Macgasm

The worst thing about owning a Mac Pro is not getting a sweet remote, or even the ability to use one right out of the box. I mean, what’s so Pro about that?  All the cheaper versions in Apple’s lineup come with support, and I’m paying a premium for this tank of a machine.

It’s left me with some serious Mac Mini envy, go figure!

Anyway, I’m left with finding alternative’s.  It lead me to an excellent iPhone application called Rowmote Pro. It’s by far, leaps and bounds, beyond anything the Apple Remote can do out of the box.

The applications it supports out of the box are:-

• Front Row
• Boxee
• EyeTv
• Finder
• iTunes
• iPhoto
• Keynote
• Powerpoint
• Quicktime
• Plex
• Hulu Desktop
• Spotify

It would be misleading for me to tell you that these are the only applications that are accessible with the remote.  You also have the ability to use it like a mouse and click around your desktop.  You also have access to a keyboard right on the iPhone, so this application has really packaged it all together nicely.  If you need a remote, and don’t want to pay for some additional hardware, this application definitely deserves your attention.  I wish this kind of technology was around while I was in College.  I wouldn’t have had to ever leave my bed!

[image via Andrew Coulter Enright]

If you’re looking for great places to meet your friends at, MeetMe ($0.99) is a pretty nifty application that lets you do just that. Select a Point A (your current location or a specified location), a Point B, and then choose the type of location you want to meet at, which could be any venue in the Active Life, Arts & Entertainment, Automotive, Beauty & Spa, Food, Health & Medical, Hotels & Travel, Nightlife, Public Services & Government, Religious Organizations, Restaurants, and Shopping categories. The application will choose businesses with Yelp ratings in the near vicinity of both Points A and B and then lets you choose the optimal location to meet with your pals, allowing you to even find locations that are closer to Point A or Point B if desired. You can also email directions from both points to the selected designation.

This is a pretty awesome app since it gives you a wide variety of locations where you can meet your friends, family, or colleagues. The only limitation is that it only lists businesses with Yelp ratings instead of other potential great places that have yet to be discovered by Yelp. This is actually great for Yelp since it encourages people to start entering businesses to be discovered. But at the same time, I’d like to see other venues that are not listed on Yelp at all in the MeetMe system, perhaps denoted by a pin that is not red (as seen in the map screenshot).

If you’re one of those people who likes to visit new places and gets together with friends and family locations often, this is a great place to help you discover these new business locations. It’s great to be able to find an auto repair shop that you can take your vehicle to from home, and that your buddy, who will be picking you up since your car is out of commission, can get to easily with your help without getting lost. It’s great to be able to find a new nightclub that you and a bunch of old high school friends can get to. There’s an unlimited amount of potential for this application.

[Download This Episode]

In this episode, Josh talks about Lyrical.

[02.0 MB] [0:04:30] [Hosted by: Josh Schnell & Grant Brunner]

In BoomBoom ($0.99), you’re given a game board with a puzzle and you must remove the similar pieces (as long as there are 2 or more joined pieces) before the rows reach the top of the screen. It’s a race against time and logic, and it’s done a good job so far.

The pieces are reminiscent of Starburst candy chews, and I’ve found myself getting hungry for some fruity goodness while I was playing. I found that the game also reminded me of similar games where you remove all the pieces, but this one has the added bonus of getting new rows in every move. Call it “Collapse” if you’ve ever played it. But this is different.

BoomBoom is one of those enjoyable games that you can get a round or two in really quickly while waiting for the wife to run a quick errand. I definitely think it’s worth the $0.99, especially if these games tickle your fancy.

Finding your lost hard drive space is a constant struggle for most users. One day you have a freshly installed operating system, and the next you’re wondering why you have 2gb’s left. It’s a giant annoyance.

Plenty of apps exist, some better than others, but none have looked this sexy so far. I love data visualizations, and in another life I’d study them if I could.  Daisy Disk, dare I say, I quite beautiful!

Essentially the application lets you drill down through a drive and find out what’s eating up some precious hard drive space. For me, 20GB went to a World of Warcraft installation–I haven’t played in over six months–and a bunch of virtualization installations. Do I really need both an XP and Vista installation, probably not.

