In the past, Microsoft has been known for it’s flashy red, green, blue, yellow logo with curvy edges. That’s how it’s always been, from Windows NT to Windows 7.
A few days ago, Windows released on their blog what the logo for Windows 8 would look like:
Really? A few blue squares and Windows 8 in a typical boring sans-serif font.
Also, the little block of boring squares is trademarked.
If this is the direction Windows is headed, then I think I’m in business. Here, I present to you, what I believe the Windows 9 logo will look like:
Thanks to metro apps, Microsoft is moving away from multiple-window desktops. That’s why it’s not Windows plural – just Window. This will be followed by Window 10 featuring the removal of the text and the copying of apple’s Mac OS X:
Then, with Window 11, black will be out of style. That’s why they’ll switch to white.
And after that, I can’t tell. Transparent?
That’s where I think the Window(s) logo is going. Thoughts?
Android has always had a great browser built into it, but that browser was never Chrome.
Well, that’s about to change.
Kind of.
Today, Google has released a beta version of Chrome onto the Android Market… for Android 4.0 ICS phones. Luckily, thanks to my Galaxy Nexus, I get to try it out and give you this review.
First off after opening this app you’ll notice a pretty little googlicious introduction to the app.
Quite simple, quite clean, quite google.
I’m going to warn you in advance – many of the features in the Chrome for Android application are identical to those that are available on the desktop version of the browser.
Tabbing
In my opinion, the tabbing interface has been improved from the tabbing of other mobile browsers. Instead of just a list of tiles, Chrome gives you a very pretty sorting-through-a-card-deck like interface.
Don’t want a tab? Just slide it off to either side and it will make a spin-like motion into nothingness. These little effects add some very nice feel to the app.
Sync
The other coolest feature of the Chrome for Android application would be its ability to sync with Google Chrome for Mac and Windows. If you’ve signed in to Chrome on your desktop (Wrench thing > Sign in to chrome…), then all of your bookmarks, history, and tabs are already synced up.
This means that you can easily retrieve them on the new tab page in Chrome for Android. This grants access to one, extremely awesome thing: live tabs.
Basically, if you have a set of tabs open on your computer and need to go somewhere, you can just leave your computer and all of your tabs will show up on Chrome for Android.
Pretty awesome, right? I must say, it’s not perfect – It takes a while for the tabs to get synced, and there isn’t an easy button to tell your computer and/or phone to sync. Remember though, this app is only in beta.
It’s the same deal with bookmarks – they will all get synced across your phone and computer(s).
Feel/Speed
If you use Chrome for Desktop on a daily basis, you already know the feel of the app. Google’s minimalistic style and code makes the app very light and quick to the touch. Pinch to zoom works fine, things render great, and the only thing missing is (of course) flash. But hey, who needs that anyways? We have HTML5!
In fact, lets compare. First, here is the html5test.com result for the built-in browser.
Not bad, actually – Firefox Mobile’s score is down the drain.
Now, lets test out chrome:
Sweet!
As I said, who needs flash anyways?!
Conclusion
Chrome Beta for Android is definitely a nice browser – if you have a device running Android 4.0 in the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, Australia, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Argentina, or Brazil, it’s definitely something you should try out.
Otherwise, I don’t know when Chrome for Android will be released to the masses.
One of the conveniences of Mac is that applications come in packaged files ending in .app. For this reason, they are usually said to be easy to uninstall – just delete the .app file from your applications folder and it’s gone.
True, this will get rid of most of the files, but often there’s still some application metadata gunk left laying around in hidden folders.
That’s why AppCleaner is so handy.
Drag in a .app file, and it will find all of the supporting files and allow you to delete them. This allows you to get a completely clean uninstall of an application on your mac.
Did I mention it’s free? Pick it up from FreeMacSoft using this link. Enjoy!
Over my years of reviewing and testing, no other case company has ever been able to replicate the protective properties of Otterbox’s cases. When I plan on dropping my phone off of a two story building, they’re the only ones with a case I can trust.
That’s why when I got my Galaxy Nexus, I knew that the case I would be getting would be from otterbox. Here’s my scoop.
Design
The case consists of two main parts: an outer silicone skin, and an inner hard plastic shell (with a screen protector built in).
