tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5348002210497000542024-03-13T13:10:50.596-07:00OS X Gear - Free Mac SoftwareTom Howehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105385972138225006noreply@blogger.comBlogger36125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534800221049700054.post-47167797239769247302008-09-07T14:47:00.000-07:002008-09-07T14:50:01.025-07:00HowTo: Create an Audio File from a Text File<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">The new voice for Leopard, Alex, is an extremely comprehensive and realistic voice module, so it is worth looking at how you can use it to help you work. Got a long document to read, or a speech to memorise? This 3-step tip will show you how to get it into an audio file so you can listen to it on an ipod while commuting, or even turn a free online novel into an audiobook.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">1) The first thing you need to do is ensure your document is in plain-text format. The easiest way to do this is to copy the contents into "TextEdit.app", go to the Format menu and select "Make Plain Text". For simplicity save this file as "wordstosay.txt" in the root folder of your "Macintosh HD".</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">2) Now our document is ready, open Terminal.app using spotlight or from the Utilities sub-folder of your Applications folder. When it opens, type "</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';">cd /</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">" and hit return. This tells terminal that you are working in the root of Macintosh HD, and makes finding the text file much easier.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">3) To get your mac to read out this text file to an audio file, type the following and hit return: </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';">say -v alex -f wordstosay.txt -o spoken.aiff</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">Lets have a look at what this command means. The "say" bit is simply the name of the program used to make your mac talk, and "-v alex" sets the voice as Alex. "-f [filename]" tells your mac where the text file to read from is, and "-o [filename]" tells it to output the speech to an audio file instead of reading out loud. If all has gone well, you should now find a file called "spoken.aiff" in the root of your "Macintosh HD" that you can load into iTunes.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">Tip: If you want to get Alex to read content out for you regularly, a useful tip is to set a keyboard shortcut like ctrl-s by going to System Preferences > Speech > Text to Speech > Speak selected text when the key is pressed.</span></div>Tom Howehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105385972138225006noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534800221049700054.post-17798862144077937532008-09-03T08:26:00.001-07:002008-09-04T12:58:30.885-07:00Dockulicious<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SMA89bKvKHI/AAAAAAAAAFY/vmnR-k0lUxU/s1600-h/music-dock.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SMA89bKvKHI/AAAAAAAAAFY/vmnR-k0lUxU/s400/music-dock.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5242256992221735026" /></a><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">Dockulicous is a great little app which lets you choose your own skin for your leopard dock. Many users have already uploaded dock skins, which you download and then drag the zip file onto the main app. It includes the original settings just in case you decide a bright pink dock isn't your thing. If you've ever fancied your dock looking like a picnic table, piano keys or covered with lasers, this is the app for you.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';"><a href="http://www.dockulicious.com/">Developer's site</a></span></div>Tom Howehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105385972138225006noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534800221049700054.post-46588139858785409832008-08-31T12:09:00.001-07:002008-09-02T12:28:16.630-07:00Applejack<a style="font-family: lucida grande;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SL2SmWLiBxI/AAAAAAAAAFI/u0zLe_UHu5k/s1600-h/screen_shot.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SL2SmWLiBxI/AAAAAAAAAFI/u0zLe_UHu5k/s320/screen_shot.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5241506728815757074" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Applejack is<span style="font-size:100%;"> your friend if you can't boot up a GUI on your mac</span></span><span style=";font-family:lucida grande;font-size:100%;" >. Once installed, if you have a problem, boot into single user mode by hitting cmd-S and typing 'applejack'. You're then presented with a prompt which lets you repair disks, permissions, cashes and remove your swap file. Thankfully, I have never needed to test this in a real situation, but it's a comforting thing to have installed on your system.<br /><br /><a href="http://applejack.sourceforge.net/">Developer's site</a></span><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"><br /></span>Tom Howehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105385972138225006noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534800221049700054.post-75696954241806061672008-08-28T03:11:00.000-07:002008-08-28T03:18:45.463-07:00Proximity<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SLZ6DkAFFwI/AAAAAAAAAFA/1MPF8CjzskI/s1600-h/Picture+1.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SLZ6DkAFFwI/AAAAAAAAAFA/1MPF8CjzskI/s320/Picture+1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5239509418114356994" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">Proximity is a neat little app which automatically runs Applescript when a bluetooth device approaches or leaves your bluetooth-enabled mac. For example, if you set it to pair with your phone, on approaching your mac you could have it run an applescript to sync your calendar and address book for you. Alternatively you could use it as a proximity security tag, so on leaving your machine the screensaver triggers and becomes password-protected, and on approaching it returns to the desktop. For useful scripts, check out <a href="http://web.mac.com/jhollington/technocrat/The_Technocrat/Entries/2007/3/18_Bluetooth_Proximity_Detection_on_OS_X.html">this blogger's</a> code.