Revised and Expanded FREE iOS, tvOS AND macOS Software List for 03/2020

I have been publishing a list of free software for iOS, tvOS and OS X each month for some time. 

macOS software is now being compiled in a large, cumulative table. Many titles were appearing repeatedly in this list. I think the directory will both take less time for me and provide users with a better way to discover Mac software. 

The macOS Software directory is updated frequently and currently contains more than 470 entries. More than 170 of those entries are available for FREE download.

Please give me feedback if this expanded list is valuable to you.

This is NOT a curated list. All I know about these titles is what you see below. None have been tried or tested by me.

March 2020

1. Lifestyle – Independent developer Pixite, Inc. today is proud to announce the release and immediate availability of Zinnia Journal 1.0. The journaling app is the latest in a line of best-in-class creativity apps for the iPad. Zinna Journal incorporates the creativity of a sketch pad with the practical features of traditional journaling. The app acts as a daily companion that encourages users to encourage mindful activities such as sketching, planning, collaging, and tracking the things users want to do today and in the future. Zinnia Journal 1.0 is Free (with convenient in-app purchases), and is available worldwide exclusively through the App Store in the Lifestyle category. Zinnia offers an optional subscription to Zinnia Premium which includes access to unlimited journals and pages. Get Zinnia Premium for free for 7-days with a free trial. After the free trial users will be automatically renewed to the yearly subscription which they can cancel at any time. Paid subscriptions are $9.99 USD per month for the monthly plan, and $39.99 USD per year for the yearly plan. Download from the App Store
2. Games – OM Entertainment’s soccer-themed disc game, Fans of Soccer, which bagged the Best Sports Game title in the 4th International Mobile Game Awards for the Middle East and North Africa, has been updated with some new features like World Cup and New Events. With these latest features, users can enter thrilling matches against worldwide competitors and also win exciting rewards for every achievement in the game. Fans of Soccer version 1.0.11 is available for Free with In-App purchases on the App Store in the Games category and also version 1.0.12 available for Free with In-App purchases. Download from the App Store
3. Productivity – Sixbytes, a technology company focused on developing applications to improve sharing of files across multiple devices, has announced the launch of HibiDo, a new To-do list & Notes application that helps synchronize across all devices. Developed expressly to help improve your productivity, HibiDo offers a new and unique way to schedule your personal and work activities in the most efficient manner. Apart from scheduling personal activities and projects, one can also collaborate with their team to get tasks completed. HibiDo 1.0.9 is Free (With In-App Purchases) and available worldwide exclusively through the App Store in the Productivity category. Download from the App Store
4. Social Networking – TwinFlame Development, LLC is proud to announce the launch of TwinFlame 1.20 for iOS devices. TwinFlame is the iPhone app that gives users access to the TwinFlame Network – the go-to social community for self-awareness, introspective, and personality-insights. It is the first mobile app dedicated personal growth and awareness that combines the disciplines of psychology and spirituality to provide comprehensive insights. TwinFlame is free and available now and is available worldwide through the Apple App Store in the Social Networking category. Convenient in-app purchases are available. Download from App Store
5. Photo & Video – Socialite | Frames & Borders fast framing for iPhone relaunches today in the Apple App Store with Version 2.0 including the ability to customize displayed content (see just what you use with your favorites first), even more stickers (Eyes! Mouths! Stay Home, Stay Healthy!) and optional subscriptions. Socialite | Frames & Borders 2.0.3 is Free (With In-App Purchases) and available worldwide exclusively through the App Store in the Photo & Video category. Download from the App Store

Today is World Backup Day

March 31 of every year is celebrated as “World Backup Day“. If you do it no other time, make a backup of your computer, phone, tablet, or other electronic device today!

Best backup strategy? – 3-2-1

That is three copies of your data. Stored in two different formats. One copy of your data off-site.

Backups on your Mac is easy using TimeMachine. Run TimeMachine on a regular basis to backup your data. For your iPhone or iPad, download iMazing. The free version allows you to backup those devices. It even allows you to schedule backups to occur automatically over WiFi.

Every device fails eventually. Make sure you are not caught without a backup.

