Mac OS X is missing an important utility. An application remover. Yes, you’re supposed to scrap an app by depositing it in the round file, but what about all the crap that’s left behind to clog up your system? I’m talking about the .plist file, the application support folder, and so on. That stuff isn’t going away on its own.

The reason for the app deletion market: Apple forgot to include a suitable uninstaller. But its not all bad news. There are plenty of apps out there to do the job. Finding the right one, however, can be a bit of a chore. Here’s a shootout featuring 7 programs to scrap everything you’ve been installing on your Apple. Hell, they can even help you keep using trial software for as long as you like–if you’re into ripping off developers.

All of these apps were tested using Pixelmator as the app to be removed and MAMP as the folder with an app inside to be removed.

• AppCleaner: AppCleaner is a free, simple and lightweight app remover that can operate under two modes. The drag and drop ability that is built into most Mac app removers is here, along with a mode that lets the user select which program to remove from a list from the Applications, Widgets, Plugins, Pref Panes and more. Apps can also be drug into the program to be protected from removal. A nice feature of AppCleaner was the ability to remove only selected files if you so choose, leaving the rest intact.
• AppDelete: Forsaking the GUI, the free program AppDelete requires users to drag apps to the dock icon. A window pops up asking if you’d like to delete that app, followed by another window which asks if you’d like to delete associated files. It’s not a very elegant solution, but it gets the job done. On the positive side, AppDelete allows you to undo files you sent to the trash. The memory footprint is small, but deleting a larger program takes several seconds. And the popup windows can get to be annoying.
• AppTrap: Unlike the other apps in the list, AppTrap inserts itself right into the operating system. It’s more like a folder action than a real program. Whenever an app is dragged to the trash, AppTrap pops up a window asking if you want to delete the associated files as well. The response time is excellent, but, as was the case with AppDelete, the popups can be annoying. However, it’s nice not to have to think about opening another program each time you want to delete an app–and it’s free.
• AppZapper: Think of AppZapper as the $12.95 version of AppCleaner. It provides all of the same functionality, in a larger package (3.9MB vs. 1.6MB), with a high cost. You do get to hear a cool sound, though, every time you zap an app. And you get free updates for life. AppZapper does itemize associated files by type, which is a nice feature if you’re deleting big programs. Unfortunately, for nearly $13, AppZapper needs to provide more features to stand out from the crowd.
• CleanApp: CleanApp is easily the mother of all app removers. With slick animations, a wide array of features, and an easy to use interface, it really feels like it’s going to get the job done right. The asking price of $10 feels right, as you’re getting so many features. There’s the traditional drag and drop interface, an Applications list, a System Accessories list, you can pull PPC or Intel files from Universal Binaries, remove Language packs, and it will even make a list of your least used files. And it will even log which files were installed along with an app so it can completely remove an app later. Unfortunately, CleanApp is missing a protection feature to prevent accidental removal, although it will archive and store deleted files for restoration if necessary.
• Uninstaller: Up until this point, all of the applications have been simple and to the point. Drag an app, hit ‘OK’ and watch the file and its associated be tossed to the trash. Uninstaller, however, is more complex than that. It maintains snapshots of your disk to learn when new files have been created and how they are associated with your applications. Using Uninstaller is not particularly easy, and it requires that you continue to scan and save your disk before and after you install anything. It’s also the most expensive app here, running $25. However, Uninstaller is the only app remover that finds absolutely everything.
• Yank: Yank is another unique type of app remover. It requires you to install an app using Yank, so that it can install it using “Yank protection” which takes note of which files were added to the disk at the time of installation. Unfortunately, that function doesn’t always work as advertised, sometimes missing files. Furthermore, Yank can’t keep track of changes made after a program was installed. Even if it did work as advertised, the $20 price tag is too high when there are free apps out there that do essentially the same thing.

Which One Should You Download?

After using each one of these, I wondered why in the world anyone would want to pay for an app remover. What a waste of money. All of the apps found exactly the same associated files with both Pixelmator and MAMP. Uninstaller, of course, has the ability to find a lot more files than the rest–but a significant cost and a lot of wasted time if you have a 100GB+ hard disk. In other words, go with Uninstaller only if you have some kind of clean freak–like Martha Stewart.

