Galaga Remix was created by Namco, and it is a brilliant remake of the original arcade game. Galaga Remix includes an updated version as well as the original 1981 Galaga. The old version of the game does allow you to reclaim a captured ship so you can have double the firepower with dual ships like in the old arcade game, however this app really shines with the updated version. The new Galaga’s graphics are much easier on the eyes, and includes new boss battles, multiple upgrades for your ship, and plenty of levels.

The rest of the review is after the break.

One feature from the old Galaga was to save a ship if it got captured, which then would give you a dual fighter, the updated Galaga takes that idea and runs with it. If your ship is captured by one of 3 different types of enemies, once you free your ship, it will give you a new ability, a different one based on which enemy captured you. You can upgrade in three different ways, a more powerful attack, a spread shot, or faster shooting. Each one of these can stack twice, or with one other ability. So, you can get yourself a fast shooting spread attack, or stack two power attacks to make a devastating super cannon. This allows you to create a total of 9 ships (3 basic upgraded ships, and 6 stacked upgraded ships).

The game gives you several different methods in order to control your ship, either with arrow buttons, a slider, or you can use the built-in accelerometers. However, due to the portrait setup of the classic Galaga, the controls are a bit harder to use due to their small size. For the updated version, since it is in landscape, the controls are much easier to use.

The only thing I could complain about is that it never is quite clear which monsters will kamikaze into you, or if they will change direction at the last moment and avoid a collision. This does keep it more true to the original, but Namco has shown they can take an old concept and make it much better, so it would be nice if they would give you a warning when you are about to get rammed by one of those buggers. Other than that, it would be nice to have some more levels, the game comes with a little over 30, but the more the merrier.

Great visuals, a good variety of gameplay, and 30+ stages, Galaga Remix is available at $5.99, so go grab it from the App Store here.

Flight Control, created by Firemint, is an addictive little game where you draw the flight paths of different aircraft to their landing strips, basically you are an air traffic controller. There are 4 different types of aircraft, a blue helicopter, a yellow Cessna type plane, and two different kinds of red jets, one being faster than the other.

The graphics are simple but clean. There isn’t any in-game music while you are directing things, and you can’t listen to music and the game sounds at the same time. The game sounds are helpful, they warn you when aircraft get close to each other, and ding whenever you land one, but if you are playing a long time it is better to listen to music. Otherwise, the game keeps track of your statistics (most likely aircraft to crash, most planes landed, last game’s planes landed) so you can see how you’ve improved.

This game could use some improvements, like a fast-forward, especially at the beginning. Every time you restart, you have to wait a long time for airplanes to show up, which makes the start of each run very slow. Otherwise, the graphics are a bit simple, a plane or helicopter landing just shows them fade away as opposed to actually landing. When there is a mid-air collision, they just blink to show they have hit each other. It would be more interesting (and a better finale to each game) if they exploded. Lastly, a few more gameplay elements would be good, like if they had clouds float over the airport to make it harder to see what is going on. However, all of these minor faults don’t hurt the game enough to avoid buying it.

Flight Control is addictive and entertaining, and it only costs $0.99, which is a great price for this game! You can pick it up from the App Store here.

WordsWorth is a fun unique game for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Basically, its a combination of a solo player game of Boggle, and a ever changing word search.  Hexagonal tiles are spaced out along the board, and its your job to earn enough points to advance to the next level. It keeps getting harder, level after level, up to level 30. The game as two modes, Timed and Classic. I really preferred the classic mode, as a way to just relax and keep me busy when I had nothing else to do, since I always have my iPod Touch on me.

See more about WordsWorth, after the jump.

Overall, I really enjoyed playing WordsWorth, which was surprising because I usually dislike word games because I can never find anything. Luckily, WordsWorth has a handy scramble feature which will shuffle all of the tiles on the board. I really liked how you activated it, by shaking your iPhone, kind of like boggle. Even if you do play in a more relaxed classic mode, there are still some challenges. For example, there are timed tiles which appear every time you scrabble the board as a penalty, and also pop up as you progress through out the levels of the game. You have to be fast, and use these red tiles, because otherwise it’s game over.

The game also has other features which help keep the game interesting, like wildcards, and “buzzwords” where a random word is chosen and if you make it, you get extra points. Most of the time, the correct letter combination is not on the board, so you have to stay on the look out and selectively get rid of tiles so you can make them line up correctly, if you chose to go for it. there is no time limit or penalty for not completing buzzwords.

One thing that really annoyed me was the background music, which was pretty short (about a minute) and didn’t loop very well. So, every time the music restarted, you hear a “jump”. Luckily, you can either turn the music off in the settings, or play your own music and automatically override the background music.

I have to say, it’s great to have a game that you can always turn to, that you can always play more, and it keeps your mind active! And, even if you manage to make it to level 30, the game is completely different every time, but restarting might be a bit easy at first. It’s definitely worth the $1.99, and it’s available in the App Store (Need iTunes to view). You can also try out the “Light” version for free. The lite version only has 3 levels, and is clasic mode only, among a few other things. You can also get it in the app store.

Pros:
Ever Changing Game Play
Flex your brain
Two Game Modes

Cons:
Annoying Background music

P.S:  This game and review is real, and not an April Fools joke. Have Fun!

Time Crisis Strike is a rail-shooter, fire-and-duck game just like his arcade brothers. Your goal is to stop the evil Wild Dog from his new (unknown) plot to cause mayhem. It’s a single campaign with 3 stages totaling 23 screens, and you face off against about a half dozen different types of enemies. Controls are simple, touch where you want to shoot, tilt the iPhone forward to duck and reload, then tilt it back to stand up and continue to shoot.

This game is a lot of fun, especially because it’s Time Crisis. Its graphics are good, and the music and sounds are all great. There were no noticeable bugs or gameplay issues, the game was very well polished. They also have five unlockable “Crisis Missions”, which each challenges you to accomplish a specific task, like only shoot the yellow soldiers. Overall the Time Crisis feel of the game is great, although it does lack the light-gun and foot-pedal, it is a great port to the iPhone.

The only drawbacks to this game are that even though you have a tilt-meter for ducking, sometimes it feels like a button would be much more useful. Otherwise, the game can feel short if you only play through the arcade mode once, but honing your skill at this game can be very entertaining, plus the unlockable challenge missions, or you can challenge friend to see who can get the highest score.

