Let’s take a trip back in time. The year is 1994, and two tech giants are going to war over copyright. They are Microsoft and Apple, and they are fighting over a copyright claim by Apple over Microsoft and HP’s use of graphical user interface elements from the Macintosh OS. The resulting court case, Apple Computer, Inc. v. Microsoft Corporation, ended with a ruling in Microsoft’s favor, mostly due to a contractual license agreement between the two.

The matter was never fully settled by the case though. Instead, negotiations that took place several years later resulted in the two companies agreeing to make Internet Explorer Mac’s default browser. Microsoft also agreed to keep developing Office for the Mac. Most importantly though, Microsoft invested $150 million into Apple to keep it afloat.

This series of events, which happened while Steve Jobs was being reinstated as the CEO of Apple, set the stage for what is happening today between Microsoft, Apple, and Google. While Microsoft and Apple are still bitter rivals, several recent events have inadvertently brought them closer together in order to fight their common enemy: Google.

The phrase “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” comes to mind. Let’s explore how we got to this tipping point.

Android: Google Enters Apple’s Turf

When Google CEO Eric Schmidt joined Apple’s Board of Directors in 2006, the move made perfect sense. Here’s what Apple said about Eric in its original announcement:

“Eric’s 20 years of experience as an Internet strategist, entrepreneur and technologist give him a well-seasoned perspective which perfectly complements Google’s needs as a young and rapidly growing company with a unique corporate culture.”

At that time, Google wasn’t in mobile, hardware, operating systems, or browsers. Now Google is directly competing with Apple through the Nexus One, Google Chrome, Chrome OS, and even possibly in the tablet computer space.

It all started with Android, though. Back in August 2007, details began to leak about Google building a mobile OS or even a GPhone. It turned out to be Android, the open-source mobile OS that is now the fastest growing smartphone OS on the market.

At first, Android didn’t pose much of a threat, but as more phones utilized the software, the relationship between Google and Apple became very uncomfortable. Eric Schmidt sat out board meetings discussing the iPhone due to conflict of interest, but the relationship only eroded from there.

Watershed Moment: Eric Schmidt Resigns from Apple’s Board

Tensions between the two companies grew worse after Apple rejected Google Voice as an app on the iPhone.

The resulting FCC inquiry, along with an FTC investigation and the announcement of Google Chrome OS were just too much. On August 3rd, 2009, Eric Schmidt resigned from Apple’s Board of Directors.

In retrospect, this was the moment when Apple, Google, and the rest of the world realized that the two companies could no longer be allies. Google’s expanding interest outside of search was pouring over into Apple’s domain on multiple fronts. With the search giant free of its Apple association, it could go all-out on its agenda to bring more people onto the web for longer (read the Google Revenue Equation to learn why).

The culmination of the breaking of the Google-Apple alliance? It was the release of the Nexus One, a direct competitor to Apple’s lucrative iPhone.

Recent Events: Apple and Microsoft Talk Bing

Yesterday we learned that Apple and Microsoft are in talks to make Bing the default search engine for the iPhone. While we’ve heard this rumor before, the talk seems to be heating up. Most of our readers expressed their dismay or shock over the potential deal, some questioning why Apple would ever team up with Microsoft over Google.

Really though, the deal makes perfect sense, given the new competitive landscape. Earlier today, Jim Goldman at CNBC provided some interesting new information on the dynamics of the Apple-Google-Microsoft relationship. According to his source, Steve Jobs hates Eric Schmidt (it wouldn’t surprise us) and Microsoft is offering a bigger cut of iPhone search revenues than Google.

While Microsoft and Apple’s relationship grew cold after the Redmond, WA company bailed Apple Computer out, it never vanished. Moreover, Steve knows that he can work with Microsoft, especially if it helps Microsoft hurt Google.

Android has become the de-facto alternative to the iPhone OS, and the Nexus One is closest thing yet to a smartphone that can stand up to the iPhone’s dominance. While Microsoft and Apple are still in competition over Mac vs. PC, Apple clearly believes that its future isn’t just in computers, but in other Internet devices such as the iPhone and the fabled Apple Tablet. Microsoft poses far less of a threat in these areas than Google does.

It’s time to call it: Google is now Apple’s greatest enemy. Soon Google will be entering its OS turf with Chrome OS. Apple increasingly sees Google as a major competitor over the next few years. While the company Steve built doesn’t particularly like Microsoft, it knows that it has to work with the lesser of two evils in order to succeed.

Say hello to the new dynamic. It’s Apple + Microsoft vs. Google. May the new battle begin.

Tags: apple, bing, business news, Column, Google, google search, iphone, microsoft, Opinion, social media, trending

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This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark.

Name: Quix

Quick Pitch: Quix is an extensible bookmarklet, allowing access to all your bookmarklets, across all browsers, while maintaining them in one spot.

Genius Idea: Think of Quix as a command-line of sorts for your web browser. The bookmarklet makes it possible to quickly and easily do stuff like search Google, shorten links, and send stuff to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or Posterous all from any browser — including Mobile Safari.

Check out this screencast that gives a two-minute overview of Quix:

Inspired in part by Shaun Inman’s Shortwave, Quix is a utility made for people trying to increase their web productivity. Check out the list of help commands to see all the stuff Quix can do. Plus, you can add your own functionality, which makes this really killer for web developers.

What we like about Quix is that it is cross-browser. You can use it in Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Chrome, on a Mac or PC. For users who love browser plugins but loathe the memory usage and performance slowdowns that can come with them, Quix might just be a godsend. As a Mac user, I love the integration with some of my favorite Mac apps.

If you’ve ever doubted the power for Javascript, play with Quix. It’s free and it’s web-geek nirvana!

Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark

BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

Entrepreneurs can take advantage of the Azure Services platform for their website hosting and storage needs. Microsoft recently announced the “new CloudApp()” contest – use the Azure Services Platform for hosting your .NET or PHP app, and you could be the lucky winner of a USD 5000* (please see website for official rules and guidelines).”

Tags: bookmarklets, javascript, quix, software

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A completely legit Sega Genesis emulator for the iPhone and iPod touch will hit the Apple App Store this February, according to Gizmodo.

It will be free with one game (Space Harrier II), but you’ll be able to buy more games within the app for $5.99 and under. Sonic the Hedgehog, Shining Force, Golden Axe and Ecco the Dolphin will be among the first games available.

Sonic the Hedgehog and other Sega games have been available as independent downloads in the App Store for months. The idea here is to bring it all together into one app, making things easier to manage. The app will also give Sega the chance to tempt you into buying more games every time you load up Space Harrier II.

Game emulators allow you to use software intended for another device on your phone. They’ve been popular on personal computers for a very long time, but the questionable legality of the unofficial copies of the games has given Apple pause about allowing these things into the App Store in the past. This Genesis emulator (called Ultimate Genesis) was built by Sega itself, and it will play only games Sega makes available in its store. Sorry, but you won’t be able to import those 1,000 Genesis ROMs you downloaded on your PC or Mac.

Unofficial emulators that can play those ROMs are still out there, but you’ll have to jailbreak your phone to use them because they’re not available through the App Store.

Ultimate Genesis isn’t the first game emulator for the iPhone; a Commodore 64 app hit the virtual shelves last year.

Tags: apple, apple app store, emulator, iphone, sega, sega genesis, sega ultimate genesis, video games

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As we saw at CES 2010, IPTV is going to become real in a very big way this year. Boxee has been one of the big players in this space for quite some time and today the company is announcing a move that will offer users and content partners more options and flexibility: Boxee Payments.

Boxee plans on releasing a Payment Platform this summer so that users can make purchases with one click of the remote. This will allow content partners to offer shows, movies and channels that were previously unavailable on Boxee. Partners can price and package content however they want, whether it’s pay-per-view or subscription.

The details are still being worked out, but Boxee will charge a small fee for the transactions (the plan is to charge less than the 30% that many other app stores and content ecosystems charge). By doing this, Boxee is, in their words, “[tying] our success as a business to the success of our partners.”

Having micro-payments built into Boxee has huge implications for the platform as a whole. Right now, the only downside of a system like Boxee is that although more and more partners are signing up to offer content through the service or offer an enhanced experience, when it comes to getting movies or TV shows that are accessible through platforms like iTunes or VUDU or CinemaNow, users are out of luck. This gives Boxee as a platform the opportunity to offer those enhanced options.

I’ve long wanted to see one of my favorite streaming content services The Auteurs on Boxee, because it’s really just a beautiful fit. The Auteurs streams premium film content from partners like The Criterion Collection to users at an affordable price. With a Payment Platform, stuff like The Auteurs could be accessible on your Boxee Box or HTPC, as well as on your laptop or desktop computer.

Make no mistake, subscription content plans that are aimed at IPTVs are coming. Apple might not have hit Apple TV out of the park, but the idea of being able to buy or rent content on your TV that you can also watch on your Mac or PC (or even iPhone or iPod) is compelling. Boxee is legitimizing itself in a sense by making it clear that it wants to play in this space.

The convergence of media options is upon us, and it will be fascinating to see how content providers, content platforms and consumers respond and react to these changes.

Tags: boxee, iptv, micropyaments

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Last week, we wrote about how the Mac and iPhone communities came together to raise money for Haiti. The project, called Indie+Relief is pretty awesome: A bunch of independent Mac and iPhone developers pledged to donate the sales from their apps on January 20 to Haitian aid organizations. Today is the 20th, so if you purchase any of the apps listed at IndieRelief.com, the proceeds go to charity.

Consumers get to donate to Haiti and get a great iPhone or Mac app in return, developers get to lend a hand and get some exposure, and Haitian aid organizations get money that they desperately need so that efforts on the ground can be funded and coordinated.

More than 50 different developers agreed to take part in Indie+Relief, and the selection of apps is stellar. On the iPhone side, you can get Twitter clients like Tweetie, Birdfeed and Twittelator Pro, plus favorites like Ego, Delivery Status Touch and Instapaper Pro.

On the Mac side, some of the best software from developers like Marketcircle, Flying Meat, The Iconfactory, Red Sweater Software, Second Gear and Cultured Code are all participating.

If you’ve had your eye on a Mac or iPhone app, check out Indie+Relief and consider making your purchase today. You’ll get the app plus the warm and fuzzy feeling that comes with knowing that the proceeds are going to help Haiti.

Update: The MacBundleBox is back for 2010 and they will be donating 10% of bundle proceeds to Haitian relief efforts. Additionally, 100% of the sales made today will go to help Haiti. If you want whet your Mac-software appetite, check it out!

Tags: haiti, indie relief, indierelief, mac software, software

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Using Boxer is super easy:

• Open DOS programs (.exe, .com and .bat files) by double-clicking or dropping them onto Boxer.
• If you’re comfortable with DOS you can also drop folders, CD-ROMs and CD images onto Boxer to browse them from the DOS prompt.
• Best of all, wrap your games into elegant game packages that you just double-click to play. Boxer comes with four sample game packages for you to try.

When Boxer launches, it takes you to the DOS games folder. Boxer makes this to easily store all your games.
It really couldn’t be more simple. Try it out for your self! Boxer comes with four ready-to-play games: Commander Keen 4 and demos of Epic Pinball, Ultima Underworld and X-COM: UFO Defense.

We wrote about BumpTop last year when it launched for Windows, and now the impressive and unique re-imagination of the computer desktop is coming to the Mac faithful. We had a chance to chat with CEO Anand Agarawala about the launch of BumpTop on the Mac and some of the company’s future plans.

If you’re not already familiar with the concept, BumpTop essentially adds a three-dimensional “real world desktop” metaphor to your computer’s desktop. You can create visual “piles” of files and documents completely unrelated to their logical file structure — handy for keeping a “working stack” of items at the top of mind. You can make files physically larger or smaller by growing or shrinking them, giving you a quick and intuitive visual representation of their relative importance.

Thanks to the 3D view, you can also “sticky” items to the “walls” in addition to the primary desktop panel. There’s also a cool search feature that’s invoked simply by typing, making quick retrieval of key items a snap. Plus, you can of course customize the look and feel of each surface with your own background image or a complete theme if you wish.

What’s Unique About the Mac Version?

Importantly, the Mac version of BumpTop is not simply a port of the Windows version. It’s been built from the ground up to integrate seamlessly with Leopard, and plays nice with your existing setup. The app is integrated seamlessly into the Finder, meaning you can enjoy all the usual bells and whistles like Spaces, Expose, and Quick Look as usual.

BumpTop Mac also specifically supports multi-touch gestures for MacBook Pro and MacBook multi-touch trackpads. We talked a bit about how the forthcoming age of the tablet portends a sort of “renaissance of touch” that BumpTop seems to be fully prepared for.

Future Plans

Having already supported multi-touch gestures in the Windows version, future plans include exploring further into touch interfaces and how BumpTop can make the desktop a more intuitive experience in a touch environment. As new devices and form factors come online in the marketplace, the goal with BumpTop appears to be to embrace platforms as widely as possible.

Cloud computing also factors into the company’s roadmap, with some interesting new features in the works surrounding managing web content on your BumpTop desktop as well as local documents and files. Without getting too far into specific details that may change before feature release, it’s a good bet to anticipate some sort of widget platform emerging around BumpTop that brings more interactive and cloud-connected services into your BumpTop workspace.

For example, imagine a Facebook Wall that lives right on your desktop, providing new and unique ways to visualize your Facebook experience and associated data. Or, imagine drag and dropping a web page right into your desktop and being able to manipulate it locally as if viewing a “living page.”

No matter what specific concepts find their way into future versions of BumpTop, it’s an exciting new (and relatively rare) ambitious attempt to revitalize and rethink the desktop experience that was remained largely an unchanged paradigm for going on twenty years.

100 Free Pro Version Upgrades

The free version of BumpTop includes its core features, while the Pro version contains extra functionality including unlimited sticky notes, scroll wheel controls for flipping through document piles, the instant search feature, multi-touch trackpad support, and premium support service. BumpTop was kind enough to provide Mashable readers with 100 free upgrades to the Pro version:

The Pro version is a free upgrade to the first 100 people who signup at this special Mashable page: http://bumptop.com/press/mashable.php.

Enjoy, and let us know what you think of BumpTop for Mac.

Tags: 3D, bumptop, cloud computing, desktop, mac, macintosh, software, touchscreens

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The first thing you’ll notice after installing the 10.5 beta is that the interface has been completely re-done with Aero Glass for Windows 7 or Vista users. The menu bar has been rolled up into a single button similar to the way Office 2007 works, with easy access to all common functions all from one place.

Windows 7 users can now hover their mouse over the taskbar button and see previews of each of the open tabs, and moving your mouse over a specific tab will enable the Aero Peek effect and show the Opera window with the contents of that particular tab—just the way Internet Explorer 8 does. You can even middle-click on the thumbnail preview to close a tab.

The Jump List menu shows the items from your Speed Dial, lets you open a new tab, or start a new private browsing session in a separate tab. Once you’ve opened a new private tab—which you can also do by right-clicking on the new tab button on the right of the tab bar—the icon in the tab will change to indicate that you are in a private browsing session.

