HotRomz has expanded its line of unique hand-made iPod sleeves with the introduction of new iPod shuffle versions. Available in a variety of colors and tactile textures, these original shuffle covers range from “plain to furry to wild” and sell for $14.95 each. The new iPod shuffle sleeves include “Tribble” (available…

Several one-of-a-kind iPod cases are now up for auction as part of the Style & Sound fundraising initiative for Fashion Targets Breast Cancer (FTBC). The cases were created by well-known fashion designers and contain a 40GB iPod courtesy of Apple and a personal playlist created by each designer’s celebrity partner. Designers…

Filed under: Accessories, iPod Family, Video

TUAW sister blog Engadget posted a look yesterday at a product due out this November to turn the iPod into a digital video player. Despite the uninspired name, Nyko's "Movie Player for iPod" looks like a really neat little gadget to fill in the gap left by Apple in iPod video support. Essentially, it will use the iPod as a pluggable hard drive to store video and then read it into the player. The video will be transcoded using a modified version of X Software's Video Vault, which should ensure consistently high quality, and support for a wide range of video formats. Output will be ASF, and users will have several options for quality vs. size. A high quality, 2 hour movie will run about 800MB and be suitable for watching television screen via the line out. At that size, you can take more than 70 movies with you on your 60GB iPod Photo.

The bad news for Mac users is that a Mac version of the customized Video Vault won't be available until February 2006 at the earliest, and while it will run on OS X, there's no word yet about whether the player will support HFS formatted iPods.

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Filed under: Cool tools, Internet, Internet Tools, Open Source, Software

With the nonsense on Capitol Hill this week, and discussion of DMCA revision and funding ramping up, I thought it would be a good time to talk about Tor, the award-winning privacy protocol and software from the EFF. Unlike other anonymizers that work by encrypting or proxying particular services and protocols, Tor's TLS-over-onion routing scheme works by re-routing all TCP traffic through a complex network of Tor nodes. Packets, including routing information, are encrypted between each node and each node has access to only very limited information about the next hop. Furthermore, packets pass through a random number of nodes (the more the merrier) and not all packets from a single session need follow the same route. This makes it very, very difficult (it's tempting to say impossible, but that's probably not quite true) to trace the ultimate origin or destination of any packet on the network unless the contents of the packet divulge revealing information.

There are drawbacks, of course. Although the onion routing algorithms are good, onion routing certainly has the potential for higher latency that traditional RIP and OSPF routing. Tor is also not an end-to-end solution. If the ultimate destination of a packet is a machine that doesn't support Tor, the packet is in the open from the time it leaves the Tor exit point and using traditional end-to-end encrytption on top of Tor is advisable.

The gains are significant, though, and as the protocol becomes more widely adopted the advantages will become even more pronounced. Aside from privacy protection, Tor's "next hop" TLS encryption virtually eliminates the potential for traditional "man in the middle" attacks within the network because such attacks rely on knowing the origin and destination of packets, and capturing a usable data stream. Tor, particularly if combined with end-to-end encryption, also makes encrypted data less susceptible to brute force attacks; it is much more difficult to capture a complete data stream, and data is encrypted multiple times with short-lived session keys.

Even though Tor is still in beta, it's well worth a download (The Windows version already won a PCWorld "Best Products of 2005, Security" Award). Take a look, and if you have a public IP, think about setting up a server.

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My Developer Transition Kit arrived today! I’d post a picture—but it looks just like Steven Frank’s, which is to say it looks just like a G5.

Beyond that, I don’t think there’s much I can say, for nda reasons.

ThinkSecret posts information and photos from the first of the development Intel Macs that are being offered for $999 to developers to prepare for the...

Filed under: Gaming, Software

In case you didn't know, there is a thriving community of PSP hackers out there, coding away to make their own homebrew apps and emulators playable on the PSP. My personal favorite is a chess game. Up until a little over a week ago, this was only possible if you had a Japanese PSP with version 1.0 of the firmware on it. However, if you are the owner of an American-bought PSP and you haven't made the mistake of downloading and installing the v.1.5.1 firmware upgrade that Sony has sitting in the pipe, then you'll be glad to know that some enterprising hackers figured out a trick to get all these homebrew games working on your PSP with a simple swap of your Memory Stick. Unfortunately, the app they wrote to split the files for the necessary swap was Windows only.

