Ocell.Blog v2

SmartSleep for Mac Notebooks

2008-11-10T01:04:09Z

I’ve always loved the nearly-instantaneous sleep feature of Mac notebook computers. If I needed to get up and go with my 12″ Powerbook G4, I could snap the lid shut and throw it into my bag. Recently I grabbed a new Macbook Pro, and noticed that the computer didn’t go into sleep instantly. Instead, the computer was writing RAM to the hard drive, a process called hibernation, which kept the system’s state safe in the event of power failure (your battery dies, or you swap it out for a new one). This is a great feature, but I don’t have a secondary battery to swap, and I was getting tired of closing the lid and waiting for the white light to start pulsing. If you don’t wait for the light to pulse, then you’re moving the computer while the hard drive is active, and you risk damaging the drive. The sudden motion sensor (SMS) is active while the machine is in use, but apparently isn’t active during this hibernation process.

I can across this great blog post by David Alison describing the situation and showing a quick terminal command you can use to disable the hibernation mode. After running the command, shutting the lid on the notebook will skip dumping RAM to the hard drive, and will just instantly sleep. I was hessitant though, because if you don’t hibernate and your battery dies while the machine is asleep, you lose your system’s state. Also, if I bought a second battery, would I remember to hunt down the terminal command and reverse the setting? I’d also be losing the instant sleep state again.

Thankfully Jeremiah posted a link to SmartSleep in the comments of David’s blog. SmartSleep is a preference pane that lets you turn on and off hibernation (writing RAM to disk) with a drop down menu. It also features a mode called SmartSleep, where the computer will hibernate if the battery is below a certain threshold of charge, but otherwise sleep will be instant. Perfect!

If you’re a Macbook user and you want instant sleep, grab a copy of SmartSleep for yourself.

Get Netflix on the Mac

2008-11-02T22:04:10Z

If you have Netflix and a Mac, surely you’ve been frustrated that you’ve been locked out of Watch Instantly since it was launched long ago. Today Netflix started allowing Mac users to opt-in to the Mac streaming beta. To get your account added, head over to http://www.netflix.com/silverlightoptin and install the Microsoft Silverlight plugin. Apparently there is a 5 device limit to the beta, so keep that in mind as you activate computers. Hopefully it will go away after the beta is over.

Via: VentureBeat

Microsoft SecondLight

2008-10-30T15:52:11Z

You’ve got to check out this video of a presentation given by Microsoft engineers at the Professional Developers Conference in LA. I was completely racking my brain trying to figure out how it worked, which made the reveal on the (relatively simple) mechanics of the technology at the end a lot of fun. The first application that comes to my mind is interactive retail displays. What other practical uses are there?

Via a Tweet by reBang

MultiClutch for your Macbook

2008-10-19T19:14:51Z

If you’ve got a multi-touch gesure enabled Apple notebook computer, you should take a look at the MultiClutch preference pane from Will Henderson. This preference pane lets you assign multitouch gestures (like Swipe Left/Right, pinch, rotate) to keyboard shortcuts on a per-application basis. You can also assign these gestures to global system-wide keyboard shortcuts. This lets you take gestures that normally only work in Apple applications, like swipe left/right for forward/back in Safari, and use them in other applications like Firefox. In the screenshot to the right, I’ve taken swipe up/down and set it to switch between tabs in my iChat chat window.

This feels like the type of thing that should be built into the system, but until it is, Will Henderson has provided an excellent (and free!) tool.

Evernote App Adds Location

2008-09-09T18:57:40Z

Note taking tool Evernote has taken a page out of Omnifocus’s book, adding location tagging and filtering to it’s iPhone / iPod Touch application. Now, notes you create with the Evernote mobile app are tagged with your location using CoreLocation. Location (with distance radius) has been added as a filter field for setting up new searches, letting you filter your notes based on this data. For instance, I setup a saved search called “Here” that only returns notes that were created within 1 mile of my current location. This could be used for a location context system, much like the one Omnifocus promotes.

Personally, I still haven’t found a place for Evernote in my every day life, but I’m still excited to see the service grow and mature… it is shaping up to be an impressive product for sure.

Evernote Website

Evernote App [iTunes Link]

Omnifocus for the iPhone/Touch

Dropbox for Mobile Safari

2008-09-08T15:19:18Z

As Dropbox gets closer to launch, new features keep popping up. I have been hoping for a mobile version of the site for a while, but didn’t realize until I popped into the Dropbox forums this morning that one already exists. I’m not sure how long it’s been up, but I imagine it’s relatively new.

