Mac Tricks » Downloads

Run Windows Applications on a Mac

sergio — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 03:32:44 +0000

Let me tell you something. If you ever paid money for a Windows Emulator for your Mac, make a sad face and read these words very carefully. Open source is free, stable, reliable, and continuously updated. So on the topic of running Windows executables on your Mac, Darwine has been around for years and is the Mac port of the popular Wine app which has been available to *nix users for years. Download it using this easy guide and start playing your favorite Windows game in minutes.

The great thing about open source software is the large community backing it, meaning any problem you run into you can almost assure yourself someone has dealt with it and likely found a solution. If you head on over to the Darwine Google Code Page, you will find the download section with the latest releases and a wiki that will provide support if needed.

To setup Darwine browse over to the Download section and download the latest or “Featured” build. Drag the red Darwine folder to your Applications folder and you’re set. Now browse over to the Darwine folder in your Applications directory, and run WineHelper. Once WineHelper is loaded, go to Application -> Open… Browse to the .exe or whatever Windows file you may want to run, and select it. Chances are your Windows App is now running.

Keep in mind Darwine requires that you have X11 installed, if you don’t just Google “X11 Mac Download”, it’s not hard to find.

Enjoy!

Add a Second Menu Bar for Dual Monitors

sergio — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 05:38:43 +0000

Call it a trick or not, anyone who has used dual monitors on a Mac knows how handy it would be to have a second menu bar on the extending screen. The following app does exactly that by placing the menu on your second screen and giving you a fairly wide variety of options and customizations that allow you to tweak it to your hearts content.

SecondBar is as easy to install as it is download. Just head over to their website grab yourself a copy and you’ll have more menu bars then you’ll know what to do with. Enjoy!

Easily mount NTFS in OS X

sergio — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 18:42:36 +0000

You would be surprised how many people experience issues related to this topic. Thankfully there are people out there that are willing to give up some of their time to help the rest of the world out, for free! The following program will easily enable you to mount for read/write an ntfs drive on your Mac.

Check out the NTFS Mounter website and just download the app from the downloads section. The app is beautifully Airport inspired and will fit in great with your current desktop look. Plus the convenience of its functionality makes it a great tool to keep on your jump drive so that you can share it with friends.

Enjoy!

Run your own Mac Jabber Server

sergio — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 23:01:45 +0000

For those of you trully nerdy enough to need something like this, i solute you. In fact i myself have recently needed to run a jabber (XMPP) server for one reason or another, so here is the simplest and most popular option available to Mac OS X users right now. Ignite Realtime’s Openfire is a simple yet powerful open source solution to this problem. Here’s how to do it.

Check out the Ignite Realtime Openfire webpage and download the server. Once you install the app you will have an additional control panel in the “System Preferences” pane for Openfire. There you will be able to administrate your Openfire server.

A common issue that people have while installing Openfire, is that once installed the administration panel wont let you login. The fix to this is simple, just restart the Openfire service, and then restart the system. Once you’re back in you should be able to login without any issues.

Good luck and let me know what you think of this service in the comments.

SQLyog alternative for Mac

sergio — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 08:30:17 +0000

This is an easy pick, not a shameless plug. All you developers out there know how convenient it is to have a real time database app. Sometimes phpMyAdmin just doesn’t cut it. For those who are familiar with the popular Windows counterpart, SQLyog, this will be a no brainer. Sequel Pro is a free and beautiful app for your Mac which will make web development and database administration a breeze.

How do i get this? Easy! Download the app for free on the Sequel Pro website. Enjoy. Let me know of any other good alternatives in the comments.

Better Internet Radio on your Mac

sergio — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 19:56:26 +0000

If you are anything like me, you spend way too much time sitting in front of your computer. Listening to music is a great way to keep your cool after a long work day. Unfortunately the iTunes built in radio functionality is just not up to par with some of the better more accessible online alternatives. Today i want to talk about Last.fm, my online radio pick for your Mac. Lets take a look.

Last.fm is an online radio/”scrobbling” app. Basically in addition to providing great internet radio, it also keeps stats on everything you listen to. First lets look at the online radio portion of the service. Last.fm has made available an app that will sit in your dock and allow you to play music just like in iTunes. Create a customized personal radio station for yourself by first defining a “tag” or an “artist” or maybe even just based off of your current listening preferences. Last.fm will go out and retrieve a small playlist of playable songs. The best part though, you can skip unlimited amounts of times, and even replay songs that you’ve already listened to (to a certain extent). The sound quality? …it’s good! No worse then Pandora or any of the other big competitors. The scrobbling aspect of Last.fm is also pretty convenient. Since it tracks everything you listen to, eventually it will generate weekly charts with your current favorite artists and suggestions. In my opinion, the AI for “recommended music” based off of your statistics is pretty good.

