Sunday, August 31, 2008

Google Gears beta for Safari


Google Gears has been around for Firefox on the Mac for quite a while. However, Safari users have been left in the cold. Google Gears allows you to access certain Google services, most notably Docs and Reader, offline (as well as other offline-enabled web services like Remember The Milk). This week, a beta for Safari has become available.

With Google Gears, for example, you can view all of your Google Docs offline -- and even edit them (word processing docs only, spreadsheets and presentations are viewable but not editable). When you connect back to the internet, you will be able to sync the changes back to Google.

We're glad that Google has finally seen the light and released a version for our Safari-using counterparts. To make Google Gears work with Safari, you will need to download and install the Google Gears package for Mac OS X. Once installed, navigate to a "gears enabled" page, you will be able to use the Google Gears system. Remember, this is a beta and we've heard there might be issues if you've tweaked Safari in certain ways.

Friday, August 22, 2008

Boxee media center [ MacOS ]


Boxee is an interesting new media center application for the Mac based on the XBMC. Separate from the OS X branch of XBMC (now called Plex), Boxee focuses on a social networking experience by allowing you to get (and give) recommendations to friends who are also on the service. You can also share your media activity with friends and vice versa.

Once installed, Boxee scans your hard drive for videos, music, and pictures. It also interfaces with various streaming sources, both for audio and video, including last.fm, revision 3, YouTube, etc. Even when playing local content it will download things like album covers and descriptions from the internet. All in all, Boxee looks like an interesting entry into the media center competition and its social networking features set it apart from more straightforward implementations like Plex.

Boxee is presently in a closed alpha test, but they're expecting to open a public beta by the early autumn. You can sign up to be notified when the open beta is available. Since it's based on XBMC it's Intel Mac and Leopard only.

KavaMovies [ MacOS ]


KavaMovies is an interesting database application aimed squarely at all the movie fanatics out there. It allows you to catalog all the movies you have seen, own, hope to see or want to buy. It connects to online sources like the IMDB and Amazon to download cover art and other information.

Once you've entered your selections, KavaMovies offers recommendations based on your collection. Finally, it also keeps track of video files already on your Mac and facilitates downloading from iTunes or via bittorrent.

KavaMovies is $35US and requires Mac OS X Leopard. It's presently in beta and a demo is available for download.

Tip & Tricks : Highlight items in gridded stacks [ MacOS ]

Highlight gridded stacks
The Dock's Stacks feature lets Leopard users view a folder's worth of stuff with one click. You'll either love it or hate it, use it or not. If you do use it, here's a little tip that improves it slightly.When you've got a bunch of files from a Stack displayed in Grid View, it can be hard to spot the particular one you're looking for,specially if many of them look identical (such a collection of text files or word processor documents).

Luckily, there's a highlight you can switch on, that puts a whiter background around the file you're mousing over. It makes it slightly easier to ensure you click on the correct file. The highlight appears normally if you use the arrow keys to move around a Grid, or if you type Command and the first letter of one of the files displayed. But this trick switches it on permanently, so that it is always in action whether or not you use these keyboard shortcuts.

Read on for all the commands.
Switching the highlight on and off is easy. You can either type a short pair of commands command into Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.dock mouse-over-hilte-stack -boolean yes
killall Dock

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Apple pulls out of proposed Black Hat talk

Though I'm far too dumb to understand what they're talking about, I like the Black Hat hacker guys. Most of the Internet is all "New Vegas" now; all (supposedly) family friendly and glamorous and glitzy. But those guys are back on Fremont Street, gambling with everything they've got and shoulder to shoulder with the dregs of society.

Unfortunately, Apple's marketing department doesn't share my feelings. Computerworld says they've put the kibosh on a speaking engagement they were supposed to have at the conference next week in Sin City. In fact, they can't even say they were asked to pass -- everyone involved in organizing the panel, which was set up early last month and "abruptly canceled" late last month, spoke on condition of anonymity.

