I was crushed to learn that Leopard was not going to sport the spotlight window (remember that?!) which displayed the results in a clean way, with collapsible file types, reordering of searches, and the fact that you would see around 15 results per file type. I hate Leopard’s Finder search, since it puts everything together, shows you every file on your system related to that match, and looks pretty much like a mess.

I’ve known about HoudahSpot for a while now (I even won a license back in 2005, which I totally forgot about), but never got round to using it. A recent update caught my attention, and here I am with a small review of this search tool that promises to companion Spotlight during those difficult times

HoudahSpot does not attempt to replace the Spotlight menubar. I still use that for quick look ups, which when used with conditional searches works for most part. I do however sometimes find the need to grab very specific results, and the Finder search as I have mentioned is quite painful. 

Daily use

HoudahSpot instead promises a very advanced search that is super simple to use. I could find very specific files by quickly setting up conditions and locations. Most of the time I could narrow it down to less than 10 results, with my required file right at the top. All this done with just a few mouse clicks. 

The performance of the search is super fast (except in certain cases where it would lock up for a few seconds). This is partly because it conducts the search after you have hit enter, after which it will live update according to the search criteria. It doesn’t render any icon previews, and there’s even an option to turn off the icons completely. 

The interface is very pleasant (I’m told the previous UI colour was a hideous yellow), and features a button for an inspector as well as integrated Quick Look support. The bottom of the window shows a path bar so you know exactly where the file comes from. 

Features

Saved templates is similar to saved searches in Spotlight, but they’re much more flexible. It comes with a bunch of search templates for finding long lost files, recent files, music gone astray, and you can create your own templates. The devs have also put up a whole lot of tips and tricks you can do with the app. 

Blitz Search is something that I just don’t understand. It’s a spotlight-like drop down search from the menubar, but all it does is spawn a new search window. I mean, why wouldn’t I just hit the shortcut to go to the main search instead of coming to this? Perhaps there’s more to it than meets the eye. 

For what its worth

My only complaint about this app, is its price. At $25, it may be a few dollars too much for casual usage. If you plan to use this app extensively, it will definitely be worth it. Features wise, it is perfect. 

For me however, I don’t usually need to use anything other than the spotlight menu (not many files I’d say), and even then, I wouldn’t mind taking the extra effort to find something in Finder. A demo version is available, to give you a sneak preview of what the app is all about. 

Any HoudahSpot users out here? What’s your opinion about this app?

We’ve covered a lot of apps which let you control your Mac from afar. Well how about being able to ‘see’ your Mac from anywhere in the world, using only your tiny iPhone! VNC is something that has scared me for a while now, but I thought I’d have to take the plunge and have a look at one of these apps at some point of time.

The first name that pops up when you ask about VNC on the iPhone, is Jaadu VNC. But at $25, it’s a little too expensive. Looking around, I was pleased to find a much cheaper app, RemoteTap. Looking through the specs, it seems to be a very capable app, with a pleasant UI.

Installation

Considering that I had already set up my router and Mac to have a permanent IP address, the setup was super simple. At first, I couldn’t get the connection to work, but then ReadPixel’s prompt support told me to just change the port number, and things were fine after that. RemoteTap 2.0 (yet to be released) is supposed to have auto router configuration, so you won’t need to do a thing.

On the iPhone end, you can add multiple computers for VNC. Means you can control multiple Macs (yes, it’s Mac only) with just one copy of RemoteTap, as the server software is a free download. To set up your iPhone, all you need is the IP address, and the password if you have assigned one in the RemoteTap preference pane. 

Seeing your Mac from afar

Once set up, getting into your Mac desktop is just a tap away, always. I’ve tried this on multiple internet connections, and it has always worked. The output quality is astounding, especially when you go to 1:1 pixel mode. The refresh rate caught up fairly quick on my 256k (64k up) connection, so I’m guessing it will be super fast on a real broadband connection. I haven’t used it on EDGE yet.

Day to day use

To move around, you simply drag your finger across. Pinch to zoom in, and double tap to go 1:1 or zoom out. If you want to click something, tap on the mouse icon and you can click and drag stuff. Fairly simple to use and navigate around. I would still prefer to use Air Mouse for direct mouse movements, but otherwise the mouse is fairly functional. 

The keyboard is also feature rich, including all the modifier keys like Cmd, Opt, as well as arrow keys. RemoteTap also features a slim keyboard, as well as a presentation keyboard with a laser pointer!

New in 1.6, RemoteTap has an application control view. Tap the app control, and it overlays a list of all your apps. You can then launch, hide, or quit them with a single tap. Very useful and very efficient.

