NightLion » Vega – My #1 Web Vulnerability Scanner for Mac OSX and Linux

★ Vega – My #1 Web Vulnerability Scanner for Mac OSX and Linux

NightLion — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 04:09:08 +0000

Vega

Vulnerability Scanner

I wanted to take a few moments and commend the Subgraph staff on their excellent work of their open source vulnerability scanner, Vega.

Vega does a fantastic job of scanning targets and listing potential vulnerabilities in a very short amount of time. Vega has quickly become my primary web vulnerability scanner, and the absolute first tool I use when I’m performing any type of web app testing. It’s fast, and continuously comes up with more resulting data than any other scanner I’ve come across.

As a Mac OSX user, I generally do most of my penetration testing from within a Backtrack virtual machine. Since Vega is built on Java, it runs on Mac OSX. It’s fairly new software, so it has its fair share of bugs, but you can always download and compile from their development branch to get the latest, cutting-edge updates.

There is also a feature for a built-in web proxy which I will write more about in a more detailed review. In the meantime, I suggest you check out Vega. It’s an absolute 10.

★ Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac – Free Giveaway Contest!

NightLion — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 16:02:15 +0000

Parallels 7 Mac

Desktop Virtualization

NightLion and Parallels have teamed up to give away away 4 copies of their new Parallels Desktop 7 product for Mac OSX. Parallels Desktop for Mac has been my desktop virtualization tool of choice for a while now. It crushes VMWARE in any speed and performance tests that I’ve ever put it through.

Security Training Through Virtualization

In the past few months, I’ve been using virtual machines to run pen testing tools like Backtrack and full simulation pen testing environments to prep for my CEH v7 exam. Parallels is a great tool for running one of the many hacking simulations available (previously discussed in this article). As we continue to narrow the scope of our content to more security related software and reviews, I contacted Parallels to offer this giveaway as a way to promote additional awareness for the growing number of security professionals using Mac OSX.

4 Copies up for grabs! Here’s How to Win

1 winner will be chosen each week, for 4 weeks.
Follow @NightLion and @ParallelsMac on Twitter
Retweet the message below to enter.
Each retweet will be counted as another vote
Weekly contest winners will be announced on Twitter and on this site.
Leaving a comment on our site probably wouldn’t hurt.

Win a copy of @ParallelsMac 7 via @NightLion. Follow & RT to win. Each RT counts as a new vote. #ParallelsMac tinyurl.com/3peaawy

★ Growl, the Original Notification System for Mac, gets a Lion Overhaul

NightLion — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 17:36:40 +0000

Growl

Notification System

Within a day of release, Growl soared to the top of the paid charts in the Mac App Store. That alone should tell you something.

Growl has been (and still is) the defacto standard for notifications on your mac. Growl is one of those rare apps that instantly becomes indispensable, and you just can’t live without.

The new version of Growl, besides adding support for OSX Lion, adds a completely redesigned interface and several new features worth mentioning:

New Rollup notification lists everything that happened while you were away
Full notification history, so you can see what has been going on.
Networking so that two or more macs can forward notifications to each other
Works with the iPhone and iPad via Prowl.
Completely skinnable alerts

The low price of $2 is extremely reasonable considering just how much you end up using this app without even realizing it. Bottom line, this app is rock solid; Apple couldn’t have done it any better.

Price: 1.99 | Homepage | App Store Link

★ Navicat Premium – An Exceptional Database Management Powerhouse, available for Mac OSX, Windows and Linux

NightLion — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 14:47:43 +0000

Navicat Premium

Database Manager

Overview

Navicat comes in several specific database flavors, including MySQL, SQL Server, SQLite, Oracle and PostgreSQL. Navicat Premium handles support for all of those databases combined. First and foremost, The interface feels like it is a native mac app. It is so incredibly intuitive that setting up a connection to a local or remote database doesn’t take longer than a minute. Once connected, navigating through the database schemas is as simple as point and click; everything flows exceptionally well. Kudos to the application designers, they did a tremendous job.

Here are my top 5 favorite (and most useful) features of Navicat:

1. Connect using SSH / HTTP Tunnel

W O W . I’ll be honest, my jaw almost hit the floor when I saw this feature. I’ve often had problems connecting to remote MySQL databases because of various permission issues. I can’t describe just how useful this feature is. All I have to do is create an SSH tunnel to my server with my SSH credentials, and I can connect to the DB at localhost with absolutely no issues. This feature alone makes this product worth every penny in my book.

2. Database Wide Search

The name says it all. There have been many times when I am looking for a particular piece of data nested in some unknown table. Rather than writing a complex query, Navicat will just search all of the tables for you; it’s fast and painless.

3. The Reverse Database to Modeling Tool is insane!

This is probably one of the coolest feature’s I’ve ever seen in a DB tool. Just select Reverse Database to Model and Navicat will literally take all of the database tables and lay them out in a graphical data modeler. It’s awesome. You can then make changes to the DB via the graphical model and SYNC it back with the tables. This feature is AWESOME.

4. Import / Export

Last but not least, the import/export feature of Navicat makes it so incredibly easy to backup or restore your databases without having to go through the effort of either doing is via the command line or through phpMyAdmin. It’s a real time saver.

5. Many Different Database Flavors Available

Navicat Premium handles database connections for MySQL, SQL Server, SQLite, Oracle and PostgreSQL. I personally only use the MySQL and PostgreSQL, but that’s part of what makes Navicat so great (and affordable). You don’t necessarily have to shell out for the most expensive package if you don’t need it. Just focus on the databases that you care about to keep your costs low, and you still get all of the same features.

