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Apple iPod 4th Generation by bradley james
Just recently the 4th generation of the extremely popular Apple iPod was released. What sets this newest version apart most distinctly from its predecessors is its huge storage capacity. The new iPod can now hold approximately 10,000 of your favorite songs.
The iPod, which has been around for over a year now, is perhaps the worlds most popular, and best-selling portable digital music device. Its greatest selling points, of course, are its mobile capacity and ease of use. Fully digital, and capable of storing 20GB of songs, the iPod is basically the forerunner of this type of device. The batteries that power the iPod currently have a lifespan of 12 hours, enough for one full day of music. The device can, of course, play MP3s, but it can also play AAC and Apple Lossless.
One of the most popular features of the iPod is the shuffle feature. Using the iPod Click Wheel it is possible to shuffle and play songs randomly from a song list of your choosing or your complete music database. The mix of different types of songs coming at you randomly can be quite refreshing. Another great feature is the ability to easily download digital songs from the Internet. With the iTunes online music store you can find a huge database of songs to choose from and purchase if you desire. The songs on sale are arranged by genre such as Rock, Country, Jazz, Reggae, Pop, Electronica, Hip Hop, and many more. iTunes can be utilized using both Mac and Windows PCs.
In addition to downloading songs from the internet, iTunes allows you to import songs from your CDs to your iPod. You can transfer the songs in MP3 or AAA format and at the quality level you desire.
There are also some special features found on the latest iPod. There is now an alarm on your iPod so that you may wake up to your favorite music. There is also a calendar and to-do lists, as well as simple games such as Music Quiz, Solitaire, Brick and Parachute. Also, the new iPod has a notes reader that enables you to read text-based documents that you have downloaded. In these ways, the new iPod increasingly resembles a typical PDA, as well as a digital music device.
The iPod currently sells for approximately $200 - $350. The earlier iPod with 15GB of space sells for around $220, while the newest version with 20GB of space usually sells for about $390.
About the Author
Bradley James is a senior editor at SciNet.cc, a website containing many helpful consumer electronics review articles. For more information on the Apple iPod, please visit our Apple iPod webpage..
MP3 Players, Flash MP3 Player, Apple iPod MP3 Players, CD-MP3 Player, Computer Parts, PC Components, Desktop Computers, Laptops, Notebooks, Digital Photo Cameras Reviews,Flat Panel Screen LCD Monitors.
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Creative Labs Zen Micro 5GB
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iPod -
Learn How It Can Solve Everyday Problems
by Mircea Cojocaru
All over the world, people carry with them walkmans and other music devices so that they can play their favorite music as they move around from place to place. The latest thing in the portable music devices field is the iPod, which offers a higher quality of the music being played and one of the most compact design out there.
The iPod allows you to play your music for an very long time (up to 12 hours for most of them) and have a huge amount of storage (some have 30GB). You can store thousands songs within a standard iPod and have instant access to them wherever you are at the moment. This makes them the perfect choice for your nowadays music necessities.
With iPods, transferring music from a CD takes less than 5 seconds, assuming that you use the FireWire and USB 2.0 support and can be transferred in a rather wide variety of formats, such as MP3, WMA, or AAC. With the iPods, users have the ability of importing songs from CDs, shuffling through songs, or choosing specific playlists, to name just a few of the iPods' features.
iPods are also equipped with a calendar, contact lists, notes and a musical alarm clock, which makes them more than just a portable music device, along with their huge storage capability. With them, you can take your files anywhere at any time, use memos as reminders and even record whatever you want with their microphone option.
iPods come with a wide variety of language support for languages like English, Italian, German etc. and models, such as iPod mini, iPod, iPod Special Edition and iPod Photo, each with its own storage capability (4GB for the iPods mini to 30GB for iPods Photo).
In addition to the device itself, a wide line of accessories are available for iPods, such as camera connector, power adapter, auto charger, car holder, voice recorder and many more.
In conclusion, with their high quality of the music being played, high storage capability, high transfer speed and all their functions, the iPods make the perfect choice if you are a music addict or just need a portable storage device.
About the Author
Get a Free mini Ipod now. For a cheap ipod just visit us at http://www.ukipodmini4free.com
MP3 Player Review: The Apple iPod by Syd Johnson
As you look for MP3 player reviews online, you will find that most of them are geared toward the largest player in the market, the iPod. The Apple iPod is now the most popular and best selling MP3 player on the market. The basic model has a 15, 20 or 40 Gig hard drive, can store up hundreds of minutes of music, has a long battery life, works on Mac and PC Computers and a very sleek and user friendly design.
Ultimate Song List
On the music side, all the songs on your system are arranged by Album and by Artists so it makes it easier to set up your playlist. The newest iPod model can hold up to 10,000 songs. Sync up with your PC or get your songs from iTunes and you will have an extensive list of songs in a few minutes.
You can carry the iTunes playlist around with you, but you can also burn them onto CDs and create new mixes and custom albums for your friends and family. It also has a helpful rating system so when you set it up to play randomly, the highest rated songs are played more often.
Play Music and Manage Your Schedule?
The newer iPod models also has a built in calendar function, to do list and alarm clock. Just like your old time radio, you can set it up to wake you up with a jolting alarm or your favorite songs. In keeping with the tradition of doing more than store and play music, there is a nice set of your favorite computer games including Solitaire and a Music Quiz game.
Huge Hard Drive Capacity
The 40Gig model has so much space that basically you can download any kind of text application from your computer and keep it on the iPod. Just for a frame of reference, that is the same amount of space that you will find on any basic or lower end Laptop or PC Computer.
Excellence is not cheap
The iPod is not the cheapest MP3 player that you will find online, but if you look at a fraction of the MP3 player reviews online, you will see that reviewers, and iPod customers agree that this one is the best MP3 players around.
About the Author
This article may be freely distributed as long as there's an active link to http://www.rapidlingo.com
Say bye-bye to Illegal music downloads? by Syd Johnson
Both Napster and Microsoft Music Service are working on new way to get customers to download music file to their iPod and otherportable mp3 players for less than $1 per song. Actually, significantly less. Both of these music service are working on a way allow customers to downloads as much music as they want as long as it goes directly to an iPod or similar portable music player.
This is great news for customers who still think $1 per song is too steep. Although the price model words for one song, 10 songs or even 100 songs, it starts getting outrageous when you go by factors of ten. If an iPod holds 10,000 songs and you want to fill it up, you would have to spend $10,000. Most people can fill up the iPod in less than a year.
Unfortunately, they probably won’t spend $10,000 on music, in any single year. So, what you could have is a legal product, the iPod, being used to hold thousands of illegal songs because the space is there. (assuming the iPod would be open later on to all mp3 formats.)
Napster has a workaround
Napster is the first to announce that it is working on a subscription model that would allow it’s user to pay a cheap subscription fee with no restrictions on how many songs they can download. By their estimates, a user can probably download 10,000 songs for about $180. Unfortunately, the Napster system does not work with the iPod so customers can only take advantage of this offer if they purchase either of two Napster approved portable mp3 players.
The Microsoft model would also allow customers to download a significant number of files for less than the average cost of $1 per song. Microsoft is another company that is also locked out of the iPod. They will distribute the songs via Microsoft approved portable mp3 players.
This new pricing model is radical change for the digital music industry. This came about because the success of iTunes has highlighted all that is good and bad about the ways music is sold online.
It shows that customers will buy online and they will browse through digital catalogs for individual songs rather than entire albums. But, it also shows that a lot of work needs to be done to make the mp3 security codes and portable players more compatible. If Apple continues to dominate the portable mp3 player market with the iPod, then customers will only have three choices:
1. Subscribe through iTunes because they want the iPod
2. Hack the iPod which Real Network is doing already
3. Or, ignore the most reliable portable mp3 player out there and deal with having a few files on their computers or on another less prominent player.
This is all great news for digital music fans, but we’ll have to wait and see how the recording industry responds to this cheap-for-all music model.
