Good except that Adobe Illustrator doesn't support CMD-H for hiding, so Houdini doesn't work with it. It must be possible to add an exception for Illustrator - presumably there is an Applescript command that could be used instead? Also the degree of control that one has over Housini is rather limited - the longest time before hiding is only 5mins, and it isn't possible apparently to disable hiding for any chosen application. Maybe when dragging the slider for the length of delay it could go to "Never" at the end?
Since upgrading to 10.7.3 it doesn't seem as if HDD FanControl is functioning correctly. I have mine set to a minimum fan speed of 1000rpm and set to increase from 50degC, but even with the current cpu temperature at 22degC the fan is running at 1267 rpm.
It looks to me as if HDDFC is not actually controlling the fan temperature any more so the question now is what is actually controlling it? Before installing HDDFC the fans ran at full speed but they are not doing that now, so something is limiting the fan speed.
As a follow up to the above, cpu temperature has now risen to 40degC but the fan speed is still 1267 rpm. It may be that there has been a tweak to the interface to the fan control that means that when HDDFC sets the speed to 1000rpm it actually ends up being set to a higher speed.
When I change the settings so that the speed should be higher (by moving the start of the ramp down), the fan does speed up, although it doesn't get to the target speed. I wonder if a ratio has been changed in the OS?
Radium continues to be one of my most-used utilities and I find it invaluable for listening to internet radio - it is hard to see how it could be improved in a functional sense.
One thing that seems to have improved recently is its ability to recover from interrupted streams - if a stream is interrupted it stops playing when the buffer is exhausted but then as soon as the stream is accessible again it now fades back in, whereas in the past it would never restart.
The only feature I would like to see now (that I can think of) is the ability to change its position in the menu bar. Because of its ability to display the artist and track name the most suitable position (imho) is to be the furthest menu item to the left, but I have not found any way of ensuring this. All Apple menu items can be moved by holding down the command key while dragging them, but this doesn't work with Radium.
It doesn't seem to be anything to do with launch order as the order of the items is not in any way related to their order in my login items list, and they are not alphabetical either, so I don't know how they end up in the order they do. Whatever the answer to this, it would be great if Radium could add a "Force leftmost position in menubar items" or similar option to its preferences.
I am a pretty heavy user of SOHONotes with it running all the time and many folders of notes of all types in the database. My experience is that the current version is totally reliable, running for many days (even months) at a time with not a single crash.
I did have one issue (documented in a comment below) with the contents of fields in a form disappearing from view after a context switch to another application (but not losing the data), but after reporting this to Chronos it has been fixed and I do not have any more functional bugs with the product.
I find this an incredibly feature-rich Notes product; indeed I find it hard to think of a feature that is missing. Adding its stability to this I don't think there is another similar product on the market that compares.
Obviously there are some rather critical reviews of this product below but my experience does not replicate theirs in any way. I can't help but wonder whether there is actually some hidden motive to them.
Here are the details of improvements included in the 14.1.4 release (not including security fixes):
The Office for Mac 2011 14.1.4 Update includes the following improvements.
Improvements for all Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 applications
Update installation reliability is improved.; ;
This update fixes issues that cause the installation of previous Office for Mac 2011 updates to fail in the following situations:
When the user's home directory contains a space.
When you deploy updates through Secure Shell (SSH).
When you install multiple updates at the same time.
Reliability is improved when you open IRM-protected documents.
This update fixes an issue that prevents Office applications from opening some Information Rights Management (IRM)-protected documents. ; ; ;
Improvements for Microsoft Excel for Mac 2011
Stability is improved.
This update fixes an issue that causes Excel to exit unexpectedly or stop responding when you open some workbooks or when you use data validation. ;
Improvements for Microsoft Outlook for Mac 2011
Password expiration notice issue is fixed.
This update fixes an issue that causes Outlook to display an incorrect password expiration notice.
Sync efficiency is improved
This update improves sync efficiency with accounts on Microsoft Exchange servers when the permission settings are changed for a shared or delegated folder.
Previously released improvements included in this update
This update includes all the improvements that were released in all previous Office 2011 updates since the release of the Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 14.1 Update.
