Lonnie Lazar - page 26

When I think of high-powered, busy professionals the first word that comes to mind is not “Zen” but that certainly has not stopped Hladecek from marketing its new collection of iPhone ringtones as “Professional ringtones designed with executives and the fashion-forward in mind.”

The iRingPro Zen Collection is 21 tones, among which you’ll find no annoying songs, or silly sound effects. The collection consists of tones – not “tunes” – that are “smart, attractive, livable alerts engineered to ensure universal appeal, and provide a high tolerance for routine use and repetition.”

Each tone features moderately longer pauses between ring repeats than what many are used to. The designers believe this cuts down on the hurried fumbling that can occur when a cell phone rings unexpectedly, giving you time to see who’s calling, often before the second ring.

And of course there is the personal branding that comes from your ringtone. A snippet of “My Humps” or “The Immigrant Song” says something about you. iRing Pro ringtones seek to ensure that what is perceived when your phone rings is technically advanced, considerate, and enviably fashionable.

The Zen collection sells for $9.95 and is available for download directly from the designer. They come in “Meeting Grade” and “Active Grade” styles, with the meeting tones being subtler, lower pitched, and richer, while the active tones are stronger, more resonant, and present. Om, baby.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one, but Greystripe, a San Francisco-based rich media advertising platform for mobile content claims to have developed ads including Flash IAB medium rectangles and game-in-game (or “tailgate”) ads giving advertisers the ability to target the iPhone audience for the first time with Flash content.

In an effort to make it easier for the online media buyer to purchase mobile, Greystripe claims to have brought creative power to the iPhone with Flash creation tools allowing brands to extend any online advertising campaign directly into mobile content as well as the ability to create miniature advertiser-branded games in Flash and place them before, during or after existing iPhone games.

“Using the iPhone’s revolutionary platform, Greystripe has solved the serving, reporting, third-party tracking and, best of all, ad creation problems that have plagued the mobile advertising industry since inception,” says Michael Cai, Director of Digital Media and Gaming at Parks Associates, according to a BusinessWire release made public on Thursday.

Michael Chang, CEO and Co-founder of Greystripe was quoted as saying, “We have made it easy for advertisers by removing barriers to execution. Brands like Jeep, RadioShack, New Line Cinema, Rock the Vote and Yahoo! have seen strong results.”

If true, this would seem to come as news to Adobe, which claims to have been thus far stymied in the effort to develop a mobile version of Flash that is compatible with Apple’s SDK for iPhone developers.

Have you seen any Flash-based ads on your iPhone?

We reported last week on developer/blogger Erica Sadun’s discovery of an undocumented feature in Apple’s iPhone SDK that allows video out from an iPhone to be displayed on a TV monitor. Friday she revealed what is sure to become a popular exploit of this feature.

Sadun contacted developers at Freeverse, producers of the popular mobile game Moto Chaser and convinced them to create a TV version of their game. In a few hours, Freeverse code monkeys were able to come up with the demo version of Moto Chaser featured in the video above, which seems to herald happy days ahead for fans of iPhone gaming.

The detailed technical ins and outs of how Freeverse managed to pull off its feat are available in Sadun’s post at Ars Technica, but it’s worth noting that the TV version of the game played best on the second-generation iPod touch. The newer touch is built on a 532MHz CPU versus the original iPhone’s 412MHz. This extra speed helps up the frame rate produced by the device, the key component for any first person interactive video game.

Via Ars Technica

It’s probably safe to say only the newest of computing newbies may not understand that when you delete a file or “move it to the trash” it stays on your hard drive, taking up space, until you actually go to the trash and “empty” it.

This is actually a wonderful feature because even the most jaded computer professional is only human, and humans of all levels of intelligence and experience have been known to act, from time to time, in haste, without thinking. Sometimes being able to retrieve something from the trash can be the best thing ever.

But here’s something I bet a lot of savvy Mac users don’t know. I didn’t know about it – but I’m only on the just-sort-of functionally literate end of the Mac savvy scale. When you delete a photograph in iPhoto, it doesn’t go to the Trash trash, it goes to the iPhoto Trash. And it stays there until you empty the iPhoto Trash.

