More and more people are turning to the Net to watch television these, with some commentators predicting that traditional TV will be dead within 10 years. Up to now though, the range of programs available through online TV services hasn’t been that great. By that I don’t mean there’s not a lot of shows - there are - it’s just that a huge percentage of these aren’t worth watching.

Things are changing quickly though, and the release of Adobe Media Player 1.1 today marks a big step in the evolution of online TV. Now out of Beta, the AIR-based software boasts a slick new interface that makes it easy to enjoy your favourite TV shows without having to switch on your television set. You can use the software to search for streaming and downloadable video content, get alerts when new episodes appear and even download these new episodes automatically.

Adobe Media Player still doesn’t have the sheer volume of content as the likes of Joost, Veoh TV, or Babelgum, but it’s certainly showing signs of carrying more ‘quality’ content. Adobe has partnered with the likes of Comedy Central, MTV, Nikelodeon and Showtime to deliver some truly great shows. It’s even teamed up with Sony Pictures to offer some movies on the site, such as Jerry Maguire and Men In Black.

Unfortunately, Adobe Media Player isn’t quite the finished article yet. Finding some of the best content still requires a bit of digging around, and even when you do it might be unavailable. If you live outside the US then prepare to be disappointed, because a large number of the shows are only available in America. Be warned also, that the RAM-hungry Media Player client has a huge appetite for memory. Hopefully, these issues will be rectified over time and, I’m sure if Adobe can keep making connections with the major content providers, Media Player will be able to play a large part in kicking the TV set into touch.

Sunset has a special light that makes really beautiful landscapes, full of warm shades of red and orange. Unfortunately photos can’t always capture the beauty of such an inspiring moment, but you can always rely on Photoshop to lend you a hand with that. Here’s how to fix your sunset photos to make them look as beautiful as the real thing.

1. Open your photo, click on New Adjustment Layer and select Gradient on the drop-down menu.

2. Click on the gradient bar and you’ll open the Gradient Editor. Now we’re going to change the colors of the gradient. Read the rest of this entry »

Have Microsoft finally come up with something worth getting excited about? Microsoft Live Mesh is an interesting new project that enables users to synch all of their mobile and computing devices seamlessly. This even includes Macs although currently, it’s only available on Windows platforms but a Mac release is imminent. At the moment it’s in pre-release beta stage and only the first 10,000 people who sign-up will be allowed to test it so you’d better hurry up.

The principle is thus - all of your devices that you include in the Mesh can be synchronised with each other at any time from any location as long as you have an internet connection. So let’s say you’re sat on the beach and want to make sure your documents on your Macbook are synched with your documents on your PC at home, just hit a button and it’s done. The same goes for your mobile device such as an iPhone. In the future, it’s expected that it will automatically synchronize your devices with offline applications which will become increasingly important as Web 2.0 takes off.

Refreshingly for a Microsoft product, it’s incredibly easy to use and beautifully presented and designed. It makes backing up essential documents, including videos and photos between devices just a matter of a few clicks. And it works perfectly in both IE and Firefox. The question is, how on earth are Microsoft going to sustain this service as it expands? The bandwidth it requires for millions of users synching across the world must be huge. Will we eventually see a distinct decline in synching times or is this a sign that Microsoft can still do something right? Read the rest of this entry »

Windows: If you want to keep your system in perfect shape, look no further. Mz Ultimate Tweaker features a complete collection of tweaks and tools you can use to improve the computer’s performance in many different aspects with a minimum effort: tweak Windows, boost CPU and RAM, optimize the Registry and more!

Mac: Need to erase a program and all associated files? Easy, just drag and drop the application onto the AppDelete icon. This application will find all associated files for you, after which it’s just a case of selecting what you want to keep or not. And so you don’t commit mistakes AppDelete keeps a log of everything you’ve removed.

Pocket PC: If you cannot stand to be away from your digital illustration tools then check out this fabulous Pocket PC application. Vspainter lets you transform yourself into some sort of 21st Century Van Gogh, allowing you to accessing advanced design and illustration tools from the palm of your hand. The customisable interface makes it very easy to set up your own workspace.

This has surely happened to you at least once: after pressing CMD+Delete on an item or selecting ‘Empty Trash’ in the Finder the following message pops up: “The operation could not be completed because the item ‘(item name)’ is locked.” If your trash is filled to the brim with files, then you don’t really want to go rummaging through it, removing the locked ones and opening their info page one by one just to unlock them. That could take ages and be incredibly tedious.

