Fusion and Carbon Productivity Bundle: 10 Lovely Apps for $29.99

‘Tis the season for Mac app bundles. Some are good, others are great and few are good enough to “fall in love with.” Fusion and Carbon have put together a productivity bundle appropriately described as “10 Reasons to Fall in Love and Get Things Done.” The bundle includes some of MacStories’ favorite Mac apps including Evernote & Sparrow Mail. If you tried purchasing the included apps individually you’d be paying nearly $360, so if you’re looking to add to your collection of Mac apps this is a terrific deal at just $29.99. The deal is only good for 6 more days, so share the love!

The Productivity Bundle includes:

  • Evernote Pro - Capture anything from pictures, notes, audio; access it anywhere you have access to a computer or mobile device; find everything fast with advanced tagging. The bundle deal includes 3 months of their Pro subscription (standard subscription is free). (our review)
  • Strongspace - A great backup solution to the cloud. Your precious data is always backed up, turn it on and you’re done. It even lets you share your files or a folder with one click. Like Time Machine, it also captures full snapshots of your data and if you need something you deleted, simply roll back.
  • Sparrow Mail - A minimal and fantastic alternative to Apple’s Mail.app. Sparrow has multiple account support and a unified inbox plus full IMAP support, notifications and more. (our review)
  • Carousel - Okay, maybe not every app in this bundle is for being productive but one needs a break, right? Browse your Instagram Feed, Popular and Profile photos with a choice of great app themes. Follow and explore users, like, comment, moderate comments, and more. Keyboard shortcuts to quickly traverse your feed, like, comment, and more. Drag & drop to save full-size photos to your Mac, or iPhoto. (our review)
  • Alarms - A super minimal alarm app that’s simple to use and fun. It notifies you of birthdays, sync tasks with iCal, supports Growl and has customizable keyboard shortcuts. (our review)
  • Flow - A web-based task management app that works in your browser, iPhone or email. There’s no syncing required and you can collaborate with anyone such as family, friends, and coworkers, all in one place. The bundle gives a 1 year subscription to new Flow users.
  • Koku - Easily manage all your personal finances by keeping track using the Direct Connect to safely download your transactions as they occur. You can also have your purchases tagged automatically.
  • Grasshopper - A virtual phone system designed for entrepreneurs that includes a toll free and local number with unlimited extensions. Call forwarding and voicemail is also included. Manage your account online or by phone with no hardware to purchase. The bundle gives your $100 credit towards their $9.95 and higher monthly plans.
  • Nottingham - Need an elegant notepad for your Mac? This app is designed to be lightweight and easy to use and it keeps all your data safe by syncing to your iPhone and the web via Simplenote.
  • Inbox Assistant - Extract meetings, tasks and other important events out of your emails while it automatically adds them to your calendar. Use Natural Language Processing for entry as well.

 

Apple Introduces Their Online Store For Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic and UAE

Apple customers in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and the United Arab Emirates can today finally purchase Apple products and accessories directly from the online Apple store. The introduction of the online stores in these respective countries is the first avenue in which Apple can directly sell products to consumers located in those countries. Apple has no physical Apple retail stores in these countries and did not previously operate an online store. Consequently, until today the only way to purchase an Apple product from within these countries has been from authorised Apple resellers or importing.

The introduction of the new Apple Stores is displayed prominently on the front of the respective Apple websites in the four countries. The United Arab Emirates banner is shown above, it features a welcome slogan and confetti streaming down in the nations colours. You can see the Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary versions below the break.

[Via MacRumors]

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Keep it Memorable, Stupid!

Image credit: Done by Emily Carlin on Flickr

KIMS, unlike KISS (Keep it simple, Stupid!), is removing the notion that we have to toss out our complicated, but memorable systems in favor of simple workflows. I think throwing away what works is the wrong way to go about changing your workflow or lifestyle for the better.

In looking for a simpler way to do something you’ll be presented with tools, pitched ideas, and told that your quality of life will be better if you take this system you have now and simplify it. I think the big problem is that people tend to confuse the words simple and minimalism. To say I should simplify my workflow is to say I should throw out my system because it’s inefficient. That might be true if I was to compare how productive I am to how productive you are. However, our jobs are likely different and even if they were the same, it’s like comparing how well I run to a guy who’s been running in marathons for the last twenty years. You can only accurately measure and reference yourself!

