Mac Software

WeatherBug knows how to get around. The detailed weather reporting application for most combinations of desktop and mobile downloads, plus a WAP site, has let iPhone into the club. Now iPhone users can check out seven-day forecasts, animated radar maps, and real-time images from street-level weather cameras.

Incidentally, I learned an interesting factoid about WeatherBug. It began as educational curriculum and still has a strong program for schools and organizations subscribing to its weather warning alert system (e.g., "chance of lightning, soccer canceled.") That explains why the view of Sunnyvale, Calif., is taken from what looks like … Read more

The Web 2.0 definition of a misanthrope is somebody who doesn't belong to any social networking sites, and by that yardstick I fit the bill. I don't have a MySpace account, nor a Facebook. I do not Twitter except when I've had way too much coffee. I'm not even going to begin to tell you what I think a LinkSpank is, and as far as I'm concerned, Digging requires a shovel and a backyard. I have neither.

So I may not be the best person to evaluate Flock 1.0 beta, a browser built on Firefox that is designed to make interfacing with social networking sites extremely easy. Still, I've got a Flickr account and I blog. Would Flock be useful for a social minimalist such as myself?

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Whenever a big project is at hand, making sure that you follow through with important details takes planning. Whether it's as mundane as cleaning out the garage, confusing as organizing your daughter's soccer team, or complex as reworking the goals for a team at your company, an outline, a list, or a strategy can help you focus on the over-arching goal. It might be because it's easier to have visuals of bulleted lists or linear strategies to easily convey the steps necessary to complete a project. Think of it this way: Not having a plan of action is kind of like going to the grocery store without a list; sure, you'll remember a lot of stuff you need, but once you get home you're bound to smack yourself in the forehead saying, "Butter! How did I forget butter?"

I recently came across a great program for both Mac and PC that helps make the planning phases of a project much easier. MindManager helps you map out your thoughts and ideas using an intuitive graphical interface. You can start your own mind map with a central idea to work outwards from, or you can choose from several premade templates that focus on a specific task.… Read more

Anybody who downloads software knows that the size of the file is going to effect the time it takes to download. The bigger the file the longer you wait, right? For those of you who are on a dial-up connection (I know you're still out there), the size of the file can be the difference between downloading and moving on to something else. Even with a fast connection, some of the popular game demos and larger software apps can mean an all-night download party for your computer--particularly when that download is in high demand.… Read more

When Digg first came out with its labs section, almost immediately people threw together unofficial screensavers for each of the visualizations. Since the visualizations run in Adobe Flash, the user creations often just loaded up the pages in a full-screen Flash viewer. Today, Digg has launched official versions of the screensavers for all four of their labs visualizations, which were originally put together by Stamen Design.

Just like the Web versions, you can sit back and watch the current activity on Digg as it's happening, and interact with any of the content. The screensavers are cross platform, and run … Read more

Mozilla's WebRunner is a single-serving version of Firefox that strips away all the bells and whistles. There's no Web surfing to be done with this lightweight tool. Menus, extensions, themes, toolbars, and navigation have all been excised, like a sculptor cutting away excess marble.

What you're left with is a Site Specific Browser for Windows, Mac, or Linux that uses bookmark files with the WEBAPP extension. The installer configures these files to open in WebRunner, but there's no "launch program" icon or option. You just double-click on a WEBAPP file you've downloaded or created, and off you go, ready to get to work without getting distracted by the temptation to surf anywhere else.

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If you're tired of waiting for Google to make some much-needed improvements to Gmail, Better Gmail has been adding useful functionality to the e-mail client since earlier this year. An update earlier this month finally gave Gmail what users have been clamoring for: integration with Google Reader.

Written by Lifehacker editor Gina Trapani, the extension is basically a collection of her favorite Greasemonkey scripts. It does more than just slap your feeds onto the bottom of your in-box, though. It adds a Collapse/Expand Gmail link to the top-left nav, just under the Compose link. This hides your e-mail and pulls the Reader up to the top, and swtiches to Expand when the in-box is hidden. It also adds a control panel to central left nav for managing your feeds, a neat work-around so that you can collapse the Reader's built-in navigation. The Reader pane is collapsible, too, so you can hide the perpetual distraction of feeds from the perpetual distraction of e-mail.

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We don't often give a lot of attention to WordPress (for Windows or Mac), Movable Type and other self-publishing blogging systems. They often require a bit more determination than merely creating a Blogger or Livejournal username, password, and some pithy-kitschy title to show the world how witty you truly are.

WordPress has two very strong aspects: The installation really does take about 5 minutes, and it's highly customizable with plug-ins that absolve the user of having to be a CSS expert. OneClick is a two-part plug-in for WordPress and Firefox that simplifies the plug-in experience even further.

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The latest news from the Mac rumor sites says that closely following the release of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Apple will also announce an update to the MacBook product line. Sources speculate that the update won't include major changes to the MacBook but will probably mean a small increase to processor speed. Early reports indicate this upgrade may not happen until November.

While a little extra processing power is never a bad thing, the reason we shouldn't expect a major speed boost is because Apple doesn't want the MacBook line to bite into MacBook Pro … Read more