Tagged: Google

The Graphic Mac Link Box #3

The Graphic Mac Link BoxA collection of interesting or otherwise helpful links I’ve come across recently that you may not have seen:

Prepare for Pixelmator 2
For those who want full featured image editing but don’t want the price tag attached to Photoshop, Pixelmator is the perfect app. Pixelmator 2.0 will be available later this summer via the Mac App Store as a free upgrade for everyone who purchased any version of Pixelmator via the Mac App Store. For now, anyone who doesn’t have the app can purchase the currently available version of Pixelmator on the Mac App Store for $29 and receive a free upgrade of Pixelmator 2.0 once it is released.

Control your privacy in Google Chrome
I love Google Chrome, it’s a great Web browser with plenty of features and extensions. The problem is, it was made by Google; so you know they’re collecting all sorts of data while you’re using it. Ahad Bokhari has a great tutorial on how to protect your privacy while using Google Chrome.

Photoshop CS5 vs. CS5.5
If you work primarily in Adobe Photoshop, you may be wondering what the difference between PS CS5 (v. 12.0.4) and PS CS5.5 (v. 12.1) actually is. The answer is: absolutely nothing. John Nack explains on his blog.

Google stands by 15-minute refunds
Google offers a 15-minute time frame to receive a refund on apps purchased in the Android Marketplace. While many users complain that it takes that longer than 15-minutes to download and configure some apps, it’s still better than Apple’s refund time of zero!

View Instagram stream on your Mac
Screenstagram allows avid Instagram users to view their Instagram photo stream as a screensaver on any Snow Leopard Mac desktop or laptop.

40 Online generators for web designers and developers
Web forms, charts, button makers, AJAX plugins, fonts, color schemes, CSS menus, and more. Tripwire Magazine has a list of 40 great generators to save you some coding time.

Web browser choices have never been better for Mac users

Popular Mac Browsers

Some of the most popular browsers from Mozilla, Google, Apple, and others

When Apple first released Mac OS X a decade ago, Mac users had little choice in web browsers. There was Microsoft Explorer, and Netscape Navigator, and… well, that was it. Soon after we were treated to a few more options, but nothing like we have today.

With Safari shipping on every Mac, and the world-wide popularity of Mozilla’s Firefox, you would think there wouldn’t be much room for competition in the web browser market. But the options have actually never been better for Mac users. (more…)

Google Chrome gets a new icon

Google has dropped the robotic chrome icon in favor of a new, flattened and more balanced icon for their Chrome browser. The open source version of Chrome, Chromium, got the refresh last week, and now the Developer Builds now sport the new look.

Google Chrome Icons

Google's new Chrome browser icon

The new logo should work it’s way down into the beta and stable release version soon. While I had nothing against the old icon, the new version is definitely more recognizable in the OS X Dock. The only problem I see with it now is that it looks too much like Google Picasa.

30 Mac OS X apps and utilities I love: Part 2

Mac OS X ApplicationsOver the years I’ve installed a lot of commercial software, shareware and freeware on my Macs. I love trying new apps. That being said, most of what I install gets used once or twice, then discarded. A few days ago, I shared the first group of apps I use regularly. Today I have another collection of applications and utilities I use on a regular basis.

The applications listed below contains some names you’ll probably be familiar with, but there’s a reason for that. They’re just superb at what they do, thus very popular.

CaffeineCaffeine

If you work on a MacBook Pro, you no doubt have your LCD screen set to dim and turn off after a relatively short amount of inactivity in order to save battery charge. This is generally fine unless you’re doing a lot of reading or watching a DVD. Caffeine is a small application that lives in your menubar that solves this problem by preventing your screen from dimming and the computer from sleeping. A click of the coffee cup icon in the menubar prevents your computer from sleeping for a user-specified amount of time ranging from 15 minutes to 5 hours (or indefinitely). Caffeine is a free utility.
(more…)

Web browsers on the Mac: They all suck, except for Chrome

Google ChromeWith the recent update to Opera 10.5 for Mac OS X, I decided it was time to take a look at all the major Web browsers for Mac OS X.

