Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Magic Mouse is back in the house!

Awhile ago, I ditched my Magic Mouse for my old wireless mouse, and for several reasons:

1) I kept running out of batteries (It does not last for 4 months...)
2) I was starting to develop RSI from the ridiculously bad tracking of my huge 24 inch screen (even at maximum track sensitivity it
would take my whole mouse pad to track to the edges of my screen)
3) I was bored with the swipe gestures that Apple had given to the Magic Mouse by default.

Enter: MagicPrefs

This nifty little add-on is what I was waiting for Apple to eventually with new gestures for the Magic Mouse, but instead has been done for free by a third party. It addressed issues 2 and 3 with even higher tracking speeds (bye bye RSI) and a whole truck-load of new swipe features!

I've been playing around with it all night, and to summarise, it basically makes your Magic Mouse almost on par with the Macbook Trackpads. This is saying a lot because in addition to scrolling and going back and forth (boring) I can now:

>Middle click (to open new tabs!)
>Expose with 2 finger swipe down
>Show desktop with 2 finger swipe up
>Switch spaces with 3 finger swipe up
>Bring up the dashboard with 3 finger swipe down
>Bring up a nifty little magicmenu when triple clicking (easy access to copy/paste without touching the keyboard)

That's not even half of the things you can add, although half of the gestures there are probably not ergonomical or convenient to do unless you have epic spider hands.

At any rate, if you have a Magic Mouse (or is considering getting one) then MagicPrefs is a must have!

Check it out here

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Using an iPad at uni?

I've been thinking about how I would use my iPad once I got it so I started hunting around for some note-taking apps which I could play around with while I was in a lecture. After a quick search I found a demo for an app which brought to life my exact idea of how I would use the iPad to take notes. The demo video below absolutely blew me away and I cannot wait a second longer to get my hands on one!

This app is called PadNotes, and the video explains itself:




Now people say that the iPad is somewhere between a phone and a laptop....but can your laptop really do all of this in a uni lecture theatre?

I think not!

Sunday, May 16, 2010

QuickReply! The missing "Reply" button for SMS's!

This little Cydia app is an amazing little extension to the in-built Messages app which lets you reply to an SMS without leaving your current app!!

Here's how it works...

Here I was browsing Safari when I got an SMS...



Notice how there is now a "Reply" button in addition to "View" and "Close"? This is the core functionality of QuickReply. Notice how the person's photo even pops up if you have one for them!

Next, I want to reply to confirm that it works, so I go ahead and tap "Reply". I am then taken to an overlay screen.



I type in my enthusiastic reply, and as soon as I click send, the overlay disappears and I'm right back where I left off!


You will then hear the SMS sent sound after a short wait!

This is messaging multi-tasking at it's best! Let's see this in iPhone OS 4.0 Apple!!

COOL!! NOW WHERE DO I GET IT???

First, your iPhone has to be jailbroken. See my easy tutorial on how to do so here.

Oh, by the way, if you want this for yourself, normally you have to pay US $2.99 but since I always find a pirated way (arrr!), here are the instructions to get the cracked version of QuickReply:

Step 1: Add "http://www.sinfuliphonerepo.com" as a source in Cydia. (If you don't know how to do this, then check this tutorial)

Step 2: Search up QuickReply. Install it.

That's it! You're done!

It's an invisible app so nothing will change on your iPhone apart from the aforementioned added functionality.

Enjoy!

Let me know if you like this app!



What is an iPad?

Every started talking to someone about iPad's with their eventual ignorant reply of "its's just a giant iPod Touch!"

Well, this video will help you prove them wrong.






BTW - the Australian pre-ordered iPads are all sold out so they've pushed the Australian release date AGAIN to 7th June! These things sell like hot cakes!!

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Official Australian iPad Release Dates and Pricing!

It's about time!! Damn Americans buying so many iPads that they deplete the supply for the rest of the world, hence pushing back the original international release date of the iPad way back in April.

The new international release date is May 28th. Mark it in your calendars, people!

I may well be one of the hundreds (thousands?) of fanboys/fangirls lining up in the morning to nab me one of these!

That is, until you see the $AU pricing, which is a bit too much if you ask me considering the 16GB base model in the US is US$499 and here in Australia it is AU$629 and the exchange rate is around 90c for the dollar!

Here's a price comparison so you can see for yourself.

Wi-Fi models:

16GB: $629 (US price $499)

32GB: $759 (US price $599)

64GB: $879 (Us price $699)

Wi-Fi + 3G models:

16GB: $799 (US price $629)

32GB: $928 (US price $729)

64GB: $1049 (US price $829)


That's quite a premium that they tack on! So what does eBay have to say about this?As of this time in writing, the cheapest Buy It Now iPad for the 16GB wifi version comes to AU$765 with shipping.

I guess waiting it out will be the cheapest option for now!

Monday, May 3, 2010

SPIRIT JAILBREAK 3.1.3!

####WARNING! ####

This is purely a jailbreak...there are no unlocks yet. So if your iPhone is using a foreign SIM card...then DO NOT DO THIS!

####WARNING!#####

This is a super easy jailbreak...easier than Blackra1n in the sense that your iPhone 3GS is NO LONGER TETHERED!!! Hurray!!!

Step 1: go to Spirit and download the jailbreak program (Works on Win and Mac!)

Step 2: Plug in your iDevice

Step 3: Go to iTunes (latest version is fine) and update your iDevice to 3.1.3

Step 4: Back up your iPhone by syncing it once the update is finished (just in case)

Step 4: Run the Spirit program you downloaded...

THAT'S IT!


Troubleshooting:
Note for windows users...apparently running the app in windows 5/98 may fix some error messages you may encounter

UPDATED
Here's a video to fix the Windows error