Which is a shame -- organizers of the conference say the panel was supposed to be all about how serious security is at Apple and how they're committed to keeping users secure. And it wasn't even supposed to be a Q&A, which is why the organizers thought it would easily be approved by marketing.

That, however, wasn't the case -- while the panel wasn't yet approved by the conference folks, the request to have the panel was pulled. We're sure the Black Hat guys will still have fun (it is Vegas, after all), but it's a shame we couldn't get that look inside Apple's security team.

Apple posts 3 new iPhone 3G ads: Everyone, Unslow, Work Friendly


Apple has finally posted three new iPhone 3G commercials on their website. In these ads, Apple seems to be pushing (quite literally) the features of the new iPhone 3G/2.0 firmware. Push, half the price, twice as fast, and other Jobsian quotes are in these new ads.

Just in case you were wondering, the song playing in the background of the new commercials is You, Me and the Bourgeoisie by the Submarines (iTunes link). You can watch Everyone, Unslow, and Work Friendly on the iPhone ads website.

SoundMeter for iPhone

SoundMeterDo you need to make basic sound level measurements? For example, do you want to prove that your next door neighbor really is playing music loud enough to make your ears bleed?

Faber Acoustical is coming to your rescue with their US$19.99 SoundMeter for iPhone. They discovered that both the built-in and headset microphones of the iPhone have a flat enough frequency response to make them useful for measuring sound levels.

To quote the technical part of their press release, "SoundMeter measures average sound levels with fast, slow, and impulse time weightings. Peak, maximum, and equivalent sound levels are also available. All sound levels may be measured with Flat, A, or C frequency weighting." Got that?

Faber notes that SoundMeter doesn't meet ANSI or IEC standards for precision sound level meters, but it works very well as an inexpensive level meter for hobbyists. They recommend not using the built-in mic on first-generation iPhones (the headset may be used instead), and SoundMeter should be calibrated prior to use.

Faber Acoustical also produces two other really impressive iPhone apps, SignalScope and SignalSuite. SoundMeter for iPhone is available in the App Store now (click opens iTunes).

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

VirtualBox [ MacOS ]

VirtualBox LogoRunning other operating systems on a Mac is nothing new, and with the advent of Intel-based Macs we've seen a flood of virtual machine software: Parallels Desktop for Mac, VMWare Fusion, and Codeweavers CrossOver Mac. These products enable you to run Mac OS X and another operating system simultaneously.

For many of my consulting clients who are switching from PCs and who already have a licensed copy of Microsoft Windows, I've been using Sun's Open Source xVM VirtualBox product. Why? xVM VirtualBox works very well and it's free.

If you're new to virtual machines and want to know how to do this, follow along as I set up a Windows Vista virtual machine on an "old" 2GHz Intel Core Duo 20" iMac.

This post is continued after the break.

To begin setting up a virtual machine on your Mac, you need to download xVM VirtualBox. Head over to virtualbox.org, read all about this Open Source project, and then download your copy of xVM VirtualBox for Mac OS X from the download page (see below):



Once you've downloaded the app, install it on your Mac, then get ready to build your virtual machine. Launch VirtualBox (see below), then click the New button in the upper left portion of the application window to launch the New Virtual Machine Wizard.



Click Next, and then give your Virtual Machine a name (below). For obvious reasons, I'm calling mine "Vista." Select the OS Type from the pull-down -- you have a choice of 34 operating systems you can create virtual machines for, including such favorites as DOS, OS/2 Warp, Netware, and Sun's own Open Solaris. Click Next again.



As you can see below, now you need to select how much of your precious RAM you want to give up for the virtual machine. Most modern OS's run better with more RAM, so I'm going to give Vista a full 1 GB to play with. Once you have set the slider to your RAM amount or typed in the amount of RAM in MB, click Next.



It's time to select a hard disk image to be used as the virtual machine boot disk. If you're creating a new virtual machine from scratch like I am, just click the New button. Poof! A new wizard appears:



This is the Create New Virtual Disk wizard. Click Next.



