AAUG Reviews

by Dave Patterson ,AAUG Member

The Mac Tune Up package is a simple multipurpose utility suite that is straightforward and simple to use. Many of the utilities in the suite are also available as shareware or freeware. Considering the amount of time and trial and error it took me to compile the ones I already had, the price of this package is very attractive as a time saver alone. The tool bar is well laid out to quickly guide you to the function you want. Having all of the settings in one location is a great time saver.

The maintenance utility is nicely divided up to allow easy selection of specific functions for any or all maintenance sessions. The optimizer seemed to duplicate something I had found within the system, but a complete understanding of its function eluded me. I would have been better informed if the directions had told me why I would want to modify the default settings, in “layman’s terms”. The sharing utility expanded on what is in the system but was no less confusing and I moved past that section with the feeling that I could really mess things up if I did something wrong. This section seemed to call for assistance from tech support to walk me through.

The backup section duplicated what I already had in the system or that came with my stand-alone backup drive. The browser utility seemed to duplicate what I already was familiar with doing in finder but provided a different way to find all of the files and folders. Managing files from this location, i.e. File-Trash seemed like it might be helpful as long as you weren’t in someone else’s shared file.

I really liked the Info utility, which has an excellent overview of all of the system in one place on one screen. (more…)

by Leila Wise, AAUG Member

Going to sites you shouldn’t or that you don’t want others to know about? Worried about protecting your online privacy? If you want to surf and hide your IP address - and, hopefully, prevent web sites or hacker from seeing your identify, then this utility is for you.

WebGhost is a utility that allows users of Safari, OmniWeb, and Camino to surf anonymously, via an anonymous proxy. Firefox is not supported. WebGhost works - or at least the proxy’s IP address showed up when checking the IP address online. Users can choose to use WebGhost’s proxy for one year, then renew for an unspecified cost. WebGhost’s private proxy reportedly offers full anonymity and privacy protection. Access to the server is password-protected. It’s easy to use.

Or users can surf using free public proxies, although WebGhost says these are less secure than its proxy. WebGhost updates its list of public proxies each day and allows users to configure their security - from good to better to best. According to the user guide, “good” essentially means the proxy server makes it harder for the site you visit to obtain your IP address. “Better” security allows the site to see you’re using a proxy but prevents it from determining your IP. “Best” security neither sends your IP address nor identifies itself as a proxy. When I used the software, anywhere from 24 to 49 proxies were considered good and two to four were considered best.
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by Guy Okada, AAUG Member

I produce a monthly newsletter for work and I also create publications for non-profits that I am involved with. The selection of appropriate and attractive fonts in a publication takes careful deliberation thus I try to accumulate as many fonts as I can to have them available for different projects. I can never have too many fonts, yep, I confess: I’m a font junkie. Years ago there were many sources of new fonts for Macs but lately it has reduced to a trickle. MacXWare is one of the few companies that still sells collections of fonts. MacXware recently released FontLibrary which is a nice collection of over 600 fonts at a reasonable price.

FontLibrary includes over 100 font families in OpenType font formal as well as TrueType for Macs only. Most “families” include a normal, bold, italic, condensed, extended and wide versions of each font style. The OpenType font format works on both Mac and PC platforms thus allowing document portability between platforms. The printed catalog arranges them in Classic, Creative, Designer and Refined categories. Many of the fonts in FontLibrary were duplicates of what I already had in other collections but it is still a nice collection, especially for someone looking to expand the font library that comes with their Mac.

FontLibrary also includes a nifty application called MacFontManager. It has two windows which display the fonts in FontLibrary and the fonts that you have in your computer’s font library. (more…)

by Zachary Zaletel, AAUG Member

MacFreelance bills itself as ‘Invoice and billing software made for Creative Professionals’. Having recently taken on a consulting job, I thought this might just be the software to make things in my life a bit simpler. I don’t have any experience with other hour-tracking/billing software on the Mac, so

In the box, you’ll receive a CD and a brief, ten-page Quick Reference Guide. Installation of the software is simple and on par with most any other program - open the disc, drag the program to your applications folder. Simple and easy.

Once you open the program, you’re presented with the main window of the program, which presents a series of icons along the top edge and shows you clients, projects and ongoing charges tied to those projects. The first thing you’ll want to do is set up your business. You can do business and send bills out as John Q. Public, as CreativePublic LLC, or under whatever name suits. You can enter multiple businesses for various project or clients with ease. Importing from the Address Book is also possible.

After getting whom you’ll be billing as sorted out, you can now move onto adding clients. You can accomplish this by either double-clicking in the ‘Clients’ field, clicking on the Clients icon along the top bar, or through the menu system. While there are a variety of ways to accomplish this task, I found this to be somewhat cumbersome: double-clicking in the clients field isn’t mentioned anywhere, and I stumbled on it by chance; the clients icon in the top bar is grayed out at various times for reasons not immediately apparent. That said, once you have the clients window up, it is simple to add clients, either manually or from the Address Book. You can also configure how invoicing is handled and which company or companies you use to bill the client.
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