STORMCHILD  I appreciate the reply, but I have finally replaced my PPC machine with a new MacBook Pro, so I wouldn't even be able to confirm the problem has been fixed. Maybe it's not worth the effort to debug the PowerPC version at this point.  
(Version 0.32)

STORMCHILD  Worst Mac software developer ever. This guy is completely incompetent. Stay away from this junk.  
(Version 4.0)

STORMCHILD  Still no fix for crash-on-quit behavior? This has been happening since the very first time I installed Plex, many versions ago. I've deleted the preferences and started fresh, but nothing helps. I have literally never seen this program exit cleanly. It has crashed 100% of the time when I've tried to quit, from day one. This was on a brand new MacBook Pro bought less than two months ago, and this behavior was happening within the first two days I had the new machine, before I had even installed or used much of anything else on it.

Bottom line: Plex is just not very well made software. I really wish it would work reliably, as it's a nice idea and clearly better than what Front Row has devolved into, but so far it just hasn't been worth the trouble.  
(Version 0.8)

STORMCHILD  Was about to leave the exact same review.

Lack of scrollwheel support is a showstopper for me. Uninstalled immediately as soon as I noticed it doesn't work.  
(Version 2.3)

STORMCHILD  Heh. I know what RAR is (why else would I be on a RAR app's page?). Just pointing out something I thought was fun. Obviously I am amused easily, and by strange things.  
(Version 0.8.1)

STORMCHILD  It's not PPC. It's Java.

Java is not processor-specific. It runs on any platform that supports Java, which includes Mac OS X on both PPC and Intel.

Technically it is incorrect to say this is a "PPC" app. It's not. Mac OS X turns it into PPC or Intel machine code when you launch the app.  
(Version 0.9rc3)

STORMCHILD  Unfortunately, over time I found this "little" app eats up WAY too much memory and CPU. Whenever I have it open, iTunes locks up for 5 seconds everytime I change tracks. It's annoying, but I don't know whether ScrobblePod is to blame; I had the same problem with iScrobbler, so maybe something has changed in iTunes itself that causes it to run slowly when an external app is regularly polling it for information. All I know is, I can't leave this running.

I'm still using this one for scrobbling, but what I do now is just run it once every couple days or so, let it scrobble once, then quit it immediately. Good enough...I don't really care about the "now playing" thing anyway.  
(Version 0.52)

STORMCHILD  Yup, I'm seeing the same issues, and it's been happening for a long time now, so I don't think it's a new problem in 10.5.6.

Unfortunately it looks like Proteron has stopped working on it.  
(Version 2.6)

STORMCHILD  I used to swear by LiteSwitch (I've been using it for around 10 years now!), but lately, I find myself swearing *at* it. It occasionally gets into a state where it fails to notice when you launch new apps, so they don't show up in the switcher. Quitting and relaunching LiteSwitch temporarily "fixes" it, but it soon happens again and again, and I've found that the only way to actually fix it is to restart -- which, quite frankly, I find completely unacceptable.

Even just relaunching LiteSwitch is not an acceptable fix either, because it restarts the Dock every time you close *and* open LiteSwitch (two Dock restarts per relaunch of LS) -- and that gets to be a real pain in the a s s (btw, MacUpdate, comment censorship is extremely lame), cause it closes all your Dashboard widgets, and forces QuickLook to rescan all the items in any stacks you may have on the Dock.

I hate to say it, but it's come to the point where the problems outweigh the benefits, so I can no longer recommend this abandonware. Here's hoping Apple improves the default cmd-tab switcher, cause I just can't put up with the bugs in LiteSwitch anymore.

Seems like Proteron simply stopped caring. Too bad.  
(Version 2.6)

STORMCHILD  Download link doesn't work.  
(Version 1.8.3)

STORMCHILD  Anyone else having problems getting "Boss Mode" to work? The built-in help says to hit Command-E, but that doesn't do anything for me, and there's no menu item for it.

Not that I really care or anything. Just wanted to see what it looks like.  
(Version 2.4.6)

STORMCHILD  I need a tool like this from time to time, but I have never been able to get DivFix++ to do anything for me. It always complains that the file is not a valid AVI. I've tossed a few dozen AVIs at it, and it never works.

I always end up resorting to ffmpegX's "Fix" tool, which works about 50% of the time.

Sadly, VLC is often able to repair broken AVI headers, but it *will not save the repaired file*, so you have to allow it to "repair" the video every time you open it. How stupid is that.  
(Version 0.31)

STORMCHILD  I like the way this one is shaping up. I finally got tired of iScrobbler causing iTunes to throw a 5 second beachball party everytime I changed tracks, so I decided to try ScrobblePod again.

Much happier with it this time. It's not causing large CPU spikes or locking up iTunes, and it successfully scrobbles tracks from my iPod with no setup required.

I notice it uses a lot of memory. Something this simple should not require 165 MB of real memory at any time (which is where it's currently sitting for me). I occasionally restart ScrobblePod, at which point its memory usage drops to about 75 MB. This is still much too high, IMO.

The exclusions are nice -- something I've wanted for awhile. I'd like to be able to enter multiple filter words (comma-separated in one input field would be fine), and I'm not clear on whether it will match the string anywhere inside the tag, or if it must be an exact match.

I like the small icon-buttons in the menu (easier to find the function you want than reading text menu options), but the sliding controls overtop of the song readout are somewhat impractical. The sliding animation is very slow, at least on my older PowerBook G4 (1.67 GHz Oct 2005). I would prefer to have all of the buttons in a row beneath the song readout, always visible.

All in all, a good scrobbler with the potential to be a great one. Needs a few UI tweaks, some serious memory use optimization, and a little more configurability for the filters, and it's good to go. In the meantime, this works pretty well as-is.  
(Version 0.51)

STORMCHILD  I can't deal with iScrobbler anymore. Every time a new song starts playing, iTunes beachballs for 5 seconds while iScrobbler polls it in some inefficient manner that holds everything up. As soon as I quit iScrobbler, the problem goes away.

