Second iPhone 2.1 beta seeding to developers

Second iPhone 2.1 beta seeding to developers
A new beta of the iPhone 2.1 firmware is seeding to developers, say reports. The code is mainly said to contain bug fixes, but Apple has allegedly confirmed that it contains an early version of background push notification. The technology is a workaround for the lack of background processes on the iPhone, but should nevertheless provide advantage...

MacBreak 93: Studio: Quick DVD Menu

MacBreak 93: Studio: Quick DVD Menu
Steve Martin shows us how to make a simple menu from an existing video stream.

Apple posts Lexmark Printer Driver 1.1

Apple posts Lexmark Printer Driver 1.1
Apple has released Lexmark Printer Driver Update 1.1, which includes the latest drivers for the Lexmark line of printers. The 71MB update was released Tuesday and is only visible when a Lexmark printer is connected, or a print queue has been created for an earlier Lexmark driver....

GBTV #0329 (small) | GeekBrief.TV

GBTV #0329 (small) | GeekBrief.TV
Apple AirPort Express was updated to 802.11n so it's faster and has a longer range. Boston Dynamics has a video of the BigDog robot and it's the most lifelike robot movement we've seen. The full video is here.

Shuttle is famous for making small form factor barebones PCs. They have a new one, the KPC with Linux and components already installed. The Swiftpoint Slider is a mouse in a new form factor. It's tiny and controlled by a thumb.

Bluelock is a Windows app that locks your PC when you walk away with a paired Bluetooth device in your pocket. Desktopple Pro from FoggyNoggin.com is a desktop hiding app.

Duke Beattie won the Big Trip logo contest. The story of why we picked his design is at BigTrip.TV.

Netgear rolls out Wireless-N Upgrade Kit

Netgear rolls out Wireless-N Upgrade Kit

Filed under: Wireless

Netgear looks to be doing its part to bring every last home network into the Wireless-N fold, with the company now rolling out its appropriately-named Wireless-N Upgrade Kit, which includes a 5GHz Wireless-N HD Access Point (WNHDE111) and that RangeMax Dual-Band Wireless-N USB adapter (WNDA3100) that made an appearance at the FCC earlier this year. Like most such kits, the included Access Point can function either as a standalone bridge (including with a game console or media receiver) or as a full-fledged 5GHz Wireless-N access point when it's connected to an existing router or gateway. There's also not many surprises with the USB adapter, although it does boast some "patented metamaterial micro-antennas," which promise to out-do other non-metamaterial 802.11n adapters. If that's got you sold, you can pick up the kit right now for $149.

[Via BIOS]

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RSS/Copyright Debate

RSS/Copyright Debate

Is RSS syndication honestly a threat to copyrights and those trying to protect them? It’s beginning to look that way.
(more…)

Is RSS syndication honestly a threat to copyrights and those trying to protect them? It’s beginning to look that way.
(more…)

Beverly Hills, 90210 iPod nano

Beverly Hills, 90210 iPod nano

Filed under: iPod Family, Odds and ends

Beverly Hills, 90210 is a show that is near and dear to many people's hearts... at least I assume so, because how else do you explain this Beverly Hills, 90210 limited edition iPod nano? CBS is selling 2000 of these suckers for $269. For your money you get an 8 gig iPod nano engraved with a picture of the 90210 cast and a slogan of your choice (as long as it is 30 characters or less) and all the normal accessories that come with an iPod nano. If a 4 gig iPod nano is more your speed, you're in luck because you can get one of them for $219.

I think I'll be passing on this iPod nano, but CBS has a whole line of iPods branded with various shows. They have everything from CSI iPods to Amazing Race iPods. I will pay good money for a Barney Miller iPod nano (which I have helpfully mocked up to the right. Oh, Wojciehowicz, you card!).

[via Engadget]

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Manage Your Money Safely with ClearCheckbook

Manage Your Money Safely with ClearCheckbook
There are numerous ways to manage your money, Wesabe, Mint, just to mention a few but I have always found these to be a bit limiting. Mint for example requires your bank account information which is a major drawback. I always speak up against all this privacy obsession, but while I don’t care if [...]

There are numerous ways to manage your money, Wesabe, Mint, just to mention a few but I have always found these to be a bit limiting. Mint for example requires your bank account information which is a major drawback.

