Annoyed that the menubar doesn’t extend to your second monitor? Peeved that your new Magic Mouse doesn’t support a middle click like the old Mighty Mouse?
These two utilities might help.
First off, SecondBar does exactly that – add a second bar to your extended monitor.
BetterTouchTool allows you to set gestures when using the Magic Mouse. Using gestures, you can re-enable a middle click.
Both apps are somewhat experimental, and offered free of charge here.
Category: Software
Yet another Twitter client (YATC) has bubbled up for Mac users. Called “Kiwi“, this Twitter client has an emphasis on simplicity and theme customization.
I’ve been using Kiwi most of the day, and I am quite impressed with it. How impressed? It’s replaced Tweetie in my dock for the time being.
Developed by YourHead Software, Kiwi is $14.95 and comes highly recommended from OS X Factor.
Category: Software
Those who are pining for a 7 inch tablet at a low cost need not pine any longer. The Camangi Webstation is real, and nearly upon us. Weighing only 13.75 ounces and featuring a 7″ 800×400 touchscreen display, GPS and Android 1.5 (hopefully this is upgradeable), this looks like a nifty product.
I say nifty and not killer, because of a few nit picks:
- Wi-Fi is only 802.11b/g.
- System memory is only 128MB. This will seriously limit future Android upgrades.
- Looks like Camangi has eschewed the Android Marketplace for it’s own Camangi Marketplace. This brings in to question whether apps from the Android Marketplace will even run on the Webstation.
If you can live with those limitations, the Webstation costs $399, with pre-orders getting you a $10 reduction in price.
Category: News
Engadget has a good analysis of the Michael Arringtont/Fusion Garage conflict surrounding the CrunchPad device.
Money quote:
But for right now, we’re absolutely mystified as to how Michael Arrington — who, again, is an attorney — found himself in this position, and we’re still mildly convinced this is all some kind of stunt.
Indeed.
Category: News
Apple has acquired the streaming music service Lala, according to reports from the NY Times Brad Stone. Lala lets users stream music, operating on a business model that lets the user listen to anything once in its entirety for free, with subsequent plays costing fractions of what it would cost to purchase the track outright.
Of course, since this is Apple we are talking about, there is no indication of whether the purchase was about getting a head start in the streaming music business, or whether Apple just saw an inexpensive way to eliminate some competition. Perhaps Apple was only interested in the talent behind the organization, and not the product they actually produced.
Time will tell.
Category: News
Looking for a serene writing experience? Tired of being distracted by outside applications and windows? Do you need the sounds of nature to inspire your writing? If you answered yes, you’ll probably dig Omniwriter, a new writing application that aims to remove distractions (ala Writeroom).
Omniwriter is currently in beta, and has no affiliation with the Omni Group.
Category: Software
This is becoming way too frequent. Is anyone at Apple listening?
Category: Software
Somewhere in Silicon Valley, Larry Ellison is watching the Chrome OS Webcast thinking, “Dudes, I pitched this shit back in 1997.”
Category: Opinion
The Camino browser team has released version 2.0 of the Gecko powered web browser. Version 2.0 brings a number of new features to the table for the browser, including…
- Tab Overview: Think of it as Exposé for your open tabs.
- Tabbed browsing improvements: You can (finally) reorder tabs, and when the number of tabs exceeds the window width, view open tabs in a drop down menu. Additionally, left and right scrollbars appear to allow you to scroll through the tabs.
- Download notifications through Growl (if it is installed).
There are a number of other smaller improvements and bug fixes to the browser as well.
I have a soft spot for Camino. Back in the early days of OS X, Camino (then called Chimera), was the best browser, hands down available for the platform. As a web developer, using Mac OS X in those days was a difficult task. The included web browser, Internet Explorer 5, was a big steaming pile of shit. It was slow, buggy, and its rendering engine was nowhere near as robust as the Gecko rendering engine. When the first builds of Chimera appeared, it was like seeing the Marines appear on the beach with reinforcements. By the time Chimera 0.2 was released, it was my default browser. I stuck with Chimera/Camino until Safari hit the scene in 2003.
But I’ve always appreciated what Camino offers Mac OS X users – a small, fast, lightweight browser built on top of a rock solid rendering engine.
Congrats to the Camino team for shipping version 2.0!
Category: Software, Web Development
AT&T has decided enough is enough, and publicly responded (via a press release) to the claims made by Verizon Wireless in their latest ads.
AT&T cites as fact:
AT&T’s wireless data coverage reaches 303 million people – or 97% of the U.S. population, where they live and work. Our data coverage consists of 3 different types of technology:
3G. 233 million people or 75% of the population are covered by AT&T’s 3G network, the nation’s fastest.
EDGE. 301 million people or more than 96% of the population are covered by EDGE.
With both 3G and EDGE coverage, customers can access the Internet, send e-mail, surf the Web, stream music, download videos, send photos, text, talk and more. The only difference – with some data applications, 3G is faster than EDGE
GPRS. Covers 303 million people, allowing you to talk, text, e-mail and access basic websites optimized for wireless.
AT&T is the #1 network for smartphones, with twice the number of smartphone customers than Verizon, our closest competitor. Some of the reasons include:
Most popular smartphones. Unlike Verizon, AT&T offers the most popular smartphones in the industry.
More wireless apps. Unlike Verizon, AT&T customers have access to more than 100,000 applications, more than with any other wireless company.
Talk and E-mail at the same time. Unlike Verizon, AT&T’s 3G network lets wireless customers simultaneously talk and surf the web or do e-mail.
Fastest 3G in the nation. Unlike Verizon, AT&T has the nation’s fastest 3G network.
Responding to a negative ad is always a gamble, as it sometimes legitimizes the claim being made against you. In this case though, I think AT&T is correct in going after Verizon.
AT&T doesn’t have the coverage that Verizon does, and everyone pretty much knows it. However, I do believe that Verizon isn’t giving AT&T its due with regard to EDGE, which is a pretty fast fallback technology.
I have no love for AT&T, but I’m enough of a realist to understand that each of the cellphone companies have their issues.
Category: News