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';"><a href="http://reduxcomputing.com/proximity.php">Developer's site</a></span></div>Tom Howehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105385972138225006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534800221049700054.post-15151215254752973402008-08-11T07:58:00.000-07:002008-08-11T08:54:38.211-07:00WolfQuest<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SKBTqvG6I1I/AAAAAAAAAE4/Sc7gXu6MgDQ/s1600-h/Picture+5.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SKBTqvG6I1I/AAAAAAAAAE4/Sc7gXu6MgDQ/s320/Picture+5.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5233274760669569874" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">WolfQuest is a free game with an educational slant developed for Minnesota Zoo. You take on the role of a wolf and have to hunt and find a mate. It supports single or multiplayer play, and in the game attempts to be as realistic as possible, down to the body language of the wolves when communicating. A special scent-view mode lets you find food and fellow wolves.<br /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><a href="http://www.wolfquest.org/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">Developer's site</span></a></div>Tom Howehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105385972138225006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534800221049700054.post-37091603310063339212008-07-24T04:35:00.000-07:002008-12-12T23:57:12.511-08:00Glims<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SIhpN7_qlWI/AAAAAAAAAEw/BRJCip7vnhA/s1600-h/Picture+4.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SIhpN7_qlWI/AAAAAAAAAEw/BRJCip7vnhA/s320/Picture+4.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5226543055727400290"></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">My major frustration with safari was that it could only support Google as it's search engine, and there was no way to change this without editing Safari's coding, a risky process that crashed safari if your modified version didn't have exactly the same file size as the original.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">Enter Glims, a small app with allows you to add about 20 different search engines to safari and put them in order of your preference.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">Other long-awaited features include:</span></div><div><ul><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">Full screen browsing </span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">Undo close tab using Cmd-Z</span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">Favicons show at the top of tabs</span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">Thumbnails in Google and Yahoo searches.</span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">Session saving</span></li></ul><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">If safari supported all the features that Glims provided, a lot fewer mac users would be switching to firefox.</span></div></div>Tom Howehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105385972138225006noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534800221049700054.post-29411298812846758482008-07-23T03:35:00.001-07:002008-12-12T23:57:12.702-08:00Main Menu<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SIcJoZbVVzI/AAAAAAAAAEo/wnxuN-B4XcI/s1600-h/Picture+2.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SIcJoZbVVzI/AAAAAAAAAEo/wnxuN-B4XcI/s320/Picture+2.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5226156482211698482" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">Main Menu is a small app that sits in your menu bar and provides you with easy access to a large number of maintenance tasks for your mac, such as force emptying trash, cleaning cashes and logs, and repairing permissions and indexes. It also lets you create scheduled tasks and execute these every set period of time for you. Everything it does is posted to you via Growl.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';"><a href="http://www.santasw.com/">Developer's site</a></span></div>Tom Howehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105385972138225006noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534800221049700054.post-70837948282956475032008-07-12T06:14:00.000-07:002008-12-12T23:57:12.887-08:00Bricksmith<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SHiuSf2vZ9I/AAAAAAAAAEA/xil-CGoYwQg/s1600-h/Picture+3.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SHiuSf2vZ9I/AAAAAAAAAEA/xil-CGoYwQg/s320/Picture+3.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5222115400748066770" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">Bricksmith lets you create lego models using your mac. There is a large array of parts available and once you get the knack of assembling these in 3D space you can make very realistic looking models. The highlight is probably the Minifigure generator which builds lego people for you - perfect for creating a forum profile image of you which stands out.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><a href="http://bricksmith.sourceforge.net/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">Developer's site</span></a></div>Tom Howehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105385972138225006noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534800221049700054.post-53520982514824760322008-07-11T02:00:00.000-07:002008-12-12T23:57:13.069-08:00Processing<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SHchNGhUDdI/AAAAAAAAAD4/NAGldxXIJ-o/s1600-h/Picture+2.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SHchNGhUDdI/AAAAAAAAAD4/NAGldxXIJ-o/s320/Picture+2.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5221678801931734482" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">Processing is an open source Java-based development environment that aims to make it fast and easy to program prototype software (each project is known as a "sketch"). While the basic syntax is of a Java nature, many libraries have already been created to make programming using Processing simple and fast.