I asked the MacApper staff recently what their favorite podcasts were and decided to tally up a list for you guys. Sound off in the comments if we missed the good ones!

Editor: Most of these link directly to iTunes, which in hindsight I guess is kind of annoying. Sorry about that.

Miles Evans

• Diggnation – The uber popular digg discussion show hosted by Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht.
• Dan Meth Minute – Dan provides regular releases of hilarious flash style cartoons pulling in tons of pop culture references.
• Ask a Ninja – Surely you’ve seen this guy? Ninja answers questions from the audience. Hilarity follows.
• The Totally Rad Show – Another good show from Revision3 with Alex Albrecht. This time the subject is games, movies, and uuuh, all things rad.
• Comedy Central – Comedy Central releases regular clips of live comedy performances.

Michael Mistretta

• TWiT – This Week in Tech with Leo Laporte, Patrick Norton, John C. Dvorak, and other tech luminaries in a roundtable discussion of the latest trends in high tech.
• MacBreak Weekly – The latest Mac news and views from the top journalists covering Apple today.
• TWiM – Each week Alex Lindsay and other experts in content creation and the media get together to discuss the week’s developments.
• Macbreak Tech – a technical discussion about all things Macintosh.
• Geekbrief.tv – Shiny happy tech news with Cali Lewis.

Taylor Sternberg

• NPR’s Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me – NPR’s weekly hour-long quiz program.
• Tekzilla – Yet another new tech video podcast by Revision3.
• Net@Nite – Amber MacArthur spends every waking moment combing the net for cool sites, viral videos, and funny and moving moments online.
• This American Life – Official podcast of the weekly radio show ‘This American Life’ by Chicago Public Radio.
• 1UP Yours – Intimate coverage of the video game industry and community.

Van Lam

• Back Story – Interviews with NY Times reporters on the major stories of the moment.
• fxguidetv – A high definition video podcast featuring fx and design work in movies, television, and commercials.
• Security Now! – Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte take you through the world of computer security in this TWiT network audio podcast.
• New Yorker: Comment – A weekly audio podcast from the magazine with the same name.
• Onion News Network – A regular audio podcast from the satirical news agency, The Onion.

Mark Milian

• SModcast – SModcast is an ongoing conversation between Kevin Smith (Clerks) and Scott Mosier. Comedy.
• APM: Sound Opinions on Demand – A Rock & Roll talk show with opinions on music, interviews, and news from the industry.
• Flight of the Conchords – A hilarious video podcast from New Zealand’s fourth most popular digi-folk paradists. HBO.
• thebroken – thebroken is an online video podcast focusing on software hacking, computer intrusion, and other “questionable activities”. This is an older show by Revision3 (no longer very active).

Emily McCutcheon

• Wild Chronicles – If you enjoyed the Planet Earth DVDs or ever even glance at CuteOverload, this is a good one.

Austen Saltz

• Mugglecast – Almost certainly the number one Harry Potter podcast online.
• Film Spotting – Film Spotting is a podcast that features the latest and hottest movies and DVD releases.

Scott Myles

• Buzz Out Loud – Buzz Out Loud is a daily podcast about tech related subjects, produced by CNET
• Mac OS Ken – Welcome to a slightly skewed look at all things Apple and Apple related by Ken Ray.
• Typical Mac User – This is Victor Cajiao’s regular audio podcast about everything Mac featuring reader call-ins and high profile guest interviews.
• NPR 7am 5 minute news – National Public Radio’s daily news show.
• Macworld Podcast – This is, you guessed it, the podcast from the guys over at MacWorld magazine.

Well that about does it. I hope people have some others to offer up, but I think this is a good start. What are the rest of you listening to/watching?

We got a good response to the contest so first of all thanks to everyone who participated in the discussion. This time around we actually got the developer to choose the winners, so without further adieu, the winners of the licenses of Drawit (valued at ⚬29/$42 each) are…

Superdotman (comment #12) and Patrick (comment #19).

Congrats guys and thanks again to Pieter at Drawit for the contest. Peiter promises he will get your licenses out right away so watch your inboxes for them. Be sure to subscribe to MacApper to not miss any of our regular giveaways.

The guys at Ergonis were kind enough to give away 3 licenses along with our review. If you are lucky enough to see your name after the jump then you will be getting an email with a license for the full version of Typinator shortly.

The three winners are:

• KyleF
• F1sh
• Craig

For those who missed out on this giveaway, you still may want to download the trial version of Typinator and see if it’s something you might use.

Congratulations to the winners, and I hope you enjoy your software. As always be sure to stay tuned to MacApper’s RSS feed so you don’t miss any of our regular giveaways.

For quite a while now Skitch has been open to beta testers but on a private basis. While plasq has been prety generous granting beta licenses for Skitch, the company has just announced that the beta is now fully open to the public. From my own usage Skitch has been completely solid and I would expect the company is gearing up or a final release track soon.

Skitch is written by a dedicated and well respected group of Mac developers. If you remember plasq are the same guys behind other quality shareware like Comic Life, and the recently released Doozla. If you haven’t already, check out Skitch today and see what all the buzz is about.

If you are looking for a way to establish yourself as a tech writer, learn about group publishing, or just interested in being part of a great team of passionate Mac fans, this could be for you.

Writers at MacApper are paid for their efforts. After being published here, your article is awarded a pay grade based on quality, creativity, and popularity. Payouts happen every 2 weeks, and currently we pay between $5 – $10 for articles, with at least $100 in bonuses given out every month for outstanding work. Contributors also have the opportunity to sample some great Mac related products, and sometimes get some free schwag in the process.

