They say a picture paints a thousand words. Screencasts, which are videos of your computer screen and often used in tutorials, are a useful way to illustrate a point or program. ScreenFlow is a very polished screencasting application, which records just about anything and gives you a huge amount of editing options afterwards.

ScreenFlow will record everything from your iSight camera to microphone audio or speaker audio enabling you to add crystal clear commentaries to your screencasts. ScreenFlow even monitors keystrokes and mouse movements, which is pretty clever. The app also has an excellent zoom function which allows you to add a touch of class and professionalism to your screencasts.

Recording quality is excellent, and thanks to a high frame-rate (which you can set), your videos look as if everything was actually happening on your screen. What's also surprising is that ScreenFlow is very lightweight for what is effectively a video editor, consuming relatively few CPU and RAM resources. Exporting is possible in all major formats and YouTube fans can now share their productions instantly.

The program has one glaring drawback however and that's that you can't add text, subtitles or simple text annotations to your beautifully produced screencasts. It's also a bit on the pricey side but if you're looking to produce professional looking screencasts, it's probably worth it.

ScreenFlow is an excellent screencasting application that just lacks text insertion support to make it a truly excellent application.

Download ScreenFlow 4.0.3 in Softonic

Safari is Apple's iconic super fast and elegant web browser for Mac.

Please note that version 6 is now available for Safari but it can only be obtained by running software update in OS X 10.8. This download is for the last directly downloadable version 5.1.7.

Version 5 sees some exciting introductions such as a new Reader icon for easier reading in one page, faster page load times and vastly improved HTML5 support. All of the previous features in Safari, such as tabs on top for easier page management and Cover Flow to flip through your bookmarked sites iTunes style have been retained too.

If you're new to Safari, the first thing you'll notice is how clean it feels compared to many other browsers. There are no annoying toolbars or plugins installed and the result of this is that Safari looks trim and loads pages very quickly. The other benefit is that maximum space is given to the contents of your page rather than a chunky browser.

In the previous version of Safari, Apple introduced Top Sites which is one of the most impressive aspects of Safari. It shows a panoramic thumbnail view of your most visited sites in one screen. Just click on the window you want to visit that site. This certainly looks cool, although its day-to-day usefulness is questionable. It is a good way of tracking which sites you visit most frequently though and you can lock your favorite sites to one single position so that you'll always know where it is when you open Safari. Sites with a star in the corner denote those with new content.

Meanwhile Cover Flow lets you browse through your bookmarks presenting full page views of the sites as they looked the last time you browsed them. The principle is based on flipping through albums in iTunes. Again, this looks cool although usually, I don't really care what the site looked like the last time I visited it - I just want to get there as quickly as possible. What I do like is the History Search - just type a word and Safari throws up every single page it has cached with that word on - very useful when you can't remember where the hell you saw the name of that person or game.

Other handy features in Safari include Tabs on Top which makes it a little easier to access and open your tabs at the very top of Safari. You can even drag and drop tabs into another Safari window. Speed has always been of the essence in Safari and Apple have stepped up the pace with an enhanced Nitro engine which it claims executes Javascript 25% faster than the last version. It's certainly damn quick and I'm mighty impressed at how fast it's loading my favorite sites such as YouTube and the BBC (and Softonic of course!).

In this latest version of Safari, the most notable feature is the new Reader which allows you to view all of your content on one page although there is no way to change the font. There's also a new Bing search option for Safari's search field, in addition to Google and Yahoo! HTML5 support has been improved meaning you can now view HTML5 video in full screen plus HTML5 Geolocation features are now available to Safari users. Navigating in Safari has also been made much easier due to a more predictive URL bar which actually searches cached webpages for keywords and archiving of exactly when you viewed certain pages is more precise and refined.

In addition to these changes, all the standard features in Safari remain. By clicking on the RSS tag in the URL bar, you can get a view of all the posts in a feed, which you can present chronologically and get a detailed or a title view. There will be inevitably some programs and plugins - such as 1Password - that don't work with this new version of Safari but these issues will quickly be ironed out by the developers of respective software.

I love the look and speed of Safari but the lack of plugins available compared to Firefox and general instability issues mean that it's still going to be a while before Apple can lure me over to their browser.

Download Safari 6.0.1 in Softonic

AnyVideo Converter HD is very easy to use with a slick interface. The different device formats you can convert to are all illustrated with images of the devices in a slick iTunes style cover flow browser. Simply drag your video or a collection of videos onto the AnyVideo Converter HD icon. There are few settings beyond that though so if you need to specify, bitrate, framerate or other technical specs, you won't be able to.

Particularly when it comes to videos, the most impressive thing is that AnyVideo Converter HD retains both the quality and aspect ratio of them when converting. Before conversion all videos are analyzed if the original video has a smaller screen size than the native device, the converted video will have the same resolution as the original one. File sizes are minimized to decrease conversion time.

The sheer choice of formats to convert to in AnyVideo Converter HD is very impressive and conversions are generally fast. You don't need to have any specialist technical knowledge as everything is simply drag and drop with virtually no configuration. Please note that AnyVideo Converter HD does not convert .vob files and .m4v files with DRM, as required by law.

AnyVideo Converter HD is am extremely powerful and user friendly conversion tools for all your iPhone, iPod, iPad and other mobile or console needs.

