With the academic year about to begin, and having already tackled the important issues of iWork vs. Office , it’s time to turn our attentions to the iPhone. With over 65,000 apps on the App Store, even subtracting all the iFart and iTip applications there are five I feel are indispensable for any college student’s life. These apps range from the practical to the whimsy — all school and no play makes for a grumpy Crumpy. Evernote (Free) Evernote has quickly become the dumping ground for any information I come across on the Internet. I don’t even bother bookmarking anything anymore; I just clip it into Evernote. It’s very useful when I’m researching a paper — I’ll just tag an entry with the name of the paper, or create a notebook just for that class. Since Evernote keeps the URL for all clipped pieces, it’s very convenient when I go back to cite the work.

Continue reading...

Whether our intentions are to have the latest in-vogue gadget for the sake of usability purposes or to just stay ”trendy”, the point is that we’re always on the hunt for the latest and greatest. To that end, I’m happy to share with you a round-up of the TV tuners available today for the Mac platform. EyeTV Hybrid Compliments of the folks at Elgato, this slick little TV Tuner Stick accommodates both unencrypted Digital and HDTV reception, as well analog reception. Weighing in at just 30 grams and with dimensions just a bit bigger than a pack of gum, the EyeTV Hybrid ushers in clear and pristine picture to the high resolution of your Mac. What’s more, EyeTV Hybrid also receives FM radio. Since EyeTV Hybrid is also a DVR (Digital Video Recorder), it can put your television recordings on your Mac, iPod, iPhone and Apple TV. And for gamers out there, EyeTV Hybrid also allows you to connect most game consoles to your Mac. Sweet. ATI TV Wonder The ATI TV Wonder HD 650 Series is a high-definition personal video recorder built just for your Mac (and even works on PC too). Not only is this particular model stacked with the latest in TV technologies such as noise reduction, 3D comb filtering and automatic screen control, but this mighty tuner packs a punch by offering edge enhancement through automatic color control, which produces sharp video that in theory, rivals high-end consumer television sets. Slingbox PRO-HD + iPhone version Never again will you be away from home and stuck with that terrible feeling of anxiety because you forgot to set your tuner to record that special program. With the Slingbox PRO-HD, you can watch and control multiple devices, including your standard or high-definition DVR, digital cable, satellite receiver, or DVD player from anywhere in the world via your Mac or iPhone. Your high definition programming streams in HD quality for a truly stellar picture. Pinnacle PCTV HD mini Stick Pinnacle’s all digital Mini HD TV Stick (now owned and offered by Hauppauge Digital) brings an easy-to-use TV experience to Mac owners.

Continue reading...

When it comes to business and travel, there are a few things one shouldn’t be without: passport and credit cards, travel confirmations and itineraries, essential toiletries, and, of course, an iPhone or iPod touch. In an effort to make your business trips (and really, any kind of trip) more manageable and efficient, I’ve put together a roundup of some of my favorite apps for the iPhone that can be used while on the road or in the air, and I hope that they’ll come to good use for your next trip. TripIt (Free) Briefly mentioned in my 10 Father’s Day Apps for Your No. 1 Dad article as a companion to the application TravelTracker, I only thought it would be fair to give this genius a close-up, because it’s just so darned worthy. Think of all of the itineraries and travel confirmations you deal with such as air, hotel and car — and multiply that by however many destinations you have in one trip. That’s a lot of paper juggling that I don’t need while I’m on route. Now there’s a way to keep and organize all travel documentation in one central accessible location — TripIt for iPhone/iPod touch. Once you book your travel and have signed up on tripit.com (membership is free), just email your itinerary to TripIt’s designated itinerary email address, and in a matter of minutes, your itinerary will be read-in, parsed and displayed into your account like magic

Continue reading...