Fore more information you should check out our post on Pro Blogger.

For those interested please submit writing samples along with a personal note about how you can contribute here. You can use our contact page or email us directly at macapper [AT] gmail.com.

When Pieter read our review he was kind enough to offer up 2 licenses (valued at ⚬29/$42 each) to two lucky MacApper readers. But you’re not going to get off with random comments on this one guys, the winners will be decided by the quality of their feedback. So let’s do Pieter a favor and offer up some constructive criticism for his software.

Download a copy of Drawit and offer up some good comments like maybe:

Suggest a way to improve Drawit, or implement features you find important.

What do you like about Drawit? What do you dislike about Drawit?

How could Drawit fit into your pixel pushing daily activities? Is it something you would use? Why?

The contest starts now and will end on January 25th at midnight EST. As usual winners will be announced shortly after that time. Good luck all and a big thanks to Pieter for both sponsoring our blog and running this contest for our readers.

One of the first things you will notice about the Air is the large multi function trackpad. So most of the cool features and gestures we are used to in our iPhone/touch will now be standard on the MacBook Air. Finally some mousing progress.

The Air comes with a 60% shrunken Core 2 Duo Intel CPU with 1.6Ghz and 1.8Ghz options available. The generous 2GB of stock memory looks to be soldered onto the mainboard (which is damn small!). As with the MacBook line the new Air will use a Intel GMA X3100 graphics processor with 144MB of DDR2 SDRAM shared with main memory for video.

The pundits were also right in predicting that Apple would unveil flash memory based SSD hard drives with the new notebook. I thought it was kind of strange that users would have the option between a 1.8″ 80GB hard drive vs a 64GB SSD based drive, but there you have it. Like Steve says the flash memory based drives are ‘really quick‘. Sadly as we expected the SSD option is hella expensive too – A MacBook Air with 64GB SSD drive and 1.8Ghz CPU is $3,098.00 compared to $1799.00 for the 80GB 4200-rpm PATA drive and 1.6Ghz CPU. Alone it’s a wallet punishing $999 upgrade. I am guessing this will get people talking.

The Air also comes equipped with an 802.11n wifi card, Bluetooth 2.1/EDR, 1 USB 2.0 port (wow not 2?), Micro-DVI, Audio Out, an iSight, and a 45 Watt MagSafe which will give you around 5 hours of battery life. I think it’s pretty sweet the way Apple has hid the ports on this new Mac (which was also predicted).

The MacBook Air is priced between $1799 – $3,098 and will be available in 2 weeks (pre-ordering available). For all the info you need on the new MacBook Air including some great videos, check out the official MacBook air page at Apple. Gizmodo also has a really thorough hands-on with LOTS of photos.

The new machine was also said to include a large multi-function new trackpad which was described in a recent Apple patent as “…having the capabilities of conventional computer mouse devices, such as the ability to point, drag, tap and double tap objects on a graphical user interface, as well as more general purposes such as scrolling, panning, zooming, and rotating images on display screen.” Another recent patent suggests the possibility of collapsable external ports. Rounding out the outlandish claims there is yet another patent pointing to Apple’s desire to use induction to power its future devices. Yep that’s A/C over the airwaves if you’re not paying attention.

Still further rumors surfaced on whether the machine supported the new wireless technology WiMax. The quoted source at Valleywag only gave it a “60 percent chance” but jeez that would be damn innovative of Apple to do this. It might also explain the usage of the phrase ‘There’s something in the air‘ a bit more clearly. Still this one is a bit unlikely in my opinion.

Alright so we can guess at specs all we like but how do we know this sexy new laptop isn’t either a red herring or simply just vapor? Well amazingly a commenter at 9to5mac, Jon Cotton, found a reference in Google’s cache to ‘MacBook Air‘ in the machine type usage logs for the app Adium. Amazingly this reference to the Macbook Air was made prior to the ‘There’s something in the air’ banners appearing around Moscone Center. So as Cleve Nettles at 9to5mac correctly points out:

1. The MacBook Air is real – our details may be off slightly but the name is real.

2. Either Apple or someone with knowledge of the Macworld 2008 There is something in the air slogan 2 weeks ago sent the rumor sites false info and went to a few websites with public logs with a browser hacked to show “MacBookAir” as machine-type.

Check out 9to5mac for a really great list of speculation and facts on what could possibly be a great new notebook from Apple revealed tomorrow. Or not!

*Editor: Image above is not a REAL product from Apple but an artists rendering. Original from AppleSfera.

Update: The recently released image editing app Pixelmator has also just been added to the bundle, making it an extremely attractive offering at only $49. Also a portion of the money collected is going to several worthy charities.

Below is a list of what is included for those who don’t know. Check out Marvin’s MacHeist II software round-up for more details on each program.

1password – A really useful password manager.
CoverSurta – The popular iTunes controller app.
Cha-Ching – A great money and finances manager.
iStopMotion – Stop motion photography application.
Awaken – A really nice alarm clock app.
Speed Download – A Mac download manager.
AppZapper – The Mac’s missing application uninstaller .
TaskPaper – A to do list manager.
CSSEdit – The best CCS editor for Mac.
Snapz Pro X – A screenshot and video capture utility.
Pixelmator – image editor (just added!)

Check out the MacHeist site to get your bundle before the deadline is reached (9 days away currently).

The blogosphere has been super busy the last few weeks with rumors, red herrings, and buzz on what to expect at this years Macworld. Here is a list of my favorites.

