newsletters

MarsEdit makes blogging easier, letting you ditch clunky browser-based editing in favor of a full-featured, fully Mac-powered desktop editor. With nice bonus features like autosaving, Technorati tag editing, blog-specific image settings, support for Tumblr, and a speedy Flickr browser, MarsEdit is a great example of indie software done right. It gives you lots of functionality, a professional level of quality, and responsive support, at (of course, this being indie software) a modest price.

Also this week we have the latest version of AppDelete, the utility that helps you uninstall unwanted apps completely--even hidden system files that often get left behind. … Read more

This week we found out that Android users running version 2.3.3 or earlier are vulnerable to a security hole that could potentially allow attackers to access calendar and contact data over an unencrypted Wi-Fi network. Since around 99.7 percent of all users qualified as vulnerable, it was quite a scare. Fortunately, Google has since issued a fix that forces the affected Google apps to connect via the secure protocol HTTPS, and now everyone seems to be breathing a little easier.

In other news, Trillian 5 is out. It's got a newly designed interface and every Pro … Read more

Web Snapper is an app and Safari plug-in that provides a fast and flexible way to capture screenshots of Web pages. The Mac OS provides some very limited screen-capture capabilities with Grab, but Web Snapper provides many more options (especially in terms of format, and in its easy-to-use integration with Safari), and it can capture multipage vector PDFs with actual text, links, and styling intact.

Also this week, multiplatform RSS media player Miro got an update, adding support for Android phones, and the ability to buy music from Amazon within the program. Our game this week is Black Ink, the … Read more

You may have heard that this past week was Google's annual Google I/O developer event. Often a site for big, potentially game-changing announcements, the conference this year was no exception.

Day 1 gave us news on two major fronts. First, Google indeed launched its cloud music service in the form of both an Android app and a beta Web site. Second, the home-appliance-invading future of the Android platform, was revealed.

Day 2 brought us the first Chromebooks. These lean machines are based on Google's Chrome OS and provide an always-on and always-connected computing experience. Look for them … Read more

Are you a Gmail user with a huge inbox and archive? Mailplane gives you desktop-app functionality with the security of keeping your mail safe on the gServers. Mailplane works just like Gmail, offering the same functionality you've come to expect online, but right on your Mac desktop. In this latest version you can recall and track your e-mail conversations in Evernote, along with other fixes and tweaks.

Also this week, we have the latest version of iShowU, the screen capture utility that's incredibly easy to use for making on-screen demos and also useful for remote desktop support. Our … Read more

One of the bigger stories in download news this past week was the likely security breach of popular online password manager LastPass. The incident had many of us considering switching password managers, but LastPass CEO Joe Siegrist urged us to keep calm, and even suggested that users with strong passwords had no reason at all to worry.

In other news, barely a week after upgrading its stable version of Chrome to 11, Google bumped its beta users to version 12. The new build introduced better hardware acceleration, stronger privacy controls, and slightly safer file downloads, among other changes. Google also … Read more

Things is a powerful, easy-to-use task-management app that can help you enter, organize, and act on items in your to-do list. Based on the popular Getting Things Done productivity method, Things gives you an elegant, streamlined interface--a classic, Mac-style multipane setup that doesn't require a lot of additional windows for its work flow. This latest version fixes compatibility issues between the Mac App Store version and the downloadable version.

Also this week, we have the latest Google Chrome beta so the hard-core Chrome users can check out what's next for Google's speedy Web browser (you should save … Read more

As April came to a close, we saw plenty of activity in the worlds of browsers and mobile apps.

First, Microsoft gained a bit of steam as IE9 skipped ahead of Opera in browser usage (though only by a fraction of a point). Meanwhile, Google introduced speech-to-text for Chrome 11, a feature that lets you talk to your browser. See a quick video demo here. Mozilla made its own headway in the form of an announced Firefox engine overhaul. Expect graphics and JavaScript performance to improve dramatically, but not by June 21, the scheduled release date of Firefox 5.

And … Read more

When you need a serious audio editor, one of our longtime favorites on the Mac is Amadeus Pro. Once you have this app installed on your Mac you can do live audio recording, digitize old records and tapes, convert sound files to mobile-device-friendly formats, and more. And you can use Amadeus' sound-repairing and denoising tools to bring your old music back to life.

Also this week we have ForeverSave, the app that automatically saves documents you're working on and creates backup versions in the background so lost data can be restored at any time. Our game this week is … Read more