There is no be all and end all app remover for the Mac–though they’re all more effective than simply dragging an app to the Trash. They all do pretty much the same thing. If you find that you do want to actually pay, then CleanApp is currently the best app remover. It has more features than the rest of the drag and drop style uninstallers.

My recommendation, though, is to go with AppCleaner. It’s free and it does a good enough job of cleaning out remaining files.

So there I was, a couple of days ago, lamenting the lack of Picasa for the Mac as I organized some new photos, when I stumbled on this article from TechCrunch. Did my eyes deceive me? Is Google developing a version of Picasa for the Mac? And it will be out sometime this year? I was overjoyed.

But what does this mean to current iPhoto users? Well, it all depends on how Google goes about implementing Picasa for the Mac. They may want to go for the throat and persuade .Mac users to ditch their expensive subscriptions for the more reasonably priced (read: free) Picasa Web Albums. Now that would be a great, although tricky, move for Google. It could cause Apple to slightly lower their prices on .Mac service, which, of course, is always good for the end user. And yes, I know that .Mac does more than just allow you to put photos on the web–but it’s still overpriced.

Alternatively, Google could simply release a crippled Windows port to the Mac so as not to jeopardize the business relationship between Google and Apple. The entire iLife suite is a major moneymaker for Apple, with iPhoto and iMovie generally considered the killer apps from the bundle. This theory, I hope, is not the case. Though I doubt it would be, given that we can already integrate Picasa Web Albums support into iPhoto.

So will Picasa end up turning droves of Mac users away from iPhoto? I doubt it. As I mentioned earlier, iPhoto’s integration into the operating system is spot on, and Google’s not going to top that. However, I can picture quite a few Mac users working with both Picasa and iPhoto depending on the task at hand.

Ultimately, there’s just one thing I want. An untouched Picasa port with support for iPhoto ‘08 library package access so that I can share the library between Picasa and iPhoto. Lightroom’s access to the iPhoto library is spotty at best, and I just hope Google can manage better than Adobe.

Download iGTD Here

As Simple or As Complex As You Want

What Does It Do?

Plain and simple, iGTD is an application that is designed to help you get things done, hence the name. It shares some similarities with David Allen’s acclaimed Getting Things Done action managing methodology, but you’re not bound to that action management style if you find that it doesn’t suit you. In other words, iGTD is a life organizer that can really help your life get back on track if you feel you have too many tasks piling up.

Is It Easy to Use?

The real strength of iGTD is that you can use it however you want. You’re not bound to any particular style of action management and you can use as many of the features that you feel you need. Nothing is forced on you, making the program as sparse or as complex as you want — which is a great benefit if you’re like me and you want some leeway in how you use your software.

While the program is relatively easy to use once you get used to it, iGTD can be a little complex when you first start it up. There are lots of buttons to push here, and new users may become a bit flustered. Luckily, Bartek realized the complexity issue and included a web based help file with a wealth of information to get you started. I used many of the resources on his site, including the handy “How Do We Use It?” section, and I found all of the information to be extremely helpful in getting started.

Does It Work Like it Should?

I had a few problems getting iGTD Leopard Fix #3 to work properly. It kept coming up with SQL errors which prevented the program from creating any new contexts, projects or tasks. However, the previous Leopard fix worked flawlessly. Knowing the author’s dedication to this project, I’m sure that any problems with Leopard Fix #3 will be ironed out in no time.

Aside from the SQL showstopper, I’ve not had any other problems with iGTD, and it works flawlessly. No crashes, no glitches, just smooth sailing.

Organizing your tasks and goals is a snap, although there are a few features that could use improvement. I’d like to see the due date picker snap back to start date when I create a new task. Also, the interface, while somewhat attractive, could use a bit of polish, which I’m glad to see is part of the revision for iGTD2.

But those are minor points, and in the grand scheme of things, iGTD is a fantastic program. It integrates with just about everything on your Mac, it’s snappy quick to respond, it can be customized however you please with a plethora of preferences, and it’s an extremely well thought out program that makes organizing your tasks as simple as thinking of things you need to do. A click here, some typing there, and you’ve got the month planned out in an instant.