• AppleInsider is one of the first to post a series of photos of San Francisco’s Moscone Center as it gets jazzed up for Macworld. The tagline ‘There's something in the air’ has pretty much confirmed rumors of a lighter than air new subnotebook. With WiMax support? Or is it something to do with wireless purchases or iTunes? Or neither!



• You aren’t a Macworld rumor monger without a 2008 Keynote Bingo card from Arstechnica.



• TUAW posted a killer nostalgic list of Macworld’s past with a link to the corresponding YouTube video for each item. Very cool. Also if you missed it check out the staff at TUAW’s list of predictions which is really very complete.
• Gizmodo posted arguably the most detailed and thorough article detailing what to expect at this years Macworld.
• Party animals should scan the Hess Macworld 2008 events list for every possible party and meetup you could ever want to attend. Tequila!
• GeekCulture has a cool celebrity checklist for those lucky enough to attend the event.



• In case you didn’t know, Steve Job’s keynote address will occur on Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2008 at 9:00 AM PST in Moscone West at San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center. I have heard a couple claims of people attempting to stream this live, but I think it’s safe to write this off as BS (no link for you!) Expect the keynote to be available on here Apple’s site shortly after it occurs – immediately after which it should appear everywhere else including torrent sites.
• AppleGazette has a list of sites providing live blogging of the event and keynote.
• You might also want to keep an eye on Flickr, as photos are already beginning to surface there.

That’s about it. Also be sure to subscribe to MacApper’s podcast as I am certain some of the writers here are cooking up a roundtable style podcast within the next 48 hours or so. In the mean time what do you guys expect to happen at this years Macworld? Subenotebook? iTunes movie rentals? iPhone v2? None of the above? Let us know in the comments.

What are the best new features in this point release? Not too many bells and whistles but definitely the group chat interface is important to me. Overall the new interface tweaks for Leopard compliance are also pretty sleek if you’re into that kind of thing. Applescripter’s will like the completely reworked Applescript support as well.

All in all I would say that Adium has evolved into the best possible multi-client chat app for Mac and a must download for any user. Grab Adium 1.2 final here and be sure to bookmark the adium blog for news and announcements.

Now these updates sound great but what about the thousands of iPhone users running hacked firmware like me? As with previous updates the word on the street is that 1.1.3 will in fact break 3rd party apps and unlocks, and will most likely leave you with a bricked iPhone.

From Jesus Diaz and iPhone hacker Natetrue via Gizmodo:

The update breaks AnySim’s unlocks. Logically, you can’t unlock this update using AnySim and there’s no alternative to iTunes for activation. If you want to activate, it will only work using iTunes and a standard AT&T account. Nate says, “that is the only way we have been able to activate so far.” Nate tried to upgrade an AnySim 1.2u iPhone and it failed. Even while he was able to force it to boot, the phone refused to activate even with a normal AT&T SIM card. “I suspect it’s due to the fact that the baseband could not be upgraded to the 1.1.3 ‘required’ version”, he says.

Other updates remain untested, like iPhone Sim Free or any of the hardware-based ones, like TurboSIM. In theory, these should work just fine, but jailbreak and activation would be absolutely impossible for the time being. We would have to wait until the update gets released in the open to try new alternative activation methods.

While I could live without the 1.1.2 updates, the 1.1.3 actually has some juicy new features. I wonder when Apple is going to get the clue that people are dead set on using their devices as they see fit? Will the February SDK even solve any of these problems, or just create more?

This is great news for Adium users, and the new features are very welcome but a few people voiced their opinions over at TUAW about the lack of A/V chat or some recently mentioned MSN enhancements. According to Chris Forsythe the MSN enhancements will be rolled out when libpurple is updated (should be soon), but we likely will not see A/V chat bundled with Adium for some time. Having said that I agree with what Chris and others said regarding Adium vs iChat:

Regarding voice/video. Yes, we don’t have that, and we won’t for a while. However, we’re not in the same submarket as ichat, we’re solving needs that ichat just won’t/can’t. You can’t discount that over something like voice/video. There are plenty of people who don’t need this at all.

Adium 1.2 Beta can be downloaded here, or if you are new to Adium and not keen on betasoft, grab the current release of Adium 1.1.4. And remember to be sure to donate to this great group of GPL-minded coders if you expect to have any sort of enhancements, ie: A/V chat.

I decided to hit Koh Tao, this year, a really great island in southern Thailand, until the end of this month. I know some of the other guys are tied up with family, vacations, and other merry making. I can’t speak for all of the writers here but I would expect blogging here at MacApper to slow down until the holidays are over, as we all can use a well deserved break.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2008 everyone! Keep it safe.

The deal works by buying the 7 program bundle at $49.99 within the 9 day cut-off point (started just now). So right off the bat you get $234 worth of software for $49. That’s quite a savings.

In my opinion the bundle is well worth $49 for licenses of Forklift, Rapidweaver, and Yep alone, but that’s just my me, and the bundles apps might not appeal to everyone.

The cool part is that when 1,000, 2,400, and 5,000 bundles are sold, a free application is added to your bundle at each threshold. Check out the list pictured here from the MacUpdate Promo page to illustrate.

I think this bundle will be a real success with some great unlocks. Mind mapping tool XMIND Pro 2008 at a retail price of $299 will be a sweet bonus at 1,000 bundles sold. iStabilize is also a really great video stabilization tool and retails for $67 at the 2,400th sale. And finally at 5,000 bundles PulpMotion ,the slideshow creator ($45), gets added to the mix. Regardless of whether these thresholds are met you really can’t go wrong with the software included at $49.

