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Fstream - great little webradio player for iPhone & Mac

When working on your Mac you probably use iTunes to listen to your favorite radio station. How about on your iPhone? Well, get FStream (author Julien-Pierre Avérous) at the iTunes App Store and look no further. Actually, there is even a version for your Mac with much less overhead than iTunes.

FStream is a little webradio player which recognizes most popular audio formats (MP3, OGG/Vorbis, WMA, AAC, AAC+) and playlist formats. In both the Mac and iPhone (iPod Touch) versions it includes an extensive list of web radio stations. You can search for your favorite stations and double click to include them in the "Favorites" tab. That's all you need to do to get started. Of course, you can input the URL of other webstations not included in the list as well.

The Mac version includes a couple of nice features. It can be operated with the Apple Remote, it allows you to record the streamed music and there is an eye catchin fullscreen mode as well.

The iPhone version, in my brief experience, works only with wifi although according to the author 3G and Edge operation should be working as well. I have to test this further. Also, the app seems to be using quite a bit of juice, so keep the iPhone in the recharging dock whenever you can.

MarsEdit - the must tool for bloggers

To be perfectly honest, I am a latecomer to using this great helper from Red Sweater Software which should be a must in the arsenal of any blogger. I learned about it just a few days ago when it received Macworld's software Eddy Awards for 2007.

For those of you who are still using a browser to compose your blog, the benefits of a desktop editor become immediately obvious. No more lost posts because of browser freezes while you are editing, access to the archived post on your local hard drive and above all a much more elegant way to edit by using your Macs rather than the limited tools of the browser. And, if your blog is heavy into photos and you are keeping them on Flickr, Mars' Media manager provides an easy download and handling feature.

MarsEdit works with most blogging platforms such as Wordpress, Blogger, Typepad, Drupal, Vox and many more. If you are new to blogging, MarsEdit's Start a Weblog wizard walks you through creating your own blog in no time. If you already have a weblog, the software auto-detects it just by entering name and password. The program is rich in Text mark-up and editing tools, so you can put "HTML for Dummies" back into your library. The software sets you back $29.95, in my view money well spent if you want to blog elegantly, i.e. Mac-like.

Get a new Mac - aluminum keyboard

What is the cheapest way to get a new mac? You guessed it: get yourself a new keyboard. The other day Santa brought me the new anodized aluminum keyboard from Apple. The one which was introduced with the new iMac this fall.

The low profile anodized aluminum profile comes in both a wired and wireless edition. I got the wired one, which comes as a full-featured board, including a numeric key pad, 19 function keys including special keys for Mac features such as brightness, volume, Expose, play/pause and some more.

The keyboard's extremely low profile makes for a very natural hand position avoiding carpal tunnel stress. The low profile keys (similar to a macbook) provide a crisp and responsive feeling. After a couple of days, my typing speed increased noticeably.

Two USB 2.0 ports connect easily with a Mighty Mouse or, even better, with a high speed peripheral such as a digital camera or sync with your iPod. The latter function, however only works if you connect the USB cable to a high power USB port (the one on the right hand side of your MacBook Pro. My advice: talk to Santa and get a "new Mac" under the tree. At $49 (CHF 69 at Heiniger AG in Niederbipp) its a steal.     

PicLens - fullscreen web photo view

If web hunting for pictures is one of your favorite pastimes, you must have been longing for a "better way" to enjoy photos, i.e. in full screen mode and in slide show mode. While some of the web photo archives, such as Flickr have much improved their presentation capabilities, it's nowhere near what you get with Mac apps such as iPhoto, Aperture or Lightroom.
Enter PicLens a free Safari only utility requiring OSX 10.4. The plug-in lets you view your picture search results in full screen mode and as a sideshow. If, for instance, you are sharing photos with friends and family on Flickr  PicLens will allow you to present the search results in iPhoto or Front Row-like fashion. This Safari plug-in works, in addition to Flickr, with Facebook, Photobucket, Yahoo and Google images.
Having recently expanded my web photo presence to Flickr, I am sure my Mac driving friends and family would greatly enhance their picture viewing experience of my Flickr posts using PicLens.

Lusting for "Front Row" with an older Mac? equinux's "Media Center" is the way to go!

"Front Row", particularly in its latest update for the Intel Macs, is  Apple's "camel's nose stuck in the home audio and video  tent".  Particularly with the recently introduced single and dual core Mac Minis and the updated "Front Row", Apple has made an important step forward towards offering an attractive solution for your living room.  Front Row relies on Apple's zero configuration utility "Bonjour" to allow users to stream video, audio and pictures from any  Bonjour enabled computer (Mac or Windows) in your house. Yet another reason to lust for one of the new Intel Mac's?
If you didn't mind to live dangerously, owners of G4 desktops or laptops always had the possibility to use one of the readily available "Front Row" hacks, such as the one from Andy Garcia until Apple's lawyers plugged the loophole.
No need, however, to be brave or spend your hard earned  Swissies or Dollars on a new generation Intel Mac: Equinox's free "MediaCentral" software does the trick perfectly well. It provides most of the functionalities of Front Row and even some additional  ones: it turns your Mac into the ultimate media center. With the push of a button you can access your iTunes or iPhoto libraries, play iTunes videos and movies located in the movie folder of your Mac. It streams movies from the internet - e.g. Movie Trailers, Web LiveTV - or, if you own El Gato's "EyeTV", you can even watch TV.
While "Media Center" supports more video formats and allows you a few additional features to Front Row, the software has a few shortcomings. For instance, the present version of the software does not play videos or music purchased from Apple's Music Store, a significant handicap if you are a good client of the trend setting downloading service.

