docking ipod station: August 2008

Saturday, August 30, 2008

MacBreak 134: NAB: Lensbabies: Video

MacBreak 134: NAB: Lensbabies: Video
Alex checks out Lensbabies for Video.

MacBreak 163: MacBreak Dev: Moving An Image With Motion

Keith Lang shows us how to move an image with motion in Quartz Composer. Read More

MacBreak 165: MacBreak: Blu-ray Encoding in Compressor

Brian Gary talks with Alex about Blu-ray encoding in Compressor. Read More

Speed Download/Speed Download Lite updates ship

Yazsoft has released an update to Speed Download, a download manager designed to operate as a "hub" for file transfer activities. The application can manage Safari and iTunes downloads, and additionally features an integrated FTP client. The v5.0.6 update fixes several bugs, and incorporates a new French translation. It also features enhanced Rapidshare compatibility. The upgrade is free for exist...

MacBreak 108: Macworld 2008: The FastMac iV

MacBreak 108: Macworld 2008: The FastMac iV
Cali Lewis checks out the FastMac iV iPhone External Battery Case at Macworld.

Blogger arrested over Guns N' Roses song leak

LOS ANGELES - A blogger suspected of streaming songs from the unreleased Guns N' Roses album Chinese Democracy on his website has been arrested and appeared in court, where his bail was set at US$10,000 ($14,000). FBI agents... Read More

Technophobe writing Facebook: The Movie

When Mark Zuckerberg's social networking website Facebook became a global phenomenon, he famously remarked that his journey from dishevelled Harvard undergraduate to billionaire media mogul would make a good Hollywood movie. That... Read More

Shades offer colorful protection for iPhone 3G

ShadeCases Inc. has announced the release of Shade Cases for the iPhone 3G. The new cases feature the same thin look as the original iPhone cases, only 0.4mm thick; and come with a built-in screen protector. The cases are now also being coated with a new spray that prevents the case from sticking to the screen providing users with an enhanced viewing experience over previous models. In addition, e...

I am glad to see that we can maintain some level of RSS icon standards between Mozilla and Microsoft. Wouldn’t be great if this level of cooperation could continue?
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Toshiba's new ZF LCDs include Cell-based Resolution+ upscaling

Filed under: Displays, HDTV, Home Entertainment

As expected, Toshiba is offering a new (supposed) world's first here at IFA: a true upscaling TV, finally getting rid of the middle man for upconverting those SD sources. The new ZF Series LCDs include Cell processors and Toshiba's home grown Resolution+ technology, which does similar edge and detail enhancement to Toshiba's XDE upscaler -- sharpening detail, smoothing edges, and leaving the rest of the image alone -- but with the added fun of Cell power in the mix. As for the actual displays, Toshiba will be shipping the 40ZF575D (40-inch) and the 46ZF575D (46-inch), both offering 1080p, 30,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, 6ms response times and Active Vision M100 HD 100Hz 5:5 pulldown processing, along with four HDMI plugs, component video, RGB and PC input. Right now this is just a Europe launch, and we don't have exact ship dates or pricing, but hopefully Toshiba will soon rectify that.

Gallery: Toshiba's new ZF LCDs include Cell-based Resolution+ upscaling

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GBTV #0334 (small) | GeekBrief.TV

GBTV #0334 (small) | GeekBrief.TV
It was kind of a slow news day today, so I talk about some favorite apps I discovered thanks to some of my favorite blogs. I start with an application called Network Magic that I found via The Red Ferret Journal. Network Magic simplifies management of your home or small business network. It includes tools for troubleshooting, testing your Internet connection speed, adding devices to your network, sharing folders, sharing printers, modifying wireless security settings and fixing problems.

From eHomeUpgrade, I found out about a video management application for Macs. The latest version of yFlicks organizes your video files, converts video files for different players and manages downloads.

A piece on Lifehacker spells out exactly how Windows users can backup, organize and play DVDs using several downloadable apps.