When you go to www.getdropbox.com (use https:// for a secure connection) on your iPhone or iPod Touch, the site automatically detects that you’re using Mobile Safari and loads a mobile version of the site. The interface has three tabs: a Home tab that shows you recent account activity (with thumbnails), a Files tab that lets you dig through your folder structure, and a Photos tag that lets you access your photo galleries, complete with thumbnails and full-screen photo view.

Dropbox has a great mechanism for sharing files. When you drop files into your “Public” folder, the files are uploaded to the Dropbox servers and given a unique public URL that can be accessed by anyone, without needing a Dropbox account and shared folder access. I use this all the time for sharing screenshots or quick mockups of projects I’m working on, or pretty much any other file I’d typically e-mail as an attachment. The only thing really missing, to me, in the mobile version of Dropbox is access to this public URL. I’d like to see a link along the lines of “e-mail this file”, where the site would dump the file’s public URL into a blank message in Mail.app. This small addition (that I’m confident we’ll see) would really round out the functionality of Mobile Dropbox as I need it.

I haven’t loaded the site up on my Windows Mobile phone yet to see if there is a PocketIE friendly version of Dropbox yet, please leave a comment if you have any info on this. If you haven’t made it into the Dropbox beta yet, don’t worry, because it looks like it will be going public any day now!

WMF Coffee Pad

2008-09-08T01:47:01Z

I’ve been researching Coffee Makers for a product design studio project I’m working on (shameless portfolio plug), and I ran across the WMF Coffee Pad. “Charming” is the word that pops into my head first, I’m really in love with the design. The use of color to highlight the form of the mug does a great job at putting focus on the item we associate with coffee the most, while letting the machine itself visually fall into the background. It doesn’t seem like an extremely small machine (from the photos) but the visual impact happens where it counts, and I think as a consequence it comes across smaller than it is. Although, I know the white background in the photos from the website are contributing to that effect.

The WMF Coffee Pad won a Red Dot award in 2007. See a lot more information at the official product page.

Via: technabob.com

HTC Dream - Android Phone Photos

2008-09-01T16:24:21Z

Engadget posted photos from a Chinese forum showing off a T-Mobile branded HTC Dream running Google’s Android mobile operating system. I’ve been looking forward to seeing what Android will do once it hits the market, and it looks like the first device to hit will be pretty impressive. It doesn’t look extremely slim, but it seems comparable to most of the smartphones on the market now. I expect that the physical keyboard will draw some early adopters who haven’t wanted to go the completely touch-screen route. I’m looking forward to seeing the phone in person.

Check out Engadget’s Gallery for more photos and a comparison shot next to other phones.

Via: Engadget

Amazon Buys Shelfari

2008-08-28T20:52:00Z

For the last 7 days I’ve been carrying around an Amazon Kindle e-book reader, thanks to a new loan program from the NCSU Library. I’ve fallen in love with the device, and in these 7 days I’ve read much more than I expected. I’m also a big fan of Shelfari, a site that lets you manage your books on “shelves” (much like Delicious Library on the Mac) with shelves for Read, Plan to Read, Wish List, and so on. In the last week, as I start a new book on the Kindle (the one I have had over 50 books preloaded on it by other students) I’ve had to log into Shelfari and manually add the book onto my shelf for books that I’m currently reading. This feeds me reviews and suggestions on related books.

A few moments ago, as I filled out a rating for a book I just finished (Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely) I started wondering if there was an opprotunity here. What if Shelfari could tap into your Kindle’s information, automatically filling your shelves with books you have on the device. This would deliver an experience quite a bit closer to the way Netflix monitors what movies you have at home, what movies your friends are watching, and what movies you have listed in your queue. I brushed the thought off, though, figuring that for an outfit as small as Shelfari to get so intimately involved with Amazon’s systems would need a level of access that Amazon would be reluctant to give. I also figured that Amazon wouldn’t want to invite such direct competition to their own “Media Library” service.

No more than 3 minutes later, I came across a post in the Shelfari Discussion Group announcing that Amazon has aquired Shelfari!

Amanda writes,

We just announced that Amazon.com has acquired Shelfari! This is a very exciting time at Shelfari and there are a lot of new opportunities in the future that will benefit all members. In the meantime, members will continue to have access to the great community and tools that you’ve always known and used on the site. You can continue to build virtual bookshelves and socially interact around the books you care about at http://www.shelfari.com/.

