RapidWeaver is a website creation and management application designed exclusively for the Mac. It has been around far longer than the current competitors, iWeb and Sandvox, and is an elegant and fun way to start a website. RapidWeaver gives you the power to blog, podcast, share photos, movies, and files, keep in touch, and exercise your creative freedom. With plenty of beautiful themes and innovative plugins adding awesome features, RapidWeaver is the mature solution to creating and maintaining websites on your Mac.

Download RapidWeaver here.

Be sure to enter to win one of three copies of RapidWeaver on the site here.

RapidWeaver 3.6 should be released early this summer. Check out the RealMac blog for updates on new features and release status.

 

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So today is a pretty big day in the Mac community. The Mac Fanatic Giveaway is under way. The MacApper Switcher bundle giveaway kicked off today as well.

However, if possible, something more exciting debuted today. Coda from Panic Software. I hadn’t heard anything about this application until this past weekend, but after using it for a few minutes earlier today, I think I’ll be using this app a lot more. Basically it combines everything a web developer needs into one application. Don’t get me wrong, I live and swear by CSSEdit. I code in XCode (although it sucks for web coding…keep meaning to purchase TextMate) and use CyberDuck for my FTP needs. But Coda is so much cooler. I’ll be reporting on this shortly.

Shiira 2 is a nice release as well. I have used this in the past, but the 2.0 stable release is a welcome update and I hope to go in full depth of the wonders of this magical open-source browser this summer.

Download Coda from Panic Software.

Download Shiira.

For those of you entering the contest to win a copy of CSSEdit, you’re in luck. MacRabbit just released a 2.5 build today for public download. This updated version ads a few features, the most notable being tabs. Now you can view your source or live-preview in tabs and switch in between for more efficient use of your screen space. Looks like a nice update indeed.

Download CSSEdit 2.5 here.

For everyone patiently waiting these last few weeks for the Mac Fanatic Giveaway to start accepting entries, your time has come. To celebrate 50,000 subscriber podcast downloads over the last year I’ve been working in conjunction with developers to offer everyone a wonderful selection 13 different Mac apps. Rapidweaver, Parallels, Cha-Ching, Disco and Frenzic are all offering more than one copy of the software, giving you more chances to win.

Be sure to read more about each application, listen to reviews and enter here. Consider downloading trial versions of the other applications as there is a great variety.

Digg the story here.

I have reviewed both of these applications in the past. However, both of these apps deserve a second look because the feature set has changed so much. In the case of Schoolhouse, the app went from being adequate to a full-fledged class management application that I cannot function without. Journler has matured over time, but remains an application that I admire, but yet do not use to its full potential.

You can download Schoolhouse 2 here.

You can download Journler 2.5 here.

Listen to the previous review of Schoolhouse 1 here.

Listen to a previous review covering Journler here.

 

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For those who have listened in on the last podcast, you have heard about the upcoming software giveaway on the site. I just wanted to alert everyone else as well.

The contest will being on April 23 (next Monday) and last until June 1. There are a lot of software titles signed on so far and I’m very excited to offer all of this to my loyal listeners and take the time to welcome some new people as well.

If you’re interested in blogging the contest or submitting to digg or whatever way you feel to share the news with the world, go right ahead. I’ll have some nice images put up a little later in the week that everyone can use to stick on their blogs if they wish. And now for the list of software:

• Tangerine (1 copy)
• Rapidweaver (1 copy 3 copies)
• Frenzic (3 copies)
• Typinator, PopCharX, and KeyCue (1 copy each)
• Journler (1 copy)
• CSSEdit (1 copy)
• SmartBackup (1 copy)
• Cha-Ching (3 copies) 1.0 released on 4/20!
• Billings (1 copy)
• Parallels Desktop for Mac (2 copies)
• Delicious Library (1 copy)
• Disco (3 copies)
• Overflow (1 copy)

That’s a grand total of 723.23 USD of free and awesome Mac software! And there is one more surprise I’ll save for later….

Dan from Rapidweaver pledged two more copies of Rapidweaver to bring the number up to 3.  And that makes the grand total 803.13  now.

First, I feel bad because I’m just reposting some news from another site, but this is really worth it. When I talked about Xtorrent awhile back, I had downloaded and was enjoying a beta build. However, after getting closer to the final release, I just hadn’t used it as much and didn’t buy a final copy when released. So, this cool RSS feature was thrown in after I used it presumably.

I talked about TVShows within the last week or so. Very cool app that lets you subscribe to your favorite TV show and it will launch your bit-torrent client and start the download for you. Turns out Xtorrent already does it for you. Basically, you find yourself an RSS feed for your favorite TV show and add that in Xtorrent. It will download them for you and add to iTunes. Cool stuff.

The only thing I’d like to add is that this approach requires the user to go out and locate the RSS feed to use in Xtorrent as with TVShows the list is populated in the app itself. You just do a quick filter for “Bones” and you get the full season. I would think that Dave would eventually work this into his app, but who knows. Since Xtorrent is built around ease-of-use (see: bundling several free features into one application), I would hope this RSS feature would evolve to include just selecting the feed from within. Who knows.

Read original post here.

See about Xtorrent here.

Listen to Mac Fanatic review of Xtorrent here.

Read my thoughts on TVShows here.

I have talked about Cha-Ching several times on the site before. It’s an amazingly fresh take on managing your finance brought to you by Midnight Apps. The app has been in beta for awhile now, making steady dot releases every few months, always adding features.

This Friday, we’ll see the 1.0 release of Cha-Ching. As if that’s not exciting enough, every day this week the Midnight Apps website will be updated with a new and awesome feature that will debut in the 1.0 release. Today’s feature is Spotlight integration. Quicken doesn’t even come close anymore guys.

Be sure to head over to the website using the links below and read more up on it. Also of note is that every day the price goes up by 5 bucks until reaching the final sales price this Friday. It’s one of those deals where if you buy it early before the release, something first met with great success from Disco, you get it cheaper. Starts out at 20 bucks today, ending at 40 on Friday. So if you want this app, and I’m pretty sure you will after you use it, download soon.

You can see details and download Cha-Ching here.

You can read a very short overview of Cha-Ching here.

If you find yourself irresistibly drawn to this app, you might want to enter to win one of three copies here on the website. Contest entries start April 23 and run till June 1. Check here for more details.

SmartBackup is by far the best backup solution I’ve found for normal backups. The software is a lot like syncing your iPod. The first time you sync your backup, it will take awhile to put everything in the backup. However, subsequent backups take very little time and yet you always have your latest files. There are a lot of options to tweak for saving space and time and recovery is easy. Check out this app today!

Download SmartBackup here.

If you like this software, consider entering the Mac Fanatic Software Giveaway. Contest runs from April 23 until June 1. Read more details here.

 

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First words: noooo!

This is a little disappointing for a few reasons. First, it shows that Apple is more dedicated to pushing the iPhone out the door than releasing software for Macs. Clearly stated as:

iPhone contains the most sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device, and finishing it on time has not come without a price — we had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS X team

I understand the importance of the iPhone, but I really want Leopard. That initial point made, it’s also worth noting that while Vista debuted in January, a full 5 months before Leopard was originally going to be released, Vista now has a 9 month lead to market. Feature wise and all that, I’m not saying that Vista is in better shape. Just that as a proud Mac user, I can’t tout that Leopard is lightyears ahead of Vista and only a few weeks behind in release.

Overall, I’m sure that it will be worth the extra couple months. It seems that Apple will provide a full unveiling at WWDC this year and distribute more beta builds for testing and then release all that to production soon after. The increased time should allow for a more stable and impressive release.

Found via AppleInsider