14 DAY TRIAL // Hello and welcome back to another edition of our weekly freeware roundup. As usual, we have three goodies for you to download, all free, and all specifically tailored for the Mac. Head over below for the full scoop and downloads.
Google Quick Search Box –
search data on your computer and across the web from a small searchbox on your desktop
Earlier this week, Google posted an update on the Mac development team's blog, notifying Mac users that a developer preview of the Google Quick Search Box was available for free download. The free tool aims to take Google's powerful web searching features out of the web browser and put them on your Mac desktops.
Google revealed its interest in having as many beta testers as possible willing to participate in taking the Google Quick Search Box from an "experimental" state to a stable and powerful search tool.
"One of our goals at Google is to make your search experience as fluid as possible. While much of our work is focused on Google.com, we're trying to make it just as easy to search outside your browser," the Google Mac Team said. "For the last year, we have been working on a new, open-source quick search box. Today, we are releasing our first developer preview for the Mac," the team enthusiastically announced.
The Google Mac Team also has a quick-start guide ready for anyone eager to try out the Quick Search Box. In the document, users will also be able to learn of some compatibility issues with Firefox and Gmail, as well as other details regarding its functionality. Google Quick Search Box is a Universal app that requires Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.
Download Google Quick Search Box (Mac OS X 10.5 or later)
GameBoy Sounds – a new soundset for Adium (the IM client for Mac)
Nintendo's GameBoy has been the inspiration of numerous mods, customizations, using elements ranging from the console's appearance to its game pixelated graphics and sounds. The latter was Nadim Kobeissi's inspiration in creating an application that changed the soundset of Adium, the popular IM client for Mac.
“Gameboy Sounds is a free Adium soundset based on the sounds that you can find on Gameboy gaming consoles,” Nadim Kobeissi says. “All sounds are 100% genuine, synthesized on a Nintendo Gameboy,” the developer assures us.
Gameboy Sounds adds a bunch of GameBoy-specific audio, replacing Adium's standard soundset for events such as: Buddy Sign In, Buddy Sign Out, Send Message, Receive Message, Connect, Disconnect, New Chat, File Transfer Requested, and File Transfer Complete. The app integrates with Adium's functionality, allowing you to tweak the volume of the sounds and select which events you want to be accompanied by a GameBoy sound.
Video Trigger – motion detector for media artists
As its name implies, this Zach Poff-developed application can trigger sounds whenever it senses movement in an image. Occupancy can be detected in as many as six user-defined areas of a video image and you have complete control over the playback logic and signal routing. It even boasts surround sound support.
Designed for casual artists, so to speak, Video Trigger allows you to experiment with interactivity without building custom hardware or software. According to its maker, it aims to answer one burning question - "How do I make a sound play when somebody does...?" Usually, the answer lies within analog equipment and micro-controllers, says Zach. This is why a much simpler solution was in order. And the results aren't half bad, as you'll see for yourselves.
Just fire up any QuickTime video input device, like your Mac's iSight, a camcorder, or even an industrial camera, and have Video Trigger play up to six sound files (AIFF or WAV, 1-16 channels) through any Core Audio sound hardware (1-16 channels).
Developer Zach Poff felt it was necessary to mention that Video Trigger is not security software, since it detects movement. “Video Trigger will not email you when somebody breaks into your house,” he says. However, there are such solutions available (Vigimac), if you're looking for one.
Zach Poff is a New York area digital media artist, educator, and maker-of-things, according to his bio. Through his artwork, teaching, and software, he examines the tremendous opportunities and challenges that arise from the translation of our experiences into "information." His recent work has been focused on how traditional broadcasting reverberates into digital media and influences notions of an emerging post-broadcast discourse.
Download Video Trigger (Free) (Mac OS X)
See you next week.
