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Spotted at boingboing is a QTVR of the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade presented by NYCPOV. QTVR's never cease to amaze me as they make me feel as if I'm in whatever it's presented. This particular QTVR places the viewer right under Spongebob!
Found at Engadget is a review of WiFi detectors over at Handtops.com. It's a look at different detectors which, honestly, I didn't know there's a wide variety available.
Are you tired of messy desktops? Would you rather have a fancy desktop with your favorite desktop pictures right at your fingertips? Introducing DeskShade 2.
Looks great but I'm sticking with FUSkey for security, still the blue desktop background, and Desktop Manager for switching through virtual spaces.
Nokia has released Nokia Collector 1.0, new software that allows you to transfer images, videos, and other files from your Nokia 7280 mobile phone to your Mac. Nokia Collector also enables you to easily keep certain items synchronized between your phone and your Mac.
@MacMinute
This should make Mac users who have a Nokia 7280 happy!
I was trying out Christmas Tree Creator earlier. It's a simple application but it's fun to use. It's a picture of a green Christmas tree that you can decorate with a wide assortment of ornaments and lights. The ornaments' size, rotation, and transparency together with the lights' size, style, and animation speed can be configured. Once done with the decoration, you can share your tree through a printout, a greeting card, a screensaver, an email, or just a picture. It's free!
I've revived my gallery at .mac once again. I briefly tried out flickr but didn't feel too comfortable with it. I also have an older gallery but decided not to maintain it anymore.
At .mac, it's so easy to upload and create albums... no need for external programs -- everything's actually built-in Panther!
So the gallery's up. It has my latest Digital Rebel shots and soon my TH55/E pictures as well.
Vuescan, Sidetrack, and BluePhoneElite have all just appeared in Versiontracker within the past hour. Time to download and install...
Little Wing has just released Monster Fair.
Monster Fair is another fantastic pinball game from the creators of the classic, Tristan.
Apple is now featuring student blogs. It's powered by WordPress, a blogging application that I was already going to explore this Thanksgiving.
There's an Apple Bluetooth firmware updater out. Fire up Software Update to install.
Earlier, an iCal update was also released.
I downloaded and tested DarkAdapted just to see how it works. It's a program that sets gamma levels of the monitor so that the user can easily adapt to it in the dark. Presets play around with red and green settings but there are sliders to further fine tune your preference. If the screen becomes unreadable, I just hold down the shift+control+option keys. I'm not really the nightowl sort of person but I believe this is a useful kind of app for those who are.
I've been playing with DOSBox (through the frontend Ragnor)for a few minutes and am impressed with what it could do. So far, I've taken a look at Eye of the Beholder, Alone in the Dark, and Another World (all found in Abandonia) and the games are so pleasingly slow and wondefully pixelated. I couldn't help but smile as I looked through the games I've been playing more than 10 years ago.
What makes me maximize my use of my Powerbook is Bluetooth SMS sending through my SE T610. I used to use Address Book but BluePhoneMenu was much more versatile.
Now known as BluePhoneElite, this application is something I keep tabs on and welcome each new update.
Some people are experiencing some stuttering problems with Half Life 2. Thankfully, I haven't experienced this, only some pauses in the Water Hazard level.
When I'm stressed, I fire up Photoshop Elements 3 and do some artwork. So I searched for images, changed transparency settings, shadows, and effects and came out with this Half-Life 2 avatar. I'm not really happy with what turned out but it did lessen some stress.
With the release of Half-Life 2, the reasons for my computer upgrade are now justified. I upgraded my computer to be ready for the next wave of games. I got Doom 3 a few months ago, and just yesterday, Half-Life 2.
While Doom 3 is claustrophobic and frightening (I refused to play it at night -- I don't want my mind prepped for nightmares), Half-Life 2 is expansive and offers a more real-life experience.
In Half-Life 2, I can interact with almost all of the things in the environment. I can carry crates, suitcases, bottles, bricks, soda cans and other items around and can drop and throw them wherever I want to. I can talk to the people even though they just utter a few words. The guards that are all around the city feel menacing enough -- getting close to them always gets me a stern warning, and if I don't back away, a punch or a partial hit with a stun baton (To add to the tense situation, a floating sentinel drops down and takes a picture of the situation). With the detailed graphics comes the ambient sounds which envelope me: annoying chatter from the overhead screens or mysterious chatter from behind doors.
Some installation notes... The basic game package has 5 CDs (with Counter Strike), an ATI $20 rebate form, and a Quick Guide. There is no manual. (The collectors edition comes with extras such as a DVD version, a re-mastered Half- Life, a shirt, etc. Another package is available via Steam too.)