Rating

Ease of Use: 10
Look and Feel: 10
Functionality: 10

Overall Rating: 10/10

Price: $69 – $249 | Trial? Yes | Navicat Homepage

★ Quickbooks 2012 for Mac – Intuit delivers a business accounting product worthy of OSX

NightLion — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 15:45:29 +0000

Quickbooks 2012

Business Accounting

For those of you that don’t like to read long winded reviews, I’ll get right to the point: As an OSX user, you probably share the distaste left by Intuit over the previous Quickbooks product releases. In fact, at the time that Quickbooks 2012 was announced, I was in the process of looking at online alternatives. Even though I am still highly annoyed at the fact that Quickbooks still does not support automatic credit card processing, I can honestly say that Quickbooks 2012 has blown me away. Quickbooks 2012 represents a significant improvement in both workflow and user interface. The process flows and smooth UI feel like you are working in a Mac application it’s terrific. In my opinion, this version represents a huge leap forward in finance and accounting programs for the Mac.

The Interface

The first thing I noticed is how much smoother the process flow of the application is. Entering an invoice is still just as easy, but the updated UI allows you to quickly click not the payment button, grab the invoice you want from the list on the left, and rapidly enter a payment. The entire prices is incredibly smooth.The one thing I hated about Quickbooks 2011, was the it always took me a good amount of time to figure out where the ‘receive payments’ button was located. Now everything is centrally located; it just makes sense.

Importing Bank Transactions

This process has also gotten considerably easier. I have a stack of unmatched transactions sitting in my register because I haven’t wanted to go through them one at a time. QB 2012 is defiantly better at handling unmatched transactions, but it’s not quite 100% in my opinion. The new batch ‘Add Multiple’ and Renaming Rules options go a long way in speeding up this process. Once you add a vendor to your register once, you can click the Add Multiple button to have quickbooks automatically enter the rest for you.

While this does save a considerable amount of time, a perfect solution would be to have an “Add All” button, which goes ahead and enters everything for you, using a generic spending category. I know it’s not proper accounting, but sometimes you need to just get things done and move on. It’s certainly a nice to have feature, but by no means a deal breaker for me. The new import functionality is awesome.

Progress Invoicing

At first I just glanced over this, but this is actually a pretty cool feature. I generally collect deposits on projects, but have always just worked off the same invoice. Now, I create an estimate for the entire project, and I can have quickbooks generate a ‘Progress Invoice’ for the amount that I would like to bill for. Then I can have separate invoices for each piece that I’ve built. This will change my workflow a little bit, but I think it’s worth it. I think my this is something that my customers will greatly appreciate.

Automated Reoccurring Merchant Account Transactions are STILL missing

Can you tell that this is a sore spot for me? Intuit, if you read this review, please add this feature! This is probably the most frustrating part about Quickbooks. Merchant account support has been available for the Mac for 4 years now. Automatic credit card billing has been available for windows for over 5 years. Why can’t this feature be added to the Mac version? Doesn’t it make sense that the merchant account features of both products would match, especially considering the fact that the only merchant account service available to use within Quickbooks is owned by Intuit? All of my billing is done on the first of the month. Why can’t I automate that process of billing my same 20 clients each month so I don’t have to manually bill them one at a time?

Overall Impressions

I definitely don’t consider myself pro Intuit, as they’ve certainly given the shaft to Mac OSX users in the past… but I have to give credit where credit is due: Quickbooks 2012 is fantastic. I wouldn’t hesitate to pay the upgrade price tag, as this app now towers over all other small business finance apps for OSX.

Ease of Use: 10
Look and Feel: 10
Functionality: 8
Overall Rating: 9

Price: $249 | Trial? yes | Homepage

Pentagon Powerpoint outlining Military purchasing and product life cycles.

★ Create a Printable Document Index with PDF Index Generator

NightLion — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 07:23:37 +0000

Since the G2700 ISO 27001 / 27002 certification was an open book exam, I needed a way to quickly find the material I was looking for without having to go through mounds of papers during the exam. If you are interested in the exam material, refer to my article on what materials you will need to bring with you to the exam.

After trying a few different pieces of software, I settled with PDF Index Generator. It took some time to get over the initial humps, but PDF Index Generator is actually a really powerful piece of software. I ultimately ended up creating two separate indexes for reference purposes (which I will get into in a minute).

Step 1: Create the Index List

Creating the initial index was a completely grueling process. It was pure grunt work, and unfortunately, there is no way around it.

PDF Index Generator will create an index list for you, but it will index every word, minus the built in ‘excluded’ words. I thought the application would be able to automate the creation of the index terms, but I quickly found out that the software can’t determine groupings of words and phrases: e.g., ‘information security management’. The Index creator can index each word individually, but it would have no way of knowing that Index Security Management is a term that you want to specifically search for, unless you manually specify it in the ‘include list’.

To try and expedite this process, I copy and pasted the index (word list) from several ISO 27001 books, and the GIAC G2700 exam information prep guides. Finally, I used the U-Certify practice exams and copied the answer to all of the questions into the word lists. This actually accounted for most of my most valuable infuriation as the multiple choice answers covered just about ever combination of technical term needed to create a full and robust word index.

Step 2: Clean the List

The my initial index ‘include’ list was a mess, so here’s how I cleaned it:

I copied / pasted the list into Excel
Removed the duplicate entries
Sorted the list alphabetically
Copied the data back out to a flat text file.

My index word list was complete, with a staggering 3,759 words.

Step 3: Creating the printed PDF Index with PDF Index Generator

To generate the index, I used PDF Index Generator. It is a Java app, so it will run on any operating system. I scoured the web for a program that will create indexes of PDF documents, and there really weren’t many out there. Of the few I found, PDF Index Generator is definitely my choice. It’s not a very expensive app, and it gets the job done.