Is it sufficient to bring back the revenue streams that songwriters and singers have been losing to totally free services such as Kazaa and Grokster? No one knows.
About the Author
This article may be freely distributed as long as there's an active link to http://www.rapidlingo.com
iTunes tops 200 million downloads, Partners with Satellite Radio by Syd Johnson
It seems that Apple is in talks with Sirius Satellite Radio to make their streaming broadcasts available on the iPod. This is something that a lot of online music fans have been looking forward to for some time. Satellite radio customers love the music variety because they can go for days without hearing the same songs on rotation. This is in stark contrast to commercial radio stations, where you can hear the same song every couple of hours and on multiple stations in the same market.
Many think this pairing is just a rumor since iPods are not designed for this type of function and it would probably require a much larger hard drive and a much larger iPod case to be able to carry the streams.
Another functionality that would also require some tweaks is the ability to record satellite stream directly onto the iPods. The whole purpose of the iPod is the storage capacity and the ability to make music portable.
Even if satellite broadcasts were available, if the storage functionality is not included, customers could easily turn away from it and back to streaming radio only.
Since iPods are in short supply right now because so many customers are trying to get one, imagine what the market frenzy would look like if you add radio transmission receivers onto it.
Both XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio with over 4 million subscribers have been looking into ways that they can merge their popular streaming radio functionality with a host of gadgets to give their customers more options and to expand their subscription base.
The iPod seems like a natural fit. Rumors of a partnership between the satellite radio companies and Apple computers have been rampant after several telling signs by executives of both companies at various computer industry shows.
Online tech guides and skeptics are critical, but hopeful, since there is no clear mechanism right now to add the radio transmission function onto an iPod and still maintain the same compact look and feel of the iPod. In addition, it would take some time to develop the product, test it and bring it to market.
Then it would have to attract the attention of both Satellite radio customers and serious iPod fans to prevent each party from losing the market share they are hastily trying to capture.
There is some overlap between iPod customers and Satellite Radio customers especially in the ability to adapt to new technology. What is unclear is if streaming radio fans, and download happy fans are part of some larger online music tribe that anyone can tap with new gadgets.
About the Author
http://www.rapidlingo.com
The Next Marketing Tool: Design by Kyle Neath
Design sells. It’s something that all of us know, but few of us consciously acknowledge. There is an age old adage that warns people not to “judge books by their cover.” In other words, we shouldn’t judge people or products by their appearance. But this isn’t true in America. We do judge books by their cover – in fact we spend billions of dollars on products that have prettier “covers.”
Many people are aware how easy it is to create a web page and put your business online, but you have to ask yourself: is it going to be enough? Sure, you can get all the vitals of your business online and available for the whole world to see, but will your visitors remember your site? Will they trust it? More importantly, will your site cause them to contact you after leaving the web site? iPods, cargo pants and cell phones Oh my! What do these three items have in common you might ask? Design, of course. Back in 2001 Apple Computers unveiled their new offering to the tech world: the iPod.
This smart looking little gadget was an MP3 player, one of thousands already on the market. Against all odds, the iPod has risen above its vast competition and become a common household term. What can we attribute to Apple’s success? The iPod did not offer any features that other MP3 players were already offering, except a sleek design, stunning advertising and Apple’s clever branding.
Great design has obviously paid off for Apple. In the first quarter since releasing the iPod, Apple more than tripled its net profits and sold nearly 900,000 iPods! Some may even speculate to say that the iPod has taken Apple from a failing company to the leader in portable music. Old Navy started off as just another value clothing store spawned from the successful Gap Inc. While this company had the advantage of already having a multi-billion dollar brand backing it, it had no incentive for customers to actually buy the clothes.
Old Navy has since become one of the leading clothing retailers in America becoming a multi-billion dollar brand on its own feet. Old Navy’s president, Jenny Ming, attributes this success to design. Old Navy has taken a new approach to advertising and clothing style relying on fresh, new design. It seems to have worked, attracting millions of customers to their cargo pants, PJ bottoms and fleece jackets. Cell phones.
They’re everywhere: on the street, in cars, and even the hands of thirteen year old girls. No amount of numbers is needed to prove that cell phones have become an everyday accessory as common as a pair of sunglasses. Back in the early nineties, Nokia realized that cell phones might one day catch on and become something of an accessory. The idea was brought up that cell phones could be made in a variety of colors and in attractive shapes. Shortly after concept, Nokia’s rounded cell phones with changeable plates were introduced into the market. They were an instant success. Since then Nokia has come to be the world leader in cell phones, owning nearly 40% of the world market.
Cell phone design hasn’t been the same since. Taking these ideas to the internet Okay, so it’s understandable how design sells, but web sites aren’t tangible products like iPods or cell phones. Design of web sites goes beyond designing something that “looks cool” or uses fancy fonts. The design of web sites goes into the realm of usability, information design and graphical appearance. All three of these aspects must come together to create a great web site design. First off, your web site must be usable. This means that the web site visitor must be able to read, navigate and use the different elements of your site.
A web site is no good if visitors cannot find where your nearest office is located. Secondly, the information contained within the web site must be arranged in a way that visitors will naturally find the information they need in the least amount of effort possible. Lastly, your web site has to look great. It has to have a professional look and one that’s both pleasing to the visitor and conveys the image you need your company to portray. Would you expect a criminal defense attorney’s site to be composed of light blue and pink hues? Strong, vibrant colors project authority and power; qualities you would definitely want in a criminal defense lawyer.
Wrapping it up Design is a major part of modern day business. Making sure your business has a well designed web site ensures you are giving your business the best possible chance. A poorly designed site can be a waste of money and effort. Don’t take the chance; hire a professional to do the job.
About the Author Kyle Neath is an experienced web designer, developing dozens of successful web sites across California.
See more of his work at www.neathdesign.com
Taking Advantage of the iPod Experience
by Simon Canfield
Music lovers have been carrying around radios and other
bulky music devices in order to take their tunes along with
them as they go from place to place. With the iPod – a
portable unit that’s manufactured by Apple – the music
experience offers a higher quality in a much more compact
size.
The iPod will allow your personal music selection to be
played for up to 12 hours at a time, and offers the
additional perks of games and the ability to store files.
Up to 5,000 songs can be stored within a standard iPod,
providing instant access from wherever you happen to be at
the moment. Whether you’re in the office, going for a
stroll, in the car or around the house, iPod is the
solution for your contemporary music needs.
Among the features of the iPod are the ability to choose a
specific play list, shuffle through songs and much more –
all with the click of a button. Users even have the option
of importing their favorite songs from CDs, and music can
be transferred in a variety of formats, such as MP3 or AAC.
If you opt for the FireWire and USB 2.0 support, you can
transfer music from a CD in less than five seconds.
The capability of the iPod also includes that of
calendaring, contact lists, notes and a musical alarm clock
variation that will wake you up to your favorite song in
the morning. With the ability to carry up to 30GB of
storage (in some models), this little unit can be used for
far more than just music. Think of it as an electronic
briefcase of sort. Files can be taken anywhere at any
time; memos can be used as reminders to yourself; even
interviews can be accomplished when using the microphone
option, with the ability to then utilize those audio files
in a documentary format.
For those who have the need of menu items in another
language, the iPod accommodates settings for English,
Italian, German, Spanish, French, Japanese, Norwegian,
Danish, Dutch, Swedish, Finnish, Korean, Traditional
Chinese and Simplified Chinese. In fact, there are a
number of iPod models, such as iPod mini, iPod, iPod
Special Edition and iPod Photo. Depending upon its
capabilities, each comes with a designated amount of
memory, beginning with the 4GB mini iPod to the 30GB iPod
Photo.
In addition to the device itself, the iPod offers a
complete line of accessories, including a dock kit, camera
connector, power adapter, car cassette adapter, auto
charger, FM transmitter, travel pack, car holder, media
reader, in-ear headphones, voice recorder, cabling and
more.
