Useful MAC Applications [Ongoing Updates]

[Jeff Hammond]

rhino for OS X has been in development for little while now.. you can sign up as a beta tester if you'd like and get free use of the app plus offer any feedback if you wish:

http://community.irhino3d.com/

(top right under 'getting started'... fill out an application)

it's going to be free for a good long while until the final release is ready..

here's an interview with bob mcneel which gives a rough road map for the app:
http://mac.develop3d.com/2009/04/irhino ... cneel.html

[takesh h]

It's not the best app available on Macs, but just for your knowledge...
OpenOffice.org 3.0 has finally gone Mac. I didn't know till yesterday.
"Available for the first time as native Mac OS X application."
http://download.openoffice.org/index.html

[Mike Lucey]

CodeWeavers CrossOver

http://www.codeweavers.com/

The blurb goes,

Welcome to CodeWeavers - Your Home for Windows Compatibility on Mac and Linux

Our flagship Windows-to-Macintosh compatibility tool. Intended for Intel Mac OS X machines, CrossOver Mac will allow Mac users to run their favorite Windows applications seamlessly on their Mac. Windows files can be opened directly within your file browser, or from email attachments. No rebooting, no switching to a virtual machine, and no Windows Operating System license required; CrossOver is a complete replacement for your Windows OS as far as your Windows software is concerned. Your Windows Mac compatibility solution!

I have just d/l the demo and will give it a tryout with some Win programs that I still use from time to time. I would be nice not to have to reboot or go into Parellels.

Mike

UPDATE: Yep it seems to work fine with the couple of Windows programs that I have brought through so far.

[Edson]

Typing utility: TextExpander 1.3.1

If you find yourself frequently typing the same text, TextExpander 1.3.1 can save you hours of work—and your fingers hours of typing—each month. It lets you assign abbreviations to snippets of text; the abbreviations are automatically expanded to the full text snippets when you type them. For example, when I type homeadd, TextExpander types my full home address. TextExpander can also insert images or a mix of text and images, and you can create new snippets from selected text. TextExpander works systemwide, so your snippets are available in any OS X application that lets you type text. ($30; SmileOnMyMac)

[tbd]

Listen to free internet radio channels, record, edit and export to iTunes.

* thousands of radio stations for you to choose from
* one click recording
* Get Album Artwork
* 1-Click Export to iTunes
* Import Internet Playlists

http://www.snowtape.com/ ($29, trial limits to 60 min of recordings)

screenshot1.png

[Mike Lucey]

Hi Guys,

Sometimes its the simple apps that are the biggest time savers. I think I have found one that will save me a lot of time. Its iCombiner (The Mac way to merge PDFs and images)
http://creativebe.com/icombiner/ Its not free and not that cheap but I think it will be worth the $16.80 as it is already saving me time. I can now get the loose screen grabs and bits and pieces into one PDF just by dragging and dropping them into iCombiner.

Mike

[Mike Lucey]

CROSS OVER again.

I mentioned Cross Over before. However I have now requested that they consider listing SketchUp so that it would work under Cross Over. I advised them that there is a Mac version of SketchUp but it would be very useful if they could make the Win Version work under Cross Over as there are quite a lot of Plugins that only work in the Win version. It is so handy not having to go over to Boot Camp via rebooting to run SketchUp Win.

I imagine the more requests they get to quicker this might be looked at. So if you are interested please go to their site and list SketchUp. http://www.codeweavers.com/

Mike

[Mike Lucey]

Hi Guys,

It's good to see another company about to offer a 'Mac Version' for us poor forgotten souls!

I notice that Csaba has mentioned that ASGVIS are looking for Mac Beta Testers with experience of V-Ray. I suppose the only way a Mac user can gain experience of V-Ray on a Mac would be via BootCamp under Windows or Parallels etc.

Anyway, if there are any Mac Users that are interested in putting their name into the hat following this link and fill in the form, http://news.sketchucation.com/testers-f ... ac-needed/

Mike

[jwlyon1]

I wouldn't know what to do without Quicksilver! It's a keyboard-shortcut launching app thingy. But it makes launching apps, opening folders and all sorts of stuff just a few key strokes away!

http://www.blacktree.com/

I'd second the vote for Skitch. Awesome screen cap with the easy web-upload for fast sharing.

