Macgasm

They Stole Max’s Brain is now available for download. If you haven’t purchased this season of Sam & Max, all you need to do is go to the Telltale Store, and buy Season Three: The Devil’s Playhouse for $34.95. If you’re on the fence, please play the season three demo to see if this vibrates on your frequency.

If you’ve already purchased this season, you can download the latest episode by navigating to your purchases page, and clicking on the Mac download button next to the episode title.

It’s now time to join our favorite six-foot anthropomorphic canine as he hunts down the scumbag that stole the brain of his little buddy. If you want to see what’s in store, here is the trailer:

Are you excited about this episode? Is season three of Sam & Max going above and beyond your expectations? Let us know by leaving a comment on this post, or you van hit me up on Twitter if you’d prefer.

Photo Credit: Telltale Games

With the release of iOS came the ability to attach a bluetooth keyboard to your iPhone devices. We’ve had mixed success with our 3G model, but a ton of people are reporting that the 3GS iPhone is working just fine. Turns out that on top of bluetooth connectivity for keyboards, we’re also getting access to the iPad dock keyboard. Before you get all excited about using the iPad Camera Connection Kit and a third party usb keyboard, you should probably know that Apple’s locked down the device, and it’s no longer an option.

There’s been reports that the keyboard dock that is available from Apple also works with the 3GS phone. Memories of my Palm V with keyboard came crashing back when I heard the news. I have a very hard time seeing people carrying around a keyboard dock with their iPhone so that they can answer emails. If anything, it’s an admission from Apple that people still want to be able to have a physical keyboard at their finger tips.

It makes sense for the iPad, should users start using the device as a full-time replacement for a desktop computer or laptop, but for the iPhone, I just don’t see the allure.

The next time you need to write a long email, or edit a document on the fly, are you going to bust out a full-sized keyboard and attach it to your iPhone, or are you going to wait to get to the office? I’m guessing it’s the later, but I’ve been wrong before.

Here’s a video of it in action

Article Via Andy Ihnatko

As many have possibly read, AT&T managed to botch up the pre-orders for iPhone 4. Well, in my case, they screwed up royally. Let’s set the scene:

Tuesday June 15th:

Pre-orders are not being processed due to an AT&T error of some sort; whether it be a system down or networking errors or what have you. Everybody keeps trying and system finally start to come back online around 5:30 PM US Central Time. So, after trying all day, hurry and get my order in. I think, good, I have my order in — I’ll get the iPhone 4 on Thursday the 24th.

Wednesday, June 16th:

Receive a call from the Assistant Store Manager at AT&T, Nick, asking me to have my brother call the store regarding authorizations and the like. I call him and he straightens it all out with AT&T and he is good to go for Thursday the 24th.

Friday June 18th:

News blogs have information trickling in about iPhone 4 pre-orders being ‘prepared for shipment’. Being the compulsive checker I am, I checked mine — no change. I figure I will check again Saturday morning.

Saturday, June 19th:

Wake up — no change in shipping. Check periodically throughout the day, and still no change. Check at 3:00PM (10 minutes before our movie was set to start) — status of order ‘CANCELLED’. Being a bit irritated and hoping it was an error, I attempted to call Apple. Wait on hold for 30 minutes. Get disconnected. Try again for another 15 minutes. Give up due to missing 45 minutes of the movie.

Finish movie. Immediately call Apple and get through the first time (WTF?) and talk to the representative. He says there’s nothing that they can do and he’s not sure what happened.

Next try AT&T, call their support and talk to a nice lady who is apologetic. She’s not entirely sure what can be done, if anything. Head home after eating dinner and check on doing another pre-order. Type in all of the pertinent information and get the following error message:

So, I try pre-ordering a phone with my brother’s phone number and get the option to pre-order. I have determined the issue. AT&T assigned my number to have the phone and not my brother’s line. (We’re on a family plan). At the least, I have figured out the reason my pre-order was cancelled.

Monday, June 21st:

I call AT&T and talk to the store manager, Gary. I explain the situation. He fully understands and wants to make it better. He offers to try and save a 32GB Black iPhone 4 but cannot promise anything. I said I would think about it. While talking to Gary I did get a glimpse of a few things. First off, he did admit it was their mistake. Also, while discussing Tuesday’s debacle, he stated that his store was on manual iphone pre-orders from the time the store opened. Meaning that the whole thing started before 8AM US Central Time.

So that’s where things stand at this moment. My plan of attack for Thursday is to head to the AT&T store early to see if I can procure an iPhone 4. If I am not able to get one on Thursday, I will just go ahead and order one from Apple and wait until it arrives. This, of course, is not the ideal situation, but honestly I can’t argue too much. I mean, afterall, it’s just a damn phone. Forcing myself to wait will be a good exercise in self-discipline. However, there’s no reason I can’t be grumpy with AT&T regardless.

Since FaceTime was introduced at WWDC a couple of weeks ago, the question begging to be answered was, how will a FaceTime video call be initiated?  Will it originate from a Bonjour style connection over your Wi-Fi network?  Will it originate as a voice call and then switch to Wi-Fi?  If it originated as a voice call, would it charge your minutes?