All in all, if your day isn’t complete without music – and
you could also use the ability to transfer files, check
your calendar, keep a contact list and do other
office-related functions in a portable capacity – then the
iPod would be a good investment for you. Prices may vary,
depending upon the retailer and model type, but these can
easily be purchased via the internet for those who don’t
mind a brief search engine task.
About the Author
(c) 2005 Simon Canfield - All Rights Reserved
Simon Canfield is a hi-tech enthusiast and freelance author.
www.AllAboutHeadPhones.com
www.BigScreenTVsecrets.com
Toolbars, Desktop Search and Mac Users by Courtney Heard
These days, it seems everyone is releasing a Toolbar and Desktop search, from Google and MSN to Search Engine Optimization companies and Internet Service Providers. As none of these are being released for the Mac platform, it has left many of us Mac users wondering why.
Contrary to popular opinion, most software today does release a Mac version. With Apple’s launch of the iPod and iTunes music store, and the significant drop in computer prices, many people are switching to the Mac platform. Mac users are on the rise and most software companies recognize this and are meeting the Apple community’s needs. So, why hasn’t Google, MSN, Yahoo! and all the other Toolbar pushers released a Mac version?
It’s really quite simple. Since about 1997, with the release of Apple’s Sherlock, we’ve had all the functions of these toolbars and desktop search programs built-in to the operating system. With the exception of a Google PageRank checker, everything you can do with your Toolbar or Desktop search of choice, you can do with the software that comes built-in on your Mac. And now there’s even a way to check the PageRank of every site you visit with any browser in Mac OS X. I’d even go so far as to say us Mac users have it better. Shall we take a closer look?
Desktop Search software by Google offers 3 main features: search the files on your hard drive, search through your email, and search the web. All of these features have long been a part of the Macintosh Operating System.
Searching through the files on your hard drive has always been a snap for Apple users. The Finder is even named for it. In every finder window there is a quick search field (fig. 1) for a simple search of your hard drive. This search is a keyword search of the names of every last file on your drive, including your web history or SiteCache (fig. 2). You will also notice there are mailboxes in the returned search results in Figure 2. This is just a name search though, so only mailboxes with the keyword you wish to find in the name will be returned as search results using this quick search.
With a swift keystroke combination [Apple + F] or a selection from the File menu in the Finder, a search window opens up with seemingly limitless parameters (fig. 3). With this find function, you can search by name, content, date modified, date created, kind (i.e.. audio, video, text, etc), label, size, extension, whether or not it is a visible file, type, and creator (fig. 4). You can also search using a combination of these things by clicking the + button.
There are endless combinations of search criteria and locations. By using the "Search in:" drop-down menu, you can search in any specified location. Your home folder, your music folder and your entire hard drive are a few examples. Finder search is powerful, easy, quick and has been able to out-search any Desktop search tool since the 90s.
The quick search has also been included in Apple's e-mail client, Mail. Search through messages and mailboxes for content, keywords, sender, recipient, subject and attachments. As the owner of a web-based company, I receive more email than anyone would consider decent, so you can imagine how much use I get out of this particular function (fig. 5). It's absolutely invaluable.
So, what does that leave us with? Searching the web. Enter Apple's magnificent Sherlock. Here's where I turn into a total nerd.
Sherlock, released for the first time in 1997, is Apple's way of organizing the web. Organized into channels, you can search many different services. Sherlock Channels include and are not even close to being limited to:
• About.com
• Best Site 1st
• Looksmart
• Lycos
• Overture
• Google web search
• Google directory search
• Google groups search
• Google news search
• Picture search - search for images on the web
• Lycos Stock search - Search for a stock, it's symbol, it's last trade and news from the company it represents.
• Dictionary.com - Look up words in a dictionary or thesaurus.
• Systran translation - translate anything into a dozen languages.
• AppleCare - search the AppleCare knowledge base for Mac tech support.
• Movies! - This is my personal favorite. Powered by Moviefone, search for movies, their show times at theaters near you, a description of the movie, the movie poster and play the quicktime movie trailer, right there in Sherlock! See fig. 6.
• Project Gutenberg e-text search - find electronic books.
• Heise online - search tech news from heise online.
• NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day - use the APOD viewer to browse through NASA's latest pictures of the day - some of these are absolutely breathtaking.
• USGS Earthquake Hazards - this lists the latest seismic activity, no matter how small, from around the entire globe. In the wake of the Indian Ocean tsunamis, this one can be a little frightening.
• Ebay - Search for items and track them.
• Phonebook - search for phone numbers, addresses and get directions to every search result.
• Japanese news from Mainichi Shimbun
• Above California - search maps for campgrounds, ranger stations, lakes, trails and much more.
• Wedlock - plan your wedding in Sherlock.
Sherlock also features an RSS feeder, localized searching and web cams, and the ability to create and manage your own channel for just about anything within the possibilities of the world wide web. All of this, every last point, can be done without opening a web browser, but if you are within the Apple built-in Safari web browser, in the upper right hand corner of every window, there is a Google search field (fig. 7). So you say your Desktop search can search Google from your desktop? That might have impressed me in 1996, but I've been using those functions for years now. 'bout time you kids caught up.
So, between the Finder and Sherlock, I'd say Mac users have Desktop search more than covered. Next up? The Toolbar. The most popular toolbars offer some really useful features, such as a web search, pop-up blocking, check PageRank, autofill, and the ability to search within a web page. Every one of these features, with the exception of a PageRank checker, is built-in to Safari. We already covered the Google search in the top right hand corner (fig. 7), so let's jump ahead to the others.
Since it's first release in 2003, Safari has offered a pop-up blocking option (fig. 8). I'm on all the Apple newsletters and visit the site at least once a day. Needless to say, I had Safari almost the very second it was available to the public. In all my time using this browser, I have never once seen a pop-up. It's a virtual brick wall that I am eternally thankful for - I don't think I could do my job if I had to look at the myriad of products and services advertised within the wretched pop-up.
Autofill is also a feature that is available with Safari. Using your personal or business contact information from Apple's Address Book, Safari will finish names, e-mail addresses, countries, states, provinces, phone and fax numbers, web site addresses, street addresses, etc as you begin to type them. Also included in this feature is the Safari autofill button in the address bar (fig. 9). One click of this button and the form on the open page is filled in. You can even have it automatically fill in your user name and password for any account on any site, but I would only suggest doing this if you are the sole user of this account and it is unlikely no one else will be using your computer.
Finding keywords within a web page is something that is available in every application within the Macintosh Operating System, much like Windows (fig. 10). The Apple key and the F key at the same time will bring up a search field and any instances of these keywords will be highlighted within the web page, the text document or the e-mail you are searching. You can also search within an entire site, by typing into the Google search field in the Safari window site:www.abalone.ca tsunami - this will search within the domain name abalone.ca for the term 'tsunami'.
Now we're only left with one thing. A PageRank checker. This has been my biggest issue with the Toolbars not being released for the Mac platform. I have written many, many, many letters to the developers at Google. It was of no use. They kept telling me to interpret the green lines under every link in the google Directory. Sure, Google, that's not time consuming or anything. I searched and searched and searched and I found several web sites that checked PageRank after you entered a specific URL, but that wasn't good enough. As an SEO company owner, I needed something that checked the PR of every site I visited without me having to do a thing.
After months of frustration, my brother finally came across the solution at konfabulator.com - widgets. Konfabulator is a small piece of software that allows you to run tiny programs called widgets. You can paste these widgets to your desktop, allow them to float above all other open windows or only bring them to the front when you need them. One such widget is a long-awaited PageRank checker for Mac (fig. 11). Once installed, it will check and show you the PageRank of any site you visit with any browser, automatically.
If you visit widgetgallery.com you can find more than 850 other widgets that do various things such as giving you the weather forecast, desktop search for almost every single search engine, bring you your favorite RSS feed, news, stock info, even plant a character of some kind on your desktop with whom you can interact. Konfabulator is available for Windows as well. These widgets are so useful that Apple has included them in the next release of OS X (Tiger) under the name Dashboard.
