Featured Mac Download: Time Machine Over the Network with iTimeMachine
More Time Machine functions. This time for over the air, so I could potentially set up my Mac to back up to a drive connected to my HTPC.
Great app which allows you to create your own droplets. I’ve created two so far, both for rotating an image, and they happen very quickly. Barely any hesitation other than the splash screen warning you about messing with the original of an image. Certainly faster than the PhotoShop droplets I’ve worked with in the past though the newer version of Pshop may have solved that issue without a requirement to load the full Pshop engine to do the work.
Yep is a PDF organizer that mimics the iPhoto interface. I ran into something like this, on the recommendation of a professor, for the PC but had started moving to the Mac. I had considered looking up the PC version and running it through Parallels, but have hesitated to do so. This great, because I can finally start to organize some information I have worked on previously to do the same thing. I still may end up using something like DevonThink to get all of my docs sorted out. But will give this a try before moving onto something that requires $s.
One of the things I loved on my Windows machine was Norton Internet Security’s ability to hold up a connection until I said okay. My wife often heckled me on the fact that I allowed almost everything to pass through, but I learned a lot about which programs like to make silent communications to their home servers. NIce to see something like this for the Mac OS. Though I haven’t been as paranoid about Apple as I was about Microsoft, I’ve read some interesting bits about how much into Apple is pulling from their clients and want to get the same insight about OS X.
I’m loving Leopard so far. Worked out most of the kinks and have it running as smoothly as possible until HamachiX is updated to Leopard support. Time Machine is the last of the major upgrades I don’t have running, but I’m working on it soon. Maybe this week. Little apps like this can be invaluable. Won’t know until I work with Time Machine as to how often I’ll want the updates, but at least this gives you some great options.
The move to Canada has been an operation in information overflow. I started using KeePassX last summer, but it got lost in the shuffle. Now that Ana and I are both using the Mac for home items, I think we can go to keeping KeePassX on the desktop and all of our data inside.
I absolutely love it when an open-source project jumps on one of Microsoft’s big money makers. A project M$ can’t buy up or run out of business is the best form of competition that exists. And it is available for Mac as well. Don’t have a personal use for it at this time, but will keep it in mind for work efforts down the road.
Right now, I’m in the midst of cleaning up my Mac hard drive. I’m starting to wish I had held out for the larger drive, but that wasn’t the case and I have what I have at the moment. But this utility seems pretty handy if it isn’t a resource hog. Being able to quickly identify files based on size and location for cleanup/backup is a necessity.
Since I installed Parallels, I find myself constantly in Windows using a variety of software not available on the Mac (some because I haven’t bought the Mac version yet, some because there is no Mac version) and wishing I could access my Mac files. MacDrive seems like a great piece of software to make the whole flow work better. Don’t know about the $50 price tag. Seems steep for what should be a $20 utility. But I might have to check this out sooner than later.
Nice software, but not quite there yet. I downloaded the demo and played with it. Nice beginning. The interface has some nice features I would like to see in Poser. Especially the view angle selector on the bottom right corner of the interface.
To get started, you select a character gender and then a specific look. There is an option for a female face generator and male body building. Both look to be more comprehensive on creating something from scratch. Unfortunately, neither is active in the demo.
The interface has some nice features. It doesn’t go as deep as Poser’s numeric range (no eyebrows to super-bushy for example) but it does give a wide variety of various body parts.  Eye shape, head shape, neck length and shape. If you can name the body part it seems to a few options for customizing the body. You can see the side angle view controller in the bottom right of the picture below. Click on it and it gives you 6 angle selections from which to view the character.
The body bending methods aren’t as nice as Poser, but it is has some nice features. One of the better features is the small dice in the left pane. Clicking the dice randomizes the character features and clothing. You can see what this feature created in the render below.
Finally, the render is okay. Not extremely great, but nice enough. Though I am using the demo version, so the full version might be a bit better. And I’ve never been a huge fan of Poser’s rendering either. Quidam does include the ability to purchase some plug-ins for exporting to 3DS Max and a few other programs.
Not a Poser replacement yet, but for people new to 3D character creation, or who only want to create quick and simple figures, this seems to be a nice program. Comparing Quidam to Poser is like comparing Paint Shop Pro to Photoshop. Both nice programs, but one is limited while the other is comprehensive. The learning curve, however, would reflect the complexity as well.