Manual is my latest addition to the photographic toolkit of my iPhone. It has come highly recommended by a couple of italian professional (Giulio Riotta) whom blog I follow. So I decided to give it a … well, a shot!
Category: Apple
talks on Apple computing related stuff
a minimalistic status bar for Safari
Minimal Status Bar (a Safari extension) →
If you’re OK with Apple’s Safari, but envy the minimalism of Google Chrome’s status bar, well… there’s an app for that! Visnu Pitiyanuvath with the help of some collaborator has published in the linked GiHub page an extension for the OS X default browser that looks like in the screenshot and does nothing else.…
Once you decide to install the extension, remember to deactivate / hide – if you have it enabled – the default Safari status bar.
Moreover, if you’re in the search for a more powerful and complete Status Bar for Safari, please be sure to give an eye to the full featured Ultimate Status Bar. as Visnu himself points out!
How Susan Kare created “The first fonts of the Macintosh”
Instastack, an OS X client for Instagram
Instastack is “The most elegant way to browse Instagram on the Mac” according to its authors.
Thanks to the AppShopper.com notification, I’ve learned that this 4.99$ app is available for free in these hours on the Mac AppStore, and I’ve decided to give it a try. Once downloaded it asks you for your Instagram account, and then shows you all the photos on the network in every way made possible by their API. Loved ones, most favorites, search by tag or user. All works intuitively … as the interface is clear and mimics the UI of some more famous apps like the official Twitter client, or the Wedge App.Net client.
In some ways it remembered me of the Flow iOS iPad app for Instagram which, and the original Instagram app itself, has a big advantage in terms of user experience. Differently from Instastack, the former uses all the space available on your monitor, letting the user immerse himself in photos.
This is probably the biggest miss in the app I’ve found. But it’s probably more a philosophical one than an actual one, since the ultimate goal of this app is to keep a quick eye on your network without having to reach your smartphone (probably not appropriate or educate when you’re at work or with other people talking around).
Astropad, getting a graphic tablet out of your iPad
Released last week, ASTROPAD is one of the most interesting software released in the Apple ecosystem in these last few months.
Pairing a free app on the iOS device, with it’s counterpart on OS X, it enables a two way communications between the video of your Mac and the input capabilities of the touch display of the iPad, becoming de-facto a graphic tablet (like a Wacom).
At download time you have a 7 days, full featured, trial period. Then you’ll have to pay ~50$ for it. From the fist test I’ve done with some friends the app behaves better with tools like Photoshop, Pixelmator and such… other than some CAD, where it misses some keyboard integrations.
The developers are really active and interacts with their customers (potential ones too), so be sure to follow @astropadapp also on Twitter…
What version of OS X is installed on this drive?
It may occur to some to have a bunch of old disks laying in closets and them suddenly having the need to attach them to a running machine to restore some old data. Or you could have the need to boot up it’s System.
How to know which OS X operating system is installed on that drive? Well, all you have to do is a simple:
more /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plistover the Terminal.app. I’m writing this as a reminder for an eventual future need.
Autocomplete, an hidden OS X feature
Great tip over Eli Schiff blog…
iBetterCharge, never again an iPhone with low battery
iBetterCharge is a free utility made by the software house Softorino that you have to install on your Mac. After that you have to pair your iPhone when connected via USB, then you can unplug it. iBetterCharge then runs in background and monitors the battery status of the iPhone. When it reaches a specific level, you get an alert via Notification Center so that you can charge it.
You don’t have to install anything on your iPhone, since the pooling happens with the Wi-Fi sync protocol you have to choose inside iTunes. I have to thank Brett Terpstra for pointing this out over App.net,
Cakebrew, the Mac app for Homebrew
Homebrew is a package manager for an easy retrieval and installation of open source software on OS X. With Homebrew you can install thousands of command-line applications that would require manual compilation, which is not always very straight-forward.
Cakebrew is a community effort, that brings this to a whole new level of simplicity. Install command-line tools from an App. Could it be easier?
Condense, a simple and fast OCR for OS X
Thanks to a MacSparky post, I’ve learned the existence of this nice, ~ 5$, OCR software on the Mac AppStore: Condense →
coconutBattery, a little surprise
coconutBattery is an old friend of mine. I’ve discovered it since my first Apple computer, an Intel Core Duo MacBook took in June 2006. I do also think that nearly every Apple’s laptop owner knows or runs it.
coconutBattery is a software that lets you monitor and know real-time the health of your laptop’s battery, the original capacity, the actual capacity, the numbers of power cycles it’s gone through and more…
The following screenshots show the actual status of my mid.2010 MacBook Pro with its original battery. This is my main computer, the one that I use the most…
Earlier today I was reading Roberto Marin – recently featured on the pages of the Sweet Setup – post questioning himself and his readers about the necessity of battery calibration on moderns Apple laptops.
Here I’ve discovered that nowadays coconutBattery sports an “upload” feature (as you can see in the History window screenshot) that makes you compare the measured data the app has collected over the time with the huge and ever-growing database of battery performances by the app users.
My result is visible in the opening screenshot. As you can imagine and witness, this database is a great resource for any Apple owner, freely available to anyone. All you will have to do is periodically upload your data to the service, and compare how you’re performing…
