utility
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Scroll Reverser brings Lion, iOS reverse scrolling to Snow Leopard
One of the more surprising features of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion has been the change to reverse scrolling. With reverse scrolling, your hand actually moves up to scroll down a page. This is contrary to the common method of scrolling that is used in most major operating systems, where the hand moves down to scroll down. Reverse scrolling is used on iOS devices, where it feels very natural -- it's like you're moving a piece of paper up and down in a frame to reveal the content on it. While reverse scrolling can be turned off in Lion through System Preferences, many developers who are beginning to work with the Lion developer preview find that they prefer this very iOS-like way of interfacing with their Macs. Those developers are at a disadvantage when they switch back to earlier versions of Mac OS X -- they basically have to remember what OS they're working with and make a mental switch to the proper scrolling direction. Now, developer Nick Moore has created a small utility to reverse the scrolling on Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6. Scroll Reverser (free) adds a menu bar item allowing the direction of scrolling to be toggled. That's perfect for developers who want to keep their Macs as Lion-like as possible, but would like the ability to go back to the tried-and-true direct scroll when necessary. If you aren't a developer and would like to get a taste of what reverse scrolling feels like, download the utility and give it a try. [via Mac OS X Daily]
ScreenFloat, a great productivity booster for Mac
ScreenFloat, now available on the Mac App Store, is a small utility that does one simple thing: float screenshots above all your other windows. Seems silly at first, right? It's not. I've been beta testing this app for over a year, and every time I open it, I'm amazed at how useful this functionality is. Take, for example, InDesign. There's plenty of data that can't be quickly copied and pasted into a document, and InDesign tends to obscure everything but what you're working on with its interface elements. With ScreenFloat, I just hit Command+Shift+2 and snap a quick shot of the information I need to reference. When I switch back to InDesign, that screenshot is right there, floating wherever I move it to. InDesign stays focused as I enter what I need. It's great for writing, too. Right now I have a snap of the Mac App Store details for ScreenFlow floating next to the TextMate window where I'm writing this up. Price, release date, how to spell developer Matthias Gansrigler's name ... all instantly available for reference without a single Command+Tab. I could give you a dozen more examples, but I think that if ScreenFloat is going to be of use to you, you've probably already thought of a few times you could live without a bunch of app switching. ScreenFloat also catalogs previous screenshots, and it has "Open In" functionality for sending them to any other application. It's US$7.99 in the Mac App Store, and in this blogger's opinion, it's an essential tool for anyone doing real work on a Mac. By the way, Eternal Storms Software (Matthias Gansrigler) is also responsible for Flickery, my favorite Flickr browser. If you haven't checked it out, it's on the Mac App Store as well.
ZAM opens up a full database for RIFT
Databases are a good thing for an MMO. When you have buckets of different items, quests, stats, enemies, bosses, and so forth, it's good to be able to reference a wide variety of different data on the fly. Wowhead is pretty much the gold standard for database services, giving World of Warcraft players the opportunity to use talent calculators, compare items, and browse a comprehensive quest database with ease. ZAM, the parent company of Wowhead, is porting that same all-encompassing database over to RIFT with today's launch of the appropriately named RIFT Database. Although the system has just gone live, it already includes a robust listing of abilities, items, and quests for players to browse, as well as details on the various collections available in-game. Complete with a soul calculator, the new repository of knowledge should be welcome for any and all RIFT players looking for quick and easy reference. About the only thing it currently lacks is an option for integration into browser, but given time, it seems inevitable that the database will just keep improving.
Virginia pilot program halves electricity bill for charging EVs overnight
Regardless of whether the internal combustion engine gets snuffed out this century, EV chargers aren't going to replace gas pumps at the rate they're presently rolling out, so it's quite likely new Leaf and Prius PHEV owners will need to charge at home. How might that affect one's electricity bill? It'll probably go up, but a Virginia utility says that a full tank of juice might not cost all that much. Dominion Virginia Power is volunteering to cut its rates by more than half for off-peak charging as part of a proposed pilot program, whereby 750 lucky EV owners will get enough electricity for a 40-mile commute for just 35 cents so long as they charge overnight. The utility's not talking kilowatt-hours here, but it says it typically gets $0.86 for the same amount. The deal requires the installation of a specially-approved charging station, but Virginia's looking at a second scheme too -- if those 750 agree to pay a flexible off-peak rate of between $0.33 and $0.41 per 40-mile dose, they can power the rest of their house using the budget volts as well. PR after the break.
