A gigantic Microsoft Windows error was caught on camera in London and posted at MacFormat.com on Friday. All operating systems can have problems, but this on is literally 10 feet high!

First it was iTunes, now NBC TV show fans may be using this application a lot more often. This application is free like iTunes, allows for downloading your favorite NBC shows just like iTunes. You can subscribe to automatically download of your favorite NBC shows, again just like iTunes. Unlike iTunes this free application will have the entire new fall line-up from our friends at NBC. Also, the TV Shows from NBC will have no DRM, be in high quality HD and will be totally FREE to download — VERY UNLIKE iTunes!

The application I am speaking of is called TVShows, a nice name as it describes exactly what it does. TVShows is a free Mac OS X application that automatically assists you in downloading your favorite TV shows. TVShows is not a BitTorrent client, it just automatically downloads the correct torrent file at the right time. TVShows will automatically use your preferred BitTorrent client to download the shows.

Continue reading NBC’s New Favorite Mac Application…

An Open Letter to NBC from Jeremy Horwitz of iLounge:

Today, you did something that comes as close to “really dumb” as you’ll need to get to lose my business entirely… Let me explain something to you, because you don’t seem to understand it already. Your TV shows are available every day, every week, and every month of the year for free. They fly through the air (and travel through cables) at no a la carte charge to customers… In other words, the per-episode price people are accustomed to paying for what you show on television is “zero”, or something very close to it… And piracy? If you have an objection to Apple’s FairPlay system, let me acquaint you with the world’s three best alternatives. First, there’s the DVD. Put it into any computer, run a free program on it, and a couple of hours later, its contents can be transferred a million times over to anyone. Sure, you make money on DVD sales, but why buy a DVD when you can just rent it?

I wish I had written this. I was happy to read it and I highly recommend it to my readers. I especially hope the NBC executives read it, and learn. Read this in its entirety here.

Continue reading iPhone Tip #10: Change Your Search Engine to Yahoo…

Well here is so more on the NBC – iTunes saga. Not only will the contract expire in December. But NBC and Apple could not agree to terms to sell NBC TV shows for the upcoming fall season. Apple issued a point-black press release explaining why:

Apple today announced that it will not be selling NBC television shows for the upcoming television season on its online iTunes® Store (www.itunes.com). The move follows NBC’s decision to not renew its agreement with iTunes after Apple declined to pay more than double the wholesale price for each NBC TV episode, which would have resulted in the retail price to consumers increasing to $4.99 per episode from the current $1.99. ABC, CBS, FOX and The CW, along with more than 50 cable networks, are signed up to sell TV shows from their upcoming season on iTunes at $1.99 per episode.

Five bucks per episode is ridiculous, especially since this content is available on TV ahead of iTunes and can be recorded. Since NBC would withdraw their shows in the middle of the television season, Apple has decided to not offer NBC TV shows for the upcoming television season beginning in September. There are several solutions for recording and encoding this content for iPods, iPhones, and Apple TVs.

According to a report from the New York Post, Apple and the major music labels are preparing to sell customizable ringtones to iPhone customers via the iTunes Store. Apple may announce the new service on September 5th when they are expected to unveils new iPods. Apple is currently working with record labels to ink a deal that would allow users to turn almost any song sold through its iTunes Store into a ringtone for a fee. OMG I can hear all those bad rings now!

In Other iPhone Ringtone News
Ambrosia has released iToner, a new piece of Mac software to create and manage custom iPhone ringtones by just dropping MP3 or AAC audio files on the faux iPhone interface and syncing. No modifying, hacking or having to reset your iPhone is required. iToner is available now for $15 and a demo is available so you can check it out for yourself.

Continue reading OS X Tip #150: Typing Special Characters…

Continue reading OS X Tip #149: Is iCal’s Dock Icon Annoying You by Showing July 17?…

Think the iPhone hasn’t changed the playing field? Think Ballmer was really not worried that Apple entered the mobile phone market? Think again! According to Reuters, Microsoft may be interested in buying the BlackBerry maker RIM. While this rumor is purely speculative at this point, RIM shares actually went up on the rumor.

What makes this plausible is that Microsoft may be a responding to Google’s recent announcement that it is interested in making its own mobile phone operating system, which would compete with Windows Mobile. Or the fact that mobile devices are now deemed more important than the desktop.

Should this rumor turn out to be true and Microsoft really ends up acquiring RIM, I guess we could conclude that they have less confidence in Windows Mobile than they would like to admit. As a long time “sufferer” of Windows Mobile, I can understand this. BlackBerry users are pretty loyal and Microsoft would be smart to keep Windows Mobile off the Blackberry. If not, you may see a lot of BlackBerry users jump to the iPhone or another competing device. Gee, what might this mean to the troubled Palm?

