Freeware of the Month
by Tim Verpoorten
February is the month of love and the I Love My Mac Give-Away. So let's take a look at the Mac freeware that I love from this last month.
I looked long and hard at editors of all types that were free on the MacReviewCast, here's a few of the ones that I think you should download and try.
xPad: http://www.getxpad.com
xPad is the TextEdit and Stickies replacement for Apple's OS X. With a simple, easy-to-use interface and powerful multi-document features, xPad might become your daily text editor of choice.
With xPad you can create as many documents as you like, all of which are managed in one window. Attached to that window is a drawer containing a list of all the documents you've created. Any document can be selected and loaded instantlyÑat any timeÑallowing you to easily create and manage hundreds of documents without cluttering your desktop.
Staying organized with xPad is easy. With the category editor you can create and color-code categories, then quickly assign documents in the drawer. Documents can be sorted by name, date or category. Now you can efficiently manage limitless documents with color coding that provides a constant reminder of your organizational scheme.
You can quickly rename documents, delete one or all, and export a single, multiple, or all your documents in both Rich and Plain Text formats using both drag and drop or conventional panels. You can also instantly export to your iPod, allowing you to read your documents when you are away from your computer. xPad automatically saves your work, so you never have to worry about manually saving what you're working on or accidentally closing something without saving.
If you don't like xPad, the other suggestion is the freeware editor from BBedit called Textwrangler.
TextWrangler2: http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler
BBedit just released a new version of TextWrangler. Version 2.2. We all know that TextWrangler was on my top ten list of freeware for 2006 and with this new updated version, it just keeps getting better. Here are a few of the new features.
Support is now in place for "Check spelling as you type". There's a preference in the Spelling prefs to set the default, and it can be turned on and off for a given text view by using the corresponding command on the Text menu. The action menu in the documents drawer contains a "Save All" command (dynamic variant of save) which saves all the modified documents in this window only.
There has been significant rework to the tool bar. The "Apply Text Factory" commands on the Text menu will now apply the selected text factory to the selected range of text in the front document
There are tons of other improvements. Check them out for yourself. You can't go wrong keeping one of these two editors, if not both of them in your applications folder.
While we're on a roll here this month, let's keep talking about editors and make this a theme article, shall we?
Writer: http://supertart.com/qisoftware/Writer.html
Here's one that takes a familiar idea and runs with it.
Writer is a word processor that's designed to get your first draft banged out and run with it. This is a very simple word processor that is much more like a typewriter than a nice Cocoa-ized text editor. It's very similar to Block Writer if you ever used that app. If you do your best writing when you're back to basics, then Writer is an app for you.
Next while we're talking about writing, what about writing to your blog?
Bleezer: http://larryborsato.com/bleezer/
Bleezer is a powerful blogging client.
And it's free. Here are a few of the features it brings to the table.
ü Blog from anywhere. Work on Windows, OS X, and Linux.
ü Work with any blogging service. As many as you want, even Blogger.
ü WYSIWYG editing. Edit your posts as they will actually appear.
ü Image upload. Images will automatically be uploaded to your server.
ü Category support. Support for multiple categories.
ü Add tags for any tag service. Technorati, del.icio.us, or anything else.
ü Create custom markup. Define your own key combinations for custom HTML markup.
ü Spell check. Ensure everything is speeled spelled ok.
ü Advertise.
ü Ping Technorati, weblogs.com, ping-o-matic, Pingoat, or any other service.
ü Work online or offline. Compose posts offline and post them when you want to.
It's time to change themes and look at some of the utilities I found for the Mac this last month. As before, they're all free and they're apps that typify great Mac software, functional, beautifully designed and simple.
Imagewell: http://www.xtralean.com
ImageWell is a small, but powerful, image editing application that lets you quickly resize, crop, watermark, edit your images and then upload them to the web, save to your computer or email them to a friend. ImageWell also lets you annotate your images with text, shapes, arrows and lines, quickly and easily. And it doesn't stop there - add a drop shadow, a shaped border, flip or rotate your image, take screen grabs, plus so much more. Version 3 brings many new enhancements and an even more streamlined user interface. Some of the new features include layering and transparency controls for images and draw objects, SFTP support, flip image feature, graphical watermarks, and so much more. V3 is also available in 12 different language localizations. Overall you get a ton of editing, importing and exporting features. If you don't need an expensive, over bearing image editing app, then imagewell freeware is just what the Doctor ordered.
OnyX: http://www.titanium.free.fr
OnyX is a multifunction utility (maintenance, optimization, and personalization).
It allows you to run misc tasks of system maintenance, to configure certain hidden parameters of the Finder, Dock, Safari, Dashboard, ExposŽ, Disk Utility... to delete cache, to remove a certain number of files and folders that may become cumbersome, to see the detailed info of your configuration, to preview the different logs and CrashReporter reports, to check the Preferences files and more. OnyX is an Universal Binary application and works with all Macintosh PowerPC and Intel computers running Mac OS X version 10.4.x (Tiger). To run correctly, OnyX must be run from an admin account. If you find that using a maintenance utility such as Applejack is a little too involved for your skills, then OnyX is the perfect answer.
BackityMac: http://www.whimsplucky.com
Have you ever wanted an easy way to backup all the important files in your home folder? Are you tired of sifting through the Library directory to find the folders you need to backup? Let's say you just want to backup your Apple Mail database file, not all you have to do is click the "Apple Mail" checkbox and click "Backup".
Supported important files include:
ü Apple Mail Files
ü MS Entourage Files
ü iCal Calendars
ü Address Book database
ü Safari, Firefox, Camino bookmarks
ü iPhoto and iTunes Libraries
ü iWeb website files
ü Home Documents folder
ü Full home folder backup.
This is not some proprietary system, all backups are placed in a read-only disk image which ensures you can access it on any Mac. But what is backup without restore.
Choose an image created by this program, and the backed up contents will automatically be detected for you, then decided what you want to restore, and click "Restore". The contents will be placed back into their original directory automatically replacing it's contents. This is the perfect solution for those who want to be able to clone their home directory and replace it on another Mac untouched. Take a look at this app if you only want to back up the important files and folders fast and easily.
iSteg: http://www.hanynet.com
iSteg is an encryption tool that allows the user to hide a file inside a jpeg picture. This encryption technology is called stenography. iSteg is a front-end for the open-source
tool outguess 2.0.
iSteg can be used to both encode and decode a hidden file. iSteg is a Universal binary application, so it can be used natively on both PowerPC and Intel based Macs. It's a simple utility that just works.
Permanent Eraser: http://www.edenwaith.com
While we're talking about security and privacy, take a look at Permanent Eraser. When you normally delete your files in Mac OS X, the operating system is only forgetting where those particular files are placed, while the data still physically remains on the drive. Beginning with Mac OS 10.3, Apple enhanced its security by introducing the Secure Empty Trash feature, which follows the U.S. DoD pattern of overwriting data seven times. Permanent Eraser provides an even stronger level of security by implementing the Gutmann Method. This utility overwrites your data thirty-five times, scrambles the original file name, and truncates the file size to nothing before Permanent Eraser finally unlinks it from the system. Once your data has been erased, it can no longer be read through traditional means. Permanent Eraser is free of charge, and the source code is also provided for educational purposes.
That's it for this month. Thank you for reading the column and keep in mind you can find more great Mac freeware each week on the MacReviewCast podcast.
Tim Verpoorten
tim@surf-bits.com
Editor: Surfbits.com
Producer: MacReviewCast.com
Co-Producer: The MacRoundtable.com
