Submit Hint Search The Forums LinksStatsPollsHeadlinesRSS
14,000 hints and counting!

Medal of Honor:Allied Assault - WWII action game Pick of the Week
Medal of Honor iconThe macosxhints Rating:
8 of 10
[0 to 10 lights; 10 = perfect!]
I actually ran a review of Medal of Honor: Allied Assault back in July, so I won't go into a ton of detail again this time, but I did spend a couple more hours with the game this weekend. I'd forgotten just how engrossing it is, especially the beach landing mission. If you're a fan of so-called "FPS" (first person shooter) games, Allied Assault provides all the excitement of a Quake3 with a substantial and intriguing plot. It's also not all just shoot-em-up action; there are tactical sections as well.

All in all, MoH:AA is a great way to spend some free computer time if you have a system with a reasonable amount of horsepower (although some comments to the original review indicate that it ran fine on an iBook).
  Post a comment  •  Comments (9)  
  • Currently 1.13 / 5
  You rated: 1 / 5 (8 votes cast)
 
[11,750 views]  View Printable Version
Labels X - OS 9 labels return! Pick of the Week
Labels X iconThe macosxhints Rating:
8 of 10
[0 to 10 lights; 10 = perfect!]
Unsanity has done it again. Probably the number one missing OS X feature that I hear about is the lack of "labels." For those of you new to the Mac, in earlier versions of the OS, a label could be assigned to a file, drive, or folder, and it included both a color tint and a (definable) text phrase. Once assigned, you could sort your list view (and icon view?) windows by label. This provided an easy way to sort project files by client, priority, importance, etc. And so far, it's been missing in OS X. Until now.

Although I've only been playing with Labels X for a few hours, it certainly seems to return most of the functionality of the OS 9 label feature. Installation requires a logout and login if you haven't installed Unsanity's APE (Application Program Enhancer) in the past. Once installed, your list view windows have a new "Label" column, and you can assign a color to any file through the contextual menu pop-up. Labels and colors are defined in the Labels X preferences panel, where you can also disable the haxie. You won't find any label features in the Finder's regular menus, so all interaction is through the contextual menu or the preferences panel.

I wasn't a huge label user in OS 9, and I don't think I'll become one in OS X, but if you're a label addict, check out Labels X. It gets the Pick of the Week this week for addressing one of the bigger requested features from OS 9...
  Post a comment  •  Comments (6)  
  • Currently 1.44 / 5
  You rated: 1 / 5 (9 votes cast)
 
[11,009 views]  View Printable Version
Photoshop Elements - A mini Photoshop! Pick of the Week
Photoshop Elements iconThe macosxhints Rating:
8 of 10
[0 to 10 lights; 10 = perfect!]
For those of you (like me) without the talent (or budget) for the full-blown Photoshop package, Photoshop Elements is a great alternative. With support for much of the full Photoshop feature set for only $99, it's a bargain that meets my needs perfectly. The pre-defined effects (bevels, drop shadows, tints, etc.) save much time fussing around with settings, and the online help is relatively extensive. In addition to the "usual" tools (paint can, air brush, stamps, etc.), Elements also supports input tablets, making it easy to add pressure-sensitive detail to your images.

If you work with graphics for a living, Photoshop Elements probably won't meet your needs. But if you just have modest needs for creating and modifying graphics and photographs, Elements is an impressive package. It continues to amaze me (remember, I don't do this for a living!) with its feature set.
  Post a comment  •  Comments (18)  
  • Currently 1.50 / 5
  You rated: 1 / 5 (8 votes cast)
 
[12,426 views]  View Printable Version
GLterm - OpenGL terminal replacement Pick of the Week
GLterm iconThe macosxhints Rating:
8 of 10
[0 to 10 lights; 10 = perfect!]
glTerm is a replacement terminal program for OS X. Why would you want to replace your terminal program? One word - speed. glTerm flies. With full OpenGL acceleration, text rendering and window scrolling speeds are incredibly fast.

What do you give up? The "looks amazingly cool" ability to have semi-transparent terminal windows. But that's about it. In all other respects, glTerm is a full-featured Terminal replacement.

If speed is high on your list of requirements for a terminal program, check out glTerm!
  Post a comment  •  Comments (1)  
  • Currently 1.78 / 5
  You rated: 2 / 5 (9 votes cast)
 
[14,769 views]  View Printable Version
Prefling - Pref panes in the dock Pick of the Week
Prefling iconThe macosxhints Rating:
8 of 10
[0 to 10 lights; 10 = perfect!]
Prefling puts all of you preference panels in the right side of the dock, for quick access to any given panel. Unlike home made solutions, the list will also include any custom preference panels installed in your user space.