You can choose to open a separate window for private browsing, but being able to include that private tab without requiring a new window is a nice feature that you can’t currently do in any of the other mainstream browsers.

Opera 10.5 beta is a free download for Windows only; Unix and Mac builds will be available later this week.

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For those unfamiliar with Boot Camp, it’s the dual-booting tool that allows Mac users to install to and boot Windows partitions from their hard drives, and this update gives Mac users looking to dual-boot Windows 7 something to be happy about. Specifically:

This update adds support for Microsoft Windows 7 (Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate), addresses issues with the Apple trackpad, turns off the red digital audio port LED on laptop computers when it is not being used, and supports the Apple wireless keyboard and Apple Magic mouse.

Boot Camp is a free download, requires Mac OS X.

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A good story has a lot in common with a good marketing presentation, and one of the best ways to deliver your marketing message is in the form of a story. It’s how you turn advertising into content, and content into a memorable experience. Web marketing presentations must engage, enlighten, entertain, and above all be memorable. If you leave out any of these elements your presentation will suffer.

The Dog Ate My Homework

We’re all familiar with the kid who goes to school without his homework and blames poor Fido for his trouble. It’s familiar to the point of being hackneyed, but let’s give Fido a break and blame something else, like maybe the young man’s computer. Who hasn’t lost some important work because they pressed the wrong function key, or maybe their laptop was infiltrated by HAL from “2001 A Space Odyssey,” or perhaps they just bought the wrong computer. That’s the story Apple tells in this very clever Switch Campaign commercial.

Apple Switch Campaign

Mac switch Ad – Apple Ellen Feis ‘the original’

Why The Technique Works

1. The Story

Using a story-style presentation provides a framework and structure for delivering a marketing message. All stories must have a beginning, middle, and end; in other words, they must take the viewer from one mental position to another. Marketing stories need to move your audience from curious to motivated. It’s a simple concept to grasp, but not so simple to execute.

One method of peaking an audience’s curiosity is to build your story around a relatable scenario or incident like the computer/dog ate my homework. It provides common ground between the seller and the buyer, and generating common ground is essential to all negotiations. And for online marketers, Web video presentations can be that first step in completing a successful sale’s negotiation.

2. The Storyteller

A story is only as good as the storyteller. It’s the storyteller’s character and style that engages an audience and connects to them on an emotional level, a level that brings believability and personality to the presentation.

There is a common misconception regarding the relationship between reality, acceptance, and motivation in advertising. It’s currently trendy to use client-generated content in advertising, and real employees as corporate spokespersons. Occasionally it does work but for the most part it is a mistake. Great advertising isn’t real, it’s hyper-real: hyperrealism is a communication approach that generates desire and motivates action by presenting a stylized version of reality through a more focused perspective that cannot be achieved by true reality. Reality is messy and confused; hyper-reality is concentrated and clear, and when it comes to marketing messages, concentrated and clear is the goal.

3. The Performance

A great concept, a well-written script, and superior production will still fail if the performance is lacking. The ability to communicate using verbal and non verbal performance skills in front of a camera is not something that should be left to amateurs – after all, it’s your identity and brand image that’s at stake.

The capacity to sell on a one-on-one basis, or even the ability to effectively deliver a speech in front of a live audience is not the same as performing for a camera. A video camera magnifies your appearance, your behavior, and any physical, verbal, or performance flaws you may have. But it’s not just a case of looking good, having a good voice, and getting through a script without stumbling over the words, it’s about leaving a memorable impression and that requires the unique ability to deliver a message with suitable personality and panache. On the Web, boring is as detrimental as incompetent.

4. Solve The Puzzle. Find The Gestalt.

Everyone has heard the expression “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” In the same way a pixel by itself is meaningless but viewed with a lot of other pixels it forms a picture. It’s a simplified version of the Gestalt philosophy that is the basis of a lot of creative thinking. The Gestalt approach stresses the human mind’s search for meaning in patterns. It’s a hardwired survival technique our ancestors needed to learn.

The human mind automatically wants to solve a puzzle, fill-in the blanks, or resolve a discrepancy. Those who couldn’t figure-out the sound in the bushes was something dangerous didn’t survive to procreate, and evolution did the rest. It’s something we needed to learn, and something that is ingrained in our psyche.

The Switch Ad never comes right out and says buy a MAC, the young lady just tells us a story and let’s us come to our own conclusion. By making the audience work at coming to their own conclusion rather than hitting them over the head with an obvious sales pitch, the message becomes much more powerful, and makes a much more memorable impression.

5. A Story With A Twist – Not In This Weather

The following Mercedes Benz commercial is structured very similarly to the joke in the opening paragraph of this article: it tells us a story with a clever twist.

It never verbally mentions the product and it allows the audience to put the puzzle pieces together without coming right out with a sales pitch. It’s clever, it’s smart, it’s sexy, and it has impact. In short, it too, is a Killer Campaign commercial.

Not in this weather! (Mercedes Benz Banned Commercial):

6. Where You End Is Where You Start

The next video illustrates how to combine a story scenario with a memorable tagline. The tagline is your brand destination: it’s the short form mnemonic that people use to remember your company. Finding the right tagline to end your video is the best place to start when developing a campaign.

In this case the campaign uses taboo language to punctuate the stories’ tagline. It’s funny, bold, and provides an unexpected shock. Like it or not, you’ll remember it.

Cause If It Ain’t Memorable, It Ain’t Content

The WaySpa.com campaign of a few years ago was a hysterically funny series of videos all based on presenting bold, relatable stories, superior storytellers, topnotch performances, and a “can’t believe he actually said that!” tagline.

In addition, this campaign squarely comes to grips with the idea that you have to give something up in order to gain something in return. Some people will absolutely hate this series of videos, but those that get it, will forever have the brand image embedded in their minds. All too often marketing fails because companies try to appeal to everyone, and that is an unachievable objective. It is a blueprint bound to lead to boring, uninspired, and instantly forgettable advertising.

Television has rules and broadcasters are licensed, so advertisers inherently lean towards the bland and innocuous so as not to offend anyone. Instead they rely on repetition and sound compression (make it loud) techniques to the point of psychological torture. The Web is different, your audience is not a captive of primetime programming and can choose what to watch and when, and most importantly, they expect you to provide a memorable experience, or they’ll never come back.

WaySpa Video Campaign THIS VIDEO CONTAINS R-RATED LANGUAGE, DO NOT WATCH IF OFFENDED.

WaySpa Forgot Video:

People are always willing to listen to an interesting, funny, or entertaining story, so if you have trouble getting potential customers to listen and remember what you have to say, then you should consider using the story technique as a way to get your message across. Wrapping your marketing message in a metaphorical story scenario is just one way a company can turn advertising in content and content into a memorable experience.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Killer Campaigns Volume 3 – Tell A Memorable Story

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Photo by el monstrito.

Want to do something nice for your loved ones? Keep in touch with them more often. If you’ve got friends or family members who aren’t so good about online communication, these apps and tips make video chat, simplified email, and photo sharing easier to do on a regular basis.

Making a web connection isn’t about “fixing” a relative’s computer—though that’s not a bad idea, next time you’re visiting. It’s about lowering the barriers for communication, for both yourself and the person on the other end, so you can get used to keeping in touch through the easiest available methods.

If it’s that hard for you, it’s doubly hard for a person who didn’t constantly have a computer in front of them their whole careers. There are, thankfully, solutions that don’t require either side to invest far too much time and effort to get started with. The reward is time well spent with far-off family members, which will certainly pay dividends for a long time to come.

Set up their computer

The apps we want to use to connect are pretty easy to install, for the most part. But if sending a bunch of download links over email to a relative isn’t a realistic option, you can do the setting up yourself, from nearly anywhere in the world, with minimal pain. We’ve previously provided an in-depth list of tools for giving tech support or grabbing files from any system, but below are the two easiest solutions. (We’re not even going to pretend your relatives are using Linux, but, if they are, see if you can walk them through connecting to your reverse VNC setup.)

CrossLoop: (Windows) The How-To Geek loves this little remote-control app, and for good reason: It’s a VNC remote control app without all the back-end fiddling (“Do you know your IP address, Uncle Robert? Okay, type ‘cmd’ into the start bar …”). The client only has to install the software and tell you their access code, and you run the same app and connect from your end. The Geek’s site detailed the connection in a screenshot tour. It’s secure enough for a one-shot Skype setup or settings fiddling, because it requires a fairly complex code and doesn’t persist on the computer beyond your session and the next time they shut down.

LogMeIn Free: (Windows/Mac) It’s another fancy, all-in-one VNC client, but it works between PCs and Macs. Doesn’t offer the remote file transfer of CrossLoop, and is just a little more complicated for the relative you’re having install it to get going with it. Still, it claims and (generally) delivers “two-minute setup,” and, though intended for accessing your own home computer at the office and elsewhere, it’s still works as a tech support tool. There’s also LogMeIn Express, which is even more simple, fast, and support-oriented.

Make their system more accessible

If you’ve got remote access to a relatives’ computer, you can also make it easier for them to use. Bigger type, screen magnification, higher contrast themes, and other tools can make the computer an easier place to navigate for older relatives, but they might never discover those options on their own.

You can read up on the built-in accessibility tools inside OS X, in Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP.

Set up video chat

These days, nearly every laptop has a webcam and microphone built in, and USB-connected webcams are cheap and easy to set up. Video chat is a lot more personal than a phone call, and feels like the next best thing to jumping in your car and visiting. (It’s especially good for keeping up with the grandkids, nieces, and nephews as they continue to grow up so fast.)

Skype is the go-to pick for video chat—it works on Windows, Mac, and Linux, and it’s been designed to be fairly easy to install and get started without having to dive into the preferences and configuration settings. If you’re not there, either in-person or remotely, most computer users can set up Skype just by clicking Next, Next, OK all the way through the installation process, minus one pause to set up an account. They’ll end up with Skype automatically starting and logging them in when their computer boots into Windows, but that’s something you can undo later, or not worry too much about if they’ve got a decently new system.

If most of your relatives have Macs, iChat is probably easier to set up and use than Skype. It is, however, limited to Macs, and so a fairly limiting option for families not entirely descended from typeface designers (Kidding!).

If Skype isn’t going to work for your relatives, in terms of software setup, try the web-based TokBox. It’s free for both parties, it’s one of our readers’ favorite video chat applications, and the quality is surprisingly good for a web-based client. You can sign up your relative for an account ahead of time, then simply email them a link to the chat you’re initiating with them, along with their username and password.

Last, Gmail’s video chat functionality installs via a browser plug-in and works surprisingly well, too—provided everyone involved has a Gmail account.

Better email for everyone

You don’t always have time, or the right hair, to jump into a video chat. Sending an email is probably second nature to you, but some relatives hate their email—and you would, too, if you had it their way. Help them reconnect with the (type)written word.

The New York Times recommends a stripped-down email service called PawPawMail for computer unsavvy relatives, which any more tech-patient relative can set up for the email account that they’ve likely received from their cable, DSL, or other internet provider. It’s a nice, simplified interface for email, and probably far easier to use than Outlook Express, Windows Live Mail, or even Mail.app for Mac—the picture aggregation is a nice touch. Then again, it’s also $5 per month, so you’ll want to test it out before committing.

My own mother also grew to loathe desktop email clients, especially when Verizon tech support would have to talk her through SMTP setup when she spent time at our summer camp. The Verizon webmail interface just wasn’t cutting it, either. So, using Gina’s guide to consolidating multiple email addresses with Gmail, and Gmail’s mail and contact importer, I set her up with a Gmail account that used her same password and, more importantly, sent and received email transparently through Verizon.net. Her friends didn’t have to update their address books, and once she saw the magic of auto-complete, as-you-type contact names, she was hooked. I also set up sidebar labels, hooked to filters, that show her emails from her children, automatic notices of bills due, Netflix updates, and so on.

Photo sharing

My in-laws have a desktop computer in the living room, as well as a laptop. My wife and I would only occasionally receive digital photos from them, and they’d either be gigantic, 3 MB-each files, or tiny thumbnails forwarded from a photo developing service. While at their house at Thanksgiving, I showed them the Picasa desktop software (available on Windows and Macs), particularly the clever facial recognition and easy collage features. I set it up on their system, set it to always watch their desktop, downloads, and pictures folder, and returned home.

When we returned for the holidays, they had a special gift prepared for a son of theirs: a T-shirt featuring a photo collage of family members, assembled and ordered right from Picasa. I was pretty floored; these were folks I’ve long been the Computer Explainer for, but Picasa was intuitive enough for them to manage on their own, even into the advanced features. The main thing that required a little explanation was the somewhat quirky “holding”/thumbtack system, and its difference from “Starred” photos, but other than that, it’s a perfect photo simplifier: the left-hand folders are albums that show up automatically, the main window is filled with pictures, and photos are automatically knocked into manageable but visible size for emailing—and it’s even easier if you set up a Gmail holder account for the user.

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Love them or hate them, the ads for Apple’s “Get a Mac” campaign have been incredibly successful. Last month, AdWeek named the series Ad Campaign of the Decade.

More effective at converting users than even the infamous “Switch” campaign, these ads have helped personify Apple as a brand to the culture. Although Apple has a selective archive of “Get a Mac” ads archived on its own site, AdWeek has one-upped them by putting together a page showcasing all 66 ads from 2006 – present.

Here are five of our favorites.

2006: Out of the box #4

My personal favorite ad of the series, Mac and PC compare the out-of-box experience.

2008: Sad Song (Long Version) #43b

Who doesn’t love to sing “The Vista Blues?”

2009: Legal Copy #54

How fanatical are Apple fans? The writers at MacJournals actually transcribed the legal copy that appears in this ad. Seriously. Hey, here’s to the crazy ones!

2007: Flashback #25

Mac and PC reminisce about elementary school.

2006: Better #1

The ad that started it all. I feel confident that no one involved thought the campaign would be so successful or so long-running.

What Do You Think?

The “Get a Mac” campaign has not been without controversy. PC (and even some Mac) users have complained that Apple plays fast and loose with certain facts or that the characterizations of Mac and PC are inaccurate. (Apparently there are some non-Mac hipsters out there.) Regardless, you can’t argue that the campaign has been successful and captivating.

What is your favorite “Get a Mac” ad? Let us know in the comments!

[via Gizmodo]

Tags: ads, advertising, get a mac

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Rather than studying the cold, hard spec lists, we think the best way to chose a new camera is to consider how you’ll use it. After all, there’s no point in having a sky-high megapixel count if you’re never going to print your pics, or a huge optical zoom if you only ever snap your friends and family.

With this in mind, we’ve rounded up some great photography options for social media types with a focus on connectivity that we think will suit bloggers and social networkers alike. These selections will make it quicker and easier than ever to get your content — be it stills or video — uploaded to the web. Now, say cheese!