Need a new Last.fm client.  
(Version 2.2.1b1)

STORMCHILD  µTorrent for Mac is pretty barebones so far. Doesn't even touch Transmission. Thanks for playing.  
(Version 1.41b2)

STORMCHILD  Unfortunately, StarCraft does not run in full screen mode in OS X, and Blizzard apparently has no plans to fix it. It will enter what it calls "full screen mode", but the game is a small 640x480 rectangle in the center of the screen. It does not scale to use the entire display. I have tried turning the "Do not adjust display resolution" option on and off, and manually changing my resolution to 640x480, but no matter what I do, it always changes back to the native res as soon as StarCraft enters its so-called "full screen" mode, and I end up with a tiny box surrounded by black.

As this makes the game completely unplayable, I attempted to work this out with Blizzard support. Unfortunately, the tech support rep I dealt with was either borderline illiterate or just completely incompetent, and kept telling me to try things I had already done, even though I clearly and repeatedly listed all the steps I had taken to resolve it. I eventually gave up on the idiot.

In the end, I don't think they really care if this works or not. The only thing I'm confused about is why Blizzard bothers to keep updating the game, without fixing this problem, when it makes it completely unplayable. What's the point?  
(Version 1.16)

STORMCHILD  Kind of a funny name, since "rarefaction" (also spelled "rarifaction") is the *opposite* of compression.

rarefaction |ˌre(ə)rəˈfak sh ən| (also rarifaction)

noun

diminution in the density of something  
(Version 0.8.1)

STORMCHILD  Good, detailed list. Just one thing though -- pressing Esc to dismiss LiteSwitch works fine for me, and I use Command-Tab (aka "Apple"-Tab), so there must be some kind of specific issue there. Even so, this adds more weight to your point about how infrequently (and slowly) LiteSwitch gets updated. I just wish Apple's rip-off of LiteSwitch* was good enough that I could get rid of LiteSwitch, as in general I'm always trying to eliminate as many 3rd party tweaks and enhancements as possible.

* Let's face it, that's what it is, but sadly it's only a half-assed rip-off at that.  
(Version 2.6)

STORMCHILD  Extremely unstable. Crashes constantly. When it does manage to survive a simple select and cut operation, it works.

It also maxes out my CPU when it's doing absolutely nothing, and the GUI is unbearably slow.

Would be nice if they could get it to stop crashing, and fix whatever is so horribly wrong with their UI (maybe they're doing custom drawing routines instead of using the standard hardware-accelerated 2D views provided by OS X).

Even then, it's still pretty bare-bones. As far as I can see, there is nothing that indicates the length of your selection. You cannot zoom all the way into to the sample level. You can split by silence, but oddly there is no function to trim silence at the beginning or end.

This simply needs an enormous amount of work, and considering it hasn't been updated in a year, it's looking like abandonware. My sympathy goes out to anyone who paid $32 for this.  
(Version 1.5.2)

STORMCHILD  I guess you've never noticed the "Apple Lossless" codec that's been in iTunes and QuickTime for several years now. It provides lossless compression at about the same ratio as FLAC, but uses the industry standard MPEG4 file format.  
(Version 1.1)

STORMCHILD  This is brutally bad software. Not long after installing it, Safari slowed to a crawl and started beachballing, and shortly thereafter, all my other apps started to lock up, until I completely lost control of my machine. Couldn't even SSH in from another box. Eventually I had no choice but to force it to reset.

Since it's an Input Manager plugin, it quickly infects every program you launch after installing it. I ended up having to do a second forced reset soon after the first one. And there is NO UNINSTALLER and no instructions for uninstalling it either. You have to find all of the files it sprayed all over your system and remove them all manually. And then you have to reboot -- again -- before you can actually remove the files from the trash.

Awful, awful, awful. Stay away from this junk.  
(Version 1.8.3.14080)

STORMCHILD  According to the description, this was formerly called "PicLens". I do believe you're talking about the very same thing.  
(Version 1.8.3.14080)

STORMCHILD  The problem with this idea is that it only tallies the mood of people who have nothing better to do than click a Dashboard widget to indicate what kind of mood they're in. Who wouldn't be depressed about that?  
(Version 1.2.3)

STORMCHILD  AIM file transfers work perfectly fine in Adium, and always have. I think maybe you're thinking of MSN file transfers, which are still excruciatingly slow in all third-party MSN clients, including Adium. But AIM file transfers have never been an issue for me.  
(Version 1.0b1)

STORMCHILD  Current version still doesn't reliably release files when removed from the list. I frequently have problems moving files, or deleting unwanted files, after torrents have been completed and removed from Transmission.

Would be nice if the Transmission developers could figure out how to close a file handle properly. This should have been fixed many releases ago.  
(Version 1.34)

STORMCHILD  I can confirm the experience others have reported -- VLC 0.9.2 has major problems that were not present in previous versions. Deleting the preferences didn't help. I've reverted to 0.8.6i and everything works great again. As I didn't notice any real improvements in 0.9.2 anyway, I wonder why it was released in this half-broken state.  
(Version 0.9.2)

STORMCHILD  I've had exactly the same experience so far. VLC 0.9.2 is much, much worse than the previous version I was using. Definitely going to go back for now.  
(Version 0.9.2)

STORMCHILD  This is utterly pointless. When was the last time you encountered a .sit file?

I haven't seen one in months, or maybe even years.  
(Version 13.0)

STORMCHILD  Guys, this isn't a forum. If you're not going to talk about BBEdit itself, take it somewhere else, FFS.  
(Version 9.0.1)

STORMCHILD  This is hands-down one of the best widgets ever made for Dashboard. It supports lots of different delivery services, has a great looking design for each one, and uses Growl to notify you of any change of status in a pending delivery. It's easy to use, and it's free! What's not to love about it?  
(Version 4.4)

STORMCHILD  It is simply amazing that a software company would continue to release updates to fix and improve a game released over 10 years ago. There is nobody else in the business who does it like Blizzard.  
(Version 1.15.3)

STORMCHILD  Holy massive price jump, Batman.

You guys want $240 for this now? Good luck!  
(Version 6.0)

STORMCHILD  "Mellel is the leading word processor for Mac OS X, and has been widely considered the industry standard since its inception."