TextExpander 3.2 offers backup, restore
TextExpander, which allows you to create text shortcuts and macros, has been updated to version 3.2. Along with some bug fixes, it also adds the ability to easily backup and restore your shortcuts, including automatic backup and keyboard shortcuts to expand top search results. The backup/restore feature is a nice addition. You can tell TextExpander to backup hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly and keep 50, 100, 200 or an infinite number of backups (well, limited to available disk space). These backups are uncompressed, which probably isn't a big deal for most people (mine was about 2mb) but given that Apple has just released a new MacBook Air with a 64GB hard drive, we should remember that space is still a factor. It appears that TextExpander also makes a new backup even if nothing has changed since previous backup, so you could end up with 50 (or more) backups which are, for all intents and purposes, identical. That's a relatively minor complaint, however, compared to not having automated backups at all. I had not planned to test this feature, but for reasons unrelated to this article I suddenly found that I needed to restore my TextExpander shortcuts and settings yesterday, and it worked easily and perfectly. TextExpander is one of my most used applications. I've created my own list of shortcuts to add everything from my phone number to my address to the start of a shell script and more. I use it so much that I won't even consider a writing application for iOS which doesn't include TextExpander touch. The Mac application is $35 for new users, ($15 if you owned TextExpander 2.x or earlier). Of course 3.2 is a free upgrade for existing 3.x users. If you haven't used it, you get 90 days to try it before you have to buy it, plenty of time to decide if it's for you. I wouldn't think about using a Mac without it, and it keeps getting better.
Put your Mac on a diet with CleanMyMac
CleanMyMac by Macpaw software is an amazing bit of Mac utility software that has one purpose in life: to streamline your hard drive by getting rid of all the extraneous stuff that you probably don't know is there and almost certainly don't need. It cleans out all of the useless cache files, logs, languages you don't know or don't want, universal binary code that your specific computer can't use, and other assorted junk, trash, and leftover bits and pieces. It does the job easily, elegantly, and completely. There are a ton of other programs out there that do pieces of the job, but there's no other program that is so complete. Let's take a look at some of the other programs for comparison. To get rid of unused languages that can balloon a program's size up to 70% larger than it needs to be, there's always been Monolingual. It gives you a listing of all the languages on your computer and then lets you pick and choose which ones to keep. Monolingual then deletes all vestiges of the unwanted languages in all your software. It's free, but it hasn't been updated in a couple of years. Although the current version does work with Snow Leopard, nobody knows when it's going to stop working nor does anyone know if it will work with Mac OSX 10.7 next summer. %Gallery-106006%
The Light and How to Swing It: Bringing utility in Cataclysm
With the Light as his strength, Gregg Reece of The Light and How to Swing It faces down the demons of the Burning Legion, the undead of the Scourge, and soon, an entire flight of black dragons. Please send screenshots as well as any comments to my email at gregg@wow.com. Sorry, the above graphic really has nothing to do with today's column, but I wanted to feature more of the new built-in "power auras" that Blizzard added to the game. As for today's message, I know the following is going to raise some red flags for those long-time paladins out there, but don't freak out. I'm going to ask that you start stepping up and bringing a bit more utility. Relax, I didn't mean it in a vanilla or BC sort of way when you were sometimes just brought for certain buffs and nothing to do with your damage, tanking or healing. I mean it in a real sense that we do have some utility available to us in addition to everything else that we do, much the same way that hunters' traps bring utility to their class. The coming expansion is going to be harder than we're used to. We've been just nuking things for so long that a lot of our utility abilities have slowly worked their way off of our toolbars, or we're getting new abilities in the expansion to fill roles we haven't had before. Let's take a look at what we're going to be expected to start doing once the Cataclysm gets into full swing.
