Archive for the 'Hacks' Category
“Wowd makes it easy to search for and find information that matters most to you in Facebook,” said Mark Drummond, CEO, Wowd Inc. who was Director of Mission Technology at NASA (JPL & Ames) working on mission technology for Mars surface operations before coming to Wowd. (Trust me, this guy is way smart having a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Calgary, and a Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science from the University of Edinburgh.) “The average Facebook user has about 130 friends and sees hundreds of status updates per day. Our new Social Discovery Client makes it easy for people to filter and find the best of what’s posted and shared within their Facebook social graph so they can get back to enjoying social interactions and not get distracted by unwanted noise.”
Susan Doherty, Chief Marketing Officer of Wowd, told me on a phone conference call last Friday that Wowd surveyed 1,000 Facebook users when putting the Social Discovery client together and the number one complaint from users was game spam. You know, Jim needs you to help get gems, or Tammy’s farm is dying, and Mark’s just slain someone as a Mafia thug for something that you really don’t care about. While Facebook allows you to quiet the spam, it only allows you to do so one by one of your friends and as new games enter the social network realm, you have to continue your diligence and silence the new noise. Wowd with one click takes care of all of it. One click! Actually, I take that back, no click. By default after install, game spam is blocked. Thank you, Wowd!
Another high score in the survey results was losing touch with infrequent posters in a sea of chatter happy friends. I have over 450 friends and I know it’s common for me not see someone post to the point that I wonder if they even dropped me as a friend. Wowd took care of that by adding an easy link that you can click to keep up with all those infrequent posters. In my early pre-release version Wowd furnished me, I was able to easily “catch-up” with all those that post once in a while easily and quickly. I had to chuckle when I saw on the right column five names under the title “Most Active”. I guess even infrequent posters can still out post others. 
Search is another frustrating topic with Facebook users. As it works, or really doesn’t work, Facebook search really doesn’t give much relevance in most users searches. Facebook is a social network and the power of that is the friends that build the network. With more and more looking to trusted source for advice, Google saw for the first time in – like ever – a drop in searches last month. People are tired of SEO-tainted search results. People know they can have confidence in advice from their friends and the ability to search Facebook easily for information as opposed to just having Friends and Pages results gives Wowd’s Social Discovery client a major plus over Facebook. You can effortlessly search for opinions on the latest movie, iPhone 4 advice, or even what’s good for dinner with Wowd’s Social Discovery Client for Facebook. Enter a search term and up comes all your friends that posted on their wall with that term, highlighted, along with even a tag cloud with related topics for further drill-down. Ya, I was Wowd when I saw how effective and straightforward it was to search within the browser interface.
But hold on, there’s more. You can create custom feeds such as “groups” of friends. If you’re like me, you probably have a batch of friends from high school, a collection from one job while another batch from that other job you took later. You can now put these people into “High School”, “Job 1″, and “Job 2″ custom feeds by name to see quickly see what the Class of 1989 did today. Um, that’s not my high school graduation year. Really. I’m not that old. Really. Custom feeds can also be created using keywords as well, much like search terms. In fact, when you perform a search you can save it as a custom feed to continue monitoring that topic. So nice, so easy.
Like the much ignored official Facebook app for the iPhone, you can also have a Favorite Friends section. These would be those that you want to be on the top of your radar. Hand select those that are closest, or maybe the farthest, in your life that you just have to know what’s going on with a quick click.
What else is there? Summaries. Here’s a place to see “What’s Happening Now”, much like a trending topic section. Active friends can be found here as well as a really cool graphical view of your wall that has a cork board background with push pins holding up quick wall posts, pictures, and other tid-bits. Visually, you take it in very quickly and very effectively.
In short, Wowd has put together a really exciting application that will definitely be my stop for my Facebook check-ins. Of course, without too much time even on it, I can see how valuable the free download is and I’m already itching for an iPhone version. Doherty assured me that it and Android app will be coming later. Phewf! My only disappointment is with the pop-up notifications that occur in the bottom right-hand of the screen. While nice, they are not clickable and thus offer little value other than to let you know something new has occurred.
Do realize one thing, reader, this is not a Facebook replacement as the application is far from being mature and is missing features that have become second nature to many users in using without even thinking about what they are doing. For example, clicking a friends name will not bring you to their page but rather to all of their posts. You can not dig deeper into their photos and other boxes here. You will still need to hop over to Facebooks page for full functionality.
The 25 MB package is free to install and Wowd will soon integrate text-based ads similar to Google Ads. Don’t worry, Doherty was pretty certain that image banner advertisement would not be dawning the orange-themed client and only relevant items would be displayed.
