MyAppleMenu by Heng-Cheong Leong

Thu, May 17, 2012

Remember Spaces On Your Mac? Here’s A Better Version: TotalSpaces

Tera Thomas O'Brien, Tera Talks:
What you get is Spaces with flare– multiple Desktops that are easy to manage with just the right blend of functional tools.

Why The iPad Works For Writing

John Paul Titlow, ReadWriteWeb:
I happen to write things for a living, but the practice is far from limited to those who earn a paycheck by doing it. Some of us just enjoy emptying the thoughts from our heads, while many others have a professional obligation to be good at communicating with words. Whatever one's purpose - journaling, drafting stories or composing work-related documents - the iPad is a pretty good place to put words together.

How I Went From 0 To $50K On The App Store(s)

When you are working for someone else, the things you create make you money that month, and they make someone else money for months and years after that. When you work for yourself you don't make as much immediately, but you get to keep reaping the benefits month after month.

Open Your Ears For Radioline, A Cute Radio App
Giles Turnbull, Cult Of Mac

iBook Lessons: Using Book Proofer To Preview EPUB Files
Erica Sadun, TUAW

Computer Repair Is The New Lemonade Stand
IFixIt

Wed, May 16, 2012

Apple's Tim Cook Heads To US House Of Representatives
Karen Haslam, Macworld UK

InDesign CS6 Overhauls Digital Publishing Workflow To Offer Versatile New Options And Format Capabilities

Jay J. Nelson, Macworld:
Adobe has a winner of an upgrade in InDesign CS6. The combination of improvements to its digital publishing tools, PDF forms authoring, language support, and dozens of workflow refinements make this an upgrade that will surely pay for itself.

Apple Moves Toward Larger iPhone Screens

Lorraine Luk And Juro Osawa, Wall Street Journal:
Apple Inc., which is expected to launch its next-generation iPhone later this year, has ordered screens from its Asian suppliers that are bigger than the ones used in iPhones since they debuted in 2007, people familiar with the situation said.
Production is set to begin next month for the screens, which measure at least 4 inches diagonally compared with 3.5 inches on the iPhone 4S, the latest phone from Apple, the people said.

Apple's Siri Set A New Bar For Voice Control, Says Nuance

Matt Warman, The Telegraph:
Peter Mahoney, Nuance’s Chief Marketing Officer, said that Apple was popularising voice technology just as they had popularised digital music or the computer mouse. He said voice commands were growing in popularity as more processing power became available, and claimed that adoption has now “reached the elbow in the curve”.
He admitted that there was a long way to go before voice technology achieved “full Star Trek-ness”, but he said that Apple’s Siri voice assistant was “driving a real, unprecedented renaissance in interest around voice”.

Anatomy An iTunes Store Account Hack
Jason D. O'Grady, ZDNet

Apple QuickTime Update For Windows Only; Macs Already Secure
Topher Kessler, CNET

Polycom Brings Video Streaming To Apple, Google Devices
Jeffrey Burt, eWeek

Flipboard Expands: Adds Audio From NPR, Public Radio & SoundCloud; Introduces Japanese Version

Sarah Perez, TechCrunch:
“Social magazine” Flipboard may have to think up a new tagline for itself, as tonight the company is rolling out an update which greatly expands its focus beyond text-based content to also include audio. The rollout features integrations from NPR, PRI (Public Radio International) and social sound platform, SoundCloud.

Judge Comes Down Hard On Publishers, Apple In E-book Case
Jeff John Roberts, PaidContent

Automatically Zoom Safari Pages On Launch

Christpher Breen, Macworld.
Two ways to make text larger automatically in your web browser. (When I first read the headline, I thought Christopher Breen is going to tell us how to automatically smart zoom. I would like that.)

Brent Simmons Talks Glassboard 2.0, Making A ‘Path For Work’ And Doing Cross-platform Right

Matthew Panzarino, The Next Web:
Glassboard, a communications app for small businesses and groups, has gotten a stellar update, bringing a completely redesigned app with improved notifications, new navigation and file sharing support. More importantly, it’s good enough that it could help you kill off a ton of the email mucking up your creative process.

