Best Mac Tools

I have just spent a ridiculous number of hours trying to find NameGenr8er, a simple application that generates real names from the list of names from an unknown USA Census. It generates between 1 and 500, male or female names with a single click. This is a really useful little tool for authors, or auto-blog publishers!

I originally found this a couple of years ago in the Apple Downloads Section, but the listing has since been removed. Anyway, the app seems to have been orphaned, at least temporarily, so I’m giving the app file a friendly home so that the goodness granted to us by Ultimate Music Software in 2008 can survive a little longer.

Obviously, I make no claims to the software, and with no knowledge of how it actually works cannot comment on the quality of the program other than saying “it works for me”.

So, for the time being, you can download this little app HERE … after downloading just unzip the file and drag the .app file to your Applications folder.

When i switched to Mac from Linux for my desktop computing there was a lot to learn about the new environment. Most of the learing was relaively easy and was either a positive, or at least neutral in terms of useability.

However, I have to admit that the positioning of an application’s menu bar at the top of the screen was something that I never got used to. Worse still, when I started with my now standard dual screen configuration became a nuicance , and a productivity turnoff.

Even with a single large disply finding an item in the menu invovles switching focus from the task at hand, and back again.

?MenuEverywhere, from one man software house Binary Bakery Software, completely changes all that by adding access to the application’s menu bar to the main window. For a visual representation, see the screenshots below.

?MenuEverywhere will eliminate the frustration of having to reach out for the menubar and losing focus on your work. MenuEverywhere makes the menubar’s menu accessible from any window on any screen. It’s unobtrusive, and highly configurable.

Configuration options

“Out of the Box” the menu bar appears as a normal horizontal menu above the window. The menu is not permanent, ie it appears only when focus is on the window.

Alternatively, the menu can be accessed from a single button above the “traffic light controls”.

The menu button can also be configured to appear to the fight of the green zoom button.

The button can be optionally made to appear only when the mouse is over it so as not to take any screen real estate.

Finally, MenuEverywhere also works via hotkey, popping up the menu at the current mouse location. This may be disabled if so desired.

Conclusion

With a free trial available I strongly recommend MenuEverywhere. Registration is a mere $7 for a single user. Family and corporate pricing is also allowed.

I suggest this is a must have utility for anyone switching to Mac or for users with large expanses of desktop screens.

Today I had a wake up call to remind me about what I already knew – the world is seriously changing. In my view this change is for the better, even though it affects the very fundamentals of life as we know it. Let me tell you a short story …

Over a month ago I became aware that the smart people at 37Signals had written another book and I immediately knew that I would want to read this book as soon as it was released.

On the day of release in the USA I checked if I could buy the book in Australia. It seemed that I could, but further investigation proved that availability in Australia was actually delayed by about 7 weeks. Worse still, the cost of the physical book from a bookshop was going to be slightly more than the cost of the book on Amazon including express courier delivery.

So that’s a first level change … Distribution methods are really changing. Why would anyone buy a book that they know they want from a local bookshop?

So I ordered from Amazon, along with two other books to offset the effect of the freight, and waited for the delivery.

But, unfortunately my credit card details on Amazon were out of date and the expected delivery did not happen.

I duely updated my order, this time saving some money on the delivery by using the USA address of my forwarding agent. But then Easter arrived and I, the last of the immediate satisfaction consumers, faced more delays in getting the ideas of Reworked into my head.

But, before I started penning this post on Easter Saturday morning, I have read the first two chapters of the book which I now own, have not spent a penny on freight, and I have not yet risen from my bed!

So what happened? Well I was reading about the launch of the new Apple iPad which kept on mentioning eBook publication and distribution and I recalled seeing that 37signals had published on Kindle in Europe.

I can’t cut this long story short now, so here is the punchline. About 45 seconds after that realisation, I was reading the book, in bed.

Some time ago I had installed Kindle on my iPhone, so I fired it up, and a few taps later I had connected with Amazon and downloaded the Kindle version of the book for a mere $12 USD.

The purchace experience was seamless and easy, although helped by the fact that I already had an Amazon account (a side note for Amazon … Buying for Kindle is still significantly easier than buying physical product).

Electronic book purchase and reading is an easy, pleasureable process on my iPhone with Kindle. It will be even easier and more natural on the iPad that I will buy on the day it is released to Australia.