For those interested in Open Office, I use the Neo-Office flavor. It's a mac-native port of Open Office and runs nicer and interfaces seamlessly with OSX.

http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php

[takesh h]

Its iCombiner (The Mac way to merge PDFs and images).... I can now get the loose screen grabs and bits and pieces into one PDF just by dragging and dropping them into iCombiner.
Mike

You know you can do those things via Preview's sidebar?
You can shuffle around pages within a pdf, between pdfs, delete some pages from pdf, drop an entire pdf file into another's sidebar, drop JPGs and other images into sidebar so that they become part of that pdf files instantly.

[Mike Lucey]

Thanks Takesh, I've never explored Preview in depth and now that I have, I find its got a lot of useful features to hand.

[Mike Lucey]

Hi Guys,

I've just checked out Ortelius. It looks to be a cool map creation application I can see it being useful to members that deal with Google Maps. http://www.mapdiva.com/

Check out the three short tut vids here http://www.mapdiva.com/learn/ to get a quick overview. The price is very reasonable also
, $79!

[Mike Lucey]

Snow Leopard Compatibility List

http://snowleopard.wikidot.com/start

This is quite a comprehensive list of Apps that work with Snow Leopard. I came across it when checking up on Afloat and a few others 'strange but useful' apps that I use before ordering Snow Leopard.

Mike

[Mike Lucey]

New 3D PDF Plugin! While I was able to do this on the Mac running SU under BootCamp I was hoping that I would see a Mac app and now we have one. I had a bug on installation (would not work) but Ashraf fixed it in double quick time. I will find this really useful for Clients viewing / exploring models on their own computers without having the need to download SU Viewer. Also I can protect my copyright! I have sent a building model to a client yesterday and the client was very pleased to be able to explore the model for himself. I can see this being very useful for sending models to Planning Authority people also. While renders, stills and movies are great, I think the 'model in your hand' does a better job of getting the idea across.

There is a Pro version and a Free version. The free version shows the vendors site address.


Simulation Lab Software http://www.simlab-soft.com released a new 3D PDF Plug-in for Google SketchUp 7.

The new plug-in is supported on Windows and Mac.
It allows the user to create interactive 3D PDF files from the Google SketchUp environment.
Fully functional free version is available at http://www.simlab-soft.com/3d-plugins/3 ... -main.aspx

Mike

[Mike Lucey]

Hi Guys,

I just stumbled across Paperclip by Concentrate Software http://www.fromconcentratesoftware.com/ Sometimes the really simple apps prove to be the most useful and I think Paperclip could be one of these. I often find that after taking a screen shot I leave the .jpeg on the Desktop for a while. When I come back to the .jpeg I ofter wonder what I had intended to use it for. Well, with Paperclip I can attach a 'note' in one click and the note stays with the .jpeg or any item. Its not free but good value I think as it saves a lot of time and helps keep things tidy.

On the Concentrate Software site you will find Share & Site Tagger also. I have not tried these out yet but if they are as usfull as Paperclip I will be using them. In any case its worth visiting for the free 'Countdown' app.


Mike

[Dylan]

A really cool free app that is very useful for SCF users!
Skitch
http://skitch.com/

It basically grabs your screen, or selection and then has a great set of tools to annotate these images.
Check out the video, it does more than I mentioned and seems to be a very cool piece of software.

[Edson]

i recently came across Freeway (http://www.softpress.com/index.php), a web design app for people who do not wish to learn coding. i had a look at their videos and got the impression it is better than iWeb and RapidWeaver, the two apps that do the same. there are two version, express and pro, as well as educationnal licenses.

i apologise for quoting myself but i just wanted to report that i bought freeway and used it to revamp my website. it is all we thought it was and more. it is extremely easy to use, their support is great (videos, forum and tech team) and there is a good number of outside developers who produce add-ons for it. i could not be happier with it.

[Edson]

A really cool free app that is very useful for SCF users!
Skitch
http://skitch.com/

It basically grabs your screen, or selection and then has a great set of tools to annotate these images.
Check out the video, it does more than I mentioned and seems to be a very cool piece of software.

dylan,

very cool indeed.

[chrisjk]

I looked for ages to find a decent file comparison tool (for editing purposes) and then found DiffMerge which is free and works very well.

A good freebie editor with syntax highlighting is Smultron and although the author is not developing it further, it's still available here.

[driven]

I looked for ages to find a decent file comparison tool (for editing purposes) and then found DiffMerge which is free and works very well.

A good freebie editor with syntax highlighting is Smultron and although the author is not developing it further, it's still available here.

Hi Chris,

Thanks for posting

I've been looking for something like Smultron to use learning Ruby for SU for ages... it looks a to be perfect replacement for Xcode.

