Enjoying digital terrestrial TV wherever it is available, receiving analogue or cable TV, or recording VHS tape recordings into digital format: it’s all possible with the Elgato EyeTV Hybrid. This hardware is a big USB stick with a coaxial connector at the top and a mini-USB connector at the side. It’s amazing what such a small device is capable of, but the most amazing is what the software can do.
When the new FTP client Flow was released, I decided it would be a good idea to compare three of the many FTP clients available for Mac OS X today. I ended up with Transmit, Interarchy and Flow. Transmit is the FTP client I use myself. Interarchy was my favourite for a long time until I found out about Transmit. When Transmit was released some years ago, I found Interarchy lacking the interface quality I looked for. And now, Flow seemed to take over from Transmit. When I saw the screenshots on the developer’s web site, I thought this must be the new Transmit.
Book Collector is Dutch firm Collectorz’s idea of a book collection software. Book Collector has built-in barcode scanner support, automatic downloading of book information from all Amazon stores, the Library of Congress, the British National Library, Librarie Nationale de France, Barnes & Nobles, etc. It has a full-blown borrowing management system, supports extra information you can add to a book, even add cover images using a TWAIN scanner. Some of these features don’t work on Mac OS X, but so far I have yet to see a better, more powerful book collection application.
Book Collector comes with a good manual, explaining in clear terms how you get your books in the database, both in Wizard and Advanced mode. The manual is great, but totally unnecessary in my opinion, as the program is almost totally self-explanatory. From the manual, I could deduct Book Collector is not just for people who are used to working with such software, but also for people who aren’t --let’s call them part-time voluntary librarians.
We tend to collect an incredible amount of media, books, folders and other “things” that we can’t throw away because they can have some value for later use. For example, I collect and save my editorial and other work on off-line media. At the time I used 5"25 MO-discs, but these days I use Verbatim’s Archive DVDs because they’re specially created for archival purposes.
“Viruses on Mac OS X don’t exist.” “There’s no threat from viruses, Trojans, and other malicious critters when you’re working with Leopard.” Two statements we want you to take with a grain of salt. As Mac OS X becomes more popular, the threat will become more serious. And while I am one of those people who are convinced we will never experience what Windows users have to go through, you shouldn’t solely rely on Apple to keep your system free of malicious software. Especially not if you’re using Boot Camp or one of the virtualisation products that let you run Windows on your Mac.
Marketcircle earned IT Enquirer Awards, with Billings and with Daylite. Daylite 3 was a good business management system, but I used to find it a bit difficult to use. And I also felt it could do more for task management. When GTD (Getting Things Done) became fashionable on the Mac as well, I realised I should give Daylite another try for my own use, and share with you the results of a couple of months working with Daylite.
Since my last review of the system, Daylite had moved on to version 3.7. Usually, version changes after the first dot don’t imply huge changes or additions, but much to my surprise that wasn’t the case with Daylite 3.7. Although I read each press release over the last year with the same attention and care that I read all my press releases with, I never felt the version changes were exceptional. Well, I was wrong. In this article, I’ll share with you why.
FileMaker must have had the idea of servicing the individual, next to the small to medium-sized organisation with a need for a modestly scalable database. I can’t think of any other reason why the company would otherwise release an application like Bento. Developed specifically for Leopard users, Bento is a showcase of what a FileMaker database should look like. Most FileMaker solutions developed by third parties look like they’ve been designed in the early seventies, but Bento shows the world you can be different. Bento looks great, and it is pretty scalable.
Apimac announced today the release of Compress Files ‘08, their compression tool for Mac OS X that enable Mac users to create Zip compressed and encrypted files; XAR archive files, 7zip and 7zip crypted archives, TAR archives; Gzip compressed archives; Bzip2 compressed archives and compressed and encrypted disk images. The new release primarily adds Finder’s contextual menu support letting user access to compress and archive commands associated with files and folders.
Also new in version ‘08 of Compress Files are some changes to AS dictionary to improve compatibility with Mac OS X 10.5.2 Leopard; new Reveal buttons and the possibility to order columns in Log History window.
Helper applications, some startup daemons and other miscellanea can be found in your login items list in the System Preferences. Some of these applications are dumped in your Login Items by programs you install, and many won’t even tell you they depend on helper programs to function. With Tiger and earlier Mac OS X systems, you couldn’t tell where such a Login Item lives, and if you ran into problems and suspected one of those was the cause, you could do little else than remove the Login Item and restart your machine. With Leopard, you are one step ahead.
e3 Software develops a mass mailing application called Direct Mail. Recently, e3 Software added a Pro version to its mass mailing product range. We reviewed Direct Mail 1.x last year as it was integrated with Marketcircle’s Daylite productivity suite. This year, we are reviewing Direct Mail Pro because it adds a long list of impressive features, which makes this mass mailing application elevated above far above its competition. In fact, Direct Mail Pro is not a spamming tool --which other mass mailers all too often are considered to be-- but a real solution for newsletter distributors, and marketing people who love the integration (yes, that one works with Direct Mail Pro too) with Daylite.
Direct Mail was a simple mass mailer. It did a good job and had just enough features to make people with fairly simple needs happy. Direct Mail still does a good job. It has a couple more features in its current incarnation that makes it stand out, but it still is a fairly simple program. Enter Direct Mail Pro. That one will blow you away. Direct Mail costs 59.99 USD, while the Pro version costs 119.99 USD. That’s double the money, but if you can afford it, go for the Pro version. It is crammed with functionality.
iClipboard by Chronos is a multi-clipboard utility. It will capture all your copy actions except for the items you drag and drop, of course. iClipboard has one really important competitor, iClip by Inventive USA. While iClip is more beautifully designed, I found that working with iClipboard is more efficient.
Getting Things Done. In the eighties and nineties we had Time/System agendas to make sure we got things done. They didn’t help much, though. Nowadays we have programs that help us get things done. Such as OmiFocus 1.0. OmniFocus 1.0 follows the rules of GTD gurus like David Allen. Unfortunately for me, I don’t believe much of what these gurus tell me anymore. The David Allens of this world get rich quick (GRQ) on themes like Getting Things Done (GTD) because their audience hasn’t yet seen through their message that usually is as thin as air.
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