Archive for September, 2008
Filed under: Internet Tools, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch
 The Facebook [iTunes link] application for the iPhone has just been updated to version 2 (although you may see it listed as version 1.1 in the store), and the new version number brings some stellar features! In this release, the Facebook team has totally revamped the user interface and brought the client up to parity with the mobile Facebook app for Blackberry (really surpassed it, if you ask me). Some of the new features are:
- Facebook Chat (OK, not new, but seems to be working much superior now)
- Address book lookup
- New, easier to use interface, including notifications and the full news feed
WritePhoto post on friends’ walls and view their full profiles- Photo tags (holding your finger down on the pic will show them)
- People search, friend requests and your full inbox/inbox search
- Pic uploading is faster
- You can now upload photos from your library stored on the iPhone
In addition to all those changes, there are also “dozens of bug fixes that improve stability” and speed — especially for users with a massive number of friends. Now that’s something each iPhone-owning Facebook user will like!
You can download this new version of FaceBook.app for iPhone from the iTunes App Store this day. Be sure to check out the changes in the user interface by looking at our gallery of screenshots.
Thanks for the tip, Jason!
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Filed under: Internet, Internet Tools
 The Omni Group has released version 5.8 of OmniWeb, its venerable browser software.
OmniWeb 5.8 is now based on the same version of Webkit as Safari 3.1.x. It also repairs bugs with Spaces, and adds support for non-POSIX file URLs. Users can also select Google Chrome in the list of user-agent strings. Full release notes are also available.
OmniWeb 5.8 is available from Omni’s website, and works with Mac OS X 10.4.8 or later. The software is $14.95, with upgrades starting at $4.95 for users of Omniweb 4.
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Filed under: Odds and ends, Internet Tools, Graphic Design
 Our friends over at the Iconfactory have a devil of a time protecting one of their more popular icons: David Lanham’s blue bird that adorns their Twitterrific software.
Turns out there are plenty of people that think the icon is free for the taking, and have used it in all kinds of projects and web sites.
Of course, this means more work for Ged Maheux, tracking down each person and letting them know that, no, they can’t use the icon, because it’s for a piece of commercial software.
The good news is that there are, however, plenty of design alternatives to the Iconfactory’s copyrighted artwork. Lots of friendly, smiling flyers have come out of the woodwork/birdhouse — and they’re free to use for your website or other non-commercial project. Read on for a rhapsody in bluebirds.
Continue reading The bluebird of happiness
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Filed under: Accessories, Peripherals, World wide web Tools, MobileMe
Eye-Fi has announced that their eponymous SD memory card with built-in WiFi is getting faster and adding MobileMe support. The Eye-Fi grants you to automatically upload pics from your SD card compatible camera to your Mac or a variety of on the internet services like Flickr, SmugMug, and now MobileMe. The update will be available on October 5 and is also backwards compatible to existing Eye-Fi cards with upgrade fees. Other additions include Eye-Fi’s own web gallery, geotagging support (via a similar mechanism to the original iPhone), and Wayport / open hotspot support, each for additional annual fees.
The Eye-Fi cards come in three flavors: Home, Share, and Explore. Home ($79.99) is limited to uploads on your home WiFi network to your home computer; Share ($99.99) allows broader WiFi access and uploading to web galleries; Explore ($129.99) also adds geotagging.
[via Engadget]
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Filed under: Analysis / Thought, Software, Internet Tools, Reviews, Podcasts, iPhone, App Store
 You’ve heard about the controversy surrounding Podcaster — it’s the iPhone app that was turned down by Apple for “duplicating the functionality of iTunes.” The developer, Alex Sokirynsky, is now distributing his native podcast stream receiver app via ad hoc distribution.
The iPhone development world & the Mac blogosphere (not to mention the mainstream press) is still loudly debating Apple’s decision, but not much is being said about the application itself. Alex was kind enough to provide a review copy of Podcaster to TUAW, so we gave the app a workout. Read on for our review of this controversial and useful application.
Continue reading TUAW Review: Podcaster
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Filed under: Software, World wide web Tools
 Our friends over at at Realmac Software, makers of the popular RapidWeaver website creation app, have just posted some information on their next Mac app, LittleSnapper. From what I can glean from the promo page, LittleSnapper — which is expected sometime at the end of 2008 — is designed to be the ultimate mash-up of screenshot applications like Skitch and Paparazzi.
Back in Might, I tested and reviewed various (static) screen capturing programs and options for OS X. Even though I didn’t have a opportunity to actually address the issue of full web page captures in that article, I was, and continue to be frustrated by the lack of a good, Leopard-friendly program that can capture an entire web site, and not just the portion that appears on the screen. Stitching together screenshots in Photoshop is time consuming and unfortunately, Paparazzi’s Leopard support is kludgy (.43 works with Leopard, but .5 won’t even open). I demoed Web Snapper, but it is a Safari plugin (or InputManager for the semantically correct), which is not always best.
From the Realmac website, it looks like LittleSnapper is really designed to take the ideal aspects of a program like Skitch, the capability to capture portions of the screen and annotate and share with other people, with the capability to work with web browsers and also organize screenshot libraries. They even show off a DOM-highlighter, so you can instantly capture a specific element of a site, much like Safari’s WebClip and CSSEdit’s Inspector.
We’ll let you know more about LittleSnapper as the details eke out. You can sign-up for updates at Realmac’s website. LittleSnapper will be a Leopard-only application.
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Filed under: World wide web, World wide web Tools
 Although Google Chrome is still only available for Windows, its WebKit roots mean that Safari for Mac users might still get some extra perks. Gears, Google’s web API that lets developers create applications that can run offline, is one of those perks. Previously, Gears was only available for Firefox on the Mac, and it certainly didn’t feel like there was any priority in bringing Gears to Safari. Well, with Google’s gung-ho dedication to all things WebKit, the Google Mac team has just released Gears for Safari.
Even superior, for WebKit browsers on the Mac that are not Safari, Google has made it simple to implement Gears without having to use InputManager. Fluid, a site-specific browser (it basically makes it possible to treat a web app like a regular app), implements Gears this way.
Gears for Safari requires OS X 10.4.11 or 10.5.3 or higher. You can download it here. After you install Gears, check out Google Docs, Gmail or Remember The Milk offline. It’s pretty awesome.
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Filed under: Software, Internet Tools
 Dropbox, my favorite FTP-free file sharing and transfer system, is now in public beta — anyone can sign up to use the service, and you don’t need an invite code.
Spokesperson Drew Houston said in a blog post that they launched the public beta at the TechCrunch50 conference in San Francisco.
I wrote about Dropbox in May, and it’s still a regular part of my file transfer strategy with my clients. It’s simple and fast, which makes it perfect for clients who don’t want to spend a lot of time sending me files (or downloading them, for that matter).
If you need more than the free 2GB of storage, 50GB will be available next week for $10 monthly (or $100 annually).
Thanks, Josh!
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Filed under: Internet Tools, iPhone, App Store
 Yahoo has released a preview of an iPhone client (iTunes link) for their oneConnect service. Basically, it integrates your Yahoo and iPhone address books with a variety of social networking sites like Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, etc. (see here for the full list). You’re then able to use Yahoo Messenger or SMS to communicate with contacts, or see their status updates, etc. from the various services.
The idea behind oneConnect is to aggregate your different social networking sites into one interface so you don’t have to keep switching between, state, Twitterrific and the Facebook application to keep on top of what’s going on with your various friends. It looks like it could definitely be handy if you’ve friends spread across different networks.
[via MacNN]
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