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Twinkle, Twinkle Little Starr

10 04 2008

Example of a Direct Message in Twinkle

Okay, as you all very well know I am a fan of Twitter, the 140 character micro-blogging platform. I also am a fan of the iPhone. Well until now I have been using Twitter via SMS and getting about 1,000 people’s updates via text message….that is until today.

A new iPhone app (for jailbroken iPhones) was launched today called Twinkle. This program reminds me of look and feel of my favorite Twitter program, Twitterific. It auto-updates every few minutes (keeping in accordance with the Twitter API), shows your @’s and Directs with a nice highlight and icon…but here’s the sweet part. It is location aware, so it can help you find people who are twittering anywhere from 1-252,000 miles from you. This uses the iPhones “Locate Me” feature built into Google Maps.

I will be using this great new program, and you should too, over the next few days to see how well I like it, but as of now I think it is the first thing which could totally replace Twitter SMS for me (which last month I had over 100,000 sms’s). Check some of the screenshots after the jump.

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New iPod touch ad

28 02 2008

I really think this is my favorite iPod ad of all time. The song perfectly fits the ad, and it is very well put together.

Watch


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Starbucks pulls a “Nick”

11 02 2008

tmob no moreThere have been many things that I’ve done which people have described as “pulling a Nick” (for example the method on which I got my iPhone for practically free). In switching to the iPhone, or rather the BB Curve then iPhone, I made the switch away from my long time carrier T-Mobile. I enjoyed the 24/7 customer service, selection in phones, etc, but iPhone was just too tempting.

While I was a T-Mobile customer I also paid for the Starbucks/T-Mobile Hotspot access at $20/month. When I made the switch to AT&T I got a 3G Expresscard/34 AT&T wireless modem from my MacBook Pro (both of which were stolen, yet I’m still paying for the modem). I canceled my T-Mobile hotspot access at the same time, and enjoyed the freedom of my modem. The irony is that I would still end up in a Starbucks most of the time on my laptop, but now using my 3G modem, which produced slightly slower speeds then the Starbucks/T-Mobile access.

att watching uWell Starbucks has pulled a “Nick” and made the switch over to AT&T as of today. Now the change will happen at the store level by the end of the year, but now that I live in one of the most connected areas of the country, I anticipate the change over in the San Francisco area to be quick.

The deal offers a lot of new and cheaper options. Previously it was $9.99/day, $19.99/month for T-mobile customers, and $29.99/month for non T-Mobile customers. The new pricing plan is $3.99 for a 2 hour block for AT&T customers and Starbucks card holders. Every Starbucks Card holder will get 2 free hours a day as well. In addition, anyone with AT&T DSL service at home (which I recently got) already enjoy free wireless access at AT&T hotspots, and thus the addition of Starbucks will expand the network they have access to.

I can’t wait for this deal to finally be finished and all the stores converted over. Now I just need to get a laptop again, so I can enjoy the atmosphere and aroma of Starbucks while surfing the web.

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P.S. If you work at Starbucks, you will get free unlimited access to the wireless access, just another perk of working at the largest coffee shop in the world.


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SuperDuper v2.5 with Side-By-Side Backup

5 02 2008

superduper25SuperDuper! is famous for being one of the best backup solutions for years now on a mac. Until today, ironically Super Tuesday, there hasn’t been a version updated for Leopard. The new version 2.5 is out and it can perform side-by-side backups with Time Machine.

What does this mean? Well you can have a fully functional, bootable backup on the same drive that your Time Machine backup is performed. This is great for people with large 500gb, 750gb, and 1tb drives that are being used as a Time Machine Drive. Granted you will sacrifice space for Time Machine, but having a bootable backup can be priceless in a time of need.

It is a free program, but some of the advanced features like scheduling run you $28, which is well worth it.

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16gb iPhone & 32gb iPod touch

5 02 2008

32ipdotuchWell ever since the 16gb iPod touch was released last September, you knew Apple had it in the works to release a 16gb iPhone. Today just so happens to be that day. They also have increased the capacitity of the iPod touch to double it’s previous maximum capacitity, bringing it to 32 gigs total.

The price seems to of stayed the same for all of the previous models, with a $100 premium for these new models. They are available today, and show only a 1-2 day processing time for shipping from the Apple Store online.

Look for me to be selling my iPhone online soon, I really could use the additional space on my iPhone.

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Airport Extreme Users: Where’s the Outrage?

22 01 2008

time capsule

Maybe there are a bunch of people who have forgotten what Steve Jobs at the WWDC in 2007, but with the power of YouTube we can recall the lies his keynote from back then. Watch the video below at around the 1:42 mark and beyond:

Steve Jobs specifically say that the Airport Extreme will be able to backup via Time Machine wirelessly to your AirDisk….So why did they come out with Time Capsule without adding the functionality into the Airport Extreme like they said they would? There are countless people that I know personally who own an Airport Extreme that should be pissed (and some are) that they can’t back up their macs with their $179 router.

Heck, Steve Jobs even goes as far as saying that you can back up multiple macs with the Airport Extreme, the same functionality as Time Capsule. I don’t know about you, but if I owned an Airport Extreme I would be emailing steve myself (Steve@Apple.com) or the email address more likely to get you an answer: media.help@apple.com .

P.S. Yes I do love Apple and all of the great products they produce, I just don’t like it when they force us into buying the same product twice, especially after promising the same functionality the first time around.


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Custom Webclip Icons for Your Website

16 01 2008

iPhone gere iconsNeal, of Geek Brief TV, and I were talking last night after the Apple Universe live podcast recording (btw it was the 100th show) about how the icons suck for most webclips on the iPhone. It pretty much takes a snapshot of the current screen and uses that as an icon, yuck. We mentioned something about favicons should work, but then again those are 16X16 and very small.

Well turns out Apple has built in the ability for you to customize the icon that is displayed on anyone’s iPhone that makes a webclip out of your website. Here is the down and dirty instructions:

  • Create a 57×57 PNG (it is said that b/c of the iPhones amazing resolution you can use a 158X158 icon that will scale down very well and thus make for a better looking icon)
  • Name it “apple-touch-icon.png”
  • Throw it in the root folder of your website. (Not the root of your server, the root of your web documents.)

That’s it…Google and some sites have already done this, and you may of noticed their icons look more professional. There are great tools out there for making small icons of this size, and if you are a Mac, buy the MacHeist bundle for only $49 which includes Pixelmator (and 10 other great apple programs) to make your own custom Webclip icon for the iPhone/iPod touch.


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