[Continued]

I spent the day test driving Wondershare DVD Creator for Mac, and I must say that it was time well spent. DVD creator is similar to iDVD, but it takes it to the next level of simplicity. (If that makes any sense).

The Wondershare DVD Creator was a pleasure to use. The interface is extremely intuitive, with no instruction I was able to start immediately encoding, and burning a DVD. The application, was able to encode, a quicktime movie file to mpeg format pretty quick.

The beauty of this application is everything is where you expect it to be, from adding the the movie content to creating the menu, the entire process is very satisfying. The price is also very enjoyable. $39.00 for a download version and $49.00 for the CD version. The site can be found here.

While I am an Apple fan, and I do own iLife 09, Wondershare DVD Creator beats iDVD hands down. Applications like this are the reason I switched to Macintosh in the first place.

Many Mac users will find a use for at least one of the applications offered in the Mac Heist bundle, because they have a little bit of everything for a great price. $39.00 US. This is a very small price to pay for $600.00 + dollars worth of applications.

One of the great examples is Picturesque. Picturesque is a great application that does simple editing of pictures, without any advanced knowledge, such as that required to run Photoshop, while still enhancing your photographs at a near professional level.

Another offering is Wiretap Studio. WireTap Studio is a fantastic application if you would like to create a podcast. With wiretap it is possible to capture a skype call in order to do interviews without needing a massive setup. I could go on and on about all of the apps offered, but I think you need to see them for yourself. Simply go to and check out all the applications you get for $39.00. Just remember that there is a time limit, as of this writing there are only 12 days left, as an additional incentive, 25% of the price goes to charity. Now you can’t beat that, you get some great software at a great price, while contributing to charity.

Did I mention that all the applications are FULL versions, not trial or shareware. I can’t stress what a good deal this is, so hurry over to macheist.com and get yours, but remember only 12 days left.

The menubar, like the dock, is an integral part of Mac OS X. Besides the basic function of providing menus in applications, the Menubar can do a ton. By default, the right side of the menubar displays a clock, the spotlight icon, Airport status, volume, as well as a MobileMe sync status, Time Machine Backup status, and Fast User Switching if you enable them. While this is great, many developers have taken the menubar to the next level. Here’s a look at my essential menubar apps.

Caffiene
Caffiene is extremely simple, but very useful. You simply click it to tell your computer to not go to sleep. This is extremely handy when watching online video, reading a long article, or anything else for that matter. It is a great way to maintain good energy saving preferences, but not be annoyed when your monitor goes to sleep a minute into watching House on Hulu. When you’re done, you simply click the caffiene icon again to turn it off. [Download]

Jumpcut
If you’re like me, you’re always using copy & paste. Jumpcut keeps a record of what you’ve copied, so that you can paste it later – even if you’ve made a new copy. It works really well, and even has a keyboard shortcut that pops up with a bezel – so that you don’t necessarily have to click on the menu bar icon. I’ve gotten it to remember up to 100 items, which is stunning. [Download]

SoundSource
Rouge Amoeba developed a really handy tool for controlling audio input and output on your Mac – straight from the Menubar. You can choose which source you want to play audio to/from, and how loud you want to hear it. It’s a big step up from Apple’s default menubar volume control. You can also use it to quick launch Audio MIDI Setup or Sound Preferences. [Download]

Alarm Clock 2
I’ve begun to use my mac as my default alarm clock, thanks to Alarm Clock 2. It integrates with your iTunes library, so that you can wake up to your favorite music. You can set recurring alarms, and enable features such as “easy wake” and of course the “snooze”. What really makes Alarm Clock 2 superb is that you can also set timers and stopwatches. I can’t tell you how many times I use Alarm Clock 2, it’s just become an automatic part of my day. [Download]

All of these apps were solely designed for the menubar, and best of all – they’re free! There are a ton of really spectacular apps that utilize the menu bar really well such as Evernote, Skitch, LittleSnapper, and so forth but these all have regular app interfaces that go along with them. The apps mentioned above are specifically for the menubar. They’re minimalistic but get the job done well, ad worth a download.

Here’s this week’s top Apple-related stories:

• 17″ Macbook Pros Now Shipping
• RUMOR: Next-Gen iPhone Hardware Revealed
• GMail is now available for offline use
• Upgrade to iTunes Plus now on Track by Track Basis
• iPhone & iPod Touch 2.2.1 Update Available
• iLife ‘09 Now Shipping

This Week in iBAM:

• MindMapping with MindNode
• Blogging Made Easy with Blogo
• iPhone App Spotlight: Ustream.TV