Software
by Nicholas Deleon on June 30, 2009

by MG Siegler on June 24, 2009

Tonight at its event in San Francisco, Boxee showed off the first shots of what it’s working on for the beta release of its software. CEO Avner Ronen says Boxee users should expect this in September, though it could be pushed to October.

Forgive the slightly blurry shots, consider this a test of the iPhone 3GS camera at live events. (There are some slightly better ones at the bottom.)

by Nicholas Deleon on June 12, 2009

Well this ought to be of some use to our Chinese readers. And by that I mean people who are actually in China who visit, for whatever reason, crunch gear dot com. There’s some sort of software called Green Dam that will be required on all Chinese PCs soon that blocks all sorts of fun content from being downloaded and/or viewed. Salty political talk? Banned. Pornography? Banned. (Well that’s 90 percent of the Internet right there, silly political arguments (NOBAMA, REVERSE RACISM, etc.) and porn.) Tips on how to grow marijuana? Banned. Violent video games? Banned. Fun all around!

by Nicholas Deleon on June 11, 2009

“Oh, FFS!” That’s what the likes of Norton and Symantec can be heard saying today with the news that Microsoft plans to release free anti-virus software, code-named Morro. (That’s the name of a beach in São Paulo, and is pronounced “MO hoo. Tell your friends.) A beta is expected “soon,” but Microsoft hasn’t said when the final version will be available

by Nicholas Deleon on May 28, 2009

Panic, the maker of shockingly good Mac software, is having itself a nice little sale that you may want to take advantage of. From now until 11:59 PM PDT on May 29 (so, a little over a day) you can buy Transmist, Coda, Candy Bar and Unison for 50 percent off.

by Nicholas Deleon on May 8, 2009

Here’s a random software recommendation for your Friday afternoon enjoyment. It’s Vox, it’s for Mac OS X, and it’s a lightweight music player. No, it’s not going to replace iTunes on your system—there’s no library feature, for one thing—but it’ll play some of the more obscure formats out there.

by Doug Aamoth on May 6, 2009

freezeIf you’ve never worked in an office where an unsuspecting co-worker gets an e-mail sent out on his or her behalf announcing that happy hour drinks are on the house, you haven’t LIVED! It’s the perfect way to teach someone that they should always, always, lock their computer whenever they head over to the break room to find that someone drank all the coffee and didn’t bother to make another pot. Those days may be about to end, though, thanks to Phoenix Freeze.

by Ivan Beres on May 1, 2009

Battery from Native Instruments is a great piece of software. It’s a software sampler for drums and percussion with more than 12 GB of samples. Now you can get it for $99 and that’s like 57% off the original price. What are you waiting for? Get it from audioMIDI today. No need to hurry though: the offer is valid until the end of May.

by Scott Merrill on February 16, 2009

A bunch of granola chewing hippies freedom loving technologists sent a letter to President Obama, encouraging him to consider open source software. Signed by representatives from Novell, Red Hat, Unisys, and a bunch of other open source solutions companies, the letter is well-written piece of advocacy. Of course, not everyone supports the initiative.

by John Biggs on January 28, 2009

When we heard about iLife ‘09 last month, Apple touted the Faces and Places features of the iPhone and image stabilization and precise editing in iMovie. How much does all of this pleasure cost? $79 or nothing if you get it with a new Mac. But is it worth the upgrade?

The most prominent additions are Faces and Places. Places uses embedded GPS data to place your photos on a map and you can use this information to make map-based video travelogues. Although this is great for iPhone shots - the iPhone embeds GPS coordinates in every photo it takes - it’s not so great for owners of non-GPS enabled cameras. While there are plenty of folks out there who use and need GPS information in their photos, those folks probably aren’t using iPhoto. It’s a nice to have but not a real draw.

by Scott Merrill on January 18, 2009

Psst, buddy! Wanna make a quick $3,200? All you need to do is rat out someone you know who’s illegally using commercial software. Is $3,200 enough to compensate your lack of sleep and soul?

by Nicholas Deleon on January 11, 2009

So how’s that Windows 7 beta treating you? Even if you’ve had issues—and we know that some of you have—you should know that Microsoft is trying to make this whole experience work as smoothly as possible

by Nicholas Deleon on January 10, 2009

Looks like Microsoft didn’t anticipate the demand for its Windows 7 beta, as many of you are no doubt aware. As such, Microsoft is busy adding hardware to its fledgling online operation and will re-open beta downloads when it’s got everything all set up.

by Nicholas Deleon on January 9, 2009

Look what happens when you try to visit Microsoft’s Windows blog, in search of the Windows 7 beta.

by Nicholas Deleon on January 6, 2009

Whoever predicted that Apple would introduce iWork ‘09 today gets a gold star. Keynote, Pages and Numbers all received what I would consider minor updates; no need to run around all willy nilly for these, methinks.

