I wrote about Curio last year, and the past few months have brought quite a few additions to this creative brainstorming and productivity powerhouse. We already saw Evernote integration, and between the last two releases (6.0 and 6.1) Curio has added support for tables, "figure stencils," better copy-as-text, and a lot more.

The figure stencils are great, allowing you to create figures such as mind maps, tables, notes, lists, etc., and save them for re-use. For example, I have stencils for different styles of lists with skeleton headers already included, and "Approved" and "Rejected" labels to drag onto mockups. The tables and index cards allow for a lot of visual organization within a space, just in case you're not an entirely free-form kind of person.

The full release notes for the latest version (6.1) are available here. Curio is available in 2 versions, both with free trials. The Professional Edition is $149US and the Standard version is $99US (comparison), academic discounts available. Version 6 is a paid upgrade for 5.x users, and upgrade prices start at $49US, depending on what you're upgrading from and to. If you want to see Curio in action, check out the "Tutorinis" at the bottom of the Curio homepage.

In Keynote (and also in PowerPoint), a build refers to the appearance and/or disappearance of elements (such as text, bullets, images, audio and movies) within a given slide.

Working with builds is relatively straightforward. You select the item(s) that you want to create a build for and then choose the order to activate or deactivate each element. These controls are accessible via the Build Inspector pane, which you can get to by clicking on Inspector button or with the Command-Option-i keyboard shortcut. By default, builds are activated by a click with your mouse, or via the spacebar or right-arrow key on your keyboard.

There may be times when you want to add some creativity and more Steve-ness to your builds, and automated builds provide you this functionality.

In this picture, I have three elements that I want to "build in," or have appear, on the screen. I want "Who?" to show up first, "What?" to show up second, and "I don't know" to show up third

Using the Keynote defaults, these elements would show up in the order that I click: "Who?" after the first click, "What?" after the second click, and "I don't know" after the third click.

But let's say I wanted "What?" and "I don't know" to automatically appear in sequence after I click on "Who?" To do this, I just need to change the "Start Build" options of both elements. For the "What?" build, instead of choosing "On Click," I'm going to choose the "Automatically after Build 1." And for the "I don't know" build, I'm going to choose "Automatically after Build 2." Now, "What" and "I don't know" will automatically build in after "Who?" is clicked.

One neat thing about automatic builds is that they can apply to "actions" as well. So if, in this baseball example, we want the elements to move to different bases after a build, we would apply the same "Automatically after..." logic to them.

Got more Keynote tips (or want more)? Let us know in the comments.

Let's face it, data sync is the real Big Bag of Hurt in our brave, digital world. But since I started using BusySync over a year ago, much of my calendar sync issues have dissolved away. BusyCal, the successor to BusySync, was recently released and it is just as amazing as BusySync at keeping your iCal and Google Calendar data in sync. In fact, it is much, much better than BusySync because it is an iCal replacement.

The idea is simple: you want to have 2-way sync between your iCal stuff, your Google calendar stuff and any local Macs. Simple, yes, but so complicated very few do it right. There's MobileMe if you stick with Apple's solution, and Google Sync if you are a devout Gmail user, but there's still the issue of 2-way sync when it comes to subscribing to calendars. And let's not forget that MobileMe data has to go to Apple's servers when you could sync between computers locally, right?

BusySync fixed all of this for me. Local Macs used Bonjour to connect and sync, and my Google calendars appeared in iCal with seamless 2-way sync. Calendar data is a tricky thing, and the last thing you want to happen is to have all your appointments and reminders vaporize in an instant. However, I can report that BusyCal doesn't nuke anything. Like 1Password, you can always go back to Apple's default tools.

