2009 March | Appleaddiction

Skype, Meet iPhone. Coming this Tuesday!

By Luke On Mar 30, 2009 Apple | iPhone/iPod 1 1 Comment Tags: app, iPhone/iPod

Wait no more. A truly bold move in the cell phone industry will have you happier then ever with your iPhone!

Via CNET:
“Months after teasing us at CES with an announcement of Skype’s native VoIP client for the iPhone, the free Skype for iPhone will finally be available to download from the iTunes App Store sometime on Tuesday. We got a chance to sit down with the application’s principal engineer before the announcement was made at CTIA 2009, to see Skype for iPhone do its thing. While most of the features aren’t too surprising–Skype does want to maintain some consistency across its mobile applications, after all–there are a few capabilities that are notably missing, and a few iPhone-only perks that are refreshing to see.”

You can find the full storu here. Skype for iPhone: It’s Official.

Pricing sounds like $0.00 Which, is always a good price.

Chrome now closer to your desktop; Gets Cocoa shell.

By Luke On Mar 29, 2009 Software/Freeware 0 No Comments Tags: app, beta, Google, OS X, Software/Freeware

In what appears to be a step closer to a beta release, Ars has revealed that Google’s praised browser is now even closer to becoming a realization for OS X users.

Now, as much as an avid Firefox supporter as I am, the amount of time and effort Google is pushing into this release makes me feel like Chrome is going to be able to hit the ground running. The day this browser is released will be the day it will go head to head with Firefox for the default browser spot on my Mac.

You can find the full story here at ArsTechnica.

Fontcase 1.1

By Luke On Mar 28, 2009 Apple | Software/Freeware 0 No Comments Tags: 10.5, OS X, Software/Freeware

Drachten, Netherlands – Bohemian Coding is proud to announce Fontcase 1.1, a free update to the new Font Manager with an intuitive and uncluttered interface. While it may look simplistic, there’s is a lot features built in, and with Fontcase 1.1 you can even extend the application yourself with plug-ins if there are features you’re missing.

Fontcase focusses on metadata, and for every font and weight, you can add a wide variety of metadata. You can set tags, genres, assign designers and foundries and much more. They are not just pieces of text, but actually show up in the source list and in Fontcase 1.1 supported languages will now also show up there just like your tags and genres and you can now create smart collections based on the number of activations and when you last activated a font.

Other new features include badges in the sidebar, an updated info pane and more speed. Also, Fontcase now accepts and activates a lot more fonts than before and we fixed several bugs in version 1.1.

New features include:
* A versatile plug-in architecture to extend Fontcase in numerous ways
* Fontcase now analyzes the languages a font supports
* More metadata for when a font was activated and the number of times it was activated
* Badges show the number of fonts in a collection
* Fontcase can now analyze and activate a lot more fonts now
* A redesigned info panel
* Several bugfixes

Minimum Requirements:
* Mac OS X Version 10.5 or higher
* Universal Binary for PowerPC and Intel

You can give the App a try with the full featured demo or buy it now for $55.

Experience the next dimension in sound.

By Luke On Mar 27, 2009 Apple | Media | Software/Freeware 4 4 Comments Tags: 10.5, Apple, audio, OS X, Software/Freeware

GenAudio recently released AstoundStereo Expander 1.2. AstoundStereo Expander is a program that essentially enhances and expands you current stereo sound.

AstoundStereo is a 4D sound experience using only two audio channels, such as headphones or laptop speakers. It processes all digital audio on your laptop or desktop computer in real-time utilizing AstoundSound technology to enhance the audio in your existing music, movie and game collections.

I gave this little program a test drive last night while watching Quantum of Solace. (Note: I was using a 2.1 external sound system from AlTec Lansing. Your experience may differ.) I toggled it on and off while watching and re-watching certain parts of the movie. For the most part it did a pretty good job of actually making it sound better. The difference wasn’t drastic but it was a pleasant improvement from what I was used to.

This seems very similar to Dolby’s 5.1 Stereo Headphone Technology.

You can try out the demo for free our pick up a full copy for $39.95
astoundstereo.com

Expanding your Mac.

