Software
Is After Effects Gobbling Up Your Hard Drive?
I recently discovered that After Effects (CS3) wasn’t deleting it’s Media Cache files when I quit the application. The folder had swelled to 6.19 GB.
I’m not sure if this is a bug in CS3, or if all versions of AE suffered from this problem. But, if you’re an After Effects user you may want to make sure you haven’t (unnecessarily) lost some drive space. On a Mac, the folder is located at ~/Library/Caches/Adobe/After Effects CS3/Media Cache Files. You can either manually toss the content of the folder, or you can open AE on go to the Memory & Cache preferences and click, Clean Database & Cache.
BumpTop 1.0 – 3D Desktop
I first heard about the BumpTop prototype back in 2006. It looks like they’ve refined it quite a bit since then… to the point where they’ve released it as an actual product. There’s a (limited) free version, and a Pro version that runs $29. Unfortunately, there’s no Mac version at the moment, but there is a little checkbox to let the developers know you want one, on the Downloads page.
MacHeist 3: Up to $975 in Mac software for just $39
The MacHeist people have outdone themselves this year. They’re offering up to $975.70 in Mac software, for only $39. There’s some pretty nice titles in this years bundle.
If you’re unfamiliar with MacHeist, the short story is they bundle a bunch of Mac software together, sell it for significantly reduced pricing, and give 25% to charity. The more copies that sell, the more software is added to the bundle. It just gets better and better. Everyone who buys the bundle gets all the software, even if the title wasn’t included at the time you bought in.
Most people probably don’t care about the entire bundle, but the cost is so low that you’re generally getting the 1 or 2 apps that you do want for a very good price.
As of today there’s only 11 days left to participate, so head on over to MacHeist.com and grab your copy before it’s too late.
SafariStand Updated for Safari 4.0 Beta
Woohoo! SafariStand, one of my favorite Safari plugins, has been updated to work with Safari 4.0 Beta. Now I just need Inquisitor and I’ll be set.
‘Loop’ hits the iPhone app store
A good friend of mine recently decided he wanted to try his hand at making some iPhone applications. Being new to the platform, he decided to get his feet wet with something small. His first app is called, Loop, and it was just released into the iPhone App Store.
Loop is basically inspired by the old spirograph sets. With just a few parameters, you can draw infinite variations of spirals, and then save them to your camera roll.
Although I wasn’t involved in the making of the actual app, this was kind of my first involvement in an iPhone app too. I made the application icon.
Truthfully, Loop isn’t going to change your world or anything, but it is a fun little time waster, and you can make some cool images to use as iPhone wallpapers, etc.. Grab your copy of loop through the link, below.
Loop (launches iTunes)
Apple Releases Safari 4 Beta
Today Apple released a public beta of Safari 4. It has some impressive new features, but what really caught my eye was the new Cover Flow view for browser history. Currently I use SafariStand to get this feature under Safari 3, and I’ve come to rely on it heavily. I’m extremely glad to see it’s going to be built right in to Safari 4.
Safari 4 Beta is available for both Mac and PC. As with all software, you should understand what the word, “Beta” means if you plan on installing it.
UPDATE: After seeing this post over at Daring Fireball, I thought it worth mentioning that you’ll want to be especially cautious upgrading to Safari 4 Beta if you use any Input Managers, such as the excellent 1Password. It’s important to remember that these things are unsupported hacks, and it’s entirely possible for new versions of Safari to break these “plugins”. Don’t upgrade yet if there’s any third party add-ons that you absolutely rely on.
UPDATE #2: Thanks to this post at The Graphic Mac, I’ve learned that Safari 4 now stores bookmarks in a .plist file, rather than a standard HTML file, like previous versions of Safari. Unfortunately, this probably means that most bookmark syncing utilities will probably be broken as well.
UPDATE #3 (2/25/2009): Just 1 day after Apple released Safari 4 Beta, Agile Web Solutions has updated 1Password to be compatible (and include several other bug fixes). Awesome!
Apple Posts 2.2.1 Software Update for iPhone & iPod Touch
Today Apple released the 2.2.1 Software Update for iPhone, iPhone 3G, and iPod Touch. No new features, but it is supposed to improve the stability of Mobile Safari, and fix an annoying bug that caused images saved from mail to be displayed incorrectly when added to your iPhone’s camera roll.
The iPod Touch version of the software update includes the 2 fixes mentioned above, and corrects an issue with some Apple Lossless encoded audio files that were skipping during playback.
If iTunes doesn’t prompt you to install the update when you connect your iPhone or iPod Touch, simply click the “Check for Updates” button.
