Review – Snapper from Audio Ease

Let’s say you are about to make the perfect voicemail message but it doesn’t include the right background noise to convey exactly how things are in your home . Then suddenly it dawns on you. You need that audio file you had of screaming monkeys. You open a Finder window full of audio files with user friendly names such as xq235.mp3 and realize this is going to take awhile. Apparently someone at Audio Ease also lost the screaming monkeys audio file because their application, Snapper, is perfect to help you out of that pickle.
Snapper is a Finder add-on that pops up a little window below your finder or iTunes window. Whenever you highlight an audio file Snapper lets you preview and manipulate it. In addition to giving you audio previews, Snapper provides you a bunch of data on the file and generates a waveform. The time required to generate the waveform depends on the size of the sound file. For small files it is very quick. For a 128kbps encoded version of Miles Davis’ “All Blues” it took about 8 seconds on my MacBook Pro.
Once Snapper has your audio file up you can then very easily crop and convert sections. This is perhaps Snapper’s most impressive feature. It is quite intuitive as you begin selecting segments of audio and dragging it into your Finder window. For ProTools users, you can send a clip directly into your ProTools project. After little time you’ll become quite conversant with Snapper clipping and converting to your heart’s desire. There is something quite satisfying about selecting a portion of a song with your mouse and dragging it out. If you are looking to load up your iPhone with ringtones, this could speed the job up. Snapper’s information panel can be customized and provides immediate access to just about any metadata you could ever need. While there are plenty of tools available in Snapper I thought the interface could use some polish.
I couldn’t find any sound file on my Mac that Snapper couldn’t play. The developer explains Snapper can open over 50 different file types. If you want the Snapper window to attach to your iTunes window you can enable that function in the preferences. I tried it and then turned it off because the wave form generation was slowing me down.
There are a few things Snapper doesn’t do. It doesn’t organize sound files. It really is made to latch onto a file more than organize it. Also, although you can manipulate the files, it doesn’t really act as a sound editor in any traditional sense.
Snapper excels at quick and dirty clips and conversions in Finder organized audio. If you already have audio software on your Mac, there probably isn’t anything that Snapper does that you can’t already do with your existing software. For me, Snapper’s best selling point was its convenience. It was much faster doing quick clips than any of my existing Audio software.
Unfortunately, at a price of $79.95, I think Snapper misses the mark. There is some very robust audio software out there at or around the same price that can do much more than Snapper. I suspect the ProTools integration may be its biggest selling point at its current price. While this is a handy application, I think it would be much more attractive around the $20 price point.
The good news is Audio Ease has a fully functional 100 day demonstration so you can kick the tires for over three months if Snapper sounds interesting to you. You can download it at audioease.com.

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Review – Otterbox Armor iPhone Case

This review was also broadcast on the MacReviewCast #148.
Remember when the iPhone first released and there were just 3 cases on the market? Well that was eight months ago and now there are more like 3,000 cases on the market. To be honest I had little interest in any of them. I have an invisible shield on my phone (although I’m often tempted to remove that as well) and that is it. It works fine. Fits in my pocket and gives me no troubles.
I must admit however that I was very intrigued by the products offered by OtterBox. They specialize in cases that are more functional than pretty. Put simply, Otterbox is in the protection business.
The reason I was attracted to Otterbox is that while I usually don’t need a case at all, I sometimes need one desperately. Our home is very near some of the areas that got burned out in the California fires this year and I’ve taken to hiking through the woods and taking pictures. Likewise, I often find myself chasing my kids through things like tidepools and beaches with my phone in my pocket.

