Sorenson Media has announced the immediate availability of Sorenson Squeeze 6, a significant update to the gold-standard video encoding software application. Sorenson Squeeze 6 provides the first total workflow solution for video professionals, enabling customers to employ innovative tools—such as email and text notifications and a secure review and approval process—that simplify the overall workflow and allow them to more easily encode and publish video files on the Internet. Optimized video codecs and new filters have also been added, significantly improving video quality and encoding speed.

Having dabbled in previous versions of Squeeze, I participated in an online demo of v6 with the developers a couple weeks ago. I can’t verify the encoding speed and improved video quality yet, as I haven’t tried out a full version, but I can say with certainty that the user interface is greatly improved. The workflow is much more intuitive, making it easier than ever for users to achieve optimal results with their video encoding. The presets are easier to read and offer more logical default options, while still providing full customization for those who want to dig deeper.

Updates in v6 include:

• Video quality and encoding speed have been significantly improved
• New review and approve capabilities and notification features simplify the encoding workflow
• New direct publishing and syndication of professional-quality video to YouTube, Twitter, Limelight, Akamai and Sorenson 360
• The enhanced interface makes encoding and managing video files easy
• A new integrated online preset exchange gives users video encoding “recipes” of experts
• Users will receive a complimentary Sorenson 360 review and approval account

Highlights of the demo I received include the ability to have Squeeze notify you via e-mail and text when a lengthy encoding job is done. Start the job, go to lunch, and hang out until the software lets you know the project is complete. Pretty cool. The videos can be automatically posted to an approval account, and an e-mail with password access can be sent to specified clients for approval. The videos can be previewed via computer or iPhone, and client comments are then automatically sent back to the user…while you’re still at lunch.

Sorenson claims that by incorporating and optimizing the latest On2 VP6 and MainConcept H.264 codecs, Squeeze 6 is up to 500 percent faster than Sorenson Squeeze 5 when encoding in the H.264 and VP6 formats, both of which are standard formats included with every copy of Squeeze 6. New input formats include AVC-Intra and WMV with VC-1 for use in Blu-ray and Microsoft Silverlight, and new output formats include AVI, AIFF, DV Stream, Image Sequence, Wave, and WMV with VC-1.

To coincide with the release of Squeeze 6, Sorenson Media has also launched a new Preset Exchange, an online repository of professional “video encoding recipes,” or presets. This is a great way for those new to video encoding (or who simply don’t want to take the time to optimize their settings via trial and error) to grab the settings used by video professionals. The Preset Exchange is new, so choices are limited for now, and users don’t have the ability to upload their own. As the Exchange grows, that could change.

And finally, Apple users will be happy to know that Sorenson Squeeze 6 also now works seamlessly with Apple’s Final Cut Pro and iMovie. This process eliminates the need for cumbersome exporting and importing between applications by enabling users to tap into the powerful Squeeze feature set directly from within their editing software.

Sorenson Squeeze 6 and Sorenson Squeeze 6 for Flash are available immediately for electronic download or for shipping in CD form. Sorenson Squeeze 6 is $799 and Sorenson Squeeze 6 for Flash is $499. Upgrades from previous versions of Sorenson Squeeze begin at $199. The complimentary one-year Sorenson 360 Review & Approval account includes 5GB of storage, 100 streams per month and a maximum video length of 30 minutes. A free trial is available.

For additional information about purchasing Sorenson Squeeze 6, or to find a reseller, visit www.sorensonmedia.com. Appletell’s full review of Sorenson Squeeze 6 will be posted soon.

Product [Sorenson Squeeze 6]

Full Story » | Written by Kirk Hiner for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Gruml has been around for a while now, but its first beta was extremely glitchy; too much to make it a very interesting and useful application. However, more recent beta releases have made Gruml a much more stable application. To be specific, an impressive RSS reader that relies on Google Reader for functionality.

Many of you are probably familiar with NetNewsWire—an application I use on both my Mac and iPhone quite often—which has made the switch to syncing with Google Reader back in July. As Gruml advances with new features similar to that of NetNewsWire, it, along with other RSS readers that sync with Google Reader, will have some good competition.

One thing that Gruml is lacking, though, is the AppleScript dictionary, which is quite important in an RSS reader (although that may be implemented in future versions of the app). The keyboard navigation, although quite decent, is also not as good as that within Google Reader’s web interface, which can be navigated entirely with only a keyboard. One cool Gruml feature is the “Send Article to” menu, which uses 12 services, including Delicious, Twitter, Facebok, Ping.fm and Posterous. Other Google Reader features, such as note-taking and starring, are all very well implemented in Gruml, and sync perfectly with the service.

Gruml’s UI has come a long way since the first beta, and the app even allows you to switch between a 2-column or 3-column view. The ability to add feeds is very well done and simplifies the process a lot more than other RSS reader apps. Still, some techinical glitches and bugs remain even in the latest version of Gruml (for example, marking all articles as “read” doesn’t provide any visual feedback), but it is still a very promising Google Reader desktop app for Mac OS X.

As a free download, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t try Gruml.

Full Story » | Written by Patrick Lutz for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Remember about a month ago when the team over at Dropbox submitted their iPhone application to Apple for review for the App Store? Yea, we know it’s been a while. Well that application has now been accepted and is available as a free download through the App Store! You can get it via their website or straight through iTunes. The application allows you to download Dropbox files locally to your iPhone, view them over the internet, and sync files.

Well, as any geek would, I have already downloaded and checked out the application, and my first impressions are great. The application is extremely simple and quick and does exactly what you would expect. You can easily browse your files over the internet using the iPhone’s style of navigation. Furthermore, if you want to save a file for quick viewing offline later, you are able to favorite it very easily. It does have support for emailing links to files and viewing PDFs, too, which is nice. I highly suggest you check it out if you are a Dropbox user!

Full Story » | Written by Josh Holat for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

When it comes to keeping on top of my social networks, it is sometimes a pain to always have to open myweb browser to see what I’ve missed. This is the reason why I love Tweetie so much. However, Tweetie only covers one of the two social networks on which I am most active. Up until now, I’ve had nothing to use as a native application on my Mac for Facebook. However, Facebook Notifier solves that problem hands down.

This menu bar application, which is available from Facebook, simply watches for notifications on your account using Facebook Connect, and then alerts you using Growl. The great part about this is that simply clicking the Growl notification will launch your default web browser and take you to the page with that notification. However, if you don’t have Growl installed, it will turn the menu bar icon—a Facebook logo—from black to blue. As far as notifying the user goes, this app executes that in the way I coud have only imagined. It’s really great.

The Facebook Notifications applications also adds the ability to create a global hot key for updating your Facebook status with a HUD window. However, you can also do so by clicking the menu bar item and then hitting “Update Status.” There are also other options when you click the menu bar icon. Other than showing you your five most recent notifications and three most recent inbox messages, it allows you to click an item to open your web browser and create a new inbox message. Furthermore, clicking on any notification in the drop down menu will bring you to the page with that notification.

Lastly, while the page on Facebook says it is experimental and has only been tested on Mac OS X 10.5, I had no issues installing and using it on Snow Leopard. While I wasn’t necessarily looking for a Facebook Notifier, I was extremely delighted when I saw that Facebook had made one. Now that I have it, I would miss it dearly if it went away. It makes staying on top of your Facebook profile much, much easier.

Go ahead, go check it out today and report back with what you think!

Product [Facebook Notifier]

Full Story » | Written by Josh Holat for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

If you haven’t installed iTunes 9 yet, I recommend you head to Software Updater on your Mac and do so. It offers a variety of user interface improvements, as well as a couple new features. Included in those features is Twitter and Facebook integration. By this, I mean that iTunes users can now right click on the arrow to the right of a song or album and click either “Share on Twitter” or “Share on Facebook” to tell all of their friends about it. But what does this mean?

On the outside, it certainly means Apple is taking a step towards integration into some of today’s popular social networks. While I’m sure this will help drive some sales to iTunes music, I don’t see it as being anything absolutely groundbreaking in terms of functionality; users could’ve always just copied and pasted the link themselves. This just makes that easier. However, it is interesting in that it shows that Apple is now becoming more active with social media in one of their core products. It is great to see such a large company embracing the power of these tools, even if in such a simple way.

Full Story » | Written by Josh Holat for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

It’s been a slow summer since the launch of iPhone OS 3.0, so this edition of the Appletellcast looks outside of Apple towards Google, where Bill explains why Google Chrome will not have as big an impact as we first thought. Also, Kirk laments the loss of the Genius Bar’s usefulness, both commentators discuss some helpful apps, and a Storyist 2 competition is announced. Winning is the easy part, figuring out how requires a listen.

But as always, it’s good to be prepared when entering a discussing with Kirk and Bill. Here are this week’s topics:

• Google Chrome
• The Genius Bar
• Tr.im
• iTalk
• Storyist 2

If you enjoy the Appletellcast, be sure to subscribe so you can have iTunes do all of the download work for you. Those you haven’t yet subscribed can download the podcast directly.

Full Story » | Written by Kirk Hiner for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

URL shorteners work by taking a long, unweildy hyperlink—say, http://www.appletell.com/apple/author/bstiteler/—and giving it a shorter alias: http://is.gd/1EpqL. This has several advantages: you don’t have to worry about the long URL being messed up by line breaks in an email, and with short text services like SMS and Twitter, you simply don’t have that many characters to use.

There are a multitude of services out there, starting with the venerable TinyURL (which is, ironically enough, hampered by having a needlessly long name), and other popular services like Bit.ly and—my personal favorite (for no particular reason)—Is.gd. They all do essentially the same thing, and many Twitter clients come with one or more as the default service for making your links manageable.

But while reviewing the Nambu Twitter client, I came across another service with an added feature: Tr.im And the difference is if you register (for free) with Tr.im, you can create unique shortened URLs and get statistics about how many clicks you get, plus other standard user info such as platform, date, and whether it was a human or a bot—all extremely useful for people using things like Twitter for business purposes (or just info junkies such as myself).

While anyone can create a link using Tr.im, registered users who create a link get a unique one, which means that, say, if I link to an article on Appletell, I get a short URL that is mine and mine alone; if someone else creates a link to the same article they get a different one, so I’m always clear about how many people are following my link (useful even when my link gets re-tweeted).

Tr.im even has one more trick up its sleeve; though several Twitter clients feature it as an option for URL shortening (like Tweetdeck and Tweetie), they’re created using the public URL service. But you can authorize your Tr.im account to link with your Twitter account, and any Tr.im link that shows up in your Twitter posts will be automatically added to your account, with the tracking info.

For people who need statistics on how their Twitter feed (and links outside of their website) are being used, Tr.im is a valuable addition that makes it a snap to use.

Full Story » | Written by Bill Stiteler for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

It’s official (even across the pond); Google is expanding the Chrome brand beyond a browser and creating the Chrome OS. According to the Google Blog, the OS is founded on a three S strategy: speed, simplicity and security. In an era of operating systems whose roots stretch all the way back to time shared mainframes (OS X’s BSD began in the late 1970s when computer technology still involved monochrome amber screens and mainframes still occupied an entire floor of an office building), it is refreshing to see someone building an OS based on current needs rather than supporting legacy applications.  Not that Chrome will do away the familiar OS, but it may lead to some interesting changes!

According to the Google blog, this new “OS” is really a Linux kernel with a new windowing system, and only one installed application: the Chrome browser. Obviously, this is an OS designed for an age of web applications.  And, conveniently enough,  most of Google’s major web apps, like Gmail, Docs, and Google Talk are now out of the beta period in which they seemed perpetually mired. This certainly leads one to wonder what market Google is targeting: casual users are big on Gmail, but the Chrome OS runs quite well on Windows (Mac version may or may not be coming soon). Google Docs work well enough in any modern browser, and Google has worked hard to integrate corporate Gmail with Outlook.  So what does does Google see in developing a new OS?  Where, exactly, is the beef?