I’ve mentioned before in this space that my main computer is a five year old PowerBook G4. It’s a great computer but its 80GB hard drive is getting pretty full of stuff by now, especially because I am an avid user of Garage Band, iMovie and iPhoto. Recently, when I was looking for ways to free up space on my hard drive, duplicate Garage Band projects and old DVD slideshows I had in iMovie were easy enough to find and delete. But if you’re like me, you’ve got .jpg files in folders all over your computer and finding duplicates or unneeded ones to trash for drive space recovery can be daunting at best.

iPhoto itself doesn’t help a lot either, because its many folders are not readily accessible in Finder and if you don’t think to open the app and search from inside it, you can easily miss an opportunity to recover lots of disk space.

When you’re importing the hundreds and hundreds of pics you’ll be taking this holiday season, remember to think about your iPhoto trash and empty it out once you’re sure you haven’t mistakenly deleted that once-in-a lifetime picture of Mommy kissing Santa Claus.

Thanks to Scott McNulty at MacWorld

Several months ago when I logged into my Netflix account to check my queue and saw the world’s best movie rental service was offering instant streaming, I got all kinds of excited. Despite the joy of impressive two day turn-around service on physical DVDs through the US Mail, I thrilled to the prospect of being able to watch something new right now.

Clicking the “Learn More” button brought me quickly to earth, however, and I must admit I was disappointed, though not surprised to learn the streaming service was, at that point, available to Windows users only.

To their credit, Netflix rolled out a beta version of their “Watch Instantly” service to a limited number of Mac users at the beginning of November, and it’s clear the company values its Mac subscriber base because Thursday it sent out an email saying the streaming service is now available to all Mac users.

Except “all” doesn’t mean “every” in this particular case. The Microsoft Silverlight-based player requires an Intel processor, so the only Mac users who can “Watch Instantly” are those who bought Macs built by Apple in the past three years. As anyone who’s been paying attention knows, that’s an awful lot of potential Netflix customers, but as an Apple fan who appreciates the extended useful life Steve Jobs’ company builds into its products and who happily tends the flame of devotion for my five year-old PowerBook G4, I feel a little left out of the Netflix party.

It’s all good, though, because now I have another reason to sing the praises of the U.S. Mail.

Via MacWorld

The Sharper Image at one time employed 2500 people and had a thriving catalog business along with what were, at the time, innovative retail stores specializing in high-end electronics and gifts. Early in 2008 the 30 year-old company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, closed all its stores and continued to operate as a remnant of its former self, distributing a limited number of items through retailers such as Macy’s and Dillards, and as a department under the Amazon brand.

The company released a new product on Thursday that may – or may not – signal brighter days ahead for the former cutting edge gear purveyor. Their breakout product, slated to demo at Macworld 2009, is called the “SoundBag,” a top-of-the-line backpack designed to transform the listening experience for commuters, travelers and digital music lovers.

Featuring patented “flatpanel” sound technology designed by The EnE Group, “the SoundBag embodies The Sharper Image’s reputation for innovation, form and function that translates to a terrific user experience,” according to Federico de Bellegarde, vice president of Licensing at The Sharper Image.

With marketing material using terms such as “audiophile” and “surround sound,” the backpack can store and connect any portable digital device — including MP3 players, iPods and iPhone units — to a patented flat panel speaker, which is cleverly both part of the backpack or may be detached and used independently.

A 3.5mm mini-plug in the shoulder strap links the media player to the speaker and a protective clear covering allows access to the player’s controls without having to remove it. The detachable speaker also features a built-in stand and auxiliary input that enables users to play other audio sources, such as a portable DVD players and notebook computers. The speaker offers 8-10 hours of playback powered by three AA batteries.

Suggested retail for the SoundBag is $99. If it produces “audiophile” quality sound at that price, perhaps the Sharper Image will live again.

Via PRNewsWire

Here’s a demo video for Star Walk, the astronomy app for iPhone and iPod I posted on yesterday. The more I look at this app, and the more glowing comments it gets from both reviews on iTunes and CoM readers, the more I wish I’d paid a little better attention in my college astronomy class.

Thanks to reader Cliff for sending it in!

