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Jon’s starred items in Google Reader

There’s no doubt that going paperless increases productivity: paperless communication is instant, hassle-free, cheap and less wasteful. Much of the world, however, still relies on paper documents to relay important information. How can you, the forward-thinking iPhone user, integrate all this paper into your digital records? Many developers have created apps to help digitize paper documents into PDF files by scanning them with your iPhone’s built-in camera, without requiring you to take a perfect picture from a straight angle.

In this round-up, we’re putting five popular iPhone scanning applications to the test, comparing their features and how they all handle processing the same image. Find out which apps come out on top after the jump!

Starting Point

I’ve taken a picture of our test document using my iPhone 3G’s camera, in decent lighting, but from an angle. It should be a pretty easy document to process, since it’s black and white, matte and easy to read.

I found this bizarre sheet of home safety tips in the mail

I could certainly clean this up to be readable using Photoshop, but it would take me a couple minutes, and that wouldn’t be very productive, now would it?

Genius Scan

All of these apps basically work the same way: you either take a photo or grab one from your library, then you outline the corners of the document so that it can be “flattened.” Then the app processes the image, adjusting brightness, contrast and color.

Adjusting the corners of your document is tricky in Genius Scan (though the auto-detect is decently effective). It’s hard to see what’s directly beneath your finger! You can choose from black and white or colour processing, or use neither.

I wasn’t terribly impressed with the quality of the image using Genius Scan, the contrast was much too high and the text looked blocky.

Sharing: Email and Twitter on the free version, Dropbox, Evernote and Google Docs with Plus version
Price: Free (.99 for “Plus” version)
Developer: The Grizzly Labs
Download: App Store

Genius Scan is the only one with integrated Twitter support

JotNot Scanner Pro

JotNot Scanner Pro’s most notable feature is Wi-Fi sharing via bonjour. Point your browser to the address specified when you click the Wi-Fi icon, and you can view all your documents online. JotNot also features an “Open In” option (when you click the icon that looks like the Adobe Acrobat icon) which allows you to view your PDF in iBooks.

While JotNot has some handy features, I found it’s image quality to be quite poor. Text was compressed horizontally and had a blurry yellow glow.

Sharing: Email, Wi-Fi (via Bonjour), Evernote, Dropbox, Google Docs, Box.net, WebDAV
Price: .99
Developer: MobiTech 3000
Download: App Store

I'm not sure how the "Fax Document" option works, but I know it's not free

Scanner Pro

Scanner Pro definitely has the most attractive and easy-to-use interface. It has a very handy magnifying feature when you’re defining the corners of your documents, where a little magnifying glass appears away from your finger so you can actually see what you’re doing. It has little crosshairs in the middle to help you line things up.

Scanner Pro also has more processing options than some of the other apps, with a grayscale option in addition to black and white or color, as well as photo or document settings. Once you’ve processed a document, you can adjust brightness and contrast with a slider, allowing for much more precision than the other apps offer. It also makes it easier to create multi-page documents, letting you take pictures of all the pages first before processing them.

The output quality was pretty good with Scanner Pro. The default settings made the document too washed out, but I was able to get some good results by adjusting the contrast.

Sharing: Evernote, email, Google Docs, Dropbox, WebDAV
Price: .99
Developer: Readdle
Download: App Store

Scanner Pro has a much cleaner interface than its competitors

DocScan

DocScan is the newest entry in the category, and it boasts many of the same features as the more expensive apps for a more affordable price. DocScan also features Air Print printing on supported devices, and creates zipped JPEG files for emailing.

The basic functions of DocScan are available for free, but only allows you to save 5 documents of 2 pages each. The upgrade to DocScan Pro is only available as an in-app purchase, which I’m never a fan of.

DocScan produced some of the better quality scans of the bunch; it straightened the text as well as Scanner Pro, but without the loss of clarity on some letters. DocScan also had the best auto-detection of the corners of a document. After using the “brighten up” function, DocScan produced some pretty high quality scans (relatively speaking).

Sharing: email, Dropbox, Evernote, Google Docs, iTunes
Price: .99
Developer: IFUNPLAY
Download: App Store

I never like seeing an "upgrade" button

TurboScan

Despite the dated interface, TurboScan is my pick for the top scanning app. TurboScan processed documents way faster than the other apps and produced the best quality scans.

TurboScan has a feature called SureScan, which prompts you to take three pictures of the same document for a sharper image. I found this process pretty time consuming, but it does produce a slightly sharper, straighter scan.

One of my favourite features in TurboScan is the “Send to Myself” option, something I think should be included in all document or picture sharing apps. Unfortunately, TurboScan does not have as many sharing options as the other apps.

Sharing: email, Dropbox, Evernote
Price: .99
Developer: TurboScanApp
Download: App Store

It's not pretty, but it does the job

Conclusion

All five of these apps do a decent enough job of getting your paper documents onto your phone, but TurboScan and DocScan Pro stand out as the most effective scanning apps. To give you a quick comparison of the quality output for all five apps, I’ve put them all side-by-side:

Which do you think is best?

Though none of the scans stand out as far superior, if you take a closer look you’ll probably notice that some of the scans are pretty distorted or have too much contrast.

I only have an iPhone 3G, so the quality of my scans is pretty limited, and I wasn’t able to try out all of the available apps. Have you tried scanning documents with your phone? Have you found an efficient workflow? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Jon’s starred items in Google Reader

We asked everyone to list a few of their favorite apps and tell us why they love them. Come take a look at some of our choices!

David Appleyard: AppStorm Network Manager

FuzzyClock

This is an odd one, I know. It essentially changes the time in your menu bar to be “fuzzy”, rather than an exact date and time. This makes me worry less about the exact time, and you never catch yourself counting away the minutes in a daydream… It also adds something rather unique to your menu bar!

