Innehållsförteckning för May-13 från MacLife

MORE MAC|LIFE, LESS PAPER The Hottest Articles on MacLife.com The 25 Best Mac Games Today The Mac has hosted some truly memorable titles over the decades, but these are the games you’ll want to fire up now. And we’ll be keeping this list up to date over time as even greater Mac games surface. http://bit.ly/ML_25BestMacGames 8 Ambient-Noise Apps for Boosting Creativity Moderate levels of steady background noise reportedly spur creativity better than silence. Heading to the local coffee shop isn’t always an option, but these eight apps deliver a similar audio experience. http://bit.ly/ML_AmbientNoiseApps Rounded Rectangles: Apple’s Inimitable Keynote Style, from ‘1984’ to Today When you look back over the course of 30 years of product launches, there are three main elements to Apple’s keynotes that make them so great. http://bit.ly/ML_RRKeynotes…

YOUR OPINIONS, RANTS & RAVES OS X Missteps or Misunderstandings? Maybe I’m a dim bulb, but Apple has made a bunch of changes to OS X that I dislike: (1) The cloud is giving me a headache. It’s impossible to follow what’s being backed up where, and it doesn’t work the way it should all the time. My contacts are a huge mess. (2) Sharing a photo by email in iPhoto is so buggy that it sometimes sends the wrong photos. (3) Flash is available for desktop machines... except it isn’t. (4) What genius thought up the new Mail application? You can’t find things. (5) Has anyone noticed that the new scroll bars block file and folder items at the bottom and side of a window? (6) The new iTunes…

It’s no surprise when a premium iOS app or game sees a sudden surge of downloads after kicking its price tag to the curb for a day, a week, or however long the developer sees fit to bask in the additional (albeit unprofitable) attention. But how do you get from notching 73 purchases one day to serving up more than a million free downloads the next? In this case, the game is Edge Extended, an excellent—but year-and-a-half old—puzzle game from Mobigame, and the reason behind the stunning leap is clear: it’s thanks to AppGratis, the latest in a long line of free-app recommendation services that’s making waves thanks to its simple interface, quality app selections, and serious results for participating developers. Mobigame isn’t the first or only company to see…

MIKEL VIVAX http://kck.st/13uCbSP $150 Apple laptops are both expensive and hard to repair. So the trick is, don’t break it. Once I get the ViVAX case, its foam lining will cushion my MacBook Pro and absorb 90 percent of kinetic energy from drops. Its outer shell is crushproof and shockproof, with a rubber seal that’s waterproof and sandproof. That oughta do it. SUSIE MONKEY TAIL KIT www.bitemyapple.co $99.99 I dug Octa’s Whale Tail kit for standing up an iPad at various angles, and the Monkey Tail Kit promises similar versatility with its prehensile tail. Coil it into a stand, wrap it around a tree, hang it from a bar—just don’t feed it any bananas. And the site that sells it, BiteMyApple.co, specializes in Kickstarter hits. HOFFMAN OUYA www.ouya.tv $99.99 Running…

Your iPhone can’t make you exercise more or change your diet. But it can make help you make your life more social, more creative, and way more fun. With so many apps aimed at helping you take care of yourself, your iOS device can be a source of support and inspiration—and all the nerdy statistics you’d ever want. No matter what your initial fitness level or your own goals (maybe you just want to sleep better, feel less stressed, or find a new trail to walk your dog), we hope something on these next pages speaks to you.…

Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock $0.99, iPhone This works best if you have a plug or a power strip right next to your bed: Plug in your iPhone, launch this app, place the phone face-down on the corner of your bed, and go to sleep. The app uses your phone’s accelerometer to track how often you move during the night, which tells it what sleep stage you’re in. Set an alarm range (say, between 7:00 and 7:30), and when the app senses you entering a lighter sleep stage during that window, it wakes you up with gradually increasing sound—much more pleasant and less jarring than typical alarms. Sleep graphs show you what times of night you get the best sleep, whether you sleep better on certain nights of the week, and…

Fitbit One $99.95, www.fitbit.com This upgraded successor to the Fitbit Ultra personal tracker boasts significant improvements. The clothes peg–like design is replaced by a rubber caddy that clips the FitBit more securely onto your belt or clothing. And it communicates using Bluetooth 4.0, so you can get real-time wireless updates on an iPhone 4S or later. There’s even a vibrating alarm that gently wakes you from your morning slumber. Withings WS-30 $99.95, www.withings.com The latest, greatest wireless scale from Withings has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to upload your weight and BMI to your Withings account and free iOS app, and it can even prompt you to correct your body position to get a more accurate reading. Everyone in your house can have his or her own profile, and if you’re brave,…

Mouse Right or Left? Using the mouse on the right side of a standard keyboard can bring on shoulder, elbow, wrist, and hand injuries. This is because of the numeric keypad. Center yourself on your keyboard (bellybutton dividing the letters “G” and “H”). The extra 6" reach over the number pad makes it tricky to use your mouse on the right without an increased risk of injury. The best option is to use the mouse on the left side with your left hand, and/or get a keyboard without the attached number pad and switch back and forth between right and left-sided mouse use, especially if you’re right-handed. You can always add a separate external number pad, but move it out of the way when doing mouse-intensive tasks. The Art of…

Best ergo-ware: Goldtouch GO! Travel Keyboard $119 A short, slim keyboard with no number pad. It has an adjustable split to address ulnar wrist deviation (pain on the little-finger side of wrist) and dual Mac and PC layouts. The Bluetooth Go! is currently only for handheld devices. Best laptop stand: Several on Amazon $20-$40 Carry out a quick Amazon search for laptop or notebook stand or riser and you should find plenty of portable and non-portable solutions for laptop stands. Best software for breaks: Several available Free Track the distance your mouse travels, as well as your keystrokes. Schedule breaks and stretches. All of these are free to try: Time Out by dejal; MacBreakZ ($9.95); RSI Guard ($65). If you like reminders, break software might be your thing. Best cross-platform…