Thankfully, RnSKSoftronics, the makers of iPSP, have put together a Mac program capable of doing the same: HomebrewPSP Converter. Even better: it is free.

I think any minute now we can expect an updated version of this that will automate the new swap-less workaround for running homebrew games on your PSP. Until then, simply use this program to split the eboot file into two versions. Put one on one Memory Stick, the other on a second Memory Stick, and navigate to Game—>Memory Stick on your PSP, hit X, select the file on the first Memory Stick, and once the PSP game animation flashes, quickly eject that card and stick in the second one. Have fun playing your homebrew!

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Filed under: WIN Business

Editor's note: Each Wednesday, Jan Kabili chimes in on TUAW with a list of news from across the Weblogs, Inc. network.

The Weblogs, Inc. network features over 80 independent, unfiltered bloggers producing over 1,000 blog posts a week across 75 industry-leading blogs. Each week we ask our bloggers to choose their top posts, which we bring to you in one easy-to-read weekly post. You’ll find lots more links after the jump. Enjoy!

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Anapod Explorer 8.8 from Red Chair Software is the latest version of the iPod management application with Windows Explorer integration, file backup, web streaming, and more. This update adds Album Art support for iPod photo users. MP3, M4A, and iTunes Music Store files with embedded art will now have their art…

Virginia Tech's "System X" Apple XServe supercomputer now ranks 14th among the top 500 in the world....

Filed under: Hardware, iPod Family, Retail

Or at least that's what it seems to be turning into. Two vendors this week announced major iPod battery initiatives.

First, the people at FastMac publicly announced their TruePower batteries for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd gen iPods. TruePower promises charges that last two to three times as long, and a battery that lasts through nearly seven times as many charging cycles, as the OEM iPod LiON battery. If the TruePower claims are true, or even half true, this is great news for iPod owners, especially starting at $29.95. Mini, 4th gen, and iPod Photo batteries coming soon.

The folks at TechRestore have taken a different tack. Their iPod Battery Freedom lifetime battery replacement service offers 24 hour turnaround battery replacement for as long as you own your iPod for a one time fee of $99 plus $12.99 S&H on subsequent replacements. You don't even have to get up from the computer to ship them your 'Pod; for an additional $19.99, they'll schedule overnight pickup anywhere in the U.S. It will take a couple of replacements for this to pay for itself, but you can't beat the convenience.

For those interested in the full range of available iPod battery options, the iPod Battery FAQ has a nice rundown.

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CodeWeavers today said it would work to bring Windows application to the Intel-based Macs when they ...

Stattoo 1.2 is now available! Hmm, that has a good ring to it -- Stattoo, one point two!

The main reason for this update is Tiger compatibility. Apple tweaked some stuff in iCal and Mail that made Stattoo behave strangely, but that is now resolved.

We also sneaked in the ability for the iTunes module to display artist and title for net radio streams (assuming they are broadcasting that info), a Japanese localization, and one of those handy "Launch on login" preferences that's all the rage with the kids these days.

One of the most common questions I got asked at MacWorld was "Why would I use Stattoo when there's Dashboard?" My answer basically boils down to "different strokes for different folks". Personally, I'm not a big Dashboard user. Having to toggle it on and off is just enough of an inconvenience for me to not want to use it. Stattoo is always running neatly at the bottom of my screen, and has saved me a couple times by reminding me of iCal events I'd forgotten about.

Most Dashboard widgets have that great lickable look, but since they all vary in size and style, it bugs me at some sort of subconscious level -- like having an unorganized sock drawer or something.

Anyway, I don't mean to hate on Dashboard. If it works for you, hey, that's awesome. I know a lot of folks like it, and the cool eye-candy helps sell Macs. But for me at least, it can't replace good ol' Stattoo just yet!

