Appletell

Grab your chef’s hat, put on your oven mitts it’s time to start cooking!

In the game Cooking Academy you’ll be able to test out your culinary skills in the kitchens of a prestigious culinary school. You have the chance to prepare eggrolls, gyoza, pancakes, crème brulee and many more. Cooking Academy lets you prepare over 50 different recipes!

I decided to try out the game. As a chef in training you will have a Top Chef that guides you through each delicious recipe that you prepare.  Each cooking session begins with the Top Chef supplying interesting trivia about the food you are preparing. There are five categories for you to test your culinary skills; Appetizers, Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, and Dessert. Advancing to the next category, which unlocks additional recipes, is done by passing your cooking courses and exams. If you do exceptionally well, the head chef will award you bonus points. I received bonus points for each recipe I prepared.  If you receive exceptionally high marks on each task within a particular recipe, you have the chance to move to the head of the class with an A+. 

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Got room for some more accessories for you iPod? Here’s another one of ‘em uber cool iPod accessories, this time from Scanydna with their Dock Pack which combines an iPod docking station, an iPod and a pair of speakers. The Dock Pack serves as a docking, playing and recharging accessory for your iPod. Docking the iPod on the Dock Pack gives out high quality audio courtesy of a 2x15 wat RMS Class T amplifier.

In addition, the Dock Pack comes with seven inserts for the different iPod models. It also has a remote control and stereo line output if you get one of Scandyna’s subwoofer models to complement your Micro SE speakers. The Dock Pack retails for $219, but if you insist on getting just the Dock, it will burn you some good $219. Later on when you decide to get the Micro SE speakers, it will cost you $199. So, we don’t have to tell you that getting the Dock Pack at onces is a better deal, right?

Via [Yaho News] Product [Scandyna Speakers]

With the recent announcement and demo of the Google Android Phone, one thing is for sure.  Google took a trick or two from their neighbors in Cupertino.  The Phone features a touch screen, and the most striking similarity is the home screen, shown in the picture above.  Most of the apps seen on the current home screen are givens for any smartphone, but the Market app is an app store much like the one that will be in iPhone 2.0 software.  Project leader Andy Rubin comments on the ability for developers to upload to the store (certified or not, unlike the iPhone) and be sold for a price:

“It would be a great benefit to the Android community to provide a place where people can go to safely and securely download content and where a billing system would allow developers to get paid for their effort.  We wouldn’t have done our job if we didn’t provide something that helps developers get distribution.”

Other notable similarities include swiping across the home screen to access more content and accelerometers.  Although the Android uses a similar “slide to unlock” feature, Google’s version presents the user with a 3x3 grid of dots that must be connected in the correct sequence for the device to become usable. 

Although Google will not manufacture the devices themselves, they will have full control over the OS.

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Don’t you just hate it when you have two Apple devices to charge but only one cord to charge them with?  Worry no more, Griffin will soon be selling the PowerDock!  This product is certified for both iPhones and iPods and can charge two Apple products at once using a standard 120VAC wall outlet.  It looks pretty slick to me and comes with a generous 8 Universal Dock inserts for your iPod loving personality.

This charging station would be great for large families with a lot of iPods thats need charging at one time.  It looks great and doesn’t come with any unneeded features that try to do more than it’s intended for.  It’s not for sale yet, but it will be anywhere from $49.99 to $69.99 when it is launched.

The iPhone is a great gaming device as it is now.  However, add multiplayer support to some games and you have yourself one killer network!  What makes me say this? iPong of course! A developer named Kondo over at a Japanese company has created a multiplayer pong game for the iPhone.  There is a video of the game out there and it works by entering another player’s screen after they hit it with their pong paddle.  It sounds like the men in the video are having a great time, and I would love to try this out!

This game was made in just a couple hours and really shows how good of a handheld gaming system the iPhone can be.  When the SDK is realeased, developers will have a great platform to develop on, and I know they will take advantage of it.  This game is just the beginning of what is going to become of the iPhone, but I’m impressed already.  Welcome to the real social, hey Microsoft?