The installation was tedious. It took me more than an hour to set things up. After installing all 5 CD contents, I had to install Steam which was needed to register and unlock Half-Life 2. This took quite a while because, I'm guessing, of the traffic generated by the release. I haven't read up as to why this online unlock is necessary but I'm sure it's tied up with security and online gaming. (This should prove to be a challenge for hackers. Though I'm not supporting pirated games, I'm just curious if it's possible to hack into or patch the game.)
Once I'm "in," the game automatically and conveniently set-up the audio and video settings that's matched with the computer.
The wait time was worth it! From there, it's just pure bliss roaming around City 17. I left the game standing in front of a door, behind of which I can hear muffled conversation. I can't wait to see what happens next and how I'd feel for the rest of the game. Even though it's too early in the game I'm beginning to agree with what PC Gamer had to say with the game: Half-Life 2 is the "...best game ever made."
Sony has just announced the DRX-710UL-T, an external double layer DVD drive.
The drive supports 2.4X DVD+R DL, 16X DVD+R, 8X DVD-R, 4X DVD±RW, 48X CD-R and 24X CD-RW recording speeds. It also features a unique vertical design for easy placement and portability, and offers connectivity with both i.LINK® (IEEE 1394) and hi-speed USB (USB 2.0) digital interfaces for simple set-up and maximum flexibility.
It will be available by next month for about $230. Roxio Toast Lite comes bundled with the drive.
Here's another dilemma! Should I get this or get an external Firewire drive? Or get both? In any case, I applaud Sony for supporting the Mac platform.
I used to use LiteStep as an alternative shell for Windows. It has an optional virtual desktop add-on that lets you have extra desktop spaces. Just last week, I've been looking for OS X equivalents.
I've discovered two good ones. Space is a simpler desktop manager that does its job well. Meanwhile, Desktop Manager offers many other features including transition effects and menu bar support. It's hard to believe both are free!
Here they are:
Space
Desktop Manager
The Engadget Podcast 14 is now out.
Hosts: Lenn Pryor & Phillip Torrone.
Format: 55 minutes, 19 MB, MP3.
We’ve added time codes in the following list and links to the stories or references.
Minutia…
00:00- Intro.
01:00-New Skype for Macs coming. No more phone lines for Lenn.
09:30-PowerPoint and Keynote for iPod photo How-To, Dec Popular Science.
13:30-Ads on p2p networks, a good thing, TiVo via RSS.
21:00-IMsmarter, great new free IM enhancer.
26:45-Lexmark spyware and DCMA case, don’t buy Lexmark.
34:00-Xbox lock outs, we propose “open class”.
43:40-Palm is losing it, go Treo all the way.
Carlo just commented on my earlier post because he experienced the same blog rebuild problem I had.
The problem was the MovableType plugin called MTBlogtimes. We're not exactly sure what happened so until it's resolved by the developer, it's best to be avoided.
MTBlogtimes plots post times in a graphical manner.
From MacMinute:
Apple today released AirPort 4.1 for Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther). According to the release notes, the update provides "improved AirPort wireless networking software, and is recommended for all users with an AirPort Extreme and AirPort enabled computer or an AirPort Extreme or an AirPort Express base station." New features include support for the Keyspan Express Remote for use with AirTunes (AirPort Express only), support for WPA security on WDS networks, and the bility to rename a USB printer connected to a base station.
Thanks again to my brother Reggie for fixing some problems with this site. It seems that there were corrupted files and my brother was able to trace it to the templates.
That's the last time I'm going to try out beta programs with my blog.
The Incredibles was hands-down incredible. Being a superhero fan, I never expected to be caught up in waves of surprise and suspense throughout the movie. The storyline and design was fantastic. I never had an excuse to comment on something that's wrong. In fact, the movie thrived on a superhero world where something that's apparently wrong became perfectly right. Superhero and realworld physics for example, were merged so seamlessly that I enjoyed its nonsensical reality.
The characters were so well designed that they're believable. I had no trouble identifying with the personality nuances of the characters -- Mr.Incredible's boredom at work, Frozone's nonchalance with his super abilities, Elastigirl's concern for the family, Dash's competitive spirit, Violet's shyness, Jack Jack's wonder of the world around him, E's artist's moods, and even the bike kid's "wicked" view of his neighbors.
If there's one advantage in the technical side of animation, it's its free reign to control a camera's viewpoint. In The Incredibles, the cameras were ingeniously set in places resulting in angles I never expected to see. As a result I can't help but feel I was intensely part of the action.
Rendering was flawless as expected from Pixar's Renderman engine. I was awed by the realism of it all: the moving parts of the foliage in the forest, the ice, fire, clouds and smoke in the environment, the fabric textures of the costumes, the unkempt hair of the characters, -- the artists attention to detail was at the level where each seemingly useless object put in the background must be present to create completeness.
