Another great result of Adobe AIR 1.0 and Adobe Flex 3. If you haven’t tried the new cross platform runtimes, I suggest you get to it. You are missing out on some really great stuff. (link)
Food is a way in which most of us actually survive, RSS feeds are yet another way in which the other 3% of us are able to live. Snackr is just that, a tasty little treat before the main course. It runs along the side or at the bottom of your desktop giving you a little taste of what awaits, it also gives you a preview of every article that is contained in your regular RSS feed reader. If you happen to see something scrolling by that interests you, but don’t have time to break out Net News Wire, click it. Snackr will stop and pop out the particular article that’s caught your eye. It even gives you the option to view the article on it’s respective web site.
I believe I can survive a bit longer with a little Snackr.(link)
Thanks to my starving desire to view the beautiful, I set out on yet another desktop wallpaper hunt just last evening and discovered not only one, but two really great little additions to make my Leopard working environment more delicious.
I don’t think this is particularly new, but I do know that I’m extremely smitten with VladStudio’s Wallpaper Clocks application and Wallpaper for Mac. When you work on a computer day in and day out, you tend to grow weary of looking at the same view. I absolutely love all of VladStudio’s wallpaper designs and this is usually the first place I go when I need a change of scenery. I was in a particularly grandiose mood, so I decided to check out the wall clocks section. I do wish I had stopped to take a look at it before, because I really didn’t know what I was missing. The collaborative issue of VladStudio and Softshape Development have brought us this wonderful application that refreshes every minute to keep you informed of the exact time and date and not in the usual way…
The application itself is very easily obtainable from the menu bar and with one click, you can change your wall clock or even get a new one. (link)
When I thought things just couldn’t get any better, my joyful mood became almost euphoric as I came upon the Word Clock Screensaver for Mac by Simon Heys. I guess I’ve got a fetish with time or clocks or maybe I’m just trying to remember what time it might be?
With this little morsel, you can indulge your senses with custom background, foreground and topography color options, precision screen sizing and my personal favorite, choice of any font in your library. I know you are probably thinking, FONT for TIME… Yes, it’s a topographic display of every possible date and time in sentences, down to each second being highlighted in your color of choice. (link)
Maybe I’m not like most, but I like my software free. I’ll search and search for a free alternative before breaking out my checkbook to spend money for something that doesn’t even end up functioning the way in which I need it to.
I recall my Windoze daze many moons ago, when I first started writing software. During that crazy time I read a book by the infamous David Platt, Why Software Sucks…and what you can do about it. I throughly enjoyed the book and I reflect back to it from time to time even now. Something that rings in the back of my mind whenever faced with a difficult software decision; number one, is this software easy to use? number two, does this software do everything that I need it to do? number three, is it pleasant to look at? number four, has the developer used every resource available to make the application as small as possible? I know you are probably thinking, why go to all that trouble just to find and use the “perfect” software, or is there even such a thing? In my experience, it’s all worth it when you happen upon software that is, what I consider, truly perfect.
DMGConverter by Sunskysoft is such software. In comparison to some of the commercial alternatives such as DMG Architect at $29.99 by Sourcebits or DropDMG by C-Command Software at $20.00, better yet DropStuff included in the Stuffit Deluxe Package for a whopping $79.99 were not exactly what I would call even close seconds. I’ve gone to such lengths as to try Springy by Dragan Milić which had a handy contextual menu feature, but although listed as a prime feature, wouldn’t password protect my .dmg? DMG Architect was very nice, but it was bloated with features that I didn’t need or that I didn’t want to read a manual in order to figure out.
DMGConverter has a nice interface, drag and drop capabilities, password protection, read only permissions assignment, it’s lightweight and has another feature that can be useful for those that would like to create .iso or .cdr images. Not to mention, the large variety of volume formatting choices. Simple and easy to use, no reading required. And it’s free. This is why software, at least for Mac, doesn’t always have to suck. (link)