And the point about change? By the end of 2010 there will be about 10 million iPad owners, and I suggest, about the same number of people who no longer buy any form of printed documents!

My conclusion, even if you are not in the market for an iPad, you can easily switch to electronic reading with Kindle on your iPhone.

In a few days time I will have three copies (printed) of Jason & David’s book which I will never open. Contact me if you’d like one of them.

A client called yesterday for help …  ”mail has stopped collecting my emails” was the issue. As you would expect in a business environment email is viewed locally using an imap connection to the server. Briefly, the IMAP connection allows access and updating from multiple email clients (including webmail) and ensures that all of your email history is retained on your mail server for safety.

Diagnostics showed:

• the connection with the server was ok
• other email clients could access the mailbox using imap
• there was nothing untoward in the server logs
• stopping and restarting mail.app had no effect
• stopping and restarting the iMac had no effect

The immediate workaround was to use another email client to monitor (and action) urgent emails. In this case the client was able to use his iPhone while we investigated further.

The steps to a solution were:

Previous similar cases had been resolved by vacuuming the Envelopes database. Whilst this is relatively easy to do by hand on an ad-hoc basis, it involves remembering the steps, command lines etc.

Research pointed to VacuumMail which can be used on an ad-hoc basis as well as automatically. Most of the links to VacuumMail in Google are wrong, so use this one instead.

• download and install VacuumMail
• run VacuumMail from the Applications/Utilities folder
• check to see if your problem has been resolved.

This fix works sometimes, and is particularly useful when the issue is sluggishness rather than hanging. In this case, didn’t work so we moved on to the next step.

• Find and run Disk Utility under Utilities in Applications
• Select your hard disk on the left and click “Repair Disk Permissions”

Still no joy … reverting to the sledgehammer approach:

• Remove the hanging account under Mail => Preferences => Accounts
• Shut down mail.app
• Start mail.app and set up the deleted IMAP account again

Problem solved (after some time mail reloaded and reindexed all of the mail in the account.

Remember that this works because the account was an IMAP account which means that the actual mail storage is on the server, mail.app effectively syncs a local copy of the account. That’s why we always use IMAP!

It was good to see the new release of Mac Speech Dictate yesterday that solves the problem of Dictate not working on the latest, top end, iMacs utilising the i5 or i7 Intel CPU chips.

So, if you’ve been waiting for this release or using the pseudo-microphone workaround you should install version 1.5.8 and get back on track.

Every now and again I stumble across software which redefines a task or process in a way which goes completely against the norm, or which simply introduces a new productivity improvement. FlySketch is one such application … although I’m not sure that the developer (Flying Meat) actually intended the outcome that I’m about to describe.

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I discovered MacHeist 3 at the very end of its limited life. Luckily I was in time to take advantage of the event and acquire some great Mac applications that I continue to use.

MacHeist 4 is now underway and as I write there are six days left to obtain six applications for your Mac for the great cost of zero dollars. Yes, this one has been designated a nanoHeist and the licences are completely free — the largest application on offer (Mariner Write) will only be unlocked when 500,000 downloads of the packages have happened. About 110,000 downloads have already been reached.

Interestingly, I have already purchased and used regularly two of the applications on offer — MacHeist is definitely not a giveaway of questionable software.

Anyway, I suggest you get over to the MacHeist page and check it out while the opportunity of quality software for free remains.

The MacHeist 3 Bundle is a way of getting nearly $700 worth of Mac software for just $39 AND 25% of that goes to charity.

At the time I am writing this, nearly 40,000 bundles have been sold which means that nearly $400,000 has been raised for the supported charities.

I would be surprised if you cannot find more than one application in the bundle which will be a welcome addition to your applications folder. And MacHeist even allow you to gift any of the applications in the bundle before you place your order!

I’m particularly looking forward to trying Kinemac, a 3D animation package.

Anyways, I strongly suggest that you check to see if the offer is still current.

On holiday in Adelaide (that’s the capital of South Australia) I naturally had to keep my MacBook Pro and iPhone close by. Then, OmniFocus, one of the software demos I had installed early in the piece expired. As the developers would have hoped, I’ve already come to depend on OmniFocus to manage my daily workflow. It’s dead simple  to create quick reminders of things to do as a result of browsing and reading my daily emails.

Therefore, OmniFocus has become one of the first licenses I have purchased.
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