Like many of the other virtual machine tools for Mac OS X, VirtualBox can build either dynamically expanding images that grow along with your virtual machine, or static images that keep their original size. Here I'm going to choose to have a dynamically expanding image. Clicking Next, I'm asked for the name and initial size of the disk image.



I keep the name Vista for my image name, and I'm selecting a 20 GB initial image size. I've also chosen to store this on my 1 TB external hard disk. After validating my settings, I click the Finish button to create the virtual disk image.



Now I'm back to the Create New Virtual Machine wizard with my new virtual disk image selected. Once again, I need to validate my settings, and then I click Finish to start loading my new virtual machine.



As you can see in the screenshot above, the virtual machine is powered off and the CD/DVD-ROM drive is disabled. I'll pop into the settings on my virtual machine and change the initial boot order to CD/DVD-ROM (so it loads Vista from the installation DVD), then Hard Disk. I'll also mount my Mac's SuperDrive so the virtual machine becomes aware of it. With that done, it's time to power up the virtual machine the first time. To do this, I click the Start button.



Whooops! One more screen to look at (see screenshot above). VirtualBox wants me to know that I'm going to be giving over control of my Mac keyboard to the virtual machine while it's running, and that I'll have to press the left Command key to get control back. I acknowledge this message, and then Vista begins to load.

It actually shows me a boring black screen initially, but then a configuration screen appears. I select the language, time and currency formats, and keyboard or input method, and then click the Next button. When the next screen appears, I click the Install Now button.



As you can see in the screenshot above, you must have a properly licensed version of most operating systems in order to install them. Here, Vista is asking me for the 25-character Product Key that will activate the OS. I type it in, then click the Next button.

I accept the license terms for Vista, then click Next. I am asked if I want to do an upgrade or custom install of Vista -- if it's a new install, I can only do a custom install. Once I've selected custom, I need to select my virtual drive image as the target for the installation (as seen below), and then click Next.



The installation is on its way! The SuperDrive starts spinning like a madman at this point, and the Vista installer (below) shows that progress is being made.



After a while (I think it took about 30 minutes in my case), the installation is complete and you just need to create a user name, enter a password, and then choose a desktop background and computer name:



Vista then asks you to set up security tools, and you can then set your time zone and the current time. A click or two later you're using Vista in a new virtual machine.

Vista does a quick check to see what kind of performance your computer has so it can determine what sorts of goodies to deliver for you. On my first boot, I noticed that I had no sound and no network connection with my virtual machine, so I shut it down, went into the setting for the virtual machine, enabled sound, and changed the network adapter to an Intel model so it would work with Vista. On the second boot, I had sound, a network connection, and I was able to then download my browser of choice (Firefox 3.0.1) and set the home page to a good starting point (see below).



Windows Vista found a few new drivers for me to install, some of which were recommended by the xVM VirtualBox team. All in all, the setup and operation of xVM is as easy and fast as either Parallels Workstation or VMWare Fusion, both of which I've used extensively. In terms of performance, I did not run any benchmarks but it seems slightly faster than a Vista virtual machine running in VMWare Fusion 1.1.2.

While vMX VirtualBox may not have all of the special features that you see in Parallels or VMWare Fusion (i.e., the ability to use Boot Camp partitions, Unity or Coherence modes, etc...), it has several great features -- it's free, it's stable, and it has a small footprint. How small? The application is only 55.6 MB in size, compared to 132.1 MB for VMWare Fusion and 77.9 MB for the Parallels Desktop folder (the actual Parallels application is only 24.1 MB, making it the tiniest footprint of them all).

I'm sure that our readers have plenty of opinions about which virtual machine environment is the best, so be sure to leave a comment and let the battles begin!

Project X 1.5 updated : more speed and features [ MacOS ]


Don't be shocked, but here's some non-iPhone news!

