Mac owners have fewer options to pick from – but that doesn’t mean we’re out of luck. There are several YouTube downloaders available that work as well or better than anything you would find on Windows.

ClipGrab

If you’re looking for one piece of software that can handle not just YouTube downloads, but also a number of other sites, ClipGrab is a good choice.

What I like about ClipGrab is the interface. Instead of asking you to enter a YouTube video’s link, you can search YouTube through the software to find relevant videos. This search function is quick and returns relevant content, though it is limited to four results – a handicap I’d like to see removed.

ClipGrab can also download via URL. The manager could not be easier to use and allows for a number of different download formats including MPEG4, WMV and OGG (among others).

Though the search function only works with YouTube, the software is capable of downloading from some other sites if you enter a video’s URL. Supported sites include Clipfish, Collegehumor, Dailymotion, MyVideo, MySpass, Sevenload, Tudou and Vimeo.

ClipGrab works with all recent versions of OS X.

Fastest Free YouTube Downloader

As the name implies, Fastest Free YouTube Downloader is built to be speedy. It is supposedly able to download videos at over 5MB/sec – if you have an Internet connection that can support it.

In my testing I was only able to achieve a maximum of 1.9MB/sec, which is among the quicker download speeds I’ve been able to achieve with my connection. Stopwatch tests showed that this software does download a three minute long 720p clip at least twenty seconds faster than the other programs here. So it appears there is some merit to the “fastest” label.

What you may like even more, however, is the direct interface and large number of video conversion options. You only need to enter a YouTube video link and hit Start Download – but before you do that, you can choose to save the video in one of over 40 formats.

Fastest YouTube Downloader works with OS X Snow Leopard and Lion.

4k Video Downloader

Another simple YouTube Downloader, 4k Video Downloader supports not only YouTube but also a number of other sites such as Vimeo and Dailymotion. You download videos simply by copying the URL from your browser and then clicking the “Paste URL” button in the software.

Nothing special, right? But 4k does offer something a bit unusual – the ability to download entire YouTube playlists. You can do this simply by pasting the URL of any video that is a part of a playlist. The software automatically detects it and will give you the option to download all related videos.

Conversion options are limited, but include the most popular options – FLV, MP4, MKV and MP3. You can choose video quality and format each time you download, or you can enable “smart mode” which applies the same options to all videos automatically, taking an extra step out of the process.

4k Video Downloader works with all recent versions of OS X.

Tubulator

This app calls itself “the YouTube browser.” Like ClipGrab, there is a search function included – but it’s far more robust, and allows for far more results to appear. And yes, it does work like a browser. You enter the term you’d like to search for in the search bar, and results appear. Tubulator doesn’t just give you results either – it actually gives you a fair amount of information including thumbnails, duration, quality and more.

When it comes time to download, you won’t find many format options. Video is converted to MP4, while audio-only downloads can be converted to MP3 or OGG. You can also select a preferred video quality.

Obviously, this isn’t the best choice if format choice is your primary concern. It is, however, a good choice if you want to browse videos rather than download a specific video you’ve already viewed.

Tubulator works with all recent versions of OS X.

Conclusion

Of the options here, I’ve used ClipGrab the most in the past. I like the interface and the conversion options are good enough for my needs.

I’m also partial to Fastest Free YouTube Downloader, however – and 4k Video Downloader’s ability to handle playlists is great, as well. Several of my favorite YouTube channels group similar videos by playlist, making 4k the best option for grabbing a lot of content at once.

I suggest giving all of these options a shot to discover which one works best for you.

This is a very in-depth topic, and I can’t possibly write a tutorial that will cover 100% of cases or every problem you might come up against. What I can do is give an overview of the entire process so you have an idea where you’re getting stuck; some tips that might help you out on the way; and some pitfalls that kept me searching for days.

Getting Started

In case it isn’t obvious, you need a paid iOS developer account ($99/year) in order to submit applications, free or otherwise, to the iTunes App Store. Ensure your Apple ID includes up to date information, and that the address is accurate. You will need to verify your address and identification details, usually by way of faxing a passport copy and utility bill. If in doubt, call developer support for your local country – I found the UK team were more than helpful in getting my old Japanese Apple ID transferred to a UK address.