Filed under: Open Source, OS, Software, UNIX / BSD

CodeWeavers, the company behind the popular commercial Linux CrossOver Office Windows compatibility software, today announced plans for Mac compatibility once Apple switches to the x86 platform. The current product line allows users to integrate windows programs in Gnome and KDE through a customized interface to Wine. Although it is possible to install a range of Windows applications with the generic Wine installation, CrossOver Office places emphasis on productivity applications including MS Office Suite, Lotus Notes, Access, FrameMaker, and Internet Explorer. Access on the Mac without full-fledged VPC emulation would be particularly welcome to me, personally, as well as the ability to easily run Windows web browsers for CSS testing. Mac users will no doubt be less interested in support for Windows-native versions of iTunes and Photoshop.

And, of course, this means money and manpower for future OS X/Darwin-x86 Wine ports.

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Now the fun begins!

MakeMusic today announced that it is taking pre-orders for Finale 2006, its music notation software ...

The magic XML transformation powder.

Resources:

• Google AJAXSLT - a JavaScript library for XSLT.
• Extending libxslt with Python
• XHTML to Markdown converter - a .xsl file to convert XHTML^? to Markdown text format.
• http://www.webmasterbase.com/article/602/13
• XSLTTools for Mac OS X, including AppleScript bindings.

Filed under: Software, Software Update

The Omni Group, makers of Omniweb, Omnigraffle, Omnioutliner, and pretty much all Mac software that begins with 'Omni,' has compiled a page of statistics about their customers. These numbers come via Omni's automatic software update capability, though the information about customer systems is strictly opt in, so don't put off making a todo list with Omnioutliner because you are afraid Omni is watching.

This is completely unscientific, especially since Omni won't tell us the size of the sample, but it looks like more than half of Omni's users have made the jump to Tiger. Also of note, most have a gig of Ram and are using a G4 machine.

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MakeMusic today announced that pre-orders are now being accepted for Finale 2006, the latest version of the company's music notation software for the Mac...

Filed under: How-tos, iTunes, Surveys and Polls, Switchers

Reader Mark writes in with the following query: "Hey there... I'm a recent Mac switcher and i have looked all over the internet for a way to move my iTunes library (a quite big one that is) to my new Mac mini or even to an external hard drive. Here's the kicker: i don't want to loose my play counts and ratings. I asked an employee of the mac store and they couldn't tell me any known way. I thought 'Who better to ask than the people at my new favorite blog!??')"

Read on after the jump for some possible answers...

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Lots of ideas for songs to sing in the opening session of Gnomedex on the long cross-country flight. One of them was on my list and on Julie Leung's -- and that's (envelope please) -- Louie, Louie by the Kingsmen. It's a favorite frat song, and was sung by lots of rock and rollers, and the lyrics sure are simple. Other candidates on my list are (in no special order): Yellow Submarine, Happy Trails, Dixie, Yummy Yummy Yummy I've got Love in My Tummy, MacArthur Park, Kodachrome, The Candyman. Some would be great to play but would be hard to do a singalong to, like Steppenwolf's Born To Be Wild. A bunch of good ideas in the comments. I like Alice's Restaurant. That might have to be the one.

Filed under: Hardware, iPod Family, Wireless

Today Logitech introduced their bluetooth headphones for iPod. A wireless adapter is plugged into the top of the iPod and transmits to the headphones, which feature volume, select, play and pause controls. Logitech states you can expect a 30 foot range between adapter and headset, and up to eight hours of life from the headset's rechargable batteries.  The headset is available for iPod and iPod Mini.

I've been wanting a wireless headset for my iPod for a long time now. The advent of Airport and bluetooth technologies has caused me to loathe cumbersome wires (I know, I'm spoiled). But, I have to say, $150 seems kind of pricey.

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Apple Knowledge Base roundup: One Knowledge Base article describes an issue with Symbian OS-based ph...

BBEdit 8.2.2 ($200) is the latest version of the award-winning HTML and text editor for Mac OS X 10....

Filed under: Software, Software Update

Despite it's very ugly Comic Sans-esque icon, BBEdit is the HTML and text editor of choice for thousands of Mac coders out there and with good reason. Bare Bones Software, the makers of BBEdit, have released a new version 8.2.2, which is a free update for all current users of version 8 or higher.

If you're looking for a free text editor and don't need all the heavy-lifting abilities of BBEdit, you'll be glad to know that Bare Bones also offers a program called TextWrangler for free.

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Secunia Research has identified a vulnerability in Internet Explorer for Mac, which can be exploited...

