A shout out to Img2icns.

The Two Apps I Use

TaskPaper. TaskPaper is a simple, plain text based list making app. Just beneath the surface, however, TaskPaper hides away considerable GTD power. @done or other tags make it easy to quickly wade through lists with hundreds of entries, and a ubiquitous hot-key triggered capture window make sure your sudden ideas don’t slip through the cracks. It’s 29.95 and, for me, well worth it.

GeekTool. GeekTool is a brilliant little app. GeekTool can display detailed system info – from application events, top processes, uptime and a lot more – embedded right in your desktop (this excellent post from Lifehacker explains in detail how to do all this). I use GeekTool in a very simple way: to make sure my todos are always visible while I’m at my Mac. GeekTool is freeware.

Pretty and Practical – Your Todos on Your Desktop

Before I go into the details of how to do it, have a look at the screenshot on the right (you can click to enlarge if you want to have a read). In my opinion, not only is it practical to have your todos embedded in the desktop, it can also be very pretty. And why shouldn’t one have both?

As I mentioned above, TaskPaper creates lists in plain text. In other words, TextPaper task lists are formatting free and can thus be viewed in virtually any text editing application on any platform. Within TaskPaper, your lists certainly appear to be formatted – I don’t purport to know how this works – but outside TaskPaper, a straight forward separation of projects and tasks makes your lists readable.

In order to view your TaskPaper todo list in an app other than TaskPaper, you’ll need to change the extension. TaskPaper docs have a proprietary .taskpaper extension which other apps won’t understand. Rename it to .txt and you’re good to go. Even with the extension changed, the document will still open with TaskPaper by default, so you don’t need to worry.

Setting Up Your Todo.txt to Work with GeekTook

After you’ve renamed your todo doc, download GeekTool and install the preference pane. Here’s how to set it up:

What if I Don’t Use TaskPaper?

As you might have guessed, GeekTool can display any plain text file. If you don’t use TaskPaper but do keep yourself organized via plain text, GeekTool can throw it up on the desktop for you. I like TaskPaper for the power it extends to simple text files, and I like plain text because of its versatility. For me, it’s the right match.

Download TaskPaper. It’s 29.95 after a 30 day trial.

Download GeekTool. It’s freeware.

Installing applications on the Mac is so easy that it’s almost deceptive for new users. Although some apps do have a free standing installation dialog, the majority are housed simply on disk images and need only be dragged into your applications folder. The final part of installation, however, is apparently where new users get confused: you need to eject the disk image once your app is installed. Here are a few ways you can do it.

Drag the Drag the Disk Image to the Trash

This is the most straight forward and therefore the easiest way for new users to eject disk images, as it will be familiar to every user who drags files to the trash can to delete them. Click on and begin to drag your mounted disk image and you’ll see the trash icon in your dock turn into an eject symbol. Simply drop the disk image on the symbol and your disk will be ejected. I’m not sure how solid the metaphor is here, but it’s a handy technique once you know the trick.

Eject the Image from the Sidebar in Finder

You can eject disk images directly from the Finder. You may have noticed that many applications, when their install disk image is mounted, will present you with a single window with the application icon inside it. To install the app, just drag it from this pane to your Applications folder. But this pane itself is actually a Finder window with the sidebar hidden. To eject the mounted image from within the pane itself, you’ll first have to expand the Finder window to normal view. To do so, click on the little pill shaped button in the top right corner of the pane and all your familiar folder shortcuts will appear in the left hand panel. Under the ‘Devices’ listing (at the top) you’ll see your mounted image with an eject button beside it. Click the symbol and your disk will eject.

Select the Image and Eject it With Command + E

If you’re partial to getting things done via the keyboard, you can simply select your disk image on the Desktop and hit Command + E. Despite my keyboard-centric style of computing, I didn’t know about this one until recently. Hopefully, it will be new to a few of you reading this as well.