To-do App Due Delights On The Mac

Serenity Caldwell, Macworld:
Due provides just enough task-tracking functionality without the hassle of a full-featured GTD app, allowing me to actually get things done—instead of spending the day making lists.

Tue, May 15, 2012

Sparrow For Mac 1.6 Adds POP Support, Unified Starred And Sent Folders
Ellis Hamburger, The Verge

Permanently Unhide Library
Daniel Jalkut, Red Sweater Blog

Latest OS X Update 'Breaks' Some Macs

Karen Haslam, Macworld UK:
The latest update to OS X Lion - OS X 10.7.4 - is causing some issues for users including lost network connections, problems with RAID storage devices, frustration at lost resolution options, and more. But amongst the grumbles, many are glad that Apple has decided to stop defaulting to open all windows at start up.

How To Surf Safely With A VPN-for-hire

Glenn Fleishman, Macworld:
If you don’t have access to a corporate VPN, you do have an alternative: VPNs-for-hire that anyone can use, which provide many of the same protections as those company VPNs. These services rent VPN access by the month or by the year. Their servers live in data centers around the world, and you use the client software built into OS X or iOS to protect connections between your machines and those servers.

Apple Dominates Other Smartphone Vendors In Consumer Satisfaction
Brad Reed, Network World

Here’s Why The Facebook iOS App Is So Bad (UIWebViews And No Nitro)
Mobtest

As 17 More States Join Class Action Against Book Publishers And Apple, New Details Revealed

Laura Hazard Owen, PaidContent:
Jobs predicts that in the absence of credible competitors, Amazon would begin offering publishers less favorable terms.

Fact-Checking Digitimes, The Taiwanese Apple Rumor Source That Keeps Crying ‘Wolf!’
Harry McCracken, Time

iPad Gives Voice To Kids With Autism

Supraja Seshadri, CNN:
"What the iPad has done has given her a sense of control that she never had before," Siddiqui said. "She knows when you touch it, something is supposed to happen. She knows she doesn't need to cry, she needs to point."
At first, Sharia enjoyed watching movies and playing games. However, through therapy and at home, she was introduced to apps such as Proloquo2Go, First Words, ABCs and Me and Puzzle Me, to name a handful. She soon learned to put together short sentences like "I want Dora" to express what she wanted.

A Potential Fix for iMessage Woes

Brian X. Chen, New York Times:
While it’s expected that beta software is unfinished and you use it at your own risk, it’s abnormal for a beta version of one product (Messages Beta for Mac) to affect a finished app on a different product (iMessage for iPhone).

Leopard Users Get Flashback Removal, Flash Disabler Tools, Too

Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica:
Apple has now brought OS X 10.5 (Leopard) up to speed with Lion, at least when it comes to security. The company issued updates to Leopard users on Monday with Leopard-friendly copies of the Flashback removal tool that was released to Lion users last month, as well as the ability given to Lion users last week to disable out-of-date versions of Flash in Safari.

iCloud Is The Difference Between Great And Excellent

Ben Brooks, The Brooks Review:
I would be surprised if iCloud wasn’t a very large part of WWDC this year.

Apple Plans iCloud Upgrade

Jessica E. Vascellaro, Wall Street Journal:
The new features, which could be announced at Apple's world-wide developer conference beginning June 11, will allow iCloud users to share sets of photos with other iCloud users and to comment on them, [people familiar with the matter] said.
The Cupertino, Calif., company is also working on a new feature that will allow iCloud users to sync their personal videos via iCloud, these people said, adding that Apple also plans to allow users to access "Notes" and "Reminders"—two of its apps for jotting down quick thoughts—through iCloud.com. Currently, those items have to be accessed via apps for those features.

Nootes Is A Great Upgrade From Your Mac’s Built-in Sticky Notes App
Adam Dachis, Lifehacker