MR MIDNIGHT  This has the potential to be an indispensable program!

I've been looking for a software which utilises Mac OS X's data detectors to get events into iCal apart from Mail. I don't use Mail, and even then, Mail only parses incoming emails - not drafts, no other texts.

Using the iCal input panel itself is tedious - if you have an invitation in a text format, you essentially have to input every number by hand. It would be so much easier to just copy and paste invitations, events etc. from your favourite email program or browser into a text box and let the computer parse what is a date, time, venue etc. and put it in iCal.

This widget still has a long way to go, but it already seems to work quite well. A few humble suggestions:

- GUI is pretty ugly, and needs to be changable - I mean, pink??

- Error messages need to be a dedicated window, not simply written all over the application :-P

- The input box needs to be bigger, so you can see several lines.

- Locations are not recognized.

- How about a separate application as a menubar icon or a HUD style window? I'm not a big fan of Dashboard.

Anyway, I'll be using this!  
(Version 0.60)

MR MIDNIGHT  Minority language? Let's play google.

German is spoken in 9 countries and by approximately 120 Million people. I would not call that a minority.

Granted, English is far more wide spread, and spoken by about 400 Million people.

But if you want your software to be truly universal, it should be written in Mandarin Chinese which is spoken by 1.12 BILLION people.

So really, a bit more perspective!

Anyway, otherwise I agree, this software needs localisation, and I'm sure the author will provide this in a future update.  
(Version 0.11)

MR MIDNIGHT  This app has had completely undeserved low ratings for a while now, all based on a few previous "reviews" which all generally boiled down to that there are Freeware alternatives available, and that it was supposedly too expensive.

Well, I disagree. I tried a bunch of alternatives before I purchased CBL, and they were slow, crash-prone and did not even have half the features of this app.

CBL is literally the iTunes for downloadable comics, it is being regularly updated, and the developer is responsive to any remarks and questions. And the price is absolutely adequate - I suspect the reason people complain about the price may be due to the fact they are used to download comics for free, and expect their app to be free as well. With CBL you get exactly what you pay for, and you can test it thoroughly - with only a small watermark in one corner of the screen - before buying.

I wish the big comic companies would jump on the internet band wagon and offer their comics in a HQ digital form (they do flash files now, which at least is a start...), and then CBL would be a perfect app for managing and viewing those files.

The ONLY complaint I have about CBL is - its name. "ComicBookLover" -- ouch!  
(Version 1.3B810)

MR MIDNIGHT  This is great! I was hoping that this would turn up as a MUPromo, and was holding back buying it. $10 is just the right prize for it!  
(Version 1.0.1)

MR MIDNIGHT  Well, I don't like that it can only use shortcut key compbinations which include the command key - "command-space" for me is already Launchbar, so I would have liked to use "alt-space" instead. So instead I use "command- -" - oh well. The demo has a twenty minute limitation, but you can still evaluate it. Seems buyable. We'll see.  
(Version 1.21)

MR MIDNIGHT  I think the software is very promising, and - after a few initial stumbles - has been working quite well.

I've been using the last 2 betas again regularly, and have not encountered any problems. I've set up a folder to be shared between my 2 computers, and everything synchronises perfectly, and intuitively.

I think the reason I had troubles in the earlier version was because I used the Picnic folder - created in your home/public folder - as a shared folder. This time I created a separate folder to be shared, and completely ignored the Picnic folder. (I am not sure why it is there in the first place?!)

A manual with some help regarding how to set everything up on first start would be great, but I guess that will be coming once the final version is out.

Up till now, definitively useful for anyone having to share files between several computers.  
(Version 1.0b9)

MR MIDNIGHT  Well, after a while longer of experimenting, it's quite buggy still.

When I rebooted one of the sharing computers, Picnic did not recognize the shared folder anymore, showing instead a ".Picnic" folder you were subscribed to. No data was lost, since I found all my files still in the Picnic folder in the Finder.

I deleted everything in the app and started afresh, but I don't quite understand what you actually create when you create a shared folder. No new folders turn up in the finder to be shared, and you can't just drag and drop a folder into Picnic either. When you do, it says you used an invalid name, and then does not allow you to create any new folders until you restart the program.

Okay, the above did not make much sense, sorry. Hard to explain. Let's just leave it at "still buggy".

I won't use it for now but will keep an eye on it, or similar apps - until Leopard comes along, which I understand has automatic folder sharing included.  
(Version 1.0b5)

MR MIDNIGHT  Well, been trying it out, and works very well till now. Sharing one folder between my 2 Macs via Airport, and whatever I move into the Picnic folder on one Mac, turns up in the Picnic folder on the other Mac.

Too soon to say anything regarding stability etc. but seems to do what it says on the tin.

Like the Window design - fed up with brushed metal at this point -, but still would be nice if one could close the window and let Picnic run in the background, maybe as a menu extra or so. For now, I just hide the application.

Haven't tried to add more folders yet, and also have not tried to move eg. an app's datafile into the shared folder, so it can be assessed by that application on both computers - although that's probably a recipe for disaster...  
(Version 1.0b5)

MR MIDNIGHT  RunAway: Wow, quick response and update, thank you! As I said it's probably nitpicking, but more control and transparency is always good. Good job in any case!

VinceLeers: You're of course completely right. That will teach me to post reviews before I had my morning coffee!  
(Version 1.0.1)

MR MIDNIGHT  Nice! After running the Applescript, the Finder recognizes .flv and .wmv files as Quicktimefiles, and gives them the correct icon, instead of a blank icon.