Computerworld’s Seth Weintraub thinks optical drives are going the way of the Dodo bird. He predicts the MacBook Air and white MacBook will get Secure Digital (SD) slots with their next updates (will the WhiteBook get another update?), and that SD may replace built-in DVD drives entirely on the next generation of MacBooks. Why Otherwise Explain SD Bootability? Why otherwise, Weintraub reasons, would Apple bother going to the trouble of explaining how to configure a bootable SD card, which it recently did in a Knowledge Base article . He deduces that the SD card is now a key element in Apple’s MacBook strategy, destined to replace optical drives on most Apple laptops going forward, which would logically mean system install/software restore data along with application software eventually being shipped on SD rather than optical media. Those who really need DVD access would still be able to buy external USB Superdrives, like the one available for the optical drive-less MacBook Air. This concept makes good sense to me, a nascent SD card fan. I mean, as Weintraub challenges, which would you rather have on your laptop — an easily rewritable, silent, 32GB SD card the size of a postage stamp that can hold about the same amount of data as eight DVDs, or a big, heavy, noisy, vibrating, power-sucking spinning disk with media that scratches easily, and which gobbles up about one-quarter of your computer’s internal volume? “Optical is Over” “It is a no-brainer,” declaims Weintraub, “optical is over.” I think he may be onto something here. Indeed, I’ve always thought CD and DVD ROM optical storage were second- or third-rate technology. They’re agonizingly slow. I absolutely revile having to boot from a DVD or CD and go to great pains to avoid it

Continue reading...

As this week comes to an end, tech watchers turn their loving gaze away from E3, and refocus their attention on the Moscone Center in San Francisco, which will host Apple’s annual Worldwide Developer’s Conference beginning Monday, June 8. Just like every year before it, we’ve seen many rumors circulate regarding what Apple will be unveiling at the media circus that is the conference’s kick-off keynote address. But as we all know from experience, a rumor does not a product announcement make. Here’s a look at what’s being said about what we’ll see at WWDC, organized by likelihood. Bet the Farm Because of the obsessive attention it tends to draw from devotees, Apple sometimes has a hard time surprising folks. As with most events, WWDC ‘09 has some safe bets that have run the rumor mill gauntlet and been accepted as fact by some major industry players. New iPhone Hardware — I know it, you know it, and Walt Mossberg certainly knows it . It’s not a matter of if or when, it’s just a matter of what. A healthy list of potential iPhone features abounds, and they vary in their individual likelihood. As such, I’ll be listing them separately

Continue reading...

Boy, there have been a lot of these introductions going around, eh? You’d think there was a hiring surge or something. My name is Mark, and I’m the latest in the continuing series. I got my freelance start writing about Massively Multiplayer Time Sinks for PC Gamer Magazine. Admittedly the only crossover between writing for them and TheAppleBlog is, “suck it up, Princess; people are going to edit your work.” I also wrote the MMOS X column over at Massively.com. After the proverbial break to “spend more time with my family” (even though my wife would claim differently) I answered the Call to Duty when Josh sounded the bugles. I’ve had a lengthy history with the Macintosh. I bought one of the first units (I splurged on the 512k unit). I was a volunteer for the Boston Computer Society in their Resource Center. That was a great way to get my hands on a lot of great gear I could never afford. From there, I entered the printing industry working for service bureaus and commercial print shops. Dear Lord, it just hit me I used Photoshop and PageMaker versions 1. After a break from the Macintosh, I came back when I got my hands on a Pismo. Since then, my production computer has been a Mac.

Continue reading...

Programming for the iPhone is still pretty new. It might be a bit tougher to find iPhone developer resources, but we found a bunch that will get you through building any iPhone app you might be starting on. Check out our list of our favorite developer books, blogs, podcasts, screencasts, open-source libraries, communities, forums, conferences, training, and more! Books Beginning iPhone Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK This is the go-to book for beginning iPhone developers by Jeff Lamarche and Dave Mark . It takes you from downloading the SDK to creating your very own apps. The official page and support site: http://iphonedevbook.com/ Programming in Objective-C 2.0 This is the book to get if you’re just starting out programming. It assumes you have no prior programming knowledge before picking it up. It’s highly recommended for people who don’t know any programming and want to learn Objective-C. Not a lot of iPhone-specific stuff in this one, but a lot of this knowledge will carry over when you do want to create iPhone apps. Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X This book assumes you know a bit of C/C++, and it’s a really good book for getting started with Apple’s developer frameworks. There isn’t a lot of iPhone-specific stuff in this book, but a lot of what you learn carries over into iPhone development. Pragmatic Programmers iPhone SDK Development This book is in beta still, so you can only get the PDF. It was originally scheduled to be released by now, but they are updating it to include iPhone SDK 3.0. It’s still worth it to get the PDF. I’ve gone through it, and it is fantastic.

Continue reading...