1. iPhone 3GS

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Perhaps a slightly controversial choice considering the hardware specs — the 3GS only just manages a 3-megapixel camera while the wider industry offers 12-megapixel beasts — it’s the software in the form of thousands of available apps that makes us confident to name the iPhone 3GS a strong social media contender in the mobile snapper space.

Photos or video captured with your iPhone 3GS can be quickly and easily shared online, while the new MobileMe Gallery iPhone app from Apple lets you access and share your pics from the iPhone for your social network to see. However, it will be interesting to see how much the Android-based Google Nexus One challenges the iPhone in this space.

Specs: 3-megapixels, 3.5-inch touchscreen display, VGA video

Cost: From $199, plus 2-year service agreement

2. Kodak Slice

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Casio made headlines in 2007 by offering a “YouTube” mode in its compact cameras, but has since been overtaken by others quick to appeal to social networkers. Boasting a snazzy 3.5-inch touchscreen, the forthcoming Slice has the ability to store up to 5000 pics on board, offers a new search feature and face recognition functionality from Kodak, which means users can sort through the pictures by person (it can remember 20 pre-tagged faces), place, date, or occasion. Tag photos directly on the camera and use the “Share” button for an effortless upload to Facebook, Flickr, YouTube or e-mail via a PC or a Mac.

Specs: 14-megapixels, 5x zoom, 3.5-inch touchscreen, 720p video

Cost: $349.95 when available in April

3. Sony Bloggie PM5

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The new Bloggie cameras are Sony’s take on the growing PVC (pocket video camcorder) market, which has so far been dominated by the Flip. The pocketable PM5 offers simple capture of 1920×1080, YouTube-friendly, H.264 MP4 video and 5-megapixel still photos, as well as a built-in USB port (losing the wire spaghetti) and easy web sharing capabilities. The PM5 also boasts a lens that can rotate 270 degrees for some artsy angles, or to capture yourself. The camera comes preloaded with Sony’s PMB software that works with PCs and Macs to make direct upload to Shutterfly, Picasa, YouTube, Dailymotion and Photobucket easy-peasy. Stay tuned for a new content-sharing service and Facebook-integration to be launched in the Spring.

Specs: 5-megapixel stills, 4x digital zoom, 2.4-inch LCD display, 1080i video

Cost: $170

4. Samsung HMX-S16

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Perhaps more suited to the pro-blogger than the casual YouTube user, this full-featured camcorder is the world’s first to offer built-in Wi-Fi and DLNA connectivity, and should make getting your cutting-edge content online a cinch — or at the very least, wire-free. It boasts a 64GB solid state drive (as opposed to its little brother model HMX-S15’s 32GB) and gets Samsung’s “AllShare” functionality, which means content can be shared to other DLNA certified devices. The integrated Wi-Fi connectivity also allows for live streaming over the ‘Net via a DLNA-happy PC.

Specs: 10-megapixel stills, 15x optical zoom, 3.5-inch touchscreen display, 1080i video

Cost: TBD when it’s available this Summer

5. Eye-Fi Memory Card

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If you already own a favored digi-cam, or want to stick with your high-end DSLR, but do want to get more connected, then these clever memory cards from Eye-Fi can add some connectivity to your existing kit, if it supports them.

Eye-Fi offers a whole range of SD and SDHC memory cards that boast wireless connectivity, meaning you can easily upload your images and video over a Wi-Fi network. Specs vary depending on the model, with some cards working only with JPEG files and your PC over a home network. Others specialize in video, while the new ProX2 can handle RAW files, and can geotag your pics and flicks as it sends them into the cloud. A good lower-end example is the 2GB Eye-Fi Share that uploads JPEG pics effortlessly to either your computer over your home network or directly to sites like Flickr, Facebook, Picasa and MobileMe.

Cost: The 2GB Eye-Fi Share is $59.99

More social media resources from Mashable:

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- 5 Essential Sites for Professional Photographers
– HOW TO: Create Custom Backgrounds for Twitter, YouTube, & MySpace
– 20 Creative Apps For Your iPhone
– 85+ of the Best Twitterers Designers Should Follow
– 5 Ways Social Media Changed Fashion in 2009

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, flariv

Tags: camera, eye-fi, facebook, flickr, gadgets, iphone, List, Lists, photography, Photos, sharing, shopping, social media, video, web video, wi-fi, Wireless, youtube

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Nightly Chrome Updater won’t automatically update your system, and it technically only grabs the latest build for Windows systems. But a commenter at the extension’s page suggests it only takes a little tweaking to make it a viable download for the nightly Mac builds:

If anyone uses a mac (or linux) and wants to make this work for their system (instead of downloading .exes), you can modify popup.html (in the extension dir. ~/Application Support/Chromium/{profile}/Extensions/{extensionid}/1.1/popup.html on OS X). All you need to do is replace chromium-rel-xp with chromium-rel-mac, and mini_installer.exe with chrome-mac.zip

You could, theoretically, pull off the same type of hack for nightly Linux builds but, then again, there are dedicated repositories that can automatically keep your browser up to date on the most unstable, buggy, don’t-call-us-when-everything-fails-to-work builds.

So you get the latest and greatest ideas in Chrome in your browser, like the extensions that arrived in the nightly builds long before they showed up in the betas. You also get builds that might have some broken aspects and, in some rare occasions, might fail to load on your system altogether—at least until the next build comes along.

Nightly Chrome Updater is a free download, works on Google Chrome only. If you’re a fan of using nightly builds over the standard distribution, tell us why in the comments.

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The goal of creating a minimalist desktop is to eliminate the distractions and focus on just the tools that you need to actually get things done. Today we’ll take a look at how you can set up your PC to focus on the tools that get things done.

Clear Off Your Desktop

The first thing you need to do is get rid of all that clutter on your desktop. The easiest way to do so is by simply right-clicking on the desktop and un-checking Show Desktop Icons.

Looking at a nice clean desktop is great, but you’ll still see all the files in open and save dialogs, or while you’re browsing around your computer. You should make a point of cleaning up your system of all the junk files you don’t need; if you aren’t sure, you can always put them into a single archive folder elsewhere on your PC. We like using tools like our own Belvedere to automate your PC maintenance and keep your system clean.

One additional trick I like to do is hide any files or folders that I don’t ever need to use, which is especially helpful in modern versions of Windows that won’t let you delete many of the folders in your Users folder—instead you can simply hide them via the Properties dialog.

Auto-Hide Your Taskbar or Dock

Now that your desktop is nice and clean, the biggest distraction is staring you right in the face: the taskbar or dock with all your open apps. If you find yourself switching to your email inbox dozens of times while you are supposed to be working on something else because you can’t resist clicking on your email’s taskbar item, it’s probably time to hide your taskbar. In Windows, it’s easy to do from the Taskbar properties screen (right-click taskbar -> Properties), and on your Mac you can set your Dock to Hide in the preferences. If you’re using a third-party dock, the setting is probably in the options panel somewhere.

If you’re rocking multiple monitors, an additional trick that I use is setting your primary screen as the “Extended” one in the display setup, which puts the taskbar on a different window so you won’t accidentally trigger it, and it takes more effort to check it. This even helps if you don’t auto-hide the taskbar, just to get the taskbar out of your immediate field of vision.

Get Rid of Unnecessary Notifications

Hiding the taskbar doesn’t help enough if all of your applications are popping up all the time trying to get your attention. Windows 7 has a new Action Center that lets you fine-tune the notifications, including allowing tray icons or popup notifications on a per-application basis, but for XP or Vista you can always take the route of disabling all notification balloons entirely.

Of course, not all applications use the native Windows notifications, but they usually allow you to tweak the notification levels in their preferences. One of the biggest offenders for wasting your time are the desktop email notifications for Microsoft Outlook, but those can be easily disabled or tweaked.

Use the Keyboard to Launch Applications and Automate Tasks

Rather than using gaudy application-launching docks that overload your system with icon clutter, it’s much simpler to use the keyboard to launch applications with a few keystrokes. There’s loads of great application launchers to choose from, like Launchy for Windows, Quicksilver for Macs, or Gnome-Do for Linux, but if you’re using Windows 7 you may need to go no further than the built-in Start menu search engine.

You can take it a step further by using AutoHotkey to turn any action into a keyboard shortcut, like launching your email client, opening your home page, or sending keystrokes to an application. Text-replacement applications like Texter save you time by automating tasks like inserting your signature or formatting a URL, and once you get used to using them, you will be sold on the benefits.

Switch Contexts by Killing Tasks Quickly

If you really need to get something done, it’s usually a good idea to close down your web browsers, instant messaging client, Twitter distractions, or even your email application. Rather than manually closing them all down, it’s much easier to create an AutoHotkey script or a batch file to kill them all at once.

You can use the taskkill utility to instantly close down an application, even from an AutoHotkey script. Just create a new script similar to the following, which will instantly close Chrome, TweetDeck, and Internet Explorer when you press the Win+F12 shortcut key. Savvy AHK users will note that you can also use the WinKill function instead, or if you don’t want to kill the applications and would rather simulate clicking the close button, you can use the WinClose function.

#F12:: {
 Run, taskkill /f /im chrome.exe
 Run, taskkill /f /im tweetdeck.exe
 Run, taskkill /f /im iexplore.exe
 Return
}

You probably won’t want to kill an application that doesn’t automatically save your files, but all modern browsers have session saving and crash recovery features, so even if you kill the browser, all your tabs should show up the next time you open it.

Keep Everything Online in Dropbox

Not only is Dropbox an excellent way to backup your files, sync them across multiple PCs, or access them from anywhere—it’s also a good way to force yourself to keep everything important in one place, making the PC you are sitting at a less important component to your ability to actually get things done.

You can take it a step further and install portable versions of your applications into your Dropbox folder. This way you can access the same utilities from every PC you’re on, keeping everything nice and organized and in a single place.

The How-To Geek focuses on using his PC to actually get things done. His geeky posts can be found daily here on Lifehacker, How-To Geek, Productive Geek, and Twitter.

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The main update, as the Firefox Extension Guru puts it, is a fix to a JavaScript bug in the Linux build of Firefox 3.6 release candidate, which is fixed in this second release. Otherwise, Windows and Mac users get a quick re-build of the web browser, along with some reassurance that Firefox 3.6 is moving along on schedule, due to officially release on January 26.

Like previous 3.6 releases, this build does include no-restart-needed Personas theme capabilities, add-on and plug-in security updates, improved rendering, JavaScript, and startup performance, and better support for the game-changing HTML5 specifications. If you’re using extensions that haven’t updated yet and you want to keep on-board, you can make them work with Firefox 3.6.

Firefox 3.6 Release Candidate 2 is a free download for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems.

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I have posted the video and a collection of photos below of the re-design. But if you wish to see all the photos, please feel free to visit the Behance Network Page. Drop us a comment to say weather you prefer Facebook the way it is, or weather they should implement this design.

The Video

A Few Photos

Here is a collection of photos of the Facebook face-lift. It looks so beautiful and implements some great web technologies. If you watched the video above, you would have seen the sweet transition effects.

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Support This Design

Behance Network Page

Follow Barton on Twitter

Join The Facebook Group

View Fullscreen Images on Flickr

Watch The Video on Vimeo

Share this post with as many people as possible! Retweet, digg, facebook friends, everyone!

A Similar Social Tool

Some aspects of this great Facebook facelift design were inspired by the social networking tool called Skimmer. You may want to check Skimmer out. Its available for Free download for both PC and Mac and runs off Adobe Air.

This article is copyrighted by Web Design

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Opening the file in a different, smarter text editor results in the file displayed properly in multiple paragraphs.

The answer to this puzzle lies in our old friend, invisible characters that we can’t see but that are totally not out to get us. Well, except when they are.

The invisible problem characters in this case are newlines.

Did you ever wonder what was at the end of your lines? As a programmer, I knew there were end of line characters, but I honestly never thought much about them. They just … worked. But newlines aren’t a universally accepted standard; they are different depending who you ask, and what platform they happen to be computing on:

The Carriage Return (CR) and Line Feed (LF) terms derive from manual typewriters, and old printers based on typewriter-like mechanisms (typically referred to as “Daisywheel” printers).

On a typewriter, pressing Line Feed causes the carriage roller to push up one line — without changing the position of the carriage itself — while the Carriage Return lever slides the carriage back to the beginning of the line. In all honesty, I’m not quite old enough to have used electric typewriters, so I have a dim recollection, at best, of the entire process. The distinction between CR and LF does seem kind of pointless — why would you want to move to the beginning of a line without also advancing to the next line? This is another analog artifact, as Wikipedia explains:

On printers, teletypes, and computer terminals that were not capable of displaying graphics, the carriage return was used without moving to the next line to allow characters to be placed on top of existing characters to produce character graphics, underlines, and crossed out text.

So far we’ve got:

• Confusing terms based on archaic hardware that is no longer in use, and is confounding to new users who have no point of reference for said terms;
• Completely arbitrary platform “standards” for what is exactly the same function.

Pretty much business as usual in computing. If you’re curious, as I was, about the historical basis for these decisions, Wikipedia delivers all the newline trivia you could possibly want, and more:

The sequence CR+LF was in common use on many early computer systems that had adopted teletype machines, typically an ASR33, as a console device, because this sequence was required to position those printers at the start of a new line. On these systems, text was often routinely composed to be compatible with these printers, since the concept of device drivers hiding such hardware details from the application was not yet well developed; applications had to talk directly to the teletype machine and follow its conventions. The separation of the two functions concealed the fact that the print head could not return from the far right to the beginning of the next line in one-character time. That is why the sequence was always sent with the CR first. In fact, it was often necessary to send extra characters (extraneous CRs or NULs, which are ignored) to give the print head time to move to the left margin. Even after teletypes were replaced by computer terminals with higher baud rates, many operating systems still supported automatic sending of these fill characters, for compatibility with cheaper terminals that required multiple character times to scroll the display.

CP/M’s use of CR+LF made sense for using computer terminals via serial lines. MS-DOS adopted CP/M’s CR+LF, and this convention was inherited by Windows.

This exciting difference in how newlines work means you can expect to see one of three (or more, as we’ll find out later) newline characters in those “simple” ASCII text files.

If you’re fortunate, you’ll pick a fairly intelligent editor that can detect and properly display the line endings of whatever text files you open. If you’re less fortunate, you’ll see onegiantunbrokenline, or a bunch of extra ^M characters in the file.

Even worse, it’s possible to mix all three of these line endings in the same file. Innocently copy and paste a comment or code snippet from a file with a different set of line endings, then save it. Bam, you’ve got a file with multiple line endings. That you can’t see. I’ve accidentally done it myself. (Note that this depends on your choice of text editor; some will auto-normalize line endings to match the current file’s settings upon paste.)

This is complicated by the fact that some editors, even editors that should know better, like Visual Studio, have no mode that shows end of line markers. That’s why, when attempting to open a file that has multiple line endings, Visual Studio will politely ask you if it can normalize the file to one set of line endings.