The user interface is very simple to use, and there are actually only a handful of steps involved. You select your file, determine how to index the PDF document (include lists, exclude lists, etc), and process. It’s pretty simple. I will say that the one thing that I didn’t like is the header/sub header creation process. The app doesn’t do a very good job of working with sub headers, so I didn’t include any in my index. Here are some additional comments on the app:

PROs

Professional, customizable output
Exports as PDF or appends index to existing PDF
Extremely simple to import your own Include and Exclude text lists

CONs

software can’t determine groupings of words and phrases (e.g., ‘information security’).
Java process hangs when trying to add/edit sub headers, so save often
Words that are plural are not automatically detected, e.g., system and systems
Having to manually create the Headers / Sub Header terms is painful
Aesthetically, since the program is written in Java, it doesn’t have the same look and feel as a native OSX app

Final Thoughts

Overall, I had a good experience with the app. Here are my ratings:

Ease of Use: 7
Look and Feel: 5
Functionality: 9

Overall Rating: 7/10

★ SpamSieve – The missing spam filter for Mac OSX Mail

NightLion — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 21:55:21 +0000

Spamsieve

Spam Filter for OSX Mail

Spam Sieve has been a god send for me. It’s by far the best email spam filter for the mac, period. I’m forced to continue to check one of my email boxes which is littered with about 50-100 spam messages a day. Server controls can only do so much, and OSX Mai’s built in spam control is nonexistent.

There isn’t a lot to say except that Spam Sieve provides the missing link to filtering your junk mail. If you need to filter spam on your mac email, either with Mail, Thunderbird or Postbox, you need Spamsieve. Once you have the application open, you can install the correct plugin for your mail client. From there, open up mail and start training some messages. It doesn’t take long before you are fully up and running.

The only thing I don’t like about Spamsieve is the icon that continues to hang around the dock everything your email has launched. Luckily, there is a quick way to get around that. Click here for instructions on removing the SpamSieve icon from your dock.

Price: $30 | Trial? Yes | Homepage

★ Linkinus – Extraordinarily awesome IRC client for Mac

NightLion — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 21:12:03 +0000

Linkinus

IRC Client

Conceited Software’s Linkinus is the be-all end-all for Mac IRC clients. I realize that’s a fairly strong statement to make, but it’s well deserved. Linkinus is easy enough for new-IRC users to grasp, and powerful enough for veteran IRC users to maximize. A common trend of the apps I like to review, Linkinus has an extremely clean and un-cluttered user interface; an accomplishment for an IRC client. Linkinus also boasts some pretty powerful features including:

Smart Highlighting
Embedable Media
Applescript Support
Ident Manager
Custom Themes
Custom Channel and Server settings

Another note of praise is the fact that you can customize server and channel settings just by clicking on the name (in the sidebar). You can add things like custom join commands, ident switching, and specific word highlighting for traffic monitoring.

I don’t say this often, but I have to admit that Conceited Software has really thought of everything on this one. I can’t think of a single feature I would add. With that being said, if you plan on using IRC on your Mac, look no further than Linkinus. At $9.99, it’s a steal.

Ease of Use: 10
Look and Feel: 10
Functionality: 10

Overall Rating: 10

Price: $9.99 | Trial? Yes | Homepage | App Store Link

★ The Hit List for Mac and iPhone – An objective review from an Omnifocus power user

NightLion — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 18:02:03 +0000

The Hit List is very powerfultask list that is dead simple to use; it’s as easy as Wunderlist, and considerably more powerful. While I still continue to use Omnifocus, my wife has made the switch to The Hit List. It’s perfectly suited for her needs without giving her the feeling of being overly complex and overbearing. There are a few features that I would still like to see before making a switch, but I am probably in a special class of tech users. I actually think that The Hit List would be a perfect solution for most people.

The wait for an updated desktop and iPhone app of the Hit List has been long overdue, and I think it was worth the wait. The Hit List’s sync is blazing fast and extremely reliable. It’s a great solution. Interestingly enough, if it wasn’t for Cultured Code’s lack of OTA sync for Things, I probably would never have switched away from it. I guess this is a true tale of the Tortoise and the Hare.

The Hit List for Mac

Simple, Powerful Task Manager with OTA Sync

Clean interface; Does not seem overwhelming
Very well organized.
Entering tasks is fast and the keyboard shortcuts give it a very fluid feel
Switching between list and context mode is very nice and well thought out.
Printing looks as great on paper as it does on screen. This was a very big deal for my wife who likes to take paper with her.
The Hit List also syncs with iCAL! This hasn’t worked for Omnifocus for quite some time. It’s a feature that I really miss.
Over-the-air sync is lightning fast.

Again, the entire process is very simple and streamlined. The whole thing is incredibly well done.

Suggestions / Wish list

The Repeating tasks feature is hard to find. I had written a portion of this article on the lack of repeating tasks before I found out that The Hit List actually supported it. I would consider adding a ‘Repeat’ button in the taskbar.
Project Start / Due dates. I would like to be able to set a start or due date for an entire task list, rather than having to assign it to each task.
Predictive tag/context feature can be confusing to someone who doesn’t understand what is going on. I would consider turning that off by default.
There should be a way to define a default list for contexts or tags (e.g. Tasks in my Walgreens and Target contexts always fall under my ‘Shopping’ list)
Today shows tasks in the “next three days”. This is kind of confusing and annoying. The today view should only show you tasks that are due today. Upcoming should show you what’s coming next.
Add a Time field to the start and due options. This is useful for keeping appointments, or scheduling a task at a particular point in the day (e.g, ‘Take out Trash’)
Add the ability to enter multiple tasks in the Quick Entry window. Hit enter to cycle to the next task, or Esc when done entering tasks.
Setting to hide tasks that have not started (or will not start for x amount of days). For example, I have a Bills list, which contain a list of monthly repeating bills that need to be paid. There should be an active filter to not show items which have not yet started. Seeing every bill in the list becomes confusing.

Ease of Use: 9

Look and Feel: 10

Functionality: 7

Overall Rating: 8.5/10

Price: $49.95 | Trial? Yes | Homepage | App Store Link

The Hit List for iPhone

The iPhone app was definitely worth the wait. It’s not as full featured as I would like, but again, for someone like my wife, it’s perfect. However, considering this is the first release of the app, I understand that it’s just a starting point. Overall, it is very well laid out and extremely easy to use. The only downside that I’ve found is that it seems to be extremely buggy; the app crashes quite a bit for me.

