Software

Title

Available on Mac?

Description

Windows Live Movie Maker Mac

Mac Version May Be Available

Functional freeware that’s aimed squarely at the casual consumer crowd, Microsoft’s Windows Live Movie Maker easily turns photos and video clips into slideshows and movies on Vista and Windows 7. However, its toolset and interface lack a certain sophistication that users of all levels would appreciate. The app comes bundled into the bulky Windows Live Essentials suite of apps; to separate it out, you’ll need to uncheck the other boxes before installing. Like Microsoft Office 2007 apps, Windows Live Movie Maker tucks its actions and menus into a visual ribbon. You’ll get started dragging and dropping video clips and photos into the storyboard. You could finish a minute later with a click of the AutoMovie button, which populates the movie with a title, transitions, and pan and zoom effects. It’ll also prompt you to add a song from the hard drive. Automating movies is handy, especially for time-restricted users. After all, you can always tweak later with the help of the menu tabs. The intermediate photo-, audio-, and video-editing features are sparse–you can split and trim videos, fade songs in and out, and pick a start and end point for audio and video. The publishing and sharing options are better thought out. Windows Live Movie Maker can e-mail a finished video, burn it to DVD, or upload it to YouTube or Facebook (with a plug-in). Videos also save in HD format for your TV (standard or wide screen), and can convert to a mobile-phone-friendly format. All in all, Windows Live Movie Maker is decent freeware that lives up to its promise of making movies fast. You won’t find many advanced tools, but more ambitious types can still create interesting videos and slideshows.

I Doser Mac

Mac Version May Be Available

I-Doser is a program designed to give users “binaural beat doses” to “sync their brainwaves.” It’s a music-only media player that takes only DRG files. We’ll let users speculate as to the meaning of DRG. These doses, according to the theory, are to align your mood with the theme of the dose. The two included doses, “Alcohol” and “Content,” have a not-so-subtle intended effect. As far as the player goes, no media files besides DRG will work with it, and aside from the two freebies included, users must purchase any additional DRGs. Links are included to the I-Doser community to simplify sharing your I-Doser experiences. Powered by the freeware SbaGen, all in all this is a simple and limited program of mediocre use and questionable intent. It does, however, come with three snazzy skins and is worth downloading for the novelty if nothing else.

DatPiff Mac

Mac Version May Be Available

DatPiff Mobile meets Microsoft’s Windows 8 in this native app. The app brings the most popular DatPiff mixtapes right to your desktop or tablet while taking advantage of the gorgeous UI and panorama controls. It features stream the hottest mixtapes and panel view for multitasking.

Toolbox Mac

Mac Version May Be Available

Toolbox is designed to bring unparalleled productivity enhancement to the Windows 8 platform. With Toolbox, you can view and interact with up to six different tools at once, giving you the power and flexibility to customize your workspace for maximum productivity. The included tools are Web Browser, Calculator, Unit Converter, Facebook, Voice Notes, World Clock, Weather, Doodle, and Stopwatch. Toolbox allows you to run more than one instance of any of these tools within the same workspace. This allows you to view multiple web pages at the same time, monitor the weather in two different cities, or even view the time in six different locations at once. With the Toolset feature, you can save your favorite layouts and customizations to be recalled quickly and easily whenever you need them. You can even pin them to your Start Screen.

Lanscan Mac

Mac Version May Be Available

Lanscan is a simple network and network service discovery tool: it identifies your computer’s default IPv4 network and scans all hosts in the usable address range for available TCP and UDP ports for a set of common network services such as port 22 (SSH), port 80 (HTTP), port 443 (HTTPS) etc. As it completes the scan, it produces a list of all discovered endpoints in your local area network. HTTP/HTTPS endpoints are clickable and this will launch the corresponding web site in an embedded web browser. Lanscan is a tool used to produce a simple map of the current user’s local area network.

Windows Live Messenger Mac

Mac Version May Be Available

Previously known as MSN Messenger, Windows Live Messenger is Microsoft’s answer to instant messaging. While largely the same as its predecessor, Windows Live Messenger is unique for allowing you to share folders and files locally with fellow users. It also serves up the usual animated emoticons, winks, and buzzes, along with multiplayer gaming, free PC-to-PC calling, mobile phone messaging, and video chatting. Plus it adds VoIP capabilities that let you call telephones around the world for a fee. Its one major omission, though, is it lacks the capability to receive inbound calls from landlines or cell phones, a service that competitor Yahoo Messenger with Voice offers. Once installed, Windows Live Messenger displays a drop-down menu of features along the top, contacts within the center pane, a search box on the bottom, and tabs for eBay, Rhapsody, and other services along the left. Microsoft fans will like the integration with MSN Spaces and the company’s other properties. Also a plus is that Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo Live Messenger now let you directly connect with buddies who use either tool. To do so in the past, you’d have to use a tool such as Trillian. We like Windows Live Messenger’s Sharing Folders feature, which lets you to transfer files to and from your buddy’s computer by displaying a mirror of each others’ files on your desktops. The service can also store hundreds of contacts, and with a Webcam installed, you can make video chats with a full 640×480-pixel screen. In fact, we recommend Windows Live Messenger’s video chat over that of other IM tools. Anyone who is entrenched within the Microsoft world will probably be best served by this particular IM client.

Kinect SDK Mac

Mac Version May Be Available

The Kinect for Windows Software Development Kit (SDK) enables developers to create applications that support gesture and voice recognition, using Kinect sensor technology on computers running Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows Embedded Standard 7.

Subversion Mac

Mac Version May Be Available

With Subversion maintain current and historical versions of files such as source code, web pages, and documentation. The main objective of the application is to be a mostly-compatible successor to the widely used Concurrent Versions System (CVS).

Count It Mac

Mac Version May Be Available

Count It is a simple application for Windows 8. Count It allows you to keep track of what you are counting as well as subtract if you make a mistake.

Thumbs Mac

Mac Version May Be Available

With Thumbs for Windows 8 application a user can use their tablet/slate device while judging events. The judge can use keys to display the results. For example, pressing one will give thumbs up, three will display thumbs down. The about tab will show a list of complete commands. This application does not collect any user information. The judge can have his or her profile to roam so that the event name and the name of the judge can roam to various devices.