Visit Wowd for your download link now. I really think this will the be the new way to access Facebook, period. Oh, if you’re wondering how it compares to the Better Facebook plug-in for Firefox and Safari, remember what I said about the simply and static free lay out of Wowd? Ya, you won’t go wrong with the Social Discovery client. You will be Wowd.
Other World Computing (OWC®) http://www.macsales.com, a leading zero emissions Mac® and PC technology company, announced today its new OWC Turnkey Upgrade Installation Program for the Mid 2010 Apple iMac 27″ to address the high demand for increasing iMac performance while overcoming the highly difficult upgrade level an iMac presents to an end user. The program enables new iMac 27″ owners to custom configure and have OWC professionally install the first offered eSATA port option for an iMac, an award winning OWC Mercury Extreme Pro Solid State Drive up to 480GB, a larger capacity hard drive up to 2TB, and/or OWC Memory Upgrades up to 16GB. The new professional installation service program offers multiple configuration options starting at $169 with a 48 business hours or less installation turnaround and includes complete shipping options along with OWC’s renowned warranty coverage.
OWC will begin taking orders for its Turnkey Upgrade Installation Program for the Mid 2010 Apple iMac 27″ beginning on Tuesday, August 3. For complete program details, including options, pricing, and answers to commonly asked questions regarding the program, visit: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/turnkey/iMac_2010_27
OWC Options Create A Better Than Factory Built iMac
Owners of the new iMac 27″ can experience the following benefits from the OWC Upgrade Program and enjoy a superior performing iMac than what is available direct from the factory:
First Ever eSATA Interface Option Offered For An iMac
OWC has custom engineered the first ever solution to provide an external eSATA port on an Apple iMac computer. With fast data transfer rates up to 300MB/s, iMac 27″ users can now enjoy data backups and transfers at up to 3X faster than the factory stock interfaces. The $169.00 service includes an OWC Flexible eSATA cable for Plug and Play use with any external storage solution equipped with a standard eSATA port and return shipping of the eSATA enhanced iMac.
Bigger, Faster, More Reliable Solid State Drive
The OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD can be installed in capacities up to 480GB, up to a full 87% greater capacity than the single factory 256GB SSD option, and offer read/write speeds in excess of 270MB/s…up to 40% faster than the factory and/or other currently available SSDs. While many SSDs experience significant performance degradation over time, this is not the case with the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD. By employing advanced block management and over-provisioning, the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD provides the ultimate in reliability and long-term high performance.
More ‘Main Bay’ Storage Configuration Options
New iMac 27″ owners requiring more storage capacity that the factory stock 1TB drive can have OWC replace the stock drive with hard drives up to 2TB in capacity and with manufacturer warranties up to five years. Or, instead of a traditional hard drive, OWC can add a second SSD to the main drive bay for a SSD RAID configuration.
Additional & Lower Cost Memory Options Than Factory
New iMac owners seeking to expand memory configuration up to 16GB will find can save up to 45% compared to same size factory installed upgrades.
Program Offers Comprehensive Convenience And Confidence
Having offered award-winning products and services to Mac owners worldwide for over 21 years, OWC drew upon its experience to create a comprehensive and convenient program. Now iMac 27″ owners can confidently customize their iMac 27″ to their own unique specifications and experience less hassle and downtime than using any other upgrade service, assured by an OWC 1-year limited warranty on upgrade service and installed products.
“We are quite pleased to record another innovation in the Mac industry by offering the first eSATA interface for an iMac,” said Larry O’Connor, Founder and CEO, Other World Computing. “By offering this performance enhancement along with faster, bigger, and better options for memory and storage, an OWC upgraded iMac truly will be the best performing iMac a user can own.”
If you are running a WordPress blog and want to tell the world via Twitter about each and every new post, then get the WP->Twitter plug-in to do that for you automatically. Lots of great features like URL shortening and it’s donateware.
While Nintendo Wii uses motion control technology, Think-Tac-Toe uses the power of thought to play the game. The user wears a wireless headset, which picks up and records human brain activity. It can detect emotions, expressions, and cognitive thought processes which are then sent to the game and portrayed on the screen.
SvenOnTech will get you more information on this innovative game in the coming weeks.
I was personally effected by the lack of responsiveness to print jobs on my HP LaserJet 3600n. There I was, printing just dandy in Leopard the Thursday night before I purchased Snow Leopard. Friday afternoon comes and the fairly fast completed upgraded puts me in front of a printer queue that states “Connected…” and not much more. After canceling my print job, deleting the printer, rebooting, and re-installing, the same issue occurred. This time I had patience and low and behold, three minutes later, the printer started printing! I printed another test. Again, it took 3 minutes. Every job took 3 minutes from the time it left my Mac (or did it really leave it?) After much investigation, I discovered I wasn’t alone as IT World well documented. Apple’s web site had nothing to offer other than others with the same issue posting pleas of help.