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">It supports serial communication, making it a useful tool to work with electronics boards like the </span><a href="http://www.arduino.cc/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">Arduino</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';"> (a versatile opensource project, which can even be used to send data back to your mac to run applescripts using </span><a href="http://tinker.it/now/2007/04/26/control-your-mac-from-arduino-the-easy-way/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">Applescript Proxy</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">)</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">For budding programmers, this is a great environment to learn, with a large amount of support from their website.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><a href="http://processing.org/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">Developer's site</span></a></div>Tom Howehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105385972138225006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534800221049700054.post-76509843587619697132008-07-06T09:01:00.000-07:002008-12-12T23:57:13.372-08:00Portable Apps<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SHDs4ZOwtaI/AAAAAAAAADw/wSb7NUlSbZA/s1600-h/Picture+3.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SHDs4ZOwtaI/AAAAAAAAADw/wSb7NUlSbZA/s320/Picture+3.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5219932421712033186" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">After a short break, I've decided to get the ball rolling again with a link to an array of standard mac applications which have been made portable, allowing you to keep them on your USB key-ring and run them directly from flash memory on any mac you visit. The list of apps that have been modified to do this is substantial, containing the core mac apps like Mail and iCal as well as other major opensource programs like Gimp, Audacity, Nvu and Openoffice.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><a href="http://www.freesmug.org/portableapps/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">Developer's site</span></a></div>Tom Howehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105385972138225006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534800221049700054.post-31596403391133720312008-06-21T07:06:00.000-07:002008-12-12T23:57:14.547-08:00PicLens<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SF0MFLLTNyI/AAAAAAAAADo/gluku_Xx-tI/s1600-h/PicLens.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SF0MFLLTNyI/AAAAAAAAADo/gluku_Xx-tI/s320/PicLens.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5214337226603968290" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">While not an app, PicLens is a very cool plugin for Firefox 3 or Safari 3.0 (sadly not 3.1 yet). It installs a button next to your google search box that allows you to browse online photos and videos in a 3D environment, making the process of searching Flikr, Google Images, Amazon and Youtube a lot more fun. The graphics are extremely smooth, and you can navigate using mouse scrolling or arrow keys. Double clicking on a photo makes it fullscreen, and there is an option to launch the photo in your browser for downloading.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.piclens.com/">Developer's site</a><br /><br />Tip: To use this on a local folder of photos, drag that folder into your browser window and then start PicLens.<br /></span>Tom Howehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105385972138225006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534800221049700054.post-30999347322350054012008-06-18T15:02:00.001-07:002008-12-12T23:57:14.723-08:00xBench<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SFq9PHb_SjI/AAAAAAAAADY/Tppjpragv34/s1600-h/xbench.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SFq9PHb_SjI/AAAAAAAAADY/Tppjpragv34/s320/xbench.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5213687586026900018" /></a><div>Okay, so you've bought your shiny new mac, and you want to see how powerful it really is. xBench is a free app that lets you run a series of tests including CPU, RAM speed, graphics and disk read/write speed tests. </div><div>While the graphics may not be the prettiest of benchmarking software, the app lets you upload your stats to a central server and compare with other mac users. This could be useful for checking if that RAM upgrade really is worth the cash.</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.xbench.com/">Developer's site</a></div>Tom Howehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105385972138225006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534800221049700054.post-4011658134450463932008-06-17T07:39:00.000-07:002008-12-12T23:57:14.909-08:00MacOSaiX<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SFgdBboyocI/AAAAAAAAADQ/ftCSmYtDXF4/s1600-h/macosaix.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SFgdBboyocI/AAAAAAAAADQ/ftCSmYtDXF4/s320/macosaix.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212948479117271490" /></a><div><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">This app probably won't be used by you every day, but it's worth checking out - I install apps like these in a 'playground' folder of apps I don't use very much, but are cool to have. This program is similar to the mosaic screensaver that comes with leopard except, after giving it an image to work from, it fetches other images from the internet (Flikr, Google as well as iPhoto) and places them in the collage according to brightness for you.</span></span></div><div> </div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';"><br /></span><div><a href="http://homepage.mac.com/knarf/MacOSaiX/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">Developer's site</span></a></div>Tom Howehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105385972138225006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534800221049700054.post-24476342671540995982008-06-15T14:26:00.000-07:002008-12-12T23:57:15.157-08:00Porticus<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SFWKYx62bYI/AAAAAAAAADI/s0KW2Jb-cVs/s1600-h/Porticus.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SFWKYx62bYI/AAAAAAAAADI/s0KW2Jb-cVs/s320/Porticus.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212224302072884610" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">Porticus is a front-end for macports which makes it easy to install linux applications on your mac. It takes the terminal-based system of installing packages and turns this into a neat Cocoa app which even lets you search and browse ports and modules with description tags as if they were finder items. Ports can easily be activated/deactivated and updated, allowing for easy managment of your linux ports.