Filed under: Cult of Mac, Odds and ends

This is just fantastic. French artist Invader creates mosaic sculptures of images from pop culture using the Rubik's Cube as his medium. Called "Rubikscubism," his works include a classic Mac trash can and, my personal favorite, the pre- and post-representation of a defragmented hard drive (pictured at right). Other sculptures include Space Invaders characters, Nintendo's Mario and a very Nintendo-like explosion.

Here is a Flickr site of a recent Rubikscubism gallery opening, and here is the artist's Flickr page. If only the Rubik's Cube had been given an aqua colored side...

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Filed under: Internet Tools, Software

Are you a comic-lover who has always wished that there was an RSS reader specifically geared to grabbing your favorite comics off of the web and aggregating them in one convenient place for your viewing pleasure? Well, it's not really an RSS reader, but Comictastic does just that.

You subscribe to your favorite webcomics using its handy wizard, and Comictastic scans the site and downloads the newest comics for your viewing. It's shareware and only $15 dollars, so if you like it, but it. Otherwise, everytime you launch the program it will prompt you to buy it, saying something like "Why buy Comictastic? Because if you don't, trouble will follow you all the days of your life." The answer to that question rotates through several different options, including "Because it will make your old Grandpappy so proud" and "Because you cannot survive without your comics."

Now, if only this could handle the Hypnotoad.

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Apple has added a 15-inch PowerBook and several 14-inch iBook models to its Special Deals section at...

An anonymous reader submits "It's official. CodeWeavers is planning to support Mac OS X on Intel chips. Many say this could stifle Windows to OS X ports of apps, but nonetheless this may make it a lot easier for people to switch to OS X from Windows."

Filed under: Open Source, Software

Planamesa Software has released a Mac OS X-native version of the OpenOffice.org office suite, under the name of NeoOffice/J 1.1. This Mac-native version features a Spotlight plugin, a double-click installer, drag & drop support and more. As a fully open project released under the GNU General Public License, updates are frequent and free for the taking. NeoOffice requires Mac OS X 10.2 or later.

My brother-in-law has been running OpenOffice for years now, and swears he's had minimal compatability issues, with both his Mac and Windows using contacts. If the idea of a free, open source alternative to Microsoft's Office appeals to you, check out NeoOffice.

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Rebecca MacKinnon reports that all Typepad sites are blocked in China.

11AM Pacific: Arrived safely in Seattle.

Filed under: Software

Giles Turnbull, over at MacDevCenter, has posted a new article called Tweaking Tiger Mail. It should prove a helpful resource for those of you who are having some difficulties with Mail 2.0, as " a number of people have made public complaints about changes made to the user interface. Mail's performance has improved, but the apparent willingness of Apple's designers to create an entirely new kind of toolbar icon just for use in Mail has irritated some."

The article discusses some solutions for dealing with the odd new interface of Mail 2.0 (some similar to things we've mentioned here at TUAW before) and includes some pointers to some helpful Mail related tools.

Now, I just have to find that fix that gets Spotlight to properly handle full-text searches in Mail, and I'll be set.

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Filed under: OS, Software

I'm a simple man, with simple pleasures. Mousezoom is one of those little programs that you can't live without but you forget that you are living with it until you use a new Mac. I started up my new Mac mini and was shocked at how slow the mouse was. It was dragging.

Then it hit me, there was no MouseZoom on this machine. MouseZoom is a prefpane that allows you to control how fast your mouse cursor goes, and it can go much, much faster than Apple's maximum setting.

Here's what it looks like:


As you can see I have the speed set to 5.01 on my Powerbook and Apple's max setting is 1.7. Download and install Mousezoom. You'll thank me later.

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At this point, iPod-specific wireless headphone technologies are nothing new; Bluetake started it with i-Phono (iPodlounge rating: B), Macally improved upon it with the BlueWave (iPodlounge rating: B+), and TEN Technolgy’s naviPlay (iPodlounge rating: A-) worked best, letting iPod owners use wired or wireless headphones at a 20+ foot distance from…

Xnet Communications has announced Captain FTP 4.2, an update to its file transfer software for Mac. ...