Good Points?

There are two major benefits of iGTD that I absolutely love. First, the fact that you can use the program how you please is a big, big, positive in my book. I hate being bound by some arbitrary method of doing things, especially with a program that is as personal as this one.

Secondly, iGTD has an amazing list of all of the programs it integrates with. Since it was programmed in Cocoa, it can mesh with a lot of Apple’s default programs, Leopard, and more — but it also has features that allow you to sync with nearly every web browser for the Mac, nearly every mail program for the Mac, other personal organizers, and software favorites like Quicksilver [review], TextMate, Yojimbo, and VoodooPad. Fantastic!

Problem Areas?

Aside from a couple of interface issues and the Leopard Fix #3 SQL problem, iGTD is practically perfect. Other than a couple of nitpicks, like the fact that you can’t customize font size or background color without a restart, I honestly can’t think of any real problems with this program. Bartek Bargeil has created an amazing program and he really should be proud of his work.

Recommended?

Maybe I shouldn’t have started my GTD month with such an amazing program, as its going to be difficult for any other apps to match the power and usability of iGTD. I never thought I would find myself using one of these Getting Things Done types of programs, but I’m absolutely sold on iGTD. iGTD is highly recommended even if you’ve never thought you needed a life management program. There are quite a few programs that I never use again after reviewing them, but iGTD won’t be one of them.

Download iGTD Here

- Eric Norton

Not the Most Popular BT Client - But It Should Be

I’m not much of a torrenter, but every now and then I stumble on a file that is much more quickly downloaded via the BitTorrent network than it can be through a website. Case in point, OpenOffice.org and NeoOffice, as you can see in my screenshots. When I need to use BitTorrent, there are plenty of choices out there. From Azureus, easily the most popular, to Transmission - the subject of today’s review.

When it comes to my Mac, I like to stick with as many Cocoa applications as I can. They run faster, they work better. So it’s only natural that I gravitated to Transmission as the first BitTorrent client I tried on my MacBook. And after a few months of using it, I’ve been very glad that I chose to use it first - because it really is a great program. The developer’s tagline (below) really fits the program and I find that Transmission is a pleasure to use.

Lightweight. Open Source. Free.

So what is there to like about this little BitTorrent client for the Mac? For starters, Transmission is quick and responsive. It starts like a laser, downloads files at a fast pace, and I can move through the menus with no lag time at all. The only time I’ve ever gotten Transmission to slow down is when I’m deleting a 300 MB to 1 GB file that has yet to download. Usually I’m suck with two to five seconds of dead time (depending on the file size) before Transmission springs back to life.

One of the coolest features built into Transmission is a Dock based transfer tracker so I don’t have to open the program to see how fast my downloads and uploads are going. Transmission also integrates nicely with Growl, so I’m alerted with a simple chime and a Growl notification whenever a download is complete. Finally, Transmission has a great setting to let the program automatically delete my .torrent files. A real time saver. There’s even a nice speed limit button built in which will immediately slow down your downloading.

I’ve heard of problems with Transmission and Demonoid.com not playing nicely with each other in the past, so I decided to test it out for this review. After partially downloading 20 random, Mac related, .torrent files from the tracker, I started them all up to see if there would be any problems. All 20 worked out just fine, so it looks like the Transmission crew fixed any issues they had with files from Demonoid or I just got lucky and picked 20 files that worked great with Transmission.

After using this program for months, I can safely say that I love it. Transmission will continue to be the BitTorrent client I use on my Mac and I highly recommend that you use it for all of your torrenting needs as well. I’ve yet to use it on Linux, but I’m sure it’s just as good.

Click here to check out Transmission.

- Eric Norton

The First Step of Many

In light of the outcome of the RIAA’s lawsuit, Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas, I figured that now would be a fitting time to post a review of RIAA Radar. It’s a simple web app, nothing fancy, that’s designed to help you, the savvy consumer, determine which CDs you own (or are thinking about purchasing), are from record labels associated with the recording industry. With a variety of ways to access the site, RIAA Radar makes it easy to figure out exactly which CDs are recording industry related.