Enter BusyCal as a full application. Why replace iCal? I have to admit, I was a little skeptical. BusyCal is iCal evolved, providing a better experience in several key ways. First, one feature I have longed for in iCal is a list view, a simple top-down view of every appointment within one or more calendars. This makes is much easier to make decisions about nuking an entire calendar at once, and is very handy if you have too many calendars or no time to go month by month, scanning for the right color or words. Second, there's a lot more UI finish to BusyCal, with easy-to-access panes for adjusting event info. Even Snow Leopard's iCal, which reduced the number of clicks it took to edit an event, doesn't allow you to edit events this easily. For you UIX geeks: a frickin' non-modal floating window OR an embedded entry window. What a concept!

Adding to the ease there are some nifty extras, such as seeing your to-do's grouped logically or moon phases and the week's weather in your calendar. Of course, these options are all configurable, as is the Google sync option. More than nifty are features like rich text, adding images and stickies to events, a more advanced alarm window, and offline editing. BusyCal has, in less than 24 hours, become a mission-critical application for my Mac, both at home and at work. If you are a BusySync user, you can upgrade for $10, or buy new for $40 (per computer). It is well worth the price if you deal with lots of calendars.

Be sure to check out our previous coverage here and here. I would also be remiss in pointing out Spanning Sync, which also syncs Address Book with your Google contacts, but works a bit differently.

One of my favorite new tools is Dropzone from Aptonic Software. Cory mentioned it back in early beta, but it's come a long way since then. Dropzone lets you set up "destinations," and when you click its icon in the dock it pops up a HUD-style window with icons for each destination. You can drop files and text onto each icon, or have them launch apps and run scripts with a click. It comes with ready-made destinations for everything from Flickr uploading of dropped images to zipping and emailing a collection of dropped files. The beauty of Dropzone is that the average user can set up all of the destinations they would normally launch other apps for, but users in more advanced stages of geekery can construct their own destinations using the Ruby-based Dropzone API.

My personal Dropzone setup includes destinations for creating projects or opening files in TextMate, opening a folder in GitX, sending files to my Amazon S3 account (puts a publicly-accessible url in my clipboard), filing based on OpenMeta tags, mounting and unmounting FireWire drives, making quick Backpack reminders, and the list goes on. I've even got one that scans dropped text for "http://" links and creates a linkbun.ch for me. Some of these scripts I've written, some were just a matter of customizing the existing destinations. Either way, I've got all of these capabilities no more than a click or drag away.

Creating your own destinations just requires a little Ruby-fu. "But I'm the farthest thing from a level 12 Ruby Mage," you say. Don't sweat it, let the community do it for you. Several scripts from my personal setup, along with a great selection of others, are available in the user-contributed actions section of the Aptonic Software website. Additionally, included actions like the application launcher allow full customization just by selecting the application to trigger.

Dropzone is available for a free trial, and can be had for $10US. Give it a try and see if it doesn't speed up your workflow. If you create any scripts you'd like to share, be sure to let the author know!

It's been a long summer, and students everywhere are starting to head back to universities and colleges around the country. It's not easy to get back into a daily grind of classes, assignments and activities but a new application called iStudiez Pro [iTunes Link] is here to help!

Created by Andriy Kachalo and Michael Balashoff, iStudiez Pro is designed to help you take charge of your own schedule by always keeping you on top of where you need to be and what needs to get done. With an intuitive interface, the application promises to make sure "you never miss another course, lecture, and lab, track tasks and deadlines, plan homework, arrange assignments and much more."

Some notable features include:

• Smart day view that automatically displays summary of currently classes and tasks
• Detailed schedule planner to break down classes and assignments
• A view to suit everyone including expanded month and week views, with colored labels for each course
  
• Specific icons for different types of classes
• Supports iPhone features like touch gestures and device rotation
• Integrated address book keeps your contacts and professor's information close at hand
  

The application, available for both iPhone and iPod touch, is selling for $2.99 on the App Store. If you're looking to snag a copy of this app for free, the developers are currently offering a deal that if you see the demo version of iStudiez Pro being used in an Apple store and take a picture, they'll send you a free promo code!

Here's a couple images of iStudiez Pro in action:

I'll admit to being a productivity geek. For me, getting things done is almost as fun as fiddling with my system. After trying every app I could, I've come to a conclusion: Paper is where it's at.

