Software Bargains: Work the Web

We wrap up Macworld ’s look at software bargains with a round-up of FTP clients, Web-site production tools, bookmark managers and other low-cost, high-quality Web programs.

Cyberduck 2.3

  ; David V. Kocher; free

There are a few free FTP clients for the Mac, but none is as polished or as easy to use as Cyberduck. Making a connection is as easy as typing the name of the server in the address bar. Save bookmarks to a bookmark drawer, or drag them to your desktop. Cyberduck supports multiple connections and can resume interrupted transfers. It also supports SFTP, Keychain, and Rendezvous (so connecting with your local network is a breeze). When you select a file for editing, Cyberduck opens the document in your chosen editor and uploads the changes automatically when you save.—ROBERT ELLIS

Denim 1.1

  ; Group for User Interface Research; free

Denim is a unique pen-based Java app for designing Web sites. It lets you sketch out site maps, storyboards, and Web pages quickly and easily. To create a page, just write a name in Denim’s Canvas window. Zoom in to see the page and to outline your ideas. To create a link, just draw a line from any word to another page in your site. Denim takes a little getting used to, but there’s a video on the Denim Web site that will get you up-to-speed. You can export your chicken scratch and doodles to HTML for testing.—ROBERT ELLIS

iRecordMusic 1.3

  ; Bitcartel Software; $20

There are several radio programs I’d like to listen to, but they don’t play at convenient times. Could iRecordMusic be the “radio-TiVo” I so desperately desire? iRecordMusic records streaming Internet radio feeds, whether they are served by QuickTime, RealPlayer, or Windows Media Player. And it works with iCal to let you schedule upcoming or repeating radio shows. After recording, the content is encoded as unprotected AAC (MP4) or MP3 files that you can play back in iTunes. You can even fast-forward through the dull parts. However, iRecordMusic’s Web-browser interface isn’t as straightforward as it could be, and the recordings aren’t named in a way that’s easy to differentiate. Still, iRecordMusic’s utility brings me a bit closer to my dream of a “radio-TiVo.”—JEFF CARLSON

JBidWatcher 0.9

  ; Morgan Schweers; free

There are numerous utilities designed to help you be a more efficient eBay user, but JBidWatcher beats them all. Although it’s a Java app, the program is well designed and responsive. It can help search for items, monitor items you’re watching and selling, and keep track of all your transactions. You can drag auctions right from your Web browser into JBidWatcher, or use the Search Manager to import searches, create custom searches, and update searches at regular intervals. Best of all, JBidWatcher can snipe (automatically enter bids at the last possible moment), which might help you get a better price.—ROBERT ELLIS

PithHelmet 2.0

  ; Mike Solomon; free

Safari can block pesky pop-up menus, but what about all those annoying animated GIFs and boring banner ads? Like a spam filter for the Web, PithHelmet hides unwanted content, blocking ad-size images, hiding links to blocked sites, or hiding content from off-site domains. You can create your own rules, blocking or exempting specific sites. Want to see everything on a blocked page? Just reload without applying filters. A contextual-menu item lets you block images from any site or add a site to your list of exempt sites as you surf. You can set animations to play once, never, or always.—ROBERT ELLIS

Pod2Go 0.7

  ; Kainjow Software; free

Pod2Go adds PDA functions to your iPod via its Notes feature. Using a simple interface, you can set Pod2Go to automatically download news, RSS feeds, weather forecasts, local movie listings, driving directions, horoscopes, song lyrics, and more. The program installs an icon in your menu bar. You click on it to quickly sync your data or to access the Notes Editor, which lets you create new notes and note folders, as well as edit existing notes. I just wish Pod2Go did a better job of organizing notes. For example, it places all movie listings in their own note at the top level of the Notes folder rather than in a more convenient Movies folder.—KELLY LUNSFORD

PrintMagic 3.5

  ; MacEase; $25

When you print text from the Web, you may not want all the images and ads—sometimes you just want plain text. You could copy and paste the content into a text document and print it, or you could use PrintMagic. Select some text in your browser, and PrintMagic will print that text and only that text. (You can also choose to include a date stamp, or any notes you want to add, to the printout.) Alternatively, you can drag and drop text or images to the PrintMagic window to print them. A PrintBoard mode lets you collect text and images to print together, and PrintMagic also makes it easy to quickly print the contents of the clipboard. And although MacEase doesn’t promote this fact, PrintMagic works with any application.—DAN FRAKES

