Apparently, you can secure venture-capital funding and launch a successful business all from an iPhone.   Case Study: Amos Winbush Occupation: Founder and Chief Executive Officer, CyberSynchs Gear: iPhone 3GS loaded with Citibank (to keep track of startup finances), Facebook (to keep track of CyberSynchs’ fan page and connect with fellow entrepreneurs), and Twitter (to stay abreast of business news and keep followers informed) Who knew that Pret A Manger at East 17th and Broadway could be such a locus of wheeling and dealing? Listen, we know you love your MacBook. And we love ours. But consider what a hassle it can be when you’re working on the road. A MacBook has to be painstakingly removed from a messenger bag or backpack and plugged in regularly for power (good luck with finding that A/C adapter). And you can’t really use it unless you’re sitting down. And you have to manually connect to whatever Wi-Fi hotspot you can find. And then there are the interminable delays while you boot and launch applications. Plus your MacBook apparatus weighs you down mightily–five pounds or more, and that’s on a good day. Yet for most professionals–especially at the executive level–getting work done without a computer is foolhardy at best, impossible at worst. The notebook is a necessary evil that represents a basic cost of doing business when you aren’t anchored to a desk. Amos Winbush took that conventional wisdom and slapped it in the face. When he launched CyberSynchs, a company that makes data-synchronization software, in 2008, he did it with little more than the iPhone in his pocket

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A piece I wrote last week on the impact of iTunes web preview pages on App Store SEO brought up a little side conversation about how many people found it annoying that the links launch iTunes automatically. Sometimes you don’t even have any warning that the link is going to launch iTunes if you click on a shortened link. There are a few simple steps that you can take to stop this behavior and suppress iTunes in its eagerness to run and take you to the page for that app (or other iTunes content). Below, I have outlined the steps for Safari, Firefox, and Chrome. The Basic Concept The iTunes preview pages run a JavaScript function that attempts to load iTunes by opening an ITMS file. This file will launch iTunes and direct the application to open the iTunes Store to the specified content. I did not want to recommend just disabling JavaScript because that would interfere with a lot of websites that rely on the interactivity that is possible with JavaScript. We will prevent iTunes from opening by changing the way that these browsers handle the ITMS file. This approach will allow you to manually launch iTunes when you desire. In the case of Chrome, we can selectively disable JavaScript for iTunes links. Safari Safari uses the helper applications as defined in the “Get Info” dialog box for each file type. In Snow Leopard, Mac OS X relies solely on the file’s extension to determine the default application. This may behave differently in 10.5, which still respects the creator code attribute. Create a simple text file on your desktop.

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Entertain and educate the most important members of your household with this family-friendly guide to the best Mac software, websites, and iPhone apps for kids. And don’t miss our step-by-step instructions for setting up parental controls on your Mac. Let’s play!   When they’re little, kids want to be just like you–pretending to drive the car, borrowing your shoes for dress-up, and yes, pulling up a booster seat to unwind with the family Mac after a hard day in the sandbox. As fun as some Mac staples are regardless of age (Photo Booth, anyone?), your kids deserve some special software just for them–to help them master basic computer skills, stretch their creative imaginations, reinforce educational concepts, and of course, just have a grand old time no matter how young they are. With that in mind, we test-drove 29 Mac and iPhone apps and 12 activity-packed websites just for kids. Some wound up being a little too dumbed down–on the verge of becoming, well, dumb–and our reviews separate the wheat from that chaff for you. Grab the mouse; it’s time to play!   Computer Skills   KidsMouse   KidsMouse teaches basic mouse skills with 18 learning games like ABC Puzzle, Color Ball, and Shape Puzzle. Each is operated using only the mouse or trackpad, and the brightly colored, charmingly illustrated graphics will delight little ones. Some of the games test your child’s sequencing (letters and numbers), shape recognition, and memory, while others just entertain–a bitmap paint program, for example, lets them draw colorful shapes. Really little kids might need prompting from Mom or Dad–ours had fun driving from our lap. We just wished KidsMouse would lock out keyboard input because those keys sure get banged on. Click matching shapes to hear a sound

