Thursday, April 16, 2009

Testing: MarsEdit 2

A few weeks ago, I joined a contest in MacAppStorm. The price was a license for the Red Sweater blogging software for Mac OSX, MarsEdit. All one has to do was leave a comment on the post or follow the blog on Twitter. Since I already had them on my Twitter, I decided to post a comment.

My DSL was out Tuesday night, so it wasn't until I went to work the next day did I see the results. I wasn't really expecting anything, so I didn't read the entry immediately, checking out my other feeds first. To my surprise, I actually won the contest.

I'm testing it out right now. Installation... there wasn't any. After extracting the file and dragging it to my applications folder, that was it. Open it and I was ready to go.

I added my four blogs including this one, and am using/used MarsEdit to write this post. It's rather nice to see all my tags/categories listed on the side of the post pane. My usual problem with tags is I forget which ones I have and sometimes I end up making new ones.

I like how the main window works like an email client, or iMail. I see my blogs on a list on one side, then the twenty most recent posts, and if I click on those, I get a preview at the bottom pane. Nice. I don't have to browse through my blog's pages to find a post or so about this or that. I can do a search here.

Biggest plus? It frees up space on my browser, and I don't have to worry about losing my entry should in any case the server or the Internet connection fails while I'm publishing.

So far, in this very brief use of MarsEdit, I find it very convenient. I'm looking forward to using it more in the future.

Many thanks to the folks of MacAppStorm and MarsEdit for this software. I consider it as an excellent birthday gift!

Thursday, April 02, 2009

MacHeist 3 Bundle: 5 days to go!

I'm sure most Mac users have heard of MacHeist. The site where you can solve puzzles and get free Mac applications that would normally set you back a couple of dollars. Given that many of these apps are truly useful and cost more than what I'm willing to shell out, taking time to try and solve these puzzles is worth it.

MacHeist 3 is the latest of the series of puzzles. Solving all mini heists would give you many apps such as Fresh, Shovebox, Process, Overflow and EventBox, to name a few. What's more, certain puzzle give you discounts on the bundle that MacHeist will (or in this case, already is) selling at the end of each Heist.

So what is this MacHeist bundle? Well, think of it as several top Mac apps, most of which will cost more than $10 each. We're talking about screenshot apps (Little Snapper), audio editing and recording tools (WireTap Studio), photo editing tools (Picturesque, Acorn), recipe tools (SousChef), 3D animation software (Kinemac), even a few games.

Some of these apps don't come cheap. Kinemac alone is worth $299, while WireTap Studio is $69. Two apps and that's already $368! I definitely won't spend that much for these apps. But toss this into the bundle, along with other great apps for only $39 (less if you got the discounts during the mini heists)? I'd say that's more than worth the price.

If you purchase the bundle, a part of it will go to charity, and for every certain amount sold, a new app is unlocked. WireTap Studio was unlocked when the $300,000 goal was reached, and BoinxTV is next when the money raised for charity reaches $400,000. The last app to be unlocked would be Espresso, which retails for $80. With only five days left, there's still alot to go before the next app is unlocked. I'm hoping all apps get unlocked, because one: think of all that money donated to charity and two: the apps. Sweet deal.

You can check out the apps in the bundle at MacHeist. Get yours and make you Mac and yourself happier with all the nifty tools.