Categories
Reviews Tech

iPhone v2.0 Apps

Iphone Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last couple of months, you know that the new iPhone 3G is being released in the US and that older iPhones and IPod Touchs will be getting new firmware – v2.0.  I’ve been reading articles all day about reviews on the newest applications, the early availability of the firmware, and the App Store in iTunes — I’m very excited.

I can wait the additional 12-16 hours to get my firmware officially downloaded — thus I’m not going to download and muck around with the ‘discovered’ version out there.  (There are a lot of reports that it works fine and the owners have already downloaded and played with a lot of the applications.)  However, I had to upgrade my iTunes to v7.7 as soon as it became available on Software Update this morning.  Since then, I’ve been browsing the App Store for software that I want to get and play with immediately.

I have already downloaded these to my machine – can’t install them on my phone till I upgrade the phone to v2.0:

AIM – AOL’s chat client
eReader – software to allow you to read eBooks
Evernote – My favorite Note/Snippet application now has a ‘native’ client
Google Mobile App – collection of Google’s tools
Jirbo Arcade – Collection of kid games
MixMeister Scratch – YES!  application that will allow you to scratch to your own library of music. wicky-wicky..
Mobile News Network – News aggregator of some sort
MotionX-Poker – dice game – see below for link
NearPics – See if anyone has posted any pictures based on your location.  Not sure how well this will work on the older iPhone
NetNewsWire – my favorite news aggregator has a native client
People – white pages lookup application
Save Benjis – application to do online shopping/comparison – useful when you are physically shopping and you want a quick cost comparison.
Shazam – application that tell you what song is playing by listening to it over the iPhone mic.
Spinner Prologue – maze game
Travelocity TravelTools – tools from Travelocity – flight arrival times/delays, etc.
WHERE – application to give you a map of popular places like all the nearby Starbucks.
Zenbe Lists – List application

The only one I purchased was MotionX-Poker.  Check out the video here and you’ll buy it too.

I wasn’t very productive today as I’ve been reading all these articles and applications.  I suspect that tomorrow will be the same.

-JT

Categories
Mac

Hackintosh and 10.5.4 Upgrade

JT: Just a quick note – this article is a bit long in the tooth and uses some possibly archaic processes.  If you want up to date info – look to the OSx86 Project.

Apple just recently came out with 10.5.4 of their OS.  Since I’m running a Hackintosh that I’ve come to depend on, I thought I’d let others apply the new version of the OS to their machines and see what comes out.  After reading all the threads on the subject at insanelymac.com, I decided last week to go ahead and take the plunge.

Categories
Mac

Woot! – Dual Monitors on my Hackintosh

dualmonitorWell that went relatively painlessly.  I just added an old HP 17inch LCD panel to my existing 28 inch ViewSonic.  Both monitors are powered by a EVGA GeForce 8800GT. The Viewsonic is running at 1900×1200 and the HP at 1280×1024.  Coupled with Spaces with 6 workspaces, I have effectively 12 monitors!!  Woot!

Categories
Mac Reviews

Rogue Amoeba – Freebies: SoundSource

Logo_AmmoHead2 I needed a way for me to quickly change my audio input/output from the standard “internal speakers” configuration to my USB headset.  On a Mac you basically have to manually do this by going into the Sound application in System Preferences and select the appropriate choice.  Now – this isn’t much work – but I’m really lazy.  I just want to hit a button and have this done.  Rogue Amoeba’s SoundSource is the tool that solved my issue.

Categories
Photography Reviews Tech

LifeHacker find: PosteRazor Splits Images into Multiple Page Posters

PosteRazor logoThis was a great find from LifeHacker:

LifeHacker find: PosteRazor Splits Images into Multiple Page Posters

PosteRazor will take one image and allow you to divide them up into multiple  sections.  This will allow you to print a large image using your standard size printer.  However, the reason I like this program is that it will allow you to mimic some of the latest trends with artwork in some home decorating magazines that take one scene and break it up into multiple picture frames.  This will be a summer project for me.  I need to get some prints on the wall near my staircase.  This could be very interesting look.

PosteRazor is open source and has binaries for Windows, Linux, and Mac.  OMG I love Open Source!

-JT