There's nothing more flexible and full of potential. You can make arrangements to meet a friend or solve a serious network issue with paper and pen. Most of the apps I used tried to mimic the ease of pen and paper, but none match the flexibility.

For me, the iPhone adds another hurdle with the touch keyboard. Here's the bottleneck: I write faster that I type on a full-sized keyboard, and I do both faster than I use the iPhone keyboard. Some iPhone productivity apps require lots of typing, categorizing, tapping and clicking. Tally up the time spent being "productive" with your iPhone and it's not worth it. Just grab a small notebook.

It only makes sense that I'd love the app from a man who shares my love of paper. Put Things Off for iPhone and iPod touch is a mobile productivity app that I'm happy to use. The initial window (see gallery below) is nice and sparse. To add a new task, click the arrow and type something brief like "Email Tom Re: website." Select a due date and hit Save.

A small "card" appears on the To Do List desktop that you can put in one of four boxes: Inbox (the default), Today (determined by your due date), Put Off and Done. In fact, you might not have to do any clicking at all. The Today box is self-populated, the Inbox is the default and the Done box fills itself as you kill off tasks.

Which leaves the Put Off box. In the app's preferences, you have an option to delay tasks for a certain amount of time. I've opted to put things off for 7 days, just in time for my weekly review. Therefore, items without a specific due date show up weekly, just in time for my weekly review. GTD'ers can think of it as a dynamic @readandrevew or @someday/maybe list.

What I love about Put Things Off is that it comes very close to mimicking paper and pen. I open a note, jot a task and add a due date. Exactly what I do in my notebook. The Put Off box works wonderfully with my weekly reviews and there's no ballet of clicking, categorizing, tagging and whatnot to accompany every entry.

Some will call it "under-featured," but I think it's perfect. Try it out and see if I'm wrong. Put Things Off is available in the App Store now for $2.99US.

Oh, Big Mean Folder Machine 1.5, we hardly knew ye! You joined the Mac world in October of 2008, and now you're gone, replaced by your new and younger sibling.
Big Mean Folder Machine 2.0, from publicspace.net, is the newest version of the great Mac file manipulation application. BMFM 2.0 continues the tradition of allowing you to split files from different folders into new folders based on a set of criteria, or merge files from multiple folders into a new folder while taking care of naming conflicts.

So what's new with 2? Publicspace.net has redesigned the user interface, built in an automatic update engine, and streamlined BMFM for better performance. The application also does an even better job of resolving file name conflicts. The Big Mean Folder Machine's droplet capability, which lets you take custom folder merges or splits and save them as for future use as standalone apps, has also been improved.

This is a free update for owners of previous versions of Big Mean Folder Machine, or you can purchase the program for €14.95 (about US$21.25) from publicspace.net. If you haven't used BMFM before and you're intrigued by what it can do, a free trial is available for download.

Not long after I bought my first personal Mac in late 2004, I stumbled across an article that mentioned Ulysses, a text editor geared toward creative writers -- essentially the marriage between a word processor and project management software. It allows you to have all documents within a writing project at your grasp. As a journalist and author, Ulysses was a dream come true, but expensive. Costing more than $100 at the time, it didn't fit into a journalist's salary.

I wound up using CopyWrite for a time and was fairly satisfied with it until I read in a forum that people were having luck with a program which, at the time, was called Scrivener Gold. I gave the free beta a try and was blown away by the program's potential. When the full-fledged release of Scrivener came out in early 2007, I bought a license as a birthday gift for myself.

Scrivener pulls all the things needed for a complete writing project -- be it writing a script, novel, research paper or newspaper/blog articles -- together in one location and has so many features that even after nearly three years of use, I don't think I've fully explored all that it has to offer. I recently started work on writing my first graphic novel, and have really gotten the chance to flex Scrivener's muscles.