Oddly enough, there is a strong case for the Chrome OS being less of a revolution and more updated nostalgia.  Many business users today run basic applications like Microsoft Office and store their work on network shares or collaboration portals like SharePoint.  Most of those users stick with the basic features of the Office suite—meaning that Google Apps function as an excellent substitute.  With online storage and app hosting, what need is there for thick clients on every desk? Why install and manage 10,000 copies of Office when you can have one server hosting Google Apps?  And for that matter, why put expensive hardware on every desk when a minimal client with internet access and enough resources to run a web browser will do?  If the OS is open source, and by extension free/cheap, as a CIO, it is virtually impossible to ignore this value proposition—in which case, where is Windows (and, sadly, Mac OS X)?  We are back to a mainframe with dumb terminals again, only this time we are using web apps rather than timeshared mainframe cycles; it appears to be the network computer all over again, only this time, it actually has a shot.

As a home user, the value proposition of the Chrome OS is much simpler.  Security and speed equal more time for you, the user.  Security concerns on Windows cause headaches and require constant vigilance, costing both time and money for home users.  Slow boot times and delays in application launching cost home users time—a small, lightweight Linux kernel and a safe, stable Chrome browser remove both obstacles.  Initially, the Chrome OS will be targeted mainly at the expanding netbook market where Microsoft had planned on aiming the crippled “Windows 7 Starter Edition”.  Given that most netbooks are incapable of running Vista due to its burdensome hardware requirements, and netbooks (as the name implies) are designed to live on the internet, a browser-based OS makes a lot of sense.  If the netbook market continues to expand, and Microsoft fails to deliver a viable netbook OS, Google may have just the opportunity it needs to establish Chrome.  What will be more challenging is adapting the OS to the more varied use case scenarios home users face: just guessing, but does anybody really think Photoshop will ever be a viable web application?

What is most interesting about the announcement is the development track that Google is taking, and how it compares to Apple’s.  In a posting on the Google Blog, the genesis of this new OS is made clear: “[Today’s] operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web.”  Google is rethinking the top heavy, legacy architecture we see on our desktops everyday and producing a brand new OS designed for today’s user requirements (although the Linux kernel underpinning the whole production is obviously not brand new).  Apple’s OS strategy, both with the forthcoming Snow Leopard OS and the iPhone OS, has been to start with a stable base and streamline it to both size it down and speed it up, resulting in faster operation, lowered space requirements, and extended reach to more devices.  In reality, Google is doing much the same, but the Chrome OS is focused solely on web applications.  Whether this is a viable strategy for mass market adoption remains to be seen; Apple tried this with the iPhone (pre-SDK days), and it ended with the App Store.  Are netbooks and business users enough of a market for Google to target a mainstream OS or is it merely a niche?  Will we eventually see popular programs ported to run side-by-side along with the Chrome browser, or can Google generate enough momentum to get mainstream applications reincarnated as web apps? 

Read [Google Blog]

Full Story » | Written by Aaron Kraus for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

There was an interesting article over at TG Daily recently, titled, “Browser wars: When will the madness end?” As you can likely guess from the title, the author assumes that the cage match currently underway between Safari, Google’s Chrome, Firefox, and IE is a bad thing. But aren’t we taught that competition is a good thing? In this case, competition is good—vital, even, if the Internet is to keep growing. Here’s why the browser wars need to continue, rather than lie dormant as they have for years:

Get there faster (anybody know where we’re going?)

The megahertz myth, in a nutshell, was the crazy race in the late 1990’s by Intel to continuously deliver faster and faster chips.  The pinnacle of this effort was the Pentium 4, which sacrificed performance in the name of speed, and suffered massive heat issues (Wikipedia covers the topic nicely).  Intel, as a result, had to step back from these faster chips and introduce the Core chips, which focus on performance and efficiency, at clock speeds lower than the P4s they replaced.  The author of the TG article draws an analogy to the speeds tests of chips during this time to the performance charts that accompany the release of a new browser nowadays.  Apple did make a big show of the speed of Safari’s Nitro rendering engine, replete with flashy bar charts indicating Safari’s lead in rendering JavaScript and HTML.

On this count, the flashy graphics and speed tests may be some grandiose posturing, but they serve as crucial indicators of the progress being made in browser development. The megahertz race was largely a result of Intel’s need to sell more processors, even though a 2GHz processor is just as speedy with your average Word document as a 3GHz. The “browser wars” represent something more important than simple marketing hoopla; the browser is (finally) getting the development attention it deserves. Microsoft throttled the world with IE 6 in 2001, officially ending the first round of browser wars when Netscape Navigator was dethroned.  Given the lack of viable competitors, IE 6 stagnated for almost 5 years (a millenia in Internet time) on Windows, and IE 5.2 was the last update that Mac users ever saw in 2002. Only when Firefox began making serious inroads into Microsoft’s 95% browser market share did anything serious happen: IE 7 dropped. New features like tabbed browsing, updated security enhancements, and better bookmark management are all suddenly available. This is more than a few extra megahertz of processing speed; there are genuinely innovative changes happening here!

Web 2.0 - the Need for Speed

No matter who is doing the comparisons, be it Mozilla, Apple, or third party benchmarkers, it is usually the case that IE sinks to the bottom of the pack in terms of speed.  It is certainly easy to assume that everyday users won’t ever need a blazing-fast JavaScript engine, as most sites load sufficiently quickly to keep people surfing happily.  Unfortunately, trends in the types of sites we use beg to differ.  Even basic text pages, like newspaper or magazine sites, have fancy animated ads or links to video related to the content.  As HD video increases, browsers need to keep pace - it can not be successfully argued that browsers are good enough, and therefore shouldn’t keep improving.  This is exactly what locked us into 5 years of using the same tired IE 6 interface, with all its quirks and poor performance.  Constantly improving the browser experience directly contributes to constant improvements in the sites that are available for browsing.  Web 2.0, and whatever awaits after it rely on innovation and change, and web applications are increasingly competitive with their desktop counterparts.  For that trend to continue, browser development needs to be focused on speed and efficiency, just as Intel rethought the performance of its chips after the Pentium 4.  It’s hardly a coincidence that the rise of Web 2.0 coincides with the relaunch of the browser wars!

Time to Break on Through

Any developer who has had to endure the trauma of testing a site under multiple browsers will be in favor of the benchmarks being released with every new browser, regardless of whether the speed claims are actually true.  The key point to remember here is that all the bar graphs are about the same thing: the speed of each browser at rendering open-standards compliant content.  Why is that important?  Because for too long IE 6’s quirks and half-baked standards support coupled with a 95% market share meant that many web sites/apps were designed to work and look good only in IE 6.  But Microsoft let too much time pass between browser releases, and they don’t have a good mobile browser lined up for the exploding market of handheld mobile devices.  This void is being filled by competitors, who realize that open, interoperable standards are good. (Notice ActiveX available outside of IE?  Go on, look for it, I can wait.) 

Even if this round of the browser wars doesn’t result in a monolithic market share winner, the users will be the real winners.  Open Google Maps in any modern browser and it will look and feel the same.  That is step one.  Step two is finding ways to make these standards-based applications faster, so they can be made richer and more useful, and that has to happen by innovation in the browser, not better coding on a server.  The bar graphs showing blazing fast speed are overhyped marketing drivel, granted, but underneath them is a basic truth: better performance for open standards, like AJAX and HTML5, paves the way for replacement of proprietary standards.  Technologies like ActiveX and Flash will no longer be necessary—the first being totally unavailable outside Windows/IE, and the second being ungainly on Windows, practically unusable on a Mac, and totally unavailable on the iPhone.  Changing browsing habits demand changes to the browser, and with these changes, developers may finally be able to realize the dream of delivering write once, run anywhere code (how long ago did Sun promise us that?).

The second revolution in web usage is the real fuel for these browser wars, not mere marketing push to create new upgrade cycles for microprocessors.  So there is no comparison to the shallow smoke and mirrors that created the megahertz myth, apart from the fact that they both rely on benchmarks which don’t always approximate the real world.  But this time, we, the users, will end up winning, especially because browsers usually tend to be free, while Intel processors are not.

Full Story » | Written by Aaron Kraus for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

It was announced this week at WWDC that Safari 4 is out of beta and ready for the masses. Soon after, Appletell was able to get a first look up about the performance of Safari 4. Now, Apple is stating that there have been more than 11 million downloads of Safari 4 in the first three days since its release. More than half of these (6 million) have been for Windows, which is quite interesting, if you ask me.

New features in this release include Top Sites, Cover Flow of your history, and Developer Tools. Also, according to Apple, “Safari executes JavaScript nearly 8 times faster than Internet Explorer 8 and more than 4 times faster than Firefox 3 based on performance in leading industry benchmark tests: iBench and SunSpider.” The browser war between Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari was tough as it is, and this update just made it even more competitive.

You can get the new version of Safari at Apple’s website.

Full Story » | Written by Josh Holat for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Today at WWDC 2009, Apple removed the beta label from Safari 4 and released it for Leopard, Tiger, and Windows. This finalized version of the browser includes Top Sites, as well as other new features that make browsing the web easier. Also, Safari 4 will increase the speed of surfing the web. Apple has claimed that users will notice that Safari renders JavaScript 7.8 times faster than Internet Explorer 8 and 5X faster than Chrome. It was also noted in the keynote that it passes the Acid3 test, whereas IE8 only gets 21%. There was also the usual bashing of IE8 as a browser that doesn’t adhere to web standards.

Safari 4 will be included with Snow Leopard and will take advantage of the 64-bit backend that will be in that version of the operating system. One of the new features that will be available on the Snow Leopard version of Safari 4 is Crash Resistance. This will help to make the application more reliable, especially when dealing with plug-ins. There is also the cover flow view of web history, and Top Sites lets you know when a site has updated.

Follow this and more updates at our WWDC Keynote live blog.

Full Story » | Written by Josh Holat for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

February saw the public release of Safari 4 Beta—the latest update to Apple’s own browser. There were a couple of complications for some people, but for the majority, Safari 4 looked a nice improvement. Little would we release that it would keep track of each and every site we visited, regardless of our preferences.

I had been using Safari 4 from its release until last week. I reverted back to Safari 3 as a result of some compatibility issues with certain websites. Being in beta testing, this was expected.

You may recall a popular feature, Top Sites. This useful tool showed you thumbnails of your most visited websites, and also notified you when one of those sites had been updated. Viewing your browsing history had also received a face lift, allowing you to browse through recently visited websites in a cover flow style. It’s one of those features you enjoy, but don’t think much about its implications.

The fact is that for each website you visit, Safari 4 beta stores two screenshots. One is a thumbnail, and the other is a full resolution grab. They’re for our viewing pleasure when trying to find that website from this morning, or seeing what’s new for my top sites. But when you think about it, you may visit your usual 10-15 websites daily, plus any funny links, news stories etc… Let’s say you visit 50 websites a day. That’s two screenshots for each, one of which is at full resolution. See where this is going? The memory Safari 4 beta requires to store these screenshots is crazy. C. Harwick, a designer and musician, claimed Safari 4 had over 2GB of screenshots of each website he had visited since downloading the beta. That may seem little, but its 2GB that could be used elsewhere, certainly not for pointless screenshots. The folder for the thumbnails used with the top sites feature was over 200MB.

