Filed under: Macintosh

Touch Mouse [iTunes link] is a free iPhone / iPod Touch application from Logitech that turns your iDevice into a wireless keyboard and trackpad for your Windows or Macintosh computer. It's not a remote control application, so you don't get a view of the computer's screen; you simply get an alternative way to control the mouse pointer and keyboard. Touch Mouse works by relying on a small server software component that you install on your desktop computer that listens for connections from the iPhone app.

This is very useful when you have a computer set up as a PVR. Most of the time, you can do what you need to do with a remote control, but occasionally you'll need to navigate the file system or close a pesky dialog box (no, I don't want to upgrade my antivirus, thanks), and for that Touch Mouse can be very useful.

My one small concern about Touch Mouse is that there is no authentication going on; it appears that any computer that is running the Touch Mouse server software on the same wireless network shows up in the Touch Mouse app. That won't be a problem for me since I'm using it at home on my home network, but it could be a problem in other environments.

[via TUAW]

Though Macs ship with a reasonably good video player in the shape of QuickTime Player, the sheer number of different types of video files that are available out there can be frustrating to keep up with. You have to install various plugins to make QuickTime compatible with them all. Or, you can choose an all-in-one solution like VLC.

Of course, some people are not fans of the look and feel of VLC. If you're in that camp, check out Movist. Movist is another all-in-one video player for OS X that has so far handled every file type that I've thrown at it. You can even go into the preferences and manually control the decoder that you want to use for each file type in case one works better than another.

Movist's UI feels very at home on my Mac, and I like it enough that it has become my default video player. I'm looking forward to see what the next update holds for Movist, which appears to be a very active project hosted on Google Code.

[via MacStories]

If you're looking to implement a secure, private chat environment in your company, have a look at what's going on at Ignite Realtime with their OpenFire real time collaboration server and Spark cross-platform IM client.

Being that they are open source, both OpenFire and Spark are free; that makes it easy to convince management to give it a try.

But the open source nature of the products also means that if they almost but don't quite suit your needs, you can always modify them to fit the bill.

Ignite Realtime also hosts a number of other related projects including SparkWeb, Smack API, Tinder API, Whack API, and XIFF API. If you're an IT manager or developer looking to implement a secure private chat environment, have a look at OpenFire and Spark.

I've been using Fluid for a couple of years now to create site-specific browsers on my Mac for certain very useful web applications like Gmail, and Jay points out 10 web apps you should be running on your mac with Fluid. Though the current version of Fluid still works well, it hasn't updated in awhile and that got me curious as to what the developer behind Fuild, Todd Ditchendorf, was currently up to.

It turns out he's currently working on a project called Fluidium, which takes the site-specific browser concept of Fluid, and does two important things: it makes it available to developers so that they can create self-contained SSBs that they can distribute, and it open-sources the code behind Fluidium so that developers can not only use it, but they can make changes as they need.

This is some neat stuff, but as a non-developer my main question was, "when will Fluid be updated?" My question was answered on the Fluidium blog, and the answer is soon. First a small update will be released to address some bug fixes, but later we can expect to see a revamped version of Fluid that takes advantage of some of the rewrites Todd did for Fluidium to make it even better.

I can't wait.

Have you ever wished that you could have a photo booth running at your wedding reception, engagement party, or kegger? If so, you might want to check out Party Booth.

Party Booth is a desktop application that runs in full-screen kiosk mode that allows party guests to walk up to the computer, simply press the spacebar, and pose for pictures. The process is entirely automated. The app allows you to use custom graphics for a border or banner on the prints, allowing you to commemorate your event for your guests. It can also optionally automatically upload photos to Facebook, img.ly, Mobypicture, Posterous, ScreenTweet, TweetPhoto, TwitDoc, Twitgoo, TwitPic, twitrpix, TwitSnaps, and tumblr.

Party Booth is available for Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Mac OS X and Linux due to it being a Flash application distributed in in Adobe's AIR Runtime. Party Booth will set you back $38US, which is far less expensive than renting an actual photo booth, and you can run a trial of the app for free.

Signing up for Google Apps for your domain is a pretty sweet deal, but there's still the matter of your current email account, and all the messages that come with it. Fortunately, Google has anticipated the demise of your old email account, and taken the liberty of planning for its future. Email packrats who run Windows have had access to a Google Email Uploader tool for some time, and now there's a Mac version that lets you easily dump your old email into your new Google Apps account.

The biggest caveat here is that we're not talking about uploading to a Gmail account. Google Email Uploader only works with Google Apps email (i.e. POP3 and IMAP). Other than that, it couldn't be easier to upload messages from your Mac - assuming you're running a popular mail client like Apple Mail, Eudora or Thunderbird. A warning, though: due to server rate limits, you might want to upload 500 messages or fewer at a time, because performance will lag significantly on large batches.

