SmileOnMyMac has brought us a major upgrade to TextExpander, one of my favorite Mac apps. TextExpander 3 breaks out and no longer exists as a System Preference. This is a good thing. Maybe now you will be able to use another clipboard application while having TextExpander installed on the same Mac. I am now testing TextExpander 3 while using Clips that I recently acquired from the MacHeist Bundle (8 Top Mac Apps for $19.95).

Continue reading TextExpander 3 Released…

This video from Stargate Studios illustrates is how TV and movie studios are using CGI to cut costs for travel and instead of adding details to a location.

Google Voice is an incredibly useful service that is sometimes misunderstood. First off it is NOT a VoIP service (yet). Although, after the Google purchase of Gizmo5 it may be soon.

What Google Voice really does is “front-end” your communications and make them much more manageable. Google has just released some really nice videos explaining some of the high points of this free service. See all of the videos after the jump.

Continue reading Google Voice HowTo Videos Released…

Tired of manually adding business cards you collect into your Address Book? Well this is a fast, easy and inexpensive method to scan these business cards with buying any expensive equipment. Of course if you are using MobileMe or Exchange with your iPhone these contacts will show up in the appropriate places on your computer also.

WorldCard Mobile, $5.99 [iTunes link] is on-sale right now and one of the best card scanners on the iPhone. I found that it scans accurately and fast. I have scanned in a bunch of cards laying in my drawer with excellent results.

I was recently asked by a client to help him buy and install a wireless network in his home. I request I get pretty often, but this had a twist. The main goal was to get a Logitech Squeezebox Radio up and running. Now the Squeezebox is not your father’s table radio as it offers thousands of free stations from around the world via the Internet as well as custom and pay sources (some are free) like Pandora, Sirius, Rhapsody, Napster and Last.fm to name a few. Interesting thing is my client is a senior citizen who loves music!

Well installing the wireless network on his already existing broadband network and getting his new Logitech Squeezebox Radio, $178.46 [Amazon link] up and running did not take long. But this experience cost “me” money as I realized that I could no longer put off my desire to buy a Squeezebox myself. So I ended up buying two! The very next day I purchased a Logitech Squeezebox Boom, $243.96 [Amazon link] for our kitchen and a Logitech Squeezebox Duet, $339.00 [Amazon link] for our family room where we have a nice entertainment system.

Continue reading Review: Squeezebox Duet and Squeezebox Boom…

PeeWee Gets an iPad

If PeeWee had this years ago he could have stayed home to surf porn with it!

MadTV’s Take

Continue reading Humor: Apple iPad Makes the Rounds – UPDATED…

Johnny Ive in the spotlight yet again.

New tablet-type device splits difference between smartphones, laptops.

The iPad is a half-inch thick, weighs 1.5 pounds, and has a 9.7-inch LCD screen – 1024×768 IPS LCD display with full multi-touch input. It’s run by a custom-made 1GHz CPU, and comes with 16, 32, or 64GB of flash storage. For connectivity, it has 802.11n, WiFi, and Bluetooth 2.1 EDR. Jobs claimed it will get up to 10 hours of battery life.

iWork (Pages, Numbers and Keynote) for the iPad will be available at $9.99 per app – $30 for all of them.

New app called iBooks comes with iPad which features a book store and supports ePub format. The book app looks like it borrows heavily from Will Shipley’s Delicious Library in appearance.

Continue reading Apple Announces iPad…

Google has released a Google Voice webapp using a web browser for the iPhone and the Palm webOS. This makes good on what they claimed in the wake of their exclusion from the iTunes App Store. So Google goes around Apple on this one and the result is pretty good.

I gave this a test and liked what I saw. Of course you can bookmark the page in Safari and Google Voice will appear as a nice icon on your iPhone springboard. Bravo!

Apple’s Tim Cook commented on AT&T during today’s financial conference call saying, “As you know, AT&T has acknowledged that they’re having a few issues in some cities, and they have plans to address these. Have personally reviewed these plans, and they have high confidence that AT&T will address them.”

So it maybe that Apple will be sticking with AT&T in the U.S. for the iPhone (and maybe the new tablet device expected on Wednesday), at least for now.

Apple’s first quarter of 2010 was another blockbuster quarter in the middle of a great recession. This does not of course take into account the major new product expected this week.

In financial results reported Monday, Apple says it earned “all-time highest revenues and profits.” The company made revenues of $15.68 billion and profits of $3.38 billion on sales of 3.36 million Macs and 8.7 million iPhones.

Continue reading Apple Reports Another Blockbuster Quarter…

I recently purchased the new Magellan Premium Car Kit $129.99 [Amazon link] and took it for a spin. This unit is a lot like the car kit that TomTom released as far as features. The reason I choose to buy the Magellan was that it allowed you to keep your iPhone in a case.

The Magellan Premium Car Kit offers an internal GPS that claims to give your iPhone better reception than the using your iPhone for navigation without the car kit. The Magellan Premium Car Kit also features a built-in speaker and BlueTooth speakerphone. The unit has a mini USB connection to power the unit and charge your iPhone with a stereo audio jack to send your iPhone’s sound to your car stereo provided your car has an aux connection.

Continue reading Review: Magellan Premium Car Kit…

OK, its official Apple has sent out invites to special media outlets for a special event 10AM PST on January 27 in San Francisco at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The invite that looks a bit like a modern Jackson Pollock exclaims “Come see our latest creation.” Sure sounds like there is an Apple created tablet on the way. Get your credit cards ready.

Skype is coming to LG and Panasonic HD TVs in 720P HD quality! Very cool. [via Engadget]

Thought you were going to buy that iPhone right after Christmas? Well not from the AT&T website if your zip code is located in some places in NY or NJ.

An online AT&T rep claims that the iPhone is not being sold to New Yorkers (and some New Jersey zip codes) via their website, although it remains available via the Apple store website and via both Apple and AT&T physical stores.

Some blogs claim it is because of network congestion, but that would be odd since it is available in a store for use in NY/NJ. Their are some reports of online fraud. I guess we will have to wait for an official statement.

Makes me want to buy CDs again!

Nuance the company behind Dragon Naturally Speaking for Windows and the speech recognition engine for MacSpeech Dictate on the Mac, has brought Dragon Dictation [iTunes link] to the iPhone.

This is as very useful app and dead simple. Press record and start talking. Press “Done” when finished and the app converts what you said to text. You can then send the text to Mail, Text Message or the clipboard!

UPDATE: Just Another iPhone Blog has posted a nice bunch of dictation tips.

Google has announced Google Public DNS, a new service that lets consumers use Google as their DNS service provider. The benefits to users? Faster and more stable browsing and security against malware sites. The benefit to Google – tons more data, and some potential revenue.

I have been a long time user of OpenDNS. No surprise Open DNS has already made a statement about Google becoming a potential competitor.

To try it out Google Public DNS:

• Configure your network settings to use the IP addresses 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 as your DNS servers.
• Read our configuration instructions.

Fring update brings one way video calls to your iPhone.

Ever receive a document that needs to be signed or filled out while on the road? Let’s say you get an email with an email attachment and you only have your iPhone.

Zosh, $2.99 [iTunes link] iPhone app allows you to sign attached PDF documents on your iPhone. The way it works is you forward the emailed PDF document to Zosh from the iPhone’s mail app, then you open the Zosh app to sign it and fill out date and text and you send it back to your email. Only downside is it only works with PDF right now.