I’ve been using Google Chrome (developer builds, not the betas) for quite some time now, and made it my default browser within hours of installing it. Nevertheless, I’m going to remain unbiased in thoughts.

Below is my extremely thorough review and expert advice for which Web browser you should use in Mac OS X.

Chrome (most recent dev build or beta version)

Uber fast to launch. Smokin’ fast browsing speed. Compatibility is nearly perfect, but there are a few sites it doesn’t work with. Expansion via extensions is pretty good, and getting better every week. Frequent updates and improvements make it more fun to work with lately. The clean interface coupled with the speed make this my favorite, and you should use this as your main browser!
Download: Release Version | Beta Version | Developer Build

Safari 4.0.5

Looks great. Quite speedy. Completely lacks any usefulness beyond just surfing pages randomly. With no expansion opportunity beyond a few really crappy plugins, it’s feature-starved. Make it your backup browser though.
Download: Release Version

Firefox 3.63.

Looks clunky. Works clunky. Takes forever and 6 months to launch. It’s fast, but not as fast as Safari. The only real redeeming thing about it is the obnoxious amount of add-ons you can install to do virtually anything – which unfortunately makes it look and work even more clunky. Don’t bother with it unless you’re a geek and want all the extra add-ons.
Download: Release Version | Beta Version

Opera 10.52

Interface lacks polish. Just configuring all the options and preferences can take weeks. Speed ain’t all that. Buggy. It basically sucks and you shouldn’t even bother trying it.
Download: Shipping Version

The Rest of them

They all suck, don’t bother.
Download: Really, don’t bother.

Add tabbed windows to Mac OS X’s Finder

TotalFinder iconWhen tabs finally found their way into Web browsers some years ago, people immediately fell in love with them. In fact, most people wonder how someone could live without them. With Apple’s love for a minimalist interface, you have to wonder why we still don’t have them on the desktop. Whatever the reason, we’ve been left to wait for a third-party solution.

Thankfully, a creative and persistent developer has finally figured out a way to add them into Mac OS X’s Finder without completely replacing the look, feel and functionality of the Finder in the process.

Tabs in Mac OS X's Finder windows

Tabs in Mac OS X's Finder windows

TotalFinder, a SIMBL application by BinaryAge adds elegant tabs, borrowed from Google Chrome, to Mac OS X’s Finder windows. The tabs look, feel and act like tabs in your Web browser for the most part. Along with the tabbed windows (seen above in the screenshot), TotalFinder also adds a few other really cool features.
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Google to add social networking to Gmail?

GoogleAccording to an article at Macworld.com, Google is about to make Gmail more social. According to the article, Google plans to make available the ability to update your social status, much like popular social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, right from within the Gmail interface.

I’m not sure how well that will go-over with Gmail users. Personally, I feel like the Gmail service already lacks enough features that they should focus solely on email features, rather than adding non-email ones. At the same time, I feel like email is a private thing, and I don’t necessarily want any sign of “socialization” in there at all. Besides, the Gmail interface is already a cluttered mess as it is, I’m not sure how they could work-in social networking without making it completely unusable.

I’ve been longing for a way to update my Facebook and Twitter status in a single location that I’m already using; something that fits into my existing workflow.

There are plenty of services out there that would allow me to update my social networks, but they would require me to visit yet another Web site to do it, and that means yet another set of usernames and passwords to remember. No thanks.

With Twitter having the lock on micro-blogging, and Facebook having 400 million users and an expanding feature list, including the world’s largest photo-sharing service and reports of a full-blown email Web-client coming, you have to wonder just how long Google can afford to sit on the sidelines and watch.

Google releases Chrome alpha version for Mac

Google Chrome Google released a Mac version of their Chrome browser yesterday. The alpha version offers little features, and virtually nothing in the way of customizing yet, thus the alpha version. A public beta is coming soon, but in the meantime you can grab this first release of Google Chrome for Mac for testing purposes from the Chromium Blog. It’s wicked-fast!

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