I’m also going to assume you already have an app that’s been tested on the simulator, with no bugs or memory leaks. Getting your app to that state may be a monumental task in itself, but I can’t help you there. Crucially, make sure there are no serious compilation errors – though in my case there were lots of “semantic issues”, those are acceptable. Test, test, and test again before you think you are ready for release. Adding icons and debugging code is outside the scope of this tutorial, I’m afraid.

Here’s a quick summary of the whole submission process:

• Create a unique App ID for your app and change your bundle identifier in Xcode
• Create a secure Distribution Certificate for yourself
• Create a Provisioning Distribution Profile for the app
• Code-sign your app with the distribution profile
• Archive it, ensuring Project is set to Skip Install-> Yes and Target is set to Skip Install -> No
• Create an App on iTunes Connect with your meta data and sales information.

Most of this occurs within the Provisioning Portal, XCode, Keychain Access utility and iTunes Connect.

Create An App ID

• First, you need to create an App ID – a unique identifier for your app. Head over to iOS Provisioning Portal – the link is one the right side once you’ve logged into the iOS Developer site, and choose App ID from the sidebar.
• Click the button to create a new app ID. The first description field is just a name for your reference. The bundle identifier is a kind of coded name for your app, usually written as your company domain (in reverse), followed by a dot and the app name. For example:

com.makeuseof.demoapp

• Over in X-Code, click Target -> Summary, and change the Identifier to be whatever you decided above (com.whatever).

Create A Distribution Certificate

This is a secure certificate stored on your profile which confirms your developer identity and signs your code. There’s an elaborate version of this process detailed on the Distribution tab of the Provisioning Portal, but the simplified version is:

• Open up Keychain Access, and turn off OCSP and CRL from the Preferences.
• From the Keychain Access menu, choose Certificate Assistant -> Request Certificate from Authority.

• Enter your email address (no CA email needed), choose Saved to Disk and Let me specify key pair information, then Continue
• Choose key size of 2048 bits, and RSA algorithm, Continue.
• This creates a .CSR file on your desktop.
• In the Provisioning Portal, choose Certificates -> Distribution -> Add Certificate, and upload the file created.
• It may take a few seconds to approve. Download and install the WWDR intermediate certificate in the mean time (just download, double click it).
• Refresh the page, and you should be able to download your certificate. Again, install it.

• As a final step, open up Keychain Access, highlight your private key that you just installed and select Export Item from the menu. Keep this key safe with a backup somewhere, as without it you won’t be able to submit apps in the event of an OS reinstall or on different systems.

Create A Distribution Provisioning Profile

Yes, there are an endless number of certificates and profiles that need to be made here. Bear with me.

Again, from the Provisioning Portal, select Provisioning -> Distribution and create a new profile. Choose App Store as the distribution method, a profile name, and choose the App ID you created earlier. Submit that, refresh a few seconds later, and again download and install the profile – this time it will be added to XCode, but there are no further steps needed here.

If you want, you can check it’s there from the Window -> Organizer -> Devices tab, and select Provisioning Profiles from the sidebar.

Check Code Signing & Build Settings

As a final preparatory step, open up XCode and find Code Signing in the Build Settings area. Ensure that the Release option (for both Project and app Target) has your Distribution Profile selected (the one you installed just now).

Select iOS device as the build scheme, and move on to Archiving.

Archiving Your App

Nearly there! Before you can actually submit your app, you need to create an archive of the whole project – the final set of files that will be uploaded to iTunes Connect. Assuming everything has been done correctly until now, the first step is check you have an Archive scheme to build the release version with.

Click on Edit Schemes from the top-left, and either make sure the Archive one is set to Release, or create one now with the appropriate settings. Using the Auto-Create Schemes function within manage schemes should also create this for you.

Next – and this is the bit that really induced headaches for a week in my case – if your app uses external libraries of any sort, you need to change the Build Settings for the project to be Skip Install. To do this, click the main project (not the target) -> Build Settings -> type Skip into the search field, and ensure Yes is selected for the Deployment -> Skip Install option.

The TARGETS Build Settings for Skip Install should be No. Double check that – Project Skip Install, Yes; Target Skip Install, No.

