Author: Aaron Nelsen

  • Best Free Mac Software – Redux

    [ Browser ]
    Firefox – Need I say anything else? My browser of choice no matter what OS you’re running.

    [ RSS ]
    Vienna – An excellent RSS reader

    [ Email ]
    Thunderbird – Mail.app is a fantastic email client, but Thunderbird still outshines it. Truth be told though, I hardly use my desktop email client.
    Google Notifier – If you use Gmail this application is a must have. Automatically checks your Google Calendar and Gmail account and notifies you of upcoming events and email messages.

    [ IM ]
    Aduim – A feature rich Instant Messaging client, with a broad range of supported clients makes this a must have.

    [ File Sharing ]
    Transmission – A simple, easy to use BitTorrent client that’s a little more developed than Tomato.

    [ FTP ]
    Cyberduck – A departure from the normal two paned view you might be used to in FTP programs, but still a robust program with support for FTP (File Transfer Protocol), FTP/TLS (FTP secured over SSL/TLS) and SFTP

    [ Video Playback ]
    VLC Player – Fast, stable and wide ranging codec support makes VLC a fantastic all around media player
    Flip4Mac – Adds support for playing WMV files in QuickTime

    [ DVD Ripping ]
    Handbrake – It may not offer the widest range of options when ripping a DVD, but it’s straight forward and produces high quality rips with no hassle.

    [ CD Burning ]
    LiquidCD – Excellent alternative to the native disc burning in OS X

    [ Finance ]
    Cashbox – Simple and easy to use software to keep track of your finances

    [ Misc ]
    smcFanControl 2.1 – A must have for managing the fan speeds on your Macbook / Macbook Pro
    Growl – Growl is a notification system for Mac OS X: it allows applications that support Growl to send you notifications.
    Alarm Clock 2 – I would be late for work/classes almost daily if it wasn’t for this program, with options for waking up to either an annoying klaxon or music from your iTunes library.

  • MacUpdate Bundle

    Check this out, over at MacUpdate Promo you can get the following Mac applications as a bundle for only $49.99, that’s $534.75 worth of software for only $49.99

    • XMIND 2008 Pro
    • Forklift
    • RapidWeaver
    • Swift Publisher
    • Marine Aquarium
    • Xslimmer
    • MemoryMiner
    • Yep

    [ via digg ]

  • Mint.com – Reloaded

    After using Mint.com for a few weeks, it certainly has grown on me. So I thought I’d give another go at reviewing it, now that I’ve spent more than a few hours using Mint.

    Anyhow, they recently made some changes to their site (Build ph363.43), I have mixed feelings about the update. On one hand, I was excited to see that I could manually enter the APY for my accounts!
    picture-7.png
    However, my inner obsessive self was disappointed to see that the Update button for manually updating my accounts was gone…
    picture-8.png
    There used to be a nice Update button right there next to the Edit button, Mint! What have you done?!
    Edit: The answer is here!

    Minor things I know, but here’s the big kicker. Stability, Mint has gone a little janky since the update, now when I delete one entry from my alerts it hides all of them until I refresh the page, then they come back. Also, the email and mobile alerts I have set up haven’t been working 80% of the time, I might get the email update, but not the mobile one… or I may get it three days after I get the email. Rather annoying.

    The Spending at the Pump feature on the Accounts page also seems to omit random trips to the gas station, one day it told me I’d spent $124 on gas, and the next it said $83. The truth is I’d spent like $113 for the month.

    Then there’s the Spending Trends page, which random display little to no information , here’s what it told me my expenses were for the entire month of November:
    picture-10.png
    Clearly, $48 + $64 do not equal $1,091. On top of that, I know I had more than 8 transactions for the month, that and I spent well over the claimed $1,091, after all I spent $948 at Newegg.com alone. The Spending Trends feature was working prior to the update, so hopefully they’ll get that fixed soon.

    I’m still waiting with baited breath for them to start supporting brokerage accounts, I don’t even know if this is a planned feature, but if they ever add it I will be ecstatic. In fact, I might even do a little dance.

    Another feature I’d really like to see soon is the ability to import/export transaction records. But I complained about that in my last review as well, so I’ll shut up now.

  • Installing NES Games on Your iPod Touch

    The topic you’re looking for has moved.

  • Passive Income – November

    Since October I’ve been trying to cheat the system and get something for nothing, in this case, a little extra income without any work.

    My total passive income for October was $63.19, not too shabby for just getting started. Here are the numbers for November.

    • Interest: $15.11
    • Dividends: $14.72
    • Credit Card Rewards: $24.58
    • AdSense: $3.13
    • Text Ads: $16.02
    • Misc website income: $15

    Bringing my total passive income for November to $88.56, that an increase of $25.37 over October, and brings the total earnings since the beginning of this project to $151.75.

    My main dividend stock just dropped their dividend payout to 10 cents per share for the next three months, which stinks, but I expected it.