Fans of Time Crisis absolutely have to get this game. Otherwise, if you just want a good rail-shooter, Time Crisis Strike is the way to go. You can pick it up from the App Store for $5.99

The entire Flip line is known for their ease of use, quality, and portability, but this is the first Flip to be High Definition capable, with a resolution of 720p. Since the Mino boasts a rather small size of 3.94″ x 1.97″ x 0.63″, and a light weight of 3.3oz, it’s really easy to throw into your pocket when you go out. It’s really great as a day to day video camera, when you just want to get together with some friends and throw something up on YouTube. It’s also a great starter camera for a tween, so that they can make their first home movies. It even includes some basic video editing and sharing software called FlipShare, which comes right on the camera. FlipShare is really nice, because it allows you to do some basic editing, like trimming and combining clips together, or adding a background audio track, and upload it directly to YouTube. However, if you want to use the clips in another program, like embedding a video into a PowerPoint, or cataloging them in Picasa, you will have to convert them first.

Overall, the Flip Mino HD was really fun and easy to use. All you have to do is hit the big red recording button, and you’re ready to go! You line up your shots, and playback your shots on the built in 1.5″ screen. Personally, I think it would have been nice if it was a little bit bigger. The camera also had battery life, you get about two hours of recording off a single charge, and you can record about one hour of HD video using the cameras built in 4 GB of storage.

Read the rest of the review, after the jump.

I wish the camera had a removable rechargeable battery, because the current recharge able battery is built in, and an SD card slot to expand the camera’s storage, or use an Eye-Fi card to wirelessly send your videos to your computer. I was very happy with the video and sound quality, but wish there was some built in anti-shake correction, or a way to smooth out video in the FlipShare software. No matter how hard I tried to hold the camera perfectly still it was impossible to not have any shakes in the footage. If you plan to buy one of these cameras, I suggest that you also get a small tripod, like this one from Amazon, since the Mino has a built in tripod mount. I also wish that there was a way to take still pictures directly on the camera, because right now the only solution is to use the still function in the FlipShare software which is really annoying, because you cannot be sure of how the picture is going to turn out until you go back to your computer, upload it, and look at the clip frame by frame. A still picture function would also make the camera more useful on a day to day basis.

I have to say, my favorite feature of the Flip was the built in USB plug, that is discreetly stored inside the camera until you need it, then you just slide a small lever and it flips out. The USB arm also has a small LED on it, to show when charging of the battery is complete, since the camera can charge over USB. One thing that I wish Pure Digital had included in the box, is a short USB extender, so if your computers’ USB ports are cramped together, you can still easily plug the camera in, since the USB arm on the Mino HD, unlike previous Flip models, has absolutely no flexibility.

Also, a great thing about the Flip Mino HD is that the design is fully customizable when you buy it online at www.theflip.com for $229.99. You can upload your own art work, such as a design you made, your logo, or a picture of your family, and have it imprinted onto a Flip Mino HD. There’s even a gallery of premade designs that you can choose from. You can also buy the black version at amazon.com for about $208, at the time of writing.

Included in the box along with the Flip Mino HD:

• Soft Carrying Bag
• Video cable, to hook the camera up to your TV
• Wrist Lanyard
• Quick Start Guide
• FlipShare software installer on camera

Check out some of the footage I shot with the Flip Mino HD below:

Video review of the Flip Mino HD:

Waiting for the subway (Most of video is me trying to hold the camera still, subway pulls in towards end):

On the Subway (Motion Test):

Pros:

• Small Size
• 720p HD Video Quality
• Rechargeable Battery
• Built in USB Plug
• Customizable Design
• Built in Software for basic editing

Cons:

• No Expandable Storage
• No Removable Battery
• Video Often Shaky, hard to hold still (at least for me)

Photo Gallery:

Rasta Monkey is a 2D platformer where you play as a (gasp) monkey swinging in the trees trying to collect fruit to make smoothies. It uses a nice little physics engine to accomplish jumps, swings, and some puzzles. You’ll have to contend with monsters and some tricky jumps to finish each level.

The game only comes with 10 levels, two of which are tutorial levels. The levels aren’t very long, though they do have a lot of variety. Each level you are given a set amount of each type of fruit to collect. The game definitely doesn’t make it hard to collect these fruit, and a lot of the time you’ll find you’ve collected more than you needed. It never penalizes you for falling out of the trees, which is a huge relief in some of the harder areas. All it will do it set you back to your last checkpoint, which are never too far off.

The controls work surprising well. You hold the the corner of the screen where you wish to go, and hold with two fingers to swing on the branch. If you let go of both fingers at the same time you’ll jump, or you can abort the jump by letting go of one finger at a time.

The art is cartoony and colorful, which fits the game very well. The music, even though there seems to only be two songs, are catchy and, at worst, can just be turned off.

The only downsides to the game are its intermittent slow-downs and some frustrating monsters you face later on in the game. On my first generation iPod Touch when the camera zoomed out I’d occasionally run into a frame-rate drop. It wasn’t terrible, it was still playable, though it does makes the game feel buggy. Lastly, certain monsters are just plain annoying to get past. Some are big and move fast, and constantly knock you off the branches. It gets tricky, you either have to move fast and nail the jumps to avoid them, or get lucky and have the monster boot you in the right direction.

For the (currently introductory) $1.99 price tag it is definitely worth the couple days of fun you’ll get from this game. It isn’t a huge amount of content, but the actual game has a lot of variety and was put together very well.

Twitter, one of the most pervasive social networking services has grown to encompass over 6 million active monthly users. It seems that everyone from President Obama to Britney Spears is now tweeting everything from breaking news to interesting articles and cool events going on. If you’re new to Twitter, or don’t have an account, you should sign up here. If you’re on a Mac be sure to check out my previous article on “Getting the Most from Twitter on your Mac” to get started from your computer.

The iPhone provides one of the greatest interfaces to Twitter seen to date- arguably much nicer than the Twitter web interface or other Twitter (computer based) software- with its integrated camera, GPS (or GPS like capabilities) and multi-touch you can not only stay on top of Twitter but interact with it in new ways. Although there are dozens of Twitter applications for the iPhone platform, there are only a few that really stand out.