This tripped me up because every tutorial I could find simply said “set Skip Install to Yes” – but with these both set to yes, the archive just mysteriously wouldn’t materialize.

The final step then is to build your deployment archive to upload. Select Product -> Archive from the menu. Once completed, you should be able to find your app in the Organizer -> Archives section.

Create An App On iTunes Connect

iTunes Connect is the commercial side of the app store, which handles the actual sales of your finished app, which countries to sell in, description and screenshots etc. It’s actually quite easy, but there’s a lot of information to be filled out, and it’s at this point that you’ll decide whether to sell the app, give it away, enable iAds to be displayed, enter bank information, and sign any contracts needed for release.

To get started, just head to iTunes Connect and Add a New App. You’ll need to choose the bundle identifier from the drop selection box (the com.whatever name you created earlier), but I won’t walk you through the rest of this as it’s really self explanatory – Apple will tell what’s waiting to be done at every step of the way.

Eventually, your app will be added, and be in the Waiting for Upload status, at which point you can go back to XCode Organizer -> Archives, and hit Submit to upload. You’ll asked to log in and check which app it is you’re uploading, and now you need to just wait for it to be approved – usually a few weeks.

This has been a totally new experience for me as I’m sure it will be for many of you also. Hopefully you’ve got a clearer understanding of the process now – personally I was a bit daunted by it all and found myself muddling through most of it. Is it as complicated as it sounds? Yes – but only the first time. And in fairness, it’s this rigorous process that prevents insecure apps and malware from ever making their way onto the app store, so that’s something I’m eternally grateful for.

Let us know your experiences submitting to the app store in the comments.

In order to better your experience with Stickies, I’ve put together some shortcuts that you may have not actually tried out. Granted, if you use Stickies extensively anyway, you may actually know of them already.

Nab Some Text

First off, you may be wondering how exactly Stickies can go beyond the basic function that it has. Rather than proselytize about how great it is to be writing text on electronic Post-It notes, I’ll inform you of this function that’s incredibly practical. Let’s say you’re in a hypothetical situation where you need to remember three long-form URLs. How can you make this a little easier?

In order to remember a URL, simply highlight it in your browser, and then press Command + Shift + Y. After that, a sticky with all of the URL will automatically pop up on your screen. Do this a few more times, and you’re golden. In fact, this function works for any bit of highlighted text across all apps, and that’s pretty great.

Multi-Task

So how many of you actually slap physical sticky notes on your screen while working on your Mac? It seems like it can get kind of cluttered. In Stickies, you can mimic this real-world tool by simply pressing Command + Option + F. After this, Stickies will always appear over whatever application you happen to be using. However, you may be thinking that even this would clutter your desktop a little. Never fear, for you can simply press Command + Option + T, and the entire note will become translucent, allowing you to see what lies beneath.

This is ideal for working with major projects where you need to quickly jot down notes and refer to them. Perhaps you are working with code and want to copy and paste simple bits of it. Maybe you need to keep a checklist of a workflow. This is great for keeping that information in view while still working on your projects.

Incorporate Some Media

Albeit not being a keyboard shortcut, Stickies offers a drag-and-drop function that will allow you to pull all forms of media into any of your open notes. This means videos, pictures, music… anything. My suggestion for this ability is that you use it when working on projects that require you to look over video or pictures.

Granted, this applies mainly to an educational setting, but I’m sure those of you out of school could make use of it as well. Say that you are having to provide an analysis over a news clip or any other video. Simply pop it into Stickies, use the floating function, and you can write while you watch – simple as that.

Other Shortcuts

• Option + Tab: Create a list on your sticky
• Command + M: Collapse the sticky
• Command + W: Closes the sticky, but first allows you to save it in text form
• Command + ~: Simple, but useful. Allows you to rotate between stickies

Conclusion

Stickies is a relatively simple but powerful tool, and even if you don’t use the shortcuts provided, you should at least take a look at it. Besides, you never know when you’ll be bringing your Mac to the grocery store and need a list, right? (That’s a bit of a stretch.)

What other shortcuts do you know of on Stickies? Do you have any other tips or tricks that you could share with us?

The following are a list of the favorite ways I work within the Finder. A few tips are borrowed from Keir Thomas’s Mac Kung Fu: Over 300 Tips, Tricks, Hints, and Hacks for OS X Lion.

