Project 7 Software Blog

New iPods For Everyone

Dustin Savery — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:13:06 +0000

Recently, Apple held their annual iPod unveiling in California. This is a great time for everyone to get a look at the latest and greatest Apple has to offer. They didn’t disappoint this year. They showcased a number of things including a new iPod Nano, iPod Touch, iPod Shuffle, iPod Classic, and of course, Steve Jobs.

All the good stuff after the break.

In case you hadn’t heard, Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer that had metastasized to his liver around January of this year. He took a leave of absence in order to try and get treated. He eventually received a liver transplant and recovered well. This event was his big homecoming. He was received by the crowd with a large standing ovation. Everyone was glad to see he was back. Steve has a mystical ability to inspire the crowd and get the fired up about Apple and their products. It’s good to see he’s back.

Now for the good stuff. The biggest news this year was iPod Nano. Apple has now released a brand new iPod Nano with a camera for pictures AND video! This is extremely surprising seeing as the Nano is only 1.1 in³! The camera records in 640×480 at 30 FPS. It also has a larger ammount of storage (8GB or 16GB) and a longer battery (up to 24 hours). And of course, it comes in 9 colors.

Next is the upgraded iPod Touch. This wasn’t so brand new as it was a tweaking. It now has a bigger hard drive, either a 32GB or 64GB….and that’s about all that’s new.

The iPod Shuffle didn’t get anything new except for new colors. It now comes in 5 colors.

And lastly, there was the iPod Classic. This was also a minor upgrade with the hard drive now a massive 160GB of storage.

Trillian Astra Is Released

Dustin Savery — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 05:54:45 +0000

I posted a little while ago about Trillian Astra, the universal chat client from Cerulean Studios. It has now been officially released. It is available for FREE. You can purchase the pro version if you choose. I did because I love the program and I want to show support. If you like it, you should too. You get access to themes, early releases of patches and bug fixes, chat history, and more. To download Trillian Astra, click here.

Google Voice

Dustin Savery — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 06:24:17 +0000

Who’s sick and tired of trying to reach people at home, at work, on their cell, etc. etc. blah blah blah? Google has solved your problem and they did it with style… Introducing:

Google has made this free service so that when you register with them, they give you a single phone number. You give this single number out to everyone who wants to call you, even the people who you want to screen first before picking up. Then, when they call that number, it will ring you on the phones you have registered with Google Voice. Don’t worry, there are ways of filtering and screening which are explained after the break. The idea is quite nifty. Unfortunately, at the moment, it is invite only from Google, but I managed to get into the beta program after about 2 weeks, so go ahead and register! More details about the system after the break.

So for those of you who are wondering, “What about my smelly Aunt Marge who calls me all the time to tell me about how her poodle got sick again?”. There is a solution that makes everyone happy. First of all, Google allows you to split your contacts up into groups. This will make it so that, anyone in your Friends group say, will ring through on your house phone and your cell phone on any day of the week, where as your smelly Aunt Marge will only ring through on your house phone and only during the weekdays. You get that sort of control with Google Voice.

Another amazing feature is it’s Voicemail system. Google doesn’t just take messages like a good little secretary, it does one better. It will take the message and transcribe it into text and email it to you! So if you get a call, you can’t take it because you’re in a meeting, they leave a message, and now you can see what they want and whether it’s urgent or not! Really handy.

They have ways of configuring it so it fits your needs completely. You can setup rules so it will only ring certain numbers on certain days (and even certain times of day) for certain groups. So configure your socks off and to your hearts content.

For the geek in you…

Dustin Savery — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 04:42:19 +0000

This is one really funny video that a friend of mine showed me awhile back.

Trillian Astra

Dustin Savery — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:17:57 +0000

The new contact list for Trillian Astra

Although this isn’t recent news, it might be helpful for those of you who aren’t familiar with it. Trillian Astra from Cerulean Studios is a very cool IM application. It allows connections on AIM, ICQ, Windows Live Messenger, GTalk, Yahoo, Facebook, Jabber, and their own new protocol, Astra Chat. You can also get updates from Facebook and Twitter too. Plus, it keeps tabs on your emails and alerts you to new emails. All around an extremely powerful application and very lightweight. Currently it is only available in Beta form on PC and Web (Yes, that’s right, you can login from anywhere you have internet and a web browser and chat with people!), although they are currently working on a Mac version as well as a version for the iPhone. If you want to learn more about it, click here.

Google Apps lose Beta tag, OS on the way!

Dustin Savery — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:13:48 +0000

I have been using Google’s Chrome browser now for awhile, currently running Chrome 3.0 Beta. It is by far the fastest and leanest web browser out there, scores a perfect 100 on the Acid3 rendering test, and has a very sleek UI. If you missed the news yesterday, Google finally brought all of their products out of Beta stage yesterday (Gmail, Gtalk, Google Docs, and Google Calendar).

This was a precursor to their news about releasing their very own operating system, ChromeOS. This will be based on the concept of Cloud Computing and has already been slated for OEM distribution with netbooks by the middle of next year. No word from Microsoft yet for a response, however ChromeOS, is already being called the “Microsoft Killer”. We will just have to wait and find out!

From the makers of Engadget….

Dustin Savery — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 17:32:47 +0000

If you haven’t been to gdgt.com yet, go check it out. The former editor in chief of Engadget.com along with its founder, have joined up to create the ultimate gadget site. It combines the standard news and information of a normal blog, but adds a social networking twist. It’s very cool. You can browse through devices and add them to “Have”, “Want”, and “Had” lists, and then rate each device. It’s totally worth checking out. Follow me on there (similar to Twitter in that respect), my username is Noxx.

Psystar back in the game

Dustin Savery — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:03:39 +0000

So In case you haven’t been following the case with Psystar and Apple, let me catch you up. Psystar has been making custom computers that are able to run Apple’s OSX operating system. The problem is, Apple clearly states that this is not allowed in their EULA agreement. A couple months ago, there was a court case in which Apple was sueing Psystar over this (I never actually heard the outcome of this case so if you have heard, comment and let me know). Since then, Psystar has filed for chapter 11 Bankruptcy. Today, Psystar showed off a new line of their computers. It seems they just don’t learn.

Brand New Blog!

Dustin Savery — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 05:30:52 +0000

Hey Everyone,

I finally got around to putting up my blog. I plan to keep everyone in the loop about new tech stuff as it comes out (Not that there aren’t billions of those already, I want to cover the tech that I love). Check back often for updates!

- D