Then, HP and Apple admitted there was an issue and released an updated drive raising many “dead” and once unsupported printers back to print heaven. My 3600n, however, was not one of them. Several minutes still passed between my mouse click on the Print button and the actual print happening. More searching on the web for an answer was fruitless, forgive the pun, for my Apple. In desperation, I contacted Apple Care and even the Level 2 tech had no clue what was wrong.
Well, I went back to an old friend. Back in my OS X 10.3 days, I was forced to use open source drivers for my older HP DeskJet and once again, on a hunch, I went back to the world of better code. Guess what? Because of macosx/hpijs, I can once again print in a heartbeat.
So what’s it all mean? HP has crappy drivers and Apple did a poor job of beta testing. Dude, I’m not the only one with an HP 3600n out there. Maybe Apple needs to be less concerned about secrets and surprise and make a more general beta like Microsoft did for Windows 7. If you’re wondering, ya, my HP 3600n works fine with Microsoft’s just released OS update.
Mystical Tint Tone and Color 2.0 is a suite of 60 production oriented filters that enhance the look and feel of a photo, allowing the user to quickly and efficiently capture the perfect mood for their shot. The results generated by this amazing piece of software are beautiful. Professional Photographers spend years mastering the techniques and tricks that this software automates for anyone to use.
Mystical Tint Tone and Color 2.0 includes unique Portrait Filters that improve skin color, eliminate wrinkles and skin blemishes, enhance eyes, lips and hair and reshape facial features to accentuate natural attributes. New lens filters simulate graduated filters and polarizers. New sharpening filters provide amazing detail and clarity in images unachievable using traditional filters available in Photoshop. New HDR filters enrich the colors, saturation and tonal depth of photos in unique and eye-appealing ways.
Mystical Tint Tone and Color 2.0 uses an intuitive brush-on / brush-off methodology to give the user precise control over the results. Dynamic rendering allows the user to combine an unlimited number of filter combinations to enhance their images in a non-destructive environment that fosters creative exploration and experimentation without the need for all the layers, masking and techniques necessary in Photoshop.
Mystical Tint Tone and Color 2.0 also includes over 300 instant effect presets that give the user a rapid start to perfecting the look of their images. The workflow for adding enhancements to images is made easier by the intuitive onscreen previewing system and robust selection of tools and brushes that apply the effect with precise results. New effects like Afternoon Sun, Moon Glow, Color Tone, Soft Sepia and High Key Blast give the photographer a powerful repertoire of choices.
Mystical Tint Tone and Color 2.0 includes 60 new effects:
Antique Photo ~ Afternoon Sun ~ Black and White ~ Color Bleach ~ Color Contrast ~ Cool Colors ~ Color Mixer ~ Color Tone ~ Green Foliage ~ HSB Adjust ~ Moon Glow ~ RGB Adjust ~ Saturate Colors ~ Sepia ~ Warm Colors ~ Vitality ~ Blue Sky ~ Hand Tinting ~ Gradient Tinting ~ Under Color ~ Cool Gray ~ Warm Gray ~ Dark Contrast ~ Darken Colors ~ Deepen Tones ~ Enriched Black ~ High Key Blast ~ Level Adjustments ~ Multiply Darks ~ Over Exposed ~ Darken and Sharpen ~ Under Exposed ~ Washed Out ~ Polarizer Filter ~ Graduated Filters ~ Sharp Posterize ~ Lighten and Sharpen ~ Sharp Contrast ~ Sharpen Details ~ Image Brush ~ Soft Sepia ~ Soft Black and White ~ Soft Contrast ~ Hard Posterize ~ Soft Posterize ~ Soften Details ~ Smooth Depth ~ Smooth Range ~ Smooth Skin ~ Skin Color ~ Flesh Tone ~ Enhance Eyes ~ Enhance Hair ~ Enhance Lips ~ Reshape ~ Enlarge / Reduce ~ HDR Color Pop ~ HDR Contrast ~ HDR Darken ~ HDR Black and White
For examples of what Mystical Tint Tone and Color 2.0 can do visit Mystical TTC 2.0 Product Details
Feature Highlights: Read the rest of this entry »
Remember when we were kids and our school projects involved paper, glue, and scissors and that was about it? If you had plastics and metals, or wood shop, you got to make some cooler stuff, but for the most part, nothing more than trinkets to give mom and dad for their birthdays that wound up in some landfill within a year. Well, young Ralph has got something mom or dad surely won’t be tossing any time soon…if they’re lucky enough to get this cool project!
