Dailymacapp Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Daily Mac App: Coffee Break

by Kelly Hodgkins (Dec 8th, 2011)

I enjoy using my computer, especially at night when it's quiet. I enjoy it so much that I often forget to get up and stretch every few hours. I also stay up way too late. My propensity to get caught up in my Twitter stream or my RSS feed is one reason why I bought Coffee Break. Coffee Break ...

Daily Mac App: NameChanger

by Samuel Gibbs (Dec 7th, 2011)

Batch-processing files is a great way to save time. Automator scripts work will for simple jobs, but if you're trying to do something complex like remove or alter the filename of a great many files, a free tool like NameChanger could be a useful addition to your armory. NameChanger takes on ...

Daily Mac App: Keka

by Samuel Gibbs (Dec 6th, 2011)

Great free archive utilities are pretty hard to come by on the Mac. Keka is the exception. If OS X's built-in compression utility doesn't do enough for you, Keka could be the answer. Keka's been around since 2009, but only recently made it into the Mac App Store. Unlike Growl, Keka is ...

Daily Mac App: Spotify

by Samuel Gibbs (Dec 5th, 2011)

Now that Spotify is available on both sides of the pond, it's about time we took a quick look at it. Free streaming music apps don't get much better than Spotify. Right now you can stream any track in the Spotify library for free with a pretty decent desktop Mac app. It's not available in the ...

Daily Mac App: Quick File Renamer

by Samuel Gibbs (Dec 2nd, 2011)

Bulk renaming files can be a time consuming pain without the right tool. If it's a problem you face often, you've probably already got a favorite batch-renaming app residing on your Mac, but if not, Quick File Renamer might be a good place to start. It has a user-friendly interface with ...

Daily Mac App: Brightness Slider

by Samuel Gibbs (Dec 1st, 2011)

Using a Mac laptop at night is great thanks to automatic-brightness controls and a backlit keyboard. Trouble is that sometimes even the lowest setting is too bright for midnight screen gazing. That's where Brightness Slider comes in. It's a menu bar utility that lets you adjust the screen's ...

Daily Mac App: Memo

by Samuel Gibbs (Nov 30th, 2011)

I've written about quite a few note-taking apps in my pursuit of the best one. Most shy away from the Post-It note paradigm because OS X comes with Stickies, a pretty decent representation of the repositionable note, but Memo takes it head-on. Memo is basically Stickies with iCloud and ...

Daily Mac App: Image Bucket

by Kelly Hodgkins (Nov 29th, 2011)

You don't realize how important batch processing is until you are faced with 50 photos that need to be resized from 3872 x 2592 to 640 x 480. Processing each photo one-by-one in an image editing app would take an hour. Instead of wasting your time with such a tedious task, you can turn to an ...

Daily Mac App: FormatMatch

by Samuel Gibbs (Nov 28th, 2011)

Copying and pasting text is something everyone does. In OS X you have two choices by default -- copy and paste, which retains formatting; or paste and match style, which strips out the source formatting. If you're like me, you almost never want the source formatting. Cmd+V is the shortcut for ...

Daily Mac App: Starred

by Samuel Gibbs (Nov 22nd, 2011)

If you're a Gmail user who leverages more than the simple mail potential of Google's email service, you'll know how valuable labels, stars and other organizational features are. Trouble is, to take advantage of them you normally have to resort to using the Gmail web app in its various guises, ...

Daily Mac App: iZip Archiver

by Samuel Gibbs (Nov 21st, 2011)

Simple handling of compressed archives is a breeze on a Mac, simply secondary-click and hit "Compress". Likewise opening a zip file is as easy as a double-click. But what happens when you want to get a bit more advanced with your compression archives? That's where something like iZip Archiver ...

Daily Mac App: Quick Note

by Samuel Gibbs (Nov 18th, 2011)

Lots of people still use notepads to jot down quick reminders, even when they're in front of their Macs. Quick Note is a note taking utility that gives you the simple, quick writing experience of a pad of paper on your desk, but on your Mac. Simplicity and speed are key in this kind of app ...

Daily Mac App: Tic Toc

by Dave Caolo (Nov 16th, 2011)

Tic Toc for Mac (US$4.99) from Overcommitted is a simple task timer that sits unobtrusively in your menu bar while you work. It's a great option for those who must monitor time spent on a task. There are no client records, project management features or support files. Simply create a task, start ...

Daily Mac App: Snap App

by Samuel Gibbs (Nov 14th, 2011)

Taking screenshots on Mac OS is easy thanks to its decent built-in capture utilities, but taking nice ones is not as simple as you might think. App Snap is a developer-orientated screenshot utility that makes taking screenshots for app display a bit easier to manage. It's not just handy for ...

Daily Mac App: Gelatin

by Samuel Gibbs (Nov 9th, 2011)

Some tasks need a really simple, straightforward, no-nonsense app to get the job done. Combining PDF files is one of those tasks, and Gelatin is the app to do it. Preview can do a similar thing, but it's certainly not as straightforward as Gelatin. The app offers a window to drag-and-drop the ...