New Contest from SmileOnMyMac!

Word came down from on high today from the great guys at SmileOnMyMac about a fantastic contest they're running. What does one have to do? It's easy - just answer the question "How Does Your Mac Make You Smile?" Simple, huh? What can you get from answering this question? SmileOnMyMac is giving away up to 5 of the new iPod Nano (depending on how many entrants they get). They're also having a random drawing of 5 copies of the wonderful TextExpander (a tool I couldn't live without).

For further details, head on over to the contest page located here.
For the full press release, check out this page.

Have fun and get entering!

Skitch Beta Invites - 1 left

Just an update on the Skitch Beta giveaway - I've sent out invites to those that requested them, check your inboxes!

I currently have ONE invite left, so the next person to comment gets it. As soon as I get more, you'll be the first to know!

Quick Look: BrowseBack

In my post outlining the discount that SmileOnMyMac is offering, I also mentioned another piece of their software that I thought looked really interesting. Incase you forgot, that software is called BrowseBack.

The most simple way to describe BrowseBack is calling it a visual way to interact with your web history. In more specific terms, BrowseBack lets you see thumbnails of every page you've ever visited (up to a certain degree) to help you locate websites that you've found and thought interesting but haven't bookmarked. If thumbnails aren't enough, it also lets you search through the contents of each site.

After an initially slow start of looking through my history and generating the thumbnails, it has run smooth as silk and is very functional to boot. The search feature is really indispensable and the thumbnails really do help you to visually identify the culprit you're looking for. While I won't go into great detail as I'm still trying it out, I can say that it's already saved my butt several times.

Several things that I've noticed that could potentially be improved:

-Embedded video doesn't load in the thumbnail - it threw me off looking for several items. I'm not sure what the technical hurdles of getting this into the thumbnail would be.
-If you hover over a thumbnail, a bigger preview will come up. Unfortunately, much of the styling of the sites is completely gone so it's just the content.

Check back for a full review in about a week!

Giveaway: Skitch Beta

Skitch is one of the hottest new applications for it's almost perfect composition and ease of use. It's a fantastic app for quick edits to your photos and bundled with it's MySkitch online upload service, it makes for quick uploading too!

But that's enough about it - this is where you come in! I'm sure that some of you still don't have a beta invite. Well, I have 5 that I would love to give out to the first 5 people that comment on this post. Just post your email in the comment and I'll have one shooting off to you through the series of tubes that is the internets. If you'd like, you can also post something that you'd like to see on the Macversity - we'll get right on it!

Get commenting!

Quick Look: Desktoptopia

Being a busy student can be equated with the lack of hours in the day to do everything you want to do. Things you might miss out on could include playing sports, learning a new instrument, or choosing the next masterpiece to grace your Mac's desktop.

While there isn't a way of giving you more time in the day, your Mac can help you save time. Why can't it automate the process of finding new desktop wallpapers?

While there are many great solutions for this problem, the one I've chosen is Desktoptopia, mainly for the great selection of wallpapers they already have (which is growing by the day!). I've been using it for a little over a week and I'd like to give you a quick look at how it can make choosing a great looking desktop even easier!

Desktoptopia is simple from the get-go - it's installed as a system preference pane which you can start using right away. This is your hub for all things desktop - you have access to change things such as which categories of wallpapers you want displayed (all from desktoptopia by default), how often you want it to change your wallpaper, if you want the same wallpaper on your multiple monitors (if you have multiple monitors), or if you want Desktoptopia running when you login. This fine tuned control is great but I'd like to see it needs to be even easier to interact with your desktop - why do I have to go to System Preferences to change my wallpaper? This is where the great Menu Bar item comes in.

The Menu Bar item lets you change/pause the wallpapers as well as gives you easy access to rate them. It also lets you see the name and author of the wallpaper, with the option to view the full preferences or quit the program.

So, what do the wallpapers look like? Check out the one I'm rocking now: Candy by Photomomo.



If you don't want the hassle of having to find and collect desktop wallpapers, Desktoptopia might be right for you! A 10 day demo is available and a single license costs $20.

Screencaptures taken with plasq's Skitch.

Syndication Changes

This is news for those who have been using either our RSS or ATOM feeds.

As you guys know, we've been using Feedburner for both feeds since the site started; they were set up quickly and then forgotten. Going back into my Feedburner account, it was quite difficult for me to differentiate one from the other, so I've made a few changes. The main change that affects you subscribers is the address change for both feeds. The help differentiate, I've added the type of feed to both addresses.

Subscribe to the new feeds here:

 Subscribe via ATOM

 Subscribe via RSS

Update: The new feeds are not yet active, so you guys should still be getting this in your reader. You'll be the first to know when the new feeds are active!

Update 2: The new feeds are working now! Enjoy!

Thanks for your continued support of the Macversity! We've got great plans for the upcoming weeks, so stay tuned!

40% Back-to-School Discount from SmileOnMyMac!

Back in February, I made a post detailing usage of the great TextExpander from SmileOnMyMac. In the time that I've used it, it's saved me tons of time typing out repetitive items, corrected spelling mistakes, and added signatures to loads of emails that I've composed!

Well, it's no longer February right now. The summer is coming to a close relatively soon and school will be starting up! What better time is there to get some great software that will save you time and headaches? But wait - there's more! As a special bonus from now until September 4th, students can get an extra 10% off of the regular 30% student discount that SmileOnMyMac offers! Talk about a great deal!

What can you do with all of that money you save? How about taking a look at some of the other great productivity tools that SmileOnMyMac offers! One that especially caught my eye is BrowseBack which provides a visual way to view your web history. I know that I've lost great web pages while researching just due to the sheer volume of the web. BrowseBack gives you a simple and fast way to those lost sites fast and accurately, with the ability to see the page in a thumbnail and to search through the content by keyword!

So, what are you waiting for? Go pick up your school supplies now!

View the official press release here.