MacDesign

I'm thrilled to write about the announcement of MacDesign, a new blog focused on graphic design and video production on the Mac. MacDesign will feature daily tips, reviews, and tutorials on applications that will speed up your workflow and give you great results. The MacDesign forums offer a place for professionals and newbies alike to share their own tips and ask questions of others.

Be sure to check out the latest MacDesign article on VoltaicHD, a video converter/manager for Mac.

Cinch for Mac

Cinch, developed by Irradiated Software, is an elegant, mouse-driven solution to window management. Inspired by Microsoft's Windows Explorer, Cinch is based off the idea of "hot-zones". Once you drag a window into one of the zones (either left, right, menubar), an outline of your resized window will appear on the screen. Just drop the window into the hot-zone and the application window will be resized. Cinching to the right or left side of the screen will resize the window to exactly half the screen's resolution. The top hot-zone resizes to will the entire screen. Dragging a window away from its cinched position will restore the window to its original size.

Drag a window to a "hot-zone" to see a preview of the resize.

Cinch automatically resizes your window to the desired length (determined by "hot-zone").

You can download the free version (occasional pop-up), or purchase a license for yourself over at the Irradiated Software store. I will be posting a video review of Cinch on my YouTube channel, which can be found here.

SyncMate

Syncing and backing up your contacts, calendars, music, photos, videos, and other data between multiple devices can be challenging. Of course, you can copy each item manually between multiple computers, phones, and MP3 players, but that can be a real headache and cost you time… time that you can save.

With SyncMate, developed by Eltima Software, you can easily sync your data between multiple Macs, PCs, Google accounts, flash drives, and even online storage systems! SyncMate is offered in two editions: Free and Expert. With the free download provides options for syncing your iCal and Address Book data with other Macs and/or Google services.

Those looking for more advanced features should look towards the Expert version, which is available for $39.95 at the Eltima online store. Such a license adds support for syncing iTunes and iPhoto libraries, bookmarks, emails, and even specified folders on your computer. SyncMate even supports the automatic real-time synchronization of files and folders throughout your devices (via AutoSync options).

As you can tell, I am quite a fan of SyncMate myself. Not only does it eliminate the need for Dropbox and other syncing services, but it provides a simple solution to keeping all of my devices up-to-date. You can download the free version and/or purchase an Expert license for yourself here.

Also, be sure to check out the ReviewLocker blog, where I will soon be hosting a giveaway of an Expert license for SyncMate! Subscribe to the RSS feed to be notified when the giveaway article is posted!

iTunes Won't Back Up iPhone 4

iTunes 10 (or 9) may not be backing up your iPhone 4. A lot of people have this problem but they don't notice it until they have to restore their iPhone and all their data is lost. To see if you have this problem, connect your device and iTunes, right click on it, and see if there is an option to back up your iPhone. If there is, your fine. If not, close iTunes, open terminal, copy and past: [defaults write com.apple.iTunes DeviceBackupsDisabled -bool false] (without the brackets) and hit enter. Open iTunes with your device connected, right click on it and you will now see an option to back up.

YouTube

Stick to what you Know, Apple. Ping Sucks!

iTunes 10 came out yesterday and offered one major change - Ping. Steve Jobs touted it as "a social network for music". You were supposed to be able to follow bands and friends and share what music you were buying, listening to and where concerts were being held. Sounds cool right? Well its not. First, Facebook is blocking Ping so you can't connect with your friends. The only way you can find them is though search or emailing them directly and who wants to bother with that. Second, the software doesn't find similar music to what you like for recommendations, but instead only what's popular. Lastly, the software doesn't seem to filter spam and will let you take whatever name you want. Thus follow me, Kurt Cobain!

Apple even had Facebook connect on its own website yesterday morning. However, Facebook started blocking Ping as there was no contract in place. This would be really funny as Apple is getting some of its own medicine, but without Facebook Ping is terrible as a social network. You can't connect with your friends easily. What good is a social network if you can't easily find the people you want to be social with? When I created my profile I picked Nirvana and Alice in Chains as the only two bands I liked. So whom does Ping recommend that I follow? Lady Gaga and Katy Perry! Obviously the software is just showing you what is popular (Lady Gaga already has over 150,000 followers) rather than what you might like that is similar. Another issue is that you can pick any name so there are already six Justin Biebers. I took the name Kurt Cobain. Yes, I have taste and while I don't see myself using Ping much - follow me for kicks! The other big problem with Ping is it doesn't filter spam in the comments. I followed Rick Rubin and there were 82 comments on an album he liked. At least ten of these were "get a free iPhone at . . ." with a link to the same website. Apple needs to get this under control really fast or Ping might be their biggest flop since the first generation Apple TV. I'm a big Apple fan, but just like Google should never had tried to make a smart phone (sorry to anyone who bought a Nexus One), Apple should stick to what its good at. Unless Apple works out a deal with Facebook and gets a handle on the spam, Kurt Cobain says, "Stay Away!"

You can find other iPhone releated articles and content on my site.