What a bunch of baloney. Hardly anyone has even heard of it.  
(Version 2.5)

STORMCHILD  Right...and with the volume adjustment slider at +100%, you get lots of crackling due to clipping. IMO the relative volume adjustment for all songs should be left at 0. The correct way to adjust playback volume is with SoundCheck, preferably after using iVolume to update the SoundCheck values after doing a more thorough analysis than iTunes does.  
(Version 1.2)

STORMCHILD  At this point in the game, I'm not going to complain too loudly about it, but I'm disappointed that this is Intel-only. There's probably some reason why it doesn't support PowerPC; an app written in Xcode would usually compile for both, but since this was ported from another platform, that might not be the case with this one. But in any case, I guess I'll have to wait until I get a new Mac to try this out.  
(Version 0.5.15)

STORMCHILD  I don't understand the point of this. If it's not doing any analysis (which, from the looks of it, and the description, it's not), why would you want to do a batch change of the volume adjustment when each song needs a different adjustment to maintain a similar overall volume level.

This seems utterly pointless to me.  
(Version 1.1)

STORMCHILD  This is the best RAR utility I've found for OS X so far (other than unRarX, which is great too, but it only extracts archives; it doesn't create them).

One small thing that needs to be fixed is that the preset sizes for split archives are not quite correct. For example it lists 100 MB as 102,400,000 bytes, but 100 megabytes is actually 104,857,600 bytes (100 * 1024 * 1024).  
(Version 1.0.9)

STORMCHILD  Sadly, I think the only way to deal with DRM-protected tracks in iTunes is simply not to buy any. Now that iTunes offers a decent amount of songs in iTunes Plus format, I just stick to those. If I want to buy something that's not available in iTunes Plus, I go look for it on Beatport, Juno, Amazon or elsewhere.

For me, the problem isn't limited to being unable to adjust the SoundCheck level with iVolume; DRM-protected tracks cannot be played by any other software either, so I can't play them when DJing (with Ableton Live or Serato Scratch). I realize you can burn them to disc and reimport them, but that's a pretty ridiculous strategy if you buy a lot of music.

Boycott DRM.  
(Version 3.1.1)

STORMCHILD  Well, I finally had a chance to test this out on a Mac Mini (1.83 GHz Core2Duo), and I will say one thing: iVolume 3 really is a lot faster if you have a multicore Intel Mac. As I said before, I saw no speed improvement over version 2 on my PowerBook G4, which is what makes the upgrade price so hard to swallow (essentially no benefit for older systems). I also noticed that you can configure iVolume 3 to work like version 2 (i.e. "Start button processes tracks selected in iTunes"), which was the other main complaint I had about the workflow in v3.

When I'm able to afford a new Mac, I will probably suck it up and pay the $20 to upgrade, as it does seem to offer real improvements on newer hardware. I'm still disappointed about the price doubling in every release, and the fact that iVolume 2 is no longer available for download for those who want to stick with the current version for now, but at least the speed increase adds some real value for the money.  
(Version 3.1.1)

STORMCHILD  This is how you turn off the stupid eye candy behind all the menus in Menu Master 1.4.3b3 (paste this into Terminal):

defaults write com.unsanity.menumaster StopSillyEffect -bool YES

I got this reply from Unsanity support today. They asked me not to tell anyone about this, which confirms that this childish prank was done on purpose, and quite frankly, they can go f*ck themselves. Some people have work to do and don't have time for this bullsh*t.  
(Version 1.4.3b2)

STORMCHILD  Thanks to the new garbage added to every single menu in my system (on *purpose* no less), I've now had to completely disable Menu Master (as there's no way to turn that crap off). As a result, I am now giving it the rating it deserves, and issuing the following warning to anyone who uses this:

DO NOT INSTALL MENU MASTER 1.4.3b3.

It puts OpenGL/CoreAnimation scenes in EVERY menu and you CAN'T TURN IT OFF. And to top it all off, THERE IS NO WAY TO REVERT TO THE PREVIOUS VERSION.

If anyone from Unsanity is reading this: I had respect for you guys until you pulled this crap. This is an important system add-on that I rely on to provide many shortcuts that cannot be configured with the basic Keyboard Shortcuts in System Preferences. I've now had to disable Menu Master completely -- losing all of my custom shortcuts -- just to get rid of this nonsense. What the hell is wrong with you people?  
(Version 1.4.3b2)

STORMCHILD  Okay, so the OpenGL and Core Animation views behind all the menus are cool, but how the hell do I turn them off? I'm trying to work here; I expected the new Menu Master beta release was just a routine update to comply with changes in the final version of APE 2.5, but now I have to waste a bunch of time trying to figure out how to turn off this silly eye candy.

We're not talking about a silly little add-on I can just turn off; this is a silly feature that affects something I use and rely on every day, wasting enormous amounts of memory and CPU cycles, with no apparent way to disable it. This is a completely brain-dead, irresponsible thing to do as a developer.

Idiots.  
(Version 1.4.3b2)

STORMCHILD  Heh. I haven't even had a chance to try this out yet, and I've already installed 5 updates. Not that there's anything wrong with a developer working hard and constantly fixing and adding things.

Looks good, in any case. I'm interested in the review aspect, as I can't see anything replacing JEDict as my main dictionary. But I'm preparing for JLPT 2 and it's gonna be tough, so everything helps.

For anyone learning kanji, I also strongly recommend this excellent site:

http://kanji.koohii.com/

It's centered around the Remembering the Kanji (James Heisig) method for learning kanji, which I also recommend.  
(Version .9c)

STORMCHILD  This would be ideal for me if the sleep function would just stop playback in iTunes, instead of making my entire computer sleep, as I usually leave tasks running overnight, which I obviously don't want interrupted.

I see that you can create "alarms" that stop playback, which might do what I want, but that means I have to calculate when the "alarm" should trigger based on the current time and the amount of time I want it to play, and basically defeats the purpose of having a sleep timer. I just want to set it to turn off the music in 90 minutes. There's no way to do that without also making your computer sleep, and waking up to find all the tasks you left running didn't get done.

The interface is cluttered, confusing and unpolished. The UI for creating and editing alarms, for example, is pretty awful; there must always be at least one alarm in the list, but you can't edit any of the properties of an alarm after it's been created, except its name. So you must first create a new one (and get all the settings right, cause you won't be able to change any of them), and only then can you remove the default one from the list.

