MacHeist. MacHeist is a great site that my good friend Mark Z told me about. MacHeist has a few pieces generally-lesser-known-but-high-quality software that are really cool. they have a new bundle every so often, and they basically give this normally-for-pay software away in hopes of getting the word out and increasing sales to the original software manufacturers. Right now the bundle consists of:
ShoveBox, a clipboard on crack type software that allows you to save clippings and text and whatever content you need to save so you can easily recall it later.
WriteRoom, Which is to me, the most useful piece of software in the bundle. It allows you to write completely uninterrupted, without distraction, by taking over the entire display, showing nothing but black, and your text (by default in green). it allows you to edit your text without worrying about formatting and without the distraction of other applications trying to demand your attention. it’s a GREAT way to focus on only exactly what it is that you’re writing about.
Twitterrific, which is a minimalistic, but very good, and very feature-filled twitter client. Very lightweight, but particularly dynamic. I’m not personally a big fan of this software, however, simply because I prefer a much larger view that takes up the screen with all of my custom searches. because of this, and the many other features it provides, I personally use TweetDeck, which simply has more features that I enjoy… that and the desktop version and the iphone versions sync together so I only have to configure my custom searches once. alas I digress, back to the current MacHeist bundle.
TinyGrab is an application that interfaces with the normal screenshoting system within MacOS X. whenever you use the mac screenshot system (apple-shift-3 for a full screen screenshot or apple-shift-4 for a reticle that you can use to select what you’d like the screenshot to contain, or mousing over a window and hitting the spacebar to take a screenshot of the window that the mouse is in), MacHeist will take these screenshots and upload them to either their web site (in either the free or for pay/macheist version) or yours (in the paid or MacHeist version) that then automatically puts a link to it in your clipboard for immediate email or instant messaging. I haven’t tried this one out yet, but it sound particularly useful for explaining how to do stuff on the system, or perhaps doing instant screenshoting… or perhaps even this site when i get around to playing with it enough.
Hordes of Orcs looks like a pretty fun game that comes as part of the bundle. I haven’t personally used this yet either, however it looks like a pretty fun 3d tower defense game… As soon as I get a little more free time on my hands, I’ll definitely be installing this 😀 looks super fun!
Mariner Write appears to be a fully featured word processor application with integrated support for doing all the cool things a fully featured word processor would allow one to do. As for me and my own needs, I typically use text editors (nano, WriteRoom, Text Wrangler, notepad, etc.) for most of my text entry needs as i’m always doing some kind of manual markup, and when I do, I have already put money into Microsoft Office 2008 for mac, within which, Microsoft Word is the most COMPATIBLE and widely accepted word processing software which makes it easier to get support and describe things in. I find myself in word, however, maybe once every few months however, not very often. More often for word processing, I have made a good home in google docs. Google docs also allows me to use public computers and save my documents perpetually online and share them to other people who use google (everyone I hope) for editing and distribution.
Thus concludes my commentary on the MacHeist bundle this time around, but DON’T FORGET: They create new bundles every once in a while, so if none of these applications interests you, wait a while and check back… they’ll probably have something that’s usually for pay, for free, that you’ll enjoy.
