Author: Vibin

Mac, blogging, Android, UI/web design, programming, coffee, engineering. In descending order.

Reach me at vibin.reddy@rtcamp.com.

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News

Google sends out invites for Android event on October 29th

If you’ve been following news lately, you might have read about rumors claiming Google releasing few Nexus devices on 29th of this month. Google has now officially confirmed the Android event and has sent out invites.

The event will take place in NYC, starting at 9 A.M on Monday. You can make out that Google is going to release a new Nexus 7 (probably a 32GB one?), by the tag line “The playground is open”.

If the rumors are to believed, Google is going to unveil a lot of stuff on the day, including Android 4.2, a LG/Sony Nexus, a 32/64 GB Nexus 7. Google might even surprise with a 99$ Nexus, targeting the low-cost Android tablets like Kindle Fire.

iPad mini priced at 249$ will also urge Google to release an entry level version of Nexus 7.

Apparently, this event is going to take place after Microsoft’s Windows 8 and Apple’s iPad mini events.

Best thing about the event? It will be streamed live in the Android Developers channel on YouTube.

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News

Microsoft Surface RT tablets priced at 499$

Back in June, Microsoft unveiled Surface RT, a really well designed tablet which will apparently run Windows RT, that’s the tablet version of Windows 8.

They haven’t talked much about pricing then, but today, Surface RT was put for preorder in the Microsoft store. Here’s how the pricing looks like.

The 32GB version of Surface RT will start at 499$, without Touch cover or Type cover – both of them are sold separately. The Touch cover costs 120$, while the Type cover is 130$. There’s also a 64GB version of Surface RT which will be priced at 699$ (that’ll include Touch cover too).

The pricing is inline with that of iPad (which is not a good thing), whose Wi-Fi only versions start at 499$. The only reason why one would go with a Surface rather than an iPad, is Touch cover – it’s a pressure sensitive, multi-touch keyboard which also adds for protection. Type cover on the other hand, is just a physical keyboard.

Microsoft has got a lot of work to do with Windows 8, including luring developers into the OS ecosystem, as none of the traditional Windows apps will work on Windows RT.

They have also aired an advertisement, calling it as ‘The Surface Movement”.

Source: The Verge

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News

Apple to release 13″ retina MacBook Pro along with iPad mini

Rumors have been circulating regarding Apple releasing a smaller version of iPad on 23rd this month, possibly being called as iPad mini. It turns out that, Apple is going to release a retina version of their 13″ MacBook Pro, along with the iPad mini.

9to5Mac, a popular Apple-dedicated blog, has confirmed that the there’s going to be a release of retina version of the current 13″ MacBook Pro.

With iPhone, iPad and the recent 15″ MacBook Pro going all retina, releasing a retina version of the 13″ isn’t a big surprise.

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There aren’t much details about the laptop, except that it’s going to be thinner and lighter, just like the 15″ retina MacBook Pro. It will be sold in two versions with varying processor and storage configurations.

Apple has updated the 13″ MacBook Pro lineup in this year’s WWDC – with ivy bridge processors, USB 3.0 and all, but the screen resolution was still the same. Heck, the 13″ MacBook Air has better resolution than the 13″ Pro. So a retina version is a big welcome.

The non retina version of 13″ MacBook Pro will still be continued, as there will be a lot of people who don’t want to spend extra amount of money for the retina version.

Putting laptops aside, I wonder if iMacs get updated with retina, as they can be really pricey.

Source: 9to5Mac

Categories
Reviews

Reeder: The best Google Reader client for Mac

I’ve been a long time user of Google Reader, and though RSS might sound old school to a lot of people, it works for me. Unlike Windows, which has very few good RSS readers (and most of them are ugly, seriously), Mac has got a lot of news readers to choose from.

Reeder is essentially a RSS reader for your Mac which actually sync with your Google Reader (so all your subscribed blogs, starred items, etc. are still there).

Reeder is really beautiful in design, with a very Mac-ish look, i.e having a gray feeling all over it which makes user focus on the content.

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It has a three column layout allowing you to switch between two themes. You can also customize the tint, texture, contrast etc., which will make the app more reading-friendly.

One really good thing about Reeder is that, it supports a lot of sharing services including Pocket, Readability, Evernote, App.net and a lot more. If you’re running Mountain Lion, Reeder will use system wide Facebook, Twitter and iMessage sharing feature.

The app supports multi touch gestures and a bunch of keyboard shortcuts which are configurable, too.

Reeder isn’t filled with lot of features, but that’s what makes it so usable. The app isn’t free, you can get it for 4.99$ on the Mac Appstore. It is also available for iPad and iPhone.

Link: Reeder

Categories
Tips

Enable hibernation in OS X Mountain Lion for quick booting

I’ve said this previously, Lion used to be very quick in booting, much better than that of Mountain Lion. Lately, I’ve been cutting down on startup items, but even that doesn’t make much difference in booting time.

Previously, when I had a Windows laptop, I always used to hibernate rather than shut it down. But when I used OS X, it looked like there’s no hibernate feature in it. As it turns out, you can enable hibernation in OS X, here’s how you do it.

  1. Open the Terminal app, either from Spotlight or Utilities folder in Applications.
  2. Enter the following code and hit enter. 
    sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 1
  3. Now as this is a sudo command, which needs root access to your system, you got to enter your system password.
  4. That’s all, now hibernation is enabled on your Mac.

To hibernate your Mac, you hit the Apple icon in menu bar, hit Sleep. Wait for 5-10 seconds and it’ll hibernate.

Internally, what happens during hibernation is, all the cache stored in your RAM is transferred to your hard disk, and when you boot your Mac, all that cache is again transferred to RAM – so you can continue where you left off.