Eject Images From the Menubar with Semulov

Lastly, you can eject your disk images using the menu bar utility Semulov. Semulov gives you a live count of all your mounted images and lets you eject them one at a time or all at once. Unlike the previous Command + E method, Semulov is most suited to users who always have one hand on the mouse. If you can spare a little room on your menu bar, Semulov makes ejecting disk images quick and easy. It also supports Growl notifications to let you know what is happening.

Note: I am having some trouble finding a download for Semulov. But if you click on this link the application will download (it’s a direct download link). You can read more about Semulov on MacUpdate.

It’s dead easy to install software on a Mac. Deceptively easy. Hopefully this write up helps a few people out. For all Apple’s focus on ease of use, perhaps they should make the necessity to eject disk images more clear with a pop up message or alert of some kind.

Did I miss your favorite way to eject disk images? Let me know in the comments.

Img2icns takes regular image files and converts them to .icns files, the format used by OS X for file, folder and application icons system wide. Previously, Img2icns was a one trick pony, albeit a useful one. Aside from Img2icns killer image-to-icon conversion feature, it can now set file icons, extract images from icons and even manage your conversion history. Here’s a detailed look at what Shiny Frog’s new release can do.

Set the Icon For a File, Folder or App from Any Image

Img2icns’ killer feature has always been its ability to instantly convert an image or picture into an icon. Icons in OS X have a unique .icns extension and are formatted such that they contain samples of various sizes. If you want to use one of your pics as a icon for an often used file, you’ll first need to convert it to .icns format to do so. Search the web and you’ll find a few somewhat complicated Photoshop tutorials on how to create .icns files for OS X, but with Img2icns you need only drag your pic onto the drop zone and Boom, as they say, you’ve got your icon. If you’ve got a bunch of pics to convert, drag them all onto the app to convert the lot of them in a single click. As an added bonus, Img2icns now supports raw Photoshop files as well, so there’s no need to save out your work in a different format before creating an icon.

But why make an icon if not to customize a file, folder or app? Just drag your chosen file onto Img2icns and the app will do the work for you. No messing around with the Get Info window or other complicated steps to follow. Before the update, Img2icns was the easiest way to create icons for your Mac. With version 1.0, it’s now the easiest way to set them as well.

Batch Extract Images from Application and File Icons

Completely new in Img2icns 1.0 is the ability to create images from icons, which is a real seller for Mac bloggers like myself. Previously I published a little AppleScript to dig into the Resources package of an application and open its icon up in Preview. It’s a convoluted process, to say the least. With the new Img2icns that process again becomes a simple drag and drop affair. Open up your Applications folder and drop an app onto Img2icns or its dock icon. Img2icns will extract your icon and give you the option of exporting it to PNG, TIFF or GIF format, all of which will preserve any transparency in the icon.

Sometimes for MacMembrane I write up a number of applications for a single post and thus I need app icons for multiple apps. This laborious process makes me quite excited about one of the new features of Img2icns: batch conversion of icons to images. Select a bunch of apps in Finder and drop them onto Img2icns. With one click you can export the entire batch as PNG, TIFF or GIF files. After playing with the app for only a few minutes I realized the amazing time saving potential of this feature.

Manage Your Icons with the Built in History Browser

Currently I have a single folder where I store all of the icons that I make or extract for easy access should I need them down the line. The new Img2icns now has a convenient history feature that might make my primitive filing system a thing of the past. All of your icons are stored in a folder in ~/Library/Application Support/Img2icns (where ~ is your home folder), but a pop-up HUD history browser built into the app will make ever visiting it unnecessary. You can export any or all of your icons directly from the history panel or drag them back on to the app to use them as file or folder icons again. Double clicking on any icon in your history will open it up in Preview, or you can drag it out of the pane and onto your desktop if you prefer. The history panel is very convenient and will keep you from losing track of your work.

Some Bonuses and Caveats: Favicons, iPhone Icons and Interface Elegance

Img2icns will also export images at the size and format necessary for use as favicons on websites or for use as bookmarked iPhone icons. For both exports you will need to rename your resulting files favicon.ico and apple-touch-icon.png respectively before they can be dropped in the root directory of your website, but other than that your exports are ready for use. It would be nice if a future update automated this small process as well.

