Filed under: Video, Tips and tricks, iTunes
Swap full-screen Cover Flow and video in iTunes
full screen posts
Filed under: Software
Think 1.0
Applications that offer 'full screen' modes are all the rage now a days. The idea is that if you run one application in full screen mode you won't be distracted by all those other things that fight for your attention on your Mac.The good people at Freeverse are savvy to this, but they figured why bother creating individual applications with a full screen mode when you can create an app that'll let any app have a full screen mode of sorts. Thus Think was born.
Think has a very cool Illumination Panel that allows you to pick from any of your currently running applications. As soon as you pick an app, Think throws up a backdrop (the color is up to you, though it defaults to black) that covers up the rest of your desktop (on your main monitor as well as any secondary monitors you might have) though the Dock remains visible. Think goes one step further and displays the icon of the currently focused app in its Dock icon, just in case you forget.
It is obvious that Freeverse spent some time thinking about this application. Now, what would you expect to pay for such an application? If you said nothing, not only are you cheap but you're also correct! That's right, Freeverse is giving this gem away (Mac OS X 10.4.3 or later is required).
Check out the gallery below for some screenshots.
Filed under: Software, Productivity
Scrivener - the word processor with a cork board
Scrivener is a new word processor made for the messy, non-linear and notecard-slinging writers out there. Merlin Mann has been raving about it, and I can understand why: Scrivener's entire UI and workflow is designed around managing the pieces of whatever you're working on, allowing you to organize things like thoughts, outlines, pictures and dialog snippets with folders and keywords. The most interesting organizational feature, however, is a unique cork board UI on which you rearrange virtual notecards that contain summaries of whatever is in the document they represent. Hopefully, this allows many a college student and screen writer to stop jamming real cork boards in their bags when meeting for group projects.
Scrivener doesn't stop there: multiple document editing, full-featured outlining, full-screen editing and format-friendly exporting all round up quite a v1.0 debut. A 30-day demo is available, and a license runs $34.99.
QTAmateur does full-screen playback, batch exporting, more
QTAmateur brings a lot of the handy QuickTime Pro features to the table without having to pay the $30 upgrade. Full screen video playback (with a more streamlined, iTunes 7-like video window) and batch exporting of any format QuickTime can read and write make for a handy little app.QTAmateur is free, Universal and available from Mike Ash, a Rogue Amoeba programmer.
Filed under: Software, Video, Universal Binary
Trans Lucy 2 is Universal and freakin' sweet
My friend Clark, who seems to be my only resource for anything, pointed me in the direction of an incredible little app called Trans Lucy 2. It's a video/DVD-player that actually lets you modify the transparency of the video window and then overlay it on your screen, so you can watch whatever's playing while working/chatting/surfing in the background. Perfect for people with small screens, or folks (like me) who hate constantly moving around windows depending on what they want to do. Right now I'm watching a Thomas Jefferson biography (thanks, Netflix!) while talking via iChat and writing this post in Camino. Depending on what task I wish to focus on, I just change the focus of my vision. And it works really well.A registered version of Trans Lucy 2 is $15, but you can download a demo version at www.translucy.com.
Update: seany explains the best benefit of Trans Lucy over other apps with similar functionality: "The nice thing about this is that you can 'click through' the movie and work as normal. In other apps, their windows are selected when you click anywhere. To all intensive purposes [sic], the app disappears except for the video. I find it great for following video tutorials as I can track the actions in real time without swtiching between windows."
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