This could be improved in my view by making it into a prefs pane. It changes a setting, which is what prefs panes do. Furthermore when I want to change the format of screenshots in nine months time I will automatically go to System Prefs first and can't guarantee that I'll remember I've got this little app hidden away that will do the job!
Works brilliantly - very impressed. Only minor comment is that the version that is installed is not mentioned anywhere within the Prefs pane. Furthermore there doesn't appear to be any automatic update facility, either to alert you if there is a newer version or to offer to download and install (such as Sparkle). There certainly isn't any sign of it in the UI. Please remedy this! One star downgraded because of this - would be full five stars if this is fixed.
No problems here at all with Paperless on Lion - totally rock solid in my experience, certainly with version 2.1.1. The features in my view are great and there has never been anything that I've wanted to do with the product that it hasn't done. My main library holds 440 document in it so far and it is super-fast to retrieve any of them. Overall this is a great product and I can only suggest that you try it out if you want to go "Paperless"!
Houdini
HDD Fan Control
It looks to me as if HDDFC is not actually controlling the fan temperature any more so the question now is what is actually controlling it? Before installing HDDFC the fans ran at full speed but they are not doing that now, so something is limiting the fan speed.
+50
When I change the settings so that the speed should be higher (by moving the start of the ramp down), the fan does speed up, although it doesn't get to the target speed. I wonder if a ratio has been changed in the OS?
+1
CUPS
Radium
One thing that seems to have improved recently is its ability to recover from interrupted streams - if a stream is interrupted it stops playing when the buffer is exhausted but then as soon as the stream is accessible again it now fades back in, whereas in the past it would never restart.
The only feature I would like to see now (that I can think of) is the ability to change its position in the menu bar. Because of its ability to display the artist and track name the most suitable position (imho) is to be the furthest menu item to the left, but I have not found any way of ensuring this. All Apple menu items can be moved by holding down the command key while dragging them, but this doesn't work with Radium.
It doesn't seem to be anything to do with launch order as the order of the items is not in any way related to their order in my login items list, and they are not alphabetical either, so I don't know how they end up in the order they do. Whatever the answer to this, it would be great if Radium could add a "Force leftmost position in menubar items" or similar option to its preferences.
+2
SOHO Notes
Nick Collingridge reviewed on 15 Dec 2011
I did have one issue (documented in a comment below) with the contents of fields in a form disappearing from view after a context switch to another application (but not losing the data), but after reporting this to Chronos it has been fixed and I do not have any more functional bugs with the product.
I find this an incredibly feature-rich Notes product; indeed I find it hard to think of a feature that is missing. Adding its stability to this I don't think there is another similar product on the market that compares.
Obviously there are some rather critical reviews of this product below but my experience does not replicate theirs in any way. I can't help but wonder whether there is actually some hidden motive to them.
Microsoft Office 2011
The Office for Mac 2011 14.1.4 Update includes the following improvements.
Improvements for all Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 applications
Update installation reliability is improved.; ;
This update fixes issues that cause the installation of previous Office for Mac 2011 updates to fail in the following situations:
When the user's home directory contains a space.
When you deploy updates through Secure Shell (SSH).
When you install multiple updates at the same time.
Reliability is improved when you open IRM-protected documents.
This update fixes an issue that prevents Office applications from opening some Information Rights Management (IRM)-protected documents. ; ; ;
Improvements for Microsoft Excel for Mac 2011
Stability is improved.
This update fixes an issue that causes Excel to exit unexpectedly or stop responding when you open some workbooks or when you use data validation. ;
Improvements for Microsoft Outlook for Mac 2011
Password expiration notice issue is fixed.
This update fixes an issue that causes Outlook to display an incorrect password expiration notice.
Sync efficiency is improved
This update improves sync efficiency with accounts on Microsoft Exchange servers when the permission settings are changed for a shared or delegated folder.
Previously released improvements included in this update
This update includes all the improvements that were released in all previous Office 2011 updates since the release of the Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 14.1 Update.
cf/x savescreenie
HDD Fan Control
Nick Collingridge reviewed on 08 Dec 2011
+2
Paperless
Nick Collingridge reviewed on 09 Sep 2011
+4
Dropbox
Nick Collingridge reviewed on 24 Aug 2011