Good luck to the guys over at MacUpdate on some great software savings for the community.

Aiding the decision I also saw that one of the founders of MacApper, Glenn Wolsey, had already gotten involved. With dozens of active staff members at MacApper it made it a bit painful that I was not able to let any of my writers know what was up, but if I had let anyone know I knew the cat would be out of the bag very fast. So the decision was made to keep quiet and nobody was told aside from a couple close friends.

So last Tuesday I followed Phil’s instructions, took MacApper down for a day leaving the prebuilt defaced page, and I felt good knowing that I was part of such a goofball stunt. I figured MacHeistII would be a smash success, developers would sell Mac software, and we would all get a laugh out of it when Phill and the guys revealed the plot.

I never received any money to help out Phil and the MH crew, and I don’t think Glenn did either. I was glad to help out because I know that when we do cross blog promotion (as we have in the past), it’s always great to have support from your peers. I also know that Mac software is what gives MacApper its subject matter, and helping developers sell software has always been a part of our modus operandi here. I wanted MHII to be a success, and helping Phill out was an easy decision.

Alright so the entire story seemed air tight until those crafty Norwegians over at mac1.no (nice!) started to poke some holes in it. This was when I made a really bad and stupid mistake for which I feel awful about. In a blog post I tried to justify the hacking by blaming it on my WordPress install. This was a really stupid thing to say, and it honestly didn’t occur to me at the time, but I inadvertently scared the crap out of thousands of WP users. For this I am genuinely sorry and apologize to WordPress and anyone who I annoyed or scared with my comments. Which was a sh*tload of people.

So in retrospect the other people I ended up hurting are both the readers and writers here. I really hadn’t thought out how angry you people would get if the plot was uncovered early, which is what happened yesterday. I guess I just want to say that none of the writers here at MacApper knew about the stunt. In fact keeping it away from them was not that easy, and a few of them are not happy with me today. The stunt did not go over as we thought it would and I hope you understand that I couldn’t let anyone in on it without risking the entire story unravelling on us. I also wasn’t willing to ‘blow the whistle’ until the Macheist guys spilled the beans as I wanted to honor my commitment to their promotion. So this made it kind of difficult on all of us.

So I guess in closing I will just say again that my intentions were not meant to draw attention to MacApper in a shady attempt to gain readers, or sell out to an advertiser, or to screw over the good people at WordPress in any way. People will draw their own conclusions about the whole thing and if people feel compelled not to visit MacApper anymore, nothing I can say will change that. I guess I would just remind those people that MacApper is the result of dozens of voices, of whom I am just one, and I really hope that one bad apple doesn’t spoil the lot.

Now if you’ll just excuse me while I slip into this asbestos layered suit.

Update: MacApper was not really hacked! None of the following blather about WordPress is true in any way. We love you WordPress!

Anyways I took the liberty of analyzing the hack a bit in the hopes it helps others prevent this from happening to them. Although we had updated our blog to the latest version of WordPress, near as I can tell the hack was accomplished via an XSS (cross site scripting) exploit. By executing some malicious code in the query string the hacker was able to write to our .htaccess file the following:

#this is for rotten mac fanbois - suck it down.
#RewriteRule ^divider.png$ /rotten/divider.png [L]
#RewriteRule ^rotten.jpg$ /rotten/rotten.jpg [L]
#RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/rotten.*
#RewriteRule !rotten/index.html$ /rotten/index.html [L]

The problem is that the exploit appears to be unknown to WordPress as far as I can see (I will be reporting it to them), so other WordPress blogs may be susceptible. I wish I could offer more help. I’ll try to post more as we pour through the logs. Also if anyone is interested this is the defacing I woke up to this morning if you missed it:

Thanks to Marvin Sum and all of the other kind people attempting to notify me last night, and my apologies for the interruption to our readers.

Most notably the issues with data loss when moving files, some firewall stuff, and some (but not all!) of the Time Machine problems have been fixed. Actually the update includes quite a few improvements for both PowerPC and Intel-based Macs. Official list is after the jump.

AirPort

• Allows password-protected accounts on AirPort Disks to show up on in the Finder’s Shared Sidebar.
• Resolves an issue with saved passwords for wireless networks.

Back to My Mac

• Improves the reliability of Back to My Mac-enabled Macs appearing in the Finder’s Shared Sidebar.
• Improves compatibility with D-Link NAT gateways.

Disk utilities

• Restores the functionality of the progress bar during permission repairs in Disk Utility.
• Addresses an issue that could produce an alert when creating disk images using Disk Utility or Terminal.
• Improves disk partitioning when multiple RAID sets are created on the same disk.

iCal

• iCal alarms are now more reliably delivered via email.
• Resolves an issue when inviting attendees via a CalDAV account.

Mail

• Improves stability when resizing columns in the message viewer or switching between Stationery templates in email messages.
• Addresses an issue in which attachments enclosed inside an HTML link may not be clickable in email messages.
• Fixes an issue with email accounts added using the "Simple Setup" feature in which messages cannot be sent due to an SMTP connection failure.
• Improves Smart Mailboxes compatibility with .Mac Sync, and addresses an issue with To Do’s disappearing when using Smart Mailboxes.
• Resolves an issue with syncing Mail accounts with .Mac in which multiple On My Mac folders appear in the Mailbox pane.

Networking

• Addresses an issue in which Microsoft Windows shared folders may be read-only when connected via SMB.

Printing

• Resolves an issue in which user-selected values on Paper Feed PDE are reset to default while saving a custom preset.