Download AnyVideo Converter HD 1.2 in Softonic

Although it's not half as feature filled as iTunes, it is very light on resources and merges your iTunes library with Last.fm web and online radio services. It's particularly good for those who use Last.fm as it scrobbles music to Last.fm servers.

Browsing through albums is like iTunes thanks to integration with Cover Flow. Everplay can play videos and you can control playback be defining hotkeys. Everplay also works with your Apple Remote and has a special Jukebox, Similar Artists and Full Screen mode which are ideal for parties.

Of course, there are far fewer features in Everplay than iTunes. For example, there's no online purchasing, album covers can't be retrieved from Last.fm and for some annoying reason, the entire playlist doesn't appear by default.

Overall however, Everplay is a refreshing change from bloated media players and is ideal for LAst.fm listeners that want a basic but elegant media player.

Download Everplay 1.5 in Softonic

That's especially true with You Need A Budget (YNAB) which is one of the slickest and most user friendly budget managers I've used on Mac. Installation is a little lengthy even if you have Adobe AIR installed although if you don't, YNAB offers to do it for you. You'll also need to enter your system password to install it.

When opened for the first time, YNAB asks if you'd like to associate your downloaded bank statements with it or allow another application - such as Moneydance - to take care of that. When you enter the main screen, YNAB acts as a kind of financial adviser, suggesting ways in which you should be managing your money. You can of course, just ignore all this and open an account.

However, You Need A Budget is named as such because its all about budgeting - something it does very well indeed and if you're having financial problems, you're advised to listen to what it says. YNAB uses what it calls the 4 rules of cash flow - Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck, Give Every Dollar A Job, Save For A Rainy Day and Roll With The Punches. Each section gives you advise and tips on how to organize your accounts effectively.

YNAB allows you to spread spending across different categories so if you need more money for essentials one month rather than entertainment you can do so and it will even things out for you. You can also carry-over overspending (or underspending of course) from month to month.

The main drawback of YNAB is that it doesn't integrate with online banking and the Adobe AIR interface, while looking great, can sometimes be slow and unresponsive. Some users report that this problem worsens over time as your accounts grow although the developers are working hard to solve it.

YNAB employs an effective 4 rule budgeting approach with an elegant interface to create one of the most helpful budgeting applications out there for Macs.

Download You Need a Budget (YNAB) 0.9.6.2016 Beta in Softonic

Soundslides is a nifty tool that allows journalists, media professionals or even students to create smooth multimedia presentations. The program only takes two seconds two install and is well streamlined.

After loading up your images and MP3 files you'll be taken to the timeline view. This is where you can move, stretch or reduce your slides and add additional information and titles.

Soundslides also lets you set a number of transitions, shells, screen displays and even subtitles.

It's a shame that it only uploads JPEGs and MP3s and we were also a bit annoyed that you couldn't zoom in and out of the timeline. Overall though, this is an extremely handy tool, that makes smooth flowing slideshows.

Download Soundslides 1.9.3 in Softonic

ArtRage faithfully recreates the effect of drawing on canvas with the drawing board taking-up your whole screen. Tools such as pencil, airbrush, chalk and paintbrush are all easily available but whichever one you use, it is the realistic canvas feel which really impresses. The latest release has been improved further with the addition of watercolor, text, and sticker spray editing options. Optimally, ArtRage would be best utilized with a drawing tablet but without one, its still pretty good.

If you haven't got a steady hand, then ArtRage even lets you cheat by tracing around real images. Indeed, the attention to detail goes as far as allowing you to experiment with metallic paint for gold leafing, sprinkling glitter and filling in large areas with the paint roller. Smudging and smearing also add to the impressive artistic touches possible with this app.

The main frustration with ArtRage is simply that many of the mouthwatering features are only available in the full version which you have to purchase and this demo will only give you a flavor of what it can really offer.

ArtRage is an excellent artists application which brings a more authentic artistic experience for purists.

Download ArtRage Studio Pro Demo 3.06 in Softonic

I've never been particularly good at drawing of any kind especially when it comes to diagrams.

So anything that can help my efforts not look like that of a child are welcome which is where SimpleDiagrams comes in. SimpleDiagrams is an easy to use Adobe Air based design application which allows you to draw diagrams far more easily than freehand drawing apps. Note that this is the free version of SimpleDiagrams which has all the functionality of the Full Version but includes a nag screen to upgrade.

Probably one of the most useful aspects of SimpleDiagrams is the ability to draw flow diagrams in order to brainstorm and also plan ideas and projects logically. The interface is ultra slick and clearly laid out allowing you to drag and drop elements into it to assemble ideas quickly. However, to prevent things from looking too clinical, you can also select elements which have a hand-drawn look to give them a more authentic look and feel.

SimpleDiagrams is very easy to use but it's rather limited in formats, saving only to XML and PNG. In addition, there is no way to share ideas and designs quickly by uploading them to a website or sharing server.

If you haven't got the steadiest of hands and you're looking for a free diagram creation tool, you can't go far wrong with SimpleDiagrams.

Download SimpleDiagrams 1.0.19 in Softonic

This hypnotic particle-based screensaver looks and moves just like an anemone. A change from more classic screensavers, Anèmona is incredibly relaxing, as you contemplate the movement and flow of all the particles.

The screensaver suffers no lag or crash and is very easy to set up, like any other screensaver.

The latest version also has a discreet glow effect and particles trail a bit longer. You'll also notice that particles turn a bit redder when they move faster.

One tip though: don't watch it too long, you might get hypnotized.