OS X has possibly one of the best built-in screenshot tools you can find on a desktop OS. It trumps the simple Print Screen method for capturing the screen in Windows by allowing users to capture the entire screen, an active window or just a selected area of the screen. Despite the screen capturing tool being fairly sophisticated, there are plenty of alternatives available for the same purpose. Some apps allow users to capture and annotate screenshots as well as upload them to a cloud service for quick sharing, while others are fairly simple like EasyScreenCrop, which offers a single functionality; capturing a selected area of the screen. Worth $0.99 in the Mac App store, it might seem a tad pricey since it does only one trick. The application only supports PNG format, and saves images to your Pictures folder as soon as you capture them. Unlike the default screenshot tool, it doesn't require you to use the exhaustive hotkey combination for capturing the screen, instead you can capture the selected screen area using just the left click. Read More

Add Custom File & Folder Actions & Access Them From Menu Bar With MenuBrowser

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There are quite a few app launchers available for Mac and almost equal number of apps that give you easy access to your frequently used files, folders and apps, but seldom do we come across an app that makes it easier to access these items as well as the context menu options. Context menu options mean more than just copying or pasting files and include other options like adding a file as an email attachment. MenuBrowser is a free Mac app that does all this with only one catch; some actions prompt you to upgrade and buy a $5 license to stop the prompts. You can dismiss the prompt and continue to use the app to its full potential, but if you find it extremely useful, you may want to get rid of these interruptions. You can add actions for opening a file with any app, adding a file as an attachment, sending it over Skype and adding custom scripts for file and folder actions. Read More

Automatic Launch Object Detection: Monitor Launch Agent Activity In Mac

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Until only recently, an infected Mac was unheard of, but viruses and malware have both grown smarter and are able to find exploits where they previously didn’t appear to exist. One common way that Mac computers get infected with malware is that they use Launch Agent scripts. The script tells your Mac to load the malware and unbeknownst to you, you have an infected machine. Since the Launch Agent is there, it repeatedly loads/executes the malware. Of course, once it’s running, it can always install or copy more items on your Mac and it is already a little too late to do anything about it. All this is possible with a simple Launch agent. Automatic Launch Object Detection for Mac OS X is a free Mac utility that monitors folders on your Mac and alerts you each time a new launch agent is added. Read More

AppKiller: Kill Mac Apps, Processes & Send BSD Signals From Menu Bar

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Advanced Mac users often make changes to the OS via Terminal commands. For some of the simpler options, there are apps available that allow novice users (ones who don’t venture to Terminal) to make these same changes through a graphical UI. For advanced users though, the Terminal really is one of the preferred places to go when a system tweak is to be applied. AppKiller is a free Mac app that has been designed for both novice and advanced users. The name is slightly misleading though, since it doesn’t just kill apps, but also system processes, and provides an easy way to quit/restart the Finder, AirPrintDaemons, AirPort Utility etc. AppKiller executes commands in one of two ways; either by a click, or via Control + Click symbol. For each executable function, you can set one default action from the app’s preferences. It includes a number of BSD signals that you can send to an active app or process. The app’s response will of course depend on how it’s written and how it treats the BSD signal. Read More

Vienna: RSS Feed Reader With Integrated Browser & Social Sharing [Mac]

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RSS feed readers aren't confined to just working in your web browser, and if you look at the feed reading apps available for Mac, you will find a lot of creative ways to follow a single or multiple RSS feeds. Vienna is a free RSS feed reader for Mac that imports feeds from your Google account, has a built in web browser (does not support Flash) and allows you to share items you find interesting on Buffer, Twitter, Evernote, Delicious and Facebook from within the app. Vienna is simple; there aren't a whole lot of features, but as far as RSS readers go, it works well and allows you to customize the appearance of text. Articles can be sorted by date, author or title. The built-in browser supports tabs and the app’s search feature supports Google Images, Twitter, Wikipedia and Google in addition to allowing you to search a single or all feeds. Read More

Crop, Stretch & Set A Single Background Across Multiple Mac Displays With Multi Monitor Wallpaper

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Working with multiple monitors on Mac OS X takes a little adjusting to; managing windows and having the taskbar and dock on only one display are just some things that need getting used to. While working with multiple displays involves window management tools and perhaps a more efficient app launcher and switcher, one aspect that is often ignored, is the wallpaper. OS X does not split or divide the wallpaper across the two (or more) screens you’re using; rather, it adds the wallpaper separately as a separate image to each one. Multi Monitor Wallpaper is a Mac App worth $1.99 in the Mac App store that lets you cut an image and set it as a wallpaper that spans over both screens. The app lets you use an image on your hard disk or search your Flickr stream for something widescreen and suitable. Read More

View Facebook Account Activity In Mac OS X Notification Center With Glow for FB

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Fall isn’t too far away now, and that means Facebook integration will be arriving soon to OS X Mountain Lion. For those who can’t wait or haven’t upgraded to Mountain Lion because an older version of OS X seems better, you might still be interested in having easy access to your Facebook notifications. Facebook integration, like Twitter counterpart, is something that you aren’t likely to realize the utility of unless you experience it the way it is in Mountain Lion. However, if you'd take our word for it, it’s pretty amazing. Glow for FB is a Mac app worth $0.99 in the Mac App Store that emulates what it would be like to have Notification Center alerts for your Facebook activity. While it doesn't offer the system wide integration that will be offered in Mountain Lion, it still lets you stay up to date with your Facebook notifications without having to open them in your browser. The benefit here is two fold; on one hand, you get your notifications easily, and on the other, you won’t end up wasting more time than you meant to by getting caught up with your feed. Read More

