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» Thursday Morning News

It’s a semi-early Thursday morning here and I’m yawning my way through work before it’s time to get up. Here are the news:

• A couple of days ago a very cool application called Fring was released in the App Store for the iPhone/iPod Touch. What makes it remarkable is that it’s the first one to allow Skype calls (while on WiFi). It doesn’t only work as a normal skype ID client, but it works with skype out and skype in numbers alike! Get it in the App Store, for free!
   
• Microsoft has decided to extend its support for Windows XP through July 31, 2009 which is a full six months more than they originally planned! Good news for all still on XP who don’t want to move over to Vista.
   
• If you’re looking for a good provider of online training classes (and I mean 1+ hour ones) then go and check out the Kelby Training website where they offer some really great classes for only 19.95 a month. Also if you like seminars then go over to the Adobe seminar page where you can sign up for city tour events but more interestingly for eSeminars. If you don’t have the time to be available for an eSeminar, take a look at their long list of OnDemand Seminars that you can just load up and watch!
   
• CS4 is coming closer to being released by every day. Just a reminder, if you recently purchased a version of any of their programs that will update in CS4, contact them and check your eligibility for a post-announce upgrade (free upgrade) to CS4!

» iPhone Photo Contest

As a launch event for their newest update to the iPhone Book, Scott Kelby and Terry White is holding a contest. The whole idea is that you take a photo with your iPhone that you submit to either of the three categories which then goes to voting for the winner. You can enter as many as three photos in total. Below is an output of how it works that Scott wrote on his site.

 

1. You can enter up to three photos (total) taken with your iPhone (doesn’t matter if it’s the original model, or the new 3G).
2. There are five different categories; Friends, Pets, Family, Fine Art, and Office. The winner in each category gets a $100 iTunes Gift card and a copy of “The iPhone Book” 2nd edition.
3. The Grand prize winner gets a $500 Apple Store Gift Card, and a copy of “The iPhone Book” 2nd edition.
4. From the photos submitted by the deadline of Oct. 24, 2008, Terry and I will choose three finalists in each category, and then the public gets to vote for the winner in each category (the one getting the most votes wins). Then, from those Winners Terry and I will choose a Grand Prize Winner on November 3, 2008.
5. This may seem obvious, but of course, the photo has to be taken with your iPhone’s built-in camera.
6. You can edit your photos using any iPhone application available from the iTunes Apps Store, or any other image editing application, but no other non-iPhoto photos may be included in your entry (so you can’t take your iPhone photo and composite it with a photo taken with your DSLR, point-and-shoot, or a stock photo).
7. You may not give your iPhone to Jay Maisel, Joe McNally, or Moose Peterson. Not even to make a phone call.
8. There is no entry fee, and the contest is open to everyone; You do not have to buy “The iPhone Book” to enter, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt.
9. Whining of any kind, about anything, is strictly prohibited.
10. You can submit your photos, and learn more about the contest at the official contest site (here’s the link).

It’s a great contest and a great book. Get the full contest scoop at the official site, and get the book at the Amazon.com ($13.95). The book is an update to their previous bestseller of the iPhone book (now updated to include the new iPhone 3G) with tips and tricks on how to use and get the most of your iPhone!

» Friday News

We’ve come to this wonderful point of the week where it’s almost the weekend.It’s just putting in these final hours, and the weekend is here!

• There’s been a lot of buzz lately over a small tool that Michael Tapas (from RAWWorkflow.com) together with Imagenomic (makers of Noiseware) created. It’s called Instant JPEG from RAW and does what the name suggests; it extracts the preview jpeg files that are embedded into the RAW files. You can also check out a video demo of the tool in action.
   
• Chris Coiyer from CSS-Tricks has a great screencast this week, talking about how you design for the iPhone. It’s an important topic nowadays and he covers it in a good way. I really recommend that you view it if you want to start out with desining for the iPhone.
   
• Smashing Magazine has again released a coolr resource. This time it’s an icon set called Dellipack 2. It’s a high quality set with 15 icons in many different resolutions. You can use this for free in both commercial and personal products as well.
   
• I have one more piece of news, that I think deserves its own blog post, so check the post following this for the scoop of a cool contest!

That’s it for this Friday, have a good day!

» iPhone Homework App

 

Everyone that’s in school (me included) have a long school week ahead of us tomorrow and I thought I’d take some time today to write about a good Homework organizing program. Now granted, there are many other apps than this one but I’m liking this one a lot and have been using it for a couple of days now.

