January 2008
A color toolbox →
Filed under: Features, Graphic Design
There are quite a few OS X applications and plugins available to make life easier for Mac-loving designers of any ilk. I’d like to highlight a few that have earned a place my heart (or my color picker). Most of these tools apply to any 2D designer, whether you make websites, interfaces or spend your time in the world of hardcopy. The price to value...
Amazon buys audiobook vendor Audible →
Filed under: iTS
The tie between spoken-books merchant Audible and iTunes has always been strong. Audible’s catalog forms the backbone of iTunes’ audio book offerings, and there’s a history of Audible offering iTunes-exclusive content. So it came as a surprise to me when Amazon bought Audible for $300 million, announced today. I’d imagine that the deal includes provisions...
Parallels webcast today launches Virtuozzo... →
Filed under: Enterprise, Software
Despite the publicity around Parallels’ flagship Mac product, Parallels Desktop (which we’ve contributed to in some small part), there are some other interesting tools in the stable of Parallels’ parent company, SWsoft — which is now being rebranded as Parallels, Inc. just to keep us on our toes. One of those products is Parallels Virtuozzo...
Watch Report reviews Nike Amp+ Remote Control →
Filed under: Accessories, iPod Family
I’m a fan of watches, so I have been interested in the Nike Amp+ Remote Control for awhile. That’s the watch/iPod remote control from Nike that works with your iPod Nano /Nike+ combo. It will let you start, stop, and fast forward music, as well as tell the time and give you one button access to your power song. I haven’t bought one for a...
7 ways to listen to Pandora without a web browser →
Filed under: Audio, Internet, Features, Windows, Macintosh, Web services, Mozilla, web 2.0
Yesterday we posted a short article about Pandora’s Box, a desktop client for Pandora that lets users access the streaming music service without opening a web browser. And our intelligent Download Squad readers instantly started sending us suggestions for alternate clients. So here’s a roundup...
Staff Picks: The Best (our favorite) iTunes... →
I remember way back in the olden days (circa 1999) driving into the city meant an hour of sitting in traffic in the back of a taxi, likely spending some quality time reading a good book or magazine. Now don’t get me wrong, I love a good read, but enduring that commute can be a lot less boring when you throw podcasts into the mix. Best of all there is some really amazing stuff out there, including...
Ask TUAW: Display problems, Outlook invites,... →
Filed under: Features, Troubleshooting, Ask TUAW
I’m getting a little bit behind on Ask TUAW, so this time we’ll have a bit of a firesale to catch up a bit. We’ve got questions on MacBook displays, Outlook invitations, streaming video from a Mac to an iPhone, syncing iCal between Macs and much more. As always your suggestions are most welcome, and questions for next week should...
Netscape web browser has one month to live →
Filed under: Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Mozilla, AOL
digg_url = "http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/01/31/netscape-web-browser-has-one-month-to-live/";
If you’re one of the two or three people who still use Netscape Navigator as your primary web browser, we’ve got some good news. Well, kind of. Last month we reported that AOL (our parent company) would end support for Netscape...
iPhonesque makes Growl look like the iPhone →
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Cool tools, Tips and tricks, Odds and ends, Freeware
Can’t say I ever really vibed with any of the default Growl styles (Music Video is cool for showing off your Mac, but a little too distracting for common use), and I’ve pretty much just stuck with Smoke, because it’s simple and cool looking. But iPhonesque is nice enough to make me...
LeopardMOD: End-User Mods for Leopard →
We’ve covered Leopard modifications and mods many times before, (culminating in the Ultimate Leopard Customization Guide) but LeopardMOD is worth posting about, even almost 3 months after Leopard’s release.
For those of you who haven’t seen it before, LepardMOD is basically a preference pane for those “hidden features” in Leopard. LeopardMOD is the ultimate leopard customization app.
It does...
Apple-Stanford promotion on iTunes →
Filed under: iTS, iTunes
Apple and Stanford University’s Lively Arts have teamed up to bring a new promotion to iTunes and iTunes U. This new promotion will allow people associated with Standford in some capacity (students, faculty, and staff) and Lively Arts patrons to download free songs from artists participating in SU’s Lively Arts. On Stanford’s website, they list all of...
Order prints of iPhone photos with the phone... →
Filed under: Software, iPhone
ECCE TERRAM announced a new service this week that will allow people to order prints of photos stored on their iPhones from the phones themselves. With their Photo2lab Client, users may select a photo (both those taken with the iPhone and those transfered from iPhoto), add text and create prints, post cards and even mini photo books. You’ll even be able to add...