Ed Sutherland of Cult of Mac explains how the process will work:

““The voice call ends as soon as the FaceTime call connects,” an Apple representative told Silicon Alley Insider Sunday. Because FaceTime uses Wi-Fi, no carrier minutes will be used.”

It’s great to hear that the FaceTime video call will switch off the voice call and only use the Wi-Fi connection.  It’s also good to know that it won’t use your data plan either , and since new iPhone customers will have limited data, it is good news for them as well.

Apple did say that they are working with the carriers to have FaceTime on the carrier’s network, so that you will not need to use your Wi-Fi network. I can only speak as an AT&T customer when I say, I don’t see that happening in the immediate future. It took AT&T a year to get tethering when the rest of the world had tethering for the iPhone 3GS.  So I think it will be a while before we see this transition.

On a positive note, I am excited about FaceTime.  Apple brought us the future with the iPad and it’s touch interface, and they have done it again with FaceTime.  This will change how we communicate.

Photo Credit: phone-facetime

Article Via Cult of Mac

MSN Messenger is pretty big up here in Canada. It was the first major instant messaging client that really caught on with the general population. The geeks had ICQ, but the non-geeks really gravitated to Microsoft’s chat client.  Things have changed since then, and now I rarely know anyone who still logs into Messenger these days.

In a possible case of too little too late, the fine folks at Microsoft have decided that Messenger needs to be in the App Store, and we would have agreed with them three years ago. But now, with so many multi-chat clients available out there (IM+, Fring, etc), we have to wonder what’s changed over at Microsoft, other than the traditional too late to the party antics that come out of Redmond.

Is this a serious attempt to regain user-share for the service, or is it a final swan song? It certainly seems so with the social section that lets you see “highlights” of your messenger contacts much in the same way that Facebook is currently doing.

I really don’t want to be hating on Microsoft, it wasn’t my intention, but it’s decisions like this one that encouraged me to make the switch. Why do they care so much about being in other people’s business models, when their main business model has been facing adversity over the last three to five years?

I really don’t see the logic.

Why would you drop money into creating clones, when you could be off trying innovative new ideas. It blows my mind constantly.

Anyway, if you’re looking to add another chat client to your iPhone or iPad, you can always download the Windows Messenger application for free on the App Store.

The third installment of the five-part series called Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse will be released for Mac OS X and Windows sometime tomorrow (June 22). This episode is called “They Stole Max’s Brain,” and the name gives away the concept of the episode. Instead of Sam & Max pairing up to hassle the baddies, Sam is all alone as he interrogates the scum of the earth to help find the brain of his little buddy.

This will be an exciting opportunity for the series to branch out a little bit from the regular formula. That is, if you can call anything in the world of Sam & Max “Normal.” We’ll get to see a new side of Sam, but I have to admit that I will miss the incessant rabbity interruptions.

If you haven’t seen any of the screenshots or trailers for this upcoming episode, you can find them in my previous post on the subject.

Are you excited for the third episode in the Devil’s Playhouse? Tell us what you’re the most excited about by leaving a comment on this post, or you can hit me up on Twitter if you’d prefer.

Photo Credit: Telltale Games

Amazon announced a price drop down to $189.00 USD for their Kindle eBook reader. Supposedly, this is in response to the popularity of iBooks on iOS devices and the reduced price of the Barnes & Noble Nook eBook reader. Previously, their Kindle sold for $259 USD, but the 3G Nook at the $199 USD price point was enough to instigate Amazon to go into competition mode.

If you want the Amazon Kindle DX with a screen the size of the iPad’s, you’re still going to have to drop $489 USD. At that point, why not just opt for the iPad?

What do you think of eBook readers with E-Ink screens (Kindle, Nook, Sony eReader) versus LCD screens (iPad)? Are you willing to have a display with no backlight or color in exchange for the low power consumption? I’d like to know because dedicated eBook readers seem to be the realm of the 40+ generation. My parents are consumed with the concept while none of my peers care about the Kindle or Nook. Comment on this post or hit me up on Twitter to give your opinion on the subject.

Article Via Electonista
Photo Credit: BMeunier

There have been reports that Mac OS X 10.6.4 has introduce problems with Valve’s Steam on systems with NVidia graphics processors.

After logging on, Steam apparently displayed this message to some people this weekend:

The recent 10.6.4 update from Apple has noticeable performance issues for NVidia graphic chip owners running high performance games. If you wish to avoid this, you should consider waiting to install the 10.6.4 update until Apple has had the opportunity to address this issue. Full details of what is contained in the 10.6.4 update can be found here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4150. If you have already installed this update and believe your graphic performance is affected, please contact Apple support (http://www.apple.com/support/) for details on what to do.

From that wording, it seems like this isn’t a problem that Valve can fix. We essentially have to sit on our hands until Apple releases a patch.

I haven’t experience this problem on my MacBook Pro with an NVidia GPU, but I’d love to hear from those of you that have seen this. What issues have you run into? Hit me up in the comment section or on Twitter.

Article via Cult of Mac
Photo Credit: Professor Bop