OmniFocus

I’ve tried every GTD and task management app out there, and have finally settled on OmniFocus as being the absolute best of the bunch. I love the seamless syncing between devices, the way that you can schedule tasks, and the ability to enter dates like “tomorrow”, or “next wednesday”. I certainly wouldn’t call myself a power user, but it works perfectly for me!

nvALT

This is a fork of the popular text note app “Notational Velocity”. It adds a few extra features, syncs wonderfully with Simplenote on your iPhone/iPad, and is the place I store everything that I deal with in a text format. Perfect for notes, drafting emails, and jotting down a few thoughts during a meeting.

Joshua Johnson: Mac.Appstorm Editor

Writeroom

I use Writeroom for a lot of my writing work. I love the distraction-free environment combined with the powerful feature list. I also really like that you can customize the color scheme. I currently have it set so that it looks a little more like the lighter interface of IA Writer (which is also great).

LittleSnapper

I take a lot of screenshots every day and couldn’t live without LittleSnapper. I love that instead of cluttering up my desktop, the shots go directly into an organizable image library. Realmac makes some really top-notch software and I’m a huge fan of their work.

Fluid

There are a lot of web services like Google Docs that I have to keep an eye on daily for scheduling and the like, Fluid is an awesome app that allows me to turn these sites into apps that sit in my dock. Simple but brilliantly useful.

Wunderlist

Managing a team of writers is hard work, it takes a good organization system to keep everyone on track with deadlines and progressing through their queue of articles. Historically, The Hit List was my go to app for this but lately I’ve been using Wunderlist because of the free syncing between the iPhone, Mac and web client.

Kevin Whipps: iPhone.Appstorm Editor

Omnifocus

I wasn’t always very organized, but then I read David Allen’s book on GTD, and it led me down a much more efficient path. I tried lots of different apps before I did OmniFocus because they were cheaper, but once I finally spent the cash it was the best investment I’ve ever made. Not only is it fully customizable, but it syncs with every mobile platform I use, making it very versatile. I love OmniFocus, and if I could pick just one app to use forever, it would probably be this one.

BusyCal

It seems like I’ve always got one or two different clients who want to work with Google Calendars, while I’m just fine with my Apple synced options. The solution for me was BusySync, which not only works with Google Calendar but iCal and MobileMe as well, giving me the best syncing solution possible. Since I’m a photographer as well, it helps to have the weather displayed as well, and adding graphics makes it easier for me to see important things at a glance. It’s one of my top 5 apps for sure.

Tessa Thornton: Writer for Mac.Appstorm

Byword

I take advantage of Byword’s Markdown mode to write my Appstorm articles, I don’t usually use the full-screen mode (I’m usually going back and forth with the app being reviewed) but I really appreciate not having any distractions in my text editor. Byword lets you preview Markdown output, copy the HTML to your clipboard, or export the HTML file.

Quickcal

I use QuickCal to quickly add events to iCal using natural language. This has been a huge productivity and organization booster for me, because it makes me much more likely to add events to iCal that I might previously have been too lazy/busy to add.

Billings

In addition to writing for Appstorm, I do other freelance writing and web development, with different rates and details for each job. Billings makes it really easy to keep track of the work you’ve done and the payment you’ve received, and also makes invoicing really easy. Without Billings, I’d probably never get paid.

Conor O’Driscoll: Writer for Mac.Appstorm

Notational Velocity

Where would I be without Notational Velocity? This lightweight note-taking app is the perfect app to keep me productive and creative. Whenever I have an idea I pull up NV and jot it down. Pretty much all of my thoughts are in there: Great AppStorm article ideas, really bad jokes I’ve written, interview questions – You name it, it’s in Notational Velocity. What makes NV great is the ability to sync with SimpleNote, meaning that I can pull up my notes from my iPad very easily. I quite simply couldn’t live without it.

Coda

Coda from the wonderful folks at Panic is, for me, the best text-editor for web development out there. It’ll auto-complete your tags for you, which saves so much time, and makes learning coding languages so much easier. The interface is, as you’d expect from a Panic app, stunning. In addition to all of this, it has a built-in FTP client, and great support for CSS styling. It’s not exactly cheap, coming in at , but it is well worth the price. Coda makes what might normally be a tedious task an absolute joy.

SurplusMeter

I live in the middle of nowhere in rural Ireland – It’s the sort of place where there are twenty times as many cows as people. This means that I can only get broadband from one ISP, and they enforce a painfully strict 30GB monthly download limit. SurplusMeter is the ideal way to keep track of your bandwidth usage. It’s not the most beautiful app around, but it does the job, and allows me to monitor every download I make in my meticulous fashion, making sure my surplus is always nice and high. It may not be of use to most, but it’s an absolute life-saver for me.

Plex

I love watching movies and TV shows on my Mac – I find it so much more immersive than on my TV. Unfortunately, iTunes’ movie support is abysmal, and Plex is the best solution I’ve found. It has excellent support for the Apple Remote, and a lovely interface to boot. I’m the sort of person who obsesses over perfect meta tags, and have been known spending hours fixing the capitalisation of song names in iTunes. Plex takes away all of that hassle, automatically generating meta tags from online sources, and has an almost 100% success rate. The perfect app to wind down at night.

Adam Williams: Writer for Mac.Appstorm

LittleSnapper

Admittedly, those who don’t need to take screenshots for their job may not find LittleSnapper too exciting or glamorous, but the app is a classic case of the much-lauded doing one thing and doing it well. Put simply, Little Snapper makes taking screenshots a breeze, with an intelligent capture system, multiple timed and non-timed options, an easy to use library and a low-memory app which can sit in your menu bar, ready to quickly capture high-quality images. I have used it for every article I have submitted to Mac.Appstorm.