This is why I got an Otterbox Armor iPhone case. This case is the Sherman tank of iPhone cases. It opens with two sturdy latches. Inside is a stereo plug that slides into your iPhone and a rubber grip to hold it snug.
You then close the case and lock it down with the side tabs. On the outside is a translucent material that allows you to operate the touch interface with a noticeable, but not unusable, bit of resistance. This may have been amplified my invisible shield. It has an external headphone jack (not recessed) and external buttons that (with some mashing) give you access to all of your primary iPhone buttons and controls. It even has small diaphragm type devices over the speakers.
Put simply, this rugged case makes your iphone waterproof, dustproof, dirtproof, sandproof, and drop-proof, kid-proof, tidepool proof, and just about anything else-proof. It has rubber on the inside and protective plastic rubbery stuff on the outside which would allow you to confidently spike your phone on the ground with little fear of damage. I don’t think there is another iPhone case out there that could take a beating the way this one could. It can even go underwater. That is right. The iPhone submarine. According to the manufacturer it could go as deep as three feet.
Now I love participating in the Mac community and I will go to great lengths for my fellow Mac geeks, but sinking my iPhone three feet in the pool was one shot I just couldn’t take for the team. Instead I put a wad of tissue in the case and then sank it three feet for 15 seconds. When I pulled it out, I opened it up and the tissue was remarkably dry. I couldn’t see any signs of water intrusion inside the case. I don’t think you can take your phone scuba diving with this case but if I do end up dropping it in the tidepools someday, I’ll probably be alright.
They have one version that is black on black and another that is black and yellow. The Armor is not what I would call an elegant case. It is attractive though … in the same way a muddy Range Rover driving out of the jungle is attractive. It is big and bulky and completely contrary to that elegant simplicity that you always find in Apple design. However, if you are going to beat the heck out of your phone, the Armor is for you. I keep mine in my car so when I decide to hit the beach or go for a hike, into the Otterbox Armor it goes. The armor sells for about $70 and you can find it at many online retailers.

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Review – Audioengine W1

For those of you not familiar with Audioengine, it is a speaker company that specializes in outstanding consumer speakers. Audioengine’s self powered A2 and A5 speakers sound terrific .
Audioengine just released a new product, the W1 which is two small devices. One is marked “sender” and the other “receiver.” These units, which are each the size of a pack of chewing gum allow you to send a wireless audio signal from any one device to just about any other device in your home.

Setting up the W1 is very simple. You need an audio signal through an eighth inch stereo plug and power. There is no software to configure. The two devices automatically find each other and pair up. For power, the W1 requires a USB port. This can be the USB port in your computer or one of those little AC USB plugs. The W1 comes with one of the portable AC adapters and I had a second one from my iPod so this was not a problem. Not so coincidentally, the Audioengine A5 speakers come with a built in USB plug so if you are using A5’s, you truly have “plug and play.”
Let me give you a few examples of how I used the W1. First, I streamed audio from my Mac to my stereo. This worked fine across three rooms up to about 80 feet. Beyond that the signal started to degrade a bit. Most interestingly, however, is that there was no noticeable lapse. I was able to watch Indiana Jones’ lips on my Mac and hear his voice through my stereo without detecting anything out of sync. The product specifications list the latency as less than 20 milliseconds. I also hooked up my MIDI keyboard to my Mac and began klunking away in Logic. Again, I had the W1 attached to my Mac and fed into my stereo. This allowed me to get a full rich sound with no discernible lag. It sounded much better than the lousy speakers I’m currently running off my keyboard. It was also helpful when editing music. I am currently working on one song that uses 10 instruments. When I try to play it back through my Mac speakers, a lot of it gets washed out. Piping it through to my stereo with the W1 made it a lot easier.
So using the W1 on your Mac gives you near simultaneous wireless audio through an external source. I can definitely get used to this. This, of course, leads to the next question, how is the Audio signal?
Audioengine explains the W1 is supposed to provide CD-quality HD stereo sound with no reduction in audio quality. I really wasn’t sure what that means. I ran an informal test where I played a CD through the stereo connected with optical cable and then loaded the CD into my Mac and played the same track through the W1. I tried to hear a difference. I really tried. I had to strain to tell a difference. The Audioengine folks told me the quality matches or exceed the Airport Express. After running a separate comparison with my Airport express, I believe them. In the end I concluded that if you get near the 100 foot range of the device you will hear a difference. Also if you are an audiophile with a very good ear, you may hear a difference. But I doubt someone like that would be interested in any wireless solution.
In addition to testing the range of the W1, I also did everything I could to interfere with the wireless signal. I rang the cordless phone, operated data services on my iPhone, dowloaded some files over my Airport network, and ran the microwave oven all at once and there was no discernible effect on the W1 audio quality.
Once I got comfortable with the W1 I began looking around my house for other devices I could use it on. I ran my subwoofer on it with no problems. So if the cable under the carpet ever fails, I’m good to go. A few days ago I had to get some work done in the garage but wanted to hear the presidential primary debate. There is no TV in my garage. So I attached the W1 to my television audio out and hooked up my portable iPod speakers in the garage. It worked fine. I even hooked up the W1 “Sender” to my Generation 1 iPod nano and wirelessly blasted music through my stereo.
I don’t think you can review this product without comparing it to Apple’s Airport Express. While on the surface these products seem very similar, in fact they are quite different. The W1 works from any source, not just your computer, and requires no software. The W1 allows you to use it in a variety of contexts and essentially becomes a 100 foot long wireless cable you can use between just about any of your components. Because there is no software, there is no limitation. Just about anything with an audio out can pipe over the W1. I looked hard for something really old to try on the W1. Like an original Mac or my old Atari 400 computer. Unfortunately, I’m not much of a pack rat and all that stuff is long gone. However, I did find a 25 year old Walkman cassette player in the garage with a tape still in it. It worked fine with the W1. This leads to two questions. First, is there anything the W1 won’t work with and second, why did I have a Debbie Gibson cassette?
In contrast the Airport Express is a dedicated product that allows you to stream music or provide a remote ethernet or USB port to your network. It doesn’t require a dongle from your computer and all the Macs on your network see it wherein with the W1, only the computer with the “sending” unit attached will be able to transmit.
Another possible distinction is that the W1 runs its own network so it won’t slow down your computer network. For instance, if you are currently running a wireless N network and attach an Airport Express, it runs at “G” speed and will slow down the network. The W1 won’t be a part of your Airport network and not get in the way.
I find plenty of uses for both the Airport Express and the W1 in my home. For streaming iTunes, I’ve stuck with the Airport express. All of the Macs in the house see it and the lag doesn’t bother me since it is just music. For streaming audio with no latency, the W1 is the only tool for the job. Very low latency and superior sound quality make it the best choice. Likewise, when the source is any device other than my Mac, once again the W1 is the only option. The W1 retails for $149.00 and can be purchased directly from audioengineusa.com.

