January 2010 Archives

Lounge singer Richard Cheese, the swankiest one around, and his band, Lounge Against the Machine, are giving away FREE CD’s to active-duty military personnel & veterans since 2000. Today they updated their site saying that the demand is overwhelming and new requests may not be fulfilled because they will probably run out of CDs.

Operation Cheesey Freedom

Why are they doing this? They state that they are running out of space in their warehouse, so instead of trying to sell all of these unsold CDs, they thought they’d just give them away to the most deserving people they know: the fine men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces.

Hurry up and get your order in! Supplies are very limited! All you need to do is follow the steps listed on Richard Cheese’s web site.

Thank you for serving to protect us & our country!

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I stumbled upon this post from Cult of Mac of a list of 101 Apple inspired t-shirts for fanboys & fangirls. It’s originally from citygonzales.com, who reviews t-shirts. I’ve seen several of these t-shirts and there are some that I want. Check out the original post and find your favorite Apple inspired t-shirts! Here are a few of my favorites:

I'm a Mac
Close Min Max
Being chased by zombies? There's an app for that.

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Yesterday, Josh Williams of Gowalla posted about 2 new features in Gowalla: Trips and Bookmarks.

Custom trips have been talked about by many on Gowalla’s GetSatifaction.com forum and now they’re available, but their creation is only available from the web site. You can access near by trips from the app so you can do them. You can create as many as 5 trips, each including up to 20 spots. Not bad. More improvements to that will be coming also in the future. You can also create bookmarks now for your favorite spots, from the web site and from the app.

Gowalla Logo

Here’s the blog post:

Today we’re thrilled to announce the launch of two new features: Trips and Bookmarks. Let’s talk about Trips first.

Until today, all Trips in Gowalla have been curated by the team at Gowalla with a little help from select friends. But our goal has always been that you would help us create these trips. And today you can. Simply login to your Gowalla account on the web, visit a spot page, then click the Add to Trip button. You’ll be able to name your trip, give it a description, add up to 20 spots of your choosing, then publish it to Gowalla. Your published trips will be viewable in the Gowalla app by your friends.

Here’s where it gets fun: We’ll be looking for unique and exciting trips created by our community to feature in Gowalla. Featured trips will be promoted based on the quality and relevancy of the trip, the number of people who have completed the trip, and will be given their own custom pin artwork that will be rewarded to those who have completed the trip.

As of today, you can create as many as 5 trips, each including up to 20 spots. As we improve the feature we’ll allow you to create more trips, order their lists of spots, and categorize them into logical groups like Pub Crawls, Nature Hikes, and the like. Also, for now, you may only complete featured trips and trips created by your friends. This is just the first step in making trips a truly key part of Gowalla’s future. We have lots more to do.

Today you can view nearby, featured and friend-created trips in Gowalla 1.4 on your iPhone by tapping the Browse button in the upper-left of the Trips tab. Our forthcoming Android and WebOS clients currently in development will also support this feature.

I’d also like to tell you a bit about bookmarks as well. Now when you visit any spot page at Gowalla.com you can bookmark that spot. You’ll be able to find all your bookmarks in Gowalla for iPhone by tapping Browse on the Spots tab. This simple feature makes it easy to find your way back to a favorite spot. Soon you’ll be able to add bookmarks from your mobile device as well.

Today’s release of Trips and Bookmarks to our community is simply a first step. There is a lot of depth here to be explored. We’re excited to hear your feedback as we continue to improve these, and other, features. Thanks for going out with Gowalla!

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EA Mobile has released their second iPhone game in the SPORE universe today, SPORE Creatures. It starts off where SPORE Origins left off. You come out of the prehistoric water onto land where you need to continue to evolve to survive.

SPORE Creatures Icon

You can customize your SPORE Creature with over 45 unique body parts like legs, mouths, shells, and wings, plus different skins, shapes, and colors. EA Mobile says there’s over a billion possible combinations within the SPORE Creature Creator. Plus there are 20 levels across 4 different sprawling zones: Sandy Shores, Barren Desert, Dark Forest, and Icy Mountains. You will need to avoid snapping, carnivours plants, shooting urchins and more while trying to solve puzzles to complete each level. And like SPORE Origins, you will need to collect DNA to evolve. There are 5 abilities to max out to build your survival skill-set.

You can get SPORE Creatures at the App Store for $6.99.

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In a statement, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said that “the products we are planning to release this year are very strong, starting this week with a major new product that we’re really excited about.”

Apple sells 8.7 million iPhones during fiscal Q1 2010, 100% more than last year

Total iPhone sales are now at a total of 42,445,000 as of the press release today. Apple sold 8,700,000 iPhones in during fiscal Q1 of 2010. That’s up 100% unit growth over the year-ago quarter. AMAZING! That’s over 1 million more than Apple’s best iPhone selling quarter, fiscal Q4 2009, which saw 7.4 million iPhones sold.
Read the rest of this entry »

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SQUAIDS - Squirrel AIDS
Squirrel AIDS! Some serious shit!

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Josh Williams from Gowalla posted a new blog post yesterday. Coming soon is Gowalla’s API to developers and already in place is a new privacy policy.

The new privacy policy will allow you to hide your passport from all Gowalla users, if you so desire. By default, Passport Privacy is off. This allows others to view the stamps in your passport and the items you have collected, which include a history of the day and location where you picked up the item. If you choose to turn Passport Privacy on, your stamps (the places you’ve been) and your items will only be visible to your friends.

