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- TUAW Tip: Setting up iChat Buddy Updates
Filed under: Tips and tricks, Odds and ends
When using iChat, do you sometimes feel like you're stuck back in 2005? Away from all the glory and marvels of today's modern social networking? Bring your iChat client into the golden age and sign up for iChat Buddy Updates at AOL's site so you can share your status messages as social-network updates.
Buddy updates transform iChat into a social network tool. You'll see a status feed from all your buddies including all the status changes you might have missed while you were out. You'll learn that your pal went to the gym 90 minutes ago and out to eat 75 minutes ago and into a meeting 4 minutes ago. (Great workout, huh?)
What's more, you can add your Twitter, Flickr and other site feeds into the mix so it's not just a steady stream of "away", "available", "away", "available" notations.
And of course, once you know you're building an audience with this new beta tool, you're sure to start using more interesting status messages than "Work only! Evil overlords on a case-by-case basis" all the time.
Buddy updates are a free service of AIM. Sign in with your iChat user name and ID at the buddy update site.
Full Disclosure: TUAW is an AOL property.
Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsПереслать - Wii Transfer updated for Mii capture
Making cartoon avatars of yourself is hard work, and nobody wants to redo all that tweaking when you've got a perfectly good doppelganger sitting right there on your Wii console... with no good way to get it off the TV and onto your Mac. What a drag! Good thing there's the new version 2.6 of Wii Transfer, the Swiss Army Knife of Mac-Wii connection tools, to the rescue.
Aside from the headline feature of copying your Miis to your Mac as JPEG images (which requires a bit of fancy dancing with Bluetooth and the Wii controller, but it's doable), the new version adds support for most popular movie formats, improved movie playback with random timeline access, selection of specific iTunes playlists for streaming access, and more. For $19, you can get a long way towards turning your Wii into a low-budget Apple TV.Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsПереслать - Back to School: Canvastic v3.5
Filed under: Multimedia, Software, Education, Odds and ends, Graphic Design
TUAW's going Back to School! We'll be bringing you tips and reviews for students, parents and teachers right up until the bell rings in September. Read on cool software for K-8 classrooms.
Canvastic LLC has announced a new version of the Canvastic graphics, writing, and publishing tool. Canvastic is designed to be used in K-8 classrooms, and is fun and productive for students.
Canvastic 3.5 is designed for use on both PPC and Intel Macs (which is great, as many American schools still use older Macs). The student publishing tool includes drawing, text and presentation tools, plus an Audio Tool for voice recording, insertion of sounds and integration with iTunes. Audio tracks can be played in documents or presentations.
Other new features include:
- Transparency and color tones in graphics and text
- Teachers can enable or disable spell checking, and also keep students from "customizing" the dictionary
- New brush shapes
- The ability to import digital photographs
- Additional templates, backgrounds, and art
Click here to download the free trial.Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsПереслать - Dear Auntie TUAW: Did I overstep my data limits?
Filed under: iPhone
Cara Tia TUAW,
I need your help please. I am in Mexico and have an iPhone with a 150 MB data plan and 300 minutes. My carrier says that I have passed my data limit and owe them around $150 usd. According to the Cellular Network Data on my iPhone, I have used 35MB and 83 minutes (Settings > General > Usage). My question is, is this information technically good enough to fight back these charges? I think it must be, but I have to be sure. Can you help me, please?
Love, Joe P
p.s. Why I don't have an unlimited data plan? because it costs around $110 usd a month, that's why. My current data plan costs about $55 a month. Thank you!
Dear Joe P,
Auntie wishes she had better news for you, but the usage meter on the phone is notoriously unreliable. If you've restored or updated your iPhone in the last month (2.0.1 anyone?), you may have accidentally reset those values. Personally, we at TUAW can sneeze through 150 MB just by loading our own home page (or maybe it just seems that way).
Of course, feel free to contact customer service -- but relying on the onboard usage stats isn't going to take you very far.
Sorry for the bad news, caro.