Unfortunately, Img2icns does not have any AppleScript support, which is a shame given the app’s in built potential to both convert and manage icons. Hopefully the developer will add scripting support in a future update.

On a final note I’d like to mention just how far the app has come in terms of aesthetics. Previously, it would be hard to claim that Img2icns was a beautiful application. The app did have a cool icon, but it was by no means a professional offering, and the app’s UI was little more than a drop target on a grey background. With the new release Shiny Frog has really invested in the design of the app and it’s paid off – the whole experience is quite beautiful. From the contemporary grunge of the main UI to the smooth animations that accompany your actions and even the app’s download page, Img2icns has graduated from a simple but useful side-project into a serious contender.

Download Img2icns from Shiny Frog software. A basic version, which lets you convert and set icons, is available for free. A full license is 12.90 USD and unlocks all of the new features of the app.

HandBrake, however, is packed with arcane preferences, which can make it difficult to master if you’re inclined to setting your own encoding standards. Fortunately, tucked away in a slide out drawer are some presets which makes doing so unnecessary. To open the drawer, click on the ‘Toggle Presets’ icon at the top right of HandBrake’s main window.

If you’re like me an use HandBrake to encode to a specific format the majority of the time, it’s worth your while to change the default format from ‘Basic’ to your chosen format. To do so, click first on your desired default and then scan the bottom of the drawer for the little gear drop-down menu. In this menu, simply select ‘Make Default’ and you may never need to open the drawer again, nor fear wasting time accidentally encoding to a format that you don’t want.

Despite being somewhat embarrassed by this response (‘Why didn’t I think of that myself?’), I was really happy with the suggestion because it meant the solution to my desire was very easily achieved. Here’s how to use Growl to make MarsEdit play a ‘Successfully Posted’ sound. But first…

What are these applications?

MarsEdit is a plain text blogging client for the Mac that has a wealth of features that should satisfy the needs of most bloggers. I’ve written extensively about MarsEdit in the past so I won’t say too much about the application here other than to note that I’m a huge fan. If you want to see if MarsEdit is right for you then head over to Red Sweater Software to download a free 30 day trial. It’s 29.95 thereafter.

Growl is a kind of all-purpose visual and audio notification utility for your Mac. Growl is supported by a slew of applications natively (I use ’slew’ because I can’t find a precise number on the web!) and many more by adding simple plugins. In short, Growl lets you know what’s happening with an application when it’s not in the front, everything from displaying incoming mail to alerting you to new tweets in Twitterific. Growl is freeware.

Make them work together.

Like many apps, MarsEdit supports Growl notifications out of the box, letting you know if your new post has made it to your blog or been tripped up along the way. Because of this native support, it’s easy to add a sound to accompany the visual notification.

Open System Preferences and find the Growl preference pane at the bottom of the panel. Click on the Applications tab at the top of Growl’s preferences. Scroll down to find MarsEdit and double click the icon to edit the app’s alert preferences. Click on the Notifications tab. (Click the screenshot to enlarge.)

MarsEdit supports Growl notifications for four of it’s common tasks: Finished Refreshing Weblog, Finished Uploading File and, the task that concerns us here, Finished Sending to Weblog. Select the latter from the drop down notification list and set the Play Sound drop down menu to whatever you’d like to hear when MarsEdit sends up your writing to the web. Now MarsEdit will make some noise when it posts to your blog. Satisfying!

I’m quite pleased with this solution, although I do hope that MarsEdit adds a custom sound to its repertoire of features someday. Thanks to the developer for his ultra-fast, non-condesending reply on Twitter as well!

You can follow both MarsEdit and myself on Twitter. If you want to find some more great blogging tools, try Tools to Turn Your Mac into a Blogger’s Dream. If you already use MarsEdit, you might like these Two AppleScripts to Simplify Your MarsEdit Workflow.

With such wide spread use my little discovery shouldn’t have been such a surprise, but it struck me as noteworthy that Quick Look, Leopard’s utility for grabbing a fast, read only glance at documents and pictures without opening them in their parent application, should have support for Excel documents with multiple spreadsheets. To me this is representative of Apple’s tendency to anticipate future uses of their operating system – even with competitor’s applications – and support them natively.