If you’ve written off web apps as underpowered imitations of desktop software, think again. Many of today’s web apps are as good as their Finder-bound counterparts, and some even do your work for you! Web apps are convenient, too: since they live in the cloud with their related files, you can run them in a browser on almost any computer without worrying about backups or hunting through hard drives for important documents. Best of all, many web apps are free, and allow you to pay for more advanced features as you go, if and when you need them. Over the next few pages, we’ll uncover some of the best web apps available—ones that can perform the most important tasks in your digital lifestyle. You might think that only desktop software…

Alto www.altomail.com Who knew AOL still had it in them? Alto is their new mail client that works with the accounts you already use—like iCloud, Gmail, and Yahoo—in a totally new way, organizing messages, attachments, and photos into graphical stacks for easy perusal. You can create your own stacks, too, based on criteria like sender, recipient, subject, and more. Just drag-and-drop emails, and future messages from that sender will automatically appear in the new stack. Alto’s built-in photo gallery is no slouch, either. The service is still in beta as of this writing, but you can sign up to try it today at the Alto website. You better believe we have!…

Pixlr Editor www.pixlr.com They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but we applaud Pixlr’s modesty. The humble “Editor” is nothing less than a sophisticated Photoshop act-alike, complete with powerful image-creation and editing tools, like filters, layer masks, and a handy fullscreen mode. Performance is terrific on a modern Mac, whether you’re drawing freehand or previewing Gaussian blurs. You can import photos and image files from your computer, the web, or Facebook albums, then export them back to your Mac, Facebook, or other social photo sites like Flickr and Picasa. PicMonkey www.picmonkey.com If you don’t need to create images, or if you prefer iPhoto’s simplicity when manipulating them, PicMonkey is for you. Its consumer-level, iOS-inspired color correction, filters and effects, text tools, and more let you fine-tune or transform…

Prezi www.prezi.com With Prezi, you can intuitively arrange text, shapes, media—even imported PowerPoint sides—on a zoomable whiteboard, then use them as landing points in dynamic presentations (or “prezis”) that are anything but business as usual. Gorgeous templates get you started, each using creative visual metaphors for common team-based challenges, like mountain climbing toward success or seeking hidden goals on a treasure map. Prezis can be presented locally or remotely and shared over email, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Free accounts offer 100MB of storage, but annual plans starting at $59 bump that to 500MB. Inexpensive student and teacher accounts are also available. SlideRocket www.sliderocket.com For a more conventional—but no less powerful—take on presentations, check out SlideRocket. Aimed squarely at business users, it delivers the desktop-style features you expect, including slick templates…

Trello www.trello.com Once you say hello to Trello, you’ll likely never want for another web-based task manager. Using a unique interface consisting of boards and cards, Trello lets you see your entire project at a glance, while keeping track of recent activity and managing the team members assigned to it. Powerful collaboration features, real-time notifications, and customizable workspaces make Trello an essential component of any web-based workflow, whether you’re casually brainstorming or sharing top-secret notes. Remember the Milk www.rememberthemilk.com Of course, not everything we do needs to be outlined and categorized and referenced—sometimes we just have to be reminded to stop at the grocery store on the way home. Remember the Milk lets you set quick to-do lists with location services, color-coded priorities, and SMS alerts. Its features more than…

When you think about it, the calendars on our iPhones aren’t all that different than the ones that hang on our walls. Sure, we can set alerts for 2037 and fit much more than we can on those impossibly small squares, but for the most part, digital calendars haven’t brought much new to the game. Horizon Calendar might not be a revolutionary change to mobile calendars, but it’s a good start. Its fresh, clean interface puts your events front and center with color-coded appointments and locations—and best of all, weather reports. Since it syncs with iCloud and Google, launching Horizon Calendar immediately brings up a scrollable list of your upcoming meetings, dates, and birthdays. A tiny calendar is available with a swipe from the top, but it’s mainly used for…

The human ear frequently plays tricks on the mind. For example, is it really possible to hide secret messages inside music recordings? If all things audible fascinate you, then you’ll love Sound Uncovered, an iPad app dedicated to demystifying this and other “auditory illusions.” Billed as an interactive book, the breezy app lets you participate and learn from all kinds of acoustic phenomena. In addition to hearing all manner of bumps, beeps, booms, and vrooms, a few of the pages even allow you to make or modify your own recordings and become part of the fun. It’s the best kind of education for all ages: interactive, fun, and best of all, free! The bottom line. Sound Uncovered is a great way to spend a lazy weekend afternoon, particularly with a…

While it starts off innocently enough, Year Walk quickly spirals out into an enthralling puzzle adventure, steeped in haunting imagery and supernatural mystery. It keeps you guessing at every turn, but locks you in its grasp with smart challenges and heavy atmosphere. Year Walk weaves its bizarre tale around supernatural themes culled from the depths of Swedish folklore, meshing them with a grim story that unfolds in unsettling ways as you move forward in the adventure. Sliding your fingers to scroll the scenery left and right, you’ll navigate pathways through the maze-like nature landscape, all while studying the surroundings to piece together clues and progress further into the mystery. You might find yourself turning your iOS device in unusual ways and experimenting with different kinds of touches to produce “aha”…

Watching TV for any significant stretch of time always makes me antsy to get up and be productive, but when shows sporting names like When Tornados Attack, Tsunamis of Doom, and Giant Asteroids: We’re All Going To Die come up on the tube, I’m glued to my seat until the credits roll. I just can’t get enough. I’ve always been utterly fascinated by natural disasters, extreme weather, and other dangerous phenomena of our natural world. There’s something enthralling about watching these powerful forces at work and learning about how they impact us. As grim as it may be at times, watching news of real disasters unfolding and the destruction they leave in their wake is even more entrancing. For those whose obsessions are finely attuned to tracking the latest catastrophic…

