Appletell

IconFactory makes a great universal tool for designers called xScope — for people who constantly use this kind of tool, it’s a worthwhile investment. But, a new app now gives you similar functionality — for free. Rulers provides a subset of xScopes useful features in an easy-to-read format. Photoshop-style rulers appear at the side and top of your screen for accurate positioning, and the HUD gives precise cursor coordinates with a magnifying glass option.

Rulers also has the capability to take screenshots and auto-measure — similar to the “Dimensions” mode on xScope. You can quickly determine the size of anything on-screen by using this. When Rulers is the active application, holding Command+A will bring up the cross-hairs and measurement for the area surrounding the cursor.

This useful app, that delivers almost all the features and functionality of xScope is completely free. An excellent tool for those wanting to get into web design on a low budget. You can download it from Omnidea.

Via [TUAW] Product [ Rulers ]

Things is another GTD (Getting Things Done) application for the Mac. Today, Cultured Code have finally brought iCal syncing to the app, similarly to its competitor OmniFocus. In the latest version, you can simply visit the preferences and tick particular calendars. For example, just the “Today” tasks or just your “Next Actions”. Alternatively, you can take it a step further and assign calendars to different tags, projects or areas of responsibility.

What benefits does syncing Things with iCal bring? Well, you’ll have that same integration that iCal has with the rest of Leopard, you’ll also be able to choose what goes into iCal and use iCal’s printouts, To-Dos can also be e-mailed and linked around, while all being synced back to Things.

Things is currently due for release in Spring 2008 (soon), and a free preview download is available. If you purchase it pre-release now it will cost you $39, after its release it will cost $49.

Via [TUAW]

You may be familiar with Plasq’s popular Skitch screenshot-sharing application, and their comic book application: Comic Life (which was pre-installed on many Macs). Plasq have just released another amazing application called Comic Life Magiq. It sports a brand new interface, which aims to be more easy to use and even fun to use. This is not an update to the original Comic Life software that most of us are familiar with, but rather a “Pro” version of it - with more features and a newer-looking interface. Some of it’s unique features over Comic Life include: Professionally-designed templates and comic graphics, advanced object manipulation, Vector brushes, masking tools, a built-in image editor, and more.

I tried the demo myself and was very impressed by the user interface. It doesn’t feel like a typical Mac application, yet it works in a way that you can use it without prior knowledge - unlike Photoshop, for example, which can be frustrating for new users.

Comic Life Magiq can be purchased for the low price of $40, current owners of Comic Life can get a discount of $20 (includes Mac pre-installs). See Plasq’s official site for more details and a 30-day demo.

Via [MacUser]

Mailplane was one developer’s answer to bridging the gap between desktop e-mail clients and Google’s highly popular webmail service: Gmail. The app looks just like a site-specific web browser for Gmail - however, it has many extra functions that a regular web browser won’t provide you. Mailplane allows you to quickly browse through the iLife Media Browser and attach a file from iPhoto or iTunes, and convert or resize images as necessary. You can also use multiple Gmail/Google Apps accounts within the single app - this is very useful for those with multiple accounts, who often find themselves having to constantly login/out from Gmail. It can also be the default app responding to “mailto:” URLs and can be launched from Address Book - rather than having Apple’s Mail.app be the default.

Version 2.0 public beta supports “Gmail 2” shortcuts and add-ons, e.g. the new Apply/Remove Label and Navigate to Level functions. Attachments can now be formed from the clipboard, which is a useful tool. Account notifications have also been improved from the previous version, now with a “do not disturb” status mode. Mailplane costs $25 and version 2.0 will be free to registered users of version 1. Mailplane requires Mac OS X 10.4.11 or newer.

Via [MacNN]

The iPhone SDK will bring thousands of new applications to the iPhone and iPod Touch that weren’t possible to make in the past. Evolution Robotics is creating a revolutionary visual search technology they call ViPR - and it’s coming to the iPhone this June. ViPR lets you take a photo with you’re iPhone’s built-in camera of any book, movie or CD, send it to their server, and automatically get an e-mail back with all the information about it; YouTube videos, iTunes music store links, Wikipedia links and more.

The iPhone is not the only phone to be treated with ViPR. It will also be deployed in Japan on KDDI’s camera phones this Spring. Check the video after the jump, you’ll see how well this demo of ViPR performs - even when the camera angle is not straight:

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An awesome VoIP client known as “fring” that was previously only available for PCs and other mobile phones has now been released for Apple’s iPhone (and iPod touch). Of course, only jailbroken iPhones will be able to run the unofficial third-party application, and its VoIP capabilities are only available over a WiFi network.

The developer of fring is labeling it as a “light, sneak preview R&D version” so it appears that they are only testing the functionality and observing the popularity of the application on jailbroken iPhones and iPod touches before the application is officially released once the iPhone 2.0 software update goes public.

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Quite possibly the world’s best password manager, 1Password, has been updated to version 2.5.12 today with some new features, changes and bug fixes than need be listed. Those who like to be up-to-date with the betas will have noticed that 2.6 Beta 6 was also released. Beta 6 also includes some new improvements, including support for the Fluid extension.

Version 2.5.12 brings support to Safari 3.1, adds new changes to iPhone bookmarklets, better Firefox support and many more fixes that will improve the performance and stability of the application - whether it’s running behind the scenes or you’ve got it open. Unfortunately, the price of 1Password has increased by $5 with this update. If you’re a current license holder - not to worry - you’ll get this update for free. New customers will have to pay $34.95, but if you’re anything like me, you’ll know that this software is worth the extra cost.

Via [TUAW]

We have not discussed the freeware app Caffeine on Appletell before. It’s basically an app that runs in your Mac’s menu bar that, when you control-click the icon in the menu bar, you can select periods of time for your screen to remain on. This is great for those times when you have a 10-minute YouTube video to watch, but your Mac’s screen dims after 5 minutes. Caffeine overrides any screen savers or your Mac’s backlight settings, to keep your screen on for the duration of time you set in the menu bar.

It’s a really useful app, that will help you be more productive on your Mac. It’s also free. You can download it from Lighthead Software’s website.

Via [TUAW]

If you haven’t come across Growl yet, you need to go and get it now. Growl has become a part of my daily usage on my Mac, seamlessly integrating with dozens of shareware applications. For those that don’t know, Growl is a notifications system for Mac OS X - hundreds, maybe even thousands, of Mac developers have integrated the system into their apps, to bring the ultimate notifications system. For example, Skype notifications of incoming calls and IM messages.

This weekend, Growl’s website received a brand new design. The new site is much easier to navigate and looks much nicer. Unfortunately, the appear to be using the same web hosting as before - which means right now their site is very slow, if up at all.

Via [TUAW]

Softpress announced a new version of their flagship web design software for OS X, Freeway 5. The visual page layout-style interface of Freeway is what separates it from other traditional web design software. Its intuitive interface makes graphics and web designers alike feel comfortable using it. Freeway 5 brings some new features, including the ability to create CSS-based menus, Google Actions, dynamic effects from script.aculo.us, sliced background images, new background and graphic effects, save archive, iPhoto integration, color labeling and many more.

Freeway Pro now has multiple output options, a full output encoding choices, color and text style management across the entire document, extended graphic import capabilities, multiple style sheets for each document, full CSS text styling and CSS layout, and more.

Freeway 5 costs $249 for the Pro version and $79 for the Express version. Upgrades from previous releases are available for discounted prices, and you can also download a free trial from their website.