The rapid entry feature is by far my favorite feature of the iPhone app. All other GTD companies should take not of this feature as I consider it to be ground-breaking and simple.
The interface is very well designed and streamlined.
The batch moving feature is very useful.

Suggestions / Wish List

Push Notifications for due tasks.
Ability to reduce the font size of tasks of the tasks lists and folders. The size 16 font is a bit large. I would probably drop the icon size, too.
When looking at a task, you should be able to click a field to edit it, rather than clicking edit, then the field name
An iPad app
Buggy

Overall, The Hit List is a great app which, depending on your specific needs, you should definitely consider.

Ease of Use: 9

Look and Feel: 8

Functionality: 6

Overall Rating: 7/10

Price: $9.99 | Trial? Yes | Homepage | App Store Link

TextExpander: Automate your repetetive email and text based workflows

NightLion — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 00:12:44 +0000

TextExpander

Text Typing Shortcut Utility

I was first turned onto TextExpander by one of Shawn Blanc‘s posts on an article about ‘Using TextExpander to conquer email‘. He stated in his post, “The Big Ah-Ha Moment for me was when I realized that though I could use it to help automate my responses to certain common emails I get, that automation didn’t mean my replies were any less personal.”

I thought about this for a bit, and one day it finally hit me. A large portion of what I do during the day (especially in email), is repetitive. I’ve since set up quick keys to help speed up this process. Typing something like “hhome” will output my home address, or “wwork” will output my work address. It becomes extremely time saving, especially when taking into account that I may have to look up the correct zip code to my office before emailing it to someone.

Since then, TextExpander has become an essential tool in my everyday workflow. Once I started to use TextExpander, I couldn’t believe how many of my emails and tasks were purely repetition. One of the features that I use the most is TextExpander’s custom fill-in form templates. TextExpander’s form function has turned out to be a great tool for quickly creating blog entries and reviews for this site.

The format for my blog posts and reviews is generally the same, including the custom code surrounding it. Using TextExpander, I can type in a shortcut, fill out the necessary data, and voila! My blog post is done in a few minutes.

If you haven’t tried TextExpander, I would recommend it. Overall, it’s a fantastic.

Price: $34.95 | Trial? yes | Homepage | App Store Link

★

★ How to Enable and Make Scrollbars in OSX Lion Visible

NightLion — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 14:35:20 +0000

You’ve probably noticed by default that all scroll bars in Lion are now invisible until required. For some this might be confusing. If you want scrollbars turned on by default, all it takes it to change a single setting.

In System Prefs, click General, select “Always” under show scroll bars.

NetShade: Anonymous Proxy software for Mac

NightLion — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 17:39:26 +0000

Netshade

Anonymous Proxy Software

In a word, Netshade is Awesome. Netshade provides a graphical user interface that allows you to anonymously browse the internet by routing your traffic through a proxy server. A web proxy allows you to anonymously browse the Internet by routing your traffic through another server (the “proxy”). Using a proxy server to access the internet will also allow you to bypass web filtering software utilized by many companies and public internet stations.

Netshade is a very simple. It can sit in your OSX menu bar and be activated and disabled with the click of a button. Netshade also allows you to select which proxy (or country) you would like to route your traffic through, by provide a list of publicly accessible proxy servers. Registered owners can also use one of Netshade’s blazingly fast public proxy servers.

This application isn’t for everyone, but if you have a need for it, and don’t want to take the site to setup and configure your own SSH proxy, then I would highly recommend buying this app.

Price: $29 | Trial? Yes | Homepage

★

★ SuperDuper: Create bootable hard drive clones, duplicates, and backups for Mac OSX

NightLion — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 22:56:39 +0000

SuperDuper

Hard Disk Clone and Duplicator

I ordered a new SSD (6g from OWC), and I needed a way to mirror my data from one drive to the next. I am running OSX Lion (GM), so that may be why I initially had so many problems.

I tried a few utilities to accomplish the disk cloning process, including Apple’s Disk Utility, Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper.

First up, Apple’s Disk Utility kept failing, stating an “Input/Output Error”. I couldn’t figure out why, so I moved on.

Next up was Carbon Copy Cloner; that didn’t work out well, either. The process would start, but the app kept giving me permission errors, specifically around any of the MacPort files and the system logs.

Finally, there was SuperDuper. I was initially turned away by SuperDuper because it was telling me that the copy speeds were only 4mb/s. This may just be during the first minute or so, because I let it sit for a few minutes and then watched the speed jump to 30mb/s. It probably would have been faster if the O/S wasn’t running, but everything ultimately worked great. The data was successfully copied, and the drive was made bootable. SuperDuper also included a nice option to check and repair existing disk permissions prior to the start of the cloning process.

SuperDuper is free, but it also has a paid upgrade if you want to schedule syncs/backups.

Price: Free / $27.95 | Trial? Yes | Homepage

★ How to create a bootable USB Flash Drive with UNetBootIn and use it to install Mac OSX, Linux, or any other Operating System

NightLion — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 15:16:19 +0000

UNetBootIn

Create Bootable USB Flash Drives

This is actually a pretty simple (and free) process. I re-posted the directions from BackTrack (a linux distribution of Penetration Testing Tools). FYI, I chose this method over using the standard Mac OSX Disk Utility primarily because Disk Utility does not accept ISO images. Also, UNetBootin support multiple platforms, making it a good universal tool.

This method of getting a live install to a USB drive is the simplest available using Unetbootin.
(Note that we will format the USB drive and erase its contents).

Plug in your USB Drive (Minimum USB Drive capacity 2 GB)
Format the USB drive to FAT32
Download Unetbootin from http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
Start Unetbootin and select an ISO diskimage
Select your USB drive and click “OK” for creating a bootable USB drive
Reboot. Enjoy!

