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CNET)
For the past two years, several independent Mac software developers have teamed up to put together a bundle of award-winning Mac apps at a vastly reduced price--with 25 percent of the purchase price donated to the charity of your choice (chosen from a list). The whole thing takes place at a very well-designed site called MacHeist.com and over the past two years, thousands of Mac users have snapped up the limited time offer--it's really a great deal! The fun part about the MacHeist offer is the developers of MacHeist make it into a kind of scavenger hunt. They let users search for clues by watching entertaining videos and solving puzzles to win software and other prizes before the final bundle is announced.
This year, they've done it all over again with MacHeist 3 featuring a new bundle of indie software, the contents of which were announced yesterday. If you were to buy these programs separately, it would cost you almost $1,000. The list of software has products from all categories including a cooking app, photo-retouching software, an audio editor, Web-design tools, and 3D-modeling software. The scavenger hunt part of the offer is already over, but at least you're here in time to take advantage of an awesome deal. The bundle of a dozen Mac programs will only be offered at the reduced price of $39 for the next two weeks, so make sure not to wait too long!
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CNET Networks)
Playing with sound files is something not all of us aspire to do in any greater detail than clicking "Buy Now" in iTunes. But this is one of those cool Mac niches that is filled with possibilities you might not have thought about before.
For instance, have you ever wished you could easily record a phone call for a job interview? How about automatically record your favorite radio program from the Internet, even if it's on in the middle of the night? Ambrosia Software's WireTap Studio, recently updated to version 1.0.8, is an inexpensive and efficient way to record and edit pretty much any audio that you can play on your Mac. You can select any combination of software application (Skype, for example) and hardware device (say, your Mac's microphone), and record the output quickly and easily.
WireTap Studio's dynamic formatting means you can check your sound quality on the fly before deciding on a format.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Once you're set up, simply click record, and the end result will be a clean recording of your conversation for your job interview, podcast, custom playlist, or iMovie project.
WireTap Studio offers a complete set of editing tools and lets you export to a variety of compressions and audio formats. Possibly my favorite feature is called LivePreview, which is a button that allows me to hear what my audio will sound like in different formats and levels of compression, before I start recording. This is great when your needs require the file to be under a specific size, yet you want the best quality possible.
Want WireTap to record while you're asleep? Simply setup a time and date for your session and the software does the rest.
(Credit: CNET Networks)WireTap Studio costs $69 for the full version (link above is to 30-day demo), but if you have specific recording needs, this is the perfect software for the job and may be worth the price.
The year 2007 might be one of the biggest years for Apple in recent memory. Certainly a lot of great products have been released over the years, but none had the anticipation or the media fervor as did the iPhone. The new iPod Touch, the release of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, and the funny Mac vs. PC ads we're seeing these days only added to the hype with more people starting to "Think different" than ever before. With Macworld just around the corner and promises of new Mac hardware on the horizon, the future of all things Apple looks bright indeed.
Working with the Mac library of software at Download.com, I saw a huge number of titles come through our system over the course of 2007. Certainly the big-name apps like Adobe Photoshop CS3 come to mind, but there were also a lot of great apps that may have flown under the radar for many users. To give these great apps their due, I decided to put together a list of my favorite apps for 2007. Though they might not be on par with apps like Photoshop, they're the kind of programs Mac users will appreciate and use without having to drain their bank accounts.
Without further ado, here are some of my favorite Mac apps from 2007!
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CNET Networks)
Apple's Spotlight search feature is one of the great things about OS X because it gets you where you want to go on your Mac immediately--giving you results as you type. Inquisitor is like Spotlight for Safari. Adding the same functionality to the Safari search box means getting to your favorite Web sites, Google searches, and doing your shopping online that much easier. The black, sleek interface is definitely a selling point, too. Did I say selling point? It's free.
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CNET Networks)
As streaming video gets better across the Web, we're going to see more and more apps that make viewing and managing videos easier. Miro is one of the best yet for browsing through channels, finding popular videos, and creating a starting point for your personal favorites. You'll be able to subscribe to video podcasts, video RSS feeds, bittorrent feeds, and video blogs making it easy to watch the latest videos about your favorite subjects.
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CNET Networks)
Ever wanted to take your digital photos and turn them into comics? With an incredibly easy to use interface, Comic Life offers layout tools and templates to make it easy to organize your photos into a story line. From there, use talking and thought balloons, stylized graphics, and other artistic tools to create your personalized comic. Those searching for a new way to use their digital images will love this app.
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CNET Networks)
Online Tower Defense games hit it big in 2007 as an addictive casual gamer pastime. Recently released Hordes of Orcs takes the concept to the next level with a downloadable version adding extra features for even more fun. In addition to fighting off wave after wave of Orcs, you'll be able to upgrade your towers, cast specialized spells to slow the onslaught, and zoom in to the action in full 3D.
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CNET Networks)
With the growing wave of social sites sweeping the Internet, the Mozilla folks capitalized on the opportunity by making a browser that caters to the social set. Flock is a full-featured Social Web browser that integrates extremely well with sites like Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, and YouTube. Cool features help you keep track of your friends and post to your personal blog from within Flock. If you've caught the online social networking bug, Flock offers everything you need to keep track of all your friends and sites with tools and utilities specifically made to rein them all in.
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CNET Networks)
Sometimes simplicity is best, and when it comes to recording audio, WireTap Studio takes a simple, but powerful approach. With this app on your hard drive, you can discretely record audio from any app, record whatever is coming through your system (like streaming audio), and you can use the line-in to record from external sources. What's more, its completely lossless and you can play with the untouched files using WireTap Studio's lossless editor. Audiophiles have been waiting for a long time for a low-cost lossless editor, and this one is worth the registration fee ($69).
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CNET Networks)
Need an image editor that isn't going to break the bank? Acorn offers several common filters for your images like sharpen, stylize, and blend, along with the ability to use layers, gradients, and color-correction tools you might find in some of the more (a lot more!) expensive image editors. What might be the best thing about Acorn is that it's so easy to use; you won't need to read any documentation to get started right away. At $39.95, it's tough to pass up this simple, but powerful, app.
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CNET Networks)
If you're the type who likes to monitor what's going on under your Mac's hood, you'll love iStat Menus. This well-designed utility sits in your Menubar for easy access and offers tons of system information you can view at a glance. Monitor CPU and RAM usage, your Bluetooth status, network traffic, and much more, all as a pull-down from your Apple Menubar. Getting your Mac stats has never been this easy.
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CNET Networks)
Do you collect things? Maybe you like DVDs, or have a big library of books, or maybe video games are more your speed. The only problem with having a huge collection of something like DVDs is how hard it is to keep track of everything. Delicious Library is the perfect tool to keep track of your books, DVDs, video games, and music, with a visual representation of shelves to make it easy to find anything. You can even scan bar codes to import your titles. Anyone with a vast library of items will enjoy cataloging with Delicious Library.
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CNET Networks)
Certainly one of the greatest releases of 2007 was Apple's mega-popular iPhone. Unfortunately, one of the only things it didn't include, was a way to use your own music as a ringtone. iToner eliminates the need to deal with iTunes or pay for new music by offering a simple method to add (and remove) ringtones on your iPhone for free. What's more, this app is perfectly safe with your iPhone system software (no Jailbreak required).
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