TF2 on Mac

That’s right, soon Left 4 Dead, Half-Life, Counter Strike, Team Fortress 2 and Portal will finally arrive for followers of Apple.

“As we transition from entertainment as a product to entertainment as a service, customers and developers need open, high-quality Internet clients,” said Gabe Newell, President of Valve. “The Mac is a great platform for entertainment services.”

The Mac version of Steam will mirror its Windows counterpart but will add a feature called “Steam Play.” This feature will allow anyone buying Valve games through Steam on Mac to play them on Windows Steam

“We looked at a variety of methods to get our games onto the Mac and in the end decided to go with native versions rather than emulation,” said John Cook, Director of Steam Development. “The inclusion of WebKit into Steam, and of OpenGL into Source gives us a lot of flexibility in how we move these technologies forward. We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360. Updates for the Mac will be available simultaneously with the Windows updates. Furthermore, Mac and Windows players will be part of the same multiplayer universe, sharing servers, lobbies, and so forth. We fully support a heterogeneous mix of servers and clients. The first Mac Steam client will be the new generation currently in beta testing on Windows.”

Portal 2 will be the first Valve title to launch on Mac and PC at the same time this Fall.

Any Mac gamers out there partying in the streets at this news?

Source: Kotaku

With this week’s release of Final Fantasy I and II, and recent launches of Doom II and Wolfenstein, an exciting trend in iPhone applications is developing– relaunches of classic yet outdated video games on your iPhone.

It’s pretty cool that the iPhone has become a medium advanced enough that classic games can be even more playable on it than they were on their original consoles. Classic video games have lacked the long-term staying power in the public conscience largely because the rapid improvement of gaming technology makes fairly new games seem wildly outdated.

The iPhone’s technology has allowed for the resurrection of these classic games and will hopefully pave the way these exceptional games to be enjoyed long after their spotlight in console gaming has gone. Gamers are certainly more forgiving in what they expect from their iPhone games as compared to their console games, and since classic games are already developed, iPhone users could see a boom of classic games hitting their iPhones in the coming months. Come on, Rareware, give me GoldenEye!

Apps

Now that it’s March, the season for enjoying a nice outdoor run without returning home as a Popsicle has begun. Runners need to find routes, keep statistics, and track calories burned. Blast gives you reviews of three popular running apps for your fitness pleasure.

iMapMyRun: This app is a good free alternative for a lot of the run tracking paid apps on the App Store. Walk out your front door, hit start and run. iMapMyRun will mark your route using Google maps, and keeps vital statistics like distance, speed and elevation. When your run is over, go to MapMyRun.com, where all your statistics will already be uploaded, allowing you to delve deeper into all the aspects of your run. You can also enter in data from gym workouts, making this app a free one-stop shop for all your fitness needs. Simple and excellent execution for a free app.

iRace Me Lite: The best motivation for runners is to race against their fleet-footed brethren. Even better motivation is racing against yourself. iRace Me Lite allows users to create a loop, run it and then next time they run the loop, see where they are in relation to their previous run in real time. The obvious drawback for the app is runners continually checking their iPhone instead of running full out. This is a neat concept, however, and the addition of audio cues can all but eliminate the need for runners to pull out their iPhone, making this application a must for seasoned and novice runners alike.

Fitnio: Essentially the statistics that you would see on a treadmill on your iPhone. Adding calories burned to distance, speed and pace is a nice touch, but it is hard to see how the developers of this app can justify charging $1.99 for it. Sure, it has warm up and cool down functions, as well as a field for emergency contacts, but that is about it. The app does have a feature for cyclists as well as runners, but if you’re rolling on two feet instead of two wheels, Fitnio is a waste when compared to other free running apps.

Undoubtedly the biggest iPhone question of the week is whether Apple will allow the Opera Mini iPhone browser, unveiled last week at the Mobile World Congress, into the App Store. Apple has a habit of rejecting apps that may step on the toes of their native apps, most notably rejecting the Google Voice application, which reportedly managed calls, voicemails and text messages.