I always speak up against all this privacy obsession, but while I don’t care if someone gets to my personal thoughts, I do care if they get to my money. There is a heated debate about Mint’s safety and policies and even if you don’t mind that part, if you have bank accounts outside the US, Mint won’t work anyway.

Enter ClearCheckbook, stage right, one of the best money management apps I’ve seen in a while that won’t require you to surrender all your personal info. Manage multiple accounts, savings, credit cards, cash, Paypal and so on easily, with overviews, statistics and summaries readily available. Of course the negative side of the app is that you need to do everything manually. You don’t have to share your info, but this means the app doesn’t pull anything from your bank account either. For me this is a huge positive side to things because it gives me much more flexibility. Let me show you a bit more about this extremely helpful application.

Setting up

I needed a simple but effective app to tighten my grip on my expenses and ClearCheckbook impressed me right from the start. With the simple few step process you will set up your accounts in no time, designating an initial sum for each. Since you are not tied to your bank accounts you can create “fictional” accounts for anything you wish. If you like to put $20 in a jar each month you can create an account named “jar” and designate an initial sum. You will be able to add transactions in the same way. While this seems like a weird use of the application it is very life-like, you could even use it to track a loan you gave to someone. To add an initial fund to a credit card account you will need to either withdraw or deposit that amount while all other accounts have an “initial amount” option. There are a few reasons why this is technically more accurate, but I see no reason why it is complicated. Nevertheless, it’s still pretty easy to set up stuff. You can even modify the initial sum at any time if you want to reset your account, or balance it.

Daily use

Of course setting up is all nice and easy, but the real task is to track your daily expenses right? I’ve only been using ClearCheckbook for a week, but since I have been moving I used it heavily. It manages to really help you, and not bog you down with micromanagement. Just click on add an entry, choose account, amount, date, category and name. Adding an item takes about 10 seconds for me, even if I add a new category and spend some time on the transaction name, so you won’t spend minutes and hours pushing sums about.

The Summary screen is also great for daily use, showing a list of recent transactions, which can be filtered by certain categories. You can also view your account balances and the total, a great place to get some at a glance info about how you stand financially.

The summary screen also enables quick editing of items (just click and go, nice inline editing implemented), you can modify every aspect, plus you get the option to jive an entry. Jiving basically means checking that the amount matches your bank statement. Since you aren’t pulling data from your account but editing manually, this is a nice function to have. However if you have a lot of transactions, I doubt you want to spend 3 hours each month to go through all your entries. If you find a discrepancy between your ClearCheckbook and your real account, just add correction transactions for the relevant amount.

Reports

Actually reports are not that important to me, but they are a cool way to visualize your account and see when your earnings are going up or down in general. You can see total spending compared to withdrawals, then by account, you can even take a look at spending by category. My current standing there is Food - 90%, Hygiene - 10%. Is that something I should hide? As you use it more and more these statistics become more and more relevant and useful, if you have 2-3 transactions daily you should have some usable data within a month.

That’s about it for reports, which is enough for me, but what is a real help is the search option which let’s you find any transaction, at any time, for any amount. Searches are quick and productive, you’ll be able to find that “lost” transaction in seconds.

Management Tools

What surprised me are the amount of tools ClearCheckbook offers. CheckBot for example is a way to interact with your account using different platforms, like AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Gtalk, or even your mobile phone, which can be a great asset if you’re on the run.

You can also set up reminders and recurring transactions. For people like me this is a blessing, I am not the best in keeping track of my monthly bills and so on. Now I can just input them and off I go, worry free. Spending limits can provide the same auto-regulators that some people need, and while they don’t actually stop you from spending, they might make you sit down and think about it.

There are some other nice features like importing, a sort of notepad, refreshing accounts and so on, plus some basic features like managing categories and accounts of course.

Is ClearCheckbook right for me?

Well, this is up for you to decide. Give it a go and share your experiences, thoughts, rival products in the comments. For me this is the perfect solution since I can add any account from the cash in my hand to the money in my Paypal account to my allocated Poker funds.

There are no privacy concerns or at least ones that could compromise your real account and although you have to manually add stuff, this can be done pretty quickly and easily. I think I like this much more that other apps out there, but let us know what you think!

