Software
Fun Booth 2 Review
1If there’s one feature of the Mac where my friends and family are concerned that is a huge hit, it’s Photo Booth using my built-in iSight. Even those who are the most camera shy can’t wait to sit down infront of the webcam and have their faces distorted. I’m always amazed at how well received it is.
I came across Fun Booth 2 some weeks ago which, rather than distorting your face like the built-in Photo Booth effects, gives you a whole heap of props to throw on to your head and face. The most interesting part of this is the advanced face detection so rather than placing a pair of sunglasses onto the screen and you having to adjust your position to make them look like they’re sitting on your nose, the software does that for you and if you move around, the glasses will stay where they should on your face which makes it ideal for video chatting – and for the kids who won’t stay still!
As you can see from the interface above, it’s very much like Photo Booth. The Inspector window contains all the props such as eyewear, facial hair, headwear, masks and objects. You can choose to wear one prop at a time, or combine props so you could be wearing glasses, a beard and a hat all at the same time.
When you have taken silly photos of yourself you can browse through them through the built-in Photo and Video Library which is beautifully designed and send them via e-mail, right within the application itself, aswell as send to iPhoto, Flickr or via FTP.
If you record video of yourself wearing the props then you can upload that directly to YouTube, once again right within the app.
You can even use the props in realtime when video chatting in iChat.
As yet my friends and family haven’t had the opportunity to enjoy Fun Booth 2, otherwise you’d be seeing them in the screenshots instead of the yellow guy – and believe me, face detection works much better on a human face. But, I know they are going to love it as the Fun Booth iPhone/iPod touch app was very well received when I downloaded it 7 days ago. Like it’s big OS X brother, the iPhone app has face detection and gets it spot on. From within the app you can then e-mail your photos, assign to a contact or upload it to Twitter and Flickr.
Fun Booth 2 for Mac OS X costs $19.99 but a free trial before you buy is available.
Fun Booth for iPhone/iPod touch costs $0.99/59p – iTunes link.
Wondershare Video to iPhone Giveaway
0Passing on an interesting retweet today (see, they do happen occasionally) for free video to iPhone conversion software. The offer is valid between August 10th and September 10th 2009.
Wondershare Video to iPhone Converter for Mac is an ideal tool that can convert various video formats including MPEG1, MPEG2, MP4, 3GP, FLV, AVI, WMV, AVCHD (MKV, TS, MTS, M2TS, TP, TRP, MOD, TOD), etc. to iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS and iPhone OS 3.0 on Mac. The output files also can be played on iPod and Apple TV.
You can grab this giveaway, here.
That Syncing Feeling
42 years ago
I’ve written here a few times about RSS Readers both on the Mac and iPhone – and my quest in trying to find the one that does it all. I went from NewsFire to NetNewsWire then back again. Now it’s happening all over again.
After enjoying a long and happy relationship with NewsFire, I recently ran into problems where my feeds simply weren’t refreshing after upgrading to the most recent version. I’d look at the icon in the dock and wonder why it’s little green badge hadn’t appeared in hours to show me I had feeds to read, especially when it’s set to refresh every 5 minutes. Closing down the app and restarting prompted the downloads, but I’d find myself with almost 100 new articles awaiting my attention, not my usual easy-to-get-through bitesize chunks when arriving in a timely manner.
However, I wasn’t persuaded back to NetNewsWire for that reason alone. I’d have learned to live with NewsFire needing the occasional nudge because of it’s gorgeous UI and ability to auto refresh feeds less than just every 30 minutes, unlike NNW. No, my arm was finally twisted by Newsstand for the iPhone (my old review). It’s always been the most reliable and elegant RSS Reader on the iPhone, in my opinion, but the arrival of version 2.0 last night gave it the killer feature – Google Reader syncing. NetNewsWire now also syncs with Google Reader meaning that these two apps go together quite magically and beautifully.