Okay, it's time to fall back on that classic reviewer trope, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

The Good: Trillian's message style and list style aren't customizable (yet?), but the default style is attractive and easy to read. This might be a matter of taste, but I prefer Trillian's chat bubbles to iChat's. It also includes a couple of neat little preferences that I'd like to see in every chat client. AIM users will understand when I say that the option to hide AOLSystemMsg is a relief, and I also like the ability to automatically accept file transfers from contacts.

The Bad: Lack of customization and Growl alert support means that Trillian still has some work to do before it can knock over the reigning king of Mac chat clients, Adium. I'm taking the bare-bones features with a grain of salt because - and I can't emphasize this enough - we're talking about an alpha version here.

The Ugly: Alert sounds. They're not the worst alert sounds I've ever heard, but I couldn't find a preference to change them or turn them off. It's not just new message alerts, either, it's buddy on/off, message sent, and pretty much anything else. This doesn't make Trillian very café or library friendly, and it might make the people you live with want to kill you. I'm sure this will change before version 1.0 officially comes out.

Trillian for Mac was at the top of my wish list 10 years ago, but competitors like Adium and iChat filled the gap, and they've spent years refining their products. I'm not saying Trillian can't catch up; it's off to a good start, and a popular brand name will help. Unfortunately, it looks like it will be a while before it's ready for prime time.

OS X's Spaces feature is a nice implementation of virtual desktops, but I find it can be awkward to move between spaces sometimes. As much as I'm a keyboard shortcut kind of guy, and enjoy the ability to use the keyboard to switch spaces, often times when I want to switch between spaces my hand is already on my mouse. Yes, you can switch spaces by clicking the spaces icon in the menu bar, but there's a faster, more intuitive way.

Warp is a system preference pane that adds the ability to simply push the mouse against the side of the screen and move to the next Space. There are configuration settings for how long the mouse needs to remain at the edge before it activates, whether to warp the mouse cursor when switching spaces (so that you can continue one smooth movement as if the spaces were actual screens side-by-side), the ability to wrap around spaces, whether or not to warp on edges featuring the dock or menu bar, and whether to require a click at the screen edge to activate Warp.

You kind of have to try it to understand just how it feels to use, and Warp may well require some tweaking to make it agree with your way of working. But once you get it working, you'll wonder how you could ever live without it.

There was a time when having a chat client on your computer at work was considered a no-no. These days, if you're not available via some sort of online chat or instant messaging, you're just not moving at the speed of business.

Many companies have begun using open instant messaging services for their internal discussions, but there are a couple of downsides to this approach. The first is a lack of control, and a potential lack of security. The second is a lack of collaboration tools; it's difficult to share files between multiple people in an instant messaging chat.

HipChat is a new start-up that aims to fix the problem of secure, controlled corporate chat. Based on Adobe AIR which provides cross-platform functionality, HipChat is a fully functional chat client that as GigaOM points out, bears a resemblance to 37Signals' Campfire product. To be fair, the basic layout of an IRC-like chat client has been the same for 15 years, so the similar look is not that much of a surprise.

Where HipChat has a definite advantage is in the fact that it is a desktop client (even if it does unfortunately rely on AIR), not a web client. While there are 3rd-party Campfire clients and even ways to run Campfire in a dedicated single-purpose browser, HipChat is simply a desktop chat client.

HipChat has plans available from $9/month for up to 12 users, to $99/month for up to 100 users, and offers a 30 day free trial.

[via GigaOM]

If you happen to follow Mac indie software development, you've probably heard of Craig Hockenberry, the developer behind Twitterrific. Hockenberry is known for an online persona he sometimes takes on Twitter, where he types in all capitals. This persona is sometimes known as the CHOCKLOCK, and has resulted in people that are "in the know" referring to CapsLock as CHOCKLOCK.

All of that is background to explain why the utility I'm about to tell you about is called CHOCKSEE. CHOCKSEE is a Mac utility that will show you a pretty floating bezel on the screen if you happen to bump the CapsLock key, much like what you see on a Mac if you hit the Eject key.

And that's all that it does. Cute? Definitely. Useful? Kinda, sorta. I mean, there's already a visual indicator that your CapsLock key is on: ALL YOUR TEXT IS IN UPPERCASE LETTERS.

For some people, the built-in Mail.app on the Mac is all they need in an email client. For others, it is frustratingly close to being what they need, but lacking in some key areas.