(By) Daniel changes his signature lines all the time because although he has a blog about organization, Hack Your Day, he can be a bit all over the place at times. He also has a blog management service called Blogtastique which helps newbie and pro bloggers in anything they need.”

More from MakeUseOf.com :

- MakeUseOf Directory : Read about up-to 5 truly useful web apps on a daily basis.
- MakeUseOf ‘Geeky Fun’: - Fun Geeky Pics, Cartoons and Videos.

Tags: budget tracker, expenses, finance, money, save money

Related posts

• Save Money and Track Your Finances with Mint (17)
• 5 Tracking Apps to Help You Out in 2008 (10)
• XE.com - Universal Currency Converter (1)
• Shop Like a PRO: 7 Tools to Crack eBay (12)
• Quick Money Transfer Services (5)

LG's BD300 Network Blu-ray player to stream Netflix in September

LG's BD300 Network Blu-ray player to stream Netflix in September

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment, Portable Video

We've been following the rumor since January, today it's official: LG's BD300 Network Blu-ray Disc Player will begin streaming Netflix movies in the US this September. The player will cost "well under $500" and allow Netflix members to stream more than 12,000 standard definition TV and films through the device at no additional increase to their monthly paid subscriptions. Members will use the Netflix website to add movies or TV to their individual instant queues. Movies will begin playing in as little as 30 seconds when selected from the TV where users can browse, make selections, read synopses, rate movies, and fast-forward / rewind video streams using the BD300's remote control. While specs on the player itself are scarce, we do know that it supports BD Live and LG's SimpLink technology to integrate easily with LG TVs and AV products. One thing's for sure, with this deal announced and those with Roku and the Xbox 360 in the bag, it looks like Netflix is grown-up and ready for the digital age.

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MacBreak 76: Studio: Motion 3 Paint

MacBreak 76: Studio: Motion 3 Paint
Mark Spencer returns to show us the new paint features in Motion 3.

Manage Your Money Safely with ClearCheckbook

Manage Your Money Safely with ClearCheckbook
There are numerous ways to manage your money, Wesabe, Mint, just to mention a few but I have always found these to be a bit limiting. Mint for example requires your bank account information which is a major drawback. I always speak up against all this privacy obsession, but while I don’t care if [...]

There are numerous ways to manage your money, Wesabe, Mint, just to mention a few but I have always found these to be a bit limiting. Mint for example requires your bank account information which is a major drawback.

I always speak up against all this privacy obsession, but while I don’t care if someone gets to my personal thoughts, I do care if they get to my money. There is a heated debate about Mint’s safety and policies and even if you don’t mind that part, if you have bank accounts outside the US, Mint won’t work anyway.

Enter ClearCheckbook, stage right, one of the best money management apps I’ve seen in a while that won’t require you to surrender all your personal info. Manage multiple accounts, savings, credit cards, cash, Paypal and so on easily, with overviews, statistics and summaries readily available. Of course the negative side of the app is that you need to do everything manually. You don’t have to share your info, but this means the app doesn’t pull anything from your bank account either. For me this is a huge positive side to things because it gives me much more flexibility. Let me show you a bit more about this extremely helpful application.

Setting up

I needed a simple but effective app to tighten my grip on my expenses and ClearCheckbook impressed me right from the start. With the simple few step process you will set up your accounts in no time, designating an initial sum for each. Since you are not tied to your bank accounts you can create “fictional” accounts for anything you wish. If you like to put $20 in a jar each month you can create an account named “jar” and designate an initial sum. You will be able to add transactions in the same way. While this seems like a weird use of the application it is very life-like, you could even use it to track a loan you gave to someone. To add an initial fund to a credit card account you will need to either withdraw or deposit that amount while all other accounts have an “initial amount” option. There are a few reasons why this is technically more accurate, but I see no reason why it is complicated. Nevertheless, it’s still pretty easy to set up stuff. You can even modify the initial sum at any time if you want to reset your account, or balance it.

Daily use

Of course setting up is all nice and easy, but the real task is to track your daily expenses right? I’ve only been using ClearCheckbook for a week, but since I have been moving I used it heavily. It manages to really help you, and not bog you down with micromanagement. Just click on add an entry, choose account, amount, date, category and name. Adding an item takes about 10 seconds for me, even if I add a new category and spend some time on the transaction name, so you won’t spend minutes and hours pushing sums about.

