Posterous, the online alternative blogging client that bases its input for post entry on email, has recently updated their iOS client to version 2.1.  The big feature with this update is the ability to post “Events”.  These are specific posts meant to be created for or at a particular gathering complete with a description and a picture.  This feature is very similar to FaceBook’s places feature and nabbing slightly towards Twitter.

Tagging posts has also been greatly improved.  To tag a post, tap the “tag” icon next to the title.

Overview of Updates:

• Events.  Create and share with events going on around you.
• Improved Tagging.  Tags are now added by tapping the “tag” icon to the left of a title.

Do you have a blog?  If so, what do you use?  Posterous?  WordPress?  Tumblr?

Well after a few hours of the pretty largely publicized web-based jailbreak fiasco, Apple has already shopped up a fix and said that it will be released in the next firmware update of iOS, according to what CNET is reporting.

On Wednesday an Apple spokeswoman said in a statement, “We’re aware of this reported issue, we have already developed a fix and it will be available to customers in an upcoming software update.”

Apple declined to say when the update would be pushed out.

The update of the matter comes just a day after Apple said that they were aware of the situation and were currently working on a fix for the problem. The exploit, exposed by those clever people in the iPhone Dev Team, apparently was capable of a number of things aside from being a way to jailbreak your iPhone, iPad or iPod (no Mac or PC required)

There are two distinct vulnerabilities in the iPhone uncovered with the jailbreak software’s release, principal analyst Charlie Miller of Independent Security Evaluators told CNET Tuesday. One flaw is in the way the browser parses PDF files, enabling the code to get inside a protective sandbox, and the other hole allows code to break out of the sandbox and get root, or control, privileges on the device.

There has been a temporary “fix” that alerts users when a source wants to open a PDF, alerting users that the exploit of the current software version can allow access to your device for malicious activity.

Apple Releases Graphics Update For Snow Leopard To Developers

In addition to Apple sewing up a fix, they have also let free an update for the graphics software in Snow Leopard. Doesn’t seem really clear on what Apple’s motive is for developers, however, debs have been asked to test several different aspects including VRAM and sleep-from-wake issues. They didn’t really go in-depth with the update description either, stating that the update contained reliability in “graphics applications and games.”

Some gamers of the Mac OS front have been waiting for Apple to boost the performance of graphics on the system to provide them with a better gaming experience. With that being said, it isn’t exactly known if those requests are fulfilled in the release or coming in Mac OS 10.6.5. Speaking of which, it’s not even certain when Apple plans to release the software to the public.

Apple About To Pick Up A Chinese Game Developer For $150 Million

Everyone knows that Apple has plenty of money in reserves to buy…well…any piece of talent they want. Seems like Cupertino is still shopping. They are in final discussions of picking up a Chinese game developer for a cool $150 million, based on what Chinese medium SinoCast Daily Business Beat is reporting. Handseeing Information Technology is a company of developers that specialize in creating Rich Internet Applications (RIA). Now the qutoe from the report made does say the company is being purchased for 150 billion, but we highly think that’s just a typographical error.

As US-based Apple Inc. is close to making the purchase of Handseeing Information Technology Co., Ltd., a mobile Internet service provider and a mobile game developer in China, for as much as USD 150 billion, the emergence of more potential buyers has added to the uncertainty of the deal.

Apple’s plan to take over the Chinese company underscores its mounting interests in China’s potentially huge mobile Internet sector, which has been basically ignored by it for a long time.

Why is Apple buying this company exactly? We don’t know. However, Apple has shown interest in getting into the gaming party with hiring employees who have extensive gaming backgrounds to their software development portfolio. The next iOS software release is expected to debut Game Center to provide an online community for gaming including automatic and custom matchmaking and also keep track of player stats such as rankings and achievements. Handseeing also boasts in having a very close partnership with Oracle’s Sun Microsystems. Sun also gave credit to the company in helping the Oracle subsidiary developed new Java-based RIA that is used in Tianya Online. Tianya has become China’s largest online social community forums.

Seems like Europeans like what the iPhone have to offer. The European Commission is putting the iPhone in their pockets and taking the Blackberry out. The EC has added support for the iPhone and is declining use of the Blackberry. The move is said to affect more than 2,000 people.

CNET states that the European Union’s executive branch has been in search of a smartphone that can handle the new deployment of a synchronization tool the organization will be using. They tested a variety of mobile OSes, including Blackberry OS, iOS and Android and they’ve found that the iPhone and select devices running Google’s Android operating system are more than capable of completing the task.

A spokesman for the EC gave a brief result of their testing to CNET.

“Following this evaluation, the HTC and the iPhones emerged as the most suitable platforms for voice/mail-centric mobile devices. As a result, the Commission currently supports these two platforms,”

The basis of testing among the smartphones that the group chose was financial impact, resiliency, administration overhead, integration of IT infrastructure, security, applications and future technologies. The final selection of the choice platform will affect 2,500+ people out of the 32,000 employee base.

Research in Motion has been getting jabbed from left to right this week. One of the issues involves RIM and it’s methods of security that doesn’t allow countries with certain policies to snoop information from Blackberry OS devices. As a result, a number of countries are thinking about axing the platform altogether. The Saudis said on Tuesday that they will be pulling support for Blackberry out of the country as early as this week. The UAE chimed in at the beginning of the week that they’ll also be chopping support off for some key Blackberry features within the nation this October. India has also made claims that they are hitting the off switch on Blackberry OS. There has been some rumors about that state RIM is willing to compromise it’s data security methods to keep business running as usual in the countries. RIM officially chimed back that those statements are untrue, they are not willing to loosen up on security and is not handing over their encryption key to satisfy any request. Like the saying goes: Its just been one of those weeks…for RIM, that is.

Businessweek reports the quickly growing popularity of Apples iOS platform among the enterprise. The profile states that Apples gathering of security information and other facets learned from the iPhone and its customers have led the alarming acceptance of new iOS devices, such as the iPad, iPod and iPhone, especially among small, medium and large business bodies.

Apple, known for courting consumers with sleek designs and easy-to-use software, is making inroads with corporations that say the iPad can make workers more productive without putting sensitive customer information at risk. SAP (SAP), Tellabs (TLAB), and Daimler’s (DAI:GR) Mercedes-Benz are using the tablet-style computer for tasks as varied as accessing work e-mail, approving shipping orders, and calling up on-the-spot auto-finance options.

Before the wildfire acceptance of the world to the iOS platform and its devices, many people, especially enterprise customers, were hesitant to purchase tablet computers because of the lack of optimal performance that the devices offer, most specifically in multitasking. Since the debut of iOS (formerly iPhone OS), the business world has taken a different approach on how handhelds and tablet computers can be used to fully optimize workflow and have been experimenting with the iOS platform. The response has been overwhelmingly positive with multiple companies taking a full-scale adaptation of iPhones, iPads and/or iPods in the business place.

Reservations aside, Wells Fargo saw early on how quickly the iPad might take hold among business clients the weekend the device was released. Finance executives of large companies – those that generate more than $50 million in revenue – accessed corporate Wells Fargo accounts with iPads, says Amy Johnson, a Wells Fargo vice-president who works on the company’s online portal and mobile strategy. A finance official or account representative could use a mobile device like the iPad to approve multimillion-dollar wire transfers, she explains.

Mercedes-Benz has been profiled as another company that has fully taken on a iOS initiative, if you will. The company handed out a slew of iPad devices to over 40 of its North American stationed dealerships. The devices allow users to be highly more efficient by fully aiding personnel in sales in variety of aspects, including showcasing financing options to customers, completing credit checks, showing customer different options and models of vehicles and allowing for on-the-spot payments. Mercedes-Benz as well as Porsche dealerships have also been documented into offering customers use of iPads as their vehicle is being prepared and giving iOS devices (more precisely iPads) to customers who purchase their vehicles.

Apple has been making a strong push toward the enterprise market for the iPhone OS. Accordingly, the business world has accepted the operating system with open arms. As of right now, a large amount of the Fortune 100 companies have made the switch to the iPhone OS. In the latest news of the spread of iPhoneism, AT&T has publicly claimed that their numbers indicate that 4 out of every 10 purchases of the iPhone is enterprise related.

AT&T Chief Executive of Business Solutions Ron Spears states that more than the device itself, in the end, it’s all about software.

“At the end of the day, its just software. Thats all it is”

He continues by stating that the iPhone is being declared by small, medium and large business alike as secure, immensely powerful, simply designed and even simpler to use. A surprising amount of business customers, as he states, have been seeing and using the iPhone OS as a replacement to the notebook computer claiming it to be an all-in-one device.

“So enterprises today view the iPhone as a mobile computer. It happens to have a voice application on it. But whats important is what you can do with it, and the way you can mobilize workforces, and specific parts of your workforce, not the entire workforce.”

Spears says that the iPhone OS has not only revolutionized the mobile device, but the way how companies manage and handle business, giving an instance of how AT&T has embraced the platform.

“Most of our monthly reporting is all built into an app that gets updated when our systems get updated, and we do an automatic fetch. And any time I want to look at where we sort of sit from a financial point of view in ABS, it now resides on my iPhone as an app. So it starts to change the way you think about governing your business. It changes the speed with which you can make decisions.”

He also gives interesting question where employees are given the operating system the conduct daily activities compared to the notebook computing device.

