We reported earlier this week that Rogue Amoeba was running a sweet podcasting software bundle for podcasters who are just getting started. Part of that bundle included the soundboard app, Farrago. Today, the app is getting an update that includes some UI tweaks as well as some new, nifty features.
Marco Arment is well known for working at Tumblr, creating Instapaper and Overcast, and for being a fairly prolific podcaster. Needless to say, he’s dabbled his toes in lot of different areas. One area that has remained virtually untouched by Arment is, oddly enough, the Mac.
As someone whose name is so synonymous with iOS development, it’s surprising that Quitter, a brand new app based around auto-quitting distracting apps after a set period of inactivity, is Arment’s first app release for the Mac.
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AirParrot 2, the popular Mac utility that lets you wirelessly broadcast content from your desktop, now has an iOS companion. The app, appropriately entitled AirParrot Remote, lets users control nearly every facet of AirParrot 2 from any iOS device sharing the same Wi-Fi network.
If you’re familiar with the look of AirParrot 2 on Mac, then you’ll feel right at home with AirParrot Remote, as they look strikingly similar. Watch our video demonstration for a look at some of the things that AirParrot Remote can do.
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Yesterday, I presented a list of 10 different tips that I thought any new Mac owner should know. As stated in that walkthrough, I don’t consider every recommendation on the list to be an absolute must-follow for new Mac users. There are a few items on the list, however, that are staples in my opinion.
For example, I would hate it if every minimized window on OS X occupied its own space on the Dock. For that reason, I rush to enable the “Minimize window into application icon” option (found in System Preferences → Dock) after every new install. But enabling such a feature comes with its own caveat — it’s hard to know exactly what’s behind an app icon on the Dock once you’ve minimized its respective windows. Thankfully, there’s a handy Mac utility that allows you to preview app windows by hovering over icons in the Dock.
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Today online publishing platform WordPress, which powers approximately 25% of websites on the Internet (this site included), is getting a major redesign with a completely rebuilt wordpress.com and the introduction of a new Mac app. We’ve been getting a taste of the improvements incrementally over the last year, but today is the company’s official launch.
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Evernote announced today that it’s adding a Descriptive Search feature for english users of its Mac app. Evernote says the new feature allows users to search using “everyday language to find notes the way he/she remembers them.” That means you’ll be able to use a number of descriptive words that act as filters to search for notes. Among the descriptive words, or filters, that will be recognized by the new feature are dates, apps, places, documents, images, audio, devices, web sources, type of content, notebooks, and tags. Evernote gives the example of searching for vegetarian recipes using phrases such as “recipes tagged as vegetarian” or “vegetarian recipes.”
Descriptive Search makes suggestions based on actual contents of your Evernote account, such as notebooks, contents of your notes, tags, and devices. Other examples of searches and results include:
Search –> Result
‘Notebook project with pdfs’ –> all the notes in the project notebook with PDFs attached
‘Web clips created last month’ or ‘web clips last month’ –> every web page clipped this month
‘Notes from japan’ or ‘in japan’ –> all the notes created while in Japan
‘Notes from phone with audio’ or ‘phone with audio’ –> all the notes created on a phone that have an attached audio file or recording
No word on when the update will be available to mobile users but the new Descriptive Search feature will be available initially in English to all Evernote accounts through the Mac App. The update should be rolling out to the Evernote for Mac app shortly.
A full list of filters for the new descriptive search feature is below:
Developers Objective Development just announced a nice update to its extremely popular network and application monitoring tool known as ‘Little Snitch’. For those of you unfamiliar, Little Snitch allows users to set up rules that control network access for specific apps and services, allowing you to control when and how apps on your machine talk to the internet. A previous update brought profiles to the app, offering users the ability to switch between different sets of rules for different workflows. Today’s update to version 3.1 enhances that feature by offering Automatic Profile Switching:
With the new Automatic Profile Switching these profiles now can be activated automatically when the computer starts using a specific network connection (e.g. the office, home or some public network) – thereby adapting your network security to the current environment…The first time you connect to a network, Little Snitch presents you the new Profile Switching Alert which lets you define the profile to be activated automatically the next time you join the same network. Of course, this also activates the profile right when you click the OK button.
