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In Detail Blogger is a blog publishing system from Google with a friendly interface specifically designed for creating and maintaining weblogs. It allows users to easily create dynamic blogs with great content a… More >>
Earlier last week we asked you to share your favorite start pages, and then we rounded up the results for a vote. Now we’re back to announce the winner and runners up.
Taking home nearly a third of the votes (31%) was the powerhouse of iGoogle/Google . Some readers love iGoogle for the customizable widgets and Google integration, and other users just want the spartan interface of the basic Google query box. Following Google was the various incarnations of Speed Dial, including the New Tab Page in Chrome, with 24% of the vote. about:blank made a strong showing in third place with 18% of the vote, representing the anti-start page crowd with its blank emptiness. Fav4.org took fourth place (10%) with readers citing the simplicity and elegance of the interface as it’s key selling point. Last place (8%) went to the “Custom” option for readers who build their own personal portals and start pages instead of using pre-made ones.
Check out the full Hive Five for additional information about each contender and, as always, if you have a great idea for a Hive Five we want to hear about it. Send us an email at tips at lifehacker.com with “Hive Five” in the subject line to share your ideas.
If there’s one thing that sounds more impressive than actual capabilities, it’s theoretical capabilities — and it looks like the CompactFlash Association has come through on both counts with its new CF5.0 specifications. While any actual cards or cameras supporting the spec are still a ways off, the new standard does pave the way for 48-bit addressing (up from 28-bit), along with an increased data transfer unit size of 32MB/s (up from 128KB/s) and, best of all, a theoretical maximum capacity of 144 petabytes (up from a mere 137GB with the current spec). Other advancements include a so-called “Video Performance Guarantee” aimed at professional video cameras, and a new Interface Electrical Specification that complies better with the ATA standard, and promises to allow for “easier and better” card design.
CompactFlash 5.0 specification promises faster speeds, crazy ‘theoretical’ storage originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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MobileMe has been updated to offer at least some functionality when accessing the me.com page from Mobile Safari. It doesn’t yet offer full access to MobileMe’s features via the browser, but it does allow access to the “Find My iPhone” feature from an iPhone or iPod touch.
Originally, loading me.com from Mobile Safari brought up a page telling you to set up MobileMe on your computer, offering a link to instructions. Now, an iPhone-specific page loads offering links to the iDisk and Gallery apps, setup instructions for e-mail, contacts, and calendars, and a new option to access Find My iPhone.
As TidBITS noted, using Find My iPhone hasn’t been updated to offer an iPhone-optimized interface, but it can save a trip home when you know you’ve misplaced your iPhone and suspect it’s nearby (assuming you have a friend with an iPhone, that is). That’s better than nothing, in our opinion.
You still can’t access any of your account settings or any other features directly using MobileMe though. Apple is clearly pushing the integration of the features with the iPhone OS and its accessory iDisk and Gallery apps. There are times when it might be useful to have access to those features via a browser, such as when your own iPhone is missing or left at home and you’re using a friend’s. Until Apple offers that functionality though, the current update is at least a minor improvement.
iPhone users, we’ve got a free gift for you! Mashable’s new iPhone app [iTunes link] is live in the App Store, offering an entirely new interface and a bunch of new features. These include:
1. Browse by channel, category, tag or author
2. Share stories via email, Twitter and Facebook
3. Read later: save stories to read offline
4. Drag to refresh: tap and pull down to refresh story listings
5. In-App Browser : Visit external links without leaving the app
6. Price: FREE!
We hope you’ll download the app in the App Store and give us your feedback!
Note that this is an entirely new app – if you’re using previous versions, please download this new one.
Tags: iphone, iphone app, iphone apps, mashable
Filed under: Macworld, Hardware, iTunes, Music
DJ software tends to be hit or miss — the ability to make a music player match beats on songs, even with different tempos, has been around for a while. For most software designed to allow you to mix and play music, the interface is the important part. What you want is a nice clean interface that’s simple enough for almost anyone to pick up and use, but complex enough that DJs who know their stuff can take advantage of deeper features and functionality. Fortunately, that’s exactly what Algoriddim has put together in the newest version of their app, djay 3. The app offers an excellent interface with quite a few nice touches of flash, and also offers up solid functionality for those who know their way around the ones and twos.