IceClean does system maintenance and optimization for your Mac for free
There are a raft of utilities that provide a front end for the built-in Unix system tasks. Some are free, some cost a little bit, either through a purchase or shareware fee. Cocktail is a great example of a paid app that is very complete but it's not free. OnyX is a good free app with similar capabilities. IceClean does a whole basket of system fix-ups and the price is zippo. We took a look at IceClean a couple of years ago, and it's been updated for Snow Leopard. Everything from triggering background maintenance tasks that normally get done in the middle of the night, to permission repair, preference file verification and cache clearing. The app also has some network utilities for the more technically minded, like traceroute,, netstat and whois. The app can also force the trash can to empty, force eject optical media, and it can clean up many problems with Spotlight. There are a lot of other functions and you can check them at the IceClean website. Remember that like any utility, it's doing some deep digging into the Unix core of Mac OS X, so it isn't a good idea to force quit the app when it's running. It doesn't offer a lot of feedback other than a spinning gear, so caution is the word of the day. The current version supports Snow Leopard, while version 2.5 supports OS X 10.4. All these apps have some overlap, and most of them have some unique features. Check them out to see which ones best meet your needs. [via Mac360]
Our tour through Final Fantasy XI's June update and Visions of Abyssea
One of the weaknesses that players have always associated with Final Fantasy XI is the nature of combat within the game. Not that any fan will avoid telling you how fun it is -- but even the most ardent defender can't avoid pointing out that it does tend to be a bit slow. The actual battles run slower, abilities take longer to recharge, and the process of getting into the combat takes a great deal longer than it does in other games. You can't just jump into the game and expect to be off and fighting within a few minutes. At least, that was the case before the June Version Update. Three of the biggest additions to the game were designed to take that notion and throw it out the window, not only encouraging players to jump into violence but outright pushing you toward faster and more active combat. We had a chance to take a walk through the game's additions, and they were everything that was promised and more, enough to make any Final Fantasy XI player very happy indeed with the changing face of the endgame. %Gallery-97942%
AppleJack startup utility now works with Snow Leopard
In the hustle and the bustle of last week's full-court press press, there was a bit of Mac news worthy of mention: the indispensable AppleJack single-user utility has been updated for compatibility with Snow Leopard. If you never need AppleJack, you'll be happier, but if and when you do need it there's no doubt it can save your sanity (and your Mac). Developed by Kristofer Widholm with an assist from Steve Anthony, the AppleJack utility can only be run when you boot your Mac into single-user mode (by holding down the S and Command keys during startup). It will allow you to clean caches, run repairs and generally happy-make your unhappy Mac. The tool is open-source and free, so go get it. [hat tip to TidBITS]
Friday Favorite (on a Tuesday): OpenTerminal
I'm aware that it's not, in fact, Friday. When we find an app that's not new, but is really useful to us, we usually save it for a Friday before we salivate all over it. I'm an impatient guy, though, so here's your Friday Favorite on a Tuesday. It's five o'clock somewhere. This one's for the geeks. If you have no idea why you'd want to open the current finder folder in Terminal, you'll have little interest in this app, and I hope the rest of today's news is more thrilling for you. If, however, you get a little excited about a button on your Finder window that drops you into the UNIX subsystem, read on: I think I've found the best-of-breed. OpenTerminal does what it says, it opens Terminal and cd's to the folder of the foreground Finder window. There are plenty of AppleScript or Automator-based buttons that will do this, and apps like cdto do the job in a very utilitarian fashion. It's pretty easy to craft your own, too, but this free utility packs a few extra tricks.
Friday Favorite: BetterZip
BetterZip is a utility I might not use every day, but I'm very thankful for it when I need it. It's an archive/compression utility which handles a broad array of archive formats, including ZIP, TAR, GZip, BZip2, and some that you rarely see on a Mac, such as 7-Zip and RAR formats. While the unarchiver built in to OS X can handle quite a few of these formats -- and is what I use on a day-to-day basis -- BetterZip adds a few very useful tools to the mix. BetterZip opens or creates your archive in a file-list format, and you can drag files between Finder and BetterZip to add to or extract from the archive. Creating new archives is just a "File->New" or Command-N away, and you can save them in Zip, TAR, TGZ, TBZ, 7-Zip or XAR formats. While the Finder lets you easily create archives by right-clicking a file selection and choosing "Archive," it doesn't allow you to easily edit the archive or add to it. For quick compression of one or more files for emailing, it's fine and I use it regularly, but for larger archives that need to be more flexible, BetterZip is an excellent choice. BetterZip also makes it easy to search large archives for a single file you're looking for. Read on for more reasons BetterZip is my Friday Favorite ...