Last summer I started to fantasize about working for myself. I pictured a home office, afternoons with the kids and life as the boss. My employer maintained a similar fantasy, and a few months later they went out of business and left 120 of us high and dry. Synchronicity is cruel. Thanks for that, Carl Jung.

I've learned that working solo is 1 part thrilling, 90 parts horrifying and 9 parts educational. Also, I've found the best setup for my iPhone to help me through my self-employed day. Here I'll describe the apps, settings and hardware that I've found most useful. Feel free to share your own.

Documents to Go from DataViz has been known for years to the Palm and Blackberry community, and it finally comes to the iPhone -- filling in the need for a built-in Word (and soon Excel) editor that truly turns the iPhone into a mini computer.

There are currently two versions of Document To Go. The $4.99USD version [App Store link] features Microsoft Word editing alone and the $9.99 version adds Microsoft Exchange support. You can also view and synchronize Excel and PowerPoint documents, PDFs, HTML pages and iWork '08 documents ('05, '06 and '09 are not supported at this time, though I do imagine that iWork '09 support will be added later). A free upgrade is part of the deai; when purchasing Documents to Go now, you net the ability to create and edit Excel documents when that feature becomes available.

For an in-depth look of the app itself, click through. Please note that this review covers the $4.99US version of the app sans Microsoft Exchange.

This video is from a chat I had with Phil and Andrew, CEO and Lead Mac Developer for Evernote, respectively. We covered Evernote when it first came out a while back, and it's been fun to watch it evolve since then. We talked about WWDC and recent Apple news, as well as some upcoming improvements in Evernote for both Mac and iPhone (searchable voice notes! UI improvements!). The interview ended up running quite long, and while it's still a bit lengthy, this version is cut to about 1/4 of the full video. I think I got all of the important bits in, though. Enjoy.

Update: This video has been moved to YouTube and is now watchable. Due to YouTube's length limitations, the video has been split into two parts, both embedded here.

If you have a photographic memory, you may recall an article I wrote for TUAW about a year ago describing how to use AppleScript to make it easier to transcribe QuickTime movies and audio. In the comments for that piece, a program was pointed out to me (thanks imnotjesus) which has become a valuable tool in my toolbox. Transcriva is a single-purpose program for transcribing video and audio clips with a rich set of features certain to make your life easier. If you're doing professional transcription, recording audio notes in a class or a meeting for later reference, preparing sub-titles for a movie, or anything which involves copying what's being said or shown into text form, Transcriva has tools to fit, and pricing I find very reasonable.

The main window of Transcriva offers a library view of your transcriptions, a media playback bar and your current transcription. With user-configurable keyboard shortcuts, it's possible to comfortably operate during a transcription without your hands ever needing to leave the keyboard. It even works with a foot pedal, if you're set up with one. You can control playback speed and set it to match your typing speed, as well automatically jump back a configurable number of seconds when you pause and resume playback.

Of all of the features available, Follow-Along is my favorite. It allows you to play back your audio after you've transcribed it, and highlights the appropriate sections of the transcription as the playback head moves through them. More importantly, clicking on an area of the transcription jumps to its related point in the playback, allowing you to quickly review the audio associated with a note or transcription. This is important because that's exactly how I use Transcriva, taking notes from audio recordings or even during a recording when I'm using the built-in record features. Then I can review my hastily typed notes and immediately hear the audio that was happening at the time I took the note.

It's great for recording meetings and annotating recorded Skype conversations. I imagine it would be an amazing tool in class, if you were in a situation where recording and typing were allowed. I haven't been to school for a while. The functionality is similar to Pear Note, but at $29.99US, Transcriva comes in $10US cheaper and packs more features.

Transcriva can handle just about any type of audio or video you can play on your Mac. It uses QuickTime, and with Flip4Mac and Perian installed, you can extend the possibilities to include WMV, AVI, DIVX, FLV and more. When you're done with a transcription, you can export it to RTF or Word formats for sharing, publishing or continuing editing externally. I use Transcriva to recap interviews I do over Skype, and take my notes in an "outline" format which I can, with a little finagling, turn into a mind map or outline for an article.