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Review – TuneRanger

I have a confession. I’ve had iPods for years and own more music than I care to admit. While I did get it all ripped into iTunes a long time ago, I’ve never really been an iTunes power user. That has been changing the last few months though. Recently I’ve started making smart playlists and autosyncing lists to get more out of my music library. This is great but it has also exposed a problem. Fancy playlists depend on good metadata like how you’ve rated a song or when the was the last time you played it. Since I have portions of my library on my laptop and a big library on the family desktop (not to mention an iPod and iPhone), keeping all of this data in sync could be a real chore. This problem gets magnified when my wife and kids get involved. I like Hannah Montana as much as the next dad, but that doesn’t mean she gets to share space with Thelonius Monk and Debussy on my iPod.
While at Macworld this year I found a small company named Acertant Technologies that had a booth right behind the Apple area, that section where all of the best little developers seem to land. Anyway, I met Manny Menendez who showed me an application he developed for precisely my iTunes problems called TuneRanger.
TuneRanger connects all of your iTunes libraries. It then compares the libraries and allows you to share data between them. This doesn’t just include the music files but also all of the metadata.
When you first open TuneRanger it gives you a window that shows your local iTunes library and any other libraries on your network. It then gives you drop down lists of playlists on both libraries and gives you several options. When choosing what to sync you have a variety of filters available including duplicate files, license IDs, file types, genre, artists, album names, and song titles. You can also instruct TuneRanger to trash files marked for deletion or move them to a different folder for later review and deletion.

You can force one library upon another or synchronize them. Once you give TuneRanger its instructions it does a preliminary analysis and gives you a dialog telling you what it is going to do and offering you a chance uncheck any specific action. Once you tell it to go, TuneRanger then does the syncrhonization. This doesn’t just work with other computers in your network. It also works with your iPod. You can actually pull music off your iPod and place it in your iTunes library with TuneRanger. TuneRanger is also multiplatform so if part of your library is on a Vista or XP box, you still can synchronize. Since I’ve purged all PC’s from my home, I was unable to test this feature.

