Saginaw Macintosh Users Group

I use OmniDazzle during my presentations to highlight clicks and other important information. OmniDazzle is a free program from The Omni Group—makers of fabulous software like OmniGraffle and OmniFocus—that lets you display special effects on your screen.

In addition to the spotlight effect that I use regularly, there are other effects such as a trail of pixie dust that follows the cursor or a bullseye that helps you find your cursor on the screen. After you launch the program, a simple keyboard shortcut (usually control + `) turns the effect on and off.

If you give demonstrations with your computer, try OmniDazzle to help your audience follow along.

Download OmniDazzle

From AnxietyApp.com:

Anxiety is a super-lightweight To-do list application for Mac OS X Leopard that synchronizes with iCal and Mail. Its aim is to provide a streamlined, easily accessible interface to add and check off your tasks, while remaining poised to melt into the background at a moments notice.

Get Anxiety now!

Pierre Chatel’s Desktopia is a cool freeware app that lets you change your desktop background wallpaper on a schedule that you specify. Just drag a picture onto Desktopia, pick a time, and Desktopia will automatically change your wallpaper at that time. Desktopia is the perfect way to customize your Mac.

Quinn is a free game for OS X that’s very similar to Tetris, but it’s built just for OS X. In addition, you can play against other Quinn players on the same network.

QuickTime Player is the default movie player for Mac OS X and it works pretty well—as long as the movie you want to play is in one of QuickTime’s supported formats. If it’s not, then you’ll need a few extras.

If you want to play Windows Media, you’ll need Windows Media Components for QuickTime.

Perian is another plugin for QuickTime that not only lets you view a whole host of movie formats but lets you use these files in any program that is based on QuickTime, such as iMovie and iDVD.

The next time you get a movie file that you can’t open, don’t despair. Try installing the above programs and see if they help!

In Avery DesignPro, if you want to mail merge to only a certain group of Address Book contacts, you’ll need a program that exports your contacts to a CSV file. These two free programs will let you do just that:

• Address Book Exporter
• Address Book to CSV Exporter

After you have your CSV file, browse for it in Avery DesignPro when you do a merge instead of clicking on Address Book.

Have you ever wondered “Is there an app for that?” If you have an iPhone or iPod touch, you just check the iTunes App Store. But if you’re in need of software for your Mac, what do you do? You could search through Google and comb through hundreds of results or you could install Bodega and get an App Store-like experience right on your Mac! Bodega lists hundreds of apps for your Mac, both free and paid, in a variety of categories. If you find an app you like, you can even buy directly through Bodega!

If you need someplace safe to keep important documents, consider online backup. Services like Mozy and Dropbox give you 2GB of free online storage for your most important digital files.

As an added benefit, Dropbox lets you sync files between multiple computers.

Mozy
Dropbox

This one is a favorite of Lee Pavlik. Caffeine is a small application that sits in the notification area of your menu bar (by the clock) and all it does is keep your display on. This comes in handy when you’re giving presentations and want your computer constantly active.

After you install it, all you have to do is click the coffee cup icon and it’s activated (full cup)—your Mac won’t go to sleep, the screen won’t dim, and the screensaver won’t start. Click it again to deactivate (empty cup) and let your Mac sleep normally.

Download Caffeine now from Lighthead Software.