Lets be friends.

Transfer Music from iPod and iPhone to Mac

sergio — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 04:26:31 +0000

There was a time when this was one of the most complicated and ask about questions on the internet among Apple users. Luckily the times have changed and this daunting task is no more. Pod to Mac is a simple easy to use program which will allow you to get your tunes off of your iPod or iPhone. Install it, run it, move on. Follow the following instructions.

Head on over to the Pod to Mac website and download the app. Once installed you will be greeted with a very Finder like window with the music on the attached device. From there you can drag and drop the files of your choosing and enjoy musical freedom.

Synchronize your Data

sergio — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 06:45:21 +0000

How nice would it be to have your documents synchronized on all of your machines? Having the ability to work on a document on your home pc, then being able to pull up the same document on your work pc without having to transfer it. Dropbox allows us to do just that. It keeps all your documents synchronized and you can get a 2gb account for free. Here’s how.

Go to the Dropbox website, and download the client. Fortunately it is available for Mac, Windows, and Linux, meaning you can share your files regardless of what platform you’re confined to. After you install the client just enter your username and password and you’re set. Do this on all your machines!

You can also set up shares with friends. Think of how easy it would be to share pictures, movies and music!

Master your Mac Battery

sergio — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 03:24:25 +0000

Having just bought a new battery for my MacBook, posting an article on calibrating it seems like the right thing to do. Not many people know that properly exercising and calibrating your battery will result in a much longer life span. The process is easy, so easy in fact that you will probably not even realize you’ve actually done anything at all.

First i recommend downloading Coconut Battery. This simple application will tell you about your battery’s current charge, maximum charge, and load cycles (the number of times you’ve charged and discharged your Mac). You can get this little gem for free here.

Once you run Coconut Battery, you should see a screen like the one bellow. Keep this in mind and run it every couple months to keep up to date on your battery’s health.

To calibrate your battery, just perform the steps bellow:

Plug in your laptop, and charge it until the light turns green, and the status indicator on the menu bar indicates your battery is fully charged.
Let your battery stay fully charged like this for two hours (you may use your computer in the meantime.
Now disconnect the power adapter and run your computer until the battery runs low. The computer should notify you of this when the battery is getting critically low.
Once you have been notified your battery is critically low, save all your work, and continue using the computer until it goes to sleep.
At this point you should either turn your computer off, or allow it to sleep for 4-5 hours.
Once you have finished waiting, plug the charger back in and leave it connected till the battery is completely charged.

This process is so easy, there’s no reason anyone couldn’t do it every 2-3 months. By doing so you’re exercising your battery, and telling the internal software about the state of your battery and how much charge it can actually hold.

If you have any questions or suggestion, leave a comment.

P2P on a Mac

sergio — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:44:42 +0000

Some people, mostly those new to the Mac OS, aren’t aware of the wide array of P2P software that is available. OS X i would say is just as good if not even better then Windows in a file sharing sense. With the relatively small amount of virus and exploit issues that Mac experiences, it is a much more safe environment to dabble in file sharing with. In this article, i would like to discuss a couple P2P options available for OS X, and some of my favorite clients for each. Of course, we only condone legal downloading of data, how you use this software is up to you.

BitTorrent

Most likely the largest and most widespread form of file sharing on the internet at the moment, BitTorrent allows users to find Torrents on specially designed Torrent Search engines and download software from users sharing that Torrent. Very simple to use, and our personal favorite. Here are our favorite BitTorrent Apps for Mac.

µTorrent

µTorrent is a tiny easy to use powerhouse of a BitTorrent client. Seriously, it is so light weight and fast that you will probably never want to use anything else. Get it here.

Tomato Torrent

A Torrent client that is built on the original BitTorrent client, Tomato Torrent is very small, and allows customization of nearly all of the available Torrenting options. Get it here.

Transmission

Transmission is an open source client written entirely from scratch. Its popular among the community and has a great support base, with clients available not only for Mac, but for *nix as well. Get it here.

Our favorite Torrent Trackers: isoHunt and TorrentBox

Gnutella

Available originally from Nullsoft, Gnutella has been around since early 2000 and is technically the largest file sharing network on the internet, with an estimated market share of over 40% (figure from 2007).

Acquisition

A much more noob friendly App for file sharing on Macs. Once connected to the Gnutella network you will have access to literally billions of files. This client has been around for a while, is constantly updated and is a true Mac App, being elegant, simple and fast. Get it here.

FrostWire

A simple, free and open source Gnutella client for Mac. Integrates with the OS very well, and provides all the features a user would want when browsing the Gnutella network. Did we mention its beautiful too? Get it here.

If you have any suggestions for this list, let me know in the comments.