Before using TuneRanger, I treated our desktop computer as the source for all iTunes music. All music had to be ripped on that machine and all iTunes purchases had to be made on that machine. I then had to manually copy the stuff I wanted over to my laptop usually losing all metadata. TuneRanger has really liberated me of this whole process. I can now finally use the iTunes button on my iPhone or buy music on my laptop. It is no trouble to then later upload it to the desktop computer with TuneRanger. It really is that easy.
The application costs $29.99 and includes 5 single platform licenses so you will have no trouble getting it on all of the Macs in your household. There is also a free trial available at www.acertant.com. You should be warned though, since getting TuneRanger on my Mac, I’ve spent a lot more money downloading music.

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Review – BusySync

Calendar syncing is a subject that can strike fear into the hearts of anyone who uses it. If your calendar data is important enough that you must sync it, you also probably can’t afford to lose it. Unfortunately the very process of syncing calendars on computers often has that very effect. With my Treo it was really bad. Somedays I’d sync and lose all my appointments. Other times I would end up with four copies of every appointment. It got to the point where I would just plug in and pray.
Nevertheless, I desperately need a calendar syncing solution in my home. The Sparks home is a hectic place under the best of circumstances. Because we are all so busy, it is embarrassing how often we double book ourselves and end up having to cancel plans.
It was with this problem in mind that I found myself at the BusyMac booth at Macworld looking at BusySync. The developers told me this application could reliably sync calendars with all of the Macs in my home without these headaches and without an OS X server. This is something I had to see.
BusySync allows you to share calendars. You can pick and choose which calendars to share and what kind of access you are giving the other users. You can give read only or write access. You can require a password, or not. BusySync then goes out over Bonjour or the internet and Syncs with other iCal users. Over Bonjour the syncing is really fast. Within seconds. I’ve been using it for two week now and am happy to report it just works.
In addition to giving you the ability to customize your sharing, BusySync also give you the ability to restore from a backup. Indeed BusySync keeps ten backups of your calendar at all times so if things do get all kerfluffled, you can restore with one click. Thank You BusyMac.
BusySync is the brain child of John Chaffee and Dave Riggle. These guys have long Mac calendar roots and were the original developers of Now Up-to-Date for the Mac back in 1991.
Getting back to the Sparks house, we now can all see each other’s calendars and we have a new calendar called “Family” so when we are planning that trip to the mountains we can all see it. If my wife wants to “schedule” me to watch the kids while she goes crafting with her friends she can first check to see if I’m stuck in court. Suddenly we aren’t double booking on top of each other and peace has broken out. Well sort of.
It gets better though, BusyMac is about to release version 2 of BusySync that allows you to also sync your iCal data with Google calendars. So with this one product you will get networked calendar syncing and Google sync allowing you to view and modify your calendars from any Mac or (dare I say it?) PC.
A BusySync license will cost you $20 per computer. When version 2 is released, the price will go up to $25 per computer but the upgrade will be free to licensed version 1.5 users. Not only that, BusyMac has agreed to give an additional discount to readers and listeners. For a limited time, you can get a 20% discount on BusySync by entering the coupon code “MACSPARKY”. Just go to www.busymac.com/buy and enter the coupon code.