Bookmark Files In Safari

Websites and pages are not the only items that can be bookmarked in Safari or other web browsers. You can bookmark files located in your Finder. You simply select a file and drag it to your browser. It will open and be linked to where you have it located in the Finder. You can actually make a folder of linked files that you might want to open up in Safari.

When you delete or move the file from its location, the link of course will be broken.

Put Files & Folders In The Toolbar

You can drag files, folders, and applications to the toolbar of any Finder window so that it can be quickly accessed and opened. When you drag them, a little green button with a + sign in the middle will appear, which lets you know you can drop it in the toolbar.

Folders In The Sidebar

Similarly, you can also drag any folder into the sidebar of any window for quick access.

Quickly Rename Files

When you want to rename any file on the desktop or in the Finder, you can simply select it and hit the return key. The word, the existing name, such as “Untitled” will be selected, and you can start typing and rename the file.

Files In A New Folder

In Mac OS X Lion, you can now quickly put files in a new folder, anywhere in the Finder, by first selecting them, then right- or Control-click, and selecting “New Folder with Selection.”

Lock Files

If you have a file that you want to make sure never gets changed or deleted, simply lock it. To do this, select the file, and press Command+I. In the Info window click the Locked box.

Delete Folders From Time Machine

If you use Time Machine, an OS X feature that maintains incremental backups of the contents of your hard drive, you can go into Time Machine and select to have backups of a selected file or folder deleted.

Simply right- or Control-click on the file or folder when inside Time Machine, and select “Delete All Backups…”

An Instant Link To Public Dropbox

If you’re a Dropbox user, you will know that you can drop a file in the Public folder of your account, right- or Control-click on it and have Dropbox create a URL link to that file. Pretty easy, but with a little application called Bloodrop you can set it up so that when you drop a file onto the application, it will automatically add the file to your Public Dropbox folder and  create a link which will be posted to your Mac’s clipboard.

Be sure to read the instructions about where to find your Dropbox user ID in order to set up Bloodrop.

Create A New Folder

You can create a new folder anywhere in the Finder–Desktop, open Window, File Open dialog box–by typing Shift+Command+ N.

ZIP Lock Files

Got a lot of files you need to email or post for download, such as in Dropbox? The best way to do so is to select them,  right- or Control-click, and select Compress…Items.

This will create a Zip file that most computers should be able to decompress and open.

For other ideas on files and folders, start with these articles:

• How do I change the folder icon images on Mac OS X Lion?
• How to Hide Folders Using 7 Free Apps
• Using Automator to Batch Rename Files and Folder
• How To Use Automator To Batch Rename Images on Mac

Let us know what you think of these tips. Do you have any of your own to share?

Podcasting has already proven to be an effective way to communicate or entertain, and thus for basic broadcasting needs, Mac users might want to try out a lesser-known application included in Mac OS X Lion, called Podcast Producer, which is not located directly in the Applications folder, but in the Utilities folder which resides in the Applications folder.

Producer Features

In many ways Podcast Producer is very similar to the latest version of QuickTime player, in that it can handle audio, video, and desktop screen capture recordings.

The most significant difference between the two applications is that Podcast Producer allows you to store and manage your productions, embed podcast show notes, and upload episodes to an in-house web-based server.

How To Use Producer

The setup for using Podcast Producer is relatively easy and straightforward. When you first open the application, you can begin a new podcast simply by giving your production a title and clicking the “Add a new episode” icon in the middle of the screen.

Next, you choose in the bottom toolbar either a video camera/iSight recording or a desktop screen recording for your production.

Podcast Producer does not include advanced tools for capturing multiple recordings, nor does it allow you to add external media files to a production. However, you can use it to record (via video screen capture) Keynote or PowerPoint presentations, or to import productions created outside of the Producer.

So Producer would probably work best for short productions that do not require lots of editing and selected camerawork. As with QuickTime player, you can trim footage from the beginning or end of productions. If you need to redo a recording, you don’t have to restart with a new episode, but simply hit the record button and allow Producer to overwrite the current production.