So, you can see, as a Mac user, I am outfitted perfectly with everything the Toolbar and Desktop search has to offer and more. Perhaps one day your toolbars and desktop search software will include some of the more advanced features we have, such as downloading and viewing movie trailers, checking flights and earthquake risks, etc. Until then, anything your PC can do, my Mac can do. Perhaps even better.
About the Author
Courtney Heard is the founder of Abalone Designs, an Internet Marketing and SEO company in Vancouver, Canada. She has been involved in web development and marketing since 1995 and has helped start several businesses since then in the Vancouver area. More of Courtney's articles are available at www.abalone.ca/resources/
HDTV and the iPod photo: A Perfect Marriage? by Robert Armstrong
They may seem like an odd combination, but the iPod photo could be the perfect choice for anyone who wants to view photo slideshows on an HDTV.
The iPod photo can store thousands of digital photos, and syncs with a Mac or PC via iTunes. It will read any slideshows you’ve created in iPhoto on a Mac or Photoshop Album on a PC and copy them to the iPod. Alternatively you can tell it to copy a folder full of images from your hard drive as a slideshow.
Also, with the addition of an optional camera connector($29), you can copy photos directly from a digital camera and automatically create a slideshow from them on the iPod photo. All slideshows can be set to music.
To connect the iPod photo to an HDTV you’ll need to first make sure that your HDTV has composite video and audio inputs and then purchase the iPod photo AV cable ($19) from Apple. Connect the iPod to your TV, select the appropriate input and hey presto, your slideshow can be seen in beautiful, bright widescreen glory on your HDTV.
It’s worth bearing a few things in mind when creating slideshows for HDTV. First of all, the screen of an HDTV set has an aspect ratio of 16:9 (length: height) so if you size your photos with this aspect ratio you’ll be able to fill the screen without cropping the photo or seeing ugly black space around it. Secondly, the resolution required for optimal viewing on HDTV at full screen is less than that needed for printing even an A4 image. So if you only intend viewing your photos on-screen, whether on your computer or HDTV, you can save space on your iPod photo by reducing the capture resolution on your digital camera. If you set it at three mega-pixels, that will be enough to allow you to crop photos to the correct aspect ratio and still view them at the highest possible quality on an HDTV.
Of course, the iPod photo can store more than just photographs. Anything that can be saved as an image file, such as JPEG, can be included in a slideshow, so you could even use it to carry around business presentations which can be viewed by anyone with access to a TV or projector.
About the Author
Robert Armstrong is a contributor to The HDTV Tuner - a guide to the kit, the technology and the programming on HDTV..
Are ready to buy a portable mp3 player? by Syd Johnson
Recently, it seems like everyone looking to get a portable mp3 player. Like most new electronics, prices continue to drop and manufacturers continue to add more features. If you are like me and want to have music with you all the time, then a portable mp3 player would definitely be something to add to your wish list this year.
So what exactly does a portable mp3 player do?
It basically stores your music files in a compressed format on a mini hard drive. In fact, the hard drive space on some top of the line mp3 players like the Apple iPod can easily rival the space on a low end desktop PC. It is the genius of the design, and of the mp3 format that allows you to carry so many tunes on your player. Mp3 files are music files that have been compressed to about one tenth of their actual size.
To listen to the music, you need a player that takes the file and slowly decompresses it without losing any of the sound quality. This is what you get with an mp3 player. A portable mp3 player just takes it to the next level by adding an enormous amount of space. If you buy one of the 40Gig iPods for example, you can store about 10,000 songs on the system. Not bad for something that can easily fit inside a purse or jacket.
So how do you pick the best mp3 player?
You pick one based on your daily needs and your budget. Mp3 player are not cheap. Considering the amount of engineering it takes to get that music into such a small box, it’s a wonder they don’t cost more than they do. If you are a very active person who wants to take your player with you everywhere you go, experts recommend that you consider the flash memory models.
You won’t be able to store as many songs as on the jukebox model, but it’s a good way to get a stereo on the go. If the price is right and the sound is good, then a flash memory player is great for people who like to workout and stay active. It will stand up a little bit better to all the wear and tear on your system.
If you want to get the player, but don’t plan on using it while working out, then there is the jukebox model. Either one would be a good gift for friends and family, or for your self.
You can find more pictures and information on the many different brands of portable mp3 players at any major music retailer
About the Author
This article may be freely distributed as long as there's an active link to http://www.rapidlingo.com
Syd Johnson
Editor
How to Replace Ipod's Battery On Your Own
by Corey Liz
There are few products more popular than the iPod—except when it comes to battery life. The batteries in early iPods fail after a time (300 to 500 charge/discharge cycles or about two to three years) and just won’t hold a charge. Even worse, there’s no easy way to change the batteries. Angry owners sued and now Apple has agreed to some restitution (AppleIpodSettlement). That’s good news if you’re the owner of a third-generation iPod: You’re eligible for a free battery replacement or (at Apple’s discretion) a replacement iPod, providing you still have your proof of purchase and file a claim by September 30, 2005. The news is not so good if you have a first- or second-generation iPod: You can choose between a check for $25 or a $50 store credit to use on Apple products (excluding iTunes). Well, at least that’s something. But you’re still stuck with your dead battery. What can you do? The simple (and costly) approach would be to go with Apple’s iPod Out-of- Warranty Battery Replacement Program.
Send in your dead iPod along with a check for $99 plus $6.95 shipping and you’ll receive an equivalent new or refurbished model with a fresh battery in one to three weeks. Besides paying more than three times the cost of a battery, which can be obtained online for around $30, you’re not even guaranteed you’ll receive your exact iPod back in the mail. Why not avoid all of Apple’s service fees? You really can replace the battery on your own: We’ll show you how. Sure, you’ll void the warranty in the process, but isn’t that part of the fun?
Visit http://www.goto-site.com/best-buy/replace-ipod-battery.htm l for complete instructions and step by step pictures.
What Does The Year Of The Rooster Have In Store For The Digital World?
by Julian Frnandez
Roosters are supposedly deep thinkers—capable of handling any challenge, they are outspoken, aggressive, talented, and courageous.
Which is exactly what we can expect this year from the digital world.
Mini-Me’s
Just as Roosters are aggressive with whatever they do, Apple isn’t one to let the PC drag him out of the ring. The introduction of the Mac Mini, which measures 6.5” square and 2” tall is hitting sales hard with its stylish, yet convenient package. The company that made MP3s on the go the coolest thing (not to mention iPods that play videos and store photos) is ringing in the New Year with affordable yet chic products that are making other companies squirm in their seats.
Taking on the cue of the Mac mini, it’s all about going compact. Rumors of the Apple Powerbook G5 to be released in the second quarter of 2005 has gotten many laptop lovers reeling with excitement.
Fired up and ready to Google
Just as you’ve discovered Mozilla Firefox as the best ever browser on the planet (if you haven’t, then you must be a fan of spyware and random pop-ups), you might have to familiarize yourself with yet another super-charged browser. Google.com has employed head programmer for Firefox Ben Goodger, to develop a browser for them—which could very much leave Microsoft’s IE in the dust.
Music on the Go
Cellular phones won’t be left behind—Motorola is introducing 13 new models this year, and Samsung’s light and compact clam shell phones are quickly winning the hearts of many text addicts.
Phones are quickly incorporating as much media as it can in one unit—but everyone will still be clamoring for their own mp3 player. Creative and Samsung have released compact and stylish players to pit against the iPOD—let’s face it, MP3 players are the new cell phones when it comes to being digitally trendy.
Although, as we get more connected, our precious PCs and PDAs become more prone to viruses. These won’t go away in the year of the Rooster, but instead, could be more rampant. It’s easier to get infected when we’re all wired up—expect random viruses as well as blue jacking, which are attacks on Bluetooth-enabled devices.
That shouldn’t get you down, though. After all, the Rooster can overcome whatever challenge is thrown his way. Now there’s something to crow about.