At its core, Notion is a powerful music-notation tool. Basically, it transcribes music on the fly, allowing composers to quickly and easily get ideas down onto paper with the help of a MIDI keyboard or other controller. It also allows for fine-editing of individual notes, and even step-recording (that is, note-by-note) to transcribe complex passages. This all works as expected. The transcription is accurate, and step-recording and basic editing prove powerful and robust thanks to a suite of smartly chosen keyboard shortcuts. The software includes tools for transcribing guitar chords and tablature, and even offers an onscreen fretboard to help guitarists transcribe by sight. The bigger-picture controls that govern the basic setup of the sheet music are also fairly direct and powerful. This is all fortunate, since the whole point…

iTunes wants to be your be-all, end-all media player, handling videos, podcasts, music, and even Internet radio, although the list of stations has disappeared from iTunes 11. But it’s overkill anyway-using iTunes to play an Internet radio stream is like using a bazooka to kill a mosquito, and it’s of no help in searching for new streams, either. Radium 3 is a cool music utility that lives in your menu bar and offers quick access to thousands of streaming radio stations and services. Feel like classic blues or ’90s-era grunge? Just enter your search criteria (name, genre, location) and Radium offers as many streaming radio stations as it can possibly find. The app also offers full support for subscription-based services, including CalmRadio, DI Radio + Sky Radio, JazzRadio.com, K-PIG, Live365,…

While misguided critics continue to debate the merits of the iPad as a media creation device, devices like the Padcaster continue to surprise us with new ways to get the most from Apple’s tablet. Designed as an all-purpose tool for creating podcasts or shooting video, the Padcaster is a rugged, aluminum frame with 24 threaded holes around the four sides for mounting on a tripod and attaching lights and microphones. Inside is a removable piece of urethane molded to securely cradle an iPad. The company doesn’t specify which models are compatible, and we did shove in an original (camera-less) iPad, although it wasn’t a comfortable fit. We had much better luck with our third-gen iPad, although actually inserting the tablet into the Padcaster was a bit of a struggle. Once…

If your iTunes library consists of more than a few hundred tracks, you’re probably familiar with Doug Adams and his dougscripts.com website. A treasure-trove of iTunes-related AppleScripts, the site has long helped plug the gaps in Apple’s music player, and allowed music fans to better manage their growing libraries. TrackSift bundles nine popular tools, and gives them a simple graphical front-end for easier use. The first time you open TrackSift, the application scans your iTunes library, gathering info on all your tunes. The tools are grouped into three tabs. Options under Make Special Playlists can gather artists who are represented by only one, two, or three tracks in your collection. The Find Tracks Without pane offers to collect tracks that are missing artwork, lyrics, or that aren’t on any playlist.…

There’s a reason why—on many people’s devices—Apple’s Voice Memos app lives in a folder called “Unused” way back on the last home screen. Despite its many talents, the reality is that the mono mic in your iPhone or iPad just isn’t that great at capturing audio. Blue’s Mikey Digital brings high-quality portable recording to your pocket, via a 2.9-ounce stereo microphone. Mikey Digital plugs into the 30-pin connector on your device, and works with nearly any app that can capture audio. Of course, late-model iOS devices feature Apple’s new Lightning connector. Blue assures us that there is a Lightning version coming down the pipe soon, but in the meantime, the existing Mikey Digital works just fine with Apple’s $29 Lightning to 30-pin Adapter. Mikey Digital offers three gain settings to…

TECH SUPPORT & TECHSPLANATIONS Virtual Backup I recently bought my first iMac and am running Mountain Lion. I am also running Parallels 7, which provides a virtual machine environment, to run Windows 7 and various Windows programs. My Mac files are backed up via Time Machine, but what do I need to do in order to ensure my Windows files are being backed up properly? With Parallels, VMWare Fusion, VirtualBox, and other applications that run the Windows platform (and other OSes) in a virtualized environment, all of the files, programs, etc., in that environment are stored in a single hard drive file that resides on your Mac. For Parallels, a “.pvm” file is created when you install a new operating system. By default, these files are stored in your Documents…

Bjango’s iStat Menus is a Mac|Life favorite, especially with those of us who like to keep an eye on system performance. The app is a collection of menu extras. Tiny icons lurk on the menu bar, delivering updates on the status of things like CPU, memory, and network usage; more detailed information is always available with a click. If that all sounds a touch geeky for you, stick with us, because even if you’re not terribly fussed if SystemUIServer is grabbing 3.6% of your Mac’s processor time, there are other items that you might find more useful. One is the battery monitor, which provides readouts of the status of your Mac’s battery (if it has one), but also power levels in wireless peripherals, such as a Magic Trackpad. The display…

Apple gadgets in your pocket, in your handbag, and on your desk just aren’t enough. If the rumors are to be believed, the Cupertino brain trust is hard at work creating wearable technology that takes the form of a wristwatch-like device. Unofficially dubbed the iWatch, the gizmo will likely be made of curved glass and/or feature a flexible screen, plus it would potentially run iOS and perform many of the functions of your iPod or iPhone. It’s all speculation until Apple makes it official, but here are the features we’d want to see incorporated into the fabled iWatch. CUSTOMIZABLE FACES Considering that you can already customize your iPod with various clock or watch faces, it’s a no-brainer that an iWatch would let you do the same thing. Do you want…

STAY IN TOUCH WITH US ON TWITTER: @MACLIFE A NEW KIND OF iLIFE Small things can make a big impact on the quality of our lives, such as a good night’s sleep or some time to ourselves after a busy day. It’s too easy to push those things to the bottom of our to-do lists or overlook them completely, but there are plenty of apps that can keep them on your radar, help you find time for them, and even make them more productive and enjoyable. Of course, apps can also turn you into a walking techno-zombie with the attention span of a toddler, and keep you from being “present” in the real world while vacations and birthday parties are going on around you, but anything in excess is bad…

I have been a big fan of Mac|Life for many years, and as soon as you made your magazine available in Apple’s Newsstand, I started buying the digital version right away. I’ve seen several other publications enhance their digital editions by offering more interactive features and articles that are easier to read on the iPad/iPad Mini/iPhone, versus always having to pinch and zoom to read a direct copy of the print edition. When will Mac|Life upgrade the user experience for those of us who are going all digital?—Robert Thesing I’ve got great news for you, Robert: we’re working on an entirely new interactive design for the iPad edition! Not only will it make Mac|Life easy to read without having to zoom in, but it also makes exploring our content a…

In early 2012, Walmart-owned VUDU launched an initiative called “Disc to Digital,” a service enabling movie collectors to bring their discs into one of the parent company’s more than 4,000 US retail stores and convert them into cloud-based versions for a nominal fee. Standard definition (SD) DVDs or Blu-ray discs cost $2 each, with the latter receiving VUDU’s highest-quality HDX resolution, enhanced with Dolby Digital surround sound, when available. VUDU even allows DVDs to be upgraded to HDX for $5 each—far cheaper than buying them again on Blu-ray. Although Walmart refers to this as a “conversion,” discs are used only to verify customers actually own a copy of the movie. The service adds a digital copy to your VUDU account that can be streamed or downloaded, and the customer gets…