Security, Firewall

• Addresses a code signing issue; third-party applications can now run when included in the Application Firewall or when whitelisted in Parental Controls.
• In Security preferences’ Firewall tab, the "Block All" option is now called "Allow Only essential services"
• Includes recent Apple security updates.

System and Finder

• Addresses a potential data loss issue when moving files across partitions in the Finder.
• Resolves an issue with login after turning off FileVault for a specific user account.
• Improves compatibility with Adobe Flash-based uploaders used by .Mac Web Gallery and certain other websites and applications.
• Resolves a potential text drawing issue with certain Adobe Flash-based websites and applications.

Time Machine

• Addresses formatting issues with certain drives used with Time Machine (specifically, single-partition MBR drives greater than 512 GB in size as well as NTFS drives of any size and partition scheme).
• Resolves an issue in which files restored in Time Machine may be restored to the backup hierarchy rather than the folders to which they belong.

Check out Apple’s official release announcement for more info.

If you are looking for a way to establish yourself as a tech writer, learn about group publishing, or just interested in being part of a great team of passionate Mac fans, this could be for you.

Writers at MacApper are paid for their efforts. After being published here, your article is awarded a pay grade based on quality, creativity, and popularity. Payouts happen every 2 weeks, and currently we pay between $3-$10 for articles, with at least $100 in bonuses given out every month for outstanding work. Contributors also have the opportunity to sample some great Mac related products, interface with industry mavons/developers, and sometimes get some free schwag in the process.

For those interested please submit writing samples along with a personal note about how or why you would be a good fit here. You can use our contact page or email us directly at macapper AT gmail.com.

Encrypting and decrypting files with BitClamp is a seamless drag & drop procedure. Drop your file in the window, set a passphrase, and *poof* it’s encrypted. Daniel limited me to what I am able to say about BitClamp but he did allow me to tell you a few tidbits. Sorry no screenshots yet guys.

BitClamp is loosely based around some well known open sourced frameworks and is an implementation of the OpenPGP standard. Support is already included for the following forms of encryption:

• AES 128-bit
• Serpent 128-bit
• Blowfish 64-bit

Daniel promises that the list of supported encryption algorithms will grow as BitClamp matures, and that there are some really outstanding features coming. He says the utility will be ‘Encryption for the rest of us’ and from what I have seen I can tell you that the app is incredibly simple, fast, and already quite polished. I guarantee your little sister can use it.

I’m sworn to secrecy on any type of release date, other than – really soon. I have also been told the expected price point and it is much less than I would have guessed – not much more than the price of lunch.

Got your attention? Head over to Crimson Sky Software for the latest updates on a release of BitClamp. As usual you can expect a full-on review as soon as BitClamp is released here at MacApper.

First of all I should say that I love Photoshop and have been using it happily since version 2.0. Nothing is going to convince me to lose this killer app as it is almost always open on my Mac. So does Pixelmator, priced at $59, seriously lay the smack down on Adobe Photoshop? Of course not, but what you need to keep in mind is that it was never intended to. I think everyone’s biggest annoyance with Photoshop is that it is a huge system resource hog and takes forever to load – this is the space Pixelmator is attempting to occupy.

Pixelmator is gorgeous – no doubt about that. At first I didn’t really care for the black glossy look, but it grew on me. I sort of wish this could be changed in the somewhat scant preferences area, but it can’t. Overall the interface is clean, uncluttered, and logical. The traditional tool icons on the left side pane have some very nice transitional effects when clicked, and the designers made good use of opacities throughout the interface. So yeah all of the delicious GUI stuff we all like to gush about is certainly here.

Also here is all of Photoshop’s core tools but they are noticeably pared down. Selections, gradients, brushes, fills, even the magic wand tool, but don’t expect to get the same kind of control Photoshop offers. Having said that 80% of what you will want to do with these tools is built into Pixelmator. I did find myself wanting for things like fixed size selections, and some better cropping tools, but I would expect these to come with future releases. Selecting colors is straight forward as one would expect and all of the system default and developer palettes are here. The font tool is also the familiar system default.

As an aside, one thing that sort of irritates me is this – If you are going to offer me a Photoshop clone, why not provide some of the same shortcuts we are so used to? Surely they could sneak the basics in, but I found that almost none of the Photoshop shortcuts we all know and love work at all. While it’s hard to fault Pixelmator for not blatantly copying PS on this, it became a bit of an annoyance for me. After digging a bit deeper I couldn’t find any time saving shortcuts to really speak of and a look at the Pixelmator manual confirms this. I think that a 1.0 release should have included these, but that’s just my opinion.

With Pixelmator you can open and save in PSD, TIFF, JPEG, PNG, PDF, EPS and pretty much all other image formats. I opened some complex PSD files (Photoshop) and everything converted fine except for any of my filtered effects, which makes sense.

Another thing I liked about Pixelmator was its Photo browser window which automatically has my iPhoto images ready to roll.

The filters Pixelmator provides might be its best feature. I think novice graphic designers will really appreciate the simplicity Pixelmator offers applying filters over Photoshop. Filters like Blurs, Pixellate, Edge Work, and Gloom were really fluid and provide a live preview so you can see your changes in real time. But what really stands out is that you can really tell that Core Image is being used as the live preview is incredibly fast, even quicker than some of the equivalent filters in Photoshop. Selecting the focus for your filter is done by moving a rope (for lack of a better term) around on your image, which I found a bit odd. See below.

