Software / Web Services

This morning, a joint press release between HBO and Apple confirmed that HBO’s hit shows, including The Wire, Rome, The Sopranos, Sex and the City, Deadwood, and Flight of the Conchords will be available for download on iTunes. Pretty sweet.

But I came to a screeching halt when I visited the store and didn’t see my main men Vincent Chase and Larry David pictured any where. An HBO store without Entourage and Curb Your Enthusiasm? Isn’t that why people have HBO in the first place? (Note: The Wire, Sex and the City, and Sopranos do still rock.)

Just like Mr. Viking Quest Johnny Drama would want me to, I took it upon myself to find out when these shows would make an appearance in Apple’s digital store. The answer: not soon. According to an HBO spokesperson, additional HBO content will be added but no date has been set for the release of Entourage and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Additionally, he said that HBO programming will be added when the content is released to DVD.

With that news in mind, I’ll be hanging onto my HBO subscription and counting down the days until I can hug it out with the Entourage stars in the fifth season.

Photoshop Express Beta, Adobe’s free, web-based editor won us over with its 2GB free storage and clean, ad-free interface. Now, it’s more sharing-friendly, too. Today, Adobe announced a partnership with Flickr (Photobucket, Google Picasa, and Facebook were on board from the beginning). We expect the integration to be just as smooth as the others’, and, as always, we love that you can be logged into any and all of these sites simultaneously (in the case of Picnik, only Premium subscribers can do this).

Adobe also announced an embeddable player, allowing users to post slide shows on blogs and social networking sites, as they would a viral YouTube clip. There’s also now a “save as” function, so users can save as many editions of a photo as they like (now, if only Adobe would add as many fun filters as Picnik!). Other sharing features, available since launch, include the ability to save edited photos back to photo sharing sites, and to browse more than 30,000 public galleries, as you can on Flickr.

I don’t know if today is the day we have all been waiting for, but it is surely a day Zune users, like myself, have been waiting for. I was psyched to read this morning’s press release from Microsoft’s Zune team announcing a new software upgrade. The refreshed 2.5 version of the software adds features and content to the Zune online store and additions to the Zune community.

Frankly, I am most excited about the added video content. Zune is finally expanding its video selection from measly music videos to popular TV shows from Comedy Central, MTV, NBC Universal, Nickelodeon, Starz Media (including Manga Entertainment), Turner Broadcasting, Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), VH1, and others.

I jumped on the software update to test out the video-downloading process.

Read the rest of this entry »

I wrote a few weeks ago about the potential that gOS Space had to improve the CloudBook experience. Unfortunately, my installation of gOS Space failed at the time. However, I received a comment on that post from David Lui, the father of the gOS operating system. He kindly offered to send me a gOS Space build made specifically for the CloudBook.

Today I got around to installing the sleek Linux OS on our battered CloudBook. I say this with a lot of joy: It hands-down improves the CloudBook experience. Like Jeff thought in his initial hands-on with gOS Space, the OS is really sleek and its rip-off OS X components are pretty damn cool.

Installation was a breeze and, unlike our original experience with the CloudBook, all the windows are properly sized for the screen.

The OS just makes the CloudBook look a lot nicer. The icons on the bottom of the screen become illuminated and rotate when moused over, and the starry desktop just gives the system a better aura.

Read the rest of this entry »

The anonymity Apple once depended on to lessen the threat of hackers attacking their operating systems waned long ago.

Just last month Charlie Miller, the guy who first hacked the iPhone last year, used exploit code he’d planted on the Web to take advantage of a security flaw in Apple’s Safari software and invade a MacBook Air. The result? In less than two minutes, he’d overtaken the computer and impressed the crowd of the annual PWN2OWN hacking competition in Vancouver.

Apple’s since patched up the hole in their browser software, but enterprising hackers know that Apple OSes are permeable just like Vista or XP.

We’ve gathered three of the best security suites we’ve found for Mac OSes. Norton AntiVirus Dual Protection for Mac and SecureMac MacScan 2.5 both earned 4 stars for their easy-to-use interfaces and automatic virus detection/removal features, and we gave Intego Internet Security Barrier x5 an Editor’s Choice award for its speed and discreet background cleanup. Links above go to full reviews, check them out.

If there was ever a good blue screen to have appeared on your system it was WordPerfect. Of course, that was the 1980s and you were running MS-DOS. But what if you could get that pleasant blue screen on your Microsoft Vista PC? (It will NOT replace the devilish Microsoft blue screen of the Windows era, but it might make you feel better.)

