ClipBar, an app made by my friend Cesare, is a recently released app that puts your pasteboard in your menu bar. It's such a simple idea, but it's already helped me a ton.

I haven't got a great memory, so I regularly forget what I've copied. Previously, I would hit CMD + SPACE, paste the contents into Spotlight and get a preview. But with ClipBar, I've always got a snippet in the menu bar that makes it much faster.

There's no need to worry about the size of the pasteboard either, since you can set a maximum character limit that will appear. You can also fine-tune the truncation, by having it clip the start, middle, or end of the content.

If you've simply copied text, then that's what will appear. However, if you've copied a file, then you'll see the path, and if you've copied an image, you will see an icon to show it is an image, and it's file size.

In a recent update, ClipBar gained a preview feature, so you can view the whole contents of your clipboard. For images, it switches from the file size to an actual preview of the image.

From the preview, you can share the contents using any built-in or third-party share extensions.

Having your pasteboard contents permanently in your menu bar can sound potentially dangerous, especially if you regularly copy sensitive information. Unfortunately, if you are worried about such problems, then this app may not be for you.

But ClipBar does work with an existing agreement between developers to help identify when passwords and other secure information has been copied, and it will then attempt to conceal the data. You can read more details on this in the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

While I may copy sensitive information on my machine, I'm happy with the fact that ClipBar is sandboxed, it doesn't store your data anywhere, and the precautions regarding sensitive information.

With all that said, I think ClipBar is a great app, and one that will undoubtedly make your life easier.

You can download ClipBar on the Mac App Store.

There are loads of apps that track your Macs CPU usage. But only one of them uses a running cat to visualise it.

RunCat is a free Mac menu bar app that features a running cat that adapts to your CPU speed. If it’s running relatively slow, then the cat will just be running at a leisurely pace, but if it’s running really high (try building a huge Xcode project), then the cat will go crazy!

It’s really fun!

Runners

It’s not just a cat either, you get to choose from 21 different “runners” for free – Cat α, Cat β, Cat γ, Cat Tail, Mock Nyan Cat, Parrot, Human, Push-Up, Sit-Up, Rubber Duck, City, Sausage, Dots, Dinosaur, Terrier, Hedgehog, Horse, Penguin 2, Hamster Wheel, Octopus, and Steam Train.

There’s also another 21 runners if you want to pay for them – Cheetah, Dog, Puppy, Rabbit, Frog, Bird, Penguin, Dolphin, Dragon, Owl, Cogwheel, Bonfire, Drop, Rocket, Pendulum, Newtons Cradle, Sine Curve, Pulse, Coffee, Reindeer & Sleigh, and Snowman.

And if you really want to personalise RunCat, there’s a paid option to unlock the “Self-Made Runner”, which will let you create your own animation to track your CPU usage.

Options

There are a few options in RunCat to change the way it works:

• Show CPU Usage – This puts the CPU usage percentage as text next to the runner.
• Invert Speed – This means the runner will be running fast when your CPU speed is low, and vice versa. Sounds weird to me.
• Flipped Horizontally – This flips your runner, so it will run in the opposite direction.
• Launch at Login – I shouldn’t need to explain this.

Download

Check out the RunCat website, and download RunCat for free from the Mac App Store.