Safari Magic 1.0

  ; MacEase; $20

When you frequently need to print out just parts of Web pages, you’ll soon be frustrated by Safari’s limited print capabilities. Safari Magic lets you drag and drop text and graphics into its PrintBoard, which you can then edit before printing out. The stand-alone application is a small, resizable menu (either horizontal or vertical), which displays only when Safari is the frontmost application. It’s not perfect (you can’t, for instance, drag both text and graphics at the same time), but it bypasses some Safari printing limitations.—DORI SMITH

SafariSorter 2.13

  ; Jerry Krinock; free

Safari makes managing your bookmarks easy, but it lacks one important feature: it won’t sort them for you. SafariSorter can sort your bookmarks by name, complete URL, or domain. Sort folders and bookmarks together, or keep folders at the top. Sort all your bookmarks, or specify how many levels down in your Bookmarks Bar, Bookmarks Menu, or Collections to sort. SafariSorter can filter useless prefixes (such as “Welcome to . . .”). Best of all, it can run in the background and automatically sort your bookmarks daily. Until Safari adds sorting, SafariSorter is an indispensable tool for the bookmark hoarder.—ROBERT ELLIS

HyperEdit 1.0

  ; Jonathan Deutsch; $20

If you can handle hand-coding Web pages, HyperEdit can get the job done without the bloat (or cost) of Adobe GoLive or Macromedia Dreamweaver. HyperEdit is a split-pane editor. Edit HTML, CSS, JavaScript, or PHP in one pane, and a preview pane renders the results as you type. HyperEdit has syntax highlighting with custom colors and fonts, and it includes a Javascript code evaluator and live W3C validation (errors are underlined in red and displayed in an error drawer). A Code Snippets palette stores frequently used tags, and you can create your own snippets with custom shortcut keys. Linked files (such as style sheets or images) can be edited externally, and they automatically refresh in the preview pane when saved. Live previewing makes HyperEdit a real time-saver and ideal for learning.—ROBERT ELLIS

URL Manager Pro 3.3

  ; Alco Blom; $25

If your Web browser’s URL-management abilities are lacking—or if you use more than one browser—let URL Manager Pro corral your bookmarks. You can consolidate all your browsers’ bookmarks and then access them—and create new bookmarks from within any application via a systemwide menu. (You can also access them from the application’s Dock menu.) URL Manager Pro even keeps a single history file for all browsers—useful if you don’t remember which browser you used to view a particular site. The utility’s impressive bookmark-management features include the ability to validate bookmarks, to delete duplicates, and to automatically sort bookmarks within folders.—DAN FRAKES

Saft 7.0

  ; Hao Li; $10

Saft’s maker says that it adds “full-screen browsing to Safari.” And that’s true, but it’s only a fraction of what this plug-in can do. It allows you to read RSS feeds, search both history and bookmarks, bookmark a group of tabs, and create customized contextual searches. And the features are all so well integrated that you’ll soon assume that they’re just part of Safari—until you try to use someone else’s Mac. Add the ability to save lengthy Web pages as single-page PDFs, to save and restore browser windows when quitting and starting up, and to block images and plug-ins (just a few more of its features), and you’ll never want to use Safari without Saft.—DORI SMITH

[ Robert Ellis is the author of Handpicked Software for Mac OS X: The Best New Freeware, Shareware, and Commercial Software for Mac OS X (Futurosity, 2002); he publishes the Handpicked Software Web site. Jeff Carlson is the author of iMovie 4 and iDVD 4 for Mac OS X: Visual QuickStart Guide (Peachpit Press, 2004). Kelly Lunsford is Macworld’ s senior how-to editor. Senior Writer Dan Frakes is the author of Mac OS X Power Tools, second edition (Sybex, 2004). Dori Smith is a coauthor of JavaScript for the World Wide Web: Visual QuickStart Guide, fifth edition (Peachpit Press, 2003). ]