You may also be aware of the Private Browsing function. You know, to stop your better half from seeing your plans for her birthday…as though anyone would use it for anything else. Well, you’d better hope they’re not tech-savvy, because it would seem Safari 4 doesn’t play ball. I mentioned that the beta release stores two screenshots of each website you visit? Well this also applies even with Private Browsing mode switched on.

You can find a couple of tips for removing the screenshots here. There’s still no word on its official full release; we’ll likely hear something at WWDC.

Via [Cult of Mac]

Full Story » | Written by Ed Parry for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Provides: Full suite of video/photo/image/web content creation and management
Format: DVD
Developer: Adobe
Minimum System Requirements: Varies by product/package (see Adobe’s website for individual details)
Processor Compatibility: Universal
Price: Varies by product/package (see Adobe’s website for all suite and individual software normal and upgrade prices)
Availability: Now

This is the update Macromedia users have been dreading since Adobe bought out the company a few years ago. This is when what we’ve known and loved about the Macromedia UI and methodology has been tossed out the window and replaced with Adobe’s own way of doing things. There is good and bad to this. Good, in that the Macromedia products—Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Flash—are now much more tightly integrated with their Adobe stepbrothers. The products share more of the same tools and commands, and generally get along a lot better. Bad, in that Adobe’s way isn’t always the best way, and they’ve overcomplicated quite a few features for the sake of unity.

CS4 is a huge update (hence our delay in getting up coverage…we’ve got day jobs, you know). If you’re going to pick up the Master Collection, you’re looking at nearly 20 updated programs rolled out at once in a single package. And these are big, big programs. That Adobe is able to maintain a schedule of significant updates about every 18 months indicates two things to me: that they’ve got an incredible staff of programmers, and that maybe some of these features were pushed out a bit too soon.

One way to address this is to abandon older technology, making it easier to program and troubleshoot. Although most apps in CS4 can work on systems dating all the way back to the G4, you still need to have Mac OS X v10.4.11 running on it. In addition, many of the programs (especially the video apps such as After Effects and Premiere Pro) rely heavily on OpenGL, meaning that certain functions will not be available to you or that you won’t be able to run the programs at all. For a complete breakdown of what app needs what to run, visit Adobe’s website.

Of course, you don’t need them all. The CS4 products are sold in numerous suites, each tailored to a specific use. Adobe has done a good job of fairly placing the apps into these suites; you likely won’t need to pay for apps you don’t need in order to get what you want in a specific suite.

Now, which package you go for should be fairly obvious, based on your needs. Because of they way they’re priced, if you purchase more than two or three individual apps, you’re likely going to save money by buying into a suite. And although the initial purchase is pretty steep, Adobe continues to be quite fair with their upgrade prices.

Once you’ve purchased and installed your update, the first thing you’ll notice is that the CS4 apps push further into the OWL (Object Widget Library) interface. Adobe has undertaken the task of unifying all the apps (both their original and the acquired Macromedia programs) across the suite, on both the Mac and the PC. Likely, your first reaction will be one of confusion. The interface is dark gray and heavy. Tool icons are clean, but lifeless. Adobe has apparently used OWL 2 to make the the Mac and PC versions not only work the same way, but look the same way. I’ve spoken to many users from both camps, and almost straight across the board, PC users like the new look, while Mac users hate it. Whether that means the Mac GUI is just that much better than the PC’s or that PC users are just more flexible, I’ll leave up to you.

We’ll address most of these issues in the individual reviews, but I do need to mention that there are some significant advantages to the OWL 2 GUI. First, although most of the apps now default to a tabbed interface for multiple documents (think tabbed browsing on Safari), you can shut this off so that each document stands on its own. In fact, through menu options and keystrokes, you can pretty much get the UI to behave however you want. I found the Application Frame, for example (in which your document and tools all sit in a single, resizable frame, as pictured above), too restricting when working on my 24” iMac. But when using my Unibody MacBook, it made it much easier to keep control of the limited space afforded to me. Likewise, simple keystrokes can minimize the tool panels, or hide them completely. Love or hate the new UI, it is designed to give you quick access to the tools you need, hide the tools you don’t, and show you as much of your canvas as possible at all points.

Don’t think for a second, however, that these updates are strictly about streamlining your workflow. Most of the apps have powerful new features and a host of small tweaks that add up to big improvements. Obviously, I can’t go into them all here. In fact, the CS4 updates are so large that we’re not going to handle them here at all, or even just at Appletell. Instead, we’re working in conjunction with our friends at Applelinks to bring you individual reviews of each app in the suites. To get to the individual app reviews, just click on the links below. It’s kind of pointless to rate the CS4 updates as a whole, because each package would deserve its own rating based on the apps included and the value they offer. So, below, we link to the individual reviews of the apps that comprise the suite. Click through to the Applelinks or Appletell reviews for the individual apps to learn more.

CS4 Design Suite (for print and web work):

Standard - $1,399 new, $499 upgrade

• InDesign
• Illustrator
• Acrobat 9 Pro
• Photoshop Standard

Premium - $1,799 new, $599 upgrade

• InDesign
• Illustrator
• Acrobat 9 Pro
• Photoshop Extended
• Dreamweaver
• Flash
• Fireworks

CS4 Web Suite (for web work):

Standard - $999 new, $399 upgrade

• Dreamweaver
• Flash Professional
• Fireworks

Premium - $1,699 new, $599 upgrade

• Dreamweaver
• Flash Professional
• Fireworks
• Photoshop Extended
• Illustrator
• Soundbooth
• Acrobat 9 Pro

CS4 Production Premium (for video work):

$1,699 new, $599 upgrade

• After Effects
• Premiere Pro
• Photoshop Extended
• Illustrator
• Flash Professional
• Soundbooth
• OnLocation
• Encore

CS4 Master Collection:

$2,499 new, $899 upgrade

• InDesign
• Illustrator
• Acrobat 9 Pro
• Photoshop Extended
• Dreamweaver
• Contribute
• Flash Professional
• Fireworks
• After Effects
• Premiere Pro
• Soundbooth
• OnLocation
• Encore

No matter which program you buy into, it’ll also offer Bridge, Device Central and Adobe Media Player. Version Cue comes in all packages save for Production Premium, in which it’s replaced by Dynamic Link.

It really is worth it to look at these apps individually, not as a whole. Most are absolutely worth the upgrade, a couple will only appeal to select users, and at least one should just be entirely dropped from the lineup. But overall, this is a solid lineup of amazing tools that bring some great new features, even if they are muddied up in a new user interface that will take some getting used to.

Once we’re done with all the pieces, we’ll assign ratings to each package. Until then, check back with us weekly as work our way through the powerful behemoth that is Adobe Creative Suite 4.

Full Story » | Written by Kirk Hiner for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Ah, how the media loves its buzzwords, and one of the latest that has been bandied about is “pandemic.” We’re not above that here at Appletell, especially when Macs are involved. So, when we were told that Macs are being used to help predict the spread of swine flu, we wanted to find out how.

According to the “International migration and development, Report of the Secretary General,” 2% of the world’s population has moved to a new country in the last few years, possibly carrying infectious diseases with them. “That’s over 200 million people that have moved to a new location. So that means that these infections we’re talking about are global,” said Larry Schlesinger, PhD of the Ohio State University Medical Center. To combat the spread of these diseases, Dr. Schlesinger started and continues to run a center with over 50 scientists dedicated solely to finding and fighting them.

How does the Macintosh come into play? Hoping to stay one step ahead of the spread of swine flu, researchers at the Ohio State University Medical Center are looking to the sky via Macs and Google Earth. These researchers map cases overnight, and even zoom in to street level to tell them who is infected—a tool which was used to track avian flu in 2007. “I could tell you where it came from in the world and what mutations are specific to that lineage such that it can be diagnosed rapidly,” said Dan Janies, PhD of Ohio State University (pictured right). And Dr. Janies’ tool of choice for tracking this data? “We use Macs (to produce Supramap) mostly because of the fact that they have both a nice user interface and a Unix based OS. We work both with graphics (google earth) and command line applications (poy).

“We could not live without BBEdit and the grab utility!”

Of course, diagnosing and tracking the disease won’t cure it, which is why the team at Ohio State is constantly looking for new therapies. “You really don’t eradicate infectious diseases, you just tame them. And they keep re-emerging. And if we’re not smart, they’ll win the battle, not humans,” says Dr. Schlesinger.

Although it’s great to see the stability and speed of the Macintosh getting put to good use on such important work, it’s even more encouraging that the research is being done at all, no matter what tools are being used.

Full Story » | Written by Kirk Hiner for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Provides: Remote file access
Format: Download
Developer: FlyingMac
Minimum System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4 or higher; 10.5 is required for iPhone support
Processor Compatibility: Universal
Price: $35
Availability: Now
Version Reviewed: 1.3.3

Have you ever needed a file when you are away from your Mac? And to make matters even more irritating than not having the file, you know exactly where it is on the machine at home. This normally only happens to really important files, and there’s nothing you can do about it. At least, there didn’t used to be. Yes, FarFinder might be the sort of application you don’t realize you need until it’s too late. It allows you to use a web browser to access your Finder—or, much more fun, to use your iPhone to access files on your Mac when you aren’t able to physically reach them. All you need is a connection to the internet.

FarFinder is really a menubar application that serves a webpage from your Mac. It links itself to a custom web address defined by you (basically, just their standard site plus your username).  This page is accessible to anyone who knows the page name and your Mac’s log-in details.  Essentially, you log into your user account through the webpage to gain access to FarFinder’s features.

Setting all of this up couldn’t be much more simple.  After installation, all you do is run the app, which basically hides itself in the menu bar.  It will ask you to pick out a username which determines your customized URL.  As long as your Mac has an internet connection and is running FarFinder, this link will let you access all of the features that FarFinder has to offer.

The FarFinder web interface could probably pass as the Finder to many, but it really is just a web interface.  You can do many of the things you can do from within the normal Finder like navigate through folders, get file information, search using Spotlight, view image slideshows, listen to songs or watch videos (streamed).  If you also have an iPhone and use the iPhone app, you can do all of this and even save files to your iPhone.  A few additional features seem strange, but may prove to be useful, like the ability to take a picture with your iSight camera or send e-mails directly from the Mac to which you are connected.

There are some limitations, but it’s nothing huge.  You can’t, for example, right click or drag and drop files.  That said, you just need to know how to access and manipulate files and you’ll be fine.  If you double click a file, you’ll be served a download of said file.  If you single click it, you can use the buttons at the top of the window to do things like get its info, e-mail it, etc. Alternatively, you can even upload a file from the computer you’re using to your Mac at home.

FarFinder is obviously useful to anyone who has important files on a computer that’s both always on and always connected to the net. Check and check for me. How about you? It becomes insanely useful when you add an iPhone (preferably 3G) into the mixture. Just think, you can now access all of your files from just about anywhere. You can even stream media such as songs and movies from your Mac to your iPhone. So, the next time you want to play a song for a friend but don’t have it synced to your iPhone, no problem; just open up FarFinder.  You can even use your home Mac as a pseudo security cam.  While you can’t move the camera, you can take pictures at any time.  So, if you know that someone is at your place, you could spy on him.  But you wouldn’t do that without telling him…would you?

While testing this application, I found a few minor glitches in the app. For instance, the iSight feature used to break iChat’s video chat feature until you restarted your Mac. I say used to because FlyingMac fixed it far faster than I could have possibly expected.  I’m not going to say how fast, because I wouldn’t want to impose some kind of standard on them, but suffice to say, they care about their users and their applications.  I’m confident that if you find a bug or glitch, they’ll find a solution, and they won’t waste time implementing it.