The circumstances around the announcement of the Opera Mini browser are interesting for two reasons. One, the browser is reportedly six times faster than the native Safari browser and uses less of the iPhone’s resources by rendering pages on a server and then compressing them by 90 percent. Second, Opera has forced Apple’s hand. By garnering significant media attention for the application before submitting it to the app store, Opera is daring Apple to reject their browser and feel the wrath of an undoubtedly disappointed customer base.

The fact that Apple would reject an application that enhances a user’s experience simply because it conflicts with a native application will not sit well with many iPhone customers. Opera has also stated that they do not anticipate a problem with the Opera Mini being accepted into the App Store, affirming that it meets all the requirements Apple provides for acceptance into the App Store. The browser will be submitted to the App Store within the next few weeks, with the decision likely to shape Apple’s apps policy for the foreseeable future.

Opera has deftly used the publicity and intrigue surrounding the Opera Mini browser’s acceptance into the App Store to make Apple finally comes to a definitive decision about allowing applications that overlap functionality with native ones. It only takes one to open the floodgates.

Apps

You love your iPhone. And you’re lazy. Turning your iPhone into a remote or mouse? Sounds perfect. Blast supports your lethargy by giving you the three best remote apps for the iPhone.

Remote- When Apple releases an app, especially a free one, we tend to pay attention. The app closes the gap between phone and computer by allowing users to control their iTunes or Apple TV over any wireless network. Remote is a simple yet effective app that gives users nearly complete control over their iTunes no matter where they are on their wireless network.

Air Mouse Pro- This app allows you to use your iPhone as a trackpad and keyboard to control your PC or Mac. The application also has embedded action buttons to control each program. An interesting feature is the gyroscopic mouse control that, while not very functional and hard to control, allows users to wave their phone around to control their mouse, and appears to be one of the major selling points of the app. The UI is polished and the pre-loaded remotes allow users to quickly navigate running programs within seconds of setting the application up. Now only $0.99 on the App store, this app is an absolute steal.

Rowmote- Rowmote, just updated last week, is like Remote, but for more than 30 programs, including Front Row, iTunes, Quicktime, Last.fm, Hulu Desktop, and perhaps most importantly, Keynote, considering Apple’s Keynote Remote app is the same price, $0.99. The application only has five functions for each program (pause, play, skip, fast forward/rewind and volume) and can have a bit of a delayed reaction, but has enough redeeming qualities, such as sleep and wake functions, launching and subsequently switching between applications, and accessing the iTunes Visualizer, to make this app worth the purchase, especially for Keynote users.

According to HealthDay, Lauper said, “Fighting HIV/AIDS is not a one-woman job. Lady Gaga and I are using our voices as a call to action for women all over the world. I lost a lot of friends to AIDS before we even knew what it was. Today, across the world, women are more likely to become infected with HIV than men. Each one of us needs to do our part to fight for women impacted by HIV and AIDS.”

“We’re raising the VIVA GLAM bar this year with the voices of two incredible artists,” said John Demsey, president of Estee Lauder and chair of the MAC Aids Fund. “Lady Gaga and Cyndi Lauper are bringing women’s issues to the forefront of the HIV/AIDS crisis. We have one artist that hit the music industry at the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, and another that is explosively popular with young people today. They represent different generations that are equally as affected by this disease, and both are helping to spread the message of the power of one lipstick.”

The program has already raised more than $150 million to combat the disease all over the world, from South Africa to the rural southern United States.

Available in digital fashion at GameTreeOnline.com, “WAR” will run you $19.95, but includes 30 days of playtime.

“We’re incredibly excited to bring Warhammer Online and its enthralling Realm vs. Realm combat to the Mac community,” said Jeff Hickman, Executive Producer of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. “Come October 28th, the sides of Order and Destruction will be bolsters by a fresh recruit of Mac gamers experiencing for the first time exactly what we mean when we say that ‘WAR is everywhere!’”

If you’re a Mac gamer and want to get into the game right now, a beta version will have to do, and hopefully hold you over until October 28 when the game, in its entirety goes live.

The event will open at 10 a.m. at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco, Calif., at the Moscone Center, the same site of Macworld Expo and Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC).