You can fortunately repair all files at once…using the Terminal. You may have noticed I’ve been frequently posting on the Terminal. It’s not the sexiest program on Mac OS, but it’s pretty effective, even in today’s age of the sleek new Leopard. For this particular issue, it’s probably the best tool around.

Anyway, here is how to proceed. Open up your Terminal in Utilities and type chflags -R nouchg Then open up the Trash to show all its contents. Select all items in the trash (CMD+A is the quickest way) and drag them to the Terminal window. Here you are not sending all the files to the Terminal, you are just adding their pathname to the Terminal, so it knows where the files you want to erase are located (this trick actually works whatever the command you want to perform in the Terminal, and it’s often much quicker than typing up the full path to a file). Then press Return, close the Terminal and empty the trash. All your files should by now have been deleted.

If removing very large files (over 1GB)  is what’s worrying you, then check out an earlier post on the subject.

[Via: Apple]

Unless you’ve got your own radio station, podcasting is probably the easiest way to broadcast your message to millions of people across the world. Requiring no license fees or studio hire, you can literally become your own one man radio station with nothing more than a computer and a microphone. The best thing about podcasts too is that your listeners can constantly keep track of your latest releases because podcasts can be syndicated, subscribed to, and downloaded automatically when new content is added, using an aggregator or feed reader capable of reading feed formats such as RSS or Atom. There’s a huge market out there for podcasts as this list of some of the nets most popular podcasts proves. As you can see, everything from better parenting to politics and PSP hacking find a place in the most popular list. Here’s a look at 5 of the very best free podcasting apps to produce your broadcast with:

Audacity - Mainly used for editing and recording rather than publishing podcasts but one of the most poplar choices on the net for it’s ease of use. It works across platforms and for Mac users, it’s even a competitive replacement for Garageband.

Odeo Studio - Anything that you’ve edited or produced on Audacity, you may find easier to publish with Odeo Studio. Allows you to easily upload MP3’s for free although there is a catch - if someone listens to it in a different player, they get a brief Odeo ad.

podOmatic - Don’t want to mess around with downloading anything? podOmatic is an online podcast creator which offers free hosting, detailed listener statistics and allows you to design your own customised podcast page with all your latest broadcasts.

Gabcast - A great solution for those that don’t have access to a PC or microphone, Gabcast allows you to record your podcasts by phone. You can post audio directly to your blog and even host conference calls during your podcasts - great for doing interviews.

WildVoice - Cheap and cheerful style podcasting application for all ages and hosts your podcasts immediately the second that it’s finished. Very easy to use and features a step-by-step guide to get you recording podcasts in minutes.

Windows: I guess you already know GIMP, the popular open-source image editor. The good news is that now you can take GIMP anywhere with you with Portable GIMP, a special version of this powerful photo editing software that has been specifically developed to be installed and run from a removable USB memory device.

Mac:  After playing around with WireTap Studio for a while I’ve found it to be an excellent application to record anything on your Mac. The program captures any hardware or software sound and includes a basic yet intuitive editor to clean up your tracks. You can save to any popular audio format and then send the track to your iPhone or iPod or share via email. Highly recommended.

Symbian: Do you ever find yourself constantly repeating things to your friends only for them to turn around and say “yeah, but you’ve told me that before”? Total Recall allows you to record mobile phone calls with the push of a button, saving them as audio files in either WAV or AMR files, so you never forget a conversation again!

Have you ever used the Bluetooth connection settings on your Mac? It allows you to connect wirelessly with any mobile phone, PDA, keyboard, mouse or other Bluetooth-enabled electronic device and easily exchange information in a short range. Bluetooth is very simple to set up, as easy as opening up Airport access and is as effective. You may not know this, but more and more applications now have some sort of Bluetooth capability. Although most are related to some sort of mobile device, you will find more traditional Mac applications that handle the wireless connection protocol. I’ve singled out a few. Let me explain to you how they use Bluetooth.

• Bluetooth Texter - Nifty little Dashboard widget that connects to your mobile device via Blutooth and uses it to send SMS messages.
• Phone Wallpaper X - Select and edit your wallpaper on your Mac then send it to your mobile phone via Bluetooth. Easy and quick way of updating the appearance of your mobile device.
• Delicious Library - The award winning cataloger lets you add new books, videos and more with a Bluetooth barcode scanner…if you have one at home. A quick way of scanning your items instead of using your iSight camera.
• wiSync - Still have an old iPhone model? If it’s jailbroken you can set up wiSync and make use of fast Bluetooth synchronization features. This will ensure you have the same files on  your iPhone and your Mac.
• SteerMouse - Make use of that snazzy Bluetooth mouse you bought recently. Assign functions, customize the scroll ball and set both speed and mouse movements.
• Booxter - Just like with Delicious Library, the Booxter cataloger lets you add items with a handheld Bluetooth bar code scanner. Small shops with a Mac will find this extremely handle to keep track of items.

