Month: December 2009

If you’ve got yourself a spanking new Magic Mouse for your Mac, you may be more than just a little bit disappointed with some of its functionality.Fortunately, a mini-cottage industry of Magic Mouse software is already developing to fill the gap left by Apple. There still isn’t much out there at the moment but here are a few essential software downloads to get the best out of your Magic Mouse. Note that all of these work for Trackpads too:

BetterTouchTool

This is completely free to use and amazingly simple. BetterTouchTool is the work of a single German developer who has produced an easy way to customize Mighty Mouse actions. These include the all important pinch in/out (zoom), single finger taps and even three finger swipes. Note that it only works with Snow Leopard.

MouseWizard

A more polished Mighty Mouse enhancer software which adds three extra buttons, namely, ‘pinch’, ‘bloat’, and ‘tap to click’ gestures and allows you to customize almost every aspect of your Mighty Mouse. You can even put your Magic Mouse to sleep using it. The main interface is very easy to use, allowing you to configure which type of clicks do what such as configuring a middle-click for Exposé or a fourth click to open Spotlight etc. If you get stuck, a handy wizard takes you through the configuration process by telling you where to place your hands on the Magic Mouse. The disadvantage is that it’s not free (although only costs a modest $2.50). Continue reading “The best Magic Mouse software”

Here’s window number four of the OnSoftware advent calendar. Guess what’s behind the window then click to open it and reveal the software treat behind. Clue: today it’s a mobile phone app.

The program integrates a bevy of time-saving tools and features, including bookmarks, a password manager, auto-complete addresses, and the ability to save pages for viewing offline. The program now includes the ‘Speed Dial’ feature from the desktop version of the app, that gives you one-click access to your favorite pages from the start page – James

At 1.3gb it’s not a small download, but if you like racing games Codemasters have finally released the demo for the PC version of Colin McRae: DiRT 2. Console owners have been able to play this for ages, and their demo even had multiplayer. No such luck with the PC demo, but it’s still one of the best looking and most playable off road racers you’ll see. I had a look at it here, and it’s really worth playing – just make sure you have a joypad or steering wheel as keyboard control is horrible!

There have been some great online platform games this year, from the minimalist Canabalt to the surprising Small Worlds. Continuity is probably my favorite overall. It stylishly mixes slide puzzles with platforming – pressing Space zooms you into a piece so you can move around it, and another tap zooms out so you can move the pieces around so your little guy can reach the exit. It’s all very smooth, with a moody soundtrack that goes from pumping electro when you’re zoomed in, to melancholic soundscapes while you’re using the puzzle.

Continuity is just the right length, and the puzzle-platform gameplay is really satisfying. Play it here in your browser – just requires Flash!

Those poor celebrities. Hit hard by the financial crisis, they’ve been forced to find other ways to make “easy” money and what better way than launch the current “goldmine” of downloading, an iPhone app. The logic is surely simple. Put your name to a product, stick it on the iPhone store and it’s bling-bling all the way to the bank. Predictably, the results so far have been nothing short of hideous. iPhone users can say what they want about Android users, at least they’re not downloading any of these crimes against technology:

Noel Edmonds Cosmic Ordering For those outside of the UK lucky enough not to know who Edmonds is, he’s a British TV personality who has made more TV comebacks than David Hasselhoff. Most famously known for presenting “Noel’s House Party” with “Mr Blobby” and more recently UK quiz show “Deal Or No Deal”, his latest incarnation is as a fortune teller in this atrocious application which promises “‘a simple but astonishingly effective way of managing the way you view your life and your goals in life”. The “astonishingly effective” method is to enter a wish into your iPhone which Noel will then “submit” to the Cosmos in order to make it come true. Just to let you know Noel, I’ve submitted my wish to the Cosmos and if it comes true, we won’t be seeing you again for a very long time.

Robbie Williams Racing The last I heard of Robbie Williams, he was chasing UFOs around a Nevada desert. He could have saved himself a lot of hassle as it turns out as he claims one visited him in his LA studio while recording his latest album. I had high hopes for this app then that you’d be UFO hunting with Robbie on the back of a bike. As it is however, you simply take to a bike in the desert and race around listening to his latest single.

I am T-Pain Although I’ve never even heard of T-Pain I am in pain even looking at this app because I know it’s just going to be one of these “DJ Hero” style apps where your imagination is so limited, all you can possibly do is use T-Pain’s “unique” style to make your “own” music. True to form, I Am T-Pain allows you to use the same “Auto-Tune”technology that T-Pain uses in the studio. So let me get this straight T-Pain. For $2.39 you will make me sound exactly like Danish duo The Olsen Brothers in their Eurovision Song Contest 2000 winning entry “Fly On The Wings Of Love“? Erm, no thanks.

Push Shaq In terms of absolute complete uselessness, this app surely takes the biscuit. To be fair to Shaq, it nothing to do with him. It was an unofficial iPhone app developed by one of the guys at Swavv Apps and it has since been withdrawn – presumably because it was absolutely pointless. Push Shaq simply alerted you when basketball player Shaquille O’Neal tweeted on his twitter account. That’s it. What could be more useless than an application which notifies when someone has tweeted on their Twitter account? Call me simple minded but surely that’s what Twitter clients are for.

