The game launches in and is played in widescreen format, as this makes sense for its gameplay.  The menu gives you seven different options, three of which are gameplay modes.  The gameplay modes include Challenge Mode, Speed Mode, and Practice Mode.  These will all be looked at in depth throughout the review.  The instructions page is very nice, as the game can be a tad bit confusing when you first start it.  It only takes a matter of seconds to get used to, but we would suggest starting with the instructions menu.  It thoroughly explains each game mode and menu item available.

So, the point of the game is to match the “Goal” number by flipping switches on and off of different binary numbers.  A switch “On” will mean that this number is going to be added to “Your” number, while turning the switch back off will subtract it.  You start at 0.  Say the number you are given is 228.  You will want to flip on switches 128, 64, 32, and 4 as quickly as possible, matching the 228 goal.  You will then be given a new number.

In practice mode you are able do just that, practice.  There is no time running or goal to be set.  This is where you can get good and fast at the game by just messing around.  You might even be able to memorize some combinations if you practice enough.  The game reacts very fast and there is no lag, which is essential in a game of this nature.  The buttons are big and spaced out enough so that you don’t accidentally click on the wrong switch.

The real fun starts in Challenge mode.  Here you are put on a timer and are given a Level and Round rating.  The goal is to advance to the next round before the timer runs out.  Each level has 5 rounds within it, and you are given points for each number you complete.  Eventually, after you run out of time, all of your points are totaled and this is your score. You can see these features in the image below.

Next, and by far the most addicting, is speed mode.  Speed mode acts a lot like the rest of the game, but you are given 15 numbers, and the goal is complete each number as fast as possible.  The whole session is on a timer and the goal is to beat previous best times.

The coolest feature of B1nary Game is the online score tracking.  In the game, you can go to your own personal high scores and there is an option to upload them to the web.  Then, you can go over to B1nary Game’s website and see where you rank with everyone else playing the game.  They feature rankings for the Top 15 in both challenge mode and speed mode for the day and the all time leaders in each.  This feature works great and I haven’t had any trouble with it.

In conclusion, B1nary Game truly is a very fun and addicting puzzle game, just like they promised.  Although the idea is very simple, it truly is original and innovative.  It pulls you in and makes you want to keep improving on your best times, as you really do get better at it every time you play.  It seems to be the type of game that a lot of people are looking for in the cluster that has become of the App Store.  If you love numbers and puzzles, this game will be a blast for you.

The game never crashed or ran slowly through hours of gameplay.  The only complaints I have are that there is no demo and that it can feel a tad repetitive after awhile.  However, trying to beat the top scores takes away from this and I’m sure there are some good updates coming.

The creator of the game has told us that an update should be released to Apple has early as Monday.

You can find B1nary Game in the iPhone App Store for 1.99

Up until this point, I have been fairly disappointed with all of the Netflix applications that have hit the App Store.  Going into this review, there was one main question that stood out, “Does this application allow the user to fully, yet easily, manage all of the essential Netflix features on the run?”

Starting up PocketFlix instantly brings you to an online verification page for linking your application to Netflix.  Once you sign in, you are ready to go.  The navigation is a bit different when compared to a typical iPhone applications (no bottom bar navigation), but it seems to work well for the app.  One minor annoyance that was immediately noticed was the fact that the “loading” circle in the top right kept spinning during the entire time that I had the application open, which was awhile.

You are then brought to the main menu, which is pictured above.  As you can see, it allows you to enter nearly every feature of Netflix that you would want to.  Search, Most Popular, DVD Queue, Recommendations, At Home, and Rental History are all listed.  The question was, does each of these function to the fullest ability?  The short answer is, yes, they all delivered.

The search worked as expected.  You simply enter in a movie title and PocketFlix will return the best matches, just as if you would have searched on Netflix itself.  It displays each title with a movie poster, cast information, genre, rating, and Netflix rating.  The only complaint I have about the search function is that there is no “load more” feature at the bottom.  Doing a search for something generic like “baseball” brings up only about 20 movies and you can not load more onto a new page.

The Most Popular menu brings up listings for the Top DVDs overall, Top ‘Instant Watched’, Top New, and then it separates the top watched 25 movies in each genre, which is a really handy feature.  However, there were some issues with the loading of the separate genre categories.  They were stuck on “downloading” for a long time and none of them loaded until I relaunched the application, and then it happened very slowly.  However, the main top lists such as Top DVDs and Top ‘Instant Watch’ loaded with no problem.

The Queue menu is the most important feature for any Netflix user and this seems to be the strong point for PocketFlix.  The queue displays just like the search results, but has an edit feature which allows you to reorder your queue or delete movies off of it.  It also allows you to tap on a green arrow which will put that movie on the top of your queue.  Everything ran very smoothly when changing the queue around and it was instantly reflected in the Netflix queue online.  As a side note, the ‘Instant Queue’ menu works exactly like the normal queue menu.

Next was the recommendations menu section.  This feature works just like the online version, separating each recommendation into certain genres.  When each genre is clicked on, it displays just like the search results.  When you click on the movie, it shows you the poster, quick synopsis, rating, cast, Netflix rating with the ability to rate it yourself, and the option to add it to your queue.

Lastly, PocketFlix will display which movies you currently have at home and will also show you your past rental history.

In conclusion, PocketFlix really impressed when it comes to covering all of Netflix’s available features in one application.  Nearly every Netflix feature seems to appear in this application (besides rating movies for new recommendations and no “friends” feature) which makes it a very powerful tool for any Netflix user.  The application never crashed while it was being put through the review and everything seems to flow very smoothly, besides the minor downloading lag in the Most Popular section even when on WiFi.  After testing nearly all the Netflix managers in the App Store, PocketFlix comes as highly recommended from MacApper for any Netflix user, as it seems to currently be the best option out there.

