Cody Fink

1547 posts on MacStories since January 2010

Former MacStories contributor.

[email protected]

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Charity: The Humble Frozenbyte Bundle

Want to support cool charities like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, or the Child’s Play while paying what you want for five DRM free games that works on Windows, Mac, and Linux? The Humble Frozenbyte Bundle offers five titles (one prototype title available on Windows only), the first three of which include the games’ original soundtrack with purchase. Trine and Shadowgrounds are the two big names, both consisting of frantic gameplay between a challenging platform and top-down shooter. The other bonus titles, Splot and Jack Claw, are development games; Splot is available for pre-order, while Jack Claw (halted in development) is a Windows only title that requires an Xbox 360 controller to play. You can grab these five titles at any price, but we ask that you guys be fair and toss in a little extra to support a great cause (and the Humble Bundle folks themselves). You can adjust how much you want to donate to each charity at checkout, paying via Paypal, a credit card, or Google Checkout.

For more information and to donate visit: The Humble Frozenbyte Bundle

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The iPad 2 Dock Review

The iPad 2 Dock is by far the accessory people ask about when getting a new iPad 2. Apple’s iPad Camera Connection Kit and their Digital AV Adapter are clear in purpose; both products add utility to the iPad when used with a camera or television. The iPad 2 dock, however, is a questionable purchase. What utility or benefit will it provide me, and should I pay a pricey $29.00 for a plastic stand that comes with no cable and only provides audio out? The portrait only dock is an additional expense many owners are unsure about, and today we’re taking a look at whether one of these guys can be of benefit to you now that customers are receiving the first batch of shipments in the United States.

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Parrot to Engage in AR.Drone Combat SIM with AR.FlyingAce

Model airplane enthusiasts, iPhone owners, and any geek who likes a good ol’ fashioned RC helicopter hasfallen in love with Parrot’s AR.Drone quadricopter, a WiFi controlled helicopter that is piloted using the iPhone. Made to fly indoors (or outside with a special streamlined shell), the AR.Drone can pipe video back to your iPhone’s display, engage virtual targets, and tag other AR.Drones for a half real-life and half virtual-reality based air chase (AR.Pursuit which is available on the App Store for $2.99). iLounge via TUAW reports that a more complete dogfighting solution is coming for your flying drones called AR.FlyingAce will enable you to show down opposing players after taking enough virtual damage. Players on the same WiFi network can compete in multiplayer matches to be the last one standing. It’s just like playing laster tag, except you can sit on the couch instead of diving behind it. We’ve posted the promo video after the break, and you can expect AR.FlyingAce to hit the App Store on April 15th.

[iLounge via TUAW]
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HP Launches ePrint Service For iPhone: Print & Pick Up Documents on the Move

Say you what you want about wasting paper and physical prints, but there’s still a necessity for physical documents, and Hewlett Packard is unveiling their ePrint service for the iPhone so you can print and pick up documents from just about anywhere (previously only available on Blackberry). Compatible with HP AirPrint printers, or via a registered public ePrint location, you can print documents on the fly using your iPhone and pick up your papers at a local printer, whether it be at home or at your hotel’s front desk. At public locations, your prints can be collected only with a retrieval code at a pickup desk (FedEx has 1,800 locations for ePrint). I don’t know how much you want to trust the person behind the counter, but for printing a map or getting a hard copy of a local flyer, it’s certainly a nice option to have. For enterprise users, you can print to your private-cloud so you’ll have your documents as you return to your desk (HP advertises their ePrint Enterprise Solution separately). HP’s ePrint is a free download in the App Store.

[via Yahoo Finance]

How many Macs did Apple sell last quarter?→

How many Macs did Apple sell last quarter?

None of the 43 analysts we polled – professional or amateur – think Apple sold more than 4 million Macs in the quarter that ended two weeks ago. But as a group they expect unit sales grew even faster – nearly 24% year over year. The high estimate of 3.865 million – submitted by both Traderhood’s Nicolae Mihalache and Apple’s Gold’s Dennis Hildebrand – represents more than 31% growth year over year.

