) and not everyone likes iSync on a Mac. That’s where NovaMedia comes in and helps those that do wish to have a “like-one” relationship between Mac and cellular phone. FoneLink is a pretty impressive phone “suite” that will synchronize data between your phone and a Mac.
SMS message management, which includes backup and restore, using a Time Machine like interface called Time Tunnel is just one part of bring the ease and look of the Mac to FoneLink. With the addition of Quick-Sync and Quick-Text as well as support for a slew of new phones, FoneLink 2.1 may be the answer for many phone users out there looking to start a relationship between their phone and Mac.
Previous users of FoneLink will get 2.1 for free while new users can purchase it for about $34 and is available for download via a demo version from NovaMedia’s site.
TapeDeck allows you to easily record audio on your Mac from a single source as easily as just pressing that red Record button on the tape deck. You know the recording is happening from the “dancing” meter as well, get this, from the tape moving in the display window. Just like the old days! When you’re all done recording, TapeDeck files your “tape” in a shoe box with your added titles and allows for easy retrieval later by simply clicking on the tape. Very simple, very cool. You can share your recordings via email, send them to iTunes or to Apple TV.
TapeDeck isn’t meant to take sales from sophisticated software like WireTap Studio but rather fill in that little void for a simple to use single-source recordings. For $25, this is a straight up winner in my book. Now excuse me before I release the pause button as I prepare to record “Go” from Def Leppard’s new album, “Songs From The Sparkle Lounge“.
Known for its “Sophistication Simplified” slogan, Nolobe’s award winning flagship application, Interarchy, a file transfer client with the look-and-feel of a Leopard Finder window, offers Iris at a suggested retail price of $79. Adventurous and curious types or those that just do not like Adobe and Apple imaging products can give Iris a try by downloading a trial from the Iris website.
“FoneLink 2.0 is completely rewritten. It is fast, reliable, and offers a Bluetooth assistant to pair a cell phone to the Mac, if needed.” states Jan Fuellemann, PR spokesperson at nova media. “FoneLink 2.0 supports many cell phones from Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson.”
FoneLink supports drag and drop throughout its new user interface and offers an activity monitor to display current and cued actions. The improved sync-manager now includes built-in support for Apple’s Sync Services technology to sync with Entourage, iCal and Address Book along with other Sync Services-savvy applications.
FoneLink can automatically convert music, videos and photos on a Mac to formats that are instantly viewable and playable on the cell phone. iTunes playlists can be synchronized and a ringtone editor allows the creation of individual ringtones from any compatible music file.
Last but not least, FoneLink has the ability to create a comprehensive backup of a cell phone’s data in the background. If the mobile phone or its data gets lost or damaged, it is easy to restore individual data files using drag and drop, or to restore a comprehensive backup using the restore command.
PRICING AND AVAILABILITY
FoneLink 2.0 is a free update from previous version. It requires Mac OS X 10.4.9 or later and is priced at Euro 33,57 plus VAT (US-$ 33,57 plus VAT for customers in the US and Canada). FoneLink is available for download today at nova media’s website http://www.novamedia.de/fonelink.
The second icon in the menu bar is a blacked-out bird with a green LED on it. That, folks, is the multi-instant messenger client Adium. It allows you to connect to various IM servers such as Yahoo!, AIM, MSN, ICQ, Jabber (including Google Talk), Bonjour (for local LAN chatting), MySpace, and even junk, err, stuff from Lotus and Novell. It’s the Trillian of Mac, basically. Like Trillian, Adium lets you skin your look-n-feel in many, many, ways. I opted to go with the Aqualicious theme which gives me that iChat from Leopard feel. With a slew of other Xtras, such as Emoticons, Sound Sets, Status Icons, Service Icons, Menu Bar Icons, Plugins, and a ton of other stuff, you could lose a lot of time just customizing Adium let alone chatting with your friends. My only wish for Adium is for video conferencing (which as been in the works for over two years.) I’d like Skype chatting, too.
Speaking of Skype, you’ll notice that right next to the Adium icon. The green check mark with the little clock. Known more for its video and audio presentation than for text chatting, Skype brings Mac users into a new world of Voice over IP (VoIP). Allowing anyone with a Mac running Mac OS X or a PC running Windows XP or higher to talk for free, Skype is an incredible application that should be on anyones Menu Bar. If you’re wondering why I use Skype rather than iChat, that would be because of just the better video presentation and audio than iChat could hope to offer over AOL lines. iChat has a great interface, but AOL is its weakest link and thus, Skype is my way of going. You’ll also find Skype to be pretty much the default method for communication in the business world. While Skype does have some rough edges, over all, it is a great way to communicate to millions of people world wide for free.