As you can see by the above images, the Newsstand [£2.99 | iTunes Link] icon has been beautified even more, as has the app itself with the new carousel style flick through feeds. The only thing that would make this partnership even better is push notifications in Newsstand when new articles are available.
So, for now my RSS needs are being catered for by NetNewsWire on the Mac and Newsstand on the iPhone, with Google Reader syncing bringing them both together. It’s not the perfect solution for me as my heart still belongs to NewsFire for it’s beautiful UI. I hope our paths will cross again, hopefully when it’s own iPhone app is available with syncing.
Your iPhone On Your Mac
02 years ago
Some of you may remember my plea last year for a Mac app that would show a notification on screen when you’d missed a call to your iPhone while docked. Here’s a refresher.
Wouldn’t it be great…if there was a Mac app out there which would show a notification on your computer screen when you’d missed a call to your iPhone while it’s docked?
I was just thinking this today when having to leave my iPhone docked after it completely ran out of juice during the night. I haven’t been at the computer much today but have occasionally popped up to have a look at the iPhone screen to see whether I’d missed any calls. How convenient would it be to come up and see a Growl-style notification message on your Mac (that stays there until you close it) letting you know.
I would pay good money for that.
(comments on the entry)
Now there is an answer – BluePhoneElite 2 which is now iPhone 2G, 3G and 3GS compatible. Here’s a table of what is supported…
It’s a shame that SMS Messages aren’t supported, but that’s down to a limitation by Apple and not the software developers. A review of BluePhoneElite 2 can be found at Smoking Apples. You can have a 2 week trial with the software then it’s $24.95 to buy.
So, iPhone users, is this something you’ll be using? I haven’t installed the software yet but wanted to pass on the exciting news for those who have been waiting for an app that does that!
Manage Your Cameras
62 years ago
How many times have you docked your iPhone and cursed iPhoto for popping up and getting in the way? For me it’s one of the most annoying actions as 99.9 percent of the time I head straight to that little red circle in the top left corner of the window to close it right back down so I can get to the app I want: iTunes.
Now there is a way to silence iPhoto when you plug in your iPhone, with a neat (and free) little system preferences pane called Cameras. You can manage what happens when you connect your Digital Camera(s), iPhone, Digital Media Writer and any photo device.
Upon installing Cameras you plug in one of your devices to get started and the app will ask you what want to do. As you can see from my image above, I have asked it to Open iPhoto for my Digital Camera but to Do Nothing for my iPhone.
Now all we need is a clever little plugin to stop iPhoto going into slideshow mode when we press play on our Apple Remote which was intended for a song….
o2 Activating MMS on iPhone
82 years ago
The much anticipated iPhone OS 3.0 landed this evening at approximately 6pm, British Summer Time. Everything went smoothly for me which I most definitely wasn’t anticipating, given that major releases usually cause the iTunes servers to collapse and curl up into the foetal position. However, I know the updating procedure didn’t go smoothly for everyone, with some reporting activation errors and a 2-3 hour wait before everything was complete.
Something else that I wasn’t expecting to be activated so quickly was MMS by o2. I received a text message, then an MMS message from o2 shortly after applying the 3.O software update letting me know that picture messaging was ready to use. I didn’t need to do anything to get that message, it came to me automatically. I know there has been some confusion over whether a persons iPhone is set up and ready to go with MMS, but you should receive this message when you’re good to go.
o2 tweeted this evening…
Huge backlog of requests for MMS. We are working as fast as we can to process the requests and everyone should be set up within a few hours (via @o2)
I’ve sent and received several MMS this evening and although I had initially thought it would be a feature I wouldn’t use much, now I’m not so sure. It is pretty convenient for sending photos quickly to people that you know haven’t got regular access to their e-mail accounts – or an e-mail account at all!
