Macgasm

This week, it was announced that Japan’s Softbank will soon be debuting NFC stickers for iPhone 4.

NFC (“near field communication”) is a short-range wireless technology that allows for the “tap and go” method of payment via debit or credit card accounts. Although it’s been said that Apple has interest in adopting the technology, it has not been introduced in any of their iOS devices to date.

Softbank’s press release explains that their NFC stickers, while covering the iPhone 4′s back, will not impede its operation or prevent the use of a bumper case. (We’ll take their word for it, since the thing’s written in Japanese.) They’ll retail for $36, and look something like this:

According to the press release, the sticker is made from polyurethane, weighs 0.5 ounces and will be available for three different mobile payment systems, whose logos can be seen in the above photo. The sticker will act as a basic “tap and go” terminal, and will go on sale in February 2011.

I have to admit that I’m jealous of Japan right now. From the very minute I activated my first iPhone, I wished for a purchasing method that didn’t involve counting cash or finicky debit card swipers. Hopefully Apple will jump on the NFC bandwagon and create a standardized version for their users worldwide.

Article Via Boy Genius Report

Photo Credit: Softbank

With the new year just over the horizon, many of us are dreaming about the things we would like to accomplish in 2011. We’re writing down goals and thinking of new habits we can establish to better ourselves. But all too often such resolutions fall by the wayside, victims of our forgetfulness or busyness or lack of discipline. One way we can improve our prospects of accomplishing our New Year’s goals is by keeping a daily diary. The simple act of recording each day’s accomplishments serves as a reminder of our goals and is a means by which we can assess our progress.

Chronories ($29.00) by Synium Software is a diary application for the Mac. Like most journaling software, Chronories allows you to keep a diary of your life on your Mac, noting special events, indicating your mood, and jotting down places you visited and interesting things that happened. Unlike other applications, however, Chronories can also automatically track and log information as you work on your Mac, such as local weather, applications used, and contacts encountered via email or chat. This feature is what sets Chronories apart—it’s not just a diary, it’s a logging tool.

Chronories sports a simple and elegant interface. On the lefthand side is a column with a monthly calendar displayed at the top. You can use the calendar to jump to particular dates quickly and to see which dates have entries (those dates are in bold). Underneath the calendar is a list of diagrams that offer visual summaries of your information (more on this below). Bookmarked entries appear below the diagram list.

The main portion of the screen is devoted to the diary panel where you write your entries. Simply click in the “Diary Entry” window and start typing. You can select font, font size, and font color by clicking on the gear icon that displays when your mouse hovers on or near “Diary Entry.” You can also set up Chronories to remind you to write your daily entry by selecting a reminder time. If you’ve written nothing in Chronories by that set time, the app will remind you to add an entry.Underneath the main diary entry all sorts of information can be logged. You can record your mood by selecting one of the “happy face” icons. You can enter interesting topics and places visited. If you want to take an iSight picture of yourself, simply click on that portion of the screen and the camera will be activated. You can even have Chronories import your favorite RSS feeds, though you’ll need to add each feed manually.

But Chronories can also compile all sorts of information automatically. For example, if you use Apple Mail, Chat, and/or Adium, Chronories can log all your contacts via these applications. In addition, Chronories can track your computer activity, today’s weather, applications used, music played, websites visited, and iCal appointments. This results in a daily record of virtually everything you do on your Mac. If all this seems a little too “Big Brother-ish” to you, keep in mind that you can control which items Chronories automatically logs in the app’s preferences. So if you don’t want Chronories to track your computer usage or if you prefer not to record your daily mood, you can eliminate those options.

Menu Bar Service. Another feature Chronories offers is a Menu Bar Service. No, it won’t serve you a Bloody Mary, but it can continually monitor your activities without having to keep the app open or in the dock. It also serves as a quick entry pop up, so you can record your mood and enter your daily diary without actually opening the app. When you click on the Menu Bar Service, the iSight camera automatically opens, so you can take a daily photo of yourself . . . aging.

Diagrams. Whenever you want to get a bird’s eye view of your activities, simply click on one of the diagram options in the sidebar. Diagrams appear either as pie charts or bar charts and display the information you’ve aggregated over a period of time. While this information may not be useful to everyone, it certainly offers the Chronories user a unique way to examine his/her activities and interests. And the computer usage diagram might be just the thing to remind you to get out in the sunshine more.Chronories allows you to import your Macjournal entries if you want to switch from that app, but apparently, other than Macjournal and Chronories archives, you cannot import any other kind of document. You can make a backup of Chronories by exporting your Chronories archive, but the archive remains in Chronories format.