Tweetie implements the full Twitter API- which means all the possibilities Twitter offers to developers is implemented in Tweetie. Upon first glance, Tweetie displays tweets and messages making use of the iChat style bubbles. At the bottom menu you can quickly switch between your Tweets, @Replies, Messages, Favorites and More- which includes “My Profile”, “Go to User”, “Nearby”, “Trends” and “Search”.

Tweetie is very simple, easy to use and works the way you expect it to. Everything you would want to do is available to you fast- starting with support for multiple Twitter accounts, updating your location, browsing tweets by location and even Twitter searching and trend viewing. You can view links posted in tweets through the built in Safari browser or even re-tweet the link! And all links posted are automatically shrunk with the bit.ly service. Even photo uploading is simple, as Tweetie allows for quick access to your photo library or camera and will compress and upload each photo you tweet to TwitPic.com.

Until Tweetie came around in November 2008, Twitterific and Twinkle respectively held the titles of the best paid and unpaid Twitter clients for the iPhone. Although Tweetie costs $2.99, it clearly provides quite simply the best Twitter experience on the iPhone OS platform. If you are on Twitter, this application is a must have.

Bjango, an exclusive iPhone developer team is a new venture of iSlayer who developed iStat Pro, iStat Menus and Organized. The team has also published a number of high quality applications prior to iStat including Darkness, Jobs, Cities and Phases.

For those familiar with the iSlayer team and use iStat Pro or iStat Menus already know why iStat makes for a killer iPhone application. Keeping on top of your hardware is a crucial- not only will it allow your iPhone to preform better but extend your battery life. While there are a handful of other applications that promise to do the same in the App Store and even Cydia or Installer.app, iStat does it the best and with more features without question.

From first launching the application, you are presented with a well laid out screen with all of your vital statistics in a number of panes laid out before you. The first group is information pertaining to the iPhone’s memory. A pie chart of the iPhone’s RAM displays the Wired, Active, Inactive and Free number of megabytes combined with a display of Page Ins and Page Outs. You can also free up RAM by pressing the Free Memory button.

The second pane has a small graph of the disk usage on the iPhone and displays the space available.

The third pane contains the IP addresses on the Wi-Fi and Cellular network.

The forth pane contains the iPhone’s uptime, along with the past load averages for 1 minute, 5 minutes and 15 minutes.

Finally, the last pane contains the Unique Identifier and the Wi-Fi MAC Address along with three buttons “Email ID”, “Email Both” and “Email MAC”. These pieces of information are handy when registering the Wireless MAC address to a new network, or sending the iPhone’s UID to get an Ad-Hoc distribution.

While iStat organizes a great deal of information about your iPhone, it isn’t where the functionality ends. iStat can give you remote statistics on any Mac running OS X Tiger (or later) and connected to the internet. By simply downloading the iStat server and installing it on your computer you can start looking at statistics from computers thousands of miles on your iPhone or iPod touch.

The installation of the server is simple and can be found on Bjango’s website here. Once running, you simply enter a four digit number randomly generated on the server side into your iPhone, assuming all of your routing is in place. Once this is done you can now start viewing statistics of your Mac! The statistics are laid out in the same format as the stats for your iPhone, but depending on the age of your Mac, will most likely contain more information (such as the different network interfaces, battery or fan status and more).

iStat for the iPhone is an excellent application for monitoring both your iPhone and your Macs from on the go. Check out iStat in the App Store here, on sale for $1.99 (limited time only)! We would also like to thank Marc Edwards at Bjango for giving us the opportunity to review iStat.

New to the list of Apple’s recent product revisions is the now smaller $79.00 iPod Shuffle. They sport 4 GB storage in a 1.8″ x 0.7″ x 0.3″ housing weighing less than an ounce. It can play for about 10 hours from a full charge, and as always is compatible with Mac and PC through iTunes.

Apple quietly updated the iPod Shuffle today, closing the online store early in the morning and reopening it with the new iPod. The iPod Shuffle is much like the his older cousins, small, sleek, and uses a clip to hold on to whatever you want. The Shuffle comes only in two colors, silver and black aluminum, and the clip is made of shiny stainless steel.

The major feature Apple is pushing for this new iPod Shuffle is VoiceOver, which can tell you the song you are playing (without interrupting the song), recite playlists you have loaded onto it, and warn you when your battery is low. This is a great improvement over the old shuffle, where you were stuck with one playlist, and there was no way to find out what song you were listening to. However, the computerized voice may get on your nerves if you are sensitive to it.

Lastly, when you buy the shuffle, you are stuck with Apple’s earbuds. They have removed buttons from the actual device, and have placed them on the right side earphone cord. Although this is handy, if you don’t like Apple’s earbuds, there is nothing you can do about it until an adapter comes out, and that adapter will be a separate purchase. Not to mention the controls you will have to memorize a combination of controls just to use it, take a look:

Pros: VoiceOver, Smaller, Long Battery Life, Very Nice Look

Cons: Proprietary Headphones, unknown Adapter price-tag, VoiceOver voice can be irritating, only 2 bland colors (black and silver)

If you plan on buying an iPod, the Shuffle is the cheapest and does music like all the other iPods. You lose out on the screen and video that the 8GB $149.00 iPod Nano would give you, though if you only want the music in a small package, Apple has the answer in a fashionable package.

Enigmo is a game with a simple concept – get the water/fire/oil into their respective containers. You get to use a variety of tools, like ramps, cannons, sponges, and springs to move the droplets around the level. The goal of the game is to fill up containers to their maximum of 40 drops, simultaneously,  to move on to the next level. What’s interesting is that you also have to deal with obstacles, like force-fields that you have to turn off by shooting some of your drops through a ring to shut the force field down.

There is a lot of content in this game. The game comes with 50 levels, and you can download user-generated content so you never run out of challenges. But you won’t fly too quickly through all of the original 50 levels, some are very difficult and require a lot time to figure out.

The biggest downfall of the game is that the difficulty curve isn’t gradual. At times you’ll be ready to delete the game  in frustration because it’s so hard, and you don’t want to deal with it anymore, but then the next level is a cakewalk.

For the $1.99 price tag, you could do a whole lot worse than Enigmo. The game gives you a lot of content for a small price, and when you feel like your brain needs some exercise it’s a great little game to play.