We look forward to working with Amazon to continue with our mission of building great communities that celebrate books. Thanks for your interest in Shelfari and Amazon.com.

Happy Reading,
Amanda

It makes sense… as Shelfari has been using Amazon’s repository of information, even providing “Buy This Book at Amazon” links for titles you come across. It will be interesting to see if Amazon leaves Shelfari as it’s own entity, much like Yahoo did when it aquired Flickr, or if it will pull the developers and existing code into Amazon’s own Media Library site. I think that a lot of users would like to see Shelfari remain independent, but as a heavy user of Amazon (as I think most web-savvy readers are) and a hopeful owner of the second revision of the Kindle, I can’t help but hope that Shelfari gets much more tightly integrated into Amazon’s print and electronic book sales systems.

WikiMe: Location Based Wikipedia

2008-08-15T20:35:09Z

WikiMe [iTunes Store Link] was just released by SupportWare for the iPhone and iPod Touch. WikiMe is another great application of the CoreLocation service built into the 2.0 Mobile OSX firmware. When you launch the app, it grabs your location and then shows you a list of Wikipedia articles of places in a configurable radius around your location. Touch an item in the list, and you view the Wikipedia article page in a built-in browser. From there you can show the location of the article’s subject in Google Maps, Bookmark the page in WikiMe’s bookmarks list, or e-mail a link to the Wikipedia article to a contact.

You’re not restricted to seeing articles for your immediate location though, you can plug in any zip code and get results, regardless of where you’re currently located.

I can see this app coming in very handle while traveling, especially in areas with a lot of history. It’s like a social media tour guide. At $0.99, I think the app is a great deal. Cheap enough to be bought without hesitation, but the authors are still getting compensation for their nicely executed app.

Sync Last.fm Events with iCal

2008-08-09T21:47:00Z

This may be old news to some, but it dawned on me to check for this a few minutes ago, and I was excited to see that it works exactly as I had hoped.

The [amazing] music site Last.fm has an events calendar system. Each artist page has an events listing, showing you when they’re playing where. There’s a great social networking mechanism where you can say that you plan to attend an event. You can see other users who are going, and there’s a message board for posting notes about the event. There’s even a unique Flickr tag for each event, and photos posted with that tag will automatically show up on that event’s page on Last.fm. As a user, you get an events calendar on the Last.fm site, but you’re planned events aren’t stuck there.

At the top of your events page there’s a iCal sync link. Click that link will add a subscription to your iCal that will auto update your calendar with your planned events. This is killer, the exact type of information freedom that we’ve come to expect from cutting edge sites. I recently found that it is possible to export Facebook events into iCal, but it looks like a one-time syncronization, and will have to be repeated as you add new events in Facebook. Last.fm, however, will automatically update your calendar, which makes the whole transaction seamless to the user.

What other sites with “event” tools have this level of syncing?

Sony Reader Opens Up

2008-07-26T00:35:13Z

From Engadget:

Sony will be shooting out an update on Thursday to allow the Reader to use purchased books in the protected EPUB format from whoever is peddling them, instead of being tied to the Sony’s e-book store, or just DRM-free text and PDF documents.

This is an excellent move by Sony. One of the big downfalls to both the Sony Reader and the Amazon Kindle was the fact that you were tied to the devices’ respective stores for content. We’ve recently seen yet another example of why DRM is bad when applied to music purchases [Yahoo Music Goes Dark, Takes DRM Keys With It], and I think that the same will hold true for ebooks as well. Now, you can load your own DRM-free TXT and PDF files onto the Sony Reader, expanding your content options. If you still want to buy from a major seller, you can buy from anyone using the EPUB system. It’s still DRM, but at least you’re no longer stuck with Sony’s offerings.

I haven’t seen an Amazon Kindle in person yet, but from the photos I think I like the industrial design of the Sony Reader much more. We’ll see what happens if Amazon releases new Kindles in October as rumored, but right now I don’t mind the thought of picking up a Sony Reader on clearance in a year or two.

