Gnomie Matt writes:

Hey, Chris!

I recently blogged about an amazing story of a man named Joe Barnick who was born with SMA. He uses some new technologies to use his Mac to do things that he could never dream of doing in the real world like talking/IMing with friends. It’s a great story and my post has an embedded video of him, so please enjoy, I hope you pass this on to others.

Pack your bags for a trip through the skies in Airport Mania!

Travel through 8 amusing airports while you land a variety of planes, purchase upgrades, and avoid delays. Stay on your toes as some planes carry precious cargo and will need to land in a hurry, while others might need a trip to the repair shop. But, with good planning, you’ll make it to the gate on time!

With unique challenges, whimsical characters, and fun that will put a smile on your face, Airport Mania is one flight you can’t miss!

[Download free trial of Airport Mania: First Flight]
[Buy Airport Mania: First Flight]

This RSS (Really Simple Syndication) reader can fetch and display news from thousands of different Web sites and Web logs.

NetNewsWire includes a Weblog editor that allows you to post to blogging sites such as Movable Type, Radio UserLand, and Blogger, and a scrapbook that stores news headlines, URLs, subscriptions, and draft text. The Find command allows you to search through current news. NetNewsWire is scriptable via AppleScript and other OSA languages and includes a Scripts menu where you can add your own scripts.

Version 3.1 offers an improved UI, performance and memory enhancements, a new HTML Archive feature, desktop integration, synchronized news clipping, and microformat detection.

[OS X 10.4/10.5] [FREE]

Save big on Apple-certified refurbished products!

Save big on Apple-certified refurbished iPods!

Gnomie JavaBeans writes:

Hey Chris,

I’ve noticed the recent videos involving programming. Seems like that is a pretty popular subject as of late. My questions are aimed at development on the Mac OS platform. I’ve never programmed outside of Windows. I have really been debating on switching over and developing for the Mac. I have heard that Apple is great toward its developers and provide a nice array of tools that are free with the OS. To me this is pretty amazing coming from using the bloated Visual Studio IDE. Not that Visual Studio is bad, but it is bloated and it does cost too much.

With Mac giving these tools out with the OS, you would think it would make more mention of it. If I had known that a long time ago I would have started in that direction. What do you think? Does Apple limit itself developer-wise because it doesn’t advertise this aspect enough? I am always seeing something about Windows development, but never anything about the Mac. Just thought it was interesting. I don’t want to spend a ton of money on my first Mac, so I guess I will pick up a Mac mini to start development on; it’s more than fast enough for that I think.

The VMware Fusion team is proud to announce a new video contest, entitled “My Switch to VMware Fusion.”

As part of our new campaign encouraging Mac users to switch to VMware Fusion for Windows on Mac, we are kicking off a video contest wherein users who have already switched to Fusion pull together a 60 second video on why they switched to VMware Fusion to run Windows on their Mac, and post it on the Web.

There’s no better spokesperson than happy, delighted customers, which is why we see this customer validation as central to our campaign. Marketers can say all kinds of things (trust me, I know), but unvarnished peer references really count.

The great thing about the Mac, is that it has all the tools to make a great video documenting a “Switch to Fusion” from iMovie, to the iSight, and so on. The VMware Fusion team has pulled together all the necessary resources in an easy “how-to” tips and tricks document on the video contest page.

When they’re done, all participants have to do is submit their finished work via the online form on the “Switch to Fusion” video contest page. We’ll be blogging them as they come in.

Gnomie Matt (itubepro in our chat room) writes:

Is the Macintosh for everyone? Here’s a list to test if you should switch to Mac.

1. Go to an Apple Store or visit a friend who has a Mac and see if you can limit yourself to using a Mac for a couple of days. I am a big Mac supporter, but I wouldn’t suggest buying one until you know what you’re getting yourself into. As a safety net, remember that you can also run Windows — so don’t throw away your install disk!

