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Bartender will hide your menu bar icons, goes to version 1.0
Bartender is a simple but excellent little app that lets you control that flood of icons up in your menu bar on the top of your OS X window. Now, designer Ben Surtees, who we spoke with earlier this year about where the app came from, has released version 1.0.2 of the app, officially releasing it as a finished product out into the world. You can buy it now for US$15, or there's still a four-week trial period available, if you just want to check it out for free. Bartender offers a lot of different functionality to let you control your menu bar exactly as you choose. You can hide everything, kick icons down to Bartender's own bar or even set it up so that your icons are usually hidden, but only appear if they change. Plus, the app works with Notification Center, so you can hide or control that icon too as you'd like. And even when icons are moved down to the Bartender bar, they retain all of their functionality, as you can see above. Bartender is a handy little app, and congrats to Surtees on finally releasing it. Again, it's available for purchase right now.
Clutter, clarity or random apps: What's on your Menu Bar?
Yesterday, our editor-in-chief Victor Agreda wrote about an app called Bartender for his Friday Favorite. It's an app that lets you further organize your Menu Bar items if you happen to have a few too many. That stirred up some interest around the newsroom about what we have in our individual Menu Bars, so we're all going to show our favorites. Here are mine (from left to right): Dropbox: The one cloud utility I can't live without. Yes, I am automatically uploading all my photos to Dropbox now for backup. Appetizer: An early App.Net client. Twitter: Yes, I am still using the "official" Twitter app on my Mac. So sue me. Bifocals: A utility for OS X that toggles visibility of invisible files. Unfortunately, it's not working correctly with Mountain Lion right now. Text Expander: Can anyone live without this utility? Growl: Still the best notification utility for OS X, soon to work with Notification Center. DayOne: My favorite Mac app, which reminds me each day to write in my personal journal. LogMeIn: Awesome way to control other computers, or control my Mac from an iPad or iPhone using LogMeIn Ignition. Droplr: What I use to quickly share items with coworkers and friends. iStat Menus: My way to see how much memory I'm using, how hot my iMac is running, and just how much CPU capacity is being used. Helpful when I'm streaming video for TUAW TV Live. The typical Apple Menu Bar items: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Language Prefs, Volume, Time, Users & Groups, Spotlight, Notification Center My fellow bloggers will be sharing their menu bars with you soon! What do you use in place of some of these apps? We'd love to hear from you. Throw a link to your screenshot into the comments, or chime in on the corresponding Facebook post.
Daily Mac App: FormatMatch
Copying and pasting text is something everyone does. In OS X you have two choices by default -- copy and paste, which retains formatting; or paste and match style, which strips out the source formatting. If you're like me, you almost never want the source formatting. Cmd+V is the shortcut for regular pasting and Cmd+Shift+V is usually for paste and match style. However, depending on the program, the latter's shortcut is sometimes Cmd+Shift+Opt+V, which is a bit of a stretch for my poor fingers. You can streamline this process using FormatMatch to paste plain text at all times. When enabled, the menu bar utility makes pasting plain text the primary function for Cmd+V. A keyboard shortcut will disable FormatMatch when you want to retain styling. While it solves one of my pet hates, I wish you could disable the menu bar icon. If you're like me and almost never want the formatting to come with the text and can't remember the right shortcut key combo for paste and match style depending on the program, then check out the free FormatMatch from the Mac App Store. Alternatively, if you don't like the switchable app approach, you can swap the shortcuts for paste and paste and match style as this tip suggests.
Daily Mac App: Starred
If you're a Gmail user who leverages more than the simple mail potential of Google's email service, you'll know how valuable labels, stars and other organizational features are. Trouble is, to take advantage of them you normally have to resort to using the Gmail web app in its various guises, or an app like Sparrow Mail. Starring emails and threads is particularly useful if you don't have time to process the information there and then, but don't want the email to get lost in the sea of your incoming email. A simple little menu bar application, Starred, makes using stars in Gmail even more useful. The tiny little app sits in your menu bar as a star with a counter. The counter tells you how many starred emails you have currently in your account. Clicking on the icon spits out a drop-down menu that gives you the subjects and senders, as well as the first line of the starred emails. Click on the snippets and you're presented with a plain text pop-up of the email, allowing you to read and deal with the emails without having to open up your email client or the Gmail web app. The only thing that it's currently missing is the ability to remove stars directly from the app -- for now you have to head into the Gmail web app to do that. Starred is a nice and simple, free app that should fit into your workflow nicely if you're a hardcore Gmail user and don't already use something like Sparrow Mail or Mailplane on your Mac. If you star things for later, give Starred a whirl.