Note: If you want to convert a DMG file to an ISO in the Mac Terminal:

hdiutil convert /path/imagefile.iso -format UDRW -o /path/convertedimage.dmg

Burn – A Free CD / DVD Burning Utility for Mac OSX

NightLion — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 16:50:39 +0000

Burn

CD / DVD Burner

Rather than reviewing some of the newer apps, I wanted to take a few segments and review some of the more essential utilities needed for new Mac users. A feature missing from OSX is the ability to easily and efficiently burn CDs/DVDs. Burn solves that problem.

Burn is my program of choice for burning CDs and DVDs on my Mac. You can’t beat the price, which is FREE. Burn supports many CD burning formats VCD, MP3 CD, DIVX and DVD-Audio. It’s also extremely lightweight compared to Toast Titanium. You really can’t go wrong with this.

The only feature it’s missing, which is pretty important to many people, is the ability to load/burn ISO, DMG or BIN images.
Hopefully they will add it soon.

Ease of Use: 10
Look and Feel: 10
Functionality: 7

Overall Rating: 8/10

Price: Free | Trial? Yes | http://burn-osx.sourceforge.net/Pages/English/home.html”>Homepage

★

★ How to make Candybar work with Mac OSX Lion beta

NightLion — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 00:55:49 +0000

This is a simple fix:
Edit your /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist

sudo nano /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist

Change the version number strings from 10.7 to 10.6.8

Save, and run Candybar. When you are done, don’t forget to change the version number back!

★ Mass Email Marketing and Mailing List Manager for OSX with MaxBulk Mailer

NightLion — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 01:34:50 +0000

MaxBulk Mailer

Mass Email Marketing

I’m not sure if there is anything else like this for the Mac, so this app is kind of a no-brainer if you are interested in sending out bulk e-mails without the cost of paying for a monthly service. MaxBulk is fast, fully customizable and very easy to use. It handles both HTML and plain text emails. Importing is no problem using the mail-merge functionality, or just importing a CSV file. The SMTP features are pretty nice, too; you can specify multiple SMTP servers with timed email limits (e.g., 10 messages per minute, per server). That was actually my biggest selling point.

Ease of Use: 4
Look and Feel: 4
Functionality: 5

Overall Rating: 4/5

Price: $49.99 | Trial? Yes | Homepage

★ 12 must have Mac OSX apps and utilities for 2011

NightLion — Thu, 26 May 2011 17:18:50 +0000

My list of some of the most important and crucial apps in my everyday workflow.

OmniFocus

GTD Task Organizer

Omnifocus is by far the most powerful and versatile to-do list app on the market. It has quite a steep learning curve and can be extremely intimidating (and even frustrating). It’s taken me a long time to learn and understand its flow, but now that I’m here, it’s fantastic; there’s just no going back to anything else.

Omnifocus has a very hefty price tag, but if you juggle multiple projects and feel like you do nothing but tread water all day, this app is for you.

Price: $79.99 | Trial? Yes | Homepage | App Store Link

Mars Edit

Blog Editor / Manager

Mars Edit has become my 3rd hand for blog editing. I manage several different WordPress sites, and Mars Edit handles it like a champ. I can’t say enough about this app, so I will say this: If you plan on working with a blog, or content on a WordPress site, buy this app.

Price: $39.95 | Trial? Yes | Homepage | App Store Link

FontCase

Font Manager

Fontcase is a font manager with an elegant and powerful workflow to help you perfectly organize and preview your fonts.Elegant Font Management is FontCase’s tag line, and they are right on the money.

Price: $30 | Trial? Yes | Homepage | App Store Link

Alfred

File / Application Launcher

Alfred is a utility for Mac OS X that’s part app launcher, part navigation tool and part web service. In short, it’s a productivity tool that sits quietly in the background until you need something — fast.

There are so many shortcuts and features available that I won’t both trying to only list a few of them. Just check it out.

Price: Free / $12.00 | Trial? Yes | Homepage | App Store Link

Radium

Internet Radio Streaming

Radium is a high quality internet radio app for your mac. It picks up loads up stations including SiriusXM, so I can finally listen to Howard Stern at work. It also has a nice built in EQ, song history, and an easy to use ‘favorites’ option.

Price: $24.99 | Trial? Yes | Homepage | App Store Link

Kiwi

Twitter Client

Kiwi is one of those clients that isn’t known by many people. It’s a shame because I think it outperforms the competition. The UI is versatile and easy to use, and best of all, it supports themes. There is a nice selection of user community themes available at KiwiThemes.com. A theme API is also available.

Price: $0.99 | Trial? Yes | Homepage | App Store Link

Better Finder Rename

Batch File Renamer

A Better Finder Rename is the most complete renaming solution available on the market today. It offers a full list of renaming options, including MP3/AAC Support. You can even save regular rename operations as a droplet for quick use. It’s a total time saver.

Price: $19.99 | Homepage | App Store Link

Price: | Trial? Yes | Homepage | App Store Link

1Password

Password and Personal Data Manager

This is another one of those apps that I use continuously throughout my day. In short, it is a password storage app and automatic form filler. The nice thing about 1password is that it also has a place to securely store all of your software serial numbers, personal documents (birth certificates, drivers licenses, etc), and sensitive financial information such as credit card numbers and bank accounts. It’s essentially a digital vault for your personal life.

Price: $39.99 | Trial? Yes | Homepage

Soulver

Calculator Replacement

“It’s quicker to use than a spreadsheet, and smarter and clearer than a traditional calculator.”
Soulver has quickly become a standard tool in my daily routine because of how it handles text and numbers. With Soulver you can use words alongside your numbers to give them context. It’s a great way to look back and remember your work. There is also support for currency, distance, time and about 80 other conversion units.

Price: $19.99 | Homepage | App Store Link

Busy Cal

Calendar Replacement and Sync

I’ve been using BusyCal for a while now. At first it was because it was the only calendar replacement to properly handle multiple shared Google Calendars. More than that, all of the little nuances give it a huge advantage of Apple’s built in calendar. Even so, the proper handling of multiple Google calendars is enough to warrant the price tag.