This Visual Studio dialog presents the following five (!) possible set of line endings for the file:

1. Windows (CR LF)
2. Macintosh (CR)
3. Unix (LF)
4. Unicode Line Separator (LS)
5. Unicode Paragraph Separator (PS)

The last two are new to me. I’m not sure under what circumstances you would want those Unicode newline markers.

Even if you rule out unicode and stick to old-school ASCII, like most Facebook relationships … it’s complicated. I find it fascinating that the mundane ASCII newline has so much ancient computing lore behind it, and that it still regularly bites us in unexpected places.

If you work with text files in any capacity — and what programmer doesn’t — you should know that not all newlines are created equally. The Great Newline Schism is something you need to be aware of. Make sure your tools can show you not just those pesky invisible white space characters, but line endings as well.

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A link is either one color or another. A text field is either one size or another. A photo is either transparent or opaque. No in-betweens from one state to the next. No transitions.

This has led to most web pages feeling abrupt, with elements shifting and changing ungracefully.

Yes, we can use DHTML and leverage the jQuery library for transitions, but this requires a lot of code for something that should be very simple.

What we need is a quick and easy way to add simple transitions to the page and in this article you’ll find useful information about CSS transitions and how to use them.

A few months back, I stuck my foot in my mouth by suggesting that designers should start using the new CSS 3 techniques that allow them to do some of the basic styling that they’ve been pleading for. The only issue: none of them worked in Internet Explorer. Nope, not even IE8.

Some readers felt that suggesting techniques that around 75% of audiences would not be able to see was imprudent.

To those readers I say, ‘Hold onto your hats’, because I’m going to introduce you to another new CSS property that allows you to add transitions to any element with only a couple of lines of code.

CSS transitions are being introduced right now in CSS Level 3 but have already been added as an extension to Webkit. Right now that means they work only in browsers based on Webkit, including Apple Safari and Google Chrome.

Where CSS Transitions Come From

Transitions have been a part of Webkit for a while and are the basis of a lot of the cool things that the Safari UI can do that other browsers cannot.

But the W3C CSS Workgroup resisted adding transitions to its official specs, some members arguing that transitions are not style properties and would be better handled by a scripting language.

But many designers and developers, myself included, argued that these are in fact styles— only dynamic styles, rather than the traditional static styles that so many of us are used to.

Fortunately, the argument for dynamic styles held the day. Last March, representatives from Apple and Mozilla began adding the CSS Transitions Module to the CSS Level 3 specification, closely modeled on what Apple had already added to Webkit.

A Brief Note on Design Enhancements

Before we continue, let me emphasize one point: never rely on styles for website functionality if the styles are not browser interoperable (i.e. available on all common browsers).

One more time for those who missed it: never rely on styles for website functionality if the styles are not browser interoperable.

That said, you can use styles, such as transitions, as design enhancements to improve the user experience, without sacrificing usability for those who cannot see them. This is okay as long as you could otherwise live without the transitions and users can still complete their tasks.

First, a Few Transition Ideas

CSS transitions will not replace all uses of DHTML, but here are a few ways to enhance your design in browsers that support transitions, without ruining it for the rest of your audience.

You will need to view this page in Apple Safari 3+ or Google Chrome to see these transitions work. Both browsers are available in Mac and PC flavors.

Roll-Overs

The most obvious use for transitions is to highlight elements (whether links, tables, form fields, buttons or something else) when the user’s mouse hovers over them. Transitions are a great way to give the page a smoother look.

Example #1

Drop-Down Menus

Pure CSS menus are easy to accomplish, and transitions let you give menus slide-down and highlighting effects.

Example #2

Animation

You can move an object between two points on the page and use transitions to animate its movement.

Example #3

Click & Hold!

Transitions, States and Actions

But hold on a minute there, Tex. Before diving into transitions, we have to understand the various states to which an element can transition.

States define how a particular element currently interacts with the user or the page, and they are specified in CSS using the pseudo-classes. For example, when the user hovers over an element, that element would be styled with the hover pseudo-class.

Transitions work by changing a style over a period of time between different element states. For example, the color value of the default state of an element will pass through intermediate colors in the spectrum before appearing as the color value for the hover state.

A Simple Transition

Let’s consider a simple transition from one color to another when the user hovers over a link. Like any other CSS property, transitions are added directly to the selector that it is to be applied to. The property can then take one of following four values.

CSS property
The property that is to be altered (for example, color). See the table below for a list of all of the CSS properties that can be transitioned.

Duration
How long the transition will last, generally in seconds (for example, .25s).

Timing function
Allows you to control how the duration is timed. Rather than using a simple linear count, you can speed up or slow down the transition or even specify a beat or count (for example, linear). More on this later in the article.

Delay
How long to wait between the action and the beginning of the transition, usually expressed in seconds (for example, .1s). This value can be omitted if you don’t want a delay.

Because the transition property started out as a Webkit extension, we have to include both the transition and -webkit-transition properties for backwards compatibility.

Let’s first add both of these properties to the :hover pseudo-class:

a:hover {
   color: red;
   -webkit-transition: color .25s linear;
   transition: color .25s linear;
}

Now, when a link is hovered over, rather than jumping from blue to red, it will transition for a quarter of a second through the intermediate colors.

Of course, we also want to transition back to the default link color, so we’ll add a transition to the :link (and probably :visited) pseudo-classes, with just a very brief delay (one-tenth of a second) before it fades:

a:link, a:visited {
   color: blue;
   -webkit-transition: color .25s linear .1s;
   transition: color .25s linear .1s;
}

Adding Multiple Transitions

Because a transition is a CSS property, if you add multiple instances of the transition property in the same rule, then the last one will override previous ones, rather than add to them. So in the following rule, the only transition would be the background color:

a:hover {
  color: red;
  background-color: rgb(235,235,185);
  -webkit-transition: color .25s linear;
  transition: color .25s linear;
  transition: background-color .15s linear .1;
}

Multiple transitions are added as a comma-separated list in the same transition property definition:

a:hover {
  color: red;
  background-color: rgb(235,235,185);
   -webkit-transition: color .25s linear, background-color .15s linear .1s;
  transition: color .25s linear, background-color .15s linear .1s;
 }

This will create both a color and background-color transition.

What Can Be Transitioned?

Almost any CSS property that has a color, length or position component, including many of the new CSS 3 properties, can be given a transition. One notable exception seems to be box-shadow.

Straight from the W3C’s Transitions spec, here is a list of CSS properties that can be given a transition, along with the aspects that are transformed. I’ve highlighted a few of the more useful properties.

Transition Timing and Delay

With transitions, you can vary the count rate, counting slower at the beginning and speeding up at the end, vice versa, or anything in between. CSS transitions come with five keywords for transition timing and allow you to specify values for your own timing curve.

A Universal Transition?

Transitions will quickly become standard operating procedure for all websites, enhancing user interface feedback.

To add ubiquitious transitions across your entire website, one option is to add a transition to the universal selector, similar to a CSS reset. This applies a default transition to all elements on the page, allowing you to keep a consistent transition:

*:link, *:visited, *:hover, *:active, *:focus {
   -webkit-transition:
     color .25s linear,
      background-color .25s linear,
     border-color .25s linear;
   transition:
     color .25s linear,
     background-color .25s linear,
     border-color .25s linear;
}

One argument against a universal transition, and indeed against using the universal selector for CSS resets in general, is that applying a style to every element on the page may slow down page rendering. However, I’ve never found any evidence that this is the case. Anyone know different?

Jason Cranford Teague is the author of more than 13 books on digital media, including Speaking In Styles: The Fundamentals of CSS for Web Designers. For more information on CSS and web typography, check out Jason’s new book, Fluid Web Typography. Follow Jason on Twitter: @jasonspeaking.

If you find an exclusive RSS freebie on this feed or on the live WDD website, please use the following code to download it: f2cc9y

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This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

Small business owners may have more of a need than most to be able to access their chosen suite of productivity tools from more than one computer or platform. As a business or startup owner you may have occasion to bring your work home with you, or require frequent access to your to-do lists, notes and documents on the go.

Choosing primarily online tools for your productivity workflow is a great way to address the issue of source agnostic accessibility. It’s also a convenient method to ensure you have a backup of your important day-to-day items and files in case a particular computer or device fails. One other not insignificant factor in selecting cloud-based tools to keep you and your business on track is cost: the online equivalents of once desktop-bound applications are often much cheaper in both raw cost and maintenance cost, as tool upgrades usually happen behind the scenes and don’t require an in-house IT staff to keep up and running.

With the tools on this list, you should be able to check in on your current workflow stack regardless of which machine you happen to be in front of, what operating system it uses, and what browser it’s running. Plus, if you have a smartphone as your trusty mobile companion, chances are you’ll be able to access your tools from there as well. Check out our previous guide to mobile productivity tools as a logical companion to this piece, and consider your phone platform and setup and how well it may integrate with particular tools as you build out your productivity arsenal.

To-do Lists

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One of the favorite and often-mentioned entrants in the to-do list category among productivity geeks is Remember the Milk. Featuring a robust reminder system via your choices of SMS, IM, or email, offline task management, integration with Google Calendar, and tight integration with several mobile platforms, Remember the Milk also has a clean and easy to use interface that Gettings Things Done aficionados swoon over. It also integrates with a number of other web services and third parties including Netvibes and iGoogle, Google maps, Twitter, Jott, the Mac and Linux desktop, and more.

Far from being the only game in town, however, Remember the Milk has a number of online to-do list peers worth checking out. Toodledo is a popular newcomer with a full-featured slate of ways to enter, organize, and sort your tasks. Featuring a tiered freemium service model, Toodledo also has great mobile integration and offers a handy comparison chart on how it stacks up against other popular web-based to-do apps.

If your to-do tastes run on the simpler and less cluttered side of the spectrum, there are several options worth looking into. TeuxDeux bills itself as a “simple, designy, free, browser-based to-do app” and embraces a minimalist interface accordingly. Task.fm is another interesting option in the minimalist category, with a source agnostic and natural language approach to getting items in and back out to you at just the right time with various reminder options. Ta-da List is a product from 37signals, makers of other popular web project management tools like Basecamp, Backpack, and Campfire — so if your small business already uses any 37signals tools you might find Ta-da List an excellent companion. Last but not least, the former Gmail Labs project Gmail Tasks is a simple to-do list that integrates right into Gmail, making it a nice and lightweight option for businesses that already use Gmail and/or Google Apps for email.

Note-Taking

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It’s difficult to write about cloud-based note-taking without mentioning Evernote. You can get notes into Evernote in any number of ways, from email to browser bookmarklet to desktop or mobile app, as well as via the web-based interface and even via Twitter. You can also leave voice notes, plus have Evernote use optical character recognition to scan photos of business cards and other documents, converting printed material into searchable text. On the organizational side, you can create multiple notebooks, tag individual entries, and set up saved searches for frequently accessed collections. Evernote’s freemium business model offers a generous amount of monthly usage in the free version and a reasonable $5 per month/$45 per year premium version with a higher usage limit and other pro features.

Two other good choices for cloud-based notebooks that integrate well with their full-featured office suite counterparts are Google Notebook and Zoho Notebook. Both feature a typical web-based WYSIWYG note-taking environment as well as sharing and collaboration options for your notes and documents that need to be socialized. If you already routinely use either Google Docs or Zoho Office in your business to manage documents, it might make sense to adopt their notebook counterparts for your outboard brain workflow needs.

A couple of online note-taking options based on wiki technology include Springnote and Luminotes. They feature easy methods of linking pages and concepts together, and if you’re already familiar with the wiki concept and looking for a lightweight notebook that uses similar concepts you may want to check out these two. Springnote also promotes collaboration via notebook sharing as well.

Information and News Gathering

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When it comes to staying on top of developments in your industry and trends that might affect your business, it can seem daunting to make sure what’s most important crosses your desk and your eyeballs. Several related categories of online tools can help sift through the noise and help you pull out the signal, plus safely store information and concepts you may need to retrieve later.

In an earlier article we covered how to choose a news reader for keeping tabs on your industry, and by far the most popular web-based offering in that category is Google Reader. And if you prefer a cleaner, more magazine-like view of your Reader feeds over Google’s native interface, Firefox users should definitely give Feedly a try. But simply employing an RSS reader doesn’t always solve the problem of having too much incoming information to stay on top of, which doesn’t always come in at the most convenient time for you to absorb it.

A couple of tools can help with the latter problem of specifically storing an article and helping you remember to read it later, perhaps when other duties and tasks have quieted down and you find yourself with some spare moments to catch up on the things you knew you should make time to read at some point. Both Instapaper and Read It Later allow you to create a stack of items set aside for later reading, with a simple and uncluttered interface allowing you to check off or archive items after you’ve gotten around to reading them. Both integrate with various other tools in your online arsenal, with browser bookmarklet entry and iPhone integration. Instapaper also integrates with Feedly so you can send items directly to it from your feed reading experience, while Read It Later offers a Firefox extension that brings your “to read” stack closely into your browser. Instapaper also allows you to easily generate a printable version of your on deck items, or even download them in Kindle or ePub formats for reading on the go.

For longer-term storage of important articles, social bookmarking tools come in handy for preventing your bookmarks from being “trapped” in a single browser on a single machine. One of the original pioneering web services, delicious.com, is still flourishing (and now owned by Yahoo). Using a browser bookmarklet you can send articles and web pages you want to refer back to later to your delicious account, plus a short personal note and topic tags. The net effect of collecting many users’ individual bookmarks also creates a valuable discovery engine that can turn you on to even more relevant material in your business’s industry or niche. Two other options worth checking out include Diigo, a relative newcomer that offers integration with your delicious collection and allows you to highlight and annotate portions of pages, and Clipmarks, which focuses on saving and sharing just the parts of web pages you find most useful.

Going Further

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The above are just a few of the productivity categories in which online tools can help your current workflow stack stay accessible from almost anywhere. Other web-based tools can help with mobile office needs from calendaring to document collaboration, file-sharing to collaborative presentations, from start pages to contact management and more. Other tools, like Jott Assistant, are out there to help you tie those tools together and access them via other applications you use regularly.

It’s helpful to keep a flexible and open attitude towards your workflow and the tools you use, and occasionally take stock of what’s working, what’s not working as well as it should, and areas where your productivity seems to suffer. If you’re willing to spend even a modest amount of time being periodically adventurous with new tools, you could open workflow channels you weren’t even aware were blocked, and even infuse your day-to-day and your business with new ideas and new energy.

More business resources from Mashable:

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- HOW TO: Choose a News Reader for Keeping Tabs on Your Industry
– HOW TO: Use a Start Page to Stay Organized
– The 10 Stages of Social Media Business Integration
– 5 Tips for Creating a Successful Social Media Contest
– HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI
– HOW TO: Use Social Media to Connect with Other Entrepreneurs
– HOW TO: Implement a Social Media Business Strategy

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, inkastudio

Tags: business, evernote, gmail tasks, google notebook, google reader, List, Lists, online productivity, productivity, Productivity Lists, small business, task.fm, Zoho

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On Friday McDonald’s officially added free Wi-Fi to the menu at most U.S. locations. Now you can have your Big Mac, fries and free Wi-Fi at 11,500 McDonald’s across the country.