Daily Mac App: CPU LED
Recently I've become a bit obsessed with CPU usage. Not because my 2011 MacBook Pro is underpowered -- far from it with its Quad-core Core i7. My concern is that the CPU generates an absolute bucket load of heat. CPU LED is a fantastic little menu bar tool for keeping an eye on your CPU load. It sits there with a small, customisable graphic that updates dynamically to display CPU load at a glance. It'll display each core or virtualised core separately or create an average for the whole CPU, depending on your preferences. There are loads of indicators to choose from, including Apple symbols, smilies, bars, colored circles and 3D chips. If you can't find something to your taste you can easily load your own icons. While CPU LED is a free download from the Mac App Store, there are two add-ons available as in-app purchases. The first is a Memory LED, which is available for US$0.99 and does what CPU LED does but for RAM, so you can keep an eye on your RAM usage and see when your system is paging to and from your disk. The second is Disk LED, which will set you back $1.99 (also available as a separate purchase). Disk LED monitors your disk activity and allows you to check their health status on-the-fly. While programs like iStat Menus are more configurable and comprehensive, CPU LED gives you at-a-glance information on your CPU at all times, is lightweight and most importantly, it's free. So if you're at all concerned about your CPU load and you've got space to spare in your menu bar, give CPU LED a whirl. You might like it.
Daily Mac App: gfxCardStatus
Some newer MacBook Pros have been packing dual graphics cards for a while now, with the ability to dynamically switch between them -- integrated for battery life and discrete for performance. It's often tricky to know which card is currently in use as the switch between the two is seamless. That's where gfxCardStatus comes to the rescue. Sitting up in your menu bar, gfxCardStatus shows you at a glance which card is currently active, but more than that, it actually allows you to manually switch between the GPUs. A drop down menu provides you with three options: Integrated Only; Discrete Only; and Dynamic Switching, which is the system default that lets OS X decide which graphics card is required. If you want to save as much battery power as possible, leaving it on integrated only will ensure that the power hungry discrete GPU doesn't fire up. On the other hand if you want maximum performance all the time, then discrete only will make sure the most powerful GPU is fired up. For most situations OS X does a decent job of managing power considerations, but if you want a little more control, gfxCardStatus will let you set up GPU power schemes to define which chip is used depending on power source. gfxCardStatus is one of those little apps that's both useful and doesn't get in your way. You won't need it a lot, but if you're on battery power and you want to keep working for as long as possible, the little menu bar app can be a life saver. It's freely available (donations accepted) to download from the developer's site and is Lion-ready.
Daily Mac App: Sunset
Sometimes your screen is just too bright in the evenings. For the sake of your eyes, Sunset lets you reduce the brightness of your monitor below that of the standard brightness controls and without having to adjust the backlight. If you reduce the brightness of your screen using the on-board controls, what you're doing is reducing the brightness of the backlight bulbs or LEDs behind the screen. Sometimes that can cause buzzing, or other droning noises, and sometimes that just isn't dim enough. Sunset takes a different approach purely in software that overlays a dimming mask over your screen with different levels to suit your brightness needs. This means that if your display makes an annoying sound when dimmed, or you just can't get it dim enough, Sunset will dim your display to your satisfaction without issue. Sure, dimming your display with Sunset doesn't affect electricity usage or the life of your backlight, but it will save your eyes at night. The little program sits in the menu bar and can be configured to respond to global shortcut keys like F1 & F2. If you have more than one display, Sunset can dim all of them to the same level or you can pick and choose which one to dim independently. The only thing missing is some sort of auto-dimming set to a specific timer, but the manual control works well. Sunset is great if your lowest monitor's brightness setting is just too bright, or it makes an annoying sound when not on full brightness. It's simple, easy to use and gets the job done for an introductory price of US$1.99 (regular price $3.99).