UPDATED
I’ve had a lot of people asking how I got MMS activated on my iPhone so quickly. To my knowledge I didn’t do anything. However, I know that I did activate Find My iPhone on my phone which may be purely coincidental (settings > mail, contacts, calendars > clicked on my MobileMe account > switched on Find My iPhone). Then I logged into me.com and clicked ‘Find My iPhone’ which located my phone. It wasn’t long after that when o2 sent me confirmation that MMS was activated.
Now, that may or may not play any part in activation, but worth a try if you still haven’t been set-up. I would recommend a call to o2 if you are still waiting for activation, just so they can investigate. There have been no further updates from o2 on twitter.
Another update: Twitter friend Sam received text from o2 stating…
“We know you’re waiting for MMS activation; you should be set up in a few hours”.
More of my twitter friends are reporting having received this message now. Hope everyone will be firing on all MMS cylinders by this evening 
Sold in 300 seconds
73 years ago
Yesterday Tweetie for Mac was released. It was the application many of us Twitterers-on-a-Mac fanatics have been ancitipating following the sneak-peek video posted on their site a few days ago. It didn’t disappoint and within 5 minutes of downloading and testing, I had purchased it for $14.95.
My requirements for a desktop Twitter client have always been pretty simple: the ability to quickly see @ replies and Direct Messages and search the public timeline within the app, the way one can in Tweetie for iPhone. I regularly miss @ replies in Twitterrific unless I scroll through the list of tweets. With Tweetie I’ll never miss an @ again thanks to the blue indicator shown in the left hand menu bar of the client window.
Of course, Tweetie for Mac comes with many more features. Things I never thought I’d need but of course now that I have them I’m wondering how I managed without them, such as the viewing of images without having to crank up Safari or leave the app itself, view my contacts credentials and see whether they are following me back, all by simply double clicking their icon…
I can even stop following that person within Tweetie, not that I’d ever want to stop following the lovely @chrisdejabet, mind you 
There’s not much about Tweetie for Mac that needs improvement, in my eyes, apart from a refresh button without having to go to the menu bar > Twitter > Refresh. I’d also like to see what the current refresh rate is. I’m thinking 3 minutes but it’s a bit hard to tell and there’s no way of changing the default.
Tweetie for Mac is $14.95 for a 2 week introductory period, until May 4th. After that you’ll pay $19.95. You can, of course, download and use the app completely free, as long as you don’t mind ads. The great thing about purchasing Tweetie is the license which allows you to use the app for all your Twitter accounts on as many computers as you (personally) own. How awesome is that?
You can view all of the features on the Tweetie for Mac site. If you have any questions about the app before you buy then feel free to drop me a line in the comments section.
Tweetie for Mac
7I am very excited to hear that Tweetie, the best twitter client for the iPhone bar none, is coming to a Mac desktop near you. I have struggled to find a desktop client that I feel truly comfortable with other than Twitterrific. I can’t abide TweetDeck, Twhirl, EventBox or the other twitter clients which also incorporate feeds from Flickr/Facebook/RSS. Twitterrific is a very barebones app compared to the other clients around, but I do like the Mac only exclusivity and the fact that it isn’t a horrid AIR app.
I am hopeful that I can finally banish Twitterrific to the archives when Tweetie for Mac hits the tubes and I expect it will be every bit as elegant as the iPhone app.
Bugged by iTunes 8.1
1Late last night I installed iTunes 8.1 when it showed up in Software Update. Now I’m wishing I’d stayed on version 8 as a horrible pre-v8 bug has reared it’s ugly head once again.
A simple action such as clicking on a song to play will make iTunes hang, crash and then get itself into a loop where it continually re-opens as you attempt to Force Quit. Even when iTunes is happily open and you simply try to quit or shut down the Mac, it keeps on re-opening meaning it interrupts any attempt to shut down your computer. Very frustrating.
It seems there are many others experiencing the same issue if the threads over at Apple Support Discussion Forums are anything to go by. If the new features aren’t something you desperately want then I’d recommend holding off installing iTunes 8. Let’s hope Apple fix this annoying issue quickly.
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