Since 2005, Apple has used these events, usually near September, to introduce massive changes to its music business. Last year Apple introduced new iPods and iTunes 8 at a similar event.

“It’s only rock and roll, but we like it,” Apple says in an email inviting people to the event, Macworld reported. Apple gave no details about the event or what could be announced.

Maybe its a tablet device?

Future Media Concepts, a nationwide digital media training company, has been training professionals in the industry since 1994. The New York City-based company has branches in Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Orlando, Chicago and even Dubai. In 1998, the company opened it’s Boston branch. Back then, the office was as small as Boston’s film industry.

“That was when non-linear editing was coming into play and a lot of editors were hesitant to accept the new technology,” said Kathleen Langlois, a representative for FMC.

Now, more and more filmmakers and others in the digital media field are coming to Boston. Award-winning movies like “Good Will Hunting” and “The Departed,” as well as a 25 percent tax credit for the film industry, draw more attention Beantown as it becomes increasingly appealing to filmmakers.

FMC spotted the trend, and this year moved their Boston branch to a new and improved location in Kendall Square, where some of their clients include PBS, Fox, Akamai and ESPN.

“In the past year we’ve seen 12 more feature films filming in Boston and they have the production studio opening.” said Langlois. “(FMC) wanted to offer more classes and have more classroom space.”

FMC Boston reopened on July 13 and immediately went back to business. They offer upwards of 50 certification courses for programs like Media Composer, Mac OS X Leopard, Final Cut Pro, InDesign and more.

“Most of our classes are three days long, but they vary from two to five days long,” said FMC Boston Branch Manager Keri Wilson. “It’s not the traditional semester.”

And FMC doesn’t just serve the film industry. “While the film industry continues to be a source of business and FMC supports many film festivals in the area as a sponsor, the explosion in digital media is not just for the film industries but for all major corporations who utilize content creation software,” said FMC co-founder Jeff Rothberg in an email. “We continue to support both by hosting Users groups, having open houses, and running industry leading conferences.”

Classes usually have about six students and the cost runs from $575 to $2,245, Wilson said. The facility has five training rooms, but Wilson said that only about three are occupied on an average day. On a busy day, she said, there would be about 22 students — an increase since they moved.

“People have been calling to find out more about the new facility,” she said. “We allowed more people to register because we’ve got more classrooms.”

Those students include professionals already working in the industry, as well as digital media newcomers. Mostly it’s “employers sending their employees on the higher end rather than people who are independently funded,” Wilson said. However, FMC Boston also sees people who are looking for a career change and have always been interested in digital media.

And FMC doesn’t just offer classes; as a nationwide organization, they’ve been able to collaborate with the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) for the NAB Post Production World Conference in April 2010. They will also host the NY Post Production Conference in October 2009, the Digital Media DC Conference in December 2009, and an Editors Retreat in January 2010.

Meanwhile, in Boston, FMC will continue to offer the city a leg up on it’s way to becoming a real digital media hub.

The game starts off with the new Create-A-Sim program, where you are able to completely alter almost every aspect of your Sims. The standard facial changes are allowed along with the ability to adjust all preset models to your liking, and many new haircut styles are introduced, as well as the ability to literally create your own wardrobe for the Sims. Another very cool feature is being able to choose a voice for your Sim, then adjusting the pitch to your liking.

This new feature is the Create a Style tool, which allows you to create a new style of clothing or add your own flavor to existing patterns. This also lets you copy styles from one type of clothing and carry it over to anything else so they can match! Another bonus is that this isn’t limited to your Sim’s clothing – the Create a Style tool can also be used on anything you can buy for your Sim, so you can add your own touch to almost every design element of the game.

Depending on what age you make your Sim, you are able to choose a different number of personality traits. There are 63 personality traits to choose from, from being absent-minded to hating being naked to being evil! This gives you an endless variety of combinations to completely shape how your Sim acts and views the world. On top of personality traits, you can also choose a few of your Sims favorite things and their life goals!