MusicBox: a truly powerful visualization of your music library
25 Comments
by Devin Coldewey on December 15, 2008

musicbox-screenshot
I’ve been looking for something like this my whole life — and of course now that I’ve found it, I can’t have it. MusicBox is the Masters thesis project of MIT Media Lab student Anita. I’ve never been impressed with things like Coverflow and Genius because they seem so shallow; there’s so much metadata in and around our music libraries that something more robust should certainly be possible, I always thought. And look, someone like-minded but far more capable than myself has created a powerful, intuitive, and attractive tool for visualizing, sorting, and playing your music.

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MIT students build mobile applications in 13 weeks
76 Comments
by Doug Aamoth on December 12, 2008

MI 030

MIT professor Hal Abelson started today’s final presentation for the school’s “Building Mobile Applications” class by saying, “A course like this couldn’t have existed ten years ago… maybe not even a year ago. Courses like this right now are unique, but in two years they’ll be completely ordinary.”

What’s extraordinary is that on top of a full college course-load at one of the most challenging schools in the country, these groups of students built fully working mobile applications for Windows Mobile, Android, and Symbian devices while mentors from the likes of Google, Nokia, Bank of America, and Microsoft oversaw their progress.

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How soon can we expect a 3D Finder in Mac OS X?
1 Comment
by Nicholas Deleon on December 11, 2008

3dfinder

Look at Apple, all busy filing patents and whatnot. Take this one (well, these ones), which shows several potential 3D interfaces for the Finder. The patents were first filed, according to AppleInsider, in June of last year under the name “Multi-Dimensional Desktop.”

It’s as you might imagine: the Dock & Co. are able to move along the Z axis in addition to the normal XY axes. A simple concept, yes—“hey, let’s make the Finder 3D”—but one that really hasn’t been deployed in any meaningful way yet.

The question then becomes, when can we expect such an interface? Probably not with the next version of OS X, 10.6, (that’s “O Ess Ten” not “O Ess Ecks”), or Snow Leopard, which is rumored to be released on next June. (Rumored in so far as Apple said in June that it was about a year away.)

The $1 VLC remote control app for the iPhone (or you could just use the Web Interface for free)
2 Comments
by Nicholas Deleon on December 11, 2008

vlciphone

Sure, you could pay $1.00 for this new VLC remote control app [iTunes link] for the iPhone (and iPod touch), or you could simply select “Add Interface, Web Interface” then point your iPhone to the resulting Web server. After that, you can apply this skin to your iPhone to make the whole package look a little more elegant.

Not to knock the new app, mind you, but it strikes me as an unnecessary waste of your money, considering VLC+Web Interface+iPhone already does the trick, and then some.

Your choice.

via Lifehacker

Random software recommendation: Linkinus, the IRC app for Mac OS X
3 Comments
by Nicholas Deleon on December 10, 2008

linkinus

Here’s a random software recommendation for Mac OS X users. A ProTip, if you will. If you’re into IRC at all, you should check out Linkinus, which is developed by Conceited Software. I bought it last spring and have been using it ever since. Yes, I understand the concept of buying an IRC application borders on the insane, what with X-Chat being free and all, but the shareware period is long enough to decide if you want it or not.

The main innovation of Linkinus, which costs £12.50 (right now, around $18.54), aside from its customizable user interface, is this pane system it uses. It divides the main window into as many panes as you want. In each pane is a chat room, meaning that you can follow several different rooms simultaneously. (I typically follow What.cd’s room, HDBits’ room and 2600’s room.) It’s pretty neat, otherwise I wouldn’t waste your time with this post. It’s also a fairly esoteric application, so unless you’re searching MacUpdate or VersionTracker for “IRC” you’re not likely to come across it during your daily Internetting.

So yeah, if you’re looking for a better-than-average IRC app be sure to check Linkinus out. And no, I don’t know the developers from a hole in the wall, I just thought some of you might like it.

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