TaskPaper

I’m a very big fan of minimalist writing and productivity tools on the Mac and love both of Hog Bay Software’s two flagship apps, WriteRoom and TaskPaper. The first use of TaskPaper is a little bit jarring as one is not usually presented with such a spartan UI but after settling down and learning how to use the app properly I was a convert and all the other likeminded software cannot compare. Also of note is the app’s reasonable price and great sales technique. After all, one has to admire a company who will be so honest in their sales approach and state; “TaskPaper isn’t the right answer for everyone, also check out OmniFocus or Things. But give TaskPaper a try”

Vox

Though it shares a name with the pioneering guitar amplification company, Vox is also a very lightweight music app for Mac. I like iTunes a lot but even with a brutal system of weeding out the media I don’t listen to, watch or read, my library is somewhat bloated. Sometimes I just want to stick on some music while I work and when I do, I reach for Vox. Conforming to the style of minimalist UI norms which see it sit happily next to WriteRoom and TaskPaper in my dock, Vox offers an almost VLC level of file playback, with many different lossy and lossless formats types all supported in this neat little app.

Quintin Carlson: Writer for Mac.Appstorm

I love love love OmniFocus. I can’t live without it. I would literally lose my mind. Everything goes into it and magically, actions come back out. I can’t say enough good things.

Beyond that, I’m a pretty boring guy!

Jorge Rodriguez: Writer for Mac.Appstorm

Evernote

I’ve talked about how much I love Evernote before, but I really can’t stress how useful I find the little app. I do everything with it, from recording audio to just writing down ideas for new articles. Well, I think I said enough about it in this article.

Notify Pro

Instead of using a big mail client like Mail.app or Postbox, I prefer to keep my emails stored on Gmail’s server and I just use this simple mail menu bar app to keep up with my mail without having to access any windows. I love the Growl notifications and the ability to send quick responses from your menu bar. I tried many similar apps before this one, and I can definitely declare this as the winner within its category.

jiTouch

If I had to decide on which app saves me the most time, it would definitely be jiTouch. When I first heard about the multi-touch trackpad being implemented in the new Macbooks a few years ago, I expected the trackpad to work very much like jiTouch makes it work. Switching tabs with two fingers, closing windows with three, and many more useful gestures are made available with this little app.

Kyle Callahan: Writer for Mac.Appstorm

Acorn

If you need to edit images but you’re not a professional image manipulator and you don’t have a gajillion dollars to spend on Photoshop, Acorn is the app for you. It feels like a native Mac app, contains all the features you might want, and exports into all the formats you need. It’s the perfect upgrade for the aspiring amateur.

Conclusion

We hope this roundup of amazing apps has helped you get to know the AppStorm crew just a little better. I guess we would say that you can judge a Mac user by his/her Applications folder!

What do you think of our choices? Do you use any of these apps? Which ones are your favorites?

Jon’s starred items in Google Reader

Launchpad in Mac OS Lion shares a key behavior with its iOS counterpart: deleting an app from the launcher also uninstalls it from the computer, as long as the app was purchased from the Mac App Store. Of course, it’s quick and easy to redownload the MAS apps if they’re needed.

While this insta-delete, complete with jiggling icons, may be counterintuitive for longtime Mac users, it makes perfect sense to iPhone or iPad users where there’s a one-to-one mapping between apps on the launcher screen and apps installed on the device. On other mobile platforms, that’s not necessarily the case: both Android and Blackberry devices have the ability to hide or subset visible apps versus the full suite of installed programs.

The flip side of this strong linkage between installation/removal and visibility of MAS apps in Launchpad is that non-MAS/conventionally installed apps cannot be deleted from the Launchpad UI. If you don’t want all that app clutter, the only default options are to move the space-wasting apps into Launchpad folders (laborious) or move the apps themselves out of the Applications folder in the Finder (boneheaded, and actually won’t work, per commenters). Even resetting your Launchpad (as Erica noted last week) still includes all your apps in the launcher’s pages.

There is another way, however, to blank out your Launchpad and start clean. Web developer Loren Segal points out the ‘nuclear option’ of deleting all the app records from the Launchpad database, which lets you select individual apps to include by dragging their icons onto the Launchpad dock icon (command-click to select multiple apps before dragging). He suggests backing up the relevant database file beforehand, in case of issues, and I concur.

Here’s the process in the Terminal, line by line:

    mkdir ~/Desktop/DB_Backup 

[makes a folder on your desktop to back up the data files]

    cp ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/*.db ~/Desktop/DB_Backup/

[copies the database]

    sqlite3 ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/*.db 'DELETE FROM apps;' && killall Dock
sqlite3 ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/*.db 'DELETE from apps;' \
  ' DELETE from groups WHERE title<>""; DELETE from items WHERE rowid>2;' \
  && killall Dock

[deletes the app records from Launchpad's database, and restarts the Dock process; you'll see your minimized windows pop back to the screen. Update: Loren posted a new version, as above, that fixes the folders issue.]

Blank Launchpad! You may notice that any folders previously in Launchpad will still be there, albeit vacant. To get rid of them, simply load at least one app into Launchpad, then drag the app into & out of the folder. It will 'evaporate' when it's empty.

If you do decide that you prefer the full-list Launchpad, you can either restore the database to its original location, or follow the tip in Erica’s post to reset/rebuild and get all your apps back.

Lion: Deleting apps in Launchpad, and starting clean originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 25 Jul 2011 14:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jon’s starred items in Google Reader

In this roundup, I’ll cover some of the best ways to seek out awesome apps. If you’re looking to discover new Mac software, you can’t go wrong with these wonderful sources.