Roaming charges were the two dirtiest words in mobile telephony for the longest time. Without getting into the technical details, they referred to the gargantuan spigot mobile service providers were authorized to open, sluicing cash from your financial reserves whenever you wished to make a call outside your regular plan’s designated service area. A 5 minute call back home to check on the kids during a weekend getaway to the mountains could end up costing as much as a full night in a fancy place where they put mints on the pillows at night.

As calling plans have become more “unlimited” in nature and providers’ service coverage areas have expanded, domestic roaming charges have become all but a thing of the past. But mobile service providers are ever loathe to give up easy money when they can get it, and nowhere is the money easier today than charging unsuspecting mobile data users outrageous fees for attempting to access data, such as email or web browsing on smartphones, especially when domestic users try and use their phones overseas.

Follow after the jump to hear how bad it can get and find out what you can do to avoid getting sore in all the wrong places.

Tap Tap Dance, from the makers of the wildly popular Tap Tap Revenge, is an all new music game for your iPhone or iPod Touch, featuring top hits from some of the biggest electronic artists in the world like Moby, Justice, Daft Punk, The Chemical Brothers, and more. Built on the 2.0 engine of the free app Tap Tap Revenge, Tap Tap Dance features familiar rhythm game mechanics, presented in an all new smoother, richer package for $4.99.

Tap Tap Dance features 10 dance tracks, including:

– Technologic by Daft Punk
– Zdarlight by Digitalism
– Phantom Pt II (Soulwax Remix) by Justice
– Stratosphere by Junkie XL
– Disco Lies (Remix) by Moby
– Midnight Madness by The Chemical Brothers
– Goldrush by Tiesto
– Compressor by Soul Magic Orchestra (Exclusive)
– Where’s Your Head At by Basement Jaxx
– Daylight (Exclusive Morgan Page Remix) by Sunny Levine

The game includes an exclusive track by Soul Magic Orchestra, and an exclusive remix by Morgan Page of Sunny’s Levine’s Daylight. Three of the tracks, “Technologic,” by Daft Punk, “Disco Lies” by Moby and “Phantom Pt II” by Justice come with their own exclusive themes, offering game players a portable interactive music video experience, right on the iPhone or iPod touch.

Tap Tap Dance game is available now in the US from Apple’s App Store on iPhone and iPod touch and coming to select international App Stores soon.

UPDATE: This article has been corrected to reflect Shazam’s compatibility with iPhone only and not iPod Touch, as originally indicated. We regret any confusion our error may have caused.

I’ve been wanting to write about Shazam, the music discovery software app for iPhone, for a while now, but since it’s been around for a good while and is one of the most popular downloads on the AppStore, it didn’t seem there was any news there.

Shazam’s developers announced they have extended its database to include additional North American, Asian and European content, however, and Shazam now offers the facility to recognize songs in a database that has grown to include 8 million different songs.

“This increase in our database cements Shazam’s position as the leading mobile music discovery service in the world,” says Will Mills, Shazam’s Head of Music, and adds the app’s unique user experience “has made Shazam the perfect partner for mobile phone operators and handset manufacturers across the world.”

In September the company announced that more than 20 million customers had used Shazam to identify over 100 million tracks so far, numbers that are likely to continue growing along with the size of the app’s database.

Via Distorted Loop

A version “Dope Wars,” the game that challenges users’ math and marketing skills as well as their street smarts (released for Windows some ten years ago) has been rumored to be coming to iPhone under the name Drug Lords.

The video posted here, from Pocket Gamer, UK, indicates it was to be available by the end of November, but a report Wednesday said it has been re-branded by the developer a-steroids and submitted for AppStore approval under the name Underworld, which, according to Pocket Gamer, should make it less controversial.

The game sets you up as a small-time drug pusher, selling your stash on the local street corner to other players, and even makes use of the iPhone’s GPS functionality, meaning you can be wheelin’ and dealin’ from your realworld local street corner.

Can’t wait to see what America’s scolds have to say about this one.

Via PocketGamer UK

Melodis Corporation looks to make manual searching and scrolling for telephone contacts a thing of the past on your iPhone with its free Voice Dialer, available now on the AppStore.