Where I make my case is that you shouldn’t toss a memorable system for the sake of minimalism. Text files for example are extremely minimal, but not many people want to go commando and start setting up areas of focus in Dropbox, when tags and journals in Evernote are much easier to manage for lots of people. You’re told you should do this thing because you’ll ultimately be more productive or you’ll remove a point of stress and clutter in your life, but I have a feeling that the transition and “attempt” (because you’ll never really stick with this minimal system) is going to be a point of stress itself.

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DaisyDisk Gets Lion Update with Full-Screen, FileVault 2 Support

DaisyDisk is a beautiful Mac app to monitor available space on your computer’s internal and external drives, allowing you to see what’s eating up your drive’s GBs (or TBs) and easily remove it. I’ve taken a look at how DaisyDisk fits in my backup workflow before, as well as the new features and design changes introduced in version 2.0, a major update released earlier this year.

With version 2.1 released today, DaisyDisk gets more Lion-friendly with support for full-screen mode, and FileVault 2. For those unaware of Apple’s new whole-disk encryption system for OS X Lion, you can read more in my review of the 13-inch MacBook Air, where I also ran some tests to compare a FileVault-less OS X installation versus one with encryption enabled. With FileVault 2 support, DaisyDisk is now capable of scanning and deleting files off encrypted drives, such as the one on my personal iMac. As you can see in the screenshots, my Mac HD shows up as “encrypted startup disk” in the main list of available drives, yet scanning it doesn’t reveal any difference from external, non-encrypted drives as far as the user experience goes. I was able to navigate between folders and drives, delete files, and rescan as administrator, although I haven’t been able to verify the “basic support for Resume” mentioned in this update’s changelog. The release notes also indicates a few bugs have been fixed, and graphical elements tweaked to make navigation more intuitive.

DaisyDisk 2.1 is available on the developers’ website both as $19.95 purchase and free trial. The DaisyDisk team, however, is running a limited-time 50% off promotion on the Mac App Store, where you can get the app at $9.99. Read more

Apple Tweaks Italy Prices As VAT Rises to 21%

Apple’s online store with updated prices

Apple today took down its online store in Italy, raising prices for several products in order to account for Italy’s increase of value-added tax (VAT,  known as IVA – “imposta sul valore aggiunto” – in Italy) from 20% to 21% as part of the recently approved austerity bill.

iOS devices have seen a small bump in prices with the 1% VAT increase. The 16 GB iPad 2, for instance, rises from € 479 to € 483; the 32 GB and 64 GB models have changed to € 583,83 and € 684,65, respectively. The entry-level iPhone 4 rises from € 539 to 543,50; the iPod touch goes from € 239 to € 241. The iPod line sees another minor bump with the iPod nano (€ 169 to € 170,40), iPod shuffle (€ 55 to € 55,45) and iPod classic (€ 247 to € 249,05). The Apple TV goes from € 119 to € 120.

As for the Mac, the biggest change can be seen in the standard configuration of the Mac Pro, updated from € 2399 to € 2419. Apple’s online store just came back online, and its VAT (IVA) footnote still reports 20%. Changes, however, can be compared in the screenshots above and below.

When the UK’s VAT rate changed from 17.5% to 20% earlier this year, Apple took down its online store to modify the prices accordingly, without absorbing the tax increase by reducing their prices.

Apple’s online store before the VAT increase

[image via setteB.IT]

Get Cooking with Belkin iPad Kitchen Accessories

Building a new house involves more decisions that an NFL season, seriously. For anyone that has done it, you know what I mean. One of the biggest decisions for our new house was the design of the kitchen, we wanted it to be very open and face the great room. It has given my wife and I many opportunities to explore new options for our home including modern household technologies. My wife loves to cook and she’s a great cook at that. She cooks healthy and finds alternative ways to twist a classic recipe into a killer meal while keeping your waistline from exploding. Being a good cook is more than knowing what spices and ingredients to use, it’s the tools that you use that makes you more efficient, just like computing on a Mac or iOS device.