Instead of posting a bunch of pictures of the application I figured it would probably be best to add a video for you. Seeing it in action is the only way you should see it. It’s phenomenal.

In a mix of what you’d call Wheel of Fortune and Boggle, Guess the Phrase ($1.99) combines two different games together for a fun word challenge.

In Guess the Phrase, the object of the game is to use the words in the “Boggle” game board (lower half of the screen) to complete the phrase on the upper half of the screen. But it’s not as easy as picking out letters. Only the first letter of the word (and yes, it must be a real word) chosen on the bottom half of the screen is eligible for the first half of the screen. Therefore, you’ll be looking for words like “and,” “eye,” “inn,” or “out” for those vowels and then work your way into finding words with the remaining letters (which, like you’ll see in the screenshot, is rather difficult when your vowels and decent letters disappear).

I’m a big fan of word games, but I’m not sure I had much freedom here, especially with a game board that is so limiting (and this happened often). My recourse? To guess the phrase. So here I am, trying to figure out what I could do with that long word (“It’s fun to be in the same ____ with you”). I’m limited with what I have, and what I have may not necessarily help me get the answer I want.

The only other concern I had was more of an aesthetic issue. In comparison to other games on the iPod touch or iPhone, this one isn’t one of the better-looking games. I think this game has more potential with a graphics overhaul; there’s something to be said when you find yourself looking at a picture of trees in a forest while you play. It doesn’t do it for me. The letters up top are very small and I can see this game potentially losing brownie points for forgetting the older crowd of users who may not have the best eyesight.

The game had sound effects, and the music was rather nice, so it gets bonus points for that. But there’s room for improvement here. Wordaholics who want a two-tiered approach toward word games should find this enjoyable.

This is the year two thousand and nine. I still have to explain to people that Mac OS X supports right clicking. Even with the phenomenal growth of the user base, surprisingly few people are aware that your regular USB mice that you use with your Dell will work fine on a Mac. Am I the only one that finds this to be completely ridiculous? The media machine that is Apple seems to have dropped the ball about getting the word out to non-techies that right click works perfectly fine.

Their advertising budget is huge. If Apple would just allocate a percentage of their commercials to clearing up misunderstandings instead of busting Microsoft’s balls, your average consumer would have a much better idea about what Macs are and what they do. In fact, they’d be less scared about giving Macs a go now that they know what to expect.

Reassuring potential Mac owners is something that Apple needs to work on. Perhaps, we as enthusiasts should pick up their slack. When someone takes notice of your MacBook, make sure to show them how easy everything is. The best way to get people to try things out is to make sure they’re comfortable with the experience.

1112 ($1.99) is a fun adventure game in which you play Louis Everett, an ordinary guy with an ordinary day. Your mission: to go through a day in the life of Louis, completing tasks that aren’t incredibly adrenaline-rushing, such as gathering car keys, taking medications, and fixing a boiler.

You do these things by touching certain items on the screen and interacting with them. You can move a painting, admire yourself in a mirror, open a drawer, or swallow a pill, among hundreds of other possibilities. Therefore, this game doesn’t get too boring, though there’s frustration to be had if you can’t figure out what the next possible step is.

You’ll absolutely need to familiarize yourself with the controls before you start the game — it’s impossible to know what to do if not (though you could try!) But once you’re in, you’re in.

This game is only “episode 1,” and if you know all the next moves, it can feel rather short. That’s probably why there’s a seemingly unlimited number of actions you can perform on the items in every room you go into — so that the gameplay doesn’t seem to end that quickly. Hey, they’re doing it right.

Overall, the game does deliver a lot of interesting possibilities as I see how Louis interacts with the items in his surroundings. My one problem was that the iPod didn’t always react to the touch — I’d be putting my finger zoomed-in on the soap and get the towel behind me. The proper aim is crucial.

While there’s no plot to the game, it’s still a fun one to play — it’s unparalleled to anything else I’ve seen on the iPhone, that’s for sure, and kind of reminds me a little of GTA4.

Giveaway: I have 9 codes for 1112 for 9 commenters. All you gotta do is write something in the comments. Easy? Yeah, I thought so too. :)