About the Author
For questions about the articles you may contact the author at http://www.digitalroom.com
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Apple iPod 4th Generation by bradley james
Just recently the 4th generation of the extremely popular Apple iPod was released. What sets this newest version apart most distinctly from its predecessors is its huge storage capacity. The new iPod can now hold approximately 10,000 of your favorite songs.
The iPod, which has been around for over a year now, is perhaps the worlds most popular, and best-selling portable digital music device. Its greatest selling points, of course, are its mobile capacity and ease of use. Fully digital, and capable of storing 20GB of songs, the iPod is basically the forerunner of this type of device. The batteries that power the iPod currently have a lifespan of 12 hours, enough for one full day of music. The device can, of course, play MP3s, but it can also play AAC and Apple Lossless.
One of the most popular features of the iPod is the shuffle feature. Using the iPod Click Wheel it is possible to shuffle and play songs randomly from a song list of your choosing or your complete music database. The mix of different types of songs coming at you randomly can be quite refreshing. Another great feature is the ability to easily download digital songs from the Internet. With the iTunes online music store you can find a huge database of songs to choose from and purchase if you desire. The songs on sale are arranged by genre such as Rock, Country, Jazz, Reggae, Pop, Electronica, Hip Hop, and many more. iTunes can be utilized using both Mac and Windows PCs.
In addition to downloading songs from the internet, iTunes allows you to import songs from your CDs to your iPod. You can transfer the songs in MP3 or AAA format and at the quality level you desire.
There are also some special features found on the latest iPod. There is now an alarm on your iPod so that you may wake up to your favorite music. There is also a calendar and to-do lists, as well as simple games such as Music Quiz, Solitaire, Brick and Parachute. Also, the new iPod has a notes reader that enables you to read text-based documents that you have downloaded. In these ways, the new iPod increasingly resembles a typical PDA, as well as a digital music device.
The iPod currently sells for approximately $200 - $350. The earlier iPod with 15GB of space sells for around $220, while the newest version with 20GB of space usually sells for about $390.
About the Author
Bradley James is a senior editor at SciNet.cc, a website containing many helpful consumer electronics review articles. For more information on the Apple iPod, please visit our Apple iPod webpage..
MP3 Players, Flash MP3 Player, Apple iPod MP3 Players, CD-MP3 Player, Computer Parts, PC Components, Desktop Computers, Laptops, Notebooks, Digital Photo Cameras Reviews,Flat Panel Screen LCD Monitors.
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iPod -
Learn How It Can Solve Everyday Problems
by Mircea Cojocaru
All over the world, people carry with them walkmans and other music devices so that they can play their favorite music as they move around from place to place. The latest thing in the portable music devices field is the iPod, which offers a higher quality of the music being played and one of the most compact design out there.
The iPod allows you to play your music for an very long time (up to 12 hours for most of them) and have a huge amount of storage (some have 30GB). You can store thousands songs within a standard iPod and have instant access to them wherever you are at the moment. This makes them the perfect choice for your nowadays music necessities.
With iPods, transferring music from a CD takes less than 5 seconds, assuming that you use the FireWire and USB 2.0 support and can be transferred in a rather wide variety of formats, such as MP3, WMA, or AAC. With the iPods, users have the ability of importing songs from CDs, shuffling through songs, or choosing specific playlists, to name just a few of the iPods' features.
iPods are also equipped with a calendar, contact lists, notes and a musical alarm clock, which makes them more than just a portable music device, along with their huge storage capability. With them, you can take your files anywhere at any time, use memos as reminders and even record whatever you want with their microphone option.
iPods come with a wide variety of language support for languages like English, Italian, German etc. and models, such as iPod mini, iPod, iPod Special Edition and iPod Photo, each with its own storage capability (4GB for the iPods mini to 30GB for iPods Photo).
In addition to the device itself, a wide line of accessories are available for iPods, such as camera connector, power adapter, auto charger, car holder, voice recorder and many more.
In conclusion, with their high quality of the music being played, high storage capability, high transfer speed and all their functions, the iPods make the perfect choice if you are a music addict or just need a portable storage device.
About the Author
Get a Free mini Ipod now. For a cheap ipod just visit us at http://www.ukipodmini4free.com
MP3 Player Review: The Apple iPod by Syd Johnson
As you look for MP3 player reviews online, you will find that most of them are geared toward the largest player in the market, the iPod. The Apple iPod is now the most popular and best selling MP3 player on the market. The basic model has a 15, 20 or 40 Gig hard drive, can store up hundreds of minutes of music, has a long battery life, works on Mac and PC Computers and a very sleek and user friendly design.
Ultimate Song List
On the music side, all the songs on your system are arranged by Album and by Artists so it makes it easier to set up your playlist. The newest iPod model can hold up to 10,000 songs. Sync up with your PC or get your songs from iTunes and you will have an extensive list of songs in a few minutes.
You can carry the iTunes playlist around with you, but you can also burn them onto CDs and create new mixes and custom albums for your friends and family. It also has a helpful rating system so when you set it up to play randomly, the highest rated songs are played more often.
Play Music and Manage Your Schedule?
The newer iPod models also has a built in calendar function, to do list and alarm clock. Just like your old time radio, you can set it up to wake you up with a jolting alarm or your favorite songs. In keeping with the tradition of doing more than store and play music, there is a nice set of your favorite computer games including Solitaire and a Music Quiz game.
Huge Hard Drive Capacity
The 40Gig model has so much space that basically you can download any kind of text application from your computer and keep it on the iPod. Just for a frame of reference, that is the same amount of space that you will find on any basic or lower end Laptop or PC Computer.
Excellence is not cheap
The iPod is not the cheapest MP3 player that you will find online, but if you look at a fraction of the MP3 player reviews online, you will see that reviewers, and iPod customers agree that this one is the best MP3 players around.
About the Author
This article may be freely distributed as long as there's an active link to http://www.rapidlingo.com
Say bye-bye to Illegal music downloads? by Syd Johnson
Both Napster and Microsoft Music Service are working on new way to get customers to download music file to their iPod and otherportable mp3 players for less than $1 per song. Actually, significantly less. Both of these music service are working on a way allow customers to downloads as much music as they want as long as it goes directly to an iPod or similar portable music player.
This is great news for customers who still think $1 per song is too steep. Although the price model words for one song, 10 songs or even 100 songs, it starts getting outrageous when you go by factors of ten. If an iPod holds 10,000 songs and you want to fill it up, you would have to spend $10,000. Most people can fill up the iPod in less than a year.
Unfortunately, they probably won’t spend $10,000 on music, in any single year. So, what you could have is a legal product, the iPod, being used to hold thousands of illegal songs because the space is there. (assuming the iPod would be open later on to all mp3 formats.)
Napster has a workaround
Napster is the first to announce that it is working on a subscription model that would allow it’s user to pay a cheap subscription fee with no restrictions on how many songs they can download. By their estimates, a user can probably download 10,000 songs for about $180. Unfortunately, the Napster system does not work with the iPod so customers can only take advantage of this offer if they purchase either of two Napster approved portable mp3 players.
The Microsoft model would also allow customers to download a significant number of files for less than the average cost of $1 per song. Microsoft is another company that is also locked out of the iPod. They will distribute the songs via Microsoft approved portable mp3 players.
This new pricing model is radical change for the digital music industry. This came about because the success of iTunes has highlighted all that is good and bad about the ways music is sold online.
It shows that customers will buy online and they will browse through digital catalogs for individual songs rather than entire albums. But, it also shows that a lot of work needs to be done to make the mp3 security codes and portable players more compatible. If Apple continues to dominate the portable mp3 player market with the iPod, then customers will only have three choices:
1. Subscribe through iTunes because they want the iPod
2. Hack the iPod which Real Network is doing already
3. Or, ignore the most reliable portable mp3 player out there and deal with having a few files on their computers or on another less prominent player.
This is all great news for digital music fans, but we’ll have to wait and see how the recording industry responds to this cheap-for-all music model.