Hammer Time Who would have believed that a man who danced around in baggy trousers during the early nineties singing “It’s Hammer Time” would become one of the most technologically adept and wired celebrities out there. Well, I guess when your career has gone down the toilet the internet is the easiest way of forcing yourself back into the public consciousness as MC Hammer does regularly with his blog, tweets and now an iPhone app called “Hammer Time”. Hammer Time allows you to “get all of the latest news, updates and content from MC Hammer”. In other words, nothing you can’t already get on his blog and twitter account. It’s no surprise that this was developed by the award winning makers of iFart. Sorry Hammer, but I’d rather take a hammer to an iPhone than install this.

Welcome to day three of the OnSoftware advent calendar. Click on the window to find out which PC application Niamh is raving about.

This program is intended to help you draw your own characters and create manga strips or stories. To that end, it has a huge selection of sketching, drawing and character tools that will allow you to put the characters in your head on the screen in front of you – Niamh

It’s day two of the OnSoftware advent calendar. See if you can guess what software lies behind today’s window before clicking on it. Clue: it got its first Mac release this year.

The first thing I noticed about xxx is that it’s unbelievably lightweight. While Firefox was consuming anything from 20-30% of my Mac’s CPU, xxx barely registered on the scale, occasionally touching 1% – Nick

So another decade is coming to a close and I think it’s safe to say it’s been the most exciting one ever for downloads. A top ten list of the past decade reads like a “Who’s Who” list of the download scene today. Almost all of the most downloaded apps on Softonic today were released within the past 10 years. During that time, I’ve converted from a frustrated Windows user to a dedicated Mac fan so here is my selection of apps for both platforms that I think should grace any 2009 Christmas stocking:

Firefox Released 2004: Surely the undisputed number one application of the decade. Ever since I ditched Internet Explorer for Firefox, I’ve never looked back. The sheer amount of customization possible with Firefox is staggering. From integrated FTP clients to the best bookmarking system out there, Firefox remains an indispensable tool to me.

Skype Released 2003: Before Skype came along talking with friends and family abroad was always costly involving annoying pre-paid calling cards or ludicrously expensive phone bills. Skype came along and changed all of that allowing users to talk for free and eventually, amazingly cheap calls to landlines and nowadays, webcam chats.

VLCPlayer Released 2001: Playing video files always has been, and still is, a pain sometimes due to the huge number of different codecs out there. Gone are the days when you needed several different players to play different types of media thanks to VLCPlayer. If there’s a video format out there, chances are VLCPlayer can play it.

uTorrent Released 2004: Before uTorrent, I used eMule for my P2P file sharing needs. But in the search for something faster and more lightweight I discovered uTorrent and have never looked back. Now finally available for Macs too, uTorrent is everything a P2P file sharing client should be and more.

Picasa Released 2000: My photos used to be as organized as a jumbled mess of thumbnails stored in crudely labeled chronological folders. Then Picasa came along (although not until 2009 on Mac) and made browsing through my collection as absolute pleasure. Not only that, it eventually enabled me to instantly upload and share them with friends and family.

Adium Released 2001: There was a time when I had to have different Instant Messenger clients installed in order to chat to different contacts. Adium changed all that by allowing me to bring all of my IM client needs under one lightweight and easy to use application. It’s just a shame Windows users can’t enjoy it too.

Spotify Released 2008: A relative new kid on the block but what an app this is. I test a lot of applications but the first time I tried Spotify, it was obvious that this was something special. Spotify instantly struck me with its ease of use, the huge range of music available and potential as the future of music distribution.

TVUPlayer Released 2005: While many of the first P2P TV apps consisted of difficult to understand Chinese interfaces and instructions, California based TVUPlayer distinguished itself by not only being easier to use, but filled with hundreds of channels around the world. Now finally available on Mac, it remains my most used P2P TV app.

Google Talk Released 2005: I was an enthusiastic early convert Gmail and so it was no surprise when Google Talk turned out to be just as good. Using a clean interface, tabbed conversations, and crystal clear voice calling, I’ve used it many times when audio quality on Skype was bad. Just a shame there’s no standalone version for Mac yet.

Google Earth Released 2005: Although I don’t use it much nowadays, I won’t forget the first time I used Google Earth. Suddenly it felt like sophisticated satellite mapping technology was available to anyone, anywhere at the touch of a button. Exploring cities, towns and landscapes around the world was never so much fun and it keeps getting better.

Some of you will no doubt argue there are a few major omissions here such as  iTunes, Windows Live Messenger and LimeWire but for me personally, the decade didn’t get any better than any of the above.

Today is the first day of advent, which means we can now officially start singing carols, stealing kisses under mistletoe, and panicking about what the heck we’re going to buy everyone. Today is also the first day of the inaugural OnSoftware advent calendar.

This year we decided to round up our favorite software of the year in a festive way. Each of our editors will be revealing their choice apps and games of ’09 over the coming 24 days. Every day there will be different Windows, Mac or mobile program lurking behind the ‘window’, along with a quote from our original review. See if you can guess what the application is before clicking the picture to reveal it. Have fun, and Merry Christmas!

This is one of those players that goes unnoticed but proves to be an excellent tool when you take the time to give it a try. This compact, easy-to-use video player lets you enjoy video files and movies in a wide variety of formats. What’s more, you won’t have problems with codecs because it already includes them – Elena