The app opens on the standard two-turntable view, with an iTunes interface sitting right on the side of the window. That’s important, the Algoriddim rep told us, because many DJ apps require you to import your songs, or put them in certain formats that might not be compatible with the most popular music player on the Mac. But djay 3 actually uses your iTunes music and playlists right in the app, so right at startup, you can just drag and drop songs onto the turntables, and start mixing right away. Of course, everything can be adjusted manually, but there are also buttons that allow you to automatically match the speed (beats per minute) and gain of the two songs, and a fader at the bottom allows you to switch back and forth between them just as a DJ would in the club. Everything else works as expected as well: you can drag the needles on the records to travel within a song, twist the records themselves to move around, or set EQ or balance as you’d expect.
That’s the basic functionality of the app, and it works well — I asked the rep to mix two random songs, and while Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn” didn’t exactly sound good together, they did beat match and gain match perfectly. Which makes sense: we were also told that the point of the app is to turn DJing into something that doesn’t require hours of practice with turntables in a bedroom, but rather that the point of playing music is music choices, not just how fast you can flip the fader or spin the record back.
Of course, for DJs who have spent those hours of practice, Algoriddim has built in plenty of advanced features. There’s a very impressive looping system, that allows you to create loops of any length, lined up right to the beat of a given song, and then adjust or cut those loops on the fly. There’s also a full-fledged cue point system, so you can instantly jump to a cue point in any song, and all of your cue points are saved as metadata, so the next time you want to play that killer breakdown right in the middle of one of your favorite songs, it’ll be there when you want it. And perhaps most awesome, the djay 3 software works with the multitouch trackpad on your MacBook Pro, so you can move the fader, turn the records, switch tracks, and do almost everything else just with gestures on the trackpad. And djay 3 doesn’t require extra soundcards for more technical ouput — with the in-app settings, you can plug in any USB headphones, and send the pre-cue sound out to a separate sound source.
And if you’re not an experienced DJ, djay 3 goes the other way, too — you can turn on the Automix feature, and the app will actually beatmix your songs for you, like an enhanced version of iTunes DJ. You can even program it to run certain transitions, like a full stop, a hip hop-style reverse twist, or a number of different options, all that run automatically. Obviously it won’t be perfect, but even if you’re just looking for a little more smooth party mix than the standard iTunes DJ, Algoriddim will help out with that, too. And the company is working on an iPhone app that will let you remotely control the mix via Wi-Fi — while we didn’t get to see it in action on the crowded floor, they’re hoping to release it later this year.
The app is available now for $50 on the website and in stores. It’s an excellent DJ app, and one of the best you will find on the Mac. It won’t turn you into an amazing DJ right away, but if you’re an experienced DJ looking for a way to mix music straight from your Mac, it’s a great solution. And even if you’re a music fan who wants to experience music in a different way, it’s more than worth a look.
TUAWMacworld 2010: Hands-on with Algoriddim’s djay 3 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 13 Feb 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Windows/Mac: DeSmuME is a featured-packed Nintendo DS emulator capable of playing ROMs and homebrew software, one that also offers extra features unavailable on a traditional DS.
DeSmuME emulates all the functionality of the DS including the buttons, touchscreen interface, and even the Wi-Fi connection. You can simply play your ROMs and homebrew apps, but in addition to playback, you can take screenshots, create movies from your gameplay, load cheat codes, and save your game state. That allows you to save any game at any time, even if the game doesn’t support profiles or saved games.
DeSmuMe is freeware and available for Windows and Mac. Check out NDS Homebrew for a variety of homebrew games and applications.
Originally posted 2009-10-04 18:25:24. Republished by Old Post Promoter
More and more you’ll find yourself not being the only photographer at an event. Divvyshot offers a simple way to not only share your own pictures, but to create open albums others can contribute their event photos to.