Don’t kick yourself later for not at least trying out FarFinder right now.  It can save you a lot of headaches, but, truth be told, if it only saves you one headache, doesn’t that make it worth it?  FlyingMac let’s you try out FarFinder for a full 20 days without any sort of obligation, so you owe it to yourself to give it a try.  Remember, even if you don’t use it every day, it’s there when you need it.

Full Story » | Written by Jake Gaecke for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Apple has sent out an e-mail to .Mac (MobileMe) subscribers announcing that as of July 7th, 2009, the .Mac HomePage application will be removed from the service. Upon hearing this news, my first questions was, “What’s HomePage?” My second questions was, “What’re they going to kill next? Pippin? CyberDoc?”

I actually used the HomePage app at one point to try to lay out my .Mac site back in the day, but found it almost as unpleasant as working in Microsoft FrontPage. Although not perfect, iWeb is just a much better app that offers more power while retaining the ease of use required for simply, quickly generated websites. HomePage will not be missed, and I’m actually surprised to find out it’s still around. I mean, seriously…look at that brushed aluminum interface! It may as well be System 6.0!

From the e-mail:

On July 7, 2009, the .Mac HomePage web application will be discontinued. As of this date, you will no longer be able to create new pages or edit existing pages using HomePage. Any pages you’ve already published will remain live at their current web address for as long as you like. If you need to make changes to your existing pages, please do so before July 7.

Instead of HomePage, we recommend the other sharing features of your MobileMe membership. With MobileMe Gallery, you can share photos online directly from iPhoto or the web application at www.me.com. And using iWeb on your Mac, you can create custom websites and blogs and publish them to MobileMe.

If you’ve been putting off learning iWeb or competing applications such as RapidWeaver, here’s your incentive. Although working directly online with HomePage had its perks (it was actually pretty good for organizing your online files, even if the design templates were pretty bad), the capabilities of iWeb and its corresponding tools outweigh the convenience of HomePage. Take a look now, and I’ll be surprised if you’re not done with HomePage within a week.

Full Story » | Written by Kirk Hiner for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

One of the many reasons I’m not a Windows fan is the fact that applications can all look very different and behave in very different ways. On the Mac, most applications behave in much the same way when it comes to standard functions. The menus (File, Edit, etc.) are similar if not identical in these apps. Preferences is always accessed via “Command+comma.” By and large, these apps look the same, too. Gray gradient chrome, blue jelly scrollbars, jelly buttons, plastic toolbar buttons, etc.

Apps that don’t follow these rules are ones I don’t use. Well, that is, until I tried Twitterrific. When I first downloaded it, I felt it stuck out like a sore thumb; an odd, translucent black window in a sea of chrome. I resolved to stay with it for a couple of days, though, and fell in love with the application regardless of what it looked like.

Flash forward a year, to yesterday. I downloaded a beta of the new Twitter client “Lounge” (review forthcoming), as it was the first (and currently only) Twitter application for the Mac that both looks and runs natively. (Some Adobe AIR clients can be skinned to look native, but, well, they’re AIR apps.) Oddly enough, I did not like this native look and feel. It blended in too much with all the other apps, and made me realize something that I hadn’t before: OS X chrome takes up a lot of room. Not as much as Windows, sure, but a standard Lounge window is a lot wider than a Twitterrific window, and a lot brighter and harder on the eyes.

So what was my lesson here? Smaller apps work well when they look different. Single-function apps should define their own look and feel that makes sense for their purpose. Of course, if Photoshop, iTunes, or other larger, multipurpose apps adopt their own UI and paradigms, then we’re no better off than Windows.

Full Story » | Written by Adam Fisher-Cox for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Though the Safari 4 beta added a lot, at least in looks, when compared to earlier developer betas, one notable thing it lost was the “Save as Web Application…” command in the File menu. Using this command, Safari would make an application in your Applications folder that basically ran just that one website, something introduced to the masses with a piece of freeware called Fluid. However, this feature is not gone, nor have plans for it stalled. It seems to just been have removed from the public.

It looks like all that’s been removed is the menu command. Looking inside Safari’s package contents (right click, “Show Package Contents”) all the files for the web application icons are intact, as is “WebApplicationCore.bundle” with the web application’s core files. What does this tell us? It seems to me that Apple doesn’t want this to be in the Public Beta, because it will come with Safari 4 for Mac when it is released along with Snow Leopard. This feature won’t be in the Windows version, because it’s creating applications, which will likely be Mac OS X only (though, if they put the work into making it make Windows web apps, too, that would be pretty cool.)

Other files found while poking around the Resources indicate that Apple may be planning to make tabs on top an option, that if you visit a suspected phishing site, Safari will display a warning page beforehand, and (exciting news for themers and tweakers like myself) almost all of the new interface elements are files in the Resources that are simple PNG files. I’m planning to start changing the tabs to my liking as soon as I’m done writing here.

Full Story » | Written by Adam Fisher-Cox for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Since Twitter sprang from the idea of sending text updates from a cell phone, why not also post pictures? While there are several ways (and services) to do this, the two easiest I’ve found are TwitPic and Skitch, both currently free, and can be used from a browser or cell phone. Since Twitter itself only allows text, the services work by posting a link to the photo hosted on another site.

TwitPic

TwitPic works like this: you log into the TwitPic website using your Twitter ID. The site then generates a special email address that you keep secret (this prevents others from emailing photos to your feed). Instead of sending a text message (SMS) to Twitter, you send a picture message (MMS) to TwitPic.

The photo is uploaded to your personal page on TwitPic (your “photo stream”), and a post is automatically generated (with a TinyURL link) to your Twitter feed. If you want to include a caption with your photo, you use the Subject link on your email, and TwitPic includes that in your Tweet. You can also upload photos from your computer to the website directly, and choose whether to have those pics posted to Twitter.

If any Twitter users comment on your photo (and you have to be logged in with a Twitter account leave a comment), it will also be posted to Twitter as an “@reply” to your username.

TwitPic is free to use, but supports itself with ads on your photo page.

Skitch

One of my favorite Mac apps, Skitch is an elegant, simple way to take, crop, and annotate screenshots in OS X. And since web sharing is built in, posting to Twitter is a snap.

Similar to TwitPic, Skitch can have photos sent to your personal page via email or MMS—it works by having Skitch generate a secret email address for you. Send a picture to this account, and it gets posted privately to your Skitch feed. Add +public (“secretusername+public@skitch.com” for example) to the username, and it’s posted to your public feed.  If you add “+twitter” to the username on this account (“secretusername+twitter@skitch.com”), Skitch automatically posts it to your Twitter account. Adding +public+twitter to the address does both.

Of course, the real beauty of Skitch is not just that you can upload photos to the internet, but that you can crop, resize, and add text, arrows, and shapes to them—hard to do from a phone. If you’re at your Mac, however, you can annotate your photo to your heart’s content. Once you’re done, you can either email the photo to your Twitter feed (as outlined above), or use Skitch’s Webpost function to upload it to your personal page. There, along with the code for pasting your photo to a web page, is a handy button for posting it automatically to your Twitter feed.

Skitch is currently in a free public beta. You can sign up for it here, and details on how to use the email services on their blog.

For more apps designed to enhance your tweets, check out our Twitter apps for iPhone and Macintosh round-up.

Full Story » | Written by Bill Stiteler for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Apple currently ships a ton of full-fledged programs with Mac OS X. Safari, Mail, iChat, Address Book, and iCal are all great examples. As the operating system paradigm shifts, though, I think Apple could be the one to pull these apps all together into one really useful application that many people would rarely ever leave.

First, let’s talk about why this won’t work well on OS X as is. It mostly has to do with the Dock, and Dock badges for notification. Currently, you can tell you have new Mail because the Mail icon gets a badge. You can tell there’s a new chat message because iChat shows a badge. If all these apps were rolled into one, how would you know which functionality was asking for your attention? As OS X moves in the direction OS X touch has already taken, where the line between operating system and application is much more blurred, a notifications bar, housing small icons much like the menu bar, would be a great place for these notifications to show up.

The reason I even considered this idea is because Apple has a keen focus on keeping apps integrated. Promotional materials frequently reference the “seamless integration” of applications. But even then there are flaws, because they are separate applications, after all. Having all the functionalities as one application means they really do all work together as one. This type of application is one place where I could see Safari’s tabbed title bar working. The large tabs would be for the different functionalities, and within, there would be smaller tabs a la Safari 3 for different mail messages, websites, chats, etc. Safari would be the main focus, with iChat in a sidebar. Mail would be largely the same as it is currently, but mailing links and videos, etc would all be right there. A new section would be an RSS reader, replacing the oddly duplicate RSS readers that both Mail and Safari currently sport. All the different “programs” would be built smartly so as to be always on, but never seen if they aren’t needed (and also not wasting resources.)

At first glance, this seems like a rather unnecessary step, but it really does make sense. As computer users, we spend most of our time on the internet. To have email, instant messaging, RSS feeds, etc. all in the scope of one application means that there won’t be the clutter and confusion of switching between a whole bunch of separate applications; it will all be available in the same window. Done right, it could be a great productivity enhancer, and I think Apple would be the company to do it right.

Would this work for you? Why or why not? Sound off in the comments below!

Full Story » | Written by Adam Fisher-Cox for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Category: Social Networking (Twitter client)
Developer: Funkatron
Requirements: Adobe AIR, 1MB of hard disk space, Twitter account
Compatibility: Universal (also cross-platform)
File Size: 1.0 Mb
Version Reviewed: 0.6.2
Price: Free

I’m not exactly sure why Spaz (operating off the Adobe AIR platform) has become my favorite desktop Twitter client. In terms of how it works, it’s nothing radical, resembling Twitterrific and several other programs. It shows your Twitter feed, has tabs to see your Direct Messages and @replies, both a search function for Twitter-at-large and a filter for the posts in your feed. All handy features, but nothing that several other programs use in an all-too-familiar layout.

Why, then, do I keep coming back to Spaz? It certainly isn’t the name. I think it’s because of all the small elements that make the program easy to use and a pleasure to look at. As an open-source program that’s not even at a 1.0 release yet, Spaz shows in many subtle ways that a lot of thought has gone into making this program pleasant on the senses. The default interface (“Spaz”) is a mixture of dark and creamy colors with the posts printed in a serif font. The first few times I used it, something about the layout bugged me. I figured out what it was: it was easy to read. So many of the clients focus on taking up as little space as possible, and one easy way to do that is by reducing the font size and using san-serifs. The “Spaz” layout, by contrast, takes just as much room as it needs to comfortably lay the type out.

There are three other layouts included (and if you’re comfortable manipulating CSS, you can alter the interface yourself), and those feel much more like a “standard” Twitter layout: “Spaz Mini” keeps the color scheme but fits as many posts as possible onto the screen by changing to a small, yes, sans-serif font with tiny pictures of the person posting. “Whitespace” is blindingly minimalist, and “Dumb Terminal” gives your Twitter feed a retro look by formatting the entire thing like an old computer monitor: green text on a black background, with each post preceded by the $: characters.

If space is a big concern for you, Spaz can also be set to automatically minimize and restore itself as you shift it to the background then bring it back to read. And you’ll know when you do get new messages because Spaz supports Growl, the Open Source notification program. And if you keep your Dock open, the Spaz icon can display a badge with the number of unread tweets, similar to the way Mail shows how many new messages you have.

Hidden away (Under the Spaz>> button in the top left corner) is a menu for sending direct messages and @replies, as well as a URL shortener that works with seven different services. And if you bring that up while you have a URL in your clipboard, it’ll automatically convert it and past the shortened URL back into the clipboard.

