Two of my favorite pieces of software, Dropbox and Sparrow are now combined to make attaching files to emails even easier. Just as simple as dragging and dropping the file into your composer window will upload the file to your Dropbox and append a link to that file within the email message. I’m sorry for you Windows users, as you are SOL because Sparrow is Mac only software. 

Whenever I notice my Mac is starting to run a little sluggish or when my laptop’s small solid state drive is running low on space I usually run one or the combination of Cocktail and CleanMyMac. Also, because I have a Macbook Pro and a Hackintosh the MacBook Pro is only used when I’m traveling or at a remote location where I can’t use my Hackintosh. The problem with this is OSX runs daily, weekly, and monthly scripts that get skipped if the laptop is not on, causing things to slow down a bit.

Cocktail - Pilot Tab

Cocktail

The first one I want to talk about is Cocktail. Cocktail is the free one of the two and by itself can do most of the work. All you need to do is download the app, install it, open it and go to the “Pilot” tab. From the “Pilot” tab select all the check boxes and hit run. This will run all the tasks at once. You can have it play a sound or quit when it is done as well. If you don’t want to do things automatically you also have the option of going through each one of the settings and doing them that way. Cocktail will run those daily, weekly, monthly scripts I was telling you about as well as clear caches, repair disk permissions, and clear log files. There is also a bunch of other cool things it can do such as tweak your Network settings and enable/disable certain default Mac settings that could slow or speed up your computer.

CleanMyMac

CleanMyMac

While this next one is not free, it is also not that expensive, only costing $14 dollars for a 6 month membership or $29 for a lifetime membership to the application. It is also not absolutely needed to get your Mac running smoothly but it is nice to have as a backup to catch what Cocktail misses. When you get this and open it just click the green “Scan” button and when it is done scanning hit the blue “Clean” button and your done. When it is finished it will tell you how much space you saved. The Application itself cleans your Caches, Logs Unneeded Langauge Files, Universal Binaries, System Junk, and Trash. It also comes with a Quick Erase to quickly erase files and an Uninstall Applications utility ,and lastly it comes with a Extensions Manager. So overall you are getting more features than just some basic maintenance program. 

I just read an email saying that Parallels Desktop 7 for the Mac is going to be coming out very soon. Parallels has also said that if you are a current owner of the software you are entitled to an upgrade for just $49. This is a good chance for you Parallels 5 owners who are running OS X Lion because that version and prior versions are not compatible with Lion. If you have version 6 I recommend you just stick with 6. I run version 6 and have no problems.  

Here is what the email said about the new features:

FASTER – Performs 60% faster than Parallels Desktop 6.
NEW – Support for OS X Lion Fullscreen mode, Launchpad, Mission Control and more.
ENHANCED – Faster graphical user interface built on 64-bit technology.
FASTER – Display graphics 45% faster than Parallels 6.
ENHANCED – Start, stop and resume Windows more quickly.
ENHANCED – Access and work faster with Windows and Mac files.
NEW – Run even more games and 3D applications with support for up to 1GB video memory.
NEW – All new help and documentation makes it easy to find the information you need.
ENHANCED – Support for all Mac OS printers now available in Windows.
NEW – Run OS X Lion as a guest OS.
ENHANCED – Reduced CPU usage improves notebook battery life.
NEW – Support for high-quality audio formats up to 192KHz.
NEW – Purchase and download Windows from within Parallels Desktop.
NEW – Immerse yourself in games, music and videos with 7.1 Surround Sound.
NEW – Easily share your iSight or FaceTime HD camera between Mac and Windows applications.
Plus – 90-day money back guarantee

And much, much more

If you don’t know what Skitch is, it’s probably the best screen capturing tool for the Mac and now Android. It has now been acquired by Evernote and made free to use. Also there is no longer any more advertisments or restrictions on the free version.  Skitch also works well with Evernote making it easy to draw or capture screen images and quickly edit them and drag/drop them into Evernote. Skitch is not a “must have” for the Mac when running Evernote.