Divvyshot has a painless one-step signup process—it’s right on their front page, no annoying email confirmation!—and a polished and easy to use interface. Nearly all the settings for your albums are represented as icons across the top of your album page: click the padlock to lock the album so only friends can contribute to it, click the person icon to lock viewing the album to friends, click the globe to share your photos on Twitter, Facebook, Divvyshot, and with email notifications.
You can easily view the photos in the album in a variety of ways like by who uploaded them, what activity is going on at the event, or view the whole album. Uploading is fairly standard unless you’re sporting a browser that supports HTML 5 like the new version of Firefox, then you can—as the screenshot above demonstrates—drag and drop pictures right out of folders on your computer and into the album.
The strongest selling point for Divvyshot is the ease-of-use factor. The interface is simplistic, the next step needed to complete a task is clear, and it definitely passes the non-techie relative test—if Uncle Bill can check his email he should have no problem uploading pictures to Divvyshot.
Have a favorite service for sharing event photographs? Let’s hear about it in the comments.
Filed under: Odds and ends, iPhone, iPod touch
Navigon continues to be very aggressive at making its navigation platform a continued top seller for the iPhone. Today, the company announced an open app interface called AppInteract, which is a simple script that embeds a link into any app to launch Navigon’s MobileNavigator. At the same time, it transfers any selected address into turn-by-turn directions.
“For example, if you find a restaurant in an app that has implemented our AppInteract interface, you can get turn-by-turn directions to a chosen place instantly,” said Gerhard Mayr, vice-president worldwide mobile phones and new markets for Navigon. “Our aim is to provide elegant and easy to use navigation solutions, for our customers, as well as to the developer community.”
The technology has already been embedded in the Where To? app that I’ve reviewed previously. Now every developer who wants the technology can get easy access to it.
It’s clear Navigon wants to become a hub for all the apps that look up addresses, and for good reason — there are many of those in the App Store.
Looking back, it’s amazing how far the iPhone has come in the last couple of years. I suspect there is a lot more around the corner, especially with iPhone 4.0 being released later this year.
TUAWNavigon determined to link with every app it can originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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GMAIL USERS: You can now follow Mashable’s official Google Buzz profile here: http://www.google.com/profiles/mashable
Earlier this afternoon, Google announced Google Buzz, a semantic approach to social status updates that live inside Gmail. The demonstration video showed off some of what you can do with Buzz on your desktop — but what seems really exciting is what Buzz can do in your pocket.
If you visit http://buzz.google.com on your iPhone or Android device, you’ll be taken to a WebKit-optimized interface for using and connecting with Google Buzz.
When you do that, you’ll either be asked to log in to your Google account or, if you’re already logged in, you’ll be taken straight into the main Buzz screen. Here you can see Buzz from the people you follow and from nearby locations, view your own posts, and find other people.
The web-based interface fits in perfectly with the Gmail-optimized webpages that iPhone users are accustomed to using — Buzz is merely a new tab in the interface.
You can view Buzz surrounding your followers in a real-time stream. The concept is very similar to something like FriendFeed or Cliqset, in that each status update can become its own conversation.
You can also share and view photographs via Buzz.
One of the most compelling aspects of Google Buzz is its integration with Google’s Latitude service. Using your device’s GPS or Wi-Fi connection, Buzz will find your location (or show you nearby locations) and you can send an update and pin yourself to that location. Unlike Foursquare, where you can just check in to a location, if you want to indicate that you are someplace currently (or leave an opinion about an establishment), you have to send a Buzz message.
The Nearby tab is pretty cool because it shows you information from the public stream about what’s going on nearby. If you’re in a new city or simply trying to find out what’s going on in your neighborhood, this could potentially work like Gowalla or Loopt Mix.
Like Buzz in general, Buzz Mobile is still very much in development. The web app, while well-designed, doesn’t let you actively manage any of your accounts or connections. It’s also somewhat limited, for the time being, in what you can do — based on what type of access you or your followers have been given.
Once everyone has Google Buzz in Gmail, we’re sure that the mobile options will become a bit more well-rounded. As it stands now, there’s lots of potential, but not a ton of substance.
Have you used Google Buzz for your iPhone or Android device? Let us know!
Tags: buzz, geolocation, google buzz, web applications
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