You can visit PocketFlix’s Google Code page here and you can download it in Apple’s Application Store for $1.99.

In order to use Summarize, you need to be on a native OS X program such as Preview, TextEdit, Safari, Mail, etc. If you are in one of these programs, getting your summary takes just a second and it is fully customizable. If you are not in one of these programs, simply copy and paste your text over into TextEdit and you will be able to use it hassle free. To get started, simply select the text that you want summarized, navigate up to the menu-bar, and drop down the menu by selecting the name of the current application that you are on. In this sub-menu you will find the “services” section. From there, you can select Summarize. The summary box will look something like this:

As you can see, you will be able to edit how long you want the summary to be and if you want it in sentences or paragraphs. The accuracy of the summaries has actually been quite impressive in my past experience with this great feature.

Most of the features that we will be discussing can be found in System Preferences > Trackpad. Unfortunately, out of the box, the new MacBooks come with a lot of the multi-touch features turned off. So unless you know to go to this preference pane right away, you might be a bit frustrated with the new trackpad. This would especially stand true for a new Mac user who is used to two buttons and the old style trackpad. However, when you fully enable all of the cool features on the new glass trackpad, you will never want to go back to the older version. In my case, I never want to use a mouse again (except for when gaming).

So, let’s navigate to the Trackpad Preference Pane and get to the screen pictured below:

Now you have the ability to turn your trackpad into something much more useful. First off, highlighting each feature selection will show a short video of each feature in action. The one-finger options are fairly self-explanatory. ’Tap to Click’ will allow you to simply tap on the track pad to click instead of having to push the button down. I use this feature a lot more than fully clicking the button down. ’Dragging’ and ‘Drag Lock’ allow you to tap once and then drag anything around your desktop.

My personal favorite option is ‘Secondary Tap’. This has been around on OS X for awhile, but some people I talk to do not know about it. This allows you to mimic a right mouse click by simply tapping two fingers on your trackpad at the same time.

The most powerful options come with the three- and four-finger options. Swiping three fingers left or right allows you to go forward or backward in any given application. This works wonderfully in your browser, as it can be used for previous page navigation. As for four-fingered options, you can swipe four fingers up to show your desktop, four fingers down to enter “show all windows” expose mode, or swipe left and right in order to switch applications. Some hidden gems include: allowing you to pinch in and out with two fingers while in an application in order to zoom in and out and being able to rotate images using two fingers.

While most Mac power users will already know about these features, many new Mac users can use nearly all of these new features to their advantage in making their MacBook experience more enjoyable.

The first step is getting familiar with Internet Sharing.  As mentioned above, you need to navigate to System Preferences > Sharing > Internet Sharing (which is an option listed on the left).  Once on the Internet Sharing option page, you need to setup exactly what you want to do before you proceed to turn it on.  As you can see, you need to select where you want the shared connection to come from and then where you are going to output it.  So, if you want to turn your Mac into a wireless hub, you would select “Share your connection from: Ethernet”…”To computer using: Airport”.  You can mess around with any configuration here including Airport to Ethernet, Bluetooth to Ethernet, etc.  In order to enable it, you must click the check box next to internet sharing.  You can now turn your Mac into any sort of internet hub that you want it to be.  This works great when you are somewhere such as a hotel which might only have one Ethernet plug but you have 4 laptops.  You can create a wireless hub for everyone else in the room to connect to.

One of my favorite uses for this feature is sharing my MacBook’s Airport connection with my Xbox 360 through an Ethernet connection.  I have been doing this for years, and it has saved me the $100 I would have had to spend on a wireless adapter for my 360.  Here is a step by step guide on how to setup your Xbox 360 to share an internet connection with your Mac:

1. Enable internet sharing as described above in System Preferences.  You will want to select sharing from Airport to Ethernet.

2. Connect your Mac to your Xbox 360 using an Ethernet cable.

3. Open up Terminal on your Mac by going to Applications > Utilities.

4. In terminal type “ifconfig en0″ (that is a zero)

5. In the terminal screen, you need to look for the line which displays as “inet xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx”.  Write this number down.  For example, mine is currently 192.168.2.1

6. Also get the IP Address of your wireless router.  This can be found in System Preferences > Network> Select Airport > Advanced> TCP/IP Tab > Router.  Write this number down.  Mine was 10.0.1.1

7. Start your Xbox and get to the Network Settings menu.  You will now have to put some numbers in manually…

8. For IP Address you need to enter the inet number you found in your terminal but with the last number being 1 digit higher.  For instance, mine would be 192.168.2.2

9. For Subnet, enter 255.255.255.0

10. For Router/Gateway enter the inet number from earlier.  Mine was 192.168.2.1

11. For DNS (both primary and secondary) enter the IP of your router.  Mine was 10.0.1.1

12. You need to leave PPPoE and advanced settings blank (default was off and automatic).

13. Test the connection and enjoy having a shared internet connection to your Xbox from your Mac.

If you need any help with this, please leave a comment and I’ll get back to you.

As Sling Media’s new iPhone dedicated page suggests, the application should now be right around the corner and it will become the first TV streaming application for the iPhone.  Also featured on the site is a nice teaser video, which shows exactly how the application is going to look and run on the iPhone.  It features smooth slide out menus which allow you to control your favorite stations, browse the guide, program your DVR, and pretty much everything else you can do on your TV.

The applications price has not yet been announced but it would be nice if it was free for current users, as it will be a useless application for anyone who has not bought a Slingbox.

You can sign up to be contacted over email when the application launches at this link.