“Dialing by voice is a much simpler, more natural interface than scrolling through a long list of contacts,” says Keyvan Mohajer, president and chief executive officer of MELODIS Corporation. “Many voice-based dialers are unacceptable because they are too slow, particularly as the number of contacts grows,” he adds, saying, “The Melodis Voice Dialer scales easily to deliver speed and accuracy whether the user has 10 contacts or 10,000.”

Users can search for contact information or dial contacts automatically using different voice commands. For example, users can say “Michael Smith”, “call Michael Smith”, “call Michael”, and so on. Saying “call” before the name automatically dials the number. Users can also specify whether they want to call the contact at home, at work or on their cell phone.

The app uses the company’s proprietary Crystal Engine, which avoids the traditional approach of voice-to-text conversion for search, which the company claims can achieve higher accuracy compared to existing solutions.

Unlike Google’s Voice Search capability, which allows users to simply raise the phone to the ear and begin speaking, Melodis requires the touch of a button on the phone’s surface to activate its voice reception. The app is free, though supported by what the company describes as “non-obtrusive mobile advertising.”

We stumbled across Vito Technologies’ Star Walk app for iPhone and iPod Touch and found yet one more way for Apple’s mobile devices to make us say, “wow.”

Not quite a pocket planetarium, Star Walk does boast impressive, detailed graphics showing past and future astronmical events from any place on earth and is an easy to use, annotated guide to stargazing.

Available in six languages for $4.99, the app has gotten glowing reviews on the AppStore and the developers promise updates soon supporting improved night mode viewing and mapping for deep space objects. Yes, Google Earth is free, but would you pay 5 bucks to see into infinity?

When you’ve had it with commercial radio, after you can’t take one more suggestion from iTunes’ Genius or Pandora or somebody’s Last.fm playlist, turn to your Mac.

With Bitnotic Chill 1.0 your Mac can create 100% computer-generated, user-adjustable ambient music. Though purely machine made, Chill’s music is both relaxing and listenable.

Chill plays endless songs or, in Radio mode, an uninterrupted stream of unique tracks. Once played, songs can be saved in a variety of audio formats. Albums can be exported straight into iTunes to download to iPod or burn to CD. Each song is unique and royalty free, and can be used in any public space or project without licensing fees.

Nick Vardalos, owner of Cafe Bido in Sydney, Australia uses Chill as a royalty-free music alternative for his cafe and in music projects. He says, “It’s simple enough that you can turn it on and let it go do its thing, but for the electro-geek in me it goes deeper. I can export the songs it creates as MIDI files into pro production software and build on them, replace instruments, edit tracks, collaborate with friends.”

Created with musicians, as well as listeners, in mind, Chill has a variety of features that allow songs to be used in the studio or live. Individual tracks can be saved in MIDI, WAV, and AIFF formats. Count-in, song key and tempo info, and MIDI output allow performers to collaborate with chill in real-time.

Scott Burgess, Bitnotic’s principal, says, “Chill’s music is influenced by Eno, Debussy, and musique concrete, with some New Age thrown in. The songs can be mellow or they can be evocative, but they are always music.”

Available directly from Bitnotic, at $19.95 Chill is a cost-effective alternative to pricey publicly licensed jukebox and canned music alternatives for businesses wishing to provide music for their customers, as well as a cheap tool for musicians and producers wanting to incorporate electronica into their projects.

For the individual user, Chill can provide a welcome respite or a vibe to use for relaxing, meditating, or – ahem – working late into the night on this or that…

With the arrival, finally, of Apple’s Premium earphones with remote and mic, you can now use your iPod Touch as a telephone through the magic of free software from the VoIP pioneers at TruPhone.

Actually, that’s somewhat inaccurate. You’ve been able to partake of TruPhone’s magic previously using a microphone adapter that plugs into the dock connector, or a headset with built-in mic like the one that ships with iPhones, but now that Apple’s new headsets are on the way, TruPhone’s app seems much more interesting.

Once you’ve installed the software, you can make free calls–no matter where you are in the world–to other iPod touch owners, to customers of Truphone’s Internet telephony service and to users of Google Talk instant messaging service. Support for low cost calling to landlines (PSTN) is on the way, according to company reps, as is support for calling and instant messaging to Skype and MSN (free) and free check and set facilities for both Twitter and Facebook.