The Summary screen is also great for daily use, showing a list of recent transactions, which can be filtered by certain categories. You can also view your account balances and the total, a great place to get some at a glance info about how you stand financially.

The summary screen also enables quick editing of items (just click and go, nice inline editing implemented), you can modify every aspect, plus you get the option to jive an entry. Jiving basically means checking that the amount matches your bank statement. Since you aren’t pulling data from your account but editing manually, this is a nice function to have. However if you have a lot of transactions, I doubt you want to spend 3 hours each month to go through all your entries. If you find a discrepancy between your ClearCheckbook and your real account, just add correction transactions for the relevant amount.

Reports

Actually reports are not that important to me, but they are a cool way to visualize your account and see when your earnings are going up or down in general. You can see total spending compared to withdrawals, then by account, you can even take a look at spending by category. My current standing there is Food - 90%, Hygiene - 10%. Is that something I should hide? As you use it more and more these statistics become more and more relevant and useful, if you have 2-3 transactions daily you should have some usable data within a month.

That’s about it for reports, which is enough for me, but what is a real help is the search option which let’s you find any transaction, at any time, for any amount. Searches are quick and productive, you’ll be able to find that “lost” transaction in seconds.

Management Tools

What surprised me are the amount of tools ClearCheckbook offers. CheckBot for example is a way to interact with your account using different platforms, like AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Gtalk, or even your mobile phone, which can be a great asset if you’re on the run.

You can also set up reminders and recurring transactions. For people like me this is a blessing, I am not the best in keeping track of my monthly bills and so on. Now I can just input them and off I go, worry free. Spending limits can provide the same auto-regulators that some people need, and while they don’t actually stop you from spending, they might make you sit down and think about it.

There are some other nice features like importing, a sort of notepad, refreshing accounts and so on, plus some basic features like managing categories and accounts of course.

Is ClearCheckbook right for me?

Well, this is up for you to decide. Give it a go and share your experiences, thoughts, rival products in the comments. For me this is the perfect solution since I can add any account from the cash in my hand to the money in my Paypal account to my allocated Poker funds.

There are no privacy concerns or at least ones that could compromise your real account and although you have to manually add stuff, this can be done pretty quickly and easily. I think I like this much more that other apps out there, but let us know what you think!

(By) Daniel changes his signature lines all the time because although he has a blog about organization, Hack Your Day, he can be a bit all over the place at times. He also has a blog management service called Blogtastique which helps newbie and pro bloggers in anything they need.”

More from MakeUseOf.com :

- MakeUseOf Directory : Read about up-to 5 truly useful web apps on a daily basis.
- MakeUseOf ‘Geeky Fun’: - Fun Geeky Pics, Cartoons and Videos.

Tags: budget tracker, expenses, finance, money, save money

Related posts

• Save Money and Track Your Finances with Mint (17)
• 5 Tracking Apps to Help You Out in 2008 (10)
• XE.com - Universal Currency Converter (1)
• Shop Like a PRO: 7 Tools to Crack eBay (12)
• Quick Money Transfer Services (5)

NY Bar Association to continue Mac-free policy

Lawyers taking bar exams in New York have once again foregone the use of a Mac this year, according to information from the state's Board of Law Examiners. Since 2003, people taking the exam have been given the option of using special software, which can be preloaded on notebooks for answering the essay and MPT sections of the test. The Board has...

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MacBreak 81: iPhone Camping

MacBreak 81: iPhone Camping
Merlin chats with buyers in line outside the Apple store in San Francisco waiting to buy the new iPhone.

VMware and Parallels for Virtual Machines

It doesn't matter if you're running on Windows or Mac OS X - every power user needs either Parallels or VMware (or both). There's never been an easier way to test software without destroying your primary operating system's stability. Think of how many times you wish you could press a 'reverse' button on your computer. Plus, there's no easier way to try new Linux distributions - see what all the fuss is about. Run Windows in OS X, run Linux in Windows, but the best way to do either is with VMware and/or Parallels. Read More

Adobe ships Lightroom 2

Filed under: Software

Adobe announced today that Lightroom 2, a major update to their photography workflow app, is now available. Lightroom 2 will cost you $299, with an upgrade price of $99, but it includes a host of new features, improvements, and general whizbangery.