If theyve got a field service force that needs one or two applications on a daily basis; do they need to go out and spend $1,000 or $1,200 for a laptop and then worry about sort of the lifecycle costs of keeping up with the laptop?

He also touches on a topic in which almost all organizations have agreed about Googles Android in the business place.

I havent seen the Android platform yet in the enterprise space. Not to say it wont come, but pretty much that platform has been built with a very specific focus to consumers. Over time, my guess is there will be an evolution thats kind of hard to ignore the enterprise space.”

Experts have stated that Googles sale pitch of the Android ecosystem of devices is almost all towards the consumer and practically non-existent to business as they have established in many of their advertisement campaigns, such as that with Verizon and the Motorola Droid. Googles creation also doesnt meet the minimal standards for security by most of the business section that uses Microsoft Exchange Server. They also havent utilized the Apple/RIM-like pushing of updates first popularized by the Blackberry.

Apple, on the other hand, has managed to make the consumer and the enterprise their main goal in their marketing objective, adding Exchange support, push capabilities, corporate virtual private networks (VPN) and a slew of security measures to protect information on the enterprise device back in iPhone OS 2.0, exceedingly making advances in them with every release of iPhone updates, which they have been known for doing with all of their software. Google, Research In Motion (RIM) and even Microsoft has seem to be stepping more towards the consumer rather than corporates with both RIM and Microsoft producing sole consumer oriented marketing campaigns with the Blackberry 6 software and Microsofts new Windows Phone 7. Despite what experts and analysts say, one thing is certain: Apple is definitely spreading at a rate that its competitors having some trouble keeping up with

Another compelling patent from Apple has shown its face in the USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office) today. In this particular software patent filing, Apple describes the ability to create a shopping list on the iPhone OS and the software permitting the user to check out electronically.

The patent, numbered 20100082447, explains and illustrates systems and methods for offering shopping information for a consumer. Continuing in the reading, the file discloses embodiments and functions of how the system (iPhone OS) would allow the user to create shopping lists by scanning products and supply different types of information on the product(s) such as product quality, consumer ratings, pricing information of the product in that store and price comparison of the product among several stores in the area. It also goes to state that the system could even allow the users to collect x amount of items into a list and then begin to check the items out themselves electronically, preventing the need for check-out stations. The individuals given credit for the production of the invention is Amir Mahmood aMikhak and Gloria Lin. In the patent, Apple states:

Certain aspects of embodiments disclosed herein by way of example are summarized below. It should be understood that these aspects are presented merely to provide the reader with a brief summary of certain forms an invention disclosed and/or claimed herein might take and that these aspects are not intended to limit the scope of any invention disclosed and/or claimed herein.

Indeed, any invention disclosed and/or claimed herein may encompass a variety of aspects that may not be set forth below. The present disclosure generally relates to techniques for executing various shopping related transactions on a mobile electronic device. For example, in some embodiments a mobile electronic device may be used to identify a product and obtain pricing information relevant to retailers of the product within a specified geographical location.

In another embodiment, a mobile electronic device may be used to acquire pricing information for a shopping list of products. Embodiments may also include a variety of features that make the shopping experience quick and efficient while allowing the consumer to hunt for a better bargain. Furthermore, several embodiments also allow the product manufacturers and/or retailers to distribute relevant product information to targeted consumers who are known to be, or who may be, interested in buying a particular product.

More details can be seen on Patently Apple

What is Square exactly? Square allows for individuals and businesses, big or small, to become instant merchants through their iPhone OS and now Android devices. Best of all, there is no need for a merchant account. All you need to do is sign up through the application after you have downloaded it and thats it. The only fee that is charged is a 2.75% plus $0.15 tax for each swiped transaction you complete. 3½% plus $0.15 is what is charged for transaction that are keyed in. Dont worry about getting a bill either, Square just subtracts the said amount from the transaction that you complete. So, for example, lets say you charge your friend $150 for giving them lower level seats to a Lakers playoff game. If you swipe-in your transaction, Square will subtract $4.13, which is 2¾% of $150 plus the $0.15 which will equal out to $4.28 all together. Keying the card number in will give Square permit to take a 3½% take plus the same $0.15 which would make the final cost of transaction $5.40.

The swiping input is done by a card reading dongle (in the image below) that connects to your iPhones or other devices’ 3½mm jack (typically used for listening devices). When you sign up, Square sends you the card reader to attach to your handheld companion whenever you are ready to make a transaction and the dongle is provided free of charge. They will send the dongle to the address you have listed in your Square profile so be sure to use a stationary address. At this point in time, Square will not be able to send the attachment to a P.O. box or other similar means of postal storage.

The dongle that Square send for free.

Square is primarily designed to be paperless. The software automatically catalogs each and every transaction and all of its documentation in the users account as well as sends it to the merchants email. The customer of the merchant can choose to receive their receipt via email or SMS. A picture of the merchant is provided to the customer in the receipt as well as a Google Map pinpointing the location where the transaction took place. In addition to the electronic receipt ability, we have found that the archiving of purchases gives you a third option to provide a customer with a physical copy of a receipt on spot or even mailing it as an invoice.

Square is definitely something we see that has very high potential of gaining tremendous momentum. The ability to send receipts through email and SMS as well as have them archived for the merchant is instant and very convenient. The application is available right now on the App Store for free. Download, complete the free sign up and get your dongle and youll be on your way to accepting card payments from all of your friends, family and customers. For more information on Square, visit squareup.com or check out the videos on YouTube.

The idea behind Gas Cubby is fairly simple.  Every time you fill up your car, bring along your iPhone.  You’ll be prompted to enter a variety of information — your odometer reading, the price you’re paying for gas, how many gallons you’ve filled, etc..  As soon as you save that information into Gas Cubby, it will tell you the exactly how many miles per gallon you got on your last tank.

But just how can that single number be helpful?  If you’re like me, you’re probably looking for every way to save a penny that you can.  After every fill up I try some new tricks to improve my mileage.  Tire pressure, braking style, different brands of fuel..  the list goes on and on.  Gas Cubby gives me a perfect picture of how the changes I’ve made have impacted my car’s performance.

Gas Cubby also tracks other information that can help you figure out what’s what.  Remember my mentioning tire pressure and different brands of gas?  I can enter that into every fill-up record.  Different octanes and station locations too.  There’s even a separate function that will let me track services like oil-changes and whatnot.  It has all the bases covered.

The app will save all of this data entry after entry and display it both as a list and as a graph, giving you an at-a-glance impression of your vehicles performance.  Want to make your own graph?  No problem — Gas Cubby can export the data as a CSV.  Own more than one vehicle?  Gas Cubby supports that too.  It even offers a km/L option for Canadian drivers like myself.

The only real complaint we had here was that, while Gas Cubby provides a great tool to track your mileage, it doesn’t really offer any tips to improve it.  We would have loved to have seen something simple included — like 10 tips to improve mileage, or mileage improvement tips popping up every time you loaded — but there was nothing to be seen.  To use Gas Cubby to its fullest, you’re really going to have to do some googling to find mileage improvement tips that can work for you.  It seems like such an obvious thing to include — how did they miss that?

It also seemed a little strange that entering the data takes you through a 12 step process.  It’s quick to do, but the whole thing could have been streamlined much more effectively.  When you’re standing at a pump punching data into your iPhone, you’d like to get back in your car as quickly as possible so that other cars can come in.  Spending 30 seconds or so jumping from step to step can feel like forever under those circumstances.

There’s a paid version of Gas Cubby available for $6.99, but don’t be fooled — the free version offers all the same features.  The only difference is that the free one is ad-supported, and since the ads aren’t in any way obtrusive, it would be downright silly to shell out nearly $7 when you could have it for free.

After all — you wouldn’t be downloading Gas Cubby unless you were frugal-minded in the first place.

Once Things is first launched, the first thing you will notice is different folders to store items to do. The categories are set up for when you think of something you need to do you can just put it right in a category for easy organization, for instance if you need to complete something on a later date you can input that in the scheduled folder. Once something has been completed you simply check it off, Things will move it to the Logbook folder, Things keeps a record of all of your entries in there, they can also be deleted from the log book for privacy.

Planning projects is another plus, adding a project allows sub to-dos to be added, for instance if your planning a wedding you can add Plan Wedding to your project list, set a due date when you want it done by, then you can go into the project and add items that need to be completed in there.

On top of all of the organization Things has a sister program for your Mac, called Things as well, which will allow you to sync your To-Do lists back and fourth between your Mac and iPhone over Wi-Fi. The only downside to Things is it does not sync with your calendar, allowing this would put the icing on the cake. Also $9.99 for this app is a bit much when there are dozens of other To-Do lists in the app store. If you dont mind paying the extremely high price and need to get organized then this App is definitely for you.

With features such as Piles and four walls and a floor to throw your stuff around on, BumpTop’s interface is a versatile workspace to organize your files. It isn’t a Finder replacement, but if you like to organize your stuff in plain sight, such as multiple files relating to a project, or a bunch of pictures, you can resize them and place them on any of BumpTop’s surfaces. It’s also easy to quickly jot a note and literally throw it up onto the wall in front of you, sticking there to remind you about your son’s soccer game in two hours.