Voice acting was impeccable while background noise enhanced realism. Each character's personality came out by how they spoke and an evidence of its effectiveness is how I still remember how each character "sounded" -- I'm smiling now as I'm recalling Bomb Voyage and the babysitter voices. All sounds mixed in were essential and not overbearing and annoying. In fact, I especially liked the minimal sounds during the night time overhead shot of the Parr's house.
The Incredibles is a masterpiece. Before seeing it, I was a bit concerned when I read that it had toppled Finding Nemo's sales record. Now that I've watched The Incredibles, I understand and agree on its success so early in its release. I don't mind seeing this movie over and over again and I look forward to owning the DVD.
Incredibly, The Incredibles is now my all time favorite animated feature.
They're shipping early next month. Six for $29.99.
The Sony VAIO site offers great overviews of the current VAIO line. The site is in Japanese but pictures speak more than words. If I were to go back to the PC world, I believe I'd only consider choosing from the VAIO line-up.
A new freeware application to transfer iPod content to an unauthorized computer has been released.
iPod->Folder:
Detects the iPod music structure
Calculate the iPod music file size
Counts folders and displays folder size
Copy all songs into a folder (on any volume)
@ longfingers via VersionTracker
http://aronnax.ar.funpic.de/ has a nice collection of themes for Firefox. One of which is Pinstripe, which is a favorite but which I thought was never to be seen again.
StartupSound.prefPane controls the volume of the startup chime. I've installed this because I find the default startup chime too loud. It some cases where I've programmed Cocktail to run and restart the machine at 1:00AM, the startup chime never fails to wake me.
I just came back from the chatroom at spreadfirefox.com. It's chaotic in a good sort of way. I've never seen so many people so excited with the release of Firefox! (Ok, the feeling is almost similar to the release of a new Clie during the ancient times.). How busy was the chatroom? It's so busy that you'd see a lot of people login but at the same time see lots of people log out. And only after a few seconds in there, my Powerbook's internal fan kicked in.
I've just downloaded the latest update for VueScan. I bought VueScan a while ago because it made my Epson Perfection 636U usable for OS X. Scanners of course, are used for digitizing images. However, I've been using the scanner as a copier -- scanning and printing direct to the printer.
Engadget Podcast.12 11.09.2004 is now available.
Time & Topics:
Intro
01:00- First iPod Photo Podcast! Get the photos here.
03:50- Future articles on Engadget, Advertising in Technology, holding a mirror up.
10:00- MP3 player and audible giveaway on Engadget.
11:00- Skype interview, we used Skype for this podcast.
14:30- CBS says blogs are not journalism (reality TV is TV?).
21:40- Movies on SPOT watches, still need to kick up a notch.
26:00- Best Buy hates smart customers, are you a Barry or a Buzzes?
34:00- Make salad bowls out of old records, mmm, vinyl.
Right now I'm just collecting podcasts through iPodderX. I plan to listen to these later on.
Firefox now defaults to this start page.
http://www.google.com/firefox?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official
Delicious Library is now out. I've just installed it and have put in a few items. The interface is fantastic, unlike anything I've seen before. However, information download from Amazon could get a bit slow at times. I'll put in a few more items (books, CDs, movies) to see what else I can discover. I'm planning not to put in any of my digital stuff (ebooks, itunes music) in here... but for some reason, I'm not yet comfortable making these a part of a library.
There's already an extensive review at Ars Technica. (The screenshot above is from them.)
For the nightly builds at least. I've just come from burningedge and all the links are there for Firefox 1.0.
10.3.6 is now available.
The 10.3.6 Update delivers enhanced functionality and improved reliability for Mac OS X v10.3 "Panther" and is recommended for all users.
Key enhancements include:
• improved file sharing for Mac (AFP), UNIX (NFS) and PC (SMB/CIFS) networks
• more reliable network automounts and launch of network applications
• improved OpenGL technology and updated ATI and NVIDIA graphic drivers
• additional FireWire audio and USB device compatibility
• updated Calculator, DVD Player, Image Capture, and Safari applications
• improved compatibility for third party applications
• previous standalone security updates
For detailed information on this Update, please visit this website: http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n300080
For detailed information on Security Updates, please visit this website: http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n61798
Found this post by irwin over at philmug.ph. Just choose one to see the Revenge of the Sith trailer!
http://www.worldofepic.net/ep3.mov
http://members.cox.net/chambers30/teaser.mov
http://www.larney.co.uk/ep3.mov
http://www.jackpearce.info/full.mov
http://www.zach-braff.com/video/teaser.mov
http://tfnsucks.web1000.com/starwars.mov
http://portfolio.iu.edu/abachniv/sw_ep3_trailer.mov
http://www.astercity.net/~jerry/full.mov
Revenge of the Sith will open May 19, 2005. Will Episode 3 successfully bridge all the episodes together?