Apple has updated its Hot Deals Web site with the latest offerings from CDW|MacWarehouse, ClubMac, J&R, and a selection of Apple's end-of-life and clearance Mac OS X items...

Kikumomo and Pez became registered Spymac members on March 20th, 2003. Spymac published this interview in March of 2004. What is the funniest event that ever happened with the two of you together? P: We can't go into too much detail for legal reasons, but they mostly involve copious amounts of alcohol and the police amongst other things. K: Yeah like trying to prevent me from breaking my neck! P: Oh yeah the house party we had where Kiku and her friend Jill tried to surf down the stairs on their bellies. K: I won!!! P: Yep, she won a big scab on her chin. As they lay in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the stairs, one of our friends was all for calling an ambulance. How much time to the two of you spend on Spymac? K. Too much! I really have to avoid turning the computer on before I go to college or else I would never get there. It's only going to get worse, there's so much more to do now! P: Not as much as Kiku. Put it this way, I had to buy a laptop just to speak to her. Is most of the time spent on Spymac while you are both together posting at the same time in the same room in the same threads? K: I sometimes follow Pez in some of his posts - I'm always worried I'll miss something exciting! Most of the time we go off and do our own thing. P: I try and avoid Kiku as much as possible; she's been getting all political and stuff. Spymac has brought out the latent activist in her. We do seem to enjoy the same threads in the lounge and RLD (Red Light District). It's funny listening to Kiku chuckle away at a thread; I have to check it out straight away. Which forum is your favourite on Spymac? K: Oh this is a hard question. I like reading the Political Corner, but only post when I really feel strongly. The same goes for the Sanctuary. I love the Picture Association thread - it's really good when a few people are playing at once. And of course the Brit Thread in the RLD (Red Light District). Of course now there are members own forums so there's even more, Crayola's Corner looks promising! I've hinted to Redrock to host the Brit Thread in his forum, just so that we don't have to associate with the smut. P: You mean there are other forums? Well that's news to me. This is an easy one for me, the one with the naked pics. Which Spymac member do you enjoy talking to most? K: No fair! I don't want to single anyone out and there's so many. P: How can I narrow it down to one? There are so many characters with great personalities in Spymac. But I guess everyone's sweet and yummiest first choice would be Crayola. K: Yeah, Crayola was the first to talk to me on Spymac, bless him, I was really drunk and my typing was worse than it normally is! He always keeps an eye out for me, and is his usual sweet and yummy self all the time. There's a few of the Brits too, Redrock, Nivag and Extycho; it's nice to connect with home peeps. I also think more of the girly spies are getting a voice, which is nice. Zippywinds and Danamania are really nice too. I wasn't going to make a list so I'll stop now. P: And André. K: Oh yummy André! I missed out Oggy (oldgeek) and Kingsie (KingJobs) too!! Do you talk to many Spymac members on iChat or do you keep it mostly to the forums and Shoutbox? K: I talk to a few people in iChat, but mostly marchhare. He's always really sweet - we have a good laugh. P: After a quick look at my buddy list, there's marchhare, iccy82 and Nivag. I don't really use iChat that much, normally just to talk to my unlucky PC using friends who're still using AOL. I prefer the shout box or leaving posts I guess I'm shy outside of Spymac. What are your favourite foods? K: Aromatic Duck with hoisin sauce -- oh I could just eat a little ducky right now. P: Where do I begin? I would have to say, in all my modesty, that there is nothing quite like one of my barbeques. K: Oh don't get me started - you have no idea! He makes a yummy BBQ marinade, oh and he makes mean toad in the hole too! P: Yeah but the home made tomato sauce, the homemade marinade, Oh to die for, but then there's my Yorkshire puddings. K: Mmm, and he makes a yummy bread pudding with raspberry for pudding, oh go make me one now Pezzie? If you could meet one Spymac member, who would it be? K: I would like to have a Brit meet, for all of the Spymac peeps over here. I'm dropping hints at the Pezmeister for a Halloween BBQ! P: A Hallowhat now!! The Halloween meet is a good idea, book now, those interested. P: If I could meet one Spymac member world wide, it would be André (amalling) so I could steal some of his fashion sense. K: Yay, lets go visit André! To choose one, it would have to be marchhare. Describe your ideal evening at home. K: Tequila, Chinese food delivered, DJ Pez spinning some tunes followed up with me bashing Pez in Tekken 4 (sometimes). P: Kiku sums it up pretty well, I like to go on the decks, do a nice mix, then cook up some food (I'm a penny pincher) enjoy a bottle of wine. Then beat up Kiku in Timesplitters 2. Do you have any pets? K: We have our lovely Twistie-Cat. We rescued her from the shelter. We're pretty sure she was an escapee from the animal testing centre up the road. P: Twistie-Cat by name Twistie-Cat by nature. The cat's more of an attention seeker than me, no fair. I'm sure the cat was sane until we took her home. What was your favourite toy as a child? P: Scalextric that was brilliant. My brother and I used to have loads of track and cars, we used to make a track running through every room in the house. The cars could never make it back up the flight of stairs. Oh the memories. K: Oh it's too long ago for me to remember! I used to love my golden sunbeam bike. My cousin and I used to go off for bike rides and make up mad stories about our adventures, like "trapped in the woods forever!" What is your favourite toy as an adult? K: Definitely the Mac. Oh and my Pez candy dispenser! P: Apart from Kiku, I really like our digital camera, combine the two and there's lots of fun to be had. What is your dream job? K: I'm at college training to be an early years practitioner. It's caring and supporting education for under 8s. I can't wait to qualify and get into it. I am finding it hard getting back in to the routine of studying after being left school for so long. P: This is a tough question. I'm not sure I know what I would want, maybe it's a Gemini thing, but I get bored easily, so it would have to be something challenging, probably creative. I'm a qualified welder and I would like to set up my own company. I also love my involvement in music and video and would love to expand on that. K: Yeah we'll have to put some of your new stuff on the site when it's ready. Any final words? P: A big shout out to my peeps! K: Your homies? Thanks Kristie! P: Thanks to Atari and all the staff involved in bringing us Spymac 3. K: Yeah it's yummy! We really think the community is going to be great!