Do you use it for SU rubies? and if so would you mind sharing your settings (as there's so much choice)

The main things I'm not sure about is the Encoding Pref's, I don't fully understand their role

do I just leave as default or can 'Saves' be made more Mac/PC/SU 'friendly'?

john

[Mike Lucey]

The MacHeist nanoBundle is finally here!

7 Top Mac App for $ 19.95 reduced from $260

MacJournal

RipIt

Clips

CoverScout

Flow

Tales of Monkey Island

Rapidweaver

http://www.macheist.com/

[chrisjk]

Hi John,

I have only started playing a bit with Ruby - when I get the time, I am following a couple of basic primers. I have used Smultron for this but I also have Textmate and tend to use that (it's not a free editor however).

Like most editors, you can change the syntax colours as you wish, I find it useful to change the colours to match those used in whatever textbook/example I am trying to learn from. There is apparently a Ruby standard but I haven't found too many folk using it! The Syntax definitions are picked up by Smultron according to the file extension unless you wish to override this by picking the "always Use" and one of the many language choices. I use the automatic choice setting and it works well for me.

The Encodings is similar in usage to Syntax definitions - let Smultron do its thing or tell it to always default to some particular encoding. I just use the default setting. Unicode UTF-8 is understood and displayed correctly by most modern programs, web browsers etc. and that is the fall back if Smultron can't figure out which encoding is in use. The default settings will work fine for all the SU plugin rubies, web pages in html etc.

[tfdesign]

I had to slip this one in, if it hadn't already been mentioned;

http://www.sis.si/iphone/my-measures

It's for iPhone rather than Mac, but I'm finding this app rather useful at the moment!

[Dylan]

I had to slip this one in, if it hadn't already been mentioned;

http://www.sis.si/iphone/my-measures

It's for iPhone rather than Mac, but I'm finding this app rather useful at the moment!

Got to thank you for that one Tom.
What a fantastic App. Simple, but a great idea and so well executed

[tfdesign]

Cheers Dylan.

I noticed the VLC player was mentioned a few times. Personally I'm not a fan of the VLC, I much prefer Chroma, which is far more slick!

http://chromaplayer.com/

[driven]

Cheers Dylan. :)

I noticed the VLC player was mentioned a few times. Personally I'm not a fan of the VLC, I much prefer Chroma, which is far more slick!

http://chromaplayer.com/

I agree on VLC, and not just because it's french, chroma does look very good...

I give this site a  rating it saves a lot of digging......
http://www.usingmac.com/2009/7/29/85-useful-free-mac-apps-for-designers
this is one of many useful pages
http://www.usingmac.com/2009/1/15/unveiling-hidden-os-x-shortcuts

john

[tfdesign]

I've recently started using MacDraft again, so I've really got to champion MicroSpot's MacDraft Pro once more. I bought this MacDraft some years back, and never really used it, because I was lazy and didn't want to use a single button mouse again. But MacDraft really is something special, and it is very cheap too (at the moment, if bought from other distributors). MacDraft is very fast in Snow Leopard too.

There is also a Windows version too- which is very useful!

http://www.microspot.com/products/macdraft/index.htm

http://www.microspot.com/products/pcdraft/index.htm

[driven]

colour[code]d quicklook.jpg

If, like me, you look at the ruby code this is fantastichttp://www.usingmac.com/2008/10/29/time-saver-quicklook-plugins

it's from the same site I posted yesterday but is so fast and useful I thought it was worth highlighting

CC_path.jpg

maybe it's been mentioned before, but I haven't seen it...

john

[wind-borne]

I've recently started using MacDraft again, so I've really got to champion MicroSpot's MacDraft Pro once more. I bought this MacDraft some years back, and never really used it, because I was lazy and didn't want to use a single button mouse again. But MacDraft really is something special, and it is very cheap too (at the moment, if bought from other distributors). MacDraft is very fast in Snow Leopard too.

I use MacDraft regularly but can't give it an enthusiastic thumbs up cause I can't find any way to set up keyboard shortcuts for the tools themselves, only menu items. Dragging open each tool after having to click in the first place is a drag.

Am I missing something?

[tfdesign]

Am I missing something?

No, and I agree, MacDraft in this area is a bit of a pile of shite. I'm championing MD, because apart from a few minor problems, like key commands, MD is actually very good. I just wish the developers would get their act together and improve it. Like I suppose Engineered Software have done for PC8 (it's now a Cocoa app). It's like Microspot don't really care for 2D anymore, despite that in the 'real world' 2D is still very much prevalent (In my experience anyway).