Sure, you can't argue with free, but considering it doesn't really do what I want it to do (and makes it frustrating and difficult even to use it for its intended purpose), I'll have to find something else that does, even if I have to pay for it.  
(Version 2.0)

STORMCHILD  It's nice to see alternatives being developed, but JEDict is still the king, and the built-in Japanese dictionaries in OS X are quite good too.  
(Version 3.0)

STORMCHILD  ...Which you shouldn't, because the first thing anyone should do when learning Japanese is learn hiragana/katakana and immediately stop using romaji. It's a terrible crutch.  
(Version 3.0)

STORMCHILD  And no, Mac OS X is NOT a fancy wrapper for BSD. That's not even a gross oversimplification -- it's just plain wrong. *Darwin* is built upon pieces from several different BSD variants -- and you may download and use Darwin for free. Darwin only forms the basic foundation of Mac OS X, and even then, the kernel -- the core "brain" of the entire OS -- was written by Avie Tevanian, an engineer at Apple. They did not take an existing kernel from another Unix variant, it's their own work.

The full Mac OS X operating system is 90% the work of Apple.

So that's a rather false analogy, and completely irrelevant to this discussion.   
(Version 3.1.1)

STORMCHILD  I'm testing iVolume 2.5.3 on iTunes 7.7.1, and it appears to work fine. I don't know why the developer suggested it would be mandatory to upgrade to iVolume 3 to continue using it with iTunes 7.7.1+ -- maybe I just misinterpreted the comment in the release notes. But, as far as I can tell, iVolume 2 still works.

I appreciate some of the replies to my comments. I'm not trying to be a jerk about this, just frustrated with the situation. Maybe when I can afford a new multicore Intel machine, I will consider trying iVolume 3 again; it would be easier for me to swallow the horrible upgrade pricing if the performance is actually that much better. As it stands, I get nothing whatsoever out of the new version on my PowerBook.

I just don't understand why a developer would want to piss off and alienate their customers with such greedy upgrade pricing. You may make a few extra bucks now, but in the long run it will cost you.  
(Version 3.1.1)

STORMCHILD  Certainly. The "someone else" is the author of ReplayGain, the algorithm that does all the work which iVolume takes credit for. See for yourself:

http://replaygain.hydrogenaudio.org

And as for the second comment, I think you are missing the point of this software altogether if you don't see the problem here. Once you have adjusted thousands of songs (in my case, over 10,000), you have to continue adjusting every new song you add to your library. And you have no choice but to continue upgrading to new versions of iTunes, since they are required to support new iPods and iPhones and -- even if you don't buy new hardware -- iTunes updates are required to keep up with general OS X updates. So, in order to keep the benefit of having adjusted my entire library with this software -- which I have now paid for twice already -- I have to keep paying for essentially the exact same software over and over, and the bloody price DOUBLES every time, with very poor discounts offered to existing users. And is there any way to simply stop using it and remove it's adjustments so that songs will at least be somewhat similar in volume via the original iTunes-generated Sound Check values? No, of course not, because iVolume has written it's values directly into the ID3 tags of every song. It does have a restore feature, but if iVolume 2 doesn't work with iTunes 7.7.1, I am already completely screwed, as there is no way to revert to an older version of iTunes without an enormous amount of work and hassle. So I am left in a position where I either suck it up and pay more for another "upgrade" that produces the exact same results as before -- and is not ANY faster on my machine -- not to mention the fact that the upgrade price is more than I paid for versions 1 & 2 put together. It's an absolute outrage, considering all the advanced math that does the psychoacoustic analysis was not even written by this greedy butthead who merely wrapped a GUI around it. Now I have to come up with my own solution for applying the same algorithm to my songs, and believe me, if I do find the time to do this, I will make sure to give it away for free so I can put this clown out of business and make him get a real job.  
(Version 3.1.1)

STORMCHILD  If it's really true that iVolume 2 will no longer work properly with iTunes 7.7.1 and newer, then that really stinks. Because quite frankly, $30 for this one-trick pony is a bloody insane ripoff, and I simply won't pay it. It was well worth the $7 it originally cost, and I was even willing to pay again when it doubled in v2, but the developer is getting awfully greedy now, and $30 is absolutely RIDICULOUS -- especially when you consider that the core "work" done by this app is done by an open source algorithm painstakingly written by SOMEBODY ELSE, given away for free, then taken by this schmuck and wrapped in a simple GUI that gets unnecessarily gunked up with CPU-wasting and pointless animations while the price -- for the exact same algorithm and results (which is all the work of someone ELSE) -- doubles every release. I no longer recommend this to anyone, and I will never support this guy ever again.  
(Version 3.1.1)

STORMCHILD  That would be "r admin d", if you happened to read it as "rad mind". Heh.  
(Version 1.12)

STORMCHILD  This is an excellent tool for cleaning up video. In addition to deinterlacing -- which it does very well -- it can do deblocking as well. I've been very happy with the results so far. And it's free!  
(Version 3.3.1)

STORMCHILD  I wouldn't say that the work that went into this isn't worth $20, but it's pretty annoying that QuickLook doesn't support .ai files without a plugin, since the entire OS X display system is PDF-based.

A better solution, going forward, would be to save Illustrator documents in "Illustrator PDF" format, which should display in QuickLook with no plugin.

They did do a decent job on the plugin, but I'm really not looking for lists of colors used in the document and things like that -- I just want QuickLook to display .ai files the same way as any other image file format (other than gradient meshes, which are apparently never going to display correctly in non-Adobe software -- unless those are part of the PDF standard that Adobe just submitted to the ISO).

The clincher is that this plugin does not understand layer visibility, so all the layers I have turned off show up in the preview. This makes it borderline useless.  
(Version 1.1)

STORMCHILD  This might be a powerful tool, but I'll never know it, cause I could never imagine paying $60 for software that looks like the author scanned their kid's refrigerator drawings to make the toolbar buttons. If you put zero effort into your user interface, people are going to assume your code is sloppy too.