Take a look, after the jump:

The HTC FUZE is one of HTC’s (also maker of the G1) new smart phones. It’s pretty much a AT&T version of the Touch Pro which is available on both Sprint and Verizon. The smartphone features a  528 MHz Processor, 2.8 ” touch screen, touch sensitive controls, and slide out 5 row keyboard. Overall, the HTC FUZE’s hardware is great. I especially liked the keyboard, it was really easy to type on, especially on webpages and text messages. and although the smartphone does have word mobile, I still don’t think I could write anything of great length with it. The touch screen was clear and bright, and although it is a still a bit small at 2.8″ with VGA resolution,  I was still able to easily watch a video on it with out too much strain on my eyes.

The TouchFLO 3D interface was a nice touch on HTC’s part to make Windows Mobile more aesthetically pleasing, but every time you use an application you go back to the plain old boring Windows Mobile interface. There is one interesting exception to this. HTC included Opera Mobile and made it the default instead of IE Mobile. The Opera interface is very unobtrusive, and is also makes use of the FUZE’s “G-Sensor” (Accelerometer) to rotate the page as you rotate the phone (which is one of two apps that use the “G-Sensor” the other is a maze game (tilt the phone, move the ball, avoid the holes)), as well as a zooming gesture around the touch sensitive center button. As for music and multimedia capabilities, the FUZE does have a built in music player and can also play videos, but in order to use headphones (or even a wired headset) , you needed to use the included USB audio adapter. This is similar to the G1, which HTC also manufacturers.

I also thought the 3.2 megapixel camera preformed well, see bellow for some samples I took:

NOTE: All photos and videos have been resized

I really was not thrilled with Windows Mobile overall, i was glad for the TouchFLO interface, but it would be nice if there was a way to have add on, so not everything had to be run directly in windows mobile. Also, it would be really interesting to have a different OS, say Android (which is on HTC’s G1), to show off the phones capability’s. This would also be great for Android and the Open Handset Alliance, because it would bring a android phone to the other 3 networks (even if Verizon and AT&T are not members of the alliance).

Overall, I loved HTC’s hardware, and not so much love for Microsoft’s OS. It really ruined my FUZE experience, and I really, really, really would like to see the FUZE running Android.

The HTC FUZE Costs $349.99 after a new, 2 year agreement with AT&T
The Extremely Similar (Almost Identical) HTC Touch Pro costs $399.99 on Sprint, and $419.99 on Verizon; Both with a new, 2 year agreement

Special Thanks to Ricky Bird for letting us borrow the HTC FUZE to review.

See all of my unboxing photos below:

Last week, Apple released their new MacBook’s and MacBook Pro’s. Both notebooks feature a number of new innovations including aluminum cases, faster processors, better graphics cards and an all glass multi-touch pad that has no dedicated button. Along with the MacBook and MacBook Pro, the MacBook Air was given a small speed bump. The MacBook Air now has a 1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor upgradable to 1.86 GHz. It was also given a new NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics card.

The MacBook went through the most drastic change going from the plastic white or black case to a new aluminum case with a black, glass screen which resembles the screen from the iMac. The aluminum case comes from a single block of aluminum machined to perfection. Even the sleep indicator was taken in to account being carved by a CNC to thin the metal before a laser make small perforations to allow the LED Light to shine through.

While the MacBook and MacBook Pro look similar with the exception of screen size, slightly different port configuration and the tags on the bottom of the screen, their tech specs make them seem like there is no relation. The MacBook comes in one size, 13.3″, but has two options of processor power. With the new computer, you are given the option of a 2.0 or 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor. The 2.0 GHz comes with the option of upgrading to a 250GB HD, 320GB HD or a 128GB SSDfrom a 160GB HDD wheres as the 2.4 GHZ comes standard with a 250GB HD with the option to upgrade. Both options come with 2GB (Two 1GB SO-DIMMS) of SDRAM but can support up to 4GB. The new graphics support is a NVIDIA 9400M graphics processor 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM. As usual it still comes with an iSight, Bluetooth, and 802.11n Wi-Fi.

The MacBook Pro, as usual, is similar same, but faster. The redesigned Pro again only comes in one size, 15.4″ (17″ apparently will follow eventually) with two processor speeds. The options are a 2.4 GHz or 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo upgradable to 2.8GHz. The 2.4 GHz model comes standard with 2GB of SDRAM, 250GB HD, and a NVIDIA 9400M 256 MB or 9600M 256MB. The 2.53 GHz model comes with 4GB of SDRAM, 320GB HD, and a NVIDIA 9400M 512MB or 9600M 512MB. Both can hold up to 4GB of SDRAM and have an option of a 128GB SSD. And as before, they both still come with an iSight, Bluetooth, and 802.11n Wi-Fi.

The new models have been given a complete makeover both internally and externally. While the MacBook has been given the biggest makeover going from the plastic casing, both have been given a refined look. But in case you decide you don’t like the new laptops, Apple still offers the old 17″ MacBook Pro model and 13″ MacBook model.

Editors note: Commenting on this article does not make you eligible for theiLife birthday celebration raffle.

Well, now you don’t have to. The easiest solution to this problem would be to hook up an exchange server to your iPhone so that it stays in sync, but unless you’re an enterprise user, you probably don’t have access to one. It’s not worth setting one up and, if you’re a Google user, you want your info synced there, not your work place. That is no longer a problem, thanks to a free service called Nuevasync. Nuevasync creates an exchange account running only the mobile protocol, and can sync your contacts and calendar with Google.

I originally found out about Nuevasync from a Lifehacker article offering Nuevasync as a Mobile Me alternative. I use Nuevasync with my iPod Touch, so no matter where I am or how I want to look at my data, I have access to it. It also makes it easier to enter a lot of data onto your calendar, and lets you easily import from web sources. Just add it to your Google Calendar and in about 5 seconds, it will show up on your iPhone (as long as you have service or Wi-Fi). This is especially helpful if you use shared calendars in a group setting, such as a family calendar or a group project calendar, by using Nuevasync you will always know that you have the most up to date version. The only catch is that currently, Nuevasync can only sync calendars that you have edit permissions for (there is a tool to help you figure out which ones those are, the link is after the jump) and they get merged all in to one calendar on your iPhone (they stay separated on Google Calendar).