The problem is that because Mail.app comes with every copy of OS X, and it's not a bad email client, the perception among the Mac development community is that there is no money to be made making a better Mac mail client. This is a case where "good enough" seems to be standing in the way of "great".

This scenario frustrated Brent Simmons (of NetNewWire fame) greatly. So greatly, in fact, that he was driven to write a blog post titled Email init begging the Mac development community to get together and collectively write a new, better email client. That post went up on Saturday, January 16, and a little over a week later, quite a bit has happened.

As part of the post, Brent created a mailing list for the yet-to-be-named app, which subsequently has been named Letters. A vote was also held to determine who would act as the President of the project. The role of president will be held by various people, and each president's job will be to marshall the project to the next major version release. The inaugural president for Letters will be John Gruber, who will hold that position until Letters 1.0 is released.

If you're interested in the philosophy behind Letters, check out the Letters vision document that first appeared on the mailing list. You can also follow Letters.app on Twitter.

DoubleTwist is an iTunes alternative that can sync your media library with tons of mobile devices, not just those made by Apple. The app has supported Android devices for some time now, and a brand-new partnership with T-Mobile means it will be used on many more Android phones in the future. The wireless provider has licensed DoubleTwist, and will now pre-install it on a selection of Android devices, as well as promote it to T-Mobile customers.

This looks like a great move for both T-Mobile and DoubleTwist. The phone company that doesn't carry the iPhone (although that could change soon) meets the music app best known for supporting non-iPhone devices. They're like peanut butter and jelly! Google wins, too, because there's no built-in Android app that syncs music, videos and playlists anywhere near as seamlessly as DoubleTwist does. The only thing missing from the pre-installed Android version of DoubleTwist is Amazon Mp3 Store integration, but you can get that by downloading and installing the standard version of the app.

[via TechCrunch]

1Password is finally available for Chrome. Sort of.

1Password is a favorite password manager among Mac users, with a passionate fan base -- and that fan base has been clamoring for a version of 1Password that included Chrome compatibility ever since Chrome was released for the Mac!

Well, the time has come, and an alpha version of 1Password has been released that does indeed support Chromium (the developer version of Chrome). Chromium is necessary because the current version of Chrome for Mac does not support extensions. (You can grab a nightly build of Chromium over here.)

Keep in mind that this version of 1Password is alpha software, and that means it is by definition not yet stable. It also currently only supports the most basic of 1Password functionality: unlocking 1Password and filling in simple login forms.

If you're brave enough to try alpha software, let us know how it goes!

Propane is a beautiful, Mac-only desktop client for Campfire by 37signals.

Working on a remote team, one of the core tools in maintaing a cohesive work environment is group chat. Out of the myriad options I keep coming back to Campfire as my chatroom of choice. The archiving, file sharing and integration with Basecamp (our project management tool of choice) make it stand above the other options for us.

For me, the worst part about Campfire is that it is browser based. This factor kept driving me away from it. I prefer a separate app for chat. Propane has solved this problem for me.

Propane provides a clean, simple, useful interface that removes the mess of browser chrome while maintaining the needed functionality of the tool. Tabbed chat rooms, drag-and-drop file sharing, and fine-grained notification customization with Growl integration are just a few of the killer features of this app.

If you are a Mac user and a Campfire user, I'm not sure how you could get by without it. Currently $20 during the beta, bumping to $25 when it's out of beta, licenses are a per-user basis, so one user can install Propane on as many computers as they use. Download it and give it a try before you buy it!

Some technologies get way more hype than they really ought to, given the lack of real-world utility they offer. If you ask me, the king in this category is the idea of using a 3D user interface for computing.

Since the early 90's, people have speculated about a great new paradigm shift away from the desktop metaphor to a more "natural" three-dimensional interface where the user navigates a virtual building to interact with the various data on their computer, and later on the web. While this has been successfully implemented, nobody is arguing it's a more efficient way to compute than the traditional 2D desktop.

For the past few years a new 3D approach called BumpTop was announced that maintains the desktop metaphor, rather than switching to a different paradigm. It received a lot of press with interesting and impressive looking demo videos, and eventually released a Windows implementation. And now BumpTop is available for the Mac in both a free and Pro version ($29 US).

So, is the concept of a 3D desktop going to revolutionize computing? In a word, no. It's fun to play with, but it certainly doesn't make me feel more productive. Now, to be fair, my Mac doesn't have multi-touch, and BumpTop Mac includes multi-touch capabilities that could make it easier to use. But I have a hard time thinking of BumpTop as anything more than a sophisticated toy.

At the end of the day, what I like about computing is that it's easy to keep things organized. I don't want my computer's desktop to look like my real desktop does. It's messy enough as it is.

[via Technology News]