Transcriva has made my life exponentially easier and is a tool I'd gladly recommend to anyone with similar needs. My direct experience with the developer has also been great, with quick response times and a single bug report resulting in a new build within a couple of days. Transcriva is free to try, $29.99US to buy. You can download the trial at the Bartas Technologies site. If you hurry, it's even discounted to $19.99US in the MacUpdate Promo today.

According to my completely unscientific research, about 90% of the TUAW mailbag is comprised of iPhone app announcements. In our continuing effort to not deluge you with iPhone app reviews, I present another "fistful of apps": 6 iPhone app reviews in one post. If you don't have an iPhone, you only have to skip one post. For the rest, this is some serious bang for your blog-reading buck.

I don't play games much, aside from the occasional word challenge, so the apps I've chosen to review are definitely of a more utilitarian ilk. I'd classify them as productivity apps, including a Campfire client, a 3D mind mapping app, a movie cataloger, a task-management solution, a multi-status updater and a nifty tool for developing iPhone interfaces. Read on for the nitty gritty.

The Omni Group just released OmniFocus 1.6, and it's a big, big update. Current users are going to be pleased, even if they don't bother to page through the extensive list of new features and fixes in the release notes. I've never said anything to the contrary, but this is proof that Omni is listening carefully to users and working hard to evolve with user demands while still maintaining their original vision.

For the uninitiated, OmniFocus is one of the top contenders for your task manager dollar. Among the commercial options -- along with Things and up-and-comer, The Hit List -- OmniFocus is considered to be the powerhouse, at least as far as features. It's been a bit too much power for a number of people looking for simplicity in both form and function, but for those who need the extra power, it's a solid choice.

When I say "extra power", I'm talking about advanced sorting based on just about any criteria, saved filter sets called "Perspectives," AppleScript support, integration with Mail, iCal sync, iPhone sync (with separately purchased iPhone version) and some advanced capabilities to help you determine your "next action" with less input than some of the others. Things and The Hit List are still contending for my ultimate love, but I've used OmniFocus extensively and can honestly say that the only reason I tend to drift away from it is complexity -- both in the UI and in general functionality.

As I mentioned, the 1.6 release notes are extensive, and the vast majority of the entries are of very similar importance, making "highlights" hard to do. There are changes and additions to the filtering options, a new "Flagged" collation type for Context view, a prodigious number of bug fixes and enhancements to existing functionality, UI improvements, AppleScript fixes and improvements ... seriously, it's a long list. If you're a current user, you should be notified of the update within the application (check your update settings in Preferences), and new users can download a free demo. OmniFocus will hit your pocketbook for $79.95US ... competitive in the GTD arena and fitting for the punch it packs.

Here's the question: what day of the month does next Friday land on? You pull out your iPhone, turn it on, unlock it, navigate to the Calendar and switch to Month view. Got it. March 20th. Of course, being the self-proclaimed efficiency expert that you are (isn't everybody?), you quickly decide that was way too many steps for such a simple task. If you regularly need this particular type of information, you're going to have to find an easier way. You could (A) carry around a printout of the calendar for the month, or (B) check out MyCal.

MyCal is a single-purpose app from Chillix, the same developers to whom our faithful readers offered their offbeat to-do lists a while back. It allows you to pick a background -- from a wide variety of built-in images or from your own collection -- select a calendar style and set transparency levels. When you're done, it outputs a wallpaper image you can use to get a quick view of the month without even unlocking your phone. To be clear, it won't show you any appointments or tasks, just a good-looking calendar that's readily accessible. A recent update to the application fixed some issues with blurriness, and I give it two thumbs up for simplicity and usefulness. If you fit into the description in the first paragraph, you might just want to check it out. The user's guide offers a comprehensive preview, and it's available in the App Store for 99 cents (US). Chillix has built up a fairly extensive collection of iPhone apps; check out their website for some other gems.