BravoBug News

MegaBrickBash3000 has been updated to version 1.1, a minor update which fixes a few small bugs, updates the main level set, and changes a few things such as the randomness and frequency of bonus drops. Plus the shattering bricks have been reduced in transparency for better visibility during gameplay.

MotivationLOL has also received a small upgrade. It is now available in a new build which completely removes the Shareware registration screen, as MotivationLOL was changed to freeware some time ago. This build correctly acts as though it were registered now for all users.

BravoBug is happy to announce today the release of EasyBatch 1.3, the latest update to the easy but powerful batch image app for Mac OS X. EasyBatch provides surprisingly robust image processing in an all-in-one interface. The new 1.3 update adds severeal new improvements:

• View EXIF tool
• Suffix for custom renaming
• New, fast rename batcher
• Ability to preserve creation/modification dates
• Improved filter preview
• Improved interface
• Several bug fixes

This update to EasyBatch is free for registered users of EasyBatch 1.x. Find out more about EasyBatch or click here to download EasyBatch (requires Mac OS X 10.4+).

Lotus Meditation Timer has been updated to version 4.0.1 which is now available for download. Lotus is a free meditation timer that provides a unique three-phased routine which can be fully customized, and can play sounds to signal elapsed time. Lotus includes a whole lot of other cool features and goodies too, including support for the Mac’s built-in infrared remote control, Mac sleep controls, and a free set of sample sounds you can use for your timers.

The 4.0.1 update to Lotus is a minor release which fixes a bug which caused the last timer sound to sometimes not play when the third timer had finished.

Download Lotus 4.0.1 here. If you have questions, comments, or bug reports, please let me know.

(PS: Please remember that Lotus is free to use although donations to help support its development are greatly appreciated! If you would like to donate to Lotus, please click here. Thank you for your support!)

You may have noticed that BravoBug.com just got a major face lift. The new site is designed to be easier to use and navigate, with a cleaner style, and it should load much faster than the previous design.

As with any major change, however, there may be a few broken links here and there while I tidy up loose ends. So for the next day or so, please excuse my dust while I tweak everything into tip-top shape. I hope you’ll check back soon for some new app updates which are on the way.

Thank you for visiting!

EasyBatch has had its price permanently reduced to $15. It had been on ‘Holiday Sale’ for a long time now, despite the winter holidays having ended quite a while ago (just a few more months and they would have started anew!). Now seemed like a good time to both take down the Holiday sale badge and also adjust the Shareware fee to be more instep with BravoBug’s other apps.

So if you have been looking for a convenient, simple, but powerful image batcher for your Mac, now is a great time to give EasyBatch a try.

Thank you to everyone who has supported EasyBatch by registering their copies.

This is a photo I took at the Japanese Zen Garden in Portland, Oregon. It’s contrasted next to (on the left) a modified version of the image in which blurring has been applied for a “tilt shift” effect, along with a few other minor adjustments such as saturation, etc.

This is one of those things that is spreading quickly across the net, I’m seeing this effect everywhere. And for good reason – it’s very cool! It’s a lot of fun to make your photos look like they were taken inside a miniature model! If you’d like to learn more about applying a “tilt-shift” to your photos, just do a quick Google search and you’ll find plenty of tutorials.

BravoBug Software is happy to announce the release of its newest freeware app for Mac OS X: OggQuicklook. For some time now the OS X Finder’s fantastic Quicklook feature (which allows instant previewing of image, text, and audio files) has lacked support for playing Ogg Vorbis audio (.ogg) files. To make matters worse, there seems to be no Ogg Vorbis plugin available for Quicklook.

OggQuicklook aims to fill in this gap, with instant Ogg previews directly in the Finder. Just set a custom key combo, launch the invisible background process, and you’re done. Press your hotkey at any time while in the Finder to listen to .ogg Quicklook-style.

OggQuicklook can also be installed automatically as a login item so it is always available. While in the background it uses zero CPU, only springing to the front when you trigger its designated key combo.

OggQuicklook runs natively on both PPC and Intel Macintoshes and requires OS X 10.4 or later (yeah, Quicklook isn’t even required!). Best of all, OggQuicklook is free. Click here to download OggQuicklook v1.0 for Mac OS X.

BravoTunes has been updated to version 1.1.1, fresh on the heels of the 1.1 release. Although this update is small, it is actually quite feature-packed, and adds some polish to several of the existing features. Some of the big changes:

• Improved iTunes menu (now has iTunes launch/quit items)
• Improved display (when ‘cleared’, now gives a visual indicator of its space in the menubar)
• Improved functionality (several bug fixes)

Click here to download BravoTunes 1.1.1. BravoTunes is freeware and requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later.

EDIT: With the 1.1.1 release, this feature can now be set in the preferences window.

When BravoTunes is opened, it can automatically launch iTunes. There is a checkbox labeled ‘Always Use This Answer’. It occurred to me, however, that if you click this option and then change your mind, there is no way via the preferences window to change this behavior (oops!).

So until I correct this in the next update, here’s how you can change this option directly, via the OS X Terminal, if you need to.

If BravoTunes is launching iTunes every time it starts up, and you want to stop that (or vice versa, you clicked “Don’t Open” and now you want it to launch iTunes), do this:

Step 1. Open up Terminal.app (you’ll find it in your /Applications/Utilities/ folder)

Step 2. Type the command below to enable iTunes auto-launching:

defaults write com.bravobug.BravoTunes launchiTunes -bool YES

Or, if you want to disable it so that iTunes doesn’t automatically launch:

defaults write com.bravobug.BravoTunes launchiTunes -bool NO

That’s all there is to it. I should also point out that if you have iTunes auto-launch enabled, you will typically want to quit BravoTunes before you quit iTunes. Under certain conditions if you quit iTunes first, BravoTunes may try to open iTunes back up automatically (which can be annoying – I’m working on fixing this behavior).

Thanks for visiting.