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Review – OmniFocus

Omnifocus is the Omni Group’s submission in the growing field of OS X task management programs. OmniFocus has been in development over a year. I was fortunate to get into the alpha test early and I’ve actually been using OmniFocus as my exclusive task management application since June.
I am a believer in keeping tasks lists. I would like to say this arises from some inherent sense of order and organization. In truth however, it arises from my very early realization that I am scatterbrained and often have the attention span of a goldfish. As a result, I write things down. I’m not just talking grocery lists here. If I can not do something immediately, I write it down. Since I do the legal work several companies and have other commitments with my family, my community, and macsparky, this list gets pretty long. So getting back to that part about being scatterbrained I am constantly throwing tasks into OmniFocus. When do I need to prepare for trial? When do I need to volunteer at my daughters’ school? When do I need to clean the air filter and rotate the tires? For someone like me, dumping these things into a system is liberating. Trying to track even a small percentage of these things without tools like OmniFocus could get really ugly, really fast.
So the Omni Group enlisted some very smart productivity folks and came up with OmniFocus, an application designed to hold all those tasks you are carrying around in your head and spit them out to you in small, bite sized, pieces.
The first part of any task system is input. That is, how do you get your tasks into the system? In OmniFocus, the best place for me to do this is the planning window. In it I can create folders and projects and load them up with tasks. You can customize this window to be as simple or complex as you need it. I use the fields for description, project, context, start, and due dates. OmniFocus helps you here anticipating your entries. For instance, I have a project for my fantasy football league, the Riddiculous Football League. If I type “RFL”, OmniFocus figures that out for me. It does the same thing for client projects. Likewise, OmniFocus is very smart on dates. I can list a due date by writing the month and date (like 1/15) or contextually like “4d” for three days or the monday in two weeks “2w Mon”.
Entering new projects and filling them with tasks is easy enough this way. However a lot of time I think of tasks when I’m not even in OmniFocus. For this, the application has a very handy quick entry panel. So I can be in Safari and be inspired to add a task to some project of mine. I’ve mapped a key combination that allows me to open the quick entry panel which also recognizes all of the project and date shortcuts you get inside OmniFocus. It takes just seconds to create.

Another feature for task entry is clippings which allows you to select text inside your browser or mail program and with a simple key combination create a quick entry task item with the text attached. Speaking of mail you can also preface emails to yourself that OmniFocus will read as new tasks and input them automatically.

Once the tasks are in you can add notes and attachments to them. I scan most important documents that come my way and drop them into OmniFocus as an attachment to their corresponding tasks so when it comes time to get to work, I don’t have to go searching for the related documents.
Once you’ve got your tasks inside OmniFocus, you can organize them by project or context. But that is really just the first step. OmniFocus has a series of filters you can apply to these modes to sort by folder, due date, start date, durations, flags, and several other criteria that you may, or may not, care to use. Once you have a set of filters set up just the way you like you can save that as a Perspective. You can save all of your favorite Perspectives and access them with just one click. I’ve set up several Perspectives on my system and jump between them as I go through my day.
The print dialogue also gives you several options if you want to make a hard copy which is nice if you are going to be away from your mac. Another trick I use is to print portions of my task list to pdf and then email the pdf to myself so I’ve got it on my iPhone.

OmniFocus also has a robust syncing system with iCal. I used it for awhile but found iCal’s task management system so anemic that I just turned that feature off. Now I just manage tasks in OmniFocus and have no complaints.

Using all of these tools together is what makes OmniFocus really shine. I usually spend about 15 minutes every morning planning things out and prioritizing as necessary. I then spend the rest of the day checking off items and adding new items as projects and tasks present themselves. I’ve got a lot of plates in the air and OmniFocus has really helped me keep them from smashing to the floor.
OmniFocus was not developed as a “kitchen sink” application. By this I mean the developers had a clear idea of what they wanted and did not include every conceivable feature. For instance it does not support numerical prioritization like some task management applications do. I thought I would miss this feature but I haven’t. The application does allow you to “flag” certain items and that is enough for me.
OmniFocus also does not allow you to easily synchronize between multiple Macs. I read in the forums that some users accomplished this by keeping their data on a thumb drive but a .mac sync solution would be very nice. Likewise, a way to easily sync and amend this data on my iPhone would be great. Fortunately, this is just a 1.0 release and the Omni folks have stated their intention to tackle these problems with future updates after Apple releases the iPhone SDK.
OS X is very fortunate to have a variety and ever growing set of task management applications. Having tried a lot of them I find OmniFocus to be perfect for my particular needs. It is scaleable and can grow (or shrink) depending on how busy things get for you. A license will cost $79.95 which is not cheap, especially in light of the fact many competent alternatives are free. You can get $20 off if you already own an OmniOutliner Pro license. Regardless, if you spend as much time managing tasks and projects as I do, this investment is well worth it. The people at Omni Group just deliver. Every day I find myself using their products and being more productive, efficient, and just looking better to my clients. In that respect OmniFocus is entirely what I expected: reliable, efficient, and helpful. You can download a free trial at OmniGroup.com.
You can listen to the above review on The MacReviewCast Episode 142.

