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Aug 26 2010

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.

By RickMacMerc • apps, iPhone, News • Comments Off • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Jul 29 2010

TotalFinder brings tabs to Snow Leopard

totalfinder screenshot tabs 370x252 TotalFinder brings tabs to Snow Leopard

I wanted to throw out a tip that has made my Mac-using experience much more productive: you are probably familiar with tabs in your web browser. They let you open a bunch of webpages without actually having a bunch of windows cluttering up your screen—they’re all nicely gathered in one window and are each accessible via their own tab. Get ready to have that same tabbed awesomeness in the Finder with TotalFinder from BinaryAge.

Just like in your web browser, you can switch between tabs, drag tabs to and from windows and reorder them within windows. There are tons of other customization options available under the Finder Preferences once the software is installed.

If you worry about installing Finder plugins, and well you should, TotalFinder does not overwrite your Finder.app files. It modifies the running Finder application image in-memory. If you install the software and still feel guilty about it later, BinaryAge supplies an uninstaller to set things right back the way they were—no one has to know. You can even disable TotalFinder without uninstalling it via the Terminal, just check out the FAQs

Version 0.9.6, which came out earlier this week, is available for free. Once version 1.0 arrives, TotalFinder will cost $15. So, I recommend you give Finder productivity a try and see if you’ll be on board when this freeware goes payware. I know I will.

What cool productivity gems are you using to make the most of you Mac experience? Let me know in the comments. If you teach me something new, I’ll link you up when I post about it!

By RickMacMerc • News, productivity, tips • 2 • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Apr 27 2009

Free Blogware

Personal web logging is the Internet’s newest craze. To do it right you’ll want the best tools. Check out my picks for Mac blogging…

The Service

In order to blog, you’ll need to sign up for the service with one of several providers (unless you are on a server that supports scripting, then you can run your own). Blogger, arguably the best of the bunch, actually creates your blog and FTP’s it to your site. As an option, you can host your blog for free with them, but for an off-site blog I might look into Blog-City or tBLOG. They are both free, but won’t likely work with the software below.

The Software

While not required, client-side software can make posting content to your blog site quicker and easier. My favorite posting tool is BlogScript. This is a simple AppleScript that remembers your login information and quickly posts the contents of your clipboard to your blog.

For more features you may want to try BlogWorkz or iBlog. Both are more robust applications that allow easy posting to your blog, but I found them less consistent than the simple script.

Direct RSS

Blogging not your thing? How about creating your own RSS news feed? RSS feeds can be subscribed to by a slew of news readers. Direct RSS allows you to create and maintain your own RSS feed. It even takes care of the uploading (though that part didn’t work so well for me) and saves a local version of your .rss file to your hard drive.

Now that you’re all hooked up with the tools, you can express yourself with easy on the web. Now all you need is something to say. But I’ll leave that up to you.

Brian

By admin • Articles, Freeloader Friday Download of the Week • Comments Off • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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