What’s Macgasmic: While simple in presentation, Chronories is a sophisticated application that keeps a thorough daily log of your activities. You can choose how much information the application records automatically and adapt the records to your own use. The visual charts are a nice touch that allow the user to view events and practices over time. Another plus is that Synium is currently working on an iPad app that will sync with the desktop version of Chronories so you can keep your daily diary mobile.

What’s Not: One of the features I really like in Chronories is its ability to keep track of the people you interact with each day. However, because it does so (in part) via Apple’s email, if you use another email application (as I do), email contacts won’t be recorded. I hope that the developers consider expanding support for other email systems, though this may not be possible unless those programs are desktop based. One possibility would be for Chronories to work with the developer of Mailplane to provide Gmail integration.

Another weakness of Chronories is its lack of social integration. Although you can import your Twitter updates through the RSS feature, I hope the developers make it possible to import social feeds much more easily. For example, the iPhone app Momento (reviewed recently here) imports social feeds flawlessly. The ability to preserve my Twitter updates, Flickr pictures, and other information automatically in Chronories would make the application almost perfect.

While I like the idea of recording moods, the cartoon-esque mood icons detract from what otherwise is a beautiful and sophisticated application. Perhaps different icons could be used or words instead of icons. It would be nice to be able to assign more than one mood to a day. The developers might consider adding Dropbox integration to the app to make backing up one’s life much simpler. Other export options (such as .doc, .rtf, etc.) would also be beneficial.

Summary: Chronories has the potential to be one of the most useful diary apps available to Mac users. Its automated logging makes keeping track of all sorts of information effortless. Although at first I wasn’t sure why I would want to log details like what applications I use and how long I’m on my Macbook, now I see how that information can help me better monitor my time. The mood charts are a good barometer of emotional health. And a few years down the road, I can look back at December 2010 and see what the weather was like, what music I was listening to, and what websites I visited. Chronories is not just a diary. It is a living time capsule that helps you monitor your life in the present and preserve your memories for the future.

Skype’s long-awaited video chat has made it to iOS. Here are the features in the new version of the app:

• Make Skype to Skype video calls on WiFi and 3G*
• Call Skype desktop users (Mac OS X or Windows) and other iPhone users.
• Two-way video calls supported on iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPod touch 4th gen.
• Receive only video supported on iPad and iPod touch 3rd gen, with no camera.
• Make video calls in portrait and landscape.

Over 3G,  video chat uses about three and a half MB/minute, similar to what FaceTime uses over 3G on a jailbroken device, according to 9 to 5 Mac.

Unlike Facetime, of course, Skype runs on every platform, including Windows. While I don’t personally use Skype often, I can see how mobile video chat is a great addition to the service.

With the exception of the Creative Professional Market — which includes photographers, designers, film-makers, musicians, web designers, and architects, among others — Apple devices are not generally taken very seriously in the business marketplace.

Take, for example, the popular Mac vs PC ad campaign, which pits the stuffy all-business, button-up PC against the cool, young, hipster Mac.  This marketing campaign is certainly not focused on getting the attention of enterprise and small business buyers.  Yet with the iPad, this could all be changing for Apple, and changing fast.

There has been a lot of talk in the industry about whether or not a clear role exists for the iPad in enterprise.  Apple makes mention of the iPad for Business on their website, and while Apple does provide an assortment of well-intentioned apps factory-installed on each device, the real enterprise-level app opportunities are coming out of the outside developer community.

One such enterprise app developer is Citrix, the virtualization veteran responsible for products such as GoTo Meeting, GoTo My PC, and GoTo Webinar.

According to a recent Citrix survey, an impressive 46% of users polled said that they are more productive at work as a result of using the iPad.  Another 13% said that the iPad is now “mission critical” to their work!  Not bad for a product which didn’t even exist a year ago.

Citrix’s recent iPad user survey also revealed that 77% of iPad owners want access to corporate resources on their iPad.  Some predictable concerns also came up, with security, lack of support from Apple, and the perception of the iPad as an entertainment device being the highest barriers of entry.

As I read this survey, I began to think about some data I’ve collected from my own business client base.  My business customers who use the iPad have similarly reported that their iPad does not replace their netbook or their desktop computers at all, but, in fact, serve to fill a brand new niche.