When I was able to play The Sims 3 it was the first time I had played The Sims in at least two years, so the creation phase alone took me a solid hour to explore the different features and be happy with my Sim. Not being an avid Sims player, I am happy to say that the character creation part of the game is very simple to learn even with all of the given options. So how better to begin playing the game than with an evil computer genius with a good sense of humor?

When it comes to The Sims 3 world, it allows much more freedom than previous The Sims titles and it is now seamless. This is always a very nice touch to a game, providing a much more sandbox-style feel to game that already lets you do whatever you wish.

Whether you decide to buy a house for your Sim and decorate accordingly, or build a new house from scratch, you will spending a lot of time in Buy Mode. This is standard in The Sims games, but from what I remember from the other titles The Sims 3 offers a much simpler UI and it’s much easier to cycle through tools and items. The only thing I found that was a pain was the way to move your camera view around, as it was extremely awkward.

During my play time I created my own house for my Sim, with fully outfitted rooms with custom styles thanks to the Create a Style tool. After a while it becomes a bit captivating as you take the time to carefully design each room while building houses, then having so much freedom to decorate and outfit them with many types of appliances and furniture.

Another new feature is the Create a Movie tool, which lets you record up to 1 GB of gameplay at a time. After uploading the recording, you are presented with many tools for video editing to give your movie a polished look. I was unable to get the chance to play around with this feature as of yet, but it is something I look forward to experimenting with.

This game expands on the previous style of gameplay in other Sims games, providing new jobs and choices for your Sims as well as more items to purchase for them.

The Sims 3 was overall a fun a game to play, with many new features and tons of new items to improve gameplay. The game is even more sandbox than ever, allowing limitless amounts of customization and the choice to do whatever you please, making your experience more unique than ever.

The Sims 3 is available on Windows and Mac OS X, retails for $49.99, and comes with $10 worth of Sims Store points upon registration.

THQ aims to quench that longing with “Up,” a game in development for every imaginable gaming platform, based on the hotly anticipated Disney Pixar feature film by the same name.

Up will follow the exotic adventures of main character Carl Fredricksen and his young sidekick Wilderness Explorer Russell as they trek through the undiscovered jungles of South America. Treacherous jungle terrain, dangerous creatures and the slippery slopes of the Amazonian Tepuis await you in this latest film to game title.

Up will feature both single player and co-op game-play with an additional multiplayer component containing four player aerial combat.

Development of Up is being handled by Heavy Iron Studios, creators of the video game renditions of Ratatouille and WALL-E, the former earning a “Best Animated Video Game award” from the International Animated Film Society.

I was lucky enough to view a portion of the film at Comic Con and without giving any spoilers, I really think the varying character personalities coupled with the extravagant locations will for make a great video game if executed properly.

This spring Up will release on PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS, Games for Windows, and Mac.

If you just cannot wait, a free playable demo is available on Up the video game’s official site here.

More information regarding Up the film can be found here.

Of course, now that it’s no longer a Mac-only browser, it’s share has grown as a few (admittedly brave) folks downloaded it for their PCs. Even still, the vast majority of Safari users were Mac users who used Safari by default because they were too lazy to actually choose another (better) browser.

On Tuesday, Apple announced the beta for Safari 4 for both Windows and Mac. Apple has pulled out all the stops to make Safari an attractive browser that people will actually want to use. Heavy on new technical features as well as eye candy, this is quite possibly the first time Safari has resembled a browser that has the brilliant minds behind Apple’s design. Granted, most of the features just appearing now have been in other browsers. This time, however, Apple has put its own spin on them to make them, well… just work.

The first difference greeting users (after a brief, yet fancy, intro movie) is that Safari now offers better visual integration with the Window’s OS, featuring a standard title bar with buttons. While the chrome of Apple’s applications remains on the rest of the window, it is less distracting than before. Also, instead of a tab bar, tabs show up in the title bar like in Google Chrome (a feature Apple calls “Tabs on Top”). While I’m not a personal fan of this style because it prevents tab rearranging, it does take up less screen real estate.