In this switchers series, I look for the best PC program in its category, find a Mac counterpart, and explain why it’s better, all in the hope that those of you that are still on PC will be tempted to switch, and those that are on Mac hopefully discover something new. We started off last week by looking at common computer tasks, like communicating with friends, exchanging emails or burning discs. It’s now time to take this series a little deeper and compare more specific PC and Mac applications. Today I want to focus on programs only related to internet, albeit without counting browsers, messengers and mail clients as these were already covered last week.

The term ‘internet application’ is pretty vague, especially nowadays when we are connected most of the time anyways.  This is why I’ve limited this list to very specific applications: BitTorrent clients, P2P tools, download managers, RSS readers, Usenet clients and FTP programs. I’ve tried to pick what I consider the best application in each category for both Mac and PC, however give a shout if you think there is a better program than the one mentioned.

• uTorrent - Transmission - uTorrent is fast, lightweight and gives you extensive information on torrents. Transmission does all that AND has a speed limit mode, filtering and priority settings.
• Ares Galaxy - Acquisition - It’s no surprise that Ares is so popular with PC users. It offers a large network, is fast and responsive and isn’t bogged down in features. Acquistion can search both the Gnutella and BitTorrent networks and has a beautiful and structured interface.
• Internet Download Manager - Leech - Heavy duty downloaders will like having a program to handle all their files. Leech keeps downloads well organized, adds password protection and lets you mark URLs for future downloads.
• Abilon - Times - News junkies will appreciate having a powerful desktop RSS reader. While Abilon for PC is both attractive and powerful, I prefer the original newspaper view of the Mac Times reader , the way you can stack articles to read and toggle feeds and pages.
• UseNeXT - Unison - Addicted to newsgroups? UseNeXT provides a great way to browse through them and download at once. Unison for Mac is nothing short of impressive though: simple and intuitive, yet filled with features like multiple browser views, grouping and easy server setup.
• SmartFTP - Transmit - The Mac client still beats the feature rich SmartFTP thanks to Amazon S3 support, handling of remote URLs, droplets and a functional interface.

I used to keep all of my iTunes library onto my iBook, until the poor machine’s 60 GB hard drive (yes, I know it sounds pathetic, but that’s its storage space) started to cough and smoke. Since my music easily took up 20 GB of the disc I made the decision to move a significant amount of it on an external drive. This would free up space on my iBook and leave me with only the tracks I really liked. Having my complete iTunes library saved on an external drive, I could erase music from my Mac any time I wanted and still access my complete library by connecting my external drive to my Mac.

As simple as this sounds, moving an iTunes library to another drive has to be done carefully. You don’t want to forget files and realize that the library is corrupt after having erased it from your Mac. I once tried moving all of it onto an external drive with iBackup, and after a whole night of transferring (my iBook is really slow), the application decided to freeze up on me with only five minutes left. Everything that had been copied to my external drive was useless. So what’s the safest way to get your iTunes library on an external drive then?

There are two ways. First you need to make sure that both ‘Keep iTunes Music library organized’ and ‘Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library’ in Preferences>Advanced are checked. These options make it much easier for Apple’s media player to keep your library structure and ensures all your tracks are saved in one place. The simplest way to move your iTunes library to an external drive is to select the iTunes folder and copy it onto the drive. But that might not take all the information you have like playlists. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the areas that gets most cramped in Firefox is the download manager – especially if you, like me, download hundreds of new files a week. And an overcrowded download list renders the manager completely useless, despite the new features introduced in Firefox 3.

One quick way to solve this bottleneck is using the browser’s built-in cleaning tools, which you can configure to clean up certain areas automatically every time you close Firefox. It’s as easy as going to Options > Privacy and check the option that says “Always clear my private data when I close Firefox“.

However, as there may be some elements you don’t want to get rid off (such as saved passwords, cookies and the likes), you can click on the Settings button and select exactly the elements you want Firefox to erase -  in this case, Download History would be enough.