Mac App Store

This one is a no-brainer. Apple’s Mac App Store only launched at the beginning of the year, but it already has thousands of brilliant apps waiting for you to find, from old favourites to the up-and-coming stars. The Featured page is curated very well, with an excellent collection of software constantly on show. If you’re looking for something more specific, the search feature works (admittedly not excellently), or you can browse by category. The App Store has to be the most comprehensive hub for Mac apps on this list, and the easiest way to install apps too.

Apps in the App Store

iTunes RSS Feeds

This is a hidden gem which I have only discovered recently and have loved ever since. Apple has set up a specialized web page where you can generate quite specific RSS feeds which will alert you of all kind of apps, be it simply “Top Mac Apps”, or “Top Grossing Weather Apps”. I’m a sucker for free stuff, and am subscribed to the “Top Free Mac Apps” feed – Every day, I’ll get one or two recommendations, so it’s always easy to look through them. What makes this method so good is that you haven’t got to go out of your way to find apps, they’ll be delivered right to your RSS client.

Generating an RSS feed

Apple Blogs

There is a sea of Apple blogs out there, all competing to give you up-to-the-minute news on what the nutritional value of Steve Jobs’ lunch was. As interesting as the standard news is, my favorite articles in any Apple blog is their software articles and reviews. What makes these guys so great is that they’re used to reporting news as it happens, so if a big app is released, you’ll hear about it that day. As I’ve said, there are a million different blogs to choose from, but I’m particularly enjoying TUAW’s recent “Daily Mac App” series.

Apple blogs

AlternativeTo

AlternativeTo has always been a big player in the world of software discovery. What makes this service different is that it’s not for finding great apps you might like, but more for finding great alternatives to software. For example, if you used iTunes, but wanted something that will work a bit better, you can go the iTunes AlternativeTo page, and you’ll find out about apps like Songbird, Spotify and Miro, and from there, see reviews of it. Usually, if I’m looking for a new app, it will be to replace another app which hasn’t fully satisfied me, so AlternativeTo is an absolutely invaluable resource.

AlternativeTo

I Use This

I Use This is another wonderful source for apps, not dissimilar to AlternativeTo. People can click “I use this”, on an app, and with such ratings, you can see just how popular apps are, discover the newest apps, and much more. Like AlternativeTo, you can see similar apps, and there are reviews on the site. Most of the reviews are quite old, but it’s still a brilliant place to find new apps. One benefit of I Use This is that, in many cases, you can download the DMG direct from the site, which is very useful.

I Use This

Developer Sites

This might seem like an obvious option for many people, but for others, they’d never consider it. You know those apps you use? There are real people who spend many hours making those apps. And funnily enough, those people have, more likely than not, made other wonderful apps, probably in a similar sort of market. For example, if you use and love LittleSnapper, you might want to check out all of RealMac’s apps, and you’ll discover RapidWeaver and Courier, both of which are awesome apps which would complement LittleSnapper wonderfully. Try to check back regularly too, or subscribe to their blogs, as devs are constantly bringing out awesome new apps.

RealMac Software's website

Software Bundles

We at Envato recently released a great software bundle, with such software superstars as TextExpander and 1Password. You’ve probably heard of those two apps, but have you heard of Arq and Alarms, two other apps in the bundle? I certainly hadn’t. Generally, app bundles will give you a few big names to get you excited, and then a few lesser-known (but still amazing) apps which you mightn’t have heard about otherwise. Software bundles are two-a-penny these days, and there will always be a nice bundle running. One huge advantage of this is if you find an app you want, you can buy it, along with several other great apps, for a massively discounted price.

Our Freelance Mac App Bundle

Bodega

Bodega is like the hipster version of the Mac App Store. It was a one-stop-shop for Mac software before being a one-stop-shop for Mac software was cool. This free app is absolutely stunning, and features apps I’ve never heard of. Spend five minutes in Bodega, and you are almost guaranteed to find an app you want, and installing apps from it is pretty straightforward too. Many people suspected Bodega to be killed off by the Mac App Store, but it’s certainly still going strong. Why not check out our review of Bodega?

Bodega

Google

It’s impossible to write an article about discovering anything without including Google, the mother of all discovery services. The ways of finding apps through Google (or other search engines) is unlimited, but the best way seems to be to enter the task you need done, followed my the word “mac”. So if you wanted an app for project management, just Google “project management mac” and you’ll find apps like Merlin, OmniPlan, iTaskX and FastTrack. It’s pretty hard to go wrong with Google.

Google

AppStorm

Excuse the shameless self promotion, you didn’t honestly think I was going to leave this one out, did you? If you’re reading this, you probably know about Mac.AppStorm, and how we find awesome (and not so awesome) apps, and write wonderful reviews of them. However, did you know that we also find and review iPhone apps, iPad apps, web apps and Android apps?

If you’ve been missing out on these great sites, then go straight to our archives, you’ve got a lot of catching up to do! You can also check out our awesome AppStorm home page for a feed of recent articles from the various sections.

Yours truly, Mac.AppStorm

Conclusion

There you have it, 10 fantastic ways to find brilliant apps. So what are you waiting for? Go and find some awesome apps right now!

I hope this post has been of some use to you, and that maybe you’ll be able to find some amazing software from the sources I’ve listed.