1Password brings form-filling to the iPhone →
Back at Macworld we saw a sneak-peek from 1Password creater Dave Teare of the (then forthcoming) iPhone form-filling, username-storing 1Password bookmarklet for iPhone (pictured above at Moscone). Today sees a new build of 1Password pushed out for beta-loving users who want to take advantage of it. Of course, one main qualm people may have with this is “just how secure is my...
iWeb 2.0.3 update →
Filed under: iLife, Software Update
In addition to releasing the iWork update last night, the updated status on MacBook Air and Apple TV today; Apple just now issued an update for iWeb ‘08. In Apple’s normal long-winded explanation of the update, they say “This update addresses compatibility with Mac OS X.” The 17.2 MB iWeb 2.0.3 update can be downloaded through...
Apple hints at forthcoming Aperture update →
Filed under: Software, Apple Professional, Apple
There’s been much debate on the interwebs on what lies in store for users of Aperture (Apple’s professional-level photo management software). I’m not suggesting that we mourn Aperture’s passing, but it has been a little neglected of late, and as someone who uses Aperture almost daily that makes me intrigued by Apple’s...
Nicecast gets full Leopard support →
Filed under: Software
Today, Rogue Amoeba updated their Nicecast software to 1.9. Nicecast, as you might already know, lets you create your own internet radio station on your Mac. The biggest new “feature” in Nicecast 1.9 is that it fully supports OS X Leopard (10.5). In addition to getting Leopard support, Nicecast also received three new notable features: The update includes...
YouSendIt releases Express for Mac →
Filed under: Software, Freeware, Internet, Apple
I’m probably one of the few bloggers here who hasn’t shelled out for a .Mac subscription (and an iDisk) — I’ve just never personally come across a situation where I needed one. For transferring big files I usually either throw it on a DVD or an FTP site, or I use YouSendIt for free — there’s a 100mb limit, but in...
xScope 2.0 →
Filed under: Software, Graphic Design
If I had any talent whatsoever in the area of graphic design xScope would be a go to app in my toolbox. xScope, for those not in the know, is a great little app that makes measuring onscreen elements a snap. xScope 2.0 raises the ante by adding a Dimensions tool that works as if by magic. Turning on the Dimensions tool lets you find dimensions between various...
Apple TV software update delayed →
Filed under: Software Update, Apple TV
Just a quick update on the status of the Apple TV software upgrade: according to Apple’s web site, the software is not quite ready and will be available in one to two weeks. As we covered during MWSF, the Apple TV Take 2 (or as I like to call it, Apple TV Redux) will feature support buying music/movies/rentals directly from Apple TV, HD rentals and the...
Manchester United v/s Portsmouth : Match Preview →
For this midweek fixture we are facing Portsmouth at Old Trafford.Playing at home is no big threat for United and we have quite successful home matches this season.We are currently unbeaten at home and have won last 11 successive matches since the draw against Reading.Likes of Paul Scholes to start is this match are strong and he is likely to pair with Anderson.Vidic is still out with the bad...
iTunes makes "that music from the MacBook Air... →
Filed under: iTS, Cult of Mac, iTunes
If you, like many other Apple (and non-Apple) customers has fallen in love with the new MacBook Air commercial, you can now easily find its “I’m a New Soul” song in iTunes. Israeli musician Yael Naim sings this hauntingly beautiful song, and because we love you guys, here’s the entire song and original video courtesy of YouTube. ...
We won.. →
Well right now its 4.05 am in morning and hell i am still yelling at my local cable operator.ESPN got fucked up here and we were busy watching some asian shit.
Well i have managed to see one of the goals of Ronaldo-the one with free kick and boy it was worth it.United have won the game with 2 goals and both of them with ronaldo.
Review is still making n i will getting it done once i get to watch...
Campfire goes iPhone →
Filed under: iPod Family, iPhone
If you’re a fan of web-based group chat tool Campfire, you may be pleased to learn that it’s now available for the iPhone. Now, when you visit Campfire sites on the iPhone, you’ll be directed to an iPhone-optimized version.
Due to the way the developers have created the iPhone version, you’ll need to use two-fingered scrolling to move...
High-res Motion templates at motionVFX →
Filed under: Multimedia, Video
motionVFX, a new source of templates for Apple Motion, is offering 2d and 3d templates prepped at 1920x1080 and 24fps. The 10 second clips are downloadable for $10, so I took one for a spin.
There are rare circumstances when I would use a template for a finished piece, and motionVFX has a relatively small (but growing) starting selection which limits the chances...
iTunes: Free Wednesday →
Filed under: iTS, Features, Deals
Several new items have appeared on iTunes since I posted yesterday’s Free Tuesday compilation. Some stores update later than others, and sometimes things that aren’t posted in the morning are posted by the next day. Here are the updated freebies for today.
US: James Otto, Our Discovery Download puts the focus on a different genre each week, offering...