I discovered an idea in it's early stages called Journey2Work after they supported our Big Trip by buying an ad on PaidByPixels.com. The idea is to have people post photos and a narrative on their journey from home to work. Only three people have posted their journeys so far. I'm going to post mine (all the way from upstairs to downstairs) and I hope you guys post yours. I love stuff like this.

Use promo code "CALI" to save $50 off a Drobo at DroboStore.com. More details are here.

JetPhoto - Photo Management App with Tons of Great Features

JetPhoto - Photo Management App with Tons of Great Features
Even though I’m not much of a photo person, I do manage my photos. Mostly just collecting-grouping-tagging-retouching (using iPhoto), and resizing (using now not free anymore ImageWell) to be able to easily send to my friend or use the image for my blog. I also have a Flickr account but there was only 3 photos [...]

Even though I’m not much of a photo person, I do manage my photos. Mostly just collecting-grouping-tagging-retouching (using iPhoto), and resizing (using now not free anymore ImageWell) to be able to easily send to my friend or use the image for my blog.

I also have a Flickr account but there was only 3 photos inside it. The reason: I personally thought that online photo management process was too troublesome for the happy-go-lucky-shoot-everything amateur photographer like me.

Then comes JetPhoto Studio, an all-in-one photo tool (available for Mac and Windows). This application is a bit unknown because developed by Chinese programmer. But unknown doesn’t mean bad because this app has tons of good features.

What’s Inside The JetPhoto?

Beside the standard image management tools such as making photo album, editing (automatic enhancing, black and white color effect, sepia color effect), resizing images in batches, archiving and backing up photos, importing (from camera, webcam, scanner, and other storage location); JetPhoto Studio enables user to organize photos by notes, keyword tags, camera status tags, time and geographical location. It also let user manage their photos by dates - which to many people is easier.

JetPhoto Studio has geo-tagging capabilities with smooth integration with Google Earth and Google Map. I don’t go around much so I don’t use this feature, but for those of you who are phototraveller, this one is a treat.

Another features most users will appreciate are the ability to create photo gallery - JetPhoto can easily make beatiful flash slideshows as well as lightbox web galleries, screensavers and desktop wallpaper, photo slideshow for presentation, and small images by resizing and cropping photo to fit most handphones and PDAs. Printing photo is also a snap either using your own printer or JetPhoto online printing service.

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JetPhoto Studio works very well with the web. Uploading and resizing pictures for Flickr is a matter of clicking a button. Tags and Descriptions will be uploaded with photos, too.

For the adventurous ones, this application also comes with JetPhoto Server - a full-featured digital photo publishing service software based on PHP. With JetPhoto Server, anyone can establish his or her own standalone theme photo website quickly and freely.

To publish album to your web server, you can use WebSync. All uploaded pictures will be resized and stamped with watermark automatically while publishing. Once the album is published on web server, user can continually modify its content easily in JetPhoto Studio. The web-side online album will be updated and synchronized with the local album automatically, as long as WebSync is acted again.

Meanwhile, to manage your photo website, you can also use Website Manager, another module especially provided by JetPhoto Studio. For example, to set web page appearance for each online album, or to set an access password for the website.

This article is nothing but a quick look skin-deep chat about the app. If you want a more extensive elaboration, please refer to their online manual.

I personally find JetPhoto Studio to be very helpful, and my Flickr free account is already showing the limitation nags. What’s your personal favorite for all-in-one photo management tool? Spill everything in the comments below.

(By) Jeffry Thurana is a blogaholic who has just started his own self-improvement journal “Supersubconscious” and manages an Indonesian tech blog “InterNeTips“. He actually thinks there are 30 hours everyday.

Philips entertains your home with new Network Music Players

Filed under: Home Entertainment

On the audio front, Philips just launched a pair of Network Music Players, the NP2500 and the NP2900. They're color-screened followups to January's monochrome NP1100, and the NP2500 does audio out (including coaxial digital audio) just like is forebear, while the NP2900 (pictured) includes built-in speakers. The players work with internet radio, your PC's music library and some online music services like Rhapsody. No word on price or release date.