News of the free Wi-Fi deal was initially announced in mid-December, but now the service is live.

You may recall that the fast food chain was previously serving up Wi-Fi for $2.95 for two hours of internet access, but AT&T swooped in to the rescue. By eliminating the cost, McDonald’s is taking yet another step to position their brand as an alternative to higher priced coffee retail chains.

There are 14,000 McDonald’s restaurants in the US – the small number that didn’t have Wi-Fi previously don’t appear to be part of the rollout.

[via Engadget]

[img credit: Tony the Misfit, Flickr]

Tags: Food, free wifi, McDonalds

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YouTube has a global audience, so if you want to reach as many people as possible, you’ll have to make sure subtitles are available for your videos. You’ll want closed captioning to reach the deaf and hard of hearing, too. Thankfully, that process has shifted from relatively easy to an absolute breeze in recent months. Here’s how to make it happen.

Once you’ve uploaded a video to your YouTube account, you have two options for generating subtitles for the video: You can use the CaptionTube web app that Google has created, or you can upload a transcript you make yourself and use Google’s speech recognition technology to automatically assign the right times to each caption. In either case, you’ll end up with a text file that you can edit to make corrections if need be, and viewers will be able to either read the captions in their native language or translate them on the fly when watching your video.

CaptionTube

First, direct your browser to the CaptionTube website and you’ll find a well-realized web application for importing videos, adding and timing captions for them, and exporting the captions however you want them. You’ll have to sign in with your Google account. After you’ve done that, you’ll have two options for importing a video; you can either import a list of all the videos on your account, or you can specify the web address for a public video.

Whichever way you go, the path to importing the video you want is a pretty easy one. Click the edit button next to your video once it’s been imported to get to the caption creation screen.

Click the “Add Caption” button and then type in what you want your caption to say. Pick a start time in seconds and milliseconds, then specify how long the caption will stay on the screen. Once you save it, it will appear in a time line at the bottom of the app so you can see it in relation to other captions. When you’ve added all your captions, click publish.

Choose the “Download to My Computer” option (either file format will work) and CaptionTube will give you a text file that you can tweak as needed and add to your videos. To add the file to your video, go to your YouTube My Videos page, find your video, and click the “Caption” button to reach the caption options. Click the button to add new captions, browse to find the file CaptionTube gave you, check the “Caption file (includes time codes)” option, and hit “Upload File.” That ought to do it.

Captions By Voice Recognition

The CaptionTube method used to be the only easy way to add captions to your video, but Google introduced a new one towards the end of 2009: captions generated by voice recognition. Google’s computers use the same technology that powers Google Voice to listen to your video while reading your transcript, then automatically generate captions at the right times.

First you’ll have to watch your video and create your own simple transcript of the words spoken in the video. This should be pretty easy; no special formatting is required. Just save it as a basic text file using Notepad if you’re a Windows user or TextEdit if you have a Mac.

After you’ve saved the file, go to your YouTube My Videos page, find your video, and click the “Caption” button to reach the caption options. There you can click the button to add new captions, browse to locate your new text file, and select the “Transcript” option. Hit “Upload File” after that.

YouTube will think for a while, then your video will have captions. If Google’s voice recognition system made any errors, you can hit the download button from the captions screen to fetch a copy of the caption file with timestamps included. Make any modifications you need, then add your new captions using the “Caption file (includes time codes)” option described at the end of the CaptionTube segment of our how-to.

Tags: captions, captiontube, closed captioning, Feature, Google, how to, subtitles, translation, video, voice recognition, web video, youtube

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Mac and iPhone developers aren’t the only ones doing their part to raise money for Haiti earthquake victims, Apple is also pitching in. You can now donate money to the Red Cross directly from iTunes.

You can access the iTunes donation page [iTunes link] using the direct link or by clicking on the graphic on the main iTunes page. Denominations range from $5.00 to $200.00 and come out of your iTunes account. One hundred percent of the donation will go to the Red Cross. Because you will be donating anonymously, if you need a receipt or further acknowledgment, check your iTunes e-mail account for your receipt.

Google has already donated $1 million to ground support in Haiti, and other tech giants are also stepping up to the plate.

If you want to donate to the Red Cross but don’t want to use SMS, iTunes is just one more option for helping out!

Tags: haiti, itunes, red cross

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This is our selection of our favorite web designs from the past week, some sites we discovered, but the most of them have been recommended by our readers.
Thanks for all your recommendations, and we hope you like the selection of sites as much as we do.
Send us your recommendation for next weeks Weekly Web Design and Development Inspiration (for our review), by clicking here: Submit News.

bornintents

Auxiliary Design Co.

HiiDef Inc.

Zachary Pulman

Vegas Uncork'd

Delibar, Delicious Mac client

Digital Podge 2009

z8

Reknit

Giang Nguyen’s Portfolio

Smooth Step

Team Excellence

Notorious Design

Festival Boreal 2009

Information Highwayman

El Designo

Matt Kursmark

Larkef

Central Story

You might like… previous Weekly Inspirations

Weekly Web Design and Development Inspiration – N.22 »
Weekly Web Design and Development Inspiration – N.21 »
Weekly Web Design and Development Inspiration – N.20 »
Weekly Web Design and Development Inspiration – N.19 »
Weekly Web Design and Development Inspiration – N.18 »
Weekly Web Design and Development Inspiration Archives »

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More and more visually appealing and image heavy websites are being created, and of course we’ve got a reason – days with slow Internet speed are going to past and technologies are evolving every day! Let’s get started – shall we?

1. Art-Label.net Board Skin by DouglasEltz

2. Environment information pages by SneakyOne1990

3. Angel by miko434

4. Green Palacy Theme by DouglasEltz

5. InfoShop.com by DouglasEltz

6. Idyll Ads by miko434

7. Mecra by SencerBugrahan

8. 99studios by dot-next

9. Fenixround by DouglasEltz

10. IT Services Company by inspiredMark

11. Bonsai Collectors 2 by INSEKTart

12. Another Portfolio Layout by simiographics

13. EdgeSpan Revolution by deadlinesdesign

14. Mocha furniture by gdnz

15. 4 Sale Gaming by AndasoloARTS

16. gs.com by akenord

17. Caffeteria by Tokumoto

18. OneSize v2 by acidflow

19. KO by trunglq

20. Restaurant Asian Bistro by preet618

21. Pro web 2.0 portfolio template by jackinnes

22. Portfolio by Mac002

23. Szpital – FOR SALE by PanthereNoire92

24. Quality Furnitures by Aqib14

25. Lion Design Premium by FluidStudios

26. My first attempt at web-design by vrs85

27. Luscious by timsilva

28. Web2.0 Company Portfolio by princepal

29. Santa’s Town by Pilej

30. Photographer by arEa50oNe

31. The Web Meeting by miko434

32. Joomla Template Tutor by princepal

33. Vid by crazyclouds

34. Amazium by sergitosuanez

35. Counter Strike Evo 2.0 Design by renderworks

36. Kreativo by cheafy14

37. Oxid Eshop by Honya

38. Alexion Home Page by raven9327

39. Gaming Website by zblowfish

40. Great Business Template by mabucs

41. Balai besar 5 website by champchoel

42. Glob-Data-website by desdoc

43. Travel Inside by lewkaART

44. RJDesignz by rjoshicool

45. Layout-I Real Estate by whatnameisit

46. Gold by aadi-f

47. Cache networks by manujg

48. Expoze Media Webdesign by EXPOZE-MEDIA

49. Light Design by deadlinesdesign

50. Template 19 by nodethirtythree

51. Swiat Kwiatow by Pilej

52. Officina Digitale v3 by Svengraph

53. Pure Home by touchdesign

54. iClipeo.com by mateuszmadura

55. Folio Layout by inspiredMark

Related posts:

1. 48 Trendy And Fresh Web Interfaces From Deviantart: August 2009
2. 60 Trendy Web Design Interfaces Created In October
3. 46 Outstanding Web Layouts From DeviantArt: September 2009
4. 91 Trendy Contact And Web Forms For Creative Inspiration
5. 22 Photoshop Web Design Interface Tutorial Sites

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The best way to describe Evernote? Via their description, “Evernote makes it easy to remember things big and small from your notable life using your computer, phone, and the web.” Read on for our quick review of this great web app.

What it Does

Evernote makes it easy to capture almost any information you don’t want to lose. Anywhere on your computer, and even out in the real world, you can grab what you want to remember and throw it (proverbially) into Evernote. But how does this help you remember stuff?

Evernote does have a web app, but it is primarily a web service: it uses true cloud computing through native applications. Name your platform; Evernote probably has a presence on it. You can use Evernote in the following places:

• Windows
• Mac
• iPhone / iPod touch
• Blackberry
• Palm Pre / Pixi
• Windows Mobile
• Android
• Nokia N97 (very beta)

And of course, there’s the web interface. Therefore, armed with only a computer and a smartphone, you can use Evernote as your external brain. Let’s look at how you put stuff into Evernote and how to call it up when you need to.

The Evernote Web Interface

Overview

Capturing Data

Capturing Data

If you’re at your computer, your main source of stuff-to-remember is probably the web. Evernote has browser extensions for IE, Safari (on Mac), Firefox, and Chrome. If you’re on another browser, you can take advantage of the bookmarklet.

If you’re not on the web, you can set up keyboard shortcuts for screen or text captures. You can also drag files into your desktop client. And on a Mac, you can add an iSight photo note.

What about away from the computer? With almost all the major mobile clients, you can easily add text-, voice-, or image-notes. There’s a mobile web app that allows you to add text notes. And of course, every desktop client (and the web app), allow you to type away as well. With all these options, you shouldn’t have too much trouble getting that receipt or news article safely tucked away.

Premium users can store any type of file in Evernote. Free users can only store images, audio, and PDFs.

Organizing Data

Organizing Data

So once all that stuff is into Evernote, what do you do? Firstly, Evernote has already done a lot for you. If you’ve clipped an article from the web, it keeps the source URL. If you’ve add a note on the go with a mobile device, Evernote will use the device’s GPS to geotag the note. It does more, but you can add your own level of organization on top of the meta data.

Evernote has two sorting systems: notebooks and tags. A notebook is similar to a folder: notes can live inside it. And a tag is exactly like a tag in any other web app. The obvious difference is that a note can have multiple tags but can only be in one notebook, so you have to find the happy-medium that works for you.

Personally, I have 8 notebooks and about ~200 tags (for 1,430+ notes). Do what works for you!

When I started using Evernote, I thought it would be better to have only one notebook and organize everything with tags. Now that I have almost 1500 notes, I’m leaning more towards segregating notes with notebooks. It seems to help managing and manipulating my large collection.

Finding Your Information

Search

Search Attributes

How does storing your memorables in Evernote help you remember? Really, it doesn’t, but it makes them easy to access at any time. So how can you get to the note you want? If you know exactly what you want, you can easily search for it.

The beauty here—and one of the main features of Evernote—is that Evernote processes all the images you give it with their OCR software and indexes the text in them. Of course, those results are easily searchable. Evernote just recently added the premium feature of indexing the images within PDFs.

However, searching isn’t the only way to get to your notes. The sidebar offers filtering by attributes like what the note contains, where it came from, and when it was last modified. And of course, you can click on a tag or notebook to narrow the visible notes.

If you find yourself searching with the same terms often, you can easily save that search.

More Great Features

Sharing Information

Share

For about a year after Evernote went public, the only way you could share your notes with others was by making a public notebook. Recently, however, Evernote expanded on that: you can now share notebooks with only certain individuals, and (if your a premium member) you can allow them to modify the notebook.

Currently, sharing can only be done from the web interface. Once you click “Sharing Setup,” you can share your notebooks however you like: with the world, or with a few friends.

Share Notebooks

When viewing a shared notebook, you’ll notice that it’s pretty similar to the regular notebook layout. If you want to keep tabs on a notebook that’s been shared with you, just click “Link to my Account” near the top right corner. Then, the notebook will show up on your sharing settings panel, and in your sidebar.

Linked Notebooks

Great Community

Besides being a great web app, Evernote has a rather active community; to mingle with other Elephant lovers, you can join the FriendFeed group, follow Ron’s Evernote Tips tumblelog, check out their forums, or listen to the official Evernote Podcast.

The podcast is always a really fun listen to!

Alternatives

Although Evernote has a great feature set, you might want something more. Springpad offers great templates, as well as “apps” for turning your notes into vacation plans, weekly meal menus, and more. Zoho Notebook is an amazingly powerful online notetaker that integrates perfectly with the Zoho office suite. And if you prefer to keep your notes completely local, OneNote and Yojimbo are leaders.

Final Thoughts

I’ve been using Evernote for over a year and a half now, and I’ve found that the longer I use it, the more I use it! What makes Evernote stand out in the crowd is how they focus on letting you get what you want to remember into the system with absolute ease.

It would be nice if Evernote offered templating for notes; also, the checklist feature is really weak, and it’s something I would use a lot more if improved. Overall, their platform ubiquity, solid organization, and continually growing feature set makes this service indispensable.

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You have a MobileMe subscription and an iPhone, do you? Then you can now download a free, Apple-made app called MobileMe Gallery [iTunes link] that will let you easily browse your MobileMe photos and upload more from anywhere.

You can flip through your existing photos in typical iPhone finger-gesture fashion or take new ones with your phone and upload them to the MobileMe cloud. There’s an option to send photos both new and old to friends and colleagues via e-mail, and the app views videos, too.

You can also use MobileMe Gallery to browse friends’ photos; any friend you’re following will have a blue dot next to his or her name when he or she has uploaded new photos. Chances are you’re sharing your photos on Facebook, Flickr or TwitPic directly because not all your friends have Macs or iPhones, but the Gallery app could be helpful for keeping up with friends if you do hang with a bunch of other Mac enthusiasts.

As is the case with many other Apple products, design is prominent; there’s a sliding ticker of recent photos at the top of the app to give it some extra style. If you want to see how it works firsthand before downloading it, there’s a quick tour video over at Apple’s MobileMe product page. We can’t embed the video, sadly.

Tags: app store, apple, iphone, Mobile 2.0

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This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark.

Name: Moveidiot.com

Quick Pitch: Free, web-based service that takes the hassle out of moving by allowing users to manage entire moves online.

Genius Idea: Moveidiot.com aims to make moving less painful by letting you track your packages, organize your packing lists and coordinate tasks all from its web-based service.

Moving sucks. It is often expensive, stress-inducing and takes tons of time. Managing the little details of a move, like indexing what’s in certain boxes or keeping track of different appointments, only adds to the stress of packing and physically moving to a new place. That’s what Moveidiot.com wants to help dissipate.

At Moveidiot.com, you can manage the various organizational aspects of your move in one place. If you’re shipping stuff across the country, you can track packages from USPS, UPS and FedEx. You can also create moving labels to put on boxes and lists of what’s inside each box and where it needs to go.

