Check out the top downloads from this past week.
Automatic (Mac OS X)
Mac OS X only — Automatic is an unobtrustive RSS feed content downloader. What does that mean exactly? When an RSS feed has an attachment such as an image Automatic will 'automatically' download that file in the background. It is helpful for downloading the RSS attachments of a particular feed, and can be used from anything from an automatic image gathering service to downloading full television shows.
Mobile Notifier (iOS)
MobileNotifier is a complete re-write of the iOS notifications system and it's pretty amazing. It takes inspiration from Android's notification system while adding the elegance of iOS, preventing notifications from interrupting you and allowing you to easily respond from a drop-down drawer.
Camerasync (iOS)
If you're tired of plugging in your iPhone every time you want to import photos, CameraSync will wirelessly send all your photos to Dropbox, Amazon S3, or Flickr, so you have them on your computer when you need them.
Call me lazy, but I don't like plugging my phone into my computer just to get all my pictures into iPhoto. CameraSync fixes this annoyance by wirelessly sending all new photos you take to Dropbox, so you can access those files on your computer, no matter what platform you're running. In fact, if you prefer a different online backup program (like Amazon S3, iDisk, an FTP server, Box.net, or even Flickr) you can do that too. It's essentially like an Eye-Fi for your iPhone-which is pretty awesome.
Handbrake (Mac OS X, Windows)
One of the best rippers for movie and television show DVDs is the free and open source Handbrake. This week Adam has a detailed how-to get started with Handbrake, with an excellent video to walk you through the steps. Handbrake's many options, while being powerful, can be complicated for a beginning user and this video explains it in simple terms. If you have always wanted to learn about Handbrake to rip your movie collection to your computer but didn't know where to start, you need to watch this video!
BitMate (Windows, Mac, Linux)
BitTorrent has always been a great way to share large files quickly, but if you're on a slow connection, it's pretty tough to use. BitMate is a new BitTorrent client that seriously boosts your download speed on slow connections.
If you have a slow internet connection (dial-up slow, not "oh I'm using Wi-Fi today" slow), the Vuze-based BitMate can increase your speeds by up to 70%, just by optimizing your connection.
XBMC Hulu and Hulu Plus Addon (Windows, Mac, Linux)
Getting Hulu working with media center XBMC has been a regular battle between users and Hulu, but a new XBMC plugin makes it dead simple. Follow Whitson's video on how to get Hulu back up and running on your XBMC box.
Plug In Launcher (Android)
Want to start your music app every time you plug in your headphones? Want to start tethering as soon as you hook up the USB cable? Plug In Launcher will auto-start any app you want whenever you plug something in.
Plug In Launcher is super simple to use: just open it up and hit the USB or Headset tab at the top. Then, select an app to launch whenever you plug in that cable, and you're good to go!
Mailstore (Windows only)
A bit of Gmail drama made us look for easy and cheap Gmail backup solutions. What we missed was MailStore, a single-purpose app that connects to your email, backs it up, and doesn't bother you otherwise. That's just about perfect.
Install MailStore, fire it up, and choose the type of account you'd like to back up. Most of the major webmail services are supported: Gmail, Yahoo, Windows Live/Hotmail, and any service you can connect to via POP or IMAP. You can also back up your local Outlook or Thunderbird archives, if you'd like.
Any other recently featured downloads you think we should have included in the roundup above? Let us know!