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Review – VoodooPad

As much as I like Pages and Scriviner for word processing, sometimes I just want a down and dirty text editor. For this purpose I have been using OS X‚Äôs built in text editor.
I know there are some very powerful text editor replacements out there that are very helpful to code jockies but I‚Äôm not sure how useful those applications would be to someone like me who writes a lot more documents than programs. Furthermore, I often use text files to dump ideas as I explained in one of my Quicksilver screencasts. Not to be dissuaded from my never ending quest for shiny new software I decided to give Flying Meat‚Äôs VoodooPad a try as a possible text editor replacement.
While VoodooPad is a text editor, it really is much much more. In essence it is a personal Wiki that allows you to to create links on the fly as you type. For instance I have a page in VoodooPad called Mac and on that page I have created several links including things such as MacSparky article ideas, MacWorld packing list, and a few other lists and resources that don’t really fit anywhere else on my system. VoodooPad can automatically number the lists or make bullets. In addition to letting me create the lists, VoodooPad allows me to link them together and search them.
This just doesn’t work for text though. You can also drop in URL’s, images, pdfs, and you can even draw your own pictures using a tablet or (if you are really skilled) a mouse. This system becomes almost viral in nature. In the month I’ve been using it I’ve created over a hundred pages including research for my clients, gift ideas for upcoming birthdays and even potential titles for my MacSparky business cards.
Regardless, it is all easily searchable once inside VoodooPad. Some other nifty features includ LinkBack which allows you to paste content from a linkback enabled application and reopen it with just a few clicks. I was very pleased to discover this works for both OmniOutliner and OmniGraffle. It also allows a form of tagging by assigning categories and supports scripting and allows you to publish directly to the web. It has a feature to export to iPod notes but this does not work with the iPhone which is too bad.
To be honest I really didn’t know what I was getting into with VoodooPad when I started using it. It is similar in nature to Yojimbo yet not quite. I’m not sure if it fills a different niche or is just a different way to work. The interface is much more stripped down. I’d almost call it old school. Black and white and a lot of text. Those of us that remember Macs that used to say “hello” will appreciate that. The fact that it is stripped down does not impact efficiency though. It actually improves it.
I’ve been using VoodooPad as a notebook replacement. It is stable and lightweight. The feature set is well crafted and not overdone. I still haven’t figured out how it fits in with my other data collection programs but while I sort it out my VoodooPad seems to just collect more and more data. You can download VoodooPad from Flying Meat Software which is Gus Mueller’s company that makes other great Mac applications such as Acorn and Fly Sketch. They sell three versions with increasing feature sets. The lite version is free, the standard version is $29.95, and the pro version is $49.95. This review was of version 3.2.3 of the VoodooPad Pro
This week on MacSparky I blogged several new software updates, MacWorld and some of my favorite Menubar aplications. Stop on by and check it out.

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Review – BeeDocs Timeline

This week I’m reviewing a timeline program. Now I know right now a lot of people are rolling their eyes but I love timelines. I actually get excited about them. I think I like timelines because they are visual and a lot of times you see relationships and ideas on a timeline that don’t jump out at you any other way. Until recently I always made timelines using brute force and even on occasion (Dare I say it?) graph paper and a pencil! This changed when a reader and friend turned me onto an excellent application for OS X called, Timeline published by Bee Docs.
Timeline is a simple little application that does nothing but make quick, jaw-dropping timelines. My review is of version 2.0 that just recently was released. When you first load up Timeline, it presents a simple interface that allows you to pick a theme (I like gradient style “Pleather” theme) and a data source which can be any one of several applications or your own custom data set. Setting up a new Timeline is that simple.

Choosing the custom option allows you set up your own timeline that can cover the past 10,000 years or the past 10 minutes. Each entry is made by simply hitting the little “plus” sign and filling in your data. The data can include much more than the obligatory name and date fields. It also supports date ranges, description, photos, and links. This gives you the ability to easily create rich timelines with little work. One of my favorite parts of this is how the program makes room for every entry. Before Timeline, I always found it tedious when I decided to add an event to a timeline and ended up having to scooch everything over to to make it fit.