The address bar and search box now have “AwesomeBar” like features, suggesting visited sites and bookmarks. When typing in addresses. The new home screen for empty windows and tabs shows the users’ most visited sites, a feature that Opera users have had for a long time, and intrepid Firefox users can add via plug-in. The screen is constantly updated over time, but can be customized by pinning or hiding links. Clicking on one of the tabs animates it as it moves to fill the window, a small piece of eye candy that is utterly cool to watch. Actually, the browser is full of these small animations that the average user doesn’t notice consciously, but make for a better visual experience, something Apple has always incorporated into its products.

Users can now look through and search their histories and bookmarks using Coverflow. Each entry has a screen shot saved for it. I find this interface for viewing bookmarks and histories actually to be more intuitive for both the average user who is likely to be a bit daunted by the system file structure as well as for native OS X users.

Something I found interesting and rather unique is the built-in RSS viewer. The in-browser RSS reader allows users to scroll through the stories, adjust them for length, sort them by any number of descriptors, and even search them, all from the same window. And while most users who know what RSS is will likely keep using a separate reader, these features are still very useful for quick browsing.

On the technical side, Apple claims that the new Nitro Engine renders Javascript faster than every other browser, and includes benchmarks to support their claims. In a completely biased and unscientific survey, I thought surfing through AJAX heavy sites like Gmail, Google Calendar, and Facebook was indeed snappy, so I’m likely to believe Apple assertions.

Safari still lacks an add-on architecture, which is perhaps Firefox’s best attribute, and the largest thing to keep Safari from gaining significant browser share. Otherwise, Apple has picked the best features of the browsers on the market and wrapped them up in a slick package that certainly deserves a look.

Topping all the charts was Apple’s latest update to its iLife suite, touting major retrofits of iMovie, iPhoto and GarageBand. The changes range from a better system for organizing photos in iPhoto to more powerful video editing functions in iMovie to a series of learning tutorials for various instruments in GarageBand.

“iLife continues to be one of the biggest reasons our customers choose to get a Mac,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, in a statement. “With iLife ‘09, we’ve made working with photos, making movies and learning to play music a lot more fun, and iMovie users are especially going to love the advanced but easy-to-use new features.”

Right after the big iLife news hit, Sling Media introduced a real stunner: HD streaming for Macs and iPhones via Sling.com. Sling Media expects to have an iPhone app out soon. Expected release date for SlingPlayer, a downloadable application that will interface with Sling.com to deliver HD content, is sometime in the first fiscal quarter of this year.

“SlingPlayer Mobile is ideally suited for the iPhone’s large touch screen display and I know iPhone users are eagerly anticipating the application’s availability,” said Blake Krikorian, co-founder and CEO of Sling Media.

Following up, a new 17-inch MacBook Pro with unibody construction and a non-removable 8-hour life battery and an optional anti-glare coating on the screen was announced. The computer comes packed with a 2.66ghz Intel Core Duo chip, a 320 GB Hard Drive, and 4 GB of RAM, to name a few updates.

“We’ve developed new battery technology that is better for the user and better for the environment,” said Jobs. “Apple’s advanced chemistry and innovative technology deliver up to eight hours of use on a full charge cycle and up to 1,000 recharges.”

The final move of the day set social networking sites buzzing. Apple announced a new DRM free iTunes with a three tier pricing structure — $0.69, $0.99, and $1.29.

Both moves on the iTunes front were widely regarded as a necessity in order for iTunes to remain competitive with other online music stores, with the DRM removals hailed as long overdue.

“This game is all about the strange and insane world of New Arcadia and the Penny Arcade-style humor to be found in it,” said Hothead CEO Vlad Ceraldi. “With the cool gameplay additions we’ve made, including longer gameplay, completion tracking and difficulty settings; extra Lovecraftian overtones in the world and music; and the perfect time of the year, everything just came together.”

Players who may have missed the first episode can start a new quest, with a completely new character, while returning gamers will be able to use the data from Episode 1. Expected to being gamers anywhere from 6-10 hours of gameplay, Penny Arcade Adventures 2 also features new difficulty settings, bringing bigger, badder enemies to do battle with.