Divvy up your windows
For those who deal with a lot of windows, especially on multiple screens, any utility that makes it easier to organize and reposition those windows quickly is a boon. I've used SizeUp for a while now, and have become very accustomed to being able to quickly snap my windows into halves or quarters of a screen and jump them from one screen (or Space) to another with keyboard commands. We've mentioned SizeUp before, as well as MercuryMover and Cinch. There's a new kid on the block, though, and it's a brilliant take on the existing ideas. Divvy is a utility that takes advantage of both keyboard and mouse to quickly move windows into place. Where the others allowed a certain amount of control over presets, and offered a certain compromise between flexibility and speed, Divvy takes the cake by using a visual (mouse-driven) interface that also allows custom keyboard shortcuts, assigned to any part of your screen that you define.
iPad apps: utilities you need
Utilities are the vegetables of the software world -- not fun, rarely pretty, but gosh darnit, they're good for you. Whether they're checking that your new TV has been mounted square on the wall, crunching your numbers, getting you up in the morning, or keeping track of your mad ramblings in the middle of the night, these little bundles of binary joy can save your job (or your marriage) every time an iPad game almost destroys it. We've taken a close look at a few of the utilities available to iPad owners in the first volley of native, high-resolution apps for the platform and come away with a few winners -- and even better, some of these suckers come at absolutely no cost to you. Follow the break for the full rundown -- and don't forget to check the rest of our app roundups after you're done!
No more accidental Caps Lock with CapSee
If you've ever accidentally turned on your Caps Lock key and caused some trouble, Threemagination's utility CapSee may be just what you're looking for. It simply displays a bezel notification on your screen when you hit the Caps Lock key, reminding you that Caps Lock is on. It's free, and useful for anyone who might need such a reminder. Threemagination has just released the latest version of CapSee, which adds the ability to hide the menu icon and make CapSee as unobtrusive as you like. Personally, I always remap my Caps Lock key to an Option key in my System Preferences (go to the Keyboard pane and look in the lower right for the Modifier Keys button). OS X also provides a small icon in password dialogs that lets you know you've got Caps Lock on. There are, I'm sure, plenty of people who actually use Caps Lock for legitimate purposes, which is where CapSee shines. If you're suffering from Accidental Caps Lock Syndrome, give it a shot.
Panic's free ShrinkIt turns humongous Illustrator PDFs into tiny ones
The brilliant minds at Panic noticed that something interesting was happening with PDF files created by Adobe Illustrator. Like many developers, Panic uses Adobe Illustrator to create icons and other image resources for their applications. The resulting PDF files, which were relatively "big-boned" (a politically-correct way of saying "fat"), would magically shrink in size when they were run through Apple's Mac OS X PDF processing. Apple's method is used when you save a PDF from Preview, which explains why most of the time those files are fairly small in size. Being the intelligent chaps that they are, the Panic engineers decided to look into the cause of this. What did they find? "Will started digging into the files and brother, you won't believe what he found. Swatches, patterns, preview bitmaps, all sort of metadata; even though we'd specifically turned off all the extra options when saving from Illustrator: Preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities, Embed Page Thumbnails, etc." Apparently just opening the obese PDFs in Preview and then saving them would shrink the file sizes dramatically. Rather than force their staff to go through this process each time they found a large Illustrator PDF, Panic did what most developers would do and wrote an application to automate the process. Devs can simply take a big batch of files, like the contents of an application's Resources folder, drop 'em onto ShrinkIt (download link), and watch the file sizes magically shrink. According to Panic, ShrinkIt can reduce an app bundle size by 4 megabytes. While ShrinkIt is a Panic-internal utility, the company has made it available to the world for free. Please note that ShrinkIt is primarily made for shrinking simple vector-resource PDFs, and probably won't work well on press-ready PDFs.