 

Further Reading / Listening

1. Mac Power Users Podcast: #499: Backups and Updates
2. How to back up your iPhone, iPad, and Mac: The ultimate guide
3. Why should you back up your device?
4. How to back up your iPhone or iPad
5. How to back up your Mac: The ultimate guide

Today is National Medal of Honor Day

This morning I saw this and wanted to share it. The Medal of Honor is the highest award for the US military. This medal was introduced in the first year of the Civil War, 1861. Medal of Honor Day was begun in 1990.

There is not a law or military regulation requiring members of the military to render salutes to recipients of the Medal of Honor. However, salutes are regularly rendered as a matter of respect and courtesy. Salutes are given regardless of rank or status. A Medal of Honor winner will receive salutes from members of a higher rank. They are also rendered whether or not the medal winner is in uniform.

This is a good time to thank all of those you know who have served.

Per the National Day Calendar website, you can observe by:

Some federal, state, local, and military organizations may hold events recognizing Medal of Honor recipients. These events may be public or private. Other ways to participate include:

• • Volunteering for your local veteran organization
  • Donate to a veteran service organization
  • Adopt a Medal of Honor gravesite
  • Fly the U.S. flag at your home or business
  • Visit the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
  • Visit local memorial sites

Most of those suggestions will be difficult this year. Many public places are shut down and people in self-quarantine this year.

“The Toilet is Smoking!!!!”

I saw this in a Tweet today and had to share it. This was sent out by @MatthewBerryTMR.

My 8 year old daughter just yelled “Oh no the toilet is smoking!!” My wife and I ran to the bathroom to find this. It’s just day 4 of home school.

I can imagine that scenes like this are playing out all over the world as kids are out of school and parents are working from home.

How is your quarantine going?

Military during Thanksgiving

I’m a couple of days late reblogging this, but I still wanted to share it and add my own thanks to those who are serving away from their families during this US Holiday.

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If you are interested in the WWII era of history, you may find these three pages of interest.
* The”World War II Sources” page is a constantly growing collection of more than 340 links to museums, memorials, websites, Facebook pages, Twitter feeds and other sources with information on the World War II-era in history.
* The “World War II Timeline” page expands almost daily and shows events leading up to WWII, as well as during the war. Events are broken down into the Pacific and European Theaters by date.
* The About WWII page is a collection of links to posts that I have made over the years that are relevant to WWII.

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Pacific Paratrooper

The Thanksgiving Day card GP Cox received from the National WWII Museum in New Orleans

I WISH TO EXPRESS MY THANKS TO EACH AND EVERYONE OF YOU !!!  AND MAY WE ALL THANK THOSE VETERANS WHO FIGHT FOR US !!!

Thanksgiving during WWII…

They’re celebrating Thanksgiving on this very day,

My thoughts are at home, though I’m far away;

I can see everyone, eating dinner deluxe,

Whether it be chicken, turkey or even duck;

The fellows over here won’t whimper or moan,

They’ll look to the next one and hope to be home.

 

Truly and honestly, from way down deep,

They want you to be happy and enjoy your feast.

These holidays are remembered by one and all,

Those happy days we can always recall.

The ones in the future, will be happier, I know

When we all come back from defeating the foe.

_______Poem by an Anonymous WWII…

View original post 214 more words

Veterans Day 2019

I was going to write up my own Veterans Day post, but I thought that GP Cox said it well so I am just going to reblog his post. Please take time today to thank the veterans that you know.

Pacific Paratrooper

For each and every veteran – Thank You!!

For All Our Todays and Yesterdays

Armistice Day Becomes Veterans Day

World War I officially ended on June 28, 1919, with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. The actual fighting between the Allies and Germany, however, had ended seven months earlier with the armistice, which went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918.  Armistice Day, as November 11 became known, officially became a holiday in the United States in 1926, and a national holiday 12 years later. On June 1, 1954, the name was changed to Veterans Day to honor all U.S. veterans.

For their loyalty…

War Dog Memorial on Guam.

US Military dog insignia

The Things That Make a Soldier Great

The things that make a soldier great and send him out to die,

To face the flaming cannon’s mouth…

View original post 470 more words

Home Front – Wartime Recipes (4)

(See my other WWII related posts) – I am glad to see GP Cox publish another list of recipes from WWII.

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If you are interested in the WWII era of history, you may find these three pages of interest. 

• The”World War II Sources” page is a constantly growing collection of more than 340 links to museums, memorials, websites, Facebook pages, Twitter feeds and other sources with information on the World War II-era in history.
• The “World War II Timeline” page expands almost daily and shows events leading up to WWII, as well as during the war. Events are broken down into the Pacific and European Theaters by date.
• The About WWII page is a collection of links to posts that I have made over the years that are relevant to WWII.