Price: $49.99 | Trial? Yes | Homepage | App Store Link

Yojimbo

Information Organizer

My “everything bucket”.
Yojimbo is a great way to manage and collect all of those scraps of information, ideas and loose files that are just hanging around in various places. Yojimbo has greatly helped in de-cluttering my folders. Having my data available on the iPad is a great time saver, too. OTA Sync via Dropbox or MobileMe still isn’t supported. Hopefully they will add it soon. The only real downside is the steep price tag. Evernote is a good alternative, but I just haven’t been able to get into it. It seems a bit busy for me, but the OTA sync is really nice.

Price: $38.99 | Trial? Yes | Homepage | App Store Link

Permute

Audio / Video Converter

Permute is a great drag and drop audio / video conversion tool. I use it mostly for audio to create MP3 files in batch. I spent about a year looking for a decent MP3 converter (outside of iTunes).There were a few discontinued apps for OSX, but nothing concrete. I’m really glad I came across permute. It’s really straight forward and easy to use. Overall, it’s a great tool for a great price.

Price: $14.99 | Trial? Yes | Homepage | App Store Link

Parallels 6 in OSX Lion – Solving “Unable to Load the Parallels Driver”

NightLion — Mon, 23 May 2011 00:09:26 +0000

I found this great shell script on the Parallels Forum which will allow Parallels 6 to launch a virtual machine in the new OSX Lion Beta.

These shell commands have to be run after each fresh boot.

Shell Commands:

sudo kextutil "/Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Kexts/10.6/prl_hypervisor.kext"
sudo kextutil "/Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Kexts/10.6/prl_hid_hook.kext"
sudo kextutil "/Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Kexts/10.6/prl_usb_connect.kext"
sudo kextutil "/Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Kexts/10.6/prl_netbridge.kext"
sudo kextutil "/Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Kexts/10.6/prl_vnic.kext"

Your output should look like this:

$ sudo kextutil "/Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Kexts/10.6/prl_hypervisor.kext"
Warnings: 
    The booter does not recognize symbolic links; confirm these files/directories aren't needed for startup: 
        /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Kexts/10.6/prl_hypervisor.kext/Contents/CodeDirectory
        /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Kexts/10.6/prl_hypervisor.kext/Contents/CodeRequirements
        /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Kexts/10.6/prl_hypervisor.kext/Contents/CodeResources
        /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Kexts/10.6/prl_hypervisor.kext/Contents/CodeSignature
 
$ sudo kextutil "/Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Kexts/10.6/prl_hid_hook.kext"
Warnings: 
    The booter does not recognize symbolic links; confirm these files/directories aren't needed for startup: 
        /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Kexts/10.6/prl_hid_hook.kext/Contents/CodeDirectory
        /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Kexts/10.6/prl_hid_hook.kext/Contents/CodeRequirements
        /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Kexts/10.6/prl_hid_hook.kext/Contents/CodeResources
        /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Kexts/10.6/prl_hid_hook.kext/Contents/CodeSignature
 
$ sudo kextutil "/Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Kexts/10.6/prl_usb_connect.kext"
Warnings: 
    The booter does not recognize symbolic links; confirm these files/directories aren't needed for startup: 
        /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Kexts/10.6/prl_usb_connect.kext/Contents/CodeDirectory
        /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Kexts/10.6/prl_usb_connect.kext/Contents/CodeRequirements
        /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Kexts/10.6/prl_usb_connect.kext/Contents/CodeResources
        /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Kexts/10.6/prl_usb_connect.kext/Contents/CodeSignature
 
$ sudo kextutil "/Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Kexts/10.6/prl_netbridge.kext"
Warnings: 
    The booter does not recognize symbolic links; confirm these files/directories aren't needed for startup: 
        /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Kexts/10.6/prl_netbridge.kext/Contents/CodeDirectory
        /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Kexts/10.6/prl_netbridge.kext/Contents/CodeRequirements
        /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Kexts/10.6/prl_netbridge.kext/Contents/CodeResources
        /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Kexts/10.6/prl_netbridge.kext/Contents/CodeSignature
 
$ sudo kextutil "/Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Kexts/10.6/prl_vnic.kext"
Warnings: 
    The booter does not recognize symbolic links; confirm these files/directories aren't needed for startup: 
        /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Kexts/10.6/prl_vnic.kext/Contents/CodeDirectory
        /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Kexts/10.6/prl_vnic.kext/Contents/CodeRequirements
        /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Kexts/10.6/prl_vnic.kext/Contents/CodeResources
        /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Kexts/10.6/prl_vnic.kext/Contents/CodeSignature

★

Six unexpected uses for the Application Switcher

NightLion — Tue, 17 May 2011 16:12:25 +0000

You’ve probably got the basics of the Application Switcher down pat by now: press Command-Tab .. But, as with everything on the Mac, the Application Switcher can do more than you might guess.

★

Alfred + Powerpack: a fantastic application launcher for the Mac

★ Postbox 2.5 Beta for Mac OSX – Good, but not great.

NightLion — Fri, 13 May 2011 04:12:45 +0000

Postbox 2.5 beta was just released. While it has some cool new features, and a 2 line subject view, it still has a long way to go if it is going to compete with the new OSX Lion Mail or the upcoming Sparrow 1.2 release.

What I Like

The interface feels lighter and cleaner.
The Compose interface has been updated. The ability to select accounts on the fly is really well done.
The quick reply feature is awesome
The new message count style is cosmetically nicer.