I'd suggest FoldersSynchronizer, which I've been using for around 8 years now, and has always done the job reliably.  
(Version 4.20rc1)

STORMCHILD  I've been using iVolume since the very first public release, and I highly recommend it...

...Version 2, that is.

I'll be skipping version 3, at least for now, because:

- It may be faster on current multicore Intel CPUs, but I'm not seeing any real performance improvement on my 1.67 GHz G4 PowerBook. Frankly it might even be slower due to the wasteful new animation in the UI.

- The end result is the same; the algorithm may have been optimized to run faster (for some people), but as far as I can tell, the calculated result is no more accurate than it was in version 2. (If I remember correctly, version 2 introduced a new/improved algorithm with better results.)

- I actually prefer the workflow in version 2. I select some songs in iTunes, open iVolume and hit command-return. In version 3, I have to go find the songs again in iVolume before I can do anything to them. The fact that it loads the entire iTunes library also makes it take a lot longer to startup, and it uses 3-4 times more memory. To me this is zero steps forward, two steps back.

- It's just way too expensive. Version 1 was $7. Version 2 was $15. Version 3 is $30. The price keeps doubling, but it's just the same one-trick pony with a nicer UI. A $20 upgrade for a UI makeover is not worth it, but the fact that the memory usage/disk reads are so much worse clinches the deal.

The bad news is, there is apparently no way to download iVolume 2 anymore. If you're a registered user, you might be able to get a download link by emailing the developer, but if you didn't buy version 2 before, you're probably out of luck. Obviously you can't buy version 2 licenses anymore. :(

To me, iVolume 3 is like Windows Vista. It's prettier, but everyone's going back to XP (= iVolume 2).  
(Version 3.0.1)

STORMCHILD  Wow.

How many stupid pieces of software are you planning to release today?

This one is even more pointless than "Force Quit All Apps".

Would you mind going back to working at Burger King and stop flooding MacUpdate with this nonsense.  
(Version 1.0)

STORMCHILD  This is absolutely stupid.

Don't anyone download or ever use this.

If your computer is in a state where you need to force quit *every* application (in which case this app will almost certainly not work at all), you are better off just hitting Command+Control and the power button to reset, or holding down the power button to force the computer to shut down.  
(Version 1.0)

STORMCHILD  Oh yeah, couple other things I like about Transmission and forgot to mention in my previous comments...

- Ability to configure torrents to stop seeding when a certain ratio has been met (and graphical display of seeding progress).

- Really nice Groups implementation: You can create/delete groups; edit their name, color and position; collapse/expand them in the list; toggle the groups feature on and off; and use groups as a shortcut to apply settings changes to all torrents in the group. Groups also give you a summary of the in/outbound traffic and ratio for all torrents in each group.

Transmission is not as mature, robust or powerful as Azureus, but it's a hell of a lot nicer to use, and doesn't waste obnoxious amounts of CPU and memory like the old blue frog does.  
(Version 1.22)

STORMCHILD  Transmission is evolving into a good alternative to Azureus. It's not quite there yet, but it does have several advantages over the big beast:

- Native OS X app (not lousy Java). No background "helper" process.

- Uses a lot less CPU and memory, especially when running a lot of torrents at once.

- Great Cocoa UI.

Would like to see:

- Keep copies of all torrent files in app support folder; don't delete them when torrent is completed and removed.

- Average peer completion.

- Sort by ETA.

- ETA based on ongoing average transfer rate, instead of simple calculation of current speed * remaining data.

- Ability to ban/throttle specific peers.

- Per-tracker rules (like Seed Until Ratio [x], Upload/download limit, assigned group).

- Better piece graph (completed/available); the square overview is ok, but it would be helpful to be able to actually see a useful graph.

- Better color scheme for both the piece graph and the piece bar. The lighter shades of blue are very hard to see against a white background.

- Torrents for which only some of the files are selected should sort and display correctly based on the percentage of actually-selected data, not the entire size.

Things that suck pretty bad and need to be fixed:

- It often takes several minutes to quit the program. Azureus sometimes takes awhile too, but Transmission is much worse.

- When the program crashes, the data integrity check on current torrents takes eons. If you have 10-15 torrents running, it can take 20+ minutes to get them all going again after a crash. Sometimes it even does integrity checks when the program exited cleanly. Azureus' checksum tests are about 100 times faster.

- Files that are not selected to be downloaded are created locally anyway when adjacent to a selected file (i.e. they share a common piece); this results in wasted disk space and requires manual post-download cleanup.

- File handles are occasionally not closed properly when removing completed torrents, resulting in files that cannot be moved or deleted until the program has been quit.  
(Version 1.22)

STORMCHILD  Not too impressed so far. The initial startup time was brutally slow; it took about 15 minutes to process my artwork.

It has also erroneously marked 90% of my music as compilations (and I'm certain that the "compilation" tag is set correctly throughout my library, so it is obviously a problem with this software).

I'll give it another shot later if it ever works properly.  
(Version 2.1)

STORMCHILD  Written in Java, looks like Windows. No thanks.  
(Version 2.0)

STORMCHILD  Dumb name. What does PayPal have to do with a garage?  
(Version 1.0b3)

STORMCHILD  Oh yeah, I do have one feature request:

Nothing.

Please add nothing to this. It's perfect; keep it exactly the way it is! Let other iTunes add-ons get fat and slow on hotkeys, track info/artwork bezels, and the rest of the usual stuff that seems to get added to every iTunes utility.  
(Version 2.0)

STORMCHILD  Excellent and free...two words you don't often hear in the same sentence. The developer targeted a very specific purpose, and nailed it without getting distracted by bells and whistles.

This is just a simple little app, but that's the beauty of it; whereas a lot of "simple" programs quickly get bloated with new features, this one is focused and efficient. I've had it running for several days now, and it has accumulated only 25 seconds of CPU time.

I like the way it slides out when you're playing music, and hides when you're not.  
(Version 2.0)

STORMCHILD  Better keep an eye on your ratios. Last time I used Transmission with a private tracker, it submitted bad stats, my ratio suddenly went from about 2.5 to negative 9 billion, and obviously my account got disabled. I learned my lesson, went back to Azureus, and even though it still drives me nuts how much of my CPU and memory it consumes, at least it doesn't get me kicked off any trackers.

