Month: March 2010

If you’re a VLC Media Player fan like me then Lunettes is something you should definitely check out. With doubts circulating about the future development of VLC on Mac, Lunettes has arrived signaling that the future for VLC on Mac is very much alive.

Lunettes (French for spectacles) features a new interface for VLC that opens it up to design innovations from other users. Most importantly, it integrates with Cocoa, the native programming environment of OS X, meaning VLC will finally shrug-off its Windows heritage.

The functionality of Lunettes remains the same. It will still be able to play almost any format as all the codecs. The look however is much improved looking more like a Mac app with a touch of inspiration from QuickTime X.

Instead of opening the player directly like with VLC, Lunettes opens a Window which keeps a history of everything that you’ve watched and how much you’ve watched of it:

Lunettes also integrates automatically with all of the video content available on your Mac. You can access them all using the menu down the right-hand side:

There are three default skins included which are dark, transparent and one that makes Lunettes look like a Samsung TV. It is this ability to play with the look of Lunettes which really differentiates it from VLC Media Player. Continue reading “Lunettes – the future of VLC Player on Mac”

iPhone: Justin.tv has become one of the most popular and diverse places for user-generated live video. So it stands to reason it would get an iPhone app sooner or later. The Justin.tv app allows you to watch the videos others have uploaded, although as yet it doesn’t let you broadcast from your iPhone’s camera. Nonetheless it’s a great way to enjoy video content added by others and even lets you converse with them.

Windows: Love watching online videos? Would you like to download them to your hard drive? DamnVid makes the task really easy for you. This awesome app can download videos from dozens of video websites, and convert them to a variety of formats on the fly (just as they’re being downloaded!) so that you can enjoy your favorite videos right away!

Mac: In terms of file sharing on Macs, Limewire (now updated to version 5.5.8) is the cream of the crop, offering the essential peer-to- peer tools in what is probably the friendliest interface of applications in its class. Beginners will appreciate the search bar, which allows you to select the type of file you’re looking for, video, image, audio, or program. Limewire also has a “what’s new” button to check out popular recently shared files.

File have a nasty habit of getting very messy, very quickly, especially if you are a keen downloader, photographer or music buff. If your folders look like the computer equivalent of a teenage girl’s bedroom, take a look at my guide to keeping your files in top condition.

Get rid of the duplicates – this should definitely be step 1 in any re-organization. Duplicate Cleaner is top of my list – it’s fast, free and has all, if not more, of the features of its pay-for cousins.

Protect sensitive data – if you want to prevent your info from falling into the wrong hands, erase any secret files that you no longer need with Freeraser. Now create safe folders for the files you do want to keep with My LockBox.

Get rid of unnecessary folders – use Suction. This pint-sized app will suck the files out of your folders, so it’s prefect if your folder structure has become messed up over time and you want to start over.

Take care of major renaming – Batch File Rename Utility will help you get your file management back on track. It’s perfect for large collections of photos or music and is really flexible, so you’ll have no problem finding a quick and easily-accessible naming convention for your files.

Move blocked and locked files – they’ll only hinder your spring cleaning, so try using Unlocker Portable to shift them out of the way. If you get too enthusiastic while organizing, Recuva is your best option to recover deleted files.

By now, your files and folders should be model examples. Keep them that way by installing a few apps that will allow you to handle your file management like a pro. Q-Dir is a file explorer that’s a step up from Windows Explorer – it gives you considerably more control over your files, and will even let you color-code them, which I find really helpful.

Last but not least, help yourself find all these beautifully managed folders  Google Desktop is a powerful search utility. It’s as user-friendly as Google’s other products and if you’re still struggling with pre-Vista search, it’s a revelation.

I’ve never been able to touch-type but years of pounding a keyboard with my forefingers mean that I’m a pretty quick typist. Luckily, should I ever decide to learn touch typing, there are a lot more options than Mavis Beacon to learn from these days. These are some of the best you’ll find on the Mac catering for a wide range of abilities, ages, and budgets.

Tux Typing Aimed mainly at kids – but the higher levels are challenging enough for most adults too – Tux Typing is by far the most fun typing tutor I’ve tried. Tux is the name of the Linux penguin and he’s the star of this typing shoot-em-up as you try to prevent him over-facing himself on falling fish in the form of words falling from the sky. Type the words to make them disappear and thus stop them falling into his mouth! The range of languages supported by Tux Typing is outstanding too including Lithuanian, Swahili and even Nepalese!

aTypeTrainer A very straightforward typing tutor that’s simple enough for both kids and adults. The aim of aTypeTrainer is simply to type letters in quick succession as dictated to you by the program. It supports a huge range of keyboard layouts such as Dvorak, Colemak or custom layouts built using Ukelele. It can get rather boring just typing random characters which is why its a good idea to spice it up with your own texts which you can import from documents or web browser. If aTypeTrainer is too complicated for you, there’s also the predecessor TypeTrainer4Mac which is basically a stripped-down version of aTypeTrainer. Continue reading “Top typing tutor software for Macs”

Were you getting excited about the forthcoming Windows Mobile version of Firefox? Well, forget it kid, because Mozilla has just announced that it’s scrapping the whole project. Despite being in the works for some time, development of the Windows Mobile version Fennec (a.k.a Firefox Mobile) has now stopped – and it’s all Microsoft’s fault, says Mozilla.

According to Stuart Parmenter, technical lead, Firefox Mobile, it will be impossible for Mozilla to develop the app for new Windows Phones 7 platform due to the way Microsoft has closed off development to native applications. In a frank blog post, Parmenter says that Mozilla had been expecting a native development kit with the new OS, and now that’s not been forthcoming, Fennec for Windows Mobile is being put on hold.

While we think Windows Phone 7 looks interesting and has the potential to do well in the market, Microsoft has unfortunately decided to close off development to native applications. Because of this, we won’t be able to provide Firefox for Windows Phone 7 at this time. Given that Microsoft is staking their future in mobile on Windows Mobile 7 (not 6.5) and because we don’t know if or when Microsoft will release a native development kit, we are putting our Windows Mobile development on hold.

In a subtle dig in the ribs of Microsoft, Parmenter goes on to say that he and his team will use the knowledge they gained from working on the Windows Mobile version to help with development of Fennec on other mobile platforms. Perhaps when Microsoft sees Firefox running on Maemo and Android it might rue its decision not to open up to native development. Or then again, it’s plan all along could’ve been to wipe out anything that might compete with the native IE app in Windows 7 Phones.

There have been tons of cool mind-bending platformers over the past year, and to add to those here’s Specter Spelunker Shrinks. This Unity-based game uses size as its major trick, and it’s a pretty cool one.

Like most platform characters, Specter Spelunker can move left, right and also jump. With slightly sloppy movement and monochrome retro graphics, that would add up to not much of a game, but using the up and down buttons you can grow and shrink Specter Spelunker. This grow/shrink mechanic makes all the puzzles in the game, and is really entertaining. There seem to be no limits to how big or small Specter Spelunker can be, except his environment, and the environments change in scale a lot!

You need the wonderful Unity plug-in to play Specter Spelunker Shrinks, and it can be finished well within an hour, so give it a go!