Utility Roundup: New Tools For Your Mac

Most Mac users like the fact that it becomes a part of the family. Every Mac has its own personality, shaped, in part by the utilities we use. Whether it’s software, or an accessory, our Macs become individualized to our needs. Here’s 5 utilities that help your Mac be a Mac…

Safari Magic
A new relase for Mac OS X and Safari from MacEase. Safari Magic adds a number of new tools that let you collect and organize, even edit text, pictures, graphics from multiple web pages. You can use Safari Magic to gather elements from non-contiguous sources.

Now you’ll be able to save or print selectively, virtually anything you find on the Internet. You can also use Safari Magic to add notes and time-date stamps to information. What’s nice is Safari gets extended. You can use it for more utility functions than ever. MacEase does what all of us like to see with Mac software utilities—make it easy to use, make it work. And they provide a demo version so you can try it out, and a 30-day money back satisfaction guarantee.

Even Weblog Babe would enjoy using her Mac with Safari Magic. And she wouldn’t mind the $19.95 price.

PodTender for iPod
How many mixed drink recipes can you remember? After a certain number of drinks, I can’t remember much of anything. Now, your iPod comes to the rescue with PodTender. Enrique Quintero has released a database for your iPod which contains over 900 mixed drink recipes.

You’ll need Mac OS X Panther, of course, a 3rd generation iPod or iPod mini. And a place to try out the recipes to see if they’re really authentic mixed drink recipes. Only $5.00 through PayPal.

Carbon Fiber PowerBook Handles
About half of all Mac users are PowerBook or iBook laptop users. Need a sturdy way to carry your Mac? QuickerTek introduced Tuesday the new Carbon Fiber PowerBook carry handles.

The sturdy handles are designed for the 12-inch, 15-inch (both the TiBook and AlBook), and the 17-inch PowerBook line. $30 or $35 for the stronger than metal but much lighter handles which also double as a tilted stand to use your PowerBook as a desktop machine.

SnapZ Pro X 2.0.1
Ambrosia Software released this updated OS X utility recently and it deserves more than a mention. This is the coolest screen capture utility ever for the Classic Mac and now it works even better in Mac OS X. I know what you’re saying: “Mac OS X already has a screen capture utility.” See, I heard you say that.

SnapZ Pro X goes much further than just screen captures. First, you can use the familiar Shift-Command Key-3 Key to bring up a menu. From the menu you can select a full Screen Capture, capture just select objects, drag and stretch a selection on any part of the screen, or, get this: capture your screen movements as a QUickTime Movie which you can play back, edit, send to other.

Features are too numerous to mention here, but suffice it to say there’s nothing I’ve run into that’s better. The 2.0 version is rock solid, records screens, movies, video, audio and will even scale to a size you can handle.

RapidWeaver & RapidWeaver Themes
RealMac Software makes RapidWeaver, a quick web site builder. And I mean quick. It doesn’t get much easier considering how nice your web sites can look when you’re done.

In just a few clicks you’ll have a dozen different “themes” to choose from. A few clicks later and your web site is ready to enter content. RapidWeaver is perfect for weblogs or any site that needs, well, uh, rapid building. Only $39.95. You could save that much on the first web site.

Now, there’s a catch. You need lots of “themes” to create lots of web sites. The real beauty of RapidWeaver (now RapidWeaver Plus and Lite) is the simple use of themes to create web sites. RealMac opened up the architecture so developers could build themes to match.

Enter RapidWeaverThemes
RWT is a huge collection of RapidWeaver Themes. Download. Drag and drop into the Theme Folder, open RapidWeaver and you’ve now got dozens and dozens of new Themes to use.

They’re modestly priced and come in more flavors than you can shake a stick at. Flash. CSS. Straight HTML. With graphics. Without graphics. Multiple colors of the same Theme. Cranking out a classy looking web site is only made easier with RWT. Themes are available in 10 Packs for just $5.00. Fifty cents a Theme? Get real. That’s a bargain.

There’s even an 84 Theme Mega Pack for those of us who collect everything possible for the Mac. Support from RapidWeaverThemes has been nearly instant and the collection seems to get an update every week or so. Classy looking themes. Easy to install. Easy to use. Modestly priced.

Macs are great, aren’t they?

Bluetooth on PowerBook
Yes, I know. Bluetooth isn’t new. It’s not even new on a PowerBook. By now, everyone knows you can sync your Bluetooth cell phone to your Mac’s AddressBook and iCal with a single iSync click. What you didn’t know was what a drastic change it’ll make in your life, as it did to Joey Chen over at BabeTaxi.com.

Joey’s a Mac user. A woman. She loves the beach and her Mac. Here’s her BabeTaxi Story.

Check out the daily list of our 9 Word mini-Reviews at NoodleMac, and Kate's daily in-depth Mac software reviews at PixoBebo.