The outer silicone skin has a nice grip and absorbs a majority of the initial shock if you happen to drop the device. It has openings for all ports, so you can attach everything you need without having to ever remove the case. This is a nice feature, although it does add more parts and complexity to the overall design of the case.
The Flaw
The inner shell is the hard layer of protection for the device. It has two parts: a bottom and a top section, which snap around the phone. This is where the only problem with the case is.
A "practically indestructible" case?
The top section is a frame around the screen (with openings for speakers, cameras, lights, etc.) which also has a screen protecter glued in. This means that you need to clean off the screen protector of the case in addition to your phone’s screen and try to get them together before any other dust settles. The only issue with this is that if any dust settles after you’ve snapped it on, good luck getting it off – without breaking it, that is. After my first attempt at putting it together, I noticed a bunch of dust particles under the protector. So I take the case off, but the tiny snaps on the edges that hold the case together aren’t willing to let go. In the end, I need to pry them apart to even get to my phone. This bent the frame a bit. On my second attempt at taking the case off, I tried to use a key in the tiny slots next to the snaps. I ended up cracking the frame, and it still took a good ten minutes for me to get the case off of the device.
Conclusion
Otterbox was always (and most likely will always be) known for it’s super-protective lines of cases. At $50, the materials are not very well-built and are extremely prone to cracking and bending. Although it may protect your device, the case is oddly fragile for its super-hefty title. I can’t say I don’t recommend this case, as the protection it offers is above-par, but I can’t highly recommend it as it is fragile and the plastic materials are prone to breaking and bending.
The only real reason I ever root my phone is to use the Wifi Tether app. Wifi Tether is a free application that allows you to get the internet from your rooted android phone onto your computer, without having to pay for Verizon’s ridiculous tethering plans.
Right after I rooted, I installed Wifi Tether and was disappointed when it gave me an error and didn’t work. I went to their Google Code page and there was already a very popular thread about it’s dysfunctionality on the Galaxy Nexus.
Well, rooters unite – Wifi Tether has just released an experimental pre-beta version that has support for the Nexus. Although it’s considered “experimental,” I’ve had absolutely no problems with it and I’m loving the 4G speeds. It’s like having a 4G Mifi with no data limits and a much cheaper data plan ($30 a month!).
Click Here to download the app. I recommend browsing to this page on your phone (here’s a shortlink to save you a little bit of time: http://wp.me/p1GtXy-vW) and hitting that download link.
Once it’s downloaded, go into Settings > Security and check the box that says “Install Apps from Unknown Sources.” This will allow you to install the apk file you just downloaded.
Now open your downloads and tap the apk file I told you to download up there, and you will go through a quick install process.
Open up the app and you’re ready to tether over 4G speeds!
One of the most prized new features of iOS 4 and on was the ability to run many apps at the same time and switch between them easily.
One of the little issues with this is that when you close an application it stays running in the background. Normalls this wouldn’t be a problem, but contrary to popular belief is does take up a ton of battery life! By the end of the day, you could have every single one of your apps running in the background of your iPhone!
Of course you can double click the home button, tap and hold one of the app icons for a second, then hit the red circle in the top left. Then hit it again for the next app. And again. And again. And again. You’ll have to tap once for every single app that’s open.
Done yet?
Well, if you happen to be jailbroken, here’s a little tweak from cydia that will help you.
Open Cydia and search for KillBackground. Install the free package by Mathieu Bdard and respring your device.
When your phone comes back, you won’t immediately be able to tell that anything is different. But open up a few apps, then double-tap the home button. Tap and hold one of the apps for 1 second, and Voilà – You’ll see a little red crossbones icon in the bottom left. One tap and all of your apps are killed!
You can also open up your settings app and select KillBackground to configure some different options. Enjoy!
You may know about the long lasting line of Google’s special Google Phone called the Nexus. There was originally the Nexus One, then the Nexus S recently. Both of these were manufactured by Samsung, but Samsung’s name wasn’t really placed on it – just on the very bottom of the product pages.
But Samsung has taken a different approach this time – They’ve released a new Nexus phone that they are calling the Galaxy Nexus, following their popular like of Galaxy S phones.