Probably the most enticing feature about Moveidiot.com is the Moving Checklist, which is a to-do list that will alert you of stuff you need to do. You can also manage your moving budget, which is handy if you’re trying to decide between hiring movers or renting a truck yourself.

Moveidiot.com is entirely web-based, so you can use it from any Mac or PC, or access your stuff from your mobile phone. If you’re planning a move and need some organizational help, this free service might be worth a look.

Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark

BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

Entrepreneurs can take advantage of the Azure Services platform for their website hosting and storage needs. Microsoft recently announced the “new CloudApp()” contest – use the Azure Services Platform for hosting your .NET or PHP app, and you could be the lucky winner of a USD 5000* (please see website for official rules and guidelines).”

Tags: movieidiot.com, moving, web apps

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The Mac and iPhone development community is doing something pretty special to raise money and awareness for the victims of Tuesday’s devastating earthquake in Haiti: donating the proceeds of app sales to Haitian aid organizations.

Yesterday, Mac developer Mike Piatek-Jimenez did something really cool: He announced that through the end of January, 100 percent of the sales proceeds (minus the $3 processing fee) from his Mac OS X weather app, Seasonality, would be donated to Partners in Health for earthquake relief. Not only is the sentiment stellar, but the weather association adds a really neat twist.

This got Mac and iPhone developer Justin Williams thinking. What if a bunch of Mac and iPhone developers got together and decided to donate a day’s worth of sales to the Haitian relief efforts? He tweeted about the idea and then wrote a longer blog post. Immediately, other indie developers jumped on board with Justin’s plan.

Garret Murray volunteered to help with setting up the website and spreading the word. Right now, about 25 developers have joined the cause, and that’s just in the last 12 hours.

Indie Relief

The project is called Indie Relief and the website, IndieRelief.com, should be up later today.

Here’s how it’s going to work: On January 20, 2010 (so that’s next Wednesday), all the participating companies are pledging to donate their sales for the day to a charity of their choice that benefits the Haitian relief effort. Doctors Without Borders and The Red Cross are two of the most common charities, but the developers can choose any organization they want.

Indie Relief is going to aggregate these efforts, listing the participating companies and what products they are offering (some are going to donate the sales from all their products, some might just do it for select titles) and their charities. The companies themselves will make the donation. This is kind of like the OneFingerDiscount promotion that some devs worked together to create in lieu of doing a more traditional Mac software bundle.

If you’re a Mac or iPhone developer and you want to join in, just e-mail Justin at secondgearsoftware.com with your company name, product name(s) and the charity you want to support.

Mac Community Gives Back

It’s stuff like this that makes me so proud to be part of the Mac community. Donate to the Haitian relief effort, get a Mac or iPhone app for free. Plus, who knows, you might even discover some new software you wouldn’t have tried otherwise.

I’d also like to draw special attention to the employees at The OmniGroup, makers of such staples as OmniFocus and OmniGraffle: Between company funds and employee contributions, they are donating $45,100 to be spread across four different relief organizations. Kudos!

Do you know of any other software developers who will be donating sales proceeds to Haiti? Let us know!

Tags: Earthquake, haiti, haiti earthquake, indie relief, iphone, mac, software

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Originally posted at The Download Blog

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Method 1: Tether Android with Apps that Need Root (Free, heavy configuration)

The Android Wi-Fi Tether application turns your phone into a Wi-Fi hotspot—essentially a MiFi—in one tap. The catch? You have to gain root access to your phone, a multi-step process that uses an unofficial Android add-on which can brick your phone if applied incorrectly. Rooting Android is doable for geeks and hackers with experience soft-modding hardware, but it’s not something most users could (or should!) do.

If you’re up for getting root access in Android, the Android and Me blog runs down how to do it. It’s a multi-step process that involves unlocking your phone’s bootloader, flashing a recovery image, and flashing an add-on to the default Nexus One firmware. Not for the faint of heart, but definitely doable if you’ve ever upgraded your router’s firmware or hacked your Xbox. Here’s a video of the process from Android and Me:

The pros of this method: it’s free and it makes your phone act as a Wi-Fi hotspot that any computer can connect to without extra software or messing with your computer’s setting. The cons: you can seriously screw up your phone if something goes wrong, and you may be sacrificing over-the-air automatic Android updates in the future. (If OTA updates cease, you can always flash your recovery image—but this just means your rooted phone requires maintenance a non-rooted phone does not.)

Method 2: Tether Android with Proxoid (Free, no root required, some configuration)

If you don’t want to gain root but know enough to get around the command line and use proxy servers, the Proxoid Android app can tether your phone for free. Proxoid turns your Android device into a proxy server that your computer uses to make internet requests. Proxoid is free in the Android market, but to get it working you have to install the Android SDK or device drivers onto your computer, tweak some of the settings, and then configure your browser to use a proxy server whenever you want to tether. Here are the installation instructions.

To connect to the internet via Proxoid, on the phone you tap a button to start the proxy server. On your Mac you enter a command in the Terminal and on Windows you run a batch file to start the tunnel, then you set your web browser to use that proxy.

The pros of this method are that it’s free and you don’t need to gain root, so it’s less risky. The cons are that you’ve got to install the Android SDK (something really only developers should have to do), and set your browser to use the proxy server each time you want to tether.

Note: Proxoid is the only method I haven’t tested myself on the Nexus One. Proxoid’s documentation is a bit rough—the Mac installation instructions are second-hand, as the author doesn’t own a Mac—and there isn’t a Nexus One-specific listing. Let me know if you’re successfully using Proxoid on your N1 and what OS you’re using.

Method 3: Tether Android with PDAnet ($30, no root required, minimal configuration)

Finally, the PDAnet Android application lets you tether Android using an app on the phone plus simple software you install on your computer.

PDAnet costs $30 if you want to access https ports (which the free version blocks). To connect to the internet via the phone, you tap a button to start PDAnet on the phone, and click “Connect” in the PDAnet on your computer.

The pros of PDAnet are that it’s risk-free, easy to use, and requires minimal setup. (You do have to enable USB debugging on your phone, which is the geekiest step it involves, but that’s just a checkbox in your phone’s settings.) The cons of PDAnet is that it requires the PDAnet software on your computer and that it costs $30.

What I’m Doing

Either I’m getting old and worn-out, or Jarvis is getting to me, because right now I’m with Chris: rooting Android isn’t a process I want to go through again or have to maintain. In that spirit of laziness, I also don’t want to have to mess with proxy servers or the command line when I tether; I want to click “Connect” and get online. So, I went with PDAnet, which was the simplest but not free option of the bunch.

How are you tethering your Android device?

Smarterware is Lifehacker editor emeritus Gina Trapani’s new home away from ‘hacker. To get all of the latest from Smarterware, be sure to subscribe to the Smarterware RSS feed. For more, check out Gina’s weekly Smarterware feature here on Lifehacker.

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Lightning, the calendar add-on, and Provider, a plug-in that provides two-way syncing with Google Calendar, weren’t compatible with Thunderbird 3 when it launched. These betas are. Judging from the comments in our guide to making Thunderbird 3 an ultimate message hub, many of you were waiting on them to make the upgrade. We say to you now: have at it.

Need help getting your Google account synced up to Lightning? Adam covered it in his guide to syncing any desktop calendar with Google Calendar.

Lightning and Provider for Google are free downloads for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems. I had some compatibility trouble trying to load the extensions in a daily build of Thunderbird in Ubuntu, but others are reporting successful installations in Linux.

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Podcasting may have seen the biggest amount of new features this time around, with OPML importing, HTML information, download limiting, and update interval customization as some of the top improvements. The download limiting especially should improve performance and give you back some of your used memory if Amarok was using too much. In addition, podcasts now group better and can automatically download logos for each of your shows.

The Amarok developers threw in some fun new features, too, such as the return of custom labels and a new moodbar that lets you change the color of the progress bar to fit your current mood. Font settings are editable, lyrics are easier to tweak, and you can also filter your music by BPM. There are tons of new fixes for this release, so if you’d like to see more, check out the release notes for more information.

Amarok is a free download, for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X 10.5. Note, however, that Windows and Mac builds are not officially supported, and are “download at your own risk.”

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Mind-mapping tools are great for corralling snippets of information and brainstorming details into one place so you can see how they fit together in the big picture. If this is your first foray into the world of mind-mapping apps, you’ll find VUE easy to set up and use. (Our previous guide to mind mapping is a great resource to help you wrap your head around mind maps.)

You’ll need to register at the app’s web site for a free account before you can download the Windows, Mac, or Linux version of VUE at no cost. Once installed, you get get started right away setting up nodes containing ideas or concepts, then linking them with arrows to form relationships between them. You can also include clickable URLs, images, files, and more. Want to include videos and documents? Just drag them over and drop them on your map.

Unlike many other mind-mapping tools, VUE can go a step beyond the mind map, turning your brainstorms into slide presentations so you can share them with others. They’re laid out so viewers can walk through the information contained in your map in a way that helps them understand how the concepts are laid out. VUE has tons of features that are likely to appeal to novice and expert mind-mappers alike. Check out this demo video to get a better idea of what VUE can do for you.

VUE is a free download for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

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Bringing True Scale and Participation to Webinars

ViVu provides web-based solutions for event organizers to create, conduct, and manage large-scale high quality video events as effortlessly as they do with audio conference calls today. Viewers can participate from any platform (PC or MAC) without any proprietary downloads right from their browser. ViVu’s event platforms are easily scalable and can support large events with thousands of participants.

Our solutions deliver true participatory experience to remote viewers through high quality video, and intuitive GUI features. ViVu’s intelligence in the end points and optimal video routing in the cloud enable the high quality video experience.

Key Features:

• Enable multiple participants to take the stage (live videos on-air ).
• Multimedia presentations.
• Animated slides presentation.
• Desktop sharing.
• Transferrable presentation rights.
• Intuitive GUI for participatory experience – Auditorium view, Ask a question.
• Group or private chat.
• Polling.
• Pushing banners/ads for events.
• Screener facility.
• Video privacy.
• Push and control instruction videos (auto transcoded to different bitrates by back-end services).
• Auto bandwidth selection for host and participants user experience.
• Monitor and manage participants reception.
• Instant multimedia archive – Complete sync between video, audio, presentations, chat.
• Event analytics/reports.

http://vivu.tv/

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Here’s the official list of updates at Hexxeh’s blog, with notable improvements in the delay suffered by Broadcom-based Wi-Fi and the Chromium browser at the heart of the OS. The build still fits on a 1 GB USB drive, surprisingly, can be updated in-system from this release forward, and is offered as a BitTorrent download from Hexxeh’s site.

Wanna give ChromiumOS Zero a go on your own laptop from the safety of a USB stick? Check out Gina’s human’s guide to running Google Chrome OS, which details running a Hexxeh-based build from a thumb drive.

ChromiumOS Zero is a free download, and boots (usually) on non-Mac systems.

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Increasingly, new applications are being written as web apps, but native Cocoa applications still provide the best user experience on Mac OS X. Using Fluidium, you can wrap your existing web app in a pure, native Mac application shell and provide the best of both worlds to your demanding user base.

Fluidium is unabashedly Mac-only, and makes no cross-platform compromises. With the high quality of native Mac apps, cross-platform, least-common denominator approaches don’t cut it on OS X. Your Fluidium-based app will fit right in on OS X as a first-class Cocoa citizen.

Requirements: Mac OS X
Demo: http://fluidium.org/
License: Apache License

Sponsors

Pixmac: Stock Photos, Royalty Free Pictures and Images

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I took my sweet time trying to figure out whether or not I wanted to switch from PC to Mac and during that time I was able to do quite a bit of research on whether or not it was possible to transfer my Windows license to Mac. To be honest, I didn’t find a whole lot of information regarding this topic except for 1 inaccurate blog post on Adobe’s website that claimed that a transfer would be free – which was not the case.

Leading up to this I called Adobe to confirm some of this information. What I learned was this: I COULD NOT transfer my Windows version of CS3 to Mac CS3 but I COULD transfer my CS3 license to a CS4 license. All I would have to do is sign a document stating that I would destroy my Windows copy and never use it again, send that document to the people at Adobe, and pay them the regular upgrade price of $599. Seems easy right? Well, it was, sort of.

Once you’ve come to the realization that you are going to have to pay a lot of money to do this, your first step should be to call Adobe Sales and ask them to process your order. If you’re in the US or Canada call:

1-800-585-0774
Monday-Friday
from 5:00am to 7:00pm
Pacific Time.

Once you’ve got them on the phone. Tell them what you want to do. They will want your serial number. If you registered it, they should have it on file. Once that is done they will ask for your credit card number to place the order. Then, they will place your order on hold until you have submitted their LOD Form. To do that you will have to print it, sign it, scan it, and then email it to them by logging onto their site. At that point they will be able to process your order but in order for that to happen it will have to be approved by some one in customer service.

I don’t like to wait, so after I submitted my form, I called them to see if it was received.  They said that it was but the sales office could no longer help me so they transferred me to customer service (make sure you get the number) then you will have to speak to some one from there. They will tell you that a Senior Customer Service agent will need to approve the request and that it will take a few days to do. Don’t take their word for it. Do your best to push the order along. Remember, you’re paying them $599. They should be in a hurry to do this.

Eventually my order went through. I received an email telling me my order had been processed and another email telling me that my order had been shipped. Once that happened, I received my copy within 2 days. To make your version of Adobe CS4 for Mac work they will send you a full-version of the software, not an upgrade. That is why they make you jump through so many hoops.

In all, I was pretty happy with the process. It did take a while to make the calls and fill out the forms but it was worth the $1200 I saved by upgrading instead of buying a new copy. Anyhow, I hope this article has helped put any of you potential Mac users at ease. Good luck and have fun with your new computer and software!

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3D is a very large field in the computer graphic industry. Actually, it has its own empire inside computer graphic. 3D has alot of specializations and fields that is concern with every topic related to create a 3D content such as modeling, light, texturing and rendering…etc.

The 3D industry has alot of 3D tools and applications that vary depending on its usage and focus. For example, you can find tools that only specialized in modeling and other tools that can help you create a complete 3D project but you need to depend on other tools to finalize it.

The following is a collection of some of the most popular 3D design packages, for both Mac and Windows operating systems. Most of these programs are very complicated for the beginner and also very expensive. However, it is a good idea to think for the best software to start with and read reviews from different experts about it before taking the decision to purchase it.

3D Studio Max

It’s a tool of choice for quickly generating realistic characters, seamless CG effects,
jaw-dropping games, and top-quality film and television content. Enhanced toolsets
enable you to create your 3D environment the way you want, manage complex scenes,
and take advantage of improved software interoperability and pipeline-integration support.

SoftImage

Softimage is a 3D modeling, animation, rendering, and compositing solution optimized
for artist efficiency. The Autodesk Softimage 2010 release boasts accelerated performance,
greater data handling, the Autodesk Face Robot facial animation toolset,
as well as new tools to help manage scene complexity.