Envy me. I actually get paid to do what I love: gorging myself on the alphabet soup of deep-geek conferences, where thousands of people far, far smarter than I plan our digital future. To see what I’m talking about, Google ICCE, ISSCC, and IEDM, for example—I’ll wait. Back? Simultaneously impressive and intimidating, eh? That first chunk o’ letters stands for the International Conference on Consumer Electronics, the crystal ball of gadget gatherings, where you’ll learn what gear and gizmos will hit the market in, say, five years or so. Some of what went down at this year’s ICCE provided a glimpse into a future where how you interact with your computer or mobile device will be quite different than today. User-interface researchers, for example, are studying how to make your…

Lose It! Free, iPhone When it comes to losing weight, what you put into your body is just as important as what you burn from it. Lose It! makes calorie-counting easy, thanks to a huge database of common foods and activities. You can quickly record your meals and snacks throughout the day, and add fitness activities that give you a bit more calorie room to work with. Steady (and honest) use can really help your eating habits improve. Meal Snap – Calorie Counting Magic $2.99, iPhone Meal Snap makes daily food-tracking as easy as possible. You don’t need to look up an item, ask about the ingredients, or find the packaging; simply snap a photo of your meal, send it to the app’s servers, and within moments you’ll have an…

RunKeeper Free, iPhone and web Our favorite running app, RunKeeper lets you set goals, track your runs, and challenge yourself or friends. All your data is uploaded to RunKeeper.com, which can also pull in data from a heart monitor strap, FitBit or Zeo tracker, Withings scale, Garmin fitness watch, and tons of other apps and services. C25K–5K Trainer FREE Free, iPhone Running a 5K (about 3.1 miles) is a great milestone for new or casual runners, and the Couch-to-5K program can transform a nonrunner into a 5K-dominating machine in just nine weeks. Ease into running gradually, with voice instruction that tells you when to jog and when to walk, ramping up the difficulty over three 30-minute sessions per week. Fitocracy Free, iPhone and web Recognizing the power of playful competition,…

Like many other computer users, you have probably thought, heard, or even uttered these phrases: “I have naturally horrible posture,” “I’ve always slouched,” “It’s how I’m used to working,” “It’s normal to hold tension in my shoulders.” You’re not alone. However, many of our bad computer habits didn’t happen on purpose. They are the results of repeatedly having to accommodate ill-fitting work environments. We are good at adapting ourselves to fit things that weren’t built to fit us, but slouching, bending, reaching, and leaning for hours on end will take their toll. The key is making the world fit you; this is otherwise known as “ergonomics.” You probably know some ergonomic basics, which we will review in the following pages, but what do you do when your equipment doesn’t accommodate…

Can You Stand It? Who said you have to sit at your desk? Standing desks are another option, but make sure they are set up correctly. The distance between your eye and elbow still needs to be the same as if you were sitting, and you need to be aware of hunching and leaning, locking your knees, and aching backs and feet. The ideal desk height is about 1"–2" below your elbow (which should be hanging directly below your shoulder). Make sure you plug in an external keyboard and mouse and raise your laptop screen. Anti-fatigue mats help your feet, knees, and lower back. Ergonomics on the Move If you can find a table, use it. Ideally, you should travel with a laptop stand, external keyboard, and mouse. Table too…

Lots of Mac users forget to check out their machine’s accessibility features (aka: Universal Access) unless they feel it is a need, but Apple’s assistive technology is always worth exploring. Basic Accessibility Features Include: MouseKeys: Uses a numeric keypad to move and click your mouse. Speed up Your Trackpad: Work quicker. Ignore Trackpad Input: Use your laptop keyboard without accidentally moving your cursor. Inkwell: Recognizes most stylus devices and transcribes your handwriting into typed text with some accuracy. Ergonomic Favorites Include: Enable Touchpad Drag Lock: This means no more clicking the trackpad with your thumb and trying to drag an item, just double tap and drag (and it works in the scroll bar area, too). Change Your Modifier Keys: If you’re using a non-Apple keyboard (which obviously don’t have many…

Rdio www.rdio.com If you’re a music lover, you owe it to yourself to check out Rdio’s library of 18 million tracks, playable without ads or interruptions. Besides great music, the features you expect from iTunes are here, presented simply and with a social twist. You can create and subscribe to playlists and expand your horizons with recommendations from critics, tastemakers, musicians, and friends in your Rdio network—or just follow the charts to see what’s popular. Monthly plans start at $4.99, allowing unlimited streaming to your browser. A $9.99 plan adds unlimited streaming to smartphone apps, like Rdio’s universal iOS player, as well as devices like Sonos and Roku boxes. AudioBox www.audiobox.fm AudioBox is your unified media library in the cloud, letting you upload tracks from your Mac and sync music…

Hootsuite www.hootsuite.com If you’re running a business that depends on its social presence, you need HootSuite. With it, you can manage all your social networks from a single dashboard, letting you send and schedule posts and tweets, track responses with detailed analytics, and communicate privately with your team to plan the next big campaign. Free plans let you manage up to five social profiles, but monthly plans starting at $9.99 offer unlimited profiles and more professional features. Buffer www.bufferapp.com With Buffer’s extension installed in Safari, Chrome, or Firefox, one click adds cool pages you visit to a queue that’s shared throughout the day to your social networks, letting you stay on everyone’s radar without hovering over a computer. Posts are scheduled for optimum viewing times by default, but you can…

UJAM www.ujam.com UJAM lets you create music by singing into your mic, uploading prerecorded vocals, or editing templates in 10 genres, if you’re the instrumental type. Choose from a range of styles, from acoustic rock to ’90s electronica, then raid UJAM’s instrument library to customize tracks. (Instruments are professionally recorded, so it always sounds like you’ve got a real band behind you.) Playback and editing controls are a great mix of accessible and deep: easily change tempos, edit melodies, and build chords by rearranging presets—or invent your own. When you’re finished, download your songs as MP3s, or share them on Facebook, SoundCloud, or your UJAM page. TwistedWave www.twistedwave.com A full-featured audio editor, TwistedWave imports files from SoundCloud accounts or Google Drive (or you can upload from your computer), then allows…