About the App

The app is called Homeworkr, runs for $2.99, and helps you manage your assignments, tests, finals and quizzes sorted in courses and teachers. It’s built up so that ideally you first add a teacher (from your address book) then add a course that the teacher runs and then add assignments to the course. You can easily insert the information for each assignment and easily mark them complete when you’ve done them. When it’s two days before being due, a little indicator light turns yellow and then at the same day, red to help you see which ones need doing, I do wish I could set the date limit for the lights myself though.

My Wishlist

As with any app there are things you’d like to see. For me it is mostly small things in Homeworkr. I’d like to see a separate notes field so that I can insert more information about each assignment than in the title field. I’d also like to be able to add new homework types. As I mentioned above, being able to change the time before due when the indicator lights change colour would be great. When it comes to listing the homeworks, I’d love to be able to have more advanced sorting. Being able to sort away what’s due a long way from now and only see the current week would be helpful. Seeing a high number in the homescreen isn’t the best mentally, even if they are due in a long time.

My Verdict

I really do like the app and feel it is definitely worth the $2.99, no question about it. It helps me manage my homework in yet another way and does indeed give me an excuse to get out the iPhone during class. It needs further bug fixes and some small design and feature enhancements, but it still is a great app that I plan to continue to use to manage my homework but hope similar features will be included soon as it would make it all easier!

• Homeworkr on App Store
• Vurb Studio

» Friday News Quickies

 

Here are the news of today:

• Apple has released software update 2.1 for the iPhone. It fixed a lot of bugs and is a bug and performance release, not adding new features. I downloaded it earlier today and I really must say it’s a lot speedier and faster in both app launches and backups. Download it through the Download Update button while syncing the phone with iTunes 8.
   
• If you are developing themes for WordPress it can be great to get some posts set up to be able to make sure you have all possible formatting styles included. WP-Candy has made a great post xml that you can import and use as a sample post to demo your styles and see that you have every bit in there.
   
• A big shoutout congratulations to great guy R.C and his wife Jenn who at Thursday morning had a adorable baby – Sabine Annabel Concepcion. Talk about being born to some community eh All kidding aside, all well wishes and congrats to RC and Jenn! 

» After the listing of Apps – what happened?

I must say the listning of the ten favorite iPhone apps of mine had not the intention of getting any response from developers. I have though gotten notices from the developer of Homeworkr and also from the CEO at Palringo asking which bugs I’ve encountered so that they can fix those, also with questions if there are any new features liked to be seen. This is dedication to the App in my opinion. I hope the bugs I had with Homeworkr will be fixed soon and I know that the bugs I had with Palringo are fixed in the latest upgrade which means I’m back with using it as my IM client on the iPhone and really like it (and they have more goodies in store for future updates).

So I wanted to extend a little thank you to the developers that kindly addressed the issues I and many were having to continue and develop such great products, that definitely is on my top ten list.

» Apple “Let’s Rock” Special Event Wrap-up!

So it’s come to the time when wrapping up the Apple Special Event is in place. I had a really fun time metaliveblogging even though I switched to a better system in the middle which in the end worked really well and much better then before for me. I’ll definitly do it again. So here are the releases summed up

iTunes 8, Genius, HDTV Shows, NBC is back!

Apple released as predicted, iTunes 8 today which features some pretty cool new things. First off we have the new display mode called grid which lets you view your albums and artists in a grid view. In the artist view you can also flick between the albums by the artist like in iPhoto. Then we also have the new genius sidebar that will make playlists with music that "go well" with the music you are listening to. It’ll also show you music from the iTunes store. All this if you opt in.

NBC is now back in the iTunes Store and that with TV series like The Office, Monk and Battlestar Galactica. Also new, HD TV Shows will run you $2.99 and the standard ones $1.99.

iTunes 8 will be avilable on the Apple website today!

New iPod Nano

The new iPod Nano was released and it’s looking pretty slick. Apple has gone back to the old look and streamlined it a little more in the looks. It’s not just in the outside looks they’ve streamlined a lot. The menu system has gotten partially redesigned and also looks quite a bit better. It’s available in a wide range of colours in both 8gb and 16gb. The 8gb runs for $149 and is available now while the 16gb will be available later this week for $199.

iPod Classic updates

Apple did a little update to the iPod Classic as well. Upgrading the old 80gb model to 120gb and dropping the 160gb was the change in store for the classic this time. It’s going to run for $249.