When Quick Look first appeared in Leopard, I think many people had some difficulty utilizing it, primarily because of the years of muscle memory attached to double clicking a file to open it when you couldn’t decide what it was. But Quick Look is a powerful little utility, and training yourself to hit the space bar with a selected file rather than double clicking will ultimately save you a ton of time, especially if you work with Microsoft Office documents (Office is a powerful suite of apps, but apparently with that power comes a frustratingly slow load time – Quick Look negates that).

So, next time you want to preview a document, try hitting the space bar. You might be surprised about what Apple’s little utility can do.

GeekTool

Display virtually anything on your desktop. Text files, images (both local or online) or text commands can easily be displayed and updated at an interval you define. But I won’t waste my keystrokes. Check out this excellent post at Lifehacker for info on how to set up GeekTool. I use it to keep my todo.txt visible at all times as a motivator.

Download GeekTool from Tynsoe.org.

Caffeine

When the walls start closing in, I like to take my Mac out on the town to get some work done. Caffeine is the easiest way to keep your unplugged notebook from nodding off too quickly. Click the menu bar icon to launch Caffeine, or Command click to set a sleep time. No messing around with Energy Saver preferences. Super easy to use and, in the right circumstances, super useful.

Download Caffeine from Lighthead.

Alarm Clock

Alarm clock lets you wake up to any song in your iTunes library. It has some great features and an easy to navigate interface. Before I bought a proper alarm, I used Alarm Clock for over six months and it never got me fired from my teaching gig. Best freeware alarm clock available.

Download Alarm Clock from Robbie Hanson.

Disk Inventory X

You’re good at managing the files on your Mac, but one day you wake up and notice that you’re quickly running out of hard drive space. Where did all those gigabytes go? Disk Inventory X will show you! DIX’s beautiful interface gives you a graphical representation of your hard drive and everything on it. Delete those unnecessary monster files and regain your memory. An application I wrote about previously.

Download Disk Inventory X from Derlien.com.

Img2icns

Img2icns is a small application that will quickly convert images to .icns files – the type of images that OS X uses for file, folder and application icons. If you want to customize the appearance of your Mac, img2icns is an essential utility. Read Create Icons Quickly with Preview and Img2icns for a thorough how-to.

Download Img2icns from Shiny Frog.

MacTheRipper

MacTheRipper will rip a DVD to your hard drive quick and simple. It will also tear out any copy protection that manufacturing injected into the disk. After you’ve ripped the disk to your drive, fire up HandBreak and compress the files in half the time.

Download MacTheRipper (from Softpedia). MactheRipper.org’s download link is currently dead.

SizzlingKeys

My favorite iTunes controller, Sizzling Keys lets you assign keyboard shortcuts to every standard iTunes function in a clean preference pane. An elegant floating info panel displays album art and song info, as well as iTunes events. It’s lightening fast and rock solid.

Download SizzlingKeys from Yellow Mug.

JDarkRoom

I recently added WriteRoom to a list of shareware apps that I use, but if you want something free that performs a similar function, try JDarkRoom – a luxurious full-screen writing environment! The preferences are a bit high-brow, but they aren’t difficult to learn.

Download JDarkRoom from Code Alchemists.

Backdrop

Backdrop is a simple application to hide the files, folders and connected drives on your desktop with a solid color or a picture. It’s the quickest way I know to grab clutter-free screenshots, but it can also be used to help you concentrate on your work by letting you focus on a single application. If backdrop isn’t your cup of tea try Think, which I previously wrote about.

Download Backdrop from John Haney Software.

Jumpcut

When I’m writing a blog post, I’m constantly copying a bunch of text from different sources – web addresses, quotes and images, among other things. Jumpcut is saves a history of your clipboard and lets you select which clipping you’d like to paste. It’s a big time saver, and it will also save you when you accidentally overwrite your clipboard contents.

Download Jumpcut from SourceForge.