It’s a nice interface to be sure. It’s pretty, smooth, and is more like a 3D Spaces iteration for the files on your desktop. You can customize the images on each wall, and even double click the background to get a traditional 2D view of your desktop.

There’s two versions, free and paid (obviously). The pro version is the one with the Multitouch Gestures, like pinching to resize items, and swiping through individual items in your Piles. You also get Find-As-You-Type, useful for locating lost items in a crowded desktop. After all, you’ve got 5 surfaces to store stuff on, and if you utilize them, you’ll need this feature for sure. BumpTop also stays out of the way when using Spaces, Exposé, and QuickLook, letting you use these awesome integrated OS X features without a hiccup.

As much as I was impressed with the smoothness of the transitions between surfaces, I found the interface to be a little congested when used on my 13-inch MacBook Pro. Shrinking the files helped, though I liked the preview of photos, and shrinking those too much sort of killed that experience.

Additionally, I’m an avid GeekTool user, and with files in stacks and piles and on walls and such, the text files I display on my desktop with GT are obscured to say the least, if not unreadable and unusable sometimes.

Overall, it’s a great experience for those who love to see their files in front of them and use their mouse or trackpad. Quicksilver lovers will no doubt be unimpressed, but those loving nice graphics and wanting something new to try out against their traditional Mac desktop will be glad they gave it a shot. BumpTop is free to use without the Multitouch and other features, and the all-inclusive Pro version will run you 29 bucks.

1.) Keep Track of Your Work and Responsibilities

If you’re a student, or just have a lot of projects to keep track of, make sure you check out our article on 5 Apps For Staying Productive At School, where you’ll find our recommendations for assignment wrangling. Having one of these apps is invaluable, no one can remember everything all of the time. For a more simplified to-do manager, check out Remember The Milk. It’s an internet-synced to-do manager that will sync with as many computers as you want. Just set up your account, install one of the many services RTM offers, and get organized.

2.) Sync and Organize Your Digital Devices

iTunes is great for the iPods and iPhones in your life, but what about your other devices? You have a few options. Use the junkware that came with them to sync your music, photos, and movies, or take charge with a Mac application that makes its living from picking up where inadequate software leaves off. One answer lies in DoubleTwist (Mac OS X – Free). An open-source project that is still under heavy development, DoubleTwist supports Archos media players, the Palm Pre, Sony PSP, INQ1, G1 and Android phones, select Nokia, Motorola, and Sony Ericsson phones, as well as Blackberry, WinMo 5.0 and 6.0, as well as iPod and iPhone models! Just drag and drop for file and playlist transfer to your mobile device. New devices are being supported all the time, and you can request a feature or device in their forums.

3.) Get Access To Your Computers From Anywhere!

An important aspect of being organized is having easy access to all of your information and tools that you need to get things done. Several Mac apps make this idea easy to implement. Start with a solid VNC app for remote control of your computers from any corner of the globe. Try out the free apps JollysFastVNC or Chicken of the VNC, which we featured in our huge list of awesome Mac Freeware from last year (many applications in there are still very relevant today). Both will let you see and control your home or work computers from anywhere with an internet connection.

Also, grab an FTP client for easy transfer of files across your computers. I fully recommend downloading the free Cyberduck or the $28 YummyFTP, both of which work equally well in my own (and others) experiences, for file transfer to your website or personal machines.

4.) Back Up Your Files…twice.

If you aren’t doing this by now, get to it. Like, as soon as you’re done reading this paragraph. I cannot stress the importance of having multiple backups of your stuff. Having another copy of your data off-site (away from home, work, wherever) is equally important, and can save you in the case of a fire, Act of God, or robbery. In addition to Apple’s own Time Machine, there are many online services available, such as Dropbox (2GB Free; plus Paid tiers for more storage) and Mozy(2GB free as well as paid levels with more storage). Both do a great job of running silently from the menu bar, backing your stuff up to their servers as you go. So go get one! I think I hear a tornado coming…

5.) Keep your Mac up-to-date with AppFresh.

Spend less time keeping all your applications updated! Let AppFresh take care of it for you! AppFresh is a free indispensable utility that will index your applications and find their updates, all you have to do is click download and it installs them for you! Just run it once a week or so, and enjoy an quick update experience.

6.) Lock Down Your Finances

Whether or not you choose to do this completely digitally, there is something to be said for a software solution to one of human-kind’s most stressful topics – money. There are standalone apps to help you wrap your head around where you’re spending all that hard-earned dough (that thing you’re typing on, maybe?). For that, I recommend apps like SEE Finance($20), iCash($39.90), and even Quicken 2007($69.99) can help you get ahold of and track your finances. These apps serve their purpose well, and are all worth at the very least a look-see. From simple budgeting to keeping track of interest and investments, they’ll provide a good user experience and some allow you to download transactions from your bank’s website.

If you want to see up the minute updates with your current balances and lines of credit in an easy to see visual environment, I recommend Mint (free). Being able to have everything in front of you is invaluable. Mint provides you with complete breakdown of all your account activity over time, and gives you readouts of where you currently stand, all in a cross-platform web interface. It can’t get much easier than this, folks.

In today’s MacApper How-To, we’re going to show you a little app to bridge the divide between Facebook and your Apple Address Book.

1) Head on over to the Apple.com downloads section, and grab a handy little app called AddressBookSync.

2) Once you’ve downloaded the disk image, and dragged it to your Applications folder, go ahead and launch the app. Upon launch you’ll be prompted to give it access to your Facebook account via Facebook Connect.

3) Once you connect, the app should start downloading your friends list, and comparing any names within Address Book to your friends list. AddressBookSync will also download your friend’s current profile pictures, and show them side-by-side with the current picture you have assigned to them in Address Book (if any).

4) Hit “Sync to Address Book,” and all of the photos will be assigned in Address Book.

You can feel free to trash the app once finished, but I suggest keeping it around. That way you can keep photos up-to-date for all of your contacts. Facebook’s TOS prevent developers from calling other useful info like e-mails, screennames, and phone numbers through the API (likely out of privacy concerns), but getting the photos is a definite first step. No more digging through photos and cropping!

When it comes to depth of content, lets get one thing straight; the database in Movie Genie isn’t just IMDB-like, it is IMDB.  Less a movie database and more an method of presenting IMDB in an iPhone-friendly way, Movie Genie acts as your go between for IMDB when you’re on the go and it does what it does incredibly well.  The fine folks at IMDB have been dragging their heels on developing an iPhone app for far too long.  Now that Movie Genie is here, they may very well have regretted the wait.

Any actor, director, or film can be found in seconds via the search feature.  Once you’ve found what you’re looking for, the profile is streamlined to make for easy navigation.  At the top of each page are two tabs; one that brings up a person or projects details, and one that brings up the cast & crew or filmography.

The Details page offers up all of the relevant information that you would find in an IMDB profile that’s not pertaining to the list data on the second tab.  Plot, trivia, goofs, user reviews, taglines — you name it, it’s on there.  In fact the only thing that seemed to be missing were trailers, and even they won’t be gone for too long.  The developer currently has trailers slated for a future update.  To keep things streamlined, each of the items on the details page offers up only a few short lines of text.  If you want more, you can just click on the feature to get all of the information.  This makes sure that the Details page provides access to everything you could want without ever getting cluttered.

In addition to the basic search feature Movie Genie also lets you keep track of favorites so that you can revisit material at a later time.  If you’re a big fan of Pauly Shore for example (and who isn’t?) you can bookmark his IMDB profile to your favorites for a quick visit whenever it’s needed.  Even better than the favorites feature (which, lets be honest, was totally expected) is the history tab.  Just give it a quick click and see all of the pages you’ve visited in reverse chronological order (ie most recent first).

Because it uses IMDB as its source material, Movie Genie can help you keep track of more than just movies.  TV shows and video games are also organized here, as well as all of the people associated with them.  If you want to know all the video games Ron Gilbert has worked on or all the TV shows Norman Lear has produced, the information is all at your fingertips.

The only negative to be found with Movie Genie is its nearly total lack of offline functionality.  Because it depends on IMDB for its database resources, Movie Genie needs to remain online for it to work.  And while this should pose no problem for iPhone owners, iPod Touch users will be left out in the cold.  Sure they can browse explore and enjoy when near a wifi point, but let’s be honest — how much of this app’s appeal is for users sitting near a wireless router at home and how much is it for those wanting a point of refernece while in a video store?  Or settling an argument with a friend while out and about on the town?  The idea of Movie Genie is to have a movie database on-the-go.  For iPod Touch users, that simply isn’t the case.

Still, that’s not to say the app would have zero appeal to those who are stuck offline in public.  Let’s say you’ve used your favorites tab to assemble a list of movies you’d like to see.  That list will still be visible regardless of internet connection.  If you want to go any deeper than that though, like finding out who is in the movies on your list or reading a quick synopsis, you’re fresh out of luck.

The lack of offline functionality will definitely be a dealbreaker for a number of iPod Touch users, but when it comes to everybody else?  Movie Genie is easily the best movie reference tool in the iTunes App Store so far.  IMDB should consider dealing directly with developer Taylan Pince when they finally get around to developing an iPhone app, because they’d have a hard time topping what he’s produced with Movie Genie.