2. If you get frustrated, keep trying — you will get used to it. I know the first day of using my MacBook was a mixture of excitement and frustration!
3. Remember that OS X Macs operate differently from Windows machines. It took me five minutes to discover that the options are on the top bar! Not everything’s intuitive if you’re used to the way Windows works. Expect initial confusion.
4. Get used to Finder and Spotlight. These applications will start you off on OS X as finder is Mac’s Explorer. If you cannot figure out the OS by yourself, go to the Apple Store and the Mac specialists will be more than helpful.
5. The price shouldn’t scare you! I know this is a advertising thing, but they have better bang to your buck is completely true. The iLife suite is amazing and the software is very simple to use. I can find a file using Spotlight in five seconds while in Windows it might take me five minutes. (As a side note, I am only 14 and bought the 2.2 GHz model myself by selling RAM on eBay)
6. The way the Mac is organized is much simpler. Start off with a lower-end Mac like a Mac mini or the lowest end MacBook if you need a notebook. But as I said in the first step, test Macs before you buy them. I personally like Mac better, but you may not. And no I did not pull the virus card this whole entire list!

Send the housing market through the roof as you build, buy, and sell houses in the new strategy game Build-a-lot!

You can flip houses for quick cash or sit back and watch the rental income pile up. Become a real estate mogul as you visit scenic towns, earn huge profits, and perform special favors for the colorful local mayors. Can you build a new cinema for the local movie star? Install a bowling alley in the Mayor’s Mansion? No problem!

There’s plenty to do and lots of fun ahead in Build-a-lot

[Download free trial of Build-a-lot]
[Buy Build-a-lot]

The 13″ MacBook Notebook Computer from Apple gives you all the power of a Macintosh computer in an easily portable and attractive form. The laptop is housed in a white polycarbonate shell that brings the signature Apple design aesthetic to the notebook. It is designed to meet the needs of video editors, graphics designers, educators, and businesspeople who demand a compact and light portable computer.

The MacBook is powered by the Intel Core 2 Duo Processor. The Core 2 Duo is actually two processors built into a single chip, which translates into much better performance than a single processor chip. The computer is loaded with a 120GB 5400rpm SATA hard drive, 1GB of RAM, Airport Extreme wireless networking, integrated Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, built-in speakers and Apple’s SuperDrive, an 8x speed DVD burner with support for dual-layer discs. The computer features a beautiful glossy 13″ widescreen display that delivers a bright and clear image.

All this hardware runs on Apple’s OS X 10.5 Leopard operating system with Rosetta technology. This allows you to seamlessly run legacy applications as well as Universal Binaries that have been designed to run on both PowerPC and Intel chips, making the MacBook a great choice for your home, office, or college dorm.

Special price: $1,139.95 + free shipping

Here are some Symantec for Mac exclusives, all good through June 30th, 2008!

• Save 20% on Norton Confidential for Mac
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Gnomie Ryan Hall writes:

Hey Chris,

I don’t know if others have emailed you about this, or if you’re experiencing this problem, but after you turn off the iPod, there is audible static from the headphones.

From what I’ve discovered from various forums, this only seems to affect the 80 GB iPod class — not the 160 GB model.

I’ve found a few was to cope with this problem:

1. After you maually turn off your iPod, put it on hold; the static goes away.
2. Pause your iPod before you turn it off (pause, then press and hold play/pause to turn off).
3. After you turn off your iPod, unplug the headphones, then plug them back in.
4. Unplug the headphones altogether! (Ugh, I know.)

Nevertheless, it’s still a very annoying problem that I hope Apple fixes very soon with a new update.