Ralph has created a car from an “iPod”. Really, mom helped out on Adobe Illustrator and printed out the iPod mockup but Ralph put it all together and entered his car into the Pinewood Derby. Speed isn’t the only thing this bad boy has. Nope, the iCar is sure to be the talk of the derby for years to come with its cool looks that really look like the real thing. I kept finding myself looking at the LCD screen for something to appear. It’s just that sweet.
Ralph’s mom was nice enough to even leave directions and examples on her web site for other iCar wannabes. Excuse me while I go grab my print job off the network printer…
[Thanks Fletch!]
Are you a web designer needing to check how your perfectly XHTML and CSS tuned site looks breaks in Internet Explorer (IE)? Don’t really want to let your RAM and CPU cycles get bitten just to be only greeted with your dismay due to Parallels or VMWare’s overhead? Just want something fast to see what you have to fix, fix it, and then be done with it? Well, then you and other web designers can rejoice, ies4osx is here!
Using ies4linux by Sérgio Luís Lopes Júnior as the foundation for ies4osx, Kronenberg Informatik Lösungen (Mike’s the guy behind the big ‘ol German name) has brought to OS X for the first time Internet Explorer 5, 5.5, 6.0, and 7.0 beta without the need for a full blown virtual machine or a restart into Boot Camp. Nope, using just WINE and X11 windows, you’ve got a simple double click on the ies4osx icon of your choice (which poor standards version of IE will you open?) and up come Internet Explorer in a flash. Granted, I have a 3 GHz Mac Pro with 3 GB of RAM, but I know your whimpy Mac can open this nice and fast, too. 
Now “buyer” beware (this is donate-ware, by the way,) there is no support for Active X or Java. So, many people might be disappointed thinking that they will be able access certain sites such as QuickBooks Online which requires Active X. So know that this is mostly for testing sites and really for nothing little more.
All in all, this is a treat for those in need for a quick access to Internet Explorer without the fear of waiting for long start ups or large system resources overhead. Thanks, guys!
Ergonis Software today announced the release of Typinator 2.1, the latest version of its highly acclaimed tool for auto-correcting typos and auto-typing text across all Mac OS X applications.
The new version is ready for Mac OS X 10.5 (“Leopard”) and improves compatibility with Flash, Numbers, MS Office, Terminal, You-Control, and others. Furthermore, the built-in auto-correction dictionaries have been refined to enhance smooth multi-lingual auto-correction in all applications on Leopard.
Typinator is a powerful, yet elegantly simple solution that works across all applications to detect specific sequences of typed characters and automatically replace them with text snippets, graphics, URLs, dates and special characters.
For business users, Typinator leads to a layer of operational consistency and productivity across heterogeneous applications. A standard customer service response, a signature image on an email, a clause in a contract – each of these can be inserted in any application with just a couple of keystrokes. For technical users, Typinator automates typing of code and the implementation of documentation standards.
Visit Ergonis Software’s website at http://www.ergonis.com/typinator to learn more about the changes in the release and to download and try the new version.
Availability and Pricing:
Typinator can be purchased securely on the Ergonis Software website. The upgrade to Typinator 2.1 is free for anyone who purchased Typinator in the last 2 years. For information about purchases, including enterprise licenses, volume discounts, and upgrade pricing offers, visit the website at http://www.ergonis.com/typinator.
Instead of purchasing Typinator by itself, customers can get the Macility Productivity Bundle that also contains two of the company’s other productivity tools, PopChar X and KeyCue. The pricing of the Productivity Bundle represents a saving of more than 35% over the separate purchase of its components. More information about the Productivity Bundle can be found at http://www.ergonis.com/productivity.
Typinator 2.1 requires Mac OS X 10.3.9 or newer. Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.5 is recommended.
Ah, I love a good fight and love it even more when the foe is one that claims it is an advocate of its customer. Case in point, Apple and its nasty embrace of the RIAA and AT&T to shovel money their way and then to paint it as “the cheapest in the industry”. Ya, whatever, I already paid for my songs, I don’t need to pay again to shorten it for a ringtone, thank you.
Thanks to Ambrosia Software, its tireless staff has been working night and day for weeks since the release of firmware 1.1.1 to get its ringtone application to work once again on the iPhone. I’ve been checking daily on its site to see if any breakthroughs have occurred and folks, just minutes before retiring for the day (and fixing some minor SvenOnTech v2 issues), behold, an update! Oh yes, iToner 1.0.3 does in fact move all your favorite MP3 and AAC files onto your iPhone, not matter the firmware version!
What are you waiting for, folks? Download! Previous customers get this baby free and new comers can try it free for 30 days without a single restriction. After that, a mere $15 is all the caffeine overdosed staff at Ambrosia Software asks for. And yes, it is on record to keep “fixing” iToner if Apple continues to break it with each new destructive firmware update. (Steve forbid real user-requested features appear!)