Buddy the Bus offers up a 21st century take on the book-and-record sets we used to get as kids.  Back then you’d dig out your Fisher-Price turntable and listen to the narrator read along with the story.  Now that we live in “the future,” both audio and book are magically transported as one package in this totally free app.  Your kids can pop in their headphones and listen along as Buddy the Bus takes his passengers all over the town.

Baby Flash Cards is, to no ones suprise, exactly what it sounds like.  Flash cards are considered by many to be a great way to stimulate a child’s mind.  But why shell out $5-$10 for a set of real cards when you can get a fantastic free set right here?  The free set included in Baby Flash Cards features a variety of real world objects and animals paired up with their matching words.  Cards can be explored alphabetically or randomly, and you can set it so that all the info is on the card at once or the words are hidden until you touch them.

SimpleDraw proves one solid universal truth: kids LOVE coloring.  It’s timeless.  Give a kid in 12th century Mongolia a crayon and he’ll know what to do with it in seconds.  So it should come as no surprise that the one app my 2 year old is always trying to wrestle away my iPod for is the one she calls “COLOR!!”  SimpleDraw’s name couldn’t be more accurate.  You can select from a handful of colors and brush thicknesses, but asides from that things are kept alarmingly minimalist.  Your little one can just put a finger on the screen and go to town.

Children’s Classics let’s you put the tradition of reading with you’re kids right in your pocket.  Sure you could ask your child to sit quietly and patiently on that long train trip/airport wait/doctor’s office visit, but wouldn’t it be more fun to break out the bedtime stories in the middle of the afternoon?  Children’s Classics offers up 16 classics children’s reads ranging from Pinnochio and Robin Hood to Aesop’s Fables and The Secret Garden.  If you find your family is really digging it, make sure to do a search on the AppStore for BeamItDown Software.  Not only have they pblished this great collection, but they have a number of other classic family stories like Alice in Wonderland or A Christmas Carol available completely free of charge.

myHomework is an app that every iPhone/iPod toting student should own, and every parent encourage.  myHomework lets a child keep track of their class schedule, assignments, tests and other school activities.  Even better, it has color coded reminders to let them know when something is about to come due or has missed a deadline.  Organization is a cornerstone to success, and what better developmental task to apply this to than the daily juggle of academia?

This is just the tip of the iceberg.  There are many apps, both paid and free, that prove to be a great resource for parents the world over.  What iPhone apps do you share with your kids?

Project Gutenberg contains over 28,000 free titles that you can access from your computer, and now your iPhone too. Eucalyptus is really just an app that allows you to download and then read books from Project Gutenberg. And it does this very well. You can look at the “Picks” or search by author or book. The Picks are good if you are looking for a very classic book, or just don’t know what you want to read. Once you have selected a book you would like to read, you just click Get Book, and a nice animation shows you that the book has gone to your downloads. The only possible improvement for downloading books would be the ability to browse by genre or alphabetically.

When Eucalyptus downloads a book, there are two parts: The actual downloading and the structure analyzing. The downloading is straightforward, and when it says, “analyzing structure…” it basically means that it is analyzing and converting the book to be read with Eucalyptus. There is even a two-part progress indicator to show you how much of each step has been completed. The longer the book, the longer this whole process takes, so be prepared to wait a few minutes for a long book.

Your library of books is sorted in two ways: By title and by author. The Authors tab allows you to see books by specific authors (and also just see what authors you have books by), and the Books tab allows you to see your books alphabetically. There’s not much more to it than that.

As if its huge library of books, and the ease of downloading weren’t enough, the reading experience is outstanding. There are three ways to go through the book: The slider, flipping pages and the “back” view. The slider allows you to traverse through the book very fast, and also shows you what chapter the new location will be in. Sliding between pages is my favorite. There is only one other app that even does page turning similar to Eucalyptus, and I must say Eucalyptus even puts that app (Classics) to shame with the animations. An app like Classics uses static images to flip from page to page, which creates a great animation. But, Eucalyptus seems to use a real 3D engine. The shadow changes based on where the page is, and the page will even wiggle if you drag back and forth very fast. I really love this part of the app. You can also use the arrows at the bottom to go from chapter to chapter (but not page by page).

Another way to get through the book is the “back” view. You can get to this by clicking the icon in the right of the top bar (when in a book). Here you can simply click on a chapter (or other section), and Eucalyptus will bring you there. It also shows you the current chapter (or section). This basically brings a table of contents to the book, that is accessible without having to flip to the beginning of it.

Eucalyptus costs $9.99 in the App Store, and you can easily see the amount of polish and work put into it. It has become my favorite book reader instantly. And because of its huge library, you’ll always find a book to read. However, it is very expensive compared to other readers, but in some of those, you have to pay for books, or you only get a few. Anyone looking to read classic books on the iPhone must at least check out Eucalyptus. I might even say it is one of the most polished apps in the App Store.

The main window is uncluttered, yet powerful.

Meet SOHO Notes, the anything and everything note-taking app. Put notes into folders and sub-folders, label them, encrypt them, scan them in, record and link audio files as notes, set alarms, define your own forms for quick notes, sync your notes with MobileMe, write them in full screen: the list goes on and on.

Power users are likely going to want to start out by heading up to the Preferences panel, where they’ll be met with appearance tweaks, shortcuts, blog publishing settings, MobileMe and iPod syncing options, backup settings, security, and more. SOHO Notes features a basic text editor with standard rich-text formatting options very similar to TextEdit. Each note’s title is highlighted by a bold navy blue title bar that really helps distinguish between different notes.

One of the pre-built forms is for software serial numbers

The app has an integrated web browser to allow web research to be done from inside the note taking area, and web archives can be saved to pull webpages down to the app. Notes can be viewed full screen, in tabs, and inline with the app.

Naturally everything is searchable inside the application, and SOHO Notes also fully integrates with Spotlight to make locating notes incredibly easy. Smart folders as well as custom folders can be made inside the app to help quickly sort the notes. The app also integrates quite nicely with iPhoto, Address Book, Mail, and iCal.

SOHO Notes functions in both single-user and multi-user environments. SOHO Notes allows remote databases to be accessed over a network, allowing for employees to share meeting notes and other company documents. Users can be assigned read/write privileges to certain folders and access a number of encrypted databases on a server.

The Database Manager helps users create and access shared databases

The amount of features is quite frankly staggering (way too many to list here, though we’ve tried), but the application feels very manageable and intuitive. A single-user license sells for $39.99, with a family pack for $69.99. SOHO Notes can also be purchased inside of the SOHO Organizer suite. Chronos has really done it with SOHO Notes. Its a clean, un-cluttered app, with an extraordinary amount of power. SOHO Notes is only compatible with Leopard.

Books displays titles in a gallery view with a summary box below

Books is a great solution to make your own digital book information database. With Books you can scan your entire collection using your Mac’s built-in iSight camera. Simply hold a book’s barcode in front of the red scan lines in the iSight window, and Books will read the ISBN number. Then you have the option of calling a number of different databases, including Amazon.com, to fill out the rest of your book’s information.

The info fields can be filled automatically by iSight scan or by hand

One downside I found is that while overall accurate, the built-in iSight scanning wasn’t always perfect and took longer than I’d like with some barcodes. I’d recommend scanning books in a well-lit room to give the camera optimal light to read the barcode.

The app has a robust extensions engine with a number of fantastic plug-ins written for it. One plug-in allows users to generate a website with just a few clicks. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that the generated site came equipped with a built-in search feature, and a really slick interface.

Books can generate attractive web libraries with just a few clicks

Books serves as a great personal catalogue, and also has functionality to work as a check-in, check-out system. I could see it being useful for used book stores interested in creating a web catalogue, or professors who wanted to create a catalogue online or library system for checking their books in and out. Then of course there’s always the book enthusiast who wants to keep their own personal catalogue of what they own, or what they’ve read.

While the app could use a little polish here or there, overall Books is a pretty incredible application. With an extensive pool of extensions, users who work with book databases will surely find use for it. Plus Books comes for the best price: free.

How does it work?

Simply put, doubleTwist is constantly updated with drivers and software designed to work with all of the latest gadgets and gear that stores all of your digital media assets.  Because of this, doubleTwist makes it as easy as plugging in your device, and dragging and dropping in your media files to and from your devices.

The Interface

DoubleTwist’s interface makes up a good part of it’s feature list.  DoubleTwist takes after a longtime design principal commonly found in iTunes and iPhoto.  In the right section of the window, you’ll find a sidebar filled with a list of sources where you’ll find your media content.  The sidebar is divided into four sections:  DoubleTwist “aka sharing information with doubleTwists’s own sharing service”, Library “used to access the media on your computer’s hard drive”, Devices “used to access your digital device’s content”, and Friends “which also works with DoubleTwist’s own sharing service”.

The right side of the app is where you view and interact with your content.  This side of the app changes based on what you have selected in the sidebar.  When viewing the “My Feed” section, you get at consecutive list filled with notifications.  Inside of these notifications are thumbnails of pictures, movies, and music which you can view at anytime.

When looking at any of the the Library sections, the right area of the app shows a simple browser interface designed for the one purpose of finding your media, and dragging it onto your device.

Which brings us to the Device section.  Clicking on the device itself shows a progress bar depicting how much storage space you have available.

PSP and Video!

