Schoolhouse 2 | The homework manager for Mac.
Nice looking software manager for students. Though, at first glance, it looks exactly like iGTD. The classcast thing looks interesting, though I wonder who else would use it. But maybe faculty at schools with limited access to content management systems would benefit from this.
I’ve worked with VLC before. Excellent free program, but hasn’t been anything groundbreaking. Now, however, they’ve added the server download. This allows you to turn a computer into a media-streaming machine which can play from DVDs, video files or even a TV encoding card.
This might be an excellent method for recasting media from your home machine. I’m lucky enough to have a home-theater PC with a Hauppage 350 digitizer. The only question is, “Where will I watch it?” Not certain I would until this can serve to a mobile phone. But even then I’ll need a nice digital broadband package for my Treo (or an eventual iPhone, after they get it into the next version).
Thus, little help for me. But this is a great tool for faculty to be able to access media for playback. I’m not certain what the licensing for a central server would be, or whether faculty could build their own, but it will certainly happen in the future.
Azarhi Software: Do Something When
Great idea. Software which responds to the proximity of other devices and connections. Basically make other software respond in the same way photo software does when a camera mounts. Currently free, but a Pro version is forthcoming. I assume it will include a fee.
A nice easy program for making distractions fade into the background. The only items which appear are the active window(s) of a single app, the dock (which can be set to hide) and the menu bar. Nice for helping yourself focus and for grabbing very clean screenshots.
45 Best Freeware Design Programs
There is just nothing better than free software. Especially useful software. I downloaded Terregen, which looks interesting even if it isn’t a good replacement for something like Bryce or Vue. Always something to learn from.
Hah! People have been complaining about the lack of a good interface for burning media in Mac OS X. Now, someone comes out with the simplest little interface on the planet. Obviously the exact design which should have been part of the Finder in the current version of X. Of course, Leopard will probably have something just like this…
iRemotePC - Free Remote Desktop and File Transfer service
This may be the most powerful remote desktop tool I’ve seen. Even allows for file-sharing and folder syncing.
Software for burning most video/audio formats to DVD. What formats? This from their site:
Supported file container formats are, amongst others, AVI, MPG, MOV, WMV, ASF, FLV, Matroska and MP4. Supported codecs are amongst others, MPEG-1\2\4 (XVid, DivX, etc.), Windows Media Audio\Video. MP3, OGG Vorbis, H264, and On2 VP5\6.
Also, Lifehacker put up a how-to: http://lifehacker.com/software/dvds/hack-attack-burn-almost-any-video-file-to-a-playable-dvd-232322.php
Peter Maurer â–¸ Software â–¸ Witch
This is just too good. Being able to alt+tab between windows might be the number one shortcut I miss from Windows when I’m on a Mac. And donationware to boot. Awesome.
While you’re there, check out Butler. Another app I use to create the quickstart links I like from Windows (not a big fan of the Dock).
Split Browser | Firefox Add-ons | Mozilla Corporation
My buddy Thomas sent this to me. Interesting, but I’m kind of so-so about this idea: being able to split a single pane in Firefox to show various URLs. I love Firefox and never use IE (except to test sites I’m designing), but it can be a memory hog. Wonder what this will to do it?