Mint www.mint.com Mint organizes your financial accounts—checking, savings, credit cards, and more—to show your complete fiscal picture with gorgeously simple charts or detailed per-transaction views. Mint works behind the scenes, too, accurately assigning categories like “Entertainment” to each transaction. It even suggests budgets based on your spending history, complete with alerts when you’re about to break them, plus bill reminders, suspicious transaction warnings, and financial advice. Best of all, Mint is easy to use, and your data is secure behind both 128-bit SSL encryption and VeriSign and TRUSTe validation. FreshBooks www.freshbooks.com FreshBooks simplifies the toughest part of running a small business: getting paid. With it you can create and email professional-looking invoices, billing by time, products, or both in one document. You can even include your PayPal info to get…

Done Not Done www.donenotdone.com What sounds like another app that’s just going to make you feel bad about being a procrastinator is actually a neat way to keep track of the things you want to watch, listen to, and read. Done Not Done’s tabbed interface and boundless library of covers makes it easy to add movies and music to your online bookshelf, and integration with your Twitter followers and Facebook friends will make sure you’ll have something to talk about at your next party. 750 Words www.750words.com Based on the notion that writers should exercise their minds by penning three pages each day “about anything and everything that comes into your head,” 750 Words falls somewhere between a blog and a journal. An extremely minimal interface lets your words flow…

Each month, the Mac|Life staff gives you a peek inside our iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches to show you the latest gems, oddities, and WTFs that we’ve uncovered in the App Store. Google Currents Google Currents (free, universal) turns your favorite sites and RSS feeds into easy-to-read layouts optimized for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. No wonder Mac|Life has 200,000-plus subscribers there—it’s a much better mobile experience than viewing our website in Mobile Safari! I’m hooked. Pixel People Like a Facebook game, Pixel People (free, universal) is a trap, meticulously designed to suck away free time and keep players tapping endlessly. But while it’s not terribly deep, the adorable visuals and endless sense of discovery make this simple city-building sim plenty compelling. Comics I’m finally getting back into reading ongoing…

Note-taking apps typically range from exquisitely minimal to feature-rich powerhouses, but Write for Dropbox wants to be everything at once, and it comes as close to succeeding as any iPhone app we’ve ever used. By utilizing a nifty three-panel interface—with a tool bar, document list, and main writing window—Write deftly uses every inch of real estate at its disposal, with oodles of sharing options and a powerful expanded virtual keyboard. After linking your Dropbox account, Write instantly opens to a clean, time-stamped note, and only starts to sync once when something is jotted down. When in full-screen mode, the clean interface melts away completely, freeing up precious pixels for your words. The bottom line. Write sets a new standard for iPhone text editors, and blurs the line between Mac OS…

You don’t have to be a great artist to have a good time fiddling around with DrawQuest. This goofy little social art app for iPad encourages you to draw something new every day by giving you a prompt to follow, and then pitting you against other artists to see who can come up with the cleverest sketches. It’s a cool way to jump-start your creative spirit, but the real fun comes from sharing your creations with the game’s thriving community and voting on your favorite doodles. And while it’s fun to follow the prompts and complete daily quests, it’s almost more amusing to browse what other folks have done with the same subjects. The bottom line. DrawQuest’s social doodling challenges are silly and sublime, offering quite a bit of creative…

Put your arm straight out like you’re about to shake someone’s hand. Now twist your arm so your palm is facing down, and notice how you can feel that twist all the way up your forearm and even past your elbow. It just feels more tense. If you experience wrist or arm pain from using a mouse in the palm-down position, Evoluent’s VerticalMouse offers a more natural, more ergonomic position that may help. But the change in position means a change in gestures, too, and that takes getting used to. Luckily, the Mac driver, which installs in System Preferences, gives you lots of options: you can program the three buttons under your fingers, the scrollwheel button, and the two additional buttons under your thumb. You can even program secondary features,…

The HEX Drake Origin is a good-looking pack. Made from blended wool, the herringbone pattern is hip and doesn’t scream tech-geek. Following the trend of using natural fabrics in bags, the Drake Origin even has leather zipper pulls. The pack feels solid and well-constructed. While the Origin is advertised as holding up to a 15-inch MacBook Pro, its dimensions of 18x14x4.5 inches should accommodate the 17-inch MacBook Pro, too. It doesn’t have a million pockets to lose your items in-just a fleece-lined laptop pocket, a couple of interior organization pockets, and a padded pocket on the front to hold an iPad. While some users will like the cavernous interior, others won’t. For us, the Drake Origin was simply too big-large enough to hold another small backpack. The padded straps weren’t…

Location is everything. Your real estate agent knows it, and now your Mac can know it, too. Sidekick (previously NetworkLocation) can automatically change your Mac’s settings based on where you are: home, work, your favorite coffee shop, you name it. Obviously, you’ll be connecting to different networks at all these locations, and your Mac handles that already, switching to known networks as it detects them. Sidekick takes the idea further, by letting you configure multiple locations where you’ll use your Mac (based on the network and/or the geolocation data), and specifying plenty of settings for each location. You can choose a default printer, set the display brightness, enable/disable AirPort and Bluetooth, change the system volume, run AppleScripts, connect to a server, open applications and URLs, and more. When you arrive…

Apple loves to tout the beautiful design of the iPhone 5, from the anodized aluminum back to the diamond-cut chamfer. DSstyles has a different approach: cover the whole thing in Swarovski crystals. According to the official product certificate that comes with this case, it contains a total of 1,306 of the cut-glass crystals, and the design is eye-catching to say the least. In direct sunlight, it’s almost blinding, with colored reflections dancing around as you move the phone. If you think Apple’s slim, smooth phone is hard to grip, the crystals give you a more tactile surface to hold onto, but the lovely chamfer is totally covered by a less-than-lovely white edge that picked up smudges of dye from our jeans pocket. The crystals can come off if you snag…