Suggestions for Improvement

The two line ‘Outlook-styled’ mail view is cool, but what happened to the Junk and Flagged buttons? I can’t easily click on something to mark it as junk anymore. Also, why did starred items become checkmarks?
The message style for Sender’s Name is bold, making it difficult to tell which messages are new and which aren’t
Topics should become tags. In my opinion, the worst features of Postbox is ‘Topics’. Instead of being able to flag an email with a color, Postbox treats this as a ‘conversation’ and marks everything by that sender in the same color. I use tags as flags. I use colored flags to differentiate between the type of message/project that I am dealing with. Topics completely ruins that.
There is no simple filter to view starred or tagged items across all folders. The quick search/filter bar is one area where Thunderbird really shines over Postbox
Please add pictures to the mail view

Overall

The Postbox 2.5 betaemail client for Mac OSX was released today. My overall impression is that while Postbox has a very polished UI, it is lacking in a few key features that make it a truly usable solution for me. If you want a free version of Postbox, check out Thunderbird.

Personally, I can’t wait for the new Apple Mail in Lion.

★ Rubbernet – Network Traffic Monitor and Bandwidth Dashboard for Mac OSX

NightLion — Mon, 09 May 2011 00:22:43 +0000

Rubbernet

Network Traffic Monitor

Rubbernet provides real-time monitoring so you can keep an eye on the exact state of your live network connections. Rubbernet provides a breakdown of per-app network usage, so you can quickly detect apps that phone home, connect to certain servers without your knowledge, or blame the app that’s slowing down your network.

The best part is that Rubbernet will let you view stats for any machine running Rubbernet on your local network. Monitor all computers on your network from one Rubbernet instance on your Mac. No need to get up and open Rubbernet on a remote Mac to see its network statistics.

Ease of Use: 5
Look and Feel: 5
Functionality: 5

Overall Rating: 5/5

Wish List:

Ability to view traffic stats remotely (possibly using ShareTool or Mobile Me’s network connectivity).
Ability to view status from Mobile Device
Linux daemon for remote server monitoring

Price: $29.99 | Trial? Yes | Homepage

★ Cornerstone SVN – The Ultimate Subversion Client for Mac OSX

NightLion — Thu, 05 May 2011 01:37:46 +0000

Cornerstone Sale

Subversion (SVN)

It took me a long time to find a suitable Subversion client for the Mac. What really sold me initially was its look and feel. It’s way more feature rich than Versions, but also has the same elegance and simplicity of a native Mac app. It also has a tremendously powerful built-in diff viewer and merging tool which has become essential when working with larger projects. Also, when working with large teams, being able to view diffs during a commit process is great since it gives you the ability to write details on specifically what you’ve changed; it’s a huge time saver.

If you’re on the fence about a SVN app, this is definitely the app to go for. Nothing else even comes close.

Ease of Use: 5
Look and Feel: 5
Functionality: 5

Overall Rating: 5/5

Price: $39.99 | Trial? Yes | Homepage | App Store Link

GarageSale – My right hand sales tool for selling on eBay

NightLion — Tue, 03 May 2011 04:26:34 +0000

Garage Sale

Selling on eBay

Garage Sale takes the pain out of selling items on eBay. The templates are great for quickly creating professional looking auctions. In the last month I’ve sold about 20 items and the process has been incredibly painless. The great part of the app is the fact that I can create my own sales templates. Using one generic template I was able to quickly create auctions for all of my items with minimal effort. All I needed to do was change the name, price, and description. Then just drag your photo(s) into the page and you’re done; it’s simple. Garage Sale even provides FREE image hosting, so you’re not stuck paying ebay per image.

Ease of Use: 5
Look and Feel: 5
Functionality: 5

Overall Rating: 5/5

Price: $39.99 | Trial? Yes | Homepage | App Store Link

Garage Sale is now available in the Mac App store.

★

Archiver – Simple, Powerful Archiving for Mac OSX

NightLion — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 20:29:35 +0000

Archiver Mailer

Working with Archives

This app is so well designed, it should be bundled with OSX. The graphics are smooth, the functionality is perfect for my needs, and the app operates like a champ. Archiver has the ability to encrypt and decrypt archives, Split and Combine files, and contains an awesome dock icon that you can drag and drop archives into.

Archiver works with many different formats including Zip, 7zip, Tar, Rar, Stuffit, DMG and more.

Ease of Use: 5
Look and Feel: 5
Functionality: 5

Overall Rating: 5/5

Price: $19.99 | Trial? Yes | Homepage | App Store Link

★

iPhone Tracker Software

NightLion — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 17:17:19 +0000

This open-source application maps the information that your iPhone is recording about your movements. It doesn’t record anything itself, it only displays files that are already hidden on your computer.

http://petewarden.github.com/iPhoneTracker/

★

★ 5 Essential School Apps to Improve your Academic Workflow within OSX and iOS

NightLion — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 18:24:23 +0000

I am currently going to school for my Masters Degree, and I am constantly looking for some of the best apps to help me manage and complete my assignments. My top 5 include: Mental Case, Omni Outliner, iStudiez Pro, Reference Tracker and Papers.

iStudiez Pro

Platforms: Mac, iPhone, iPad
Platform Sync: YES
Website: http://istudentpro.com/

Used for: Course Organizer, Project Planner, Assignment Tracker

Ease of Use: 5
Look and Feel: 5
Functionality: 4

Comments:
I fell in love with this app after about 5 minutes of use. It’s seriously awesome. iStudiez is your one-stop shop for organizing your school information, course outlines, assignments, projects, instructors, and anything else school related. This app also has a really nice built in calendar (with assignment notifications). The thing I like most about this app is the ability to list out my courses (for all of my semesters), and populate the info with my assignments ahead of time. I can then assign due dates to the material, and use the app as my assignment reference, rather than having to go back to the course outline every time.

If I could, here are a few things I would add to make the functionality a solid 5:
When working with Assignments that are part of courses, there are times when the description will be VERY long. It would be great if you could expand/contract the notes section within the sidebar. It would also be really nice if you could view/expand/contract the assignment notes within the main windows (so everything isn’t so squished together).

Also, I feel that there should be a section for research notes. That would essentially make iStudiez a binder for all of my class info. As I am working on my assignments, I can also store my research and notes within those project tasks. It would be a great resource for keeping everything in one place.

