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- First Look: Breaking the print / sign / fax cycle with Zosh for iPhone
Filed under: Found Footage, iPhone, App Store, First Look, App Review
Zosh [$2.99, iTunes Link] provides a way to do just that. It's an iPhone-based tool for marking up and signing PDF documents with text, dates, and signatures. The company says that Microsoft Word document support will be available soon.
Zosh works in concert with a secure file server to make the documents available to your iPhone. When you receive a document as an attachment to an email message, you just forward it from your Zosh account email address to a special zosh.com address. Zosh recognizes your email address and then stores the document folder; the contents of that folder are visible on your iPhone on a Documents screen. For training purposes, Zosh has created a "Getting Started with Zosh" PDF that you can read for step-by-step instructions and hands-on demonstrations.
To view the document, you simply tap on its name. When you find a place that you need to annotate with a date, text, or signature, you simply tap on the Insert button and you're given a choice of what to insert. If you choose date, a date picker with several different date formats appears. Selecting text brings up a text edit field into which you type the text you want to annotate the PDF with. To add a signature, an automatically scrolling window appears into which you write your name on the touchsc. I found that using a stylus like the Pogo Stylus helped me to create a more accurate signature than my finger.
Any of the annotations can be in a choice of four colors -- blue, black, gray, and red -- and can be moved around the page, rotated 360°, resized (bigger or smaller), or deleted. For text annotations, you can choose from a variety of fonts, although none of them really stood out as being unique. Of course, if you're annotating a contract or other legal document, I'm not sure you want to put text in some sort of oddball font.
Once you're done signing the document, you "transmit" it back to your email address or that of another recipient. There's no need to print the original, find a pen to sign the document, then scan and or fax the document before sending it on. Zosh does exactly what it sets out to do, breaking the cycle of wasteful printing and faxing, and it does it on the iPhone alone. While testing the app on a business trip, I had the opportunity to use Zosh to annotate and sign a couple of documents, and I found it to be a lifesaver.
While Zosh isn't for everybody, if you are the type of person who needs to receive, annotate, and sign documents, and then return them to another person, the app is worth much more than the $2.99 price tag.TUAWFirst Look: Breaking the print / sign / fax cycle with Zosh for iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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iPhone - App Store - Apple - iTunes - Microsoft Word
Переслать - The birth of the iPod
Filed under: Hardware, Odds and ends, Steve Jobs, Apple History, iPod classic
Wired has an interesting look at the early days of the iPod, and what's most fascinating is just how fully formed the idea of the iPod and iTunes was. The idea itself originates from a company called PortalPlayer, where hardware designer Tony Fadell had the idea to create a player that could eventually be paired with "a Napster music sale service to complement it."
That's it -- even that early, the iPod + iTunes idea that would eventually revolutionize Apple was that complete. Of course, that was before Apple even got invested in the project -- once they did, Steve Jobs put "100 percent" of his time into the project, and they ended with the iconic design and the feel and experience that pushed it beyond any other MP3 player at the time.
That's not to say that development was smooth sailing after that -- apparently there was a major battery issue that kept battery life at a super low three hours until Apple and PortalPlayer got it fixed up. Always fun to hear the backstory on the stuff that would eventually make this company what it is today.TUAWThe birth of the iPod originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 09 Dec 2009 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - Ratio cookbook becomes an iPhone app
Filed under: Software, Odds and ends, Developer, iPhone, App Store
I recently read this terrific article in the New Yorker about cookbooks, and I think one of the reasons I liked it so much is that it hits pretty close to home -- I do like reading and browsing cookbooks, and I don't cook nearly as much as I want to. And I can totally identify with the tension between searching the pages of recipes looking for a secret, weighed against actually getting the experience necessary to be a great chef. From the article: "The recipe is to spend your life cooking."
But that hasn't stopped cookbook writers from trying to import as much knowledge as they can. The Ratio cookbook is one that caught my eye recently; rather than giving out recipes and directions, the book sticks with math and recipes as a way of breaking down foods and the way they're made. Instead of step one, step two, step three, it's one part sugar, two parts fat, three parts flour, mixed up and baked. It's an interesting way at examining cooking, and now it's come to the iPhone -- the cookbook (or at least the ratios and recipes from it) is being released as an iPhone app. You can browse the "32 critical ratios" for doughs, meats, and sauces, a unit converter, and other recipes including ways to share and tweak your own. You'll probably need to know a little about cooking already (and as that article says, just knowing the recipes doesn't actually give you the meals), but it should be a helpful reference.
All the page says is soon (no price yet, either), but if you keep an eye on Michael Ruhlman's website, they'll probably post when the app is out in the store.TUAWRatio cookbook becomes an iPhone app originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 08 Dec 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - How to insult a Mac Mini: make it warm the wipes for you
Filed under: Odds and ends, Mac mini
How would you insult a Mac Mini? Well, one way is to discover that, after you move it across the room, away from toddlers with longer arms than they were born with (the better to yank ill-placed computers to the floor through the crib slats, my dear) the Mac Mini makes an excellent diaper wipe warmer.