After years without an update, Twitter has updated its official Mac app with Retina display support and much more:
Today we’re announcing a few improvements to Twitter for Mac:
- Photos: It’s easier than ever to share photos. Simply click the camera icon in the lower-left corner of the Tweet compose box, and choose a photo to share. If you prefer, you can still drag and drop photos from the desktop.
- Retina display support: Now Twitter is even more vibrant and detailed on the highest resolution Mac notebooks. With this update, Tweets will be clearer and sharper, creating a more vivid experience.
- 14 more languages: In addition to English, Twitter for Mac now supports Dutch, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Traditional Chinese, and Turkish.
Along with these updates, Twitter for Mac offers keyboard shortcuts, support for multiple accounts and timelines, and other features that you’ve come to love.
You can get this update now in the Mac App Store. Keep an eye out for more improvements to come, too.
P.S. I'm taking a break from iOS to work on Twitter for Mac full time.
— Ben Sandofsky (@sandofsky) April 25, 2013
From 9to5Toys.com:
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The fine folks at Stack Social have another deal up their sleeve this week. For $99 you get Step by Step crash course videos on a variety of different programming tracks. Freebie courses are available to those who sign in early and they are even giving away an ‘iPhone 5’. Courses offered include:
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StackSocial also offers the $39 Mini Bundle which includes:
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From 9to5Toys.com:
The iStack Mac Bundle from StackSocial includes over $730 worth of goods for just $49.99. That’s over a 93% savings off MSRP…and it ends tonight! (They also have a pretty impressive “Creative Bundle” that is ongoing to check out)
What do they have on offer?
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Following the launch of Microsoft’s SkyDrive iPhone app, the company gave a preview of its refreshed SkyDrive service for Windows 8 and OS X. Today Microsoft has launched a new app for both Windows and Mac that brings Dropbox-like file management to the service. Of course SkyDrive is seen by many as a direct competitor to iCloud and other alternative cloud services. The tool essentially allows you to manage content stored in your SkyDrive by accessing files from your desktop, dragging and dropping them to the cloud, and organizing files in familiar folders.
The release comes following rumors that Google is prepping a Google Drive Mac app for its upcoming cloud service.
SkyDrive for Mac is the easiest way to access your SkyDrive from your Mac. When you install SkyDrive, a SkyDrive folder is created on your computer. Everything you put in this folder is automatically kept in sync between your computers (Mac or PC) and SkyDrive.com, so you can get to your latest files from virtually anywhere… Almost 70% of Mac users also regularly use a Windows PC. Since we want every customer to be able to rely on SkyDrive to access files anywhere, it’s important for SkyDrive be wherever they are.
Microsoft has also updated its iOS SkyDrive app today bringing support for iPad, Retina displays, the ability to open SkyDrive files in third-party iOS apps, and much more. The new application is available for download on your Mac here, and a full description of features from Microsoft is below:
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Cross-posted from 9to5google.com
Want to get your Game on in the new Google Games?
Tab for Google+ is an app available on the Mac App Store that brings Google+’s web functionality to the Mac desktop. The app is available for free and offers just about every feature plus.google.com offers — except Hangouts. Upon logging in via your Google account, you’ll be greeted with the main sections of the app: Streams, Photos, Circles, Profile and Notifications.
The sections follow suit with the functionality of the website. Streams and Photos curates content from the people you’re following. Circles allows you to see your list of circles and the content coming in from each specific one. Lastly, Notifications let’s you know what’s going on with your account.
Of course, this application won’t replace Google+’s website, rather it’s just a nice app that sits in your applications bar to view while you work. Perhaps if the website is more your thing, check out Google+ for Mac which is essentially just a browser window. We’re hearing the developer is working to make it native though. Check out another screenshot after the break:
