Could it be? Will I get my XM on my iPhone? Read <Here> to find out more details. And let’s hope that Apple doesn’t get in the way of another cool app for the iPhone!
Don’t forget, it was Apple that put the kaibash on the iPhoneModem! You can still get it, but it’s only for Jailbreaked phones and has been yanked from the iTunes store.
In the February issue of Mac Life, there’s an article “How To: Control a Mac from a PC.“ I gave it a try and it was quite simple. There’s a nice VNC server for the Mac that’s available free of charge from http://www.redstonesoftware.com. ; It works like a champ. The only hitch is when you want to do it from the internet rather than your internal network. Then you have to enable port forwarding on your wireless router.
As luck would have it, there’s now a free VNC viewer for the iPhone. I loaded it up and gave it a shot. Again, works like a champ!
While there hasn’t been nearly as much hub-bub over the new iPhone as there was for the original, there are those of us in the club who are really contemplating an upgrade. The price is of course right. Apple really scored there. Service? Well, now there’s more of a hassle when it comes to activation. I don’t think you can do it through iTunes any longer. Features? Well there are only three reasons to consider upgrading, 3G speed, GPS, and more storage.
For me, the dilemma is with applications. I think I could live without the new features if I could get some cool new apps. We’ve seen some of the in demos, now we need to get our hands on them!
A rather famous line from the movie Pulp Fiction. However this Gimp is your friend. I’m talking about the GNU Image Manipulation Program. (Don’t ask about the GNU part. It gets rather geeky.) Anyway, this an Adobe Photoshop-like piece of software. It runs on the Mac under X-Windows. At times this can be confusing because you will get two sets of menus. There’s the standard Mac menu bar at the top of the screen, and then there’s the standard Microsoft menu set at the top of each Window. In this case, it’s the menu at the top of each window that’s important.
I won’t go into all of the features, but suffice it to say that basically you can do everything in Gimp that you can in Photoshop. It’s just that the “way” you do things may have changed. However, those “ways” are similar enough that you won’t be completely lost. Combine that with strong community support and you just can beat it!
Yesterday someone asked me…”Why aren’t you using a Mac laptop?” Now she knew that I had an iphone. She knew that I had an iMac. She also knew that I had a PC, but only really heard me brag out the Mac. It was a fair question. If Apple is making such great stuff, why aren’t I using a Mac laptop? My answer was simple. I don’t want to pay twice for the same software. I use my laptop for mobile multi-track music recording. I’ve made a considerable investment in recording, virtual instrument, and post-production software. And the fact is, vendors don’t respect your loyalty. Thus, no one is willing to allow me to switch platforms without purchasing a second license. So for now, I’m staying with Intel when it comes to the music business.
What’s that in the sky? A bird! A plane! A frog! A frog? No! It’s a duck. In fact, it’s Cyberduck. A nice piece of open source software I’ve had for quite some time, but until 2 days ago had yet to put it through it’s paces. Well now that I have, here’s what I’ll share with you.
Cyberduck is complicatedly simple. That is to say, you expect it to be more complex than it is, and thus you spend a lot of time trying to do something that takes seconds. I guess I’m still looking for those old MS Windows interfaces. I was a long-time user of CuteFTP and was expecting Cyberduck to kick me right into a dual window for drag ‘n drop file movement. When I got only one window, I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what was wrong. Well, nothing was wrong. I just needed to open my folder of choice independently of Cyberduck, and drag my files to Cyberduck. Once I did that, it worked like a champ.
So free your mind when you fire up Cyberduck and you’ll be productive in about 90 seconds. The bookmarks dock nicely to the side. It’s a small and stable utility.
With friends living overseas, you face many challenges. One of the first is time difference. Early evening here in the U.S. is the middle of the night in Europe. Well, there’s not much you can do about that. However, one challenge that you can do something about. Communication! Here is where Skype can really help you keep in touch with anyone, anywhere, at anytime.
Skype allows you to make telephone or video conference calls free of charge over the internet. You can also do instant messaging and exchange files. Earlier this year a new release for the Mac came out and has greatly improved the quality of the video, and ensured compatibility with Leopard.