Other than the new name, the Galaxy Nexus follows Google’s standard path of some great upgrades.
As far as hardware goes, it’s just like the Nexus S – but better. The Galaxy Nexus features a slimmer body, more vibrant screen, and a very nice camera – although specific megapixels are not supplied.
But the real upgrades are in the software. The Galaxy Nexus features the purest of pure Android 4.0 – which is a nice relief considering all other phones in the Galaxy S line are skinned by Samsung, causing them to be painfully slow and unresponsive.
Among Android 4.0′s new features (other than the painfully idiotic name of “Ice Cream Sandwich”) are Face Unlock, which allows you to unlock your phone with face recognition; Android Beam, which uses NFC to send websites, photos, contacts, and more to other phones; and your usual fixing of extra eye candy.
The Galaxy Nexus doesn’t have any pricing or supported networks, however a bit is given away with the following line:
Galaxy Nexus runs at 4G (LTE or HSPA+) speeds
Verizon is the only provider that currently has an LTE network, which means that the Galaxy Nexus will be on Verizon for the first time.
I’m definitely excited for this phone, and anyone in the Android market should definitely look at this phone.
Instagram is an amazing iPhone application that can transform your normal iPhone photos into interesting, old-ish photos. Unfortunately, your iPhone doesn’t have the best camera that you could put your hands on.
Here’s two applications that will give you Instagram-like photo effects and filters, but you can supply your DSLR’s pictures!
Focus
Focus is an application available from the Mac App Store for $5. The app basically allows you to add tilt-shift effects to your photo. It’s a very straightforward application, and I think I can basically sum up the controls in this screenshot.
First, open a picture in the app. Then, click “Place” in the bottom left corner. This will allow you to rotate, crop, and align your photo to your liking. Then, click on one of the options that are shown. I personally don’t understand why they had to add a bunch of options – I mean, why couldn’t they have just added a button for circular, a button for linear, and a slider for Vividness? The world may never know.
After you’ve selected one of those options, you can click and drag the focused area around and rotate it to your liking. Once you have it in a place you like, hit File > Export and save it as a JPEG. Now you have a tilt-shifty photo!
Lomo Express
Now that we have the tilt-shifty part of your photo complete, we need to add some filters. This will be done with another app from the Mac App Store that is available for a painful $13 – worth it I think so.
This is as bare-bones as you can make this application, as you open up your photo then choose what effect you want – then save it. Here’s what the app looks like:
There are 12 awesome filters to choose from, and it’s as easy as clicking on the one you’d like and bam, there’s your new photo.
When you’re done and you like the results, go to File > Save As and save it as a JPEG.
That’s it!
Conclusion
Your final picture will look like an instagram shot, but higher quality and resolution!
To go even farther, you can print them out on nice paper and post them around, like I did with instagram photos in this post.
Even though this will cost you $19, if you’re really into editing photos with tilt-shift and Lomo effects, this is the way to do it!
The iPhone can take some pretty dang good pictures. In fact, many different phones can take mind-blowing shots. But your little phone can do even more if you treat it to these mini-lenses from Photojojo!
Contents/Installation
There are three lenses available from Photojojo: 2X telephoto, 180 Fisheye, and a 0.68x wide/macro lens. I won’t go over individual pricing, but the whole pack is $50.
Installing the lenses is painless. In your package you’ll get a few tiny, metal magnetic rings. Undo the plastic on the adhesive side and stick it around the lens of your device. If you have an iPhone, however, you should probably put the ring on a case; the sleek glass doesn’t play well with their adhesive.
Now to use the lenses, you just attach the lens to the metal ring and it magnetically locks on. Neat!
2x Telephoto
For those times when you want to get closer to your subject, the 2x telephoto lens will do exactly what you’d expect. Unfortunately it will cause a tiny bit of distortion, but not enough to make a big difference.
Without, With
As you can tell by that comparison, the lens does a nice job of zooming in, but has a bit of distortion (visible near the door handle).
Fisheye
This lens I believe is my favorite. It can capture just about everything you can see without turning your head. If you want to really capture an entire scene, this is exactly what you need.