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Section: iPhone / iPod touch / iPad , iPhone , iPod touch , iDevice Accessories , Reviews Provides: iDevice cradle Developer: Just mobile Minimum Requirements: iDevice Price: $49.99 Availability: Now JustMobile is one of those companies that continues to think a little differently from the rest of the industry. This time, I’m taking a look at their new Lounge iDevice car cradle, which doesn’t attach to your windshield like you’d expect it to. Nah, instead, it sits on your dash, which might just make more sense anyway. There’s no suction cup to attach to your windshield. There’s no attempt at amplifying the sound of your iPhone whatsoever. There are no GPS enhancements, and there isn’t even a good place to put a USB cable to charge your iPhone while the GPS is killing your battery. I know this sounds awful, but there are a lot of things to like about Just Mobile’s Lounge car cradle. Take, for instance, that it doesn’t attach to your windshield.  Some will hate this, while others will love it.  Depending on your vehicle, the windshield might not be the optimal placement of your iPhone for guidance.  If that’s the case for you, then your dashboard might be a lot better.  This cradle comes with a circle of metal that semi-perminently attaches to your dashboard (with a 3M adhesive strip).  This helps the already grippy cradle to stay in place, but, in practice, it’s not really necessary.  I never attached the circle and I didn’t have any issues with the cradle moving whatsoever.  Actually, it’s been sitting in the same place for two weeks while I’ve driven around daily.  That just goes to show you that this thing is heavy enough and grippy enough to stay put.  But secondarily, this cradle is just as at home in the car as it is on your desk since it doesn’t have that unsightly suction cup that belongs nowhere in my house. Another reason to like this cradle is that you likely won’t have to take off your case to use it (unless it’s huge and shouldn’t be on your iPhone in the first place).  The way this cradle holds on to your iPhone is very unique, yet simple; there’s a very giving metal and rubber bracket that flexes to the exact shape of your iDevice+Case combo.  It holds tightly, and can rotate to a landscape orientation as well.  You’re going to need this if you’re using this for GPS guidance for an extended period of time, because connecting a USB cable while in portrait mode is not ideal.  You could do the whole thing upside down, but that’s just wrong.  Also to note, the whole clip that holds your iPhone wobbles a bit.  This is on purpose; it’s supposed to minimize how much your iPhone moves.  It won’t help if you hit a speed bump at 60 mph, but under normal usage it won’t really even move.  So, I guess I’m a little confused as to why it’s able to wobble at all.

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For the past twelve years, the Independent Games Festival has been a platform upon which indie game developers could showcase their work and receive some constructive feedback in return. The event is held annually at the Games Developer Conference and is the best place to see up-and-coming developers strut their stuff. This year, we got to talk to a developer whose team used Utility on their Macs to produce an engaging top-down platformer, and two developers who are utilizing the accelerometer on the iPhone to develop imaginative mobile games.     Puzzle Bloom puzzlebloom.com First up, we have a game from a team of students from The National Academy of Digital Interactive Entertainment (DADIU), who managed to put together this artsy looking puzzle game in no more than four-weeks time. The game is called Puzzle Bloom, and the premise of it is to assist a kindred tree spirit named Canotila in restoring the vitality of the land in which she lives. You control her using your mouse, and you can use the scroll wheel to zoom in and out. The protagonist moves by jumping on top of various animals and moving them around the map, solving puzzles along the way. Unfortunately, the team of developers have disbanded, as most of them have graduated since finishing the game and moved on to full-time jobs. However, both levels of Puzzle Bloom have been left up on the internet for passersby to casually play, so head on over to the Puzzle Bloom site, or watch our video for a quick demo.

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  This clever game, won the Technical Achievement award in the Mobile Division at the Independent Game Festival competition, lets you get out some aggression by pushing someone down a flight of stairs. Even better, it can be a friend of yours! Facebook integration lets you stick a friend’s profile picture on the stick man before you give him a shove. Realistic physics, a good selection of staircases, and addictive gameplay bring out the inner sadist in us all. Stair Dismount is $1.99, sold by Secret Exit .