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><a href="http://porticus.alittledrop.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">Developer's site</span></a></div>Tom Howehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105385972138225006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534800221049700054.post-44889185860032940972008-06-13T15:10:00.001-07:002008-12-12T23:57:15.394-08:00Celestia<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SFLwdBTB99I/AAAAAAAAADA/OXxlhVNghEw/s1600-h/Celestia.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SFLwdBTB99I/AAAAAAAAADA/OXxlhVNghEw/s320/Celestia.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5211492100176213970" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">Celestia lets you navigate the universe with ease. With over 100,000 stars in its database as well as a few artificial satellites there is an extensive array of objects to travel to, but you can download add-ons to expand it, including optional high resolution textures for planets. The difficult job of navigating through 3 dimensional space is made easy using a 'Go to' feature, but you can still pan, zoom and rotate easily. As well as being beautiful, the software is accurate and you can view the realtime position of planets or satellites, or speed up the simulation to show orbits. A lot of fun to use.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><a href="http://www.shatters.net/celestia/index.html">Developer's site</a></span></div>Tom Howehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105385972138225006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534800221049700054.post-18655586599094305652008-06-06T01:22:00.000-07:002008-12-12T23:57:15.720-08:00FrameByFrame<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SEj0xLVaPRI/AAAAAAAAACw/tcGnzTzCt5o/s1600-h/FrameByFrame"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SEj0xLVaPRI/AAAAAAAAACw/tcGnzTzCt5o/s320/FrameByFrame" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5208682094747335954" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">FrameByFrame is a free stop-frame animation program that takes images from your webcam or another video source and lets you build </span><a href="http://www.wallaceandgromit.com"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">Wallace and Gromit</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';"> movies (though it may take a few years to get the knack). </span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">The window is split into three parts - the left panel shows your current camera feed, while the right one displays the current feed ghosted over the previous recorded image so you can see exactly what has moved since your last shot. The bottom section contains transport controls and a filmstrip for browsing your frames. Once your movie is created, you can export it into 25 different formats for uploading to the web or doing post-production in iMovie.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><a href="http://web.mac.com/philipp.brendel/Software/FrameByFrame.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">Developer's site</span></a></div></div>Tom Howehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105385972138225006noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534800221049700054.post-90516508521940766702008-06-04T12:28:00.001-07:002008-12-12T23:57:15.903-08:00Iconic<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SEj9vYq1o4I/AAAAAAAAAC4/M3fd6f75n04/s1600-h/Iconic.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SEj9vYq1o4I/AAAAAAAAAC4/M3fd6f75n04/s320/Iconic.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5208691959571784578" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'lucida grande';">I was originally going to write a tutorial on how to create custom icons for your folders on Leopard, a lengthy process involving image editing skills and at least 3 applications, but while surfing I stumbled upon Iconic, a fast and easy program that creates icons that look like they came with leopard.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">All you need to do is find an image of the logo you want on a white background, drag it onto the program, wait for it to do its magic and then drag the folder you want it applied to onto the other side of the program. The process works best for sharp images with no grey smoothing around the letters, so a soft image will give a dirty look, but drag your company logo onto Iconic and you'll be impressed with the results.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';"><a href="http://www.iconicosx.com">Developer's site</a></span></div>Tom Howehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105385972138225006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534800221049700054.post-26501059721923084702008-06-04T09:39:00.000-07:002008-12-12T23:57:16.196-08:00Tunnel<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SEbFwuF3cQI/AAAAAAAAACo/xQLi2RtoA0c/s1600-h/Tunnel"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SEbFwuF3cQI/AAAAAAAAACo/xQLi2RtoA0c/s320/Tunnel" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5208067459897585922" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">Macbook and macbook pro users, prepare to have a lot of fun with this retro app which lets you play the classic game tunnel with a twist - you tilt your laptop to play. Despite the old-style graphics, the game is extremely smooth to play and you can have very fine control over the player depending on how much/fast you tilt your laptop. Feel free to post your highscore as a comment - I'll start with the moderate highscore of 3343.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';"><a href="http://uri.cat/software.php">Developer's site</a> - also check out NetPong, Fish and LookAtMe.</span></div>Tom Howehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105385972138225006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534800221049700054.post-87053193891483560152008-06-04T09:24:00.000-07:002008-12-12T23:57:16.326-08:00Gawker<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SEbB5uF3cPI/AAAAAAAAACg/QDYqCSG_MHI/s1600-h/Gawker.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SEbB5uF3cPI/AAAAAAAAACg/QDYqCSG_MHI/s320/Gawker.