Maya

Autodesk Maya 2010 software is the first release to unify the Autodesk Maya Complete 2009
and Autodesk Maya Unlimited 2009 feature sets, advanced matchmoving capabilities,
and high dynamic range compositing into a single affordable package. Also included for a
complete CG workflow are 5 additional mental ray for Maya batch rendering nodes and the
Autodesk Backburner network render queue manager.

LightWave 3D

LightWave is a complete modeling, rendering and animation system. Used extensively in
broadcast television production, film visual effects, video game development, print graphics
and visualization, LightWave is responsible for more artists winning Emmy Awards than
any other 3D application.

Cinema 4D

CINEMA 4D’s intuitive interface and logical workflow make it possible for those new to 3D
artistry to dive in and be productive quickly. CINEMA 4D’s state-of-the-art architecture
means it is always the first to benefit from new technologies and advancements For those
artists whose work demands more than the basic application, MAXON provides numerous
seamlessly-integrated modules.

Poser

Professional 3D Figure Design & Animation software. Poser Pro offers quickly animating with
pre-rigged characters inside of host applications such as Autodesk’s 3ds Max and Maya,
and Maxon’s CINEMA 4D. And professional-level application integration as well as a 64-Bit
render engine and network rendering support. The industry standard COLLADA data exchange
format combined with content built specifically for Poser Pro.

Zbrush

ZBrush is a digital sculpting and painting program that has revolutionized the 3D industry
with its powerful features and intuitive workflows. Built within an elegant interface, ZBrush
offers the world’s most advanced tools for today’s digital artists. With an arsenal of features
that have been developed with usability in mind, ZBrush creates a user experience that
feels incredibly natural while simultaneously inspiring the artist within. With the ability to
sculpt up to a billion polygons, ZBrush allows you to create limited only by your imagination.

mudbox

Digital sculpting and texture painting software gives modelers and texture artists the
freedom to create 3D digital artwork as if they are working with clay and paint. Designed
by professional artists in the game, film, television, and design industries, Mudbox combines
a highly intuitive user interface with a powerful creative toolset of stencils and brushes to
help create ultra-realistic 3D characters, engaging environments, stylized props, and more.

Houdini

Houdini is a powerful 3D modeling and animation application used by professional 3D artists
from around the world. Using a production-proven node-based architecture, Houdini makes
it easy for artists to generate high-quality art that is easy to update as the needs of your
project evolves. Houdini now supports export of models and animations to .dts for use in
Torque Game Engine (TGE) or Torque Game Engine Advanced (TGEA).

RealFlow

RealFlow is a ground-breaking, state-of-the-art fluids and dynamics simulation tool, developed
by Next Limit Technologies for the simulation of fluids, water surfaces, rigid bodies, soft bodies
and fibres. The elements of the simulation use physical properties to control their behavior and
can interact with each other and react according to impulses, forces and accelerations.

Massive

Massive is the premier simulation and visualization solution system for generating and visualizing
realistic crowd behaviors and autonomous agent driven animation for a variety of industries,
including film, games, television, architecture, transportation, engineering, and robotics. Using
Massive, an animator, engineer or robot developer designs characters with a set of actions and
reactions to what is going on around them.

Vue

Vue 8 Infinite offers an all-around combination of unequaled scenery creation power, advanced
rendering & full-featured animation tools. Render your projects in rich, natural environments, with
hyper-realistic atmospheres and lighting. Vue 8 xStream environments seamlessly blend with your
3DS Max, Maya, Softimage, LightWave or Cinema 4D scenes and animations. Access the power
of the world’s leading 3D scenery technology directly from within your favorite application!

Blender

Blender is the free open source 3D content creation suite, has a relatively small installation size
available for all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License. Blender’s features
include advanced simulation tools such as rigid body, fluid, cloth and softbody dynamics, modifier
based modeling tools, powerful character animation tools, a node based material and compositing
system and Python for embedded scripting.

Google SketchUp

Google SketchUp Pro 7 is a suite of powerful features and applications for streamlining your
professional 3D workflow. Includes: SketchUp Pro 7: Create, modify and share 3D models.
LayOut 2: Create professional documents and presentations.  Style Builder: Create custom,
sketchy-edge display Styles for SketchUp.  Build models and add them to the 3D Buildings
layer in Google Earth and Google 3D Warehouse – A searchable, online repository of 3D
models where you can find anything you need and share your models with the world.

Modo

Modo delivers the next evolution of 3D modeling, painting and rendering in a single integrated
and accelerated package for the Mac and PC. And now, modo is a true end-to-end solution
that includes true 3D sculpting tools, animation and network rendering! More than just features,
modo is a truly elegant integration of technology, raw horsepower and refined workflow.

Daz3D

DAZ Studio is a free, feature rich 3D figure design and 3D animation tool that enables anyone
to create stunning digital imagery. This is the perfect tool to design unique digital art and
animation using virtual people, animals, props, vehicles, accessories, environments and more.
Simply select your subject and/or setting, arrange accessories, setup lighting, and begin
creating beautiful artwork.

Swift 3D

Swift 3D is the only 3D software to directly integrate with Flash through the Swift 3D File
Importer and SmartLayer Technology and exports to Microsoft XAML. Swift 3D’s toolset
and interface allow anyone to quickly create 3D content, while providing a full set of
advanced tools to grow into. Swift 3D is a powerful, easy-to-use 3D solution that delivers
high-quality results for an unbeatable price.

Bryce 3D

Make your scenes more realistic by combining imported animations with your Bryce 6 scenes
to create seamless productions of environments populated with human figures, animals and
other characters. Bryce 6 is the ideal 3D software addition to your image editing toolbox.
Now it is easier than ever to add artwork created in Bryce in conjunction with common image
editing programs to merge photos and 3D artwork for an unlimited degree of creativity.

Strata 3D

Strata, the company adding the power of 3D to the designer’s toolset, today released Strata
Foto 3D CX 2. This new version of Foto 3D makes it even easier to create 3D models from
photographs, allowing the use of image sets taken from video as well as still images. Foto 3D’s
patented technology has revolutionized model creation of real-world objects and version 2
takes this technology to another level.

Form Z

Form·Z is an award winning general purpose solid and surface modeler with an extensive set of
2D/3D form manipulating and sculpting capabilities, many of which are unique. It is an effective
design tool for architects, landscape architects, urban designers, engineers, animators and
illustrators, industrial and interior designers, and all design fields that deal with the articulation
of 3D spaces and forms.

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Photo by jonasj.

Earlier this week we asked you to share your favorite DVD-ripping tool. We tallied up the votes, and now we’re back to highlight the five most popular tools used by Lifehacker readers to rip, backup, and encode their DVD collections.

DVD Shrink (Windows, Free)

DVD Shrink is a free and capable ripping tool that excels at, as the name would imply, shrinking DVDs. DVDs come in two common formats: DVD-5 (4.7GB) and DVD-9 (8.5GB); the Reauthor mode in DVD Shrink helps you to ditch disc extras and strip most larger DVDs down to fit into a standard (and less expensive) DVD-5 disc. DVD Shrink does a good job handling many protection schemes, but hasn’t been updated to remove some of the newest schemes.

DVD Fab (Windows, $50)

DVD Fab is a commercial DVD ripper that supports the removal of all current DVD copy protections. In addition to being current on protection schemes, it boasts a large array of options for stripping and repacking your DVDs once the copy protection is removed. You can rip the entire disc, rip only the main movie, or split it into pieces—among other options. Like DVD Shrink, DVD Fab also supports compressing DVD-9 discs to fit on DVD-5 discs.

Handbrake (Windows/Mac/Linux, Free)

Handbrake is a DVD-ripping tool with a strong emphasis on not just ripping media but recoding it for playback on computers, portable devices, and other non-disc based systems. Handbrake can help you convert DVDs and other MPEG-based video into MP4 and MKV files. You can tweak settings like video frame rate and audio codec playback to your heart’s content with Handbrake, and even batch encode all your media at one time to make filling up your iPod or other device relatively painless. The one major shortcoming of Handbrake is that it doesn’t have any copy protection removal tools built in, which means you may occasionally need to use a 3rd-party stripping tool to prepare your DVD for conversion.

AnyDVD (Windows, $60 per year)

AnyDVD is another commercial entry in this week’s Hive Five. It’s not cheap, with a one year license running $60—although the multi-year discounts quickly stack up—but it can boast that it stays on top of current protection and encryption schemes to makes sure you’re never locked out of your own discs. In addition to stripping protections from the disc, it also has the ability to control DVD playback speed so that DVDs played on media center computers will play slower and quieter, and it allows you to remove things like forced subtitles, warning screens, and disc material you don’t want.

DVD Decrypter (Windows, Free)

Although DVD Decrypter hasn’t been updated since 2005, it still works on a significant number of DVDs and has a strong following resulting from both its original user base and new users who find it cuts through the copy protection on their current DVDs protected with CSS, Macrovision content protection, region codes, and other hindrances.

Which DVD-Ripping Tool Is Best?(trends)

Have a favorite that wasn’t featured or a tip for ripping DVDs? Let’s hear about it in the comments. If you have an idea for a future Hive Five send us an email at tips @ lifehacker.com with “Hive Five” in the subject line.

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3D is a very large field in the computer graphic industry. Actually, it has its own empire inside computer graphic. 3D has alot of specializations and fields that is concern with every topic related to create a 3D content such as modeling, light, texturing and rendering…etc.

The 3D industry has alot of 3D tools and applications that vary depending on its usage and focus. For example, you can find tools that only specialized in modeling and other tools that can help you create a complete 3D project but you need to depend on other tools to finalize it.

The following is a collection of some of the most popular 3D design packages, for both Mac and Windows operating systems. Most of these programs are very complicated for the beginner and also very expensive. However, it is a good idea to think for the best software to start with and read reviews from different experts about it before taking the decision to purchase it.

3D Studio Max

It’s a tool of choice for quickly generating realistic characters, seamless CG effects,
jaw-dropping games, and top-quality film and television content. Enhanced toolsets
enable you to create your 3D environment the way you want, manage complex scenes,
and take advantage of improved software interoperability and pipeline-integration support.

SoftImage

Softimage is a 3D modeling, animation, rendering, and compositing solution optimized
for artist efficiency. The Autodesk Softimage 2010 release boasts accelerated performance,
greater data handling, the Autodesk Face Robot facial animation toolset,
as well as new tools to help manage scene complexity.

Maya

Autodesk Maya 2010 software is the first release to unify the Autodesk Maya Complete 2009
and Autodesk Maya Unlimited 2009 feature sets, advanced matchmoving capabilities,
and high dynamic range compositing into a single affordable package. Also included for a
complete CG workflow are 5 additional mental ray for Maya batch rendering nodes and the
Autodesk Backburner network render queue manager.

LightWave 3D

LightWave is a complete modeling, rendering and animation system. Used extensively in
broadcast television production, film visual effects, video game development, print graphics
and visualization, LightWave is responsible for more artists winning Emmy Awards than
any other 3D application.

Cinema 4D

CINEMA 4D’s intuitive interface and logical workflow make it possible for those new to 3D
artistry to dive in and be productive quickly. CINEMA 4D’s state-of-the-art architecture
means it is always the first to benefit from new technologies and advancements For those
artists whose work demands more than the basic application, MAXON provides numerous
seamlessly-integrated modules.

Poser

Professional 3D Figure Design & Animation software. Poser Pro offers quickly animating with
pre-rigged characters inside of host applications such as Autodesk’s 3ds Max and Maya,
and Maxon’s CINEMA 4D. And professional-level application integration as well as a 64-Bit
render engine and network rendering support. The industry standard COLLADA data exchange
format combined with content built specifically for Poser Pro.

Zbrush

ZBrush is a digital sculpting and painting program that has revolutionized the 3D industry
with its powerful features and intuitive workflows. Built within an elegant interface, ZBrush
offers the world’s most advanced tools for today’s digital artists. With an arsenal of features
that have been developed with usability in mind, ZBrush creates a user experience that
feels incredibly natural while simultaneously inspiring the artist within. With the ability to
sculpt up to a billion polygons, ZBrush allows you to create limited only by your imagination.

mudbox

Digital sculpting and texture painting software gives modelers and texture artists the
freedom to create 3D digital artwork as if they are working with clay and paint. Designed
by professional artists in the game, film, television, and design industries, Mudbox combines
a highly intuitive user interface with a powerful creative toolset of stencils and brushes to
help create ultra-realistic 3D characters, engaging environments, stylized props, and more.

Houdini

Houdini is a powerful 3D modeling and animation application used by professional 3D artists
from around the world. Using a production-proven node-based architecture, Houdini makes
it easy for artists to generate high-quality art that is easy to update as the needs of your
project evolves. Houdini now supports export of models and animations to .dts for use in
Torque Game Engine (TGE) or Torque Game Engine Advanced (TGEA).

RealFlow

RealFlow is a ground-breaking, state-of-the-art fluids and dynamics simulation tool, developed
by Next Limit Technologies for the simulation of fluids, water surfaces, rigid bodies, soft bodies
and fibres. The elements of the simulation use physical properties to control their behavior and
can interact with each other and react according to impulses, forces and accelerations.

Massive

Massive is the premier simulation and visualization solution system for generating and visualizing
realistic crowd behaviors and autonomous agent driven animation for a variety of industries,
including film, games, television, architecture, transportation, engineering, and robotics. Using
Massive, an animator, engineer or robot developer designs characters with a set of actions and
reactions to what is going on around them.

Vue

Vue 8 Infinite offers an all-around combination of unequaled scenery creation power, advanced
rendering & full-featured animation tools. Render your projects in rich, natural environments, with
hyper-realistic atmospheres and lighting. Vue 8 xStream environments seamlessly blend with your
3DS Max, Maya, Softimage, LightWave or Cinema 4D scenes and animations. Access the power
of the world’s leading 3D scenery technology directly from within your favorite application!

Blender

Blender is the free open source 3D content creation suite, has a relatively small installation size
available for all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License. Blender’s features
include advanced simulation tools such as rigid body, fluid, cloth and softbody dynamics, modifier
based modeling tools, powerful character animation tools, a node based material and compositing
system and Python for embedded scripting.

Google SketchUp

Google SketchUp Pro 7 is a suite of powerful features and applications for streamlining your
professional 3D workflow. Includes: SketchUp Pro 7: Create, modify and share 3D models.
LayOut 2: Create professional documents and presentations.  Style Builder: Create custom,
sketchy-edge display Styles for SketchUp.  Build models and add them to the 3D Buildings
layer in Google Earth and Google 3D Warehouse – A searchable, online repository of 3D
models where you can find anything you need and share your models with the world.

Modo

Modo delivers the next evolution of 3D modeling, painting and rendering in a single integrated
and accelerated package for the Mac and PC. And now, modo is a true end-to-end solution
that includes true 3D sculpting tools, animation and network rendering! More than just features,
modo is a truly elegant integration of technology, raw horsepower and refined workflow.