The biggest news for Mac users is that Lightroom 2 is Adobe's first native 64-bit app for OS X. Also new in Lightroom 2:

• Libraries can span harddrives
• Customizable print templates
• Smart Collections to automatically organize photos

And much more. The Lightroom 2 Learning center has a nice list of new and improved features. And to help you Lightroom 1.0 users decide whether or not to upgrade Adobe has a comparison of Lightroom 1 vs. Lightrooom 2.

Lightroom 2 requires OS X 10.4 or above, and a 1 GHz G4 processor or better.

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Panorama Enterprise Server

Panorama Enterprise Server

Filed under: Enterprise, Software, Internet Tools, Developer

When I saw the words Provue Development and Panorama in a press release this morning, I felt like I was suddenly transported back to the 80s. When the Mac first came out in 1984, Provue was there with the first real database manager for the Mac (OverVue). It's great to see that they're still developing innovative products like Panorama Enterprise Server. The $399 Panorama Enterprise Server is a RAM-based database server for Mac OS X 10.4 and above.

Panorama Enterprise Server works with Provue's desktop database application Panorama 5.5 to create network-based databases. It distributes RAM-based copies of shared data across a network in a mesh architecture. By distributing the load of common database actions over a number of machines, speed is improved dramatically.

Another unique feature is that users can disconnect from the network, work offline, and their database changes sync back up to the rest of the meshed computers when they are reconnected. Panorama Enterprise Server has remote configuration, management, and debug tools to keep DBAs happy, as well as automatic backup of live databases. Designers will like the visual design tools for building HTML and CSS-based forms, and support for Google Analytics.

Provue offers a 45-day free trial of both Panorama 5.5 and Enterprise Server.

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MacBreak 126: Macworld 2008: Verte Chair

Dr. Kiki Sanford takes Anthro Technology's "Verte Chair" for a spin. Read More

Mark/Space ships Missing Sync for Symbian

Filed under: Software

Mac sync software developer Mark/Space has announced the release of The Missing Sync for Symbian. Designed to sync Mac apps to Symbian S60 and UIQ smartphones, the new $39.95 product (electronic download) has a unique feature -- Proximity Syncing. When your Mac and Symbian phone are within Bluetooth range (about 30 feet / 10 meters), they automatically sync to insure that both are up-to-date.

The Missing Sync for Symbian syncs personal information such as contacts, calendar tasks, and events, and also uses proprietary Call Log and SMS applications to move the phone's call log and text messages to the Mac. Video, photo, music, and document files can also be synced.

If you think that the iPhone is the only smartphone on the market, it's important to realize that well over 100 million Symbian-based phones have been sold worldwide, with Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and Motorola being the biggest vendors. As a result, the Missing Sync for Symbian is available in English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish versions.

In the interest of full disclosure, I wrote the help system for this application under contract to Mark/Space.

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iTunes US adds Nick Rewind to TV shows

Nickelodeon has introduced a large portion of its back catalog to the US iTunes Store, the TV studio has announced. As a part of its Nick Rewind selection, the company now has the beginning seasons of a number of older kids' shows, including Doug, Hey Arnold and Aaahhh Real Monsters. More common are "best-of" compilations, for shows like Rugrats,...

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ASUS R50A UMPC lands in FCC, is promptly torn apart

Filed under: Handhelds

ASUS' R50A has been hanging around in "almost here" land for, like, ever. Over six months after we laid hands on it at CES, it seems the release is all but imminent as evidenced by its recent showing in the sprawling FCC database. Per usual, the agency did its best with that 1.3-megapixel point-and-shoot that it just can't secure funds to replace, and while we've certainly seen more invigorating dissections, this one isn't half bad considering the dearth of enthusiasm expressed by those doing the splaying. Wander on down to the read link for more dark, dingy shots of the internals.

[Via jkkmobile]

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ILuv intros full line of Silicone, Acrylic iPhone 3G

ILuv intros full line of Silicone, Acrylic iPhone 3G
Audio accessory maker iLuv has announced a full line of form-fitting cases for the iPhone 3G, including a unique two-toned silicone model. There are four models available: a basic silicone case in black or white, the two-toned silicone model, and hard cases in acrylic or clear plastic. All of the cases allow full access to the iPhone's controls and...

