Latest MacHeist Bundle

Latte Other Software & Development
1

Hopefully this doesn’t come across as an advertisment. I came across this site and saw that they are selling an unbelievable bundle at the moment that contains several tools which would be helpful to us writers. For $50USD they are including:* Delicious Library

  • FotoMagicio
  • ShapeShifter
  • DEVONthink Personal
  • Disco
  • RapidWeaver
  • iClip4
  • Pangea game bundle
  • NewsFire
  • TextMate
    Not everything in there is something I would get, but I can spy at least four that I’ve been wishing for that all cost around that much by themselves. If you are familiar with MacHeist (I had only heard a bit about it), you’ll probably be dubious about the versions. Unlike the free promotions, these are full upgradeable licenses. The other nice thing is that they are donating 25% of the money they get to charities. The only catch I can see is that the last two items are still locked by charity goals. Considering that 3 out of the four I’m interested in are already unlocked, that’s good for me.

Anyway, the sale is good for a week.

2

I’ve heard mention of DEVONThink on this forum, but the rest of the programs are strangers to me.

Which four do you particularly want, and what do they do for you as a writer?

3

I did check out MacHeist and played along. However, even with 10$ discount made on the several games there (I’m only paying 39$ per bundle if I decide to buy), I’m inclined not to make the purchase. Why?

Delicious Library = not my cup of tea (pretty? sure… but useful?)
FotoMagico = it could be useful, but I get along just fine with iPhoto, Keynote and PowerPoint
ShapeShifter = not useful to me (it seems a bit on the teenager side)
DEVONthink Personal = I already own DEVONthink Pro, and the Personal version has much less features, including the absence of the amazing scripts
Disco = I own it and have to confess that other than the nice look of it, it’s a weak application. There are free app that do the same (in a less fancy way) and there are much better app for more demanding users. (Toast for instance. I really don’t understand how Disco can compare to this, if not for a pub maneuver.)
RapidWeaver = ah, here’s the only one that makes me think twice about not buying the bundle; however, I don’t need it right now (maybe in 4-5 months).
iClip4 = I’m a happy user of ShadowClipper.
Pangea game bundle = no games, please.
NewsFire = I’m trying NetNewsWire and I’m inclined to buy this one. It’s a really good application. Other than this one, I’d stick with Vienna, a nice free RSS reader.
TextMate = no use to me, right now.

So, given the fact that no application of the bundle would be of much use to me right now, I’ll probably refrain myself from buying it. I prefer to spend my money in 5 applications I’m really interested in:

  1. upgrading from DT Pro to DT Pro Office (I simply like the OCR ability, even if slow and making the files a bit too big; something that DT developers are saying it will improve)
  2. buying Scrivener when it comes out of beta :slight_smile:
  3. buying NNWire (in season sale now, I believe)
  4. buying File Buddy, that seems to be quite useful on moving, renaming files, etc
  5. buying FoxTrot seach application if the nice developers find out why it keeps crashing on my laptop (very nice support, btw, since they are busting their ***** for someone that is doing the trial version)

Plus, I’m still digesting if the MacHeist and Mac App A Day etc are really good for developers. Surely they are great for users and for the people behind the promotions… But I’m not that sure developers do win a lot with this. (Even if they make the choice of putting their app there. There have been some nasty trade of posts in several blogs about this.)

Finally – I do like the charity thing (25% of the purchase goes to one association of your choice, from a pick of eight), however I also do my own donations for charities of my choice.

The bottom line is that I would much rather see the developers putting their app in a nice sale price from time to time. Not someone doing it for them like this. I’m all for MacUpdate promos (25-40% off the application for a day), but these kind of freebies or big discounts make me think a bit about the motives behind them.

But, this, of course, is my personal opinion. :slight_smile:

– MJ

4

I agree with all your reservations save this one. DL is a great catalogue app, and the developers provide excellent support. I used a number of “library” apps before DL and this one is the best for my needs.

Input of data is simple: type in a title or code number, and in a few seconds, data arrives from amazon.com, including original price and current value of book, dvd/vhs, or cd. You may use a web cam to scan bar codes, but I found typing to be more reliable. If you search on the amazon site and find a hit, just drag its URL to DL to write an entry.

I have used DL to catalog a library of over 4,000 books and about 1,000 cd and dvd titles. It handled 95% of my input chores. It searches rapidly and now tells me what and where every “film noir” item is, since one of the fields is “location in building.”

Having said all that, I wouldn’t buy this package of old apps just to get Delicious Library. The downloaded price is $40, and less if you upgrade from a competing product. (PS: you may turn off the “pretty” view of cover art and just see a table list, with mini-icons of the covers.)