I only stuck the container on top of the Mini because I had to do a quick change before someone crawled off the changing table. The next diaper change I discovered the wipes were warm and cozy.
The Mac Mini is sulking. Already its only job was to run the baby monitor cam. Now it can add another job for which it is woefully overqualified. It can talk to the hand, says the lady with the law degree who is relegated to actually changing all those diapers and watching Yo Gabba Gabba. (Don't click. Seriously. I won't be responsible for the ensuing seizure.)
NB: If you're reading this post and screaming inside, "teddy bears? Babies? But I came here for technology!" then have a look at this post detailing my tear-down of the standalone iSight so that it works as a night-vision camera. If that doesn't help at least a little, then you may be in need of a hug. Look at the teddy bear. See? He loves you.TUAWHow to insult a Mac Mini: make it warm the wipes for you originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - Apple releases updates for AirPort software, MacBook and MacBook Pro EFI
Filed under: Airport, Software Update, Apple, Macbook Pro, MacBook
Apple today released several updates today including AirPort client software, and EFI firmware revisions for some MacBook and MacBook Pro models.
First, the AirPort Client Update 2009-002 update fixes the following issues:
- An Inability to turn AirPort on or off in some cases after upgrading from Mac OS X Leopard.
- An occasional loss of network connection when using Wake on Demand.
- An Inability to create a computer-to-computer network, or share the Internet connection on some MacBook, MacBook Pro, and Mac mini computers.
is available for the Late 2008 aluminum MacBook model and the Early 2009 and Mid 2009 white MacBook models, and for Late 2008 15 inch MacBook Pro models and Early 2009 17 inch MacBook Pro models. (The KB article for the MacBook EFI update may need a little editing, as it refers to a suggestion from a mysterious 'Glenno.')
These updates are available through Software Update, or they're available from Apple's support page.TUAWApple releases updates for AirPort software, MacBook and MacBook Pro EFI originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - Snaptell for iPhone goes 2.0
Filed under: Software, Odds and ends, Freeware, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch
One of my favorite apps in the early days of the App Store, SnapTell Explorer, has recently updated to version 2.0, and while they've dropped the "Explorer" part and were purchased by Amazon earlier this year, the app still offers the same impressive functionality: take a shot of a book, DVD, or album with the iPhone, and have it pull up ratings, information, and prices on the item in question. Despite the Amazon buyout, it still offers prices from elsewhere, though the Amazon mobile store in the app is the best-looking choice. The app now also lets you share "snaps" (you can email a found item to a friend for, say, a holiday wishlist), and it has a few reporting options for incorrect matches, to make their system even better.
I'm still amazed by this app and how it can pull up an object from almost any picture -- more than a few times I've been in a bookstore or music store, and pulled up the app to snap an item, only to find it cheaper somewhere online. The app is a free download, too -- I can't think of a more must-have app for serious comparison shoppers.TUAWSnaptell for iPhone goes 2.0 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - DIY iSight night vision camera
Filed under: Hardware, Cool tools, Hacks, How-tos, Tips and tricks
Now that most all Apple computers come with their own built-in iSight, the standalone iSight has taken a bit of a back seat. It always was a gorgeous piece of Apple art, though, and I really wanted to use it in a functional way. An easy way was to attach it to the Mac mini I have in the baby's room, acting as a video baby monitor, but the iSight doesn't do that well in low light, and of course works not at all in no light. And while the audio was just fine, there are some neat new "push on motion" capabilities in camera monitoring software that I liked. It will even record on motion, thanks to today's update.
"Night vision" is predicated on the idea that infrared light bounces off of objects the same way that any other kind of light does, only that our eyes can't see IR light. So while a room could potentially be brightly lit with an infrared light source, you would see only darkness. Fortunately, camera CCDs aren't human eyes and many are as sensitive to IR light as they are to the visible spectrum. So, ostensibly, all you need is an IR light source. Heck, even a television remote control would do the trick, albeit dimly.
The problem is that cameras that are not intended as night-vision cameras have an IR filter built-in so that the camera's reaction is limited to light sources the human eye can see. And, specifically, on the external iSight, that filter is a coating that's bonded to a small block of glass inside the iSight.
Now I had a project. After first scoring a broken iSight on Craigslist, should I need parts, I took the iSight apart, took out the glass block, and removed the IR coating in a quick bath of sulfuric acid. [Do not try this at home unless you know what you are doing, please. -Ed.] You could see the film slide off the glass.
Once the iSight was reassembled and an IR light source applied, bingo! Night vision. The only downside has been that because sulfuric acid is a bit of a blunt-edged instrument (to put it mildly), whatever was giving it the ability to correctly sense the rest of the red is now gone. In the gallery, you can see the result in the last image. Ah well. If I ever want it to return to regular function, I can drop in the intact lens from the broken iSight. But for now, the increased range is a great asset. My iPhone is a little monitor that follows me around the house and pushes notification of any motion.
Special thanks to Jason Babcock, for blazing the trail on iSight tear-downs.
TUAWDIY iSight night vision camera originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 08 Dec 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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