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Yesterday I wrote this post about MPlayer OS X Extended and many people in the comments and on Twitter told me I was wrong, that there was another alternative to VLC, and it wasn’t the app I talked about. It’s always a great thing when you guys suggest me new apps to try and write about.
The app is called Movist, is hosted (again) on Google Code and it’s media player for Mac OS X based on Quicktime and FFMpeg.
Mac users are lucky. We get all kinds of toys to play with if we ever want to take screenshots, with Littlesnapper and Skitch coming to mind as the two most prominent apps available. Techsmith, the same guys who make Camtasia Studio, felt that there was room for one more. And I must admit it’s really pretty (I’m a sucker for eye-candy).
I use VLC as my media player of choice on my Mac. Although Quicktime is a great app which provides a good dose of eye candy as well, VLC is compatible with almost every format out of the box - without the need of installing any additional plugin.
It’s simple, it’s straightforward and it becomes beautiful if you apply the Blackpearl mod. But today I’d like to talk about the new kid on the block of media players for Mac, MPlayer.
While I first passed it off as a gimmick, My Living Desktop is one of those applications that you just have to see for yourself before passing judgement. It’s interesting to note that while it doesn’t promise to increase your productivity (or really anything for that matter), those looking to transport themselves to another world during work or play might find this application of great use.
Do you know which Mail.app’s features I use more? Search and mailboxes. The basic functions, yet the most powerful I could ever ask for to get things done with my messages. Pretty much as if someone tells you he loves folders and Spotlight, I can’t live without these two simple things. But good things can always get better. What’s simple can be evolved, refined, made more powerful while still maintaining its original simplicity at the core. Take a look at your running machine, because its operating system is the best example of what I’m talking about.
I’ve already written about a great plugin for Mail I’ve recently discovered, it’s called MsgFiler and it lets me quickly move messages around without leaving my keyboard. And that’s for mailboxes. Now, what about the search function? While smart collections are indeed a great way to easily retrieve messages based on some user-assigned criteria, still I can’t find a better solution than the classic search bar when it comes to find messages. Either by content or original author, it usually takes between 10 and 20 seconds for me to find the information I’m looking for (an email address, a name, a macro) and use it somewhere else. I wish there was another way that combined with the simplicity of ⌘ + F and more advanced features like boolean operators and filters, as I really can’t stand clicking on those buttons in the toolbar. Turns out the in the same moment I was thinking about this stuff a rocket was launching.
It’s called Rocketbox, and brings email searching to a new level.
I have a huge email library. I tend to keep every important message that I receive and move it to a folder or sub-folder. Indeed, despite all the people that seem to appreciate those applications that let you assign tags to mails in order to browse everything with tags, I still think the folder structure puts every other solution to shame. I just couldn’t think of any other way to store and organize messages right now, but maybe Apple will prove me wrong someday. Anyway, considering that I daily mess with dozens of messages and I’ve got to move each message to a different folder, I was looking for some app that would have made the process easier, faster and almost invisible. Many followers suggested me to try Mail Act-on, but after a brief test I have to say Act-On is aimed at people who have 40 + folders.
It’s surely a feature rich application with a lot of stuff you can play with, but I wanted something simpler, an app that could let me move messages in a few steps without leaving the keyboard.
Meet MsgFiler.
CoverSutra has been around for a long time. Over it’s several revisions, it’s seen some new features, and a whole lot of bug fixes. With all the revisions it’s gone through, it’s got to be one of the least-buggy applications I have ever used.
Find out why.
It’s not a secret that many web designers and developers out there are on a Mac platform. Especially in 2009, it seems like many professionals and freelancers have switched from Windows to Mac OS X in order to have better performances, security and, most of all, more time to do stuff. They wanted to save time, they wanted to avoid those virus and malware crappy things Windows has - for this reason many people did the “big” switch and bought a Mac. You can’t blame them: with tools such as Coda, Textmate, Textexpander and the famous Pixelmator, they had every good reason to switch to a Mac computer. Now, besides web development and graphic applications, what about the software that can help managing the financial and invoicing aspect of a freelancing job?
Today I’d like to talk about Billings from Marketcircle, an award winning app for Mac and iPhone which is gonna be your one step solution for anything freelancing related.
The Action Method is a task-management system provided by the company Behance that’s available to use through the web, an iPhone application, and print products. Since more and more people turn to such products to keep track of their tasks and projects, it’s time to take a look at this system as an alternative to other project management software like Basecamp and Active Collab. (disclaimer: As with all PM systems, the Action Method is robust and complex. This review touches on the surface, so check out the free demo to see all it has to offer.)