Get RSS Feed Alerts In Mountain Lion Notification Center With News Notifications

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OS X Mountain Lion's Notification Center is largely dependent on other apps supporting it, and since not many do, we’ve seen an influx of apps that redirect Growl notifications to Notification Center. The Notification Center presents a lot of opportunity for app development and for users it is an excellent feature that they would likely want to put more creative uses. Since there is nothing wrong with Growl and a new version of the app for Mountain Lion has recently been submitted to the Mac App Store, you can rest assured it isn’t going anywhere. That leaves you with Notification Center and a world of possibilities. Demonstrating just one of the many uses you can put Notification Center to is News Notifications, a Mac app worth $0.99 in the Mac App Store that lets you put RSS feeds in the Notification Center. Read More

Amelita: Use Context Menu Options From The Mac Menu Bar

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Right-click context menu shows the app-related settings and options in a menu, and that's why the options we see vary accordingly. Some options in the context menu are recurring, but being the context menu, it needs to be called separately in each app. Amelita is a free Mac app that runs in the menu bar and consolidates context menu options. It includes several of its own functions that allow you to send a command from one app to the other without having to launch the applications. A very common example of this would be text copied to your clipboard. You can paste this text to a number of apps, and Amelita makes it easier to do so. Pasting is of course an option you have available in the system context menus; Amelita also adds additional options that can be used with different apps. Read More

Jotta: Cloud Storage That Lets You Recover Accidentally Deleted Data

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Backing up your important files is more important than most people think. For instance, one's Outlook can crash anytime, media files can go missing in an instant and those confidential documents always ask for some place safer. One of the most common things most people do whenever doing backups, is to store the data on local storage medium. However, the fact is that cloud services are not only safer, but often cheaper, too. No longer you need to carry thumb drives, optical media or moving plates to keep tabs on backup copies, when you can already store data to online locations with instantaneous remote access. Jotta is a cloud based online backup service that might help you in keeping your personal files safe and secure. Akin to most cloud services, such as Dropbox or SkyDrive, Jotta offers multiple subscription plans, including a free user account with 5GB of cloud storage. The service’s client application is available for both desktop and mobile platforms, as well as a Web API. Read More

Disk Scope: Scan Mac Hard Disk & System Libraries For Memory Usage [Mac]

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Disk space fills up as time passes and while this is to be expected, cleaning it out isn’t easy. It’s hard to track down which folder is consuming the most space. To help determine memory usage on a Mac, there are tools like DaisyDisk and DiskScanner, both of which present a graphical view of space consumption by folder. What both these apps have in common is that they drill memory usage down to the folder, but some users consume more space in the system libraries, i.e., the downloads, documents, Applications, Pictures, Music etc. If you would prefer a simpler breakdown of memory consumption for these folders only, Disk Scope is a free Mac app that does the trick. It scans a hard drive and displays memory consumed both graphically and numerically, additionally letting you clear your Mac’s cache. Read More

Notee: Synchronize Text Notes Between Windows, Mac And The Cloud

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Note-taking is a highly productive activity, and when it comes to jotting down your notes and appointments, Evernote is simply an unparalleled contender (okay, there’s also OneNote, but then again, it’s not available for free). Evernote has flourished the concept of how we can annotate and synchronize our work across different devices, making it at our disposal wherever we go. We have covered plentiful alternative note management applications for all major platforms as well, such as CintaNotes, which syncs notes in real-time via Dropbox. Today, we have another one for you called Notee. Akin to Evernote, the application effectively syncs your notes and other agenda between Windows and Mac machines (no Android or iOS love yet). Along with that, it provides remote storage access through the web browser, for which you’d obviously need a Notee user account first. Read More

Grandview Is A Writing Pad For The Easily Distracted

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Distractions during work are normal, but there are some tasks that fall prey to procrastination more easily than others, and writing is at the top of the list. When you’re writing, it’s just you and your thoughts, and a text editor. In times like these everything from organizing the mess of icons on your desktop to adjusting your screen so that there is minimum glare seems like an extremely important task that should be done before you’re comfortable enough to start writing. Grandview is a free Mac app that gives you a distraction-free writing space. The ‘space’ is basically a big blank white void on your screen where you write; you can write such that you see a whole sentence once it’s complete or you can see the sentence as you type it. Read More

Hot Mouse Flower Is A Hotkey-Triggered Virtual Keyboard For OS X

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Working productively is not just a careful balance of how many times you’re going to check Facebook and look at cats between getting some actual work done. It also involves finding a comfortable arrangement to work with your mouse and keyboard. Not that this is difficult for the average user who can easily switch between using a mouse and keyboard without trouble. Conversely, if you use programs that require you to switch between the two devices very frequently (perhaps in Photoshop) it gets frustrating after a while particularly if you’re working with additional programs. Hot Mouse Flower is a free Mac app that puts a virtual keypad triggered by a hotkey on your screen. The keypad is arranged in a disc and the keys listed are the Function keys, a few letter keys and additional characters. Read More

Simple ShutDown Timer: Schedule Mac Shutdown, Restart & Sleep

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Mountain Lion’s new features have earned a lot of attention and plenty of detailed coverage online. As far as new features go, Mountain Lion is one kitty that loves to nap, so much so that you need a Terminal command to stop Mountain Lion from going to sleep. If you aren’t that crazy about going to Terminal and then calculating the exact number of seconds needed to delay your system going to sleep, you will be glad to know there’s an app for that. Simple ShutDown Timer is a Mac app worth $0.99 that not only lets you schedule what time your system goes to sleep, but also allows you to schedule a system shutdown and restart. You have the option to choose both the date and time to set up a system sleep or shutdown schedule. Additionally, it requires your account password to create a schedule, preventing guest users from scheduling the system sleep and shutdown task. The app is available on a trial that allows you to run the app for only ten times before you have to buy a license. Read More