Who cares, if all you want is to turn your "aging" Mac into a leading edge media center providing an elegant home for all your songs, pictures, videos and movies?

Rightclick Mac Mouse:OneFingerSnap

Tired of having to put down your coffee mug when you want to right-click your Mac mouse? Among the Windows switchers who converted before the recent addition of Mighty Mouse to Mac desktops? Own a Powerbook or one of the screeming new Dual Core MacBook Pros?
Then you definitively should check out OneFingerSnap from OldJewel Software. Already a universal binary, it only costs $6.85, well worth the quality of life gain (see "coffee mug") or productivity enhancement from a right clicking mouse. With OneFingerSnap you can just click and hold down that one button to get to the contextual menu. A real gem.

Google Earth - New for the Mac

I know, for the PC world Google Earth has been around for a few months already and got raving reviews. The wait for Mac users ended last week, when during Macworld in San Francisco Google issued a version "for the rest of us" . My advice: postpone the download beyond your productive working hours. Otherwise, you will spend the rest of the day roaming the world to discover your favorite spots courtesy of Google. Why not start by planning your next backpack hike to the Schwarzsee area in Switzerland.  Awesome stuff.

AppleJack - user friendly MacOSX repair tool

Although Mac OSX requires little day to day maintenance and crashes are pretty much a thing of the past, you never know when something will go wrong with your Mac. Preventive maintenance can do a lot to avoid or at least reduce the occurrence of individual program misbehavior or even a systems crash. Regular MacFixit readers know, that before installing a systems update it is advisable to check and, if needed, repair your hard drive with Disk Utility and regularly check and repair file permissions. However,  some of Disk Utility's functions only work if you start up the computer with the  OSX  Install disk.
AppleJack provides an easier solution. The free software allows you to repair your disk, repair permissions, validate system preference files and get rid of possibly corrupted cache files - in short the most frequent culprits to corrupt your system. All you have to do, after having downloaded and installed AppleJack,  is to restart your system in Single User Mode (holding down the Command and s  keys) and type "applejack" or "applejack auto" (which will run through the tasks automatically). By all means print out and read the AppleJack ReadMe file before you start using the software.
To get more information on this great potential lifesaver, check out the AppleJack's website and an excellent article by MacFixit author Dan Frakes.

Protect your iPod nano or iPod G5

Early buyers of the iPod nano had few options to protect the extremely scratch prone device. Apple offered multicolored sleeves which, however, only offer limited protection and none when you want to use the iPod controls. Having had a good experience with iSkin's protective case for my G1 iPod for the last 4 years, I recently bought the iSkin Duo for  my iPod nano.  This silicone dual layer case protects the nano perfectly. However, as with its other silicone cases, the case is quite bulky and does not slip easily into your pocket. The bulk of the silicone case also makes it very difficult to impossible to insert the nano into a dock or loudspeaker connector.
There is a better solution if you want to protect your nano (or iPod video) without hiding it in a "rubbery" case: Power Support's $ 15 iPod  nano Film set (5G iPod with video). It protects the front and back side of your iPod with a thin colorless film thus maintaining the nano's awesome looks while allowing easy operations and insertion into docks and loudspeaker stands. Try it out.

Teleport: Control two Macs with one mouse and keyboard

For those who regularly work with two Macs at their desk, a Powerbook for the road and a desktop for the more processor intensive stuff (assuming you are a lucky owner of dual or quad core Power Mac G5) there is a great little software - teleport - which allows you to use your mouse and keyboard to control any shared Mac on your local network. The set up is very easy, you just download and mount the software on each computer. System preferences will then ask you if you want to activate teleport and share the mac. The following interface will pop up and allow you on your "Controlling Mac" to place the "Controlled Mac" on the appropriate side. You then simply move the mouse across to control the respective Mac. It's a great boost to your productivity, and above all if you use a bluetooth mouse and keyboard, it does away with all the cable clutter on your desktop. You can easily copy and paste from one computer to the other.

One more thing I use to boost productivity when I work simultaneously with both Macs. I use DropCopy to easily and quickly send files and folders across the LAN by dragging files onto the other Mac (s) in a popup window. It's the easiest way to get things from one place to another quickly without dialogs, passwords or confirmations. DropCopy is currently a free public beta. Great stuff to check out.