2009 Was full of great mac apps and these are my Top 5.

Record:
For the recording industry, nothing changed the game quite like Propellerheads Record. Reason has been dominating professional music production for years now, but has missed one major component, Direct to Disk Audio. Record has not only solved this issue, it has also innovated on the idea, using a real world methodology towards audio. This application tops the list as a game changer in music recording, as a sequencer, recording, mixing, and mastering suite.

Daylite:
2009 was about getting organized and no one did that better then Market Circles Daylite. With its objective-oriented approach to projects, opportunities, and contacts, MCD makes it easy to integrate this program into what ever workflow you have. This program’s defaults also point you in the right direction when it comes to getting organized with its project workflows. One of MCD’s best features was its integration with the address book and calendar, simplifying the use of this application with other apps that utilize the same services. This program won many design awards in 2009, including the Apple Design Award. Market Circle also released an iphone application and server that brought this forward-thinking app even further into the future.

Billings:
Billings is another efficient Market Circle app, used exclusively for time-based billing and invoicing. Billings features a powerful design engine to create stunning looking invoices, and enables users to merge data in an elegant way. The application is a standalone product, and works well with the Daylite project management application. Billings also has nice integration features that work well with the address book and that give Daylite a more robust way of handling billing tasks. 
        

Mac Journal:
Packed with organizing features, Mac Journal is no mere word processor. It is also an excellent way to keep your thoughts and journal entries organized. The program for the most part is pretty straight forward with great drag and drop functionality of photos, movies, and sounds. Users can add html to their entries and post the data to multiple blogs. This program is an indispensable part of any bloggers arsenal that uses WordPress, Blogger, Joomla and or Drupal as a blogging platform. Offline journal-writing is available and safe, as you can encrypt and password protect your data.

Snow Leopard:
Speed, ease of use, and more disc space all-around, Snow Leopard packs a punch as an upgrade to Apples line of Operating Systems. I have seen as much as 20 gigabytes of space return to users who have install this purchased update to Leopard. One of the biggest features of Snow Leopard were the Microsoft Exchange support in Apples Mail, Address Book, and Calendar apps. This feature alone was worth the upgrade to mac users in PC environments. The improvements to the Dock, finder and Quicktime are some of the more noticeable changes.

For all of you software-philes out there another software bundle has been released. www.mupromo.com

Great New Apps for Only $49.

Path Finder: Hands down the best of the bunch!
Socialite: This was formerly called Eventbox which I got in the last macheist but this has more features like multiple accounts so I can manage all my online lives
Yep: Not Yet Opened
Radio Gaga: I have no use for this and I don’t like the name
GarageSale: Not yet Opened but I will do a VS on this verses iSale
DragThing: This is cool but I would rather use Path Finder
Speed Download: Love this
HealthNut: Good Little Tracking app gave as a gift to a Health Nut
PCalc: This app is Solid and way over my head
Machinarium: The Best Puzzle Game I have played since Abes Odyssey
iRip: Have not Opened but I will do a VS on this verses Phone View

If you are looking for some fun free mac software check out voice candy on the Mac Heist website. In order to get the free version you must have a twitter account and tweet about Voice candy. Mac Heist will walk you through the easy steps to downloading your new wares. Voice Candy is a program that can change your voice to a Robot, Darth Vador, or even a Chipmunk. There is glorious amounts of time wasting to be done with this application. Normally Voice Candy cost around $12 so get it while it is free. Enjoy!

Here are some examples I created from Voice Candy:

Chipmunk:

Vador:

Robot:

This is not a warning these are actual shots being fired and hitting the iPhone!

The release of the Droid phone has this seasoned and loyal apple user in question if the iphone will continue to hold space in his pocket. I think Apple has gotten to comfortable in its smug little position. Who cares that you reinvented the smart phone if you let your core customers down. I feel I am pretty hard to displease but if you cross me to many times I will never indorse you again so tread lightly apple. Until now no one has come close to touching this phone because to the sheer number of apps, utility and sexiness. But as an iPhone 3G user I have slowly escalated to disdain its short comings. I actually find the phone to be dangerous while driving with its lack of voice dialing and real GPS and thought there may be an app for that it won’t run in the background for me to use at will. Some will argue the 3GS has voice dialing, but why do I have to buy a new phone when this is a software issue. Apple is notorious for putting our crippled hardware features when you know they know how to do it (“The infamous right click button comes to mind”). So I am going to list some features needed soon with no new purchase of hardware if Apple wants to keep my business.

1. Drop AT&T or add more networks like Verizon
2. Voice Dialing on all your phones
3. Bluetooth wireless sync
4. Internet Tethering
5. Real GPS and is integrated with the Address Book
6. MovieSupport on all your phones(I know you can do this because of the jail break apps)
7. Add Flash for crying out loud, No excuses

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Closing Thoughts:

The big google advantage is the Android operating system that more phones will have in the future. This and this alone posses the biggest treat to the iPhone dominance. This means there will be more and more developers clamoring to get over to Android based phones because there app will be more accessible and who knows maybe even easier to develop for. Look out Apple!

A FREE Machiest Bundle! No Way! I love free so I would not pass this up but I must say that honestly I really only found 2 useful apps in this bundle. I will spare you my talking about the others so here it is.
ShoveBox and Twitteriffic are the only apps worth Mentioning and here is why.

