Sergei Kolobov

MacHeist 3 Bundle Just Got Even Better

Wow! I just received a message from MacHeist people - they give away licenses for Delicious Library 2 to everyone who purchased the MacHeist 3 bundle. I bought several days ago, as soon as I learnt about it on Twitter. It  includes several great applications I was already considering to buy on my own so I could not resist the temptation and bought the whole bundle for "the insanely low price of $39".  

 

Don McAllister of ScreenCastsOnline.com did a great overview of the software packages comprising the bundle. In my personal opinion, the best applications in the bundle are:

• Acorn - powerful graphics editor, as in "PhotoShop for humans"
• WireTap Studio - the ultimate recording utiltity, as in "podcaster's dream"
• Picturesque makes your images gorgeous, as in "wow! who did this?"
• PhoneView opens up your iPhone, as in "16GB flash drive"

There are other great applications that I am also excited about - like BoinxTV, a TV studio in your Mac, and Espresso, a fresh new web development tool - but they have not been unlocked yet. Let us wait... 

By the way, they say that 25% of all sales goes to charity, and you can even choose which charity organizations your money goes to. It is a great cause - keep up the good work, guys! 

Anyway, I am blown away by the Delicious Library 2 deal - it feels like getting that shiny new toy you were dreaming of the whole year under the Christmas tree in your childhood. Wow!

Quick - only 4 days left! Go get your copy now.

iPhone 2.0 software

Live Coverage of the WWDC 2008 Keynote by Steve Jobs

The Mac Observer will be in attendance at WWDC, and will be providing live coverage of the WWDC 2008 Keynote Address.

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35 Beautiful Bright, Colorful Web Designs

35 examples of bright, vibrant web designs to inspire you on your next project.

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Software unlock for iPhone 1.1.2 OTB

It looks like software unlock for iPhones that came with firmware version 1.1.2 out-of-box is finally here - see Geohot's blog entry as well as this article (in Russian) on iphones.ru.

Yeah!

Live Macworld 2008 Keynote stream presented by iPhone Alley

iPhone Alley will be streaming this year's Macworld 2008 Keynote Address presented by Steve Jobs. Tune in shortly before 9AM PST and watch the keynote LIVE!

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MacHeist - 11 Great Mac Apps for Insanely Low Price

Even though I have heard about MacHeist before (from Leo Laporte on MacBreak Weekly podcast, I believe) I did not have a chance to check it out. Frankly speaking, I thought that it might be one of those packages with tons of useless utilities that just do not worth the price, even combined together.

Well, browsing Digg today I came across an article that mentioned CSSEdit. For those of you who have not heard about CSSEdit before - it is very cool piece of software that allows you to create or modify CSS-based web sites easily and visually. Since I am planning to give a facelift to some of my company's websites, I was planning to buy CSSEdit anyway...

Now, it turns out MacHeist includes not only CSSEdit, but also 10 other great applications for Mac OS X, including:

• SnapZ Pro - excellent screenshot and screencast capture tool
• Pixelmator - very promising modern alternative to Adobe Photoshop for most of us
• 1Password - great tool for managing web sites passwords and more...
• AppZapper - clean way to remove unused applications
• Cha-Ching - fun and easy way to manage personal finances

Actually, I already own licenses for 1Password and AppZapper but I just could not pass a chance to get all of this software for just 49 USD. It is one of those "too good to be true" deals but it is true. I paid and get licenses for all the software. Well, except for Pixelmator which is not unlocked yet - they want to collect $100,000 in charity donations. Note - 25% of the price goes to a charity organization of your choice. They have a selection of 10 different charities. It is great cause, guys - thanks for doing this. Keep up the good work!

Anyway, please rush over to MacHeist.com and buy the bundle for $49. There are 9 days, 17 hours left before the offer is over. $87,179 has been raised for charity so far.

Asus Eee PC

Asus is getting a lot of attention recently with their Eee PC subnotebook computer. It does indeed look very promising - it weights under 1 kg, has solid-state storage (i.e. no HDD thus no moving disk parts), has wireless, 3 USB connections and video output for an external monitor. I understand that it runs some form of Linux as its operating system.

Mahalo has a very nice list of resources related to Eee PC, including link to the official site and thorough Wikipedia article.

Here is some initial review video on YouTube:

(via Mahalo)

.Mac speed difference - U.S. vs rest of the world

During my recent trip to the U.S. I was shocked by the difference in speed of .Mac service - compared to what I normally experience in Russia. I have originally signed up for .Mac family account from Russia, almost two years ago. I have been using it quite happily ever since. Well, it was kind of slow, especially when uploading and viewing web galleries, but I blamed it on my not-so-fast Internet connection and the fact that Russian ISPs may have limited bandwidth on trans-Atlantic connections.

It turns out, that all .Mac users outside of the U.S. are experiencing the same. Moreover, as I mentioned ina recent post there is an online petition to Apple to make .Mac faster for the rest of us.

Now, while in the U.S., I was uploading some photos I took there to a new web gallery on .Mac - I could not believe that the upload finished in a few seconds. I was on a regulal hotel Wi-Fi connection at that time. It was amazing. Here in Russia, it would take me at least 10-15 minutes to accomplish the same. Now - that a difference!

Give us faster .Mac, Apple - please!

Petition: Useable speeds for .Mac services outside of the US

It is a shame to see such a great service as .Mac to be such a painful experience as it is now, when the bandwidth available to its paying (!) customers artificially limited to ridiculously low numbers. Cool .Mac features such as Web Gallery loses much of its attractiveness by being very slow to load.

Apparently, I am not alone in this - there is an online petition to Apple from .Mac users posted at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/fasterdotmac/. Please join me by signing this petition:

We, the undersigned, ask Apple to improve its .Mac service so that access speeds are comparable to those enjoyed within the US. Currently .Mac subscribers, their families and friends who attempt to view .mac web galleries outside of the US can only do so at typical speeds of just 768 kbit, making the service painfully close to unusable.

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