Google Email Uploader for Mac available now
The Gmail of a few years ago was quite primitive in comparison to the current incarnation. Still, threading and a nearly-bottomless cup of storage space made it appealing despite early privacy fears. I use Gmail extensively nowadays, complete with a bunch of tweaks, add-ons and lab components. Problem was, all my old email still lived on my "antique" addresses, and worse, I couldn't access those emails within the handy search tool in Gmail. Google Apps came along and while you could now better control email (using your own domain, for example), the same problem existed: your old email didn't migrate to your Google Apps account. Enter the Google Email Uploader for Mac. It's a simple tool allowing you to upload your old mail to your Google Apps account. That's it! Apple Mail, Eudora and Thunderbird all seem to be supported, but note there are some real limits if you have a ton of email. Here's what Google says to keep in mind: Start small. Due to server upload rate limits, the uploader is fast for up to 500 messages, and slow thereafter (1 message per second.) Pick a small subset of your mailboxes when first trying out the uploader. Be patient. Even after uploading completes, the server requires a while to process uploads. Do assign a custom label (this is checked by default.) This lets you effectively "undo" the uploads later by deleting all messages with the label. Deleting the label itself will not delete the mail. If you have many mailboxes in your archives, creating labels for each mailbox probably is not a good idea, as this could create far too many labels.
Apple finally brings official Windows 7 support to Boot Camp (update: 27-inch iMac fix)
Either Apple isn't operating on the Gregorian calender, or these updates are just straight-up late. Either way, we're pretty stoked to see the suits in Cupertino finally wise up and allow Microsoft's best OS ever to work on its machines, as it has today issued new Boot Camp software (v3.1) for both 32-bit and 64-bit users of Windows 7. The updates add native support for Win7 Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate, and in case that wasn't enough, they also fix "issues" with the Apple trackpad and add support for Apple's wireless keyboard and Magic Mouse. You'll also find model-specific drivers floating around to add even more support, and the Boot Camp Utility for Windows 7 Upgrade is said to "safely unmount the read-only Macintosh volume on Windows Vista" when upgrading from Vista to Windows 7. Hit those links below for all the bits and bytes that you've been so desperately waiting for. Update: we're hearing reports that the 27-inch iMac is responding to Windows 7 with the Black Screen of Death, so make sure you use this tool from Apple before installing Windows 7. Too late? Then you'll have to manually remove the offending default ATI drivers by starting from point 4 on this page (hold down Option key while booting up to select the Windows install disc, by the way), and then try the Boot Camp update again.
AppZapper: a great big upgrade for a small utility
I discovered AppZapper years ago. It was a huge boon for me, helping me keep my support folders a little cleaner as I began the early stages of my habit of installing 2 or more new apps a day, trying them, and usually deleting them. It let me drag an application to its interface, and would then search for related files that application may have left around the hard drive. A quick double-check (by me) to make sure it wasn't mistaken, one click and poof, all traces removed. I've tried other, similar applications over the years ... CleanApp has some great features, and Amnesia is pretty cool, but AppZapper "just worked." I managed to stay loyal to it long after I had assumed its development had gone dead. Then, to my pleasant surprise, a major update dropped yesterday. My AppZapper is not only freshened up, it's bursting with some very cool features.
First Look: Snagit for Mac Public Beta
Switchers were elated earlier this year when TechSmith, developers of the fabulous Camtasia screen recorder application for Windows, finally shipped their flagship app for the Mac. Those switchers were probably also wishing that TechSmith would create a Mac version of their screen capture application, Snagit. Well, their wishes have been granted! TechSmith has announced the public beta version of Snagit for Mac, and a first look at the application shows that it's a worthy screenshot snapper for the platform. The company has made the beta available for feedback on operation and features, so this is a perfect time to download the program and give it a try. After installing the application and launching it, all that is visible is a small "tab" that pops out from the side of the Mac screen when you hover over it. The tab has a drop-down for choosing the capture mode and a red button for taking the screen shot. There are two capture modes -- all-in-one capture and window capture. Window capture mode displays all open windows Exposé-style, and you click on one of the windows to select it for capture. Once captured, it appears in a screen where you can annotate the screenshot in a number of ways, or add effects. At this time, there are no effects and the app shows that the feature is coming soon.