Next in line on the communication bin is Dialectic. Formally John Phone Tools, Dialectic lets your Mac dial phone numbers for you. The little gear with a phone jack in the center on the Menu Bar lets you enter a phone number by hand or from the clipboard for dialing. You can search your Address Book for numbers as well. A slew of features are easily accessible from the Dialectic icon allowing you to decrease your phone call dialing times. No more “typos” on the keypad and no more tired fingers for your power users. The greatest thing about Dialectic is that it works with major VoIP carriers such as Vonage and Broadvoice. Simply select the number to dial and your phone rings with the connected call. Other dialing methods include sending to a Bluetooth device and even emitting the DMTF tones in your speakers to send to the phones mic. All very cool and very useful.
Last of the communication items is that little bird (between the white check mark and the music note). Birds tweet and so do I. Thus, using Twitterrific is a very helpful tool. Twitterrific keeps you up to date of those you’re following or lets you open the flood gates and shows every new tweet coming in. You can easily respond to tweets and click on embedded links from it’s nicely laid out pop-up (or HUD-like) window. At the bottom of that window, you can also quickly add your 140 characters of thought as well. Fully compatible with Growl, Twitterrific is one sweet tweet!
OWC has solutions available for nearly every Mac model over the last decade, including Mac Pro; PowerBook G4 Titanium 15”, 12/15/17” Aluminum; iBook G4; PowerMac; PowerMac G3, G4, G5; iMac G4; and eMac.
Whether upgrading from a read-only drive, replacing an older Superdrive, or for additional optical drives, the latest solutions from OWC are quiet, low-cost and Plug & Play ready. OWC makes it easy to upgrade to the new Superdrive models with the latest software, including Apple iLife, Roxio Toast, NTI Dragonburn, and other CD/DVD authoring applications preconfigured directly in the drives. The easy online guide lets you select the right Superdrive model for your Mac system.
Superdrives for desktop and tower model Macs are priced from $31.99 and offer up to 20X DVD, 12X Dual-Layer DVD (8.5GB per disc), and 48X CD burning speeds. DVD-RAM burn capability and LightScribe are also available. Superdrive 8X DVD, 6X DVD Dual-Layer, 24X CDRW, 5X DVD-RAM slot loading drives are now available from $99.95 for Apple iMac G5, iMac Intel, G4 Cube, PowerBook G4, and iBook G4 computers
For more information on the full line of OWC Superdrives for Mac, see: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/optical-drives/superdrives/
.Mac Sync keeps pretty much everything in sync between my MacBook Pro and Mac Pro. Sometimes one will wipe out the others address book or something silly but that’s why I back up nightly with SuperDuper, too. For most of my purposes, .Mac Sync works but I’d love to see more remote disk space and a little better robust services for weeding out systems and preventing them from stepping on each other.
AppleScripts menu item gives me easy access to my scripts which is nice. I guess I could disable the menu item and just use Quicksilver, but when you have a 30 inch screen, who cares.
Speaking of that 30 inch screen, I really don’t know why I have Spaces on my Menu Bar. I really don’t use it. I guess I figure if it’s there, I’ll end up using it. I never really got into virtual desktops not even back in my X-Windows days on top of SunOS. I’ve tried using it even on my MacBook Pro, but old habits die hard. Maybe someday I’ll use it.
System volume is self explained. It raises and lowers your volume. I keep it up on my Menu Bar so if my music doesn’t play and iTunes is all the way up, I can quickly look at the Menu Bar and see, “Aah, it’s muted!” Sure, I can figure that out by just pressing my volume key on my keyboard, but hey, I’m visual. I’m a guy.
Last, but not least, I use Spotlight. I never really used it until Leopard. With all its added features and neat tricks like performing mathematics (try putting this in: pi/-4), I use it all day long. It finds files fast and has even shown me some things on my hard drive I forgot about! Hopefully Apple will put advanced features in a future release, but for now, I’m happy with it.
So, there’s the gloss over stuff. I’ll be talking about my other menu items in the coming week, so stay tuned!
) To get a closer look of what’s on the bar, click the above image and see it in its 100% pixel glory on our Flikr account.