Marware's project management application for Mac OS X, Project X, has received a feature and bug fix update. Project X version 1.5 requires Leopard and offers a pile of enhancements over previous versions:
  • New flexible licensing system
  • 60% speed improvement
  • A duplicate command for duplicating tasks, milestones, resources, etc...
  • Resources are dispersed to all child tasks when you drag and drop resources on subprojects.
  • New project templates for Law, Marketing, Software, and more
As a former Project Manager for a large multinational corporation, I can see where this application would have limitations for large projects. However, it is a great way for smaller workgroups who use Macs to set up and track their projects. I'm impressed with the way that Project X integrates iCal, Mail, and web sharing.

Project X version 1.5 is a free update to current owners of the application. There's a free demo available for download, or you can purchase Project X for $199.95 online or from a number of Apple Stores. If you're new to the profession of project management, be sure to visit Marware's online training page for tutorials and links to PM sites.

Monday, August 11, 2008

Tips : eWallet for iPhone

I recently wrote a post about Ilium Software, developer of longtime mobile apps eWallet and ListPro, and Apple's delays in getting their applications into the App Store.

I don't take any credit (it was pure coincidence), but about 8 hours after my post eWallet showed up in the App Store. I purchased it immediately, since I used the Windows Mobile and Palm OS versions for years and have been hoping for an iPhone version.

In short, eWallet is both attractive and functional. It stores your passwords, credit card numbers, and other personal information securely with 256-bit AES encryption, and it does it with iPhone style. At $9.99, eWallet for iPhone is priced at half of the price of its $19.95 siblings for Palm OS and Windows Mobile.

Read after the break for the rest of my review of Ilium Software's eWallet for iPhone (link opens iTunes Store), and check the gallery below for screenshots of eWallet in action.




Wallets, Categories, and Cards

After buying eWallet in the App Store and installing it on your iPhone or iPod touch, launching the app takes you to an initial virtual wallet with a number of pre-defined cards that are already in it. These cards are actually a built-in tutorial leading you through everything you need to know about eWallet.

The structure of eWallet comes down to three things: Wallets, Categories, and Cards. Wallets are the top level of the application, being the location where you store cards that are of different types (categories). You might want to have two wallets, one for personal items and the other for business. I simply set myself up with one wallet, knowing that I could create a hierarchy of categories and card types to store my information.

eWallet comes with a lot of pre-made templates, all of which have a number of extra fields that you can define. In this way, the app is more like a flat-file database system than just a secure personal information manager. Most of the templates are not only highly useful, but have been designed with the iPhone and iPod touch in mind. The templates often use a reflective style much like what you'd see in Cover Flow in your iPhone Photos app.

If there's one downside to this hierarchical structure, it is that it can be slightly confusing at times. On occasion I found myself trying to remember if I had just added a category or a card, since the edit screens for each are similar in appearance.

Security is a big thing for Ilium, so they've secured your information in eWallet with government-level (FIPS) 256-bit AES Encryption. Several of the other information managers in the App Store either use 128-bit encryption or (even worse) cleartext passwords.

Professional Edition: Coming Soon

If there's one current downside to eWallet, it is the lack of a Professional Edition like those that exist for the Palm OS and Windows Mobile versions. The Professional Edition of eWallet ($29.95) adds a desktop application so you can use your computer's keyboard and big screen to enter your personal information, not the virtual keyboard and small screen of the iPhone.

An Ilium spokesperson mentioned that the Professional Edition of eWallet for iPhone will be available for Windows in August, and that they hope to have a Mac version completed by the end of 2008.

Who should buy it?

If you're a previous owner of eWallet for Palm OS or Windows Mobile and you've been waiting for this app to appear on your iPhone screen, you're a perfect candidate for buying eWallet for iPhone. Anyone who is interested in a secure personal information management application with a proven track record should also seriously consider eWallet.

DomainBrain 1.1 [ MacOS ]

The Iconfactory's Anthony Piraino has just released the latest version of his domain management tool, DomainBrain. If you aren't familiar with DomainBrain, it is a really, really slick way to keep track of all of your domain information, like various logins, directories, passwords, in one nice and tidy place.

