While I am talking about software I may as well recommend the MacHeist Bundle. At $29 this is a real bargain, a bundle of 17 apps that includes Scrivener and a 15 month sub to Evernote Premium– two of the most useful programs ever for writers. (As ever, I shall just take a moment to plug Scrivener— the best app ever for the working writer.) Either one of these things alone cost more than 29 bucks. The rest of the bundle has some nice software– I particularly like Radium, a really cute internet Radio App, and Mariner Software’s MacGourmet– a recipe collection program which scans the internet for recipes you want and imports them into its own rather attractive database.
As a bonus, 25% of the money you pay goes to charity. What’s not to love?
If you own a Mac and don’t yet own Scrivener, check MacHeist out here. The deal has two days left to run.
What wasn’t to like for me was that when I tried to open Steam to download my applications, I kept getting an error message: “Steam needs to in online mode to update and has been set in offline mode”
After moaning about this for a bit, I googled the problem and found the solution here:
http://www.fmscout.com/q-4348-Steam-Needs-to-be-online-to-update-but-was-set-to-offline-mode.html
And you’re right – it’s a great bundle, even if you already have Scrivener and Evernote.
I really bought it for the Evernote Premium subscription, mate, but it turns out that Radium and (believe it or not) MacGourmet are a real bonus. PDF Signer looks like it might be useful for me too but I have not tried it yet. I don’t really care about the games since I do all my gaming on a PC which is about 50 times as powerful as my MacBook Air.
Funnily enough, PDF Signer was one of the things that sold it to me – I’ve only needed to edit a PDF a half dozen times in as many years, but each time I’ve REALLY needed to do it, and you wouldn’t believe the clunky work-arounds I’ve resorted to.
My gaming gamut has expanded from chess to solitaire, which the MBA seems to be able to handle at least as well as my SE20 did.
My thoughts precisely on PDF Signer. Oh and I did not mean to be rude about the games. Thanks for posting the Steam solution above. The MBA can actually handle Word of Warcraft but the fans sound like a jet taking off and since I have a games machine so I don’t need to use it.
Thanks Bill!!!!! There’s a lot of cool software there, bought it right away!
You’re welcome, Jacob!
What’s so good about Evernote then? I seem to remember checking it out when I was looking for a replacement for Keynote (I ultimately chose Scrivener, about which I am delighted!). Frankly I couldn’t really understand Evernote at all. So: what’s it good for, and why?
It’s cross-platform and you can access it from absolutely everywhere including your phone. It is also great for clipping stuff from the net and a good repository for things like e-tickets etc. See also here: http://www.williamking.me/2011/11/09/software-for-writers/