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Rucksack: A Better Way to Handle Archives on Mac OS X

I don’t know why, but there’s something wrong about Mac OS X and archives. As you may know Mac OS comes with an application called Archive Utility installed by default, and it’s pretty good when it comes to opening simple .zip archives. Problem is, Archive Utility totally sucks when the file isn’t encoded in zip or it’s a password protected archive. And if you consider that most of the files I download are encrypted .zip’s and .rar archives, you realize that I have a problem. So I decided to try something else. I installed the popular Unarchiver, good for .rar files, but unable to join split archives. I was about to give up.

Fast forward to this morning, my friend Dietmar from Green & Slimy sends a tweet about an app he’s been working on and that’s in beta: it’s called Rucksack. I open the link, I see a sexy website saying “the new iArchiver” and “…the new way to handle archives”. I download the .zip file. I unarchive it with Archive Utility. For the last time.

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Interview with Mike Matas

Great post over at Cocoia blog, where Sebastiaan has asked some questions to Mike Matas, former Delicious Library UI designer and worker at Apple. You’ve go to read this.

“My favorite designs are the ones that don’t just solve a problem, but also engage you on an emotional level—where you take away more from it than just the end result of its function.”

Touchpad Winners Announced

Thanks everyone for the comments on the Touchpad giveaway. Also, I’d like to thank Edovia for the 3 promo codes they gave to MacStories.

Here are the names of the winners:

Sidney Kochman

Abe Jellinek

jay

You’ll receive the code in your inbox in a few hours.

Cheers!

Movist: The Real Alternative to VLC for Mac

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.

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Iconlicious Launches: Beautiful Icons for Your Mac, 10 Apps Giveaway

Iconlicious.com, the joint venture of the graphic designers Marcelo Marfil and Emanuel Sà (I interviewed both, here and here), is finally online and public.

As you can read in the About page of the website “Iconlicious has worked in the past years with companies such as AppZapper, Bohemian Coding, Droplr, Embraceware, Phantom Fish, Sophiestication, Taptivate and Vemedio”, developers of the most beautiful apps I’ve ever reviewed on MacStories.

Iconlicious

Iconlicious

Iconlicious features some amazing freebies ready to download, a sneak preview of an upcoming app by BohemianCoding (which is gonna be great) and a giveaway of software to celebrate the official launch. Just head over the giveaway page and follow the rules.

Congratulations Iconlicious, we’re looking forward to your future works.

Give Your Mac Prettier 2D Dock, Stacks, Dock Menus and Expose Highlight with Inset

You probably already know that I like very much writing about cool modifications for Mac and iPhone. I usually find them on Ember, Iconpaper and MacThemes, three websites you should definitely check out if you’re into graphical customizations like me.

Today’s mod is called Inset (link to MacThemes post, link to author’s website) and it will install an alternate style for your dock (when in 2D), dock menus (right click on dock icons), exposè highlight, Stacks and Adium Contact List.

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MPlayer OS X Extended: The Best Alternative to VLC So Far?

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.

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