There definitely is something to the left-brain/right-brain thing. At least, there is for software.

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Windows is very left-brain/analytic while Mac is strongly right-brain/artistic. It’s not that one methodology is better than the other; it’s just that they are different ways to approach the same issue. Case in point: two applications that show off what I would call “Mac Think”: the Freeway web page editor from SoftPress Systems and the Peak audio editor from Bias. They are conceptually different from their Windows equivalents. Freeway, in fact, doesn’t really have a Windows analog.

Note that technology is not in any way an issue here. Mac Think apps could be programmed to work on a PC or Linux or whatever. But their right-brain style is simply more likely to find a market among Mac users.

Of course, there are risks with Mac Think, among them the possibility that if your idea is really good, there is always a prospect that Apple (a shared trait with Microsoft) will appropriate it. (See sidebar.)

Consider the task of designing a web site if you are not a webhead. If you are a hard-core purist, you might do your pages by writing HTML code directly. At the very least you would design software such as Dreamweaver that is known for keeping its HTML output as clean and simple as possible. But a “civilian” would look to find some cheats to simplify the task. In Windows the cheater approach is Microsoft FrontPage, which seeks to make the process of designing a web page or site as much like creating a Word document or Excel spreadsheet as possible.

SoftPress went in an entirely different direction with Freeway. Its premise: Wouldn’t it be cool if you could simply draw your pages? That way you would get the look you want and not be constrained by fiddling with HTML.

So they went ahead and did just that. Working in Freeway is akin to using a graphics program. You put in text boxes, layout graphic elements, and embellish the design pretty much the way you would if you were using, say, Photoshop.

For this project, I tested Freeway Express ($100), the version intended for consumers. Freeway also comes in a full-featured version for design pros ($236). Think of Freeway as The Revenge of the Anti-Nerds – one important market for it is graphic artists who are tired of having to contract out for a web programmer.

The program is relatively simple to use. The main adjustment users who have ever done web design before is to forget all about your old HTML editor. In sharp contrast to virtually every other web editor, Freeway does not give you access to HTML at all. Instead, think of yourself as using a graphics program. Once you clear that conceptual hurdle, it works much like any other web design tool.

As with any web editor, you begin by creating your project, choosing from a set of prefab templates or creating an empty project. Freeway presents you with a tabbed interface that separates pages from masters – masters being the controlling design for all the pages on your site. Your workspace also includes several tool palettes that let you add and format page elements – graphics, text (called “HTML items” in Freeway), shapes, buttons, boxes, and so on. Freeway lets you create the expected web page bells and whistles, such as setting up menus, buttons, transitions, rollovers, or links. The prefab layouts actually let you be a little bit more adventuresome than a novice might be.

You simply start arranging elements to form a page. Graphics here; text there; buttons wherever. The text automatically wraps around the graphics. Hyperlink get created pretty much the same way you do with any web editor – select the text or graphic and assign the link. Freeway lets you preview your pages in multiple browsers. A button tool included with the software lets you create Mac-style 3D buttons. Many of the key effects and functions are set up through an “Action” palette, which lets you attach multiple modifications to one element.

The range of effects can be increased with the use of add-on FAST Packs. I recommend the Navigation and Graphics packs, $63 each, $95 as a bundle. Navigation lets you create multi-level menus and automated site maps. The Graphics pack give you graphics filters and effects right inside the program, which means you can do all your graphics work inside Freeway without having to fire up another program.

One limitation of the no-HTML approach is that you cannot import a non-Freeway site into the program to edit. For that, the recommended workaround is to make a screen shot of the page you want to work with, make it a background layer in Freeway, and then create your page on top of it – kind of like a high-tech version of tracing paper. Seems slightly odd, but it works.

When the site is done, Freeway coverts your work to HTML and there is a built-in FTP utility to upload to your site. The proof in the pudding for web pages is how well they work on the web. Freeway did well – not 100 percent perfect, when I tried to get a little too cute with graphic layout, the pages had flaws such a gaps in the graphics. But otherwise, they displayed on the web they way they were designed in Freeway. Moreover, there’s no FrontPage-itis here – leaving you with pages that only work in Internet Explorer. Freeway is one route to successful web design for all browsers.

[NOTE: I should point out that this page, like my other TNPC supplemental pages, are done from a template created in another editor. Neither SoftPress nor Freeway is to blame for any flaws in them.]

Peak’s brand of Mac Think comes from the fact that it is a professional audio editor that has been used to produce CDs, soundtracks, and commercials but has a simple enough interface that non-professionals could use it.

The professional version of Peak sells for street prices in the $300 range and with associated add-on products such as Bias’s multi-track recording and noise reduction application, the audio pro can expect to spend around $1,000 on the software. But for consumers, Bias has provided a “LE” version of Peak that sells for a much more affordable $70. It has the key features you would need, minus the high-end functions that are only of value to recording producers.