The main tool associated with RIAA Radar is the website itself. There’s a short list of frequently asked questions and the bread and butter of this app - the search box. You can use it to search for keywords, artist names, record labels, and even the UPC code of the CD you are pondering over. The search is speedy, often taking only a few milliseconds even for artists or labels that have hundreds of CDs available. Really, the only problem that I can see is that there is no way to tell the search engine to show more than the default ten results at a time.

Moving along, there is also a nifty bookmarklet that you can save to your bookmark toolbar for easy searching through the RIAA Radar database when you are browsing Amazon’s music store. Find a CD you like, click your trusty bookmarklet, and RIAA Radar will tell you whether or not that CD you were considering is RIAA safe. Like the traditional search function on the site, the bookmarklet works well and quickly.

For those of you who still buy your CDs in stores, RIAA Radar is even available on your cell phone. Find the UPC code from the back of the CD, type it into the RIAA Radar mobile UPC lookup page and the web app will tell you the status of that CD. I’ve not tried this service, but I suppose that it works just as well as everything else on the site (though likely not as fast).

Despite the different ways to go about searching for non-RIAA music on RIAA Radar, there are a couple of issues. The first, which the website clearly states, is that the information on the site may not be entirely correct. Membership in the RIAA changes all the time, so it is impossible to be 100% certain that the CD you are about to purchase is not from a record label affiliated with the recording industry bigwigs. This is more of a problem with the RIAA’s structure and record keeping than the RIAA Radar site itself.

The other issue I had was the inability to customize the search output to include more than ten results per page. No big deal, though, and certainly not a reason to stop using the site. I highly recommend RIAA Radar for those of you who are looking to stick it to the man, as it were. Even if you don’t care one way or the other, RIAA Radar is still a fun little web app that you can use to see exactly how much control the RIAA has over the music industry.

And for all of you nosy types out there, my CD collection consists of only 10 to 15% RIAA affiliated discs.

Click here to check out RIAA Radar

- Eric Norton

All We Need is Faster Internet in America…

Joost has been one of my favorite programs to play around with since I first got my hands on an early beta copy. A lot has changed since then. Modified user interface, advertisements, new logo, and a hell of a lot of new channels, but the core of the program remains the same. The program instantly sucks you in. From the instant full screen mode to the fancy moving “loading” light swirls to a GUI that reminds me of several Mac programs, the 1.0 Beta version of Joost hooks you from the minute you fire it up.

One of the things that I’m happy to report on with the new version is that the channel selection seems to have grown by a large margin. It is still missing my favorite show, Top Gear, but I suppose I can settle with Fifth Gear, Audi TV, and the various other car shows and music video stations that Joost currently offers. As more networks start to get involved, hopefully Joost will continue to grow, but there’s a little something for everyone even now.

Although each one of you is likely to find at least one program to watch on Joost, the question is will you actually be able to run the program. Joost is not exactly a small order, streaming and rendering full screen video, after all. It works pretty well, and I was able to install it on a variety of computers including a dinosaur of a Gateway with 512 MB RAM and an early model Pentium 4. It’s mighty slow on that one, but it still manages to work somehow. On faster computers like my desktop and MacBook, Joost runs smoothly with the occasional hiccup when I’m running too many programs at once on my Apple laptop.

I’m continually impressed with the Joost’s responsiveness. Menus open and channels change with very little lag time. Joost is actually faster at changing channels than my current DirecTV HD receiver. And, much like my DirecTV HD receiver tends to do, Joost crashes every now and then. Also, when closing the program, I’m never surprised to find that Joost’s process has failed to respond according to my Mac’s activity monitor.

So Joost looks good, it responds pretty well with a few kinks - but what about the advertising? How intrusive is it? It’s certainly less annoying than traditional commercial breaks that can last three to five minutes. I’d love to see regular television adopt some kind of bottom of the screen advertising and skip out on the majority of the commercial breaks they use now. On the flip side, commercials do give us an opportunity to stretch our legs or grab some grub. And with Tivo, I’ve not watched a commercial in months.

I see Joost as the first step in the eventual demise of television. I’m not saying that TV is going to be gone in a year. Not even five years. But now that we see Joost hitting full stride and Adobe’s new media player entering the market, we have two very significant players in the whole internet TV movement. With faster connection speeds, better processors, and cheaper LCD monitors becoming more and more popular, traditional TV may be on the way out sooner than we think. Hopefully the guys behind Joost will develop a Linux version before that day comes.

