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What’s better than watching the Steve Jobs keynote tomorrow and seeing all the Macworld 2008 rumors get shot down one by one? Doing it with a keynote bingo card of course. Keynote Bingo is a freeware app developed by a group of Swedes that generates a bingo card containing some likely (and some not) keynote expectations. If you get 5 squares in a row you win…well nothing really.

The software is pretty straight forward but here is a blurb from their site explaining a bit.

One device that nearly every Mac audiophile has (or should have) is Apple’s elegant Airport Express. Using AirTunes over your Airport Express streaming audio to a stereo is a piece of cake. The problem is that streaming audio can only be done from iTunes and video is a no-go.

The solution? Airfoil from Rogue Amoeba.

Recently my wife (the proud owner of a new MacBook she procured over Christmas) tasked me with the job of finding her a recipe manager for OS X. Her only pre-requisites were that it had to be cheap, easy to use, and not something that would slow her down. After a couple cups of coffee, and some plowing around on Google I managed to find something that fits right in with her ‘give it to me free’ ethos - Measuring Cup by Shallot Patch.

I have a certain group of websites that I like to have automatically opened each morning when I get up for coffee. Yeah I know it’s not the type of thing that everyone will want to do, but I found a pretty neat way to do it, and thought I should pass it along to you guys. If you are new to Automator this may also serve as a really basic ‘getting started’ guide as well.

Open up Automator and choose a Custom project. Drag the following over to the right window:

Without using Parallels, Crossover or Bootcamp, or even having a Windows Partition! Today we’ll be using Wine to emulate Windows and run all version of Internet Exlorer, which will make for a much lighter overall system footprint. It will also integrate perfectly into OS X.

I get asked this one a lot by web developers so I thought I would throw this up here for posterity. Not everyone wants to taint their Mac by running full blown Windows on it (am I right?), but if you’re a web developer it’s pretty critical that you build pages that render properly in Internet Explorer. If you have done this type of work on *nix you might remember using a great tool named ies4linux. Well you guessed it, ies4osx was recently ported to the Mac by Mike Kronenberg.

Tangle is a puzzle based game of intersecting lines. The premise is dead simple, untangle all of the lines by moving the colored vertices around and you win. Depending on how fast you can perform this feat determines your score. Tangle is one of those surprisingly addictive games that make you wonder why your girlfriend is not speaking with you anymore.

I noticed our friends from Stunt Software in Winnipeg have just put the finishing touches on Overflow 2.5 today. Overflow is the popular launcher application which we recently reviewed. According to the Dan Messing at Stunt this release is a major new version and heralds in several often asked for features, requested by users (both here and elsewhere).

Overflow really is an elegant, easy to use launcher for Mac OS X. It’s a great solution for those who want an uncluttered dock but still want easy access to must have apps. The major new features are - right after the jump.

A few months back a friend asked me if I wanted to help work on a small application for OS X. He figured because I had a long history of Windows based programming I would have no trouble making the transition to writing apps for Mac. Well he was wrong for obvious reasons and I also found (unlike coding Windows apps) that the journey to bring my skills up to par for Mac, was a greatly rewarding, yet somewhat convoluted experience.

Alright this is not, I repeat NOT, a software hack that plays a nice unlocking sound when your iPhone is ready to use. What it is though is a confirmed way to unlock an iPhone off of AT&T using a small SIM card tool called a TurboSIM.

The hack grants you full iPhone usage: Calls in/out, SMS in/out, Edge, etc. I can see a few people on the Bladox forums as well as Hackint0sh forums have done this successfully. I also saw a few people unlocking and discussing this on Undernet in #iphone.TurboSIM. So to reiterate the iPhone has been fully unlocked but you will require a blank TurboSIM, some ssh skills, and you must physically cut both your AT&T and personal SIM card to fit the TurboSIM. For a great How-To on how this is done see this thread at Hackint0sh.

I have to admit I have always been jealous of Mac Pro users with the ability to mix and match components and add hard drive space as needed. About a week ago I was tasked with the job of editing a large number of very large video files, much more than the crowded 160GB drive in my MacBook Pro would allow for. At the time I thought the solution was to get an external USB 2.0 or Firewire 400/800 drive to tackle my space issues. There isn’t anything wrong with this arrangement but I always found myself wanting more speed. The solution? Adding some eSATA-II ports to my Macbook Pro of course.

As I mentioned in an earlier post on the iPhone activation hack, the community of users determined to hack the iPhone is really gaining momentum. The goal is to deliver not only a working unlocked phone, but also to pave the way for 3rd party application development as well. While there have been some minor setbacks this week, I noticed over on the iPhoneWebDev Google Groups page that a contest has been sponsored to stimulate some activity and maybe bring in some new users to take a crack at iPhone. If you are knowledgeable with ASM, reverse engineering, or other programming disciplines you should check it out.

In the first step towards a fully unlocked iPhone (for those of us living outside of the USA) DVD Jon, also known as Jon Lech Johansen, has reverse engineered and published a method for activating an iPhone without AT&T. Mind you this will allow you to use your iPhone as a surfing device (via wifi) or an iPod only, but it’s a clear indication that clever people are working on this. I will point out that Jon’s method, while reported to work, is not all that simple, nor does it work from a Mac without using Parallels or other virtualization software. There may also be a real threat of bricking your iPhone so I would hold off on something safer coming soon before jumping the gun with this hack.

In the midst of the excitement surrounding arguably one of Apple’s very largest product roll-outs, the iPhone, we still are left to wonder if and when we will see third parties able to develop native Cocoa apps for the hot little device. During one of the many evening parties which took place during WWDC I overheard something very interesting from a key member of the iPhone development team that answers at least part of our question.

So there you are in your cubicle at work utilizing your employer’s expensive internet connection for everything except something that can actually justify your pay check. This is a good enough time to do some power ebaying, youtubing, or hell even some chatty chat with that sexy new bit on the side. It doesn’t get any better than this right? To actually get paid to surf the internet whilst firing off a reply to the occasional email, to keep up the guise of you actually being alert and attentive to the various happenings at work. Imagine if your poor sap of a boss actually knew what you were up to!