Hey folks. MacHeist is currently selling its new mac apps bundle, containing the following 10 programs:

• MacJournal
• RipIt
• Clips
• CoverScout
• Flow
• Tales of Monkey Island
• RapidWeaver
• Tracks
• Airburst Extreme
• Burning Monkey Solitaire

MacJounal

This tool lets you write blog entries offline. Just push them to your server when you are online again. Im currently testing it and am a little bit disappointed about the few delivered features. Maybe Im just blind and unable to find them, but shouldnt a blog post application provide a function for declaring a text as headline ?! The interface is pretty… pragmatic, haha ;) Its not directly supported but I use it with a (or better this) wordpress blog (have chosen MoveableTypes instead) and it works quite well. You can just download the already written posts and edit them. The biggest problem is the fact, that the formatting of downloaded posts is almost completely lost… strange imho. What works nicely is the inclusion of images. Just put them into the text and MacJournal will automatically upload them as well. Im also wondering, why there is no possibility to edit a post in HTML mode. Edit: Err.. just found out, that wordpress is also available in the blog system drop down box! Sorry.

RipIt

This awesome and easy to use application does exactly what it says… it rips ;) Just push a DVD in to your drive, run the app and hit the rip/compress button. Whats pretty cool, is the fact, that you have a guarantee, that all DVDs you want to rip are actually working. The website says: If a DVD doesn’t work, we’ll buy it ourselves and fix it as soon as possible. Nice!

Clips

First I thought, that this tool is some kind of note management thing. My girlfriend was pretty happy about that and a lot disappointed when she figured out, that it is not. *g* You maybe know JumpCut, do you? Clips is doing somehow the same but as far as I find out til now its more mouse based than JumpCut. Hit Ctrl+Space to open a menu. In this menu you will see all programs in which you copied some text. You also find what you actually copied and can just click on one of the relevant copies to paste it into the currently active application. So the tool is listing the history of your paste board. Thats nice!

CoverScout

This tool was one of the very reasons to buy the bundle. Just run it and it will search you iTunes data to find songs without a cover. You have some options for automatically setting a found cover. Pretty useful and easy, but sometimes a little bit buggy. (Yeah you have found a cover than fucking use that!)

Flow

I already had this application before so yeah its cool ;) This is a ftp tool, build by some students. Support them, they need it ;) As the name says its all about the working flow. Somewhat minimalistic feature set but whats supported its doing very well.

Tales of Monkey Island

The key for that game is not yet available so I dont want to tell much about that. Only thing I know is: It is a Monkey Island. And thats nice! Update: Yo! Had some time to play and what I can tell you so far is the fact, that the camera is sometimes a little bit strange. Furthermore the english is (for me as non native english speaker) somewhat difficulty :)

RapidWeaver

The key is not yet availble, so no comment for now. It seems to be a Frontpage like tool. Update: OK, the key is currently available and Im also currently testing the tool. So far, it is a lot more useful than MacJournal and it really has a nice workflow. Im just moving all my wordpress content to RapidWeaver.

Tracks

Pretty interesting for people with an old MacBook. I dont know exactly when Apple decided to use the F7 to F9 buttons for toggling currently played music, but with this app you can specify key combination to skip to the next song, rate the current song and so on.

Airburst Extreme

I havent played the game (currently downloading) but Im currently thinking: What a strange looking game is that ;) Will let you know what it is about once the download is finished. Update: Ok, the download 130MB download finished and I just tested the game. It’s somehow pong-like. A disc is flying across the screen and you have to hit the opponents. With a some pixel big “shield” you can push the disc away. Strange and obsolete game type imho.

Burning Monkey Solitaire

Havent played that as well but it seems to be a solitare game ;)