Pixelmator is only 64mb and initially occupies just 36mb of actual system memory at load up. Startup times are very quick – less than seconds on my MacBook Pro! For a test, I loaded up some really large 2mb images and was fairly impressed with how snappy Pixelmator manipulated them. Filters, masks, brushes, and other CPU intensive tasks were very responsive. Don’t think that once you start working with images that Pixelmator will maintain its light memory footprint. I noticed it eating 400mb of actual system ram while working with some fairly common sized images (640×480). This is really just the type of overhead associated with image manipulation and not the fault of Pixelmator, but it’s worth noting.

This deserves a better explanation as it really is Pixelmator’s coolest feature – at least for me. Core Image is Apple’s native image processing framework and there really have not been many image editors to make use of it yet on the Mac. Dumbing it down – (see this article by John Siracusa for more) basically all of the filters you see in Photoshop are the types of things Core Image can do, only it uses your GPU and can do it in real-time. Photoshop doesn’t use Core Image and all of its filters are essentially built into the application (another reason why it is so huge). Apple promises that apps that use Core Image will really fly and this is one of the striking features of Pixelmator, as it’s blazingly fast even when stacking filtered layers. So it’s worth saying that Pixelmator might be the best image editing app on the Mac to make use of Core Image. I’m amazed it took this long for someone to attempt to fill this space.

I feel the need to dispel a rumor here – There is nothing you can do in Pixelmator that you cannot do in Photoshop. There is also plenty of things missing. So when people say this app is a Photoshop killer I have no idea what they are referring to. Having said that, Pixelmator has most of the more common, and many of the power features of PS. So quite a bit of what I find myself firing up Photoshop for, could now be done in Pixelmator. And all that for 1/10th the price. If you’re a blogger who frequently makes small edits to images for publishing, Pixelmator just might be your tool. I couldn’t help telling myself that I should really start doing my quick edits in Pixelmator instead of Photoshop. I think a lot of people who edit graphics will happily give Pixelmator a chance to live in their workflow, and it already seems to have a large following.

Pixelmator did impress me with what it does, and I have little doubt that it will definitely appeal to a large segment of Mac users. The problem is that the shoes it is filling are incredibly large. Photoshop might even be considered the Macs flagship application, and Adobe’s 17 years of usability and UI tweaks really show their worth when you use competing apps like Pixelmator. Again, it’s obviously not fair to continue to compare Pixelmator 1.0 to Photoshop 11.0 (CS3) like this, so I will leave my review on the key point I opened with…

Pixelmator sells for $59 and is backed by a great group of independent Mac developers. For a 1.0 release Pixelmator provides a very impressive use of Apple’s Core Image technology and it’s a very worthy addition to any graphic designer or photo buffs tool chest. Check out the fully functional trial copy and see if it isn’t your next image editing app for Mac.

Comic Life provides a clean interface with all of the drag and drop goodness we have come to love and expect in our Mac apps. I sat an 8 year old friend down to Comic Life the other day and was not surprised to see her happily building a full comic strip, without ever seeing the app or asking how to use it. Alyssa also said she loves the sound effects tied to each action, and I will admit I didn’t even bother turning them off when she left. Comic Life could likely be considered a Delicious Generation style of app, and you will instantly find yourself having fun, instead of learning to use it.

After choosing a frame style (there is a really huge list of these), simply drag and drop images into Comic Life from your collection, add some speech balloons and dialogue text boxes (POW! Blammo! Ziiiing!), and you’re pretty much done. There is a ton of freedom
laying out each element, and your speech balloons can really be modified to match your goals, including new support for multiple tails.

Exporting your masterpiece to iPhoto, HTML, JPEG images, QuickTime, or even your .Mac account is just as painless as one would expect, and I have to admit the end results really blew me away. Printing out your comics might really win the admiration of all your friends and colleagues for your clear artistic know how. I found a few Comic Life examples with Google, but this one is a good example of the results:

While Comic Life isn’t just for kids, I think it is one of those tools that really needs a place on Mac and I am super pleased it exists. Adults and professionals can make use of it for marketing concepts and fun fliers, but your kids and teens are really just going to love this one. The app has also been around long enough and the development crew over at plasq (think Skitch) are a great committed group who supply regular updates and support.

And I nearly forgot, recently one of the Winner’s from our big Mac Switcher’s Giveaway, Jens Bonk, built a great comic using this app if you need another example of its usefulness. Comic Life’s recently release 1.3.4 version goes for $24.95 and there is a free 30 day trial on offer from the the guys at plasq. Stan Lee not included.

If you are looking for a way to establish yourself as a tech writer, learn about group publishing, or just interested in being part of a great team of passionate Mac fans, this could be for you.

Writers at MacApper are paid for their efforts. After being published here, your article is awarded a pay grade based on quality, creativity, and popularity. Payouts happen every 2 weeks, and currently we pay between $3-$10 for articles, with at least $100 in bonuses given out every month for outstanding work. Contributors also have the opportunity to sample some great Mac related products, and sometimes get some free schwag in the process.

For those interested please submit writing samples along with a personal note about how you can contribute here. You can use our contact page or email us directly at macapper AT gmail.com.

AppTapp maintains an updated list of 3rd party iPhone apps released by devcelopers. If it’s in the wild you will almost certainly find it here. First dock your iPhone and install AppTapp.

Now on the iPhone simply open Installer.app and install Community Sources which opens the flood gates to all of these homebrew programs. Once it’s done simply click on anything you want to install – AppTapp will automatically connect to the internet, download the program, verify the source, and install it. Removing programs is just as effortless.