Jon’s starred items in Google Reader

Many Facebook Apps (like Farmville) need permission to send you email before you use them, but many of you might not want to share your email for privacy reasons. If you'd like to keep your email private, you can actually have Facebook create a temporary forwarding email just for apps. When you first get the permissions prompt from an app (shown above), just click the "Change" link under "Send me email", and Facebook will create an anonymous email address for you. Messages from that app will be forwarded to your main email address, but the app will never see your actual email—just the anonymous one Facebook created. [Digital Inspiration] More »

Jon’s starred items in Google Reader

Advertise here with BSA

There are lots of web apps these days and they are very popular because of time-saving and productivity benefits. Web apps work on almost all platforms and you can access them from any device. You don’t need to install anything and you can save lots of time in this way. In this compilation, I’ve picked 15 useful web apps for web and graphic designers, developers and other creatives who want to save time and achieve more. Hope you’ll become more productive with these handy apps.

Privacy policy generator

Privacy policy generator helps you to create professional privacy policy document that discloses some or all of the ways to your website visitors about what you will do with information gathered from them, how you are gathering that information and how the information will be stored and managed.

Launchlist

Launchlist is a perfect tool for web designers and developers to check their work before launching any project.

Aviary’s Image Editor

Powerful online photo editor with easy to use user interface. Perfect alternative for popular Adobe Photoshop.

Color Scheme Designer

Very useful tool for any sort of designer. With this tool you can easily create attractive color schemes for your projects.

Buffer

Buffer makes your life easier with a smarter way to schedule tweets. Work out all your tweets at one point in time during the day. Then fill up your Buffer with your tweets and Buffer schedules them for you.

deviantART muro

HTML5-based app that works in all modern browsers, and you can dive in and start drawing on a blank canvas, all without Flash or any other plug-in.

CSS3 Generator

Handy CSS3 generator with a lot of different functions and code preview.

Loads.in

Loads.in gives you the possibility to see how fast your (or any) website loads in a real browser from over 50 locations worldwide.

Bounce

Great tool for creating notes on any website, you can share your thoughts, feedback about the project with your friends or colleagues.

Resize My Browser

ResizeMyBrowser is simple yet very useful online tool. With this tool you will be able to set the browser size by both Inner window and Outer window.

Kuler

Kuler is the web-hosted application for generating color themes that can inspire any project. No matter what you’re creating, with Kuler you can experiment quickly with color variations and browse thousands of themes from the Kuler community.

Typetester

The Typetester is an online application for comparison of the fonts for the screen. Its primary role is to make web designer’s life easier. As the new fonts are bundled into operating systems, the list of the common fonts will be updated.

WhatTheFont

Seen a font in use and want to know what it is? Submit an image to WhatTheFont to find the closest matches in their database.

Ultimate CSS Gradient Generator

Colorzilla has designed this very easy to use CSS3 gradient generator. It uses sliders and color pickers just like Photoshop and is highly recommended.

Twitter Profile Designer

Themeleon helps you to create custom Twitter background. You can use lots of patterns and colors available there or you can customize any of the colors or patterns to get just the right design for you.

Jon’s starred items in Google Reader

For this roundup, I searched the Mac App Store for solid-looking apps that hadn’t received enough ratings for Apple to give it an average score. I didn’t limit myself to one category. I just looked for apps that seemed to know what they were doing, despite not having an audience to do it to. I think I found some real treasures.

FocusBar

I emailed a developer friend recently, asking for an app that would cure my multitasking habit, a habit that was actually a symptom of my procrastination (’cause if you’re busy with everything, you’re working on nothing). I wanted an app that would bug me once in a while with a reminder to stay on task. It couldn’t be too annoying, because that would ruin whatever focus I happened to have, but it also couldn’t be too passive, otherwise, I’d ignore it as easily as I ignored everything else. Additionally, I said, the app had to look good and feel right.

Being a sensible individual, my developer friend asked me how much I was willing to pay him to build such an app. What he should have said was, “Go spend 99¢ on FocusBar.”

Developed by Macoscope, FocusBar is exactly what I was looking for. It’s comprised of a single, beautifully drawn, tastefully animated bar that subtly appears on your screen every thirty seconds or so to remind you what to focus on. It also shows up whenever you switch applications, as if to say, “Wait a second? Shouldn’t you be working on this instead?”

FocusBar's nudging little…focus bar.

FocusBar is not a To-Do List manager. It has no list capabilities. At the start of your activity, you type the name of your task into FocusBar, and at the end of your activity, you tell it you’re done. It’s simple, it’s beautiful, and it’s only 99¢.

My only complaint is that there’s no emotional satisfaction that comes from completing a task: no box to check off, no words to strike a line through, no icon to turn into a puff of smoke. It’s not a big deal, but it would provide a nice catharsis.

Price: .99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6
Developer: Macoscope

CleanShot

If you’re a blogger (or an AppStorm writer), then you know it can be a pain in the butt to prepare your desktop for a screenshot that you want to share with the world. You have to worry about the little menu items on the right side of your menubar, the clutter of windows spread across your desktop, and (depending on your needs) the clock in the menubar revealing that you’re taking the screenshot just five minutes prior to your deadline. Of course, there’s also your screen size to worry about (if you’re the kind of person who takes frequent screenshots, there’s a good chance your resolution is set higher than the average user).

Enter CleanShot, by Media Atelier. Like many screenshot apps, CleanShot removes from the desktop everything that isn’t your focused app, and it comes with the option to replace your normal desktop background with any image you choose.

It has a few unique features too. First, it removes all the geeky menubar items from the right side of the screen, giving you the option to leave on the battery and Airport icons (these are actually fake icons that show a 100% full battery and a 100% full wireless signal). It also lets you set the clock for whenever you want, so if you’re taking screenshots at an ungodly hour like 3:17 AM, you can change it to a more sane 10:23 AM (again, this is a fake clock, not a real one).

Lastly, CleanShot overlays a grid of resolution sizes atop your screen, helping you decide just how big you want your screenshot to be.