Sonic Solutions, the leader in digital media software, redefines Mac burning yet again with the introduction of Toast 9 Titanium. Toast 9 allows consumers to record high-definition content from high-definition (HD) camcorders and favorite HD programming from TiVo DVRs and Elgato’s EyeTV devices to Blu-ray Disc (BD). Users also have the option to burn HD video and slide shows on standard DVDs. For on-the-go entertainment, Toast 9 introduces Roxio Streamer. Streamer allows users to stream video content stored on their home Mac to a Wi-Fi connected iPhone or iPod Touch or any Internet connected Mac or PC. Already the first choice for music fans wishing to create great sounding CDs and DVDs, Toast 9 offers the ability to capture streaming audio for recording Internet radio. Another Toast innovation allows captured music tracks to be automatically tagged with song titles, artist or other related information. Toast 9 Titanium is available direct from Roxio for $99.99 (or $89.99 with this coupon). The High Definition/Blu-ray Disc (HD/BD) plug-in, which is needed to author BD video is sold separately for $19.99 and is available free for those who purchase Toast 9 online at roxio.com through April 13, 2008.

“With the growing adoption of high-definition devices, comes the need for consumer applications that allow users to enhance and enjoy their favorite movies, photos and music on HDTVs or on-the-go,” said Vito Salvaggio, vice president of consumer products, Sonic Solutions. “With high-definition video authoring, remote streaming of personal and commercial content, as well as exciting audio innovations, Toast 9 continues its long history of breakthrough features that empower Mac users to make the most of their digital media.”

Toast 9 is packed with new features and enhancements that set the standard for burning, watching, listening and sharing digital content on the Mac and beyond.

Toast 9 Highlights

• Blu-ray Disc Support — Store as many as 12,500 music tracks, 50,000 photos, and hours of high-definition video on a single 50 GB Blu-ray Disc.
• Mac & PC Data Spanning — Span large files across multiple discs, including Blu-ray Discs, for easy retrieval on any Mac or PC.

Watch

• Life in High-Def — Enabled by a HD/BD plug-in, consumers can burn HD video content to Blu-ray Disc and watch it on their HDTV using any BD set top player. For consumers who do not own a BD burner or media, the plug-in allows burning high-definition content to standard DVDs. Users can also create HD video projects using footage from AVCHD camcorders or recorded TV shows or movies.
• Video Editing — Easy removal of unwanted video segments from TiVo, Elgato’s EyeTV, and QuickTime video files before burning the final project to disc or exporting it to a portable player.
• Time Savers — Toast 9 includes a variety of innovative features designed to simplify and accelerate the otherwise time consuming and CPU intensive video conversion process. These include Batch DVD-Video conversion to enable consumers to queue multiple video files for use with Roxio’s Fit-to-DVD compression technology. The Fit-to-DVD compression technology enables consumers to compress large files to fit on a single layer 4.7 GB disc. Pause and Resume buttons enable users to suspend and later resume a video conversion project, and a Video Quality Preview enables users to review a snippet of converted video to verify video quality prior to initiating a complete file conversion.

Listen

• Library Extension — Build an extensive audio library by capturing any audio playing through the Mac, including Internet audio.
• Audio Fingerprinting — Automatically identify untagged music files and add song titles, artists and genres, eliminating the mystery of “Track_01″.
• Perfect Mixes — Create perfect mixes with DJ-style crossfades and transitions, output level adjustments, and enhancement filters.

Share

• On-the-go Entertainment — A new application called Roxio Streamer enables on-the-go consumers to access video recordings stored on a home Mac and stream it to a Wi-Fi connected iPhone or iPod Touch or any internet connected Mac or PC.
• High Quality Photo Discs — Toast Photo Discs store thousands of full-resolution photos as well as automatically-generated slideshows viewable on Mac and PC.
• iLife and Aperture — Access iLife 08 and Aperture libraries directly from Toast 9’s Media Browser.
• Personalized Disc Artwork — Personalize discs with labels, cover art, and inserts. Includes drawing and text editing tools, as well as over 600 clip art images and built-in Google image search. Supports LightScribe and Labelflash drives and media to allow users to burn artwork and labels directly to discs.

Download Toast 9 directly here, or, if you prefer to have it shipped to you, click here.

