Vienna 2.5 beta
If you’ve ever wanted to tweet or post to Facebook from your news reader, be sure to check out the beta for the next version of the open source Vienna.
We tried it, and — despite the app being in beta — the features worked flawlessly. When you’re in a story you want to share, simply click on one of three icons in the tool bar for Twitter, Facebook and Evernote. You’ll be taken to the site of the service you’ve chosen, with the URL of the story you want to share ready for posting.
Perhaps more exciting than this sharing feature is the advent of plugin capabilities. So far, two types are supported: link plugins that allow sharing of the type described above for Twitter, Facebook and Evernote, and script plugins that allow you to run defined actions through AppleScript.
Plugins are apparently easy to create — no programming expertise is needed. So who knows what cool stuff the Vienna community will dream up. Maybe I could finally figure out how to create my dream script: a button that marks all the stories in a feed as read.
Posted Thursday, February 11, 2010 in Updates
Handbrake .94
The developers of Handbrake have a habit of adding the tiniest increments possible to new versions of the popular software. Perhaps it’s from an undue sense of modesty, because the latest release of this freeware video transcoder is not only 64-bit, but brings in 1,000 changes. Infinite Loop has the details.
Posted Friday, November 27, 2009 in Updates
NetNewsWire out of beta and into ads
The final release of NetNewsWire 3.2 is out and, as expected, ads now appear in the bottom left-hand corner. The ones I’ve seen so far aren’t particularly irksome — basically just a bit of text. I suppose there will also be some using images that could be more distracting. One concession to ad haters is that they are now just 90 pixels tall — half the original 180 pixels.
Another concession, of course, is that you can pay $10 and have the ads removed entirely. In fact, when you first fire up NetNewsWire, an ad appears informing you of this option. It only lasts a few seconds, though, so it’s easy to miss. You can also pay by clicking on Buy NetNewsWire in the NetNewsWire menu. I found it strange that the eSellerate store you connect to doesn’t mention that ads will be removed. It might make some people wonder if they’re in the right place.
There remains, however, the sticking point of what to do — if anything — for people who paid for NetNewsWire before it became free. There is no mention of a solution at the nwbeta blog, so it looks like they (I among them) are out of luck.
During the brouhaha over ads, I decided to take Vienna for a spin and found it to be a perfectly acceptable alternative. Would I go back to NetNewsWire? Other than inertia, there’s really no reason not to. The ads don’t bother me a bit and I refuse to maintain a lifelong bitterness over a payment I made years ago.
Posted Thursday, September 24, 2009 in Updates
ToyViewer 5
Some pretty good alternatives to Photoshop have come out recently, including Pixelmator and Acorn. They cost a lot less, but still do a great job of image editing.
Don’t forget, though, that there are freeware alternatives. GIMP is the best known even though it tends to put people off with its steep learning curve. Seashore is much nicer to work with, but develop seems to have dropped off.
So it’s heartening to see that the venerable ToyViewer is still alive and kicking with an upgrade that takes it to version 5. We’re not sure how its Japanese developers came up with the odd name, but if you’re willing to get past that, there are a lot of great features — including compatibility with Snow Leopard.
One of the most impressive things about ToyViewer is its ability to handle several image formats. Yes, you can even display your Photoshop files.
Posted Friday, September 18, 2009 in Updates
Notational Velocity 2 beta
From Daring Fireball:
Notational Velocity is a hidden gem of an app for the Mac, by Zachary Schneirov. It’s a lean, mean, and truly minimal note app, with an interface that emphasizes minimizing friction. Easy to search, easy to create new notes
I always thought of this app as an oldie-but-a-goodie. But here it is with a bunch of new features — not to mention open source. Great to see.
Posted Sunday, September 13, 2009 in Updates
One more update for Smultron
Peter Borg has said he no longer has time to work on Smultron, but he must have taken pity on Snow Leopard users because he has a beta out that addresses issues introduced by Apple’s latest OS.
Posted Saturday, September 12, 2009 in Updates
iStat Menus 2.0
The good news is that iStat Menus 2 brings compatibility with Snow Leopard. This has long been one of my freeware favourites because of its ability to customize the the date and time in the menu bar — not to mention providing a handy popdown calendar.
The bad news is that I can’t get it to install, and I’m not the only one. So here’s hoping for a fix.
It’s long been a pet peeve of mine that Macs were incapable of showing both the date and time in the menu bar. And with Snow Leopard, it’s becoming an obsession. Yes, you can now display the date along with the time, but only in a truncated version (e.g. Thu Sep 3) that is hardly in keeping with the elegance of the system. To get a proper date (e.g. Thursday, September 3, 2009), you have to click on the menu bar. Why not just have it show up this way in the first place?
Posted Thursday, September 3, 2009 in Updates
Spiffy new icon for Cyberduck
Version 3.3 of Cyberduck (still in beta) brings our favourite freeware FTP client up to date for Snow Leopard and heralds a new application icon.
While we’re glad to see Cyberduck will soldier on under Apple’s latest OS, we were intrigued by the new icon. As you may know, one of the features of Snow Leopard is the ability of the Finder to display icons in ginormous view — that’s 512-by-512 pixels for you sticklers. Dietmar Kerschner gets the credit for megasizing the rubber ducky, and he’s done a great job.
The shading is better defined and the eyes are positioned in a more natural pose. It could be argued, though, that the old one has more of the worn look you’d expect from a well-used toy, especially around the wings. Judge for yourself. The old icon is above and the new one is below.
Posted Saturday, August 29, 2009 in Updates
So that's what happened to iGTD
Cultured Code has posted an item welcoming former iGTD developer Bartek Bargiel to the fold to work on Things. So now we know for sure iGTD has hit the end of the road. It’s bad news for freeware lovers, because iGTD was (and still is in some ways) one of the best free apps in its class. Things, by contrast, costs $49.95. But it’s good news for Bargiel, and we wish him the best of luck in his new career.
Posted Friday, August 28, 2009 in Updates
TextWrangler 3.0
Now that Smultron is no longer being developed, it falls to TextWrangler to take on the mantle of best freeware text editor for the Mac. The developers at Bare Bones have risen to the challenge with an update that offers a huge number of new features — in fact it’s bit overwhelming.
Posted Tuesday, August 25, 2009 in Updates
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