Note the position of the clock

If you look closely at the screenshot above, you’ll see that CleanShot even moves the fake clock and menubar items to the edge of your chosen size, ensuring that the viewer thinks they’re seeing everything there is to see. It’s a nice touch.

My one complaint is that there didn’t seem to be a keyboard combination to bring it up, which means you have to find the icon every time you want it to launch. You could always use your System Preferences to set your own keyboard combo, but still, it’d be nice if it were part of the app.

Price: .99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6
Developer: Media Atelier

MealPlanner

Every morning, right about the time I’m finishing my first cup of coffee, I get a phone call from my wife, asking me what I want for supper. I absolutely hate these phone calls, as does my wife. It’s too early for me to think about lunch, let alone dinner, but because of how busy her day typically is, it’s the only time she has available to talk about it. If we could excise this daily conversation from our lives, I think my wife and I would argue even less than Mike and Carol Brady.

MealPlanner aims to save our marriage, and all the marriages like it. MealPlanner combines a calendar app with a recipe box to give you a one-stop shop for your family’s meal planning needs.

Don't worry. The fonts are customizable.

I’m not going to lie to you. MealPlanner is rough around the edges: the developer’s default font-choices are poor (but customizable) and the process of adding a meal to your library is too mechanical (each step in the process slides open a new, fixed-width sheet). But most of the issues crop up when you’re just getting started. Once you’ve added the stable of your family’s usual meals to its library, you never have to add them again. All you do is drag and drop them to the various days you want to make them, and you’re good to go.

Along with setting up your weekly menu, MealPlanner collects all the ingredients for the meals into a single, printable grocery list. After sitting down with your spouse to plan out the week, you can generate a grocery list and head to the store.

I don’t think the current version of the app is worth its price, but it’s cheaper than a marriage counselor.

Price: .99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6
Developer: Mohd Aika Abdullah

Quiet

There is no dearth of “focus” apps on the Mac App Store. It seems everybody and their mother has put together some slices of code that will darken your screen, highlight a window, or hide your other apps.

But what makes Quiet different is two fold: first, it gives you the option to not only drop a black curtain over your other windows or to hide them beneath your desktop, but it also gives you the option to blur out everything but your app of focus.

"Focus Out" takes a lot of oomph, but it's a nice effect.

Granted, it takes “a powerful Mac” (as the developers say in the preferences) to have the blurring effect not crush your computer’s response time, but even on my four-year-old Mac mini, I could live with the effect without too much hassle.

The second thing that makes Quiet different is that the app will quiet down all the other distracting apps on your machine. It hides your dock, so you’re not bothered by badges. It quiets Growl notifications from popping up to disturb you. It silences iChat, Adium, Skype, and Mail. It even changes your IM status, so people know not to bug you (the default status is “I’m in The Zone,” but you can change that if you like).

I’ve used several apps in the “focus” category, and Quiet seems to be one of the better ones.

Price: .99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6
Developer: WireLoad

Dynamic Light

You know how everyone loves that Instagram gives you a dead simple way to not only share your photos with the world, but more importantly, and more fun, to tweak your photos so they come out interesting?

Dynamic Light is kind of like that. It is basically a collection of pre-developed filters that you can apply to your photos to give them that “HDR look” (for those who aren’t photographically inclined, HDR provides a greater degree of luminance in your photos, giving the lighting effects a more accurate feel — or so says Wikipedia).

A non-standard, but still easy to use UI

As you can see above, Dynamic Light uses a nonstandard interface for a Mac app. I’m not 100% sure what the metaphor is they’re going for, but it reminds of a HAM radio. How an old-timey radio fits in with a photo-filtering application is beyond me, but the simplicity of the app saves the UI from being too distracting.

Basically, you either drag an image right into the main area of the app or you click the load button to bring up your file browser. Then you start playing.

While you can tweak the two dials below the main image and adjust the angle of the light source, most people will probably just click the “Effects” button and go from there. Dynamic Light includes 23 pre-set filters, from simple ones such as Black & White to more stylized ones such as Old Photo. The filters are different enough to make them fun to go through, yet similar enough that they obviously belong to the same app. Kind of like Instagram.

Price: .99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5
Developer: Mediachance

Final Thoughts

I downloaded and tested several different apps before settling on these five. Despite Apple’s control over who gets into the store, there’s obviously a lot of junk in there, and people have to be careful with what they choose to purchase and install.

But don’t let the fact that you haven’t heard of a certain developer get in the way of your app adventures. While two of these five appps (MealPlanner and Dynamic Light) don’t offer the same polish as Apple-designed apps and one of the apps (MealPlanner) is priced a bit steeper than it might deserve, all five of the apps provide solutions that might speak to your needs. There’s hundreds of more quietly good apps out there. The trick is to be open to them.

Leave a comment below and tell us about the hidden gems that you’ve found in the App Store. Which apps do you use that you’ve never heard discussed anywhere?

Jon’s starred items in Google Reader

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

Web apps are a friend to all who mash the keyboard from nine to five. They live in the cloud, are accessible from any Internet connection and are great for chopping those mundane work tasks off at the knees.

We’ve previously highlighted a batch of web apps that reduce the headaches and keystrokes associated with common tech chores, and after receiving some great feedback from readers, we thought it only right to hunt down a few more worthy bookmarkables.

See below for five more picks, and remember to leave your own time-saving web ditties in the comments.

1. PrintFriendly

While we all strive to live in a paperless world, sometimes you’ve just got to ruthlessly murder some innocent trees. Does that make you a bad person? Probably.

The next time you need to print something from the web, stop over at PrintFriendly first. It’s a ridiculously simple way to distill nearly any web content down to a clean, ad-free document suitable for paper. And the best part? You can also generate beautiful PDFs that retain links and other formatting.