2G iPod Touch

They refreshed the iPod Touch a bit as well. It now features a little sleeker case. It’s the same screen but with some new additions like on the side volume controls and a speaker. It’s also got built in Nike + receiver so you don’t need to have an external one. All these seems to be some really great updates and of course they have been focusing on environmentally friendly casing and parts. Prices: 8GB for $229, 16GB for $299, and 32GB for $399. Available today as well!

Two new headphones!

Apple also introduced two brand new headphones. Both a new in-ear version and an normal, the in ear runs for $79 and the other for $29. They both feature on-band player controls like volume up and down, play, pause and also a little microphone.

iPhone Software 2.1

Among all the other news they practically had to announce the 2.1 firmware, which they also did. According to Steve Jobs it will be fixing a lot of bugs such as fewer dropped calls, big battery improvement, and faster backups to iTunes. We’ll see if this is going to work out on Friday when it will be released. Sadly no mention of copy-paste but perhaps they’ve snuck that in? It’s a free update.

» Monday News Quickies

So, I’ve regained my internet connection again sadly just a little too late to be posting the podcast episode (it’s late here). It’ll come online tomorrow at noonish GMT time.

• Sometimes resorting to themes when developing your websites is a good way when you have little time but need something nice and functional. The people over at Smashing Magazine are bringing us yet another quality free WordPress theme called Agregado. It’s a slick, clean and modern theme design which works best for more personal websites. Nonetheless, it’s a great asset.
   
• Since posting my list of my 10 Favorite iPhone Apps I’ve gotten some response from some of the App Developers asking about the few problems I mentioned with some of the apps. To me, that shows real caring in the app development and I’ll be doing a rundown post tomorrow about what’s happened!
   
• Tomorrow is the day of an Apple Special Event titled "Let’s Rock". The event will if we trust all rumors, unveil the new iPod generation as well as iTunes 8. The latest rumors even mention the release of iPhone software updates. In any case we will see tomorrow and you can follow a liveblog from the event over at MacWorld. It’s all starting tomorrow, September 9 at 11a.m Pacific time.

That’s the news for today. I’m still a bit jealous of everyone that could go to Photoshop World last week after seeing all cool photos and info about this years edition.

» My Top 10 iPhone Apps

A post like this is almost a necessity for bloggers right now and why should I be any less. Actually though a lot of people are asking me which apps I use a lot and which ones I do really like. Considering that I have four (soon five) pages of apps the narrowing down must be done to the very importants. Oh, and I decided not to include the App Store even though I love browsing it on the iPhone itself Nor have I included any default apps in here that I still use all the time and are in my dock. The list is not in any top order at all, they are equal.

Twitterific
I just like Twitterific. I use the desktop version of it and it’s just my favorite way of updating to Twitter. I did write a review of the app here in the iPhone center I put up a while ago.

NetNewsWire
Again, I’m using NetNewsWire on my computer and I do really like the program and naturally the free NetNewsWire iPhone app is a good one for me because I can sync which feeds I want to access on the go from my full list. I find it works really well for most things but there are things I’d like to see, like flagging on the phone and sync those back up to the computer. Again, I wrote a review of the app in the iPhone Center.

» Tuesday News Stuff

Here’s what’s up this Tuesday:

• I’m going to start today by apologizing for the podcast being late. I had some archiving troubles on the podcast host site and thus I couldn’t upload any new episode (it is going to be fixed by tomorrow though). Look for a new episode coming tomorrow!
   
• Over at Copyblogger they ran a very interesting article called Are you Trustworthy today. It’s a pretty good article that talks about gaining your readers trust which is vital to any blogger who are looking to survive. A good read.
   
• WP Candy has a lot of different goodies and articles about WordPress and the latest today is about Frameworks, Child Themes, Filters and Hooks. It’s a pretty extensive article but it brings up a lot of good things and tips when designing for WordPress and how you can be helped using certain elements using the Thematic framework.
   
•  The iPhone has been out for a bit now and although there are quite a lot of applications in the business category of the AppStore, there are no big names released yet. Over at CIO.com they speculate in why.

Finally before we end for this news post I want to make a shout out to a buddy, Dave (known to some as PhotoshopDB). He and his wife had a very cute little baby this weekend! Congratulations guys!