For Apple’s first quarter fiscal results for the new year, Apple reported 4.13 million Macs sold following a strong demand for the MacBook Air. While we have seen updates in the MacBook Pro which include Sandy Bridge and Thunderbolt, analysts are predicting that Macs will see a decreased demand this quarter, which is in line with the sales trends from 2006. Analysts are also predicting that Apple will sell 19 million iPhones for the second quarter according to Fortune.

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Essay: The Smart, Intuitive HTML Powered Text Editor for iPhone & iPad

Constantly we’re bombarded or introduced to new text editors and word processors that attempt to redefine and strike a balance between what’s necessary and what isn’t. I’m personally getting to the point where enough is enough, as the focus on being new and imaginative in the iOS and Mac App Store has degraded into providing more of the same under a different name and a slightly different interface. While most of us are perfectly content with trend setters such as PlainText and Elements, Essay ended going above and beyond my expectations for an iOS text editor. Sure there’s SimpleNote, but with DropBox sync and a slew of formatting options I’ll sacrifice instant sync with Notational Velocity for HTML goodness.

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YouTube is going LIVE→

YouTube is going LIVE

Today we’re announcing the initial roll out of YouTube Live, which will integrate live streaming capabilities and discovery tools directly into the YouTube platform for the first time. This begins with a new YouTube Live browse page (www.youtube.com/live), where you can always find the most compelling live events happening on YouTube and add events to your calendar. Subscribe to your favorite YouTube live-streaming partners to be notified of upcoming live streams on your customized homepage.

Broadcasters like TWiT already stream their content live when it hits the air, but imagine how much exposure independent or amateur content creators can get through the power of YouTube. We’ve started to see the shift from traditional news outlets to independent blogs and journalists, and the same disruption is happening with consuming video. While Hulu, Netflix, and others are making strides to offer content outside of traditional cable media, the launch of live video on YouTube will make this transition more apparent and continue to deliver more options to consumers. I’m not surprised that Hak5 is already streaming, and Geek Beat will also have upcoming programming this evening. Also of interest: there’s already sports programming for the NBA Playoffs. Could good independent vloggers unroot traditional news channels like ESPN? The exposure YouTube brings, plus what it chooses to feature on their live page, will be significant.

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Hands on With iheartradio for iPad

It’s Friday afternoon, and if you’re not already slacking off at work why not put your feet up on your desk and turn on some tunes. The iheartradio app has launched on the App Store, giving you access to all of your favorite artists, local (Clear Channel) and national radio stations, artist interviews and videos, and image galleries captioned off for your entertainment. It’s been a while since I’ve checked out an iheartradio app (which is gratuitously advertised by my local radio station), but I have to say I’m impressed with just how fast the iPad app is. Radio station’ connect instantly, there’s AirPlay built in to pipe tunes and video to your Apple TV, and you can favorite stations so you can quickly access all of your favorite radio channels from a handy playlist. If you hear a song that tickles your boom-tubes, you can purchase the song from iTunes in a snap. The features only get better, and we’ll conclude our short review just past the break.

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Office for Mac’s SP1 Update Bringing iCal, Tasks, and Notes Syncing

When I wrote the tutorial on how to get Gmail working inside Microsoft Outlook for the Mac, one of the things they didn’t include was Google Calendar syncing (even after a quick stability update). To be frank, they didn’t include any kind of syncing outside of the mail services provided by Exchange or IMAP. While the first service pack (arriving next week) will not be brining Google Calendar syncing to Outlook, Microsoft will be delivering a substantial update that will tie into your Mac’s Sync Services, meaning iCal calendars, tasks, and mail notes should be fair game. While it isn’t supported directly, you should be able to sync your Google Calendars with iCal, then to Microsoft Outlook. It’s a busy solution, but that’s not to say we’re out of options. For those asking (begging) me about writing something up about Google Calendar support, you’ll have the option to do it through iCal as of the SP1 update. In other words: bananas.

I also wanted to note a couple of the other new features coming with SP1:  Outlook support for Exchange based server-side rules; Outlook Redirect button (you can redirect the message to the intended recipient and the replies will go to the original sender); Outlook Resend button; Outlook edit of existing messages; and Solver integration support in Excel.

MobileMe syncing has be axed unfortunately, as MobileMe will no longer require Sync Services to communicate with your Mac. However, you will be able to sync notes down from MobileMe if anyone uses those.

[Office for Mac Blog via The Loop]