I really want to like Transmission, as it is such a dream to use compared to the bloated heap of Java (i.e. turd) that is Azureus, but I won't be trusting it with any torrents from private trackers (on which I've spent months or years building up my ratio) anytime soon.  
(Version 1.20)

STORMCHILD  Although the idea of an iTunes controller that looks like a 5G iPod is kind of cute, it would be impractical at best -- if it worked properly.

I tried this out briefly, and found it is nearly impossible to control it with circular motions around the clickwheel, and couldn't get it to actually do anything.

Even if it actually worked, this is the sort of thing I would delete within a few minutes, upon realizing that iTunes' default mini player window is far more practical and convenient.

This is pretty bad. Good luck charging people $10 for it. You couldn't pay me to use this.  
(Version 12)

STORMCHILD  I understood the original comment; it was just worded badly. If you must insert "no doubt" into every sentence, put commas around it. ;)  
(Version 1.4)

STORMCHILD  35 bucks? Ha. Good luck.  
(Version 1.4.45)

STORMCHILD  Still the best.  
(Version 3.6.5)

STORMCHILD  This was a great idea for an app, but its future now seems uncertain. The company website is still up, and it looks like they have a new app called "Acrylic" on the horizon (presumably some sort of painting app?), so apparently they are still active, but iVideo hasn't been updated in two and a half years, and there is no sign that an Intel-native version is even under development -- and the company blog was last updated in 2006.

I hope to see this product developed further, or a similar one introduced by another developer.  
(Version 3.0.2)

STORMCHILD  That probably will not work, as .plist files are usually binary now (not text, as they were back in 10.3 and earlier), so they would not be editable with something like TextWrangler. You have to use Apple's Property List Editor, part of the developer tools, or another tool that understands the binary .plist format.  
(Version 1.3)

STORMCHILD  People still use PINE?

Wow. Why?  
(Version 1.4.7)

STORMCHILD  A handy little tool, but way overpriced. I would gladly pay $12.95 for this, but no more.

I really only use a couple of the features, so it's just not worth it for me.  
(Version 2.1)

STORMCHILD  It's just like iTunes, except it's $25 instead of free, and sucks! Where do I sign up?

By the way, nobody cares about WMA support. The whole world uses MP3s or AACs. For anything else that iTunes doesn't handle, there are plenty of freeware converters available (e.g. MacFLAC and XLD).  
(Version 2.7)

STORMCHILD  Songbird is a neat idea. I've been following its progress over the last couple of years. It's clearly not ready to be reviewed yet, as it has not even reached the beta-testing stage (this is still very much alpha software), so I would suggest that any ratings given to it on MacUpdate so far should be deleted.

That said, from what I've seen, this software has not come very far from where it was two years ago, and doesn't look like it's going anywhere anytime soon. I doubt this will ever mature into a great product, but would be happy to be pleasantly surprised.  
(Version 0.5)

STORMCHILD  Gonna have to agree with the developer and jerrodho here. $10 is really not that steep; the software does provide a lot of features, and these days, a lot of other companies are charging much higher prices for simple little apps that do a lot less.  
(Version 2.4)

STORMCHILD  $20 for this? You've got to be kidding.

TinkerTool is freeware and does most of the same stuff.  
(Version 2.5.6)

STORMCHILD  Thanks, it works! I recently found a "fix" to get the preference pane working in Leopard, but it didn't work for me. This "official" fix works great though.  
(Version 5.0.51a)

STORMCHILD  Netscape 4 was the best browser in its day, but at this point I'm surprised they're still bothering to release new versions. I think it's time to stop beating this dead horse. Put a fork in it and let it die already; nobody has used this browser for years.  
(Version 9.0.0.6)

STORMCHILD  Twitter seemed really fun and cool at first, and Twitterific was a brilliant free program that made it that much better. And then they decided to start charging for it...which is fair enough, of course, as they spend time developing it, but $15 is simply a rip off for this very basic program. I would have gladly paid $5 or maybe even $7 for this, but $15 is just over the top for one little window that can't even remember its contents between launches and makes me keep marking the same messages read everytime I start it up. And to me, there's no point in even using Twitter if I have to keep going to a webpage to check it every time. Net result: I simply stopped using Twitter.

I think it could have really taken off if this great client remained free and was cross platform, but I find the ads irritating, was annoyed that I had to keep marking the same messages read everytime, and found it surprisingly slow to start up for such a simple little app, adding that much more of a delay between when I log in to my computer, and when I can start actually doing anything (several other programs also launch at login, and Twitterific's surprisingly slow startup time added a not-insignificant extra delay to the process).

At some point this client stopped being about bringing something new and cool to everyone, and the focus was shifted to making money rather than providing a quality product. That's when it started to go downhill. Granted, the actual Twitter service itself has not become commercial, but like I said, to me it's useless if I have to keep checking a webpage; it really needs a decent client, and sadly, Twitterific stopped being decent right around the same time it started costing way too much money.

Quite frankly it's not that much of a disappointment anyway; over the year or so that I used Twitter, it slowly morphed from timely quotes and tidbits and links to cool things, to a boring play-by-play of the most mundane aspects of people's lives (e.g. "Just got out of bed. Time for coffee." or "Dropping the kids off at school." ... good lord, who cares?!). I think we lost the point of this somewhere. But this is just one person's experience.  
(Version 3.0.1)

STORMCHILD  Nice and clean? Are you sure you're talking about GraphicConverter? It's a disaster; just look at the preferences, for starters.

At one time, the UI of GraphicConverter looked relatively "Mac-like", but that was long before the switch to OS X. If anything, it still looks very much like an old Classic app that has just been kludged to work in Apple's new OS (which is basically true). With OS X being out for over 6 years now, that's just unacceptable. This app is an old dinosaur; it has shown no improvement whatsoever in the UI department in the last 10 years.  
(Version 6.0.4)

STORMCHILD  Although I originally paid for this app, I hadn't used it in a couple years. Today I launched it, was notified of an update, and went to the site to download it, only to discover that my "free updates for life" have now been terminated, and now I have to pay again.

I would complain about this incredibly dishonest behavior, but it's kind of a moot point, as the new version won't even start up. It just bounces in the Dock forever and ever.

