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NetFlix instant streaming movies to your iPhone …awesomeness?

17200v1 max 450x4501 NetFlix instant streaming movies to your iPhone …awesomeness?The Mac web, or more specifically, the iPhone web is buzzing about Netflix for iPhone today. This is huge for NetFlix subscribers who find themselves in need of on-demand entertainment as it allows them to instantly watch movies and TV shows from the service’s vast selection of titles streamed from their servers directly to the iPhone’s screen.

Since I’m in Canada and still awaiting the arrival of the promised NetFlix service, I have to go by second-hand accounts. Mel Martin from TUAW says…

The new iPhone version has excellent image quality, supports fast forwarding and rewinding of the video stream, and like other incarnations of Netflix, allows you to pick up where you left off if you stop a movie and restart it. As Netflix members will appreciate, you can pause a movie you are watching on a Netflix device at home, and start the movie on the iPhone app and it will resume at the same place.

GeekSugar has a very helpful word of warning: make sure you use the app when you’re connected to wifi or expect a huge cell phone bill.

Like I said, I can’t try the app—I wish I could. Just based on the buzz and the strong potential for a service like this in the marketplace, I have to assume this is awesomeness.

Flipboard + Twitter Lists

In this video, I’m taking a look at a little known fact within a little known fact about the free media consumption app for the iPad, Flipboard:

1) You can add each of your Twitter Lists to Flipboard as a separate Sections and…

2) You can add people to your Twitter Lists that you don’t actually follow on Twitter

    This means that you can group together dozens of Twitter feeds in a single list that would otherwise bog down your Twitter stream and add the list to Flipboard and read them all in Flipboard’s magazine-style format. It also means that, since most website post links to their latest articles on Twitter, you can read any such website in Flipboard as if it had its own Section simply by giving it its own list in Twitter. This can also come in handy for people who post a lot of content to Twitter, but so much so that it floods your feed and makes it overwhelming—don’t follow them, add them to a list and make them a Section of Flipboard.

    No Flash? No problem—click here!»

    I don’t think I’ll be reading my main Twitter stream on Flipboard as much as I’ll be using it to consume these other sources of content—the ones I don’t actually follow.

    How do you use Flipboard? Found any cool tricks? Leave a comment and let me know!!

    Media Master

    Macs have always been media machines. This week we’re going to look at some powerful, free media applications.

    mu Media MasterVLC

    VLC is the king of media, and the leading Open Source solution for streaming media. It doesn’t stop there, it supports dozens of formats including DVD and VCD.

    vlc Media Master

    VLC allows you to stream over a network, and gives you access to advanced options.

    mu Media MasterHyperion

    This utility allows you to convert WMA Windows Media audio into malleable formats. This is one to keep on your tool belt.

    mu Media MasterMMT EZ

    Here’s a free, easy to use video tool for converting video and burning it to VCD or DVD.

    mmtez Media Master

    Options allow you to adjust advanced options for video and audio encoding. It comes in a straight-forward GUI.

    mu Media MasterMSI Man

    Here’s another burning utility that allows you to burn multi-session discs. MSI does it using the new .msi format for creating multi-session images and burns them using Toast.

    mu Media MasterMiNews

    Okay, this one has nothing to do with this week’s theme.

    MiNews Media Master

    Yes, this is yet another RSS reader, but I included it because I found the interface clean and its OS integration convenient. Web page rendering and easy sharing with Address Book contacts.

    There you go, a full set of free media tools. Feel free to stream, edit and burn to your heart’s content.

    Brian

    mu Media MasterDownloads provided by MacUpdate