Naively, I used to think that once I’d purchased music, I could easily download it again, for free, on any other computer or WiFi-connected iPhone or iPod touch as long as I was signed in with my iTunes account. As most of you probably know, that’s not the case. Instead, if you try to download it again, iTunes recognizes that you’ve already purchased the content, but notifies you that should you download it again, you’ll actually be paying for it twice. The nice thing about the App Store, whether on a computer or using an iPhone or iPod touch, is that you can re-download titles you’ve already purchased elsewhere, or maybe deleted for whatever reason. I’ve used this feature many, many times, because I don’t really like having a cluttered springboard, so I regularly cull apps that fall into disuse. I honestly couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve re-downloaded Shazam just to find out the name of a song I hear in passing. You’d think at some point I would just keep in installed, but those occasions where it comes in handy are just so few and far between. This much-appreciated ability to download an app as many times as you want from wherever you want may be in jeopardy in iPhone OS 3.0, according to The iPhone Blog and others . They recently posted an article in which they describe how some users with the 3.0 beta on their phones are receiving notification that should they wish to download an app they’ve previously purchased, they either have to buy it again, or sync with their computer to re-install for free. I tested this out on my own devices, and was able to replicate the new “feature,” which you can see in the screenshot attached to this article.

Continue reading...

Addressing what evidently is a common defect in the NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT graphics processor units used in the May 2007 and Early 2008 revisions of the original MacBook Pro (remediation of which involves replacing the entire logic board), Apple has announced that it will lengthen coverage of its extended service program for this defect for at least another year. A revised announcement on the Apple Support web site reads : In July 2008, NVIDIA publicly acknowledged a higher than normal failure rate for some of their graphics processors due to a packaging defect. At that same time, NVIDIA assured Apple that Mac computers with these graphics processors were not affected. However, after an Apple-led investigation, Apple has determined that some MacBook Pro computers with the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processor may be affected. If the NVIDIA graphics processor in your MacBook Pro has failed, or fails within three years of the original date of purchase, a repair will be done free of charge, even if your MacBook Pro is out of warranty. Last January, I commended Apple and NVIDIA for stepping up and taking some responsibility for this defect, but contended that the two-year coverage in effect at the time almost certainly did not go far enough. It seemed likely that the problem would eventually afflict most examples of those MacBook Pro models if they were used long enough, and once repaired, owners could not be confident of the issue not repeating itself after the two-year extended service eligibility or even three years of maximum AppleCare extended warranty coverage. Anyone buying a computer as expensive as a MacBook Pro should have reasonable expectation of it providing reliable service much longer than two, or even three, years. The Pismo PowerBook I’m typing this on is nearly nine years old and still going strong. An extended service program, more along the lines of the seven-year one Apple implemented for PowerBook 5300 and 190 models back in 1996, after that model proved excessively prone to a constellation of hardware and software problems, would be more appropriate in addressing this GPU issue, which is arguably as bad or even worse than the PowerBook 5300 troubles. Last month, Computerworld’s Gregg Keizer reported that owners of Apple, Dell and Hewlett-Packard laptops had pooled lawsuits against NVIDIA in an attempt to force the graphics chip maker to replace the allegedly flawed processors, and if granted class-action status, the case could involve millions of laptop computer owners, possibly influencing Apple’s decision to extend service coverage by 50 percent. Here are the specific Apple products affected: MacBook Pro 15-inch and 17-inch models with NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processors MacBook Pro (17-Inch, 2.4GHz) MacBook Pro (15-Inch, 2.4/2.2GHz) MacBook Pro (Early 2008) These computers were manufactured between approximately May 2007 and September 2008. If you have one of the potentially affected machines, here’s what to look for: Distorted or scrambled video on the computer screen No video on the computer screen (or external display) even though the computer is on If your MacBook Pro is exhibiting any of the symptoms described above, you are instructed take it to an Apple Retail Store or an Apple Authorized Service Provider for evaluation, or call your local Apple Contact Center. Apple is also issuing refunds to customers who may have paid for repairs related to this issue. Contact Apple support for details on the refund process.

Continue reading...

Let’s say you’re trying to take over the world and bring all governments under your control. You have to keep records of all this stuff on your computer, of course. Now what if your plan is almost foiled because you chose a stupid password like the Egyptian variant of your Greek name? That’s not very smart, is it? You may be the World’s Smartest Man, but you may still want to look into password management software for your Mac to help you choose good, strong passwords and keep them organized. In my business, I need to keep track of logins for clients as well as for my own use. I keep all my client information in Daylite forms or notes, where it’s linked to all the other information about that client. But what if you just want to keep passwords secure? And what if you want to share those passwords between machines? Or what if you want your password manager to integrate into your web browser? Or keep that info with you on your iPhone? Well then, here are five password management solutions for the Mac that may work for you

Continue reading...