Lifehacker's Mobile Site Revamped [Announcements]
Just pushed an update to Lifehacker's mobile site at m.lifehacker.com—mobile users on the Blackberry, iPhone, and other handsets get automatically redirected there; click the "classic Lifehacker" link to see the full-on browser version on your phone. Suggestions, thoughts, feedback? Post it in the comments here.
Plex 7 Adds iTunes and iPhoto Support and More [Featured Mac Download]
Mac OS X only: The latest version of the free Plex Media Center for Mac now includes iTunes and iPhoto support, iTunes visualizations, TV theme music, and the ability to play songs you've purchased from the iTunes Store. This tight iTunes/iPhoto integration comes in part from the Plex Media Server, which makes your songs and photos show up inside Plex while running in parallel. The Plex developer explains:
The Plex Media Server is a standalone program that runs alongside Plex (or alone on any machine, it's a Universal Binary). It serves up media from your iLife applications (iTunes and iPhoto today, Aperture and Lightroom shortly). Plex communicates with the Plex Media Server on the local machine, on your local network, or even across the world over the Internet. This means that you can play your friends' iTunes playlists or browse their podcasts or photo albums.
The Plex Media Center is a fork of the XBMC project, which also offers a Mac version. In fact, XBMC Atlantis' Mac version also includes iTunes and iPhoto support; compare our Plex screenshot tour to the Atlantis tour to see the differences between the two projects, which share the same code base. Plex is a free download for Intel Macs running Leopard only.
iTunes 8.0.2 Adds Screen Reader Support [ITunes]
Along with the release of the iPhone 2.2 software, Apple also drops a new iTunes update to version 8.0.2, which includes bug fixes and integration with VoiceOver (Mac) and Window-Eyes (Windows), screen reader utilities for increased accessibility. Hit Check for Updates from the iTunes menu to download it.
Spicebird 0.7 Beta Adds Google Gadgets and Instant Messaging [Featured Download]
Windows and Linux only: A new release of the open-source, all-in-one email, calendar, and task manager Spicebird is now available for download. Kevin took you on a tour of Spicebird 0.4 back in January, but the new version 0.7 adds features and fixes. Notably, 0.7 got support for Google gadgets on the home screen, revamped instant messaging capabilities, Google Calendar support, and experimental blogging capabilities—see the full release notes for details. The Spicebird 0.7 release is a free download for Windows and Linux. Thanks, Asian Angel!
360 Cities Panoramas in Google Earth [3D]
Prague-based virtual panorama company 360 Cities is offering its entire collection of nearly 10,000 spherical images on Google Earth. Head to the "Featured Preview" layer in the 3D tool to enable 360 Cities, then just click to scan around and gawk. [via]
iPhone 2.2 Firmware Update Now Available [IPhone]
The long-awaited 2.2 firmware updates for iPhones and iPod touch models hit iTunes at midnight last night, pushing a good deal of new features and long-awaited fixes to the mobile devices. We've already detailed some of the major new features already: Street View with walking/transit directions in Google Maps (iPhones only, unfortunately) and "emoji" face emoticons, over-the-air podcast downloading, and, while not really a feature, it's expected that 2.2 will be jailbroken before you know it. There's a good number of interface and usability improvements too, like improved HTML email formatting and location sharing, stability and menu bar tweaks to Safari, and a few other punch-list items. I'm downloading my 240MB-ish iPod update just fine this morning; tell us your impressions of 2.2 in the comments.
[Sponsored]
Spice up Your Desktop With Lightweight Wallpaper Shifter [Featured Windows Download]
Windows only: Wallpaper Shifter is a lightweight wallpaper randomizer. The installation is 8.11MB which by portable-application standards isn't super light, but the system resources consumed by Walllpaper Shifter are extremely lightweight.
Wallpaper Shifter is a little program that starts when you login to Windows and picks a random wallpaper from your list. Depending on the wallpaper width and height, it can automagically scale it for you to fit your desktop without deforming it's proportions. It does not remain running in the background so no system resources are used.
If you need a more complex wallpaper changer that will stay active during your Window session, check out John's Background Switcher. Wallpaper Shifter is freeware, Windows only.
Q-Dir Explores Files with Multiple Panes and Custom Views [Featured Windows Download]
Windows only: Free file browser Q-Dir makes for a good USB drive app or installed replacement for Windows Explorer for those who do a serious amount of file swapping, or just like to be able to keep multiple folder views open at once. The app—which installs by default, but can run by itself after renaming it "Q-Dir.exe"—offers a customizable number of panes, though the default four-square is a pretty good starting point. You can save any view you like to a favorite button, along with adding shortcuts to frequently-accessed folders. There's also a quick-filter box in the lower-right for easy sorting and finding, and if you use Q-Dir regularly, you'll be glad it keeps your right-click shell extensions and offers its own "*Q-Dir" launch option on right-clicking a folder. Q-Dir is a free download for Windows systems only. Only need two panes? We're also big fans of replacing Explorer with Xplorer2.
Get One Year of PC Magazine Free [Magazines]
Publisher Ziff Davis has printed the last edition of PC Magazine and announced it would go online-only, but fans can get a free one-year "subscription" emailed to them every month at GoReadGreen.com, along with a few other mag titles. [via]
OrbLive Apps Stream Media and TV to Your iPhone [Featured IPhone Download]
iPhone/iPod touch only: Streaming media server Orb has released free and $9.99 versions of an app that lets you watch videos, listen to music, check documents and even stream live or recorded TV to your iPhone or iPod touch. Like other combinations that use Orb's Windows-only (for now) software at their core, connection speeds and lag vary depending on the two sides of the connection, but streaming video to my iPod touch was decent enough, if a tiny bit out of sync. The main difference between the free and paid versions is a big one—the free version picks three items from each category to stream, while the paid app gives you full access to anything you want to grab. That's just about all there is to it, though you'll want to head to the app's settings to optimize streaming for EDGE, 3G, or Wi-Fi connections. The OrbLive applications are free and $9.99, and both require an iPhone or iPod touch running at least the 2.0 firmware. Check out our screenshot tour and Wii media center guide for a closer look at the Orb software itself.
You received this email because you are subscribed to the real_time feed for http://feeds.gawker.com/lifehacker/full. To change your subscription settings, please log into RSSFWD.
No comments:
Post a Comment