In fact, a Gartner Press release from November 4, 2010, entitled “Gartner to CEOs: Seize the iPad Opportunity Now” asserts:

“According to Gartner analysts, the iPad is not a notebook replacement for most users, but a valuable companion device.”

Now that’s interesting.

If you’re currently using your iPad for business, sound off in the comments section below.  We’d like to know what sort of apps you’re using, what tasks have you moved from your normal workstation to your iPad, and what limitations are you experiencing working on the iPad.

If you want to plug into a cool resource, check out the “Citrix on iPad at Work” movement, where they urge you to “Tell your IT department why you need the iPad.”

By the way, this entire article was written on my iPad.

With the holidays over, and all the extra cash sitting around, we thought it’d be a good time to publish our Griffin Slap case review. The concept of an iWatch has been around since the iPhone was announced at the very least. Since Apple’s recently been in the business of making their iPods smaller and thinner, the masses of Apple geeks have been calling for an iWatch. Although Apple hasn’t officially announced an iWatch, the latest iPod nano certainly fits the bill.

When Steve Jobs stood on stage during the September keynote and announced the new iOS based iPod nano, joking about it being worn as a watch, an entire cottage industry sprung up overnight. A Kickstarter campaign raised just under a million dollars to start an iWatch project, and a bunch of other companies raced to the drawing board to create the best iWatch case. Griffin was amongst the first to reveal a product. Their Slap case took yesterday’s technology, the slap bracelet, and turned it into an iPod nano case.

The Slap case is available in the traditional iPod mini and nano colors that have been available over the years, and it’s available for $23.99. At that price point the case is affordable and worth trying out.

The Slap case is made from metal and silicon and seems sturdy enough to have a long shelf-life. Getting the iPod nano into the device is tricky. There’s a plastic lining inside of the case that holds your iPod nano firmly in place. It took me a couple of attempts at placing the iPod nano before I realize that I wasn’t actually breaking the clasps as I pushed the nano in and out of place. The nano is firmly held in place, so you don’t have to worry about your iPod falling to its demise. That being said, it’s actually pretty difficult to get the nano out in the first place.

Having piece of mind is priceless, and being able to go about your day without worrying that you’re going to lose your iPod nano is a must. I never once found myself worrying about losing the “iWatch” at any point. When the iPod nano is in place, it isn’t going anywhere, which leads me to my next point. The only way to connect your iPod nano to iTunes is to remove it from the case. That’s a lot of fiddling over the course of the week if you’re a music junky. While the clasps that hold it in place are still working admirably, I found myself wondering how long the case would last after prolonged usage.

Another downside that came up quite often was in the “fit” department. I have some pretty puny wrists, and the watch seemed to slide around quite a bit. My wrists aren’t pencil thin by any measurement, and the watch didn’t jump up and down my arm, but when rotating my arm to check the time, I often found myself manually adjusting the face of the iWatch so I could see the screen.

I’m also not much of a “watch” guy for this reason. I rarely wear watches, and often feel that I have limited mobility when I wear one, so I could be a little biased when it comes to usage patterns.

Thoughts on the iWatch: Sometimes you feel badass, other times like a giant nerd

I’ve never owned a product in my life that made me feel extremely badass at one moment and an absolute nerd at other times. Some would say that that would be a commentary on my psychological state when I’m out and about, but I’d argue that it has more to do with the size of the watch. For an entire week I wore the watch, and it felt fine under a jacket. I managed to rig up a headphone extension that ran up my jacket sleeve, and it worked really well. The iWatch is an optimal travel companion. If you ride the bus or walk to work, the iWatch makes a nice companion. It’s during those times that I felt like a complete badass. But once I took off my coat, it was all nerd.

The face of the watch is quite large when using the Slap case. I rarely had a sweater or shirt that would appropriately hide the watch. Instead, the iWatch became a bit of a “fashion” accessory, always on display, always the object of discussion. If you like oversized watches to begin with, then this probably won’t make much of a difference for you, but for me, I prefer a watch that fits underneath my shirt cuff.

The downside of an iWatch

During the colder months of the year, hiding your headphone cords in the sleeve of a sweater or jacket is an option. You could probably even get away with exercising and listening to music on your iWatch quite effectively as long a your headphone extension is tied down and has enough slack for your movements, but once spring and summer rolls around, using an iWatch as you exercise is going to be a problem. The problem lies outside of the “watch” case maker’s hands, and falls directly into Apple’s hands. If the iPad nano was ever mentioned as a watch in Cupertino before release, it would be hard to imagine a conversation coming up without someone mentioning the lack of Bluetooth on the device. Being able to use Bluetooth headphones with the iPod nano would have easily set this device apart even further.