Tesla #6 crash disturbs the sound of silence

Filed under: Transportation

The Tesla roadster goes from 0 to 60 in 3.9-seconds (by December anyway) and costs $100,000 if you're lucky enough to get dibs on the 10 or so electric cars delivered so far. Come to find out, it also goes from 30 to 0 in a nausea-filled second when ground to a halt of twisted carbon-fiber beneath a Mercedes. The image above was snapped by Alex Volkov at the scene of a Friday evening accident in San Francisco. Of course, this isn't the first wrecked Tesla we've seen. According to Fortune, ousted co-founder Martin Eberhard suffered further distress when his Tesla rear-ended a truck en route for delivery to Eberhard's home. While the cause of the new accident isn't official, a few eye-witnesses said that Tesla #6 -- driven and owned by an unidentified man -- had gone "unnoticed" as it went "bumper-to-bumper between the cars." Interestingly enough, the Tesla's air-bags never deployed. One thing seems obvious: we expect to see more crashes from the silent, ultra-low-profile Tesla street-racer as it attempts to compete for space on roads dominated by SUVs, Hummers, and Testosterone.

Read -- SF Tesla Crash
Read -- Fortune

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GBTV #0392 (small) | GeekBrief.TV

GBTV #0392 (small) | GeekBrief.TV
Nintendo announced the Wii MotionPlus. It's an ad-on to your existing remote that will make it more responsive and more accurate.

xBox 360 will also have some changes to the dashboard. Microsoft announced a deal with Netflix that's pretty exciting! Tell me what you think about the changes in the comments below.

Mosquito repellent sounds coming to Korean phones.

There's a Battlestar Gallactica Toaster at the NBC Store.

We talked about the NeoCube a while ago. We finally got it and haven't put it down since. I highly recommend it, but since there seems to be one guy selling them, delivery takes for .... ever!

Nike+ Human Race 10K

On August 31, Nike and Apple will be hosting one of the world's largest one-day running events, The Nike+ Human Race 10K. Individuals are able to either join together with large groups of runners in 25 different host cities or they may choose to run where they are and then upload their stats via Nike+. Runners can sign up for the event through Nike...

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The Anatomy of an RSS Feed

The Anatomy of an RSS Feed

So what the heck makes up an newsfeed, anyway? Seriously, is it all that complicated? Ah, that might actually surprise you.
(more…)

So what the heck makes up an newsfeed, anyway? Seriously, is it all that complicated? Ah, that might actually surprise you.
(more…)

Bell Canada lays off 2500 managers

Bell Canada lays off 2500 managers
Feeling the pressure from aggressive competition, closeBell Canada is cutting 15 percent of its management workforce. Bell says it's cutting 2,500 non-union workers. Canada's largest telecommunications company is cutting its management hierarchy from 11 layers to a maximum of eight. The company is slimming down as part of a $52 billion dollar priv...

Sony's profits drop drastically this quarter, 'Spider-Man 4' needed badly

Sony's profits drop drastically this quarter, 'Spider-Man 4' needed badly

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

According to Sony's latest earnings report, the company's profits have dipped to almost half of what they were at this time last year. Analysts are citing a strengthened yen, the lack of a major Hollywood blockbuster like Spider-Man 3, and continuing issues with its mobile phone arm as core reasons for the slide. It's no surprise that the company is taking a hit, especially after the outrageously poor performance of Sony Ericsson, though the numbers reveal that even improved sales of the PS3 this quarter can't sustain losses from core businesses like Sony BMG and fluctuating currency rates. Looks like the champagne will have to stay in the fridge this quarter.

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Converting Safari RSS feeds into exportable OPML file

At first, saving and reading your RSS feeds from Safari may have seemed appealing. But that may have changed. After all, there are a good five or six solid RSS readers for the Mac that can do the job better. Well, there seems to be a way to move those RSS feeds out of Safari and into the reader of your choice.

By using an XML stylesheet and running it in the Mac terminal, you can convert the RSS feeds into an OPML file. Nearly all RSS readers -- both desktop and online -- will let you import feeds via OPML. Here's how you do it:

Download the XML stylesheet from here. Then run it in the terminal with these commands:
$ cd ~/Library/Safari
$ plutil -convert xml1 Bookmarks.plist
$ xsltproc SafariFeeds2OPML.xslt Bookmarks.plist > SafariFeeds.opml
$ plutil -convert binary1 Bookmarks.plist

Now you have an OPML file called SafariFeeds.opml. Download a news reader or use an online one and import the file. Now you can enjoy those RSS feeds in a more comfortable reading environment.