Swag bag winners, t-shirt replacements, many more... →
Filed under: Macworld, TUAW Business
This morning I finally shipped out the first round of swag-bag winners from our Talkcasts. Congratulations to those who called in, I hope you enjoy your junk prizes. Unfortunately our pre-Macworld t-shirt winners wound up with their t-shirts handed out at Macworld, and those were the very last of our version 1.0 TUAW t-shirts. Time and budgets will tell if we...
Apple posts MacBook Air support page →
Filed under: MacBook Air
The first MacBook Air knowledge base article I posted about wasn’t exactly breaking news, but you can find out lots of new tidbits about the MacBook Air by perusing the newly unveiled MacBook Air support page. Take a look at the User’s Guide (PDF), chime in on the forums, or figure out how to setup your MacBook Air. Looks like there is some interesting stuff in...
A more elegant manila envelope →
Filed under: Accessories, MacBook Air
We posted a while ago about AirMail, a vinyl carrier for the MacBook Air which took the manila envelope idea quite literally. It’s conceivable that the sheer sexiness of the MacBook Air may eventually make the manila envelope itself a fashion icon, but in the meantime Studio Leung has come out with a bag that abstracts the envelope concept into a less...
NTFSready cleans up your filename act →
Filed under: Enterprise, Software, Switchers
One of my intermittent day-job responsibilities is to move big chunks of data (20 GB or more in a session) from the friendly, forgiving, name-your-files-whatever-you-want confines of a Mac OS X server onto cranky, finicky, no-funky-characters (but portable) NAS devices so that the data can travel with a production team to some far-away city. This...
Xslimmer: Thin down your obese Mac programs →
Filed under: Utilities, Macintosh, Shareware
Xslimmer is a program for the Mac that reduces the space claimed by Universal Binary applications and their language localizations on your hard disk. The programs remain fully functional, and you reclaim some coveted hard drive space. It’s a win-win. Now you’re beginning to see why we call this program “phat” (pun certainly...
Clutch: control Transmission torrents via the web →
Filed under: Internet, Macintosh
Mac users who like Transmission for their bittorrent-ing may have been jealous of uTorrent users for being able to control their transfers via a web browser. However, Clutch offers a web interface for Transmission so you can leave your Mac torrents active and control them from anywhere. Clutch runs in your menubar on whatever port you choose in the settings (this...
Quick Look Suspicious Packages →
Filed under: OS, Freeware, Security
As I’ve noted before, I’m a huge fan of Quick Look and I eagerly follow the third-party plugins released by developers. A new one came along recently that’s worth a look, especially for the security-conscious out there. Suspicious Package will let you use Quick Look to examine the contents of standard installer packages before you install them....
NetNewsWire: Now with more Review! →
We have reviewed a few different RSS readers here at MacApper before, like NewsFire and Cyndicate, but the one that many people tout above all, is NetNewsWire. NetNewsWire v3.1 is a very mature application, and has a few features that set it apart from the competition. We have mentioned NetNewsWire a few different times on MacApper, but this time it is more of a full review.
Very recently,...
MacBook Air Leopard disk only works with MacBook... →
Filed under: MacBook Air
As we speaking many, many people are anxiously awaiting the arrival of their MacBook Air. When you open up the MacBook Air you’ll see that it includes a Leopard installation disk, as every other Mac does. This Apple KB article supplies us with an interesting fact: the Leopard disk will only work with a MacBook Air. The Installer checks to see if it is running on an...
CosmoPod video downloader for Safari goes 2.0 →
Filed under: Video, Internet Tools
If you want an instant conversion mechanism for web videos to iPod-able formats, there’s the recently mentioned Tooble; if you want the same capability in a handy Safari plugin, there’s CosmoPod. The 2.0 version of CosmoPod is now available and it offers H.264 support, QuickTime 7.4 compatibility, and more.
CosmoPod will convert almost all web video...
Become a Real Guitar Hero: Learn to Shred with... →
I like to obsess over things. As soon as I find something interesting enough, I’ll invest a good ninety percent of my time just to get the hang of it. Old school Gillette razors, chess, hold ‘em and Jeet Kune Do have all had their share of my attention over the past few years, but this Christmas I avoided a disaster.
If you can feel where I’m going with this click the jump.
If you haven’t heard...
When is HD not HD? →
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iTS, Video, Apple TV
ZDNet’s George Ou doesn’t exactly have a great record when it comes to Apple related analysis, but even the stopped clock is right twice a day, and he’s got an interesting article up about the forthcoming HD movies that Apple is planning to offer with Apple TV Take Two. His central point is this: high definition video is about...
