Customize the Menubar in OS X

The typical OS X menubar is pretty functional. Several items in System Preferences allow you to display a Menubar Icon (Displays, Bluetooth, Network, Sound, and Energy Saver to name a few) for quick access to system settings. There are many Applications available that enhance the Menubar, adding additional functionality, while using very few system resources.

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Win A Copy of FixTunes + Review

Hey

Quite a while ago I mentioned about a new sponsor of MacTricksAndTips, FixTunes. They have kindly let one of you lucky guys win one of four codes for there application. This means you get the application for free. This competition was going to be planned for earlier in the week, although one thing leading to another and various bumps along the road have caused it to be delayed. Anyway, this post will tell you a bit about the application and your chance to win. It will run in a similar fashion to the ActionGear competition I held earlier this month.

Review

Fixtunes, as the name suggests is a program designed to fix your iTunes library. For example if you have a small spelling error when you named your songs, this program is designed to find these problems and solve them for you. Although iTunes uses the Gracenote database when importing CD’s if you got them from other sources or didn’t use the database, this type of tool will come in very handy.

Fixtunes has three main settings, Fix One by One (recommended), Fix All, and Find Duplicates. I personally recommend using the fix one by one option. Simply because you can personally review the song, using the automatic method is good, although I can’t quite take the leap of faith with my iTunes library.

Actually fixing a song is easy, it goes through your library one by one. It will then go to various databases and find the various pieces of information and guesses the correct result. It needs a good start otherwise it doesn’t work very well. If you have a track named “Track 1″ it isn’t going to find the correct pieces of information. You can then accept the results or tweak them slightly and move on.

It will take your a while to fix all of your tunes if you go through your library one by one. But a good library is always worth it. This application if you were going to buy it costs $24.95. Which is a decent price for what you get. I would like it to be a little cheaper, but then you always do.

Competition

Hooked on winning a free copy. There are four copies available for you to win. Like previous competitions to win all you have to do is leave a comment. This will act as ballot vote and I will pick a winner randomly. Please leave a valid and correct email so we can contact you. The rules

• One entry per person, all you have to do is leave any comment, please don’t spam the comment box.
• You will only win one license
• When leaving a comment please leave a valid email address so FixTunes can contact you.
• The draw will last a week and will finish 3rd of Nov at 10pm (or if I am out a little later)
• Please write a proper sentence in your entry, otherwise my spam filter will catch it and your entry will not be recorded.
• The winner will be chosen at random using a random number generator. You comment number is your entry number.
• My decision is final. You can plead your case, but I say what goes.

Good look.

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Win A Copy of FixTunes + Review

Puzzlotto brings a different kind of game (and a cash prize) to the App Store

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Software, Odds and ends, Developer, iPhone

Puzzlotto has been about as hidden as the lemurs you can see in the screenshot over there, for some reason — the concept isn’t real easy to grasp, and if you just stumbled across the “game” in the App Store, odds are that you’d think you had $5 stolen from you. But there is a weird story hidden here, both literally and figuratively. The game itself was designed by people like Mike Lee of Delicious Monster and David Lanham of Iconfactory, but the screen you’re presented with on loading the game doesn’t seem anything like the Mac software those guys are known for — there’s just a picture of a forest, and a few eyes that you can touch to make lemurs and other creatures pop out. I would tell you more, but I haven’t actually figured it out yet — there’s a “fosa” that will scare away any lemurs or butterflies you’ve summoned, and I know that the butterflies are basically a progress meter, but other than that I have no idea.

But Puzzlotto isn’t just that perplexing app — it’s been dubbed “fundware” by Lee, and 10% of the proceeds from the game will go to the Madagascar Fauna Group to support the habitats of lemurs, fosas, and butterflies. And it’s actually a puzzle to be solved, with a cash prize — if you can be the first to figure out the “puzzle” behind Puzzlotto, United Lemur will give you a cash prize out of their prize pool, currently at $5000, and growing every day for 31 days. If no one claims the prize at the end of the 30 days, all the money will go to charity, project over. You can follow updates on their Twitter — it sounds like no one’s claimed any prizes yet, which is no surprise — if there are any clues in the app, they’re very, very hard to find. United Lemur claims that there is a game in there (and that it is worth the $5 entry fee), but so far, all players have found is a few screens of the weird lemur puzzle.

But it is a different kind of game — a cash prize handed out by a flabbergastingly tough puzzle disguised as an App Store game, all designed to benefit a charity. Lee says on his blog that they wanted to make a game where players couldn’t cheat by telling each other the answer, but maybe they didn’t realize that part of the fun of Myst is sharing the strategy with other players. And if you don’t want to shell out the $5 on Lee’s word, it might be fun to just wait until the solution gets posted somewhere anyway. Have you solved any part of Puzzlotto yet?

Puzzlotto brings a different kind of game (and a cash prize) to the App Store originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 27 Oct 2008 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Puzzlotto brings a different kind of game (and a cash prize) to the App Store originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 27 Oct 2008 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source:[tuaw]

Beta beat: TuneUp plugin gets your iTunes straightened out

Filed under: Software, iTunes, Beta Beat

The MP3 is an astonishing invention; who would have thought, in the days of LPs and 8-track tapes, that someday you could keep a houseful of albums on a gadget the size of a Zippo? Unfortunately, with power and convenience comes managerial effort and housekeeping chaos — duped files, missing cover art, and overall aggravation. Keeping your music clean and neat can seem like a full-time job.