Other than that, the app is truly fantastic.

Overall Rating: 4/5

Mental Case

Platforms: Mac, iPhone, iPad
Platform Sync: YES
Website: http://www.mentalcaseapp.com/

Used for: Studying, Flash Cards, Note Cards, Cramming

Ease of Use: 5
Look and Feel: 5
Functionality: 4

Comments:
In my opinion, this app is very close to perfect. It’s a perfect Flash Card study companion. I find that it is especially useful when I am trying to cram for material. I can study at work or on-the-go with my iPhone and iPad. The only reason the functionality rating a 4 is because of the app’s lack of a ‘multiple choice’ mode. This would be especially handy if I am studying for certification exams where I have a set of study questions. It would effectively allow me to create my own practice exams.

I have talked to the developer and this is something that they are currently working on. Hopefully they will implement it soon.

Overall Rating: 4/5

Reference Tracker

Platforms: Mac, iPhone, iPad
Platform Sync: YES
Website: http://www.malkinware.com/referencetracker/

Used for: References Tracker and Formatter (APA, MLA, etc)

Ease of Use: 5
Look and Feel: 3
Functionality: 5

Comments:
The reference tracker is simple, effective and powerful. It gets the job done and has proven to be an invaluable tool. My only criticism is that it doesn’t have the same polish as other MAC OSX applications, but that shouldn’t be a deal breaker. It’s a great way to stay on top of your references. It also contains a very handy ISBN lookup tool, and will generate your final list when you are done.

Overall Rating: 4/5

Papers

Platforms: Mac, iPhone, iPad
Platform Sync: YES
Website: http://www.mekentosj.com/papers/

Use: APA References Tracker and Formatter

Ease of Use: 3.5
Look and Feel: 5
Functionality: 4

Comments:
I rated the ease of use a 3.5 because it is somewhat difficult to pin down exactly which research library you should be using. It may not be the application that becomes confusing, but the material itself. One thing I wish the app would do is filter out any results that you have to pay for. It would also be great it if linked with an app like Referece Tracker to automatically import the references of the articles that you have selected.

Overall Rating: 4/5

OmniOutliner

Platforms: Mac, iPad (coming soon)
Platform Sync: N/A
Website: http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnioutliner/

Used for: Outlining

Ease of Use: 5
Look and Feel: 5
Functionality: 5

Comments: There’s really not much to say about this app. Its perfect for what it is. The only thing I wish it had is a companion iPad app. Although, I’m not sure how much I would really use it since I am generally outlining on my laptop.

Overall Rating: 5/5

★ Image Smith – Batch Image Processing with the speed and simplicity of Mac OSX

NightLion — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 20:31:39 +0000

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to find the perfect batch image editing tool. I often find that I have to resize images in bulk, Image Smith, by Koingo Software, was the only app that produced great looking results and had a simple, intuitive interface.

It’s perfect for what it is. There isn’t a single thing I would change.

Image Smith is a powerful batch image processing tool. With a variety of features you can easily scale, reorient, recolorize, convert, and flatten images. Image Smith can open numerous different picture file types, and output in the most common industry standard formats like JPEG, GIF, and PNG.

Use the numerous predefined presets in Image Smith to scale or stretch images down to formats suitable for web banners, e-mailing photos, backups, and more! This is ideal for taking large photos from your camera, which may be upwards of five megabytes each, and scaling and converting them down to a manageable size of only a few hundred kilobytes.

Rating: 5/5.

Image smith is now available on the mac app store.

Chronicle – Family Bill Tracking and Payment for Mac OSX done right

NightLion — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 03:02:05 +0000

I’ve long looked for an app that will allow my wife and I to manage our bills from different computers. Chronicle is simple and easy to use. It’s ‘Lite’ application add-on sits in your menu bar and lets you know if any bills are due. You can easily pay bills online and log payments from the menu, even when Chronicle isn’t running.

A simple way to keep bills paid and in sync

My wife and I both have a quick list of which bills are due.
If I pay a bill, her computer is automatically updated so there is never a question as to which bills are due and which have been paid. This feature isn’t built into chronicle, but I was able to easily set this up using a dropbox shared folder.

Handles file conflicts like a champ

With dropbox there is always the ability for a conflict if we both make changes. Rather than creating several copies of the file, it takes the conflict and brings it into the app so you can see both copies of the bill (the standard and the conflict).

Rating: 5/5

I can’t recommend this enough. If you need a way to easily pay your bills and keep them in sync between multiple people, this is the app for you.

Now available in the Mac App Store.

★

6 Lifestyle Apps for Mac OSX reviewed – Journal, Finance, Recipe, Family Tree, Stocks and a Productivity Timer

★ Sparrow Mail for Mac OSX – my growing email obsession.

NightLion — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 02:58:11 +0000

I recently decided to try out Sparrow for Mac OSX while I patiently wait for the new OSX Mail client to be released. I’ll admit, at first I was skeptical. The first thing i tried doing was giving it to my wife. She didn’t like it because she said “it looked too complicated”. I completely understand that actually. Not having button labels is actually the reason I don’t use Reeder for my news client.

Even so, Sparrow has grown on me. While I don’t feel it’s ready for to serve as a full replacement to Thunderbird or Postbox, it’s actually pretty close. Here are a few items I wish it had:

Ability to set colored flags for IMAP mail (similar to the way you can do it with google mail).
Unified Inbox

Sparrow does have a lot of great features, and it definitely worth checking out.

It’s simplistic view for the Inbox and Starred messages make it a pleasure to use. It’s really close to becoming a full mail replacement. So close, in fact, that I find myself switching back to it in-between my Postbox sessions. I realize that Sparrow is the new kid on the block, but if it wants to compete with Apple’s upcoming mail client, it has to keep moving at a lightning pace.

Overall, I give it a 3.5/5
(note: that I know my requested features are currently in development, and once they are ready for prime time, I will bump my rating to a 5/5).