I can’t end this review without talking about one of my favorite Spaz features: the sounds. Whenever you get a new message or start the program, these delightful electronic notes play in the background. Normally, these kind of notifications are the first thing I turn off in a program, but with Spaz, they’re just so darn pleasant I can’t help but perk up when I hear them.

The only thing that’s really missing from Spaz is documentation, especially if you want to root around in the guts of the program and tailor it to your needs. The Spaz Wiki is helpful in some places, and in others…not so much.  But that’s only if you’re interested in messing about with the CSS and such. For those who just want a beautiful, well-designed Twitter client (and free, to boot), Spaz is worth a look.

Full Story » | Written by Bill Stiteler for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

On Tuesday, I released a list of the 8 principal things wrong with the Safari 4 interface from a usability standpoint. Today, I’m going to outline six fixes that would make me love Safari 4, and that I feel solve all the issues.

What you see above is an “Unfail Diagram,” the opposite of Tuesday’s “Fail Diagram.” You know it’s different because the markings are green now. Please use the diagram to follow along.

1. “Let’s go scrolling!” - This little arrow will allow you to scroll through all the tabs, instead of just opening up a menu with tab names on it. In real use, this would only appear when the tab bar got too full, and there would be one pointing the other direction, too. Lifted out of Firefox, sure, but hey, we didn’t seem to have a problem taking Google Chrome’s “tabs on top,” did we?

2. “Let’s make the ‘Customize’ sheet worthwhile” - Now, this randomly attached button can be gotten rid of if you so choose. Imagine that. (See also number 5)

3. “Let’s have a progress indicator that indicates progress!” - Why was the progress bar ever gone? Now it’s back and progressive as ever (but with new colors.)

4. “Let’s have a standard, intuitive title bar” - A title bar that looks like all other applications’ title bars, acts like all other title bars, and requires no re-learning. Oh no, it adds on ten more pixels. Make it an option. The tabs all get their own row, and lose the stupid “grip” area. Their functionality returns to as it was in Safari 3, where dragging any part of the tab vertically breaks it off, and dragging horizontally moves it around.

5. “Let’s not make unnecessary switches” - By default, the refresh button and add bookmark button are switched so that the refresh button is now a larger target and the add bookmark button is inside the URL field it applies to. These are switchable and one can be had without the other.

6. “Let’s make things match” - Purely aesthetic, but the search box and address bar have matched curvatures, and their bevels are the same as well.

Does this solve all of your gripes with the Safari UI? Does it create any new problems? Sound off in the comments below!

Full Story » | Written by Adam Fisher-Cox for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Provides: Social Networking (Twitter client)
Developer: Iain Dodsworth
Requirements: Adobe AIR, Intel Core Duo 1.83GHz or PowerPC G4 1GHz processor, Mac OS X v10.4.11 or Mac OS X 10.5.4, 512MB RAM
Price:M Free (public beta)
Availability: Out now

Think of it like this; in terms of options, management, and scope, every other Twitter client is iPhoto. Tweetdeck is Photoshop.

A free application that runs on the Adobe AIR platform, Tweetdeck, a Twitter desktop client, is a monster of a program. I don’t mean that it’s difficult to learn, but the sheer scope of its features and ability to sort through the massive amount of Twitter posts make it the most complex tool I’ve yet seen.

Tweetdeck organizes itself into columns starting with the basic three: your Twitter feed, replies, and direct messages. But you can add as many columns as you like after that, sorting the poeple you follow into groups, like businesses, friends, or celebrity feeds. If you regularly search for a term or phrase over and over, you can create a column that will store that search and regularly update the results. And keep in mind you’re not limited to one group and one search column—you can have as many of these as you’d like.

Other presets include feeds from 12seconds where users can create 12 second long videos (Twitter for video, if you will), or, if you use Twitter to follow discussions of your investments, you can also quickly create a feed for following StockTwits. The final preset gives you a column for TwitScoop, a data cloud showing popular words that are being used on Twitter at the moment.

Now, let’s say you actually want to post something on Twitter. Believe it or not, Tweetdeck does that, too. But, not only does it allow you to post your 140 character thoughts, it also includes a URL shortener that works with thirteen different services. There’s also provides a button for uploading your photos to TwitPic. If your post is just a little too long, you can click another button to translate your post into SMS abbreviations with Tweet Shrink. The last button gives you quick access to the hashtags you use—terms with a pound sign in front of them (like #apple or #ipod) that make it easy for users to search and find the Tweet as part of a larger conversation.

The Twitter API allows you 100 “uses” per hour, which includes posting and refreshing. Tweetdeck displays the number of API checks you have left, and you can set how frequently it updates so you get the maximum amount of refreshes without running out before the end of the hour. You can also turn automatic refreshes off. In terms of notifications, it uses small pop-up windows, similiar to Growl (but not using that service), to notify the user of updates.

If you’re a hardcore Twitter user, someone who follows a lot or users or has a lot of followers, or just a data junkie, Tweetdeck goes above and beyond the call of a Twitter client; it’s practically a Twitter Browser, or a Twitter OS. It’s not small (in terms of desktop real estate) and it’s not discrete, but it is extremely powerful and very flexible in terms of the data you receive and how its organized.

Full Story » | Written by Bill Stiteler for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

With Safari 4, Apple apparently got over its “let’s bring Mac OS X style windows into a Windows environment” mentality, and has done a really great job making Safari 4 fit in with the environment in which it is installed. Oddly enough, it seems as though they designed the new Safari 4 interface for Windows, and then applied the exact same design to the Mac version. What you see above is the Fail Diagram, explained below. Most are more design complaints than things that may actually cause a large usability issue, but they are things that a design-oriented company such as Apple should have noted. Feel free to check things out for yourself with your own copy of Safari 4.

1. “Let’s repurpose the title bar” -  By having the title bar be the tabs, Apple has created a weird line and color difference in the title bar color. Now it doesn’t match the other title bars that Apple was so excited about having “Unified” in Leopard. See also number 7.

2. “Let’s attach a non-essential button to an essential element” - We all need to type in addresses, but why is it just as necessary to add a bookmark? For someone who wants to keep the interface as clean as possible (one of the selling points of Safari), this is a pain. The refresh button would be much better off in this area. See also number 5.

3. “Let’s make the only application to use a different font for the title bar” - Okay, I get that they are tabs, but they’re on the top now. Use the system standard Lucida Grande. The tiny bold font looks weird and annoying.

4. “Let’s make the close button a square” - This only really gets bad when you are on the tab closest to the window controls. Now there’s a close window button just pixels away from a close tab button (and why make the traffic lights part of the tab?)

5. “Let’s duplicate the pointless UI change we did on the iPhone” - Apple put the refresh button in the address bar on the iPhone for no apparent reason. Now they’re doing it on Safari. Why not put the add button in the address bar? The refresh button should be a much larger click target and be a button all to itself.

6. “Let’s change the system standard title bar gradient” - Apple made the top of the tabs a lot lighter, meaning that it is once again a pain to distinguish between active and inactive windows when only a bit is showing.

7. “Let’s change how tabs operate” - Now that tabs are the title bar, they can’t just be dragged off at any point. You now have to drag them from the corner. What indicates the drag area? Oh, it’s a window resize grabber. Great. That makes a ton of sense.

8. “Let’s add an add button” - So they give us an add button, now that everyone is used to double clicking the tab bar. And it’s on the corner of the entire window. So don’t try to grab your windows by the corners. Now that Apple is obsessed with clickthrough ability, not only will the window not come to the front, a new tab will open too. Yay.

Agree? Disagree? Did I miss something? Sound off in the comments below! Or, read how the Safari 4 interface can be improved.

Full Story » | Written by Adam Fisher-Cox for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

I’m sitting here, typing away at this article in Firefox. I currently have Mail, iChat, and Twitterriffic open. They are all connected to the internet. Oh, there’s a new batch of tweets! And a new mail message! And in comes a new chat with a link to a funny video. Let’s check it out! Up pops Safari, tries to load the page, chokes, and dies with a pathetic message that it can’t find the server. Did I mention I was writing this in Firefox? Because I am. This is the story of how Safari 4 completely screwed over Webkit on my Mac.

I downloaded Safari 4 at about 3:45 today. I downloaded it using Safari 3. I installed Safari 4, and restarted. Eager to try out Safari 4, I opened it… and got the message you see at the top of this article. Okay, I thought, maybe there’s a little network communication issue. I quit Safari and re-open, to see the same message displayed again. Alrighty, I think, let’s turn off Airport and restart it. Still that same message. I reinstall Safari 4. Still. The. Same. Message.

Now angry at Safari 4, I quit, and whip out the uninstaller. After a restart, I fire up Safari 3, which the installer has restored, ready to start ranting on the ordeal. Guess what greets me? That’s right. The same message. Switching to Firefox now, which is connected just fine and dandy, I offhandedly check NetNewsWire for new RSS. Hey! NetNewsWire isn’t connecting! Fan-freakin-tastic. Safari 4 has caused a system-wide block between WebKit and the internet. Safari, NetNewsWire, Webkit nightlies, Stainless (a Google Chrome-like browser), Software Update, and more have all ceased to be able to communicate with the outside world.

I’m sure these results aren’t typical, but the fact that this could happen in a public beta is more than annoying to me. Does anyone have any similar stories? (And maybe a solution?) Sound off in the comments below.

Full Story » | Written by Adam Fisher-Cox for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

It was a sad day when Hulu’s advertisers decided that they needed to pull themselves from Boxee. The only ones they are really hurting are themselves (and perhaps Hulu in the process). But never fear, you have various options on how to watch Hulu, none of which involve actually going to Hulu.com.

First up is a plug-in for Front Row called Understudy. Understudy allows Front Row to stream media from Hulu and Netflix. It’s not perfect, but hey, it’s open source and a work in progress. I’ve always preferred Front Row to anything else on my Mac simply because it syncs up with iTunes to update whether or not I’ve viewed a particular podcast. And this just adds to the simplicity of using your Mac for watching streaming content on your computer. It adds another section to Front Row, and you can add various feeds of media to watch. Sadly, it doesn’t really match the type of control you get on Hulu.com yet, but in the coming months, who knows.

Next is manually adding Hulu content back into Boxee. Hulu’s advertisers will probably hate you for it, but who cares right? They deserve it, I’m sure. Lifehacker has a great tutorial showing exactly how to do this. So, if you really are missing your Hulu inside of Boxee, this is the way to go for now.

Lastly, I want to mention another application for viewing media on your Mac. It’s called Plex, and it’s pretty slick. It’s very similar to the sort of thing you’re already used to with this kind of application. The interface is beautiful, and if you’re adventurous enough to try the unstable build, you’ll be treated to some extra functionality. Plex is now incorporating plug-ins into their program as well. These allow you to watch content from various sources, including—you guessed it—Hulu. Plus, there are a few other plug-ins for sites like Rev3, YouTube and the like. Give it a try, you might just find yourself really digging this app. Just make sure you click on the version 0.7.8 beta!

Full Story » | Written by Jake Gaecke for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

One of the coolest features revealed in today’s Safari 4 beta release from Apple is Top Sites. This provides a cover flow-style gallery of the sites you’ve recently visited most often. Aside from being helpful, it’s always frighteningly revealing…do I really spend that much time on Facebook?

When you first download and install the Safari 4 browser, it will throw up a splash movie, then move right into displaying your top sites. This is a very slow process…it took a couple minutes to pull in the 12 images, the process of which is shown about halfway through in the image above. After waiting a bit, the image at the bottom right, which is Amazon.com, never appeared.

It’s actually kind of fun to see what sites I’ve visited most frequently, although I suppose it could be telling, so be careful who’s behind you when you do this. In my top 12, which is the default (or at least it was for me), the Appletell posting page was number one, obviously. Beyond that, it was mainly the sites of some of my web design clients and my personal interest sites: IGN, the Minnesota Wild (and NHL.com), my personal blog, etc.