5

I like Delicious Library - it (along with iSale) was somewhat influential on the corkboard mode (and how it toggles with outliner mode). :slight_smile:

6

valente.mac - where can I find shadowclipper? Google doesn’t seem to find it. Thanks!

7

I assume he means ShadowClipBoard
Cheers,
E

8

Yes, I did mean ShadowClipBoard. Sorry about that. And thanks for correcting it, Eiron. [Btw, it’s she not he. :wink:]

I’ve been quite happy with it. It works just fine.

– MJ

9

:blush: Duly noted.
E

10

Actually, I didn’t mean to suggest that four would be useful to me as a writer, just that four were interesting enough to me that they have been on my want list for a while.* Delicious Library - because I have a stacks of books and films everywhere – too many for shelves – so I often buy things I thought I did not have, only to find years later that I have half a dozen copies of Portrait of an Artist…, or something. :slight_smile:

  • DEVONthink - anyone that’s read my posts here knows I didn’t like DEVONthink as an archival application, but it has other uses. I spent my money and time on another program, but have always wished I had a copy of DT sitting around. Who knows, maybe I’ll find myself warming to it over time, and then a modest upgrade fee to DTP would suffice.
  • RapidWeaver - Actually, I am pretty skilled at web design, but I absolutely hate web design with a passion. I’ve been wanting to find something that could let me just publish without fussing around so much, and this looks very promising. I can design my own template and then be done with it.
  • TextMate - One of those applications I’ve always lusted after, but have never been able to fit into the budget. I give a trial every once in a while, but then it expires and I have to go back to BBEdit (bleh). Realistically though, I am not expecting to get TextMate out of this deal. 100,000 is a lot of money – even though the ticker is over half way, I have a feeling most of the people that were going to buy this bundle have already done so. But it would be nice to be surprised.
    The rest of the stuff is just gravy. I don’t own Toast, so Disco is a nice upgrade to using the Finder. iClip is a nice upgrade to using QuickSilver’s clipboard plug-in. NewsFire is a nice RSS reader. It just got unlocked this morning, so I’ll see how it compares to Vienna.

So, it was a good deal for me. If I had already owned one or more of these, it probably would have been less interesting. What I was thinking of as being beneficial to writers would be DT, obviously, and RapidWeaver for those of us that would like to publish thoughts now and then, but don’t want to mess with making web pages for whatever reason. I suppose iClip could be used as a handy research aid tool. Make a clipboard set for a topic and Copy away. Then bullk paste it all.

11

TextMate is lovely, let me just say. I use 3% of its features, and it’s worth every penny I paid. You can even blog from the fucker.

12

Is that the technical term?

13

:confused: Must be one of those transatlantic dialectical troubles. Or, I suppose, it is—following its spiritual predecessor, emacs, as it increases in functionality and scope; from text editor to all-purpose fucker.

14

LOL.

Nice.

– MJ

15

If you think you want Delicious Library, check out Bookpedia. It’s basically iTunes for books (and can reinvent itself as DVDpedia also).

I like it.

bruji.com/bookpedia/

-B1225

16

Thanks, I will check it out. It looks very promising.

I wish these applications would recognise that there is more than one webcam on the market, though.

17

TextMate is now “unlocked”, they obviously decided not to wait until $100.000 are raised (see here).

18

Yeah! I saw that this morning. I really wasn’t expecting to get TextMate, but now I’m quite happy.

19

That is indeed something to consider. I’ve seen several well thought out posts on both sides of the issue, but so far I’ve only seen one negative remark from a developer that participated in – MacZot I think it was. Anyway, I’ve heard mostly positive stories from the developers involved, those that have made any sort of statement at all, and the only thing I do know with certainty is that I’ve got a group of applications that I probably never would have purchased (TextMate aside), that I am already putting to good use. Some are silly like Disco and Shapeshift – I’ll probably never even install Shapeshifter. When updates to these apps I like come out, I’ll probably be paying for upgrades, so they have a new customer from me.

As for the crippled version give-aways. I’m not so sure about that. I am more sceptical about those. At least this bundle has a large enough entry fee to weed out most of the types that are just out for some legal freebies.

It will be interesting to see what these developers have to say in the coming months. They’ve all had several thousand new customers in a matter of days. That has got to make things interesting around the place. :slight_smile:

20

While I am not able to judge the arguments for or against the event, I do remember reading one of the developers who were against it mention that each developer would only get about $3 per sale. He was angry at this.

I wonder what some of them think now that – at this time, when the donations have gone above $100,000, and sales nearly half a million dollars – each developer has made at least $27,000 in five days (if the $3 a pop is correct; and there are still 2 days left). Seems the developers are doing pretty well, especially considering most people will have to upgrade in a few months when the Leopard-only features of these apps come out.

And above $100,000 is donations? That’s just beautiful. Nothing more need be said. I think each developer who participated should be congratulated and thanked.