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Pacific Paratrooper

Please thankCarolynon her website for putting these delicious meals on-line!       We often discuss the food our parents and grandparents dined on, despite rationing and wartime, they ate quite well – here are some of the recipes you might want to try out.

Carnation Milk ad, 1942

Recipe 101: Gingernuts

Recipe 102: Eggless christmas pudding

Recipe 103: Leftovers stew

Recipe 104: Vinaigrette dressing

Recipe 105: Apple pudding

Recipe 106: Irish omelette

Recipe 107: Potato cakes

Recipe 108: Glazed turnips (Canadian recipe)

Recipe 109: Carrot roll

Recipe 110: Wartime Bara Brith

Recipe 111: Bread and prune pudding

Recipe 112: Sausage stovies

Recipe 113: Malted loaf

Recipe 114: Toad in the Hole

Recipe 115: Summer berry jam

Recipe 116: Scones

Recipe 117: Mock cream 3

Recipe 118: Vegetable Pie

Recipe 119: 

View original post 218 more words

5 Productivity Suggestions

I came across the article “5 Simple Techniques to Boost Your Productivity” today and thought it was worth sharing. The recommendations in the article can be summarized as:

1. The Pomodoro Technique – break your workday into 25-minute blocks
2. The Two-Minute Rule – write down all the tasks you want to do, then tackle those that can be accomplished in 2 minutes or less first
3. Take an Exercise Break – exercise to stimulate your thinking
4. Block Digital Distractions – turn off distracting Apps (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and their notifications
5. Autofocus – write out your todo list, pick the one you are most excited or passionate about

If that short list intrigues you, read the full article. It will only take 10 minutes or so.

macOS New app release – NeoFinder 7.4.1

Product Announcements  – Norbert M. Doerner of New York, NY & Bonn, Germany has released NeoFinder 7.4.1, a smaller update for the Digital Asset Manager NeoFinder Mac 7.x. The new version adds more image file support (Canon compressed .cr3, Phase One EIP, Sigma X3F, Clip Studio “.clip”) , and nine more data columns for the List View. Also included are numerous improvements, also for macOS 10.14.

All new features and enhancements of NeoFinder 7.4.1:
* NeoFinder can now catalog thumbnails of Canon compressed RAW “.cr3” files
* NeoFinder can now catalog thumbnails SVG files
* NeoFinder now has nine new columns in List View: Camera Maker, Lens Name, IPTC Persons, ISRC, XMP Caption Writer, XMP Byline, Audio Channels, Audio Sample rate, and Audio Bitrate
* NeoFinder can now catalog Clip Studio “.clip” files
* NeoFinder can now catalog RAW files of Sigma .X3F format
* Preliminary support to catalog thumbnails of Phase One Capture One “.eip” RAW files
* You can now search for EXIF camera name, lens name, and maker name in the Find Editor and of course using the Label menu in the Inspector
* You can now also search for “has no XMP” and “has ISRC” in the Find Editor
* The improved Multi-Editor is now also available for Finder Tags and XMP People fields
* More Label menus in the Inspector for ISRC, FileCheck, EXIF values, XMP Keywords
* NeoFinder now catalogs the iTunes Producer description files “metadata.xml”
* NeoFinder now catalogs EXIF data contained in XMP records, in case the original file has none, or these cannot be processed
* Improved Export as Text and XML by having separate Height, Width, and Duration fields for Media-Info. That is helpful for Stock Photographers
* NeoFinder will now remember the sort order along with the sort type in the Sort menu for Icon View and others
* You can now prevent NeoFinder from sorting keywords alphabetically when displaying and saving them
* The contextual menu for one catalog is much better organised now
* Catalogs now save the date and time they were last Updated (not just modified!)
* Can now properly sort the List View by Path
* The “NoChangePlease” hidden settings is now honoured by the Wikipedia Inspector and the Map
* Fixes a problem with some Find Editor settings
* Fixes a problem with incorrect badge number displays for Album Groups in macOS 10.14
* Fixes a problem with Album and Smart Folders names containing a “.” in their name
* Fixes a problem reading certain audio files larger than 4 GB
* Fixes a problem cataloging certain JPG files created by a scanner (containing empty ISO arrays in their EXIF section)
* Fixes more visual problems in macOS 10.14
* Fixes a problem writing Finder Comments when leaving the text field in the Inspector with the Tab key
* Fixes a memory problem when cataloging very large numbers of compressed Fuji RAW files (.RAF)
* Fixes a problem with the CDFinder 2.x Importer
* Many small fixes and improvements