So, I guess the easiest way to start is to simply go left to right. Thus we start with Remote Buddy. We previously touched on this application in a post before, so you should already be familiar with this groovy application. Basically, Remote Buddy allows you to use a slew of devices, including your iPhone, to remote control your Mac. Remote Buddy allows you to run through a presentation in either PowerPoint, Keynote, NeoOffice, Adobe Reader, or even Preview all from your remote in your hand. Since this is your buddy, it goes even further and allows you to control iTunes, DVD Player, VLC, and more than 100 other applications. Yes, that is not a typo, it is 100. As we stated in our last post on Remote Buddy, you can now watch movies, listen to music, and such all on your iPhone right from your Mac! You can even take a look to see if anyone is sitting at your chair via tapping into your iSight. Slick stuff indeed.
The Menu Item basically gives you quick access for pairing devices and configuration of Remote Buddy. It’s also a nice reminder that it is running and you are in control of your Mac…from afar.
I can still remember my first piece of spam. It was way back in 1996 and I just sat at my computer staring at the screen for the longest time trying to comprehend how this “person” got a hold of my sacred email address and why they were trying to sell me something I had no interest in. About four years later, I had to retire that email address because the spam became unbearable (over 500 pieces of spam a day.) But with each new address I created, spam eventually found me.
Through the years of my spam fighting career, I’ve used many different weapons in this ongoing warf. Software on my computer, server based fighters, and challenge response schemes. Really, nothing worked until I discovered the beta of SafetyBar about five or six years ago. Using software that installed in Outlook as a plug-in, it would take the community of SafetyBar users response of what was and what wasn’t spam and then “rate” those votes. The higher the rating of validity, the more likely that spam would never be in your Inbox but rather be moved to your Spam folder. My Inbox was over 90% clean of spam an achievement never yet accomplished to that point in time. It was great! I used it all these years until I came to the Mac. SafetyBar, now Cloudmark Desktop, was only for Windows and only for Outlook and Outlook Express (when I left it behind a couple of years ago.) But rejoice Mac fans, now it is here for you as well!
Today Cloudmark has announced the public beta of Cloudmark Desktop for Thunderbird on the Mac! If you’re a user of Mozilla’s freeware mail client that looks and feels much like Outlook Express, then you’ll be a happy camper to know that you can now protect yourself with one of the best spam fighting vehicles out there! You can download Cloudmark Desktop for Thunderbird (OS X) and use it free for 90 days after which you can sign up for the monthly subscription. Knowing how good Cloudmark is, I highly doubt you will even notice that this a beta while using it. I strongly encourage anyone looking for spam control to download this now and use it today!
Now my only gripe is where is the Mail.app and Entourage versions?
With SplashMoney, Mac users now have access to a complete personal financial manager that enables them to securely record transactions, track account balances, generate reports and budgets, and manage finances while on the go. SplashMoney features wireless access to online bank accounts – an ideal feature for laptops and smartphones, a streamlined user interface, charting of financial data, the ability to assign icons to transactions, transaction filtering, and bank account reconciliation.
SplashMoney supports most account types, including checking, savings, credit card, cash, asset, liability, and money market accounts.
Mac users of SplashID have been anxiously waiting for the release of SplashID 4, which includes substantial updates such as Web Auto-Fill, a feature that simplifies entering user names and passwords by using a web browser to go directly to a site and then retrieving the username and password directly from SplashID to auto-fill in the record. Other key features in SplashID 4 include improved ways to view and find information, such as the new Panel and Tree views, and an Auto Search feature that retrieves records simply by entering a few letters in the Find box.
Advanced users of SplashID 4 can use the new Database Sync feature to select multiple databases to synchronize with on the Mac desktop and easily share data with other users, even across a network.
The security of personal financial data on mobile devices is of chief concern to many, and SplashData has incorporated secure password protection in both SplashMoney and SplashID using 256-bit Blowfish encryption to protect against malicious hacking or other threats.
The SplashMoney and SplashID versions that include both handheld and desktop applications are available now for $29.95 each at www.splashdata.com. They are also available as part of the SplashWallet Suite, which includes SplashID, SplashPhoto, SplashShopper, and SplashMoney, at a 50% discount. The desktop-only versions of SplashMoney and SplashID, available for both Windows and Mac, are available for $19.95. Full functioning 30-day trial versions are also available for download.