Softpedia Recommended Mac Apps of the Week - 14.06.2008

Welcome back! As usual, we have three Mac apps for you to download and use, free of charge, thanks to their generous developers. If you've had a busy week and need to calm down and get in touch with yourself, or if you just need to be a bit more organized, it's a good thing you dropped by today.


KARMA

Karma is a very simple application that offers just what you need at the end of a busy week � peace. That's right, if you don't have the time to see a wise friend to give you solutions to your problems, Karma "gets in touch" with Gandhi, Jesus, the Buddha, Einstein and even Zen masters and asks them to give you some insight on the ways of life.

OK, so it doesn't really contact them but it does use a daily repository for good deeds, positive thoughts explained in the best possible way by humanity's greatest minds.

As soon as you install Karma you get a small window with a Jar and four buttons. To add a Karma token to your Jar, just press the + button. The app notes the date and time you've added your token and lets you add an "engraving" to it. Hit "Add to Jar" and you're ready for your Karma quote of the day. Here's an example below:




So Karma provides a 'jar' in which you can store tokens engraved with a few words or a message to mark the positive events or deeds of the day. Every time you place a token into your jar, you will receive a quote, proverb or poem.

It is worth noting at this point that Karma is not associated with, and does not endorse any specific religion or spiritual doctrines. The choice of the theme for Karma was simply a personal choice of the author. Karma is meant for everyone to enjoy regardless of their personal beliefs or religious views. So basically, you Karma Jar is as meaningful as you make it. Use it as a way of keeping track, over time, of the benefits of approaching each day with a positive and kind outlook towards the people around you.

Karma's repo contains over 100 quotes & proverbs and gives you a new proverb, poem, or quotation after each token you deposit. Sure, 100 is not a lot, but this is just the first version of Karma.

The software also integrates with MiLife. This feature will copy the engraving of your latest Karma token to the clipboard and launch your MiLife diary program to be pasted in. Users should note that this will overwrite any data already on their clipboard.

Click HERE to download Karma now.


GrandPerspective 0.9.12


GrandPerspective is a truly useful tool that shows Mac users the disk usage within a file system. It can help you to manage your disk, as you can easily spot which files and folders take up the most space.

The so-called tree map it uses for visualization enables users to see files in the same folder appearing together, while their placement is arbitrary. Each file is shown as a rectangle with an area proportional to the file's size.

You can narrow down your scan by assigning colors to folders, extensions, name, top folder, level, file type or... nothing! Check out the screens below for the examples (ordered as listed)

This is the "tree map" of a scan for multiple folders containing files of almost the same type and size.


GrandPerspective is also very useful when it comes to showing you the total size of all scanned files, miscellaneous used space, initial free space, volume size, as well as freed space. It records the time of scan, so you can pin point your changes even better.

Using Focus, you can see in the right pane exactly what file you're looking at, after selecting it by color. Achieving the same results by hovering over it with your mouse pointer would be a really great addition in future versions. I truly hope this gets implemented.

Colors range from Orange Sunset and Origami Mice to Feng Shui and Bujumbura (whatever that means). I chose the latter for the example above.

To narrow down your scan even further, GrandPerspective allows you to set your own "rules". For instance, you get to show only huge files, large files, medium files, small files, tiny files, packages, images, hard-linked items, audio and more.

However, if you choose to reveal a file in Finder and delete it just after you've spotted its whereabouts, GrandPerspective will tell you that it has Failed to reveal the file" claiming a possible reason is that "it does not exist anymore." That's true, it doesn't, since you've just deleted it. What I'm trying to say is that, currently, the app doesn't refresh its scan, after deleting a file, despite its ability to reveal files in Finder, allowing you to make changes. It does, however, reveal modified files (eg: a just resized picture) without having to reopen the app.

GrandPerspective is a tool anyone can use. I'm confident it's one of the best free tools to help casual users see the disk usage within a certain file system or pin point the exact location of any file on their computer. If this doesn't help you stay organized, nothing will.

Download GrandPerspective right HERE.


AirRadar 1.0


Koingo Software, responsible for over two dozen applications for Mac, provides an easy way to scan for wireless networks through AirRadar. This free software allows you to scan for open networks and tag them as favorites or filter them out, view detailed network information, graph network signal strength, and eventually join the best open network in range.

"Whether you are driving around looking for wireless networks, stuck in traffic, sitting on the beach, or if you are curious how strong your wireless signal is at home, AirRadar provides a more linear approach to network hunting," says Koingo Software.

AirRadar lets you set the scan interval or retention time (in seconds), set the maximum number of seconds for which a network may be missing during scans / continual scans before it is continued dead and more. Of course, various other options allow you to customize your network list further, including sound cues and assigning colors to best open networks.

Go on, download AirRadar now, set up a scan frequency, and have new open or closed networks speak their name, play alerts, or display notifications.


AirRadar is available for free download HERE.

If you found the apps useful, don't be shy and leave a few thoughts in the comments section below. See you next week.