Is it sufficient to bring back the revenue streams that songwriters and singers have been losing to totally free services such as Kazaa and Grokster? No one knows.
About the Author
This article may be freely distributed as long as there's an active link to http://www.rapidlingo.com
iTunes tops 200 million downloads, Partners with Satellite Radio by Syd Johnson
It seems that Apple is in talks with Sirius Satellite Radio to make their streaming broadcasts available on the iPod. This is something that a lot of online music fans have been looking forward to for some time. Satellite radio customers love the music variety because they can go for days without hearing the same songs on rotation. This is in stark contrast to commercial radio stations, where you can hear the same song every couple of hours and on multiple stations in the same market.
Many think this pairing is just a rumor since iPods are not designed for this type of function and it would probably require a much larger hard drive and a much larger iPod case to be able to carry the streams.
Another functionality that would also require some tweaks is the ability to record satellite stream directly onto the iPods. The whole purpose of the iPod is the storage capacity and the ability to make music portable.
Even if satellite broadcasts were available, if the storage functionality is not included, customers could easily turn away from it and back to streaming radio only.
Since iPods are in short supply right now because so many customers are trying to get one, imagine what the market frenzy would look like if you add radio transmission receivers onto it.
Both XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio with over 4 million subscribers have been looking into ways that they can merge their popular streaming radio functionality with a host of gadgets to give their customers more options and to expand their subscription base.
The iPod seems like a natural fit. Rumors of a partnership between the satellite radio companies and Apple computers have been rampant after several telling signs by executives of both companies at various computer industry shows.
Online tech guides and skeptics are critical, but hopeful, since there is no clear mechanism right now to add the radio transmission function onto an iPod and still maintain the same compact look and feel of the iPod. In addition, it would take some time to develop the product, test it and bring it to market.
Then it would have to attract the attention of both Satellite radio customers and serious iPod fans to prevent each party from losing the market share they are hastily trying to capture.
There is some overlap between iPod customers and Satellite Radio customers especially in the ability to adapt to new technology. What is unclear is if streaming radio fans, and download happy fans are part of some larger online music tribe that anyone can tap with new gadgets.
About the Author
http://www.rapidlingo.com
The Next Marketing Tool: Design by Kyle Neath
Design sells. It’s something that all of us know, but few of us consciously acknowledge. There is an age old adage that warns people not to “judge books by their cover.” In other words, we shouldn’t judge people or products by their appearance. But this isn’t true in America. We do judge books by their cover – in fact we spend billions of dollars on products that have prettier “covers.”
Many people are aware how easy it is to create a web page and put your business online, but you have to ask yourself: is it going to be enough? Sure, you can get all the vitals of your business online and available for the whole world to see, but will your visitors remember your site? Will they trust it? More importantly, will your site cause them to contact you after leaving the web site? iPods, cargo pants and cell phones Oh my! What do these three items have in common you might ask? Design, of course. Back in 2001 Apple Computers unveiled their new offering to the tech world: the iPod.
This smart looking little gadget was an MP3 player, one of thousands already on the market. Against all odds, the iPod has risen above its vast competition and become a common household term. What can we attribute to Apple’s success? The iPod did not offer any features that other MP3 players were already offering, except a sleek design, stunning advertising and Apple’s clever branding.
Great design has obviously paid off for Apple. In the first quarter since releasing the iPod, Apple more than tripled its net profits and sold nearly 900,000 iPods! Some may even speculate to say that the iPod has taken Apple from a failing company to the leader in portable music. Old Navy started off as just another value clothing store spawned from the successful Gap Inc. While this company had the advantage of already having a multi-billion dollar brand backing it, it had no incentive for customers to actually buy the clothes.
Old Navy has since become one of the leading clothing retailers in America becoming a multi-billion dollar brand on its own feet. Old Navy’s president, Jenny Ming, attributes this success to design. Old Navy has taken a new approach to advertising and clothing style relying on fresh, new design. It seems to have worked, attracting millions of customers to their cargo pants, PJ bottoms and fleece jackets. Cell phones.
They’re everywhere: on the street, in cars, and even the hands of thirteen year old girls. No amount of numbers is needed to prove that cell phones have become an everyday accessory as common as a pair of sunglasses. Back in the early nineties, Nokia realized that cell phones might one day catch on and become something of an accessory. The idea was brought up that cell phones could be made in a variety of colors and in attractive shapes. Shortly after concept, Nokia’s rounded cell phones with changeable plates were introduced into the market. They were an instant success. Since then Nokia has come to be the world leader in cell phones, owning nearly 40% of the world market.
Cell phone design hasn’t been the same since. Taking these ideas to the internet Okay, so it’s understandable how design sells, but web sites aren’t tangible products like iPods or cell phones. Design of web sites goes beyond designing something that “looks cool” or uses fancy fonts. The design of web sites goes into the realm of usability, information design and graphical appearance. All three of these aspects must come together to create a great web site design. First off, your web site must be usable. This means that the web site visitor must be able to read, navigate and use the different elements of your site.
A web site is no good if visitors cannot find where your nearest office is located. Secondly, the information contained within the web site must be arranged in a way that visitors will naturally find the information they need in the least amount of effort possible. Lastly, your web site has to look great. It has to have a professional look and one that’s both pleasing to the visitor and conveys the image you need your company to portray. Would you expect a criminal defense attorney’s site to be composed of light blue and pink hues? Strong, vibrant colors project authority and power; qualities you would definitely want in a criminal defense lawyer.
Wrapping it up Design is a major part of modern day business. Making sure your business has a well designed web site ensures you are giving your business the best possible chance. A poorly designed site can be a waste of money and effort. Don’t take the chance; hire a professional to do the job.
About the Author Kyle Neath is an experienced web designer, developing dozens of successful web sites across California.
See more of his work at www.neathdesign.com
Taking Advantage of the iPod Experience
by Simon Canfield
Music lovers have been carrying around radios and other
bulky music devices in order to take their tunes along with
them as they go from place to place. With the iPod – a
portable unit that’s manufactured by Apple – the music
experience offers a higher quality in a much more compact
size.
The iPod will allow your personal music selection to be
played for up to 12 hours at a time, and offers the
additional perks of games and the ability to store files.
Up to 5,000 songs can be stored within a standard iPod,
providing instant access from wherever you happen to be at
the moment. Whether you’re in the office, going for a
stroll, in the car or around the house, iPod is the
solution for your contemporary music needs.
Among the features of the iPod are the ability to choose a
specific play list, shuffle through songs and much more –
all with the click of a button. Users even have the option
of importing their favorite songs from CDs, and music can
be transferred in a variety of formats, such as MP3 or AAC.
If you opt for the FireWire and USB 2.0 support, you can
transfer music from a CD in less than five seconds.
The capability of the iPod also includes that of
calendaring, contact lists, notes and a musical alarm clock
variation that will wake you up to your favorite song in
the morning. With the ability to carry up to 30GB of
storage (in some models), this little unit can be used for
far more than just music. Think of it as an electronic
briefcase of sort. Files can be taken anywhere at any
time; memos can be used as reminders to yourself; even
interviews can be accomplished when using the microphone
option, with the ability to then utilize those audio files
in a documentary format.
For those who have the need of menu items in another
language, the iPod accommodates settings for English,
Italian, German, Spanish, French, Japanese, Norwegian,
Danish, Dutch, Swedish, Finnish, Korean, Traditional
Chinese and Simplified Chinese. In fact, there are a
number of iPod models, such as iPod mini, iPod, iPod
Special Edition and iPod Photo. Depending upon its
capabilities, each comes with a designated amount of
memory, beginning with the 4GB mini iPod to the 30GB iPod
Photo.
In addition to the device itself, the iPod offers a
complete line of accessories, including a dock kit, camera
connector, power adapter, car cassette adapter, auto
charger, FM transmitter, travel pack, car holder, media
reader, in-ear headphones, voice recorder, cabling and
more.