Love,
Auntie TUAW
Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsПереслать - Ten ways OS X rocks
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, OS, Software, Cool tools
Smashing Magazine does a good old-fashioned "why OS X is so much better" piece -- ok, well they're not that blatant (it's actually focused on the "top ten usability highs"), but with all of the iPhone/App Store news going around, it's kind of refreshing to see some nice, traditional Mac praise.
So why is OS X better than other (*cough*Windows*cough) operating systems? Metaphors play a huge part -- when you use a Mac, you're not just browsing through files or using plugins, you're flipping through what look like album covers, or pulling up a "Dashboard." And everything is extremely intuitive -- it's clear upon first look at the screen what does what or where to find certain features of the operating system.
Every system has problems, and OS X is no exception. But using it day to day, OS X definitely gives out all kinds of "wait, it was that easy?" and "just works" moments. And that's why we're such big fans of it in the first place.Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsПереслать - Frotz brings text adventuring to the iPhone
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Freeware, Retro Mac, iPhone, App Store
We've already seen text adventures on the jailbroken iPhone way back when, but now Craig Smith has brought the z-machine interpreter (the engine that runs classic text adventure games like Zork, Planetfall and all the Infocom titles) to the iPhone officially with Frotz, available right now in the App Store.
It comes with a few games to begin with, and there's also built in access to the Interactive Fiction Database, so you can grab as many text-based adventures as you'd like -- hours and hours of text-based good times. Whether you're an old hand at GET LAMP or new to the surprisingly vast world of IF, Frotz seems like a perfect portal to all the adventuring there is to find out there.
[via Joystiq]Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsПереслать - Simplify Media for iPhone
Filed under: iPhone, App Store
The Simplify Media iPhone application (iTunes link) v1.1 has hit the App Store. As you can see from the video above, with Simplify Media installed on your Mac and on your iPhone or iPod touch, you can stream your home iTunes library to your mobile device wherever you may be. It will supposedly work over EDGE, 3G, or WiFi and promises what might be the holy grail for mobile audio devices -- practically unlimited storage.
To get started you'll need to download the Simplify Media Mac client as well as register for a free account. Then install the iPhone client on your mobile device and your home Mac should show up as a streaming source. In addition to your home machine, you can connect to up to 30 friends also running the cross-platform software.
Simplify Media for Mac is a free download. Only the first 100,000 copies of the iPhone version are free to download, after that it will be $3.99.
[via Gizmodo]Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsПереслать - AppleInsider: Mac OS X 10.5.5 hits 9F13
AppleInsider reports that the Mac OS X team is squashing ever more bugs, and has released version 10.5.5 build 9F13 to developers. Unlike prior builds, Apple released it without any known issues.
The article notes that Apple has made 115 corrections to Mac OS X code as a part of the 10.5.5 update. Improvements to power management, mail sync, preferences sync, networking, firewall, kernel, file system, and the Mobile Me preferences pane are all expected to be included.
AppleInsider expected that the update would be released to the public in "the coming weeks."
Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsПереслать - More App Store sales figures
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iPhone, App Store
Last week, iPhone app shop tap tap tap released preliminary sales data for its iPhone applications. The figures were interesting (and impressive), but at the time, only seven days of data was available. As Steve Jobs told the Wall Street Journal on Monday, the App Store's first month generated about $30 million US in sales, and I was interested in how that would translate on a micro level. Yesterday, tap tap tap's John Casasanta posted its full July sales totals (save a few territories, which will likely have little effect on the final tally), allowing us to do just that.
As with the data released last week, the numbers are extremely impressive. Apple's reporting process calculated sales from June 29, 2008 through August 2, 2008. However, as John notes, because the App Store didn't launch until July 10, 2008, the sales data is actually for 24 days.
For tap tap tap's two applications, this is the breakdown:
Where to Go (App Store link) sold 24,094 copies at $2.99 a copy in 24 days.
Tipulator (App Store link) sold 3,168 copies at $.99 a copy in 24 days.
