Software?

Looks like I might finally get to blog a bit about the software I have installed on the PodBox so far. Some is stuff that I had on the powerbook and liked, and a bit is stuff I have recently read about or found on the web somewhere.

The very first piece of new software I grabbed for the PodBox was Mozilla's Firefox. I have been using some flavor of Mozilla browser since they have been releasing such. I have nothing against Safari at all and think it is a great browser, but I just dig Mozilla. The fact that I get the same browsing experience from Mac to PC to Linux is a plus, but more than that I just want to support the folks at Mozilla; I've been trying to convert folks for what must be years now, and its good to see Mozilla getting mentioned in the press more and suggested as an alternative, on the PC anyway, to Internet Exploder. Rock on Mozilla!

Of course the day after I install Firefox PR1 and get it all set up they release 1.0 , but to my suprise, after the install, all the previous changes I made were in place.

The next piece of software I put on PodBox was Whiteout which is hosted by suicidegirls.com I don't know if they created it as well. Whiteout replaces the brushed metal look on UI elements with the original Aqua pinstripe, well everthing except for iTunes. The Aqua pinstripe works really well with the PodBox. It would be a nice touch if Apple provided this as an option somewhere in the system prefs. Whiteout makes it real easy to change back to the original brushed metal look by running a small shell script. Check out the screenie below for an idea of what the look is like. You'll notice iTunes in the background retains its brushed metal look.



Next up was an iTunes plugin/addon that places controls in the menubar for next, previous, play/pause with the nice option of displaying an overlay that displays on the screen indicating song name, album and artist. This nifty bit of software is 'You Control: Tunes' by You Software. From what I remember installation was hassle free. Preferences are plentiful and easily performed. The user can control which buttons are displayed in the menubar, where on the screen the overlays appear, what information appears in the overlays (including album art), how long the overlay appears for, the color of the overlay and its text, the overlays opacity and can select from a variety of transition methods for the overlays to appear and disappear (transporter being my favorite). The software also allows you to assign hot keys to iTunes commands and your iTunes library even shows up as a menu item in the menubar. A nice piece of work worth checking out.

Powermate from Griffin makes for a worthy companion to 'You Control: Tunes'. Its basically this sweetly made aluminum knob that connects via USB to your Mac or PC and sits on your physical desktop. The knob is of high quality and reminds me of big volume knobs off a good quality home stereo. It has a nice heft to it and is silky smooth in operation, best of all it has a lovely blue glowy effect as the base of the knob; mmmmm, glowy. You plug the powermate in, where it immediately begins glowing, mmmm, but it doesn't do anything other than that until you install the software. The cd for the Powermate is the one I mentioned that produced the horrible buzzing noise from the optical drive. Other than the noise the software install was easy, and they also give you a folder of Applescripts to use with the Powermate.

After the software installs the Powermate will then work in iTunes as a volume control, if you press the knob it will mute iTunes and if you press the knob and turn then you can advance to the next track or move back to the previous track. When not in iTunes the Powermate controls the system sound volume. The Powermate also works in things like video editing software as a jog control. Commands are user configurable and new ones can be created. The blue glowy can be set to pulse at a user selectable rate when the machine is asleep or all the time. Otherwise the glowy varies with the volume level; although this isn't consistent, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't with the glowy staying the same level until some point in time when you adjust the volume and it begins to vary with the level again.

I primarialy use the Powermate with iTunes and as the system volume. The nice combo of 'You Control: Tunes" and Powermate means I can generally leave iTunes minimized and not cluttering up the screen, volume, mute, and track control are all handy and quickly gotten to.

Alright, the Horns are on TV and I have some errands to run. A good start to my software run down but still plenty of stuff to come.

Check ya later...