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.

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!

Path Finder by CocoaTech includes so many features which significantly enhance Finder that it is hard to imagine a power user who could not easily justify the $39.95 pricetag at the end of the 30 day free trial.

Features such as tabbed file browsing and a file bookmarking, dual pane file browser, the “drop stack” and the integrated compression engine all will make common activities quicker and easier — and that’s what it’s all about when it comes to utilities for your Mac.

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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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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.

Recently I reviewed OmniFocus by the Omni Group in this blog. I continue to use and recommend this excellent application.

Not long ago Omni Group released four of their previously shareware applications as freeware — a Web browser, OmniWeb, a screen and effects application, OmniDazzle, and a useful utility to identify a large files on your disks, OmniDiskSweeper and a developer tool, OmniObjectMeter.

One can anticipate that, being released as freeware, the likelihood of future updates years problematic. I’m not sure that the world needs another browser, but these applications are a worth a look given the quality of the Omni offerings in general.

Please leave a comment if you decide to use any of these new applications. All can be downloaded from the Omni Web site.