gift

Apr 27 2009

The Best of 2002

The Year in Freeware

Best on the Web: Chimera Navigator

Fast, new and open-source, Chimera has grown from a shaky beta to a fully functional browser. With a great interface and handy extras Chimera laughs in the face of clunky Netscape and ho-hum Internet Explorer. Tabbed browsing, pop-up suppression, keychain password storage and favicon support make this gift from the open source community our number one.

Freeware Classic: FileCM

For those of you still living in the past, consider this a lifetime achievement award. And for what do we bestow this honor? FileCM adds cut, copy and paste file options to your contextual menu. Thatís one more command than even OS X.

Best System Extension: Diabolitin

For decades now, talented programmers have been filling Appleís gaps. This one creates a single interface, in the form of a preference pane, from which you can activate or deactivate all kinds of system items. Control your fonts, screensavers, preference panes and more from one interface.

Best Menu Item: Weather Pop

When the novelty of menu extras emerged, no one found a better use for them than Glucose Software. Best of all, when Glucose released a shareware version, they kept their ìliteî version free.

Best Plug-in: PDF Browser Plug-in

Do you ever get so tired of poor 3rd part support you wish you could do something yourself? Of those who took maters into their own hands, the PDF Browser Plug-in may be the best. At least the best one that is still freeware.

Let’s hope next year yields another great crop of free software.

Brian

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Apr 27 2009

More Menu Extras

Menu extras have become the hack of choice for many OS X users looking to add convenience to the Aqua interface. This week I’ll show you a few new ones worth adding to your menu bar.

tvMenu 1.0b1

This is the first of two cool Menu Extras from Hunter Interactive. This menu Extra, once set up, shows you your local TV listings. You can set up favorite stations as well as program notifications. Very useful in getting you off one boob-tube and on to another.

DesKalc 1.0b1

If you are tired of the ridiculous hunt for the Calculator, you’ll find this a must-have. DesKalc, another gift from Hunter Interactive, is a simple drop-down calculator. My one complain: it doesn’t seem to work with the keypad.

MenuPrefs 1.0.1

This one is pretty easy to figure out. Go directly to your preference pane of choice by selecting it on the menu. Supports system and 3rd party panes. Preference options allow you to customize the order and even which panes are listed.

Sharing Menu 1.0

This one is useful if you are frequently changing your Sharing status. You can start up and shut down all kinds of file and printer sharing, including web and Windows sharing without taking a time-consuming trip to the Sharing preference pane. Sharing Menu is a very convenient way to manage your file sharing.

I hope you’ve managed to populate your title bar nicely. If you still have some white space left, you’ll have to keep tuning in for more great freeware add-ons.

It’s good to be free, isn’t it? Until next week,

Brian

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Apr 27 2009

Beyond iCal

iCal is more than just an iApp, it’s a new standard for calendar sharing. Extend your calendaring with these free applications.

mu Beyond iCalCalendarUpload

iCal will upload calendars to .Mac and WebDAV accounts, but CalendarUpload will upload iCal calendars to your FTP server. This freeware pick requires Panther.

mu Beyond iCaliCal FTP X

This app does pretty much the same thing, but works on Jaguar. Calendars uploaded to web-accessible directories can be subscribed to in iCal.

mu Beyond iCaliCal2blog X

This free script posts your iCal items to your blog via XML-RPC. It’s a gift from Ben and the folks at Movable Type.

mu Beyond iCalPHP iCalendar

This unique server-side solution parses iCal’s .ics files into a web-readable form. A great way to view your iCalendars online.

Mozilla Calender and Sunbird

This little known Mozilla project produces an extension for Firefox/Mozilla/Thunderbird that adds an iCal-compatible calendar. Also available as a stand-alone application called Sunbird, this app/extension can read, write and sync .ics calendars via FTP or WebDAV.

With this week’s tools, you’ll be able to take your iCals far beyond the desktop, and do it for free.

Brian

mu Beyond iCalDownloads provided by MacUpdate

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