Goodbye, extra pages that are mostly empty space except for one banner ad and a URL at the bottom!

The next time you need to print something from the web, stop over at PrintFriendly first. It’s a ridiculously simple way to distill nearly any web content down to a clean, ad-free document suitable for paper. And the best part? You can also generate beautiful PDFs that retain links and other formatting.

Goodbye, extra pages that are mostly empty space except for one banner ad and a URL at the bottom!

2. Vector Magic

Imagine this crazy scenario: The boss needs you to print up event flyers, but all she has is a tiny 100 pixel logo from the corporate website. (I warned you this was going to get crazy.)

Resizing this graphic with standard imaging software will render it pixelated and unprofessional. What you need is a vector asset — a mathematical representation of the logo that a graphic designer would use to scale the image at any size without sacrificing quality.

Vector Magic is a remarkable little app that translates standard web images (JPG, GIF, PNG, etc.) into scalable vector art. We gave it a shot with Mashable’s logo, and the results were impressive and crisp. Mileage may vary depending on the complexity of the image, but even small, multicolored icons made great vectors in our testing. Photographs might get dicey, but it’s worth a shot.

Vector Magic packs a bit too much power to be totally free, but you get the first two vectors on the house, and a basic account is only .95 per month for unlimited use — well worth it, especially if you’re making a lot of PowerPoint presentations or websites.

3. Dummy Image

Speaking of images, are you ever building a presentation or website and find yourself in need of a visual placeholder? You you’ve got a killer stock handshake photo coming, but right now you’re just getting your layout down, and the measurements need to be precise.

You could fire up ol’ MS Paint, slice out a 600 by 300 pixel box, color it red, save it to your computer, open PowerPoint, import the image, what did I name the image?, I swear I just saved the image, is it in My Pictures?, I can’t find the image, seriously where is this thing, restart MS Paint, ad infinitum.

Or, you could snag Dummy Image from your bookmarks bar, type in your dimensions and drag the graphic onto your slide.

I think we’re done here.

4. SimplyNoise

Let’s face it: Your coworkers are annoying and their incessant chatter makes it hard to focus on anything but cat pictures. Sure, Keith from accounting is a nice guy, but enough about Idol already, you’re a grown man for God’s sake.

We kindly recommend SimplyNoise, a white noise generator you can fire up with one click, should the office get rowdy during crunch time. In actuality, the app can generate three different kinds of static noise: white, pink and brown. If you’re looking for warmer, less grating frequencies (like those found in a waterfall or an ocean), go with brown. The app even remembers your volume preferences.

Headphones sold separately.

5. ShowMeWhatsWrong.com

If you’ve ever provided tech support over the phone to a coworker (or a friend or family member, for that matter), you’ve probably already killed yourself, so no need to read any further.

If you are alive, and foresee this being an issue in the future, you’ve got to check out ShowMeWhatsWrong.com. It’s a dead-simple way to share screencasts with a tech-troubled colleague.

There’s no account to create, but you’ll need to provide your email address so the app can share confirmations with you. Send a link to your coworker where he can record up to five minutes of his on-screen troubles. When he hits “stop,” the app uploads and processes the video, and shoots a private URL back to you. View the screencast almost instantly, diagnose the problem (likely that the printer was not, in fact, plugged in), and be heralded as office hero. The videos are lightweight, smooth and expire after a week.

Considering how frustrating it can be to reliably capture on-screen video for other purposes, the ease of this web-based solution is pretty refreshing.

If you aren’t fist pumping at your desk right now over these life-changing websites, there’s probably little hope for you. Did we miss one that you can’t get through the day without? Share and share alike in the comments below.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, kemie

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Jon’s starred items in Google Reader

Lot of third party apps – both free and paid – help bring people together for a conversation on their Facebook pages. After the break we have compiled a list of 35 cool design inspirations and apps to help make your Facebook page awesome.

Inspirations

Porsche

Porsche

Porche’s Facebook page is as awesome as their iconic cars. Right from their Facebook page you can choose the model of your dreams, pick the colors and even choose the rims that will go great with the car.

Symantec

Symantec

The famous computer security company’s Facebook is page is a mixture of information and introspection. People can download their security research reports, read their blog and tweets and take part in their weekly surveys.

Dogpatch Labs

Dogpatch Labs

Dogpatch Labs is a “frat house for geeks” (that’s how the company puts it) and helps to connect entrepreneurs and help founders conceive and launch startups. In true geek style, the Facebook page is designed to work as a standalone webpage from where one can click links to access their blog, twitter feed etc.

Skittles

Skittles

Skittles has a very colorful and fun Facebook page. From here fans can watch the TV ads, share with friends and can submit a crazy picture of their own to get themselves on the Rainbow of the Week wall.

McDonald’s

McDonald's

McDonald’s page is great to look and has sub-pages dedicated to their flagship items from the menu.

Harry Potter

Harry Potter

The Harry Potter movie page is a great place for the fans of the wizarding world to hang out. From trailers and set photos to sweepstakes and shopping cart to buy DVDs, this a great example of a fully laid out Facebook page.

Verizon

Verizon

Verizon’s Facebook page is another great example of maximum usage of the Facebook platform. Their page acts like a quasi-website and is fully functional. Users can buy ringtones and choose the right phone, all from their Facebook fan page.

Blackberry

Blackberry

Blackberry is promoting their Playbook tablet left, right and center. Fans can read featured Blackberry news from across the web, take part in discussion and find their very own Blackberry.

Dell

Dell

Dell has an elegant and functional Facebook page which excels in intuitiveness. New models and updates are featured prominently and all related Dell product pages and country specific Facebook pages are listed here as well.