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Mac gaming fans have one less reason to be envious of their PC-using brothers & sisters, now that Telltale Games has made the official announcement that the episodic Sam & Max is coming with a third season entitled The Devil’s Playhouse — and it will be available on the PC, Playstation 3 and yes, even the Mac. Sam’s a six-foot tall canine shamus with a hunger for justice. Max is a hyperkinetic rabbity-thing with an oversized Luger and a taste for violence. Together they’re Sam & Max, freelance police, ridding the streets of bottom-feeding sludge, one dastardly miscreant at a time.   The popular episodic game comes courtesy of publisher Telltale Games, who made the announcement today at GDC. On the heels of the first two popular seasons of Sam & Max comes the good news that the third season, entitled The Devil’s Playhouse , will also be coming to the Mac at long last, and the game is virtually identical across all three platforms. In The Devil’s Playhouse , Sam and Max face a mysterious otherworldly power for controlling matter and space that calls to the strongest and strangest who might wield it — intergalactic warlords and eldritch gods, under-dwellers and scholars of the arcane. It’s Sam’s and Max’s biggest case yet! For those of you new to episodic gaming, Telltale’s niche is having the games play out over a series of interconnected episodes, each one building on the next.

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Free yourself from limitations with LogMeIn remote access. The new LogMeIn Pro2 for Mac gives you the freedom to remotely access your Mac — anywhere, anytime. But don’t just imagine it. Try it free, today ! More freedom to be a Mac Pro2 for Mac lets you access and manage your remote Mac from virtually any Internet-enabled device. Even a PC. It gives you more freedom to roam knowing you’re not leaving anything behind. You can even transfer files, print from a remote Mac to the nearest printer and share your desktop so you can collaborate on the go. Never settle for less Look, you want to do what you want to do, when you want to do it. So why settle for products that put limitations on your abilities? Other alternatives are often more expensive, less flexible or just aren’t easy to use. Not cool. So why settle for less when, in this case, more is better? More freedom, more control, more functions. Whether you want more mobility or easier access to apps and information, we invite you to try out LogMeIn. It’s simple, fast and comprehensive

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When iTunes web preview pages first appeared for songs and albums the industry was abuzz with the possibility that iTunes could be migrating to the cloud. iTunes preview has so far had little impact on how we use purchased media content, but it has had a huge impact on how we find iTunes media content on the web, especially with iPhone apps. The iTunes web preview pages are an enormous draw for search engines and consistently rank high in the results when searching for the names of apps. A Quick History of iTunes Web Preview Previously, web links to iTunes content opened a redirect page (hosted on phobos.apple.com) that asked you to wait “One Moment Please” while the iTunes application was launched. This page only had a thumbnail of the cover and sparsely listed just the title and publisher. iTunes web preview first appeared on November 13, 2009 with full pages including descriptive text (hosted on itunes.apple.com). Audio clip previews were added on January 7, 2010. These pages still launch the iTunes application, but also include the full description, select customer reviews, and links to related content.

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A few years ago it would’ve been only the insane and the insanely prescient who were predicting that Apple would replace RIM in terms of world mobile phone market share. Now it doesn’t seem that outlandish, but the question of how soon we’ll actually see it happen remains up in the air. According to a new financial analysis company, Trefis (via Forbes ), the iPhone will pass BlackBerries in 2011. So as of next year, the iPhone will supposedly overtake RIM’s varied line of smartphones, despite offering far less in terms of consumer choice, and being limited to only one network in major markets like the U.S. So how’s that supposed to happen? Before we get to how , let’s look at why Trefis thinks this information is important. If you’re looking to buy Apple stock, then it’s very important indeed. Trefis estimates that around 52 percent of Apple’s stock value is dependent upon its mobile phone business, so that as the iPhone’s global market share continues to grow, the stock price will climb accordingly. They have a neat little tool that illustrates this, and you can set your own prediction to see how it affects the model.

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