Daz3D

DAZ Studio is a free, feature rich 3D figure design and 3D animation tool that enables anyone
to create stunning digital imagery. This is the perfect tool to design unique digital art and
animation using virtual people, animals, props, vehicles, accessories, environments and more.
Simply select your subject and/or setting, arrange accessories, setup lighting, and begin
creating beautiful artwork.

Swift 3D

Swift 3D is the only 3D software to directly integrate with Flash through the Swift 3D File
Importer and SmartLayer Technology and exports to Microsoft XAML. Swift 3D’s toolset
and interface allow anyone to quickly create 3D content, while providing a full set of
advanced tools to grow into. Swift 3D is a powerful, easy-to-use 3D solution that delivers
high-quality results for an unbeatable price.

Bryce 3D

Make your scenes more realistic by combining imported animations with your Bryce 6 scenes
to create seamless productions of environments populated with human figures, animals and
other characters. Bryce 6 is the ideal 3D software addition to your image editing toolbox.
Now it is easier than ever to add artwork created in Bryce in conjunction with common image
editing programs to merge photos and 3D artwork for an unlimited degree of creativity.

Strata 3D

Strata, the company adding the power of 3D to the designer’s toolset, today released Strata
Foto 3D CX 2. This new version of Foto 3D makes it even easier to create 3D models from
photographs, allowing the use of image sets taken from video as well as still images. Foto 3D’s
patented technology has revolutionized model creation of real-world objects and version 2
takes this technology to another level.

Form Z

Form·Z is an award winning general purpose solid and surface modeler with an extensive set of
2D/3D form manipulating and sculpting capabilities, many of which are unique. It is an effective
design tool for architects, landscape architects, urban designers, engineers, animators and
illustrators, industrial and interior designers, and all design fields that deal with the articulation
of 3D spaces and forms.

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If you want to share more fantastic examples of Graffiti art so please comment about them below. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at  smashingApps.com just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter and do not forget to become our fan on facebook as well. Click on the images to go from where the images has been taken and learn more about their creators and to appreciate them.

Graffiti art Amsterdam 5 by Shiratski

Grafiti, Granada, España 47

Is that with fries by PaulGreen

P3180328-graffitis by pelz

I am your father by sensesmaybenumbed

Cassarate 2007 by Never Crew

Graffiti by Scatti di memoria

Grafiti, Jaen, España 1 by bit ramone

Disaster by jakedobkin

Elmac & Retna on Western by Lord Jim

Retna Saber Revok SeventhLetter AWR by anarchosyn

Graffiti Outside The Treforest Tin Works by Stuart Herbert

some more Graffiti? by endraum

Graffiti C by Newfie Bullet

by generodz

Sex – Grafiti, Granada, España 49 by Bit ramone

Tate Modern: Street Art by Bill McIntyre

Avispa by Tretze

Nadie|boca|treze|pixelpancho|dulk|shana by Tretze

by blacklodge

Snake and ladder (staircase) in Montreal by Cedric Sam

En mi casa by danuno

Old Street Grafitti by stryker66

Grafitti Wall by theshadman

Banksy street art by scottroberts

Pavement art, Freo Street Arts Festival by azza-bazoo

Fafi @ Paris by yoyolabellut

Collective Graffiti, Chiado, Lisbon by Graffiti Land

Grafiti – granada 21 by bit ramone (off)

Polígono 12 by bit ramone

by Skio by oeildetat

PENO by JOHN19701970

Mac and Retna by Chele In LA

Town hick by a_sandra

Seventh Letter Crew by Fire Monkey Fish

DSC02586 by g-1000

Nesk freistil by chiquan

Halo Mural by chrispwalsh

AMERSFOORT: STREETART AMERSFOORT: STREETART

Grafiti – granada 22 by bit ramone (off)

My character & Böki by mrzero

Character by mrzero

Snort by What What

Dolk – Banana Therapy by imagesniper

character by mrzero

Swarm by Today is a good day

V For … by m4r00n3d

Graffiti 3 by Jam Adams

Xnos by bit Ramone

Kofie & Axis LosAngeles Graffiti Art by anarchosyn

IMG_0114 by g-1000

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I love coming across a plugin or script I haven’t used before that really solves a problem for me. I figure if I get frustrated with something in Illustrator, there is probably someone else out there that has the same problem. A recent frustration of mine was selecting Effects in Illustrator. Luckily I stumbled across the Select Effects Plugin from Worker 72a.

The Problem

I use Adobe Illustrator Effects and other plugin effects with Illustrator extensively. I probably use a set of effects from the Phantasm CS plugin the most. I use the color editing capabilities of Phantasm CS on almost every illustration I create. When I have an Illustrator document with many paths and objects, I sometimes forget what object I have applied an effect to. This can become frustrating when sending a file to print or delivering the file to someone who doesn’t have the plugins and effects you used to create the piece. Then it is a laborious task to find each individual object with an effect to expand. That is where the Select Effects Plugin comes in handy.

Select Effects Plugin Details

• Creator: Worker 72a
• Price: Single User License(s) $25.00 / Site License $250.00
• Platform: Mac only (sorry Windows!)
• Illustrator Compatibility: CS, CS2, CS3, CS4

Basically the plugin adds several selection options to the Select Menu. Once installed you can see it adds the function to select objects that may cause problems when printing or flattening, including:

• Effects
• Blend Modes other than “Normal”
• Opacity settings less than 100%
• Raster images with alpha (transparency) channel
• Art with Opacity Mask
• All of the above at once

In the example below I created a set of icons for stock art and applied some Hue and Saturation adjustments with the Phantasm CS plugin to some of the objects. After I was done, I would have had to go through all the objects to find where the effect was applied, then expand them. With the Select Effects Plugin, I just simply go Select > Object > Select Transparency & Effects > Effects then expand the color adjustments. Awesome!

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• WineBottler Turns Windows Programs into Standalone OS X Applications (Mac)
  Mac only: Wine has always been popular among Linux users for running Windows programs, but Wine is available for Mac, too-and now, free utility WineBottler can “bottle” Windows programs into separate application bundles that run as standalone Mac apps.
• Driver Magician Free Today Only, Normally $30 (Windows)
  Windows: Keeping all your data backed up is a smart move, but what about the device drivers that are sometimes hard to pin down after a re-install? Driver Magician, a free download today, backs up and restores your Windows drivers.
• Boxee Beta Officially Available for All Platforms (Windows/Mac/Linux/Apple TV)
  Windows/Mac/Linux/Apple TV: Boxee-the XBMC media center spin-off that took web video by storm-has just released its first public beta into the wild. The new release comes with a new look, improved features, and a few new tricks up its sleeve.
• Sleep Cycle Analyzes Your Sleep Patterns for a Better Wake-Up (iPhone/iPod touch)
  iPhone only: Getting jolted awake by your alarm in the middle of a great dream is a drag. The Sleep Cycle app watches your slumbers and wakes you when you’re lightly dozing, instead of right before you win the lottery.
• Enna is an Attractive Linux Media Center Application (Linux)
  Linux only: Previously mentioned media center GeeXboX has finally released a stable version of their new interface, called Enna. Used with GeeXboX or as a standalone application, it handles all your music, photos, videos, and even ebooks-with style.
• Digital Janitor Automatically Tidies Up Your Windows Folders (Windows)
  Windows only: Organizing the eleventy-billion files you’ve got stuffed into folders on your hard drive is about as much fun as watching cheese go moldy. Freeware utility Digital Janitor automatically sorts your files by type and puts them where you want them.
• Firefox 3.5.7 Update Addresses Stability Issue, Tweaks How Updates Work (Windows/Mac/Linux)
  Firefox users, expect your browser to prompt you with a minor update sometime in the next day or so; Mozilla has just released Firefox 3.5.7, a tiny update addressing a common stability issue and changing the way major updates are presented to users.
• Skype 4.2 Beta Makes HD-Quality Video Calls (Windows)
  For some head-scratching reason, Skype didn’t mention a major upgrade to its recent Windows beta when it dropped in early December. That would be the ability to make 720p, HD-quality video calls if your video hardware supports it.
• Chrome Dev Channel Updates for All Platforms, Adds Extension Support for Macs (Windows/Mac/Linux)
  Windows/Mac/Linux: If you’re living life on the bleeding edge of Google’s Chrome browser, good news: Google just pushed out an update to the dev channel, improving HTML5 audio and video for all platforms, bringing extension and bookmark sync to Macs, and more.
• Facebook for iPhone Gets Push Notifications, Contact Sync (iPhone/iPod touch)
  iPhone: If you’re a Facebook user who also happens to own an iPhone, the social network’s iPhone app is one of the best out there, and today it got a little better, adding push notifications and contact syncing to your Address Book.

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Firefox 3.6 has been a much-delayed release, but the release candidate means that the final release is just around the corner. The Firefox 3.6 release comes packed with Personas built-in (the no-restart theming functionality), better tools to keep plug-ins up to date, improved performance, and improvements for HTML5. (Speaking of, here’s HTML5 will change the way you use the web.)

Update: If you are using the about:config hack to change extension compatibility, it’s going to break with the new version, but we have you covered with the tip to make your extensions work with Firefox 3.6.

Firefox 3.6 RC1 is a free download for early adopters, works on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

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RGBMusicLab is a portable application, available for Windows or Mac, that takes the RGB color values of an image and converts them, based on intensity, into sound. You have a high degree of control over the output of RGBMusicLab. You can adjust the size of the mosaic it creates for pieces of greater or lesser complexity, select from over a hundred instruments and sound effects that the Red, Green, and Blue color values will be represented by, and whether or not the individual color channels will play independently or harmonize, among other options.

The results won’t be a carefully orchestrated concerto, but we certainly had fun loading different types of photos into RGBMusicLab and seeing what the outcome was—Christina Hendrick’s photo, seen above, created a dynamic Broadway-musical-esque number and a photo of a tropical beach yielded a piece that started off fast and furious and then slowed to soothing melody. RGBMusicLab is freeware and available for Windows and Mac OS X.

Have a novel tool for turning one media into another? Created a particularly interesting piece with RGBMusic Lab? Let’s hear about it in the comments.

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• The Best Times to Buy Anything, All Year Round
  You’re always hearing about off-season, post-peak times to save money on purchases and food, but it always arrives too late. We’ve compiled a timeline and lots of best-time-to-buy suggestions into one post to help you plan a more frugal 2010.
• Current Crop of Smartphones: A Cost and Feature Comparison
  Cost-comparison web site BillShrink hits it out of the park with a handy infographic comparing the cost and features of the current generation of smartphones: the Nexus One, the Palm Pre, the Motorola Droid, and the iPhone 3GS.
• Resolved: Keep Your PC Clean, Safe, and Backed Up in 2010
  It’s the start of a new decade, and while you’re busy making resolutions for yourself, you shouldn’t forget about your PC. We suggest making a resolution to keep your PC clean, safe, and backed up for 2010.
• Use Better Tools to Be a Better Student in 2010
  Despite the proliferation of laptops and netbooks, the vast majority of students still use their computers like $500 typewriters. Stop working so hard and be a better student by leveraging some clever computer tools to your advantage.
• Top 10 Mind Hacks for Making Your Resolutions Stick
  Nothing but the strength of your convictions can keep a self-improvement promise going for at least 365 days. You can, however, boost your chance at success and outwit your worst habits with some motivational devices and clever thinking.
• WineBottler Turns Windows Programs into Standalone OS X Applications
  Mac only: Wine has always been popular among Linux users for running Windows programs, but Wine is available for Mac, too—and now, free utility WineBottler can “bottle” Windows programs into separate application bundles that run as standalone Mac apps.
• What’s the Best Way to Share Files Across Multiple Home Computers?
  Dear Lifehacker, We’re a large family with several computers in our home. What’s the best way to share files across our home network rather than putting them on thumb drives and running from PC to PC?
• How a $530 Nexus One Might Actually Make Sense
  You’ve probably heard about Google’s Nexus One launch today, with a cost of $180 with a two-year T-Mobile contract and—wait, $530 without? Actually, that math might make sense, as blogger Ben Ferguson shows in his cost breakdown.
• Web 2.0 Suicide Machine Offs Your Online Identity
  Sure, joining Twitter and Facebook seemed like a good idea at the time, but maybe you’ve changed your mind and want your life back. Web 2.0 Suicide Machine erases your persona like you were never there.
• How to Survive a Job That Makes You Miserable
  The economy being it what it is, jobs aren’t exactly growing on trees. If you’re stuck in one you hate, here are a few ideas to make it bearable until something better comes along.

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Signed,
Tired in Tacoma

Photo by Tallent Show.

Dear Tired,

You’re right to be concerned about shutting down your computer at night—it’s a huge energy drain, otherwise. Leaving it on overnight once or twice isn’t a big deal, but over the course of several weeks and months it can have a significant impact on your electricity bill.

The good news: You’ve got lots of options for making sure your machine shuts down at night, even if you’ve already gone to bed. Windows, Mac OS X, and some Linux operating systems come with an auto-shut down feature baked right in, but there are plenty of free, feature-packed after market utilities you can try, so let’s start with those first.

Previously mentioned Smart Shutdown for Windows gives you lots of options before turning off your computer for the evening. Set it to complete certain tasks like emptying the Recycle Bin or close all your apps before turning off your machine, then decide how long you want your computer to be idle before Smart Shutdown leaps into action. If you’re a Mac user, then iWannaSleep will do the same thing for you. Linux users can turn to previously mentioned Auto Shutdown for Firefox.

Some apps you may already have on your computer do double duty—they’ll complete a task while you’re off doing other things and shut down your system when they’re done. Many popular BitTorrent apps, for instance, can do that for you, as can the computer maintenance app CCleaner.

Want to skip fancy software and just stick with your operating system’s native functionality for automatically shutting down your computer? Go for it! Mac users need to dip into System Preferences and set up the Energy Saver option to shut down the system at an appointed time. It’ll even wake it up again if you’d like.

The Spinning Donut has a great little tutorial on scheduling and automatic system shutdown on Windows XP and Vista. nixCraft explains how a couple of simple command line tweaks get the job done on your Linux box.

Still on the fence about whether you even need to shut down your computer every night? Read up on the subject and decide for yourself.

Love,
Lifehacker

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In order to play audio through your AirPort Express, you’ll need RaopX and inter-application audio router Soundflower. After installing both, all you need to do is go to Sound in System Preferences and change your default input and output to “Soundflower (2ch)” and start up RaopX in a Terminal session (just launch Terminal [Utilities -> Terminal], type in RaopX, and hit Enter). RaopX will build a 9 second buffer and then stream all audio from your computer to any speaker connected to an AirPort Express.

It’s certainly not as easy as picking “AirTunes” from a drop-down menu, but it’s hard to complain when you can finally stream Pandora, Mixtape.me, or your other favorite non-iTunes media player to AirTunes. Note: RaopX does not currently support Apple TV or iTunes Speaker Passwords.

RaopX is a free download, Mac only.

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