You can grab Skitch for free at the Apple Store

With Lion Tweaks by iFredrik you can easily fix or change some of the annoying features found in OS X Lion. This is a must have if you miss some of the old features like the built in FTP server or natural scrolling, and you just need a quick way to get the “Work around”. The best thing about this tool is its completely free, just head on over to iFredrik and grab it.

What you can change is:

• Enable/Disable the user Library folder.
• Change to a 2D or 3D dock.
• Enable/Disable system window animation.
• Enable/Disable mail reply animation.
• Remove/Add Reading List Icon in Safari.
• Enable/Disable Spelling Correction.
• Enable/Disable repeating keys.
• Enable/Disable permanent scrollbars.
• Show Hidden Files.
• Disable Crash Dialog Pop-Up.
• Get a new Stack List View.
• Highlight Stack items on mouseover.
• Change iCal leather interface to aluminium
• Change Address Book leather interface to aluminium
• NEW: Disable resume for a single app
• NEW: Enable the hidden FTP-server
• NEW: Customize Launchpad folder background

Here is a list of some of the most common Mac applications that I use. I think I use just about every one of these at least once a day, and I would hate to not have any of these applications as they are all very important. They start out as simple word processing applications to torrent applications to coding applications. This is also not everything I use.

If you are having any trouble getting your Google Calendar Delegation Calendars to automaticaly sync with your Mac’s iCal then this step will help you solve this problem. Although it is a long procedure it works with no additional software.

Step 1

Open iCal, go to Preference, then to Account, finally to Delegation. Unmark all of your delegates.

Step 2

Open the app TexEdit and copy and paste this account url on your TextEdit worksheet: https://www.google.com/calendar/dav/USERNAME@gmail.com/user

Step 3

Now log into your google calendar. Once you are logged in, go to “My Calendar” on the left hand side and click on “settings”

Step 4

You then will see all the calendars on displayed. Choose one of the delegates which will take you to Calendar Details tab.

Step 5

Scroll down to Calendar Address and fine the “Calendar ID” on the right hand side. Copy the Calendar ID.

Step 6

Go back to TextEdit and replace part of the account URL, so it goes from https://www.google.com/calendar/dav/USERNAME@gmail.com/user  to
https://www.google.com/calendar/dav/Calendar ID/user (mind you that Calendar ID has a “group.calendar.google.com” suffix, so an example of the final account url may look like  https://www.google.com/calendar/dav/lbuhjrlgkfoi1oqs56710vkn8zh@group.calendar.google.com/user

Step 7

Copy the altered account URL

Step 8

Go back to iCal, Preference, then Account.

Step 9

Add a new account, if you are using 10.6, under Account Type, select Caldav, and Paste the altered account URL in the Server Address box. If you are using 10.5, once you click Add an account, expand theServer Options, and Paste in the altered account URL in the Account URL box.

Step 10

Finally enter your google username and password. Click Add.

Step 11

You’re done for one of your delegate accounts. Repeat the process till all of your accounts are added in this way. You will see all your calendars showing up under the Account panel in your iCal preference. Then you’re done.

Source | http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Calendar/thread?tid=4e5c309678c75983&hl=en

So you may or may not know but Spotify, probably the most innovative music service provider is now available in the United States. Spotify works very different that what you  might be familiar with. If you live in the United States you might currently use Pandora or iTunes. Spotify is unlike Pandora where you can’t choose the exact song you want to play and unlike iTunes where you have to pay for each individual song. Spotify works off of a subscription service where you pay a monthly service fee to gain unlimited access to any song in their database at any time and the best part is it’s ad free. Right now you can only get the paid versions or get the free version off of an invite. The paid version starts at $4.99 an goes up to $9.99.

Oh yea did I mention I have invites to use Spotify for free? To get one email me at sel@syssu.com. Hurry up as I only have four left!

UPDATE: I’m out of invites sorry! Congratulations and Enjoy to Alex, Vicki, John, and Hayes. Apparently there is a way to get an account without an invite. Read the “Full Article” to find out more!