Via Engadget

Testing Out the Wordpress App for the iPhone

2008-08-15T19:22:54Z

Wordpress has released an official native app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It lets you create new posts as well as edit existing posts on Wordpress.com hosted blogs, as well as self hosted installations of Wordpress 2.51 or higher. This is an app I have been hoping for, so I was excited to try it out. The app looks very slick so far. I’m going to upload some photos too to test that out too. The auto-correction for the keyboard is disabled in the post title and tag fields, but thankfully it is intact when you are typing up a post’s body. You can post images from photos you have saved on the device (I used it to attach the screenshot). One feature I hope they will add is the ability to moderate comments. I expect that the app will grow to add such features with updates overtime.

iTunes store link

Official Wordpress for iPhone site: http://iphone.wordpress.org/

SenseSurface: Real knobs for Virtual Controls

2008-07-16T12:59:33Z

SenseSurface “…allows you to attach real, physical knobs to a flat-panel display. The magnetic knobs are measured by a sensor plate in the rear, letting you turn the knob itself to control the software dials. Sounds like a great way to do synth emulators!”

Thanks to @solidsmack for the heads up on this story at BoingBoing. I could see this combined with RFID tags in the knobs, so that as you attach different knobs, the interaction area changes to different controls. While it may not be more efficient or productive for a workstation situation, I think the gains in usability and intuition in a public setting are through the roof. Very cool application of technology to the realm of user interfaces.

Square Enix: Song Summoner on the iPod

2008-07-08T04:56:12Z

I’ve been playing the new Final Fantasy Tactics A2 on the DS quite a bit lately. I’ve logged over 24 hours in the last week, that’s a lot for me on a video game. @hikikomori posted a heads up tonight that Square Enix has released their first iPod game, Song Summoner: The Unsung Heroes [press release].

The premise is pretty cool, you use songs in your iPod’s music library to create stats for your units in the game. Then you play through it with the Tactics mechanics, each unit having unique range and attacks. My favorite dynamic to the game is that you can level up your units outside of the gameplay by listening to your music. Each playcount added for the songs used to create the units will contribute to leveling up their stats. It really adds a new element to playing your music on shuffle, knowing that when certain songs come up, you’re progressing in a game. Check out a video of game play below.

The idea of using your media library to generate the stats of units is not new, from what I know, Monster Rancher was doing it back in 1997. It IS a mechanic that I haven’t seen used in a while, and it lends itself perfectly to the iPod (or any digital media device) environment.

@hikikomori reports that it runs rather slow on the iPod 5G, but I hope that we’ll see a more robust port hit the App Store for the iPhone and iPod Touch soon. This game is BEGGING for WiFi battling against friends. I’m also extremely excited to see Square Enix publishing games on Apple devices, I think it bodes well for the future of MobileOSX in the casual gaming market.

iTunes Link: Song Summoner

Press Release

Toyota Adding Solar Panels to Prius Hybrid

2008-07-07T03:22:30Z

Reuters is reporting that Toyota is going to add solar panels, produced by Kyocera Corp, to the roof of their Prius Hybrid cars. The panels will be on the top of the line models, and will work toward powering the air conditioner. While it’s not powering the whole car, I do imagine that it could contribute quite a bit of power to the system as a whole. It’s the first time, that I know of, that solar panels have been commercially integrated into a production vehicle by the manufacturer. I’d love to see them add the ability to switch the power over to charging outlets for cell phones and other devices when the A/C isn’t in use, or to have it contribute to the main power cells.

Read the whole story here at nytimes.com

I’ve been on the look out for some reasonably priced solar panels that I could use to charge a device. I’d like to try taking a device like my phone or laptop completely off the grid, only charging it with solar power. If you know of any good solar units for something like that, I’d appreciate any help there.

Via: Don (aka: Beebowallace) through Google Reader Shared Items

Download Firefox 3

2008-06-17T13:22:02Z

Today is Download Day for Firefox 3. The official release is out today, and the Mozilla Foundation is trying to break a record for downloads in a 24 hour period. First of all, you should get Firefox 3 because it’s faster, more stable, and more feature rich than Firefox 2. I’ve been running a couple of the release candidates for a few weeks and I have noticed a huge difference over Firefox 2. While you’re helping yourself, you can help Firefox get publicity by downloading today and contributing toward reaching the record.

You can head over to www.spreadfirefox.com for more information and a download link. As of writing this (9:20am EST) the download link still goes to Firefox 2. I believe that Firefox 3 officially launches at 1pm EST.

Google Browser Sync Discontinued

2008-06-16T13:13:03Z

I’ve been using Google Browser Sync for a while now. It syncs your bookmarks, cookies, saved passwords, and open window sessions across multiple computers (and multiple operating systems). Unfortunately, the plugin doesn’t work in Firefox 3, and many users have been anxiously waiting for an update. A Lifehacker.com reader shared the reply e-mail he received from Google when he contacted them about Firefox 3 support for the Google Browser Sync plugin.

