Mac tools and tips

This list will surely grow:

• TextWrangler
  • Useful for comparing folders on mac via its "Search > Find Differences..." menu option.

Use web analytics as a mirror for your users

The question on you mind may be: What do I possibly have to gain by exposing my website analytics to my users?
Well, if used simply & sparingly, it offers you a chance to engage your users by letting them satiate their curiosity about where they belong in the overall community that frequents the given website.

The following tools are polar opposites in how they decide to track the information that will be exposed but both offer the ability to expose the data and controls for which parts to expose:

• SeeTheStats - hooks into your Google Analytics account to collect the data and will let you expose it in a controlled manner.
• Piwik - runs locally on your webserver to collect real-time data and expose it in a controlled manner. You can check this link to find hosts that offer automated installation of Piwik on your webserver. In my experience PowWeb is another host that does this well.

Image Editing Toolset for Mac

All of the following are free and available on the Mac:

• Grab - Awesome tool for taking snapshots of on screen material.
• iPhoto - Decent~ish for cropping.
• Preview - Pretty good for cropping. You can follow the instructions given here. Hint: Select what should remain then press "cmd+k" to crop out the rest.
• Gimp
  • Great for smudging out unwanted portions of existing images.
  • Converting regular icons into those that look disabled

Screencast Toolset

Best toolset that I've found for working on the Mac with screencasts:

1. ScreenR
for recording.
2. Jing for recording.
3. SimpleMovieX for merging.
   1. The videos merged using this tool will not work as intended on Vimeo or YouTube. They will stop at the very first location that was stitched together.
4. Final Cut Pro for merging.
   1. The videos merged using this tool can be seamlessly uploaded to top providers like YouTube and everything in the video works as intended. But the content may show up as Public by default! So make sure to secure your content afterwards.