Amaya: A Simple, Yet Useful Alternative to Dreamweaver

amaya-logoWhile on a project, where money was scarce, we were scrambling around looking for a free or open source HTML editor that can provide us the same functionality as Adobe Dreamweaver. During my analysis of the different HTML editor out there, I came across Amaya. What intrigued me about it was that it was created by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). As someone who loves Dreamweaver, I thought that I would never find something comparable to it that was free (open source), but I was wrong.

Amaya is an open-source HTML editor created by the W3C. If you don’t already know, W3C is an international community that develops Web standards. It was founded by Tim Berners-Lee, who is credited as inventing the World Wide Web. In 1998, Amaya was invented. Since then, there have been various releases that have given more functionality to Amaya.

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Afloat 2.2 Adds Support For Snow Leopard and New Features

afloat-logoWhen Snow Leopard was launched, many applications broke because of compatibility issue. Afloat was one of them (mainly due to the plugsuit issue). The good news is, Afloat 2.2 was launched to patch up the issue. Now you can get Afloat running smoothly in Snow Leopard.

For those who have not heard of Afloat, it is an useful software that you can use to keep an application window “always on top” of all other windows. One thing for sure, Afloat 2.2 brings some new features that are not available in previous version.

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TonidoPlug: Your Personal Cloud Server in a Plug

tonidoplugPutting all your stuffs and confidential data on the cloud may seems like a good idea as it allows you to access to them anytime, anywhere. However, it can become a totally bad decision when the security of the cloud server is compromised or the third party providers wind up their services and all your data gone down with them. When such things happen, you might wonder why you have not heard of Tonido earlier.

Tonido is a free software that turns your desktop into a personal server and allows you to access and share your files, media, calendar and apps from everywhere. Be it Windows, Mac or Linux, you simply install the software and have your own personal cloud server up and running in no time. Forget all the complicated stuffs you have heard about creating your own server. There are no technical skills required to set up and run Tonido. The best thing is – all the data resides in your own computer and there is no need to worry about security or even data loss (unless your own computer crashes).

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Unlock Hidden Mac OS X Settings With Secrets

Secrets logoMac OS X is a wonderful operating system with one of the best and easiest to use graphical interface among mainstream operating systems. It is amazing to see how much thought the designers of the OS have put into each element of the interface striving all the while to make it easier for the user to use the computer without bringing in any complexity, and retaining the ability to configure the computer as the user wishes.

But, there is still so much more that OS X is capable of and it is not always possible to harness all that power from the Graphical interface, and that is where our application of the day, Secrets, comes in handy.

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Manage your clipboard items in Mac with Shadow

shadow iconI use Cut, Copy and Paste commands a lot, and computer’s basic clipboard ability to hold only one item at a time really annoys me. That’s why one of my must have applications is clipboard manager. It allows me to copy as many items to my heart content without having to worry about losing any entry.

There are several choices of clipboard managers for Mac users. We’ve discussed clipboard managers for Mac before. Jumpcut was my long favorite manager and it’s a pretty amazing one if I may add. It’s small, fast, and it does the job well. True that Jumpcut can only handle text, but my needs are simple.

So it’s a bit hard for me to switch to other application. But Shadow changes everything. It can do everything every other clipboard managers can do, and more.

Let’s peek at what lurks behind the shadow.

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Skitch – Powerful Screen Capture Application for Mac

Skitch - logoI never thought that I would find screen capture utility as one of my indispensable tool. But I do. So it’ only natural that I keep on searching for the best alternative to fill in my need.

Once I’ve settled with Jing, a nice multi platform screen capture app. Then one of my Mac-user friend recommend Skitch – a Mac only alternative. After trying it out, I was hooked. Skitch has several features that I can’t find in Jing.

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How to create a WiFi Hotspot using Mac OS X

free-wifiWiFi is pretty ubiquitous these days, with devices that support WiFi and places that offer Internet over WiFi as a service, mushrooming everywhere.

At least that’s what I used to think till about last month when I found myself in a hotel with no WiFi and just one Ethernet port that I was expected to share with two of my friends. Now, we could all do what others at the venue were doing. Sharing the Ethernet port, finish up our work in a given time and hand over the port to the next in line.

Or we could just make one of the computers act as a WiFi hotspot and let the other PCs access the Internet through the first one.

It isn’t too difficult to guess the option that we chose, and for our little setup we decided to use my Mac as the router, since the setup was the easiest on the Mac.

In this post today, I’m going to detail the steps that are needed to share the Internet connection on a Mac effectively turning your Mac into a WiFi router.

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Three Free RSS Readers for Mac Users

rss iconMore and more, people are relying on RSS feeds for their way to get their news, videos, audio, etc. An RSS Reader is a must-have for anyone who is reading RSS feeds on a daily basis. It provides a way to organize RSS feeds in a way that makes it easier to manage. Before, I reviewed the top three web-based RSS Readers to use. Now, here are three free desktop-based RSS Readers for Mac users:

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How to Create a Mac Snow Leopard USB Installer Disk

sl-installerAll Macs come with a DVD drive that you can use, so in most situations, you won’t have the need for a USB installer disk. However, there can be times when your DVD ROM is spoilt and you need to reformat/upgrade your OS. This is where an USB installer disk comes in handy. In addition, with this USB disk, you can also use it to install Mac OS on a machine without CD-ROM (i.e netbook).

In this tutorial, we will go through the way to create a Snow Leopard USB installer disk.

Requirement

  • An existing Mac with functional DVD-ROM
  • Snow leopard installer DVD (upgrade set or box set)
  • A USB thumb drive of at least 8GB in size

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How to Pause a Process on OS X

Activity MonitorSo, you’ve just bought a shiny new Apple machine ? It is the fastest machine in the lineup with the max RAM you could afford.

And even that doesn’t stop OS X from throwing that annoying beach ball icon at you right when you’re at your most productive phase of the day?

If the answer to that is yes, read on!

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