We know how it is just after Christmas, you get stuck with a lot of duplicates or, well, stuff you don’t want. So where does every thankful heart go? eBay.
If you’ve got a good chunk of junk to sell, then you may want to take a look at iSale 3. It makes things so easy and efficient to sell when concerning all things eBay, it’ll turn any hum-bugger happy. We used it for a month on both a PowerPC and Intel Mac and both performed like champs. We also made enough money to buy some gifts that some may just end up putting on eBay. 
Once in a while, you may have a need to rename a few dozen or so files. Be it their file names or file extensions. Either way, if you’re not in need for utility to do this often, paying $20 for A Better Finder Rename (ABFR) is a bit steep, even though it’s probably the best one out there. At one time, FileWranger was the way to go, but as it stands, 1.2.1 is no longer available as Christopher Drum’s, the author, web site is no longer live (a .Mac account.)
Fortunately there are still a couple of other free-bees out there and we found Peter Maurer’s File List v1.2 just what we needed. While it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of ABFR, it still does the small task of changing file names just fine.
File List does more than just making renaming files easy and fast. It will also build playlists with a simple drag of music files. Easy export to your favorite music player such as iTunes.
One more excellent feature commonly found on shareware and that’s the addition of droplets. What’s droplets you ask? Well, Maurer describes it as, “proxy applications that store a given configuration. They make it ridiculously easy to use File List repeatedly for different, alternating purposes. And they even support drag & drop!” Nice.
So if you have a basic need for renaming some files and don’t want to shell out a ton of cash for it, check out File List. We like it and for what it costs, we couldn’t be any happier with it.
By the way, if you do like the app and find yourself using it often, help Maurer continue development and donate a Euro or two.
Can it be that there’s a way to trick Microsoft’s Windows XP Genuine Certificate of Authority install? Well maybe. Take a look at my Device Manager from my Parallels Desktop install of Windows XP SP2. Note the devices, which Windows uses to make your configuration unique, are all general notations. Meaning, every Parallels install will say the same thing. There really isn’t anything unique about the install accept the Certificate of Authority number and your MAC (Media Access Control) address in this install.
So that said, you could basically use the same Windows XP install for your entire home since chances are you won’t be using them all at the same time, thus not setting off the MS Police when it notices different MAC addresses coming from the same NAT IP. Then again, that might not even matter, too, since this is already a common experience with legit installs from businesses that buy tons of identical PCs by the truck load for their cubicals.
So did SvenOnTech find a loophole in the way Parallels presents XP to Microsoft? Will we be saving you all some cash? We can’t say for sure until we test this out on other Macs. But we can tell you this much, if this does work, then you won’t even have do multiple installs but rather use the same HDD file for Parallels. How sweet this could be!
We’ll keep you posted on this and if you’ve already tried this, please confirm or deny this report in the comments.
I know, I know, I know, it ain’t even Thanksgiving yet and I’m already telling about cool software for Christmas. Well guess what? This will also work for your Turkey Day shopping list, too. Ya, it’s that good!
Long time readers will know that I’m a fan of SplashData products and one of my absolute favorite list program anywhere is SplashShopper. In its current form, it only plays on Palm OS devices in the PDA realm (but my inside source tells SvenOnTech a Windows Mobile version is on the way!) It also will sync with both the Apple Mac OS X or Microsoft Windows desktop versions.
SplashShopper will allow you to, “Manage your lists of groceries, gifts, to do’s, wines, music, movies, and more! Track prices and locations.” What better way to shop for your loved ones this Christmas? With its powerful organization, easy to read screen, and swift synchronization with your desktop computer, how will you not be a head of the crowd this season? With over a dozen five star reviews from users at Handango and PalmGear (yes, we chuckled at the lack of lesser star reviews ourselves), you can guess that this really is a great list keeper for your Palm. Again, we love it and we know you will, too.
Merry Christmas, er, Happy Thanksgiving.
I’ve used many clipboard managers for the Mac from iClip to PopCopy. The latter is the one I stuck with. It was simple, out of the way, and quick.
The good folks at PopCopy have just updated its wonderful software and now have added an extremely useful feature, Hotkey. “Hotkey?” you ask. Yes, hot keys are nothing new and yes they’ve been around for some time; however, PopCopy’s unique use of its Hotkey makes it powerful and - gasp! - useful.