Now, you can view 6, 12 or 24 sites at a time, depending upon how large you want the thumbnails. You set this by clicking the Edit button at the bottom left of the browser, then selecting Small, Medium or Large. While in Edit mode, you can also remove sites from your list by clicking the X, or you can make them permanent by clicking the thumb tack. You can also reorder the sites by dragging them to a new location. Once you move them, the thumb tack automatically turns on (blue) to make it permanent, but you can still delete it or move it around, of course.

Clicking the + button in the upper right of the browser will open a new tab, and you can then click on the thumbnail of the site you want to open the website in that tab.

Of course, you don’t always need to have Top Sites open in Safari 4. It’s simply another tab, after all, so you can leave it by closing the tab. To open it again, you simply click the Top Sites icon in the upper left of the browser, now just right of the standard Bookmarks icon. As is standard in Safari, clicking it will open Top Sites in the current tab, while Command clicking will open it in a new tab.

Stay with us at Appletell for more coverage of Safari 4 as we dig deeper into the beta. The Safari 4 beta is available for both Macintosh and Windows.

Product [Safari 4]

Full Story » | Written by Kirk Hiner for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Just a few days ago, my MobileMe trial ran out and I was forced to hand over my card details once again to Apple. I haven’t thought about the service much throughout the time I’ve been using it, it’s just been part of my computing needs. But now with competitors such as Google offering a very similar service for free, you have to ask yourself whether MobileMe is worth it.

I’ll tell you straight off that I personally think MobileMe is worth buying, but maybe not at the price of $99. For e-mail, online storage and push syncing, that’s a high price in anyone’s books. There’s no reason why the e-mail couldn’t be free, and push transfer will probably become standard within the next few years. 20GB of online storage is great to have, but there are still many free alternatives.

I originally decided to buy MobileMe for two main reasons. The first being to host my blog, using iWeb for the design. After a few months however, I became unsatisfied with the lack of freedom for creation within iWeb and have since moved to WordPress. The other reason for buying MobileMe is one that I’d rather not confess to. For $99 a year, I love having @me.com. I know, it’s sad—practically a waste of money when, for free, I can have @gmail.com or @live.com.

So the price is a little high for the service, I’ve now established that. But something that you would expect from Apple, as a paying customer, is for them to deliver what you’ve bought into. I mean, specifically, push e-mail. Quite often I find that e-mails have not been pushed to Mail on my Mac or iPhone. While this isn’t such a problem, once you’ve become used to it, you really notice it when it’s missing. It also doesn’t take a lot for the iDisk to become quite slow when moving a lot of files around. This obviously depends on your broadband connection, but I feel there can be some improvement made to the iDisk’s connectivity, whether though me.com/idisk or via Finder directly.

On the plus side however, synchronization between devices is brilliant. I always know that if I update a contact or calendar entry on my Mac, within minutes it’s sitting on my iPhone. Always being up to date wherever I am is a nice feeling. There’s no worry if there’s something happening that you should be attending, or someone you meant to call but their number is only on your Mac. If it’s on one device, it’s also on the other. Everything is also synchronized with The Cloud, so all this information is accessible online from anywhere in the world.

There’s no denying that MobileMe still has issues. It’s original launch was very confusing, with problems with the servers and customers on the previous .mac service. But beyond the hiccups, there’s a solid base set for an excellent service, and it’s a great addition for any Mac user. If Apple can concentrate on ironing out any issues customers find, and if they can lower the price to around the $50 mark, then I think more and more people will begin to see MobileMe as a justifiable option, and not something they want but can’t explain to themselves why it would be worth $99. Apple has a good service available to those who want it. With some refining, it could easily be a great service.

Product [MobileMe]

Full Story » | Written by Ed Parry for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Twitter is the latest thing in social networking. Think of it as a micro-blog. Designed to be used from a cell phone, web, or mobile device, each post can only be 140 characters long (shorter than a text message!) and are built around the question: “What are you doing right now?”

Some Twitter feeds are mundane (“I’m having lunch.” “I’m waiting for the bus.”), while the really good users treat Twitter like a haiku: 140 characters to express something really fun or beautiful. While the Twitter website offers a basic interface for posting “Tweets,” a ton of clients (both for iPhone and desktop) as well as web apps have flourished, and we’ll be taking you through them, letting you know what features and drawbacks you can expect to find.

Twitter Apps for iPhone

GeoTweeter
At what point did Twitter stop being a web application and become a platform? There’s a whole industry being built around adding things to Twitter: pictures, video, links, and even maps. GeoTweeter is a Twitter client that allows you to post tweets with a map link embedded. The map can be of your current location (using the iPhone/iPod touch wireless tools), or you can create one using the address or longitude/latitude coordinates. Think of it as your own personal Zagat guide: you can automatically post a link to the places you visit, along with a star rating, picture, and contact information. I can see this being extremely useful for impromptu gatherings or just to keep a record of the places you like to hang out.

JustUpdate and Gyazickr
Twitter can be a great way to follow what friends and celebrities are thinking; to get snapshots on the thoughts of people around the world. But two Twitter apps, JustUpdate and Gyazickr, break away from the rat-race of adding features to Twitter, and instead go the opposite direction: stripping away features and focusing solely on updating your own feed. Both applications are free.

Tweetdeck
When I previewed the Tweetdeck beta for OS X, I called it the Photoshop of Twitter clients; an extremely powerful tool for people who needed to filter a lot of information on Twitter. At the time, it was a lot more power than I needed, but as I use Twitter more and more, searching posts and users, I’ve come to rely on it as my primary client. Now there’s a Tweetdeck client for iPhone that provides a lot of the same tools, as well as synching information between the two.

Tweetie 2 - New
If you’re not one of the many Twitterholics that have been stalking Atebits since they announced the launch of Tweetie 2 for iPhone, you might like to know Apple has accepted the application into the App Store. If you’re not a user of Twitter (and who isn’t these days?), then Tweetie 2 won’t mean much to you. If, however, you’ve been using the original Tweetie or another Twitter iPhone client, you might like to read on, because Tweetie 2 is quite an impressive update that I believe puts itself ahead of the competition, for now.

TweetMic
TweetMic is an app that lets you post audio messages to your Twitter account from the comfort of your iPhone nearly anywhere, provided you have a decent internet connection. The application is simple. It does what it’s supposed to relatively well, and, honestly, little else. I’d feel much more comfortable recommending this app if upload times were better. If they get that fixed, then this app will be quite useful, considering how fun the idea really is. Really, this app is cheap enough to just buy if you think you’ll use it even a handful of times.

Twitterfon
Twitterfon is a small, fast Twitter client that includes support for adding pictures and location info to your Tweets. So far, it’s the closest I’ve come to having the full web experience on my iPod touch. The strangest thing about it is that it’s free; not even ad-supported like Twitterrific, which used to be my primary Twitter client. Small, fast, and free with a plethora of features, some of which go beyond what Twitter itself offers. What’s not to love?

Twitterlink and Twitfire
“What are you doing right now?” That’s the basic question of Twitter, but sometimes simply telling people isn’t enough; sometimes you need to show them via a link or a photo. And the two Twitter clients reviewed here make sharing that information even easier. Much like JustUpdate, these programs are focused on posting information, neither one is set up to let you read other people’s Twitter feeds, or even your own Following page. Both work with the iPhone and iPod touch, and both are free.

Twitterrific
Twitter, the micro-blogging site where you can upload posts of just 140 characters, is designed for the mobile. In fact, it’s built around the SMS, with the idea that people could answer the question “What are you doing?” from any cell phone or web connection. Twitterrific from the Iconfactory gives access to most of the popular features in a simple, easy-to-understand interface. It comes in two versions, plain (free) and premium, which are identical, except that once per hour the free version displays a small ad.

Twitter Applications for Macintosh

Lounge (public beta)
Twitter desktop clients: the field is overwhelmingly filled with Adobe AIR applications. These applications don’t usually look all too graceful, and worse (and far less subjective), have huge memory leaks. There are a few other apps that don’t rely on AIR; Twitterrific (my personal favorite) comes to mind. However, there are no Twitter apps on the Market that fit in with the Mac OS X look and feel, and more importantly run natively. Enter “Lounge.” Lounge began as an iPhone app, and now is in development of the desktop version. This makes it one of the few twitter apps to have a mobile and desktop counterpart. To me, this is the killer feature of Lounge, because it plans to offer “last read” syncing between the two apps, something that Twitterrific doesn’t.

Nambu (beta)
You can get so caught up with the amount of Twitter information coming at you from so many sources that at this point you need a way of filtering what you see and when you see it, along with a method of handling the information that you put out there. Nambu, currently in beta, is the latest Twitter/social networking client that helps you juggle all this data. At its heart, it’s a simple Twitter app; you can post your 140 character messages to the world. But Nambu also lets you manage multiple Twitter accounts, lets you coordinate them with Twitter-friendly services like Identi.ca (an Open Source version of Twitter) and FriendFeed (Ping.fm support for posting to other services is supposed to be forthcoming, but currently disabled).

Tweetdeck (public beta)
Think of it like this; in terms of options, management, and scope, every other Twitter client is iPhoto. Tweetdeck is Photoshop. A free application that runs on the Adobe AIR platform, Tweetdeck, a Twitter desktop client, is a monster of a program. I don’t mean that it’s difficult to learn, but the sheer scope of its features and ability to sort through the massive amount of Twitter posts make it the most complex tool I’ve yet seen.

Tweetie
Tweetie for Mac was officially released earlier this week, and it has turned out to be just as popular as the iPhone version. There are currently two versions available for the app: ad supported or not. However, the ads in the free version can be turned off. When it comes to Twitter clients, Tweetie is as feature packed as it comes; from @replies to direct messages and search, it has it all.

Twitterrific
Twitterrific has a clean design that controls how much and how little information you want, as well as how often you get it. It can be a constant companion for the information junkie, or a polite butler who waits in the corner while you’re busy, coughing politely to let you know a new visitor has arrived. I’m not convinced that the premium version is worth $14.95, especially given the lack of extras, and the intense competition from other, free clients who offer more features.

TwitterPod
A Twitter client lives or dies by its features. They can try to pile them on, adding support for pictures, URL shrinking, and location reporting. Or, they can go the opposite way, stripping away features to make the client small and fast. But very few bother to create truly original features—those that other clients don’t have, and that no one has ever thought of. Enter TwitterPod, a desktop Twitter client which focuses on the user experience rather than making the posts robust.

Spaz
I’m not exactly sure why Spaz (operating off the Adobe AIR platform) has become my favorite desktop Twitter client. In terms of how it works, it’s nothing radical, resembling Twitterrific and several other programs. It shows your Twitter feed, has tabs to see your Direct Messages and @replies, both a search function for Twitter-at-large and a filter for the posts in your feed. All handy features, but nothing that several other programs use in an all-too-familiar layout. Why, then, do I keep coming back to Spaz?

Twitter App How-To

How to post a photo to twitter
Since Twitter sprang from the idea of sending text updates from a cell phone, why not also post pictures? While there are several ways (and services) to do this, the two easiest I’ve found are TwitPic and Skitch, both currently free, and can be used from a browser or cell phone. Since Twitter itself only allows text, the services work by posting a link to the photo hosted on another site.