While time-lapse photography might look quite complicated, it’s actually pretty simple. You don’t need a video camera, but you do need a camera that has an interval timer (some remote shutters offer this), the patience to stand around for ages shooting each sequence, and some software to turn your folder full of still images into a movie. Sequence 1.1 does this incredibly quickly—you simply drop your folder of stills onto a big import window, wait a few moments while the software renders a preview of your movie, and then watch as your time-lapse movie plays back. You can export it in any of a variety of file formats, resolutions, and frame rates, as required. Sequence can also tackle one of the big problems with time-lapse movies: the flicker effect caused…

My mom used to tell me I would forget my head if it wasn’t attached. My husband has the patience of a saint, circling back to our house when I realize a block away that I forgot my iPhone. Kensington’s Proximo system isn’t the first of its kind, but its combination of durable, affordable hardware and a well-designed iPhone app is finally helping me stop losing and forgetting things. The key fob has a button I can push to activate the Find My iPhone siren, an old-timey “a-ROO-ga!” horn. (Sounds can be customized in the Proximo app, and they play even if your phone’s silent switch is on.) If they keys themselves are hidden, the iPhone app helps me locate them with sound if they’re within Bluetooth range, about 30…

I’ve avoided iTunes 11 so far because I understand it won’t allow me to have two or three playlist windows open at the same time. For me that’s a deal breaker, as I’m a radio DJ and I use iTunes while on the air to queue up songs. Is there any way to have multiple windows open in iTunes 11? With iTunes 11, Apple removed the ability for users to open multiple windows for playlists (previously available by double-clicking on a playlist in the sidebar). If you’ve already upgraded and are missing the feature, then there are two alternatives available to you. For one, you can have the MiniPlayer and regular window open at the same time, giving you the ability to queue up songs in one window, while playing…

In years gone by, screen-recording on a computer could be a tricky business. So tricky, in fact, that many people simply resorted to pointing a video camera at their computer screen, which was far from a perfect solution. The graphics technology wasn’t really up to it—computers didn’t have the raw power to run the apps you wanted to capture as well as the software that did the capturing. Various applications came and went, each a little better than the last, but nothing could have prepared users for ScreenFlow, an incredibly slick and elegant tool for not only recording a Mac’s desktop but adding all manner of advanced animation, titling, and transitions, as well. You may ask why anyone would want to record their desktop in the first place, but there…

“B-b-b-blinded by the light!”—Susie, burning her corneas with reflections from a Swarovski crystal-encrusted iPhone case (see p72) “I kept waiting for the zombies to show up.”—John, realizing too late that his wife had grossly misrepresented Downton Abbey when convincing him to watch it with her “Of course I’ve seen Ratatouille! I love me a good rat!” —Chris H., discussing his love of animation and rodents “How’s your cycling going, Mark?” —Robin, inspired by her own self-imposed exercise regiment “Well, I fell off my tricycle last week and skinned my knee. Sniff...got a hankie?”—Mark, recovering from his physical and emotional bruises…

WIN A VERTICAL MOUSE! This issue is all about feeling your best, from our feature on health and fitness apps and gear, to our walkthrough on setting up your desk ergonomically. And our lead review is this Evoluent VerticalMouse 4 (www.evoluent.com), which can ease wrist pain by letting you keep your arm straight while you use your mouse. It retails for $100 and up, but if you win our May contest you’ll be mousing in comfort without spending a dime. Who’s a Winner? In our February issue, our friends at Moshi put together a sweet prize package of goodies (their touchscreen-friendly Digits gloves, backlit Luna keyboard, Moshi Audio headphones, and an iPhone or iPad case). That’s currently winging its way to our lucky winner, Christopher McKeon. Congrats, sir! OUR CONTESTS…

Apple users may love the convenience of iTunes in the Cloud for movies and TV shows, but six Hollywood studios continue to push a completely different solution for streaming or downloading your favorite content. UltraViolet is a digital “locker” that keeps track of which movies you own. When linked to a supported content provider, this data is used to enable streaming or downloading from your account there. Whereas iTunes in the Cloud is exclusively for Apple hardware, UltraViolet believes consumers should be able to buy once and play anywhere. To accomplish this, customers sign up for a free UltraViolet account, which is then linked to services like VUDU, CinemaNow, or Flixster. Buy UV-enabled content from one service and within moments it will show up in your library everywhere. There are…

LIFE OF PI $14.99 in HD (also available to rent) I loved the book but missed the movie in theaters, so I was excited to see its arrival on iTunes weeks ahead of the March 12 DVD/Blu-ray release. Now I can watch it in HD on my Apple TV, and the iTunes Extras include a 19-minute making-of documentary called “A Remarkable Vision.” (You get many more extras on the 2-and 3-disc DVD/Blu-ray releases, just FYI.) Even in 2D, it’s mesmerizing. CONNECTED: AN AUTOBLOGOGRAPHY ABOUT LOVE, DEATH AND TECHNOLOGY $9.99 in SD (HD is $12.99; also available for rent) Director Tiffany Shlain’s moving documentary will appeal to anyone who’s pondered if technology is bringing us closer together or distracting us from what’s really important. As she works on her film about…

Don’t forget the iBookstore, for gorgeous cookbooks you can read on your iPad and iPhone. Easy Vegetarian Recipes, a huge, well-illustrated collection by the editors of Instructables is free, and the recipes are simple enough for novice cooks. For a hands-off way to try the Paleo diet, The Paleo Slow Cooker ($12.99) will give you tons of gluten-free, low-carb recipes for your Crock-Pot to slave away on all day. The Instant Energy Recipe Book ($1.99) is a great intro to cooking healthily, and the editors of Food & Wine magazine offer 20-recipe collections for $0.99 each, including Vegetarian, Gluten-Free, Brunch & Breakfast, and more. Whatever your tastes, there’s bound to be something great, so gorge on the free samples until you find your favorites.…

Do you travel a lot, or maybe you just really hate the gym? Wello.co offers individual and group workouts (one trainer teaching three–five clients) over live video chat. Group workouts start at $10 per workout, and one-on-one sessions at $19, and you can buy bundles of five or more sessions to scootch those prices down a little more. They have yoga, CrossFit, boot camp, Zumba, and lots of other options. Even better, you don’t need any equipment whatsoever, just enough room to jump around in front of your Mac.…