Along with dropping word on the game’s release, developer Hot Head Games released the game’s full list of achievements for the Xbox 360. The game’s 11 achievement, along with one secret achievement are as follows:

- Millionaire – Collect one million dollars in cash (15)

- Moving On Up – Collect the Wealth key (15)

- Arsonist – Burn down the Riverbrook Apartments (15)

- Endgame – Collect a ticket for the World’s Fair (15)

- Can’t Nobody Hold You Down – Defeat the Game’s final Boss (15)

- Steel Cannibal – Spend robot parts to upgrade all weapons (20)

- Lab Assistant - Complete Dr. Stripe’s and Dr. Whimple’s missions (15)

-  Reluctant Hero - At the beginning of the episode, refuse to join Gabe and Tycho 5 times (5)

- The Strength to Rule: Kill enough enemies to earn the XP needed for all party members to reach Level 30 (20)

- POWER SURRRGE! - Block enemy attacks and get one party member’s hit counter up to 40 (25)

- Pack Rat Strikes Back - Only use items to win a fight. No attacks or counter attacks allowed (25)

CodeWeavers is a Windows emulation tool that lets users run W32 applications in Linux or MAC platforms.

The challenge is that if President Bush can achieve any of their goals before leaving office the company will give away a free copy of their software to anyone who wants one for 24 hours. The goals are:

Reduce the Price of Gas: “Gas costs about $3.79 a gallon in the Twin Cities, (Minn.) a full buck more than this time last year. If the average price here drops below $2.79 per gallon, this goal is met.”

Reduce the Price of Food: “With the rise of fuel prices has come a similar rise in food prices. A gallon of milk is about $5 these days. It was $3.50 a year ago. If the average price of a gallon of milk comes down to $3.50 gallon in the Twin Cities metro, this goal is met.”

Create More Jobs: “We started the year with 138,002,000 people in the U.S. working non-farm jobs. Since then, total non-farm employment has decreased by 366,000. If so much as a single job can be created this calendar year – meaning if employment can be at least 138,002,001, this goal is met.”

Rejuvenate the Housing Market: “Median home values in the Twin Cities have fallen 12 percent year over year – from $233,000 to $205,000. If that median returns to $233,000, this goal is met.”

Bring Osama Bin-Laden to Justice: “Every American would like to see Osama Bin-Laden captured or terminated. We won’t be picky about how President Bush gets him. If it happens, this goal is met.”

CodeWeavers is a virtualization software company with a product similar to VMware, Parallels or Microsoft’s Virtual PC/HyperVisor. It’s based on the open source Wine application for Linux, but CodeWeavers is released for Linux and Mac OSX.

Code Weavers emulates the Win32 API for other systems, not the entire system. This tends to leave them with less compatibility since they may have missed part of the spec, but results in much greater speeds. The speeds of CodeWeavers games or apps tend to be closer to the speeds of the native applications, since they don’t actually emulate the system they basically are writing the windows api’s for other systems.

More information on the details of the challenge can be read at, http://lameduck.codeweavers.com/

iTunes has sold over four billion songs to over 50 million customers since opening in 2003.

“We launched iTunes less than five years ago, and it has now become the number one music retailer in the world,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s iTunes vice president. “We are thrilled, and would like to thank all of our customers for helping us reach this incredible milestone.”

The ranking comes from market research data from NPD Group’s MusicWatch survey that tracks consumer purchases. iTunes topped Wal-Mart based on their January and February 2008 sales figures, Apple said in a statement.

This is yet another blow to the hard copy, “old way of doing things” music shopping experience. And yet, it is has shown that legal music downloading can and does succeed in the US.

“Safari loads web pages 1.9 times faster than IE 7 and 1.7 times faster than Firefox 2,” Apple said in a statement. “Safari also runs JavaScript up to six times faster than other browsers, and is the first browser to support the latest innovative web standards needed to deliver the next generation of highly interactive Web 2.0 experiences.”

“Safari 3.1 for Mac and Windows is blazingly fast, easy to use and features an elegant user interface,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “And best of all, Safari supports the latest audio, video and animation standards for an industry-leading Web 2.0 experience.”