Sharing Features

You can save and share your podcast productions to iTunes, the desktop, or via e-mail. You can also post them on an in-house or online server (note, Podcast Producer was first released to work with the latest version of Lion Server which includes additional features and functions).

Podcast Producer will encode your productions based upon where you choose to export them. You can also embed podcast information, including the title, description, copyright, keywords, and podcast image.

While Apple’s GarageBand includes lots more features for advanced, professional podcast productions, Podcast Producer might be all you need for basic recordings that you want to produce and post in a very short amount of time.

For other ideas about podcasting, start with these articles.

• How to Host Your Own Talk Show Online
• A Guide To Setting Up Your Own Podcast Website & Feed Using WordPress & Podpress
• Easily Create & Manage a Podcast Blog with Podcast Generator

Let us know what you think of Podcast Producer.

The Places theme for slideshows works best if you have traveled several different places and if your travel photos have been labeled by location. The latest versions of the iPhone and some other contemporary cameras now include a geotagging feature that embeds location coordinates for each of the photos you take.

Pro image applications like Aperture will show you the geotag info, which consists latitude, longitude, etc.

But luckily iPhoto will translate that info into a recognizable name like Coney Island, London, or Islands of Adventure. But even if your travel photos are not tagged, you can manually label them using iPhoto’s Places feature.

Labeling Photos

When you select a photo and then click on the Info button in the iPhoto menu bar, the Places tool will show geotag info for that photo. If your photos are not geotagged, you can simply select a collection of travel photos and add the information yourself, similar to how you add keywords to your images.

As you type the location name, iPhoto will list possible locations to choose from. It may even list popular resorts or tourist spots. After all your travel photos are labeled, you can click on Places in the Albums panel, and you will get a map with red pens dropped on places you have taken photos.

Organizing Travel Photos

If you have organized your travel photos into regular or smart albums, all need to do is create a new album, name it the title you want your slideshow to be (such as “Where We’ve Been”) and add to it selections from your travel photos. Sort the collected photos by date so that they are kept together in the album.

Create Slideshow

Now with your travel album selected, click the Create button in the toolbar and select Slideshow. iPhoto will set up a separate folder of your selected photos. Next, click the Themes button and select the Places theme.

iPhoto will process your photos and create location titles for each set of your travel photos. A titles effect will appear on a moving map, with the first photo of each section representing the location.

If the titles are not to your liking, no problem, you can actually edit them, and be specific as you like about the location. As with other slideshow themes, you can also move photos around and delete the ones that don’t fit. You can also go back to your travel photo albums and add more images to the slideshow folder. If your images are dated correctly, iPhoto should place added photos in the appropriate section. If not, simply move them to where they’re supposed to be.

If you don’t like the default theme music for your slideshow, simply change it. You can adjust other settings for your slideshow. However, the Places theme does not show all your photos one at a time. This theme will present 1-4 photos at time. You don’t have much control over this, except for the order they appear.

The Presentation

When you click the Play button, iPhoto presents graphic travel effect that moves across the map to the places where you took photos. As with other slideshows, you can export your project to show it off on a website, your mobile device, or big screen TV.

Let us know what you think of this slideshow project, and similar ones you’ve used. For other ideas about iPhoto, check out our articles here.

What Is iTunes Match, Really?

iTunes Match is cloud storage for up to 25,000 songs. Wherever possible, your music files are matched to a DRM-free, 256kbs high quality version on Apple’s server, if available. If not, your songs are uploaded as is.

You can overwrite your local, lower quality media, with higher quality 256kbs version from iTunes Match. And yes, this includes songs you have pirated, downloaded, borrowed off a mate, or ripped at a low quality from your own CDs. Bear in mind that a 256kbs file is going to be twice as large as one encoded at 128kbs though.

Once in the cloud, your entire music library is available to download or stream on up to 5 devices registered to your iTunes account.

Limitations

• Songs less than 96kbs cannot be matched.
• Only music and music videos are valid for matching – not audiobooks (there is a workaround with that if you classify audiobooks as media type: music and if they are ripped at 96kbs or better, they will be uploaded and stored in the cloud with every other track).
• Your ID3 tags will not be overwritten – if you have a track 01, iTunes will NOT automatically fix that for you. It will replace the audio with a higher quality version, but it will not give you missing tags, artwork, or lyrics. The meta-data associated with each song remains the same, even if it it’s broken. On the upside, this means your handcrafted ID3 tags won’t be replaced either.
• As mentioned, there is a 25,000 song limit, on up to 5 devices.