All in all, if your day isn’t complete without music – and
you could also use the ability to transfer files, check
your calendar, keep a contact list and do other
office-related functions in a portable capacity – then the
iPod would be a good investment for you. Prices may vary,
depending upon the retailer and model type, but these can
easily be purchased via the internet for those who don’t
mind a brief search engine task.
About the Author
(c) 2005 Simon Canfield - All Rights Reserved
Simon Canfield is a hi-tech enthusiast and freelance author.
www.AllAboutHeadPhones.com
www.BigScreenTVsecrets.com
Toolbars, Desktop Search and Mac Users by Courtney Heard
These days, it seems everyone is releasing a Toolbar and Desktop search, from Google and MSN to Search Engine Optimization companies and Internet Service Providers. As none of these are being released for the Mac platform, it has left many of us Mac users wondering why.
Contrary to popular opinion, most software today does release a Mac version. With Apple’s launch of the iPod and iTunes music store, and the significant drop in computer prices, many people are switching to the Mac platform. Mac users are on the rise and most software companies recognize this and are meeting the Apple community’s needs. So, why hasn’t Google, MSN, Yahoo! and all the other Toolbar pushers released a Mac version?
It’s really quite simple. Since about 1997, with the release of Apple’s Sherlock, we’ve had all the functions of these toolbars and desktop search programs built-in to the operating system. With the exception of a Google PageRank checker, everything you can do with your Toolbar or Desktop search of choice, you can do with the software that comes built-in on your Mac. And now there’s even a way to check the PageRank of every site you visit with any browser in Mac OS X. I’d even go so far as to say us Mac users have it better. Shall we take a closer look?
Desktop Search software by Google offers 3 main features: search the files on your hard drive, search through your email, and search the web. All of these features have long been a part of the Macintosh Operating System.
Searching through the files on your hard drive has always been a snap for Apple users. The Finder is even named for it. In every finder window there is a quick search field (fig. 1) for a simple search of your hard drive. This search is a keyword search of the names of every last file on your drive, including your web history or SiteCache (fig. 2). You will also notice there are mailboxes in the returned search results in Figure 2. This is just a name search though, so only mailboxes with the keyword you wish to find in the name will be returned as search results using this quick search.
With a swift keystroke combination [Apple + F] or a selection from the File menu in the Finder, a search window opens up with seemingly limitless parameters (fig. 3). With this find function, you can search by name, content, date modified, date created, kind (i.e.. audio, video, text, etc), label, size, extension, whether or not it is a visible file, type, and creator (fig. 4). You can also search using a combination of these things by clicking the + button.
There are endless combinations of search criteria and locations. By using the "Search in:" drop-down menu, you can search in any specified location. Your home folder, your music folder and your entire hard drive are a few examples. Finder search is powerful, easy, quick and has been able to out-search any Desktop search tool since the 90s.
The quick search has also been included in Apple's e-mail client, Mail. Search through messages and mailboxes for content, keywords, sender, recipient, subject and attachments. As the owner of a web-based company, I receive more email than anyone would consider decent, so you can imagine how much use I get out of this particular function (fig. 5). It's absolutely invaluable.
So, what does that leave us with? Searching the web. Enter Apple's magnificent Sherlock. Here's where I turn into a total nerd.
Sherlock, released for the first time in 1997, is Apple's way of organizing the web. Organized into channels, you can search many different services. Sherlock Channels include and are not even close to being limited to:
• About.com
• Best Site 1st
• Looksmart
• Lycos
• Overture
• Google web search
• Google directory search
• Google groups search
• Google news search
• Picture search - search for images on the web
• Lycos Stock search - Search for a stock, it's symbol, it's last trade and news from the company it represents.
• Dictionary.com - Look up words in a dictionary or thesaurus.
• Systran translation - translate anything into a dozen languages.
• AppleCare - search the AppleCare knowledge base for Mac tech support.
• Movies! - This is my personal favorite. Powered by Moviefone, search for movies, their show times at theaters near you, a description of the movie, the movie poster and play the quicktime movie trailer, right there in Sherlock! See fig. 6.
• Project Gutenberg e-text search - find electronic books.
• Heise online - search tech news from heise online.
• NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day - use the APOD viewer to browse through NASA's latest pictures of the day - some of these are absolutely breathtaking.
• USGS Earthquake Hazards - this lists the latest seismic activity, no matter how small, from around the entire globe. In the wake of the Indian Ocean tsunamis, this one can be a little frightening.
• Ebay - Search for items and track them.
• Phonebook - search for phone numbers, addresses and get directions to every search result.
• Japanese news from Mainichi Shimbun
• Above California - search maps for campgrounds, ranger stations, lakes, trails and much more.
• Wedlock - plan your wedding in Sherlock.
Sherlock also features an RSS feeder, localized searching and web cams, and the ability to create and manage your own channel for just about anything within the possibilities of the world wide web. All of this, every last point, can be done without opening a web browser, but if you are within the Apple built-in Safari web browser, in the upper right hand corner of every window, there is a Google search field (fig. 7). So you say your Desktop search can search Google from your desktop? That might have impressed me in 1996, but I've been using those functions for years now. 'bout time you kids caught up.
So, between the Finder and Sherlock, I'd say Mac users have Desktop search more than covered. Next up? The Toolbar. The most popular toolbars offer some really useful features, such as a web search, pop-up blocking, check PageRank, autofill, and the ability to search within a web page. Every one of these features, with the exception of a PageRank checker, is built-in to Safari. We already covered the Google search in the top right hand corner (fig. 7), so let's jump ahead to the others.
Since it's first release in 2003, Safari has offered a pop-up blocking option (fig. 8). I'm on all the Apple newsletters and visit the site at least once a day. Needless to say, I had Safari almost the very second it was available to the public. In all my time using this browser, I have never once seen a pop-up. It's a virtual brick wall that I am eternally thankful for - I don't think I could do my job if I had to look at the myriad of products and services advertised within the wretched pop-up.
Autofill is also a feature that is available with Safari. Using your personal or business contact information from Apple's Address Book, Safari will finish names, e-mail addresses, countries, states, provinces, phone and fax numbers, web site addresses, street addresses, etc as you begin to type them. Also included in this feature is the Safari autofill button in the address bar (fig. 9). One click of this button and the form on the open page is filled in. You can even have it automatically fill in your user name and password for any account on any site, but I would only suggest doing this if you are the sole user of this account and it is unlikely no one else will be using your computer.
Finding keywords within a web page is something that is available in every application within the Macintosh Operating System, much like Windows (fig. 10). The Apple key and the F key at the same time will bring up a search field and any instances of these keywords will be highlighted within the web page, the text document or the e-mail you are searching. You can also search within an entire site, by typing into the Google search field in the Safari window site:www.abalone.ca tsunami - this will search within the domain name abalone.ca for the term 'tsunami'.
Now we're only left with one thing. A PageRank checker. This has been my biggest issue with the Toolbars not being released for the Mac platform. I have written many, many, many letters to the developers at Google. It was of no use. They kept telling me to interpret the green lines under every link in the google Directory. Sure, Google, that's not time consuming or anything. I searched and searched and searched and I found several web sites that checked PageRank after you entered a specific URL, but that wasn't good enough. As an SEO company owner, I needed something that checked the PR of every site I visited without me having to do a thing.
After months of frustration, my brother finally came across the solution at konfabulator.com - widgets. Konfabulator is a small piece of software that allows you to run tiny programs called widgets. You can paste these widgets to your desktop, allow them to float above all other open windows or only bring them to the front when you need them. One such widget is a long-awaited PageRank checker for Mac (fig. 11). Once installed, it will check and show you the PageRank of any site you visit with any browser, automatically.
If you visit widgetgallery.com you can find more than 850 other widgets that do various things such as giving you the weather forecast, desktop search for almost every single search engine, bring you your favorite RSS feed, news, stock info, even plant a character of some kind on your desktop with whom you can interact. Konfabulator is available for Windows as well. These widgets are so useful that Apple has included them in the next release of OS X (Tiger) under the name Dashboard.