* NeoFinder 7.4.1 requires Mac OS X 10.8 or later

* NeoFinder 7.4.1 is a free update to all NeoFinder 7.x users

* NeoFinder 7.x is a paid upgrade to licensed users of NeoFinder 6.x and the old CDFinder, upgrade price starting at 19 Euros

* New licenses start at 29 Euros for a NeoFinder Private License

NeoFinder Highlights:
* Cataloging – NeoFinder catalogs metadata of songs, movies, fonts, and photos, including the MP3-Tags of several audio file formats, EXIF, GPS, and IPTC data of photos. NeoFinder also edits Adobe XMP data, including keywords, persons, and ratings. All these are arranged clearly in the user interface, and can be extensively searched. For numerous photo and video formats, fonts, text files, and even audio files, NeoFinder generates thumbnails during cataloging, displaying them in all list and icon views.

* Managing Metadata – The built-in XMP metadata editor with presets can edit and add keywords, ratings, persons, descriptions, copyright information, and more to photos and videos.

* Networking – Store your catalog database on a server for access from all Macs in the network, and with the sidekick product abeMeda (was CDWinder for Windows) even from Microsoft Windows.

* Mobile – Keep your NeoFinder database with you on your iPhone or iPad with the separate NeoFinder for iOS app.

* Integration – Offering a tight connection to major productivity tools, such as Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office, Roxio Toast, FileMaker Pro, Apples Spotlight and Finder, and the extensive support of drag&drop into other applications, NeoFinder can support many workflow scenarios. The AppleScript support in NeoFinder allows custom integrations of all kinds.

* Geotagging – Only NeoFinder offers the integrated GeoFinder, which searches for photos taken near a spot, or the KMZ export for coordinates and photo thumbnails as a way to give geolocated photos to friends. NeoFinder can even geotag photos itself, no other software needed. And only NeoFinder displays important facts about any geolocation in the truly unique Wikipedia Inspector.

Since the initial release of CDFinder 1.0 in 1996, more than 88,000 customers in 102 countries around the world are using CDFinder and now NeoFinder to organize their digital library, and manage their data archive and backups, including NASA, IKEA, BBC, Mattel, Rand McNally, Pfizer, Random House, Oracle, and Warner Bros.
Language Support: German, English, French, Swedish, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, and Japanese

System Requirements:
* Mac OS X v10.8 – macOS 10.14. Previous CDFinder and NeoFinder versions for older Mac OS versions are still available.
* Separate app for iOS (iPhone and iPad) is available

Pricing and Availability:
The price for new users starts at 29,00 (EUR). Multiple user packs are available for network users. NewFinder can be purchased through the website. Cross-grades for users of similar applications (Cinematica, DiskLibrary, FileFinder, CatFinder, Canto Cumulus, Disk Tracker, DiskCatalogMaker, Atomic View, iView Media Pro, Extensis Portfolio, and others) are available. A free NeoFinder demo version can be downloaded from the NeoFinder website.

macOS New App Release – Color Ray

Product Announcements – 64BitApps of Craiova, Romania, the software company that brought Mac users apps such as Icon Plus, PDF Plus, and ImageSize, announces the release of Color Ray, a Mac app that allows users to visually enhance their photos by combining artistic color effects like Black & White, Sepia, Sketch and Oil Painting.

Users will be able to edit both the background and foreground layers of their photo which allows them to color a certain area and turn the rest of the photo to black & white for a dramatic effect. Color Ray also allows users to keep a certain area of the photo sharp while blurring the rest in order to create a depth of field effect.

Color Ray uses an adjustable brush so that users can select the foreground area of their photo with precision and it also features an Eraser Mode that helps users fine-tune their photos. Users can save their photo in various file formats which include JPG, JPE, JP2, JPX, PNG, BMP, GIF, TIFF and also the newer formats HEIC and HEIF.

Pricing and Availability:
Color Ray is priced at $4.99 (USD) and can be purchased from the Mac App Store and from 64BitApps online. More information about this app can be found at 64BitApps.