By Luke On Mar 26, 2009 Apple | Gadgets | Media 2 2 Comments Tags: Accessories, HD, HDMI, Macbook, MacBook Pro

The Western Digital HD Media Player Set-top box!
Pirated copy of Planet Earth, meet huge HD LCD TV!

The Western Digital HD Media center is essentially a gateway for your digital entertainment files.

Whether it be photos, music, or videos, the WD TV will deliver in up 1080p goodness. It features both HDMI and SPDIF out for true HD sound and video. The part of this product that really makes it stand out from the rest is its likable list of supported audio and video formats:

Video

MPEG1/2/4, WMV9, AVI (MPEG4, Xvid, AVC), H.264, MKV, MOV (MPEG4, H.264),
MTS, TP, TS (If your curious, almost all HD downloads use some form of H.264 and/or .MKV)

Audio

MP3, WMA, OGG, WAV/PCM/LPCM, AAC, FLAC, Dolby Digital, AIF/AIFF, MKA

All you have to do is connect an external USB hard drive or thumbdrive. The slick and elegant user interface will help you navigate your drive in order to find your media.

You can pick on up to day for as little as $89.99 Western Digital WD TV HD Media Player

App Review: iBench 1.0.4

By Luke On Mar 24, 2009 Apple | Software/Freeware 0 No Comments Tags: 10.5, app, OS X, PPC, Software/Freeware

iBench is a synthetic benchmark program for the Mac OS X operating system. It is constituted by 21 tests (12 of integer workload and 9 of floating point) of real usage that allow to check and compare the CPU and memory performance of your Mac.

iBench is a Universal Binary and works seamlessly on 32- and 64-bit Macs and on both Intel and PowerPC Macs.

The only requirements are 512 MB of RAM or more and Mac OS X 10.5 “Leopard”.

Best of all it’s freeware. So, if you are looking to compare the performance of your Mac against other Macs, I suggest you give this nice little app a try.

Download and more info Here.

New 17″ iMac for $899?

By Luke On Mar 21, 2009 Apple | Hardware | Rumor 1 1 Comment Tags: Apple, iMac

Evidence of a 17″ iMac has been leaked by the Apple education site.
While only mentioned in the educational section at the moment, a sub $1,000 desktop isn’t a horrible idea for Apple to introduce to the masses. 17″ can leave a little to be desired when watching HD movies and playing games but I don’t believe this one is meant for that. I have a feeling this is going to be directly marketed towards educational facilities.

There is no word on when or if this will hit the official Apple Retail store.

Expect integrated graphics and a not so high-end CPU.

You can find the details over at the Apple education site. Apple.com/education

And The Winners Are….

By Luke On Mar 21, 2009 Uncategorized 0 No Comments

sdhc-memory-cardf-l-178113-1jpg The two winners of the AppleAddiction.net Sweet Tweet giveaway are twitter users kurteous and ninja1. Congratulations guys, both of you will be receiving an 8GB Class 4 SDHC card from Kingston Technologies.

Thanks to everyone else who entered!

Didn’t win? have no worries, there will be plenty more giveaway coming up in the next month.

Next Gen iPhone to sport video capabilities?

specs_box20080909 A recent article from AppleInsider is claiming that sometime this year (Late Spring/Early Fall) we will see some hardware updates to the iPhone. One of the updates being video support. They say their source is a very reliable one when it comes to Apple hardware.

Also, Engadget recently picked up on some goodies in iPhone OS 3.0. They have some screen shots for the new and upcoming OS that shows the option for video uploads to mobileme. Put these two stories together and it sounds pretty convincing that the iPhone will be getting video capabilities.

Now all we need is copy and paste….oh wait, that’s coming too!

The Hackingtosh G4. -Part 1

By Luke On Mar 18, 2009 Apple | Hacks/Mods | Linux/UNIX | OS | Tips 0 No Comments Tags: Mac Pro, OS X, OSx86, Tips

This is a documentation of my project to mod a Powermac G4 into a hackintosh.
Very little effort went into the research of compatibility. I was shopping on a budget and I knew if they didn’t fit I could just get a cheap pc case.
So, $470 dollars later my tigerdirect shopping cart is full of mostly everything I need.

As of now I have been able to install the new Hard Drive, DVD Burner, and Power Supply into the G4.

Read on for pics,. Read More

Archive for March, 2009