Via Mac OS X Hints.

Read�|�Permalink�|�Email this�|�Linking�Blogs�|�Comments

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Mac 101: Stars and Smart Playlists

Filed under: iPod Family, iTunes, Mac 101

If you're anything like me -- and I sincerely hope you're not, for your sake -- you have a large iTunes music library, but the music that you like right now is only a small fraction of that total. (Yeah, that embarrassing '96 Dave Matthews Band album is getting pretty dusty.)

Since my musical tastes vary from day to day, and songs quickly fall in and out of my fickle favor, I love assigning ratings to the music I like this minute. I have a five-star rating for la crème de la crème, and a four-star rating for stuff that's pretty good. Three-star items are sadly relegated to history.

Next, I combine ratings with smart playlists: Now I can add and remove songs from my current rotation just by changing their star rating. I can do this on-the-go, too: Change a rating on my iPod, and the playlists are updated immediately, and eventually synced back to the computer.

Follow me across the jump to see how you can dynamically and efficiently manage your music as quickly as your tastes change.

Continue reading Mac 101: Stars and Smart Playlists

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GBTV #0383 (small) | GeekBrief.TV

Bill Gates says goodbye.

Rogers Wireless is still crap.

Princeton is making textbooks available on Kindle.

The Monsterpod, apparently, sticks anywhere.

The Super Side Bar is a Liquor faucet.

VidBlaster is working with Ustream. Test tomorrow at 4:00 PM Central time at www.CaliLIVE.tv. Read More

MacBreak 23: Automatic Photo Booth

Leo Laporte and guest Sal Soghoian show you how to use Automator to snap repeated photos with your iSight camera. Read More

Montreal Apple store grand opening today

Filed under: Retail, Apple

The rumored Apple Store, Sainte Catherine in Montréal is opening today, in grand style. If you're in the area of 1321 Ste-Catherine st west besides the Ogilvy Department Store at the corner De la Montagne st (which I totally just grabbed from the store's website, I have no idea where any of that is) you should stop on by.

It looks like the store will also have a number of musical guests for the next few days to keep interest up. Amongst the musical folks stopping by the store are:

• The Stills on July 26th
• Alex Cuba on July 27th
• Anik Jean on July 28th
• David Usher on July 29th

Thanks to everyone who sent this in.

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Robot rabbit reads RSS feeds out loud

Robot rabbit reads RSS feeds out loud

Truly, who can say no to a talking rabbit that not only undestands RSS, but shares it aloud with others?
(more…)

Truly, who can say no to a talking rabbit that not only undestands RSS, but shares it aloud with others?
(more…)

MacBreak 135: NAB: Neutrik

MacBreak 135: NAB: Neutrik
Alex checks out Neutrik's brand new connector.

MacBreak 151: NAB: Tidbits Part 2

Alex checks out a vocal booth, a helicopter, and a couple of Kiki's. Read More

MacBreak 154: MacBreak Studio: The Job Chain

MacBreak 154: MacBreak Studio: The Job Chain
Alex brings back Brian Gary to show us how we can save time by linking jobs in Compressor.

Another team figures out how to convert waste heat into energy

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Not that mad scientists haven't figured out a way to convert waste heat into energy, but a team from Ohio State University has developed a new material that does the same sort of thing... just way, way better. The new material goes by the name thallium-doped lead telluride, and at least in theory, it could actually convert exhaust heat from vehicles into electricity. According to a new report about to hit the journal Science, the material packs "twice the efficiency of anything currently on the market," though it still seems as if it's a good ways out from being ready for commercial applications. Nanotechnology geeks -- you've got a real treat waiting in the read link.

[Via CNET]

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MacBreak 37: 3D Modeling in Google SketchUp

MacBreak 37: 3D Modeling in Google SketchUp
Alex Oliver returns to show us the easy-to-use 3D modeling tools in Google SketchUp.

The Google Killer is here..it's gone..it's back again

Much of the buzz around the online space in the last 24 hours has been around the launch of what has been touted as the Google Killer, new search engine Cuil, (pronounced cool). Cuil was founded by highly respected search experts,... Read More