We've covered DomainBrain in the past and although I initially rebuked the idea of a program for domain management, I can honestly say it has turned out to be incredibly useful. Instead of sifting through e-mails or keychain files to find the specific login for something that has a common username, I have a nice looking repository for all my information.

The newest version of the software introduces the ability to make duplicate domains, which is really helpful if you are anything like me and have 12 domains associated with the same account. DomainBrain makes it easier to just change the necessary details and not have to recreate the whole template.

My favorite new feature is the integrated WHOIS information, which will show you what nameservers your domain is on and when the domain expires. This makes it super easy to check when all of your domains are up for renewal, without having to manually do a WHOIS search for each address.




DomainBrain is free for up to four domains. If you need to store the information for more than four domains, it's $14.99. DomainBrain is compatible with Mac OS X 10.4 and up.

Sandvox 1.2.8 [ MAcOS ]

Karelia Software announced the availability of Sandvox 1.2.8 this week. If you're unfamiliar, Sandvox is a very nice and lightweight WYSIWYG web editor for Mac OS X (we've written about Sandvox before) that makes publishing easy. With iLife integration, attractive themes and more, you'll be happy to use it for that quick and easy site you want to publish with a minimum of fuss.

Karelia has always offered .Mac integration, and version 1.2.8 offers compatibility with MobileMe. Other changes include an updated iMedia Browser which supports iPhoto Events and multiple Aperture libraries.

Sandvox requires Mac OS 10.4 or later, is universal and comes in both pro ($79US) and standard ($49US) versions. Version 1.2.8 is a free upgrade for registered users.

Sandvox 1.2.8 [ MAcOS ]

Karelia Software announced the availability of Sandvox 1.2.8 this week. If you're unfamiliar, Sandvox is a very nice and lightweight WYSIWYG web editor for Mac OS X (we've written about Sandvox before) that makes publishing easy. With iLife integration, attractive themes and more, you'll be happy to use it for that quick and easy site you want to publish with a minimum of fuss.

Karelia has always offered .Mac integration, and version 1.2.8 offers compatibility with MobileMe. Other changes include an updated iMedia Browser which supports iPhoto Events and multiple Aperture libraries.

Sandvox requires Mac OS 10.4 or later, is universal and comes in both pro ($79US) and standard ($49US) versions. Version 1.2.8 is a free upgrade for registered users.

MarsEdit hits 2.2 [ MacOS ]

MarsEdit, the blogging client we've written about frequently in the past, has just been updated to version 2.2. MarsEdit is a favorite for many of us at TUAW (myself included) and supports a variety of publishing platforms.

The newest version adds support for AtomPub, which like XML-RPC, is a protocol for connecting blog software to your blog itself. Daniel Jalkut, MarsEdit's developer, says to consider AtomPub support "introductory" -- but if you are using a custom blogging platform that uses AtomPub, you can now use MarsEdit to create content.

MarsEdit 2.2 also adds customizable image markup in addition to the built-in macros for image alignment. So if you frequently like to have images aligned in a certain way, you can create your own custom macro.

MarsEdit 2.2 is also significantly faster (I was pleased to see this myself, as start-up time was much quicker than the previous version). There is also now support for removing media items from the media catalog, a pull down editor for selecting the date, and improved MIME type generation for uploaded files.

Mobile fans take note -- Daniel is working on an iPhone version of MarsEdit, and it will be released as soon as he is satisfied with the quality of the final product.

MarsEdit requires Tiger or Leopard. The update is free for current users. You can try MarsEdit for free for 30-days or buy it for $29.99.