Without, With
Pretty cool, right? Unfortunately, this lens causes a particularly noticeable amount of vignetting, but I think that it adds a nice effect. If you want to get rid of it, you can always crop it with whatever application you desire, however you’ll end up losing a bit of the image.
Wide Angle / Macro
This lens confuses a lot of people. Is it wide angle or is it macro?!
Alone, the magnetic part of the lens is just Macro. However, there’s an adaptor that screws in to the macro lens to convert it to a wide angle lens.
The macro lens doesn’t zoom in at all. It just allows you to focus WAY closer to objects. Here’s a comparison – remember, I took the first picture as close as I could while staying in focus, then I took the second as close as I could while staying in focus. This lens does NOT zoom.
Without, With
Pretty cool, right? You can get ridiculously close to capture textures that previously went unnoticed. On the second picture, I’m holding my iPhone a tiny bit less than an inch away from the keyboard.
The wide angle addition to this lens isn’t very fancy, it just makes the picture a tiny bit wider. It will cause some straight lines to bend in odd ways, but it still comes in handy when wanting to capture wide shots without going crazy with the fisheye.
Without, With
Doesn’t that doorway look kind of round? As you can tell, it makes the picture a bit wider but can’t capture the amount (and distortion) of the wide angle lens.
Cool uses
Yup, these work great with a phone camera. But there’s one use that I recently found – your webcam! It’s a small camera, just about as small as the one in an iPhone. Take a metal ring and stick it around, and you can use these lenses while video chatting! I personally have an LED cinema display, and although it makes my screen look a little funny, the results are totally worth it.
Here’s the display:
Ha! By the way, those things on top of my monitor are dinosaurs; you’ll get one with every photojojo order! I’ve ordered two things from Photojojo, so that’s why I have two dinosaurs.
Here’s what it looks like straight on:
Pretty cool, right?
Here’s the results:
Sweet! You can even see my keyboard!
Conclusion
These lenses are quite handy, and because they work with anything you don’t have to worry about compatibility. The whole set of lenses is $50, and if you’re interested click here to be redirected to the photojojo store!
OS X Lion removes the need for any kind of media for the installation. That’s nice, because there’s no disk for you to lose!
However, if something terrible happens to your computer, you’ll end up installing Snow Leopard, then upgrading to Lion once again. Thankfully, Apple has made a utility that allows us to easily and painlessly create a bootable USB Lion Recovery Disk. Unfortunately, you must have either the MacBook Air or Mac Mini Mid 2011 for this to work. This is because those are (currently) the only computers with the Lion Recovery Partition.
1. Download
Click here to download the Recovery Disk Assistant from Apple. Once downloaded, open the Disk Image and launch the Application.
2. Create
Now would be a good time to plug in a USB disk. Plug it in and continue through the installation. There’s nothing for you to configure, so this is extremely straightforward.
3. Use
If your computer stops booting, or you get a new hard drive, it’s time to use this disk. Plug it in to a slot on your computer, then boot holding the alt/option key. In the menu that appears, select the recovery disk. Now you can download and install Lion right back on to your computer!
The MacBook Air is a great computer. However, sometimes it’s nice to have a bigger display. That’s an easy task if you have an external monitor.
Okay, so now you have two displays. Cool! The only problem with this is that it can sometimes be confusing and/or distracting to deal with two displays at a time. Okay, simple enough, just close the lid to the MacBook Air and use an external keyboard and mouse. That was easy.
This would be the answer to all of our problems, however a closed computer does take up quite an amount of valuable desk real-estate. That’s why the BookArc is here to save us.
As you can tell, it is really just a stand for the Air that holds it up sideways. The stand is made of solid aluminum, and has rubber inside so that you don’t scratch or in any way damage your beloved MacBook Air. It also has a small indent in the side to manage any cables you might have, and was designed to fit the cable from an LED Cinema/Thunderbolt Display quite well.
This saves a ton of desk real estate, and can really come in handy. But the fun doesn’t stop there!
Usually laptop cooling requires some fancy advanced stand that usually doesn’t even work well. Well, here’s my personal cooling system.
Yeah, that’s it. I have the MacBook Air and a desk fan pointed at the bottom. This will keep your Mac nice and cool, so you won’t have to worry about heating issues ever again. Nifty!