As an example I prepared a timeline for a client on a dispute I’m involved with where I included images of key contracts and letters throughout a transaction. It took me all of about ten minutes to prepare and looked very professional. Even more importantly, it was critical in conveying important information. Following the meeting I emailed a PDF of the timeline (accomplished with one click in Timeline) and the client and I still refer to it in our phone conversations.
If you don’t want to make a custom data set, Timeline will pull its data out of your iLife applications as well as a few others. Timeline even found Skitch on my machine as a source of timeline data. Using the iLife integration I made a timeline of my most recently played iTunes songs, birthdays from my address book, and photos from iPhoto. I was able to incorporate photographs and links with almost no effort.

The software developer, Adam Behringer, is a fellow Mac enthusiast with whom I’ve been trading email. Adam explained he turned software developer when Apple released OS X. He has now released version 2.0 which adds all the picture and link goodness I descried above. Adam explained the vision for Timeline has always been to create an application where the Timeline can be generated as fast as the entries are discussed and he has succeeded brilliantly.

This application would be useful for more people than geeky lawyers though. I can see this being used in education, business, marketing, and anything else that requires either future planning or summarizing past events. You can download a trial of Timeline at www.beedocuments.com. There is also a very nice (and short) video demonstration. A full license will cost you $40. However, the developer has generously given a discount code for MacSparky readers. If you type the code MACSPARKY at checkout, you will get 15% off. This discount is good through the end of January 2008.
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You can listen to the above review on The Mac ReviewCast Episode 139.

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Review – Amadeus Pro

Before I went to lawschool, I used to to pay the bills playing my saxophone. At the time, I was pretty knowledgeable about recording technology. Now if you fast forward 20 years, I’ve been reduced to a complete novice. An eager learner perhaps, but still a novice. Up until very recently I did all of my audio recording on my mac using Soundtrack. Don’t get me wrong. Soundtrack is a brilliant bit of code. But it is also very expensive and for most applications, extraordinary overkill on the level of smashing a walnut with a pile driver.
With this in mind, I’ve been playing with Amadeus Pro. This program really is a breath of fresh air for someone like me who generally only needs a simple audio recording and editing program. Behind the simple interface, however, Amadeus has some powerful editing tools, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
The interface in Amadeus Pro is simple. You’ve got a waveform and a timeline with a few self explanatory buttons like “Record” and “Stop”. It also has buttons to add, remove, or split tracks. It took me longer to plug my microphone in than it did to figure out how to start recording in Amadeus Pro.
Once you’ve made your recording, Amadeus provides a waveform that you can select and manipulate. This is the part where the simple interface conceals quite a bit of power. Selecting a portion of the recording I can apply several different filters that let me do things like removing pops and hisses. I can also normalize, change pitch, apply stereo effects, fade, and several other helpful filters.

You can also insert markers to your recordering either manually or automatically. The markers can then be used to split the recording into separate audio files. I can envision a really nice workflow where you would record your vinyl into Amadeus Pro and then have Amadeus remove those pops and hisses and then split the album into separate tracks before export. I, unfortunately, got rid of my vinyl records long before these new fangled toys came about so I wasn’t able to put it in practice.

Amadeus Pro reads and writes AAC, AIFF, Apple Lossless, MP3, MPEG 4, WAV and just about every audio file type I could ever imagine plus a few I’ve never heard of. Does anyone use the Ogg Vorbis file format? It sounds to me like something you might feed a hobbit but it is actually an open source replacement for MP3. Regardless, Amadeus can read and write it.
Amadeus Pro also does batch processing. One of my music recordings bounced a series of AIF files out of logic onto my desktop. I wanted to quickly get them into a smaller size format and I simply dropped the lot of them in Amadeus’ batch processor. You can do a lot more than just change formatting in it too. You can also apply some filters and tag the files.
There is also a tab called “Analyze” that gives a variety of audio spectrum tools. Essentially, these tools give you a visual representation of the sound. If you are skilled at using them, they can be really helpful.