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5208063216469897458" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">Gawker is a simple program that lets you create time-lapse movies from your iSight, an external webcam, or a website URL. You can set a time interval and just leave it running or schedule a start and stop time, and even share your cameras with other users over the internet.</span><div><br /></div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><a href="http://gawker.sourceforge.net/">Developer's site</a></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">If you don't have an iSight or want to use an external camera, <a href="http://webcam-osx.sourceforge.net/">macam</a> is a project which allows your mac to recognise most brands of webcam and treat them as an iSight.<br /></span></div></div>Tom Howehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105385972138225006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534800221049700054.post-52056640916048743662008-05-30T14:12:00.000-07:002008-12-12T23:57:16.523-08:00Q [kju:]<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SEBt9aNxIbI/AAAAAAAAACY/aD6tVTMWF6A/s1600-h/Q-small.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SEBt9aNxIbI/AAAAAAAAACY/aD6tVTMWF6A/s320/Q-small.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5206282071016808882" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">Q is a mac port of QEMU, an opensource emulator. It allows you to get most versions of windows, linux, dos and freeBSD running emulated in mac, certainly worth trying before buying VMware or Parallels. You can also use it to run live CDs.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">How it works:</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">Initially you need to create a partition for the 'Guest OS' to reside on. These can be compressed but if you are having problems (I did with win98) you can use an uncompressed .raw file. You can then configure how much RAM you want to give it, which audio, graphics and video cards you want it to emulate and choose whether a disk image or your real optical drive is used for the virtual CD drive. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">Launch the guest OS with the CD in your drive and follow its installation procedure. The OS can run in fullscreen or window mode, and Q even works with your laptop trackpad, including right click and scrolling.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><a href="http://www.kju-app.org/">Developer's site</a></span></div>Tom Howehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105385972138225006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534800221049700054.post-71105882758101956972008-05-28T09:25:00.001-07:002008-12-12T23:57:16.731-08:00Secrets<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SD2IjKNxIaI/AAAAAAAAACQ/_44-FJ7NRfQ/s1600-h/Secrets.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SD2IjKNxIaI/AAAAAAAAACQ/_44-FJ7NRfQ/s320/Secrets.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5205466881929060770" /></a><br />Secrets is a pane for your System Preferences that combines all the hidden settings you've wanted to be able to change, but haven't got round to researching. Options include automatically expanding the <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">save</span> and <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">print</span> dialogue boxes, making the arrows in iTunes point to your own library, and changing the login window image. Secrets updates itself from the internet and includes secrets for most commonly used programs as well as general system preferences.<div><br /></div><div><a href="http://code.google.com/p/blacktree-secrets/">Developer's site</a></div>Tom Howehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105385972138225006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534800221049700054.post-66673069124569413732008-05-28T09:10:00.000-07:002008-12-12T23:57:17.172-08:00HowTo: Convert MP3s to Audiobook<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SD2Ec6NxIZI/AAAAAAAAACI/70HFuCChFgg/s1600-h/Audiobook.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SD2Ec6NxIZI/AAAAAAAAACI/70HFuCChFgg/s320/Audiobook.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5205462376508367250" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">Many iTunes users will have audiobooks in mp3 format, ripped from CDs or downloaded free. The problem with these is that iTunes treats them as music files and includes them in the Party Shuffle playlists. This tutorial will show you how to make iTunes treat them like Audiobooks, so you can keep them separate from your music and even adjust the play speed.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">The only difference between audiobooks and standard m4a music files is the file extension - audio books are named '.m4b'</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">To convert your audiobook, first you need to ensure that they are in m4a format. Select one of the files in iTunes and hit cmd-i to bring up the inspector. At the bottom of the information window you can see the files path and name, including the extension.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">If the e</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">xtension is .m4a, your files are ready for renaming, and you can skip this next part. If they're mp3, you'll need to convert them:</span></div><div><ol><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">Hit cmd-, (comma) to open up iTunes preferences. Navigate to the <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">advanced</span> tab and select the <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">importing</span> button. </span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">Change the drop-down menu <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Import Using:</span> to <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">AAC Encoder</span> and change the setting below to Spoken Podcast. Now close the preferences window.</span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">In iTunes, select all your audiobook files you want to convert. Right-click them and choose '<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Convert selection to AAC</span>'. (This process may take a while)</span></li></ol><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">Now locate your m4a files using Finder (<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">[home directory]/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/...