TUAW's Daily Mac App: QuitAppsMBI
Quitting apps quickly can be a pain. If you've got loads open, but you want to quit them all fast, the best way has been Cmd+Tab then Cmd+Q. Now, the free QuitsAppsMBI app makes quitting some or all of your apps a breeze. A menu bar utility, QuitsAppsMBI sits patiently waiting for your command. Click on the icon and a drop-down menu featuring all the currently running apps allows you to quickly quit individual apps or quit them all at once with one click. QuitsAppsMBI even allows you to quit apps you couldn't normally. Things like the Adobe Update notifier (a personal bug-bear of mine) and other unquittable menu bar and background apps can all be quit from the drop-down menu. This is both a feature and an issue for QuitsAppsMBI, because there aren't any settings for excluding apps from the "Quit All Apps" command, which means if you have things like tablet support programs, Xmarks or other background apps, they will all be terminated as well. If you need more functionality such as excluding some apps from the "Quit All Apps" command, Limit Point Software offers a paid-for version of QuitsAppsMBI simply called QuitsApps, which is available for US$9.99 from the Mac App Store (trial available on the Limit Point Software website). But for just quickly quitting a few or all of your apps the free QuitsAppsMBI gets the job done.
TUAW's Daily Mac App: Music Commander
Controlling iTunes with the keyboard is easy enough, but what if you want a little more information without having to resort to the full iTunes window? Music Commander is here to help. Sitting in the menu bar, Music Commander allows you to control iTunes with an extensive drop-down menu. You've got the usual play controls for quick access with your mouse, but you've also got some of iTunes more advanced music controls. You can rate the current song, switch shuffle and repeat on and off, as well as change the current playlist. Volume control is right there too, as well as the album art and metadata of the current track including album, artist and song name. If you want to get a bit social with your iTunes listening experience (no I'm not talking about Ping), Music Commander has Twitter, Facebook and last.fm built in, letting you tweet, post or scrobble the current song. When you've had enough you can even quit iTunes right from Music Commander. If you've been looking for a decent iTunes controller for your menu bar, Music Commander might just be the ticket. While you can accomplish quite a lot of the functionality using Apple keyboard media controls and Growl, Music Commander puts it all there, in one nice and tidy package. Music Commander is available for US$0.99 from the Mac App Store.
TUAW's Daily Mac App: Quiet
We've covered apps that help you focus by masking other windows in the background in the past. Quiet is another app that will blank out distractions and help you stick to the task at hand. You can configure keyboard shortcuts or use the drop-down menu from the menu bar icon to enter and exit Focus mode for a selected app or Space. You get a choice of "isolation" effect, with Quiet defaulting to Fade to Black. Focus Out is available as well as Wallpaper, which removes everything off screen apart from the window or space you're focused on and reveals the wallpaper behind. Where the Fade to Black and Wallpaper modes worked fine, the defocus effect caused some temporary disruption to certain apps, which made it frustrating to use. A warning is displayed up to say that "Focus Out demands a powerful Mac" (Intel integrated video not supported), but you don't get much more powerful than a 2011 top-spec MacBook Pro. That's an option to avoid for most, then. Quiet will "quiet" certain apps or all supported apps at your preference. Apps such as Adium, iChat and Skype can be selectively suppressed along with Mail and the GrowlHelperApp, which blocks all Growl notifications. Quiet will also set your instant messaging status to DND with the default being "I'm in The Zone." Whereas other apps, such as HazeOver, quickly isolate windows automatically, Quiet is a heavier, totally manual affair. If that's something you're after, then Quiet will do the job for US$3.99 from the Mac App Store. If you're after something similar for a little less money, check out the free Isolator.
TUAW's Daily Mac App: CloudApp
Sharing small files via email is easy with attachments. But what about sharing files via IM, Twitter, Facebook or the myriad of other services? That's where the incredibly simple CloudApp comes in. CloudApp sits in your menu bar waiting to upload files to the cloud, ready for sharing with friends, family and colleagues. Simply drag your file onto the menu bar icon and watch as the cloud fills up and a link to the file is copied to the clipboard. Previously uploaded files, as well as their view counts, are accessible from a drop-down menu or the CloudApp web app. These days, screenshots are often the easiest way to get your point across, and CloudApp will conveniently auto-upload any screenshots you take. That's not all, though; you can use global shortcuts from the keyboard or even a Services menu entry to upload files directly from Finder. All your uploads are stored in your personal Cloud account, either privately or publicly, which is free for a maximum of 10 daily uploads and files up to 25 MB. If you need more than that, unlimited uploads of up to 250 MB and the ability to use a custom domain are available with a Pro account, which costs from US$5 a month. It's simple, effective and free from the Mac App Store. Extensions called RainDrops, which hook into Adobe Photoshop and many other programs, are available from the CloudApp site.