Click here to try out Joost for yourself.

- Eric Norton

And I Thought CSS Was Already Simple

CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets for those of you with minimal web design experience, was something I always though of as pretty easy. The language is straightforward, everything is well defined. All you have to do to make a decent looking site is plug in the values you want to line up your elements and choose a color palette that will make your site stand out. There are tutorials galore if you get tripped up along the way. I was pretty surprised to see a program like Simple CSS out there when CSS itself is actually pretty simple.

Simple CSS is a program that is made possible by a web hosting company. And no, you don’t have to sign up for their hosting plan in order to get a copy of the program - it’s totally free of charge. Pretty good advertising if you ask me. A web hosting company offering a free program to help build websites.

Anyway, Simple CSS does a nice job making the style sheet creation process as simplistic as can be. Everything in the program is based on drop down menus, check boxes, and text boxes to enter your digits. There’s even a live preview at the bottom so you can see what your changes are doing as you’re making them. And if you’re not sure what’s going on and you need to see some cold hard code, you can view the actual CSS source file with the click of a button.

As easy as Simple CSS tries to be, there is one big problem here. While you can import and export CSS files to your heart’s content, which is great for someone learning CSS for the first time to try and reverse engineer another person’s code, Simple CSS left out what I consider to be a necessary feature. There is no direct editing of the CSS allowed in Simple CSS. I can view the source code - but I can’t change it. That means I have to take an extra step to export my CSS file, open it in a text editor, and then add the stuff that Simple CSS can’t.

This issue limits Simple CSS to only the most basic CSS tasks: text decoration, background alignment, and the occasional relocation of some element on your page. For everything else, it’s much easier to code the style sheet by hand.

If you’ve ever wanted to make your own website and learn CSS, download Simple CSS right now. However, if you have any skill at coding style sheets or you know of some great tutorials out there on the internet, use those instead. Simple CSS is a nice tool, but it is only for beginners.

Click here to check out Simple CSS.

- Eric Norton

Click here to check out FeedHub

Solution to Too Many Feeds? Or Just Adding to the Mess?

FeedHub, a new service which analyzes your RSS feeds and then turns them all into one, easy to use feed which supposedly only displays items that you want to see, sounds like a great idea. How cool would that be to have a service that filters through all of the junk in your RSS feed and only give you news clippings that you would want to see. In execution, however, FeedHub is not exactly all it’s cracked up to be.

I, like most of you out there, suffer from an overload of feeds. As I’m sure is the case with most of us, I barely have enough time in the day to sort through each and every little news story that comes my way. After all, I’ve got coding and Photoshop tutorials, news from sites like Download Squad, a variety of topics from Digg, some software update sites, and a couple of Web 2.0 repositories. Yeah, nearly 1,000 new items a day in my reader is way too much to handle. And after hearing about FeedHub last week, I figured that I would be the perfect candidate to give it a go.

So I signed up, sent them a copy of my OPML file (that’s the file that your feed reader uses to keep track of all of your feeds) and in a couple of days, I was gifted with a shiny new feed that only showed items based on my personal preferences. Except for one tiny problem - it didn’t seem to know what I wanted at all.

Now, FeedHub tries. It does get a story right every once in awhile. But most of the time, I find that it simply does not choose stories that I find even remotely interesting. And it doesn’t send them often enough. I get one item an hour from my FeedHub personalized feed - maybe. From over 100 items, FeedHub chooses one. That’s not exactly what I was looking for. I know FeedHub is trying to make my feed reading life easier, but only showing 1% of the news when I have the app set to “Show Me the Most Interesting” is a bit of overkill.

As it stands now, my FeedHub feed is sitting there in my RSS reader, ever so quietly, even with hundreds of new stories appearing from my other feeds every time I hit the refresh button. Although there is a bit of tweaking that can be done on the FeedHub site if you want to really tune your custom feed, it doesn’t really seem to do much. Just adds one or two extra items based on your selections every few hours.