Coming in 2.0

• Autofocus: A way by which the zoom automatically changes according to the window size of the current active window. Should be interesting.
• Magnifying Glass: Tap and hold to get a magnification loupe, which you can then use to make precise mouse clicks.
• A much better icon (what were they thinking!)

More for info and screenshots of 2.0, visit the app homepage.

My Recommendation

If remote management is your need of the hour, RemoteTap will not disappoint. At $7 at the App Store, it is very affordable for what it can do (there are a lot more features than I’ve mentioned here). The support team is very helpful, and they have a lot of guides prepared for setting up your router. I haven’t used Jaadu VNC so I can’t say whether it is better than RemoteTap, so if you have an opinion about that, please share. 

Get RemoteTap from the App Store, or visit the RemoteTap homepage for more info.

As it goes Facebook is becoming increasingly popular around the globe. All of my friends are on facebook and everyone seems to have facebook in their bookmarks toolbar. So why not get Facebook down to your desktop? Here are a bunch of Facebook applications that losely tie up to the Facebook API bringing certain features to the desktop.

AddressbookSync 1.1.1 »

You’ve got your address book neatly filled out, but when it comes to pictures it’s either too much trouble or you don’t have the pics at hand. AddressBookSync will not only search through your address book for matches, it will also copy over the birthdays of your contacts.

This is a great way to fill out your address book, as well as keep up to date with the latest pictures. Unfortunately, phone numbers are not synced, as the facebook API does not allow access to it. For copying over contacts, there was an application Facebook Sync that could do this. I say was, because Facebook has since made the developer remove that functionality from his app. If you are determined enough, you can find someone who can send it to you (don’t ask me!). 

Amigo »

The Facebook notification applet resides in your menubar letting you know when someone has ‘poked’, prodded, or kicked you. You also get to see when there’s a new wall post or when you are invited to a party. It also gives you quick access to your friend’s profiles, walls and all that. At $20, the app is terribly overpriced. The trial however has no limitations other than a buggy message every time you launch the app.

PhotoBook »

This is a really slick application for viewing Facebook albums. You get access to all your friend’s photos, which you can search through, or view as a slideshow. The full view shows additional info for each picture and a single click adds any selected photos to your iPhoto library. Unfortunately, the app lacks an upload option, which would have sealed the deal.

Facebook Export for iPhoto »

Made by the Facebook guys themselves, the iPhoto exporter is very similar to the FlickrExport developed by Fraser Speirs. The plugin puts in an extra pane in your iPhoto export window, from where you can tag a picture (it pulls names from your facebook friends list), set albums, comments — and hit upload!

Facebook Dashboard widget »

For those of you who contantly use the Dashboard, the Facebook widget will update you on new pokes, messages, wall posts, events, and other notifications. Very simple to install and use, and uses just a tiny bit of dash real estate.

EventBox »

This is my favourite app, and is the one reason I continue to keep my facebook account alive. It displays facebook status updates, pictures, and also features a photo uploading tool. You can update your status from the EventBox window as well as leave comments on people’s photos. EventBox goes far beyond Facebook and is highly recommended for anyone who interacts with the internet. Use the coupon code in the Smoking Apples magazine to get a 20% discount on the $15 pricetag that EventBox commands.

Any of you active Facebookers know of some other cool apps? Do let us know so we can check them out.

There are FTP clients, and then there’s Flow. Ever since Adam Betts wrote about the Flow (may 2007) on his blog, I’ve been captivated by this beautifully crafted FTP client. As a Coda user however, I never really got a chance to use this FTP client, and eventually I forgot about it. A few days ago one of our team members mentioned Flow, and I thought I’d take a look at what it has grown into. 

Turns out my review is just in time, as 1.1.1 has been released just today! I played around with the beta versions for a few days just to see that everything works. With a lot of fixes in its kitty [release notes], Flow 1.1.1 brings enhanced local browsing support, fixes for Amazon S3, WebDAV and MobileMe iDisk. So without further ado, here’s what Flow is all about.

The User Interface

If there’s one thing that sets this app apart, its a well thought out user interface. Helpful Core Animation effects aside, everything is placed just right. At all times, you know exactly where you are, and the path bar can be used to quickly jump to wherever you wish to go.  

Features

If you thought Flow was all about the looks, take a look at the arsenal of features. I honestly didn’t think there’d be so many of them. Besides regular old FTP and SFTP features, Flow comes loaded with some features you might not even need. 

Full Support for Amazon S3, WebDAV, and MobileMe iDisk
Connecting to your MobileMe iDisk is super simple, and requires just your username and password. Once connected, things are at least 2x faster than using plain old finder. All your local files are available in the sidebar (finally!), or you can drag files in from any Finder window. If you want quick file transfers to your iDisk, FTP is the way to go.