TUAW's Daily Mac App: Caffeine
Caffeine, like a shot of coffee at night, keeps your Mac awake and your screen bright. We first covered it a few years ago. A tiny menu bar utility, Caffeine prevents your Mac from activating the screen saver or sleeping when idle. Presenting as a cup of coffee, the icon indicates whether Caffeine is active, denoted by a full cup of coffee, or inactive, when the coffee cup is empty. Caffeine is activated by clicking on the menu bar icon. You can define a set period of activity from five minutes to five hours, or set it to be active indefinitely via a right-click or in the settings. While you can replicate the features of Caffeine using System Preferences, having a quick and easy sleep preventer in your menu bar is a real boon. It's cute, effective, and best of all, Caffeine is absolutely free. Grab it now from the Mac App Store.
TUAW's Daily Mac App: QuickNotes
With our Macs in front of us, many still resort to pen and paper for taking down little snippets of information. QuickNotes is a program designed to help wean you off the dead wood and ink, allowing you to quickly jot down information with just a few key presses. Hiding in your menu bar, you can invoke QuickNotes either with a drop-down menu, or with Ctrl+Opt+Cmd+N, which pops up a small text entry window ready to take whatever text you want to type or paste into it. You can either hit Cmd+Enter or click "Add" to save the note, or click anywhere else or "Close" to dismiss the note. All your notes are stored in your menu bar ready for copying to a clipboard with a simple click or for re-editing. There are lots of other ways of taking notes on your Mac, you can use the free Stickies dashboard widget or simply open TextEdit to name just a few; but for US$1.99 QuickNotes gets the job done easily and quickly, ever present in your menu bar. Have you managed to ditch your pen and paper for your Mac? What programs do you use for quickly jotting down bits of information? Let us know in the comments.
TUAW's Daily Mac App: Disk Alarm
On today's portable Macs, especially those packing SSDs, storage space can be somewhat limited. It can be pretty easy to fill up all available space with a few large downloads, rendering your computer starved of space and creaking under the strain. Problem is, unless you watch your HDD space like a hawk, there aren't many visual cues as to when you're running low on space, and that's what Disk Alarm aims to put right. Disk Alarm does one thing; it checks the amount of free space you have on your main drive and alerts you when you get below a user-definable threshold. It's nice and simple -- you adjust one slider to set the threshold and one to set the check interval. You can get Disk Alarm to play an audible alert along with a warning when your disk gets low, but it'll also show how much free space you have in your menu bar for at-a-glance reassurance. The application used to be able to hide up into the menu bar when you closed the settings window, but as of a recent update, Apple blocked the version that had that ability. Hopefully the developer can find some way around Apple's odd blockade, but in the meantime, Cmd+W will close just the window and leave the menu bar icon. Disk Alarm is available for US$3.99 from the Mac App Store, and should save you time and heartache the next time you run out of space. If you've got any good experiences or favorite alternatives to Disk Alarm, sound off in the comments.
SpotiMy brings Spotify playback control to the menu bar, but that's it
Spotify might not have made it across the pond just yet, but that doesn't mean millions of Mac users aren't getting their music fix via the ad-supported or premium streaming service. A new Mac App Store app called SpotiMy aims to enhance the Spotify experience of Mac users by letting them control playback right from the menu bar. The little app adds a menu bar icon with drop-down previous, pause/play and next track buttons. Unfortunately that's about all you're going to get for your US$0.99. In fact you can easily and quickly control Spotify playback using the existing media keys on any Mac keyboard, which makes the app practically redundant for anyone with said keyboard. SpotiMy shows that there is potential for Spotify add-ons like the plethora available for iTunes. At the moment SpotiMy doesn't bring anything you can't do better with a keyboard to the table and therefore I can't recommend it. But the developer is keen to add to the app, with its current form very much a simple start. If track selection, or playlist support, along with what's playing and some other control features make it into the app, a menu bar Spotify control app could be really useful. One to watch but not buy, unless you desperately want Spotify menu bar playback control right now.