Deleted.  
(Version 2.0v206)

STORMCHILD  Haha. I love how "Create new website" is a single task. This is exactly why simple to-do lists don't work. They quickly turn into a landfill for abandoned projects whose steps were never clarified.

Nice design though. I like the way you can grab and drag to reorder items. Would be nice to be able to select multiple items at once to move/delete them as a group, and it seems to me that it would be a lot more useful if it integrated with the to-do items created in Mail/iCal, but it's kind of a moot point as I really don't get any benefit out of lists like this anyway.

Nonetheless, if anyone is just looking for a very simple to-do list and doesn't plan to use it very heavily, this might fit the bill. I don't have any use for it myself, but I always appreciate a well-designed widget. If nothing else, it got me to take a look at Magnetism's other widgets too (and the other ones look pretty nice too).  
(Version 1.0)

STORMCHILD  This is a great tool. It has a nice, clean interface, it works well, and it's freeware.

I'm not a fan of the new name though. I suppose the old name didn't really give you an idea of what it does, but I've gotta say, the new one sucks! To "mangle" something means to damage or mutilate it in an unintended manner. Who would want that!

That aside, I recommend this tool for all your batch file renaming needs.  
(Version 2.0)

STORMCHILD  This feature existed in Default Folder for many years before Apple copied it and added it to the Finder. I didn't realize this feature was available in Windows; I never noticed it before, and most likely it existed in Default Folder long before it was on Windows either.

Doesn't hurt to actually have a look at the options when you install a new program, as there is a rather obvious setting to control this feature.  
(Version 4.0.1b3)

STORMCHILD  Any Mac user who knows anything about Japanese knows that this is the best Japanese-English dictionary for the Mac, period. I've been using it since 2004; I've tried every other one that has been released since then, and none of them come anywhere close to JEDict.

Apple's Dictionary in OS X 10.5 actually has several Japanese-related dictionaries that are also quite excellent, and I recommend using those as well, but anyone who is at all serious about studying the language should really have JEDict too. I use both (and a handheld electronic one too), and they complement each other pretty well.

By the way, the browser feature is actually extremely useful if you take the time to learn why it was included in a dictionary. Try loading up any Japanese web page, select some text on the page, and the sidebar pops out with translations and definitions. And it's hardly "bloat"; WebKit views (i.e. the Safari engine) are provided by the OS, and very easily added to any Mac OS X application.  
(Version 4.5.1)

STORMCHILD  This site is not live streaming TV channels as it suggests. It's just an archive of video clips taken from TV, some of which are months old. Totally useless.  
(Version 3.0)

STORMCHILD  Default Folder has not been around since the 80s. I believe the first version was released in 1996.

Anyway, I agree; Default Folder still rocks! I've been using it since the System 7 days too, and it has remained one of my essential add-ons over the years.  
(Version 4.0.1b1)

STORMCHILD  Well, it's not looking good so far...

When ScrobblePod is "scrobbling" (submitting played tracks to Last.fm), iTunes completely locks up, and its CPU usage shoots up to 100%. Scrobbling *one song* usually takes 30 seconds or longer; in the meantime, while iTunes continues to play, you cannot control it at all, and its display does not update; it's spinning beachball time until ScrobblePod is finished. This happes after every song and becomes frustrating very quickly.

Needs work. I don't recommend using it until the massive CPU spike and total iTunes lockup after EVERY song gets fixed.  
(Version 0.50b)

STORMCHILD  Nice to see a new alternative to the official Last.fm bloatware, and iScrobbler. I hope this one works out, as I'm looking to get rid of iScrobbler (which has also turned into bloatware, and hasn't really worked properly since 1.1).  
(Version 0.50b)

STORMCHILD  Just tried version 2.0. When I launch the program, it crashes immediately. Tried it twice, then deleted it.  
(Version 2.0)

STORMCHILD  I've been using this for about a year and a half now. It's much better than running the whole bloated Last.fm software (which I have to say is really awful), but lately iScrobbler is going downhill too. I've been having a problem where it keeps queueing tracks for submission, but it won't actually send them until I quit iScrobbler and relaunch it. That's been happening since the last 1.x version; now we have "2.0" with a useless new "local lists" feature that seems like it will take a week of CPU time to finish computing its stats, and meanwhile that submission bug is still not fixed. Now in the last couple of betas, we have lost the "Statistics" menu item, so now I can't even tell how many tracks have not been submitted anymore.

Meanwhile, the "loved/banned" feature has never really worked properly. After you add 10 songs to either of those lists, it stops letting you add any more. The UI has some major problems in that area too.

iScrobbler seems to be getting worse with every release. I hope they turn it around soon. It used to at least be a good, lightweight tool for submitting tracks in the background, until that stopped working reliably too.  
(Version 2.1b3)

STORMCHILD  Garbage.

I tried to use iBiz 2 (starting when it was still called iWork), and experienced nothing but frustration with its endless stream of bugs and problems that were either replaced with new ones or never resolved. Eventually iBiz 3 appeared, and sure enough, many of the problems I had reported with iBiz 2 were STILL not fixed. I paid nearly $40 CAD for this junk; I thought it was overpriced, but needed something like this for my business, and at first glance it seemed nicer than the alternatives. But soon I discovered it had serious problems, such as miscalculations and data loss. One would be "fixed" and another one would turn up. No one could trust its numbers enough to actually use it for tracking time and billing clients (in other words, it's completely useless).

What a waste of time and money. I find it hilarious that the price has actually gone UP as the quality of the software remains consistently poor.

Billings is vastly superior, and even Studiometry (which I don't particularly like) is at least reliable and does what it's supposed to do.

This developer has proven himself incompetent and incapable of creating a quality, reliable application. iBank is even worse; you know you're in the wrong business when you can't even write software that does math properly, despite the fact that a computer doing all the actual computation.

Do yourself a BIG favor and steer clear of IGG's terrible software.  
(Version 3.1.9)

STORMCHILD  Don't review software you have never used. Your comments are valid, but your ratings are not.  
(Version 1.5.6)

STORMCHILD  Obviously you have no idea what DragThing does.  
(Version 5.9)

STORMCHILD  Insignificant update, hardly worthy of the "6.0" moniker. An obvious cash grab.