Gnomie William (MacintechStudios on YouTube) writes:

Hey Chris,

I just read your 50 Reasons to Switch from Microsoft Windows to Apple’s Mac OS X article, and saw that you mentioned Dashcode. It’s quite timely as over the past few days I’ve been fiddling around with Dashcode myself. While it does take the “geekery” out of widget-designing, it does offer a lot of power with the integration of JavaScript to help increase the flexibility of Dashcode.

I decided to put it to the test and create what I call the “Ultimate Search Widget.” It’s technically not the “ultimate” search widget out there, as there are others which can do slightly more, however those sacrifice simplicity for power while I tried to stick to simplicity and balance out the power.

What my widget will do — and again, it was created entirely in Dashcode — is allow you to search Web sites like Google, Yahoo!, Mahalo, and the like right from its interface. However, that’s not all. It’ll also allow you to search YouTube, Flickr, Digg (and yes, I Dugg your podcast), Apple.com, eBay, Wikipedia, and other sites similar to those. Again, that’s not all. With my widget I also was aiming to prevent clutter in the dashboard (this also reduces system resource use as it’s simply one widget versus four or more to do the same task). So I also included searching of YellowPages.com to find phone numbers and home addresses, weather.com to find out the local weather or the weather of a place you’re going to (not as fast as a weather widget, but far less system resources are used), and Google Maps to get directions.

All of this from a simple to use interface that is easily browsed. Probably the best part is that Dashcode allows anyone to easily edit widgets created in it… So of course I opened its source for anyone to edit and add things they want.

I attached a zip of the latest build for you to mess around with (as well as its source), just in case you were looking for a dashboard widget with this kind of functionality.

Let the super-sleuthing begin in this sequel to the Mystery Case Files smash hit series!

The Queen’s Hope Diamond has been stolen! It’s up to you to search for clues, find the offending culprit, and recover the stolen gem. Expand your investigations through the game’s 29 unique locations by finding items that will unlock subsequent levels.

Thousands of clues are cleverly hidden within the beautiful illustrations, creating a new game experience each time you step into this visual masterpiece!

[Download free trial of Mystery Case Files: Prime Suspects]
[Buy Mystery Case Files: Prime Suspects]

WowMatrix is a free World of Warcraft Addon Installer and Updater that is elegant and easy to use. No more wasting time checking WoW Addon web sites and manually installing addons.

WowMatrix saves you hours of time. Before opening World of Warcraft, just fire up WowMatrix and let it update your WoW AddOns quickly and safely.

Choose from over 1,400+ WoW AddOns directly within WowMatrix, without visiting a single website. More WoW AddOns are added and supported daily.

Includes the ability to export your list of installed WoW AddOns to share with your friends, and the ability to prevent user-specified AddOns from being updated. Version 1.61 provides improved support for World of Warcraft patch 2.4.x and above.

[2.77M] [Mac OS X 10.3.9/Tiger/Leopard] [FREE]

XtremeMac’s Tango Sound System for iPod is a smart, sophisticated, and stylish docking speaker system for all iPods with a docking port.

The Tango is fully-functional with two Neodymium-driver speakers, two tweeters, and an independent downward firing subwoofer all working together to create a sound seemingly to big for its small body. Tango is more than just a great speaker system; the built-in 3.5mm A/V line out jack allows you to enjoy video from your iPod video on a TV. Take control of the tango system with the iPod’s click wheel or with Tango’s wireless remote.

B&H price - $89.95 + shipping

Any Gnomies have a take on this product? Good or bad, we’d love to hear about it! Comments are absolutely welcome.

Gnomie bGeorge writes:

Dear Chris,

Two days ago I received my very first Mac, a MacBook Pro 15″, and I am astonished with the experience. I have been a lifelong Windows user and have used every Windows operating system except Vista. My previous machine was a five-year-old Dell with little RAM and a failing hard drive. I thought it was about time to purchase a new machine and, since I was in need of more portability, I decided to purchase a notebook.

