Posts

Showing posts from June, 2011

What do you love?

Image
Have you checked it out yet? Google has just released a new website called “ What Do You Love ” that presents a nondescript search box just like the one on the main Google page, but this time with a heart-shaped button. <3 the heartshaped button! I tried it out, and kind of like what I saw. Instead of the usual list of text-based search results that you get on the regular Google page,  this new service presents a view consisting of small panels as shown in the screenshots below. For example, if you search for “Yoghurt” ,  panels such as “See pictures of YOGHURT”, “Explore popularity of YOGHURT”, “Find books about YOGHURT” and so on will be shown. These little panels can be further expanded by clicking on the icon in the lower right corner.   And if you want more results of the category (e.g. videos about YOGHURT), there is another button in the upper right corner of the panel and you can go directly...

Weekly sum-up of Apple Inc. news for week ending 2011-06-25

Image
China Mobile to offer iPhones from September Apple prepares for Lion with OS X 10.6.8 update Apple makes WWDC 2011 session videos available to developers via iTunes Apple Releases Final Cut Pro X Adobe Builds Developer Tools for iPhone Apps Apple nervous as iPad 2 contender Samsung Galaxy 10.1 arrives in U.S.

Mac / iPhone / iPad blogs and websites

Blogs Macapper Daily iPhone Blog Handy links to freeware Mac software directories AppleMacFreeware FreewareMac ThriftMac FreeOSX MyOSxfreeware OpensourceMac AppDonkey Frisky's Archive DownloadFreeMacGames Free Mac Tools Freeware Mac on CNet Hitsquad Easyfreeware

Convert USD0.99 to SGD with Google and other Google search tips

Image
Google has several built-in "shortcuts" which are very useful to quickly retrieve commonly needed information like weather, conversion values, country's population etc For example, see how I easily converted USD0.99 to SGD or MYR2000 to SGD etc , checked the time in Australia, weather in Paris etc. You can also convert inches to centimetres or metres to feet etc, just using the 'right syntax' without needing a separate software to perform the conversion. Get the rest of the search tips at this link here Use the syntax as above, the actual numeric unit followed by the currency code and then the word "TO" and the destination currency code - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Yahoo! AppSearch (Search iPhone or Android apps using Yahoo search engine)

Image
Last week, Yahoo added a new search tab Yahoo! App Search to its search interface that will allow you to search specifically for iPhone or Android apps. You can type your search query just as I have done in the screenshots below to retrieve relevant search results.  Besides using keywords to search for your preferred type of apps, the site also includes trending apps, daily personalized app recommendations, related apps to the one you’ve searched for, and direct links to the iPhone App Store and Android Marketplace for speedy downloading. At first look, it does look rather useful.  I am definitely bookmarking this one for myself :) Search results with two keywords "Photoeffects" and "Free" Clicking on an app link brings you to a page like this, where you will see details of the app, Yahoo user reviews (if any) and links to related apps If you click on the "Free" yellow button as in previous screenshot, you will be brought to this pa...

Weekly sum-up of Apple Inc. news for week ending 2011-06-18

Image
Stock update for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ) Apple for iPad reportedly coming in weeks Apple kicks off back-to-school promo: buy a Mac, get a $100 AppStore gift card Apple's iTunes Store, App Store now cost roughly $1.3 billion a year to operate WWDC survey finds 47% of iOS developers support Android, 7% write for Mac Apple launches new iPad2 ad In the s ame article linked above , Horace Dediu reports that Apple released the following data in its last WWDC 2011 event 15 Billion iTunes song downloads 130 million book downloads 14 billion app downloads $2.5 billion paid to developers 225 million accounts 425k apps 90k iPad apps 100k game and entertainment titles 50 million game center accounts  And Horace also reckons Apple is rich enough to buy out every other phone maker except Samsung .

Mozilla Firefox 5.0 (BETA FINAL) is out!

Image
Mozilla's official launch date for Firefox 5.0 is 21 June 2011, but if you don't want to wait, you can get it at the ftp links below: Firefox 5.0 for Windows Firefox 5.0 for Mac Via TechPP

Put yrself on a dollar note or Mona Lisa painting

Image
As its name implies, PhotoFunia is a fun to play with photo app that transforms your ordinary photos to funny and amusing memories. This is a *universal* web version that anyone can use and its free! See my link to it near the end of this post. For example, see how my original photo (at end of post) was manipulated by the app into various images of likeness to santa claus, mona lisa and superimposed on backgrounds like vintage TV, dollar notes, coins etc to achieve really interesting effects! There are over *one hundred* effects for you to choose! The app is really easy to use. Just select an existing photo or snap one from the camera, choose your preferred effect, wait for abt 20 seconds and yr photo is ready to be saved! As mentioned, PhotoFunia is free and so easy to use, so do try it, U sure you will have some smiling moments fiddling with it :) Link to download iPhone PhotoFunia Link to online webapp - anyone can use this from PC, Mac or any smartphone no need to have iPhone Pos...

