Author Archive

I got an interesting text message on my iPhone this morning:

AT&T FREE Msg: Good News, your messaging package now includes text, picture & instant messages all for the same price of $19.99 per month. No action required

This strongly implies that I will be able to send picture and instant messages, which I can not do currently. Is this the precursor to the first significant software update for the iPhone? iPhone’s lack of IM and picture messaging are two of the most frequent complaints to Apple and AT&T.

I recently started working on a new site that requires a lot of collaboration with the other staff. Instead of using IRC or AIM chats or lots and lots of email cc’s (I’ve done this and it is awful), they use 37signals‘ chat/collaboration software Campfire.

For the uninitiated, Campfire is an online chat service hosted by 37signals that allows you to chat and send files while saving everything online. You don’t have to worry about missing anything when you are away from your desk because when you sign back into Campfire, everything that has been said in the past is there waiting for you. It’s great if you work with a bunch of people in all different places and time zones.

Meteo is a small app that sits in your ever-more-crowded menu bar and tells you the current weather in your location (or anywhere, I suppose). There are many ways to find out the weather: you can use the Weather Dashboard Widget, use your iPhone (you do have an iPhone right?), go to the National Weather Service webpage, actually look out a window or you can use Meteo.

Desktop Tower Defense is the latest in a long string of “tower defense” games. Tower defense is a genre that got it’s start in Blizzard Entertainment’s classic Starcraft. The basic premise is you have growing waves of “creeps” that travel across your screen and you must prevent them from reaching their destination by building and upgrading various types of towers.

It was only a matter of time before BlendTec tested out their blender on an iPhone. Here’s the result:

I want to see them blend a blender in their blender.

(via Daring Fireball)

One of the main complaints about the iPhone is that it doesn’t have an instant messaging client such as Adium or iChat built in. I’ve owned three ’smartphones’ in the past few years and I have experience with the incredible and the horrendous of portable instant messaging.

My first smartphone was the T-Mobile supported Danger Inc. Sidekick. I have described the Sidekick as a Blackberry for consumers, rather than business-types. It is extremely easy to use, has built-in push email, instant messaging via AIM, text messaging, (pretty crappy) web browsing, and a limited but not terrible supply of applications.

I always wanted to see some skyrockets in flight (afternoon delight), and now I can with the free screensaver Skyrocket!

Today is Independence Day here in the United States and we celebrate our independence from the hated British by shooting off fireworks, eating as many hot dogs as we can in 12 minutes and preparing for the Major League Baseball All-Star Game.

To show your patriotism on your Mac, download this great fireworks screensaver and enjoy the fancy 3D graphics that have come a lonnnnng way since ye olde Pyro!

(hat tip to TUAW)

Forklift is a favorite around these parts (see previous mentions here, here, here, here, and here).

Normally $29.95, macZOT! has it for a bargain price of $19.95!

If you do much FTPing or use the amazingly cheap and useful Amazon S3 (Forklift is BY FAR the best S3 browser I’ve found) , I cannot recommend Forklift more highly, plus the guys at BinaryNights are just great.

Go grab it now!

Some people spend hours and hours trying to find the perfect desktop picture. Some rotate through their iPhoto libraries to show vacation images or put up pictures of their kids. Some people have pictures of cars, women, or even Windows logos. My search for the perfect desktop background ended when I found EarthDesk.

EarthDesk is part Geochron, part weather map. A map of the Earth is displayed on your desktop overlaid with a composite satellite image showing up-to-date cloud cover and a shadow depicting daylight, moonlight and night on the map.

Hello. My name is Jordan, and I’m a snorer.

“Hi, Jordan.”

Phew, I’m glad I got that off my chest. It wouldn’t be a problem that I snore, except I snore so loudly that I keep my girlfriend up at night, that is, I used to until we discovered Noise.