Author: Roman Loyola

Whenever the fans in my MacBook Pro suddenly rev up, I use the built-in Activity Monitor app (Applications > Utilities) to see what’s going on. But I’ve often wished for a quicker and easier way to check my Mac’s activity than having to open Activity Monitor.

The free System Lens (Mac App Store link) offers a compromise: It resides in the menu bar, and when you click its icon, you see a snapshot of which apps are actively using your computer’s resources.

System Lens doesn’t offer all the features or the flexibility of Activity Monitor. For example, while Activity Monitor provides hard numbers about how much processing power an app is using (such as CPU percentage or the number of threads), System Lens uses simple labels: Low, Medium, and High. For people who want the details, System Lens won’t replace Activity Monitor completely.

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Way back in the 6th grade, my family couldn’t afford a computer, but my teachers started to assign school papers that, ideally, would be typed on a typewriter—or, if that wasn’t an option, neatly handwritten. Both were painful processes that led to sheet after sheet of paper weighted down with dried correction fluid.

Then my best friend Ed got a word processor. It wasn’t a fully-capable computer—it was just a machine you could use to type documents. And since Ed was my best friend, he let me use that word processor. It had a nine-inch CRT display with green, pixelated text on a black background, and you had to view your text through the (significant) curvature of the screen. It wasn’t much compared to today’s technology, but at the time, that word processor was heaven sent.

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When we reviewed Simplenote for iOS nearly four years ago, we found it to be a standout note-taking app. But while the company soon added Android and Kindle versions, for the longest time it didn’t provide an OS X counterpart—Mac users who wanted to access and edit their notes on their Macs had to turn to Simplenote’s Web app. So last fall’s release of the free Mac version of Simplenote (Mac App Store link) was welcome.

Simplenote for Mac is very much like the iOS version, with a streamlined interface that doesn’t fill the screen with lots of icons or buttons. You can apply tags (that you create) to notes, and you can click any tag to display related notes. The app also uses white space well, making your lists of tags and notes easy to browse.

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Even after several hours of gameplay, I’m not sure what’s the objective to Rostlaub’s Jool (iTunes App Store link), though that’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I found it very addictive and fun.

You play as a “dopey” bird, running and jumping from left to right from platform to platform, collecting gold triangular Trips, and other items such that have point values. You can also collect power-ups, including the Flip, which, when activated leads to the most unique feature of the game: if you miss a platform at the lowest level and fall, you can use a Flip and physically flip your iOS device 180 degrees. You get to continue running on the platforms, but this time from right to left as your bird’s evil alter ego.

I enjoy a good platform game, but there are times when I just want to run and jump through each level. That’s probably why I find Jool so satisfying—its controls are basic (tap once to jump, tap again in mid-jump to jump higher) and there are no puzzles to solve or complicated mazes to navigate. You run and jump and collect as much stuff as possible. Simple and satisfying.

Jool does have goals if you have the need for accomplishment. If you collect enough Trips after each game, you can exchange them for items in the Jool store, but your Trips don’t accumulate game after game, and you need a substantial number of Trips (a few thousand) to make even the entry-level trades in the store. Store items and Trips are available for purchase with real money.

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