Gallery: Philips entertains your home with new Network Music Players

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Sony upgrades Walkmen with auto playlists

Sony upgrades Walkmen with auto playlists
Sony today followed through on recent leaks with a significant overhaul of its Walkman music players. Apart from a new design that slims the device down to under 0.3 inches and harmonizes the look among all video-capable Sony players, the S730 series are the first to simplify smart playlists with a fully automatic feature known as SensMe. The addition gauges the tempo, rhythm, and other factors ...

BeFit helps track nutrition patterns

A new application for tracking nutritional intake has been released for the Mac, BeFit. The software helps users track several different factors, such as calories, fat and sugar. Users can define explicitly what they want to track, and in turn access graphs and other analyses based on the food they record. The software has a food list with over 7,000 items from the USDA database, and additionally...

Apple patent would allow full Mac tablet

Apple patent would allow full Mac tablet
Apple has been developing interface technology that would allow for a multi-touch handheld with full Mac OS X rather than a streamlined interface, the company has revealed through a US patent filing published today. Showing an example device which is clearly portable, the patent for a gesture system would adapt many of the basic control scheme elements familiar to Mac OS X to an environment where...

Google releases Gears beta for Safari

Google releases Gears beta for Safari
Google has announced that a beta version of Gears is available now for Safari. The Gears open-source project began by developing JavaScript APIs that are necessary for offline access to web apps, but the broader aim is to utilize the inherent power and storage space of computers to make web-based applications as powerful as desktop apps. Gears is also available for Firefox, Internet Explorer and...

MacBreak 12: Quicksilver

Leo Laporte and Merlin Mann show you how to turbocharge your interactions with your data and applications using Quicksilver. Read More

Microsoft, Nikon sign patent license agreement

Microsoft, Nikon sign patent license agreement
Microsoft and Nikon on Thursday announced that they have signed a cross-licensing patent agreement on Nikon's digital camera patents as well as consumer electronics patents from each company. The details of the agreement, which covers a "broad range" of consumer products from each company, does include some (undisclosed) compensation by Nikon. Looking to innovate on each other's technologies, the ...

Monday, August 25, 2008

MacBreak 84: Minute: Saft

MacBreak 84: Minute: Saft
Merlin shows us how to bookmark sets of tabs in Safari with Saft.

RSS? Security Deadline

We have a deadline on our hands, folks. There are vulnerabilities that simply must be addressed before the unthinkable happens.
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AMD sells off digital TV team to Broadcom

AMD sells off digital TV team to Broadcom
AMD today said it would sell off the digital TV portion of its business to Broadcom. The $192.8 million deal gives Broadcom access to all of AMD's digital TV processors made under its ATI label, including the Theater and Xilleon processors for tuning and processing HDTV images as well as a raft of smaller circuits and processors designed for common TV tasks such as scaling and converting video. ...

GBTV #0317 (small) | GeekBrief.TV

The BlueLounge Space Station is a dream come true for organizing cables, and it's beautiful. If you haven't jailbroken your iPhone yet, the Touchpad for iPhone might push you over the edge. It turns your screen into a wireless touchpad to control your Mac or PC. WhizKid isn't for sale, but I'm intrigued. It's a robot designed to interact with you, instead of you having to interact with him. The Epoc headset will be available later this year. It's user can control a video game with their thoughts.

Use promo code "CALI" to save $50 off a Drobo at DroboStore.com. Details are here.

This weekend, we'll be at Dave Ramsey's class. We need to buy our RV without going into debt! Read More

Cowon's S9 Curve with 3.3-inch AMOLED touch-screen kills with style

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Taste that? It's the sweet nectar of want for Cowon's new S9 Curve. This 3.3-inch media player features an AMOLED capacitive touch panel display that spreads 16 million colors across 480 x 272 pixels. Inside you'll find a 500MHz dual-core CPU, T-DMB digital television tuner, Bluetooth, FM radio, TV-out, and G-Sensor accelerometer. All that and nearly two days (40 hours) of music playback from a single charge. No price yet but we expect to hear more later this week as the big European IFA show kicks off in Berlin.

Gallery: Cowon's S9 Curve with 3.3-inch AMOLED touch-screen kills with style