After Apple's 30% cut, tap tap tap's net revenue was $52,815 US for 24 days. Wow. That averages to just about $2200 US a day.
Read on for more analysis.Continue reading More App Store sales figures
Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsПереслать - PocketMac for BlackBerry updated, supports Entourage 2008 and iTunes
Filed under: Software
Although the iPhone is the mobile platform of choice for many Mac users, some of us actually use something else. Shocking, I know. Whether it is by choice or dictated by work, tons of Mac users are also BlackBerry users. The problem is, native BlackBerry support is non-existent, leading crackberry/Mac addicts to choose between two software solutions: PocketMac and The Missing Sync. PocketMac is free for all BlackBerry users, thanks to a licensing agreement with RIM, and has just been updated to version 4.1.25.
Here are some of the highlights:
- Support for Lotus Notes 7 and Entourage 2008 PIM sync. Entourage users have been waiting for this since Office 2008 was released earlier this year.
- Support for syncing non-protected iTunes playlists (Windows users don't get all the fun).
- Support for syncing iPhoto photos and albums to the BlackBerry, with options to keep albums intact and scale photos for the device. You can also import BlackBerry photos directly to iPhoto.
- Sync Notes from Leopard's Mail.app
- Support for all BlackBerry units released as of May 2008
I'm not sure if PocketMac 4.1.25 works with devices running BlackBerry OS 4.5 (my carrier hasn't officially upgraded yet), but if you are running 4.5, let us know in the comments if you can use the latest version of PocketMac. Want to make your BlackBerry look more Mac-like? Try one of the free Leopard themes available here.
PocketMac 4.1.25 requires OS X 10.3.9 or higher and is free for all BlackBerry users.Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsПереслать - MacBook Air to get 'imminent' speed bump?
Filed under: Hardware, MacBook Air
PhoneNews claims they can "confirm" that Apple will speed-bump the MacBook Air with a Penryn-class Intel Core 2 Duo processor, increasing the clock speed to 2 GHz and up. The story also notes that, since the processor requires more power, the Air will ship with a higher-capacity battery and 60-watt power adapter.
Engadget goes further, noting that clock speeds could (theoretically) reach 3.06GHz. Also, they speculate that the Air could feature improved integrated graphics if it adopts the Intel Centrino 2 chipset.
Alternatively, Engadget notes that Intel plans to release several flavors of low-voltage Penryn chips in September, which might indeed be slated for the MacBook Air. Using these chips, however, would decrease the power requirements noted by PhoneNews, not increase them.
PhoneNews says national retailers have been alerted "to be prepared for the upgrade." This may be part of several laptop announcements rumored to be happening in September.
[Via IGM.]
Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsПереслать - Back to School: ProfCast half off today
Filed under: Software, Education, Deals
TUAW's going Back to School! We'll be bringing you tips and reviews for students, parents and teachers right up until the bell rings in September. Read on for help for professors and instructors.
Humble Daisy is offering 50 percent off its ProfCast software, which helps educators (or anyone else who presents via PowerPoint or Keynote) record slide-based lectures as podcasts, and share them via iTunes U and iWeb.
The promotion is only available today, August 14. Academic users will receive an additional 25% off over the 50% discount. Purchasing today also allows you to upgrade to the next version for free.
The software is $30 today only (normally $60). For Academic customers, ProfCast is
$15$22.50. Volume discounts are also available.ProfCast is a universal binary, and requires Mac OS X 10.4 or higher. You can check out a 15-day demo, too.
Update: My mistake, folks: the $15 price was based on a faulty calculation I did -- commenters are reporting that the Academic price is $22.50. A thousand apologies for that.
Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsПереслать - Movies now showing in NZ and Australian iTunes stores
They may be first to see the sun, but they've been waiting quite a while for movie rentals and purchases from the iTunes store -- now that patience has paid off, as movies have now arrived in a land down under. Aussie and Kiwi iTunes users can purchase and rent movies to their hearts' content. New releases on DVD will premiere day-and-date on the iTunes store at the same time as they're on sale in physical form in the two new countries of service.
iTunes movie purchases in Australia will kick off the price tier at A$9.99 for catalog titles, A$17.99 for recent releases and A$24.99 for newreleases; rentals will be A$3.99 for library title rentals and A$5.99 for new releases. iTunes movies in New Zealand start at NZ$9.99 for catalog title purchases, NZ$17.99 for recent releases and NZ$24.99 for new releases, rentals are NZ$4.99 for library titles / NZ$6.99 for new releases. As in the US store, getting the high-def version costs an additional dollar. Rentals can be held for 30 days before you start watching and then you have 48 hours to finish (a whole day longer than US customers? Must be the International Date Line).
Thanks to everyone who sent this inRead | Permalink | Email this | CommentsПереслать - Wired.com needs your help testing the iPhone's network speeds
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Hardware, Internet Tools
Sure, Apple claims the 3G is fast, but with all the problems with 3Gs connecting all over the world, just how fast is it really? The folks at Wired.com have decided to find out, and they need your help. They'd like you to test your iPhone at the TestmyiPhone.com network speed testing site, and then hit up their global ZeeMap to register your speed.
Instructions are over on their website, and they're testing both Edge and 3G upload and download speeds, so you'll have to run three tests total. You'll also have to sign up for a ZeeMap account.
The eventual payoff will be a relatively clear look at iPhone speeds around the world. Wired says that they'll eventually average global data, but there's a lot of things that could be done with data like this -- heatmaps? Speed per carrier? Once they get a good set of figures together, there's probably all kinds of things that can be done.Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsПереслать - Fox releases X-Files branded iPods
Filed under: Hardware, iPod Family, Multimedia, Cult of Mac, Odds and ends
We know -- you've wanted an iPod for years, but you've always wanted one branded with your favorite TV show, and that 90210 version didn't cut it. Boy, is it your lucky day. Fox has released some "Limited Edition" X-Files iPod Classics and Nanos, ready for your purchase right now for only $329.00. You read that right -- you're paying almost $100 for pictures of Mulder and Scully. But surely if anyone's worth it, they are, right?
Unfortunately, as TUAW's resident X-Files nerd (well, one of them) Robert Palmer pointed out to me, they're branded with the latest movie's title, not the original TV show, so those who don't actually Want to Believe (y'know, after all these years, why doesn't Mulder just believe already?) will likely be disappointed. But since you can customize them with your name (or whatever else you want on there -- we recommend "Clyde Bruckman"), hopefully the movie's title won't concern true fans too much.
[via Chip Chick]Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsПереслать - MotionX Dice lets you roll dem bones on your iPhone
Filed under: Gaming, Software, iPhone
The folks at Fullpower kindly sent us a note about their new iPhone app, MotionX Dice, and after giving it a try, I can say it works as promised -- if you want a good-looking and fun way to roll dice on your iPhone, this is it.
There are several types of well-rendered 3D dice and tables to choose from. The actual "rolling" is done by shaking the iPhone, which is a good time. The app will eventually be raised in price, but right now it can be found for free on the App Store. Frankly, this kind of pricing change smacks of top apps list scamming to us, but we'll give Fullpower the benefit of the doubt, as they say it's a promotion.
However, we do have a bone to pick with Fullpower about this app. As fun as Yahtzee is (though there is one set of Poker dice, so you can play that, too), most of the dice that TUAW nerds -- or former TUAW nerds -- roll are of the d8, d10, and d20 variety. Any chance we can get a few of those added into the dice-rolling mix? d6s are all right for some damage types, but we can't roll a Nat 20 or break out the d4 Magic Missile with the program as it is.Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsПереслать - Carriers blaming Apple for iPhone 3G slowness
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iPhone
As we've noted before, the iPhone 3G isn't as speedy as we'd like and sometimes has connections problems. Some folks have been blaming the carriers, like AT&T here in the States, but evidence is mounting that the problem may lie with the iPhone itself. GigaOm quotes an analyst at Nomura Securities who put the blame on "...an immature chipset and radio protocol stack" from maker Infineon.