Filed under: Odds and ends

I've been following this thread I found at TabletPCBuzz.com. It appears to be describing a tablet PC running some version of Mac OS X or other. As of this writing, pictures have been posted of the machine up and running. Of course, this could be achieved very easily with good old Photoshop. Looks like either Tiger or Panther, based on the brushed metal Finder windows. The lack of a Spotlight icon would suggest Panther.

Update: After closer inspection, it has become apparant that the poster's name, Xaoh Retsim, is "Mister Hoax" spelled backwards.  Nice try.

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Pictured to the right is the world's cheapest fish trap. Click on the image to for a higher resolution shot. I'm sure this has been done before.

It is made from a plastic soda bottle, a couple of push pins, and a bit of fishing line.

(1) Cut off the top of the bottle where the cap screws on.

(2) Cut the bottle in two a couple of inches down from the top of the bottle. You want to make this cut just after the main cylinder of the bottle's body starts. The one pictured is actually cut too far down the bottle by about an inch. Oops.

(3) Invert the top of the bottle and shove it into the bottom of the bottle. You don't need to shove it all the way in. As pictured, it just needs to go

(4) Use the push pins to secure the top in the bottom. Wire would work, as well.

(5) Cut some holes in the bottom of the bottle.

(6) Thread the fishing line through the holes and tie.

(7) Throw a few bits of dog food or fish food into the bottle.

(8) Submerge in a lake / stream where there are small fish.

(9) Tie the fishing line to something so your trap doesn't wash away.

We had fish in our trap within a few minutes. Since it is pretty small, you'll want to check and empty often. It works because the fish can't seem to find the hole to swim out, though they will randomly find it every now and then.

If the bait floats, I have found that orienting the trap such that the opening is aimed a bit down works better in that the food floats to the back of the bottle, giving the fish clear line of site from the opening to the food.

If you want to catch larger fish, use a bigger bottle. If you want to catch really large fish, it wouldn't be hard to build the same kind of a trap out of chicken wire or wire screen. Certainly, there are likely laws governing the use of traps above a certain size.