Safari 3.1 is the first browser to support video and audio tags in HTML 5 and the first to support CSS Animations. Safari also supports CSS Web Fonts, giving designers limitless choices of fonts to create stunning new web sites, Apple said.

Download it now at http://www.apple.com/safari

Essentially iShowU is an application for the Macintosh platform that captures your computing activity and outputs it to common video formats. This piece of software is especially useful for providing quick tips, tutorials or addressing simple computing problems, while offering the viewer an optimal experience of being able to actually see a detailed view of what’s going on — far superior to reading standard text directions.

The installation process went exceptionally well. I was able to get the application up and running in a matter of a few minutes. Once the program launched, I was surprised on how easy and well set up the interface looked. The interface provides an exceptional experience that caters to both the standard user and the advanced user. On the left hand side is an array of video quality presets, which can easily be adjusted to fit the user’s needs. Separated on the right, is a more advanced pane which lets, the more experienced users adjust, audio quality, input devices, video frame rates, scale size, compression settings and more.

Once the output settings are complete, iShowU gives you the ability to select what you want to be recorded. Users can select from the available presets or drag a custom box around the subject to be recorded. Once finished, click the record button and you’re off. iShowU will even give you a countdown before it records. When the recording process is complete iShowU will open up the video up for playback and save the completed work.

I decided to put the product to the test by making a few short videos, tweaking settings such as quality, compression and more. The finished videos looked great and the product preformed as expected. I was then able to easily upload the video off to YouTube for the world to see.

My overall experience with iShowU was great. The product met my expectations and preformed well for the $20 price tag. One feature that I would like to see is the ability to place arrows or small captions in the recording. If you are looking to screen cast or help friends/family I recommend iShowU for your entire screen casting needs.

Quick hits:

Publisher: Shinywhitebox
Developer: Shinywhitebox
Platform: Mac OS X 10.4 or higher
Genre: Utility
Launch Date: October 26, 2006 (New version on November 26, 2007)

Overall: 4 out of 5 stars

First though, the raw specs:

Thickness: 0.76in max, tapering down to 0.16
Width: 12.8in
Depth: 8.94in
Weight: 3 lbs

CPU: special micro Core2 Duo running at 1.6 or 1.8ghz
Ram: 2 gb
HD: either an 80 GB PATA, or 64 GB SSD, both 1.8in size.
Screen: 13.3 @ 1280×800

Wifi: b/g/n
Bluetooth: 2 + EDR

… and, most notably, the only ports it has are a single USB, headphone jack, and a micro-DVI, in addition to not having any form of internal optical drive (although an external usb DVD+/-DL is available).

The other big innovation is Remote Disc, a software solution that enables the Air to read (via wifi) discs mounted on another Mac or Windows machine, even to the point of being able to boot off them and install an OS (most likely through some implementation of PXE, although the details are unclear).

Reading the sheet, it seems to me that the Air is intended not as a primary machine or desktop replacement, but as a compliment to an existing workstation or server for people who want to be able to do a few things around the house with said machines without being tied to their desk (a niche known as a ‘fat-client’), and for business execs who need something lightweight they can take with them to meetings to show demos and presentations.

However, having browsed around several forums and listened in on a number of conversations, it seems that most of those with a lot of negative opinions are trying to shoehorn it into the category of ’submicro roadwarrior’ and then complaining when it doesn’t fit:

“It’s too big/wide/etc. It should be 12/9/5 inches, etc”

People who, say, have a server downstairs that contains all of their movies and want a lightweight laptop with a decent screen that they can watch stuff on while lying around on the couch or cooking dinner in the kitchen, and 13″ gives a good compromise between portability and watchability.

Likewise, for someone trying to present a demo in a meeting without a projector, smaller screens aren’t really a plus.

Also, in relative terms of volume, a thinner laptop gives you more room for carrying extra books or marketing material or a few small packages side by side, whereas lopping off an inch or so from the edge of the machine gives you a long narrow area that rarely translates into usable storage space for anything other than some toothpaste.