Getting Started

Once subscribed, you’ll see one of the following icons next to every track.

iTunes is then in the process of scanning your tracks to see which it has a match for.

Out of 7,400 songs in my library, it matched roughly 2,800 songs. The additional items took a total of about 4 days to fully upload, but you can start using everything else that has already uploaded in the meantime, and begin upgrading tracks that are eligible.

To Upgrade Songs to 256kbs Versions

This isn’t as easy as it should be, but basically you need to delete matched songs from iTunes, then download them from the cloud. The problem is figuring out which songs are eligible for an upgrade. To do this easily, create a new smart playlist with the following options:

• Media type – music
• Quality – less than 256kbs
• AND ANY OF THE FOLLOWING (option click on the + symbol to create this ANY rule)
• - iCloud Status is Purchased
• - iCloud Status is Matched

Any songs on this playlist are matched in the cloud and therefore a higher quality version is available to replace any you have locally. To trigger that upgrade, you need to delete those tracks from your library – by either right clicking and selecting delete or pressing option-delete.

When asked if you’d like to delete the tracks from iCloud too, make sure you DON’T. However, do move them to the trash / delete from your local computer. The tracks won’t disappear from the list though, instead they’ll be there still but with an iCloud download icon next to them. Highlight them again, right click, download.

Once downloaded, they’ll disappear from this smart playlist – that’s because they’ve been replaced with 256kbs versions, and therefore don’t match the list criteria anymore. Congrats, you’ve upgraded them. Continue for every other song on the list.

Note that this isn’t necessary for your iOS devices – they will automatically use the higher quality matched version when you attempt to stream or download to the device. This playlist is only to facilitate replacing the existing, lower quality songs on your computer.

Setting Up iTunes Match On iOS Devices

From the Settings -> Music menu, enable iTunes Match from the top of the list. You’ll be given a warning about the music on your device being replaced with iTunes Match. Continue.

Give it about 10 minutes to sync up with the cloud. Now when you launch the iPod / Music app, everything in your iCloud library will be there. If you still have some songs in the process of uploading, they’ll be greyed out.

You can either stream songs just by clicking to play them as usual (I experience about a 5 second lag before it starts sometimes), or you can download them to your device by clicking on the iCloud icon.

If you want to download a full playlist or genre, artist etc, just scroll down to the bottom of the list where you’ll see a button to download all.

Conclusion

I just upgraded about 2,800 songs to high quality 256kbs, legal DRM-free versions, which I can keep forever, legally. I can now stream my entire music collection to any of my iOS devices (including family if you share an iTunes store account). Of course, any music you add in the future to your library will also be automatically matched, if available, or uploaded if not. The library remains in sync across all devices. This is personal music streaming done right, and it’s even legal, which always gives me a nice fuzzy feeling inside.

What do you think of iTunes Match (assuming you’ve actually signed up)? For you, how does it compare to similar services like Google Music? Got any problems or questions about the service? Ask away in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer!

Apple has made the process fairly easy, in that you can simply back up your entire iPhoto library on a disc or external hard drive. But if you want to preserve your photos for your grandchildren and beyond, you should consider other options for archiving photos similar to how your parents or grandparents kept boxes and albums of paper photos before the digital revolution.

Tidy Up Your Library

Before archiving your iPhoto library, it might be a good idea to tidy up its content – deleting poorly shot photos and duplicates, tagging and rating photo files, and creating smart albums for each member of the family, and special events like birthdays, holidays, and vacations. The better organized your library is, the easier it might be for others beyond yourself to make use of it in the future.

Back Up the Library

Your iPhoto library should be located in the Photos folder of your Mac, unless you have already moved it to an external drive. When you select the library, it will show the its current size.

The quickest and easiest way to back up your iPhoto library is to copy it to an external hard drive. Those little flash drives can now hold up to 32GB of data, so why not just buy one or two and use them exclusively for archiving your library? Simply drag the entire library onto the flash drive and let the duplication begin. What’s great about using the drive is that you can update your archive every three, six, or twelve months.