In the beginning I looked at many different brands of “PCs” and was settling on a Dell XPS notebook. I then learned that a friend of mine had purchased the same model I was planning on and was having a terrible experience with Vista. This was about the same time I happened upon your stream back in about August/September and have been watching you ever since. From my friend’s and your experiences with Vista I seriously began to question whether I really wanted to go with Vista or not.

Months passed and, around the time you decided to purchase your MacPro and post more Mac stuff, I started to rethink my computing experience and stopped defending Windows like I did in the past. Purchasing a Mac soon seemed like the right way to go and here I am now, happy.

The overall experience with the Mac has been great and spending a little bit more was definitely worth it. Using a Mac is different and it is taking a little bit of time to get the hang of it, but the Mac community is great. Last night I spent several hours reading the “Mac 101″ section of TUAW and learned a lot.

I justed wanted to say, “thank you” to all the members of the Mac community: Chris Pirillo, the folks at TUAW, Datalore, and other member of the #chris chat room, and that old guy that used to be on TV.

Help a young baker show big bad business who’s boss in this fast-paced treat!

When the retail behemoth “Mega-Mart” moves in, Jill’s beloved family bakery is forced to close. But she’s determined to get the business back on its feet with delicious sweets. Help Jill open her own bakery, bring in customers, and earn enough money to re-open her grandparents’ bakery!

With 48 levels and four different bakeries, Cake Mania is full of mouth-watering fun. Let’s get cookin’!

[Download free trial of Cake Mania]
[Buy Cake Mania]

Upgrade to 4.0 GB for less than 1/4th Cost of the Apple Factory option!

Other World Computing (OWC), a leading Mac and PC technology company, announced today that it is offering 4 GB Memory Kits for Apple’s newly announced MacBook and MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo models, which began shipping yesterday, February 26, 2008. OWC is providing memory for these new MacBook 13″ 2.1GHz/2.4GHz Core 2 Duo Models and MacBook Pro 15″ & 17″ 2.4 GHz/2.5 GHz (including 2.6 GHz optional configuration) Core 2 Duo models. OWC memory is available in modules and kits of up to 4.0 GB for these models as well as the previous MacBook Pro models.

OWC is an Apple Developer Connection Premiere member and its memory upgrades meet Apple’s electrical and mechanical design requirements. OWC maintains an active state-of-the-art test lab to ensure the highest product quality and reliability and provides a lifetime of high-performance reliable operation backed with a Money Back Guarantee and OWC’s Lifetime Advance Replacement Warranty.

OWC’s 4.0 GB Memory Upgrade Kits are available immediately, priced at $95.99 (configured as two 2 GB memory modules). Additional savings are also available for customers who take advantage of OWC’s trade-in program, which provides $20 cash back for the trade-in of two 1GB modules.

OWC, an expert in the Mac memory market, has nearly two decades of experience providing memory module upgrades for Mac computers. OWC has conducted independent memory benchmarks on MacBook laptops, which show how important memory is for customers employing high-memory intensive applications, such as audio/video, photo, 3D modeling, gaming and other applications. OWC has concluded that more memory is better overall than having less memory that is interleaved.

“We’re all about maximizing performance and impressively, we’ve found there can be better performance attained even between 2.0 GB and 3.0 GB memory configurations than getting a new system with a faster processor,” said Larry O’Connor, President, OWC. “More memory makes a tremendous difference, as our real world testing illustrates, and going up to 4.0 GB offers a noticeably significant benefit beyond just what a faster processor provides.”

Griffin Technology’s iTalk Pro Voice Recorder for iPod Video and nano attaches securely to your iPod via the dock port. Now you can use your iPod to record memos, lectures, and personal journals as well as play them back.

The black color iTalk Pro also has two high-quality omnidirectional microphones built in for optimal sound quality. This adaptable, fun piece of equipment also allows you to adjust the gain level so you can get quality recordings in any environment.

B&H price – $26.95 + shipping