One thing everyone always gripes about is video conversion.  Well gripe no more because doubleTwist automatically converts your video for you no matter what device you are using.  This is a big plus for PSP users.  Just drag in the video, and doubleTwist does the rest.  Thumbnail and all!

Sharing Online

Besides integrating with your digital devices, DoubleTwist also integrates with FaceBook, Flickr, and YouTube allowing you to share your captured media online.

DoubleTwist also has a sharing service built in.  This allows you to easily share your media with all of your friends.  When you receive a photo, video, or audio file, doubleTwist will automatically update your feed.

Final Thoughts

DoubleTwist is still very new, meaning the compatible device list is a little sparse however, because doubleTwist is an ongoing project, the developers are hard at work making more and more devices compatible.

In terms of performance, doubleTwist does not disappoint.  Depending on how much memory you have as well as the speed of your Intel processor, the time it takes to transfer and convert video will vary, however testing on a 2nd gen aluminum iMac I found that doubleTwist is quite fast and will not disappoint.

DoubleTwist is available for the Mac (Leopard only) and PC at http://www.doubletwist.com/ for the unbeatable price of free.

The Schoolhouse interface bears a striking resemblance to iCal

When the app is first launched iCal users will immediately notice a familiar layout. Separated into 3 columns, Schoolhouse works and interacts similarly to iCal, but is designed with your studies in mind. Users can add as many classes as they choose, and fill out useful information about classes. Assignments, tasks, and notes can then be added to each class with options to customize due dates, attach files, add partners, assign priority, and deadlines for tasks. Notebooks to store a group of notes can be created by course, or separately for sub-topics.

Course schedules, instructors, and assignment types can all be customized

Schoolhouse allows you to add as much or as little detail about your schedule and assignments as you choose, depending on how organized you are. Assignments can be added and viewed quickly, or entered with significant details. Students can check off assignments when completed, enter grades for tests, and keep track of their term grades with the built-in Grades feature. The app also allows students to contact their teachers about specific assignments with just one-click.

Rich text notes can be stored in Notebooks and courses

While the app has robust customization features, I still wasn’t able to adapt it to my course schedule. I also felt confined to the app, with no way to export my assignments except for the proprietary Schoolhouse database. I would love to see options to export to iCal, iPods, and the web in the future. Also, I found the lack of keyboard shortcuts annoying as I tried to enter and manipulate my courses and assignments. Plus there’s no integration for students that have online textbooks or web services tied to their courses. I would also like to see the app fit more naturally into OS X by Schoolhouse 3. The app currently has portions that are non-standard for OS X applications, which Mac users wont find as intuitive as most native applications.

Schoolhouse was updated at the beginning of February after being crippled for well over a year. Leopard users on Intel Macs had to force Schoolhouse to run through Rosetta, causing the app to crawl. On February 6th the developer published Schoolhouse 2.2, fixing a number of the Leopard compatibility issues. The app remains overall the same. Classcasting, a feature that published assignments in RSS via .Mac, was removed due to the .Mac / MobileMe switch over and changes to the service. Current users can feel more comfortable upgrading to the new version because their library will be automatically backed-up before upgrading, but they will be frustrated when they can no longer manually backup and restore the database.

Despite some of the short-comings Schoolhouse is an amazing application. Now that the Leopard compatibility issues seem to have been sorted out, I feel comfortable using it to keep track of my assignments again. While there are plenty of features that can be added in the future, there are tons current features to help students keep track of their studies and spend less time doing it.

When it comes to font management on the Mac, almost everyone immediately thinks Font Book.  Apple’s built-in font manager is great for simple font management, but it really doesn’t cut it when it comes to people who really want to organize their fonts in the greatest way possible.  Take a look at Fontcase,  a stunningly designed app designed to truly manage all of your fonts, the way you want to.

Apple introduced a lot of features in Mac OS X Panther.  Some features were more popular than others — take Exposé, for example.  One highly desired app finally made it into the OS’s web of pre-built-in software utilities called Font Book.  Font Book was designed for simple font management that allows you to organize your fonts and access them quickly when needed.  Though this app is effective, it hasn’t seen a major change in two major operating system updates, and still features the same three column design.  Though affective, Fontcase has shown that there is a better way to do this.

Fontcase’s interface is very streamlined and quite stress-free to work with.  Using elements from iLife and the Finder, Fontcase seems to blend in with the rest of your Mac’s applications.  The sidebar on the right-hand side of the app’s main window is used to help you navigate and organize your fonts.  The main section is where your fonts are shown.  Below the main section is an area dedicated to the selected font.  It includes 3 main tabs: Glyphs — which are the actual characters, Waterfall — a view showing the font with a sentence of choice, and Body Text — which shows your font in paragraph form arranged in a couple columns.

Viewing Fonts

Think of fonts that have multiple styles like they are “Events” in iPhoto.  Simply move your mouse across a font with multiple styles to see a preview of them appear inside the font’s icon.  These fonts do not have to be activated on your computer in order for Fontcase to view them.  You can then press the Spacebar to take a “QuickLook” of the font in a preloaded sentence that displays all of the alphabetic characters.  To view each character more closely, click on the Glyphs tab at the bottom.  You can then double click on a character look at it more closely.

Comparing fonts is one of Fontcase’s greatest features.  Select two or more fonts and hit the  button, also known as the compare button.  Fontcase shows you a bunch of columns allowing you to compare each glyph in a cleanly spaced view.  You can use the iPhoto-like slider at the bottom to change the size of each character.

Clicking the Header Text tab above does exactly what you think it does — it shows you what the fonts would look like if they were used as header text.

A really useful feature is the ability to compare the fonts in a body text-like view.  To do this, click the Body Text tab.  You can then change the alignment and filler text to better choose the correct font for your project.

Organizing Fonts

Like any good app for the Mac, Fontcase organizes your fonts into playlist-like collections to better access them.  To create a new collection, press Apple + Shift + N to bring down the “New” sheet.  Enter a name and hit Add.  All you have to do now is drag the fonts into the collection to better organize them.

To create a new Smart Collection, bring down the “New” sheet and choose Smart Collection from the toolbar.

Now you can have Fontcase automatically fill a collection with fonts that conform to the attributes you set to the Smart Collection.

As if that wasn’t enough, tagging is also available in Fontcase.  To tag a font with any particular tag, select a font and hit Command + I to “Get Info”. 

Go down to the “Tags” section and type away.  Fontbook automatically adds an item in the sidebar for each tag for better browsing.

Sharing Fonts

Now that you have your fonts organized, it’s time to share them with everyone at the office.  Fontcase makes this extremely easy by using Apple’s zero-configuration technology called Bonjour.  Go to Fontcase > Preferences… or press Command + , and choose “Sharing” to activate it.  Just like in iTunes, you can now browse other people’s font libraries – except this time you can copy their fonts and download them to your computer.

If you’re worried about how your font will look when using it for print, why not let Fontcase print a preview page for you?  Choose File > Print or press Command + P when you have a font selected to create a nicely designed preview page containing all of the information you need.

Performance

Fontcase really runs like a charm.  I have not run into any bugs when using this app.  The bugginess of a beta has left this now (at the time of writing) version 1.05 of Fontcase.  Though I couldn’t find the specs for the app on their webpage, it looks as if you need Mac OS X Leopard to take full advantage of the app and its font organizing abilities.  Speed “like any app on the Mac” will vary depending on your processor and memory size.  Fontcase does generate the previews you see in each icon automatically, however if you’d like to get it all over and done with, choose File > Generate Previews… and Fontcase will create all of you previews.  As stated in the sheet above, depending on your library “and system specs”, this might take a while.  If your library is massive, choose this option when you’re on break, or before bed.

Pricing and Availability

Fontcase is available at http://www.bohemiancoding.com/?Fontcase for the price of $46 (USD).  You can also get a family pack of 5 licenses for $68 (USD) and a Business pack of 10 licenses for $261 (USD).

Getting Things Done

Let’s start off with a quick overview of David Allen’s system of Getting Things Done.  It all starts with the idea of getting everything out of your head, and onto paper.  This way, you don’t have to worry about holding every little detail in your head, which in turn will give you less stress.  Once you’ve downloaded the information into one easily accessible source, you now can organize your information into projects and assign contexts.  

What are projects and contexts?  Projects are tasks that require multiple steps.  For instance: The task of Painting the garage requires you to get paint, then Organize the garage for painting, then after that - Start painting the first coat.  The project is called “Paint the garage” while the actions (the steps or to-dos associated with this project) are “get paint” and such.

Contexts are the tactile and physical aspects of your projects and actions.  Every project and action should have a context.  Organizing your projects by context is one of Getting Things Done or GTD‘s greatest features.  Using the same example, a couple of contexts for this project might be Home or Errands.

Things’s Interface

The developers of Things certainly made a huge effort on making the app’s interface as streamlined and as beautiful as possible.  Using the iTunes-like sidebar along with the iPhoto-like toolbar at the bottom makes Things blend right in with your iLife apps.  The interface is divided into 2 parts.  The first part “on the left” is used for navigation, while the second part “on the right” is where you view and edit all of your actions.

The Sidebar

At the very top of the sidebar you’ll notice it says collect, followed by an item called the Inbox.  The inbox is where you download all of the information from your head and into Things.  Don’t worry about projects or contexts just yet.  You just get it out and into the Inbox.  Clicking the “New” toolbar item or pressing Command + N makes a new action.