You may get a warning about Prefling while running OS X 10.2, but it seems to work just fine.
  Post a comment  •  Comments (1)  
  • Currently 1.67 / 5
  You rated: 2 / 5 (9 votes cast)
 
[4,821 views]  View Printable Version
iAddressX - Address Book in the menu bar Pick of the Week
iAddressX iconThe macosxhints Rating:
7 of 10
[0 to 10 lights; 10 = perfect!]
iAddressX gives you menubar access to the 10.2 address book, allowing you to highlight any name and open a new email to that person. It's a slick, easy to use application.

The reason it only gets seven stars is that it chokes pretty badly on large address lists; when it goes to display the "All" category, things just lock up for quite a while. But if you don't have many contacts (I keep a couple hundred or so), it's a very handy utility.
  Post a comment  •  Comments (2)  
  • Currently 2.22 / 5
  You rated: 3 / 5 (9 votes cast)
 
[8,210 views]  View Printable Version
Watson - Web searching done right Pick of the Week
Watson iconThe macosxhints Rating:
9 of 10
[0 to 10 lights; 10 = perfect!]
Watson provides a new way to search the web, via a multi-paned application window. With Jaguar, Apple reproduced many of these tools in Sherlock3, but Watson still wins on speed, features (more tools), and general application design.

Consider the movie search tool ... enter your zip code on the right-side panel, click the name of a movie in column one, click the theater name in column two, and then see the show times in column three. Meanwhile, you can view the trailer by clicking in the bottom pane. Searches on yahoo are similarly slick, with the columns helping to navigate the various categories.

Watson may not be around forever (I'm not certain if the developer is working in conjunction with the web sites in use, whereas Apple most certainly secured authorization to do what they do), but for now, it's my favorite web searching utility tool.
  Post a comment  •  Comments (0)  
  • Currently 2.10 / 5
  You rated: 1 / 5 (10 votes cast)
 
[4,532 views]  View Printable Version
Pacifist - OS X package extractor Pick of the Week
Pacifist iconThe macosxhints Rating:
9 of 10
[0 to 10 lights; 10 = perfect!]
Pacifist is an essential utility that allows you to extract certain files from Apple's bundled installer packages. For exmaple, if you need to reinstall iDVD, the only Apple-sanctioned choice is to restore your entire system. Using Pacifist, you can extract just the iDVD application.

Even if you think you'll never use it, you should download Pacifist - I guarantee that someday, someway, you'll want to get at just one file out of an installation bundle. As soon as you do, register Pacifist, as it will have just easily paid for itself in time saved!
  Post a comment  •  Comments (0)  
  • Currently 2.91 / 5
  You rated: 3 / 5 (11 votes cast)
 
[27,875 views]  View Printable Version
OS X 10.2 - Jaguar release Pick of the Week
Jaguar 10.2 iconThe macosxhints Rating:
8 of 10
[0 to 10 lights; 10 = perfect!]
With over 150 new features, Jaguar is an essential upgrade from prior versions of OS X. It's not perfect (it introduced a few new bugs along with the new features), but it's a very compelling upgrade.

Speed is notably faster on both my iBook and G4, and Quartz Extreme on the G4 makes windowing operations much faster. The improved integration with Windows networks is greatly appreciated, as are the improvements in Mail. Jaguar also opens the door to a number of new applications, including iCal and iSync.

Some may feel the price is steep, but the reality is that 10.2 is as much an improvement over 10.1 as was OS 9 over OS 8.x or OS 8 over OS 7.x. Apple has just decided (rightfully so, I think) that the "X" brand name needs to last a while longer, so the incremental upgrade numbers are getting smaller while the features added list is getting longer!
  Post a comment  •  Comments (0)  
  • Currently 1.25 / 5
  You rated: 1 / 5 (8 votes cast)
 
[6,115 views]  View Printable Version
MorphX - Transfrom one image to another Pick of the Week
Morphx iconThe macosxhints Rating:
8 of 10
[0 to 10 lights; 10 = perfect!]
Morphing was incredibly popular a few years back, and MorphX brings the technology to OS X. Give the program two iamges to work with, map points from one image to the next, and let the program go to work. Some amount of time later (morphing can be very CPU intensive), you'll have a cool movie of image one converting into image two. If you have QuickTime Pro, you can save the resulting output as a QuickTime movie.

I used MorphX to show the results of a recent remodeling project, and the final movie was simply amazing. The old room seemed to just "melt" into the new room, and it was hard to pinpoint exactly what was changing at any given point in time.

Using MorphX can be somewhat addictive; you may find yourself morphing the dog into the cat, just to see how well it works!
  Post a comment  •  Comments (0)  
  • Currently 1.63 / 5
  You rated: 1 / 5 (8 votes cast)
 
[6,540 views]  View Printable Version