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Mac OS X only: Free, open source application AppTrap is an application uninstaller for your Mac. Silly Lifehacker, you say, most Mac apps don’t need uninstalled. Just delete the app! True, but when you delete an app from your Mac, it often leaves behind several system files.

AppTrap adds a preference pane to your system preferences, and when enabled, it monitors the files you send to your trash. When you delete an application (either by dragging it to the trash or Cmd-Delete), an AppTrap window pops up asking you if you want to remove the app’s associated files. Similar to previously mentioned AppDelete and AppZapper, AppTrap’s trash monitor makes the process more streamlined than its predecessors (in a “just works” sort of way). AppTrap is free, Mac OS X only.

[thanks to lifehacker]

Google Hacks is a compilation of carefully crafted Google searches wrapped up in a free open-source application for Windows/Mac/Linux. In essence it is a GUI-based query builder that apparently uses novel functionality from Google’s search and map services to help you find free media on the web. For example, you can use it to view a timeline of your search results, view a map, search for music, search for books, and perform many other specific kinds of searches. Google Hacks also comes as a portable version.

Google Hacks was created by the Blue Shirt Studio, which (in their own words) “is a collection of freestyle programmers who aren’t afraid of hard work, and believe in the open source community.

One of the greatest aspects of working with this mentality is not having to worry about leeching customers of cash. Microsoft, bless all their Redmond, WA souls, is working really hard to make sure that everybody that uses their product has paid for their licenses. This “pay before you play” philosophy (we believe) hinders creativity and makes everyone involved, both company and customers, a bunch of little greedy guts.

At the Blue Shirt Studio, we try to come up with the most creative programs possible, and offer them all free of charge. If you ever feel that a particular glob of programming is especially genius, you may donate to the cause, but you will always be able to download it as often as you want.”

[thanks to lifehacker for the link]

I’ve decided to wait with my Apple Powerbook purchase till Leopard is released, which supposedly should happen in October. In the meantime I’m collecting ideas for software to use with it - this seems to be a good one from an aesthetic point of view: LiteIcon. That little program is also easy to use: just drop the new icon directly onto your current system one. LiteIcon is free and can be downloaded from Free Mac Soft website.

[via Silver Mac]

It’s not the latest news anymore but good news nevertheless. The Independent reported at the beginning of April that Britain’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has in partnership with its sister organisation Burung Indonesia and BirdLife International secured a long-lasting management concession on a stretch of lowland rainforest in Sumatra. The Harapan rainforest hosts at least 267 types of bird (compared with 226 in all of the British Isles) and may hold more than 300. And that’s just the birds. It is also home to a striking range of animal species including Asian elephants, Sumatran tigers and the newly discovered clouded leopard, as well as five primate species, sun bears, Sumatran otters, Malayan porcupines - and the world’s richest and most diverse flora.

Natural treasures unfortunately do not count much in the human world, and the Harapan has been up to now under major stress through illegal logging and conversion to timber and palm oil plantations (actions that have reduced the Sumatran rainforest to less than 5 per cent of its former 16 million hectares).For the past five years, the RSPB, BirdLife and Burung Indonesia have lobbied the Indonesian government to allow the Harapan forest, two hours’ drive from the town of Jambi in the centre of the island, to be protected. Two years ago, the government agreed in principle the area could be saved; then the partnership won the management concession by outbidding logging companies; and now the concession has been extended from 20 to 100 years, meaning the forest, which has been partly logged, finally has a chance to recover and regenerate fully.

Conservationists are excited. Once they start looking properly, they expect to find thousands of plant and animal species in Harapan. While Sumatran lowland rainforest is already known to boast a more diverse flora than anywhere in the world, there are also at least 37 species of mammal and at least 33 amphibian and reptile species, including the endangered spiny turtle and Asiatic softshell turtle. The Storm’s stork is the most threatened bird species found so far - there may be only 250 left in the wild. Of other birds found in Harapan rainforest, 66 are at risk, including the rhinoceros hornbill, rufous-collared kingfisher and great argus pheasan. Up to 30 more bird species could be identified in new surveys later this year. There are between 100 and 300 critically endangered Sumatran tigers still in the wild, of which about 20 are in Harapan. The Sumatran tiger is a sub-species of the Asian tiger. The Caspian, Javan and Bali tigers became extinct in the 1900s.

Fauna and flora though are not the only beneficiaries from the new arrangement. The 150-strong Batin Sembilan tribe, a nomadic people that will continue to harvest rubber, honey, fruits and rattan for its own use, will also directly benefit. “Now these people have a choice for their future. With intact forest remaining, they will have the choice of maintaining their traditional lifestyles,” said Sukianto Lusli, executive director of Burung Indonesia. They and other people in the local area will also have the option of becoming wildlife monitors, forest wardens and guides or work in nursery management and on the preparation of land. The site will eventually be managed by a team of about 80 people. The development of a research station and eco-tourism are long-term possibilities.

Apart from delivering benefits to the Harapan and the local human community, another major breakthrough is the change in government policy, which laid the foundation for the management deal. Until now Indonesia has been notorious for its rapid deforestation, and it was government policy that sites earmarked for timber production or plantation crops in Indonesia could be used for nothing else. But the Ecosystem Restoration Decree, which was introduced by the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry, could mark a turnaround. It permits the management of forests to obtain benefits labeled “ecosystem services”, which include storing carbon, controls on pollution and protection for wildlife. This policy and attitude shift is of course not just significant for Indonesia but also for Asia and other parts of the world.

Harapan is, interestingly, the Indonesian word for hope. The forest stretches 35km east to west and 40km north to south, and represents about 6 per cent of remaining lowland rainforest in Sumatra. It is two degrees south of the equator and conservationists hope that its humid conditions will hasten regeneration. Furthermore, the ecosystem restoration decree means other private management bodies also can apply to restore forests in Indonesia.

Five sites were shortlisted before the Harapan area was chosen for the protection campaign; it was selected for its wildlife diversity, the quality of its flora and its accessibility. “One of the reasons it was identified as the best was that human pressure is not so heavy,” said Dieter Hoffmann, the RSPB’s head of global programmes. “Access was reasonably good and the forest itself is in reasonably good condition. But most of all, the biodiversity is spectacular. In terms of flora, it is the richest habitat in the world - richer than the Amazon.”

The RSPB is about to launch a UK fundraising campaign for Harapan with a target of £2 million over the next 12 months. Similar campaigns are beginning in other European countries and Japan. The initiative has already received significant financial support from the European Commission and Conservation International’s Global Conservation Fund. In the long term, the RSPB, Burung Indonesia and BirdLife International plan to establish a trust fund of £9m. Annual interest payments from the fund will cover the forest’s management costs.

[Thank you to The Independent]