I tested Peak DV – “digital video,” which slots between LE and Pro both in price and features, and includes the ability to edit movie soundtracks. I suppose it is a little on the overkill side for home movies, but it would be the right tool to have if videos are part of your business presentation repertoire. And it is just so easy to use that home users needn’t fear it. When you open up your movie in Peak DV, the software gives you the video in one window and the audio in another. Then while you manipulate your audio tracks, the video moves with it so you can get the two in sync.

Shared features between DV and LE are a fairly wide range of sound editing capabilities: change volume, normalize (even out the volume levels), fade in and out, adjust the playing time, use an equalizer to adjust the frequency response, cut, paste, and so on. Peak has a particularly effective mix/paste feature that lets you blend multiple sound sources together – example use: you have a recording of a someone speaking, with a simple mix/paste you can put in a music background or a sound effect.

One thing I didn't like: while it is understandable that the feature sets in the lower-priced versions would be more limited than in the pro edition, Bias limits stereo-to-mono/mono-to-stereo to the top-line product. This is a feature that even LE users would need and ought to be available across the range.

Peak gets its name from the software’s careful attention to the max – peak – volume levels on a sound file. If you record at too high a volume or over amplify, you will get “clipping” at the peak level – meaning, the sound gets distorted. Peak has multiple safeguards to avoid this.

Peak lets us amateurs get professional results. It may not stay in the Mac Think category forever – Bias just announced Windows versions of SoundSoap and SoundSoap Pro, its noise reduction software. Will the rest of its lineup go cross-platform as well? Stay Tuned.

Imitation Is the Sincerest Form of...

A funny thing happened on the way to getting this piece together: two of my prime examples went through life-altering experiences. For Karelia Software, makers of the Watson form-browser, the news was excellent, but for the authors of the Konfabulator desktop enhancement, the future is very uncertain.

Key to both developments: their ideas were so good that Apple adopted them. We have a bit of experience with this phenomenon at TNPC. We have been involved with various projects, such as the PRIME Utilities, to produce enhancements for Microsoft Office for Windows, only to see them undercut when Microsoft put those tools into subsequent versions of Office.

Konfabulator ($25) is an add-on to the Mac desktop that serves as a launch pad informational and utility applets called “widgets” that are written in Java. Creators Arlo Rose and Perry Clarke personally have done a couple dozen widgets, such a weather forecaster, system monitor, to-do list, and a picture display.

But the concept attracted a slew of other developers and now there are nearly 750 widgets available for download. Various RSS (“Real Simple Syndication,” a newly popular method of sending out new over the Internet) and web cam feeds seem to be particularly in vogue now.

Basically, you install Konfabulator, download as many widgets you want and run them. They take advantage of the translucence of the Mac graphics system so that they can sit on your desktop yet not completely block it. You also can hide the widgets from sight until you hit the F8 key to make the visible. That lets you run more widgets while minimizing desktop clutter.

If this sounds vaguely familiar, it is. Microsoft tried this with the infamous Windows “Active Desktop” that ran Web-based apps on your desktop, but mostly crashed your system. Konfabulator and widgets appear to be stable and do not tax system resources. I personally am running weather and news headlines on the desktop, with sports scores, a world clock, to-dos, and more weather in the hidden mode. Very cool.

So well do they work, that Rose and Clarke had the unhappy surprise of seeing Apple CEO Steve Jobs show off “Tiger,” the next incarnation of OS X (formally, version 10.4), one of the features of which is – you guessed it – widgets. For now, Konfabulator is the way to get 10.4 features today. But the product’s future after Tiger comes to market is in doubt.

Apple’s move into Watson’s turf came with the evolution of OS X. In earlier releases of the system, Apple has had a search tool called “Sherlock” that initially was intended to search your hard drive. Watson was created as a companion utility that would deal with the Internet.

Much information you seek regularly on the Internet – baseball scores, for example, or TV and movie listings – would be more efficiently read if put into a text form or table rather than the typical graphical web page. That’s what Watson does. It has about 25 modules that reach out to popular web sites and bring their information back in tabular form.

Alas for Karelia, by OS 10.3 Sherlock had morphed into a very similar web tool. That cut seriously into Watson 's market. What to do?

When I was starting out this project, Watson creator Dan Wood said that while he thought “the Mac inspires more creative innovation” than Windows, there was no technical reason why his software couldn’t be ported to other OSes, adding the tantalizing comment: “We'll have something to announce in the coming months that may also be of interest.”

Said announcement turned out to be a deal with Sun Microsystems to do a Java-based version of Watson that would be able to run on any personal computer that can support Java. So this fall look for it (probably not with the Watson name) on non-Mac desktops as well. Don’t you just love happy endings?

(c) 2004 Al Gordon.

In addition to his computer interests, Al Gordon is a principal in the Boston-area strategic consulting firm, Mary Fifield Associates, www.maryfifieldassociates.com

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You can reach Al Gordon at:

al@tnpcnewsletter.com