My 5 most awesomest must have installs:

• Term-vt100 is a terminal like app for all you guys who live in a shell. I found it a bit tough to use but it’s still a must have.
• Summerboard extends the springboard (the area holding the apps on the iPhone and allows you to scroll them (because you now have so many!).
• Now that you can move your icons around you can use XLauncher to arrange how they appear on the springboard. Cool.
• Stumbler helps you to locate and get information on wireless access points. Now who is gonna port KisMac?
• Frotz + Zork Z-Code. Remember the interactive fiction games like Zork of our childhood? Go south, take gun, kill bear? Oh yeah, their back and now portable.
• FiveDice is a Yahtzee clone which doesn’t work that well yet, but promises to be a killer game on the iPhone. Note to author: multiplayer bluetooth support!
• NES, is well an NES emulator, and while it’s mainly a proof of concept I love where this is going.

The AppTapp Installer.app is a free, and recently open source tool, but like any of these programs not sanctioned by the big A it is to be used at your own risk. In this case maybe the risk of not having any fun! Seriously though, Apple VP Greg Joswiak even went so far as to say a software update “will most likely break 3rd party iPhone apps”. (Boooo? – sign this).

So what’s done is done, and the iPhone is now truly unlocked and usable on any carrier, without having to open it. iUnlock was officially released by the iPhone Dev Team but it should be mentioned again that it was the work of well over a dozen dedicated people. Keep in mind that if you expect their to be updates to this stuff, you should make a donation to at least one of the groups I mentioned above.

Unlock the iPhone in OS X – 7 Easy Steps

I have all the files you need and a quick guide for performing the unlock on OS X below. A huge thanks to my Russian friend (guest184) in #iphone.unlock on undernet for putting the guts of this together before going to sleep. I just tested it and it worked fine for me on my iPhone here in Asia on Thai GSM and TRUE. I unlocked several more phones with others to verify the steps. If you need help post in the channel and I will do my best to assist, but I am no expert!

Before you Begin: Restore your iPhone to Apple factory settings and install the 1.0.2 update. This can be done by putting the iPhone into recovery mode. This is done by holding both the select and sleep buttons for 25 seconds while your iPhone is docked. Do this until it reboots and returns with a yellow sign reading: Connect to iTunes. Fire up iTunes. Choose Restore. To confirm your version, go to Settings > General > About > Version on the iPhone.

Warning: These tools are not perfect and while it is quite rare, it is always possbile to brick your iPhone when messing with the firmware, and file structure. Also be sure to set your Settings > General > Auto-Lock to Never. You’ve been warned.

Step 1 – Jailbreaking with iNdependence
You need to jailbreak your iPhone in order to write files to it. There is a lot written about this and it is pretty simple to do (1 click) but it often causes problems. A good tool for doing this is either iNdependence, or iFuntastic. iNdependence works best for me so that is what I will show here. The latest version of iFuntastic (v3.x) installed a lot of uneccesary stuff on my iPhone so I avoided it.

This tripped me up! iNdependence performed consistant jailbreaks for me but it asks for the iPhone firmware files. This is a 92mb download you can grab here. Now you need to rename this file .zip and then unzip it somewhere so you can point to it when iNdependence asks for it. As it’s running you should see this:

Step 2 – Activation
You need to activate the iPhone now. Again this is a 1 click solution from within iNdependence, and it will again ask for the iPhone firmware files from the last step. After some rebooting you should be activated and can now check out the iPhone interface etc. Easy so far!

Step 3 – SSH and Installer
Now we need some tools, specifially SSH installed on the iPhone. In order to do this you need to install installer.app from NullRiver. Others had success installing SSH right from iNdependence but sadly it wouldn’t happen for me.

Installer really kicks ass and will open up a whole new world of iPhone apps you never knew existed. You will really be surprised at what is already available for free. Be sure to set up your wi-fi settings because Installer is so smart it just downloads stuff straight from the internet to your iPhone. Right now we are interested in installing the following in this order:

Alright if those apps installed okay you should be able to SSH to your iphone (user: root / password: dottie):

ssh root@your.iphone.ip

Be sure and change the root password at some point – now is a perfect time:

passwd root

Step 4 – Copy the Needed Files
Okay you can remove the SIM from your phone, we won’t need it until the end of the procedure. Now we need to copy some files from the zip I provided onto the iPhone and get hacking. You can simply do this step with any SFTP client like Transmit, whcih is what I did. Put the files from the zip onto your iphone into these locations, you will not need to create any folders:

/usr/libexec/lockdownd
/etc/termcap
/bin/ice.fls
/bin/nor
/bin/iunlock
/bin/bbupdater

Step 5 – Hack the iPhone
Login to iPhone via SSH and execute the following, everything should be cool but be sure to watch for errors. The NOR dump/patch will take about 20 minutes so grab some Corn Pops:

chmod +x /bin/iunlock
chmod +x /bin/bbupdater
mkdir /usr/local
mkdir /usr/local/etc
/bin/launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.CommCenter.plist
iunlock ice.fls nor
bbupdater -v

Step 6 – tweak the Modem Settings
Now we need to tweak the modem a bit. Again in SSH run:

minicom -s

It will yammer about no config file found which is just fine. Select serial port setup, and change /dev/modem to /dev/tty.baseband, save setup as dfl, exit.

You now should have intialized the modem and are dumped to a command line within minicom 2.2. You are so close now it’s not even funny. Type:

AT+CLCK=”PN”,0,”00000000″

AT+CLCK=”PN”,2

Both command shoud result in an OK response from minicom.