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Keyspan's Express Remote is an infrared remote control for the Mac or PC that was released in November of 2004. The remote can be used in two different ways: connecting to the USB port on an AirPort Express, or connecting to a USB port on a Mac or PC. When used with AirPort Express, the Express Remote allows the user to locally control music being streamed from iTunes on a PC or Mac. When connected directly to a computer, the remote allows the user to control audio and video media players in a similar way a television or DVD player are controlled. The Express Remote features 17 buttons and will transmit signals up to 40 feet. Included with the remote are key maps for iTunes, Windows Media Player, Music Match, QuickTime, WinAMP, PowerPoint, and Keynote. The control panel also allows the user to set the remote to be used with additional applications. The Express Remote control ships with a USB cable and two CR2025 (Lithium 3V) batteries. It is lightweight and like other Keyspan remotes, sits nicely in the cradle in the infrared receiver when not in use. Set up for the remote was simple, requiring installing the software from the provided CD. The software provides a testing menu so the user can get to know how each of the buttons are programmed for each application. Spymac tested the Keyspan Express Remote mostly using DVD Player and iTunes. Using the remote with DVD Player was just like using a conventional remote control on a DVD player. The only problem Spymac had was making sure the sensor was positioned properly because, as with other infrared remotes, if there was anything obstructing the view of the remote to the receiver, it wouldn't work. The buttons on the Express Remote are fairly responsive and are positioned in an orderly fashion making for great ease of use. The Express Remote can be purchased from several online retailers from $44.99 to $60.95. System Requirements: Airport Express: iTunes version 4.7 or later; AirPort Express firmware 6.1.1 or later; Windows 2000, Windows XP, or Mac OS X 10.3 required for AirPort Express control Mac: An available USB port; Mac OS 8.6 (or later); Mac OS X Windows: An available USB port; Windows 98/98SE/Me/2000/XP Pros: Easy to use Matches many Apple computers Reasonable price Cons: Infrared capabilities require no obstruction of view If your company has a product you would like Spymac to review, please send an email to news@spymac.com.

Mac Design Conference & Digital Photography Expo kicked off in Tampa, Florida this week. The conference, produced by Layers Magazine, is being held June 21 to 23 at the Tampa Convention Center. The Tech Expo will be open free to the public on Wednesday from 10 am to 5 pm. Free tickets are also available online before June 22 or admission is $20 at the door. Featuring training sessions, giveaways and exhibits from leading companies in the field, the expo hall's exhibitors include Adobe, CDW, Corel, Extensis, Hewlett Packard, iStockPhoto, Peachpit Press, Wacom, and more. The conference has over 60 sessions on topics including Mac OS X Tiger, Photoshop CS2, InDesign CS2, Illustrator CS2, Digital Photography, Final Cut Pro, Dreamweaver, After Effects, and iDVD, while the featured speakers include Scott Kelby, Taz Tally, Terry White Bob LeVitus, David Pogue, Dave Cross and Kevin Ames. "Don't miss this groundbreaking event, the only design conference that's totally dedicated to designers, digital photographers and video editors!"

Filed under: OS, Software

Automator Actions for PreFab UI Actions allows you to attach AppleScripts to any application, which can be triggered automatically when the user performs an action in the target application, such as opening a window or choosing a menu item. Pretty cool.

Note that this action requires the purchase of PreFab UI Actions, a plugin that allows for the attachment of Applescripts.

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Bare Bones Software today announced the release of BBEdit 8.2.2, the latest version of its award-winning HTML and text editor for the Mac...

MPlayer 1.0pre8 (free) is a video player for Mac OS X that plays many formats. It supports most form...

Logitech on Wednesday introduced its wireless iPod headphones. The Bluetooth headphones feature integrated iPod controls on the side of the headphones, to allow users to adjust the volume as well as track forward, backward, play and pause their playlists. Available in July, the headphones will sell for $149.99. "Wireless headphones unleash people from their music player and remove the nuisance of cords," director of product marketing for Logitech's Audio Business Unit Ray Weikel said. "No more untangling those earbuds when you pull your iPod out of the bag, or managing the cords while trying to enjoy your music. We believe our wireless headphones will truly be liberating for iPod owners."

Spymac co-founder AtariST has posted this screenshot of his Dashboard widgets.