Final Thoughts

If you don’t mind bulky watches then the Slap case won’t be a problem, and it’s easily worth the $24 that it costs. If you have small wrists, or prefer your watches hide underneath a shirt cuff, you might want to pass or wait for another alternative to surface. The iWatch might be more of a reality than Apple had hoped for. It easy to see that an iPod strapped to your wrist could provide a plethora of utility.  The iPod nano already ships with Nike+, so you have access to a pedometer already. If Apple ever decides to open up the OS to developers, the iPod nano could become a handy medical tool when paired with a watch strap or bracelet.  Could you imagine a watch that not only plays music, but also measures your vitals? A lot of health care professionals would be pretty excited about that.

I love writing about Macs. It’s my dream job. In all honesty, there isn’t anything in the entire world that I’d rather be doing career-wise. Part of that enjoyment comes from the community. Receiving a cheery email from one of our readers is one of the nicest feelings I have the capacity to experience. The other warm and fuzzy component of the community is other Mac writers. Not only do I love having one-on-one discussions with some of them, but I truly enjoy reading their content.

In this post, I’d like to highlight a few of my favorite Mac blogs. Mind you, I read dozens, so this is far from a complete list. Expect more to come in the days ahead.

Daring Fireball

If you care at all about Apple, you need to be reading John Gruber’s (in)famous website. His take on technology is concise and wonderful. Sometimes I don’t agree with him, but I am never bored with his Apple coverage. Sports coverage on the other hand…

Minimal Mac

I hate clutter, but I live in a world with lots and lots of it. Reading Minimal Mac might just shame me into throwing out some of the junk I don’t actually need.

The Apple Blog

The team over at GigaOm do a bang-up job tackling the Apple news and opinions for a broader audience. If you’d like a great place to start for Apple coverage, you could do a lot worse than The Apple Blog.

Cult of Mac

Cult of Mac is everywhere I want to be. They do not take a break from covering everything out there relating to Apple. I applaud their dedication. I could learn a lot from them due to my lack of the newshound gene. Great work.

Remember to keep an eye out for more posts in this series. I have quite a few more sites I want to plug.

We all know that compressing a file or folder is a mere right-click away here on Mac OS X, but .zip is so 1990s. Wouldn’t you prefer compressing or decompressing using fancy newfangled algorithms? I thought so.

If you’d like a canonical de-RARing solution, you can go get yourself UnRarX. It’s free and open source, so what’s to complain about? Of course, sometimes you’d like to *compress* instead of extract.

Enter Keka. Also a free and open source app, it will compress files using 7z, Zip, Tar, Gzip, Bzip2. On the decompressing side, it can handle RAR, 7z, Lzma, Zip, Tar, Gzip, Bzip2, ISO, EXE, CAB, PAX, ACE (PPC). It’ll handle just about anything you can throw at it.

These cool-guy free apps will blow your mind when you compare it to the built-in compress/decompression in OS X. If you have any more suggestions for great apps like these, leave a comment on this post.

Photo Credit: gagilas

Earlier today, I wrote a post about two apps that send you a push notification whenever Growl triggers on your Mac. Over the next few hours, I was pounded with e-mails asking how I could possibly leave out Boxcar from the list. It wasn’t intentional. I had heard about Boxcar before, but it didn’t sound all that awesome at the time. After downloading the free universal binary from iTunes, I was pretty surprised at all that it can do.

Not only does it act as a Growl client, as I soon learned, but it works as a hub for pretty much everything on the web. Instead of using a different client for Google Voice, Facebook, and Gowalla, you can just plug in your information to Boxcar, and it handles everything for you. Pretty freakin’ sweet, eh?

In my mind, the best part of Boxcar is the ability to dynamically choose which URL or application the notification points to when pressed. When you get a Facebook notification, you can have it launch touch.facebook.com instead of the Boxcar app itself. It’s really great stuff, and it’s free in the app store. Instead of charging up front, they put in non-obtrusive ads on certain pages. It’s a great app, and I think that the advertising in it is well worth dealing with.

Thanks for telling me what a great app it is. Keep the great tips coming in the comments and via e-mail.