The latest Get a Mac commercial by Apple, about Microsoft Office 2008. It has just been published to The Daily iLife podcast, which you can subscribe to in iTunes or watch here.

Macs new Microsoft Office 2008 program has just come out. In the box that PC gives him, is a stress toy for Mac to use when he gets stressed from doing lots more work, which PC begins using as he complains that Microsoft Office is too compatible with Mac and that he wants to switch his files over and he is getting less work then Mac, eventually breaking the toy.

One of the latest Get a Mac commercials which is about the flaws of Vista. It has just been published to The Daily iLife podcast, which you can subscribe to in iTunes or watch here.

Mac is watching PC have a yoga session where the yoga instructor (Judy Greer) is coaching PC in “expelling bad Vista energy” and forgetting Vista’s problems, but when the yoga instructor goes on to complain that Vista screwed up the yoga billing, PC considers switching to pilates.

This week is another normal week for me, with little interuptions to keep content from coming- you should expect articles everyday this week. Now that I am getting more time to spend on the site, The Daily iLife is getting needed attention, among other things on the site. Once Sidney works out his schedule at his new job, podcasting (both video and audio) should resume as well. WWDC looks like it is going to be focused around the iPhone, at least according to the rumors over the past few weeks. Have a great week, and Happy Cinco De Mayo!

The latest iPod commercial has recently been posted online by Apple this week, after airing on a number of prime time television spots. The advertisement, called Gamma features the usual silhouettes dancing to upbeat music, but also introduces a very colorful world of spinning shapes. It has just been published to The Daily iLife podcast, which you can subscribe to in iTunes or watch here.

iPod commercial with music by The Ting Tings (Shut Up and Let Me Go).

Apple is constantly expanding its retail presence. With over 200 locations worldwide, in 37 of the 50 states, New Jersey will be getting its 11th store this holiday season.

Apple Retail Job Offering

According to ifoAppleStore and job postings by Apple, New Jersey will be receiving yet another retail store in the Willowbrook Mall.

Willowbrook Mall is a two story mall located in Wayne, New Jersey. The mall has over 1.5 million square feet of retail space and is located about 25 miles from New York City. The location in Willowbrook has not been revealed yet, however the store will be opening for the 2008 holiday season.

Apart of the latest in the series of Get a Mac commercial, Apple has recently posted the “Breakthrough” ad. It has just been published to The Daily iLife podcast, which you can subscribe to in iTunes or watch here.

Mac and PC’s therapist (see “Counselor” below) suggest that PC’s problems are simply a result of software and hardware coming from various places, whereas Mac gets all his hardware and software from one place. “It’s not my fault!” PC keeps repeating with support of Mac and the therapist. Then PC concludes, “It’s Mac’s fault, it’s Mac’s fault,” with Mac and the therapist disappointed in PCs conclusion. Mac ends with the comment: “What a Breakthrough!”

Continuing a series of reviews on how to save space, today we are looking at another valuable piece of software for Mac OS X. Today’s review is about Xslimmer from LateNiteSoft.

The Xslimmer Main Interface

When Steve Jobs announced the transition to Intel Processors at WWDC in 2005, the Universal Binary was born. Applications that were Universal Binary were natively compatible with both Intel and PowerPC architectures, and any application that wasn’t Universal Binary could be translated on the fly using Rosetta (like Classic; for Mac OS 9) on the new Intel architecture. So depending on the complexity of the application, by being a Universal Binary, the file size is increased; hence the nickname of ‘Fat Binaries’- a term left over from Apple’s transition from 68K to PowerPC.

Xslimmer is an application that scans through the code of your Universal Binary applications and determines, based on your computers architecture (be it Intel or PowerPC), what is unnecessary, and removing it. The unnecessary code Xslimmer removes would otherwise do nothing but take up space on your computer! By going through all your applications and removing the Universal Binary code, you will start seeing a significant amount of space coming back. For example:

Logic Pro 8: 335MB
Slimmed to: 95MB
Garage Band 3: 179MB
Slimmed to: 60MB

However, Xslimmer does more than just removing the unnecessary binary code- it can also remove unnecessary languages. Applications like Adium can have up to 20 differnt languages bundled within. This takes your applications on a strict diet- and for someone who has upwards of 300 applications, the difference can be very noticeable- especially if space is tight.

Xslimmer makes the process amazingly simple. When you launch it, you simply drag the application (or applications) you would like to slim down and it begins to analyze the amount of space it can save. When you are ready to slim your list of applications, simply press the “Slim!” button in the lower right hand corner; and wait while Xslimmer does the work for you.

Xslimmer can, however disrupt some applications and make them potentially unusable. However, the Xslimmer developers have created and maintain a blacklist of known applications that are effected by slimming. If you end up slimming an application that isn’t on the blacklist, you can simply report the application and reinstall it, which is why you should always back up your computer before slimming your applications (and is generally a good practice)! Or you can use Xslimmers built in backup system that will let you restore an application that you suspect has been damaged by Xslimmer.

i i i i (4/5)
Xslimmer is a very powerful application that will help you save space. Its simplistic design makes it easy to use and a must have for anyone wanting to free up every last megabyte on their hard drive. Xslimmer has recieved 4/5 i’s from theiLife.com; and is worth the $12.95.

Thank you to the Xslimmer team for letting theiLife.com staff try out Xslimmer for free!

When I was traveling in Atlanta, at the Marriott-Atlanta Marquis, the fitness room was equipped with new Life Fitness machines that had iPod integration built into each machine. More details follow below.

The Life Fitness iPod Connection Area

Although it has been known that Life Fitness was including iPod support for over a year now in it’s new machines, this is a small overview of the interface.

Basically, when you walk up to one of these machines, you will see this:

The Life Fitness Interface Splash Screen

To use and charge your iPod, you simply plug in the iPod to the Dock Connector, place it in the storage bin and direct your attention to the screen. The iPod automatically goes into Disk Mode and is ready to use with the machine. If you want to listen to music, you plug your headphones into the jack on the machine.

Once connected, you are presented with a number of different options from TV to your workout and related settings. However, in the bottom right hand corner, there is a button that says “Media Center”. By pressing that (using the touch screen) you are directed to a screen that looks like the one below:

Main iPod User Interface on the Machine

This interface is almost identical to the iPod UI- and you can use the dedicated buttons on the side or touch the titles, which was a nice, (almost) iPod Touch like experience. You can watch both videos and listen to music while working out, however I was unable to test the video feature because my iPod is full (quite literally) of only Music; seeing as I have a collection of Music that is over 60GB and only a 30GB iPod (5th Generation).

While the interface was very good, however it was slightly disappointing that you can’t shuffle playlists. It seems to default to how the playlist was originally laid out in iTunes, so for me, by Artist. The integration into the existing Life Fitness interface was a little disappointing as well, as it seemed a little clunky and not very intuitive. But what can you expect for a product not from Infinite Loop?

The interface with a song playing.

This week, it is all back to normal for me. As my robotics season is now over, I have no more trips, and will be spending a considerable ammount of time on the site. Because Sidney recently got a job at a computer consulting company in New York, he is tied up at work and we have been unable to do any podcasts recently. Hopefully that will change soon as he becomes more accustomed to his new schedule. As for Apple, the iPhone rumors continue to grow and we will hopefully get more insight to how WWDC 2008 will look. Have a great week.