With your iPhoto library backed up this way, anyone with an iPhoto application and of course a USB connection can simply launch your iPhoto library and view the contents just as you preserved them with titles, keywords, ratings, albums and such.

If your iPhoto library is too large to fit on one flash drive, consider creating more than one library – perhaps one library for just your family photos and one for non-family images. If possible, try to keep a copy of your duplicated library secure outside your home.

Burn DVDs

If your iPhoto library is under say 4GB, you might consider burning it to a CD or DVD. I personally don’t prefer this approach to archiving on a hard drive, but this method provides one more way to preserve your precious memories.

Method 1

If your library can fit on one disc, simply right- or Control-click on the library and select Burn to disc…. The pop-up window will tell how much space you need on your disc in order to burn it. If you have enough room, simply go through the burn process.

This method preserves the entire structure of your iPhoto library including the master photos, modified version files in folders, preview files, albums, etc. You don’t want to tamper with these folders at all. Burning your iPhoto library to a disc is like copying it to an external drive, and it means that your library can only be opened using an iPhoto application.

However, if you want to go a little further in archiving your images, you might also want to preserve the originals separately from iPhoto.

Method 2

To copy and preserve just your original photo files, right- or Control-click on the iPhoto library and select Show Package Contents. Select the Masters folder which is basically broken up into sub-folders organized by year.  Copy as many folders as will fit on a disc and label it accordingly.

Archive Favorites

One last method for preserving your photos is to archive your favorites and special events. Only die-hard photographers will probably take the time to scrupulously rate every single photo in their library, but I don’t have that much patience. My rating system is simple. I rate only the photos I like the most with 5 stars, the rest get a 3 rating, while the poorest don’t get rated at all. Out of over 4,000 photos in my iPhoto library, I only have a little over 200 rated as my top 5 favorites. I simply use a smart album to collect all my 5 starred images, and I export these photos to my Google Picasa account for mainly archiving purposes.

It’s also not a bad idea to send a disc of your favorites to family members for their own personal viewing, and also as a way to preserve your photos elsewhere.

Create A Book

These days most of us probably show off our photos using a digital device, like an iPhone or iPad, but it is also a good idea to also create single prints of your photos, as well as producing an actual paper photo album. iPhoto makes the process pretty simple. Not only do photo albums make great gifts, but they are just another way to preserve your precious memories.

For another way to share your photos, see my article on creating slideshows in iPhoto.

No doubt, Apple and iPhoto or some similar supporting application will be around for generations to come, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make the effort to back them for future future generation of family members who may or may not use iPhoto.

Let us know if you’re backing up your iPhoto images. What methods are you using and why?

Three relatively new applications you might consider adding to your arsenal are Mou and MarkdownMail, for working in Markdown language; and a seriously magical Mac application, FormatMatch, for automatically reformatting copied and pasted text.

Let’s check them all out here.

FormatMatch

Typically when you copy text from one source, say a webpage or email, and then paste it in another text document, the copied text does not match the font style and size of the document you paste the text into. On a Mac you have to use the “paste and match style” keyboard shortcut command (Command+Option+Shift-V) to get the style match.

But now FormatMatch alleviates this annoying problem. This little app, which works in the background, will reformat text copied from one source, and match the format of the document in which you paste the text. Here’s an example:

When I copy formatted text from the MUO article on the right, and then paste into the TextEdit document on the left, it matches the style of the first sentence in that document.

You don’t have to use a keyboard shortcut or click any button. It’s all automatic, as if what the app does was built into the operating system. And if you frequently need to deactivate FormatMatch, you can do so in the menu bar or by using a keyboard shortcut.

FormatMatch is a free download from the App Store, but it’s an application that I would gladly would have paid as much as $10 for.

Mou

Unless you’re a web developer or a writer who works in HTML formatting, you might not be familiar with what is called Markdown, “a text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers. Markdown allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML)” (Source: Daring Fireball.)

Based on my brief experience with Markdown, I think it’s whole lot easier to learn than HTML. And rather you’re learning Markdown for the first time or have been using it for a while, you will definitely want to check out Mou, a text editor that provides you a preview of your Markdown text as you write.