Nokia

Nokia

Nokia’s Facebook page design is exactly like that of their official homepage,  complete with their choice of fonts and design elements. Links to their regional and country specific Facebook pages are very prominently listed and apps from their Ovi store are featured as well.

Bare Escentuals

Bare Escentuals

Bare Escentuals is a cosmetics company and they have a full length vertically designed page that looks like a glossy flyer.

ecycler

ecycler

ecycler redefines the coolness quotient of a Facebook page with a snazzy design and useful tips to recycle stuff.

iTunes

iTunes

The iTunes Facebook page has a very Apple-like design: clean, cool and minimal.

Zappos

Zappos

Well known for its fanatical customer support, the Zappos Facebook page offers exclusive deals to people who like their page. What is there to not like about Zappos?

Tiny Prints

Tiny Prints

Tiny Prints is a stationery company and its Facebook page sports a minimalistic design. Fans get a free greeting card.

Jones Soda

Jones Soda

From interactive elements to offering a free iPhone app, Jones Soda Facebook page is a brilliant example of brand promotion on the world’s largest social network.

Vitamin Water

Vitamin Water

The beverage has a great landing page but misses out on the interactive part.

Doritos

Doritos

From a Xbox giveaway to a global music event featuring Rihanna, there is a lot of stuff happening at the Doritos Facebook page.

BestBuy

BestBuy

The big box retailer’s Facebook page is gorgeous and very informational. Check out their other Facebook fan pages as well.

NFL

NFL

The NFL Facebook page has a lot things going for it. From the 2011 drafts to leaderboard, fans have everything they need over here.

Want more Facebook fan page inspiration? Check out Jarel’s roundup of 35 of the best Facebook Fan Pages from 2010.

Apps

Ashley Boo

Ashley Boo

From the stable of Rounds, the super cool social chat platform, comes Ashley Boo. It is a new and innovative interactive campaign on Facebook. Users write what they want to do with Ashley and the profile comes to life and responds to users’ requests in a totally fun and exciting way. It was primarily created in order to promote their Facebook application, Video Chat Rounds, but is a totally fun app to check out. Try writing one of the following: Start a food fight, Travel the world, or Go out on a date and see what happens.

faster 88

faster88

faster88 is a hiring tool. It allows companies, brands, bands, non-profits to hire from their fan page. Once activated, faster88 adds a tab called “Jobs” which in turn acts like a mini-career site. In addition to listing open positions, the app also lets candidates apply without leaving facebook!

Divshare

Divshare

Divshare app for Facebook is an extension of the online file sharing site of the same name. Send your documents, photos, music and videos to your friends with DivShare — it’s fast and free. You can send your files to individual friends, post them to your profile or add them to your news feed.

Slideshare

Slideshare

SlideShare is the world’s largest community for sharing presentations and with their Facebook app, you can share presentations & documents with your Facebook network, embed YouTube videos in presentations, upload digital files in almost any format etc. IF you have an existing Slideshare account, you can import the documents directly too.

My Countdowns

My Countdowns

Got an awesome surprise coming up and looking to drum up some hype? This app lets you add countdowns (or countups) to your profile! Create a public or private countdown, attach icons (over 500 to choose from), pick which style you want, date format, even make it a link to another website.

Eventbrite

Eventbrite

Eventbrite is a popular online destination for event planning. When you create an event at their web app, select the publish to Facebook option and Eventbrite will publish the event page directly on Facebook with your event details and a link to buy tickets. Your event is also promoted through your newsfeed.

Welcome Tab

Welcome Tab

Creating a Welcome tab for your Facebook profile or fan page is now so easy with the Welcome tab. Once installed the app will sit next to your Wall and Info tabs. Your Facebook friends and fans will be able to see and share your content right here on Facebook.

Fan Appz

Fan Appz

Fan Appz is a suite of Facebook applications built for managing fans and your fan pages. With the help of this app, your fans can now discover and share the latest fashions, gadgets, trends, popular culture and content from some of the best Fan Pages on Facebook.

My Top Fans

My Top Fans

My Top Fans analyzes your interactions between you and your friends and calculates with whom you share the most. The app also lets you filter top fans based on gender and also lets you pull some nifty reports too.

Where I’ve Been

Where I've Been

Are you a globe trotter and go to a lot of tourist destinations? Now you can flaunt to your friends and fans all the cool places you have been on an interactive map. You can also help people by giving  advice & hot tips to travelers and friends.

Graffiti

Graffiti

Think writing on a Facebook wall isn’t exactly as cool as writing on a real wall? Then you should give Graffiti a try. The app lets you  draw a doodle or graffiti for your friends. You can either start from scratch or use one of their templates.

Honesty Box

Honesty Box

Ok, now this is one interesting app. Want to really know what other people think about you? Use Honesty Box. The app allows people to send & receive anonymous messages and help discover what people really think of you. Once the comments are posted into the box, there is no way for the one who asked for a candid comment to know who exactly said what.

Marketplace

Marketplace

Facebook Marketplace lets you sell, give away, buy, rent, ask, or search for anything you want. You can also support charities by selling for a cause. This app makes it easy to see what your friends have posted and what is available in your area.

Picnik

Picnik

Facebook is the largest photo sharing destination online. Picnik makes your photos fabulous with easy to use yet powerful editing tools. Tweak to your heart’s content and then get creative with oodles of effects, fonts, shapes, and frames.

Weekly Schedule

Weekly Schedule

Everyone is busy these days and it is getting difficult to find a time for a meet up. Weekly Schedule allows you to post a graphical display of your weekly activities for all your friends to see. With the help of this app, now all your friends can keep track of your activities before making plans.

Share Your Thoughts!

What Facebook apps do you use to promote user engagement? Which one is your favorite Facebook fan page?

Jon’s starred items in Google Reader