Nuevasync was started in November 2007. Amazingly its creators David Boreham and Thomas Lackey never expected the high volume of users Nuevasync receives now. The original Nuevasync was designed as a Windows Mobile sync solution using Google Calendar and Plaxo (an online address book and social networking service) as data sources, but now Google Contacts as well as the other two are supported. Once Apple announced that they would be introducing Exchange server support with the 2.0 firmware upgrade, they got a beta copy of the firmware and began testing using an iPod Touch. They only expected a few iPhone users to be trying the service. Two days after the launch of the iPhone upgrade, Nuevasync’s servers were heavily hit, their user count had doubled. After that, Nuevasync began to drastically scale their code to support the new workload. Because of this, most of the planed new features had to be delayed. The two most requested new features are the ability to select which Google calendars are synced (including public calendar syncing) and for multiple calendar support. Both of these features are currently in development and is expected to be ready for testing within the next fe
w weeks. After that, the next feature to be released will be push email support from Gmail.

Probably the biggest reason people don’t currently use Nuevasync is that when you add an exchange server, all of your calendar and contact data on your iPhone gets erased, but the easiest way to avoid this is to sync your iPhone with Google via iTunes. I’ll walk you through the entire process to show you how you can have over the air syncing, without losing any of your data. Take a look after the Jump!

Setting up Nuevasync

The first thing you really want to do is sync your current data back to Google. Open up iTunes, plug in your iPhone (or iPod touch) and click on your device and go to the “info tab” and check the sync contacts (make sure you say “Google Contacts” and enter your account info!) and sync calendar tab.

Agree to the Google Terms of Service, and enter your Google Account Info. Then Upload your calendar info to the cloud using either the Google Calendar Sync Tool for windows or Spanning Sync for the Mac, or manually importing the events using an ICal file and then importing them on Google Calendar.

Now go to the Nuevasync website at www.nuevasync.com. Click “Signup”.

Fill in the account information and hit “submit”.

Go and check the email you put in and verify it. Now go back to the homepage and click “Login”

Enter your account info and click “Sign in”

Now, click on “change” next to “calendar”

Select “Google”, click “Change”. Then click the “Click to configure your service…” link. Enter Your Google ID with the @gmail.com or @yourdomain.com if you’re a Google Apps Customer, and click “Request Account Access”. You will then be redirected to Google and asked which account you want Nuevasync to access, choose and click “Continue”. On the next page click “Grant Access”. You should now get a message saying your changes have been saved. Click “Continue”.

There should now be a green dot all the way across from “calendar” on the right.
If you did not get a green dot go to this page. It will help you solve any configuration problems and tell you which of your calendars Nuevasync can use.

Now let’s sync contacts. Click Change next to contacts.

Select “Google” (you can also sync with Plaxo if you use that service), click “Change”. Then click the “Click to configure your service…” link. Enter Your Google ID with the @gmail.com or @yourdomain.com if you’re a Google Apps Customer and click “Request Account Access”. You will be then redirected to Google and asked which account you want Nuevasync to access, choose and click “Continue”. On the next page click “Grant Access”. You should now get a message saying your changes have been saved. Click “Continue”.

There should now be a green dot all the way across form Contacts on the right.

If you did not get a green dot go to this page. It will help you solve any configuration problems. It’s the same help page I mentioned above.

Before we move on to configuring the iPhone, it’s important to note that you can use this page to see which of your calendars can be synced and also help solve any configuration problems.

Now we’re done with the online configuration, let’s move on to the iPhone.
If you’re not sure what values to enter in the following fields, Nuevasync can generate the recommended settings for you, and give you their text based setup instructions at this page.

Go to the “Settings” menu then touch the “Mail, Contacts, Calendars” button

Choose “Add Account…”

Choose “Microsoft Exchange”

Enter the Email, Username, and Password you set up at the Nuevasync site. Be sure to leave the Domain Field blank. Also add a Description, the default is the Email you entered in the email field, but I prefer “Nuevasync”. On the Nuevasync site they say “it is important that the e-mail address you enter when configuring the synchronization settings on your device matches the one you provided to sign up for Nuevasync.” I also found out that if you enter the wrong email address, then your events will show up as un-editable invitations.

Touch “Next”

A warning will pop up about the security certificate at “yourdomain.com” (Normally “gmail.com” or “yourdomain.com”, but I used my theiLife.com email address for the tutorial) Just so you know why this box pops up, on their website Nuevasync says “When you enter your e-mail address to sync, your device may warn you about a certificate being invalid. This is particularly likely if you use a Gmail address. It isn’t referring to our certificate or our service, so don’t be concerned. It is part of Apple’s auto-configuration feature as it tries to guess the appropriate server name based on your info. Our SSL certificate is valid and secure.”

Touch “Accept”.

The Server Box will appear. Enter www.nuevasync.com

Now, turn the “Mail” switch off. Nuevasync does not support push Mail yet, but they hope to in the near future. They suggest setting up IMAP for now. Nuevasync also says “turn off any other category you do not wish to sync. For example, if you want to sync only your calendar, make sure “Mail” and “Contacts” are both turned off. If you want to sync contacts and calendar, you should only turn off “Mail”, but if you are reading this article, you’re probably going to want to sync both. Touch “Save”.

Now the setup is complete. Nuevasync should show up as an account in the “Mail, Contacts, Calendar” page.

Go to the Home screen and touch Contacts. Your iPhone should immediately begin to sync with Nuevasync / Google. This first sync may take up to a minute, because it has to download all of your information. Future syncs will only take a few seconds. Afterwards, all of your contacts should appear. Go back to your home screen and repeat the process for your calendar. Again, the first sync may take up to a minute because it has to download all of your information. Future syncs will only take a few seconds.

That’s it! Now wherever you go with your iPhone or iPod Touch, you will always have your up-to-date Google Calendar and Contacts!

If you ever need to verify that your data was synced or the last time it was synced, you can use this page to look at your sync status. If there has been some error in syncing (Like Google not responding with your calendar events) then the problem will be displayed on that page.

Special thanks go out to David Boreham, one of the creators of Nuevasync, for providing information for the article. You can read Nuevasync’s blog at http://nuevasync.blogspot.com/ where you can keep up with the latest news about Nuevasync, including new features and scheduled maintenance.

My name is Keith Hobin, and I’m the managing editor here at theiLife. I originally joined theiLife back in June, but now I’m making my first post. I grew up in Montclair, NJ with Matt, Sidney, and a few of the other iLife writers. I graduated from Montclair High School this year and will be attending Drexel University as an Information Systems major. I prefer the Microsoft side of computers and plan on adding a little diversification into this blog. You will be hearing from me from time to time with new stories and information about the goings on of the blog. If you want to contact me, you can email me at keith@theilife.com . For my full biography, check out the about page section.