Interested in getting music off your iPod (Windows and Mac)? Then check out this tutorial at Engadget.
The tutorial shows how to use apps like ephPod and iPodDownload.
While hunting around for iPodDownload, I came across Ask the DJ. Ask the DJ accepts songs from iTunes... and computes for the BPM (beats per minute) of each song! Then you just press the play button, watch, and listen how the songs are seamlessly mixed with one another.
You can also "ask the DJ" by typing in the title of the song. Found songs can then be added to the playlist.
Oh, and don't be turned off by the big CD interface. Believe me, it's intentional and is very useful.
The full list of features are:
Ask the DJ's many exclusive features make it a powerful, yet very easy to use mix engine:
Ask the DJ detects tempo (BPM).
Ask the DJ automatically detects tempo for all tracks in your play-list. You don't have to manually “tap” with the keyboard: Ask the DJ analyses the tempo from the sound track itself. This analysis allows Ask the DJ to match beats perfectly and automatically when mixing tracks. Ask the DJ optionally stores tempo information in the file's tag, which allows other software such as iTunes 4 to display the BPM.
Ask the DJ detects intros and outros.
Ask the DJ automatically detects and skips intros and outros for all tracks in your play-list. The beat never stops at your party, even when Ask the DJ is running unattended.
Ask the DJ uses pitch-preserving time stretching.
To match beats when mixing tracks with different bpms, Ask the DJ gradually alters the tempo with a special pitch-preserving time stretching algorithm. The music gradually runs slower or faster, without the pitch being affected. To alter the tempo, other software merely “pitch” the sound, which results in unpleasant key shift.
Ask the DJ optimizes your play-list.
Ask the DJ automatically analyses all tracks in your play-list. If you click the “sort” button, Ask the DJ rearranges your play-list so following tracks have matching tempos, rhythms and volumes. You can even assign weights to each matching criterion.
Ask the DJ indexes your music library.
When it's launched, Ask the DJ automatically indexes all your mp3 and AAC files on all your local volumes. This makes it very easy and quick to add a new track to your play-list: you just need to type a few letters of the title, the artist or the album.
Ask the DJ exports mixes.
Ask the DJ can export the mix it produces to audio files suitable for playback and other manipulations in other applications, or for burning audio CDs. You can now prepare compilation CDs with seamless transitions between your favourite songs!
Monster today announced that it has partnered with SoundGate to produce and distribute the iCruze, a US$199.95 iPod accessory that allows consumers to play their music through their car audio systems. iCruze is an interface that enables the connection of an iPod to a factory or aftermarket radio through either the car's existing CD changer or satellite radio port. Users can select songs and playlists through either the CD player's controls or the steering wheel controls. The song information can also be viewed on an optional multi-line, 20-character backlit LCD display. The iCruze will work in "virtually hundreds of different vehicles" and will be available later this month, according to a countdown ticker on the company's Web site.
@MacMinute
I've been waiting for a long time for this. Having "just" a cassette tape adaptor, an iTrip, and a TuneDok, I have wished for something more to control my iPod. I've already signed up to receive updates about this upcoming product.
Nono, Carlo... check out the link!
Older iTunes versions blocked from iTMS | MacMinute News has gotten me a wee bit scared. With the wake of the iPodDownload block, this MacMinute report is ringing through my mind as "Update! The more people we can block from using other software the better!..."
BluePhoneElite beta 0.9 (v636) has just been released. It features the following:
-New icon
-Improved event handling
-Improved support for SE K700i, SE T608 and Sharp GX15
-Fixed bug where calls answered using the phone's keypad would not be marked as answered
-Fixed bug where SMS would not update their addresses before saving/sending
-Fixed bug where empty network name would make BPE unresponsive
BluePhoneElite has been my choice for Powerbook and T610 Bluetooth texting connectivity.
...just saw some matching colored earphones for the iPod Mini. Sadly, they're Japan-only.
Anyway, this reminds me of the 4G iPod problem reported at iPodlounge. I think the problem is caused by the earphone plug touching or having contact with the metal back of the iPod. The headphone port has a raised round plastic protecting its opening. I think that if this is pushed in (due to numerous multi-forced plugging and unplugging), then that causes a metal-to-metal contact between the plug and the metal back. That, I think is the problem and not some internal manufacturing defect. If it's a manufacturing defect, then Apple should have solved it by now.
If you haven't already, download and take a look at the iPodlounge Buyer's Guide. Excellent work!
Engadget reports on the EOS 10D 300D. It's all in black, and at the same price. I might be selling my grey Digital Rebel in favor of this one.
The Nokia 7710 is set to launch by next month. It has Bluetooth which makes it convenient to use with the Powerbook. It might do well as a PDA because it has a megapixel camera and runs on Series 90 (which Handango supports).