If you’re tired of this planet, why don’t you go and create your own? Unfortunately you won’t be able to live on it, but at least you’ll have fun while trying out this Photoshop tutorial and seeing what the Polar Coordinates filter is capable of… Are you ready? Then follow these simple steps and create your very own personal planet in Photoshop.

1. The first thing you’ll need is a panoramic image. The best ones are those with very little detail both in the bottom area (asphalt, water, land) and in the upper area (ideally, blue sky). Also, try to use a panorama where the right and left borders fit as neatly as possible. I’ll use this New York City skyline.

2. Go to Image > Image size and resize the photo to a perfect square. Uncheck the “Constrain proportions” option and apply to Height the same value shown in Width.

3. Now go to Image > Rotate canvas and rotate it 180º. Don’t worry if it all looks odd, you’re doing a great job! Read the rest of this entry »

Windows: If you need to store, backup or share files online in a secure way, forget about those free unreliable file sharing services and start using SpiderOak right away. This free online file storage service lets you keep up to 2GB of data on their servers for free, with the possibility to share anything you want on your personal page

Mac: It’s a good idea to index all your media every now and then so that you keep a clear record of where all your video, audio and other files are and make sure they stay well organized. Media Catalog lets you index media on any drive and thanks to a powerful search tool, gives you quick access to every file. The statistics section gives you detailed info such as file size, number of volumes and amount of updates you’ve made.

Phones: Studying the Quran is an essential part of Muslim life but what about those times when you can’t get near a mosque or are on the road? Step forward Quran Reader, a mobile application that lets you read the sacred texts while you’re on the move using your Java-enabled mobile phone.

Let me be honest with you: my goal here is to clearly push you to ditch your PC for a Mac. How am I going to manage this? I will use a series of posts, starting with this one, where I recommend a Mac application for every PC program you might use. And to top it off, I’ll prove to you that each and every one of these Mac programs is better than their PC counterpart. In this first post we start off with basic apps, you know, the essential programs you use every day to do things like communicate with friends, work on documents or connect to the internet.

Outlook Express - Apple Mail - Finding Outlook Express excruciatingly slow every morning at startup? Apple Mail always starts up in a flash. Another thing I’m really surprised with Outlook Express is the lack of a truly effective search tool, where Apple Mail makes use of the lightning fast Spotlight. Add to that the great templates in Mail and the wide choice of third party plugins and you have a clear winner in Apple Mail.

Windows Live Messenger - Adium X - Why put up with the advertisement-ridden Live Messenger when you can use the open source and highly customizable Adium? The Mac messaging client lets you connect to almost any IM protocol like AIM, MSN or Jabber and can be customized with all sorts of icons, audio, styles and script. True it doesn’t offer voice or video chat yet, but you’ll still get encrypted Off The Record messaging.

Microsoft Office - iWork’08 - This one is a no brainer. iWork’08 is cheaper, smoother and creates better looking documents, particularly presentations under Keynote. You’ll also be able to work with any Microsoft Office document, whether Word, Excel or PowerPoint.

Internet Explorer - Safari - Apple’s homemade browser loads twice as fast as IE and integrates perfectly with Keychain, so your online account data is always safe and sound. The sleek metal view and clear bookmark also contrast with IE’s convoluted interface.

Nero - Roxio Toast Titanium - I’ve always found Nero too bloated a program and draining on PC resources. Roxio Toast Titanium on the other hand is much easier to use and offers a streamlined process so that disc of yours is catalogued, burned and ready to watch in no time. It now lets you watch movies on your iPhone and mix your own sounds.

When you buy a shiny new computer - or reinstall the operating system from scratch - your hard drive is like a large, empty space waiting to be loaded with dozens of different tools and applications for the most varied purposes. But what if you could save a lot of that space by embedding a few basic tools in just one program? You can easily do it with Firefox and its many extensions. Just take a look at the list below and see how many desktop apps you can replace with extensions.

• FireFTP - A fully functional FTP client embedded into your browser.
• DownThemAll - Download all links and images on a website with just one click.
• PicLens - View your pictures in this attractive, full-screen photo viewer.
• The Converter - A tool to convert between different measurement units on the fly.
• ScreenGrab - Capture complete webpages, from top to bottom.
• FireNES - Play thousands of games in this Nintendo emulator.
• FoxLingo - A fully featured translator in your favorite browser.
• Forecastfox - Check the international weather forecast right in Firefox window.
• FEBE - A quick, easy backup tool for all the important elements in the browser.
• FoxyTunes - Enjoy your favorite music without leaving Firefox