In getting ready for my attendance of Drexel, I have recently purchased one of Dell newest Laptop, the Studio 15. The Studio line is intended to have a mix of features from the XPS and Inspiron line at prices starting around $650 and around $750 for a decent configuration. For my Studio 15, I paid $ 1,839.94 with a 4 year warranty, accidental damage protection, and lojack, before tax and shipping. A PDF of the invoice / configuration will be posted along with this (Here). Just the price difference of $460 alone, a MacBook Pro being $2,300, is a good reason to consider another brand. But let’s delve into the features of each computer.

NOTE: All Comparisons made will be between MY Dell Studio 15 and the 15″ 2.5GHz MacBook Pro. However, I will note the optional features I selected for my dell and will note higher features that I opted not to get. When I discuss option prices, the price increase will be from the cheapest configuration available to the general public at the time of writing. To be fair, both of the base prices of the computers are with educational discounts and I received an extra discount for taking the 4 year warranty.

Operating System:

OK, this section is not to debate the quirks and features of Vista/XP and OS X. That is for its own post. This post is focusing on the hardware, but I will say this about the OS. Windows does open up more options for you as hardware goes; you have Dell, HP, Gateway, Lenovo, Acer, and even Apple, now that they run windows with boot camp. The major plus to this is that the more options you have, the more likely you are to get the computer that suits you. And who ever said that competition was a bad thing, it makes innovation happen.

Display and Keyboard:

Each of these computers has bright crisp displays, perfect for surfing the web around campus, writing a report or even a blog post! Both Computers have 1440×900 Resolution LED backlit displays; although I got mine as an option, and there is a $125 price increase (Resolution also goes from 1280×800.) There is also a 1920×1200 Full HD display, but it’s not LED backlit. Both of the Keyboards are also backlit, mine again being a $50 option. The only noticeable extra feature would be the ambient light sensors on the MBP, though I can live without them, I already think the LED display is bright enough on the lowest setting.

Processor:

Both computers have 2.5 GHZ Intel Core 2 Duo processors. Of course, like almost everything on my laptop, it was an option, with a price increase of $350 (The base processor is a Dual Core Pentium at 1.86 GHz, eww). The 2.5 GHz on the Studio is the top processor available, and the MBP has a 2.6 GHz available for an additional $250.

RAM:

Each laptop can support up to 4 GB of RAM. The lowest available on the Studio is 1 GB, with the increase to 4 GB only $150 (about $50 a gig for 4 GB). The lowest available on the MBP is 2 GB with the increase to 4 GB only $200 (About $100 a gig for 4 GB)

Wireless Connectivity and Networking:

One of the best reasons to get a laptop in the first place is that you can have portable connectivity wherever you go. This is true especially for my Dell Studio 15, but I’ll get into that later. Both the Studio and the MBP have Ethernet 10/100/1000 (Gigabit) Standard. For my Studio, this was a surprise to me because Dell never made a mention of it and it wasn’t an option when I was buying the laptop. I didn’t find it out till I was doing research for this article.

On the wireless front, both the Studio and the MBP have a/b/g/draft n wireless internet. It was an upgrade option on the Studio for $25.

Also on my Studio, I have a built in wireless broadband connection card from Verizon. This $150 upgrade lets me connect to the internet where ever I have cell service. You can either tie it to a monthly data plan or pay by the day. Sprint and AT&T also offer built in wireless cards.

Bluetooth 2.0 is available on both computers, of course it is an option on the Studio and for $25 it is worth it to me, just so I can use things like wireless stereo headphones and remotes.

Video Out:

Both laptops have digital video outputs. The Studio has a HDMI (High Definition Media Interface) port and a VGA port for added convenience. The MBP has a DVI (Digital Video Interface) port. In order to connect a VGA monitor or projector, you have to have the included DVI to VGA adapter. I personally find it annoying that you have to remember to have this adapter, as the Digital video port still aren’t as common as they should be. Most monitors and projectors still only have VGA ports.

Hard Drive:

Both of these computers use a SATA hard drive interface. My Studio has a 320 GB hard drive, with the default in the Studio line being 160 GB, the upgrade costing $75. I should also note that dell only offers one hard drive with an accelerometer to protect your data in the event of you dropping your laptop, its capacity being 200 GB and the upgrade price from the 160 GB being $150. The MBP has a 250 GB and although there is no accelerometer in the hard drive itself, they are located around the computer and provide the same functionality.

Size, Weight and Outward Appearance:

Both of the computers are about the same size, the Studio is 14″x1″x10.3″ and the MBP is 14.1″x1″x10.6″. Although, I must say that my Studio is a little thicker because I got the 9 Cell battery and it acts kind of like a mini laptop stand (hey, at least it makes typing a little more comfy). The Studio’s starting weight is 6.11 Lbs, although this varies by configuration. I would have to say my Studio weighs about 7 Lbs, which is fine for me. The MBP weighs in at 5.4 Lbs. This is probably the most significant difference between the two computers, besides the OS and brand.

One of the great things about the Studio is that you can customize the outside. The Studio comes in 7 different colors, a pattern called “graphite grey” (it reminds me of a topographic map) with the choice of 4 different trim options and 3 different designs by the artist Mike Ming. The default color is “Jet Black” which is what I have. Any of the other 6 colors costs $25 and the designs by Mike Ming cost $75. No matter what design you choose, you have some of the “graphite grey” pattern on the inside of the laptop. The MBP on the other hand only comes in one color, anodized aluminum.