With all the WDDC rumors flying around Worldwide Developers Conference 2008, it has become tough to keep track of them all.  Here is a list of recent rumors, and details on their credibility.

1.  3G iPhone - Is the Pope Catholic?  I think that it is safe to say that this is the only rumor that is definitely going to become a reality.  Now the only question is what it will look like and what any changes to the OS will be.  Personally, I would love the iPhone to look something like this.  Two of the biggest proofs behind this rumor are a lack of iPhones ("Currently unavailable") on the Apple website and the fact that AT&T are not allowing their employees to take vacations for a period of time this summer, supposedly around the 3G iPhone launch.  Also pointing to 3G are supposedly leaked screenshots of the 3G iPhone, strange new terms on shipping manifests, dates supposedly being announced, strange looking icons buried deep within the iPhone SDK, and announcements coming straight from the horse’s mouth, or in this case, the mouth of the Telefónica Europe’s CEO.

Read on for 4 more top rumors…

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Cocktail, a popular tool for maintenance and interface tweaks for Mac OS X, has now been updated to version number 4.1.1 for the Leopard Edition.  This version has improved Leopard compatibility and fixes a 10.5.3 bug that caused it to freeze during clearing of the system caches.  You can head over to their site and try this application out with the free trial, or you can buy it for $14.95 for one license.  It is highly recommended for all Leopard users to download this version, and the site says that 3236 people already have.

I’ve heard great things about this app and how good it is as cleaning up your system when something goes wrong.  It can also be extremely handy to use when your system begins to run a little bit sluggish and you need to clean out some of the caches.  Some of the things it can do include:

• Run periodic maintenance scripts
• Clear log files (manually or automatically rotate and/or remove archived copies of log files)
• Configure the built-in (File Sharing) Mac OS X file server
• Customize look and features of Finder, Dock, Exposé, login window and other system services

Congratulations to the Cocktail developers for getting this fix out so quickly!

Rumors have been circulating about Apple’s .Mac service. Many believe that we will be seeing a massive upgrade to its service we will see these features revealed alongside the launch of the iPhone Software 2.0 in June.

Recently, TUAW reported that Dmitry Chestnykh, CEO of Coding Robots, discovered something interesting after he had updated to Mac OS X 10.5.3. Dmitry claimed that he discovered “evidence that the .Mac brand name is going to be replaced.” Regarding the name change if this turns out to be true Mac, users would simply have to install a second update, and all the .Mac applications would be removed.

Over the past few weeks I have noticed other users, on various Mac forums, have been reporting that recently .Mac has been down a lot. Many people believe the name change along with upgrades to the .Mac service will be made at the WWDC 2008.

I purchased my first Mac in October 2006, a 17” MacBook Pro. I used the .Mac service my first year but didn’t extend renew service. The main reason was I wasn’t impressed with what the .Mac service had to offer. If the rumor is true and Apple has made major changes to .Mac that I would actually use I definitely would use the service again.

What features would you like to see with the .Mac service?

Nova Media has just added some new features to its useful Mac to cellphone synchronization software with release 2 of Fonelink. If you’re not using Fonelink yet to connect your cellphone to your Mac, version 2.0 might actually convince you to get the software. While for those who has the previous version of Fonelink into their phone, time to upgrade to release 2.0. It’s a free upgrade for those who has already purchased the software.

This new version of version of Fonelink has added the following special features; automatic music, video and photo conversion from your Mac to the formats supported by your cellphone, synchronize iTunes playlists and a built-in ringtone editor that you can use to edit music files into a shortened format that you can use as a ringtone. These new features adds up to the already rich feature of Fonelink including; organizer, sms manager, and media center.

Fonelink 2.0 is available at Nova Media’s site for $39.95. It requires Mac OS X 10.4.9 or later.

Via [Unwired View] Product [Fonelink]

FROM GADGETELL - Nike did it with the Nano, now bicycle manufacturer is tinkering with the idea of making your iPod a cycle computer.  Bringing much of the same functionality as the Nike+ unit, Cannondale envisions a docking unit on the bike but with some surprises. Yeah, you’ve got a rear view camera… MORE »