Once you’ve done that, double click on an action to see its details.  At the top, next to the check box is where the title of the action is located.  Below that is a section for your contexts “in the form of tags” and under that is where you can add any notes that are associated with this action.  At the bottom of the action is where you can assign a due date as well as a spot where you can tell Things when to move this action into the “Today” section (more on that later).

Below the Inbox in the sidebar is the section entitled “Focus”.  This is where Things really shines.  The “Focus” section is divided into 5 parts:

The first part is called “Today”.  In “Today”,  Things allows you to create your own “agenda” for the day by devoting a special  list for just the items that you want or need to do today.  

Below that is the “Next” part.  Here is where Things lets you review your up-coming projects and actions. (The screenshot above is of the “Next” part.)  Please note that items in either the “Scheduled” or “Someday” lists will not be shown in the “Next” list.

Under that is the “Scheduled” part.  If you ever want Things to remind you about a certain project or action in the future, this is the place to go.  Drag an item into the Scheduled list to assign a day when you want Things to remind you to review a certain project or action. 

Beneath the “Scheduled” list is the “Someday” list.  If you ever have an action or project that you want to do someday, but can’t really decide on a certain time to review or actually do it, put it in the “Someday” list.

Finally, in the Focus section we have the “Projects” list.  Simply put – it displays all of your projects including the non-active ones.  Non-active in this case means a project that has been moved into the “Someday” list or is at least not pressed to be completed.  Below this, Things automatically displays your active projects for easy navigation.

The next section is called “Areas” or Areas of Responsibility.  Think of these as folders for your projects.  Using the example above, one might create an area called “Garage” and put the “Paint the Garage” project inside it.  It’s just another way of organizing your projects and actions.

The bottom of the sidebar is home to two items:

The “Logbook” is where Things puts all of your completed items.  You can tell things to log completed items automatically, or manually do it by hitting the proper toolbar item.

The Trash should be the most recognizable and understandable element of the sidebar.  Think of it as the trash in your dock.  If you delete an item, it will go inside the trash.  When you want to free up space, control click it and choose empty trash.

The Action Toolbar

This toolbar is found in the main content view at the bottom.  The “New” and “Edit” toolbar items should be self explanatory.

The “Today” toolbar item adds the currently selected action or project to your “Today” list.

The “File” toolbar item brings down a sheet that allows you to move the currently selected action(s) into one of your projects, schedule it for later review, add it to the “Someday” list, or add it to one of your “Areas of Responsibility”.  It pretty much allows you to do everything without dragging and dropping an item.

The “Quick Entry” toolbar item brings up the quick entry box (talked about later on).

The “Tags” toolbar item brings up a dashboard that allows you to organize your tags aka “Contexts”.  Here you can nest contexts for instance: Mac > Online > Blog.

The Quick Entry Box

Assigned to a shortcut key value that you can customize in Things’s preferences, you can bring up this box to quickly add an action into your inbox from any application “as long as Things is already open”.  Simply fill it out and hit save.

A Quick Walkthrough Tutorial

Let’s walk through an example of how to use Things starting from when you first download the app to using it in your daily life.

You’ve downloaded Things, and you’re ready to embark on your journey through stress-free productivity!  You are now ready to pour all of your current projects and ideas into Things to fill up your empty inbox.

Choose Inbox at the top of the sidebar and press Command + N to create a new item.  Once you’ve filled out the title, hit tab to move on to adding tags aka contexts.  Already created contexts autocomplete for quicker item creation.  If the default contexts don’t suffice, just enter a new one and hit return.  Feel free to add a due date, however the best thing to do right now, is to get everything out of your head and onto “paper” as it were.

When you’re finished putting everything in the Inbox, think about which actions are related.  If there is more than one step to an action, it’s now time to turn it into a project.  Choose the New Project button in the bottom toolbar.  It’s the second one in from the left that looks like a book in case you get confused with the New Action button to the left of it.  Creating a new project is just like creating a new action.  The only differences is that you can drag, add or create your your actions inside of them.

Now that Things has all of your information organized into projects, it’s time to use Things’s Focus lists to help you get these items done.  

Click on any action or project and choose the Today toolbar item at the bottom.  That item has now been added to your agenda for today.  Another way to have Things automatically do this for you is to schedule an event to be reviewed.  To do this, drag an item onto the Scheduled list in the sidebar.  Choose a date or a length of time and Things will move that event into Today when it is time to do so.

There are always those tasks that you would like to do, but don’t really need to finish them at a certain time or feel like doing them now.  Things has a list for this too called Someday.  Just drag your actions and projects into this list, and you will never be bothered about them unless you decide to view this list.

 What happens every day

Everything is added and organized, so what do you have to do now?  Click on the Next list in the sidebar.  This is where you’ll usually spend most of your time.  Organized by project, Things automatically puts your up-and-coming items in this list for you.  All you have to do is check it, and check off your tasks.

Once you’ve completed a task, click the check box to the left of completed task or project causing Things to gray it out.  When you want to clear out all of your competed items, click the Log Completed toolbar item at the bottom to clean them out and put them in the Log Book located in the bottom left-hand corner of Things’s main window.

Performance and Other Information

Things is required to be run on a system with Mac OS X 10.4.11 or later.  Although speed will vary depending on your processing power and memory storage capacity, Things runs extremely quickly even with a very large and extensive library.  Things has just reached the magic 1.0 mark releasing it from beta just recently at MacWorld `09.  I’ve barely run into any bugs or hitches when using Things, and if there were any, they weren’t huge – a few view refreshing problems, but none that could be fixed by clicking again.

I’ve found Things to be very good at what it does.  There isn’t any extra features or fluff that doesn’t really need to be there.

One might compare Things to an app like OmniFocus.  Both have their strengths and weaknesses.  Both apps are based on the GTD system, but go about them in different ways.  Things is more visual, while OmniFocus is more list-oriented.

Price and Availability 

Things is available at http://culturedcode.com/things/ for the price of $49.95 (USD).  Be sure to check out Things’s product page for more details.

How did you get started programming for Macs and how did Potion Factory come about?

After working as a programmer for a long time, I started Potion Factory almost 4 years ago with a friend because we were feeling adventurous with our lives and because we liked the Mac platform so much. We have since gone our separate ways, but I still enjoy this work very much as I get to be both programmer and graphic designer.

What made you develop The Hit List in light of Omni Group’s OmniFocus and Cultured Code’s Things, other GTD apps?

I made The Hit List because I didn’t find any applications that I wanted to use to keep track of my long list of things to do.

The work on The Hit List began before any of those apps you mention became publicly available. It’s funny how people now think that The Hit List is an amalgamation of all the good ideas in those apps, but from my point of view, they feel like my application split into separate pieces.

I didn’t pay too much attention to those apps anyway because I thought that what I was working on was pretty unique.

How does The Hit List differ from OmniFocus and Things and what makes it special?

The Hit List is for you if you don’t like being forced into a specific workflow. I made it fairly generic but it does support many of the GTD concepts. It’s an application that can be as simple or complex as you want it to be, but at the same time, I have tried to make the user interface simple to the point where it’s almost invisible. It’s also opinionated in some areas. One example would be the single key shortcuts and the helpful hint buttons that encourage their use.

When you learn Kendo, they teach you that you must use your sword as an extension of your arm, meaning, that you must be comfortable enough with your tool to the point where it feels like just another part of your body. Similarly, I wanted the user interface in The Hit list to be seamless and efficient enough so that it feels like an extension of your mind. An example of software that has this amazingly invisible UI are video games. With video games, you don’t think about pressing buttons to get something done, most of the times, you just do it. I wanted more of that kind of interaction in my application.

I really enjoy it when people tell me that The Hit List feels just right because of this.

Are there any special features coming in the iPhone app that are not already in the OmniFocus or Things iPhone apps?

I don’t check out competitors’ applications before my own is done so I can’t really answer this one. The reason for this is that I’m trying to make the best product in my own way and I don’t really care what the other companies are doing. Being in the same space, you still tend to end up with similar features, but at least I’ll know that I arrived at those answers on my own rather than being influenced.

When can we expect to see the iPhone app?

When it’s done.

How do you justify the price of The Hit List (or any app) and will there be a “switcher” discount?

If you’re serious about your productivity, I think you can justify it. This is the type of application that can get you promotions at work and better grades at school. It certainly has made me a more productive person. With that in mind, when you compare the price to that of a concert ticket or a video game, I don’t think that it’s too out there. Also, I’d like to think that the love I have poured into this application is worth something.

I don’t know about a switcher discount yet, but even if I did offer it, I can’t imagine it being anything more than the current $20 discount on the pre-order sales.

How do you combat software piracy?

I don’t really try too hard on that front. I think there are enough decent people in this world especially in the Mac community who will contribute to the development of a good product by paying for it. I’d rather spend my limited time helping those people rather than spend it on trying to keep out the people who won’t or can’t pay for it anyway.

How do you personally use The Hit List?

I have separate lists for my products into which I brainstorm ideas and file bugs. These tend to get quite large, so then I go through the long list and set priorities on each item. Then I decide on what to work on each day and file it into the Today list. Using the outline features, I always break things down to actionable items that take no more than 30 minutes to complete. This keeps me focused and productive throughout the day as completing each little task is quite satisfying. Putting things in contexts helps a lot as well. For example, the one I use often is @photoshop.

