The Week in Mac Apps: Keep an eye on your camera activity with OverSight

This week’s roundup of new Mac apps includes OverSight, an app that keeps an eye on how third-party programs use your Mac’s built-in camera and microphone. Plus, new features for Carrot Weather and Speedtest, and more. Read on!

App Dynamic’s $19 AirServer lets you mirror the screen of your iOS device right on your Mac.

The app builds on what AirPlay already offers, and provides built-in support for streaming realtime data between devices using end-to-end encryption. It works with any kind of content, including videos and even games, and is perfect for presentations and demos.

Say goodbye to dull pictures with Nevercenter’s $35 CameraBag Photo ( Mac App Store Link), a handy app that lets you enhance your photos using a set of professional-grade editing tools.

The program comes with filters for everything from hues to lighting, offers a preview option that updates your work in real-time as you tweak each setting, and allows you to apply all your changes to a batch of photos to give them a consistent look.

The latest update to Grailr’s $12 CARROT Weather ( Mac App Store Link) is out just in time for Halloween, with all new content designed to brighten up your fall woes.

The popular app is famous for the witty banter with which it accompanies its forecasts, detailed daily predictions, and an hour-by-hour rain outlook designed to help you dress and accessorize for the weather. It now also includes a brand new Today widget, a “boring” personality setting that offers up weather reports sans snark, and a number of new special features that you can discover and unlock as you use the app.

If your closet looks like the set from a horror movie, Binary Formations’s $20 Home Inventory ( Mac App Store Link) comes to rescue and gives the tools you need to catalog and organize all your belongings.

The app’s intuitive UI is designed to make quick work of adding new items and record all kinds important information like warranty, pricing, and repairs. You can also add photos of each item and copies of the original receipts—handy if you lose anything and need to make an insurance claim. Finally, Home Inventory can also keep track of scheduled maintenance by integrating with your Mac’s native Calendar and Reminder applications to set up notifications when you need to bring something in to the shop for a check-up.

Feral Interactive’s $30 Mad Max ( Mac App Store Link) brings the iconic movie character back in action with a fast-paced adventure game for your Mac.

Your mission is to help Mad Max fight for his life by engaging vicious enemies in deadly combat. Throw in a heavy dose of post-apocalyptic vehicles, and you’ve got yourself endless hours of entertainment.

If sticking a piece of tape over your iSight camera sounds like a good idea, Objective-See’s OverSight is built for you.

Once installed, the app sits on your menu bar and runs in the background, where it monitors your Mac in realtime and promptly notifies you every time a program attempts to access your camera or microphone—even if more than one app attempts to do so at the same time. OverSight can also create a log of all audio/video recording activity that you can review at any point, so you can make sure that nothing untoward happens—even when you’re not in front of your screen.

Atek’s $3 Patina ( Mac App Store Link) brings all the functionalities and low-fi glory of Microsoft’s ever popular Paint right to your Mac.

Patina lets you create original art with a set of editing tools that are focused on simplicity and ease of use rather than completeness. If you are at loss on how to tackle your next masterpiece, the developer offers a set of tutorials and demo videos on its website.

If Netflix is stuttering and you suspect your Internet connection is the culprit, Ookla’s Speedtest ( Mac App Store Link) offers an easy way to quickly find out what’s going on.

Speedtest uses a network of specialized servers strewn across the globe to measure the effective speed with which your connection flings data across the Internet. It can automatically pick the best server for you, keep track of your connection performance over time, and even show you handy graphs to help keep your ISP honest.

Thomas Beverley’s WMail lets you access your Gmail accounts right from your desktop.

The app integrates with your Google inbox by guiding you through an easy setup process, offers real-time notifications of new messages via the Notification Center, and comes with a full complement of customizable shortcuts.