Meanwhile, CNET is reporting that T-Mobile in the Netherlands has a blog post (original Dutch) suggesting that the problem is "...a hardware / software specific issue of the iPhone itself," while a Vodafone spokeswoman in Australia told the Sydney Morning Herald that the problems were specific to the iPhone and not their network. Apparently, the problem was compounded by Apple's famous secrecy, with the iPhone 3G only released to some carriers for testing a day before it was released.
It's not that surprising that a new product would have growing pains. At the same time, it's hardly the case that the networks are as fast and extensive as we would hope. Hopefully, future firmware updates will improve the situation (if it's primarily a software issue). Otherwise, Apple may have to change the radio chip supplier for future iPhones to bring performance in line with other 3G smartphones.
[via Gizmodo]Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsПереслать - CSS trick mimics sideways-flicking behavior in MobileSafari
Filed under: iPod Family, Tips and tricks, Developer, iPhone
Ajaxian has posted a ridiculously simple way to enable web apps to mimic the iPhone's side-to-side flicking behavior using custom CSS supported by MobileSafari. If you're creating a web app specifically for iPhone and iPod touch users, you can get a similar feel to a native application with MobileSafari.
MobileSafari includes some CSS 3 support, including advanced DOM selectors and support for animations and transitions. Chances are, other browsers will have limited support for CSS 3 draft standards, and whatever you write probably will only work in MobileSafari and Safari 3 on the desktop.
The test application in this movie shows how it tracks finger movements across the screen, and performs actions based on the distance "swiped." Very nifty.
[Via Cameron.io.]
Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsПереслать - Eye-Fi and SmugMug team up for geotagging
Filed under: Accessories, Peripherals, Wireless
The Eye-Fi card is an SD card with a difference -- it has Wi-Fi built into it for easy camera-to-internet transfer of photos. It comes in three different flavors; Eye-Fi Home, Eye-Fi Share, and Eye-Fi Explore. The latter card (US$129) includes free Wi-Fi access at Wayport hotspots, unlimited geotagging using Skyhook Wireless (the same service Apple and Google use for location data on pre-3G iPhones and iPod touch handhelds), and an unlimited WebShare service for sharing photos.
Eye-Fi and SmugMug (an online photo sharing site) announced a partnership providing a year of geotagging and hotspot access for SmugMug members using an original Eye-Fi Card or the $US99.99 Eye-Fi Share. SmugMug provides standard (US$39.95 annually), power user (US$59.95 annually) and professional ($149.95 annually) accounts, all of which provide ad-free, backed-up, and secure hosting of your photos.
Do you use an Eye-Fi card with your digital camera? If you do, what service do you upload your photos to, and do you use the geotagging capability? Leave us a comment.Permalink | Email this | CommentsПереслать - Rohos Logon Key: Turn any USB device into a login key
Filed under: Software, Security
We've covered USB key security systems before, but Rohos Logon Key looks like an interesting new player in the field for two reasons: cost and convenience. Like other USB key systems it allows you to control user logins with a USB key, but unlike other systems you don't have to use a dedicated key -- practically any USB flash drive will work. In fact, since it depends only on the USB device's serial number and doesn't store anything on the device, many other things will work as well, like iPods, memory cards, or dedicated USB keys.
As you can see from the video, when you pull the device you can set it to either lock the screen immediately or launch OS X's built-in screensaver with password protection. When you plug it back it, it automatically fills the password for you. It also works at the account login screen. Frankly, I don't really know how secure this solution is, since I don't know how hard it is to spoof a device serial number if you know what you're doing. On the other hand, for basic "step away from your desk for a moment" security it looks like it might be a convenient solution.
Rohos Logon Key is $29 from Tesline-Service and a demo is available for download.
[via MacNN]Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsПереслать
Виртуальное казино Голдфишка - игры в интернете.
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