Macgasm

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In this episode, Grant talks about the benefits of the Stainless browser.

[02.9 MB] [0:06:10] [Hosted by: Josh Schnell & Grant Brunner]

Some of us weren’t lucky enough to get our hands on an Apple I.  Hell, a large majority of us were barely born when these puppies hit the store shelves, or if we were alive we could barely afford the 2500 bones they cost.  Well if you’ve never laid eyes on the innards of one of these bad boys now’s your chance!

Lets salute the machine that started it all!

[via 20x200]

Skype has released the latest version of their cross-platform VOIP/chat client. There are a bunch of new features and bug fixes in this version so there is definitely something for everyone in this release. The new features since 2.7 break down into two main areas:

Screen Sharing

An unbelievably useful feature that has been in iChat for a while now, screen sharing is what allows me to provide the inevitable technical support that my family members need without my head exploding. Rather than try to walk them through the menus and screens and buttons that lead to eternal frustration I can do a “live screencast” right there in front of them and both fix the problem and, hopefully, teach them how to prevent it in the future.

Unlike in iChat however you can choose only to share a portion of your screen with your Skype contact. That way they can’t snoop on you and tell your significant other that you’re spending an inordinate amount of money on consumer electronics…or you know, whatever you might be doing.

Managing your chats

Skype 2.8 adds improved chat organization and allows you set priorities on your chats  as well as sort the chats in your drawer based on different criteria. This is really useful if, like me, you communicate with coworkers via Skype chats. It never ceases to irritate me when I miss something because a particular chat got pushed off of the visible portion of my list by less important people–chats I mean.

Skype now has mood messages, which remind me of LiveJournal or MySpace statuses. I can’t personally say they’re useful, at least not to me. They are nice to have though. There are also larger profile pictures–you know, for those of my friends who wanted to see my face really big.

In the same vein as larger profile pics is the addition of avatar hiding. This is a really nice feature for those profile pics that people have that are just god awful. You know, those “hey, that picture of your dog licking himself is really cool, thanks for forcing me to look at it!” Well, now they’re hidden by default.

In addition there is now a Quick Add feature which is pretty cool, you just hit Add in a chat window and then search for the person you want to add. One of my personal favorites. I wish more IM clients had this. I’m getting tired of copy/pasting things into multiple IM tabs.

Bottom line, the cool new features and bug fixes make this a worthwhile download. Check it out and let me know what you think in the comments!

Sometimes iTunes just isn’t light weight enough to use during multitask sessions.  It’s been a longstanding complaint about iTunes, but the software continues to bloat, and system resources continue to be eaten up, fast!  Don’t get me wrong, I love iTunes, but for some reason it seems to be less and less usable for me on a full time basis.  Open up Vmware, Photoshop, and iTunes on a system older than two years and you’ll probably realize something has to go mighty quickly.  Sadly, the first thing to get the axe in my workflow is iTunes. Music is a huge inspiration for me, and I shouldn’t have to eliminate a source of inspiration when I’m in the middle of being creative.

This is where an application like Ecoute comes in, and could seriously impact my work flow.  It’s not an iTunes replacement, per se, it’s more like a companion to iTunes.  It’s a stand alone audio player that uses the iTunes library to get your audio files.  It has quickly been finding a home on my system during times of insane multitasking.

Things it does great.

It does a number of things relatively well that has made it into a pretty high rotation on my application usage list lately.  It’s accessible from the menu bar, it has a pretty sweat control system right on your desktop.  It give you access to lyrics, which is excellent, and it has a smaller foot print than iTunes.  The user interface is stellar (and skinable) and feels more like an iPhone application than it does a Leopard application.  All in all it plays music the way it should be played, in the background, out of sight, and accessible from multiple areas around the operating system.

Things it could do better.