Computer-related RSIs typically involve muscles, tendons, ligaments, and nerves in the hands, arms, wrists, shoulders, back, neck, and eyes. Some common RSIs: tendonitis, De Quervain’s tenosynovitis (thumb/wrist), epicondylitis (tennis elbow), and carpal tunnel syndrome. Signs and symptoms in order of severity: • Fatigue One part of your body gets tired before the rest—for example, the right hand before the left. • Discomfort, tightness, stiffness, ache, and muscle burn • Pain Working on a computer should not physically hurt. • Numbness and Tingling This means circulation and/or nerves are compromised. You should never disregard these symptoms. All of these signs are your body asking for attention. It is important not to brush any of them off as a necessary evil to getting your work done.…

IF IT SAYS “ERGONOMIC,” IT MUST BE GOOD FALSE The truth is there is no particular standard that dictates what a product needs to do for it to be deemed “ergonomic.” What is ergonomic for one person may not necessarily be ergonomic for another. One size does not fit all. A big rule to follow: If it hurts, don’t do it. EXERCISE BALLS ARE BETTER THAN CHAIRS FALSE Maybe…for about 15 minutes. However, lower-back support is more important than working out your core all day. When your core gets tired, you’ll need lower-back support to prevent the inevitable slouch that happens on a ball when you’re done “exercising.” MY MONITOR SHOULD BE AT ARM’S LENGTH FALSE The length of your arm does not necessarily dictate the screen-viewing distance your eyes…

iMAC SCREEN AND THUNDERBOLT DISPLAY Annoyingly shiny screens reflect the world behind you and can also invite eye and neck strain. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a good spot to set your monitor without fighting glare. Fixed heights also increase risk for neck, upper back, and eye strain. Monitor risers are visually off-putting, but stylish monitor arms aren’t cheap, plus you have to purchase a special Apple VESA mount adaptor. SOFTWARE Apple has always received admiration where accessibility is concerned. Gestures, when used well, are a great alternative to the typical static mouse grip, and the built-in speech recognition is great. Easily customized modifier keys make using non-Apple keyboards simple, which comes in handy when you want something other than a straight keyboard. LAPTOP Laptops used on their own are,…

Basecamp www.basecamp.com Aimed at teams and businesses, Basecamp is for project-based chat and collaboration, putting discussions, decisions, to-do lists, and more in one secure, convenient place. Daily emails and a live timeline of your group’s progress ensure you always know where things stand, and every action in Basecamp is signed and dated, preventing confusion about who knew what when. Monthly plans offering up to 10GB of document storage for unlimited users range from $20 to $150, based on your number of projects. For smaller projects, Basecamp Personal lets subscribers organize one-off personal jobs with to-do lists, chat, and other collaborative features for $25 apiece. Google+ Hangouts http://plus.google.com/hangouts When the workday is over and it’s time to relax, Google+ Hangouts offers streamlined video and text chatting for up to 10 Google+…

If you have a Gmail account, there’s a good chance you’re already using Google’s web app to check your email—in which case you can make the experience even better with extensions. To explore these and many other secret Gmail superpowers, just log in and click the Labs tab in the Gmail Settings page. GOOGLE MAPS PREVIEWS Adds optional interactive map previews to addresses in your mail messages. QUICK LINKS Adds a box to Gmail’s sidebar that lets you bookmark messages, searches, and more for instant access. EXTRA EMOJI Because let’s face it, emoji is like cowbell—you can never have enough. RIGHT-SIDE CHAT Swaps Gmail’s default chat position to let you see any argument from both sides. UNDO SEND Offers a brief “un-deliver” window that just might save your bacon someday.…

WeVideo www.wevideo.com With a simple mode that lets you arrange and trim clips, plus a more professional interface with a project library and multiple A/V tracks, WeVideo is like getting features from every version of iMovie in one package. But WeVideo imports media from your social networks as well as your Mac, and multiple users can collaborate on projects. Free accounts let you export up to 15 minutes of video a month at 480p, with 5GB to store footage. Monthly accounts starting at $4.99 (or $49.99 annually) increase those limits to 1 hour, 720p, and 10GB. Additional plans and 1080p exports are also available. Magisto www.magisto.com If you prefer shooting videos to editing them, just upload footage to Magisto from your computer or Google Drive (up to 600MB or 16…

Google Drive http://drive.google.com It might not be called Google Docs anymore, but Google’s family of web apps—Docs, Sheets, and Slides—are still alive and well as part of Google Drive, the search giant’s online storage locker. It doesn’t have the bells and whistles of Word or Numbers, but you’re not going to find a better or more elegant set of online office applications for free. With desktop features such as version history, collaborative editing, and numerous exporting options—as well as iPhone and iPad support—Google’s docs are still the gold standard for free web-based office suites. Zoho Docs www.zoho.com/docs If you’re looking to do more than basic office functions, look no further than Zoho, a collection of more than 25 collaborative, business, and productivity apps designed to fill any and every need…

For many, the prospect of “inbox zero” seems impossible, the unicorn of modern communication. Mailbox understands this struggle to stay atop the constant deluge of digital correspondence, and sees the problem not as a matter of personal effort, but rather perception. As such, rather than resemble typical mobile email options, Orchestra’s new iPhone app takes its inspiration from the to-do list, challenging users to clear their inboxes like checking tasks off when completed, with a handful of breezy actions used to facilitate the process. Currently designed to work only with Gmail accounts, Mailbox enables snap judgments with the swipe of a finger. Archiving an email from the inbox is done with a light swipe to the right, and a more complete right swipe sends the unwanted message to the trash.…

Video editors are often on the lookout for anything that can help streamline their workflow, and ProCutX for iPad aims to ease the process of using Apple’s Final Cut Pro X on Mac by letting you perform some tasks without having to look through stacks of menus or learn keyboard shortcuts. It’s divided into various sections so you can apply keywords and color correction, with speed controls and tool selections also in the mix, plus the giant jog wheel in the center lets you navigate clips on your timeline one frame at a time. The interface looks clean and beautiful, and some functions can indeed be accessed much faster via ProCutX, but many tools still require you to grab the mouse to put them to use. And in order to…