Other Features and Goodies:

Here is a quick list of some other features that the Studio has but the MBP does not:

• Biometric fingerprint reader
• eSATA port (The MBP only has Firewire 800 which transfers data at 800 MB/S, eSATA is 3.0 GB/S)
• 4 USB ports (two on each side, the MBP only has 2)
• Touch media controls
• SD Card Reader
• Blue Ray player available for $200
• Microphone array (the MBP only has one mic, this is great because you can use built in software to remove background noise when you are using the mics)
• Right click BUTTON

It is also important to note that the MBP has these features that the Studio does not:

• Optical audio in/out
• Multi-touch Trackpad
• Right Click GESTURE (I prefer the button)
• Firewire 800 (The Studio does have Firewire, but it is only the mini 4 pin kind, like those found on cameras

Finally, it is important to note that both laptops have these features:

• 2 Megapixel Webcam / iSight
• No remote included, But supported (the Apple Remote is $19, the Dell is $22)

Wrap up:

Overall, I really like my Studio 15; it feels like an extension of me and my geeky personality. One of my main reasons for not getting a MacBook Pro was that I felt like I could not customize it enough, and although some people will say “Keith, you didn’t really customize your studio, you upgraded it to the level of the MacBook Pro! The Macbook Pro is more powerful and lighter” But it just wouldn’t be me and I felt I got a much better deal with my Studio. For those of you with Macbook Pro’s (which is almost everyone reading this blog) good for you, but I’m happy with my Studio.

I hope you enjoyed my first article, be sure to keep a look out for more from me and how I put my spin on the iLife.

- Keith Hobin

Sources:

Dell Studio 15 Page: http://www.dell.com/…/laptop_studio_15
Apple MacBook Pro page: http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/
Cnet review: http://reviews.cnet.com/…/dell-studio-15/….html
PCmag.com review: http://www.pcmag.com/….asp

For those of you who subscribed to .Mac, or recently purchased a MobileMe account, you may be already taking advantage of the new powerful “Push” syncing across your many devices. Incase your aren’t, or you don’t already have MobileMe, this is a brief tutorial to setup your different devices to sync with each other.

Mac:

Make sure you are running 10.5.4, go into System Preferences and under “Internet and Sharing”, the first thing you should see is MobileMe. If it still says .Mac, don’t worry- as long as you are connected to the Internet, click on the .Mac preference pane- you should get a message that looks like this:

It should bring you to Software Update, and were you can download the “Mac OS X Update For MobileMe”. Once you have the MobileMe preference pane, you can begin Syncing your Mac to the MobileMe servers. Simply enter your login information, and in a few moments your data will be pulled into System Preferences. Tab over to the “Sync” pane and check the items you would like to sync up to MobileMe. Also, pay close attention to the “Synchronize with MobileMe:” setting.

Apple has falsely advertised MobileMe as being a complete push solution for the Mac. This is not entirely true- while MobileMe does push to the Web and iPhone/iPod Touch devices, new information isn’t pushed to the Mac or PC. Rather, it is automatically pulled every 15 minutes if you have the “Synchronize with MobileMe:” set to Automatic. Once you have successfully synced with MobileMe from your Mac, you are ready to move onto other devices.

Hit the jump to see how to sync with the PC and iPhone/iPod Touch.

PC:

Before you can sync from MobileMe with your PC, you’re going to need to update to iTunes 7.7. After updating you should see the “MobileMe Preferences” pane in your Control Panel. Inside, it may resemble the System Preferences pane in your Mac. Once you enter your account information and sign in, you will see three tabs appear; “Account”, “Sync” and “iDisk”. In the Sync tab, check the “Sync with MobileMe” checkbox, select Automatic and indicate what you want to sync and press the “Sync Now” button. Once that is finished, when you launch Microsoft Outlook, Safari or other program of your choice, you should see the information has arrived!

iPhone/iPod Touch:

Once you have uploaded data to the MobileMe servers from either your Mac or PC (or both), you are ready to begin actually receiving push updates to either your iPhone or iPod Touch. To do this, simply navigate to Settings from your home screen, tap on “Mail, Contacts, Calendars” and then, “Add Account”. Enter your login information and switch on the updates you want pushed to your device. To optimize battery life to your liking (for either the good or bad) go back to Settings and tap on “Fetch New Data”. By default Push is on and fetch is Manual- this will provide the best battery life while still getting updates. If you would like to always have the latest information, you might want to change it to 1 hour or less or turn it off altogether.

Now, you should have your Mac, PC and iPhone or iPod Touch in sync with each other via MobileMe. As you probably know, you can always login and change or check this information through your favorite web browser at Me.com. This requires no configuration as it reflects what is on the MobileMe servers already.

More about MobileMe and new iPhone OS 2.0 coming soon. For now, you can check out our top five iPhone OS 2.0 applications here.

AppStore, apart of the iPhone OS 2.0

At the center of the iPhone OS 2.0 is the App Store. This is a guide of some of the best free Applications currently available on the App Store, which you can access through iTunes 7.7 or iPhone/ iPod Touch running the 2.0 firmware. Here are 5 free applications that if you should consider:

Remote:

Remote

Developed by Apple Inc, Remote allows you to remotely control your iTunes library on your computer or Apple TV. The interface is almost identical to the standard iPod interface found on the iPhone or iPod Touch however, Remote is controlling another library over Wi-Fi. The application is simple and the execution is great- it proves to be a very handy utility for DJ’ing or for being in control of whatever your home setup may be. A highly recommended download.

4 more after the jump!

Remote Screenshot

Midomi:

Midomi

Developed by Melodis, Midomi is a music search and discovery program. Simply launch Midomi, hum, sing or place your iPhone near a song you would like to identify and let the application take care of the rest. Once it is finished analyzing, Midomi will present you with a list of songs that match your entry, and you can preview them to make sure you’ve found the right one. This application, like many other Music Identification software sometimes works very well and other times doesn’t come close. Either way, this is the best iPhone application for it and costs $0.00!

Midomi Screenshot

Twittelator:

Twittelator

Twittelator, developed by Stone Design Corp, offers a great free alternative to Twitterific. While Twitterific is the most popular Twitter client, the free version is unfortunately ad based. While the UI isn’t quite as nice as Twitterific, Twittelator gets the job done nicely with no advertisements. If you don’t mind the ad’s, download the free version of Twitterific or pay $4.99 for the premium version. If you are on Twitter, make sure you get one of these Apps!

Twittelator Screenshot

AIM:

AIM

AOL Instant Messenger is a great service for getting in touch with people instantly. Developed by AOL themselves, AIM for iPhone is a great application for instant messaging on your iPhone. The interface is clean and you can even change your Buddy Icon, set an Away Message or go Invisible. The only downside of the App is that the SDK doesn’t allow for Applications always running (for performance reasons), so once you quit AIM, you go offline. Expect an update before September, when Apple updates the SDK to allow for notifications (to applications not running) through their own servers- a topic discussed at WWDC.

