K’s Weblog

This week’s edition of the GGP is up and available, and with it the latest update from the GGP Mac Lab.

First up this week is a quick review of AutoResizer from Optunis. This is a great little image utility which provides an easy method of batch-resizing or re-formatting images. Simply point the tool at a file, or folder and it will process the file(s) into the selected output format. Some of the supported file types include JPEG, PNG and Adobe PSD. It works fairly quickly too. I was able to process a folder of 96 PSD files on my MacBook in about 45 seconds. AutoResizer will resize images to a fixed size, or scale to a preset vertical or horizontal value. It also provides a faciltiy for converting the files to a new format (PSD to JPEG for example).

Download this free application from the Optunis website.

Second on the block is a new Mac take on a UNIX classic. It’s Aquamacs. Acquamacs is an OS X compliant version of the ever popular Emacs text editing program from the UNIX and Linux platforms. Aquamacs sports the regular set of text-editing features that you’d expect from any good OS X tool, including full use of the OS X keyboard shortcuts for operations like copying, pasting etc. However it also supports many of the original Emacs key combinations as well which will make seasoned Emacs veterans very happy. Aquamacs also supports syntax highlighting for 24 different language variants right out of the box. These include PHP, HTML and AppleScript as well as some more obscure formats like matlab and Lisp. One criticism that I had of Aquamacs is already making its way into regular rotation on my Macbook, pushing TextEdit further and further to the outside.

Download Aquamacs from the project website.

Finally this week a maintenance application called OnyX.  It provides a quick one-stop centre for performing some of the tuning and maintenance tasks that we often neglect, as well as a spot to set preferences for some of the more hard-to-find settings in OS X.

Among the tweakable parameters are things like:

• The image format for screen captures
• The number of items in the “recent items” list
• Enabling the “Developer Mode” of Dashboard
• Highlighting the screen corners which have actions like turn on the screen saver
• Enabling the “Debug” menu in several applications

In Maintenance Tasks, OnyX can restore many of the settings and options to their defaults, as well as perform system optimization.  OnyX also provides direct call-outs to many of the UNIX utilities present in OS X.  I really couldn’t find any negatives about OnyX, it’s a utility program that does what it says it will, and does it with a bit of style.

You can download OnyX from Titanium’s website.

That’s the end of this week’s review.  If you’d like more tech news from the past week, as well as links to other downloads, sites and services, check out the Global Geek Podcast.

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