I’ve long relied on Chaotic’s vintage and versatile MP3 Rage (now Media Rage 3, $30) utility for organizing my music, and it does fine (although it can’t resolve the one big issue I still have — a smattering of very old MP2 files that need to be converted to MP3 or AAC before syncing to an iPod, and there’s no good way to search for them… rrgh) but I’d love to have a plugin for iTunes that could handle some of the same chores.

It turns out, there already is such a plugin, but (silly Mac user!) I didn’t know about it because it’s only available in the Windows version of iTunes. TuneUp will happily sit in the iTunes sidebar and kick into gear on request, cleaning your song filenames, adding album art, pointing out concert dates and YouTube videos for your favorite artists, and more. The tool comes in a free version (limited to 50 art downloads and 500 file cleanups) or a paid Gold version ($12 US annual subscription or $20 lifetime license) with unlimited art and cleaning power.

If only there was a Mac version… ah, there’s the fun part. The Mac beta for TuneUp will be starting shortly, and we can help you move to the front of the line. Send an email to with your full name as the only thing on the first line of the email — the first 100 respondents will be automatically added to the beta list.

Happy cleaning!

Beta beat: TuneUp plugin gets your iTunes straightened out originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Beta beat: TuneUp plugin gets your iTunes straightened out originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source:[tuaw]

First Look: Google Earth for iPhone

Filed under: Software, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch, First Look

Google has ported Google Earth to the iPhone or iPod touch, and it’s such an impressive app that it deserves an Apple ad of its own.

The interface for Google Earth will be familiar instantly to anyone who has used an iPhone for more than a couple of hours. Upon launching the app, you see a photo of the Earth from space. To zoom in, you can either double-tap or use the “reverse-pinch” gesture on the screen. Swiping a finger left, right, up, or down moves the display in the chosen direction, and a two-finger rotation turns the display clockwise or counter-clockwise. There are icons on the display (see screenshot at right) for search, using your current location, changing settings, and realigning the display to North.

Things get more interesting when you tilt your iPhone; the display goes from a flat, satellite-eye view to a 3D-like image. If you’re near mountainous terrain, you get a true sense of the topographical features of the land. On many screens you’ll see Wikipedia icons, which link you to related Wikipedia articles. Read the rest of this post for more details and a gallery of screenshots.

Continue reading First Look: Google Earth for iPhone

First Look: Google Earth for iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 27 Oct 2008 11:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

First Look: Google Earth for iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 27 Oct 2008 11:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source:[tuaw]

Happy 7th Birthday, iPod!

Filed under: iPod Family, Apple, iPhone, Apple History, iPod nano, iPod touch, iPod classic

It’s hard to believe that 7 years have passed since Steve took the stage and introduced our friend, the iPod. Over the past few years, the iPod has gone from new guy on the block to “funnest” guy on the block. While the basic design hasn’t changed much (for the Classic model at least), the features definitely have. When the iPod launched in 2001, it was basically a FireWire-capable hard drive and MP3 player — nothing more, nothing less.

The first iPod sold for $399 for a 5GB version (which was Mac-only). Apple later came out with a 10GB version of the same iPod for $499. Here’s some fun facts about the first iPod via Mactracker:

• Codename: Dulcimer
• Dimensions: 4.02″ H x 2.43″ W x 0.78″ D
• Weight: 0.41 lbs.
• iPod OS: version 1.0, upgradeable to 1.5
• Introduced: October 2001
• Terminated: April 2003
• Hard Drive: 4200 RPM in capacities of 5/10/20 GB

To celebrate the iPod’s birthday, we have created a gallery to show the many changes over the years. If you want to brush-up on your iPod trivia, check out Wikipedia’s iPod page. If you have any happy (or unhappy) memories of the iPod, be sure to reminisce in the comments.

View Poll

Happy 7th Birthday, iPod! originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 23 Oct 2008 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Happy 7th Birthday, iPod! originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 23 Oct 2008 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Source:[tuaw]

Happy 7th Birthday, iPod!

Filed under: iPod Family, Apple, iPhone, Apple History, iPod nano, iPod touch, iPod classic

It’s hard to believe that 7 years have passed since Steve took the stage and introduced our friend, the iPod. Over the past few years, the iPod has gone from new guy on the block to “funnest” guy on the block. While the basic design hasn’t changed much (for the Classic model at least), the features definitely have. When the iPod launched in 2001, it was basically a FireWire-capable hard drive and MP3 player — nothing more, nothing less.

The first iPod sold for $399 for a 5GB version (which was Mac-only). Apple later came out with a 10GB version of the same iPod for $499. Here’s some fun facts about the first iPod via Mactracker:

• Codename: Dulcimer
• Dimensions: 4.02″ H x 2.43″ W x 0.78″ D
• Weight: 0.41 lbs.
• iPod OS: version 1.0, upgradeable to 1.5
• Introduced: October 2001
• Terminated: April 2003
• Hard Drive: 4200 RPM in capacities of 5/10/20 GB

To celebrate the iPod’s birthday, we have created a gallery to show the many changes over the years. If you want to brush-up on your iPod trivia, check out Wikipedia’s iPod page. If you have any happy (or unhappy) memories of the iPod, be sure to reminisce in the comments.

View Poll

Happy 7th Birthday, iPod! originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 23 Oct 2008 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Happy 7th Birthday, iPod! originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 23 Oct 2008 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Source:[tuaw]

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