The BookArc is a simple, elegant stand that serves its purpose quite nicely. If this stand were any more, it would be too complicated and much less attractive. It saves you a ton of desk real estate, and at the same time you can cool down your computer!
As you may have read in a previous post, my beloved MacBook of three years has finally bit the dust. That MacBook treated me well, and with an SSD and upgraded RAM it was able to work wonders.
Now, however, it is time to move on. And as you may be able to tell by the title, I have decided to continue my Mac collection with the newfangled MacBook Air.
Which one did you get?
One of the big reasons I wanted the MacBook Air was because of its portability and the offering of an 11 inch version. Due to this, I got the 11 inch MacBook Air with a 1.8 ghz Core i7, 256GB flash storage, and 4GB of ram.
I can hear a lot of you saying “Isn’t 11 inches a little small?” Why yes, it is. However, when I’m at home, I have an LED Cinema Display to hook it up to – no lack of pixels over here.
Design
The design of the MacBook Air does NOT fail to amaze. It feels so thin and light in your hands, but at the same time it feels incredibly solid. Because it’s a “unibody” MacBook, it was manufactured from one single piece of aluminum – it’s strong. Tapering from 0.68 inches down to 0.11 inches, you can bet your bank account it’s thin. Thanks to this, I can finally accomplish my dream of slipping my computer into a manilla envelope. The one problem with this pencil-thin design, however, is that on the whole computer you get a total of five ports. On the left side, we have a MagSafe power adapter, USB port, and microphone/headphone jack. On the right side we have a thunderbolt port and a USB port. Sorry, disc lovers!
Upon opening the computer, you get some more goodies.
The first thing you’ll notice is the screen. It’s bright and, well, beautiful. It packs a very nice DPI, featuring a 1366 by 768 resolution squeezed into 11.6 inches of glossy glory.
Next, you’ll notice the keyboard. The keyboard is full-size, featuring every key you’ll find on that thick MacBook Pro. In addition to being full-size, the keyboard is also backlit – a feature that was definitely missed on the previous version of MacBook Air.
The next thing you’ll notice is the giant trackpad. This trackpad resembles that of the MacBook Pro, although on the 11 inch version of the MacBook Air it’s a tiny bit thinner. The glass surface is a cinch to move your fingers across, and is extremely responsive to say the least.
Last and, well, least, would be the FaceTime camera embedded in the bezel of the screen. Apple decided not to put in one of the new FaceTime HD cameras, and will probably bring it back in the next version of the MacBook Air. Nonetheless, it’s still a standard functional webcam that is definitely a good addition.
Performance
In addition to being quite the looker, it gets a high score in the area of performance as well. As far as processing goes, the 1.8ghz hyper threaded dual-core i7 works wonders. The 256GB SSD performs at ~250mbps Read/Write speeds. The 4GB of RAM is sufficient.
For comparison, I’ll test the performance of the Air versus a pro using Geekbench. I first ran it on my mother’s MacBook Pro (Late 2009), which features an intel Core 2 Duo and 8GB of ram. It scored a Geekbench score of 3002. Not bad.
Then I ran it on the Air. It scored a whopping 5200 – which is a 70% increase from the pro, in 30% of the space.
The one setback of the Air’s performance would be graphics. It’s running an Intel HD 3000 chip, which is integrated so it doesn’t boast the same performance that you might get with an nvidia card. Although it might not be on par with an nvidia, it’s still a perfectly good graphics card nonetheless.
Watch out!
If you’re thinking of buying one of these, there’s one thing that you might be at risk of. The SSDs in the Airs are provided both from Toshiba and Samsung. This would be no problem, however the Toshiba SSDs are about 100MBPS less than the Samsungs. Yeah, that’s a big difference.
Here’s a video to find out if your Air boasts a samsung or a toshiba:
Conclusion
The MacBook Air combines the two most wanted/needed components of a notebook computer: power and portability. The powerful processors and fast memory give it some meaty specs, and then the 0.68 to 0.11 inch body makes it a lean, mean, working machine. I definitely recommend this computer to everyone, whether you’re a professional video producer or an under-appreciated artist living in a college dorm.