With most hot key programs, you’re just stuck with what’s in the clipboard and not able to scan its contents. PopCopy went and took the Apple+Tab key combo concept and added it to its feature set for its Hotkey. When you depress the hot key combo (Shift+Apple+V), you’ll see three small windows in the middle of your screen (see figure) that displays your three most recent captures. Text, image, or objects in the finder (such as a Word document), are all shown if in the queue. Keep cycling through the hot key combo and older captures appear. When you’ve found the clip you need (in the middle window), let go of the hot keys and simply paste. That’s it. How useful is that?
Further improvements include full preview in the drop down menu and is now fully Office compatibility. No more issues with that sneaky Microsoft stuff. Catch PopCopy’s movie for full details on the new and improved PopCopy 2.
For a mere $14 (or ¥1605 for those in Japan), you really can’t find a more useful and now powerful clipboard manager.
The form filler slash password entry wonder for the Mac has just been upgraded to 2.0 and boy do we like what we see. New for this version is the addition of Secure Notes which gives the, “ability to store any type of information into the keychain.” Added to the already large standard of browser support is now OmniWeb and DEVONagent browsers. The user interface received some changes like the affixing of a trash can on the left column of the manager to give it more Mac OS like feel as well.
1Passwd is SvenOnTech’s only choice in password and form filling and we are excited to see the release of 2.0. You can download a free version direct from Agile Web Solutions and see if you don’t agree with us that there just isn’t life without 1Passwd once you’ve used it for a day.
Don’t like having to remember all those passwords for the various sites you visit? Tired of entering your name and address to read an article or something? Just want one easy way to have this all be done? Mmm, you might want to give 1Passwd a try, then. We gave it a run for the last three weeks and give you the details about it in our Reviews section. Take a read and see if this is right for you. Trust us, if you love RoboForm, you’ll love 1Passwd!
We’ve been looking for a good, cheap (okay, free), clipboard manager for the Mac and we are now jumping in glee to find that our favorite one that we passed due to the $20 price tag is free! Today only.
Download iClip v3.0 for free from macZOT and you’ll have probably one of the best clipboard managers available. Why is Inventive letting macZOT give this out for free? ‘Cause 4.0 is just around the corner and it wants to attract attention to the upgraded version that will be sure to bring more customers. Me? I saw the screen captures and I’m not into that eye candy stuff, so I think v3.x looks better. But hey, 4.0 may be better. We’ll see.
For now, get your free-bee and enjoy!
My major complaint with iPhoto (now that the photo loading is a bit quicker) is it’s inability to mount photo sources such as network shares or various locations on ones hard drive. Importing never gets me excited. There are other things missing, too, but none that really are that a big of deal. While I’ve found other applications that will support photo viewing without importing, none really caught my fancy. That was until I found Picture Arena.
Picture Arena is a product from a German company called IOSPIRIT. An interesting name since IO (or I/O) means “input / output” and in this case, the input is the picture file and the output is what we see on the screen. Anyway, I’m wandering from the true brilliance of my find. Picture Arena not only solved my issue with mounting drives and folders, but talk about speed. Yikes, if iPhoto could only dream of being this fast, millions of Mac users would rejoice. While I have it running on a MacBook Pro, others with slower systems will notice an immediate difference. One user wrote, “The speed on my iMac G4 700 MHz is so much better than iPhoto and it lets me do more things and quicker, too!”
With Photo Arena, you get a wealth of other features such as being able to view and edit the longest list of RAW image files I’ve ever seen. Heck, I dare say it supports more than Adobe Photoshop CS2! All the other basic formats, such as JPEG, are also supported. You’ll be to also resync, as IOSPIRIT calls it, that allows for document management of sorts with your photos. One person will be able to make edits to a picture and send it back to the server updating the server while another person will be able to see those changes automatically. And if you’re a lazy lad, then use your voice as Photo Arena will listen to your commands.
Photo Arena does replicate many of iPhotos features as well. You can make albums, burn CDs, create slide shows (though without iTunes integration), as well as print any selection of pictures. If there is anything you miss of iPhoto, however, it’s always just a click of a button to get it back into an iPhoto album. No worries.
If you’re tired of iPhotos inability to view your pictures off your network, CF card, or just from another source on your hard drive, then you need this application. With its added bonus of other great features, this is simply one very good product that is worth the money. Hey don’t take our word for it, MacGamesandMore made it its pick of the week and said, “It does practically EVERYTHING you need!”