14 DAY TRIAL // Welcome to a new edition of our weekly freeware roundup. As usual, all the apps reviewed below are free to download and use for as long as you want. This week, you have four items to choose from, with two apps doing very similar tasks.
Following the release of the Safari 4 Beta, a myriad of users discovered that their favorite web browser added both good stuff, as well as features they might not want or need. As such, several developers followed on each other's footsteps in creating “fixes” for the unnecessary additions in Safari 4, for some users.
Last week, I came across this small piece of software called Secret Safari 4 Menu, which allows them to tweak hidden Safari preferences without having to open the Terminal. I've found two more such apps since, both of which do a very good job at eliminating some features you may not need in Safari 4, and can even bring back some of the Safari 3 functionality without reverting / downgrading to the older version.
Safari 4 Modifier –
Easily access hidden preferences for Safari 4 Beta
Safari 4 Modifier is designed to change the hidden preferences of Safari 4. The app does the same thing that the terminal commands do, “so nothing should go haywire,” according to developer Markus Winter.
Options to modify Safari 4 Beta with Safari 4 Modifier include:
- Tabs on top; - Toolbar redesign; - Use new load progress style; - Cover Flow in Bookmarks; - Google suggestions; - Fancy URL suggestions; - Transparent Window; - Viewless WebKit; - Top site features; - Top sites dimmed animation; - Web Widget debug mode; - JavaScript - no new windows; - Don't confirm unsubmitted text; - Show “report bugs” toolbar item.
All you have to do is simply check or uncheck the boxes. You can hover over a check box and wait until a balloon pops up with the descriptive text, so you know what you're tweaking inside Safari 4 Beta.
Next up...
Safari 4 Buddy –
Access and modify several hidden preferences in Safari 4 Beta
Just like the former, this small app also enables the ability to change several hidden preferences in the Safari 4 Public Beta web browser. Options include reverting the Progress Style indicator, moving the Tab Bar, disabling Google Suggest and Top Sites. A full list of available tweaks can be found below.
- Tab bar on top; - Circular progress style load indicator; - Fancy URL completion list; - Google suggestions; - Flow (Cover Flow) view in Bookmarks; - Top sites zoom to page animation and dims snapshot; - Top sites.
As soon as you complete checking the Yes / No boxes for all / any of these preferences, just hit Apply and Safari 4 Beta will comply. That's all there is to it. Use the links below to download the two utilities now.
Download Safari 4 Modifier (Free)
Download Safari 4 Buddy (Free)
resonance –
Ambient sound mixer and binaural tone generator
Developer Daniel Stepp has created this amazing sound mixer and binaural tone generator to facilitate concentration, meditation, and relaxation. The program contains over fifty natural sounds and music - each one selected for its ability to help focus your thoughts inward, according to the developer.
Users can play and mix these sounds together as well as add such effects to them as reverb, pitch-shift, and echo - all in a straightforward, non-technical way. It is also possible to import your own sounds, while the mathematically-precise binaural tone generator is capable of producing fifteen hundred unique binaural frequencies.
The program is intuitive and simple to use “even for users who don't understand the science behind it,” Daniel says.
Note: resonance weighs in at a hefty 210.1 MB and runs solely on Leopard machines.
iKlax Creator –
Post production software for boosting your musical creativity
iKlax Creator is a post production software that lets you publish your music in a multitrack audio format, offering many arrangement versions, for every instrument. By using the app, you can import your stem track from various formats (MP3, OGG VORBIS, WAVE, AIFF, CAF, AU) without decompressing them.
You can organize your song's structure and program your various arrangements versions, or create an iKmix (a mix configuration), which you can then export in a compressed quality. The listener is then able to browse through the song's architecture and access the various versions proposed, and eventually do more mixes.
There is also a paid version of the app. This free sample allows you to do everything mentioned above (and more) but only permits the export in iKlax multitrack format, compressed to 48 kbps.
See you next week.