Videos: Steve Jobs in 1991 and Bill Gates in 1984

Image
Two interesting old-school videos in 1991 and 1984 respectively. The first one features Steve Jobs introducing the Apple Store. The first two Apple Stores were opened on May 19, 1991 in Virginia USA and California USA. As of this year, Apple has opened more than 300 Apple Stores worldwide. The second video is a short clip featuring Bill Gates giving his genuine admiration of the Apple Macintosh in 1984. I only started using Mac early this year, so I am unable to give any comments on how good the Mac was in those days, but I can definitely say this about my current Macbook Air - never regretted one day about buying it! VIDEO 1 - Steve Jobs introducing Apple Store in 1991 VIDEO 2 - Bill Gates expressing his admiration for Apple Macintosh in 1984

MacOS 10.6 : How to check free diskspace with one keystroke

Image
It's really easy to check the amount of free disk space left over in your Mac disks. Just click on the disk that you want to view, and press the space key.  You will see the dialog box as shown below pop up. Of course, I wish it could be as easy as Windows >.<

How to subscribe to RSS podcasts and watch them on yr iPhone or iPad using iTunes

Image
This morning, I came across a RSS feed of a podcast series which I was interested to subscribe to watch on my Apple devices. After googling a few sites, I finally managed to figure how it is done.  It is a simple 2 steps process. First, start up iTunes and click the "Advanced" menu item. A "Subscribe to podcast" dialog box will pop up and you just to copy and paste the RSS feeds of the podcast you are interested in the textbox as shown. After that, you will see the podcast automatically appear in the podcast window as shown in the last screenshot here. And if you are wondering where to get a list of podcast topics to subscribe to, here are some useful links: http://www.podcast.com/ http://www.ipodder.org/directory/4/podcasts

Instantly look younger with just a button click!

Image
I am a real sucker for iPhone photography apps, and my craze for such apps is attested by the screenshot of the sheer number of photography apps I have installed on my phone. One of my favourite photography apps is definitely moreBeaute2 . What this simple-to-use app does is that it will take an existing photo you have taken, with all the pimples and panda eyes etc and with just one simple button, it will instantly transform the original photo to make you look younger and better-looking.  And the best part? moreBeaute2 is FREE! You can see the beauty of this app with the "before" and "after" photos of myself as shown below. Try it! The pic on the left is how I really look like, old and tired.  After moreBeaute2's touch-up, I suddenly looked much more perky and refreshed.  Wow, if only real life can be like that, haha. :p

IPhone App - LabelBox (Free)

Image
According to the statistics I captured on Flickr's page just now , iPhone is one of the most popular digital cameras that are used to capture and upload photos. It trails just behind the most popular camera, the Nikon D90 and if you just look at the figures for camera-phones alone, the Apple iPhone4 heads the list with iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS below it. So if you are an iPhone user like me, it is highly likely that you take photos with it quite often, no? :) Today I would like to share with you a great and easy-to-use application that I often use to caption my photos - LabelBox . LabelBox is very useful for those instances where you capture a photo and want to quickly and easily tag an attractive and eye-catching caption on the picture. For example, I took this photo of my son with the Angry Bird Pig we bought at the Ghim Moh Market recently, and within a minute, I managed to tag it with two separate labels very quickly and conveniently with LabelBox like this: Using ...

Welcome Post

Since that fateful day when we got an iPod touch for $228, I am now officially an Apple fan-boy - having acquired three more Apple gadgets: An IPhone 4 (in Sep 2010) - around $460 A Nov 2010 13 inch Macbook Air (in Jan 2011) - $ 2,905.10 An IPad II (in Apr 2011) - around $1,108 Ok, if you calculate the total cost of these 4 gadgets, I spent almost like 5 grand on them *scary thought* But then again, if you ask me if I have any regrets, I would say, not at all! Because I have highly enjoyed the convenience and benefits that these devices bring with them, and yup, if I were given another choice to decide if I would buy them, the answer is a definite YES! My life now largely revolves around fiddling around with these "toys" and part of the fiddling involves downloading apps for each platform and trying them out.  Some of the apps which I have tested "wow"ed me, others were disappointing.  Also, being new to the Macbook platform, there were many things I didn...