I have used the Microsoft remote desktop app for a while, that was until it started having problems seeing my local drive making impossible to upload work to our windows server. I started to search the internet to find something else that would work for me, I found a application called Cord which is much easy to use and remembers a number of servers that I use. As with Microsoft’s remote desktop it would frequently forget which server I used and even if I saved the small file with the details for each server I still had to manually input the details each time I needed to log on.

Cord is so simple to use, I just set up the servers put in the details and when I need that server I just click connect. In the preferences you can save what to open and what resolution you want to view the external server. I have noticed it looks a little fuzzy compared to MS remote desktop, but I can live with that if it mean it remembers my local drives, and more importantly remembers my drives right down to a particular folder!

You can download Cord here.

Cord say this on there website -

“Macs interact well with Windows, and with CoRD the experience is a bit smoother. Great for working on the office terminal server, administrating servers or any other time you’d like your PC to be a bit closer without leaving your Mac. CoRD allows you to view each session in its own window, or save space with all sessions in one window. Scale session windows to whatever size fits you—the screen is resized automatically. Enter full screen mode and feel like you’re actually at the computer. The clipboard is automatically synchronized between CoRD and the server. For system administrators, CoRD creates a simpler workflow by allowing you to save server information, then quickly connect to that server by using HotKeys or the server drawer. This makes quickly connecting to a specific server easy, even when managing many servers.”

Flare for mac from the mac app store is a great image application for editing images.

I noticed the small app in the mac app store, although I use photoshop daily I was intrigued with this program. I downloaded it and started using it for quick edits to photos, it has a number of presets a bit like instagram for the iPhone. It’s a simple drag-and-drop process then you can apply the presets to your images, you can then tweak these individual presets to your liking, then save and export the image.

You can also export directly to Flickr which is very handy for the quick uploads – it maybe me but I couldn’t find a way in which to batch process images.

Choosing the image -

Choose a preset for your image

Editing the presets

Flare is available from the Mac app store or you can get it online from here.

Or visit the Flare website

“Flare is a fast, easy, and beautiful darkroom for your Mac.

With Flare, you can apply photographic effects to your photos, then save them to your Mac, upload them to Flickr, or send them in an email. Flare comes with over twenty presets that create different kinds of effects, but if the preset you’re looking for doesn’t exist yet, you can tinker with the presets or even build your own from scratch.”

My main reason were it’s Christmas coming up and we as a family do lots of calendars, something missing from the new iPhoto and something that Apple forgot to mention about the new iPhoto. I see now that they have last night issued another update that adds calendars back into iPhoto – more on that from TUAW.

You can also read a review of iPhoto11 on TUAW.

Still no reason to go back now, for one iPhoto new interface is a step backwards it awkward to use and very clunky. When you edit your photos in the original iPhoto you had this option to copy the last settings of say levels to the next photo, so you could go through lots of them changing them as you went. Not anymore, that feature has gone. Emailing photos is pretty bad and I can’t think why they did it this way when it just worked before. Producing books and cards is also much harder than it was before, I found it slow and cumbersome to get a book going. All this for just a few new layouts and cards. Read all the issues other users are having on the Apple support site…

And another thing, I have had a mac since 2004 and not once in the UK have I ever had a coupon code for buying books, cards and photos NOT ONCE. I have a mobile me account which I renew each year and still no coupon code or offer, sure this isn’t the case in the USA!!

Here is a quick guide to downgrading iPhoto this helped me and only works if you have a backup of your previous iPhoto – http://appletoolbox.com/tag/iphoto-09/

I use Little Snapper all the time for collecting screenshots of websites and my work, it’s a great way of saving all those snippets of creativity. I use two machines my desktop and my laptop and I needed a way to keep both of these in sync. I also wanted to be able to edit and use Little Snapper on both machines, although not at the same time so that if I was casually using my laptop on the sofa it would automatically update when I used my work computer.

I do this by using Little Snapper and DropBox – If you want to do this then here’s how:

1. You will need a copy of Little Snapper

2. You will also need a Dropbox account (remember the more images you store in little snapper the more your dropbox account will expand).

3. Install Little Snapper

4. In Little Snapper go to the Preferences then Advanced choose Create New Library

5. Name the Library whatever you want and save the location to your DropBox

6. Close down Little Snapper, and go to your second machine or installation of Little Snapper.

7. On the second machine load up Little Snapper and go to Preferences – Advanced and select Choose for the Library

8. Select the Library from your DropBox one (you just created)

9. Close down the application down, now open it up again and hey presto you now have the same Little Snapper database between both machines.

The database will now sync between machines as you add new items to it, if you do this for the first time and have a large DB of data wait for Dropbox to sync completly before opening Little Snapper.

Having just the one copy of the Little Snapper database is great and it means I can use either machine to save a collate ideas into the program and will be updated to the other machine.

SnowChecker is a Mac OS X program that provides a neat interface to browse compatibility data found on snowleopard.wikidot.com.

It has several features, including:

• Scanning for applications on your hard drive to display only relevant compatibility data
• Robust search
• Sorting

So if you need to find out which applications you have that work or will not work in Snow Leopard then download this free app to check.

http://snowleopard.wikidot.com/snowchecker

So here are a few links to apps I have been using/testing out over the last few months.

Smultron – HTML code editor – very handy little HTML/CODE/CSS Editor using this instead of the equally good TACO – download here http://tuppis.com/smultron/

Things – GTD app for mac – like this one as iGTD keeps crashing and losing my data! – download here http://culturedcode.com/things/

Taskbarn – online project/task managment – nice and simple does exactly what it should – view here www.taskbarn.com

Orchestrate App – did try this but still find it to0 restricting and hard as hell to get it to do what I want!

That’s it for now, will try and write at least one review of something I using later this month…

An excellent all round package for task management, easy to use and intuitive too.  You can also use this on your iPhone – read the iPhone app information here

Things – from Cultured Code

Watch the screencast here

I heard about this application via a TWIT podcast then via ScreenCasts online video tutorial. Looks like a great way to do presentations or timelines of events. Take a look at there site for more information and videos or check out ScreenCasts online for there in-depth look at the great product.

www.beedocs.com

www.screencastonline.com

Need to download/backup your entire Flickr photos, then this is the tool for you.

Download Flump here

Ever need to batch resize images or photographs, this handy free app is what you need.

www.kstudio.net