Looking for more? Try 10 Freeware Apps for a Fresh Mac or (Another) 10 Outstanding Freeware Apps. If you aren’t adverse to shelling out a few bucks, you’ll like these 10 Unbeatable Shareware Apps. Thanks for reading and don’t forget to grab the RSS Feed!

If you want freeware (and who doesn’t?) here’s 10 Apps for a Fresh Mac. And here’s ten more.

1Password

The internet is a scary place! As the monsters become smarter, you need to take precautions against their sinister designs. 1Password is a password manager for your Mac. Safari already saves passwords for you in your keychain, sure, but 1Password enhances this inbuilt capability ten-fold. Smartly save your new passwords from web forms in its database and autofill them the next time you visit. When it comes time to create a password for a new site or service, use 1Password’s strong password generator to make sure your form is secure. All of my passwords are now 28 characters of mixed letters, numbers and symbols – strings that I could never remember, but 1Password makes it so that I don’t have to. Peace of mind.

Download 1Password from Agile Web Solutions. 34.95 USD after a free trial period.

MarsEdit

I love blogging. But I love blogging even more because of MarsEdit. Far and away the best blogging client for the Mac, MarsEdit is akin to a plain text editor that lets you apply custom markup macros to your writing and send your work up to your weblog with a single click (or keystroke, in my case). Set up is dead simple, and despite MarsEdit’s power under the hood, the application is extremely intuitive and easy to use. And if your into scripting your apps, MarsEdit’s extensive AppleScript support won’t let you down (read about my MarsEdit workflow, with scripted goodness, here). Perhaps best of all, MarsEdit’s developer consistently releases maintenance builds between major updates and adds significant features almost monthly.

Get MarsEdit from Red Sweater Software. It’s 29.55 USD after a 30 day trial.

CSSEdit

CSSEdit lets you edit CSS (cascading style sheets) and preview the results of your experimentation instantly in its integrated browser. I can’t speak for experienced CSS mavens, but if you like to experiment and want to learn one of the most important aspects of the new web, CSSEdit is an amazing teacher. Install the included bookmarklet and open up any site you’re viewing in Safari in CSSEdit. Examine the code. Modify the code. Learn. View style hierarchies in the preview window, set new classes and ids via an HUD pop up and apply styles using comprehensive drop-down menus. When you’re satisfied, send your creation up the server via your favorite FTP application without leaving CSSEdit. The app may cost 30 Euros, but to me that’s cheap tuition.

Download CSSEdit from MacRabbit. It’s 29.95 Euro after a time unlimited demo with crippled saving.

WriteRoom

WriteRoom is the application in which I am writing up this post. Beautiful and fully customizable full-screen mode! I’ve tried the excellent Scrivener, but that application has far more firepower than I need – WriteRoom is simply full-screen, distraction free goodness. But WriteRoom has replaced TextEdit for me in most cases, and not because I need full-screen for everything I write, but because even when editing documents in a discreet window the application is completely soothing on the eyes. A nice, black text editor! WriteRoom’s extensive options let you set your text color and background to whatever you like, moreover, so if black isn’t your fancy, change it up. This is something of a luxury application, but whatever increases your ability to crank out words is worth the money in my opinion.

Download WriteRoom from Hog Bay Software. It’s 24.95 after a demo period.

Airfoil

If you have an Airport Express and haven’t heard of AirFoil, your time has come. The Airport Express comes equipped with AirTunes, which can send audio from iTunes to remote speakers over your network. Amazing! But what about Safari? Songbird? Or GarageBand? Install AirFoil and send audio from any application to your Airport Express. What about video? If you’re sending sound alone to your Airport Express, your Mac will buffer the output in maintain a clear signal. This makes video impossible to watch – you’ll see someone talking and hear what they say 3 seconds later. But Airfoil 3 comes with Airfoil Video Player, a full featured video app that syncs video with its audio output. It’s brilliant. Airfoil completes Apple’s Airport Express.

Get Airfoil from Rogue Amoeba. 25 USD after a demo which overlays noise on transmissions longer than 10 minutes.