Thanks for trying out Google Browser Sync and for all of your feedback. It was a tough call, but we decided to phase out support for Browser Sync. Since the team has moved on to other projects that are keeping them busy, we don’t have time to update the extension to work with Firefox 3 or to continue to maintain it.

The e-mail goes on to suggestion Mozilla Weave, Google Toolbar (for syncing just bookmarks online), and the Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer plugin as replacements. I gave Mozilla Weave a shot last week, but it is in very early development and was far from stable enough for use. I’ve heard great things about Foxmarks, but like Google Toolbar, it doesn’t syncronize cookies, saved passwords, or window sessions. Weave is the only viable solution for my needs, so I’m hoping it will mature quickly and reach a stable release soon.

Google Browser Sync was a really great product, and it’s a shame to see it go. Google says that it will support current users until the end of 2008. Of course, I’m guessing that most Firefox users will be upgrading to Firefox 3 long before that (like June 17th).

Via: Lifehacker.com

Timbuk2 + Threadless

2008-06-16T03:23:22Z

@bencarey posted that Timbuk2 now has a few bags with Threadless prints on them! They have 4 right now, and I hope the number increases. They look great, and it’s exciting to see the Threadless art community spread onto other products like prints, wall graphics, and now bags.

Link: Timbuk2 Limited Edition Bags

Athena’s Damage Tolerance and Autonomous Landing Solution

2008-06-16T02:00:22Z

DARPA (the same folks behind the DARPA Challenge, where autonomous cars race to destinations) sponsored this project to add “damage tolerance” to aircraft. If the plane loses control surfaces from damage, the system takes control and calibrates itself to keep the aircraft airborne, and then uses on-board navigation systems to automatically land. You have to see the video of a scale test to really appreciate what’s going on.

I have the feeling that the cost of the system is probably far higher than the cost of losing a UAV in battle right now, but the implications are exciting. I expect that we could see systems like this in all sorts of forms of transportation. Just imagine if your tire blows out at interstate speed, and your car automatically merges you out of traffic and bring you to a safe stop.

I have to admit though, I don’t think anything would instill fear in an enemy much more than a one-winged fighter jet passing overhead after taking a direct hit from an anti-aircraft missile.

Video: Rockwell Collins

Via: Engadget

Chris Bangle Talks about BMW’s GINA

2008-06-12T13:01:58Z

BMW recently unveiled their new GINA concept car. They’ve taken the body panels of the car, typically sheet metal, plastic, or fiberglass, and replaced them with a stretchable cloth. Beneath the cloth there are a series of structural supports that can be moved around, changing the form of the car. These days, the rigidness, safety, and ride quality of a car is mostly affected by the structure of the vehicle, while the skin is mostly aesthetic. In this video, Chris Bangle (Director of Design at BMW) talks through some of the philosophies behind the study, and explains the implications it may have for BMW as a company moving forward. We won’t see it on the road any time soon, but GINA may represent a shift in focus at BMW toward non-traditional solutions to very traditional problems.

Via: Parel Design Blog

Waste Not: Want

2008-06-12T04:16:21Z

BVD Collective, a design team out of Appalachian State University’s Industrial Design department, has some great work on exhibit at New York’s International Contemporary Furniture Fair 2008. They have created several luxury items from 100% post-consumer material. I saw the plastic knife lamp on display at the 2008 SouthEastern IDSA conference, and I’m excited to see it and other pieces get much more national attention. Be sure to check out the BVD Collective website for more information on the project, its origins, and the team behind it, as well as many more photos.

Via: Inhabitat

What iPhone 3G Max $199 Price Really Means

2008-06-10T03:38:35Z

In the WWDC 2008 keynote, Steve Jobs phrased the price of the the iPhone in an interesting way. He said , “the price is a maximum of $199.” [1:40 mark in the video]

The WWDC2008 Twitter account said something that really sparked my interest: “Factoid: iPhone 3G = $199 “MAXIMUM” price. Subsidies coming?” ‘Wow,’ I thought, ‘if we get some AT&T subsidies going, it could drop to $99 or even free with a two year contract!’ However, I now think that this was exactly the wrong way to approach this statement.

AT&T has come out and shed some light on the subject. $199 IS the subsidized price already. Also, activation won’t be happening at home over iTunes any more. In order to walk out of a store with an iPhone 3G in your hand, you will have to sign a 2 year contract on the spot. True, you can cancel the contract within a “trial” period, and I’ve seen a few people leave comments saying that this is a loophole to get the phone out of contract. What they’re forgetting is that you have to return the phone if you cancel the contract within the trial period.