I don’t have an Amazon S3 account so I couldn’t test that out, but it looks just as simple.

Editing
Flow features a built in text editor, albeit a basic one. So if you want to just change a few details in your web documents, just double click and you can edit them directly on the server. Of course, editing with your favourite editor is just a right click away. Note that this editor can only be used for the most basic tasks, as it doesn’t have any features that might be required for coding web pages.

QuickLook
Everyone who uses Leopard loves Quick Look (you should try it sometimes!). I was very surprised to find Quick Look support directly in Flow. Hit spacebar and out pops the window. 

Copying URLs
Flow is supposed to be URL smart, being able to copy a URL on your remote server or open it in your browser. This would have been a very handy feature, had it worked. Unfortunately, I tried Flow on two different Macs and three different FTP connections, but in all cases all I saw were greyed out options. Update: Apparently, one needs to set the base url for the copying URLs feature to work. Instructions for that are in this help page. Works very well now, and is awesome! 

I also really like the bookmarks feature, where you can store all your web locations in a convenient sidebar, as well as the stunning transfers view. 

The baddies

Yes, there are some of those as well. I noticed Flow crashes every now and then, with no resume-where-you-left-off support. The new version being in a crash report sending feature, so hopefully they will take care of the bugs. 

The second baddie, is support. Whenever I review an application, I always check out what the support is like. I usually send in a fake support request just to guage the quality of support. Sadly, I didn’t even get a reply to the two support requests I sent in. That is just plain unacceptable.

I then spoke to Brian Amerige, the lead developer of Flow, who admitted that their support system is flawed. He said they are going to bring in a new support system when it’s ready. “We don’t want to rush anything out the door”, he says. Watch out for updates regarding this on the ExtendMac Blog.

In conclusion

Flow is a really sweet FTP client, one that literally stays far ahead of the rest in terms of user interface, simplicity, and features. However, the small time crashes (3 times in 13 days) do bring it down to earth, while the lack of after sales support is a bit disturbing. However, considering that you don’t really need any support since the entire app is so easy to use, I’d leave it aside as something that shouldn’t matter much. 

I personally use Coda for my little FTP needs, while many others use the free Cyberduck (also fully featured) for their FTP purposes. But when it comes to a good mix of features and stunning interface, you can’t go wrong with Flow. At $30 for a single user license, Flow is decently priced. A 15 day trial awaits, but I think if it’s simple and clean FTP you need, Flow will win you over.

We would like to wish you all a very merry Christmas (Hanukkah to those special ones), and happy holidays ahead. I know what you’re thinking, Christmas is yet to come? Well, sure we have that unimportant date on the 6th of Jan, but we’ll see to that when the time comes. 

Till then, thanks so much for visiting Smoking Apples, and bringing to where we are right now. You guys are the best!

From time to time you may find that your Mac starts to really slow down. It’s really painful for myself when I have a whole bunch of apps open and then my computer comes to a near complete halt. Normally a restart helps to solve the problem and I do get some better performance but that really is only a remedy. There are a few maintenance apps on the Mac but really not many can compare to the full feature set of Cocktail. Not only does Cocktail feature some typical maintenance tasks but it also has a few extras.
 

The Features

Cocktail divides itself into six tabs: Disks, System, Files, Network, Interface, and Pilot. Each of these contains tasks that pertain to the respective category. The Disk tab has tasks that allow you to enable/disable journaling, repair disk permissions, settings for what to do when the computer sleeps, and some last miscellaneous options. System has some scripts that you can run, spotlight things, database fixes, start up options and some more miscellaneous options. Files has caches options, preference fixes, and some pretty nifty things you can do to files (like deleting locked files). The Network tab has some things that I don’t think the average user (myself included) will find necessary to mess with, however there are some cool filesharing options. As an almost extra, Cocktail includes some interface customization options which I will go into later. Finally the Pilot option is probably the most useful and easiest thing to understand. It lets you run scheduled scripts and just preform the basic maintenance tasks. Many of these options you might not know what they do but the Cocktail help really helps out in explaining and I’ll be doing some copy & paste from it to explain the options (seeing as I’ll most likely get them wrong). Continue Reading »

What a long title! You’d be surprised to know that even the website url is just as long as that. Well let’s not bother about that shall we? With the holiday season, Apple gets lot of switchers buying Macs. A lot of these switchers are too afraid to touch anything that doesn’t look like a bright green Start button. I’m sure you know someone who fits this profile. 

Scouring around the net I came across this little video tutorial which boldly advertises its contents. A 300MB download later, I launched the application. Based around a flash interface, Switch to Mac is an absolute beginners guide to help new users to get familiar with the OS. 

