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I just discovered ArtRage by Ambient Design a few days ago, thanks to a mention of the software by the Tao of Mac. Ambient Design was founded by people who left MetaCreations in 2000, so if you are familiar with any of MetaCreation's products (Kai's PowerTools is now also available from Ambient Design), you will find the interface of ArtRage to be familiar. It fills the screen when it launches, taking over your Mac / PC.

I've only just started playing with this app that allows you to "sketch" with Oil Paint, Pencils, Crayons, Chalks, or Felt Pen tools, as well as use an eraser and palette knife to manipulate what's already on the canvas, but, as an artist, I really like it. It feels intuitively more pad and paper like than most of the creative programs out there. I wonder if it can work with a pressure sensitive drawing tablet like the Wacom tablet I have stowed away in my closet...

You can download ArtRage from this page. It is free and will run on both Windows and Mac OS X. Check it out.

UPDATE: Marc Orchant wrote me a minute ago with this added info: "ArtRage is also bundled in the Tablet PC Experience Pack as InkArt. The program was originally developed as an entry in Microsoft's 'Does Your App Think in Ink?' contest." Thanks, Marc!

You may have noticed that we here at Download Squad are fond of wikis. The other day at TUAW, I asked our readers what they thought was the best wiki to use on the Mac. The wiki that received the most acclaim was Instiki.

Instiki is actually a wiki clone, based on Ruby, and with a "strong focus on simplicity of installation and running." There's a neat little OS X specific version of Instiki, available for download at Instiki.org, but the site seems to be currently down. In any case, I downloaded it yesterday when the site was up, and it is very simple to use. The screenshot with this post is the menu control for the Wiki in OS X. If you're on another platform, don't fret: Instiki will run on any platform that has Ruby running on it.

This isn't really fitting for a multiuser enterprise situation, but if you are looking for a cool easy to use wiki for organizing your own private info, check it out. You can export the wiki into static HTML pages, but so far, that is the only feature that I cannot get to work properly.

Jordan mentioned the Odeo invite-only beta test that is currently underway, and since I'm one of the lucky invitees, I thought I'd write up a quick review of the app associated with the service: Odeo Syncr. This little app has a variant for both Windows and OS X, but at this early point, it is a pass.  Really, Odeo Syncr's only function is to download podcasts that you've subscribed to via the Odeo service and launch them in your audio player of choice.

Since my audio player of choice is iTunes 4.9, which now has podcast ability, I think I just lost all use for this program.

I know you all thought you would have to wait until iTunes 4.9 was here for the promised podcast support, but now Windows users can download a free little plugin to have that support today: BadFruit has released the BadApple plug-in for iTunes for Windows for free. According to the FAQ, "Using BadApple you can browse thousands of the best podcasts on the internet, and download and listen to them from iTunes software or on your iPod all for free. "



This is pretty cool, not only because it is free and works today with the copy of iTunes you already have installed on your computer, but also because it opens iTunes up to the entire internet catalogue of podcasts, not just the ones that Apple deems worthy of the iTunes Music Store. Check it out.

[via Dave's iPAQ]