Restarts the finder after applying its changes, which some people may prefer to do manually, but otherwise quite good.

Just deduct one star because it should let you know what it will do before it does it, and allow you the option to cancel, but that's nitpicking.  
(Version 1.0)

MR MIDNIGHT  Thanks! I'll check Fmenu out, I'm just a bit concerned regarding all the comments that it crashes all the time.

Mac Face has not crashed on me even once yet, but on the other hand, it does not seem to provide any way to quit it, either!! No "quit" item, nothing.

It has however left a .pkg-file in the receipts folder of the root library after installation, so I guess it should be able to be uninstalled manually with that.

Or I'll try out this Desinstaller you mentioned. Thanks again.  
(Version 1.0.3)

MR MIDNIGHT   - Uses the Mac OS X Installer to install, and it is not quite sure what it installs. No option I can see, how to uninstall this thing again. You probably can just drag it out of the menubar to uninstall (I think?), but I guess the installation could be a bit more transparent.

- The menu bar icon is horrible. Instead of a nice black and white symbol it's a broad dark blue rectangle with text. Ugly. - Will need to hack the package content of the app, if I choose to keep it.

- It asks you for a "one-time facebook code", whatever that is, which it generates by taking you to the developer's web site, and which I guess it uses to log you into Facebook. Is this a security issue? Am I opening my Facebook account to hacking and abuse? Paranoid buyers should beware.

- Otherwise it works reasonably well. It shows me new wall posts, probably new inbox mails as well (haven't received anything yet), and direct links to my own and my friend's websites. Does not report statuses of my friends, nor my own. Not much functionality, but what it does it does okay.

- Growl support! Yeah! Any app which supports Growl is good. - Otherwise the preferences are rather empty.

- Oh yes, and there are 3 changing ads for stuff in the middle of the menu. I'm not sure yet how I feel about this. I don't like ads on my computer, but OTOH, the developer has to live, too.

I hope there'll be more Facebook apps for Mac OS X soon. This one's a good start, but I think due to the ugly menu icon and the other concerns I would recommend to hold out until something better comes along.  
(Version 1.0.3)

MR MIDNIGHT  Okay, dismissing a software just because it's shareware is lame. As long as the software provides significant functionality or enhanced ease of use as compared to competing freeware, it may well be worth paying for and supporting the developer.

I have been using Azureus, and although it works very well with tons of features, I hate the interface, and would very happily pay for software with a similar featureset, if it were Mac OX X native with a pleasing GUI. So there is a market for Xtorrent.

That being said, I'm concerned about the comments here regarding the developer's customer support. Paying for software means paying for support, too.

In regards to the program, the GUI is fantastic. However, there is simply not enough functionality to seperate it from freeware like Transmission or others.

From the information on the website I understood that I would be able to select which items in a torrent I wished to download. That does not seem to be possible, and is quite the deal breaker for me.

The search function is very useful. However, you can't seem to be able to interrupt the search once it has found what you were looking for. There is also no easy way to export a torrent file (as you can do in Transmission) once you found it.

Generally, once you look past all the bells and whistles, there does not seem to be much interaction possible with the GUI at all. There's a scarce set of toolbar items and almost no contextual menus. The GUI is very minimal which may or may not be to anyone's wishes.

For now, I'll give the software a miss, but I'll keep an eye on further developments.

Incidentally, is this still a beta version? The website says no, but MacUpdate still lists it as a beta.  
(Version 1.0b3v39)

MR MIDNIGHT  Thanks Scotty, but as I said in the review, I did download BOTH the current and the previous set (i.e. the set you pointed out) - no home folder icons.

I downloaded the iContainers, so not sure if the actual folders contain more icons, but I doubt it.

Thanks anyway, though.  
(Version 1.0)

MR MIDNIGHT  Okay, no need for such intense bashing. The Stuffit-Archives (I downloaded both this and the previous iconset from the website) unstuffed fine. I do agree, I also would have preferred a zip or dmg archive, since those are integrated in Mac OS X, while Stuffit requires 3rd party software.

That being said, the icons are nice, simple and well "designed". I may have preferred a complete system replacement set - the standard folders like home, documents etc. are missing.  
(Version 1.0)

MR MIDNIGHT  Will do that, thanks.  
(Version 1.6)

MR MIDNIGHT  I'd like to report a problem: The Unarchiver 1.5 associated a multitude of file types with itself on first start. Now a file is recognized by OS X as a rar-archive, when it ends with .rar, .r00,r01,r02,r03 and so on, as well as .001, .002,003, etc.

The problem is that The Unarchiver cannot actually open .001 files (who are usually parts of a split multi-part file, and need to be opened by Ajoiner or Merger, or any other file merging program) - and since the OS now sees all these files as rar-archives, I cannot teach it to open 001-files with ajoiner, and rar-files with The Unarchiver.

I just checked, and that's still the same in V1.6. It would be great if that could be changed since .001 files in almost all cases are not rar-archives.

Otherwise great program!!  
(Version 1.6)

MR MIDNIGHT  Please DON'T!

That is exactly what MacPAR Deluxe does, and it drives me crazy. I'm only waiting until The Unarchiver can finally unpack password encrypted rar's, and I'm throwing MacPAR deluxe into the trash, exactly because it puts all unpacked files into a subfolder every bloody time.

I much more prefer the way StuffIt Expander has been doing for ages - only one file in the archive means file gets unpacked in current folder, many files means it creates a subfolder first.

At least gives us an option too choose, please, dear developer!   
(Version 1.6)