All that being said, it is an early version, so there’s a couple of small kinks that stood out for me that I’d love to see addressed.  Shuffling is pretty tricky to figure out straight out of the install.  It’s a little counter intuitive currently, I completely understand where they are coming from, but having to select which category you want to shuffle in before being able to shuffle your entire song collection seems a little backward considering iTunes has conditioned us to search then shuffle within a search.  It’s by no means a deal breaker, and they have built in search functionality that replicates the iTunes paradigm quite well.  There is a glitch where once you search for some criteria you can’t seem to back out of the search.  It’s like you’re locked into your search criteria until you restart the app. It didn’t happen every single time, but did occur sporadically.  I may have missed some switch to flick so  I could get out of the criteria, but regardless, it seems a little off (video evidence below).

Video Evidence

Screenshots

Apple has released updates to two of their “professional” software bundles today. Both Logic and Final Cut Studio has seen a bump in numbers and features. The new features are a little cryptic as it currently stands, but we’ll fill you in on what’s in these updates that made an upgrade necessary.

Final Cut Studio

The Final Cut bundle has seen its core applications all get bumped up a number, Final Cut Pro is at 7, Motion is now at 4, Soundtrack Pro, Compressor, and Color have also all seen improvements. From the looks of the Apple website, it seems like DVD Studio is standing all alone without any updates.

Logic Gets a Bump

I don’t use this application bundle at all so I can’t really comment on what’s new and what’s remained the same but from the looks of the propaganda page, it seems like a number of new features were added today.

More options for guitar players

Logic Express 9 is perfect for guitar players, with new features for getting killer tones right out of the box.

• Plug into the sound of 25 legendary amp heads and matching speakers with the new Amp Designer.
• Enjoy lush creative effects with the new Pedalboard, an assortment of 30 virtual stompbox pedals inspired by the classics.

As well as a slew of other options.

Support for the Apogee GiO interface and foot controller provides hands-free operation.

I have found myself loving Sway (iTunes link,$4.99), a great game from Illusion Labs which stays true to its name. In this unique game, your goal is to sway your three-dimensional character using your thumb to goals on every “maze.” Essentially, it’s like wall climbing, but if you fall off the wall, you’ll hear a loud shriek.

Your right thumb controls Lizzy’s right hand, and your left thumb controls her left hand. With these controls, you must traverse the entire stage without falling, but it’s not as easy as you think. If you let go, whether intentionally or accidentally, you may lose all that effort and burn more calories with your thumbs yet again.

You will encounter obstacles on the way too, you know. It’s not just wall climbing. Sway includes challenges such as moving walls and more. You’ll run into characters you must save and find more reasons to sway.

All in all, this is one of the most enjoyable apps I’ve played thus far, and I can see myself spending hours upon hours trying to perfect my swaying abilities. Sway is by far one of the most innovative games I’ve experienced for the iPod touch and iPhone.

Here’s a trailer to see what you’re in store for:

Lets say you’re an app reviewer that has a iPod full of mediocre apps, and a couple of gems.  Let’s say we’ve run out of space on our phone and the only way we can get to an application is by using Apple’s spotlight integration.  No problem yet!.  But, what happens when you decide you want to remove an application that doesn’t have a home on the screen.  See the problem?  There’s currently no way to delete it unless you take care of it the next time you sync your phone with iTunes.  I smell an opportunity for a future iPhone OS release.

Hey, they want us to use our phones as mobile computers, but they can’t give us the ability to delete our applications?  Is this some sort of sick joke?  Can we please get an application listing app that lets us manage our applications that our phone has decided to banish to the nether that’s now known as Spotlight Mobile Edition?

Seems like a glaring oversight considering we’ll all eventually be filling up our screens with sweet iPhone applications in the upcoming years.

Anyone else having this problem?

/endofrant

[Download This Episode]

In this episode, Josh talks about the benefits of having an Apple Store in your town.

[03.2 MB] [0:06:50] [Hosted by: Josh Schnell & Grant Brunner]