Apple believes that its switch to Intel chips will not dampen the halo effect of the iPod. Over the past year analysts have claimed that Apple has seen higher Macintosh sales as a direct result of the company's iPod sales, but the company's recent announcement of switching to Intel chips has some analysts skeptical if the trend will continue. Toronto-based Tera Capital portfolio manager Duncan Stewart said: "Anyone who is dumb enough to buy a computer because of the iPod is going to buy in the face of [a processor] upgrade." Apple told The Street on Tuesday that it currently offers the best lineup of Macs in its history, and plans to introduce more PowerPC-based Macs in the coming quarters. "We think customers will continue to see the superior performance and value of Macs."

Filed under: iPod Family, Software

A couple of days ago I mentioned Griffin Technology's iFill. I've been playing with it since and I've got to say it seems to have been made specifically with the iPod Shuffle in mind. I like to listen to WOXY, but I use my iPod almost exclusively in the car. Now I can do both. I have a 1GB Shuffle, and I've told iFill to use 512MB for music. Before I go to bed, I plug in the iPod, launch iFill, select WOXY and start recording. By the next morning, I've got my favorite radio station ready to carry around with me all day, all cozy on my Shuffle.  I love it.

I got some great suggestions from you folks on alternative apps and methods for getting internet radio onto my iPod, but iFill makes it so easy for only nineteen bucks, I think I'll just register this one.

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Logitech today introduced its new Wireless Headphones for iPod, which will work from up to 30-feet away...

Intriguing Development today announced that it will start shipping its new scrapbooking product, iRemember, on June 27th...

Question: POP or IMAP?

My Answer: POP all the way. Actually, POP3S. IMAP has always been tricky to set up, tricky to move, slower, and a few other things I don't particularly care for. POP has always worked, whether it's partially retrieving messages, leaving them on the server for x days, or just grabbing messages directly. I know IMAP has a bunch of nice features; I've just never been able to get past the crap IMAP throws my way to use them hassle-free.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iPod Family

The Mp3 market has experience an almost 200% increase in sales over 2003, according to research firm In-Stat. 27.8 million MP3 players were sold in 2004, and In-Stat projects that 104 million units will be selling annually by 2009.

That's a lot of Mp3 players, and Apple leads the market with the iPod holding on to a 30.2% share of the worldwide market. I can remember when the iPod was first launched, my reaction was something like, "It's an Mp3 player. Big deal." That shows what I know. Staying on top takes effort, and I'm itching for new Apple hardware, which leads me to the question: What do I want in the next generation of the iPod? Well, a "podcast" menu item would be nice, and seems to make sense considering the podcast feature that will be a part of the next release of iTunes. Greater storage capacity is always a good idea, and a color screen across the board would be nice as well. Of course, I still want to see the option to jump directly to an album from shuffle mode that I've discussed before. What would you like to see?

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In brief: Attendees registering for the annual FileMaker Developer Conference will save $200 with "e...

VValdo writes "After nearly five years of development, NeoOffice/J has made it to its first stable release. NeoOffice/J 1.1 is a Mac OS X-integrated office suite based on OpenOffice.org 1.1.4 that includes word processing, spreadsheet, presentation and drawing applications. Key Macintosh features include a standard Mac OS X installer, a native Aqua menu bar, use of the native printing system, full clipboard support, drag-and-drop, Mac "command" key shortcuts, mouse scrolling, integration with major Mac email clients and native support for Mac fonts. The full announcement is here."

Filed under: Odds and ends

Nothing warms the cockles of my heart more than a document from Apple's crack legal team. This list of Apple's trademarks and servicemarks is fun to read, especially if you are obsessed with Apple as much as I am (and we all know you are).

Some of my personal favorites? I'm glad you asked:

• Aristotle
• Inter·Poll
• NodeCheck
• Yum

That list is an incredibly geeky drinking game waiting to happen.

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Logitech on Wednesday will introduce a new set of Bluetooth wireless headphones for the iPod. The “Logitech Wireless Headphones for iPod” package includes a wireless behind-the-head headset and a small receiver that plugs into the top of any Dock Connector iPod (3G, 4G, photo and mini). The $149.99 headphones, which weigh…

Apple's move to the Intel architecture may affect sales in the near-term, according to a TheStreet.c...

SmileOnMyMac has released photoprinto 2.0, an update to its photo album and scrapbook design and pri...