When it’s time to actually do the work, I’ll switch into card view and focus on just that task. I just charge through those cards without second guessing what I should be doing.

At the end of the day, I review what I did and archive the completed tasks.

Sadly, the short answer to this is no.  While Movie Brain claims to offer an index of more than 800,000 movies, it only seems to index theatrically released feature films (and now according to a recent update, straight-to-DVD content).  As a result it offers a fairly comprehensive list for those not looking to delve too far into a certain actor or director’s work, but not comprehensive enough to ever provide true satisfaction to a cinephile.  Who could ever truly call a list of Pacino films complete without including The Local Stigmatic?  Or a Danny Boyle list without including Vaccuuming Completely Nude in Paradise?  Sure they’re obscure, but when shopping around for a reliable movie database, these are the sort of films you want to make sure are in there.  After all, how can you discover new movies if the obscure isn’t well represented?  Other notable films not listed include Powers Boothe’s career-making performance in Guyana, and the third installment in the Infernal Affairs trilogy.

Despite the noticeable weakness in the database, Movie Brain offers a number of features that any film fan on the go can appreciate.  Once you’ve located a specific film, actor or director whose body of work you’d like to check out, you can bookmark the selection and save it amongst other bookmarks you’ve made to return to later.  Many of the entries also feature a write-up of the individual or film, as well as a poster (if the selection is a movie).  If you’re looking for more details, you can even visit IMDB entries at the click of a button.  Some listings even offer Rotten Tomatoes links as well.  Version 1.0 offered NYTimes reviews, which appear to have been replaced by RT in  this version.  It’s a shame they couldn’t have kept both as it would have offered even more range in further reading material.

Movie Brain also offers a great feature for Netflix users.  You can visit the Netflix page for any movie with a simple click from the “More Info” button and add the film to your queue right from your iPod.  A really nice touch about the Netflix, IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes features is that it doesn’t move you over to the browser to check these pages out.  Most apps will simply hotswap you over to Apple’s own Safari browser when linking elsewhere on the net, but MovieBrain never forces you to leave the program.  A simple click of the “Done” button takes you right back to the page in the index you used as a jumping off point.

With the exception of bookmarking, none of the above features is available in the offline mode which for many users will be the main draw of Movie Brain.  It’s understandable that web-based links elsewhere aren’t useable, but even basic features like movie posters and write-ups cease to exist in the offline mode.  Once offline, you’ll be stuck with nothing more than access to Movie Brain’s somewhat limited database which, if you’re looking to discover new things, will be a somewhat moot tool.  Other features that one might want to see in an online movie database app — “related films,” “you might also like…” or community-based features — are completely non-existent.

With every cloud though, there’s a silver lining.  Having originally released only a month ago, the developers have already released an update that took a number of complaints to heart.  Version 1.0 lacked a director search option and suffered from a bug that caused some scroll attempts to turn into clicks.  Both were rectified in 1.1.  Had they not been this review would have been angling much closer to handing out an “F” due to it’s broken nature.  Their handling of those situations, as well as adding in direct-to-DVD films, shows that Movie Brain is an application with room to grow and a team that’s willing to nurture that growth.  Until that growth happens though, Movie Brain doesn’t offer much more than a somewhat incomplete index of films that can be browsed online or off.

Movie Brain is available in the iTunes App Store for $2.99.

As said above, Deep allows you to search by colors. This can be really useful if you are looking for all the pictures of your room, because you know the wall color. Instead of making you pick a color out of the blue, Deep shows you a list of colors that your images contain. But they aren’t really specific colors, they are ranges. So, if you know the picture has a dark red in it, click on the icon that includes that color. This may sound really powerful already, but it gets even more powerful. Once you have clicked on a range, you can click on another one to narrow it down even more. When you click on another color, the list of colors and the list of images will then narrow down. There will always be 7 rows of colors, though, that go through the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, indigo, violet).

Once you have selected an image, Deep gives you even more options. On the right side of the window you will see another color list, this time for colors in that image. Below the preview of the image you will see a view with all of your images. But when you click on one of the colors in the right, this list will narrow down to only images with that color. Deep can show you similar images with just a few clicks. But you can also have Deep do this for you with its “Genius” functionality. In the toolbar you will see an icon that looks like iTunes’ Genius button. If you press it, Deep will find all images similar to the selected one. It will still do it by color, but it should make it even easier to find similar images.

One gem in Deep that many can easily miss is its image list scroller. You can use a left or right scroller on a mouse to scroll through, but there’s another way — a better way — just click anywhere in the list and flick with your mouse, left or right, and the list will move through the images. Unlike regular scrolling, it will not stop moving until it has reached the end of the list. You can also just hit the Play button to have it go through the list slowly. The only issue is, there is no pause button, so you have to stop it by clicking somewhere on the list. Although it also has some issues (like dragging up or down can resize the list), it is still a very cool way to view a list of images — very iPhone-like.

Although Deep’s main purpose is to allow you to search images through colors, it also includes a few other things. First of all, when any image is selected, you can just hit Enter to enter some tags. This will also make it easier to find images in the future. You can also sort by image type, location and size and shape. You can actually do all of these at once. This means that you can look for a raw image in your Pictures folder that is extra-large, with a dark shade of blue.

Ironic Software‘s Deep retails for $34 and you can download a free trial from their site. It solves an issue that many of us have multiple times a day. Although it’s basically a one-trick-pony, it does the job, and does it well.

How did you get started programming for Macs and how did Cultured Code come about?

I started programming in 1981 on a Sinclair ZX80, which was a pretty amazing computer. The ZX80 was much smaller than even the Mac mini. Of course, it was not only smaller in physical size, its operating system fit in 4K! The computer landscape at that time was very different from what we have today, but it was extremely exciting and it was also obvious that this was the start of something new and big. I even sold software while still at high school in the form of computer code that people actually had to type in to use!

To me, the introduction of the first Macintosh computer in 1984 marked both the culmination as well as the end of this wild and crazy period of computing. Of course then came the PC which I found dull and uninspiring. I moved on and pursued another interest of mine: Mathematics. I studied Mathematics and subsequently became involved in teaching and doing research. It was only until much later when I realized that Apple had actually survived and was still producing computers in a much different spirit than the rest of the industry. But it was actually the announcement of Mac OS X that made me want to once again start creating software. The Mac was a small niche, but Mac OS X was finally something one could again be passionate about.

While still teaching at University, I began to learn Cocoa and prepared myself for leaving and creating a small software company called Cultured Code. This was the time when creating web pages using CSS began to become a feasible alternative. Oliver Marquetant joined me and we created our CSS debugging tool Xyle scope.

What made you develop Things in light of Omni Group already having OmniFocus, another GTD app?

My desire to create software that helps to get organized is actually an old one and goes back to my days at University. When we founded Cultured Code, we actually wanted to create a personal information manager. We called this the “Sea of Information” project. The CSS tool was supposed to be a side project to test the waters. However, it took a life of its own. From a business perspective, it never worked very well, but I got a lot of insight into creating and marketing software.

It was clear that we had to do something different in order to save, and even better, to grow the company. It was an obvious step to revive the “Sea of Information” project. Luckily I discovered David Allen’s book, which was a revelation to me. He seemed to have answers to questions I couldn’t even clearly formulate .

At the time when Omni announced their product, we had already spent a lot of work on our own project including a series of prototypes. But after Omni’s announcement, it became clear that task management would become a respectable product category on the Mac. I got even more enthusiastic and was able to attract Werner and Christian to start working with me. Werner is an amazing programmer with a strong intuition for every aspect of a software company, while Christian was one of the most talented graphic designers I had seen. It is really the combination of our talents and our desire to create something worthy of the Mac platform that made Things possible.

How does Things differer from OmniFocus and what makes it special?

Right from the beginning we wanted to create a tool that was easy to pick up yet powerful. It is no exaggeration, with Things it is possible to manage thousands of to-dos, but Things is also the application with the most modest learning curve.

There are so many methods of becoming more organized, but most of them require quite an amount of mental energy. With Things we wanted to create a product where users only need to spend the least possible amount of energy to get organized. This way you become more productive with what you actually want to do. We were in fact so focused on this mission that we even deliberately dropped features we now learned we shouldn’t have .

But what is really very interesting is that users who were using other products before are now telling us that they are getting more stuff done using Things. This is a great testimonial to the fact that with task management it is vital to not just to provide features, but to work very carefully on how you implement them. Even little design decisions can go a long way in making users more productive.

How do you justify the price of Things (or any app)?

There are two sides to this question: the developer and the user point of view. Luckily both of them are rather compatible in our case .

From a developer point of view it is important to be able to have a strong development and support team. This means that selling a product at too low a price will eventually kill it. Some people who do not have experience with advanced task management, view task management apps as simple to-do lists. But there is much more involved in helping people to get more things done. In fact, the problem space of successful task management is quite involved. Very small software shops are simply not able to do this right. We have seen this a couple of times in the past, where products slowly died because the developer was no longer able to keep up with the various challenges involved. During the past six month we have spent a large amount of time and energy to make Cultured Code stronger as a company, for example by hiring some very talented and experienced programmers. Our users can look forward to us making a lot of improvements available in 2009.