Step 7 – Dance Around the Room
Reboot the iPhone and slap your SIM card in now. You should now be basking in the warm glow of having a fully unlocked iPhone. If not don’t despair. These tools are not perfect and not everyone pulls off the unlock on their first attempt (me included). If you have a problem, a restore and restarting the procedure over again can very likely yield different results.

If you have difficulty you may also want to check out GeeZuZz’s excellent unlocking resource, the Hackint0sh forums, or jump in Undernet on IRC, #iphone.unlock for a live chat.

The following are the comments I felt deserved a free license for two lucky readers here. Thanks to everyone who participated and don’t forget to subscribe to our feed so you don’t miss any upcoming giveaways.

• James C wanted to be able to save files based on type and have spotlight add some notes data to its descriptors automatically.
• RUDE offered a load of suggestions including better hotkeys and hiding some feaures he didn’t need.

Congrats to the winners and great thanks to our friends at St. Clair Software for offering the licenses and participatng in the discussion.

Best new feature might be the ability to add contacts into groups (see below) which is essential for those of us with a ballooning list. The new beta also has direct support for Address Book allowing you to SMS or call anyone in your list. Here is a complete list of changes.

• Group contacts
• Apple Address Book contacts in Skype
• Create and manage public chats
• Auto Redial (awesome!)
• Easy sound-level controls
• Overhauled file transfer

Grab your copy of Skype 2.7 for Mac beta free from Skype.

Having said that, setting a default folder for all of your applications to use can be a bit of a pain in the ass requiring you to independently set each apps preferences. Navigating to the right folder while saving can also be a pain with Finders limited toolset. Enter Default Folder X which does just this and a whole lot more you might not expect it to.

At its most basic Default Folder X will allow you to set the default folder for all of your applications with just one dialogue. You can set it so all of your applications dump to one location or several really easily. Find the programs preferences and settings in your system preferences pane and you will see a screen like below.

To say Default Folder X really beefs up your save dialogue boxes, is a bit of an understatement. From a typical save dialogue you now have the ability to browse favorites, recent, and all open finder folders (even if they are under other windows). I really like the way the background dims to gray when the save dialogue is open and how you can click on any open finder window. Since version 3.0 you have also been able to add Spotlight comments and search keywords to a file, right as your saving it, which can really speed up future searches for it.

Another stand out feature of DFX is the ability to rebound to the last file you were using in a given application. Default Folder X remember this for you so you don’t have to browse for it again. By having Default Folder X boot into your dock at login you really are never more than a click or two away from just about any location on your Mac. Try it and you will see what I mean.

DFX predates OS 8 and is one of the most robust and well liked utilities out there for our Macs. There is a fairly large group of people who swear by it and I am one of them. Default Folder X retails for $34.95 and there is a full featured 30 day trial to see if it is right for you.

BONUS! The developers at St. Clair Software have agreed to give away 2 licenses of Default Folder X to 2 lucky commenters to this article. To be entered tell us what you like/dislike about DFX or suggest a new feature. Winners will be announced in 1 week!

In the mean time you can bet I will be watching the post-iPhone hype machine pretty damn closely. For now here are the most compelling iPhone related articles I found today. I will add to these if I find some more worthy meat and potatoes, but here’s how the iPhone’s US release is looking so far…

• TUAW has the obligatory unboxing video.
• Apple posted the official user guide for iPhone sometime around 6pm EST. They also released the full line of accessories for iPhone.
• MacRumors has this thread detailing users first impressions and opinions of iPhone.
• Engadget has an ubercool video with the Woz himself waiting in line to get an iPhone. Also from Engadget is a gallery showing activation photos.
• iFixit has perhaps the first dismantling of the iPhone complete with high res screenshots. Powerbookmedic has another.
• Findnearby has a mashup aggregating several sources for those looking to get their hands on one of these still.
• Gizmodo has this rather disturbing video of Steve Job’s wannabes as they descend on the Apple store in Manhattan to, uhh, piss off security?
• Appletell is giving away an iPhone for all of you too lazy to go down to your local Apple/AT&T store. The contest is open until 6pm next friday, so get your entry in.
• And finally our own managing editor here at MacApper Jordan Golson, finally debuts as a hand model for Associated Press, with this post featuring his own just bought iPhone. Way to go Golson.

First, and not really surprisingly, the photo is legitimate.

Second, many employees with access to the iPhone have been using them, often in public, with permission, since sometime in May. In other words, this iPhone slip-up isn’t that unexpected and not really that big of a deal from Apple’s perspective. During the period where the finalized iPhone UI was strictly guarded many of the iPhones in the wild for testing in had unusual dummy user interfaces in place of the smooth interface we now know the iPhone to use.

Third, the actual rules of iPhone use before the official release on June 29th have been fairly loose. Using an iPhone in public is fine, showing it casually to someone is okay – but letting someone else handle or use your iPhone is strictly forbidden. Even sending email from the iPhone has been permitted, each email message automatically stating “Sent from my iPhone”. These ground-rules for iPhone use seem to have been made a bit more strict than usual during WWDC, more than likely just to prevent iPhone holders from being harassed or mugged while commuting to, or partying after WWDC each day.

Finally, the individual in the posted iPhone shot is not Mike Matas but Tim Omernick, coincidentally also previously of Delicious Monster. Tim is a developer for the team working on the iPhone so it follows that he would indeed have access to one. Tim, who formally sported a beard and longer hair resembles Matas quite strongly with a similar hair cut and shave.

It doesn’t sound like anyone is in too deep of trouble for this whole incident, but it was helped us understand a bit better what has gone on behind the scenes with the creation and testing of the iPhone.

(Photo via chasingfun)