I think I’ll stick with FeedHub for a couple more weeks to see if it gets any better. It is still a new service, so I don’t want to ditch it completely. At this point, I am not going to recommend FeedHub. If I can squeeze some kind of benefit out of it I will certainly change my tune, but not at this point.

On a positive note, the FeedHub website is nicely designed. Everything is easy to find, the colors are appealing to the eyes, and it is obviously designed for one task and one task only.

Click here to check out Feedhub.

- Eric Norton

Although Most Of Us Type Faster Than We Write

There’s just something about a clean website that really draws my eye in. Simple colors that harmonize well together, a straightforward layout, and a look that demonstrates the simplistic function of the web app itself. NoteSake is Web 2.0 in every sense of the word, from its layout to the function it performs. It does one task, and it does it well. However, it’s a real shame that it cannot be put to good use simply because it is a web app.

Now I’m one who’s all for web apps. I love the things. They’re just so simple, so stylish, so easy to use. But NoteSake, though it is all three of the features I enjoy - it’s not really useful. This web app is relatively new, so I’ll try not to be too hard on it, but NoteSake is one of those programs that fills a niche that never needed to be filled in the first place. Here’s why.

NoteSake is a web app that makes it easy to take notes. School notes, notes from a meeting, whatever. And it does a great job of making the task easy. I rarely get to see such masterpieces of simplicity. But here’s the problem. Since NoteSake is an online app, you have to have an internet connection to use it. That’s all well and good if I’m taking notes in a meeting in an office with a wireless internet connection, or someone decides to have a meeting right at my desk - but if I’m sitting in a college class, NoteSake quickly gets devalued.

As an example, say you have four college classes in a day, all back to back. That means you’re going at least four hours without charging your laptop. Even if I dim my screen and turn off every other program, my laptop can’t last that long with Firefox [review], Airport (for internet access), and a PDF viewer (for the professor’s notes) running continuously. And I doubt your computer can either.

Even worse, there are still quite a few colleges that don’t have internet access in every classroom, much less every lecture hall. UCLA, my alma mater, didn’t have WiFi in most lecture halls when I attended, and they still don’t if I’m not mistaken. That means that even if your computer’s battery can hold out for a hell of a long time, you may not even be able to use NoteSake in the first place.

My last issue with NoteSake is that it’s too hard to correspond with other people in your “groups”. You have to either be invited to a group or create one yourself. There is MySpace integration, but a Facebook app or some kind of find a friend by email feature would be a welcome addition.

If it weren’t for those glaring issues, I would recommend NoteSake. It’s easy to use, can do complex mathematical equations, and is a lot of “fun” when it comes down to it. I love the simplicity, the text editor they used, the fact that they backup everything on a regular basis, and that NoteSake can easily export PDF or DOC files. I just think that some things shouldn’t be turned into web apps. And NoteSake, unfortunately, is one of those programs. What we really need here is a desktop program that can export to NoteSake’s servers. That would be the perfect solution, and I hope to see something like that in the near future.

Click here to check out NoteSake.

- Eric Norton

…If I Listened to “Popular” Music

I stumbled across this handy tool today that I think is pretty fantastic. Despite being two years old, I’d never heard of it until today. Named Josh’s iTunes Album Art Grabber, it does exactly what it’s title says - grab album art for nearly any CD you throw at it. Nearly because it failed to find quite a few of my CD covers, but I listen to pretty obscure music anyway, so no big deal.

The site is easy on the eyes, very minimalist indeed, quick to use, and outputs a very large JPG image of whatever you find. These are massive, clocking in at a base size of 1425px x 1425px and going up from there. They will likely fill up your screen and are certainly large enough for an HDTV with an AppleTV hooked to it. And despite the huge size, the images are rather small, hovering in the 150KB range.

Aside from the lack of a few of my favorite CDs, this really is a nifty little web tool. The fast speeds, large image size, and downright easy to use layout make this a real gem. It’s the perfect tool for anyone looking to enhance their music collection by adding cover images. Highly recommended.

Click here to visit Josh’s iTunes Album Art Grabber.

Edit: It looks like the iTunes Album Art Grabber has been thwarted by Apple. The site’s search function is down for now, but according to Josh, it may be back eventually.

- Eric Norton