Users on the other hand will ask themselves, whether a product is worth its price? Now imagine working with an application that really makes you more productive. If such an application saves you a few minutes each day, or helps you getting more things done, how much is that worth? I think the precise answer to this question really depends on your work. But with Things we are in the lucky position where its price is much lower than the value it represents to a user.

How do you combat software piracy?

Seriously fighting software piracy requires quite an amount of resources. We rather spend those resources at making Things better. But when they see a useful product at a fair price, the vast majority of users simply want to do the right thing and help continue an application’s development and support.

How do you personally use Things?

Things is always open on my Mac. I manage everything I need to do with it, no matter whether it is related to work or not.

What’s next from Cultured Code?

As I said, task management constitues a large problem space. Expect us to stay ambitious. But also expect the unexpected as we are going to do things differently .

The user interface of The Hit List reflects that of yellow ruled notebook paper with various tabs allowing you to access different to-do lists. It also features a navigational bar on the left hand side of the window very much like other GTD (Getting Things Done) apps. This bar allows you to set up some data structure through various folders, smart folders, and lists. Unlike typical GTD apps, The Hit List’s method of doing things is much different.

Most GTD applications force you do get into the program and with a series of clicks enter your tasks. The Hit List does this in a different and much easier fashion. Instead of forcing the user to spend extra time clicking around adding tags, priorities and et cetra, it allows you to do all the same without your fingers leaving the keyboard. All you need to do is hit ‘return’ when within a list to add a task, once the task is entered you can insert a tag by placing a ‘/’ in front of the tag name or a context by replacing the slash with ‘@’. Personally, I have found this method of adding tasks much easier, allowing me to spend more time on the tasks at hand, although if you are a GUI person this could be a problem.

Aside from The Hit List’s keyboard centric nature, it also allows you to time how long it takes you to complete a task and then log the time as part of the tasks data. Additionally, whenever you complete a task The Hit List plays a noise, which as corny as it may sound, is surprisingly satisfying.

The only thing that worries me about this application is its lack of an iPhone companion application. In the preferences pane of the application, however, they state, “Please rest assured that we’re already working on the iPhone version of The Hit List that will sync with the desktop version”.

The Hit List is currently in beta but is available for pre-order at a discounted rate of $49.95 via the purchase menu in The Hit List. Once the application leaves beta, the price will jump to $69.95. Stay tuned for an interview with the developer. If you have any questions to ask, please post them in the comments.

Mémoires is really just a journal, nothing more. If you are looking for something that also includes tags, blogging abilities, and even more features, you may want to look at MacJournal or Journler. But, those two are also $15 more, so you might not want to look into them if you just want journaling.

Mémoires provides a clean and simple interface, similar to iCal. There is a calendar in the upper left-hand corner, where you choose a date to see all entries for. However, if you click on a date that is not the current date, and add an entry, it will be added to that date. I guess if you wrote an entry on a piece of paper and forgot about it for a week, this could help you. But it can also make things very confusing. Mémoires only provides two fields for each entry: a title and the entry. This makes it simple, so you can focus more on the journal, and less on adding tags and other things. In the entry field you can add special formatting and even images, which provides flexibility for what kind of entry you want to do.

Like many other journaling applications, Mémoires provides an easy way to encrypt your journal. You just go to File > Encrypt… and then choose a password. The whole journal will then be encrypted, so if you forget your password, your journal is gone. Unlike some other journaling applications, Mémoires allows you to choose where the journal will be saved. So if you want to have it on your MobileMe, you can. But Mémoires doesn’t provide regular MobileMe syncing, so to sync between two Macs, you must have it saved to your MobileMe.

If you are switching from one of the journaling programs mentioned above, Mémoires makes it really easy to import your data. You just go to File > Import…, choose the application, and Mémoires will create a new journal with the data in it. Mémoires also allows you to export to RTFD, RTF and TXT formats. Although you cannot import and export to as many formats as in some other journaling applications, you are not completely locked in to the Mémoires format. And actually, you don’t even need to export your journal to view it in another application. If you open the .memoire file in any SQLite application, you can view your data right there.

Mémoires retails for $19.95 and you can download a free trial from the site. It provides you with a clean and simple interface for writing a journal, but does not lock you into one format. Although it does not have as many features as others, that also means that you can focus more on content and less on extras. If you are thinking of starting a journal this year, then you will definitely want to check out Mémoires.

Together can be used as a replacement of the Finder or it can be used along with the Finder. Together does not create a database; it really is just a hierarchy of folders, which is why you can use the Finder to view them too. It actually watches its library folder (~/Documents/Together/Default), so if you drop a file in one of the folders in there (e.g. Images, Documents), it will automatically be added to your library. The other easy way to add a file to your library is the sidebar. If you drag a file onto its Shelf, you can add it to any of your groups, or just your library. In this same Shelf, you can also create Quick Notes and Favorite Files. The final way to add files to your library is to click the Add toolbar item in the main window of the application. Here, you can also create things like Bookmarks, Web Archives, and notes from the clipboard. When you first use Together, it will copy the files you import, but you can change this. In the General pane of Together > Preferences, you can choose to either Copy files, Link to files (keep the files where they are), or Move files (moves the files to Together’s library folder).

One feature that has just been added to Together is automatic tagging. Most other apps like Together have tagging, but Together goes a bit further. When this feature is enabled (the Tags pane of Together > Preferences), Together will automatically apply tags to newly imported files based on similar files. This means that if you have two files with names containing ‘MacApper 08,’ similar tags will be applied. Also, if two files’ contents are similar (e.g. have the same header), similar tags will be applied. Since this feature was first implemented, there have been a fair number of bugs, but most of these have been fixed through updates.

Together also has a nice feature for us widescreen users. It has two view modes: Regular and Wide. To switch, just click on one of the toolbar icons in the bottom toolbar next to the [i] button. Wide mode really just puts the file list to the left side of the preview box, but the results are great; it really makes use of widescreen monitors. Users of WideMail will already be familiar with this view. Together also implements tabs, which can be very useful for viewing many files at once. The tabs could be much better, though. When you open a file in a new tab, it does just that — there is no more file list. So to open a new file in a tab, you have to go back to the Library tab. It is nice to have the extra space (from no file list) in tabs, though.

Together does have MobileMe syncing, but it is very buggy. Even since I enabled it, Together will have a memory leak, give me an error, or crash about once a day. At first I thought it was just me, but then I found that others have this problem too. I give them credit for having it — it’s a nice idea — but it really just needs better implementation. It is also hard to enable. Instead of there being a preference or button for it, you have to go to Together > Library Manager and then enable syncing. This may not sound too hard, but try figuring it out on your own.

Together, by Reinvented Software, retails for $39 and you can download a free trial from their site. It is a good tool for advanced file managing, but if you just want a place to put files until you can organize them, it’s not that good. For that, I would go with ShoveBox. And, like any app of its type, it takes some time to get used to. But if an advanced file manager is what you’re looking for, then Together is a pretty good choice.

iNeedStuff comes pre-loaded with a few hundred common grocery items. The user interface is a good example of iPhone app design — simple and built with standard iPhone UI elements. To add an item to your list you can start typing its name in the search box and the list narrows down quickly as you type. When you find the item you want, tap the + button for the quantity you want. If the item isn’t found you can add it from the search box.

When you go shopping, iNeedStuff uses your iPhone’s location to know where you are. For a place you’ve been to before, it identifies the location instantly. One problem with this is if you’re inside a store it can’t get a GPS location, so it could recognize the store you’re in or another nearby store. If you haven’t shopped at that location before, you will be asked to add the store or manually choose a location. From then on, whenever you shop at that store, iNeedStuff will divide your list into things you’ve bought there before and things you haven’t. As you check things off your list, the app tracks the order in which you get things at that store, so it can put them in that order for future shopping trips. The more you shop at a store, the better it learns what you buy there and what order you shop in. The down side to this is, until you have it trained for most of the things you buy, you have to scroll up and down your list a lot, shopping from both sections. There is also no way to pick a specific store where you want to buy an item.

iNeedStuff also lets you sync your list with their online site, so you can share a list with other iPhone owners. While this functionality is nice for a family that splits up the shopping duties, the online list manager leaves a lot to be desired. The interface is not nearly as attractive or usable as the iPhone UI is. After making changes to your online list you must hit the syncronize button, or the changes will not show up on your iPhone. This seems like an unnecessary extra step. The online list has also been known to hang while synchronizing after renaming an item. The changes have been saved, but the page sits there as if they haven’t. Also, location and order data are not synced, so when your family shops at a store, your iPhone does not “learn” from that shopping trip.

The app itself, however, contains lots of small UI details that make it easy to use. On the shopping list, for example, it only shows a quantity if it is greater than one.  Another nice feature is the ability to turn off screen rotation. As you walk around a store, you tend to hold the iPhone in front of you until you find what you’re looking for. Then you’ll drop that hand to your side, while the other hand picks up the item. This can cause the screen to rotate, so when you pull the list back up to look at it, it could be in landscape, or in the middle of switching back to portrait. Allowing you to turn off rotation shows attention to how people use the iPhone.

iNeedStuff is in active development, and you can even vote on new features from within the app itself. Despite the disappointing online list manager, the app itself is a very capable shopping list. iNeedStuff is currently $8.99 and available in the App Store.