Gowalla Privacy Policy Update

To find this, log into the Gowalla web site, click Settings, and then Privacy.

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You might know Adrianne Curry (model, reality TV star, scifi geek) from VH1′s fourth season of The Surreal Life & that she married Christopher Knight (Peter Brady from The Brady Bunch) who also appeared on the show. I follow her on Twitter because she’s actually very interesting, and very hot.

Adrianne Curry Booted From Facebook For 5th Time

A few minutes ago, she tweeted that she was booted from Facebook for the 5th time for no apparent reason.

facebook just deleted me! this is the 5th time! when I first signed up, they deleted me 4 times in a row. I am so angry!

WOW. What the hell is Facebook doing? Booting celebrities from their site? What’s up with that?

She also said that there is no way to email Facebook and with no proof they’ll just “leave you out to dry”. When did the Nazi’s start running Facebook? Or is it the Christian Moral Majority? That’s pretty funny because of all of the college girls that post pictures of themselves & friends all drunk at parties… Remember the breasting feeding picture debacle they had last year or so?

So, I told Adrianne that she should start writing to the social media web sites like Mashable.com & Techcrunch.com and get her story out and see if Facebook takes notice. It all starts with one voice…

I hope this helps Adrianne.

UPDATE: It appears shortly after this post started getting retweeted on Twitter, Facebook re-enabled Adrianne’s account.

I’m back! Why was my account disabled, and then magically pop back up? Why ask why? I’m just grateful!

Will Adrianne give me credit for helping? I don’t know. :-) Maybe Facebook knows that they can’t win against @The_BORG. I’m just glad that Adrianne is back on Facebook.

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RPA Tech, Inc. has just released a major update (version 2.0) to their Air Mouse Pro iPhone app. It’s the best remote/trackpad that you can use on your iPhone to your computer (Mac or Windows PC). Make sure you also get the new updated server application too from their web site (www.mobileairmouse.com).

The new 2.0 update includes:
- Application launcher/switcher: All your running programs will appear inside Mobile Air Mouse and allow for easy switching between running programs, as well as the ability to launch your favorite programs.

- Relocated Function Keyboard: Moved the extended keyboard to the main keyboard toolbar, allowing for easier switching between keyboards, and the ability to use modifier keys with function keys.

- Numeric Keyboard: Allows you to enter true numeric keyboard numbers.

- Revised media screen interface: Redesigned the media screen.

- Media Eject button: Now you can eject CDs/DVDs from your internal drive.

- New custom media keys: Added 8 additional custom keys along the left and right side of the media screen. These are fully customizable and can be given names, which will show on the media screen for each program they were assigned to.

- Revised the Web screen: Added buttons for opening a new tab or window.

- URL Open button: When pressed, it will highlight the address bar text and bring up the URL keyboard on the iPhone, making it very easy to enter a URL on your computer.

- Double Tap To Zoom: To zoom in on your screen, double tap the scroll pad but hold your finger down on the second tap and run it up and down to zoom in and out. (Only supported on OS X 10.5+ and Windows 7)

- Sleep/Wake your computer: When starting up the app, it will automatically try to connect to the last connected server. If the server is sleeping, it will attempt to wake it before connecting. If you want to manually try to wake a sleeping computer, go into the preferences screen, then press the power button in the upper right hand corner. You can also put your computer to sleep by holding your finger over the OS icon in the application switcher.

- Auto-updating remote definitions: The server program can now download new and updated remote definitions off our server.

- User published remote definitions: Added the ability for users to submit their own remotes.

- Consolidated program list: Revised the server UI to list all supported programs together.

- Custom scripting: Added the ability to write scripts for any of the custom buttons. In addition to being able to assign keystrokes, you can now assign Applescript on the Mac, or VBScript on the PC.

- New protocol: Changed protocol to TCP. This will allow for more reliable communication and smoother mouse response, while also preventing lost packets over unreliable networks, which can cause dropped keystrokes.

- Improved Mac keyboard compatibility: Programs which were only typing a’s, should now work properly. Dvorak keyboards are now supported also.

- Status messages: Now shows when you are searching, resolving and connecting to servers.

You can get Air Mouse Pro from the App Store for $1.99.

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I’m a big time fan of Gowalla, as you can tell from some of my posts. Today, Gowalla announced that they’ve partnered with case maker Incase.

Gowalla & Incase partner

If you check into any Apple Store, you have a chance to pick up to 6 new virtual Incase items! I was at my local Apple Store today before I knew about this news. I didn’t get anything. This first week, some people will have the chance to score a real Incase Slider case if they also find the virtual Incase Slide. A fine prize indeed! If you collect all 6 virtual Incase items, you’ll receive the Incase Pin of Glory!

UPDATE 01/06/2009: I scored a virtual Incase Slider today after work! Now I guess I’m waiting for an email from Gowalla, just like with the Golden Gifts they did for Christmas.

UPDATE 01/07/2009: Found another virtual Incase Slider today at the Apple Store. I also posted the question on how we win a real one on the Gowalla forum on GetSatisfaction.com. Here’s the post. Not everyone that finds a virtual Incase Slider wins a real one. Gowalla failed to properly and clearly state the rules. Shame on them. It appears that one person that does find a virtual item will win a real Incase Slider that will be announced on their Twitter feed. I feel very, very fucking disappointed.

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