Hazel

I wrote about how I use Hazel to keep my desktop organized and since I’ve taken the pill, I can’t imagine my Mac without it. Hazel is folder actions on steroids, without all of the AppleScript effort. It can monitor any folder on your Mac for incoming files and ‘do stuff’ with them – almost anything. Move jpegs from your downloads folder into Pictures, Mp3s into Music or PDFs into Documents. Set colors to your new folders an files or after a defined time, move or delete older files. Auto empty the trash at a certain size, delete your applications as well as all their associated files, trigger Automator actions, shell scripts or AppleScripts when the contents of a folder changes… I feel that there’s so much here that a discerning user will undoubtedly find new ways to use this diamond of an application. Amazing app.

Download Hazel from Noodlesoft. 21.95 USD after a two week trial.

XScope

If you do any kind of visual designing on your Mac, XScope is something you should check out. XScope is a color picker, on screen ruler set and light browser emulator rolled into one. XScope also allows you to draw Photoshopesque grids on your screen if you need to line things up vertically or horizontally. The application’s most novel feature, however, is a kind of smart measuring tool that lets you quickly (very quickly!) find the distance between two screen elements using an expanding ruler. XScope’s keyboard shortcuts are extensive and a bit of a learning curve must be overcome, but the application is designed thoughtfully and moreover is quite pretty in itself. If you use a bunch of separate tools to pick colors, take measurements and compare screen elements, XScope will replace them all and give you new tools that you never knew you needed.

Get XScope by The Iconfactory. It’s 26.95 USD after a 40 hours of usage.

FastScripts

Readers of MacMembrane know that I am an enthusiastic if amateur AppleScripter (check out my collection of free scripts). Your Mac comes with a built in menu-bar utility to access your scripts on the fly and that’s great, but once you try FastScripts you will see the poverty of Apple’s script menu. FastScripts lets you assign scripts to context specific folders which will only show up when their parent application is active. When I’m in Safari, for example, only my Safari scripts will be fully exposed in the top menu. To access your other scripts, just scroll down to their folder. More importantly, however, is that FastScripts lets you assign shortcuts to any or all of your scripts – hence the name of the application. There are, of course, freeware methods by which you can assign shortcuts to scripts or anything else (Quicksilver is my favorite), but it’s FastScripts’ elegant management of your AppleScripts that makes the application one of my favorites. If you script your Mac, FastScripts will make you smile.

Download FastScripts. 14.95 after a 30 trial. A free FastScripts Lite version is also available (download link near bottom of page).

QuickTime Pro

QuickTime Pro is a small up-sell that Apple sneaks into OS X. If you only have QT installed, have a look through the menus – many will be disabled until you shell out the cash for QT Pro. The upgrade gives you a wealth of export options, as well as a super quick way to slice up a video, adjust it’s sound or color range, or export it for the web. QuickTime Pro, as is to be expected, integrates tightly with all of iLife, so, for instance, you get a bunch more options when you export from iMovie. For small edits and tweaks to your movie files, QuickTime Pro is a great investment.

Get QuickTime Pro from Apple. It’s 29.95 USD.

TextExpander

TextExpander is a productivity tool that lets you reuse common snippets of text without retyping them over and over again. The utility sits in your menu bar and provides you with a folder organized list of your text snippets which you can insert into any document. I’ve heard it used most for replying to stock emails, but I use it whenever I’m working on a new website. When I open a blank CSS file, I enter into TextExpander all of the values that I will use over and over again in my style sheet. This makes it easy if I need to jump over to Photoshop to create an image using like colors or dimensions. It’s a quick way to work, and you can even download a bunch of stock snippets relating to XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc. from the developer’s website. Amazing time and sanity saver.

Get TextExpander from Smile on my Mac. 29.95 USD after a 30 trial.

There we have it! There are so many sweet applications for the Mac that I could write a hundred posts like this. What are your favorites? Let me know in the comments!

But muscle memory persists, and from time to time calculator is opened up. Today, however, it seemed unhappy about being woken:

97 CPU usage! Perhaps it was trying to calculate pi. Nevertheless, Leopard’s calculator is a great improvement from Tiger’s version:

Not bad at all.