The UI of the app is well done, and simple enough for anyone to understand. The host of the tutorial, Saied, is a gentle guy and speaks in a clear and concise way. The best part of this tutorial is it’s non-linear way of learning. The flash based UI allows you to choose what you want to learn. So clicking the Finder icon (suggested by Saied in the introduction) launches the Finder tutorial from where he tells you all kinds of things about the Finder. He also switches back and forth between a Windows PC and a Mac to show key differences in ways of working. Saied covers all the key applications that ship with Mac OS X, spotlight, Dashboard, Spaces, and even Stacks. After looking watching the tutorial, you get to interact with the virtual flash based Mac OS X and perform the steps that Saied just showed you (with a helpful notes panel at the top). 

I’d say UI wise this is a perfect way for a beginner to learn about the Mac. The app loads in full screen so you don’t have to worry about distractions, and the level of learning has been brought down to basic levels. They have obviously taken a lot of time to make this package (I noticed that the Stocks widget showed AAPL at 175!) which is basic, concise, and will help out a switcher. 

Of course, I have some issues. First, I noticed that the app is sometimes a bit buggy. Maybe it’s just my Mac, but sometimes it would refuse to act the way it should, which would end up confusing a new user. I’ll be testing the package on a MacBook to see whether that bugginess is just my Mac and report back on that front. Second, it can be a bit too short. I would have preferred the lessons to be a little longer, offering a few more tips on how to work things.  

This is not recommended for those who know their way around a computer, nor for those who are already using a Mac for a while. At $29.95 for a shipped box pack, I’d say it should be a helpful Christmas gift for your friend who has just switched to a Mac. Those who prefer to download, it’s a cool $25.

LittleSnapper was announced by RealMac Software a few months ago, and since then the anticipation had been building up to a point where everyone couldn’t wait to get their hands on this apparently brilliant screenshot application. We got our hands on the early betas and tested them for what it’s worth. However, only after 1.0 could we be the least bit judgemental about it. So how does LittleSnapper fare in our tests? Why that’s what this whole review is all about!

LittleSnapper is a tool that lets you snap pictures of web pages, your computer screen and organise them into a single library. You can then edit these pictures, add annotations and finally share them using your FTP server or the build in QuickSnapper service. 

Even before you install LittleSnapper, I must say RealMac has done an excellent job presenting it. The website is something to behold, with good typography, smooth buttons and effortless downloading. You can tell from the website that these guys know about interface design. Continue Reading »

Doing your christmas shopping at Amazon? Thinking of buying yourself a MacBook? Why if you are, do use the Smoking Apples aStore.

We’ve collected hardware and software that a Mac users might want and put it in our own little store. It is the same Amazon.com that you trust, with the same rock-bottom prices, except this way you also support the Smoking Apples team. If you don’t find what you’re looking for in our store, continue on to the main store, and whatever you purchase within 24 hours will still be counted as a SA referral. 

Note: The products bought are from Amazon. We do not stock any products nor can we provide support for them. Everything is handled by Amazon.com.

Don’t worry though, we will refuse to crowd our website with ugly ads flashing all over the place. We will never let our product reviews interfere with the hope of making a quick buck. We hope you don’t mind this little way of us getting an income from our dedicated work.

If you ever find our referral links getting in the way of your Smoking Apples reading experience, don’t hesitate in letting us know. Our readers always come first. 

The Smoking Apples Team.

This week’s App Store reviews are all about games. We it had to be, considering that it is the most popular category in the App Store. For this roundup we have puzzle based games, namely Crossbones and Deep Green Chess. 

Crossbones

A newly set up software development company, New Insect Overlords get their first game out in the App Store. One of the developers, Steve Sprang, previously worked solo on the App Store developing the drawing app “Brushes” [iTunes link] all by himself. Well actually, for a person like Steve, Brushes should be a piece of cake. After all, he did work at Apple for 7 years developing the iWork office suite. An original member of the Keynote team, he left Apple to start off his iPhone development dreams (I guess he stayed in the family).

Enough about Steve and more about Crossbones.

Crossbones is a challenging and addictive pirate-themed puzzle game for the iPhone and iPod touch. Match cards as fast as you can to collect pirate loot. Play solo or against computer opponents in single player mode. Challenge your friends over the internet using either Edge or Wifi or play on a local network.

Like that made any sense. I fired up the game and briefly looked through the tutorial. For the first five minutes I didn’t know what I was doing. But once you get to know the concept, the game is really interesting, and challenging. I would say Crossbones is a very intelligent form of tetris. You need to be quick at looking colours, objects and well, a few other things to be able to put them together to form groups. I won’t try and explain the concept, as the only way to understand the game is to play it. Continue Reading »