Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Osmos




Osmos is a very fun, addictive game. The goal of the game is to consume other motes but not get consumed yourself. You can propel yourself forward by releasing matter of yourself behind you with the mouse. This make you shrink. You start off the game on a few tutorial levels and get a sample of the three game types and then you can choose your own path. The types of game modes are a relaxing mode, an orbit mode where everything is orbiting around a central object, and a mode where you have to eat a certain creature before it eats you. The game generates random variations of levels so there is always something new. You can zoom in and out of the view and speed up and slow down time also. The game features a relaxing soundtrack and great visuals. I highly recommend Osmos. It is a great ambient game.

Graphic Designer Toolbox




Graphic Designer Toolbox allows you make amazing graphic with very little work. To make graphics, you use building blocks, rather than other methods accomplished in programs like Photoshop. Graphic Designer Toolbox does have a slight learning curve, but once you understand it, you can make lots of things from textures, buttons, logos, icons, text effects, or just about anything.
With Graphic Designer Toolbox, you start with an empty grid on the top right, blocks and options on the bottom right, and an empty output box on the left. You then place blocks on the grid to create your masterpiece. The blocks are read from to to bottom. For example, they might read photo, zoom, and crop.
You can easily make amazing graphics with Graphic Designer Toolbox. They even provide many tutorial to help you get started. I suggest visiting the screenshot gallery to see what you can do in Graphic Designer Toolbox:
http://graphicdesignertoolbox.com/screenshots
I strongly recommend this program.

Rivet




Want to watch your iTunes movies on the big screen? Want to listen to iTunes from your stereo? Want to show your pictures to friends without crowding around the computer screen? If you answered yes to any of those questions Rivet is for you.
Rivet allows you to stream photos, videos, and audio from you Mac to your Playstation 3 or Xbox360. Rivet also integrates in iLife, so you can access iTunes, iPhoto, and Aperture directly from your PS3 of 360. When running, Rivet sits in your menubar, not disturbing you.
Rivet is very customizable. You can choose which content you would like to share, including folders and other sources like iPhoto; you can set what thumbnails are created and the quality of photos displayed; and even allows you to disable sleep while Rivet is being used.
Rivet works very well and is easy to use. It requires no setup on the PS3 or 360 to use. Rivet is the best choice for media streaming to a Playstation 3 or Xbox 360.

Friday, January 15, 2010

iStopMotion




iStopMotion is a very fun app to play around with or make a professional quality stop motion movie. iStop motion has a bunch of features like backgrounds and foregrounds using chroma key (aka green/blue screen). Also, iStopMotion allows you to plug in a video camera to the computer, use a web cam, import photos, or plug a camera in to the computer. Unfortunately, it is not compatible with any of my cameras, so I couldn't try the latter out. iStopMotion is a great tool for both professionals or people who just want to have fun. It is a great application!

AppZapper



AppZapper is a really great App. It works better than other application uninstallers and is way cooler too! With 2.0, AppZapper now has lots of new features. You can browse your apps by date last used, size, and much more. You can even search for apps to delete from inside the app. AppZapper is very quick and snappy and when you delete something, you hear a "ZAP!" sound that, if you want, can be disabled in the preferences. AppZapper also uninstalls widgets, preference panes, and other files cluttering up your library folder. Another new feature in this version is the "My Apps" window. With this, you can drag apps you have purchased into the window and then type in your serial number for that app so you don't lose it. My apps is a great way to keep track of your purchased apps. AppZapper is animated nicely and works great. A few features I would like to see added are having a helper app that deletes apps you put in the trash and a mode that saves an apps preferences for later, in case.