It’s surely difficult to craft the follow-up to the most spectacular iOS racing game ever produced, and doubly so when ditching a price point for a divisive free-to-play model. Electronic Arts attempts both with the anticipated Real Racing 3, and largely succeeds, delivering a hugely impressive free racer. You’ve never played a free mobile racer that’s half as robust or refined as Real Racing 3. Building upon the fantastic previous iteration, the game pumps even more gloss and detail into its simulation, providing a great sensation of speed and realism as you blast through real-world tracks in licensed super-cars. The controls remain expectedly stellar, and both the vehicles and environments shine, even with a full slate of 22 cars in motion, with only rare drops in detail or frame rate.…

Like Angry Birds Star Wars before it, Star Wars Pinball pairs the beloved sci-fi franchise with a proven framework: In this case, the excellent Zen Pinball, which serves up original digital tables that look and play like the real thing. Available as a standalone app, Star Wars Pinball delivers a great table based on The Empire Strikes Back, complete with moving sections based on film scenes. Two more stellar tables-inspired by bounty hunter Boba Fett and the animated The Clone Wars series-are sold within (and also in the free Zen Pinball app), with seven more on the horizon. Whether you love Star Wars or just crave a handful of new tables to dominate without rolls of quarters, it’ll do the trick. The bottom line. It’s digital pinball done right, with…

Apple may get the lion’s share of the credit for creating a curated marketplace for software, but they certainly weren’t the first. Nearly five years prior to the Mac App Store, Noise Industries debuted FxFactory, a centralized hub for buying and installing visual effects plug-ins. It’s become the de facto standard for software developers writing creative plug-ins for enhancing Final Cut Pro, Motion, Premiere Pro, and After Effects, with hundreds of options available and new choices added each month. Noise develops the front-end Mac application (and the online store) and handles the marketing, sales, and distribution. And unlike the Mac App Store, every title has a free trial, so you can try plug-ins before you commit. There’s even a handful of excellent free effects, including Pan and Zoom, Manifesto, and…

Back in 2011, I reviewed the Toddy Cloth, a beautifully patterned, machine-washable microfiber cloth for cleaning your device’s screens. I raved about how its textured side whisked oily fingerprints off my grubby iPhone, and the silky side polished it up with just a few swipes. My only complaint was that it should be $10 instead of $15...and the company actually listened and dropped the price to $10. (You’re welcome.) Now, Toddy is back with the Wedge, a happy little beanbag that sits on your desk, with a little shelf to perch your iPhone or iPod touch. You can prop your device in portrait orientation, but landscape seems a little more natural. The beanbag’s cover is made of the same materials as the Toddy cloth: a plush microfiber panel, and silky…

GarageBand puts its ringtone-creation feature front and center on the welcome screen, but using its complex interface can seem like overkill when all you want to do is trim a song to ringtone length and export it to iTunes. iToner does the same thing, but with a simple, almost spartan interface. It even bundles a few premade ringtones, but they may be there solely to convince you that you can do a better job yourself. When you first launch it, you’re instructed to drag a file from the Finder onto it, but you can also click Get Ringtone and access your iTunes library that way. The handy search field speeds up the selection process, and you can even import multiple tracks at once. Your chosen tracks appear in their entirety…

You awake surrounded by water, with only a faint glimmer of land on the horizon. Slowly wading in that direction, you then find yourself on an island inhabited by vibrant trees and small animals, all of which look like they were spawned by some mythical pairing of an Apple II and a modern 3D graphics card. As you wander the terrain, each nearby element adds to the overall soundscape, creating fractured electronic music from your exploration. After some time, night falls and the trees start to dance, while a large swirl of lights in one location heralds the unknown. Do you dare step in and see what happens? That’s the first 15-or-so minutes of Proteus, an experiential indie game from Ed Key and David Kanaga, that at first might seem…

What a neat idea. According to HP, the Officejet 150 Mobile is the world’s first portable all-in-one printer, scanner, and photocopier. We’ve seen portable printers and mobile scanners before, but never both functions in the same unit. It could be of real interest to business travellers or real estate agents who spend a lot of time away from the company laser printer or their home office all-in-one inkjet. Although portable, it measures 14x7x3.5 inches and weighs 6.4 pounds, or 6.8 with the optional battery fitted; it can be stowed neatly in your suitcase, but don’t expect to slip it into your briefcase with your MacBook. The battery’s good for 500 print-outs, which is very impressive, and you can use AC power if you take the cable and transformer with you.…

After so many licensed properties have received the LEGO treatment in recent years, it’s easy to blow them off and assume a new game won’t bring anything different to the table. But in the case of LEGO The Lord of the Rings, developer Traveller’s Tales has crafted something of a culmination of its efforts over the years. Yes, there’s still some serious familiarity in the gameplay, but the journey to Mordor with Frodo and company is also the top digital LEGO experience to date. Spanning the story of all three films (based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s novels), LEGO The Lord of the Rings jumps around a bit from character to character, as needed. You may spend one chunk of the game dodging Ringwraiths with Frodo and Sam, or face off against…

Function keys have long been a staple of computer keyboards. On most computers, including Macs, they appear as a row of keys above the numbers. The historical reason for function keys was to provide a means of inputting programmable actions—in other words, you could assign a command to a function key and subsequently easily trigger it. More recently, though, function keys have increasingly been used to provide you with fast access to very commonly performed tasks as defined by the computer’s manufacturer. On Mac laptops, Apple long ago started adding such predefined actions to function keys, and this eventually crossed over to desktop Macs, as well. If you buy any modern Mac, you’ll see playback controls for media apps, volume keys, and a pair of keys for setting display brightness…

With the introduction of iOS 6 last fall, Apple debuted a new feature to many users that previously required a third-party application. Panorama shots are all the rage nowadays, and the Camera in iOS 6 on modern devices supports the ability to capture stunning panoramic shots with relative ease, and without fussing with any costly third-party apps. We’ll show you how to capture a panorama, as well as some of the lesser-known tricks this feature offers. WHAT YOU NEED LEVEL: easy » An iOS device running iOS 6 1 Basic Captures To begin, fire up the Camera app and touch the Options button, then select Panorama. The feature works only in portrait mode, as to capture the greatest number of pixels for a single panoramic shot. If you try to…