Lifehacker has posted an article on how to get an account without an invite. This requiers a bit of work but might be worth it to some of you. Apperently if you follow the steps below you should be able to get the account.

• You need to start with a UK account. To do that, you’ll need to be in the UK—or, at least, appear to be. To do that, visit DaveProxy (or another free, UK-based proxy service) and go to spotify.com. (Note: if you’re using DaveProxy, be prepared to contend with a lot of pop-up ads. Just close them as they come up. They’re harmless.)
• Sign up for an account on the UK site. You’ll need a UK zip code, but just search for McDonald’s in London and you’ll find one without issue.
• Once you have an account, sign out and go to spotify.com like you normally would in the US. You won’t see a place to log in because that’s hidden behind the signup page. Pretend you’re signing up for a premium account and you’ll see a message asking you already have an account and want to log in. You do, so click the associated link and log in.
• Go back to spotify.com and you’ll now see a black box up at the top of the site. It’ll read “continue to spotify.com.” Click on it.
• You’re in, but your account is still UK-based. You’ll see your username displayed up on the top right. Click it and choose “Edit Profile.”
• In the “Country” menu, change “United Kingdom” to “United States” and set your zip code to whatever it actually is. Save your profile when you’re done.
• Download the Spotify app and log in.

So I got an email from ESET trying to sale me on why I need to have Antivirus on my Mac and threw some great ideas that got me to thinking. So here is a response to ESET and its advertisement.

For the sake of having to read this whole article the quick answer is “Most likely NO”. Now the reason why…

Here is a video I found about a guy explaining if you need antivirus for your Mac or not. I agree with pretty much everything he said and you can hit the “Read More” button to find out what I have to say.

If you install anything because it says you need to then YES:
The first reason was, “To beat the MacDefender scam.”. This was some kind of scam that “Tricked” Mac users into downloading and installing some fake Antivirus software that would charge you to remove some fake viruses.  So if you are stupid enough to download anything on the internet because it says you have a virus then yes you probably need Antivirus…even though that is kind of what Anti-Virus is doing anyways.

If you care about Windows users then YES:
A lot of if not all Mac antivirus software is targeted towards Windows viruses that do not bother the Mac. If you own a Windows machine along side your Mac or have family and friends who own a Windows machine that you share files with then you MIGHT need Antivirus on your Mac to protect them. This was the one reason from ESET that got me thinking I might want to invest in some Antivirus software for my Mac. I have Windows and my family runs Windows so it might come in  handy to protect them. Keep in mind you are most likely only to get a Windows virus if you are downloading some illegal content or going to porn sites, so if you don’t do any of those then the answer should be a no.

Why you should not have antivirus software on a Mac:
Antivirus software actually eats up resources on your computer causing it to run slow. Some users have even said that antivirus has stopped them from doing things on their computer, even surfing on the internet. Antivirus software also, for the most part, costs money, making you pay for something that you would most likely never use. There is no known active viruses for the Mac. Last but not least Apple does updates to stop this kind of threats and builds their software to help prevent potential future threats.

I have to give it to Bill Gates and Microsoft when they came up with the idea of window snapping. If you are not familiar with it, what it allows you to do is maximize a window or put two windows side by sad by dragging them to the top or side of your screen. So I was on the search to find out how to do this with Mac, although there is many other ones out there I ran into iSnap which comes in at a great price of only .99 cents.

With the iSnap app, you can organize various windows to fit perfectly on your screen and access them simultaneously.

By clicking and dragging your windows to various sections on your screen, you can optimize productivity with a snap. iSnap offers you 3 different templates to choose for optimal productivity.

BONUS FEATURE:
For a limited time, purchasing iSnap also includes iShake! iShake allows you to grab any window and by shaking it, it automatically minimizes every other window except the one you shook. By shaking again, it will restore all previously minimized windows.

Extras:
Take advantage of keyboard shortcuts that allow you to give your trackpad a break.

Link to product