TUAW's Daily Mac App: MenuPop
Have you ever wished you had more power from your context menu? That you could have all the menu bar options at your cursor without having to switch your focus to the top of the screen and the menu bar itself? MenuPop shoehorns all of the menu bar options into a contextual app dependent upon a pop-up menu that appears right next to your cursor. The app allows you to control any function in virtually any program from a menu that can be activated with an alternate mouse click or a keyboard shortcut. If you're one of the increasing numbers of dual-screen, large-monitor users, having all of the options the menu bar easily accessible via mouse keep your focus on the task at hand and speeds up common operations for non-keyboard jockeys. The keyboard shortcut or mouse button is user customizable, although those with a two-button mouse will be limited to the keyboard shortcut. Text size is user controllable as well, with the option to show the Apple and Application menus, too. MenuPop is available for US$4.99 from the Mac App Store.
TUAW's Daily Mac App: CalendarBar
For most office-bound people, checking their calendar is one of the biggest chores of the electronic world. On the Mac, we've got many great options for managing calendars, including iCal, but what about a fast way to check your schedule from your desktop? That's where CalendarBar comes in. This little gem of a Mac app sits in your menu bar, ready to tell you what's coming up at a moment's notice. Click the icon, and a menu showing all your up-and-coming appointments and important dates drops down for easy viewing. CalendarBar will integrate with iCal, meaning you can view any calendar you can sync with it. Even if you're not an iCal user, CalendarBar can connect with Google Calendar and even Facebook for events and birthday integration. Clicking an entry will launch the appropriate application and take you to that specific event. In iCal's case, it'll launch and bring up the properties for the event. For things such as a birthday reminder from Facebook, CalendarBar will launch your default browser and show you the person or event of interest. Tasks from iCal are also displayed, with the ability to limit them to a set time period and clear them right from CalendarBar. Reminders can be sent via Growl. The menu bar icon can show you the current date or display the number of calendar entries. The drop-down menu also has extensive customization options, with the font, style, width and dates all adjustable. If you're someone who has all their dates, meetings, birthdays and reminders plugged into an electronic calendar, and you need fast at-a-glance access, then CalendarBar is an absolute no-brainer. It's small, simple, slick and fast for US$4.99.
HazeOver dims background windows to help you focus
Have you ever wished that you could fade out non-active windows in the background, leaving you to focus on the task at hand? HazeOver does just that in a simple and Mac-like fashion. A small utility that runs in the background, HazeOver dims any non-active windows automatically in a smooth ramp down to darkness. The amount of dimming is adjustable, from 10 to 80 percent, with an option to have a menu bar icon for quick access to settings. When you switch to a new window it is instantly thrust into the light, but when you switch away from it, HazeOver will fade it out smoothly into the background darkness. It's a really nice little utility that creates a very Mac-like effect and helps you focus on one window at a time. For US$0.99, HazeOver is worth a buck to add a little spice to your desktop and help you focus in on the task at hand. Hit the break to see HazeOver in action.
A hands-on look at iStat Menus 3
During the summer of 2008, I was using my MacBook Air outside on a very hot (102°F in the shade) day when I noticed that the laptop seemed to have slowed down to the point that it was almost unusable. Fortunately, I had installed iSlayer's iStat, and I was able to tell at a glance that one of the cores of the Core 2 Duo processor had shut down. Sure enough, a quick look around the Web pointed out that other MacBook Air owners were running into similar problems in "warm" conditions. Cooling off the MBA resolved the issue (and made me a lot cooler, too!), and I've never had the problem since. That one occurrence taught me the value of a tool like iStat, so the application has been on my Macs ever since. Now comes iStat Menus 3, the latest version of the venerable Mac monitoring application. The company name has changed -- it's now Bjango -- but the product still remains a useful tool for those of us who like to keep an eye on the internal workings of our Macs. I recently bought iStat Menus 3 to install on a new i7 iMac, so here are some of my first impressions of the app.
SecondBar puts your menu bar on a second monitor
The menu bar is a quintessential piece of the Mac "experience." On the left, it shows all of the menu items for the currently active application; on the right, it shows icons from various menu bar application programs: the date/time, WiFi status, MobileMe sync status, and many, many more. The whole idea is to make the menu items easy to find and easy to "hit" with a mouse, by being connected to the top of the screen (Fitts's law and all that). But what if you have two monitors? Suddenly the menu bar might be all the way over on the other side. Yes, I realize that complaining about using a Mac with two monitors might be the quintessential "first-world problem," but the more minor irritants you can remove from life, the better. SecondBar is an app which will extend your menu bar to a second monitor. I've been using it for a while and it works pretty well for what the author describes as an "alpha" build.