The software uses the iPod touch’s Wi-Fi connection to carry VoIP calls over the Internet to its destination. There is no monthly line rental, no subscription or other hidden charges, but it should be noted calls are not handed off to the cellular network if you move beyond or lose your WiFi connection.

Still, when you bought that iPod Touch, I bet you didn’t think you were getting a telephone, too.

Apple has given iPhone developers an early Christmas present, freeing them (somewhat) from the convoluted mess of ad hoc distribution.

Once an application has been accepted to the App Store by Apple, developers can now issue up to 50 promotional codes. The codes allow the recipient to download a full copy of the application for free. Presently, these codes can only be used in the U.S. iTunes Stores by using the “Redeem” link in the App Store. The 50 code limit is reset for each new version of an application, according to a report at MacRumors.

Presumably developers may continue to use the ad hoc model, wherein a special version of their app can be sent, along with a mobile provisioning file, to up to 100 users (beta testers and/or reviewers) who provide the unique device identification number of their iPhone or iPod Touch, for giving out copies of apps prior to their acceptance in the AppStore.

‘Tis the Season to make a list out of everything you can possibly think of – who’s been naughty, who’s been nice, the Best of This and The Worst of That.

Apple released its lists of the Top 10 Paid and Top 10 Free Apps on the iTunes AppStore Tuesday, and also broke down the top apps by category. If you visited the iTunes store since the AppStore launched in July, you’ve been able to get a running snapshot of the Top 10 overall lists, as they have been published on the AppStore’s front page since the launch.

After opening strong, Super Monkey Ball ended up 4th on the list of top paid app downloads, while Koi Pond quietly, like a zen warrior, took the top honors. Amazingly, enough people paid for iBeer to put it in the #10 spot.

Among the free downloads, two music apps, Pandora Radio and Shazam were in the top 5 (#1 and #4, respectively) and in only two months of availability, Google Earth managed to place #7.

For all of the AppStore’s Top Lists, click here.

For all of the iTunes Store’s Top Lists, click here.

One day after a number of media outlets (including this one) made hay out of the fact that an Apple Support knowledgebase stated “Apple encourages the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities,” the company removed the page from its support website on Tuesday.

“We have removed the KnowledgeBase article because it was old and inaccurate,” said Apple spokesman Bill Evans, according to a report at Macworld. “The Mac is designed with built-in technologies that provide protection against malicious software and security threats right out of the box.”

Hedging his bet ever so slightly, Evans also said, “Since no system can be 100% immune from every threat, running anti-virus software may offer additional protection.”

Several Cult of Mac readers took issue with the proposition that Macs’ growing popularity has made them any more susceptible to viruses or malware than they have ever been. Thanks to reader James for the tip on the Macworld report.

On Monday night’s Colbert Report, the most feared television journalist in America let it be known he was none too happy that his Christmas Special Soundtrack was 15 spots down from Kanye West’s top selling album on iTunes. He called for the Colbert Nation to crash Apple’s iTunes servers at 5pm EST on Wednesday to vault his record to the top position and “force Kanye to admit I am the voice of this generation, of this decade.”

As of Tuesday night, Stephen Colbert’s disc had moved up two spots to #14, but his new rival, at this writing, is Britney Spears, whose album Circus is presently iTunes’ top seller.

There has been no word from the Colbert camp calling off the flashmob, nor comment regarding whether West’s arrogance remains in need of a takedown now that his record is no longer in first position. Knowing Colbert’s own reputation for having an outsized ego, however, it’s likely he’s still looking for a big bump in the polls on Wednesday.

Just yesterday the web was lousy with stories about the extended delay for the release of Apple’s premium in-ear headphones with remote and mic. Like magic, Tuesday the Apple Store began accepting orders for the hotly anticipated $79 premium iPod accessory, with delivery promised within 7 – 10 business days.

The headset features custom two-way balanced armature (a woofer and tweeter in each earpiece) that Apple claims will deliver “pro audio performance and impressive sound isolation” available more often at 2X to 3X the price.