Yesterday Corel launched WordPerfect Office X4, its competitor to Microsoft Office 2007. Through my limited hands-on with the product it proves to be a solid alternative to Office. The interface is easy to get used to and the new Import PDF tool is seriously helpful. You can easily import an image-based PDF file, which is immediately transcribed into editable text.

But what really gets me is the “throwback” WordPerfect 5.1 mode on the new version. When I met with Corel a few months ago about the product, they claimed people missed working in the old WordPerfect interface. I, for one, do. To reminisce: When I was in 2nd grade I would come home from school, launch up WordPerfect on my father’s computer and write away in my “diary.” I recall writing something along the lines of wanting to be just like Doogie Howser.

If you’re into the nostalgia, here’s how to set it up.

Read the rest of this entry »

Despite the many, many flaws we encountered while using gOS on the CloudBook, this operating system, which relies heavily on Web-based applications, is, in theory, one that should be pretty kicking. So when news came across the wire a few days ago that Everex’ new, limited edition MyMiniPC packed a new version of gOS, we were instantly intrigued. Then, when we we took a gander at the screens, we nearly blew our collective morning beverages onto our monitors.

gOS Space 2.9 (a tweaked version of Ubuntu using Compiz-Fusion and GNOME) shamelessly takes a heavy, heavy cue from Apple’s Mac OS X Leopard. How heavy? Let’s see . . .

When we booted the OS, we were presented with a beautiful outer-space theme with stars twinkling in the background. Hmm.

Then, we noticed the reflective AWN dock that houses the system’s various open-source applications. Hmm.

Finally, we discovered that clicking on certain dock icons opens an elegant, arching fan of sub-icons. Oh my.

Okay, gOS is a little more than “inspired,” but it is without a doubt the most beautiful Linux distro that we’ve ever seen; icons become illuminated and rotate when moused over, and the starry, earth-orbit view desktop wallpaper is simply stunning. More importantly, gOS Space 2.9 offers a few decent features that help it stand on its own, particularly if you’re a fan of the MySpaces. Check out some of the deets after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

When Flickr announced that users can now upload video, some news outlets hinted at a competition with YouTube, whether real or imaginary. To be sure, the Flickr-YouTube setup speaks to a larger rivalry between Yahoo and Google. But that’s beside the point. Not only is Flickr’s video sharing service crippled by some hefty limitations; it doesn’t even purport to do exactly what YouTube or Adobe Media Player does. It’s time to set the record straight: Here’s what you can (and can’t) do with these services:

YouTube

What you can do: Watch copyrighted content (until someone takes it down) or upload personal videos.

Pros:

• Signing up is free and easy
• Users can make videos viewable to the public or up to 25 private viewers
• Users can disable commenting
• Comment voting and ratings
• Syndication on mobile phones and TV
• Users can categorize videos to make them more searchable
• Users can add a map to show viewers where the video was made.

Cons:

• No selective embedding. If you can embed your video on a blog, so can anyone.
•  Videos limited to ten minutes so sharing a lengthy home video with relatives is out of the question.

Read the rest of this entry »

Firefox 3 Beta 5 is out in the wild, and with it comes over 750 changes designed to improve overall stability. Despite the fact that the browser crashed three times while we were giving it the once-over (ouch!), we liked the feature list even though it isn’t radically different than previous betas. Here are some of our favorite features:

• Star Button. In the address bar is a Star Button, which can be used to swiftly bookmark pages. When we bookmarked our homepage, it appeared under the Smart Bookmarks tab under Recently Bookmarked.
• One-Click Site Info. Clicking the favicon in the address bar lets you instantly see who owns the site to prevent fraud. When we visited PayPal, we were met by a bright green notification; clicking it gave us the site’s ID. Unfortunately, many sites, including numerous financial institutions, don’t supply identity information.

Read the rest of this entry »

Previously only available to the legions of non-Microsoft smart phones, WorldMate announced the debut of WorldMate Live on Windows Mobile devices.

Designed as the only “push” travel assistant, WorldMate Live keeps frequent fliers abreast of any changes to their travel itineraries. It also syncs with your Outlook calendar and keeps you updated on the weather at all of your destinations.

Check out our first look at WorldMate Live on Windows Mobile below.

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.