Mou is an excellent tool for learning the syntax, and it’s one that you might continue using as a text editor when you need to write in Markdown.

Mou even includes a built-in document that introduces you to the Markdown syntax. So you can start a new document in Mou and instantly start writing and Markdown let’s you actually see a preview of what you write. Markdown syntax seems almost intuitive.

In fact, sometimes writing in Markdown is easier than using keyboard shortcuts to format text, such as incorporating quotes and italics, documents headers, ordered lists, and hard line breaks.

MarkdownMail

If you get the hang of writing in Markdown and want to send out stylish HTML emails on your iPhone or iPad, you might want to purchase MarkdownMail ($2.99).

MarkdownMail enables you to write email that can include bold text, italics, bulleted lists and much more.

And with the built-in text expansion feature in iOS 5, you can set up some of your most frequently used Markdown properties to help you write using the syntax.

The app includes a preview button so you can see what your email will look like before it’s sent out. And from there you can send your Markdown formatted email in either HTML—in which the recipient of the email will view the formatted text—,or in Markdown, which will send the the actual syntax you used to write the email.

Let us know what you think of these applications. For other text editors for the Mac, check out the The Top 3 Free Coding Text Editors for Mac OS X.

Raven takes site specific browsing technology and puts it together in one place, where you can download many of your favorite websites. If what I’ve described so far seems a little vague, let’s check out its features.

Web Apps

You start off using Raven by adding web apps to the Raven browser. The Raven Web Shop contains 50 websites, many of which you’re probably already very familiar with, including Amazon, Tumblr, Pandora, Mint, Google Apps, Angry Birds, and of course Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and Dropbox. It’s also great that Apple’s new iCloud has been added to the mix.

This web app approach seems practical since most computer users have a set of sites they visit on a regular basis, and thus Raven might be a useful and easier way to access them. By having your favorite sites in one place, you can browse and do social networking with less clutter from open webpages.

Icons for each of your downloaded web apps appear on the left side of the browser in what is called the “Smart Bar” for easy access. Downloaded sites open within Raven similar to how they open in any browser, but the speed of download – at least on my Mac – seems a little faster. Raven includes features found in most other browsers – a history of pages visited, tabbed pages, and bookmarking.

Raven also includes an additional feature called Favorite, which the developers distinguish from bookmarks as site pages you visit on a regular basis. Whereas bookmarks might be what you reference only when needed. This feature also allows you to send selected favorites or bookmarks to the popular bookmarking site and mobile app, Instapaper. Hopefully integration for other sites will be forthcoming.

Each website/web app can have its own set of open tabs, which makes browsing sites easier. However, your history of visited webpages all get thrown into a single window/panel. I would like to see a separate History page, if possible, for each site/web app.

Site Specific Features

In the case of some social networking sites, like Twitter and Facebook, many of the features you use are available in the sidebar of Raven, such as mentions, direct messages for Twitter, and news feeds, events, etc for Facebook.

When you open iClouds in Raven, your Mail, Address Book, Calendar, and iWorks Documents pages get listed in the Smart Bar as well, saving you the trouble of linking back to the homepage of iCloud to access those pages.

These web-specific features are revealed in the Smart Bar only when a selected web app is in the forefront, thus again reducing the clutter of too many items in the browser.

Raven in still in its beta stage, so the developers admit that some users may experiences app crashes while the bugs are being worked out. However, I haven’t experienced a problem in my use of Raven. Although Raven has not replaced my regular web browser, I prefer to use it sometimes on my MacBook Air because it helps lessen the browsing clutter I experience with Safari.

Ravenco also says that they are developing a Revenco Software Development Kit (rSDK) which will provide other developers with a way to integrate web apps for Raven download. In this regard, it would great to see MakeUseOf available in the web store. Ravenco is also exploring and working on other features for Raven, so it might be a good idea to subscribe to their newsletter to get future updates.

For other articles about web browsers, check these MUO articles:

• 7 Best “New” Web Browsers With A Chance Against Chrome & Firefox
• 2 Anonymous Web Browsers That Are Completely Private
• 5 Useful Web Browsers For The iPad

Let us know what you think of Raven. It’s available for free download and requires the support of OS X Snow Leopard or above.