Ulysses 1.6 [ MacOS ]

Call me crazy but I bet there are a few would-be, and some actual, novelists out there who read TUAW. Am I right? Thought so. If you are amongst that august group then you might be tickled by the Blue Technologies Group's text editor: Ulysses. It was built from the ground up with writers in mind with features that include:
  • Grouping of files
  • Semantic Text editing (this allows you to create your own markup language. You can mark up your document in a way that makes sense to you and then export it and see those words that you marked as bold show up as bold in the resulting document. Trust me, this is cool stuff)
  • A single window for all your documents
  • Powerful search
And that is just scratching the surface. Read the full feature run down to find out all the details.
Ulysses now comes in two flavors: Ulysses is the full featured application which costs 79.99 € (half off for EDU buyers) and Ulysses Core which has a subset of features (check out this chart to see what the Core version leaves out) and will set you back 39.99 € ( 25.99 € for education buyers).

RiftVault 1.0 [ MacOS ]

RiftVault, which we covered when it was in a pre-release state, is now a full 1.0 release. $39.95 will get you this snazzy app which stores your important information the way it should be stored: using encryption. RiftVault is designed to hold credit card information, passwords, banking info, and even files that you want secured (using the very clever 'Safe Deposit Box' feature).

Everything that RiftVault stores for you is encrypted using 256-bit AES encryption. When you open an item it is unencrypted and cached for fast access only to be flushed from RAM when you close the item. Check out our gallery to get a glimpse of what this app has to offer.

RiftVault is available now for $39.95 and there is a free 30 day demo.

30 day trialSetting your RiftVault passwordTime Machine suggestionPrefrencesMain window

Bricksmith 2.0 [ MacOS ]

It has been awhile since I posted about Bricksmith, it looks like Allen Smith hasn't spent all his time pining for more TUAW coverage. Nay! He has been working on Bricksmith 2.0, which brings some new features to this open source Lego modeling app. The renderings have been improved, part search has been beefed up, and new addition to the Help file will aid those looking to create nifty models.

My favorite part of this app has to be the Minifig generator (which I used to create the image that accompanies this post). You can use it to create more aesthetically pleasing minifigs, to be sure, but this guy has got character I tells ya.

Bricksmith is free, but if you find yourself using it often a donation would be nice.

Outspring puts the final nail in QuickMail's coffin [ MacOS ]

Back in the summer of 1989, as an eager, green college intern for a major publishing company, I arrived on my first day of work to find that my office wasn't so much an office as it was a storage room. Sure, it had ample space and ventilation, but it was a glorified closet all the same -- home to my desk, shelves and boxes, and a few critical pieces of gear. Along with the network hubs for the floor, we had a rather sexy test system (a NeXT Cube, complete with 400dpi laser printer!) and an SE/30 running an unfamiliar email server. One of my tasks for the summer was to administer this server, which (considering the speed of delivery) bore the unlikely moniker "QuickMail."

With the ability to connect to other QM servers over intermittent dial-up links, offering gateways to public systems like AppleLink & CompuServe, and UUCP capability for Internet mail servers (yeah, old school), QuickMail Server and its companion client app made managing email for a small Mac LAN straightforward and easy. Future versions of the system expanded to offer webmail and POP compatibility, allowing for a heterogeneous mix of clients, but the original QM never lost its vintage UI or no-frills attitude.

Nearly 20 years later, Outspring, the inheritor of the QuickMail product line from original developer CE Software, has made it official: QuickMail is dead. Support for the product has ended, and users are encouraged to pony up the $39 to upgrade to Outspring Mail, the successor client -- as for the server, good luck (I'd recommend Kerio, Zimbra, EIMS or OS X Server, and Emailchemy to handle moving the user data). Farewell, QM; you and your sweetheart/nemesis Eudora enjoy your well-deserved retirement.

Aperture 2.1.1 now available [ MacOS ]



Apple has just released Aperture 2.1.1, the latest update to their photo workflow application aimed at pro photographers. The description, as usual, is terse. It would seem this update 'supports general compatibility issues, improves overall stability, and addresses a number of other minor issues.' Sounds like it fixes some bugs and adds MobileMe support.

The update is available via Software Update, though Apple hasn't posted it to their website as of yet.