NBC will not renew its iTunes contract with Apple after the recent announcement of Hulu.com, an ads-based video portal set to compete with YouTube, by NBC and News Corporation. While discussions with Apple are not actually closed, iTunes could lose its number one supplier of digital video.

As the Internet video matures, Apple may have to re-think their position and maybe start providing videos with higher resolution optimizing playback on TVs via Apple TV, and not only iPods. The NBC and Apple contract doesn’t expire until December of this year.

Roxio has just released Popcorn 3 for Macintosh with shorter video conversions and DVD burn times. Popcorn has also added TiVo-to-DVD or TiVo-to-device features. Popcorn 3 now sports a new preview mode to ensure quality before burning an entire movie to DVD.

Popcorn 3 supports video encoding optimized for a broad range of devices including iPhone, iPod, Apple TV, BlackBerry, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The latest edition of Popcorn supports Elgato’s Turbo.264 codec for faster video encoding, Dolby Pro-Logic II, and comes bundled with disc labeling software. Popcorn 3 retails for $49.99, or $29.99 (upgrade) to previous Toast and Popcorn installers.

Panic’s Transmit, my absolute favorite FTP app for the Mac has been updated to 3.6. Transmit is an FTP, SFTP, and FTP TLS/SSL client with Rendezvous support, image and text preview, built-in text editor, remote editing, tabs for multiple connections, full iDisk/WebDAV support, AppleScript support, and other features. This release adds Amazon S3 support, a Copy URL/Web Preview option, and bug fixes and other changes. Transmit 3 is a Universal Binary priced at $29.95 for Mac OS X 10.3.9 and up. Upgrade from transmit 2 for only $17.95.

Apple has again updated iPhoto. iPhoto 7.0.2 tweaks an number of important features, including:

This update to iPhoto addresses issues associated with publishing to .Mac Web Gallery, rebuilding thumbnails, and editing books. It also addresses a number of other minor issues.

Get your copy of iPhoto 7.0.2 via Software Update or by direct download—here (8.8MB). Is there’ an Ant on your LCD? Or is there still a bug on your Mac?

SeeqPod is fantastic for the iPhone. Try it free here. SeqPod works on your desktop or the iPhone and gives you the option of searching or discovering, new music as well as well known popular artists.

Search for songs from most any artist, and a complete list will appear that you can play. The SeeqPod site lets you listen to your favorite songs. You can create your own playlists and even embed a audio player or playlist into your website.

Former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney is offering a free song and video through iTunes for one week only. The track, Nod Your Head [iTunes Link], is taken from McCartney’s recently-released Memory Almost Full album.

The Microsoft Business Unit has announced that they have launched a new well designed, artistic website called, the Art of Office. The user-generated community site is to provide an outlet for Macintosh users of MS Office to showcase their best and most creative work.

Only wish they spent more time getting the Mac version of Office out on time and with macros that match the Windows version. I guess Mac users get a website instead. Amusingly, Microsoft seems to take no specific action to scan the content for viruses and leaves it is up to the uploaders to scan their files. But, Macros are discouraged on the upload page!

Nokia’s Executive VP & General Manager of Multimedia — said, “If there is something good in the world then we copy with pride.” OK let’s see.

Now that’s what I call innovation, Microsoft style! I can not tell if the device is actually multi-touch from this video. I bet it is is Apple’s attorneys may be pretty excited. Makes me lose some respect for Nokia. This device is slated for release next year. Apple will probably have iPhone 2 by that time.

So it seems that Windows Server 2008 is NOT coming until…2008, with Microsoft acknowledging that it won’t be able to finish work on the product this year, as originally scheduled.

“Windows Server 2008, which we have been saying would Release to Manufacturing (RTM) by the end of the calendar year, is now slated to RTM in the first quarter of calendar year 2008,” Microsoft said on its Windows Server blog.

Site designer Paul Yanez has also created web versions of Joost, Babelgum and now the Apple TV using Flash in a mashup. The Flash based interface feels quite a lot like the “real” applications.

The “Not” Apple TV interface includes YouTube, Google Video, Pornotube and others. Just like Apple TV, the site is unable to interact or record live TV. Worth a peak. No software to install and no box to buy! How about a SlingPlayer site?

Nice post by John C, Welch over at bynkii.com showing how the Wii is handily outselling the Xbox
360 and the Playstation 2.

July NPD Game Console Sales:
Wii: 425,000
PS2: 222,000
Xbox 360: 170,000
PS3: 159,000

Looking at percentage of change from June’s numbers showing the Wii is up just over 11 percent, the Xbox 360 is down almost 15 percent while Sony’s PS3is up just under 61.5 percent. Seems as Microsoft continues it reliability problems costing them over a billion dollars Nintendo is killing the competition, and Sony may finally have something to smile about.