ShoveBox:
Give you and easy menubar way to create and organize information snippets on your computer. I find this to be far superior to using Stickies because it is alway in my upper right hand corner and I can assign quick keys to it. It is also light weight and fast

Twitteriffic:
Simple easy to use menubar interface that keeps me from using a web browser to tweet.

Now for my random rant
My biggest friction point with the web is the browser. I hate it!!! Any desktop app that reaches out to the web for one single purpose already has one points with me.

OMG just got a free netbook at the PayPal conference

When considering this article I had to consider some bias’s I have on the software described. First I must let you know that I was an “Avid” no pun intended user of Protools. I believed it to be the industry standard and holy grail of direct to disk audio recording. I bought the Digi 001 (Which is no longer Supported) in 2000 and loved the freedom and flexibility of recording on my desktop for many years. I was introduced to reason 1 about year after and was blown away by it use and application of midi which was far more advanced then the Protools implementation. I began from that point on to do all my midi work in reason and my audio work in Protools. My first problems arrived when OSX was first released and I have to pay for and upgrade to Protools but it seemed to make sense at the time. As each update and upgrade apple made to the OS, I would be charge and charged again for software with no improvement and no new features. I have worked in software for many years now and I describe and update and an upgrade like this.

Update: Fixes to bugs, compatibility fixes, improvements to existing features, FREE

Upgrade: Added Features, Added Value proposition to the software, PAID

Due to this Upgrade/Update issues I began to become frustrated with Protools. I always said if reason could record I would never use protools again. That did not come soon enough for me. I gave up on waiting for protools and started to use Apples Sound Track to record audio. Then enter record and I was compelled to compare the two.

With that said my friend who used to work at DigiDesign still try to convince me that Protools is justified in all the extra charges because of the total rewrites they would have to do to fix what Apple broke in the update. Personally as an end user I don’t care, I paid for something to work and if you wrote it fix it!

Record Pros

1. When I updated to Snow Leopard it still worked (No Paid Update required)
2. Record has the best Live audio processing I have ever used
3. Works with any audio interface
4. Record has the most awesome mixer
5. No need for rewire to use reason
6. Resembles Real Audio Gear
7. 299.00 USD full version
8. Offering a 64-bit summing bus, the mixer is modeled on the legendary SSL 9000K large-format console.
9. mix-bus compressor to polish your mix before your mastering chain.
10. Built-in audio time stretch
11. Unlimited Audio Tracks
12. World Class FX, Mixing and Mastering Gear
13. Large number of Software instruments

Record Cons

1. Hard to set up multiple audio interfaces
2. locked to a hardware key

Protools Pros

1. Lots of plugins
2. $279.00 lowest end version with hardware
3. 48 simultaneous stereo audio tracks
4. A complete award-winning songwriting, multi tracking, mixing, and production environment
5. 7 vintage analog emulation processing plug-ins, including Moogerfooger effects
6. 7 virtual instruments including drums, piano, organ, synths, and samplers
7. Full MIDI recording and editing, including control of virtual instruments

Protools Cons

1. If Protools breaks as a result of a system update DigiDesign will charge you
2. Years of horrible midi implementation
3. Works only to DigiDesign or M-Audio Hardware
4. Non reliable Rewire Implementation

1. Cumbersome Audio and FX implementation
2. Don’t have to use rewire to have good midi
3. Protools Midi Sucks
4. Record

Record Wins!

I will keep adding to this list as I learn how much better the program is

I know from personal experience this is painful to set up and hopefully this tutorial will help you get up and running with Drupal and Mac journal. Setting up remote clients with Mac Journal made my purchase worth it’s weight in gold.

Drupal Set Up

Log in: to your Drupal Site
Goto: Administer >Site building > Modules
Click: Enable the Blog and Blog API
Click: Save Configuration

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Goto: Administer › Site configuration > BlogAPI
Click: Blog Entry
Click: Save Configuration

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Mac Journal Set Up

Go to Journal: Edit Blog Server

Name your Blog and Set up

Click: “Manual Setup”

The next page should auto complete.
Select: Type: “Movable Type” or “Meta WebLog”
Click: “Reload”
Click: The Drop-down arrow next to “reload” and select “blog” for the Blog ID
Click: “OK”

When you are ready to share and entry
        Goto Share: Send to: “Your Blog

As soon as I bought Mac Journal I wanted to figure out how to do this. I could not find enough documentation on the Mariner Software site to do this so I figured I would help people out by making this tutorial.
If there is anything unclear pleas contact me by leaving a comment on my blog.

Word Press Set Up

1. Log in to your word press blog
2. Scroll down to the Menu: Settings – Writing
3. Click: Enable the Atom Publishing Protocol.
4. Click: Enable the WordPress, Movable Type, MetaWeblog and Blogger XML-RPC publishing protocols.

Mac Journal Set Up

Go to Journal: Edit Blog Server

Name your Blog and Set up

A valid blog should be found

The next page should auto complete. Then click “Ok”

When you are ready to share and entry
        Goto Share: Send to: “Your Blog”

I installed Record on my studio PC using the online verification and since I already linked and verified app the Reason application was auto unlocked. This lead to my discovery that reason is already a part of record. Some may not understand that you don’t need to open reason again once you install record. The way you interface with mixer is the main difference I found but it should feel familiar for reason user.