Full Story » | Written by Bill Stiteler for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Product: Twitter Client
Format: Download (1.2 MB)
Developer: Iconfactory
Minimum System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4, Twitter account (free)
Processor Compatibility: Universal
Price: Free (ad-supported) or $14.95
Availability: out now
Version Reviewed: 3.2

Ah, the Iconfactory: great design, freeware icons, and applications like Twitterrific, one of the better known Twitter clients. I used the free, (ad-supported) version to Twitter from my iPod touch for a long time. Then I found out there were free apps out there with more features that didn’t require me to deal with hourly ads, so, I switched. Twitterrific also comes in a desktop version, and it’s the same situation there.

You can get Twitterrific (desktop) either for free (in which case you’ll see a small ad, once an hour), or in the premium version for $14.95. The premium version simply disables the ads; they’re otherwise identical. It has a clean, well-designed interface, exactly what you’d expect from the Iconfactory. The user experience is focused on controlling the amount of information you want to receive; the front end of Twitterric is bare bones, with just your feed and a place to enter your posts. Hell, Twitterrific doesn’t even show up as an application in your Dock unless you tell it to; all the bells and whistles of this app are in the preferences.

From here, you can set what you want Twitterrific to look like and how it delivers the Tweets to you. You can get a window that fades in and out as they come, one that stays on top of other applications or above palettes, or simply as a normal window (with a hotkey to toggle this).

Do you want the full Tweet displayed, or do you want a tiny, inconspicuous list of the names of the people who have posted? Choose the latter, and you can click on a name to see what they wrote. Twitterrific also supports Growl, so you can ignore the app altogether and just get brief popups with your latest feed results, which will fade away after a few seconds. It’s also integrated with popular Mac chat programs like iChat, Adium, and Skype, allowing it to update your status with your latest Tweet.

In addition to regular Tweets, you can also see your Direct (private) Messages and Replies in the main window if you choose—the former are color-coded blue, the latter, brown. You can also choose to have all of them listed, or only the ones from people you follow—useful if you have a ton of followers, sorting your friends from people you don’t know. However, if you do choose not to see them, you won’t see them at all. There’s no separate window for those types of messages; it’s the main one or nothing.

What’s not in Twitter? Location posting. A lot of the extras that have sprung up like URL shortening and Twitpic crossposting. And considering how much control is given to how your Tweets are presented to you, it’s odd to find that the color can’t be altered. As Henry Ford once said, you can have Twitterrific in any color you want, so long as it’s black.

Twitterrific has a clean design that controls how much and how little information you want, as well as how often you get it. It can be a constant companion for the information junkie, or a polite butler who waits in the corner while you’re busy, coughing politely to let you know a new visitor has arrived. I’m not convinced that the premium version is worth $14.95, especially given the lack of extras, and the intense competition from other, free clients who offer more features. Still, you can’t fault Iconfactory from trying to earn a living from software that does it’s job is such a truly useful, flexible manner.

Full Story » | Written by Bill Stiteler for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Provides: Twitter client
Format: Download (1.2 MB tarball)
Developer: Flock, Inc.
Minimum System Requirements: Mac OS X v10.4, 3.6MB hard disk space, Twitter account (free)
Processor Compatibility: Universal
Price: Free
Availability: Now
Version Reviewed: 1.7.19

A Twitter client lives or dies by its features. They can try to pile them on, adding support for pictures, URL shrinking, and location reporting. Or, they can go the opposite way, stripping away features to make the client small and fast. But very few bother to create truly original features—those that other clients don’t have, and that no one has ever thought of.

Enter TwitterPod, a desktop Twitter client which focuses on the user experience rather than making the posts robust. TwitterPod has the basic features, posting to your feed and entering location info, automatically updating. There’s also a limited search function, which can help you sort through the most recent Tweets you’ve received. There are also three buttons that allow you to show either all the posts in your feed (including your friends), only the posts you’ve made, or only Tweets that contain URLs.

The last one is important because when you double click them, it’ll open your browser to the page referenced. Or, you can take advantage of TwitterPod’s sidebar, a built-in mini browser.  If a Tweet contains a URL, it gives you a preview of the page (and expands shortened URLs from services like TinyURL and Is.Gd). If a Tweet doesn’t contain a URL, it shows you the Twitter page for the user. The problem with the browser is that even fully extended, it clips the edge off the page, hampering the readability and meaning you’ll have to open it in a browser anyway. And if you’re going to go to the trouble of opening the sidebar, why not just use Twitter from a web browser?  If you decide to save desktop space by only opening the sidebar part way, it doesn’t dynamically resize itself, you just see a small sliver of the web page. A thumbnail view might be more useful, since then TwitterPod wouldn’t have to take up the whole page and you could decide whether the page is worth opening in a your regular browser.

TwitterPod’s other unique feature is the QuartzComposer view. Kind of like the iTunes Visualizer combined with an RSS feed, it’s a window of swirling colors with your Twitter feed displayed over it. The names and pictures of the users rotate underneath it. It’s fun to look at and a nice piece of eye candy, but hard to read; more like a screensaver than a new way of looking at Twitter.

What doesn’t TwitterPod do? It doesn’t have a feature for shortening URLs longer than 140 characters, and you can’t delete posts. It does have Growl support, as well as the ability to control the window opacity. For people who need to conserve space, it’s also extremely small: 3.6MB, and it’s free.

TwitterPod should appeal to those who use and get a lot of URLs in their Tweets. The sidebar is the most useful of its features, and the QuartzComposer is the most eye catching. But it’s compact design and interface make it easy to read without dominating the screen…until you need it to.

Full Story » | Written by Bill Stiteler for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Twitter is pretty awesome—I think most of us can agree on that—but sometimes 140 characters just doesn’t cut it. Sure, you can use Twitpic to share a picture with all of your followers, which is pretty cool, but what if that’s still not cutting it for you? Good news, you can use Tweetube to share short videos with your Twitter followers.

Tweetube is one of the coolest pieces of software I’ve found for Twitter on the Mac. It allows you record a video of up to 25 seconds, add a title and description, and then blast it to your followers. I gave it a quick test and it worked great. Here, give my first Tweetube video a look.

I can really see this catching on since you can say a lot more in 25 seconds of video than you can with 140 characters. Plus, your followers get to see you or whatever it is that you are doing. I love it, and I think you will too.

I use Twitter to interact with you guys, the readers, so if you have Apple related questions or requests for articles, or just plain want to follow me, I’m twitter.com/JakeGaecke.  You can also get all the latest articles on Appletell by following twitter.com/Appletell.

Download [Tweetube for OS X]

Full Story » | Written by Jake Gaecke for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Many of the apps on the iPhone are clients for websites. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Yahoo!, Google, the list goes on and on. What’s great about these applications is that no data is stored on the iPhone, it’s all synced up to “the cloud.” When you move to your computer or another device, all your changes are already there.

Would there be a market for such apps on the computer in general? Sure, there’s Safari, and various web-apps such as GMail or Google Docs. But they don’t really feel like applications because of the fact that they are running in the browser and they don’t match the rest of the operating system interface-wise. Often, we hear talk about the day when the only software that will be on a computer is a web browser; everything else will run inside of that browser as web apps. They will be accessible from anywhere.

What makes more sense to me is to make more apps for the computer; apps that serve as an interface for data stored in the cloud. Like IMAP in Mail, notifications can be pushed in real time, and the same data would be available on any computer with the program installed, on the iPhone, and, as now, on any browser as a web-interface.

I know I’d love to have a Facebook app in my dock. A true Facebook application, not just a bookmarked webpage or web-app. What do you think? Will web apps be enough, or should web-based programs still be based on the computer itself? Sound off in the comments.

Full Story » | Written by Adam Fisher-Cox for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Product: eBay selling utility
Format: Download or CD
Developer: Equinux
Minimum System Requirements: Mac OS X v10.5, PowerPC or Intel Mac
Price: $39.95 single user download; $49.95 family license download or box
Availability: Now
Version Reviewed: 5.5

Equinux’s iSale 5 is one of a handful of applications that attempt to take the eBay experience and make it better.  They do this by allowing you to easily create auctions that are much prettier than your standard eBay template. Not only that, they add a ton of extra features to sweeten the deal: Research Assistant, scheduled listings, video descriptions, and so much more.

I’m going to preface this by saying I’m by no means an eBay power user. I just got my 100th, rating and I certainly don’t make a living selling on eBay. I actually rather dislike the service, but that’s beside the point. On to the software!

After the configuration between your account and computer is done, the first thing you’ll want to do is start selling; that is almost the entire purpose of the application. The application is layed out very similarly to iTunes—you have a panel to the left that keeps everything organized, and a working pane on the right. So, go ahead and select File - New Auction with Template (or hit Command N).

There are tons of templates; 222, the last time I checked, and that’s a lot.  To test out this app, I sold my original iPhone (more about that later).  Conveniently enough, there is a template that looks exactly like an iPhone.  How perfect!  So I chose that one, but you the truth is that the vast majority of these templates are very well designed.  I was actually quite surprised that most of them weren’t junk layouts.

After you choose your template, you can edit the category, description, etc.—ll that normal eBay stuff you would do online, but now you can do it completely inside the comfort of this application.  Plus, you can use the Research Assistant to auto fill in some of the details on your auction for you from information readily available on the net.  It even works with Delicious Library!  There are boxes for images, and you can drag and drop the images that you want to be displayed there.  Not enough?  Your Mac likely has an iSight.  Use it to record a video description and have it automatically uploaded to YouTube, which, unlike pictures on eBay, costs you nothing!

The only issue I found with the app is selecting text.  For some reason, you can only click and drag in one direction: forward.  If you try it backwards, it freaks out.  Very strange issue, but it doesn’t ruin the app.

I created my auction very quickly.  I’d estimate that getting from installation to beginning of sale took about a half an hour, and I was going quite slowly.  I really liked the templates and how easy the app was to use.  But what I liked most was that the auction for my original iPhone ended in less than 6 hours of creation.  I’m not sure that’s completely because of iSale and its wonderful template, but I’ll let them take the bragging rights.  I have a feeling their sleek looking template at least caught the eye of the user who chose to Buy It Now.

If you sell frequently on eBay, then I’d recommend you consider iSale 5. The only thing really holding this back from a 5 apple review is the price. At $39.95, you have to either sell one really expensive item, or sell often to be able to justify it.  Although, they do have a five license Family Pack for only $10 more. The demo version allows you to try iSale 5 out on up to three auctions to make sure you like it.

The templates are really what you are buying here, but you also get a bunch of great features like the ability to make your auctions go live at a later date without paying an eBay fee, among others. And let’s face it, eBay will charge you for any and everything, so if there’s an app/service that prevents eBay from taking our money, I’m all for it. I have a feeling eBay will eventually fee themselves into submission. But before they do, check out iSale 5 from Equinix.

Full Story » | Written by Jake Gaecke for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Of course, there’s always iWeb for those in need of a quick, presentable website, but let’s be honest: the way iWeb codes and renders things is less than desirable. In the end, pages load slowly due to excess of images, and poor machine-generated code. If you know HTML, it’s always better to code yourself. This article will focus on apps for people who already know HTML. (If you’d like to join that group, check out W3Schools for great tutorials and explanations.)

