November 2009 Software Closet
Helpful Utilities
Permissions Reset 1.0
Apple's Disk Utility does a great job at repairing permissions to fix problems such as erratic application behavior, but it only does its magic at the system level and for Apple's own applications. Ohanaware's Permissions Reset (free) goes beyond Disk Utility by repairing permissions on files and folders on other parts of your hard drive. It lets you choose the file, folder or application to modify, whether or not users can read or modify items, and can apply matching permissions to every item in a folder. Permissions Reset is quick and simple, and doesn't require you to learn cryptic Unix commands.
Photoshop.com Mobile
Adobe's Photoshop.com Mobile (free) is an application that lets you edit photos on your iPhone or iPod touch. It doesn't offer all of the features in Photoshop, but it can crop, rotate and flip images, adjust exposure and saturation, and convert images to black and white. It also includes sketch and soft focus filters, along with several image effects. The touch-based interface is surprisingly easy to use, and it duplicates images before editing so that your original is left unaltered. When you've perfected your masterpiece, you can choose to upload it to Adobe's image hosting site, Photoshop.com to share and access later. (Free for up to 2GB.) We're enjoying playing with Photoshop.com Mobile and love the idea of carrying a mini version of Photoshop in our pockets.
SoundSource 2.5
SoundSource is a free utility for Mac OS X 10.5 and higher that adds an item to the menu bar that lets you instantly switch your audio input sources and output destinations. It also adds volume sliders for all sound sources. SoundSource is handy for channeling your system alerts to your internal speaker(s) while you listen to more important sounds with your external speakers. Version 2.5 is now a stand-alone application instead of a Preference Pane. It still adds an item to your menu bar when you launch it.
Photoshop script
Spray Set Two
Spray Set Two (free) is a set of 20 high-quality spraypaint-like brushes for Adobe Photoshop. Included are a few sample files created with the brushes. If you're looking for gritty brushes to give your images that grungy industrial look, also check out this artist's collection of other brushes, including Spray Set One and Splatter sets.
InDesign script
Enhanced History Logging
Lightning Brain History Log (free) from Rorohiko is a plug-in for InDesign CS and higher that tracks who is making changes to documents. It adds information to a predefined text frame in a document that lists changes such as who made the modifications and when, the time and date of the last save, and the document was opened. This is a handy tool for small workgroups that need an easy way to document who is modifying documents and how much time they spend working on files.
Resize Selected Text
Resize Selected Text is a script for InDesign that allows you to increase or decrease text size by a defined amount of points. Using the script is as easy as selecting as much or as little text as you want, then entering a value to change all selected text by that amount. Text of any size can be sized up or down simultaneously and the changes are reflected in the Control panel when text is individually selected.
Documents Worth Reading
Web Accessibility Checklist
Here's a handy checklist of items related to accessibility issues on websites. It was created by Aaron Cannon, and includes these topics: Markup, Visual Appearance & Content, Dynamic Content, Images & Multimedia, Forms, and Testing.
Free Fonts
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