Regardless of anything Steve Jobs might say about style, a thinner 13″ is generally more effective than a thick 10″.

“It doesn’t have a replaceable battery”

This isn’t as big a deal as people make it out to be.

The vast majority of laptop owners don’t have multiple batteries for their laptop(s) anyway, and these days it’s rare to be in a location without a power outlet somewhere nearby. On top of that, carrying around spare batteries largely defeats the purpose of having such a lightweight laptop in the first place.

Unless you’re doing a lot of transcontinental flying on a cheap airline with no power sockets, a single battery is plenty.

Apple has already confirmed that the onboard battery is not permanently attached to the motherboard and can be replaced easily by removing a few screws and the bottom panel of the machine (a process that any reasonably skilled technician can perform in a few minutes), and that they’ll be providing and supporting replacement batteries for some time into the future.

“The ram is not upgradable”

The Air comes with 2GB, which is more than enough for the sorts of things this machine is meant for.

For the most part, all the things that really eat up ram (3D gaming, scientific processing, multimedia creation, etc) are not things you’d be doing on a laptop, and even if you had to run Windows in virtualization (via Parallels or VMware) because of a specific application, you’d have enough to do what you needed to.

Sure 4GB would be nice, but if you need to be editing HDTV movies or running a financial database server on the road, the Air is probably not for you anyway.

“It doesn’t have any ports”

Are you really going to be connecting a non-Bluetooth external mouse and a keyboard (with no ports of its own) on the road?

Several external hard drives at the same time?

One usb port really isn’t that much of a limitation for a laptop that doesn’t sit around all the time with a lot of devices plugged into it, and people seem to forget that you can buy a pocket usb hub if you really need it.

The lack of an ethernet port doesn’t phase me either as it’s far more likely I’ll encounter a wifi hotspot in my travels than an wall jack, and if I really need it I can always buy a usb-to-ethernet dongle.

As far as video goes, Apple includes in the box adapters that enable hookup to dvi/vga, anticipating that business folks who do a lot of presentation work will probably be a large part of the core market, moreso than people who need to run a bittorrent server in range of several microwave ovens.

I realize this may come off as sounding defensive, but one thing that’s always bugged me is when people rag on a product when they don’t understand what it’s meant for.

Like when the iPod first came out, the Air is getting bad press from people who don’t understand why it’s so much better than what’s already available.

That having been said, I personally am probably never going to own an Air, precisely because I need neither a fat-client (my primary machine is a MacBook Pro, not a wall-bound tower) nor am I a business exec, but that doesn’t stop me from recommending it strongly to anyone who does fit into those categories.

The Air nicely fills a hole that’s been open in Apple’s laptop lineup for about a decade since the Duo 2300c disappeared in the late 90’s, and is very probably the best laptop on the market within this class.

For more, check out BLAST staffer Mike Preble’s take on it.

The v3.0.2 update addresses several bugs. “In addition to Leopard compatibility fixes, this version solves a number of other issues,” said Roxio’s Mirka Janus.

The update is available for free on the Roxio website.

Popcorn v3.0.2 Changes:

• Popcorn 3 is now compatible with Mac OS X v10.5 (Leopard)
• Resolves issue where DVD chapters were not correctly preserved as bookmarks
• DTS audio is no longer incorrectly identified as MPEG-1
• Language of audio tracks is now correctly displayed to user
• Users can now properly switch between PAL and NTSC output settings for DVD-Video
• Should no longer receive error 1634955892 when using physical DVD source
• Exporting from DVD source should longer cause error –43 or -206
• Resolves issue where exporting to 3G format would generate an error message
• Resolves synchronization issue experienced when using 24fps H.264 content
• Resolves issue where disabling Fit-To-DVD compression generated -50 error
• Resolves issue where Fit-to-DVD video compression calculation was incorrect
• Resolves issue with black frames appearing in video after conversion
• TiVo recordings created after TiVo’s Fall 2007 DVR update will no longer cause the application to hang during encoding

The update also fixes a bug in Roxio’s Toast Video Player, which caused some HD videos to playback incorrectly.