• Coda is at the top of this list for two reasons: it is the most expensive, and it is the greatest. Coda combines pretty much everything you will need as a web developer into one window. There is Transmit (FTP) in the sidebar, HTML editor, live collaboration, CSS editing, and a Terminal built in. If only it included a mini-Photoshop, it’s possible you wouldn’t need to leave it during a day of website building. The one downside to Coda is its $99 price tag; not at all unreasonable, but hey, a hundred bucks is a hundred bucks.
• Taco HTML Edit is a great HTML editor that sells for just $24.95 per license. Possibly its most useful feature is tag coloring, which, though by no means an exclusive feature, is a fantastic productivity aid. It also features tag auto-complete that you’ll either love or hate. You will either speed through your writing with the Spotlight-like tag suggestions or they will get in your way so often you will turn them off and never want to see them again. Taco HTML Edit also offers tabbed documents, live preview, CSS editing, and a heck of a lot more, which, for $25, is quite a bit. Combined with Cyberduck (see below), it could be all you need for a website’s maintenance.
• Smultron is a free alternative to Taco HTML Edit. While it doesn’t offer as many features, it has the basics: tag coloring, live search ad replace, etc. Give it a try before paying for something else. It just might be enough.
• Cyberduck is a free and open source FTP client. There’s not much to say about it other than that it works as advertised, and I wouldn’t recommend buying an FTP client until you’ve tried Cyberduck. Plus, the rubber duck icon is a great addition to any dock.

Full Story » | Written by Adam Fisher-Cox for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

I have been using Safari for Windows at work since it was released in 2007. I have tried to be patient with it, because I know Apple, except for iTunes, is not in the business of making applications for Windows. With the most recent release 3.2.1 in November of last year, I have not seen much improvement from the first version. Let’s keep in mind I am using Windows XP.

I am extremely hard on my browsers. I will have several instances of them open at one time with multiple tabs on each one. Java is crucial to me being able to preform my job, which involves being logged into several devices via URL at the same time. If you have worked with a router via a web browser before, you can get an idea of what I am saying, but multiply that by 25.

That being established, let’s talk about the performance of Safari versus Internet Exploder 6, which is my alternative at work. We do not use Internet Exploder 7 due to incompatibility with some portions of our intranet build. I like the look and feel of Safari over IE any day of the week. I especially like the built in Google search that Safari has, which is missing in IE 6. I know IE 7 has this feature, but I don’t have that option.

Safari will crash on me between three and six times a night for various reasons. Most of the time I don’t know why it crashes, because it will simple freeze and stop responding to input. Other times I get the wonderful “Safari needs to quit” dialog box. Either way, it’s a pain in the butt to have to restart everything I have open in Safari.

On the other hand, IE 6 only crashes when I try to open a PDF file or go to a site that uses flash. At least I can predict that and avoid it. Safari does not give any warning at all.

Bottom line here is if you are forced to use Windows like I am, then I cannot recommend Safari at this time. It is just too buggy to be a good alternative to Internet Exploder. I understand some of it has to do with the image on the machine I am using and various other factors, but in my experience, Safari just plain sucks for Windows currently. In the same boat? I would like to hear your opinions.

Full Story » | Written by Anthony Parkinson for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Provides: Upload pictures wirelessly
Developer: Eye-Fi
Minimum Requirements: SD compatible camera, Wireless Network, USB
Price: $129.99
Availability: Now

Eye-Fi makes a very unique product. It’s a 2GB SD memory card, and I’d be surprised if you didn’t already know it has a wireless chip in it, as well. With it, you can upload your pictures straight from your camera to your computer or to places on the web—like Flickr—without the need for any pesky cables. But you already knew that, all you want to know now is if it works.

How do you know when you’ve just purchased something really cool?  By the box of course.  Apple has always had amazing box design, in my opinion, and Eye-Fi certainly thought a little bit differently with their unique box design.  You pull on one side, and a drawer containing the card is pushed open on the other side.  It’s really cool, and will have you saying, “How’d it do that?” In fact, you’ll be saying the same thing about the card in a few minutes.

To set it up, you just take the card and connect it to your computer with the included card reader.

Wait, what!?  Connect it to my computer?  Yeah, I know, but this might be the first and last time you ever do this, so hold on for a few more seconds.  After you do some installation and configuring, you’re instructed to remove the card and slam it into your camera.  Then, take a picture of yourself.  Here’s a little known secret, you don’t actually have to take a picture of yourself, you can take a picture of anything!  But God will know what you have done, and you’ll have to answer for your sins at some point.

After you’ve taken your picture, you’ll witness how it is that your pictures will be uploaded to your computer.  A little drop down window appears in the top right corner of your computer screen with a thumbnail of the currently uploading picture.  Watch it now and enjoy, because the idea is that you’ll never have to see this.  But you probably will, because you’ll more than likely end up using this while sitting next to your computer anyway.

After the pictures are uploaded, they can be distributed to various places.  You’re computer, obviously, but other places such Flickr, Facebook, SmugMug, Picasa Web, MobileMe etc.  This works great if you’re that type of person who takes perfect pictures every time without need for adjustments, or who likes to have everything uploaded anyway.

Now, Eye-Fi makes numerous cards, and I had the opportunity to test out the Eye-Fi Explore card.  That’s the one that geotags your pictures in addition to uploading them wirelessly away from your home network.  This is great, and it actually works…provided you are within range of a wireless hotspot.  No hotspot = no geotag = no upload. So that’s kind of a bummer.

Sure, wireless hotspots seem to be everywhere, but you can’t connect to them all.  Your home network is pretty much the only one you’ll be able to store a password for.  So you’re kind of restricted to open WiFi networks outside of home base.  Thankfully, while you’re working on your figure at McDonald’s, you’ll be able to upload some pics, too.  The Explore card (or Share with $15 per year) supports all Wayport Hotspots, which account for over 10,000 hotspots across the US.

And then there is uploading.  Maybe I’m impatient, but it’s slow.  You have no way of knowing that the camera is connected to a wireless network, and the pictures take a decent amount of time to transfer.  You can tell Eye-Fi is working hard to fix this problem, but there’s only so much you can do with a memory card.  They give you options, like having an email or text message sent to you every time you start and/or complete an upload.  That’s great, but there’s still no indication if you’re connected to a hotspot or not (for geotagging or uploading).  And who wants to sit around and hope that they aren’t waiting in vain at a spot without open internet?

I really wish there was a better way of knowing that you are connected to a WiFi hotspot than constant emails or text messages.  I honestly have no idea if there is room for a tiny little noise device in there, but a beep every so often is the best idea I can come up with to remedy this situation.

Is it an awesome product that makes you say, “Wow that’s cool!”?  Yes, indeed.  Is it necessary?  Quite obviously not.  Your camera was designed to work with a cable in the first place.  So you have to decide if the cool factor is worth it for you.  Will you actually use this anywhere other than your home?  If so, then get it, because it’s awesome.  If not, then just remember that you’ll eventually have to plug your camera in for power anyway, and what’s another cable?

Full Story » | Written by Jake Gaecke for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Provides: Web browsing
Format: Download (22.8 MB)
Developer: Flock, Inc.
Minimum System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4+, PowerPC G3, G4, G5, or Intel Processor, 128MB RAM (256 recommended), 200MB hard drive space
Processor Compatibility: Universal
Price: Free
Availability: Now
Version Reviewed: 2.0.3

There’s nothing wrong with the Safari browser, but I must admit I really prefer the customization options of Mozilla’s Firefox browser. Safari may give you the web as the designer wants you to see it, but Firefox gives me the web the way I want it.

But I’m also a social media junkie: Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook are just some of the sites I check constantly, along with blogging and e-mailing links to my friends. And now, someone’s taken Firefox and built a web browser that integrates all the social media functions I need.

On the most basic level, Flock is the same browser as Firefox. The same plug-ins work, and though Flock prefers Yahoo! as the seach engine of choice over Google, that’s easily changeable (just as it is in Firefox).

The biggest change in the interface is the sidebar. Once you begin to log into supported sites (like the ones mentioned above, in addition to Flickr, Picasa Web, Digg, and others), Flock allows you add those services to the sidebar, giving you quicker access to the sites and their features. Twitter and Facebook, for example, give you updates on your friends’ statuses (and allow you to update yourself using the sidebar, rather than going to the site). You’ll also get notified if someone comments on your Flickr feed, or if a friend posts a new YouTube video or Diggs a story.

Just above the sidebar are several more shortcuts that will make your online life easier: the MediaBar allows you to watch photo and video feeds that you’ve favorited, so if someone you’re following posts something new on YouTube or Picasa, you’ll know about it. You can also upload photos to supported services by dragging photos into the Media Bar (which will open a file uploader), or, if you’re a blogger, you can drag photos from the Media Bar into built-in blogging application (which supports Blogger, Blogsome, Livejournal, Wordpress, Typepad, and Xanga), and it’ll add the posting code.

Another nice tool for bloggers is the clipboard, where you store text clips, pictures, or URLs that you want to use later. Speaking of URLs, the address bar can also be used as a search bar (again, Yahoo! is the default), and contains one-click buttons for posting a link to Digg or emailing a link. As for emailing, Flock has a button that will open your web mail account (like Gmail or Yahoo), and you can set a preference that clicking on a mail link can open either your web mail account or an e-mail application. If you prefer to check your sites using RSS, you can also set Flock to subscribe to feeds in an external app, a web service (like Google Reader), or its own RSS aggregator in the sidebar.

Now, for the downside. Over time (about every two months) Flock becomes slow and unstable due to “gunk” building up in the user profile. Backing up the important information and creating a new profile takes care of the problem, but it’s still a pain.

Second, Flock have once or twice lost access to sites if those sites change something in their API code. The Flock programmers usually fix these within 24 hours, via their “service update” function.

Third, while Flock integrates a lot of sites, the integration can be a little wonky at times. For example, if you get a Direct Message in Twitter, Flock will let you know. And it will keep letting you know about it until you delete the DM—simply reading it isn’t enough. So if you have a DM you want to keep, the notification stays on. Likewise, Flock keeps telling me that my buddies on Digg have posted new comments, when they haven’t.

But the majority of the features—and the sheer number of them—work so well and I use them so much that they overwhelm the downsides. Plus, it supports just about every Firefox plug-in out there, meaning I can further control my web experience. For users looking for a little more power out of their browser, give Flock a try.

Full Story » | Written by Bill Stiteler for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Twitterrific, the Twitter client developed by the fine folks at the Iconfactory, has been updated to version 3.2. This update is for the desktop client, not the iPhone/iPod touch version.

In addition to numerous big fixes, Twitterrific now uses encrypted HTTPS when communicating with Twitter’s servers, old Tweets are marked as “read” when you open the program, and if your computer connects to the internet via proxy servers, Iconfactory has adjusted the program to make HTTP authentication more reliable.

You know, for kids.

The complete list of updates is available from their website.

The program comes in two versions: a free, ad-supported one and a “premium” version that costs $15.

Product [Twitterific]

Full Story » | Written by Bill Stiteler for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Today, Boxee announced an update to their social media application to include support for ABC. Now it’s easier than ever to watch Lost, Desperate Housewives and Grey’s Anatomy from your Mac.

Boxee already has support for Hulu, CBS, WB and Joost. Add ABC to the mix, and what else is there? ABC is a huge addition to the Boxee lineup. Torrentfreak claims that Lost was the most pirated TV Show on Bittorent in 2008.  But that might change in 2009.  If you can watch your favorite TV shows in full HD streaming legally on the web, with the addition of a few small ads, then it’s much less likely that you’ll be forced into pirating.  If only all of these networks would put their entire catalogs on the net, then we’d really be in heaven.

If you’re a Lost fan, the first thing you’ll want to do after downloading the Boxee update is watch the Season Premiere (I’m guessing for the 3rd or 4th time now), it went live online last night. I think the addition of ABC will bring a lot of people to Boxee. I personally dislike using ABC’s web interface, so I think Boxee is going to be getting a lot more use by me very soon. Now, if I just had more time to watch TV. I, like most people, just have so much to do, I swear, I can’t do this all on my own…  Don’t forget, Scrubs is now on ABC.  Yet another reason this news is so awesome.

The update for Mac is available now, with the AppleTV update following soon.

Product [Boxee]

Full Story » | Written by Jake Gaecke for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »