Be gone, iStat Menus
When iStat Menus went to version 3, the developer started charging for it. That’s fine. We wish them the best of luck in their venture. Unfortunately, they’re getting a bit annoying about it.
I stayed with the previous free version, because it is more than adequate for my needs. I’m simply not interested in upgrading. The app, though, won’t hear of this. On a regular basis, a message pops up in the middle of what I am doing to inform me that version 3 is out. I dismiss it by clicking on Skip This Version — but to no avail. It won’t die.
I mainly use the app because it makes it easy to configure the date and time in the menu bar, so I went looking for a freeware alternative. For now, I’ve settled on MagiCal. It’s not as polished as iStat Menus, but it does the trick and leaves me in peace.
Another alternative to iStat Menus — if you’re interested in the actual stats — is atMonitor, which we have reviewed previously. It approaches things from a different angle, but that could be a good thing.
Posted Thursday, May 6, 2010 in Suggestions
Suggestion: TimeMachineScheduler
Sometimes you want to decide for yourself when Time Machine kicks in. From the suggestion box, we learn of TimeMachineScheduler along with an explanation:
Since my Mac is in my bedroom, I hate it when my noisy external drive would start backing up in the middle night.
So does it work? Yes. Would we feel more comfortable about messing with Time Machine if it were a built-in setting from Apple? Definitely.
Posted Tuesday, March 16, 2010 in Suggestions
Suggestions: jEdit and Bluefish
For people who do computer programming or coding, the search for the ideal text editor can be a lifelong quest. Just when they think they’ve reached nirvana, they discover another text editor that just might be better.
On the Mac, the received wisdom is that the best freeware text editors are TextWrangler and Smultron. But if you’re willing to slightly expand your notion of the Mac universe, there are a couple of others that might fill that gnawing gap deep down inside.
From the suggestion box comes two ideas: jEdit and Bluefish. Both are cross-platform — and as such are not imbued the Mac interface sophistication that we take for granted.
jEdit is built with Java and Bluefish requires a package from Fink. In the past, I’ve been reluctant to recommend any program created with Java, because they’ve always seemed a bit flakey compared with native Mac apps. jEdit, though, is quite stable (with the latest Java update from Apple). I didn’t have the courage to install Bluefish, but the movies show some great features. For example, working with remote files looks quite easy.
The big question is whether either of these apps is worth the discomfort of working in an interface that is workmanlike at best. One advantage is that both are full featured and under constant development. In other words, the people behind these programs are giving it all they’ve got. TextWrangler, on the other hand, is a baby brother to BBEdit — a sort of loss leader offered with the hope that you’ll eventually upgrade. And Smultron, while open source, was basically a one-man show. That man got busy with other projects, and Smultron — while still quite good — will not advance unless someone else steps in.
While neither jEdit nor Bluefish will likely offer the holy grail that programmers dream of, they are both options worth considering — even if it’s only for occasional use when special needs arise.
Posted Wednesday, December 16, 2009 in Suggestions
Suggestion: pwgen
Wietse Venema emailed to let us know about his password generator with a difference — the passwords are easily memorized. Or so they say.
I tried creating a few passwords with pwgen (a name that betrays its Unix roots) to see if I could indeed remember them. A few minutes ago I generated choibiiB — and just typed it out from memory. OK, let’s try another one: I played with one of the thriftmac cats for awhile after generating quahZaiw. And there you go — I remembered it.
What makes these passwords easy to remember is that they can be pronounced, in their own bizarre way, as if they were real words. I’m not sure how it is that I remembered which letter was capitalized, but that somehow seemed to make sense as well — as if it were the syntax for a foreign language.
But have no fear: Wietse assures us that these passwords are also secure.
All in all, it’s a great idea. People often use insecure passwords for the simple reason that secure ones are too hard to remember. Thanks to pwgen, we’ll never again have this excuse.
Posted Tuesday, December 8, 2009 in Suggestions
Suggestion: SmallDVD
From the suggestion box:
Here’s a great piece of freeware I use all the time. It’s called SmallDVD, and you can find it here. I’ve been capturing old video and needed an app that would allow me to create DVDs for academic purposes. SmallDVD allows you to load your own static background menu, load your mpeg encoded video, position your buttons, and SmallDVD does the rest. I love this app.
Posted Friday, May 1, 2009 in Suggestions
Suggestion: RPTools
From the suggestion box:
I can’t believe this hasn’t shown up here before. This is a cross-platform RPG mapping and chat client of awesome proportions. Extremely flexible and easy to use. The site has great video tutorials that, while being a little out of date, easily provide more than just the basics of using this application. The main application is the maptools application (which is really just a java file) but there are a bunch of helper applications as well. Enjoy
Posted Wednesday, April 29, 2009 in Suggestions
Suggestion: Mahjong
Bernand Lerat dropped us a line to let everyone know about his Mahjong game. It has 120 levels and six themes: Christmas, Halloween, Asian, Easter, Wonderland and Future. The graphics are quite nice and the gameplay is what you’d expect from a matching-tiles game. Mahjong is shareware, and costs about $15 for a licence, but there are no restrictions and you can play for as long as you like without paying.
From the Mac freeware suggestion box.
Posted Saturday, April 4, 2009 in Suggestions
Suggestion: Zombie Holiday
Run and gun with lots of fun in this action game created by a game design student in England. I found the side-scrolling kinda tricky (lots of missed jumps), but the music, art and ’80s-retro atmosphere were irresistible.
From the Mac freeware suggestion box.
Posted Monday, March 30, 2009 in Suggestions
Suggestion: Autorate
I rated a few songs in iTunes years ago, then promptly forgot about this feature. So along comes Autorate to do the job for you. It rates songs based on how often a track is played and how often it is skipped — giving rewards for plays and penalties for skips. It should be noted, though, that you can already create a smart playlist in iTunes based on play count and when the song was last skipped. It’s not quite the same thing, but the option is there.
From the Mac freeware suggestion box.
Posted Sunday, March 29, 2009 in Suggestions
Suggestion: Dwarf Fortress
This ASCII adventure game has a huge following. The graphics may be simple, but the gameplay takes some brainpower. Download it here, but be sure to check out the wiki before you get started, or you may find yourself getting lost. (Update: the wiki link has been timing out, unfortunately.) Don’t let the complexity scare you — according to the suggestion box, “this game is amazing.”
Posted Tuesday, March 17, 2009 in Suggestions
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