</span>) If you've converted them from mp3 you can delete the original mp3s to save space.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">The final step is to rename them all from .m4a to .m4b files. You can </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">use </span><a href="http://www.tom-h.f2s.com/OSXgear/Audiobook.zip"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">this</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"> workflow file to do it for you (open up the file and hit </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">run</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"> in the top-right hand corner of Automator), which asks you to select the files and converts them all in one go. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">Once you're done, drag all the files into iTunes, and they should now be listed under the Audio Books panel. (You may have to delete the originals from your music library)</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">For the reference, free audiobook sites include </span><a href="http://librivox.org/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">LibriVox</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">, </span><a href="http://www.audiobooksforfree.com/home"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">Audio Books for Free</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">, </span><a href="http://www.booksshouldbefree.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">Books Should be Free</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"> or, for the biblically inclined </span><a href="http://www.faithcomesbyhearing.com/audio-bible-download/mac"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">Faith Comes By Hearing</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">.</span></div></div>Tom Howehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105385972138225006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534800221049700054.post-23690345936449618872008-05-26T15:22:00.000-07:002008-12-12T23:57:17.346-08:00Warzone 2100<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SDs4vKNxIYI/AAAAAAAAACA/k5XZbt064Ck/s1600-h/Picture+4.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SDs4vKNxIYI/AAAAAAAAACA/k5XZbt064Ck/s320/Picture+4.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204816177203847554" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">Freeware RTS games seem in short supply, so Warzone 2100 is indeed a rare find. The gameplay is similar to Total Annihilation, except players research components for their vehicles and then use these to design their own unit types. This game was originally commercial, but was released under GPL in 2001.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';"><br /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><a href="http://wz2100.net/">Developer's site</a></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Tip: To set resolution go to /Users/[name]/Library/Application Support/Warzone 2100/config and edit </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">width</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> and </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">height</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> values.</span></span></div></div>Tom Howehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105385972138225006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534800221049700054.post-86601733666662069122008-05-26T15:08:00.000-07:002008-12-12T23:57:17.624-08:00Monolingual<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SDs1HaNxIXI/AAAAAAAAAB4/xmRkm1ONN5k/s1600-h/Monolingual-small.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SDs1HaNxIXI/AAAAAAAAAB4/xmRkm1ONN5k/s320/Monolingual-small.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204812195769164146" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">What attracts many users about macs is that almost everything works out of the box - but, once it's out the box, you may not need everything that's installed on your system by default. Monolingual frees up disk space by letting you remove unused language packs from your hard-disk - most users never require Burmese or Catalan for day to day use.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">Another wonderful simplification of installing programs is the universal binary - support for all system architectures put into a single file. However, OS X doesn't remove the architectures you don't need from the universal binary, so you often have unused PowerPC executables sitting round on your Intel machine, or vice versa. Monolingual lets you choose which architectures you want to keep, and it will get rid of the irrelevant ones, potentially saving hundreds of megabytes of disk space.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><a href="http://monolingual.sourceforge.net/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';">Developer's site</span></a></div>Tom Howehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105385972138225006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534800221049700054.post-9935476105360271062008-05-25T15:12:00.000-07:002008-12-12T23:57:17.936-08:00Houdini<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SDnkl6NxIWI/AAAAAAAAABw/vBEBcZ2TWGg/s1600-h/Houdini-small.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_MF24W3bCz4A/SDnkl6NxIWI/AAAAAAAAABw/vBEBcZ2TWGg/s320/Houdini-small.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204442184336613730" /></a>Houdini is a tiny program that lets you toggle hidden folders in Finder. If you are a semi-advanced user and want quick access to hidden folders, without having to remember their paths or having them clutter up your display, Houdini lets you select an individual hidden folder to access using a save/open style dialogue box, and then opens it up for you in Finder. Houdini can also toggle hidden folders in one click, and even create hidden files and folders for you - just drag a normal folder onto the Houdini.app icon to hide it.<div><a href="http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/26729">Developer's site</a></div>Tom Howehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105385972138225006noreply@blogger.com0