AIM Screenshot

Google Mobile App:

Google Mobile

Developed by (you guessed it) Google, the Google Mobile Application is nothing but a dedicated search App. At first, you may think this is pointless, but once you start using it you will find otherwise. The application will help suggest all kinds of search results that are more relevant to you, where you are and what is on your phone. Totally free!

Google Screenshot

More details on the other updates found in iPhone 2.0 coming soon. If you have found an application you would like to tell us about, feel free to contact us or leave a comment below!

When we walked into the store, we were greeted with a bunch of friendly Apple employees cheering and giving us high fives. As we walked down the glass stairs, there were even more Apple employees cheering and clapping for us ventured into the store. Once we got to the bottom, we were escorted to the Genius Bar in the back. There, an Apple Employee introduced herself and said that she would get our phone activated for us.

This process took about 20 minutes total, which is on the longer end of a typical activation- Apple estimates each activation to take 15-20 minutes. Our “activator” repeatedly told us that she was a new employee and was still getting used to things, so it might take her a little longer. Luckily we weren’t plagued by the activation issues many began to see shortly after we left the store. After we were approved by AT&T and paid for the iPhone, an Apple Genius helped us un-brick our iPhone and setup an email account and then we were officially 3G’ed.

We then left the store and were greeted by press and lots of other people outside. After doing a couple of brief interviews, we got some breakfast and enjoyed the new 3G iPhone. Then it was back to home base of Montclair, NJ for theiLife.com crew. Videos of the experience are coming soon and will appear below.

You can view us entering the store here:

You can view the entire video of our activation below:

You can view us exiting the store here:

Gallery after the jump!

For someone who goes to the movies maybe once a year, going out to see Wall E was definitely worth it. Wall E tells the story of a robot who has survived for over 700 years cleaning up garbage on the Earth but has developed a personality. Wall E is an acronym for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class. Once joined with a large fleet, the protagonist Wall E is the last robot surviving from the failed cleanup efforts.

Like other Pixar movies, Wall E is very light on the surface, but touches many larger issues about humanity all while appealing to virtually every demographic. The movie deeply roots itself with issues of consumerism. All the humans have been controlled by a huge corporation named Big N’ Large and have since trashed the Earth. The humans have since evolved to become large, lazy, materialistic creatures that do nothing but watch video screens.

Wall E proves how far Pixar has come with animation- you know this when you see an ‘animated’ movie and it never once occurs to you that it is animated. Everything in Wall E, from Space scenes to the apocalyptic Earth look incredible, and aren’t devoid of other unique Pixar characters. In short, Wall E is a typical Pixar production taken to the next level. If you can, go see it right now- you will enjoy Wall E. Bonus points for anyone who can catch all the Apple references!!

You’re working on a project at work, and you hear the “bing” of Mail, telling you there’s a new e-mail. You are confronted with the question, “Do I stop what I’m doing and see if the e-mail is important, or do I take a chance and keep working on my project?”

What if you didn’t have to? What if a little box popped up on the side of your screen with a summary of the e-mail, giving you a short-term look at the e-mail so you can decide if it’s important or not?
Believe it or not, the software that does that is already here. And it’s free (donations are accepted).
It’s called Growl. Growl is a notification system for Mac OS X: it allows applications that support Growl to send you notifications (took the description right off their web site because I couldn’t have said it better myself).

I had heard of Growl, but didn’t see much use for it until I accidentally installed it. Yes, I accidentally installed Growl. I don’t even know what program installed it for me (which I don’t like, but I seem to recall an installer asking me if I wanted to install Growl, so I must have said “yes.”)
Anyway, all of a sudden, I started seeing notifications when my RSS reader, the open-source Vienna, downloaded new articles. Thought that was pretty handy. I could tell when there were new articles without bumping down to the bottom of the screen and making the dock appear (Vienna has a number notifier in its dock icon and I keep my dock hidden). Saves time.
So I started investigating and found Growl in my System Preferences (in the Other category at the bottom). After some exploration, I found that there is a plugin for Apple’s Mail program that allows Growl to notify you of new e-mail.

And there are a whole bunch of other programs that are either written to work with Growl, and for some others there are plugins.

But the one that really helps me is the Mail plugin. My day job is at a newspaper. I do page design for my home paper and tech support for several other papers. As part of that, I get an enormous amount of e-mail from the Associated Press. Most of if deals with their web-based video network, and for some reason, they can’t just send me the important stuff, they send me an email every time they post a new video.

I have them whisked off to a folder in Mail, but it “bing”s every time one of those e-mails come in and I don’t always have time to see whether or not it’s important. But I want to know immediately if someone is having a problem related to their deadlines.
Growl shows me who the email is from and allows me to more-easily ignore the AP stuff.
And that’s just one example. I also use Semulov, which unmounts volumes. Now when a volume unmounts, I see it in a Growl notification.
I’m sure you can come up with many other uses, but I just wanted to introduce you to this cool little program.

If you aren’t already familiar with Adium, and you are running OS X- please download it now. Adium is basically the VLC of Instant Messaging applications- the swiss army knife that does it all, and with style. Completely Cocca based, licensed under a GNU General Public License, Adium is free and even highly customizable.

The Adium team, headed by Evan Schoenberg (Lead Developer) and Eric Richie (Project Manager) has been rapidly developing the latest version of Adium- version 1.3. Still in beta form, Adium 1.3 features a number of improvements over the current 1.2.5 build. Some of the best are highlighted below:

Complete redesign of the Contact Inspector (formerly the Get Info Window)

The contact inspector and integration with Address Book has been greatly improved in Adium 1.3.

Added Facebook Chat service to Adium

The new Facebook Chat protocol is now supported in Adium version 1.3.

Added a search field to the Standard Contact List window

Alike the new Contact search in the upcoming iPhone 2.0 firmware, Adium now supports searching your contacts, both online and off. Simply click in the Buddy List window and start typing- your results will be instantly filtered.

Major performance improvements, most notable when signing on multiple accounts simultaneously and when chatting while other applications are making heavy use of your hard drive.

Adium 1.3 has indeed been improved and most notably on older machines where system resources are tight.

If you would like to update to Adium 1.3 now, download Adium 1.2.5; and in Adium>Preferences>General check “Update to Beta Versions when Available”. This will allow you to run the latest betas of Adium, and the final release when it comes out.