Belkin has just released 3 new iPad kitchen accessories and they look great! The Chef Stand + Stylus includes a washable stand that is designed to get a little dirty from food, etc. It includes a stylus that has a utensil-like end that provides an easy grip and lets you navigate recipes on your iPad without having to touch the screen. The magnetic tip can be used to wake up an iPad 2 as well. The Chef Stand + Stylus is $39.99

The next kitchen accessory is the Fridge Mount for iPad 2. It can be mounted on your fridge’s door (or anywhere actually) by using 3M Command Strips, and it uses the iPad 2′s magnets to hold it in place. The Fridge Mount is $39.99

The third accessory is the Kitchen Cabinet Mount. It is easily installed without any tools by clamping to any cabinet or shelf while holding the iPad in place and away from the counter top and lets you work without having to hold your iPad. The Cabinet Mount is $49.99

Cooking apps certainly have a niche in the app market: there are many people that use their iPad for storing and exploring their recipe collections. Both the Cabinet Mount and the Chef Stand + Stylus look very appealing for our new kitchen and I think they would look great sitting on our bar or under the cabinet next to the pantry. The stylus is what I like the best, it’s universal to all these accessories. It doesn’t need to be pencil thin, and having a wide grip like a great kitchen utensil is welcome in our kitchen any day. While these won’t make you a better cook, they give you an extra hand in the kitchen. I don’t think I can coerce my wife into transferring her grandmother’s hand written cake recipes over to digital, but we can agree that these will be great additions to our new kitchen.

Belkin’s new kitchen accessories get even sweeter. Starting today through September 30th, all Belkin accessories, including these new kitchen items, are 50% off with coupon code FB50. Head over to Belkin and cash in on this great deal!

[via MacRumors]

Latest Chrome Stable Gets Native Lion Scrollbars and Full-Screen

Back in early August we reported the bleeding-edge version of Google Chrome, Chrome Canary, had been updated to include native full-screen mode and scrollbars on OS X Lion, which was released on July 20th on the Mac App Store. The Chrome team rushed to have a version of Canary fully compatible with the new OS, and we noted their implementation of full-screen was different from the average OS X app: Chrome allowed for two different toolbar / no toolbar modes triggered by a “curtain” icon at the top. With such implementation, the Chrome team made sure developers could test “real” full-screen mode with only the actual content of a webpage displayed, and a second option to see content + toolbars (tabs, bookmarks, etc).

The latest stable version of Chrome, released today, brings these Lion changes (and other bug fixes) to regular users, alongside other new features detailed on Google’s official blog. Most notably, Chrome stable has now access to the Native Client, a way for Chrome to execute C and C++ code inside the browser. The Native Client only supports applications from the Chrome Web Store for now, but Google is looking into supporting more platforms. Another technical change in this new stable release is the Web Audio API, which “enables developers to add fancy audio effects such as room simulation and spatialization”.

You can get the latest Chrome stable release here, and check out a brief explanation of the Native Client after the break. Read more

Apple Details Thunderbolt Display Connection Options

 

With a new support document [via] posted earlier this afternoon, Apple details some of the connection options for the 27-inch Thunderbolt Display, now shipping to customers who bought it after it was announced, and close to retail availability. The document in particular outlines some daisy-chaining options for the display and different Mac models, specifying which ones can connect to multiple monitors at once. For those users who want to daisy-chain Thunderbolt devices and a display, Apple recommends to connect the Thunderbolt Display to a Thunderbolt port on a Mac, and start daisy-chaining off that for “best performances”.

A note of interest from this document is that Mini DisplayPort displays won’t work if connected to the Thunderbolt Display, thus removing any possibility of daisy-chaining with old Mini DisplayPort interfaces and the newest Thunderbolt.

Mini DisplayPort displays will not light up if connected to the Thunderbolt port on an Apple Thunderbolt Display (27-inch).

MacBook Air (Mid 2011): Supports one Thunderbolt display.

MacBook Pro (Early 2011): Supports two Thunderbolt displays. The 13” MacBook Pro has a different “expected behavior” in that the screen will turn black if a second Thunderbolt Display is connected.

iMac (Mid 2011 and Late 2011): Supports two Thunderbolt displays. iMac (27-inch, Mid 2011) with two Thunderbolt ports supports a total of two Thunderbolt displays “regardless of which Thunderbolt port each display is connected to”.

Mac mini (Mid 2011): Supports two Thunderbolt displays. Mac mini with AMD graphics can support a HDMI compatible device on its HDMI port when using two Thunderbolt displays.

The support document is available here. The 27-inch Thunderbolt Display still reports shipping times of 2-3 weeks on Apple’s online store. Read more