One of the most anticipated features of these headphones is their ability to allow audio recording on the latest generation of iPods without fitting an external microphone to the dock connector. The headset also features convenient buttons that let you adjust the volume and control music and video playback, and while the specs indicate they are compatible only with 120GB iPod Classic, 4th generation iPod Nano and iPod Touch, many consumer audio analysts believe at least the speakers and microphone (if not the on-lanyard controls) will work with the iPhone as well.

This post has been corrected to accurately reflect its subject’s nationality. The post author was originally directed to the Italian version of the designer’s website, resulting in a misunderstanding as to his national origin.

Vlad Gerasimov is one busy guy. Proprietor of the outstanding design shop VladStudio, this Russian designer has created hundreds and hundreds of wallpapers, backgrounds and wallpaper clocks, a sampling of which is displayed in the gallery below.

Vlad has also created a few dozen PhotoShop tutorials that can have you designing like a pro in no time.

You can purchase a lifetime registration good for receiving higher quality, signature free downloads and Adobe source files until December 31st for $19.99, $10 off his regular registration fee.

This is great stuff and well worth checking out, a fine holiday gift idea for the artist or designer on your gifting list.

Fluid Tunes is a pretty cool free app from Majic Jungle Software that uses your computer’s camera to interpret movements of your head, hands or feet, letting you browse, play or pause your music in iTunes without touching your keyboard or mouse. It works on OS X 4.11 and higher and is a tiny (788K) universal binary.

Image © Charis Tsevis

UPDATE: With thanks to reader James of RetroMacCast, credit is due to the original creator of this and many other wonderful mosaix-technique portraits, Athens, Greece-based artist, Charis Tsevis. You can download and listen to a podcast interview with Tsevis here.

Flickr user mic.imac has a fascinating portrait up of Steve Jobs, comprised entirely of artfully arranged Apple products. The portrait echoes a theme that runs through the upcoming Welcome to Macintosh documentary my colleague Nicole Martinelli wrote about on Monday, which is that the people who work at Apple give themselves entirely to the work of designing and producing the products the company makes.

Of no one is that statement more true than Steve Jobs. As CoM founder Leander Kahney says in the documentary, “Apple is Steve Jobs.”

When Steve Jobs convened the “Let’s Rock” event to unveil the new iPod Nano in September, he made a point of whetting our appetites for premium in-ear headphones with remote and mic that were said, at the time, to be shipping in October. It’s now December and the Apple website still says “Coming Soon.”

Apple engineers were ordered to revise the design, which required Apple’s overseas contractors to retool their manufacturing process, resulting in the extended delay, according to sources cited by MacBloz on Monday.

The premium headphones, slated to retail for $79, are intended to compete with high-end audiophile headsets costing two and three times that amount from the likes of Bose and Sony, and according to the MacBlogz sources, that standard has not yet been achieved. On the other hand, it should be premature to rule out a splashy marketing deployment of the eagerly anticipated headphones just in time for last minute holiday shopping.

Via MacBlogz.

I got an email today from some friends who run a Bay Area IT consultancy. They deal almost exclusively in the PC trade but are Mac savvy themselves, so I was startled a bit by the subject line for their monthly Good News / Bad News newsletter: Two Very Bad Mac OSX Viruses.

Of course, I knew from chatter over the summer and from more recent conversation that the days of Macs being impervious to viruses and malware are probably numbered and sure enough, even Apple Support now officially recommends users install antivirus protection on Mac systems:

Apple encourages the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities so that virus programmers have more than one application to circumvent, thus making the whole virus writing process more difficult.

The Apple knowledge base article goes on to recommend programs from Intego, Symantec/Norton and McAfee, all of which are commercially licensed products.

My consulting friends recommended iAntivirus, which is a free program, and said, “We have never used it but reviewers say it is good for being a free program. Download and use all free software with caution!”

Another free Mac virus checker (though the developer gratefully accepts all donations) is ClamXav, an updated version of which was released on Monday; the program gets 4.25 stars at Mac Update.

So, is that it? Are we all going to opt for the flu shot from now on? If you’ve installed antivirus software on your Mac, tell us how it’s going and what you like. If you haven’t, or don’t plan to, tell us why in comments.