AppleTell » Mac Software

The joy of Dropbox

Charles Moore — Sun, 19 May 2013 13:41:30 +0000

The Joy of Mac’s release of Dropbox Encore got me thinking about what I ever did without Dropbox. Over the past few years using the service, I’ve become completely addicted.

Of course there are other cloud storage and synching services: Apple’s own iCloud, Box, iDolly, Google Cloud, Microsoft SkyDrive, and more. However, while they all have their virtues, none of them matches Dropbox for no hassle, transparent, “just works” functionality in the context of keeping work in progress—along with recently archived files—on several work platform laptops and my iPad harmoniously synchronized.

Actually, I do remember how I used to choreograph file management on multiple computers before Dropbox (which was founded in 2007 by Drew…

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Dropbox Encore enables a second dropbox in a single OS X user account

Kirk Hiner — Sun, 19 May 2013 13:30:13 +0000

Dropbox shared folders let two users (i.e., two accounts) share a folder of files. But sometimes Dropbox Sharing is not what you want, e.g., independent work and home accounts. The Joy of Macs' new Dropbox Encore enables a second instance of Dropbox to run in a single Mac OS X user account. Each instance of DropBox must have a unique Dropbox account and a separate local Dropbox folder.

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Bad Bots are bad, and they want to destroy your Mac and PC

Kirk Hiner — Sat, 18 May 2013 01:40:51 +0000

Listen, robots, you’ve got three simple rules to follow. Three! Is that so hard? Apparently so, if Bad Bots is any evidence. Thankfully, we’ve got intense robot blasting action to remind them of just who built them, we’ve got the game on Steam for Mac and PC users to get the action started, and we’ve got it on sale for $7.50.

Bad Bots stars Sam McRae, a grease mechanic aboard the “Titan Hauler” space cargo ship who wakes from…

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Kickstarter Find: Jagged Alliance: Flashback for OS X, Windows, and Linux

Erica Marceau — Fri, 17 May 2013 17:29:34 +0000

There are thousands of Kickstarter projects asking for your money, and it can be difficult to decide to which ones you should donate. You can trust AppleTell to find the best projects we think are worthy of your attention and support.

What is Jagged Alliance: Flashback?

Jagged Alliance: Flashback is a role-playing game with turn-based combat, base management, and mercenaries to hire as you explore the island group of San Christobal during the Cold War. Your job is to assemble a mercenary team to restore the democratic government on San Christobal and drive out the U.S.S.R…

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Apple releases iTunes update with new mini-player and multi-disc albums

Kaled Ali — Thu, 16 May 2013 22:18:07 +0000

Apple has released an iTunes update, bringing it to version 11.0.3, with new additions to the mini-player feature that allows users to play music in a compact square from the corner of their screen. Users have full control of their music, and can organize it with the Up Next feature.

With the update, the mini-player also gets album artwork and a progress bar. The songs list now displays album artwork, as well. This is helpful for…

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Anomaly 2 now available for Mac, PC and Linux

Kirk Hiner — Wed, 15 May 2013 16:58:08 +0000

It’s been said (somewhere, maybe) that the only thing that can stop a good tower offense is a good tower defense. If you’d like to test that theory without annoying your neighbors by building your own towers and amassing your own army, a good way to go would be to check out Anomaly 2, the sequel to the award-winning Anomaly Warzone Earth.

Available…

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Sandvox update adds Retina Display support, new designs, more

Kirk Hiner — Tue, 14 May 2013 19:53:49 +0000

Karelia Software’s website building software Sandvox has been embracing the Mac only since its initial release, and now it has expended to embrace the Retina display. With a simple check of a box, web developers can present high-resolution images to website visitors using Retina display Macs. Standard resolution photos will appear when viewed by other devices.

Sandvox v2.8 also comes with two new templates, new LinkedIn and…

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Play FreeCiv in your browser

Bill Stiteler — Tue, 14 May 2013 15:42:47 +0000

FreeCiv, an Open Source 4X game based on the original Sid Meier's Civilization, is now playable inside of HTML5-compatible browsers (such as Safari). In the game, you start with a single village and are charged with building it into a world-dominating nation through war, diplomacy, resource management and technological research.

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BatchPhoto image converter updated for OS X

Kirk Hiner — Mon, 13 May 2013 17:38:47 +0000

If Adobe’s move to Creative Cloud only software rentals has you seeking alternatives to Photoshop, you can get some of that functionality back with BatchPhoto v3.7. This all-in-one photo manipulation tool from Bits&Coffee allows users to edit, resize, convert, watermark, and rename every image in the group with a single operation.

To edit multiple files at once, users…

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The Book of GIMP user manual review

Charles Moore — Sun, 12 May 2013 17:34:41 +0000

With Adobe, Inc. having migrated its category-defining Photoshop bitmap image editor software and the rest of its erstwhile Creative Suite applications to a subscription-only cloud service costing 50 bucks a month, an awful lot of soon-to-be-former Photoshop users are looking into alternatives.

For many, that will be the Dalide brothers’ very affordable $14.95 Pixelmator software, or Flying Meat Software’s only slightly more costly $19.95 Acorn image editor app, either of which sells for less than half of one month’s Photoshop Creative Cloud’s subscription cost. For most users, either Pixelmator or Acorn will be a perfectly adequate solution, as well as faster and less ponderous than Photoshop.

However, if you need industrial grade processing power and can’t stomach that Photoshop subscription tariff, there’s actually an even cheaper alternative.

Like, free.

That would be the oddly-named GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) open source, high-end image editing and creation software alternative to Adobe’s Photoshop and its now open-ended monthly wallet-siphoning distribution mode.

Happily, the GIMP is no longer as challenging to install, learn and use as it once was for Mac user; since version 2.8.2, the program no longer requires support of Apple’s somewhat geeky X11 environment with its distinct GUI for running Linux and UNIX applications. GIMP for OS X now demands only a simple drag and drop installation and you’re good to go. And with X11 finally out of the way, the GIMP gets a standard menu bar Aqua interface UI.

However, the GIMP does still require a fairly steep learning curve climb, especially if one wants to use its many advanced functions and get the most out of its deep feature set.

Enter Olivier Lecarme and Karine Delvare’s new The Book of GIMP from No Starch Press. The authors say the project of writing it began way back in 2006, with an original publishing target date of 2010. The goal was nearly achieved with the French language edition, but it’s taken until 2013 for the English edition to finally roll off the presses.

Subtitled “A Complete…

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