Categories
Reviews

Webcam Toy lets you apply crazy filters to your photos

When it comes to Photography apps, Mobile clearly outdoes Desktop, that apparently is because smartphones are fit with much better cameras these days. Webcam Toy is one of those few apps which can make your webcam photos more fun.

It’s actually a Chrome app, but works offline. So it is no less than a native app. There are over 60 Instagram-like image filters and some funny camera effects.

The app of course needs access to your webcam, which you can authorize when Chrome prompts you. The process is a little different for Chromebooks, watch this YouTube tutorial for that.

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After capturing photos, you can either download them or even share them on Facebook or Twitter.

As far as privacy is concerned, the app supposedly doesn’t record you and the photos are private until you actually share them.

Putting all this aside, there is something very cool about this app – this app doesn’t need any plugins to work, not even Flash or Java. This is achieved through new Chrome APIs that allows webapps to access microphones and webcams without a plugin.

Link: Webcam Toy

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News

Grab 25-cent Android apps and Games on Play Store

Google’s Play store has lately hit 25 Billion app downloads with over 6,00,000 Android apps (as said by Google in I/0 2012). Apple’s Appstore too has reached the same milestone this year.

Now, as you’d expect, there’s a nice promotion going on for discounted apps and games.

The offer lasts for 5 days and on each day, you get a set of paid Android apps at a price of 25 cents. Today is the second day of the promotion and you have apps like Sketchbook Mobile, Paper Camera and also games like Fifa 12 – all for 25 cents.

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You’ll also get discounts for collections like, 25 movies you must own, 25 top selling magazines, etc., but that’s only for countries where Play store is fully available. For example, India is not in that list.

Just last year, Google had a similar promotional offer, selling 10-cent Android apps after the Android market has hit 10 billion downloads.

Also, many iOS apps like Instagram, Zite, Temple Run, Flipboard and many others got ported to Android. All this shows how fast the Play store is growing.

If you own an Android, head on to Play store and get most out of the offer!

Link: Google Play

Categories
Tips

Getting most out of your Macbook’s speakers while playing YouTube videos

Speakers are probably the most annoying thing in Macbooks, they’re just too low in sound, even if you set the volume to maximum. This happens mainly when you play YouTube videos in browser, but fortunately, there’s a simple solution for this.

Firstly, if you can afford to spend a few dollars, you can get Boom – an app that’ll increase the volume level of your Macbook drastically and that works system wide, not just for YouTube videos.

You can also solve this without spending any bucks, follow the below tutorial.

  • Get MplayerX for Mac, this is a native video player for OS X.
  • Install and open it.
  • In the menu bar, hit File > Open URL. Paste the URL of the YouTube video you want to play.
  • Now you can set the volume for the video (in the app) to a higher level than what Mac actually provides.

Apparently, VLC had this option since a long time, but after the recent update this feature seems to be broken. So I gave MplayerX a try and was pretty satisfied with the results.

Link: MplayerX

Categories
News

Myspace gets a complete overhaul and plans for a comeback

While there are too many social networking/social media websites right now, Myspace doesn’t seem to care about this and plans for big changes including a relaunch.

Apparently, it must be years since you’ve logged into your Myspace account, but still there’s a chance you’ll like the new Myspace.

The new Myspace is just too beautiful

Unlike what you’d expect, the new Myspace is really neat in design – be it the typography or minimal style. Though, it looks more like designed for tablets, with vertical scrolling and large fonts.

They have also released a teaser, watch it.

There’s a navigation bar at the bottom, which Myspace calls as ‘deck’. This will have the music player allowing you to stream and share music. This is probably the only feature which can drive users to switch to the new Myspace, because Music is something Facebook didn’t put right.

Posting in the new Myspace

It also seems like you’ll be able to cross post to Facebook and Twitter, it’ll be interesting to see how Twitter’s new API restrictions can affect this. You also have the option to add a song, probably from Myspace’s music library.

Business pages in Myspace

Business pages in new Myspace seem to be a lot fan focused, showcasing top fans of week.

Is this enough to drive users to make a switch?

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The website is still not rolled out and one can’t make a firm comment on it. But most probably, this won’t make it. You see what happened to Google+, it’s not a fail, but not a big hit too. It’s like Bing of social networks i.e. few people do use it.

Features like music integration can bring the Myspace lovers back to their home, but except that I don’t think this will make big ripples.

You can sign up for an invite at the website. Do you have the patience for another social network? Do comment.

Link: Myspace

Categories
Reviews

BetterTouchTool brings custom gestures and Aerosnap to Mac

Macbooks are always known for their great button-less trackpads, but if you’re someone who likes to customise stuff,  it can put you off. There are only a handful of things you can do to customise from the System Preferences app.

BetterTouchTool allows you to create system-wide or even app-wide gestures, for example – you can make Chrome to zoom in a webpage by doing a pinch-in gesture (Chrome doesn’t support this by default).

It’s also not all about gestures, you can also assign custom keyboard shortcuts too.

To add a custom gesture to any app, hit the + button in the side bar, select the .app file, go to ‘Trackpads & Tablets’ section. Here you can assign a gesture from the drop-down list or even create a new gesture. Then you can assign the keyboard shortcut or just select a predefined action from the menu.

All the settings are applied to the apps instantly, even if they’re being used simultaneously.

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The app is not only compatible with Magic Mouse, Mac Trackpads, keyboards, but also with normal mice.

This app gives a nice bonus feature, which mimics the Aerosnap feature of Windows 7 – resizing windows by moving them to edges of screen.

There are many apps on Mac which can get you Aerosnap, but most of them are paid and are very costly. BetterTouchTool is free and is a must have if you want make most out of your mice/trackpads.

Link: BetterTouchTool