Important! Safari RSS Security Risk
If you use a Mac, it’s very important that you read this, even if you don’t use Safari.
Republished from Brian Mastenbrook:
Disclosure of information vulnerability in Safari
Posted on Sun, 11 Jan 2009
Last edited Tue, 13 Jan 2009I have discovered that Apple’s Safari browser is vulnerable to an attack that allows a malicious web site to read files on a user’s hard drive without user intervention. This can be used to gain access to sensitive information stored on the user’s computer, such as emails, passwords, or cookies that could be used to gain access to the user’s accounts on some web sites. The vulnerability has been acknowledged by Apple.
All users of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard who have not changed their feed reader application preference from the system default are affected, regardless of whether they use any RSS feeds or use a different web browser (such as Firefox). Users of previous versions of Mac OS X are not affected.
Users of Safari on Windows are also affected. Users who have Safari for Windows installed but do not use it for browsing are not affected.
The details of this vulnerability have not been made public to the best of my knowledge, but secrecy is no guarantee against a sufficiently motivated attacker. Because this vulnerability could be exploited by a phishing site in a way that would not cause affected users to suspect their information had been stolen, users of Mac OS X Leopard should protect themselves until a fix is issued by Apple by choosing a default feed reader other than Safari, such as Mail. To select a different feed reader:
- Open Safari and select Preferences… from the Safari menu.
- Choose the RSS tab from the top of the Preferences window.
- Click on the Default RSS reader pop-up and select an application other than Safari.
The only workaround available for users of Safari on Windows is to use a different web browser.
Apple has not made information available on when a fix for this issue will be released. Users with questions or concerns should contact Apple as I have no additional information about this vulnerability which can be shared at this time.
Save 20% on “Things” before January 15th
You can save 20% on Culture Code’s excellent task manager, Things, by using the coupon code, “thingspresale20″ before January 15th, 2009.
I was using OmniFocus, but after a demo at Macworld I decided to make the switch to Things. I don’t have time to write a full review right now, but I wanted to mention the coupon code, incase there’s anyone out there who was about to buy it.
Build a library of screenshots with LittleSnapper
As a designer, I tend to collect various screenshots from all around the web. I use these screenshots for a variety of reasons, from design inspiration to problem-solving. I’ve never really had a great system for cataloging these screenshots. I typically use a combination of Snapz Pro, Paparazzi, and the built-in screen capture capabilities of OS X, and then just throw those images into a folder. It works, but it’s not very elegant.
Not too long ago I started using an online service called, ScrnShots to collect the images. You can upload image files, or there’s a desktop utility for snapping a screen shot and having it upload directly (here’s mine). While ScrnShots works pretty well, I tend not to be a big fan of online-only applications… partially because you can’t get to your stuff when you’re offline, and also because they’re generally not as responsive as desktop applications. At least not yet. I much prefer a dedicated desktop application, that also has good web-syncing capabilities. That way you have the best of both worlds.
A while back I heard about an upcoming piece of software from Realmac called, LittleSnapper. It’s sole purpose is to capture and catalogue screenshots, and it syncs with a sister-service website called, QuickSnapper (it’s similar to ScrnShots). This sounded like exactly what I wanted, so I’ve been anxiously awaiting it’s arrival ever since. Version 1.0 was released today. :)
I’ve been playing around with LittleSnapper tonight, and my initial impressions are very good. It gives you several ways of capturing whole or partial web pages, and straight screenshots. It has quite a few features that I won’t go over now, because Realmac has done a pretty good job at outlining them all, here.
While I think LittleSnapper is a solid 1.0 product, it does have some room for improvement. In fact, there is one thing about it that’s bumming me out. In addition to capturing new screenshots, LittleSnapper can import existing files, but the formats it can accept seem very limited. I have a large collection of screenshots in pdf and psd formats, and LittleSnapper will not import them. I can’t find any official documentation, but it seems to support a similar set of formats that an average browser would (jpg, gif, png). I was able to import a very large tif, but it choked a bit.
All in all I’m pretty impressed with LittleSnapper, and I will probably be buying a copy. It runs $39, and requires 10.5, Leopard (sorry Tiger users).
Here’s one tip: LittleSnapper can capture whole web pages (like Paparazzi) or standard screenshots (like OS X). The difference is, when you capture a straight screenshot it comes into LittleSnapper as a graphic, but when you capture a whole page it comes in as a graphic and a web archive. This is useful, because it allows you to export that captured page (web archive) as a PDF with editable text intact.
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