When Jobs said that the phone would have a maximum price of $199, I think what this really means is that AT&T will not be selling these phones without a contract attached to it. You’re not going to be able to pay the full manufacturer’s price (which I suspect is $400, or even more) to get a phone contract-free. I think this is to limit resellers from unlocking the phones without financial consequence. Now they’ll have to pay the contract termination fee to redistribute, and this will jack up the cost of unlocked phones. Also, I imagine that you can only sign and immediately cancel so many AT&T contracts before red flags go up (unless they want to let you keep dumping money into their pockets with early termination fees).

If you aren’t familiar with how subsidies work, head into your local cell phone distributor and ask for the out-of-contract prices for any of the phones. I think you’ll be surprised.

Rox Bench

2008-06-10T01:56:53Z

Designer David Andrew Bottom has built a very clever convertible seating/storage system, Rox Bench. The unit is a 3 seat bench with two end tables. The unit collapses, and the end tables turn into caps, making a storage box. There are also lights inside the bench that are charged through solar panels, so at night you have some nice underlit effects. The build quality looks great with a lot of attention to the details. (I love the hardware used) David, I’m a fan. Check out the Yanko Design post for more photos. I can’t find a website for David.

Beautiful Convertible Coffee Table

2008-06-09T02:22:39Z

This table came up on The Apartment Therapy New York blog. Quite beautiful and, I think, very functional for anyone who uses their living room as a dining room as well. I’d love to see it in action.

Here’s the product page at dwell.co.uk

Schmap for Mobile Safari

2008-05-26T06:04:46Z

TUAW had a post on a new city guide type website targeted to iPhone and iPod Touch users, Schmap. Schmap does a lot of the basic city guy type stuff, quite well I made add, but the thing that got my attention was the interface.

When you view information about a location holding the device upright, you get the typical information such as phone number, address, etc. However, when you turn the device 90º into a landscape orientation, the website switches into a split-screen display, with a map of the location on the left and information on the right. Mobile Safari can feed data on device orientation to the website you’re viewing, and this is the first developer I’ve seen really use this information in a big way.

This got me thinking about the future of device interfaces. We’re no longer just looking at button presses for application interaction. We’ve got so many more forms of input at our disposal now. Device orientation, touch, multi-touch, sound, ambient light, geographic location, acceleration… and these aren’t limited to the iPhone/Touch. Macbook Pros have all of these senses too, even though they’re not all natively reported by the operating system, yet.

I think, in the very near future, we will be flooded with devices that have new and natural forms of input. I’m still amused by the fact that when I’m trying a new application on my phone, and I’m trying to figure out how to do something, shaking the device is actually a logical thing to try.

Apple Keeps Ignoring the iPhone’s Bluetooth

2008-05-12T02:27:14Z

Jake Jitchener (aka Kitch) made a twitter post tonight that reminded me of an issue that I brought up back in October of 2007. Apple’s iPhone does nothing to interact with Mac computers through Bluetooth, and has still issued no updates to fix the issue.

I’m not talking about new features that would take time to code, I’m talking about features that already exist in the Mac OS, and work very well with other phones. Address Book on the Mac already has the ability to pair up with a Bluetooth phone to place calls and show CallerID information on-screen. This doesn’t work with the iPhone though, it lacks the required profiles. I’m sure that these profiles could be added with a software update, but I can’t figure out why they weren’t there to begin with. Apple is normally so good at selling a whole solution of products that work together seamlessly, but the iPhone seems to work outside of this philosophy. (For instance, we still can’t sync Notes or To Do’s?) I hope Apple gets its act together with the 2.0 firmware update.

You can buy software (BluePhoneElite 2 by Mira Software) to at least use your Mac as a headset for your iPhone, very handy if you keep your phone docked at your desk. BPE2 is $25.

Book Steals Artwork From Illustrators

2008-04-24T18:22:26Z

I just wanted to pass on this Digg article. A book is for sale internationally that rips off many talented illustrators. It even provides full-resolution copies of their work on an included CD. Since it’s international, it’s difficult to take legal action against the distributors. The publisher seems to be completely fake. Help spread the word on this!

“Ridiculous new book rips off many, many illustrators’ work without compensation or permission. Even the ISBN and publisher’s info are fake. Pass the word: don’t buy this book, and give this company a bad name!”