Adobe ships Lightroom 2 [ MacOS ]

Adobe announced today that Lightroom 2, a major update to their photography workflow app, is now available. Lightroom 2 will cost you $299, with an upgrade price of $99, but it includes a host of new features, improvements, and general whizbangery.

The biggest news for Mac users is that Lightroom 2 is Adobe's first native 64-bit app for OS X. Also new in Lightroom 2:
  • Libraries can span harddrives
  • Customizable print templates
  • Smart Collections to automatically organize photos
And much more. The Lightroom 2 Learning center has a nice list of new and improved features. And to help you Lightroom 1.0 users decide whether or not to upgrade Adobe has a comparison of Lightroom 1 vs. Lightrooom 2.

Lightroom 2 requires OS X 10.4 or above, and a 1 GHz G4 processor or better.

Flickr Find: the Fluid icons pool [ iPhone ]


The team down the road from me at Carsonified have been doing it, and you can do it too.

Fluid is a fantastic free app that turns any web site into a self-contained application on your Mac. If you want to keep your webmail outside your normal web browser, Fluid is what you need.

Thing is, all the apps it creates need icons, just as any app in your Applications folder does. By default, Fluid grabs the .ico files it finds on web sites and uses them as icons, but they don't scale well. Where can you find decent alternatives?

The answer is the Fluid icons pool on Flickr, where a busy community of Fluid users have been busy making a selection of beautiful icons that work perfectly with any Fluid SSBs (Site-Specific Browsers) you've created. The icons in the pool might look weird to start with, but that's because the PNG originals have been converted to JPG format by Flickr's brain. To make use of an icon you like, make sure you view and download the full-size original, which will be the PNG file you need.

Make a Partitions [ MacOS ]

Paragon software has made available a pre-release version of Camp Tune, a new utility for resizing your Boot Camp partition without destroying data. While the Leopard version of Disk Utility is now able to perform partition resizing, it is not able to resize a Boot Camp partition without erasing it (although you could back it up and restore it if needed). Camp Tune runs as a bootable Linux-based CD which allows you to boot your Mac and reallocate disk space between your Boot Camp and HFS+ partition.

Camp Tune for Mac is presently in pre-release and is being offered as a free download (registration required). The download is a disk image that must be burned to a CD or DVD. Needless to say, you should have a backup for both partitions before using any software of this sort.

Tips : Highlight items in gridded stacks [ MacOS ]

Highlight gridded stacks
The Dock's Stacks feature lets Leopard users view a folder's worth of stuff with one click. You'll either love it or hate it, use it or not. If you do use it, here's a little tip that improves it slightly (in my opinion).

When you've got a bunch of files from a Stack displayed in Grid View, it can be hard to spot the particular one you're looking for, especially if many of them look identical (such a collection of text files or word processor documents).

Luckily, there's a highlight you can switch on, that puts a whiter background around the file you're mousing over. It makes it slightly easier to ensure you click on the correct file.

The highlight appears normally if you use the arrow keys to move around a Grid, or if you type Command and the first letter of one of the files displayed. But this trick switches it on permanently, so that it is always in action whether or not you use these keyboard shortcuts.

Read on for all the commands.
Switching the highlight on and off is easy. You can either type a short pair of commands command into Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.dock mouse-over-hilte-stack -boolean yes
killall Dock

(Repeat that with "no" instead of "yes" to put things back the way they were.)

Or, if you'd rather stay away from Terminal, use Alcor's Secrets prefpane to switch it on and off (go to Dock, and check "Hightlight stack items on hover"). Secrets does come with some warnings that you could break things terribly if you're not careful, which is true. But you'll be careful, won't you?

RSS feeds for the App Store [ iPhone ]

New RSS feeds for the iPhone App StoreThe only solution was to view the complete list of iPhone apps and choose "Sort by: Release date". Not good enough. No.
The people at Pinch Media obviously felt the same way about this, and have announced a handy collection of four feeds (new apps; updated apps; top 100 free apps; and top 100 paid apps) for your subscribing pleasure.