So, you can see, as a Mac user, I am outfitted perfectly with everything the Toolbar and Desktop search has to offer and more. Perhaps one day your toolbars and desktop search software will include some of the more advanced features we have, such as downloading and viewing movie trailers, checking flights and earthquake risks, etc. Until then, anything your PC can do, my Mac can do. Perhaps even better.
About the Author
Courtney Heard is the founder of Abalone Designs, an Internet Marketing and SEO company in Vancouver, Canada. She has been involved in web development and marketing since 1995 and has helped start several businesses since then in the Vancouver area. More of Courtney's articles are available at www.abalone.ca/resources/
HDTV and the iPod photo: A Perfect Marriage? by Robert Armstrong
They may seem like an odd combination, but the iPod photo could be the perfect choice for anyone who wants to view photo slideshows on an HDTV.
The iPod photo can store thousands of digital photos, and syncs with a Mac or PC via iTunes. It will read any slideshows you’ve created in iPhoto on a Mac or Photoshop Album on a PC and copy them to the iPod. Alternatively you can tell it to copy a folder full of images from your hard drive as a slideshow.
Also, with the addition of an optional camera connector($29), you can copy photos directly from a digital camera and automatically create a slideshow from them on the iPod photo. All slideshows can be set to music.
To connect the iPod photo to an HDTV you’ll need to first make sure that your HDTV has composite video and audio inputs and then purchase the iPod photo AV cable ($19) from Apple. Connect the iPod to your TV, select the appropriate input and hey presto, your slideshow can be seen in beautiful, bright widescreen glory on your HDTV.
It’s worth bearing a few things in mind when creating slideshows for HDTV. First of all, the screen of an HDTV set has an aspect ratio of 16:9 (length: height) so if you size your photos with this aspect ratio you’ll be able to fill the screen without cropping the photo or seeing ugly black space around it. Secondly, the resolution required for optimal viewing on HDTV at full screen is less than that needed for printing even an A4 image. So if you only intend viewing your photos on-screen, whether on your computer or HDTV, you can save space on your iPod photo by reducing the capture resolution on your digital camera. If you set it at three mega-pixels, that will be enough to allow you to crop photos to the correct aspect ratio and still view them at the highest possible quality on an HDTV.
Of course, the iPod photo can store more than just photographs. Anything that can be saved as an image file, such as JPEG, can be included in a slideshow, so you could even use it to carry around business presentations which can be viewed by anyone with access to a TV or projector.
About the Author
Robert Armstrong is a contributor to The HDTV Tuner - a guide to the kit, the technology and the programming on HDTV..
Are ready to buy a portable mp3 player? by Syd Johnson
Recently, it seems like everyone looking to get a portable mp3 player. Like most new electronics, prices continue to drop and manufacturers continue to add more features. If you are like me and want to have music with you all the time, then a portable mp3 player would definitely be something to add to your wish list this year.
So what exactly does a portable mp3 player do?
It basically stores your music files in a compressed format on a mini hard drive. In fact, the hard drive space on some top of the line mp3 players like the Apple iPod can easily rival the space on a low end desktop PC. It is the genius of the design, and of the mp3 format that allows you to carry so many tunes on your player. Mp3 files are music files that have been compressed to about one tenth of their actual size.
To listen to the music, you need a player that takes the file and slowly decompresses it without losing any of the sound quality. This is what you get with an mp3 player. A portable mp3 player just takes it to the next level by adding an enormous amount of space. If you buy one of the 40Gig iPods for example, you can store about 10,000 songs on the system. Not bad for something that can easily fit inside a purse or jacket.
So how do you pick the best mp3 player?
You pick one based on your daily needs and your budget. Mp3 player are not cheap. Considering the amount of engineering it takes to get that music into such a small box, it’s a wonder they don’t cost more than they do. If you are a very active person who wants to take your player with you everywhere you go, experts recommend that you consider the flash memory models.
You won’t be able to store as many songs as on the jukebox model, but it’s a good way to get a stereo on the go. If the price is right and the sound is good, then a flash memory player is great for people who like to workout and stay active. It will stand up a little bit better to all the wear and tear on your system.
If you want to get the player, but don’t plan on using it while working out, then there is the jukebox model. Either one would be a good gift for friends and family, or for your self.
You can find more pictures and information on the many different brands of portable mp3 players at any major music retailer
About the Author
This article may be freely distributed as long as there's an active link to http://www.rapidlingo.com
Syd Johnson
Editor
How to Replace Ipod's Battery On Your Own
by Corey Liz
There are few products more popular than the iPod—except when it comes to battery life. The batteries in early iPods fail after a time (300 to 500 charge/discharge cycles or about two to three years) and just won’t hold a charge. Even worse, there’s no easy way to change the batteries. Angry owners sued and now Apple has agreed to some restitution (AppleIpodSettlement). That’s good news if you’re the owner of a third-generation iPod: You’re eligible for a free battery replacement or (at Apple’s discretion) a replacement iPod, providing you still have your proof of purchase and file a claim by September 30, 2005. The news is not so good if you have a first- or second-generation iPod: You can choose between a check for $25 or a $50 store credit to use on Apple products (excluding iTunes). Well, at least that’s something. But you’re still stuck with your dead battery. What can you do? The simple (and costly) approach would be to go with Apple’s iPod Out-of- Warranty Battery Replacement Program.
Send in your dead iPod along with a check for $99 plus $6.95 shipping and you’ll receive an equivalent new or refurbished model with a fresh battery in one to three weeks. Besides paying more than three times the cost of a battery, which can be obtained online for around $30, you’re not even guaranteed you’ll receive your exact iPod back in the mail. Why not avoid all of Apple’s service fees? You really can replace the battery on your own: We’ll show you how. Sure, you’ll void the warranty in the process, but isn’t that part of the fun?
Visit http://www.goto-site.com/best-buy/replace-ipod-battery.htm l for complete instructions and step by step pictures.
What Does The Year Of The Rooster Have In Store For The Digital World?
by Julian Frnandez
Roosters are supposedly deep thinkers—capable of handling any challenge, they are outspoken, aggressive, talented, and courageous.
Which is exactly what we can expect this year from the digital world.
Mini-Me’s
Just as Roosters are aggressive with whatever they do, Apple isn’t one to let the PC drag him out of the ring. The introduction of the Mac Mini, which measures 6.5” square and 2” tall is hitting sales hard with its stylish, yet convenient package. The company that made MP3s on the go the coolest thing (not to mention iPods that play videos and store photos) is ringing in the New Year with affordable yet chic products that are making other companies squirm in their seats.
Taking on the cue of the Mac mini, it’s all about going compact. Rumors of the Apple Powerbook G5 to be released in the second quarter of 2005 has gotten many laptop lovers reeling with excitement.
Fired up and ready to Google
Just as you’ve discovered Mozilla Firefox as the best ever browser on the planet (if you haven’t, then you must be a fan of spyware and random pop-ups), you might have to familiarize yourself with yet another super-charged browser. Google.com has employed head programmer for Firefox Ben Goodger, to develop a browser for them—which could very much leave Microsoft’s IE in the dust.
Music on the Go
Cellular phones won’t be left behind—Motorola is introducing 13 new models this year, and Samsung’s light and compact clam shell phones are quickly winning the hearts of many text addicts.
Phones are quickly incorporating as much media as it can in one unit—but everyone will still be clamoring for their own mp3 player. Creative and Samsung have released compact and stylish players to pit against the iPOD—let’s face it, MP3 players are the new cell phones when it comes to being digitally trendy.
Although, as we get more connected, our precious PCs and PDAs become more prone to viruses. These won’t go away in the year of the Rooster, but instead, could be more rampant. It’s easier to get infected when we’re all wired up—expect random viruses as well as blue jacking, which are attacks on Bluetooth-enabled devices.
That shouldn’t get you down, though. After all, the Rooster can overcome whatever challenge is thrown his way. Now there’s something to crow about.
About the Author
For questions about the articles you may contact the author at http://www.digitalroom.com
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