Once upon a time, this program was great, but it's been a disorganized mess for many years now. It has never felt like an OS X app, and the developer is either unaware of how awful and outdated the user interface has become, or simply unable to fix it himself.

Lemke needs to either hire a great UI designer, stat, or put this old dog to sleep. It's not that it's useless -- it's just that it's no more useful now than it was 5 years ago, and no less ugly.

And seriously...what's with the ripoff upgrades? I'll give you money when you deliver an upgrade that's actually worth paying for.  
(Version 6.0)

STORMCHILD  Absolutely hideous.  
(Version 1.0)

STORMCHILD  This latest update seems to have broken support for the NHL radio streams. They always worked perfectly fine until I installed 2.1.1.70; now the browser plugin locks up everytime the ad at the beginning is played. No longer works in any browser, so it's definitely the browser plugin that's broken.  
(Version 2.1.1.70)

STORMCHILD  Why do they even bother releasing new versions of this garbage? I bought an MX Revolution a few months ago, and NO versions of LCC worked. At ALL. It's completely worthless -- do yourself a favor, don't even bother trying to install it. Just grab SteerMouse and save yourself hours of headaches.  
(Version 2.1.4)

STORMCHILD  Sweet. I'm glad somebody stepped in to restore the intentionally-crippled functionality of iSync. Tiger was a big step *backward* for syncing. Who the hell cares about .Crap? I'd like to see all traces of that overpriced nonsense removed from my system.  
(Version 1.1)

STORMCHILD  This is such a great idea! I've been using it for a couple years; it works perfectly, and gets updated regularly. Can't beat the price either.  
(Version H19-3-30)

STORMCHILD  Yeah, this feature was added well over a year ago.  
(Version 1.0.1)

STORMCHILD  The cache disabling feature seems silly to me. The whole point of a cache is to increase performance, therefore disabling the cache will slow things down, if anything.

Nobody is going to pay $8 for this.  
(Version 2.1.1)

STORMCHILD  Just wanted to mention that the hotkey problem I posted about earlier has been resolved. A change was made in 3.0.3 to prevent keyboard shortcuts without modifier keys, which inadvertently blocked using individual F keys as shortcuts. The developer had a fix for me within an hour of my support request -- impressive service!  
(Version 3.0.3)

STORMCHILD  Nice. The version for my phone (K510) doesn't look as good as the screenshots; I've got a striped background instead of the clean white style, and boxes instead of tabs (even though other K510 themes have tabs). Still nice though -- and it's hard to find decent Sony Ericsson themes. Most of them are ugly as all hell. This one I can actually use.  
(Version 1.0)

STORMCHILD  Hotkeys are broken in 3.0.3. I used to have F1 through F8 set as hotkeys to open my favorite folders, and these no longer work. It was broken in the 3.0.3 betas, so I reverted to 3.0.2, thinking it was a bug, but now the final 3.0.3 release is out and the feature is still broken. I don't know whether other hotkeys are still valid (and don't care, as I'm not willing to change the hotkeys I've been using for several years), but F keys definitely don't work anymore. It still accepts them in the "Set Hotkey" dialog sheet, but they don't appear in the hotkey column of the favorites list.

I've emailed St. Clair support about it; hopefully we'll see a fix for it soon. I'm surprised none of the beta testers noticed this; I should have filed a bug report about it when I encountered it before, but was busy and just wanted to get it working again, so I simply reverted to 3.0.2.  
(Version 3.0.3)

STORMCHILD  Hoping to use this with my new MX Revolution, since LCC doesn't work at all. But so far this isn't working either. USB Overdrive doesn't recognize my Logitech mouse. I definitely removed every single file installed by LCC and have rebooted at least twice since then. No dice.  
(Version 10.4.5)

STORMCHILD  Can't get the software to work. I bought an MX Revolution today, downloaded LCC 2.1.3, and installed it. The mouse worked immediately after I plugged in the USB dongle (before installing any software), and the tracking seems to be smooth.

The software, on the other hand, doesn't work at all. The LCC preference pane is there, but says the same thing everyone else has been complaining about: "No Logitech device found."

I've repeatedly installed, uninstalled and reinstalled 2.1.3, 2.1.1, and 2.1.0, and they all produce that same result. I also tried manually uninstalling it by removing each file mentioned in the readme (thinking that perhaps the uninstaller works about as well as the rest of the software). I'm now fed up and tired of rebooting, and going to try USB Overdrive instead.

The mouse itself is solid, feels and works beautifully. Logitech makes great hardware, but really should fire all of its Mac developers (if it even has dedicated ones) and just hire Alessandro Montalcini (USB Overdrive author, on which Microsoft Intellipoint is based). Oh, and do something about that fugly logo. Did someone's five year old daughter draw that in school? Seriously.  
(Version 2.1.3)

STORMCHILD  Smart Scroll was one of my essential add-ons in the classic Mac OS, adding proportional scroll thumbs, live scrolling and general scrollwheel support before it was built into the system. Mac OS X handles all of these things on its own, so there really isn't a need for Smart Scroll in OS X -- or so I thought, until I tried it.

Smart Scroll X is really a different product altogether, and adds several very welcome features for scrolling in OS X apps. The $20 price tag seems a bit high for what it does, but this is quality software that works very well. The scrolling in OS X ain't broke, but I'm still glad someone fixed it. Try it; you might be surprised.  
(Version 2.1)

STORMCHILD  Looks like a useful tool, although it is still very basic. It's way overpriced for a specialized audio editor though. The only real strength it has compared to other editors is that it can do lossless editing of compressed audio files. In other words, it's an MP3/AAC trimmer/splitter/normalizer, and that's all it can do. Compared to Amadeus Pro -- a general audio editor that is far more capable and only costs $40 -- Fission should not cost any more than $20.

The normalization feature added in 1.1 is welcome (in fact, the program was borderline useless without this very basic feature), but it doesn't work on AAC files yet. Trying to normalize an AAC file gives the error: "An error in packet decoding occurred."

Even if this bug gets fixed, I still won't consider buying Fission until the price comes down.  
(Version 1.1.1)