Amadeus Pro is a powerful yet simple recording application with enough muscle under the hood to take care of most recording needs. It seems that the usual price for admission for recording applications is about $100. Amadeus Pro only costs $40. I was unable to find anything else with this rich of a feature set at the same price point. You can download it from the developer at Hairersoft.com.

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Review – Scrivener

This is a review that has been a long time coming. I think the most important thing a word processor can do is get out of your way. What I mean is that Hemingway wrote his genius on a napkin while I sometimes write complete drivel on my expensive MacBook Pro. No matter what software you use to write, at the end of the day it is your words and not some arbitrary feature set that determines the quality of the final product.

This is why I like Scrivener from LiteratureandLatte software. It is a word processor that attempts to help you with the words. Scrivener is not just a word processor. This application is as much about planning and organizing your writing project as it is about getting the physical words on the screen.

The first thing you need to do with most writing projects is a bit of research. Using Scrivener I can capture all of my research in the same project that I am writing my masterpiece in. When writing legal briefs I have reference cases and statutes, exhibits, and a variety of other source materials. When writing for the Mac community I also have research materials that include screencasts, images, and web pages. It doesn’t matter. Scrivener takes just about anything I throw at it and organizes it in a research tab. Scrivener doesn’t make you monkey with getting your research and your document on the page at the same time either. It easily displays your research while giving you a separate typing pane with no troubles.
Following this paradigm, Scrivener also has a virtual corkboard. Maybe I’m dating myself but I remember writing papers in school with index cards. You would summarize important points and ideas and then spread them out on a desk and start playing with their organization. Well the Scrivener developer must have had the same experience because Scrivener comes with a virtual corkboard and an endless supply of virtual notecards. All of your research and related documents are given their own index card which you can then shuffle and sort on the virtual corkboard. For those of you who remember doing this, it will feel like sliding back into a pair of comfortable shoes. For those among you that have never tried using notecards, I highly recommend it. Scrivener keeps an eye on how you move the cards around and sorts the underlying documents to conform. It also allows you to tie keywords to your notecards to make organization and retrieval easier on large projects.

If you need to reduce your notecards to an outline, Scrivener has that handled as well. This outline is much more robust that found in other word possessors but not quite up to snuff in comparison to OmniOutliner. However, with the added bonus of being attached to your research and drafts, I don’t find myself missing OmniOutliner and for someone who likes OmniOutliner as much as I do, that is saying something.
Scrivener also realizes that sometimes our editing can go a bit astray. The application has a “snapshot” feature that allows you to capture versions of a document during the editing process. You can then go back and retrieve that discarded treasure later when you come to your senses. It is a bit like Time Machine for documents.
In addition to getting you ready to write, Scrivener makes the process of writing as simple and distraction free as possible. It has a very clean full screen mode that clears all the usual diversions off your screen and provides you easy access to your research. If you are a nostalgic old guy like me, you can even configure it to be green words on a black screen. I used to write for a newspaper on one of those old machines and every time I see this view in Scrivener, it brings back fond memories.

One of the things I like about Scrivener is how it changes all the rules. Page formatting is not there. Instead you have these various chunks of text displayed in a visual way that is very conducive to making the actual words better and less prone to the white noise a lot of word processors can throw your way. This doesn’t mean you can’t do your standard formatting in Scrivener. It just doesn’t become your focus.
If you are writing a screenplay, Scrivener also has built in tools for you that covers the basics of Script editing and exports to other scriptwriting software. I played with these tools a bit but have no experience scriptwriting and really have no ability to give an informed opinion on this issue.
Once you’ve got your document written, Scrivener can print it for you or export it in one of several formats including Microsoft Word, text, HTML, and others. It even supports multimarkdown markup language which I’m told is important for typesetters but again this is a feature I don’t have any experience with.
In summary, I really like what Scrivener does for my writing. It actually makes the words and documents better. Scrivener is substance over form. If you find yourself managing large writing projects, you really owe it to yourself to give it a try. Scrivener will cost you $39.95. The developer has a free 30 day trial. There is also an excellent screencast on the website to show you how Scrivener works.

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