VMware Fusion Updated to version 1.1.1 →
Filed under: Software
Although I am, and always will be, a devoted user of Apple products, the Macintosh and OSX, occasionally I find the need to do something that only the vagaries of Windows can accomplish. In the past, this required me to have a separate computer (a PC) with an install of Windows. Fortunately, with Apple’s switch to all Intel all the time, I no longer need that other...
Apple post iWork updates →
Filed under: Software Update, Apple
If you’re an iWork 08 user, then you may want to run a software update, as Apple has just pushed out updates for all three applications. As ever, there’s hugely informative release notes: for Pages 3.0.2 and Numbers 1.0.2 “[t]his update addresses compatibility with Mac OS X” while the Keynote 4.0.2 update “primarily addresses...
Panic releases Coda developer's resource →
Filed under: Software, Internet Tools
Coda is Panic’s awesome all-in-one web worker’s application that we’ve written about before. We even got a nice first hand look at this month’s Macworld Expo. Today, the folks at Panic have released a Developer Zone for Coda, which is full of great resources like video tutorials, quick tips, handy Applescripts and feature articles. If...
File Action: a free, light-weight alternative to... →
Filed under: Productivity, Freeware, .Mac
Many of us here around the TUAW home office love Hazel ($21.95), the great folder-based automation utility that you can set up to run various rules to process (e.g. move, copy, sort) your files. However, we also like free, and so I was intrigued by a new application called File Action that is basically a kind of Hazel-light. File Action concentrates on...
Mac 101: Apple's product guide →
Filed under: Mac 101
Back to basics with Mac 101, our ongoing series of posts aimed at new Mac users. If you’ve got a hankering for news about the latest Mac-compatible products, you’ve got plenty of places to look (including, naturally, right here). What if you’ve got a specific product need, something obscure, small-audience or somewhat vintage? You can always hit the search...
Complete guide to iPhone car integration now... →
Filed under: Accessories, iPhone
Jeremy Horwitz at iLounge has written a comprehensive guide for integrating the iPhone with you car, from a budget-friendly rig to the ultimate set-up. The problem, of course, is that there’s no single device, cable or solution that will manage calls, music, and charge your iPhone’s battery simultaneously. I’m using a set-up similar to...
Make your Time Machine drive more useful and more... →
Filed under: Tips and tricks, Leopard
As we’ve mentioned recently, one of the conditions for a successful bare-metal restore of a Time Machine backup is a Leopard install DVD; you boot from the DVD, choose your backup as source material, wait some number of hours, and then you’re back in business. Wouldn’t it be good, wondered a tipster at Macosxhints.com, if you could combine...
Embraceware releases Awaken 4 →
Filed under: Software
When it comes to alarm-clock applications for the Mac, we’ve got two very fine choices - Alarm Clock Pro from Koingo Software, and Awaken from Embraceware. For most people, using your Mac as an alarm clock may seem a little unusual, but at the time I happened to be at Universityy I lived in fear of my regular alarm clock’s tone. So, with my Mac on the desk a few...
Apple posts "Find out how" tutorials →
Filed under: Switchers, Apple
Today, Apple added a new “Find Out How” section to their website. This new page features video tutorials of the following aspects of the Mac: Mac OS X Photos Movies Web
Music Documents
This information is no doubt welcome to many new switchers, or potential switchers, who want to learn more about the user interface. You can also subscribe to these...
Found Footage: Apple.com, this is your life! →
Filed under: Apple Corporate, Apple Professional
This is fun. A couple of years ago, we pointed out a nice archive of Apple’s homepage. Today, the folks at Macenstein have collected similar images from Flickr user Kernel Panic into a video history. Some of the really old stuff isn’t represented, but it’s still a fun way to waste a few minutes. Who remembers Apple Cafe? How...
Ask DLS: Recovering photos from a corrupted flash... →
Filed under: Windows, Macintosh, Ask DLS
Digital cameras are great, you can store the equivalent of a dozen rolls of film at a time, delete bad shots immediately and download the photos to multiple devices. But like everything else, there can be a dark side (no pun intended) to digital photography: flash card corruption. Many of us have experienced that first hand, where a card that was working...
iTunes: Free Tuesday →
Filed under: iTS, Features, Deals
Once again, TUAW is pleased to present you with a selection of free songs and videos from around the world. Many of these iTMS items won’t be free for long, so grab your copies before the week is up. And don’t forget: If you want to buy these on your iPhone or iPod touch, make sure to sign into your account in iTunes before you sync.
Continue reading...
UK iPhone users to see better value service plans →
Filed under: iPhone
Amongst a general re-shuffling of contract pricing, O2 has announced that iPhone customers are going to be getting a better deal on their contracts. The UK contracts were, at launch, notably slim on both calls and texts when compared to other O2 packages. Whilst the higher price was due in part to the inclusion of the Cloud WiFi and unlimited data, there was speculation that...